2 Men on Gay Cruise Arrested For "Buggery" In Dominica

Two men who were on an Atlantic gay cruise through the Caribbean were arrested while the ship was docked on the island of Dominica because they could be seen having sex from shore and were charged with the crime of "buggery." Dominica is one of the many island-nations in the Eastern Caribbean (usually known as the West Indies) where sodomy is still illegal and open homosexuality is a cultural taboo.

According to TowleRoad, the two men have plead guilty to indecent exposure and will be released after they pay a fine:

Two gay men from Eastern Shore Lane in Southern California, Dennis Jay Mayer and John Robert Hart who pleaded guilty to the charge of “Indecent Exposure” were scheduled to live the island on Thursday, after paying a fine of EC$2,400.00 [roughly US$900] each.The court heard that the men were seen on the balcony of the cruise ship, Celebrity X Cruises, naked fondling each other.Hart, a retired police officer and Mayer a personal assistant real estate agent told the court, ”We are sorry for what happened, we regret the incident and humbly apologize to the people of Dominica.”

As regular readers of this blog may know, Mad Professah was born on the island of Grenada, and spent 8 years on the island of Barbados going to the equivalent of middle school and high school.

It's not clear to me that a straight couple would have been arrested if a woman and man were seen "naked fondling each other." Cruise ships with all-gay clientele have  been controversial in the Caribbean for years, with local activists often expressing displeasure and exhibiting homophobic attitudes in Grenada and the Bahamas.

It's said that gay cruises specifically avoid the islands of Barbados and Jamaica because of local attitudes, while on the other hand the Virgin Islands are very welcoming to all-gay cruises.

India Gov't Accepts Sodomy Legalization Ruling

The long strange story of India's sodomy law appears to be coming to a close with the demise of the colonial-era prohibition on gay male sexual acts appearing to be nigh. Today the Government of India clarified that it supports the previous decision by the Delhi High Court to decriminalize sodomy, despite a declaration before the Supreme Court last week that the Government felt that gay sex is "highly immoral" which was quickly officially denied.

The Associated Press has the story:

NEW DELHI (AP) — The Indian government Tuesday clarified to the Supreme Court that it accepts a recent ruling legalizing gay sex in the country.

A lawyer told the Supreme Court that the government would not challenge a 2009 order by the Delhi High Court striking down a colonial-era law that made gay sex a crime.

The order was appealed by conservative groups and the Supreme Court is now hearing opinions from those groups as well as gay rights activists.

The latest statement comes days after another government lawyer told the court that gay sex was "highly immoral" and should be banned. The government quickly denied that lawyer's statement, prompting confusion about its stance on the law.

On Tuesday, a Supreme Court justice asked the government's lawyers to file an affidavit to reconcile the two divergent positions heard in court. Neither lawyer explained Thursday's confusion.

The 2009 high court order had said that treating consensual gay sex between adults as a crime was a violation of fundamental rights protected by India's constitution.

If this decision gets confirmed it will be the single most significant advance in LGBT rights that will positively impact the most number of homosexuals in the world. India has a population which is estimated at 1.2 billion people.

Prop 8 Ruled Unconstitutional By 9th Circuit Panel!!

As expected, the federal appellate court in California has affirmed the lower court decision, ruling bya  vote of 2-1 that Proposition 8 violates the United States Constitution.

Here's the text of the decision (hat/tip to AmericaBlog)
Ninth Circuit Prop. 8 decision

POLL: Huge Majority Supports LGBT Workplace Equality

A new poll commissioned by Human Rights Campaign confirms that the vast majority of Americans believes that employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity should be illegal.

The poll found a vast majority (77 percent) of voters support protecting LGBT people from discrimination in employment.  The support for employment protections defies conventional political wisdom, reaching across party and ideological lines.  Seventy percent of self-identified Republicans and 67 percent of conservatives support anti-discrimination laws.  Support is strong even among groups who tend to be less supportive of LGBT issues, such as seniors (69 percent among voters over age 65), those with a high school degree or less (68 percent), observant Christians (77 percent), born-again Christians (74 percent), and residents of the Deep South (72 percent). 

In a finding showing a need for more public outreach and education for employment non-discrimination laws, most voters believe anti-discrimination laws already exist.  Eighty-seven percent of voters believe it is illegal under federal law to fire someone for being gay and 78 percent believe it is illegal under state law.  Even in states without anti-discrimination laws, 75 percent of voters think it is illegal under state law to fire someone for being gay or lesbian. 

