Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Gay College Student Beaten by Homophobes, Ignored by Oklahoma Police

Claremore, OK – A 24-year-old gay college student was beaten late last month by three men screaming anti-gay slurs as he took out the trash at his apartment complex.  Phillip Nelson, an out and open gay man, was jumped and thrashed in the quiet town of Claremore, approximately a half hour drive north of Tulsa.  Investigators have basically blown off the incident, leaving Nelson emotionally wounded in addition to his physical injuries (see photo at left). EDGE reports that Nelson is struggling to cope with the combination of brutal attack and police indifference to a hate crime against him.  “I keep calling them and leaving voice mails but I never hear anything back,” Nelson said during an EDGE interview. “No one ever returns my calls, which has me wondering if they’re kind of trying to let this thing die out and go away, or if they are going to do anything about it.” Media coverage outside the gay blogosphere has been sparce.  Besides the EDGE report, which according to Michael Lavers grew from a tip given by one of their readers, only one other story has appeared in the news media.  Oklahoma lawmakers aver that laws protecting LGBT people are not needed in their state, and in a notorious move by State Senator Steve Russell, legislation has been introduced to circumvent the James Bryd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, signed into law by President Obama in October 2009.  The Oklahoma House of Representatives has not yet voted on the bill, which passed the State Senate last month.  Nelson’s case is a clear reason why protection statutes for LGBT Oklahomans is urgently needed.  Nelson’s three attackers who remain unapprehended by local police as of this writing, assaulted him while screaming “You are going to die!” and “Faggot!” leaving him with multiple bruises and cuts on his face and over his body.  Days later, his antagonists broke into Nelson’s apartment and scrawled “Fag” on the walls. Though Nelson reported the beating to Claremore police, no police report of the attack was filed until Nelson called in law enforcement for the break-in.  Then, in what may have been an attempt to cover their tracks, the police insisted that Nelson file separate reports on both crimes.  The whole ordeal has shaken Nelson, but as he told EDGE, he has had to face homophobia all his young life. “I’ve been called names all my life, even by my family members; and after a while I learned to get numb from it,” he said. “I just got numb from a lot of things. I’m happy with myself and that’s all that matters.” LGBT Oklahomans grow tough in the Sooner State.  They have to.

April 27, 2010 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, death threats, gay men, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, home-invasion, Law and Order, Legislation, Matthew Shepard Act, Media Issues, Oklahoma, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Politics, Slurs and epithets, Uncategorized | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Black LGBTQ Affirming Church in Dallas Acts to Counter Religious Homophobia

