Father of Orlando Mass Murderer Apologizes, Clarifies (Video)

www.advocate.com/crime/2016/6/13/father-orlando-mass-murderer-apologizes-clarifies-video

Fear and Pride in Los Angeles

Pride took on an air of mourning after the shooting at an Orlando gay bar.

www.advocate.com/pride/2016/6/13/fear-and-pride-los-angeles

25 Violent Attacks at Gay Bars That Preceded Orlando’s Horrific Nightclub Massacre

When a radiant President Obama declared June LGBTQ Pride month, he told the American people that “despite the extraordinary progress of the past few years, LGBT Americans still face discrimination simply for being who they are.” Nobody could have imagined how that statement would take on a tragic enormity just days later.

Sunday, Obama addressed the American LGBTQ community and the rest of the nation again to talk about the worst mass shooting in our history. He talked about the unthinkable contrast of the horror that happened in the early hours of Sunday morning in Orlando: “The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub — it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights.”

Less than two weeks before the country prepares to celebrate one year of marriage equality, the sight of two men kissing on the street is terrifying enough to someone that a hatred-fueled massacre we experienced at the Pulse in Orlando can be the result.

Unfortunately, Orlando is hardly the first major deadly attack against an LGBT bar or landmark.

Until today, the deadliest attack had been in New Orleans, over 40 years ago. On the week when the LGBT community celebrated its fourth Gay Pride — four years after Stonewall —  an arsonist set fire to the Upstairs Lounge at the French Quarter, killing 32 people on June 24, 1973. No suspect was ever charged.

On Nov. 18, 1980 a man named Ronald K. Crumpley opened fire outside the Ramrod bar in Greenwich Village in New York City. He said he believed gay men were agents of the devil, stalking him and ”trying to steal my soul just by looking at me.” His father, a minister, said in his testimony that Crumpley maybe had a ”a homosexual problem himself.”

On April 28, 1990 at Uncle Charlie’s, another gay bar in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, three men were injured in an explosion possibly caused by a pipe bomb.  The police didn’t immediately arrest anyone for the crime. Five years later, federal prosecutors accused El Sayyid A. Nosair for bombing Uncle Charlie’s, planning to blow up New York City landmarks and killing a rabbi in 1990. They said Nosair, a muslim, attacked the bar because he objected to homosexuality on religious grounds according to report from the New York Times. In 1996, he was convicted of planning to wage a “war of urban terrorism” and was sentenced to life in prison.

Jon Christopher Buice is serving a 45-year sentence for the killing of Paul Broussard in Houston, Texas on July 4, 1991. Buice and nine of his friends tried go into several bars in a gay area of Montrose, but they were refused entry. They then attacked Buice and two other friends with nail-studded wooden planks, a knife, and steel-toed boots outside Heaven, a gay bar in the city’s heavily LGBT Montrose district.

On Feb. 21, 1997 a nail-laden device exploded at the Otherside Lounge, a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta. Five people were wounded. Eric Rudoplh confessed to the Otherside Lounge bombing, as well as the Atlanta Olympics bombings, and abortion clinics in Atlanta and Birmingham. “Homosexuality is an aberrant sexual behavior,” he wrote in a statement. “Like other humans suffering from various disabilities homosexuals should not attempt to infect the rest of society with their particular illness.”

Two people were killed and 81 were injured after a bomb exploded in a gay bar in London’s Soho, on April 30, 1999. The blast happened at the busy Admiral Duncan pub in the center of London’s very gay neighborhood at the start of a holiday weekend. Just like the Orlando tragedy, the attack happened in a place where people go to socialize and escape. Peter Tatchell, spokesman for the gay rights group OutRage!, said: “A lot of gay people saw the Old Compton Street area as a safe haven.They felt able to relax and hold hands without fear of attack. This outrage has destroyed that cosy assumption.”

