The wind never seems to stop here on the plains. It is October in Wyoming, and the wind carries with it a chill now. The first tentative breath of winter dances restlessly over rolling hills of sage. The days have grown short, the nights cold. And long. Very long. And quiet, save only for the sound of the wind.
Take a walk tonight across the rolling hills of Wyoming sage. Leave the town lights twinkling in the distance behind you. Walk toward the mountains in the darkness ahead. There is only you here tonight. You, and the wind, and the stars in the sky, so far away. So very far away. Around you are only rolling hills of grass and sage, fading into the night. There are remnants of what looks like a small wooden fence here, that was torn down some time ago.
Listen to the wind. Listen carefully. There are ghosts here on the plains. Hear them talk tonight among themselves…
No one knows why Matthew was determined to go to the Fireside that night, or why he left with Aaron and Russell. It was karaoke night, which would not ordinarily have interested him. There was some speculation that he was buying drugs from Aaron and Russell, but his friends find that implausible. A close friend thinks that depression may have weakened his judgment, and wonders if he had taken a heavy dose of Klonopin before he went to the bar. "When he was depressed," she says, "he would just grab a handful." Romaine Patterson remembers how in the coffee shop where she worked Matthew "would just talk to anyone-people no one else would talk to, like this weird old man…. He had no discrimination in his person." -Vanity Fair
Shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998, 20-year-old Shepard met McKinney and Henderson in a bar. McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride in their car. Subsequently, Shepard was robbed, pistol whipped, tortured, tied to a fence in a remote, rural area, and left to die. McKinney and Henderson also found out his address and intended to rob his home. Still tied to the fence, Shepard was discovered eighteen hours later by a cyclist, who at first thought that Shepard was a scarecrow. At the time of discovery, Shepard was still alive, but in a coma. -Wikipedia
Aaron Kreifels first met Matthew Shepard in a dream last Thursday night, the night after he discovered his fellow University of Wyoming student badly beaten, barely alive and tied up to a fence outside of Laramie.
Although Shepard was in Fort Collins by then, kept alive by an array of life-support machines in Poudre Valley Hospital’s intensive-care unit, Kreifels said the gay student, who was beaten beyond recognition, allegedly by two young Laramie roofers, perhaps because he was gay, came to visit his rescuer in a dream that night. Kreifels doesn’t remember much of the dream, but he said Wednesday that he awoke the next morning comforted by the vague sensation of having met the person he found in such bad shape two days before.
Although early reports indicated that two mountain bikers had discovered Shepard on the crude fence on an old, double-rutted road, Kreifels was alone that evening, struggling on his mountain bike through deep sand and for some reason ignoring a desire to turn back and find another, easier way back to town. Before he knew it, he had fallen. He was on the ground, his front wheel broken beyond repair. He was unhurt, but what he saw as he got up struck him cold.
"I got up and noticed something out of the corner of my eye,” he said from his room in a freshman dorm at the University of Wyoming on Wednesday. "At first I thought it was a scarecrow, so I didn’t think much of it. Then I went around and noticed it was a real person. I checked to see if he was conscious or not, and when I found out he wasn’t, I ran and got help as fast as I could.”
As the former high school crosscountry runner traversed the quarter- to half-mile of scrub prairie between him and the nearest house in the nearby Sherman Hills subdivision, his thoughts froze before quickly accelerating.
"It was distressing. I was panicked for a couple minutes, because I wanted to make sure I could do all I could do to help save him,” he said. -The Denver Post
Officer Reggie Fluty: When I got there, the first – at first the only thing I could see was partially somebody’s feet and I got out of my vehicle and raced over – I seen what appeared to be a young man, thirteen, fourteen years old, because he was so tiny, laying on his back and he was tied to the bottome of the end of a pole.
I did the best I could. The gentleman that was laying on the ground, Matthew Shepard, he was covered in dry blood all over his head. There was dry blood underneath him and he was barely breathing…he was doing the best he could.
I was going to breath for him and I couldn’t get his mouth open – his mouth wouldn’t open for me.
He was covered in, like I said, partially dry blood and blood all over his head – the only place that he did not have any blood on him, on his face, was what appeared to be where he had been crying down his face. -The Laramie Project
Shepard suffered a fracture from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body’s ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital signs. There were also about a dozen small lacerations around his head, face and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate. -Wikipedia
At the Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, Matthew lay in bed down the hall from Aaron McKinney. Matthew was comatose; his brain stem which controls heartbeat, breathing, temperature, and other involuntary functions – was severely damaged. He also was suffering from hypothermia and had a red welt on his back, a red mark on his left arm, bruised knees, cuts on his head, neck, and face, and bruising in his groin. -Vanity Fair
Dr. Cantway: I was working the emergency room the night Matthew Shepard was brought in. I don’t think, that any of us, ah, can remember seeing a patient in that condition for a long time – those of us who’ve worked in big city hospitals have seen this. Ah, but it’s not something you expect here.
Ah, you expect it, you expect this kind of injuries to come from a car going down a hill at eighty miles an hour. You expect to see gross injuries from something like that – this horrendous, terrible thing. Ah, but you don’t expect to see that from someone doing this to another person.
