Gays Beginning to Fight Back : Civil rights: Activists and civic leaders say ‘bashing’ has become an everyday occurrence. Homosexuals are increasingly fearful--and angry.

It has become a violent ritual that is replayed in this seaside village with chilling consistency: Rowdy young men, sometimes brandishing pipes, knives or firearms, breeze into Laguna Beach looking for fun.

Often, by the time they are gone, someone lies broken and bleeding. Police can point to only one motive: The victim was targeted because the young toughs thought he was gay.

The latest attack, which left a slender 55-year-old man near death on the beach, has triggered a new round of concern among community leaders and gay groups who are debating why such assaults occur and how to stop them.

While attacks of such ferocity are infrequent, some gay activists say these serious crimes, combined with lesser assaults, are having a cumulative effect on their community. Already staggered by the AIDS epidemic, gays and lesbians from across Orange County say a heightened sense of anger, and in some cases fear, is spreading.

For years, gays throughout the county have dodged insults, eggs, bottles and paint pellets. But enough, they say, is enough.

At midnight Friday, in wind-whipped rain, about 200 men and women from Orange and Los Angeles counties gathered in Laguna Beach for a candlelight vigil. Just steps from the site of latest beating, they prayed for the victim and demanded an end to gay-bashing.

Earlier in the week, the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Garden Grove announced it will begin holding self-defense classes in Laguna Beach.

“The fear level is just at a fever pitch,” said Jeff LeTourneau, a longtime gay activist who has received death threats and whose Anaheim home was ransacked and spray-painted with anti-homosexual slogans in 1990.

“I think that what happened (in Laguna Beach) is just an utter outrage, but it’s very important that people know that this type of thing, although not this severe, is almost a daily occurrence in that area and in other areas of Orange County.”

Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, estimates that 125 hate crimes--from painting swastikas on walls to attempted murder--were reported to local authorities in 1992. But all agree that many more incidents go unreported.

Experts say a complex variety of factors create the mind set that leads to gay-bashing. Among the psychological ingredients can be ignorance on the part of the assailants, their desire for acceptance or an insecurity about their own masculinity or sexuality.

Others say that while part of the problem stems from the psychological makeup of the thugs involved in the assaults, political and social factors help forge an atmosphere in which gays may be dehumanized and made acceptable targets.

To psychologists, gay-bashing is a crime that says more about the perpetrator than the victim.

“In order for a gay person to evoke this kind of fear and rage anonymously it has to trigger something in these young men that hits them someplace that they’re real vulnerable,” said Stan W. Ziegler, a Beverly Hills psychologist who counsels adolescents. Otherwise, it just wouldn’t matter to them.”

“It’s not about (the victims) because they don’t know those people,” he said. “It’s almost as though by destroying that gay person, verbally or physically, they’re trying to destroy that part of themselves.”

Gregory Herek, a social psychologist at UC Davis, said the desire to be accepted, within a peer group or society, can also be a factor. Young men may be trying to “measure up,” he said.

“Within our society, frequently they can get approval by bashing people who are disliked,” said Herek, who was an editor of the book “Hate Crimes: Confronting Violence Against Lesbians and Gay Men.” “In particular, lesbians and gay men qualify (because) they are very disliked in our society.”

Some Orange County activists say ignorance is at the heart of the problem, a lack of understanding fostered by a political climate that blocks efforts to explain homosexuality in Orange County schools.

Analysts say some families, schools, churches and government leaders must rethink the message they send about homosexuality as inherently evil morally, a message that flashes the green light for gay-bashing.

“It feeds into the young mind,” said Richard Ammon, a Laguna Beach psychologist whose patients include many gay men. “The problem is, there’s still no major antidote going on.”

In the recent incident, police said, a group of South County males “got bored” at a nonalcoholic club in Laguna Beach and went to an area near three popular gay bars. At the beach there, police said, two young men and a juvenile allegedly confronted the victim and one said “You (expletive) faggot . . . we’re going to get you.”

One of the adults shoved the victim to the rocky shelf of beach and the other allegedly stomped repeatedly on his head, police said.

On Tuesday, prosecutors charged San Clemente High School student Jeff Michael Raines, 18, with attempted murder, aggravated assault, inflicting great bodily injury and committing a hate crime. Christopher Michael Cribbins, 22, of San Clemente and the juvenile are scheduled to be arraigned in coming weeks.

