James Parkes

UNITED KINGDOM – A gang of teenagers held in connection with a homophobic attack on a trainee Pc will not face any charges.
James Parkes was left critically injured after being set upon by up to 20 people outside a gay bar on Stanley Street, Liverpool, in October 2009.
Detectives arrested 15 youths during the inquiry but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has now decided there is insufficient evidence to charge them.
Two of the boys, aged 15 and 16, have had their bail cancelled.
Detectives are now reviewing evidence in the case and say some of the other 13 suspects may now be re-interviewed.
Pc Parkes, then aged 22, was on a night out with friends at the Superstar Boudoir club on 25 October when he was attacked.
As the group left the club they were abused by a gang who then chased them and launched the attack.
He suffered multiple skull fractures, fractures of his eye-socket and cheek bone and spent weeks in hospital.
“The investigation into the assault is ongoing and all the evidence is being reviewed,” said a force spokeswoman.
“As a result of this review, it might be necessary for the police to re-interview the same suspects or other people in connection with the incident.
“Further lines of enquiry will be sought and every effort is being made to bring those responsible for this attack to justice.
“Homophobic hate crime is unacceptable and Merseyside Police continue to work hard to ensure that any offenders are bought to justice.”
from The BBC

Colin Farrell With Brother Eamon Farrell

IRELAND - Colin Farrell has spoken out about the torment his gay brother suffered at school at the hands of homophobic bullies.
The Phone Booth star, who was best man at brother Eamon’s same sex wedding last year, released a statement detailing the violence and abuse his brother endured in a bid to promote an anti-bullying drive by gay charity Belong To in his native Ireland.
“I can’t remember much about the years of physical and emotional abuse my brother Eamon suffered. I was very small,” admitted the Hollywood actor.
“The thing I do remember though, quite literally, is blood on his school shirt when he came home in the afternoon. The beatings and taunting were very frequent for him and a constant part of his school years.”
And he admitted he couldn’t understand why his brother was targeted by vicious classmates, because he brought Colin nothing but joy.
“People are often afraid of difference,” he said.
“They feel that anything that causes fear, should be turned away from.
“My brother represented fear for so many people, but caused joy in my life.
“From a very young age he made me laugh with his intelligence and wit, made me aspire to his strength and goodness. He was to be embraced.
“To many of the students of his school however he was to be feared. He was to be turned away from. I didn’t understand it then, and I still don’t now.”
from The Sun UK

Madieye Diallo

THIES, SENEGAL – Even death cannot stop the violence against gays in this corner of the world any more.
Madieye Diallo’s body had only been in the ground for a few hours when the mob descended on the weedy cemetery with shovels. They yanked out the corpse, spit on its torso, dragged it away and dumped it in front of the home of his elderly parents.
The scene of May 2, 2009 was filmed on a cell phone and the video sold at the market. It passed from phone to phone, sowing panic among gay men who say they now feel like hunted animals.
“I locked myself inside my room and didn’t come out for days,” says a 31-year-old gay friend of Diallo’s who is ill with HIV. “I’m afraid of what will happen to me after I die. Will my parents be able to bury me?”
A wave of intense homophobia is washing across Africa, where homosexuality is already illegal in at least 37 countries.
In the last year alone, gay men have been arrested in Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. In Uganda, lawmakers are considering a bill that would sentence homosexuals to life in prison and include capital punishment for ‘repeat offenders.’ And in South Africa, the only country that recognizes gay rights, gangs have carried out so-called “corrective” rapes on lesbians.
“Across many parts of Africa, we’ve seen a rise in homophobic violence,” says London-based gay-rights activist Peter Tatchell, whose organization tracks abuse against gays and lesbians in Africa. “It’s been steadily building for the last 10 years but has got markedly worse in the last year.”
To the long list of abuse meted out to suspected homosexuals in Africa, Senegal has added a new form of degradation – the desecration of their bodies.
In the past two years, at least four men suspected of being gay have been exhumed by angry mobs in cemeteries in Senegal. The violence is especially shocking because Senegal, unlike other countries in the region, is considered a model of tolerance.
“It’s jarring to see this happen in Senegal,” says Ryan Thoreson, a fellow at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission who has been researching the rise of homophobia here. “When something like this happens in an established democracy, it’s alarming.”
Even though homosexuality is illegal in Senegal, colonial documents indicate the country has long had a clandestine gay community. In many towns, they were tacitly accepted, says Cheikh Ibrahima Niang, a professor of social anthropology at Senegal’s largest university. In fact, the visibility of gays in Senegal may have helped to prompt the backlash against them.
(more…)

