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

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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. . 

Michigan Ends Funding For Anti-LGBT Adoption Groups

In a move that needs to be followed in every state in the country, the sate of Michigan will no longer provide state funding to adoption and foster care agencies that refuse to work with LGBT individuals as adoptive parents or foster parents citing "religious belief."  Expect shrieks and flying spittle and claims of persecution from those who want to gorge themselves at the public taxpayer funds trough yet want to discriminate against taxpayers.  The choice is simple, if you take public funds, you work with all of the public.  If you are unwilling to do that, then do not take public funds. The reality is that many of these bigoted agencies cannot make a financial go of it without taxpayer funds - something that ought to tell them that their bigotry and exclusionary policies are not wanted in the public market place.  The Detroit Free Press looks at the development.  Here are excerpts:

Michigan will no longer financially support adoption and foster care agencies that refuse to work with same-sex couples and LGBTQ individuals because of religious beliefs under the terms of a settlement of a lawsuit negotiated by Attorney General Dana Nessel.

The settlement, which was announced Friday, sets up a battle with the Republican-led Legislature, which passed a law in 2015 that allows adoptions agencies to refuse to work with members of the LGBTQ community.

The terms of the settlement require that the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services agrees to maintain nondiscriminatory provisions in its foster care and adoption agency contracts. It also calls for the department to enforce the nondiscrimination provisions by terminating contracts with agencies that either discriminate against same-sex couples or LGBTQ individuals who would otherwise qualify to become foster or adoptive parents or that refer them to other agencies.

In exchange for the policy, the plaintiffs in the case — Kristy and Dana Dumont of Lansing and Erin and Rebecca Busk-Sutton of Detroit — have agreed to dismiss their claims and pay their own attorney fees and costs.

In 2015, Republicans in the Michigan Legislature, voting mostly along party lines, passed a controversial bill that allows adoption and foster care agencies to cite religious convictions when refusing to work with same-sex couples who want to adopt  or foster a child.

The two couples filed a lawsuit in 2017 challenging the MDHHS contract with taxpayer-funded and state-contracted foster care and adoption agencies that refused to work with same-sex couples.

The couples said they approached St. Vincent Catholic Charities and Bethany Christian Services to adopt children the agencies had accepted through referrals from MDHHS.  They said the agencies refused to work with them.

The state contracts with 59 private adoption and foster care agencies across the state and while the MDHHS wasn't able to say specifically how many don't work with same-sex couples or LGBTQ individuals, 20 of the agencies are affiliated with religious organizations.

During her campaign for attorney general, standing up for the rights of the LGBTQ community was a major theme.

“Discrimination in the provision of foster care case management and adoption services is illegal, no matter the rationale,” Nessel said in a statement. “Limiting the opportunity for a child to be adopted or fostered by a loving home not only goes against the state’s goal of finding a home for every child, it is a direct violation of the contract every child-placing agency enters into with the state.”

The ACLU said the settlement was a victory for the 12,000 children in foster care in Michigan.

“Our children need every family that is willing and able to provide them with a loving home," said Leslie Cooper, deputy director of the ACLU LGBT & HIV Project. "When agencies choose to accept taxpayer dollars to provide public child welfare services, they must put the needs of the children first.”

Leading the way in whining was the Catholic Church which routinely acts like a hog at a trough when it comes to seeking taxpayer funds to prop up its discriminatory agencies. 

Salvation Army Drug Clinics Rejecting Transgender People

Every year when the holiday season arrives I encourage people to walk on by the Salvation Army kettles without putting in even a dime. Why, because the organization continues to be stridently anti-LGBT despite many mealy mouthed statements aimed at hiding the truth that the organization remains a right wing religious body that is in some ways little better than the "family values" hate groups.  As Think Progress is reporting, in New York the Salvation Army has been caught discriminating despite that state's non-discrimination laws.  There are plenty of worthy charities to which contributions can be made.  The Salvation Army is not one of them.  Here are highlights on the situation in New York:

The New York City Commission on Human Rights (NYCCHR) announced last week that it was charging four different substance abuse centers, one of which is run by the Salvation Army, with discriminating against transgender patients in violation of city law.

[T]he violations found included:

·        Refusing to accept transgender people as patients or tenants
·        Assigning trans people rooms based on their sex assigned at birth instead of their lived gender identity
·        Unwarranted physical examinations to determine if trans people are on hormone therapy or have had surgery
·        Segregating transgender patients into separate rooms.

The discrimination was found through a testing process after the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) tipped off the commission that mistreatment was happening. One of the clinics told the testers outright, “No, we don’t [accept transgender patients].” Another clinic’s representative said, “People with moving male parts would be housed with men.”

