I normally don’t respond to DI opinion pieces, because they typically lack arguments cogent enough to warrant response. But today I read this piece about the death of Matthew Shepard 10 years ago, and the lack of “progress” on hate crime legislation since then. For the record, I happen to like the author’s work a lot, and I applaud here for bringing up that October is LGBT history month.

10 years ago, two boys took a homosexual out to an open field, tied him to a fence, beat him within an inch of his life, abandoned him, and a few days later, on October 12th, he died. This Sunday will mark the ten year anniversary.

The victim was Matthew Shepard, and he was killed for being gay.

I had the honor and the privilege of performing in The Laramie Project last fall, a play which was compiled of interviews of people involved in the story of Matthew Shepard, and the town of Laramie, Wyoming where this crime happened. And I had the further honor of performing Dennis Shepard’s statement. The statement Matthew’s father read in court at the trial of Aaron McKinney, one of Matthew’s attackers. I cried the first time I saw the play, when I read it later, when I auditioned for the role, and when I performed that piece. Someone asked me after one of the performances: How can you cry like that?

How can you not?

Dennis Shepard’s statement to the court was made because the prosecution in the trial of one of Matthew’s assailants said that they would defer to the wishes of the family as to whether or not to pursue the death penalty. Dennis Shepard said that Matthew would not want Aaron McKinney put to death.

As I’ve previously written (and you can see in my “LGBT” archive), I am a donor to the Human Rights Campaign, and I’ve used this blog before to talk about my support of LGBT issues. I have advocated for them in the past, and will continue to in the future.

Except for one part of the LGBT agenda: Hate Crime Legislation.

I believe that Americans deserve equal protection before the law. Which is why I support gay marriage, gay rights, and stricter anti-discriminatory legislation.

And it means that I can not support hate crime laws, that impose stricter punishments than perpetrators would get otherwise.

Also, it’s a legislation of thought, I haven’t seen conclusive evidence that it actually deters hate crime, and I think it could establish unsettling legal precedents.

I’ll entertain arguments that it does deter hate crimes, that is enforces the call for tolerance with law, or that perhaps, it is not equal, but that it is fair.

In my eyes, America must be a country so unimpeachable in her defense of freedom that people are free - even to hate.

There are limits to the freedom of expressing that hatred, and they must be enforced. But the truest freedom is the right to govern one’s own mind, and it must be protected, even if that means protecting bigots.

That’s what “equality for all” means. And we must realize that dedicating ourselves to the principle of equality is not without sacrifice.

To me, hate crime legislation is simple. It’s vengeance.

It’s a regulatory expression for hatred of those who hate. And that is a fight that no one will win. We want people to be equal, and that is not without consequence.

It is of the utmost importance that our generation push for tolerance.
And then acceptance.
And then legal equality.
And then real equality.

Hate crime laws make things less equal, not more.

And it doesn’t stop at equal treatment before the law. We must reach out to those who oppose the LGBT agenda with understanding, respect, and compassion. With trust, and even with love.

Those are the better angels of our nature. And the measure by which we ought to judge progress.

Not how hard we punish the unenlightened, the fearful, or the hateful.

In Dennis Shepard’s statement, he specifically says that he does not forgive his son’s killer. In fact, he says the he will never forgive Aaron McKinney. But then he extends mercy to McKinney anyway. Because it was the right thing to do.

It wasn’t hard to cry when I performed the speech as part of The Laramie Project. Nor is it now. Because it’s easy to understand Dennis Shepard’s conflict. He knows the quality of mercy is not strained. But he feels in that moment, that it is straining on those who extend it.

10 years have passed, and important progress has been made. America is making strides towards a truly equal people.

But we are not there yet. We won’t be until we have created a society where what happened to Matthew Shepard, can not happen again. To anyone. For any reason.

We have failed Matthew, in that regard. And we have failed ourselves.

Which only means we must try harder. And we must try in the most loving, the most compassionate, the wisest way possible. Because that is the way that we’ll win.

Rest in peace, Matthew.

We’re trying real hard to make that possible for you. We know you’re disappointed.

So we’ll shape up.

I do so hate to cut in on With Tongue’s turf, but seriously, you should come out to the Big Gay BBQ, this Friday from 5-9. I’ll be there.

I’ve written a few times in the past about LGBT issues, and recently wrote about donating the the Human Rights Campaign, I feel like my credentials as an “ally” (meaning not gay, but not a fuckhead) are pretty solid. Allies are people who are straight, pro-LGBT agenda, and accepting of LGBT members. We’re the last letter of the LGBTQA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Allies, if you were wondering). The completion of the picture, those who are “in” with the “out” crowd, so to speak.

