Phillip Parker, 14: Bullied for being gay, he felt life was not worth living.

Gordonsville, Tennessee – The body of a 14-year-old gay boy was found by his parents and grandparents Friday, along with a suicide note begging his mother to help him. Phillip Parker committed suicide after being relentlessly bullied for his sexual orientation at Gordonsville High School. WSMV reports that Parker’s parents learned the magnitude of the bullying problem in the school only after he took his life.

This latest gay teen suicide takes place in a state riven with anti-gay controversy.  Recent “Don’t Say Gay,” “License to Bully,” and anti-transgender “Bathroom” bills are making their way through the Tennessee State Legislature, all attempting to stigmatize and debase LGBTQ people. Correlations have been made between high profile anti-gay news stories and a heightened number of violent incidents involving LGBTQ people around the nation.

Young Phillip was the person most likely to tell friends they were beautiful.  His mom said he was energetic, loving, fun, and happy.  But his grandmother reported to WSMV that he confided to her that he was burdened by the bullying, “like he had a big rock on his chest.”  The family said they had complained about the bullying to school officials, but the problem only got worse.

News 5 reports that over a hundred contacts with the Parker family after Phillip’s death added details to the bullying situation at the school. The family said some of these stories showed just how obvious the anti-gay bullying had become there.  His grandfather, Paul Harris, said to News 5: “Because he was gay, he got mistreated physically, mentally by several people out there at the school, and I am very resentful as a result of it. A sweet kind person like Phillip took it out on himself, he killed himself to get out of the pain.” 

No cause of death has yet been officially released by law enforcement authorities.  School officials have not returned calls for comment to the press.

Pet cat killed because of hate. Picture provided by Blue Arkansas who wrote: "It is included here not for shock value, but to show just how heinous some people can be."

Russellville, Arkansas – Jake Burris, campaign manager for Democratic Congressional candidate Ken Aden, came home with his four children to find their pet cat slaughtered on the front porch.  ”LIBERAL” was scrawled in magic marker on the lifeless body. In a clear example of terrorism, the innocent animal had been bashed in the head and left so that it could not be missed by Burris, who is locked in a tight campaign struggle against a right-wing Republican opponent to elect his candidate to the U.S. House of Representatives.  But instead of Burris finding the carcass of the family pet before his children, his little boy found their kitty first.  Blue Arkansas wrote movingly about this atrocity:

“This is terrorism.  There’s no other word for it.  A police report has been filed.  Jake said the kids seem to be handling it okay.  The one that discovered the cat was too young to be able to read and Jake had quickly gotten the others into the house before they saw it.  Pope County is an insanely conservative area and the Aden campaign has been shaking things up even there and it looks like another right wing sociopath with a taste for violence has come crawling out of the woodwork in response.  I asked Aden for a comment on the record:

‘“This is sickening.  To kill a child’s pet…I’m at a loss for words…I’ve seen the best and the worst of humanity, but this is something else.”’

Defenseless, innocent victims pay the price of hate ideology and violence first–our pets.  Violence against human victims is underreported, but statistics on this dimension of hate violence are non-existent. The numbers of pets slain in hate killings must be astronomical. Political liberals, progressives, LGBTQ people, women, racial/ethnic minorities have all experienced the terrible shock, anger, and raw fear Jake Burris and his family faced yesterday at the hands of irrational hate groups who send a message of terror by killing cats, dogs, birds and other family pets.

The murder of pet animals is often a prelude to anti-human violence.  Gay man Charlie Howard found his cat dead on the front steps of his apartment in Bangor, Maine with its neck broken shortly before a gang of Bangor’s youth threw him off the State Street Bridge. Friends of Charlie’s said that after he found his cat killed, he became depressed and fearful. He had every reason to be, as it turned out. Charlie drowned in Kenduskeag Stream because three boys hated him because of his sexual orientation.  The pet killing was a telegraphic message of homophobia, sent from people who warmed up to killing Charlie by taking the life of his companion.

I know the feeling that terrorized Charlie Howard and that the Jake Burris and his family face now.  In the early 1990′s, I came home from pastoral hospital visits to parishioners to find my English Bulldog Buck and my Basset Hound Beau butchered, hanging up in a tree in my Eastern NC parsonage yard.  Anonymous opponents suspected I was gay, and tried to drive me out of the church I was serving by slaughtering my pets.  In those days, I lived a single, closeted life, serving churches with the fear of discovery of my sexual orientation. My dogs were my only companions, and paid the ultimate price because cowards thought I would run.  I did not run.  I stayed at the church and fought back successfully.  But the loss is still with me.

Reuters reports that the campaign of Republican incumbent Steve Womack, Aden’s opponent in the heavily conservative 3rd District of Arkansas, has condemned the killing of Burris’s cat.  Candidate Aden and Burris said they do not believe anyone in the Womack campaign perpetrated the crime.  The Russellville Police Department is treating this incident as an animal cruelty case, and the investigation is ongoing. But the fact remains that the atmosphere of irrational hatred propounded by unreasoning prejudice is lethal.

Jake Burris told Blue Arkansas, “I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it. If I have to protect my kids I’ll do it without hesitation.”  

