Remembering Sakia Gunn (1987-2003): A Special Comment on Her Birthday
Sakia LaTona Gunn, murdered by a male homophobe as she defended her friends from him. She was not yet 16 when she died.
Newark, New Jersey – On Saturday, Sakia LaTona Gunn would have been 25 years old–but instead, she was murdered by a homophobe on the make for young lesbians. Sakia’s story never got the press attention other LGBTQ hate crimes murder victims did. She was a young, black, poor girl from the wrong side of the Hudson River. But among those who know her story, there is great power for change still waiting to be released until justice finally comes for Sakia–and for all queer youth caught in the national nightmare of violence against young people of color that just won’t seem to go away.
The narrative of her last night is chilling. Sakia and her friends returned from a great day at the Chelsea Piers over in the Big Apple. They laughed, joked, sneaked drinks, and held each other in a blissful freedom they did not know back home. Late, late–or early, depending on how you keep time–Sakia and her friends stood waiting for a bus to pick them up at one of the busiest bus stops in Newark, when two older, much more powerful men drove by cat-calling at them, trolling for something young and vulnerable. They recognized that the girls were Aggressives–gender non-conforming youth who lived the hip hop life as fully as they could. And something snapped within Richard McCullough when his blandishments were rejected by Sakia.
When McCullough, much larger and stronger than any of the girls he attacked, moved against her friends, Sakia defended them with her life. McCullough stabbed her in the chest with a switchblade knife, later lamely claiming that she had “run” onto the knife he somehow was wielding in self defense. Neither the jury nor the judge bought his story, and he was convicted of manslaughter in a plea bargain and sentenced to 20 years (rather than face a murder charge and be subject to far more prison time).
Sakia’s funeral was huge. Over 2,500 people attended the wake, though it was only slightly covered in the gay media, and virtually not at all in the mainstream press–a fact that has been controversial ever since her story broke. Racism and sexism played their part in dampening the story, as did Sakia’s self identification as a lesbian Aggressive, effectively rendering her a minority within a minority. A courageous filmmaker, Chas Bennet Brack, worked tirelessly to bring Sakia’s story to the big screen as a documentary. ”Dreams Deferred: The Sakia Gunn Film Project” became an award winner at film festivals around the country. Sakia’s story became a subject of research, scholarship, and artistic interest, with plays, articles, and books dedicated to her memory. Among them is the IPPY Award winning Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications, 2011), by Stephen V. Sprinkle, the founder and director of the Unfinished Lives Project.
Against the odds, Sakia Gunn intended on being a basketball star. She found love and friendship in plenty during her woefully shortened life. But her story persistently clamors for attention, crying out for justice for youth of color, queer people, and economically disadvantaged persons of all races and backgrounds. Though she never wished it, she has become an ongoing inspiration–a brave young woman unafraid to be who she was in a hostile world, one who defended her friends. What greater love can anyone have than that?
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Gay Martyr for Justice Harvey Milk Celebrated Throughout America
San Francisco, California – Harvey Milk Day, May 22, celebrates the life and legacy of love of Harvey Bernard Milk, born May 22, 1930, and gunned down in his San Francisco City Hall office on November 27, 1978. He was the first openly gay person elected to a major political office in the United States when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. His close associate, gay activist Cleve Jones, says of his friend Harvey, “He fought for gay people, against war and for workers and the poor. He stood with women, immigrants, seniors and youth. He forged coalitions that built power for ordinary men and women and moved us all forward with his humor, compassion and great love for his people.”
In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, Anne Kronenberg, another intimate friend of Harvey’s who managed his successful election campaign to the Board of Supervisors, reflects on Harvey’s legacy of human rights progress in the 33 years since he was assassinated. She writes, “In 1977″ (the year of Harvey’s election), “we were taking baby steps in our fight for equal rights. In 2012, we have come a long way as the dialogue on equality is a top-of-mind issue and specific actions are reaching that goal. Harvey Milk’s life and death changed the course of history,” Kronenberg went on to say. “Milk’s legacy, to give people hope for a better tomorrow, is very much alive in the hearts of anyone working to achieve change. Thank you, Harvey!”
