Gay, Lesbian, Transgender Murders Skyrocket; Highest Hate Crime Murder Rate Ever Recorded
Burke Burnett, 26, of Paris, Texas narrowly missed being murdered in an October 2011 anti-gay hate crime (Dallas Voice photo). Two of the three persons who assaulted him have received long prison sentences with hate crimes enhancements.
New York, New York – LGBTQH hate crimes murders in 2011 reached the highest number in recorded United States history, according to the annual report of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP). The frightening statistics of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender persons, and HIV-affected persons brutally murdered in homophobic hate crimes was released to the press on May 31. Among the highlights of the disturbing 2011 report:
- The number of murders of LGBTQH people ROSE a full 11 per cent
- 30 murders recorded; the highest number since the NCAVP has kept records
- Transgender women, people of color, and gender variant youth are experiencing the most severe assault of violence against them
- 87 per cent of these murders befell LGBTQH people of color
- This high murder rate is the third year in a row (2009, 2010, and now 2011) that shows hate crimes killings rising
- Youth and Young Adults were 2.41 times more likely to have been physically attacked in bias-related crimes than the general LGBTQH population
- Transgender women comprised 40 per cent of the murder totals, making the second year in a row that Transwomen faced violence in outsized proportions to their numbers in the LGBTQH community
Even though the report shows a 16 per cent decrease in bias-related acts of violence against the LGBTQH community, an encouraging trend, the decrease is overthrown by the alarming jump in hate crimes murders. Detroit, Michigan, for example, showed a major increase in violence against transgender people, prompting Nusrat Ventimiglia of Equality Michigan to note that much of their budget was being consumed in response to the hike in the murder rate in the queer community. Rebecca Waggoner of OutFront Minnesota said that the outrage of youth murders and suicides demands more money and staff on the part of anti-violence programs nationwide to address the epidemic of death among gender variant young people.
Since the Matthew Shepard/James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Obama in October 2009, the incidence of homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic murder has increased year by year, indicating that vigorous prosecution of killers is demanded by the U.S. Justice Department, the FBI, and all branches of state and local law enforcement. NCAVP’s New York City Anti-Violence Co-ordinator, Chai Jindasurat, said to the media: “NCAVP’s findings are a call to policymakers, advocates, and community members that the prevention of violence against LGBTQ and HIV-affected individuals needs to be a priority.” The report includes specific policy changes that may reduce the increasing trend of these murders, including an increase in funding for LGBTQH anti-violence support and prevention, and a concentrated effort to bring an end of the homophobic, transphobic, and biphobic culture that fuels hate violence.
18 states do not currently include sexual orientation in their hate crimes statutes, and 22 states do not include gender identity or gender expression. This lack of state concern for LGBTQH victims of hate crime allows the suspects of anti-gay or anti-transgender acts to believe they can carry out their bias crimes against the queer community with impunity. Even when a state has a hate crimes law on the books, like Texas, the rarity of its use by local law enforcement and district attorneys emboldens homophobic killers to carry out their irrational violence without fearing prosecution.
Gay Martyr for Justice Harvey Milk Celebrated Throughout America
San Francisco, California – Harvey Milk Day, May 22, celebrates the life and legacy of love of Harvey Bernard Milk, born May 22, 1930, and gunned down in his San Francisco City Hall office on November 27, 1978. He was the first openly gay person elected to a major political office in the United States when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. His close associate, gay activist Cleve Jones, says of his friend Harvey, “He fought for gay people, against war and for workers and the poor. He stood with women, immigrants, seniors and youth. He forged coalitions that built power for ordinary men and women and moved us all forward with his humor, compassion and great love for his people.”
In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, Anne Kronenberg, another intimate friend of Harvey’s who managed his successful election campaign to the Board of Supervisors, reflects on Harvey’s legacy of human rights progress in the 33 years since he was assassinated. She writes, “In 1977” (the year of Harvey’s election), “we were taking baby steps in our fight for equal rights. In 2012, we have come a long way as the dialogue on equality is a top-of-mind issue and specific actions are reaching that goal. Harvey Milk’s life and death changed the course of history,” Kronenberg went on to say. “Milk’s legacy, to give people hope for a better tomorrow, is very much alive in the hearts of anyone working to achieve change. Thank you, Harvey!”
