Out-gay Rep. Robert Garcia has said that Congress would probably work better if it had a few more “radical homosexuals”.
He was responding—possibly a little light-heartedly—to a tweet from an anonymous user complaining that it was “radical homosexuals”, such as Garcia, that “controlled” Congress.
Garcia, a Democrat from California, sits on both the Homeland Security and the Oversight Committees. He’s among the lawmakers who sat through Hunter Biden’s deposition last week.
Garcia was quick to voice the opinion that Republicans had no evidence to connect President Joe Biden to criminal activity.
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In a speech on the House floor on Thursday, Garcia said, “Yesterday I sat in on the Hunter Biden deposition for hours. Republicans once again…provided zero evidence, failing to show any sort of link between Hunter Biden and the president. No links between those business dealings. This entire case is a political stunt and a joke. Donald Trump ordered House Republicans to smear President Biden; they tried and tried and tried and failed.”
Garcia spoke whilst standing next to a blown-up photo of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. He suggested Kushner should be investigated, rather than Hunter Biden. Kushner controversially received $2 billion in funding from Saudi Arabia shortly after Donald Trump left the White House.
Garcia repeated his viewpoint in interviews with the media. His consistent criticism of Republicans and Trump has irked MAGA diehards.
Garcia, who was elected in 2022, laughed off the latest criticism. He said, “Congress would actually be better with more radical homosexuals.”
Online, many couldn’t help but agree.
Since winning office, Garcia has demonstrated a sassy approach to social media. Days after his election victory, he went viral with a tweet warning GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of his impending arrival.
It was a reposting of a TikTok video of NeNe Leakes (who found fame on The Real Housewives of Atlanta) sashaying in a pair of towering high heels. Garcia said, “As a reminder this will be me when I walk by Marjorie Taylor Greene in the Capitol next week at orientation.”
Houston Rep. Lacey Hull has prevailed in the Republican primary against Jared Woodfill, a prominent anti-gay activist who was backed by Attorney General Ken Paxton and other Republican leaders despite his role in an ongoing sex abuse scandal. Woodfill’s campaign — and its endorsement by Paxton, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi — was perhaps the most controversial in a particularly heated primary season.
Woodfill entered the race while still involved in a high-profile lawsuit that accused his former law partner, Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler, of decades of rape. Woodfill was also accused of enabling Pressler’s behavior and, in a deposition last year, acknowledged that he continued to pay young men to work out of Pressler’s home for years despite being told in 2004 that Pressler had sexually abused a child.
Hull, who ticks all the usual cultist boxes, was targeted by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton because she was among the state reps who voted for his impeachment.
As I reported back in October 2023, US House Speaker Mike Johnson was once hired to head a law school that was to be named for Pressler. In March 2023, Woodfill testified that he knew about the allegations against Pressler and said nothing.
Woodfill appeared on JMG in March 2020 when he represented local anti-LGBTQ pastors in their ultimately failed lawsuit to overturn Texas lockdown rules.
Before that we heard from him in February 2019 when he finally lost his years-long legal battle to stop Houston from providing spousal benefits to LGBTQ city employees.
For decades, LGBTQ+ people have been explicitly banned from Staten Island’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, with organizers claiming the policy is justified based on the teachings of the Catholic Church. After endless battles to make the parade more inclusive, activists have taken a different approach this year and will host their own separate LGBTQ+-inclusive parade.
The inclusive event will take place on March 17th, about two weeks after the original parade.
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“We join the overwhelming majority of our neighbors in expressing our relief at the news that an inclusive St. Patricks’ Day parade will finally be held on Staten Island,” Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon said in a joint statementwith Michael Cusick, CEO of the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation and Staten Island Zoo CEO Ken Mitchell.
“We look forward to once again donning our green, sharing perhaps a pint of Guinness, and kicking off a St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Staten Island that will not exclude participants based on who they are or who they love.”
McMahon has boycotted the parade in the past, as has New York City Mayor Eric Adams, due to its exclusionary policy.
A statement from Adams’s team also indicated he’d be participating in the March 17th event.
“From day one, Mayor Adams has been clear that celebrations in our city should be welcoming and inclusive. That is why we are thrilled to be collaborating with the Staten Island Business Outreach Center for their first-ever St Patrick’s Day parade this year where everyone interested – regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, race, or beliefs – will be welcome to march together.”
The Staten Island parade is thought to be one of the only St. Patrick’s Day celebrations left in the world that still excludes LGBTQ+ people, according to the Staten Island Advance.
