Part 3) Hate Crimes, Bullying, and Free Speech; what you need to know.
This section will involve a debunking of several things all in one go. The number of "articles" on Missionamerica.com by Linda Harvey are numerous and most essentially provide the same message. I'll start with her Are You A Pro-'Gay' Bigot?
TWENTY QUESTIONS TO GET HONEST WITH OURSELVES. I'm going to answer these questions and explain why they're all loaded questions.
This quiz is for those who care about current issues. Please pass it on to anyone you think should ponder these questions.
1. Do you believe in free speech about homosexuality for everyone except conservatives or Christians?
I believe in free speech in general. However, there are certain things that I don't believe are protected speech, such as hate speech. What is hate speech? Hate speech is anything that is slanderous, libelous, or defames a person that is unfounded in fact. So to ask the question above is actually a loaded question. I believe that any person willing to have a fair discussion based in reality can do so about any topic, including homosexuallity. Unfortunately christians often resort to fallacious arguments, unsupported by facts, and present those arguments as real. This sort of misinformation is a type of hate speech and it's not protected as free speech.
2. Do you participate in name-calling of those who object to homosexuality -- names like bigot, hate-monger, etc.?
I might utilize those terms to describe the actions of people who object to homosexuality, but I also use those terms in general to describe any person (christian or not) who attacks a group of people using racism, prejudice, and discrimination. People who spread hate based on false arguments is a hate-monger, a person who expresses hatred of a group of people, or prejudice (that is prejudgement) is a bigot. This goes for people who are anti-gay, anti-black, anti-immigrant, anti-mexican, anti-non-christian, etc. Again this is a loaded question, asserting that a descriptor is name calling is incorrect.
3. Do you believe ‘gays’ have been deprived of the right to marry? Doesn’t pretty much everyone have the right to marry now -- to a person of the opposite sex? Yet another loaded question; to begin with the right to marry is described in the United Nations Universal Charter of Rights, it states that a person has a right to marry any person they so choose that is consenting to the marriage when both are legal adults. Secondly gays don't wish to marry a person of the opposite sex, but someone of the same sex. Because of a definition of marriage as being strictly heterosexual in the US (in violation of the UN's universal rights which the US and all UN members are required to adhere to) gays are deprived of the right. While yes they may marry someone of the opposite gender, this presumption of equality is in opposition to what marriage entails. Marriage entails a life long commitment to a person you're attracted to and are in love with. It is not a marriage of convenience, it is not a union for the sake of social outward appearance. Ergo equality under the law which is guaranteed in the US is not a reality in regards to marriage when it comes to LGBTQ people.
4. Do you believe those who object to homosexuality are motivated by fear or ignorance? Do you believe they could never be motivated by compassion for the people involved, and if they say so, they must be lying?
I hold no beliefs whatsoever in regards to this. I adhere to evidence, and the overwhelming evidence is that fear and ignorance are a base drive for most people who are in opposition to homosexuality. They are driven by religious ideology which has instilled and instigated the fear and ignorance. This is done via proliferated and propagated fallacies and religious rhetoric. In some cases, say in the attempts to correct homosexuality through therapy, this may be driven by compassion or care for the person, but often this compassion and fear for the person and the push to "correct" homosexuality is again born from ignorance and ultimately harms the person in question. Ultimately, as all evidence shows, those who advocate against homosexuals and promote anti-gay attitudes also promote, directly and indirectly, very damaging actions by people against gays. From bullying to outright murder.
5. Do you believe some people will just inevitably be homosexual, and that there’s a set percentage of the population that will always be ‘gay’, and that this won’t increase, even if a culture embraces ‘gay’ sex? Do you think homosexual experimentation could never become ‘chic’ and popular? Is there no risk for the people involved or our culture if this happens?
Wow loaded questions...where to start. 5:1) Yes, and as that population comes out of the closet, more and more people will be open about their alternate sexual orientations. Historically a good percentage of the population has be gay, bi, and transgender. However social pressures have kept LGBTQ people in the dark, even at times making it illegal to be so.
5:2)Homosexual experimentation is usually the result of kids and teens realizing their homosexuality. It isn't something that becomes "popular" or "chic" it is just there as any other teen's exploration of sexuality. 5:3) And no, there is nor risk, just as there is no risk with kids experimenting with their heterosexuality. Or at the very least the same risk as kids experimenting in general. Teens are naturally risky, they don't think things through, they're impulsive, that's how it works and always has worked. The only social risk that exists for gays is the perpetuation of anti-gay bullshit.
6. Do you automatically dismiss any conservative comments about homosexuality without listening? Do you believe you are well-informed, while refusing to learn about what homosexuals actually do and the risks involved?
Well for a start, as a gay man, I know very well what homosexuals do. And trust me, when a conservative says what they do about homosexuality, I dismiss it outright for the sheer fact that I know from first hand experience what they're saying is wrong. Except for a handful of conservatives who actually are gay or have gay family members who know the reality of being gay, most conservatives, including Linda Harvey, rely on hyperbole and lies to construct their views about the LGBTQ community.
7. Do you believe that the tragedy of any suicide by someone involved in homosexuality is the fault of conservatives? Is the best solution to these tragedies to demand that everyone in America accept homosexuality?
First off, I believe that any tragedy of a person committing suicide is due to people not providing the necessary support to that person. This is regardless of if the suicide is related to homosexuality or not. That said, the rash of gay teen suicides as of late have been attributed to, through psychological studies, the bullying of these teens by kids who hate gays. Hate is a taught trait, and again as I've explained before, the message taught by conservatives and especially right wing christians, is that gays are bad or wrong and they deserve to be hated.
7:2) More importantly the best answer to prevent suicide in general is better education on the subject matter. Suicide is usually the last resort when people feel they have nothing to live for and don't deserve to live. By perpetuating the anti-gay rhetoric and teaching kids to hate gays you perpetuate the feeling of unwant or undeserving that these people feel. Especially in teens who don't have the tools to cope with the stupidity of the world. Further still, demanding that people respect one another in general is part of what Christ taught.
Let me ask this question; would you want people to hate you because you're white? Your penis size? Breast size? Height, weight, hair color, eye color, religion? If you answered no, then you shouldn't hate people who are gay.
8. Do you automatically dismiss the idea that anyone could be a former homosexual, despite the hundreds of groups started by ex-‘gays’ and the thousands who live in America?
Instantly; homosexuality is a naturally occurring sexual orientation and a genetic trait. So called former homosexuals have trained themselves to be "straight" but that doesn't dismiss their natural sexual orientation. The myriad of anti-gay groups (which number in the dozens not hundreds) are often have ideologies disproved by scientific research and sociological studies. Most so called "former" homosexuals eventually tire of the conditioning and revert back to being gay. It is a massive modern myth that one can change one's sexuality.
9. Do you believe that homosexuals are born that way? Do you refuse to consider the evidence against this claim? Have you ever looked at the connection between child sexual abuse and later homosexual attraction?
What a loaded question again. 9:1) Yes, I do. All scientific evidence shows that it is a born trait. I can link to dozens of studies that show this to be true. 9:2) What evidence? Almost every single so called study by christian groups that claim to have evidence that disproves the genetic trait of homosexuality have been debunked. 9:3) There are only a handful of studies on the connection between child abuse (sexual and non-sexual) and homosexual occurrence. Several have been thrown out as the information was corrupted or the results presented in a misleading way. While there is a correlation between homosexuality and child abuse of any form (not just sexual abuse) there is no causal link.
10. Do you believe that only churches that accept homosexuality have interpreted the Bible in the ‘correct’ way? Do you feel it isn’t necessary to read the relevant Bible passages yourself, all of which are straightforward in condemning homosexual acts? Do you believe it’s impossible to be “kind” and oppose homosexuality?
I'll answer this with a quote:
I know for a fact, as I've actually debunked in the first part of this seven part article that most of the anti-gay "relevant" passages are misrepresented by those who use them against gays. Since there is no "correct" way to interpret the bible (as Chaw points out) I don't really care about the bible as an authoritative source on the matter of homosexuality. In fact, it isn't necessary as the bible isn't authoritative and shouldn't be used to harm people when that action directly violates bigger more important teachings in the bible. Cherry picking passages only diminishes the bible's relevance even further. Is it possible to be kind and to oppose homosexuality, yes, but not in the ways demonstrated by most christians. Most christians who oppose homosexuality outwardly do so with ambivalence and arrogance. Moreover, and more importantly, as a christian it isn't your right to judge any person.
Matthew 7:1-3
King James Version (KJV)
7 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
11. Are you quick to say “Judge not, lest you be judged” ( Matthew 7:1) and similar passages, without understanding the Christian theology behind it, and all the while being very judgmental yourself?
Nope, though I do find it is often the case that christians ignore this passage and jump to cherry picking other passages to promote their hateful diatribes.
12. Do you sincerely believe Jesus would have accepted homosexual sex acts? Do you believe Jesus is cool with whatever anyone wants to do? Do you believe there’s such a thing as ‘sin’ and if so, how is it defined? Are you the one who defines sin for yourself? Do you have no need of a savior and if not, wasn’t Christ’s death and resurrection pretty pointless? Despite all these contradictory and self-constructed beliefs, do you consider yourself a “Christian”?
