Luka Magnotta

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MONTREAL, CANADA – The victim in the Canada body parts case was a Chinese student studying at Concordia University in Montreal who was in a relationship with Luka Rocco Magnotta, the wanted fugitive and chief suspect in the case.
Police confirmed to the French language La Presse newspaper late Thursday that 33-year-old Lin Jun — from the eastern Chinese city of Wuhan — is the victim in the case, as the search for 29-year-old Magnotta went global amid reports he had fled to France.
A senior French police official said Friday he is “sure” that Luka Rocco Magnotta is currently in France. Another French police official said Magnotta apparently flew to Paris from Montreal last weekend.
Police said Magnotta and Lin were in a romantic relationship, and that they lived close to each other in Montreal, according to the Toronto Star.
Lin arrived in the city in July 2011 and was admitted to Concordia University. A spokesman for the consulate, Xu Xin, said a man who fit Lin’s description was then reported missing by relatives May 24.
The consulate is now working to notify Lin’s family in China to advise them of the case. Police also sought the help of Interpol on Thursday amid reports Magnotta — a former stripper and porn actor — had boarded a plane to France.
Magnotta was listed on the Interpol website Thursday as a fugitive 29-year-old male from Scarborough, Canada, measuring 5ft 10in tall with blue eyes and brown hair.
Police had earlier issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Magnotta and authorities have asked the public for help in tracking him down.
He is accused of posting a hand and a foot to the Conservative Party headquarters and the Liberal Party headquarters in Ottawa.
The mystery began Tuesday when a package with blood on the outside and containing a decomposing left human foot arrived at the Conservative Party headquarters near Parliament Hill. Police said it was addressed to the party and not to a specific person.
The left hand, found in a package Tuesday night at an Ottawa postal terminal, was addressed to the Liberal Party headquarters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
On Tuesday, police discovered a man’s torso stuffed into a suitcase and dumped on a pile of garbage behind the apartment complex.
The CTV Television Network reported that a note was found in the package with the left foot. The note said that a total of six body parts had been sent out and the person behind the dismemberment would kill again.
Both Canada Post and the police are now working to find those four other body parts, CTV added.
Magnotta is also believed to have uploaded a video of the killing to a Canada-based website on May 25.
The video, which police believe is genuine, was dubbed “1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick.” It shows the perpetrator stabbing the victim with an ice pick and dismembering the victim.
It also appears to show cannibalism and sexual acts carried out upon the corpse. The 10-minute-long video attracted 300,000 hits in just four hours on Thursday.
from Fox News

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ALBANY, NEW YORK – A court says it’s no longer slander in New York to falsely call someone gay.
A mid-level appeals court on Thursday wiped out decades of rulings, including its own, to say that society no longer treats false comments that someone is gay, lesbian or bisexual as defamation. Without defamation, there is no longer slander, the court ruled.
“These appellate division decisions are inconsistent with current public policy and should no longer be followed,” stated the unanimous decision written by Justice Thomas Mercure of the Appellate Division’s Third Department based in Albany. While the decision sets new case law in New York now, it could still go to a definitive ruling by the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.
The New York decision finds that the comment is now “based on a false premise that it is shameful and disgraceful to be described as lesbian, gay or bisexual.”
The ruling stems from an incident in the Binghamton area. Mark Yonaty sued, claiming a woman spread a rumor she heard in hopes that Yonaty’s girlfriend would break up with him. He said the comment hurt and ultimately destroyed the relationship. Yonaty and his attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment. The decision, as in many defamation suits, provides few details.
With Thursday’s decision and similar ones in several other states, calling someone gay is eliminated as defamation, just as being called black is no longer grounds for slander, said Jonathan L. Entin, law and political science professor at Case Western Reserve University Law School in Ohio.
“It doesn’t mean this is the universal view of the country,” he said. “The traditional view of being called gay was like being called an evil person. The state of public opinion has changed, but there are still people who feel that way.”
In that way, he said, New York’s decision may reflect society more than changing civil law. He noted that few slander suits over name-calling get to court, partly because filing a legal action makes the claim more public. Jay Blotcher is a longtime gay rights activist from the Hudson Valley who sees pockets of tolerance in urban areas but says the revelation that you’re gay can get you “something akin to a lynching mob” in other parts of the country.
“It’s still a thorny issue,” Blotcher said. “Bottom line, just because you have gay characters on television that make everybody laugh doesn’t mean that the entire country embraces gay people as equal citizens yet.”
from The Associated Press

