posted: 03/29/99
Human Rights
World Watch
Volume XV
in this issue:
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Case Updates
NATO Precedent Dangerous, Experts Agree
By Lorrayne Anthony / The Canadian Press
from the Halifax
Chronicle, 26 March/99
When NATO gave the go-ahead for air strikes against Yugoslavia, a dangerous precedent was set: a superpower such as the United States or an alliance such as NATO can bypass the United Nations and take the law into its own hands.
"A lot of countries have separatist movements but most don't get assaulted by a military alliance," said Lenard Cohen, a political science professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C.
"In Quebec you don't have NATO helping out the separatists."
NATO's military intervention in Yugoslavia is "a dangerous precedent," said Aurel Braun, a professor of international relations at the University of Toronto. Many countries have rebellious areas, Braun said. Russia has Chechnya, China has Tibet and Taiwan, India has Kashmir and Spain has the Basque region.
"In fact, we all have an interest in protecting sovereignty and international legality," Braun said. "There are checks in place to prevent overzealous actions or interventions by a superpower or alliance."
A series of atrocities against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, however, became difficult for the world to ignore. One of the grisliest massacres happened in January when 45 bodies were found scattered about a Kosovo hillside. Some of the dead had their eyes gouged out. Others had their heads smashed in. One man lay decapitated in his yard. They were unarmed civilians. "If a country has a humanitarian disaster and violence, then NATO has the right to intervene," Cohen said.
After two sets of negotiations in France aimed at bringing peace to the troubled Yugoslav province of Kosovo, only the ethnic Albanians signed a proposed agreement. NATO gave Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic an ultimatum - sign or face air strikes. Milosevic refused, saying foreign troops should not be enforcing a ceasefire in his country and air strikes would be a violation of its sovereignty.
NATO launched U.S.-led air strikes Wednesday.
The United States didn't take the question of using force to the UN Security Council, as it did with air strikes against Iraq. Washington knew Russia and probably China would veto such a resolution; both countries oppose NATO air strikes. "When NATO decided to move ahead without the resolution, it rendered the Security Council impotent," said Braun.
Why hit Yugoslavia when NATO sat on its hands elsewhere?
"The Serbs have every right to say this is a double standard," said Cohen, whose book - Serpent in the Bosom: Slobodan Milosevic and Serbian Nationalism - will be published later this year.
"But let's face it NATO is made up of 19 countries and most of them are European - so it's Eurocentric...NATO is very concerned with a stable Europe." Stability has eluded this part of the Balkans for a long time. The Christian Serbs, who rule the province, are a minority in Kosovo where ethnic Albanian Muslims make up 90 per cent of the population. Serbs have a deep attachment to Kosovo because it was the centre of a Serbian kingdom that flourished during the Middle Ages.
Albanians began moving into the area almost 200 years ago and, because of their higher birth rate, eventually outnumbered the original Serbian inhabitants. In 1974 they won the right to govern themselves within Serbia - now the dominant republic within Yugoslavia.
When Communist dictator Josip Tito died in 1980 and the former Yugoslav federation broke apart into several countries, the Serbs feared Kosovo, too, would declare independence.
In 1989 the Serbs forced the Kosovo parliament to disband and then imposed harsh rule over the province. In 1996 the Kosovo Liberation Army began mounting attacks on police. The Serbs responded with a series of crackdowns throughout the province. As many as 2,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, have been killed since Milosevic launched an offensive last February to crush the KLA.
Kevorkian's Fate in Jury's Hands
Doctor compares himself to civil rights heroes
By The Associated Press
from the Halifax
Chronicle , 26 March/99
Pontiac, Mich. - The jury in Jack Kevorkian's murder trial began deliberating Thursday after the assisted suicide doctor compared himself to civil rights heroes Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and all but asked the jurors to disregard a law he considers unjust.
"There are certain acts that by sheer common sense are not crimes," Kevorkian, acting as his own lawyer, said in closing arguments peppered with objections by the prosecution.
Kevorkian reminded jurors of the actions of King and Mrs. Parks during the civil rights movement and noted that acts such as drinking beer or registering to vote were once illegal.
"Words on paper do not necessarily create crimes," he said.
He also warned the jurors that if they convict him, they will face "the harsh judgment of history, and the harsher judgment of your children and grandchildren if they ever come to need that precious choice."
Kevorkian, 70, was charged with murder for administering a lethal injection to Thomas Youk, a 52-year-old man with Lou Gehrig's disease. A videotape of Youk's death was aired on the CBS TV program 60 Minutes.
Kevorkian, who could get life in prison if convicted, argued that his intent was not to kill Youk but to ease his suffering, and that he was doing what Youk wanted him to do.
