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NEW TRIAL REQUESTED IN DOG-MAULING CASE

Tuesday, June 11, 2002

Lawyers for a woman convicted of murder in the dog-mauling death of a lesbian neighbor asked a judge Friday for a new trial, saying prosecutors failed to prove she knew the animals would kill anyone. "Good people kill people, accidentally," Dennis Riordan, one of two new attorneys for Marjorie Knoller, told superior court judge James Warren. But prosecutor Jim Hammer countered, "The question was not, would someone be killed or horribly maimed. It was, who and when?"

In court papers, Knoller's attorneys also argued that her trial lawyer, Nedra Ruiz, did not competently represent her; that the judge improperly allowed prosecutors to associate her with a white supremacist prison gang; and that Knoller cannot legally be convicted of both murder and involuntary manslaughter.

Knoller and her husband, Robert Noel, were arrested after their two huge Presa Canario dogs pounced on and killed 33-year-old college lacrosse coach Diane Whipple outside her apartment door as she carried groceries home in January 2001. Knoller was convicted in March of second-degree murder. She was also found guilty, along with her husband, of manslaughter and having a mischievous dog that killed someone. Knoller, 46, faces 15 years to life in prison. Noel, 60, faces up to four years. Sentencing for the two had been scheduled for Friday, but the first order of business was the request for a new trial.

Thursday, June 13, 2002

Fifty protesters were arrested at the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis on Tuesday as they tried to persuade the organization to accept gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people into the fold. Inside the convention hall, six men and six women were arrested after they tried to gain the platform as the Rev. James Merritt was giving the annual president's address. They will be charged with felony trespassing, police said. As the demonstration continued during his speech, Merritt told the audience of about 9,500 that in the past, gay and lesbian people have been "for the most part discreet. Suddenly we find that they demand public legitimization of their peculiarity, stage parades, and demand public representation in a governing body...even at the Southern Baptist Convention."

Thirty-eight of about 200 protesters gathered outside the convention center were arrested as they tried to gain entry past a cadre of police in riot gear. They marched toward the doors slowly in sets of four, carrying fliers and calling out, "Please, Brother Merritt, hear us." Each was arrested without incident and put on one of two waiting buses. They will be charged with city ordinance violations--misdemeanors--for allegedly blocking the sidewalk and disobeying police orders to move.

The demonstration was organized by Soulforce, a group based in Laguna Beach, Calif. The protesters, who came from all over the country, said they have tried for three years to gain the ear of Southern Baptist leadership. They have protested at other meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention, which represents more than 40,000 churches, with 16 million members. But this has been their most direct action to date, they said. Soulforce leaders said they targeted the Southern Baptist Convention because the denomination's teaching that gay and lesbian people are committing a sin has led to discrimination and violence, including killings.

TRANSSEXUAL MINISTER PUT ON LEAVE OF ABSENCE

Friday, June 14, 2002

A United Methodist minister in Maryland who underwent a sex-change operation will be put on a temporary leave of absence while the church reviews an internal complaint against her. The Rev. Rebecca Ann Steen, formerly known as the Rev. Richard Zamostny, acted as a pastor in Rockville, Md., prior to the 1999 operation. Bishop Felton E. May of Washington, D.C., discussed the complaint against Steen, which could take months to settle, in a closed session at an annual regional meeting. No details of the complaint were released. The Rev. Dean Snyder, a church spokesman, said the denomination's policy requires that a clergy member be placed on a leave of absence while church officials decide if an internal complaint is valid.

Conservatives have separately lobbied against giving a new pastoral appointment to Steen. Mark Tooley of the conservative Institute on Religion and Democracy expressed disappointment that the bishop has not addressed the issue of transgendered pastors.
The United Methodist Church, the nation's third-largest denomination with 8.4 million U.S. members, bars practicing homosexuals as pastors but has set no rule regarding transgendered pastors.

FALWELL DENOUNCES, PARTICIPATES IN NICKELODEON SHOW ON GAY PARENTS

Tuesday, June 11, 2002

The Rev. Jerry Falwell has slammed an upcoming cable TV special about gay parents and their children on the youth-oriented Nickelodeon network as a show that aims "to invade the minds and hearts of children." But among the guests appearing on the program he so strongly denounces is Falwell himself. While disapproving of gay parenting in his comments on the program, the conservative Christian evangelist also says homosexuals are entitled to respect and should not be "in any way harassed or robbed of their civil rights."
The program, "Nick News Special Edition: My Family Is Different," airing on June 18, also features comic Rosie O'Donnell, herself a gay parent of three adopted children, discussing the issue with a group of teenagers and host Linda Ellerbee. They are joined by a gay principal from Minnesota and a gay firefighter from New York City who has kids of his own. Falwell appears in a separate segment of the program, which the conservative Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group Traditional Values Coalition has attacked as a "pro-homosexual show."

Falwell started out with a sort of disclaimer of his own, saying, "The Bible condemns homosexuality as wrong" and "I feel that gay parenting is not overall a good thing." But according to a transcript of his remarks, he goes on to say that while he and like-minded Christians cannot approve of homosexuality, "we cannot disapprove of them. We love them. We care for them. We communicate with them, and we show them the same love and respect that we would expect to be shown us. When a kid meets a kid in school who has a gay parent, that should not enter into his or her thinking as far as his relationship with that kid is concerned. That kid is not responsible for his or her parent--has no voice in that," Falwell said. He ends by saying, "It is important to respect one another.... Hatred, malice, particularly violence, whether it's verbal or physical, is wrong always."

Ellerbee, an award-winning veteran broadcast journalist who hosts a weekly youth-oriented news program on Nickelodeon called Nick News, said she has had Falwell on before and respects his opinion. "I like what he says," Ellerbee said. "He says hatred is wrong. He says God is love."

However, Falwell sings a somewhat different tune in The Washington Post on Friday. "I'm not naive," the Post's TV column quoted him as saying. "The subtle purpose of the program is to invade the minds and hearts of children who enjoy Nickelodeon and teach them that what their parents believe and their faith dictates regarding the wrongness of the lifestyle is not correct." Falwell added that he agreed to appear on the program because he "felt there needed to be a kind of gracious voice from the other side."

Ellerbee, who also produced the half-hour special, dismissed suggestions that her show has a hidden agenda. "It's a very honest show," she told Reuters. "It is not a promotion of the homosexual lifestyle. It is a promotion of tolerance and respect. I would hope people would just watch it before they make up their minds." She said the show does not shy away from the difficulties faced by the children of same-sex parents. O'Donnell acknowledges that her 7-year-old adopted son "wishes he had a daddy," and a teen girl interviewed for the telecast laments that she loves her two mothers despite the teasing and peer pressure she endures at junior high school.

Ellerbee said the program will air Tuesday, June 18, at 9 p.m., rather than her usual 8:30 p.m. Sunday slot, to focus on the older range of her youthful audience and encourage viewing with parents. It opens with a disclaimer, voiced by Ellerbee, saying, "It does not deal with issues such as how do you know you're gay. It is not about sex. It does not tell you what to think."


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