Detroit Trans Teen’s Remains Found Burned Near Interstate
Michele "Shelley" Hilliard, 19, had to be ID'ed by a tattoo on her upper arm.
Detroit, Michigan – The charred torso of a missing teen transwoman of color was identified this week in the Wayne County morgue where it had been stored for weeks, and left unidentified. The remains were collected near Interstate 94 on Detroit’s east side. Michele “Shelley” Hilliard, 19, was last seen on October 23 at 1:20 a.m., and was reported missing, according to the Detroit Free Press. Though her facial features and fingerprints were destroyed by fire, investigators were able to make a positive identification because of a distinctive tattoo depicting cherries inked into her upper right arm. Her mother, summoned by the Wayne County Examiners Office, also confirmed the identity of her child from the tattoo on the burnt remains. Police are now investigating Ms. Hilliard’s death as a homicide. There is no word about whether a transphobic hate crime is suspected by the authorities, but the disappearance coupled with the attempted immolation of the remains is a familiar signature of anti-trans hate crimes. Equality Michigan is aiding the Detroit Police Department in their investigation, according to CBS Detroit. Michigan’s hate crimes law does not include LGBTQ persons as protected classes, making it harder to compel law enforcement to regard violence against the queer community as hate crimes.
In little more than two weeks, three gay men, Steven Iorio from Pennsylvania, Burke Burnett of Texas, and Stuart Walker from Scotland were either attacked by homophobes wielding fire as a weapon, or had their remains immolated after death. Now the immolated remains of transgender Shelley Hilliard are discovered on a Detroit Interstate service road, raising the question of how often fire is employed as a weapon of transphobic/homophobic terror. As Philip M. Miner of the Center for Homicide Research points out for the Huffington Post, while between 600 and 700 people are killed by arson every year in the United States, fully 26 per cent of this total is from the gay and transgender community. Miner observes that the use of fire and arson as hate crimes weapons against the LGBTQ community is normally thoroughly planned out ahead of time. He writes: “Attacks involving arson are especially brutal. Meticulous care is taken in carrying them out. The violence is heaped on . . . [Anti-LGBTQ arson attacks] are wrought with meaning,” Miner continues. “The offender wants there to be no doubt that this violence was intentional. In the case of hate crimes, it’s a warning. This is what happens when you are gay. This is what these people get — what they deserve.”
Equality Michigan points out in its report on transgender hate violence, “During the first half of 2011, Equality Michigan received reports of 83 incidents of violence or intimidation targeting gay and transgender residents that are considered hate crimes under the [federal] Shepard-Byrd Act. However, because the statewide hate crime law is not comprehensive, incidents against gay and transgender Michiganders that are clearly motivated by anti-gay or anti-transgender bias are ignored as hate crimes.” As a case in point, advocates are watching the Hilliard case especially closely.
Michele “Shelley” Hilliard was nicknamed “Treasure.” The irony of her murder, a young transwoman who had courage enough to transition into the authentic person she truly was, is that only now do we begin to understand the treasure we have lost in her passing.
Gay Texan Savagely Attacked with Broken Beer Bottle, Then Thrown in Fire
Burke Burnett, hate crime victim (Dallas Voice image)
Reno, Texas – A gay man attending a private party in Reno, a town near Paris, Texas, was brutally attacked with a broken bottle and then thrown bodily into a flaming fire barrel on Sunday because he was gay. The Dallas Voice broke the story, quoting 26-year-old victim Burke Burnett as saying on Monday, “They knew I was gay. I’m convinced they were trying to kill me.” Burnett told John Wright of the Voice. Four men shouting epithets like “gay bitch,” “cock-sucking punk,” and “pussy-ass faggot,” lunged at Burnett, stabbing him with a broken beer bottle, beating him, and then heaving him into the fire. Burnett was rushed by girlfriends to a hospital in Sulphur Springs, about 30 miles away. He suffered contusions, bruises, and second degree burns. The slashes with the broken bottle required over 30 stitches.