Carol Bullock, executive director of the Pride Center on Staten Island, told the publication, “I’m just so excited to walk down Forest Avenue in celebration of Irish heritage with The Pride Center banner.” Bullock has reportedly applied to join the original parade for years but has always been rejected.
In 2022, Bullock spoke about submitting her application in person to the president of the parade committee, Larry Cummings, who immediately placed it in the rejection pile when she handed it to him. He then did the same with applications from organizations supporting LGBTQ+ firefighters and officers.
“That made it a little more painful because you have F.D.N.Y. and N.Y.P.D. people who are protecting our community, but they can’t march in a parade,” Bullock told the New York Times.
But Cummings has long stood his ground.
“Our parade is for Irish heritage and culture,” Cummings reportedly told The Irish Voice in 2018. “It is not a political or sexual identification parade.”
In 2020, he maintained that position, griping at the Advance that “it’s a non-sexual identification parade and that’s that.”
According to the Times, parade organizers have not only been hostile to the participation of LGBTQ+ groups, but they have even physically removed folks from the parade who they felt supported LGBTQ+ people. In the past, they have also banned individual people from participating.
In 2020, Miss Staten Island, Madison L’Insalata, couldn’t march because she came out as bisexual, and Republican City Councilman Joseph Borelli was barred by parade marshals because he had a rainbow pin on his jacket.
“They physically blocked me, my wife, and two boys in strollers,” Borelli said at the time, adding, “I didn’t come with it looking for an argument. My friends handed a pin to me. I really didn’t think it was a big affront to the Irish.”
But activists are thrilled that this year there will finally be a place for everyone to celebrate.
Bullock told the New York Times, “I am so happy we have taken this parade back for the Staten Island community.”
The 2022 election cycle saw a record 141 Black out LGBTQ+ people run for office in the U.S. — but these candidates still face enormous obstacles, says a new report.
The obstacles include not only racism, homophobia, and transphobia but also financial challenges, a lack of role models, unfair media coverage, and more, according to the report, “When We Run: The Campaign Trail Experiences of Black LGBTQ+ Candidates,” released Tuesday. It comes from the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute and Loyola Marymount University’s LGBTQ+ Politics Research Initiative.
It analyzes data from a larger study by the two groups, 2023’s “When We Run: The Motivations, Experiences and Challenges of LGBTQ+ Candidates in the United States.” For that study, they surveyed LGBTQ+ people who ran for office in the U.S. between 2018 and 2022. With 470 respondents, it was the largest survey ever of LGBTQ+ candidates. Forty-seven of the respondents identified as Black and LGBTQ+ — about the same as the proportion of Black office-seekers among LGBTQ+ candidates overall during that period.
It looks at the responses from those 47 Black LGBTQ+ candidates and other Victory Institute data to explore the state of Black LGBTQ+ representation in the U.S.; the challenges Black LGBTQ+ candidates face when running for office; priority issues and the importance of LGBTQ+ identity on the campaign trail; and steps to confront racism, homophobia, and transphobia in political institutions and environments.
“Black LGBTQ+ people remain severely underrepresented in elected office — in part because of the obstacles cited in this report — with devastating consequences for Black LGBTQ+ people and all Americans,” the study notes. “Not having Black LGBTQ+ people fairly represented in the halls of power often leads to a lack of focus on, or outright opposition toward, policies that can positively impact their lives. It also contributes to a larger threat to American democracy, as Black LGBTQ+ people may disengage from running or voting without their voices represented.”
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There are 142 out LGBTQ+ Black people in elected office in the U.S., just 0.03 percent of all officeholders, when Black LGBTQ+ people account for 0.5 percent of the U.S. adult population. “To achieve equitable elected representation … 2,453 more Black LGBTQ+ people would need to be elected to office in the U.S.,” the report says.
Concerning challenges, 36 percent of respondents cited racism as one of the top challenges in their campaign, while 31.9 percent mentioned homophobia and 10.6 percent cited transphobia. “Every endorsing political organization I encountered demanded respectability politics,” one respondent said. “At each instance I encountered thinly veiled anti-Black racism or homophobia.” Many encountered homophobic or transphobic harassment while campaigning.
Other challenges included lack of support from political organizations; difficulty in fundraising; lack of role models; and double standards in media coverage.