The NYCCHR has the authority to fine violators up to $250,000 and can also require trainings, policy changes, community service, and mediated apologies.

Two of the clinics found to be violating city law have religious affiliations. The Addicts Rehabilitation Center was founded by a church, operates a gospel choir as one of its programs, and is currently run by Rev. Reginald Williams, a baptist preacher.

The Salvation Army is itself a church with a long history of discriminating against LGBTQ people. While that history has mostly focused on its rejection of homosexuality, a Salvation Army-run homeless shelter in Texas was also accused of anti-transgender discrimination in 2014. Their public relations campaign to improve their LGBTQ image has rung rather hollow.

The recent U.S. Trans Survey found that 22 percent of trans people had been harassed or denied treatment when trying to access services from a drug or alcohol treatment program.

Controversy Continues Over Virginia Beach School Board LGBT Policy

When it comes to getting itself embroiled in controversy. few public bodies show the ineptitude of the Three Stooges like Virginia Beach School Board.  The board's public relations skills are nil and those on its PR team truly seem to be utterly incompetent. A case in point is what many see as the board's anti-LGBT mentality in the wake of the abrupt cancellation of a Gay-Straight Alliance assembly at Frank F. Cox High School, the neighboring high school to my old neighborhood in Virginia Beach. The Virginian Pilot is carrying another guest editorial  on the issue which like that by Grace Bonney previously highlighted is authored by two individuals who I have known for years.  Like others, they call on the Board to clarify policies towards LGBT students who still face daily harassment and bullying in far too many instances.  While Virginia Beach likes to picture itself as a modern city, it remains among the most reactionary cities in Virginia with Christofascists still holding too much sway in the public arena and in school policies.  It is long past time that the city moved into the 21st century. Here are op-ed highlights:

AS ALUMNI of Virginia Beach City Public Schools, we have followed the cancellation of Cox High School’s Gay-Straight Alliance event with concern and dismay. While the event has been rescheduled, the School Board has neither acknowledged any potential homophobia inherent in the event’s postponement nor addressed the atmosphere of harassment that LGBTQ students face in Virginia Beach schools. We find this troubling.

Incoming School Board member Victoria Manning, who called for the cancellation of the GSA assembly, noted in The Pilot on Dec. 9 that certain parents were upset about “the timing and nature of the event.”

This is puzzling. The “nature of the event” was to promote acceptance of differences and combat bullying. Despite Manning’s language, we don’t find anything controversial in that objective, and we suspect that opposition to the event reflects ingrained homophobia as much as procedural error.

We agree that club meetings and assemblies during the school day must be rare. But we are concerned here about process.

We suspect not. We note that the planned GSA gathering was optional; surely a parent concerned about a child missing class time might simply have advised her son or daughter not to attend.

The school division’s policies in this area are, by the board’s own admission, ambiguous. We are interested in the history of school-day gatherings at Cox and other schools. Under what circumstances and for what organizations have such assemblies been held? Indeed, the Virginia ACLU has asked the School Board for such data.

Manning has suggested that her 11th-hour email to Edwards was the result of outreach from parents who were concerned about the impact of the assembly on classroom time.

We ask: What compels parents to call a School Board member to register alarm about a specific assembly? We wonder whether parents routinely object to pep rallies and sporting events that interrupt the instructional day. What about guest speakers? Holiday celebrations? Theatrical events? Awards ceremonies?

The Cox GSA assembly — which was designed to celebrate “love is love” after a gay student who was bullied attempted suicide — was directly related to preserving the sanctity of the classroom experience for all students.

Nationwide, LGBTQ teens are at higher risk for bullying and harassment, including verbal and physical assault, and nowhere is such marginalization more conspicuous, even systematized, than in our schools.

Human Rights Watch recently conducted a study on the treatment of gay and lesbian youth in Alabama, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Utah and found that “almost all of the students interviewed reported encountering verbal harassment in their school environment, even in the most LGBT-friendly schools.”

Studies conducted by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network found that 32 percent of LGBTQ students did not go to school at least one day because of feeling unsafe, 44 percent had experienced physical harassment, 22 percent had experienced stronger violence (61 percent never reported it), and 31 percent said the school had made no attempt to respond to those students who had reported attacks.

These statistics reveal the atmosphere of intimidation that predisposes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth to a suicide rate that is four times higher than that of straight youth.

Virginia has no law prohibiting bullying based on sexual orientation or gender identity in schools (nor does it provide legal protections for LGBTQ teachers and administrators).

We condemn the fact that Manning has received threats. We also wish that “What really happened with the Gay-Straight Alliance,” her Dec. 10 Pilot column, had acknowledged the hostility that LGBTQ students face daily.

