Florida Agenda

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA  – The Trevor Project has announced the appointment of a new executive director and CEO. Abbe Land, a member of the West Hollywood, California city council, has been tapped to lead the not-for-profit organization which spearheads suicide prevention programs for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.

Ricky Strauss, the Trevor Project’s interim chair, said that Land “is a recognized and respected health care professional who brings an impressive history of ensuring care to under-represented populations.”

Since 2003, Land has served as co-CEO of the Saban Free Clinic in Los Angeles. Between 1986 and 1997, she served as councilmember and twice as mayor of the City of West Hollywood. Land was re-elected to the city council in 2003, and again last March, for which she is currently serving a four-year term.

The Trevor Project, founded in 1998, is the nation’s leading crisis and suicide prevention organization specializing in the needs of LGBTQ youth.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The Califor-nia Supreme Court has ruled that the backers of California’s Proposition 8 have the standing to defend the proposition in court. The decision was made on behalf of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals who has asked for a decision.

The 9th Circuit will now decide how it wishes to proceed.

Proposition 8, formally known as the California Marriage Protection Act, was a ballot proposition and constitutional amendment passed in the November 2008 state elections. The measure added a new provision to the Declaration of Rights, to the California Constitution and provides that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

In August of 2010, a district court struck down Prop 8 because California’s Governor and Attorney General declined to defend the law in federal court, but Prop 8?s sponsors stepped forward to do so. A federal appeals court took up the case, but put it on hold in order to ask the state’s highest court whether the sponsors have the legal right to bring the case.

The state Supreme Court decision is an advisory opinion that will be sent to the federal appeals court. That court will then take the ruling under consideration and determine on its own whether it thinks the supporters have the legal standing to bring the case.

SAN DIEGO, CA – San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican whose decision in 2007 to drop his opposition to same-sex marriage, put him at odds with the GOP, has joined California Governor Jerry Brown and the mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco, all Democrats, in urging Congress to overturn a law denying recognition of such marriages.

According to the LA Times, Sanders, Brown, LA Mayor Antonio Villaragoisa and San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee signed a letter urging members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to advance legislation that would overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

PALM SPRINGS, CA – California hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation bucked a national trend and rose by 25% with the most dramatic shifts taking place in Palm Springs and San Francisco, both cities with significant gay and lesbian populations.

According to California Watch, hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation jumped from three cases in 2009 to 14 in 2010. San Francisco recorded six incidents in 2009 and 24 in 2010.

Rhonda Long, administrative services officer for the Palm Springs Police Department, said she could not explain the uptick in cases without looking at them individually. Long said the department was taking steps to prevent hate crimes in the community.
The Palm Springs Police Department said it has been rebuilding its image within the gay community since a 2009 scandal.

Palm Springs Police Chief David Dominguez retired in January after he was accused of and admitted to making insensitive comments during a sex sting operation in 2009 targeting gay men who officers believed were having sex in a public park restroom.

Officers arrested 19 people in the operation.

SAN DIEGO, CA – Doug Manchester, a real estate developer has agreed to purchase the area’s dominate newspaper, The San Diego Union-Tribune. In 2008, Manchester donated $125,000 to the successful campaign to pass California’s Proposition 8.

The purchase is expected to be completed by December 15 but further details have not been disclosed.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, the Union-Tribune is the nation’s 25th largest newspaper.

VENTURA, CA – According to the Los Angeles Times, the Oxnard teen who shot a gay classmate he believed was flirting with him has agreed to spend the next 21 years in prison, a plea deal that ends a case that drew national attention and ignited debate on how schools should deal with openly gay students.

Brandon McInerney, who was 14 when he pulled a gun out of his backpack and shot Larry King twice in the head in 2008, has already served nearly four years in jail and would be released by the time he is 38, under terms of the deal.

McInerney’s first trial ended with jurors split between convicting him of voluntary manslaughter and first-degree murder.

Several of the jurors have since spoken in favor of a plea bargain, in order to avoid a second trial.

During the first trial, prosecutors portrayed McInerney as a budding white supremacist who hated homosexuals and was enraged by King’s sexuality and aggressive flirtations.

The defense argued that McInerney was the product of a violent and dysfunctional home and had reached an emotional breaking point in response to King’s advances.

A national gay rights group later said prosecutors should have done the “just and merciful thing” and reached a plea deal in the case.

