Ex-`Top Chef' contestant is attacked
1 hour, 34 minutes ago

SEA CLIFF, N.Y. - A former contestant on Bravo's "Top Chef" was beaten by attackers yelling anti-gay slurs, her lawyer said.

Josie Smith-Malave, who was featured on the second season of the reality show, was among a small group of women who were asked to leave a Sea Cliff bar over Labor Day weekend, lawyer Yetta Kurland said Tuesday.

About 10 young people followed the women and began screaming anti-gay epithets, spitting on them and then beating them, Kurland said.

Smith-Malave, who is in her early 30s, is openly gay, Kurland said.

Nassau County police said they were investigating, but declined to provide details of the incident.

Smith-Malave, a Miami native, is a former sous-chef for Marlow and Sons restaurant in Brooklyn. She has played for the New York Sharks of the Independent Women's Football League.

It's a pity that shit like this still happens in the US.

Yeah, like it happened last year following a Gay Pride event in my town, PN. I don't know why the perps behave like that. They will pay for their actions.

Crap like this makes me sick.

I can recall when I was in college, I was aquainted through friends with a very small, frail gay man. I heard through the grapevine that one night on his way home from the store, he'd been pushed down and had his groceries stolen from him.

That was almost 20 years ago, and it still makes me feel pissed and sad when I think about it.

I just don't understand some of the things some people do.

They do it because there is tacit approval of it by society.

When it is socially acceptable to denigrate, demonize, dehumanize - even publically debate the right of these people to exist - how can we be surprised that such things happen - with regularity?

Let's face it - only the murders make the headlines - and not even then.

No, they do it because they have a desire to harm someone. It's the mob mentality. Men rape women for some of the same reasons and in some cases with the same MO.

It's not socially acceptable to do this, it's wrong. But it's always gonna happen to someone somewhere.

Tristan... none of what you cited is "socially acceptable."
Most people deplore hatred and violence. End of story.

And although I respect you as a person, I don't like the undertone of what you're saying. It's a tactic I've seen used over and over by the GLBT rights movement.

"If you disagree with us in any way, you're contributing by proxy to violence against GLBT people."

That's complete and utter bullshit.

The only halfway well-known person I know who condones violence against gays is Fred Phelps -- and he's widely recognized as an assclown... even among hardcore fundamentalist.

And as FX pointed out, there's all sorts of violence that goes on all the time that is NOT condoned or supported by the majority of society.

I hold violent trogdolytes responsibe for their own actions.

I have to believe the vast majority of society would not approve of this.

Tristan, again with all due respect, none of what you are trying to argue makes much sense or stands up to reason.

For starters, debating homosexuality does NOT = hateful slurs against gay people. Homosexuality might very well be a genetic, biological or medical miscue.

LOTS of things are such. There's no reason for a sensible person to "hate" or degenerate gay people.

The essense of your argument is, IMO, really not all that much different than those used by the PMRC back in the 80s in order to try to censor music.

I doubt the type of people who do things like killing the back man in Jasper, Texas really give a shit one way or another about "societal approval."
Just as men who attack/rape women probably don't give a shit either. (and women are historically an oppressed class in many places)
Just as the men who killed Matthew Sheppard probably didn't give a shit.

They are violent people caught up in violent actions.

Again, the vast majority of society simply does not approve of such actions, regardless of who the victim is.