MOHAWK, NEW YORK – A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit filed last year on behalf of a gay student alleging that the Mohawk school district failed to protect him from threats and physical assaults and ignored repeated bullying.
The school district, New York Civil Liberties Union (representing the student) and U.S. Department of Justice agreed to terms that will provide more than $75,000 in compensation, implement harassment policy reviews and training and require annual reports on the district’s progress.
Approved Monday by the U.S. District Court federal judge, the settlement includes several measures that bring the litigation to a close.
The student,  who was 14 years old at the time of the alleged harassment and is identified in court documents as Jacob or J.L., receives $50,000 from the district. The district is also responsible for up to $100 per week, through June 30, 2013, for the student’s therapy sessions. The student has since enrolled in another school district.
The NYCLU receives $25,000 for attorneys’ fees.
In return, the lawsuit against the school district is dropped and the court dismisses the action against the individual employees named in the suit, including Superintendent Joyce Caputo, high school principal Edward Rinaldo and Cynthia Stocker, equal opportunity compliance officer.
The settlement also does not hold the district and employees to any admission of “liability” or “wrongdoing.”
The DOJ, which filed a motion to intervene in the case on behalf of the student, also agrees not to pursue the matter further in court, according to NYCLU officials.
Both the NYCLU and school district released statements on the settlement.
“This lawsuit affirms that school districts nationwide have the responsibility to protect children from bullying and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender non-conformity,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “No child should live in fear of going to school.”
Responding to the accusations of deliberate indifference to harassment, a statement from Caputo maintained the district’s position.
“The school district has steadfastly and consistently denied those allegations, many of which were wholly unsupported by independent evidence,” she stated in an e-mail.
The federal lawsuit alleged over the past two years, prior to this school year, the student was subjected to relentless verbal and physical abuse, culminating in another student bringing a knife and making a death threat.
A failure by district officials to formally investigate harassment, discipline students, or even inform the student and his parents of their right to file complaints under Board of Education grievance procedures is also part of claims made in the lawsuit.
“Student confidentiality issues and common sense prevent us from defending ourselves against every allegation that has played out in the media,” Caputo’s statement continues. “This has been a difficult experience for everyone in our school district and community, so we are happy to see it settled.”
Part of the settlement also involves the district’s hiring the Anti-Defamation League to train staff and review school district harassment policies. District officials will also compile reports on the training progress. Both stipulations are mandated to continue until June 30, 2013, and the district is then free to make its own decisions on how to proceed.
Caputo declined to give any cost to the district for the training aspect of the settlement. She also refused to answer any further questions on the issue. “My statement will be my statement,” she said when reached by phone.
“Our staff and administrators would never knowingly tolerate discrimination or bullying by anyone. Still, I think it’s important to stress that we continue to remain committed to doing everything in our power to prevent bullying and promote a culture of respect and tolerance in our schools. We recognize there is always room to learn and improve — and we intend to [do] just that,” Caputo wrote in her statement.
Caputo in her statement claims the district has provided sensitivity training to staff on diversity and harassment issues since the fall of 2000. The training has been provided for students since 2000 through the 2009-10 school year, she added in her statement, and the settlement provides additional initiatives and resources for the district to pursue.
Corey Stoughton, NYCLU lead counsel on the case, applauded the district for “making this commitment to protect all students from bullying and harassment. “We look forward to working with the district officials and the Department of Justice on implementing these important reforms, and hope that they will inspire other school systems to confront bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender non-conforming students,” she said in a released statement.
from The Evening Times