We have a duty to all life to find a cure for hate.  Our pets pay as terrible a price as we do because of hate violence.  Perhaps the shock of a story like this can awaken the consciences of our neighbors to work with us to create a world safe for all creatures to live without fear.    ~ Stephen V. Sprinkle, Founder and Director of the Unfinished Lives Project, Associate Prof at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas

Anti-gay hate groups and a few Black pastors protest outside SPLC offices last week.

Montgomery, Alabama – A dozen African American ministers and representatives of anti-gay hate groups listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) picketed and protested in front of the justice organization’s headquarters in Montgomery, according to a post by the SPLC.  Stung by being listed publicly as anti-gay hate groups because of many documented instances of spreading falsehoods and demonizing gay LGBTQ people, these groups are hitting back at the respected civil rights watchdog organization, calling its Intelligence Report campaign to expose anti-gay bigotry “lies” and part of a “liberal plot” to undermine the American family. Black Entertainment National News (BET) reported that the participation of African American pastors protesting the civil rights organization was “ironic.”

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber, a well-financed cadre of right-wing attorneys affiliated with Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Baptist University and Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, said: “The SPLC has moved from monitoring actual hate groups like the KKK and neo-Nazis to slandering mainstream Christian organizations with that very same hate group label.” Barber went on to charge that “billions” of Jewish and Christian people were being “smeared” by the SPLC as hateful because they teach traditional Judeo-Christian values.  Members of widely-known anti-gay hate organizations such as AFTAH, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, and Abiding Truth Ministries also spoke.  The themes they and their African American clergy supporters sounded at a press conference related to the protests included charges of unfairness, hating God, and spreading lies about these groups, all as instruments of “pro-gay politicking.” 

SPLC’s Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report, swiftly refuted the accusations of attacking these hate groups for their Christian or Jewish faith. Potok said, “Our listing of anti-gay hate groups is completely unrelated to religion, Christianity or the Bible. These groups are listed because they repeatedly lie in an effort to defame LGBT people, an exercise they’ve been extraordinarily successful at. The idea that we are criticizing these groups because they represent Judeo-Christian morality is simply ludicrous.”  Examples of the efforts to stigmatize and defame LGBTQ people by these groups include trumped up charges that gay men are largely pedophiles who prey on the young, are sex-addicted, and instigated the Holocaust against the Jews of Europe.

Abiding Truth Ministries founder, Scott Lively, who has actively sought to foment anti-gay attitudes in nations of the former Soviet Union and Sub-Saharan Africa, sent a written appeal to God to eliminate the SPLC.  Lively’s statement, read at the protest press conference, said, “My prayer, as one who really does hate irrational prejudice, is that the Lord by His sovereign power will remove this dangerous, hate-spreading organization from our nation and cause its leaders and members to repent for their wickedness. … I want to make clear that I am asking God himself to destroy their organization.”  Box Turtle Bulletin, a blog founded to monitor news affecting the LGBTQ community worldwide, maintains a massive dossier on Scott Lively’s hate mongering activities and statements, which can be accessed here.

The SPLC’s Winter 2010 issue of the Intelligence Report lists 18 anti-gay hate groups and their propaganda.  The award-winning  quarterly magazine gives comprehensive research updates on hate groups to law enforcement agencies, the media, and the general public. According to its Intelligence Files, “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians has been a central theme of Christian Right organizing and fundraising for the past three decades – a period that parallels the fundamentalist movement’s rise to political power.”

In response to the threat of divine retribution for labeling anti-gay hate organizations for what they are, the SPLC said that if the firebombing by the Ku Klux Klan did not destroy the organization, it is doubtful that anti-gay hate groups will have any better luck.

The Volunteer State has entertained some of the most regressive, homophobic laws in the nation, typified by the reprehensible “Don’t Say Gay” and “License to Bully” bills, and as long as the radical, extremist right wing is in power in the state, the cavalcade of bias-driven laws is unlikely to stop.  The “Don’t Say Gay” bill bans use of the words “gay” or “homosexual” in a Tennessee public school classroom (while, as Signorile says, “pervert” or “sodomite” are fine!) to prevent teaching or discussion about same-sex issues.  The “License to Bully” bill, if passed, would offer protections to students who attack the legitimacy of homosexuality as a normal human variation–in effect offering cover to people who wish to bully LGBTQ students.

In a major national survey issued in October 2011, the first of its kind, transgender people in the United States were shown to be the object of discrimination in every sector of life.  The Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Study, “Injustice at Every Turn,” noted that “It is a part of social and legal convention in the United States to discriminate against, ridicule, and abuse transgender and gender non-conforming people within foundational institutions such as the family, schools, the workplace and healthcare settings, every day.”  This amounts to a colossal moral failure in American life, and the Tennessee bill is of a piece with this systematic and structural bias-attack on transgender people.

The ACLU decries anti-transgender “bathroom bills,” seeing such laws as fundamentally violating non-discrimination laws.  Social advocacy groups within the state, such as the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition (TTPC), are opposing the bill, which was introduced by State Senator Bo Watson (R) to make Tennessee, in the words of Think Progress, “a particularly unfriendly place for transgender people.” The text of the “Bathroom Bill” may be accessed here.