The ambulance report said it was a beating so we knew. -The Laramie Project
Exactly a week after his tragic discovery, Kreifels, 18, an architectural engineering major from Grand Island, Neb., said he tries not to think about the condition in which he found the classmate he had never seen before. Authorities say Shepard’s assailants repeatedly beat him with the butt of a .357 Magnum, fracturing his skull. Kreifels doesn’t talk about it.
"I don’t really want to go into details about that,” he said.
-The Denver Post
Aaron Kreifels: I keep seeing that picture in my head when I found him…and it’s not pleasant whatsoever. I don’t want it to be there. I wanna like get it out. That’s the biggest part for me is seeing that picture in my head. And it’s kind of unbelievable to me, you know, that – I happened to be the person who found him – because the big question with me, like with my religion, is like, Why did God want ME to find him? -The Laramie Project
TRIBUNE – Greeley County authorities are investigating what they call an alleged hate crime that occurred early Sunday morning.
Officers responded to reports of an intruder in a Tribune home. By the time they arrived, the intruder had left, but the teenager inside had been beaten, said Greeley County Sheriff Mark Rine.
Dustin Myers, 16, of Horace, was arrested Sunday. Rine said Myers perceived the teen in the home to be gay. Myers is charged with aggravated burglary, aggravated assault and carrying a concealed explosive.
Other news reports on the crime Here, and Here. Myers apparently broke into the home of the unnamed teenager and beat the crap out of him before the police arrived. He’d brought with him some sort of explosive device, and intended to kill the other teen. In the comments section over at Hutchinson news, people are rushing to the defense of Myers…
SHOCKING : 9/20/2008
Yes i know this is shocking to everyone…yes we do need all the prayers we can get…we do appriciate all them…Rutt is not the kind of kid that would ever do anything like this…he just doesnt have it in is heart to hurt anything…we are all just as shocked as everyone else but it would be nice if people would leave us alone about this and let us handle things
WE MISS YOU!!
Let it be said there also seems to be genuine worry about hate, but it’s being expressed in vague declarations that dance around the essential homophobic nature of the crime, along with a lot of calls for prayer. Maybe my friend in Kansas can shed some more light on this one.
You may have heard that an Australian named Matthew Mitcham won the gold in the 10 meter diving event. You may have heard that in doing so, he broke the Chinese sweep of the diving events. You may have heard that a string of disappointments some years ago caused him to drop out of the sport briefly and that his comeback this year was the end result of a lot of very hard and determined work. What you might not have heard, if your only exposure to the China Olympics was our mainstream news media, is that Mitcham is openly gay…
According to OutSports.com, of the 10,708 athletes at the Olympics this year, just 10 have identified themselves publicly as being gay. Of the 10, Australian diver Matthew Mitcham is the only male gay athlete.
NBC did not mention Mitcham’s orientation, nor did they show his family and partner who were in the stands. NBC has made athletes’ significant others a part of the coverage in the past, choosing to spotlight track athlete Sanya Richards’ fiancee, a love triangle between French and Italian swimmers and Kerri Walsh’s wedding ring debacle.
As Atrios said the other day: love triangle okay…gay, not so much.
There are two parts to the culture of violence toward gay people. The first is the relentless demonization of gay people. By churches, by religious leaders, by politicians and their parties, by bigots with a platform. The public is told we are a threat to children, to families, to society, to the very existence of the human race. We are portrayed as sexual predators, disease spreading sociopaths, self-centered narcissistic parasites on society. We are said to be shallow, vain, self-centered and interested only in self gratification on the one hand, and self-hating, self-destructive and miserable on the other. When we are not dangerous sociopaths we are contemptible faggots. The other part is the silencing of gay voices. Where we are not allowed to tell our own stories, in our own voices, where social invisibility is imposed upon us, as though we are a dirty secret best kept away from view, the only voices that are heard, are the voices of those who hate us. The hatemongers go unanswered, and this is what happens…
Oh…and this…
I now feel very fortunate that I was able to spend some private time with Matt last summer during my vacation from Saudi Arabia. We sat and talked. I told Matt that he was my hero and that he was the toughest man that I had ever known. When I said that, I bowed down to him out of respect for his ability to continue to smile and keep a positive attitude during all the trials and tribulations that he had gone through. He just laughed. I also told him how proud I was because of what he had accomplished and what he was trying to accomplish. The last thing I said to Matt was that I loved him, and he said he loved me. That was the last private conversation that I ever had with him.
Impact on my life? My life will never be the same. I miss Matt terribly. I think about him all the time—at odd moments when some little thing reminds me of him; when I walk by the refrigerator and see the pictures of him and his brother that we’ve always kept on the door; at special times of the year, like the first day of classes at UW or opening day of sage chicken hunting. I keep wondering almost the same thing that I did when I first saw him in the hospital. What would we have become? How would he have changed his piece of the world to make it better?
Impact on my life? I feel a tremendous sense of guilt. Why wasn’t I there when he needed me most? Why didn’t I spend more time with him? Why didn’t I try to find another type of profession so that I could have been available to spend more time with him as he grew up? What could I have done to be a better father and friend? How do I get an answer to those questions now? The only one who can answer them is Matt. These questions will be with me for the rest of my life. What makes it worse for me is knowing that his mother and brother will have similar unanswered questions.
