2 Arrested in Savage Gay Bashing Case in East Texas: Breaking News
James "Tray" Lasater III, and Daniel Martin (l to r; Lamar County Sheriff's Department photo)
Reno, Texas – Two local men were arrested this morning for the barbaric beating and burning of a gay man at a party in Reno, Texas this past Sunday. Dallas Voice broke the story this morning, reporting that Reno Police Chief Jeff W. Sugg announced the arrests of James “Tray” Laster III, 31, and Daniel Martin, 33, for their role in one of the most savage anti-gay attacks in recent East Texas history. 26 year old Burke Burnett was slashed on his forearm and his back with a broken beer bottle, he was punched and beaten, and then heaved into a burning metal barrel in the early morning hours of October 30. Narrowly escaping with his life, thanks to the action of girlfriends on the scene, Burnett was given over 30 stitches to close the wounds, and his second-degree burns were treated. But the psychological trauma of the attack will take much longer to heal.
Burnett and his friends say they have no doubt that homophobia fueled the assault. The assailants shouted gross obscenities and anti-gay epithets as they pressed their attack against Burnett. But whether the men will be prosecuted under the state’s hate crime statute is in doubt. The main charges lodged against the suspects, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and aggravated assault inflicting serious bodily injury, area first degree felonies that could carry a sentence of five to 99 years, if the men are convicted. But the Texas hate crime law, though it does include “sexual preference” as a category, will not offer a sentence enhancement if the crime is determined to be a first degree felony. The Dallas Voice opined yesterday that it was unlikely that the hate crime charge would be pressed in this case, though that call remains with the Lamar County District Attorney Gary Young. LGBT activists and allies across the state have been critical of how rarely the Texas hate crime statute is invoked in cases of anti-LGBTQ violence as seemingly clear as this one. As of the 2010 Texas Department of Public Safety statistical report on hate crimes in the Lone Star State, over 2500 bias crimes have been reported since the law was enacted in 2001, while only 11 had been prosecuted, as reported by KXAN.
Gay Texan Savagely Attacked with Broken Beer Bottle, Then Thrown in Fire
Burke Burnett, hate crime victim (Dallas Voice image)
Reno, Texas – A gay man attending a private party in Reno, a town near Paris, Texas, was brutally attacked with a broken bottle and then thrown bodily into a flaming fire barrel on Sunday because he was gay. The Dallas Voice broke the story, quoting 26-year-old victim Burke Burnett as saying on Monday, “They knew I was gay. I’m convinced they were trying to kill me.” Burnett told John Wright of the Voice. Four men shouting epithets like “gay bitch,” “cock-sucking punk,” and “pussy-ass faggot,” lunged at Burnett, stabbing him with a broken beer bottle, beating him, and then heaving him into the fire. Burnett was rushed by girlfriends to a hospital in Sulphur Springs, about 30 miles away. He suffered contusions, bruises, and second degree burns. The slashes with the broken bottle required over 30 stitches.
The Reno Police Department played down the attack to the press, saying little more than that the case was still under investigation. Burnett told the Voice that officers on the scene told him that the crime was going to be classified as bias-driven, but that the assailants, whose identities are known, could take more than two weeks before their arrests. Another local source said that Reno police were considering lowering the degree of the offenses to misdemeanors since they took place during a party. Meanwhile, Burnett is hoping that his injuries do not disable him or prove to be permanent.
Burnett credits his girlfriends with preventing his injuries from being much worse, They slowed down his attackers long enough for him to escape to a parked vehicle. Then, they took him to the hospital for treatment. The New Civil Rights Movement echoes the Dallas Voice, reporting that none of the other 20 party-goers attempted to stop the attack.
Combatting Church Homophobia in Toledo with Love: Equality Toledo’s “Born This Way” Event
Rev. Cheri Holdridge, Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, and Rev. Ed Heilman at Equality Toledo Event Monday (Kurt Young photo).
