Gay Bashers Face Thirty Years For Hate

Juan Carlos Lopez, Luis M. Alonso Piovet, Adonis Diaz, and Pablo Reinaldo Romo-Figueroa—left to right in the photo—the four thugs accused of attacking a gay couple, Rene Chalarca and Dmitry Logunov, on South Beach will face new, stiffer charges under Florida's hate-crime enhancement law. Each one of the four could face up to 30 years in prison if found guilty.

Good.

The attack occurred last month, during Miami Beach's annual gay-pride parade, when one of the two men accidentally bumped into Juan Carlos Lopez on Ocean Drive. Lopez and his little band of hate-mongering homophobes began shouting, calling the victims "maricones," an anti-gay slur in Spanish. On surveillance video, you see the four repeatedly punching the two gay men in the face, causing cuts and bruises. Helmut Muller, an onlooker, chased the attackers to try and stop them, but he was also attacked and beaten.

A day later, after Miami Beach police released that video of the attack, the four men turned themselves in to police. Under Florida law, aggravated battery is a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, but if the attack is committed because of someone's sexual orientation, the crime becomes a first-degree felony, punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

And clearly, the homophobic slurs shouted by these four thugs will show it to be a Hate Crime, and hopefully all four will be off the streets for thirty years and live as someone’s bitch in a Florida prison.

We’ve come a long way in the movement, but we’re still being attacked and beaten on the streets of America just for being gay.

That must end. Hate must end.

Miami Herald