by Peter DelVecchio

Same-sex couples seek licenses

On Valentine’s Day, longtime partners Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, along with Rev. Troy Perry and his spouse, Phillip De Blieck (the couple was married in Canada), once again attempted to secure a marriage license at the Beverly Hills Courthouse as part of Freedom to Marry week. And once again, they were turned down.

Tyler and Olson are represented by prominent pro-gay attorney Gloria Allred, who filed the first case in 2004 challenging the state law prohibiting same-sex couples from enjoying civil marriage. That case was consolidated into one case with three others, filed after a judge issued an injunction against the city and County of San Francisco barring Mayor Gavin Newsom from issuing any more licenses to same-sex couples.

On March 4, the California Supreme Court will finally hear oral arguments in the case.

“It has taken us four years since we filed the first lawsuit in California for equal marriage rights, but it has been 38 years since the first two gay men were legally married in Minnesota. We have been demonstrating for equal marriage rights since the first March on Washington in 1979,” Tyler told IN. “The California Supreme Court needs to rule within 90 days of the March 4 hearing. Will we win? We hope the court will do the right thing, as they did in the 1948 interracial marriage case. However, no matter what the decision, we have already won. We have won because 65 percent of youth under the age of 24 think that lesbians and gays should have the right to marry. And so, we are only one generation away from finally getting those rights. It has been a long struggle in the LGBT battle for civil rights.” —K.O.

Community mourns murder of 15-year-old

Lorri L. Jean, CEO of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, teared up during a Feb. 15 news conference at the Jeff Griffith Youth Center as she talked about the “terrible tragedy” of the shooting death of 15-year-old Lawrence King by his 14-year-old classmate in Ventura County.

“This event is a terrible tragedy, but it’s even more so because Larry King and Brandon [McInerney, the alleged shooter] were still children,” Jean said. “Lawrence suffered the ultimate act of violence. He is dead and Brandon is alive. In that very basic way their situations cannot be compared. But there is a bigger picture here. Both of these children were victims—victims of a society that continues to teach that it is permissible to exclude, revile and even hate gay people and anyone who does not conform to traditional gender stereotypes. Brandon pulled the trigger, but bigotry and hatred loaded the gun.”

On Feb. 14, Ventura County Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox charged McInerney with premeditated murder and included the special enhancements of using a firearm and committing a hate crime.

According to news reports of interviews with King’s classmates and others, the 15-year-old foster youth had begun wearing makeup and jewelry to school and had proclaimed himself to be gay. Several students told the Los Angeles Times that King had a verbal confrontation about his sexual orientation with McInerney and a group of boys the day before the shooting, on Feb. 12.

According to eyewitnesses, McInerney shot King in the head in a classroom at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard. He fled but was later apprehended by police. King was declared brain-dead and his organs were harvested for donations.

In an interview with IN Los Angeles magazine, Fox declined to confirm that King was gay or explain why she charged McInerney with a hate crime, saying ethical and professional obligations prohibited her from talking about any part of the case that is not in the public record.

“I apologize,” Fox said, “but here I am. I have a dead boy and I have people impacted on both sides. … I just can’t let my personal feelings and knowledge from confidential police reports—I can’t go out and blab about it until it’s the right time. It’s really important … My job is to prosecute this case, and I will do everything to protect the record and try this case before an impartial jury so the defendant can get a fair trial.”

Fox said California law (Prop. 21) allows her the discretion to prosecute McInerney as an adult. She expects his defense attorney to try to have the case moved to Juvenile Court. A preliminary hearing has been tentatively set for late March, though Fox expects that to be extended to give the defense time to prepare and file motions.

McInerney is being held in Juvenile Hall in lieu of $770,000 bail. He faces 50 years to life, if convicted, plus an additional one-three years if found guilty on the hate crime enhancement.

According to news reports, King lived at Casa Pacifica, a shelter for abused and troubled children in Camarillo, where he had friends. Averi Laskey, 13, a fellow student and friend of King’s told the Times that he was happy at the shelter. “He never felt like he had a family, but he told me when he got to Casa Pacifica that he had one there," Laskey said.

At the news conference, questions were raised regarding the school’s insufficient response to the bullying King endured. Jean said she did not know enough about the Oxnard school, but said that state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, whose school bullying bill has been consistently attacked by religious right wing extremists, is working on strengthening and enforcing the bill.

“This shooting is an example of why laws in the criminal code and the education code must protect students like Lawrence, and why schools must take serious and immediate actions to stop this active discrimination and bigotry,” Kuehl said in a statement.

On Feb. 15, many in the community attended a candlelight vigil for King organized by the Ventura County Rainbow Alliance. —Karen Ocamb

Anti-gay group to lobby against school discrimination bill

Capitol Resource Family Impact, part of the Capital Resource Institute, an anti-gay advocacy group, will host a “Lobby Day” March 12 at the California state Capitol. The group will lobby against the Student Civil Rights Act, which took effect Jan. 1, and is being challenged in federal court in San Diego by anti-gay groups on constitutional and other grounds. The law’s author, state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), calls the suit “frivolous,” and says the new law simply reinforces existing protections. The state has moved to dismiss the case.

Nation enters Leno-Migden race in San Francisco

Former Assemblymember Joe Nation has entered the primary race for the seat currently held by state Sen. Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), Capitol Weekly reported Feb. 7. Assemblymember Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) challenged Migden’s re-election bid almost a year ago in what is expected to be a nasty contest.

Migden and Leno are both openly gay liberal Democrats, while Nation is considered more business-friendly than his opponents, though he is also known for his environmentalist stands. Nation teaches global warming classes at Stanford University and says, if elected, he would push for California to institute a “cap and trade” system for carbon emissions by 2010. He also wishes to see California and nearby states form a regional cooperative to regulate emissions, such as the Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a group of several northeastern states. Nation says he would also apply his training as an economist to the healthcare issue.

Protest at Jamaican Consulate against anti-gay violence

The Metropolitan Community Church organized a demonstration on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, outside the Los Angeles Jamaican Consulate to protest violence against LGBT persons in Jamaica. According to an MCC release, Time magazine has described Jamaica as “the most homophobic country in the Western Hemisphere.” The release states that, last year, a mob attacked mourners at a gay man’s funeral, gay men were stabbed at Montego Bay’s Carnivale, and a mob attacked four gay men in a pharmacy. A gay man is missing and feared dead after another mob attack in January.

Congressman Tom Lantos dies

Congressmember Tom Lantos (D-CA) died Feb. 11 of cancer of the esophagus, the New York Times reports. He was 80. Lantos, who represented southwest San Francisco and San Mateo, was chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in Congress. Lantos was known for his strong human rights stands. He demanded that Japan apologize for wartime slavery, declared the killing of Armenians during World War I to be genocide, frequently criticized China on human rights, and was arrested in 2006 outside the Sudanese embassy protesting the genocide in Darfur. Lantos will also be remembered as an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights, most recently co-sponsoring legislation to repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called Lantos’ death “a profound loss for the Congress and for the nation and a terrible loss for me personally.”