Norfolk Modern Day Pharisee Sues Virginia Over LGBT Protections

Today was the first day that Virginia's new LGBT non-discrimination protections became effective and sure enough a Norfolk Christofascist who believes he should be above the law has sued the Commonwealth of Virginia, claiming that the ban on discrimination against other citizens, namely those who are LGBT, tramples on his "religious beliefs." Also not surprisingly, the virulent hate group Alliance Defending Freedom - the organization's name truly ought to include the words to be "to be a bigot and hate monger" - is representing Chris Herring, the Norfolk photographer who claims his religious freedoms are being trampled upon.  Seemingly missing from Herring's complaint is any evidence that any LGBT clients actually sought to force him to provide wedding photo services under the newly effective Virginia Laws.  Frankly, in my view, Herring is but another example of the self-centered and hate driven individuals of today's "conservative Christians" who show themselves to be anything but true Christians.  A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at the lawsuit and Herring's demand for special rights to discriminate against other Virginians.  The irony, of course, is that Herring and those like him would scream bloody murder if decent, moral people discriminated against him based on their religious beliefs and Christ's condemnation of Pharisees. Hopefully, decent, moral Virginians will boycott Herring's business.  Here are article excerpts:

A Norfolk wedding photographer is suing Virginia, arguing a new [LGBT] anti-discrimination law that took effect Wednesday violates his First Amendment rights. The photographer, Chris Herring, believes the Virginia Values Act forces him to promote same-sex marriage against his religious beliefs.

Herring “faces an impossible choice: violate the law and risk bankruptcy, promote views against his faith, or close down,” his attorneys wrote in the suit, filed Tuesday in federal court. “And this was exactly what Virginia officials wanted for those who hold Chris’ religious beliefs about marriage. Legislators who passed Virginia’s law called views like Chris’ ‘bigotry’ and sought to punish them with ‘unlimited punitive damages’ to remove them from the public square.”

The new law prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in housing, public and private employment, public accommodations and access to credit.

Herring, who [falsely claims he] is Christian, already serves LGBT clients for brand and adventure shoots, said Kate Anderson, senior legal counsel with the conservative Christian nonprofit [certified hate group] Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing him. But he does not photograph same-sex weddings and feels that doing so would be creating art and sending a message against his beliefs, Anderson said.

Anderson said Herring wants to post a belief statement on his business website, but is concerned that Virginia could levy enough fines to drive him into bankruptcy.

“Because of my faith, I can only photograph consistent with who I am and what I believe. I can only photograph what celebrates God’s creation and design for the world,” reads the proposed statement. “I won’t photograph ceremonies that contradict God’s design for marriage as something between one man and one woman.”

The attorneys say in court documents the language of the law would force the photographer “to create and convey photographs and blogs celebrating same-sex weddings because he does so for weddings between a man and a woman.”

Anderson noted in that and a similar case in Minnesota, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring “filed briefs supporting the government compelling artists to speak messages that violate their core convictions. So there’s no doubt that’s how (he) will interpret this law.”

The attorney general [Mark Herring] , who is not related to the plaintiff, is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Spokeswoman Charlotte Gomer said in an email Wednesday that his office is reviewing the complaint and will respond in court.

“Attorney General Herring believes that every Virginian has the right to be safe and free from discrimination no matter what they look like, where they come from, or who they love,” Gomer said. “LGBT Virginians are finally protected from housing and employment discrimination under Virginia law and Attorney General Herring looks forward to defending the Virginia Values Act in court against these attacks.”

Filed the day before the law went into effect, the freedom alliance said the Norfolk case is what’s known as a “pre-enforcement challenge,” allowing citizens to challenge a law before it’s enforced against them.

According to court documents, Chris Herring started his company in 2017 and operates mostly in Norfolk and Chesapeake. After initially doing only adventure photography, he expanded to weddings aiming to promote “God’s design for marriage which reflects Jesus’ sacrificial relationship to his Church.”

Again, decent, fair minded individuals and businesses need to boycott Chris Herring and his business and with luck, it will wither and die. Chris Herring is no different than "Christians" of old who cited the Bible to support slavery.  Hate and bigotry is still hate and bigotry even when wrapped in the smoke screen of religion.

Trump Regime Asks SCOTUS To Legalize Firing People For Being Transgender

Just when one thinks the Trump/Pence regime cannot get any more hostile to the rights - indeed the very existence of - LGBT Americans, another shoe drops and it becomes clear that until gays, lesbians and the transgender in particular disappear from public view, the relentless attacks will only intensify.  Pence is hysterically anti-gay in the typical mold of a likely self-loathing closeted gay.  What Trump actually believes is unclear since his main quest is to thrill Christofascists and maintain his support among anti-modernity, knuckle dragging evangelicals. While evangelicals remain rabidly anti-gay, it is transgender individuals who most garner their open hatred, in my view, because they most challenge evangelicals 12th century views on sex and sexuality.  Therefore, they must be destroyed or at least driven from public view.  Playing to this animus, yesterday, the Trump/Pence regime filed a brief with the U. S. Supreme Court that argues that transgender individuals have zero non-discrimination protections.  A piece in BuzzFeed looks at the filing.  Here are highlights:  

The Trump administration on Friday took one of its most aggressive steps yet to legalize anti-transgender discrimination by telling the Supreme Court that federal law allows firing workers solely for being transgender, arguing a Michigan funeral home could fire a transgender woman because she wanted to wear women’s clothing on the job.