Prosecutor John Skrzynski said Kevorkian should not be allowed to "make a political statement" through his actions.
"Is that any better than murder for hire?" he asked. "Is that any different than murdering somebody for money?"
Skrzynski attacked the notion of Kevorkian as a man of compassion, and said the doctor "came like a medical hitman in the night with a bag of poison to do his job."
The prosecutor also referred to the horrors of Nazi Germany to rebut Kevorkian's claim that euthanasia is acceptable, perhaps even noble.
"There are 11 million souls buried in Europe that can tell you that when you make euthanasia a state policy, some catastrophic things can evolve from that," Skrzynski said.
By his own tally, Kevorkian has been present at more than 130 deaths since 1990. Among them were two Canadians who travelled to Michigan to consult him - Austin Bastable of LaSalle, Ont., who died in May 1996, and Natverlal Thakore of Burnaby, B.C., who died in September 1997.
He has been tried four times on assisted suicide charges, with three acquittals and one mistrial. This is the first time he has stood trial on murder charges.
Judge Jessica Cooper told the jurors they could consider convicting Kevorkian of second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter.
She rejected the prosecution's request for an explicit warning to the jurors against "jury nullification" - setting aside the law out of sympathy for the defendant. Instead, she simply told the jurors that they must follow the law and that mercy killing is not an excuse for murder.
Pinochet Extradition Keeps Alive Memory of Dead Teen
By Reuters
26 March/99
London - A teenage Chilean democracy activist has, in death, become one of the central figures in the battle over the fate of former dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Marcos Quezada Yanez, 17, was arrested in Chile on June 24, 1989, court papers in Britain say. A few hours later he was dead, allegedly killed by electric shocks administered by Chilean government agents.
One of thousands of such victims during Pinochet's 17-year rule, Quezada's case might have been forgotten had it not been listed in 32 draft charges by lawyers for Spain in their request for Pinochet's extradition from Britain for human rights abuses.
Wednesday, Britain's highest court, the Law Lords, decided Quezada's case was one of only three on which Pinochet, who is under house arrest near London, could now face extradition to Spain.
The Law Lords discarded most of the other instances of murder, torture and hostage-taking blamed on Pinochet on grounds they occurred before Britain incorporated the United Nations convention on torture into law in December 1988.
Court documents referred to Quezada as "her" but human rights activists in London said Quezada was a boy.
The activists quoted Chile's National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation as saying Quezada had been active in a pro-democracy political party when he was arrested in the town of Curacautin.
Chilean police said Quezada was detained on suspicion of robbery and killed himself in his cell.
But the truth commission, which produced a damning report in 1991 of over 2,000 atrocities by Pinochet forces, concluded Quezada died from "torture applied by government agents in violation of his human rights."
While the Law Lords appeared to have thrown out all but three of the 32 draft charges against Pinochet, Reed Brody of the New York-based group Human Rights Watch said over two dozen more allegations of torture and murder dated after 1988 could still figure in the case.
He said these were listed in Spain's extradition request but were not detailed in the draft charges filed with the British courts.
Charges of conspiracy to torture also remain against Pinochet, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, the senior Law Lord, said in announcing the ruling Wednesday.
The conspiracy allegations say Pinochet and others conspired to use rape and other sexual assaults to "terrify and subdue" critics in Chile and in other countries, and that the victims included children.
Duke Claims his Race for Congress Not Built on Bigoted Views
March 28/99 MSNBC News
Congressional candidate
David Duke, seeking to replace former House GOP leader Robert
Livingston in his New Orleans-area seat, defended his views on
race Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Duke
claimed that he’s not “anti-black” — rather,
he’s only trying to defend what he called the nation’s
“white heritage.”CONFRONTED
WITH his own words, Duke — a former Ku Klux Klan leader who
still features an “Aryan” symbol favored by white
supremacists on the cover of his personal Web site
— claimed there was nothing racist or anti-Semitic about his
positions.
NBC’s Tim Russert
extracted quotes from Duke’s new book, “My Awakening,”
as well as from his other speeches and writing, that cast doubts
on Duke’s claims that he has put his previously open racist
stances behind him. Notably, Russert pointed to a quote from Duke’s
book that appears to compare World War II soldiers to Oklahoma
City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
“An example of the
media’s morality of convenience is the treatment of the
Oklahoma City bombing as compared to the tremendous civilian
bombing in the Second World War,” Duke wrote. “I still
remember the refrain in the hours of the aftermath of the
Oklahoma City carnage and the incredulity that echoed in the
trial of Timothy McVeigh. In essence it went, ‘What kind of
monster would bomb and burn to death innocent children?’ Was
the burning alive of tens of thousands of innocent German babies
any less horrible and morally wrong than the murder of two dozen
children by Timothy McVeigh? We give one bomber of children
medals, and the other we give the death penalty.”