In 2010, the State of California officially set aside May 22, the anniversary of Harvey’s birth, to be an annual celebration of his memory, the story of the struggle for LGBTQ rights, and of the continuing effort to make this a better world. His work in education (successfully opposing the infamous Briggs Initiative, also known in California as Prop 6), and in youth empowerment is now being championed by the Harvey B. Milk Foundation, founded by Harvey’s nephew Stuart Milk and his friend Anne Kronenberg. To learn more about Harvey’s life, times, assassination and witness for justice, see the Academy Award winning films The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) and Milk (2009). In book form, the definitive work is still Randy Shilts’s The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (St. Martins Griffin, 2008).
The Unfinished Lives Project Team joins grateful Americans from every walk of life in the celebration of Harvey Milk, hate crimes murder victim, gay rights pioneer, and friend of all marginalized people. Though he died, yet he lives in our hearts and minds, and in the living shrine of liberty made up of the lived experiences of increasing millions of out and proud LGBTQ people. Happy Birthday, Harvey!
Gay Hate Crimes Book Receives National Independent Publishers Award
New York, New York – Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims by Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle has been awarded the national Silver Medal from the Independent Book Awards for outstanding excellence in Gay/Lesbian Non-Fiction. The IPPY Awards, created 16 years ago by the Jenkins Group, honors independently published books throughout the United States. Jim Barnes, Awards Director of the IPPYs for the past 14 years, made the announcement of Dr. Sprinkle’s groundbreaking book on May 2. For Dallas Voice coverage of the award by David Taffet, click here.
Unfinished Lives is Dr. Sprinkle’s labor of love, telling the stories of 14 LGBTQ hate crimes murder victims throughout the U.S., representative of over 13,000 women, men, and youths who have lost their lives to unreasoning hatred since 1980. It took four-and-a-half years to research and write the book. Dr. Sprinkle traveled throughout the country, meeting family members, law enforcement officers, journalists, brokenhearted lovers, and friends who told the stories of their loved ones so that their memories would not be lost. “I set out to change the conversation on hate crimes in this country,” Dr. Sprinkle said, “to put a human face on the outrage of homophobia and transphobia robbing us of so many so brutally.” In regard to the IPPY Award Silver Medal, he said, “I am grateful to the judges and to my publisher, Wipf and Stock–but most of all to the women related to the victims who have become my teachers during the struggle to write this book. These mothers, sisters and aunts became courageous human rights advocates by tragic happenstance. In their names I gratefully accept this award.”
Known as the “Oscars of Independent Publishing,” the IPPY Awards were launched in 1996 as “the first unaffiliated book awards program open exclusively to independents.” Awards Director Barnes says: “Even today, authors choose to publish independently to break free of the rules and constraints of conglomerate publishing, and this rebellious attitude still influences the Awards’ mission today, ‘To reward those who exhibit the courage, innovation, and creativity to bring about change in the world of publishing.’” Over 4,000 titles compete for the honors each year in over 72 categories. Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals are awarded in each category. “As far as we know,” Barnes went on to say, “it’s the largest book awards contest in the world.”
Award winners gather this year on June 4 for the awards ceremony at Providence NYC, in the Midtown West area of New York City, a venue where the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, Jimi Hendrix, and John Lennon recorded their music. The IPPYs are given in conjunction with the mammoth annual BookExpo America convention to insure the greatest exposure possible for award winners.
Unfinished Lives was published in January 2011 by Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers of Eugene, Oregon. Stephen V. Sprinkle is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry at Brite Divinity School, on the campus of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. He also serves as Theologian in Residence of Cathedral of Hope (United Church of Christ) in Dallas, Texas, the largest congregation in the world with a predominant outreach to the LGBTQ community.