As transgender advocate Ryan Sallans, writes in his popular blogsite, “I’m thinking of all you folks down in Tennessee. When is this sh*t going to stop? I just wish politicians didn’t exist, the world would be a better place. Communities should just sit down and talk, get to know each other, respect their differences and understand we all are just trying to live and make it mean something in a challenging world.”  When will the sh*t stop, indeed! (Thanks for links to Dr. Jason Lamoreaux).

Celebrating 250,000 readers and more! Many thanks!

Dallas, Texas – A blog site created to change the conversation on anti-LGBTQ hate crimes hosted the 250K visitor today, marking a milestone in cyberspace.  Unfinished Lives Blog broke the quarter million hit barrier Tuesday morning, January 10, fueled by intense interest in gay bashing stories from Wisconsin, California, and the Republic of the Philippines.

Created by Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, the author of Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications, 2011) as “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,” the blog has to date posted 432 articles relating to overcoming violence against sexual and gender dissidents in 370 categories.  Assisted by the Unfinished Lives Project Team, the blog ginned up in June 2008, and gradually gained a loyal readership, becoming a trusted source on hate-crimes-related issues affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer people.

Originally, the site appealed to colleagues at Brite Divinity School, students, and interested North Texans.  Early on, however, the blog began to gain a national and international constituency.  As of this date, the top ten U.S. states represented by hits are (in rank order) California, Texas, New York, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, and New Jersey, with all 50 states, U.S. Territories and the District of Columbia represented. Internationally, readers from Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Mexico, Italy, and Spain lead the pack, with the Philippines, India, Indonesia and Taiwan leading Asian visitors, and South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, and Nigeria contributing the most readers from Africa. In all, Unfinishedlivesblog.com counts readers and followers from 174 foreign countries and territories.

One distinctive feature of Unfinished Lives Blog is its combination of reportage, ethnography, theological orientation, and academic origins.  Few academically-originated blogs reach the number of people this one consistently does.

The month of January will be a time of appreciation and celebration in the life of this blog.  Highlighted for thanks and recognition are four groups: the Endorsers of this blog and the Unfinished Lives book, the growing number of Followers (now more than 470 official Followers!), the Unfinished Lives Project Team support staff, and, of course, the 250K readers without whom this effort would be a lone voice in the dark.

This effort has no paid staff, no advertising to defray expenses, and no full-time personnel.  Instead, this blog has been and remains a labor of love and remembrance.  No end to the violence perpetrated against LGBTQ people is yet in sight.  We cannot, will not forget the women, men, and youths cut down by irrational hatred because of their real or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender presentation. Their families, friends, and lovers are dear to us. Their attackers and murderers are in our prayers. The work of this blog is in no wise done–there is so much more remaining to do until hate violence is erased.  So, we who believe in Justice cannot rest–we who believe in Justice cannot rest until it comes!

Thank you for your continuing readership, commentary, and support!

PJ's Bar, Oshkosh, scene of brutal Christmas Day queer bashing (Facebook image)

Oshkosh, Wisconsin – Two suspects arrested in the bashing of a gay man outside a gay bar on Christmas Day will go to trial, according to reports from WTAQ News Talk.   Lyall Ziebell and Jacob “Jake” Immel-Rhode, both 20, waived their preliminary hearings on January 5. Ziebell entered no plea, and will face arraignment on January 12. Immel-Rhode pled not guilty to all charges, and is due back in court for a pre-trial conference on February 1. The alleged attackers are charged with battery causing great bodily harm, and burglary.  The battery charge for both men also carried a hate crime modifier, which increases the penalties for the crimes, if found guilty. If the maximum penalty is invoked, each man could serve 23-and-a-half years in prison and face $40,000 in fines.

The police complaint states that Immel-Rhode and Ziebell agreed to give a cigarette to the victim in exchange for a shot of liquor at PJ’s bar on Oregon Street in Oshkosh just before 2 a.m. on Christmas Day.  When the three men came out of the bar to smoke, the attack started almost immediately.  Ziebell, who characterized himself as “very homophobic,” hit the victim so hard he collapsed on a car hood, and then fell to the pavement, where Immel-Rhode set upon him, kicking the helpless man while shouting that he was a “stupid faggot.” The alleged assailants excused their actions because they say the victim “tried to hit on” Ziebell who threw the first punch. The complaint further states that the pair robbed a Mexican market on the way home to Ziebell’s house, stealing money and pre-paid cell phones.

The victim suffered a broken jaw and injury to his brain from the brutal attack, and underwent emergency surgery.  He was then admitted to Intensive Care.  Recently, he was released from the hospital to recuperate at home, and to deal with the emotional trauma of the assault.

The Wisconsin Gazette reports that James Combs, a friend of the victim, has started a petition on Change.org calling attention to the hate crime, and urging Winnebago County Assistant D.A. Adam Levine, Democratic State Senator Jessica King, and others in authority to make sure justice is done in this case, including pursuit of hate crimes charges.  The petition can be accessed by clicking here. Combs told the Gazette, “We really need to draw attention to this kind of thing. People have not really grown accustomed to gay people, and there is still violence and horrible things happening.”  He also said that a fund to help pay the victim’s hospital expenses is being set up.

