wfn.org | West Virginia bishop speaks out on man's murder

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

July 21, 2000 News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212) 870-3803·New York
10-21-28-31-71B{337}

By United Methodist News Service

The United Methodist bishop in West Virginia has condemned what appears to
be the hate-motivated murder of a 26-year-old man on July 3.

"The brutal murder of Arthur Warren Jr., of Grant Town, W.Va., has shocked
and saddened us," said Bishop S. Clifton Ives in a prepared statement. "'JR'
Warren may have been killed because he was gay, because he was black,
because he was handicapped, or for all of these reasons. The motive of those
who took his life cannot detract from the death or provide justification for
it."

Ives issued the statement to be read at a July 20 vigil at the U.S. Capitol
in Washington.

According to police accounts, three white teen-agers, now in custody, beat
Warren to death in a house. The two 17-year-olds and one 16-year-old then
took Warren's body to a deserted road and ran over it several times with a
car so his death would appear to be a hit-and-run accident. Police have not
yet categorized the murder as a hate crime.

Expressing shock over the murder is not enough, Ives said. "Thoughtful
people disturbed by this outrageous event will do something. The justice
system will do its work, but who will repudiate the senseless rhetoric
against minorities due to their different sexual orientation, race or
ability?

"Hateful words can shape community values and individual actions," he
continued. "Thoughtful persons must speak out, correcting the images of
society portrayed by hate groups in print and on the Internet. Hate and
violence acted out by children against children and adults is all too common
to us now. In addition to our outrage, we must reinvent communities of hope
and peace for all God's people."

Ives noted that the United Methodist Church considers all people individuals
of sacred worth. "Church policies which limit ordination and services of
sacred union for some have sometimes been interpreted as a sign of
exclusion, giving license to disregard the `sacred worth' of all. JR Warren
was a special child of God, created in the image of God and loved by God -
an 'individual of sacred worth.'"

The church's duty, Ives said, is to "continually remind itself and the world
that all persons are of sacred worth and seek to create communities that
reflect the same."
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United Methodist News Service
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