Transgender Woman of Color Murdered in Possible Hate Crime
Brandy Martell, 37, transgender woman shot to death in Downtown Oakland.
Oakland, California – As 37-year-old transgender woman Brandy Martell sat behind the wheel of her car early Sunday morning, the men who were talking with her shot her to death. ABC7 reports that two other women in the car with Ms. Martell say the two men who attacked her had approached the car for a conversation. The witnesses told News 7 that the conversation turned angry, and one of the men drew his weapon and shot into the car.
Many in the East Bay progressive community say that the murder was an anti-transgender hate crime. Oakland Occupy Patriarchy, and affiliate of Occupy Oakland, reports that the killer had “become enraged and shot her when he realized she was trans.” A vigil in memory of Ms. Martell was held Sunday night for her grief-stricken friends and the Oakland transgender and transsexual community. SF Weekly reports that one attendee, Holly Fogelbach, expressed the feelings at the vigil in an email message. “This morning,” she wrote, “I can’t shake the pain of what I saw, not for me but for that family and for those friends and for the people who make their living on those corners and will be out there again tonight while Brandi’s [sic] blood is still drying on the pavement.”
Ms. Martell recently worked as an outreach worker for the Tri-City Health Center in Fremont, an agency specializing in assistance to members of the gender variant community. She and her friends were out on the town, having a good time together when the savage attack occurred, according to ABC 7. One of the occupants of the car who declined to be identified because the killer and his accomplice are not yet in custody, strongly refuted any suggestion that Ms. Martell and her friends were “engaged in the sex trade” or were doing anything other than enjoying each other’s company in Downtown Oakland. “Everyone who is out late is not doing something wrong, you know,” she said. Another friend of Ms. Martell, Tiffany Woods, said, “When you don’t provide a space in society for people who you think are the other or different, especially transgender women, especially transgender women of color, when you don’t provide spaces for them to be in a safe environment or a safe space, whether it’s socializing or services, this is what happens.”
Police are not yet investigating this case as a hate crime. No one has been arrested and charged for the shooting as of this writing. Because of the slow pace of mainstream media coverage of this story, many in the transgender community of the East Bay are left feeling “nobody cares.”
Transgender Woman of Color Murdered in Chicago
Paige Clay, transgender woman shot to death in Chicago (Brian Turner photo)
Chicago, Illinois – A young transgender woman of color was found shot in the head in the West Garfield Park area of Chicago. Paige Clay, 23, was found dead in an alley in the early morning hours of April 16, according to the Windy City Times. No one has been arrested in connection with her murder. Police are still actively investigating the brutal shooting.
Members of the Chicago LGBTQ support community and participants in the Chicago Ball scene who knew and loved Ms. Clay identified the body for authorities. Mina Ross, Ms. Clay’s “ball mother” deeply mourns her protegé’s passing. Ms. Ross describes Ms. Clay as “rambunctious,” beautiful, hard to get to know at first, but a strongly loyal friend to those who took the time to get behind Ms. Clay’s self-protective exterior. Ms. Ross told reporters that Ms. Clay was just beginning to find herself. “She grew into a beautiful, beautiful young woman,” Ms. Ross said. “I was so devastated by this [loss] .”
Ms. Clay was becoming a significant presence on the Chicago Ball scene, where her runway work, her innovative sense of style and fashion, and her charismatic persona were winning her friends and winning competitions. She had even begun to win out-of-state competitions, according to Ms. Ross. But she was also targeted by discrimination and violence according to her friends, as are so many transgender women of color in the Windy City and around the nation.
She had grown up in tough circumstances with little family support. At an early age, Ms. Clay had found LGBTQ support services, and was a well-known client for many years. In recent years, she had found steady jobs with McDonald’s and Wendy’s restaurants, as well as Fashion 21. She had managed to secure her own apartment, a matter of considerable pride for her. Most importantly, she had attracted a large queer family of choice, one that is coming to her defense in the press, and clamoring for police action to solve her savage murder. Since few family members remained in touch with Ms. Clay, friends and ball scene associates stepped in to stand vigil over her memory while officials searched for next-of-kin to receive her remains. Funeral arrangements are pending.
