GOP Rep: Mississippi Needs Hate Crimes Law for LGBT, Disabled People
Waynesboro native Trevor Gray, 28, is known as a nice guy whose family taught him to see and expect the best in others. But on April 17, after moving back home to his smaller hometown from Jackson, he struck up a conversation at a local Wayne County bar that would challenge many people's faith in strangers.
He had started talking to two men at the bar—Landon McCaa, 32, and Toman Sion Brown, 28. When the bar closed, police say, McCaa invited all the patrons to his home for an after-party.
What happened next—which many believe was a hate crime because the men believe Gray was gay—was caught on viral Facebook video. One man reached out to apparently shake Gray's hand, but suddenly punched him instead. That man then pushed Gray to the ground, yelling while he kept punching him, as a second another man watched. Word is that the two men were heard screaming slurs at him because they believed him to be gay, even though he is not. Police later charged both McCaa and Brown with aggravated assault, the felony charge for attempted murder in Mississippi.
"Thinking about it, seeing the images of it, I don't and will likely never understand it," Gray told the Jackson Free Press earlier this month. "All I know for sure is that it won't change who I am. There is always a bright side, always a positive in any situation. I have always believed this, maybe to a fault, but that's just who I am."
Read more: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/apr/30/gop-rep-mississippi-needs-hate-crimes-law-lgbt-dis/
Congratulations to Rep. Missy McGee for awakening to the fact that people who aren't gay can also be subject to hate crimes.