West Virginia Supreme Court rules anti-gay assaults are not hate crimes

[Eugene]

Source: ABC News

West Virginia Supreme Court rules anti-gay assaults are not hate crimes

By COURTNEY CONNLEY - May 11, 2017, 8:27 PM ET

In a 3-2 decision Tuesday, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that anti-gay assaults are not protected under the state's hate crime law, according to court documents obtained by ABC News.

The decision emerged from the State of West Virginia vs. Steward Butler case, which involves an April 2015 incident during which Butler allegedly directed homophobic slurs at two men he saw kissing on the sidewalk while at a stoplight before getting out of his car and striking both victims in the face with his fist, according to court documents.

On May 21, 2015, a Cabell County grand jury issued an indictment against Butler, charging him with battery and violations of an individual's civil rights under West Virginia law. Butler challenged those indictments and the applicability of the law to his actions.

According to the court, under West Virginia law it is unlawful to threaten, injure, intimidate or oppress any individual because of their race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation or sex. However, West Virginia's Supreme Court agreed that the word "sex" has ambiguous meaning and it is unclear if the law protects individuals based on sexual orientation.

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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/west-virginia-supreme-court-rules-anti-gay-assaults/story?id=47352792

[still_one]

1. who would have thunk that bigotry is alive and well in West Virginia?

[shenmue]

2. What the hell??

[RKP5637]

3. West Virginia, yep, West Virginia. Why would one expect more from West Virginia. n/t

[dsc]

4. to be fair

this is a more complicated case than at first blush. There is a doctrine that criminal laws must be interpreted in a very narrow way so that people can know they are committing crimes when they are in deed committing crimes. I think it is hard to say that a person in WV, who sees the WV legislature repeatedly refuse to change the law to include sexual orientation, would know that this law did, in deed, cover sexual orientation. I don't like this result but I do like the general principle that criminal laws need to be clear so that people know they have committed a crime.

[Crash2Parties]

5. How is that due to anything OTHER than sex?

If someone is not "acting" their sex correctly and is attacked because of it, how is that NOT "because of their sex" ?

Let's say a woman had been walking with a man & they are obviously a romantic couple - no attack, right?

But change only the sex of that first person to another man and - attack!

How is that due to anything OTHER than sex?

[Rhythm]

6. To those who are bashing West Virginia just because it's West Virginia/rural/'southern'/etc...

No, WV does not recognize LGBTQIA folks as a 'protected class' for the purposes of protection in its hate-crime legislation.
There are a lot of other states that also don't do so, either (19 of them, at last count) -- which sucks all around, but there ya go.

However, there are a lot of LGBTIAQ folks here in the 'wild and wonderful', and to exhibit such a jackhole attitude blanketly toward us because we can't all go packing-up and running off to move to more progressive states is well... jackholish, to put it mildly.

[LostOne4Ever]

7. Three homophobes on the high court needing to be removed. nt