On Sunday May 19, Mark Carson was walking with a friend in NYC’s West Village, not too far from the site of the historic Stone Wall Inn, when Elliot Morales called them a gay slur and started an altercation would end in murder.
Mr. Morales, who allegedly greeted them with a gay slur and then told them, “You look like gay wrestlers,” according to court records. In an interview with police, Mr. Carson’s friend said the two walked back to Mr. Morales and asked him what he meant by the remarks, a law-enforcement official said. The friend told police that Mr. Morales asked the two,
“You all want problems?” and then followed them to Eighth Street, where he confronted them again, asking, “Do you want to die right now?” the official said. The friend told police he told Mr. Morales, “Do you want to shoot us in front of all these people?” and had taken his phone out, the official said.
Mr. Morales allegedly then asked, “Are you with him?” court records said. Mr. Carson replied, “Yes,” at which point Mr. Morales allegedly shot him in the head, the court records said. Mr. Carson was taken to Beth Israel Hospital and pronounced dead at around 1:40 a.m., police said. – The Wall Street Journal
There have been 22 anti-gay incidents of violence in New York City this year according to the Daily News. Mark Carson’s murder seems to be a tipping point where this violence can no longer be ignored by not just politicians and police but the media as well.
On a special two part #TWiBRadio, we speak to senior political and legal reporter at BuzzFeed and LGBT Blogger Chris Geidner about media coverage of anti-LGBTQ violence. We also talk with writer and trans activist Janet Mock about the intersection of race, homophobia and violence in LGBTQ activism and what it means to be a true ally.
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And this morning on #amTWiB, #TheMorningCrew discuss antibiotic resistant tuberculosis with vitamin C, the super quantum computer it took both Google and NASA to realize, and does stress make us ugly.
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eric
this is exactly why so many CHOOSE to be gay….all the great benefits. rot in hell fucker
aimai
Its obvious that its more than merely “hate” rising–the guy who did this murder was a lose cannon looking for a reason to shoot someone. He was already carrying a gun, had already displayed it as a threat to some random restaurant owners, and was spoiling for a fight. Are there more people like that than there used to be? I think there really aren’t–violent crime is down. I am not dismissing this horrible murder–its horrible and its rightly being charged as a hate crime–but this guy was a kill waiting to happen. He could have just as easily chosen another person to act out his hate and rage and his inability to sublimate or defer his inner turmoil.
Cassidy
My advice: stand your ground. When the wrong people stand their ground, shit gets changed real quick.
gbear
@aimai:
But he didn’t do it randomly. Everyone he was harassing that night was someone he thought was gay. His hate and rage were focused.
liberal
I hope to God that NY has a SYG law like in FL. We all should reap the lovely benefits of legalized murder…at least when it comes to blahs and gays.
aimai
@gbear: I don’t think it really matters all that much. First of all I don’t think that’s quite true–was it true of the restaurant owners to whom he showed the gun? But even if it were I think there’s something that goes way beyond homophobia in the willingness of a person to go to a part of town that is not his own and plan to kill someone (or plan to act in such a way that he imagines that pulling that gun and shooting someone in the face is ‘natural’). This is an incredibly violent person who has a need to act out violently. I think we are going to find out that this was one of a string of violent acts, stretching back years, which speak to his inability to control his rage. If he’d been stopped earlier for all his other violent acts he never would have been in a position to act out his homophobia. That’s all I’m arguing. I think that we let too many minor crimes of violence and rage slip by without addressing the child and then the teen and then the man’s inability to handle whatever inner turmoil leads him to imagine that owning a gun will meaningfully alter his low social, emotional, intellectual and moral status.
Gex
What pisses me off is that this is the mode of the sociopaths on the right. The increasing violence against gays is directly related to the right wing’s use of it as a political tool. They will wash their hands of what they wrought and blame the lone wolf. That there has been a steady increase of “lone wolves” since Bush called for the FMA is merely coincidental.
And fuck every glibertarian that voted for these sociopaths between 1993 and now. Fucking externalities, how do they work? Oh yeah, they don’t give a fuck because someone else pays the price.
kindness
Having grown up in the NYC suburbs I know there is hate there. Except the ‘acceptable’ form was always to keep it to yourself & on the down low. Don’t advertize it. I mean, in NYC you have a community with just about every single nationality and point of view. Being an out and out hater will only get one in more trouble than one would want.