Green Lantern, one of DC Comics’ oldest and enduring heroes no matter what parallel earth he’s on, is serving as a beacon for the publisher again, this time as a proud, mighty and openly gay hero.
The change is revealed in the pages of the second issue of “Earth 2″ out next week, and comes on the heels of what has been an expansive year for gay and lesbian characters in the pages of comic books from Archie to Marvel and others.
But purists and fans note: This Green Lantern is not the emerald galactic space cop Hal Jordan who was, and is, part of the Justice League and has had a history rich in triumph and tragedy.
Instead, said James Robinson, who writes the new series, Alan Scott is the retooled version of the classic Lantern whose first appearance came in the pages of “All-American Comics” No. 16 in July 1940.
And his being gay is not part of some wider story line meant to be exploited or undone down the road, either.
“This was my idea,” Robinson explained this week, noting that before DC relaunched all its titles last summer, Alan Scott had a son who was gay.
But given “Earth 2″ features retooled and rebooted characters, Scott is not old enough to have a grown son.
“By making him younger, that son was not going to exist anymore,” Robinson said.
“He doesn’t come out. He’s gay when we see him in issue two,” which is due out Wednesday. “He’s fearless and he’s honest to the point where he realized he was gay and he said `I’m gay.’”
“It was just meant to be – Alan Scott being a gay member of the team, the Justice Society, that I’ll be forming in the pages of `Earth 2,’” he said. “He’s just meant to be part of this big tapestry of characters.”
It’s also another example of gay and lesbian characters taking more prominent roles in the medium.
In May, Marvel Entertainment said super speedster Northstar will marry his longtime boyfriend in the pages of “Astonishing X-Men.” DC comics has other gay characters, too, including Kate Kane, the current Batwoman.
And in the pages of Archie Comics, Kevin Keller is one of the gang at Riverdale High School and gay, too.
Some groups have protested the inclusion of gay characters, but Robinson isn’t discouraged, noting that being gay is just one aspect to Scott.
“This guy, he’s a media mogul, a hero, a dynamic type-A personality and he’s gay,” Robinson said. “He’s a complex character.”
from The Associated Press

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA – Gay-rights activists failed Wednesday to push San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed into joining the Bay Area’s other big city mayors in publicly supporting same-sex marriage.
The pitch from activists and their backers on the City Council put Reed on the spot over an issue he has avoided as he focuses on the city’s budget and economic development and where he stands increasingly apart from his fellow Democrats.
Reed has said he supports anti-discrimination laws and domestic partnership benefits for gay couples but not same-sex marriage, a matter he argued is for the courts to decide. But as the divisive issue works its way through courts, same-sex marriage supporters seeking to build public support among big city leaders say Reed’s reluctance to sign on makes San Jose stand out.
“I want to feel proud of the city I was born and raised in,” said San Jose gay-rights activist Rick Infantino.
But while Councilman Ash Kalra, who called for the City Council to pass a resolution supporting gay marriage, argued “this is not a political issue, it’s a civil rights issue,” Reed dismissed it as a “political stunt” and would have none of it.
Kalra’s resolution was timed to go before the council June 5 as city voters weigh Reed’s controversial pension reform ballot measure.
Instead, Reed and two of his allies, Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen and Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio, all members of the committee that sets the agenda for the full council, voted to have the mayor meet with activists on the same-sex marriage issue after the election.
Wiggsy Sivertsen, co-founder of BAYMEC, one of the largest gay-rights groups in the Bay Area, said she wasn’t surprised and that while they will meet with the mayor, she doubts they’ll change his views.
Mayors in San Francisco, Oakland and other big cities have joined in openly backing gay marriage. Gay activists say more than 200 mayors across the country support same-sex marriage rights, including Mike Bloomberg of New York, Annise Parker of Houston and Jerry Sanders of San Diego.
Kalra and Councilmen Kansen Chu and Don Rocha argued the council should not only declare the city’s support for same-sex marriage but formally call upon the mayor to join in a statement of support.
But that was a step too far even for some council members who support same-sex marriage. Councilman Sam Liccardo, a Reed ally, said that while it would “be the right thing” for Reed to do so, he said “that decision remains Mayor Reed’s — and nobody else’s — to make” and questioned the morality of a “legal mandate to speak contrary to one’s own beliefs.”
Nguyen, who initially had backed Kalra’s proposal before realizing it would ask the council to urge the mayor’s support, agreed.
“I fully support same-sex marriage,” Nguyen said. “Forcing someone to sign their name to something contrary to their beliefs is not something I’m willing to do.”
Wednesday’s committee meeting drew a capacity crowd with impassioned voices on both sides of the cultural divide.
“I don’t hate anyone, I just happen to have a view of the Bible that says marriage is between a man and a woman,” said Jan Soule, 63, of San Jose. “I feel we are being bullied to say same-sex marriage is OK.”
San Jose and Reed have a long history in the gay marriage debate. As a councilman in 2004, he opposed a city vote to recognize same-sex marriages performed in San Francisco and other cities. He also was on the losing end of a 2007 vote for the city to support San Francisco’s court challenge to the voter-approved Proposition 22 Defense of Marriage Act.
Reed pointedly refused to take a public position on Proposition 8, the 2008 constitutional amendment limiting marriage to a man and a woman that narrowly passed statewide but was opposed in most of the Bay Area, including Santa Clara County. But he later backed an unsuccessful council candidate who had helped the Proposition 8 campaign.
Kalra and gay activists denied that their proposal’s timing is politically motivated, arguing that a June 5 council vote would have coincided with the city’s Rainbow Flag raising in support of gays. They said they were inspired to press Reed for support after President Barack Obama a few weeks ago publicly backed gay marriage after previously opposing it.
“When the president of the United States made his historic statement supporting marriage equality,” Kalra said, “that was a game changer.”
from The Oroville Mercury-Register

