We Are Failing to Protect LGBT People

My neighbor, John Palmieri, has been harassing me with homophobic hate speech for 33 years. I’ve reported this harassment to numerous government (and other) agencies (New York Commission on Human Rights, New York City District Attorney, NYPD, Anti-Violence Project) and they haven’t done anything about it. I’ve also contacted my State Assemblymember and State Senator. I have video and audio documentation of this harassment, which I’ve shared with them. I’ve filed a police complaint and met in person with the District Attorney.

They’ve all basically said that unless he physically attacks me, there’s nothing they can do.

I believe that his actions constitute criminal harassment. I also think he’s mentally ill and, therefore, I don’t know what he’s capable of doing in terms of physically harming me.

This comes at a time when anti-LGBT violence and mental illness are both at an all-time high.

Here are links to two videos I’ve posted on my Facebook page which document Mr. Palmieri’s harassment and threats against me.

https://www.facebook.com/paul.hallasy/posts/10157290793887476

https://www.facebook.com/paul.hallasy/posts/10157330716552476

In the first one, you can hear him saying (about me) “this motherfucker,” “faggot motherfucker” and “gay motherfucking asshole.”

In the second one, he says “I’ll knock him out, kick him in the face.”

This is a violent threat.

The reality is that the way the law is currently written, it actually protects people like John Palmieri and endangers people like me. If you spoke to any of these agencies, they’d say that Mr. Palmieri is protected by the First Amendment.

However, the First Amendment does not protect hate speech and this is clearly hate speech.

We’ve seen what hate speech can do, because for the last four years we’ve had a president who engages in it frequently. People have died and been seriously injured because of hate speech and will continue to die and be seriously injured unless we do something about it.

But we can’t do anything about it unless and until the people whose job it is to protect us do their job.

That is why I’m sharing the contact information for these people. If you’re as angry about anti-LGBT violence and hate speech as I am (and/or are angry because I’ve been the victim of such hate speech), please feel free to share your feelings with the people below.

Melissa Melo
Human Rights Specialist - Law Enforcement Bureau
New York Commission on Human Rights
22 Reade St. New York, NY 10007
T: 2124160216 NYC.gov/HumanRights
Pronouns: She/her/hers

Ana Sophia Radolinksy
Assistant District Attorney
Radolinskia@dany.nyc.gov
(212) 335-3667
(917) 239-3114

NYPD Fifth Precinct
William.Campaign@nypd.org
Lucian.Velazquez@nypd.org

Anti-Violence Project
212-714-1141

State Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou
212-312-1420
niouy@nyassembly.gov

State Senator Brian Kavanagh
212-298-5565
kavanagh@nysenate.gov

The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

I’ve been thinking about (and listening to) the Bee Gees a lot in the last few days, after watching their HBO documentary, The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. Although I found the documentary utterly entertaining and thought it was extremely well done, I also found it profoundly sad. Lead singer Barry Gibbs’ three younger brothers (Robin, Maurice and Andy) are now all deceased (as Barry says at one point, he’d rather have his brothers back and no hit records), and his once mighty head of brown hair is now limp, gray wisps. It was like watching my life flash before my eyes, because the Bee Gees’ career coincided with key periods of my life, from their early ’60s hits (“I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You,” “Run to Me”), to their early ’70s rebirth (“Lonely Days,” “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”), to their spectacular success in the late ’70s (Saturday Night Fever, Spirits Having Flown).

I’ve been thinking about music in general and what you might call the circle of life, to borrow another musician’s phrase. Coldplay’s Chris Martin put it well in the documentary when he talked about the backlash the Bee Gees faced after Saturday Night Fever. He said that younger bands like his can now anticipate the rising and falling of musical careers, but bands in the first wave of international stardom didn’t know how to react.

I thought about the careers of white-hot musicians I myself have seen rise and fall (like Madonna and Lady Gaga, to mention only two of the most recent examples).

By now it’s become a cliché to say that the Bee Gees were more than just a “disco” band, and this documentary makes that abundantly clear by showcasing their decades-long career and enormous music catalogue. (I myself have known this for a long time, but I guess it’s news for people who only know them from Saturday Night Fever.)

Personally, my own music collection runs the gamut from Abba to the Sex Pistols. After several musical purges, where I got rid of records either because I didn’t think were “cool” enough (I still regret not saving my childhood and adolescent record collection), or because for the first six years I lived in New York City I moved an average of once a year (and records are heavy), I’ve finally reached the age of “I don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks.”

It’s important to remember, too, that the Bee Gees were sex symbols (at least Barry was) and a cultural phenomenon. It wasn’t just their music, it was their skin-tight white suits unbuttoned to the navel, their hairy chests, their gold medallions. (And, when I saw that rear shot of them performing onstage at the Spirits Having Flown tour, my first thought was of six Parker House rolls.)

There’s been a slew of rock documentaries lately on HBO and Showtime. They fall into either what I call the career-resuscitating documentary (of which this might be one, along with the recent career-spanning documentary of the Eagles) and what I call “grief porn”—documentaries about those artists who died either tragically young or in tragic circumstances (or both): Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse. I guess people my age are no longer buying music, so the idea is to catch us where we live—on cable TV! (The last “new” artist I bought was Lady Gaga. And who can blame me? The charts are now dominated by hip-hop and 19-year-old divas.)

The documentary ends on a hopeful note, with Barry singing his new country-tinged single, “Butterfly,” along with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings (and it’s great to hear Barry singing three-part harmony again), and a scene of Barry performing at the Glastonbury Festival, with the stagehands performing disco dance moves.

When faced with the question of, to use the title of a Bee Gees song, immortality (or, as Queen sang “Who wants to live forever?”), maybe I should ask myself, “What would Barry do?”