Impact on my life? In addition to losing my son, I lost my father on November 4, 1998. The stress of the entire affair was too much for him. Dad watched Matt grow up. He taught him how to hunt, fish, camp, ride horses, and love the state of Wyoming. Matt, Logan, dad, and I would spend two to three weeks camping in the mountains at different times of the year—to hunt, to fish, and to goof off. Matt learned to cook over an open fire, tell fishing stories about the one that got away, and to drive a truck from my father. Three weeks before Matt went to the Fireside Bar for the last time, my parents saw Matt in Laramie. In addition, my father tried calling Matt the night that he was beaten but received no answer. He never got over the guilt of not trying earlier. The additional strain of the hospital vigil, being in the hospital room with Matt when he died, the funeral services with all the media attention and the protesters, [and] helping Judy and me clean out Matt’s apartment in Laramie a few days later was too much. Three weeks after Matt’s death, dad died. Dad told me after the funeral that he never expected to outlive Matt. The stress and the grief were just too much for him. Impact on my life? How can my life ever be the same again?
Excerpt of Dennis Shepard’s Statements to the Court
November 4, 1999
There are two parts to the culture of violence toward gay people…and to all minorities. The first is hate. The second is that silencing of the voices of the hated, which allows hate to go unchallenged and unquestioned. Last week a young Australian diver, after a difficult struggle to come back from burnout and defeat, won a gold medal for the 10 meter dive, beating out the best of the Chinese diving team. You were allowed to know that. He is openly gay, and his parents and his lover were there to support him in his quest for the gold. He said his boyfriend was part of the support network that made his dream possible. You weren’t allowed to know that. Because then you might start wondering about all those things you were taught about homosexuals.
And then you might start wondering why the news media doesn’t give a damn.
Brandon McInerney Shot Larry King. The News Media Will Now Bury Him.
What She Said…
When the kids were killed in the Columbine High School shooting, no one asked what they did to get themselves killed. Every moment of the press coverage was dedicated to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
Do we know what Brandon McInerney wore that day? Do we know how he got the gun into school? Do we know what created such rage in this boy of 14 to have him take a gun at point blank range and shoot? Do we know who his friends were, what pushed his buttons, what kind of movies he watched or internet sites he visited?
After all the stink the news media has been raising about the clothes Lawrence wore in school, you’d think he was dressed to go see Rocky Horror when McInerney walked up behind him and shot him in the head. In fact, the day he was killed he was wearing tennis shoes, baggy pants and a loose sweater over a collared shirt.
As a parent, I cannot understand the King’s lawsuit. They are blaming lipstick and glitter instead of the gun and the hand that held it. The message, loud and clear, is the dominant culture can wield a gun and shoot at will at anyone who doesn’t conform. And our Schools should enforce that conformity.
In doing so, they put my son, and anyone like him, at risk. And that really makes me want to scream: How can you miss the point?
It’s the killer, not the killed.
Emphasis mine. And it’s not just King’s parents who are content to put other people’s kids at risk. It’s McInerney’s lawyer, William Quest, who promised out of one side of his mouth, shortly after the first tendrils of his gay panic defense began to appear in the newspapers, that he wouldn’t put Lawrence on trial. Hahahahahaha. It’s a safe bet he’s been behind the media rush to portray 14 year old Lawrence King as a transvestite sexual predator, and taint the jury pool in McInerney’s favor. Even if he doesn’t succeed, without a doubt there will be other dead gay kids because of it.
And perhaps more dead gay adults too. The bedrock of the gay panic defense is that homosexuality is so revulsive that acting violently toward homosexuals is a normal and reasonable reflex. From there it is a simple step to conclude that homosexuals must assume responsibility for violence against them to the degree they are openly homosexual. The gay panic defense is another way of saying Their blood is upon them…
Looks like the parents of Lawrence King have bought into the defense strategy of their son’s killer. News reports I’m seeing this morning are that King’s parents have filed a claim against the school where he was shot to death, asserting that it was their failure to enforce the dress code on their son that led to his death (so far all I see is the AP report, which I’m not linking to because of the blogger AP boycott). In other words, because Lawrence felt himself more feminine then the other boys, and the school allowed him to dress more femininely, the school made him a target.
This is so unbearably sad. The poor kid’s parents seem deathly ashamed of their own son, even in death. He had to know how they felt about him before he died. And maybe that was why some of the teachers at his school took him under their wing as they did. Lawrence’s parents aren’t arguing here that the school failed to protect their son, but that they failed to keep him in the closet. They are granting the premise of their son’s killer and his lawyer, that hate has more right to walk in the hallways of the public schools then gay kids do.
It’s one thing to argue that the school let the bullying that Lawrence endured escalate dangerously. It is another thing entirely to argue that letting Lawrence be openly gay led to his murder. Waving the dress code around is a calculated and disgustingly cynical ploy. It sidesteps the question of whether the code itself embodies discriminatory gender norms. Gay and transgendered children should feel welcome and safe and secure in school too, or they cannot assert their right to an education. Shoving them into the closet, for the sake of the delicate sensibilities of bigots, punishes them simply for existing, forces them to try and learn, somehow, in an environment where they are made to feel deviant, outcast and ashamed.
