Stephen V. Sprinkle's Blog, page 12

Alleged Anti-Gay Hate Crime Attacker’s Bail Raised to $500K; Free Again

Clayton Garzon, 20, accused anti-gay hate crime attacker (MySpace capture).

Yolo County, California – The 20-year-old man arrested for a brutal attack on a gay man had his bail raised Wednesday to over half a million dollars, and was out on the streets of Davis, California by Thursday afternoon.  Clayton Garzon, charged for an anti-gay hate crime against Lawrence “Mikey” Partida, an openly gay Davis resident, had his bail raised to $520,000 in response to the request of Yolo County Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Mount who called Garzon a “serious public safety risk,” according to the Davis Enterprise. After only one night in Yolo County Jail, his family posted bail, and Garzon is free again until an April 12 court date. Garzon is also charged with felonies in a previous case, in which he allegedly stabbed several people in a bar brawl in Dixon.

Garzon is charged for beating Partida unconscious while screaming anti-gay slurs at him in the early morning hours of March 10.  He is alleged to have left the gay man bleeding on the lawn outside of his cousin’s home in order to beat on the door of the house to brag loudly about what he had just done.  A Solano County gas station attendant has come forward to report that Garzon also bragged about what he had done to a gay man, later that same day.  Frances Swanson, Partida’s aunt, said to CBS Sacramento that Garzon’s believed he had killed her nephew. “The only reason he’s not dead is because we’re blessed, and my nephew got lucky. Otherwise, that was the intent,” she said.

Partida is now released from an acute care rehabilitation facility where he spent over a week following his hospitalization at the UC-Davis Medical Center.  The assault left him with bleeding on his brain, a fractured skull, and a shattered eye socket.  He says he feels like a prisoner in his own home as long as Garzon is free on the street. Yet, according to several interviewers, Partida seems to bear no grudge against his attacker.  Instead, he hopes that he will never have to see his assailant again, and that the young man will somehow learn from this experience that hatred never pays.

This time, Garzon is being monitored closely by the Yolo County Probation Office.  Though he is out on bail, he is wearing a GPS device to show his location at all times, and a SCRAM device, which monitors any alcohol intake.  The court ordered that he must stay 100 yards away from his alleged victim.

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, California, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino / Latina Americans, LGBTQ, Slurs and epithets

Gay California Man Brutally Beaten Unconscious in Hate Crime Attack

Mikey Partida, 32, savaged in anti-gay hate crime in Davis, California [Facebook image].

Davis, California – A gay man whose account is supported by eyewitnesses says he was savagely beaten and knocked unconscious because of his sexual orientation.  Mikey Partida, a native of Davis, recounts for CBS 13 Sacramento that he was verbally harassed by local men before the assailants launched the actual physical attack that put Partida in the hospital last Sunday.   As he was walking down the sidewalk from his relatives’ home with his cousins, Partida, an openly gay 32-year-old, said that men followed them, aiming the “f word” at him, over and over.  The savage attack came when he turned back to retrieve a set of keys he had left behind in his cousins’ house.

The assault came “out of nowhere,” Partida told reporters.  “[I] was just an easier target for them. They knew I was gay. They knew they were taller and bigger, and knew how to fight,” he said.  “I couldn’t fight them off. I’ve never been in a fight. They were just saying the f-word — the gay word — but f.” According to his cousin, Vanessa Turner, the men kept shouting anti-gay epithets as they beat, punched, and kicked him unconscious, leaving him a bloody mess with multiple fractures, a severe concussion, cuts, bruises, and a dangerously swollen eye.  Partida was rushed to UC Davis Medical Center, where his doctors say he should make a full recovery.  But the emotional damage done to him will take much longer to heal, he told CBS 13.  “Even if you think it’s your back doorstep, it’s a scary, scary world. You’d think in your hometown, which is Davis, you wouldn’t think anything at your doorstep would hit you that hard,” said Partida.

In an interview with ABC News 10, Ms. Turner, Partida’s cousin, said that one of the assailants, a man from their neighborhood, came back to the scene of the crime and knocked on their door, bragging about what he had done to their gay cousin.  She said what they did to her cousin was an expression of ignorance and arrogance.  Like Partida, she has no doubt that the assault was an anti-gay hate crime.  His main attacker kept shouting the epithets repeatedly.  “I heard him, personally, yelling slurs at him,” she said. “I know it was unprovoked.”  

