The billboard, which is one of five was intended to make a big statement for National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11, featured openly gay veteran Tim Smith.

The billboard features a posed photograph of Smith in uniform with the quote, “I’m gay and I protected your freedom.”

The former marine expected some backlash, but was not prepared for his image to be completely destroyed by vandals.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time Smith has been discriminated against due to his sexual orientation. Just weeks before a deployment to Iraq, Smith was kicked out of the Marines under the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.’ “It was the result of a minister pushing the issues of my being gay and being allowed to continue to serve,” Smith revealed in an interview with myeyewitnessnews.com.

Despite last weekend’s vandalism, Smith believes that change is in progress and that “the person or persons who did this are of a dying breed and that kind of hate is a dying hate.” The veteran also assured myeyewitnessnews.com that, “The billboard will go back up. As soon as the materials and prints come in, that billboard will go back up.”

The vandalism is being investigated the Memphis police as a theft of property rather than being classified as a hate crime.

1. Looks like Atlanta has a thing against gay bars (Memphis also!) We’ll stay on top of these stories for you–thanks to Trace for pushing us to do something about Atlanta. What do our readers in those two cities have to say?

2. The Democrats are hyperventilating about Joe Wilson’s inability to act like an adult when the president is speaking. He’s apologized, President Obama has accepted his apology. Calls for censure are a bit much.

3. If you call Obama a socialist, communist, fascist, Kenyan, Hitler, and/or Stalin you need to keep the tin foil hat on and sit in the corner.

4. Any Graham Swift fans out there? His new book is worth looking at.

5. A gay black gospel singer?!?! Clutch those pearls! On the serious side, it will be interesting to see how gospel music fans react to his admission.

6. Loved, as in completely, Serena Williams’ meltdown in the US Open! I’m a cheerleader for that type of foolishness.

7. Last Joe Wilson comment: did you hear him go on about his “relationship” with Michelle Obama’s family? Looks like the Wilson clan and the Robinson brood live in neighboring South Carolina towns. How that counts for a relationship is beyond me.

8. Anyone shocked that Barney Frank is not part of the push to repeal DOMA?

9. Kayne West should put the vodka down.

10. A whiff  of Cafe Bustelo brewing makes me think all is right in the world.

The women were attending last Sunday morning’s service to meet the Rev. Kenneth Whalum Jr., a mayoral candidate in Memphis.

But when Whalum told the congregation to bow to the ground and blow kisses to God, Stephens and her partner, both agnostics, didn’t move.

Stephens said that Whalum and church members then called them “devil worshippers” and “gay” and security guards pushed them out of the sanctuary. Stephen’s classes were broken. No arrests were made.
Whalum told the Commercial Appeal that the women were “being disruptive, boisterous and speaking loud. They had to have some kind of agenda to come in church like that.”

He said that the women were kicked out because of interrupting the service, not because they were lesbians. “If I put every lesbian out of church, we’d be putting people out of church all day long,” said Whalum.

(Memphis, Tennessee) It took a bloody jailhouse beating by police to bring Duanna Johnson out of the shadows.

With a video of the beating making the rounds on the Internet, people who would never have known she existed – and likely paid her little mind if they did – were suddenly talking about her.

Angry residents sent letters to the local newspaper and a federal grand jury launched an investigation. The mayor and police chief voiced outrage at her treatment.

But it wasn’t long before Johnson, a 43-year-old, 6-foot-5 transgender prostitute, slipped out of the spotlight and back to working the dark streets of a tough inner-city neighborhood, little noticed once again by mainstream Memphis.

And there she died with a bullet in her brain.

“She didn’t deserve to be killed, and she didn’t deserve to be beaten like they did. No matter what gender she was, she was still a human being,” said her mother, Hazel Skinner. “She was God’s child.”

The video of Johnson, who was black, being repeatedly pounded in the face by a white policeman hit Memphis TV and the Internet in June. Johnson vowed a lawsuit against the city, drawing praise from civil rights advocates and gay rights groups.

Two policemen were fired and one is awaiting trial on a civil rights charge. But pursuing a lawsuit will fall to Johnson’s family. Her fight is over.

