Paul Broussard

On the night of July 4, 1991, Paul Broussard, a 27-year-old gay banker in Houston, and two of his friends, Cary Anderson and Richard Delaunay, were assaulted as they traversed a parking lot in the Montrose area. Their assailants were 10 youths from the Woodlands, an upscale suburb north of Houston. The boys (all but three were only 17, the eldest was 22) had been cruising the Montrose area earlier that evening, harassing those they presumed gay by throwing rocks at them. With their "queer rocks" as they called them, they had already smashed the windshield of a car and hit a passing man in the mouth. When the attackers encountered the three men, they began by asking for the directions to Heaven, a nearby gay nightclub. Upon being told the directions, the boys leapt out of their two cars and assaulted Broussard and his friends with fists, steel-toed boots, two-by-fours studded with nails, and at least one knife. Broussard’s two friends, Delaunay and Anderson, although injured, managed to escape. Broussard, however, was trapped and subjected to a vicious beating.

Five of the boys received probation or deferred adjudication. The three other primary assailants received 15-year (and one day) prison sentences for their admitted participation in the beatings.
Jon Buice, who confessed to having wielded the knife that apparently made the fatal wound, received the longest sentence–45 years for murder. Another of the assailants, Paul Chance Dillion, was convicted on one count of attempted murder served concurrently with one count of aggravated attempted murder, and was released March 2000.

The very frequency of antigay verbal and physical assaults in schools nationwide is astounding. (Click here for: "Basic Facts about Heterosexism in our Schools.")

(Click here for: Letter From Mother of Paul Broussard.)

To read John Aston’s interview with Judy Shepard, "Visions of Peace: The mother of Matthew Shepard talks about her son’s life, some of the experiences that preceded his murder, and how to teach love and respect," which ran in December 2000 OutSmart, click here: http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/issue/i12-00/shepard.html.
Schools are absolutely essential places where heterosexism and homophobia has to be addressed and stopped.