Hate Crimes Blog Marks Quarter-Million Milestone!
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!
Remembering Our Dead During the Holidays
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
DADT Repeal Certification Friday, July 22nd, But at What Cost to LGBTQ Americans? A Special Comment
Pfc. Barry Winchell's grave
Both CNN and the San Diego Union-Tribune are reporting tonight that final certification of DADT repeal will take place Friday in Washington, D.C. But our celebrations are sobered at the Unfinished Lives Project by the magnitude of the cost to the LGBTQ community in servicemembers’ lives and careers in order to get to this landmark moment. When Secretary Leon Panetta signs the documents of certification at the Pentagon, signifying that the chiefs of the Armed Services have previously reported to him that full and open service by gay, lesbian, and bisexual soldiers, sailors, marines, airwomen and airmen, national guardsmen and women, and coast guardsmen and women poses no threat or harm to the morale, unit cohesion, or mission readiness of the Armed Forces, a giant step toward full equality for LGBTQ people will be made. Seventeen years of the most oppressive and blatantly discriminatory anti-gay policy in contemporary memory will be over; but not before the incalculable cost of the lives of queer servicemembers who died before seeing this day dawn. At the Unfinished Lives Project, we have invoked the names and stories of some of them: Petty Officer Allen R. Schindler, U.S. Navy; Pfc. Barry Winchell, U.S. Army; Pfc. Michael Scott Goucher, U.S. Army Reserve; Seaman August Provost, U.S. Navy. May they and all the others they represent rest in peace! These patriots died outrageous deaths at the hands of hatred and unreasoning bias, enabled by a military culture that either encouraged violence against suspected LGB servicemembers, or at the very least turned a blind eye toward such violence. Celebration of repeal is in order, and celebrate we will. The dead are honored by this act of justice, signifying that they have not died in vain. But we will also be mindful that no stroke of a pen, even one so powerful as the one wielded by the Secretary of Defense, will eliminate homophobia and heterosexism in the Armed Services. Ships, barracks, and foreign fields of service will be haunted with the hatred that has been passed down from generation to generation of American military personnel. Backlash is in full swing, as we have seen most graphically among right-wing conservative military chaplains whose appeals to exempt their anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and teachings as freedom of religion served to be the last bastion of “homophobia-masquerading-as-liberty” in the armed services. Thankfully, as certification on Friday shows, the vast majority of servicemembers of all ranks reject discrimination for what it truly is: un-American. In memory of all our LGBTQ servicemembers (of all faiths and faith-free, as the case may be) who have died in part or in full because of the ravages of hate crimes, we dedicate a portion of Fr. Thomas Merton’s most famous poem, written in memory of his brother, John Paul, killed in action in World War II, entitled, “For My Brother, Reported Missing In Action, 1943″ [The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton, New Directions, 1977, p. 35-36]:
:
When all the men of war are shot
And flags have fallen into dust,
Your cross and mine shall tell men still
Christ died on each for both of us.
For in the wreckage of your April Christ lies slain,
And Christ weeps in the ruins of my spring:
The money of Whose tears shall fall
Into your weak and friendless hand,
And buy you back to your own land:
The silence of Whose tears shall fall
Like bells upon your alien tomb.
Hear them and come: they call you home.
