Dad Teaches Little Son to Hate Gays, Jews, All Americans: Phelps’ Legacy of Hatred
WBC often uses child protestors - PinkNews photo
Topeka, Kansas – Steve Drain, a member of Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church, is proud of his 7-year-old son Bo. Young Bo has learned to hate on a grand scale: Gays, “hundred and hundreds of Jews,” all citizens of the United States, are bound for eternal hellfire. ABC News 20/20 reports that from the cradle, children of the notorious, gay-hating Topeka church are taught that anyone who violates their interpretation of the Bible is bound for everlasting punishment. Gay people are particularly singled out in Bo’s young mind, thanks to the indoctrination he has received from his father, mother, and teachers at WBC. Bo sincerely believes gays by the millions are headed for damnation: “You get destroyed and you get put in hell. Hell is like a burning place where it can never be stopped, burning, and it can burn millions of people every day,” he said. Because the government allows diversity, and for the most part does not punish lesbians, transgender people, and gays, Bo has been taught that all Americans are de facto “fag enablers.” His father, Steve, was so impressed by the message of Phelps back in 2000 when he came to film a story on the church, he returned to Florida, packed up his family, and moved them to Topeka to join the 70-member congregation. He and his wife Luci live just outside the church compound with their four children. The allure of the church is not unlike other utopian, world-hating sects from the past: certainty based on a fundamentalist reading of the Bible and morality, security in a swiftly changing world, salvation from hellfire, and purity from the stains of sin and immorality. The Southern Poverty Law Center has highlighted this church before, and others like it because of the potential for violence that religious bigotry and hate speech breed. While the connection between indoctrination in hatred and physical violence is hotly debated, and courts have upheld the first amendment rights of groups like Westboro Baptist Church to protest at synagogues, LGBT churches, schools, and the funerals of fallen U.S. soldiers, there is little doubt that when fringe personalities act violently to harm vulnerable individuals and groups, “true believers” like WBC see the hand of God in the deeds. When the Drains take their children to picket the funerals of military service members killed in the line of duty, they and the other members of WBC praise God for taking the life of another “fag enabler.” According to ABC’s 20/20, Steve Drain, Bo’s father, said the church arrives at the funerals to let families know their loved ones are in hell because they fought for a supposedly damned country. “Remember what we all say: No God fearing man or woman would lift a finger fighting for a country awashed in sin like this,” Steve Drain said to his son. Though the Drains have an estranged eldest daughter, Lauren, who rejects the hatred her family and WBC has taught her, the younger children are content to protest, picket, and preach for hate, at least for now. Bo tells ABC News, “I’m preaching and I’m going with this church, and that’s what the church says. I’m going to go with that my entire life”—A sobering thought for Father’s Day.
Dallas Police To Investigate Cedar Springs Area Ball Bat Attack as a Hate Crime
photo courtesy Dallas News
Dallas, TX – In an important change in attitude and approach concerning the late Friday night/Saturday morning assault on two gay men by bat swinging attackers, the Dallas Police Department has released a statement dated May 17 indicating that the case is to be investigated as a “hate crime.” Apparently, a combination of rational reasoning and responsiveness to a groundswell of protest in the LGBT community led authorities to change course on this dangerous incident just two and a half blocks from the main gay entertainment district in Dallas. The Cedar Springs-Wycliff corridor has been particularly violent in recent months, and has a particularly bloody history of anti-LGBT attacks and murder stretching back over two decades. Historically, homophobic elements have targeted gays and lesbians in the “gayborhood,” and this most recent attack is an ominous sign that young men who are hateful, ignorant and insecure are coming to the neighborhood to locate victims again. Police initially told WFAA.com that the baseball bat beating of Kyle Steven Wear and his companion Alex would not be investigated as an anti-gay hate crime, since the pair were robbed. Both victims reported to police and the media that they were not only assaulted physically, but were subject to hate speech during the attack, being called “faggots” among other derogatory slurs by their assailants. Most current merchants and visitors to the gay entertainment district are unaware that the Oak Lawn-Cedar Springs-Reverchon Park area of Dallas has been bloodied far too often by violence against LGBT people. In 1988, John Griffin and Tommy Trimble, two gay men, were picked up at the Crossroads by Richard Lee Bednarski, an 18-year-old high school student from Mesquite, who drove them the short distance to Reverchon Park where he shot them to death. The judge in the case gave Bednarski only a 30-year sentence for the cold-blooded murders, commenting that the killings were insignificant since the victims were gay. In 1991, Thanh Nguyen and Hugh Calloway were gunned down by Corey Ardell Burley, 20, and two other accomplices at Reverchon Park. Calloway survived to testify against Burley, but Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant to the Dallas area, died as a result of his wounds. Initially, Dallas police refused to classify the murder as hate-motivated, but Burley confessed that he targeted the gay men because they were “weak.” Jimmy Lee Dean, a self-identified bisexual man, was nearly killed in 2008 by 26-year-old Bobby Jack Singleton and 31-year-old Jonathan Russell Gunter, both of Garland, at the corner of Dickason and Throckmorton Streets. Robberies and assaults by thugs targeting young gay men along the Strip are far more frequent than merchants and residents would care to admit, including an attack on a minor on Cedar Springs in the early Spring of this year whose complaint to Dallas police was minimized because, as one officer told the youth, he was just a “drunk little faggot,” and deserved what he got. It is some measure of hope that the Dallas Police have either chosen to change their approach to the homophobic robbery of the two most recent gay victims of violence in the gayborhood, or have been coerced into it by the growing outcry from the local LGBT community. In part, the Dallas Police Department bulletin entitled “Weekend Robberies to be Investigated as Hate Crimes” reads: “Early Saturday morning just after midnight, two 28 year old males were walking to a nightclub in the 2700 block of Throckmorton Street when they were confronted by four unknown Latin male suspects. Two of the suspects were carrying bats. All four suspects began to beat the victims with the bats and their hands while robbing the victims of their property. Both victims sustained non life threatening injuries. These offenses are documented on case numbers 134186-X and 134193-X. Based on derogatory statements made by the suspects during the commission of the robberies, these two offenses will be investigated as hate crimes. There have been no suspects identified at this time and detectives are continuing to interview witnesses.“
Ball Bat Attackers Immune from Hate Crimes Charges?: Authorities Backpedal on Anti-Gay Violence
Big Stick Combat photo
Dallas, TX – What does a midnight assault on two Dallas gay men Friday have in common with a December 2008 fatal attack on two Latinos mistaken as gay in Brooklyn, New York? Two things: first, both attacks were carried out by homophobes yelling anti-gay slurs as they swung baseball bats at the heads of their victims; and second, police in both cases classified neither assault as an anti-hate crime. What gives? What does it take to get officers of the law to prosecute hate crimes under existing hate crime statutes? While Dallas and Brooklyn are 1370 miles distant from each other and worlds apart culturally, they both have law enforcement resistant to investigate crimes against gay men as bias-motivated. The 2008 Brooklyn murder of José Sucuzhañay serves as an eerily familiar backdrop to the