Davis Police made an arrest Thursday in the case, 19-year-old Clayton Garzon,  a local student with a record of offenses.  Garzon has been charged with assault causing great bodily injury, assault with deadly weapon, commission of a hate crime, stalking, commission of a felony while on release from custody and infliction of bodily injury during the commission of a felony.  He was put on $75,000 bond, which he met soon after his arrest, and now walks free until his date with a judge.  No other arrests have been made.  In the meantime, Partida is attempting to put his sense of security back together again. But he is not going to allow homophobes to dictate whether he can visit his own cousins, he says.  Davis is his home, too, and he is looking for justice to be done.

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, California, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino / Latina Americans, LGBTQ, Slurs and epithets

Teen Son Whipped With Electrical Cord By Mother for Homosexual Behavior; Mom Defends Her Act

North Texas teen whipped with power cord for same-sex acts by his own mother.

Forest Hill, Texas – A Tarrant County mother faces charges of abuse for using an electrical cord to whip her 15-year-old son whom she caught in same-sex act with an 18-year-old boy.  CBSDFW reports that Erica Moore is adamantly defending her son’s punishment, claiming she was well within her rights to beat the child. “I actually caught this going on in my house so how was I supposed to react to it? I supposed to just let it go? No! We was taught to discipline our kids and we whoop our kids,” she said.

The “whooping” was severe enough to draw the attention of authorities who say she faces charges of assault with bodily injury to a family member, which, if proven, carries jail time with it. Police learned of the crime when the boy’s grandmother took him to a hospital emergency room to have his wounds treated.  The beating left the boy with cut skin, bruises, and bleeding on his forearms, legs, back, torso, and hands.

Ms. Moore is fighting the charges on the grounds that she was taught to “whoop” her children, and that homosexuality is a sin. Waking up to sounds in her son’s room, she said she opened his bedroom door and found her boy having sex with his 18-year-old male cousin. Her account to Joe Gomez of KRLD News Radio was explicit in detail:

“My cousin at the time he was 18. My son he was 15 and I had walked in the room on [my cousin] giving oral sex to my son and I started whooping my son, and I’m the one who got in trouble as a result of me whooping him,” she said. “When I walked in I saw my son, it was just disgusting to me, the way he was looking and my cousin was looking, and my cousin immediately ran out the door. And I’m just like what the?!? You know, is you serious? So that was my reaction because it disgusted me.”  

Continuing her justification of her actions, she said that if she caught her daughter doing something similar, she would beat her in the same way.

Forest Hill, a quiet mid-city situated between Fort Worth and Arlington, is typical in attitude toward perceived homosexuality in suburban North Texas. Ms. Moore said that when a Forest Hill Police Officer arrived to investigate, he said that if he had caught his boy in the same situation, he would have wanted to shoot him and his lover on the spot, but that the law prevented beating a child like she beat hers. Weeks later, the police arrested Ms. Moore for the beating, perhaps indicating the heterosexist sympathy of law enforcement for a mother brave enough attempt to “beat the gay” out of her son.

KRLD interviewed Child Protective Services spokesperson Marissa Gonzalez about the case.  “If you are leaving the child with severe injuries or bruises,” she said, “then obviously we might be talking about abuse.”  

The Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex has a massive problem with children in their teens and earlier who are beaten, disowned, and forced out of their homes by parents who despise their sexual exploration and homosexual behavior. While nothing conclusively identifies Ms. Moore’s son as gay, he is headed toward becoming a sad statistic. Joanna Jenkins of Circle of Moms says that children deserve unconditional love, not judgment or punishment for their actual or imagined sexual orientation.  She writes: “The question is: ‘How can you help your gay child?’ You can help your gay child with unconditional love and acceptance. We are talking about your child. Someone you gave birth to, who is a part of you. Do you want them to live a life of pain and guilt? Quote the Bible to them. It will not stop them from being who they are. Some gay children experience so much guilt and shame that they take their own life. Could you live with yourself if your child killed his/herself because you couldn’t accept them for who they are? Your child is still your child, gay or straight. The only thing that has changed is what you know about your child. A true mother’s love is unconditional and will be there long after she is gone.”

