YPSILANTI, Mish. – Police in Ypsilanti are investigating an assault of a woman recently married to her same-sex partner.
A video showing the victim and her wife has been widely distributed. That fact may have motivated the three men who attacked her Monday evening, after she got off a bus and was walking though the parking lot of Roundtree Apartments in Ypsilanti.
Washtenaw County Sheriff's department spokesman Derrick Jackson said the attackers made anti-lesbian comments, before beating her.
"They made some explicit comments to her about her sexual identity. She gets hit in the face, knocked unconscious and she is shortly awakened being kicked and punched," Jackson said.
Amber Faulkner is a neighbor of the victim. She is upset about the beating.
"That's very sad. That's none of their business. If that's who she wants to love y'all should be able to accept," Faulkner said.
Sandy Smith, from the Jim Toy community center which is a resource house for Ypsilanti area gays and lesbians, has great sympathy for the victim, who just got married.
"She stood in line out in the cold for the fight, so I can't imagine the hurt she must be experiencing. If they have a different opinion, violence should never be the answer. There's just no excuse," Smith said.
Ypsilanti police have not yet made any arrests in the case.
The victim and her wife were granted a marriage license and became married last month, the day after a federal district judge declared Michigan's ban on same sex marriage unconstitutional.
The judge's ruling was stayed by an appeals court the following day, blocking any additional same sex marriages.