Protecting Wretches: Why Freedom of Speech Belongs to Fred Phelps, Too
Richmond, VA – The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a $5 million verdict Thursday against protesters from Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church who picketed the Maryland funeral of a U.S. Marine who was killed in Iraq with signs bearing messages like “Thank God for IED’s,” and “Priests Rape Boys.” Surely the most offensive sign carried by the protesters at the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder of Westminster, MD, was “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” A Baltimore jury had awarded Snyder’s father $5 million in damages from the Topeka, Kansas-based church for the emotional stress and invasion of privacy visited on the family by the protestors. The three-judge panel of the court of appeals ruled that the language employed by Phelps’ church members, equating the death of Lance Corporal Snyder with God’s judgement against the United States for laxity on homosexuality was “imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric” that was protected by the First Amendment as freedom of speech. The messages the church group issued were meant to ignite debate and could not be understood as personally pertaining to the deceased, reasoned the court. Supporters of the family decried the decision, and predictably, the Phelps Clan at Westboro Baptist Church applauded it. Sean E. Summers, attorney for Mr. Snyder, vowed to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Fred Phelps, welcomed the ruling. Speaking to the Associated Press, Phelps-Roper, who was one of the protestors named in the lawsuit, said, “They had no case but they were hoping the appellate court would not do their duty to follow the rule of law and the appellate court would not do that. They didn’t change God and they didn’t stop us. What they managed to do was give us a huge door, a global door of utterance. Our doctrine is all over the world because of what they did.” The Supreme Court will or will not hear the appeal the Snyder family says it will bring them, as the high court pleases. But the guarantee of freedom of speech belongs to wretches as well as the righteous, and as hard as it is to admit its protections for grave errors in judgment, taste, good order, and belief, such protection ensures that truth remains free to combat error in the marketplace of ideas, morals, and customs. As bitter as it sounds, the court of appeals decision was correct, both for the country, and for LGBT people and their supporters, in the end. No outfit in America has said more inflammatory things about LGBT people than Phelps and his church, comprised of mostly family members. The 1998 protest of Matthew Shepard’s funeral in Casper, WY, declaring that “Matt is in Hell!” and that when “Fags Die, God Laughs” is one of the more notorious examples of how wretched hate speech can be in the case of victims of anti-LGBT prejudice. Finding that their virulent anti-gay rhetoric was losing its public shock value, Phelps’ hate mongers moved on to besmirching the memories of American military servicemembers who had died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Phelps has not won at every turn. A public monument proclaiming Matthew Shepard’s damnation, to be put in a Kansas municipal park, was blocked by city officials. In the end, the defeat of anti-LGBT hate speech is the responsibility of everyone, gay and straight, who know that the Phelps message is morally, spiritually, and patriotically bankrupt. In Pompeii, buried by volcanic ash in CE 79, graffiti scrawled on a wall proclaims, “Samius to Cornelius: go hang yourself!” It is all but forgotten, as are Samius and Cornelius, and so will Phelps’ baseless rantings, as LGBT people and their allies continue to show themselves to be greater in character than their adversaries. Hate speech does incite some people to violence against queer folk. Too many cases exist of hateful, religious rhetoric being used to justify torture and murder of LGBT victims to ignore how wretches use God’s warrant to harm others. Any case of bias-generated violence against LGBT people must be prosecuted swiftly to the full extent of the law, and passage of the Matthew Shepard Act is necessary so that these prosecutions may be pursued vigorously and successfully. But freedom of speech means more to truth than it does to error. At every turn, LGBT folk and their allies may and must immediately and non-violently refute the falsehoods of bad religion so that justice may win out in American life, so that the better angels of the American spirit may rouse themselves to make protests like these seem as petty as scrawlings on an outhouse wall.
Two Dead, Many Wounded in Tel Aviv Anti-LGBT Rampage: Special Comment
The scope of this blog, LGBT hate crimes murders in the U.S. notwithstanding, the attack of a masked gunman on an LGBT youth nightclub in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday night merits special attention. The Unfinished Lives Project express our deepest sympathy to the family, friends, and entire LGBT community of Tel Aviv, and join all those outraged by this act of naked hatred and unreasoning prejudice against people because they are different. Like the United States, Israel has a heritage of cultural diversity, and values tolerance. This outbreak of raw anti-LGBT bias flies in the face of everything both countries stand for. Nitzan Horowitz, the only openly gay member of the Knesset, described the killings as a “hate crime.” Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres have condemned the attack. Unfinished Lives supports the efforts to bring the gunman to justice, and prosecute him to the full extent of the law. We also support any efforts within the law to root out this lethal prejudice. Israel has had violent clashes over LGBT expression before. In 2005, a radical ultra-orthodox critic of a Jerusalem gay pride march attacked and stabbed three marchers. Incitement to violence prepared the way for both attacks, and though members of the ultra-orthodox Shas party have condemned the attack, their anti-gay hate rhetoric played a part in the toxic atmosphere that made a killer decide to act on prejudice. The Shas party, and all other purveyors of hate speech in the State of Israel, need to take a step back, refrain immediately from inciting rhetoric, and make amends to the LGBT community. But we at the Unfinished Lives Project are not holding our breath. Meanwhile, LGBT youth in Israel have received a message written in the blood of three murdered young people: you are not safe. It is up to the leaders and the people of the nation to insure that something like this will never happen in Israel again.
Another “Beyoncé” Killing: New Orleans Trans Murder Hate Motivated?
