Ugh! I'm speechless....

One comfort is that the social price one immediately pays for this sort of fakery is generally enough to dissuade most people from this sort of hoax/prank/whatever it is. So I think it's fair to say that such occurrences will remain relatively rare. Hope so anyway.

what a piece of shit

Perhaps a result of this pervasive idea that whoever the most oppressed or victimized person in the room is, whatever they say is right, and if you say something against it, you are a racist/sexist/whateverist.

When we make victimhood "valuable," it should not surprise us that people attempt to fake victimhood.

It's a sort of gay spin on Munchausen syndrome.

what a colossally stupid person

@4. You forget that white, straight people do this sort of thing too. Remember Ashley Todd? Kyle Wood? They both claimed they were the victims of hate crimes for being, respectively, white and Republican.

And in a world where the biggest, sharpest, most public, criticizers of SWJ/trigger warning/privilege, etc culture are people like Dan Savage, Jonathan Chait, Freddie DeBoer, and The Atlantic, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert, you can hardly claim speaking out against oppressed minorities gets you branded a bigot. All those people/magazines are doing pretty well.

The reason false accusations of hate crimes happen is the same reason the Salem witch trials happened. A good way for anyone, ever, at any point in history, to get sympathy and attention, is to claim that you are a victim of people who don't value your culture's most highly-esteemed moral beliefs. In an age of Christianity, saying you're a victim of witchcraft was a way to do that. Now that our biggest cultural value is anti-prejudice and anti-random violence, claiming to be a victim of those things guarantees sympathy.

That's a really good point about the effect of fear. Rape and sexual assault have a similar effect, in that the fear of assault shapes the lives of women and sexual minorities, and even false rape claims can reinforce that fear. I knew someone in college who said she had been the victim of a violent gang rape in her past - hearing her story definitely made me afraid for myself and others, but later she told me hadn't happened. (She had not accused anyone specific, so at least no one was directly harmed by the story. She was pretty young and had her - admittedly convoluted - reasons, and I was very glad to learn it wasn't true.)

ughh.

It should follow him for the rest of his life. As you said, he hurts victims and the community. Let him be an example of how not to act. Let people know that if you do something this cruel, racist, and stupid, then you will be punished for it and it will impact the rest of your life.

I support the notion of making a false report of a hate crime itself a hate crime.
I'm not sure what the hell Mr. Hoover intended to accomplish by fabricating such a story, but assuming he did it to get people's attention, the best response is to leave him in damnatio memoriae.

This is really sad. I've been connected to Adam for a few years on Facebook and he's done a tremendous amount of good for the LGBT community in Ohio. Having said that, there were a couple of times in the past when he posted things about the local police "having it in" for his family that I now think back on and wonder if they were fake as well. By no means do I excuse what he did, but this is obviously someone suffering from a mental illness and I hope he gets the help he needs.

Why why why why why? Could it be a brain tumor maybe? His family should get him to check it out. This seems so crazy.

False reporting of all kinds: abuse, rape, hate crimes, etc should carry very stiff punishments as they can ruin innocent people's lives and detract from real victims of crime.

Close, but no cigar. Making these false claims is something, but it's not a hate crime.

I wonder where the apologists are [like there was in the obviously-fake-to-anyone-with-a-brain UVA frat rape story] to "remind us that Hoover is also a victim".

We're all victims, in big or small ways. No one gets through childhood and young adulthood without any negative consequences from a society that is more rigid as a whole than the people that constitute it (even straight white men from well off, happy families).

@5 - I'd call it Munchausen Syndrome by Social Media, gay has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Excellent point in your 2nd paragraph, @4.

I don't understand how hate crime even applies to the initial supposed crime. The only thing I know about this story is from this post but the tweet says he is locked in a trunk. It doesn't say anything about the perpetrators making anti-gay slurs. It sounds a lot more like a robbery situation similar to the story about Dan's old friend. Is there more to this that I am missing? Just because a gay person is the victim of a crime doesn't mean it is necessarily a hate crime.

If we're going to seek harsher punishments for hate crimes and rape, it's only fair that those who submit false reports be subject to exactly the same punishment their victims would have received.

@16 hits the nail on the head. I can only imagine how social media and constant access to a sympathetic "audience" must exacerbate conditions like histrionic personality disorder. Even some people of sound mental health seem to think they're starring in their own Lifetime Original movie! The instant gratification can turn even your average attention-seeker into a monster.

It was an insane thing to do. And that may be the key: it wasn't the act of a sane person. Mental health can be a fragile construct, subject to organic decline and emotional overload. Whatever happened to put him over the edge, or whatever broke in his brain that inhibits acting on that little bit of insanity we all harbor, it's an illness.

What do you do to a crazy person to punish them for being crazy? Nothing. He needs care, and depending what's wrong with him, pity, in that he may never be truly well again.

As for everyone who believes everything they read on social media, stop that.

@20: Mental illness by itself doesn't mean that you lack rationality or don't understand the consequences of your actions. That is a cop out. Being an asshole and having a mental illness are not mutually exclusive. The vast, vast majority of people with mental illnesses are law abiding citizens. Why? Because they understand consequences--they are disabled, not children. The crimes you forgive people with mental illnesses for are those where they can't see the consequences, such as disorderly conduct or public urination. Planning a complex prank to get attention does not qualify. He not only knew the consequences, he desired them. And people like you are not say "don't hurt him, he's the real victim!" which is probably just what he wanted.

@20/21: Yikes, that was a bad edit. What I meant to say in my last garbled line is that people who pooh-pooh his actions and pretend it wasn't his fault because he was ill are just rewarding the behavior. Maybe he needs treatment for a mental illness. But he also needs jail time for being an asshole.

Being gay, black, and politically conscious has always had its challenging days. But it's rare that one thing manages to be infuriating news on all three fronts simultaneously. I'm almost impressed.

Sounds like Hoover is an O'Reilly kinda homo. FOX needs more queers on air. Hoover is such an awesome Republican name as well.

I don't understand where the "hate crime" aspect comes into play here.

A lily of sympathy (very Patience) for Mr Rhone.

This is might be an interesting addition to this discussion. I live in Cincinnati, so I first heard about this on the local news (after it had been revealed to be a hoax). I just happened to be switching between the different local news stations (trying to catch a weather report to be honest) and so I heard the same story reported on two different local news stations. Interestingly, one of the stations (the first one I happened to catch), just described the victim/hoaxer as a "local man". The other station described him as "local gay rights activist..."

Not really taking a point of view one way or the other here, just wondering, is it relevant or not? Is his sexual orientation (or political activities) relevant? Should the news have mentioned that or not?

I don't know that there was anything specific in his (false) report that really claimed it was a hate crime. He said he'd been abducted. He made it sound random, I think. Did he ever say he had been abducted because he was gay?

I don't think that a gay man attacking another gay man is a hate crime, and I don't think a gay man attacking himself is a hate crime. Self hatred and hurting yourself are not quite as unethical to me as hating on others and hurting others. I do agree that his illness should be addressed in some way.