The Best and Worse States to Live if You are LGBT

Last weeks ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County granted federal employment non-discrimination protections to LGBT Americans nationwide and some have suggested perhaps the gay rights movement has finished its work and accomplished its goals. My response to this ludicrous suggestion is "hell no" since there remains huge amounts of work to be done at the state level and even with the newly granted federal protections, I suspect in many red states and even rural areas of some blue states being LGBT will continue to be a potentially life threatening situation.  Thus, the questions becomes what states should one consider moving to or visiting on vacations if you are LGBT and want to have some sense of safety and legal protections.  USA Today is reporting the results of a national survey of states ranking the states from worse to best places for LGBT citizens.  The rankings include laws protection LGBT citizens and is slightly out of date because it uses 2019 laws  which, as a result does not include the panoply of laws enacted in Virginia this spring.  As a result, per the survey, Virginia earns a 35th place ranking (hopefully, this ranking will move up markedly next year.  Not surprisingly, Alabama wins the worse place ranking and surprisingly, Mississippi ranks a number of rungs higher, thereby depriving Alabamians the often cited saying "thank god for Mississippi" for saving them from last place.  Below are the rankings of several states.  Take the time to read the entire piece, especially if you are thinking of relocating - both individually or moving a business - or traveling domestically during the coming year.  Here are article excerpts:

Across the United States, Americans have increasingly embraced equal treatment and access for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Americans over the last decade. According to a Gallup poll in 2019, 63% of Americans supported same-sex marriage, compared with about 44% in 2010.  Some cities are more welcoming to the LGBTQ community than their respective states – Austin, Texas, is one example – but, in general, entire states (rather than just cities within them) are moving toward  protecting and empowering their LGBTQ residents.

In acknowledgement of Pride month, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the states most and least welcoming to the LGBTQ community. We created an index of three measures – hate crimes motivated by gender and sexual orientation reported per 100,000 people, laws protecting the LGTBQ community, and the percentage of each state's population who identifies as LGTBQ – to identify the best and worst states for LGBTQ people.

While there has been no doubt progress toward equality, anti-equality activists and politicians still have a lot of influence – in some states more than others. In Texas alone, 19 anti-LGBTQ bills were filed in 2019. In Iowa, transgender health care benefits were removed from the state’s medical plan. Across the country, 102 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced, and seven became laws. 

Even though the U.S. – and the world – is slowly becoming a more welcoming place for LGBTQ people, there are still many places where same-sex relationships are considered criminal behavior. 

50. AlabamaBased on its relatively small LGBTQ population and lack of progress passing laws that protect LGBTQ communities, Alabama is the worst state in the nation for LGBTQ Americans. Unlike the vast majority of states, which have mandatory hate crime reporting laws, Alabama police jurisdictions do not participate in reporting of hate crimes motivated by gender or sexual orientation.

In fact, the state has very few laws that positively affect LGTBQ residents, and plenty of rules that negatively affect LGBTQ communities. For example, in 2017, Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation that would permit religious agencies to deny placing an adopted child in LGBTQ families. Alabama also restricts inclusion of LGBTQ topics in schools, and the state is one of 26 states that criminalize behaviors that carry low or negligible risk of HIV transmission (such as anti-sodomy laws). Such laws are considered archaic and frequently lead to abuse and discrimination against HIV-positive individuals and harms public health efforts.

49. WyomingJust 3.3% of Wyoming's population identifies as LGBTQ, the ninth lowest such share of any state. Relatively low numbers of LGBTQ state residents could reflect lower likelihood of identifying as LGBTQ and a generally less hospitable state for the community.

Wyoming is the state where Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten and left to die in the town of Laramie in 1998, in an incident that shocked the nation. There have been other incidents against gay people in recent years, and a gay man who was bullied committed suicide in 2016. Tragic incidents such as these are unfortunately common across the country, but considering the general inhospitable environment in the state, including lacking laws that would protect basic LGBTQ civil rights, these incidents take perhaps additional meaning in Wyoming. Still, there are people in Wyoming who continue to struggle for equal rights under the law. The cities of Casper and Cheyenne held their first pride marches in 2017.

35. VirginiaUntil very recently, Virginia was not making progress toward equality for the LGBTQ community. In April 2020, a few months after the HRC latest report was published, the state passed several laws that provided anti-discrimination protections to the LGBTQ community, making Virginia the first state in the South to do so. The state made it easier for people to update the gender marker on their birth certificate. The laws will take effect July 1.