Respondents to the report remained anonymous, but some Black LGBTQ+ officeholders have spoken about these challenges on the record. Rhode Islandstate Sen. Tiara Mack, the first out queer Black person in the legislature, told The Advocate she’s encountered intense homophobia during her campaigns and while in office. “I have been called a pedophile; I have been called a groomer,” she said, adding that few people defended her when that happened.
Mack, who is in her second term, found that when she first ran for office at age 25 in 2020, she found that some people didn’t take her seriously — they didn’t think a young queer Black person had the skills to be a lawmaker. She has proved she has the skills, but she hasn’t always gotten credit from media outlets, which were more interested in covering her twerking in a video than reporting on bills she’d gotten passed — sealing eviction records and making Juneteenth a paid state holiday, among others.
Also, Black candidates often don’t have access to the financial resources that white people do. She’s been asked why she can’t ask family members for $1,000, the maximum individual campaign contribution in Rhode Island, but most of her relatives couldn’t afford that, she pointed out.
Langston Bowen
To improve the situation for Black LGBTQ+ candidates, she suggested upping support from the larger community and making these candidates more visible. The report from Victory Institute and Loyola Marymount echoes that, recommending that political parties and endorsing organizations make more resources available, both financial and otherwise; offer networking opportunities; increase diversity in staff and leadership; and identify and fight racism, homophobia, and transphobia.
Mississippi Rep. Fabian Nelson, a Black gay man who’s the first member of the LGBTQ+ community in that state’s legislature, said that simply showing people who he is and his commitment to advocating for policies that benefit all were factors that helped him overcome challenges.
In his campaign for office last year, he emphasized economic development, Medicaid expansion, and full funding for education. There has already been progress in the legislature on two of those issues — the state has funded two of the largest economic development projects in its history, and a Medicaid expansion bill is coming to the floor this week. He’s still working on education, he noted.
He has embraced some other projects as well, such as sponsoring a bill establishing a Purple Alert, similar to an Amber Alert, for when people with cognitive issues, such as autism, go missing, and making sure that law enforcement response is appropriate. It passed the Mississippi House unanimously and will come up in the Senate soon.
“I see so many of our politicians dropping the ball — I think I can do a better job than they’re doing,” he said.
Black LGBTQ+ Americans have much to offer regarding a variety of issues, the report notes. “Black LGBTQ+ candidates often mentioned housing, healthcare and employment as issues central in their campaigns — and often emphasized how these issues disproportionately affect Black and Brown LGBTQ+ people,” the document says.
“Our experiences are vital,” Mack added. Black LGBTQ+ people, she pointed out, are often experts on homelessness, gun safety, wealth inequality, and many other concerns, and it’s to everyone’s benefit when their stories are included in the political discourse.
“It’s hard to say how monumental that is” to have people with diverse experiences making public policy, Nelson remarked. “When you have a person who’s walked in those shoes, it hits differently.”
“Black LGBTQ+ leaders must be in the halls of power to ensure their unique perspectives are considered in policies that impact LGBTQ+ and Black people,” the report concludes. “When in office, their presence restores a belief in democracy, as others see themselves reflected in government. It encourages more people to participate by running themselves, campaigning for candidates and showing up at the ballot box. And when in office, Black LGBTQ+ leaders change the hearts and minds of colleagues and transform the legislative and policy debates, leading to more inclusive legislation and a better democracy.”
Less than two months into 2024, lawmakers in at least 13 states have introduced legislation that could disrupt libraries’ services and censor their materials. The new wave of bills follows a historic year of book challenges, mainly affecting titles centered on the topics of race, gender identity or sexual orientation.
“The American Library Association condemns in the strongest terms possible legislation in more than a dozen states that would threaten librarians and other educators with criminal prosecution for doing their jobs,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, in a statement. “This is not a culture war; it’s a threat to our democracy.”
Caldwell-Stone added, “Nowhere have we witnessed attacks on education like those currently proposed in Wisconsin.”
The Wisconsin Legislature is considering a bill to take away protections from library employees being prosecuted on charges of possessing “obscene” materials by removing public, private and tribal schools from the list of institutions exempt from prosecution for obscene materials violations.
“Those who would prosecute librarians and teachers would divert precious education resources to defending frivolous lawsuits and policing our nation’s most trusted institutions and community anchors: libraries and schools,” Caldwell-Stone said.
In Idaho, a bill proposes to prohibit librarians from making materials that include sexual conduct available to minors. Homosexuality is included in that category alongside sexual intercourse and masturbation.
