I follow the Gay Voices section pretty closely. I like to know what other op-ed contributors are writing, and the vertical does a good job of keeping me up-to-date on LGBTQ(etc.) news. Over the past few weeks, I've noticed a trend in the hate-crime-related stories. Two weeks ago, a man in Pennsylvania, Steven Iorio, was set on fire by two friends after coming out to them -- they broke into his house, poured rum on his legs, and set him on fire. Last week, in Scotland, Stuart Walker was beaten to death, then set aflame. Shortly after, a man in Dallas, Burke Burnett, survived a brutal, hate-fueled attack in which he was beaten, stabbed, and thrown into a lit, burning barrel.
That, my readers, is a lot of arson in a couple of weeks.
These incidents rekindled my forgotten obsession with violent, anti-LGBT crimes that involve arson. My work for the Center for Homicide Research exposed me to cases filled with the grisly details of homicides, but the attacks involving fire fascinated me. Every time I saw arson used in a homicide, my brain snagged on the seemingly simple question, "Why fire?" Its use seemed notably cruel, dramatic, and unnecessary.
In attempting to answer this question, I learned that arson in violent crime is common. It kills 600 to 700 people in the U.S. annually. (That's just the deaths. I couldn't find the statistic for how many assaults involve arson.) Interestingly, studies demonstrate that gay men are the victims of homicide involving fire more frequently than other groups. In 1994, Sapp and Huff showed that 26 percent of arson victims are gay. That means a quarter of arson homicide victims comprise less than 10 percent of the total population.
Establishing prevalence was helpful but didn't help to answer why. Why burn men who have sex with men?
My liberal-arts-educated brain darted all over the place groping for meaning. The derogatory language used against gay men is steeped in flames: flamboyant, flaming, flamer, fag, faggot. All common. All involve combustion. An interesting thought, but certainly it would never be described as indisputably causal. My brain jumped to literature. The Bible tells the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where fire and brimstone ravish a city as punishment for wicked acts of homosexuality. Again, interesting, but it didn't help answer my question.
It was time to check with the experts. Many criminologists believe that hatred is the most common motive for arson. Hate makes sense. It fits with another common characteristic of LGBT homicide: overkill. Overkill is used to describe excessive actions, which result from intense motivational feelings. When dealing with violent crime, "excessive actions" means thorough, gruesome attacks. The crime continues after the victim has died. In most cases, some combination of assault, stabbing, dismemberment, and arson are used.
Attacks involving arson are especially brutal. Meticulous care is taken in carrying them out. The violence is heaped on. One mortal wound isn't enough. Flesh must be pierced, ripped, and penetrated over and over. The bodies razed. These attacks are vicious. I've typed and deleted the word "inhuman" several times. "Inhuman" is inaccurate. I mean the exact opposite. These attacks are characteristically human. They are wrought with meaning -- the offender wants there to be no doubt that this violence was intentional. In the case of hate crimes, it's a warning. This is what happens when you are gay. This is what these people get -- what they deserve.
The hatred fueling this brutality is probably what always drew me to the use of arson in violent crime. I don't think I was ever really asking why people set other people on fire. I think I always knew the answer was hate. Instead, I think I was searching for the source of that hate.
How could anyone abhor the LGBTQ community enough to commit that level of violence? As a gay man, I couldn't separate myself from my research. I was constantly asking myself, "How could a stranger hate me enough to do this to me?"
I'm not sure I'll ever get an answer to that question.
Follow Phillip M. Miner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PhillipMiner
On one occasion the neighbor blocked the drive with his ATV while the fire burned and later that evening a single gun shot was fired outside our window . On another occasion the fire was actually lit by what looked like a 10 year old boys with a flare. The kids body language appeared that he was very uncomfortable since after he lit the fire the flames exploded to about 60 feet high. This all occurred within the past few months
We get the impression that these fires are veiled warning. I assume we just have to wait and see.
When I first read this Post it gave me the chills.
My partner and I have been harassed by a family, who we share a road with to our home , for 28 years. They have tried everything ranging from using fire arms to litigation to try to force us to give up the access road. They thought that by Outing us and making public our sexuality would have us fall to our knees. Anyway recently the son, we believe has resorted to making large bon fires near our shared property line. These show fires are ignited with excessive amounts of accelerants that make them explosive. Prior to their ignition there is a ritual of ATV engine excelerations to get our attention . We have documentation.
There are a lot of christians who hate us. They call it 'love the sinner, hate the sin', but if that were the case, we wouldn't see such behavior, such 'anti-bullying' bills, such burnings.
It's hatred, they know it and the more we fight for full human status and equal rights, the more these things will occur.
The historical burnings of women as witches are widely known, but for crimes of treason, petty treason (killing a husband, father, etc.), and conterfeiting in England, while men where hanged, etc., the official penalty for women was burning at the stake until 1790, although it had fallen into practical disuse decades earlier. While I'm sure this is all way beyond people who commit fire-related hate crimes, there may be some residual cultural link between fire, women, and gay men who they may consider effeminate.
The other reason burning may be "popular" is the perception that they may be destroying self-incriminating evidence.
First, thanks for the comment and reading the piece.
Second, Your theory on the evolution of burning is very interesting. A passion of mine is the history of the terminology used to describe men who have sex with men. Some linguists have theorized that derogatory terms have a similar trajectory to the one you describe above. For example, take the word..hmmm..how do I write it in a way that wont get rejected by the moderators...let's say, starts with f and rhymes with maggot. It started out as a derogatory term for old women (the one's who carried the bundles of wood), then expanded to include all women, then transitioned to describe effeminate men, then to describe men who have sex with men in general.
I have no idea what this means, but I find it very interesting.
The next time a conservative Christian starts ranting about being persecuted for her beliefs, I'm going to point them to these arsons.
Even scarier, for those that are victims of a known assailant, "How can someone I KNOW have enough hate me enough to do this to me?"
It's terrifying that any human can do that to another human. Even more saddening that they are doing it to somebody they know.