America's homegrown cold war against homosexuals

Earl Robert Merritt Jr., a.k.a. Butch Merritt, claims humble beginnings outside Charleston, W.Va.

A few years after landing in the nation's capital and coming out as a gay man, Merritt says he was recruited by Carl Shoffler of the Metropolitan Police Department to spy on the District's GLBT community in a time of simmering civic discontent, anti-war demonstrations and COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program), the acronym for the FBI's effort to spy on Americans.

Merritt's recollections, included as snippets here and there in various books and articles, might be easily dismissed, were it not for the crate full of documents he secured following a Freedom of Information Act request for his ''file.''

''I'm 63 years old. I have a heart condition. I have a back condition that I think entitles me to a prognosis of perhaps four or five more years to live and that's it.''

Carl came one day and showed me his badge and he said, ''I'm a cop, Butch. I don't mean to deceive you, but we've been profiling you. I was asked to profile you.'' He said, ''We need someone to work this circle, to work this whole area, because everybody that you know are communists, anti-American, un-American, and they're involved in overthrowing the United States government, the presidency of the United States'' -- Nixon at the time -- ''and they're all planning this huge, anti-war demonstration.''

I am sorry for what I did, from my heart, I really am. Of course they can point a finger of blame at me, because I am the instrument who did these things. I don't blame them if they love me or hate me. I'm sure a lot of people I hurt are very much alive like I am, and will live to see me in my grave. But the finger of blame should be upon the government. It should be upon the ''big brother'' who is watching you.

They're not going to stop the secret agencies, like the police, the FBI, military intelligence, CIA and National Security Agency until they start digging into their files: ''I want my file. I want my file! And I want it now!'' That's the message that's got to get across: Get your file. And why is it there? And when they start suing left and right, and inundating our court rooms with individual and class action lawsuits throughout the entire nation, that is when it will change, not until.

If they think I've been involved in their lives, they can contact me. If I remember a name, an event, I will help them. There are 3,000 people out there somewhere and they can't all be dead.

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FBI: increase in hate crimes based on sexual orientation

The FBI study, released Nov. 19, shows that hate crimes based on sexual orientation comprised 15.5 percent of all hate crimes recorded by the FBI in 2006, up from 14 percent in 2005. Overall, the agency recorded 7722 hate crime incidents involving 9080 offenses last year; more than half were based on race. Of the 1415 recorded hate crimes based on sexual orientation, 62.3 percent were classified as "anti-male homosexual biased," 20.7 percent were classified as "anti-homosexual biased" and 13.6 percent were classified as "anti-female homosexual biased." Two percent were classified as "anti-heterosexual biased" and 1.5 percent were classified as "anti-bisexual biased."

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