When Hatred Is a Motivating Factor

Susanna Stein MPP 1991

The way Susanna Stein sees it, the massive media coverage that followed the brutal murder in 1998 of Matthew Shepard, a 20-year-old college student who was lured out of a Wyoming bar, beaten, tied to a fence, then left to die in the cold simply because he was gay, was positive but not quite complete.

"The media attention to Shepard’s murder brought the issue of anti-lesbian, gay, transgender, and bisexual (LGTB) violence to America’s homes and water coolers," Stein says. "A subject that was never considered, much less discussed, was suddenly spotlighted and profiled in every respected media outlet. The coverage let the world know what queer people across the globe have always known: there are people in this world who will harm you just for being who you are. What got lost in the Shepard story, however, is that murders are just the proverbial ‘tip of the iceberg’ of all anti-LGTB hate crimes."

It is these types of crimes, in fact, that motivated Stein to spend her free time volunteering with the Anti-Violence Project (AVP). Based in New York City, the project has been working to combat bias-motivated hatred for more than 20 years. Stein, vice president of the Empire State Development Corporation, the city’s economic development agency, joined the group in 1992, and currently serves as co-chair of the board of directors.

Although she has never needed to use AVP’s services directly, she says that thousands do every year. According to the project, 80 percent of lesbians and gay men have experienced some form of anti-gay or anti-lesbian bias-related violence, and gay men and lesbians are more than four times as likely to become crime victims than heterosexuals.

Statistics, however, don’t always tell the full story. In 1999, serious assaults that required medical attention or hospitalization, as well as murders, increased: assault with a weapon by 3 percent, murders by 12 percent, and abduction or kidnapping by a whopping 57 percent. The numbers for "lesser" crimes, however, such as domestic abuse, name calling, and intimidation, showed a slight drop even though Stein isn’t convinced they are happening less. More likely, she senses that victims are reluctant to come forward.

"What the highly publicized crimes like the murder of Matthew Shepard, Billy Jack Gaither in Alabama, and Edward Northington in Virginia, may have done," Stein says, "is leave victims of lesser anti-gay hate crimes more grateful to be alive and less likely to report them."

And it’s not only the statistics that are difficult to decipher. Understanding the root cause of this hatred can also be
difficult, says Stein, a California native, who worked professionally as a violinist before attending the Kennedy School and switching careers.

"Both religious and pseudo-scientific intolerance play the same role as Dr. Laura’s rhetoric in fostering a climate that breeds anti-queer sentiment and violence," she says. In addition, "strategies for ‘curing’ gay people imply that homosexuality is a choice, ignoring the fact that heterosexuals did not choose their sexual orientation. They also underscore a ‘right and wrong’ way to be in this world. Perpetuating this kind of ‘benign’ moral intolerance sets the stage for others to go one step further and believe that they can beat ‘the lesbianism’ out of a lesbian, or beat the life out of a gay man."

Stein, a second-degree black belt in karate who teaches weekly country-western dance for the gay and lesbian community in New York, hopes that federal enforcement will eventually crack down on this hatred.

Currently, only two federal hate-crime laws include sexual orientation as a protected group.

"The sentiment is that there is no role for the federal government to interfere with local crimes," says Stein. But, "having the political will of the U.S. government behind a hate-crimes law that includes sexual orientation and gender identity would send a strong and clear message that queer lives are valued and that crimes against us will not be tolerated."