Among the most important aspects of this case is the gay panic excuse the attackers gave for their violence against a gay man. In the gay panic defense, alleged homophobic assailants rely upon latent negative feelings in the general public to cloud the issue of the crime, and to lessen popular anger at their deeds.  The illogic of the gay panic excuse turns justice on its head: the victim is put under the spotlight, insinuating that he or she was somehow responsible or “had it coming” when violence is perpetrated against them. In its more extreme forms, the innuendo implies that the victims actually went out seeking punishment for their “perverse lifestyle.” When used in court, as by all indications will be done in this case, defense attorneys count on anti-gay prejudice buried in jurors to buy acquittal or a lesser sentence for their clients. Sadly, this has worked in the recent past in American courts, an amazing outcome in the 21st century. James Combs says in the narrative for the Change.org petition,  Hate Crime Tolerance in Wisconsin, “We need to let lawmakers know that Gay Panic Defense will never fly as an excuse, and any jury would agree. Let’s make sure they receive the full sentence.”

The gay panic defense is a discredited, out-of-date, and outworn attempt to sully the character of LGBTQ victims of hate crimes, and to obstruct justice.  No victim deserves physical attacks for being gay or lesbian in the United States of America. Neither should any victim of an anti-gay hate crime face the burden of emotional distress and public shame by having his character brought into question–an irrelevant point in cases such as these. For defendants to present such a “justification” for their actions in an American courtroom should, by itself, increase the penalty of law for false accusation.

Edmund Padilla in pain from scalding water attack by his own father--just because he was gay (video capture).

The Philippines – A 19-year-old gay youth from the Northern Philippines who came out to his family was attacked by his own father with a pot full of boiling water–because his father didn’t like the news.  Edmund Padilla suffered severe burns and blisters over much of his body as a consequence of the scalding water assault, according to Queerty, which broke the story in the United States. The Philippine LGBT Hate Crime Watch (PLHCW) reports that Padilla’s father, Erano, has been taken into custody as the investigation proceeds.

Erano Padilla, the assailant, was allegedly drunk when he threw the boiling water on his son.  The elder Padilla told authorities that he was enraged by the news that Edmund was gay.  Huffington Post reports that Edmund was the third child in the family who has self-identified as gay. The case is complicated by the age of the victim, and the absence of anti-gay hate crimes protections for Filipinos.  Since Edmund is over 18, national and United Nations child protection statutes may not apply to him.  The horrifying, homophobic attack has stirred the nation to come to a better understanding of its LGBTQ citizens, especially its youth.

Queerty published the statement of PLHCW spokesperson, Reighben Labilles:

“We plead to the government to initiate proactive programs that provides parents and LGBT children the opportunities to promote freedom of expression of sexuality and gender… We are born this way and you cannot punish us to change our sexuality. We fear that so many violent acts perpetrated by parents and legal guardians against their LGBT children go unreported. It is so urgent for Congress to find ways to protect sons and daughters of whatever age from family-based violence.”

There is no word as yet on the whereabouts of Edmund’s two gay siblings.  The PLHCW has embedded a video of the story on its blogsite, without English subtitles, which may be accessed here.  Be warned! The video of Edmund in agony is graphic and disturbing.

Matthew O'Brien-Veader, on trial for the brutal murder of a homeless disabled man he believed made a sexual advance toward him.

Waterbury, Connecticut – Police officials say that a Waterbury man savagely murdered a homeless disabled man living in the same abandoned factory because of an alleged sexual advance.  Matthew O’Brien-Veader, 23, took shelter in the derelict warehouse along with his alleged victim, 39-year-old Joed Olivera, in June 2009.  During his sleep, O’Brien-Veader believed that the older disabled man attempted to have sex with him, and flew into a homophobic rage, according to the Republican American. Police arrested O’Brien-Veader June 12, 2009, and charged him with the grisly murder. He was bound over for trial in superior court, which finally began in Waterbury this week after a series of delays.

Court documents say that O’Brien-Veader attempted to throw Olivera down a flight of stairs, beat Olivera with his own pair of crutches until they shattered, and then repeatedly stabbed him with a dagger before throwing Olivera’s body through a jagged hole in the floor to the room below.  Others in the factory found Olivera’s body atop a jagged pile of junk, covered with a piece of plywood. One man who saw the mangled body of the homeless victim was so disturbed by the scene that he testified in in Waterbury Superior Court Tuesday to running out of the building and smoking marijuana to calm his nerves. O’Brien-Veader’s friend, Jason Benoit, testified that O’Brien-Veader had a deep aversion to LGBTQ people, and had told him that all gay people should be rounded up and dropped on a deserted island. According to the Hartford Courant, the defendant could receive a life sentence if found guilty.

O’Brien-Veader sat quietly beside his attorney as the case, postponed until over two years after the homicide, unfolded in the Waterbury courtroom. By invoking the gay panic defense, suggesting that the victim was responsible for his own murder, the defense hopes to cloud the minds of jurors enough to lighten the sentence, should their client be found guilty.  The recent King-McInerney gay killing in Oxnard, California gave the gay panic defense new life in American courts.  Defense attorneys for McInerney, a teen who confessed to the execution-style shooting of his teenaged gay classmate, Larry King, in front of a room full of witnesses, argued that unwanted sexual advances pushed McInerney to pull the trigger.  The ploy succeeded in reducing the conviction from murder to manslaughter.  O’Brien-Veader’s defense team is hoping that enough residual heterosexism and homophobia exists in jurors to bring a similar result for their client.

