This Holy Season . . .
The Unfinished Lives Project Team wishes you and all your Beloved a safe, joyous, fulfilling Passover and Eastertide! With prayers for a better, more just world, we remain your Friends.
“Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” ~ Robert Francis Kennedy
Observe World AIDS Day!
34 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS. Reach out, honor, help to halt this dreaded global epidemic. Join the Unfinished Lives Project Team, and o
bserve World AIDS Day today, December 1!
Happy Thanksgiving!
For our homes to yours, a wish for a blessed Thanksgiving season from the Unfinished Lives Project Team!
Honoring LGBTQ Veterans 2011
For Veterans Day 2011: The grave of Leonard P. Matlovich, Technical Sergeant, United States Air Force (July 6, 1943 – June 22, 1988).
“When I was in the Military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”– Leonard Matlovich 1975
We must not forget at what price LGB service members can now wear the uniform openly. And, we dare not ignore the grave injustice to Transgender Americans who still cannot.
Happy New Year 2011 From the Unfinished Lives Project Team!
May 2011 bring a renewed sense of courage, hope, and commitment on all our parts as we remember all LGBTQ folk who have lost their lives to injustice. And may our commitment translate into determination to see an end to hate crimes, not only for LGBTQ people, but for all people everywhere. As Elie Wiesel said when he received the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of human rights: “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” May you and yours find joy and strength in the coming year, and thank you most sincerely for your support of the work of Unfinished Lives!
Breaking News: Senate Passes Key Procedural Vote Allowing for Repeal of DADT
Washington, DC – By a vote of 63-33, the U.S. Senate has voted to close debate on the Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Democrats were joined by four GOP Senators in the vote. One Democrat, Senator Manchin of West Virginia, who is opposed to the repeal, sat the vote out. Overcoming the procedural opposition to Repeal clears the way for final passage of Repeal by a simple majority (51), a vote that may occur as early as today. An identical bill for repeal was passed earlier in the week by the U.S. House of Representatives. Presuming passage of the Repeal Act in the Senate, the bill will go on to the desk of President Obama who has vowed to sign it into law. In the 17 years since Congress voted DADT into law (the most discriminatory law in the federal canon), 13,500 service men and women have been drummed out of the armed forces for being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
Out Impact Magazine Features Hate Crimes Work of Unfinished Lives Project
Sprinkle at Cathedral of Hope, Dallas (Barb Nunn photo)
Out Impact, the Gay Online Magazine, has a feature news article on the work of the Unfinished Lives Project and its Director, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, in its latest issue. Chrishelle Griffin, a graduate of Spelman College, carried out the interview with Dr. Sprinkle for Out Impact. In a portion of the Q & A, Griffin asked Dr. Sprinkle what he believes are the most glaring misconceptions about hate crimes against LGBTQ people. “Let me share two with you,” Sprinkle responded.. “The first is that LGBTQ hate crimes victims were engaging in ‘risky’ behaviors that contributed to their deaths. This is nothing but an internalized version of the old ‘gay panic defense’ that says we are somehow responsible for the victimization we suffer. I never met a gay hate crimes survivor who had a death wish,” Sprinkle said. “These women and men were simply trying to live what is normal for them. They were looking for love, seeking companionship, or whatever. Straight people do the same sorts of things all the time. We, however, live in a culture that makes our lives vulnerable—all of our lives, for every one of us. That is the message most of us never seem to get. As long as the majority culture permits some of us to be killed and maimed, every one of us is at risk.” Sprinkle then shared a further misconception that he wishes would be dispelled from the American mind: “Second,” Sprinkle went on to say, “the murders of LGBTQ people are not ‘tragedies.’ There is nothing tragic about murder. It is an outrage, a capital crime, an attack on the whole human race and the persons of the victims who are targeted, but not a ‘tragedy.’ People don’t get worked up over tragedies. They experience a catharsis from a tragedy, and then move on. Hate crime murder is a human horror perpetrated against some members of a group to terrorize the whole group. We must find our anger about this, so that we will act to stop these senseless hate crimes.” In response to Out Impact’s question, “Who pushes you to be better?” Sprinkle said, “Two groups of people motivate me to be better. The first group is made up of my students. I teach theology at Brite Divinity School, and the wonderful interaction I have with students continually pushes me to be better. The second group of people is made up of the family, friends, and lovers of the LGBTQ hate crimes victims I have met around the nation. Mothers, sisters, dads, children, co-workers, neighbors, broken hearted lovers: many of them have become “accidental activists,” shoved by circumstance into the glaring light of public advocacy because of the unspeakable horror they endured when hate took away someone dear to them. These are great Americans, and the notion of their courage keeps me going.” For the complete interview and a series of photographs illustrating the work of the project, go to: http://www.outimpact.com/activism/gay-rights/hate-crimes/steve-sprinkle-tackling-hate-crimes-lgbtq-community.