Beyoncé Knowles
New Orleans, LA – The Times-Picayune and Advocate.com report the Sunday murder of a victim who presented femininely and referred to herself as “Beyoncé,” in tribute to the popular star of soul and pop/rock, Beyoncé Knowles. The victim, Eric Lee, 21, was stabbed repeatedly at an apartment complex in the Algiers neighborhood. Police found Lee’s slashed body inside a first-floor apartment. Witnesses say they heard Lee arguing heatedly with a group of women before the time of the murder. While police have not announced a suspected motive for the killing, the m.o. fits a transphobic hate crime pattern. Residents who knew her say that Lee, who was in transition from male to female, often dressed in women’s clothing, and drew ridicule from the neighborhood because of it. An unidentified source told the Times-Picayune that Lee “dressed to the nines.” Carl Adams, who claimed that he did not know the victim well, told reporters that he had often heard Lee arguing with neighbors. “Probably because they made fun of him,” he said. In recent years, other trans and non-gender conforming African Americans who have identified with the megastar Knowles have died at the hands of phobic killers. Simmie Lewis Williams, Jr., 17, who also called himself “Beyoncé,” died from gunshot wounds in 2007 in the 1000 block of Sistrunk Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Adolphus “Beyoncé” Simmons, 18, a talented female impersonator from North Charleston, South Carolina, similarly died outside his apartment while carrying out the trash to a bin, also in 2007. Much like queer southern whites have idolized Dolly Parton, dressing like her and lip-syncing her hits, Beyoncé has entranced young black cross dressers and transgender women, and has legions of gay and lesbian fans, both black and white. Yet she has not become the advocate for LGBT people that Ms. Parton has. Ms. Knowles has occasionally reached out to her LGBT fans, especially after an international flap over her comments concerning the onstage kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears at the MTV Awards in 2003. At the time, the British tabloid, The Sun, charged Knowles with homophobic statements based on her strict religious upbringing. On her website, she refuted the claims of the tabloid, writing, “I’d like to clarify any confusion over some quotes that were attributed to me totally out of context in a recent interview. I have never judged anyone based on his or her sexual orientation and have no intention of starting now. I have a lot of gay and lesbian fans and I love them no differently than my straight fans.” For an interview in Instinct reported on AfterElton.com, she revealed that she was raised by a gay uncle who died of AIDS-related complications. “He helped me buy my prom dress. He made my clothes with my mother. He was like my nanny. He was my favorite person in the whole world,” she said. To date, her love and respect for her uncle and her LGBT fans notwithstanding, she has not spoken out against the harm being perpetrated against queer fans who are suffering the ultimate price for paying her the ultimate tribute. The murder of Eric “Beyoncé” Lee, while outrageous in its own right, underlines the need from some statement on Ms. Knowles’ part, condemning such killings. Of course, Beyoncé Knowles is not responsible in any way for the killing of Lee, Williams, Simmons, or anyone who chooses to bear her name. But the number of those dying to emulate her suggest that statements from her and other influential black entertainers against homophobia and transphobia is at least urgent, if not overdue. ~ NB: Pronouns in this article reflect the usage of the source in quotations. Williams and Simmons referred to themselves using masculine pronouns. As is appropriate for an M to F transperson, Lee is referred to using feminine pronouns.
Senate Passes DOD Bill with Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Amendment Attached
Washington, DC – Last night the U.S. Senate passed the mammoth Department of Defense Appropriations Bill with the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act attached as an amendment. HRC Backstory explains the process of reconciliation that this version of the bill will undergo in the Senate-House Conference Committee. According to HRC Senior Policy Analyst David Stacy, “During the month of August, while the Congress is in recess, House and Senate staff will work out differences between the House and Senate bills. Most of these decisions are unrelated to hate crimes and can be worked out at the staff level. Key decisions will be made by Senators and Representatives when they return in September. Most important among these will be the final decision about whether to keep the Matthew Shepard Act. Beyond that threshold question, which we fully expect will be an emphatic “YES,” decisions will have to be made about the amendments passed by the Senate this week.” This is great cause for celebration since LGBT people are very close to having federal protection in an unprecedented way in our history. Not only does this legislation honor Matthew Shepard, for whom it is named. It also remembers and honors thousands of other LGBT hate crimes victims for whom this legislative act is a vindication of sorts. But while there is reason for rejoicing, the ultimate passage of anti-LGBT hate crimes legislation is not a done deal yet. The DOD bill did attach other amendments, such as the Sessions Death Penalty amendments, designed to make the Matthew Shepard Act less palatable to sponsors and the public. The protections provided in the bill for LGBT people are limited, if still important and historic. Hate crimes against us are on the rise, and the old bromide activists rehearse, that as the younger generations take the reins of culture and government, the war against LGBT people will be over, is just not borne out by the facts. If younger Americans are more open statistically toward LGBT people and our relationships, then why is the profile of the people who actually kill us men from teenage to mid-30s, for one thing? So, we must keep at this work. Those of us who believe in justice cannot rest. Those of us who believe in justice cannot rest until it comes. [Illustration thanks to Advocate.com].
~ Stephen Sprinkle, Director, Unfinished Lives Project
Triangle of Terror: Gays On Their Guard
![Police in body armor outside US Holocaust Museum [Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto]](https://unfinishedlivesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/euro-pressphoto1.jpg?w=300&h=180 "Euro Pressphoto")
Police in body armor outside US Holocaust Museum (Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto)
Steven Domer murdered by white supremacist
Steven Domer of Edmonton, Oklahoma, was brutally murdered in October 2007 by Darrell Madden, a white supremacist recently released from prison. Madden, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, garroted Domer with a wire clothes hanger after binding him with duct tape. Domer’s body was found in a ravine in McClain County. Investigators believe that Madden’s motive was to earn his “patch” from the Aryan Brotherhood, a sign of distinction awarded to a member who murders a Jew, a black, a homosexual, or anyone deemed to be an “enemy” by the group. In October 2008, Madden was found guilty of first degree murder and abduction, and sentenced to four consecutive life terms. The Domer murder and others like it offer a warning to the LGBT community in a time when hostility is clearly on the rise against same-sex marriage, the Matthew Shepard Act, ENDA, and the proposed repeal of both DOMA and DADT. Hate crime statistics demonstrate an upward spiral of violence in Michigan, Tennessee, Minnesota, and California. LGBT Americans share the vulnerability of other targeted groups, and decry the violence perpetrated by religious bigotry, misguided nationalism, racial hatred, and misogyny. The need for the passage of a sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression hate crimes law has never been greater, given the rising tide of bias-related hate crimes chilling whole segments of the American population. Fear may isolate and paralyze people. Resolve to face hate and fear with justice and hope can unite people, as well. Now is the time for coalition building, rejection of irrational hatred wherever it arises, and a mutual commitment to the health and safety of all Americans. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people already know how important vigilance and solidarity in the face of terror are. So do women, Jews, and Blacks, all of whom have been affected by these deplorable killings in recent weeks. Perhaps this time those targeted by the radical right will learn how to stand together, and rally the country to repudiate these senseless acts of violence. We at The Unfinished Lives Project devoutly hope so.