We are eager to learn the specific strategies that the School Board will employ to clarify its policies — and, more importantly, to ensure the safety and well-being of LGBTQ students in Virginia Beach classrooms.
 

As I told one school board directly, from my dealings with the Virginia Beach School Board that stretch back more than 20 years, I have very little confidence in its willingness to do the right thing for LGBT students.   I am still waiting to be proven wrong.  As for the parents who complained, I suspect that many or all are Christofascists who view any effort to stem their mistreatment and abuse of others as an "attack on their religious freedom."  I'm sorry, but the public schools should stand firm against bully based on toxic religious beliefs.  Religious freedom rights and the right to attend school free from harassment belong to everyone, not just the falsely pious "godly Christian" crowd.  

Virginia Beach School Board's Anti-LGBT Ploy Backfires

All of my children attended the Virginia Beach public schools and for a time I was a pro-education activist striving to see programs that the city now boasts about put into place.  To say I was hated by some on City Council and the Virginia Beach School Board is probably not an overstatement. Frighteningly, some of the same players who in my opinion consistently put the best interest of students, especially those who were different, last are still on the School Board - Board Chairman Dan Edwards being a prime example. Now the Board has gotten itself embroiled in seemingly anti-LGBT controversy which is garnering national and international attention via the Washington Post and numerous LGBT blogs and news outlets.  Virginia Beach likes to see itself as a first class city, but until small minded individuals like Edwards are removed from positions of governance, the city will remain petty ante at best.  What I find most disturbing is that the mealy mouthed excuse given for cancelling a long scheduled gay-straight alliance assembly is that it suggests to me that the School Board may be cowering before demands of Christofascist within the city who are likely emboldened by Donald Trump's naming of anti-gay zealot Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.  The disturbing and to me telling part of the excuse is as follows via the Virginian Pilot:

Cox, a school division spokeswoman, said the event was postponed “ in order to give school organizers, led by school counselors, an opportunity to involve a variety of student and community groups interested in being part of the conversation about tolerance and acceptance for all people.”

“The decision to postpone was made in an effort to be more inclusive of all groups and students, not to marginalize any particular student, group or organization,” Cox said.

If you haven't followed the activities of the Christofascists around the country - or even in Gloucester County where a pastor began the lynch mob mentality against Gavin Grimm's restroom usage - you might not catch the language that parrots their favorite excuse for torpedoing anything that might suggest that LGBT students have equal rights and should be free from bullying.  The language: "community groups interested in being part of the conversation about tolerance and acceptance for all people.”

Translated, this means that the Christofascists - be they from Regent University, The Wave Church or other "Christian" groups dedicated to making life Hell for LGBT individuals as they force their beliefs on all - want to be involved to (i) kill any pro-LGBT activity, and (ii) argue that "tolerance" includes allowing them to persecute other citizens who do not share their beliefs.

I hope this story continues to get much media coverage and show Virginia Beach for the back water that it remains.  As the Virginian Pilot reports, there is growing blow back from citizens, including my friend Janet Wren Moore who addressed the School Board:

Hours after the school division announced that an assembly hosted by Cox High School’s Gay-Straight Alliance has been rescheduled for an evening in January, pushback from the community continued Tuesday night.

The assembly scheduled for Monday during school hours was to have included a speech by the president of Hampton Roads Pride and a question-and-answer panel hosted by students. School administration decided Sunday to postpone it.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia on Tuesday said it was looking into the postponement.

Speaking before the School Board, Janet Moore, a Hampton Roads Pride board member whose son came out as gay while attending Tallwood High, said the worry is that some students will not be able to attend the January event because it begins several hours after school ends.

She condemned the administration for making its decision to postpone the assembly less than 24 hours before it was scheduled, saying the students who planned it for months “didn’t have any time to regroup.”

“It’s unfortunately encouraging misunderstanding and mistrust – a fertilizer for bullying,” she said of the last-minute decision.

She wasn’t alone in her disappointment at the administration’s actions.

Nearly 200 people have signed an open letter [authored by friends' now adult daughter] in solidarity with Cox High’s Gay-Straight Alliance, many of them Virginia Beach parents or former students of the division.

The ACLU has requested access to or copies of records on speakers at school assemblies at the 12 high schools in the city dating back to September 2014.

“Students do not leave their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door, and content-based distinctions by the school division in the regulation of student speech would raise significant legal concerns,” said Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, executive director.

