Posts Tagged ‘homophobia’
Update : Arrest Made in Murder of 19 Year Old Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado
9:54 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · crime|GLBT|Puerto Rico|Violence|youth · 7 Comments
17 Nov 2009
Just read this off of Pam’s House Blend and then read the original article off of Primera Hora.
A man was arrested in the early morning hours in Cayay, suspected in the death of 19 year old Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado…an apparent homophobic hate crime…Sources say that the 28 year old man may have offered Lopez Mercado money for sex.
This case needs to be closely monitored for what may be the double victimization of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado. There may be an attempt to paint this as a crime of passion, “gay panic”, and/or “prostitution gone bad” instead of the horrific act of hateful violence it was.
Organizations Asking Department of Justice to Intervene in Murder Case of Jorge Steven López Mercado
6:41 am By Maegan La Mala · GLBT|Puerto Rico|Violence|youth · Comments Off
17 Nov 2009
Yesterday la Macha wrote about the horrific murder of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado in Puerto Rico.
Some organizations are calling for the intervention of the United States Department of Justice, especially in light of comments that the local police investigator on the case made in the media:
The local police investigator assigned to the case said to Univisión about the victim: “Someone like that, who does those kind of things, and goes out in public, knows full well that this might happen to him.”…Puerto Rico’s Civil Rights Commission and Puerto Rico Para Tod@s, a local activist organization, have asked the Puerto Rico Police Department to take disciplinary action against Rodriguez. The PRPD has removed the investigator from the case, but local activists plan to protest outside the territorial capital in San Juan on Thursday. They also plan to hold a vigil later this week.
The Puerto Rican government added sexual orientation to its hate crimes laws in 2002, but Serrano complained local police have not used it to prosecute those accused of anti-gay violence. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has announced it will take jurisdiction over the case if local investigators conclude López’s killer or killers murdered him because of his sexual orientation.
A Tale of Two Rallies : Latinos Speak for and Against Marriage Equity in NYC
7:49 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|GLBT|Linking Latinos|New York City · Comments Off
19 May 2009Andrés Duque from Blabbeando has some great video and pictures from two very different rallies that took place this past Sunday here in NYC. Both rallies dealt with the lives of GLBT people and both had Latinos speaking on the issues.
First here’s Ugly Betty‘s Ana Ortiz (no relation), speaking at a rally organized by Broadway Impact and co-sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, the Empire State Pride Agenda, Marriage Equality New York, the Civil Rights Front and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS
Republican Congresswoman: Matthew Shepard Case “a Hoax”
3:42 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Controversia|crime|GLBT|North Carolina|Politics|society · 4 Comments
29 Apr 2009In 1998, Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered for being gay, drawing attention to the problem of hate crimes against LGBT people in this country and becoming a catalyst for much needed hate crime legislation. Since then, the Shepard case has been a cultural reference point both in the good and the bad sense; hate mongers like Fred Phelps have used Shepard as the target of their disgusting campaigns, and the general public has become more aware of hate crimes as a result of this much-publicized crime.
We all know this brutal murder was a hate crime. But one Republican Congresswoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, wants you think otherwise. Check out her speech on the subject in the video above.
Might this be a good example of the reasons why Senator Arlen Specter believes his party has moved too far to the right?
Angry? Give Rep. Foxx a call and tell her so: DC office Phone: (202) 225-2071 NC District office: Toll Free: 1(866) 677-8968 Phone: (828) 265-0240
Via / Politico
Homophobic Bullying Leads to a Child’s Suicide
11:38 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · children|GLBT|society|youth · 3 Comments
21 Apr 2009
If you think kids calling other kids gay and taunting them for their sexual orientation is child’s play, think again. A child in Atlanta, 11 year-old Jaheem Herrera, took his own life last week after being tormented by schoolmates who called him gay.
Masika Bermudez said her son was being consistently bullied at school. She said she had complained to the school, and she said it was her 10-year-old daughter who alerted her to the stress Jaheem was under.
Channel 2 Action News reporter Pam Martin went to speak to Jaheem’s mother Monday.
“She said, ‘Ma, did you know they called Jaheem gay again today in school,’” said Bermudez.
Bermudez said bullies at school had called Jaheem “gay” and had taunted him about his accent. She said when he came home Thursday and she asked him about it, he denied it. She sent him to his room to calm down. That was the last time she saw him alive.
Little Jaheem hung himself with a belt after school on April 16th.
