All posts in the topic gay basing by the Minnesota dept of Transportation employees (Short link)
Summary
- There are 22 posts — by 13 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Wizard Marks at Aug 14 15:25 UTC
I received this message and wanted to make sure people knew about this violent
incident perpetrated by three 35W bridge workers.....someone told me they saw a
news piece about it last night on channel 5.
peace
leigh combs
powderhorn park
plant trees not statues and stadiums
Last night my brother-in-law, Karl, was gay bashed in downtown Minneapolis, MN.
He was walking home at about 11:30pm after leaving a well-known gay
establishment. Three men approached him and asked if he was a "faggot." That
is the last thing he remembers.
Karl was kicked in the head and neck repeatedly and was transported to the
county hospital via ambulance. He has serious swelling and bruising of the
face, head and neck, along with stitches by his eye. Karl had to refuse the
majority of his medical care, including a CAT scan, because he doesn't have
health insurance. Needless to say, Karl and his wife Nikki (my sister) don't
have the means to pay for the ensuing medical bills.
The cops did catch Karl's primary attacker, but only because some bystanders
chased him down. This was an obvious hate crime, and you know what else?
This hate crime was paid for by the state of Minnesota.
The men who attacked Karl are all employed as members of the 35W Bridge Crew by
a company with a state department of transportation contract. The taxpayers of
Minnesota pay the salaries of the men who viciously and hatefully attacked my
brother-in-law. The primary attacker wore his crew jacket as he monstrously
attacked an unarmed man, allowing everyone in Minneapolis to see what, exactly,
the state was paying for. Moreover, we have reason to believe that least one
of these men is already on criminal probation.
I'm worried that Karl's attacker is simply going to be given more probation,
that Nikki and Karl will get stuck with huge medical bills, and that no one
will be the wiser. I am worried that the people of Minnesota will continue to
enable men like these to stagger through the city. What I would like is media
coverage, and I'm hoping people can help spread the word that this shit still
happens. I've set up a Paypal account on behalf of Karl because people have
asked if they can donate a few dollars towards their expenses, and we are
incredibly grateful. We appreciate all the good thoughts people have been
sending. Keep them coming.
In the mean time, help me make noise.
-Wendy Brovold
Minneapolis Media Contacts:
Kare 11: email | (763) 593-1111
KSTP 5: email | (651) 646-5555
Minnesota Department of Transportation
<email obscured>
Suggested message to the Department of Transportation:
"Last night, three men employed by a company on contract with the Department of
Transportation walked up to an unarmed man in downtown Minnesota and asked
whether he was a "faggot." That is the last thing he remembers, as moments
later the attackers pushed him to the ground and kicked at his neck and head
repeatedly until bystanders intervened. Are these the types of people who are
ultimately being employed by Minnesota's DOT projects? Is taxpayer money
subsidizing their late-night beatings?
Violence is unacceptable in any circumstances. But when the taxpayers of a
state are paying the salaries of violent criminals, when the attacker is so
comfortable behaving like a monster that he continues to wear his crew jacket
while kicking a man's neck--then you must answer to the people of Minnesota.
You must answer to every man or woman who has ever been afraid to walk down a
street because of threats like this. You must answer to any man or woman who
is now more afraid than before. And you must answer to this man, his family,
and his community."
This was already on the news this morning on KSTP with
video of an interview with the victim It was reported
that the primary attacker and one other were arrested and
a photo of the attacker was shown. It was also stated
that the man has been fired by the construciton company he
worked as had one of the others already. Seems like it is
handled pretty well.
Not sure what blame the bridge construction company or the
state have to take for this. There are creeps to be found
in any situation. I'm sorry to hear it happened and hope
for a full recovery. The stitches on the mans face were
pretty close to the eye.
From my understanding the guys had their 35W construction vests on when they
did it! Yes i am glad they got them -
i guess construction companies don't care about hiring people with criminal
records (and i get that not all people with criminal records would be of
concern) but maybe the community that they go to work in should be concerned
with workers coming to their communities with records of violent crimes?
