Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyPosts Tagged As: Huntington WV
May 31st, 2016
In April, Steward Butler, a Marshall University running back, saw two men kissing in Huntington, West Virginia. He got out of the car, shouted anti-gay slurs, and punched the two men in the face.
Butler, who was expected to be one of the nation’s top running backs, was kicked off the team. A Cabell County grand jury indicted him on two felony counts of violating an individual’s civil rights, and two misdemeanor counts of battery. Cabell County prosecutor Sean Hammers acknowledged that West Virginia’s hate crime law doesn’t cover sexual orientation, but brought the civil rights charges anyway based on sex. Hammers argued that Butler wouldn’t have punched either victim if one of them had been a woman. The misdemeanor charges each allow for up to a year in jail. The civil rights violations carry a ten year prison term. But a judge didn’t buy Hammers’s argument and threw out the hate crime charge:
In a decision this month, Cabell County Circuit Court Judge Paul Farrell said West Virginia civil rights law protects people based on sex, but not sexual orientation, and ruled to drop the hate crime charges against Butler in 60 days, giving prosecutors time to appeal. Many other states specifically mention sexual orientation in listing the categories that elevate violence or threats of violence to a hate crime. West Virginia lawmakers had plenty of chances to follow suit but didn’t, Farrell wrote.
Hammers is appealing the decision to the state Supreme Court. “We now have an incident where two men were battered and their rights were violated,” he said, “and I think that even if we don’t win at the Supreme Court, we definitely put the spotlight on the statute that says, ‘hey, it should be interpreted to cover sexual orientation.'”
Hate crime laws in fourteen states do not cover sexual orientation. Another six states have no hate crime laws period. One would hope that the federal hate crime law, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, could come into play here, but so far that seems unlikely:
The federal law requires that the crime “affected interstate or foreign commerce or occurred within federal special maritime and territorial jurisdiction.” So, some connection often has to be drawn across state lines — for instance, in a shooting, if a gun was manufactured in another state.
That’s more difficult when a crime is committed with someone’s fists, as in the West Virginia case..
February 23rd, 2010
Rayetta Darby and Erika Johnson, a lesbian couple in the Huntington, WV area, were denied an apartment by their prospective landlord because they are gay. The reporters investigating this story discover that West Virginia and 29 other states don’t have any laws protecting LGBT people from discrimination, and neither does the federal Fair Housing Act.
“It’s terrible. It\’s terrible we even need such a law,” said Bill Dotson, executive director of Huntington Housing Authority. You can only prevent people from renting if they have a bad payment history or if they they’re bad neighbors or don\’t take care of their property,” Dotson said. “If a landlord refuses to rent to them for any reason other than those, it’s heavily frowned upon.” But, the fact that there\’s no law preventing such behavior in West Virginia is deeply disturbing to Darby.
November 22nd, 2007
Near as I can tell, Dave Muskera is living very near to where I grew up: on the Ohio River close to where Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia meet. And like me, he’s confused by what everyone means when they talk about “the gay lifestyle”:
Let me tell you what I think is a “lifestyle.” A friend of mind centers his life on football. His home is full of football memorabilia, he watches as many games in season as he can and it’s just about all he can talk about. He could surly be said to be leading a “football lifestyle”…
Let me close this by describing to you a gay man’s lifestyle. Are you ready for this?
I don’t think it’s unique. I know too many others like me (us) for that to be the case. We have a house, three bedrooms and two baths, two dogs and two cats. Occasionally we run the vac and dust a few of the things cluttering up the place. We cook meals, shop for groceries, pay bills, visit with neighbors and family, buy a new car occasionally, go to movies, rent DVDs, attend concerts, take vacations and shorter trips and rake leaves in the fall. In December we put up a tree and decorations. We make love or have sex – depending on the amount of energy left over after a week or so of work. We talk on the phone, use the computer and the Internet, go shopping, write long winded articles for the American Chronicle and sleep as needed. Is this the gay lifestyle? Well, for us, it is. Not exciting, but fulfilling.
It must be something in the Ohio River water. This “lifestyle” is something I’m thankful for. And believe it or not, I’m also thankful for having grown up where I did, difficulties and all.
What about you? What are you thankful for this year?
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