Although the administration was expected to take the stance — and had previously said firing workers on the basis of gender identity is legal under federal law — the latest court filing asks the nation’s top court to establish federal case law in a potentially sweeping setback for LGBTQ rights nationwide.

The case is a dispute over the word “sex.” Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans workplace discrimination because of sex, but the court’s justices have never decided what, precisely, the term means for LGBTQ workers.

The Justice Department’s brief on Friday contends the word refers to a person’s “biological sex” and, further, that transgender discrimination isn’t addressed by a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that found Title VII bans sex stereotyping.

“Title VII does not prohibit discrimination against transgender persons based on their transgender status,” says a filing by the Justice Department . . . Rather, the administration contends, “Title VII prohibits treating an individual less favorably than similarly situated individuals of the opposite sex.”

A Supreme Court ruling in favor of the administration’s position could set off cascading ramifications for LGBTQ Americans by asserting that laws banning sex-based discrimination must be construed narrowly, and it would have no application for sexual orientation or gender identity — a decision that would likely overflow far beyond workplaces.

No federal law explicitly bans anti-LGBTQ discrimination, but the term “sex” appears in countless state and federal laws, and various policies, that ban discrimination. They have often been used by courts and agencies to protect LGBTQ people in a range of settings — from jobs and schools to doctor’s offices — and a Supreme Court ruling that finds sex absolutely does not protect LGBTQ people could unravel previous court rulings and narrow the meaning of policies.

The administration’s argument against LGBTQ rights matches the advocacy of conservative Christian groups, which claim Congress only intended to ban discrimination because someone is male or female . . . .

The counterargument from LGBTQ advocates and several lower courts, however, is that the intent of lawmakers does not limit a law’s reach, but rather its meaning is defined by the statute’s plain text. They say anti-transgender discrimination can result from a person defying traditional sex stereotypes or because the person transitioned from one sex to another — and thus, it is inherently a type of sex discrimination.

The case at issue is one of three currently before the court about the rights of LGBTQ workers under Title VII — and the only one concerning a transgender worker.

Aimee Stephens had presented as a man when she started her job in 2007 at R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes in Michigan. Six years later, after Stephens announced plans to transition to a woman, the owner, Thomas Rost, fired her.

In siding with Stephens last year, a 49-page opinion led by Judge Karen Nelson Moore at the Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit found that “The unrefuted facts show that the Funeral Home fired Stephens because she refused to abide by her employer’s stereotypical conception of her sex.”

But the Justice Department counters that when the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, “the ordinary public meaning of ‘sex’ was biological sex. . . . In Stephens’ case, this means government lawyers now say it was legal to fire her — thereby holding the opposite position as the EEOC even though it is representing the EEOC. As such, it says the 6th Circuit ruling should also be reversed.

Represented by the Christian conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom, the funeral home filed a separate brief, filed Friday, that portrays the case as a fight over the essence of gender norms in society, playing off fears stoked by conservatives about transgender people preying on women in bathrooms.

There are ZERO cases of transgender people preying on women.  The same cannot be said for numerous Republican office holders or countless pastors and priests. Sadly, the ADF brief is yet another case of "conservative Christians" lying through their teeth and putting their hypocrisy on open display. If their lips are moving, the safest assumption is that they are lying.  Yes, I am passionate about this issue having been forced from a law firm years ago for being gay.

200+ Major Companies Submit Supreme Court Brief in Favor of LGBT Employees

click image to enlarge.

On October 8, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the cases Altitude Express v. Zarda and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC and Aimee Stephens that will determine whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on sex, prohibits discrimination against LGBT employees.  206 major companies have filed amicus briefs with the Court arguing that LGBT employees should not be subject to firing or other employment discrimination.  Opposed to this argument is the always vile and always disingenuous Alliance Defending Freedom - but only for Christofascists, of course - which continues the quest of evangelical extremists and far right Catholics to be placed above the laws that govern the rest of us. Selfishness and greed - as the prior post on taxpayer funding of religious schools notes - are the main attributes of these people.  NBC News looks at the companies opposing discrimination.  Here are excerpts: 

More than 200 major U.S. and international corporations signed an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court on Tuesday arguing that excluding sexual orientation and gender identity from federal civil rights law “would undermine the nation’s business interests.”

“The 206 businesses that join this brief as amici collectively employ over 7 million employees, and comprise over $5 trillion in revenue,” the brief states. “These businesses — which range across a wide variety of industries (and some of which are even competitors) — share a common interest in equality because they know that ending discrimination in the workplace is good for business, employees, and the U.S. economy as a whole.”

