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Suspects charged in NYC anti-gay attack
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USA Today
10/11/2010
"Eight teenage and adult males were arraigned Sunday on a range of charges including sexual assault, robbery, intimidation and hate crimes. Two were held in lieu of $100,000 bond, and the others were held without bond. Police said a ninth member of the Latin King Goonies, as the group called itself, was still at large.
"Police said the attack happened Oct. 3. They said gang members heard a rumor that one of their recruits was gay and found the teen, stripped him, and beat and sodomized him with a plunger handle until he confessed to having had sex with a 30-year-old man in the neighborhood. The gang members found a second teen they suspected was gay and tortured him, police said. Then they lured the 30-year-old man to an abandoned house, where they burned, beat and tortured him for hours and sodomized him with a miniature baseball bat, police said.
"...Hayley Gorenberg, of Lambda Legal, a gay civil rights organization, said the series of recent incidents show the country is 'clearly in crisis.'
"Laws such as those that ban same-sex marriage 'are invitations to violence,' she said. 'We're absolutely surrounded by laws and voices at every level that say gay people and transgender people are lesser.'"