Ryan Keith Skipper Would Be Thirty-two Today
Damien Skipper and his daughter Ryan at the grave site of Ryan Keith Skipper (photo courtesy of the family).
Wahneta, Florida – Had Ryan Keith Skipper not been murdered in one of the most heinous anti-gay hate crimes in the history of Florida, he would be celebrating his 32nd birthday today. Losses like his change the world. On March 14, 2007, two ne’er do wells, Joseph “Smiley” Beardon, and William “Bill-Bill” Brown slit his throat, stabbed him 20 times, dumped his body on a dark, rural road, stole and tried to fence his new car, and then unable to get any money for it, botched an attempt to burn up the vehicle on a boat ramp at Lake Pansy. They said their motive was to rid the world of “another faggot.”
Ryan was deeply loved by his mom, Pat, stepdad, Lynn, older brother, Damien, and a whole host of friends. He also left a brokenhearted lover and two distraught housemates who loved him like a brother. Lies on the part of the killers, and compound falsehoods by the Sheriff of Polk County kept Ryan’s murder from reaching the world as it should have. Other LGBTQ lives were lost because Ryan’s full story was suppressed by rumor, unsubstantiated allegations about his character, and crass, anti-gay politics. His parents took up the cause of justice for their son, and have become two of the most effective advocates for LGBTQ equality and anti-bullying in America. Beardon and Brown were separately convicted, and are now serving life in prison. Nothing takes the sting of loss away, but many good people have stepped into the breach to ensure that Ryan will never be forgotten, and that his death will not be in vain. Lesbian Filmmakers Vicki Nantz and Mary Meeks produced and filmed a 72-minute documentary about Skipper’s murder entitled Accessory to Murder: Our Culture’s Complicity in the Death of Ryan Skipper, that premiered in January 2008. In 2011, Ryan’s story was published in a book dedicated to keeping the memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Murder Victims alive and before the public, entitled Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications). The Gay American Heroes Foundation has memorialized Ryan, as well, and seeks to include him in a national monument to the victims of LGBTQ Hate Crimes.
But by far the most wonderful remembrance of Ryan has been done by his older brother Damien and wife, who gave Ryan’s name to their baby girl. Uncle Ryan now has a living memorial in the person of his thriving, laughing, vital niece, Ryan Skipper. The story of Ryan Keith Skipper is, like the stories of so many other anti-gay murder victims throughout the nation, a story of life, not death. Every time little niece Ryan runs and plays, or anyone retells the story of her Uncle Ryan, the intentions of his killers is foiled again. We remember Ryan today, not in sorrow, but in gratitude–and in dedication to the spread of justice and equality for all people, gay, transgender, bisexual, and straight alike. Rest peacefully, Ryan. We have not forgotten you! For we who believe in Justice cannot rest. We who believe in Justice cannot rest until it comes!
Gay San Antonio Man Brutally Beaten Unconscious By Three Brothers for “Flirting”
Three Brothers carried out alleged hate crime attack on a San Antonio gay man (L to R, Aurelio Huerta-Gonzalez, 33; Filiberto Huerta-Gonzalez, 30; and Juan Huerta-Gonzalez, 35, San Antonio Police Department photo).
San Antonio, Texas – An alleged weekend anti-gay hate crime has landed three brothers in deep trouble. A 48-year-old openly gay man who said the brothers had problems with his being gay, was savagely beaten to the floor of a coin operated laundry at his apartment complex on the west side of San Antonio this past Sunday.
KENS5 News reports that the victim was doing laundry and visiting with other apartment tenants when the three brothers and a fourth man as yet unidentified started the attack. A police report says that the three brothers confronted the victim for how he “looked” at them, calling him a derogatory term in Spanish. The alleged assailants, who live together in a single apartment in the same complex, Juan Huerta-Gonzalez, 35; Aurelio Huerta-Gonzalez, 33; and Filiberto Huerta-Gonzalez, 30, were arrested by San Antonio Police and charged with an assault hate crime.
The attack was swift and brutal. The youngest brother, Filiberto, allegedly uttered the slur and told the gay man he hated gay people, according to KSAT News 3. The assailants punched the victim, beat him to the floor of the laundry, kicked him, and even bit him on the knuckle of his hand. After awaking from being knocked unconscious in the attack, the victim called police. The middle brother, Aurelio, complained to police that the gay man had been flirting with them, calling one of them “baby,” and “sweet thing.”
A spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department, Officer Matthew Porter, told news outlets, “According to the victim, he believes that his sexual orientation is the reason why he was confronted by these suspects. We are carrying this as a hate crime.” Officer Porter went on to say, “One of the suspects made mention that the victim would look at him. Again, that’s no reason to assault this individual. You have a right to choose your religion, your sexual orientation.”
The three brothers are in custody at the Bexar County Jail, where they are being held for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The fourth man has yet to be apprehended.
San Antonio, the state’s second largest city, has no municipal protections in place for LGBT people. Officials claim hate crimes against gay people are rare in the Alamo City. Records show that 17 such crimes occurred in the city last year, and this incident is the second recorded in 2013.
Alleged Anti-Gay Hate Crime Attacker’s Bail Raised to $500K; Free Again
Clayton Garzon, 20, accused anti-gay hate crime attacker (MySpace capture).
Yolo County, California – The 20-year-old man arrested for a brutal attack on a gay man had his bail raised Wednesday to over half a million dollars, and was out on the streets of Davis, California by Thursday afternoon. Clayton Garzon, charged for an anti-gay hate crime against Lawrence “Mikey” Partida, an openly gay Davis resident, had his bail raised to $520,000 in response to the request of Yolo County Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Mount who called Garzon a “serious public safety risk,” according to the Davis Enterprise. After only one night in Yolo County Jail, his family posted bail, and Garzon is free again until an April 12 court date. Garzon is also charged with felonies in a previous case, in which he allegedly stabbed several people in a bar brawl in Dixon.
Garzon is charged for beating Partida unconscious while screaming anti-gay slurs at him in the early morning hours of March 10. He is alleged to have left the gay man bleeding on the lawn outside of his cousin’s home in order to beat on the door of the house to brag loudly about what he had just done. A Solano County gas station attendant has come forward to report that Garzon also bragged about what he had done to a gay man, later that same day. Frances Swanson, Partida’s aunt, said to CBS Sacramento that Garzon’s believed he had killed her nephew. “The only reason he’s not dead is because we’re blessed, and my nephew got lucky. Otherwise, that was the intent,” she said.
Partida is now released from an acute care rehabilitation facility where he spent over a week following his hospitalization at the UC-Davis Medical Center. The assault left him with bleeding on his brain, a fractured skull, and a shattered eye socket. He says he feels like a prisoner in his own home as long as Garzon is free on the street. Yet, according to several interviewers, Partida seems to bear no grudge against his attacker. Instead, he hopes that he will never have to see his assailant again, and that the young man will somehow learn from this experience that hatred never pays.
This time, Garzon is being monitored closely by the Yolo County Probation Office. Though he is out on bail, he is wearing a GPS device to show his location at all times, and a SCRAM device, which monitors any alcohol intake. The court ordered that he must stay 100 yards away from his alleged victim.
Gay California Man Brutally Beaten Unconscious in Hate Crime Attack
![Mikey Partida, 32, savaged in anti-gay hate crime in Davis, California [Facebook image].](https://unfinishedlivesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/mikey-partida-22455.jpg)
Mikey Partida, 32, savaged in anti-gay hate crime in Davis, California [Facebook image].
The assault came “out of nowhere,” Partida told reporters. “[I] was just an easier target for them. They knew I was gay. They knew they were taller and bigger, and knew how to fight,” he said. “I couldn’t fight them off. I’ve never been in a fight. They were just saying the f-word — the gay word — but f.” According to his cousin, Vanessa Turner, the men kept shouting anti-gay epithets as they beat, punched, and kicked him unconscious, leaving him a bloody mess with multiple fractures, a severe concussion, cuts, bruises, and a dangerously swollen eye. Partida was rushed to UC Davis Medical Center, where his doctors say he should make a full recovery. But the emotional damage done to him will take much longer to heal, he told CBS 13. “Even if you think it’s your back doorstep, it’s a scary, scary world. You’d think in your hometown, which is Davis, you wouldn’t think anything at your doorstep would hit you that hard,” said Partida.
In an interview with ABC News 10, Ms. Turner, Partida’s cousin, said that one of the assailants, a man from their neighborhood, came back to the scene of the crime and knocked on their door, bragging about what he had done to their gay cousin. She said what they did to her cousin was an expression of ignorance and arrogance. Like Partida, she has no doubt that the assault was an anti-gay hate crime. His main attacker kept shouting the epithets repeatedly. “I heard him, personally, yelling slurs at him,” she said. “I know it was unprovoked.”
