Reflections on Intolerance, 10 Years After Sophie Lancaster's Murder

With the 10-year anniversary of Sophie Lancaster’s murder passing this week, the crime and its motive is drawing attention again from some.

After hearing of the crime, I started shouting from the rooftops about things that, while not exactly violent, were nevertheless extreme and which I had, at that point, pretty much kept my mouth shut about for 5 or 6 years.

Its not as bad as it used to be, but people don’t realize how intense and irrational so many people get over something or someone different, especially appearing different.

This crime shook the entire Goth community around the world, and aparently shook all of England too. The attention unfortunately made it harder for Rob to heal, but it resonated so much and scared so many people, to realise that "lookism" really can get this bad. 

It should work the opposite way, but unfortunately, professing Christians tend to be worse than most. Friends of mine have had objects thrown at them by adults yelling things like, “Mother F****** devils!” or “You’re going to hell!” The people who killed Sophie Lancaster were not professing Christians, which almost seems like an anomoly, actually.  I’ve definitely had my share of crap, not as much having things thrown at me that many times, but quite significantly worse.

Pretty much run away and homeless at 19, some people from a church who really did care about me thought it would be a good idea to put me in a faith-based drug rehab.

I wasn’t on drugs. I had not, and have not, ever taken drugs in my life and I told them so, but I’ve spent a year in a drug rehab anyway. I was told that the people in there were just like me, except I wasn’t on drugs. I got so I actually believed that too, for a long time. It wasn't true at all, Ihad issues, I had run away for a reason, but I wasn't like the girls in there, I was very much the opposite instead. That's what people around me believed though, and I came to agree, so I went.

I was the only goth in the drug rehab the whole time I was there. The top guy in the faith-based drug rehab that knew I had never taken drugs decided, after 9 months, that I wasn’t making enough progress. I don't know what progress would even have looked like, really, I don't remember. So, without even as much training for such things as their counselors had (they did not have actual counselors, they had “biblical counseling” which requires basically no training in psych whatsoever), he decided to take over counseling me himself. He said he knew I really had a heart for God but for some reason I wasn’t progressing well, so he was going to renew my mind for me. Seriously.

So I had to keep a journal and “track my thoughts” throughout the day and let him read it and tell me what to do different, sort of interrogating me like a movie lawyer about stuff. Leaving wasn't really an option as far as I knew, I had nowhere to go. They of course weren't going to help with "re-entry" unless I finished, either.
Long story short, they found a place for me to stay for 2 or 3 months at an A.G. Bible school when I finally finished their “program” (I guess it really did help some people. Drug addicts and career criminals got their lives turned around sometimes by the ferocious “tough love” and rigid control in there, but I sure didn’t. This mess I dealt with wasn't their typical thing though. I was different).

The folks at the bible school gave me a welcome basket and a piece of paper to fill out, just to get to know me better. It asked questions like my favorite food or favorite movie, favorite color, likes and dislikes, pet peeves etc. The only questions I could answer were my name and birthday. I honestly didn’t know myself anymore, at all. I doubted my memories, especially the most awful ones, I didn’t know what I really thought or how I really felt about anything. I had learned that anger was always a sign of a “personal right” that I had not given up to God and that I needed to identify that idea of a personal right and give it up to God and repent if I ever felt angry, and that most everything I liked or was interested in wasn’t really my interest but Satan had told me it was and I had believed him. Black couldn’t possibly be my favorite color, I didn’t really like bats, I didn’t really like . . . anything. I may not really have been abused, I didn’t really…

I truly could not sort out answers to those very simple questions. I realized then what had been done to me. I’d been brainwashed or mind-wiped or something.
I had to believe that the God who made me would be able to put me back together. He can, and He’s still doing it. Of course I have to do my part too.

The song seems very fitting for the topic here, it's just how it is when you must get through something like this. I don't know what happened to the singer to make him feel like this, but he sums it all up quite well.

In that awful place, a totally well-meaning and oblivious ex-priest with a theology degree came and talked to us a few times. He had left the A.G. church and went back to Catholicism, but was married instead of being a priest. What he said was just amazing and inspiring. My saintly maternal grandmother was also Catholic and I had one of her rosaries. I didn’t know how to use it, but it did seem to ground me and make me feel closer to her and to God. I forgot it in the prayer closet one time. Someone threw it away. Everyone knew I had it and several gave me crap for it, but I wouldn’t relinquish it. Somebody did it for me, though. I never forgot. The anti-Catholic prejudice from everyone but maybe two people there made me more drawn to Catholicism than I even was before. It was 12 years before I became Catholic, though.
I got into a cult when I got out and upon realizing it, left again and ultimately ended up working with the “Christian Goth” community in Central IL. Of course I believe you can be a Christian goth, but I’m not real sure anymore about organizing as such. . . After I got out of all affiliations with organizations claiming to be Christian goth organizations or churches or whatever, I came to the Catholic church. I was always told about how controlling they were. LOL! I remember thinking, “They can’t be any worse than I’ve already been through!”

For the most part they are nowhere near as bad. Some other churches I’ve been to like to do laying on of hands for everything, its just over the top, but they wouldn’t touch me. They’d hold their hands toward me and keep at least a few inches of space between me and them, but everyone else got actual contact. In RCIA, when I couldn’t take communion yet, I went down for communion with my arms crossed over my chest, like in a coffin. That’s the code for “I’m not Catholic,” and they won’t give you communion, they will give you a blessing instead. Fr. John drew a cross on my forehead and never recoiled, no matter what I had on. He didn’t seem to think I might spiritually contaminate him if he did that, like the Protestant charismatics and Pentecostals so often did/do to subculture people and to Goths in particular. The first time I did not go to C-stone or Audiofeed festivals to hang out in the goth tent, I went on a pilgrimage with my parish to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield, IL. I was the only goth in the place, I totally stuck out like a sore thumb, but you can’t even tell that in the group picture. I didn’t get any mistreatment either, a few people at the cathedral did very minute double-takes but that was all, I was treated the same as everyone else.

I'm the 6th from the left on the bottom. I don't get the impression of being a square peg in a round hole from this photograph.

I still have problems from the unfortunate experience in the drug rehab I went to for a drug problem I did not have, though it's nowhere near as bad as it once was. I.  can relate somewhat to Rob Maltby’s depression and anxiety, becoming a recluse, and struggling to get on with his life. It’s been a muddy uphill battle for me too for about … well for about 15 plus years at this point. Not without gains, but its one of those things like, the further you go the further you see that you need to go.

I know I can never imagine what its like to lose someone you expect to be your life partner so suddenly, so violently, and then have no privacy due to media attention and not have a decent opportunity to heal. I can’t imagine how difficult this time must be. I definitely pray for him and for others who have endured particularly extreme attacks for being different, and especially for looking different. I pray for tolerance everywhere and especially for the church - the whole church - to come out of the grip of whatever unholy influences drive this kind of behavior. I pray for an end to violence, and an end to intolerance, and an end to foolish stereotypes. I hope any who read this will pray too.

Godspeed.
~Mother Star