When I made a donation to the HRC, I thought, “At last, I’m putting my money where my mouth is.”

But can I now take a further step and put my mouth where the meat is?

Barbecued meat to be exact.

Over the summer, I read a lot about changes being made in the LGBT programs here in Champaign, and With Tongue has covered a lot of it, and is continuing to do so. I also vaguely recall reading an Op-ed piece with much the same point that I have today, so writer who I vaguely remember from the DI, sorry if you feel like I’m stealing your stuff.

Ally really means, “I have gay friends, and I care about LGBT issues.” There’s got to be more to it than that. Active participation is the next step, and so that’s why I’ll be attending the LGBT cookout in Illini Grove this Friday from 5-9 (how about some more free promotion?). Because calling yourself tolerant, or progressive, or an “ally” is one thing. Writing pro-LGBT blogs that people might read in between pornographic websites is a little bit more than nomenclature, but actually getting up and participating is a set apart.

The LGBT agenda is a fledgling enterprise in most parts of the country. I’m so liberal minded that I think its progression is guaranteed, even if very slowly, to ultimately succeed. But that’s not true. You can still get beaten to death for being a faggot. That’s the ugly truth of it. I predict that it will, in the years to come, become a much more aggressively debated issue as various humanist, and especially progressive religious movements take up the cause. But there is a tipping point in such a young social agenda. And in order to reach that point where equality becomes inevitable, people must stand up and be counted, that’s how the opinion of the silent majority is changed, by the loud minority.

So come on down, if you want to. Be counted.

Also, have a hot dog.

I was a Boy Scout for a long time. From the ages of 5 to 16. If you do anything for 11 years, it can’t help but influence you heavily. The only thing I’ve done longer is theater, (8-present day), and that only passed scouting this last year.

I don’t remember all the knots, or first aid, or how to build a wilderness shelter (although I did know all that stuff at one point). Boy Scouts don’t deliver on their rhetoric to mold young minds into men, at least not to the extent that they seem to promise it. But they do teach a lot about leadership, socialization, teamwork, and independence for the kids who care to learn. Boy Scouts claims to teach morality in a vaguely 1950’s way to young American boys.

And I did well in scouts. I was the youngest Senior Patrol leader my troop had ever had, and moved from Star to Life scout faster than anyone in my troop of sixty some boys. I earned all the merit badges I could, and I worked for a few weeks as a counselor at Camp Napowan, the boy scout summer camp my troop went to. They call it “earning” merit badges, including my favorites, citizenship in the nation and citizenship in the community. The implication, sometimes more than an implication, that as a boy scout you earn strength of character and morality along the way.

When I reached Life scout (the last step before the prestigious Eagle, for those of you who don’t know, or are female), I was 16, and had a whole two years to move to Eagle, and I nearly did it.

At thirteen or fourteen I stopped selling wreaths and popcorn for my troop, because the boy scouts discriminate against gays and atheists. And I was uncomfortable with that. I didn’t want an organization with policies that promoted discrimination to profit from my selling stupid shit, like wreaths and popcorn.

When I was 16 I finally understood what Eagle Scout means on a college application, and less than a year away from applying, and knowing that there were colleges I could get into as an Eagle that I couldn’t get into with scouting off my application, I quit the boy scouts after eleven years.

I stopped selling stuff for boy scouts because I didn’t want to profit what I viewed as an unethical organization. I quit before getting Eagle, and left scouting off my applications and job resumes, because I didn’t want to profit myself from that same unethical group.

Now, there’s only so much you can do when it comes to this sort of thing. Everyone is a part of different groups, different organizations, and a lot of them, on one level or another, are unethical. (I’m looking at you, University of Illinois’s response to on campus hate crime). And it’s easy to ignore it, for the most part, but at some point you have to confront it. You need to have the force of will to say that you’re uncomfortable with associating yourself with something that you believe in your heart of hearts is wrong. And to continue to be a part of it makes you complicit in that organizations transgressions. Of course, I learned a lot about this particular thing from my experience in Boy Scouts. The last line of the scout oath is “To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” Unfortunately for the Boy Scouts, I was both mentally awake at 16, and made an effort to be morally straight by quitting.

I’m writing this because today I got a new merit badge, my Human Rights Campaign bumper sticker. I donated $25 to the HRC for their campaign to defeat proposition 8 in California, and end the sad legacy of legislating morality in America. “Legislating morality” is an unfair description, Proposition 8 is legislating hate. Further, it’s an attempt to make discrimination part of a state constitution, and that is something that neither the citizens of California, or any American anywhere should tolerate.