The signatories include Airbnb, Amazon, American Airlines, Apple, Bayer, Bank of America, Best Buy, Domino’s, Facebook, GM, Google, Hilton, IBM, JP Morgan Chase, Marriott, Macy’s, Morgan Stanley, Nike and Comcast-NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News.

The brief comes before the high court hears arguments Oct. 8 in three cases involving LGBTQ workplace discrimination. In Altitude Express v. Zarda, a skydiving instructor was fired after a customer complained that the instructor disclosed that he is gay. In R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC and Aimee Stephens, a trans woman was fired from her long-time job at a funeral home after she announced her gender transition. And in Bostock v. Clayton County, a man was fired from his job as a county child welfare services coordinator after his employer learned he is gay.

While lower courts ruled in favor of the employees in the first two cases, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the employer in the Bostock case, setting up incongruity between the lower courts, and thus, a Supreme Court review. The high court justices are expected to rule on whether workplace discrimination based on one’s sexual orientation or gender identity violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.”

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative [certified hate group] Christian legal group known for advocating against LGBTQ rights, is arguing for the court to reverse lower courts’ expanding definition of sex discrimination.

Without a federal law explicitly banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, a number of states across the United States have passed their own measures to outlaw such discrimination. However, it is currently legal in 26 states [including Virginia, thanks to Republicans in the General Assembly] to fire someone solely due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank.

Should the Supreme Court side with the LGBTQ employees in the three cases at hand, discriminating against an employee due to their sexual orientation or gender identity would become illegal under federal civil rights law.

If one reads the wording atop the Supreme Court building, it says "equal justice under the law" - something that LGBT Americans in 26 states still do not enjoy.  I was forced from a law firm for being gay a decade and a half ago. It destroyed me financially and, while I am doing well financially again, I will never be in the financial position I would have enjoyed but for that bigotry based firing.  No one should have their life and their family harmed because of bigotry that clings to a selective parsing of Bronze Age myths and legends. 

And yes, I will continue to tell the truth about groups like Alliance Defending Freedom - and The Family Foundation - as long as they continue to disseminate lies about LGBT individuals and seek special rights for their knuckle dragging followers. . 

Trifecta of Hate: Chick-Fil-A, National Christian Foundation, and Brazilian President Meets with Hate Groups

Today was a trifecta when it comes to exposing the anti-gay and anti-LGBT hatred that passes as supporting "Christian" hate groups and rallying Christofascists to bolster raw political power based on the hatred of others. The first piece was actually not anything news wise since Chick-Fil-A has been financing anti-gay hate groups for years and those in the know who value themselves or their LGBT friends have avoided Chick-Fil-A for that very reason.  Nonetheless, today's news confirms that Chick-Fil-A's claims that it had changed its bigoted ways was and remains a deliberate lie. Out Magazine has details.  Here are excerpts:

Chick-fil-A is serving up more than just poultry. The Georgia-based fast-food chain, which has claimed in the past that is has no social or political agenda, has donated more than $1.8 million to a trio of groups who have records of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, according to newly released tax filings, ThinkProgress reports.

The company’s 2017 tax filings show that the company gave over $1.6 million to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, $6,000 to the Paul Anderson Youth Home and $150,000 to the Salvation Army, each of which is an increased donation from the previous year.

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is a Christian sports ministry that requires strict “sexual purity” and bars its employees from any “homosexual acts.” Paul Anderson Youth Home is a Georgia-based Christian residential home for troubled youth that, according to Think Progress, teaches those living there that homosexuality is wrong and that same-sex marriage is “rage against Jesus Christ and His values.” Though the Salvation Army claims that it does not discriminate against LGBTQ+ people, it has a history of referring LGBTQ+ people to conversion therapy.

Chick-fil-A does not have a nondiscrimination policy that includes explicit protection for employees based on gender identity or sexual orientation. In 2012, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy said that America is “inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.”

The company has claimed in the past that it would stay out of politics and focus on chicken and that they would cease donations to anti-LGBTQ+ groups.

Mr. Cathy, like it would seem most evangelical Christians, sees himself as exempt from the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness. But Chick-Fil-A has company when it comes to being a modern day Pharisee best defined by lying, hypocrisy and hatred towards others.   The lesson is that, if one wants to give to charities, pick one that is non-religiously affiliated (locally, the Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a good option).  Here is part of the expose on the National Christian Foundation:

The nation’s eighth-largest public charity is pouring tens of millions of dollars each year into a number of mostly anti-LGBT hate groups, a Sludge investigation shows. . According to the three most recent available tax filings—which cover 2015-17—it has donated $56.1 million on behalf of its clients to 23 nonprofits identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups.

“I certainly don’t know of any public disclosures of funds to hate groups at levels anywhere near this,” Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Sludge. “It’s pretty astounding and certainly concerning.”