While relatives of the victim, who remains in serious condition in Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo, say they do not believe he is gay, police have labeled the incident a hate crime because they say the alleged assailants went to the beach looking for gay men.

Gays and lesbians say they are constantly aware they could be victimized simply because of their sexual orientation.

M. Dan Wooldridge, a Laguna Beach planning commissioner and leader of the Garden Grove gay and lesbian center, said he has known fear since the day he “came out” about his homosexuality.

“My experience is, I’ve never been without it,” Wooldridge said. “When I go into an area . . . and I know I’m going to be identified or suspected to be a gay person, it’s like an awareness. When I get out of the car, I look both ways, there’s this additional muscle tension and there’s probably some adrenaline flowing. It’s not like I get out of a car and I just relax and laugh and talk and forget about it.”

Laguna Beach resident Letty Ledbetter, a former co-chair of the educational group Laguna Outreach, said she is fed up with ongoing “acts of terror.”

“I think I am always at risk,” Ledbetter said. “It’s time to take back our community.”

Laguna Beach City Councilman Robert F. Gentry, who is gay, said this latest beating struck his city like “an earthquake.”

“This was a terrorist attack,” Gentry said. “We’re not going to take it anymore.”

Rebecca Chadwick, co-chair of Elections Committee of Orange County, said vitriolic anti-gay statements by leaders of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition and conservative politicians contribute to attacks against gays.

“You never hear them advocate violence, but words they use to describe gays and lesbians are hateful words that create a climate that encourages others to bash, to beat and to kill,” Chadwick said.

“If you are told that a group of people is evil, that they are out to assault your children, that what they do is morally wrong, then it’s OK to beat this person senseless because they’re queer.”

A spokesman for the Traditional Values Coalition, however, strongly condemned the beating and said such blame is misdirected. In addition, Steve Pendergraft indicated, any trend toward militancy could backfire.

“It is wrong for the homosexual community to finger-point at others when their movement’s biggest enemy is its own radical element,” he said. “Protests, throwing condoms and public kissing antagonizes and provokes strife and anger, which creates a reaction in irrational people who take out their emotions with violence.”

Matthew Cunningham of Orange County Together--a group formed after the Los Angeles riots to promote harmony in this area--told members Tuesday night that it is unfair to blame a group or the larger society for the actions of a few.

“Holding everybody responsible is like holding nobody responsible,” he said.

As there are differences about what causes such attacks, there are also varying viewpoints about the effect assaults are having on gays. Some are more furious than fearful. Some demand vengeance.

And Ammon said most gays are not particularly vulnerable to physical assault because they don’t go to places where such attacks occur. “There are thousands of gay men and lesbians in Laguna Beach, and there is a minority” who are openly gay and active in the community.

Even those who do mingle in public places generally don’t get hurt, he said.

“If they got beat up 99 times out of 100, they wouldn’t go back,” Ammon said. “The risk of actual violence is small, and these guys know that.”

But Ammon and others say the lesser assaults cast a pall over their community that amounts to another form of bashing.

The emotions are detectable: a flicker of resignation on the face of the bartender at the Little Shrimp, a gay bar in Laguna Beach, as he answers the sixth obscene phone call in a 45-minute period; the husky sadness in Ammon’s voice when he describes half a dozen stains splattered on the same business by passing motorists.

“What right does somebody have to come and throw rotten food at my local gay bar?” he asked. Being gay “is absolutely not a choice any more than heterosexuality is a choice. And yet, because this is the way I am, they will despoil my local gay bar? They will yell shameful names at my friends?”

Some community leaders want to move beyond a discussion of cause and effects to tackle the ongoing harassment of gays in Orange County. They are busily sketching out new game plans.

Kennedy of the Human Relations Commission said ignorance is at the root of the problem and the solution must begin with education.

A lack of understanding about homosexuality breeds fear, he said, which in turn allows an assailant to “dehumanize” a potential victim.

“The perpetrator has to dehumanize the person before they can attack them that way,” Kennedy said. “It’s a sad commentary on the violent nature of our community as well.”

However, Virginia Uribe, who founded Project 10, a program to help gay and lesbian students in Los Angeles County public schools, said it is difficult to start such projects in Orange County because “the administrators and school board simply don’t have the courage to stand up for what is right.”