Caldwell-Stone said the American Library Association is familiar with “attempts to rewrite obscenity statutes” to encompass specific books and topics, and she said she considers it a form of discrimination.
Obscenity laws in the majority of the states provide exemptions and are designed to prevent legal action against school, museum and library employees, who typically provide access to a breadth of materials.
Revoking those exemptions would mean schools and libraries would have to spend more time and resources on defense against scrutiny, Caldwell-Stone said.
She added that making cases for published resources to be considered obscene must be conducted by judges and juries with evidence brought forward by prosecutors.
“We’re seeing attempts by advocacy groups to file criminal charges against librarians and educators for books that they would like to see out of the library, and over and over again, these prosecutors decline to prosecute because there is absolutely no evidence that the books meet the most minimal standards for obscenity under the Miller Test,” she said.
The Miller Test is the U.S. Supreme Court’s legal test to determine what works are obscene. A book, a picture or a film is classified as obscene if it “describes or shows sexual conduct in a patently offensive way” or “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, educational, or scientific value.”
On Feb. 9, the Utah Senate Education Committee advanced a bill to amend provisions to identify and remove ”indecent material.” Another bill would allow public school employees in the state to be charged if “objectively sensitive” materials were made available to students.
“To open the door to the prosecution of librarians and educators for doing the work we ask them to do is to allow one individual or one group to dictate what our students learn according to their personal beliefs, regardless of the beliefs and choices of other families in the community,” Caldwell-Stone said.
The material that would be most affected includes information about puberty, reproductive health, gender identity and sexual orientation, Caldwell-Stone said.
“These books touch on topics that don’t match the values or tastes of some groups but are absolutely wanted and needed by other members of the community, and they should be able to find those books in a publicly funded library,” she said.
In addition to changing obscenity laws, some states are moving ahead with legislation that would make library board elections more frequent and create committees to process requests to move materials.
Some states are considering legislation that could target drag performers. Iowa state Sen. Sandy Salmon introduced a bill in January that could make it a crime for someone involved in a similar event at a public library to expose minors to an “obscene performance,” defined as one that includes sexual acts or “appeals to the prurient interest and is patently offensive.”
“These efforts are simply an attempt to intimidate and chill librarians and educators from serving everyone in their community,” Caldwell-Stone said.
Other state legislatures are considering changes to obscenity laws this year, including Wyoming’s, Nebraska’s and Indiana’s. Caldwell-Stone said that it is still early in legislative sessions and that initial hearings and cost concerns could affect whether the bills pass.
An independent non-profit think tank based in the US has created an interactive map to show which states in the US are safest for LGBTQ+ people to live and work – and which are not.
It has then scored each state based on those laws and policies – the higher the score, the more protective its laws are towards LGBTQ+ people while the lower the score a state receives, the more harmful its policies are towards LGBTQ+ people. The states are then put into five categories: High, Medium, Fair, Low, and Negative.
States must score between 75 to 100% of possible points to end up in the High category, between 50 to 74.9% for the Medium category, between 25 to 49.9% for the Fair category, 0 to 24.9% for the Low category, and less than zero to be placed in the Negative category.
The interactive map is colour-coded, with states highlighted in red being places where LGBTQ+ people have barely any protection under the law or are actively stopped from living freely as an LGBTQ person and thus have scored negatively on MAP’s criteria. This includes Texas, Arkansa, Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, Tennessee, South Caroline, and Louisiana.
LGBTQ+ safe states
By comparison, states who score in the highest category are highlighted in green on the map are considered places where LGBTQ+ people are safest and offered the most amount of protection under the law.
The map only reflects current laws and policies. (MAP)
This includes states like California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New York, Vermont, Illinois, Minnesota, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington D.C.
MAP is keen to stress that their map only reflects existing laws and policies that are already in place and not does include bills currently under consideration by the state legislature nor does it look at how each state enforces these laws.
“These scores are an excellent measure of the current LGBTQ policy landscape across a wide range of issues, but the scores do not necessarily reflect the entire political or social landscape for LGBTQ people,” it writes.
According to the organisation’s research, 27% of the overall LGBTQ+ population in the US currently live in states with low scores while 44% of the overall LGBTQ+ population live in states with high scores.
The think tank was founded in 2006 with the mission to “create a thriving, inclusive, and equitable America where all people have a fair chance to pursue health and happiness, earn a living, take care of the ones they love, be safe in their communities, and participate in civic life”.
