Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Alleged Butcher of Richard Hernandez Wins Mistrial for Meds Excuse

Seth Winder

Denton, Texas – For the second time in a history of delays and postponements, Richard Hernandez’s alleged murderer was ruled “incompetent to stand trial” on November 18 by a Denton County judge.  Seth Winder, 31, was ruled unable to assist in his own defense by District Judge Bruce McFarling after an examination finding him either unmedicated for his diagnosed mental impairment, or insufficiently dosed, according to the Crime Blog of the Dallas Morning News.  Winder exhibited nearly catatonic behavior during the third day of the trial–evidencing that he had received none of his prescribed drugs for his schizophrenia, or that he had been spitting out and hiding his nighttime dosages, perhaps for weeks before the trial began. No explanation was given for how Winder could have been considered fit for trial on November 16, but zombie-like two days later.  Neither was there an explanation of how jailers and med staff at the Denton County Jail could have so woefully neglected to make sure their smart-though-impaired inmate took his meds as directed and actually swallowed them.

Instead of completing the trial process for the gruesome murder and dismemberment of the openly gay Dallasite, Winder was sent to the North Texas State Hospital in Vernon for treatment.  The Dallas Observer speculates that Winder may not ever face trial again for the Silence-0f-the-Lambs-style butchery of  38-year-old Hernandez, whose body was never found–save for his internal organs left in the bathtub of his Far North Dallas apartment in September 2008.  This marks a second instance that Winder was found unfit to stand trial because of mental issues, the first being in May 2009.  Observer reporter Brantley Hargrove found legal opinion divided on whether the Colony resident will have another day in court.  Winder’s Defense Attorney, Derek Adame, says he seriously doubts another trial will take place. Denton County Assistant District Attorney Cary Piel, however, believes Winder will face judge and jury again, probably in April 2012.

Winder stands accused of murdering Hernandez in the gay man’s apartment, though the reasons for their relationship remain murky.  Both the Morning News and the Observer repeated the unproven allegation that the victim and his supposed killer were gay lovers.  Hernandez’s best friend, Rudy Araiza, has staunchly denied the possibility that Winder and Hernandez were ever “lovers,” and makes that point again in a blog response to the Dallas Morning News allegation. “Richard and Seth were ‘Never’ boyfriends!” Araiza said. “I’m not sure why this newspaper is making that statement, I knew Richard for 22 years, I would know!”  It may be another instance in which a grisly anti-gay hate crime is toned down for public consumption by partially blaming the victim for his own demise.  Media around the country have a notorious record for succumbing to this sensationalist temptation.  Investigators said they found pornographic pictures of Winder on the cell phone he lifted from the Hernandez apartment, though no proof has been offered of who took the images, or what they actually depict.

Although the murder weapon was never found, police did retrieve a sword stained with Hernandez’s blood in the tent where Winder was living. Detectives say that Winder used the sword to cut up the gay man’s body.  The dismembered parts of the victim were probably disposed of in a nearby dumpster, and then buried under tons of garbage in a landfill, making the body impossible to locate.  Winder’s use of Hernandez’s credit cards led police to arrest him.  Witnesses placed Winder in Hernandez’s apartment complex at or near the time of the gay man’s disappearance. Forensics found that the blood stains on Winder’s clothing and shoes were a genetic match to the victim.

So, Seth Winder, either crazy like a fox, or a neglected patient (or both), has avoided the jury again.  Meanwhile, Richard Hernandez, who in death cannot answer the innuendo against his character, receives no justice.  The eerie quiet throughout North Texas surrounding this latest trial development in one of the most heinous crime cases in Dallas history seems to confirm  that many have an investment in hushing the whole thing up. Which would not be the first time such a thing has happened in Texas when it comes to violence against the LGBTQ community.

November 30, 2011 Posted by | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Blame the victim, Decapitation and dismemberment, Evisceration, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, Law and Order, LGBTQ, Media Issues, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Texas | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Alleged Butcher of Richard Hernandez Wins Mistrial for Meds Excuse

“A-List” Gay Celebrity Assaulted in Dallas

A-List Dallas View; Taylor Garrett on far left (!)

