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The Carolinas’ Most Comprehensive Gay & Lesbian Newspaper
Published Every Two Weeks On Recycled Paper • Volume 13, Number 24 • April 17, 1999 • FREE
First defendant pleads guilty in Shepard trial
by Dan Van Mourik
Q-Notes Staff
LARAMIE, WY—Jury selection and open
ing statements in the first trial in the Matthew
Shepard beating death were delayed after Judge
Jeffrey Donnell ordered a lasfrminute hearing.
Speculation was that Russell Henderson, 21,
would enter a plea bargain.
During the hearing on Monday, April 5,
Henderson, one of the two men charged in the
killing of gay college student Matthew Shepard,
pleaded guilty to murder, admitting he tied the
bleeding young man to a wooden fence and
left him for dead.
Henderson avoided a trial ^d a possible
death sentence with his plea. He was sentenced
to two consecutive life terms and will not be
eligible for parole. His only hope for release is
a pardon.
Judy Shepard cried at the stand while talk
ing about her son, then turned to Henderson;
“I hope you never experience another day or
night without experiencing the terror, humili
ation, the hopeless and helplessness that my son
felt that night.”
Authorities said Henderson and Aaron
McKinney, 21, posed as homosexuals and lured
Shepard out of a bar last October, kidnapped
and pistol-whipped him and left him tied to a
fence in the cold. Shepard died five days later.
Although he pleaded guilty to felony mur
der and kidnapping, Henderson said his friend
and co-defendant delivered the fatal blows.
“Felony murder” is a category of crime in cer
tain states that basically means a felony was
committed and during that felony someone was
killed, though the felon was not direcdy respon
sible for the death (in this case, Henderson
claims McKinney was the one who repeatedly
struck Shepard and thus is the one directly re
sponsible for killing him).
Henderson matter-of-factly recounted the
grisly beating and his attempts to cover up his
role, then asked forgiveness from his and
Shepard s families. “There is not a moment that
goes by that I don’t see what happened that
night,” he said. “I hope one day you will be
able to find it in your heart to forgive me.”
Henderson stood before the sobbing parents
of Matthew Shepard and apologized for kid
napping their son, lashing him to a fence and
leaving him to die from a pistol-whipping. “I
know what I did was wrong. I’m very sorry for
what I did,” he said. “You have my greatest sym
pathy for what happened.”
Shepard’s parents bitterly rejected the apol
ogy and so did Judge Jeffrey Donnell.
“At times I don’t know how you’d be wor
thy of any acknowledgment of your existence,”
Judy Shepard said, glaring at Henderson. “You
murdered my son.... None of us would be here
today going through this agony if it wasn’t for
you. It takes someone quite unique to sit and
watch someone else be beaten to death and do
nothing about it.”
Earlier, Henderson showed little emotion as
he described the fatal beating, saying he reluc
tantly went along with McKinney’s plan to en
tice Shepard out of a bar and into a pickup truck
to rob him.
Henderson said he drove the truck and fol
lowed McKinney’s order to tie their victim to a
fence so McKinney could pistol-whip Shepard.
“Matt looked really bad so I told him to stop
hitting him, I think he’s had enough,” he said.
Henderson said his friend turned on him and
struck him in the face with the gun.
See GUILTY on page 30
Arkansas foster care ban challenged by gays, ACLU
by Amy Weil
Special to Q-Notes
LITTLE ROCK, AR—In a state where the
foster care system is in crisis, the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) is challenging a new
policy prohibiting qualified gays and lesbians,
and any heterosexuals who live with them,, from
serving as foster parents. ,
Working with the ACLU’s National Lesbian
and Gay Rights Project, the ACLU of Arkan
sas filed a lawsuit (Sands et al v. Child Welfare
Agency Review Board) April 6 in state chancery
court on behalf of six prospective foster par
ents, including a gay couple with two adopted
children and a heterosexual married man who
is barred from foster parenting because his 18-
year-old son, who lives at home, is gay.
The policy was adopted by the state’s Child
Welfare Agency Review Board which the ACLU
is suing along with the Arkansas Department
of Human Services.
In its legal complaint, the ACLU is charg
ing that the policy conflicts with existing agency
and state law directives to find foster homes
that are “in the best interest of the child.” The
ACLU is also charging violations of its clients’
rights to equal protection, privacy and intimate
association under the state and federal consti
tutions.
“Sadly, the real victims of this policy are the
children who desperately need foster parents,”
said Rita Sklar, executive director of the ACLU
of Arkansas, appearing with ACLU clients at a
press conference in Little Rock.
“Right now, we are facing a shortage of fos
ter parents under a system in such disarray that
it is under court supervision to improve ser
vices for children,” she added. “But the board’s
irrational response is to limit even further that
rare group of people willing to take trauma
tized and abused children into their homes.”
Joined by child care experts and members
of the clergy, Sklar testified at board hearings
and provided officials with a wealth of respected
social science research, all of which concludes
that being raised by gay parents has no harm
ful effects on a child’s development.
But in passing the policy, the board rejected
these findings, relying instead on the widely
discredited “junk science” of Paul Cameron, a
psychologist whose bogus research has been
rejected in federal court and uniformly spurned
by the profession.al community.
