CRIME AND HOMOPHOBIA
In America, it is not a crime to murder a homosexual man or woman (“The Good Boy,†by Brenda Bell, July 12). In some corridors of this country, such an action is considered a public service. All you need is the right lawyer, and the jury will give Billy a medal.
In the same Simi Valley courthouse where Rodney G. King was humiliated, Anthony Diaz received a sentence of only four years and eight months for the 1991 gay-bashing murder of Bruce Pope and the looting of Pope’s Port Hueneme home. Against the protest of the judge, the jury reduced the sentence from murder to assault after Diaz’s attorney characterized the victim as a “predatory homosexual.â€
It’s a terrible, bitter irony that we allow our failure as a society to be blamed on the victim.
TERRY GLENN PHIPPS
Venice
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