"I don't care for lesbians. I couldn't help but think that she's fifty-four years old and had been dating that woman for twelve years: Isn't that sick? That's someone's grandma, for God's sake. Could you imagine my grandma a lesbian with another woman? I couldn't believe that. It crossed my mind a couple of times, lesbo grannies, what a thing, huh?"
It crossed the mind of Robert Acremant that the two women he had bound up and gagged with duct tape were lesbians and then he shot them to death.
This column is often lighter than air, and believe me, nobody knows that better than me. Toga parties, blind items and jokey rants about Christmas are a fun distraction, but occasionally, we have to collectively take a look at the real world and give it a critical eye.
The article in the LA Times about the murder of two lesbian activists, Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, in Medford, Oregon a a few weeks back, chilled me to the bone. I sat alone for a long time after I read it, overwhelmed with a sense of loss for these two women I had never met.
The newspaper picture was of the two women smiling and happy, Michelle around my age, Roxanne a decade older. The women had met in the increasingly homophobic state of Colorado and decided to move to the small town of Medford, because they felt that they could safely live their lives the way that they wanted. They had a successful property management business, a loving relationship with Ellis' daughter and granddaughter, were on their church board and politically active against the two anti-gay initiatives in '92 and '94.
It all ended at the hands of a man who didn't "care for lesbians."
So, what can we do?
1) Start by writing letters to the Medford DA, asking him to prosecute Acrement to the fullest extent of the law.
2) Demand that the Justice Department investigate the link between the rise of anti-gay and lesbian violence and the rise of anti-gay legislative attempts by the Religious Right.
Your silence will not keep you safe.
H.