Bullfrog in the Kettle: On Not Being Lulled into a False Sense of Security About Anti-LGBT Violence
How do you boil a bullfrog? Don’t try to plop it in a steaming kettle on the stove. Ease it into a nice warm bath in the pot, and let it swim around until it drops its guard. Nudge up the heat nice and slow. Caught unawares, the frog won’t wake up to its danger until it is too late and the water is about to boil.
Larry King Cover in The Advocate magazine
Last year saw a rash of murders of young, feminine-presenting men about this time. In January, Adophus Simmons of North Charleston, South Carolina was shot to death while carrying his trash out to the dumpster. In February, just after Valentine’s Day, Larry King was shot in the back of the head in his middle school computer class by his classmate in Oxnard, California. Then, near the end of February, Simmie Williams, Jr. was shot down in the street in Fort Lauderdale, Florida by two still-unapprehended murders. Simmons was 18, King was 15, and Williams was 17.
Simmie Williams' Mother Mourns his death
It took some weeks for the LGBT press to connect the dots and cry out that young, gender non-conforming men, especially young men of color, were in the crosshairs of deadly prejudice in the United States. King’s murder drew a cover story in The Advocate, and then the mainstream press picked up the theme with its flawed cover in Newsweek. The nation shrugged off the murders of the other two boys. Now, things have gone strangely silent about the morphing of murder against LGBT people, with minimal interest in the new outbreak of violence against African American transwomen in Memphis, Tennessee. Queer folk are still being killed, but in the glow of President Obama’s first 100 Days, with all eyes turned to the beautiful First Couple and the stumbling U.S. economy, even the LGBT press is falling to sleep again, lulling the LGBT population who are still at risk everywhere into a false sense of security. The bullfrog is doing the backstroke in the kettle, and the heat is rising oh-so-slowly.
Joan Crawford, LGBT Icon, in Johnny Guitar
Just like queer folk used to sit through whole tiresome movies like Johnny Guitar just to see Joan Crawford descend the stairs wearing a butch shirt waving a gun, the LGBT and progressive press are hanging onto every hint of “gay” in President Obama’s speeches and press releases. He said “gay and lesbian” in Chicago on Election Night! He didn’t mention us in the Inaugural Address at all, but has our issues on the White House web site! His team invited Rick Warren (who opposes us 100%) to pray, but Joseph Lowery (who kinda likes us), too! The Inaugural Committee chose Bishop Gene Robinson to pray at the Lincoln Memorial (but then botched its broadcast, and somebody cut off his mic), and at the last minute invited him to the platform for the Inauguration! Please!
Here is what we know for sure:
1) Queer folk are still being killed and attacked in heightened numbers throughout the United States, especially in the Heartland of the Upper Midwest, the Left Coast, and the South, as NCAVP and FBI statistics demonstrate.
2) Even the presumption that someone is gay is deadly, as was the case of José O. Sucuzhañay, a straight man attacked while walking arm-in-arm with his brother in Brooklyn just before Christmas.
3) Transgender women and men, especially if they are of color, are dying in our streets in alarming numbers, as the Memphis attacks testify.
4) A gay man’s life is worth less than an animal’s in some states, as the imminent early release of Sean William Kennedy’s convicted murderer shows in Greenville, South Carolina.
5) Silence-of-the-Lambs style murders apparently cannot shake urban governments awake to the peril of their LGBT citizens, as the gruesome dismemberment of Richard Hernandez and the subsequent veil of silence surrounding it in Dallas, TX points out.
6) Most LGBT people would rather not read about this right now, with Spring Break coming up, and Easter, and the next Circuit Party, and all.
Who wouldn’t rather ignore the reality of violence and neglect that makes LGBT jobs, loves and our very lives so fragile in March 2009, the Obama Administration notwithstanding? Please don’t “let Barack do it” and abdicate responsibility for acting for and end to anti-LGBT violence in this country. Barack Obama needs all of us who feel the heat to make him keep his promises to enact the Matthew Shepard Act, ENDA, and to repeal DADT.
Don’t be fooled. Don’t be lulled. The kettle is on to boil.
~ Stephen V. Sprinkle, Director
The Unfinished Lives Project
Special Comment on the Proposition 8 Protest Movement: “Now is Our Time”
by Stephen V. Sprinkle
One step too far: that is the step opponents of civil rights for LGBT people, the LDS Church and the Knights of Columbus, took in their all-out effort to repeal same-sex marriage in California. I do not contest the freedom of church organizations to voice their opinions about court decisions in America. But the desperate over-reach of Mormons and Roman Catholics to strip same-sex couples of the right of civil marriage the California Supreme Court had vouchsafed to them has awakened millions of LGBT people and allies to the power of a movement whose time has come. Pouring millions of church dollars and thousands of radio/TV advertisements into the struggle over Prop 8 has rebounded upon those who briefly celebrated beating back the high court’s decision on same-sex marriage. The agents of heterosexist theocracy may have won a single battle at the ballot box, but in doing so they have set in motion a war for public opinion they cannot win.
Our opponents managed one thing by their desperation and arrogance: they have galvanized the grassroots power of the millions of LGBT folk and allies who surged to the polls on November 4 to elect Barack Obama president. With the internet as the vehicle for equality, 300 protest events sprang up in less than twelve days. No other civil rights movement in American history has been launched in cyberspace before, and as the presidential campaign of 2008 demonstrated, the internet has vast potential to rally millions and to fund a national movement. As a witness to the No On 8 Protest at the Austin, Texas Town Hall, I can report the zeal and determination of 3,000 mostly first-time protesters to seize this time as our time, the long-deferred time for a true LGBT Civil Rights moment. As a marcher myself, I can testify to the thrill of taking it to the streets as a 50-something gay man in a new way. I was too closeted and too far removed from the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 to take to the streets then. But this is today, and Prop 8, no matter what LGBT people may privately think of marriage for ourselves, is a thumb in our eye. Myriads of young Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transgender people built up their electoral muscle in Obama Pride, and now are ready to infuse new life, energy and possibility into the struggle for sexual and gender expression equality. The rally organizers did a fine job at the Austin Town Hall Plaza for the thousands who came out. All the usual advocacy groups were there, lending leadership and direction to the surging crowds of neophytes straining at the bit to do their part for justice. But closing the proceedings and urging protesters to sign up on contact lists or to buy tee shirts could not shut off the electricity generated by restless youth. When a movement goes viral, it cannot be shut down with the flip of a switch.
