Tag Archives: anti-gay

Possible hate crime casts shadow over Austin’s Pride weekend

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Two gay men were attacked Friday night as Austin’s Pride celebrations were under way, leading them to believe they were targeted for being gay.

Nick Soret and a friend were on 4th Street getting pizza at a food truck when a man to them started asking them what they were looking at.

Soret told Austin’s KVUE when he picked up his pizza, the man beat him with it, burning him.

The man then punched his friend in the face when he tried to intervene, and attacked Soret, cutting his lip and bruising his arm before leaving the area.

His friend has a fractured jaw and will likely need surgery.

Soret said he thinks they were attacked because he and his friend are gay.

“He thought I was checking him out or he thought I was looking at him and so for that, he knocked all my friend’s teeth out, he punched me in the face,” Soret told KVUE.

Austin police are investigating the attack. The pizza trailer had a surveillance camera on it, so police expect to find the man soon.

“It was done just out of meaness and I think prejudice. It was unprovoked. We did not provoke him, we did not engage him. We didn’t do anything,” Soret said.

News of the attack spread through Austin over the weekend and cast a shadow on the Pride festivities. Soret, who has lived in Austin for 20 years, said his sense of security is now gone.

Watch KVUE’s report below.

Continue reading “Possible hate crime casts shadow over Austin’s Pride weekend” »

—  Anna Waugh

Chick-fil-A releases statement about recent ‘mischaracterized’ donations

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Couple Tyler Savage, left, and Larry Farris at a Dallas Chick-fil-A on Friday, Aug. 3, for National Same-sex Kiss-in Day. (Anna Waugh/Dallas Voice)

News about Chick-fil-A no longer funding anti-gay organizations surfaced yesterday with the explanation that the chicken chain would refrain from engaging in “political debates.”

The company released a statement today and a longer “Who We Are” statement, detailing organizations and causes the company donates to.

Among organizations listed in the longer statement is the WinShape Foundation. Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy tweeted a photo this week from the 2012 WinShape Ride for the Family, which The Advocate reports is a fundraiser for an organization that helps lobby against marriage equality.

So, what has changed?

Campus Pride Executive Director Shane Windmeyer asks just that in a Huffington Post op-ed.

“The fact is that Chick-fil-A has not commented on any of these ‘what if’ statements or shared anything to substantiate the claims by Chicago Alderman Proco Joe Moreno and the Illinois-based Civil Rights Agenda,” he writes. “The only action that Chick-fil-A has taken in recent weeks was to have private conversations in an effort to find ‘common ground,’ and to reiterate the company’s stance through an internal Chick-fil-A memo.”

The statement is below. Go here for the longer document.

Chick-fil-A: Who We Are. A Response to Recent Controversy.

For many months now, Chick-fil-A’s corporate giving has been mischaracterized. And while our sincere intent has been to remain out of this political and social debate, events from Chicago this week have once again resulted in questions around our giving.

For many months now, Chick-fil-A’s corporate giving has been mischaracterized. And while our sincere intent has been to remain out of this political and social debate, events from Chicago this week have once again resulted in questions around our giving. For that reason, we want to provide some context and clarity around who we are, what we believe and our priorities in relation to corporate giving.

A part of our corporate commitment is to be responsible stewards of all that God has entrusted to us. Because of this commitment, Chick-fil-A’s giving heritage is focused on programs that educate youth, strengthen families and enrich marriages, and support communities. We will continue to focus our giving in those areas. Our intent is not to support political or social agendas.

As we have stated, the Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. We will continue this tradition in the over 1,600 restaurants run by independent Owner/Operators.

—  Anna Waugh

Chick-fil-A to end donations to anti-gay groups, draft memo about policies

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Couple Tyler Savage, left, and Larry Farris kiss at a Dallas Chick-fil-A Friday, Aug. 3, for National Same-sex Kiss-in Day. (Anna Waugh/Dallas Voice)

Chick-fil-A is reportedly ending its contributions to anti-gay groups, including Focus on the Family and the National Organization for Marriage.

The decision came after discussions this month with Chicago’s Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Moreno made headlines this summer for opposing a new Chick-fil-A in a Westside ward after company President Dan Cathy’s stated opposition to marriage equality. Cathy’s comments sparked debate about civil rights and freedom of speech, along with protests and petitions to kick the restaurant of college campuses, leading to Cathy meeting with LGBT college leaders last month.

Moreno told the Times that the company would not add LGBT protections to its nondiscrimination policy but would send a memo to its restaurants called “Chick-fil-A: Who We Are.” The memo will state Chick-fil-A’s promise to “treat every person with honor, dignity and respect — regardless of their beliefs, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender” and to not “engage in political or social debates.”

Moreno told Chicago’s LGBT newspaper, the Windy City Times, that it’s “a win for the LGBT community” and “for everyone who works for the cause of equal rights, and a win for Chick- fil-A. This is a win for all.”