current Dallas attack on Kyle Steven Wear and his friend Alex. Like Dallasites Kyle and Alex, the Ecuadoran immigrant brothers José and Romel were walking together down the street in the wee hours of the night. The Brooklyn crime was carried out by two assailants swinging a broken beer bottle and an aluminum baseball bat, yelling anti-gay and anti-hispanic epithets. Trials in the Sucuzhañay case are proceeding right now in Brooklyn, where Hakim Scott has just been convicted of first-degree manslaughter, and his accomplice, Keith Phoenix, awaits an new court date since the New York judge dismissed all hate crimes charges and declared a mistrial because of a juror in the first Phoenix trial who refused to participate any further. The Brooklyn ball bat attack left José lingering five days in a coma from a broken skull before he died. The consensus of the supporters of Sucuzhañay family, outraged city officials, and the metropolitan New York media is that this ugly, brutal attack took place because Scott and Phoenix targeted two Hispanic men whom they mistook for gay because they didn’t like the way they looked. Wear and his friend Alex (last name still unreleased) were much more fortunate. As they walked along in the southwestern part of the Cedar Springs gay entertainment district in Dallas, “the gayborhood,” headed for the bars, four assailants only identified as Latinos wearing white tee-shirts, blindsided the pair shouting “Faggots, give us your fucking wallets!” according to WFAA News. Wear told WFAA on camera that he was knocked unconscious and his jaw was broken by one of the attackers swinging a ball bat. His friend, Alex, reported that he feared for his life as the homophobes forced him to the ground. The Dallas Police are refusing to classify the case as a hate crime, contending instead that the motive was to rob the gay men. But Alex isn’t buying it. He told Jonathan Betz of WFAA, “I still feel like that was why we were targeted in the first place, because we are gay. It was like it was funny to them.” John Wright of the Dallas Voice is outraged that the authorities have resisted investigating the Dallas ball bat assault as an anti-gay bias crime. In a May 16 post for the Dallas Voice blog, Instant Tea, he writes, “Despite the fact that the suspects yelled anti-gay slurs as they beat the victims with baseball bats, Dallas police have not classified the incident as a hate crime, which is an outrage.” Wright points out that Jimmy Lee Dean was nearly beaten and stomped to death in the same general neighborhood by two homophobic attackers in July 2008. Wright then shows that regardless of the refusal of Dallas law authorities to enforce Texas hate crimes law, federal hate crimes protections should kick in. The James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 classifies a hate crime as motivated in whole or in part by anti-LGBT bias. One major determining criterion of an anti-gay hate crime for the FBI is the use of epithets as the perpetrators carried out the crime. Anti-LGBT hate crimes are like the rest of life: seldom pure and simple. Other motives often accompany hate violence against gays, lesbians, and transgender persons: robbery, drugs, racism and sexism, to name a few. But homophobia and heterosexism, like a sinister bass line in a libretto, thread throughout all anti-LGBT hate crimes cases, targeting people who are assumed to be inferior, impure, and abominable because of their perceived sexuality. In Dallas and in Brooklyn, it seems baseball bats and anti-gay epithets are not enough to launch hate crimes prosecutions. Are anti-gay sluggers simply immune in Texas and New York? Again we ask, What does it take to get officers of the law to prosecute hate crimes under existing hate crime statutes? It takes an outcry from LGBT people and their allies so that law enforcement will not be permitted to backpedal on hate crimes against members of the sexual minority without a stink being raised to high heaven. If police and prosecutors are unfamiliar with what LGBT bias crimes are, they are responsible to educate themselves. If they are being intentionally obstructionist, then the mayor and the city council need to replace them with officials who will carry out the law.
