Savage Anti-Gay Murder in NYC Highlights Increasing Danger for LGBT People
Mark Carson, 32, openly gay NYC man fatally shot in the face (Gay Star News photo).
New York City, New York – A gay man shot to death at point blank range early Saturday morning became the fifth anti-gay hate crime to strike fear into Gotham City in recent weeks. Mark Carson, 32, an openly gay yogurt shop worker from Brooklyn, who was walking with a companion in Greenwich Village, faced his harasser, who taunted his victim with homophobic slurs before fatally shooting him in the face, saying “You want to die here tonight?”. The assailant was collared in a matter of a few blocks by a police officer who had the description of the shooter. The officer seized the murder weapon along with the suspect. Elliot Morales, 33, is in the custody of the NYPD, charged with second degree murder as a hate crime, and is being held in jail without bail.
After being goaded by a series of previous gay bashings in Midtown Manhattan in the Madison Square Garden area, some involving Knicks fans in full team attire, the LGBTQ and Allied community in the greater NYC metro area has erupted into angry, frightened protests. The Associated Press reports that thousands took to the streets on Monday to cry out against Carson’s murder, making this the most powerful demonstration of anti-hate crime street activism since the days of Matthew Shepard, fourteen years ago. NYC Council Speaker, Christine Quinn, marched arm in arm with Edie Windsor, the key plaintiff in the case for Marriage Equality now before the Supreme Court of the United States. Emotions on a spectrum from disbelief that such a brazen crime could occur in the City, through towering rage against the cold-blooded killing of a defenseless gay man in the heart of the most tolerant neighborhood in New York, to abject fear that the streets of the city are unsafe to walk openly for gay people. Carson fell just blocks from the site of the birth of the Gay Rights Movement during the famous Stonewall Riots of 1969.
Morales, the alleged shooter, once charged with attempted murder in 1998, was filled with “homophobic glee,” laughing as he confessed to police that he pulled the trigger on Carson, according to the New York Daily News. Morales was seen just 15 minutes before the attack, publicly urinating outside an upscale Greenwich Village restaurant beside the storied Stonewall Inn. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly candidly commented to the press that Carson had done nothing to antagonize his assailant, according to USA Today. “It’s clear that the victim here was killed only because and just because he was thought to be gay,” Commissioner Kelly said.
The Daily News speculates that Morales’s homophobia had been ignited by the way Carson, a proud, out gay man, was dressed–in a tank top with cut off shorts and boots. Prosecutors say that Morales shouted at Carson and his friend, “Hey, you faggots! You look like gay wrestlers!” According to his family, Carson was happy, well-adjusted, and loved the West Village where he met his death . “He was a courageous person,” Carson’s brother, Michael Bumpars, said. “My brother was a beautiful person.”
Makeshift shrine at the spot Mark Carson was shot to death in West Village.
Naïve pundits have said that the increasing visibility and political success of LGBT people to gain mainstream acceptance have ushered in a new era of queer acceptance in American life. Some have even declared the “victory” of the gay rights movement. Such self-congratulations are premature. Carson’s brazen murder by a totally unapologetic homophobe, coupled with the rash of LGBT youth suicides in schools across the nation, and reports of skyrocketing statistics of violence against transgender people of color, are giving the lie to the notion that the United States is safe for queer folk. Some are now reversing their previous opinions, calling the violence evidence of a “backlash” against the recent success of Marriage Equality in New England, New York, the District of Columbia, and Minnesota. Though New York State made same-sex marriage legal in 2011, NYC Police Commissioner Kelly revealed that though last year’s bias-crimes against LGBT people in the city numbered 13, the total now stands at 22 and counting.