I read elsewhere that Lawrence’ father has complained bitterly that the gays have turned his son’s death into a cause. As though the safety and welfare of all the other gay and transgendered kids in the public schools isn’t something worth fighting for. It’s one thing to forgive his son’s killer. The boy is only 14 after all. But it’s another thing to excuse him. Many gay and transgendered children know with horrible sickening clarity, some living on the streets because they were thrown out of their homes, that their parents would excuse their killer too. Some would excuse them with great sadness. Some would applaud.
As 14-year-old Brandon McInerney prepares to be arraigned today in the slaying of 15-year-old Lawrence "Larry" King at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, his lawyer is advancing a defense that at least partly blames school officials for the tragedy.
Educators should have moved aggressively to quell rising tensions between the two boys, which began when King openly flirted with McInerney, said Deputy Public Defender William Quest.
No. The tensions pre-existed that. The flirting was Kings way of dealing with the abuse he was getting from the other kids. But look at this carefully. Quest is hanging a dead skunk on a sliver of truth obvious to everyone in hindsight. Educators should have moved aggressively to quell rising tensions between the two boys… Yes. And right here is the poison Quest is trying to slip in along with that…
Instead, administrators were so intent on nurturing King as he explored his sexuality, allowing him to come to school wearing feminine makeup and accessories, that they downplayed the turmoil that his behavior was causing on campus, Quest said.
You’d think the boy was going to school in drag…which is exactly the image Quest is creating there. Quest is slyly turning a murdered 15 year old gay kid into a drag queen exploring his sexuality on other terrified teenagers. He’s pushing all the usual buttons there. But look past that. King’s behavior was creating turmoil on campus. Quest has probably figured out that blaming a 15 year old gay kid for his own murder isn’t going to play well…at least with California juries. He might get away with it, but considering Matthew Shepard’s killers couldn’t even in Wyoming, it’s a risk. So what to do? Simple. Blame the school for not blaming the victim.
Instead, administrators were so intent on nurturing King as he explored his sexuality, allowing him to come to school wearing feminine makeup and accessories, that they downplayed the turmoil that his behavior was causing on campus…
Isn’t that a neat trick? The school was siding with the gay kid, which left the other kids in turmoil, which caused Brandon McInerney to bring a gun to school and shoot Lawrence King in the back of the head. Poor Branden was so traumatized over having a gay classmate, and even worse being flirted at, that he couldn’t even look him in the eye when he pulled the trigger. And it’s all the school’s fault. For nurturing the gay kid. When they should have been keeping him under control. So the other kids wouldn’t be in turmoil. So Branden McInerney wouldn’t have been in turmoil.
You have never seen the gay panic defense so slickly inserted into a murder trial.
The anti-gay religious right is mounting Yet Another protest against the Day Of Silence, itself a protest against anti-gay violence in schools. First it was the misnamed Day Of Truth. Now it’s the Golden Rule Day. Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin writes about the competing religious right activity, and sums it up pretty thoroughly here…
More than a year ago, I attended a Love Won Out conference in Phoenix put on jointly by Exodus International and Focus On the Family. That’s where I heard Focus’s Mike Haley address anti-LGBT violence in a Q&A session:
I think, too, we also have to be just as quick to also stand up when we do see the gay and lesbian community being come against as the Body of Christ. We need to be the first to speak out to say that what happened to Matthew Shepard was a terrible incident and should never happen again. And that we within the Body of Christ are wanting to protect that community and put our money where our mouth is…
That was a real “Wow!” moment for me. I thought finally, someone gets it. I can’t tell you how encouraged I was to hear Mike Haley say that. It was an ultimate Golden Rule moment. And I can’t begin to describe how disappointed I’ve been since then.
One year later, Lawrence King was killed in cold blood on February 12 in front of his teachers and classmates. Since then, conservative Christians leaders have celebrated seventy-three consecutive Days of Silence.
Emphasis mine. You should go read the whole thing. Day of Silence? How about seventy-three Days of Silence after a 15 year old gay boy was shot in the head.
That says it all. Can we please stop talking about their "sincerely held religious beliefs" now? This isn’t about faith. This isn’t about how much they love God. It’s about how much they hate us.
Via Pam’s House Blend… Right Wing Watch has this video up on McCain’s new buddy, Ron Parsley, whom I’ve done a political cartoon about previously…
“This so-called hate crimes legislation would preferred status to people based on entirely on who they choose as a sexual partner. What if they change their mind the next night!”
“Why is marriage under attack?!…Why is the family coming under such brutal attack from the forces of darkness…”
“I will lift my voice against THE AGENDA of America’s tortured and angry homosexual population…”
“In essence the Supreme Court of the United States on June 26, 2003, legalized the perverted act of sodomy. And we said nothing…”
“This is not about homosexual rights or lesbian rights…this is about THE DESTRUCTION of the VERY COVENANT (organ music rises up in the background as he waves his finger desperately) They are seeking to “redefine” marriage. In other words, they are intending to PERVERT God’s original intention!”