“Let me tell you, I was
condemning Timothy McVeigh and showing how the horror of when you
bomb women and children is the same in our warfare,” Duke
explained. “In this century, we have adopted a policy where
you bomb women and children. … I think that statement was
morally correct.
“What I’m saying
is, when you bomb women and children, you’re committing a
war crime. I’m not condoning Timothy McVeigh.”
LINGERING ANTI-SEMITISM?
Russert pointedly grilled
Duke on his claims that Jewish deaths in the Holocaust were
inflated. I think there were Jews who were killed purposely,”
Duke replied. “I don’t know what the numbers are. I do
know one thing for sure — that the Holocaust is used as a
bludgeon today to support Israel which in turn denies the rights
of the Palestinians. It’s an issue today that’s being
used for political purposes, and it’s being used shamefully.”
Duke’s once-open anti-Semitism
was traced in another written extract, in which Russert noted
that he claimed: “Any open-minded reader who reads both
‘Mein Kampf’ and the Talmud would find the Talmud far
more intolerant.”
Russert then turned to
Adolph Hitler’s notorious text and noted that the German
Furher referred to Jews as the “personification of the devil,”
“a typical parasite,” and a “noxious bacillus.”
“I’m not condoning
anything Hitler said about the Jews,” Duke replied. “What
I’m saying is that there are the same kind of comments in
the Talmud.” He then cited passages that castigated non-Jews,
adding: “I oppose any sort of intolerance.”
DEFENDING ‘WHITE HERITAGE’
Russert also asked Duke
about the central thesis of his book — namely, that whites
or “Aryans” should separate themselves from other races.
He cited another passage:
“We shall have our own society created in our own image,
populated by our own people. We desire to live in our own
neighborhoods, go to our own schools, work in our own cities. We
shall end the racial genocide of integration. We shall work for
the eventual establishment of a separate homeland for African-Americans
so each race will be free to pursue its own destiny without
racial conflicts and ill will.”
Duke answered that he is
simply trying to find equitable solutions to the problems created
by racial tension. “White people choose to associate with
their own kind — that’s why you’ve had white
flight in our cities,” he said. “Black people naturally
choose to associate with their own kind. Forced integration has
damaged education across this country. And I can tell you, most
people watching this broadcast know that I’m telling the
truth. In many cities — in my district, in parts of Metairie
today, in New Orleans, we literally cannot use the schools
because of the violence, the drugs.
“We’re losing
America. That’s the bottom line.”
THE NON-WHITE TIDE
Duke contended that the
rising tide of non-white citizens and immigrants is forever
transforming American society for the worse. “We have an
intentional policy of the federal government in this country that
is intending to make whites a minority in America,” he said.
“By the time our high-school students grow up to be, say,
retirement age — when that time comes, we will be a minority.
We’ll be outnumbered, outvoted, and I think we’re going
to lose our way of life.”
And, he said, white people no longer
control their own fate. "The truth
is that white people face massive discrimination in this country
— jobs, employment, scholarships, promotions,” Duke
said. “We’re facing discrimination. We should have
equal rights like any other group in this society.
“We’re losing our
heritage in America, and I’m going to stand up and try to
defend our heritage. I’m not trying to suppress black people,
I don’t hate black people, but I do think European Americans
need at least one member of the United States Congress who will
stand up for their rights, their heritage, and our way of life,
because that’s what America’s all about.”
For Duke, the bottom line is
the special election coming up next month in Louisiana: “I
think we’re gonna win,” he said. “I do think I’m
echoing the concerns of white people in my district.”
This report was compiled by MSNBC producer David Neiwert.d h is
Charges Upgraded in Alabama Gay Murder
.c The Associated Press , for more on this case, see Volume: XII & XIII
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Two men accused of fatally beating a man and burning his body because he was gay could be executed in Alabama's electric chair now that charges against them have been upgraded to capital murder.
Steven Eric Mullins and Charles Butler Jr. had been charged with murder for the Feb. 19 killing of Billy Jack Gaither of Sylacauga. That charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and allows for parole.
A grand jury on Wednesday upgraded the charges to capital murder, Coosa County Circuit Clerk Cordelia Gandy said Friday.
Gaither was beaten to death on a dirt road beside a creek, where a passer-by found his charred remains atop a pyre of two old tires.
