Gay Teen’s Murder Inspired Federal Student Non-Discrimination Act
Seattle students celebrate Pride, photo by jglsongs
Washington, DC – The execution-style murder of a 15-year-old gay boy inspired an openly gay Congressman to author the Student Non-Discrimination Act. Lawrence “Larry” Fobes King was shot twice in the back of the head two years ago by a fellow computer class student, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney at E.O. Green Middle School in Oxnard, California. Now, even before McInerney stands trial for murdering his gender non-conforming classmate, Congress will consider the proposed law which for the first time would make it unlawful throughout the country for a any school receiving federal aid to discriminate against a person because of a perception that the individual is gay or lesbian. As VCStar.com reports, “Under the proposed law, known as the Student Non-Discrimination Act, gay and lesbian students in public schools could not be excluded from participating in or be subject to discrimination under any educational program that receives federal assistance. Discrimination would include harassment, which is defined as acts of ‘verbal, nonverbal or physical aggression,’ as well as intimidation or hostility based upon a student’s actual or perceived sexual orientation.” Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colorado), the author and primary sponsor of the bill said that King’s death was foremost in his mind as he framed this legislation and promoted it among his colleagues. “I absolutely had Larry King in mind and other kids like him,” he told reporters. In an interview with DCAgenda.com, Polis said the legislation would give schools across the country tools to fight against discrimination that includes “everything from exclusion from prom, to banning clubs, to lack of actions addressing bullying situations.” Polis continued, “Gays and lesbians across the country face discrimination and frequently institutionalized discrimination in many school districts, and giving them a federal remedy, just as girls do and minorities, will help address this.” The bill, H.R. 4530, has good support in Congress, with 65 co-sponsors including Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts). Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) is reviewing the legislation which Polis introduced in late January 2010. Nine out of ten LGBT students in middle and secondary schools throughout the nation report that they have been harassed because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, and 61 per cent of them say they feel unsafe in their schools because of attitudes about their sexuality, according to GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. According to his school friends, Larry King suffered repeated harassment because of his feminine self-presentation. He sometimes wore jewelry and dressed in high heels and feminine apparel. Students have confirmed that he had tense exchanges with McInerney in the weeks before the fatal shooting. Rep. Lois Capps (D-California), one of the bill’s co-sponsors and the Congresswoman representing Oxnard where King was murdered, told the VC Star, “Larry’s murder was particularly painful because it happened at his school, a place that should have been a sacred space where he could grow and learn in a safe and supportive environment.” School officials in Oxnard contend they did nothing wrong, so the proposed law would not affect them. Their critics, among them LGBT activists in Southern California, counter that nothing substantive has been done to address the underlying hatred that permitted one of their students to act out his phobia on another, to the point of murder. McInerney, who is to be tried as an adult because of indications of pre-meditation of the crime, has pleaded not guilty to murder and hate crimes charges in the case.
Anti-Transgender Violence Hot Topic for LGBT Community
New York City – The Associate Press reports that a major anti-transgender violence forum slated for October 7 will address the rising incidence of attacks against transgender New Yorkers. Brooklyn Law School is hosting the forum,which will be attended by the family of Lateisha Green, transwoman of color, who was murdered in Syracuse last year. Her convicted killer, Dwight DeLee, was convicted of manslaughter in her shooting death three months ago. The conviction was the first under New York State’s hate crimes law, sending a message to perpetrators of violence against transgender people that transphobic attacks will no longer be tolerated in the Empire State. The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, organizers of the Brooklyn forum, point out that transgender people face increasing degrees of “pervasive discrimination, harassment and violence.” Statistics gathered by transgender advocacy groups note that 12% of all violent attacks against LGBT people in 2008 were perpetrated against transgender people. As Joseph Erbentraut, Great Lakes Regional Editor for EDGE reported earlier this week, Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals are complicit in these crimes of violence because of prejudices they hold against gender non-conforming people. Activists agree that lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals are hardly immune from the prejudice vented against transpeople by the society. Each group too easily absolutizes the gender presentation they are familiar and comfortable with. Jokes and slurs aimed by LGB people against transgender people, calling them “trannies” or “drag queens” differ little from the epithets cast at them by straight haters. While actual instances of anti-trans violence by LGB people are rare, the bias is symptomatic of a tragic lack of awareness that all prejudice against members of the sexual minority is interconnected. The Lateisha Green case, however, is a source of hope in New York. While the conviction of DeLee was based on anti-gay epithets he used while murdering Green rather than transphobic ones, the severity of the first-degree manslaughter sentence woke the Empire State legal community up, and began a movement to add transphobic language to the hate crimes penal code as well as homophobic speech. The precedent-setting case sends a message that attacks against transgender New Yorkers will no longer be tolerated. Erbentraut reports that all sources he contacted agreed that the most effective way to blunt anti-transgender violence would be the swift passage of comprehensive hate crimes protections and employment security legislation at the federal level, such as the Matthew Shepard Act, now in the House-Senate conference process, and the recently introduced Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
Protest Calls for Passage of NC Hate Crimes Protections for LGBT Tarheels
New Hanover County, NC – In the wake of a violent attack on two gay men in Wilmington, NC in July, protestors gathered Thursday to repeat their call for the passage of hate crimes protection for LGBT North Carolinians. Chaz Housand and Chet Saunders were beaten outside a popular bar on Front Street in Wilmington after celebrating their graduations. Three suspects are charged with the attack, which witnesses say was accompanied by virulent anti-gay slurs as the two men were beaten senseless and left on the sidewalk. Both sustained considerable injuries, and investigators on the scene suggested that more serious harm might have been done had witnesses not intruded on the attackers. Tab Ballis, an independent documentary film maker and local human rights leader told WWAY News, “In downtown there is a lot of general violence, but this violence by three assailants was directed towards these two men because of the perception that they were gay.” Protestors point out that North Carolina is one of sixteen states that does not protect LGBT people against hate crimes, and they want the State Legislature to pass a statute criminalizing anti-LGBT bias crimes in the Tarheel State. Assistant District Attorney James Blanton told WWAY News that though North Carolina does have laws protecting people from attacks against them because of race, religion, or country of origin, “Sexual orientation is not one of the protected classes. If someone commits a misdemeanor assault based on the fact that the victim has a different sexual orientation that they’re not satisfied with, it would not bump it up to a felony.” The Safer Communities Act, North Carolina State House Bill 207, would provide protection based on victims’ sexual orientation, as well as for gender and disability. Human rights advocates are concerned that the three alleged attackers will not face appropriate punishment for their actions because the statute is not yet law in North Carolina. Ballis went on to say, “Hate crimes are based on fear, ignorance, and misunderstanding. And I think we all believe that folks that pay taxes deserve to be safe in their own community.”
