Athens Georgia Police Investigate After Gay Man Attacked, Teen Convicted Of Brutally Murdering Gay Journalist George Weber Sentenced To 25 Years While Victim’s Family Offers Forgiveness, West Virginia Board Of Education Adopts Anti-Bullying Policy That Includes Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity, Remarkable Story Of Identical Transgender Twin, Scottish Evangelicals Mobilize Against Same Sex Marriage

In Georgia, a man told police he was attacked west of downtown early Wednesday because he is gay, Athens-Clarke police said. According to The Athens Banner-Herald, the 22-year-old victim was returning from downtown, to his car parked on Pulaski Street, at about 2:15 am when two men on the other side of West Hancock Avenue yelled a “homophobic slur” at him, then he yelled back, according to a police report. The men then ran toward him; the last thing the victim remembered before getting knocked unconscious was his face hitting the sidewalk and feeling teeth shatter, according to police. An officer took the report at St. Mary’s Hospital, but did not record how the man got there. he victim described both of his attackers as white males in their early 20s, between 5 feet 8 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall, and neither heavier than 160 pounds, police said; they both had medium-length brown hair and collared shirts and jeans. The victim wanted to report the assault as a hate crime, according to police, who said it is being investigated as an aggravated battery. The Georgia Supreme Court struck down the state’s hate crime statute in 2004, calling it overly broad and constitutionally vague.

The Brooklyn teen who brutally murdered radio journalist George Weber during a sexual encounter via Craigslist was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison Tuesday. The Daily News reports that showing no mercy, the Brooklyn judge handed down the maximum sentence to John Katehis, 18, for stabbing the ABC radio reporter 50 times in March 2009. But compassion came from the victim’s family. "I forgive you," Weber’s brother-in-law Jason Hannas told the convicted killer in Brooklyn Supreme Court. "I have no hatred." Hannas asked Katehis why he committed the slaying - which the Weber's young nephews continue to have questions about. "John, you are the only one who has the answer they seek," he told the defendant. "[Maybe\] you killed for fun, or because you could … that's a very hard answer to give a 5-year-old." Katehis, who winked and smirked in his videotaped confession and many times during his court hearings, asked for forgiveness when he spoke. "For the death of George Weber, I am sorry," he said. "I regret it." Katehis’ first trial ended in a hung jury last year, but a second panel found him guilty last month, rejecting his claim of self-defense during an S&M encounter. The two men met via Craigslist, where Katehis, then 16, advertised sexual services and Weber, 47, was looking for someone to smother him. Prosecutor Anna-Siggac Nicolazzi noted "the viciousness" of this "thrill kill" and warned that if the defendant is ever released, he might kill again, adding that, "This is exactly the kind of person society should be protected from."

One week after the U.S. Department of Education released a report detailing state policies on bullying, the West Virginia Board of Education took action to ensure that both "sexual orientation" and "gender identity or expression" are included in the state's anti-bullying policies. The move brings it into line with the majority of states that the Education Department report found include enumerated categories in their state's anti-bullying policies. Fairness West Virginia announced the decision on Facebook, posting that "Policy 4373 passes! LGBT students expressly protected from bullying under WV state board[.] The decision was unanimous." The group says the move constitutes the first time that sexual orientation and gender identity were included in the state's anti-bullying policies. Fairness West Virginia executive director Bradley Milam told Metro Weekly, "We put our whole weight behind this policy, we supported it through and through. We met with the Department of Education ... and had recommended enumeration very similar to the kind that's in Policy 4373 that was approved today." In the new policy's definitions of "Harassment/Bullying/Intimidation," which the policy prohibits, it specifies, "Acts of harassment, intimidation, or bullying that are reasonably perceived as being motivated by any actual or perceived differentiating characteristic, or by association with a person who has or is perceived to have one or more of these characteristics, shall be reported using the following list: race; color; religion; ancestry; national origin; gender; socioeconomic status; academic status; gender identity or expression; physical appearance; sexual orientation; mental/physical/developmental/ sensory disability; or other characteristic." Although the policy lists more stringent consequences for "a complaint of racial, sexual and/or religious/ethnic harassment or violence," Milam praised today's move, saying, "Our hope is that this kind of policy will get a lot of coverage and that it will actually be implemented in schools across West Virginia. We know that when policies are enumerated like this that students feel significantly safer in their school environment, particularly students who happen to be LGBT or are targeted for being perceived for being LGBT." Earlier today, Milam and victims of bullying spoke at the West Virginia Board of Education meeting that resulted in the passage of the policy. In the U.S. Department of Education's report, Analysis of State Bullying Laws and Policies, it noted that 41 states have model anti-bullying policies of one form or another. Of those, "Enumeration of groups is addressed in more than two-thirds (71-percent[, or 29 states]) of state model policies, whereas only a little over one-third of laws (37-percent) contain similar language on this component. This may reflect the fact that the inclusion of enumerated groups has been a focus of controversy in legislative and political debate in several states."

