GOP Congressmen, Tony Perkins, Town Bigots Freak Out Over Gay Commitment Ceremony on Military Base: VIDEO

Religious right hate group leader Tony Perkins and GOP Congressman are freaking out that two women had a commitment ceremony at a Fort Polk, Louisiana chapel last month, the AP reports:

Following last year's repeal of its "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the Defense Department said chaplains at military installations can officiate any private ceremony, as long as it's not prohibited by state and local laws. Louisiana law does not recognize same-sex marriages or civil unions...

...U.S. Rep. John Fleming, R-La., said in a statement the "marriage-like" ceremony performed by an Army chaplain shouldn't have been allowed on the base. U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., claims the ceremony violated Defense Department policy.

Akin sponsored a measure approved by the House last year that would prohibit military installations from being used to "officiate, solemnize or perform a marriage or marriage-like ceremony involving anything other than the union of one man with one woman." The Senate didn't approve the legislation.

The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins also put in his two anti-gay cents:

"This ceremony evades the intention and violates the spirit of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which remains the law in America, defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman for all purposes under federal law," FRC President Tony Perkins said in a statement Wednesday.

Watch a report from KALB, AFTER THE JUMP...

Louisiana Lawmakers Don't Think Gay People Get Bullied

Remember earlier when I wondered whether Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni lived on another planet for denying that anti-gay discrimination exists? Well, Louisiana conservatives may live in that outer space realm, as well.

Via Joe.My.God comes word that a House committee in Louisiana rejected an LGBT anti-bullying bill because they basically don't think being gay would invoke a bully's ire.

...Civil rights and gay rights advocates failed Wednesday to win approval for a more detailed and, advocates say, stronger anti-bullying law for public schools. Rep. Pat Smith, D-Baton Rouge, pitched House Bill 407 as necessary, given continued evidence of bullying, including a recent suicide by a Point Coupee teenager who had complained to adults many times about being mistreated by her classmates.

Opponents, lead by the conservative Louisiana Family Forum and aides to Gov. Bobby Jindal, argued that the measure went too far by listing perceived or actual characteristics that should not subject a student to bullying. The committee voted 10-5 to strip the bill of those key changes, which included sexual orientation. Smith shelved the measure, saying the action gutted its intent.

Current law requires local school boards to write policies that prohibit "harassment, intimidation and bullying." It defines those terms, in part, as, "any intentional gesture or written, verbal or physical act that a reasonable person under the circumstances should know will have the effective of harming a student or damaging his property or placing a student in reasonable fear of harm."

Smith proposed several tweaks and additions, but the most pertinent passage extended the definition to acts "a reasonable person under the circumstances would perceive as being motivated by an actually or perceived characteristic, including but not limited to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, exceptionalities, physical disability, intellectual disability, developmental disability, mental illness or emotional health disorder, language ability, sexual orientation, physical characteristics, gender identity, gender expression, political ideas or affiliations, socioeconomic status or association with others identified by such characteristics."

Louisiana Family Forum president Gene Mills said the bill "introduces sexual politics" into the classroom, according to The Times-Picayune. I don't know what kind of atmosphere Mills, Jindal and their friends have on this hypothetical planet, but it's not oxygen.

Louisiana's Discriminatory Anti-Prostitution Law Ruled Unconstitutional

Prostitution's illegal in Louisiana regardless of who does the prostituting, but not all convicted prostitutes have always been punished equally. Until last year, gay and transgender prostitutes, along with some poor black female prostitutes, were very often charged with violating a 200-year-old statute entitled Crime Against Nature by Solicitation (CANS), conviction under which required criminals to register as sex offenders.

CANS was amended last year so that offenders were no longer required to add their names to the registry, but the amendment did little for the approximately 400 sex workers already registered. Their lives have been difficult. From Care2:

Many have been unable to secure work or housing as a result of their registration as sex offenders. Several of the plaintiffs had been barred from homeless shelters, one had been physically threatened by a neighbor, and another had been refused residential substance abuse treatment because providers will not accept registered sex offenders at their facilities.

