Gay-Bashing on the Rise

While Prop 8 contributors whine about being boycotted or receiving nasty emails, folks in the gay community are actually being attacked.

Hate crime cases involving anti-gay sentiment shot up in Santa Clara County last year, a striking increase that a leading prosecutor attributes to controversy over Proposition 8, the voter-approved ban on gay marriage.

Anti-gay incidents accounted for more than half of hate-crime cases last year — 56 percent — a big jump from only 15 percent in 2007. There were 14 anti-gay cases out of 25 hate-crime cases in 2008, compared with only 3 out of 20 in 2007.

"My belief from having done this work for many years is that surges in types of hate incidents are linked to the headlines and controversies of the day,'' said Deputy District Attorney Jay Boyarsky, who is assigned to monitor hate crimes. "Marriage equality and Proposition 8 have been in the news, and we have seen an increase in gay-bashing.''

Amazing what happens when you tell a society that it's alright to treat a whole class of people as "less than"