The Center on Halsted, where Ms. Clay had become a familiar presence through the years, issued a statement to the press concerning her murder, according to the Examiner. Chief Executive Officer of the Center, Modesto Tico Valle, said, “Though we do not have all the details, this news is extremely disturbing, especially as severe violence against transgender women is all too common. Transgender women face some of the highest rates of violence and abuse in our nation. This is the third reported murder of a transgender woman in the U.S. in April alone. We must work together to create more safety in our world for all people, especially those most targeted.”
A “Justice for Paige” Facebook site has been opened for the express purpose of gathering information on the murder, and to insure that “ANOTHER ONE OF OURS JUST WON’ T BE SWEPT UNDER THE RUG,” as the site creators say.
Soulforce Founders Leaving Virginia; Say It’s No Longer Safe for Gays — A Special Comment
Lynchburg, Virginia – In a wakeup call to gays and their allies, Mel White and Gary Nixon, co-founders of LGBTQ advocacy group Soulforce, are leaving their home in Virginia for California–because they believe the Old Dominion is not safe for LGBTQ people any longer. Rev. Dr. White writes today in the News and Advance: “With a great deal of sadness and a real sense of failure, Gary and I are leaving this beautiful city and the wonderful new friends we’ve made here. We thought that in 10 years our witness would have helped in some small way to change Virginia for the better.” In fact, Dr. White goes on to say, it has gotten dangerously worse. “During our 10 years in Virginia,” he writes, “we’ve watched this great state turn against its gay and lesbian residents. Not only are we denied the rights and protections of marriage, our relationships are no longer safe here even when “protected” by wills or powers of attorney.”
Dr. White and his partner of 30 years, Gary Nixon, embody the heart and soul of advocacy for LGBTQ people in America. After ghostwriting Jerry Falwell’s life story, Dr. White had to acknowledge the extremist homophobia generated by the so-called Moral Majority and the rest of the Religious Right Wing–coming out to the world as a gay man and ordained minister. He and Gary established and led Soulforce to provide a voice countering religion-based bigotry throughout America’s faith communities–one based on the non-violent principles of Gandhi and King. Their advocacy against hate crimes of violence against the LGBTQ community has been legendary, inspiring many gays and lesbians to resist the damnation cynical religious leaders wished on them.
But now this courageous, generous couple have seen things in Virginia cross the line for queer folk. As Dr. White goes on to say in the News and Advance, the long slide toward bigotry took off in 2006 when the citizens of Virginia gave in to hate and wrote anti-gay discrimination into the Virginia state constitution. “Of all the states with constitutional amendments prohibiting marriage equality,” he writes, “Virginia became the most strident and mean-spirited.” Most recently, legislation banning adoption of children by gay and lesbian couples in the Old Dominion passed into law: “When the General Assembly denies lesbians and gays the right to adopt or provide foster care, they are implying that we aren’t capable of being loving and trustworthy parents and even worse that we are a threat to children.”
Hundreds of friends and well-wishers have visited White and Nixon’s home to show their love, appreciation, and support of the work for justice they have done, as WSET-TV Channel 13 reported. Ever gracious, Dr. White said to the gathering, “We’re starting a new chapter of our lives, we don’t know what’s gonna happen next, but we’re gonna be close to the family, we’re gonna be in our favorite church, All Saint’s Episcopal, we’re gonna be by my favorite beach, so we’re gonna let God do the rest.” He and Gary look forward to a new day in Virginia and the nation, when freedom and equality for LGBTQ people can flourish in safety.