Since he isn't around to ask, I refuse to assert any so called belief. I do believe that Christ taught a very specific message, to love thy brother, to judge not before evaluating yourself, to do to others the things you'd have them do unto you. Because he taught these things, acting as though you have an understanding of what the bible says about homosexuality which isn't true says far more about you the so called christian not following teachings of christ than it does about the homosexual.
Do I believe in sin; no, this is a human concept presented in the bible as a divine one. However that is a matter for a different discussion and probably it's own blog post. No I don't need a savior, I'm atheist, I don't believe I need to be saved from myself or humanity which seems to constitute the majority of the "sins" found in christianity. No, I don't consider myself a christian, at least not in the sense of the word as it is used here and now. I do believe that the tenants taught by christ are valuable, but not when they're cherry picked or ignored. I'm almost 100% sure that Christ didn't resurrect, he probably didn't even exist.
13. Do you believe sweeping stereotypes, like that all ‘gay’ people are innocent victims or that all conservatives must be mean and stupid? No, however I do find that christians tend to believe sweeping stereotypes about gays, like we're all HIV riddles, or our lifestyles are all reckless. Ignoring the fact that few gay guys participate in the extreme lifestyles that some gays do. Most of us live the same old boring life everyone else does.
14. Do you close your ears and figure it’s a conservative plot if you hear that at least 2/3 of all the HIV transmission in the United States still involves males having anal sex with each other?
I don't close my ears, I know very well the truth behind HIV and it's spread. But I also understand that the majority of HIV is disproportionately spread in regions of the US that promote abstinence only sex education. I also understand that in general the amount of STIs in these regions are much higher than in regions that teach proper sex education and advocate the use of contraceptives like condoms. Who is responsible for the forced abstinence only sex education? Mostly christian conservatives. Who is then perpetuating the spreading of HIV and STIs in general, the same conservative christians. If we were to stop stigmatizing homosexuality and HIV more people would be tested, more people would have safe sex, and we'd stop the spread of HIV. Further, we now have functional cures and vaccinations against HIV. Further still, the number of heterosexual HIV infected people still technically outnumbers gays. We often overlook actual numbers versus percentages. The percentage of the gay populace might have a higher percentage, but the number of HIV infected heterosexuals in North America still out number the gay populace at nearly two to one. They just account for a smaller percentage of the greater populace.
15. Do you believe anyone who objects to homosexuality is automatically “hateful,” while you seethe with hate yourself? This is a loaded question undeserving of an answer.
16. Do you believe it’s okay for thirteen- year- olds to learn at school that they have the right to have homosexual sex with each other? Do you close your ears when concerned parents are outraged? Would you call such parents “ignorant” and accuse them of “censorship”?
I believe that kids have a right to an accurate and adequate sex education. Which includes homosexuality and safe sex. This is called equality under the law and equal treatment in public education. No school teaches if it is right or wrong to have sex, but rather teaches about the inherent consequences from having sex and the practice of safe sex. I don't close my ears against "concerned parents" I argue against their outrage with REASON. And yes, I would call most of them ignorant, because the so called "concerned" parents are often anti-gay and do not understand the need for equality.
17. Do you believe that, after several thousand years where most cultures have prohibited homosexuality, only now the ‘real’ truth is emerging? Do you believe this is not an arrogant, narrow or immature position?
Loaded question based on fallacy. For thousands of years most cultures didn't CARE about sexuality. In fact up until around 1500 CE homosexuality wasn't even outlawed in the christian world. So no, the belief that homosexuality is a natural state of being, an inborn trait, isn't arrogant or narrow or immature. Where as the presentation of false information, as this question presents, is narrow, immature, and arrogant. It's also historical revisionism.
18. Do you believe that ‘gays’ are the target of widespread violence that goes unpunished in the United States? Do you understand that hate crimes stats don’t support this claim and that laws already exist to punish all crimes, no matter why they are committed? Would you be unconcerned about overall civil liberties if trumped -up charges of so-called “hate speech” were used to silence people?
Another loaded question: First off most hate crime stats show that gays are a target minority. The amount of gay hate crimes is extensive in the US. From the Wikipedia page on the topic:
"In 2004, the FBI reported that 15.6% of hate crimes reported to police were founded on perceived sexual orientation. Sixty-one percent of those attacks were against gay men, 14% against lesbians, 2% against heterosexuals and 1% against bisexuals, while attacks against LGBT people at large made up 20%.[2] Violence based on perceived gender identity was not recorded in the report.
The FBI reported that for 2006, hate crimes against gays increased to 16% from 14% in 2005, as percentage of total documented hate crimes across the U.S.
[3] The 2006 annual report, released on November 19, 2007, also said that hate crimes based on sexual orientation are the third most common type, behind race and religion.
[3]
In 2008, 17.6% of hate crimes were based on the victim's perceived sexual orientation. Of those crimes, 72.23% were violent in nature. 4,704 crimes were committed due to
racial bias and 1,617 were committed due to sexual orientation. Of these, only one murder and one
forcible rape were committed due to racial bias, whereas five murders and six rapes were committed based on sexual orientation.
[4]
The page has a comprehensive list of anti-gay hate crimes.
As I've already stated hate speech is not a protected form of speech. I've already defined it above. More importantly civil liberties are rights that can't be taken away, but acts of civil disobedience which threaten people because of their sexual orientation, or perceived sexual orientation, are not protected.
19. Do you believe that conservatives are making a big deal out of a behavior that has no harmful effects on individuals, families, communities, or societies? Do you scoff at any claims that serious public health issues are involved, like sexually transmitted diseases or risks to children?
Another loaded question; First off conservatives are making a big deal out of homosexuality, because they're the new scapegoat. In the past conservative have picked different minority groups to attack and blame for social problems. First it was Native Americans and their menace against the expansion of the union, then it was African Americans and their push for their rights and freedoms and to no longer be slaves, then it was Women and their push for equality. Then it was African Americans again with the 1950s and 60s and the push for desegregation. All of them faced the exact same rhetoric that gays face now, all of them experienced the same hate crimes, and you could replace the moniker of "Black","Negro", "Feminist", "Ingen","Indian", with Gay or Lesbian or Transgender and you'd see the same complaints being used. The claims of "serious public health issues" etc are the same as well. Go back a hundred years and you'd hear people talk about the social ills that would befall the country if Women were allowed to vote, or allowed to own property, or allowed to work. Go back 150 years the same complaints were made about African Americans.
20 And--very big question: Is your need for other people’s approval greater than your appreciation of truth? Do you refuse to consider an unpopular viewpoint because it might make you appear unenlightened to some people? If your mind and heart changed about this issue, would you have the courage to be a rebel for a worthy cause, to speak up and inform family, friends--and fellow humans who are involved in homosexuality?
Finally a good set of questions: I'd ask the same set of questions of the author of this quiz. Linda, do you feel so needy for the approval of other christians that you're unwilling to look at facts and reality when you posts things on your website? Do you refuse to consider the possibility that your understanding of your religion is wrong and based on a false narrative and do you refuse to consider this because it would make you appear unenlightened and unchristian in the view of your religious peers? If your mind actually changed about the matter based on facts and reality would you have the courage to renounce your former positions, and inform family and friends and audience that you were wrong about homosexuals and homosexuality?
You see if in fact you could convince me that my viewpoint was wrong then I'd be willing to admit it, but you'd have to provide pretty good proof for your claims and not use the bible.
The purpose of this quiz is to educate. If you feel angry now, it could be you have some bigoted attitudes, much like the author of this quiz did before learning the facts. Maybe it’s time for a change of mind and heart- -and courage to go with them. God bless you in your sincere search for truth.
No, the purpose of this quiz was to ask people loaded questions and lead them to a specific conclusion rather than getting actual honest answers from the people who take it. It is there to contrive and present a skewed bias argument without any evidence.
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Article II Bullies Call for a Stop to Bullying
HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS MISLEAD OUR KIDS, ONCE AGAIN.
This article is in reference to a series of anti-bullying ads starting in 2006. The long diatribe makes the claim that bullying isn't so bad and that it's an expected thing when growing up. It complains about the focus on gay youth who are being attacked and bullied in school. The biggest problem with this article is the number of assertions that are false made by Linda. Fee free to read it here:
http://missionamerica.com/articletext.php?artnum=147
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Article III Christian Organizations Falsely Labeled 'Hate' Groups
HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS' ROLE IN THE 'HATE' INDUSTRY
This desperate diatribe is an attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center and their labeling of groups as hate groups. Which groups is she advocating? How about the Traditional Values Coalition.
Here is what the SPLC says about TVC.
"
Former Presbyterian minister Lou Sheldon has been warning Americans about the “gay threat” since 1980, when he founded the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), which also is concerned with abortion and national security and takes on liberal activists on a range of issues. The TVC, which today claims to speak for 43,000 churches, lobbies Congress and also mobilizes churches to oppose legislation that it disagrees with. Sheldon’s daughter Andrea Lafferty, a former Reagan Administration official, serves as executive director of the organization.