Apostle Alex Byrd, Senior Elder and Pastor, Living Faith Covenant Church

Dallas, TX – In response to a vitriolic anti-gay sermon preached at a major Black preaching conference at a Dallas Black mega-church, Apostle Alex Byrd’s flock boldly resolves not to back down. In a congregational meeting on April 18, Living Faith Covenant Church, a predominantly Black and LGBT church, voted officially to oppose religious homophobia and promote dialogue on behalf of LGBTQ and SGL (Same Gender Loving) people of color.  On Monday, April 12, 2010, Prophetess Janet Floyd, a featured preacher at the Urgent Utterances Conference, denounced gay and lesbian people, vigorously declaring that members of the sexual minority, regardless of their church affiliation, had “demons” that needed to be “cast out” of them by God.  The conference, jointly sponsored by a coalition of churches and Black Church scholarly groups, including Vanderbilt University Divinity School’s Black Church studies institute, was a three-day event hosted at the high-profile Friendship-West Baptist Church, pastored by one-time candidate for the presidency of the NAACP, Dr. Frederick Douglas Haynes III.  Black church leaders from around the nation attended the conference on Monday night, including students from Vanderbilt in Nashville, TN and Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, TX.  In the second sermon of the evening, the prophetess claimed that God sent a “storm” upon the nation, in the form of Hurricane Katrina and the Columbine High School shooting tragedy.  As Rev. Floyd launched into her indictment of “demon-possessed” LGBT people, some 20 attendees walked out of the service in silent protest against pulpit homophobia.  From eyewitness reports, the whole Brite Divinity School contingent and half of the Vanderbilt students walked out of the service.  News quickly spread throughout the Metroplex and around the internet.  A Rally for Love to pray for all parties affected by the sermon and to frame a response calling for dialogue and accountability gathered on Wednesday evening, April 14, jointly hosted by Living Faith Covenant Church and Promise Metropolitan Community Church.  A multi-racial gathering of forty LGBTQ people and their allies decided to form a coalition to call on Dr. Haynes, the conference, and Friendship-West Church to distance themselves from the homophobic content of the sermon.  Apostle Byrd issued a communication to Dr. Haynes, but at the time of this writing there has been no response to Byrd’s appeal.  Taking the next step, the Living Faith congregation officially issued their resolution, “Commitment to Non-Violent Resistance to Spiritual Abuse” (full text of the Resolution may be accessed here).  Briefly, the resolution calls on Black affirming Christians to “stand in solidarity with the more than 20 courageous individuals who stood up and left in peaceful protest during Reverend Janet Floyd’s sermon,” and to “acknowledge the spiritual, psychological, emotional, and social harm from ill-informed preaching, whether well-intended or malicious, inflicted upon many of our LGBTQ and SGL brothers and sisters.”  The SGL affirming congregation, affiliated and backed by The Fellowship, an international movement of radically inclusive Christians headed by San Francisco Bishop Yvette Flunder, both endorses the Black Church tradition of the freedom of the pulpit and at the same time criticizes any action or speech from the pulpit that demeans, demonizes or harms people because of their race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity, class or disability.  In the event that efforts at dialogue with other religious leaders fails to produce meaningful responses, the resolution concludes, “we will engage in peaceful and non-violent resistance for the dignity and value of all of God’s creation, including LGBTQ and SGL individuals within the Community of Faith.”  Significantly, a church and movement deeply and proudly rooted in the African American Church tradition and community now has joined the issue of active and passive homophobic speech in Black churches,helping to debunk the usual claim made by some Black Church leaders that LGBTQ rights is an expression of white racism and exclusively a “white man’s issue.”  Apostle Byrd’s congregation, The Fellowship, and supporters from last week’s Rally for Love have made it clear that “spiritual abuse” aimed at LGBTQ people from any source will

Prophetess Janet Floyd

be publicly, compassionately and firmly opposed.  Apostle Byrd understands the mindset of heterosexist/homophobic ministers.  In an interview with Operation Rebirth, he said, “For the majority of preachers who bash [gays], I’d say the root is sincere compassionate ignorance. They truly want to see people saved and in their understanding, they believe homosexuality is wrong. They have to send that message so people will ‘come out’ of it. It’s a hard task for them to do. The more resistance from the homosexual(s), the more they preach it. They are ignorant, but sincere. They are ignorant in understanding the homosexual as a person. They’re ignorant in their understanding of the general context, cultural climate, history, language and translation of scripture. They are ignorant in how to appropriately apply historical text to the current needs of our society, with its likenesses and differences. But ignorance isn’t a bad thing…it simply means, ‘I don’t know.’   But stupidity IS bad. It says ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care to find out.'” While some report encouraging pulpit statements made by Dr. Haynes at Friendship-West’s April 14 evening worship service opposing the demonization of LGBTQ people, as of this date nobody from Dr. Haynes’s office, from the leadership of Friendship-West Baptist Church, or from the Urgent Utterances Conference Leadership has officially distanced themselves or their organizations from the homophobic content of Prophetess Floyd’s sermon.

