Chicago Teacher's Hate Speech Challenged by Student

Dave Burk, who teaches consumer education at Geneva High School, reportedly made the comments earlier this month during a talk about consumer tax.

Student Jordan Hunter told the Chicago Sun-Times that Burk said: "How would you feel about your tax dollars going to pay some black fag in New York to take pictures of other black fags?"

Hunter, who is gay, said: "If he wants to talk about a poor place to put our tax dollars, I think his salary is a poor place to put our tax dollars."

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Oklahoma: No such thing as gay hate crime

According to Oklahoma law sexual orientation is not protected under the hate crime statute(s).

David Schulte, a writer with Tulsa World reports;

Twice within the past week, Robert Stotler and his partner

have been targets of anti-gay messages at their Tulsa home.

About seven days ago, the message "Gays Must Go" was spray-painted on their garage door, and a symbol resembling a swastika, which is used by some white supremacist groups, was spray-painted on the side of their home.

Holes were punched in a friend's pickup's tires and the truck was set on fire while parked in Stotler's driveway.

The message "I'll be back" was spray-painted on both sides of the vehicle.

And back the person came.

A few days later, holes were punched in the front door of their home in the 11800 block of East 25th Street, and the message "Gay Go Away" was painted on it.

Stotler and his partner say they are victims of hate crimes, but police say they are not. Their reports call the crimes acts of vandalism or malicious mischief.

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60 people arrested for disrupting Bulgaria's gay pride march

from FOCUS Information Agency

Sofia - Bulgarian police arrested 60 people Saturday opposed to Bulgaria's first gay pride march after they tried to storm the small group of about 100 marchers in the capital Sofia, AFP reports, citing the interior ministry.

Security concerns had already forced organisers and municipal authorities to change the route of the march twice and deploy a large number of police to prevent clashes.

"Bulgaria is in the EU now. People have to accept us like normal human beings. We are not criminals," 51-year-old German engineer Peter Moews who lives in Sofia told AFP.

"Hostility comes from misunderstanding. Most people think that we are all feminine and wear women dresses but this is not true," he added.

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Australia: ‘Faggot’ fights back

from Queensland Pride

A gay Bowen Hills man has launched an anti-vilification case against a group of fellow Housing Commission tenants he claims have repeatedly called him homophobic names within earshot of other neighbours.

Wayne Draper, 58, told Queensland Pride the campaign against him and a fellow tenant intensified after another tenant who had threatened him with a knife was transferred to another community.

Draper, who is HIV positive and also suffers cardio and vascular problems, claims he was admitted to hospital after the now-transferred neighbour allegedly sat outside his flat and threatened to “cut ya” and “knife ya, ya f*cking faggot!”

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MIT Grapples with Anti-Gay Threat

by Zachary Violette
New England Blade

The e-mail invite from the LGBT Club of the MIT Sloan School of Management was meant to celebrate the end of the Fall 2007 semester.

The group never expected that it would result in a threatening anti-gay e-mail response from an MIT student within an hour of being sent.

"I don't care what you do among yourselves", the student wrote to club members in an e-mail on December 10, "and I am not going to teach you how to live. But I feel seek [sic] when you are trying to promote it or offer to join your events.... you may know that but in [Russia] beating gays is encouraged by the vast majority of people because they insult society and nature. Your e-mail implies that I might be interested in your perversions, and such idea to me is one of most insulting things that I can ever hear. I didn't get used to enduring insults, thought. Therefore, listen to me: If you f---ing* fags send me something like that once again or contact me in any other way, I swear you won't be able to study at Sloan for some time because you will spend it at resuscitation department. If this is what you want, go ahead."

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*note: abusive word edited

KANSAS: High School says gay harassed straight

A gay student at Metro-Midtown Alternative High School in Kansas may face expulsion after school official claim the 17-year-old junior harassed a fellow student in a school bathroom.

Iniguez says he is innocent. The other male student in the bathroom is a friend, he says, and the two were just talking. But more important, he says, he is being discriminated against because he is gay.

According to Iniguez, the incident began when a female friend told him she had heard a rumor that a mutual male friend of theirs was gay.

"I told her that rumor was false," Iniguez said. "I said I would know, because I was his best friend."

But, "it's like you can't be straight and have a gay friend," he added.

When the male student saw Iniguez in the bathroom later that day, he asked Iniguez what was going on.

"So I told him, 'Some people are saying you're gay, but don't worry. I told them it wasn't true,' " Iniguez said. "But he still got kind of upset."

The student, who is 18, allegedly returned to class and threatened students and a teacher, Iniguez said. He was suspended and later expelled.

School officials then suspended Iniguez, saying he was partly to blame because he harassed the teenager in the bathroom.

