Religious Left

Stop the Slaughter A Vigil will be held in Philadelphia on Friday evening, November 20th to remember 19-year-old Jorge Lopez Mercado. Lopez, a Puerto Rican native was found partially burned, decapitated and with arms and legs dismembered, on the side of the road near his home town Caguas, Puerto Rico on Saturday, November 14th. The Vigil will be held at the Church of St. Luke and The Epiphany, 330 South 13th Street in Philadelphia from 6:30 to 7 p.m. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender organizations, activists and allies are invited. The Vigil will include the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus, Gloria Casarez, LGBT Liaison to Mayor Nutter, Cynthia Vasquez, youth activist at the Gay and Lesbian Latino AIDS Education Initiative (GALAEI), and Malcolm Lazin , Executive Director of Equality Forum. There were 29 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) hate crime murders in the United States in 2008. “We must stop the homophobic slaughter,” stated Malcolm Lazin , Executive Directo...

Bay Area Reporter It's been just over a year since Satendar Singh was brutally attacked at a recreation area near Sacramento, allegedly by Russian immigrants who perceived him to be gay. But without the inclusion of sexual orientation in the federal hate crimes law the man authorities believe delivered the fatal blow remains a fugitive from justice. One of those arrested, Alexsander Schevchenko, 22, was sentenced to 150 days in county jail after being found guilty on two misdemeanor charges. "Five months in jail for the murder of a man was a slap on the wrist," Sloan said of the sentence Schevchenko received. "It indicates that if you harm a gay person, chances are its not going to be costly." Sloan believes the attack - according to testimony at Schevchenko's trial and police reports, the perpetrators first sent their families home then called friends for additional back-up - "was a conspiracy and should have been prosecuted as one." Former Sacram...

by James Hipps GayAgenda.com A Texas man convicted of killing a male flight attendant was given a life sentence and was also found guily of a hate crime. Terry Mark Mangum, 27, of Cypress, killed Kenneth Cummings, 46, because he “hated homosexuals” was the Wednesday verdict delivered by a jury. Mangum pleaded not guilty due to insanity. One psychologist said he was “a cauldron of hate.” Another said he wanted to “rid the world of a harvest of sin.” Jeremy Warren, the prosecutor saidm “The sin he focused on was homosexuality.” Mangum has been associated with the infamous church of Fred Phelps . full article

by Mindy Boggs The Huntsville Times We cannot simply dismiss the recent Knoxville Unitarian church shooting with "There's another lunatic among us, and you just never know, so let's beef up security in the parking lot." No, we need to do much more than that. We need to examine "public opinion" and the people and institutions who "shape" that opinion. You do not have to be "crazy," or the town lunatic, to commit murder, as this man did. You just have to believe strongly enough about something. When someone places all responsibility for society's ills (or their personal ills), as they define them, on a group of people who share a different ethnic background, religion, or political beliefs, one may come to hate this group so much, it triggers the desire to commit a crime and "sacrifice" oneself, along with the "guilty" ones. Generalizing, stereotyping, blaming can lead to ideological fanaticism. When we hear it, read ...

CTV.ca News Staff Shirley Phelps-Roper, the daughter of the founding member of the Westboro Baptist Church, told CTV.ca a group of seven members was turned away when they tried to cross the U.S. border into Canada Thursday night. But she said other members managed to get through at another border crossing, although she would not say how many. Phelps-Roper and her church have outraged Canadians by planning to protest Tim McLean's funeral. Members of the ultra-conservative Christian church claim McLean, who was decapitated by a fellow-passenger on a Greyhound bus last month, deserved his fate. Although no member of the group ever met McLean, they claim he lived an immoral and godless life, just like all other Canadians. full article

by Will Moredock The Charleston City Newspaper When Jim Adkisson walked into a Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, Tenn., on July 27 and opened fire with a 12-gauge semiautomatic shotgun, he said he did it because he was angry at "liberals." Among the Americans who called themselves Unitarians were Thomas Jefferson, John and John Quincy Adams, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Adlai Stevenson. There are too many hate-mongers in the pulpits and on the airwaves in America, telling people like Jim Adkisson that the source of their pain is liberals or blacks or homosexuals. (He probably found all three at the Tennessee Valley UU Church on July 27.) So when we hand out responsibility for this tragedy, let's not forget Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Pat Robertson. Without the culture of hate they have been brewing over the last 20 years, this could not have happened. full article

