Murders, Shootings of Newark Teens May Have Been Anti-Gay Hate Crimes

Newark triple murder may be anti-gay hate crime

Victims’ friends ‘driven to despair’ over alleged police, media cover-up

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | Sep 27, 1:52 PM

A close friend of three college students who were shot to death execution style in a Newark, N.J., schoolyard in August said the students planned to join him in attending a black Gay Pride event in Queens, N.Y., the day following their deaths.

Did the students plan to attend Gay Pride event?

News of the students’ plans to attend the Aug. 5 event at New York City’s Riis Park Beach surfaced after a New Jersey gay group released a letter last week calling on Newark authorities to investigate the murders as possible anti-gay hate crimes.

The murder of the three students and the shooting of a fourth student, who is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head, shocked Newark’s citizens and became the subject of international news coverage.

“[W]e want to know why, although the murders were committed more than a month ago, the fact of the sexual orientation of the youth has never been a part of the media or public discourse of the murders,” said Newark gay activist James Credle in a letter to Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

Activist says "one or more of the murdered students were gay"

“This happened despite the fact that several sources, including friends, boyfriends/lovers of at least one of the victims and perhaps one of the parents knew that one or more of the murdered students were gay,” Credle wrote.

....activists have said police and city officials appear to be ignoring evidence suggesting that the killings were hate crimes related to the victims’ actual or perceived sexual orientation. Credle told the Blade that he and others in the gay community have learned from friends and relatives of the victims that little of value was taken from the victims. He said friends claim all of their wallets were left at the scene.

Credle and others have questioned why the attackers, wielding guns, would have killed the victims if robbery alone was the motive.

Police have said all the victims were upstanding citizens who never had any run-ins with the law. Three were students at Delaware State University and one, Hightower, had planned to begin classes there this fall.

The friend of the student who spoke with the Blade, a 20-year-old Newark resident, said at least one of the victims was openly gay and all the others had gay friends and were known to hang out in “gay circles” at their high schools before going on to college.

The friend declined to disclose his name, saying he is concerned about possible negative consequences of speaking out openly about the sexual orientation of the deceased students.

entire Washington Blade article here

Technorati Tags:
hate crime, Newark, murders, teens, students, Corey Booker, Washington Blade

LARRY CRAIG: Another Self-Hating Homo Who'd Rather Be Powerful Among His Torturers than Honest

poor whiney hypocrite-victims .... boo hoo hoo...

They're virulent hatemongers, hypocrites and homophobes. Craig is a self-hating denier who deserves to be outed, abandoned and to go down in FLAMES, as it were.

good riddance. don't let the stall door hit you in the @ss on the way out.

be sure to check out the latest installments on one of the evangelical republican rightwing's other poster boys for homophobic hatemongering hypocrisy --TED "i only got a massage" HAGGARD

his latest antics: joining forces with a REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER to ask for money from their dull headed sheeplike lemming followers
http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/08/families_with_a_mission

more stories in the archives
http://www.google.com/custom?sitesearch=thestranger.com&domains=thestranger.com&q=haggard

To All the Homophobes, Hatemongers & Hypocrites

Gay couple become first in Colorado to adopt children

August 29, 2007

On Monday, Morgan and Evinn had no legal parents. Today, they have two — both moms.

"People say they need a mother and a father ... They had a mother and a father — and they abused them."

"People say, they need two parents. We say, they've got two parents," says Jeannie DiClementi, who along with life partner Mary Ross, have become the first gay couple to adopt children together under a new state law. "This is a victory for children."

Colorado already permitted adoption by married couples or by singles — straight or gay. But for singles with partners, the partner has not been able to adopt unless the couple married, which gays can't legally do in Colorado.

In May, Gov. Bill Ritter signed the so-called second-parent adoption law, which allows same-sex couples, as well as grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives, to jointly adopt children.

"This law gives children in a one-parent family a chance to grow up in a two-parent home," Ritter said then. "This law will give children a better chance to succeed."

Morgan, 4, and her 21-month -old sister — Ross' great-nieces — desperately needed another chance. Both kids were severely neglected and abused by their young parents, who preferred playing video games to caring for their children, Ross says.