Gay bashing in progress by Santa Barbara Skinheads on New Year's morning (video capture)

Santa Barbara, California – Three skinheads attacked a gay couple as they left a New Year’s Eve event early Sunday in Santa Barbara, according to the Santa Barbara Independent. The savage assault was captured on video, which the police are using in their hunt for the perpetrators. The Daily Sound reports that the three suspects are all in their 20s, are white males, and sport shaved heads.  As the two gay men left a party at a nightclub, headed toward their parked car, the three assailants called out derogatory anti-gay slurs, and then attacked.  One of the victims suffered a broken jaw, and needed staples to close a deep gash in his scalp. The second victim escaped with minor injuries.

Santa Barbara Police Chief Cam Sanchez pledged to find and arrest the attackers, calling the assault a “hate crime.” Chief Sanchez said, “Hate crimes like these will not be tolerated and those responsible will be held accountable.” This horrific attack is one more indicator that hate crimes against gay people do not take a holiday–ever.

TN students protesting anti-gay legislation (Tennessean image)

Nashville, Tennessee – A “License to Bully” gay students bill will be on the Tennessee Legislature docket this winter–and is already facing criticism from progressives. The bill would protect anti-gay students when they frame their homophobic feelings in religious language. WSMV4  reports that conservative lawmakers are presenting the bill, SB 760/HB 1153,  making outspoken anti-gay statements in Tennessee schools legal “if that is what religious beliefs call for.”  Like opponents of human rights around the nation, Volunteer State conservatives such as FACT (Family Action Council of Tennessee) are framing the bill as a matter of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.  Fox News 17 quotes progressive high school student Emmanuelle Loyer in opposition to the “License to Bully” bill.  Loyer said anti-gay students will take advantage of the protections the bill offers: “They can say cruel things they want to say under that protection.”  Loyer went on to say that supporters of the bill are dangerously misinformed about realities in today’s public schools. “I don’t think they realize how cruel high school students can be,” she said.

The Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) opposes the bill and its intent. Jonathan Cole of the TEP said, “It’s time for Tennesseans to stop using children as pawns for social, religious and political agendas. We need to be focusing on ways to ensure that Tennessee students receive an education free from bullying, harassment and intimidation.”  In a statement to the press, the TEP said, “The religious liberty and free speech rights of students are already protected by the U.S. Constitution. This legislation would give special protections to students of a particular religious point of view. If made into law, FACT  would give students a ‘license to bully’ that allows them to hide their irrational biases behind an extreme religious belief.” 

Already under assault from the ”Don’t Say Gay” (HB0229/SB0049) bill last year, LGBTQ students and their allies in public schools are organizing to fight for vulnerable youth and teachers who are targeted for harassment, slurs, and harm. The Tennessean warned that harassment of gay youth already has already proved lethal, as in the case of Jacob Rogers, Cheatham County Central High senior who took his own life in response to years of relentless bullying based on his perceived sexual orientation.

Against the claims of FACT and right-wing lawmakers, the Tennessee Equality Project quotes a recent study in the Journal Pediatrics showing “an association between an objective measure of the social environment and suicide attempts among lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth. The social environment appears to confer risk for suicide attempts over and above individual-level risk factors. These results have important implications for the development of policies and interventions to reduce sexual orientation–related disparities in suicide attempts.”

Conservatives ignore these documented connections and protest against using the stories of gay teen suicides in the debate on the “License to Bully” bill. At a time when Tennessee lawmakers should be offering more protections for LGBTQ students, they are poised to take Tennessee in the direction of shielding homophobic students and their right wing supporters.

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 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.

Queer bashing suspects Jason "Jake" Immel-Rhode (l), and Lyall B. Ziebell (r)

Oshkosh, Wisconsin – Christmas morning erupted in anti-gay violence when two Oshkosh men allegedly assaulted a gay man outside a popular tavern patronized by LGBT people, calling the victim “a stupid faggot” while kicking him in the head. According to The Northwestern.com, Lyall B. Ziebell and Jason “Jake” Immel-Rhode, both 20, were charged with battery causing great bodily harm with a hate crime enhancement which will increase the penalties against the men, if found guilty.  With the hate crime rider, the men could serve as much as  23 years, six months in prison and face $40,000 in fines for the crime.

The criminal complaint states that Ziebell and Immel-Rhode were walking past PJ’s Bar on Oregon Street at approximately 2:15 a.m. on December 25 when the victim offered to buy them a shot of liquor apiece if they would lend him a cigarette.  The three men walked into the bar where the victim made good on his offer for the cigarette.  After finishing their drinks, the three went outside the bar where the assault began almost immediately.  WTAQ reports that the victim suffered a broken jaw and a brain injury from the savage attack.  The criminal complaint also states that the attackers left the scene of the assault to head to Ziebell’s home, and on the way they robbed a Mexican market of cash and pre-paid cell phones. The victim has no doubt, however, that the violence used against him was a response to his being a gay man.

The Northwestern goes on to report that Ziebell admitted to police that he was “very homophobic,” and commenced his assault on the victim when he allegedly “began to hit on me”–clearly a reference to the notorious gay panic defense often invoked in gay bashing trials to suggest that the victim was to blame for the injury done him.  Ziebell also said to police that he heard Immel-Rhode shout that the victim was “a stupid faggot” as he kicked him repeatedly in the head.