Human Rights (For Everyone Human)

And the feeling as I put my Equal symbol on my car today was familiar.

I felt like I earned it.

A big thank you to the DI for their coverage yesterday of the hug in and the attack, and their editorial in today’s opinion section. I’m glad the story got some press, even if it was a little late. Also, thank you to the readers here and everyone who cares enough to take this hate crime seriously. The more I talk to people about this, the more impressed I am with the people who want a response, want to be informed, and want to see something done about it.

I’m still waiting for a response from the university. But I can hear what they’ll say in my head.
ring

Warrior Poet: Hello?

Voice: Carl, this is Richard Herman and Joseph White.

WP: Both of you?

Whitey: Yes. We’re three-waying you.

WP: OK. What’s up?

Dicky: We read your blog about the hate crime.

Whitey: Nice picture on the217 homepage, by the by.

WP: Thanks. That was Roseanne’s doing.

Dicky: Score.

Whitey: Anyway, we wanted to talk to you about this “accident.”

Dicky: Yes, this supremely isolated event that didn’t even really happen to a “student.”

WP: Actually, Steven is a student. Although, I haven’t been able to find out if his attacker was too.

Whitey: Alleged attacker, Carl. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.

WP: Of course.

Dicky: Now, as you are well aware, the Inclusive Illinois program addresses creating a more tolerant campus.

WP: Like, a hate crime-free campus?

Dicky: Sure, why not.

Whitey: So we wanted to call you to assuage your fears about hate crimes on campus, that may or may not have happened.

Dicky: Joe and I are very concerned about this sort of thing, and we wanted you to know we have it covered.

WP: How? It happened, didn’t it?

Dicky: That’s an interesting point. We’ll have the board of trustees set up a discovery committee to see whether or not this did or didn’t happen, then they can report to the trustees the results of the fact finding commission.

WP: And then campus will be safer, and measures will be put in place to prevent violent crimes in the heart of campus?

Whitey: Well, we do already have the QuadCam. So…

Dicky: And of course, the Champaign Police department.

WP: Yeah, I saw one of them give three guys tickets for jay-walking two days after a student was attacked because his attacker assumed he was gay.

Whitey: See? Crack down on Jaywalking! Wonderful, Isn’t it?

WP: Why don’t you have the student patrol just walk up and down Green St and some nearby cross streets from midnight to 3 AM? They wouldn’t bother the general student population because we know they can’t write tickets. But their presence would deter violent crimes committed against students in the heart of campus. I mean, the program already exists, so it wouldn’t be that hard to redirect those resources to making a safer, hate-crime free campus?

Whitey: The student patrol already has a purpose: Telling people to not have fun too loud.

Dicky: We’d have to set up a committee to form a committee to investigate the need for creating a prototype committee to evaluate the need for a committee to oversee a committee to do that.

WP: So…a massmail in response to the attack and a few empty gestures towards creating a more tolerant campus.

Whitey: Woah, Carl. Those empty gestures already exist. It’s called Inclusive Illinois, remember. We had like, guest speakers and stuff.

Dicky: And we can’t just send out a massmail for everything, Carl. You know I don’t write one for anything less than marginally racist greek parties. Or to tell students that there isn’t a snow day.

Whitey: Yeah, that was a good one.

Dicky: I mean, a massmail to inform students that there was a hate crime on campus and that something is being done to prevent it from happening again? That’s a lot of work. Every time I write a massmail it has to be copy-edited by the entire English department. That’s how they pull their weight.

WP: Adjunct faculty, too?

Whitey: No, they’re not real professors. Or people. They’re like migrant farm workers.

Dicky: And compensated similarly. HIIIIIOOOOO!

WP: So…no response to a hate crime on campus against a student in the LGBT community?

Whitey: We called you, didn’t we?
click

When I posted last Friday about the day of silence, I had just found out about the attack on a university student that occurred two weeks earlier. I thought I just, by chance and my busy life, hadn’t heard about the hate crime against a university student on campus. I was wrong.

As far as I know, the DI never reported it. I guess nobody had the journalistic acumen to alert the student population about a HATE CRIME ON CAMPUS. But, what’s two weeks late in print journalism, right? Maybe they did know about it, and just didn’t think we’d want to read it. I think that’s why they never do stories about the number or rapes reported on campus. It’s just icky.

But from what I understand of the attack, the perpetrator was caught and is out on bail awaiting trial. And the attack was on a university student. These two things mean that the University knows about the attack, and said nothing.

