Of the many comments on the post, Burn Their Churches to the Ground, commenter Tom gave us an interesting post today. He posted a litany of crimes committed against GLBT people and said, quote, “here is a list of murders on gay people by people of the “christian” faith. I challenge anyone to compile a similar list of gay people killing straight people for coming on to them.” His argument is that these “hate” crimes were all committed by people claiming Christian faith as the basis for killing gays and lesbians. Of course, I’ve done some studying. What I’ve found may (or may not) surprise you. I’m going to answer each one in turn, starting with the first six.
The Upstairs Lounge–on June 24, 1973, 29 people were found dead and numerous others were seriously injured by a fire at a gay bar in the French Quarter in New Orleans. The cause of the fire was officially undetermined; it is known that the fire started in the wooden stairwell that led to the bar. The taxi buzzer sounded, and when the inner door was opened the near-dying fire exploded in a backdraft, trapping more than 60 people inside. Three injured victims died in the hospital in the days that followed, leaving a total of 32 fatalities. Even though some gay bloggers–all of them too young to really know what happened and unwilling to do the research–are now claiming that a firebomb was thrown by an anti-gay bigot, more level-headed gay columnists have admitted the truth that a patron of the bar who’d gotten drunk and been thrown out earlier that night had come back to start the fire and later bragged about doing it before committing suicide. The most that can be claimed is that the New Orleans police and fire departments showed a callous lack of concern by leaving the corpse of Rev. Bill Larson half out a window for two days while they investigated the crime. Verdict: HYSTERIA.
Harvey Milk–on November 27, 1978, San Francisco city supervisor Dan White loaded his old police revolver, dumped 10 extra rounds into his jacket pocket, and went to City Hall to confront mayor George Moscone about his pending termination. He had a friend drive him to City Hall, climbed through a window to avoid metal detectors, and confronted Moscone in his office. He demanded to know why Moscone had appointed Don Horanzy to his position, and when Moscone refused to cave in to pleas to allow him to keep his job, White pulled his revolver and shot him twice in the abdomen, then twice more in the head. He re-loaded his weapon and headed for fellow supervisor Harvey Milk’s office. He confronted Milk about the very vocal charge he made to have Horanzy appointed in his place, and when Milk said, “too bad,” White shot him three times in the abdomen, once in the back, and twice in the head. After his parole due to his diminished capacity defense (the legendary “twinkie defense”), White admitted to a police coworker that he’d also marked Carol Ruth Silver and Willie Brown, also supervisors, for death that day. No claims of homophobia were made, and Christianity never came into play. White murdered the mayor and his coworker because he was about to lose his job. Verdict: HYSTERIA.
Terry Knudsen–little is known about this crime. Many searches turned up only the information that he was beaten to death on June 5, 1979 by three men in the Loring Park area of Minneapolis. A phone call to the Minneapolis police department didn’t turn up any definitive copy of a report, though if I want to fly out there and look it up myself I’m welcome to. Verdict: UNDETERMINED, though due to a remarkable lack of evidence at least partially HYSTERIA.
Declan Flynn–this one is an enigma to the gay community at large, because the details are difficult to find. The most you’ll find on gay hate crimes websites is one simple phrase: “Decan Flynn (they can’t even spell his name right), beaten to death in 1983.” Actually, it happened on September 10, 1982. Five teenage thugs in Fairview Park in Dublin, Ireland–two of them members of the Irish Aer Corps–deliberately went to the park to drink cider (yes, it is a beer) and go “queer bashing.” At the time, this was popular among violent teenage punks in Ireland and Great Britain. It was part of the culture then; homosexuality has only been officially legal there for around fifteen years. The teens later told the gardai (Irish police) that they’d done it, and said that it was because Flynn had come onto one of the boys by grabbing his crotch (you also have to remember, this park was and still is a popular place for gay people to find casual sex). The same group of boys admitted to gardai that they’d beaten at least twenty gay men in the same park. The teens were given suspended sentences, and while some of their immediate family and neighbors were thrilled, the public outcry was more intense than expected. Today, nobody knows what’s come of the five teens who committed the crime; they are believed to be living in relative secrecy. As it was a hate crime, not one of the thugs, who all had previous criminal records for violence and theft, claimed they killed the man because of their faith or because they thought God told them to do so. Verdict: both TRUTH and HYSTERIA.