Roanoke Times Endorses Pat McCrory for Sending Jobs to Virginia

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory who prostituted himself to Right wing Christian by signing HB2 continues to get pummeled for the damage he has done to North Carolina's economy.  Now, the Charlotte Observer reports on how the Roanoke Times of Roanoke, Virginia, endorsed McCrory for all the economic good he has done for Virginia and the Roanoke area in particular.   As I have said many times, bigotry does have its price as does social backwardness - think Gloucester County, Virginia - when communities are vying to attract good paying jobs.  Progressive businesses do not want to locate in areas defined by discrimination.  Here are highlights from the Observer:

From an editorial published Friday in the Roanoke (Va.) Times:

Which candidate would do the most to help our local economy? That’s easy. It’s Pat McCrory, the Republican governor of North Carolina, who’s seeking his second four-year term in the November election. We can point to specific and multiple ways he has helped the economy – our economy. North Carolina panicked and made a spectacle of itself by passing HB2, its so-called “bathroom bill.” In response, various companies and even sports leagues pulled events from the state. Three of those have wound up in Salem — the NCAA Division III men’s and women’s soccer championships, as well as the Division II Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association football championship. That’s money in the bank for us.

McCrory has given Virginia a competitive advantage in economic development, as well. When the University Economic Development Association recently held its national conference in Roanoke, the keynote speaker highlighted a North Carolina program to encourage partnerships between colleges and companies, as a way help recruit technology companies interested in research and development. The speaker hailed it as a model for other states to follow as they try to build a “knowledge economy.” Then the speaker noted that McCrory had cancelled it. The pro-business audience groaned.

On Monday, a data company picked Richmond as the site for a new office, with 730 jobs. Industry officials said it beat out Charlotte specifically because of HB2.

Feel free to argue all you want which presidential candidate would be best, but it’s clear that Virginia would be best served if North Carolina re-elected McCrory.

ACC Conference Pulls All Championship Games from North Carolina

Following the actions of the NCAA, the ACC has announced via press release that it has pulled all championship games from North Carolina for the 2016-2017 academic year.   This move will no doubt further fuel the fury being directed at North Carolina Republican Governor Pat McCrory in particular and the North Carolina GOP in general, but more on this shortly.  The ACC press release reads in part as follows:

Statement from the ACC Council of Presidents:“As members of the Atlantic Coast Conference, the ACC Council of Presidents reaffirmed our collective commitment to uphold the values of equality, diversity, inclusion and non-discrimination. Every one of our 15 universities is strongly committed to these values and therefore, we will continue to host ACC Championships at campus sites. We believe North Carolina House Bill 2 is inconsistent with these values, and as a result, we will relocate all neutral site championships for the 2016-17 academic year. All locations will be announced in the future from the conference office.” Statement from Clemson University President James P. Clements, chair of the ACC Council of Presidents: “The ACC presidents engaged in a constructive, wide-ranging and vigorous discussion of this complex issue over the past two days. The decision to move the neutral site championships out of North Carolina while HB 2 remains the law was not an easy one but it is consistent with the shared values of inclusion and non-discrimination at all of our institutions.”

Now for the fun part - or at least in my view.  GOP political whore, Pat McCrory is getting excoriated and being blamed for the damage being done to North Carolina, both in terms of lost business and now the stain put on collegiate sports and the adverse impact on North Carolina athletes.  Above is the image of  the front page of the sports section in today’s Greensboro News & Record.   Here are some excerpts from the editorial:

Above is just one article on the front page of the sports section in today’s Greensboro News & Record. See the full thing below. Here’s what two college athletes are saying in an op-ed for the Raleigh News & Observer We hoped it wouldn’t get this far. We hoped cooler heads would prevail as the two sides rolled toward the cliff.  But now it’s happened. We’ve lost the NCAA basketball tournament for March. We’ve lost the NCAA soccer tournaments for December.
 Thanks, Governor Pat.
 In a shocking announcement this evening, the NCAA announced it was pulling all postseason events from the state of North Carolina for 2016-17 in response to the state’s refusal to reconsider the controversial House Bill 2 law that discriminates against the LGBT community and limits civil rights protections.
 This is an embarrassment to North Carolina. Aside from it being a logistical and economic problem for cities such as Greensboro and Cary, which will lose four events scheduled for the upcoming year, this is a slap in the face of a state that has a long tradition of hosting NCAA postseason events. [I]t’s also an indication of how tone-deaf our governor is. Having the embarrassment of seeing the NBA All-Star Game taken from the city where he was once mayor wasn’t enough for McCrory, who seemed to delight in the attention the snub brought. Did he really think the NCAA was powerless to further inflict pain on the cities of his state?
 McCrory has now hurt North Carolina. His senseless crowing about bathrooms and birth certificates has made him look like fool in front of the entire country. And now he’s dragged us into it and forced us to pay.
 This didn’t have to come to this. Cooler heads could've worked this out. People with sense don’t do this. Governors with compassion for the people they represent don’t allow this to happen.  This is a blow to our way of life. This is a slap in the face of a state that has long been a model of progressive ideas.
 McCrory has made a fool of himself and made us all pay for his foolish ignorance. The best thing we can do now is hope for the best when the new sites are awarded and hope our governor has already rolled off the cliff by himself.

