Posted on 10/10/2003 1:48:17 AM PDT by kattracks
The fall afternoon started simply enough: A handful of gay teens from Harvey Milk High School lounged around a Lexus parked by a Starbucks in Greenwich Village on Tuesday.Then things got violent.
One of the teens fiddled with the Lexus' sideview mirror, enraging the driver. Words, some of them possibly homophobic, were exchanged. A bottle was thrown at the luxury car.
The Lexus driver came at the teens with a screwdriver.
When all was said and done, three Harvey Milk students as well as the driver of the Lexus, Vernon Jones, 23, were arrested - and Jones had been jabbed in the back with his own screwdriver, police said.
"This guy in a car started saying things. He was, like, 'Oh, look at the gay people, saying he wanted to murder us and everything. Then a few kids started saying, 'What's your problem?'" Leomi M., 16, a transgender Harvey Milk student who saw the fracas across the street from the school, said yesterday.
"The guy came out of the car, pulled a screwdriver out of his pocket and we ran," said Leomi, who wore a wig, makeup and women's clothing.
As some teenagers scattered, Jones allegedly grabbed one 17-year-old student, Erica Simon, and "mushed her" in the face, said another witness.
"He was starting to mush a girl, and 15 kids ran back to help her. Erica was roughed up," said another student witness, Randy M., 19. "It was crazy. He was saying, 'Y'all f------ homos are going to hell. Y'all should have died when you were first born.'"
Simon, along with four other students, is accused of "kicking, punching, and beating" Jones with a broken umbrella, fists, and feet, police said. They also wrestled his screwdriver away and slammed it into his back.
Jones, of Brooklyn, suffered a puncture wound and was brought to St. Vincent's Medical Center, where he was treated and charged with menacing.
Simon, along with Kareem Macedon, 16, and Penn Lorenzo, 16 - all from Brooklyn - were charged with gang assault and menacing. Two other teens involved in the attack were being sought by cops yesterday, police said.
Police are not investigating the incident as a hate crime.
"He gets out with a screwdriver, and they attack him. This was not motivated by him seeking to harass them about being gay," said a police official. "The Harvey Milk students were the aggressors."
But the Manhattan district attorney's office said Jones could face additional charges.
"We are absolutely investigating whether it is a hate crime," said Barbara Thompson, a district attorney spokeswoman.
The four were slated to be arraigned at Manhattan Criminal Court last night.
Bill to protect students
Harvey Milk Principal William Salzman referred all calls to the Department of Education, which said the incident was under investigation.
The arrests came the same week that the City Council Education Committee held hearings on a bill designed in part to protect gay and lesbian students from taunts and harassment. School Safety Chief Ben Tucker said there have been no similiar incidents at the school since it opened in September - with dozens of protesters outside.
"I think everyone was on edge about it when the school opened .... The school is very visible, so it's not unreasonable to assume that the school could be a target, or that the students could be targets," Tucker said. "That's the reason the school exists in the first place - to give the students some comfort."
With Bill Farrell and Celeste Katz
Originally published on October 10, 2003
Well, hey, why stop there? Let's forget about anything we've learned since the good old days. Why don't we teach that the sun revolves around the earth. Prior to 1632 the world considered that to be the gospel truth (literally). The church finally came around to exonerating Galileo for his audacious theory in 1992. Prior to 1892, most of the U.S. didn't consider Afican-Americans to be biologically human. They considered them to be on par with a dog or a mule.
Why don't we just go back, huh?
Sorry, that doesn't seem to make much sense. We're all "filtered out" eventually. We all die, unless you have some secret immortality you're not telling us about.
What about people who don't have children either by choice or by inability? Are they somehow an abomination also?
I'm sure you think this Darwinian argument is so very persuasive, but trying looking objectively. It's really a very weak argument.
Say what. Catholic priests are mentally disordered? Also nuns. Mother Therese was and the Pope himself?
you->Sorry, that doesn't seem to make much sense. We're all "filtered out" eventually. We all die, unless you have some secret immortality you're not telling us about.
We are talking about the gene pool here. If I die without having children (preserving my genes) then I have filtered myself out of the gene pool. Since homosexual behavior has no chance of passing on the genes of the participants it is a behavior that effectively filters the practitioners of that behavior from the gene pool.
What about people who don't have children either by choice or by inability? Are they somehow an abomination also?
They are simply removing themselves (their genes actually) from the pool. Who said anything about abomination here?
The original point of the discussion was that 'homosexuality' is a mental disease, as is any 'sexual preference' that does not have a chance of producing children (necrophilia, beastiality etc)
Of course we should take your word on this and not listen to those silly medical associations who say it isn't. What do they know.I then provided a statement from a gay activist [Simon Levay] who said the APAs decision to declassify homosexuality as a mental disease was the result of "Gay activism". It certainly wasn't the result of new scientific research.
When lefthanded folks start asking for rights based on their behavior of using their left hand, when the use of their left hand can spread a deadly disease to innocents though the blood supply, perhaps then we can discuss your statement.
All the facts and research state the major factor in determining homosexuality is environment. Homosexuality behavior is a choice and having realized this, thousands have left the homosexual lifestyle.
Until recently gays were pressed to "act straight" and so far as to marry and have children.
If it becomes so acceptable to fully live the homosexual lifestyle that they NEVER get married or have children THEN in a few generations homosexuality will fade away. That is only if it is genetic.
So basically...
1. If homosexuality is a choice, and there is no genetic component, there is no basis for "gay rights."
or
2. If homosexuality is a genetic "defect," letting it be fully expressed will eventually lead to it fading away.
Sounds like a "win-win" proposition to me...
If they keep it a private matter as they keep screaming that it is (all the while conducting those silly gay pride parades), then there's no problem. When they demand that I 'accept' it as normal, they they have a problem.
I thought schools existed to give the students some education.
Ostensibly.
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