PUERTO RICO: Sweeping LGBT Rights Bill Passes, Heads For Governor's Desk

Via press release from the National Lesbian & Gay Task Force: 

The Puerto Rican House of Representatives today approved a sweeping nondiscrimination bill that protects lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in employment, housing, governmental services, public accommodations and private entities. Last week, the Senate approved the bill in a 15-11 vote and Gov. Alejandro García Padilla has vowed to sign the bill into law. The House today also approved a bill to add protections for sexual orientation, marital status and gender identity to the domestic violence law. It now moves to the Senate.

Local activist Pedro Julio Serrano applauds:

“Today is a thrilling day in Puerto Rican history. A decade ago, LGBT Puerto Ricans were criminals under the sodomy law, today we’re second-class citizens and when this bill is signed into law, we will be closer to achieving the first-class citizenship that we deserve. Equality is inevitable. Puerto Rico will be for all.”

PUERTO RICO: Man Arrested For Bomb Threat Against Gay Rights Rally

The FBI has arrested a man who tweeted a bomb threat against a planned LGBT rights rally in Puerto Rico. The tweet was directed at well-known activist Pedro Julio Serrano.

Joseph Morales was taken into custody at his home in San Juan on a charge of cyberbullying for allegedly posting the threatening message on May 6, according to Special Agent Moises Quinones, a spokesman for the FBI in the U.S. island territory.  The suspect was expected to make an initial appearance before a federal judge Monday on the charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Morales has not entered a plea and did not yet have a lawyer, Quinones said. Morales has acknowledged he posted a Twitter message in Spanish that included the words "watch out during the demonstration, it can end like in Boston," the FBI said in a statement. The message was directed at Pedro Julio Serrano, a well-known activist in Puerto Rico who was planning to attend an upcoming demonstration in support of gay rights legislation in the territory.

Puerto Rico Empanels Hate Crimes Investigation Unit

After a rash of brutal hate crimes, the Puerto Rican government has empaneled a special investigative committee.

The announcement by the attorney general was cheered Saturday by activists who complain the government has yet to invoke 2002 legislation establishing harsher penalties for crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity. "I think this is a step in the right direction to start to collect statistics that are vital to curb the crisis of violence against the gay community in Puerto Rico," said Pedro Julio Serrano, a native of the U.S. territory and spokesman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Serrano said 25 slayings of gay and transgender people in the past eight years may have been motivated by bias - including the decapitation in November of gay teen Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado, whose killing inspired vigils as far away as New York and Chicago. The new government committee involves agencies including the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Juan, police officials and the island's civil rights commission, according to a statement release by the attorney general late Friday.

PUERTO RICO: Parents React To Guilty Plea From Gay Son's Killer

Activist Pedro Julio Serrano and the parents of murdered gay teen Jorge Mercado spoke to the local news after their son's killer plead guilty. You don't have to speak one word of Spanish to be moved by this.

Killer Of Gay Teen Jorge Mercado Found Competent To Stand Trial

The confessed killer of gay teen Jorge Mercado has been found competent to stand trial. Last month Juan Martinez Matos was ordered to undergo mental evaluation after exhibiting symptoms of what some said was a faked state of psychosis. Via Michael Lavers at Edge:

"The quest for justice has begun," Pedro Julio Serrano of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force told EDGE in a text message sent from inside the court house. Local authorities have pledged to prosecute Martínez under the territory’s hate crimes laws, but activists and elected officials on the island and around the country remain outraged over Gov. Luis Fortuño’s continued silence. "There are a lot of people who are extremely angry about how the governor has responded to this situation," New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said as she spoke at a fundraiser for López’s family at the Nuyorican Poets Café on Manhattan’s Lower East Side on Tuesday night. Quinn is among the lawmakers-City Councilmembers Rosie Mendez [D-Lower East Side] and Melissa Mark-Viverito [D-East Harlem,] among others--from the five boroughs and Chicago who will travel to Puerto Rico on Tuesday to meet with López’s family and LGBT activists.

Serrano told me by phone today that the next step will a February 2nd hearing of the charges. If you are new to this story, in November Matos confessed to stabbing, burning, and dismembering 19 year old Jorge Mercado in what Matos is claiming was gay panic over discovering that Mercado was male.

You Don't Get To Kill Somebody Because He Is Wearing A Dress

In his confession to the decapitation murder of gay teen Jorge Mercado, Juan Martinez Matos (left) claimed that Mercado had been dressed as a woman in an area known for prostitution, driving him, he claimed, to murder Mercado in "gay panic" once he discovered Mercado's true gender. But according to Puerto Rican activist Pedro Julio Serrano, those close to Mercado are calling bullshit on that claim. Via Doug Ireland at Gay City News:

“None of Jorge Steven’s friends, and I’ve spoken to many of them, knew anything about his ever having engaged in sex work, not his family, and not the police,” Serrano, who met with investigators on the case, told this reporter. “Nor was he known as a cross-dresser. He identified and lived as a very proud gay man, he was very genuine and authentic. He was just very fashion-oriented and what you could call a gender-bender, but not in a transgendered way.” Serrano added, “We do not know if the murderer’s claim that Jorge Steven was wearing a dress is true or not, because the body had been so dismembered, its legs and arms and torso strewn in different locations, and it had also been burned along with the clothes he was wearing.” In footage aired on Telemundo-Puerto Rico, Martínez was asked by a reporter if he was gay, to which he replied no, and added, López “tried to kill me.” When he realized that López was a man, Martínez said he regressed to an incident when he was sexually assaulted during a prison term, Telemundo and local reports said. “He had a deep-seated rage,” said prosecutor Bermudez. Martínez’ lawyer has since indicated that he will employ a “gay panic” defense.

Obviously, whether Mercado was in drag or not, or was a sex worker or not, is completely irrelevant to the horrific crime committed against him. That his killer is claiming such is evidence that he knows he can gain more sympathy if others believe he was "tricked" by a man pretending to be a woman. Sadly, that belief is not limited to outsiders. Below, Pedro Julio Serrano ferociously criticizes the audience at a gay nightclub for anti-trans comments made in the wake of Jorge Mercado's murder.