April 20, 2010 Posted by | African Americans, Anglo Americans, Bisexual persons, gay men, Lesbian women, Racism, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, Vigils | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Multi-Racial Response to Religious Gay Bashing at “Rally for Love” in Dallas

Apostle Alex Byrd calls for dialogue and accountability for religious homophobia

Dallas, Texas – Forty women and men from multiple racial ethnic backgrounds and several churches and LGBT activist groups rallied for prayer and protest, declaring that “spiritual abuse of LGBT people must stop” in pulpits everywhere.  The Rally for Love, swiftly organized by a coalition of Blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, Whites, LGBT churches, activist groups, and Brite Divinity School students and faculty, protested the homophobic sermon of Dr. Janet Floyd of Monroe, Louisiana, featured speaker at the Urgent Utterances Conference on Monday, April 12.  The conference gathered Black Church scholars from around the nation to meet for three days at Friendship West Baptist Church, a predominantly Black mega-church in South Dallas pastored by Dr. Freddie Haynes.  Galled by the claim that gays and lesbians are demonic, and that lesbians in particular have a demon that must be driven out, 12 students from Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, TX and half the student contingent of Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, TN walked out of the Conference worship service in silent protest.  J.W. Richard, of the Examiner.com, reports that the participants heard accounts from three witnesses to the “disparaging comments” made by the speaker, sister of Urgent Utterances organizer, Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas of Vanderbilt Divinity School: “Speaking on the Dallas Voice’s Instant Tea weblog, Brite Divinity student, Sam Castleberry, wrote that among the comments made by Dr. Floyd was one that the ‘lesbian demon should be exorcised’. Two more witnesses spoke at tonight’s rally event, including Pastor Jon Haack of Promise MCC, concurred with that account and included that Dr. Floyd’s sermon mentioned that the storm of Hurricane Katrina and the tragedy at Columbine High School were also of divine appointment.”  Theologians and pastors at the Rally for Love condemned such a faulty theology of God.  Norma Gann, Cherokee student at Brite, called for prayer for Dr. Floyd as she denied that as a lesbian Christian she had any demon to be cast out.  She said that the pulpit in a church is a “sacred space,” and the sermon she heard aimed at LGBT people had violated that sacred space.  Katherine Heath said that the vigor and volume of Dr. Floyd’s sermon delivery concerned her as she condemned lesbians and gay people from the pulpit.  Transgender minister at Living Faith Covenant Church, Minister Carmarion D. Anderson, called for the Rally to remember that “transgender people and many outside the church” were harmed by such religion-based bigotry.  Rev. Deneen Robinson, representing the Human Rights Campaign, Michael Robinson, noted African American LGBT activist, Manda Adams of First Congregational Church (UCC) in Fort Worth, and Blake Wilkinson of Queer LiberAction, also spoke out.  Apostle Alex Byrd, spiritual leader of Living Faith Covenant Church of Dallas, claimed both his heritage as a black man and a gay man, and then called for understanding, dialogue and accountability for anyone demeaning any group of people.  He noted that the Tuesday sessions and workshops at the Urgent Utterances Conference were more inclusive, “something that would make us all proud,” the Apostle said to the crowd.  But while he decried religious homophobia in any church, Apostle Byrd made it clear that preachers in the Black Church tradition were also “accountable for the way their message affects those who hear it.”  He pledged to press the issue with the conference leadership because those who were directly hurt needed a response.  The Examiner reports that “Conversations at tonight’s rally included an email conversation from Apostle Alex Byrd …, working in tandem with Bishop Yvette Flunder, Senior Pastor of City of Refuge United Church of Christ [San Francisco], to gain an official response from Friendship-West pastoral leadership. In the meantime, as prayers for healing were offered for themselves, Dr. Floyd, Dr. Haynes, and conference attendees and speakers, it was also clear that attendees of tonight’s rally were no longer going to subject themselves to what Pastor Haack termed, “spiritual abuse”, from the pulpit.”  Dr. Leo Perdue, faculty member at Brite and a Vanderbilt Ph.D., said that he was deeply concerned that such a deplorable sermon could be delivered at an event sponsored by his alma mater, and organized by a faculty member there.  He hoped Vanderbilt would quickly distance itself from Dr. Floyd’s sermon.  “Wherever it is done and whoever sponsors it, homophobia is wrong and must be opposed,” he said.  Participants organized to endorse Apostle Byrd’s communiqué to Friendship-West Church, and to commit themselves to work for justice “for the long haul” as Dr. Stephen Sprinkle of Brite and Michael Robinson said at the conclusion of the Rally.  An album of pictures taken at the Rally for Love by Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle and Sam Green may be found on Facebook