June is Gay Pride Month in New York City. Nerves are frayed. Top city officials, politicians, and police top brass are scrambling to make this year’s celebration in Greenwich Village and around town safe. New York City has earned the reputation of being the cradle of queer tolerance, and Mayor Bloomberg obviously wants to keep it that way. Yet the violence in the streets of New York, now turned ominously fatal with Mark Carson’s grisly murder, may be a bellwether for things to come throughout the nation. Morales, the alleged shooter, laughed and joked that he was proud to terrorize the LGBT community. Foes of gay equality may be on the back foot because of the rapid acceptance of gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual people, particularly by younger Americans. But homophobic, irrational hatred, the sort that maims and kills, has by no means gone away. Nor does this recent spate of violence suggest a “backlash.” When 38 states have written homophobia into their constitutions, or bolstered anti-gay statutes, this outbreak of harm can hardly be seen as anything but good, old fashioned American bigotry. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects (NCAVP) is closely monitoring events in New York and around the nation. They advise non-confrontational efforts to diffuse potentially dire situations of violence. Yet, the queer community has come too far to go back into the closet ever again. To do so would dishonor the hopes, loves, and courage of openly gay men like Mark Carson. Sharon Stapel, NCAVP’s executive director, said that these events must be understood in the context of a nation where basic equality is still denied to LGBT people. Her message to New York’s gay community? “We want to give people tools that can de-escalate situations but also say, ‘You need to be yourself,'” Stapel said to ABC News. “We’re not telling people, ‘Take your rainbow sticker off.'”
Cleveland Transgender Woman’s Body Found With Multiple Stab Wounds; Now 3 Trans Murders in April
Transgender woman Cemia Acoff, 20, stabbed to death and submerged in a pond west of Cleveland.
Cleveland, Ohio – The badly decomposed body of a local transgender woman was found sunken in a pond on Wednesday, April 17. The victim, Ms. Cemia Acoff, 20 years of age, also known as Ci Ci Dove by her friends, had been reported missing since March 27. The pond, located in Olmstead Township west of Cleveland, was built to recycle runoff water from a once thriving greenhouse operation in the area. Ms. Acoff’s body, riddled with stab wounds and naked from the waist down, was tied to a concrete block in order to weigh the corpse down to the bottom of the pond. The Advocate reports that a resident of a close by apartment complex discovered the body, and notified police. The coroner had to identify Ms. Acoff by testing her DNA, because of the state of the her remains.
Adding insult to the grief of family and friends, local news outlets heaped disrespect upon Ms. Acoff’s memory, sensationalizing her transition and employing a deeply insensitive reportage template to her story, referring to her as “a man in a dress,” a stock response of transphobic ignorance in situations like these. The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Fox 8 were called to task by GLAAD, faith leaders, and local LGBTQ advocates. For example, Fox 8 published a whole paragraph in their report demeaning Ms. Acoff’s character for having a police record, and describing the clothes found on her corpse. The outcry against such negative coverage of the murder of a transgender woman caused both the Plain Dealer and Fox 8 to modify their previous stories, but GLAAD representative Aaron McQuade issued a statement to the press calling on both local news outlets to meet with GLAAD and members of the transgender community to learn what more they need to do to redress the damage they have already done to the memory of Ms. Acoff. In part, McQuade stated: “The truth is, when someone like Cemia appears to identify as female sometimes and male other times, it’s because it’s still socially unacceptable (and often dangerous) to be transgender. The fact that some people in Acoff’s life didn’t know she sometimes identified as female, and the fact that her legal identification might not have reflected her gender identity, doesn’t change the fact that she was a transgender woman.”
TransGriot points that the murder of Ms. Acoff is the third anti-transgender hate crime homicide of an African American transwoman reported in the month of April alone. Besides Ms. Acoff, 29-year-old Kelly Young was shot to death in Baltimore on April 3, and 30-year-old Ashley Sinclair of Orlando, Florida who was also found shot to death the next day, Thursday, April 4. The murder of transwomen of color has reached alarming proportions throughout the nation in recent months–all the more reason to get the sad news of the loss of Cemia and her transgender sisters of color widely, sensitively, and accurately distributed throughout the media. For a further report on the slow rolling decimation of the transgender population in the United States, see the landmark study, “Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey,” which may be accessed in detail on the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force website.
