Hate is on the rise. It is.  Really.

Sunday, the CNN Headline read: “New York immigrant dead in apparent hate crime.”

A 31-year-old Ecuadorean man who was beaten last Sunday in what New York City authorities say may have been a hate crime has died at a Queens hospital, his brother said Saturday.

Jose Sucuzhanay and his brother, Romel, had left a party on December 7 at St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church when several men approached them in a car in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, police said. The men allegedly began shouting anti-gay and anti-Latino vulgarities at the two men.

Jose Sucuzhanay suffered severe head trauma and was taken to Elmhurst Hospital. He died Friday night from his injuries.

The ironic twist? Sucuzhanay is not even gay. Evidently, the two men were walking arm-in-arm, which is likely the cause of the confusion.

It sounds more like the next Cohen Brothers movie than an actual news headline, but it is a perfect example of complete ignorance and hatred prevailing over any kind of logic or human decency—something which has become more and more frequent in our society, of late.

In October of this year, the FBI released a report whose findings showed: “6 percent increase in anti-gay hate crimes.” The report “is purely statistical and does not assign a cause,” but it certainly begs the question: what is it about this cultural moment that is causing people to act out against the gay community?

So what IS the reason behind this surge? Is it the economy? Proposition 8, or the recent election of Obama (which seems unlikely, since Obama has made no effort to align himself with the gay community)? Could it be Susan Faludi’s observations about our increased reliance on gender roles post-9/11 in her book Terror Dream are coming to a head in a very violent, apocalyptic fashion?

One thing is for sure: the federal government is doing very little to address the issue. “Neither the federal hate crimes statute nor 21 states include sexual orientation in their hate crime laws,” reports Chip Alfred to Out and About.

In nature, a period of general chaos typically ensues before a major change occurs. I am hopeful that this, and other expressions of hatred, ignorance, and fear, are merely people’s natural response to the anticipation of change in our country (although Obama’s not painting a very hopeful tomorrow for LGBT–cough cough–Rick Warren–cough cough).

-Melinda Parrish