Dallas, Texas – Gay Republican consultant Taylor Garrett was decked with a hard blow to the left eye last week, according to various press reports.  A cast member on the gay reality television show, LOGO’s “A-List Dallas,” Garrett is closely associated with high-profile human rights opponent, Ann Coulter.  Returning to his car from a birthday party on the entertainment strip along Cedar Springs Road in Dallas, Garrett says he was shocked to find the words, “F-ck Coulter,” keyed into his car door.  A large man appeared out of the shadows where he was squatting, and knocked Garrett to the ground, cutting his brow and bloodying him.  He also fell on broken glass beside the car, scraping his body.

Garrett is convinced gay Democrats are behind the bias against him and other gay “conservative Republican Christians.”  In an interview with the Daily Caller, he said, “I would’ve thought people would have been a little more tolerant considering that our community advocates for tolerance, but it has been nothing but mean spirited attacks, especially after the Ann Coulter scene,” referring to his well-publicized luncheon recently with Coulter.  Using racist plantation language, Garrett said that gay Democrats want him to “stay on the plantation,” but he is having none of it. Shaken by the incident, he says another season for him on the popular LOGO series is in doubt.

An ambulance was called to the scene, but the paramedics did not elect to transport him to the hospital, since his injuries did not warrant it. Some members of the LGBTQ community and media have suggested that Garrett is using this incident and another in October when a rock was thrown through his window to gin up publicity for himself.  Garrett denies the allegations. Dallas Police have not designated the assault as a hate crime at this point.

In an exclusive interview with Huffington Post, Garrett continued the theme of gay hypocrisy over politics.  “This goes to show you,” he said, “that the gay community advocates for diversity and is against bullying, but in our own community we discriminate based upon if you’re a Democrat or a Republican or if you don’t necessarily fit within the mold of the political views of the gay community.”

November 15, 2011 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Beatings and battery, gay men, GLBTQ, Law and Order, LGBTQ, Media Issues, Slurs and epithets, Texas, Unsolved LGBT Crimes, vandalism | , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on “A-List” Gay Celebrity Assaulted in Dallas

Gay Men and Trans People in the Cross Hairs: Behind the FBI’s 2010 Hate Crimes Statistics

Washington, D.C. –  Hate crimes statistics for 2010 are out from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  The good news is that, overall, the numbers of reported hate crimes last year held steady.  The FBI report, accessible here, documents 6,624 single-bias incidents, which range from acts of vandalism to cold blooded murder. Four more incidents encompassed multiple-biases, making for a grand total of 6,628 incidents reflecting 7,699 offenses as reported voluntarily by law enforcement agencies around the nation.  These data represent a serious undercount of the actual number of hate crimes perpetrated against Americans during the last year, since 1) reportage by local law enforcement is sheerly voluntary with no funding from the federal government to aid small jurisdictions to report, and 2) local law enforcement officials are often loathe to classify an incident as a hate crime because of a variety of reasons, such as how the community regards social groups and racial/sexual minorities.

Behind the statistics are the stories of flesh-and-blood victims and their families, and the news here is disturbing. 1,528 victims were targeted because of animus against sexual orientation.  Of these, 57.3 percent of victims were gay males, and 11.9 percent were lesbians. The numbers of violent attacks against transgender people are fragmentary at this point, since statistics of this particularly vulnerable group have only been recorded by the FBI since the Matthew Shepard-James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Obama in October 2009.  But the news of brutalities against transgender people, especially transgender women of color, is alarming.  GLAAD reports that, of the people murdered for sexual orientation and gender identity and expression bias, 70 percent were persons of color, and 44 percent were transgender women [NCAVP figures]. Though suicides of LGBTQ teens due to homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools have captured the headlines repeatedly since 2010 began, no separate FBI statistical category yet exists for the collection of these data.