Kobe Bryant Fined $100K For Anti-Gay Slur: A Special Comment
Los Angeles, California – Kobe Bryant, controversial star of the Los Angeles Lakers, has been fined $100,000 for an anti-gay slur he mouthed on live television at a referee. As E! Online reports, the National Basketball Association (NBA) fined Bryant after investigating the incident. Bryant, angry at being given a technical foul by Referee Bennie Adams, called the ref a “fucking faggot” in such a way that it was captured live by the camera at last night’s Lakers game with the San Antonio Spurs. NBA Commissioner David Stern swiftly disciplined the five-time national champion guard, saying to Free Republic, ”Kobe Bryant’s comment during last night’s game was offensive and inexcusable. While I’m fully aware that basketball is an emotional game, such a distasteful term should never be tolerated. … Kobe and everyone associated with the NBA know that insensitive or derogatory comments are not acceptable and have no place in our game or society.” The action of the NBA drew praise from LGBTQ rights advocacy groups who had protested the use of the slur. In a statement Bryant issued through the L.A. Lakers organization, Bryant had tried to defuse the anger of gay rights groups by saying that he didn’t mean anything by it. “What I said last night should not be taken literally. My actions were out of frustration during the heat of the game, period,” Bryant averred. ”The words expressed do NOT reflect my feelings towards the gay and lesbian communities and were NOT meant to offend anyone.” Who does he think he’s fooling? The Human Rights Campaign said to TMZ Sports, “What a disgrace for Kobe Bryant to use such horribly offensive and distasteful language, especially when millions of people are watching.” The HRC has a point. Language has consequences. Words can ignite lethal acts. Especially for groups who face threats of physical, social, and spiritual violence daily, as LGBTQ people do. The people who say to queer folk, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” simply do not live in the same psycho-social universe that the rest of us do. The linkage between anti-gay slurs and epithets, and acts of bias-driven violence has been well-establshed by law enforcement. One of the unmistakable markers looked for by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to help determine if an assault should be investigated as a hate crime is the use of derogatory, anti-LGBTQ language during the committal of the crime. And the link between verbal attacks on queer folk and hate speech is clearly an organic one. Bryant’s disdain for gays and lesbians was openly on display for the world to see and hear, reinforcing cultural and religious bias against gender variant and same sex loving people. HRC went on to say, “Hopefully Mr. Bryant will recognize that as a person with such fame and influence, the use of such language not only offends millions of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] people around the world, but also perpetuates a culture of discrimination and hate that all of us, most notably Mr. Bryant, should be working to eradicate.” Youth worship NBA stars like Bryant. They model themselves after their heroes in fashion, prowess, and, pertinent for this inquiry, in opinion. The sports shoe industry has know that for a very long time. At the very least, Bryant’s verbal foul supports a culture of discrimination and intimidation that has kept gay and lesbian athletes deeply closeted for decades, making the sports closet arguably the most pernicious in American life today. One has only to reflect on the rarest of all queer celebrities: out professional sports figures. So, the Unfinished Lives Project Team stands with HRC President, Joe Solmonese when he said today, “We applaud Commissioner Stern and the NBA for not only fining Bryant but for recognizing that slurs and derogatory comments have no place on the basketball court or in society at large. We hope such swift and decisive action will send a strong and universal message that this kind of hateful outburst is simply inexcusable no matter what the context.” It is past time to require professional sports teams and coaching organizations to do sensitivity and diversity training inclusive of LGBTQ concerns. Kobe Bryant apparently doesn’t know better until he gets caught. The Lakers went on to win the game. Kobe lost, big time. We at Unfinished Lives believe in order for things to get better in the locker room and on the court, athletes must be taught what is at stake when they “foul” the air.
“It Gets Better” Makes Us All Stronger! A Special Comment by Dr. Stephen Sprinkle
Dr. Stephen Sprinkle and Dan Savage (Unfinished Lives Project Director, Dr.Sprinkle, was an early contributor to the "It Gets Better Project").
When Dan Savage and Terry Miller conceived of the “It Gets Better Project,” the goal they had was a hundred videos. Now there are over 10,000 of them, and the videos have been viewed over 40,000,000 times to date—and growing! Dan has said that had there been 20 videos online, and one life saved, it would have been worth it. We know now that many, many teenage lives have been given new hope, and also that young lives by the hundreds have been saved by this visionary project. As the Jewish Talmud teaches, “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5; Babylonian Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin 37a). The IGB Project, and now the New York Times bestselling book by the same name has already saved a galaxy of worlds by this rabbinic measure.
But the IGB project and book have gone one better than this, if such a thing might be possible. Dan, Terry, and the worldwide host of contributors to this positive effort have changed the world irrevocably, queer and straight alike. Here are two of the ways I see.
