Equally Speaking
The following is a transcript of HRC’s morning news webcast "Equally Speaking." To view the current videos visit the main Equally Speaking page.
Good morning, and thanks for tuning in to Equally Speaking, your morning dose of GLBT news from the Human Rights Campaign for Monday, July 28th. I'm Betsy Pursell.
And I'm Brad Mayer. First up, the latest on the case of Brandon McInerney.
Ventura County, California, Superior Court Judge Douglas Daily ruled last Thursday that 14-year-old Brandon McInerney, the accused killer of 15-year-old gay classmate Lawrence King, will be tried as an adult. McInerney's arraignment is postponed until August 8th to permit his attorney to petition an appellate court for review of Daily's ruling. According to witnesses, McInerney shot King in the head on the morning of February 12th in a crowded classroom at E.O. Green Junior High School in the city of Oxnard.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld a lower court decision to strike down amendments that added sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, gender, and mental and physical disability to the state hate crime law. The law, known as the Ethnic Intimidation and Institutional Vandalism Act, was amended in 2002 to include protections for these groups but a lower court ruled last November that the law is invalid because it had been inappropriately attached to non-related bill. Equality Advocates Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission are speaking out against the court's ruling, saying it is now more difficult to fight hate crimes.
A Maryland court has ruled that a petition seeking to overturn a law which added gender identity as a protected civil rights characteristic under Montgomery County should be allowed on the ballot this fall. Last fall, Montgomery County Council had unanimously passed the act but a group calling itself Citizens for Responsible Government immediately began collecting signatures to block the law from going into effect. Lambda Legal and Equality Maryland argue that the Montgomery County Board of Elections used the wrong formula to determine the required number of signatures needed to put the measure on the ballot.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights has filed a lawsuit on behalf of two former women's college basketball coaches who claim they were fired after speaking out about unequal treatment of female athletes and coaches. The complaint alleges that San Diego Mesa College fired Lorri Sulpizio, the former Head Coach of the women's basketball team, and Cathy Bass, the former Director of Basketball Operations, at the end of the 2007 academic year after they spoke out publicly against unequal treatment in a local paper which identified them as domestic partners. Sulpizio and Bass are seeking mandatory training for all athletic department faculty on the prevention of gender and sexual orientation discrimination and also compensatory and punitive damages.
The family of a man who died after being shot by police during a gay pride-related cruise incident in San Diego Harbor is planning to file state and federal civil rights lawsuits. The suits will accuse officers of negligent training, using excessive force, and violating civil rights. Steven Hirschfield was rescued after falling overboard a cruise ship and reportedly began fighting with officers, although an autopsy claims there is no evidence of the alleged struggle.
That's the news from us today. Thanks for tuning in to Equally Speaking.
Thanks for watching, and we'll see you back here again tomorrow morning.