Toldeo, Ohio – A packed auditorium heard an out gay Baptist scholar from Texas challenge the Toledo Christian Community and the LGBTQ and Allied Community of Northwest Ohio to move toward reconciliation on Monday night. Dr. Stephen Sprinkle of Brite Divinity School, and Theologian in Residence of Cathedral of Hope, Dallas, the world’s largest LGBTQ predominant congregation in the world, spoke on “Born This Way: Why faith communities are welcoming LGBTQ people.” Dr. Sprinkle is the founder of http://unfinishedlivesblog.com and the Unfinished Lives Project which seeks to tell the stories of hate crimes victims in the United States. A coalition of progressive Christians and Muslims, as well as Equality Toledo responded to homophobic signs posted around Toledo by a mega church in Maumee pastored by a well-known detractor of the LGBTQ community. In April 2011, a small open and affirming United Methodist Church collected money enough to put up a large billboard proclaiming, “Gay Is A Gift From God.” The purpose according to the leadership of Central United Methodist Church was to start a conversation in Toledo about healing and inclusion at a time of dire economic crisis and social stress. Then, in September, the 2,500 member Church on Strayer, pastored by Evangelist Tony Scott, decided to bombard Toledo with nine billboards countering, “Gay is NOT a Gift from God,” with the word “NOT” in scare-caps and blazing red. Adweek called this “a church ad battle over God and Gays.” The Toledo Blade reported that Scott believes sexual orientation is a choice, and an evil one. But Central UMC’s members were not discouraged by the homophobic mega church attacks. Lynn Braun, chair of the Methodist Church’s lead team said to the Blade: “I’m somewhat surprised it didn’t happen earlier. We felt it important to express our faith this way. I think people have the right to express their faith the way they see fit, and I think it helps the community to know where churches stand.”
In a bold move, progressives reached out this week with a positive response to the attacks. Fox News Toledo led its evening news with the story, “Controversial Billboards Spur Positive Response.” Fox interviewed Rev. Cheri Holdridge, pastor of the Village Church in Toledo, and one of the organizers of the University of Toledo event. She countered the homophobia with an affirming message of God’s love. “Two churches put billboards up and one particular church feels that it is the word of God that gay people are not welcome in churches,” Holdridge said to Fox News. “We wanted to be clear to the people of Toledo that there are many churches that do welcome gay people and that we don’t believe it is a sin to be gay.” Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, an openly gay faculty member at Texas Christian University’s Brite Divinity School told Fox, “There is a spiritual movement afoot that includes everyone. Including LGBTQ people. There are literally hundreds of thousands of faithful people who are gay or lesbian or transgenders, who have come out in their congregations’ lives and we’re not going back in the closet again,” Dr. Sprinkle went on to say. “Because of that, then, there is a conversation about what the role of faith communities needs to be towards us.” Joni Christian, a member of the United Church of Christ who attended the event at UT, said she was thankful for the message of truth and reconciliation at the meeting. Speaking to Dr. Sprinkle, she said, “Thank you for your message in Toledo. You brought it in such a way that we should remember WWJD (What Would Jesus Do).”
The last word on homosexuality and Christianity has not been delivered in Toledo, yet. The leadership of the Church on Strayer will surely load up and shoot back. But Dr. Sprinkle said, “They are shrill in their condemnation of LGBTQ people because they know they have lost the cultural and moral argument about inclusiveness and diversity. Homophobia is still potent in the Midwest and throughout America. But the balance is tipping toward justice for marginalized people, the sorts of people Jesus himself was most comfortable around in his own day. Equality Toledo is on the right track,” Sprinkle added. “Answer hate with love. We do not have to treat our adversaries as they have persecuted us. We have a God who turns enemies into friends.”
Pittsburgh Suburban Man Set On Fire for Being Gay
Steven Iorio, 37, victim of deadly attack with fire (WXPI photo).
Heidelberg, Pennsylvania – A gay man in a southwest suburb of Pittsburgh woke up screaming with his leg set afire by a couple of one-time “friends.” Steven Iorio, 37, of Heidelberg, fell into a deep sleep in the early hours of September 22 after a night of drinking, only to feel his left leg burning after two local men set it ablaze with a bottle of Bacardi 151 Rum, according to WXPI Channel 11 News. Iorio came back to an apartment complex on West Railroad Street and passed out on a couch to sleep off the effects of too much to drink at the Heidelway Bar and Restaurant. An eyewitness identified Brandon Washington, 25, and David A. Blair Jr., 31, of writing anti-gay epithets on Iorio’s jeans, and drawing on his face while he was sleeping. Then the pair soaked Iorio’s leg with the highly flammable rum, before Blair allegedly set the liquor on fire. Two other people from the apartments ran to see the source of the commotion after being roused by Iorio’s yells of pain.