Perhaps the organizers of the Austin No On 8 Protest tried to get a march permit, but couldn’t. Whatever the story, hundreds of fired up queers and allies took their signs and passion into the streets, and marched up to the Texas State Capital, where we demonstrated outside the gates in the shadow of the tallest governmental dome in America. “What do we want?” “Equality!” “When do we want it?” “Now!” ricocheted up and down Austin streets as dozens of cars and pickups sped by blaring horns and shouting encouragement. The citizens of Austin stepped back, some smiling, some scowling at the surging rainbow line marching up Congress Avenue. Two descriptors came to my mind as I marched along chanting with the others: Power and Peace. This was no flash-in-the pan afternoon protest, no lark by first-timers seeking to get their pictures in the paper. Others have seized their moments: the anti-war movement, African Americans, the Moral Majority, women. But this has the feel of our time, the time when the issue of same-sex wedlock changed from a political hot potato into a viral movement elevating marriage to the status of a civil right for all Americans.
There are serious problems to work out. Before the rift with people of color tears any further, African Americans and Latinas/Latinos must be appealed to directly. LGBT people and straight people of color have a stake in the fight for justice together, not apart, and LGBT people of color must lead white queer folk to avoid driving a wedge between natural allies and us. That is where LGBT people of faith and progressive religious leaders have a major role to play by giving a faith rationale for the marriage equality movement. One of the lessons of the defeat in California is that when church bigotry waves crosses and distorts the issues for the voting public, the most potent antidote is the public witness of queer and progressive faith leaders wearing all their ecclesiastical regalia. God must not be hijacked any longer by the radical right in the fight for equality. Further, from what I saw and heard, LGBT rallies need media savvy and speakers need coaching on how to call out the passion and motivation that will translate into effective action for change. It was clear that we haven’t learned how to do this ‘thing,’ yet. But we must learn how, and quickly, if we are to ride the tide of commitment building in our queer communities.
My work on LGBT hate crimes murder victims teaches me that our movement already has its martyrs. I cannot help thinking of Harvey Milk, wondering if after 30 years since his assassination in San Francisco we have finally become ready to realize his vision and to vindicate his death and the deaths of so many hundreds of others. As we march and protest, their stories can give us the drive to confront a society yet unwilling to see us as equals. Never again must LGBT people stay silent when some of us are killed for simply being who we are. And never again may we sit idle on the sidelines while others struggle to win our freedom and equality. I saw and felt a justice movement building in the capital of the Lone Star State this past Saturday. As one sign in the Austin No on 8 Protest proclaimed, “Our Love Will Outlast Their H8!” We who believe in justice cannot rest! We who believe in justice cannot rest until it comes!
Stephen V. Sprinkle
Director
The Unfinished Lives Project
Special Comment: Living Hope
by Stephen V. Sprinkle
A paraphrase of Edwin Markham’s poem, “Victory in Defeat,” goes something like this: “Defeat as well as victory can shake the soul and let the glory out.” We are here tonight to tell the history of hope, not hate: hope born out of the hateful deaths of two men ten years ago, James Byrd, Jr. of Jasper, Texas, and Matthew Wayne Shepard of Laramie, Wyoming. Their stories brought us all together tonight. A decade ago, in the United States of America, they each died brutally at the hands of men who had learned to hate someone different.
Dragged behind a pickup truck in the Lone Star State of Texas for over three miles, James Byrd, Jr. died dismembered in a ditch in the wee hours of a June Sunday morning. People going to church found his body, minus his head and right arm, lying in the road in front of a little cemetery. They called the police, and as the police were speeding on their way to the crime scene, other citizens flagged them down because they had found James Byrd’s head in a drainage ditch.
Bludgeoned into a fatal coma with the butt of a .357 Magnum pistol, young Matthew Shepard was robbed of his shoes, his wallet, and ultimately his life in the Equality State of Wyoming on a cold October night. High in the desolate prairie, Matt’s bloody, broken body was trussed to a buck fence where he was abandoned to freezing wind and unforgiving sun for over 18 hours. When his near-lifeless body was found, the deputy sheriff who cut him free from that buck fence testified that he no longer looked like a human being, but more like a beaten Halloween scarecrow, limp on the ground. She said that his face was slathered with blood except for the tracks of his tears on his cheeks where the blood had been washed away. A few days later, Matt’s heart gave out, and he lost his fight for life in an Intensive Care unit.
Yes, defeat can shake the soul. That is what the poet, Edwin Markham said. Markham was a youth in the American Civil War, and the cataclysm of war ravaged the country in the years of the poet’s childhood. African Americans know the earthquakes of hatred and defeat. Long after that awful war was over, new battles faced African Americans, new defeats challenged hope with hate. Jim Crow, Separate But Equal, Strange Fruit with so many thousands lost to the rope that a sinister new term had to be invented to describe it: “lynching.” Hanging from the limbs of southern trees, shot and cut by the Ku Klux Klan, bombed in their Sunday School rooms, cut down by gunfire on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel… in the defeat of death they lay like rows of grain chopped down in a grisly harvest. We remember their names: Medgar Evers and Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Emmet Till, the four little girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham: Addie May Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Denise McNair. Their killings and the murders of too many others to recount tonight show us what hate crimes against a whole race of people can do to shake the soul.
Another slow-rolling holocaust swept the United States from the time in the late 19th century when the term “homosexual” was first coined by doctors who said it was a disease. Who someone loved had already been contested ground in America. In 1958, Mildred Jeter (a woman of white, African-American and Native American heritage) and Richard Loving (a white man) fell in love in the racially mixed, low-income farmland of Caroline County, Virginia. Because of Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act, they traveled to Washington, D. C. to get married. Shortly after their return to Virginia, police burst into their bedroom at 3 a.m., arrested husband and wife, and carried them away to jail. The Lovings pleaded guilty to being married; they were sentenced to one year in prison. Though the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Virginia law against “miscegenation,” or interracial marriage, in 1967, there are haters who still believe loving someone is a crime worthy of death.
