First aired on The Final Straw.

In the area of gay rights, the United States feels like it’s made great strides. As a nation, the U.S. is pretty self-congratulatory. In the last Olympics, you had a whole contingent of gay former athletes dispatched to Russia in order to send a “message” to Vladimir Putin about his homophobic laws. On the heals of that, gay marriage is now legal, allowing people of all sexual orientations to promise lifelong commitments that will make them as miserable as heterosexuals have historically been. And, of course, you’ve got Mitch and Cam on the sitcom “Modern Family” to remind us how far we have come from the Stonewall Riots. So, the U.S. is engaged in one big, happy group hug to celebrate our inclusiveness.
Okay. So, what about Luke O’Donovan?
On New Year’s day, 2013, Luke was attacked by a group of men yelling homophobic slurs. They beat and kicked him. It was a textbook queer bashing, a hatecrime according to federal statute. Greatly outnumbered, Luke used a knife to defend himself.
He was hospitalized for his injuries… And arrested at th August, Luke was sentenced to 2 years in prison, 8 years probation, and “banishment.”
Yep. You heard that right. Banishment. Didn’t even know that was a thing anymore. I thought that ended with walking the plank or getting drawn and quartered. But apparently, it’s still available to get the gay people out of the neigjborhood. But, I digress.
Let’s remember these events are occurring in the America that sent gay former athletes to the Olympics to protest Russian homophobia, an America that celebrates gay marriage. So what happened to the warm, fuzzy moment? Why wasn’t Luke O’Donovan invited to the big, happy group hug?
By the facts, Luke was the victim of a federal hatecrime. Gay bashing. And yet, the victim was prosecuted and imprisoned.
The state says it pursued charges against Luke because he fought back, not because he’s gay. But fighting back is self defense. And by admitting it went after Luke for fighting back, the state is implicitly admitting that others were attacking him first.
If Luke were straight and defended himself against an assault carried out by a crowd of people, would he be prosecuted? There seems to be a pattern developing where gay and trans people are held to a different standard, including the case of CeCe McDonald in Minnesota.
If people not gender-vanilla get attacked, it seems the State expects them to cram their hands in their pockets and passively get beaten and kicked to death in order to have the benefit of the straight system’s laws. The homophobes running the courts are so steeped in the dominant gender-norm narrative and history of sexual repression, they perpetute the dominant culture’s efforts to assimilate everyone into straightness, even more obvious when gays demonstrate a reasonable drive to defend their own lives. It becomes an opportunity to “teach that queer a lesson.”
After all, if they don’t crack down on Luke and others minding their own business, you’ll soon have an epidemic of knife-wielding, militant, lone-wolf gays attacking straight people. Heterosexuals won’t be safe in public.
Right. Ridiculous.
The prosecution and imprisonment of Luke O’Donovan sends a clear and not-so-subtle message to the LBGT community, letting them know that despite all the window,dressing, queer bashing is still permitted and encouraged by the fascist elite with winks and nods. It’s done in a way that the U.S. can look down its nose at those backward Russians, while still acting just like them.
Luke O’Donovan remains in a Georgia prison until 2016, but fences and walls only remove him from the presence of his friends and supporters and but not from our hearts. Learn more about his case at letlukego.wordpress.com. Send him mail or put a few dollars on his commissary. When Luke is freed, we can all resume the big, happy group hug and the fuzzy feel good moment. His imprisonment is a hate crime.
Free Luke O’Donovan.
For …, this is anarchist prisoner Sean Swain from Ohio’s supermax facility. If you’re listening, you ARE the resistance…