Box Turtle Bulletin

More Details On Syracuse Shooting

Details continue to emerge in the shooting case in Syracuse. It is now much clearer that Latiesha Green, 20, was a transgender woman. She began transitioning when she was sixteen. Police had originally identified her as a gay man.

Latiesha and her brother, Mark Cannon, 18, had been invited to a party. According to reports, they were sitting in the car when party guests gathered around the car and began yelling anti-gay slurs. Dwight DeLee went into the house and got a .22-caliber rifle. He then put the rifle into the driver’s side window and fired one shot. The bullet passed through Mark’s arm and struck Latiesha in the chest.

Despite being shot, Mark drove to the family’s home as his sister lay bleeding heavily in the front passenger seat. She died a short while later. According to paperwork filed with the court, the bullet had damaged both of Latiesha’s lungs and aorta, causing massive bleeding.

A vigil was held in front of Latiesha’s home on Monday evening. Another vigil is being held at noon today at Hedricks Chapel at Syracuse University.

[Hat tips: Autumn Sandeen, Werdna, and Rod McCullom]

Today In History: Lawrence vs. Texas Begins Its Journey Through The Courts

Ten years ago today, on November 20, 1998, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyrone Garner pleaded no contest to charges of violating the Texas “Homosexual Conduct” law which banned “deviant sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex.” They were convicted of the Class C misdemeanor by a Justice of the Peace in Houston, and were fined $250 with an additional $141.25 in court costs.

That conviction led to a series of appeals: the Texas Criminal Court (which rejected the defense’s request to dismiss the charges), a three-judge panel of the Texas 14th Court of Appeals (which ruled the law unconstitutional), and the full nine-judge panel of the 14th Court of Appeals (which reversed the three-judge panel).

The appeals then reached the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which serves as Texas’s Supreme Court for criminal cases. That court refused to hear the case, which left the lower court’s decision standing.

Lawrence vs. Texas was then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. On June 26, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, struck down the Texas anti-sodomy law, along with similar laws in twelve other states.

At last report, John Lawrence still works as a medical technologist in Houston. Tyrone Garner died in 2006 of meningitis.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day set aside to remember those who were killed due to anti-transgender or anti-gender-variant prejudice.

Transgender Day of Remembrance began in 1999 to honor Rita Hester, who was stabbed to death on November 28th 1998. This year will mark the tenth anniversary of her death. The event has grown over the past decade to include memorials in more than a hundred cities in all over the world.

The Remembering Our Dead web site contains profiles of some 353 people who have lost their lives around the world — some of them, their names are unknown. In fact, we really don’t know the full extent of hate crimes motivated by prejudice against variant gender identity and expression. As imperfect as the FBI’s statistics of hate crimes based on sexual orientation are, they provide even fewer clues to what’s going on against transgender and gender-variant people.  Federal law only mandates the collection of statistics for crimes based on sexual orientation, not sexual identity or expression.

To find a memorial event near you, please visit the Transgender Day of Remembrance website.

“The Chilling Effect”: Did GOP Politics Stifle AIDS Prevention Research?

In a report published in the online open access peer-reviewed journal PLoS Medicine, Rutgers University’s Joanna Kempner explores the question: How do researchers react when their work gets wrapped up in political controversy?

The controversy began in July 2003, when then Congressional Representative Patrick Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, proposed an amendment to the 2004 NIH appropriations bill that would rescind the funding of five NIH grants—four of which examined sexual behavior, including studies of transgendered Native Americans, undocumented Asian sex workers, the sexuality of aging men, and the relation of mood to sexual risk taking. Toomey argued that these studies were “much less worthy of taxpayer funding” than research on “devastating diseases” and asked publicly, “who thinks up this stuff?”. The amendment failed to pass the House by two votes.

The controversy didn’t end there. In October 2003, several Republican members of House and Senate committee which oversee the National Institutes of Health asked NIH director Elias Zerhouni to explain the “medical benefits” of ten NIV grants, including the five targeted by the Rep. Toomey. But the next day, the committee staffer responsible for forwarding the list of grants to Zerhouni’s office sent the wring list. He send a longer list of more than 250 grants.

We learned later that this longer list was composed by the Traditional Values Coalition. Republicans apologized for the accidental distribution of this list, but the damage was done. Zerhouni saw the shot across his bow and ordered a review of each of the NIH grants in the longer list. The review found that each of the studies were scientifically legitimate, and in January 2004, Zerhouni wrote to Congress saying, “the constant battle against illness and disease…cannot be limited to biological factors but has to include behavioral and social factors as well”

All of these grants retained their funding, but this episode touched off a very serious concern. Would this attempt at a witch hunt stifle sexuality research that could have potentially important implications for HIV prevention programs?

