Stephen V. Sprinkle's Blog, page 6

French Homophobia Skyrockets 78%; Forces Reassessment of LGBTQ “Progress”

Paris victim Wilfred de Bruijn, “the face of homophobia in France,” and French anti-gay marriage protestors.

Paris, France – The number of documented homophobic attacks is ballooning out of control, says a report published by the French anti-homophobia watchdog, SOS Homophobie.  Since the passage of France’s pro-LGBTQ marriage law, advocates have been shocked by a rise of 78 percent in violent crimes against gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual residents in France during 2013.  The ominous meaning of this spike in violence in a supposedly “enlightened” European culture is forcing advocates, activists, and government officials to rethink narratives of progress on the issue of human equality.

SOS Homophobie, the only organization with reliable statistics on attacks against LGBTQ people in France, says that a violent physical attack against queer people is occurring no less than once every two days, and increase of 54 percent since 2012, but this statistic does not reflect the whole story.  The SOS Helpline received an astounding 3,500 calls in 2013, as opposed to 1,977 in all of 2012, registering an overall increase in anti-gay hate crime of the reported 78 percent.  “In the last twenty years the number of reports of incidents [of homophobia] received by our association have not stopped growing, but in 2013 they exploded,” notes the most recent SOS Homphobie report.  The report also found that the number of anti-gay insults online rose from 656 in 2012 to 1,723 cases in 2013, and the number of incidents that occurred in a school increased by 25 percent.

Justice and Interior ministries have been caught napping by these startling numbers, according to EDGEBOSTON.  An ideology of “inevitable progress” on matters of human rights has caused Gallic cultural leaders to be blindsided by the shift towards anti-gay rhetoric and physical violence since the legal embrace of same-sex marriage.  “There’s no doubt the rise in homophobic acts was linked to the context of the opposition against gay marriage,” Gregory Premon, spokesperson for SOS Homophobie, said to The Local. “Homophobic words and statements became trivialized during this period and helped legitimize insults and homophobic violence.”

A Dutch resident of northern Paris, who was punched and kicked senseless on a street near his home last month, has become the “face” of this new wave of anti-gay violence in France.  Wilfred de Bruijn’s skull was fractured in five places and he lost a tooth in the attack, according to The Independent.  He and his boyfriend Olivier were walking arm-in-arm at the time of the savage assault. “I woke up in an ambulance covered in blood, missing tooth and broken bones around the eye,” Mr. de Bruijn told The Local. “I’m home now. Very sad. Olivier takes care of me. Forbidden to work for at least 10 days.”  

Mr. de Bruijn places the blame for the attack upon the shoulders of anti-same sex marriage protestors, and a group has taken credit for the brutal act. Le Printemps Français (“The French Spring”), whose membership is believed to be largely comprised of hardline Catholics and royalists, now boasts that it sanctioned and carried out the assault against Mr. de Bruijn and his lover.  The shift from anti-LGBTQ marriage to a more general disgust against all queer and gender variant people is becoming more and more obvious.  As Mr. de Bruijn said to The Independent, “The [anti-gay-marriage campaigners] know very well what can happen if you repeat, repeat, repeat that these people are lower human beings. Of course, it will have a result.”

Though the French government has reacted with outrage to the news of the attacks on Messieurs de Bruijn and Olivier, and another recent gay victim, Mr. Raphael le Clerca in Nice, confidence in governmental authority to cause social change in such a charged environment has been seriously shaken in what was once a bastion of culture and forward thinking.  In the U.S. context, as well, the rise in Western European homophobia and heterosexism is not to be taken lightly.

Geography of homophobic Tweets in the USA in 2013 (source: The Atlantic Magazine).

While the Marriage Equality movement is advancing on the judicial front, most recently in the southern and western states of Arkansas and Idaho, it cannot be ignored any longer that incidents of anti-LGBTQ violence, especially against gay men and transgender people, has risen each year since the passage of the Matthew Shepard/James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in October 2009.  The heat of anti-gay rhetoric from the Religious Right Wing has intensified, and homophobic Christianist preachers like Scott Lively have pressed their hate agenda abroad wherever they have gotten the chance, in Russia and the Slavic countries of the former Soviet Union, and in Central Africa, for example.  While the attention of U.S. advocacy groups is upon Marriage Equality and a looming struggle in the U.S. Supreme Court, anti-LGBTQ attitudes have largely gone unaddressed, thanks to a blind belief in “inevitable social progress,” the irrelevance of domestic religious bigotry, and trust that the younger generations of Americans will finally tip the balance towards tolerance throughout the U.S. population.

We know, however, who is killing LGBTQ people in such alarming numbers in the U.S.A.: the very young who are supposedly their saviors.  The persons who murder and maim queer folk in the United States are predominantly young men from 17 to 35 years of age.  We also know that the under appreciated cultural power of religion to spawn false narratives of government oppression of “religious freedom” lies just below the surface of American society.  And American public and private schools are hotbeds of un addressed bullying and violence against gender variant youth, with outrageous consequences for vulnerable children every week in these United States.