While progress has been made, LGBTQ residents still face challenges that non-LGBTQ residents do not. Virginia has legal provisions that allow adoption and foster care agencies to turn away prospective LGBTQ parents on the grounds of religious freedom. The state does not have laws protecting students from discrimination in schools based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

3. New YorkNew York has special significance to the LGBTQ community, as the Stonewall riots of 1969 in New York City helped spark massive changes in the nation's understanding of LGBTQ issues and paved the way for more equality to the LGBTQ community.

Today, New York ranks as one of the best states for LGBTQ people. In the last decade, the state legislature has passed 30 laws protecting the rights and safety of its LGBTQ residents. The state has some of the most comprehensive non discrimination laws of any state.

2. VermontVermont ranks as one of the best states for LGBTQ people. It provides better access to CenterLink pride centers than any other state. Vermont has an estimated 26,000 LGBTQ people and three pride centers.

The state also has some of the most comprehensive health and safety laws for LGBTQ residents among all states. It ensures that transgender people cannot be excluded from health care. Vermont also collects data on the health and well being of LGBTQ youth and adults. It also has extensive nondiscrimination laws.

1. NevadaNevada ranks as the best state in America for LGBTQ people. It has a relatively low share of hate crimes motivated by gender identity or sexual orientation. It also has nearly all laws suggested by the HRC for LGBTQ rights, including nondiscrimination laws, parenting laws, statutes against hate crimes, and those ensuring protections for health care access.

Nevada passed 34 laws protecting the rights and safety of its LGBTQ residents from 2009 to 2019. The state also has no laws considered infringing on these protections, according to the HRC.

To identify the best and worst states for LGBTQ people, 24/7 Wall St. created an index of three measures: hate crimes reported per 100,000 people, laws protecting LGTBQ communities, and the percentage of each state's population who identify as LGTBQ. Each of these three measures were weighted equally in the index.

State laws affecting LGBTQ communities came from the Human Rights Campaign’s 2019 State Equality Index, which defined such laws as positive or negative to LGBTQ Americans. The Equality Index classified each state into one of four categories: “high priority for basic equality,” "building equality," "solidifying equality," “working toward innovative equality.” 24/7 Wall St. assigned scores to each of the categories that could be normalized for the index. States that were labeled a “high priority for basic equality” received the lowest score, while states that were “working toward innovative equality” were ranked higher on our list.

Gov. Northam Signs Three Pro-LGBT Bills Into Law

Hopefully, the LGBT community and its allies are learning the important lesson that voting - and not staying home if one's favorite candidate does not win the nomination - is crucial in creating change and defeating the Republican agenda of division and keeping full civil rights only for the few favored classes of the GOP base: whites, heterosexuals, right wing Christians.  Virginia's transformation into a blue state and a leader in change among Southern states would not have occurred but for people going to the polls and saying "no more" to the Virginia GOP's divisive, backward looking policies.  Thanks to Democrat control of the Virginia General Assembly three new pro-LGBT laws were signed into law by Governor Northam, the most LGBT friendly governor in Virginia history.  Outwire757 looks at the legislation.  Here are excerpts:

Governor Ralph Northam signed 49 new pieces of legislation into law Thursday, including measures to expand the definition of “hate crime” and increase protections for transgender students in public schools.  Additionally, Governor Northam signed legislation that gives localities more authority over their communities, including House Bill 696, enabling localities to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.  

School Policies for Transgender Students 

Governor Northam signed House Bill 145, sponsored by Delegate Marcus Simon and Senate Bill 161, sponsored by Senator Jennifer Boysko, which will require the Department of Education to develop model policies for elementary and secondary schools on how to address common issues involving transgender students, using evidence-based information and best practices. These model policies will address how schools can ensure they treat transgender students fairly and respectfully. School boards must adopt such policies for the 2021-2022 school year. 

Reporting Hate Crimes 

Governor Northam signed House Bill 276, sponsored by Delegate Rip Sullivan. Current law requires the reporting of hate crimes to the State Police and this bill expands the definition of a hate crime to include criminal acts based on ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identification, and disability. This bill incorporates House Bill 1058. 

“Attacking someone because of who they are, who they love, or where they’re from is wrong,” said Governor Northam. “Those actions are intended to send a chilling message that a person is not welcome, and that is exactly the opposite of what we stand for in Virginia. Hate has no place here. I am proud to sign this bill.”