This makes me very angry, and I find it difficult to express this level of anger in this medium. The only tool available to me is caps lock so I’ll have to make due with that:

WHERE’S RICHARD HERMAN’S MASSMAIL WITH HIS EMPTY WORDS? WHY DIDN’T HE TELL ME ABOUT THE HATE CRIME ON CAMPUS? WHERE’S HIS FORM LETTER TO TELL ME THAT THE UNIVERSITY IS REALLY A SAFE PLACE AND THAT THE SCHOOL IS COMMITTING ALL POSSIBLE RESOURCES TO PROMOTING TOLERANCE ON CAMPUS?

You know what would be a good measure for the board of trustees programs in development for a more inclusive Illinois? How about going a year without a hate crime committed against a student? That’d be a good benchmark.

Now, I’m trying to contact several people to figure out why nobody heard how a student was called a faggot and knocked unconscious in what is, ostensibly, the safest part of campus. Maybe there’s a good reason that nobody said anything at all. Maybe Chancellor Richard (or as I call him, Dick) had a good reason to not tell us about the physical violence towards a gay student, but to piss in my ear all the time about racially-themed parties.

Now I’m in the blogosphere, which is the opposite of journalism. But as a side note to these last two posts, if something like this happens in the future, and nobody has the balls to say something about it, please, tell me. It turns out I’ve got a bigger set than Old Dick Herman.

Now, I’m not railing against old chancy because I think he, or the university at large is responsible for hate crimes. They’re perpetrated by individuals. But they are perpetuated by a society that says nothing about them. If you don’t stand up when something like this happens and say, “THIS, is unacceptable. I will not stand for it,” then you make it seem like it’s not that big a deal.

It is that big a deal.

Today is the Day of Silence, which if you don’t know, you should acquaint yourself by reading this Buzz article. In short, people are silent to raise awareness of the ways that members of the LGBT community are silenced. Partially as a memorial to the victims of deadly hate crimes, and partially as a call for action and acceptance of the community.

I will not be participating in the silence for two reasons: I’m not really a part of the community (much as I support their cause) and I have to go to work today, and my job is making phone calls.

But it’s an important day to me anyways. I once heard a (very wrong) man argue that the Day of Silence was a fundamentally stupid form of social demonstration. He seemed to think it should be a day of Speaking Out. That’s not the purpose.

This is not a personal matter to me, and yet it is very personal. I don’t stand for the rights of the gay community because I have close gay friends (which, not to diminish their contribution, seems to be the most prevalent drive among “allies”). I’m for it because it’s the right damn thing to do.

When I was thirteen, my confirmation class went to the taping of a Christian talk show called Different Drummer. When it came time to ask questions of the two guest pastors and the moderator my question was (roughly) this:

“In Leviticus it says that ‘A man shall not lie with another man as he lies with a woman. God hates that.’ How can God hate?”

The moderator and one of the pastors just looked totally befuddled, but the third pastor (a woman, I might add) gave an answer that allowed me to keep my faith (this was a big moment for me at the time):

“The Bible tells us that God is Love. And so what is not of Love, is not of God.”

I digress.

The Day of Silence is deeply moving to me. Because when I read about the victims of hate crimes, many of which go unreported if it doesn’t result in a death, I can not help but cry. When I think of how so many people are silenced. Through violence, or intimidation, or just plain oversight. The number of children who are just discovering who they are, but then are taught through bigoted comments and outright spite to sit down and be quiet. To not bother the rest of us. The rest of us “normal” people. To try to hide who they are so we don’t feel uncomfortable. The people, the children, the men and women who we treat as a nuisance at best. Human beings are capable of inflicting great tortures on one another, and so they often do.

When I read statistics about how gay teens are more likely to attempt suicide than their straight counterparts. And then I realize that the word “attempt” doesn’t mean they always fail. I will admit that I’m crying as I write this, because this kind of suffering is different.

It’s one thing to hate a person. Hatred is actually a higher level of connection than most human emotions. To me the Day of Silence has nothing to do with hatred. It’s not an attempt to stop hatred. It’s an attempt by a group that is dehumanized to be recognized as what they are: Human.

From my limited powers of deductive reasoning, I think that human beings exist for one of two reasons: To harness nuclear power or to exalt the human spirit. I tend to lean towards the latter. And if I’m right, then there is not greater cause than the elimination of the depression of that sprit.

A student on campus was a victim of a hate crime two weeks ago. Right on Green St. Right where it’s supposed to be safe. I can’t stand for people to be afraid that way.

Tonight (or tomorrow if it rains on us too much) there is going to be a hug-in on Green St. See the Facebook event here. I’ll see you then.