Nation : 500 in Protest on Anti-Gay Judge

DALLAS — About 500 protesters, many chanting “No more Hampton” and others carrying signs that said “Bigot Resign,” gathered at City Hall to demand the resignation of District Judge Jack Hampton, who said he gave a killer lighter punishment because his victims were homosexuals.

“Dallas bears the shame for every day that he sits there, and the world is watching,” William Waybourn, president of the Dallas Gay Alliance, told the protesters at Tuesday night’s rally. Hampton has said he sentenced Richard Lee Bednarski, 18, to just 30 years in prison because, in part, the two men he was convicted of killing were “queers” who “wouldn’t have been killed if they hadn’t been cruising the streets picking up teen-age boys.”