Oklahoma High Court Rules that Oral Sex Isn’t Rape if the Victim is Drunk

Oklahoma’s highest court dismissed a charge against a 17-year-old boy who was accused of forcing an intoxicated girl to give him a blowjob. The ruling was unanimous, the judges said that Oklahoma’s rape law addresses unconscious or intoxicated victims, but the forcible sodomy law does not. They said that it would not expand the meaning of the law to justify someone’s prosecution.

“The Legislature’s inclusion of an intoxication circumstance for the crime of rape … is not found in the five very specific requirements of forcible sodomy,” the court wrote.

The teen was charged in 2015 in Tulsa County District Court, but a lower court judge dismissed the case last year. The state appealed to have it reopened. Lawmakers were outraged by the court’s decision and vowed that they would move quickly to fix the loophole in the state’s forcible sodomy law.

“I think the judges made a grave error, but if they need more clarification, we are happy to give it to them by fixing the statute,” State Rep. Scott Biggs, a former prosecutor says. “That was one of the only Title 21 bills available, so we gutted all that language and inserted the new language to fix this issue.”

Norman becomes First Oklahoma City to Approve LGBT Anti-Discrimination Resolution

The Norman Transcript reported that on December 22 the council voted for the resolution that adds that sexual discrimination can include gender preference and sexual identity. Federal Law will apply, and will trump municipal law, so the city had no need to adopt an ordinance, says Freedom Oklahoma Executive Director Troy Stevenson. Norman’s civil rights ordinance has been around since 1968, says council member Lynne Miller, Norman was just affirming that every single of its residents have the right to equality.

Colombia’s Constitutional Court Approves Same-Sex Marriage

As of Friday, April 29, Colombia’s Constitutional Court cleared the way for same-sex couples in the country to get married. This was expected due to a 6-3 decision in April that rejected a justice’s opinion that would have stopped public officials from registering same-sex unions as actual marriages. Colombia is one of the few countries in Latin America that allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, along with Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

President Juan Manuel Santos’ government argued in favor of marriage rights for gay couples as part of the court proceedings.

Editor of Gay-Themed Magazine Hacked to Death: Al-Qaeda Says that They Are Behind the Slaying

Ansar-al Islam, the Al-Qaeda group that’s located in Bangladesh has claimed that they were behind the attacks that happened on April 25 in Bangladesh’s capital, New Delhi. USAID employee Xulhaz Mannan, who previously worked as a U.S. Embassy protocol officer, and his friend, Tanay Majumder, a theatre actor, were both killed in the attacks. Mannan was editor of Bangladesh’s first gay rights magazine, Roopbaan. He was also the cousin of former Foreign Minister Dipu Moni.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina blamed his main opposition, the radical Jamaat-e-Islami group and its political ally, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Hasina said that the Bangladesh National Party was orchestrating the attacks in order to destabilize the country and upset her rule. While also fighting against the government’s efforts to prosecute the war crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party denies these claims, they say that they are being blamed for Hasina’s failure to maintain security and give into the country’s desire for Islamic rule.

The U.S. government and a variety of rights groups have reprimanded Hasina’s government for its failing to keep its civil society safe. Earlier in April, the U.S. said it was considering granted refuge for some of the secular bloggers who are facing imminent danger in Bangladesh.