Kempner interviewed 82 of the 163 principle investigators caught up in the controversies and found that the controversies did appear to have a chilling effect:

• 55% agreed or strongly agreed that “the NIH is less likely to fund research about sexual behaviors because of the current political climate.”
• 79% agreed or strongly agreed that “funding decisions at the NIH are more political under the Bush administration than they were under the Clinton administration.”
• 71% agreed or strongly agreed that “the political controversy created a ‘chilling effect’ in research, dissuading scientists from studying controversial issues.”

But on the other hand:

• Only 34% agreed or strongly agreed that “I am less likely to receive funding from the NIH because of this controversy.”
• and 79% agreed or strongly agreed that “no amount of political controversy would dissuade me from conducting HIV or sex-related research.

Why the apparent contradiction? According to Kempner, many of these researchers felt safe because they learned to self-censor in order to stay in the NIH’s good graces.  When writing grant applications, more than half said they omitted words like gay, lesbian, bisexual, sexual intercourse, anal sex, homosexual, homophobia, AIDS, barebacking, bath houses, sex workers, needle exchange and harm reduction — all subjects which must be studied in order to improve HIV and STD prevention programs.

Most researchers believed that omitting these terms had only a “cosmetic effect” on their research. But they also noted that by obscuring the contents of their work, it became much more difficult for other researchers to find important cutting edge research in these very important topics.

But the worst of it was this: nearly a quarter reported that they either re-framed their studies to make them more politically viable or dropped them altogether. A smaller number actually changed careers as a result of the controversy.

This study only questioned those who were directly involved in these controversies, researchers who, as Kempner notes, were “already successful enough to serve as PIs [principal investigators] in their own NIH grants.” But she goes on:

The broader implications of political controversy for the research community — for example, funding agencies, graduate students, junior researchers and other researchers who work in HIV prevention but escaped the list — remain unknown.

And because researchers are now removing “red flag” words in their grants, “Congressional oversight has, in this case, had the unintended consequence of making science less transparent.”

The Divine Queen of the Almighty Eternal Creator Addresses the California Supreme Court

Well now, Here’s some entertaining reading. It’s a 40-page brief to the California Supreme Court (PDF: 2,471KB/40 pages) arguing that the court should uphold Proposition 8. The brief, submitted by the Divine Queen Mariette Do-Nguyen of the Almighty Eternal Creator, is titled “Letter Brief of Amicus Curiae Demanding the Almighty Eternal Creator’s Law and the State of California Constitution Amendment: Marriage Between One Man and One Woman Stay In.”

Got all that? Good. It begins:

Acting on behalf of the Almighty Eternal Creator, who is holding sole ownership to His creations, all planets, including the earth and everything above, below and on it, myself as His heiress, and the Kingdom of Heaven World Divine Mission (also known as Rebuild My Church Divine Mission), a Non-Profit Corporation in the State of California, submit this Amicus Curiae brief …

… and yadda, yadda, yadda. It goes on like that. Why is she doing this? Well, she answers that question on page 3:

After a night full of dreams, before dawn of November 11, 2008, before I woke up in the morning, the Almighty Eternal Creator ordered me, saying, “You explain to them the consequences that follow each and all actions. Once they understand, they will listen!”

I’m sure they will.

It’s an amazing read, complete with the reason for 9/11 (“Because the United States’ presidents and members of Congress violated the Almighty Creator’s Laws and abused their power”) and the consequences for not heeding her warning (“For individuals who choose to …disobey the Almighty Eternal Creator’s Laws, their soul receive an energy … through a destructive channel, known as the Devil or Satan.”)

So anyway, who is this Mariette Do-Nguyen?

I am a co-Creator of earth and human souls with the fully God nature of Messiah Jesus as revealed in the Holy Bible, Genesis 1:26-27. Exhibit A.

As written, I am “another” Advocate, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, and heiress to the Almighty Eternal Creator, who created and holds sole ownership of all His creations, planets and all living creatures, including human souls and physical bodies. The Gospel of John, Chapters 14, 15, 16. Exhibit B.

The Almighty Eternal Creator’s estate was transferred to me by fully God Messiah Jesus via his human voice before His fully human crucifixion on the Cross. The Gospel of John, Chapters 16:14-15 & 19:26-27. Exhibit C.

I am a Messenger of the Covenant. Malachi, Chapter 3. Exhibit D.

And sure enough, that is followed by eleven xeroxed pages of her heavily underlined Bible as evidence. So there.