ALSO he is NOT my brother in law - (if you read all the way down the persons
name who sent me the email is there)
peace
leigh combs
powderhorn park
There's a link at KSTP to this story: http://kstp.com/article/stories/S536993.shtml Steve Basile Standish
> From my understanding the guys had their 35W construction vests on when they
did it! Yes i am glad they got them -
> i guess construction companies don't care about hiring people with criminal
records (and i get that not all people with
> criminal records would be of concern) but maybe the community that they go to
work in should be concerned with workers
> coming to their communities with records of violent crimes?
Having been asked the same question as the victim was and having been
subjected to a violent attack by three men when I refused to answer
them on the grounds that it was none of their business, I certainly
find the crime these men committed to be abhorrent.
However, I'm kind of concerned about the direction that "don't care
about hiring people with criminal records" is taking.
The last thing we want is for ex-cons to not be able to find work.
Its possible that there was something about this guy that should have
flagged him as unsuitable for a construction job, but if there was,
his probation officer should have been on it.
I'm going on a lot of speculation here, but my guess would be, if
there was a failing, it would be in the justice system.
What crime had this guy committed? Was his sentence appropriate? Was
it punitive or reformative? If it wasn't reformative, isn't it a bit
overly optimistic by "the system" to assume that he won't re-offend?
If his prior was a violent crime, did he have to go through anger
management and did his probation involve not drinking? Was his
probation being properly managed? Etc.
I don't really have good answers for any of this, but I do know that
once we've decided a criminal offender is ready to be released back
into society, we need for them to be able to find work.
If they haven't been fully released (eg: probation), then our justice
system needs to be responsible for imposing the limits on what jobs
they can work or taking appropriate steps to provide the necessary
oversight for their conditional release.
This also came up in another thread when someone expressed the desire
to not have ex-cons at a community building function - We should
desperately want ex-cons to be involved in positive community building
efforts. Unless, of course, we want to decide to start shipping our
criminals to Australia or take a "hang-em-all" approach to things.
(yikes).
- phædrus
A friend told me that she has friends (this gets so third party like so I
wanted to find out the truth) that Otto Marin is affiliated with the MN Family
council is that correct?
I have emailed Tom Prichard at the Minnesota Family Council for comment on this. He has not responded so far. While I believe the MFC is an anti-gay activist group, which hides their anti-gay activism by calling themselves "pro-family", I don't believe they endorse anti-gay violence - and without direct evidence tying this guy to the MFC, it's not fair to say. They do oppose programs in schools that prevent bullying of gay kids. I also can't see tying the DOT to this, especially if the guy was fired. I second the comments about the importance of convicts who have served their time, being able to reintegrate into society, and that includes being able to find gainful employment. Eva Young Lloydletta's Nooz http://lloydletta.blogspot.com On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 2:17 PM, evelyn blum <emb5567@yahoo.com> wrote: > A friend told me that she has friends (this gets so third party like so I wanted to find out the truth) that Otto Marin is affiliated with the MN Family council is that correct? >
Update: Tom Prichard, President of the Minnesota Family has
responded. He states he does not know Otto Marin.
Eva Young
I trust this statement. I am sure that it was third party propaganda, never the
less, if such propaganda is being given, that the source of should be concerned
that tabloid statements will be said, because of their anti gay and
discrimination position.
EVA YOUNG: "While I believe the MFC is an anti-gay activist group, which hides
their anti-gay activism by calling themselves "pro-family", I don't believe
they endorse anti-gay violence."
MM: Perhaps the "MN Family Council" does not explicitly endorse violence, but
whenever you argue that particular groups of people are less worthy beings and
whenever you scapegoat groups of people as being a cancer on society, you
implicitly endorse violence against that group. The implicit message, well
understood by young men raised in this environment of hate, is that we need to
eliminate the cancer.
Whenever there is an anti-gay hate crime committed in this country, every
preacher that has spewed hatred from the pulpit, and every politician who has
has scapegoated gays for political gain, is complicit in that crime.
Michael Mackey,
Uptown
On Sat, 9 Aug 2008 20:00:44 -0500, Eva Young wrote:
>Update: Tom Prichard, President of the Minnesota Family has
>responded. He states he does not know Otto Marin.
Which (at least as presented) does not say Marin is not affiliated,
merely that Prichard does not know him personally.
