TITLE: A Capital Case

AUTHOR: Michael Bronski

PUB: The Boston Phoenix

DATE: February 9, 2001

What is the point of gay rights if they aren't connected to a larger vision of human rights? Question: when is a gay issue not a gay issue? Answer: When it's politically inconvenient. Take capital punishment. Last month Queer Watch, a small but vocal radical activist organization (you may remember their campaign last year to "out" the salaries of the executive directors of AIDS- and gay-related nonprofits), condemned Wyoming state prosecutor Cal Rerucha's decision to seek the death penalty for Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, the two men accused of murdering Matthew Shepard. And the group challenged other gay and lesbian organizations to do the same. As Queer Watch member Michael Petrelis says, "Putting anyone to death for the murder of Shepard is just as barbaric as tying the victim to a fence post and leaving him to die in sub-zero temperatures." On February 10, 11 leading national and local gay-activist organizations met the challenge and issued statements decrying the use of the death penalty. To be sure, these groups took a shamefully long time in coming to this decision. And in the case of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), an organization that's taken quick stands on issues ranging from NAFTA to the Gulf War, the initial silence on this issue was puzzling. Still, NGLTF, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, and nine others did the right thing in refusing to distinguish between human rights and gay rights. But the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which claims 250,000 members, was conspicuous in its silence. "We don't have a policy on the death penalty," says Wayne Besson, a spokesperson for HRC. "And we don't see it as a particularly gay issue." But isn't it? In her succinctly titled documentary, Dykes on Death Row, London-based filmmaker Donna Clark substantiates the claim that women who are perceived to be lesbians are far more likely to be sentenced to death. Clark's interviews with prosecuting and defense attorneys, as well as with legal experts, show that the dykier or more butch a female convict appears to be, the greater the chances that she will be sent to death row. Gay men are at similar risk. Take the case of Calvin Burdine, an openly gay man in Texas who was sentenced to death after a trial in which his court-appointed lawyer fell asleep at least five times, continually referred to gay people as "queers" and "fairies," and failed to remove three jurors who admitted to prejudice against homosexuals. During sentencing, the prosecuting attorney asked for the death penalty and actually said, "Sending a homosexual to a penitentiary isn't a very bad punishment for a homosexual." Or how about the case of Stanley D. Lingar, who was tried in Missouri for first-degree murder? The jury had shown no inclination to sentence him to death, but the day after he was convicted, it did so-after the prosecutor specifically introduced evidence, which had no bearing on the case, that Lingar was gay. Although there are not many openly gay men or lesbians on death row, it is clear that anti-gay prejudice plays a role in deciding who gets the death penalty. And why not? There is overwhelming evidence that members of marginalized groups-African-Americans, Latinos, and the poor-are far more likely to be sentenced to death and executed. Queers, of course, are no exception. But in the Shepard case, it's the victim, not the accused murderers, who is gay. And in a very direct, visceral way, HRC and other gay groups-many of which used the murder as an extraordinarily effective fundraising tool-set the mechanism of the death penalty in motion. Whether someone gets a death sentence is, to a large degree, the whim of the judge and jury, so the publicity surrounding a case is an enormous factor. The mainstream media were the primary force behind the public attention that Shepard's murder rightly received. But gay advocacy and legal groups also played a role. And it's this very publicity and politicization that created the atmosphere inwhich Rerucha could call for the death penalty. Is capital punishment a gay issue? Now it is. The bottom line, however, is that the death penalty is a gay issue because it is a basic human-rights issue. Most human-rights, civil-rights, and progressive groups take a strong stand against capital punishment. The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People all oppose the death penalty. Capital punishment is also condemned by almost all international human-rights accords, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights used by the World Court, which proclaims each person's right to "protection from deprivation of life." The NAACP came out with a strong statement against imposing capital punishment on the alleged murderers of James Byrd Jr., the African-American man who was tied to the back of a truck and dragged to his death in Texas last year. Yet the Human Rights Campaign-most ironically, given its name-won't take a decisive stand against the death penalty. What is the point of "gay rights" if they are not connected to a larger vision of human or even civil rights? The Matthew Shepard murder is an emotionally difficult case on which to take this position, for it has come to symbolize the vast extent to which anti-queer violence permeates our culture and threatens each of our lives every day. But this is precisely the kind of hard case that both prompts and defines true moral leadership. When we concede that the state has the right to take a life, we are feeding a system of violence that breeds violence, and under which gay people are victims. We can hope that in 20 years' time all of this will be moot and that gay political groups, like other progressive groups of conscience, will simply oppose the death penalty as part of a broader human-rights agenda. Those who call the death penalty "not a gay issue" must answer some basic questions: As gay-rights activists, do we stand for compliance with the law or for a larger vision of equality? As human beings, do we stand for justice or for vengeance? Michael Bronski is the author of The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom (St. Martin's Press) END top