Students at an elite L.A. private school who posted death threats and antigay messages on the Internet site of a 15-year-old classmate can’t claim the constitutional protection of free speech, a California appeals court has ruled.
The parents of the boy targeted by the threatening and derogatory posts on his website withdrew him from Harvard-Westlake School and moved to Northern California to protect him from classmates who had incorrectly labeled him as gay and pronounced him “wanted dead or alive,” the boy’s father said in a lawsuit brought against six students and their parents.
The defendants had attempted to deflect the charges by seeking a judgment from Los Angeles County Superior Court that the comments were 1st Amendment-protected speech on an issue of public interest, a motion denied by the lower court and upheld by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in a 2-1 decision Monday.
The Los Angeles Police Department detective who initially investigated the hostile website postings against the student, identified only as D.C., had declined to pursue charges against the other students, saying their “annoying and immature Internet communications did not meet the criteria for criminal prosecution.”
The Los Angeles County district attorney likewise declined to prosecute.
The appeals court decision separating cyber-bullying from free speech will allow the boy and his parents to move forward with their suit against the students for alleged hate crimes.
from The Los Angeles Times

DAVIS, CALIFORNIA – UC Davis officials are planning a town hall meeting tonight after anti-gay graffiti was found on campus this weekend, the second possible “hate crime” on campus in the past week.
Graphic anti-gay words and phrases were found spray-painted on the campus Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center on Saturday morning, the latest in a series of incidents on UC campuses across the state.
A Jewish UC Davis student found a swastika carved into her dorm room door late last week, and a series of racially-charged incidents — started by an off-campus party mocking urban stereotypes — have sparked an outcry at UC San Diego.
The graffiti at the Davis LGBT Center drew comment from students who said such incidents are rare on campus.
“You don’t normally hear about hate crimes here at Davis,” said Giselle Camarillo. “That’s just really surprising.”
Students with no connection to the center visited the site to see the vandalism, and some even covered the message of hate with messages of love.
A letter from the center’s staff on the door vowed to leave the graffiti up as a reminder that intolerance still exists.
Investigators are looking into the possibility of a connection between the swastika and the most recent graffiti.
“This thing isn’t tolerated on campus,” said UC Davis Police Sergeant Don Malloy. “It’s in direct violation of the principles of community the campus operates under.”
from CBS 13 Sacramento

Johnny Weir

VANCOUVER, CANADA – A pair of Aussie sports commentators have been given a dressing down for making a series of anti-gay jibes about male figure skaters and their outfits at the Winter Olympics.
The broadcasters described skating routines at the Games as “Brokeback Mountain” exercises — a reference to the Oscar-winning film about two gay cowboys.
Eddie McGuire and Mick Moloy also quipped that the Games’ organisers were shocked to discover one of the male ice skaters was NOT gay and mocked their costumes.
A PAIR of Aussie sports commentators have been given a dressing down for making a series of anti-gay jibes about male figure skaters and their outfits at the Winter Olympics.
The broadcasters described skating routines at the Games as “Brokeback Mountain” exercises — a reference to the Oscar-winning film about two gay cowboys.
Eddie McGuire and Mick Moloy also quipped that the Games’ organisers were shocked to discover one of the male ice skaters was NOT gay and mocked their costumes.
The pair also talked about the “organisers’ shock” that there was a non-gay competitor in the competition.
Then when apologising for the comment Molloy managed to add a further insult.
He said: “I suggested that there was a disaster happening at the ice skating rink because organisers had found out one of the male ice dancers wasn’t gay.
“And I apologise for that really sincerely.”
But as flamboyant US skater Johnny Weir, wearing a black and pink outfit and holding a heart-shaped cushion, took to the ice, he quipped: “But it definitely wasn’t this guy.”
When a skater appeared in an outfit modelled on a tuxedo, Molloy described it as being something that even the pop star Prince would not dare to wear.
And when another came on in a Western-inspired costume of overalls and checked shirt, McGuire said it “was a bit of Brokeback”.
Molloy added: “A bit of Brokeback Mountain exercises. You can’t wear that?”
The two commentators are known for their childish humour.
On the anti-McGuire Facebook page, one member wrote: “Time for him to retire and replace him with someone more educated in life.”
Channel Nine has confirmed it received a number of complaints, including some from the Facebook site but has not made an official comment.
from The Sun UK