UPDATE: Excellent article on the Event by the Examiner

April 16, 2010 Posted by | African Americans, Anglo Americans, Bisexual persons, gay men, harassment, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, Louisiana, Protests and Demonstrations, Racism, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, Vigils | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Dallas/Fort Worth Rally for Love Venue Shift for Tonight, Wednesday, April 14!

The Rally for Love, called by students from Brite Divinity School, will be held tonight at Living Faith Covenant Church, Inc., 2527 West Colorado Blvd., Dallas, TX 75211, where Apostle Alex Byrd is the pastor.  Organizers of the Rally for Love shifted in light of positive developments at the Urgent Utterances Conference yesterday, where leaders began to address the negativity of an anti-LGBT sermon preached at Friendship West Baptist Church by on the conference participants on Monday evening.  The organizers of the Rally for Love shifted the venue of the rally and prayer vigil in light of these developments and in response to the invitation of Apostle Byrd and Living Faith Covenant Church, an historic church that is predominantly African American and gay.  In a press release issued this morning, organizers wrote:

Update: Rally for LOVE:

During the day on April 13, 2010 the Urgent Utterances Conference took certain steps to address the homophobic remarks that were made from the pulpit at Friendship-West Baptist Church, and to begin dialogue regarding LGBTQ issues in the church.

In response to this positive step, the planned protest rally and prayer vigil scheduled for today has been altered: Instead of protesting and prayeing outside of Friendship-West Baptist Church, there will be a meeting held at Living Faith Covenant Church at 2527 West Colorado Blvd, Dallas, Texas 75211, where the Apostle Alex Byrd has offered to host the event.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Please make every effort to attend this important meeting where reports from the Urgent Utterances Conference will be shared, a letter of protest and response will be framed to be sent to the Conference leadership, and prayer will be offered for full equality and inclusion of all people.

April 14, 2010 Posted by | African Americans, Anglo Americans, gay men, harassment, Latino and Latina Americans, Lesbian women, Politics, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, Vigils | , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Desecration of Gay Corpses in Senegal; Gay Men Hunted Like Animals