The Reno Police Department played down the attack to the press, saying little more than that the case was still under investigation. Burnett told the Voice that officers on the scene told him that the crime was going to be classified as bias-driven, but that the assailants, whose identities are known, could take more than two weeks before their arrests. Another local source said that Reno police were considering lowering the degree of the offenses to misdemeanors since they took place during a party. Meanwhile, Burnett is hoping that his injuries do not disable him or prove to be permanent.
Burnett credits his girlfriends with preventing his injuries from being much worse, They slowed down his attackers long enough for him to escape to a parked vehicle. Then, they took him to the hospital for treatment. The New Civil Rights Movement echoes the Dallas Voice, reporting that none of the other 20 party-goers attempted to stop the attack.
Pittsburgh Suburban Man Set On Fire for Being Gay
Steven Iorio, 37, victim of deadly attack with fire (WXPI photo).
Heidelberg, Pennsylvania – A gay man in a southwest suburb of Pittsburgh woke up screaming with his leg set afire by a couple of one-time “friends.” Steven Iorio, 37, of Heidelberg, fell into a deep sleep in the early hours of September 22 after a night of drinking, only to feel his left leg burning after two local men set it ablaze with a bottle of Bacardi 151 Rum, according to WXPI Channel 11 News. Iorio came back to an apartment complex on West Railroad Street and passed out on a couch to sleep off the effects of too much to drink at the Heidelway Bar and Restaurant. An eyewitness identified Brandon Washington, 25, and David A. Blair Jr., 31, of writing anti-gay epithets on Iorio’s jeans, and drawing on his face while he was sleeping. Then the pair soaked Iorio’s leg with the highly flammable rum, before Blair allegedly set the liquor on fire. Two other people from the apartments ran to see the source of the commotion after being roused by Iorio’s yells of pain.
Iorio’s friend, Tina Cook, told WXPI that she received a frantic early morning call, summoning her to the scene. After a look at the severity of the second and third degree burns on the back of Iorio’s leg, Cook insisted that he go to the hospital for treatment. She is clear on the anti-gay motivation for the immolation. “They wrote disturbing [anti-gay] things on his pants and drew on his face,” Cook said. Heidelberg Police Chief Vernon Barkeley told Chartiers Valley Patch blog that his department has been investigating the attack for the better part of a month to determine the identity of all the people inside the apartment living room when Iorio’s leg was set alight. Chief Vernon said that the attack could have endangered everyone present in the 13-unit apartment complex that night, had the blaze spread to draperies and the building. He described the continuing suffering the victim faces since the potentially fatal crime: “[Iorio] is still seeing doctors for these injuries while racking up numerous medical bills,” Barkley said. “He will have permanent scarring and is in pain daily.” Iorio will probably carry scars for the rest of his life as a reminder of the way his Allegheny County drinking buddies treat gays. As of this writing, he wounds have still not healed.
No news source to date says that the two alleged perpetrators of this deadly prank have been arrested for the crime. Instead, the pair was charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, conspiracy, ethnic intimidation, and risking a catastrophe, and allowed to go home. Nor has there been any comment about what the eyewitness was doing when the two men who proved to be anything but friends, were setting Iorio afire.
When Steven Iorio was asked by a WXPI reporter if he considered Blair and Washington “friends,” he answered with a resounding “No!”
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is History: We Must Not Forget Its Cost
Washington, D.C. – Today marks the advent of full repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the 1993 law making gay and lesbian servicemembers liable for discharge if they admitted their sexual orientation. While there will be celebrations and night watch parties throughout the nation marking this historic day in the struggle for LGBTQ equality, we cannot afford to forget the terrible cost anti-gay discrimination has wrought in the Armed Forces of the United States. So, today, we lift up the lives and patriotic service of four gay men who died because of the ignorance and bigotry of other servicemembers, and the systemic bigotry of the services themselves which at best permitted these murders, and at worst encouraged them.