Parsley, an Ohio megachurch pulpit thumper once shouted out at the “War on Christians” conference in 2006, “A spiritual invasion is taking place! Man your battle stations! Ready your weapons! Lock and load!” When these righteous men of god, these men of high moral values speak of war, people listen. And here’s the blood payoff…
The mistake when these people rail against hate crime laws, is to take the rhetoric at face value. They’re babbling that those laws will restrict their ability to preach lock and load sermons from the pulpit, but it’s not the loss of their the first amendment rights they’re worried about. When Parsley shouts “lock and load” he knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s calling for blood on the streets. If his useful tools, the young male thugs he’s counting on strike fear into the hearts of gay people, suddenly find themselves being held accountable for their actions, then they might think twice and Parsley’s work, and that of his fellow hate mongers will all be in vain. They’re not worried about being silenced. They’re worried that their words won’t have the desired effect anymore, that the bloodshed will stop. A fearful homosexual, is a good homosexual. A dead homosexual, is an even better one.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (WSVN) — Police are searching for a man driven by hate, who beat a gay man and threatened him and his partner, after they finished a meal at an outdoor restaurant.
The couple were dining at the Floridian restaurant on Las Olas Boulevard with a friend around 3 a.m. Saturday when they say a stranger verbally and physically attacked them. "I can barely see out of my right eye at this point, I got scrapes…" said Melbourne Brunner.
Brunner said he received the injuries from the stranger who walked by their table and targeted him for no other reason besides the fact that he is a gay man. Brunner said they tried to be cordial with the stranger when they first made eye contact. "He looked down at us, and my partner said, ‘Good morning,’ and that was it."
Brunner recalled, moments later, the man returned visibly upset. "He just started with this barrage, of, ‘Are you looking at me, you faggot? You know what I do to faggots? I break their necks!’"
After the verbal encounter, his partner and friend decided to ask for their check. They got up, left the restaurant and headed down the sidewalk to their car. That’s when the attacker followed them and made his move. "As I was almost into the car, the guy had made it down the sidewalk and had reached inside and grabbed the edge of the door," explained Brunner. The verbal attack turned physical when Brunner stood up. "That’s when he hit me, and I landed face-down on the concrete."
Mitchell Mart, the victim’s partner, went to render aid to Brunner and noticed his injuries. "I came down the street to pick him up and put him in the car and saw he was badly injured," Mart said. "His forehead immediately swelled up, his eye closed, he was bleeding."
Mart tried to get the attacker’s license tag number from his pickup truck, but the assailant went out of his way to keep it hidden. "He took off his shirt, covered his license plate, put down his tailgate," he said.
Brunner said the attacker then threatened them. "’I’ll kill you before you get my tag number, you faggot!’ and jumped in his car, rolled down the window and was screaming, ‘That’s right, run, faggots, run.’"
Despite the attacker’s attempts to keep his identity hidden, the victims did give a detailed description to police. Authorities are looking for a newer model, four-door Toyota Tacoma with a metallic green color, chrome rims, a black roll bar and a black bed cover. The attacker is described as a white male, in his early 30s, with a muscular build, clean-cut hair, standing about 5 feet 9 inches to 6 feet tall.
Make no mistake…this is exactly what they were calling for, when Naugle and a group of black ministers got up in front of the cameras at a press conference, one of them wearing military fatigues, and called for a war on homosexuality, and a cleansing of sin from Ft. Lauderdale.
Last summer the Mayor of Ft. Lauderdale, Jim Naugle, went on an anti-gay rampage, first accusing the gay community of rampant use of the public bathrooms at the beaches for sex. This despite his own police chief saying to the press that there was no such problem. Naugle called for special toilet stalls to be installed at the beaches with doors that would fly open after a few minutes, theoretically to discourage their use for sex. As the controversy grew, Naugle became more deranged in his attacks on the gay community.
I could cite a lot of newspaper articles for this, but I thought I’d show you this, from Peter LaBarbera’s Americans For Truth About Homosexuality. It pretty well captures the…flavor…of the atmosphere Naugle relentlessly worked to create (and which let it be said, LaBarbera constantly works to create…)…
TAKE ACTION: Watch yesterday’s Sun-Sentinel video of Ft. Lauderdale MayorJim Naugle’s press conference in which he apologizes for not doing more to stop homosexual “sex” in the city’s public and beach restrooms. Naugle also opposes housing a homosexual library collection containing hard-core pornographic items in a public library. E-mail Mayor Naugle at mayorjames@aol.com, and thank him for refusing to be intimidated by a vocal fringe and the liberal media. And contact the Ft. Lauderdale city commissioners and urge them to support the Mayor’s push to protect children and uphold decency.
A note on the Naugle story: will the day ever come when LEADERS of the proud “gay” lobby apologize for their community’s own excesses — e.g., tolerating or encouraging men to commit anonymous sodomies with other men in public restrooms, parks, and bathhouses (sex clubs)?
Kudos to Mayor Naugle. I almost fell off my seat watching this video. Finally, a public servant with the courage to stand up to the homosexual militants and their fellow travelers in the media. Imagine: a big-city mayor tries to stop gross perversions from occurring in public places — and the pro-”gay” lobby says HE is the problem and is embarrassing the city! — Peter LaBarbera
Fort Lauderdale mayor issues apology, but not to gay community
FORT LAUDERDALE — Mayor Jim Naugle issued a public apology on the steps of City Hall Tuesday afternoon, but it wasn’t the apology the gay community was looking for.