On Thursday, Davis Police arrested 19-year-old Clayton Garzon, in the case, a local student with a record of offenses. Garzon has been charged with assault causing great bodily injury, assault with deadly weapon, commission of a hate crime, stalking, commission of a felony while on release from custody and infliction of bodily injury during the commission of a felony. He was put on $75,000 bond, which he met soon after his arrest, and now walks free until his date with a judge. No other arrests have been made. In the meantime, Partida is attempting to put his sense of security back together again. But he is not going to allow homophobes to dictate whether he can visit his own cousins, he says. Davis is his home, too, and he is looking for justice to be done.
Gay Candidate for Mayor Slain in Mississippi; Man Taken Into Custody
Marco McMillian, 34, murdered gay candidate for mayor.
Coahoma County, Mississippi – Police have identified the body of a popular gay mayoral candidate, discovered beside a levee near the Mississippi River. Marco McMillian, 34, was up until his death a candidate for the Mayorship of Clarksdale, Mississippi in a hotly contested race. Investigators do not believe that politics played a role in the murder of the well-liked CEO of MWM and Associates, widely known as the first truly viable gay candidate for elective office in the State of Mississippi. McMillian had been reported missing since Tuesday.
NBC News reports that a 22-year-old Clarksdale man who was behind the wheel of McMillian’s stolen sport utility vehicle when it wrecked, has been airlifted to a Memphis, Tennessee hospital. Police have taken Lawrence Reed into custody, but refuse to say more about whether Reed is a person of interest in the murder investigation of McMillian. Reed was involved in a head-on collision in Coahoma County, and is reported to be in good condition.
The Clarion Ledger has done major reporting on this story throughout the hunt for McMillian, whom Ebony Magazine listed in 2004 as one of the “30 up-and-coming African Americans under 30.” McMillian sought to win the Clarksdale mayoral race to succeed Henry Espy Jr., brother of U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, who is stepping down after serving the post for twenty years. The news of McMillian’s murder rocked the Clarksdale community. A spokesperson for the McMillian campaign, Jarod Keith, in a statement following the press conference where McMillian’s death was announced, “We remember Marco as a bold and passionate public servant, whose faith informed every aspect of his life. Tragically, that life has been cut short.” One of his opponents in the race, Bill Luckett, offered his sympathies to McMillian’s family and supporters, calling him “a very articulate, clean-cut young man. It’s a bizarre and tragic situation that deeply saddened [me].” The Victory Fund, an LGBT political organization that supports gay candidates for public office, issued a brief statement of grief and condolence that read, “Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Marco McMillian, one of the 1st viable openly LGBT candidates in Mississippi.”
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is on the case, according to The Advocate. As best as is known at this time, McMillian picked up a man who subsequently killed him and stole his vehicle. All eyes now turn to the man taken into custody from McMillian’s wrecked vehicle.
Breaking News: Unfinished Lives Project Founder Becomes Official Huffington Post Blogger
Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle now blogs for Huffington Post (Keith Tew photo).
Dallas, Texas – The founder and director of the Unfinished Lives Project, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, has been officially accepted as a Blogger for the Huffington Post. Dr. Sprinkle’s inaugural blog post on the civil disobedience of a gay Louisville, Kentucky Baptist preacher and his spouse may be found by clicking here. Josh Fleet, representing the Huffington Post Blog Team, informed Dr. Sprinkle that his post had been accepted and posted Sunday on the Religion Page of the highly respected and widely read progressive news and opinion source. He will be a continuing Blogger for the Religion Page, which is overseen by the Rev. Dr. Paul Raushenbush as Senior Editor.
Sprinkle ventured into the cyber world as a blogger in June 2008 with the launch of Unfinishedlivesblog.com, a web forum for news, opinion, and discussion concerning the alarming rise of anti-LGBTQ violence in American life. With nearly 500,000 hits on the site currently, a notable achievement for a blog done by an academic and a theologian, the future of Unfinishedlivesblog.com looks promising. The continuing readership of the blog is, of course, largely due to the unabated rise in hate crimes murders perpetrated against the LGBTQ community since the Matthew Shepard, James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into federal law by President Barack Obama in October 2009. Anti-violence programs throughout the United States, as well as the Hate Crimes Program of the FBI have registered higher numbers of bias-drivien murders perpetrated against LGBTQ people in each of the three years since the Shepard Act became the law of the land–and activists see no signs of these horrific statistics lessening in the near term. Sprinkle and the Unfinished Lives Project Team have chronicled this dismaying increase in anti-gay violence throughout the years.