And if you’re tempted to think she might be just a little bit crazy? Well, on page 13, she has that covered. She quotes from a book, My Patient — God’s Gift, in which a Dr. Gerald Nelson is quoted as saying:

And finally, traditional psychiatry has little to offer Mariette. Medications and psychotherapy will likely cause her harm, leading to confusion and perhaps insurmountable despair. The Church can provide what medicine cannot; and understanding [sic] and compassionate context for Mariette’s calling. Allowing her respect the freedom [sic] to express and live out her dreams and visions in a way that will benefit mankind.

So you see? She’s not crazy. She’s totally for reals, people! Check out her web site.

By the way — that book she’s quoting from? She’s the author and publisher.

Addendum: The next time I join a religion, I’m going to make this one of my criteria: it totally has to be headed by a Divine Queen.

CA Supremes to Hear Challenge to Prop 8 – No Stay

Per the LA Times:

The California Supreme Court agreed today to review legal challenges to Prop. 8, the voter initiative that restored a ban on same-sex marriage, but refused to permit gay weddings to resume pending a ruling.

While neither of these decisions is a surprise, this is a welcome step in the continued fight for marriage equality.

The court gave no indication as to the way they are leaning. However, it seems likely that at least one of the justices is inclined to overturn Proposition 8.

Some legal challengers also sought an order that would have permitted same-sex couples to marry until the cases were resolved, a position opposed by Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and Proposition 8 supporters. Only Justice Carlos R. Moreno voted in the private conference to grant such a stay.

The court will hear the arguments in March of 2009 so there may be no clear answer for another year. Should the court decide that Prop 8 was an amendment rather than a revision to the constitution, pro-marriage activists will immediately begin the process of placing another amendment on the ballot to overturn Prop 8 and reinstate marriage rights for same-sex couples.

[To clarify the paragraph above, I’m saying that if the courts upholds Proposition 8, then the gay community and our friends will begin the process of reversing Prop 8 through another initiative. Sorry for the confusion.]

In a manner consistent with their behavior during the campaign, anti-gay activists have issued an ultimatum to the judges.

Supporters of Proposition 8 have threatened to mount a recall of any justice who votes to overturn the measure.

UPDATE:

One negative observation: Judge Kennard was one of the four judges who found for gay couples in May. The motion indicates that Judge Kennard would have denied the petitions of the gay couples to be heard before the court on this matter. That may indicate that she does not think that the case has merit.

eHarmony To Provide eQuality

According to the Associated Press,“Online dating service eHarmony is adding another personality trait to its 29 dimensions of computability.” eHarmony has agreed to begin providing same-sex matches as part of a settlement with the New Jersey Civil Rights Division. eHarmony will have the option of creating a separate service for same-sex couples, and they will be able to post a disclaimer saying that its compatibility matching system was developed from research of heterosexual couples. Neither the company nor its founder admit to any liability

eHarmony refusal to offer same-sex matching led to the establishment of rival services like Chemistry.com, which skewered eHarmony’s stance in its commercials.

About those “Peaceful Christians” In the Castro

I think it’s safe to say that Joe.My.God was at least as alarmed as I was over news reports of a so-called “Christian” group being escorted out of the Castro by a heavy protective police contingent.

Well Joe.My.God has learned that at least one of those so-called “Christians” is associated with Lou Engle, who is a pastor in the Christian Dominionist group Joel’s Army. She appeared with Engle in Kansas City to call for a “mass exodus from the demonic influence of the Castro.” Engle described the confrontation os “a confrontation of the Spirit” and called on God to “turn back this evil that is rising” in the fight against “the powers of darkness.”

Christian Dominionism is a harder-core, more violent offshoot of Christian Reconstructionism. Christian Reconstructionists are on record as calling for the biblical punishment of stoning for gays and lesbians.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified Joel’s Army as a potentially violent Dominionist group which believes that the United States “should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law.” Engle was a lead organizer of “The Call” at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium just before the election.

According to SPLC’s Casy Sanchez:

As even his critics note, Engle is a sweet, humble and gentle man whose persona is difficult to reconcile with his belief in an end-time army of invincible young Christian warriors. Yet while Engle is careful to avoid deploying explicit Joel’s Army rhetoric at high-profile events like The Call, when he’s speaking in smaller hyper-charismatic circles to avowed Joel’s Army followers, he can venture into bloodlust.

This March, at a “Passion for Jesus” conference in Kansas City sponsored by the International House of Prayer, or IHOP, a ministry for teenagers from the heavy metal, punk and goth scenes, Engle called on his audience for vengeance.