The Marriage Equality movement is not essentially about changing foundational attitudes towards people of difference.  It is about stretching societal and cultural boundaries just enough to let same sex couples inside, where they can enjoy a similacrum of “normal life.”  Marriage is a conservative issue in American life, and always has been.  The serious and radical work of changing hearts and minds to accept challenging differences in society remains to be done, and cannot be ignored if Americans do not want to face the crisis their French allies are currently facing “just across the Pond.”

It is past time Americans take to heart the trenchant remarks of a French government spokesman outraged by the recent rise of homophobia in France: “The hatred and homophobic remarks have no place in our country and are punishable by law. The government strongly condemns these acts. These outbursts are unacceptable. When the most basic civil rights of our citizens are attacked, the authority of the state is at stake.”

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Bullying in schools, France, French homophobia, gay bashing, gay men, Gender Variant Youth, GLBTQ, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Marriage Equality, Matthew Shepard Act, Paris, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Same-sex marriage, Scott Lively, SOS Homophobie, transgender persons, transphobia

New York Gay Man Attacked by Hasidic Jewish Safety Patrol Members; Five Arrested So Far

Taj Patterson, 22, gay man savagely attacked by Hasidic Jews in Williamsburg, NY shouting anti-gay slurs (NY Post images).

Williamsburg, New York – A gang of Hasidic Jews, some identified as members of the Satmar Hasidic Shomrim (Safety Patrol), shouted homophobic  and racial slurs as they brutally beat a gay black man in Williamsburg on December 1.  The victim, 22-year-old Taj Patterson, suffered multiple injuries including a crushed eye socket, a torn retina, and cuts to his right knee and hip.  This week, five hasidim were arrested for the attack by the New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force.  They have been charged with Gang Assault in the First Degree and a variety of other charges, though at this point a hate crimes charge has not been lodged, even considering the report of witnesses that a barrage of homophobic slurs accompanied the assault.  The charges carry a maximum sentence of 25 years for each assailant proved guilty.  Failed Messiah, a blog covering news in the Hasidic community since 2004, identified those arrested as  Pinchas Braver, 20, Aharon Hollender, 28, Abraham Winkler, 39, Mayer Herskovic, 21, and Joseph Fried, 25. Two of the alleged assailants fled from the United States to Israel immediately following the incident, but were apprehended there.

The five suspects and a number of other hasidim who allegedly participated in the attack are all members of the Satmar Hasidic Jewish community, a large and influential ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect with pre-World War II roots in Hungary.  According to A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, the Satmar Hasidim number at least 45,000 in Williamsburg today.  The Shomrim is a volunteer neighborhood watch drawn from the Satmar community.  Activists in Williamsburg quickly denied the involvement of the Shomrim in the attack, but according to the Brooklyn Paper, the denials left room to conclude that some of the attackers were indeed members of the watch group.  An Orthodox rabbi who decried the attack did not mention the  participation of the Shomrim in the December attack.  Rabbi David Niederman, president of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn, said, “The bedrock of the Williamsburg community is tolerance for one and another. Any act of violence by any individual, against anyone, for whatever reason, is condemned in the strongest possible terms.”  

EDGE on the Net reports that Patterson is a fashion student studying at the New York City College of Technology.  While he says he does not remember much from the attack that occurred with swift savagery, he clearly recalls at least one of his assailants shouting, “Stay down, faggot, stay the fuck down,” as he kicked Patterson in the face.  Since the horrific incident, Patterson has undergone surgery to repair his torn retina.

The true heroine of the whole bloody affair was the driver of Bus 57 who slammed on her brakes and stepped out of her bus snapping pictures of the assault with her cell phone, according to the New York Post.  The NYPD say that the attacking gang fled the scene when they realized she was taking their pictures.

Tagged: African Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, gang violence, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hasidic Jews, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Israel, LGBTQ, New York, New York City, religious intolerance, Satmar Hasidisim, Shomrim, Slurs and epithets

Gay Bashing and the Bible: The Issue That Won’t Go Away

Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson, MCC Global Leader, one of many ministers calling for the reinterpretation of the Bible (Adam Bouska photo).

Dallas, Texas – Gay bashing associated with death-dealing interpretations of the Bible is not over—not by a long stretch. In the tonier precincts of North American society, queer and straight trend setters deal with the old “scripture wars” as if they are tired remnants of a fight no longer worth dignifying with comment. But nothing could be further from the truth for millions of LGBTQ people in North America and around the globe, especially the young, who are routinely being judged as “abominations” by Christians and Jews who fatally misinterpret scripture.