Banning Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity

Governor Northam signed House Bill 696, sponsored by Delegate Danica Roem, allowing localities to ban discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, credit, or education based on sexual orientation or gender identity. 

“I want Virginia to be a diverse and inclusive state, where everyone feels welcome,” said Governor Northam. “No one should fear being fired, evicted, or otherwise singled out because of who they are. This bill will help ensure all Virginians are treated fairly and equitably, and I am happy to sign it.” 

Imagine what America could look like if we had a Democrat in the White House and Democrat control of both houses of Congress.

Hate is Alive and Well: 28 Year Old Gay Man Gunned Down Amidst Homophobic Slurs

Ronald Peters - murdered last week for being  gay.

Hate crimes are up sharply since Donald Trump's election in 2016 (226% the last time I looked).  Gays are among the favored targets of hate crimes given Trump's fanning of the lie that Christians are being persecuted and that gays are the oppressors.   Straight friends likely cannot comprehend the fear one experiences when one hears homophobic slurs directed at them along with threats of violence. I've had that experience and it is beyond disturbing.  (I also was forced from a law firm for being gay and suffered deliberate anti-gay harassment by Norfolk police officers a decade plus ago).  The murder this week of  old Ronald “Trey” Peters who was merely walking to work from a public transit station in Decatur, Georgia, underscores the reality that gays continue to be targets of homophobic violence and that one's social status does not guarantee safety (something lost on my gay Republican "friends"). The Advocate looks at Peter's senseless murder.  Here are excepts:

Atlanta police are investigating if the death of a 28-year-old who was fatally shot on Tuesday in an Atlanta suburb as attackers hurled homophobic slurs was motivated by him being gay. 

Ronald “Trey” Peters was walking to work from a public transit station in Decatur when two men in a car demanded he give them his backpack. One got out of the car and confronted him.

“When Trey jerked away from him and said, ‘It’s my bag, you’re not getting it,’ the driver got out with a louder voice yelling, ‘Give him the fucking bag, fag,” witness Kevin Pickering told Atlanta TV station WGCL. “The passenger walked back toward the vehicle and the driver got out and started firing.” The young man was reportedly shot twice.

Police have classified the shooting as hate-motivated, and no arrests have been made connected to the incident, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. However, Georgia has no hate-crimes laws that cover violence motivated by sexual orientation. 

“Unfortunately, this deadly attack is not a rare or isolated event. Rather, this is the latest in a long string of hate-motivated incidents,” Allison Padilla-Goodman, the Southeast regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement.

Peters’s death comes in the wake of at least nine trans women being murdered so far this year alone, and just days after Detroit police announced that a recent triple homicide was motivated by anti-LGBTQ sentiment.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to cover the costs of Peters’s memorial.

“[Trey] was taken from this earth in act of violence, but we will not let hate win!” the page reads. “Trey was always giving so much to others, sharing his talents and energy with those around him. He always was willing to help people and had a huge heart. Now it is our turn to give back in honor of him.”

Ultimately, justification for murdering gays traces back to the Bible, a book that is responsible for unspeakable horrors over the centuries - all done in the name of god or justified by the myths handed down from ignorant Bronze Age herders.  Peters' murder is unspeakable, but so too is the fact that so many are clinging to ignorance and and hate based on carefully selected passages from a book with unknown authors who lacked even a shred of scientific and accurate medical knowledge. 

My condolences to Peters' partner, family and friends.  As for his killers and those who fan the flames of homophobia, I hope they burn in Hell.  And yes, that includes the likes of Franklin Graham who is living proof why one might want to leave Christianity. 

Trump Has Given a Green Light for Attacks on Gays and Non-Whites

Some of my ancestors on my maternal side arrived in what is now the United States between at least 170 and 220 years ago and I have ancestors who are army veterans in wars from the Civil War, WWI and WWII.  For many blacks in Virginia, their ancestors began their forced immigration here in Hampton, Virginia 400 years ago.   And large swaths of America's Southwest were once part of Mexico.  Yet, in Donald Trump's America, at least in the minds of his bigoted and racist supporters, the only "real Americans" are white, right wing Christian heterosexuals.  And let's not forget Trump's statement that there were some "very fine" people among the white supremacists who terrorized Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017.  Now, seemingly even black celebrities need to be fearful in Trump's America as evidenced by the attack on Jussie Smollett, one of the stars of the Fox television show “Empire" in Chicago.  This is not OK and should not be "OK" with anyone decent and moral - including Republican "friends." A piece in the New York Times looks at this disturbing incident (not the shouts about "MAGA country"): 

Jussie Smollett, one of the stars of the Fox television show “Empire,” was attacked in Chicago early Tuesday morning by two people who yelled racial and homophobic slurs and wrapped a rope around his neck, according to the police, who said they were investigating the incident as “a possible hate crime.”

