Stephen V. Sprinkle's Blog, page 11

Gay Philly Party Promoter and Gay Hispanic Couple Attacked in New York City as Hate Crime Spree Widens

Dan Contarino, one of the latest victims of anti-gay violence in New York City (Facebook photo).

New York City, New York – The spread of anti-gay violence continued Tuesday night with an attack on an openly gay party promoter, and in a separate incident, upon a gay couple, both occurring in East Village.  Just hours after thousands marched in the streets of New York to demand justice for the mounting number of gay victims of homophobic brutality, Dan Contarino tweeted that he was assaulted by men shouting anti-gay epithets.  He posted on Facebook that about 10:30 pm he was punched and kicked by a group of hostile men who called him “faggot.”  Neighbors rushed to his aid, and the attackers ran into the night.  NY Police are searching for the suspects, but no one has yet been arrested for the hate crime as of this writing.

According to Nightlifegay.com, Contarino, a Philadelphian who promotes Shampoo Nightclub’s “Shaft” Parties on Friday nights, wrote:  “THANKS FOR CALLS…. GAY BASHED LAST NITE…. back from small surgery…. CHEST XRAYS THIS AM…. suspect still at large… police n media waiting to interview me… U JUST WANNA CRY N MOVE ON….” and later Contarino posted, “UGH…. THIS IS JUST AS BRUTAL AS the ATTACK…. 3 hours… 8 detective interviews… now waiting for Hate Crimes Unit main interview… THEN BACK TO HOSPITAL….”

Nightlife Gay’s blogger Bruce Yelk posted that he had spoken to Contarino personally after the attack:  “I talked with Dan last night and this morning and he is very shaken and as you can see by the photo banged up pretty good.  I am thankful it was not worse as NYC’s hate crime spree continues.”  Yelk then summed up how many in the Greater New York City Metropolitan area are feeling today about the the growing epidemic of anti-gay violence in a city that prides itself on LGBTQ acceptance.  ”Shock, outrage, anger sums up how I am feeling today as one of my very good friends was gay bashed last night in New York City,” he wrote Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, according to NBC New York, a gay Hispanic couple were assaulted in SoHo, on Broadway between Prince and Houston Streets.  Police reports say that the gay men were attacked at about 5 am by two assailants shouting homophobic slurs in both English and Spanish.  The victims, 41 and 42 years old respectively, were punched and beaten, and one of the men suffered an injury to his eye.  Two suspects, 31 and 32, were quickly apprehended by NYPD officers, and are facing assault as a hate crime charges.  Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke out forcefully against the attacks on LGBT people in his city.  “New York City has zero tolerance for intolerance,” the Mayor said at a news conference on Tuesday. “We are a place that celebrates diversity … hate crimes like these are an offense against all we stand for as a city, and we will do everything possible to stop them.”  

With Gay Pride Month just around the corner, in June, and no end in sight for the spike in bias motivated crimes against LGBTQ people in the city where the modern Gay Pride and Human Rights movement was born, something swift and strong needs to happen if queer folk are to start feeling safe in New York City again.

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, hate crimes legislation, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino / Latina Americans, LGBTQ, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York, New York City, Protests and Demonstrations, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes

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.’”

Tagged: anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bullying in schools, Christine Quinn, gay bashing, gay men, gay teens, GLBTQ, gun violence, Hate Crime Statistics, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, LGBTQ teen suicide, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), New York, New York City, Protests and Demonstrations, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, Stonewall, Stonewall Riots, transgender persons, transphobia

2nd and 3rd Vicious Anti-Gay Attacks in New York City in Matter of Days

Gay bashing survivors attacked outside Midtown Manhattan billiards club on Friday (WABC 7 images).

