Out Impact Magazine Features Hate Crimes Work of Unfinished Lives Project
Sprinkle at Cathedral of Hope, Dallas (Barb Nunn photo)
Out Impact, the Gay Online Magazine, has a feature news article on the work of the Unfinished Lives Project and its Director, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, in its latest issue. Chrishelle Griffin, a graduate of Spelman College, carried out the interview with Dr. Sprinkle for Out Impact. In a portion of the Q & A, Griffin asked Dr. Sprinkle what he believes are the most glaring misconceptions about hate crimes against LGBTQ people. “Let me share two with you,” Sprinkle responded.. “The first is that LGBTQ hate crimes victims were engaging in ‘risky’ behaviors that contributed to their deaths. This is nothing but an internalized version of the old ‘gay panic defense’ that says we are somehow responsible for the victimization we suffer. I never met a gay hate crimes survivor who had a death wish,” Sprinkle said. “These women and men were simply trying to live what is normal for them. They were looking for love, seeking companionship, or whatever. Straight people do the same sorts of things all the time. We, however, live in a culture that makes our lives vulnerable—all of our lives, for every one of us. That is the message most of us never seem to get. As long as the majority culture permits some of us to be killed and maimed, every one of us is at risk.” Sprinkle then shared a further misconception that he wishes would be dispelled from the American mind: “Second,” Sprinkle went on to say, “the murders of LGBTQ people are not ‘tragedies.’ There is nothing tragic about murder. It is an outrage, a capital crime, an attack on the whole human race and the persons of the victims who are targeted, but not a ‘tragedy.’ People don’t get worked up over tragedies. They experience a catharsis from a tragedy, and then move on. Hate crime murder is a human horror perpetrated against some members of a group to terrorize the whole group. We must find our anger about this, so that we will act to stop these senseless hate crimes.” In response to Out Impact’s question, “Who pushes you to be better?” Sprinkle said, “Two groups of people motivate me to be better. The first group is made up of my students. I teach theology at Brite Divinity School, and the wonderful interaction I have with students continually pushes me to be better. The second group of people is made up of the family, friends, and lovers of the LGBTQ hate crimes victims I have met around the nation. Mothers, sisters, dads, children, co-workers, neighbors, broken hearted lovers: many of them have become “accidental activists,” shoved by circumstance into the glaring light of public advocacy because of the unspeakable horror they endured when hate took away someone dear to them. These are great Americans, and the notion of their courage keeps me going.” For the complete interview and a series of photographs illustrating the work of the project, go to: http://www.outimpact.com/activism/gay-rights/hate-crimes/steve-sprinkle-tackling-hate-crimes-lgbtq-community.
Anti-LGBT Junk Suit Fails Against Shepard Hate Crimes Law
Washington, D.C. – Human Rights Campaign Back Story reports that a suit brought against the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act failed in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Michigan. The suit, put forward by Michigan pastors and the American Family Association of Michigan, challenged the constitutionality of the Shepard Act in February of this year. Among its claims, the suit alleged that the Shepard Act forecloses on the free exercise of fundamental rights of those who “publicly oppose homosexual activism, the homosexual lifestyle, and the homosexual agenda.” Further, the law suit argues that the Shepard Act creates “thought crimes” and “is an effort to eradicate religious beliefs opposing the homosexual agenda.” The three Michigan pastors claimed that the law had chilled their rights under the First Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Commerce Clause. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called upon the court to dismiss the case, arguing that the Shepard Act does not violate the rights of Americans, and was passed to protect LGBTQ people in this country from physical violence, not thought or speech. The judge hearing the case agreed with Attorney General Holder, and dismissed the case as meritless on all counts on September 7.