James Zappalorti–on January 22, 1990, Vietnam Veteran Zappalorti invited two acquaintances over for dinner at a small house he’d built on the edge of his family’s property on Staten Island. Once they arrived, 20-year-old Michael Taylor and 26-year-old Philip Sarlo told Zappalorti to hand over his wallet; he was being robbed. Zappalorti tossed his wallet out into the yard to get the men to leave. Instead, they beat and stabbed him to death with a large hunting knife. When cornered by detectives, Taylor attempted to claim animosity towards homosexuals, but Sarlo admitted they’d talked about robbing Zappalorti before going to the house, and his orientation never came up in the conversation. Again, Christianity nor religious bias were NEVER claimed. Verdict: HYSTERIA.
Teena Brandon–at a Christmas party in 1993, two ex-cons in Falls City, Nebraska–John Lotter and Tom Nissen–dragged their newest acquaintance into the bathroom of a friend’s home, dropped her pants, and forced a friend to look at the reality: the person they’d been introduced to as Brandon Teena, a man, was actually a woman. Brandon had been arrested for forging checks and “his” girlfriend, Lana Tisdale, bailed Brandon out of the women’s jail. When the paper printed the arrest, it listed her actual name as Teena Brandon and the fact that she was female. Lotter and Nissen forced Tisdale to look at Brandon’s naked body to prove that “he” had been fooling everyone. They drove Brandon to a factory lot where they raped her and let her go with a warning not to call the authorities. When Brandon made her way, shoeless, back to Tisdale’s home, Tisdale persuaded her to go to the police and she did so. Six days later, on December 31, Lotter and Nissen, after an exhaustive search for Brandon, found her hiding under a blanket in a friend’s farmhouse. They shot and stabbed Brandon and shot the other two occupants of the house–Lisa Lambert, killed with her baby next to her in bed, and Phillip DeVine. They attempted to toss their gloves, knife and gun into the river, but the items were merely preserved on the frozen surface; the knife was branded with Lotter’s name. Today, Lotter is on death row while Nissen serves three life sentences. Both admitted to being there though they argue to this day about who was the shooter and who wielded the knife. Both admitted they were after Brandon. However, while the crime was originally motivated by Brandon’s sexual expression, it ended in murder because the perps wanted the witnesses dead. Sheriff Charles Laux enabled the men to commit the crime with his own bias; the rape kit was conveniently lost, and equally conveniently the end portion of the interview tape of Brandon’s complaint was erased (though Laux’s extreme prejudice is evident throughout what is there). Laux refused to arrest the perps and let evidence be destroyed, giving them time to commit murder. Yet again, no mention of religious bias. Verdict: partial TRUTH, mostly HYSTERIA. (Sidenote: while I think Hilary Swank was incredible as Brandon in the movie Boys Don’t Cry, I did not necessarily care for the content of the film, nor did I believe the story worthy of being immortalized in such a fashion.)
So far, not a single claim of so-called “Christian bigotry” is standing up to the test. Though some of these crimes were, indeed, committed out of an anti-gay bias, not one of the crimes listed so far was committed out of some religious motivation.
steveflesher
Philip
Mel Maguire
Mark Ciavola
Comments
The most that can be claimed is that the New Orleans police and fire departments showed a callous lack of concern by leaving the corpse of Rev. Bill Larson half out a window for two days while they investigated the crime.
Wow, mel, you REALLY did a lot of research on these two posts.
Amazing.
You’ve missed the point entirely! The people who committed these heinous crimes were clearly not ‘good Christians’ acting out of religious fervour, but they were filled with the hate for gay people that their Christian societies have instilled in them.
No, YOU have missed the point. To blame Christians alone for the crimes of a small group of people because they supposedly “instilled hate” in them is shortsighted at best. I find it frustrating almost beyond words that so many in our community are so willing to pin it all on a single religion that isn’t nearly as hateful as others. I am attacking your mindset just as much as the one you’re attempting to skirt.
Islam comes to mind, Rory. They still execute people for being gay. Or are you one of those who thinks we really shouldn’t tell other cultures how to live?
Actually, I can’t ever remember being told to hate homosexuals by my church. And I’m there every Sunday, on Holy Days of Obligation, and CCD nights.
“Actually, I can’t ever remember being told to hate homosexuals by my church. And I’m there every Sunday, on Holy Days of Obligation, and CCD nights.”
Same here. I grew up Lutheran. I wasn’t taught anything about homosexuality.
The Evangelicals that I know are taught to love the sinner and hate the sin. You can’t love the sinner and murder the sinner.
Rory made a good point though it was not complete.
The idea that Teena Brandon was murdered because of a Christian label at all is preposterous. There was no Christianity involved in the murder.
When you get a leftist-loon who cites the trouble with religion and they use a case like Brandon’s, you are hearing something that happens far too often.
The mis-characterization of Christianity’s alleged poisoning is something that is predicted in the Bible to take us further away from Christian decency and respect.