As of this writing, Ms. Acoff’s killer or killers remain at large with no leads.
Transgender Woman Shot to Death in Baltimore
Kelly Young, 29, shot to death in a possible transphobic hate crime.
East Baltimore, Maryland – A beloved member of the transgender community of Baltimore was found shot on the floor of her apartment this Wednesday morning. Kelly Young, 29, died in transit to the hospital.
The murder remains unsolved. Baltimore City Police are investigating, but say that it is too early yet to determine that this homicide was a hate crime, according to WJZ TV, CBS Baltimore. Officials say that they will make the determination about the hate crime status of the case as evidence warrants. “Internally, we’ll investigate any incident as a hate crime if there is any sort of physical evidence that indicates it’s a hate crime,” said Sgt. Eric Kowalczyk, Baltimore City police. “She had a lot of friends and a lot of loved ones who really want to bring this case to closure.” Matt Thorn, spokesperson from the GLBT Resource Center of Baltimore and Central Maryland (GLCCB), said that the police were following every lead, and that the murder of Ms. Young might very well prove to be a transphobic hate crime meant to send a message to the LGBT community.
Community outrage at the murder is running high, and some of her friends are concerned with their own safety. Dondria Naieem, a friend of Ms. Young, said to CBS Baltimore, “I’m scared to walk by myself and hang with a lot of people so people don’t get me. It’s really hard to cope with her death.” Ms. Young was born near where she died, and was a well-known and well-loved entertainer who performed regularly at a local club. She had the reputation of being an accomplished dancer.
On Thursday, her family and friends gathered to remember Ms. Young and give thanks for her life. Her sister, Monique Mack, told WMAR TV, the local ABC affiliate, “The neighborhood embraced her — boys and girls, straight or gay she was embraced.” “It wasn’t always a smooth road but I will say it was more smooth than not.” Her mother spoke of her gifts and qualities, as well: “Everybody accepted her. That’s why everybody is here because everybody accepted her. She kept it real.”
Everybody except the person or the persons who gunned down Kelly Young, that is. Neighbors, family and friends are determined to get to the bottom of why a person so beloved could be killed so cruelly. Tanya Eley, Ms. Young’s longtime friend, said, “God knows whatever happened to her, God has them; they’re going to regret whatever they did to her because she was loved.”
Searching for LGBTQ Justice this Christmas 2012
“Magi,” J.C. Leyendecker, 1900.
“We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts we traverse afar.
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,
Following yonder star.
“O star of wonder, star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect Light.”
When the Reverend John Henry Hopkins Jr. wrote the lyrics for the universally loved, “We Three Kings,” in 1857, the term “homosexual” had not yet been coined, and would not be for another twelve years. We know now that “homosexuality” was a socially created term, invented by European social scientists in the latter 19th century to describe a new species of person. “Homosexuals” were a problem on the scene of the Industrial Revolution. Men (especially, at the time) were singled out and scrutinized because they were not procreating, adding children to the labor forces of the era that manned the “dark Satanic mills” of Northern and Western Europe and the United States. From the invention of homosexuality by the medico-political regimes of the age, gay men and lesbians were problems society had to examine, quarantine, and cure. So, there never was a time that “homosexuality” as a term was not biased against the humanity and dignity of same-sex loving people.
Christmas 2012 offers us a stunning perspective of change. In Europe, even as Pope Benedict XVI inveighs against gay relationships, much of the continent has embraced its LGBTQ citizens and secured their rights to live and love as the fully worthy human beings they always have been. In the United States, major strides have been taken against anti-LGBTQ hate crimes, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been fully repealed, allowing fully open service in the U.S. military by LGBTQ servicepeople, and this election cycle has brought the election of the first openly lesbian U.S. Senator (Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin), three new states that have made same-sex marriage legal (Maryland, Maine, and Washington), and, for the first time, a state has refused to enact anti-LGBTQ bias into a state constitution by a public referendum (Minnesota). But, on the other hand, the murder of LGBTQ people has never been higher, tensions across the nation concerning upcoming Supreme Court rulings on Prop 8 and the constitutionality of DOMA are mounting, and there is no comprehensive federal protection for LGBTQ persons in the labor force. What are we to make of this moment in the struggle for human rights and full equality, then?