In Roanoke, Virginia on Sept. 22, 2000, a man called Ronald Gay asked directions to a gay bar so he could “shoot some people.” He then walked calmly into the Backstreet Cafe on a Friday night, ordered a beer, and  opened fire. He killed one person and injured six. Gay told police he didn’t like being called Gay. He also said it was his mission to make all gays move to San Francisco, which he thought would end AIDS. “He said he was shooting people to get rid of, in his words, ‘faggots,’” Lieutenant William Althoff of the Roanoke police was quoted as saying. He was sentenced to four life terms.

18-year-old Jacob D. Robida walked into a bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts in the evening of February 2, 2006. He asked the bartender if he was at a gay bar, ordered a couple of beers, and moved to the back of the bar, watching a game of pool briefly before taking out a hatchet — a small ax the size of a hammer. The bartender told CNN the man “started swinging the hatchet on top of this customer’s head”. He also struck a second patron with the hatchet, pulled out a gun and shot the first victim in the face and the second twice in the head, Phillip said. A third person also was shot in the abdomen. He killed himself three days later.

At the San Diego Gay Pride festival in July 30, 2006, six men were attacked with baseball bats and knives after leaving the Pride festival. The attackers used anti-gay slurs as they beat the victims. One almost died. Four men pleaded guilty in connection with the attacks and received prison sentences from two years and 11 months to 11 years.

20-year-old Sean William Kennedy was walking to his car outside Brew’s Bar in Greenville, South Carolina on May 16, 2007 when a car approached him. A young man got out, called him a faggot and punched him in the face so hard that caused his brain to disconnect from his brain stem.The killer, 19-year-old Stephen Moller, left the scene and let Kennedy die from his injury. He was sentenced to five years for involuntary manslaughter, but his sentence was reduced to three, because he was father. His mother said he later “left a message on one of the girl’s phones who knew Sean, saying, ‘You tell your faggot friend that when he wakes up he owes me $500 for my ‘broken hand!’”

Osvan Inácio dos Santos was leaving a gay bar in Arapicara a small city in the Alagoas, Northeast of Brazil with a group of friends, after he won a local ‘Miss Gay’ competition on Sept. 15, 2007. On the way home, he got separated from the group. They tried contacting him, but he didn’t answer. His body was found a day later. He’d been raped and beaten to death. Tedy Marques, president of the Alagoas Gay Group, said that “Homophobia is one of the worst problems Brazil faces. It is unacceptable that every other day in our country a homosexual is brutally murdered.”

Lance Neve was with his boyfriend and another friend at Snuggery’s Bar in Spencerport, New York on March 7, 2008 when a man named Jesse D. Parsons approached the group. He said he wanted to shake Neve’s hand because he had never shaken a gay man’s hand before, but Neve refused. Parsons then beat him up and left him unconscious. He was transported to an area hospital, where he was treated for a fractured skull, nose, left eye socket and upper jaw bone and blood on the brain. During his hearing, he told the court that “while he didn’t mean to hurt Neve as badly as he did, Neve deserved it.” He was sentenced to five years and a half in jail, and was ordered to pay $24,000 for Neve’s medical expenses.  

Tony Randolph Hunter, was beaten outside the Be Bar Nightclub in Washington DC by 19-year-old Robert Hannah. He later died from the injuries on September 7, 2008. Hannah was sentenced to 6 months in jail and ordered to pay $50 in court costs. 

On March 1, 2009, three friends threw concrete blocks at patrons inside Robert’s Lafitte Bar, in Galveston, Texas injuring two men. One of the victims, Marc Bosaw, required 12 staples in his head. One of the three suspects later told police their intent was to target homosexuals, said Galveston Police Department Lt.D.J. Alvarez. The trio also hurled homophobic insults, authorities said.

On April 11, 2009 Justin Goodwin was attacked at a bar in Gloucester, Massachusetts by as many as five people, who were using anti-gay remarks. The bashing left him blind in one eye, and deaf in one year. He committed suicide two years later.

On August 29, 2009 a shooting took place at a LGBT youth center in Tel Aviv. Two people died, 15 were injured. Most of them minors. A man named Hagai Feliciano was indicted for murder and a hate crime in 2013, but the charges were dropped in 2014. While not technically a bar, it is the equivalent for LGBT youth – a place of sanctuary and empowerment.