Seaman August Provost of Houston, Texas, was shot to death on duty in a Camp Pendleton guard shack, and his remains were burned to erase the evidence of the deed on June 30, 2009 in San Diego, California. He had recently complained to his family that a fellow servicemember was harassing him because of his sexual orientation. He feared speaking with his superiors about the harassment because of the threat of discharge due to DADT. His partner in life, Kaether Cordero of Houston, said, “People who he was friends with, I knew that they knew. He didn’t care that they knew. He trusted them.” Seaman Provost joined the Navy in 2008 to gain benefits to finish school, where he was studying to become an architectural engineer.
Private First Class Michael Scott Goucher, a veteran of the Iraq War, was murdered near his home in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, on February 4, 2009 by an assailant who stabbed him at least twenty times. Known locally as “Mike on a Bike” by neighbors and friends, Goucher was an assistant organist for a congregation of the United Church of Christ, and Captain of the neighborhood Crime Watch. He also was a selectively closeted gay man, hiding his sexual orientation from his community. Goucher survived deployment in Iraq, only to meet death at the hands of homophobes back home.
Private First Class Barry Winchell of Kansas City, Missouri, was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat as he slept in his barracks by a member of his unit at Fort Campbell, Kentucky on July 6, 1999. Winchell had fallen in love with a transgender woman, Calpurnia Adams, who lived in Nashville, Tennessee. In the fallout from his murder, President Bill Clinton ordered a review of DADT, which resulted in the addition of a “Don’t Harass” amendment to the policy, but little else. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, who represented Winchell’s parents in litigation with the U.S. Army, demanded to know who in the upper ranks of Fort Campbell knew of the murder and its subsequent cover up. The commandant of the fort was promoted over the objections of many human rights advocates. Winchell’s story has been immortalized by the 2003 film, “Soldier’s Girl.”
Petty Officer Third Class Allen R. Schindler Jr. of Chicago Heights, Illinois was murdered on October 27, 1992 in a public toilet on base in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. His killer was a shipmate who despised Schindler for being gay. He had been outed while on board the U.S.S. Belleau Wood, and was supposedly under the protection of his superiors until he could be separated from the service. Schindler had called his mother to tell her to expect him home by Christmas. Instead, the Navy shipped his savaged remains home to Chicago Heights before Thanksgiving. The only way family members could identify his remains was by a tattoo of the U.S.S. Midway on his forearm. Otherwise, he was beaten so brutally that his uncle, sister, and mother could not tell he was their boy. Schindler’s murder was presented as a reason DADT should never have been enacted, but authorities in Washington brushed his story aside and enacted the ban against gays in the military anyway. Schindler’s story is told at length in Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims, authored by the founder of the Unfinished Lives Project, Dr. Stephen Sprinkle.
We at Unfinished Lives celebrate the repeal of DADT tonight with thanksgiving for the courage of lesbian and gay servicemembers who chose to serve their country in the military though their country chose not to honor them. More than 13,500 women and men were drummed out of the service under DADT. But in addition to the thousands who faced discharge and shame, we cannot forget, we must not forget, the brave souls who died at the hands of irrational hatred and ignorance–the outworking of a blatantly discriminatory policy that never should have blighted the annals of American history. The four lives we remember here are representative of hundreds, perhaps thousands more, whose stories demonstrate the lengths to which institutions and governments will go to preserve homophobia and heterosexism. We will remember with thanksgiving our gay and lesbian dead, for to forget them would be to contribute to the ills wrought by DADT.