President Barack Obama who came out publicly for marriage equality in May 2012 said in an interview with Pink News, “One of the things that I’m very proud of during my first four years is I think I’ve helped to solidify this incredibly rapid transformation in people’s attitudes around LGBT issues — how we think about gays and lesbians and transgender persons.” We are engaged in changing the minds of our fellow citizens about who LGBTQ people are, as the President suggests. Instead of being a suspicious “species,” a variation of some straight ideal for human kind, we are neighbors, friends, relatives, loved ones, co-workers–in other words, everyday people as worthy of respect and acknowledgement as anyone else. And, as the President says, we are closer to changing the collective American mind in this direction than ever. Speaking of his own daughters, President Obama said, “You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we’re talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently. It doesn’t make sense to them and frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.” Looking back across the last four years of his presidency, Mr. Obama observed that the United States is “steadily become a more diverse and tolerant country.
There’s been the occasional backlash, and this is not to argue that somehow racism or sexism or homophobia are going to be eliminated or ever will be eliminated,” he went on to say. “It is to argue that our norms have changed in a way that prizes inclusion more than exclusion.”
Magi, and activists, and clergy, and just plain people of good conscience still seek the Light of justice for LGBTQ people in this country and around the world. As we lean forward toward Bethlehem this Christmas season, may the searchers find courage in each other, and in the power of an idea whose time has come.
Merry Christmas to the Friends and Fans of Unfinished Lives!
Gay Hate Crimes Blog Reaches New Milestone! 400k!
Dallas, Texas – Unfinished Lives Blog, a cyber effort to change the conversation about anti-LGBTQ hate crimes, reached at significant milestone at approximately Noon Central Time: 400,000 site visits. The Unfinished Lives Project Team, past and present, thank our readership most sincerely, and move ahead with this project in the knowledge that breaking the silence and remembering the dead are acts of justice supported by so many good people.
The Unfinished Lives Project was launched in response to the over 13,000 women, men, youth, and GenderQueer people in the United States who have lost their lives so outrageously since the early 1980s to heterosexism, homophobia, and the culture of violence so prevalent in this country. As the graphic from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) and GLAAD shows, the crisis of hate crime violence against queer folk is not abating—it is growing annually, at an alarming rate. Bias-motivated hate crime prevention was never more important than now. We mourn the outrageous losses these data represent, and cry out against the injustices that instigate them.
Transgender people, especially transgender youth of color, and gay men are the main targets of unreasoning hatred today. Our suspicion is that the number of lesbians killed for their sexual orientation is alarmingly high, as well, masked in our culture by misogynistic violence that takes the lives of so many women in this country everyday. While the number of documented attacks against lesbians is growing, we believe that the statistics we have on the murder of lesbians are the only tip of the iceberg.
This blog was also created to support the publication of Dr. Stephen Sprinkle’s groundbreaking book, Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications, 2011). The Unfinished Lives Project Team is glad that many of our readers have also discovered the book, authored by our Founder and Project Director. Book signing and promotion events have carried the message of hate crimes prevention, LGBTQ equality, and hope throughout Texas, and to Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Toledo, South Florida, Birmingham, Chicago, New York City, St. Louis, and six cities in North Carolina. Plans are in the works for a book tour event in Indiana. Filming has begun for a made-for-cable series based on the stories of the 14 victims told in the book. This past June, Dr. Sprinkle received the 2011 Silver Medal for Gay-Lesbian Non-Fiction from the Independent Book Publishers Awards (the IPPYs). A translation of Unfinished Lives is in process in the Korean language, furthering the reach of this message of justice and hope on an international stage. When released in Korea later this year, Unfinished Lives will be only the second book on homosexuality to be published in South Korea.
