Dallasite Michael Parish Honored Nationally for Fighting HIV/AIDS
Michael Parish, Outreach Coordinator for the Resource Center of Dallas
Dallas, Texas – Michael Parish, 24, has been recognized by the widely-read LGBTQ blog Queerty for his advocacy in combatting HIV and AIDS. The post, “Born into the Epidemic: Five People Under 30 Who are Fighting HIV/AIDS,” honors Parish for his work in North Texas as Outreach Co-Ordinator for the Resource Center of Dallas, one of the nation’s largest full-service centers for LGBTQ people. A native of Waco, Parish served as a volunteer for four years at the Center until he was hired in 2010 to educate on HIV prevention and safer sex practices, as well as offer STD screenings on the weekends.
Parish says that the greatest obstacle LGBTQ people have to face in the struggle with AIDS is giving up. He said to Queerty, “LGBT people . . . ‘throw in the towel’ when it comes to fighting HIV. They’ve been made to believe that they specifically are ‘destined’ to contract HIV. But if you remove ‘LGBT’ and insert another category of people and say the same thing, you would see the sheer ludicrousness of such a belief. [Fighting that sense of inevitability] is the biggest challenge.”
Commending the choice of Parish for this select honor, Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, Director of the Unfinished Lives Project, said, “Michael is a sign of hope among all LGBTQ people, and for 20-somethings in particular. The struggle against this unrelenting disease needs renewed support at this time, when members of the LGBTQ community seem to believe they are either immune to HIV/AIDS, or falsely assume that if they contract the virus, drugs will simply take care of its effects. Michael and the rest of the staff of the Resource Center of Dallas know there is only one way to effectively fight back, and that is through education, early testing, and safer sex. Well done, Queerty and Michael Parish!”
The other four commendatoris are: Jaszi Johnathan Alejandro, 25, Community Health Specialist from New York, NY; Greg Zhovreboff, 28, Community Organizer from San Francisco, CA; Julian Dormitzer, 23, Clinical Research Nurse hailing from Boston, MA; and Brant Miller, 25, HIV Program Associate in Washington, DC. On this World AIDS Day and every day, the Unfinished Lives Project Team congratulates them all, and the many other unsung heroes in the fight against HIV/AIDS they represent.
Alleged Butcher of Richard Hernandez Wins Mistrial for Meds Excuse
Seth Winder
Denton, Texas – For the second time in a history of delays and postponements, Richard Hernandez’s alleged murderer was ruled “incompetent to stand trial” on November 18 by a Denton County judge. Seth Winder, 31, was ruled unable to assist in his own defense by District Judge Bruce McFarling after an examination finding him either unmedicated for his diagnosed mental impairment, or insufficiently dosed, according to the Crime Blog of the Dallas Morning News. Winder exhibited nearly catatonic behavior during the third day of the trial–evidencing that he had received none of his prescribed drugs for his schizophrenia, or that he had been spitting out and hiding his nighttime dosages, perhaps for weeks before the trial began. No explanation was given for how Winder could have been considered fit for trial on November 16, but zombie-like two days later. Neither was there an explanation of how jailers and med staff at the Denton County Jail could have so woefully neglected to make sure their smart-though-impaired inmate took his meds as directed and actually swallowed them.
Instead of completing the trial process for the gruesome murder and dismemberment of the openly gay Dallasite, Winder was sent to the North Texas State Hospital in Vernon for treatment. The Dallas Observer speculates that Winder may not ever face trial again for the Silence-0f-the-Lambs-style butchery of 38-year-old Hernandez, whose body was never found–save for his internal organs left in the bathtub of his Far North Dallas apartment in September 2008. This marks a second instance that Winder was found unfit to stand trial because of mental issues, the first being in May 2009. Observer reporter Brantley Hargrove found legal opinion divided on whether the Colony resident will have another day in court. Winder’s Defense Attorney, Derek Adame, says he seriously doubts another trial will take place. Denton County Assistant District Attorney Cary Piel, however, believes Winder will face judge and jury again, probably in April 2012.