The girls' mother and father, Ross' nephew, had been on the social service radar for years, but efforts to help them proved futile.

how many special-needs children have they adopted? How many of them are foster parents to children who have been neglected and abused? People want to take away the ability for same sex couples to adopt, but I've yet to hear anybody put a plan in place to protect the children

In August 2005, Adams County caseworkers tracked down Ross, 45, and DiClementi, 57, who had moved from Colorado to Fort Wayne, Ind. for new jobs.

At that point, they were the only family members with the resources and stabilitiy to take the girls.

Would they take a special-needs child? And her baby sister, who had serious medical problems?

The couple didn't hesitate.

"Sisters should be together," says DiClementi, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at Purdue University.

By May 2006, both children were living with them in Indiana. But last December, a judge ordered the kids back to Colorado, saying that the county had failed to properly document parental abuse.

"We went through the ceiling. It was unbelievable," DiClementi says. Ross, a social worker, quit her job and left graduate school to move back to Colorado with the children. With the help of friends, who donated furniture and toys, the couple maintained two homes, with DiClementi traveling to Denver every few weeks.

In February, a court-appointed advocate for the children presented the judge with evidence that their birth mother had posted their photos on a Web site she maintained featuring bondage, sadomasochism and violent sex. Both parents subsequently gave up their parental rights, clearing the way for DiClementi and Ross to adopt the girls, which became official Tuesday.

"People say, well, they need a mother and a father," DiClementi says. "They had a mother and a father — and they abused them."

Although the girls have thrived with them, it hasn't been easy. Morgan, who repeatedly banged her head and clawed herself when she first came to them, is still prone to self-injury and has various developmental delays. Evinn suffered a stroke before birth and has respiratory trouble and other physical problems.

"I want to ask some of those critics (of the law), how many special-needs children have they adopted? How many of them are foster parents to children who have been neglected and abused? People want to take away the ability for same sex couples to adopt, but I've yet to hear anybody put a plan in place to protect the children," DiClementi says. "For them, it's not about the children. It's about the politics."

For Ross and DiClementi, it's about making sure two little girls have emotional and financial security if something happens to one of their parents. It's about being able to travel home to Indiana and back to Colorado without asking permission from a court or a county.

It's about being able to tell people proudly, "These are our daughters."

source: RockyMountainNews.com

The LOGO Debate: Why Marriage Is NOT The Only Question

Watched the majority of the Human Rights Campaign + LOGO Presidential Candidates Forum last night.

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic has "A Reported Blog on Politics" with a post-HRC/Logo entry entitled The LOGO Debate: Marriage Is The Question which really was mainly an overview of what the candidates said, mainly about the issue of gay marriage.

Ambinder writes that " It’s helpful to look at this debate through two lenses: the hopeful lens of the gay community and the skeptical lens of the pundit who is always peering around the corner at the general election."

One commenter wrote: "The LGBT community will never accept John Edwards as long as he keeps up with his stump speech about how "conflicted" he is over gay marriage."

But as Ambinder writes "...gay marriage – that’s the holy grail for many (though by no means all) of the gay community."

I couldn't agree more. And that's what I wrote at Marc's blog too:

Am I disappointed that Edwards is not more 'developed'? Sure, but I have not completely dismissed his viability as an electible presidential candidate. I for one am not a single issue voter, or okay, i am RARELY a single issue voter.

Something I would argue is valuable to keep in mind about what John Edwards does bring to the table: Economic Justice issues for working and middle class folks -- that includes most of us in the GLBT community, some are far more privileged and economically elite, but most of us are not.

Here's why I believe Edwards should not be completely dismissed: His focus on the economy and economic justice, health care and his national economic stimulation plans to put people to work for more than minimum wage and to make sure workers no longer suffer while the richest and greediest -- the friends of Bush and Cheney -- become even wealthier at the expense of all the rest of us.

When the majority of regular working people begin experiencing and reaping economic benefits which currently are not available to most working people, zero to poor people and most are not being experienced by many other middle class working families -- i.e. the less stressed, less crunched they feel and the less economically stressed they actually are -- the more open to change, the more generous their attitudes in many areas toward social progress, social justice including GLBT issues.

