Last year our City Council claimed there was no need for including LGBT citizens in the Human Rights Ordinance--that the gay community's many claims of discrimination were exaggerated and false. Of course, they were wrong. This murder is on the hands of Mayor Brown and the 10 City Council members who voted against the Human Rights Ordinance: Kimberly Daniels, Robin Lumb, Clay Yarborough, Don Redman, Matt Schellenberg, Ray Holt, Doyle Carter, Bill Gulliford, Reggie Brown and Johnny Gaffney. Each of them is an accomplice.
Another embarrassment for Jacksonville's inept, bigoted leadership. Condolences to the family of this innocent man.
http://www.actionnewsjax.com/content/topstories/story/Friends-believe-JTA-bus-driver-killed-because-of/scw5F1vcD0mDcste62L7cw.cspx
How would the Ordinance have prevented this murder. I don't understand the connection?
There are current laws against murder. I do think that if the motive was hate, then the penalty could be different.
The electric chair or life in prison did not stop the attacker. You expected a City Council Committee to be capable of stopping the attack?
We should all march to city hall and burn it down!
Wait.... what? :o
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't murder illegal and aren't there hate crime laws on the books already? What would the civil rights ordinance have done to prevent this?
I think what Duvaltopia, and many in the gay community, are trying to say is that our city perpetuates this behavior when they ignore the large LGBT community here and our need for an updated HRO. This city, from the top down, does not make LGBT concerns a priority and in fact fosters hate by ignoring them. The LGBT community doesn't want special rights, they want equal rights and protections. And until they receive equal rights and protections, they are seen as "less than" ...it's a very hostile environment.
It should be a time of calm. It not saying this is the Mayor or the City Councils fault, but when our city leaders are for discrimination and a form of hate citizens listen. This is with any group of citizens black, brown, white or LBGT crimes against any one is wrong. If this is proven to be a hate crime I would like Mayor Brown to be a leader on this and make it know we do not tolerate hate crimes and or murder in Jacksonville. We are number one in murders in Jacksonville in the state of Florida this must stop.
This is about the murder of a lovely young man who was also gay. At this juncture no one knows if he was murdered because of that fact or as a result of something else entirely. What we do know is that murder is illegal and whoever murdered him will be hunted down and punished. What we also know is that no law approved by a city council would have prevented this murder.
I think it is a mistake to use this incident to drive the approval of a law to protect GLBT folks from discrimination in the workplace. That issue is very important and I support those protections for the GLBT community. But in the absence of any proof that this was a murder that was the result of a prejudice against a gay man, to make this about the GLBT law is a mistake. It's foolish and over the top to say anyone on the city council has blood on their hands with regard to this murder and this type of posturing will hurt rather than help because in and of itself the accusation is polarizing what is already a polarized council and community.
We do need an HR ordinance..Companies are losing good candidates for jobs. Jacksonville needs to join the 21st Century. I hope this poor man's death is not a hate crime but if it is it shows more and more how discrimination hurts all people.
Quote from: Stephen on October 08, 2013, 12:38:08 PM
We do need an HR ordinance..Companies are losing good candidates for jobs. Jacksonville needs to join the 21st Century. I hope this poor man's death is not a hate crime but if it is it shows more and more how discrimination hurts all people.
Of course we need an ordinance but this is about a horrible murder which goes far beyond the context of that ordinance. The ordinance would have done nothing to change what happened including the sickness in the mind of the murderer. I don't think it will be helpful to tie this tragedy to that ordinance.
I doubt anyone who would do something like this really cares or pays attention to what the mayor or City Council says or does.
I think a great deal of the situation around the murder depends on the reality of what actually happened no matter what we think or feel and it also depends on the family and how they view it. Many people are injured physically and psychically because of hate. Whether or not this murder is hate related depends on the investigation not our vision or lack thereof. Race and sexual preference issues can set the table for quite a banquet of hate and violence. I am safe and content in my private office so it is easy for me to opine about this were it my child or a relative of mine I could feel very differently. I wish one day we can care for all people as if they are all our brothers and sisters.
I'm as upset as anyone about this murder, but even if he were killed because of his sexual orientation -- and I have a feeling that it likely had something to do with it -- it is absurd to even remotely tie this to the HRO or the city council. I'm also as upset as anyone about the HRO debacle, but blaming the city council for being accomplices in a murder is despicable and does not help anything at all.
Hate-motivated attacks and murders of LGBT people happen even in relatively progressive and safe places (Brooklyn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Sandy), Manhattan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Aviance#Hate_crime_incident), Minneapolis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CeCe_McDonald), San Diego (http://www.sfbaytimes.com/index.php?article_id=5335&sec=article)), and that is the reality that we LGBT people have to live with. It IS a shame that Jacksonville is not more quickly or more aggressively eradicating its hostile atmosphere toward LGBT people, but even so, you can't attribute a single incident to that. A trend, sure. I know many LGBT people there have been harassed and discriminated against, and a few have been physically attacked. But murdered? No, this is a rare thing anywhere. And it is not ANY city council's fault... not Jacksonville's, not Laramie, Wyoming's, not Humboldt, Nebraska's. This is at its root a social problem more than it's a political one.