Thank you for your continuing interest and support. 400.000 visitors is a sign of health, hope, and sacred trust. This work was and remains to be a voluntary labor of love. We who believe in Justice cannot rest. We who believe in Justice cannot rest until it comes!
Transgender Day of Remembrance 2012: Never Forget Our Dead
Dallas, Texas, and around the globe – The 14th Annual International Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is set for November 20, 2012. Women, men, youth, and queer folk of every stripe will be gathering throughout the week, and especially on this coming Tuesday evening, to memorialize our Transgender Sisters and Brothers, gender variant people who have not yet identified, and those perceived to be Transgender who have lost their lives to unreasoning hatred since this time last year.
The first TDOR was established to remember the murder of Rita Hester who died on November 28, 1998–a case that has never been solved to this day. The heinous character of hate crimes against gender variant people is compounded by the fact that so many of these homicides remain, like Rita’s, unsolved, with no one brought to justice.
TDOR offers a chance for lament to take place in a world that customarily ignores the plight of gender variant persons, especially youth of color. The vigil gives LGB and Straight allies a way to stand together in solidarity with Transgender people, and publicly condemn all acts of violence perpetrated against our sisters and brothers. Since the media turn a blind eye towards the killing of Transgender persons, TDOR breaks the silence in a powerful way, drawing attention to this crisis from local communities to the entire global village. Finally, those who had no voice in life are remembered, and vicariously given voice beyond the grave.
Observances will remember over 265 persons who died this year because of their gender identity and gender expression. A current listing of the dead may be found on the International Transgender Day of Remembrance website.
This Sunday, November 18, Dallas will commemorate TDOR, according to Rev. Dr. Jo Hudson of Cathedral of Hope. As the Dallas Voice reports, The Dallas Transgender Day of Remembrance 2012, “A Candle Light Vigil and Celebration of Lives,” will be from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 18 at Cathedral of Hope, 5910 Cedar Springs Road, Dallas. Speakers for the event are Councilwoman Delia Jasso, Carter Brown of Black Transmen Inc., Michelle Stafford of GEAR and youth representative Hanna Walters. Music will be provided by Shelly Torres-West with Paul Allen, Mosaic Song, Terry Thompkins, and the Cathedral Ringers. Doors open at 5 p.m., and refreshments will be available.
Transgender spokeswoman Michelle Stafford expressed her feelings about the meaning of this year’s memorial to the Voice: “While on the surface this Day of Remembrance is focused on the transgender portion of our community,” she said, “at the heart it is a remembrance of where our community, the LGBT community, was in the past, how it has moved forward, and where it must press forward together to achieve. It is a time of honoring those who have been murdered simply because they were themselves. It is a time of reflecting on what each of us an individual has done to advance our protection under the legal system, our right to access adequate medical care, our freedom to obtain and hold employment without discrimination, the ability to seek housing without prejudice, freedom to dine and shop where we desire without discrimination, and the right to live our lives as the authentic people we know we are.”
Gays, Lesbians, Transgender People in the Crosshairs This Election Season: Brite Divinity Bible Event Speaks Out for Justice
Speakers at The Bible, Politics, and Sexuality event at Brite Divinity School (l-to-r): Dr. Shelly Matthews, Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, Dean Joretta L. Marshall.
Fort Worth, Texas – A gay and a straight professor speak out for sexuality justice in an upcoming forum on the role of the Bible in the political discussion this election year. Brite Divinity School faculty members, Dr. Shelly Matthews, Associate Professor of New Testament, a straight scholar, and Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, Professor of Practical Theology, a gay scholar, will speak at the Bass Conference Center at 7 pm on the divinity school campus, Monday, October 22. The event will be introduced and moderated by Dean Joretta L. Marshall. The public is invited.
