Dan Savage, Village Voice columnist responsible for the amazing weekly, Savage Love writes this in today’s issue :

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY: The police in Fort Worth, Texas, marked the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion—three nights of rioting sparked by a “routine” police raid on a gay bar in New York City—by raiding a gay bar called the Rainbow Lounge. One of the men arrested, Chad Gibson, was so brutally assaulted by the police that, as of this writing, he remains hospitalized with a life-threatening brain injury.

Police Chief Jeff Halstead claims that the men at the Rainbow Lounge made lewd advances toward his officers and specifically accused Gibson, a slight 26-year-old, of groping one of his cops. This preposterous claim is contradicted by eyewitness accounts and photographic evidence.

We can’t let the police in Fort Worth use the Gay Panic Defense (”That fag touched me, so of course I beat him nearly to death!”) to excuse this brutal violation of the civil rights of Fort Worth’s gay community. If you’re on Facebook, please show your support by joining the Rainbow Lounge Raid group (www.tinyurl.com/lavecu). And please e-mail or call the mayor of Fort Worth—Mike Moncrief, 817-392-6118, mike.moncrief@fortworthgov.org—and demand a full investigation into the raid on the Rainbow Lounge and that charges be brought against the officers who assaulted Chad Gibson.

fuck.