Two gay teens killed in just two weeks

Attacks in Calif., Fla. prove young gays remain vulnerable
MAR. 7, 2008

RYAN LEE







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The defining setting for anti-gay violence for the last decade was a rickety fence in a desolate Wyoming field.

But a string of anti-gay beatings, shootings and killings in recent months shows that homophobic hatred didn’t disappear when Matthew Shepard was killed 10 years ago this October, nor is it confined to rural pockets of America’s heartland.

In the last year alone, young gay people have died at the hands of straight friends in central Florida, been beaten to death after leaving a bar in Greenville, S.C., and assassinated in an eighth grade classroom in California. Last weekend in Athens, Ga., a 17-year old gay man carrying a purse was beaten and verbally gay-bashed by three boys he knew, according to a March 4 report in the Athens Banner-Herald.

“I think if you ask the average American, they think Matthew Shepard was the last person killed in this country for being gay,” said Kevin Jennings, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, a national group that focuses on gay issues in schools. “Unfortunately, that’s not the case.”

Elke Kennedy knew her son Sean was gay by the time he was six years old, but slight pangs of fear rushed through her when Sean came out to her in 2004 at age 17.

“I was really more worried about him being harassed and people not liking him for who he was,” Kennedy said Tuesday. “It’s a common concern, and I think it’s getting worse now.”

At about 4:30 a.m. on May 16, 2007, Kennedy received a call from a hospital that many mothers of gay children dread. She asked if her son was seriously hurt, and was told only that she needed to arrive at the hospital as soon as she could.

As her 20-year-old son lay brain dead in South Carolina’s Greenville Memorial Hospital, Kennedy learned that Sean was leaving a bar when he was attacked by a young man who called him a “faggot.” The beating caused Sean’s brain to separate from his brain stem and ricochet inside his skull. He was taken off life support later that night.

Although South Carolina police investigated Sean’s death as a hate crime, prosecutors said there was no evidence of “malicious intent” to kill, and charged Stephen Moller, 18 at the time of the murder, with involuntary manslaughter in October. The manslaughter charge carries a maximum of five years in prison.

“It’s bad enough that you have to lose a child and deal with all of that, but then on top of that you have to deal with the fact that they’re saying your son deserved to die, or that [Moller] really didn’t mean to do it, so we’re just going to give him a slap on the wrist,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy said she was also stung by her community’s apparent apathetic response.

“People, they’re sorry that I lost my son, but they don’t want to talk about why he was murdered,” she said. “They’d rather ignore that fact and pretend it didn’t happen.”

Gay people in Greenville have also had a muted reaction to Sean’s murder, Kennedy said.

“Most of them, they’re afraid,” Kennedy said. “For them to give up their life, their job, because they could lose their job, give up their safety — why would people want to stand out there and put themselves in that danger?”

But even in cities with booming gay populations like Atlanta, people are often unaware of or ignore anti-gay violence like the recent killings of gay teenagers Lawrence King in a California middle school, and Simmie Williams in Ft. Lauderdale.

“I’m kind of frustrated because I think a lot of people are blind to events and activism,” said Thomas Byrd, a gay teen who attends high school in Cobb County. “This could’ve been me or any of us.”

From Washington, D.C., to Florida to YouTube, gay people have recently paid tribute to Williams, who was found dead while wearing women’s clothes, and King, who was shot in the head at point-blank range by a classmate.

“I think it’s amazing that gay and lesbian centers all over the U.S. have done vigils,” said Jay Smith, executive director of the Ventura County Rainbow Alliance, where King participated in events.

“It’s been a sad three weeks for us,” Smith said. “We tell [youth] to be out, be proud and be safe, and Larry seemed to be doing that and got killed for it.”

Gay people in Ft. Lauderdale are experiencing “a heightened sense of urgency and concern” after Williams’s death, which was followed days later by another local anti-gay attack, said Paul Hyman, executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Community Center of South Florida.

Lawrence King’s murder marks the first time in 10 years that an anti-gay killing has come close to becoming a national news story.

“The Matthew Shepard case captured the nation’s attention in a way we have not seen since then,” said Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

“All incidents that involve violence and brutality against LGBT people deserve the same kind of public outcry and community response in order to shift the cultural climate about LGBT issues,” Giuliano added.

News of King’s death took weeks to spread from local coverage, despite it being a “uniquely horrifying” school shooting, said Jennings from GLSEN.

Scott Hall, a heterosexual who was attacked during an anti-gay hate crime in 1984, tracks anti-gay violence for a memorial project known as Gay American Heroes.

“It’s only the ones that are most horrific and most unusual that get national media play,” Hall said.

Media coverage of anti-gay attacks helps galvanize opposition to homophobia, and can transcend ideological lines. During her Feb. 29 show, Ellen DeGeneres delivered an emotional tribute to King and said his death “is not political.”

“A little boy has been killed, and a number of lives have been ruined,” DeGeneres said. “When the message out there is so horrible, that to be gay, you can get killed for it, we need to change the message… We must change our country.”

In Georgia, the statewide gay rights group Georgia Equality created a YouTube tribute to King that urges state lawmakers to adopt a gay-inclusive hate crimes law and stronger anti-bullying measures. The bullying bill has cleared a state senate committee, but must pass the full Senate by March 11 to remain alive for the session, according to the group, which urges supporters to contact legislators.

But Elke Kennedy cautions that the response to crimes like her son’s murder can’t end with enacting gay-friendly laws.

“California has hate crimes laws, but that’s still not going to prevent this from happening because people are still taught to hate and that it’s OK,” Kennedy said. “I want parents to know that they’re the ones that are responsible for teaching their children to hate. I believe it starts at home.”

Tragic as they are, anti-gay killings have the potential to bring people together, like at a vigil for Simmie Williams last week, Hyman of South Florida said.

“It was a really amazing presence of [the Williams family’s] religious community and the LGBT community, particularly African-American transgender people having a strong presence,” Hyman said.