"That Faggot Had It Coming"

The above is Dan Savage's translation of the Fort Worth Police Chief Jeff Halstead's defense of his officers in the beating of Chad Gibson during a raid of the Rainbow Lounge on Saturday.

Halstead: "You're touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that's offensive. I'm happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that."

Savage: "Allow me to translate the chief's comments: 'Them faggots in that thar bar touched mah officers and now they're complainin' about some rough stuff and one little ol' faggot with a brain injury? Those perverts should be grateful they're alive.'"

Dan continues:

All of this is bullshit. I've been in a million gay bars. I've been in gay bars on multiple occasions when the police came in to check everyone's IDs and make sure no minors were being served. Gay men don't grope police officers when they enter gay bars. I find it inconceivable that the gay men drinking in the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth responded to a raid by attempting to grope the police officers. This "they groped us!" shit is a lie. As the owner of the bar, J.R. Schrock, put it at the protest the night after the raid: "The groping of the police officer—really? We're gay, but we're not dumb," Schrock said to the crowd that gathered at the bar Sunday afternoon. "That is a lie, and I am appalled by it."

Jeff Halstead can't be allowed to use the Gay Panic Defense. His officers weren't groped, no one was "touched and advanced." Homophobic cops raided a gay bar, roughed up the patrons, and a young man is in the hospital and may die.

Some will say that this was just an ill-timed raid on a gay bar in Texas, of all places, one that got out of control. So what's the big deal? But this is exactly the kind of state-sponsored violence that gays and lesbians fought back against at Stonewall 40 years ago. Gay men all over the country are going to have to speak up and defend the patrons of the Rainbow Lounge. We can't allow the chief of police in Fort Worth to use the Gay Panic Defense or exploit stereotypes about gay men—so sexually reckless that they can't even keep their hands off cops during a raid!—to get away with violating the civil rights of gay men in Fort Worth or murdering Chad Gibson.

At this writing, Chad Gibson remains in intensive care with a blood clot in his brain.