Iorio’s friend, Tina Cook, told WXPI that she received a frantic early morning call, summoning her to the scene. After a look at the severity of the second and third degree burns on the back of Iorio’s leg, Cook insisted that he go to the hospital for treatment. She is clear on the anti-gay motivation for the immolation. “They wrote disturbing [anti-gay] things on his pants and drew on his face,” Cook said. Heidelberg Police Chief Vernon Barkeley told Chartiers Valley Patch blog that his department has been investigating the attack for the better part of a month to determine the identity of all the people inside the apartment living room when Iorio’s leg was set alight. Chief Vernon said that the attack could have endangered everyone present in the 13-unit apartment complex that night, had the blaze spread to draperies and the building. He described the continuing suffering the victim faces since the potentially fatal crime: “[Iorio] is still seeing doctors for these injuries while racking up numerous medical bills,” Barkley said. “He will have permanent scarring and is in pain daily.” Iorio will probably carry scars for the rest of his life as a reminder of the way his Allegheny County drinking buddies treat gays. As of this writing, he wounds have still not healed.
No news source to date says that the two alleged perpetrators of this deadly prank have been arrested for the crime. Instead, the pair was charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, conspiracy, ethnic intimidation, and risking a catastrophe, and allowed to go home. Nor has there been any comment about what the eyewitness was doing when the two men who proved to be anything but friends, were setting Iorio afire.
When Steven Iorio was asked by a WXPI reporter if he considered Blair and Washington “friends,” he answered with a resounding “No!”
Matthew Wayne Shepard: Honor and Educate in His Memory
Thank you to the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center. Never forget!
Laramie, Wyoming – Wednesday, October 12 will be the thirteenth anniversary of America’s archetypal gay hate crimes victim. Matthew Shepard was brutally attacked and beaten into a coma by two locals who targeted him for abduction, robbery, and murder at the Fireside Lounge on the night of October 7, 1998. They left him trussed to the base of a buck fence, exposed to the freezing cold after stealing his shoes. When Matt was discovered the next day by a passing mountain biker, he was so brutally disfigured that his discoverer at first assumed what he was looking at was a broken down scarecrow that had been put out for Hallowe’en. Matt’s injuries were too severe to be treated at the local hospital emergency room, so he was transported to Fort Collins in neighboring Colorado where a state of the art trauma center fought to save his life. For five agonizing days, Matt lay close to death with an injured brain stem–a terrible wound from which he could never recover. His family, mother Judy, father Dennis, and younger brother Logan stood vigil beside him while the life force ebbed.
For thirteen years, Matt’s memory has been honored, invoked, and ridiculed by a nation wrestling with heterosexism, homophobia, and transphobia–a culture of anti-LGBTQ violence that has claimed the lives of over 13,000 queer folk whom we know about (and God knows how many others whose murders have never been reported to anyone keeping records). Nothing will ever bring any of them back to us. They are gone, but to memory.
Those of us who labor for the better angels of our national character to emerge have a responsibility to remember Matt and all the rest, to honor them by never forgetting the cost of being sexually different in these United States, and to take up the mission of educating the LGBTQ community and the general public that difference of any kind is no warrant for ignorance,prejudice, and violence, but rather is an occasion for understanding and neighborly solidarity. The anniversary of Matt’s untimely death is a good time to erase hatred from the American psyche.
In that spirit, I offer this short excerpt from “The Second Death of Matthew Shepard,” Chapter One of my recently published book, Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims:
“Matt Shepard died in a Fort Collins, Colorado hospital in the wee hours of October 12, 1998 with his parents by his side. Ironically, it was the day after America’s observance of National Coming Out Day. His team of doctors and nurses, professional as they were, could not undo what hate had done to Matt. He never woke up from his coma. His heart gave out. The ventilator switched off, and Matt was gone. Our memory of him,however, cannot rest in peace. Not yet” (page 3).
Our memory of all the dead whose “unfinished lives” calls out to us to do the work of justice. May Matt and the 13,000 rest in peace. God being our strength, we must not. Grace and peace to all on this National Coming Out Day 2011. ~ Stephen V. Sprinkle
Church-Led Gay Bashing in Tennessee: WWJD?
