Yesterday a 52 year-old gay man suffered grievous facial injuries after a patron at a Shreveport, Louisiana bar attacked him with a billiards cue stick because he is gay. Witnesses say the two men hadn't even spoken before the attack.
Security personnel at the Sandbar held the alleged attacker, William Payne until police arrived. Payne was arrested and charged with attempted 2nd degree murder and the commission of a hate crime. "It was totally 100 percent a hate crime for this sexual orientation," said Sandbar manager Tim Huck. The bar provided police with video surveillance. Huck says it's disturbing, and shows Payne who is a large man, breaking the cue stick over victim John Skaggs' face with one powerful blow. "His hand was all the way back, and he's swinging like a baseball bat, after three aggressive steps in," said Huck. Shreveport police believe that the video will be powerful evidence of the alleged attack, and management at the Sandbar believes it will also help distinguish between a crime and a hate crime. "At no point in time had he talked to the man that attacked him, bumped him. After watching the video and from witnesses they hadn't even made any form of eye contact or anything," said Huck.
The bar manager says the victim was a regular patron who "never bothers anyone."
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed a bill allowing people to bring firearms into church. Just in case somebody wants to go crazy during Jeebus-time.
[The] bill would authorize persons who qualified to carry concealed weapons having passed the training and background checks to bring them to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of a security force. The pastor or head of the religious institution must announce verbally or in weekly newsletters or bulletins that there will be individuals armed on the property as members of he security force. Those chosen have to undergo eight hours of tactical training each year. Burns' original bill was killed by a Senate committee but he tacked its provisions onto a related bill that started out changing the period to have a concealed weapon permit from four years to five years at a cost of $25 a year. Burns contended that religious institutions in crime-ridden or "declining neighborhoods" need the added protection to ward off thieves and muggers.
Jindal also signed a bill requiring women to get an ultrasound before an abortion.
Forecasters are predicting a bad hurricane season, which begins today. It's feared that the expected strong storms will exacerbate the Gulf oil spill.
Three to seven major hurricanes — involving winds of at least 178 km/h — are expected. Up to 14 hurricanes with winds of 119 km/h are also expected. Such winds could be disastrous for BP's latest attempt to contain the flow of oil gushing from a broken pipe above the Gulf's seabed. On Monday, underwater robots sawed through the pipe, preparing to cover it with a tightly sealed containment dome that will direct the oil to a tanker on the surface. But if the hurricane brings strong winds and high waves to the Gulf, "the [tanker] would not be able to remain there, which means there would be unabated flow," Carol Browner, the White House adviser on energy and climate change, said Tuesday. That, or failure of the new containment dome, would be the worst-case scenario and "deeply, deeply troubling," she said. "If it is not able to contain the oil, we would be in a situation where it is conceivable that there would be oil leaking at a rate of something on the order of [1.9 million to 3.2 million litres] a day until the relief wells are dug," Browner said.
The Gulf oil spill is shaping up to be the worst environmental disaster in American history. Fumes are now overwhelming the residents of New Orleans as the leading edge of the spill reaches the fragile marshes of the Mississippi delta. Compounding the disaster, poor weather has forced the Coast Guard to suspend their containment attempts. National agencies are mobilizing across the Gulf Coast.
Calling it “a spill of national significance” that could threaten coastline in several states, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the creation of a second command post in Mobile, Ala., in addition to the one in Louisiana, to manage potential coastal impact in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ordered an immediate review of the 30 offshore drilling rigs and 47 production platforms operating in the deepwater Gulf, and is sending teams to conduct on-site inspections. Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana declared a state of emergency and to request the participation of the National Guard in response efforts.
A coastal flood warning was issued for Hancock County, the furthest county west in Mississippi, while coastal flood watches were set up in nearby Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes in Louisiana since tides were expected to be two to three feet higher than normal. About 40,000 feet of boom had been placed around Pass-a-Loutre, the area of the Mississippi River Delta where the oil was expected to touch first, a spokesman for Mr. Jindal said. The Navy provided 50 contractors, 7 skimming systems and 66,000 feet of inflatable containment boom, a spokesman said. About 210,000 feet of boom had been laid down to protect the shoreline in several places along the Gulf Coast, though experts said that marshlands presented a far more daunting cleaning challenge than sandy beaches.
The still-uncapped well continues to spew more than 200,000 gallons of crude oil each day. The surface slick is now bigger than the island of Jamaica.
VIDEO: President Obama says "BP is ultimately responsible, under the law, for paying the cost of response and clean-up operations."
A bill that would have expanded adoption laws to allow joint adoption by unmarried couples was defeated by a 3-1 vote in the Louisiana Senate yesterday. The bill was fiercely opposed by religious groups.
Senate Bill 129, which ended up as a combination of two measures by Sens. Ed Murray and J.P. Morrell, would have allowed unmarried couples to jointly adopt and allow an existing parent to petition a court to add a second adult as a legal parent. The bill would have applied regardless of the adoptive parents' sexual orientation, but the debate centered on the rights of gay parents and their children. Louisiana law restricts adoption to married couples or single individuals, meaning gay couples or unmarried heterosexual couples can adopt but must choose which adult has parental rights. The debate pitted the Forum for Equality, a gay rights advocacy group, the American Civil Liberties Union and other adoptive parents, including New Orleans City Council President Arnie Fielkow, against a long list of primarily religious interests: the Louisiana Family Forum, the Conference of Catholic Bishops and representatives of Louisiana Southern Baptists.
Yesterday a 52 year-old gay man suffered grievous facial injuries after a patron at a Shreveport, Louisiana bar attacked him with a billiards cue stick because he is gay. Witnesses say the two men hadn't even spoken before the attack.Shreveport police believe that the video will be powerful evidence of the alleged attack, and management at the Sandbar believes it will also help distinguish between a crime and a hate crime. "At no point in time had he talked to the man that attacked him, bumped him. After watching the video and from witnesses they hadn't even made any form of eye contact or anything," said Huck.