Dean Marshall, in announcing the event, said, “In the highly charged political arena, the Bible is often used in conversations about gender identity and sexual orientation. The Carpenter Initiative in Gender, Sexuality, and Justice is pleased to host Brite scholars, Dr. Shelly Matthews and Dr. Steve Sprinkle, who will offer perspectives on how the Bible is used in positive and negative ways, as well as strategies for moving conversations of sexual justice forward.”
Dr. Matthews, educated at Harvard, is a New Testament expert on many topics. She was the founder and served for six years as co-chair of the Violence and Representations of Violence Among Jews and Christian section of the Society of Biblical Literature and currently serves on steering committees for the SBL Sections on Early Jewish Christian Relations and the Book of Acts. She is also on the editorial board of the Journal of Biblical Literature and a member of the Westar Institute. Her research interests include feminist biblical interpretation, feminist historiography, early Jewish Christian relations, and Paul in the second century. Dr. Matthews has authored several books and monographs, including Perfect Martyr: The Stoning of Stephen and the Construction of Christian Identity (Oxford, 2012).
Dr. Sprinkle, the first openly gay scholar in Brite history, also serves as Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry. He is an ordained Baptist minister, and received his Ph.D. at Duke University in systematic theology. He holds membership in the Association of Theological Field Education and the Academy of Religious Leadership. Widely recognized as an expert in anti-LGBTQ violence, Dr. Sprinkle is the author of many articles and three books, the most recent of which is the award-winning Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications, 2011). Dr. Sprinkle is also the founder and director of the Unfinished Lives Project, and serves as Theologian-in-Residence at Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas, the world’s largest liberal Christian church with a predominant outreach to LGBTQ people
The Bible, Sexuality, and Politics event has a Facebook page where essential information may be found, including directions to Brite Divinity School, and a way to register attendance. The evening is free and open to everyone.
Transgender Murder in Cincinnati Part of Alarming National Trend
Kendall L. Hampton, 26, gender variant person killed by gunshots in Cincinnati.
Cincinnati, Ohio – A 26-year-old gender-nonconforming person was found shot to death late last Saturday night. Transgender and anti-violence advocates are drawing attention to the brutal murder of Kendall L. Hampton as they highlight the alarming increase in transgender and gender non-conforming violence in the country, especially against people of color.
Your Black World says that the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) has identified nine gender non-conforming or transgender homicides this year so far. Of the 30 documented murders of LGBTQ people registered by the NCAVP, 87% are either transgender or gender variant people of color.
WXIX TV 19 reports that Hampton, an alleged sex worker, was found fatally shot in a parking lot between a McDonald’s fast food restaurant and a Dairy Mart. He was transported to nearby University Hospital where he was pronounced dead later that night. Police say that Hampton was shot twice by an unknown assailant.
The NCAVP and the Buckeye Region Anti-Violence Organization are calling on lawmakers and law enforcement officials to investigate Hampton’s murder for signs of gender, race, and sexual orientation bias. An increasing chorus of advocates and everyday citizens is calling for better enforcement of hate crimes statutes, especially the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, signed into law by President Obama in October of 2009. Social Justice activists note that since increased publicity has been focused on LGBTQ people since the Shepard Act became law, the rate of violence has increased each year. Some are calling for the passage of tougher anti-queer legislation to protect the vulnerable LGBTQ community.
Often news reports of prostitution are published by the media in gender variant homicide cases, not because gender non-conforming people are apt to be sex workers, but rather because the sensational titillation associated with the murder of prostitutes sells more copy. The effect of such reports is to downplay the public’s sympathy for the victim, and to lessen the impact of the news of a murder on a wider readership or listening audience. It is a sometimes no-so-subtle means of blaming the victim for his own demise. Whether Kendall Hampton was actively working in the sex industry is beside the point. He was a human being of worth, perceived to be different enough that someone acted out of hatred and killed him. Whether the killer gets to own the story of his victim’s death will be up to a more informed public, and a media establishment less interested in sensationalism and more intent on stopping violence against Americans.
