Box Turtle Bulletin

Upcoming Hate Crimes Vote Thursday

Word has it that the Senate is expected to vote on the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007. The anti-gay lobby knew this was coming, with it receiving nearly constant mention at the Family Impact Summit. At one point, the Family Research Council stopped selling their $20 DVD devoted to the subject and started handing it out to anyone who would take one. They’ve been pumping out tons of lies about what this legislation would supposedly do.

I encourage you to inform yourself, read the text of the bill (which I’ve posted three times, something hate crime opponents refuse to do), and call your Senator.

A Third Guilty Plea For Scotty Joe Weaver’s Murder

It’s been more than three years since 18-year-old Scotty Joe Weaver’s burned body was found at the side of a rural Alabama road. He had been beaten, strangled, cut, burned and robbed of between $65 and $80. While robbery was first thought to be the main motivation, Baldwin County District Attorney concluded that the crime was actually a hate crime.

Robert Porter, 18, Nichole Bryars Kelsay, 18, and Christopher Gaines, 20 were arrested and charged with capital murder. Gaines and Kelsay had been Scotty Joe’s roommates. Last May, Gaines pleaded guilty to capital murder, avoiding the death penalty. Last week, Porter entered a guilty plea and received two consecutive life sentences. According to his lawyer, he will be eligible for parole in fifteen years.

This past Wednesday, lifelong “friend” Nicole Kelsey pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced to 20 years. The case however still leaves many questions unanswered:

For the first time since the ordeal began Martha Weaver addressed the court and specifically Kelsay. Afterwards her questions were still unanswered. “Why did she do it? Why did she plot to hurt him like that? Because he done nothing to her. He always tried to help her. He loved her more than anything.”

The three people responsible for Scottie Weaver’s murder have now all pleaded guilty. The legal case is over. But it will never be over for Martha Weaver. “It won’t never go away cause I don’t have my baby no more. Cause of them, they took him away from me.”

Alabama doesn’t have a hate crime law covering sexual orientation. Scotty Joe Weaver’s murder was not included in the FBI’s hate crime statistics for 2004, representing another example of the gaps in the FBI’s hate crime reporting program.

Scotty Joe Weaver’s Killer Gets Two Life Sentences

On July 22, 2004, 18-year-old Scotty Joe Weaver’s burned body was found at the side of a rural Alabama road. He had been beaten, strangled, cut, burned and robbed of between $65 and $80. While robbery was first thought to be the main motivation, Baldwin County District Attorney concluded that the crime was actually a hate crime. Unfortunately, Alabama does not have a hate crime law covering sexual orientation, and Scotty Joe Weaver’s murder was not included in the FBI’s hate crime statistics for 2004, representing another example of the gaps in the FBI’s hate crime reporting program.

Robert Porter, 18, Nichole Bryars Kelsay, 18, and Christopher Gaines, 20 were arrested and charged with capital murder. Gaines and Kelsay had been Scotty Joe’s roommates. Last May, Gaines pleaded guilty to capital murder, avoiding the death penalty. Last Wednesday, Porter entered a guilt plea and received two consecutive life sentences. According to his lawyer, he will be eligible for parole in fifteen years.

Prosecutors said a plea agreement is possible with Kelsay, who is awaiting trial.

PFOX Reports Assault By ‘Angry Homosexual Activists’ At Arlington County Fair

From PFOX’s press release:

As happens every year, gay activists disrupted our booth activities. They screamed obscenities, threw our materials from the exhibit table to the ground, insisted we recognize their same-sex “spouses,” demanded that PFOX leave, and hit a PFOX volunteer because he is ex-gay.

LifeSite.net has a shortened account but as of this blogging no reputable news sources have reported on the incident.

Update: Ex-Gay Watch did some investigating and found local authorties have no knowledge of such an event ever taking place.  See more recent post here.  

Tucker Carlson’s “Gay Bashing” Story

Amidst discussion about Sen. Craig’s bathroom antics, MSNBC’s conservative commentator Tucker Carlson shared a story from his youth:

CARLSON: … Having sex in a public men’s room is outrageous. It’s also really common. I’ve been bothered in men’s rooms. I think people who do –

SCARBOROUGH: Really?

CARLSON: Yeah, I have. You know what, Let me just say.

SCARBOROUGH: Wait, hold on a second. Dan, hold on a second. I don’t mean to take over, but have you been bothered in public restrooms, Dan? Because I know I haven’t.

CARLSON: I have. I’ve been bothered in Georgetown Park. When I was in high school.