Of course there is pending federal legislation called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would actually make the law comport with what most people believe the law is already: illegal to fire workers because they are LGBT.

But it is absolutely unlikely to pass Congress while the Republicans control the majority of the U.S. House.

SCOTUS Aiming To Be Factor In 2012 Elections

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced some decisions recently which indicate that they will be a major factor in the 2012 presidential election. They announced they would decide three politically fraught cases: the constitutionality of the health care reform law, the constitutionality of Texas's congressional redistricting map and the constitutionality of Arizona's wildly xenophobic immigration law SB-1070.

Cal Sup Ct Rules 7-0 Initiative Proponents Have Standing

The long-awaited decision by the California Supreme Court on the question of whether initiative proponents have the right to defend their measures in court when elected officials like the Governor and Attorney General refuse to defend them was released today.

The Court ruled unanimously that initiative proponents do have standing under state law to defend their ballot initiatives.

As usual, Chris Geidner of Metro Weekly has the best analysis:

The California Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, was very clear about its answer: 

[W]e respond to the question posed by the Ninth Circuit in the affirmative. In a postelection challenge to a voter-approved initiative measure, the official proponents of the initiative are authorized under California law to appear and assert the state's interest in the initiative's validity and to appeal a judgment invalidating the measure when the public officials who ordinarily defend the measure or appeal such a judgment decline to do so. 

The decision came about resulting from a request by the Ninth Circuit in the ongoing challenge to Proposition 8 brought by the American Foundation for Equal Rights. The case, in which the trial court judge struck down Proposition 8 as unconstitutional in August 2010, is on appeal before the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit appeals court sought to have the California Supreme Court assist it with the case by answering these questions about state law through the process of asking a certified question. The California Supreme Court accepted the invitation to answer the certified question and heard oral arguments on the question on Sept. 6.

As the California Supreme Court found the proponents to have a "particularized interest" and "the authority to assert the State's interest," the Ninth Circuit now is likely to find that the proponents do have standing under federal law to bring the appeal -- although the court need not do so. At that point, the appeal of the Perry trial court decision -- the "merits" decision from the trial court that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional -- could go forward.

It's unfortunate that the Court opened up the can of worms to allow all initiative proponents to defend their statutes under state law. Considering how many ballot measures we have in California, this is an incredibly important decision.

That being said, it is very exciting that now we basically must get a ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the Perry v. Brown case which will give us a federal appellate court level ruling on the question of marriage equality.

Gov. Brown Signs Two Bills Outlining Transgender Protections

The legislative session in California has come to a close and Governor Brown is busy signing or vetoing bills that made it through the Democratically controlled legislature.

Two bills that are of great interest to the LGBT community are Assembly Bill 433 and Assembly Bill 887.

The Transgender Law Center trumpeted the enactment of the bills into law (and explained what they do):

These laws have been years in the making.  Through our statewide survey of almost 650 transgender Californians, the 1,200 calls that our legal team receives annually and our conversations with you at events around the state, we discovered two problems that continued to resurface: We found that California's nondiscrimination laws were often not accessible to those who needed them the most. Employers, health care providers, housing authorities - even transgender and gender non-conforming people - were unaware that it is illegal to discriminate against transgender Californians. Our legal rights were hidden within the definition of "gender", leaving many people in the dark about their rights, and many institutions out of compliance responsibilities. This had an especially severe impact on low-income and trans communities of color who tend to face employment discrimination at higher frequencies within transgender communities.   We heard from many transgender people who were unable to change their birth certificates and other identity documents due to financial and medical barriers. Onerous and outdated standards for court-ordered gender changes created unfair and damaging barriers that disproportionately impacted trans people of color, immigrant trans people, low-income trans people and others who could not overcome the many hurdles to securing basic identity documents. These are identity documents we all need to work, travel, and be our authentic selves. With the help of your input and our partners at Equality California and GSA Network, we came up with two legislative solutions to these problems. The Gender Nondiscrimination Act (AB 887) takes existing protections based on gender and spells out "gender identity and expression" as their own protected categories in our nondiscrimination laws. By making these protections explicit, people will more clearly understand California's nondiscrimination laws, which should increase the likelihood that employers, schools, housing authorities, and other institutions will work to prevent discrimination and/or respond more quickly at the first indications of discrimination. The Vital Statistics Modernization Act (AB 433) will alleviate the confusion, anxiety and even danger that transgender people face when we have identity documents that do not reflect who we are. The bill will streamline current law and clarify that eligible petitioners living or born in California can submit gender change petitions in the State of California. The Vital Statistics Modernization Act conforms California's standards to the standards set by the United States Department of State for gender changes on passports, and it makes common-sense changes to the law that ensure the process is simple for qualified petitioners to navigate.