Ouch!!  But there's more fun to be witnessed.  Here’s what two college athletes are saying in an op-ed for the Raleigh News & Observer:

Sports are the anti-discrimination.  All sports, no matter what kind, reward one thing and one thing only: the better performance.

And yet we continue to witness intrusions into our respective epicenters of fairness that turn our stomachs. . . . this time the intrusion comes from Gov. Pat McCrory’s office. In reaction to HB2, the NCAA’s Board of Governors will relocate all seven collegiate championship events from North Carolina in the upcoming year. The University of Vermont and the University of Albany have already canceled games against our university and others within North Carolina. Every single one of those events was an opportunity for the staff, administration and student-body communities of colleges throughout the state to demonstrate what they work so hard for. They were opportunities for students to compete for championships in their home state. They were opportunities to celebrate universal values of discipline, perseverance, the pursuit of excellence.

Instead, McCrory has associated us with states that fly discriminatory symbols on state grounds and schools that use “abusive Native American imagery” – other violations for which the NCAA bans championships.

Our jerseys are stained with hate, exclusion and injustice. For better or worse, fair or unfair, we are associated with HB2. Not hard work, blood, sweat or tears. Not sportsmanship.

As I have noted a number of times, I hope that members of the Virginia GOP are watching and perhaps realizing that prostituting themselves to Victoria Cobb and her fellow hate merchants at The Family Foundation during the 2017 session of the General Assembly could inflict a huge cost on Virginia and irs citizens.  Bigotry and hate carry a cost - just ask North Carolina.  

Gloucester County Asks Supreme Court to Deny Transgender Rights

The anti-LGBT Gloucester County school board - a study in ignorance, bigotry and cowardice

As noted in previous posts, Gloucester County, located on the periphery of the Hampton Roads area is for the most part an utter backwater where ignorance and bigotry flourish, especially among the members of the Gloucester County school board. Indeed, the ignorance of the board members is exceeded perhaps only by its spinelessness in the face of the demands of local Christofascist who seek to vilify anyone and anything that challenges (i) their ignorance based beliefs, and/or (ii) their ability to inflict their beliefs on all members of society.  Thankfully, Gloucester County is letting the world know that it is a place that decent people and progressive business should avoid through its war against Gavin Grimm, a transgender high school student.  After receiving a equivalent of a spanking from the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the school board has now petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take an appeal from the 4th Circuit.  BuzzFeed looks at the appeal.  Here are highlights:

The [Gloucester County] Virginia school district seeking to limit restroom use to people’s biological sex — effectively barring transgender students from using the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity — on Monday asked the US Supreme Court to hear its appeal.

The Gloucester County School Board asked the high court to take the case and reverse an appeals court decision that sided with a transgender student and the Obama administration.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court issued an order allowing the school to keep its policy in place while the justices decide whether to hear the appeal. If the justices agree to hear the appeal, per the earlier order, the court’s order allowing the policy to stay in place will remain in effect until the justices reach a decision in the case.

The student, Gavin Grimm, is represented by the ACLU. The Obama administration, through interpretation of existing laws and regulations, has determined that the sex discrimination ban in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 includes a ban on anti-transgender discrimination.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the administration’s interpretation was a permissible interpretation, leading the district court in Grimm’s case to issue an injunction against Gloucester schools. The Supreme Court’s order, however, stayed that injunction for the time being — meaning Grimm, and any other transgender student, could not use the restroom that accords with their gender identity.

The lawyers for the school district frame the case as one not about transgender rights, but rather one about “agency behavior” in setting policies such as the Title IX interpretation advanced by the Obama administration.

In addition to the Virginia lawyers from Harman, Claytor, Corrigan & Wellman — which has been representing the school district — the legal team representing Gloucester schools now has expanded to include some of the leading national lawyers fighting the administration’s pro-transgender policies. Kyle Duncan is listed as the counsel of record in the case, and he is joined on the brief by his law partner, Gene Schaerr, as well as St. Louis lawyers from the James Otis Law Group, Jonathan Mitchell and D. John Sauer.

Once briefs are filed responding to the school board’s Monday filing, the justices generally schedule a private vote on whether to hear the case.