ABRAMS: Really?

CARLSON: Yes.

SCARBOROUGH: Wow.

CARLSON: And let me just say, I think —

SCARBOROUGH: That’s something.

CARLSON: — people should knock that off. I’m not anti-gay in the slightest, but that’s really common, and the gay rights groups ought to disavow that kind of crap because, you know, that actually does bother people who didn’t ask for being bothered. So yeah, I think it’s outrageous that he did that. And also, this specter of him getting up there and blaming other people is so Clintonian. You know, if he just said, “I’m not going to talk about it,” that’d be one thing.

[omitted]

ABRAMS: Tucker, what did you do, by the way? What did you do when he did that? We got to know.

CARLSON: I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the — you know, and grabbed him, and — and —

ABRAMS: And did what?

CARLSON: Hit him against the stall with his head, actually!

Although the talking heads thought this was hysterically funny, some in the blogosphere were shocked at what appeared to be a televised admission of gay bashing.

Carlson responded later in the day with a different version of the story:

Let me be clear about an incident I referred to on MSNBC last night: In the mid-1980s, while I was a high school student, a man physically grabbed me in a men’s room in Washington, DC. I yelled, pulled away from him and ran out of the room. Twenty-five minutes later, a friend of mine and I returned to the men’s room. The man was still there, presumably waiting to do to someone else what he had done to me. My friend and I seized the man and held him until a security guard arrived.

Several bloggers have characterized this is a sort of gay bashing. That’s absurd, and an insult to anybody who has fought back against an unsolicited sexual attack. I wasn’t angry with the man because he was gay. I was angry because he assaulted me.

Personally, I don’t think Carlson improved his image much with the “clarification”. I’m not convinced that gay panic is all that much better of an excuse for violence than premeditated gay bashing. And I can’t help but notice that being “bothered” became “physically grabbed” while “hit him against the stall with his head” magically turned into “held him until a security guard came”.

I wasn’t in the stall and of course have no way of knowing which version of the story is true. And I don’t want to portray the creep in the bathroom in a sympathetic light.

But I do know that when Tucker Carlson told the story, he, Rick Scarborough and Dan Abrams all thought being “bothered” justified physical assault and that bashing the guy’s head against the stall wall was both fitting and funny.

Marketing Hate

When the Soprannos character Vito Spatafore was revealed to be a gay mobster, it represented a surprising and poignant turning point in the show. And the Sopranos remained true to its gritty and violent nature by having him whacked. In a brutal scene, Vito (played by Joseph R. Gannascoli) was beaten to death and sodomized by a pool cue.

Now Gannascoli and Rockwell Billiards is grotesquely marketing a pool stick under the brand “A Cue to Die For.” GLAAD has strongly condemned this glamorization of anti-gay violence as product promotion. Anti-gay violence is a very real experience for thousands of gays and lesbians each year. Some die, and many others experience a lifetime of consequences as a result. Gannascoli and Rockwell Billiards aren’t just making light of this violence, they’re exploiting it for their marketing campaign.

GLAAD provides contact information from a press release. “Joe Gannascoli (Vito) is available for radio and television interviews. To schedule, call Doug Friedman at (973) 985-1050. Rockwell Billiards: John Candy (877) 231-1466 www.rockwellbilliards.com.”

Update: As Timothy Kincaid points out in the comments, the Miami Herald reports that Gannascoli is apologetic and is “a great supporter of the gay community.” He is considering “pulling all the pool cues.” No word from Rockwell Billiards yet.

Update (8/17): Rockwell Billiards has decided to cease sales of the cue.

Congressman Tim Walberg Lies About Hate Crimes

In an amazing act of chutzpah, OneNewsNow, the “news” service of the American Family Association, claims that Steve Cohen (D-TN) is “lying” about hate crimes legislation.

But Congressman Tim Walberg (R-Michigan) says the bill does indeed threaten the First Amendment rights of pastors and churches.

“He [Cohen] said it was a lie — when, in fact, if you read the legislation it doesn’t go any further than what we have presently in place as far as actual murders and mayhem and assaults; but it moves into the thought police side in saying you can’t talk about beliefs and values that you’ve long held. The fact of the matter is that if you do, we may indeed be able to pull you in as an incentive to hate violence. That’s a chilling effect,” says Walberg.

The proposed legislation has no such provision. Rep. Cohen is correct. The law only addresses actual violence or specific threats to violence. It doesn’t cover speech or “talking about beliefs and values” because it can’t. No hate crimes law can overturn the First Amendment.