Kevin Phillips and others have well-documented Republican administrations' devastation to working families (especially pointed beginning with Reagan) -- it has become far worse under Bush Cheney despite the happy talk. Look what is happening in the financial markets right now. None of these people give a crap about whether middle class, working, much less poor people have houses, health care or jobs. All they care about is whether their investments make profits. That is the real republican mandate. They obfuscate that truth and hide it from the stupid evangelicals with emotional sleights of hand to keep them from understanding and knowing their own economic issues.

How/Why do we fail to understand the same thing?

While their own economic survival is at stake -- which it very much is at this point in our country -- It is harder for people to feel generous and tolerant toward others.

When people feel/believe/know/experience the very real economic devastation this administration has wrought on working people and on this economy for the past seven years (helped along by Bill Clinton's kowtowing to the global profiteers and multinational corporations via NAFTA), they do not/are not feeling very 'secure' and thus less tolerant, less generous, less sure about what this means for them.

Couple that with the mean-spirited divisiveness -- the republicans have known exactly how to keep americans divided, stressed, fighting, fragmented and NOT focusing on the most foundational important issues, especially the utter lack of concern that the republican party truly has for anyone but the truly wealthy. Right now they are demagoging the color of brown people and immigration BECAUSE it takes our eyes off the economic devastation they have inflicted upon this citizenry.

I do not condone Edwards' lack of progress in the marriage issue (Hillary and Obama are no better in their explanations), but I believe there are underlying foundational issues -- ECONOMIC ISSUES, THE ECONOMY, ECONOMIC JUSTICE -- to consider which have a critical impact on how people view/experience/talk/feel about not only OUR issues, but others such as: WAR, DOMESTIC SECURITY, IMMIGRATION, INTERNATIONAL POLICIES...etc

These are especially interconnected and extremely linked to how working families are doing economically (in addition to the leadership of our so-called leaders, grassroots efforts, personal relationships that folks have with their GLBT family members and friends....)

There are historical trends (yellow scare, brown scare, civil rights, womens rights, gay rights) which are deeply linked to economic (and educational and legal) progress as experienced by the masses in industrial societies.

I'm actually far more concerned about first tackling economic justice, health care, restoring pensions and benefits to retirees and workers, getting jobs to inner city -- and RURAL -- citizens and youth....because if our economic foundation crumbles further (like our infrastructure is doing), you can bet there will little or no mass support for OUR issues -- which will seem irrelevant to many many people.

If the republicans and their toadies continue to destroy the working families of this country (including GLBT families), there will continue to be accelerating, even more rapidly growing legions of our fellow citizens who are living in perpetual violence, despair, base indignities, who have children who are starving, dying, murdering, being murdered, parents who cannot get health care or elder care ... this is the road we are headed down at this moment unless there are major changes toward putting people in this country back to work at jobs that pay more than McDonald's or Walmart pittances.

That is why I will still listen to what John Edwards has to say despite his lack of progress at this point -- he has the capacity to learn and grow -- just like Obama, just like Clinton -- and one of these three -- or hell if only Gore would jump in, i'd support him -- but more than likely one of these three (none of whom has the perfect position on our issues) is likely to be the candidate. Sure I'd love Kucinich, but it's not realistic.

I for one am sick of the evil of the republican demagogues and if Edwards can win key voters in key states that Hillary and Obama can not, then his economic justice and health care platform combined with his commitment to full legal rights, is a major step in the right direction. I have no doubt that just as america will come along over the next five years (like Gravel stated), Edwards will grow too.

I could be wrong, but that's my take on things at this point. I'm not willing to count Edwards out yet.

Ambinder's Atlantic blog on the topic is here, my specific comments (mostly the same as above) here. And HRC Back Story Blog has some analysis and linked stories, too.