Court officials ordered Ziebell and Immel-Rhode bound over to Winnebago County Jail, where they are being held on a minimal bail of $3,000 apiece.  They are to go to court for preliminary hearings on January 5.

Tyrone Garner (l) and John Lawrence celebrate Lawrence v. Texas.

Houston, Texas – Lawrence v. Texas, set in motion by a couple of accidental gay activists, broke the back of anti-sodomy laws in the United States. What they did amounts to the “Brown v. Board of Education for gay and lesbian America,” according to Harvard constitutional law expert, Laurence Tribe.  Yet when John Geddes Lawrence, aged 68, died on November 20 of heart disease at his home in Houston, no mention of the landmark Supreme Court decision was made in the obituary or at his funeral.  Tyrone Garner, the other half of this remarkable couple, had preceded Lawrence in death back in 2006. Only when a lawyer in the case, Mitchell Katine, called Lawrence to invite him to a ceremony commemorating the law-changing decision, did he receive word of Lawrence’s passing from his life-partner, according to the New York Times.  Katine let the rest of the world know that an inadvertent giant in the struggle of LGBTQ equality had died.

Lawrence and Garner were arrested on September 17, 1998 for sodomy in a private home by Houston Police.  The police had been called in to investigate a false weapons report by a jealous former lover of Lawrence’s, who admitted he had falsified the report as an act of revenge. Nonetheless, the arrest went down, and Lawrence and Garner, who had hooked up earlier that day, were thrust by events upon the stage of history.  Lawrence was angry at the arrest, feeling that his privacy had been violated unjustly. That anger was a fire in his belly that saw the case through lower courts to the U.S. Supreme Court for its decisive ruling of June 2003, striking down anti-sodomy laws in fourteen states.  Writing for five of the six Justices on the prevailing side, Justice Anthony Kennedy declared, “The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The state,” he continued, “cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.”  A compilation of documents and the text of Lawrence v. Texas, provided by Justia.com, the U.S. Supreme Court Center, may be accessed here.

We cannot overestimate the significance of John Lawrence and Tyrone Garner’s decision to fight back against an unjust law.  So much hung in the balance. They were not professional activists, the rainbow-flag-waving kind.  They were simply two gay men, attracted to each other, whose right to privacy was trampled by a legal system that upheld a heterosexist status quo.  One black, one white, this gay couple set the wheels in motion for every forward step in human rights since 2003: the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 2010, and its full implementation by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, and President Barack Obama in 2011, and the whole raft of same-sex marriage laws passed on the state level around the nation.

Professor Dale Carpenter, who wrote a recent book on Lawrence v. Texas, interviewed John Lawrence.  In conversation, this unassuming naval veteran and obstinate gay man asked Carpenter, “Why should there be a law passed that only prosecutes certain people? Why build a law that only says, ‘Because you’re a gay man you can’t do this. But because you’re a heterosexual, you can do the same thing’?”  Tyrone Garner told the Houston Chronicle in 2004 that he took quiet pride in the role he played in history.  “I don’t really want to be a hero,” Garner said. “But I want to tell other gay people, ‘Be who you are, and don’t be afraid.’ ”

Sometimes a couple of men get mad, and dig in, and the world changes.  That is what the LGBTQ community owes John Lawrence and Tyrone Garner. Because of their courage, the United States justice system has changed forever.

Lawrence Fobes "Larry" King, one of our ancestors who received a measure of justice in 2011.

2011 was a year to remember.  The stories of the LGBTQ sisters and brothers who have died among us are windows through which we can see into our own souls.  Our ancestors are our teachers, if we will let them be.  At some point, I cannot pinpoint exactly when, I made the choice to still my powerful emotions around the murders of LGBTQ people, and let their stories teach me what it means to be alive.  That choice is one of the most important I have every made, and one of the most fruitful.  The book, Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims, was truly born in that moment.  Though I never met a one of the persons whose stories I tell in my book, they are very close to me–not in a morbid sense, at all.  I believe I can understand why so many gay folk would rather not remember how quickly our lives can be snuffed out.  But a truly community-shaping insight the dead have given me is that only the choice not to remember is morbid.  Re-telling the stories of those who have died among us because of who they were, gay men, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people, gives our community a new sense of how precious each life is, and a new resolve to be a justice-oriented people who treasure every moment we are given.

2011 is full of such memories for the LGBTQ community.  So many have faced terrible persecution, just to love whom they choose, just to live as they were created to live. We remember the young–so many of them–who found life too much to bear in a homophobic, bullying world.  We remember the transgender sisters, especially, who faced injustice everywhere they turned, and for whom living daily is an act of uncommon courage.  We remember the families, the lovers, the neighbors, the friends–and the killers, too.  Change comes at a glacial pace…so slowly.  But it comes.

Our dead have only died in vain if we refuse to remember and honor them.  Like the Mexican people know who treasure their dead on the Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, death is a stark reality however it comes.  But our friends south of the border also know how to tease death, argue with it, make fun of it, create works of art, song and dance out of it, and how to transcend the fear of death by gathering together to remember and cherish those who have died.  The LGBTQ community is learning how to do that, as well.  In Houston, Texas, right off of the Montrose, a memorial to LGBTQ people who have died has been created and dedicated this very year.  Everywhere I have gone this year to talk with people, more and more are finding the healing empowerment of remembrance.  Around the memories of our dead, extraordinary communities of strength, advocacy, and love have arisen.  These are all such good things, and they all have come about as gifts from our ancestors who have died among us.

