Protect gay, transgender youth
Posted on Fri, Mar. 07, 2008
NADINE SMITH
http://www.miamiherald.com/456/story/447312.htmlWe no longer can allow anti-gay and anti-transgender hate crimes to be met with silence from the community and elected leaders. Recently, hundreds of people gathered in Fort Lauderdale for a vigil on the street corner where Simmie Williams Jr. was murdered a week earlier.
The Florida attorney-general's office reports that nearly one in three violent hate crimes in Florida are assaults on gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people. Last year, Ryan Skipper was stabbed more than 20 times and dumped on a dirt road in Polk County. His teenage killers reportedly drove around in Ryan's blood-soaked car, bragging that they had ``killed a ->-bleeped-<-.''