In 2010, the State of California officially set aside May 22, the anniversary of Harvey’s birth, to be an annual celebration of his memory, the story of the struggle for LGBTQ rights, and of the continuing effort to make this a better world. His work in education (successfully opposing the infamous Briggs Initiative, also known in California as Prop 6), and in youth empowerment is now being championed by the Harvey B. Milk Foundation, founded by Harvey’s nephew Stuart Milk and his friend Anne Kronenberg. To learn more about Harvey’s life, times, assassination and witness for justice, see the Academy Award winning films The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) and Milk (2009). In book form, the definitive work is still Randy Shilts’s The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (St. Martins Griffin, 2008).
The Unfinished Lives Project Team joins grateful Americans from every walk of life in the celebration of Harvey Milk, hate crimes murder victim, gay rights pioneer, and friend of all marginalized people. Though he died, yet he lives in our hearts and minds, and in the living shrine of liberty made up of the lived experiences of increasing millions of out and proud LGBTQ people. Happy Birthday, Harvey!
Lesbians Thrown Out of Texas Bar, Then Beaten in Possible Hate Crime
Julie Ward says she and her friends were held and beaten for being lesbians (KVUE News image)
Weir, Texas – A group of lesbians say that they were thrown out of a local bar and then held and beaten because of their sexual orientation. Weir, Texas is a town of 500+ souls in Northeast Williamson County, east of Georgetown and north of Austin. Julie Ward, her sister, sister-in-law, and another friend stopped in the Bunkhouse Bar, the only place to get an adult drink in the town, late on Sunday, according to the Dallas Voice. Ward, one of the victims in the crime, said to KVUE News that she and her party got beers and started playing pool. A female employee of the Bunkhouse approached them to tell them the bar “didn’t serve [their] type,” that they were not welcome there, and to see them out the door. When the group of women moved outside, patrons of the bar followed them into the parking lot, seized them, and commenced to beat them while hurling anti-lesbian slurs at them.
Ward says that women held them while the men from the bar beat them. She told KVUE: “As we came outside into the parking lot, we were followed by the patrons of the bar and our arms were held back by women and we were beaten by men. A man told me if I was going to look like a man, I better be able to take a hit like a man, and I was punched in the face at that moment and hit the ground.” Ward continued: “We’re just people too. We’re normal people that wanted to be in a bar. We wanted to spend our money there. We wanted to play pool there and because of our sexuality we weren’t welcome.” Ward, her friend, and her sister suffered multiple scrapes, bruises, and cuts on their arms and legs from the beating.
A bar spokeswoman says that “sexual preference” didn’t cause the attack. In her version of the incident, the lesbians were “rough housing,” and were asked to leave. No explanation was given of why patrons of the bar followed the victims outside, held and beat them. Weir residents are making the customary defense of their hometown, saying that things like a lesbian beat-down don’t occur in their close knit community.
The Williamson County Sheriff’s Department says that the investigation is ongoing, and if a hate crime was perpetrated, then the case will be treated as a bias crime at that time. No arrests in the beating have yet been announced.
Transgender Woman Savagely Murdered in Detroit
East Detroit kill site where trans woman Coko Williams was brutally murdered (Detroit Free Press photo)
Detroit, Michigan – A 35-year-old trans woman was found murdered outside a Parkhurst neighborhood home on Tuesday morning. Because of the reputation of the area, and the stigma associating transgender women with sex workers, the killing of Coko Williams is being lost in the struggle of a neighborhood to survive. Ms. Williams was found with her throat slashed and shot to death around 6:25 a.m. Tuesday in an area of East Detroit habituated by male and female prostitutes–one that could be justifiably described as “gritty.” WWJ, the local CBS affiliate, reports that details are still emerging at this hour, but witnesses told police that the killers sped from the crime scene in a gold-colored vehicle. No suspects have been identified at this time.
News coverage, like that done by Fox News 2, has been slanted toward the determination of Parkhurst residents to eliminate prostitution, drug sales, and violence from their area. Ms. Williams’ murder simply serves Fox as an example of the problems residents face. The Examiner presents Ms. Williams as a “man dressed as a woman,” showing the victim’s self-identification as inconsequential in an otherwise sensational story. Both news sources illustrate the massive difficulty transgender people face overcoming the biased stereotypes that demean trans people everywhere, and denigrate the characters of trans victims of violence, such as Ms. Williams.