Rabid Anti-Gay Agenda at Coral Ridge “Ministries”: Radical Right Seeks to Fill Coffers Again
Jarrett Terrill photo
Fort Lauderdale, FL – A right-wing political machine in South Florida, operating under the cover of a church, has recently launched a full-throated anti-gay propaganda campaign to over 20 million supporters worldwide. Coral Ridge Ministries, working within the shadow of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, a 2,200 member church, is reaching out through video and internet media to tub-thump its latest tirades against what CRM leaders call “the militant homosexual agenda.” As Jarrett Terrill of South Florida Gay News writes in a recent exposé of this organization, “The political think-tank operates under the guise of a church, allowing them to use an excess of $45 Million dollars in tax-deductable donations annually for maximum outreach. Bypassing all campaign finance laws, a political media center which calls itself a church can effectively control our nation’s political dialogue in ways that most political action committees could only dream of.” Broadcasting from a fortress mentality claiming superior patriotism and Christian orthodoxy, the Coral Ridge sect seeks to replenish its depleted coffers by pumping up the fear factor among Tea Party members and more traditional gay-hating citizens. In one of its recent shows, CRM claims, “The militant homosexual agenda is a symptom of sexual politics… Sexual politics always trumps religious liberty. Hate crime laws are turning Christians into second class citizens.” Dr. D. James Kennedy built the Coral Ridge congregation by a peculiar blend of right-wing politics and Protestant evangelical theology from the 1960’s until his death in 2007. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Kennedy founded Coral Ridge Ministries which has become one of the largest Christian fundamentalist political organizations in the country, “with some 160 employees, several divisions including a Washington-based Center for Christian Statesmanship, and radio and television studios producing shows that reach a combined weekly audience of 3 million.” After Kennedy’s death from a heart attack, the church, under the leadership of their new pastor, Tullian Tchividjian, a grandson of famed evangelist Billy Graham, has moved away from some of the more radical political efforts of CRM. A church schism, led by Kennedy’s daughter and five other right-wing dissidents, challenged Tchividjian, and when they failed to get him fired, split from Coral Ridge to found a new congregation of their own with around 400 supporters. Since early 2009, after being shaken by the church fight, Coral Ridge Ministries has gone back to the well of homophobic scare tactics to shore up its base financially. A typical program of CRM prior to the passage of the James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, claimed erroneously in March 2009 that the law “is directed at thought. It is directed at a coerced, forced belief that homosexuality is right and normal and should be acceptable for all.” Warning that the “militant homosexual agenda” placed American civil liberties in jeopardy, the program script continued, “Can you imagine a hate crime bill that criminalizes a person for sharing hope, for reaching out in love to tell someone how Jesus Christ changed their life?” asks program host Dr. Jerry Newcombe. “It’s unimaginable, and yet, it’s not far-fetched. In many countries, it’s already a reality. Now the same could happen here.” Alongside its fear-mongering around LGBT human rights, Coral Ridge Ministries currently ties the Obama administration with “socialism” and “totalitarianism,” linking the old “red scare” tactics of the 1950’s and -60’s to the newer anti-gay “pink scare.” Though carefully distancing themselves from the Christian Reconstructionist roots of the Coral Ridge movement that included advocating the extermination of LGBT people, adulterers, “witches,” “sorcerers,” and dissenters, the inflamed hate speech generated by CRM underpins the extreme logic of people who justify violence against gay people. The relationship between religious hate speech like that generated at CRM and anti-LGBT hate crimes is a hotly debated topic in ethical, human rights, and theological circles, but a growing consensus is that hate speech coupled with fear does lead to hate violence. Jarrett Terrill of SFGN.com concludes his post with a summation of the fear-culture of Coral Ridge Ministries, and a pointed question about their prospects of re-igniting the anti-gay agenda of the religious right: “The people at CRM have chosen to re-write world history from their own isolationist and self-victimizing viewpoint. For them, to be Christ-like means only that they practice martyrdom – that they somehow view themselves not as millionaires who have more influence on the world than anyone else, but rather as the poor, persecuted minority who are being oppressed by an all-powerful, evil, homosexual majority.
“The only question left to answer is – who’s really buying into this or believing any of it?”