Much of Johnson’s childhood was spent in Memphis as a boy named Duannel. The family left Tennessee when Duannel was about 12, settling primarily in Wisconsin and the Chicago area.

Johnson was shot to death near midnight Nov. 6 on a street corner a few blocks from her house. Police have no suspects or motive. Richard Janikowski, a University of Memphis criminologist, said prostitute assaults are common and difficult to solve.

Johnson returned a year-and-a-half ago to Memphis, where the annual homicide rate had already topped 100 by early November. Memphis, population 640,000, had 128 homicides in 2007, a level Janikowski said is not unusual for a city with a 26 percent poverty rate.

Johnson was living alone in a tiny, red brick house with no utilities in a low-income neighborhood dotted with boarded-up buildings and overgrown lots. Unemployed, she made her living walking the streets, flagging down motorists, offering sex for sale.

It was a hard, dangerous life. Even her mother knew little about her day-to-day affairs.

Skinner, who lives in Kenosha, Wis., said she was pressing Johnson to give up the street life that had led to a half dozen arrests in Memphis for prostitution or possession of drug paraphernalia.

As Duannel, Johnson was in and out of prison in Wisconsin from 1985 to 1992 on battery and theft convictions. As Duanna, she drew a three-year prison sentence in New York in 2000 for attempted robbery. In both states, Johnson was a habitual parole violator.

“She wanted to get her life together,” Skinner said. “I’d say, ‘Duanna, I’m praying and I want you to pray too.’ We talked about going back to school or working on computers or doing hair.”

Casey Lanham, co-founder of a transgender support group called Perpetual Transition, said Johnson, who weighed about 200 pounds and had masculine facial features, was easily identified as transgender and that made getting a job difficult.

“Duanna wouldn’t have been out there if she hadn’t been forced to be,” Lanham said. “And there are a lot of trans women who are forced to go that way.”

The Memphis support group has about 30 active members but the total number of transgender residents in the city is unknown. “It’s a very marginalized community,” Lanham said.

Johnson began living as a female in her 30s after moving to New York, undergoing hormone therapy and getting breast implants.

“But all her life she always told me, Mom, I’ve never been a boy or a man. I’ve always been a girl or a woman,” Skinner said.

Skinner said she knew little about Johnson’s private life before she moved to Memphis.

“She did office work as far as I know. That’s what she told me,” she said.

Hattie Mae Benson, an elderly neighbor, described Johnson as polite and friendly.

“We talked a lot of times, just about how the world is going and this and that,” Benson said. “She was just like any other lady to talk to.”

Benson said she was unaware that Johnson was transgender.

“I just couldn’t think about it when I heard somebody had killed her,” she said. “I just didn’t know what to think.”

Murray Wells, a lawyer hired by Johnson after the beating, said the homicide investigation has not determined if she was the victim of a hate crime.

“But because of who she was is why she was there,” he said. “If she wasn’t a transgender woman, it wouldn’t have happened.”

An indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses Bridges McRae, 28, of using unreasonable force by repeatedly striking Duanna Johnson with his fist and handcuffs in the intake area of the Shelby County Jail in February.

Johnson, a biological male who lived as a woman, was being booked on a prostitution charge when the incident happened. A videotape of the beating was broadcast on Memphis TV stations and online in June, leading to McRae’s firing. His former partner, James Swain, 25, was also fired.

McRae pleaded not guilty at a brief hearing on Wednesday before a federal magistrate and was released without bond. No trial date was set.

He is charged with violating Johnson’s civil rights while in a position of authority, an offense that carries a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Johnson, 43, who had a long history of prostitution arrests, was shot to death on a Memphis street by an unknown assailant earlier this month. The killing is still under investigation and no arrests have been made.

McRae declined comment as he left the federal courthouse. His lawyer, Ted Hansom, said McRae was “in a scuffle” with Johnson, who stood 6-foot-5, and was doing what he had to do to defend himself. Johnson was knocked bleeding to the jailhouse floor but was not seriously hurt.

The beating and Johnson’s murder have drawn the attention of advocates for gay and transgender rights, including the Human Rights Campaign, a national group that has called on the Memphis Police Department for a “commitment to treating transgender people with respect and fairness.”