Transgender Murder Documentary
Last night we watched an HBO documentary for the first time titled, Valentine Rd. It covers the murder of transgender teen, Larry King, and the events leading up to his death. I’d been following the story for a while and I new most of the basics, but what I didn’t know was how the jury reacted when it came time to hand down a verdict to the teen who murdered Larry King in cold blood. According to the facts, it was pre-meditated, the intent to kill was obvious, and the DA presented a case that seemed about as solid as they get. And yet the way in which the jury interpreted the law, and the murder of a transgender, made me wonder how could it be possible to get that many stupid people together in one group at the same time.
In February 2008, 15-year-old openly gay eighth-grader Larry King flirtatiously approached classmate Brandon McInerney and asked him to be his valentine. A few days later Larry was dead, shot twice in the back of the head by Brandon.
The film, which airs tonight at 9 ET/PT . on HBO, chronicles the Oxnard, Calif., murder, which has been described as the most prominent gay bias crime since the murder of Matthew Shepard a decade earlier. The case brought widespread media attention to issues of teen gender expression and sexual identity, as well as gun violence at schools.
From what I gathered according to this documentary, the jury members felt sorry for the murderer because transgender Larry King embarrassed him in front of all his straight male peers. Larry King was open about being transgender and even wore high heels and make up to school. Straight boys found that uncomfortable at best. Most of the people on the jury associated with the trial who seemed so supportive of the murderer were women.
Anderson Cooper on Alec Baldwin
I posted about Alec Baldwin’s most recent gay slurs yesterday, and this is a follow up to a few more things Anderson Cooper had to say about it.
Speaking to a panel on Monday’s “AC360 Later,” Cooper laid into Baldwin, calling him a liar for saying that he was unaware that “c-ksucking” could be used in a homophobic way.
“For him to say, I was informed of this afterward, I mean come on!” he said.
He later added that he didn’t understand why Baldwin was getting a “pass” for his comments.
“If Alec Baldwin had yelled the n-word to that photographer, or yelled some anti-Jewish slur, it would be over!” he said.
If you don’t think Anderson Cooper is right, all you have to do is reflect on what Paula Deen said last summer. And she did that years and years ago and not even in the same vicious context with which Baldwin made his remarks.
I don’t think people are actually getting it yet.
Minister Convicted for Gay Marriage
I saw this on the news last night on TV, and the tone with which the local anchor man read it sounded like complete disgust…as if he couldn’t even believe something like this would happen. And this anchor man is usually objective expressionless about everything.
A United Methodist pastor was convicted Monday of breaking church law by officiating his son’s same-sex wedding and could be defrocked after a high-profile trial that has rekindled debate over the denomination’s policy on gay marriage.