Southwest Air Pilot Smears Gays on Radio, Suspended, Then Reinstated
Southwest Air Flight Attendant Ken Cummings Jr. (r), and his murderer, Terry Mark Mangum (l)
Houston, Texas – Most passengers are acquainted with a friendly pilot’s voice on the inboard com link, welcoming them aboard a flight. A Southwest Air pilot, however, launched into a homophobic tirade on a stuck-open mic about gay employees and others in a rant that cost him a suspension, according to EDGE reports. In a March incident only now coming to light thanks to news reports by KRPC-TV, the pilot indulged himself in a series of epithets and slurs against gay people, older employees, and obese employees for two-and-a-half minutes, calling them (in the publishable portion of his rant), “gays, grannies, and grandes.” Thinking he was only speaking to his co-worker, the pilot did not realize his microphone was on until informed that it was open and broadcasting by air traffic controllers in the tower. A spokesperson for the airline informed media that the offending pilot was reprimanded and suspended without pay for an unspecified time period. After a period of LGBTQ sensitivity training, he has been reinstated and is flying the skies again. Corporate and professional amnesia about the effects of homophobic speech and behavior on Southwest Air employees contributed to this regrettable incident. Kenneth L. Cummings Jr., a longtime Southwest Air Flight Attendant, was brutally murdered by a religious zealot in June 2007. The grisly slaughter culminated in Cummings’s tortured body being set afire in a shallow stock tank near Poteat, Texas in what his murderer called a “burnt offering to God.” Southwest Air employees by the score aided in the search for Cummings in an effort co-ordinated by EquuSearch, and uniformed flight attendants, pilots, and company officers attended his funeral to honor him. But how soon people forget. Now a pilot in the same organization can rave on about gay people with little or no regard for their humanity, get a slap on the hand, some retraining, and then be put right back on the line, flying LGBTQ people among others to destinations around the world. Unfinished Lives Team hopes he has learned something from this experience, beyond the old bromide that anything is okay so long as you don’t get caught. Reports suggest that this pilot had to apologize to air traffic controllers and Southwest employees for his indiscretion as a part of his punishment. A representative of the Southwest Airlines Employees Union is filing a discrimination complaint with the federal government concerning this matter. Until then, fly carefully. You never know who might be at the controls.
Eight Horses Burned Alive in Ohio Anti-LGBT Hate Crime
Ruins of the barn where eight horses perished in flames (Advocate photo).
McConnelsville, Ohio – Eight quarter horses, one of them a week-old foal, perished in a barn fire on Monday in what a fire marshal is calling arson but neighbors are calling an anti-gay hate crime. Brent Whitehouse, a gay insurance company owner who loved and trained horses, awoke late Sunday night to the roar of fire in his barn where his beloved horses were stabled. He immediately called 911, but it was too late to save them, according to the Zanesville Times Recorder. “I just don’t understand someone wanting to kill innocent animals,” Whitehouse said to Zanesville reporters. “It’s like killing a child. Those horses never did anything to hurt anyone.” He is still in shock about the horrible incident that took the lives of Elvis, Barney, Floyd, Love, Bella, Ethel, and Princess and her month-old foal, Buddy. Love was pregnant, and about to drop her foal, he said. Whitehouse tried to break open the door of the inferno, while he heard kicking and screaming inside the barn. It was impossible to free the horses. The heat was so intense, it melted a tractor inside the structure. Volunteer firemen from the M&M Fire Department in Morgan County responded to the 911 call and fought the flames for two hours before bringing the fire under control. Neighbors told the Times Recorder that they could see the flames licking the sky for miles away from the Whitehouse farm. A spokesman for the fire marshal’s office, Shane Cartmill, said that soon after arriving at the scene, they knew a crime had been committed. Ugly epithets were painted on what was left of the barn, “Burn in Hell,” and “Fags and freaks” could be made out on the smoldering walls still standing. The horses were valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the impact of the crime runs far deeper than economic loss. ”The horses cannot be replaced,” Whitehouse said, because of all the love and training that went into each one of them. “Whoever did this had to walk right by all those horses, including the baby,” he went on to say, “and didn’t care that they were killing a gentle, loving animal.” His friends have no doubt this was a hate crime associated with Whitehouse’s sexual orientation. ”They obviously don’t know him very well,“ his friend Bobbie Nelson said to The Advocate, “because he’s a sweet-hearted person and how he lives his lifestyle is nobody’s business but his own.” The Human Rights Campaign was alerted to the possibility of a hate crime early, according to Jeremy Penrod, Deputy Field Director. Penrod believes that the Matthew Shepard Act will likely not apply to this crime, because it was a crime against property, and not against someone’s life and limb. HRC is coordinating efforts to support Whitehouse through Stonewall Columbus and Equality Ohio. Citizens of Morgan County are responding with support of their own for a man loved and respected by his friends and neighbors. The investigation of the horrific crime is proceeding, with LGBTQ advocacy groups closely monitoring the responses of fire and police officials. Whitehouse still cries when he remembers the tiny foal, Buddy. As he told the Times Recorder, “He was only a week old. I just had him and his mother in the arena and he was coming up and smelling me and checking me out. He was cute as a button.”
