Local news coverage about the investigation of an alleged incident of antigay bias within a city government office has itself created more allegations of homophobia.
In early February, an employee of the city controller’s office and his partner, a contractor with the office, were the target of a sexually explicit note on a bathroom stall door in the office in the Municipal Services Building.
The situation was detailed in a story in last week’s Philadelphia Weekly, penned by contributing writer Aaron Kase, although the two victims and the city controller have asserted numerous factual errors, as well as ethical questions, in the reporting.
One of the primary complaints against the piece is that Kase identified the alleged victims by name.
PW declined comment for this story.
In an interview with PGN this week, Controller Alan Butkovitz contended that “Philadelphia Weekly violated the norm of how you’re supposed to handle” alleged hate crimes.
“If this was a woman who had been harassed, no one in journalism would ever have written her name,” he said. “But somehow Aaron Kase and Philadelphia Weekly think it’s OK because this is a gay couple and they either have a blind spot or don’t understand that this should be no different.”
The PW story focused on the bathroom-stall incident, although the men say they have faced other occurrences in the past year — including an antigay slur on a bathroom urinal, a water bottle of one of theirs that was filled with urine and a slashed tire on their car.
Kase’s sources were granted anonymity. An attempt to reach Kase was unsuccessful.
Brett Mandel, who ran against Butkovitz for city controller, told PGN this week that he did not disclose information to Kase.
“I was not a source for the article about the hate crime or the scrawl on the wall,” he said.
The story questioned whether the “mysterious bathroom scribbler” will ever be caught and “how many taxpayer dollars will be spent hunting him down.”
In response to backlash from PGN publisher Mark Segal about the content and direction of the story, Kase published a blog post in which he referenced that when he was “in elementary school and people wrote offensive comments on bathroom stalls, the school erased the writing without launching private investigations.”
In a letter to PW’s publisher, one of the victims wrote that “Kase’s haphazard dismissal of such hate-based graffiti is not only appalling, but scary — especially in light of the belief that such deliberate acts of bias give license to, and encourage, other like-minded people to commit similar homophobic and bias-based acts of intimidation — whether in our schools or places of employment.”
The investigation to which the story referred was conducted by private investigative agency Keystone Intelligence Network.
Butkovitz said his office has never experienced a situation similar to the antigay incident, but that his office has used Keystone for other matters, such as “background checks, allegations of misconduct or of non-residency.”
The total cost for this investigation was $7,746. Butkovitz said that figure is “relatively small,” and not the most the office has paid for an investigation.
Keystone investigators removed the stall door on which the graffiti was written and dusted it for fingerprints, although Butkovitz said employees were not fingerprinted, as was reported in the PW story.
A handful of employees were asked to submit samples of their printing by writing out the phrase that was written on the stall door.
The PW story alleged that employees were asked private medical questions, but Butkovitz said the only medical question was, “Are you under the influence of any medication that would make it difficult to understand these questions and respond?”
The article also noted that no union representative was present for the writing sample, but Butkovitz said that only one of the employees — of the 12 who were under investigation — was a union member and that “the issue was discussed with the union people, and the union reps came in and advised people to cooperate.”
None of the samples definitively matched the graffiti and the case was closed without the perpetrator being identified.
Butovitz said he wanted to contact law-enforcement authorities when the urine was found in the water bottle, but the victim declined. Butkovitz contends the Keystone investigation was warranted considering the crimes.
“We have a legal and moral obligation to protect people from being targeted on the basis of hate,” he said. “In this case, there was a long pattern — the spike in the tire and the urine — of what I would consider to be assaults, and the writing on the bathroom stall made it clear the motivation was antigay hate. To not do anything would be to encourage and incite that same kind of violence and hate activity, which is exactly what Aaron Kase and Philadelphia Weekly are doing.”
The couple is in the process of speaking with the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission, which handles complaints of discrimination, and said they are considering legal action against the publication.
They also enlisted the assistance of the Anti-Defamation League.
ADL Eastern Pennsylvania-Delaware regional director Barry Morrison told PGN his agency sent PW owner Anthony Clifton a letter March 5 noting that the agency “wholeheartedly shared [the victims’] feelings and concerns about the very poor judgment and sensitivity exhibited by Mr. Kase and permitted by the editors of the newspaper.”
Morrison said the incident was “extremely uncomfortable, embarrassing and painful” for the couple and that “being exposed by the media in the face of this victimization further exacerbated negative feelings and reactions.”
ADL asked the publication to “take immediate actions to correct the egregious actions” and ensure a similar situation does not arise in the future.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].
