Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Daniel Radcliffe, Star of Harry Potter, Makes Major Donation to LGBT Youth Suicide Prevention

Daniel-Radcliffe.The Dallas Voice reports that Harry Potter star, Daniel Radcliffe, has made a major donation to the Trevor Project for the prevention of LGBT youth suicide.  The Trevor Project is the leading national organization focused on crisis and suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, and operates the only accredited, nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for queer youth in the nation, the Trevor Helpline.  With teen suicide attempts among LGBT teens occurring four times as often as among their straight peer as a result of bullying and harassment in schools according the 2006 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey, the need to staunch this flood of hate-related suffering has never been greater.  LGBTQ youth suicide is the hidden face of anti-LGBT hate crimes in America.  Radcliffe made this personal statement through his press release: “I am very pleased to begin my support of The Trevor Project, which saves lives every day through its critical work… I deeply hope my support can raise the organization’s visibility so even more despondent youth become aware of The Trevor Helpline’s highly trained counselors and Trevor’s many other resources. It’s vitally important that young people understand they are not alone and, perhaps even more important, that their young lives have real value.”  The young, charismatic Radcliffe joins other celebrities in support of the Trevor Project, Jodi Foster, Sasha Baron Cohen, and Anne Hathaway.  No dollar amount of the gift has been released to the public, but the suggestion is that it is a large donation, and may spur other celebrities to follow suit.

August 10, 2009 Posted by | Bullying in schools, harassment, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ suicide, suicide | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

15-Year-Old McInerney Will Be Tried as an Adult for the Murder of Larry King

Brandon McInerney, left, and Larry King, right

Brandon McInerney, left, and Larry King, right

Ventura County, CA – A judge reviewing the evidence against Brandon McInerney, 15, has ruled today that he will be tried “under special circumstances”  as an adult in the February 2008 shooting death of his 15-year-old gay classmate, Larry King, at a middle school in Oxnard, CA.  McInerney’s attorney has consistently argued that his client, 14 at the time of the shooting, should be tried as a juvenile rather than an adult.  But Judge Ken Riley ruled otherwise, on the basis of testimony in the three-day preliminary hearing that McInerney had threatened King’s life, and that on the morning of the shooting, he chose not to confront King on the playground or in the corridor before school, but “lay in wait” for 15 or 20 minutes inside the 8:30 am computer class he shared with his alleged victim before pulling the trigger, killing him in cold blood in front of their classmates.  The “executory nature” of the murder convinced Judge Riley to remand McInerney for trial as an adult, according to the Ventura County Star.  If convicted of all counts against him, McInerney could serve 53 years to life in prison.  The defendant’s mother, Kendra McInerney, broke out in tears as the judge issued his ruling.  The defense is expected to continue raising the “gay panic defense” as a mitigating factor in the slaying.  McInerney’s lawyer has said that his client cracked when King, who was openly gay and presented femininely, sent him a Valentine and blew him kisses.  Other evidence presented in the preliminary hearing suggests that McInerney was steeped in Neo-Nazi propaganda and had recently stayed over at the home of a white supremacist leader before the shooting, factors that may have influenced him to attack his gay classmate.

July 22, 2009 Posted by | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Blame the victim, Bullying in schools, California, gay men, gay panic defense, gun violence, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Neo-Nazis and White Supremacy, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, School and church shootings | , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 15-Year-Old McInerney Will Be Tried as an Adult for the Murder of Larry King

“Shoot Nudists Before They Bugger You”: Video Game That Targets LGBT People

HUNTERX390Advocate.com posts an article today on a video game arousing a furious debate in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.  The game features a hunter with a double barreled shotgun hunting down nude gay people, and shooting them before they “bugger” the game’s players.  The game, “Watch Out Behind You, Hunter!” was developed by an outfit named France 24.com, and was first launched in 2002, according to the author of the post, Neal Broverman.  Interestingly, the game has been banned in France for some time.  Defending the game, Jean Christophe Calvet who runs the Uzinagaz site that hosts the game, says, “The guy who came up with the game, Stéphane Aguie, wanted to mock hunters and rednecks, not gay men. Our games are not politically correct. They’re aimed at teenagers and it’s true that they’re of a juvenile humor. I realize now that this one in particular could be found shocking, but I believe that you should be able to make this kind of joke in the name of freedom of speech. Incidentally, not everyone in the gay community was supportive of banning the game.”  Gay Armenia, an LGBT rights group in the region, has stridently criticized the game for its playful and demeaning use of LGBT people as targets for gamers to “kill” in cyberspace.  While this is a foreign-developed and deployed video game, the virulent anti-gay culture present in many of the old Soviet republics, including the Russian Federation, makes this homophobic matter of concern even here in the United States.  The murder of Satendar Singh in July 2007 by Slavic fundamentalist Christians who emigrated to the U.S. is a notable case in point.  This is beyond twisted.  Young people are encouraged to think of gay men as sexual perverts, sub-humans, and worthy targets for murder whose very existence is a “threat” to the gamers and must be eliminated.  This is not free speech.  It is an endorsement of anti-LGBT bias, and an incitement to violence.  Bullying in middle and senior high schools is the seedbed of physical violence against gay and lesbian people later.  The infamous “gay panic defense” is also rooted in homophobic practices like this game, that teach fear and dehumanization and desensitizes youth to the exercise of physical violence.  The Unfinished Lives Project urges an international outcry against this detestable game, and any others similar to it.

July 19, 2009 Posted by | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Blame the victim, Bullying in schools, gay men, gay panic defense, gun violence, harassment, Media Issues | , , , , , , | Comments Off on “Shoot Nudists Before They Bugger You”: Video Game That Targets LGBT People

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