National Gaze

Students across the United States are returning to classrooms for the 2011-12 school year. But not Lawrence King or Brandon McInerney.

King is dead, shot twice in the back of the head in his middle school computer lab at the age of 15.

A former Rutgers University student accused of using a webcam to spy on his roommate’s sexual encounter with another man wants his case dismissed because evidence of the teenager’s state of mind before he committed suicide wasn’t presented to the grand jury that indicted him.

Lawyers for former Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi argued that prosecutors withheld evidence showing Ravi never bullied roommate Tyler Clementi. Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge days after his same-sex encounter was furtively captured on a webcam and transmitted through the Web.

Attorneys in California’s Proposition 8 dispute returned to a courtroom Aug. 29 to argue over the release of a videotape of the federal district court trial that resulted in a judge overturning the anti-gay amendment to California’s constitution.

At the hearing, American Foundation for Equal Rights attorneys, who represent the same-sex couples in the federal case against Prop. 8, argued that videotapes of the 12-day trial must be released.

Michele Bachmann got a boost and Newt Gingrich took the boot from voters in the Iowa Straw Poll. The event was viewed as the first test of the presidential election in November 2012.

Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota, placed first with 28 percent of the vote in the Aug. 13 poll held at Iowa State University in Ames. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas placed second, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty placed third and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania placed fourth.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has joined the court challenge against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that denies married gay couples federal benefits.

The brief filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan argues that the law violates same-sex couples’ right to equal protection under the U.S. Constitution.

California’s secretary of state cleared a group to begin collecting signatures for a ballot referendum to overturn a first-in-the-nation law requiring public schools to teach the contributions of gays and lesbians in social studies lessons.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB48 earlier this month, making California the first state to mandate such lessons in public school curricula. The requirement is set to take effect in the 2013-14 school year.

As hundreds of gay couples became newlyweds in New York in July, their well-wishers included many far-flung gays aware that their own states may never willingly allow same-sex marriage.

In all, 30 states have adopted constitutional amendments aimed at limiting marriage to one-man, one-woman unions.