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A Trowbridge man suffered serious brain damage after he was set upon by four men who thought his limp wrist was a sign he was gay, a court has heard.

Asa Freeman, 33, was left with a limp left wrist after a stroke when he was younger, Swindon Crown Court was told.

Mr Freeman and his best friend, both of whom are heterosexual, were on a night out in Trowbridge when they were attacked by a group of men.
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"Mr Freeman [had spoken to the group, saying]..."'All right lads? Have a good evening'," prosecutor Andrew MacFarlane told the court.

He went on to say the group responded by calling Mr Freeman and a "faggot" and a "queer". [Then they attacked.]
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Mr Freeman suffered a blood clot on the brain that required him to be airlifted to Frenchay Hospital near Bristol for immediate surgery.

He is still in hospital, having recently regained "a sort of consciousness" from a coma, [the prosecutor] said.

"Mr Freeman is unable to perform any functions for himself," he said.

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No, I don't think anywhere is entirely safe as long as homophobia exists.

I want to say 'let's wait until it comes to trial', after all, they've grabbed the four wastes of skin they think did it. The trick will be proving it and then attempting to get them a reasonable (harsh) sentence, not just 'oh, well, it's GBH, but they're nice working lads with families, so let's give them a month and time served', or some other worthless sentence that the British courts hand down all too frequently.

This is no better than the old News of the World campaign against paedophiles (note spelling) that wound up with paediatricians getting assaulted at their homes and outside their practices.

When I was living in Europe I'd often see British people - and not just youths but men of 35-40 years (and I suppose women too, but I happened to notice more men, or perhaps they were just more menacing) staggering around, spending every moment of their holiday as drunk as humanly possible, getting into fights.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
Is there anywhere in the world where it's really safe to be gay? I always thought vancouver was a safe haven for gay canucks, but judging from the stories that have been coming out of the city of late, I don't think that's the case anymore.

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Unfortunately, probably not. But, certain areas are relatively safer than others.

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Originally posted by Hephaestion:
Short answer? No, there isn't *anywhere* that is totally safe.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

What about Stockholm?

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Originally posted by Sven:

I wonder where more physical violence against gays occurs: In metropolitan areas or rural areas? My hunch is in rural areas, but I don't know.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

While their are many homopobic pricks in Fernie(the guy who drove my school bus during the last two years of my highschool career was particularly inollerent when it came to gay folks) I can only remember one gay bashing incident taking place here.

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Paradoxically, there may actually be less violence against gays in small towns and rural areas for two reasons: (1) If you had a choice, why would you live in a small town where most people think gays are the spawn of Satan himself and (2) for those gays who do live in small towns and rural areas, they are often (with good reason) reluctant to be open about who they are.

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Sven, while I'm aware of the homophobia in my small town, part of me recoils from condemning all small towns everywhere as homophobic cesspits.

[ 07 November 2005: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

I also think it's important to keep in mind the rural-urban distribution of population when thinking about this- most of the news (atleast in Canada) comes from cities period.

The lack of anonimity can also go the other way. Everyone will know who did what in a small town, so there's a certain amount of protecting themselves that the people who do these awful things engage in. It's one thing to beat someone up- that happens regularly enough- but to put someone in the hospital can mean suddenly the whole town knows it and the whole town is against you.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
Sven, while I'm aware of the homophobia in my small town, part of me recoils from condemning all small towns everywhere as homophobic cesspits.

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aRoused, where do you suppose the horrible excesses in drunken violence come from in contemporary Britain?

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- Britain under Labour has seen certain segments of society become more affluent than they were during the 80s.
- There is a national obsession with conspicuous consumption, a sort of attempt to 'outbling' America.
- I might even add the boom in house prices into the mix: if you're more affluent than you would have been in the 80s, but still can't afford to buy a home, you'll turn that money to other purposes, in line with the above two points.
And finally:
- Booze is *incredibly* cheap in the UK, relative to the prices of everything else. When I look at the cost of things here adjusted for exchange rates, most things are twice as expensive as they are in Canada. A litre of milk costs me about a pound, $2-$2.30, depending on the exchange rate. BUT, alcohol is almost the same price as it is in Canada. A litre of Bell's whisky is about £15, so about $30-$35, which is about what it would cost to buy in Canada. And alcohol is the only thing I've found here that's at par with Canadian prices.