Jacob

MOHAWK, NEW YORK – The bullying by classmates and taunts of “homo” only got worse after Jacob began dyeing his hair and wearing eyeliner in eighth grade. One student scrawled “I hope you die” on his shoe, he said; another drew a pocket knife on him.
Jacob’s grades dropped, and he missed school from fear. His father tried repeatedly to get school officials in their working-class village in upstate New York to help protect his son from harassment. The response by the Mohawk Central School District, according to a federal lawsuit, was to do “virtually nothing.”
“Everything was bad,” Jacob – who is identified as “J.L.” in the lawsuit and didn’t want to draw attention to his new school by having his last name used in this story – said this week. “I hyperventilated when I left the school … and I didn’t want to come back the next day, or ever.”
The 15-year-old might soon get a measure of satisfaction. The lawsuit filed by Jacob and his father against the school district with the New York Civil Liberties Union could be close to settlement, according to both sides.
The negotiations come as the U.S. Department of Justice seeks to intervene in the case, citing the “important issues” it raises in enforcing federal civil rights laws.
“There is a growing recognition across the country that schools need to take harassment based on gender expression and homosexuality seriously,” said NYCLU attorney Corey Stoughton. “If there is a settlement in this case, that’s an affirmation of that principle.”
Justice officials say it’s the first time since 2000 that they have argued that Title IX, the antidiscrimination law affecting schools that receive federal funding, covers sex discrimination based on gender stereotypes – such as when a boy does not act or look stereotypically male. Stoughton said that while harassment based on gender nonconformity is widespread, there have been only a handful of legal cases like this nationwide.
Mohawk School Superintendent Joyce Caputo said the district denies allegations in the lawsuit, but she stressed they are working with the NYCLU and the Justice Department to settle the suit in a way that benefits everyone.
“We are committed to doing everything in our power to prevent bullying and to promote tolerance,” she said.
Mohawk is a village of modest clapboard homes set near the river of the same name and just east of Utica. Jacob said he did not face serious problems until he went to Gregory B. Jarvis Junior/Senior High School as a seventh-grader in fall 2007.
That was about the time it became clearer that Jacob was different. By eighth grade, he wore eyeliner to school sometimes and would dye his hair bright blue or pink. He was out of the closet that school year.
“People would ask and I’d say, ‘Yeah, I’m gay, whatever. Peace out,’” he said.
In an interview this week with his father at their home, Jacob said he was just being himself. That is, a teenager who loves to write songs, short stories and poems and who dreams about a career in the movies, maybe as a director or a writer.
Dressed in a blue fleece and jeans, Jacob talked effusively about pop culture – Pink is his favorite singer, “Orphan” a favorite movie. But his voice got softer when he talked about his experiences at Jarvis.
The lawsuit claims the principal and other district officials did not follow their own anti-harassment policies. Teachers blocked him from going to a “safe room” set up for him. One teacher told him he should be ashamed of himself for being gay, according to court papers.
Jacob’s father, Robert Sullivan (he has a different last name), devoted himself to making sure his son was safe in school despite fighting Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“I put the cancer stuff aside,” Sullivan said, “because he doesn’t have anyone to defend himself beside me.”
But Sullivan said he failed to make much progress.
“You listen to your child cry at night and wish he was dead, and wish he wasn’t here. It’s a hard thing to go through,” Sullivan said. “And you know you’ve got to send him back there the next day.”
The idea of a lawsuit came from someone at a support group Jacob attended, and the NYCLU sued in August. The Department of Justice asked to intervene last month, noting the suit’s claims that Jacob was denied equal protections guaranteed in the Constitution and under Title IX, the antidiscrimination law affecting schools that receive federal funding.
The department would not comment on the litigation, but gay rights supporters saw its involvement as evidence of a strengthened commitment under the Obama administration to the rights of people who are gay or who do not conform to gender stereotypes.
However, it’s now possible that a settlement will be reached before a judge decides whether the federal agency can intervene. The Justice Department would not comment in detail on the lawsuit.
Jacob this week seemed happy just to put the trauma behind him.
The family recently moved to the next town. Jacob started a new school and the experience has been like night and day, he said: “It’s amazing. I have a lot of friends there.”
Sullivan’s cancer is in remission. He said it’s nice to see his son smile again, and he has hopes for their future.
“As long as I can get to see him graduate high school,” Sullivan said. “I think I can die happy.”
from The Associated Press

