By Ali Gharib

After trekking by the site of a vicious beating of a gay man in this working class Queens neighborhood, more than a hundred residents, activists and politicians rallied against homophobia and hate violence.

Speakers at the protest condemned the Oct. 8 assault that landed Jack Price, 49, an openly gay College Point man, in a medically induced coma with two collapsed lungs, broken ribs, a broken jaw and a lacerated spleen.

“In Queens, which is one of the most diverse communities in all of America, we cannot tolerate hate,” said Borough President Helen Marshall, one of many elected officials and candidates gathered on this crisp Saturday afternoon at a parking lot at 14th Ave. and College Point Blvd., the neighborhood’s thoroughfare.

Speeches also referred to national rights issues, such as the ban on openly gay service in the military and anti-gay marriage sentiments.

Yet the assault on College Point Blvd. and 18th Ave. rocked residents here, for whom the incident was intensely local. One assailant resides on the same block where the attack occurred, and the other lives only two blocks from Price’s home.

The two suspects, Daniel Rodriguez, 21, and Daniel Aleman, 26, who were both later apprehended by police and charged with aggravated assault as a hate crime, reportedly made homophobic remarks then attacked Price as he was walking home from a 24 hour deli late at night.

Dan Halloran, a City Council candidate from the district that includes College Point, estimated that about half of the turnout was from the neighborhood.

“We are a community among many communities,” said Joanne DeNicola, 55, a Queens nonprofit worker, who has lived in College Point since she was 7 years old.

“We’re one city,” added her husband, Anthony, 57, a Long Island car dealer.

The march and rally, which were endorsed and sponsored by Price’s family and a host of gay rights groups and community organizations, brought out people of all ages, races and creeds – many sporting rainbow stickers and colorful home-made signs.

Halloran, a member of the Theod faith, a revival of ancient Scandinavian and Germanic paganism, stood shoulder to shoulder in condemnation of the attack alongside priests wearing the clerical collar of Christianity.

The ethnicity of the assailants, both Hispanic, also raised sensitivities at the protest.

“The Latino community is also affected by hate crimes,” said Ruby Fernandez-Brown, 40, a Peruvian from Kew Gardens, “so I don’t know how they could act the way they did.”

Fernandez-Brown attended the rally with several friends representing La Buenas Amigas, a Latina Lesbian group.

Indeed, while the majority of New York City’s hate violence victims identify themselves as gay or lesbian, Latinos are the group that suffer from the most bias incidents, according to a National Coalition of Anti-Violence Program report compiling data for 2008.

The report also says that while incidents were down in New York City, hate violence has become more severe, with increases in murders, assaults, and sexual assaults.

Furthermore, the report said the “common scenario” for hate violence consists of attacks by two or more people on a solitary person or pair. Most perpetrators of such violence are males between 19 and 29 years old.

“It shows the fact that the youth are not educated,” said Hector Sanchez of Bushwick, Brooklyn, who works with a gay rights project of Make the Road New York. “We need to teach our youth that being the sore thumb is not a bad thing.”