The far-right evangelical National Christian Foundation (NCF), which offers Christian donors “expert guidance and creative giving solutions,” is the fourth-largest donor-advised fund by 2017 revenue in the U.S., having raised over $1.5 billion that year.In 2017, NCF’s donation to anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant hate groups rose to over $19 million.

By far the biggest recipient of NCF donations is Alliance Defending Freedom, a large network of Christian extremist lawyers who have supported criminalizing homosexuality, sterilizing transgender people, and claimed that gay men are pedophiles. The group recently came out against congressional Democrats’ Equality Act, which would ban discrimination against LGBTQ Americans.

Anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council, which has attempted to tie gay men to pedophilia for many years, accepted over $5.3 million from NCF from 2015-17.

Both organizations “spread vicious propaganda and disinformation, othering and maligning members of the LGBTQ community, which is a key reason they are rightly considered hate groups,” said Stroop.

The last piece of this trifecta of hate is the meeting of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and a who's who of Christian hate merchants, including Virginia Beach's never ending embarrassment, Pat Robertson who has a long history of lying about gays, blacks and minorities while enriching himself by preying on the ignorant and gullible.  Here are excerpts from Right Wing Watch:

Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s right-wing president, visited President Trump in the White House on Tuesday and followed up his official business with a Christian Broadcasting Network interview and meeting with conservative religious leaders, including CBN’s Pat and Gordon Robertson. U.S. right-wing leaders had supported Bolsonaro’s campaign and celebrated his election as an answer to prayer.

At a Rose Garden press conference with Trump, Bolsonaro said, “Brazil and the United States stand side-by-side in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect the traditional family lifestyles and respect to God, our creator, against the gender ideology and the politically correct attitudes and against fake news.” 

CBN noted that Bolsonaro “has surrounded himself with well-known Brazilian evangelicals,” including influential pastor Silas Milafaia, who told CBN he believes Bolsonaro is God’s chosen man to lead Brazil. He praised Bolsonaro for opposing abortion and the “privilege” of the LGBT movement. CBN also reported on Bolsonaro’s meeting with evangelical leaders, which included the Robertsons, Ralph Reed, Steve Strang, Penny Nance, Jonathan Falwell and Harry Jackson. “The American delegation prayed for Bolsonaro and promised to stand with his administration as he fights to protect Brazil’s Christian heritage and family values.”

As RWW reported last summer, Bolsonaro’s campaign got a boost from right-wing activists in the U.S., including former White House adviser Steve Bannon and former Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Bolsonaro’s far-right record and rhetoric has demonstrated contempt for women, LGBTQ people, the media, and democratic values. And shortly after his inauguration he began issuing executive orders and taking other actions going after the people he had targeted in his campaign rhetoric: the LGBTQ community; indigenous people

Bolsonaro meeting with American Christofascist leaders.

As noted before, often I feel like I am witnessing a reprise of the 1920's and 1930's when fascist dictators rose to power and American Nazis even held a huge rally in Madison Garden in New York City.  Then as now, most people seem to be oblivious to the growing menace to the civil rights and ultimately, their personal safety. If Trump secures re-election in 2020, I think it will be time to emigrate and ry to take my children and grand children with me.  

Senate Republicans Confirmed an Unqualified Gay Hater to the 4th Circuit

Allison Rushing - the face of hate and extremism and utterly unqualified for the federal bench.

While far too many Democrats - including Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine - are running around damaging the Democrat Party by embracing an idiotic "no forgiveness ever" political policy, Senate Republicans are stacking the federal judiciary with Christian extremists and alt-right extremists, a majority of whom have been rated as "unqualified"by the American Bar Association.  Rushing has tried four 9$0 cases in her legal career, none as lead counsel. 

A case in point is the confirmation of 37-years old Allison Jones Rushing who, though totally unqualified, has been appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals based in Richmond.  Rushing has been in legal practice only nine years and is now on a court one step below the U.S. Supreme Court.  Equally disturbing is Rushing background.  Besides clerking for Justice Clarence Thomas - in my view the absolute the mental midget of the Supreme Court - Rushing has a history with the hate group Alliance Defending Freedom ("ADF") which believes only far right Christians are entitled to freedom of religion and which has worked diligently to criminalize gays or, as a fall back make them subservient to the special rights of Christofascists.  Even I, a commercial transaction and real estate attorney with over 40 years of experience with both large and smaller firms, have tried more cases than Ms. Rushing both as lead counsel and as assistant counsel in appellate court cases, yet I would never pretend to have the trial experience necessary to sit on the 4th Circuit. 

The New Civil Rights Movement looks at this shocking confirmation which over time will cause harm to countless Virginians.  Here are excerpts:

At 37-years old Allison Jones Rushing was just confirmed to become the youngest judge on the federal bench. A lifetime appointment, she will sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and based on her age she will be a federal judge for decades, as HuffPost just reported.