Originally conceived as a supporting platform for the publication of Dr. Sprinkle’s IPPY award winning book on LGBTQ hate crimes murders in the U.S., Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications, 2011), Unfinishedlivesblog quickly took on a life of its own, thanks to the cyber know-how of two savvy divinity school students, Todd W. Simmons of Houston, Texas, and Adam D.J. Brett of Syracuse, New York. As time passed, Huffington Post became an invaluable source of information on anti-LGBTQ hate crimes and the responses of the queer and religious communities to these outrages. “Being named a Blogger for HuffPo brings the spiritual and cyber journey of my activist life to a new milestone,” Sprinkle said in response to the news of his selection.
The brave story of the non-violent protest against Kentucky’s repressive anti-gay and anti-same-sex marriage laws by Rev. Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard, and his spouse, Dominique James, sparked a passion in him to write about this news for a wider audience than a personal blog can reach, Sprinkle said. The unflinching support offered by Blanchard and James’s pastor, the Rev. Joe Phelps, and the congregation of Highland Baptist Church, Lousiville, was also a feature of the story that begged to be shared broadly with the Baptist world, and beyond. The parent blog post that gave rise to the Huffington Post piece can be found by clicking here.
Sprinkle is himself a openly gay man and an ordained Baptist preacher (with the Alliance of Baptists) who has recently celebrated his 36th year of ordination. He is the Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry at Fort Worth’s Brite Divinity School, a post that he has held since 1994. Sprinkle is Professor of Practical Theology, and the first openly gay scholar to be tenured in the 99-year history of the school. He also serves as Theologian-in-Residence for Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, a congregation of the United Church of Christ, and the largest liberal Christian Church in the world with a primary outreach to the LGBTQ community.
Gay and Baptist: How an Oxymoron May Save the Church Yet
![The Rev. Maurice "Bojangles" Blanchard, Baptist minister arrested for attempting to marry his spouse in Kentucky [USAToday image]](https://unfinishedlivesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/29913742001_2112437716001_900944612-29281-1358909945622_r882_c880x495.jpg)
The Rev. Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard, Baptist minister arrested for attempting to marry his spouse in Kentucky [USAToday image]
The facts of the protest action carried out by the Rev. Bojangles and Dominique are these: on Tuesday, January 22, the couple, wearing crosses on their ski caps, requested a license to marry from the Clerk’s Office, and were refused. When asked why she refused them, Ms. Sandy Byerly, manager of the license office, said that she was upholding the law of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which wrote anti-gay discrimination into the state constitution in 2004 by an amendment saying that “only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be a marriage in Kentucky,” according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. Further, any clerk who willfully defies state law and issues a marriage license to a same-sex couple anyway will be removed from office and is subject to a year in jail. After the refusal by the clerk, the gay couple staged a peaceful pray-in until they were arrested and charged with trespassing at 5 p.m., when the clerk’s office closed for the day. Offered the option of being cited for the offense rather than being arrested, the Baptist preacher and his spouse told the Metro Police officer that they had a “spiritual obligation” to resist the injustice of a law that denied them their civil right to marriage. As the Rev. Bojangles said prior to entering the clerk’s office, “If we don’t act, we are accomplices in our own discrimination. We have to resist.” The couple was led to a waiting patrol car, and were transported to the Metro Corrections Center where they were booked. Jefferson County Clerk Bobbi Holsclaw told reporters that the ordained minister and his spouse were protesting in the wrong place. Instead of disturbing the clerk’s office, she said, they should instead have taken their argument up with the state legislature.
Selah (Hebrew for “pause”–found in the Book of Psalms).
The vast majority of Christians in the United States consider themselves law-abiding citizens, and shy away from public acts that defy law and order. Among ordained ministers, the aversion to any controversial word or deed, inside or outside of the congregation, is particularly high. Preachers, by-and-large, consider the office of prophet to be a historic artifact of First Testament history, not an obligation for modern spiritual shepherds. Prophetic action of the sort the good Reverend took in the county clerk’s office is decidedly not a career enhancing choice. Controversy in the ministry can get ministers fired, and their families booted out of the parsonage.