Though silent and hidden for much of the 20th Century, loving someone of the same gender, or seeking to live into a different gender than the one assigned at birth by a doctor, or even being perceived as belonging to such an orientation has often meant assassination and terror. The defeat of death has shaken the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community, with thousands of fatal attacks throughout this land of the free. Their homes have been desecrated, their bars bombed and burned. They are shot in their classrooms before the eyes of their fellow students, beaten to death with fists and clubs, mutilated with knives, and immolated on stacks of kerosene-soaked tires down lonely, desolate roads. Their lives were counted as less worthy than the lives of other citizens, and scriptures have been endlessly quoted to justify their extermination. We remember their names, tonight, too: Harvey Milk and Diane Whipple, Larry King and Simmie Williams, Billy Jack Gaither and Scotty Joe Weaver, Talana Quay Kreeger and Sakia LaTona Gunn, Paul Broussard, Nicolas West, and Kenneth Cummings, Jr., Fred C. Martinez, Jr., Amancio Corrales, and Gwen Amber Rose Araujo.
The ground of hope on which we stand tonight still shakes with the defeat death brings to African Americans and LGBT Americans. Too many times our respective communities have been shaken apart by differences. As the Dallas Voice has said, it would be hard to find lives of two men more different than the lives of James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard. James Byrd was a 49-year-old black man, a father and a grandfather, living in Southeast Texas. Matthew Shepard was a 21-year-old white man, a son of privilege going to school at the University of Wyoming.
One of them was a political science major, longing to advocate for the poor and oppressed, ready to launch out into life for the very first time. One of them was unemployed, living on disability checks, and like the Black Church tradition sometimes says, “tryin’ to make a way out of no way.”
But if they are indeed united in the defeat of death, the souls of the Byrd Family and the Shepard Family shaken by the earthquake of terror that only a hate crime can effect, we believe James Byrd and Matthew Shepard are united in something far wider and more vast than the shadow of death. They are forever united in the history of hope, a living hope, a hope worth living for.
James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard represent living hope. As Rev. Karen Thompson, Senior Pastor of MCC Austin at Freedom Oaks has said so well, “It is important that we not let our lasting images of these two men…be images of them as victims of hate. Rather,” she goes on to say, “we are called by their memories to do all we can to ensure that hate will not be the final word.” Ignorance and fear would have us accept defeat in the face of hate, but we cannot do that, because we cannot permit the killers to own the stories of James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard.
When the intense spotlight of publicity glared down on the families of these slain men, the Byrd Family and the Shepard Family showed the way to healing and not hate.
Ten years ago, Diane Hardy-Garcia, former executive director of the parent organization of what is now Equality Texas, approached Stella and James Byrd, Sr. to ask that a Hate Crimes act be named after their son. As she recounted recently to the Dallas Voice, “[James Byrd, Jr.’s] mother was so gracious to us. I explained the history [of the Hate Crimes Law in Texas] to them, and how it had failed before and how we wanted to present it this time as a whole package. And I told her, ‘I’ve got to tell you the truth. I think they will pass it if it is just about race. The hang up is including sexual orientation.’
“I had given [Mrs. Byrd] my card,” Hardy-Garcia remembered, “which clearly said Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby.” After about a minute of silence, Mrs. Byrd said, “Follow me,” and took Hardy-Garcia into a room filled with condolence gifts from all over the world. Then Mrs. Byrd said, “I sent Matthew Shepard’s mother a note. We don’t have a problem.” Though the James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Act went down to defeat the first time, as Hardy-Garcia predicted it might because of the inclusion of sexual orientation, the Byrd Family never wavered in their steadfast support.
The Byrd Family kept on calling for healing, not hating, and went on to establish the James Byrd, Jr. Foundation for Racial Healing. Ross Byrd, James Byrd, Jr.’s son, has chosen to oppose the death penalty, and he has campaigned against executing the very men who bludgeoned, spray painted, and chained his father to the back end of a pickup truck, dragging him to his death—all because he and his family believe in hope, not hate.
Matthew Shepard’s parents, Judy and Dennis Shepard, chose hope, not hate, and spoke out against the execution of the two young men who killed their son. Along with Matt’s younger brother, Logan, the Shepards became active in educating against hate through the Matthew Shepard Foundation, an organization they founded to erase hatred through programs of diversity and education.
No one has been more courageously outspoken for the passage of state and federal hate crimes legislation than Judy Shepard, who has said to all who will hear her:
“Matt is no longer with us today because the men who killed him learned to hate. Somehow and somewhere they received the message that the lives of gay people are not as worthy of respect, dignity and honor as the lives of other people. They were given the impression that society condoned or at least was indifferent to violence against gay and lesbian Americans.”
She went on to say, “Today, we have it within our power to send a very different message than the one received by the people who killed my son. It is time to stop living in denial and to address a real problem that is destroying families like mine, James Byrd Jr.’s, and many others across America.”
If we are to rise to the challenge these two great families give us, to shake the soul of Texas and the nation, and to let the glory of a better, more just America shine through, then we have to get real about what it means to live out the hope we proclaim tonight.
- The real problem is that it is ten years since the murders of James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard, and the United States still does not have a federal hate crimes law that includes sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. There is still no Matthew Shepard Act on the books ten years after—why not?
- The real problem is that even when the Lone Star State has a hate crimes law, the James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Act, though there have been over 1800 hate crimes perpetrated in Texas since its passage, there have been only nine hate crimes cases tried under the provisions of this law. Ten years after, why only nine?
- The real problem is that hate crimes are real and are on the rise in America. Don’t let anyone tell you there are not such things as hate crimes, or that “all murders are alike, and we already have the laws to cover them.” Hate crimes are brutally real, targeting whole populations of people with acts of terror. Hate crimes are significantly more violent and brutal than any other forms of domestic crime. You see, every locale and demographic of American society are affected: First Nations, Anglo, Black, Latino/Latina, South and Southeast Asian, Transgender, Gay Men, Lesbians, Disabled, young and mature. Homophobia and racism have long, crooked arms, reaching out to snatch the life away from women and men whose murders are underreported to begin with, and whose memories vanish so quickly.
We can’t talk about crimes like these tonight in the abstract. What does hate crime look like in the year 2008? Here is what it looks like:
- February 14, 2008: the senseless shooting of Lawrence “Larry” King, 15 years old, who was targeted because of his sexual orientation and non-conformity with traditional gender roles, in Oxnard, CA.
