WATCH: Gay Russians Brutally Attacked on Camera ****GRAPHIC VIOLENCE****

[David Zephyr]

18. When we marched on Hollywood Boulevard in the mid-1970's we were harrassed the same way.

Lest anyone believe that it was always easy to be gay in the USA, it wasn't. I have friends (now passed) who were arrested and jailed for holding their loved one's hands inside a private bar. I have friends who were subjected to electro-shock treatment when they were teenagers in the 1960's by our "medical establishment" because they were "queer". I have friends who took their lives because living was too painful. Right here in the good ole USA.

Long before the parade on Santa Monica Boulevard became a celebratory event, there were marches up on Hollywood Boulevard where I and my friends were attacked, had beer bottles thrown at us exploding on the street with glass flying up in our faces, had the ugliest jeers and obscenities screamed at us and where the Los Angeles Policemen (yes, they were all police "men" back then) sat on their motorcycles and laughed at the abuse we put up with. My friend Cosmo had his face gashed with a beer bottle in 1977 right on Hollywood Boulevard with the cops smirking at him when they saw it happen.

These Russian LGBT heroes are at the forefront of their own battle there and they have my compassion and admiration.

The human race seems to always need someone or some group to hate and to assault.

William769, thank you for posting this today.