Unfinished Lives

Teen Son Whipped With Electrical Cord By Mother for Homosexual Behavior; Mom Defends Her Act

North Texas teen whipped with power cord for same-sex acts by his own mother.

Forest Hill, Texas – A Tarrant County mother faces charges of abuse for using an electrical cord to whip her 15-year-old son whom she caught in same-sex act with an 18-year-old boy.  CBSDFW reports that Erica Moore is adamantly defending her son’s punishment, claiming she was well within her rights to beat the child. “I actually caught this going on in my house so how was I supposed to react to it? I supposed to just let it go? No! We was taught to discipline our kids and we whoop our kids,” she said.

The “whooping” was severe enough to draw the attention of authorities who say she faces charges of assault with bodily injury to a family member, which, if proven, carries jail time with it. Police learned of the crime when the boy’s grandmother took him to a hospital emergency room to have his wounds treated.  The beating left the boy with cut skin, bruises, and bleeding on his forearms, legs, back, torso, and hands.

Ms. Moore is fighting the charges on the grounds that she was taught to “whoop” her children, and that homosexuality is a sin. Waking up to sounds in her son’s room, she said she opened his bedroom door and found her boy having sex with his 18-year-old male cousin. Her account to Joe Gomez of KRLD News Radio was explicit in detail:

“My cousin at the time he was 18. My son he was 15 and I had walked in the room on [my cousin] giving oral sex to my son and I started whooping my son, and I’m the one who got in trouble as a result of me whooping him,” she said. “When I walked in I saw my son, it was just disgusting to me, the way he was looking and my cousin was looking, and my cousin immediately ran out the door. And I’m just like what the?!? You know, is you serious? So that was my reaction because it disgusted me.”  

Continuing her justification of her actions, she said that if she caught her daughter doing something similar, she would beat her in the same way.

Forest Hill, a quiet mid-city situated between Fort Worth and Arlington, is typical in attitude toward perceived homosexuality in suburban North Texas. Ms. Moore said that when a Forest Hill Police Officer arrived to investigate, he said that if he had caught his boy in the same situation, he would have wanted to shoot him and his lover on the spot, but that the law prevented beating a child like she beat hers. Weeks later, the police arrested Ms. Moore for the beating, perhaps indicating the heterosexist sympathy of law enforcement for a mother brave enough attempt to “beat the gay” out of her son.

KRLD interviewed Child Protective Services spokesperson Marissa Gonzalez about the case.  “If you are leaving the child with severe injuries or bruises,” she said, “then obviously we might be talking about abuse.”  

The Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex has a massive problem with children in their teens and earlier who are beaten, disowned, and forced out of their homes by parents who despise their sexual exploration and homosexual behavior. While nothing conclusively identifies Ms. Moore’s son as gay, he is headed toward becoming a sad statistic. Joanna Jenkins of Circle of Moms says that children deserve unconditional love, not judgment or punishment for their actual or imagined sexual orientation.  She writes: “The question is: ‘How can you help your gay child?’ You can help your gay child with unconditional love and acceptance. We are talking about your child. Someone you gave birth to, who is a part of you. Do you want them to live a life of pain and guilt? Quote the Bible to them. It will not stop them from being who they are. Some gay children experience so much guilt and shame that they take their own life. Could you live with yourself if your child killed his/herself because you couldn’t accept them for who they are? Your child is still your child, gay or straight. The only thing that has changed is what you know about your child. A true mother’s love is unconditional and will be there long after she is gone.”

March 4, 2013 - Posted by unfinishedlives | Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Child abuse, gay teens, GLBTQ, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Mistaken as LGBT, religious intolerance, Texas | Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, gay teens, GLBTQ, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Parental child abuse, religious intolerance, Texas