Florida Lesbian Murdered by Girlfriend’s Father
Jerry Lee Seger, accused of the murder of his daughter's lesbian lover
Lakeland, FL – A man has been arrested Saturday for the murder of his daughter’s lesbian lover whose lifeless body was found in a foreclosed home. Real estate agents discovered the body of 24-year-old Courtney Bright last Thursday as they opened the property to show it to a prospective buyer. The Polk County Coroner reports that the victim had been strangled to death on Tuesday or Wednesday. Jerry Lee Seger, 40, has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held in the Polk County jail without bond, according to My Fox Tampa Bay. Bright had been in a romantic relationship with Seger’s 23-year-old daughter, Ashley Dunn, for approximately three years. Dunn had been arrested Tuesday of last week for dealing in stolen property on a Jackson County warrant. As has been the case in other Polk County LGBT murders, notably the brutal slaying of Ryan Keith Skipper in 2007, the Polk County Sheriff’s Department is constructing a non-gay-related scenario for the crime. Polk County, a largely rural locale situated between Tampa and Orlando in the center of the state, is notorious for poor treatment of its LGBT residents. Revenge against Bright for his daughter’s arrest is the story being floated to the press. Bright’s friend, Bobbi Johnson, however, isn’t buying the Sheriff’s theory. Johnson told My Fox Tampa reporter Alcides Segui, that Bright was like a daughter to her. “She was a sweetheart. She would do anything in the world for you,” she said. “I know [Seger] was upset because Ashely was arrested,” Johnson said. “That’s not why he killed her. He killed her because they were lesbians.” The Sheriff’s Department theory relies on hearsay from a friend of Seger’s, much like their 2007 theory that Skipper was killed on a lonely Wahneta, FL road because of hearsay reports about drugs and a check-kiting scheme that was later totally debunked, but too late to keep the young man’s character from being besmirched in the press, and also too late to prevent the story from going national. Skipper’s murderers, Joseph “Smiley” Bearden and William “Bill Bill” Brown were found guilty and are serving their sentences with no hope of parole. Veteran Florida LGBT activists and allies familiar with the Skipper case are watching the Bright murder case closely for signs of the same anti-gay spin from the local authorities. Scott Hall, founder of the South Florida-based Gay American Heroes Foundation, says, “We must hold those who attack and murder us responsible and call it what it is… a hate crime!”
Black LGBTQ Affirming Church in Dallas Acts to Counter Religious Homophobia
Apostle Alex Byrd, Senior Elder and Pastor, Living Faith Covenant Church
Dallas, TX – In response to a vitriolic anti-gay sermon preached at a major Black preaching conference at a Dallas Black mega-church, Apostle Alex Byrd’s flock boldly resolves not to back down. In a congregational meeting on April 18, Living Faith Covenant Church, a predominantly Black and LGBT church, voted officially to oppose religious homophobia and promote dialogue on behalf of LGBTQ and SGL (Same Gender Loving) people of color. On Monday, April 12, 2010, Prophetess Janet Floyd, a featured preacher at the Urgent Utterances Conference, denounced gay and lesbian people, vigorously declaring that members of the sexual minority, regardless of their church affiliation, had “demons” that needed to be “cast out” of them by God. The conference, jointly sponsored by a coalition of churches and Black Church scholarly groups, including Vanderbilt University Divinity School’s Black Church studies institute, was a three-day event hosted at the high-profile Friendship-West Baptist Church, pastored by one-time candidate for the presidency of the NAACP, Dr. Frederick Douglas Haynes III. Black church leaders from around the nation attended the conference on Monday night, including students from Vanderbilt in Nashville, TN and Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, TX. In the second sermon of the evening, the prophetess claimed that God sent a “storm” upon the nation, in the form of Hurricane Katrina and the Columbine High School shooting tragedy. As Rev. Floyd launched into her indictment of “demon-possessed” LGBT people, some 20 attendees walked out of the service in silent protest against pulpit homophobia. From eyewitness reports, the whole Brite Divinity School contingent and half of the Vanderbilt students walked out of the service. News quickly spread throughout the Metroplex and around the internet. A Rally for Love to pray for all parties affected by the sermon and to frame a response calling for dialogue and accountability gathered on Wednesday evening, April 14, jointly hosted by Living Faith Covenant Church and Promise Metropolitan Community Church. A multi-racial gathering of forty LGBTQ people and their allies decided to form a coalition to call on Dr. Haynes, the conference, and Friendship-West