Execution-Style Murders Plague Atlanta Black Gay Pride
Atlanta, Georgia – Two gay black men attending last weekend’s Atlanta Black Gay Pride were found shot to death “execution-style” on Sunday night in southeast Atlanta. The Advocate reports that the victims, Calvin Streater, 26, of Atlanta and Samuel Blizzard, Jr., 21, of Spring Cove, Virginia, were discovered by a friend at the Richmond Hill Apartments at approximately 10 p.m.. Blizzard was a student at Georgia State University. Atlanta police said that one man was found in a front room and the other in a bedroom in the apartment. Both of the victims had been shot in the back of the head. At this point in the investigation, the Atlanta Police Department is not yet ready to classify the murders as hate crime killings. As an investigator for the APD told The Examiner, “The men were at a Black Gay Pride event at some point during the day…We do not know if their sexual orientation played a role in the shooting deaths.” Police surmise that the men knew their killer, since there was no evidence of a break-in, and Richmond Hill is a gated facility. Others suggest that the killer or killers could have gained entrance to the complex on foot when a car was buzzed in by other residents. The Atlanta Black Gay community is up in arms, and is demanding answers. In the days prior to Atlanta Black Pride, one of the major organizers of the event, Durand Robinson, also a gay black man, was gunned down on a street in southwest Atlanta. His body was found in the middle of the street with a gunshot wound to his chest. EDGE reports that Robinson’s murder has not yet been classified as a hate crime killing, since police are operating on the theory that Robinson was murdered in a car-jacking incident. The slayings of three gay men associated with Atlanta Black Gay Pride have marred the Labor Day weekend event, which is billed as the largest gathering of LGBTQ black people in the world. The state of Georgia does not have an anti-LGBT hate crimes law on the books. These recent murders have made the debate over such legislation more urgent. No arrests have been made in any of these cases. Commenting on the lack of hate crimes legislation in the state, Carlos Campos, spokesperson for the Atlanta Police Department, told the Examiner, “In March 2006, the Georgia Senate reinstated a hate crime bill in the state, but after much debate, the House deleted provisions that specified hate crimes as those committed because of the victims’ sexual orientation, race, gender, religion or ancestry to naming the only offenses committed “because of bias or prejudice.” Vigils have been held in memory of the victims, and more activism on their behalf is sure to follow.
Lincoln Man Charged with Anti-Gay Hate Crime
Alleged gay basher, Luke Stevens
Lincoln, Nebraska – A 22-year-old University of Nebraska – Lincoln student has been arrested and charged for assaulting a gay man outside a popular gay club on Friday, September 3. Luke Stevens allegedly harassed a 32-year-old gay man after leaving Lincoln’s Club Q, calling him “derogatory names” concerning his sexual orientation intended to start a fight, according to 1011now. As the target of the abuse tried to leave his antagonist, Stevens allegedly punched him in the face, and moved in to continue the fight. A police officer on the scene was drawn to the noise of the altercation, saw the punch thrown, and wrestled Stevens to the ground. The victim of the assault remains unidentified to the press. He was treated on the scene and released to return home. “The victim and several witnesses reported that Luke Stevens did not know them,” Officer Katie Flood, spokesperson for the LPD, told reporters. “He started calling them derogatory names based on their sexual orientation.” Stevens was charged with assault, disturbing the peace, and failure to comply. Because Nebraska has hate crimes legislation on the books, Stevens may be charged with bias crime, which would make his situation much more grave. If proven guilty of a hate crime, the enhancement would hike the misdemeanor assault charge to a felony. The Journal Star reports that the Nebraska hate crimes statute covers offenses carried out due to the victim’s “race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, or disability.” Travis Garrett, 19, a friend of Stevens, was also charged with disturbing the peace. Stevens and Garrett were in Club Q together earlier in the evening, as well as Stevens’s victim. Witnesses and friends of the accused UNL student say that he is straight. That evening he was extremely upset at having been turned down by a girl. The contrast between the response of authorities in Lincoln and a similar anti-gay assault in Greenville, South Carolina three years earlier could not be starker. Both involved punches thrown at a gay man after verbal anti-gay harassment outside a bar. But in the case of Sean William Kennedy, 21, who was hit in the face outside Croc’s Bar in Greenville, an upstate South Carolina college town, both the outcome and the legal repercussions were outrageous. As Unfinished Lives has reported, Kennedy was hit by Steven Moller, an 18-year-old straight man spoiling for a fight with a gay person, in May 2007. Kennedy fell to the curb, hit his head on the concrete, and died. Moller was arrested and charged with manslaughter, since the Palmetto State did not have an anti-gay hate crimes law (and still resists passage of such legislation). While Nebraska police and prosecutors stand ready to investigate the assault in Lincoln as a hate crime, South Carolina officials refused to do so in the Kennedy case, giving Moller (who admitted attacking his victim) every benefit of the doubt. In the end, with time served, Moller received less of a sentence for killing Sean Kennedy than if he had been found guilty of killing a dog. For more up-to-date information on Sean Kennedy, see Sean’s Last Wish. We at Unfinished Lives only wish some of the same conscientious law enforcement had been available to the family and friends of young Sean. Moller is now a free man for lack of the will to bring anti-gay attackers to justice. What a difference a hate crimes law makes!