First, the “coming out story,” a staple of LGBTQ life, has been transformed into a declaration of how the queer community is overcoming shame, persecution, and victimhood—and coming on strong. For two generations since Stonewall, the coming out story has been a way LGBTQ people shared their struggles and established solidarity with each other. Most of these stories were accounts of struggle, hurt, and survival. Queer folk got to see they were not alone and isolated—we heard the battles others fought, and compared scars—and that was powerful for all parties, because these stories allowed us to see that there were others like us in this difficult world—that we resisted and lived on into a new life together, no longer alone. But IGB went a crucial step further: as thousands of us were empowered to speak directly to queer teenagers with a positive message of hope and power, “It really does get better, and this is how it got better for us,” we got to overhear ourselves rehearsing stories of strength and success—not just repetitions of woe and endurance. IGB powered up the queer community to tell the whole world how we are defeating opposition in fine style thousands of different ways everyday. The message is, “We are no one’s patsies anymore, thank you! And we are ready and able to make things improve for ourselves and our teens every day, until it gets better for all of us!” IGB changed the coming out story into the overcoming stories of a powerful queer people who will never settle for victimhood again. In my religious tradition, as a queer Baptist preacher, that makes me want to shout, Hallelujah!
Second, IGB empowered our straight allies to come out strong, too. From President Obama to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. From Prime Minister David Cameron to Lutheran Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson. From moms and pops, school teachers who taught us, and straight employers who hired us. Our allies joined the queer community to make the message of zero tolerance for school bullying perfectly queer. I know the term “queer” rankles some genteel sentiments, but to see the way our straight allies have taken the term and wrapped themselves in it for our sakes should dispel the last reservations we have about the word and about how the LGBTQ movement for human rights and equal dignity will grow and eventually prevail. Straight queer allies by the hundreds of thousands are rising up against bullying, het privilege, and the culture of violence that imperils not only gender non-conforming youth, but all youth everywhere. By ourselves, LGBTQ people are not numerous enough to change the het world. But IGB shows youth and adults in our LGBTQ communities—out or closeted—that growing numbers of queerly empowered straight allies are joining us to transform the world we all share. This is no panacea, of course. My generation may not live to see it, especially in the churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques where old prejudices linger with desperate power. But even there, straight allies are queering religion with us. When the annals of these years are written, I believe the IGB Project will feature prominently in the story of how all us queers, LGBTQ and straight, overcame together. Like the Black Gospel refrain goes, “Over! Over! My soul looks back and wonders how I got over!”
So, Dan and Terry, and the tens of thousands who have rallied to the cause of a safer world for youth to grow up in, a salute to you! The children will rise up to call you “blessed.” And so does this mighty queer Baptist preacher from Texas, too! ~ Stephen V. Sprinkle, Brite Divinity School, and Unfinished Lives Project Director
Suspect 3rd Century Women Put to Death in Arena: Ancient Hate Crime?
Carthage, North Africa Province – Roman authorities ordered the public execution of a young Roman noblewoman and a female slave in the arena of Carthage on this date, March 7, 203 CE (Common Era). Vibia Perpetua, 22, a young mother, and Felicitas, a slave of like age who was also a young mother, both North African Christians, joined their male counterparts as victims in what legitimately might be called a state-sanctioned hate crime for refusing to swear allegiance to the Emperor, Septimius Severus. Suspicion about the sexual orientation of the women has swirled around the story for centuries. Was the tie that bound these young women together faith alone, or was it something more? Perpetua, one of the first Christian women in history to author an account of her own life, wrote a “Prison Diary” that was edited after her execution by an anonymous narrator who opens with an short introduction and closes with what appears to be an eye-witness account of the life-and-death drama that took place in the amphitheater of Carthage. Nothing explicit is written concerning the possible desire of the two young women for each other in the account, entitled “The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity.” But the lasting impression among gays and lesbians for the last two hundred years is that these North African Christian women were bound to each other with a mutuality that seems particularly “woman-centered” even for the outlawed early Christian communities of the late second and early third centuries, not to mention the strictly hierarchical and socially stratified world of the Roman provinces. Perpetua had given birth to a baby shortly before her condemnation, and Felicity who joined her in prison gave birth right on the eve of the execution. The motherhood of the women has been used to counter the suspicion of lesbianism or bisexuality, but as Yale gay historian John Boswell writes, “A young woman’s marriage in second- or third-century Rome did not necessarily indicate anything about the direction of her affections.” Others have argued that the Christian mission of the women made them comrades in martyrdom as they died for their faith, in refutation of any suggestion of lesbian affection between them. Mary Rose D’Angelo refuses this objection in her famous essay on women partners in the New Testament: “In the early Christian pairs, it is the women’s