Smollett, who is black and publicly came out as gay in 2015, was walking on a downtown street when two people approached him and yelled the slurs, according to a statement from the Chicago Police Department. The attackers then began hitting Smollett in the face and poured an “unknown chemical substance” on him.

One of the attackers also wrapped a rope around Smollett’s neck before the duo fled.
“Given the severity of the allegations, we are taking this investigation very seriously and treating it as a possible hate crime,” the police statement said. In a follow-up interview later in the morning, The Sun-Times reported, Smollett told the police that the attackers yelled “this is MAGA country,” a reference to President Trump’s campaign slogan.

The newspaper also reported that the F.B.I. was looking into a letter sent to Fox offices in Chicago last week that contained threatening language toward Smollett and a white powdery substance.

On Tuesday night, the police said in a statement that the area where Smollett said the attack occurred had “very high density of city and private surveillance cameras.” Detectives had viewed hundreds of hours of video but “unfortunately, thus far we have not found any helpful information on a suspect or a suspect’s vehicle to be able to share,” the statement said. The police were widening their search to cameras from surrounding areas.

20th Century Fox Television and Fox Entertainment released a statement on Tuesday expressing outrage at the attack and saying that the “entire studio, network and production stands united in the face of any despicable act of violence and hate.” Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker both wrote on Twitter that the attack was an “attempted modern-day lynching,” and Booker urged the House to take up a bill passed by the Senate that enhances penalties in lynching cases. Hate crimes have been rising in recent years; According to the most recent nationwide data from the F.B.I., they increased 17 percent in 2017 from the year before.

Of the more than 7,100 recorded incidents attributed to prejudice in 2017, roughly 60 percent were caused by biases involving race, ethnicity and ancestry. About 16 percent were attacks on sexual orientation.

Hate crimes are generally underreported. The F.B.I. survey was based on self-reporting from more than 16,000 law enforcement agencies.

If you support Trump/Pence, you support this type of ugly agenda, like it or not.

The Fruits of Trump’s Racist Policies

The Trump/Pence regime has been a nightmare for all minorities as it has openly embraced religious extremist, white nationalists and some of the ugliest white supremacists.  But Blacks - followed by Hispanics - have suffered the most as FBI and other statistics have demonstrated.  Hate crimes have soared with the targets being most often targeted due to their race.  Meanwhile, anti-Semitic hate crimes has soared by 60%.  At the same time the Trump/Pence regime has waged a war against the LGBT community and argued that firing LGBT employees is perfectly legal.  In short, hate, division and violence are the fruits of Trump's - and Pence's - racist policies.  A column in the Washington Post looks at this reality as well as the threat Trump's judicial nominees pose to civil rights.  Thankfully, one racist nominee, Thomas Farr, was rejected by the U.S. Senate thanks to the vote of the lone black Republican senator.  Here are column highlights:

Back in September 2016, eight weeks before Election Day, I wrote these words about Donald Trump:

“Repulsive though he is, nominee Trump’s character defects aren’t what make him a threat. What does sicken and alarm, and what ought to concentrate African American minds, is the thought of Trump with the powers of the presidency in his hands. Therein lies the danger.”

I admit that, at the time, I did not fully appreciate just how damaging and degrading a Trump presidency could become. Trump’s two years of shameless and cynical exploitation of fears and anxieties within the ranks of his white base of support, and his unprincipled governance, have left this country more fractured along racial lines than at any time since the civil rights revolution.

Shootings, bombings and other acts of violence motivated by right-wing political ideologies are nothing new, according to a Post analysis of global terrorism data. But it found that “violence by white supremacists and other far-right attackers has been on the rise since Barack Obama’s presidency — and has surged since President Trump took office.”

The FBI’s report released this month revealed that hate crimes had jumped an astonishing 17 percent from 2016 to 2017. And the targets? Sixty percent of the victims were selected because of their race, ethnicity or ancestry. More than 20 percent were targeted because of their religion.

