Houston Community College Transgendered Student Attacked On Campus, Vallejo California Residents Ignore Crime And Economic Woe To Attack Gays, Nevada Nut Sharron Angle History Of Nurturing Anti-Gay Hate

Lance Reyna, a 29 year old Houston Community College political science student says he attacked at the school’s fine arts building Tuesday – beaten and robbed – because he is transgendered, Reyna saying that the suspect uttered several anti-gay slurs in a “flamboyant” voice meant to mock him. Reyna, who is well known on campus for his work in a number of gay advocacy groups, suffered a concussion in the assault, the attacker stealing his wallet. Houston Community College spokesperson Dan Arguijo said that the attacker’s image was captured on security cameras and that campus police will confer with Reyna about what charges should be made if the suspect is caught.

Vallejo, California continues to be a community divided over gay issues. Mayor Osby Davis, who in November said of gay men and women, “they’re committing sin, and that sin will keep them out heaven,” issued a proclamation in late May, unanimously passed by City Council, declaring June Gay Pride Month in the city. Lou Bordisso, an openly gay bishop emeritus of the American Catholic Church followed the mayor, taking to the podium to say “we very much appreciate the solidarity. I think tonight helps to demonstrate that we can heal the wounds and divisions that we have in Vallejo.” Then, predictably, Pastor P. Daniels Jefferson of the Vallejo Faith Organization, a quasi-religious group that believes homosexuality can be cured, stood to denounce the Pride proclamation, saying “homosexuality is a controversial subject. It is troubling that so many now want the government to take sides in this issue by endorsing a Gay Pride Month.” All this hatred by the way, occurs at moment in time while the city declares bankruptcy, California took control of its schools, and there has been an increase in violent crime.

Nevada nut Sharron Angle, the state’s Republican Senate candidate, was card carrying member of the state’s Independent American Party, a lunatic-fringe third party that traffics in political paranoia, Angle in good standing for six years before switching to the GOP in 1997. Her work there: disturbing. In 1992 she signed and circulated a petition that called for the abolishment of the debt money system and would “prohibit the financing of the New World Order with American taxes.” Most troubling, in 1994 the party placed a 16-page advertising insert in all Nevada newspapers promoting an amendment to the state constitution that would explicitly encourage discrimination against LGBT individuals by businesses and the government. That insert, a kind of encyclopaedia of homophobia, alerted citizens that the HIV virus can survive in water, and that infection through contact with public pools, hot tubs, and municipal water supplies was possible.