The group has at times enjoyed remarkable access to the halls of power — during the George W. Bush Administration, Sheldon and Lafferty visited the White House a combined 69 times, meeting personally with Bush in eight of the visits. But that does not mean that it has not long had a record of extreme gay-bashing.
In 1985, Sheldon suggested forcing AIDS victims into “cities of refuge.” In 1992, columnist Jimmy Breslin said that Sheldon told him that “homosexuals are dangerous. They proselytize. They come to the door, and if your son answers and nobody is there to stop it, they grab the son and run off with him. They steal him. They take him away and turn him into a homosexual.” Sheldon later denied that he made the comments, but his website today includes strikingly similar language: “[S]ince homosexuals can’t reproduce, they will simply go after your children for seduction and conversion to homosexuality.” Elsewhere, it claims that “[t]he effort to push adult/child sex … is part of the overall homosexual movement.”
The TVC also asserts that “it is evident that homosexuals molest children at a far greater rate than do their heterosexual counterparts” — a falsehood based on conflating male-male molestation with homosexuality. Gays, [the TVC site] says, molest children at “epidemic rates,” adding: “As homosexuals continue to make inroads into public schools, more children will be molested and indoctrinated into the world of homosexuality. Many of them will die in that world.” With regard to LGBT teen suicides, TVC, under the headline “Homosexual Urban Legends,” claims that “[t]he cold, hard fact is that teens who are struggling with homosexual feelings are more likely to be sexually molested by a homosexual school counselor or teacher than to commit suicide over their feelings of despair.”
The TVC also makes assertions on its website about disproportionate homosexual pedophilia and attacks the idea that people are born gay and the claim that gays want the right to marry for the same reasons that heterosexuals do — the TVC suggests the real purpose of marriage equality is to destroy the concept of marriage and ultimately replace it altogether with group sex and polygamy."
I wonder why they were called a hate group...oh yeah, it's because of the bullshit they're spewing about homosexuals. None of which is supported by facts or studies. Their leader, Rv. Sheldon has stated hateful, discriminatory things, in order to perpetuate a fear of homosexuals.
For more on such groups check out the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of Hate Groups:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/winter/the-hard-liners
Which includes:
*MassResistance
MassResistance, “the leading pro-family grassroots activist group in Massachusetts,” began life in 1995 as the Parents’ Rights Coalition, became the Article 8 Alliance in 2003, and took on its current name in 2006. Its leader, Brian Camenker, is a programmer who was an official of the Article 8 Alliance and also headed the Newton, Mass., chapter of the National Taxpayers’ Association.
As president of yet another group, the Interfaith Coalition of Massachusetts, Camenker spearheaded the drafting of a bill that passed in 1996 and required that parents be notified of any sex education in their children’s schools. That same year, Camenker claimed that suicide prevention programs aimed at gay youth actually were “put together by homosexual activists to normalize homosexuality.” Later, MassResistance charged that groups like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which support school anti-bullying programs, actually want to lure children into homosexuality and, very possibly, sadomasochism.
At a 2006 religious right gathering in Washington, D.C., Camenker insisted that gays were trying to get legislation passed to allow sex with animals. "One bill in Massachusetts takes away all the penalties for bestiality," he claimed. "This is where this [homosexual] agenda is going." A little later, he added, "They [gays and lesbians] are pushing perversion on our kids."
In 2006-2007, Mass-Resistance pushed for an amendment of the 1996 statute that would have required that parents be notified of any discussion of gay or lesbian issues in the schools. The group proposed language that lumped sexual orientation (which includes heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality) in with criminal behaviors like bestiality and polygamy. During legislative testimony supporting the amendment, Camenker falsely claimed that no homosexuals died in the Holocaust and that the pink triangle the Nazis forced imprisoned gays to wear actually signified Catholic priests. The amendment did not pass.
Camenker, who has long focused on the purported “homosexual agenda” in the schools and frequently claimed gays are dangerous to kids, has repeatedly cited discredited claims from organizations like the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality that link homosexuality and pedophilia.
In 2008, Camenker made another accusation for which there was no supporting evidence at all — the claim that the state of Massachusetts had had to spend more money every year since same-sex marriage became legal in that state. That, he said, was because of “skyrocketing homosexual domestic violence” and because of the “extreme dysfunctional nature of homosexual relationships.”
This year, MassResistance called Boston Gay Pride events a “depraved” display that featured “a great deal of obviously disturbed, dysfunctional, and extremely self-centered people whose aim was to push their agenda.”
And
*Abiding Truth Ministries
Springfield, Mass.
Abiding Truth Ministries serves mainly as a launching pad for an international anti-gay campaign. Its founder, Scott Lively, is also responsible for a book, widely cited by gay-bashers, accusing homosexuals of running the Nazi Party.
Lively first emerged as an anti-gay activist when he became communications director for the Oregon Citizens Alliance, which was backing that state’s notorious Measure 9 vote in 1992. The measure, which failed, would have added language to the state constitution listing homosexuality, along with pedophilia and masochism, as “abnormal behavior.” Lively later served as California director of the American Family Association, another particularly hard-line anti-gay group (see below).
Lively is best known for co-authoring, with Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party. The book makes a series of claims that virtually no serious historian agrees with: that Hitler was gay, that “the Nazi Party was entirely controlled by militaristic homosexuals,” and that gays were especially selected for the SS because of their innate brutality. The claims are entirely false; in fact, the Nazis murdered significant numbers of gays and made homosexuality a death penalty offense in 1942. In the foreword, Abrams adds that homosexuality is “primarily a predatory addiction striving to take the weak and unsuspecting down with it. … They have no idea of how to act in the best interests of their country… . Their intention is to serve none but themselves.”
Lively has taken his message abroad to Eastern Europe (see Watchmen on the Walls, below), Africa and Russia. In a 2007 open letter to the Russian people, he asserted that “homosexuality is a personality disorder that involves various, often dangerous sexual addictions and aggressive, anti-social impulses.” In 2009, he went to Uganda to speak at a major conference on the evils of homosexuality, saying, among other things: “The gay movement is an evil institution. The goal of the gay movement is to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.” He also met with Ugandan lawmakers. A month after Lively left the country, a bill was introduced that called for the death penalty for certain homosexual acts and prison for those who fail to disclose gays’ identities.
In 2008, Lively started the Redemption Gate Mission Society, a church that seeks to “re-Christianize” the city of Springfield, Mass., where he lives.
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Article IV:
Companies Supporting the "Gay" Agenda: Tell them what you think
DO THEY DESERVE YOUR HARD-EARNED DOLLARS?
In this lovely article Linda Harvey is attacking businesses that outwardly support gay rights or are indifferent.
They include:
-----------------------------------------------
Abercrombie & Fitch
6301 Fitch Path
New Albany, OH 43054
Phone-- corporate (614) 283-6500
Abercrombie@Abercrombie.com or customer feedback by phone at
866.681.3115 or 1 614.219.5380
-----------------------------------------------
American Express
Executive Offices
American Express Company
200 Vesey Street
New York, New York 10285
Phone: 212-640-2000
Email: IR@aexp.com
-----------------------------------------------
AT&T,Inc.
Corporate Communications
208 S. Akard St.
Dallas, TX 75202
Corporate Issues: Mark Siegel
mark.a.siegel@att.com
-----------------------------------------------
Aetna
Thomas F. Cowhey, Vice President, Investor Relations
151 Farmington Avenue, RE2T
Hartford CT, 06156
Phone: 860-273-2402
Fax: 860-975-3110
Email: CowheyT@aetna.com
General questions,investorrelations@aetna.com.
General telephone inquiries should be made to: 860-273-0123
-----------------------------------------------
Apple,Inc.
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
408.996.1010
media.help@apple.com
-----------------------------------------------
Barnes and Noble
76 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
Investor Relations:
(212) 633-3489
e-mail: amilevoj@bn.com
-----------------------------------------------
Best Buy
Customer Service, Web Site, Store and General/Corporate Inquiries
Best Buy Corporate Customer Care
P.O. Box 9312
Minneapolis , MN 55440
1-888-BEST BUY (1-888-237-8289)
Amy von Walter, Senior Director, Public Relations
(612) 291-4490 or amy.vonwalter@bestbuy.com
-----------------------------------------------
Chrysler Corporation
PO Box 21-8004
Auburn Hills, MI 48321-8004
Phone Number: 1-800-334-9200
-----------------------------------------------
Coca-Cola Company
PO Box 1734
Atlanta, GA 30301, USA
800-438-2653
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The Gap
2 Folsom St.
San Francisco, CA 94105
650-952-4400
Global business and financial inquiries: press@gap.com
-----------------------------------------------
General Mills
1-800-248-7310
General Mills, Inc.