Coko Williams was well-known and well-liked, according to the Trans Women’s Anti-Violence Program. A friend of Ms. Williams who identified herself as Dada told TWAVP that she had known Ms. Williams for fifteen years. Though she was “a loner,” Ms. Dada said, “She was really a sweet, quiet girl. She was never shady or nasty. She wasn’t that type of girl at all. She was always respectful of herself and to other people. It’s sad for her to go out the way she did.” Her friends told authorities that supported herself as a hair stylist.
Equality Michigan’s Director of Victim Services, Nursrat Ventimiglia, issued an extensive statement to the press, combatting the disinformation surrounding Ms. Williams’ hate crime murder, and calling upon the Detroit Police to apprehend her killers with all possible speed. “It has been widely reported,” Ventimiglia said, “that the area in which this crime occurred is known for sex work. To be clear, it is unknown at this time whether Ms. Williams was engaged in sex work at the time of her killing, however, it is clear that sex workers are often targets of severe violence. Further, transgender women are far too often victims of the most severe violence.”
Ventimiglia then detailed the crisis of transgender violence rocking Detroit and the nation: “Our most recent report through the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, Hate Violence Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and HIV-Affected Communities in the United States in 2010, documented 27 anti gay, transgender and HIV positive murders, the second highest yearly total ever recorded by the coalition, and transgender women made up 44% of the 27 reported murders in 2010 while representing only 11% of total survivors and victims. Among transgender murder victims, 42% of transgender women killed last year were engaged in sex work at the time of their murder. Equality Michigan and the NCAVP denounce violence against sex workers and seek to raise awareness of the violence faced by gay and transgender sex workers as well as transgender women.”
The investigation is ongoing.
Gay Bashing Targets Two North Carolina Women
Sarabeth Nordstrom and Erin Johnston, brutally attacked by homophobes in Boone, North Carolina (Q Notes image)
Boone, North Carolina – Two women perceived to be lesbians were targeted by anti-gay violence at a fast food restaurant in Boone, North Carolina. Sarabeth Nordstrom and Erin Johnston, a junior exercise science major at Appalachian State University, were verbally harassed with anti-lesbian slurs at the restaurant on February 11 by two females and a male, according to Q Notes. When Nordstrom and Johnston left for home, the lone male and one of the female harassers followed them. According to Equality North Carolina, the male initiated the attack upon the women at approximately 2:30 a.m. in the parking lot of the apartment complex where the victims lived. Nordstrom was struck in the face repeatedly, sustaining a broken nose, eye socket, and cheekbone. Johnston was knocked to the ground when she tried to call 911 for help, and stomped again and again. Her ribs were broken, her meniscus was torn, and she suffered wounds to her mouth and her nasal cartilage. They were treated at Watauga Medical Center and released.
The victims said they had never met their assailants prior to the incident. The alleged main attacker, Ketoine Jamahl Mitchell, 19, turned himself into Boone Police, and was charged with two counts of assault on a woman, one count of assault inflicting serious injury, and one count of assault with a deadly weapon. Brooklyn Lacrossa Canter, 18, was arrested in early March, and charged with aiding and abetting the assault. Mitchell, who has a larceny record in Caldwell County, is being held in the Watauga Detention Center on a $6,000 secure bond, according to The Appalachian Online. Authorities have set April 17 for the first court appearance of Mitchell and Canter.
As Equality North Carolina points out, there is no hate crimes protection for lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, and transgender people in the state law codes. Since this savage attack, ENC has agitated for the passage of the Safer Communities Act by the NC State Legislature, which specifies LGBT people as a protected class from physical harm. Since anti-gay slurs were shouted by the assailants at the victims during the harassment and attack, by definition this was a hate crime–one law enforcement authorities in North Carolina are not yet equipped to acknowledge or combat.
The Appalachian State community has rallied to the support of the victims. On March 2, a University Forum addressed the question of violence against gay people and women, and on March 5 a benefit was held to give the women a hand with their expenses since the attack. A petition to Governor Bev Perdue and the state legislature to amend the NC hate crimes statutes is collecting signatures on Change.org, and can be accessed here. A Facebook page has been created in support of the petition.
Gay Hate Bashings by Young Attackers Alarm Citizens of Massachusetts
Police sketch of assailants in gay bashing on the campus of Bridgewater State University.