Madieye Diallo, picture held by his grieving father; AP photo by Ricci Shryock

Thies, Senegal – Madieye Diallo was a young gay man.  He died due to unconfirmed causes, and was buried in on 2 May 2009.  His sorrowing father, Ousmane Diallo, a shop owner in Thies, returned home to grieve.  In a matter of just a few hours, according to AP International, a gang of  homophobes dug up Madieye’s freshly buried body, pulled it out of the grave, spit on it, and dumped the desecrated body on the doorstep of his aging father and mother.  Proud of their work, the perpetrators used a cell phone to record their revenge on young Diallo for being gay, made a video out of it, and sold it in markets across Africa.  The heinous video has gone viral, spreading horror among African gay men in Senegal, Malawi, Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Gambia and Uganda.  In South Africa, the only African nation to tolerate LGBT citizens, the outbreak of desecration and violence against gay people has ignited a series of “corrective actions” against suspected lesbians, rapes intended to straighten them out once and for all.  Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, is leading the fight against a groundswell of homophobic violence on the African continent, but his is a lonely voice.  thirty-seven countries in Africa outlaw homosexuality, and as has widely been reported, Uganda is officially considering law that would carry the death penalty for homosexual behavior.  “Across many parts of Africa, we’ve seen a rise in homophobic violence,” London-based gay-rights activist Peter Tatchell said to Rukmini Callimachi, reporter for the AP.  Tatchell’s organization records and monitors abuses against lesbians and gay men throughout the continent. “It’s been steadily building for the last 10 years but has got markedly worse in the last year,” he said.  Many suggest that a clandestine gay wedding in suburban Dakar, the capital of Senegal, sparked the current wave of anti-gay violence.  A Senegalese tabloid obtained photos of the wedding, splashing it across its front page in February 2008.  On the heels of this yellow journalism, in March 2008 a major international conference of Muslim clerics and the faithful was held in Senegal, and officials began oppressing any forms of behavior deemed “un-Muslim,” such as prostitution and homosexuality.  Police began rounding up men suspected of being gay.  Muslim preachers,Imams, have started denouncing homosexuality from their pulpits, egging the persecution further, as reported by the AP.  Massamba Diop, a militantly anti-gay imam and head of Jamra, a powerful political group linked to Senegal’s parliament, preached in one of his Friday sermons, “During the time of the Prophet, anytime two men were found together, they were taken to the top of a mountain and thrown off.”  Diop continued for his rapt congregation, “If they didn’t die when they hit the ground, then rocks would be thrown on them until they were killed.”  Callimachi, the AP reporter, noted that Diop’s homophobic sermons and others like it were broadcast by loudspeakers to mobs of worshipers who could not get into his crowded mosque in Pikine, and and have been covered in Senegal’s over 30 magazines and newspapers.  Scholars of anthropology have indicated that Muslim faithful are now blaming prostitutes and gay people for high inflation, bad weather, and poor harvests, as the outbreak of homophobia continues unabated.  Ironically, Senegal has been viewed as a paradigm of tolerant Islam, but this outbreak of repression and violence is putting an end to that opinion.  The tabloid hysteria and the religious crackdown drove gay men into exile in neighboring countries, but they failed to find sanctuary even there.  Gambia’s president published an edict warning Senegalese gays that they had a day to leave his country or face decapitation.  As early as mid-2008, deceased men suspected of being gay were refused religious burials in Senegal, and a wave of ghoulish desecrations of their bodies began to sweep the nation.  In Madieye Diallo’s province alone, just before he died, four other gay corpses were exhumed and abused.  A 31-year-old gay friend of Diallo’s, struggling with HIV, told Callimachi that after learning about the mob’s treatment of Diallo’s corpse, “I locked myself inside my room and didn’t come out for days. I’m afraid of what will happen to me after I die. Will my parents be able to bury me?”  Now, gay men are being hunted like animals…even after their deaths.

April 11, 2010 Posted by | "Kill the Gays Bill", Africa, Decapitation and dismemberment, desecration of corpses, funerals, gay men, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Legislation, Lesbian women, mob-violence and lynching, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, rape, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Senegal, Uganda | , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Desecration of Gay Corpses in Senegal; Gay Men Hunted Like Animals

Remembering Sean William Kennedy (1987-2007)