Lincoln Man Charged with Anti-Gay Hate Crime
Alleged gay basher, Luke Stevens
Lincoln, Nebraska – A 22-year-old University of Nebraska – Lincoln student has been arrested and charged for assaulting a gay man outside a popular gay club on Friday, September 3. Luke Stevens allegedly harassed a 32-year-old gay man after leaving Lincoln’s Club Q, calling him “derogatory names” concerning his sexual orientation intended to start a fight, according to 1011now. As the target of the abuse tried to leave his antagonist, Stevens allegedly punched him in the face, and moved in to continue the fight. A police officer on the scene was drawn to the noise of the altercation, saw the punch thrown, and wrestled Stevens to the ground. The victim of the assault remains unidentified to the press. He was treated on the scene and released to return home. “The victim and several witnesses reported that Luke Stevens did not know them,” Officer Katie Flood, spokesperson for the LPD, told reporters. “He started calling them derogatory names based on their sexual orientation.” Stevens was charged with assault, disturbing the peace, and failure to comply. Because Nebraska has hate crimes legislation on the books, Stevens may be charged with bias crime, which would make his situation much more grave. If proven guilty of a hate crime, the enhancement would hike the misdemeanor assault charge to a felony. The Journal Star reports that the Nebraska hate crimes statute covers offenses carried out due to the victim’s “race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, or disability.” Travis Garrett, 19, a friend of Stevens, was also charged with disturbing the peace. Stevens and Garrett were in Club Q together earlier in the evening, as well as Stevens’s victim. Witnesses and friends of the accused UNL student say that he is straight. That evening he was extremely upset at having been turned down by a girl. The contrast between the response of authorities in Lincoln and a similar anti-gay assault in Greenville, South Carolina three years earlier could not be starker. Both involved punches thrown at a gay man after verbal anti-gay harassment outside a bar. But in the case of Sean William Kennedy, 21, who was hit in the face outside Croc’s Bar in Greenville, an upstate South Carolina college town, both the outcome and the legal repercussions were outrageous. As Unfinished Lives has reported, Kennedy was hit by Steven Moller, an 18-year-old straight man spoiling for a fight with a gay person, in May 2007. Kennedy fell to the curb, hit his head on the concrete, and died. Moller was arrested and charged with manslaughter, since the Palmetto State did not have an anti-gay hate crimes law (and still resists passage of such legislation). While Nebraska police and prosecutors stand ready to investigate the assault in Lincoln as a hate crime, South Carolina officials refused to do so in the Kennedy case, giving Moller (who admitted attacking his victim) every benefit of the doubt. In the end, with time served, Moller received less of a sentence for killing Sean Kennedy than if he had been found guilty of killing a dog. For more up-to-date information on Sean Kennedy, see Sean’s Last Wish. We at Unfinished Lives only wish some of the same conscientious law enforcement had been available to the family and friends of young Sean. Moller is now a free man for lack of the will to bring anti-gay attackers to justice. What a difference a hate crimes law makes!
New Yorker Murders Boy Toddler “For Acting Like a Girl”
Pedro Jones, alleged infant killer, heads to court
Shinnecock Indian Reservation, outside Riverside, Long Island – A 20-year-old Southampton man is accused of killing his girlfriend’s toddler on August 1, 2010. Pedro Jones, who was babysitting the 17-month-old tot, allegedly grabbed him by the neck and punched him repeatedly with his closed fist “to toughen him up,” the batterer said, in order to make the child “act like a boy and not a girl.” Roy Antonio Jones III, the victim (no relation to his assailant though they share the same surname), went into cardiac arrest and died as a result of his injuries late on Sunday evening. His mother, Vanessa Jones, had left her child in the care of her boyfriend to visit her cousin for about an hour, according to family sources. Ms. Jones said that she had no knowledge that her lover had ever hit the baby before. Jones has been charged with first-degree manslaughter in the slaying, a charge that carries a maximum of 25 years in prison. He has pled not guilty to the charge, and is being held in Suffolk County Jail without bail. NewsOneOriginal reports that Pedro Jones told police he had never hit the toddler “that hard before.” “A one-time mistake and I am going to do 20 years,” he said. Jones is not a member of the Shinnecock Nation as is the infant’s mother, whom the alleged killer said he intended to marry. Her family hopes that Jones will receive a much harsher sentence than incarceration for 20 years. The grandmother of the dead child confronted Jones who was in custody at Southampton Town Court, and shouted at him, “You killed my grandson! I hope you rot in hell!” On Monday night, August 2, approximately 100 members of the Shinnecock Nation gathered to mourn the killing of the infant. “People expressed the need to come together to love one another, to tighten the gap in our community so this doesn’t happen again,” Ms. Donna Collins-Smith, the great aunt of the victim, said to The Southampton Press. “Basically, we’re trying to come together as a family and do the best we can.” The horror of this