A court date has been set for a violent attacker who assaulted a lesbian couple as they were picking up their children from elementary school in Oshawa. The attack, which bloodied one of the mothers, was witnessed by numerous children, including the assailant’s own son.

Jane Currie and Anji Dimitriou, the victims, described the attack to Capital Xtra and the Durham Region:

[The attacker] said to Anji, “Which of you two men spoke to my kid? Fucking dyke lesbians.” I jumped out and just as I came around he spit right in her face. She wiped the spit off and he punched her in the face and hit her again in the back of the head.

I said to him, “you asshole what are you doing? You just beat a woman” then bang I got it.

Mark Scott’s violent assault left both parents with black eyes, and one with four stitches. Eyewitnesses confirmed that the attack was unprovoked, and likely a hate crime. Currie now says her three children are terrified:

We went to Zellers and they didn’t want to get out of the truck. “What if he’s in Zellers?” they asked. “What if he comes back to the school and comes after us?”

What a disgusting assault. The brazenness of it—in front of multiple children—is very hard for me to understand, but I take it as strong evidence for how deep homophobia continues to run.

These assaults aren’t common, but the behaviour the attacker learned comes from multiple, definite sources. There are lobby groups, legislators, editorialists, churches, and individuals that continue to portray gay people, through unfounded misinformation, phony research, and scaremongering, as some sort of threat to the very foundations of society. It’s in this extreme atmosphere that homophobia, including violent homophobia, can thrive.

This has to be stopped. Challenge verbal homophobia wherever it is encountered. Challenge it. Only when it is unchallenged can it escalate to this madness.

• Lesbian couple attacked outside Oshawa school [Durham Region]
• Brazen attack alleged in Oshawa [Capital Xtra]

I think most gay people, myself included, have been verbally assaulted at one time or another, and have likely even felt physically threatened. There are no official statistics on these sorts of incidents, generally because people tend to keep it to themselves. What’s alarming, though, is that physical assaults are still startlingly under-reported. This is why I was encouraged to hear about a rally of over 2,000 marchers that took to Davie Street, Vancouver, after a hate-motivated assault last month left Jordan Smith, a gay man, with a broken jaw for doing nothing more than holding hands with a friend.

Smith brought a message to the rally that resonated with me:

I was scared to be completely open prior to this event. I preferred the status quo. I no longer want to be silent. [...] I’m proud to hold my friend’s hand in public.

This is an important message to understand and spread. Last week, a family member called me in complete shock over continuing anti-gay rhetoric heard from an acquaintance and otherwise generous host while out of town. While I’m not as easily shocked over that sort ignorance and hatred, I was disheartened by the reaction: “This is why I think you should hide more,” I was told.

While I trust completely that this advice was motivated by concern and love for my well-being, I regret that I cannot distinguish this reaction from those who outright threaten or abuse gay people, even though the motivations are clearly different. (Call it the Slap Doctrine, if you will.) The consequence of both actions is clear: to make gay people invisible and live in fear.

But Jordan Smith is less afraid after a violent assault than before. That’s because he understands, first hand, how hiding prevented nothing and why invisibility after the assault was not an option.

Silence in the face of homophobia is tolerance of homophobia, and unless you’re capable of living your life without ever mentioning the person you love most, capable of filtering all your words and actions as simple as holding hands, and capable of doing all this without feeling you’re worse off for it, then silence stands in the way of happiness. Stand up to homophobia, report and challenge hateful incidents, and don’t live in fear.

• Over 2,000 march on Davie after attack on gay man [Xtra]
• Apparent gay bashing in Vancouver investigated as hate crime [CBC News]
• West End ‘not safe’ after hate crime: victim [CTV News]

Campus police at the University of Windsor have issued a security alert after several homophobic and racist messages were found across campus. While the content of the messages is a mystery, it was disturbing enough for the Office of the President to issue an open letter to the university community:

There have been [incidents that] deeply concern us involving abusive language and intimidating behaviour towards gay students at the Faculty of Law. The University of Windsor is committed to fostering an inclusive campus [...] however, considerable progress must be made before we are able to realize such an environment.

What, no attempt at sugar-coating the university’s progress on their vision of an diverse and tolerant campus? Why, that could only mean there’s a delightfully ironic twist somewhere here!

Yes, it turns out that one of the racist incidents mentioned in the letter involved members of a campus social justice community committed to “diversity and equity and the education of future generations of young people.”

I’d say the university’s vision needs work.

• Racist, anti-gay graffiti, flyers found at U of W [Windsor Star]
• An Open Letter to the University of Windsor Community [University of Windsor, Office of the President]