Police said Mullins, 25, and Butler, 21, confessed to killing Gaither, 39, after luring him from his home with a phone call. Police said the defendants claimed Gaither made a sexual advance toward them.
for background, see Volumes
From the Hate Crimes Mailing List - a Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project (AVP) initiative Website: http://www.queer.org.au/listarchive/hate-crimes/
U of T Queer Students Denied Funding while Opponents Cheer
Date: March 27, 1999
Bonte Minnema, Coordinator
Kevin Beaulieu, Ass't Coordinator
Home: (416) 603-6303
Home: (905)607-2939
email: bonte@clo.com email: kevin.beaulieu@utoronto.ca
Toronto, ON- Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgendered of the University of Toronto (LGBTOUT) are disappointed and angry to announce the loss of our campaign for a levy of 75 cents from full-time undergraduate students in a student referendum, held on March 22 & 23. The money, was to be used to establish a peer-run "Queer Resources Centre." This Centre would provide services and resources to queer staff and students and organize several coming out groups, queer action groups, identity based peer support groups, and queer student/professional networking events.
The no vote, and the joyous cheers from homophobic students demonstrates how homophobic the UofT community is, despite efforts to the best efforts of students to visibly claim their right to be a part of the campus community.
As the results were announced a collection of students from St. Michael's College, burst into a loud cheer; one boldly shouted "Fuck you all" to LGBTOUT activists. Tensions and tempers were high in the pub thereafter, with SAC members interposing to bar a confrontation between the two groups.
A breakdown of the vote results indicates St. Michael's College and the Faculty of Engineering, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Medicine, and Nursing -- showed up in large numbers to kill the levy.
We feel that the campus is a poisoned environment for LGBTQ students. Administrators, professors, student service providers, and student leaders need to be far more vigilant in creating an environment where all people are free to pursue their academic interests without having to worry about negatively predjucial treatment based on sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Please send letters of Outrage to the President of The University, Dr. J.R.S. Prichard: president@utoronto.ca
Please send copies of these letters to lgbout@campuslife.utoronto.ca
Community Wins Big at National Symposium
27 Mar 1999
from: Michael Shapcott
E-mail - mshapcot@web.net
Bread Not Circuses on the
web: http://www.breadnotcircuses.org
The following is a personal report from Michael Shapcott on the National Symposium on Housing and Homeless on March 25 and 26 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada..
Powerful action by community activists, led by the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, scored a major win at the National Symposium on Housing and Homelessness in Toronto last Thursday and Friday. The community dominated the event and, by Friday, won a unanimous vote from the symposium (including community and government representatives) for a strongly-worded declaration on the national homelessness disaster.
To put the events at the symposium in perspective, remember that until Tuesday, both the federal (Canadian) and provincial (Ontario) governments were officially committed to policies of "getting out of the housing business" by off-loading social housing. They had slashed welfare, health and other programs that help homeless people.
At the federal level, Ottawa has been steadily cutting housing spending since the mid-1980s. By 1992, it cut funding for new social housing. In 1996, the feds announced that they were going to transfer administration of existing social housing to provincial and territorial governments. And, right now, there are amendments to the National Housing Act that have passed second reading and are going to committee. Many people believe that these amendments will further erode the ability of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to effectively respond to the housing needs of low-income Canadians. During this same period, the feds were steadily cutting health and social welfare transfers to the provinces, which triggered provincial cuts.
At the provincial level, the Harris government killed 17,000 units of co-op and non-profit housing within days of being elected. They chopped welfare, leading to a massive increase in economic evictions. The Tories have gutted rent controls and other tenant protection laws (including anti-discrimination laws plus controls on the demolition and control of affordable rental housing). They sliced all sorts of programs, everything from health to support services to housing help centres.
The combined effect of these and many other deliberate policies of the federal and provincial governments have led directly to the national homelessness disaster and housing crisis. The devastating growth in homelessness has forced the issue high on the political and media agenda, and there has been plenty of effective organizing and action by community groups ranging from the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee to the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. New groups have been formed, such as Putting Housing Back on the Public Agenda. Existing housing advocacy groups, such as the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada and the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association, are also speaking out. These two groups released on Monday the preliminary findings of their Ontario housing needs study, showing one in four tenant households on the brink of homelessness.
Which brings us to the Tuesday before the national symposium. In order to pre-empt criticism from the symposium, both the feds and Ontario made "homelessness" annoucements.
The feds offered a new "Minister of Homelessness", Claudette Bradshaw. She came with strong community credentials as a long-time anti-poverty activist from Moncton, but no money. The feds, quite rightly, were roundly criticized for sending the new Minister with no funding or programs.
The Harris government served up an exceptionally cynical package of promises. They claimed, as a "new initiative" $50 million in federal funds that were already committed to housing. They topped up a couple of existing programs (the homelessness initiatives fund and the community partners program), threw in some provincial land (but no money to build anything), and offered up $45 million over three years for supportive housing. The last item is extremely significant, coming from a government that was elected on a promise of "getting out of the housing business" and has spent the last four years following through on that with ruthless efficiency. In overall terms, the announcement is a drop in the bucket. The total number of units, even under the most generous assessment, will amount to less than ten per cent of the number of units that Harris cut during his first few days in office.