“I believe we’re headed to an Elijah/Jezebel showdown on the Earth, not just in America but all over the globe, and the main warriors will be the prophets of Baal versus the prophets of God, and there will be no middle ground,” said Engle. He was referring to the Baal of the Old Testament, a pagan idol whose followers were slaughtered under orders from the prophet Elijah.

“There’s an Elijah generation that’s going to be the forerunners for the coming of Jesus, a generation marked not by their niceness but by the intensity of their passion,” Engle continued. “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Such force demands an equal response, and Jesus is going to make war on everything that hinders love, with his eyes blazing fire.”

Joel’s Army maintains an apocalyptic vision of their role in the world. They see themselves as members of the final generation with the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision as a new Passover:

Everyone born after abortion’s legalization can consider their birth a personal invitation to take part in this great army,” writes John Crowder, another prominent Joel’s Army pastor, who bills his 2006 book, The New Mystics: How to Become Part of the Supernatural Generation, as a literal how-to guide for joining Joel’s Army.Both Bentley and Crowder are enormously popular on Elijah’s List, an online watering hole for a broad spectrum of Joel’s Army enlistees, from lightweight believers who merely share an affection for military rhetoric and pastors who dress in army camouflage (several Joel’s Army pastors are addressed by their congregants as “commandant” or “commander”) to hardliners who believe the church is called to have an active military role in end-times that have already begun. Elijah’s List currently has more than 125,000 subscribers on its electronic mailing list.

Rick Joyner, a pastor whose books, The Harvest and The Call, helped popularize Joel’s Army theology by selling more than a million copies each, goes the furthest on Elijah’s List in pushing the hardliner approach. In 2006, he posted a sermon called “The Warrior Nation — The New Sound of the Church,” in which he claimed that a last-day army is now gathering and called believers “freedom fighters.”

“As the church begins to take on this resolve, they [Joel’s Army churches] will start to be thought of more as military bases, and they will begin to take on the characteristics of military bases for training, equipping, and deploying effective spiritual forces,” Joyner wrote. “In time, the church will actually be organized more as a military force with an army, navy, air force, etc.”

Joel’s Army began in the 1940’s, and was based on the preaching of Assembly of God pastor William Branham. The Assemblies of God has banned Joel’s army as a heretical cult and disavows all association with the movement.

All of this places the recent protest in the Castro in an entirely different light.

LaBarbera Award: Mike Huckabee

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is our latest LaBarbera Award winner for suggesting that gays haven’t been beaten enough to earn the right to marry.

Huckabee appeared on ABC’s “The View,” where he had this exchange with host Joy Behar about same-sex marriage:

HUCKABEE: It’s a different set of rights. People who are homosexuals should have every right in terms of their civil rights, to be employed, to do anything they want. But that’s not really the issue. I know you talked about it and I think you got into it a little bit early on. But when we’re talking about a redefinition of an institution, that’s different than individual civil rights.

BEHAR: Well, segregation was an institution, too, in a way. It was right there on the books.

HUCKABEE: But here is the difference. Bull Connor was hosing people down in the streets of Alabama. John Lewis got his skull cracked on the Selma bridge.

Huckabee appears to suggest that civil rights must meet some sort of minimum violence test. If so, then gays and lesbians certainly meet that test, all too sadly. In the most recent set of hate crime statistics released by the FBI, there were nine murders logged as hate crime incidents in 2007. Of those, five were attributed to sexual orientation, two to race, and two to ethnicity/national origin.

And that toll continues unabated this year with the murders of Lawrence King, Simmie Williams, Jr., Tony Randolph Hunter, and Angie Zapata. Just last Friday Moses “Teish” Cannon was shot and killed with a .22-caliber rifle.

It is beyond outrageous and disgusting for Huckabee to suggest that violence is a determining factor on whether any group deserves equal rights. Which is why he is now a two-time winner of the LaBarbera Award.

Anti-Gay/Trans Murder In Syracuse

A person identified in news reports as “a gay man who identified as a woman” was shot and killed Friday night in Syracuse.

According to Syracuse police, Dwight R. DeLee, 20, shot and killed Moses “Teish” Cannon Lateisha Green with a .22-caliber rifle Friday night because he didn’t like that she was openly gay. Teish was sitting in a car with her brother Mark Cannon, 18, outside a house where they had been invited to a party.

According to police chief Gary Miguel:

“There was no previous argument between these individuals, there was no previous fight, there was no bad blood,” Miguel said. “Our suspect took a rifle and shot and killed this person, also wounding his brother, for the sole reason he didn’t care for the sexual preference of our victim. Isn’t that sad? Isn’t that a sad situation that that’s the sole reason why?

“I talk to you about this atmosphere of violence and that certain individuals believe that violence is the answer no matter what, and here’s just another example,” Miguel said.

