Sick People

I couldn’t believe this story. It’s very sad. I suppose some people, like the legislator in Kansas, would rather something like this happen than have the child adopted by a gay family. It’s just amazing some things people will do.

Ronnie Paris would shake, wet himself and vomit as his father forced him into a box and repeatedly slapped him on the head in an effort to prevent him from being gay, the child’s mother, Nysheerah Paris, testified Monday. The boy was 3 years old when he died from swelling on both sides of the brain on January 28.

Others backed up the mother’s testimony on the first day of the capital murder trial of Ronnie Paris Jr., 21, of Tampa, Florida. Paris is accused of physically abusing the toddler until the boy slipped into a coma.

“He was trying to teach him how to fight,” the boy’s aunt, Shanita Powell, told the court. “He was concerned that the child might be gay.”

“He didn’t want him to be a sissy,” Shelton Bostic, the defendant’s Bible-study friend, testified.

Ronnie’s death followed a history of physical abuse, according to Prosecutor Jalal Harb. (source)

And this from the New York Blade:

Preachers can raise a lot of money in their direct mailings by bashing gays from the pulpit. And politicians can get lots of votes by urging discrimination against gay Americans.

But there is a price to be paid.

As the testimony unfolding in a Tampa murder trial this week demonstrates, playing to people’s homophobic fears can have deadly consequences.

Ronnie Paris Jr. thought his 3-year-old son, Ronnie Paris, was “soft” and told a a friend that he “didn’t want him to be a sissy.” The boy’s aunt testified that his father “was concerned that the child might be gay.” Ronnie Paris Jr. was determined to change that. So he regularly boxed with the child in an effort to toughen him up, slapping him in the head until he cried.

He was going to beat the gay out of him, even if it killed the boy. And in this case, the prosecutor maintains that it did.