In New York City, a man named Frederick Giunta was charged and arrested on October 17, 2010 for allegedly attacking and assaulting people in two bars in Greenwich Village: Ty’s Bar on Christopher Street and nearby Julius Bar on W 10th St hurling anti-gay remarks. According to NYPD officials, Giunta has a history of committing crimes by targeting men at gay bars. The attack happened two weeks before the NYPD arrested two men on charges they attacked a patron inside the bathroom at Stonewall Inn. 

In October of 2010, two men were arrested after attacking a man in the bathroom at the iconic Stonewall Inn in New York City. The suspects reportedly told the man, “We don’t like gay bars, and we don’t piss next to faggots” before the assault began. He later refused to apologize to the victim, because he has no regrets. “I’m not going to say sorry, because I don’t know what I should be sorry for,” said Francis, who also insisted he’s not a homophobe. “I don’t hate gay people. I don’t hate anybody.”

On October 25, 2011 a man sprayed 21-year-old Russel Banks with liquid fuel and threw a lit match at him at the Rainbow and Dove gay bar in Leicester City, England. Banks suffered third degree burns to 20 percent of his body.

On the first minutes of New Year’s Day, 2014 a man named Musab Masmari poured gasoline in a stairway to the balcony at the Neighbours Nightclub in Seattle, where 750 had gone to celebrate the New Year. An unidentified informant told the FBI that, in the numerous conversations after their first meeting, Masmari often expressed a “distaste for homosexual people,” and that Masmari “opined that homosexuals should be exterminated.” He was arrested a month later, and sentenced for 10 years in prison.

On June 1, 2014 two friends were killed after they left R Place, a gay club in Seattle. Ali Muhammad Brown confessed to the killings. He contacted the men via a hook-up app like Grindr, met them after they left  the club and then shot them multiple times and killed them. Brown told the police the murders were a “bloody crusade” to punish the U.S. government for its foreign policies.

After months of violent anti-gay attacks, Central Station, Russia’s largest  gay club closed its doors on March 27, 2014. The club was considered one of the only symbols of freedom for Russian’s LGBT community.

On October 1, 2014 a man named Wayne Odegard shot a man at the Salon, a popular gay bar in Minneapolis. He was passing by the bar when he saw two men kissing. He grabbed his gun, yelled “f**cking faggots,” and shot at them, injuring one. Odgegard admitted to police he said ‘faggots’ before the shooting, and said that seeing men kissing pisses him off.” He also recited a passage from Deuteronomy. 

On March 22, 2016 a transgender woman was sexually violated inside a bathroom at the Stonewall Inn. According to the NYPD, she said that a man came into the bathroom claiming he only needed to wash his hands, but then proceeded to grope and rape her. 

On April 8, 2016, an employee of a popular West Hollywood gay bar was attacked as he left the bar walking towards his car on an apparent hate crime. The person who attacked him took his wallet, but never used his credit card.

A few hours after the Pulse massacre in Orlando, on the West Coast the LAPD might have stopped another tragedy before it happened. 20-year-old Wesley Howell, a man from Indiana, was arrested on his way to attend the LA Pride festival, allegedly with an arsenal of weapons. Officials found him in a car with three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines, ammunition and a 5-gallon bucket with chemicals that could be used to create an explosive device.

These attacks should remind us all that we must remain vigilant while there are still people out there who remain so threatened by the sight of two men having a simple kiss that they will resort to violence to stop it.

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Pastor Steven Anderson Celebrates ’50 Less Pedophiles in the World’ After Orlando Attacks: WATCH

Notorious anti-gay pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona decided to ‘look on the bright side’ after the attacks in Orlando on Sunday and celebrate what he called the “good news” that came out of the shooting: “there’s 50 less pedophiles in this world.”

Anderson said, “These homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles. That’s who was a victim here, are a bunch of just disgusting homosexual at a gay bar, okay?”

However, Anderson also bemoaned what he called the “bad news” that would result from the attack, namely that the crime would be “used…to push for gun control” and also to “Push an agenda against so-called ‘hate speech’ so bible-believing Christian preachers who preach what the Bible actually says about homosexuality–that it’s vile, that it’s disgusting, that they’re reprobates–we’re gonna be blamed.”

