Florida teen Kaitlyn Hunt, who has been charged with a felony for having a sexual relationship with her younger girlfriend, has rejected a plea deal that would have included two years of house arrest and having to register as a sex offender. A statement released by her lawyers argued that she is being selectively prosecuted for having been in a same-sex relationship when she turned 18:

Our client is a courageous teenager who is choosing not to accept the current plea offer by the State of Florida.

This is a situation of two teenagers who happen to be of the same sex involved in a relationship. If this case involved a boy and girl, there would be no media attention to this case. [...]

If this incident occurred 108 days earlier when she was 17, we wouldn’t even be here. [...]

Along with Kaitlyn and her family, we are going to fight to have the law changed so no other teenager finds themselves in this same position created by the State of Florida and prosecuted unfairly.

Kaitlyn’s father, Steven Hunt Jr.,  explained this week that the charges seem to stem entirely from the parents of her girlfriend, who knew of the relationship, but waited until Kaitlyn turned 18 to object. According to Hunt, “Kate has offered to permanently cease contact and leave the state if charges are dropped, but that offer has been rejected by the prosecutor and the girlfriend’s parents.”

Over 270,000 people have signed a Change.org petition started by Hunt calling on Assistant State Attorney Brian Workman to stop Kaitlyn’s prosecution. The ACLU of Florida has condemned the prosecution, pointing out that it’s “a life sentence for behavior by teenagers that is all too common” and that “one cannot seriously maintain that Kaitlyn’s behavior was predatory.”

Maggie Gallagher, former frontwoman for the National Organization for Marriage, penned a short post Tuesday at the National Review noting that moral approval for both gay sex and unwed childbearing has increased in recent polling. She attributes the correlation to a change in societal attitudes, highlighting that the “Christian views of sex” that have been offered by Chris Broussard and Ben Carson are now considered “scandalous.” She then asserts that people should find ways to be pro-straight without being anti-gay:

I personally still cherish the hope that we can as a society eliminate cruel homophobia without jettisoning heteronormativity — which is the need for social norms and institutions to be oriented strongly around the problem and the blessing that sex between men and women makes babies.

But so far, the disconnect between sex, marriage, and babies proceeds rapidly apace.

There are two problems with Gallagher’s argument. At a basic level, it’s logically impossible to say that heterosexuality is better — or should be the norm — compared to homosexuality without simultaneously stating that homosexuality is worse — or abnormal. Either all people are equal in society or they are not; she cannot have her straights-only wedding cake and eat it stigma-free.

More importantly, the two examples she cites are people with particularly anti-gay attitudes. Broussard said live on ESPN that gay people are “walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ,” then proceeded to not apologize for it. Ben Carson, speaking live on Fox News, compared homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality, then doubled down on it, then only later apologized for his “poorly chosen words.” If Gallagher truly wants to “eliminate cruel homophobia,” perhaps she could start by not defending it.

Kaitlyn Hunt (Credit: Free Kate Facebook Page)

A Florida family says their 18-year-old daughter was charged with a felony and expelled from high school as a result of a consensual, same-sex relationship with another student.

Kaitlyn Hunt started dating a female classmate at the beginning of the school year when she was 17 and the girl she was dating was about three years younger. According to an account posted to Facebook by Kaitlyn’s mother, in February, shortly after Kaitlyn turned 18, she was arrested on felony charges at the behest of her girlfriend’s parents. The specific crime was “sexual battery on a person 12-16 years old.”

Kaitlyn’s mother believes the charges were motivated by anti-gay animus:

They were out to destroy my daughter, they feel like my daughter “made” their daughter gay. They are bigoted, religious zeolites [sic] that see being gay as a sin and wrong, and they blame my daughter.

But Kaitlyn’s problems did not end there. Her girlfriends’s parents appealed to the school board and had her expelled from Sebastian River High School. Kaitlyn’s mom reports that the State Attorney, Brian Workman, has offered Kaitlyn a plea deal “of two years house arrest and one year probation.” Kaitlyn has until next Friday to accept the plea deal or face a trial.

The family has started a petition calling on the state attorney to drop the charges against Kaitlyn.

An activist suing to end Belize’s beyond-outdated ban on same-sex sexual activity has been subjected to an escalating pattern of death threats as his case comes closer to resolution, according to report in The Guardian.

Caleb Orozco is an openly gay man in a country that criminalizes his existence. Belizean law says that “every person who has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any person or animal shall be liable to imprisonment for 10 years;” the statute defines sex between between consenting same-sex adults as being one such unnatural act. Orozco and his organization (the United Belize Advocacy Movement) succeeding in pushing a legal case against the ban on same-sex activity to the nation’s highest court on Wednesday.

As the Central American nation’s most visible campaigner for LGBT equality, Orozco has received death threats before. Last year, Orozco “suffered a violent physical assault which required extensive dental surgery.” But as the legal argument continues, the threats have gotten more vicious:

Death threats against Caleb Orozco, the gay rights campaigner attempting to overturn laws that criminalise homosexuality in Belize, have escalated during the four-day courtroom hearing, his lawyer has claimed.

The high-profile challenge to the Caribbean state’s colonial-era “anti-buggery” legislation has stirred up resentment of the gay community, according to Lisa Shoman.

“There has been a visible increase of threats and violence against Mr Orozco and against all homosexuals in Belize,” she told the local News 5 TV channel in the capital Belize City.

“There are threats for killing, burning, shooting; you name it. It has to stop. We are all Belizeans. We can agree to disagree without getting violent about it.”