In the recent Civil Rights Conference on Hate Crimes at the University of Texas at Arlington, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez declared in his keynote address, “We are experiencing a headwind of hatred and intolerance in the United States.” FBI Special Agents appealed to local law enforcement, U.S. Attorney officials, and leaders from the North Texas LGBTQ community to co-operate in the reporting of hate crimes, underlining the difficulty feds are experiencing amassing accurate data.   In its 2010 report, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), widely held to offer more accurate statistics on anti-LGBT hate crimes than the FBI, noted a 13 percent rise in homophobic and transphobic violence from 2009 to 2010, and a 23 percent rise in the murders of LGBTQ people.

November 15, 2011 Posted by | Bullying in schools, FBI, gay men, gay teens, Gender Variant Youth, GLBTQ, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Lesbian women, LGBT teen suicide prevention, LGBTQ, Matthew Shepard Act, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, U.S. Justice Department, Washington, D.C. | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Gay Men and Trans People in the Cross Hairs: Behind the FBI’s 2010 Hate Crimes Statistics

Gay Murder/Dismemberment Trial Gets Underway Today in North Texas

Richard Hernandez, victim, and Seth Winder, the accused (l to r; Dallas Voice image)

Dallas, Texas – After three years of delays and postponements, the trial of the accused murderer of openly gay Richard Hernandez begins today.  The Dallas Voice, doing great journalistic work on this difficult case, announced the story on November 10, quoting first assistant Denton County district attorney Jamie Beck on the trial delays, “Everybody wants a swifter and quicker justice, but you’ve got to do it right. Bottom line, we want justice, so if that means it takes a while, then so be it.”

The “Silence of the Lambs” style murder of 38-year-old Hernandez, an employee of Walmart, drew national press attention in September 2008 when the victim’s viscera but no body was discovered in an apartment in far North Dallas.  When Hernandez, a conscientious employee, did not report for work, his friends prevailed on the apartment superintendent to open his residence, and what they found resembled a slaughterhouse.  Copious amounts of blood spattered the walls.  Hernandez’s body was never found, but tissue from it was left, dumped in the bathtub.  Dallas Police acted quickly to track down the killer. True Crime reported that the DPD filed capital murder charges against Seth Winder, 29, a homeless man with a history of erratic behavior and mental illness, even though they did not have possession of a body in the case–only the third time in thirty years of police department history.

Winder was located because of credit card charges he made to Hernandez’s stolen cards after the murder date.  Police apprehended Winder in a tent inThe Colony, where he was in possession of personal items of the victim and a bloody sword that may have been used in the dismemberment.  The Dallas Voice reports the police conclusion that the killer disposed of the body in a trash dumpster which was emptied in a landfill, making Hernandez’s remains unrecoverable.

Winder’s competence to stand trial was hotly contested in the earlier days of the case.  His father and stepmother told the press that their son was a schizophrenic who had once tried to strangle his own mother.  Friends of Hernandez contended that Winder was just clever enough to play ill in order to avoid responsibility for the grisly murder.  The whole stew was made nastier by the report of police investigators that they discovered a digital camera belonging to Hernandez with “pornographic images” of Winder. The victim’s friends and family vigorously denied the implication that Hernandez and Winder were in a sexual relationship. In the end, Winder was ruled incompetent to stand trial.

Hernandez’s mother will not be there today to see if justice will be done for her son.  She died with the story unresolved, thanks in part to a strategy of delays put in place by Winder’s legal defense team, and to the untimely publication of a book on the murder authored by Winder’s own stepmother.

Now, after years of treatment, authorities say Seth Winder is able to face his day in court.  Jury selection has begun, and barring other delays, three years of agonized waiting are about to conclude for Richard Hernandez’s friends and remaining family.

November 14, 2011 Posted by | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, capital punishment, Decapitation and dismemberment, Evisceration, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, Law and Order, LGBTQ, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Texas | , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Texas Lesbian Gay Bashed in San Antonio

Kristen Cooper, Bashed for Being Lesbian (KENS 5 photo)

San Antonio, Texas – An out lesbian student from the University of Texas at San Antonio says that she was assaulted by two men calling her obscene, anti-LGBTQ epithets over Halloween weekend. Kristen Cooper told KENS 5 that the only thing the two men who attacked her knew about her prior to the assault was that she was a lesbian. “I just think it was a hate crime against me,” she sad, still shaken by the incident.

