Hillary Clinton to the World: “Gay Rights are Human Rights”
Graphic from beingliberal.org on Facebook
Geneva, Switzerland – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared to the leaders of the world that LGBT rights must be a priority for the world community. As reported by the BBC, Secretary Clinton said in a speech to international diplomats at the Palais des Nations on International Human Rights Day, “Being gay is not a Western invention, it is a human reality.” In a powerful declaration of the full humanity of LGBT people, she refused to excuse discrimination against gay people because of religious beliefs or social mores: “Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority,” Clinton said to the U.N. audience, “being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” Clinton reflects the policy power of the United States government, making it clear that, despite difficulties with allies who discriminate willfully against LGBT people, the Obama Administration will combat discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexual people, and transgender people using foreign aid and diplomacy to promote change.
On violence against queer people around the world, Secretary Clinton acknowledged that there was still much to be done at home in the United States, where LGBT people were unindicted felons in 14 states as late as 2003 (when the Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling struck down sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas), and many face attacks and all manner of bullying even today. Still, Clinton argued, “It is violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives.” The effect of these words on the continuing physical violence against LGBT people in the U.S. and throughout the world remains to be seen, but the results could be inestimable, according to Unfinished Lives Project Director, Dr. Stephen Sprinkle. “Today, Secretary Clinton served notice on all who perpetrate violence to terrorize LGBTQ people anywhere in the world that harm against this marginalized population will not be tolerated by civilized people. Cloaking anti-LGBT bigotry in religious or moral special rights is coming to a close,” Sprinkle, an ordained gay Baptist minister, said. “We are reaching the tipping point in the culture wars in this country, and the scales are falling in favor of security and justice for members of the gender variant and sexual minority. United States foreign and domestic policy has entered into a new era of advocacy for LGBTQ people on a par with racial/ethnic minority people, religious minorities, and women.”
Known for her advocacy for women and children, this speech indicates that the rights of LGBT people, always part of Mrs. Clinton’s public agenda, now has moved to a front-and-center priority for the most prominent woman in American politics. The speech was sweeping in scope, announcing that, in words redolent of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, gay rights are “inalienable.”
In the moving conclusion to her remarks, Secretary Clinton spoke directly to all gay people who find themselves persecuted and in fear of harm (and, by indirection, to their persecutors, as well): “And finally, to LGBT men and women worldwide, let me say this: Wherever you live and whatever the circumstances of your life, whether you are connected to a network of support or feel isolated and vulnerable, please know that you are not alone. People around the globe are working hard to support you and to bring an end to the injustices and dangers you face. That is certainly true for my country. And you have an ally in the United States of America and you have millions of friends among the American people.”
The full text of Secretary Clinton’s speech may be found on the State Department website by clicking here. A link to the full text of the speech, and video of Secretary Clinton delivering it, may be accessed on Huffington Post here.
Gay Men and Trans People in the Cross Hairs: Behind the FBI’s 2010 Hate Crimes Statistics
Washington, D.C. – Hate crimes statistics for 2010 are out from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The good news is that, overall, the numbers of reported hate crimes last year held steady. The FBI report, accessible here, documents 6,624 single-bias incidents, which range from acts of vandalism to cold blooded murder. Four more incidents encompassed multiple-biases, making for a grand total of 6,628 incidents reflecting 7,699 offenses as reported voluntarily by law enforcement agencies around the nation. These data represent a serious undercount of the actual number of hate crimes perpetrated against Americans during the last year, since 1) reportage by local law enforcement is sheerly voluntary with no funding from the federal government to aid small jurisdictions to report, and 2) local law enforcement officials are often loathe to classify an incident as a hate crime because of a variety of reasons, such as how the community regards social groups and racial/sexual minorities.