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, gay teens, GLBTQ, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Parental child abuse, religious intolerance, Texas

Lesbian Savagely Beaten Unconscious Defending Girlfriend’s Bullied Son

Sondra Scarber, lesbian parent, beaten unconscious by a homophobic father for speaking up for her girlfriend’s child. [WFAA image].

Mesquite, Texas – A lesbian who spoke up to stop school playground bullies from harassing her girlfriend’s 4-year-old son was attacked for her sexual orientation by an enraged man February 17.  When Sondra Scarber, 27, spoke to the father of a boy who was bullying her lover’s little boy, the man recognized that she was a lesbian.  He assaulted her, shouting homophobic insults, so quickly and savagely that Scarber told WFAA she did not even have time to take her hands out of her pockets to defend herself from his blows.

Scarber’s girlfriend, Hillary Causey, recalled for WFAA the horror of watching her love thrashed mercilessly.  The couple, who have been known each other since childhood, and who have been a couple for the past three years, took their child Jaxon to Seaborn Elementary School’s playground around 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, February 17, for an outing. When other boys began pushing and shoving the little boy, whom the couple are rearing together, Scarber spoke to a father of one of the harassing boys: “Sondra said, ‘Can you please keep your hands off of him, he’s only four,’” Causey said.  Only when the man realized that the woman speaking out for her child was a lesbian, he went ballistic, shouting epithets and striking Scarber unconscious.  As the Dallas Voice reports, the assailant ignored Scarber’s pleas: “All she kept saying,” Causey recalled, was, “‘I’m a female. I’m a female.’ She never even had time to take her hands out of pockets to try and block herself.”  

Scarber fell unconscious, with a broken jaw and multiple bruises.  Emergency surgery had to repair her jaw with a metal plate, and she faces months of rehabilitation and recovery from her physical injuries, not to mention her psychological wounds from the attack.  The assailant is still at large.

Causey and Scarber have called on the police to investigate the attack as a hate crime, since the attacker flew into a rage about the couple’s sexual orientation.  The Mesquite Police Department, who say that they want to apprehend the suspect, refuse to designate the case as an anti-gay hate crime.  Local gay advocacy groups are pushing for the Mesquite authorities to press the case as a hate crime. Daniel Cates, organizer for the Dallas Chapter of GetEqual, has called for the community to call the Mesquite Police Department “until the phone rings off the wall” to protest the downplaying of the crime.  The Resource Center of Dallas, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ service centers, issued this statement to the press, which we quote in full:

“Resource Center Dallas denounces the brutal attack of Sondra Scarber at the hands of a man who assaulted her based on her sexual orientation, as first reported February 28 by WFAA-TV (Channel 8). As reported, the circumstances of this case indicate a hate-motivated crime, and that should dissuade the Mesquite Police Department from lessening the severity of any potential criminal charges.

The incident is another example in which words and thoughts lead to destructive actions against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons. The reported violence included anti-gay slurs, followed by violent acts against a lesbian. Had Sondra’s partner not been present, her injuries could have been far more severe.

Anti-gay violence is a serious public health issue.  According to the FBI’s 2011 Hate Crime Report—the most recent available—49 of the 152 hate crimes committed in Texas that year were motivated by anti-gay bias. Nationally, nearly 21 percent of the 6,222 hate crimes committed that same year were motivated by sexual orientation.

The Center calls on the Mesquite Police Department and Chief Derek Rodhe to thoroughly investigate and swiftly arrest the suspects responsible. As leaders in the LGBT community, Resource Center Dallas will be closely monitoring the situation to ensure that justice is carried out.”

Scarber told WFAA that her face is so bruised and swollen, and her jaw so tightly wired shut, that she cannot do much of anything for herself.  “It’s hard for me to stay strong when I see myself in the mirror,” she said. She and Causey have the comfort that their little boy was spared from the bullying that nearly hurt him.  And, they have each other. They are grateful that Scarber is alive.

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Bullying in schools, gay bashing, GET EQUAL Texas, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Lesbians, LGBTQ, Resource Center of Dallas, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes

Gay Candidate for Mayor Slain in Mississippi; Man Taken Into Custody

Marco McMillian, 34, murdered gay candidate for mayor.