Jonas and Wyatt Maines were born identical twins, but from the start each had a distinct personality. The Boston Globe reports that Jonas was all boy. He loved Spiderman, action figures, pirates, and swords. Wyatt favoured pink tutus and beads. At 4, he insisted on a Barbie birthday cake and had a thing for mermaids. On Halloween, Jonas was Buzz Lightyear. Wyatt wanted to be a princess; his mother compromised on a prince costume. Once, when Wyatt appeared in a sequin shirt and his mother’s heels, his father said: “You don’t want to wear that,” Wyatt replying, “Yes, I do.” Wayne recalls Jonas saying, “Dad, you might as well face it. You have a son and a daughter.” That early declaration marked, as much as any one moment could, the beginning of a journey that few have taken, one the Maineses themselves couldn’t have imagined until it was theirs. The process of remaking a family of identical twin boys into a family with one boy and one girl has been heartbreaking and harrowing and, in the end, inspiring - a lesson in the courage of a child, a child who led them, and in the transformational power of love. Wayne and Kelly Maines have struggled to know whether they are doing the right things for their children, especially for Wyatt, who now goes by the name Nicole. Was he merely expressing a softer side of his personality, or was he really what he kept saying: a girl in a boy’s body? Was he exhibiting early signs that he might be gay? Was it even possible, at such a young age, to determine what exactly was going on? Until recently, there was little help for children in such situations. But now a groundbreaking clinic at Children’s Hospital in Boston - one of the few of its kind in the world - helps families deal with the issues, both emotional and medical, that arise from having a transgender child - one who doesn’t identify with the gender he or she was born into. The Children’s Hospital Gender Management Services Clinic can, using hormone therapies, halt puberty in transgender children, blocking the development of secondary sexual characteristics - a beard, say, or breasts - that can make the eventual transition to the other gender more difficult, painful, and costly.

In Scotland, a letter signed by more than 70 of that country’s largest evangelical churches will be handed over to St Andrew’s House Thursday, opposing plans to introduce same sex marriage. The event will be marked with a rally and backed by the campaign group Scotland For Marriage, which wants to maintain the traditional definition of marriage. Reports The Scotsman, the letter states: “Redefining marriage is not an issue of equality or fairness, as argued by those calling for this change. Equality does not mean sameness but recognises diversity. In the Scottish Government’s consultation document it is abundantly clear that homo-sexual couples already have the rights of marriage available through civil partnerships. Our chief concern is that Scottish society will be the poorer if the definition of marriage is rewritten. Marriage is foundational and so much else rests upon it. You cannot radically alter the definition of marriage without it having knock-on effects on so much else in our society.” A Scottish Government consultation asking if marriage should be allowed for gay people through a civil or religious ceremony closed earlier this month after attracting more than 50,000 responses. Dave Greatorex, of Scotland for Marriage said, “Once again we see how widespread the opposition to redefining marriage really is. If Alex Salmond thinks that concerns about changing the current definition will go away he is sorely mistaken.” The Rev David McCarthy, of St Silas Episcopal Church, in Glasgow, added, “Traditional marriage gives kids the complementary parenting of a mother and father, which same-sex marriage does not provide.” Equal Marriage campaigners have submitted about 18,000 responses to the consultation. The gay equality charity Stonewall Scotland is urging MSPs to support same sex marriage.