Preview of Dharun Ravi's '20/20' Interview On Tyler Clementi: VIDEO

Dharun Ravi has been making the media rounds following the guilty verdict for his role in Tyler Clementi's 2010 suicide. First there was his sit-down with Newark's Star-Ledger, and now ABC News is promoting their own interview with Ravi, set to air tomorrow on 20/20.

In addition to saying again that he doesn't dislike gay people, Ravi tells journalist Chris Cuomo that he doesn't ultimately feel responsible for what happened.

"I feel like I was an insignificant part to his life. That’s giving me comfort now," he said, "The more and more I found out, it would be kind of obnoxious of me to think that I could have this profound effect on him." He also argues he couldn't have been the sole factor in Clementi's death: "He had bigger problems in his life," which is most likely true.

Ravi does, however, admit he was in the wrong by transmitting Clementi's gay hookup. "Even though I wasn’t the one who caused him to jump off the bridge, I did do things wrong and I was stupid about a lot of stuff." But he does believe he's been "used" to make an example, telling Cuomo, "I understand why people feel the need to punish me. Bad stuff happens and they need to set an example, but it’s unfortunate this has to be the case where this happens."

Watch a preview of Ravi's interview with ABC News, AFTER THE JUMP…

Dharun Ravi On Tyler Clementi's Death: 'I Didn't Act Out Of Hate'

Dharun Ravi has been mostly silent since his Rutgers roommate Tyler Clementi committed suicide after Ravi used a webcam to watch his private gay hookup. Now that he's been found guilty of bias intimidation, invasion of privacy and others counts, Ravi sat down with Newark's Star-Ledger to explain himself.

Calling his actions immature, Ravi insists he "wasn’t biased." "I [just] got caught up in what I thought was funny, and my own ego."

"I didn’t act out of hate and I wasn’t uncomfortable with Tyler being gay," he told reporter Mark Di Ionna. "One of my friends had a gay roommate and I met a gay kid I liked a lot at orientation. They were cool. It was no big deal. Now there’s a verdict out there that says I hate gays. The jury has decided they know what is going on in my mind; they can tell you what you think."

Ravi also says he's sorry for all the pain he's caused, telling the paper, "I'm very sorry about Tyler… I have parents and a little brother, and I can only try to imagine how they feel. But I want the Clementis to know I had no problem with their son. I didn’t hate Tyler and I knew he was okay with me. I wanted to talk to his parents, but I was afraid. I didn’t know what to say."

Ravi will be sentenced on May 21, but vows he and his family will "fight on."

The Dharun Ravi Verdict: Bias Crimes and the Changing Idea of Privacy

BY ARI EZRA WALDMAN

Dharun Ravi didnt kill Tyler Clementi. He invaded his privacy and did so with antigay animus. Mr. Ravi focused a webcam on his roommate's bed so he and another student could watch live as Tyler "hooked up" with another man. He also had tweeted his sarcastic disappointment with his roommates sexuality. These are the facts as seen by a New Jersey jury, and given the guilty verdict, these are now the facts in the eyes of the law.

The verdict inspired satisfaction in some circles. While recognizing the tragedy, New York City Council Speaker and likely mayoral candidate Christine Quinn said that "justice has been served." Garden State Equality said Mr. Ravi will now face "the appropriate societal consequences." No one is "happy" with this verdict, as the Garden State Equality statement mercifully noted; but it is far from clear that a verdict that could result in decades of imprisonment for Mr. Ravi is "justice" or an "appropriate societal" reaction to this undisputed tragedy.

What is clear is that Mr. Ravi's guilty verdict is both a legal game-changer and a cultural indictment: it imposes new obligations on universities, breathes life into the legal standard for criminal bias, and clarifies the illegitimacy of a "boys will be boys" defense. But, not all of those are good things. Our ire belongs with Mr. Ravi, but so does our pity; our real focus should be the moral bankruptcy of a culture so quick to convict, but unwilling to care.

CONTINUED, AFTER THE JUMP...

Clementi Parents Discuss Dharun Ravi Trial: VIDEO

I missed this clip on Friday of Tyler Clementi's parents' statement on the Dharun Ravi verdict.

Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

In related news, Michelangelo Signorile writes at HuffPo about why the verdict was just:

The jury did exactly as it was instructed to do, looking at the law and the 15 counts and returning with a guilty verdict on all of them. Ravi did spy on Clementi, thereby violating the invasion of privacy law. He did tamper with the evidence later, trying to delete text messages and tweets, knowing what he'd done. And all of the evidence shows that he did attempt to intimidate Clementi on the basis of his sexual orientation -- and he succeeded -- which was the basis of the hate crimes counts.

No jury that thought long and hard about the case could have returned with any other verdict. It is not the jury's job to think about sentencing or punishment. It is its job to follow the law.

We've seen too many cases in the past where juries didn't do that, where they accepted the "gay panic" defense, as well as its cousin, the "trans panic" defense -- in which defendants get sympathy for harboring feelings that many in society, presumably including jurors, also harbor, even if all believe those feelings are wrong.

Watch Clementi's parents AFTER THE JUMP...