Church to distance themselves from the homophobic content of the sermon. Apostle Byrd issued a communication to Dr. Haynes, but at the time of this writing there has been no response to Byrd’s appeal. Taking the next step, the Living Faith congregation officially issued their resolution, “Commitment to Non-Violent Resistance to Spiritual Abuse” (full text of the Resolution may be accessed here). Briefly, the resolution calls on Black affirming Christians to “stand in solidarity with the more than 20 courageous individuals who stood up and left in peaceful protest during Reverend Janet Floyd’s sermon,” and to “acknowledge the spiritual, psychological, emotional, and social harm from ill-informed preaching, whether well-intended or malicious, inflicted upon many of our LGBTQ and SGL brothers and sisters.” The SGL affirming congregation, affiliated and backed by The Fellowship, an international movement of radically inclusive Christians headed by San Francisco Bishop Yvette Flunder, both endorses the Black Church tradition of the freedom of the pulpit and at the same time criticizes any action or speech from the pulpit that demeans, demonizes or harms people because of their race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity, class or disability. In the event that efforts at dialogue with other religious leaders fails to produce meaningful responses, the resolution concludes, “we will engage in peaceful and non-violent resistance for the dignity and value of all of God’s creation, including LGBTQ and SGL individuals within the Community of Faith.” Significantly, a church and movement deeply and proudly rooted in the African American Church tradition and community now has joined the issue of active and passive homophobic speech in Black churches,helping to debunk the usual claim made by some Black Church leaders that LGBTQ rights is an expression of white racism and exclusively a “white man’s issue.” Apostle Byrd’s congregation, The Fellowship, and supporters from last week’s Rally for Love have made it clear that “spiritual abuse” aimed at LGBTQ people from any source will
Prophetess Janet Floyd
be publicly, compassionately and firmly opposed. Apostle Byrd understands the mindset of heterosexist/homophobic ministers. In an interview with Operation Rebirth, he said, “For the majority of preachers who bash [gays], I’d say the root is sincere compassionate ignorance. They truly want to see people saved and in their understanding, they believe homosexuality is wrong. They have to send that message so people will ‘come out’ of it. It’s a hard task for them to do. The more resistance from the homosexual(s), the more they preach it. They are ignorant, but sincere. They are ignorant in understanding the homosexual as a person. They’re ignorant in their understanding of the general context, cultural climate, history, language and translation of scripture. They are ignorant in how to appropriately apply historical text to the current needs of our society, with its likenesses and differences. But ignorance isn’t a bad thing…it simply means, ‘I don’t know.’ But stupidity IS bad. It says ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care to find out.'” While some report encouraging pulpit statements made by Dr. Haynes at Friendship-West’s April 14 evening worship service opposing the demonization of LGBTQ people, as of this date nobody from Dr. Haynes’s office, from the leadership of Friendship-West Baptist Church, or from the Urgent Utterances Conference Leadership has officially distanced themselves or their organizations from the homophobic content of Prophetess Floyd’s sermon.
Multi-Racial Response to Religious Gay Bashing at “Rally for Love” in Dallas
Apostle Alex Byrd calls for dialogue and accountability for religious homophobia
Dallas, Texas – Forty women and men from multiple racial ethnic backgrounds and several churches and LGBT activist groups rallied for prayer and protest, declaring that “spiritual abuse of LGBT people must stop” in pulpits everywhere. The Rally for Love, swiftly organized by a coalition of Blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, Whites, LGBT churches, activist groups, and Brite Divinity School students and faculty, protested the homophobic sermon of Dr. Janet Floyd of Monroe, Louisiana, featured speaker at the Urgent Utterances Conference on Monday, April 12. The conference gathered Black Church scholars from around the nation to meet for three days at Friendship West Baptist Church, a predominantly Black mega-church in South Dallas pastored by Dr. Freddie Haynes. Galled by the claim that gays and lesbians are demonic, and that lesbians in particular have a demon that must be driven out, 12 students from Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, TX and half the student contingent of Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, TN walked out of the Conference worship service in silent protest. J.W. Richard, of the Examiner.com, reports that the participants heard accounts from