Day one (Thursday) of the national symposium was dominated by an extraordinary display of political theatre and finger-pointing. Federal, provincial and municipal representatives all claimed to love the homeless the most. They blamed each other for the national homelessness disaster. And they said the responsibility for solutions rested elsewhere. It was astonishing political drama, but no one bought it. Not the media. Not the symposium delegates.
There was a clear consensus at the symposium that all levels of government have to provide the funding and programs and work with the community on housing, services and other solutions. The feds cannot hide behind the Constitution and pretend that they have no role in housing and homelessness. The province cannot evade its responsibility by downloading to municipalities. And municipalities have a responsibility, through inclusionary zoning and partnerships with the community, to put solutions in place.
Day two (Friday) saw the community groups take over the symposium. In workshops and the plenary session, the community forced the symposium to take a strong stand on housing and homelessness issues. By the end of the event, everything proposed by the community (including a declaration initiated by the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee) was adopted by the symposium and is to be incorporated into a national housing options paper that will go to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities annual meeting in Halifax in June.
These collective efforts led to:
- the unanimous endorsement of the disaster declaration and the One Percent Solution at the closing plenary of the symposium
- an opportunity, through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, to catapault this campaign onto the national stage in a big way
- a powerful presence in the media
- solid connections with activists in other parts of Canada, especially Vancouver, and the beginnings of plans for a national homeless-tenants convention and network
- a strong contact with the new "minister of homelessness", Claudette Bradshaw
For more information on the TDRC, its disaster declaration and the One Percent Solution campaign, visit the TDRC website at www.tao.ca/~tdrc
Beaten Writer to Return to Philadelphia
By Michael Matza,
Philadelphia
Inquirer
March 26, 1999
for background, see Volume IX
Robert Drake, the gay
Philadelphia author assaulted in western Ireland on Jan. 31 and
hospitalized for the last two months, is expected back in
Philadelphia Sunday following a transatlantic flight under
critical care.
A prominent figure in Philadelphia's gay
community, Drake, 36, is the author of books and the editor of
anthologies on gay themes. His friends have characterized
the incident as gay-bashing. An attorney for the two men
charged in the assault says that characterization does not fit
the facts.
Drake, who went abroad last fall to
research and write a novel, was left with acute head injuries,
unable to speak, following a severe beating inside the apartment
he rented in Sligo, on the Irish seacoast.
He was airlifted to Dublin, where he has
remained in critical condition, needing a respirator to breathe
and dialysis to support his kidneys. Some days his
temperature has spiked to 107 degrees.
Finally, last week, his condition
stabilized enough to permit his transfer to the United States,
where friends have been raising money for his continuing care.
Doctors at Dublin's Beaumont Hospital say he has been breathing
on his own since St. Patrick's Day.
The cost of bringing Drake home will be
borne by Independence Blue Cross. Scott Pretorius, Drake's
partner of six years and chief resident in radiology at the
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, said yesterday that
the insurer had agreed to pay for the flight because Drake is
covered under Pretorius' policy as his domestic partner.
The men met in Maryland, moved to Philadelphia three years ago,
and purchased a Federal-style house together on Washington Square
West.
Drake will be accompanied on the flight
by medical personnel from Intensive Air Ambulance, a Somerset, N.J.,
company. He will fly aboard a commercial Aer Lingus plane
from which nine seats will be removed to accommodate a stretcher
and a privacy curtain. Barring last-minute medical
complications, he is to depart Dublin on Sunday afternoon, land
in Newark, N.J., that evening, and travel by ground ambulance to
the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he will be
admitted.
Thomas Lennon, flight director of the
air ambulance company, said Drake would receive nebulizer
treatments en route to ease his breathing.
"Blue Cross has agreed to transfer
Robert, and I am extremely grateful for their assistance,"
Pretorius said. "We still must pay a deductible and
copayment of approximately US$2,500, but thanks to the
extraordinary generosity of Robert's and my many friends, we now
have that money available."
A fund-raising effort on Drake's behalf
has raised more than US$6,000 through literary readings and
button sales. Pretorius said he charged the copayment fee
to his credit card and anticipated that he would be reimbursed.
But he worries about the costs of Drake's long-term care, which
could exceed US$15,000 a month.
He says he expects insurance to cover
about 80 percent, leaving about US$3,000 a month in uncovered
costs. Two men in their early 20s were charged with assaulting
Drake and released on bail after admitting to Irish police that
they had pummeled him with fists and feet following a night of
socializing that ended, the men allege, when Drake made a crude
pass at one of them. Drake's friends say such a pass would
have been out of character for the author.