Rushing clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and interned for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is listed as an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In case there's any question if her personal beliefs align with the ADF's, she has said she believes there are "moral and practical" reasons for not just opposing marriage equality, but for banning the marriages of same-sex couples.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday pushed through her confirmation, voting 53-44. Every Republican voted for her. Every Democrat voted against her, as Huffpost's Jennifer Bendery noted.

“She has practiced law for nine years. How many cases has she tried to verdict or judgment? Four. Has she been the lead attorney on any of those cases? No,” said Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), who serves as the Ranking Member on the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution. “That is the most scant, weakest legal resume imaginable for someone who’s seeking a lifetime appointment to the second-highest court of the land.”

Senator Durbin made his criticisms known on Monday when the Senate advanced her nomination: Republicans just advanced the judicial nomination of 36 year-old Allison Jones Rushing for the 4th Circuit (NC). She has practiced law for just 9 years, only tried 4 cases to verdict or judgment in her career (none as lead counsel), and isn’t even a member of the NC bar.

"Trump is appointing and Senate Republicans are confirming young, conservative, anti-black, anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ judicial nominees, like 37-year-old Allison Jones Rushing, who could remain on the federal bench and block new progressive laws for decades," CNN's Keith Boykin noted on Twitter.

The National Center for Transgender Equality's Gillian Branstetter wrote last year that "Rushing has built her short career on promoting homophobic and transphobic prejudice, siding with dogmatic ideologues over the rights of everyday citizens."

The Alliance Defending Freedom, Branstetter adds, "lead the fight to criminalize LGBTQ people’s existence in countries around the world. including efforts to forcibly sterilize transgender people. They defend the damaging and debunked practice of so-called conversion therapy, which is now banned in 15 states including the District of Columbia," and "stand by the horrific claim that being transgender is 'most often' a result of child abuse."

The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit oversees North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The Trump/Pence regime continues to follow the template laid down by Hitler" constantly attack the free press and stack the courts with supportive extremists who lack credentials and legitimate experience.  Meanwhile, my Republican "friends" stick their heads in the sand and ignore the evil they are complicit in allowing.

Nazi judges.

The 10 Biggest Homophobes and Transphobes of 2018

Homophobes Dallin H. Oaks, Mary Fallin, and Roger Severino.

As is common as December 31st approaches, many news outlets are looking back for significant events of the past year as well as heroes and villains.  In the last category should be included those who peddle hatred of others, especially LGBT individuals, under the smoke screen of religion or political self-prostitution to haters and hate groups.  A piece in The Advocate looks at some of the worse homophobes and and purveyors of hate towards those who are transgender.  Not surprisingly, the faux "Christian" Alliance Defending Freedom, the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormon Church and Republican politicians and apparatchiks that the prizes as the most hate-filled groups/individuals domestically.  The following are article highlights that look at these hate merchants and religious zealots:

LGBTQ people have made great strides toward equality in the U.S. and around the world, but we still have homophobes and transphobes trying to roll back our progress, and unfortunately some of them are running the country. We of course have had the usual suspects to deal with -- Mike Pence, Tony Perkins, Bryan Fischer, Louie Gohmert, Pat Robertson, and many more -- but here we'll spotlight some of those who particularly made news this year. 

Alliance Defending Freedom  The year's top Phobie Aware goes to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal nonprofit that specializes in causes important to the religious right. . . . . The ADF is still fighting for the right to discriminate. It's asked the Supreme Court to take up cases where ADF is trying to end a Pennsylvania school district's transgender-inclusive restroom policy and advocating for a funeral home's right to fire a trans employee. Oh, and it's got another case involving Masterpiece Cakeshop, for a refusal to make a birthday cake that celebrates a trans woman's gender transition. The ADF contends that the state of Colorado is harassing Philllips by expecting him to obey the antidiscrimination law.

Dallin H. Oaks [Mormon Chrch]  It's not news that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, known informally as the Mormon Church, isn't accepting of LGBTQ people, but one of its top leaders, Dallin H. Oaks, took the homophobia and transphobia to new heights this year. “Our knowledge of God’s revealed plan of salvation requires us to oppose many of the current social and legal pressures to retreat from traditional marriage or to make changes that confuse or alter gender or homogenize the differences between men and women,” . . . . Those pressures, he said, come from none other than Satan, who “seeks to confuse gender, to distort marriage, and to discourage childbearing, especially by parents who will raise children in truth.” . . . . There's an epidemic of suicide among LGBTQ youth in the church's home state of Utah, and much of the blame can be placed on the denomination's hatred.

Right-wing Catholics  It has been a banner year for homophobia in the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis, who once said “Who am I to judge?” about gay priests, said gay people don’t belong in the clergy. Not that the church has ever been truly accepting of gay clergy, but their presence has been an open secret for eons. With the church rocked by sex abuse scandals, Cardinal Gerhard Müller blamed gays for abuse, even though there’s no correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia.