- June 17, 2008: a hate crime attack perpetrated by 12 young men and women against Black teenager Tizaya Robinson, 17 years old, in Marshfield, MA.
- July 17, 2008: the brutal and tragic hate murder of male-to-female transgender Latina, Angie Zapata, 18 years old, in Greeley, CO.
- July 29, 2008: the killing of Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala, 25 years old, an undocumented Mexican immigrant of Shenandoah, PA who was fatally beaten at the hands of five white teenagers.
- September 4, 2008: openly gay man, Richard Hernandez, 34 years old, murdered and dismembered inside his apartment in Dallas, TX.
- October 6, 2008: Pvt. 2nd Class Michael Handman, 20 years old, a Jewish soldier in the US Army, was moved to a secure location at Fort Benning, GA far from the scene of an anti-Semitic assault by a fellow soldier that left him hospitalized with a concussion and other serious injuries.
What must we then do, if we are to move through the manifold defeats of hate crime violence in this land, to a land of hope, and not hate? Like you, I take courage from the leadership of the Byrd and Shepard Families. Like you, I need that courage tonight, to rededicate myself to healing and not hating, to hope, and not hate.
I believe we must first move past our personal feelings of powerlessness and denial, beyond the natural psychological barriers we all face when we stare into the mirror of such violence, and see our own part in it. Oh, yes, though it would be convenient to lay the blame exclusively somewhere else, we in the LGBT and Racial/Ethnic minority communities still have much understanding to learn, and much forgiveness to ask of each other, if we are ever to move beyond being defeated people ourselves, and find our way together into a better future for all our people. Sweet Honey in the Rock, an all-female Black a capella choir, say it this way in the lyrics of their song, “Rise in Love”:
We have much work to do if we are to live into the hope we long for and talk about. We must renew our efforts to name, claim and reject the racism that too many LGBT people harbor against people of color, and to name, claim and reject the homophobia and heterosexism that too many racial/ethnic communities still hold against gay folk. We have to get over it! In a paraphrase of the Good Book, how can we say that we love justice and harbor ill will against others of us? We have to get “shook up and shook a-loose” ourselves if we are ever to lead our nation to a better society.
And finally, we must move beyond just feeling bad about injustice. Americans are good about feeling bad. Perhaps we get angry, perhaps we get mad enough when we hear the outrageous stories of hate crimes in our community that we pay attention for a news cycle or two. Perhaps we attend a rally like this, and even write a little check to an advocacy group. And once we are past the first flush of emotion, then the economy gets our attention, or the fine Texas autumn, and we go dormant until hate strikes again, for hate surely will strike again if we do not act. Yes, Americans are good at feeling bad, until we start to feel better.
We cannot afford to let emotion alone motivate the work of justice. We who believe in justice cannot rest! We who believe in justice cannot rest until it comes! (An homage to “Ella’s Song,” by Sweet Honey in the Rock.) When memory shakes the soul like an earthquake, we have the obligation and opportunity to remember James Byrd, Jr., and refuse to rest until Texas perfects the hate crimes statutes it has, and applies them not just nine times, but all 1800 times.
We who believe in justice cannot rest! We who believe in justice cannot rest until it comes! When a mother like Judy Shepard challenges us to send a different message to America than the one delivered by the men who killed her son, we must embrace that memory with all its pain, and break out of defeat into action. We must join Judy Shepard in agitating our lawmakers and opinion-makers until the Matthew Shepard Act is passed in the new Congress, and signed into law by a new President of these United States.
We who believe in justice cannot rest! We who believe in justice cannot rest until it comes! Until Black folks and gay folks, women and men, Latinos and Latinas, and all the citizens of this nation can live free and love without fear of acts of violence, until hate is overcome by acts of love and forgiveness and hope, until the glory of this land of the free and this home of the brave shines on all people without distinction and without discrimination.
Not another ten years! Not another 12 months! This very night, each one here must find the courage and resolve to lift up Byrd and Shepard as signs of our hope, a hope worth working for, a hope worth agitating for, a hope worth staying shook up about…
For we who believe in justice cannot rest! We who believe in justice cannot rest until it comes!
Stephen V. Sprinkle
Director
The Unfinished Lives Project
Special Comment: Newsweek magazine and the Re-victimization of Larry King
by Stephen V. Sprinkle
If only journalists and their editors had a Hippocratic Oath to hold them responsible for the stories they tell about the dead. Medical doctors pledge, “First, do no harm.” If doctors proceed to do harm to their patients, then there is a professional society to hold them accountable. The editor of Newsweek, and the team who wrote the Cover Story on Larry King, “Young, Gay and Murdered,” for the July 28, 2008 issue have exercised no constraints on themselves, and unlike the backlash against Dan Rather’s reportage on President Bush’s military service record, there appears to be no one in the journalistic community willing to call their hand for re-victimizing an infamously murdered 15-year-old boy, Larry King. King, you will recall, was shot twice in the head by his alleged killer, 14-year-old classmate, Brandon McInerney.
I want to disclose fully. I am an out gay man who has been studying and writing on the stories of LGBT hate crimes murder victims. I am director of the Unfinished Lives Project that seeks to remember and honor the lives and deaths of women and men who have died violently because of whom others perceived them to be. Further, I am writing a book that will tell the stories of over twenty such LGBT people, and Larry King is one of them. I have spoken publicly at the Vigil for Larry King held in my hometown, Dallas, Texas. That is my “agenda”: to see that stories such as Larry’s are told in such a way that the society may encounter these murdered women, men and youths as human beings who are basically unremarkable from the rest of America, with the difference that as LGBT people, they belong to the last great group in our country it is still permissible to abuse.
Editor Daniel Klaidman, lead reporter Ramin Setoodeh, and team members Andrew Murr and Jennifer Ordoñez do not spell out their sexual orientations or their agendas for us to examine so that we can more fully evaluate how they tell Larry’s and Brandon’s stories. We are left only with their silence on these matters, antiseptic silence that suggests an objectivity that no one ever has when it comes to issues of society and morality. Journalists may have “trained subjectivities” they can bring to their tasks, but that is all they have, and to pretend anything else is dishonest. They do indeed have their agendas, and these agendas serve some end, but we are only left to speculate about what they may be.
