Republican Charles ‘Chuck’ Peruto is running to be the next Attorney General of Philadelphia, and he’s put forward his idea on how hate crimes against the queer community can be better tackled.
Peruto says the answer is to make sure that the prosecutors assigned to the cases are people who could never be perceived as being gay.
Appointing a special prosecutor “who looks as opposite of gay you can imagine” was his proposal on how to tackle gay bashings.
The ‘gay bashing’ section of his website has now been taken down, but it had laid out Peruto’s thinking on the issue.
“Having tried some 300 jury trials, I know what it takes to win them,” he said.
“It would not be my preference to have a prosecutor who would be remotely perceived as gay arguing these cases before a jury.
“I would assign an older, seasoned prosecutor who looks as opposite of gay you can imagine” to deal with “nothing but this problem”.
“That is the type of assistant district attorney that can persuade the most conservative jurors to understand this problem that is unique to the gay community,” he said.
Allowing effeminate prosecutors to handle the cases has been an error in the past according to Charles Peruto.
“When you have a very effeminate male prosecutor, it could possibly be perceived that the prosecutor is going after the defendants because he’s gay,” Peruto told local news outlet BillyPenn.
“I want to make sure we have a very macho prosecutor to defend the rights of gay people to live in harmony and in peace.”
When it came to prosecuting hate crimes where the victim was black, Peruto said he would take a different strategy, appointing black prosecutors to cases that involved race.
OIP Staff
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