(But I don't think we can hold the Minnesota Family Council responsible
for the actions of every nut case in their membership, without evidence
that the they knowingly endorse violence against gays.)
A direct link in such instances are never possible to make. Just like
the nuts who shoot someone at an abortion clinic. We do know however
that since the gay community has been made a wedge issue politically
and churches and groups like the one mentioned here have spoken out
often and loudly against gay rights and about the sin of
homosexuality as they see it, and indeed the more fanatical elements
attribute it to just about any disaster that might befall, we see a
direct correlation in the rise of hate crimes.
Just saying, no we can't blame them here and prove anything, but when
institutions of a society give sanction to discrimination and hate,
then there is a correlation with the increase in discrimination and
hate and hate crimes too.
Living in Minneapolis, I feel much safer than I did living in
Houston. There are many more sanctions against violence and hate
towards glbt than where I came from. Still I have experienced two
distinct circumstances of hate directed actions against me since
moving here in 2000. To the degree religion or other entities give
sanction to that hatred, those sorts of things will happen.
Of course what I will never ever understand is why what I do is any
of their business at all. When my partner and I got married, we had
protesters present carrying misspelled signs filled with venom. That
was in San Antonio. I just think there had to be a ton of hate to
bring those people out on a lovely day to march against love. I'll
never understand it.
Jessica Wicks
Sheridan, NE Mpls
According to the Strib, Marin was from San Diego. It seems unlikely he was involved with any Minnesota organization. http://is.gd/1luN This was all started by a listmember's friend of a friend. I suggest we need a little more than that to cast what remain baseless aspirations. I'm no Minnesota Family Council guy, but fair is fair.
David, I think you might be missing the larger point that Jessica Wicks and I
were trying to make. It is irrelevant whether or not the perpetrator of this
attack is a member of the Minnesota Family Council.
In order for an anti-gay hate crime to occur, the perpetrators must believe
that gay men are less human and less worthy of dignity and life than other
human beings. Where do these perpetrators get such ideas? From groups like
the MFC, which spread the idea that homosexuals pose a grave threat to the rest
of society.
In what ways does the MFC suggest that we are a cancer that needs to be
eliminated? A quick review of some of "the facts" on their Web site (never
mind that much of the "research" they cite is from the "psychologist" Paul
Cameron, whose license has been revoked due to manipulating his findings to
support of a political agenda):
* "91% of non-familial molestations were committed by clear homosexuals."
* 73% of homosexuals are pedophiles.
* Most teenagers become homosexual following recruitment/abuse from an adult
homosexual.
* They make a long list of outlandish sexual acts in which most gay men
participate and that produce disease [most of which I've never heard of, and
I'm a fairly knowledgeable gay man with a healthy sex life].
* Because of the perverse sexual acts in which he engages, the typical gay man
lives an average of 40 years.
* Because homosexuals are carriers of disease, they are responsible for many
health outbreaks that affect society at large.
I know that the above is laughable to the more educated people who are members
of this list. But if I believed that a group was indeed responsible for all of
the above, I would probably conclude that such group needed to be removed from
society, if nothing else than to save my daughter from pedophiles. When your
house is infected with cockroaches, you don't let them fester. You extinguish
them.
The MFC is complicit in every anti-gay hate crime that occurs in this state.
Any questions?
Michael Mackey,
Uptown
i whole heartedly agree with Michael on this
any pastor and / or church / religious community preaching and
speaking hatred non acceptance, converting of GLBTQ people...no matter how
nicely they do it
is indirectly responsible for the violence against all GLBTQ people.
peace
leigh combs
Powderhorn Park
The weight of several thousands of years of cultures throughout the planet
contributed to the incident. These two guys were belligerent and out to pick a
fight. All of that culture including homophobia, religion, being outsiders,
macho baloney, contributed to the moment when the victim got screwed over.
Two guys from southern California, new to Mpls.--a culture it takes years to
learn. A culture which is experiencing a huge cultural upheaval with waves of
immigrants, migrants, refugees, and a massive generational shift. They are
unhappy/rageful/stupid and probably drunk. Oh goody! They're out looking for
someone to drub into the ground to satisfy their rages. T-Rex writ small.