Read more…
Second Attacker of Jose Sucuzhanay Arrested and Claims Self-Defense
7:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · GLBT|Immigration|New York · Comments Off
2 Mar 2009
Last week I wrote how one of the men who killed Jose Sucuzhanay in a racist and homophobic hate crime in Brooklyn was arrested. A second arrest has been made. Keith Phoenix was arrested on last Friday and is claiming that the fatal beating was provoked when Jose and his brother kicked the car door Phoenix was driving and that Jose looked like he was reaching for a weapon.
During Phoenix’s arraignment, his lawyer Jay Schwitzman told the court, “Mr. Phoenix went to break up the fight, and during the fight, there was a weapon brandished by the deceased…It is not gay bashing or a hate crime.” The lawyer also countered Friday’s accounts from Police Commissioner Ray Kelly that painted Phoenix as a cold-blooded killer who questioned, “What’s the big deal?” Schwitzman said that Phoenix is “remorseful and he recognizes the seriousness” of the accusations against him.
No weapon was recovered at the scene to my knowledge.
What disturbs me most about this defense is how it sounds like the defenses we have heard so many times coming from police officers who brutalize people, especially in people of color communities. Often the defense of “I thought he had a gun” has been enough to excuse brutal police behavior. I’m thinking cases like Amadou Diallo and Anibal Carrasquillo where no gun was ever found. To have people of color use this defense for the murder of another person of color really bothers me. To have this defense used for a homophobic murder really bothers me.
It makes me wonder how do we within people of color communities talk about and deal with how divide and conquer politics are contributing to anti-immigrant hate? How are we dealing with the homophobia we see in our communities. How do we build coalitions that create space to talk about these things and recognize and act together against hate crimes based on race and identity?
Via/ Gothamist
Colombian Lesbian Students Not Wanted at Their School
10:00 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Colombia|GLBT · Comments Off
29 Apr 2008The following video should horrify you. It shows two young Colombian women, returning to register at their high school after a court ordered that they be allowed to go back to school. The student body is gathered outside, screaming: “We don’t want them!”. Why would the 16 and 17 year
girls need a court order to get an education? Why do the students and the principal not want these girls in the school. The girls are lesbians and were expelled. According to the principal, the girls were expelled for disciplinary reasons. The court disagreed and ruled that the principal was “unclear” in the reasons for letting the students go.
Despite the “We don’t want you” shouts one of the students that organized the protest – who is shown with her face against the camera – insists that the protest is not against the two girls but a defense of the dignity of the school’s students. “They [claim] that we are school purely made up by lesbians, and, no, things aren’t like that,” she tells Caracol.
Colombian School Principal : No Pal to Two Lesbian Students
8:00 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Colombia|GLBT|youth · Comments Off
28 Apr 2008The following video and story via / Blabbeando horrified me. It shows Colombian high schoolers returning to school after a court decided that the two teenage girls were wrongly expelled for being lesbians. When the girls went back to register, they were greeted with other students screaming, “We don’t want them.” One student in the video clip said that she supported the principal’s original decision because now everyone thinks that the school is full of lesbians. The principal maintains that they were expelled for disciplinary reasons not because they were lesbians and that her autonomy was violated.
Who is really getting their rights violated here? See the video after the jump.
Brazilian judge: “Soccer is for men, not for gays”
12:40 pm By Maegan La Mala · Brazil|Controversia|GLBT|Justice|Sports · Comments Off
14 Aug 2007
A judge in Brazil thinks that gays shouldn’t be playing soccer. Apparently, they aren’t “manly” enough.
The whole thing started when a player for Sao Paulo, one Richarlyson Barbosa Felisbino, charged that the manager for rival team Palmeiras hinted that he was gay on television. Richarlyson went to the courts to plead a defamation case. All good up until there.
The judge for the case turned out to be a major homophobe and threw out the case. Writer and blogger William K. Wolfrum translated the rambling ruling in a recent blog entry:
“It’s not that a homosexual can’t play ball. If he wants, then play it. However, form his own team and start another federation. Schedule games with those that prefer to fight against themselves.”
Scarface: AI’s new Spanish campaign
5:45 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Activism|GLBT|society|Spain · Comments Off
21 Feb 2006
Amnesty International wants to draw the attention of Spanish citizens to the consequences faced by gays and lesbians in less-tolerant parts of the world. The result is a campaign featuring Spain’s most prominent gay celebs with their faces mangled and bloodied as if from the violent blows of an anti-gay hate crime.
La campaña de publicidad, lanzada en Internet y prensa, utiliza la cara de estos artistas españoles para mostrar las “terribles consecuencias” de ser homosexual en algunos países del mundo. “Las imágenes son muy impactantes y llegan a la gente.
Hola!
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