Winder stands accused of murdering Hernandez in the gay man’s apartment, though the reasons for their relationship remain murky. Both the Morning News and the Observer repeated the unproven allegation that the victim and his supposed killer were gay lovers. Hernandez’s best friend, Rudy Araiza, has staunchly denied the possibility that Winder and Hernandez were ever “lovers,” and makes that point again in a blog response to the Dallas Morning News allegation. “Richard and Seth were ‘Never’ boyfriends!” Araiza said. “I’m not sure why this newspaper is making that statement, I knew Richard for 22 years, I would know!” It may be another instance in which a grisly anti-gay hate crime is toned down for public consumption by partially blaming the victim for his own demise. Media around the country have a notorious record for succumbing to this sensationalist temptation. Investigators said they found pornographic pictures of Winder on the cell phone he lifted from the Hernandez apartment, though no proof has been offered of who took the images, or what they actually depict.
Although the murder weapon was never found, police did retrieve a sword stained with Hernandez’s blood in the tent where Winder was living. Detectives say that Winder used the sword to cut up the gay man’s body. The dismembered parts of the victim were probably disposed of in a nearby dumpster, and then buried under tons of garbage in a landfill, making the body impossible to locate. Winder’s use of Hernandez’s credit cards led police to arrest him. Witnesses placed Winder in Hernandez’s apartment complex at or near the time of the gay man’s disappearance. Forensics found that the blood stains on Winder’s clothing and shoes were a genetic match to the victim.
So, Seth Winder, either crazy like a fox, or a neglected patient (or both), has avoided the jury again. Meanwhile, Richard Hernandez, who in death cannot answer the innuendo against his character, receives no justice. The eerie quiet throughout North Texas surrounding this latest trial development in one of the most heinous crime cases in Dallas history seems to confirm that many have an investment in hushing the whole thing up. Which would not be the first time such a thing has happened in Texas when it comes to violence against the LGBTQ community.
Gay Baptist Preacher Calls on Churches to Repent of Anti-Gay Attitudes
Rev. Dr. Stephen Sprinkle speaking to a rally at the University of Toledo (Toledo Blade Photo).
Toledo, Ohio – An ordained gay Baptist minister has called upon churches to change their anti-gay attitudes and language. Dallas Baptist preacher and theologian, Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, speaking to a packed house at the University of Toledo last month, said that the notion Christianity and the Bible are considered irreconcilably anti-gay by many in contemporary churches is simply wrong. Citing Dr. Peter Gomes, the late chaplain of Harvard, Sprinkle said that the biblical teachings on hospitality to those who have been deliberately excluded by society, “the poor, the discriminated against, people of color, women, homosexuals, and all persons beyond the conventional definition of Western civilization,” is far more significant than the few misinterpreted Bible texts used to condemn LGBTQ people. Sprinkle went on to note that Christianity arose in the cosmopolitan world of the Greeks and the Romans, who in the main were tolerant of same-gender-loving people for much of the classical age. When taken as a whole, the early churches exhibited very little concern about what we today call “homosexuality.” “Homosexuality,” Sprinkle said, “is not mentioned in the Top Ten [Commandments], and is not in the message of any of the Prophets.”
The Republic reports that Sprinkle was invited to speak at a rally sponsored by Equality Toledo in response to the so-called “billboard wars” over LGBTQ acceptance in the Toledo church community. A progressive United Methodist congregation put up a large billboard on a well-traveled street in April proclaiming that “Gays Are a Gift From God.” An evangelical mega church responded by buying up space on nine huge billboards around the city rebutting the Methodist claim with the slogan “Gays Are NOT a Gift From God.” Sprinkle, a professor at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, and Theologian in Residence at Cathedral of Hope United Church of Christ, the largest LGBTQ predominant congregation in the world located in Dallas, is a widely-sought speaker and teacher. His most recent book, Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications, 2011), is an anthology of stories of people murdered for their sexual orientation and gender identity, most of whom were killed by people who claimed justification from the Bible and church teachings. He is the founder of the Unfinished Lives Project, and the web master of http://unfinishedlivesblog.com, a blog seeking to remember the victims of hate crimes violence in the United States.
