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11 Years After Mandated By US Supreme Court, Alabama Court Strikes Down Anti-Sodomy Law

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On Friday an Alabama appeals court ruled the state’s ban on consensual same-sex intercourse unconstitutional. Prompted by the conviction of a man in 2010 and his subsequent yearlong incarceration, this decision (Dewayne Williams v. State of Alabama) comes 11 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled all anti-sodomy laws in the United States unconstitutional in the case Lawrence v. Texas.

By the time of Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, all but 14 states had removed their bans through legislative or judicial action. Yet, despite the Supreme Court ruling, Alabama is only the third state whose statute was overturned with the case to actually remove the anti-sodomy law from the books, along with Montana and Virginia.

LOOK: What Did Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal Say About Baton Rouge Illegal Arrests Of Gay Men?

Last year, the arrest of 12 men in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, attracted national attention. The incident substantiated claims that police were using the existing statute to target gay men for persecution, despite it being a clear violation of federal law. The district attorney refused to prosecute the man, saying the law was unenforceable, and the case was dropped. Nonetheless, moves to formally repeal the ban have since beendefeated.

States that still retain their anti-sodomy laws are Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

James McDonald is a Brooklyn-native currently based in Scotland. When not pouring through the letters of Mary, Queen of Scots in pursuit of an MLitt Scottish History degree at the University of Glasgow, you’ll find him typing away. To date, his writing has been featured in Haaretz, the Huffington Post, the Lambda Literary Review, Gayletter, Thought Catalog and The Outmost, with more (hopefully) on the way. Follow him@jamesian7 

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'BLOOD ON HIS HANDS'

Trump’s ICE Is Using Torture to Quickly Deport Africans Back to a Deadly War-Torn Country

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Trump ICE deportations Africa

The central African country of Cameroon is currently experiencing a four-year separatist conflict that has killed over 3,000 people and displaced half a million more with “extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, arbitrary and unlawful detention and torture.”

But Cameroonians who fled to the U.S. to seek political asylum here as refugees are experiencing torture as well from private prison guards and agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Louisiana and Mississippi.

A new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center and Freedom for Immigrants includes six Cameroonians who say they were physically forced to sign deportation documents that they didn’t understand and threatened with choking, pepper spray, physical pain and prolonged detention if they refused.

One accuser said that ICE agents and private guards stripped him naked from the waist down, exposing his genitals and buttocks to a room of 10 people, while forcing him to sign. Others said they and other refugees were fed substandard food, subject to a humiliating full-body strip search, and housed alongside federal prisoners while waiting for their court proceedings.

If true, the actions would violate Louisiana state and federal law, the international Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, which the U.S. has ratified, as well as ICE’s own policies within its 2011 Performance Based National Standards, Newsweek reports.

Trump has deported anywhere from  94 or 116 Cameroonians back to their home country since October. The Cameroon government has detained refugees who return to their shore to interrogate them for any separatist ties.

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'CAN'T WE END THIS ALREADY?'

Trump Is Already Planning a 2024 Run Just So Biden Won’t Get All the Press Attention

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President Donald Trump is reportedly discussing launching his 2024 re-election campaign kickoff event on January 20 just to overshadow President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. Yes, really.

The Daily Beast has cited three officials who Trump has reportedly discussed the idea with. He is assessing which big-dollar donors would support his bid and which political underlings would remain loyal to him just to benefit from whatever happens.

“Trump’s scheming about a future White House run is both an implicit recognition that he views his own current legal efforts as longshots and a reflection of his inherent desire to maintain political power and public attention,” The Daily Beast writes.

According to Bloomberg News, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, reportedly told Trump, “If you do that—and I think I speak for everybody in the room—we’re with you 100 percent.”

Trump still has yet to officially concede. On Thursday he told reporters, “It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede because we know there was massive fraud.” Trump has been unable to prove his repeated claims of “massive fraud” in over 30 lawsuits which have either failed, been dismissed or withdrawn by his own re-election campaign.

Unfortunately for Trump, two comedians have already snatched up DonaldJTrump2024.com and are using the site to repeatedly call Trump a loser. They offered to give Trump the URL if he’ll concede and call himself a sad loser via Twitter.

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'LAUGHABLE CARTOON CHARACTER'

Comedians Bought DonaldJTrump2024.com Just so They Could Mock Him as the Loser He Is

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Donald J Trump 2024

Two comedians Jason Selvig and Davram Stiefler (aka “The Good Liars”) purchased DonaldJTrump2024.com and set it up to mock President Trump for refusing to concede the election, planning a 2024 re-run, and ripping off his followers.

The site, which looks almost identical to Trump’s actual website, DonaldJTrump.com, calls Trump a “loser” six times and has a fictional quote from Trump stating, “I lost the 2020 election.” It also has a banner that says “Click here to donate to a PAC that has nothing to do with my legal defense team.”

The banner refers to the fact that while Trump has been begging his supporters to donate to his so-called “Official Election Defense Fund” in hopes of overturning the election in the courts, the legal fine print on his money asks says that if anyone donates less than $8,000, the money won’t go to his legal fights at all but will instead go to the Republican National Committee or “Save America,” a Trump leadership PAC (political action committee), according to Reuters.

The comedians wrote to Trump in a November 24 tweet, “Hey @realDonaldTrump we’ll give you DonaldJTrump2024.com if you tweet ‘My name is Donald Trump and I lost the 2020 election by A LOT. I am a loser. SAD!”.

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