three witnesses to the “disparaging comments” made by the speaker, sister of Urgent Utterances organizer, Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas of Vanderbilt Divinity School: “Speaking on the Dallas Voice’s Instant Tea weblog, Brite Divinity student, Sam Castleberry, wrote that among the comments made by Dr. Floyd was one that the ‘lesbian demon should be exorcised’. Two more witnesses spoke at tonight’s rally event, including Pastor Jon Haack of Promise MCC, concurred with that account and included that Dr. Floyd’s sermon mentioned that the storm of Hurricane Katrina and the tragedy at Columbine High School were also of divine appointment.” Theologians and pastors at the Rally for Love condemned such a faulty theology of God. Norma Gann, Cherokee student at Brite, called for prayer for Dr. Floyd as she denied that as a lesbian Christian she had any demon to be cast out. She said that the pulpit in a church is a “sacred space,” and the sermon she heard aimed at LGBT people had violated that sacred space. Katherine Heath said that the vigor and volume of Dr. Floyd’s sermon delivery concerned her as she condemned lesbians and gay people from the pulpit. Transgender minister at Living Faith Covenant Church, Minister Carmarion D. Anderson, called for the Rally to remember that “transgender people and many outside the church” were harmed by such religion-based bigotry. Rev. Deneen Robinson, representing the Human Rights Campaign, Michael Robinson, noted African American LGBT activist, Manda Adams of First Congregational Church (UCC) in Fort Worth, and Blake Wilkinson of Queer LiberAction, also spoke out. Apostle Alex Byrd, spiritual leader of Living Faith Covenant Church of Dallas, claimed both his heritage as a black man and a gay man, and then called for understanding, dialogue and accountability for anyone demeaning any group of people. He noted that the Tuesday sessions and workshops at the Urgent Utterances Conference were more inclusive, “something that would make us all proud,” the Apostle said to the crowd. But while he decried religious homophobia in any church, Apostle Byrd made it clear that preachers in the Black Church tradition were also “accountable for the way their message affects those who hear it.” He pledged to press the issue with the conference leadership because those who were directly hurt needed a response. The Examiner reports that “Conversations at tonight’s rally included an email conversation from Apostle Alex Byrd …, working in tandem with Bishop Yvette Flunder, Senior Pastor of City of Refuge United Church of Christ [San Francisco], to gain an official response from Friendship-West pastoral leadership. In the meantime, as prayers for healing were offered for themselves, Dr. Floyd, Dr. Haynes, and conference attendees and speakers, it was also clear that attendees of tonight’s rally were no longer going to subject themselves to what Pastor Haack termed, “spiritual abuse”, from the pulpit.” Dr. Leo Perdue, faculty member at Brite and a Vanderbilt Ph.D., said that he was deeply concerned that such a deplorable sermon could be delivered at an event sponsored by his alma mater, and organized by a faculty member there. He hoped Vanderbilt would quickly distance itself from Dr. Floyd’s sermon. “Wherever it is done and whoever sponsors it, homophobia is wrong and must be opposed,” he said. Participants organized to endorse Apostle Byrd’s communiqué to Friendship-West Church, and to commit themselves to work for justice “for the long haul” as Dr. Stephen Sprinkle of Brite and Michael Robinson said at the conclusion of the Rally. An album of pictures taken at the Rally for Love by Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle and Sam Green may be found on Facebook
Desecration of Gay Corpses in Senegal; Gay Men Hunted Like Animals
Madieye Diallo, picture held by his grieving father; AP photo by Ricci Shryock
Archbishop Tutu: “I would never worship a homophobic God”
Washington, DC – Desmond Tutu, emeritus Archbishop of Cape Town, issued a strong protest against African politicians and clerics who are persecuting LGBT people throughout the African continent. In a powerfully worded editorial published in Friday’s Washington Post, the Nobel Peace Prize winner denounced anti-gay laws and policies in Uganda, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, Senegal, and Kenya. Since perpetrators of anti-LGBT violence use Christian rhetoric and scripture in support of their crimes against gays and lesbians, The Unfinished Lives Project quotes at length here from the text of the editorial in order to begin to redress the perception that God, Christ, and the Church are in solidarity against LGBT people. It is our hope that religious leaders of conscience throughout the world will join Archbishop Tutu in undercutting religious and spiritual bigotry wherever it arises. The Archbishop writes: “Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God’s family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.