April 8 would be Sean Kennedy’s birthday, if someone hadn’t killed him for being gay.  Sean would have been 23.  He would be doing all those things he loved to do on his birthday, according to his Facebook Profile: “Hanging Out, Music, “Playing” Music, Talking, Being Crazy,Going Out, Movies, Driving Around Being Crazy, Listening To Music, Watching My Shows, Clubs (When Im In The Mood)” But in the wee hours of May 16, 2007, a fun night at Croc’s Bar in Greenville, South Carolina turned deadly when a homophobic young white man took it upon himself to punish Sean for being “other.”  Sean’s mom, Elke Kennedy, relates what happened that night on the home page of Sean’s Last Wish, a foundation she and the family established so that Sean’s memory would live on, and his story would continue to change hearts and minds about LGBT people in America: “[That night] Sean was leaving a local bar in Greenville when a car pulled up beside him, a young man got out of the car, came around the car, approached my son, called him a ‘faggot’ and then punched him so hard that it broke his face bones.  He fell back and hit the asphalt.  This resulted in his brain [being] separated from his brain stem, ricocheting around in his head.  Sean never had a chance.  Sean’s killer got back in his car and left my son dying there.  A little later he left a message on one of the girl’s phones who knew Sean, saying, ‘You tell your faggot friend that when he wakes up he owes me $500 for my broken hand!'”  Stephen Moller, Sean’s 19-year-old killer, was given virtually every break the legal system in South Carolina could give him.  He was sentenced to 5 years for involuntary manslaughter by subtly shifting the blame to his victim, and pleading for special treatment because he had fathered a child.  The sentence was shortened to 3 years, he was given credit for time served and for being a good prisoner.  Moller was given an early release parole hearing in February 2009, but thanks to the efforts of his mother, his stepfather, and hundreds of letter-writing protestors from around the nation, he was denied parole.  Even then, Moller, who had gotten his GED behind bars, was released on July 7, 2009, a full week early from the already short sentence he had served for killing a young gay man who did him no harm other than being who he was.  The justice system failed Sean as it has failed so many before and since.  Elke Kennedy has gone on to become one of the most courageous and effective witnesses to the rights of LGBT youth in the United States.  Sean’s Last Wish Foundation is making a difference for LGBT young men and women every day.  But Sean is gone.  The loss of his life is inestimable to his family, to the queer community, to his friends, and to the world he made a better and happier place because of his unquenchable spirit.  One of his favorite sayings rings as true today as it did when he first published it on MySpace and Facebook: “We Could Learn Alot From Crayons” he wrote: “some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are differant colors… but they all exist very nicely in the same box.”  Who was this funny, wise, vivacious gay soul?  We read his words about himself, and catch just a glimpse of what we lost when hatred and ignorance took Sean away:  “i am 19 and my name is sean. i live in greenville, sc. it is a boring city. i love to meet new people. i love hanging out with people, chilling, shopping and having have a crazy fun time. ill do anything , i can have a fun time doing anything. i can have a fun time doing anything. i am a fun and crazy guy. ill do almost anything.im always on. so dont be scared to leave me a message.” We wish we could, Sean, today on your birthday.  It will have to suffice that we will work in your name, remembering you, until justice comes for all your people and ours.

April 8, 2010 Posted by | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Beatings and battery, Blame the victim, gay men, harassment, Hate Crimes, Law and Order, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Remembrances, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, South Carolina | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Remembering Sean William Kennedy (1987-2007)

Big Sentence For Galveston Hate Crime Attacker

Galveston, TX – Alejandro Sam Gray,18, (pictured at left), wasn’t expecting a 20 year sentence for chunking a 4 lb. hunk of concrete into a gay man’s head at a gay bar, but the judge had other ideas this past Friday.  According to the Galveston County Daily News, 212th District Court Judge Susan Criss, said: “It has been suggested that the actions by (Gray) were done because of his youth, because of his immaturity and because he was following the wrong crowd, and I am not buying any of that. He made a decision to commit a crime of violence and a crime of hate.”  Gray pled guilty to assault with a deadly weapon, and to a hate crime enhancement charge, since he and accomplices chose a gay bar for their violence-spree on Sunday, May 1, 2009.  Along with two brothers, Lawrence Henry Lewis III (20), Lawrneil Henry Lewis (18), Gray, 17 at the time of the attack, swung the door of Robert’s Lafitte Lounge, a landmark gay bar on Galveston Island for years, heaving rocks and jagged pieces of concrete block being used as door stops at patrons.  One struck Marc Bosaw in the back of the head, leaving a gash in his scalp that required twelve staples to close.  James Nickelsen was also wounded and treated at the scene.  The three youths ran away after the assault, but police apprehended them within 10 blocks of the bar.  All three were arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and placed under $120,000 bond.  The hate crime enhancement came later when it was determined that they had deliberately intended to terrorize gay men.  Texas passed a state hate crimes law including a provision to protect gays and lesbians back in 2001, but the James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Act has been invoked so infrequently in the Lone Star State that it has been all but ineffective.  As Equality Texas noted in 2009, though more than 1,800 hate crimes occurred in Texas during a nine-year period from 2001 to 2009, only 9 cases in the state were prosecuted under the provisions of the law.  Hunter Jackson, a University of Texas journalism intern and hate crime survivor opined, “With the recent passage of the Federal Hate Crimes Bill, more pressure will likely be on Texas prosecutors to obtain hate crime rulings, since the bill gives the federal government power to intervene when states are not upholding the provisions of their own hate crime statutes.”  That was the case in Galveston this past week.  Judge Criss handed down a stiff penalty for anti-gay hate.  Gray’s accomplice, Lawrence Henry Lewis III, had struck a plea deal back in January and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.  The Galveston County District Attorney had asked the same for Gray, and most expected the same sentence.  Gray’s lawyer argued for deferred adjudication for his client.  Some are calling the sentence excessive.  Philip Lipnick, a youth counselor and director of Galveston Youth Creating Their Own Future, had testified on Gray’s behalf at the trial, and told the Daily News, “More harm than good will be done by this.  (Gray) has never had a criminal record before this. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t know what kind of message the judge is trying to send.”  Sounds to us at the Unfinished Lives Project that the judge’s message to Gray and to Texas couldn’t be clearer.  The other Lewis brother is to be tried in April.

March 29, 2010 Posted by | African Americans, Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Bludgeoning, gay men, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, Law and Order, Legislation, Matthew Shepard Act, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Texas | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Big Sentence For Galveston Hate Crime Attacker

Phoenix Transperson’s Murder Still Unsolved After Four Years

Phoenix, AZ – Maurice Dupree Green, known by friends in a gay support group as Melissa, was 22 when she was fatally shot in the back on the night of March 21, 2006.  Now, four years since the brutal shooting, Green’s murderer remains at large with no promising leads.  A candlelight vigil marking the anniversary of Green’s death was held Sunday in Phoenix, according to reports from ABC 15.  When interviewed by a reporter for ABC, Arizona TransAlliance Co-Chair Erica Keppler said that Green’s murder highlighted the fear trans youth and adults face every day in the Grand Canyon State: “I want to move through the world as a citizen and feel safe like anybody else does, but I can never know that I’m safe,” she said.  “I can never know that when I walk through a parking lot that I could be at risk of violence, of someone attacking me.”  Green was in transition from male to female.  According to a report filed near the date of her shooting, Melissa Green was wearing a long brown wig and women’s clothing as she walked alone in the neighborhood of an adult bookstore she sometimes frequented.  AZCentral.com reported that a man approached her from behind and fired a single shot into her back with no warning just after midnight.  She bled to death on the sidewalk before paramedics could reach her.  Police were originally reluctant to label Green’s murder a hate crime, but members of the Arizona trans community, local politicians like openly gay Phoenix City Councilman Tom Simplot, and her youth support group friends have no doubt that hatred of LGBT people motivated the shooter.  Simplot, who donated a considerable sum of money back in 2006 to reward anyone identifying the killer, comes to honor Green every year, and believes the annual vigil is important for youth in metro Phoenix.  “This vigil every year is to tell our youth that the community does care about them, that we care what happens to them when they get kicked out of the house just for being gay,” Simplot said to ABC 15.  Since the murder, Green’s mother Ceda has been inconsolable.  She spoke to reporters at a previous vigil, confessing that her life could never be the same after the death of her child.  Each year, vigil supporters hope that renewed interest in Green and the trans youth of Arizona will prompt someone to come forward with information leading to an arrest.  Until then, the tenacious citizens of Phoenix will remember Melissa Green’s untimely, violent death, and work to improve the lot of the living.