Many LGBTQ people leave advocacy to people like Mel White and Gary Nixon. Many live in a bubble of false security. They persist to believe that if some must die or suffer violence and discrimination, it will always befall “the other guy,” and not them. Straight allies of the queer community commit the same error, living in a fantasy that President Obama will surely be re-elected, and radical extremists who are besieging women, racial/ethnic minorities and immigrants will leave the LGBTQ population alone. Nothing could be further from the truth, as White and Nixon’s decision to move back to California fairly shouts out to anyone who will listen.
We at the Unfinished Lives Project wish Mel and Gary well as they go on to the next chapter in their lives. No couple deserves more appreciation for standing tall against anti-gay violence. We can only hope they will find a safer, better place in the Golden State. But to the hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ people who continue to live in Virginia, and to any queer person in a so-called “Red” state (like us in Texas), or in any “Purple” swing state, we say that the job of advocating for non-violence, justice and equality is now yours to do. No more fantasies of safety. No more passing the buck. As White and Nixon warn us, we could lose everything in this political and spiritual climate if we do not step up and join the struggle for ourselves. ~ Rev. Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, founder of the Unfinished Lives Project
Transgender Woman Savagely Murdered in Detroit
East Detroit kill site where trans woman Coko Williams was brutally murdered (Detroit Free Press photo)
Detroit, Michigan – A 35-year-old trans woman was found murdered outside a Parkhurst neighborhood home on Tuesday morning. Because of the reputation of the area, and the stigma associating transgender women with sex workers, the killing of Coko Williams is being lost in the struggle of a neighborhood to survive. Ms. Williams was found with her throat slashed and shot to death around 6:25 a.m. Tuesday in an area of East Detroit habituated by male and female prostitutes–one that could be justifiably described as “gritty.” WWJ, the local CBS affiliate, reports that details are still emerging at this hour, but witnesses told police that the killers sped from the crime scene in a gold-colored vehicle. No suspects have been identified at this time.
News coverage, like that done by Fox News 2, has been slanted toward the determination of Parkhurst residents to eliminate prostitution, drug sales, and violence from their area. Ms. Williams’ murder simply serves Fox as an example of the problems residents face. The Examiner presents Ms. Williams as a “man dressed as a woman,” showing the victim’s self-identification as inconsequential in an otherwise sensational story. Both news sources illustrate the massive difficulty transgender people face overcoming the biased stereotypes that demean trans people everywhere, and denigrate the characters of trans victims of violence, such as Ms. Williams.
Coko Williams was well-known and well-liked, according to the Trans Women’s Anti-Violence Program. A friend of Ms. Williams who identified herself as Dada told TWAVP that she had known Ms. Williams for fifteen years. Though she was “a loner,” Ms. Dada said, “She was really a sweet, quiet girl. She was never shady or nasty. She wasn’t that type of girl at all. She was always respectful of herself and to other people. It’s sad for her to go out the way she did.” Her friends told authorities that supported herself as a hair stylist.
Equality Michigan’s Director of Victim Services, Nursrat Ventimiglia, issued an extensive statement to the press, combatting the disinformation surrounding Ms. Williams’ hate crime murder, and calling upon the Detroit Police to apprehend her killers with all possible speed. “It has been widely reported,” Ventimiglia said, “that the area in which this crime occurred is known for sex work. To be clear, it is unknown at this time whether Ms. Williams was engaged in sex work at the time of her killing, however, it is clear that sex workers are often targets of severe violence. Further, transgender women are far too often victims of the most severe violence.”
Ventimiglia then detailed the crisis of transgender violence rocking Detroit and the nation: “Our most recent report through the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, Hate Violence Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and HIV-Affected Communities in the United States in 2010, documented 27 anti gay, transgender and HIV positive murders, the second highest yearly total ever recorded by the coalition, and transgender women made up 44% of the 27 reported murders in 2010 while representing only 11% of total survivors and victims. Among transgender murder victims, 42% of transgender women killed last year were engaged in sex work at the time of their murder. Equality Michigan and the NCAVP denounce violence against sex workers and seek to raise awareness of the violence faced by gay and transgender sex workers as well as transgender women.”
The investigation is ongoing.
Transgender Woman of Color Slain in D.C.