“The fact that the review board relied on
Cameron’s research to pass this policy reveals a
lot about the forces at work here,” said Michael
Adams, associate director of the ACLU’s Les
bian and Gay Rights Project and an attorney
in the case. “The reasons behind this policy are
the same as those behind policies that once pro
hibited racial minorities and disabled people
from adopting and serving as foster parents —
fear, misunderstanding and personal bias.”
Adams noted that Cameron was dropped
from membership in the American Psychologi
cal Association in 1984 for ethical violations
concerning his biased research. That same year,
the Psychological Association in his home state
of Nebraska adopted a formal resolution disas-
SQciating itself from Cameron’s work. And in
1985, a federal judge concluded that Cameron
had engaged in “fraud” and “misrepresentation”
when he testified in a gay-related case in Texas.
In contrast, an analysis of more than 50
See CHALLENGED on page 30
Activists launch TV ad campaign against United
by John Aravosis
Special to Q-Notes
SAN FRANCISCO—Since the beginning
of the month. Equal Benefits Advocates (EBA)
has been airing television advertisements sup
porting the boycott of United Airlines based
on the carrier’s stand
against a GLBT rights
law in San Francisco.
Sparked by law
suits seeking to invali
date San Francisco’s
landmark anti-dis
crimination ordinance
filed by United Air
lines and Reverend Pat
Robertson’s legal
foundation, American
Center for Law and
Justice (ACLJ), the ad
campaign began in the San Francisco and Los
Angeles media markets and is expected to ex
pand to all major markets by the end of April.
‘We want every lesbian and gay person to
know that United Airlines and Reverend Pat
Robertson share the same goal,” said Jeff Getty,
the commercial’s producer. “This campaign will
stamp United Airlines and Pat Robertson as
leaders in anti-gay discrimination in the minds
of gay people across the country. Because
United’s chosen to be
on the same side as
religious political ex-
m
m
tremists like Pat
Robertson, by the
time this ad cam
paign is completed,
the lesbian and gay
market will be lost to
the airline forever.”
United Airlines is
currently the subject
of a nationwide boy
cott by the lesbian
and gay community organized by EBA. “We
want every lesbian and gay man in the country
to know that United Airlines and Pat Robertson
want to deny lesbian and gay employees basic
equity in the provision of benefits,” said Jeff
Sheehy, founder of EBA.
“We chose to start in the Los Angeles and
San Francisco media markets because we want
to support American Airlines/Reno Air’s deci
sion to challenge United between the two Cali
fornia cities. American Airlines is the domestic
carrier which has gone furthest in offering equal
benefits to...gay employees,” Sheehy added.
The Equal Benefits Ordinance, passed in
1996, mandates all businesses contracting with
San Francisco to offer the same benefits to do
mestic partners of employees that they offer to
married spouses of employees. Since it came
into forcejune 1,1997, the number of compa
nies nationwide offering domestic partner ben
efits has grown from 500 to over 2500.
United Airlines is the only passenger airline
that has chosen not to comply and instead sue
San Francisco to block implementation of the
Ordinance. In September 1998, Federal Judge
Claudia Wilken put together United Airlines’
lawsuit with one filed on behalf of S.D. Myers
Company by the ACLJ. T
w-
0"
Prior to his death from AIDS
complications, Pedro Zamora was
one of the leading advocates of HIV
education programs for youth
Youth HIV rates
counter malaise
by Steven Fisher
Special to Q-Notes
WASHINGTON, DC—A recently-re
leased national poll reveals that rising HIV in
fections among young people are reinvigorat
ing the American people’s concern about AIDS
and stopping complacency dead in its tracks.
The poll, conducted for AIDS Action, the
nation’s largest AIDS advocacy organization,
shows 80 percent of Americans are equally or
more concerned about AIDS than they were
five years ago, with 90 percent citing rising in
fection rates, particularly among young people,
as a reason for their concern.
People’s deep concern about the 20,000 an
nual new youth infections is demonstrated by
84 percent who say reinvigorating HIV preven
tion is as high or a greater priority as the fight
against teen smoking. These findings send a
strong message to the Clinton Administration
to reverse four years of flat HIV prevention
funding, public health advocates noted.
“A new generation of youth at risk for HIV
is reinvigorating Americans’ concerns about
AIDS,” said AIDS Action Executive Director
Daniel Zingale. “Where President Clinton
fights to protect young people from smoking,
he stands paralyzed in the fight to protect them
from HIV.”
Of the 16 percent of Americans who say they
are less concerned about AIDS than five years
ago, an overwhelming majority became more
concerned when informed about rising HIV
infections among young people (81 percent
became more concerned), 300,000 Americans
who are unaware of their HIV-positive status
(82 percent) and the high cost of AIDS drugs
(79 percent).
“The small minority of AIDS complacent
Americans renew their concern when handed
one tool: the facts,” added Zingale. “A new gen
eration at risk of HIV has become the epicen
ter of America’s concern about AIDS.”
The high cost and unknown longterm ef
fectiveness of AIDS drugs also remains an is
sue of deep concern for the American people.
A staggering 93 percent say the fact that the
current generation of drugs are not a cure makes
them more concerned about AIDS and 87 per
cent say the same thing about the drugs’
$ 15,000 a year cost.
“Drug companies get an ‘A’ for advance
ments and an ‘F’ for fairness in pricing,” said
Zingale. “The American people clearly want
better corporate responsibility...when it comes
to matters of life and death.” T