Hate Groups and Religious Intolerance

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Hate Groups and Religious Intolerance

Photograph

By: Steve Liss

Date: October 16, 1998

Source: Liss, Steve. "Hate Groups and Religious Intolerance." Getty Images/Time Life Pictures, 1998.

About the Author: Steve Liss has been a photographer for Time magazine since 1976. He has won numerous awards from the World Press Organization and the National Press Photographers' Association. In 2004, Liss was the recipient of the Soros Criminal Justice Journalism Fellowship for his work on No Place for Children: Voices from Juvenile Detention, a photo-journal examination of incarcerated children.

INTRODUCTION

On October 7, 1998, Matthew Shepard, a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming, was attacked by Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney. He was robbed, beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die. Some eighteen hours later, Shepard was discovered by a passing cyclist, unconscious, but still alive. Shepard died of his injuries in the hospital on October 12, 1998. The photograph depicts a protestor picketing outside Shepard's funeral.

Shepard, a gay man, was believed to have been targeted in the attack for his sexual preference. Friends, family, and gay rights activists were vocal in calling the murder a "hate crime," even though United States federal law and state law in Wyoming did not consider crimes perpetrated on the basis of sexual orientation to be "hate crimes." In 1999, President Bill Clinton introduced legislation to add sexual orientation to the federal hate crimes law. The bill was defeated.

PRIMARY SOURCE

HATE GROUPS AND RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE

See primary source image.

SIGNIFICANCE

Matthew Shepard's murder brought the victimization and discrimination faced by gays and lesbians in the United States into public consciousness. While Shephard lay critically injured in hospital, candlelit vigils were held around the world. Media coverage of the incident and the outpouring of support for Shephard focused on the issue of his sexuality and brought gay-bashing and homophobia into the arena of public debate. Gay rights activists and other supporters argued the need for tougher legislation against hate crimes and the inclusion of homosexuals as a protected group.

However, the coverage of Shepard's murder also brought out anti-gay activists and conservative sentiments. Fred Phelps, the controversial leader of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, and his supporters picketed at vigils and at Shepard's funeral, holding anti-gay placards like the ones depicted here. Phelps is best known for preaching that "God hates gays," and outside of the church where Shepard's funeral was held, he delivered a sermon informing mourners that Matthew Shepard was in hell and that everyone in attendance at the funeral would be going to hell for being "fag-enablers."

When Henderson and McKinney were arrested and charged with Shepard's murder, Phelps and his supporters protested at their trials. Citing biblical references against homosexuality and declaring gays and lesbians to be "an abomination," Phelps and his group have been accused of inciting hate but never prosecuted due to a lack of legislation in the United States. Phelps has been vocally opposed to hate crime legislation in Canada, which protects gays and lesbians and prevents his group from legally picketing and protesting the 2005 legalization of gay marriage. In 1999, when President Bill Clinton proposed the addition of sexual orientation to U.S. federal hate crime legislation, the bill was defeated by a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

Although not all Christians are as vocally or vehemently opposed to homosexuals as Phelps' group, Republican supporters tend to hold conservative views of sexuality, based in biblical theology, that do not look positively on homosexuality. While they do not support the express protection of homosexuals under hate crime law, most Christians in the United States also do not agree with the violent persecution of gays and lesbians, preferring instead to believe that judgment for homosexuality will come from God in the afterlife. Groups such as Fred Phelps' supporters are an active and vocal minority in singling out homosexuals as "evil." Phelps continues to protest actively at gay rights rallies and Pride parades. The Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazi organizations are also staunchly opposed to gay rights and have been involved in the persecution of homosexuals in the United States and elsewhere. However, the actions of these groups are generally given much less legitimacy than Christian organizations.

Attitudes toward the propagation of anti-gay hate speech in the United States are beginning to shift. In a recent response to the actions of Fred Phelps' supporters and other such groups, as of February 7, 2006, thirteen states are considering banning protests near funeral sites immediately before, during, and after the ceremonies. Phelps and his supporters have held "God hates fags" rallies near the funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, prompting Wisconsin, Indiana, and South Dakota to institute bans on such gatherings in early 2006.

Although crimes motivated by sexual orientation are not prosecuted under hate crime legislation in the United States, they are recognized and recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under the auspices of the 1990 Hate Crime Statistics Act. This act acknowledges that hate crimes are not, in fact, a separate class of crimes, but rather that the designation "hate crime" refers to the motive behind the offence. In 1995, 1,019 incidents of victimization prompted by sexual orientation were recorded in the United States. In 2000, there were almost thirteen hundred such incidents, 1,244 in 2002, and in 2004, nearly twelve hundred incidents. While the number fluctuates from year to year, there has not been a significant decrease, despite increased awareness and pleas for tolerance from gay and civil rights activists.

Statistics such as these indicate that more work needs to be done in building understanding and tolerance for differences of sexual orientation and lifestyle in the United States. Anti-gay messages rooted in religious intolerance only contribute to misunderstanding and hatred for homosexual people and can lead to more violent incidents like the murder of Matthew Shepard. Henderson and McKinney are each serving two consecutive life sentences for his killing.