Deoni Jones, 23, died of a stab wound to the face.
Washington, D.C. The Washington Blade reports that over 200 attended a Tuesday vigil for a slain transgender woman at the bus stop where she died just the week before. Members of the family of the victim, Deoni Jones, appealed to the large crowd to help develop leads for the police, an appeal that appears to have borne fruit.
Ms. Jones, 23, was waiting for a bus at approximately 8:15 p.m. on February 2 when a male stepped forward and stabbed her in the face, a wound the autopsy report says was the fatal blow. The suspect was caught on a surveillance video, and according to breaking news from WJLA.com, Metropolitan Police have arrested 55-year-old Gary Niles Montgomery and charged him as Jones’s alleged murderer. It has not yet been determined whether anti-transgender hate crimes charges will also be filed against Montgomery. He appeared in court for his arraignment on February 11, and is being held without bail. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for February 24.
This horrible attack is the third murder of a transgender woman in Washington, D.C. in a little over a year. The two previous transphobic murders remain unsolved, and the city’s transgender community has called for more comprehensive protection.
Fort Worth’s Brite Divinity School Makes Top 20 List of Most Sexually Healthy and Responsible Seminaries
Fort Worth, Texas – According to the prestigious Religious Institute, Brite Divinity School has won a berth among the Top 20 “Most Sexually Healthy and Responsible Seminaries” in the United States. Brite, a non-sectarian progressive divinity school on the campus of Texas Christian University, is the only institution of theological higher education in the Southwestern United States to make the cut by fulfilling the criteria set out by the Religious Institute, a multi-faith organization dedicated to sexual health, education and justice, based in Westport, Connecticut. The rest of the Top 20 honorees are located in the North, on the Eastern Seaboard, and in California. For the full list, click here.
This achievement puts Brite and the other 19 seminaries and divinity schools in the front ranks of addressing sexuality issues in the formation of religious professionals, according to the Religious Institute’s website. Rev. Debra W. Haffner, Executive Director of the Religious Institute, said that the seminary list represents hard work and commitment on the part of each school in partnership with the Institute. Though seminary education in the past offered virtually no help or instruction to prospective religious professionals in sexuality and sexual diversity, the landscape has changed in less than two years. Haffner said, “These twenty seminaries are the vanguard in ensuring that tomorrow’s clergy are prepared to minister to their congregants, and to be effective advocates for sexual health and justice.”
Brite was cited for instituting “a full-semester course on sexuality and pastoral care issues; has revised their community inclusion statement to be inclusive of sex, gender identity, and orientation; and requires all field education supervisors, students, and lay committees to address sexuality-related training needs.” In addition, the Fort Worth school has created a model for seminary-wide dialogue with Christian denominations on the ordination and authorization of LGBTQ people for religious leadership.
The Carpenter Initiative on Gender, Sexuality and Justice was inaugurated at Brite in October 2011, and named openly lesbian Rev. Dr. Joretta Marshall as its first director. A grant of $250,000 over five years will advance teaching, dialogue and programming on sexuality and diversity. Speaking at the Inaugural Service on October 4, Dr. Marshall, Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Counseling at Brite, said to a packed chapel, “For justice work to be carefully done, we must listen most clearly and closely to those whose very souls are at risk by the spirit of hate and rejection they experience in their churches.” Dr. Marshall said that matters of sexuality and justice at Brite flow from “the recognition that God loves all people.” She went on to say, “Being disruptive agents on behalf of justice requires support, both individual and collective, and the Carpenter Foundation and Brite are reminders that institutions can shape change.”
Rev. Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, an openly gay member of Brite’s faculty, is the 18-year Director of the Field Education and Supervised Ministry program that teaches practical ministry to all Master of Divinity (MDiv) and Master of Arts in Christian Service (MACS) students on the Fort Worth campus. Reflecting on this milestone in sexuality education and ministry, Dr. Sprinkle said, “While much more remains to be done in the areas of diversity and sexual justice at Brite, this honor gives us a moment to pause and thankfully remember the courageous LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff, who worked so hard for equality and sexual wholeness in what many would consider a difficult part of the country.”
