In any other business environment, sexual harassment is cause for a trip to the human relations department.

Last weekend, it cost Chad Gibson a trip to the emergency room with an eventual stop in the intensive care unit. "Gay panic" is no excuse for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents' actions.

The officers' justification -- that gay bar patrons were groping them -- is also shameless. All too often, straight men who commit attacks on gay men trot out this wan defense, expecting the public to believe that gay men are so voracious and sex-obsessed that they would willingly incite violence by reaching out to sexually titillate their adversaries. This is not predicated on plausible human behavior, but on rank and humiliating stereotypes about gay men that are rarely -- if ever -- true.