participation in the Christian mission that takes the foreground. But that should not obscure the recognition that their commitment to the mission can also be seen as the commitment to each other.” The witness-narrator of the execution watched as a crazed, wild heifer, especially chosen for its gender to shame the young women, was unleashed to gore them. The mad cow tossed Perpetua, ripping her dress. The cow then crushed Felicity to the ground before losing interest in the victims. There was nothing un-Roman about a young noblewoman reaching out her hand to help a slave up, as the narrator reports Perpetua does. But then something most un-Roman takes place. The Latin text (20.7) reads: Et ambae pariter steterunt, “And they both stood there together.” It is not only that these young women stood together, but that they did so when they were not expected to do so. Carolyn Osiek, the New Testament scholar from Brite Divinity School, writes of this dramatic moment: “But perhaps the author knew more than we suspect and was telling of a solidarity that had grown between the two women of unequal social status, who stood together as equals facing death.” In this moment of surprise, the curtain of nearly two thousand years is parted for an instant. Elizabeth Castelli writes that there are “moments of slippage, spaces where the self-evidency of gender conventions and relationships for which they were foundational might have been thought otherwise.” This surprising moment is one of them, when a coating of eroticism thinly glosses over two standing together, social unequals, equally facing death side-by-side. Perpetua and Felicity stand at the head of a long line of transgressive women who suffered gender hatred, suspect because of sexual outlaw status. At the very heart of Christian witness, two young women whose affection for each other was forged in a Roman prison hold onto love in the face of state-sanctioned hate crime. For this, we honor them.
Repeal and Remembrance: Gay Military Martyrs and the End of DADT
Fallen Military Servicemembers
Washington, DC – On a red letter day when lawmakers voted to end the most notorious anti-gay policy in the federal canon, LGBT servicemembers and veterans who have been murdered because of their sexual and gender non-conformity must not be forgotten during the celebrations over passage of repeal of DADT. In a historic vote in the history of the human rights movement, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to end the ban on LGBT patriots from serving openly in the armed services of the United States. Saturday afternoon, 65 Senators voted for repeal with 31 in opposition. A simple majority of 51 was all that was required for passage of the Senate bill, which is identical to the one passed earlier in the week by the House of Representatives. Eight GOP Senators joined their Democratic colleagues to pass the repeal of the 17-year-old discriminatory policy that ended the military careers of 13,500 women and men because of their sexual orientation. Joe Manchin, the freshman Senator for West Virginia, was the only Democrat not voting for passage. According to the New York Times, his office informed the public that he had a “family commitment” he could not break.The bill now goes to President Obama for his signature to set the repeal in motion. GOP opponents of the repeal criticized the Democratic leadership of the Senate for the vote in the lame duck session just before the Holiday recess. Senator Carl Levin, the chair of the Senate Armed Service Committee, disputed the Republican claims that Democrats were ramming legislation through just to please the so-called “gay lobby.” In remarks to the New York Times, Senator Levin (D-Michigan) said: “I’m not here for partisan reasons. I’m here because men and women wearing the uniform of the United States who are gay and lesbian have died for this country, because gay and lesbian men and women wearing the uniform of this country have their lives on the line right now.” Yet it is not only for the living that this vote is significant. Our military dead are honored by this historic vote to end anti-LGBT discrimination, among whom are far too many gay servicemembers who were killed because of their sexual orientation. Our gay military martyrs, murdered because of homophobia, heterosexism, and transphobia in the armed services loom large in the memory of the LGBTQ community today because they are both a sign of hope and caution. They are a sign of hope that no more women and men need lose their lives in the military because of their sexual orientation and gender presentation. They are a sign of caution, because the passage of DADT repeal in no way guarantees the end of anti-gay violence in the military. We must name our LGBT military dead until violence against queer servicemembers ceases forever: Seaman Allen Schindler was beaten to death by shipmates in a public toilet in Sasebo, Japan. PFC Barry Winchell was murdered with a baseball bat in the Army barracks at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Seaman August Provost was shot to death on base in San Diego, and then his body was set afire in a guard shack in the vain attempt to destroy evidence of the murder. Army veteran Michael Scott Goucher was lured into a fatal ambush by local youths near his home in Pennsylvania. These four are representative of the many more slaughtered by ignorance and hate by fellow servicemembers and civilians. Pundits say that after President Obama signs the Repeal Act into law, it will still take at least sixty days for the military ban to be lifted for LGBT military personnel. Until that time, the current discriminatory law stays in effect. But the culture of violence that harasses and kills LGBT women and men who wear the uniform remains virulently poised to take more lives until the root of fear is eliminated in the armed services. To that end, the historic passage of the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is simply the beginning of a new campaign, in the name of our gay military martyrs, to replace the fear and loathing of the sexual minority with education and respect.