We cannot, will not forget our fallen ancestors.  In their memories lies the key to becoming a true people of maturity, gratitude, justice, and hope.  That is the true fruit of remembrance for the LGBTQ community.  So, we who believe in justice cannot rest.  We honor and educate.  We recall, re-tell, and remember.  We push for justice, and then we push some more.  Our ancestors expect us to do no less.  And we, in their memories, can do no less.

Happy Holidays, however you celebrate them in your homes, from the Unfinished Lives Project Team.  We give thanks for each of you!  ~ Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, Founder and Director of the Unfinished Lives Project

POZ also cites the Detroit Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s letter to White, advising him and his attorneys of their ruling of reasonable cause to conclude that Great Expressions had indeed discriminated against White in violation of the ADA.  An excerpt of the EEOC letter reads: “Based upon the above and the record as a whole, there is reasonable cause to believe that the Charging Party [James White] was disciplined, denied reasonable accommodation, and discharged due to his disability, in violation of Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended.” 

As the company’s denial and threats indicate, this case will be battled out for some time to come.  White and his attorneys are apparently undaunted, and are proceeding with their suit against Great Expressions for compensatory and punitive damages.  In the meantime, if the allegations prove to be true against Great Expressions, a big dental company with deep pockets, then White’s case will serve as a warning to any other company that discriminates against employees because of their disabilities.  Workplace discrimination is inexcusable. It is also inexcusable not to know how the HIV virus is spread, or to prey upon ignorance and fear that often accompany news of the disease.  This blog will continue to monitor events related to this remarkable story.  That is what freedom of information and responsible use of it dictate, and it is also what social justice advocacy is all about.  Those wishing to see the new petition on Change.org can access it here.  Over 1500 have signed as of early December 22.

Photo via Passport Magazine

Detroit, Michigan – In the worst case of job-related discrimination his lawyers have ever seen, James White got fired for revealing he was HIV+.  An office assistant for the Great Expressions Dental Center of Detroit, White revealed his positive status to his supervisor after his diagnosis, with the clear understanding she would keep the information confidential, according to Passport Magazine.   His superiors then leaked word of his HIV status to coworkers who harassed him for seven months, spraying him with Lysol disinfectant, wiping down any furniture or office equipment he used, and banning him from touching doorknobs.  Management subjected White to sudden scheduling changes, and then wrote him up for tardiness and “unexcused absences” until they believed they had enough to fire him.  Dogged by harassment and exhausted by the abuse, White was hospitalized for post traumatic stress disorder.  While he was in the hospital, Great Expressions called to inform him not to return to work.

White appealed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which tried to mediate between White and Great Expressions.  The Detroit chapter of the EEOC ruled in White’s favor earlier this year, finding that there was “reasonable cause” to believe White was discriminated against because of his HIV+ status. The dental firm refused any settlement with White, and the EEOC cleared him to sue his former employer for gross discrimination and violating the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.  The Body, an HIV-related blog, writes: “In 2011, particularly in an urban environment, absolutely no one has any excuse for being unaware of the ways in which HIV is transmitted. Anyone that has ever had even rudimentary sexual health education knows that HIV is not spread by casual contact, including touch. And an employer has a moral and LEGAL obligation to protect its employees from discrimination, particularly vulnerable populations.” 

White’s lawyers have filed a lawsuit demanding compensatory and punitive damages of $140,000 and $45,000, respectively, and requiring the company to post notice of the agreement as well as providing training on HIV/AIDS and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Change.org has posted a petition protesting the action of Great Expressions and demanding their apology to White, which is accessible here. There are over 25,500 signatures as of December 20. Great Expressions operates clinics in Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Connecticut, Virginia and Massachusetts.

Brandon McInerney pled guilty to the execution-style murder of his gay teen classmate, Larry Fobes King.

Ventura County, California – Prosecutors in the Brandon McInerney murder trail agreed to a plea deal rather than take young gay Larry King’s confessed killer into court a second time, according to EDGE Boston.  McInerney, 14 at the time he shot his 15-year-old gay classmate in the back of the skull in his middle school computer class in 2008, will be sentenced today.

The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office agreed to a deal because they couldn’t be sure what would happen if they put McInerney back on trial again.

McInerney’s defense team succeeded in putting King on trial for his own murder, at least enough so that the jury in the first trial could not agree on a verdict, and a mistrial was declared.  While legal experts saw the case as a clear-cut instance of pre-meditated murder, the prosecutors for Ventura County could not surmount the sympathy factor for the 14-year-old, and the discomfort factor in the way the press and the defense portrayed King.  Instead of the forthright homophobic murder the prosecution sought, a combination of child-nostalgia and anti-transgender and anti-gay bias turned King into a “Franken-Larry,” a devious, dangerous homosexual predator–a portrayal that could not have been further from the truth about the real boy who was in transition from a scared, bullied gay school kid to a youth who could affirm and live out his gender variance.