Coahoma County, Mississippi – Police have identified the body of a popular gay mayoral candidate, discovered beside a levee near the Mississippi River.  Marco McMillian, 34, was up until his death a candidate for the Mayorship of Clarksdale, Mississippi in a hotly contested race.  Investigators do not believe that politics played a role in the murder of the well-liked CEO of MWM and Associates, widely known as the first truly viable gay candidate for elective office in the State of Mississippi.  McMillian had been reported missing since Tuesday.

NBC News reports that a 22-year-old Clarksdale man who was behind the wheel of McMillian’s stolen sport utility vehicle when it wrecked, has been airlifted to a Memphis, Tennessee hospital.  Police have taken Lawrence Reed into custody, but refuse to say more about whether Reed is a person of interest in the murder investigation of McMillian.  Reed was involved in a head-on collision in Coahoma County, and is reported to be in good condition.

The Clarion Ledger has done major reporting on this story throughout the hunt for McMillian, whom Ebony Magazine listed in 2004 as one of the “30 up-and-coming African Americans under 30.”  McMillian sought to win the Clarksdale mayoral race to succeed Henry Espy Jr., brother of U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, who is stepping down after serving the post for twenty years.  The news of McMillian’s murder rocked the Clarksdale community.  A spokesperson for the McMillian campaign, Jarod Keith, in a statement following the press conference where McMillian’s death was announced, “We remember Marco as a bold and passionate public servant, whose faith informed every aspect of his life. Tragically, that life has been cut short.”  One of his opponents in the race, Bill Luckett, offered his sympathies to McMillian’s family and supporters, calling him  “a very articulate, clean-cut young man. It’s a bizarre and tragic situation that deeply saddened [me].”  The Victory Fund, an LGBT political organization that supports gay candidates for public office, issued a brief statement of grief and condolence that read, “Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Marco McMillian, one of the 1st viable openly LGBT candidates in Mississippi.” 

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is on the case, according to The Advocate.  As best as is known at this time, McMillian picked up a man who subsequently killed him and stole his vehicle.  All eyes now turn to the man taken into custody from McMillian’s wrecked vehicle.

Tagged: African Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Clarksdale MS, Ebony Magazine, gay men, GLBTQ, LGBTQ, Mayoral candidate, Mississippi, unsolved LGBT murders, Victory Fund

Gay Teen’s Home Defaced By Homophobic Vandals: “God Don’t Love You”

Pace, Florida – A gay Florida teenager found his trailer home covered inside and out with homophobic slurs, swastikas, and obscene images upon returning home on February 3.  Jesse Jeffers, 18, who is openly gay, says it was an act of retaliation that focused on his sexual orientation. When Jeffers and his boyfriend came back to his mobile home in Pace, a town of 7,400 in the Panhandle of Florida, near Pensacola, they were angered and astonished by the vandalism.  Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Deputies are calling the act an anti-gay hate crime because it centered on Jeffers’ identity as a gay man, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

Jesse Jeffers, gay teenager, outside his vandalized trailer home.

 

Jeffers, who had moved into the trailer adjacent to his mother’s home three months prior to the vandals’ attack, says that he knows who did this to him. At least one person had threatened him before the attack.  Huffington Post reports that the gay teen, who is working on his GED certificate, has been the target of homophobic bullying in Santa Rosa County schools for years.  The hatefulness of the act has caused Jeffers to fear living in his home any longer, and has taken up residence with his mother again. Though a neighbor’s surveillance camera supposedly caught the vandals in the act, and authorities have promised that warrants will probably be issued in the hate crime case “soon,” Jeffers is cautious and fearful for his safety.  “I don’t know if they’re going to do it again,” Jeffers told the Huffington Post. “Or if there are copycats. It’s basically a small town with a bunch of rednecks.”Until the perpetrators are caught and convicted, and some form of restitution kicks in, Jeffers fears he will have to endure the disapproval of his community.  He cannot afford to repair the damage and repaint the trailer. The glaring slurs, swastikas, and images spray painted on his trailer have made it “a tourist attraction,” according to Jeffers.  “Everybody drives by every day and stops and looks,” he said.

Even religion was employed by the vandals in their attempt to terrorize the teen.  Inside the mobile home, near the large red swastika on the ceiling and the defaced drapery, Jeffers’ attackers scrawled “God don’t love you,” employing a heart sign in place of the word “love.” Jeffers shows considerable maturity in the face of such religious-based bigotry.  As he told the Pensacola News Journal, “Sexuality doesn’t matter. God loves you either way.”