Mark Cannon suffered a non-life-threatening wound in the arm from the same bullet which killed Teish.

Cannon’s family accepted Teish’s sexual orientation and identification as female. Often when family members spoke of Cannon, they used “she”:

“Teish was loving, caring and compassionate,” said Rhonda Gary, Cannon’s aunt. “She carried herself with respect.”

Delee pleaded not guilty to charges of second degree murder. He is being held without bail. The investigation is continuing to determine if the shooting should be prosecuted as a hate crime.

Update: According to police, Teish was “not dressed as a woman” at the time of the shooting. I don’t know what that is meant to say exactly. I’ve updated the post to be more gender neutral, but I’m still looking for published confirmation as to Teish’s self-identity.

Update (11/20): New reports are emerging (thank you werdna) which are clarifying the situation:

The weekend victim of a brazen murder in Syracuse, N.Y.,  was transgendered, family and friends now tell area media outlets. Police originally had identified the victim as Moses Cannon, 20, and gay. Family members, however, now say Cannon went by the name Latiesha Green and was in the process of transitioning.

WSYR TV is reporting that Teish Green began transitioning at the age of sixteen. These are also the first reports that I’ve seen in which her entire chosen name was given.

Suspect Arrested in Elderly Couple’s Murder

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police has announced that Michael Brown, 56, was arrested Saturday in San Diego. He was wanted for the murder of Eric Hendricks, 73, and Milton Lindgren, 70 in October.

According to court records, two murder charges were filed against Brown on Thursday and a warrant for his arrest was issued. While neighbors believed that the murders might have been a hate crime, police have not said what led to the deaths.

Sending Our Best Wishes Pam’s Way

Pam Spaulding, who has announced that she has recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia, is taking a bit of a breather. She’s not leaving the scene; she’s just taking a determined step to slow down and take better care of herself. We wish her godspeed.

Ministers in Maine Support Marriage

On Thursday, a coalition of religious leaders in Maine held new conferences to support marriage equality.

“We are speaking here today in support of civil marriages for same-sex couples because assuring full human rights for all citizens advances the common good,” said the Rev. Marvin Ellison, a Presbyterian minister and professor of ethics at Bangor Theological Seminary. Doty announced that more than 120 religious leaders from 14 different faith traditions across Maine have formed the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine. The coalition, he said, is not a political action committee, but a group of clergy acting as individuals to raise awareness about the issue of same-sex marriage.

Today the Roman Catholic Bishop in Maine responded by ordering all churches to read a letter of opposition in Mass.

“To redefine marriage to include same-sex couples is to strip marriage of an essential component, namely the ability and obligation to procreate,” the bishop said in his letter. “To strip marriage of this essential component is to render marriage meaningless and open it up to endless revision and redefinition.”

The unmarried man without children did not specify whether he would be issuing a letter in opposition to infertile couples or elderly couples. However the Bishop did indicate that he will soon be attempting to impose Catholic doctrine by law on those ministers who spoke last week.

Malone’s letter said the church will be launching initiatives in the weeks and months ahead to preserve and support marriage as it is currently defined. It said objections to same-sex marriage are not based strictly on religious principles, but also on what is best for society.

Ex-Mormon Marches Against Prop 8

In the San Diego Reader a straight woman, an “old hippy” and former Mormon, tells of her experience protesting Proposition 8. It’s delightfully full of exploded stereotypes and down-home observations. It made me smile… and tear up a little.

I would have made a great flower child. I didn’t expect to be enthused about turning 50 on November 14, but thanks to Obama and Prop 8, I’ve never felt more energized. As a child, I wished I could march for the rights of blacks and women. But my parents were conservatives in an upper-middle class neighborhood and didn’t have anything to protest. I didn’t even experience music by the Beatles. They listened to Perry Como and Doris Day.

Read more here.

Obama’s LGBT Civil Rights Agenda

The website for President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team has posted a fairly comprehensive list of policy objectives for the LGBT community, including fully inclusive employment non-discrimination protections, hate crime protections, repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” expanded adoption rights and “full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples.”

So while I’m happy to see the president-elect sign on to a very comprehensive LGBT civil rights agenda, I would be very surprised to see White House leadership on these issues. I expect that Obama will have his hands full with the economy and pressing issues in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. Besides, the ball will always be Congress’s court anyway. After all, that’s where all legislation originates, and it will be up to congressional leaders to draft the legislation and place them on the calendar for a vote.

Nevertheless, it is a great thing to see. And who knew that a gay agenda would come from a straight man?

Click here to read Obama’s civil rights plan for the LGBT community