Media distortion in the King case started as early as the first reports about the murder, with sensational accounts of what young King wore to school, and his responses to McInerney’s bullying.  Ramin Satoodeh, reporter for Newsweek, wrote a cover story on King that was devastating–likening the boy to a monstrous little predator, tottering after his love interests in platform heels.  McInerney’s defense lawyers countered prosecution evidence of his Neo-Nazi and white supremacist motives by casting King, who was smaller and weaker than McInerney, as the aggressor, and skillfully used the press to drive this point home.  The California law making a 14-year-old prosecutable as an adult in heinous cases using firearms (which this case was in both particulars) was also put on trial in the media.

In the end, justice for Larry King was not the goal of a chastised district attorney’s office.  Assistant DA Mike Frawley said that they “took into consideration the time [McInerney would have to spend] in jail to protect the community.”  McInerney’s murder conviction has been stayed, and he will be sentenced to 11 years for voluntary manslaugher, and 10 years for the use of a firearm. With the four years he has already served in jail, McInerney will serve 25 years total.  Had the first-degree murder conviction been impose, he would have served 51 years.  Now, the confessed murderer of a young gay boy will be out on the street by his 39th birthday, and the dubious “gay panic defense” receives new life in the American legal system.

(Photo courtesy of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights)

Geneva, Switzerland – A hard-hitting, historic report calling on the nations of the world to defend the rights of gay people has been issued by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights of the United Nations in Geneva.  For the first time, the world body has detailed the the murder, bias-motivated violence, torture, police detention, discrimination in jobs, health care and education that LGBT people face on a daily basis because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.  The report, which may be accessed here, was released on December 15 in response to the high number of reports of anti-gay human rights abuses flowing into the international body, according to the UN News Service.

In part, the report states, “The criminalization of private consensual homosexual acts violates an individual’s rights to privacy and to non-discrimination and constitutes a breach of international human rights law.”  Decrying violence against LGBT persons, the High Commissioner concludes that “Homophobic and transphobic violence has been recorded in all regions . . . Violence against LGBT persons tends to be especially vicious compared to other bias-motivated crimes.”  Data show that homophobic hate crimes often include “a high degree of cruelty and brutality.”

The hate crimes statistics in the report are horrific.  Lifting up the transgender and gender variant population, the High Commissioner reports, “The Trans Murder Monitoring project, which collects reports of murders of transgender persons in all regions, lists 680 murders in 50 countries during the period from 2008 to 2011.”  That said, the effort to collect data on murder and other acts of physical violence against LGBT people is complicated by the practice of nations around the world, either neglecting to collect these statistics, or outright refusing to allow their collection.

While over thirty nations have decriminalized homosexuality in the last two decades, 76 countries still make consensual acts between same-sex persons illegal, and at least five, Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, make homosexual conduct punishable by death.

The High Commissioner, Navi Pillay, calls upon the nations of the world to “Repeal laws used to criminalize individuals on grounds of homosexuality for engaging in consensual same-sex sexual conduct, and harmonize the age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual conduct; ensure that other criminal laws are not used to harass or detain people based on their sexuality or gender identity and expression, and abolish the death penalty for offences involving consensual sexual relations.”

Further, High Commissioner Pillay “calls on countries to ensure that no one fleeing persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity is returned to a territory where their life or freedom is at threat, and that asylum laws recognize that sexual orientation or gender identity is a valid basis for claiming persecution,” according to the UN News Service.  Ms. Pillay also recently held press conferences appealing to member nations to abolish homophobic bullying leading to the suicide of young LGBT people.

The report intensifies the call to member nations, issued last year by UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, to “reject discrimination in general, and in particular discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Officer Laura Martin, LGBT Liaison Officer for the DPD, receives her promotion badge from Police Chief David Brown

Dallas, Texas – Officer Laura Martin, the Dallas Police Department’s LGBT Liaison Officer, has been promoted to Senior Corporal. According to the Dallas Voice, Martin was one of 37 officers promoted to the rank.  Making her achievement even more notable is that out of 400 who took the exam this year to become Senior Corporal, Martin earned the top score.  She received her badge of promotion for Dallas Police Chief David Brown in a ceremony held the first full week of December.

Martin, a lesbian, has been with the Dallas Police Department for the past 14 years, and has been the department’s LGBT Liaison Officer for the past five years.  She has been instrumental in improving communications between city police and the large Dallas LGBT population.  When crimes affecting the queer community occur, Martin is called in, and she often makes public statements to interpret police actions in sensitive cases.  DPD relationships with gays and lesbians have been rocky in the past, especially in instances when the Oak Lawn/Cedar Springs community was not informed of crimes in a timely manner by the police.  Martin’s advocacy and professionalism have helped sensitize fellow officers to the issues facing the LGBTQ community, and likewise have made gay people feel they have a voice in the department, speaking up for their concerns and rights.

Martin is currently working primarily in the Dallas Police Department’s Northwest Division.  Her duties include membership in a community engagement unit.  When questioned by the Voice about whether this promotion would change her venue or her current duties, Martin said that she did not expect any changes in the near future.

Dallas is fortunate to have the professional service of a fine officer like Senior Corporal Laura Martin as Liaison to the LGBTQ community.  The Unfinished Lives Project Team, who are engaged in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes education and prevention, join Officer Martin’s many friends and admirers to say, “Congratulations, Laura!”