Three current articles on Huffington Post and elsewhere on the web are bringing the issue of the harm bad interpretations of Bible passages from the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Testament into sharp focus. The publication of Matthew Vine’s book, God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships (Convergent Books 2014), a passage-by-passage refutation of homophobic interpretations of the six or seven “clobber passages” so often marshaled to denigrate and dehumanize queer people and their relationships, has raised a fire-storm of howling protests by conservatives on the web. Michael Brown, the right wing pundit, is in high dudgeon over the decision of a previously reliable gay bashing, evangelical press conglomerate, the WaterBrook Multnomah Group, to publish Vine’s book and to defend it in the evangelical community. In Brown’s screed, “A Shameful Day in Evangelical Christian Publishing,”[1] he condemns anyone who would defend interpretations of the Bible that contravene the total damnation of LGBT people. Brown decries the defense publisher Stephen W. Cobb[2] makes of Vine’s book, writing, “Have we totally lost our bearings as the people of God? Are we now debating the undebatable and trying to sanction the unsanctionable?”

Brown cannot imagine that the time honored, blood soaked history of interpreting the Bible as a “no homo” bulwark against what evangelicals used to solidly oppose as an abomination is now being contested in his own community of faith. Declaiming anyone who challenges these clobbering passages as a traitor, Brown writes: “…Those who want to revise biblical sexuality and morality have moved away from the Word of God….They have muddled the waters of the faith, and brought reproach on the gospel, further confusing a very lost society, and become propagators of deception in the church. And they will answer to God for all this one day.”

On the moderate and liberal Christian front, the issue of harm done by Bible bashing and misinterpretation is back on the front burner, too. Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson, global leader of the Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), challenges world church leaders such as Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to distance the church from using scripture and tradition to bring about the deaths of African LGBTQ people like David Kato of Uganda. Dr. Wilson writes on behalf of queer people of faith in the Huffington Post[3]: “Archbishop Welby, … Will you use your power to defend those who writhe under the heel of Christians who selectively cite the Bible? Or will you huddle by the fire in the courtyard and deny us over and over? Remember, it was Jesus himself who said, ‘When you have done it to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you have done it unto me.’”

None of the current voices in the “gay bashing and the Bible” debate carry more moral energy, however, than the Easter article published in the Huffington Post by Jane Clementi, “Loving All God’s Children Equally.”[4] Clementi is the mother of Tyler Clementi who committed suicide in September 2010, after his intimate encounter with another young man was broadcast to the world by his Rutgers classmates who spied on him in his own dorm room. Reconsidering the experience of church through the eyes of her child who died from the shame and horror of anti-gay bullying, Clementi writes:

“ After Tyler’s death, in the silence of my shattered world, as I looked deeply into God’s Word and listened, God continually and clearly spoke of His unconditional love for all and how we should exhibit God’s love to others with kindness and compassion, always seeking unity, giving life, being respectful and welcoming with hospitality and inclusion, always allowing everyone to be at peace with who they are and how God has created them, perfectly and wonderfully made in God’s image. Why have we lost this message? The church must start to embrace these truths and stop preaching hate.

“Sadly, as I look back — almost as if through Tyler’s eyes — I see things so very differently now. Looking through the eyes of a far-less-mature believer, a child with many uncertainties, and a vulnerable youth with much less confidence in how his sexual orientation fit into God’s plan or God’s kingdom, I now see the harm and pain that is caused by the misinterpretation of scripture that homosexuality is a sin.

“Regrettably, Tyler received a clear message from our faith community, whether it was in youth group, Sunday school, the infrequent short sentences that were spoken on rare occasions in the sermon, or maybe even the silence — the shameful, silent disapproval and judgment of how God created him to be different. But Tyler got the message loud and clear, and clearly that is not a message of love for a young person sitting in the pews next to you.”

For Jane Clementi, the matter of scriptural interpretation is not about the finer points of the ancient languages, or doctrinal and moral purity, or even about the unity of church fellowships and ideologies. It is simply about life and death—the life and death of victims of lethal assumptions about the Bible. She concludes her call to the churches on Easter Sunday:

“We must reexamine those six scriptural passages with open hearts and minds and understand that what Paul was saying to first-century Christians does not translate to what we understand today in 2014 about loving, committed same-sex relationships. We must stop judging; we must stop imposing shame. The church, the Body of Christ, needs to acknowledge that homosexuality is not a sin. The church should apologize, put up a rainbow flag on their church sign and welcome all to God’s family. That is how to love our gay Christian brothers and sisters: Love them like God does.”

Jane Clementi’s crie de coeur should touch a nerve of concern and compassion, and help LGBTQ people and their allies to re-engage the issue of how the Bible is used in relation to queer people. This issue is not going away. When even one child or gay adult in the USA or around the globe falls into despair because of shame and condemnation linked so intimately with how communities of faith use the Bible, that is one person too many. The use of the Bible, any portion of it, for purposes of dehumanizing and demeaning LGBTQ people must no longer be tolerated by communities of faith, biblical scholars, preachers, priests, rabbis, and theological seminaries. Marriage equality, no matter how currently successful an issue for human rights, will not secure a safe future for queer people until the theological justifications for violence against them are faced squarely and changed to interpretations of life, tolerance, and acceptance.

