A few readers have told me recently that they think I have a persecution complex on behalf of the gay community. Just because a gay gets beaten up, no matter how badly, or even killed, why does it mean that they automatically deserve sympathetic news coverage from either Capital Xtra or Xtra.ca?

After all, gays can be thugs, ruffians and scumbags too. After all, gays can be instigators of violence or put themselves in vulnerable positions where they should expect to get hurt, they say. Why am I always assuming that our brothers and sisters are somehow innocent victims?

[...]

Some of you are familiar with the gay-bashing murder of Aaron Webster. Webster died in the arm of a close friend in a popular gay cruising area, Vancouver's Stanley Park in 2001. The community immediately rallied and hundreds of protesters took to the streets, demanding justice.

But there were murmurs. Some gays, while sad about the death of Webster, began to wonder if he should have been more cautious. A guy goes out to a park looking to expose himself and have public sex, what does he expect?

And some even suggested that he deserved it.

Any justice-minded paper would be amiss to publish anything - particularly opinion pieces — that could threaten the possibility of any accused getting a fair trial.

[...]

One final note: it's the period between charging someone and when their trial begins that are, from a journalist's point of view, the mum period. Once the trial starts, the facts of the trial become fair game.

The above illustrates what's so often wrong with the gay press: it is the playground of dilettantes who mouth nonsense.

And some even suggested that he deserved it.