How to Remember a Gay Hate Crimes Victim: 12 Years After Murder, Billy Jack Gaither’s Memory is Alive
Billy Jack Gaither
Montgomery, Alabama- Billy Jack Gaither’s memory will not die. A determined group of family, friends, and human rights advocates see to that annually, and on Sunday, February 2o, the 13th Annual Vigil for Victims of Hate and Violence will take place on the steps of the Alabama State Capital Building. Billy Jack, 39, died February 19, 1999 on the banks of Peckerwood Creek at the hands of two local men who hate him for being gay. Steven Mullins and Charles “Charlsey” Butler had no other motive for the grisly murder. They killed Billy Jack with a pick ax handle, and then burned his body on a pyre of old tire carcasses as an expression of their disdain for him and for all LGBTQ people as human beings. “Charlsey” and the “Skinhead” wanted this gentle, loving Alabamian from Sylacauga dead, immolated, and forgotten. But Billy’s family, especially sisters Kathy Jo and Vickie, and allies such as Dr. Beverly Hawk of the University of Alabama – Tuscaloosa and David Gary of Birmingham, have doggedly refused to let the killers win. They established the Billy Jack Gaither Humanitarian Award, to be presented annually at the Vigil to persons of outstanding social conscience and action. This year, the Vigil will commence at 3 p.m. with music by The Shouting Stones, and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Choir. Professor Gwen Thomas of Auburn University is the featured speaker. The Fourth Annual Billy Jack Humanitarian Award will be given to the Rev. and Mrs. Robert Graetz. Graetz was the white pastor of the predominantly black Trinity Lutheran Church in Montgomery during the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. A personal friend of Rosa Parks, the Rev. Graetz was ostracized by whites for his support of the non-violent civil rights movement. His auto tires were slashed. The home he shared with his wife Jennie and their family was bombed three times, but thankfully the largest and last of the bombs was a dud, and did not go off. For Billy Jack to be remembered by awarding good works such as the courageous witness of the Rev. Graetz and his wife Jeanie is wonderful in itself. The award this year certainly embraces the LGBTQ and African American communities, and brings them into further dialogue as they struggle for justice together. But the planners and board members who refuse to forget Billy Jack are doing more than staging an event and presenting a named award–they are frustrating the intentions of hate crime killers like Mullins and Butler everywhere. They are bringing good people into an educational circle of hope and justice. They are sending a beam of light into the darkest regions of the human soul, the places where bigotry and hatred are incubated. So, once again, Billy Jack is remembered, celebrated, and beloved. Billy Jack’s memory is evergreen in Sweet Home Alabama. His killers languish forgotten serving life sentences in prison. Well done, Alabamians! [Billy Jack's story, "Southern Gothic," is told in the newly published Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims. Follow this link for more information: http://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Lives-Reviving-Memories-Victims/dp/1608998118/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298017444&sr=1-2].