The first man was found dead in the driver’s seat of his car on March 20. He’d been shot twice — once in the head and once in the back. He’d been led to the area, north of downtown Phoenix, for what authorities described as a sexual encounter with another man.
The second victim, who family members have said was openly gay, was discovered in a park eight months later, in November. He’d been shot and mutilated in a manner that a cousin said reminded her of a horror movie.
Last month, three people were charged with various crimes in the November killing of Bernardo “Bernie” Pantaleon, 30. A fourth suspect was arrested and later released after prosecutors asked police to continue investigating.
One of the suspects, Leonardo Santiago, 21, later confessed to the March killing of Osvaldo Hernandez Castillo, 20, officials said, and he has since been indicted on first-degree murder charges in both cases. He has pleaded not guilty. No one else has been charged in Hernandez Castillo’s death.
Authorities have not accused the suspects of targeting gay men — despite calls from Pantaleon’s family to charge them with hate crimes in connection with his killing.
Law enforcement documents allege Santiago initially told authorities he killed Bernie over an “unwanted advance.” The documents also suggest there was a sexual relationship between Santiago and Hernandez Castillo.
Juan Pantaleon said a conversation days after the November death leaves little doubt as to why his cousin was killed.
In the online conversation, which occurred in a group chat and was included in a probable cause statement from the Phoenix Police Department, some of the suspects made “derogatory remarks regarding the victim’s sexuality and a derogatory statement about homosexuals not being allowed in the northside” of Phoenix.
“There’s more than enough evidence here,” Juan said. “It’s clear as day to everybody who sees this — he was targeted for being gay.”
Juan said his family has pleaded with local and federal prosecutors to pursue hate crime charges. To their great frustration, he said, they’ve made little headway, prompting the family to call for a reform to the state’s hate crime statute.
In Juan’s view, calling the crime what he believes it is is key to heading off an inaccurate and demeaning portrayal of the murder — “another brown-on-brown gang crime,” Juan said. (Authorities have charged the suspects with assisting in a criminal street gang. Bernie, who worked for a local author and sold e-cigarettes for extra income, was “absolutely” not in a gang, Juan said.)
Another of Bernie’s cousins, Gasdeli Pantaleon, said she hoped the family’s effort might offer a measure of protection to Arizona’s LGBTQ community.
In an email to Juan last month, Jordan Uglietta, a Maricopa County prosecutor trying the case, said the state has no hate crime charge, but that state law allows prosecutors to allege bias against a person’s sexual identity as an “aggravating circumstance” that can help secure a stiffer prison sentence.
Bernardo Pantaleon.Courtesy Gasdeli Pantaleon
“The prosecution will continue to review the evidence obtained through the police investigation of this case and, in consideration of such evidence, determine whether to allege this aggravating circumstance in this case at the proper time,” Uglietta wrote.
A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office declined to comment, citing the status of the case. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Phoenix — which could potentially file hate crime charges that are separate from the state’s case — declined to comment. A spokesman for the FBI’s field office said his office is aware of the killing but cited a policy barring the agency from confirming or denying the existence of an investigation.
NBC News could not reach Hernandez Castillo’s family.
Lawyers for Santiago,who is being held in lieu of $4 million bond, either declined to comment or did not respond to a request for comment. Lawyers for Santiago’s alleged accomplices did not respond to requests for comment.
Santiago’s next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 1.
The family ‘rock’
Bernie’s family described him as their “rock.” Gasdeli said Bernie lost much of his childhood to familial obligations: His parents were deported and later died when he was a teenager, she said, so Bernie became the primary caregiver for his younger siblings and grandparents.
“Bernie just thought that he had to care for everybody,” she said. “He was a very caring person.”
The added responsibilities prompted Bernie to drop out of high school, she said. He worked with another cousin doing home remodeling and later began working for the author and selling e-cigarettes, she said.
Bernie had an eye for home organization and interior design, Gasdeli said, and had planned on launching a business. After his death, his family found business cards he’d made for the new venture.
Juan, who now lives in New York but lived in Phoenix as a teenager and was close with Bernie, remembered the moment his cousin came out. Bernie was 15, Juan said, and he and some other cousins were hanging out at a relative’s house.
“He just, like, took a deep breath,” Juan recalled. “He’s like, ‘Guys, I want to tell you something. He’s like, ‘I’m gay.’ And we’re like, yeah, ‘We know.’”
“We saw this weight come off of him,” Juan said. “And then from that point forward, little by little, he started becoming his true self.”