Behind the statistics are the stories of flesh-and-blood victims and their families, and the news here is disturbing. 1,528 victims were targeted because of animus against sexual orientation. Of these, 57.3 percent of victims were gay males, and 11.9 percent were lesbians. The numbers of violent attacks against transgender people are fragmentary at this point, since statistics of this particularly vulnerable group have only been recorded by the FBI since the Matthew Shepard-James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Obama in October 2009. But the news of brutalities against transgender people, especially transgender women of color, is alarming. GLAAD reports that, of the people murdered for sexual orientation and gender identity and expression bias, 70 percent were persons of color, and 44 percent were transgender women [NCAVP figures]. Though suicides of LGBTQ teens due to homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools have captured the headlines repeatedly since 2010 began, no separate FBI statistical category yet exists for the collection of these data.
In the recent Civil Rights Conference on Hate Crimes at the University of Texas at Arlington, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez declared in his keynote address, “We are experiencing a headwind of hatred and intolerance in the United States.” FBI Special Agents appealed to local law enforcement, U.S. Attorney officials, and leaders from the North Texas LGBTQ community to co-operate in the reporting of hate crimes, underlining the difficulty feds are experiencing amassing accurate data. In its 2010 report, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), widely held to offer more accurate statistics on anti-LGBT hate crimes than the FBI, noted a 13 percent rise in homophobic and transphobic violence from 2009 to 2010, and a 23 percent rise in the murders of LGBTQ people.
Unfinished Lives Project Director Honored Nationally
Honoree Stephen V. Sprinkle (Phoebe Sexton photo for Cathedral of Hope)
Naming him among activist “trailblazers” who have knocked down barriers to LGBT equality, Queerty.com honored Unfinished Lives Project Founder and Director, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle as one of “6 LGBT Seniors You Should Know” in the United States. As the capstone to Queerty’s celebration of LGBT History Month, the editorial team decided to honor LGBT activists who had dedicated their lives and work to bringing full equality for LGBTQ people.
Dr. Sprinkle was cited for his work in organized religion, as a pioneer gay scholar at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas, and for his efforts in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes education and prevention. In response to the news, Dr. Sprinkle said, “I am moved by this honor, naming me among such a distinguished group of LGBT seniors. Gray is good! I also want to lift up the multitudes of queer folk whose labors every day for justice go largely unseen and unsung. In their names, I accept this honor from Queerty.” Also named were West Hollywood, California psychologist and Radical Faerie co-founder Don Kilhefner; groundbreaking Chicago, Illinois activist Vernita Gray; New York City LGBT activist Jay Kallio; and Davis, California Marriage Equality champions Shelly Bailes and Ellen Pontiac, who were among the first LGBT couples to be legally married in the Golden State.
Matthew Wayne Shepard: Honor and Educate in His Memory
Thank you to the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center. Never forget!
Laramie, Wyoming – Wednesday, October 12 will be the thirteenth anniversary of America’s archetypal gay hate crimes victim. Matthew Shepard was brutally attacked and beaten into a coma by two locals who targeted him for abduction, robbery, and murder at the Fireside Lounge on the night of October 7, 1998. They left him trussed to the base of a buck fence, exposed to the freezing cold after stealing his shoes. When Matt was discovered the next day by a passing mountain biker, he was so brutally disfigured that his discoverer at first assumed what he was looking at was a broken down scarecrow that had been put out for Hallowe’en. Matt’s injuries were too severe to be treated at the local hospital emergency room, so he was transported to Fort Collins in neighboring Colorado where a state of the art trauma center fought to save his life. For five agonizing days, Matt lay close to death with an injured brain stem–a terrible wound from which he could never recover. His family, mother Judy, father Dennis, and younger brother Logan stood vigil beside him while the life force ebbed.
For thirteen years, Matt’s memory has been honored, invoked, and ridiculed by a nation wrestling with heterosexism, homophobia, and transphobia–a culture of anti-LGBTQ violence that has claimed the lives of over 13,000 queer folk whom we know about (and God knows how many others whose murders have never been reported to anyone keeping records). Nothing will ever bring any of them back to us. They are gone, but to memory.
Those of us who labor for the better angels of our national character to emerge have a responsibility to remember Matt and all the rest, to honor them by never forgetting the cost of being sexually different in these United States, and to take up the mission of educating the LGBTQ community and the general public that difference of any kind is no warrant for ignorance,prejudice, and violence, but rather is an occasion for understanding and neighborly solidarity. The anniversary of Matt’s untimely death is a good time to erase hatred from the American psyche.
In that spirit, I offer this short excerpt from “The Second Death of Matthew Shepard,” Chapter One of my recently published book, Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims:
“Matt Shepard died in a Fort Collins, Colorado hospital in the wee hours of October 12, 1998 with his parents by his side. Ironically, it was the day after America’s observance of National Coming Out Day. His team of doctors and nurses, professional as they were, could not undo what hate had done to Matt. He never woke up from his coma. His heart gave out. The ventilator switched off, and Matt was gone. Our memory of him,however, cannot rest in peace. Not yet” (page 3).
Our memory of all the dead whose “unfinished lives” calls out to us to do the work of justice. May Matt and the 13,000 rest in peace. God being our strength, we must not. Grace and peace to all on this National Coming Out Day 2011. ~ Stephen V. Sprinkle
Gender, Sexuality, and Justice Initiative Launched in the Southwest
Rev. Dr. Joretta Marshall, Director of the Carpenter Initiative at Brite Divinity School
Fort Worth, Texas – Brite Divinity School, on the campus of Texas Christian University, launched a ground-breaking program set on changing the role of theological higher education in the human rights struggle in the Southwestern United States. At Chapel on Tuesday, Rev. Dr. Joretta Marshall, Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Counseling, preached to inaugurate the Carpenter Initiative on Gender, Sexuality, and Justice, made possible by a grant of $250,000 over five years by The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Dr. Marshall headed the effort to gain the grant from the Carpenter Foundation, which is the leading grantor of funding for sexuality, gender, and justice concerns in the nation. She has been named the Director of the Carpenter Initiative in addition to her professorial duties.
The Rev. Ann B. Day, daughter of the originators of the Carpenter Foundation and an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, was instrumental in reviewing Brite’s proposal, and advising the foundation to make the grant. The Disciples News Service reported that “the Carpenter Initiative will not only help cover the salary costs of the faculty member who directs the program, but will also support courses at Brite that address these issues, and fund programmatic initiatives in the wider community.” These programmatic initiatives will engage matters of human rights, articulation of a public theology of full inclusion in the faith community of those marginalized because of gender, gender variance, and sexual orientation, and the development of resources local congregations and denominational offices need to move their membership toward long-lasting acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, a member of the Brite faculty and Director of the Unfinished Lives Project, said, “This initiative is the next vital step in Brite’s ‘coming out’ process as a center for the full inclusion of all God’s children, especially those who have formerly been shunned by churches, synagogues, and mosques because of their actual or perceived sexual difference.” Over the course of several years, Dr. Marshall and Dr. Sprinkle, together with allies in the faculty, staff, board of trustees, and alumni of the school, have worked for the full inclusion of the LGBTQ community, along with the commitments Brite has also made to Black Church studies, Asian/Korean Church studies, and Latina/o Church studies. By vote of the Board of Trustees, Brite has officially acted to welcome students, faculty and staff regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression, making it unique in the Southwestern United States. The roots of Brite’s shift toward this progressive stance reach back at least to 1992, when administration opened married student housing on the campus to partnered same-sex couples, and to the hiring of the first openly gay faculty member in 1994.
At a community conversation held immediately after the inauguration service, members of the Brite community voiced a whole bevy of vibrant ideas about the directions the Carpenter Initiative could take, including an institution-wide process to become Open and Affirming, a center for civil discourse on issues of human rights in North Texas, resources on homosexuality and the Bible, a history project to record and preserve the story of the LGBTQ movement on both the Brite and TCU campuses, and a think-tank to delve into the sources of violence and fear in American religious life. Brite’s Office of Advancement is actively seeking support for the expansion of Brite’s developing leadership in public theology and social justice.