Happy Thanksgiving!
For our homes to yours, a wish for a blessed Thanksgiving season from the Unfinished Lives Project Team!
McInerney Pleads Guilty to 2nd-Degree Murder for Executing Larry King
Brandon McInerney executed his gay classmate in February 2008.
Ventura County, California – The teen killer of a gay classmate has pleaded guilty second-degree murder. Brandon McInerney, 17, 14-years-old at the time he pulled the trigger, shot gay 15-year-old Larry King in the back of the head execution-style at E.O Green Middle School in Oxnard, California in February 2008 before the eyes of his first-period classmates. The facts of the case are undisputed. Rising behind his victim, McInerney pumped two rounds into the back of Larry King’s skull, fulfilling a threat he made to a girlfriend at school the day before. McInerney will receive a 21-year sentence for a crime that many say bears all the hallmarks of a pre-meditated, first-degree hate crime murder.
In September of this year, a mistrial was declared after two months of testimony, due to the inability of the jury to come to a decision about the guilt of young McInerney. Prosecutors had argued for first-degree murder, based on the established pre-meditation and the heinous nature of the crime. Under California law, a 14-year-old may be tried as an adult, and McInerney, who confessed to the murder seemed to fit the statute’s requirements. Prosecutors claimed that because of McInerney’s antipathy toward King’s sexual orientation and gender expression, and because of white supremacist loyalties the killer clearly embraced, the murder was a clear-cut case of anti-LGBT hate crime. Defense turned the tables on the prosecution, putting the dead victim on trial instead of their client. They resurrected the infamous “gay panic/trans panic” defense, drumming their contention into the jurors’ minds that King was the prime aggressor, pressing his flamboyant sexuality toward McInerney until he “snapped.” Enough of the jury bought the ploy that the jury hung. Had the first-degree charge been upheld, the defendant would have received 53 years for his crime.
The Advocate reports that formal sentencing will take place for McInerney on December 19. Twenty-one years in prison is a long time for McInerney to consider that every day he lives is another he stole from a gay classmate because of his discomfort with a person who was different. For the LGBTQ community, the specter of the “gay panic defense,” like a hungry ghost, lingers on, given new energy by this plea deal.
“A-List” Gay Celebrity Assaulted in Dallas
A-List Dallas View; Taylor Garrett on far left (!)
Dallas, Texas – Gay Republican consultant Taylor Garrett was decked with a hard blow to the left eye last week, according to various press reports. A cast member on the gay reality television show, LOGO’s “A-List Dallas,” Garrett is closely associated with high-profile human rights opponent, Ann Coulter. Returning to his car from a birthday party on the entertainment strip along Cedar Springs Road in Dallas, Garrett says he was shocked to find the words, “F-ck Coulter,” keyed into his car door. A large man appeared out of the shadows where he was squatting, and knocked Garrett to the ground, cutting his brow and bloodying him. He also fell on broken glass beside the car, scraping his body.
Garrett is convinced gay Democrats are behind the bias against him and other gay “conservative Republican Christians.” In an interview with the Daily Caller, he said, “I would’ve thought people would have been a little more tolerant considering that our community advocates for tolerance, but it has been nothing but mean spirited attacks, especially after the Ann Coulter scene,” referring to his well-publicized luncheon recently with Coulter. Using racist plantation language, Garrett said that gay Democrats want him to “stay on the plantation,” but he is having none of it. Shaken by the incident, he says another season for him on the popular LOGO series is in doubt.
An ambulance was called to the scene, but the paramedics did not elect to transport him to the hospital, since his injuries did not warrant it. Some members of the LGBTQ community and media have suggested that Garrett is using this incident and another in October when a rock was thrown through his window to gin up publicity for himself. Garrett denies the allegations. Dallas Police have not designated the assault as a hate crime at this point.
In an exclusive interview with Huffington Post, Garrett continued the theme of gay hypocrisy over politics. “This goes to show you,” he said, “that the gay community advocates for diversity and is against bullying, but in our own community we discriminate based upon if you’re a Democrat or a Republican or if you don’t necessarily fit within the mold of the political views of the gay community.”
