Charlie Rogers Makes It Hard To Be Gay

You know, being A Gay is hard work. I mean, we ask to visit our loved ones in hospitals and we need a team of lawyers and the Constitution to do so. We have to enact legislation around the country just so we can't get fired or evicted simply for being A Gay. We want to get married but we're told we don't deserve "Special Rights." We want to adopt and some folks say we'll just molest the child, and make them into A Gay. It's hard work, and sometimes I wonder why I do it.

And sometimes, when I wonder why some people don’t like us, I read stories like this one:

Charlie Rogers, a Nebraska Lesbian told local police that she was attacked in her home on July 22. She said three men, all in black ski masks broke into her house, tied her up with zip ties, beat her and carved anti-gay slurs into her body. The men allegedly spray painted homophobic slurs around her house, and then doused it with gasoline before setting it on fire. Charlie Rogers did manage to escape around 4 a.m. and made her way to a neighbor’s home.

How utterly horrific.

Trouble is, it appears Charlie Rogers fabricated the entire tale, and now police in Lincoln have arrested her for making a false report. Rogers pleaded not guilty to the charges and her lawyer, Brett McArthur maintains that the attack did happen.

But police said after interviewing Rogers four different times, they discovered inconsistencies in her story: “A great deal of time and resources were spent investigating Charlie Rogers’ claims in hopes of identifying and arresting the three suspects in this case. As the investigation progressed and additional interviews were completed, the department received results from forensic analysts and experts making it apparent that the physical evidence conflicted with Charlie Rogers’ version of events.”

One of the things the police found odd, was when they entered Charlie Roger's house on the morning of July 22, they found the bed, upon which she said she was attacked and tied and bound, to be neatly made, with the bedspread appearing “neat” and “evenly placed on the bed.”

Rogers reportedly told police that she was attacked while in bed, and that she was rolled onto her stomach after the men cut her arms, her legs, her stomach, and chest, and yet there was no blood at all found on the bedspread. Forensic tests also found no blood.

Additionally, once the FBI became involved, because this looked to be an anti-gay Hate Crime, they sent photos of the cuts on Rogers' body to the Lancaster County coroner, as well as to Dr. Michelle Elieff, a forensic pathologist, who found that Rogers’ cuts appeared to be self-inflicted. Elieff also found no bruises on Roger's body, even though she alleges that the three men beat her.

To top it off, while investigating the "crime," police officers found clothing, a pair of white knit gloves and a red box cutter on the living room floor. Rogers denies the gloves were hers, but DNA tests proved that she was the “major contributor” of DNA inside of them, according to the warrant. And all of those items were purchased at a local hardware store five days before the attack, and a clerk at the store has indentified Charlie Rogers as the person who bought them.

As for the homophobic slurs spray[painted in the basement, police say they discovered them after Rogers told the responding officer about them the morning of her alleged attack. In later interviews, however, Rogers claimed she did not know anything about the graffiti because she left her house immediately after the attack.

Horrific. And once the story broke there were multiple vigils held around the county and thousands of LGBT-rights supporters donated money in support of Rogers. Charlie Rogers said she didn’t want to attend any of the vigils because she was in hiding, and wouldn’t speak publicly about her attack for fear of influencing the police investigation. 

After about a week, police had found no suspects, and began to question if Rogers invented the entire story. Part of their concern was a Facebook post Rogers wrote on July 18, just four days before the attack: "So maybe I am too idealistic, but I believe way deep inside me that we can make things better for everyone. I will be a catalyst. I will do what it takes. I will. Watch me." 

With the police questioning her veracity, Rogers spoke to the media on July 27, saying, “I understand that people sort of have a hard time wrapping their heads around the things that have happened, as do I. But I’m a person with feelings, with concerns. For people to think that this doesn’t happen here, it does. It did.”

Maybe it does, maybe there are Hate Crimes in Lincoln, and maybe gay men and women get attacked in their homes, but when someone like Charlie Rogers comes along and appears to have concocted this entire story, it makes it harder for police, and the public, to trust us when we say a Hate Crime actually occurred.

People like Charlie Rogers make it harder to be A Gay.

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