The Rev. Bojangles knew all of that–but he acted anyway, in obedience to the spiritual dictates of his conscience and in solidarity with LGBTQ people in over thirty states where same-sex marriage has been outlawed by constitutional amendment. As he told the Courier-Journal, he felt anxiety about the prospect of arrest, but he and his spouse of six years were “trusting in God and deeply called to do this.” They faced the humiliation and degradation of the refusal in the clerk’s office, they said, in order “to stand up for ourselves and countless others.”
Selah, again.
Gay Baptist spouses stage peaceful pray-in until arrested in Jefferson County Clerk’s Office
Both gay men are members of Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, the church that ordained Bojangles in May of last year. Highland’s Pastor, the Rev. Joe Phelps, said that Bojangles and Dominique let him know what they were going to do prior to the peaceful protest. Pastor Joe also acknowledged that he understood there would be considerable friction for the church because of what these two Baptists were intending to do. Yet, neither he nor the good Baptists of Highland Church have flinched at the storm of publicity whipped up since their Timothy (a term for a member ordained by a local church to the ministry, harking back to the example of the Apostle Paul’s protégé Timothy) and his husband withstood the anti-gay, anti-same-sex marriage law. In a public statement to the church and the world at large, Pastor Joe wrote on January 24, “As for my reaction to Bojangles and Dominique’s action: I’m proud to pastor a church where members are willing to put their reputations on the line in order to challenge unjust laws in a manner that is respectful and non-violent.”
While Christians and others of good conscience may justly disagree over the specifics of the deeds of Bojangles and Dominique, and in general oppose one another’s views on same-sex marriage and the status of LGBTQ people in the church of Jesus Christ, Pastor Joe said he had to stand with his parishioners, and he believed that their sisters and brothers in the faith should, as well. “And I do believe that the laws against same-sex marriage are unjust,” he went on to say. “We experienced the consequence of this just last week, when the five-year partner of a man in critical condition in the ER had to wait several hours until a ‘legitimate’ next-of-kin arrived before being told that he had died on the scene.”
Pastor Joe concluded, “There can be debate about whether the arrest is good or bad for the cause of civil rights for LGBT persons, but that they acted with integrity and the convictions of their hearts cannot be debated.”
Such words and deeds are rare in any Christian circles these days, on the so-called religious right or progressive left. Matter of fact, putting words like “gay,” “ordained Baptist minister,” and “civil disobedience” together affirmatively in the same sentence feels like a bald-faced oxymoron: a brain-aching contradiction in terms! But given the damage done to the lives, psyches, and families of LGBTQ people in the name of religion, decisive action to reverse the course of prejudice in the faith community looks essential, if the church is to be true to its Savior and its own soul. These days, encounters with such amazing oxymorons may be the only way the church can be awakened to its true role in society: speaking and acting FOR the underdogs of this world, and not against them.
Leander E. Keck’s “Who is Jesus?”
Some might call the stand Pastor Joe, the Rev. Bojangles, and Br. Dominique took as action “for the sake of Jesus Christ” as well as for the underdogs of today’s world. Professor of New Testament Leander E. Keck wrote in his landmark book, Who Is Jesus? History in Perfect Tense, that voluntarily becoming despicable in the eyes of society is a powerful characteristic of taking up Jesus’ work among the outcast and the despised of every age–in effect, facing the risks “for Jesus’ sake.” Of such courageous souls, Keck notes, “Such persons usually do not talk of their own suffering but talk of others’ for whose sake they are ready to accept what may befall them.” In this day and age, these words could have been penned expressly for oxymoronic Baptist preachers and those who cherish them who stand up to the opprobrium heaped on LGBTQ people. “Such voluntarily suffering,” Keck wrote, “has two names: one is love, the other is Jesus–in perfect tense” (p. 183).
Will the real Christians of this age please stand up? Some are, apparently, accepting despicable consequences on behalf of the outcasts, and “for Jesus’ sake,” as well.
Amen.
