* The New York Daily News reported today that a man was attacked around 4 a.m. Saturday by at least three men who called him anti-gay epithets. Boston resident Joseph Holladay, 36, was visiting a friend on the Upper East Side when he was pistol whipped and robbed by three men. He is currently healing at the New York Presbyterian Hospital.

According to the Village Voice, Holladay had stepped outside his friend’s apartment to smoke a cigarette when he was surrounded by five or six men. Residents of the apartment heard and saw the incident occur, reporting to authorities that they saw five or six white men “with crewcuts, wearing wife-beaters” smoking pot outside the building before the attack occurred.

* San Francisco’s large Pink Triangle on the city’s Twin Peaks was burned after what investigators say may be an act of vandalism. CBS 5 reports that a fire on the symbol was extinguished early Sunday morning, hours before the city’s annual Pride Parade was set to begin.

Mercury News also reports that police have determined the symbol was torched by road flares. The giant triangle is put on Twin Peaks every June in conjunction with Gay Pride Month.

Suffolk County Police said 21-year-old Milagro Ruiz, 20-year-old Gilbert Geigel, 19-year-old Kerrond Miller-Jones, and 21-year-old Charles Diaz, all of Bay Shore, were charged with second degree criminal mischief.

On Feb. 2, workers arrived at the Center to find the front door smashed, all the windows of its 2003 Ford van were shattered, the mirrors ripped off and the tires slashed. The van is used to transport more than 50 youth a week to the Center for support and leadership programs.

There was no sign that the building had been entered and nothing appeared to be stolen.

Damage is estimated in the thousands of dollars and a fund raising campaign has begun to repair the damage to the van.

David Kilmnick, the Center’s CEO, said the attack sent a message to the entire gay community. “This was not a simple case of vandalism, but an attack on our entire community,” he said last week.

On Friday NY Gov. David Paterson (D) dispatched state Human Rights Commissioner Galen D. Kirkland to Bay Shore to meet with members of the LGBT community.

“We must understand that an attack on any of us is an attack on all of us,” Paterson said in a statement.

But following the arrest of the four, police said their investigation determined “it was not a hate crime” but declined to say what they believed the motive to be.

The vandals used a washable soap marker that was easily removed, but police said they are taking the issue seriously.

Police Chief Charlie T. Deane said in a statement that the vehicles were randomly chosen. He credited quick action by residents in the areas with helping lead to the arrests.

Deane said it appeared the four may have been under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

“Even though the damage was minimal, we treat these incidents very seriously, and they are investigated with a high priority due to the fear and anxiety they cause a community,” Deane told The Washington Post.

The four are charged with unlawful entry with intent to commit a hate crime. They are due to appear in court on Dec. 10.

“I suspect it was motivated by both politics and prejudice,” the openly gay MP said in an interview Monday.

“Some of these folks have been trying to beat me for a few elections now. They’ve figured out that’s going to be hard to do, so they’re finding another way to try to make a point.”

Brison, who has represented the riding of Kings-Hants for 11 years, was one of three candidates in Nova Scotia who complained about vandalism Monday.

A Conservative candidate and his Liberal rival in the riding of Halifax both reported that windows in their campaign offices were smashed by hooligans throwing rocks.

Liberal candidate Catherine Meade said she found several large stones lying in her office amidst shattered glass.

She noted that her office was the only one on the street that was damaged.

Meade drew a blank when asked who would do such a thing.

“No, I have no idea what would go through someone’s mind who would do this,” she said outside the office after examining three baseball-size holes in the storefront windows.

“I have no idea what the motive would be.”

About two kilometres to the north, the campaign office of Conservative Ted Larsen lost three plate-glass windows and a smaller entryway window _ total damage: $4,500.

Campaign manager Jordi Morgan said the building was also sprayed with red Xs and various anti-Tory insults, most of them including crude, four-letter words.

Morgan said he visited Meade’s office later in the day and concluded the rock throwers in that case were probably the same ones who attacked Larsen’s office.

“It looked like the rocks came from the same place,” he said. “Is there a connection? I can’t prove that there is one. One would tend to think that the two cases are related.”

The riding had been held by former New Democratic Party leader Alexa McDonough since 1997. She announced her retirement from politics in June.

Morgan scoffed at the idea that the vandalism could be linked to the fact that Halifax is a hotly contested riding.
“I don’t think that you can take any sort of legitimate political analysis from some yahoo who has thrown a rock through a window,” he said. “It seems kind of silly.”

In Cheverie, N.S., the rural community were Brison lives, the outspoken former Progressive Conservative said his constituents were appalled by the vandalism in their riding.

He said some of them took it upon themselves to scrape the pink spray paint off the signs in front of their homes.
“It’s not just an attack on me, it’s an attack on our values as Canadians,” Brison said.

“This is someone who doesn’t have the guts to express to me directly how they feel. It’s some coward who runs around in the middle of the night defacing people’s property.”

Brison married his partner, Maxime St. Pierre, in the summer of 2007. It was the first gay wedding of a member of Parliament.

The MP said a few of his lawn signs were vandalized in 1997, but he insisted the more recent handiwork was more sinister and troubling.

Brison suggested that the spate of vandalism in Nova Scotia and several more serious cases in Ontario indicate the Liberal party is being targeted.

Over the weekend, the owners of at least 30 Toronto homes in two different ridings found their cars had been dangerously tampered with and their houses had been vandalized.

All of them had Liberal lawn signs on their property.

Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, the Grit candidate for St. Paul’s, noted that Liberal supporters reported similar incidents in Guelph, Ont., in late August and in the Toronto riding of Willowdale in March prior to scheduled byelections.