D.C. police hate crimes town hall falls on victims. (Photo: Samuel Corum)

VICTIM BLAMING at D.C.'s recent hate crimes town hall: "The most obvious misstep occurred during the first five minutes of the meeting," writes Michael of The New Gay. "During the introductions, police officers walked around the room clumsily and noisily handing out pieces of paper. While distracting us from the speakers, these sheets were filled with tips on how we could avoid being victims and contact numbers for the MPD’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit. From the second I cast my eyes on the paper, I realized what would be the focus of the meeting: accepting the existence of crimes against the queer community, educating individual members of that community on how to avoid the inevitable and invariable violence attacking us, and how the district and federal courts are using bias enhancements to increase the penalties of the offenders."

AFTER THE JUMP: L&O takes on Gabby Giffords; the lasting effects of gay bashing; the dangers of sex blogging:

THE HATE CRIME TOWN HALL DOWNFALL: "it was only attended by past and 'future' victims, those who enforce the laws and those who try the cases. What was missing? Any serious acknowledgment of the real sources of the problem and strategies to address those sources. Who was missing? For starters, the mayor," TNG's Michael continues. "But perhaps more importantly, representatives from the Office of Planning, to discuss their efforts to ease the friction that comes with the redevelopment of neighborhoods. Representatives from the DC public school system, describing their strategies for not only protecting queer youth but also educating ALL students on the rights of all people to go about their lives in the District of Columbia. Representatives from the faith community, to reassure us that despite any anti-queer messages they may spew from their pulpits, they put God’s message of 'love thy neighbor' ahead of Leviticus and thousands of years of selective misinterpretation and transliteration."

THE WHITMAN-WALKER CLINIC is now Whitman-Walker Health.

ALSO AT TNG: A gay bashing victim writes on the lasting effects of the violence: :"The fear that comes over me sometimes seems like it will never go away."

LAW & ORDER'S GABBY GIFFORDS episode's real problem: "There is something a bit weird to me about an episode that will inevitably try to assign motivation to Jared Lee Loughner before his trial's actually begun, before we know anything for real. It's not so much that I think the show will impact the proceedings of the trial, but that figuring out what happened, how Loughner became the person that he is, how he decided to try to kill Giffords, and how he was able to accomplish it, these are all important things to actually discern and understand," Alyssa Rosenberg writes. "Filling in the gaps with fiction won't bring meaningful resolution or answers to the victims and their families, and it seems a bit odd to seize upon it."

THE DANGERS of sex blogging.