Anti-Gay Violence with a Side of Waffle Fries: A Comment on Matthew Paul Turner’s “Five Reasons the Church Failed” on Chick-fil-a Appreciation Day
Dallas, Texas – By all reports, Mike Huckabee’s Chick-fil-a Appreciation Day was a success in “Big D” and around the nation. Beaucoup Church folk stretched around the block to show some love to Dan Cathy’s corporate bottom line, and munch on some fast food chicken–the storied “Gospel Bird” gobbled at every church supper throughout the South. Matthew Paul Turner, the popular Christian blogger (5,000+ subscribers) responded by writing a thoughtful post entitled “5 Reasons Why the Church Failed Yesterday.” You can read the post in its entirety by clicking here. In the aftermath of Wednesday’s effort to show Cathy, Huckabee, and CFA Corp some love by the conservative Christian Right, otherwise known as the Republican-Party-at-Prayer, Matthew Paul speaks to the head and the heart of right-of-center, salt-of-the-earth supporters of CFA, and seeks to prick their consciences (or at least raise their consciousness a bit). As a gay man and a Christian, an ordained Baptist minister and seminary professor, I must tell you, I was moved by much of what Matthew Paul had to say. His opening words for Reason Five were especially impressive to me. Matthew Paul writes:
“Yesterday’s hoopla surrounding CFA did nothing to prove that Christians don’t hate gay people. Oh I know that most Christians will say, ‘I don’t hate gay people!!’ But did supporting CFA Appreciation Day prove that?” Matthew Paul then said, “Trust me, I understand that most people who ate chicken sandwiches at CFA yesterday did not do that as an act of hate. I get that. And that’s cool and all, but did the act of going out of your way to CFA prove that to be true? Do you think that the GLBTQ communities believe you? Would you, if you were gay, believe you?”
Yet, even as I read the good words on Matthew Paul’s blog, I still could not get the perpetual violence done the LGBTQ community in the name of God, the Bible, and the Church out of my mind. Nor could I remain silent about the specter of violence egged on by faith-based bigotry that lurks behind most every anti-gay hate crime in America. So, here is the short reflection on the “5 Reasons” post that I sent to Matthew Paul:
“Thought provoking and generative post, Matthew Paul. But the larger point to me is that the pogrom against LGBTQ people (many of them LGBTQ people of faith, too!) is going on all around the half-million or so ‘chicken Christians’ who are simply, idly standing by and letting it happen while they eat. 2011 saw the largest number of anti-gay murders in US history according the NCAVP (National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs) report. In Texas, in the space of barely six weeks, three lesbians of color have been violently attacked, and two of them are dead. The decimation of LGBTQ people is going on apace, with killers quoting the Bible and right wing religious leaders as they do it. And the good people (I really mean that, in regards to many CFA supporters) of the church are bystanders silently permitting the killings to go on, munching away. I am an ordained Baptist minister and a gay man. As I contemplate the complicity of the church in the slow rolling decimation of our fellow Americans, I believe I have a visceral understanding of the Gospel verse, ‘Jesus wept’ (John 11:35).”
Christians in Austin, Texas, have called on all their Facebook and Twitter friends to show their faith on August 8 by making a $10 donation to a local food bank. Hold the chicken, and hold the waffle fries, please. That seems to me to be in keeping with what Jesus would have us do to show some real Godly love in action, so I will be joining my faith-filled Austin friends by sending my bucks along to the Cathedral of Hope food pantry in Dallas. But I will also be pursuing a mission of conscience beyond that.
If you, gentle readers, believe you see an “agenda” in my response to CFA Appreciation Day, and in my addendum to Matthew Paul Turner’s “5 Reasons” post, then let me hasten to borrow the words of “our dear friend and prayer partner,” Dan Cathy of CFA, who famously said, “I plead guilty.” I do have an agenda, an authentic gay agenda, the only so-called “gay agenda” I know anything about, one that has been influenced and shaped by the simple WWJD faith of my youth. My agenda is that the faith-based bystanders who look idly on while women, men, and youths are bashed, bullied, and killed because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender variance will finally awaken, and take responsibility for their merciless silence–to the end that all Jesus’ followers raise their voices and act until the senseless violence stops!
