After being asked to consider whether West Virginia’s hate crimes law could be construed to include protections based on sexual orientation, state Supreme Court justices have scheduled oral arguments in the case of an ex-Marshall University football player.
The arguments are scheduled for April 25, according to Jennifer Bundy, spokeswoman for the court.
In April 2015, Steward Butler, then a Marshall player, allegedly punched two men and shouted homophobic slurs at them after he saw them kiss on a street in Huntington. He was dismissed from the team over his arrest.
Cabell County prosecutors have argued that he could be charged with a hate crime based on sex discrimination, because they say he was enraged because of his own expectations of gender and wouldn’t have attacked if one of the men had been a woman.