New York City, New York – Port Authority Police report the third brutal anti-gay hate crime in the Midtown area of Manhattan this Friday, when two gay men were assaulted, beaten, and dragged by homophobic New York Knicks fans.  WABC 7  and NBC 4 New York report that the two victims whose names have not been released to the public (but are pictured to the left) attempted to gain access to Space Billiards, an after-hours billiards club around 5 a.m. Friday morning.  They were denied admission, but as they left, a crowd of five men wearing NY Knicks fan jerseys targeted the gay men outside the club, yelling anti-gay slurs at them, and commencing the attack.

The pair ran toward the 33rd Street PATH Station in a vain attempt to escape their attackers, but were grabbed, punched, stomped and beaten, and then dragged along the pavement, sustaining heavy injuries to their faces, arms, and torsos.  The victims were treated at Bellevue Hospital where one of the victims underwent eye surgery as a result of the vicious bashing.

The attackers were apparently so intent on harming the gay men that they continued the beating and yelling epithets in front of the PATH Station, where Port Authority Police witnessed the hate crime in progress, and rushed to break it up.  Most of the attackers fled the scene, but officers arrested two 21-year-old men, Asllan Barisha and Brian Ramirez, charging them with felony assault and anti-gay hate crimes.

On Sunday, May 5, a gay couple were assaulted by Knicks fans with much the same m.o. in the same general area of Midtown.  The New York Anti-Violnce Project (AVP), an organization that combats anti-LGBTQ violence, reports the second incident involving an attack on a gay man by an assailant hurling homophobic slurs in Union Square on Tuesday, May 7. Police have a suspect in custody in relation this assault.  In response to the rash of bias-motivated hate crimes against gay men in New York City, the AVP has issued a Community Alert.

Investigators are working to understand the relationship between the three incidents of bias-motivated crimes against young gay men, separated only by less than a mile and a half and a matter of days.  New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who spoke out against Sunday’s assault, issued this statement in the wake of theses most recent anti-gay attacks:  ”I am outraged by this string of assaults. These vicious assaults are not reflective of the diversity that defines New York City. Our city prides itself on its inclusiveness, and hateful slurs and physical attacks against anyone, for any reason, go against the very fabric of what makes our City great. I thank the NYPD Hate Crime’s Task Force and the PAPD for their continued work to identify and bring those responsible for these heinous attacks to justice, and urge all New Yorkers to stay alert, safe and vigilant.”

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Christine Quinn, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, New York, New York Anti-Violence Project (AVP), New York City, New York Knicks, Port Authority Police, Slurs and epithets, Stomping and Kicking Violence

Gay Bashing in Midtown Manhattan: NYPD Investigating Brazen Hate Crime

Gay couple, Nick Porto (l) and Kevin Atkins (r), bashed in broad daylight near Madison Square Garden. Atkins’ wrist was broken in the attack. [DNAInfo/Ben Fractenberg photo]

New York City, New York – A gay couple walking arm-in-arm outside Madison Square Garden were attacked by young men shouting “Faggots!” according to CBS New York.  Nick Porto, 27, and Kevin Atkins, 22, allege that as they were walking on 8th Avenue between 34th and 35th Streets on Sunday while the New York Knicks were playing the Indiana Pacers in the Garden, a group of men in their 20s wearing Knicks jerseys hurled epithets at them and making fun of their clothing.  The assault swiftly followed the hate speech.

The gay men were then knocked to the pavement, beaten, punched, and kicked.  The pair attempted to fight off their attackers, but in vain. “Fists started flying. I was on the ground, and the only thing I could do, I reached out and grabbed someone’s hair,” Porto said.  First responders rushed the couple to Bellevue Hospital where Atkins was put in a cast for a broken right wrist.  Atkins reported that his iPad was smashed in the attack, as well.  Since his job for reality television requires accurate typing, Atkins will be unable to work until he heals.  Porto, a clothing designer who is a resident of Brooklyn now says he cannot feel safe as a gay man in New York City.   “I was being foolish,” he said, hampered by a broken nose. “I was so naïve to think that things were better here.” 