“Brite stands in sharp contrast to the world’s largest Southern Baptist seminary, just down the street from us, where reparative therapy for homosexuality is still thought to be appropriately Christian,” continued Sprinkle, who founded and directs the Unfinished Lives Project to combat anti-LGBTQ hate crimes. “Given the unique way Bible, church, and theology have been misused in American religion to justify anti-gay discrimination and physical violence, the work of all these top seminaries to break the link between religious-based sexual bigotry and faith leadership is one of the most important things they do.”
About
If you are a first-time visitor to the Unfinished Lives Project website, we invite you to read A Welcome Message introducing you to our project. We are truly grateful for your visit.
The Unfinished Lives Project website is a place of public discourse which remembers and honors LGBTQ hate crime victims, while also revealing the reality of unseen violence perpetrated against people whose only “offense” is their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender presentation. LGBTQ people in the United States are suffering a slow-rolling decimation of terror and murder all across the country. Every locale and demographic of society are affected: First Nations, Anglo, Black, Latino and Latina, South and Southeast Asian, Transgender, Bisexuals, Gay men, Lesbians, disabled, young, and mature. Homophobia has a long, crooked arm, and it is reaching out to snatch the life away from women and men whose tragic stories are under-reported to begin with, and whose memories are swiftly forgotten.
The horror of these killings transcends the shock and bereavement of loved ones and friends. These are not typical homicides; they are not killings for money or drugs, incidents of domestic strife, or crimes of passion. The vicious nature of hate crimes against LGBTQ persons is extremely brutal, grotesquely violent, and egregiously hateful.
Each murder serves the LGBTQ population as a sobering warning about the actual level of danger in our communities. The message these killings send is that freedom and open life for LGBTQ people is a cruel dream. Every time we remember one of these victims, however, the intentions of their killers are frustrated. To remember these women and men is to begin the process of changing the culture that killed them.
Our Project Director
Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle (Keith Tew photo).
Stephen V. Sprinkle is Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry, and Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas, a post he has held since 1994. An ordained Baptist minister, he is the first open and out Gay scholar in the history of the Divinity School, and the first open and out LGBTQ person to be tenured there. Read More…
Recent Social Justice Advocacy Activity By Dr. Sprinkle
Summer 2009 – Dr. Sprinkle responded to the Fort Worth Police Department and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Raid on the Rainbow Lounge, Fort Worth’s newest gay bar, on June 28, 2009, the exact 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Dr. Sprinkle was invited to speak at three protest events sponsored by Queer LiberAction of Dallas. Here, he is keynoting the Rainbow Lounge Protest at the Tarrant County Courthouse on July 12, 2009. Read More…
Contact Us
Communicate with the Unfinished Lives project team:
info@unfinishedlivesblog.com
Schedule a Presentation
Dr. Sprinkle will gladly present his acclaimed presentation to your organization. To arrange an Unfinished Lives presentation for your organization or group, please contact us.
Dr. Sprinkle has given his Unfinished Lives presentation to these and other community groups and organizations. Read More…
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Publisher: Steve Sprinkle (Project Director)
Steve Sprinkle
Unfinished Lives: Remembering LGBT Hate Crime VictimsBrite Divinity School/Texas Christian UniversityFort Worth TXprofessor, minister, author, blogger, LGBTQ advocate
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Unfinished Lives 
The Outrage of Pulpit Homophobia: A Special Comment By a Baptist
Sean Harris (l), caught in the act of pulpit bullying.
Fayetteville, North Carolina – Pastor Sean Harris did not make news around the blogosphere because he preaches against gay people. He should have, of course, and been opposed for it. But homophobic messages from American pulpits are given passes every Sunday of the world. Because he got caught fanning the flames of homophobic bullying against children, however, he has become an infamous example of what can no longer be tolerated in any pulpit anywhere. In a sermon at Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, home to Fort Bragg, Pastor Harris shouted that any “limp-wristed” boy acting like a girl should be punished with physical violence. His wrist should be “cracked” and he should receive the blows of his father’s fists, the preacher said with great enthusiasm. Girls were not left out of his sights, either. Pastor Harris went on the say that girls could “play sports,” but they were supposed to conform to his notions of what a girl looked like, dressed like, acted like, and “smelled like.”