Technorati Tags:
HRC, LOGO,presidential forum, Los Angeles, human rights campaign, health care in America, health insurance, inequality, injustice, universal health care, John Edwards, Kucinich, economic justice, working families, working class, Kevin Phillips, economy,inner city, economic benefits, economic stress, financial markets, housing market

Former leaders of ex-gay ministry apologize

From the Los Angeles Times

3 former leaders of ex-gay ministry apologize

They cite psychological harm they caused gays as the ministry, Exodus International, meets in Irvine.

By Rebecca Trounson
Times Staff Writer

June 28, 2007

Three former leaders of Exodus International, often described as the nation's largest ex-gay ministry, publicly apologized Wednesday for the harm they said their efforts had caused many gays and lesbians who believed the group's message that sexual orientation could be changed through prayer.

Speaking at a Hollywood news conference, the former leaders of the interdenominational Christian organization said they had acted sincerely in their years of work with Exodus. But they said they had all, over time, become disillusioned with the group's ideas and concerned about what they described as the wrenching human toll of such gay conversion efforts.

"Sexual orientation isn't a light switch that you can switch on and off"

The news event, in a courtyard outside an office of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, was timed to coincide with the opening of Exodus' annual conference, which is being held this week at Concordia University in Irvine. A competing "ex-gay survivor" convention is to begin Friday at UC Irvine.

Exodus' president, Alan Chambers, reached by phone at the meeting in Irvine, said he disagreed with its critics, adding that its methods have helped many people, including him.

"Exodus is here for people who want an alternative to homosexuality," Chambers said. "There are thousands of people like me who have overcome this. I think there's room for more than one opinion on this subject, and giving people options isn't dangerous."

The former leaders from Exodus cast its work in grim terms.

"Some who heard our message were compelled to try to change an integral part of themselves, bringing harm to themselves and their families," the three, including former Exodus co-founder Michael Bussee, said in a joint written statement presented at the news conference. "Although we acted in good faith, we have since witnessed the isolation, shame, fear and loss of faith that this message creates."

Now a licensed family therapist in Riverside, Bussee left Exodus in 1979 after he fell in love with a man who was a fellow ex-gay counselor with the group. He speaks out frequently against ex-gay therapies.

"God's love and forgiveness does indeed change people," said Bussee, who remains an evangelical Christian. "It changed me. It just didn't make me straight."

Others speaking at Wednesday's news conference included Jeremy Marks, former president of Exodus International Europe, and Darlene Bogle, the founder and former director of Paraklete Ministries, an Exodus referral agency based in Hayward, Calif.

All three said they had known people who had tried to change their sexual orientation with the help of the group but had failed, often becoming depressed or even suicidal as a result.

"We are committed Christians, but we're still gay," said Marks, who heads Courage UK, a gay-affirming evangelical ministry based in England.

Among those at the news conference was the Rev. Mel White, founder and president of a faith-based gay rights group called Soulforce. White, who was the ghostwriter for the Rev. Jerry Falwell's autobiography and later came out as gay, praised the former Exodus leaders.

"It's a major moment, a paradigm shift," White said. "They're saying this doesn't work, and that's incredibly important."

The Exodus meeting is expected to attract about 1,000 people, Chambers said. Chambers, who is married and has children, said he and other current Exodus officials are careful to warn those who seek help that such a path is not easy.

Sexual orientation "isn't a light switch that you can switch on and off," he said.

--------------------------------

LATimes reporter: rebecca.trounson@latimes.com

Letter from Larry Kramer: Why do straights hate gays?

Why do straights hate gays?
An aging 72-year-old gay man isn't hopeful about the future.

By Larry Kramer

March 20, 2007, Los Angeles Times

DEAR STRAIGHT PEOPLE,

Why do you hate gay people so much?

Gays are hated. Prove me wrong. Your top general just called us immoral. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is in charge of an estimated 65,000 gay and lesbian troops, some fighting for our country in Iraq. A right-wing political commentator, Ann Coulter, gets away with calling a straight presidential candidate a faggot. Even Garrison Keillor, of all people, is making really tacky jokes about gay parents in his column. This, I guess, does not qualify as hate except that it is so distasteful and dumb, often a first step on the way to hate. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama tried to duck the questions that Pace's bigotry raised, confirming what gay people know: that there is not one candidate running for public office anywhere who dares to come right out, unequivocally, and say decent, supportive things about us.