Religion, LGBTQ People, and the Post-9/11 World: Special Comment
Austin, Texas – Has religion strengthened or weakened the ability of LGBTQ people to address the traumas of the post-9/11 world? When will LGBTQ people have the long-overdue discussion about organized religion and spirituality between queers of faith and faith-free LGBTQ people? These are but two of the questions Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, founder and director of the Unfinished Lives Project, addressed at the 10th annual Multi-Faith Pride Service in Austin on September 8. The service, a highlight of the yearly Austin Pride Festival, drew Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan, and Unitarian adherents, among others. University United Methodist Church, adjacent to the main campus of the University of Texas at Austin, hosted the evening.
Dr. Sprinkle challenged Austinites to heal their sacred/secular rift in order to lead the nation in healing and wholeness during the second decade since the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. In this excerpt, he makes his case:
“Unless and until we LGBTQ people of faith and our secular, faith-free sisters and brothers heal the rift among us over religion and learn how to work side-by-side, we will remain too divided and too weak to engage the mission our faiths call us to accomplish: the healing of the nation’s lingering wounds after 9/11. I have a wonderful mentor and colleague here in Austin, Chaplain Paul Dodd, an ordained Baptist minister, a distinguished retired U.S. Army Chaplain, and leading pastoral counselor. He is co-founder of the Forum on the Military Chaplaincy, a visionary group of national leaders, both Gay and Straight, who have labored ceaselessly for the Repeal and Implementation of the Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Paul deals with the religious reservations of gays and lesbians compassionately day-in-and-day-out. But he told me recently that the time has come to say to those LGBTQ leaders who are still hung up about religion, “It is time you just get over it, and move ahead!” I couldn’t say it better!”
Dr. Sprinkle’s speech was interrupted by applause several times, and he received a standing ovation at the end. One observer who has attended many Pride Services said that this was the first time in ten years anyone has been given such an honor.
For the full text of Dr. Sprinkle’s address, use this link.
Asher Brown’s Legacy: Anti-Gay Bullying Ban in Houston Public Schools
Asher Brown, bullied to death in September 2010
Houston, Texas – By a vote of 7 to 0, with two board members absent, the Houston Independent School District made LGBT discrimination and anti-gay bullying against policy for all students and employees in Houston public schools. The action came in response to outrage over the “bullycide” suicide of 13-year-old Asher Brown, who took his own life after two years of intolerable harassment for his sexual orientation in Cypress-Fairbanks School District schools. His parents have testified that they repeatedly contacted school officials about the violence focused on their gay son, but to no avail. No school official or teacher intervened to stop the bullying and save Asher’s life. The gay teenager’s death in September 2010 sparked a state-wide effort to revise school policies to ban harm to LGBTQ students while on school property. The Dallas Voice picked up the story of the policy change from the Facebook page of HRC board member Meghan Stabler, and is covering developments in Houston and Harris County.
The policy revision reads, in part: “A substantiated charge of harassment against a student or employee shall result in disciplinary action. The term “harassment” includes repeated, unwelcome, and offensive slurs, jokes, or other oral, written, graphic, or physical conduct relating to an individual’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability or handicap, or age, sex, marital status, veteran status, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive educational or work environment.”
Houston School Board Member Larry Marshall said that the revision will make district schools safer for all children, especially LGBT students: “I think this recommendation clearly signals to principals that when you enter a school building you are on our turf, and on our turf we are going to treat everyone with dignity and respect. I think that administrators need to thoroughly understand that anything else will not be tolerated.”
Because the Houston ISD is the seventh-largest school district in the nation, the action of the district school board to ban discrimination and bullying against LGBT students will exert substantial pressure on other school systems to revise and enforce fair treatment of all children. Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, for example, the district where Asher Brown attended school, has not yet changed its policy towards LGBT student bullying and harassment. Nothing will bring Asher back to his family and his friends. The horror of his death will remain. But actions like this policy revision, and vigorous education and enforcement of the ban will help ensure that no other family or school need go through the agony that surrounded the fragile life and death of a gentle teenager who just wanted to live an authentic life and be able to get a good education at the same time.