On Thursday, Federal Judge Martin L. C. Feldman ruled that the unequal punishment of prostitutes charged with CANS is unconstitutional. His decision, he wrote, was "not about approval or disapproval of sexual beliefs or mores. It is about the mandate of equality that is enshrined in the Constitution."

Somehow this isn't enough to guarantee that those hundred currently on the registry "unconstitutionally" will be removed. From WWLTV.com:

Feldman gave the plaintiffs five days to submit a proposed judgment consistent with his decision. Plaintiffs' attorney Alexis Agathocleous said he and his colleagues were still reviewing the ruling and weighing their options but would, at a minimum, ask for the names of the nine anonymous plaintiffs to be removed from the sex offender registry.

Alabama Fan Arrested for Teabagging Assault on Unconscious Man: VIDEO

Last weekend, Brandon posted a sick video of a mob of Alabama fans taunting and harassing an unconscious LSU fan at a Krystal fast food restaurant on Bourbon Street in New Orleans following the game. The video, since removed from YouTube, showed the Alabama fan, now identified as Brian Downing, teabagging the unconscious fan's face.

Downing has now been arrested. Turns out he was the second cousin of the Russell County Sheriff, the Times Picayune reports:

Detectives met Downing, 32, at his attorney's office in Mid-City and then took him to Central Lock-Up, where he was booked with one count of sexual battery and one count of obscenity.

Earlier in the day, Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor, who said he is a second cousin to Downing, said he personally spoke with the NOPD sex crimes detective handling the case about whether to arrest the man or send him to New Orleans for questioning.

Although he'd heard about the video -- which has created a firestorm on the Internet -- for a couple days, Taylor said he watched it Thursday morning at the prompting of other people who suggested the University of Alabama fan was his relative. The man in the video indeed appeared to be Downing, he said.

Watch Downing's arrest, AFTER THE JUMP...

Shreveport Man Gets 23 Years in Prison for Gay Bashing

Back in January I posted about a Shreveport, Louisiana man who was beaten with a pool cue in an anti-gay assault at the Sandbar nightclub. The victim, John Skaggs, suffered a broken jaw and eye socket and had to undergo extensive reconstructive surgery.

His attacker, William David Payne II, was sentenced to 23 years in prison this week:

Caddo District Court Judge Ramona Emanuel ordered Payne to serve 18 years for aggravated battery and the maximum of five years for a hate crime. She ordered the sentences to be served consecutively.

Payne had entered a guilty plea last week to charges he attacked John Skaggs with a pool cue and was in court for a multiple offender hearing. Payne admitted to the multiple offender charge, a release from the court said.

Plaintiff in Gay Adoption Case Declined by Supreme Court Speaks Out: VIDEO

MSNBC's Thomas Roberts spoke with Oren Adar today, whose case was declined this week by the Supreme Court.

As you may recall, in February 2010, a federal appeals court upheld a December 2008 ruling by U.S. District Court judge Jay Zainey ordering the state of Louisiana to list both names of adopted gay parents, Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith, on their son's birth certificate. Their son was born in Louisiana but they adopted him in New York. The couple now lives in Orlando, and their case was overturned in April. In July, Lambda Legal asked the Supreme Court to take on the case. This week, they declined.

Our legal expert Ari Ezra Waldman wrote about the underlying case in his law column today.

Wrote Ari:

The Supreme Court declined to comment on its denial of cert, so we have to look to the Fifth Circuit's majority for the governing law. And, when we peel back that majority's seemingly reasonable outer layer, we're left with mind-numbing inanity. The Fifth Circuit has carved out a strange exception to a state's responsibility to recognize out-of-state adoption judgments and it has done so without justification.

Check Ari's piece out HERE.

Watch Thomas Roberts speak with Adar, AFTER THE JUMP...