March 23, 2010 Posted by | African Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Arizona, gay men, gun violence, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Social Justice Advocacy, transgender persons, transphobia, Unsolved LGBT Crimes, Vigils | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Phoenix Transperson’s Murder Still Unsolved After Four Years

Archbishop Tutu: “I would never worship a homophobic God”

Washington, DC – Desmond Tutu, emeritus Archbishop of Cape Town, issued a strong protest against African politicians and clerics who are persecuting LGBT people throughout the African continent.  In a powerfully worded editorial published in Friday’s Washington Post, the Nobel Peace Prize winner denounced anti-gay laws and policies in Uganda, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, Senegal, and Kenya.  Since perpetrators of anti-LGBT violence use Christian rhetoric and scripture in support of their crimes against gays and lesbians, The Unfinished Lives Project quotes at length here from the text of the editorial in order to begin to redress the perception that God, Christ, and the Church are in solidarity against LGBT people.  It is our hope that religious leaders of conscience throughout the world will join Archbishop Tutu in undercutting religious and spiritual bigotry wherever it arises. The Archbishop writes: “Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God’s family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.

“Uganda’s parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.

“These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.

“Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.

“And they are living in hiding — away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said ‘Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones.’ Gay people, too, are made in my God’s image. I would never worship a homophobic God.”

The Archbishop leaves no room for misunderstanding: “Hate,” he writes, “has no place in the house of God.” We at Unfinished Lives could not agree with him more.

March 16, 2010 Posted by | "Kill the Gays Bill", Africa, Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, gay men, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Legislation, Lesbian women, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Politics, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Washington, D.C. | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Archbishop Tutu: “I would never worship a homophobic God”

Bill Obstructing Federal Protections for LGBT Oklahomans Passes OK Senate

OK State Senator Steve Russell (R-OK City)

Oklahoma City, OK – A controversial bill limiting what law enforcement may do to investigate and prosecute hate crimes against LGBT residents of Oklahoma passed the State Senate this Thursday.  The bill, SB 1965, passed the upper house 39 – 6, and now goes on to the Oklahoma State House of Representatives.  According to the OUDaily, SB 1965 would prohibit local and state law enforcement agencies from sharing information about hate crimes with federal authorities if the state of Oklahoma did not recognize the crime as a hate crime by its own statutes, thereby effectively opting out of federal protections for LGBT persons in the Sooner State.  John Wright of the Dallas Voice writes that the originator of the legislation, State Senator Steve Russell (R-Oklahoma City) proposed the bill because he contends that the James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, passed by both houses of Congress last year and signed into law by President Obama, oversteps the bounds of what the federal government may do and abrogates freedom of speech and freedom of religion.  Russell, who equates sexual orientation with necrophilia, said to the press that he was concerned that a religious leader could be blamed for inciting violence against LGBT people and charged with a hate crime under the provisions of the Shepard Act.  The attachment of the Shepard Act to a Defense Appropriations Bill also upset Russell, who once served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.  The Oklahoma LGBT community was swift to condemn the passage of the State Senate Bill, and drew attention to the dire consequences of the enactment of the provisions of the bill into law.  The Equality Network (TEN) issued a statement Thursday from President Kathy L. Williams: “Senator Russell’s bill is truly terrifying in its implications. This legislation sends the message that violence against LGBT Oklahomans is acceptable. It also sets a chilling precedent that Oklahoma will only enforce certain federal laws and cooperate only with selected federal agencies. We believe this unconstitutional and blatantly discriminatory bill will harm all Oklahomans, regardless of their identity and regardless of whether they are victims of hate crimes.” The Metro Star reports that the only thing standing in the way of this legislation becoming law will be refusal in the House or a veto by Governor Brad Henry.  The State House of 101 representatives is controlled by the Republican Party, 61 to 40.  Governor Henry is a Democrat.


March 13, 2010 Posted by | Anti-LGBT hate crime, bi-phobia, Bisexual persons, gay men, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Legislation, Lesbian women, Matthew Shepard Act, Oklahoma, Politics, Social Justice Advocacy, transgender persons, transphobia | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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