Roger Severino [Trump Appointee] Roger Severino, director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, is overseeing the Trump administration's effort to define transgender people “out of existence,” as The New York Times put it in an October story breaking the news of a memo circulating among federal government agencies to legally define gender as something immutable and fixed at birth, as indicated by a person’s genitalia. He's also spearheading HHS's "conscience protection" efforts, aimed at aiding health care workers with religious objections to serving certain patients, which could well result in denial of care to LGBTQ people. Severino has a long history of working for far-right groups and opposing LGBTQ rights. He has opposed marriage equality, defended “ex-gay” therapy, and objected to allowing transgender people to serve in the military.

Mary Fallin and Jeff Colyer [GOP Governors]  As governors of Oklahoma and Kansas, respectively, Mary Fallin and Jeff Colyer signed bills into law that will allow adoption and foster care agencies that provide state-funded services to reject prospective parents who offend the agencies' religious dogma. They could be interfaith couples, single parents, or, yes, same-sex couples or single LGBTQ people. That's discrimination funded with tax dollars. For Fallin, the action was one more notch in a long record of anti-LGBTQ governing.

Texas Republican Party  Whenever the Texas Republican Party approves a platform, it's sure to be anti-LGBTQ. This year's may be its most hateful yet, though. At its biennial convention in June, the party adopted a platform that again endorses “ex-gay” therapy, as it has since 2014, as well as opposing marriage equality and supporting business owners’ right to discriminate against anyone who offends their religious sensibilities. It makes a new call for the state to repeal its hate-crimes law and opposes all efforts to recognize transgender people’s identity. 

Exposing the "Alliance Defending Freedom," an Anti-Gay Hate Group

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Hate Groups Launch Deceptive Campaign Targeting Gay Parents

As numerous posts have noted, evangelical Christians and hate groups that they sponsor believe that they should be exempt from compliance with non-discrimination laws.  Stated another way, they deem themselves above the laws that bind all other citizens. They believe that their beliefs - all based on Bronze Age myths and legends - put them above the law.   Nowhere is this phenomenon more true than in the context of their relentless campaign against LGBT citizens and the demand that their organizations be either (i) directly funded by grants of taxpayer funds, or (ii) indirectly funded by all citizens through grants of tax exempt status.  Thus, here in Virginia and elsewhere, Christofascist adoption agencies want to receive outright state funding yet be free to discriminate against selective taxpayers.  Worse yet, their disingenuously claim that children will be harmed if they are required to comply with non-discrimination laws.  A piece in LGBTQ Nation looks at a new insidious campaign to fool the public in order to all hate groups to receive taxpayer funding.  Here are excerpts: 

Anti-LGBTQ and conservative groups seem to be stepping up efforts to undermine gay adoption and gay families via a website pushing a deceptive campaign.

Groups such as the Family Research Council, the Heritage Foundation, the Alliance Defending Freedom [the FRC and ADF are certified hate groups], and a few others have been steadily making the case that faith-based foster care and adoption agencies which refuse to work with gay couples should still receive tax dollars. A few states, such Oklahoma and Kansas, have passed legislation saying so.

Other municipalities, such as Philadelphia, however have made it clear that tax dollars shouldn’t go to entities which discriminate for any reason. And Philadelphia won in court on that premise.

Now a website sponsored by the groups makes the case for tax dollars going to discriminatory agencies. The website and hashtag #keepkidsfirst claims that children will suffer if faith-based adoption and foster care agencies are made to follow civil rights laws.

The website is built on the dishonest premise that some people, particularly the LGBTQ community, are attempting to shut down faith-based adoption and foster care agencies. In reality, the central argument is simple – if these agencies want to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, they shouldn’t be allowed to do so while receiving tax dollars.

By keeping the plight of children needing adoption in the forefront, the sponsors of the website hope to draw attention away from its darker aspects – undermining adoption laws and the dignity of LGBTQ taxpayers.

They are attempting to force an unfair choice on the LGBTQ community. Do we choose our dignity as taxpayers over children or children over our dignity as taxpayers?
It’s an unfair choice. In fact, it shouldn’t even be a choice put upon the heads of the LGBTQ community.

It has been proven time and time again that same-sex households are wonderful places to raise children and we make great parents.  If religious foster care and adoption agencies choose to ignore this, that is their right.

What they are doing is wrong because for all of their bluster about providing children with good homes, they are deliberately ignoring good homes. And the LGBTQ community shouldn’t be forced to surrender our hard earned tax dollars to promote their prejudices.

Furthermore, it is extremely sleazy that groups like the Family Research Council, the Heritage Foundation, and the Alliance Defending Freedom are again exploiting children as shields to make their homophobia seem more palpable.

When one takes into account their extensive history of pushing anti-LGBTQ laws, promoting anti-LGBTQ prejudices, and generally making life hell for the LGBTQ community, their so-called concern about children is merely a smokescreen for more of their bigotry.

Personally, I would end all direct state funding to such groups and go further and end tax-exempt status for all churches and religious organization. 

