For nearly six months, Andrew Shirvell, an assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan, has waged an internet campaign against college student Chris Armstrong, the openly gay student assembly president at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
This is the newly released surveillance video from the July 9th incident in Salt Lake City.
The ACLU is suing two Tennessee school districts for blocking several gay-rights web sites. The schools are blocking web sites that discuss issues pertaining to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people, however, they are not filtering any sites that advocate reparative therapy that encourages individuals to turn away from being gay.
“Not only does defendants’ blocking policy discriminate on the basis of content in violation of the First Amendment, the policy further constitutes unlawful viewpoint discrimination,” the suit said. “Under the defendants’ policy, students may access websites that promote anti-gay views and that advocate that persons should change their sexual orientation through so-called “reparative therapy,” but not the web sites of organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign, which is one of the largest civil rights organizations in the United States working to achieve equality under the law for LGBT persons.”
The blocked sites include the Human Rights Campaign, Marriage Equality USA, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, the Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and Dignity USA. Unblocked sites include National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, People Can Change, The Americans For Truth Against Homosexuality and the Traditional Values Coalition.
The school districts are currently blaming the filtering company, while the filtering company is blaming the school districts.
