PUBLIC STATEMENT
from Metropolitan Community Churches
Office of the Moderator
For Immediate Release: 28 October 2009
MCC Moderator Hails the Signing of U.S. Hate Crimes Legislation
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives {October 8th} and the Senate {October 22nd} of the United States Congress, in separate votes with bipartisan support, passed an authorization bill for the Department of Defense that included as an amendment, "The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act." Today, President Obama signed that act into law.
First introduced by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy and designed to add perceived or actual gender identity and sexual orientation to the already protected categories of race, color, religious and national origin, the legislation took ten long years of effort and coalition building to become reality.
This new law will mean that federal prosecutors may try hate crimes cases that involve the targeting of LGBT people and our communities. It will also enable the possibility of federal funding for often lengthy and expensive investigations, and equally importantly, the funding of preventive programs at the local level.
It is an important first step in the LGBT quest for FULL EQUALITY NOW, as we marched in Washington to achieve earlier this month. And, I am grateful to President Obama for fulfilling his word to us and for his leadership, as well as to Senator Kennedy and the families of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, who rose above their private pain to seek a greater public good. I am grateful today to the many people of faith and good will, among them many MCCers, who preached and marched and demonstrated and wrote letters to Members of Congress and organized community educational forums in the hope of reaching this day.
As we celebrate this victory, let us not lose sight of the race that remains before us. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, encouraging us on --- Matthew and James, yes --- and also, people like James Zappalorti, a gay man living with mental illness, targeted for his kindness to children in the neighborhood; people like Julio Rivera and Henry Marquez and Michael J. Sandy, chased into traffic and left to die of his injuries because his attackers thought a gay man would be an easy target; people like Allen Schindler and Larry Meholic, Lenonard Vines and Billy Jack Gaither and Henry Edward Northington. Today, I call as our witnesses in this good fight, the names of Sakia Gunn and Steen Fenrich and Rashawn Brazell and all the LGBT youth lost to violence; Brendan Teena, Gwen Aruejo and Sanesha Stweart and all the transgender children of God who urge us on.
Let us pledge, in our celebration and joy at this major victory, to not forget those who've gone before us, and to continue all the hard work that won today's victory, until ENDA passes and people across the United States are free from employment discrimination; until the day when DADT is repealed and people are free to serve the country they love with openness and integrity; until the day when DOMA is repealed and no one ever again is allowed to vote on the validity of anyone's love.
Johnathan Katz wrote these words in Gay American History: "For long we were a people perceived out of time and out of place. Our existence as a long-oppressed, long-resistant social group was not explored. We remained an unknown people, our character defamed. That time is over."
I pray today, his words may become our mantra until full equality is achieved not only for every LGBT person, but for every person regardless of race or class or ethnicity or religious identity, and all the saints can rest in peace, knowing their living and their dying was not in vain.
We've come this far by faith. May our faith lead us forward in the quest for full human equality.
Grace and peace,
+Nancy
//signed
The Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson, Moderator
Metropolitan Community Churches
This statement prepared in conjunction with the Moderator's Global Justice Team, Rev. Pat Bumgardner, Chair.
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