The brazen attack in broad daylight elicited anger and resolve to catch the men who harmed Porto and Atkins.  Mayoral candidate and city council woman Christine Quinn issued a statement on Tuesday condemning the attack in strong terms.  She said, according to Pix 11, “I am appalled by reports of a gay bashing in Midtown Manhattan on Sunday afternoon. Hateful assaults like these are an affront to everything our great City stands for and I urge the perpetrators to turn themselves in immediately. I also implore anyone who may have witnessed or recorded footage of the attack to come forward to the authorities at once.”  Instinct Magazine reports that police are searching for four men whose images were caught on surveillance cameras. Authorities are approaching the case as an anti-gay hate crime.

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Christine Quinn, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, New York City, New York Knicks, Slurs and epithets, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes

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.

Tagged: "Injustice at Every Turn", African Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Character assassination, Florida, gender identity/expression, GLBTQ, gun violence, Hate Crimes, LGBTQ, Maryland, Media Issues, Ohio, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, stabbings, transgender persons, transphobia, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes

Anti-Gay “Conversion Camp” Allegedly Tortures Effeminate Teenage Boy to Death

Raymond Buys, 15, near death from the ravages of an anti-gay conversion camp.

Johannesburg, South Africa – “Man Up or Die.”  That is the way an international human rights advocate characterizes the philosophy of an ex-gay conversion camp radically committed to “beating the gay” out of boys with “feminine traits.”  South African born activist, Melanie Nathan reports in her blog that 15-year-old Raymond Buys died as a consequence of torture and starvation allegedly imposed on him at a three-month “training course” at Echo Wild Game Rangers Camp, located an hour south of Johannesburg.  Esteemed British newspaper, The Telegraph, confirms that Buys is one of three young men whose deaths are being blamed on Alex de Koker, 49, Echo Wild’s director, and his accomplice, Michael Erasmus, 20.  Both of the accused are in custody awaiting trial under charges of “murder, child abuse and neglect, along with two cases of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm in relation to Mr Buys’ death.” Scott De Buitléir, a blogger for Elie, reports that de Koker has claimed to be innocent of the charges.

Young Mr. Buys, who suffered from a learning disability, was sent to Echo Wild to help him become more masculine by his mother, Wilna Buys, in January 2011.  His mother says she spoke to her son three times during the training camp, allowed to speak with him only on speakerphone so their conversation could be monitored.  De Koker claimed young Buys was “self-harming.”  When his mother asked him to explain what prompted his self-injuries, the youth denied that he was doing these things to himself, as she later told the court.  It remains unclear why Mrs. Buys did not act at that time to withdraw her child from the training course, an expensive proposition at $2,000 per month. Two months into the three-month-long course, which turned out to be a full blown ex-gay, reparative therapy boot camp, Mr. Buys lay dying in hospital.  He allegedly had been beaten until his arm was broken multiple times, electrocuted with a taser-like device, chained to his bed and not released to use a bathroom, starved until he was severely dehydrated and emaciated, forced to eat his own feces and laundry detergent, and hit until his skull was cracked and his brain was damaged.  Hospital officials told that he had a “zero chance” of survival. Within two weeks, The Telegraph reports, the teenager died.  “My child was a skeleton,” Mrs. Buys told the Vereeniging District Court. ”He had head injuries and torn ears, there were bruises on his face and arms and cigarette burns on his body.”

Two other young men, 25-year-old Erich Calitz and Nicolas Van Der Walt, 19, also died of brain injuries allegedly inflicted at the camp, according to the Huffington Post.  Alex de Koker, also the chief suspect in the deaths of Mr. Calitz and Mr. Van Der Walt, had reassured Mrs. Buys that he could help her boy become a man and find a good job in the wildlife service.  De Koker’s ties to a rightwing white supremacist homophobic group called the AWB/Iron Guards movement are being investigated.