by James Nimmo OpEd News On Sunday, July 27, in Knoxville, TN a Unitarian Universalist Church was turned into an abattoir by a deranged man who shot seven people. Two, so far, have died. The killer is in police custody after being subdued by others in the building. The church, Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, had just recently advertised itself as a welcoming gay/lesbian affirming congregation which means exactly what it sounds like. When was the last time an openly gay/lesbian opened fire on a collection of bible fundies hot with the fire of righteousness for the cause of religious purity? When did you last hear an openly gay/lesbian legislator use their personal privilege on the floor of their state legislature or Congress to lobby for the passage of a bill that would limit any demographic group's aspect of their protection of the law as outlined in the Bill of Rights? To commemorate, but not to honor, this twisted manipulation of the public forum and society I...

By Crystal Carreon The Sacramento Bee Over the past three weeks, jurors heard testimony in the trial of Aleksandr Shevchenko, 22. But by the end of closing statements Thursday, the circumstances that led to the punch that killed 26-year-old Satender Singh appeared just as murky and controversial as they did last July. At issue is whether Singh's death resulted from a hate crime. The jury of six men and six women also will decide whether Shevchenko should be held responsible. related articles full article

By Crystal Carreon, The Sacramento Bee In the trial of Aleksandr Shevchenko, both the prosecutor and the defense attorney reminded jurors Tuesday that the hate-crime case is about perceptions, what people saw and who did what before a punch led to the death of a Fijian man last year. Shevchenko has been charged with two felony counts of penal code 422.7 - hate crimes - for his alleged role in fracas at Lake Natoma last July that led to the death of Satender Singh. He appeared Tuesday in a black dress shirt and pressed slacks, seated next to his attorney in court. Since Singh's death, gay activists and other community groups have focused on the violence at Lake Natoma as a symbol of the tensions between gays and some members of a Slavic evangelical movement that has backed hostile, anti-gay rhetoric. But some members of the Slavic community have charged that Shevchenko is a victim of "political correctness," and that the case against him has been exaggerated. full article

19 year old Makwan Moloudzadeh, accused of homosexual rape when he was age 13 by accusers who have since recanted, was executed without warning last week after a stay of execution in response to international pressures had been granted. In addition to illustrating the arbitrary nature of the so-called Islamic justice system in Iran, something which Iranian expatriates have talked about for years, the fate of Makwan Moloudzadeh illuminates the great risks in relying solely on pressure from international agencies and diplomacy when dealing with the Iranian government. It has been my experience that those who are so very fond of exercising their worldly power do not allow their legal pronouncements to be openly violated without consequence, as apparently has happened here. I am increasingly of the opinion the supreme governor of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the mob itself. full article

COLORADO: It now appears that Matthew Murray, identified as the shooter at the New Life Church had previously worked or volunteered at Youth With A Mission, the site of the first shooting. Also, the two teenage girls killed in Colorado Springs were apparently involved with YWAM, although nothing has been released suggesting Murray actually knew the victims. YWAM is affiliated with Exodus, the ex-gay organization which offers "reparative therapy" to "cure" gays. full story

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — On the first day of July (2007), Satender Singh was gay-bashed to death. The 26-year-old Fijian of Indian descent was enjoying a holiday weekend outing at Lake Natoma with three married Indian couples around his age. Singh was delicate and dateless — two facts that did not go unnoticed by a party of Russian-speaking immigrants two picnic tables away. According to multiple witnesses, the men began loudly harassing Singh and his friends, calling them “7-Eleven workers” and “Sodomites.” The Slavic men bragged about belonging to a Russian evangelical church and told Singh that he should go to a “good church” like theirs. According to Singh’s friends, the harassers sent their wives and children home, then used their cell phones to summon several more Slavic men. The members of Singh’s party, which included a woman six months pregnant, became afraid and tried to leave. But the Russian-speaking men blocked them with their bodies. “We don’t want to fight you either,” one ...