“Smelled like”? Pastor Harris’s sermon does not pass the “smell test.” Love of God and neighbor are apparently foreign to him, and the shouts of affirmation he received as he preached his homophobic message had nothing to do with the Good News. His message of harsh punishment smells like something dying, not something being born again. Sadly, there are too many like him in the pulpits of this nation, so-called men of God who give God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit a bad name.
It doesn’t take a theologian to know what Pastor Harris is up to. He is trying to say that God hates gay people, even those in the larval stage. He is a strong supporter of North Carolina’s proposed anti-difference amendment to the state constitution, Amendment One, which will be voted on shortly in the Old North State. Same-sex marriage is already illegal in North Carolina, but pulpit politicians like Harris want to inscribe discrimination in the constitution of the only southern state in the country that has had the good sense not to do so yet. So, Pastor Harris feels free to advocate violence against children who are stereotypically suspected of being gay.
Pastor Harris is abusing his pulpit in the name of a homophobia embedded within him, and which he reads back into scripture and Christian faith–a practice that is controversial at the very least, and has been repeatedly shown to be false by ministers, scripture scholars, and church leaders for decades. It is the oldest ministerial slight-of-hand in the Christian faith: find an outcast group it seems safe to demean, then proof text a Bible verse to support your bias (but be sure to wash your hands of the violence your words inspire and the attacks people you instigate carry out!). Jews, Blacks, women, and now gay people and their supporters in North Carolina know all about it. And it is no longer tolerable or acceptable for other Christians to put up with silently any longer. Where is the outcry from clergy? From church members who know better? Where is the demand that religion based bigotry must stop? Where are the voices of school administrators, teachers, and school board members who know full well that attitudes and advocacy like Harris’s lead to children being bullied to death in classrooms and school playgrounds?
Pastor Harris now says he wants to “retract” his advice about parental violence against their children. But he defiantly affirms that he still hates sinners like gay people, calling them “abominations,” homophobic biblicism’s shorthand for the worst curse imaginable. I would hope he changes his mind and heart about his fellow human beings, the ones God loves just as much as God loves his Berean Baptist flock. But I am not holding my breath until he does. I have worked educating ministerial students, speaking on panels in schools and universities, and writing on the role religion based homophobia plays in hate crimes for decades, and these two things I have learned about “true believers” like this pulpit abuser: You cannot take out of a person by rationality what rationality did not put into him. Neither can appeals to humanity change a heart of stone.
Though I suspect he would argue with me until Judgement Day, I know that every child is precious in the sight of God–even those who will one day identify as gay, lesbian, transgender, or something else. God doesn’t make junk. And, contrary to the homophobia he was taught somewhere and seems to have swallowed whole, being gay, just like being straight, is a gift from God, too.
One other thing is sure: what Pastor Harris is preaching about the gender identity and expression of children did not come from God.
Here is a scripture that came to me while I was listening to Pastor Harris’s diatribe in the guise of a sermon: John 11:35 – “Jesus wept.” ~ Rev. Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, Baptist minister and professor of Practical Theology in Fort Worth, Texas
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May 2, 2012 Posted by unfinishedlives | Amendment One, Bullycide, Bullying in schools, gay bashing, gender identity/expression, Gender Variant Youth, Hate Crimes, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, Homosexuality and the Bible, Internalized homophobia, LGBT teen suicide prevention, North Carolina, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Special Comments, transgender persons, transphobia | Amendment One, Bullying in schools, gay bashing, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Homosexuality and the Bible, LGBTQ teen suicide, North Carolina, Special Comment, transgender persons, transphobia | 1 Comment