The ADL reported an increase of nearly 60 percent in anti-Semitic incidents between 2016 and 2017. . . . . the Trump effect has taken on a life of its own, spreading a meanness and animosity once confined to the environs of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Councils that peppered the South.

The hard evidence of Trump’s hostility toward people of color abounds — his actions against south-of-the-border immigrants, his hostile treatment of black women and disparagement of black and brown men, references to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries.”

And it’s being demonstrated through his federal judicial appointments. Trump’s racial animosity can’t get anymore obvious than his choice of Thomas Farr to be a district court judge in North Carolina.

Farr is well known for his work as a lawyer defending a 2013 North Carolina voter ID law ruled discriminatory against African Americans. The federal appeals court that struck down the law called it “the most restrictive voting law North Carolina has seen since the era of Jim Crow,” saying it targeted black voters “with almost surgical precision” because the forms of voter identification North Carolina deemed acceptable were ones disproportionately used by white people.

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) and two other members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote in a letter last year to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing Farr’s nomination that “it is no exaggeration to say that had the White House deliberately sought to identify an attorney in North Carolina with a more hostile record on African-American voting rights and workers’ rights than Thomas Farr, it could hardly have done so.”

There it is. Trump knew what he was doing, and what the nation would be getting, when he chose to put Thomas Farr on the federal bench — a voter suppression advocate after Trump’s own heart.

Trump’s selection of Farr was so odious that South Carolina’s Tim Scott, a lone black Republican senator with unquestioned loyalty to conservative dogma, finally had to break ranks and declare his opposition to Farr’s nomination. Scott’s courageous decision will almost certainly doom Farr’s chance for a federal judgeship.

But it’s not likely to quench Trump’s thirst for actions that fall within the purview of his discriminatory values. Watch out: He has yet to name a permanent replacement for fired attorney general Jeff Sessions.

That is the danger of Donald Trump with presidential power in his hands. A lesson now being learned the hard way.

Be very afraid. And do not fool yourself that Mike Pence would be any better should Trump be forced from office.  

Right-Wing Extremists Threaten Violence Over Democrat Wins

According to the FBI, since the launch of the Trump presidential campaign in 2015, hate crimes have increased every year, increasing 17% last year.   [T]he most common bias categories in single-bias incidents were race/ethnicity/ancestry (59.6) percent - principally, anti-black, religion (20.6 percent) -Jews being the favored targets, and sexual orientation (15.8 percent) - namely gays, lesbians and transgender individuals.  Many attribute the increase to the Trump/Pence regime's racist, nativist message and outright calls to violence at Trump rallies. Now, with Democrats winning control of the House of Representatives and underscoring the contempt that a majority of Americans hold for Trump/Pence regime and its racist and religiously extreme base, some right wing extremists are threatening violence.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at this very real threat.  Here are highlights:

Seeking a more lenient sentence for Patrick Eugene Stein’s plot to murder hundreds of Somali immigrants in a small Kansas town, Stein’s attorneys turned to a novel strategy: They blamed the inspiration for his actions on Donald Trump.

“The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful and contentious presidential elections in modern history, driven in large measure by the rhetorical China shop bull who is now our president,” the lawyers wrote.

Stein and his two cohorts planned their attack to take place the day after the November 2016 election. Anticipating a Hillary Clinton victory, the three Kansans wanted to make a violent first strike against her presidency by setting off a set of Timothy McVeigh-style truck bombs at a Muslim immigrant community in Garden City, then gunning down survivors as they fled.

The plot had been exposed, and the men arrested, a few weeks before they intended to carry it out. It took place amid a national environment in which far-right militiamen had been vowing a violent resistance to a potential Clinton administration. That resistance was, at least temporarily, mooted by Trump’s victory.

But those same rumblings can now be heard from the very same far-right factions, likewise threatening violence, in response to this month’s takeover of the House of Representatives by Democrats. There is legitimate reason for concern that right-wing terrorist violence will continue and perhaps increase — and that extremists could soon begin targeting politicians in office, especially if Trump singles them out for scorn.

The question of whether Trump’s rhetoric is inspiring acts of political violence now echoes nationally. Acts of violence in Florida and in Pittsburgh in the run-up to the midterm elections have already been inextricably linked to Trump’s hyperbolic language.