The sexual orientation of the three young victims of these heinous anti-gay crimes has never been definitively established.  But, as Melanie Nathan points out, any young man who exhibits “feminine characteristics” in Afrikaans culture is considered to be a “moffie,” an epithet akin to “faggot.”  Ms. Nathan explains, “The idea of the [Echo Wild] camp is to apparently make men of teens and to ‘cure’  ‘feminine traits’ in male youths…another way of saying gay reparative therapy, instead in this instance that therapy involved ‘beating the gay out of the kid’– torture, and if torture didn’t effect the desired change, then certainly murder would; after all a dead teen is not a gay teen.” 

Mrs. Buys told The Telegraph, “I trusted Alex de Koker with the life of my child.”  Whether wittingly or unwittingly, she turned her son over to a virulently, homophobic group for a “cure.”  And it cost the boy his life.

Tagged: anti-LGBT hate crime murder, AWB/Iron Guards Movement, Beatings and battery, Burning and Branding, Ex-gay conversion camps, gay teens, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Neo-Nazis and White Supremacy, s, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, South Africa

Ryan Keith Skipper Would Be Thirty-two Today

Damien Skipper and his daughter Ryan at the grave site of Ryan Keith Skipper (photo courtesy of the family).

Wahneta, Florida –  Had Ryan Keith Skipper not been murdered in one of the most heinous anti-gay hate crimes in the history of Florida, he would be celebrating his 32nd birthday today.  Losses like his change the world.  On March 14, 2007, two ne’er do wells, Joseph “Smiley” Beardon, and William “Bill-Bill” Brown slit his throat, stabbed him 20 times, dumped his body on a dark, rural road, stole and tried to fence his new car, and then unable to get any money for it, botched an attempt to burn up the vehicle on a boat ramp at Lake Pansy.  They said their motive was to rid the world of “another faggot.”

Ryan was deeply loved by his mom, Pat, stepdad, Lynn, older brother, Damien, and a whole host of friends.  He also left a brokenhearted lover and two distraught housemates who loved him like a brother.  Lies on the part of the killers, and compound falsehoods by the Sheriff of Polk County kept Ryan’s murder from reaching the world as it should have.  Other LGBTQ lives were lost because Ryan’s full story was suppressed by rumor, unsubstantiated allegations about his character, and crass, anti-gay politics.  His parents took up the cause of justice for their son, and have become two of the most effective advocates for LGBTQ equality and anti-bullying in America. Beardon and Brown were separately convicted, and are now serving life in prison.  Nothing takes the sting of loss away, but many good people have stepped into the breach to ensure that Ryan will never be forgotten, and that his death will not be in vain.  Lesbian Filmmakers Vicki Nantz and Mary Meeks produced and filmed a 72-minute documentary about Skipper’s murder entitled Accessory to Murder: Our Culture’s Complicity in the Death of Ryan Skipper, that premiered in January 2008.  In 2011, Ryan’s story was published in a book dedicated to keeping the memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Murder Victims alive and before the public, entitled Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications).  The Gay American Heroes Foundation has memorialized Ryan, as well, and seeks to include him in a national monument to the victims of LGBTQ Hate Crimes.

But by far the most wonderful remembrance of Ryan has been done by his older brother Damien and wife, who gave Ryan’s name to their baby girl.  Uncle Ryan now has a living memorial in the person of his thriving, laughing, vital niece, Ryan Skipper.  The story of Ryan Keith Skipper is, like the stories of so many other anti-gay murder victims throughout the nation, a story of life, not death.  Every time little niece Ryan runs and plays, or anyone retells the story of her Uncle Ryan, the intentions of his killers is foiled again. We remember Ryan today, not in sorrow, but in gratitude–and in dedication to the spread of justice and equality for all people, gay, transgender, bisexual, and straight alike.  Rest peacefully, Ryan.  We have not forgotten you!  For we who believe in Justice cannot rest. We who believe in Justice cannot rest until it comes!

