Families Never Sought Gay Men Found Dead On Estate

By Ken Kusmer / Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS — From rural communities across Indiana, young gay men have moved to the big city, leaving behind their families to find a place where they could openly express their sexuality. When some of them began disappearing, no one came looking for them.

Years later, at least four gay men have been identified among the remains of at least seven bodies discovered on an 18-acre suburban estate whose owner committed suicide in July. Three were male prostitutes working the gay bars, police said.

"They go to the nearest big city where there’s a number of gay clubs and gay life," said Ted Fleischaker, publisher of The Word, a gay newspaper with 10,000 readers in Indianapolis. "They may or may not even bother to tell their mom and dad they’re even gone. They won’t even go home for Christmas."

They were reported missing between July 1993 and July 1994, and by that time, "there was definitely some nervousness" among the gay community, said Jeff McQuary of Justice Inc., which promotes the civil rights of gays.

The dead were found along with spent shotgun shells and handcuffs on the Fox Hollow Farms estate. Herbert Baumeister, 49, lived there until he went to Canada, where he shot himself to death in a park in Ontario, police said.

Baumeister left behind a four-page letter that revealed nothing about the bones.

However, Baumeister’s ties to the Indianapolis gay community are unquestioned. Police have spoken to men who had sexual encounters with Baumeister, said Sgt. Ken Whisman, the lead investigator.

Whisman, however, refused to call Baumeister a serial killer, saying that since the causes of death remain undetermined, the cases aren’t even classified as homicides.

Baumeister’s wife, Juliana, contacted police earlier this year after her 15-year-old son had found a skull on the estate. Baumeister told his family the skull had belonged to his father, who was a doctor.

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Same-Sex Marriage

The biggest fallacy in this debate is the belief that gay men and lesbians aren’t able to get married right now. Not only are there thousands of married gay and lesbian couples, they’ve been getting married for decades.

There are several aspects to marriage; among them a legal aspect, a religious aspect, a social aspect, and a family aspect. But at the heart of all of these layers, there is the vow; the commitment that two people make to live in love, respect, and fidelity.

Gay men and lesbians have been making and keeping that vow faithfully for a long time. It is only recently that they have started to incorporate other aspects of marriage into that vow by including their communities and families in their commitment ceremonies. And there are at ten ministers here in Indianapolis that perform religious commitment ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples, and hundreds of local couples that have participated in those ceremonies.

In pursuing the right to have our marriages legally recognized, gay men and lesbians aren’t asking for a special right or consideration.

What we do want is to legally protect our unions in the same way heterosexual couples do; to have the benefit of wills and trusts, to be able to see our spouse in the hospital in an emergency. We want to protect our families from harm, as loving, caring people do.

No matter what happens in Hawaii, or how many laws banning same-sex unions get passed in different states, gay and lesbian marriage will not be prevented because it already exists, and will continue to. This issue will never disappear, and eventually common sense will prevail. The loving unions that we share will be recognized for what they are.

I have to object to an uneducated and extremely offensive quote from your article: “But others point out that marriage could encourage homosexual couples to build stable, mutually supportive lives.” This implies that we can’t or don’t do that now, and perpetuates the false stereotype that gay men and lesbians are more promiscuous than their heterosexual counterparts.

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