Hope for 2010: A New Year’s Special Comment
As the old year passes, and with it the old decade, those of us who believe in Justice for LGBTQ people have memories to preserve, work to do, thanks to express, and hope to rekindle. The Unfinished Lives Project was conceived as a visual and verbal resource for the public to use in the on-going struggle for freedom from violence and fear that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer folk face every day in the United States. Wordpress tallies show that as of this writing nearly 44,000 have visited this site since its first posting in June 2008: to educate themselves about the slow-rolling holocaust facing members of the sexual minority, to bring the stories of so many casualties of homophobia and heterosexism to light who would otherwise be forgotten, and to steel themselves for the long, difficult, painful work of changing the culture of violence against the different in which we must live. While countless hours of writing and research have gone into creating and maintaining this web site, that is nothing compared to the stress and loss faced by so many families and loved ones who have experienced the horrors of hate crime murder during these years. The backstory of this blog has been and continues to be the awe-inspiring courage of the bereaved mothers, fathers, lovers and friends who have been thrust into the harsh glare of activism on behalf of the LGBTQ community because they refuse to allow their loved ones to have died in vain. We owe them, and you, Dear Reader, our thanks and our continuing labor until Justice comes. It is to that end we at the Unfinished Lives Project keep telling these grim stories of real people who suffer in America for no other “crime” than being who they are. The past decade, especially the past year, has seen substantive change–not enough, nor comprehensive enough, to be sure–but real change nonetheless. Cultural, political, and religious attitudes toward LGBTQ people are changing in this country. The passage of the James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the first comprehensive hate crimes law in federal history, is now law. Convictions under state and federal hate crimes statutes, something conservative law makers and law enforcement officers said would never happen, are occurring already in bellweather states like Colorado and New York. This trend will no doubt continue as the New Year dawns. The infamous “gay panic” defense, and its evil twin, the “trans panic” defense are increasingly discredited and ineffective in American courts of law. Religious attitudes have thawed slightly, but the progress is real, if spotty. Religion and Faith offices and activism, once thought to be the “third rail” of human rights politics, have been established in all the major advocacy organizations that lobby for change. LGBTQ lives and practices are no longer viewed as criminal by the religious leaders of conscience in the United States, and tolerance toward queer folk in congregational life and leadership is on the rise: the Episcopal Church, the Alliance of Baptists, the United Church of Christ, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America are cases in point. Homophobia in churches, synagogues, mosques and schools is not going unchallenged in American daily life, and that is encouraging. ENDA, DADT, and many other legislative initiatives are on the horizon for the new decade. Marriage Equality, which heretofore has been fought for state-by-state (often attended by an alarming hike in anti-LGBT hate crime violence where the issue is most hotly contested), and now advocates are re-evaluating the tactics and strategies of equality. There is nothing magic about the passage of the Shepard Act. Every day, in every region of the nation, LGBTQ people and those mistakenly assumed to be like us, are suffering violence and death, and from our researches at the Unfinished Lives Project, these statistics are increasing alarmingly. One more life lost is one too many. Fear is no way to live in the Land of the Free. So, we who believe in Justice will greet the New Year with resolve. An African American spiritual lyric testifies, “We Ain’t in No Wise Tired,” and that is providential. We cannot rest until Justice comes. And, we are glad to be in the fight for true “peace on earth, goodwill to all,” with you.