P.O. Box 9452
Minneapolis, MN 55440
-----------------------------------------------
Hewlett-Packard
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA
94304-1185
USA
Phone: (+1) 650-857-1501
-----------------------------------------------
Levi-Strauss
Consumer Relations,
1155 Battery St., San Francisco, CA 94111
1.866.860.8907
Corporate Communications:
Media Tel: (415) 501-7777
Email: newsmediarequests@levi.com
-----------------------------------------------
The Limited
Corporate Office & Headquarters
3 Limited Pkwy
Columbus OH 43230
Limited Brands, Inc corporate phone number:
614-415-7555
ExtComm@LimitedBrands.com
-----------------------------------------------
Nationwide Insurance
Office of Ethics and Business Practices
1-800-453-8442
PO Box 182653
Columbus, OH 43218-2653
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Nike,Inc.
World Headquarters
One Bowerman Drive
Beaverton, OR 97005
1-503-671-6453
-----------------------------------------------
Nordstrom's
Corporate Offices
1700 Seventh Avenue, Suite 300
Seattle, WA 98101
206-628-2111
contact@nordstrom.com
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Office Depot
Corporate Address:
Office Depot
6600 North Military Trail
Boca Raton, FL 33496
mediarelations@officedepot.com
561-438-7878
-----------------------------------------------
Staples
Corporate Office & Headquarters
500 Staples Dr.
Framingham MA 01702
Staples corporate phone number:
(508) 253-5000
Foundationinfo@staples.com
-----------------------------------------------
Toyota Motor Corporation
19001 South Western Ave.
Dept. WC11
Torrance, CA 90501
Phone: 800-331-4331
-----------------------------------------------
United Parcel Service (UPS)
Corporate Headquarters
55 Glenlake Parkway, NE
Atlanta , GA 30328
United States
404-828-7123
pr@ups.com
So if you support gay rights support these guys.
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Article V Does No Name-Calling Week Include Christians?
HOW PRO-‘GAY’ LESSONS ARE CREATING MORE SLURS AND NAME-CALLING, NOT LESS
Where the hell do I start on this article?
Linda Harvey argues that the anti-name calling education is promoting hate against christians. Her primary thesis is that "Homosexuality itself is hateful". She goes on to name a few terms used to reference anti-gay proponents and defines them as hateful terms used to harm christians and conservatives.
In reality homosexuality can't be hateful, it's a sexual orientation. Hate is only found in people. People perpetuate hate by teaching it.
In regards to homophobe, or oppressor, these words are used to define the actions that certain groups of people are taking against others. In this case, this article, exemplifies the homophobia, the homosexualitymisia, and the oppressive nature of the conservative christains who are against gays.
***
Article VI Top 10 "Gay" Abuses of 2011http://www.wnd.com/2011/12/380149/
This will be the last article on this section of her page I'll rebut. Mainly because I'm getting tired of the stupidity and this post is getting quite long.
Several of the list I've already rebutted elsewhere. Like number 10 where Lind claims the LGBTQ community is trying to get chrisitan businesses to close down. This isn't true. The LGBTQ are only fighting for the right to be treated equally. Several "christian" businesses violated the law and discriminated against people based on their sexual orientation.
No. 9 is the assault of the sex change agenda on our children. Two lesbian women in California are raising their adopted 11-year-old son as a girl, a process they started when he was just eight. These twisted adults with their own apparent issues have lined up tragically misguided doctors to give this boy hormone -blocking drug therapy. We should all pray for this young boy and his adoptive parents.
She's referring to
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043345/The-California-boy-11-undergoing-hormone-blocking-treatment.html
Tammy Lobel formerly Thomas Lobel started a transgender transition at age 11 before he started puberty. He expressed a want to be a girl and has diagnosed gender identity disorder. His adoptive lesbian parents are supporting his decision. Linda obviously doesn't understand the issue with GID and the likelihood of issues later in life. Younger candidates for transitioning are preferred as it is easier to help them develop in their preferred gender. For more info
http://www.webmd.com/sex/gender-identity-disorder
GID is an emotional and personal issue that shouldn't be subjugated to the prying eyes of people like Linda.
My No. 8 incident of homosexual abuse is Macy’s Department Store and its cooperation with sex-change anarchy. The clothing store fired an employee in San Antonio, Texas, who refused to let a man use the women’s fitting room. She claimed her religious rights under employment law; Macy’s claimed transvestite rights superseded faith. What happened to the Constitution? And what’s happening to America? I hope America avoids Macy’s after this anti-Christian, anti-family, anti-woman decision.
This one is simple, the employee agreed to Macy's code of conduct, which includes a non-discrimination clause which so happens to include sexual orientation apparent or otherwise. A transgendered person who identifies as a woman is by law a woman and in the eyes of Macy's is a woman. The employee violated Macy's code of conduct and that is why she was fired. Her religious rights don't exist in a setting such as Macy's. While Macy's can't discriminate against her purely for her religious views, she also can't act on them while employed there.
No. 7 includes a new arrow in the “gay” activist quiver: unapologetic violence. Vandals were caught on the security camera in an Oct. 15 attack against the pro-family group, Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, or AFTAH. Chunks of concrete with a threatening note were hurled through the window of the Christian Liberty Academy in suburban Chicago the morning before an AFTAH conference was held at the school. A homosexual radical claimed responsibility on the Internet, yet no arrest has been made. This frightening incident would have been headlines if the victims had been homosexual, but the media mostly ignored it.
This article comes from
http://www.wnd.com/2011/10/357721/ but no evidence is provided that it actually occurred. Considering WND's propensity for making up stuff, I'm not surprised it wasn't "headline news".
That said, this one incident, if it did in fact happen, is hardly comparable to the hundreds of similar crimes committed against gays by christians.
Here's a list compiled on wikipedia, with the largest swath of incidents being fairly recent.
Violent acts against LGBT persons[edit]
1970–1979[edit]
March 1970 – Howard Efland, a gay man who had checked into the Dover Hotel under the pseudonym of J. McCann, was beaten to death by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department.[7]
June 24, 1973 – The Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans, a gay bar, was burned by an arsonist, killing 32 people.[8]
June 21, 1977 – Robert Hillsborough was stabbed to death in San Francisco by a man shouting "faggot".[9]
July 5, 1978 – A gang of youths armed with baseball bats and tree branches assaulted several men in an area of Central Park in New York City known to be frequented by homosexuals. The victims were assaulted at random, but the assailants later confessed that they had deliberately set out to the park to attack homosexuals. One of those injured was former figure skater Dick Button, who was assaulted while watching a fireworks display in the park.[10][11]
November 27, 1978 – Openly gay San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk, along with Mayor George Moscone, was assassinated by political rival Dan White at San Francisco City Hall. Outrage over the assassinations and the short sentence given to White (seven years) prompted the White Night riots.[12]
January 1979 – Tennessee Williams was the victim of an assault in Key West, being beaten by five teenage boys. He escaped serious injury. The episode was part of a spate of anti-gay violence inspired by an anti-gay newspaper ad run by a local Baptist minister.[13]
June 5, 1979 – Terry Knudsen was beaten to death by three men in Loring Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[14]
September 7, 1979 – Robert Allen Taylor was stabbed to death near Loring Park in Minneapolis. A local reporter interviewed the murderer from jail and was told, "I don't like gays. Okay?"[14]
October 7, 1979 – 17-year-old Steven Charles of Newark was beaten to death in New York City by Costabile "Gus" Farace, Robert DeLicio, David Spoto and Farace's cousin Mark Granato. They also beat Charles' friend, 16-year-old Thomas Moore of Brooklyn. Moore was critically injured but managed to get help at a nearby residence. It was Moore that identified the four men via a lineup four days after the incident. Farace, the leader of the attack, plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter. He was paroled after 8 years, in 1988. He himself was murdered on November 17, 1989.[15]
1980–1989[edit]
1984 – Charlie Howard was drowned in Bangor, Maine for being "flamboyantly gay".[16]
May 13, 1988 – Rebecca Wight was killed when she and her partner, Claudia Brenner, were shot by Stephen Roy Carr while hiking and camping along the Appalachian Trail. Carr later claimed that he became enraged by the couple's lesbianism when he saw them having homosexual relations.[17]
1990–1999[edit]
1990 – James Zappalorti, a gay Vietnam veteran, was stabbed to death.[18]
July 2, 1990 – Julio Rivera was murdered in New York City by two men who beat him with a hammer and stabbed him with a knife because he was gay.[19]
1991 – Paul Broussard, a Houston-area banker, was murdered. He was attacked by 10 young men along with Clay Anderson and Richard Delaunay, who survived. All ten of the attackers were eventually convicted, with sentences ranging from a probation and fine for the respective hospitalization and funeral bills to the 45-year imprisonment of Jon Buice, who confessed to inflicting the fatal stab wound.[20]
October 27, 1992 – U.S. Navy Petty Officer Allen Schindler was murdered by a shipmate who stomped him to death in a public restroom in Japan.[21] Schindler had complained repeatedly about anti-gay harassment aboard ship.[21] The case became synonymous with the gays in the military debate that had been brewing in the United States culminating in the "Don't ask, don't tell" bill.[22]
1993 – Brandon Teena, a trans man, was raped and later killed when his birth gender was revealed by police to male friends of his.[23] The events leading to Teena's death were depicted in the movie Boys Don't Cry.[24]
March 9, 1995 – Scott Amedure was murdered after revealing his attraction to his friend Jonathan Schmitz on a The Jenny Jones Show episode about secret crushes. Schmitz purchased a shotgun to kill Amedure and did so after Amedure implied he still was attracted to him; Schmitz then turned himself in to police.[25][26]
November 20, 1995 – Chanelle Pickett, 23, an African American trans woman, died at the home of William C. Palmer after a fight that ensued after Palmer discovered that she was transgender and he demanded she leave his home.
