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.

Hate Group Goes Ballistic Over Parents Magazine Gay Dads

The Southern Poverty Law Center monitors hate groups across American.  While the organization's mission began focused and white supremacist groups, it now follows neo-Nazi and other far right groups.  It also monitors anti-gay hate groups that disseminate deliberate lies and untruths about LGBT individuals with the goal of demonizing us and stripping us of civil rights.  One such group is falsely named "One Million Moms" ("OMM") which in actuality is a very small extremist group operating under the umbrella of American Family Association, itself a hate group, that disseminates wildly untrue propaganda against LGBT, including claims that gays were behind Hitler's Third Reich.  Not surprisingly, Parents Magazine's recent decision to place a family with two dads on its cover has sent the toxic women at OMM into absolute conniption fits.  Like most Christofascists, the leaders of OMM seek to impose their Bronze Age beliefs on all of society.  If given an opportunity, they would erase the very existence of LGBT people and our families.  A piece in The Advocate looks at this latest disingenuous round of OMM hysterics.  Here are excerpts:

Right-wing extremists are losing it over the February cover of Parents magazine, which features a same-sex couple — the first such cover in the publication’s 93-year history.

“Parents is using its magazine as a platform to promote the pro-homosexual lifestyle,” screams an online post from One Million Moms, a Christian right group affiliated with the American Family Association. “Even if families do not personally subscribe to the publication, they should be warned that it could be displayed in waiting rooms of dentist and doctor offices, where children could easily be subjected to the glorification of same-sex parents.”

The cover shows fitness trainer Shaun T and his husband, Scott Blokker, and their 1-year-old sons. A story inside tells of their journey to fatherhood – the boys were conceived with the same egg donor, but one with each father’s sperm, and delivered by the same surrogate. They were born prematurely and spent the first three weeks of their life in intensive care.

One Million Moms doesn’t seem to care about the difficulties faced by the boys or their dads but instead worries about “children being indoctrinated to perceive same-sex couples as normal.” The group also claims that being gay is a “lifestyle … that the medical community identifies as unhealthy,” something that is blatantly untrue.

The organization implores its supporters to sign an online petition expressing their disapproval to Parents. As of Tuesday afternoon, the petition had a little over 10,000 signatures, far less than the million members the group claims. The Million Moms group has a history of objecting to LGBTQ-inclusive media and advertising.

Court Tosses Liberty Counsel’s “Hate Group” Designation Lawsuit Against Rating Site

Many among the grifters, hate merchants and charlatans who make up a who's who of the so-called Christofascist have been highly overwrought by the hate group designations that they have rightly received from the Southern Poverty Law Center ("SPLC") - the same organization that tracks Neo-nazi and white supremacy groups.  That whining and bitching rose to new levels when GuideStar, a charity-information site that discloses to would be donors information of purported charities noted the hate group designation for Liberty Counsel, a viciously anti-gay organization that has disseminated malicious anti-gay lies and disinformation for literally decades.  The Chronicle Of Philanthropy looks at the ruling that was handed down by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk, Virginia.   Here are excerpts:

GuideStar, the charity-information site, scored a major victory as a federal court ruled it was in legal bounds to put a hate label on a nonprofit’s profile.

A federal judge in Virginia dismissed a lawsuit against GuideStar pursued by the conservative Christian legal-defense group Liberty Counsel.

Liberty Counsel sued after a label was placed on its GuideStar profile page noting that the legal organization had been designated a hate group for its anti-LGBTQ stances. Liberty Counsel said the label was defamatory and hurt its reputation. It also charged that the label violated a federal law against unfair competition and false advertising.

Judge Raymond Jackson of the Federal District Court in Norfolk, Va., however, said the designation was “an informative statement” and “not commercial speech” in his ruling— and rejected Liberty Council’s claim that its business was affected. Mr. Jackson also dismissed the legal group’s defamation claim.

Liberty Counsel said in statement Wednesday that it is considering an appeal of the decision.

GuideStar added warning banners last year to the profile pages of 46 organizations, including Liberty Counsel, to notify visitors that the Southern Poverty Law Center had accused the charities of spreading hate. The message directed visitors to the anti-hate group’s website. 

GuideStar announced it was pulling the warning labels last June after the designations caused a firestorm among conservative groups that said they had been unfairly targeted.
The nonprofit information site said it backed away from the labels after its staff members had faced threats to their personal safety from opponents of the labels.

The groups that have received these "hate group" labels  purport to be "Christian" organizations, most claiming the "family values" label.  If anyone questions the hate group label in the case of Liberty Counsel - or Family Research Council and numerous "Christian" organizations, I invite them to visit SPLC's site and look at the documentation.  I defy them to describe the conduct described in any way Christian .  It is also noteworthy that Guidestar backed away from the labels due to threats to its employees by supporters of these bogus charities.  In all of my years of writing this blog, the only death threats I have received has been from "devout Christians."  No Muslims have threatened me - and I am just as hard on Islam as Christianity - nor has anyone else.