The Michelangelo Signorile Show on SiriusXM PROGRESS ch.127

After midnight on January 18, 2015, Brock Turner, a student and member of the Stanford University swim team took an incapacitated, intoxicated, and unconscious woman that he did not know behind a dumpster and began raping her until two men caught him in the act, chased him down, called the police, and kept him there until the authorities showed up and arrested him.  Then on March 30, following the conclusion of his trial he was found guilty of three felonies and faced the possibility of up to 14 years in state prison.  However, the sentence Brock got—six months in county jail and three years of probation—was extraordinarily light; which is causing outrage across the country, especially in light of the fact that the heart-wrenching victim-impact statement has been made public.  Now, to add more to the controversy surrounding this case, Brock Turner’s father has had a letter of his own released in which he argues for leniency in his son’s sentencing.  Joining me today to talk all about the letter and the outrage it is causing is Christina Cauterucci who is a staff writer for Slate. 


For the second year in a row, there have been more than 100 anti-equality bills targeting LGBT people were introduced in state legislatures, many of them described as measures to protect religious liberty, and according to a new report by the People For the American Way Foundation, this flood of anti-LGBT and “religious liberty” legislation is not the result of isolated local efforts, but rather is part of a larger campaign by Religious Right groups to resist and reverse advances toward equality for LGBT Americans by portraying equality as inherently incompatible with religious freedom.  Joining me today to talk all about the report and the collection of groups behind this anti-LGBT backlash is Peter Montgomery a senior fellow at People For the American Way, where he contributes to their Right Wing Watch blog, Peter is also an associate editor at Religion Dispatches.  

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