Box Turtle Bulletin

Is Virginia the New Mississippi?

I mean no disrespect to residents of Mississippi. Or Virginia for that matter.

But there’s no denying that Ole’ Miss’s reputation was severely battered during the civil rights struggle of the 1950’s and 1960’s. The murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, was depicted in the movie Mississippi Burning, and that movie’s title became a national shorthand to describe the poor reputation that had befallen that state.

I could just as easily have asked, “Is Virginia the New Alabama?” or, “Is Virginia the New Little Rock?” — anything to arrest the impulse to title this post with the overworked phrase, “Virginia Isn’t For Lovers.”

But two recent articles in the Washington Post led me to compare Virginia in 2006 to the Deep South in 1956. A couple of parallels are striking. It appears we are seeing examples of some rather frightening attacks against a hated minority, a minority whose rights are persistently and severely hampered by that state’s legal strictures. And we are seeing a migration of that minority to safer locales.

The parallels mostly end there, of course. Gays and lesbians are allowed to vote, enroll in college and drink from any water fountain they choose. Sexual orientation is excluded from their hate crime statutes, but thankfully there are no lynchings that I’m aware of. It’s unclear to me whether gay Virginians are protected from discrimination in employment and housing. But no matter the shortcomings there, the situation in Virginia is nothing like what African Americans faced a mere generation ago. Not even close. It would take a special kind of chutzpah to even try to equate the two.

No, there is no equivalency whatsoever between the two situations, but there are certainly some cautionary parallels.

The first article in the Washington Post detailed the recent vandalism to a gay couple’s home in Loudoun County, Virginia. Normally, when you think of vandalism, you are probably more likely to think of spray-painted graffiti, some broken windows, stuff like that. This, however, was much more severe:

It was early one recent Saturday morning when Heyward Drummond noticed that something was wrong. Still in his bathrobe, he shuffled down to the end of his driveway in Aldie to get the newspaper. That’s when he saw it. The word was written in looping white script on the driveway, on the mailbox, on a nearby fence: “FAG.”

Then Drummond smelled gas. Wide brown zigzags stained the lush green lawn where vandals had poured gasoline. Someone had pulled up dozens of boxwoods and chopped down Leyland cypress saplings that Drummond and his partner, John Ellis, had planted. Drummond couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

David Weintraub, president of Equality Loudoun, tied this incident to heightened tensions over that state’s proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage, a trend that others have noticed as well. (For more information on the link between the gay marriage debate and hate crimes, see our report, When Words Have Consequences.)

And that gasoline, by the way, was poured in a trail that led right up to the front door. What sort of message do you think that was meant to impart? Mr. Weintraub thinks it’s not difficult to decipher it at all:

“I think the intent of the message is ‘Get out!’ They’re hoping that we will shut up and get out and sell our homes,” Weintraub said.

And it appears that many gay and lesbian Virginians are acting on that message.

A second Washington Post article reports the rising trend of gays and lesbians in Virginia selling their homes and moving out of state:

Many gay people in Virginia and some family-law attorneys say they worry that the state law and proposed amendment are more far-reaching than simple bans on gay marriage — that the measures could threaten the legal viability of the contracts used by gay couples to share ownership of property and businesses.

The exact effects are unclear, and the 2004 law remains untested, but some gays say they fear the laws could affect their ability to own homes together; to draft powers of attorney, adoption papers or wills; or to arrange for hospital visitation or health surrogacy.

…Others say they want to avoid possible legal problems, particularly if they want to have kids. In 2002, for example, an Alexandria family court ruled that a father would lose custody of his son unless the father’s male partner, who had lived with them for five years, moved out. In 2004, a Winchester judge ruled that the female partner of a woman who had borne a child in 2004, whom the child had called “mama,” had no legal custody rights and that the woman who gave birth was the “sole parent.”