After a hearing March 18, the case
against Ian Monaghan, 21, and GlenMahon, 22, was continued.
From the Hate Crimes Mailing List - a Lesbian and Gay
Anti-Violence Project (AVP) initiative
Website
http://www.queer.org.au/listarchive/hate-crimes/
Hate on the Web: Is it free speech? Or does it incite violence?
A special report by Dennis McCafferty
USA Weekend
March 28, 1999
Think of the World Wide Web as a visit to the greatest convention of the 1990s. Over in the corner, a crowd of attendees clip on badges bearing names like Amazon and eBay and brag that they're turning shopping malls into dinosaurs. On the floor, vendors stand at booths hawking wares that represent a decade's worth of buzzwords: cyberschools, intranets, e-trade, e-tail.
Now, imagine a different breed of Internet denizen has
quietly filtered onto the floor. They've set up convention
booths complete with irresistible techno-toys: showy
animation, sound files and online chats. At the SS
Enterprises booth, a Nazi-styled vendor offers to dress you up
with a gold SS buckle and SS officer's helmet for $200.
Next door, members of an anti-gay group depict the bouncing
head of Matthew Shepard in a sea of flames. The victim of a
killing that stunned the nation and sparked outraged calls for
hate-crime legislation, Shepard was the 22-year-old University of
Wyoming student beaten to death last October with a .357 Magnum,
allegedly because he was gay. Visitors are updated
on how many days Shepard has "been in hell."
This is the Web site of Westboro Baptist Church in
Topeka, Kan. "We got 20,000 e-mails in two days after
picketing his funeral, from all over the world," says the
Rev. Fred Phelps, the church's 69-year-old pastor. The site's
webmaster is his grandson Ben, 23, pictured on the cover, a
teaching assistant at the
University of Kansas who is pursuing a master's degree in
computer science. ("I keep what I do out of the
classroom," Phelps says. "But if my students ask me, I'll
answer them.")
Like many, the Phelpses have discovered that the Net has become the quintessential '90s tool for finding answers, whether they're right or wrong. It opens up profound volumes of information and communication to virtually anyone. Because this great liberator closes its doors to no one, what are commonly called "hate groups" have set up shop there. That's no surprise.
What's stunning is just how flashy these sites are -
and whom they target. These groups have access to a
worldwide audience after decades of handing out leaflets on
street corners. Now, their online sites use arcade- style
games, music, bulletin boards and other tech-savvy gimmicks to
attract a larger, more
sophisticated crowd. Even children. In the old days,
critics could simply tear down their posters. Today, when
Internet companies pull the plug, these groups can get back
online. Their intended targets extend far beyond blacks and
gays: Jews, Hispanics, pacifists, abortion doctors, the
federal government - a wide range of entities are subject to a
"hate" site.
Matthew Shepard's death - followed by a possibly similar killing in Alabama this month and a recent conviction in the racially motivated dragging death in Jasper, Texas - has raised concerns about the incendiary potential of such sites. A few clicks of a mouse show why:
Click - and you're on the Aryan 3 site. You're playing Sieg Heil! as an Aryan hero with a magic sword and a mission to thwart scientists creating a "cross-bred" race. Click - and another Aryan site appears featuring racist cartoons, including one contending that black ministers are behind their own church burnings. That site endorses violence against "whiggers,'' white people who have embraced black culture. "It's the kind of thing kids will pass along," says Randall Bytwerk, a Calvin College communications professor in Grand Rapids, Mich., who tracks Web content. "A Nazi newspaper could be passed around in school, but it would get confiscated. With this, you just e- mail the Web address and say, 'Did you see this?' "
Take the World Church of the Creator's Kids page, the
Web equivalent of the gingerbread house in the story of Hansel
and Gretel: sweetly inviting outside, ominous within.
The site has posted an online crossword puzzle, coloring pages
and other treats, all serving as a primer on the white-
preservationist
movement.
Children are fair game for aggressive courtship, says Creator church leader Matt Hale, 27. "Why should we not? Sesame Street goes after young kids with their agenda about race and tolerance. I see no reason why we shouldn't bring a message like this." When it comes to reaching young adults, Hale says his site lets him target a more educated crowd than ever: students from Harvard, the University of California and other major universities.
Hate groups, as defined by those who monitor them,
denigrate categories of people on the basis of characteristics
such as race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity with
divisive, sometimes violence- provoking language. The groups
themselves, naturally, dispute that description. "Our
organization
is a LOVE group," Hale argues in an e-mail; members simply
"care about our White Race ... and wish to preserve it."