Anderson added, “People are going to start attacking bible-believing Christians because of what this guy did.”

PREVIOUSLY: Pastor Steve Anderson’s Disciple Says Gays Should Be Killed Because They’re ‘Filthy Faggots’ Who Snatch And Rape Children: VIDEO

Anderson was unrepentant about his belief that the men massacred in Orlando deserved death. But he insisted he didn’t condone the way they were killed because the killer didn’t go through “proper channels.”

Said Anderson,

“The Bible says that homosexuals should be put to death in Leviticus 20:13. Obviously, it’s not right for someone to just shoot up the place because that’s not going through the proper channels. But these people all should have been killed anyway but they should have been killed through the proper channels as in, they should have been executed by a righteous government that would have tried them, convicted them, and saw them executed…That’s what the Bible says. Plain and simple.”

Anderson also said that “the bad news” was “that a lot of the homos in the bar are still alive so they’re going to continue to molest children and recruit people into their filthy homosexual lifestyle.”

Anderson was not sad about the deaths of the gay men in Orlando because,

“[those who were killed] were going to die of AIDS and syphilis and whatever else. They were all gonna die early anyway. Because homosexuals have a 20 year shorter lifespan than normal people anyway.”

Anderson added of the 50 dead, “At least they’re off the streets. I’m just trying to look at the bright side.”

Watch the video, below.

The post Pastor Steven Anderson Celebrates ’50 Less Pedophiles in the World’ After Orlando Attacks: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

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Why the Dickey Amendment, a Potent GOP Weapon to Shut Down the Gun Debate, Must Go

As I argued yesterday, one of the most dangerous refrains we hear every time guns are used to kill people is: “Don’t politicize this tragedy!” It is so dangerous because it has become an effective way to silence the conversation on guns even before it starts and, without a conversation, without coming to terms with the effects caused by our lack of anything resembling gun policy, nothing can be done. It should remind us of the decades-long campaign to erase gay persons from daily life, passing laws that force us into the closet, and keeping us at the margins so no one cares if we live or die.

Republicans, conservatives, and the National Rifle Association (NRA) have another weapon for shutting off debate even before it starts: the Dickey Amendment. In short, the Dickey Amendment, since its passage in 1996, cut off federal funds for research into guns, gun deaths, and gun safety. Even its eponymous sponsor, a mild-mannered former Republican congressman from Arkansas, Jay Dickey (pictured), regrets the abyss he helped create. The victims of gun deaths since 1996 and, especially, since the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban certainly regret it. The only people that don’t seem to regret it are Republican members of the House and Senate and the leadership of the NRA. It’s time for the Dickey Amendment to go. And the only way to do that is to vote Republicans out of office.

Guns were a fraught topic in the mid-1990s. After the Democrats passed gun control legislation in the early years of the Bill Clinton administration, the party, which had controlled the House of Representatives for most of the previous 60 years and, without interruption, for the previous 40, lost in a landslide. Some thought it was because of guns. With Republicans, backed by the NRA, in charge, one of their first targets was the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the federal arm tasked with conducting research to protect the health and safety of the American people. The CDC had been funding research that, not surprisingly, showed strong correlations between ease of access to guns and gun deaths. Studies also showed that the lack of any safety technology to prevent accidental gun deaths made death-by-gun more likely. There were other studies, most of which highlighted the public health dangers of guns and assault weapons.

RELATED: Silence Equals Death: Why We Need to ‘Come Out’ as Gun Control Advocates

The NRA was having none of this. Claiming that the CDC was a bunch of liberal activists engaging in advocacy and hoping to take away everyone’s guns, the NRA and its allies in Congress tried to abolish the agency. That didn’t work, but Jay Dickey proposed redirecting all funds–just $2.6 million in 1995–away from gun studies to other public health issues. His amendment included this line: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

Since then, the CDC has neither funded nor has its scientists conducted a single study related to guns. There are two reasons why: First, the Bill Clinton administration, terrified after losing Congress, directed the CDC to shut it down, shut it all down. The George W. Bush administration eagerly continued the directive. And, second, the CDC itself was terrified of being branded an advocacy organization. It had important work to do. It became gospel, then, that the Dickey Amendment was to be read broadly. The CDC was out of the business of studying guns.

