Written by Lester Black
The Daily Free Press
The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University

Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community remembered domestic homicide victims Thursday night with a candlelight vigil at the Boston Common.

The murder of Winthrop resident Casey Taylor in August, the third gay male to be killed by domestic violence in Mass. in five months and the seventh since 2010, spurred LGBTQ leaders to organize the vigil.

“After Casey Taylor’s death we thought, this is the third one this year, what is going on?” said Toni Troop of Jane Doe, Inc.  “It’s our responsibility to make the community more aware.”

Rep. Liz Malia, of Jamaica Plain, spoke underneath the Boston Common Bandstand with other community activists about the need for more conversation and open dialogue with the LGBTQ community about domestic violence.

“LGBTQ people, just like straight people, deserve a relationship free of violence,” Malia said.

Underreporting and a lack of information about domestic violence plague the LGBTQ community, said Iain Gill of the Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project.

“Only 24 percent of LGBTQ people polled in Mass. said they could name a resource that could help them if they were a victim,” he said. Read full article.