Chick-fil-A has not released an official announcement stating that the company would cease donations to anti-gay organization, but a letter sent to Moreno signed by the company’s senior director states that it is “now taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas.”

Donations will now go to foster-care agencies and community service organizations.

—  Anna Waugh

Pride Run sign found stepped on after disappearing from Katy Trail again

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A sign promoting the DFW Front Runners’ first-ever Pride Run this Sunday went missing for a second time over the weekend.

Front Runners President Lin Wang told Instant Tea last week that two 18-by-24-inch metal signs were placed along the Katy Trail to advertise the event. One was near the Katy Ice House and the other was near Hall Street. The one near Hall Street went missing early last week.

Wang suspected that the theft was motivated by anti-gay bias, and after he noticed the replacement sign was missing this morning after putting it up on Friday, he’s even more convinced that someone is against the LGBT Pride event.

“There’s no other reason someone would steal it,” he said.

Wang emailed Instant Tea on Monday afternoon saying the sign had been found but was stepped on, leaving behind a “funny footprint” on the back, and tossed along the trail. The sign has been put up again near the entrance.

Wang hadn’t reported the first theft to the Dallas police because he’s been too busy working on last-minute preparations for the run, but he said he did plan report the incidents. If the sign had not been found, he said the group wouldn’t have replaced it because it would likely have been stolen again.

More information on the event can be found here. The cost for registration is $25. The Front Runner Dallas walking and running group meets Saturday mornings at 8:30 at the statue of Robert E. Lee in Lee Park. Volunteers for the event can sign up on the website.

—  Anna Waugh

Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy meets with college leaders about LGBT issues

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Chick-Fil-A-Hates-Fags

With Chick-fil-A fights breaking out on campuses across the country, including several in North Texas, company CEO Dan Cathy reportedly met with college leaders to discuss LGBT issues in Atlanta on Thursday.

It was Cathy whose anti-gay comments earlier this summer sparked the protest. The details of Thursday’s meeting were brief and given by an unnamed source, but centered around “diversity, hospitality, and the opportunity to find common ground,” according to the source.

Cathy is trying to repair relationships with colleges in an effort to further expansion plans for more on-campus locations across the country, many at large schools.

The University of North Texas was the first of five area colleges to start a petition calling for the university to remove the restaurant from its student union. UTA later followed and members of UTA’s GSA are preparing to present the petition and a resolution to school officials.

SMU officials have already said they would not remove the restaurant from its campus. Kim Schroder, UNT’s associate director of retail dining services, told its student newspaper that the on-campus location wasn’t going anywhere soon.

Schroder said the petitions from a UNT student and a separate one created by an alumnus have not affected business, and the university’s five-year contract with the company would make removing it soon impossible.

—  Anna Waugh

Dallas County jail maintenance worker alleges anti-gay jokes added to hostile environment

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David Womble

One of the three plaintiffs suing Dallas County for $60 million for racial discrimination says anti-gay remarks and jokes were also part of the harassment he suffered.

R.L. Lawson, 41, complained that David Womble, a quality assurance supervisor of facilities management of Dallas County, “engaged in negligent homosexual jokes and remarks toward another employee” in a meeting in October 2010.

Lawson alleges that the comments “further caused a hostile work environment,” according to the lawsuit. At a later meeting, Womble “engaged in unwarranted and demeaning homosexual jokes, ridicule and mockery at the expense of a co-worker of Plaintiff Lawson.”

Womble’s behavior also allegedly included wearing fake gold teeth and impersonating a black person with an exaggerated walk while making racial comments, according to the lawsuit. After Lawson complained about the anti-gay remarks, a black soda can was hanging from a noose in the office.

Womble, who is one of four individual defendants in the lawsuit in addition to the county and the Commissioners Court, later received a pay raise after Lawson complained about the racial and anti-gay comments.

Womble has a past of anti-gay comments. He was reprimanded in 2003 for similar comments and again 2009 for making inappropriate comments to two female employees, according to The Dallas Morning News.

County officials have begun investigating the racial discrimination claims.

—  Anna Waugh

Penis paintings link vandalism in Grand Prairie to spree in Arlington that included anti-gay slurs

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Grand Prairie police are working with Arlington police to determine whether the same vandals are responsible for spray-painted penises that appeared on homes and cars in both of the cities recently.

Detective Lyle Gensler with Grand Prairie police said 10 residences had defaced homes and cars featuring vulgar images spray-painted between 2-6 a.m. Tuesday in the 900 block of Furlong Drive and 2700 block of Triple Crown Lane.

Gensler said several of the images were penises, which were also used in defacing 10 residences in the 1100 block of Crowley Road in Arlington over the weekend, during which anti-gay slurs were also spray-painted on a lesbian couple’s SUV.

Gensler said no biased words targeting race, religion or sexual orientation were used in the Grand Prairie incidents.

Investigators have been in contact with Arlington police and are looking into the same leads, he said.

“We actually are going to compare the two based on the way they were drawn,” he said.