Gay Men and Trans People in the Cross Hairs: Behind the FBI’s 2010 Hate Crimes Statistics
Washington, D.C. – Hate crimes statistics for 2010 are out from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The good news is that, overall, the numbers of reported hate crimes last year held steady. The FBI report, accessible here, documents 6,624 single-bias incidents, which range from acts of vandalism to cold blooded murder. Four more incidents encompassed multiple-biases, making for a grand total of 6,628 incidents reflecting 7,699 offenses as reported voluntarily by law enforcement agencies around the nation. These data represent a serious undercount of the actual number of hate crimes perpetrated against Americans during the last year, since 1) reportage by local law enforcement is sheerly voluntary with no funding from the federal government to aid small jurisdictions to report, and 2) local law enforcement officials are often loathe to classify an incident as a hate crime because of a variety of reasons, such as how the community regards social groups and racial/sexual minorities.
Behind the statistics are the stories of flesh-and-blood victims and their families, and the news here is disturbing. 1,528 victims were targeted because of animus against sexual orientation. Of these, 57.3 percent of victims were gay males, and 11.9 percent were lesbians. The numbers of violent attacks against transgender people are fragmentary at this point, since statistics of this particularly vulnerable group have only been recorded by the FBI since the Matthew Shepard-James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Obama in October 2009. But the news of brutalities against transgender people, especially transgender women of color, is alarming. GLAAD reports that, of the people murdered for sexual orientation and gender identity and expression bias, 70 percent were persons of color, and 44 percent were transgender women [NCAVP figures]. Though suicides of LGBTQ teens due to homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools have captured the headlines repeatedly since 2010 began, no separate FBI statistical category yet exists for the collection of these data.
In the recent Civil Rights Conference on Hate Crimes at the University of Texas at Arlington, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez declared in his keynote address, “We are experiencing a headwind of hatred and intolerance in the United States.” FBI Special Agents appealed to local law enforcement, U.S. Attorney officials, and leaders from the North Texas LGBTQ community to co-operate in the reporting of hate crimes, underlining the difficulty feds are experiencing amassing accurate data. In its 2010 report, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), widely held to offer more accurate statistics on anti-LGBT hate crimes than the FBI, noted a 13 percent rise in homophobic and transphobic violence from 2009 to 2010, and a 23 percent rise in the murders of LGBTQ people.
Gay Murder/Dismemberment Trial Gets Underway Today in North Texas
Richard Hernandez, victim, and Seth Winder, the accused (l to r; Dallas Voice image)
Dallas, Texas – After three years of delays and postponements, the trial of the accused murderer of openly gay Richard Hernandez begins today. The Dallas Voice, doing great journalistic work on this difficult case, announced the story on November 10, quoting first assistant Denton County district attorney Jamie Beck on the trial delays, “Everybody wants a swifter and quicker justice, but you’ve got to do it right. Bottom line, we want justice, so if that means it takes a while, then so be it.”
The “Silence of the Lambs” style murder of 38-year-old Hernandez, an employee of Walmart, drew national press attention in September 2008 when the victim’s viscera but no body was discovered in an apartment in far North Dallas. When Hernandez, a conscientious employee, did not report for work, his friends prevailed on the apartment superintendent to open his residence, and what they found resembled a slaughterhouse. Copious amounts of blood spattered the walls. Hernandez’s body was never found, but tissue from it was left, dumped in the bathtub. Dallas Police acted quickly to track down the killer. True Crime reported that the DPD filed capital murder charges against Seth Winder, 29, a homeless man with a history of erratic behavior and mental illness, even though they did not have possession of a body in the case–only the third time in thirty years of police department history.
Winder was located because of credit card charges he made to Hernandez’s stolen cards after the murder date. Police apprehended Winder in a tent inThe Colony, where he was in possession of personal items of the victim and a bloody sword that may have been used in the dismemberment. The Dallas Voice reports the police conclusion that the killer disposed of the body in a trash dumpster which was emptied in a landfill, making Hernandez’s remains unrecoverable.