Gandalf Comes Out Against School Bullying; Works Magic Among Students
Sir Ian McKellan is Gandalf and Magneto...and he's gay!
Kent, United Kingdom – Sir Ian McKellan, international stage and screen star, best known for his portrayals of Gandalf the Wizard in The Lord of the Rings, and Magneto the Mutant in X-Men, is working the secondary school circuit to put an end to bullying against LGBTQ youth. The Guardian reported in April 2011 that Sir Ian, who broke new ground by coming out as a gay man in 1988, is touring schools in a program to make education safer for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth. Stonewall, the human rights and equality charity established by Sir Ian and a few others in 1989 is sponsoring the effort throughout Great Britain and Asia. Here is an excerpt from the Guardian article by a Stonewall staffer who accompanies Sir Ian on anti-gay bullying school tours:
“Do you know any gay people?” Sir Ian McKellen asks. Silence. Heads shake. “Well, you do now. I’m gay.” It’s my turn to speak up. “You know two now. I used to go to this school – and I’m gay,” I offer. “You know three now,” a sixth-former chips in. The other pupils don’t look too surprised, and he seems admirably comfortable in his sexuality. Silence. Then: “Erm. Well. You know four now.” Heads shoot around to see a uniformed boy, leaning close to McKellen. Mouths fall slightly open – including mine – but nobody speaks. Then McKellen says, in that mellifluous voice of his, “Well. How about that? It turns out we all know quite a few more gay people than we thought we did.”
This is the third month of McKellen’s nationwide “role model” tour of secondary schools on behalf of Stonewall, the gay equality charity that he co-founded, and which I work for, and the two of us have come to Hundred of Hoo comprehensive in Kent, which I left over a decade ago. It has become a familiar scene for him. “My school visits are often rewarded by people coming out,” he says. “And I don’t just mean pupils – I’ve heard staff coming out to their heads on my visits, too.”
McKellen obviously has a powerful effect on the schools he visits; how does this make him feel? “A bit overwhelmed – and privileged,” he says. Gandalf has worked his magic in 54 secondary schools over the last two years. His dream? An education system free of the homophobia that has plagued it for years – and a curriculum that fully includes lesbian, gay and bisexual people . . .This has a profound effect on two year 10 friends, who tell me: “We didn’t realise calling things ‘gay’ could offend someone. It was touching when he talked about never being able to tell his mum he was gay. One of our best friends is gay and he gets abused for it. We hope it will stop now.”
McKellan reprieves Gandalf in upcoming film, "The Hobbit"
Magic, indeed! Sir Ian’s example challenges others to follow in his footsteps among celebrities and everyday folk alike, to expose homophobic and transphobic language for what it is: a chief contributing factor in violence enacted against youth who present in gender variant ways, or who dare to live authentic lives as lesbians and gays. At the final school assembly, Sir Ian tackles the issue of anti-gay hate speech, homophobia, and hate crimes:
“I’m not useless,” McKellen asserts . . . , “but when you use that word [gay] as an insulting adjective, that’s what you’re saying about me. So please, watch your language. Because if you don’t, you mightn’t watch your actions…” He goes on to tell how Ian Baynham was recently killed in a homophobic hate attack by teenagers. “The girl who stamped on his head might have used ‘gay’ to mean anything rubbish and useless. And that probably convinced her that gay people were rubbish and useless – and don’t deserve to live.”
So, Gandalf has exchanged his ring quest for a new campaign: to convince LGBTQ students they are of great worth, and to encourage their peers and their teachers and school administrators to support their gender variant students by bringing anti-gay violence to an end. We at Unfinished Lives Blog cannot think of a more necessary or noble adventure for everyone involved. Bravo, Gandalf!