Evangelical Christians are no longer of one mind about same-sex loving people. The distress of Michael Brown and other right wing purists to the contrary, dissenting evangelical voices are opening their Bibles to new, exciting interpretations that make room for life and varieties of human experiences. Faithful queer religious leaders like Nancy Wilson are chiding their heterosexual counterparts to read their Bibles in the contexts of love and acceptance, and some of them are doing so with new attention to how the “Church’s Book” can become the word of life again. Jane Clementi’s appeal to church and synagogue to open their scriptures to a more just, inclusive, and loving embrace of LGBTQ people puts the reinterpretation of the Bible on the side of marginalized people everywhere—where it should have been all along. It is simple, Clementi reminds all of us: as simple for the faith community of today as it has always been for readers of the Bible throughout history who opened the Book and found the words of life there—not death.

[1] Michael Brown, “A Shameful Day in Evangelical Christian Publishing,” http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/in-the-line-of-fire/43537-a-shameful-day-in-evangelical-christian-publishing. Accessed 4/18/14.

[2] Stephen W. Cobb, “Why Publish God and the Gay Christian?” http://www.convergentbooks.com/why-publish-god-and-the-gay-christian/. Accessed 4/21/14.

[3] Nancy Wilson, “A Tale of Three Bishops,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-dr-nancy-wilson/a-tale-of-three-bishops_b_5162843.html?utm_hp_ref=religion. Accessed 4/21/14.

[4] Jane Clementi, “Loving All God’s Children Equally,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-clementi/loving-all-gods-children-equally_b_5176554.html. Accessed 4/21/14.

Tagged: Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Archbishop Justin Welby, Bible and Homosexuality, Convergent Books, gay bashing, GLBTQ, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, Huffington Post, LGBTQ, Matthew Vines, Michael Brown, Nancy Wilson, religious intolerance, Religious Right

Perp Sentenced for Beating Disabled Brother and Threatening Castration to “Push the Gay Out of Him”

(L to R) Lawrence Featheroff, Jamie Smith, and Brent Disbennet abused a disabled man for having “sexual thoughts about men” (NBC4 image).

Lancaster, Ohio – A Central Ohio man charged with threatening to slice off his disabled brother’s genitals with a butcher knife for being gay, and repeatedly punching him to “beat the gay out of him,” has pleaded guilty to felonious assault and abduction.  On Monday, Fairfield County Judge Chris A. Martin sentenced Lawrence L. Featheroff to 30 months in prison and 3 years subsequent probation for bashing, tormenting, threatening, and beating the younger brother he agreed to care for, because of loathing his brother’s “sexual thoughts about men.”  Featheroff, 38, had taken charge of his disabled younger brother, Jason A. Meyers, 26 after reports of alleged abuse in a group home for developmentally disabled people.  According to The Columbus Dispatch, Meyers is developmentally disabled, but relatively high-functioning.

Featheroff virtually imprisoned Meyers in a house where they lived with an uncle and aunt, and Featheroff’s girlfriend. He admitted to the charges back in January when police, following a tip that abuse might be going on in the house, found Meyers suffering from a concussion, multiple facial bruises including an injured eye socket, and a sprained ankle.  The older brother, a convicted ex-con who had served time for domestic violence, said that his motive for the abuse was to intimidate his younger sibling into becoming heterosexual.  Gay Star News reports that Detective Brian Lowe testified at the sentencing hearing that Featheroff claimed he “wanted to toughen him up to push the gay out of him and make him a normal person.” 

Investigators uncovered a pattern of torture, physical and psychological abuse against the younger man by Featheroff, Featheroff’s girlfriend Jamie R. Smith, and Brent M. Disbennet.  The trio routinely punched and kicked Meyers, limited him to one small meal a day, and forced him to run up and down a hill carrying a heavy wooden railroad tie.  On at least one occasion, Featheroff held a butcher knife to Meyers’s genitals and swore that he would castrate him if he didn’t stop fantasizing sexually about men.  Meyers was removed by officials to a safe location and is now living in adult foster care.

The brothers were part of a family of eight siblings by different fathers who were removed from their mother’s care for reports of neglect or abuse.  The remaining siblings have banded together in a family group of their own. One of the other brothers is believed to have tipped off police about the abuse he feared was going on in his brother’s home.  At the sentencing hearing, some of the siblings showed up to support Featheroff, and claimed that Meyers could be difficult to live with.

Smith, 40, has pleaded not guilty to complicity to commit felonious assault and abduction.  Disbennet, 25, has admitted guilt for felonious assault.  Their court dates are pending.

Tagged: Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Disabled persons, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Ohio, Torture and Mutilation

Four-Year-Old Boy Murdered Because His Mom Thought He Was “Gay”

Jessica Dutro (l), and boyfriend Brian Canady “systematically tortured” and killed her 4-year-old she believed was “gay.”