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…
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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 
Honoring Queer Heritage: A Thanksgiving Season Special Comment
As the NorthEast Two-Spirit Society tells us, of the approximately 400 First Nations tribes in North America at the time of the Pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth, no fewer than 155 of these indigenous Nations had traditions embracing Two-Spirit people as well as people whose gender variance blended male and female roles and characteristics. Two-Spirit people acted as role models of harmony and balance, living examples of the way the Great Spirit blessed all manifestations of gender. Two-Spirits were often honored as visionaries for the people, translators of customs and traditions between men and women, and the guardians of children, making sure children of the Nation were being reared humanely and well. NE2SS says “When a family was not properly raising their children, the Two Spirit person would intervene and assume the responsibly as the primary caretaker. Sometimes, families would ask the Two Spirit person for help rearing their children. This unique role of social worker was specific to Two Spirit people, for they had an excess of material wealth as a result of the gifts they received.” Among the Lakota (Sioux) people, prior to going out to war, a great dance was held with Two-Spirit people in the center of the hoop, to show the honor in which they were held by the people.
The religious mediation performed by Two-Spirits keep the the spiritual health of the people strong. They were communicators between the seen world and the unseen world, bringing the blessings of the Great Spirit to the Nation in a variety of practical ways. Among the Navajo people, Two-Spirits were great artists, philosophers, and healers, the Renaissance people of the Nation.
Balboa’s dogs set on Panamanian “sodomites,” DeBry 1594.
But Europeans reacted to Two-Spirit and gender variant traditions among the First Nations with hostility and physical violence, condemning them for being “sodomites.” As drawings and paintings of the 16th and 17th Century pogroms against queer life among the Native Nations show, the colonizers exterminated Two-Spirits and banned dances and ceremonies honoring them whenever possible. A notorious example is the 1594 sketch of Balboa’s troops setting their dogs on Panamanian Two-Spirits, tearing them to pieces. David Stannard in American Holocaust records English horrors against the Pequots that followed the Spanish example: “blood-Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seize them.”
Many native people eventually succumbed to the colonizers’ pressure, and forgot the old ways of their ancestors. Many converted to the strict sexual and gender binary of Western Christianity. The legacy of this cultural amnesia is especially grim among First Nations people today who continue to discriminate against the gender variant among them on the Reservation. As the intolerance of the Navajo council leadership toward same-sex marriage recently demonstrated, the Two-Spirit traditions of the ancestors is on shaky ground. The hate crime murder of Two-Spirit teenager, F.C. Martinez Jr. in Cortes, Colorado is the direct result of anti-queer hostility aggravated by conservative Christian prejudices.
The good news is that queer life among our First Nations ancestors is regaining respect. Elders of the people, and activists in the native LGBTQ community are reviving the knowledge of these practices. As NE2SS reports, “In some nations that have revived this tradition, or brought it once again into the light, Two Spirit people are again fulfilling some of the roles and regaining the honor and respect of their communities.”
This Thanksgiving, as we move beyond and behind the mythology of the Pilgrims and Indians, it is important for us to remember that queer life was held in honor for thousands of years before the first European set foot on these shore. Queer life in North America is original; hostility and religious intolerance towards gender variance are unwanted, illegal aliens.
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November 21, 2012 Posted by unfinishedlives | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, First Nations, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, religious intolerance, Slurs and epithets, Special Comments, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, Two-Spirit people | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, First Nations Americans, gender variant people, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, religious intolerance, Slurs and epithets, Special Comment, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, Two-Spirit people | Comments Off on Honoring Queer Heritage: A Thanksgiving Season Special Comment