Tagged: anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bullying in schools, Florida, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Lesbians, LGBTQ, Remembrances, Ryan Keith Skipper, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, stabbings

Gay San Antonio Man Brutally Beaten Unconscious By Three Brothers for “Flirting”

Three Brothers carried out alleged hate crime attack on a San Antonio gay man (L to R, Aurelio Huerta-Gonzalez, 33; Filiberto Huerta-Gonzalez, 30; and Juan Huerta-Gonzalez, 35, San Antonio Police Department photo).

San Antonio, Texas – An alleged weekend anti-gay hate crime has landed three brothers in deep trouble.  A 48-year-old openly gay man who said the brothers had problems with his being gay, was savagely beaten to the floor of a coin operated laundry at his apartment complex on the west side of San Antonio this past Sunday.

KENS5 News reports that the victim was doing laundry and visiting with other apartment tenants when the three brothers and a fourth man as yet unidentified started the attack.  A police report says that the three brothers confronted the victim for how he “looked” at them, calling him a derogatory term in Spanish.  The alleged assailants, who live together in a single apartment in the same complex, Juan Huerta-Gonzalez, 35; Aurelio Huerta-Gonzalez, 33; and Filiberto Huerta-Gonzalez, 30, were arrested by San Antonio Police and charged with an assault hate crime.

The attack was swift and brutal.  The youngest brother, Filiberto, allegedly uttered the slur and told the gay man he hated gay people, according to KSAT News 3.  The assailants punched the victim, beat him to the floor of the laundry, kicked him, and even bit him on the knuckle of his hand.  After awaking from being knocked unconscious in the attack, the victim called police. The middle brother, Aurelio, complained to police that the gay man had been flirting with them, calling one of them “baby,” and “sweet thing.”

A spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department, Officer Matthew Porter, told news outlets, “According to the victim, he believes that his sexual orientation is the reason why he was confronted by these suspects.  We are carrying this as a hate crime.”  Officer Porter went on to say, “One of the suspects made mention that the victim would look at him. Again, that’s no reason to assault this individual. You have a right to choose your religion, your sexual orientation.” 

The three brothers are in custody at the Bexar County Jail, where they are being held for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.  The fourth man has yet to be apprehended.

San Antonio, the state’s second largest city, has no municipal protections in place for LGBT people.  Officials claim hate crimes against gay people are rare in the Alamo City.  Records show that 17 such crimes occurred in the city last year, and this incident is the second recorded in 2013.

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Blame the victim, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino / Latina Americans, LGBTQ, San Antonio, Slurs and epithets, Texas

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.”

Tagged: African Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, GLBTQ, gun violence, Hate Crimes, LGBTQ, Maryland, Social Justice Advocacy, transgender, transphobia, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes

The Golden Rule and Anti-Gay Discrimination

 

Dallas Voice photo

College Station, Texas – The Texas A&M University Student Senate voted on April 3 to discriminate openly against their fellow LGBT students under the guise of “religious freedom.”  By a vote of 35 to 28, the notorious “Religious Funding Exemption Bill,” S.B 65-70, was approved, endorsing the request of any student “who has a religious objection” to opt out of the use of their student activities fees to support the Texas A&M GLBT Center.   The only religiously appropriate response this ordained Baptist minister and theologian is able to muster at this sad news is “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

Cynical efforts to cloak anti-LGBT discrimination in religious authority have been tried and found wanting many times before, even on the Texas A&M campus.  In 2011, such a bias-driven initiative was defeated, along with a parallel effort in the Texas legislature to defund other university LGBT service centers throughout the state.  This year, such a parallel legislative effort using the disguise of religious liberty has already begun in the legislature.  One is left to wonder whether there is a conspiracy between a conservative faction of the Texas state government and bias-driven student activists, given these strangely similar resolutions.  It should be lost on no one that arch-conservative and openly anti-gay Governor Rick Perry is an alumnus and former cheerleader from Texas A&M.

