Lambda Legal is representing Rita Goodman, a nonbiological mother who was awarded shared custody of the two boys she parented from birth with her former partner. Goodman’s ex–partner and the boys’ biological mother, Siobhan LaPiana, appealed the trial court order that awarded Goodman custody. Goodman and LaPiana planned the boys’ births together during their ten–year committed relationship. LaPiana gave birth but both women equally parented the children. After the couple split, LaPiana began restricting Goodman’s interaction with the boys, despite the parenting agreement they had drafted and signed before the birth of their first child. We argue that Ohio’s antigay constitutional amendment has no bearing on the court’s authority to order shared custody between former same–sex partners — the same conclusion reached by the Ohio Supreme Court in a similar case last year.

Lawrence “Larry” King wasn’t sexually harassing fellow eighth-grade student Brandon McInerney in the weeks leading up to King’s shooting death, prosecutors contend in court documents.

McInerney was the aggressor, teasing the effeminate King for weeks and vowing to “get a gun and shoot” him, according to a prosecution brief. Multiple students provided accounts of a growing hostility between the two boys, the document shows.

Their dispute ended in tragedy a year ago today when McInerney allegedly armed himself with a .22-caliber revolver and shot King in the back of the head twice in an Oxnard classroom as the school day was beginning.

“In the days before the shooting, the defendant tried to enlist others to administer a beating to Larry,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox wrote in a “statement of facts” filed with the brief. “When that failed for lack of interest, he decided to kill Larry.”

Prosecutors said they provided their most detailed account to date of the events leading to the classroom killing to counter the defense’s argument that murder charges against McInerney, then 14, were improperly filed in adult court.

 See Details in gay student’s slaying are revealed in court documents
Los Angeles Times, CA -

Lawrence “Larry” King wasn’t sexually harassing fellow eighth-grade student Brandon McInerney in the weeks leading up to King’s shooting death, prosecutors contend in court documents.

McInerney was the aggressor, teasing the effeminate King for weeks and vowing to “get a gun and shoot” him, according to a prosecution brief. Multiple students provided accounts of a growing hostility between the two boys, the document shows.

Their dispute ended in tragedy a year ago today when McInerney allegedly armed himself with a .22-caliber revolver and shot King in the back of the head twice in an Oxnard classroom as the school day was beginning.

“In the days before the shooting, the defendant tried to enlist others to administer a beating to Larry,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox wrote in a “statement of facts” filed with the brief. “When that failed for lack of interest, he decided to kill Larry.”

Prosecutors said they provided their most detailed account to date of the events leading to the classroom killing to counter the defense’s argument that murder charges against McInerney, then 14, were improperly filed in adult court.

 See Details in gay student’s slaying are revealed in court documents
Los Angeles Times, CA -

by Rabbi Ben Kamin, Spiritual Life Examiner

It was years ago that I heard a particularly poignant segment of the Hebrew Scripture chanted in the synagogue—the story, in the Book of Samuel—of the powerful boyhood friendship between Jonathan and David.  Jonathan was the emotional son of King Saul; David, the future king, was his companion and fast friend.  Their bond, described without restraint in the Bible, was robust:  Jonathan declares to David: “Tomorrow is the new moon, and you will be missed, because your seat will be empty.”

It’s hard to let pass the unfolding passionate relationship between these two young scriptural heroes.  The romantic tension they shared was reinforced by the fierce and jealous hostility felt by King Saul against David; the paranoid monarch once even threw a spear at the lad.  Jonathan so adored David that he eschewed his role as prince and gave his heart freely to his friend.  His father’s disapproval did not repress his loyalty and devotion to his amour.

Granted, there are edicts in the earlier Book of Leviticus forbidding homosexual love; this is what makes the Jonathan-David affair so remarkable.  Here is an intense saga of love, rivalry, and Oedipal complexes all being driven by the force of homosexual tenderness.  There are deep implications of Jonathan feeling “empty” when David’s chair was vacant.

The Bible does not exactly mince words about the whole thing.  In First Samuel, Chapter 20, it describes an outdoor rendezvous between the two boys: “David arose out of the place…and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed three times; and they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded.”

Until David “exceeded?”  This is interpreted by some biblical critics as an explanation of David’s expressive weeping—that is, he ran out of tears.  However, the literal translation of the Hebrew is, unequivocally, “until David enlarged.”  One can have no illusions what the Bible is describing in this particular instance.   See Sorry, right-wingers, but King David was gay
Examiner.com -