Gays Seek Safer Houston in Last “Unfinished Lives” Pride Month Session
Dr. Sprinkle speaks to a full house at Resurrection MCC Houston on "Unfinished Lives" book
Houston, Texas – Strategies for mobilizing the LGBTQ community to act for a safer Houston will be the focus of the concluding “Unfinished Lives” Session at Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church this Friday, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, professor at Brite Divinity School and author of Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2011), will offer Houstonians effective ways to prevent hate crimes, wrestle with with issue of anti-LGBTQ teen school bullying and suicide, and close ranks with transgender Americans to staunch the alarming number of violent attacks upon then in today’s world. Attendance and enthusiasm remained strong at the June 10 session on lessons and insights the stories of hare crimes victims teach the wider community. Dr. Sprinkle lifted up five lessons we stand to learn from LGBTQ people who have died because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. In brief, these were: 1) confront head on the rising number of violent attacks against the queer community with educational efforts, 2) deal with the amnesia of the LGBTQ community, media, and the general public about queer hate crime murders, 3) begin the long-overdue conversation about transphobia and transgender hate crimes in America, 4) use the language of outrage when speaking about LGBTQ hate crimes, not the language of “tragendy,” and 5) the necessity of dealing with the religious and theological roots of anti-gay and transgender hate violence. The stories of Ryan Keith Skipper of Wahneta, Florida and Talana Quay Kreeger of Wilmington, North Carolina were highlighted to illustrate Dr. Sprinkle’s lecture. Session Three: Strategies for Mobilization and Activism will continue this no-nonsense approach to the crisis of anti-LGBTQ hate violence in contemporary church and society. The series is co-sponsored by Resurrection MCC Houston, Cathedral of Hope Houston, and the Transgender Foundation of America. As always, a light supper is provided and the public is invited at no charge. Make Pride Month count for more than a parade and a party, and come out to this important final session.
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 
Hate Crimes and Capital Punishment: A Special Comment
Lawrence Russell Brewer, on the day he was booked for the murder of James Byrd Jr.
Huntsville, Texas – On September 21 at 6:11 p.m., before witnesses whom included his hate crime victim’s family and his own, Lawrence Russell Brewer, 44, was injected with lethal drugs in the execution chamber of Huntsville Prison. Ten minutes later, he was pronounced dead. Sentenced to death for the 1998 dragging murder of James Byrd Jr., there was no doubt about the convict’s guilt. Brewer and two accomplices, John William King and Shawn Allen Berry, abducted Byrd, a 49-year-old African American, in Jasper, Texas, beat him, bound him with a log chain attached to the backend of a pickup truck, and dragged him three miles down a rough East Texas road until his head was detached from his body when it hit a culvert. The racially-motivated murder made the nation shudder–and marked a decisive moment in the hate crime justice movement for LGBTQ people as well as for African Americans. But the justice of capital punishment for hate crime murders is still up for serious question, even after the execution of a bigoted man who displayed no remorse for his crime. Brewer had even urinated on Byrd before dragging him to his death.
In Texas, the racist murder of James Byrd Jr. was quickly equated with the anti-gay murder of young Matthew Wayne Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, that occurred barely four months later. After abortive attempts to get a state hate crimes statute naming gays and lesbians as a protected class, the Byrd family agreed to sign on with Shepard’s family to achieve a landmark Texas law including African Americans and LGB persons as protected classes from prejudicial murder. Governor Rick Perry, who today is the notably anti-gay Republican front runner for President, signed the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act into law back in May 2001, inclusive of “sexual preference” as a protected category. It took the federal government eight more years to enact a comprehensive hate crimes law inclusive of LGBT people in the United States. The James Byrd Jr. and Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act, was signed into law by President Obama in October 2009. The families of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. were honored guests at the presidential signing ceremony in the White House.
