Brandon White's Attackers Sentenced To Five Years, Plus Probation

Yesterday, Andy reported on the testimony of Dorian Moragne, one of the three young men accused of beating up 20-year-old gay man Brandon White last February in Atlanta. Moragne insisted that he wasn't in a gang, that he "barely" hit Mr. White, and that he certainly didn't hit Mr. White because he's gay:

“This ain’t what y’all portraying it to be. This ain’t California. We don’t have a history of beating up gay people. All of this stuff you are putting on the media to say we beat gay people so you can pass a law,” he added.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jackson Bedford didn't buy it. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

"Y'all are the ultimate bullies, and you bullied somebody and you hurt him," Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jackson Bedford told the defendants. "To me there is no question you did it because of his sexual orientation."

With White looking on in the courtroom, the three defendants offered apologies for their actions.

"I am disappointed in myself because I know better and know right from wrong," Dareal Demare Williams said.

The AJC reports that Dorian Moragne, Dareal Williams, and Christopher Cain will perform "intensive" community service upon their release from prison, and undergo sensitivity training. 

White's beating was captured on video -- the cameraman, Javaris Bradford, has his own upcoming date with Georgian justice; for the moment he remains at large -- and if you must, you may view that video here. The vid's audio certainly makes it sound as though White was beaten for his sexual orientation. Nevertheless, Mr. Moragne maintains that his cohort, Mr. Cain, was verbally provoked.  

At Hearing, Brandon White's Attacker Claims, 'I Barely Hit Him'

Project Q Atlanta has a report on the hearings of three men facing up to 75 years in prison for the brutal February attack on Brandon White outside a grocery store.

Dorian Moragne was the only attacker who testified:

“I didn’t want to plead guilty to the gang member because I am not a gang member. I plead guilty because I didn’t want to take it to trial. I am not in no gang. I am not a Blood or Crip. I am from Florida,” Moragne said Thursday.

“This ain’t what y’all portraying it to be. This ain’t California. We don’t have a history of beating up gay people. All of this stuff you are putting on the media to say we beat gay people so you can pass a law,” he added.

Moragne also suggested in an exchange with Banks that White said something to Cain and that prompted the attack. Cain was the first to hit White after his attackers waited for him outside the grocery store.

“Did Brandon say something to Cain,” Banks asked.

“From what everyone was saying, he did say something,” Moragne said. “I was being stupid, I was being a follower. I was wrong for what I did.”

Moragne continued by attempting to undercut the seriousness of the attack: “I barely hit him. I was wrong for hitting him but I didn’t hit him to the point of killing him. I was just being young and dumb.”

Banks retorted by asking Moragne if he threw a tire on White.

“Next question please,” Moragne retorted.

“Did you throw a tire on him?”

“Yes.”

Revisit the video of the attack HERE.

Read the full report HERE.

Vandals Hit Gay Bar in Atlanta

Vandals damaged Sister Louisa’s Church, a relatively new gay bar in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward over the weekend, Atlanta Magazine reports, in what's being called a hate crime:

Owner Grant Henry says that front windows and doors were broken, liquor bottles smashed, and beer taps were left running but that nothing was stolen, including cash and valuables left in open view. Damages are estimated at $3,000. “This doesn’t have anything to do with a break in,” Henry says. “It was definitely targeted.”

At 5:12 am on Saturday, Henry answered a call from his alarm company alerting him to motion on the bar’s first floor. By the time he arrived minutes later, police were already on the scene. The front door windows, which depicted crosses, were both smashed. Bricks had been thrown through a window with the word “Church.” Henry stood outside while police investigated.

“The investigative unit came in and did what they do. Then they came out and said that it is clearly a hate crime. Because they didn’t steal anything, they took nothing, they left things of value, and they only targeted the word church and they targeted the booze behind the bar, you know, on the altar.”

The bar's name comes from an alter-ego of Henry's, under which he creates kischy artwork.

Contributions poured in to repair the bar after news of the vandalism was posted on Facebook. According to Henry, everything has now been repaired.

News: Matt Damon, Cannes, Eggless Chicken, FDA

The Knoxville City Council voted to pass a non-discrimination hiring policy.

In other Tennessee news, the state senate passed a bill prohibiting the censorship of students' religious views, even if those views include verbally discriminating against LGBT people.