Naugle apologized for underestimating the problem of men having sex with each other in public restrooms, and urged people to call police to complain when they come upon it. He also said Broward County leads the nation in the incidence of new AIDS cases involving men having sex with men, and questioned whether the county tourism office should be welcoming them here.
Naugle alerted the media that he was holding a news conference that would include “an apology.”
Gay activists and others have been calling for a public apology form the mayor, and for his resignation, since the South Florida Sun-Sentinel published Naugle’s comments earlier this month about gays. In article about a proposed self-cleaning, automatic toilet the city was going to buy for the beach, Naugle said an added benefit would be that it would deter men from using it for “homosexual activity,” which he said was a problem in public restrooms.
Naugle, you may recall, capped his performance with a news conference of several anti-gay black ministers from the area, who spoke of fighting a war, and of cleansing Ft. Lauderdale of sin. One of them even came to the news conference, dressed in military fatigues…
People said blood would be spilled because of climate of hate Naugle was creating. People tried to get him to at least tone it down. Instead he gleefully fanned the flames. Well…looks like Naugle, and all those black ministers who came to support him, who came to declare they were fighting a war, got the blood they were calling for…
(Ft. Lauderdale) Today, Equality Florida and the coalition Transgender Equality Rights Initiatives (TERI) expressed outrage over the murder of Simmie Williams Jr., a gay 17 year-old who was gunned down this past weekend on a street corner in Broward County. Police are investigating the murder as a possible hate crime based on the words witnesses say were exchanged before the shooting.
…
A memorial is being planned for 4:30PM Thursday, February 27th at the 1000 block of Sistrunk Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale where the murder occurred. A town hall meeting will follow at 6:30 at the Gay & Lesbian Community Center of South Florida 1717 N. Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL to discuss the issue of hate crimes in Florida.
Meet the enemy in the splended little war of the black ministers of Ft. Lauderdale … The kid who had to die for Mayor Naugle’s fifteen minutes of fame…
“We can be horrified, but we cannot be surprised,” said Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida. “Just 10 days ago, 15 year-old Lawrence King was gunned down in California.
Ah yes…Lawrence King. Let us avert our gaze now, toward the west coast…and the pulpit of the Antioch Bible Church…
Personally, I have no problem with the effort to make church work better for men or challenging men to step up and do something with their lives. I do have a problem with it when it means, as it sometimes does, putting down women or insisting women play only secondary roles in church or family. And I have a big problem with the guy emphasis when it relies on making gay men objects of derision and ridicule.
Such appears to be the case in remarks made by Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland. Hutcherson has gotten headlines for his efforts to pressure Microsoft on gay issues. He has a right to his views — views he supports with texts from Scripture. Reasonable people can disagree over whether gay marriage is a good idea.
But Hutcherson goes beyond reasonable, at least to judge by the report of Seattle psychologist Valerie Tarico. Tarico, a former staffer at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, was raised in a fundamentalist church. In recent months, she has made it her business to attend services at many of the large, conservative churches in the Seattle area, including Hutcherson’s, to see what’s going on.
On a Sunday when Tarico was present, Hutcherson was preaching on gender roles. During his sermon, Hutcherson stated, "God hates soft men" and "God hates effeminate men." Hutcherson went on to say, "If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end."
"That was a joke," Hutcherson said Friday, when I asked him about the comment. But it’s not really funny, is it?
Trust me…they all laughed when he told it. Every single self-righteous man and woman of god in those pews. And you can tell that Hutcherson was only joking by their laughter. If they’d seen him actually doing it to some poor man who had politely held a door open for him, they wouldn’t have laughed. They’d have applauded.
Reverend Ken Hutcherson, founder and senior pastor of the Antioch Bible Church near Seattle Washington, and one of the three leaders of the hate group, Watchmen on the Walls, is on the warpath over the Gay-Straight Alliance in his daughter’s school…
This poster is hanging in the window of a classrom at Mt. Si High School!
It’s time we wake up and realize we are in a culture WAR!
When teachers are allowed to hang posters like this in our local school, we’ve got a big problem. It’s time to take back our schools.
Pastor Hutch
Timothy Kincaid, over at Box Turtle Bulletin, has more. Apparently Hutcherson is upset that his daughter is being called a stressful presence while "monitoring" those GSA meetings. I can’t imagine why, other then that those kids probably know full well that everyone who attends those meetings, and everything that is said, is being reported right back to Hutcherson, and for all anybody knows, other members of The Watchmen on the Walls. They might as well be holding their meetings in Hutcherson’s church.
The Goths in their black T-shirts were there. So were the punks with fluorescent hair and multiple piercings.
There were even a few adolescent boys carrying skateboards among the nearly 1,000 Oxnard youth and other supporters who turned out Saturday for a hastily organized peace march to pay tribute to Lawrence King, 15, the Oxnard student shot to death in a classroom last week.
"Larry, Larry, Larry!" the crowd chanted before marchers clasped hands in a moment of silence for the fallen student.
There were no bullhorns, no speeches and no politicians. Just a mass of mostly adolescents wearing bright clothing, carrying signs and singing John Lennon’s "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance."