The current composition of the Supreme Court — it has operated with only eight justices since Antonin Scalia’s death in February — could become a key factor in what happens next with the case.

It takes four justices to grant the certiorari petition and hear an appeal. It takes five votes, however, to reach a majority opinion. If the court accepted the case, and split down ideological grounds 4–4, the lower court’s decision in favor of Grimm and the administration would be left in place — but no national precedent would be set by the case.
 

The Trump and Pence Shit Show

Having staked his campaign on rally angry whites who are terrified of losing their white privilege and/or the ability to inflict their right wing religious beliefs on all Americans, Donald Trump has cynically picked Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate.  Other than experience in Congress where he voted for some things Trump claims to oppose, the only real value Pence brings is the fact that he is a white Christofascist's dream candidate given his stand on abortion which he would outlaw in all cases and his animus towards the LGBT community.   The New York Times looks at Pence's selection in a main editorial.  Here are excerpts:

The suspicions that Mr. Trump stirs among evangelicals made Mr. Pence, who was one of the most socially conservative members of the House in his six terms there, the most strategic pick among the uninspiring politicians on Mr. Trump’s shortlist. He is a better bet than the thrice-married, ethically compromised Newt Gingrich, or the unpopular, politically damaged Chris Christie. Unassuming and affable — until his Twitter account exploded with Hillary Clinton attacks this week — Mr. Pence knows how Washington works. And unlike the talkative and bewildering Sarah Palin, who never made it to the shortlist or to the convention speaker lineup, he won’t hog the spotlight or embarrass the boss.

Above all, Mr. Trump’s choice of Mr. Pence is a gesture to Republicans whose money he needs to win, and a move to pacify any conservatives who were scheming to derail his nomination at the convention until they were thwarted by party officials this week. But having the Indiana governor on the ticket does little to convince a struggling middle class that Mr. Trump aims to force the party into its corner.

Mr. Trump does not offer any real policies for creating jobs, and he has been faulted for his treatment of his own employees, but he does at least talk about the pain people are feeling. That’s more than can be said for Mr. Pence. Take the Carrier heating equipment factory in Mr. Pence’s own state. When it announced this year that it would move to Mexico and cut 1,400 Indiana jobs, Mr. Trump predicted that if he were president, Carrier would call “within 24 hours,” to say, “‘Sir, we’ve decided to stay in the United States.’”

What was Mr. Pence doing while workers in his state were worrying about their futures? He and the State Legislature were busy waging battle against same-sex marriage and passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, seen as a means for businesses to deny services to same-sex couples. The law was amended within days, after a national uproar and a corporate boycott that tourism officials estimated cost Indiana’s economy at least $60 million in lost convention business.

While in Congress, Mr. Pence endorsed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other trade pacts that Mr. Trump rails about. He voted for the Iraq war, which Mr. Trump says he opposed. A staunch anti-abortion conservative, in 2011 Mr. Pence led House Republicans’ efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, which helped convince many Americans that Congress would rather engage in partisan brinkmanship than work on solving the country’s problems.

A poll last week found that only 12 percent of voters said Mr. Pence’s name on the ticket would make them more likely to cast a ballot for Mr. Trump. Among Republican voters 22 percent said it would.

For Mr. Pence’s audition in Indianapolis this week, he made a speech introducing Mr. Trump as a man who has “never forgotten or forsaken the people who work with their hands.” That’s surprising, since Mr. Trump’s record of forsaking working people is rather long. With Mr. Pence on the ticket, it gets only longer.

As for the Trump/Pence logo, some are having a field day about it standing for toilet paper and insinuated other hysterical things about the insertion of the "T" into the "P."  

The Bahamas' U.S. Travel Advisory: Use "Extreme Caution" Around Police

Years ago when I worked as an in-house attorney for an oil company and traveled overseas a great deal, I paid attention to State Department travel advisories for countries where I traveled, especially "developing world" countries.  The oil  company even provided us with its own travel advisories since employees of American oil companies were viewed as possible targets for violence or kidnapping.  Never in my wildest dreams back then would I have believed that other countries would be issuing travel advisories about travel to America.  Yet that is where this country finds itself.  European countries are warning their LGBT citizens to use caution in parts of the USA, including North Carolina just under 30 miles from where I sit.  Now, majority black nations are warning their citizens of dangers faced from American police officers.  

What's brought us to this?  In my view, white conservative Christians who increasingly want to use force inflict their beliefs on others, including the racism that is always just beneath the surface of the leading "family values" organizations controlled largely by southern whites who (i) long for the days of the Jim Crow laws and (ii) believe in a militarized police force and citizenry.  The Virginian Pilot looks at how The Bahamas has joined the list of nations issuing travel warnings about travel to America.  Here are highlights:

Over 90 percent of residents in the Bahamas are black, and Monday is a national holiday, when some travel north from the archipelago to vacation in the United States.