Hillsboro, Oregon – An Oregon mother was found guilty by a Washington County Circuit Court for the murder of her four-year-old-son she thought was gay.  Gay Star News reports that it took a jury less than two hours yesterday to convict Jessica Dutro for the August 2012 beating death of her child, Zachary Dutro-Boggess.  Dutro showed no emotion as the verdict was read.  She was found guilty of murder and five counts of murder by abuse and one count of second-degree assault.  The little boy’s intestines were torn in two places by the brutal beating his mother and her boyfriend, Brian Canady, inflicted on him, but the couple allowed the child to suffer for two days before calling 911 to get him some help.  As the toxic contents of his bowels had leaked into his body, Dutro had searched the internet for sex online and anger management classes, according to Oregonlive.com. Zachary was dying as he was transported to a Portland Hospital where he was put on life-support until he died on August 16.

Brian Canady had pled guilty in a pre-arranged plea deal to testify against Dutro.  He admitted to kicking Zachary.  Canady will serve 12-and-a-half years in prison for first-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault.

The evidence against Dutro for the slaying of her young son was damning.  Prosecutors shared Facebook messages with the court that detailed her loathing for gay people in general and her fear that her child was going to grow up to be one.  In one message, she demanded that Canady “work on” Zachary for being gay.  In another, after using a homophobic slur in reference to her child, she wrote, “He walks and talks like it.  Ugh.”  

Undoubtedly, the most damaging evidence against Dutro came from her own seven-year-old daughter.  The little girl, speaking to a counselor, said (in reference her mother and her boyfriend, Canady), “They beat my brother up, and he died. I seen them.”  Prosecutors presented evidence during the trial showing “systematic torture and abuse” used by the couple as “discipline” against Zachary, his sister, and his three-year-old brother. Zachary’s siblings were covered in bruises, and the three-year-old boy was found to have five cracked ribs.

Jessica Dutro’s sentencing has been scheduled for April 18.

Tagged: anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Beatings and battery, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Oregon, Parental child abuse, Slurs and epithets

Gay Hero and Martyr Postage Stamp Design Revealed

Washington, D.C. – The long-awaited Harvey Milk commemorative postage stamp is now a reality, according to Linn’s Stamp News.  A black-and-white photo image of Harvey Milk will be the central feature of this non-denominated U.S. Postage “Forever” Stamp.  The stamp design includes the colors of the Rainbow Flag in six differently colored squares stacked vertically in the upper left corner.  First day of issue is planned to be May 22, 2014, Harvey Milk Day, to celebrate the San Francisco gay politician, activist, and city supervisor.  Cities likely to be chosen as first issue sites are Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, California.

Milk, who is recognized throughout the world as a hero and martyr of the LGBTQ and human rights struggle, was a U.S. Navy veteran, and one of the earliest openly gay elected officials in the United States, winning a seat on the San Francisco Board of City Supervisors in 1977.  Though gay rights was a major emphasis of his political career, Milk also championed affordable housing, city sanitation, expanded child care, and public transportation. He was shot to death in his City Hall office on November 27, 1978 by Dan White, his one-time colleague who blamed his actions on momentary insanity and disorientation from eating too many sugary desserts.  White also shot and killed San Francisco Mayor George Moscone the same day.  The appearance of this commemorative stamp marks the first time a gay hate crimes murder victim has been publicly honored in this way.

EDGE on the Net reports that The stamp, likely to be issued in a pane of 20, will be used to mail a one-ounce letter regardless of when the stamp is purchased or used and no matter how future prices fluctuate.  The current value of the stamp is 49 cents.

According to SF Gate, the U.S. Postal Service selects only 20 persons per year to be honored with a commemorative stamp, out of the thousands nominated by people all over the globe, and vetted by a citizens’ advisory committee.  Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle in October 2013 at the announcement of the Postal Service’s decision to develop and issue the stamp, Milk’s nephew and co-founder of the Harvey Milk Foundation, Stuart Milk said, “We’re excited. We think this will represent my uncle’s message, which is hope and courage and authenticity, very well.” 

Tagged: anti-LGBT hate crime murder, California, gay men, GLBTQ, Harvey Milk, Harvey Milk Commemorative Postage Stamp, Harvey Milk Day, Harvey Milk Foundation, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, San Francisco, Stuart Milk, U.S. Postal Service (USPS), Washington D.C.

The “Negative Sainthood” of Rev. Fred Phelps

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Rev. Fred Phelps, a “Nemesis Saint”?

Topeka, Kansas –  Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle has posted a new article on Huffington Post Religion.  You can visit the original article here.  Comments and shares from the Huffington Post site are appreciated by all the readers of http://unfinishedlivesblog.com.

Rev. Fred Phelps, Founder and former Pastor of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, is dead at the age of 84.  Pundits and regular people are busily dissecting the story and social significance of one of the most venom-filled ministerial lives in American history, as well as the hate-mongering “ministry” the Westboro Church became notorious for doing since 1991.  What, however, is the spiritual and theological import of the life Fred Phelps lived and the religious leadership he carried out for better than two decades?  What does Fred Phelps teach us about God, and the service of others in God’s name?

Dare we even speak of Rev. Phelps as a “negative saint,” the polar opposite of all Christ-like saints, given the carnage Phelps left in the lives of countless queer folk, slain service members, and cultural celebrities he and his flock picketed and condemned to eternal damnation?  “Saint-language” seems blasphemous when we apply it to a man’s life so rabidly committed to eliciting the worst from the human spirit and the Christian faith.  Nevertheless, every life lived has something to teach us about ourselves and God, does it not?  How can we not speak of Phelps as we must speak of ourselves and all others who stand need of the amazing grace of God?  Allow me to explain what I mean.