“They are willing to allow discrimination against gays and lesbians,” she said.

Some said that past efforts to educate Orange County youth about homosexuality have been thwarted by the forceful lobbying by the Traditional Values Coalition.

“In this county, if you were to try to have a project like that, (the Rev.) Lou Sheldon and the Traditional Values Coalition would threaten every school board member with ouster at election time,” gay activist LeTourneau said.

But coalition spokesman Pendergraft said it is inappropriate to single out one group of potential victims for educational remedies when others, such as the homeless or children in gang-ridden cities, do not get such attention.

“No one deserves to be beaten and there should be educational programs,” he said, “but those school programs that promote the homosexual lifestyle shouldn’t be promoted because it offends parents.”

There is no such program in any county school.

Laguna Beach school administrators said this week they will begin holding talks with students about homophobic attitudes and what might have motivated this recent attack.

But in Laguna, with its estimated 30% gay population, it is politically easier to tackle this complex issue that pushes a switchboard of emotional buttons. And most say the attackers usually come from elsewhere in the county, which is where the real awakening needs to take place.

“It’s usually guys from outside of town,” said a bartender at a gay bar, who identified himself only as J.D. “The local kids are cooler. Maybe they’re used to it more, I don’t know.”

At the rainy vigil Saturday, in the first hour of a new day, UC Irvine student Kathy Trotter said she doubts homophobia will ever end.

“Hopefully, it will get better,” she said, her young face illuminated by candlelight. “But I don’t think it will ever go away because it’s different, and it will always be different.”

Times staff writers Davan Maharaj and Len Hall contributed to this report.

Roster of Hate

Crimes against homosexuals such as verbal harassment and intimidating acts such as slashed tires and hurled objects frequently occur but are not always reported to police. Other incidents, like those described below, have caused serious bodily harm and property damage. June 19, 1988: A 42-year-old Irvine man and his companion were beaten by two men after leaving a gay bar in Laguna Beach. The Irvine man lost sight in his left eye and six front teeth as a result of his injuries. His companion was not seriously injured. No arrest was made. July 14, 1988: Three youths claiming to be neo-Nazis beat 40-year-old Robert Joyce with a lead pipe in Laguna Beach’s Heisler Park. He was knocked unconscious and required 70 stitches. Two other attacks occurred in the park on the same night. Three arrestees received maximum prison sentences--the first conviction in the state under a 1987 civil rights statute outlawing hate crimes. July 31, 1988: A man identified by Laguna Beach police as a transient was beaten and kicked in Heisler Park by three men in what police called a gay-bashing attack. Aug. 7, 1988: Shots from a high-powered rifle were fired from across Coast Highway in the direction of a gay bar in Laguna Beach. No one was injured and no arrests made. Sept. 9, 1988: Several men with shaved heads attacked a 40-year-old Garden Grove man while he walked on Gaviota Drive in Laguna Beach. The men kicked and punched the victim. Police investigated it as a possible gay-bashing incident. Jan. 16, 1990: Laguna Beach and San Clemente police arrested three former prison inmates as suspects in a murder spree that targeted gays in Mississippi and New York. One of those arrested, Keith Eugene Goodman, was a guest in the home of a gay Laguna Beach man who responded to Goodman’s plea for a pen pal while in prison. March 28, 1990: Attorney John Duran, who represents gays and lesbians, found a sticker depicting a swastika along with the words “Trash ‘em, Smash ‘em, Make “em Die” slapped over the business sign of his office in Anaheim. Oct. 30, 1990: Vandals burglarized, ransacked and spray-painted anti-homosexual slogans on the walls of Jeff LeTourneau’s home in Anaheim. LeTourneau, founder of one of Orange County’s most vocal gay rights organizations, complained when police initially classified the crime as a common burglary instead of a hate crime. Jan. 15, 1991: A 37-year-old man was kidnaped by three men who flagged him down on Gaviota Drive in Laguna Beach. He was forced at gunpoint to a dark cul-de-sac, where the men beat him while shouting anti-gay slurs. After a resident noticed the commotion and shouted from his window, the men stopped but shot the victim in the leg. No arrest has been made. Source: Times reports; compiled by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times