Jurors in Teen Gay Murder Trial Imported for “Fairness”
Oxnard, CA – The Los Angeles Times reports that jurors must be imported to Ventura County from Santa Barbara County to insure a fair trial for a teenager accused of shooting his gay classmate to death. Brandon McInerney, now 16, was 14 in February 2008 when he allegedly shot his gay middle school classmate to death during a morning computer class at E.O. Green School in Oxnard. According to reports from eyewitnesses, McInerney walked up behind Larry King, 15, an openly gay person of color, aimed a pistol at the back of his head, and shot him twice. King lingered in hospital with no evidence of brain function, and died some time later. McInerney was charged with felony murder, and a judge in Ventura County determined he would stand trial as an adult. Though the youth of the defendant made the ruling controversial, there was enough evidence of planning and premeditation on McInerney’s part that justice demanded he stand trial as an adult. The pistol he allegedly used belonged to his grandfather. King was a gender non-conforming boy who wore women’s accessories, used make up, and affected a gay demeanor. He was living in a youth home because of trouble at home with his parents. McInerney, who also came from a difficult home life, was said by classmates to be macho and troubled by the openness of King’s sexual identity. Some claim that King had an obvious crush on McInerney, who took the attention badly. The case has drawn national attention for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the youth of both boys. Conservative pundits have argued that the shooting was prompted by King’s aggressive sexualized behavior. LGBTQ activists have countered that no such evidence exists, and in any case nothing warrants the murder of a femininely presenting youth because of the discomfort of a classmate. Defense attorneys contended that their client could not receive a fair trial in Ventura County because of the extensive media coverage given the case. The Santa Barbara Independent reports that Ventura County prosecutors agreed that media saturation made it unlikely they could find an unbiased jury in their jurisdiction, but disagreed that the trial should be moved to another venue as the defense wished. Instead, jurors from Santa Barbara County will be imported to the trial which will still be held in Ventura County Superior Court. If McInerney is found guilty of first-degree murder with a hate crime sentence enhancement, he could conceivably be in prison for 53 years to life.
Mother Dies Before Justice Is Done for Her Slain Gay Son
(l to r) Hernandez, Winder - photo courtesy of Dallas Voice
Dallas, Texas – The Dallas Voice reports that the mother of murdered gay man, Richard Hernandez, will never see justice done for her son. Richard’s mother, Mary Garcia Hernandez, died this week, before the alleged hate murderer of her son was brought to trial. John Wright of the Voice posted the full letter of Rudy Araiza, close friend to the Hernandez family, informing the public of Mrs, Hernandez’s death on August 23. Hernandez, a 38-year-old gay man who worked as an Associate at Walmart, was gruesomely dismembered and eviscerated by his attacker in what has been described as a “Silence-of-the-Lambs” style slaying in September 2008, as reported by Unfinished Lives. Hernandez’s body has never been found, but his internal organs were discovered in his own bathtub when the apartment superintendent admitted police in an attempt to find him. Seth Lawton Winder, 29, was arrested and charged with theft and capital murder by the Dallas Police Department shortly after the horrific murder. In a widely publicized debate in the press and the blogosphere, Winder was said by family and friends to be unfit mentally to stand trial because of a host of mental problems. Others sought to blame Hernandez for his own murder, suggesting that Winder was tricking for money or drugs, and killed his john. No supporting evidence has been brought forward to substantiate what amounts to a permutation of the rather shabby “gay panic” defense. Friends and supporters of Hernandez deny an allegation that he was sexually involved with Winder, whom Hernandez had tried to help, according to neighbors and co-workers. Winder was adjudged fit to stand trial for the murder, but then a book, “Slipping Into Madness: The Seth Winder Story,” was published by Winder’s father’s girlfriend that would potentially prejudice the public prior to Winder’s day in court. The delays and stalling have seemed never ending for nearly two years. Rudy Araiza wrote the Voice, in part: “Well I’m witting this letter to just reach out to you and inform you that it’s a terrible thing when your son’s passing is still at a point where no justice has been made for going on two years. And in your own life (Richard’s mom) you are struggling with pain, sadness, emptiness and health problems that don’t make it any easier to live with, until one day you die. Only to never really understand or find the justice you wanted for your son, yourself, friends or family, and having so much on your plate. Mary Garcia Hernandez passed away Monday, Aug. 23, 2010 from health issues she was dealing with.” The Unfinished Lives Project Team thanks the Voice and Reporter John Wright for continuing coverage of this important story, and sends our sympathy to the Hernandez family in their mother’s death. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Justice too long deferred is justice denied.”
