Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Remembering Scotty Joe Weaver

On this day in 2004, Scotty Joe Weaver fell victim to an anti-gay hate crime in Bay Minette, Alabama. He died at the hands of his own roommates, people who on the surface represented friendship and trust. Yet Scotty Joe was murdered while pleading for his life in front of people who betrayed that relationship and bond.

Today, join the Unfinished Lives project as we remember Scotty Joe, mourn his loss, and celebrate his life. In our memory, we restore to Scotty Joe the dignity and worth that rightly belongs to every individual, regardless of one’s sexual orientation.

Read a September 2007 news story carried by WKRG about the prison sentencing of Weaver’s assailants, and view the related television news report:

July 18, 2008 Posted by | Alabama, Anglo Americans, gay men, Law and Order, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Remembrances | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Father assaults gay son with baseball bat

[NOTE: The veracity of the teen’s claims are now under investigation.  See this July 23, 2008 update to the story.  – The Unfinished Lives Project team]

 

An article in the Anderson Independent-Mail (South Carolina) reports that a father assaulted his own son for having attended a gay pride parade last Sunday.

The article says “the teen’s 49-year-old father yelled, cursed, swung a baseball bat, prayed and tried to ‘cast the demon of homosexuality out of him,’ according to the teen’s version of events.”  A second incident occurred when the son returned home to collect some clothing.

Both occurrences are under investigation by deputies in Anderson County.

July 18, 2008 Posted by | Beatings and battery, Domestic Violence, gay men, Hate Crimes, religious intolerance, South Carolina, Uncategorized | , , , | Comments Off on Father assaults gay son with baseball bat

Remembering Charlie Howard

July 7 marks the twenty-fourth anniversary of Charles O. “Charlie” Howard’s murder in Bangor, Maine. As Charlie and his friend Roy Ogden walked on a downtown street, three teenagers accosted Charlie and his friend, shouted homophobic slurs, threw Charlie to the ground, and then punched and kicked him. The three youths decided to force Charlie over a bridge railing and into the Kenduskeag Stream twenty feet below. Ogden, who had initially fled from the assailants, looked back to see them throw Charlie over the railing. After sounding an alarm for help, Ogden, together with firemen and police, looked for his friend, whose body would not be found until hours later. On that same night, at a party, the three teenagers bragged about having thrown Charlie into the stream.

Today the Charles O. Howard Memorial Foundation and the City of Bangor are working to establish a granite monument to mark the place of Charlie’s murder.  Despite earlier disagreements about the proposed memorial, the City of Bangor approved installation of the monument by unanimous vote during a City Council meeting last November.

Today the Unfinished Lives Project also remembers Charlie.  The tragedy that befell Charlie twenty-four years ago still touches lives today, and as we remember him we also hope for a world where hate-crime violence no longer occurs.

July 7, 2008 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Beatings and battery, drowning, gay men, Maine, Monuments and markers, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Remembrances, Slurs and epithets, Stomping and Kicking Violence | , , , , , | 4 Comments

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