Cleveland Gay Couple Claims Police Officers Beat, Humiliated And Denied Them Pants Due To Sexual Orientation

Considering I am an Ohioian, a former Clevelander and a gay man this is VERY disturbing!!  An Ohio-based gay couple has alleged they were subjected to horrific abuse by Cleveland police officers, including being denied pants, because of their sexual orientation.

Fox 8 News reports that Jonathan Simcox and his partner Steven Ondo are claiming they were subjected to "excessive force and undisguised prejudice" in April of last year, after an off-duty Cleveland police officer confronted them when they were in the midst of an argument.

As Towleroad, Queerty and other outlets are reporting, Simcox told the site, "He came out over shouting, saying, 'Shut up, you`re disturbing the peace.' I pushed to get past him, as soon as I did that he knocked me on the ground, and just started beating me, hitting me, standing over top of me, and punching me repeatedly."
Though no charges were initially filed, the couple were awoken at their home a week later by "six or seven members of the SWAT/and or Warrant team," who hauled them off to jail in their underwear on charges of assaulting a police officer. Once in jail, Simcox claims they were called "faggots" by officers, who did not permit them to get dressed because "faggots don't deserve to wear pants in jail."

Simcox and Ondo have since filed a federal lawsuit against several officers in light of the incidents

LOS ANGELES: City Council Adopts Condom Requirement For Porn

The Los Angeles City Council has approved a measure requiring the use of condoms in all porn productions. Via press release from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation:

In an historic move, during today’s City Council meeting, the Los Angeles City Council adopted the proposed ordinance, ‘City of Los Angeles Safer Sex In The Adult Film Industry Act,’ a ballot initiative that has recently qualified to be placed on the June 5, 2012 election despite legal action by Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich to block the measure from appearing before City voters on the ballot. The ballot measure would condition the issuance of City film permits to adult film producers to condom use in the subsequent adult films shot and produced in Los Angeles.

Today's news probably makes the ballot measure moot. The LA City Attorney had filed a suit against the referendum, arguing that the state is the supreme authority in workplace safety.

Pledged to Help HIV+ Boy Rejected from School…

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is launching an awareness campaign regarding a private boarding school in Hershey, Penn. that ejected a student because he is HIV-positive.

The foundation has also pledged to contribute up to $50,000 in support of the boy’s lawsuit to the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, which is representing the 13-year-old boy, identified under the pseudonym Abraham Smith, in court. Administrators of the Milton Hershey School, a free residential school for low-income students, claimed that they were protecting the student body at large by not admitting the boy. The student and his legal team say, however, that administrators violated violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said he felt compelled to help once he and his organization learned about the case. “The ignorance displayed by the Hershey School’s leadership is unacceptable and demonstrates just how much work there is still to be done to dismantle the fear and misinformation that still surrounds this disease more than 25 years after Ryan White,” Weinstein said in a statement.

Gay teen says 'Stop Bullying me or I'll SUE!!!!"

Gay teen activist Caleb Laieski has notified officials at every school in Arizona that they must put a stop to bullying, or else he plans to file a lawsuit. The Arizona Republic reports that the Phoenix-area teen e-mailed a letter to more than 5,000 school administrators and elected officials in early December.


“The letters warn school officials that they must institute policies specifically prohibiting gay harassment by students, teachers and administrators,” reports the Republic. “Schools that fail to stop bullying will encounter ‘legal ramifications.’”
Laieski, 15, founded Gays and Lesbians United Against Discrimination two years ago. Prior to making his demand of every school in Arizona, he successfully prompted the Dysart Unified School District, where he had endured antigay bullying, to revise its handbook to include language that prohibits bullying on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Now pursuing his high school equivalency diploma, Laieski runs his organization with a friend, Casey Cameron of Chicago.
Thus far, the Republic reports that the letter campaign has generated responses from only a handful of officials, most of whom have not expressed plans to take further steps. The Arizona School Boards Association, whose handbook recommends policies and language to many districts, plans to release new policy advisories this month, but a spokeswoman would not say whether antigay bullying was included among the revisions.


On a personal note, i have to say its about g-d  damn time somebody did something like this!!!!  They either comply or pay, good for you Caleb1

Parents of Student Who Committed Suicide Tell Rutgers University They May Sue

The parents of a Rutgers University freshman who committed suicide after his intimate encounter with another man was secretly captured and streamed live on the Internet have filed notices that they may sue the university.

The freshman, Tyler Clementi, jumped off the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22. His roommate and another student have been charged with criminal counts of invading his privacy, and the case has become a national flash point in the debates over gay rights, bullying and personal privacy in the Internet age.
The parents, Joseph and Jane Clementi of Ridgewood, N.J., filed legal notices with the university on Friday, said Paul Mainardi, a lawyer for the family. By law, they must wait six months to file a lawsuit, but they had to give notice within 90 days after the death to preserve their right to sue.
The filings were reported on Wednesday by The Home News Tribune of East Brunswick, N.J.

Mr. Mainardi said that the notices did not necessarily signal an intention to sue. “A decision as to whether to file suit against Rutgers University in the future has not been made,” he said.
Tyler Clementi, 18, an accomplished violin player, had been on the Rutgers campus in Piscataway, N.J., for less than a month, prosecutors say, when his roommate, Dharun Ravi, 18, of Plainsboro, N.J., used a camera in his computer to live-stream the dormitory-room encounter between Mr. Clementi and another man. Prosecutors say Mr. Ravi sent a Twitter message urging followers to watch.
Mr. Ravi and another Rutgers freshman, Molly Wei, 18, of West Windsor, N.J., were both charged with using “the camera to view and transmit a live image” of Mr. Clementi. The two students have since withdrawn from the university; their lawyers have said that they denied the accusations.
Prosecutors have said they may press for additional counts that would make the invasion of privacy a hate crime. But on Wednesday, Jim O’Neil, a spokesman for the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office, said only that the investigation was continuing.
One of the legal notices filed last week, a notice of tort claim, contends that Rutgers “failed to put in place and/or implement, and enforce, policies and practices that would have prevented or deterred such acts.” Another notice claims the university broke its agreement with Mr. Clementi to protect him.
E. J. Miranda, a spokesman for Rutgers, said the university shared the family’s sense of loss and understood that they would question whether an institution or other people were to blame. “While the university understands the reaction,” he said, “the university is not responsible for Tyler Clementi’s suicide.”

A day before his death, Mr. Clementi apparently discovered the surveillance and wrote in a blog post that he had complained to a resident adviser.
The tort claim lists as damages his pain and suffering, as well as his family’s loss of his company and support. No dollar amount is given.