Now some good news: four people have been convicted in last April's hate crime against CBS News employees, Ryan Smith and Dick Jefferson (pictured after the attacks). The men were leaving a bar while on vacation in St. Maarten's when they got into an altercation with four French nationals.

The nationals were incensed over the duo and their friend's apparent homo ways and took it out with the help of a tire iron. The force of their blows left Jefferson's skull cracked and gave Smith temporary brain damage.

CBS coincidentally reports:

Three citizens of the island's French half — Glen Cockly, Micheline Delaney and Allan Daniel — and a man from the nearby French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, Michel Javois, were found guilty of public violence and grievous bodily harm by Judge Jan Bosch.

Bosch determined that Javois, nicknamed "Duracell," was the one who assailed Smith and Jefferson — who are employees of CBS News in New York — with a tire iron as they left a bar with friends on April 6 while vacationing in St. Maarten.

When the story first broke, many debated whether or not Smith and Jefferson should have actively shrouded their homosexuality, as they were in a region known for its anti-homo vibe.

Smith notes: "It was because we were gay. Period. There is no question."

Of the verdict, Jefferson said: "Personally, I'm happy they reached a guilty verdict. Emotionally, it raises a lot more questions than it answers." Still, he's not entirely convinced people will get the message:

The people of St. Maarten should also ask whether the sentence sends the clear message that if you wrongly attack visitors, the punishment for endangering the island’s lifeblood will be steep. Also, does today’s sentence soothe the anxiety of visitors who now worry if they will be treated fairly should they become a victim of a crime?

• In St. Maarten, the trial against four men accused of brutally assaulting American Ryan Smith and his friends is put on hold — so Smith can return to the island to testify. [AP]

• Christina Aguilera, pissed that her friend Lance Bass can't marry boyfriend Reichen Lehmkuhl, comes out to publicly support gay marriage. [IE]

• In Mississippi, Willie Lee Mack pleaded guilty to the 2003 stabbing murder of his employer Gregory Acker, who Mack claimed "chased chased him with a baseball bat after Mack rebuffed a sexual advance." He was sentenced to 18 years. [AP]

• Senator Hillary Clinton is holding up the renewal of the 1990 Ryan White Act, a federal law passed to fight HIV/AIDS. She claims she wants more funding for her home state of New York, but critics say her political ambitions are the driving force behind the stall. [WaPo]

• In South Africa, cabinet members have moved to push through a gay marriage bill, foreshadowing the first African country to grant gays and lesbians the right to marry. [Reuters]

If you've ready Queerty for any length of time, then certainly you've happened upon our exclusive interview with Ryan Smith, a survivor of an April brutal gay bashing attack in St. Maarten. Since then, Ryan has received plenty of media attention and the effort to prosecute his attackers continues. Among the outlets covering the story is Out magazine, which originally posted an excerpt online from its August issue that generated much feedback – negative feedback – from readers. The excerpt seemed to slant the article's position as sympathetic to the men who attacked Smith and his friends, thanks to paragraphs like this:

On April 12, Time magazine’s Web site ran a story headlined, “The Most Homophobic Place on Earth?” It focused on antigay atrocities in Jamaica, and argued that “much of the rest of the Caribbean also has a long history of intense homophobia. Islands like Barbados still criminalize homosexuality, and some seem to be following Jamaica’s more violent example”—a point illustrated only by Jefferson and Smith’s experience in St. Maarten.

Such exaggerations were fueled by a handful of local newspapers. First, a hateful piece in the tiny St. Maarten newspaper Today praised the attack, and mockingly regretted that “Gay bashing is now a no-no.” The island’s largest newspaper, The Daily Herald, condemned the beating but suggested that “if the culprits felt the need to prove their manhood…they at least could have had the guts to fight them fairly, with their bare hands.” But The Daily Herald’s coverage of the attack has been fairly aggressive; a Herald reporter interviewed Smith and Jefferson in the hospital—which is more than can be said for the police.

Regarding the Caribbean more generally, the media’s hasty cries of homophobia were inflated. True, eight Caribbean countries still have antisodomy statutes on the books, but only Cuba and Jamaica have a reputation for enforcing those laws. Furthermore, it’s difficult to argue that island cultures—excepting Jamaica and Haiti—are overwhelmingly homophobic. Caribbean attitudes toward gay people range as widely as attitudes in the southeastern United States. Yet this isolated incident in St. Maarten almost immediately inspired reckless generalizations about the people of that region and ill-conceived threats from some gay leaders itching for vengeance.

In an updated version of its online item, Out decided to publish the entire story to counter readers' claims of sanctioned homophobic violence. And if you give the full article a read through, you might agree that the story isn't skewed against Ryan Smith and the survivors, but against a group of people so complacent with violence against any person, gay or straight. And that's how it should be.