Even in a part of the world that’s not known for being ahead of the curve on LGBT rights, Belize’s law marks it as an unusually bad place to be gay. While neighboring Mexico has constitutionally mandated marriage equality, the LGBT communities in Belize’s other neighbors — Honduras and Guatemala — have been frequent targets of anti-gay discrimination and violence. But even those two countries don’t ban same-sex sexual activity.

The most prominent defender of Belize’s law is Scott Stirm, an American pastor who runs the anti-gay group Belize Action. According to the Guardian, he defends the ban as “a good law that protects human dignity.”

Chris Broussard (Credit: USA Today)

An ESPN sportscaster went on the air on Monday to publicly gay-bash Jason Collins, the NBA player who came out Monday morning in an emotional op-ed, the first active male player of a major American sport to come out.

Speaking on ESPN’s Outside The Lines, Chris Broussard said that he would “not characterize [Collins] as a Christian.” He made the comments in front of his openly gay colleague, LZ Granderson:

BROUSSARD: Personally, I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly, like premarital sex between heterosexuals. If you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, then the Bible says you know them by their fruits. It says that, you know, that’s a sin. If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, whatever it maybe, I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. So I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I don’t think the bible would characterize them as a Christian.

Watch it:

Granderson reacted strongly to Broussard’s comments, saying, “I really don’t need Chris or anyone else telling me if I’m a Christian because Jesus tells me I am.”

Broussard has previously written that he believes the NBA is “ready” for the first out player. But in that same essay, he also said it would make him “a little uncomfortable” to shower with a gay teammate. He also cast his doubt that being gay is biological, writing, “there are many scientists on both sides of the genetic debate, and I believe a truly objective person would admit the biological evidence for homosexuality is far from definitive.”

Frigide Barjot promised 'blood' in response to marriage equality passing.

As the French National Assembly prepares to vote on final approval of marriage equality, anti-gay violence has severely escalated. Multiple guerrilla rallies by opponents of the law have taken place over the past few days, resulting in vandalized cars, assaulted journalists, and even death threats to lawmakers. A 24-year-old gay man was brutally beaten Saturday night after leaving a club with his boyfriend in the latest example of how the opposition is directly targeting gay people.Police have already made over 100 arrests over the past week.

Now, the president of the National Assembly has received a death threat:

Claude Bartolone, the Socialist president of France’s Assemblée Nationale (lower house of parliament) on Monday received a threatening letter containing gunpowder and demanding he defer a parliamentary vote, expected to definitively legalize gay marriage on Tuesday.

The one-page letter, signed by “an intermediary of law enforcement,” warns Bartolone that “our methods are more radical and more swift than protests”, according to French magazine L’Express.

The document concludes with the statement “You wanted war, and you’ve got it.” [...]

“Allowing marriage for all would be the same as destroying all marriage,” the letter says, before making the chilling threat: “If you were to carry on regardless, your political family will have to suffer physically.“

The National Organization for Marriage, which has direct ties to the French opposition through a newly (and somewhat secretly) launched International Organization for Marriage, has tried to downplay the level of violence. In an email last week, NOM’s Brian Brown claimed that “peaceful demonstrations” were taking place and blamed the violence on supporters of marriage equality — without much evidence to support it. Indeed, French President François Hollande has spoken out to condemn the homophobic violence specifically, which NOM has yet to acknowledge.

Given both chambers of Parliament have already approved the legislation and this week’s final vote is merely a technicality to resolve some amendments, marriage equality is coming to France. But thanks to groups like NOM stirring up conservatives, equality could come accompanied by uncontrolled anti-gay violence.

Watch a EuroNews clip highlighting the past week’s anti-equality protests:

On Wednesday night’s Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert addressed the new song from Brad Paisley and LL Cool J, “Accidental Racist,” which happens to be, apparently, accidentally racist. Colbert described the song as “uniting all of us… to join our voices as one and declare, ‘This song sucks!’” He was so inspired by it that he wrote his own “awful” song to bridge the gay marriage divide. Joined by openly bisexual actor Alan Cumming, Colbert borrows Paisley’s tactic of playing dumb to avoid responsibility for homophobia. Cumming retorted, “If you don’t judge my parades, I’ll forget what you said about monkeys and AIDS,” a reference to the beliefs of Tennessee Sen. Stacey Campfield (R), sponsor of the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Watch it:

This post has been updated to correct that Alan Cumming identifies as bisexual.

Police clash with violent anti-equality protesters Wednesday night. (Photo credit: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP)

The French Parliament prepares for its final vote on marriage equality next week, and opponents of marriage equality have promised violence and homophobic attacks have begun to increase. French President François Hollande has denounced these reactions:

HOLLANDE: Homophobic acts, violent acts have been committed. The right to protest is recognized by our constitution and accepted by the French. But no protest must degenerate.

On Wednesday, several thousand protesters took to the streets of Paris, leading to cars and public property being damaged, as well as police officers and journalists being attacked. Wednesday night, four people carried out an attack at a gay bar, punching the bar manager, throwing chairs through windows, and causing other material damage. On Monday, 70 anti-gay protesters were arrested for attempting to set up a campsite outside the National Assembly.

Marriage equality has already passed in both chambers of Parliament — next week’s vote in the National Assembly is merely a final technicality to address minor amendments made in the Senate. Opponents are planning to nevertheless proceed with their march on May 26th, demanding the law be withdrawn.