for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com JULY 4, 2013 • The quens Courier 9 NYPD investigating attack as hate crime BY MAGGIE HAYES [email protected] A Far Rockaway man was struck with a trophy outside of a bar, resulting in several medical staples to his head. He said he was attacked because he is gay. “The bouncer let my basher run before the cops came,” said Zaman Mohamed Amin, the victim and a well-known figure in the LGBTQ community, on his Facebook page. “I received seven staples in my head.” The incident, on Sunday, June 23, involved two victims, allegedly attacked in front of Players Restaurant and Bar in South Ozone Park. LGBTQ’s Anti- Violence Project (AVP) said they were both hit in the head with the trophy and verbally attacked by several unidentified people. Amin was sent to Long Island Jewish Hospital, where he received treatment for the laceration on his forehead. “I am out of the hospital, even stronger now than ever, and ready to take this community and fight for my LGBTQ people rights,” he said. The NYPD told the AVP they are looking into the incident as a hatemotivated attack. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE 106TH PRECINCT Zamad Mohamed Amin was attacked outside of Players Restaurant and Bar and said he was targeted because he is gay. “Hate crimes must stop,” Amin said. “No one gives another person the right to hit another. We are all children of God no matter our race, sexual orientation, color of our skin, religion or gender.” A man who identified himself as a manager at Players Restaurant and Bar said he could not comment on the attack. IN PRAISE OF LOVE Queens applauds Supreme Court ruling against DOMA BY CRISTABELLE TUMOLA [email protected] Local politicians, including several openly gay and married elected officials, praised the Supreme Court’s decision last week striking down a law which denied same-sex couples the legal protections afforded to heterosexual spouses. “When I realized that I was gay, I thought that all of those things that I dreamed about would be denied to me. And in fact, our government said that I couldn’t have those things. I couldn’t get married, I couldn’t be equal,” Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer said at a press conference on June 25, the day of the ruling. Van Bramer became the first openly gay elected official to get married in Queens when he wed his longtime partner Dan Hendrick last July. All same-sex couples in states where gay marriage is legal will now be eligible for federal benefits given to their heterosexual counterparts. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. “DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the court’s opinion for the majority. The case’s plaintiff, New York resident Edith Windsor, was trying to collect a refund from the Internal Revenue Service for $363,053 in federal estate taxes she paid when her spouse died in 2009. DOMA prohibited her from collecting the money. In another 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court on June 26 dismissed the California Proposition 8 case. Two days later, samesex marriage resumed in the state. Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who will be the city’s first openly gay mayor if she is elected this fall, marked her oneyear wedding anniversary last month. “It’s almost impossible for me to describe what this means,” said Quinn, calling DOMA a “cancer.” Daniel Dromm, another openly gay member of the City Council, said the court righted a “grave injustice” for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. Extended tax benefits could save samesex couples money each year. Other new legal rights will give them the same military benefits heterosexual already receive and grant them marriage- and fiancébased visas. “After last week’s decision by the Supreme Court ... I have directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to review immigration visa petitions filed on behalf of a same-sex spouse in the same manner as those filed on behalf of an opposite-sex spouse,” Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said in a July 1 statement. Naresh Gehi, an immigration trial lawyer from the Forest Hills and Ozone Park-based firm Gehi and Associates said he has already received several inquiries from same-sex couples following the DOMA decision. 1 BED HOME OFFICE FROM $1600 2 BED HOME OFFICE FROM $1850 DUPLEX PENTHOUSES FROM $2400 Phone: 908-938-7920/908-938-7926 Email: [email protected] Website: aura240.com
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