Report finds increase in anti-gay violence - Yahoo! News
This is what happens when you label people a "threat", or "immoral", or "perverse", or whatever the name du jour is....

Violence against LGBT people increased 4 percent last year, according to a national coalition that documents such incidents. The increase came on the heels of a 26 percent rise in anti-LGBT violence the previous year.

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) released the data this week in its annual report on violence against lesbians, gay men, bisexual people and transgender individuals.

"With respect to violence, the nation's LGBT communities entered a very new and very dangerous era in which all of us were under attack at levels not seen in recent years," said Clarence Patton, NCAVP's acting executive director.

NCAVP's report on hate violence in 2004 found that the 4 percent increase in violence against LGBT people coincided with numerous anti-gay state ballot initiatives, a presidential call for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and the demonization of lesbians and gay men during the 2004 election cycle.

It followed the trend of 2003, when a 26 percent increase in anti- LGBT violence occurred as the nation reacted to such victories for the community as the striking down of sodomy laws across the country and the right for same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts.

One prominent gay leader laid the blame for the rising violence on right-wing religious conservatives.

"The leaders of America's anti-gay industry are directly responsible," said Matt Foreman, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Among the leaders Foreman identified are the Rev. Jerry Falwell, James Dobson (head of Focus on the Family) and Tony Perkins (leader of the Family Research Council).

"This spike in violence parallels the exact same period since the right went into demonic, anti-gay hyperdrive following the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision in July of 2003," Foreman said. "Since then, church pews and the public airwaves have been awash in ugly, anti-gay rhetoric and fear-mongering. These words obviously do not just vanish into the ether. As intended, they are absorbed and become fuel and justification for violence."

I imagine it's actually quite higher- with the rise in the anti-gay rhetoric it also becomes harder to report such crimes out of the fear of even more abuse. Why turn to the authorities for help when they are part of the mechanism that deems you a second-class citizen?