Bridgewater and Boston, Massachusetts – Two recent attacks–one against a gay man on a Boston Transit train, and the other against a university journalist for writing a gay-supportive column in the Bridgewater State University Comment–suggest that young females are now attacking gay and gay-friendly allies with greater frequency and boldness than in the recent past. The Patriot Ledger reported that a student journalist was attacked who wrote a supportive article on same-sex marriage after the California federal court ruling on Prop 8. Destinie Mogg-Barkalow, who wrote the article entitled “Prop 8 Generates More Hate” told campus police that she was confronted by a young man with close-cropped hair and a red-haired young woman in a campus parking lot Thursday evening, February 16 who asked her if she wrote the pro-gay piece. When Mogg-Barkalow said “yes,” the woman struck her in the face, bruising her badly. She stumbled back to the offices of the Comment where staffers called for help. Mogg-Barkalow, who is a lesbian, has described her assailants, and the investigation is ongoing. The university police, president, and campus community have rallied in Mogg-Barkalow’s support. Bridgewater is south of the Boston metro area.
Huffington Post reports this week that Boston Transit Police are investigating an assault on a gay man by at least three teenage women who shouted slurs at him for his race and sexual orientation. The victim, who remains unnamed, had his face badly cut, and his nose bloodied. His backpack was stolen along with its contents: an iPod and a digital camera. A passenger on the T who witnessed the attack, Priscilla Ballou, told WHDH Channel 7 News, “[The victim] was on the receiving end of two kinds of violence: one, the physical violence against his body, and the other, the hate violence against his spirit.” Metro Boston Transit Authority spokesman, Deputy Chief Joseph O’Connor, said, “Some statements were made relative to his sexual orientation and we have conferred with the district attorney and the attorney general who have advised us to pursue that avenue.” An 18-year-old suspect from Dorchester has been questioned so far. The attackers, when apprehended, will be charged with assault and battery, and unarmed robbery, as well as a hate crime.
Bay State citizens, especially LGBTQ people, are deeply concerned about what this means for the safety and security of queer folk in a supposed liberal bastion of the nation. Conventional wisdom holds that young people are more tolerant of LGBTQ people, and that females are seldom involved in gay bashings. In both instances, younger women are alleged to have carried out physical attacks against gays and lesbians. Though the majority of violent attacks on gay, lesbian, and transgender people are carried out by young Caucasian men, the disturbing evidence of female anti-gay violence seems to be mounting. As hate crimes like this begin to pile up around New England and the nation, the conventional wisdom will have to be reconsidered.
Fort Worth’s Brite Divinity School Makes Top 20 List of Most Sexually Healthy and Responsible Seminaries
Fort Worth, Texas – According to the prestigious Religious Institute, Brite Divinity School has won a berth among the Top 20 “Most Sexually Healthy and Responsible Seminaries” in the United States. Brite, a non-sectarian progressive divinity school on the campus of Texas Christian University, is the only institution of theological higher education in the Southwestern United States to make the cut by fulfilling the criteria set out by the Religious Institute, a multi-faith organization dedicated to sexual health, education and justice, based in Westport, Connecticut. The rest of the Top 20 honorees are located in the North, on the Eastern Seaboard, and in California. For the full list, click here.
This achievement puts Brite and the other 19 seminaries and divinity schools in the front ranks of addressing sexuality issues in the formation of religious professionals, according to the Religious Institute’s website. Rev. Debra W. Haffner, Executive Director of the Religious Institute, said that the seminary list represents hard work and commitment on the part of each school in partnership with the Institute. Though seminary education in the past offered virtually no help or instruction to prospective religious professionals in sexuality and sexual diversity, the landscape has changed in less than two years. Haffner said, “These twenty seminaries are the vanguard in ensuring that tomorrow’s clergy are prepared to minister to their congregants, and to be effective advocates for sexual health and justice.”
Brite was cited for instituting “a full-semester course on sexuality and pastoral care issues; has revised their community inclusion statement to be inclusive of sex, gender identity, and orientation; and requires all field education supervisors, students, and lay committees to address sexuality-related training needs.” In addition, the Fort Worth school has created a model for seminary-wide dialogue with Christian denominations on the ordination and authorization of LGBTQ people for religious leadership.