The Westboro Baptist anti-gay site states that it "does not support the murder of Matthew Shepard," and the Rev. Phelps adds, "We define ourselves as a church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and God hates fags." (His church is not aligned with the 15 million-member Southern Baptist Convention.)
That the message is unfiltered online is the price of free speech. "Our First Amendment theory is to let the public decide what to read, and to trust the public to reject outrageous materials put before them," says Floyd Abrams, a prominent First Amendment lawyer.
The number of such sites has boomed with the internet itself. The first one showed up four years ago; the number now is about 250, says the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the foremost monitors of this activity.
Now, the educated, college-bound teen living in a $300,000
home can be easily reached with a message that starts out
as a relatively mainstream attack on affirmative action,
then devolves into intolerance. Other sites target a young,
working-class audience with anti-government grousing that
snowballs into
sinister conspiracy speculation-as-fact. In addition, these
groups use rock music to reach a younger, more
sophisticated audience. Confrontational, race-baiting skinhead
bands sell more than 50,000 CDs a year. Mark Tappendorf, 22,
a machinist who lives in greater Milwaukee, says he visits a
skinhead site
just for the music and doesn't endorse its political views - but
he acknowledges the site recruits a racist following:
"Friends of mine, they get on this site and the next
day they're Nazis."
The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was the result of such
alienated, angry thinking. "We should be quite
alarmed," says Morris Dees, director of the Southern Poverty
Law Center. "The Internet has done for hate groups
what the printing press has done for literature.
Before, these groups would post a message on a bulletin
board and few people would see it. Now, they post a message
on the Net and
millions see it. We should be outraged and alarmed, because
these ideas can lead to violent events."
Says U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a veteran civil-rights leader: "We have the capacity and ability to do so much good, and we have this growing movement using the Web to advocate hate. Part of it is the fear of the unknown that these groups build a movement around: 'Someone's coming over the border to take my job.'"
The Web is just the beginning. The putative father of this online genre, white supremacist Don Black, 45, of West Palm Beach, Fla., says his "Stormfront" site has attracted nearly a million visitors since it went up in spring 1995. Before that, via direct mail, Black never reached more than 14,000 people a year. Now, with visions of his own TV network, Black says: "We're not trailer-trash people with bad teeth or high school dropouts. [We] live in the suburbs. We have a Duke student, another from the University of Miami and Florida State. We are not illiterate, unsophisticated people."
FIGHTING BACK
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects free speech. But the Supreme Court has upheld restrictions against speech that threatens to cause "imminent lawlessness" or endanger national security. Resources available for those concerned about hate on the World Wide Web and its consequences:
SOFTWARE SCREENS
The Anti-Defamation League recently introduced "HateFilter" software to block access to sites that advocate hatred or violence toward Jews or other groups. The filter can be previewed at no charge and purchased for $29.95. For more information, go to http://www.adl.org.
WATCHDOGS
Randy Blazak, right, directs the Hate Crimes Research Network at Oregon's Portland State University, one of a growing number of monitoring groups. He worries most that the sites "appeal to young people who are looking for answers."
LEGAL ACTION
Last month, a jury awarded $107 million to abortion doctors who said they were endangered by online "wanted" posters and likened to Nazi criminals on the "Nuremberg Files" Web site.
IN THE HOME OR THE CLASSROOM
Parents and teachers should expect that children may discover these sites. The key is to present an honest assessment of the message these groups promote and how this may conflict with values regarding respect for other people, says the Southern Poverty Law Center. At its Web site (http://www.splcenter.org), the "Teaching Tolerance" link offers additional resources for classrooms.
UK Law Win for Gays, Women.
The Herald
Sun newspaper. Melbourne, Australia.
27th March, 1999.
LONDON Thousands of gays and battered women could seek asylum in Britain after a landmark ruling by the House of Lords.
The highest court in the land decided that anyone who was persecuted for their "sexual identity", and was not protected by their own government's laws, could seek refuge in the UK.
The Law Lords were presiding over a test case of two Pakistani women who were seeking asylum after claiming they had been abused and threatened in their home country. Many Islamic countries outlaw homosexuality and treat women as second-class citizens. The judges, in a 4-1 ruling, said women in Pakistan were "unprotected by the state" and formed a "particular social group" that could seek asylum under the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees.
Lord Hoffmann, whose failure to declare his links with Amnesty International caused the first Lords' ruling on the extradition of Chile's former dictator General Pinochet to be set aside, delivered the most hard-hitting judgement.
"The evidence was that the state (of Pakistan) would not assist them because they were women," he said. "It denied them a protection against violence it would give to men. "These two elements have to be combined to constitute persecution within the meaning of the Convention."
At the moment, refugee status is restricted to those who can show they have been persecuted for political reasons. Now, already overburdened immigration authorities will effectively have to deal with two new categories of asylum-seekers.