But following deadly police shootings this week of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota - and an ambush of white officers in Texas - the island nation on Friday advised its residents to be extra careful if they choose to do travel here.

The reason: "recent tensions in some American cities over shootings of young black males by police officers."

It was the kind of advisory that the U.S. government has issued recently for travel under the repressive regime in Laos, or to the developing nation of Nicaragua: watch out for the security situation, and beware of street demonstrations, the State Department warned.

On Friday, however, those red flags were turned around on the United States.

The Bahamian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration urged its citizens to exercise "appropriate caution" when traveling to the United States, and especially to cities where recent police shootings have occurred.

The Bahamian government specifically advised its young male citizens to take "extreme caution" with police. "Do not be confrontational and cooperate," the government warned.

And it was the second summer in a row that foreign travelers have received such warnings. Amid riots following police shootings last year, France warned residents against travel to St. Louis, Cleveland and Baltimore.

Canada, Germany and others have in the past also warned their citizens about deadly gun violence when traveling to the United States, but none updated their travel warnings this week.

For its part, the U.S. has its own, albeit more narrow, advice for citizens heading to the Bahamas: don't patronize "jet-ski rentals on New Providence or Paradise Islands," the State Department warned this year. The industry is minimally regulated and crimes have occurred at sea.

Let's never forget that it is not liberals and progressives who have created this toxic atmosphere.  No, its the "conservatives" and the "godly white folks." 

The Real "Conservative" Agenda: "Make America White Again"

While in the past conservative politicians - at least until the rise of Donald Trump - tended to try to hide their blatant racism and use dog whistle messaging instead of putting it in full view.  Now, apparently emboldened by the response that Trump has received to his open message of racial based hatred, Rick Tyler, an independent candidate for Congress, is using billboards that display what the real "conservative" agenda is all about: restoring white privilege and putting those of differing racial groups "in their place."  Hand in glove with this agenda is an effort to push LGBT Americans back into the closet and make us simply invisible.  The images in this post are from Tyler's campaign web site and illustrate future billboards he wants to utilize in his campaign.  Here are excerpts from a Washington Post piece that look at Tyler's openly racist campaign ploys:

An independent candidate for Congress from Tennessee has been swept up in a wave of criticism for his campaign billboard vowing to "Make American White Again."

Rick Tyler, who is running for the 3rd Congressional District in the northeastern part of the state, said he put up the billboard alongside Highway 411 in Polk County to make a point that "the 'Leave It to Beaver,' 'Ozzie and Harriet,' 'Mayberry' America of old was vastly superior to what we are experiencing today."

In a Facebook post Wednesday night, Tyler wrote: "It was an America where doors were left unlocked, violent crime was a mere fraction of today's rate of occurrence, there were no car jackings, home invasions, Islamic Mosques or radical Jihadist sleeper cells."

But the billboard's message, a spin on Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan, has been widely derided as a display of bigotry and racism.

It was taken down Tuesday night, according to ABC affiliate WTVC.

Tyler, a 58-year-old self-described "entrepreneur, pastor and political candidate," ran as an independent in the 2014 Senate race, getting less than half a percentage point of the vote against Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).

"There's no room for this type of hateful display in our political discourse," Ryan Haynes, the Tennessee Republican Party chairman, told WRCB in a statement. "Racism should be rejected in all its heinous forms in the Third Congressional District and around the country."

Note two things: (i) that Tyler identifies as a pastor, and (ii) the disingenuous condemnation by GOP party chair.  Tyler is merely saying openly what the GOP has been messaging for years.  Here's more from Tyler's campaign website:

The Make America White Again billboard advertisement will cut to the very core and marrow of what plagues us as a nation. As Anne Coulter so effectively elucidates in her book, Adios America, the overhaul of America’s immigration law in the 1960’s has placed us on an inevitable course of demise and destruction. Yes…the cunning globalist/Marxist social engineers have succeeded in destroying that great bulwark against statist tyranny…the white American super majority. Without its expedited restoration little hope remains for the nation as a whole.