December 4, 1995 – Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, a lesbian couple in Medford, Oregon, were murdered by a man who said he had "no compassion" for bisexual or homosexual people.[27] Robert Acremant was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection.[28]
January 4, 1996 – Fred Mangione, a gay man, was murdered in Texas by two Neo-nazi brothers. His partner, Kenneth Stern was also attacked, but survived. One of the attackers, Ronald Henry Gauthier, later received at 10-year probation sentence.[29]
May 1996 - Julianne Williams, 24 and Lollie Winans, 26 were murdered at their campsite along the Appalachian Trail on Virginia's Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. They were bound and gaged and their throats were slit. To date, there has been no conviction in the murders.
August 1, 1996 – Nick Moraida, a 34-year-old Latino gay man, was murdered during a robbery. His murderer, Richard Cartwright, was sentenced to death penalty.
February 21, 1997 – The Otherside Lounge, a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta, was bombed by Eric Robert Rudolph, the "Olympic Park Bomber;" five bar patrons were injured. In a statement released after he was sentenced to five consecutive life terms for his several bombings, Rudolph called homosexuality an "aberrant lifestyle".
October 7, 1998 – Matthew Shepard, a gay student, in Laramie, Wyoming was tortured, beaten severely, tied to a fence, and abandoned; he was found 18 hours after the attack and succumbed to his injuries less than a week later, on October 12. His attackers, Russell Arthur Henderson and Aaron James McKinney, are both serving two consecutive life sentences in prison.[30]
February 19, 1999 – Billy Jack Geither, a 39-year-old gay man, was brutally beaten to death in Rockford, Alabama. His attackers, Steve Mullins and Charles Monroe Butler, were found guilty of murder and were both sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.[31]
July 1, 1999 – Gay couple Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder were murdered by white supremacist brothers Matthew and Tyler Williams in Redding, California. Tyler Williams was sentenced to a minimum of 33 years in prison, to be served after his completion of a 21-year sentence for firebombing synagogues and an abortion clinic.[32] Benjamin Williams claimed that by killing the couple he was "obeying the laws of the Creator".[33] He committed suicide in 2003 while awaiting trial. Their former pastor described the brothers as "zealous in their faith" but "far from kooks".[34]
July 6, 1999 – U.S. Army Pfc. Barry Winchell was murdered in Fort Campbell, Kentucky by fellow soldier Calvin Glover. Winchell was beaten to death with a baseball bat after rumors spread on base of his relationship with transgendered author Calpernia Addams. Glover was sentenced to life in prison.[35] The events that lead up to Winchell's death are depicted in the movie Soldier's Girl.
September 1999 – Steen Fenrich was murdered, apparently by his stepfather, John D. Fenrich, in Queens, New York. His dismembered remains were found in March 2001, with the phrase "gay nigger number one" scrawled on his skull along with his social security number. His stepfather fled from police while being interviewed, then committed suicide.[36]
October 15, 1999 – Sissy "Charles" Bolden was found shot to death in Savannah, Georgia. Police arrested Charles E. Wilkins, Jr., in July 2003; he admitted the killing, and was charged in two other homicides, according to the Savannah Police Department.
2000–2009[edit]
On April 29, 2009, The U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend federal law to classify as "hate crimes" attacks based on a victim's sexual orientation or gender identity (as well as mental or physical disability).[37] The U.S Senate passed the bill on October 22, 2009.[38] The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009.[39]
July 3, 2000 – Arthur "J.R." Warren was punched and kicked to death in Grant Town, West Virginia by two teenage boys who reportedly believed Warren had spread a rumor that he and one of the boys, David Allen Parker, had a sexual relationship. Warren's killers ran over his body to disguise the murder as a hit-and-run. Parker pleaded guilty and was sentenced to "life in prison with mercy", making him eligible for parole after 15 years.[40] His accomplice, Jared Wilson, was sentenced to 20 years.[41]
September 22, 2000 – Ronald Gay entered a gay bar in Roanoke, Virginia and opened fire on the patrons, killing Danny Overstreet, 43 years old, and severely injuring six others. Ronald said he was angry over what his name now meant, and deeply upset that three of his sons had changed their surname. He claimed that he had been told by God to find and kill lesbians and gay men, describing himself as a "Christian Soldier working for my Lord;" Gay testified in court that "he wished he could have killed more fags," before several of the shooting victims as well as Danny Overstreet's family and friends.[42]
June 16, 2001 – Fred Martinez, a transgender and two-spirit student was bludgeoned to death near Cortez, Colorado by 18-year-old Shaun Murphy, who reportedly bragged about attacking a "fag".[43][44]
June 12, 2002 – Philip Walsted, a gay man, was fatally beaten with a baseball bat. According to prosecutors, the neo-Nazi views of Walsted's assailant's, David Higdon, led to what was originally a robbery escalating to murder. Higdon was sentenced to life in prison, plus an additional sentence for robbery.[45]
August 6, 2002 – Rodney Velasquez, a 26-year-old Latino gay man was found murdered in the bathtub of his Bronx apartment.[46]
October 3, 2002 – Gwen Araujo, a trans woman, was murdered by at least three men who were charged with committing a hate crime. Two were convicted of murder, the third manslaughter; however, the jury rejected the hate crime enhancement.
December 24, 2002 – Nizah Morris, a 47-year-old black trans woman, was possibly murdered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[47]
December 12, 2002 – Terrianne Summers, a 51-year-old trans woman and activist for transgender rights, was shot and killed in her front yard in Florida. No arrests were made and police did not investigate her murder as a hate crime.[48] Terriane's high visibility as a trans woman due to her activist role has led her to be included in lists of anti LGBT hate crimes, although lack of police interest in her murder means the motives behind the killing may never be known.
May 11, 2003 – Sakia Gunn, a black 15-year-old lesbian, was murdered in Newark, New Jersey. While waiting for a bus, Gunn and her friends were propositioned by two men. When the girls rejected their advances, declaring themselves to be lesbians, the men attacked them. One of the men, Richard McCullough, fatally stabbed Gunn. In exchange for his pleading guilty to several lesser crimes including aggravated manslaughter, prosecutors dropped murder charges against McCullough, who was sentenced to 20 years.[49][50]
June 17, 2003 – Richie Phillips of Elizabethtown, Kentucky was killed by Joseph Cottrell. His body was later found in a suitcase in Rough River Lake. During his trial, two of Cottrell's relatives testified that he lured Phillips to his death, and killed him because he was gay.[51] Cottrell was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison.[52]
July 23, 2003 – Nireah Johnson and Brandie Coleman were shot to death by Paul Moore, when Moore learned after a sexual encounter that Johnson was transgender.[53] Moore then burned his victims' bodies. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to 120 years in prison.[54]
July 31, 2003 – 37-year-old Glenn Kopitske was shot and stabbed in the back by 17-year-old Gary Hirte, a straight-A student, star athlete and Eagle Scout,[55] in Winnebago County, Wisconsin. Prosecutors contended that Hirte murdered Kopitske to see if he could get away with it.[56] Hirte pleaded insanity, claiming he killed Kopitske in a murderous rage after a consensual sexual encounter with the victim, because he felt a homosexual act was "worse than murder". The 'temporary insanity' mitigation plea was not upheld, he was found guilty, and received a life sentence.
August 2003 – Emonie Spaulding, a black 25-year-old trans woman, was shot to death in Washington DC by Derrick Antwan Lewis after he discovered she was trans.[57]
July 22, 2004 – 18-year-old Scotty Joe Weaver of Bay Minette, Alabama, was murdered. His burned and partially decomposed body was discovered a few miles from the mobile home in which he lived. He was beaten, strangled and stabbed numerous times, partially decapitated, and his body was doused in gasoline and set on fire.
October 2, 2004 – Daniel Fetty, a gay man who was hearing-impaired and homeless was attacked by multiple assailants in Waverly, Ohio. Fetty was beaten, stomped, shoved nude into a garbage bin, impaled with a stick, and left for dead; he succumbed to his injuries the next day. Prosecuters alleged a hate crime. Three men received sentences ranging from seven years to life.[58]
January 28, 2005 – Ronnie Antonio Paris, a three-year-old boy living in Tampa, Florida, died due to brain injuries inflicted by his father, Ronnie Paris, Jr. According to his mother and other relatives, Ronnie Paris, Jr., repeatedly slammed his son into walls, slapped the child's head, and "boxed" him because he was concerned the child was gay and would grow up a sissy. Paris was sentenced to thirty years in prison.[59][60]
On February 27, 2005, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 21-year-old James Maestas was assaulted outside a restaurant, then followed to a hotel and beaten unconscious by men who called him "faggot" during the attack. Although all of his attackers were charged with committing a hate crime, none was sentenced to prison.[citation needed]
March 11, 2005 – Jason Gage, an openly gay man, was murdered in his Waterloo, Iowa, apartment by an assailant, Joseph Lawrence, who claimed Gage had made sexual advance to him. Gage was bludgeoned to death with a bottle, and stabbed in the neck, probably post-mortem, with a shard of glass.[61] Lawrence was sentenced to fifty years in prison.