We remember the epithets Fred Phelps reveled in.  He made “God Hates Fags” a standard feature of modern hate speech.  We cannot erase from our minds the images of Matthew Shepard, Billy Jack Gaither, and Diane Whipple writhing in the animated hell fire that Phelps installed on his web site, complete with a background soundtrack of groans and screams to drive home the message that nothing he could imagine could be worse than to be gay and lesbian.  We will never know the number of fanatics Phelps inspired by his vileness, nor the multitude of LGBTQ people young and old who felt his criticisms crush their self-esteem and cut into their souls like knives.  But we have seen his kind before: Pharaoh, and Saul, Ahitophel, and Judas, to name but a few oldies but baddies.  Or Roy Cohn, Senator Joe McCarthy, and “Bull” Connor to name some near contemporary bad guys.  I am sure you have your own personal list. Nevertheless, Phelps and his bad seed still wind up serving God just like the best of us.  That is the theological sense Fred Phelps makes.  His “negative sainthood” shows us that the worst wickedness is, in the end, powerless before grace and mercy.

Karl Barth in his Shorter Commentary on Romans (SCR) and throughout the Church Dogmatics (KD and CD) teaches that the Pharaoh of the Exodus who held the Hebrew children in abject slavery with a hard heart ultimately found himself broken upon God, who uses the story of Pharaoh’s human darkness to witness to divine mercy, standing right alongside Moses who testifies to God’s liberating justice.  Barth writes, “Therefore Pharaoh too serves ‘the power of God’ (SCR, 73).  Barth struggled against anti-semitism and fascism with a theological strength we need to deal with homophobia and transphobia.  Like the contrasting pair of Pharaoh and Moses, Barth talks about Judas Iscariot and Jesus. Barth writes that Judas, the “rejected man,” is the best pattern he can find of a person who rejected goodness, going so far as to pronounce judgment on himself, and joining Jesus in death.  Yet every “rejected one” remains a witness to God, who in the end shows that the very amazing grace upon which the future depends is also there for the “rejected,” too.  Barth declares: “The rejected man exists in the person of Jesus Christ only in such a way that he is assumed into His being as the elect and beloved of God . . . With Jesus Christ the rejected can only have been rejected.  He cannot be rejected anymore” (KD II/2, 502; CD, 453).  Fred, too!

So, does that mean that Pharaoh, or Judas, or Fred get a pass on what they do, thanks to some sort of weak-kneed universalism, the idea that God saves everyone regardless?  Barth denied such a possibility: “The Church will not . . . preach a powerless grace of Jesus Christ or a wickedness of men which is too powerful for it. But without any weakening of the contrast, and without any arbitrary dualism, it will preach the overwhelming power of grace and the weakness of human wickedness in face of it” (KD II/2, 529; CD, 477).  Fred Phelps and Joe McCarthy and Judas Iscariot must, in the end, answer to the same justice and grace of God their words and deeds rejected when they refused to treat all of God’s children with justice and love.  The deeds of the “negative saints” of God are terrible, and it is only right that they should somehow suffer.  No one knows what Fred Phelps had to face from his excommunication or upon his sick bed.  But Fred and Joe and Judas depend upon and bear witness to the divine mercy, also—just like Moses and Mary and Martin Luther King Jr.

Even a “Nemesis Saint” like Rev. Fred Phelps is a witness to the divine mercy.  “Saint” Pharaoh, too.  And “Saint” Judas.  For all the saints, pro and con, testify to the grace and justice before which we are all alike in utter need.  No one I know shows the impotence of wickedness or the need of divine mercy more than Fred Phelps.  And in that way, at the very least, “Saint” Fred shows me something mysteriously awesome about the amazing grace of God.

Tagged: Fred Phelps, gay bashing, GLBTQ, Grace, Heterosexism and homophobia, Homosexuality and the Bible, Huffington Post, Huffington Post Religion Page, Kansas, Karl Barth, LGBTQ, Matthew Shepard, Mercy, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Slurs and epithets, Westboro Baptist Church

Murdered Lesbian Couple: Did Daddy Do It?

James Cosby, father of slain lesbian Britney Cosby, and suspect in her murder and that of her spouse, Crystal Jackson.

Galveston, Texas – The father of a lesbian has been arrested by the Galveston authorities in relation to the murder of his daughter and her spouse.  The bodies of the two young women  were dumped outside a Port Bolivar convenience store and discovered early on March 7, according to KHOU News.  James Larry Cosby, 46, father of Britney Cosby, has been arrested by Galveston Sheriff’s officers and charged with two counts of tampering with evidence related to the murder of his daughter and her life partner, Crystal Jackson.  Officials say that the charges may be shortly upgraded to murder.  KTRK 13 reports that incriminating evidence linking the murders of the lesbians led investigators to arrest Britney Cosby’s father, an ex-con and sex crime offender, and hold him in the Galveston County Jail on $500, 000 bond pending other charges.