Second Sentence in NY Hate Crime Murder: Phoenix Gets 37 Years to Life
Keith Phoenix (l) in court
Brooklyn, NY – Keith Phoenix won’t be on the street again for a long time: 37 years to life, for the brutal hate murder of José Suchuzhañay in December 2008. Phoenix wielded an aluminum baseball bat at the Ecuadorian immigrant’s head. In a later remark to police, Phoenix exhibited the callous attitude behind the murder: “So I killed a guy,” he said. “Does that make me a bad person?” The jury convicted him in early August of a hate crime as well as of murder, taking into account the defendant’s homophobic and anti-Hispanic remarks at the time of the slaying. His accomplice, Hakim Scott, received a 37 year sentence earlier in the year for his role in the attack and murder. The murder of Suchuzhañay enflamed the LGBTQ community and ignited an international outcry. Suchuzhañay had lived in the United States for over a decade, and was a legal resident. Though the victim was not gay, his assailants believed he was–another in a long line of incidents demonstrating the lethal potential still at work against the LGBTQ population in America. The Ecuadorian community in the United States has expressed some satisfaction with the verdicts against their countryman’s slayers, and has called for continued vigilance as immigrants are targeted for discrimination and harm. Diego Suchuzhañay, José’s brother, said to CNN, “Our brother wanted to make history when he died, and he did already. We should be proud of him. The way he died, we should be proud of him.”
New Yorker Murders Boy Toddler “For Acting Like a Girl”
Pedro Jones, alleged infant killer, heads to court
Shinnecock Indian Reservation, outside Riverside, Long Island – A 20-year-old Southampton man is accused of killing his girlfriend’s toddler on August 1, 2010. Pedro Jones, who was babysitting the 17-month-old tot, allegedly grabbed him by the neck and punched him repeatedly with his closed fist “to toughen him up,” the batterer said, in order to make the child “act like a boy and not a girl.” Roy Antonio Jones III, the victim (no relation to his assailant though they share the same surname), went into cardiac arrest and died as a result of his injuries late on Sunday evening. His mother, Vanessa Jones, had left her child in the care of her boyfriend to visit her cousin for about an hour, according to family sources. Ms. Jones said that she had no knowledge that her lover had ever hit the baby before. Jones has been charged with first-degree manslaughter in the slaying, a charge that carries a maximum of 25 years in prison. He has pled not guilty to the charge, and is being held in Suffolk County Jail without bail. NewsOneOriginal reports that Pedro Jones told police he had never hit the toddler “that hard before.” “A one-time mistake and I am going to do 20 years,” he said. Jones is not a member of the Shinnecock Nation as is the infant’s mother, whom the alleged killer said he intended to marry. Her family hopes that Jones will receive a much harsher sentence than incarceration for 20 years. The grandmother of the dead child confronted Jones who was in custody at Southampton Town Court, and shouted at him, “You killed my grandson! I hope you rot in hell!” On Monday night, August 2, approximately 100 members of the Shinnecock Nation gathered to mourn the killing of the infant. “People expressed the need to come together to love one another, to tighten the gap in our community so this doesn’t happen again,” Ms. Donna Collins-Smith, the great aunt of the victim, said to The Southampton Press. “Basically, we’re trying to come together as a family and do the best we can.” The horror of this killing has shocked many around the nation. Jones was apparently so irrationally irritated by behavior patterns in the tot he believed were effeminate that he took matters into his own hands to beat the girlishness out of him. Because the victim was perceived to be gender-variant, the attack was a sexual hate crime according to many commentators. Michael Rowe wrote for the Huffington Post: “The beating death of 17-month-old Roy Jones was no less a hate crime because the victim was a baby. Whether he would have grown up to be gay, or transgender, or just a gentle, sweet-natured straight boy, was still many years away. More, it was irrelevant.” As the Unfinished Lives Project has reported repeatedly, violent crimes against gender non-conforming people of color, especially young boys of color who present femininely, have reached alarming levels in our country. They are among the most vulnerable members of our society, and are paying a terrible price for the irrational hatred of men (and some women!) who feel they must use violence to enforce heterosexist male stereotypes. Baby Roy will never have a chance to show the world who he was becoming. Instead of making him socially acceptable in a hyper-masculine world, the man who said he loved the child, “loved” him to death.
