Man gets five years for manslaughter
A high-profile homicide case involving the death of a gay man has been settled, with the defendant being given a five-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter, reports The San Francisco Chronicle.
Edward Mora, 28, who could have faced 15 years to life for the attack on Brian Wilmes of San Francisco, will probably be released from prison in less than a year with credit for time served. A trial last year ended with a jury deadlocked 9 to 3 for convicting Mora of manslaughter rather than second-degree murder, the paper reports.
According to testimony in the trial, Mora was drunk and angry when he passed a leather bar March12, 1998. When Wilmes left the bar Mora allegedly hit him and Wilmes hit his head when he fell to the street and never regained consciousness, dying two days later, the paper reported.
A spokesman for the district attorney was unable to say why prosecutors made the bargain with Mora. Mora was sentenced to three years for manslaughter with a two-year enhancement for the hate-crime, the Chronicle reported.
Slur charges bring protective order
A Montgomery County judge ruled April 25 that a Germantown man was the aggressor in an April 15 incident in which the man allegedly attacked a neighbor because she is a lesbian, reports The Washington Post.
District Court Judge Patricia L. Mitchell granted Jude M. Brickman, 43, a six-month protective order against Charles Jackson, who lives less than one block away. In it, Brickman said the incident began when Jackson’s 12-year-old son made slurs about her sexual orientation.
In his second-degree assault complaint against Brickman, Jackson said that she began the fight and that she and her daughter called his son a racial slur just before the attack. The Jacksons are Black; the Brickmans are white, the Post said.
S.F. supervisors oppose Bechtal contract
Tempers flared at San Francisco City Hall April 25 as supervisors charged that the Bechtal Group is trying to skirt the city’s domestic-partners benefits law to win a $50-million consulting contract, reports The San Francisco Chronicle.
Bechtal Infrastructure, a subsidiary of the giant San Francisco-based engineering company, is negotiating a contract with the Public Utilities Commission to help run billions of dollars of constructing projects. The parent corporation, which has 1,500 employees at its San Francisco headquarters, does not offer partner benefits. But Bechtal Infrastructure, which has 415 employees in the U.S., does.
The law requires anyone doing business with the city offer the same package of benefits to the spouses or unmarried partners of all workers, straight or gay, the Chronicle said.
State addresses hostile environment for gays
In Pennsylvania, the state Board of Education voted unanimously April 25 to require school districts to investigate incidents of discrimination and harassment against gay students, reports The Boston Globe.
The Access to Equal Educational Opportunity Regulations now mandate tolerance of students of every race, color, sex, religion, national origin, and sexual orientation. They also require yearly training to help school personnel create a climate free from bigotry, and for teachers to respond to derogatory stereotypes encountered in teaching materials.
Judge says banning gay club unfair
In Salt Lake City, a student club that focuses on gay and lesbian issues will be allowed to meet while its case against the school district is considered, a federal judge decided last week, reports Associated Press.
U.S Judge Tena Campbell granted PRISM, or People Respecting Important Social Movements, a preliminary injunction, ruling that the school district unfairly denied the East High School students permission to meet. She suggested that school officials violated their own policy and the Constitution in snubbing PRISM.
In 1996, the district eliminated all nonacademic clubs rather than allow a gay club at East High, a move that was upheld in federal court, said AP.
In response, Jessica Cohen and Maggie Hinckley applied in February to set up PRISM as an academic club; focusing on discussing history through gay and lesbian issues.
But Cynthia Seidel, assistant superintendent of the Salt Lake City School District, turned them down, saying the club’s subject matter was too narrow, and thus not curriculum-related, AP said.
Gay adoption suit to move forward
A gay man who wants to adopt a foster child who has been in his custody for years can sue Florida over its law banning gays from adopting, a federal judge in Miami has ruled, reports The Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Florida is the only state that prohibits gays from adopting, although gays can be foster parents.
The ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project in New York filed the lawsuit on behalf of Steven Lofton and other gays hoping to adopt children in Florida. Lofton is a former Key West resident who last year moved to Portland, Ore., with the 8-year-old boy and two other Florida foster children he has legal custody of. Lofton’s 6 adoption application to Florida’s child welfare agency was denied on the basis of a 1977 state law that denies gays the right to adopt, reports The News-Journal.
Several other gays are named in the lawsuit. However, although U.S. District Court Judge James Lawrence King ruled that Lofton’s case can go to trial, he said the others named must submit adoption applications to Florida’s Department of Children and Families within the next 30 days to be included in the case.
Dan Savage faces voter fraud charges
Out-gay Seattle sex columnist Dan Savage will be charged with felony voter fraud for allegedly casting a vote in Iowa’s presidential caucuses, reports The Des Moines Register. Savage faces a felony charge and a serious misdemeanor charge, which could put him in jail for a total of six years.
Savage claimed that he used his temporary address at Des Moines’ Kirkwood Hotel to vote in the caucuses. Later, he wrote an article for online magazine Salon.com called “Stalking Gary Bauer.”
Savage wrote that he tried to infiltrate the conservative Republican’s Iowa campaign as an act of protest. He claimed he attempted to infect Bauer with the flu bug by licking doorknobs. Savage later recanted the tale and called it a joke.
Savage appears in Polk County District Court May 9, the Register reported.
Lesbian couple attacked in park
In Santa Cruz, Calif., police are looking for a man who attacked a lesbian couple in San Lorenzo Park in what authorities are treating as a hate crime, reports The San Jose Mercury News.
The women, ages 62 and 30, were walking on a path through the park April 22 when the man approached them and allegedly shouted anti-gay slurs, before shoving the older woman down; the woman was not seriously injured.
Gay advocates upset by amended policy
In Boston, a state anti-discrimination policy passed to protect gays in schools is being criticized by the group it initially set out to help, reports AP.
Some advocates fear last-minute changes to the regulation made by the state Board of Education could spark an increase of anti-gay sentiment in the classroom. The rewrite changes the policy from a rule that educators “counteract” stereotypes in materials to one that requires them to “provide balance and context.”
David LaFontaine, head of the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, says this allows people who hate gays to express their views in the classroom, AP said.
Under the new regulations, schools will set up annual training programs for all personnel, and school committees will be required to establish policies to ensure equal access to school programs for all students.
Anti-gay groups seek meeting with Bush
Anti-gay-rights groups concerned about Gov. George W. Bush’s recent meeting with gay Republicans now want the likely GOP presidential nominee to meet with them so they can enlighten him about “the homosexual political agenda,” reports The Austin American-Statesman.
The groups, including the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote to Bush suggesting he meet with them to “demonstrate your commitment to the family … meeting with those of us who believe that homosexual activism poses a serious threat to our marriage-based culture and to the freedoms of speech, religion and association.”
A Bush spokesman said Bush meets with pro-family leaders “all the time” but no decision has been made on whether he would sit down with the groups that sent the letter, the newspaper reported.
Most charges dropped in Boston assault
Three months after a teenage Moroccan girl told police her classmates beat and sexually assaulted her on an MBTA train because they believed she was gay, prosecutors have decided to prosecute only one of the three Boston High School students accused of the crime, reports The Boston Globe.
A host of charges, including attempted rape and civil rights violations were voided against two 15-year-olds and one 17-year-old, after prosecutors interviewed witnesses from the City Year Youth Program—whose story differed from that of the victim.
Suffolk District Attorney Ralph C. Martin II said only one of the 15-year-olds would be prosecuted for a single count of assault, the paper said.