Juan, now 30, moved to New York in his teens, but when he returned to Phoenix for a visit two years ago, he said he and Bernie picked up like he’d never gone.
“When I left he was still wearing polos and closeted in his style,” Juan said. “When I went out there again, he was lashes up and nails on, and I could tell that he was happy.”
During the visit, Juan recalled, he and Bernie talked about their dating lives. At one point, he said, Bernie mentioned a man he was having sex with and showed Juan the man’s dating profile.
When Bernie said the man belonged to a gang, Juan warned his cousin to be careful, he said.
The conversation “echoes in my mind. It just haunts me,” Juan said.
A frantic search
On the morning of Nov. 26, a Sunday, Gasdeli learned that Bernie wasn’t answering his phone and no one had talked to him since Saturday.
Bernie was supposed to go to a bar Saturday night, she said, but the friends he planned to meet up with said he was a no-show. From Bernie’s younger brother, Gasdeli said, she learned someone had been messaging Bernie all Saturday, trying to make a deal for e-cigarettes.
The brother had warned Bernie against it, saying it seemed like a setup, Gasdeli said. But that afternoon, Bernie decided to go. He put on a hoodie and walked to a nearby park, she said.
When Bernie’s family couldn’t find him the next morning, Gasdeli said, they checked the location of his cellphone and discovered it was still at the park. When they drove by the area, she said, it was surrounded by police officers.
Investigators at the scene couldn’t confirm a body that had been discovered was Bernie’s, she said, but when they finally did, the moment left the family “shattering in pieces.”
“My whole family’s crying, screaming,” she said. “We’re trying to find answers.”
Bernardo Pantaleon.Courtesy Gasdeli Pantaleon
A few days later, on Nov. 30, the apparent answers came in a grim message. Another cousin who was close with Bernie, Roman Pantaleon, said someone sent him graphic and disturbing images of Bernie. There were other people in the images, as well.
One of the images, which were being shared on a messaging platform, showed Bernie’s body, Roman said. Standing over him was a man flipping off the camera, Roman said.
“It makes you really angry,” Roman said. “It enrages you.”
Roman said he shared the pictures with the Phoenix Police Department and then deleted them. Days later, on Dec. 2, three men were arrested in the killing. In the probable cause statement, authorities described the images the family had received — a second picture showed Bernie’s mutilated body — and said they were shared on Instagram. The statement says only that the profile that shared the image belonged to one of Santiago’s co-defendants.
Investigators obtained a warrant for the Instagram profile and discovered a group message that showed a conversation about robbing and killing Bernie, the statement says. A co-defendant was part of the thread, the statement says, where members “repeatedly asked for updates” about the alleged crime and “lamented they were not invited.”
An hour after the slaying, the statement says, Santiago’s co-defendants discussed returning to the scene to mutilate Bernie’s body.
The probable cause statement says that days after the slaying, the thread showed some of the suspects discussing news coverage of Bernardo’s death and making derogatory statements about his sexuality and stating that gay people were not allowed on Phoenix’s north side.
The statement doesn’t say if the suspects learned that Bernie was gay from the coverage or if they already knew.
‘It was personal’
After his arrest, Santiago told investigators that he’d met Bernie around 6 p.m. on Nov. 25. After an initial denial, Santiago allegedly told investigators that he killed Bernie over an “unwanted advance that made him uncomfortable,” the probable cause statement said.
Santiago later changed his story, the statement said, and said the original plan had been only to rob Bernie. He then blamed a person whom he couldn’t fully identify for the killing, the statement adds, and he blamed others for coming up with the idea to mutilate Bernie — although he acknowledged being there when it happened.
That effort to shift blame was “contradicted by the codefendant during their interview,” the statement says. “A second codefendant provided statements indicating the defendant” — Santiago — “was responsible for killing the victim.”
To Gasdeli, her cousin’s horrific death appeared to reveal a crime that wasn’t just a robbery. He’d been shot multiple times and cut with a sharp-edged object, police said, and had suffered significant injuries to his head, neck and torso.
“It was personal,” Gasdeli said.
Juan rejected the claim that his cousin made an unwanted pass at Santiago and also believes Bernardo’s slaying was personal. He believed he recognized Santiago as the man from the dating profile Bernie showed him two years earlier — the man he warned his cousin about.
A police spokesman declined to comment on how or if Santiago and Bernie knew each other and referred the question to the prosecutor’s office. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office declined to comment. Santiago’s lawyer also declined to comment.