The Carpenter Initiative on Gender, Sexuality and Justice was inaugurated at Brite in October 2011, and named openly lesbian Rev. Dr. Joretta Marshall as its first director. A grant of $250,000 over five years will advance teaching, dialogue and programming on sexuality and diversity. Speaking at the Inaugural Service on October 4, Dr. Marshall, Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Counseling at Brite, said to a packed chapel, “For justice work to be carefully done, we must listen most clearly and closely to those whose very souls are at risk by the spirit of hate and rejection they experience in their churches.” Dr. Marshall said that matters of sexuality and justice at Brite flow from “the recognition that God loves all people.” She went on to say, “Being disruptive agents on behalf of justice requires support, both individual and collective, and the Carpenter Foundation and Brite are reminders that institutions can shape change.”
Rev. Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, an openly gay member of Brite’s faculty, is the 18-year Director of the Field Education and Supervised Ministry program that teaches practical ministry to all Master of Divinity (MDiv) and Master of Arts in Christian Service (MACS) students on the Fort Worth campus. Reflecting on this milestone in sexuality education and ministry, Dr. Sprinkle said, “While much more remains to be done in the areas of diversity and sexual justice at Brite, this honor gives us a moment to pause and thankfully remember the courageous LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff, who worked so hard for equality and sexual wholeness in what many would consider a difficult part of the country.”
“Brite stands in sharp contrast to the world’s largest Southern Baptist seminary, just down the street from us, where reparative therapy for homosexuality is still thought to be appropriately Christian,” continued Sprinkle, who founded and directs the Unfinished Lives Project to combat anti-LGBTQ hate crimes. “Given the unique way Bible, church, and theology have been misused in American religion to justify anti-gay discrimination and physical violence, the work of all these top seminaries to break the link between religious-based sexual bigotry and faith leadership is one of the most important things they do.”
DOMA Discrimination Against Lesbian Army Veteran Challenged in Court
Tracey Cooper-Harris, highly decorated Army veteran, denied spousal benefits because she is lesbian
Los Angeles, California – A highly decorated lesbian veteran of the U.S. Army is being denied disability benefits because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and today the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed an important lawsuit to challenge DOMA on her behalf. Tracey Cooper-Harris served with honor in the U.S. Army for 12 years, and received an honorable discharge in 2003 after having received more than two dozen medals and commendations. But because she married a person of her own sex in California, a perfectly legal marriage still in force, the United States government is denying her and her spouse Maggie equal disability benefits to those heterosexual spouses are receiving.
Cooper-Harris, who achieved the rank of Sergeant for her service in Kyrgyzstan and Kuwait in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, was diagnosed in 2010 with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a disabling disease of the brain and central nervous system for which there is no known cure. Government doctors determined that Cooper-Harris contracted MS as a result of her military service. Faced with a daunting future, she is trying to get her affairs in order as any responsible spouse would. Cooper-Harris received individual disability benefits, but since DOMA is still federal law, the government says that she and her spouse are not eligible for the spousal benefits her service truly entitles them too–all because of anti-gay discrimination, even after the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT).
Cooper-Harris said, “I dedicated 12 years of my life to serving the country I love. I’m asking only for the same benefits the brave men and women who served beside me enjoy. By refusing to recognize our marriage, the federal government has deprived Maggie and me of the peace of mind that such benefits are meant to provide to veterans and their families.”
The federal lawsuit, Cooper-Harris vs. United States, filed February 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, challenges the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the laws governing the Veterans Affairs policy that denies equal treatment before the law for Cooper-Harris and other married same-sex persons in the nation. Christine P. Sun, Deputy Legal Director of the SPLC, said, “The government’s refusal to grant these benefits is a slap in the face to the gay and lesbian service members who put their lives on the line to protect our nation and our freedoms. Especially given the recent repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, it’s shocking that the federal government continues to demean Tracey’s years of service and the service of many others in this way.” The case is being litigated on Cooper-Harris’s behalf pro bono (at no charge) by the SPLC.
Happy Queer New Year 2012! Time to Be Yourself!
Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta (l), and Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell (Brian Clark, Virginia Pilot)
“Be yourself no matter what they say!” ~ Sting, lyrics from “An Englishman in New York.” In the New Year 2012, our wish for all our loyal supporters of the Unfinished Lives Project is for each and everyone of us to be ourselves–in hope and joy, need or plenty, LGBTQ and GenderQueer and Intersex, from every walk of life, ability or the lack thereof, and in the audacity of the queer imagination.
It has been a tough, heartbreaking, wonderful year, as the photo of the first official lesbian kiss for the U.S. Navy post-DADT testifies. Virginia Pilot photographer Brian Clark caught on the the most striking LGBTQ images of the year when Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta kissed her girlfriend, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell December 21 at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Petty Officer Gaeta had just completed a tour of duty that took her and the crew of the USS Oak Hill to Central America. Officials acknowledged that the kiss, an iconic tradition in the Navy, is the first done by a same-sex couple in U.S. naval history. The couple won a raffle to decide who would get the opportunity to carry out the tradition when the ship docked. From the Virginia Pilot:
Until September, when the military’s ban on openly gay service was lifted, they worked hard to keep their relationship secret. When Snell came home from her last deployment in August, kissing on the pier wasn’t an option.
“This is the first time we can actually show who we are,” she says.
Adds Gaeta, “It’s nice to be able to be myself.”
Yes. It is nice. And groundbreaking. Every time LGBTQ people act according to their power, no matter what others may say, the world changes just a little bit more in favor of diversity. That is worth celebrating! From all of us at the Unfinished Lives Project Team to all of you, a wish for an authentically, joyously, fulfilling New Year!
Gay/Lesbian Inclusive Nativity Scene Vandalized at Southern California Church
Gay/Lesbian Inclusive Nativity Scene Before Vandals Attacked (image courtesy of the church)
Claremont, California – Gay and lesbian images and a Star of Bethlehem were vandalized on Christmas at a local Claremont church. Between 11 a.m. on Saturday, Christmas Eve, and 9 a.m. Sunday, Christmas Day, vandals overturned two six-hundred-pound light boxes depicting same-sex couples in silhouette, leaving them face down on the lawn of Claremont United Methodist Church. A third light box depicting a heterosexual couple was left undisturbed. Police are investigating the vandalism as a hate crime. Because of the size of the panels and their weight, it is believed that a single person could not have carried out the crime. Over $3,000 worth of damage was caused to the installation.
The pastor, Rev. Dr. Sharon Rhodes-Wickett, says she and the church leadership have no doubts they did the right thing by displaying the controversial images. The church has been a “Reconciling Ministries” congregation, welcoming LGBT people into the full life of the church, since 1993. She said that in view of the attack on the gay and lesbian panels of the display, the gay inclusive nativity exhibit was “exactly the right scene to put up,” according to ABC 7 News. CUMC is known for taking controversial stands on contemporary social issues, and they have displayed exhibits on the lawn concerning poverty, war, and illegal immigration in the past, for example–but this is the first time any scene at the church has been disturbed.
While no graffiti was left on the light boxes, the message was clear in the selection of which panels to turn over. Sgt. Jason Walters of the Claremont Police Department said to the Daily Bulletin, “It’s a hate crime based on it being church property as well as the wooden box knocked over that depicted two males holding hands.” Police are reviewing surveillance video of the area to identify the perpetrators. No suspects have been identified as of yet.
The artist who constructed the 6-foot-by-8-foot light boxes, John Zachary, was not surprised that the vandalism occurred. He said to ABC 7, “I think that it troubled a lot of people.” Still, Zachary believes the display achieved its purpose by creating dialogue. “What I’ve tried to do is to include the people who’ve been disenfranchised from the church and from the process,” he said. Local residents range in opinion from support for the displays to disapproval of the subject, some of them saying to reporters that the depictions of same-sex couples for Christmas outside a church were “in poor taste.”
Associate Minister Dan Lewis told the Daily Bulletin, “We have members of our church who are gay and lesbian who it sends a very personal message to. I tried to say in worship on Sunday morning that we will not let it trouble us.” An interfaith community vigil in support LGBT people is planned at the site of the installation for Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Still, one of the more disturbing aspects of the incident is that few of the residents of the area seem to care about the vandalism much at all. One member of the LGBTQ community opined that it is easier to talk about being a liberal community than it is to do anything substantive about it.
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…
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