Harold Strickland said he was on his cellphone to 911 reporting a police beating of a man when the officers turned on him.
The ACLU of Florida says two Miami Beach police officers yelled epithets at a gay tourist and falsely accused him of trying to break into cars after he witnessed them kicking and punching a handcuffed man at Flamingo Park.
As Officers Frankly Forte and Elliot Hazzi approached witness Harold Strickland, they didn’t know he was on his cellphone reporting the beating to a Miami Beach 911 dispatcher, said Robert F. Rosenwald Jr., director of the ACLU Florida’s Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender Advocacy Project.
“This is an issue that we have hoped to address for a long time. Miami Beach Police have for a long time harassed gay men around Flamingo Park without probable cause,” Rosenwald said Wednesday.
Miami Beach police first learned of the alleged incident — which occurred last March — on Wednesday afternoon and immediately began an internal affairs investigation, spokesman Detective Juan Sanchez said.
“At this time, the department cannot comment nor is it a practice to comment on an intended issue that is going to be [the] subject of litigation by the city,” Sanchez wrote in an e-mail to The Miami Herald.
Detective Gus Sanchez, vice president of the Miami Beach Fraternal Order of Police, also said he couldn’t discuss an open investigation.
Forte and Hazzi both were hired by Beach police as new officers in February 2007. They were still on duty Wednesday, Juan Sanchez said.
The incident began about 1 a.m. March 13 as Strickland, a former Beach resident now living in Los Angeles, walked past Flamingo Park near 14th Street and Michigan Avenue.
Strickland called 911 when he saw a man being beaten by two men just outside the park.
“I saw a guy running and then I saw two, what looked like undercover cops running. And they pushed this guy down on the ground, the one cop did, and the other cop came up as if he was kicking a football — and kicked the guy in the head,” Strickland, 45, told a dispatcher during a recorded phone call to 911.
For nearly five minutes, he talked to the dispatcher, who encouraged him to get closer for more detail “if it doesn’t put you in any danger.”
A few seconds later, Strickland told the dispatcher: “Now they’re coming after me!”
The two men, later identified as officers Forte and Hazzi, approached Strickland and could be heard saying, “What are you doing here? Where do you live? Let’s see some ID.” A few seconds later the line went dead.
Strickland later told the ACLU that Forte and Hazzi grabbed his cellphone and disconnected the call.
“The officers then told Strickland: `We know what you’re doing here. We’re sick of all the f—ing fags in the neighborhood.’ The officers pushed Strickland to the ground and tied his hands behind his back,” Rosenwald wrote in an ACLU letter delivered Wednesday to Miami Beach Mayor Matti Herrera Bower.
“While Strickland was on the ground, the officers continued to spew anti-gay epithets. They called him a `f—ing fag’ and told him he was going to `get it good in jail.’ ”
Bower and City Manager Jorge Gonzalez also declined to comment.
Strickland called 911 at 1:06 a.m., according to dispatch records.
Forte wrote in an arrest report that 30 minutes later — at 1:36 a.m. — he saw Strickland trying to break into six cars at 14th Street and Michigan Avenue near Flamingo Park.
Strickland said he tried to tell the officers about his call to 911, but that they wouldn’t listen to him. They took him to jail on a loitering-or-prowling charge. At a hearing the next day, a judge told him that he would get out of jail faster if he pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor, Rosenwald said.
Strickland agreed, left jail and called the ACLU. He later changed his plea to not guilty. The State Attorney’s Office later dropped the charge. Loitering and resisting-arrest-without-violence charges also were dropped against Oscar Mendoza, the man Strickland reported being beaten near Flamingo Park.
from The Miami Herald

