For five years,
Laura Stutte and Carol Ann Stutte, a lesbian couple, endured bigoted
threats from their neighbor in Vonore, Tenn., just southwest of
Knoxville.
Then as they were
celebrating their 16th anniversary in September 2010 in Nashville
with friends, they received a call that their home had burned to the
ground—with an anti-LGBT epithet spray-painted on the adjacent
garage.
Six months later,
the FBI has yet to determine whether the alleged arson could be
categorized as a hate crime. Nor has the fire been declared an arson
by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department—despite eyewitness
reports of fireballs reaching beyond the treeline—a sure sign of a
gas induced arson fire. The Stutte’s home has no gas and all
utilities run on electricity.
The Stuttes have
been living with threats and harassment since they purchased the home
in 2005. The threats have included so-called jokes about killing LGBT
people, threats to poison their pets—one of their dogs was found
poisoned—and in language akin to the most bigoted groups a letter
saying that the Stuttes “would be taken care of the old-fashioned
way.”
The Stutte’s
insurance company, American National Property and Casualty, has not
processed the couple’s claim on their house, despite the fact that
the Stutte’s ANPC policy guarantees coverage of living expenses for
up to 24 months after a disaster, such as having your house burned to
the ground by an arsonist.
Needless to say,
the FBI is aware of the Stuttes’ neighbor who had been threatening
and harassing them since they purchased the home. At one point, this
neighbor said, “I’m going to burn your house down, and I’m going to
kill you.”
In 2009, President
Obama signed a law that makes it a federal crime to assault an
individual based on his or her sexual orientation or gender identity,
yet to date no anti-LGBT hate crimes have been prosecuted. It was the
LGBT movement that won this law—named after Matthew Shepard, the
gay Wyoming teen who was kidnapped and murdered in 1998, and James
Byrd Jr., an African-American man dragged to death by racists that
same year in Texas—but only the power of the masses can bend the
capitalist state to enforce laws won by the struggle.
In February, the
Stuttes and their adult daughter filed suit against the person who
they believe set the arson fire—their next door neighbor—in an
attempt to at least collect on the insurance claim from ANPC, as they
have had to continue to pay the mortgage of the burned down home as
well as rent.
“We are having
to sue because the insurance company won’t,” said Carol Ann
Stutte. “Without the assistance we’ve received from the LGBT
community, we would have gone under several months ago,” she
continued.
The capitalist state—its police
and courts—all line up behind the bigotry to
keep the working class divided. We must forge unity among the working class and build a powerful movement capable of turning back the ugly
face of bigotry.
The Stuttes are
asking that a petition be signed to pressure ANPC into paying their
claim. Please click here to sign the petition.