Jake Gyllenhaal is headed to the stage to star in the off-Broadway production of Nick Payne's If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet.

Mystery solved? "A Sri Lanka hen has given birth to a chick without an egg, in a new twist on the age-old question of whether the chicken or the egg came first."

Colon versus cologne.

James Franco on James Franco.

Simon Cowell puts gay rumors to rest in a new book about the mogul. “If I was gay, why wouldn’t I admit it? It wouldn’t harm me and my mother wouldn’t freak out," he said. Meanwhile, that same book claims that The Voice coach Jessie J is a lesbian, but was told to tell the public that she's bisexual. She claims that's a lie.

Atlanta gay activist Ken Britt announced that he's running for the state's House of Representatives.

Matt Damon offers George W. Bush love for the former president's work on HIV/AIDS: "I would kiss George W. Bush on the mouth for what he did on PEPFAR." Damon says he would kiss Bush for a total of three seconds with no tongue.

Michele Bachmann claims President Obama is "waving a tar baby" to distract from gas prices. "Tar baby" is of course a term often used as a pejorative for black people.

President Obama is way more likeable than Mitt Romney, say voters, but the men are still pretty close in campaign polls.

Joe The Plumber thinks he's got God's vote in his bid to become a congressman.

Director, writer and general cinematic philosopher Werner Herzog did not realize for 35 years that John Waters is gay. "For me, a man is a man. I cannot distinguish a gay man from a straight man. I just cannot distinguish. Unless the man comes in drag and is so obviously gay, then I would notice."

Ryan Murphy has revealed some new details about the forthcoming second season of American Horror Story. Sorry, still no shirtless Dylan McDermott.

Right wing group Traditional Values Coalition is going after the National Institute of Health for using images of naked men on an HIV awareness website. It's "gay porn," says the organization's president, Andrea Lafferty.

Sir Anthony Hopkins really looks like Alfred Hitchcock.

Students at Western Connecticut State University are calling on the FDA to lift its archaic ban on gay men giving blood.

Dream date? President Obama's reelection campaign is raffling off a dinner with him and George Clooney.

Is Invisible Children, the evangelical-backed group behind Kony 2012, trying to overshadow Day of Silence, the annual event that combats anti-gay bullying in schools?

Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman sing on set for Les Miserables.

Rachel Maddow was "totally shocked" when Keith Olbermann was fired from Current.

A full list of all the movies competing at Cannes.

What Happened With Reuben Lack

The week before last, Andy and I wrote about Reuben Lack, the former student council president of Alpharetta High, in Atlanta, who was allegedly dismissed from his position for trying to make prom more LGBT friendly.

Some of Lack's schoolmates showed up in the comments threads, claiming there was more to the story. Now it seems a judge agrees with them. Although Lack was dismised partially for non-offenses (stumping for his debate team in a speech to freshmen; engaging in an impolitic discussion of school matters on Facebook) which, if they constituted the sole rationale for his dismissal would be deemed legally inadequate, US District Judge Richard W. Story also saw evidence that Lack was an unsteady and unreliable officer.

From Judge Story's 12-page decision:

Once the Plaintiff proves his protected speech motivated the Defendants’ decision, the burden then shifts to the Defendants to prove that they would have made the same decision anyway. The Court finds that there is evidence which supports such a decision: 1) Plaintiff did not attend Homecoming Decoration day, wear spirit-week attire, or sell Homecoming tickets, even though Plaintiff sent the rest of the Council emails which reminded the others of their duty to do so and Plaintiff had previously agreed to complete those tasks ...

... After being repeatedly told that meetings would occur before school because Werre and the student-athlete members could not attend afternoon meetings, Plaintiff continued to unilaterally schedule afternoon meetings and undermined the faculty advisors’ authority ...

... Plaintiff routinely cancelled meetings the day before they were to occur without permission of the faculty advisors ...

... Plaintiff unilaterally removed a Student Council member after being told not to by the faculty advisors ...

... Defendants took a survey in October 2011 which revealed that the current meeting procedure was too “formalized” for many students and that some felt the Council had become a “dictatorship” under Plaintiff’s leadership ...

... Plaintiff did not attend the Alpharetta’s Best Dance Crew tryouts, practice, planning, or event, even though this was a Student Council event ...

