Who says peaceful protests are acts of terrorism?

Jose Sucuzhanay, 31, had gone out to a restaurant with his brother, Romel. As sometimes happens they got a bit tipsy and around 3:30 am were attempting to walk home.

Two immigrants from Ecuador the brothers didn’t think anything of holding on to each other for support as they tried to fight off the effects of a bit too much alcohol.

A SUV drove past the men occupied by four black men. One yelled out the window: “Check out those faggots over there.”

One of the men jumped out of the car and smashed a bottle into the head of Jose. Romel ran off to call the police. But as he did the entire gang of four men piled onto the stricken victim. They used an aluminium baseball bat to smash his head numerous times while they collectively engaged in kicking him.

Police say that Jose, a real estate agent and father of two, is officially brain dead. The hospital is waiting for the arrival of Jose’s parents before turning off life support.

The police accept that the attack took place for one prime reason -- the attackers thought the two brothers were gay. Jose is now brain dead and only the hospital equipment is given the appearance of life. Even that will end shortly and this young, family man will be dead entirely due to the fact that the four killers thought he was gay.

Meanwhile, for weeks now, the Religious Right, as well as some odious conservative like Jonah Goldberg have been screaming about “gay violence” and “gay attacks”. Goldberg said the anti-Prop 8 satirical television commercial depicting Mormon missionaries stripping a gay couple of their marriage certificate was an “ugly attack”. Mr. Goldberg has been silent regarding the deadly attack on Mr. Sucuzhanay. But then that attack doesn’t fit the fanatical anti-gay agenda of the lunatic Right.

Newt Gingrich, trying to resurrect his dead political career called the peaceful protests “a gay and secular fascism... that wants to impose its will on the rest of us” and which “is prepared to use violence, to use harassment.” Gingrich called the protests a “very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion.”

The insane has-ben Pat Boone has long been a member of a particularly insane branch of fundamentalist Christianity. He was the one who, along with other church members, invaded the home of the dying Rock Hudson in order to “cure” him of AIDS through prayer. They forced the unconscious Hudson to wear bright clothes in celebration of his healing. You know the results of that exercise in faith healing.

Boone wrote a colume for a Right-wing web site where he referred to the terrorists attacks in Mumbai. He wrote “Thank God, it couldn’t happen here. Could it? Look around. Watch your evening news. Read your newspaper.” Yes, according to the faith healing has-been Mumbai-like terror attacks have been taking place. As he asked the brainless-right that read World Net Daily: “Have you seen the awful similarity between what happened in Mubai and what’s happening right now in our cities?”

People were murdered in the streets of Mumbai by armed terrorists. So,what is the “right now” to which the senile has-been is referring?

Boone refers to “raging demonstrations on our streets”. He calls them “riots” which he says turned “defamatory and violent”. Demostrators with “dereogatory and threatening placards”. The “terrorists” to whom Boone is referring were the generally peaceful anti-Prop 8 demonstrations that were held around the country.

Of course, no one was killed in such Mumbai-like terror attacks but that doesn’t stop Boone from lying.

The double-standard of the Right is astounding. I can assure you that World Net Daily, Mr. Goldberg, or this 1950s has been, will write about the regular attacks where gay men and women (mainly men) are attacked and murdered with some regularity.

But someone sent a “white powder” that proved to be harmless to a Mormon church and the Right-wing immediately, and without evidence, attributed this to gay people and called it a “violent attack”. No one actually knows who was behind that at all. But a lack of facts has never stopped haters. Meanwhile there are real victims of antigay prejudice which doesn’t concern the Right in the least bit. And frequently, since homosexuality is not like skin color, bigots make mistakes and attack people who are not gay, like Mr. Sucuzhanay. But, hey, he was an immigrant and in the hateful Right that is almost just as bad.

Shame on conservatives for their deafening silence in the face of regular, violent, deadly attacks on people perceived as gay. Shame on them for exaggerating the generaly peaceful protests against bigotry and painting them as “ugly attacks” or Mumbai-like terrorism. For all their talk about morality it is the Religious Right, more than any other major political group, that seems most devoid of common, human decency.

Photo: Another failed attempt by Boone to revive his long dead singing career. His attempts to resurrect his career were as successful as his attempt to resurrect Rock Hudson after his failed attempts to cure Hudson of AIDS through prayer.