Gay Georgian Nearly Roasted Alive As He Slept
Carrollton, Georgia – A 43-year-old, disabled gay man was targeted by arsonists as he slept in his bedroom. Christopher Staples, affectionately called “Brother” by acquaintances in this Appalachian foothills community, was lucky to escape with his life on Sunday, January 23, when his house was set ablaze in the predawn hours by charcoal fluid squirted into water pipe access holes in the home’s kitchen area. The victim called the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department to report that about 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, while he was watching television and finishing a cigarette, someone threw a heavy rock with a note attached threatening his life for being gay. Staples and his family sounded the alarm for the Sheriff’s Department again at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, reporting that he had nearly burned alive, and that his small house was engulfed in flames. Staples, who has been open about his gay orientation for thirty years, told WSBTV 2 that the note read: “We know you’re gay. And God hates gays. You won’t be raping anybody in the county and God’s going to make sure that you burn in hell . . .My daddy will make sure you burn in hell.” Staples revealed further details on the note to the Georgia Voice. The note, he said, had algebra homework written on one side, and “On the other side in pencil, it called me an ‘AIDS infested faggot’ and ‘God hates gays’ and ‘God will make sure all gays burn in hell.” After Staples had gone to sleep, he was awakened by a repetitive “popping” noise which made him think someone was throwing rocks at the house again. When he pushed back the covers, his comforter was already melting, and the bed was wreathed in thick smoke. “The house was black. And all I could see was an orange glow behind my head,” Staples said in the WSB interview. Staples believes God “held his hand” led him to safety, according to the GA Voice. The Sheriff’s Department is heading the investigation, assisted by the FBI. Possible hate crimes angles are being considered, but the case for what most anywhere else would be automatically considered an anti-gay hate crime will prove difficult to make in Georgia, one of only five states that has no LGBTQ protections in its laws. The only way the crime could be prosecuted as a hate crime would be by invoking the federal Matthew Shepard Act, something unlikely in rural west Georgia. The Times-Georgian reports that a $10,000 reward has been offered for information leading to arrests and convictions in the Staples case from the Georgia Arson Control Program. Initially, a Christian hate group was reported to have carried out the hit on the Carrollton native, but as the investigation proceeds, the identification of the perpetrators becomes less clear. Some local church groups have actually reached out to assist Staples, but whether out of a sense of Christian solidarity with the gay man, or in order to counter anti-Christian publicity is a matter of interpretation. On the whole, according to Staples’s family, gay outreach from around the country has outstripped the response of local straight groups and individuals. Now, two weeks after the attack, Staples is trying to put his life back together, and cope with the idea that someone tried to kill him in his sleep. “I know it happened, you look out there at my place and you see that,” Staples told the Times-Georgian. “But the severity of it hasn’t hit me. The fact that someone threw a rock through my window, told me they were going to kill me and then tried to do it is what doesn’t seem possible. I hear that whoever did this could get life in prison and I think, no way. But then my friends are like ‘Dude, someone tried to burn you alive.’ I mean, I still can’t grasp the thought of that. Why? I just don’t understand.”
Alleged Murderer of Transgender Woman to Stand Trial in Puerto Rico
Emmanuel Ayala (PrimeraHora.com photo)
Bayamón, Puerto Rico – A psychologist has informed the court in Bayamón that the alleged murderer of a popular transgender hair stylist is sane, and fit to stand trial for her murder. EDGE reports that Emmanuel Adorno Ayala, 22, allegedly stabbed Ashley Santiago 14 times inside her Corozal, Puerto Rico home on April 19. Santiago, 31, something of a local celebrity, was found dead, stripped naked in a large pool of blood in the kitchen of her home by police officers. At the time of her murder, Pedro Julio Serrano, leading LGBTQ rights activist in Puerto Rico, urged authorities to investigate the homicide as a hate crime. Transphobia has not been publicly established as a motive for the crime, but Serrano and other activists are monitoring developments closely. Gender presentation and gender identity have become major media issues in Puerto Rico since the brutal murder of Jorge Steven López Mercado in November 2009 outside Cayey. Mercado, a gay teen who presented femininely, was tortured, decapitated, and partially immolated by Juan A. Martínez Matos. Matos was convicted of López Mercado’s grisly murder in May after confessing the murder, and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Much of the controversy swirling around anti-LGBTQ hate crimes in the United States territory is due to the official refusal to investigate and prosecute crimes under existing hate crimes laws. Puerto Rico has hate crime law includes both sexual orientation and gender identity. Though the statutes took effect in 2002, prosecutors are reluctant to invoke it in obvious cases such as López Mercado’s and Santiago’s.
About
If you are a first-time visitor to the Unfinished Lives Project website, we invite you to read A Welcome Message introducing you to our project. We are truly grateful for your visit.
