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queer organizing and the gay marriage fight

Last December an Ecuadorian immigrant, Jose Sucuzhañay, was attacked while walking arm in arm with his brother on the street in Brooklyn. The attacker shouted anti-Latino and anti-gay epithets. Sucuzhañay died soon after the beating.

The aftermath of the attack brought together Ecuadorian organizations, gay rights groups and community organizations (the major one was Make the Road NY, one of the few organizations to that does grassroots organizing with poor queer people of color) to condemn the attack and call for unity against homophobic and racist attacks.

Despite the fact that the brothers did not identify as gay (at least not publicly), the attack showed the extent to which anti-gay violence continues to threaten the lives of poor people of color. Make the Road now uses this incident in its anti-homophobia trainings at local public high schools, where the majority of students are recent immigrants from Latin America.

I agree that it's important to support the fight for marriage equality, but it's really regrettable that organizing efforts like the one I just described are being backgrounded by media, funders and mainstream gay organizations in favor of gay marriage.

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