The AI report contains some horrifying cases, like this one:
"Frederick Mason, a 31-year-old African-American nurse’s assistant, was arrested by Chicago police officers in July 2000 after an argument with his landlord. Frederick Mason stated that he was taken to the police station where two unidentified officers took him to an interrogation room, handcuffed him by the elbows and pinned him to a wall. The arresting officer reportedly pulled down Frederick Mason’s pants, sprayed blue cleaning liquid on a billy club (truncheon) and used it to rape him. A second unidentified officer is alleged to have witnessed Frederick Mason’s pants being pulled down, but walked away during the rape. Witnesses have attested that Frederick Mason entered police custody in good health but when he was released he had blood streaming from his rectum; a family doctor confirmed that he had been injured in the anal area. Frederick Mason contends that he was subjected to racist and homophobic abuse from the moment he was arrested. In 2002, he received an out of court settlement."
How is it possible, that in a democratic country with functioning civic society 2 police officers dare to commit a rape in the office room and think they can get away with this? They must have been very sure that they will not face any troubles by their collegues and supeiriors - this being possible only when homophobia, racism and abuse of detainees are absolutely normal in the eyes of the entire department. This moral decay is not unknown at other countries, too - which brings up the question of how civilized are our "civilized countries" really. It does not matter whether somebody is straight or queer, rich or poor, brave tax payer or criminal, citizen or foreigner - no human being must be deprived of his basic human rights and dignity. The origin of all cruelties is in people beging to separate humans into "us" and "them" under the premise that "they" are less sensitive to torture, rape and abuse. Though punishment of trespassers is very important, the only way to prevent such excessive violence is to teach people what is right and what is wrong. As long as religious fundamentalists are allowed to publicly preach hate and disdain for LGBT people (and others), the sadists will feel encouraged by the society to bash, rape and kill and get away with this.
"[..] A Rhode Island study found that nearly half of LGBT youth end up having to leave their homes because of their families’ reaction to their sexual orientation or gender identity. It has been estimated that in some US cities up to 40 per cent of homeless young people are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Young LGBT people who are homeless may commit non-violent offences, such as sex work and theft, in order to survive life on the street, which invariably increases their contact with the police. One study found that up to half of the gay and bisexual young men forced out of their homes because of their sexual orientation engage in sex work to support themselves."
This much to the mythos that gays are especially wealthy. Surely: the visible, successfull and self-confident part of LGBT community might have more money left than their hetero friends with children. The others, who are poor and invisible, simply do not appear in the statistics. And, being poor is a security reason in almost every country.