The Unfinished Lives Project website is a place of public discourse which remembers and honors LGBTQ hate crime victims, while also revealing the reality of unseen violence perpetrated against people whose only “offense” is their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender presentation. LGBTQ people in the United States are suffering a slow-rolling decimation of terror and murder all across the country. Every locale and demographic of society are affected: First Nations, Anglo, Black, Latino and Latina, South and Southeast Asian, Transgender, Bisexuals, Gay men, Lesbians, disabled, young, and mature. Homophobia has a long, crooked arm, and it is reaching out to snatch the life away from women and men whose tragic stories are under-reported to begin with, and whose memories are swiftly forgotten.
The horror of these killings transcends the shock and bereavement of loved ones and friends. These are not typical homicides; they are not killings for money or drugs, incidents of domestic strife, or crimes of passion. The vicious nature of hate crimes against LGBTQ persons is extremely brutal, grotesquely violent, and egregiously hateful.
Each murder serves the LGBTQ population as a sobering warning about the actual level of danger in our communities. The message these killings send is that freedom and open life for LGBTQ people is a cruel dream. Every time we remember one of these victims, however, the intentions of their killers are frustrated. To remember these women and men is to begin the process of changing the culture that killed them.
Our Project Director
Stephen V. Sprinkle is Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry, and Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas, a post he has held since 1994. An ordained Baptist minister, he is the first open and out Gay scholar in the history of the Divinity School, and the first open and out LGBTQ person to be tenured there. Read More…
Recent Social Justice Advocacy Activity By Dr. Sprinkle
Summer 2009 – Dr. Sprinkle responded to the Fort Worth Police Department and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Raid on the Rainbow Lounge, Fort Worth’s newest gay bar, on June 28, 2009, the exact 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Dr. Sprinkle was invited to speak at three protest events sponsored by Queer LiberAction of Dallas. Here, he is keynoting the Rainbow Lounge Protest at the Tarrant County Courthouse on July 12, 2009. Read More…
Contact Us
Communicate with the Unfinished Lives project team:
info@unfinishedlivesblog.com
Schedule a Presentation
Dr. Sprinkle will gladly present his acclaimed presentation to your organization. To arrange an Unfinished Lives presentation for your organization or group, please contact us.
Dr. Sprinkle has given his Unfinished Lives presentation to these and other community groups and organizations. Read More…
-
Where are our readers?
Follow Unfinished Lives on Facebook
Box Turtle Bulletin- The Daily Agenda for Monday, May 28
- Moscow Police Break Up Pride March, 40 Arrested
- The Daily Agenda for Sunday, May 27
- There Were No Bachelorette Parties at The Abbey in WeHo Last Night
- The Daily Agenda for Saturday, May 26
- Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend
- The new Exodus message
- Sometimes comments to an article can make your day
- This, I Did Not Expect
- Now this is the sermon I’ve been waiting to hear
- Unknown Feed
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- The Advocate: Daily News
- Thai Transgender Activist Wins Provincial Election
- WATCH Gay Advocate Says Dinner With Her Family Might Soften Antigay Leader Tony Perkins
- Arrests Made in Beating of Gay Minnesota Man
- WATCH Florida School in Antigay Bullying Investigation
- Green Lantern Alan Scott Pegged as New Gay DC Character
- Over a Thousand Protest Antigay Preacher in North Carolina
- Letters to Judge in Ravi Case May Have Influenced Sentencing
- Former Romney Aide Grenell Says He Was Not Forced Out of Campaign
- Moscow Police Break Up Two Gay Protests and Detain 40 Participants
- WATCH Trailer for K11
- Dallas Voice: Instant Tea
- National Log Cabin Republicans adds local President Thomas Purdy to Board of Directors
- The cover we should have done
- Marriage equality soars in popularity among African-Americans since Obama announcement
- Ex-Baylor star Robert Griffin III says he had a gay teammate at Copperas Cove High School
- REVIEW: Tom Goss last night at Opening Bell
- WATCH: Kylie Minogue’s “Timebomb”
- This weekend’s takeaways: Life+Style
- REVIEW: Men in Dreck 3
- WATCH: Gay S. Texas senior allowed to cross-dress at graduation
- Tarrant County Stonewall Dems fundraiser banks $20K to back Sen. Wendy Davis, House candidates
Repeal and Remembrance: Gay Military Martyrs and the End of DADT
Fallen Military Servicemembers