February 2, 2006 – 18-year-old Jacob D. Robida entered a bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts, confirmed that it was a gay bar, and then attacked patrons with a hatchet and a handgun, wounding three.[62] He fatally shot himself three days later.[63]
June 10, 2006 – Kevin Aviance, a female impressionist, musician, and fashion designer, was robbed and beaten in Manhattan by a group of men who yelled anti-gay slurs at him. Four assailants pleaded guilty and received prison sentences.[64]
July 30, 2006 – Six men were attacked with baseball bats and knives after leaving the San Diego Gay Pride festival. One victim was injured so severely that he had to undergo extensive facial reconstructive surgery. Three men pleaded guilty in connection with the attacks and received prison sentences. A 15-year-old juvenile also pleaded guilty.[65][66]
October 8, 2006 – Michael Sandy was attacked by four young heterosexual men who lured him into meeting after chatting online, while they were looking for gay men to rob. He was struck by a car while trying to escape his attackers, and died five days later without regaining consciousness.[67][68]
February 27, 2007 – Andrew Anthos, a 72-year-old disabled gay man, was beaten with a lead pipe in Detroit, Michigan by a man who was shouting anti-gay names at him. Anthos died 10 days later in the hospital.[69]
March 15, 2007 – Ryan Keith Skipper, a 25-year-old gay man was stabbed to death in Wahneta, Florida. Four suspects were arrested for the crime. The Sheriff is calling it a hate crime.[70]
March 16, 2007 – Ruby Ordeñana, a 24-year-old Latina transgender woman, was found naked and strangled to death in San Francisco, CA at 5:40 am.[71][72] Donzell Francis, who was suspected of raping and strangling Ordeñana, was convicted on December 23, 2009 and sentenced to 17 years and 18 months in prison for forcible oral copulation, robbery, assault causing great bodily injury, and false imprisonment of another transgender woman.[73]
May 12, 2007 – Roberto Duncanson was murdered in Brooklyn, New York. He was stabbed to death by Omar Willock, who claimed Duncanson had flirted with him.[74]
May 16, 2007 – Sean William Kennedy, 20, was walking to his car from Brew's Bar in Greenville, SC when Stephen Andrew Moller, 18, got out of another car and approached Kennedy. Investigators said that Moller made a comment about Kennedy's sexual orientation, and threw a fatal punch because he didn't like the other man's sexual preference.[75]
October 2007 – Steven Domer, a 62-year-old gay man, was murdered in Oklahoma.[76]
December 8, 2007 – 25-year-old gay man Nathaniel Salerno was attacked by four men on a Metro train in Washington, DC. The men called him "faggot" while they beat him.[77]
January 8, 2008 – Stacey Brown, a black 30-year-old trans woman, was found dead in her apartment. She had been shot in the head.[78]
July 1, 2008 – Ebony Whitaker, an African American trans woman, was shot and killed in Memphis.[79]
February 2008 – Duanna Johnson, a trans woman, was beaten by a police officer while she was held in the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Tennessee. Johnson said the officers reportedly called her a “faggot” and “he-she,” before and during the incident.[80] In November 2008, she was found dead in the street, reportedly gunned down by three unknown individuals.[81]
February 4, 2008 – Ashley Sweeney, a trans woman, was shot in the head. Her body was found in Detroit, Michigan.[82]
February 10, 2008 – Sanesha Stewart, a 25-year-old black trans woman was stabbed to death in Bronx, New York.[83]
February 12, 2008 – Lawrence "Larry" King, a 15-year-old junior highschool student was shot twice by a classmate at E.O. Green School in Oxnard, California. He was taken off life support after doctors declared him brain dead on February 15.[84] According to Associated Press reports, "prosecutors have charged a 14-year-old classmate with premeditated murder with hate-crime and firearm-use enhancements".[85][86][87]
February 22, 2008 – Simmie Williams Jr. was a black gender-nonconforming 17-year-old, who was shot dead on a street corner in Broward County, Florida.[88]
March 16, 2008 – Police say Lance Neve was beaten unconscious in Rochester, New York because Neve was gay. A man attacked Neve at a bar leaving him with a fractured skull, and a broken nose. Jesse Parsons was sentenced to more than five years in prison for the assault.
May 29, 2008 – Eighteen-year-old Steven Parrish, a member of the 92 Family Swans subgroup of the Bloods, was murdered by Steven T. Hollis III and Juan L. Flythe on orders from gang leader Timothy Rawlings Jr., in Baltimore County, Maryland after they found "gay messages" on his cell phone. The felt having a gay member would make their gang appear weak. Hollis III pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison; Flythe was given a life sentence with all but 30 years suspended; and Rawlings was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. A fourth man, Benedict Wureh, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact and was sentenced to time served, about 17 months.[89]
June 9, 2008 – Jeremy Waggoner, an openly gay hairstylist from Royal Oak, Michigan, was brutally murdered in Detroit. His murder is still unsolved.[90]
July 17, 2008 – Eighteen-year-old Angie Zapata, a trans woman, was beaten to death in Colorado two days after meeting Allen Ray Andrade. The case was prosecuted as a hate crime, and Andrade was found guilty of first degree murder on April 22, 2009.[91]
August 20, 2008 – Nahkia Williams, a black trans woman, was shot to death in Louisville, Kentucky. Damon Malone was charged with her murder, robbery, and burglary, and sentenced to 35 years in prison.[92]
September 7, 2008 – Tony Randolph Hunter, 27, and his partner were attacked and beaten near a gay bar in Washington DC. Hunter later died from his injuries on September 18. Police are investigating it as a possible hate crime.[93]
September 13, 2008 – 26-year-old Nima Daivari was attacked in Denver, Colorado by a man who called him "faggot". The police that arrived on the scene refused to make a report of the attack.[94]
September 21, 2008 – 22-year-old trans woman Ruby Molina's nude body was found facedown on the bank of a river in isolated and undeveloped area in Sacramento, California.[95]
November 7, 2008 – The home of openly gay Melvin Whistlehunt in Newton, North Carolina was destroyed by arsonists. Investigators found homophobic graffiti spray-painted on the back of the house.[96]
November 14, 2008 – 22-year-old Lateisha Green, a trans woman, was shot and killed by Dwight DeLee in Syracuse, NY because he thought she was gay.[97] Local news media reported the incident with her legal name, Moses "Teish" Cannon.[98] DeLee was convicted of first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime on July 17, 2009, and received the maximum sentence of 25 years in state prison. This was only the second time in the nation’s history that a person was prosecuted for a hate crime against a transgender person and the first hate crime conviction in New York state.[99][100][101]
December 7, 2008 – Romel Sucuzhanya, a 31-year-old straight Ecuadorean and his brother Jose, were attacked on a Brooklyn, New York street for appearing to be gay and for being Latino; they were walking arm-in-arm, which is normal for brothers in their culture. Romel later died from his injuries.[102]
December 12, 2008 – A 28-year-old lesbian in Richmond, California was kidnapped and gang raped by four men who made homophobic remarks during the attack.[103]
December 26, 2008 – Taysia Elzy, a 34-year-old trans woman, was shot to death.[104]
December 27, 2008 – 24-year-old Nathan Runkle was brutally assaulted in Dayton, Ohio outside a gay nightclub.[105]
January 2009 – Caprice Curry, a trans woman, was murdered.[106]
February 15, 2009 – Efosa Agbontaen and Branden McGillvery-Dummett were attacked in New York City by four young men with glass bottles and box cutters who used anti-gay slurs during the attack. Agbontaen and McGillvery-Dummett both required emergency room treatment for their injuries.[107]
February 18, 2009 – Two men were arrested in Stroudsburg, PA for the stabbing death of gay veteran Michael Goucher.[108]
March 1, 2009 – Three men entered a bar in Galveston, Texas and attacked patrons with rocks. One of the victims, Marc Bosaw, was sent to the emergency room to have twelve staples in his head.