A confession in an earlier slaying
After Santiago’s arrest, authorities linked him to a second killing. A man who was arrested in what authorities described as an unrelated investigation on Dec. 4 told officials about a video he’d seen of Santiago fatally shooting a man inside a car, according to a probable cause statement reviewed by NBC News.
Authorities said in the statement they searched Santiago’s phone and found a clip of him fatally shooting Osvaldo Hernandez Castillo in March.
In an interview with investigators, Santiago admitted to the killing, saying he’d been forced by another man to carry out the murder and that he’d done so to be recognized by his gang, the statement says. Santiago also told investigators he’d threatened to rob Hernandez Castillo, according to the statement.
Osvaldo Hernandez Castillo.via GoFundMe
Santiago acknowledged using a Snapchat handle — “IPEEPNIKE10” — to message Hernandez Castillo, and a chat thread between them showed that they’d met up for sexual encounters, the statement says. On March 19, the day before Hernandez Castillo was found dead, the messages showed they’d planned to meet, according to the statement.
The affidavit pointed to evidence at the scene — including an unused condom — as well as interviews with Hernandez Castillo’s family and friends and said: “It is believed the victim was engaged in a sexual encounter with a male at or around the time of his murder.”
The statement does not provide additional information about the relationship.
At Santiago’s initial court appearance Dec. 8, he stood quietly at a lectern wearing an orange jumpsuit. Hernandez Castillo’s mother offered a brief, tearful statement.
Santiago had taken a piece of her, she said through an interpreter, and another man had to die before they found her son’s killer.
Brittany Morris reported from Phoenix. Tim Stelloh reported from Alameda, Calif.
CaliforniaDemocratic U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, the first out immigrant elected to Congress and the president of the most recent class of new legislators, has led a forceful oversight letter to the Department of Defense.
Three gay Democratic U.S. congressmen have sent a letter to the Department of Defense demanding a quicker response to resolving cases of LGBTQ+ people dishonorably expelled from the military under the former “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy.
Signed by CaliforniaDemocratic U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, the first out immigrant elected to Congress and the president of the most recent class of new legislators; Rep. Mark Pocan, the chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus from Wisconsin; and out Rep. Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, the letter was sent to Secretary Lloyd J. Austin.
The lawmakers’ letter to Austin lauds the department’s increased outreach to dishonorably discharged veterans under DADT. But lawmakers seek data from the department so that oversight can take place to understand delays in the process. The letter provides sobering statistics, noting that out of the 32,837 veterans separated under the “Homosexual Conduct” policy from 1980 until the repeal, a mere 57 percent have received Honorable Discharges.
The Pentagon announced last year that it would itself review the expulsions under DADT instead of forcing former servicepeople to apply for the updated discharge.
In the letter, the lawmakers wrote, “Since DADT repeal, many veterans who sought to upgrade their less than honorable discharges reported a prolonged and burdensome process, often requiring the use of a lawyer, to seek the respect and benefits they rightfully earned. And far too many veterans discharged under DADT had no idea they could seek an upgrade or where to start the process.”
The letter seeks comprehensive information from the Pentagon, crucial for evaluating the progress and efficacy of the efforts to correct the records of veterans discharged under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. It also requests data on applications for discharge upgrades, clear reasons for denials, and the procedural timelines involved, as well as calls on the DoD to identify and resolve any legislative or financial barriers hindering progress.
Garcia, Pocan, and Pappas demand specific details from the Pentagon by March 1, including the number of applications for discharge upgrades and information on the procedural and financial barriers that may impede the review process. This request is a follow-up to the Pentagon’s decision in September 2023 to proactively review cases of service members who were dismissed under DADT, and who have been denied vital veteran benefits such as health care and tuition support because of their discharge categorization.
“Our service members made the ultimate sacrifice to defend our country. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was a policy that should have never existed in the first place, but we’re unfortunately still feeling the repercussions of it to this day,” Garcia said in a press release.
“Now, the Department of Defense has the responsibility to uplift LGBTQ+ veterans who were previously degraded because of their sexuality. We are calling on the Secretary of Defense to continue prioritizing the Department’s commitment to reevaluate the thousands of cases where an LGBTQ+ serviceworker was discharged under less than honorable conditions in an attempt to correct the record and honor them the way they deserve,” Garcia added.
Pocan said, “The United States government has a moral obligation to right the wrongs it committed when it dishonorably discharged veterans from the armed services on the grounds of their sexual orientation.”
