(The following article is from the October 1-15, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Kimball Cariou

Despite violent gay-bashings in cities across Canada, police and/or prosecutors are still reluctant to treat these attacks as hate crimes, a designation which would require tougher sentencing for offenders.

     In the latest shocking case, a Toronto gay man's face was shattered during a visit to Thunder Bay. Jake Raynard and two friends were smoking outside a downtown bar after last call on Sept. 4 when a man approached them for a cigarette and then became aggressive. As the three friends walked away, a group of men followed them shouting homophobic taunts. Suddenly, one of the group grabbed Raynard's friend and started choking him. Raynard managed to help get his friends into a taxi, but was blocked from entering. He ran through a nearby alley towards a local restaurant as the men chased him, but was caught and beaten with a brick.

     According to reports, it took police an hour to respond to the calls of restaurant workers who found Raynard banging for help on their windows. He had to undergo facial reconstruction for injuries including a broken jaw, broken eye socket and broken upper patella.      A Facebook page called "Unified Community around Jake Raynard" now has more than 7,700 members, and over 1200 people took part in a support rally on Sept. 11. Thunder Bay Police are still investigating; it has not been decided if the incident will be labelled a hate crime.

     Similar crimes have recently occurred in other cities, including two cases in Vancouver. In September 2008, Jordan Smith was holding hands with his partner on Davie Street when the couple was met by a group of men shouting homophobic slurs. One of the group, Michael Kandola, is alleged to have punched Smith in the face without warning, causing serious facial damage. Kandola's trial is set for next April, but prosecutors have not decided whether this will be considered a hate crime.

     In another tragedy, 62-year-old Ritchie Dowrey was punched in the face at the Fountainhead Pub on Davie last March 13. The blow knocked Dowrey to the floor, causing severe brain damage. His attacker, Shawn Woodward, was reported by witnesses to have said "he's a faggot, he deserved it". Woodward has been charged with aggravated assault, but proceedings been postponed several times, and again, no decision has been made on designating the attack as a hate crime.

     "This story isn't just mine," says John Raynard. "I'm sure there's many other people out there who have encountered a lot of the same problems that I have in my life, and have encountered hate-related crimes and a lot of discrimination based on that. I would urge them to come forward and make their stories known and have it so we can start to heal as a community and start to move forward beyond this kind of hate."

     Commenting on recent calls for dropping hate crime laws, Egale Canada President Helen Kennedy has responded that "when a crime is motivated by blind hatred, a crime such as that perpetrated against Jake Raynard, it goes beyond any negotiable goal. It is the desire to hurt, to denigrate, and to destroy. Any time someone is attacked for their gender identity or sexual orientation they are not just assaulted physically, they are treated as less than human, and that is what we must fight every day with every breath to counter such brutality...

     "Jake Raynard is not an object. Anji Dimitriou, lesbian mother, viciously attacked, is not an object. Tyli'a Mack, trans woman, brutally murdered, is not an object. Ritchie Dowrey, gay man, viciously attacked, is not an object. We are not objects; we are not fragments of people. We are the many achingly beautiful faces of humanity and must hold ourselves with pride. When anyone is attacked this way, when anyone is reduced in this fashion, we must respond or we are all made a little less... We demand that our governments, municipal, provincial and federal, protect our rights and stand with us!"