March 14, 2009 – A gay couple leaving a Britney Spears concert in Newark, New Jersey were attacked by 15 teens. Josh Kehoe and Bobby Daniel Caldwell were called "faggots" and beaten. Caldwell suffered a broken jaw.[109]
March 23, 2009 – Two gay men were attacked in Seaside, Oregon and left lying unconscious on a local beach. The men regained consciousness and were treated at a nearby hospital.[110]
April 6, 2009 – Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old child in Springfield, Massachusetts, hanged himself with an extension cord after being bullied all school year by peers who said "he acted feminine" and was gay.[111]
April 11, 2009 – A gay man in Gloucester, Massachusetts was attacked and beaten by as many as six people outside a bar. Justin Goodwin, 36, of Salem suffered a shattered jaw, broken eye socket, broken nose and broken cheekbone.[112]
June 18, 2009 – Patti Hammond Shaw, an African-American trans woman, turned herself into a police station in Washington DC after receiving a letter saying there was a warrant for her arrest on charges of making a false police report. Despite producing documents supporting her right to be housed with other women, she was placed in a men's facility. According to her suit, officers “groped her breasts, buttocks and between her legs repeatedly and excessively”. She is now suing Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Marshals service for the treatment she received.[113]
June 30, 2009 – Seaman August Provost was found shot to death and his body burned at his guard post on Camp Pendleton. LGBT community leaders "citing military sources initially said that Provost’s death was a hate crime."[114] Provost had been harassed because of his sexual orientation.[114] Military leaders have since explained that "whatever the investigation concludes, the military’s “Don't ask, don't tell” policy prevented Provost from seeking help."[114] Family and friends believe he was murdered because he was openly gay (or bisexual according to some family and sources);[115][116][117][118][119] the killer committed suicide a week later after admitting the murder, the Navy have not concluded if this was a hate crime.[120]
October 25, 2009 – Dee Green, a trans woman, was found by police unconscious, stabbed in the heart, and bleeding on a street in Baltimore, Maryland. She was taken to a hospital where she died half an hour later. Larry Douglas was charged with first-degree murder in April 2010.[121]
November 2009 – Jason Mattison Jr., an openly gay 15-year-old boy, was violently murdered and raped at his aunt's house by 35-year-old Dante Parrish, a family friend who had been in prison for murder previously.[122]
December 9, 2009 – Mariah Malina Qualls' body was found in a San Francisco hotel.[123] She was a 23-year-old transgender woman who volunteered and was a member of the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center's TRANS:THRIVE community.
2010–present[edit]
January 18, 2010 – The half-naked corpse of Myra Chanel Ical, 51, a trans woman of color, was found in a vacant lot in Houston, Texas.[124]
March 30, 2010 – Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, a 29-year-old Latina trans woman, was found dead in her Queens, New York apartment. The autopsy found that her attacker, Rasheen Everett, had strangled her then doused her body with bleach.[125]
April 3, 2010 – Toni Alston, a black 44-year-old transgender woman, was shot in the front door of her home in West Charlotte, North Carolina.[126]
May 7, 2010 – Dana A. "Chanel" Larkin, a 26-year-old black trans woman who worked as a prostitute, was shot three times in the head by her client, Andrew Olacirequi, after she asked him if he was okay with them having sex despite her male genitalia. She was found dead on the pavement of a Milwaukee street.[127]
June 21, 2010 – Sandy Woulard, a 28-year-old trans woman, was shot in the chest in South Side, Chicago. A passing motorist found her laying in the street, and she was pronounced dead at the hospital.[128]
October 3, 2010 – A 30-year-old male known as "la Reina" (the Queen), Bryan Almonte, 17, and Brian Cepeda, 17, were kidnapped by a homophobic group of youths calling themselves the Latin King Goonies, sodomized by foreign objects including a plunger and baseball bat, burned with cigarettes, and tortured for hours. One of the teenage victims had wanted to join the gang the attackers were part of, but when members saw him with the 30-year-old, they later picked him up and took him to an abandoned apartment and asked him if the two had had sex. When the teenager responded positively, he was beaten and sodomized. The gang later picked up the second teenager whom they had also seen with the 30-year-old and repeated the process. They then lured the 30-year-old to the building with the promise of a party. When he arrived with alcohol, the gang tied him up and tortured him and made the 17-year-old burn him with cigarettes. They then robbed the man's 40-year-old brother, coercing him by putting a cellphone to his ear so he could hear his brother beg to pay them.[129][130][131]
September 11, 2010 – Victoria Carmen White, a 28-year-old black transgender woman, died of bullet wounds in her New Jersey apartment. It is believed she was targeted by her killer, Alrashim Chambers, for her gender identity.[132]
October 14, 2010 – Stacey Blahnik Lee, a 31-year-old black trans woman, was found murdered in her Philadelphia home by her boyfriend.[133]
November 17, 2010 – 18-year-old Joshua Wilkerson was found dead in a field in Pearland, Texas, after being beaten to death and set on fire by a friend of 5 years, Hermilio Moralez. This was supposedly a retaliation to unwanted sexual advances.[134]
January 11, 2011 – Chrissie Bates, a 45-year-old transgender woman, was stabbed to death in her downtown Minneapolis apartment. Arnold Darwin Waukazo was sentenced to 367 months in prison for the murder.[135]
February 19, 2011 – Tyra Trent, a black 25-year-old trans woman, was found strangled to death in a vacant house.[136]
April 4, 2011 – Quinn Matney suffered 3rd and 4th degree burns to his wrist after being branded by an unidentified man for being gay. The attack happened while he was taking a night time stroll on his university campus in North Carolina.[137]
April 2011 – Kevin Pennington, a gay 28-year-old male, was kidnapped and severely beaten in a Kentucky park by two men shouting anti gay epithets. David Jason Jenkins and Anthony Ray Jenkins face possible life sentences for anti gay hate crime.[138] On March 15, 2012, the Kentucky State Police assisted the FBI in arresting David Jenkins, Anthony Jenkins, Mable Jenkins, and Alexis Jenkins of Partridge, KY for the beating of Kevin Pennington during a late-night attack in April 2011 at Kingdom Come State Park,[139][140] near Cumberland. The push came from the gay-rights group Kentucky Equality Federation, whose president, Jordan Palmer, began lobbying the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky in August 2011[141] to prosecute after stating he had no confidence in the Harlan County Commonwealth's Attorney to act.[142] "I think the case's notoriety may have derived in large part from the Kentucky Equality Federation efforts," said Harvey, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky.[143] Mable Jenkins, and Alexis Jenkins plead guilty.[143]
April 22, 2011 – Chrissy Lee Polis,[144] a 22-year-old trans woman, was beaten in a violent struggle by two African-American women for entering the women's bathroom in Baltimore County, Maryland, which triggered her to have a seizure. A McDonald's employee, who was later fired, filmed the encounter and released the film on the internet; it since went viral. Teonna Monae Brown, 19, pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and a hate crime in the beating, and was sentenced to 5 years in prison, plus three years of supervised probation. The other woman was charged as a juvenile and committed to a juvenile detention facility.[145] See: 2011 Rosedale, Maryland beating
June 2011 – Rosita Hernandez, a Cuban trans woman, was stabbed to death in Miami.[146]
July 20, 2011 – Lashai Mclean, a 23-year-old African American trans woman, was shot to death in Northeast Washington DC.[147]
August 11, 2011 – Camila Guzman, a Latina transgender woman, was found murdered in her apartment in East Harlem, Manhattan.[148]
September 8, 2011 – Cameron Nelson, a 32-year-old gay man, was attacked at his place of employment in Utah.[149]
October 11, 2011 – Shelley Hilliard, a black transgender teen who had been reported missing, had her burnt torso identified by police in Detroit.[150] Her killer, 30-year-old Qasim Raqib, was sentenced on March 6, 2012 to 25–40 years in jail.[151]
November 15, 2011 – Danny Vega, a 58-year-old Asian-American gay man who worked as a hairdresser in Rainier Valley, Seattle was beaten and robbed as he was taking a walk. The beating left Vega in a coma from which he later died.[152]
November 17, 2011 – Cassidy Nathan Vickers, a 32-year-old black transgender woman, died from a fatal gunshot wound to the chest in Hollywood. Her killer, who is still unidentified, is suspected of also attempting to rob and non-fatally shoot another black transgender woman on the same day.[153]
December 17, 2011 – Charlie Hernandez, a 26-year-old who was openly gay, was stabbed to death following a brawl that included anti-gay slurs that occurred with two men after he accidentally stepped on some sunglasses.[154]
December 24, 2011 – Dee Dee Pearson, a 31-year-old transgender woman, died from bullet wounds in Kansas City, Missouri. Kenyan L. Jones was charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action. Jones told police he paid to have sexual relations with Ms Pearson, believing her to be a cisgender woman, but hours after having sex with her, discovered she was not.[155] Angered by what he considered to be a deception, he got a 9mm-caliber handgun, found Ms Pearson, and killed her.[156] Kenyan L. Jones was arrested on suspicion of her murder.[157]
December 29, 2011 – The body of Githe Goines, a black 23-year-old trans woman[158] who had been reported missing 2 weeks beforehand, was found in a scrapheap. An autopsy set that the time of her death as much as 2 days before her body was discovered, and that she had been strangled.[159]
January 21, 2012 – Crain Conaway, a black 47-year-old trans woman, was found dead in her home in Oceanside, California.[160] Tyree Paschall Monday was arrested in connection with her murder.[161]
February 2, 2012 – JaParker "Deoni" Jones, a 23-year-old black trans woman, was stabbed in the head while waiting at a Metro bus stop in Washington DC.[162]
February 2012 – Cody Rogers, an 18-year-old teenager, was brutally assaulted and targeted with homophobic slurs at a party after defending a female friend who was also attacked.[163]