NEWS: WTC 1, Marriage, Wikiqueer, Dharun, And A Return To LV-426

 World Trade Center 1 is about to pass a significant milestone; already has a decent view. 

 Awesome editorial in The Concord Monitor about HB 437 and its mutant sibling, the Bates Amendment:

Before the House acts on the Bates proposal for a nonbinding referendum question, we need to get a lot more answers about the process, fiscal impact and precedents this would create. We also need to know what problem this seeks to solve, which is the question all responsible legislators must ask themselves before they vote to enact or repeal any law.

Have any voters been denied the opportunity to express their opinion on marriage equality? Has anyone been prevented from testifying on HB 437? Has there been a groundswell of public desire for a statewide referendum? Has the Marriage Equality Act of 2009 hurt any individual, family, business, nonprofit organization, city or town? Of course not.

 LA: Man was asked "Are you gay?" Then he was attacked.

 Visit the new gay Wiki, Wikiqueer:

... a web-based, not for profit, free-content encyclopedia and resource project, based on an openly editable model, specifically for and by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and ally communities. It is a program of The Aequalitas Project, a nonprofit organization serving as an incubator for new progressive programs. 

In a manner similar to Wikipedia, WikiQueer is written collaboratively by Internet volunteers who write without pay. Anyone with Internet access can write and make changes to WikiQueer articles (except in certain cases where editing is restricted to prevent disruption or vandalism). Users can contribute anonymously, under a pseudonym, or with their real identity, if they choose

 Alternate Dharun Ravi juror says he'd have voted the other way:

As an alternate, the Woodbridge Township resident heard all the testimony but did not participate in deliberations. The jury, which returned its verdict Friday, was unanimous in finding Ravi guilty of all 15 charges, including invasion of privacy and anti-gay intimidation.

"Whatever (Ravi) did was stupid, but I don't think he ever had any intention of intimidating (Clementi)," Downey said. "I think that scenario could have happened 100 different ways, whether he had a straight roommate who had a girlfriend over ... there are 100 scenarios where he could have been goofing around and turning the camera on and it had nothing to do with somebody being gay."

Downey said he was "kind of up in the air" on the other charges, saying he likely would have voted to convict Ravi on charges of hindering apprehension and tampering with witnesses and evidence.

 What's Tony Perkins think about the Dharun Ravi case?

Tony Perkins, president of the Christian group FRC, called the verdict "another opportunity for all Americans to speak out against the behavior of anyone who would abuse another person – especially a child – because of his/her sexuality or any other reason." However, Perkins warned in a statement that "some pro-homosexual activists would exploit the personal tragedies of these families to promote a political agenda."

 An 82-year-old gay nude model and his $71 SoHo apartment. Some dudes have all the luck.

 Lots of colleges are asking new students about their sexual identities.

  When do we die?

 Last night at the Anaheim AMC, Sir Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof took questions from an audience and premiered the extended trailer to Prometheus -- Ridley's long-awaited return to the universe of Alien. (Aliens and its sequels were all other people's movies.) Prometheus looks a little corny -- it looks to be loosely based on Erich von Daniken's ancient astronaut nonsense -- but man! It's nice to see that Gigerish aesthetic again. Watch the Q&A and trailer AFTER THE JUMP ...

CNN.com Doesn't Know Anything About Dharun Ravi And Tyler Clementi

A lot of smart people have spent the last 24 hours explaining the significance of the Dharun Ravi verdict. (If you don't know about the Dharun Ravi verdict, please click here.) One of those smart people is Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor, the current "Carville Dickinson Benson Research professor of law" at George Washington University, and the author of Let's Get Free: A Hip Hop Theory of Justice. Today, CNN.com published his ruminations in the form of an essay titled "Rutgers Spying Verdict Won't End Bullying." And while the claim made in the title is self-evidently true, it's clear that Butler knows nothing about the Dharun Ravi case.

In fact, Butler is so ignorant of the case that he manages to cram four falsehoods into a single three-sentence paragraph. That graf:

As the whole world knows, Ravi secretly videotaped his roommate, Tyler Clementi, having sex with another man. He let some other people watch the video, and he tweeted that Tyler was gay. Clementi then jumped off a bridge to his death.

Falsehood breakdown:

As the whole world knows, Ravi secretly videotaped his roommate, Tyler Clementi ...

There was no tape. It was a live webcam, turned on for just a moment.

... having sex with another man.

Nope. They were just making out.

He let some other people watch the video ...

Nope. Only one person besides Dharun saw the webcam feed, and only briefly.

... and he tweeted that Tyler was gay. Clementi then jumped off a bridge ...

Technically true, but cruelly misleading. Dharun first tweeted that Clementi was gay long before the webcam-snooping and the suicide. In fact, he did it before the school year had begun -- before he'd even met Clementi in person. Butler's imputation is that Dharun somehow "outed" Clementi, which is nonsense. The only reason Dharun was able to tweet the words "Found out my roommate's gay" so early on was that Clementi was already out'n'proud on the internet. It is the case that Dharun made another reference to Clementi's sexuality on the night he spied Clementi and his lover on the webcam, but it's insane to think such a reference might drive an out person to suicide.

Butler should read Ian Parker's excellent New Yorker article, "The Story of a Suicide," before writing anything else on the subject.