I’ve issued this challenge three times before. This will be number four. After the jump, I’ve posted the Senate bill yet again, and I challenge Rep. Walberg to point out where it tries to ban “talking about beliefs and values.”

The fact is, he can’t. And neither can anyone else, whether it’s the American Family Association, Focus On the Family, Family “Research” Council, Exodus, Traditional Values Coalition, or anyone else. Including congressmen.

And by the way, I still haven’t seen any of them having the guts, let alone the integrity, to put the bill’s text on their web site either.

Click here to read the text of Senate Bill 1105

Memphis Commercial Appeal Uncritically Repeats FRC’s Lies About Hate Crimes Bill

The Memphis Commercial Appeal yesterday reported on a campaign by Tennessee pastors pressuring Rep. Steve Cohen (D) to vote against the proposed hate crimes bill, claiming it will restrict their rights to preach against homosexuality. This follows reports that the Family “Research” Council is targeting Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) with automated “robocalls” in Nashville.

The bill, which cannot and does not overturn the First Amendment, addresses only violence and direct threats of violence. It does not address speech or religion or what anyone says in the pulpit — or anywhere else for that matter. How do I know this? I posted the text of the bill on my web site. Three times! Funny how the Family “Research” Council is too cowardly to do the same.

It’s a shame that the Memphis Commercial Appeal would let these lies about hate crimes go unchallenged. Fortunately, Rep. Cohen doesn’t appear to be swayed. “That Crime Bill affects acts of violence, not acts of thought or speech,” Cohen said. “It never has in this country’s history, and it never will.”

Jackson, TN Lesbian Attacked

A Jackson, Tennessee-area woman was left partially blind and possibly brain damaged from an attack at a club. The fight broke out when a patron thought she looked like a man and assumed she was gay when she started dancing with a male friend. When he told her to leave using a gay slur, she replied that she was a woman, but yes, she’s a lesbian. Her assailant then punched Amanda in the face and jabbed her in the left eye about four times with the bottom of a beer bottle before smashing the bottle over the back of her head.

She lost sight in her left eye for a few days, and was scheduled to have an MRI on Thursday to check for possible brain damage. The Jackson Sun reports that they are planning a protest in front of the club on Saturday.

LaBarbera Award Winner: Rick Scarborough

I think I’ll inaugurate a new award, called the LaBarbera Award. It will be awarded on an as-earned basis for the most outrageous, offensive, malevolent, crazy, excessive — you get the picture — statement or claim. (Paul Cameron is ineligible; otherwise nobody else would ever get a chance to win.) I thought about naming it for Fred Phelps, but he’s in a class all by himself.

So to kick it off, I’m pleased to give the first LaBarbera Award to none other than Rick Scarborough for saying that your failure to oppose hate crimes legislation will leave the “blood of martyrs” on your hands:

Mark this down; the day that this law becomes federal statute, the open persecution of major conservative broadcast ministries like Focus on the Family and D. James Kennedy will begin, and it will not end until it arrives at a church near you. If you want to avoid having the blood of martyrs on your hands, then join tens of thousands of other Americans who still hold to the truths of God’s Word and click here to send a message to your senators and President Bush that you do not want this legislation. Finally, please click here and make the largest contribution you can to Vision America Action, our 501C4, to assist us in fighting this battle. [Emphasis mine, hyperlinks removed.]

He not only won the first LaBarbera award, Scarborough earned bonus points for recruiting martyrs for a fundraising appeal. Classy.

“It’s Not That I’m A Bad Dude. I Love God.”

That’s the reason 26-year-old Terry Mark Mangum gave for going to a Houston gay bar on June 11, hunting for a gay man to kill. He found one:

Interviewed in the Brazoria County Jail Saturday morning, Mangum said he feels no remorse for killing 46-year-old Kenneth Cummings Jr., whom relatives described as a “loving” son who never forgot a holiday and a devoted uncle who had set up college funds for his niece and nephew. He worked at Southwest [Airlines] for 24 years.

Mangum, who described himself as “definitely not a homosexual,” said God called on him to “carry out a code of retribution” by killing a gay man because “sexual perversion” is the “worst sin.” … “I planned on sending him to hell,” he said.

Senate To Vote Soon on Hate Crimes Bill

When the US House took up the “Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007,” we saw anti-gay activists launch a massive disinformation campaign in an attempt to derail this legislation.

We saw them completely make up bogus hate crime statistics out of thin air to try to prove that gays and lesbians aren’t hate crime victims. But they won’t tell you that sexual orientation is the third most common motivation for hate crimes, running a virtual tie with religious bias. Further, the Justice Department’s National Crime Victim Survey (NCVS) shows that 58% of hate crimes based on sexual orientation go unreported.

