LGBT Activist Walter Trochez Assassinated in Honduras

The war against gay rights sometimes becomes violent as is the case in Honduras where Doug Ireland is reporting that Walter Trochez (pictured at right) was assassinated. Speculation has it that those behind the killing were those who Trochez had described as behind the civil-religious-military coup d'état in Honduras earlier this year. A month ago, Trochez had written about the growing violence against the LGBT community in Honduras. His letter can be viewed here. Needless to say, a brutal killing like this sickens me. Perhaps I am even more sensitive on the issue because my mother was born in Honduras (Puerto Castilla, to be exact) and lived there through the equivalent of elementary school before moving to Panama and ultimately to the USA. Not surprisingly, Trochez believed that the Roman Catholic Church was involved in the coup that over threw the elected president:

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the Catholic and Christian Evangelical churches that promoted the coup. As evidence we can point to the explicit support given by Honduras' religious hierarchy to the civil-military coup that on June 28, 2009 prevented the implementation of a plebiscite organized by the legitimate constitutional government, and placed the dictator Roberto Micheletti in the executive branch.
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A press release issued by the Honduras Episcopal Conference and signed by the Catholic church's eleven Honduran bishops, justifies upon supposedly constitutional grounds the kidnapping, disappearance and expulsion from the country of the constitutional President: "the institutions of the Honduran democratic State are valid and in force, and its juridical resolutions have abided by the law..." It additionally defines the current situation as "a new starting point for dialogue, consensus and reconciliation..."
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But getting back to Trochez's murder, here are some highlights from DIRELAND:

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Walter Trochez, 25 years old, a well-known LGBT activist in Honduras who was an active member of the National Resistance Front against the coup d'etat there, was assassinated on the evening of December 13, shot dead by drive-by killers. Trochez, who had already been arrested and beaten for his sexual orientation after participating in a march against the coup, had been very active recently in documenting and publicizing homophobic killings and crimes committed by the forces behind the coup, which is believed to have been the motive for his murder.
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Amnesty International has issued a statement calling for an investigation of the murder, which you can read here.

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One need only look to instances like this one and the push in Uganda - and now Rwanda - to kill gay citizens because of their failure to conform to the corrupt, intolerant and un-Christian views of the Catholic hierarchy and evangelical Christian groups. Religious fundamentalism of every stripe is a clear and present danger to religious freedom for all and constitutional government which would protect minority rights.