The Republic of T.

I posted earlier about the isle of Lesbos suing entire lesbian sisterhood for exclusive rights to the word “lesbian.” Well, it looks like we can all breath a little easier. The court ruled that the folks who live on Lesbos don’t own the word “lesbian.”

A Greek court Tuesday ruled that a gay rights group can use the word lesbian in its name, stating that the people from the island of Lesbos do not have sole claim to the word, Reuters reported.

A group from the Aegean island filed a lawsuit in June against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, claiming its name was an affront to the residents of Lesbos, who refer to themselves as Lesbians. A Greek court ruled against the islanders.

That’s a relief. Because you know if the court had ruled the other way, somebody would be going to court to “take back” “gay,” “queer,” and anything else they could come up with, and we’d be busted back down to “Urnings,” or some such.

And nobody came? This was apparently the case with the D.C. gun registry, following the Supreme Court decision.

With the ban lifted after a momentous, years-long legal battle that led to the landmark high court decision last month, here’s how many applications the city received by day’s end: one.

Bracing for a crowd at the registration office, at police headquarters on Indiana Avenue NW, officials set up a reception counter in the lobby and used portable metal railings to reserve one of the building’s entrances for “gun registry applicants.” Officers stood guard at the door, and a dozen reporters and TV cameras were waiting expectantly at 7 a.m., when the registration process was to begin.

But in the eight hours that the office remained open, there was no crush of people eager to avail themselves of the newly affirmed right to own a revolver in the nation’s capital. Police gave out 58 registration packets to people stopping by for the materials. But only two people showed up to apply to register handguns, and one was turned away by police officials because he didn’t bring his weapon with him, as the registration rules require.

And the beauty part?

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I’ve never spent much time in or near family court. Even when Parker’s adoption was finalized, D.C. family court was having an “adoption day,” where almost nothing was on the docket but adoption finalizations. Our attorney told us that the judges really loved “adoption day, ” because it was such a welcome change from what they saw on a daily basis. But that day, we were so happy that we didn’t give much thought to what the family court judges see all day. After all, we hadn’t seen it.

But yesterday was different. We were among four families finalizing adoptions yesterday, but it wasn’t adoption day, so much as “adoption hour.” And we were in among the other families, who are in and out of family court for reasons a lot less joyful than our reason for being there. We sat beside some of those families, talked with them, saw the judge, finalized Dylan’s adoption, and went home.

I didn’t think much about the experience, until I got home and read the fallout from John McCain’s comments on gay adoptions.

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As you’re reading this, I’m either on my way to, in, or on my way back from New Jersey. There reason for the trip is incredibly happy one. Today is the day we’re finalizing Dylan’s adoption. Last week we got a letter from the adoption agency’s lawyer, confirming the court date. Wanting to make sure that Seven months after we first got word that he’d been born — and after his birthmother chose us to be his adoptive parents — and set out to lay eyes on the newest addition to our family, the judge will declare that Dylan is finally a member of our family; and that we legally and officially what we’ve known we were since day one: a family.

So, you might think I’d be all set to rail against John McCain saying he doesn’t “believe in” our families.

In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has left many Republicans unsettled about his ideological bearings by toggling between reliably conservative issues like support for gun owners’ rights and an emphasis on centrist messages like his willingness to tackle global warming and provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Those tensions were apparent in the interview as well, as Mr. McCain offered a variety of answers — sometimes nuanced in their phrasing, sometimes not — about his views on social issues.

Mr. McCain, who with his wife, Cindy, has an adopted daughter, said flatly that he opposed allowing gay couples to adopt. “I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption,” he said.

Frankly, I don’t need John McCain to “believe” in my family. But his statement is an opportunity to talk about something I’ve been thinking about for a while.

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I’ve officially heard of just about everything now. Apparently, in Italy, being gay can screw with your driver’s license.

An Italian court has ordered the government to pay 100,000 euros ($157,700) to a man who had to retake his driving test because he was gay

Danilo Giuffrida, now 26, told doctors he was homosexual during a medical examination for military service.

The information was passed to the defence and transport ministries.

Mr Giuffrida was told to repeat his driving test or have his licence suspended because of his “sexual identity disturbance”.

Mr Giuffrida passed his test for the second time but his licence was renewed for just one year rather than the usual 10 years because of his homosexuality.

A court in Catania, Sicily, ordered the ministries to pay damages on the basis that Mr Giuffrida’s constitutional rights had been breached and that homosexuality could not be considered a “mental illness”.

I can’t think at the moment of any stereotypes about gay drivers. So I’ll just guess that the Italian defense ministry thinks you have to be straight to drive straight. (Or, “gaily forward,” as we sometimes say….)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Anyone who thinks the injustices of the past remain in the past is living in a “post-racial” fool’s paradise. There are black folks in this country who are just now getting justice for decades of discrimination. Like the black neighborhood in Ohio that was denied public water for decades, for no other reason than racial discrimination.

Residents of a mostly black neighborhood in rural Ohio were awarded nearly $11 million Thursday by a federal jury that found local authorities denied them public water service for decades out of racial discrimination.

Each of the 67 plaintiffs was awarded $15,000 to $300,000, depending on how long they had lived in the Coal Run neighborhood, about 5 miles east of Zanesville in Muskingum County in east-central Ohio.

The money covers both monetary losses and the residents’ pain and suffering between 1956, when water lines were first laid in the area, and 2003, when Coal Run got public water.

The lawsuit was filed in 2003 after the Ohio Civil Rights Commission concluded the residents were victims of discrimination. The city, county and East Muskingum Water Authority all denied it and noted that many residents in the lightly populated county don’t have public water.

Coal Run residents either paid to have wells dug, hauled water for cisterns or collected rain water so they could drink, cook and bathe.

From 1956 to 2003? You know, then, that means that several people, over long periods of time — well after the age of Jim Crow had officially passed — knew this was going on, and were either alright with it or didn’t see fit to put a stop to it.

From 1956 to 2003.

[Pic via -ReRod- @ Flickr.]

Well, that didn’t take long. Just this morning I asked:

I’m just wondering if it’s too far-fetched to suggest that we’re probably not too far from the day when someone — a gay couple who gets married, or the person who officiates — does get arrested and locked up. What happens then?

I guess I have my answer.

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I know I’m all kinds of late with this, but gimme a break. I’ve just cleared out “starred” items — stuff I wanted to read and/or blog about — going back to mid-June. I just gave up on most of them. But this I couldn’t quite let go.

There’s an irony to this happening in Virginia, famous as the state that launched the Loving v. Virginia case. I missed blogging about the gay couple who got a license and got married before the state figured it out.

The couple walked into a Norfolk, Va., courthouse on a spring day, exchanged a few words, and within 10 minutes, were seemingly husband and wife.

It was an unremarkable ceremony — except that several weeks later, officials realized the shapely bride might not have been a woman.

Now authorities in Virginia, where same-sex marriages are illegal, are weighing whether to file misdemeanor charges against the couple, Antonio E. Blount, 31, and Justin L. McCain, 18. An announcement is expected this week.

A prosecutor says the decision to press charges could turn on whether the pair knowingly misled officials when they applied for a license and later, traveled to a courthouse for a ceremony. If the bride was transgender, and identified as a woman, it is unclear whether the marriage would be considered illegal.

The pair went to Newport News Circuit Court on March 24 to obtain a marriage license — McCain appearing as a woman and saying the name “Justine” before a deputy, said Newport News Circuit Court clerk Rex Davis.

McCain produced a Virginia driver’s license, but a design quirk — the ‘m’ or ‘f’ for male or female appears directly against a darkened state seal — meant nobody noticed McCain’s gender, Davis said.

Authorities were considering whether to press charges? That’s interesting

One of the most often heard refrains during the wave of anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives and state constitutional amendments a few years ago went something like this: “Nobody’s banning gay marriage. You can’t ban it because it’s not legal in the first place. This is just defining marriage as between man and a woman.” The other favorite tactic was to point out that “no one’s being locked up for getting married.”

Well. Not yet. And not this time, fortunately, since Virginia won’t prosecute these men.

A couple who obtained a Virginia marriage license and had a ceremony before authorities realized both were biological men will not face charges, officials said Monday.

Antonio E. Blount, 31, and Justin L. McCain, 18, faced misdemeanor false information charges, punishable by a fine up to $250.

Authorities said the couple applied for a license in Newport News Circuit Court in March and passed off McCain as “Justine.” Officials realized later that McCain was actually born a man in North Carolina.

Court clerk Rex Davis sought an investigation because same-sex marriage is illegal in Virginia.

The case turned on whether the pair knowingly committed a fraud, something prosecutors couldn’t determine, according to a letter Davis received Monday from Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard E. Gwynn.

“We don’t have the ability to prove beyond a reasonable doubt there was an intent to deceive,” said Jack Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for Gwynn.

Fitzpatrick said Virginia law does not clearly define “bride” and “groom,” which at the time were the only spaces on the marriage license application the couple filled out. The forms have since been changed to specify “male applicant” and “female applicant.”

“Now that the forms have been changed, that is a crime and should someone do that again, they will be prosecuted,” Fitzpatrick said.

I’m just wondering if it’s too far-fetched to suggest that we’re probably not too far from the day when someone — a gay couple who gets married, or the person who officiates — does get arrested and locked up. What happens then?

It’s been a while since I’ve made any updates to the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. Honestly? The project requires more research and writing than I have time to do right now. So, though there are more stories I want to add, it just hasn’t happened. And even some of the cases I’ve written up so far need updating that I haven’t gotten a chance to do. (In fact, I almost didn’t get the chance this time. Right after I wrote the previous sentences —the first tiny bit of writing I’d been able to do all day — at about 11:40 p.m., our entire neighborhood lost power.)

I wanted to update at least one case, briefly; the murder of Thalia Mosqueda, which I compiled back in November 2007, but never posted here. So, I’m posting it now, along with an update on the conviction and life sentence in this case.