The article is written from the angle that Larry’s story, being less “clear cut” because it is “more complicated than it had first appeared,” needs to be rescued from the LGBT people who are, in the words Setoodeh quotes from Larry’s father, using his son’s death as “a gay-rights issue, because it makes a poster child out of my son.” In brief, Setoodeh and his team write about Larry as “troubled,” “disturbed,” and quite possibly “a danger to himself.” The accounts of what growing up as a femininely-presenting boy of mixed race is like in grade and middle school are touched lightly, and the authors then go for their real goal: to pathologize Larry medically, suggesting that there was something sick about him. His diagnosis as ADHD is given, his history of therapy, and an assertion that runs throughout the article that Larry yearned for attention and didn’t know his own mind when it came to being LGBT. The authority for these statements is his father’s quotation of an anonymous “therapist” whose credentials to evaluate a gay youth are never given, and teachers most of whom by the authors’ own admission believed Larry to be a big problem. In contrast to the column space given to Brandon whose peccadilloes and flaws are presented minimally as the outworking of a troubled home, the dark star of the article is Larry who dressed provocatively, who cannot walk well in his heels, who sported glitter, spoke in a “roar,” was a “bully,” and sexually harassed Brandon and others in school. Setoodeh and his associates indict Larry without the benefit of dissenting voices. There is one mention of his being “gentle,” a gay stereotype. The accounts of classmates who claimed he was brave, unique, and nice are perfunctorily mentioned in the context of a school memorial service, leaving the unspoken assumption with us that memorials by grieving students are well meaning but shallow. The overwhelming assessment of the authors of the article is that Larry was a boy too hard for any parent or school to handle, who needed protection from others and himself like Britney Spears, and whose terrorizing behavior made teachers and students “not unsympathetic” to his killer.
The second irresponsible feature of the article is the way Joy Epstein, a lesbian, is put on trial as the alleged instigator of Larry’s outrages. She has an “agenda” of “gay rights.” Greg King, Larry’s adoptive father, is set over and against her, alleging that Epstein confused “her role as a junior-high principal,…asserting her beliefs for gay rights” in her dealings with his son. Even Epstein’s promotion to principal at another school because of her qualifications is portrayed as an attack on the King family. The lesbian school administrator is painted with a rather broad brush as a manipulating authority figure who is somehow the wicked puppet-master behind Larry’s excessive, needy narcissism.
The third and fourth irresponsible aspects of this article are the use of parentheses to soften the way Larry is indicted for his own demise, and the refusal to quote anyone who liked, taught or counseled him for Casa Pacifica. Editor Klaidman parenthetically whispers in his Editor’s Desk introduction to the Cover Story that, even though Larry’s behavior may have led to his death (nothing warrants his murder). The use of parentheses downplays the information encased in them. It is like an aside, and here it is used essentially to set aside the truth that should have been at the core of this article, not secreted away in punctuation: There is never an excuse for murder. Ever.
The absence of any voices from Casa Pacifica with the exception of a hearsay quote from Vicki Murphy is a failure of journalism on the part of the authors. Casa voices were not omitted in the cover story on the King murder published by The Advocate in its April 8, 2008 issue, and their omission in the Newsweek story raises the question of whether those people who knew Larry best in his last months have been silenced by attorneys, or were thought to have nothing to contribute that the authors wished to quote. The silence is provocative, and no reason for it is given. If Setoodeh spent five months rooting around Oxnard and environs, he surely could have written more than the scant, spare paragraph on Casa Pacifica in the article. If Casa Pacifica was the place where Larry was best able to explore his budding gay identity in security and acceptance, if indeed it was a time for him that “was the happiest of his life,” why leave it out? Why deal with the Ventura gay youth group meetings that were important during Larry’s residence at Casa in a single sentence? The interaction of the two main institutions in Larry’s life, Casa Pacifica and E.O. Green Middle School, is entirely left out, along with any insight on how this institutional interplay shaped the context of the murder.
The emotional impact of this irresponsible storytelling is that Larry King, the primary victim, the person who died with two bullets in his head, is actually the heavy in the Newsweek article. His killer, McInerney, who is undoubtedly the secondary victim in this tragic chain of events, is portrayed as confused and understandably violent toward this dangerous wild child. LGBT people are portrayed as agenda-driven and manipulative. Teachers, the superintendent, and the school board are treated sympathetically, and Casa Pacifica is essentially written out of the equation, along with the Ventura gay youth group Larry attended.
It is no surprise that Larry had his faults. LGBT hate crime murder victims are as noble and as ordinary as every one else. Even if the “pathology report” given about him was 100% true and accurate, what in any of this rises to the level of murder by two bullets in the back of the head in plain sight of all the youth in the classroom? Nothing. What is going on here is common in the treatment of the murders of LGBT people: discredit the humanity and character of the victim. Make bizarre behavior or drugs or a criminal record the lens through which the murderer is seen. Muffle the moral impact of the crime, downplay the hate crime aspect, and re-victimize the victim. After Satoodeh and his associates got done with Larry King, there was little left to mourn.
The Newsweek journalists and editors behind the “Young, Gay, and Murdered” story framed their article and selected their sources carefully to make a point about the equation of sexual harassment with male feminine-presentation and gender-variance in middle schools. This is not a neutral or objective piece, and it was not ultimately about Larry King at all. It was about changing the subject from a brutal school murder to “the limits of tolerance.”
When major articles invoke an inquiry into “the limits of tolerance” as the reason to publish them, we must ask whose sense of tolerance and which accounts of the range of acceptable expression dominate the story. The “tolerant” mercies of heterosexists are cruel to gay folk. California is stereotypically presented as the liberal incubator of gay rights by the authors of the Newsweek article. No one has paused long enough to ask how many murders and gay bashings lie behind these policies and laws in the Golden State. There have been so many, in fact, these laws were crafted and enacted to protect a vulnerable population from physical harm and a whole catalogue of discrimination. People are still being killed for being gay in the Bay Area, in Sacramento and environs, and in L.A. The report of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs for 2007 showed that one of the most alarming increases in anti-LGBT violence in the country took place in Los Angeles—100% in one year. The point is that limits of tolerance cannot be invoked if there is no place in America where tolerance is a leading virtue. However that may sound, it is true. LGBT people are treated as second-class Americans, and it is somehow permissible in this country for the sexual majority to impose “acceptable limits of tolerance” upon people whose lives they do not understand.
