I hope that all justice, and no more than justice, comes down on the perpetrators. Thank god we’re not a country where jailhouse rapes are commonplace. Our system is terribly flawed, but not yet that terribly flawed.

Coming close on the heels of the guy in the West End who smashed people indiscriminately with a hammer in the evening of the Pride Parade, I hope these incidents aren’t indicative of a trend.

I’ve been persuaded lately that the teaching of “tolerance” in our society is far too shallow a goal. One should not have to be reminded of the positive traits of various cultures and lifestyles in order to avoid smashing strangers in the face. A simple, across the board respect for all human beings, regardless of background, that precludes the stupidity of improvised street violence is really what we’re after.

The whole thing just sickens me.

I would suggest that SOME people from a variety of places are very hateful. It happens in every city, as Joe indicates.

It is an act of cowardice, very well described by raincoaster and Greg.

I am not generalizing all the people from Vancouver or the 604 area as gay bashers. The point I am trying to make is that we ought to try and find ways to help stop the violence.

@ Joe – Agreed, there are a lot of other problems that should be looked at. I was just irked by this particular one recently, but I’ve written about many other problems (particularly environmental since that’s my area of expertise) in my blog.

Thanks everyone for chiming in.

Although I’m perfectly straight, I was approached by people who wanted to fight someone and were just looking for that as a good reason. It only took a few second before they changed their minds after silently acknowledging a fight with me for them would be disastrous.

I think there are a lot of issues to be brought up, and gaybashing is just one of them. Another could be the spread of disease, by various method, like microbial contamination of aquatic, airborn, residue, biological fluids contact, or other nature.

Also chemical toxins like smoke partials from cigarettes & car exhaust.. bus stops and parking lots could arguably be labled as bio-hazard zones.

That was the case with the lesbian bashing of what, two years ago? in Gastown. Guys came in from Surrey specifically to bash gays.

To try and directly answer the question “What’s wrong with this city?”, in this instance I’d say it’s angsty douchenozzles from the suburbs who flock into Granville St as their drunken playground and can’t respect Downtown as a neighbourhood where people live.