Jerry Pittman Jr. and Dustin Lee (L to R), attacked by church members in West Tennessee
Humbolt, Tennessee – In the quiet outskirts of rural Humbolt, Tennessee, a church with a Fruitland address was the scene for a violent attack on two young gay men simply for arriving at Wednesday evening services. What Would Jesus Do (WWJD) about Church-and-Pastor instigated gay bashing? On September 28, Jerry Pittman Jr. and his boyfriend, Dustin Lee, arrived at Grace Fellowship Church where his father, Jerry Pittman Sr., is the pastor. Just before the gay couple got out of their car, Jerry Jr. heard his father cry, “Sic ’em!,” as a hunter would address a pack of dogs. Two deacons from the church, and Jerry Jr.’s uncle who is also a deacon, attacked the pair while they were still trying to get out of the parked vehicle. WBBJ Eyewitness News interviewed Jerry Jr. soon after the church gay bashed the couple: “My uncle and two other deacons came over to the car per my dad’s request,” young Jerry said. “My uncle smashed me in the door as the other deacon knocked my boyfriend back so he couldn’t help me, punching him in his face and his chest. The other deacon came and hit me through my car window in my back.” The men kept yelling homophobic insults and slurs at the couple even after a Gibson County Deputy Sheriff arrived on the scene. The couple attempted to press charges with the officer, who refused to allow them to do so, implying that they were the cause of the attack themselves. Gibson County Sheriff Chuck Arnold defended the actions of his deputy to the press, saying, “I haven’t talk to him but that would be out of character for my deputy to say unless they were causing a problem themselves.” Media attention has caused the sheriff to temper his remarks in subsequent interviews.
Pittman and Lee did press charges the following Friday against Deacons Billy Sims and Eugene McCoy, as well as Rev. Jerry Pittman Sr. and Deacon Patrick Flatt, the younger Pittman’s uncle. When WBBJ reporters contacted the pastor, he refused comment and demanded that the station not try to communicate with him again.
Evan Hurst of Truth Wins Out gives the latest details on this story that has shocked Christians and non-Christians alike, awakening them to the presence of virulent, anti-gay prejudice in America’s pulpits and pews. Hurst spoke to Jerry Jr. by phone on October 5, who said, “The church acted as four people, instead of as a congregation.” Pittman explained that he and his boyfriend had attended the church before, though they knew the condemning stance of the elder Pittman, who preached anti-gay sermons “when the couple wasn’t there.” Lee had even been invited to sing at Grace Fellowship once when he attended services alone. But marital trouble broke out between Pittman Sr. and Jerry Jr.’s stepmother, and, in Hurst’s words, “the floodgates opened and the church no longer felt the need to stay silent about Jerry, Jr. and his boyfriend.” The charges and counter charges in this case are still being sorted out. All parties are remanded to court on November 22. Meanwhile, Jerry Pittman Jr. and Dustin Lee are left to pick up the pieces of their lives and shattered faith. Jerry Jr. has already lost his job because of the days he has spent pursuing justice for himself and his boyfriend.
West Tennessee is a tough place to be gay or lesbian, much less transgender. Hurst relates a “man-on-the-street” interview in Jackson, in which the reporter asked a passer-by about what he would do if his son brought a boyfriend to church with him. The man candidly said he would shoot them. The culture of hatred, religious intolerance of LGBTQ people, and church-sanctioned violence remains undisturbed in America’s heartland, no matter if there is a federal Matthew Shepard Act to offer some protection legally to marginalized gay people.
Would Jesus condone anti-gay violence? If not, then why is such prejudice overtly and covertly incubated in the nation’s communities of faith, like Grace Fellowship? While it may be simple for many Christians to dismiss the Grace Fellowship hate crime as an aberration in an embarrassing, Pentecostal byway, the silence from every other church in the surrounding area is deafening. The Unfinished Lives Project has shown the link between religious intolerance, religious hate speech, and deadly anti-gay violence. Nine out of ten fatal hate crimes perpetrated against LGBTQ people in the United States were sparked, by admission of the killers, by Bible or Church teaching. If churches cannot speak out against an attack against a young gay couple simply for arriving at a church for services, what will they remain silent about next? WWJD about Christians and Churches who gay bash or stand by silently while others do? Read John 11:35: “Jesus wept.”