We saw them falsely claim that the legislation would “punish some crimes more severely against gay people than they would against any other person,” even though it would cover everyone — gay or straight — regardless of sexual orientation. Otherwise, the FBI’s own hate crime statistics would not have bothered to count 935 anti-White, 58 anti-Protestant, or 23 anti-heterosexual hate crime incidents in 2005.

We saw them falsely claim that the bill would create a class of “thought crimes,” even though the proposed legislation only deals strictly with actual violence or direct and credible threats to violence.

And, in the most common theme lately, we saw anti-gay religious groups falsely claim that the proposed hate crimes legislation would “muzzle our pulpits,” even though the First Amendment — the same First Amendment that protects the Klan and neo-Nazi hate groups — will protect ministers and allow them to say virtually anything they want. If the Christian Identity Movement can preach racists beliefs under the First Amendment, then certainly James Dobson will still be allowed to call gays and lesbians sinners. Nothing can change that.

Last week, the Senate filed the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act as an amendment (SA 2067) to the Defense Authorization bill (HR 1585). This amendment is likely to come up for a vote any day now. And Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council are flooding the airwaves and filling email inboxes of their constituents with the same lies about hate crimes that we’ve been seeing for the past several months.

And yes, they are lies. Why should you trust me when I say that?

Well, last month, I challenged opponents of the hate crimes legislation to post the text of the bill on their web sites and show where it threatens their their speech or religious freedoms, or elevates one citizen’s protection over another’s under the law. Nobody has taken me up on the challenge — and they won’t either. Because if they did, you’d be able to read the bill for yourself and know that everything they’ve been saying about it is a complete lie.

So who do you believe? Someone who makes it easy to find out for yourself what the bill actually says? Or someone who asks you to just trust them without reading it yourself?

Would you buy a car that way?

I’m not asking you to believe me. I’m asking you to read the bill yourself. I’ve copied it again below after the jump. And after you’ve read it, call your Senator. He or she is already being inundated with calls and emails from anti-gay constituents. They need to hear from you now more than ever.

Click here to read the text of Senate Bill 1105

Run for your Life!! Lesbian Gangs on the Loose!!

For a good healthy dose of crazy, it’s hard to beat the ex-gays. But when you combine an ex-gay, World Net Daily, and Peter LaBarbera, you get enough crazy for a three ring circus full of clowns in big shoes and little cars.

Take, for example, the report by he-of-no-spin, Bill O’Reilly, about a national network of lesbian gangs (150 in DC alone) who were raping schoolgirls. In addition to being a national crime cartel, Bill’s reporter, Rod Wheeler, breathlessly tells him that a lot of their viewers will want to know that some of these lesbian gangs call themselves Pink Pistol Carriers.

Which would, no doubt, be quite a surprise to the actual Pink Pistols, a national gay and lesbian gun-enthusists group that is friendly with the NRA.

GLAAD took a little look-see and found that the report was, well, spinning faster than a tornado in a trailer park:

Gaithersburg, Md., Detective Patrick Word is President of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Gang Investigators Network, an intelligence-sharing organization of 400 criminal justice professionals in Maryland; Washington, D.C.; and Virginia. He told the Intelligence Report, “there is no evidence whatsoever of a lesbian gang epidemic in this region…our membership reports only one lesbian gang.”

When confronted by the facts, Bill O’Reilly apologized because his reporter “got carried away” and had a follow-up segment in which he backed away from the earlier claims and allowed a representative from GLAAD to provide facts that shed a different light on the story.

But anti-gay gadfly LaBarbera knows things that the Gang Investigators Network and The O’Reilly Factor are afraid to tell. LaBarbera has access to (breathless pause) an ex-lesbian:

Having heard over the years of the fast-growing influence of lesbian gangs and their tactics of intimidation, LaBarbera said the reports, including an estimate of 150 attack squads in the Washington, D.C., region alone, were no surprise.

LaBarbera told WND he heard about the “lesbian bullying phenomenon” from former lesbian-turned-Christian evangelist Linda Jernigan, who was contacted by a teacher about speaking at a suburban Chicago where “this sick behavior was occurring.”

“Jernigan said she was told that lesbian girl gangs would drag a targeted female into the school restroom, hold her down, and perform oral sex on her to ‘turn her out’ – i.e., forcible ‘seduce’ the poor girl through lesbian rape,” he said.

