SAGINAW [Michigan] -- If homosexual activists are serious about protecting individuals involved in homosexual behavior from violence, they should stop wasting the Legislature's time on so-called "hate crime" legislation and focus instead on the dramatically higher threat of violence such individuals face at the hands of their own homosexual lovers, a statewide family values group Thursday said in a statement to a domestic violence task force chaired by Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus.
The American Family Association of Michigan, in a statement delivered Thursday to the task force during its hearing at Saginaw Valley State University, said data from law enforcement agencies and homosexual activists themselves indicates that the risk of domestic violence at the hands of their own homosexual sex partners is a staggering 50,000 percent greater for individuals involved in homosexual behavior than the risk of being attacked by someone motivated by disapproval of such behavior.
"Homosexual activists are right now making the outrageous demand that state law be amended to punish a criminal who assaults a pregnant mother, or a small child, or a senior citizen less severely than someone who attacks a grown man, solely because the grown man chooses to have sex with other men," AFA-Michigan President Gary Glenn said.
"Such demands are politically calculated to win public sympathy by portraying individuals who engage in homosexual behavior as 'victims' of outside aggression, when the far, far greater threat is the epidemic of domestic violence individuals involved in homosexual behavior commit against each other."
"When the threat of violent 'love crimes' homosexuals commit against each other is 50,000 percent greater than the risk of so-called 'hate crimes,' which is more deserving of the public's attention," Glenn asked, "and how seriously should we take homosexual activists who feign alarm about the one while ignoring or covering up the astronomically greater threat?"
Researchers find domestic violence among individuals involved in homosexual behavior is at least double that of male-female relationships, he said, which "in addition to the severe threat of serious disease and premature death resulting from homosexual behavior, is yet another reason a truly compassionate society should discourage rather than encourage and enable such a self-destructive and violent lifestyle."
Glenn cited so-called "hate crimes" statistics released Feb. 13th by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to the FBI, there were only 1,317 so-called "hate crime" incidents nationwide in 1999 allegedly motivated by the offender's disapproval of homosexual behavior.
The number of incidents of violence committed by individuals involved in such behavior against their own homosexual partners is astronomical by comparison, Glenn said.
Compared to only 1,317 so-called "hate crimes" in 1999, as many as 650,000 men alone (not counting women) are each year victims of domestic violence at the hands of their own homosexual sex partners, according to two prominent homosexual activists and researchers in San Francisco, he said.
Homosexual activists David Island and Patrick Letellier -- both of San Francisco and co-editors of the National Gay and Lesbian Domestic Violence Network Newsletter -- write in their book, Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them, that domestic violence is a primary health problem for individuals involved in homosexual behavior ranking behind only AIDS for males, cancer for females, and drug abuse for both.
Island and Letellier write: "The probability of violence occurring in a gay couple is mathematically double the probability of that in a heterosexual couple...we believe as many as 650,000 gay men may be victims of domestic violence each year in the United States." (Page 14)
(Note: 650,000 estimated incidents of homosexual domestic violence per year among males alone in the U.S. is 494 times greater -- posing a 49,400 percent higher risk of actual violence -- than the 1,317 "hate crime" incidents reported for one year in the U.S. by the FBI. The increased risk is actually much higher, however, since the 650,000 figure includes men only and does not include however many thousands of women in the U.S. involved in homosexual behavior are victims each year of domestic violence at the hands of their own sex partners.)
Island and Letellier also estimate "domestic violence may affect and poison as many as 50 percent of gay male couples (page 12), while "we believe [heterosexual domestic abuse] is closer to 20 percent." (page 50).
The Medical Institute for Sexual Health also reported in 1999 that "domestic violence is at least as common and probably more common among homosexuals than among heterosexuals."
Thus, compared to the rare but always highly publicized attacks by outside assailants against individuals who engage in homosexual behavior, the far greater threat -- 50,000 percent more likely -- is the rarely-reported violence such individuals face at the hands of their own homosexual sex partners, Glenn said.
The New York Times reported just that last year in a Nov. 6th article, in which Times reporter John Leland wrote:
"While crimes against gay men and lesbians like the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming attract more attention in the news, domestic abuse in same-sex relationships is both widespread and severe..., according to a recent report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects, a network of 24 nonprofit gay and lesbian organizations...The study by the antiviolence projects found that cases of domestic violence among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people that were reported to member groups rose 23 percent in 1999."
I can presume that you have never seen a gay "Lover's Quarrel." They tend to be remarkable in the amount of massive battering or stabbing overkill involved, far beyond what would be required to simply murder. It is not unusual to see faces smashed to paste, and postmortem mutilations.