As predicted in Revelation, it’s working. But in the end, nobody will win.
Conservatives hav e been loosing since the day they killed Jesus.
Liberals have been losing since the day they pretended to know Jesus.
Conservatives won 12 straight years of elections. Democrats won because of failed Republicanism, not because of America’s love of liberalism.
Just wanted to clarify your basis a bit.
On the Terry Knudsen murder in Minneapolis on June 5, 1979, you can find several articles about this crime in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune archives. This murder of a gay man was headline news in June 1979 in Minneapolis.
In regard to the Terry Knudsen murder, here is a bit more info. http://www.tucsonobserver.com/archives/pdf/1979/08/AUG%2024.pdf
One of the men who was convicted of his murder is named Gregory Allen (or Allan)Smith. He served 11 years of a 25 year sentence. He has been out of prison since 1991 and is living in Minnesota working at a decent job making 30 bucks an hour. Unfortunately, he is still a totally rageful homophobe and also still brags about the murder only in his version he’s the wrongfully convicted hero. I think the conviction is still on the BCA website. You can also look it up at http://pa.courts.state.mn.us/CaseDetail.aspx?CaseID=704743631 from there you can get the case number and find the details of the actual case. It’s all public information.
The Tucson Observer article doesn’t really give much information, either. The link for the Minnesota courts you provided isn’t working (all I’m getting is a runtime error). I Googled “Gregory Allen Smith”, “Gregory Allan Smith” and “Gregory Alan Smith” and in ten pages on each search couldn’t find a single article on Terry Knudsen’s murderer.
I stand by my original assessment.
It doesn’t surprise me that you can’t find it on google because it’s an old crime. Not sure why the link won’t work, but here is the website for the state http://pa.courts.state.mn.us (hopefully that one will work) and here’s the case number 27-CR-81-901017
This is the the citation number 371 N.W.2d 226 (Minn. App. 1985) for his request for an appeal for early release that was requested on July 9, 1985 and denied September 19, 1985 because he was still considered a danger to society. You can retrieve the full document from Westlaw.com.
It clearly states, “On January 6, 1979, at about 2:00 a.m., the appellant, then sixteen years old, and two friends met in Loring Park and decided to ‘rob a fag.’ They approached one Terry Knutson in the park and demanded money. Knutson was brutally beaten with a metal club and he died of his injuries about a week later. Smith was arrested and certified to stand trial for murder as an adult.”
It seems there is some confusion with regard to the spelling of the victim’s last name. It is listed in various places as Knutson, Knudsen and Knudson.
More on that Loring Park Murder. http://mn.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.%5CMN%5CMN2%5C1985%5C19850709_0026.MN.htm/qx
http://mn.findacase.com/research/wfrmDo … .MN.htm/qx
07/09/85
GREGORY ALLEN SMITH v. STATE MINNESOTA
COURT OF APPEALS OF MINNESOTA
Docket Number available at http://www.versuslaw.com
Citation Number available at http://www.versuslaw.com
July 9, 1985
GREGORY ALLEN SMITH, PETITIONER, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF MINNESOTA, RESPONDENT
Appeal from District Court, Hennepin County, Hon. Richard J. Kantorowicz, Judge, Affirmed.
Deborah Ellis Suite 1530, 55 E. 5th St. St. Paul Minnesota 55101, for appellant.
Hubert H. Humphrey, III Attorney General 200 Ford Bldg. 117 University Ave. St. Paul Minnesota 55155, Thomas L. Johnson, Henn Cnty Attorney Vernon E. Bergstom Paul R. Jennings, Asst. Cnty Attorney, C-2100 Gov’t Center Minneapolis, Minnesota 55487, for respondent.
Heard, considered and decided by Lansing, Presiding Judge, Leslie, Judge, and Nierengarten, Judge.
The opinion of the court was delivered by: Leslie
Postconviction court properly denied appellant’s petition to be resentenced according to the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines.
LESLIE, Judge
Gregory Allen Smith was convicted of third degree murder in 1981. Because his crime took place before the sentencing guidelines were effective, he was sentenced to an indeterminate sentence of one to twenty five years, with a target release date in 1991. Smith brought a motion for resentencing which was denied because the trial court felt that he had not met his burden of proving that his earlier release would not present a danger to the public. We affirm.
FACTS
On January 6, 1979, at about 2:00 a.m., the appellant, then sixteen years old, and two friends met in Loring Park and decided to “rob a fag.” They approached one Terry Knutson in the park and demanded money. Knutson was brutally beaten with a metal club and he died of his injuries about a week later.