Religious people of goodwill everywhere should sound the alarm when the language of the Bible and religious teachings are hijacked to support an extremist agenda.  Such abuses not only harm the marginalized communities they target, in this case the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.  They also harm the perception of religion in public life, making religion seem bigoted, narrow minded, and hostile to the very idea of diversity that makes both church and state stronger and more humane.

The vast majority of scholars of religion and philosophy, Christian and Jewish, have rejected the sort of religion-based bigotry being used to justify efforts to roll back the calendar to a less diverse, less just day and time.  No credible argument can be made for the Bible’s opposition to committed, loving, same-sex relationships.  No ancient faith leader, from Moses to Jesus to the Apostle Paul, ever had a concept of sexual orientation in their worldview at the time of the establishment of Jewish and Christian religious traditions.  Credible biblical scholarship debunks the “religious argument” from Scripture that the so-called traditional values folks have been hanging onto for decades now.  While zombies may be popular on cable television, such attempts to marshal biblical texts through efforts like S.B. 65-70 that discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students, faculty and staff in the name of “religious freedom” are no more than the walking dead.

The administration of Texas A&M long ago saw fit to leave the prejudices of racism, misogyny, ableism, anti-Semitism, and anti-gay bias back in the bad old days of the past, when people were less educated and less attuned to the demands of a pluralistic, diverse, multi-ethnic, and multi-orientational country.  Multitudes of LGBT Texans, their families, friends, and their progressive allies are proud of the A&M community for establishing one of the premier GLBT resource centers in the state of Texas and in the United States.  Such narrow minded proposals as the one passed by Student Senate in College Station deny the fact that millions of dollars come from tax paying LGBT Texans who are glad to support a great university like A&M, whether they attended there or not, and do not need to vet every use of funds on a university campus.  A state school is answerable to millions of people beyond its campus, and the progressive community in the Lone Star State surely does not want a public university to endorse discrimination against anyone.

Jesus practiced and taught the Golden Rule.

As a Baptist minister, ordained to the Gospel ministry for 36 years now, I can testify that support for the A&M GLBT Resource Center and others like it are a good thing—a very good thing, and one I am proud of, both as a Baptist and a Golden Rule Christian.  I have had the great privilege of visiting the campus, of meeting the leadership of the GLBT Center, and of hearing of its history of service to the larger university community since its establishment in 1994.  I wonder why some of my fellow-believers who profess to adhere to the teachings of the Bible and Jesus Christ so easily dismiss the very Golden Rule Jesus commended to his disciples—that we treat others as we would have them treat us (see Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 22:36-40)?  Nothing else trumps that great teaching in either Christianity or Judaism, as the law, the prophets, and the Christ testify.  Why would self-professed followers of the Word now seek to turn the oracle of true freedom into a form of discrimination, to pervert it from its gracious purposes?  I do not know.

The heart of religion in a free state is to hold people above ideologies, and protect us from the very sort of discrimination this noxious Student Senate bill has enacted in the name of religion.  We hope the A&M community will reconsider what it has done, will not make the same, tired mistakes of centuries of religiously-based bigotry, redress this misbegotten action, and come to a richer, fuller understanding of responsible religious freedom—to care for those who have no one else to care for them in the name of God—rather than to discriminate as if there were some sort of totalizing state religion in Texas.

I and many others like me stand with the brave LGBT students and their allies who spoke out against the harm and discrimination their elected representatives have enacted.  I hope many of these LGBT Aggies will choose to run for Student Government office, and defeat some of their classmates so they may be sent back to the classroom of real religion, Golden Rule Religion, where good faith overcomes bad religion, and people of goodwill learn how to devise new ways to treat one another as they themselves wish to be treated.

~ Rev. Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, Founder and Director of the Unfinished Lives Project, and Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate groups, Brite Divinity School, GLBTQ, Governor Rick Perry, Heterosexism and homophobia, Homosexuality and the Bible, LGBTQ, religious freedom, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Texas, Texas A&M GLBT Center, Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University Senate