First Gay Inaugural Poet Delivers “One Today,” A National Treasure
Washington, D.C. – Richard Blanco delivered his poem at the Second Inaugural Swearing-in Ceremony of President Barack Obama on the threshold of a new era for the descendants of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. Gay people make a great stride forward today with our poet leading the way: the youngest Inaugural Poet in the nation’s history, a Cuban-American, and an openly gay man. With this groundbreaking cultural and literary event, Richard Blanco, at the behest of President Obama, has inaugurated a new dignity and impetus for LGBTQ Americans, and ushers us along the path to becoming a People: diverse, empowered, graced, and maturing into the full equality of national citizenship. This is one step in a long journey, and no one must be fooled into a sense of ease or rest on a bed of laurels. But nonetheless we have lived to hear the voice of Our People ring out openly and unhindered across the great mall of the National City, and we have every right and reason to be proud. Gracias, querido Richard! Muchísimas gracias!
Here is the poem in its entirety (video of Blanco’s delivery of the poem available here):
Richard Blanco delivers “One Today” at Barack Obama’s Second Inaugural Swearing-in Ceremony.
Gay Hairstylist Brutally Attacked In Baltimore: Christmas Hate Crime Suspected
Christmas gay bashing victim Kenni Shaw, 30, before and after attack. (Instagram image posted by the victim.)
Baltimore, Maryland – A popular gay hairstylist was savagely beaten by a gang of men outside an East Baltimore liquor store on Christmas night. The motive? Kenni Shaw, the victim of the attack, has no doubt that the random attack was because of his perceived sexual orientation. Police are still investigating the alleged anti-gay hate crime in the “Charm City.”
According to the Baltimore Sun, Shaw, 30 years old, was simply walking past the East Baltimore beverage shop near his home at approximately 9 p.m. on Christmas when the assault started. Shaw said he tried to beg his attackers to stop, but the blows kept coming so hard and fast he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. The punches pinned him to the pavement. ”I was just beaten in my face. Nothing was taken. No words were exchanged before the incident, so to me, I think it was a hate crime,” Shaw told The Sun. People in his neighborhood had previously called him “faggot,” but Shaw, a six-foot-tall cosmetologist and hairstylist, never believed homophobic attitudes would issue in such violence.
His mother, Sheila Shaw, told The Sun that Kenni had immediately called her. “I can’t even describe that moment for me. I thought my world was ending,” she said. “No parent wants to get that phone call. The tone of his voice … I thought, ‘He’s strong enough to make the phone call, but I’m probably going to lose my son.’” When she rushed to the hospital and finally got to see her son, Ms. Shaw said she could hardly recognize who he was.
While he was on the phone, paramedics came to transport him to Johns Hopkins, the famed Baltimore hospital, where he was treated for his wounds. Despite the bruises, cuts, and lacerations on his face and knees, there were no fractures. Shaw suspects that bystanders called for help, an indication that not all residents of the neighborhood agree with anti-gay violence.
Shaw said to WBFF Fox News 45 that he was simply glad to be alive. During his recovery at his mother’s home in Baltimore County, Shaw posted an Instagram photo of himself, before and after the assault, showing the horrific effects of the attack. According to Pink News, hundreds of responses supporting the hairstylist poured in from around the country and the world. As he healed from the physical injuries of hate, Shaw decided to speak out against the homophobia that victimizes so many in Baltimore. “It makes me angry and upset, but at the same time, I am here and I made it through,” he told The Sun. “I just want to stand and make sure I have a voice, so this doesn’t happen again to a loved one or anyone.” His relatives are standing strong with Shaw, as well, supporting his outspoken efforts to stop anti-gay hate crimes in their community.
“This needs to be spoken to because somebody needs to take a stand,” he said. “Hate crimes happen every day.”
Shaw firmly believes that anti-gay bias motivated his attackers, spoiling the Christmas spirit for him, his family, and the City of Baltimore. Police have been receptive to Shaw’s allegations, and say that, even though they are not ready to assign a motive to the assault at this time, they have already received several “good leads” in the case. When arrests are made, Baltimore Police say that they will communicated with the Attorney General of the state to determine the nature of the charges they will file.
Meanwhile, Shaw says he will not stop speaking out. In an interview with The Sun, he told reporters, “I’m glad I could share my story and people could empathize with the story, because I’m getting a lot of feedback from people who have been through it or who have had family members who have been through it,” Shaw said. “I’m glad I could be a spokesman, because a lot of people don’t make it through situations like this.”
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…
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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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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 
First Gay, Latino Inaugural Poet Chosen by President Obama! Felicidades, querido Richard!
