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CommentsBashing pride with hate
Staff
The theme of the Pride in the Pine festival on June 21 in Flagstaff was “Love. Equality. Pride.”
What happened later that night was anything but, as Flagstaff saw its first official hate crime committed against a festival-goer.
According to Sam Holdren of Equality Arizona, he and three friends were looking for a cab at 2:40 a.m. when four men started shouting anti-gay slurs and profanity.
Holdren told LP Journal: “I had gone down to the street to try to hail them a cab. When I returned, I found Miche (Michel Brown) lying on the ground unconscious and unresponsive.”
The victim was bleeding heavily from his head, he adds.
“It was a really scary moment, and all I could think about was finding the people who did it to them,” Holdren says.
Travis A. Reiner, 24, has been charged with aggravated assault for the attack. Three other men were arrested but have not been charged. If convicted, Reiner could get a tougher sentence under Arizona’s hate crime statue.
Some in the local gay community had been lulled into thinking gay bashings were a thing of the past. After all, a ban against gay unions in Arizona had been defeated in a past election. California’s Supreme Court had just legalized gay marriage. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa became a poster boy for equality by officiating at the wedding of producer Bruce Cohen and his partner Gabriel Catone. There are gay characters on TV shows such as Ugly Betty.
“Some of us thought the closet was shrinking,” commented one gay.
Then came backlashes by conservatives in California and Arizona. There are propositions on the ballots of both states that would impose constitutional bans on gay marriages.
The initiative passed the Arizona Senate with 16 votes - the bare minimum needed. As Senate president, Republican Tim Bee voted last and it was his support that sent the measure to the ballot.
Holdren, whose grandmother immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico, believes the Arizona state Legislature has created a mood for anti-gay violence.
“When our leaders propose and advocate for laws that designate a group of people as second-class and unworthy, they are sending the message that bias-motivated violence is okay,” he says. “Our Legislature is responsible for those who turn their bias into an act of violence.”