Anti-Gay Rapist Sought by New York City Police
Suspect Julius "Stinky" Wright (NYPD photo)
Brooklyn, New York – “Stinky” is as “Stinky” does (allegedly, at least). The New York Police Department is searching for suspected hate crime perpetrator, Julius “Stinky” Wright, 21, for a sexual assault in the Bedford-Stuyvesant district on a 24-year-old Hispanic male. The Advocate reports that Wright confronted the Hispanic around 3 a.m. on September 5 with a fake firearm, and demanded to know his sexual orientation. Wright then allegedly cursed the Hispanic with homophobic slurs, and berated him for being weak. Social justice advocates report that the assailant then brutally sodomized his victim. The New York Daily News posted that the suspect stole his victim’s cell phone, and ran from the scene. The victim was transported to Woodhull Medical Center where he was treated for his injuries, and was later released.
City Council Member Al Vann who represents the district where the crime occurred was joined in a statement by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn: “We are disgusted and horrified to hear about this incident. Hate crimes hurt everyone, and any act of violence against one member of the LGBT community is an act of violence against us all. Too often we hear about acts of violence committed against LGBT people in our city. We must put an end to the intolerance that breeds this hatred. New York City prides itself on diversity and acceptance of all its residents and this act goes against the very fiber of what our city stands for.”
The NYPD is asking anyone with information about the whereabouts of Wright to contact them immediately at 1-800-577-TIPS.
Queer Bashing In Utah: Third Gay Man Attacked in Two Weeks
Scene of possible anti-gay hate crime attack in American Fork, Utah (KSL 5 News photo)
American Fork, Utah – A 32-year-old gay man was attacked by slur-yelling homophobes outside the beauty salon where he is employed as a stylist. Fox 13 reports that Cameron Nelson was emptying garbage into a dumpster just after midnight on Thursday from the Metropolitan Salon when two or three attackers jumped him, beating and kicking him repeatedly while disparaging his sexual orientation. Managing to get back inside the shop, Nelson laid down and tried to nurse his wounds until a co-worker arrived a few hours later, found him “covered in blood,” and called paramedics and the police. American Forks Police Lieutenant Darren Falslev told reporters that Nelson was kicked several times. He was treated for a broken nose, abrasions, bruises, and a series of other more minor injuries. The Salt Lake Tribune interviewed another American Forks Police Officer, Sergeant Gregg Ludlow, who called the slurs hurled at Nelson “disgusting,” and that attack against him “quite repugnant.” Later news reports are saying that this assault may be investigated as an anti-gay hate crime, in view of the overtly homophobic epithets aimed at the victim. Sgt. Ludlow told Q Salt Lake, “It’s pretty early in the investigation but it’s a definite possibility that the crime could be considered a hate-related crime. The slurs were made and we promise to keep investigating until the attackers are caught. We are taking this very seriously.” Nelson is certain he was targeted because of his sexual orientation, but did not know any of his assailants. Police are searching for a white male suspect about 5′ 10″ tall with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing cutoff shorts and combat boots.
American Fork, a quintessential Utah city of just under 30,000, was best know around the nation for the filming of classic movies, such as the 1984 hit “Footloose,” starring Kevin Bacon, and its 89.9% church-going citizenry. Now, it becomes yet another Utah city experiencing a rash of anti-gay hate crimes along the Wasatch Front, a string of cities and towns in Northeast Utah where 80% of the state’s population resides. Nelson’s friends and the residents of the city are “in shock” about the attack. If the investigation confirms Nelson was bashed because of his gay identity, his case will become the third such assault on gay men in Utah in the last two weeks. Two Salt Lake City men have suffered similar attacks outside a local night club, most notably, 20-year-old Dane Hall, who was “curb checked” by his attackers on August 27, suffering a smashed cheekbone, splintered jaw, and 6 missing teeth. The American Forks Police Department say that they have not yet made a connection between the Salt Lake City attacks and the assault that targeted Nelson, but they are definitely not ruling it out.
Gay Hate Crime Victim Gets Wide Community Support in Salt Lake City
Dane Hall, 20, Queer Bashed Outside Salt Lake City's Club Sound (Deseret News photo)
Salt Lake City, Utah –
SALT LAKE CITY WALKS INTO THE LIGHT
WITH SOCIAL MOVEMENT TRAINING,
FIRE VIGIL AND MARCH TO RAISE AWARENESS FOR RECENT HATE CRIME VICTIM, DANE HALL
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Rev. Marian Edmonds, medmonds@cohslc.org, 385-628-9870.
(September 4, 2011, Salt Lake City) On Friday, September 2 openly gay Salt Lake City resident, Dane Hall was brutally attacked by a group of four men after he left Club Sound’s gay-themed night. Hall recalls hearing an anti-gay slur shouted in his direction right before one of the men punched him in the back of the head. The attack escalated to the point where one of the men bashed Hall’s teeth into the curb causing his jaw to be broken in three places.
