Ohio Gay Marriage Ban Backfires in Domestic Violence Cases

Planet Out:

A second judge in Cleveland has agreed that the state’s new constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage also weakens the state’s domestic violence statute.

On Thursday, Cleveland Municipal Judge Lauren C. Moore ruled that a man accused of physically abusing his live-in girlfriend could not be charged with domestic violence, because of Issue 1, which voters approved last fall. That amendment to Ohio’s constitution says the state cannot give legal status to unmarried couples.

Moore’s ruling came one day after another Cuyahoga County judge reached the same conclusion. In that case, where a man was also charged with striking his girlfriend, Judge Stuart Friedman reduced a felony domestic violence charge to a charge of misdemeanor assault.

Ironically, while Issue 1 was designed to deny legal status to same-sex couples, the vague wording of the amendment is now affecting heterosexual couples, as evidenced by the two judges’ rulings.

Did Jeb Call Out his Goons to Kidnap Terri?

I tried to get this from the Miami Herald site this morning but my online registration had expired so I had to re-up, which took a very long time. When I was done, I still couldn’t log in. So here it is via Talking Points Memo:

Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted — but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge’s order, The Herald has learned.

Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told police in Pinellas Park, the small town where Schiavo lies at Hospice Woodside, on Thursday that they were on the way to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding.

For a brief period, local police, who have officers at the hospice to keep protesters out, prepared for what sources called “a showdown.”

In the end, the squad from the FDLE and the Department of Children & Families backed down, apparently concerned about confronting local police outside the hospice.

“We told them that unless they had the judge with them when they came, they were not going to get in,” said a source with the local police.

“The FDLE called to say they were en route to the scene,” said an official with the city police who requested anonymity. “When the sheriff’s department and our department told them they could not enforce their order, they backed off.”

Young Conservatives Held “Immigrant Hunt”

Asian Week:

When a branch of the Young Conservatives of Texas held “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day” at the University of North Texas, it predictably upset many students of color. The game involved “catching” other members posing as illegal immigrants and winning candy-bar prizes for their efforts.

Students at the University of Texas, Austin wanted to make sure that the same thing would not happen on their campus, said Stephen Torres, student director of the university’s Multicultural Information Center. “We wanted to be preventative,” he said. “We didn’t want the YCTs to get away with this again.”

Torres and company were successful. Learning of the massive protest against an “Immigrant Hunt,” the Young Conservatives at UT Austin called off an event planned for March 2. About 350 Latino, Asian American, black American and white American students went ahead with the protest at UT Austin’s main mall. Holding up signs reading “Hate is not Activism” in multiple languages, the protesters included 30 Latino groups, one South Asian American sorority, and many individual students and community members.

Wingnut Puts a Bounty on Michael Schiavo

CNN reports that a western “North Carolina man was arrested Friday by FBI agents on charges of soliciting the murder of a judge and the husband of Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman at the center of a legal and moral tug of war.” Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview, North Carolina, offered a $250,000 bounty for the killing of Michael Schiavo and a $50,000 for executing Circuit Court Judge George Greer, who ordered Schiavo’s feeding tube removed a week ago.

Notice that the librul media never refers to nutcases like this as “violent religious extremists” or similar. I guess you have to be Muslim to wear that label.

(Fairview is just a few miles from the old homeplace. Hope we’re not related to this guy!)