One of the proofs of God’s approval is the vigorous assistance of an LGBT-friendly church in the area that is raising funds to help with the cleanup of Jeffers’ home.  News of the attack is spreading since the News Journal first published its story in early February. Donations and offers of assistance have been accumulating from sympathetic people from the region and around the country since the vandals shattered the teen’s sense of security.  ”There’s a bunch of nice people out there that I didn’t even know existed that care,” Jeffers said to Huffington Post.

Meanwhile, the perpetrators are still at large, and the investigation is proceeding.  Jeffers may prove to be one of the luckier members of the LGBT community in the Sunshine State. Florida officials report that in 2011, for the first time in history, the number of physical assaults against gay and lesbian people was larger than the number of cases of property damage.

 

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate crime, Bullying in schools, Florida, gay teens, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Slurs and epithets, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes, vandalism

Gay Teen, Threatened By Bullies, Hangs Himself in Oregon School Playground

Jadin Bell, 15, driven to suicide by anti-gay bullies.

La Grande, Oregon – A 15-year-old gay teen who attempted suicide after being harassed  by bullies on the internet was removed from life support late last week.  Anti-gay bullying, which the young Jadin Bell faced for years, has been identified by his friends as the prime cause of his act of desperation.

Bell, a sophomore at La Grande High School, hanged himself from a playground structure at Central Elementary School, according to KATU News.  A quick response from a passer-by rescued him. The youth was rushed to a local hospital and placed on life support.  Hill was then transferred to a major Portland trauma center, where he had been clinging to life until the family determined that further heroic efforts to keep him breathing were in vain.

The La Grande community rallied to support Bell and his family with a vigil on January 25 which was attended by over 200 people, many of whom had great memories and good things to say about the gifted youth who loved cheerleading, and volunteered at a senior citizen’s care facility.  But the undertone of the vigil was a mixture of frustration and denial–frustration that a second young person had fallen prey to bullying (a 16-year-old girl had taken her life in La Grande earlier in the year), and denial of the overarching reason Jadin Bell had hanged himself: anti-gay bullying.  No mention of the anti-gay harassment Hill suffered on the internet and in person was made in the reportage surrounding the vigil, even though the cause was well known throughout the town of 13,000 in Northeastern Oregon.

In a Skype interview, Bud Hill, a friend and mentor of Bell, told KATU reporters that the family considers anti-gay bullying the aggravating issue in their son’s suicide.  Hill, who has vowed to start a foundation in Jadin Bell’s memory, said that the youth’s sensitivity and kindness made him a target to school toughs.  “He was different, and they tend to pick on the different ones,” Hill said.

Bell had avoided confronting his harassers, saying to his family that making their hateful attacks on him public would only make his torment worse.  But in recent days, the family says, Bell had gone to school officials to complain of the verbal assaults on his sexual orientation.  The superintendent had initiated an investigation into Bell’s allegations, which was proceeding at the time of the suicide attempt.

“Driven to suicide”: the phrase rolls too easily off the tongue.  The horror of the loss of Jadin Bell is that he is one of so many.  Every town and city in the nation is susceptible to become the next La Grande.  The time to stop the homophobic violence preying on the youth of the nation is now, not after it is too late.

The Trevor Helpline operates the nation’s only 24/7 suicide and crisis hotline for gay and questioning youth. Don’t wait any longer.  Call the Trevor Helpline: 1-866-4-U-TREVOR (1-866-488-7386).

Tagged: gay teens, GLBTQ, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, LGBTQ suicide, LGBTQ teen suicide, LGBTQ teen suicide prevention, Oregon, Trevor Helpline, Trevor Project, Vigils

Breaking News: Unfinished Lives Project Founder Becomes Official Huffington Post Blogger

Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle now blogs for Huffington Post (Keith Tew photo).

Dallas, Texas – The founder and director of the Unfinished Lives Project, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, has been officially accepted as a Blogger for the Huffington Post.  Dr. Sprinkle’s inaugural blog post on the civil disobedience of a gay Louisville, Kentucky Baptist preacher and his spouse may be found by clicking here. Josh Fleet, representing the Huffington Post Blog Team, informed Dr. Sprinkle that his post had been accepted and posted Sunday on the Religion Page of the highly respected and widely read progressive news and opinion source.  He will be a continuing Blogger for the Religion Page, which is overseen by the Rev. Dr. Paul Raushenbush as Senior Editor.