No matter what the victim said or failed to say, unless the victim ran fast
immediately, he was going to get thumped. No question about it. We have created
whole industries for people who cannot handle rage in a way that is not
destructive to self and others. Shelters for batters women, anger management
industries, prisons, jails, hot lines, school programs, police department
training for officers, sensativity training (a totally mystifying notion), and
on and on and on.
But nowhere have we devised a test which can tell us who will act out or what
conditions he/she will act out, or what the signals for imminent acting out
are. Maybe the human genome project will discover a genetic marker and big
pharma will produce an entirely green sensative/human enhancing natural product
which rebalances the system away from destruction. And maybe helicopters will
land on my 20 x 40 ft. lawn--er, weeds.
Reading this:
> * "91% of non-familial molestations were committed by clear [target group]"
> * 73% of [target group] are pedophiles.
> * Most teenagers become [target group] following recruitment/abuse from an
adult [target group].
> * They make a long list of outlandish sexual acts in which most [target
group] participate and that produce disease
> * Because of the perverse sexual acts in which he engages, the typical
[target group] lives an average of 40 years.
> * Because [target group] are carriers of disease, they are responsible for
many health outbreaks that affect society at large.
Even though I am making an effort not to fall prey to Godwin's Law,
nothing comes to mind other than the sorts of propaganda used by the
Nazi regime to legitimize the slaughter of the Jewish people.
Except, for perhaps the sorts of propaganda used by christian
neo-fascists and islamofascists to legitimize the slaughter of the
Jewish people.
I really do believe in the freedom of speech, but sometimes I wonder
if there should be some concept of crimes against reality or crimes
against the truth.
- phædrus
We have to permit even the most despicable speech. Once we allow censorship under the rubic of crimes against truth, and since everyone believes different things to be true with different degrees of certainty and emotional commitment, we will be on the slippery slope towards censoring almost anything. The only cure for despicable speech is more free speech to counter it. Robert Halfhill http://halfhillviews.greatnow.com (SITE NOW BANNED ON AOL) *Write AOL to complain, here: <email obscured>, or call 1-888-212-5537. http://RedLavenderInsurgent.blogspot.com
*nod*
You're probably right. It's just hard to look at the damage caused by
disinformation and consequential confusion as to what is or is not true or
reality and not feel furious when you see blatant falsehoods being passed
off as truth.
When that disinformation and confusion results in harm being done, it is
even more infuriating.
The thing is, knowingly making a false crime report is false. So are the
lies involved in many confidence scams.
In a similar vein, it seems like if it could be demonstrably proved beyond a
shadow of a doubt that you knew that what you were saying was not true, that
would be a far different situation than persecuting someone because their
perception of the truth was outside the norm.
If it can be proven (again, beyond a shadow of a doubt), that those lies had
a tangible impact on society, I'm not sure how that is materially different
than what a con-artist does.
- phaedrus
The problem is that most of those people probably actually believe their despicable nonsense. It probably is another matter with some of the main leaders. For instance Bush Administration insiders had contempt for the crazies of the Christian Right. But to their face, they flattered them, invited them to the White House for meetings with the President, etc. But quotes revealing their true attitude surfaced during the Abrams scandal. Abrams had used the Christian Right's opposition to gambling when he used them to derail a proposal to build a casino that would compete with his client's casino. Making terroristic threats, libel, and false advertising are additional examples of speech that is criminalized. However, they can be clearly demarcated from other speech. But I am very leery of criminalizing ideological speech, even though in some cases, such as the Bush insiders and Abrams, it probably can be proven that the knew they were promoting false statements. It puts us too near the slippery slope towards censorship and not allowing any free speech. John Stuart Mill argued in ON LIBERTY that all views must be allowed advocacy by sincere believers of those views, since it is only by an unrestricted advocacy of all views that we are most likely to arrive nearest to true beliefs. For instance, Bertrand Russell said if all alternatives to the Ptolemaic cosmology had been forbidden in the Catholic parts of Europe while the Protestant parts of Europe outlawed advocacy of any alternative to the cosmology of Copernicus and Newton, them Einstein would have had no place where he could freely advocate his views. Our theories about the universe would be much farther from the way the universe actually is if Einstein had been prevented from speaking. Robert Halfhill http://halfhillviews.greatnow.com (SITE NOW BANNED ON AOL) *Write AOL to complain, here: <email obscured>, or call 1-888-212-5537. http://RedLavenderInsurgent.blogspot.com
I concur with Robert that freedom of speech is a key distinction in american
culture, law and politics. Other countries don't have the same
constitutional set of rights and do at times criminalize "hate speech" which
often comprises such misinformation as people speak about here. This
includes everything from holocaust deniers to homophobes. However
criminalization of speech I don't believe is not the answer. I don't know,
can a class action suit for slander be brought?