Richard Blanco, 2013 Inaugural Poet, first gay and Latino in U.S. history.
Washington, D.C. – The 2013 Presidential Inaugural Committee has announced that poet Richard Blanco is President Obama’s choice for his Second Inauguration–a gay of Cuban extraction who was shamed by his own family for being gay. In one historic move, President Obama has chosen the first gay man, the first Latino, and the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history. According to Huffington Post, Blanco will recite a poem at the presidential swearing-in ceremony on the U.S. Capitol steps on January 21.
“I’m beside myself, bestowed with this great honor, brimming over with excitement, awe, and gratitude,” Blanco responded to the announcement. “In many ways, this is the very ‘stuff’ of the American Dream, which underlies so much of my work and my life’s story—America’s story, really. I am thrilled by the thought of coming together during this great occasion to celebrate our country and its people through the power of poetry.”
Blanco is the son of Cuban exiles who fled to Madrid, where he was born. The family moved first to New York City, but then settled eventually in Miami, where Blanco was reared and educated. He now lives in Bethel, Maine with his life partner. Politico tells the story of the price he paid as a gay person in Latino culture–even in his own family. Cross currents of cultural identity–Cuban-American and gay–threatened to sweep him into depression or worse. Politico highlights Blanco’s essay, “Afternoons with Endora,” that appeared in the 2009 anthology, “My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them,” where Blanco describes himself as “a boy who hated being a boy.” As a child, Blanco says he retreated from playing sports to his notebooks, writing and drawing; that he much preferred women’s Tupperware Parties to Clint Eastwood movies.
His grandmother lashed out at Blanco for being gay, calling her own grandson “the shame of the family,” and “little faggot.”
“According to her,” Blanco wrote, “I was a no-good sissy — un mariconcito — the queer shame of the family. And she let me know it all the time: ‘Why don’t we just sign you up for ballet lessons? Everyone thinks you’re a girl on the phone — can’t you talk like a man? I’d rather have a granddaughter who’s a whore than a grandson who is a faggot like you.’”
“Her constant attacks made me an extremely self-conscious and quiet child,” Blanco wrote of his grandmother. “But it also made me a keen observer of the world around me, because my interior world was far too painful. This inadvertently led me to become a writer, a recorder of images and details.” Seeking refuge from his family’s harsh, anti-gay nagging, young Blanco would secretly dress up in his own room as Endora, the magical character from the hit television show Bewitched, and pretend he lived in a world without queer shame. “I wanted to be as powerful as [Endora], and for a little while every afternoon I was,” he wrote. “I could conjure up thunderstorms so I wouldn’t have to go to baseball practice…I could concoct love potions that would make me like girls instead of boys and make my grandmother love me.”
Achy Obejas, a commentator for WBEZ.org, reflects on the significance of Blanco’s selection as Inaugural Poet, and upon his reasons for crying for joy when he heard of the pick: “The President of the United States, the most powerful man on earth, has chosen a guy you know — a fag, a cubiche who likes to joke that he was made in the U.S. with Cuban parts, with whom you codeswitch about Miyami and lechón and our mamis — to consecrate this moment in history with his — our — words.
“¡Guao!
“And you nod and grin through your stupid tears because you know — you really know — that damn arch really does bend, it really does indeed point to a shinier day.”
Blanco has had a distinguished teaching career at Georgetown, American, and Central Connecticut State universities. His award-winning books of poetry include City of a Hundred Fires, which won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh, and Directions to The Beach of the Dead, which won the PEN American Center Beyond Margins Award.
When Richard Blanco mounts the podium on Inauguration Day with the whole world watching, they will see a cubiche, no longer un mariconcito–but a spokesperson for all LGBTQ people whose longings are rising above the challenges of discrimination to the heights of full citizenship. “Felicidades, querido Richard,” indeed!
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January 9, 2013 Posted by unfinishedlives | gay men, GLBTQ, Heterosexism and homophobia, Inaugural Poet, Latino and Latina Americans, LGBTQ, President Barack Obama, Richard Blanco, Slurs and epithets, Special Comments, U.S. Presidential Inauguration, Washington, D.C. | gay men, GLBTQ, Heterosexism and homophobia, Inaugural Poet, Latino / Latina Americans, LGBTQ, President Barack Obama, Richard Blanco, Slurs and epithets, U.S. Presidential Inauguration, Washington D.C. | 1 Comment