Sprinkle ventured into the cyber world as a blogger in June 2008 with the launch of Unfinishedlivesblog.com, a web forum for news, opinion, and discussion concerning the alarming rise of anti-LGBTQ violence in American life.  With nearly 500,000 hits on the site currently, a notable achievement for a blog done by an academic and a theologian, the future of Unfinishedlivesblog.com looks promising.  The continuing readership of the blog is, of course, largely due to the unabated rise in hate crimes murders perpetrated against the LGBTQ  community since the Matthew Shepard, James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into federal law by President Barack Obama in October 2009.  Anti-violence programs throughout the United States, as well as the Hate Crimes Program of the FBI have registered higher numbers of bias-drivien murders perpetrated against LGBTQ people in each of the three years since the Shepard Act became the law of the land–and activists see no signs of these horrific statistics lessening in the near term. Sprinkle and the Unfinished Lives Project Team have chronicled this dismaying increase in anti-gay violence throughout the years.

Originally conceived as a supporting platform for the publication of Dr. Sprinkle’s IPPY award winning book on LGBTQ hate crimes murders in the U.S., Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications, 2011), Unfinishedlivesblog quickly took on a life of its own, thanks to the cyber know-how of two savvy divinity school students, Todd W. Simmons of Houston, Texas, and Adam D.J. Brett of Syracuse, New York. As time passed, Huffington Post became an invaluable source of information on anti-LGBTQ hate crimes and the responses of the queer and religious communities to these outrages.  “Being named a Blogger for HuffPo brings the spiritual and cyber journey of my activist life to a new milestone,” Sprinkle said in response to the news of his selection.

The brave story of the non-violent protest against Kentucky’s repressive anti-gay and anti-same-sex marriage laws by Rev. Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard, and his spouse, Dominique James, sparked a passion in him to write about this news for a wider audience than a personal blog can reach, Sprinkle said.  The unflinching support offered by Blanchard and James’s pastor, the Rev. Joe Phelps, and the congregation of Highland Baptist Church, Lousiville, was also a feature of the story that begged to be shared broadly with the Baptist world, and beyond.  The parent blog post that gave rise to the Huffington Post piece can be found by clicking here.

Sprinkle is himself a openly gay man and an ordained Baptist preacher (with the Alliance of Baptists) who has recently celebrated his 36th year of ordination.  He is the Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry at Fort Worth’s Brite Divinity School, a post that he has held since 1994.  Sprinkle is Professor of Practical Theology, and the first openly gay scholar to be tenured in the 99-year history of the school.  He also serves as Theologian-in-Residence for Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, a congregation of the United Church of Christ, and the largest liberal Christian Church in the world with a primary outreach to the LGBTQ community.

Tagged: Alliance of Baptists, Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Brite Divinity School, Cathedral of Hope, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Highland Baptist Church, Huffington Post, Huffington Post Religion Page, Independent Book Awards (IPPYs), LGBTQ, Marriage Equality, Matthew Shepard Act, Maurice "Bojangles" Blanchard, Protests and Demonstrations, Same-sex marriage, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, Unfinished Lives book, Unfinished Lives Project, Unfinishedlivesblog.com

Gay Law Student Office Vandalized at Boston College

Crude sex slurs and homophobic hate scrawled in Boston College LGBTQ Center Office.

Boston, Massachusetts – Gay students and Law School officials were stunned to discover homophobic slurs scrawled on the walls of the Lambda Students Association the day following the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.  When LGBTQ students arrived at the Boston College Law School LGBT Center, they found the door unlocked and scads of epithets demeaning queer folk covering the office walls.

Demeaning slurs such as “cum shot,” “muff diver,” “felching,” “cock gobbler,” “gay bukkake,” and the like competed with a few racial ethic epithets that seem to have been thrown in for good measure.  Some sources opined that LGBTQ people were not singled out for humiliation, since Blacks were also targeted by the vandals.  Sexual minority students, however, are not buying such denial.  They feel the crosshairs of hate aimed directly at them.  The Boston College Police Department and the Newton Police Department are investigating the incident.

