Tag: LGBTQ

ID: State ordered to pay more than $319,000 to wrongfully incarcerated Idaho man forced to register

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Source: idahocapitalsun.com 9/8/23 The state of Idaho must pay more than $319,000 to an innocent man who was wrongfully incarcerated for five years and nine months. The funding is made possible through the Wrongful Conviction Act, which the Legislature passed in 2021. Compensation only goes to people who were incarcerated and later are found factually innocent. Joseph LaCroix was wrongfully convicted on Oct. 3, 2017, in Bonneville County of failing to register as a sex offender, a felony crime. On March 8, the District Court found that LaCroix was innocent,…

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Kids’ Online Safety Policy Bill is a Pretext for Censorship

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Source: newrepublic.com 8/2/23 The first thing you need to know about the latest bill in Congress meant to protect children on the internet is that one of its co-sponsors has been waging this fight against tech platforms since the days of MySpace. This bill, the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, concerns children who were not yet born at the dawn of social media, whose parents could once have jockeyed to remain in each other’s Top 8, while their own parents in turn may have sounded the alarm about such…

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MS: Mississippi to pay more than $400K in attorneys’ fees over unconstitutional sodomy law

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Source: mississippitoday.org 7/28/23 Mississippi will have to pay more than $400,000 in attorneys’ fees after the attorney general’s office spent years defending a sodomy law that criminalizes oral and anal sex.  The law in question — Section 97-29-59 — was deemed unconstitutional in 2003 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Lawrence v. Texas that private sexual conduct was constitutionally protected.  But Mississippi kept its sodomy law on the books, opening the door for a 2016 legal challenge that resulted in the expensive attorneys’ fees.  The AGs office,…

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CA: California to audit placement service for released sexually violent predators

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Source: thecentersquare.com 6/28/23 On Monday, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee unanimously approved a request by California Senate Minority Leader Brian W. Jones (R-San Diego) to audit Liberty Healthcare. “We are thankful that the bipartisan Legislative Audit Committee understands the need to further investigate Liberty Healthcare’s poor management of” sexually violent predators, Jones said. Liberty Healthcare is a health and human services management company in Intellectual and Developmental Disability care and psychiatry. The east-coast based company has enjoyed an exclusive 20-year partnership with the Department of State Hospitals to manage the…

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Key document may be fake in LGBTQ+ rights case before US supreme court

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Source: theguardian.com 6/29/23 Christian website designer says she received email request from same-sex couple but ‘author’ says he did not send it – and is not gay The veracity of a key document in a major LGBTQ+ rights case before the US supreme court has come under question, raising the possibility that important evidence cited in it might be wrong or even falsified. The supreme court is expected to issue a ruling on Friday in 303 Creative LLC v Elenis, which deals with a challenge to a Colorado law prohibiting…

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NY: New York forces gay man to register as sex offender

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Source: darik.news 1/26/23 A gay man with HIV is appealing a court decision requiring him to register as a “sex offender” in order to prosecute under a 1987 Louisiana law that effectively criminalizes anyone with HIV One who has sex. In 2009, Robert Suttle, a gay black man who was working as an assistant court clerk, was accused by a former lover of not disclosing his HIV status before consensual sex. As a result, Suttle found himself charged under Louisiana’s “intentional exposure to the AIDS virus” law—adopted at the height…

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CA: Gay California legislator gets 2nd bomb threat this year

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Source: nbcnews.com 12/7/22 A gay California lawmaker revealed Tuesday that he received a bomb threat laced with homophobic tropes and rhetoric, amid a simmering culture war that has sparked widespread anti-LGBTQ threats and attacks nationwide. California state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said an unnamed individual threatened to bomb his home and shoot up his office. He said he was informed of the threat by police and a local newspaper that the individual had emailed.   “The email said, we will f—ing kill you’ and called me a pedophile and…

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ID: Idaho settles lawsuit over antiquated anti-sodomy law

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Source: whec.com 11/10/22 BOISE, Idaho (AP) — People who were convicted of having oral or anal sex under an antiquated Idaho law will be allowed to be removed from the state’s sex offender list, according to a settlement Idaho has reached to resolve a two-year-old lawsuit. The Idaho State Police will also pay the legal fees of the men who sued over the law, according to the settlement filed in Idaho’s U.S. District Court on Thursday. “There’s no reason in 2022 that anybody should be on the sex offender list…

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LGBTQ People on Sex Offender Registries in the US (Paper)

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Source: UCLA in escholarship.org 5/2022 The United States has the world’s largest prison population. Overall, mass incarceration disproportionately impacts people of color, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ community. LGBTQ people are at increased risk for being targeted for sex crimes, as historical prejudice and stigma have depicted LGBTQ people—especially gay/bisexual men—as sexual predators. Despite this, little is known about LGBTQ people on sex offender registries in the United States. In this project, we surveyed people who are required to register on sex offender registries (SOR). Read and download the…