... the Court finds that Werre and Reiser have been counseling Plaintiff on an ongoing basis about his failures since September 2011, and Werre and Reiser even went to discuss the issue with their principal, Kersey, on three occasions prior to terminating the Plaintiff ...

And most importantly:

While the Court is concerned about the timing of his removal -- that being within a month of the Prom Court issue and a week of the Facebook conversation -- the Court finds that the evidence supports a conclusion that the removal was precipitated by Plaintiff’s failure to send an email about a class president’s meeting after being personally told to do so by Rieser on February1, 2012, and his failure to attend that meeting the next day.

The judge sums up:

This is not to say that the Court does not value Plaintiff’s zeal to change policy, or that the Court does not recognize the importance of championing the cause of inclusion for all students in school activities. Plaintiff clearly accomplished much in the way of policy changes–he helped remove the cafeteria’s “utensil tax,” got microwaves for the cafeteria, was assisting in getting bike racks installed at the school, and was concerned that all students felt included at Prom. However, the Court ultimately finds that his frequent failure to complete or attend any “spirit tasks” and continual undermining of the faculty advisors is sufficient to preclude a finding of a substantial likelihood of success on his First Amendment retaliation claim. As the Eighth Circuit has recognized, “discipline, courtesy, and respect for authority” are legitimate pedagogical concerns ...

 

Reuben Lack And His Attorney Overwhelmed By Media Attention; Remain Resolute

Yesterday, Andy told the story of Reuben Lack, the student council president of Atlanta's Alpharetta High School, who was allegedly removed from the presidency after he proposed making prom more gay-friendly. (He intended to alter the rules of Prom King- and Queen-ship so that LGBT folk might be eligible.) Lack was, and is, suing Alpharetta over the matter.

Andy wasn't the only one reporting the story. It's been all over the web and the television and the presses, and it's come as a bit of a shock to Alpharetta, Lack, and Lack's attorney -- a Mr. James Radford, who has now posted a plea for sanity to his website: 

Did we predict [Reuben's story] would explode the way it has? Not in my wildest imagination.

I have no “PR Department,” no formal means of publicity. I don’t even have a secretary. I am a one-man show, having been a solo practitioner for less than 6 weeks at the time this story broke. I issued a short statement on my blog, including a copy of the complaint and our motion for injunction. I contacted two Atlanta-area TV reporters who I knew personally, because I thought they might be interested in the story. And Reuben’s family and friends shared my blog post on Facebook.

Within 48 hours, we were being contacted by the Associated Press, Reuters, LGBT publications throughout the country, XM satellite radio, and the list goes on. The story went international. I was personally overwhelmed with media inquiries, and also messages of support. We tried to accommodate the media requests as best as possible, and gave interviews to three local news stations, the Georgia Voice, and the reporter from AP.

This was initially very exciting. But the story may have gotten too big, too fast, and I believe the students, faculty, and administration at Alpharetta High School have found themselves overwhelmed. I know Reuben and his family have felt overwhelmed. Reuben is just a kid who wants to finish his term of class president, something that is very important to him, and something that he earned through his own hard work and persistence.

But as Lack's story gained media traction, some claimed otherwise: That Lack had been removed from his position due to poor leadership and general flakiness. As Mr. Ratford notes, this seems unlikely: The school administration never griped about Lack until he tried to make prom more gay-friendly.

Nevertheless, Lack's got a lot of enemies in his school, and they're vicious. They've been throwing invective all over Twitter, making fun of Lack's backpack (it apparently has rollers; hashtags such as "#rollingbackpackboyprobz" and "#ihopereubensbackpackgetsaflat" are common) and his alleged sexuality and/or lack of intelligence ("f*** reuben and his gay ass. he is stupid as f***"), and braying homophobic nonsense in a way that suggests nobody's told Atlanta's children that they will one day have HR professionals picking through their internet histories. ("If Reuben Lack is reinstated as student council president I'm dropping out. I don't want to see a guy in a tiara win prom queen.") Mr. Ratford features all of this ugliness and more on his website, which will hopefully serve as notice to somebody. Young Alpharettans may be too stupid to know it, but when your bullying tweets are republished by an angry attorney, the situation has become serious.