The law needs to be reclassified quickly
Elliot Taylor asks why homophobic attacks aren’t treated as hate crimes by York police
Reform within Yorkshire Police’s classification system is needed. The rights of those involved with homophobic attacks are currently overlooked by police policy. Such crimes are treated as ‘diversity crimes’ which provide a distorted view of the victim.
If these attacks were treated as ‘hate attacks’ then there would be a greater degree of anonymity which is denied under the current classification. In doing so the victim is wrongly portrayed as the cause for their misfortune.
The recent homophobic attack on a York University student has highlighted this major flaw, and exposes a homophobic attitude that is evident in our everyday lives. With the incident occurring so close to home, the current position the Union has taken to eradicate these prejudiced attitudes must be supported.
The attack comes alongside a spate of violent incidents towards the homosexual community in the last year. These have led to fears that such attacks are becoming part of the norm, which could even lead to gay students having to hide their sexuality not only in order to become socially acceptable, but to survive their lives intact.
Such an anti-homosexual attitude seems to appear in much of university life. Campus events provide an insight into the presumed heterosexual environment which many people insist we live in. Controversial events such as Goodricke’s Doctor’s and Nurse’s might cater specifically for the heterosexual audience on campus. Much of our lives reek of this closed-minded thinking.
A more worrying example of this can be seen in the policy adopted by the National Blood Service which rejects blood donations from men who have had gay sex. By condemning gay men to the ‘high risk’ category perpetrates the myth that links aids to gay men. Such unjust stereotyping should not be at work in national services.
Although such policies were designed to ensure safe blood, they are out dated and the work of homophobic thinking.
The screening process which all blood goes through is considered infallible if the blood has been infected for more than 3 months.
Yet still policy does not take into account the true risk of the individual by making homosexual and heterosexual sex categorically different when both involve the risk of HIV infection. Another myth which promotes un-safe sex amongst heterosexual men, such complacent attitudes must be questioned in order to ensure greater understanding of AIDS. York’s LGBT officers are trying to introduce fairer policy within the National Blood Service.
It’s time to take these myths out of the handbook of publicizers and government committees and equal out the balance of the scales so as not to reflect age old laws and attitudes. There is no need to call for revolution on this topic.
Surely it isn’t too much to ask that we don’t take an attitude which seems outrightly unbalanced. A simple change in a few rules, and a few preconceptions is all that is needed.
We no longer find it acceptable to favour men over women in work, social life and suffrage. Why is it still acceptable to sideline marginals in society, casting them out as the ‘other,’ when rational advances in our thinking have favoured the demolition of racist and sexist overtones in everyday life.