The teenager, a longtime friend of Iniguez's, has agreed to testify on Iniguez's behalf at today's hearing, McKean said.

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Hate crime plea bargain is insulting

"Mother fucking maricons trying to come up in the taqueria! Fucking maricons should stay in their own territory, in they own hood! Maricon is Spanish for "faggot."

A gay black man who was stabbed multiple times in a Mission District taqueria last May told a San Francisco Superior Court judge Friday, March 14, that "My sense of safety has been crushed. My belief in the justice system has been entirely shattered."

Moments later, Lyced Yvette Segovia, the woman who pleaded guilty February 11 to the crime as part of an agreement with prosecutors, received a suspended imposition of sentence from Judge Gail Dekreon and was placed on probation for three years. She could have been ordered to serve two years in prison.

Frazier, who was 34 at the time of the incident, said last May that he, his partner and his best friend were eating at Taqueria Cancun on Mission Street when Segovia began to yell racial slurs at two other people. Frazier turned around to find out what was happening.

Segovia stabbed him in his shoulder, arm, and back, which sustained the most serious injury. Frazier told the Bay Area Reporter in an e-mail that Segovia yelled at him, calling him a "nigger." He also wrote that he tried to use a chair to protect himself and his companions from Segovia, but that he hadn't used it aggressively.

The report states Segovia continuously yelled the word "nigger" randomly and referred to the officers as "honkey [sic] trash" and "white puta" (the Spanish equivalent of "whore").

Segovia then said, "Mother fucking maricons trying to come up in the taqueria! Fucking maricons should stay in their own territory, in they own hood! This is how we roll out here in our hood, this is the mother fucking Mission!" according to the report. Maricon is Spanish for "faggot."

The report states, "Due to the victim's race and sexual orientation, as well as Segovia's demeanor, choice of words and lack of any signs of remorse whatsoever, I was led to believe that the stabbing may have been hate-related."

Segovia, who was 24 at the time of the incident, originally pleaded not guilty in the case. However, Umali – who has referred to his client as "a very good person who made a mistake in judgment" – reached an agreement with the district attorney's office. Segovia pleaded guilty to one count of assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury.

Conditions of probation include attending anger management and alcohol counseling, which Umali said she's already participated in on her own. Segovia is also not allowed to possess any weapons, and she must stay 150 yards away from Frazier and not try to contact him in any way.

But Frazier told the court, "The defendant's assertion of 'self-defense' is flatly absurd and completely divorced from the truth. I was literally trapped in a corner and brutally stabbed in the back."

Frazier said in court that five doctors have told him that his injuries could have resulted in paralysis or death. He still experiences painful nerve damage from a deep puncture along the ridge of his spinal column. Frazier, who works as a teacher and a writer, told the B.A.R. that he missed teaching the last four weeks of the school year, and his independent educational consulting practice "suffered greatly."

"Segovia seemed cold and not at all remorseful," Frazier wrote of Segovia's demeanor in court. "It was very difficult for me to be in court with Segovia."

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Canadian College hate crime on the rise

(The Eyeopener) - Ryerson's queer student group is scared homophobia is spreading across campus after its door was vandalized and grafitti saying "gays must be exterminated" was left on a bathroom stall for at least three weeks.


"I have no doubt that we were targeted," said RyePRIDE member Jesse Trautmann about a series of students' union stickers pasted on the group's door and nearby positive space posters on March 10. The office is located on the second floor of the Student Campus Centre. "The amount of time it would have taken to cover the entire Rye- PRIDE sign — it was intentional."

The two cases of vandalism come a month after security reported that men yelling homophobic slurs assaulted a student outside of Eric Palin Hall. In the wake of these events, Trautmann feels homophobia is rampant on campus and that Ryerson's administration and student executive are working to help out. "The RSU has told us that if we don't feel safe, we can go work upstairs. Even they're scared that this could escalate," he said.

Lawrence Robinson, manager of security, said he hasn't noticed an increase. "Graffiti and vandalism is an ongoing challenge at Ryerson as well as any other large institution," he said.

Ryerson sociology professor Doreen Fumia said it is "alarming" that there may be a rise in homophobic incidents. She is the chair of the equity committee of the Ryerson Faculty Association. "Ryerson needs to step up to the plate and have a clearer understanding of what homophobia and racism is to create a culture of equity and anti-racism," she said, adding the school is doing its best.

When asked about the comments written in the RCC bathroom, Ian Hamilton, director of Campus Planning and Facilities said maintenance staff removes graffiti as soon as possible.

RSU President Nora Loreto acknowledged that homophobic attacks occur frequently on campus. "Unfortunately, RyePRIDE materials are vandalized much more commonly than any of our other posters," she said. "It's much more common than I think people realize."

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VIDEO: Silence=Death .. Get angry, hate crime rampant