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Dharun Ravi

The former Rutgers University student convicted of using a webcam to spy on his gay roommate reported to jail Thursday as the victim’s parents rejected his written apology as a “public relations piece” and said the judge missed an opportunity to highlight the seriousness of bias crimes.
Dharun Ravi, 20, checked into the county jail after agreeing to give up his right to remain free while prosecutors appeal his 30-day sentence.
His roommate, Tyler Clementi, committed suicide in September 2010 by jumping off New York’s George Washington Bridge, just days after Ravi used a webcam to see him kissing another man.
Ravi declined the opportunity to speak at his sentencing last week, during which Judge Glenn Berman scolded him for never hearing Ravi apologize. Earlier this week, Ravi issued a statement in which he described his actions as “thoughtless, insensitive, immature, stupid and childish.”
In their first public comments on the sentencing, Joseph and Jane Clementi issued a statement Thursday in which they rejected Ravi’s apology as insincere.
“As to the so-called ‘apology,’ it was, of course, no apology at all, but a public relations piece produced by Mr. Ravi’s advisers only after Judge Berman scolded Mr. Ravi in open court for his failure to have expressed a word of remorse or apology,” they said in a statement.
“A sincere apology is personal. Many people convicted of crimes address the victims and their families in court. Mr. Ravi was given that opportunity but chose to say nothing. His press release did not mention Tyler or our family, and it included no words of sincere remorse, compassion or responsibility for the pain he caused.”
The Clementis also said they were troubled by the judge’s decision not to impose jail time for the bias crimes for which Ravi was convicted.
Ravi was convicted of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation on the basis of sexual orientation — an offense widely referred to as a hate crime — and trying to cover his tracks by destroying text messages and tweets and tampering with a witness.
The judge indicated the jail time was directed at the attempted cover-up.
The Clementis said they never sought a harsh punishment but believe the judge should have specifically imposed at least some jail time for the bias crimes and invasion of privacy. Ravi was also ordered placed on three years’ probation and ordered to pay $10,000 toward a program to help victims of hate crimes.
The Clementis said they are concerned that the probation was not consistent with the jury’s unanimous verdicts.
They also said “it missed a valuable opportunity to reinforce the message that our society takes these types of crimes seriously, and that we will act decisively to protect individuals’ privacy and human dignity.”
Ravi reported to the jail in North Brunswick at 1:15 p.m. Thursday, dressed in a T-shirt, khakis and canvas sneakers.
Generally, people sentenced in New Jersey to 30-day jail terms get 10 days off for good behavior.
Even as he serves his time, his lawyers are appealing his conviction.
from The Associated Press
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