And the only reason we don’t all quiver in our boots that marauding gangs of lesbians will attack us and subject us all to hours of lesbian sex is because of the evil homosexual lobby that controls all of the media. And though O’Reilly admitted that he isn’t afraid of being attacked by lesbians on the loose on the way to his car, he should be!!

“All they wanted to do was shut down the story,” LaBarbera told WND. “This epitomizes the selfishness of the gay activists.”

Now I don’t want to diminish any harm anyone has experienced as the victim of a lesbian gang. Any violence, bullying, or harassment should be immediately met with a concerted effort to see that the guilty parties are swiftly brought to justice. If there is a gang of lesbians that is harming schoolgirls, I encourage authorities to allocate resources to ending this swiftly.

But until such allegations are substantiated, sometimes you just have to sit back and laugh at the clowns.

Update: Rod Wheeler, Bill O’Reilly’s “Lesbian Gangs!!!” expert recants.

BTB Original Video Interview With Michael Bussee, Co-Founder Of Exodus

Last September hundreds of gays and lesbians from around So Cal gathered in Palm Springs to speak out against Love Won Out. Included in those who came to Palm Springs was Michael Bussee one of the co-founders of Exodus who later left the ministry realizing it didn’t work. USC film student Esteban Rael pulled Bussee aside and shot a video interview with Michael for his upcoming masters thesis film me & god. Esteban and I have collaborated frequently on our respective projects/interests and he and Michael were both kind enough to let me publish nine clips from that interview here.

The first two videos below tell the story of what led to the founding of Exodus and Michael’s eventual shift to speaking out against exgay therapy. The remainder of the clips are on a variety of exgay issues.

The Creation of Exodus International

Two Of Exodus’ Founders Come Out As ‘Ex-Ex-Gay’

Gay Therapist On His Religious Clients’ Inner Conflict

“Exgay” Conversion Therapy For Gay Youth?

Am I Gay? Will God Change Me?

Growing Up – What The Culture Taught Me About Being Gay

Are ‘Gay’ and ‘Christian’ Incompatible?

A 12 Year Old Boy Struggles To Find Out What ‘Gay’ Means

“Exgay” Organizations Oppose Hate Crime Protections

See also:

BTB Original Video Interviews With Former Exodus Leaders

You Can Support Hate Crimes Legislation — Courtesy of the American Family Association

Update: Err, Okay. I’ve been punked. This looks like a parody — and a pretty hilarious one. This is the real thing on which it’s based.

This much is true:

The American Family Association’s Don Wildmon sent out an urgent message to his fan base, asking them to go to the AFA web site and sign a petition demanding that Congress defeat the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. Wildmon’s email is about as charming as they come:

If pastors and other Christians don’t aggressively oppose a bill now in Congress, in the near future they will be subject to huge fines and prison terms if they say anything negative about homosexuality.

The proposed law would make it a crime to preach on Romans Chapter 1 or I Corinthians Chapter 6. Or even to discuss them in a Sunday School class.

If churches and individuals want to keep the government from telling them what they can and cannot preach and teach about homosexuality, they better get involved now!

House bill H.R. 1592 and Senate bill S. 1105 would make negative statements concerning homosexuality, such as calling the practice of homosexuality a sin from the pulpit, a “hate crime” punishable by law. This dangerous legislation would take away your freedom of speech and your freedom of religion.

Wildmon’s email provides hyperlinks for the text “Senate bill S.1105,” but in an act of abject cowardice, he doesn’t link to the text of the bill. Instead, he links to his own web site. Why? Because if anyone actually read the bill itself, they’d know that everything he says in this email is a bold-faced lie.

But here’s the best part. (And this is where the parody kicks in.) He wants you to take action by signing a petition. But be careful how you do it (as “reported” by Baptists for Brownback):

Christians ONLY Click Here

Only your first and last name and zip code will be included. DO NOT type anything Pro-Homosexual, Anti-AFA, or anything against the Bill in The slot for the FIRST NAME, LAST NAME, or ZIP CODE BECAUSE CONGRESS WILL ACTUALLY SEE AND BE ABLE TO READ ANY Pro-Homosexual, Anti-AFA in formation in that part.

Again, if you CLICK ON THE LINK you CAN SIGN THE PETITION. BUT BE SURE NOT TO ACCIDENTILY TYPE ANYTHING PRO-HOMOSEXUAL, ANTI-AFA in the those spots because it WILL RUIN THE EFFECT OF THE AFA MESSAGE.

Okay, so it’s a parody. But think about it. It could work, couldn’t it?