Winder’s competence to stand trial was hotly contested in the earlier days of the case. His father and stepmother told the press that their son was a schizophrenic who had once tried to strangle his own mother. Friends of Hernandez contended that Winder was just clever enough to play ill in order to avoid responsibility for the grisly murder. The whole stew was made nastier by the report of police investigators that they discovered a digital camera belonging to Hernandez with “pornographic images” of Winder. The victim’s friends and family vigorously denied the implication that Hernandez and Winder were in a sexual relationship. In the end, Winder was ruled incompetent to stand trial.
Hernandez’s mother will not be there today to see if justice will be done for her son. She died with the story unresolved, thanks in part to a strategy of delays put in place by Winder’s legal defense team, and to the untimely publication of a book on the murder authored by Winder’s own stepmother.
Now, after years of treatment, authorities say Seth Winder is able to face his day in court. Jury selection has begun, and barring other delays, three years of agonized waiting are about to conclude for Richard Hernandez’s friends and remaining family.
Honoring LGBTQ Veterans 2011
For Veterans Day 2011: The grave of Leonard P. Matlovich, Technical Sergeant, United States Air Force (July 6, 1943 – June 22, 1988).
“When I was in the Military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”– Leonard Matlovich 1975
We must not forget at what price LGB service members can now wear the uniform openly. And, we dare not ignore the grave injustice to Transgender Americans who still cannot.
Texas Lesbian Gay Bashed in San Antonio
Kristen Cooper, Bashed for Being Lesbian (KENS 5 photo)
San Antonio, Texas – An out lesbian student from the University of Texas at San Antonio says that she was assaulted by two men calling her obscene, anti-LGBTQ epithets over Halloween weekend. Kristen Cooper told KENS 5 that the only thing the two men who attacked her knew about her prior to the assault was that she was a lesbian. “I just think it was a hate crime against me,” she sad, still shaken by the incident.
Cooper says she was waiting for a ride from a local Halloween Party when two men stopped their van, grabbed her, beat her while yelling slurs about her sexual orientation, and drove her some distance before they pushed her out and drove away. Cooper fought back against them, “full-fist,” probably putting up such resistance that her assailants decided it wasn’t worth the effort. She had no cell phone, so she walked a long distance before someone noticed her, stopped, and then called the police.
Cooper’s injuries were extensive: cuts, bruises, a contusion, a concussion, and whiplash. When asked how she was coping with the attack, Cooper said to KENS 5, “Just still in shock and I’m trying really hard not to cry, but nothing like this should happen to anybody.” The San Antonio Police are currently investigating the crime as an assault, with no word about whether they intend to classify the brutal beating as an anti-LGBTQ hate crime.
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
Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle (Keith Tew photo).
Stephen V. Sprinkle is Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry, and Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas, a post he has held since 1994. An ordained Baptist minister, he is the first open and out Gay scholar in the history of the Divinity School, and the first open and out LGBTQ person to be tenured there. Read More…
Recent Social Justice Advocacy Activity By Dr. Sprinkle
Summer 2009 – Dr. Sprinkle responded to the Fort Worth Police Department and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Raid on the Rainbow Lounge, Fort Worth’s newest gay bar, on June 28, 2009, the exact 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Dr. Sprinkle was invited to speak at three protest events sponsored by Queer LiberAction of Dallas. Here, he is keynoting the Rainbow Lounge Protest at the Tarrant County Courthouse on July 12, 2009. Read More…
Contact Us
Communicate with the Unfinished Lives project team:
info@unfinishedlivesblog.com
Schedule a Presentation
Dr. Sprinkle will gladly present his acclaimed presentation to your organization. To arrange an Unfinished Lives presentation for your organization or group, please contact us.
Dr. Sprinkle has given his Unfinished Lives presentation to these and other community groups and organizations. Read More…
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Publisher: Steve Sprinkle (Project Director)
Steve Sprinkle
Unfinished Lives: Remembering LGBT Hate Crime VictimsBrite Divinity School/Texas Christian UniversityFort Worth TXprofessor, minister, author, blogger, LGBTQ advocate
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