Trouble in Paradise—The Complete Story [Out]
Earlier: Happy Endings: Out Blaming Ryan Smith For His Gay Bashing?
Related: Ryan Smith Speaks
Related: All Ryan Smith coverage

• Having wrapped up its annual conference, the National Education Association is still sticking to its talking points: it does not endorse gay marriage. It just wants to. [CNS News]

• It took Out a little while to get around to the Ryan Smith gay bashing story, and now that the magazine finally did, readers are livid the story came so uncomfortably close to blaming Smith for his own attack. [Out]

• Now that New York's highest court has made its decision regarding gay marriage, the question begs: Is that it? [Advocate]

• Forget how you'd feel if Jake Gyllenhaal or Vin Diesel came out. What would it mean to their straight girl fanbase? [After Elton]

• It's not a summer in P-town if Andy Towle isn't there. [Towleroad]

• D.C.'s most narcissistic gay explains the rules for playing Kings when your white ass isn't surround by your frat guy-cum-yacht club member crowd. [VividBlurry]

Indentified only by his nickname "Duracell," the fourth suspect in the St. Maarten gay bashing of CBS employees Ryan Smith and Richard Jefferson has been arrested — after turning himself in. He's accused of beating the two friends with a tire iron that fateful day in April and has been hiding out in St. Martin, the French side of the island.

Duracell's identity hasn't been released In accordance with Dutch law prohibiting suspects to be named before they stand trial. While we await the trial – which could very well be months away – brush up on Ryan Smith's story about the attacks. Especially the part where the legal system is inherently biased against him and Richard already.

St. Maarten arrests main suspect in beating of gay NYC tourists [AP]
Related: Ryan Smith Speaks

Ryan Smith was with a group of friends in a St Maarten bar, having a few drinks after yet another lucky wins at the local casino. St Maarten is promoted as a gay-friendly destination, and although the bar they were in was not specifically a gay bar, the locals are generally welcoming and gay visitors have usually felt comfortable everywhere on the island. But as Ryan and his boyfriend, Justin, were sitting off to the side they gave each other a hug, when a group of locals spotted them.

What resulted is told in the story that follows. Honestly, it's infuriating, not just because of the attack, but because of what has happened since with the police, the government, and the attackers who still have not been caught. The small island "St Martin" is split into two territories: St Martin is French, and St Maarten is Dutch; but the entire island's systems of government are grossly negligent.

There has been a lot of attention on this case because Ryan and Dick Jefferson, another friend in the group who was attacked, work for CBS News. Nothing was done about this case until Dick flew back to the island, threatened the government with media pressure, and they feared the negative press would deter future tourists.

I spent several days with Ryan, talking about the incident; when I mentioned the gay cruises that are still scheduled to stop at the island, he said he wanted to tell the story of what happened that night. It was far beyond the typical "gay bashing," if there is such.

Although he has healed well over the past month and should make a full recovery, Ryan still has problems communicating. Sitting for several sessions over two days, he told me what he wanted to say, and I typed. Please read.

[Read On ...]

• The gay couple who was kicked out of a Berkeley skating rink when they were practicing for the upcoming Gay Games (they were holding hands! scandal!) has reached a settlement with the rink's owners. Berkeley Iceland (a) will holddiversity training for its employees, (b) donate to the Gay Games, and (c) offer a gay skating night each month for the next year. So there. Honestly, only a bunch of queens would have the energy to come up with a settlement this creative. [SFGate]

• Youth prisons in Hawai'i will become more gay-friendly, and the state will pay $625,000 in a settlement with three LGBT youth inmates who say they were abused by prison staff. If you're going to go to prison and you're a kid, apparently Hawai'i is the place to do it now. [AP]

• A national "gay talk" hotline is being established in China, offering advice on coming out, HIV, and legal issues. And then the Chinese government will track down everyone who calls and arrest them. [ChinaDaily]

• Two more people have been arrested in St. Maarten, after the gay-bashing beatings of Richard Jefferson and Ryan Smith. When the Jefferson called the police to report the beating, St. Maarten's police refused to investigate, in an apparent attempt to protect the island's tourism-friendly image. So Jefferson brought news cameras to the island and tracked down the criminals himself. Ryan, by the way, is still--STILL--in Miami, recooperating from his injuries. [Newsday]

•...and this isn't news or anything, it's just funny. Totally Not Safe For Work. And random. Where does this guy work? [AssShot]

Oh, how glad we are not on a Dutch island in the Caribbean these days. First, Natalee Holloway disappears from Dutch-governed Aruba; now journalist Ryan Smith is in intensive care with brain damage, after being gay-bashed by a mob weilding tire irons.

Smith was with a group of friends on vacation, when they left a bar and were attacked in the parking lot. One of his friends, Richard Jefferson, was also beaten, but he is now okay. The story was reported on Good Morning America (link includes TV footage), not only for the anti-gay nature of the attack, but because St. Maarten police chose not to investigate the incident, either out of spite against the gay victims or fear of losing future tourism business.

The kicker: Ryan Smith was not yet "out" to his family before the attack, so his boyfriend Justin Swensin, who was also at the bar but escaped the incident without injury, had to break both sets of news to Smith's parents. Ryan's mom responded: "It doesn't matter if I know, if my husband knows. What's important is that these hate crimes are unjustifiable for any reason." Yea. Mrs. Smith, P-Flag is on the phone, they'd like you be their spokesperson forever, please.

Ryan will be hospitalized for at least a month for his injuries; the Miami-Dade Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce is providing housing in the Miami area for the Smith family, so they may temporarily relocate to the area during his treatment.

We're quite concerned for the welfare of Ryan himself, and can't imagine how dizzingly-surreal this ordeal must be for the parents on so many levels. We're also never, ever going to a Dutch island ever again.