Robert Trescan, Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League of New England, said to Boston.com that while hate speech incidents occur on many campuses, this one has a more sinister character to it.  “This is a targeted message at a particular place that is important to students, specifically designed to send a message,” he said. “From the police and school’s perspective we want this to be treated as a priority, and all indications is that they are treating this as a priority.”

EDGE Boston reports that the Dean of the Law School was notified in a meeting of the hate graffiti, and rushed to the LGBT Center immediately to see the damage himself.   Dean Vincent Rougeau wrote an open letter to the college community, a portion of which says,“The administration of Boston College Law School condemns this reprehensible action and will not tolerate hateful or threatening speech of any kind. This behavior is the antithesis of all we stand for as an institution, and is an assault on our shared values of a welcoming, loving, and inclusive community.”

Joe Triplett, co-chairperson of Above the Law, a student group, said that the entire Boston College community has been concerned and supportive, according to Huffington Post.  Triplett also related that a student suggested that the hatefulness of the incident could be diffused and channeled to energize the pro-LGBTQ effort on the Jesuit school’s campus.  Inspired by President Obama’s Inaugural endorsement of LGBTQ rights and marriage equality, the unnamed student said that the vandalism should serve as a “backdrop for a dedication to the gay rights movement… posting articles, pictures, and quotes on top of them that show our fight for equal rights from Stonewall to the President’s historic inclusion of gay rights in his inauguration speech yesterday… to show where we have come from and yet how far we still have to go.”

Tagged: Anti-Defamation League of New England, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Boston College Law School, Boston College Law School LGBT Center, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Massachusetts, Slurs and epithets, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes, vandalism

Gay and Baptist: How an Oxymoron May Save the Church Yet

[image error]

The Rev. Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard, Baptist minister arrested for attempting to marry his spouse in Kentucky [USAToday image]

Louisville, Kentucky – An ordained gay Baptist preacher and his life partner who were refused a marriage license in Jefferson County accepted arrest rather than betray their Christian conviction that anti-gay laws are unjust. By implication, the Rev. Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard and his husband, Dominique James, both members in good standing in a local Baptist congregation, stood in contradiction to the widely held cultural and spiritual assumption that gay people are “abominations” before God, and should have none of the common rights to marriage afforded to all other citizens by the civil state.  Despite the shockwaves their non-violent protest is sending throughout evangelical Protestantism and Baptist life in particular, their act of conscience may save the church yet.

The facts of the protest action carried out by the Rev. Bojangles and Dominique are these:  on Tuesday, January 22, the couple, wearing crosses on their ski caps, requested a license to marry from the Clerk’s Office, and were refused. When asked why she refused them, Ms. Sandy Byerly, manager of the license office, said that she was upholding the law of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which wrote anti-gay discrimination into the state constitution in 2004 by an amendment saying that “only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be a marriage in Kentucky,” according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.  Further, any clerk who willfully defies state law and issues a marriage license to a same-sex couple anyway will be removed from office and is subject to a year in jail.  After the refusal by the clerk, the gay couple staged a peaceful pray-in until they were arrested and charged with trespassing at 5 p.m., when the clerk’s office closed for the day.  Offered the option of being cited for the offense rather than being arrested, the Baptist preacher and his spouse told the Metro Police officer that they had a “spiritual obligation” to resist the injustice of a law that denied them their civil right to marriage.  As the Rev. Bojangles said prior to entering the clerk’s office, “If we don’t act, we are accomplices in our own discrimination. We have to resist.”  The couple was led to a waiting patrol car, and were transported to the Metro Corrections Center where they were booked.  Jefferson County Clerk Bobbi Holsclaw told reporters that the ordained minister and his spouse were protesting in the wrong place. Instead of disturbing the clerk’s office, she said, they should instead have taken their argument up with the state legislature.

Selah (Hebrew for “pause”–found in the Book of Psalms).

The vast majority of Christians in the United States consider themselves law-abiding citizens, and shy away from public acts that defy law and order.  Among ordained ministers, the aversion to any controversial word or deed, inside or outside of the congregation, is particularly high.  Preachers, by-and-large, consider the office of prophet to be a historic artifact of First Testament history, not an obligation for modern spiritual shepherds.  Prophetic action of the sort the good Reverend took in the county clerk’s office is decidedly not a career enhancing choice.  Controversy in the ministry can get ministers fired, and their families booted out of the parsonage.

