Marriage's bloody backlash: legal victories and the movement to legalize gay marriage have meant an increase in gay bashing.

On February 12, 2004--the day San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered his city to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples--Ken Saragosa walked out of an Orange County, Calif., gay bar and was beaten bloody in a parking lot. Four men screamed "fag" and kicked him repeatedly in the face. "In my entire life I'd never felt afraid of violent attack," says Saragosa, a professor of literature at Soka University in Aliso Viejo, Calif., which is dedicated to ending violence. He was interviewed by The Advocate via the Internet because his mouth was wired shut, preventing him from talking.

"After one of these guys looked me right in the eye, grinned, and kicked me in the head, I realized that some people are capable of anything--even killing a total stranger for no good reason," he says. "What shocked me most was the unbelievable rage that was coming out of them."

During the second half of 2003--following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that overturned the country's sodomy laws--the country experienced a 24% spike in hate incidents based on sexual orientation, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. In New York City, hate incidents against GLBT people rose 43% in the second half of 2003 compared to the same time period in 2002. "In times of high visibility like this even places like New York or San Francisco can see jumps," says Clarence Patton, acting executive director of the coalition.

Some states are faring especially poorly. In conservative Colorado--home to Republican U.S. representative Marilyn Musgrave, who penned the antigay language of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment--there were 133% more hate incidents in 2003 than in 2002. Among the most shocking alleged violations: On March 16, opening statements began in the trial of a former deputy sheriff accused of raping a Georgia woman, allegedly having told her, "the world needed one less dyke," according to the victim's testimony. In West Virginia on March 17, three men were charged with beating three gay men as they left a bar. In other states it would have been classified as a hate crime, but West Virginia doesn't include sexual orientation in their definition of such laws.

Hate-crimes experts say the increase was seen almost immediately following the Supreme Court's sodomy ruling. Also, gay men and lesbians have never been so visible in the world's 24-hour news cycle. Images of beaming couples kissing at the altar in San Francisco have been meshed with tense press conferences called by lawmakers who blame "activist judges" for demeaning the traditional definition of marriage.

Not helping matters was President Bush's call for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would effectively ban gay marriage. "There is always profound concern whenever an official message comes down that lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people are unworthy or inferior," says David Buckel, coordinator of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund's Marriage Project. "And that's exactly what the president did."

He compares the situation to schools where homophobic behavior is tolerated by teachers. "If the authority figures don't stop it, they are in fact authorizing it," he says. "This only promotes more bias. And this is what the president is doing on a large scale."

Gay men and lesbians have paid the price for increased media attention in the past. Attacks occurred after the murders of Matthew Shepard and Gwen Araujo and California's passage of Proposition 22, a ban on stone-sex marriages, in 2000. "Every time we take a few steps forward, we always see a backlash," says Tina D'Elia, director of the Hate Violence Survivor Program at San Francisco's Community United Against Violence. "As much as we might get a little more cautions after we make some positive progress, we've seen many more trends where tragedy follows tragedy."

Still, she was shocked to hear of Saragosa's beating. D'Elia witnessed minor protests at San Francisco's City Hall that included confrontations and yelling. Five gays in a truck repeatedly drove around City Hall singing Christian songs. "The atmosphere was generally so wonderful here," she says. "There's been such a swell of love. But it has still always been somewhere in my head: When is the hate crime going to happen?"

Winnie Stachelberg, political director for the Human Rights Campaign, says gays and lesbians should not allow incidents of violence to stop them from getting married or protesting. "Everybody's talking about the issue, engaging in a very public dialogue," she says. "And that is always a good thing for our community."

Saragosa has received gifts of solidarity and support from coworkers, students, and friends. He is expected to make a full recovery. "An attack like this was aimed at me because I was walking outside of a gay bar, and the point of the verbal and physical assault was to make me feel ashamed and disgusted about myself," he says. "But to be truthful I don't think I'm willing to put up with intolerance or homophobia the way I might have been before. I'm not more of an activist since being attacked, but I am more willing to speak out and take risks."

Healy has written for Salon and The Washington Post.