Washington, DC – On a red letter day when lawmakers voted to end the most notorious anti-gay policy in the federal canon, LGBT servicemembers and veterans who have been murdered because of their sexual and gender non-conformity must not be forgotten during the celebrations over passage of repeal of DADT. In a historic vote in the history of the human rights movement, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to end the ban on LGBT patriots from serving openly in the armed services of the United States. Saturday afternoon, 65 Senators voted for repeal with 31 in opposition. A simple majority of 51 was all that was required for passage of the Senate bill, which is identical to the one passed earlier in the week by the House of Representatives. Eight GOP Senators joined their Democratic colleagues to pass the repeal of the 17-year-old discriminatory policy that ended the military careers of 13,500 women and men because of their sexual orientation. Joe Manchin, the freshman Senator for West Virginia, was the only Democrat not voting for passage. According to the New York Times, his office informed the public that he had a “family commitment” he could not break.The bill now goes to President Obama for his signature to set the repeal in motion. GOP opponents of the repeal criticized the Democratic leadership of the Senate for the vote in the lame duck session just before the Holiday recess. Senator Carl Levin, the chair of the Senate Armed Service Committee, disputed the Republican claims that Democrats were ramming legislation through just to please the so-called “gay lobby.” In remarks to the New York Times, Senator Levin (D-Michigan) said: “I’m not here for partisan reasons. I’m here because men and women wearing the uniform of the United States who are gay and lesbian have died for this country, because gay and lesbian men and women wearing the uniform of this country have their lives on the line right now.” Yet it is not only for the living that this vote is significant. Our military dead are honored by this historic vote to end anti-LGBT discrimination, among whom are far too many gay servicemembers who were killed because of their sexual orientation. Our gay military martyrs, murdered because of homophobia, heterosexism, and transphobia in the armed services loom large in the memory of the LGBTQ community today because they are both a sign of hope and caution. They are a sign of hope that no more women and men need lose their lives in the military because of their sexual orientation and gender presentation. They are a sign of caution, because the passage of DADT repeal in no way guarantees the end of anti-gay violence in the military. We must name our LGBT military dead until violence against queer servicemembers ceases forever: Seaman Allen Schindler was beaten to death by shipmates in a public toilet in Sasebo, Japan. PFC Barry Winchell was murdered with a baseball bat in the Army barracks at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Seaman August Provost was shot to death on base in San Diego, and then his body was set afire in a guard shack in the vain attempt to destroy evidence of the murder. Army veteran Michael Scott Goucher was lured into a fatal ambush by local youths near his home in Pennsylvania. These four are representative of the many more slaughtered by ignorance and hate by fellow servicemembers and civilians. Pundits say that after President Obama signs the Repeal Act into law, it will still take at least sixty days for the military ban to be lifted for LGBT military personnel. Until that time, the current discriminatory law stays in effect. But the culture of violence that harasses and kills LGBT women and men who wear the uniform remains virulently poised to take more lives until the root of fear is eliminated in the armed services. To that end, the historic passage of the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is simply the beginning of a new campaign, in the name of our gay military martyrs, to replace the fear and loathing of the sexual minority with education and respect.
Share this:
Like this:
December 19, 2010 Posted by unfinishedlives | African Americans, Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Asian Americans, Bisexual persons, Bludgeoning, California, DADT, Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), gay men, gun violence, harassment, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, Illinois, immolation, Kentucky, Latino and Latina Americans, Law and Order, Legislation, Lesbian women, military, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Politics, Remembrances, Special Comments, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, U.S. Army, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Marines, U.S. Navy, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. | African Americans, Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bisexual people, Bludgeoning, California, Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), gay men, gun violence, harassment, Hate Crimes, hate crimes legislation, Heterosexism and homophobia, Illinois, immolation, Kentucky, Latino / Latina Americans, Law and Order, Lesbians, military, Missouri, perpetrators, Politics, Remembrances, Special Comment, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, U.S. Army, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Marines, U.S. Navy, U.S. Senate, Washington D.C. | Leave a Comment