Smith was arrested and certified to stand trial for murder as an adult. In exchange for more lenient treatment, one of Smith’s accomplices testified at trial that it was Smith who beat Knutson with a metal club. Other witnesses testified that Smith had later bragged about beating a fag in Loring Park on the night in question. On June 23, 1981, a jury convicted Smith of third degree murder.
On July 8, 1981, Smith was sentenced to prison. Because Smith was sentenced before the sentencing guidelines became effective, he received an indeterminate sentence of one year and one day to twenty five years. His target release date is July 28, 1991. While there is some question on the matter, it appears that had Smith been sentenced under the 1981 guidelines the minimum presumptive sentence would have been 97 months.
On May 30, 1984, Smith filed a petition for resentencing pursuant to Minn. Stat. ? 590.01, subd. 3 (1982). A hearing was held and Smith presented several witnesses to testify that his early release would not be incompatible with the welfare of society. Smith’s parents testified that they had visited him about every other week during his four years of incarceration and that they had noticed he had matured significantly in that time. Myrna Tix, a neighbor of Smith’s parents, testified that she had spent two hours with Smith every other week for the past two years and that she believed that his release before 1991 would be compatible with the safety of the community. One of Smith’s former teachers at the Oak Park Heights Correctional Facility also testified that Smith had showed a great deal of enthusiasm in successfully earning college credits toward an undergraduate degree in computer science while incarcerated. She testified that he was a good student and well behaved, and that she felt that his early release would be compatible with public safety. Smith, himself, also testified, explaining his educational achievements and his plans for the future. When asked by the prosecuting attorney, Smith still denied that he had caused the death of Knutson. The State called no witnesses to testify against Smith.
The district court denied Smith’s motion because Smith had failed to prove that he no longer presented a danger to the public. The court began by noting Smith’s “tragic personal history” which included being sent to various juvenile institutions for running away from home, drug use, and various violent offenses. The court relied heavily on a probation officer’s report which stated that Smith was a psychopathic individual and on other reports which called him a “con man.” The court noted Smith called no psychiatric experts to indicate that this had changed. The court felt that Smith’s continued denial of being responsible for Knutson’s death, in light of the persuasive evidence to the contrary, indicated that his psychopathic nature had not changed. The good faith opinions of Smith’s parents, friends, and former teacher were not sufficient to persuade the court that his early release would not be incompatible with the welfare of society. Therefore, the court denied Smith’s petition.
ISSUE
Did the post-conviction court err in denying the resentencing petition of appellant, who was convicted of third degree murder committed when he was a minor, when the appellant presented some evidence that he was reformed?
ANALYSIS
The beginning point for our analysis is Minn. Stat. ? 590.01, subd. 3 (1982), which provides that a person who was convicted and sentenced for a crime committed before May 1, 1980 can petition a court to be resentenced under the sentencing guidelines. Under this provision a petition will not be granted unless the court makes specific findings of fact that early release of the petitioner “does not present a danger to the public and is not incompatible with the welfare of society.” Id. Furthermore, the petitioner has the burden of proving that his early release would not present a danger to the public safety. Woolridge v. State, 342 N.W.2d 636, 637 (Minn. 1984). Finally, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that appellate courts will generally not reverse a refusal to resentence an individual where the petitioner is serving a sentence for a violent offense or where he has a record which suggests that he is likely to engage in criminal conduct after his release. See Johnson v. State, 331 N.W.2d 757 (Minn. 1983); Frank v. State, 326 N.W.2d 636, 637 (Minn. 1982); State v. Champion, 319 N.W.2d 21, 23 (Minn. 1982).
Appellant argues that at his hearing he did establish that his early release would not be incompatible with the public safety. Appellant argues that the unrebutted evidence of his good behavior, maturity, and academic accomplishments proved that he was entitled to resentencing. While appellant did present evidence to show that he has reformed, it should be noted that almost all of the witnesses who testified were interested parties and none presented professional opinions. Furthermore, while appellant’s academic achievements are commendable they do not prove that he will not be dangerous if released early. Finally, it cannot be forgotten that a jury found Smith guilty of a brutal murder.
It is not for this court to second guess the resentencing court, which also was the trial court and had the benefit of personally seeing the witnesses and hearing the testimony which was presented at both proceedings. While the evidence could have supported a finding that Smith would not pose a danger to society, we cannot say that the trial court was clearly erroneous in finding otherwise. As the Minnesota Supreme Court has stated, “nder the circumstances of this case, although the post-conviction court had discretion to resentence petitioner, the court was not under any obligation to do so.” Frank, 326 N.W.2d at 637.
DECISION
Under the facts of the case we cannot say that the resentencing court erred in denying the appellant’s conviction.
Affirmed.
19850709
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