Faux Christian Jack Phillips Again Proves He's A Bigot

Likely emboldened by the Supreme Court's refusal to squarely address the issue of whether claimed or feigned religious belief allows ones to be exempt from non-discrimination laws and public accommodation laws - and encouraged by the hate group, Alliance Defending Freedom ("ADF") - Jack Phillips, the owner of the infamous Masterpiece Cakeshop is back in federal court.  This time he is suing the State of Colorado and defending his refusal to create a cake to celebrate a milestone in the life of a sexual minority.   Let's be blunt.  Phillips is a self-centered bigot who sadly now feels he has a platform from which to encourage similar modern day Pharisees to insult and reject those they don't like. Meanwhile, his legal counsel at ADF won't be happy until homosexuality is re-criminalized.  Anything and anyone who challenges the Christofascists' Bronze Age myth based beliefs must be attacked and crushed. A piece in Politico looks at the new round of bigotry and pretense of martyrdom on display from Phillips.   Here are highlights:

Difficult decisions can be deferred, but not ultimately avoided. So it is that Jack Phillips, the owner of the famous Masterpiece Cakeshop is back in federal court, again defending his refusal to create a cake to celebrate a milestone in the life of a sexual minority.

This time, it’s a birthday cake celebrating a gender transition he’s declining to bake, and it’s not clear how the courts will balance the parties’ competing interests. That’s because of the Supreme Court’s dithering on the issue earlier this summer.

Just two months ago, the Supreme Court confounded expectations on all sides with its side-stepping decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. It looked like the case had nicely teed up the question of how to accommodate two competing interests. On the one side stood a gay couple that wanted to buy a wedding cake from a business that had an obligation under Colorado state law not to discriminate against them on the basis of sexual orientation. On the other stood the owner of the cake shop, Jack Phillips, who claimed that requiring him to create a cake in celebration of a same-sex wedding would violate his constitutionally protected rights of religion and free expression. How would the court resolve these competing claims?

It didn’t. . . . . The case didn’t even provide useful guidance for another case that was then before the court. A florist had refused to create an arrangement for the gay wedding of a couple she’d known for years, citing her religious belief. After sitting on the case for many months, the court finally decided not to hear it, vacated the judgment in favor of the couple, and directed the lower courts to resolve the matter in accordance with its Masterpiece Cakeshop decision. But that is no help at all, unless the case is also found to have involved anti-religious animus.

Now comes Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Elenis. Phillips, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian [hate] group that represents clients in lawsuits that involve challenges to religious freedom, contests a finding by Aubrey Elenis, the director of the Colorado Civil Rights Division, that there is “sufficient evidence” to support a claim of discrimination in the case.

Sardina revealed that she wanted the cake to have a pink interior and a blue exterior. Then she added that the colors were to celebrate her coming out as transgender on her birthday, some years earlier. At that point, Debi Phillips (Jack’s wife, and the co-owner of the cake shop) declined to create the cake because of the Phillipses’ belief that gender was biological, and immutable.

If that’s all there is to the case, it’s not hard: Sardina should win under the Colorado anti-discrimination law, which protects customers in certain enumerated classes—including sexual orientation and transgender status—from the denial of service in places of public accommodation (like a bakery). . . . . If she had told Debi Phillips that she wanted the blue/pink cake for a gender-reveal party, as a clever way of announcing that she was going to deliver boy/girl twins, we can safely assume the request would have been honored. The complaint admits that the “problem” with the cake is its association with a message the owners don’t agree with. But a pink/blue cake, without more, doesn’t send a “message” about gender transition.

It would be a different story if Sardina had also requested that Jack Phillips write “Happy Gender Transition Day!” because the government can’t compel a business owner to engage in speech he finds objectionable. But the simple act of creating a blue-pink cake doesn’t send any message at all—unless that message is that Phillips refuses to create a given cake for one class of people (those hosting gender-reveal parties) but not for others.

In short, Phillips’ refusal here is the very essence of discrimination, and the court should have no part of endorsing it. In the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, there was a lively exchange in concurring opinions between Justices Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan about this very question—whether Phillips’s right to freedom of expression would allow him to refuse to create a cake he knew would be used for a gay wedding, even if that cake were identical to a cake he might make for a “traditional” wedding.

Kagan’s position is that a business owner can’t refuse to bake a cake for one customer, but not another. That doesn’t mean Phillips would have to create a cake reading “I love gay marriage!”, but, as she noted, in the case before the court the couple “requested a wedding cake that Phillips would have made for an opposite-sex couple.” She properly rejected Gorsuch’s view that the controversial confection would have been “a cake celebrating same-sex marriage” because of its significance to the couple and Phillips alike. As Kagan noted: “It was simply a wedding cake – one … suitable for use at [all] weddings.” That’s the only interpretation of the law that can keep it from collapsing into a free-for-all, in which the mere invocation of free expression is enough to defeat any claim of discrimination.

If a business owner can refuse to serve one customer the exact same product that he’d willingly sell another based on an objection to the use to which the product would be put, we might just as well admit that anti-discrimination laws are toothless.