“We are extremely saddened but not surprised at the recent bashing of Dane Hall. This attack, motivated by hate because Mr. Hall is gay is not an isolated incident here in Salt Lake. As followers of Jesus, the people of City of Hope stand with Dane Hall and all victims of oppression and hatred. Violence against people simply for being different for whatever reason must not be tolerated in this city,” said City of Hope Pastor, Julie Watson.
In response to this hate crime, the following educational opportunity and actions are being planned by City of Hope. All are welcome to attend and help shine the brightest light possible on this hate crime while we as a community help empower each other to walk into our own light and true potential. As the coalition of supporting groups and individuals around these activities grows, a revised list of supporters will be sent to media and the community.
- Wednesday, September 7, 7-10 PM – Social Movement Workshop facilitated by Alan Bounville, who is currently in Salt Lake City as he walks across the country for gender and sexual orientation equality.
Location: 526 East Cleveland Ave (1440 So.) Salt Lake City, UT 84105
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=225930810789482
- Friday, September 9, 8-10 PM – Fireside Vigil and Glowlight March to raise awareness for the recent queer bashing of Dane Hall. At 8 PM, members of the community of all faiths are invited to build a fire in Liberty Park. This act is designed to fill people’s spirit with hope for a transformed world – a world where all persons are fully liberated from violence and hate. Then, at 9 PM, the group will take glow sticks and walk the sidewalks through Salt Lake City, bearing images that promote love. While the group walks, songs will be sung, prayers will be prayed and images of Dane Hall’s injuries will be shown to make the public aware of why we, as a community desperately we need to walk into the light of a world free from hate.
Location: Liberty Park and surrounding area.
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=205045246224926
At present the Salt Lake City police department has not announced that the bashing of Mr. Hall was in fact a crime of bias based on his perceived sexual orientation by the four attackers, something needed for this case to be prosecuted under the federal hate crimes law known as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
“I am shocked that having slurs about one’s sexuality shouted at one while one’s face is being stomped into the ground is apparently not enough to classify Dane Hall’s merciless beating as a “hate crime,” says Priestess of 1734 Witchcraft and a member of the Utah Pride Interfaith Coalition, Maureen Aisling Duffy-Boose.
CITY OF HOPE – Formerly Cathedral of Hope, this new inclusive faith community is now renamed, reflecting its commitment to work in Salt Lake City, helping the hurting, speaking truth to power, and proclaiming God’s inclusive love for ALL persons.
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 
Hate Crimes and Capital Punishment: A Special Comment
Lawrence Russell Brewer, on the day he was booked for the murder of James Byrd Jr.
Huntsville, Texas – On September 21 at 6:11 p.m., before witnesses whom included his hate crime victim’s family and his own, Lawrence Russell Brewer, 44, was injected with lethal drugs in the execution chamber of Huntsville Prison. Ten minutes later, he was pronounced dead. Sentenced to death for the 1998 dragging murder of James Byrd Jr., there was no doubt about the convict’s guilt. Brewer and two accomplices, John William King and Shawn Allen Berry, abducted Byrd, a 49-year-old African American, in Jasper, Texas, beat him, bound him with a log chain attached to the backend of a pickup truck, and dragged him three miles down a rough East Texas road until his head was detached from his body when it hit a culvert. The racially-motivated murder made the nation shudder–and marked a decisive moment in the hate crime justice movement for LGBTQ people as well as for African Americans. But the justice of capital punishment for hate crime murders is still up for serious question, even after the execution of a bigoted man who displayed no remorse for his crime. Brewer had even urinated on Byrd before dragging him to his death.
In Texas, the racist murder of James Byrd Jr. was quickly equated with the anti-gay murder of young Matthew Wayne Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, that occurred barely four months later. After abortive attempts to get a state hate crimes statute naming gays and lesbians as a protected class, the Byrd family agreed to sign on with Shepard’s family to achieve a landmark Texas law including African Americans and LGB persons as protected classes from prejudicial murder. Governor Rick Perry, who today is the notably anti-gay Republican front runner for President, signed the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act into law back in May 2001, inclusive of “sexual preference” as a protected category. It took the federal government eight more years to enact a comprehensive hate crimes law inclusive of LGBT people in the United States. The James Byrd Jr. and Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act, was signed into law by President Obama in October 2009. The families of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. were honored guests at the presidential signing ceremony in the White House.