Clergy Call for Passage of Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act on Capitol Hill
Unfinished Lives Project Director, Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, delivers the Opening Prayer at Clergy Call 2009
More than 300 LGBT Clergy and Allies hit Capitol Hill to pray and lobby for the passage of the Matthew Shepard Act and a fully trans-inclusive Employment Non-Descrimination Act. A new breeze seemed to be blowing in the halls of government. The Human Rights Campaign Religion and Faith Program, directed by Harry Knox and Sharon Groves, coordinated three days of events, May 4-6, 2009. Among the speakers for the Press Conference were Dr. Tony Campolo, noted evangelical leader, and Dr. Jo Hudson, Rector and Senior Pastor of Cathedral of Hope in Dallas. Clergy from all 50 states attended. The Matthew Shepard Act awaits the action of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and chief sponsor Senator Ted Kennedy in order to bring the legislation (which has already passed the House of Representatives by a healthy margin) to the floor of the Senate. President Obama has publicly indicated that he would sign the bill into law when it reaches his desk. Federal Hate Crimes legislation was first introduced in Congress 17 years ago. So much has happened since, and so many have needlessly died. With the Hebrew Prophets, the ministers, rabbis, and priests meeting for Clergy Call 2009 cry out, “How long, O Lord?”
The gathering of large contingents of LGBT Clergy and Allies to lobby for passage of fully inclusive hate crimes federal legislation, first in 2007 and now, has done much to persuade fence-sitting members of Congress that the radical right does not own the religious vote on this issue.
About
If you are a first-time visitor to the Unfinished Lives Project website, we invite you to read A Welcome Message introducing you to our project. We are truly grateful for your visit.
The Unfinished Lives Project website is a place of public discourse which remembers and honors LGBTQ hate crime victims, while also revealing the reality of unseen violence perpetrated against people whose only “offense” is their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender presentation. LGBTQ people in the United States are suffering a slow-rolling decimation of terror and murder all across the country. Every locale and demographic of society are affected: First Nations, Anglo, Black, Latino and Latina, South and Southeast Asian, Transgender, Bisexuals, Gay men, Lesbians, disabled, young, and mature. Homophobia has a long, crooked arm, and it is reaching out to snatch the life away from women and men whose tragic stories are under-reported to begin with, and whose memories are swiftly forgotten.
The horror of these killings transcends the shock and bereavement of loved ones and friends. These are not typical homicides; they are not killings for money or drugs, incidents of domestic strife, or crimes of passion. The vicious nature of hate crimes against LGBTQ persons is extremely brutal, grotesquely violent, and egregiously hateful.
Each murder serves the LGBTQ population as a sobering warning about the actual level of danger in our communities. The message these killings send is that freedom and open life for LGBTQ people is a cruel dream. Every time we remember one of these victims, however, the intentions of their killers are frustrated. To remember these women and men is to begin the process of changing the culture that killed them.
Our Project Director
Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle (Keith Tew photo).
Stephen V. Sprinkle is Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry, and Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas, a post he has held since 1994. An ordained Baptist minister, he is the first open and out Gay scholar in the history of the Divinity School, and the first open and out LGBTQ person to be tenured there. Read More…
Recent Social Justice Advocacy Activity By Dr. Sprinkle
Summer 2009 – Dr. Sprinkle responded to the Fort Worth Police Department and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Raid on the Rainbow Lounge, Fort Worth’s newest gay bar, on June 28, 2009, the exact 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Dr. Sprinkle was invited to speak at three protest events sponsored by Queer LiberAction of Dallas. Here, he is keynoting the Rainbow Lounge Protest at the Tarrant County Courthouse on July 12, 2009. Read More…
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Dr. Sprinkle has given his Unfinished Lives presentation to these and other community groups and organizations. Read More…
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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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