The suspect was part of a large crowd of friends and family at a community vigil held on Wednesday for the two young women, and investigators interrogated him at the conclusion of the vigil.  “His house was a secondary crime scene, from the evidence that we saw when we went to interview him and we did recover certain parts of evidence that are here at our sheriff’s office now to be sent to the lab,” Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset said to reporters.

Autopsy reports say that Britney Cosby died from blunt force trauma, and that Crystal Jackson was shot to death.  Investigators believe the two women, both 24, were killed at another location, and then transported to the quiet coastal town and left beside a garbage dumpster as if they were no better than trash.

KHOU’s reportage uncovered Cosby’s violent past.  His ex-wife Loranda McDonald said that she left him because he was so violent, and she and other Cosby family members say that he was “unhappy” about his daughter’s being a lesbian.  “He said it to me a few times that he did not like the idea of her being gay,” said McDonald.  Detectives indicated that, in addition to blood stains in Mr. Cosby’s home, they found a copy of the Holy Koran open to a passage some fundamentalist Muslims use to denigrate and condemn homosexual conduct.  Mr. Cosby is not cooperating with his interrogators, and since no motive has been officially established, no hate crime has yet been charged against him–but anti-gay hate crime charges are definitely on everyone’s mind who knew of Mr. Cosby’s animosity towards gays and lesbians.

Vigils and commemorations are being planned throughout Texas. Later in the coming week, a vigil is being organized in Dallas by c.d. kirven, a local advocate for LGBT justice and equality.  On a Facebook post, c.d. said, “I still plan to hold vigils next week and will keep those interested update! Please pray for families!”  The couple leaves a 5-year-old daughter behind to face life without her moms.

While the language of caution and hesitation is still being used in relation to this heinous crime, should the allegations against James Larry Cosby prove true, there should be little doubt of the horrific potency of heterosexism, patriarchy, and homophobia–powerful enough to invade the most sacred and intimate of human relationships, that of a father and his daughter, and to leave a small child parentless.

Tagged: African Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bludgeoning, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Koran, Lesbians, LGBTQ, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes, Vigils

Murdered Lesbian Couple Dumped Like Trash in Texas

Crystal Jackson (l) and Britney Cosby (r), both 24, found murdered beside a dumpster.

Port Bolivar – Suspicions are mounting in the double murder of a Texas Lesbian couple whose bodies were discovered by a dumpster in Port Bolivar.  KHOU Houston reports that the corpses of Britney Cosby and Crystal Jackson, both 24, were found dumped beside a trash dumpster outside of Fisherman’s Cove store by a beer deliveryman taking out garbage early on March 7.  Galveston Sheriff’s Department officials say that the young women were in a romantic relationship.  Details of the murders remain scarce, but  officials have said that each of the victims was killed in a different way, and that the lack of blood at the scene suggests they were murdered at another location, after which their bodies were taken to the dumpster site.

KTRK Eyewitness News says that the young lesbians who lived with their great grandmother had gone to Galveston for Mardi Gras. Jackson, who is described by her relatives as loving her partner Cosby, leaves behind a five year old daughter.  The child considered Cosby and Jackson as her parents.  The families of both women are desperate for answers.  They are pleading for informers to come forward and give authorities leads as to who killed their loved ones.  McDade Cosby, Britney’s sister, begged the public via KTRK, “Just come forward, just to give us closure as a family. Just come forward, ’cause we need closure at this point.” Crystal’s sister, Lequita Jackson, sobbed as she decried the murder, “What did they do to you to kill my sister? You beat my sister up and you just, you messed her up to the point she can’t breath no more.”  

Police are searching for Britney Cosby’s 2006 Silver Kia Sorrento that appears to have been stolen.  Authorities believe whoever took the vehicle may be the key to this grisly double murder.  In an update on the case, a police sketch of a prime suspect in the murders has been released to the press.

The quiet beach town is rattled and on edge from the news of the murders.  Residents say they do not feel safe.  “Unbelievable, it’s scary,” Nancy Palley, a Port Bolivar citizen, said to Huffington Post. “You know, I told my husband we are making sure to lock our doors today. I’m not coming home to find someone in my house.”  Though an explicit statement that these killings are an anti-gay hate crime, that possibility looms large in the minds of the public and law enforcement.  This case recalls the double shooting of two lesbians in Portland, Texas, a Corpus Christi area town, in 2012.  Mollie Olgin, 19, was found dead at the scene of a gunshot wound, and her partner, Mary Christine Chapa, 18, was grievously wounded but survived.  No one has been arrested in the Portland murders.

Tagged: African Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Lesbians, LGBTQ, Texas, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes

Rush Limbaugh Demeans Matthew Shepard’s Hate Crime Murder

Attempts to demean Matthew Shepard and his murder are a Right Wing fetish.

