Illustration by Arnie Bermudez

Earlier this month, a 21-year-old Tucsonan was found unconscious behind a popular bar on Fourth Avenue, and investigators are still trying to piece the situation together.

The episode made the news because Fourth Avenue is the centerpiece of college nightlife in town ÷ and someone found unconscious in an alley behind a bar is certainly news.

But more than likely, the possible attack was deemed important because the young man, Mark Fontes, was found behind a gay bar and was openly gay himself.

A red flag went up for most, as the incident was presumed to be a "hate crime," although investigators held off on calling it such.

A couple days later, the gay community in town showed its support, with 250 people lining the street outside IBT's, the bar that Fontes had been to that night, to pray for him.

Fontes remains in a serious coma.

The incident was a wake-up call for most. Surprise: Fourth Avenue isn't safe. However, for many who have been harassed on a much smaller scale while leaving IBT's or other such establishments, the news was a reminder that not everyone is tolerant.

Nevertheless, despite Fourth Avenue's eclectic, hippie front, this kind of atmosphere is not surprising.

In many ways, Tucson still has a frontier mindset and quality to it.

Daniel Scarpinato Columnist

And that's OK. After all, it is the slow, steady pace of life here that makes the town so appealing.

Settlers, from the Jesuits who built San Xavier Mission south of town hundreds of years ago to the professors with degrees from Ivy League schools who grace our campus today, have made Tucson an enjoyable, productive town. In the process, desert dwellers have made mistakes ö pumping all the water out of the Rillito and Santa Cruz rivers and covering much of the southwestern desert with track homes and strip malls.

Still, despite Tucson's growth, the mentality in this town has always remained somewhat counter-culture. Tucson lags behind cities of similar or even smaller size when it comes to providing a cosmopolitan environment for its citizens to frolic in.

And our city also remains behind the times in recognizing its viable and growing gay population.

See, the gay scene in Tucson is really still "behind closed doors."

The very bar that Fontes was found behind is the most frequented gay bar in Tucson, a metropolitan area of 1 million people. Yet there's a kind of back-door, back-alley quality to it, no doubt reminiscent of a time when discretion was even more important to the gay community than today. Yet that setup epitomizes Tucson's attitude toward the gay community.

One media outlet referred to IBT's as a "known gay bar." Sure, that's true, but that kind of phrasing makes it sound so · well · wrong.

Ironically, IBT's stands for It's About Time. Well, maybe it's about time to bring Tucson's gay scene out of the alley.

With the country and media becoming more in-tune with and aware of gay culture, Tucson ought to do the same.

That won't be achieved through city council policies, court rules or new bars. Change takes more than that. And outlandish parades that focus on the differences between people who are gay and people who are straight won't either. Those efforts are counterintuitive and only divide.

No, instead, mutual respect needs to be shown, common sense encouraged and differences of opinion appreciated.

In the meantime, those who frequent the bar need to be responsible for their own safety. This isn't to suggest that Fontes was at fault. We don't know exactly what happened to him yet.

But even if he wasn't attacked because he was gay ÷ even if he wasn't attacked at all ÷ the incident is something to remember.

Kent Burbank, executive director of Wingspan, had the best advice, stressing the importance for club-goers to use common sense when leaving a bar.

"When going out to a bar, go with someone else. When leaving, leave with someone else," Burbank told the Wildcat.

While it's noble to have an "I'm not going to let them get to me" attitude about the situation, everyone should be cautious leaving any bar late at night.

And as Fontes' friends and family hold out hope, it's important to take that advice.

Daniel Scarpinato is a former editor in chief of the Daily Wildcat and current editor of The Desert Yearbook. He is a senior majoring in political science and journalism and can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.