The End of the Beginning: How the Passage of the Matthew Shepard Act Transforms Us
Researching LGBT hate crimes for four years has changed my life. Now that the passage of the Matthew Shepard Act is imminent, I feel another sort of change coming: to my work, to the LGBTQ community, and to my country. For decades, families, loved ones, law enforcement officers, and social justice advocates have prayed for, labored for, and agitated for a federal law extending protection to queer folk victimized by anti-LGBT violence. Tens of thousands of Americans, straight and gay, have labored tirelessly for this result. Our well-practiced shoulders are again set to the task, and with one more great heave, the first major expansion of legal protection against physical harm for vulnerable Americans in the 21st century will make it across the finish line. The end of the beginning has come at last. No more than that, and no less.
The dead are beyond further physical harm. So many hundreds have died at the hands of the ignorant, the malicious, and the sincerely bigoted. Gay Charlie Howard drowned in Bangor, Maine. Lesbian Talana Kreeger, manually disemboweled in Wilmington, North Carolina. Navajo Two-Spirit youth, F.C. Martinez, Jr., brained with a 25-pound rock in a blind canyon in Cortez, Colorado. African American transwoman, Duanna Johnson, shot down in a Memphis, Tennessee alley. Pfc. Barry Winchell, murdered by a fellow soldier with a baseball bat at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on the suspicion that he was gay. And the archetype of them all, young Matthew Shepard, pistol-whipped into a coma and left to die, tied to the foot of a buck fence in Laramie, Wyoming. For every victim whose name is remembered, scores of anonymous others have died, their agonies unreported, their names forgotten.
What will change for all these victims of hate, once the Shepard Act becomes law? And, what about their families, lovers and spouses—what will change for them?
For the dead, the change will come subtly, like a gift of dignity. The Shepard Act is not only for the living. Those who have died at the hands of hatred will finally receive a measure of vindication. No longer will they be merely the debris of social history. Their stories will be told with renewed passion, and more and more people will want to know who they were. Their lives will take on a greater sense of meaning to the LGBTQ community, who will find encouragement to embrace these dead as their own—just as blacks, Jews, and other besieged peoples have embraced their fallen friends and family members. As these LGBTQ victims have become my teachers in my quest to recover their stories and the meaning of their lives, the queer community will find new strength for justice by remembering them.
For the families and loved ones of these victims, perhaps a measure of peace will come at last. Their loss, of course, is incalculable. Their pain is beyond reckoning. I have seen the furrows in their brows, the lingering sadness in their eyes. As Ryan Skipper’s mother Pat said to me, there is no closure for her and those like her. The change will come, I suspect, with a sense of honor, and a quiet assurance that their beloved will have not died in vain. When the Shepard Act finally passes, I will think first of all about the valiant witness of the mothers—women who never sought the spotlight, but who fought back tears to learn how to speak out for their children and for everyone else’s children. Signing day in President Obama’s office will be most of all for Judy Shepard, Pat Mulder, Elke Kennedy, Pauline Mitchell, Denise King, Kathy Jo Gaither and everyone else whose flesh and blood have consecrated the moment of passage.
Those who believe in justice will feel the change, too. The LGBTQ community will be challenged to mature and take their place among communities of survivors, witnesses who understand that it takes hard work to make hope become real for everyone. At the stroke of a pen, the entire LGBTQ community will experience the greatest lift since the Stonewall Rebellion forty years ago. But that will not be all. The America I know and love will encounter change on the day the Shepard Act becomes law, too. Summoned by the angel of justice, the American people will face the challenge to make the promise of the Constitution come true for their transgender, gay, bi, and lesbian neighbors and friends.
Passage and signing the Matthew Shepard Act into law will not magically stop the killing. Record numbers of LGBTQ Americans, especially young transgender people of color, are dying violently all across the land. But the high water mark of hatred will be scotched with the stroke of a pen on the day President Obama keeps his promise and signs the bill. The end of the beginning of full equality for my people will come. And we who believe in justice will not rest until it comes.
~ Stephen V. Sprinkle, Director of the Unfinished Lives Project
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 Associate 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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Box Turtle Bulletin- The Daily Agenda for Saturday, February 25
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Our Pets are First Victims of Right-Wing Hate: Response to Arkansas Cat Murder
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
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January 23, 2012 Posted by unfinishedlives | Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Arkansas, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Pet killings, Slurs and epithets, Special Comments, transphobia, U.S. House of Representatives | Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Arkansas, Blue Arkansas, Cat killing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Pet killings, Slurs and epithets, Special Comment, transphobia, U.S. House of Representatives | Leave a Comment