Hundreds of people marched Sunday to show support for a 62-year-old man who was sucker-punched three weeks ago in an alleged gay-bashing.
Ritchie Dowrey remains in critical condition in a coma after falling and hitting his head following the punch. He is unresponsive and unlikely to ever recover after the incident at the Fountainhead Pub in Vancouver's West End on March 13.
When his alleged attacker was caught, he was making homophobic slurs, say witnesses.
Because of this, many of those at the rally want the case tried as a hate crime.
"The fact that there's a question in the prosecutor's mind about that there was hate behind this attack is what is insane to us," said Ken Coolen of Pride Vancouver.
"I think people who might be prone to doing these kinds of things might think twice because they know they're going to serve a lot more time," said Vancouver City councillor Ellen Wordsworth.
Protestors against the attack, both gay and straight, stopped traffic down the length of Davie Street.
Dowrey's best friend Lindsay Wincherauk addressed the crowd.
"The crime to me is about someone coming into a fantastic place where everyone is welcome, and because of his own hatred and intolerance lashes out for no explainable reason and steals some of the safety from us all. If the crime isn't punished accordingly, we all lose something," he said.
Many of those marching had hoped assaults against gay people would end after the murder of Aaron Webster. In 2001, he was brutally beaten for being homosexual and left to die in Stanley Park.
"I think all these stories -- Aaron's story and the two men in the last six months -- they need to be told and people need to be reminded these crimes are still happening," said Webster's cousin Denise Norman.
Thirty-five-year-old Shawn Woodward has been charged with aggravated assault in connection with the incident.
With a report by CTV British Columbia's Peter Grainger.