The Rev. Bojangles knew all of that–but he acted anyway, in obedience to the spiritual dictates of his conscience and in solidarity with LGBTQ people in over thirty states where same-sex marriage has been outlawed by constitutional amendment. As he told the Courier-Journal, he felt anxiety about the prospect of arrest, but he and his spouse of six years were “trusting in God and deeply called to do this.”  They faced the humiliation and degradation of the refusal in the clerk’s office, they said, in order “to stand up for ourselves and countless others.”

Selah, again.

Gay Baptist spouses stage peaceful pray-in until arrested in Jefferson County Clerk’s Office

Both gay men are members of Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, the church that ordained Bojangles in May of last year.  Highland’s Pastor, the Rev. Joe Phelps, said that Bojangles and Dominique let him know what they were going to do prior to the peaceful protest. Pastor Joe also acknowledged that he understood there would be considerable friction for the church because of what these two Baptists were intending to do.  Yet, neither he nor the good Baptists of Highland Church have flinched at the storm of publicity whipped up since their Timothy (a term for a member ordained by a local church to the ministry, harking back to the example of the Apostle Paul’s protégé Timothy) and his husband withstood the anti-gay, anti-same-sex marriage law. In a public statement to the church and the world at large, Pastor Joe wrote on January 24, “As for my reaction to Bojangles and Dominique’s action: I’m proud to pastor a church where members are willing to put their reputations on the line in order to challenge unjust laws in a manner that is respectful and non-violent.”

While Christians and others of good conscience may justly disagree over the specifics of the deeds of Bojangles and Dominique, and in general oppose one another’s views on same-sex marriage and the status of LGBTQ people in the church of Jesus Christ, Pastor Joe said he had to stand with his parishioners, and he believed that their sisters and brothers in the faith should, as well. “And I do believe that the laws against same-sex marriage are unjust,” he went on to say. “We experienced the consequence of this just last week, when the five-year partner of a man in critical condition in the ER had to wait several hours until a ‘legitimate’ next-of-kin arrived before being told that he had died on the scene.”

Pastor Joe concluded, “There can be debate about whether the arrest is good or bad for the cause of civil rights for LGBT persons, but that they acted with integrity and the convictions of their hearts cannot be debated.”

Such words and deeds are rare in any Christian circles these days, on the so-called religious right or progressive left.  Matter of fact, putting words like “gay,” “ordained Baptist minister,” and “civil disobedience” together affirmatively in the same sentence feels like a bald-faced oxymoron: a brain-aching contradiction in terms! But given the damage done to the lives, psyches, and families of LGBTQ people in the name of religion, decisive action to reverse the course of prejudice in the faith community looks essential, if the church is to be true to its Savior and its own soul.  These days, encounters with such amazing oxymorons may be the only way the church can be awakened to its true role in society: speaking and acting FOR the underdogs of this world, and not against them.

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Leander E. Keck’s “Who is Jesus?”

Some might call the stand Pastor Joe, the Rev. Bojangles, and Br. Dominique took as action “for the sake of Jesus Christ” as well as for the underdogs of today’s world. Professor of New Testament Leander E. Keck wrote in his landmark book, Who Is Jesus? History in Perfect Tense, that voluntarily becoming despicable in the eyes of society is a powerful characteristic of taking up Jesus’ work among the outcast and the despised of every age–in effect, facing the risks “for Jesus’ sake.”  Of such courageous souls, Keck notes, “Such persons usually do not talk of their own suffering but talk of others’ for whose sake they are ready to accept what may befall them.”  In this day and age, these words could have been penned expressly for oxymoronic Baptist preachers and those who cherish them who stand up to the opprobrium heaped on LGBTQ people.  ”Such voluntarily suffering,” Keck wrote, “has two names: one is love, the other is Jesus–in perfect tense” (p. 183).

Will the real Christians of this age please stand up?  Some are, apparently, accepting despicable consequences on behalf of the outcasts, and “for Jesus’ sake,” as well.

Amen.

Tagged: Baptist Church, Baptist ministers, civil disobedience, gay men, gay rights, GLBTQ, Highland Baptist Church, Kentucky, Law and Order, LGBTQ, Marriage Equality, Maurice "Bojangles" Blanchard, Protests and Demonstrations, religious intolerance, Same-sex marriage, Social Justice Advocacy