Thalia Mosqueda

Thalia Mosqueda, a transgender woman, was shot in the head in the parking lot of a Daytona, FL, nightclub on July 29, 2007, and died soon after. Her killer, Cesar Villazano, said he became enraged when Mosqeuda made sexual advances toward him.
The Background

Thalia Mosqueda

Born Oscar Mosqueda, in Mexico, Mosqueda, 34, was a member of the Farm Workers Association of Florida. She lived in the United States legally, worked at a fern farm, and regularly sent money to her mother in Mexico.1) On July 29, Mosqueda went to Garibaldi, a restaurant which operated as a club in the evenings, and catered to a clientele of Latino crossdressers, transgender Latinos, and gay men.

Mosqueda encountered Cesar Villazano at Garibadli when, according to Wesley Rosser, a friend Mosqueda’s, Viillazano was trying to persuade a drag queen at the club to go with him in his car. When she refused, he pulled her hair and tried to force her into the car.2)
The Attack

The shooting occurred when Mosqueda intervened, saying to Villazano, “Leave her alone. Can’t you see she doesn’t want to be with you? Villazano argued with Mosqueda before pulling a gun, firing two shots in the air, and then fired a shot at Mosqueda, striking her in the head.3)

Villazano shot Mosqueda in the head at about 2:30 a.m. Police were called to the scene around 3:30 a.m. and arrrived to find Mosqueda lying on the ground.4) Mosqueda was transported to Halifax Medical Center, where she died at about noon on July 29. 5)
The Aftermath

Villazano & Acosta

Following his arrest, Villazano told police that he was in the United States illegally, and police reports showed two warrants against Villazano for failure to appear in court on a charge of driving without a license. Villazano said that Mosqueda approached him in the restaurant, and that he became angry because he is not gay.6) Villazano said Mosqueda grabbed him by the penis, and that angered him because he was not gay.7)

Rosser said that Villazano was a regular at Garbaldi’s, and though he did not identify as gay, engaged in sexual activity with other gay men. “In Spanish culture,” Rosser said, “you’re not considered gay if you have sex with another guy as a top.”8)

Villzano later fled the scene after the shooting.9) Around noon, Villazano was stopped by a Volusia County police officer, arrested, and charged with second degree murder. The driver of the car, Louis Acosta, 21, was arrested on a cocaine possession charge.10)

On July 7, 2008, Cesar Villazano was convicted of Mosqueda’s murder and sentenced to life in prison. Villazano rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors, which would have sentenced him to 25 years in prison. 11)

Actually, I didn’t. And I couldn’t if I wanted to.

Why’d I bring up serial killers? I actually spent several months last year immersed in research about serial killers for a fictional project I worked on during my brief sojourn as a consultant. I’d always been simultaneously intrigued and repelled by serial killers, and the research — because I swore I would spend as much time learning about the victims as I did the killers, up to and including looking at any crime-related photos I found — eventually left me more repulsed than intrigued. And, in at last one aspect, surprised.

What amazed me was how many of them were married, and how many of them had married after their crimes, trials, and convictions. After learning everything else about them — reading and seeing what they did to their victims, and reading the accounts of those who survived — what probably surprised me most was that there apparently wasn’t anything these people could do that was bad enough for them to lose the right to marry.

What brought this to mind was news of the latest serial killer to tie the knot, or at least the latest to try.

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I did a double-take when I read this on CNN. It’s been a while since I read Fire in a Canebreak, an account of the last mass lynching in the United States, which took place in my home state in 1946. Apparently, there’s new evidence in the case.

State and federal investigators said Tuesday that they spent the past two days gathering evidence in the last documented mass lynching in the United States: a grisly slaying of four people that has remained unsolved for more than six decades.

In a written statement, the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said they collected several items on a property in rural Walton County, Georgia, that were taken in for further investigation.

On July 25, 1946, two black sharecropper couples were shot hundreds of times and the unborn baby of one of the women cut out with a knife at the Moore’s Ford Bridge. One of the men had been accused of stabbing a white man 11 days earlier and was bailed out of jail by a former Ku Klux Klan member and known bootlegger who drove him, his wife, her brother and his wife to the bridge.

The FBI statement said investigators were following up on information recently received in the case, one of several the agency has revived in an effort to close decades-old cases from the civil rights era and before.

“The FBI and GBI had gotten some information that we couldn’t ignore with respect to this case,” GBI spokesman John Bankhead said.

Of course, there are people who’d rather they did ignore it.

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I’ve got some stuff in mind to post, but first I have to get lunch and do any number of things. And I might not get around to posting anyway.

Since a big portion of my day job is promoting other people’s writing, I might as well do the same here. Besides, I come across more worthwhile content than I have space to promote at work. And if I’m not creating any content myself….

Anyway. Here’s some of what I’ve been reading this morning.

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I really should have paid more attention in English class. Or, rather, I should have paid more attention to my grammar lessons. (Probably any hard-core grammarian who’s read the blog would concur.) But I spent the better part of my time as an English Lit. major in creating writing classes, and post-war literature. (My advisor finally told me I had to take the requisite pre-1800 literature classes. I realized then that I’d have been better off as a comparative lit. major.)

Had I spent more time diagraming sentences, then maybe I could make sense of the recent Supreme Court ruling on D.C.’s gun ban.

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