Cooper says she was waiting for a ride from a local Halloween Party when two men stopped their van, grabbed her, beat her while yelling slurs about her sexual orientation, and drove her some distance before they pushed her out and drove away.  Cooper fought back against them, “full-fist,” probably putting up such resistance that her assailants decided it wasn’t worth the effort. She had no cell phone, so she walked a long distance before someone noticed her, stopped, and then called the police.

Cooper’s injuries were extensive: cuts, bruises, a contusion, a concussion, and whiplash. When asked how she was coping with the attack, Cooper said to KENS 5, “Just still in shock and I’m trying really hard not to cry, but nothing like this should happen to anybody.” The San Antonio Police are currently investigating the crime as an assault, with no word about whether they intend to classify the brutal beating as an anti-LGBTQ hate crime.

November 11, 2011 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, gay bashing, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Lesbian women, LGBTQ, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, Texas, Unsolved LGBT Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Texas Lesbian Gay Bashed in San Antonio

Breaking: Alleged East Texas Gay Bashers Charged with Hate Crimes

Burke Burnett, gay bashing victim, shows bandaged burns and cuts (Advocate photo)

Paris, Texas – Three alleged gay bashers in the horrific Reno gay bashing case will face hate crimes enhancement charges, as reported by the Paris Times and the Dallas Voice. A Lamar County Grand Jury on Thursday indicted James Mitchell Lasater III, 31, of Paris, Micky Joe Smith, 25, of Brookston,and Daniel Shawn Martin, 33, of Paris with one count each of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and two counts each of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. Additionally, Lasater and Smith were charged as repeat offenders. Because aggravated assault is classified as a second-degree felony offense, the alleged offenders were eligible under the Texas Hate Crimes statute for hate crimes enhancements, and that is exactly what the grand jury elected to do.  On October 30 in the early morning, 26-year-old Burke Burnett was savagely attacked by three suspects whom witnesses say were yelling anti-gay slurs as they beat Burnett senseless, stabbed and slashed his body with a broken beer bottle, and then heaved him bodily into a burning trash barrel. Burnett suffered stab wounds resulting in over 30 stitches, deep bruises and contusions, and second-degree burns over a good portion of his torso, legs, and arms.

The Dallas Voice broke the story with graphic photos of Burnett’s injuries embedded in the article, and the story took hold in national mainstream media.  Burnett has been interview around the nation, as horror and interest increased in the story. Burnett told the Dallas Voice he is pleased with the course of the investigation, the arrests, and now with the efforts of the Lamar County District Attorney.  WFAA Television reported Burnett came out when he was 15, and learned of the hate crime murder of Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming student slain in Laramie in 1998.  “Matthew Shepard is one of the reasons I came out of the closet,” Burnett told WFAA. “I’m so glad my fate did not end up like his.” He has no doubt about why he was targeted for violence, since the trio knew his was gay.  As he sat in a chair at a private Halloween party in Reno, a small town near Paris, Texas, the men attacked him from behind. Burnett said, “I ended up getting stabbed, burned and beaten pretty badly and I’m convinced they were trying to kill me.”

Since few hate crime attacks against Texans are actually charged under the state hate crimes law, the decision of law enforcement and the grand jury to go forward with hate crimes charges against Burnett’s alleged bashers is significant.  Since “sexual preference” was included as a protected category in the state statute in 2001, better than 2500 hate crimes have been committed, by fewer than twelve have actually been charged as such. Now that the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act became federal law in 2009, allowing the Department of Justice and the FBI to involve themselves in investigating and prosecuting anti-LGBT hate crimes around the nation, Texas officials seem to have felt pressure to act more transparently and boldly on hate crimes cases in the Lone Star State.