Apparently it isn’t like that now. That is too sad. One of the other sad things I see in the WSJ comment section? Some nut used the event to suggest that everyone should be armed. WTF is up with these sociopaths nowdays? Did none of them have mothers who taught them right from wrong?
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
This right here. Aimai’s right as well, though — it sounds like this guy was picking up on the free-floating homophobic rhetoric that’s getting tossed around, which is one of the things crazy people do and the reason why that kind of eliminationist rhetoric is very dangerous. It’s not that much different than the way the Tsarnaevs and those two nutjobs in England picked up on extremist Islamist rhetoric and decided to act on it.
liberal
@Mnemosyne:
Completely agree, though it does leave me conflicted, insofar as when I think about the Republican Party, eliminationist rhetoric does come to mind (“cancer on the body politic,” etc).
Shakezula
Up next: “Waaah! How dare you call me a homophobe? I never shot a gay man right in the head. In front of witnesses. In New York City!”
ChrisNYC
Christine Quinn has been ignoring gay bashing? The same Quinn who used to run an anti gay bashing project? The same Quinn who has consistently spoken out, pushed for prosecution under the hate crimes law, opened up city council investigations of gay bashing and gone to rally after rally on the topic? I don’t love her (but I’ll vote for her over Weiner) and lots of LGBT people don’t think she’s lefty enough on economic issues but the idea that she ignores gay bashing is just nonsense.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
Yep. That’s what I thought after the Gabby Giffords incident, as well. The shooter’s politics appeared to be an unintelligible paranoid clusterfuck, but he lived in an environment shaped by years of “eliminationist rhetoric” pointed towards the Democrats, especially in Arizona, and I have a hard time believing that didn’t influence his choice of targets.
Tonybrown74
This is an ugly reminder of what many gay – actual or assumed – people have gone through on a daily basis. There is something visceral in a bigot’s reaction when it comes to just perceiving homosexuality in someone.
Every potential for gay bashing that I have experienced has always felt that my life was in danger,
One guy, after my friends diffused a situation when someone confronted me, came back and found me alone so that he can just punch the living shit out of me (broke my glasses on my face). And I did nothing to that man.
patroclus
Michael Kinsley said they gays and lesbians had “won” and that we should stop criticizing people and calling them bigots and homophobes for shooting us dead in the street.
celticdragonchick
@Tonybrown74:
There is a reason why I refuse to use public transportation by myself anymore. Too many chances for drunk/belligerent assholes to come by a bus stop and engage in “beat the tranny”.
I had to flee from bus stops twice in Indianapolis in one month, and I was lucky that I was not chased, since I have zero chance of escaping determined pursuit considering that I am disabled.
lol
@patroclus:
We need to focus on the real victims here: straight white men.
Gex
@Mnemosyne: That ends up being a very dangerous mode of argument though. Let me put it this way. The people who usually are first to describe what else may factor into a possible hate crime against gays are the AFA and FRC and NOM.
They’d love nothing more to make sure no patterns appear in the data on homicides.
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
Only if you ignore the obvious conclusion, which is that groups like AFA, FRC and NOM are trying to incite unstable people to violent acts, or at an absolute minimum know it’s happening but don’t care. Eric Rudolph and Scott Roeder had extensive contact and memberships in anti-abortion and other conservative groups before they got frustrated with the lack of movement and started killing people.
Ten Bears
Christians are like egg-sucking dogs: the only solution to the problem is to take them out behind the barn and shoot them in the face.
No fear.
RaflW
Meanwhile Michael Kinsley wrote an inexplicable pile of crap saying that gays were mean to that Johns Hopkins surgeon who went all NAMBLA on marriage equality.
Kinsley says its all smooth sailing from here on out, even though gays are being murdered in the streets or having their kids taken away on bogus morals charges.
I haven’t really thought about it but I suppose us Minnesotans should look out for a local backlash after our recent win for human decency. Kindness and equality must be avenged … If you’re a sick fuck.
Luis Gutierrez
Elon, your link to the Daily News doesn’t work. It takes me to the Wall Street Journal article.
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: Am very sorry that happened to you.