Slayer of Gay Opera Singers Faces Execution in Texas
Derrick L. Jackson, TDCJ photo
Huntsville, TX – On July 20, Derrick L. Jackson, 42, is scheduled to die by lethal injection for the 1988 double homicide of two gay men from Houston. Jackson maintains his innocence, claiming to have been framed in order to solve the cold case. According to the Houston Chronicle, the exceptionally brutal murders of Forrest Henderson and his house-guest, Richard Alan Wrotenbery, both 31, panicked the world of the Houston Grand Opera when the story of their deaths hit media in September 1988. Both men sang tenor for the opera, and had been rehearsing Bizet’s Carmen the night before the atrocity. Wrotenbery, by vocation a first-grade music teacher at Deer Park School, had just divorced his wife, and had accepted a room with Henderson until he could get a place of his own arranged. After the rehearsal on September 10, Wrotenbery went back to the apartment to rest, and Henderson hit the bars in the Montrose section. Apparently, he invited Jackson home with him. Loud music was heard coming from the apartment late into the night, and around 4 a.m., neighbors heard a man scream loudly, “Oh my God! No! No!” It was not until the school district contacted the apartment complex looking for Wrotenbery who had not shown up for work that the bodies of the victims were found. Investigators remember the volume of blood in the apartment as excessive, even for a stabbing/slashing murder. Henderson’s naked body was found stabbed repeatedly in the chest. Wrotenbery, whom authorities presume was asleep at the time of the attack, had his throat slit. Both men had extensive bludgeoning wounds that were most likely delivered with a heavy metal bar from an exercise set. Henderson’s wallet was stolen as well as his car, and Wrotenbery’s wallet was also missing. When the car was spotted the next day by Houston Police, a high-speed chase ensued until the car crashed near an apartment complex, where the driver, presumably Jackson, made his escape on foot. The case went cold for seven years, until forensic science improved enough in 1995 to match a bloody hand print lifted from a door knob to Jackson, already serving 12 years for a string of home burglaries and other crimes. Wrotenbery’s father, a former librarian from Southwestern Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, is ambivalent about the death penalty, but intends to witness the execution of his son’s killer. He said to the Houston Chronicle, “When you come to the personal aspect of it, pure logic says for someone to do a crime of this nature, unprovoked — Alan was in the wrong place at the wrong time — it’s hard for me to think the death penalty is unjustified.” Bill Hawkins, a Harris County District Attorney who prosecuted Jackson for the murders, told the Dallas Morning News,”The scientific evidence was extremely strong. And subsequent defense testing of DNA had his numbers.” Jackson told the press that while he admitted robberies and auto theft in other cases, he never killed these two gay men. According to the Dallas Voice, Jackson will be the 15th person to be executed by the state of Texas this year.
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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Unfinished Lives 
Unfinished Lives: It Gets Better Videos
Unfinished Lives Project would like to recognize author Dan Savage for founding the It Gets Better Project (http://www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject) in response to the tragic increase in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teen suicides. The point of this project is for people to upload videos to let these teens know that, yes, it does get better.
And here at Unfinished Lives, we are cognizant of the fact that part of this “better” is not just social love and acceptance, but spiritual love and acceptance. To help meet this need, a group of Brite Divinity School students and faculty have recorded their own messages of hope for the It Gets Better Project:
Dr. Steve Sprinkle: Director of Field Education at Brite Divinity School
Sam Castleberry: Student at Brite Divinity School
Egon Cohen: Student at Brite Divinity School
DeSorrow: Student at Brite Divinity School
The Brite Student It Gets Better channel hopes to have more videos shortly. We would also like to encourage any and all LGBTQ faculty, staff, and students in graduate theological education to record videos and to let GLBTQ youth know that it does get better and faith can help not hinder the process. Also anyone else who wishes to record a video should do so as well. For more information on LGBTQ suicide prevention see The Trevor Project
In the meantime, please spread the word, and vote for your favorite video by sending an email with the video link as the subject line (just the link) to: IGBP@savagelove.net.
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October 2, 2010 Posted by unfinishedlives | ACLU, African Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bisexual persons, Blame the victim, Bullying in schools, Domestic Violence, gay men, gay teens, harassment, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, Human Rights Campaign, Law and Order, Lesbian women, LGBT teen suicide prevention, LGBTQ suicide, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, PFLAG, Social Justice Advocacy, Special Comments, suicide, transgender persons | African Americans, Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, bible, bisexual, Blame the victim, Brite, Brite Divinity School, Bullying in schools, Dan Savage, DeSorrow, Egon Cohen, gay, gay men, GLBT, GLBTQ, GLSEN, God, graduate theological education, Hate Crimes, hate crimes legislation, hebrew bible, Heterosexism and homophobia, IGBP, it gets better, it gets better project, Latino / Latina Americans, Lesbian, LGBT, LGBTQ, Media Issues, pastoral theology, practical theology, religion, religious education, religious intolerance, Sam Castleberry, Savage Love, Seattle, seminary, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, Steve Sprinkle, suicide, suicide prevention, TBGL, TBGLQ, TCU, Texas, The Stranger, theology, transgender persons, Trevor Project, what does the bible say about homosexuality | 1 Comment