The size of the turnout surprised police, school officials and even the two Hueneme High School sophomores who put the event together just three days ago, spreading the word with fliers, cellphone calls and MySpace bulletins.
"We were expecting maybe 100 or 200 people," said Courtney LaForest, 16, as she gazed at a broad "peace circle" formed by march participants at Plaza Park in downtown Oxnard. "This is incredible."
Courtney said the turnout reflected a community’s anguish over a senseless shooting that has destroyed the lives of two young men. It was also a public plea for tolerance on school campuses for those who are different, she said.
However, "Pastor Hutch" and his friends think it’s time people realize they’re fighting a WAR! And The enemy…? Right here…
And…here…
And…here…
Children are being shot by children. Parents are burying their children. Their friends are being torn apart by shock and loss and grief. And Hutcherson says we’re in a WAR! No shit Sherlock. Two bullets to the head killed a sixteen year old boy and took away from this poor world everything he might have given to it, every moment of friendship and joy and love, every laugh, every smile. Gone. All gone. In an instant. And Ken Hutcherson’s words, and those of his fellow KulturKriegen, were the gunpowder.
An essay on little Johnny’s two mommies could be tossed in the trash bin before it ever gets the chance to bask in school hallway-display prominence.
Newly proposed state legislation would ban anything from being taught in schools that exposes students in prekindergarten through eighth grade to homosexuality.
"Homosexuality, bisexuality, that’s something that should be left to be taught at home and not at our schools," said Rep. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, author of the legislation.
The bill, however, would allow for the teaching of heterosexuality.
"Without heterosexuality you wouldn’t be able to teach biology," Campfield explained.
He added that keeping heterosexuality on the books would protect schools from litigation. "’Jack and Jill went up the hill’ – some organizations say you can’t teach that because it pushes a heterosexual agenda," he said.
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you’ll know by…
An Oxnard junior high student who was shot in the head by a classmate earlier this week was declared brain dead Wednesday, and the 14-year-old male suspect now faces a first-degree murder charge, authorities said.
Lawrence King, 15, was declared brain dead by two neurosurgeons about 2 p.m. at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, said Craig Stevens, senior deputy Ventura County medical examiner. King’s body remains on a ventilator for possible organ donation, he said. He was shot early Tuesday in a classroom at E.O. Green Junior High School.
Authorities initially believed that King was improving. But the boy’s condition worsened early Wednesday, and he was placed on a ventilator a few hours later with his family nearby, said an official, who asked not to be named.
their privacy.
Police said the suspect, whose identity was not disclosed because of his age, shot King at least twice at the beginning of the school day and then fled the campus. The boy was apprehended by police a few blocks away and is being held in Juvenile Hall. He is scheduled to appear in court today.
…
Police have not determined a motive in the slaying but said it appeared to stem from a personal dispute between King and the suspect…
But several students at the south Oxnard campus said King and his alleged assailant had a falling out stemming from King’s sexual orientation.
The teenager sometimes wore feminine clothing and makeup, and proclaimed he was gay, students said.
"He would come to school in high-heeled boots, makeup, jewelry and painted nails — the whole thing," said Michael Sweeney, 13, an eighth-grader. "That was freaking the guys out."
Student Juan Sandoval, 14, said he shared a fourth-period algebra class with the suspect, whom he described as a calm, smart student who played on the basketball team. "I didn’t think he was that kind of kid," Sandoval said. "I guess you never know. He made a big mistake."
"Their lives are both destroyed now," said student Hansley Rivera, 12
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you…
On her way to buy some orange juice, 26-year-old Pamela Brown, who started living as a woman three years ago, said she was viciously attacked because she is transgendered.
"I saw five guys blocking the storeway. They called me a [expletive deleted] and then I was hit. Then I was attacked by two more guys from the back and my fiance ran over," she said. "I probably could have been killed if I was by myself."
Brown is now recovering while in protective police custody.
Meanwhile, two young men have been arrested near the Old Town Mall in Baltimore where the beating occurred.
Police commented on the attack last week.
"More than likely it will be upgraded to a hate crime, simply because of the things that were being said," said Troy Harris, Baltimore City Police spokesperson.
But now the city state’s attorney’s office is not pursuing hate crime charges. Why?
A spokesperson says while there was provocative language, it is free speech and there’s no evidence of premeditation.
Dig it. If you’re gay or transgendered here in Baltimore, and someone walks up and beats the crap out of you while calling you a fucking faggot, that’s not a hate crime here in Baltimore, because the fact that they used sexual slurs while they were beating the crap out of you isn’t evidence of either hate or premeditation, merely one citizen’s opinion of another.
This actually isn’t the only kind of crime Baltimore city chronically under reports. And Baltimore probably isn’t alone in that regard either. But check out the link I have on the right to the Baltimore Crime blog every now and then to see just how infrequently the violent criminals around here actually get the attention they need. Between our police department, which as been known to threaten victims for reporting crimes, and Patricia Jessamy, our pathetic state’s attorney who drops charges more frequently then a blizzard drops snowflakes, a lot of stuff around just gets swept under the rug, or dropped somewhere they hope nobody will notice. Which is all to say that it isn’t necessarily prejudice that’s motivating Patricia to under report hate crimes against sexual minorities here in Baltimore. More likely then not it’s just standard operating procedure.
