NYT:

A judge here sentenced Dharun Ravi to 30 days in jail Monday for using a webcam to spy on his Rutgers University roommate having sex with a man, in a case that galvanized concern about suicide among gay teenagers but also prompted debate about the use of laws against hate crimes. The case drew wide attention because his roommate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in September 2010, a few days after learning of the spying. A jury convicted Mr. Ravi in March of all 15 counts against him, which included invasion of privacy and bias intimidation. The relatively light sentence—he faced up to 10 years in prison—surprised many who were watching the hearing, as it came after the judge spent several minutes criticizing Mr. Ravi’s behavior.

Ten years and deportation—which the judge could've ordered—seemed excessive to me, like overkill and blame-shifting. I was one of the "gay rights advocates" quoted in a NYT piece this morning who expressed misgivings about the severity of the sentence that Ravi faced. But a 30 day sentence is far, far too lenient—a slap on the wrist.

Created by the Alliance Youth Committee of the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance:

Beautiful.

Required viewing:

It's infographic-o-clock! My favorite time. Anyway, the Guardian pieced together a visually pleasing graphic breaking down gay rights in each state. This is somewhat weird, because the Guardian is a UK paper, but hey, thanks!

Not only does it color-code each state's level of acceptance, but the version on its website fills you in on each segment. Split up by region, the chart shows Oregon as the second most accepting state in the Northwest. Of course, first place goes to recent gay marriage welcomer, Washington.

The Northeast takes the cake for offering the most gender-equal programs. Except for Pennsylvania and Delaware. Get on board! Of course the Southeast is a bummer. But hooray for Arkansas for allowing same-sex adoption!

Check out the complete online version here.

• The Guardian

Where do you think a transgendered woman would get ticketed for using a women's room? In Texas, of course:

Parkland police cited Paula Witherspoon, whose legal name is Paul Witherspoon, for disorderly conduct on April 25.

"It was definitely humiliating, degrading," she said. "I felt like I was being discriminated against."...Witherspoon said she offered to show the officer a transition letter from her doctor that states, "She is expected to use facilities consistent with her external presentation, which is female."
But Parkland police told her they have to go by what is on her license, Witherspoon said.

As plainly as I can put it: Witherspoon was being discriminated against. Is Texas going to institute genitalia checks for restrooms, now? Basically, she was ticketed because someone was offended because she used the restroom. If I had the power to ticket everyone who offends me in public restrooms—through racist graffiti, through lack of hygiene, through inappropriate attempts at small talk at urinals—the city of Seattle would have tens of thousands of additional dollars coming in every year. But I don't have that power. Because other people's business is not my business.

Peter LaBabera runs an anti-gay hate group—officially designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center—and he follows me on Twitter. When Peter isn't fantasizing aloud about my sex life, he's accusing me of engaging in anti-Christian hate speech. (The Gospel According to Peter: Any gay person who refuses to stand perfectly still while religious bigots punch 'em in the face has committed an anti-Christian hate crime.) This morning I woke up to a tweet from Pete that accused me of "scrubbing" a video from YouTube. The video was apparently being discussed by some other Christian haters shortly before it disappeared from YouTube:

I discovered that a Savage video I had referenced in an earlier article has been removed also. That one was titled “How to Come Out to Your Evangelical Family.” Since multiple videos in which Savage discusses perverse sexual practices in obscene language remain on YouTube, it appears that the videos that have been removed are those in which Savage expresses virulent anti-Christian bigotry using language so hateful, he makes Reverend Fred Phelps look like a choir boy.

I searched for “How to Come Out to Your Evangelical Family" on YouTube and got a page that said "removed by user."

Here's the thing: I don't run my own YouTube account. Hypomania Content, a production company based in Los Angeles, records, edits, and posts videos of my college appearances on YouTube. They also manage my YouTube account. I couldn't remove a video from YouTube if I wanted to because I don't have the password to "my" account on YouTube. So I emailed the kids at Hypomania this morning and asked if they had yanked "How to Come Out to Your Evangelical Family" from YouTube. And it turns out that they had.

"A number of videos were removed in the last 48 hours for quality control issues, not for content," Brian Pines of Hypomania Content writes in an email. "Five of the six videos mentioned in the article are still up and the sixth has now been restored."

So thanks to Peter my "hate" video “How to Come Out to Your Evangelical Family" is now back up on YouTube. Please note the video's poor quality, which is the reason it was removed (the podium is in the light, I am not), and then see if you can detect hate speech, "virulent anti-Christian bigotry," or "language so hateful" that I make "Reverend Fred Phelps look like a choir boy" in my advice to gay kids with evangelical Christian parents: