So, as some of you know, I'm a gay 24 year old in WV, nearly the most conservative state in the Union. Don't be fooled by our paper voting turnouts, even the Democrats are social Republicans and religious nuts.

In the middle of December, my partner, Richard Johnson was found guilty of a sexual assault simply because he was gay. Those of you familiar with the area would know things like this are common; WV has a punishment bias from hell, and the homophobia runs as deep as the fresh mountain streams.

The circumstances surrounding the assault are a bit graphic, so I'll do this as primly as possible: he and another man got drunk, and Richard gave him oral sex. That's it, nothing to even remotely look like anything other than the typical drunken oral a lot of people are prone to. Around 3 days after the event, and upon learning his friends knew of his actions, even under duress of thinking the video of the event was going to be put online, the other guy said he was raped. (Now the video, of course, doesn't show a lot of movement, or any explicit consent, but I don't know many people that begin their sexual encounters with "I give consent to these things being done."

Currently, Richard is sitting in the North Central Regional Jail in WV, USA facing a possible 11 to 30 years for his actions. The bills are piling up, as they always do, and things are seeming more hopeless by the day. To those of you who read this, I ask you send good thoughts to he and I, and if you can, call your Senators and Reps and draw some attention to this matter. Anti-gay legal bias is more of a problem than lack of marriage rights, in my opinion. At least if you can't get married, you don't wind up in jail for a large chunk of your life.

Shortly, I'll be posting a youtube video to my channel: Mithrandir12687 to give as detailed an explanation as I can, and further plea for attention to this.

Sending you all love and light,

Andy