Pappas also highlighted the urgency of the corrections.
“While it’s been thirteen years since the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ the trauma of these policies is not over, and for far too many LGBTQ+ service members and veterans, their injustice has not been corrected,” he said in the release.
A landmark ruling by a Pennsylvania court could set crucial precedent for child custody decisions when LGBTQ+ couples separate or divorce.
Nicole Junior and Chanel Glover went through the entire IVF process together, splitting the massive costs to help Glover get pregnant, co-signing contracts, and establishing Junior as the intended co-parent, according to a report from the Philadelphia Inquirer. They had also been working on paperwork for Junior to obtain a second-parent adoption.
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But the couple experienced trouble in their marriage when Glover was about halfway through the pregnancy. Once Junior moved out, Glover declared she wanted to be a single mom and that Junior would not be allowed any contact with the baby.
The court, however, decided Glover had no right to make that decision.
Junior petitioned to be recognized as the baby’s parent, and the judge agreed that she deserved to be, as the couple had participated in the conception of the baby together.
Glover accused Junior of emotional abuse and volatile behavior, but Junior denied the accusations. The judge said accusations of abuse also do not have bearing on parental rights and could be discussed in a future custody hearing.
Glover appealed the judge’s decision just before the baby was born, and in August 2023, a panel of nine judges on the Pennsylvania Superior Court unanimously determined that Junior deserved full co-parental rights due to the couple’s “intent-based parentage.”
The decision declared, “The couple not only evidenced their mutual intent to conceive and raise the child, but they also participated jointly in the process of creating a new life.”
The decision is considered a victory by LGBTQ+ advocates, who praised the court for thinking beyond marriage and genetic connections for what makes someone a parent – especially as the number of LGBTQ+ people using assisted reproductive technologies continues to rise.
Helen Casale, a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, told the Inquirer the state now has precedent for judges to take into account the decisions and actions that lead to a child’s birth.
“How did they come to this determination to plan this family together?” Casale explained. “Did they go to doctors appointments? Did they make decisions related to the type of person who’s going to be the sperm donor?”
Attorney Mark A. Momjian described the suit as a “multigenerational legal battle to confirm civil rights in the LGBTQ community.”
Grover is now trying to get the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to take the case. According to Inquirer, she said someone contributing money to the IVF process is not enough to show intent, and if it were, her mom could claim parental rights as well.
“My mom was at the majority of my doctors appointments, majority of my son’s pediatrician appointments. My mom has done more,” Grover said.
But Junior has desperately been trying to be part of the child’s life. She has yet to meet her son or even see a photo of him since he was born.
LGBTQ+ advocates slammed Florida higher education officials for eliminating Sociology courses and any diversity programs on campuses.
The Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s university system, made the decision in implementing higher education reforms championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“It should be no surprise that today the Florida Board of Governors, a rubber stamp for Ron DeSantis’s agenda of censorship and surveillance, approved unprecedented rules that effectively abolish diversity and inclusion programs in our State University System intended to support LGBTQ and minority students,” said Carlos Guillermo Smith, Equality Florida’s Senior Policy Advisor.
“The Board’s rules go well beyond its authority granted by the Legislature and instead impose broad censorship on a vast array of campus activities and speech and seriously threaten student and faculty participation in public life across the political, social, and religious spectrum. The shockingly broad and vague language will inevitably lead to self-censorship and a chilling effect that will end academic freedom as we know it on university campuses.”
The university action took place just over a week after the Florida Board of Education voted to permanently ban any diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in Florida’s public colleges as well.
“Higher education must return to its essential foundations of academic integrity and the pursuit of knowledge instead of being corrupted by destructive ideologies,” said Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. “These actions today ensure that we will not spend taxpayers’ money supporting DEI and radical indoctrination that promotes division in our society.”
Smith said the actions taken to stop any recognition, much less promotion, of equality on Florida campuses marked an appalling blow to education in the state.
“The sweeping away of academic freedom combined with the elimination of sociology as a core course option, a reckless and unresearched decision made with little review of potential impacts, has diminished the prestige and reputation of Florida’s public universities,” he said. “The Board of Governors had the opportunity to hit the brakes, but instead, shamefully followed their censorship agenda off a cliff in service to DeSantis’s failed political ambitions.”
DeSantis embraced anti-LGBTQ policy in the build-up to a run for president, one he suspended earlier this month after a distant second-place finish to former President Donald Trump in Iowa, the first state to hold a presidential contest this year.
