Gay Animal Rights Activist Brutally Attacked

I don't know Nathan Runkle personally. We've never officially met. But I certainly know of him and his work with Mercy for Animals, which he founded when he was just 15 years old. He's the dedicated activist featured in the trailer to the documentary Fowl Play, to which I directed you a couple weeks ago. When I included him in an e-mail on Tuesday, about the last chance for voting on the Ideas project, I received an auto-reply indicating that he wasn't responding to e-mails because of a medical emergency. I worried and hoped everything was all right, but didn't know anything about what was going on.

Now I do. And now I'm nauseous. I just read on SuperWeed that Nathan Runkle, an activist as peaceful as they come, was viciously attacked last weekend in a gay bashing. Upon reading about this physical attack, I found myself feeling silly for having been upset last night and this morning over discovery of a forum thread in which people were calling me harsh names and raving about how much they hate me. This news puts a verbal attack like that into serious perspective. Now I'm just angry as hell on Nathan's behalf that people are so capable of not only expressing but acting on unwarranted hatred against strangers.

You can read the press release regarding the attack here. Pattrice Jones has written at SuperWeed about what we can do in response:

A lot of people in the AR movement have been calling me, wondering what we can do. Gay bashing is a lot like rape in that it’s especially important to be mindful of what the victim wants when framing a response. So, first, we can all look out for what Nathan and Mercy for Animals say about what should be done. Next, we can use informed inference to figure out what else might be appropriate.

The [Mercy for Animals] press release says that Nathan wants sexual orientation included in Ohio’s hate crimes legislation. So, one thing that those of us who know and love — or just know of and respect — Nathan can do is join the effort to make that happen.

Next, we know that Mercy for Animals, as the press release states, “has long worked to bridge the gap between the common prejudices which lead to oppression and abuses faced by both animals and minorities.” MFA has marched in gay pride parades carrying a banner reading “NO ONE IS FREE WHILE OTHERS ARE OPPRESSED” and has picketed gay rodeos.

So, if you’re somebody who cares about or works on LGBTQ issues but has not (yet) integrated the animals into your analysis of oppression, let this attack on a gay man who has dedicated himself to animal rights motivate you to educate yourself about the connections. And, if you’re a straight animal liberationist or veg*n advocate who hasn’t thought deeply about your heterosexual privilege and what obligations you might have to divest yourself of that, let this near-deadly attack on a gay animal advocate remind you (if Proposition 8 and Obama’s selection of a homophobic preacher to speak at his inauguration did not) that homophobia is still alive and dangerous.

In both instances: Educate yourself about the intersections and then figure out how you might integrate what you learn into your activism and your daily life. Those of us who are already hip to that particular intersection ought to realize that there’s always more for us to learn too. Finally, all of us can be inspired by Nathan’s relentless activism and take up the charge to do just a little bit more while he’s recovering from this terrible trauma.

---
Photo: Rescue of a discarded hen, left for dead and later named Hope, during a Mercy for Animals egg farm investigation.