A new American research suggests that gay teenagers and young adults are more vulnerable to bullying than their counterparts.
The study found that bullying rates more than tripled for lesbians, while bisexuals reported being bullied more often.
Researchers discovered that bisexual girls were more likely to be bullies themselves whereas gay males were much less likely to bully others.
The study team came up with their findings from a 2001 survey of 7,559 children of female registered nurses.
Although, the study does not prove that being gay or bisexual is directly responsible for causing people to be bullied or to turn into bullies, it does point out the size of the bullying problem, showing that it is not limited to grade school.
Lead author Elise Berlan, of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, said the research shows that “kids who are different – who are perceived as weak and falling out of the mainstream – are more vulnerable to bullying.
“It’s really important to have some documentation about what the experiences of our kids are.”
The participants in the study were aged between 14 and 22.
Out of 2,720 males, 93.5% said they were heterosexual, 4.5% said they were mostly heterosexual and 0.5% said they were bisexual. The other 1.4% said they were mostly or completely homosexual.
Among the 4,839 females, 88.3% said they were heterosexual, 9.5% said they were mostly heterosexual, 1.9% said they were bisexual and 0.3% said they were mostly or completely heterosexual.
Compared to completely heterosexual kids, all these groups were more likely to have experienced bullying except for bisexual girls. Gay males, mostly or completely gay, had double the risk after the study team adjusted the statistics for factors like age and race.
Before the statistics were adjusted, 44% of mostly or completely gay males and 26% of completely heterosexual males said they had been bullied.
Fifteen females, who were completely or mostly homosexual, were over three times more likely to be bullied, while bisexual females were 2.4 times more likely to report bullying others.
from Daily News & Analysis
*
*

Bake Hayes

NEW YORK – A West Side gay bashing has turned into an international incident with the NYPD in England tracking down the suspect – a Bronze Star recipient.
One of the victims, Blake Hayes, a 24-year-old deejay for WPLJ-FM radio, noted the conflicting portraits of the suspect.
“On paper, he’s a hero,” Hayes said of Air Force Staff Sgt. Benjamin Ford. “But when it comes to what happened … he deserves to be punished.”
Ford, an expert in defusing bombs, was part of a military contingent that was in town last September while President Obama was speaking to the UN. His job: to help protect the President and other world leaders.
Ford was outside McCoy’s Bar in Hell’s Kitchen in the early hours of Sept. 26 when the attack went down, police said.
Hayes and two friends, Alec Bell and Danny Calvert, say Ford flicked a cigarette at them, then told Calvert, “Keep moving, faggot.”
He also allegedly called Bell a “homo.” Bell and his pals returned fire by making fun of the suspect’s baldness, cops said.
That’s when things exploded.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Benjamin Ford

Hayes told cops that Ford shoved him and Calvert and then clocked Bell in the face.
“Die of AIDS, you fucking queers,” Ford allegedly yelled at the trio before going back inside the Ninth Ave. bar.
Police responded but did not take a report, the victims said. That complaint is now the subject of an NYPD Internal Affairs investigation.
The Hate Crimes Task Force was assigned to the case and eventually identified Ford as the suspect and learned he was assigned to an Air Force base five hours outside London.
A NYPD Intelligence Division detective who is stationed in London drove to the base and interviewed Ford, who admitted he was at the scene but insisted his alleged victims started the fight, a source said.
Surveillance video, however, shows Ford attacking them, the source told the Daily News.
In an added twist to the case, the NYPD and Manhattan prosecutor’s office, after consulting the three gay victims, have agreed to let the U.S. military try Ford and dole out any punishment if he is found guilty in the attack, sources told The News.
Ford has not been formally charged.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who has been involved in pressing for a full investigation, called the latest news in the case a “very helpful development.”
And City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said the planned prosecution “sends a strong message” that hate crimes won’t be tolerated.
from The New York Daily News