Gays should not vote for any of them. There is not a candidate or major public figure who would not sell gays down the river. We have seen this time after time, even from supposedly progressive politicians such as President Clinton with his "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military and his support of the hideous Defense of Marriage Act. Of course, it's possible that being shunned by gays will make politicians more popular, but at least we will have our self-respect. To vote for them is to collude with them in their utter disdain for us.

Don't any of you wonder why heterosexuals treat gays so brutally year after year after year, as your people take away our manhood, our womanhood, our personhood? Why, even as we die you don't leave us alone. What we can leave our surviving lovers is taxed far more punitively than what you leave your (legal) surviving spouses. Why do you do this? My lover will be unable to afford to live in the house we have made for each other over our lifetime together. This does not happen to you. Taxation without representation is what led to the Revolutionary War. Gay people have paid all the taxes you have. But you have equality, and we don't.

And there's no sign that this situation will change anytime soon. President Bush will leave a legacy of hate for us that will take many decades to cleanse. He has packed virtually every court and every civil service position in the land with people who don't like us. So, even with the most tolerant of new presidents, gays will be unable to break free from this yoke of hate. Courts rule against gays with hateful regularity. And of course the Supreme Court is not going to give us our equality, and in the end, it is from the Supreme Court that such equality must come. If all of this is not hate, I do not know what hate is.

Our feeble gay movement confines most of its demands to marriage. But political candidates are not talking about — and we are not demanding that they talk about — equality. My lover and I don't want to get married just yet, but we sure want to be equal.

You must know that gays get beaten up all the time, all over the world. If someone beats you up because of who you are — your race or ethnic origin — that is considered a hate crime. But in most states, gays are not included in hate crime measures, and Congress has refused to include us in a federal act.

Homosexuality is a punishable crime in a zillion countries, as is any activism on behalf of it. Punishable means prison. Punishable means death. The U.S. government refused our requests that it protest after gay teenagers were hanged in Iran, but it protests many other foreign cruelties. Who cares if a faggot dies? Parts of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. are joining with the Nigerian archbishop, who believes gays should be put in prison. Episcopalians! Whoever thought we'd have to worry about Episcopalians?

Well, whoever thought we'd have to worry about Florida? A young gay man was just killed in Florida because of his sexual orientation. I get reports of gays slain in our country every week. Few of them make news. Fewer are prosecuted. Do you consider it acceptable that 20,000 Christian youths make an annual pilgrimage to San Francisco to pray for gay souls? This is not free speech. This is another version of hate. It is all one world of gay-hate. It always was.

Gays do not realize that the more we become visible, the more we come out of the closet, the more we are hated. Don't those of you straights who claim not to hate us have a responsibility to denounce the hate? Why is it socially acceptable to joke about "girlie men" or to discriminate against us legally with "constitutional" amendments banning gay marriage? Because we cannot marry, we can pass on only a fraction of our estates, we do not have equal parenting rights and we cannot live with a foreigner we love who does not have government permission to stay in this country. These are the equal protections that the Bill of Rights proclaims for all?

Why do you hate us so much that you will not permit us to legally love? I am almost 72, and I have been hated all my life, and I don't see much change coming.

I think your hate is evil.

What do we do to you that is so awful? Why do you feel compelled to come after us with such frightful energy? Does this somehow make you feel safer and legitimate? What possible harm comes to you if we marry, or are taxed just like you, or are protected from assault by laws that say it is morally wrong to assault people out of hatred? The reasons always offered are religious ones, but certainly they are not based on the love all religions proclaim.

And even if your objections to gays are religious, why do you have to legislate them so hatefully? Make no mistake: Forbidding gay people to love or marry is based on hate, pure and simple.

You may say you don't hate us, but the people you vote for do, so what's the difference? Our own country's democratic process declares us to be unequal. Which means, in a democracy, that our enemy is you. You treat us like crumbs. You hate us. And sadly, we let you.

LARRY KRAMER is the founder of the protest group ACT UP and the author of "The Tragedy of Today's Gays."

original column at LATimes