Murder in Detroit.

Since a 72-year-old gay man named Andrew Anthos was beaten to death in Detroit in February, locals have struggled to make sense of the horrific crime. Some gay residents question whether Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has nurtured an environment where it's "safe to hate gays," as a lesbian victim of a hate crime asserts. Others blame the scourge of violence in Detroit, which has the highest murder rate per capita among the 11 largest cities in the United States. The point on which city residents agree: that Anthos's death points up the need to add sexual orientation protections to Michigan's existing hate-crimes law.

Anthos, a sweet man who is known in Michigan for his dream to light the state capitol in red, white, and blue to honor veterans, had been singing quietly on a city bus February 13 when another passenger taunted him, saying, "I know you're gay." When Anthos got off the bus the stranger followed, calling him a "faggot" before striking him with a metal pipe. Left paralyzed from the neck down, Anthos died 10 days later.

Despite the crime's brutality, Mayor Kilpatrick has remained silent in its aftermath, reopening wounds among gay residents hurt by the mayor's past antigay comments. "This is what happens when you have a mayor of a major city who publicly exclaims, 'I don't want my boys growing up next to gays,'" says Michael McCarthy, a gay man who lives in a Detroit suburb.

McCarthy is referring to an infamous remark Kilpatrick made during his 2001 mayoral campaign, when in denouncing same-sex marriage he said he did not want his twin sons, Jelani and Jalil, "seeing that type of lifestyle" because he wanted "to raise strong, proud men that love women." Subsequent comments further angered gay residents: In 2004, Kilpatrick restated his opposition to same-sex marriage on Real Time With Bill Maher; in 2005, he cited his religious beliefs in refusing to support a proposed repeal of the state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

But mayor's office spokesman Matt Allen rejects characterizations of Kilpatrick as antigay. "If you were a gay guy sitting five feet away from him in a chair and you were having a conversation, he would tell you, "I accept you as the human being you are,'" Allen says. "'That [comment about shield But as your mayor, do I hate you? Would I discriminate against you? Do I want to see you not succeed in life? No, none of those things.'" Allen adds that the mayor held a 2006 summit on AIDS at the mayoral residence and appointed an out businessman to the city's General Services Department.

The mayor, Allen says, considers the attack on Anthos "unacceptable" but does not plan to address it--or any other specific crime--publicly, preferring instead to talk about reducing crime overall.

Kilpatrick's silence stands in marked contrast to reactions from other mayors who have faced similar hate crimes recently. New York City's Michael Bloomberg condemned the 2006 attack on drag diva Kevin Aviance as "a disgrace," while Jerry Sanders in San Diego, decrying assaults on six people at his city's gay pride festival last year, warned he would not tolerate antigay violence. This February, Boulder, Colo., mayor Mark Ruzzin described the assault of a 21-year-old lesbian as "shameful."

But as uniquely tragic as it is, the Anthos murder is just one instance of violence reported in a city that logged over 20,000 last year, a year in which Detroit's homicide rate reached nearly 115% of the 2005 total. "The [Kilpatrick] administration isn't necessarily looking at it as a hate crime but more like 'We need to do something about crime in this city,'" says the Reverend Karl Jackson, the out dean of AJB Central Bible School, a gay-affirming religious institution in Detroit. He believes that Kilpatrick "isn't a gay-hater" but rather is focused on other social issues.

The only Detroit public official to speak out about the attack has been Michigan state senator Hansen Clarke, who represents Detroit and had met Anthos twice. He plans to reintroduce legislation that would expand the state's hate-crimes law to include sexual orientation--and to have the state capitol glow as Anthos wanted. "A 72-year-old patriot was murdered because he was gay and because his killer hated gay people," says Clarke. "We can't live in a society like that."