“Uganda’s parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.
“These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.
“Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.
“And they are living in hiding — away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said ‘Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones.’ Gay people, too, are made in my God’s image. I would never worship a homophobic God.”
The Archbishop leaves no room for misunderstanding: “Hate,” he writes, “has no place in the house of God.” We at Unfinished Lives could not agree with him more.
Bill Obstructing Federal Protections for LGBT Oklahomans Passes OK Senate
OK State Senator Steve Russell (R-OK City)
Oklahoma City, OK – A controversial bill limiting what law enforcement may do to investigate and prosecute hate crimes against LGBT residents of Oklahoma passed the State Senate this Thursday. The bill, SB 1965, passed the upper house 39 – 6, and now goes on to the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. According to the OUDaily, SB 1965 would prohibit local and state law enforcement agencies from sharing information about hate crimes with federal authorities if the state of Oklahoma did not recognize the crime as a hate crime by its own statutes, thereby effectively opting out of federal protections for LGBT persons in the Sooner State. John Wright of the Dallas Voice writes that the originator of the legislation, State Senator Steve Russell (R-Oklahoma City) proposed the bill because he contends that the James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, passed by both houses of Congress last year and signed into law by President Obama, oversteps the bounds of what the federal government may do and abrogates freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Russell, who equates sexual orientation with necrophilia, said to the press that he was concerned that a religious leader could be blamed for inciting violence against LGBT people and charged with a hate crime under the provisions of the Shepard Act. The attachment of the Shepard Act to a Defense Appropriations Bill also upset Russell, who once served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. The Oklahoma LGBT community was swift to condemn the passage of the State Senate Bill, and drew attention to the dire consequences of the enactment of the provisions of the bill into law. The Equality Network (TEN) issued a statement Thursday from President Kathy L. Williams: “Senator Russell’s bill is truly terrifying in its implications. This legislation sends the message that violence against LGBT Oklahomans is acceptable. It also sets a chilling precedent that Oklahoma will only enforce certain federal laws and cooperate only with selected federal agencies. We believe this unconstitutional and blatantly discriminatory bill will harm all Oklahomans, regardless of their identity and regardless of whether they are victims of hate crimes.” The Metro Star reports that the only thing standing in the way of this legislation becoming law will be refusal in the House or a veto by Governor Brad Henry. The State House of 101 representatives is controlled by the Republican Party, 61 to 40. Governor Henry is a Democrat.
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
Your message has been sent
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…
-
Where are our readers?
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
Follow Unfinished Lives on Facebook
Box Turtle Bulletin- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- HRC Back Story
- Know About The Gender Identity Movement
- Why Is There A Need For Human Rights?
- Kinds Of Human Rights
- Human Rights Purposes And Violations
- Human Rights For Every Human Incident
- 8 Reasons Human Rights Are Important
- Everything About Human Rights
- Human Rights Issues Education & Law
- We Need To Stand Up For Our Rights And Those Of Others
- Coca-Cola Receives Perfect Score On Human Rights
- The Advocate: Daily News
- Daily newsletter 12/24
- Far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ Project 2025 will continue into 2026
- Democratic officials sue RFK Jr. over attempt to limit gender-affirming care for trans youth
- Lillian Bonsignore will be first out gay Fire Department of New York commissioner
- Daily newsletter 12/23
- The HIV response on a cliff-edge: advocacy must drive urgent action to end the epidemic
- CECOT story pulled by Bari Weiss gets viewed anyway thanks to Canadian streaming service
- Burkina Faso issues first sentence for 'homosexuality and related practices'
- Transgender NSA employee files discrimination lawsuit against Trump administration
- Instructor who gave U of Oklahoma student a zero on anti-trans paper removed from teaching
- Dallas Voice: Instant Tea
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
Unfinished Lives 