killing has shocked many around the nation. Jones was apparently so irrationally irritated by behavior patterns in the tot he believed were effeminate that he took matters into his own hands to beat the girlishness out of him. Because the victim was perceived to be gender-variant, the attack was a sexual hate crime according to many commentators. Michael Rowe wrote for the Huffington Post: “The beating death of 17-month-old Roy Jones was no less a hate crime because the victim was a baby. Whether he would have grown up to be gay, or transgender, or just a gentle, sweet-natured straight boy, was still many years away. More, it was irrelevant.” As the Unfinished Lives Project has reported repeatedly, violent crimes against gender non-conforming people of color, especially young boys of color who present femininely, have reached alarming levels in our country. They are among the most vulnerable members of our society, and are paying a terrible price for the irrational hatred of men (and some women!) who feel they must use violence to enforce heterosexist male stereotypes. Baby Roy will never have a chance to show the world who he was becoming. Instead of making him socially acceptable in a hyper-masculine world, the man who said he loved the child, “loved” him to death.
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
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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 
Urine Attack at Harvard a Hoax? Piss Off!
Judge Judy says, "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining!"
Cambridge, Massachusetts – A Harvard dean is now claiming that the reported dousing of LGBT books in the Harvard University Lamont Library was an “accident” done by library staff who happened to have a bottle of urine in the stacks right where the LGBT and same-sex marriage books were shelved. The Advocate is covering the story for the LGBT press, and carried the “explanation” of the dean, Evelyn Hammonds. Dean Hammonds, who had initially reported the serious nature of the situation, and stressed to the Harvard Crimson that the university takes anti-gay expressions with the utmost gravity, now says that an investigation has uncovered that a library worker (unnamed) discovered a bottle of what appeared to be urine on the shelf, and spilled it on the books accidentally. Officials are at pains to repeat that this was not a hate crime. Harvard’s Marco Chan, co-chair of the campus Queer Students and Allies, has asked what is in our opinion the crucial question: what was a bottle of pee doing in the Lamont Library anyway? To that question, we pose another: why did it take officials two weeks to determine that the staining of better than thirty books with urine, worth thousands of dollars, was simply an accident? Further, how was it that the bottle of urine was strategically placed in the LGBT and same-sex marriage section of the library, when there were so many other places it could have been? Will the dean and the university authorities now claim that the location of the spillage was all an unfortunate coincidence? And, further than that, what sort of shenanigans were going on with a bottle of pee that got it dumped on library shelves to begin with? Who was the responsible party? Has someone come forward, and what have they told investigators that has made them “about face” on the hate crimes investigation after two whole weeks? While admittedly the truth is often stranger than fiction, the details of this “accident” or hate crime have not been told in such a way as to make the claim of accidental urine spillage in the Lamont Library credible. Harvard University has, like all bastions of higher education in the United States, a long history of heterosexism and homophobia, even persecution of gays and lesbians on campus, as books such as Harvard’s Secret Court by William Wright (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2006) and The Crimson Letter: Harvard, Homosexuality, and the Shaping of American Culture by Douglass Shand-Tucci (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2004) have shown. Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes has related the oppression of gay and lesbian students on campus at Harvard in more recent years in his gripping account of his own public coming out story in his best-seller The Good Book (HarperOne, 2002). The current presence of bias-driven anti-LGBTQ elements on the Ivy League campus is clear to the Harvard University administration, and in covenant with their present student body, and given their culture-setting status in this country, it seems to us that more is owed to the American public and to the LGBTQ community than a lame claim that vandalizing queer books in an historic library was no more than an unfortunate accident. As television personality Judge Judy Sheindlin says to incredible witnesses in her courtroom, “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining!” It is past time for Harvard officials to quit pissing around and tell the truth about this crime.
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December 14, 2010 Posted by unfinishedlives | Anti-LGBT hate crime, book desecration, Harvard University, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Massachusetts, Social Justice Advocacy, Special Comments, Uncategorized, Unsolved LGBT Crimes, vandalism | Anti-LGBT hate crime, book desecration, Harvard University, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Massachusetts, Social Justice Advocacy, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes | 1 Comment