Dozens of people have taken to Twitter to talk about Perez with vile homophobic comments.
During yesterday evening’s programme, Michelle Visage blasted openly gay celebrity blogger Perez Hilton for setting back the community fifty years, after witnessing him perform sexual acts on garden furniture and against mirrors in the garden. Speaking to Big Brother she said, “What we just witnessed is an outrage” and that Perez “sets our community back fifty years”, before the RuPaul’s Drag Race judge added, “He’s an embarrassment, I do not want people judging the gay community on this ass.”
She then went on to explain, emotionally, that she had fought for years along with the gay community for equality and equal rights and that Perez was undermining the progress the LGBT community had made.
Regardless of Perez’s behaviour, a quick search on Twitter confirmed the harassment that many gay people can endure, when fans of the show called him anti-gay slurs like faggot, queer and batty boy. Some users have even used death threats against the US personality.
https://twitter.com/SamHenderson_1/status/556206943023673344
You see Perez yeah! Batty boi fi dead 🔫
— Reece morgan (@R_morgz) January 14, 2015
Perez is such a faggot I hope he kills himself omg
— Gavin (@nivaG0) January 13, 2015
Last year the government introduced a new punishment for those who trolled or bullied people online. Those found gulity could face up to two years in prison. The government is changing the law to increase the maximum sentence for the offence of sending certain items with the intent to cause distress or anxiety. This will mean more serious offences can be dealt with in the Crown Court and there will not be a time limit for police and Crown Prosecution Service to bring a prosecution.
In the past various openly gay celebrities have endured online bigotry. Last year Duncan James talked about how online trolls had wished AIDS on him, whilst X Factor’s Rylan Clark suffered an internet blacklash in 2012.
So do we report online homophobia to the police?