Pope Francis' Disingenuous Statement on the Orlando Massacre

If nothing else, I hope the bloodbath in Orlando will wake the LGBT community and its allies up and make disingenuous words of sympathy and feigned sorrow no longer acceptable.  As the sayings go, "talk is cheap" and "actions speak louder than words."  Applying either standard, Pope Francis' statement in the wake of the murder of nearly 50 LGBT individuals and their friends   falls within the category of rank hypocrisy.   First, nowhere in Francis' statement did he acknowledge that the murder victims were predominately gay.  Second, nowhere did he apologize for the Church's continued anti-gay jihad or the Church's continued categorization of LGBT individuals as "inherently disordered" and "inclined toward evil."  Until the Church changes its demonization of gays and its efforts to deprive us of our civil rights, his words in this statement have less value than a piece of toilet paper that someone has used to wipe themselves.  It's all window dressing and filled with rank hypocrisy.  Here are excerpts of the bullshit filled statement via Radio Vatican:

The terrible massacre that has taken place in Orlando, with its dreadfully high number of innocent victims, has caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation, of pain and turmoil before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred. Pope Francis joins the families of the victims and all of the injured in prayer and in compassion. Sharing in their indescribable suffering he entrusts them to the Lord so they may find comfort. We all hope that ways may be found, as soon as possible, to effectively identify and contrast the causes of such terrible and absurd violence which so deeply upsets the desire for peace of the American people and of the whole of humanity. 

Like the  meaningless statements of numerous Republicans, Francis overlooks his own and the Church's culpability in fanning the flames of homophobia and making LGBT individuals the targets of hate and derision.  If Francis really meant what he says, he'd note the fact that the victims were LGBT and he'd immediately reverse the anti-LGBT language of his predecessors.  His failure to act speacks volumes.  

North Carolina is Closed to Non-Whites

One of the ironies is that even though I am one of the most "out" gay attorneys in Hampton Roads, I have a large and growing Hindu client base.   I sometimes say that perhaps this phenomenon is due in part to the fact that those who hate me - generally Christofascists and Republicans - also hate them.  I have found this client pool to be smart, focused on education, tolerant, and very loyal. A number are Facebook friends, so they are well aware of my political views and that I am gay.  Unlike, those on the right, they are able to look to one's character and competence rather than just see some ugly stereotype marketed by anti-gay extremists.  I deeply value these remarkable clients.  Sadly, pursuant to state law, North Carolinians are now free to discriminate and victims of discrimination face reduced legal remedies - all because the North Carolina Republicans surrendered to the demands of Christofascists for special rights to discriminate against those who are different.  The News and Observer has an op-ed by a Hindu graduate student that looks at the hideous agenda behind these "religious freedom" and pro-discrimination laws.  Here are excerpts:

My name is Jaisabrish Sankarkumar, a name that can be intimidating both by how many letters are in it and by how foreign it may look. Most people know me as Jai Kumar and call me Jai.

I was born in a small village in India, to two loving parents who were both physicians and had their own highly successful medical practice. In 1990, they decided to sell their practice and their house and relocate their family so that their children would have better access to education and opportunity. . . . Ultimately, they settled on North Carolina because we had family nearby, the schools were reportedly great, access to higher education was plentiful and excellent, and it was known as a welcoming and warm place.

Sadly, if they were left to make those choices today, I can’t say they would make the same choice.

You see, the message being broadcast by the reforms and policies is that, “North Carolina is closed.” By enacting voter ID laws, cutting funding to public schools, not expanding Medicaid and passing bills like House Bill 2, lawmakers are saying, “If you’re different, pick another state.”

Last year my mom was met with a horrific burn injury that left her hospitalized for the better part of nine months with ongoing surgeries and therapy that continue to this day. My parents had good insurance, and I saw the medical bills, and we were fortunate to escape with minimal damage to our financial security. However, there are countless others in this state who, if put in the same situation, would have to sacrifice everything to ensure their loved ones survived. By not expanding Medicaid, lawmakers have once again risked the future of an untold number of North Carolina families. And the door closes a little a more.

When they passed voter ID laws and House Bill 2, they finally came around to shutting the door on everyone who looks, thinks and acts a little differently from them. By removing civil protections to sue in state court for discrimination, they violated equal protection of their citizens. By positioning the bathroom issue as the crux of HB2, they chose to hide behind fear of difference rather than engage in conversation and learn about what they don’t know.

The narrative of a progressive welcoming place, a place where the entire nation should visit, a place where the most divisive issues were which style of barbecue you preferred has been cast aside.

If lawmakers took some time to get to know the people of their state, they’d find that this place is full of beautifully different people and that those who they never would have thought to befriend can become their closest of kin.

North Carolina is my home, and all of us, whether born here or transplanted here, owe it to her not to give up on her future and to reopen the door to invite everyone back in.

What is frightening is that Virginia Republicans would like to close the door to those who are different in Virginia just as the North Carolina GOP has done in our neighboring state to the south.  Fear and hate are not family values or Christian values if one listens to the Gospel massage - a message utterly ignored by the Christofascists.