“Brandon McInerney killed Larry King and should go to jail for his crime,” said Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. “However, the first trial subjected everyone – especially Larry and Brandon’s peers – to a painful spectacle that accomplished nothing.”

At trial, several teachers testified that King had become increasingly bold in his behavior in the weeks before the shooting.

One of the teachers, Jill Eckman, demanded that administrators do something about rising tensions but was told to teach tolerance for King’s gender expression.

SAN JOSE, CA – PayPal, which has made it easy to raise funds over the internet, has started to enforce its rules concerning organizations which condone “hate, violence, and racial intolerance.” Paypal, according to All Out, has suspended the accounts of ten hate groups.

Among the groups: Abiding Truth Ministries (International – Extremist group that makes the outrageous claim that “the Nazi Party was entirely controlled by militaristic homosexuals); New Generation Ministries (Latvia/ International – Extremist church based in Latvia with branches in 15 different countries. The church’s members have been tied to the homophobic murder of Satendar Singh.

In one video, at an anti-LGBT rally, church leader Alexy Ledyaev said, “homosexuals are not happy or spiritual people, because they were molested and abused in their childhoods, but that does not give them the right to abuse and rape others!”); Noua Dreapta (Romania/Balkans – Ultra-nationalist group that has been linked to organizing demonstrations and planning violent attacks on gay pride celebrations in Romania and Moldova); Truth in Action Ministries (formally Coral Ridge Ministries, Fort Lauderdale, FL – Extremist church that spreads anti-LGBT lies such as “bible-believing Christians would quickly find themselves unwelcome in Barney Frank’s new pansexual, cross-dressing military”); Dove World Outreach Ministries (United States – Infamous “Burn the Quran” hate church whose pastor preaches that “homosexuality makes God throw up”); Julio Severo’s Last Days Watchman Site (US/Brazil – Brazilian anti-LGBT leader and writer/ideologue who fled Brazil after LGBT activists brought a lawsuit against him for incitement of hatred. Severo regularly repeats the lie that 10% of gay people are pedophiles, and goes further to say that most gay men “drink urine, swallow feces and experience rectal traumas on a regular basis” while they are “drunk, stoned or in orgies”); Faithful Word Baptist Church (United States – This church’s pastor, Steven L. Anderson, has described gays as “sodomites” who “recruit through rape” and “recruit through molestation”); Family Research Institute (United States – Known for saying that gay people are predatory and diseased perverts who victimize children); Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (United States – This group claims homosexuality is a both “lethal behavior addiction” and a “dangerous” practice that is “neither normal nor benign”); American Society for the Defense of Tradition Family and Property (International – International Catholic extremist group originating in Brazil and with active branches in Argentina and the United States. They are known for organizing homophobic rallies all over the United States and buying advertising asking people to “join the Crusade” of “conscientious resistance” to “the homosexual ‘moral revolution.’”).

BURBANK, CA – According to Deadline Hollywood, NBC has ordered a pilot for the half-hour comedy “My Best Friend is a Lesbo.”

The project, from Warner Brothers TV and Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage’s studio-based Fake Empire, is about two best female friends–one straight, the other gay–who become roommates and help each other navigate life, love,

and dating in Los Angeles. If the project goes to series, its provocative title will probably be toned down the way ABC’s “Good Christian Bitches” became “Good Christian Belles” and “The Bitch at Apt. 23” was shortened to “Apartment 23.”

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – A judge in San Francisco has struck down a proposed anti-circumcision ban from the city’s November ballot.

Proponents of the ban argued that circumcision was not a medical procedure and that the ballot measure included an exception in cases where circumcision was needed for health reasons. They also compared the procedure to female circumcision, which is regulated and argued that the ballot measure would protect boys the same way.

Both Jewish and Muslim religious groups filed a suit claiming the initiative violated a state law that bars local governments from regulating health care professionals.

After hearing oral arguments, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Loretta Giorgi struck the measure off the ballot claiming the measure attempted to regulate a medical procedure.

SACRAMENTO, CA – By a vote of 49 to 25, the California Assembly passed SB 48, State Senator Mark Leno’s Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act. The bill not only requires teachers to include LGBT accomplishments in history courses, but adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s pre-existing anti-discrimination clauses.

According to Equality California in a written statement, studies have shown that inclusion of LGBT people in instructional materials is linked to greater student safety and lower rates of bullying.

The bill is co-sponsored by Equality California and Gay-Straight Alliance Network.