Dickey and the NRA crafted a rather ingenious law and accompanying strategy by conflating research with advocacy. After all, it seems axiomatic that easier access to guns is going to correlate with higher gun deaths. Studies showed as much. But the NRA, which wants easy access to guns, the results of such studies contradicted their advocacy. So, any study that said guns were bad wasn’t research, it was anti-gun advocacy. It was a devious tactic to turn studies that show how evil you are into evidence that the other side wasn’t playing fair.

President Obama has done what he can to change things. After the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, he ordered all federal agencies, including the CDC, to interpret the Dickey Amendment literally, that is, to prohibit advocacy, not research. The CDC has hesitated, though, out of fear and funding shortfalls. They have long memories and scars from the culture wars of the 1990s.

Without evidence, it is hard to make recommendations to policy makers. Without research, it is hard to develop technologies to make guns safer. By comparison, consider how much work the CDC has done over the last 20 years in highway safety. Several million dollars worth of studies led to the ubiquitous barriers separating traffic patterns on major highways today and to changes in policy and road design. Highway deaths plummeted as a result.

The Dickey Amendment needs to go for the same reason we need to “come out” as advocates for gun legislation. A broad Dickey Amendment is a choking informed debate. It has been an unfortunately successful attempt to remove science from gun policymaking. And without science, policy debates can be hijacked by willfully blind denialists. It is long past the time to make repeal of the Dickey Amendment part of our national agenda. If Khaleesi finally comes to Westeros, we need to make it happen.

The post Why the Dickey Amendment, a Potent GOP Weapon to Shut Down the Gun Debate, Must Go appeared first on Towleroad.

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LGBT Survivors Of Orlando Shooting Can Legally Be Fired Under Florida Law

Florida has no laws protecting LGBT people from employment, housing, or credit discrimination.

The post LGBT Survivors Of Orlando Shooting Can Legally Be Fired Under Florida Law appeared first on ThinkProgress.

thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/06/13/3787664/lgbt-protection-orlando-shooting/

Conservatives Try To Scapegoat Islam To Avoid Responsibility For Perpetuating Anti-LGBT Violence

Radical Islam does not explain the violence LGBT people experience in the United States.

The post Conservatives Try To Scapegoat Islam To Avoid Responsibility For Perpetuating Anti-LGBT Violence appeared first on ThinkProgress.

thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/06/13/3787637/orlando-islam-scapegoat/

Remember Their Names: Honoring the Lives of the Orlando Victims

The city of Orlando is releasing the names of the victims of Sunday’s horrific shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub. The list will be updated as family members are contacted.

HRC’s thoughts and prayers are with the loved ones of these cherished members of our community. We honor their memories by sharing their names, their lives, and their stories.

The city of Orlando posted a message with the list of names: “On this very difficult day, we offer heartfelt condolences to today’s victims and their families. Our City is working tirelessly to get as much information out to the families so they can begin the grieving process. Please keep the following individuals in your thoughts and prayers. #PrayforOrlando.”

Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34 years old

Stanley Almodovar III, 23 years old

Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20 years old

Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22 years old

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36 years old

Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22 years old

Luis S. Vielma, 22 years old

Kimberly Morris, 37 years old

Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30 years old

Darryl Roman Burt II, 29 years old

Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32 years old

Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21 years old

Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25 years old

Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35 years old

Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50 years old

Amanda Alvear, 25 years old

Martin Benitez Torres, 33 years old

Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37 years old

Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26 years old

Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35 years old

Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25 years old

Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31 years old

Oscar A Aracena-Montero, 26 years old

Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25 years old

Miguel Angel Honorato, 30 years old

Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40 years old

Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32 years old

Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19 years old

Cory James Connell, 21 years old

Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37 years old

Luis Daniel Conde, 39 years old

Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33 years old

Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25 years old

Jerald Arthur Wright, 31 years old

Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25 years old

Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25 years old

*as of 11:05 a.m. EST on June 13

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