It would seem that is only the province of individuals.
Other countries also don't have our same commitment to freedom of religion
and seperation of church(mosque, temple, coven, etc.) and state.
For example, while here in the U.S. the question of civil marriage equality
has absolutely nothing to do with religious or sacramental marriage as you
don't need a license to get a religious or sacramental marriage and you
don't need a religious or sacramental marriage to get a civil marriage
license(though most people obtain both) so both are effectively seperate
institutions, this is not true of, say, Norway.
When Norway legalized same sex marriage earlier this summer there was the
question of whether or not Lutheran churches there would be required to
perform same sex marriages because the Lutheran church is the state church
of Norway and partially supported by the government. The government decided
that congregations would be able to decide on their own. Note how different
this is from here in the U.S. where only a church denominations own
leadership bodies, however they are structured would make such a decision.
It is fascinating to me that equality for same sex couples has made so much
headway in countries where there IS an official state religion and where
they don't have the seperation of state and religion that we have here in
the U.S. as one would logically suppose it would be the other way around.
To bring this back local before I get spanked by the moderator!
What we can do as a local community to confront such information is make
sure that accurate factual verifiable information is offerred in public
school systems and educational institutions supported with public funds. We
can also make sure that there are materials available in our public
libraries that provide accurate factual verifiable information. Often
groups interested in spreading misinformation do a great job of seeing to it
that there point of view is represented among materials in libraries but
librarians, as much as they may try, cannot be the sole guardians of
assuring factual information is also available.
We also can make sure we make an environment safe for everyone to represent
themselves in the public square including providing safe places for people
to ask supposedly "stupid" questions when they really just don't know or
have heard misinformation.
In the end in our society everyone has to develop a BS detector. Critical
thinking skills are key and again we look to education.
I think also being aware of the cultural reisdue of bipolar dualistic
thinking predominating in western culture for so long is critical and would
wish there were a simple way to imbue school curricula with such an
awareness.
Often things falsely labeled as "opposite" are seen as in "opposition" to
something when they two things are really not related in that way at all.
Whether in our politics, or other cultural decisions, we tend to see things
as either/or rather than as yes/and or yes/and yes/and yes.
So really, being a culture which has embrassed free speech, we come back to
the question of public education and public information.
I know when I first started doing sexual minority youth work in Michigan, I
helped found an organization which networked through intermediate school
districts, to make sure counselors and then educators who were interesed
were getting education on sexual minority youth issues that was accurate and
factual. We did a huge program to get books into small town and school
libraries that provided accurate and factual information on sexual
orientation and gender identity and sexuality in general as most of the
libraries had ONLY the type of misinformation we see coming from MFC on
their shelves because groups like MFC had seen to it that it was there.
David Strand
Plymouth
Formerly of Loring Park
David Strand: "We can also make sure that there are materials available in our
public libraries that provide accurate factual verifiable information. Often
groups interested in spreading misinformation do a great job of seeing to
itthat there point of view is represented among materials in libraries but
librarians, as much as they may try, cannot be the sole guardians of assuring
factual information is also available. ... We did a huge program to get books
into small town and school libraries that provided accurate and factual
information on sexual orientation and gender identity and sexuality in general
as most of the libraries had ONLY the type of misinformation we see coming from
MFC on their shelves because groups like MFC had seen to it that it was there."
Local librarians do as much as they can to acquire books and materials for the
GLBT community. However, those books are often stolen or destroyed by those who
do not want to read or have others read something accurate about the GLBT
community.