NOTRE DAME, INDIANA – The Jan. 13 issue of the University of Notre Dame’s student newspaper The Observer included a cartoon that was inappropriate and offensive.
“The University denounces the implication that violence or expressions of hate toward any person or group of people is acceptable or a matter that should be taken lightly,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president.
In accordance with Notre Dame’s Spirit of Inclusion, a formal statement adopted by the officers of the University in 1997, at Notre Dame “we prize the uniqueness of all persons as God’s creatures” and welcome ” all people, regardless of color, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social or economic class, and nationality.”
Further, “we value gay and lesbian members of this community as we value all members of this community. We condemn harassment of any kind” and “we consciously create an environment of mutual respect, hospitality and warmth in which none are strangers and all may flourish.”
The University respects The Observer’s status as an independent, student-run newspaper and appreciates that the editorial staff has issued an apology in its January 15th issue and that the cartoon’s authors also have expressed their regret. Notre Dame administrators will work with the Observer staff, as they say in their editorial, to “move forward, and….to promote…a culture of acceptance and support for all.”
from The UniversityOf Notre Dame

NOTRE DAME,INDIANA — A comic strip in the student newspaper at the University of Notre Dame has started the new semester with a harsh lesson.
The three-panel strip appeared Wednesday, the first issue of The Observer after Christmas break.
A talking saw asks, “What is the easiest way to turn a fruit into a vegetable?”
“No idea,” a man responds.
“A baseball bat,” says the saw.
It led to an outcry — locally and from at least one national organization — at how the strip plays on violence against gay people.
The Observer’s editor in chief, student Jenn Metz, professes her and her staff’s outrage.
“I was personally outraged and extremely offended that something of that nature had been printed in our paper — language that has no place at Notre Dame, language that is hurtful to members of our community,” Metz says. “Our written apology is the first step in moving forward.”
Metz is referring to The Observer’s own editorial in Friday’s edition that apologizes for the cartoon. Also, the three Notre Dame seniors who develop the cartoon, known as “The Mobile Party,” write their apology.
Metz says she and her staff are investigating what went wrong. She says she wasn’t there when Wednesday’s edition was put together and didn’t see the comic until it appeared in print.
The university’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins, said this about the strip in a written statement Friday: “The University denounces the implication that violence or expressions of hate toward any person or group of people is acceptable or a matter that should be taken lightly.”
Like many college papers, The Observer is independent. The daily paper is produced on campus, but students are completely in charge of content. They send the paper to the printer and the Internet without a university official peering over their shoulders, Metz says. In its statement Friday, the university says it continues to respect the paper’s independence.
Metz says she and her staff started to respond to the cartoon as soon as it appeared in print — without nudging from the university and before dozens of angry readers wrote or stopped by the paper’s office.
“There’s a larger problem than this specific comic,” says Daniel J. Myers, a sociology professor and associate dean at Notre Dame. He wrote a commentary in Friday’s edition of The Observer titled “How we know our university has failed,” which focuses on the issues surrounding the cartoon.
Myers says there’s a culture that still thinks these sorts of things are funny. He’d like to see more people voice their outrage so that there might be more conversation on the issue.
“I think all of us have a responsibility to respond to this sort of thing,” he says.
Alex Giorgio, a Granger man who is gay, agrees: “If we keep quiet, nothing will change.”
Tricia Wainscott hopes this turns into a learning experience. She suggests “some kind of forum to express actions of hate that have happened to them.”
She is director of the GLBT Resource Center of Michiana, a South Bend nonprofit that offers support and information to people with gender issues. GLBT stands for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender.
Wainscott lives close to the Notre Dame campus and loves the place. But now, she says, the cartoon’s reference to violence raises a question about whether people can feel safe stepping foot there.
“Something like this gives me a strong reason for having protections — so that things like this can’t be seen as a joke,” she says.
She says she gets calls from people who believe that being gay caused them to lose jobs and apartments, and from others who have suffered domestic violence from a gay partner.
Giorgio, who runs the center’s support group for youths who are GLBT or questioning it, adds, “We have to look to lawmakers to be more inclined to add GLBT to workplace discrimination clauses and allow members of the community to have equal rights.”
A blog, apparently run by the comic’s creators, suggested that the strip’s original punch line wasn’t the phrase, “A baseball bat,” but “AIDS.” The punch line was changed. Metz says she’s still seeking answers to whether that was true.
In their apology, the comic’s creators write that they “use the tool characters to emphasize a mindset that we simply find ridiculous.” They write that their strip relies on “shock value” and that “now … we have gone too far.”
A statement from The Observer staff says: “We … are working to contact groups in our community to begin to move forward and help to eliminate language of hate toward others on campus. We will be working over the next several days to publish revised policies, editing processes and staff changes.”
Along with supporting groups that promote peace, love and nonviolence, Metz points out that The Observer has editorialized in the past in support of adding sexual orientation to the university’s nondiscrimination clause.
Asked if the timing was poignant — so close to Monday’s holiday for civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. — Metz said: “There is still a problem of hateful speech in our society. It would be just as hateful if it appeared on any other Wednesday.”
In the university’s statement Friday, it refers to the “Spirit of Inclusion” that it adopted in 1997, saying that it values gay and lesbian members of its community and condemns “harassment of any kind.” It states the university should “consciously create an environment of mutual respect, hospitality and warmth in which none are strangers and all may flourish.
from The South Bend Tribune
*
*