Can state-sanctioned execution remedy anti-gay or racially motivated hate crime murders? Brewer’s death by lethal injection, in the same week as the hotly contested execution of Troy Davis in Georgia, brought that issue to a head for the national media, human and civil rights activists, moral theologians, and the families of victims alike. Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC anchor of “The Last Word,” opined that the only way to prevent the execution of putatively innocent death row inmates like Davis is to outlaw the execution of even the most unrepentant of guilty killers like Brewer. Dick Gregory, the fabled comedian and human rights activist, was present in Huntsville protesting the execution of James Byrd Jr.’s murderer for just that reason. The Houston Chronicle quotes Gregory as saying, “Any state killing is wrong. If Adolph Hitler were to be executed,” he said, “I would be here to protest . . . I believe life in prison is punishment. Execution is revenge.”
Ross Byrd, James Byrd’s son, who is now 32, spoke out to Reuters the night before Brewer’s execution for the murder of his father. “You can’t fight murder with murder,” Byrd said, representing his family. “Life in prison would have been fine. I know he can’t hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn’t what we want.” The Reuters article concludes by presenting Ross Byrd’s position that for the state to execute Brewer is no more that a continuation of the cycle of violence that destroyed his father’s life on that lonely road in the dead of night in 1998. Byrd believes that all people, the government included, should decide not to perpetuate that cycle of death. “Everybody’s in that position,” he said. “And I hope they will stand back and look at it before they go down that road of hate. Like Ghandi said, an eye for an eye, and the whole world will go blind.”
Dennis Shepard, Matthew Shepard’s father, took a similar position on the day his son’s second killer was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. Speaking to Aaron James McKinney, the roofer who beat Matt into a fatal coma with a pistol, Shepard said that Matt was not opposed to the death penalty. As a matter of fact, at a family meeting, Matt had said that heinous murders like the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. deserved capital punishment. “Mr. McKinney,” Shepard said, “I, too, believe in the death penalty. I would like nothing better than to see you die, Mr. McKinney. However, this is the time to begin the healing process. To show mercy to someone who refused to show any mercy. To use this as the first step in my own closure about losing Matt. Mr. McKinney, I am not doing this because of your family. I am definitely not doing this because of the crass and unwarranted pressures put on by the religious community. If anything, that hardens my resolve to see you die. Mr. McKinney, I’m going to grant you life, as hard as that is for me to do, because of Matthew.” Shepard concluded, “Mr. McKinney, I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives. May you have a long life, and may you thank Matthew every day for it.”
Admittedly, all other hate crimes victims’ families do not necessarily agree with Mr. Byrd and Mr. Shepard. Some support capital punishment as justice for the heinous nature of the crimes committed against their loved ones. But Lawrence Russell Brewer’s Texas execution is not so cut and dried as the most ardent supporters of capital punishment would like to believe. The world is far grayer than any black-and-white wishes for closure can achieve in a culture where bigotry kills innocent people everyday, and where the state can and does execute anyone it deems legal to terminate. What is right and what is wrong about capital punishment for hate crimes murder perpetrators? What is just for the victims and their families, and for the society the killers have also grievously wounded by their deeds of hatred? We at the Unfinished Lives Project do not claim to have the final truth about these monumental issues. But we do agree with Ross Byrd and Dennis Shepard. Until our fallible knowledge is replaced by the divine in some other world than this and some other time than ours, we will err on the side of mercy. Honor the dead. Break the cycle. Stop the killing.
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September 27, 2011 Posted by unfinishedlives | African Americans, Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bisexual persons, capital punishment, Dragging murders, Execution, gay bashing, gay men, Georgia, GLBTQ, gun violence, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Legislation, Lesbian women, LGBTQ, Matthew Shepard Act, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, President Barack Obama, Racism, Social Justice Advocacy, Special Comments, Texas, transgender persons, Wyoming | African Americans, Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bisexual people, capital punishment, Dick Gregory, Dragging murders, execution, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, gun violence, Hate Crimes, hate crimes legislation, Heterosexism and homophobia, James Byrd Jr., James Byrd Jr. and Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Law and Order, Lesbians, LGBTQ, Matthew Shepard Act, perpetrators, racism, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, Washington D.C., Wyoming | Comments Off on Hate Crimes and Capital Punishment: A Special Comment