November 11, 2011 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, FBI, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Legislation, LGBTQ, Matthew Shepard, Matthew Shepard Act, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slashing attacks, Slurs and epithets, stabbings, Texas, U.S. Justice Department, Wyoming | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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.

November 2, 2011 Posted by | Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Burning and branding, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, LGBTQ, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slashing attacks, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, stabbings, Texas | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 2 Arrested in Savage Gay Bashing Case in East Texas: Breaking News

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.

November 1, 2011 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, immolation, Law and Order, LGBTQ, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slashing attacks, Slurs and epithets, Texas, Unsolved LGBT Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Gay Texan Savagely Attacked with Broken Beer Bottle, Then Thrown in Fire

Gender, Sexuality, and Justice Initiative Launched in the Southwest

Rev. Dr. Joretta Marshall, Director of the Carpenter Initiative at Brite Divinity School

Fort Worth, Texas – Brite Divinity School, on the campus of Texas Christian University, launched a ground-breaking program set on changing the role of theological higher education in the human rights struggle in the Southwestern United States.  At Chapel on Tuesday, Rev. Dr. Joretta Marshall, Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Counseling, preached to inaugurate the Carpenter Initiative on Gender, Sexuality, and Justice, made possible by a grant of $250,000 over five years by The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.  Dr. Marshall headed the effort to gain the grant from the Carpenter Foundation, which is the leading grantor of funding for sexuality, gender, and justice concerns in the nation.  She has been named the Director of the Carpenter Initiative in addition to her professorial duties.

The Rev. Ann B. Day, daughter of the originators of the Carpenter Foundation and an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, was instrumental in reviewing Brite’s proposal, and advising the foundation to make the grant.  The Disciples News Service reported that “the Carpenter Initiative will not only help cover the salary costs of the faculty member who directs the program, but will also support courses at Brite that address these issues, and fund programmatic initiatives in the wider community.”  These programmatic initiatives will engage matters of human rights, articulation of a public theology of full inclusion in the faith community of those marginalized because of gender, gender variance, and sexual orientation, and the development of resources local congregations and denominational offices need to move their membership toward long-lasting acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, a member of the Brite faculty and Director of the Unfinished Lives Project, said, “This initiative is the next vital step in Brite’s ‘coming out’ process as a center for the full inclusion of all God’s children, especially those who have formerly been shunned by churches, synagogues, and mosques because of their actual or perceived sexual difference.”  Over the course of several years, Dr. Marshall and Dr. Sprinkle, together with allies in the faculty, staff, board of trustees, and alumni of the school, have worked for the full inclusion of the LGBTQ community, along with the commitments Brite has also made to Black Church studies, Asian/Korean Church studies, and Latina/o Church studies.  By vote of the Board of Trustees, Brite has officially acted to welcome students, faculty and staff regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression, making it unique in the Southwestern United States.  The roots of Brite’s shift toward this progressive stance reach back at least to 1992, when administration opened married student housing on the campus to partnered same-sex couples, and to the hiring of the first openly gay faculty member in 1994.

At a community conversation held immediately after the inauguration service, members of the Brite community voiced a whole bevy of vibrant ideas about the directions the Carpenter Initiative could take, including an institution-wide process to become Open and Affirming, a center for civil discourse on issues of human rights in North Texas, resources on homosexuality and the Bible, a history project to record and preserve the story of the LGBTQ movement on both the Brite and TCU campuses, and a think-tank to delve into the sources of violence and fear in American religious life.  Brite’s Office of Advancement is actively seeking support for the expansion of Brite’s developing leadership in public theology and social justice.

October 5, 2011 Posted by | African Americans, Anglo Americans, Asian Americans, Bisexual persons, Brite Divinity School, gay men, gender identity/expression, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, Homosexuality and the Bible, Latino and Latina Americans, Lesbian women, LGBTQ, Native Americans, Popular Culture, Public Theology, Queer, Racism, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, women | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Gender, Sexuality, and Justice Initiative Launched in the Southwest

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.

September 27, 2011 Posted by | 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 | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hate Crimes and Capital Punishment: A Special Comment

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