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SC: No sex-offender status for men convicted under anti-sodomy law in South Carolina

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Source: postandcourier.com 4/22/22 COLUMBIA — Men convicted under South Carolina’s anti-sodomy law will no longer be required to register as a sex offender, according to a settlement agreement. The settlement was reached April 22 between Attorney General Alan Wilson, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel and the state’s ACLU chapter. ACLU attorneys filed the federal suit four months prior in the U.S. District Court of South Carolina on behalf of “John Doe.” The South Carolina man said he was convicted in 2001 under the state’s “buggery” law for…

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LGBT People on Sex Offender Registries: Results from a National Survey [5/10/22 Webinar]

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Source: williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu May 10, 2022 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM Pacific Time, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM Eastern Time Sex offense registries have operated in the United States since 1947 but have been challenged since their inception on legal, efficacy, and ethical grounds. Sex offense registries ought to be subject to close examination. LGBT people are more likely than cisgender straight people to be incarcerated due to sex offenses. In this webinar, researchers will describe results from a large national survey of people required to register on sex offender registries…

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U.K. expands ‘Turing’s Law’ to pardon past same-sex convictions

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Source: nbcnews.com 1/5/22 In a long-awaited triumph for the U.K.’s LGBTQ community, the government on Tuesday announced that anyone convicted of consensual same-sex activity under now-defunct laws will soon be eligible to be pardoned and have their records wiped clean.  This week’s announcement follows a less-expansive 2017 measure that was limited to nine former offenses that targeted gay and bisexual men. The new amendment will widen the criteria to anyone officially warned or convicted for an abolished civil or military offense that was imposed due to consensual gay sex.  British…

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SC: It’s 2022 and these gay men are still on the sex offender registry for consensual sex

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Source: queerty.com 1/3/22 A lawsuit filed last month revealed that at least 19 people are still required to register as sex offenders due to past convictions under South Carolina’s “buggery” law for having consensual gay sex. The SC law, along with other states’ anti-sodomy laws, were made invalid in 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas’ anti-sodomy law was unconstitutional. While pardons were granted for those targeted by the laws, the convictions still require them to remain on the sex offenders list in South Carolina and two other…

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SC: Lawsuit: SC man says he still has to register as sex offender for having sex with another man

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Source: live5news.com 12/22/21 CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) – A South Carolina man is suing Attorney General Alan Wilson and SLED Chief Mark Keel, claiming that he still has to register as a sex offender for a buggery charge in which he says he was convicted, and later pardoned, for having consensual sex with another man. The man, identified as “John Doe” in the lawsuit, says he was convicted for the charge in 2001, two years before the Supreme Court ruled that laws that criminalized homosexual sex violated due process and are…

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ID: Judge Says Idaho Can’t Force 2 Men To Register As Sex Offenders For ‘Crimes Against Nature’

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Source: boisestatepublicradio.org 9/9/21 A federal judge said the state of Idaho has “no legitimate interest” in forcing two men to register as sex offenders for life due to the state’s “crime against nature” law and will bar officials from doing so. Idaho District Court Judge Lynn Winmill issued a preliminary injunction against the state Wednesday to prevent Randall Menges and an unnamed man identified only as John Doe from having to register. “Doe and Menges are harmed daily by being required to register as sex offenders and the violation of…

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WI: State Supreme Court to hear transgender sex offender registry case

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[wsaw.com – 2/10/21] MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of a Shawano County transgender woman who has been prohibited from changing her male name due to her listing on the state sex offender registry. … She argues that requiring her to register as a sex offender violates her First Amendment rights and forces her to identify herself as a male anytime she is required to present her legal name. Read the full article  

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MT: Sodomy laws that labeled gay people sex offenders challenged in court

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[nbcnews.com – 4/7/21] Nearly 20 years after the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing consensual same-sex activity, the legacy of sodomy bans is still felt across the United States. In 1993, then-18-year-old Randall Menges was charged under Idaho’s “crimes against nature” law for having sex with two 16-year-old males. All three worked and lived at Pratt Ranch, a cattle ranch in Gem County that doubled as a live-in foster program for troubled teenagers. Menges was convicted despite police reports indicating the activity was consensual, and the age of consent in…

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MT: Federal judge to rule on sex offender registration for ‘gay sex’ convictions

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[kpvi.com – 3/30/21] The Montana Attorney General’s Office opposed removing a former Missoula man from the state’s sexual offender registry despite evidence he was designated a sex offender because he had consensual “gay sex” when he was 18 years old. At a trial held Tuesday before U.S. District Court Judge Dana L. Christensen, Assistant Attorney General Hannah Tokerud argued the case did not hinge on whether the man, Randall _____, was convicted for having consensual sex. “It hinges on whether he is required to register in Idaho,” Tokerud said. If…

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