Can state-sanctioned execution remedy anti-gay or racially motivated hate crime murders? Brewer’s death by lethal injection, in the same week as the hotly contested execution of Troy Davis in Georgia, brought that issue to a head for the national media, human and civil rights activists, moral theologians, and the families of victims alike. Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC anchor of “The Last Word,” opined that the only way to prevent the execution of putatively innocent death row inmates like Davis is to outlaw the execution of even the most unrepentant of guilty killers like Brewer. Dick Gregory, the fabled comedian and human rights activist, was present in Huntsville protesting the execution of James Byrd Jr.’s murderer for just that reason. The Houston Chronicle quotes Gregory as saying, “Any state killing is wrong. If Adolph Hitler were to be executed,” he said, “I would be here to protest . . . I believe life in prison is punishment. Execution is revenge.”
Ross Byrd, James Byrd’s son, who is now 32, spoke out to Reuters the night before Brewer’s execution for the murder of his father. “You can’t fight murder with murder,” Byrd said, representing his family. “Life in prison would have been fine. I know he can’t hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn’t what we want.” The Reuters article concludes by presenting Ross Byrd’s position that for the state to execute Brewer is no more that a continuation of the cycle of violence that destroyed his father’s life on that lonely road in the dead of night in 1998. Byrd believes that all people, the government included, should decide not to perpetuate that cycle of death. “Everybody’s in that position,” he said. “And I hope they will stand back and look at it before they go down that road of hate. Like Ghandi said, an eye for an eye, and the whole world will go blind.”
Dennis Shepard, Matthew Shepard’s father, took a similar position on the day his son’s second killer was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. Speaking to Aaron James McKinney, the roofer who beat Matt into a fatal coma with a pistol, Shepard said that Matt was not opposed to the death penalty. As a matter of fact, at a family meeting, Matt had said that heinous murders like the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. deserved capital punishment. “Mr. McKinney,” Shepard said, “I, too, believe in the death penalty. I would like nothing better than to see you die, Mr. McKinney. However, this is the time to begin the healing process. To show mercy to someone who refused to show any mercy. To use this as the first step in my own closure about losing Matt. Mr. McKinney, I am not doing this because of your family. I am definitely not doing this because of the crass and unwarranted pressures put on by the religious community. If anything, that hardens my resolve to see you die. Mr. McKinney, I’m going to grant you life, as hard as that is for me to do, because of Matthew.” Shepard concluded, “Mr. McKinney, I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives. May you have a long life, and may you thank Matthew every day for it.”
Admittedly, all other hate crimes victims’ families do not necessarily agree with Mr. Byrd and Mr. Shepard. Some support capital punishment as justice for the heinous nature of the crimes committed against their loved ones. But Lawrence Russell Brewer’s Texas execution is not so cut and dried as the most ardent supporters of capital punishment would like to believe. The world is far grayer than any black-and-white wishes for closure can achieve in a culture where bigotry kills innocent people everyday, and where the state can and does execute anyone it deems legal to terminate. What is right and what is wrong about capital punishment for hate crimes murder perpetrators? What is just for the victims and their families, and for the society the killers have also grievously wounded by their deeds of hatred? We at the Unfinished Lives Project do not claim to have the final truth about these monumental issues. But we do agree with Ross Byrd and Dennis Shepard. Until our fallible knowledge is replaced by the divine in some other world than this and some other time than ours, we will err on the side of mercy. Honor the dead. Break the cycle. Stop the killing.
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September 27, 2011 Posted by unfinishedlives | African Americans, Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bisexual persons, capital punishment, Dragging murders, Execution, gay bashing, gay men, Georgia, GLBTQ, gun violence, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Legislation, Lesbian women, LGBTQ, Matthew Shepard Act, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, President Barack Obama, Racism, Social Justice Advocacy, Special Comments, Texas, transgender persons, Wyoming | African Americans, Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bisexual people, capital punishment, Dick Gregory, Dragging murders, execution, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, gun violence, Hate Crimes, hate crimes legislation, Heterosexism and homophobia, James Byrd Jr., James Byrd Jr. and Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Law and Order, Lesbians, LGBTQ, Matthew Shepard Act, perpetrators, racism, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, Washington D.C., Wyoming | Comments Off on Hate Crimes and Capital Punishment: A Special Comment