So gay Virginians are leaving, migrating from a place where they feel persecuted and unsafe, to where they know they can better protect themselves and their families — in a move that harkens back to the post-war Black migration from the Deep South. And considering how the states left behind by those African-Americans families were held back in so many ways — economically, politically and culturally — during the turmoil of the civil rights era, it’s appropriate to wonder what Virginia stands to loose in all this. Virginia is certainly losing more than a despised minority; it’s fast losing its reputation as a decent place for all of its citizens to live and work. Maybe Virginians should ask the people of Mississippi what the cost of that might be.

But hey, let’s look in the bright side. At least nobody burned a cross on Heyward Drummond and John Ellis’ lawn. To find that, you’ll have to go to Tennessee.

A Hate Crime in New Mexico

What happened last weekend? First it was a gay bashing in San Diego, and now comes another report of terror from New Mexico:

The woman said she and the gay man left the party and had walked halfway down the driveway before the others caught them, knocked them to the ground and took them to an adjoining yard that contained “several large barking dogs” the warrant says. Smith told them they should get ready to be thrown to the dogs, but instead he and others took them to the camper parked in the mobile home’s front yard, the warrant states.

While some of the partygoers tied up the gay man with rope and began hitting him, “Uriah told them that this was a kidnapping and they were not going to die yet,” according to the warrant. A female from the party lifted the woman’s head and kicked her in the face, the warrant says. The woman said she felt her nose break, the warrant says.

“(The woman) was not tied up, but was held in the camper for most of the night while all of the male subjects kept hitting, kicking, slapping and knocking (the gay man) down,” the warrant states. “The male subjects would knock (the gay man) down and if he did not get up off of the ground within a certain count or if he would make any noise, they would jump on him, hitting and kicking him.

“This continued all night until the sun was about to come up.”

This is terror, pure and simple.

Three men have been accused in the crime. Uriah Smith, 17, and William York, 21, were arrested and each charged with two counts of kidnapping, aggravated battery, false imprisonment and conspiracy. Police are still looking for Leroy Segura, age and hometown unknown.

The unidentified 18-year-old male victim suffered bleeding on the brain, concussion, and facial lacerations and bruising. He has since been released from the hospital. The woman’s injuries did not require hospitalization.

The Best Message?

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the hanging of two Iranian youths, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, who were accused of having a gay affair. They were seventeen years old when they were murdered by the Iranian authorities. Several vigils and protests marked the occasion in cities around the world.

[Update: San Francisco activist Michael Petrelis, who, more than anyone, organized the vigils worldwide has a complete roundup of those vigils. And the Washington Post today has an excellent article on the mainstream media’s silence about Mahmound and Ayaz.]

The picture for gays is very bleak in the Middle East. In addition to ongoing active persecution in Iran, the situation is deteriorating rapidly in Iraq. According to the United Nations:

16. UNAMI HRO has received several reports indicating that, since 2005, homosexuals have been increasingly threatened and extra-judicially executed by militias and “death squads” because of their sexual orientation. It is believed that such incidents are underreported, because families are unwilling to admit that targeted members were homosexual for fear of further abuse. It has been difficult to independently verify the information received due to the fact that members of this group maintain a low profile, preferring instead to go into hiding or leave the country.

17. From October 2005 to 30 June 2006 at least twelve homosexuals were reportedly killed in targeted attacks. Militias are reportedly threatening families of men believed to be homosexual, stating that they will begin killing family members unless the men are handed over or killed by the family. In March 2006, a 29-year-old man was kidnapped in Baghdad and his family threatened for allowing him to lead a homosexual lifestyle. The family paid a ransom for the man’s release but the mutilated body of the kidnapped victim was instead found dead a few days later. In another case reported a homosexual man was allegedly victim of “honour crime.” It was reported in the press that the man’s father was released without trial once he explained that he had hanged his son after discovering that he was homosexual.

An editorial in The Advocate also notes pervasive persecution inside the Palestinian Authority:

Tarek, a young Palestinian gay man suspected of homosexuality, was sentenced to a “reeducation” camp run by Muslim clerics under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction. He said that for a period of two months he was “subjected to beatings with belts, clubs, and was forced to sit on bottles which were inserted into my rectum. I was hanged by the hands, I was deprived of sleep, and when I finally did sleep, my limbs were tied to the floor.”