Palm Beach County, Florida  -  Conservative radio bombast Rush Limbaugh attempted to undercut the powerful anti-gay hate crime narrative of the murder of Matthew Shepard during a broadcast on Monday, February 24, from his top secret studio in Florida.  In the show, entitled “When did the ‘hate crime’ concept begin?”, Limbaugh launched a diatribe against Jason Collins’s decision to wear Number 98 on his basketball jersey in memory of Matthew Shepard who died because of anti-LGBT bias in 1998.  Collins, the first openly gay person to play on an NBA court this past Sunday for the Brooklyn Nets, came out back in April 2013 to both accolades and brickbats.

According to the broadcast transcript, Limbaugh attempted to win sympathy and outrage from his Dittohead audience for being the “original” target of hate crime language back in 1998. He had one major problem, however–the internationally embraced story of Matthew Shepard’s hate crime murder for being gay by Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney in October 1998.  So, Limbaugh proceeded to undermine the hate crime dimension of the Shepard murder that gripped the nation and the world and galvanized the human rights movement, eventually leading to the passage of the Matthew Shepard/James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act  in 2009.  Limbaugh said to his audience:

“[Jason Collins is] the first openly gay player to actually play in a professional sports game.  It happened last night, the Brooklyn Nets against the Los Angeles Lakers.  This is the Nets play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco, as Jason Collins — who, by the way, took the number 98 in solidarity with Matthew Shepard, who it’s now been proven didn’t happen, but was reputed to have been beaten up by a bunch of anti-gay bigots.”  In the transcript, Limbaugh provided readers with a hotlink to a book by right wing darling Stephen Jimenez purportedly “disproving” the anti-gay hate crime aspect of the Shepard case.

As Unfinished Lives reported last year at the publication of Jimenez’s book, these rather tired arguments are part of the continuing scheme to erode all anti-gay hate crimes narratives by attacking the archetypal Shepard story. Some of Jimenez’s own major sources have decried and disavowed his use of their names in his book of allegations, among them Henderson’s defense attorney who said that none of the “evidence” Jimenez advances was admissible in court when he was defending his client, and it is without merit now.  The Matthew Shepard Foundation, where Matt’s memory is making a difference by saving lives throughout the world, issued a strong rebuttal to this problematic book Limbaugh takes as gospel.  In the New York Daily News, the Shepard Foundation statement reads, in part:  “Attempts now to rewrite the story of this hate crime appear to be based on untrustworthy sources, factual errors, rumors and innuendo rather than the actual evidence gathered by law enforcement and presented in a court of law.”  

The extremist Right Wing, epitomized by Limbaugh, famously called “Comedian Rush Limbaugh” by Keith Olbermann on Countdown, has made a virtual cottage industry out of demeaning the lives and deaths of LGBT people for over 16 years.  Their agenda is running out of gas.  This latest attempt also fails to obscure the ugly truth that Matthew Shepard and over 14,000 other American queer folk have been murdered for their sexual orientation and/or their gender identity and expression since 1980.

The Shepard murder captured the world’s sympathy, outrage, and imagination as no other anti-gay hate crime murder story had done before.  As Gay Star News reports in its story on the Limbaugh allegations:  “Shepard, a 21 year old college student, died after being tortured in a hate crime in Laramie, Wyoming. Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson each received two consecutive life sentences for his murder. The prosecutor in the case alleged that McKinney and Henderson pretended to be gay in order to gain Shepard’s trust so they could later rob him. McKinney originally pleaded the gay panic defense, arguing that he and Henderson were driven to temporary insanity by alleged sexual advances by Shepard. After meeting Shepard at a bar, the pair took him to a remote area outside of Laramie. Once there they robbed him, beat him severely, and tied him to a fence with a rope from McKinney’s truck while Shepard pleaded for his life.”

As Dr. Stephen Sprinkle explains in his award-winning book, Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications, 2011):  “The public outcry at [Matthew Shepard's] cold-blooded killing meant the hate crime that cut his young life short became the holotype in the American psyche for all instances of oppression against people in the sexual minority.   It also sent a chill into the bones of the religio-political Right Wing.  Power to enact protection statutes for LGBT people coalesced around Matt’s death so swiftly that the Wingers feared anti-LGBT hate crime legislation might actually become law.   Their strategy was to kill the story, or failing that, change the narrative.   Cut the power of moral outrage out from under Matt’s murder, they reasoned, and they would blunt the mounting public sentiment for an end to anti-LGBT oppression.”   

None of Comedian Rush Limbaugh’s or Stephen Jimenez’s allegations concerning Matthew Shepard’s murder hold water.  It seems the extremist Right Wing is all out of ideas.

Tagged: anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Florida, gay bashing, gay men, gay panic defense, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, hate crimes statistics, Heterosexism and homophobia, Jason Collins, Keith Olbermann, LGBTQ, Matthew Shepard, Matthew Shepard Act, Matthew Shepard Foundation, National Basketball Association (NBA), New York, Rush Limbaugh, Social Justice Advocacy, Stephen Jimenez, Unfinished Lives book, Unfinished Lives Project, Wyoming