SANTA CRUZ — A Redwood City man wanted for allegedly beating up a man because of his sexual orientation turned himself in to the Sheriff’s Office around noon Wednesday.
Cole White, 24, surrendered a day after a judge signed a $50,000 arrest warrant charging him with assault and a hate crime allegation.
“He provided a brief statement and said he would like to speak to an attorney,” Santa Cruz police spokesman Zach Friend said.
White is accused of beating up a Santa Cruz man in his 30s at the Blue Lagoon, a gay-friendly nightclub in downtown Santa Cruz early Sunday, according to police. The attack happened after White yelled gay slurs at the man.
The incident occurred both inside and outside the bar, located on the 900 block of Pacific Avenue, and spurred a robbery — a friend of White’s is accused of stealing the victim’s cell phone because it contained a photo of White — and a second fight, where an 18-year-old woman allegedly punched a man in front of the club, according to police. The man suspected in the robbery and the young woman were both arrested early Sunday, according to police.
from The Mercury News

SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA — A judge signed a $50,000 arrest warrant Tuesday for a Redwood City man suspected of attacking a gay man at a downtown nightclub early Sunday because of his sexual orientation.
Cole White, 24, is wanted for assault and a hate crime enhancement, according to Santa Cruz police spokesman Zach Friend.
Investigators suspect White made derogatory statements about another man’s sexual orientation outside the Blue Lagoon, a club on the 900 block of Pacific Avenue. White’s friends and a bouncer separated the two men, but both ended up inside the establishment a few minutes later and a second altercation occurred, according to police and the victim, a Santa Cruz man in his early 30s.
The beating is being investigated as a hate crime because police believe the victim was targeted because of his sexual orientation, according to Friend. A hate crime allegation can add one year to a jail or prison sentence.
In 2009, Santa Cruz police investigated eight hate crimes, which can also include crimes motivated by someone’s disability, gender, nationality, religion, race or ethnicity.
The victim said he saw White at the bar and turned to ask him if he was the man who had verbally accosted him on the sidewalk a few minutes prior. Instead of answering, White allegedly punched the victim in the face. The victim said he was knocked to the ground and beaten for 10-15 second before someone pulled him off the floor and rushed him
outside.
The victim, who suffered bruises, cuts, sore ribs and a possible broken nose in the attack, said he was shocked at the violence, especially in Santa Cruz and the Blue Lagoon, a gay-friendly bar.
He called 911 after the attack and told the club’s bouncer he had a cell phone photo of the man who attacked him, the victim said.
Outside the bar, 23-year-old David Douglas Cameron allegedly grabbed the cell phone and ran toward the levee, according to police. The victim chased after him until police took up the pursuit and apprehended Cameron, who police said is a friend of White’s. Cameron was arrested on suspicion of robbery.
As police sorted out the incident early Sunday, Cameron’s girlfriend, Meisha Galpren-Gibson, 18, was also arrested on Pacific Avenue near the club. She allegedly hit someone in the face and was arrested on suspicion of being drunk in public, disturbing the peace and fighting, according to police.
from The Santa Cruz Sentinel