March 24, 2012 – Several transgender and crossdressing people were shot at and robbed in Florida by a man, suspected to be De Los Santos. 23-year-old Tyrell Jackson was fatally wounded in the shooting, which also injured 20-year-old Michael Hunter.[164]
April 3, 2012 – Coko Williams, a black trans woman, was found murdered in East Detroit, Michigan. The homicide may have been related to Coko's involvement in sex work.[165]
April 16, 2012 – Paige Clay, 23, a black trans woman, was found dead, with a bullet wound to her face in West Garfield Park, Chicago. The death was ruled as a homicide.[166]
April 21, 2012 – Eric Unger, a 23-year-old gay man living in Illinois, was attacked by a group of men on the way home from a party, while they shouted anti-gay epithets at him. The investigation is ongoing.[167]
April 29, 2012 – Brandy Martell, a 37-year-old trans woman of color, was murdered in Oakland, California.[168]
May 2012 – Max Pelofske, a 21-year-old gay man, was beaten by a group of youths at a party in Minnesota. Pelofske claims it was a hate crime, but police disagree.[169]
June 5, 2012 – Kardin Ulysse, a black 14-year-old boy, was attacked in the cafeteria of Roy Mann Junior High School by another group of boys. He was called anti-gay slurs and sustained damage to the cornea of one of his eyes, leaving him blinded. Ulysse's parents planned on suing the city for failing to supervise its students properly.[170]
June 23, 2012 – Mollie Olgin, 19 years old, and her girlfriend, Kristene Chapa, 18 years old, were found shot in the head near Violet Andrews Park in Portland, Texas. Olgin died at the scene and Chapa survived. Law enforcement has said there is no evidence to suggest that the incident is a hate crime.[171] The Human Rights Campaign and Equality Texas urged a thorough investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and Portland police to find the shooter.[172]
July 5, 2012 – Tracy Johnson, a 40-year-old black trans woman, was found dead from gunshot wounds in Baltimore, Maryland.[173]
August 14, 2012 – Tiffany Gooden, a 19-year-old black trans woman, was found murdered on the second floor of an abandoned building in Chicago. An autopsy verified that she had been stabbed to death. Notably, the body of Paige Clay, another young black trans woman, was discovered in April 3 blocks away from where Tiffany was found. The pair were known as friends.[174]
August 18, 2012 – Kendall Hampton, a 26-year-old black trans woman, died of gunshot wounds. Eugene Carlos Dukes was arrested in early September for her murder, and indicted later that month.[175]
August 26, 2012 – Deja Jones, a 33-year-old black trans woman, was shot to death in Miami. No arrest has yet been made.[176]
September 3, 2012 – The body of Kyra Cordova, a 27-year-old trans woman, was found in a wooded area in Frankford, Philadelphia.[177]
November 15, 2012 – Janette Tovar, a 43-year-old trans woman was murdered by her partner, Jonathan Kenney, according to police, who beat her and slammed her head into concrete. He was later arrested for her murder.[178]
March 1, 2013 – Sondra Scarber addressed a parent about her girlfriend's son being bullied at Seabourn Elementary School in Mesquite, Texas, and was beaten by him when he realized that she was a lesbian.[179]
May 17, 2013 – Mark Carson, a 32-year old black gay man,[180] was shot to death by another man who trailed and taunted him and a friend as they walked down the street in Greenwich Village, New York. When the two friends ignored the assailant's questions, the man began yelling anti-gay slurs and asked one of them, "You want to die tonight?" Elliot Morales, 33, was arrested briefly after the shooting and charged with murder and weapons charges on May 19.[181] According to police, Morales said he shot Carson because he was "acting tough".[182] Morales pleaded not guilty on June 19, 2013.[183]
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_violence_against_LGBT_people_in_the_United_States for cited sources.
And abuse No. 6 is the slander and libel against New Jersey teacher Viki Knox. Last fall, special education teacher Viki was very troubled by a pro-homosexual bulletin board display at the high school where she taught. She shared her dismay based around her Christian principles with a few close friends on Facebook. Before she knew it, her comments were headlines in the New York Times, she was suspended from her job, and state and national homosexual pressure groups were leading anti-”hate” demonstrations at the school calling for her dismissal.
Hardly slander, had we read the things she said to her "few close friends" on facebook you'd probably want to bitch slap her. You can read more here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/nyregion/teachers-facebook-posts-against-homosexuality-are-questioned.html?_r=0“homosexuality is a perverted spirit that has existed from the beginning of creation” is what she was reported as saying by the NYTimes. Now, while she has the right to think that, the so called "libel" didn't exist. It was a direct complaint about her statements in regards to a bulletin board at the school she worked at which was recognizing LGBTQ month. This is really a matter of her not maintaining the appropriate security protocols on her facebook. Linda, stop blaming other people's stupidity on gays.
Now, here’s No. 5: the passage of S.B. 48 in the state of California. This fact-free legislation that no one ever thought we would see in America, calls for sweeping pro-homosexual indoctrination in the public schools beginning Jan. 1, 2012.. Children will be compelled to learn about homosexuality, and those lessons must affirm this negative, high-risk lifestyle. California parents are outraged at such a discriminatory mandate, but short of repeal, their option is to remove their children from the schools or exit the state.
S.B. 48 was a win for gay rights by promoting prominent historical gay figures in history classes, often over looked because of the highly conservative groups that influence text book publication. Mainly the Texas State School Board which recently tried to add creationist BS into text books. They were shot down by the text-book publishers, for the record. Children won't be compelled to learn about homosexuality, only that there are historical figures that have had great contributions to our past endeavors who happen to be gay.
The assertion that gays have a "high-risk lifestyle" isn't true.
No. 4 on my list is the global homosexual agenda of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Just a few weeks ago, the White House and Secretary Clinton announced that United States foreign aid and support will be related to how well a country pushes homosexual behavior as a so-called “human right.” This agenda is not backed up by U.S. law, and is another example of warped priorities and inappropriate use of authority by this administration.
Another fallacious statement made by Linda Harvey. Obama argued that human rights are something that EVERYONE has a right to, including gays. And in his response to several African nations passing laws that bar, ban, or criminalize homosexuality with a wide range of punishments including death, the US wouldn't back said countries untilt he reestablished the human rights that belonged to gays. This is backed by US law in the form of the: First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment. Got to love a person who doesn't read the law and claims to know things about it.
No. 3 is the deceptive “It Gets Better” video campaign organized by Dan Savage, a homosexual writer known for his sleaze and vulgarity, extreme even for a “gay” activist. This campaign exploits vulnerable children, as celebrities, regular folks and teens themselves post videos with the goal of discouraging suicide. That would be a worthy objective, if not combined with “gay” rights mythology. Kids are encouraged to stay the course, adopt a homosexual identity and thereby expose themselves to lifelong risk. Even the president has jumped into this effort, mischaracterizing this propaganda as an “anti-bullying” effort.
Ugh...the "It Gets Better" video campaign was organized to let gay kids know, by way of gay and straight supporters alike, that life gets better, the bullying tends to cease, and if they hang in their they don't have to go to extreme lengths to escape, including suicide.
The claims by Linda are, well, ignorant. It ignores all facts, and asserts that these videos promote homosexuality. When in fact they're addressing gay kids at risk of suicide to stop them from committing suicide. For me, this is probably the last straw I have for Linda. But I have two more things to debunk...
No. 2 is the attack on the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have announced they won’t defend this federal law against lawsuits initiated by homosexual activists. Who knew that presidents get to choose which federal laws to protect and defend? Obama even told the “gay” pressure group, Human Rights Campaign, that he favors repealing DOMA.
DOMA, really? The Defense of Marriage Act was struck down as unconstitutional. It violated equal treatment under law for gays, and violated our rights as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. This wasn't an attack but a removal of a law that it's in violation of the constitution. It also had no rational basis to be preserved.
And the No. 1 abuse of homosexual activism in the United States in 2011, was the implementation of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” allowing open homosexual behavior in our military. No one can yet know how damaging the repeal of the ban on sodomy will be – we can only guess – but there’s no question that it will damage the character of our armed forces and undermine their effectiveness.
Except, Linda, DADT violated the constitution again, and prevented completely capable, completely willing, gay men from openly serving in the military. It was a subversive act of discrimination and there is no reason to assume that homosexuals would cause any harm to the military since for decades gays participated in the military, unofficially out without any issues. The fact is that Linda wants us to believe that gays are going to cause a great deal of harm in areas where we have already been participating.
The fact that these laws are being repealed is evidence that homosexuality isn't causing harm and it's being recognized by the people of this country.
So, my readers, thanks for sticking to this post and reading. There are so many articles to debunk and so little time. But the fact remains that there are still opponents to homosexuality that are hard line right wing and christian. They use their religious ideology and beliefs to harm people who don't fit into their world view.
So thanks for reading, I'll post part four in a few days.
Lord Kristoffer Martin
