After Gay-Bashing Crime, St. Maarten Awaits Greta Van Susteren's Wrath
Last week, a group of six New Yorkers were on a Caribbean vacation in St. Maarten. Two of them were brutally beaten — one, Dick Jefferson, a 51-year-old top producer at the CBS Evening News, is out of the hospital but now has a titanium plate in his head; the other, a 25-year-old researcher there, remains in intensive care with brain injuries. Why were they beaten? Because they're gay, and the attackers had earlier that night been thrown out of a bar for heckling Smith and his boyfriend, Justin Swenson. ABCNews.com did a thorough story earlier this week, which made an interesting point:
The part of the island of St. Maarten where the assault took place is Dutch territory in the Caribbean, just like the island of Aruba. It was almost a year ago that Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba. Since then, her parents have had an exasperating odyssey through the island's Dutch legal system. Smith's family and friends are bracing for a similar journey.
St. Maarten police, Jefferson said, initially did not want to investigate the incident.
So. A promising 25-year-old American was beaten nearly to death while on vacation, and an impassive Dutch-colonial government is unwilling or uninterested to adequately investigate or prosecute the crime. We're sure the cable networks will be as excited as when Natalee Holloway, a promising 19-year-old American, disappeared while on vacation and an impassive Dutch-colonial government is unwilling or uninterested to adequately investigate or prosecute the crime.
After all, it's not like they would care more about a Southern blonde girl than a New York gay of indeterminate hair color? Of course not.