Meanwhile, just one day earlier the House of Representatives turned back an attempt to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage. But supporters of the amendment were not daunted, nor were they apologetic over the fact that while Beirut burns, the House fiddles. After the vote, House floor leader Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) commented:

This is probably the best message we can give to the Middle East in regards to the trouble we are having over there right now.

Message received. Unfortunately.

“Calm Down, Sweetie”

Those are the words that led to a bashing.

They are also the beginning of a defense of some sort for the four who were arrested for beat up singer Kevin Aviance in New York on June 10. Aviance bumped into one of the three on the street and said, “Calm, down, sweetie,” which apparently was just too threatening to someone’s sense of manhood:

“I did not hit the guy because he was gay,” Johnson said in his statement. “I just did not want my friend to think … I was a p—y.”

So of course, the only option was for the three to beat Kevin senseless, breaking his jaw and several bones.

This defense is starting to look like a variation on the the so-called “gay panic” defense, which has been used successfully by defendants in a number of horrific cases. In February 2005, Josh Cottrell escaped the death penalty when a Hardin County, Kentucky jury convicted him of manslaughter for killing Richie Phillips, stuffing his body into a suitcase and dumping it into a nearby lake. To win that reduced conviction, Cottrell’s attorney told the jury:

If a man tries to force you to have deviant sexual intercourse, you have the right to use deadly force to protect yourself. … Does putting that body in the suitcase make that kid a murderer? A robber? No, it doesn’t. He has admitted that was the wrong thing to do, but he was acting in survival mode.

However, there was no evidence that Richie Phillips tried to “force” sexual intercourse. At most, there was a mere suggestion. But that was enough, apparently in the minds of a jury, to warrant a reduction in the charge.

The “gay panic” defense has been successfully used to avoid more serious penalties in cases ranging from the Matthew Shephard’s brutal beating and murder (the defendants avoided the death penalty) to the murder of male-to-female transgender Chanelle Pickett by William Palmer (she was beaten and “throttled” for eight minutes and died; he was acquitted of manslaughter and murder, convicted only of assault and battery).

Kevin Aviance was severely beaten — the wire just came off his broken jaw and he will soon be able to eat solid foods — but there is no murder here, luckily. One might argue that the stakes here aren’t quite as high. But if the defendants have their way, merely being called “sweetie” would be a justifiable defense. This sort of defense, when used successfully, opens the doors for all LGBT to be attacked for the smallest provocations — or even the mere allegation of one — and that endangers everyone whether they are gay or not.

Hate Crimes and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate

Progress is slow here on this website, but then worthwhile progress is always slower than we’d like it to be. There are several new projects in the works, including a major examination of one of the most famous antigay tracts of the past few decades by one of most-quoted researchers. A sneak preview should be available in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile same-sex marriage continues to make the news in the U.S. Just last fall, Texas votors approved a ban against same-sex marriage in a lopsided vote during an off-year election. Just recently, the Virginia legislature voted to put a proposed constitutional ammendment before the votors in 2006. Several other states, including Arizona and Pennsylvania, are poised to take up the question as well. Meanwhile, efforts continue in Massachusetts to roll back gay marriage there.

Thirteen states voted to ban same-sex marriage in 2004, a year that saw significanltly hightened levels of antigay rhetoric. Some gay advocates predicted a backlash against gays and lesbians in the form of increased hate crimes, a prediction that was largely dismissed by opponents to marriage equality. Last fall the FBI released it’s Hate Crime Statistics for 2004 which showed somewhat mixed results nationwide. But in the states that voted to ban same-sex marriage that year, hate crimes against gays and lesbians rose significantly from the year before, strongly bucking the national trend. The FBI’s statistics bear out what we all instictively know: words have consequences, and sometimes those consequences are very serious indeed.

You can learn more about it in When Words Have Consequences: Hate Crimes and the Same Sex Marriage Debate.