As for the culprits, Gensler said it is most likely teenagers that are responsible for the vandalism.

Arlington police spokesman Tiara Richard said Tuesday morning that although the incident involving the lesbian couple “looks like a hate crime,” it’s too soon to say that definitively.

It’s up to the district attorney’s office to decide whether to prosecute cases as hate crimes in Texas. However, law enforcement agencies do classify cases as hate crimes for the purpose of reporting them to the FBI each year.

But Richard said the determination about whether to report the incident as a hate crime to the FBI won’t be made until the investigation is complete. She took issue with a headline on Instant Tea from Monday which indicated police weren’t “investigating” the incident as a hate crime. Rather, Richard said, Arlington police simply aren’t calling it a hate crime — at least not yet. The headline has since been changed.

“When it comes to criminal investigations, we let the investigation tell us what something is,” Richard said. “We don’t make determinations on the front end of what something is.

“It looks like a hate crime,” Richard added. “It looks like this couple was targeted because of their sexual orientation, and that’s a big element of the investigative process, and that’s part of what we’ll look into. However, until an investigation is complete … they’re not going to call it something that we may in the investigation find that it’s not.”

—  Anna Waugh

UPDATE: Arlington police not yet calling anti-gay graffiti on lesbian couple’s vehicle a hate crime

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Arlington police say they aren’t yet calling incident in which a lesbian couple’s SUV was spray-painted with anti-gay slurs a hate crime.

The couple was among the victims in a string of 10 incidents of vandalism in the 1100 block of Crowley Road over the weekend. Tiara Richard, a spokeswoman for Arlington Police Department, said the targeted residences had spray-painted images and words on the houses and cars. Homeowners reported the vandalism to police early Sunday morning.

One of the homes belonged to a lesbian couple, whose SUV, pictured above, had the words “faggot” and “queers” spray-painted on it.

Richard said police are not yet calling the incident a hate crime because it is one of 10 incidents.

“We’re investigating it as a crime,” she said. “If there’s a hate element to it, we’ll share that with the district attorney’s office, and they’ll make that call.”

Continue reading “UPDATE: Arlington police not yet calling anti-gay graffiti on lesbian couple’s vehicle a hate crime” »

—  Anna Waugh

Is Dallas Maverick Dominique Jones a raging homophobe?

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There isn’t a lot of weight to this recent post by Good as You as they acknowledge themselves, but this video of screen shots makes it look like NBA player Dominique Jones went on an anti-gay tirade on his Facebook. I scoured Facebook only to find pages for Jones, but no personal profiles. Interestingly, Back2Stonewall mentioned in their post that “a search of Jones Facebook page now finds these comments missing.”

“We are aware of it and trying to determine exactly what happened,” Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said in an email response.

Watch the video after the jump.

Continue reading “Is Dallas Maverick Dominique Jones a raging homophobe?” »

—  Rich Lopez

Sen. Hutchison’s alternative anti-gay VAWA fails as U.S. Senate passes LGBT-inclusive bill

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Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison

The Violence Against Women Act passed the U.S. Senate Thursday in a 68-31 vote but marked the first time since its passage in 1994 that the renewal brought opposition.

This renewal featured the expansion of VAWA’s protections to LGBT victims of domestic abuse, as well as extending the amount of temporary visas for illegal immigrants of abuse and allowing tribal courts to handle cases of abuse against Native American women on reservations by non-Indian suspects.

Anti-gay Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, were working an alternative version that lowered the amount of temporary visas and removed the LGBT provisions.

Although Hutchison and 14 other Republicans voted for the LGBT-inclusive VAWA after the Senate rejected the alternative bill, she reportedly said that she “worked with many of my colleagues to have a substitute that has the same coverage but is better in other ways.”

The bill reauthorizes the Violence Against Women Act for five years and lowers the funding by $136.5 million to $659.3 million a year from the last act. The money funds programs such as legal assistance for victims and transitional housing.

House Republicans are also working on an alternate bill, which is supposed to mirror Hutchison’s by leaving out LGBT victims of domestic abuse. The House is expected to vote on the bill in May.

The Human Rights Campaign issued a statement Friday about the anti-LGBT version of the bill that was introduced.

“The House Republican leadership’s version of VAWA reflects their political objectives, but not the needs of victims of domestic violence and sexual assault,” HRC President Joe Solmonese said. “We can’t afford to turn a blind eye to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking. LGBT victims of domestic violence face a number of challenges when it comes to receiving care. The Senate version of VAWA ensures no one ever will be turned away from critical services simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity; the House version leaves LGBT people out in the cold.

“Despite rhetorical claims that the Senate bill was political and partisan, the fact of the matter is that 15 Republican Senators voted for the bill and 63 Senators rejected an amendment similar to the House Republican bill,” Solmonese said. “The Senate bill is bipartisan and is the VAWA that is supported by law enforcement, court, prosecution, legal services, and victim services professionals.”

—  Anna Waugh