But now some of Baltimore’s black ministers are gearing up to wage Kultur Krieg on Maryland’s gay community over same sex marriage…so expect Patricia to be classifying more violent crimes against gay and transgendered people as freedom of speech in the coming months. Hopefully my family and friends won’t be seeing my name in that roll call.
DUBLIN – A teenager attacked a woman he mistook for a gay man because of her hairstyle, a court has heard.
The State was given more time to complete a book of evidence in the case against the boy who launched a serious attack on the woman, and a man. He mistook both for two gay men.
Thinking the couple were men because of the woman’s hairstyle, he attacked them on one of Dublin’s busiest streets, calling them "f***ing gay bastards".
The 16-year-old boy has been charged at the Dublin Children’s Court with assaulting the man, and assault causing harm to the woman on Middle Abbey Street on the evening of January 26 last.
In November, Judge Anne Ryan held the case was too serious to be dealt with in the Children’s Court and should be sent forward to the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, which can impose lengthier sentences.
The case had been remanded until this week to allow the State to complete the book of evidence. However, Judge Ryan was told that it had not yet been completed and the prosecution was seeking further time.
The west Dublin teenager, who is on bail and was not present because of illness, was remanded further in his absence, to appear again in early February when he is to be served with the book of evidence and sent forward to the Circuit Court.
Outlining the allegations, Store Street Garda Jamie Jordan had said the teen approached the man and woman.
"He asked ‘are you two gay guys?’. He then hit the man on his face and knocked him to the ground. He attacked the woman, threw her to the ground and kicked her in the back and stomach. He then jumped on the man’s back."
When the woman, who had been repeatedly kicked, got to her feet, her face was punched. She suffered bruising but both she and her boyfriend made a full recovery.
Earlier, the court had also heard that the comments made about them being gay men arose from the woman’s hairstyle, and during the attack he still thought she was a man.
"Throughout the attack, he made similar derogatory comments, something like ‘f***ing gay bastards’," the court had been told previously.
Defence solicitor Michelle Finan had told Judge Ryan the boy had never been in trouble before. She said he was admitting that he attacked the couple after he got heavily intoxicated.
Alcohol doesn’t make you hate people. It just lets the hate you already bear out.
Dig it. This was an opposite sex couple, and they still got the crap beaten out of them because their attacker mistook them for a same sex couple. Learn this: When politicians and clergymen stoke up passions toward gay people, they aren’t just attacking gay people. They are attacking humanity. They are calling down violence against everyone. They are unleashing the beast within, and that beast doesn’t follow orders.
Going into the home stretch in in the Kentucky gubernatorial election, the Republicans appear to have brought out one last card: Paranoia against gays.
The state GOP is now sending a robo-call throughout the state featuring none other than Pat Boone, warning that as a Christian he is concerned that Democratic nominee Steve Beshear, who has been way ahead in the polls, will work for "every homosexual cause."
"Now do you want a governor who’d like Kentucky to be another San Francisco?" Boone asks. "Please re-elect Ernie Fletcher."
And at a campaign stop last night, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports, the Republican nominee for Lt. Governor made a direct attack upon the Democratic ticket: "Do you want a couple of San Francisco treats or do you want a governor?"
(Emphasis mine) So the republican candidate gets way behind in the polls and he starts waving the Gay Menace. This is what republicans do to win elections, and never mind how many gay Americans it gets killed. Talking Points Memo has a recording of Fletcher’s robo call. You may recall that on April 11 of last year Fletcher, declared Diversity Day in Kentucky, and on the same day eliminated anti-discrimination protections for gay state and local government workers.
I wrote a post a few days back about wanting a door I could walk through from time to time. Don’t assume that means I’m not just as pissed off at all of you as I was. In fact, I might even be More pissed off now then I was. Because it just never stops with the republicans. It just never stops.
I don’t expect everyone who knows me to agree with me on every political issue. But if you can vote republican while they’re doing this to gay people to win elections then you are not my friend. It really is that simple. I’ve got a bullseye on my back, along with ever other gay American citizen, and it’s not gutter crawling maggots like Ernie Fletcher who put it there, it’s all of you who told the republicans they can incite passions toward gay people as often and as crudely as they like and you’ll still vote for them.
So don’t ask. Just…don’t.
When the roll call of the gay bashed for this election cycle is read and I’m lucky enough not to be on it that’ll be no thanks to the likes of any of you.
(Union City, New Jersey) Two workers at a Burger King in Union City have been charged with assault and a hate crime in connection with the beating of a gay couple outside the restaurant.
Christopher Soto and Angel Carbaballo, who have since been fired by the chain, are scheduled to appear in court this week.
The victims, both in their 40s, have not been named.
When the couple asked for a refund for a menu item that the counter person discovered was not available, another counter person then asked who wanted the refund – “The faggots over there?”
The couple left the restaurant, but a group of Burger King employees allegedly followed them to a side street and beat them mercilessly, though not fatally.
The employees made repeated anti-gay slurs during the beating according to the indictment.
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Mayor Naugle is pictured above to the direct left of President Bush (he is facing the camera). At left, homosexual activists’ 