That doesn’t mean Sardina will win the case if it does get to the Supreme Court, though. With Kennedy out of the picture—and Brett Kavanaugh his likely replacement—the conservative justices will be more apt to grant review of close cases, knowing they have the five votes they need to roll back the court’s more progressive decisions.

[I]t’s easy to forget that the discrimination laws are in place for a reason, and that the same logic that would allow religious objectors to deny service to the LGBT community would also permit turning away a couple that wanted to celebrate an interracial wedding.

Personally, I wish decent people would simple boycott Phillips' bakery and allow it to wither away or limp along with only a bigoted Christofascist client base.  I'd prefer to have no cake than have one baked by a foul, self-centered, grandstanding bigot.

Alliance Defending Freedom: The Face of Anti-LGBT Hate

As noted in previous posts, the Trump/Pence Department of Justice under the very racist and very homophobic Jeff Sessions (my experiences with Sessions date all the way back to the late 1970's/early 1980s) is pushing a so-called task force to protect "religious liberty," a euphemism used to mask the agenda of the far right Christians to exempt themselves from non-discrimination laws and public accommodation laws. A piece in Rewire News (formerly Religion Dispatches)  

At the summit, DOJ attorneys assured attendees they are protecting the religious rights of everyone in the United States, all while conservative Christian politicians and advocates voiced a need for stepped-up federal protections beyond those they already enjoy. It was also a forum for Sessions to announce the next phase of Trump’s May 2017 executive order: a task force that will likely implement those very protections and, in doing so, safeguard conservative Christians’ ability to discriminate against vulnerable groups.

With the highest incidence of religious based discrimination and hate crimes being against Muslims, the summit acted as if this reality did not exist and made it clear that if one is Hindu, gay, or of some non-Christian faith, one would be treated as if invisible by the task force. A driving force behind this special rights for Christofascists agenda is Alliance Defending Freedom, a certified anti-gay hate group that for years has disseminated malicious falsehoods against the LGBT community both in America and abroad and, which if it could, would criminalize homosexuality.  A piece in The Advocate looks at the sinister specter behind the DOJ's agenda.  Here are highlights:

One hate group that compares LGBTQ people to pedophiles is laying the groundwork to usher in a new age in this country where civil rights laws are rendered moot. And unless we stand in their way, they are going to win.

NO GAYS ALLOWED was plastered onto a storefront in Tennessee after the United States Supreme Court ruled that the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop would have his case reheard by Colorado officials over his refusal to make cakes for same-sex weddings. The court did not rule that businesses can ban LGBTQ people. But, the reaction in Tennessee to this ruling gave us a glimpse into the future we are headed toward. It is a future where LGBTQ people are refused services at stores, turned away from jobs, and denied care at hospitals. Things that, all too often happen today but may soon be court sanctioned and brought to you by America’s most successful anti-LGBTQ hate group: the Alliance Defending Freedom.

ADF’s version of religious freedom is not the idea that one may believe or worship as one pleases. For them, it means a cakeshop owner can turn away a gay couple, as Phillips did, that a doctor can decline to treat someone if they deem someone morally offensive, and even a teacher can refuse to call a transgender student by their name.

ADF’s been designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate-group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They’ve advocated for the criminalization of LGBTQ people in the United States and abroad.

It’s founder, Alan Sears, while president of ADF, published a book that falsely claimed being gay was “intrinsically linked” to pedophilia. Sears’s book was on ADF’s legal fellows reading list as recently as 2015.

The group also appears to have close ties to the Trump administration, and their clients frequently speak at government events about ADF-style religious freedom. In January, Sara Hellwege, an ADF client, praised ADF as she spoke at the Department of Health and Human Services’ announcement that it would attempt to allow doctors’ morality to determine which patients will be treated. On July 30, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of a so-called Religious Liberty Task Force, he mentioned Jack Phillips three times in his speech before Phillips spoke at the event. Former ADF staffers now working for Sessions are believed to have helped in the creation of this task force.

It seems even more likely that ADF will rack up anti-LGBTQ victories with the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. If Trump’s pick, Brett Kavanaugh, replaces Kennedy, he will be the fifth hard-right justice on the court.

The group has become so emboldened from their legal victories that on July 17, ADF declared it will charge forward with a “proactive defense of freedom” and challenge the constitutionality of non-discrimination laws as soon as they are signed into law.

We know what ADF is doing, their playbook is simply: Push lots of small cases, make ties with federal leaders, and claim they don’t support discrimination — it’s just a minor byproduct of religious freedom. Where we fail is that instead of taking on ADF directly, the LGBTQ movement tackles each case, government edict, and ADF victory separately, never tying it all together to ADF’s overall strategy, sometimes not even mentioning ADF’s involvement at all.

Without this bigger picture the simple truth gets lost: a hate-group is trying to find any argument it can to justify discrimination against LGBTQ people. Period.