A Home Office official refused to comment on the case other than saying that the judgement was being examined carefully. The women's lawyer said the ruling had very significant asylum implications for women and others around the world who faced persecution because of their sexual identity.
Beyond Homophobia: Rethinking Anti-Gay Violence, Heterosexism, And Homophobia
What is homophobia?
What are the causes of anti-gay violence?
How should these phenomena be addressed by society?
International Conference
April 7-9, 1999
San Francisco State University, Seven Hills Conference Center,
SFSU Campus
Sponsored by the Human Sexuality Studies Program Gilbert Herdt, Chair
This international conference will explore these questions from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, bringing together key scholars from around the world to discuss the issues and share their insights. The organizers are anthropologist Gilbert Herdt, Australian political sociologist Stephen Tomsen, and Dutch historian Theo van der Meer.
For more information, visit the website: http://www.sfsu.edu/~hmsxdept/beyond.htm
To register and reserve a place, telephone 415/452-6062.
Prejudice Tour '99 A Lot Of Yuks
DAVID LEIBOWITZ,
Arizona
Republic
March 20, 1999
No doubt, the man deserves a wing in the Comedy Hall of Fame. You have Cosby, who made fatherhood a yuk, and Carlin, who turned words outside-in, and the Stooges for slapstick. Then comes the reverend from Kansas.
Fred Phelps is his name, and he will despise me for saying so, but he has accomplished the impossible.
He's made hatred funny.
Phelps has managed this completely by accident, of course, but he still merits congrats. Luckily, we can all thank him in person, since Phelps says he's returning to Phoenix this Sunday and again April 17.
The good reverend will be easy to spot. He'll be the one waving the ''God Hates Fags'' sign. And the one playing a tape of simulated screams by Matthew Shepard, the Wyoming hate-slay victim.
''You know,'' Phelps told me yesterday, ''the Bible likens these male -''
Easy, Rev. Save your best material for Sunday, at the Asbury United Methodist Church on Indian School Road.
'SOME SPECIAL SIGNS'
That promises to be the latest stop on Phelps' Prejudice Tour '99. Fresh off crashing Barry Goldwater's funeral in June, then Shepard's funeral in October, then an Elizabeth Dole for President rally in January in North Carolina, Phelps now has eyes for the Rev. Jimmy Creech.
Creech's sin?
In 1997 in Nebraska, Creech performed a quasi-wedding ceremony for two lesbians. He'll be at Asbury on Sunday to speak about gays and the church. ''We've got some signs special just for him,'' says Phelps. 'We've got -''
I know, I know, Rev. Real shocking stuff, I'm sure. We'll all be so appalled, we'll cry. Until we laugh.
Long and loud.
Laughter is really the only response to the Phelpses of the world anymore, and it is the best response, too, because the Phelpses hate it so. It's the one good thing to come out of Jerry Springer Nation: We have become shockproof. Phelps misquotes the Bible at top volume; wields his ugly signs; we crack up.
''It's so bad . . .,'' says the Rev. Jeff Procter-Murphy, pastor at Asbury. ''It's almost like gay-inspiring, because it's so bad people laugh at it.''
They were laughing, too, over at Arizona Central Pride, organizers of this year's gay pride parade, set for April 17 along Central Avenue. Phelps claims his flock at the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka is already hard at work on their float, which features pictures of Shepard amid the flames of hell and an ad for the Phelps Web site - a-name-I-refuse-to- print-dot-com. Here's a darn shame: The float application gives the organizers total discretion.
'PIECE OF AMERICANA'
Phelps hasn't yet applied, says ACP vice president Gary Mangum, but he won't get in even if he does. ''The parade would never get started,'' Mangum says. ''I'm afraid the gay people would destroy whatever float they had, and then come after us for allowing them to take part in it.''
Either that, or we'd need a squad of medics to treat people dying of laughter.
''I find that man queerer than me,'' Mangum says. ''He's a true piece of Americana.''
And he's coming soon to a venue near you, signs aloft and his favorite slur on the tip of his tongue. As in: 'These (insert slur here) are diabolical rebels against God -- ''
Enough, Fred. If I laugh any harder, I'll miss the Teletubbies. Not that I wouldn't give up cartoons for Phelps. I'm hoping we can pal around while he's in town. Maybe hit Fetish Night at The Padlock, or the gay rodeo.
Ever meet any drag queens, sir?
''Are you sure you're with the legitimate media?'' asked Phelps. ''Your tone of voice is trivial and mocking.'' What can I say, Rev? Miracles happen. You got ordained, right? And who would've thought you could turn standing with an ugly sign into stand-up comedy.
We Arizonans are truly blessed. We live in funny times.