Larry King was a boy whose life is held up to a level of scrutiny his journalistic judges could not withstand themselves. If the “gay activists” are guilty of using Larry as a justification for their purposes, the Newsweek team is no better. The context in which to understand Larry King’s murder is not just the school culture of blue-collar Oxnard. It is the nationwide context of violence against teenage boys who present femininely in a dangerous world of fragile, macho egos. 15-year-old Larry King died brutally in the same two-month period of 2008 during which 18-year-old Adolphus “Beyoncé” Simmons in North Charleston, South Carolina was shot by a teenage assailant as he carried out his trash, and 17-year-old Simmie Williams, Jr. was gunned down by unknown assailants in Fort Lauderdale, Florida while he was wearing a dress.
Setoodeh and his team are irresponsible for a more basic reason than framing their story with too narrow a context. They took their eyes off of the two points of reference essential for telling a true story about what happened that morning in E.O. Green Middle School’s computer class. They took their eyes off of the back of Larry’s head, and off of Brandon’s hand wrapped around his pistol.
Larry King brought a Valentine card to school. Brandon McInerney brought a loaded pistol. After all the whys and wherefores of the case are debated, these are the undisputed facts, and no responsible journalist may ever forget them.
Stephen V. Sprinkle
Director
The Unfinished Lives Project
Read this response by Alex Blaze, or this Box Turtle Bulletin article by Timothy Kincaid, which also question Newsweek’s journalistic approach. For another perspective, read this Bilerico post by Cathy Renna that provides a different opinion about the Newsweek article.
About
If you are a first-time visitor to the Unfinished Lives Project website, we invite you to read A Welcome Message introducing you to our project. We are truly grateful for your visit.
The Unfinished Lives Project website is a place of public discourse which remembers and honors LGBTQ hate crime victims, while also revealing the reality of unseen violence perpetrated against people whose only “offense” is their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender presentation. LGBTQ people in the United States are suffering a slow-rolling decimation of terror and murder all across the country. Every locale and demographic of society are affected: First Nations, Anglo, Black, Latino and Latina, South and Southeast Asian, Transgender, Bisexuals, Gay men, Lesbians, disabled, young, and mature. Homophobia has a long, crooked arm, and it is reaching out to snatch the life away from women and men whose tragic stories are under-reported to begin with, and whose memories are swiftly forgotten.
The horror of these killings transcends the shock and bereavement of loved ones and friends. These are not typical homicides; they are not killings for money or drugs, incidents of domestic strife, or crimes of passion. The vicious nature of hate crimes against LGBTQ persons is extremely brutal, grotesquely violent, and egregiously hateful.
Each murder serves the LGBTQ population as a sobering warning about the actual level of danger in our communities. The message these killings send is that freedom and open life for LGBTQ people is a cruel dream. Every time we remember one of these victims, however, the intentions of their killers are frustrated. To remember these women and men is to begin the process of changing the culture that killed them.
Our Project Director
Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle (Keith Tew photo).
Stephen V. Sprinkle is Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry, and Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas, a post he has held since 1994. An ordained Baptist minister, he is the first open and out Gay scholar in the history of the Divinity School, and the first open and out LGBTQ person to be tenured there. Read More…
Recent Social Justice Advocacy Activity By Dr. Sprinkle
Summer 2009 – Dr. Sprinkle responded to the Fort Worth Police Department and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Raid on the Rainbow Lounge, Fort Worth’s newest gay bar, on June 28, 2009, the exact 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Dr. Sprinkle was invited to speak at three protest events sponsored by Queer LiberAction of Dallas. Here, he is keynoting the Rainbow Lounge Protest at the Tarrant County Courthouse on July 12, 2009. Read More…
Contact Us
Communicate with the Unfinished Lives project team:
info@unfinishedlivesblog.com
Schedule a Presentation
Dr. Sprinkle will gladly present his acclaimed presentation to your organization. To arrange an Unfinished Lives presentation for your organization or group, please contact us.
Dr. Sprinkle has given his Unfinished Lives presentation to these and other community groups and organizations. Read More…
-
Where are our readers?
Publisher: Steve Sprinkle (Project Director)
Steve Sprinkle
Unfinished Lives: Remembering LGBT Hate Crime VictimsBrite Divinity School/Texas Christian UniversityFort Worth TXprofessor, minister, author, blogger, LGBTQ advocate
Follow Unfinished Lives on Facebook
Box Turtle Bulletin- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- HRC Back Story
- Know About The Gender Identity Movement
- Why Is There A Need For Human Rights?
- Kinds Of Human Rights
- Human Rights Purposes And Violations
- Human Rights For Every Human Incident
- 8 Reasons Human Rights Are Important
- Everything About Human Rights
- Human Rights Issues Education & Law
- We Need To Stand Up For Our Rights And Those Of Others
- Coca-Cola Receives Perfect Score On Human Rights
- The Advocate: Daily News
- LGBTQ+ pols, horrified by latest killing, say Homeland Security and ICE must be reined in
- Trump administration is potentially sending two gay men to their death by preparing to deport them to Iran
- Federal agents kill another person in Minneapolis
- Military ban on HIV-positive enlistees could set dangerous precedent, experts warn
- How 'don't ask, don't tell' came to be, what it did, and how it ended
- Daily newsletter 1/23
- Florida seeks to expand gender-affirming care ban; could criminalize pharmacists and counselors
- Maryland judge: Trump's DOJ can’t have trans youth hospital records
- JD Vance rages about ‘radical gender ideology’ while white supremacists march along National Mall
- Editor’s Letter: “It’s hard enough being human”
- Dallas Voice: Instant Tea
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
Unfinished Lives 
Hope for 2010: A New Year’s Special Comment
Share this:
December 24, 2009 Posted by unfinishedlives | Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bisexual persons, Colorado, DADT, ENDA, gay men, gay panic defense, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Legislation, Lesbian women, Marriage Equality, Matthew Shepard Act, Media Issues, military, Mistaken as LGBT, New York, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Politics, Popular Culture, religious intolerance, Remembrances, Social Justice Advocacy, Special Comments, trans-panic defense, transgender persons | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bisexual people, Colorado, Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA, gay men, gay panic defense, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Lesbians, Marriage Equality, Media Issues, New York, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Special Comment, trans-panic defense, transgender persons | 3 Comments