It should be noted that California law already prohibited discrimination against transgender individuals but because the words "gender identity" or "gender expression" did not appear in the most common places in the California code lawyers would look these anti-discrimination protections were not well publicized or well-understood.

The new laws make it explicitly clear that California's non-discrimination laws also cover transgender residents.

Prosecutor Decides To Retry Brandon McInerney (As An Adult)

Lawrence King (left) and the person who shot him to death, Brandon McInerney 

Well, this is interesting news. Last month a mistrial was declared in the first trial of Brandon McInerney for the murder of Lawrence King. MadProfessah was ashamed at the result and implored prosecutors to retry McInerney for the point blank shooting of his middle school classmate in February 2008.

Today comes word that prosecutors will again try McInerney as an adult for the crime, but will drop the hate crime charge, basically making the wrong choice TWICE. Many LGBT activists like myself insist that the murder was a hate crime, because it is clear that McInerney targeted King for death because of his gender identity. However, since both boys were under 18 years old (McInerney had barely turned 14 at the time of the crime) there are also many LGBT activists who disagree with the decision to try him as an adult.

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

Prosecutors on Wednesday announced their intention to pursue a murder charge in adult court against 17-year-old Brandon McInerney. However, a hate crime charge will be dropped, Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox said.

Last month, a judge declared a mistrial after a nine-woman, three-man panel couldn't reach a unanimous decision on the degree of McInerney's guilt for killing 15-year-old Larry King. After a series of votes, seven jurors were in favor of a voluntary manslaughter conviction, while five others supported either first-degree or second-degree murder.

Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell set a Nov. 21 trial date, according to Fox, but it's unclear if it will be held in Ventura County. The first trial was moved to Los Angeles County due to pretrial publicity.

McInerney was 14 in February 2008, when he is accused of killing King at E.O. Green Junior High School during a computer lab class.

Prosecutors contend McInerney embraced a white supremacist philosophy that sees homosexuality as an abomination. Police found Nazi-inspired drawings and artifacts at his house, and a white supremacist expert testified at trial the hate-filled ideology was the reason for the killing.

Authorities maintained the shooting was premeditated and deserving of a murder conviction. During the trial, Fox noted at least six people heard McInerney make threats against King in the days leading to the shooting.

Defense attorneys acknowledged that McInerney was the shooter but explained that he had reached an emotional breaking point after King made repeated, unwanted sexual advances. They also have argued that juvenile court would be the best venue to try their client.

The reactions from the LGBT community to this news will not be good.

WATCH: Prop 8 Oral Arguments in CA Sup Ct

There is also excellent analysis of yesterday's California Supreme Court oral arguments (featuring newly minted Justice Goodwin Liu) available at TowleRoad.

Jury Deliberating Anti-Gay Hate Crime Verdict

The trial of Brandon McInerney for the point-blank shooting (twice!) of fellow teenager Lawrence King has now reached the jury deliberation stage.

Towleroad posts the AP report:

"Jurors began their discussions on Friday to determine whether 17-year-old Brandon McInerney is guilty of first-degree murder in the slaying of 15-year-old Larry King at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard. The panel is expected to deliberate for only a couple of hours because a juror has a prior commitment...McInerney has pleaded not guilty to one count each of murder and a hate crime. If convicted, he faces more than 50 years in prison. Jurors also can consider a conviction of voluntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum 21-year term."

MadProfesssah has been following the story of this case very carefully, from the reports of the shooting, to the debate over whether the death penalty should be a factor and jury selection and now the trial itself.

More Analysis Of Zombie Anti-Gay Sodomy Laws

Sodomy laws, or state statutes which criminalized sexual contact between people of the same sex were some of the most pernicious aspects of anti-LGBT discriminatory practices that negatively impacted the civil rights of LGBT Americans.

The 2003 Supreme Court decision Lawrence v Texas basically ended the era of legal gay apartheid but there are 18 states which, today, 8 years later, still have sodomy laws on their books.

MadProfessah noted that Mother Jones discussed this curiosity last April and now Equality Matters and other LGBT media outlets are starting to take notice.