According to Chip Berlet, an expert on the populist right, the phenomenon we’re watching unfold is known to sociologists as “scripted violence.” “If a very popular leader who is high up — it doesn’t matter if it’s political or a political or a movement leader — basically alleges that some group of people is conspiring against the common good, and they harp on that for a long time, it’s only a matter of time before people get killed,” he recently explained.

There’s a long history of this kind of violence, dating from well before the Holocaust and continuing well into recent decades and even the present. In 1990s Rwanda, for example, thousands were massacred when radio talkers targeted communities for lethal violence as part of a tribal/ethnic cleansing campaign.

Trump has tacitly endorsed the tactic.  His rhetoric at home is part of the same violence for which he is writing the scripts.

“Trump clearly isn’t going to tamp this situation down, and he will likely escalate his anti-immigrant and extremist rhetoric as we move toward 2020,” says Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. “Since the GOP is becoming a bastion of older, white males who are angry, that’s the base they will be moving to turn out. This just follows a trend of more than a decade of increasing numbers of terror plots from the far right.

When confronted by reporters about the connection of his rhetoric to this violence, Trump has denied and deflected, accusing the media of fomenting violence instead for their “fake news” . . . . His true believers notwithstanding, the public likely takes a different view: One poll, taken before the mail-bombing attempts and the synagogue shooting, found that a majority of Americans already believe that he enables white supremacists and that many have come to see him as a “legitimizing force” for hate groups.

Critically, those hate groups themselves appear to feel empowered by Trump, in no small part because of his propensity to hesitate to criticize them, embodied by the president’s description of white-nationalist Charlottesville protesters as “very fine people.”

Trump’s far-right devotees, including the white nationalists who have both marched in his name and have used his name while committing hate crimes have taken the example of his bellicose rhetoric and expanded on it in extremists’ inimitable fashion. As they did in the weeks before the 2016 election, militiamen across the nation have referenced violent uprisings and civil war in defense of Trump around the election.

At Gab — the white-nationalist-friendly social media platform allegedly used by Pittsburgh shooting suspect Robert Bowers — speculation about civil war has been part of its site-wide discourse since this summer, . . . . Two young neo-Nazi activists who associated online with Bowers, Jeffrey and Edward Clark of Washington, allegedly planned to follow in the killer’s footsteps, or at least fantasized about it on Gab. Edward, 23, killed himself shortly after the Pittsburgh massacre, reportedly because news reports indicated Bowers was cooperating with police.

Jeffrey Clark, 30, was arrested Nov. 9 after family members warned authorities of his increasingly violent behavior and rhetoric. The brothers had long fantasized about killing Jews and blacks in a “race war,” police say. On Gab, Jeffrey had praised the Pittsburgh killings as a “dry run for things to come.”

Both militiamen and other far-right factions, including white nationalists and street-brawling “Proud Boys,” have been ginning up rhetoric about a “civil war” — depicted, in their telling, as a coming armed struggle between rural conservatives and urban minorities and liberals.

In addition to white supremacists, “Patriot” militias also have been spurred to action by Trump’s demonizing rhetoric targeting Muslims, the press and liberal Democrats.

Acts of domestic terrorism such as those in Pittsburgh and elsewhere in recent weeks come amid a rising tide of hate crimes and bigotry-fueled violence generally. Gutting of anti-terror efforts by the administration, recently reported by NBC News, bode ill for efforts to prevent this kind of violence from spreading.

This is especially so when the president himself is throwing rhetorical lighter fluid on his political targets. He [Trump] , and we, can’t be shocked when someone else provides the match. Indeed, it’s becoming clear that’s exactly the script he intends.

Trump's Psychology Of Hate Has Unleashed Violence

In the wake of the arrest of the MAGA Bomber a Neo-Nazi interrupted services at a synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed 11 worshipers.  Reportedly the shooter - yet another angry white male - shouted all Jews must die.  The trigger for the slaughter?  Anti-Semitic hatred, of course, but per the shooters online rants, also anger at Jewish charities aiding refugees who the shooter deemed as invaders of "his country."  One doesn't have to ponder long before realizing the shooter was perhaps emboldened by the worse immigrant/refugee hater of them all, the occupant of the White House.  Specifically, the Pittsburgh shooter blamed Jews for aiding the immigrant caravan about which Trump has been lying for days.Attempted political assassinations of individuals demonized by Trump and a mass shooting of a members of a religious minority targeted seemingly for aiding refugees - a favored target of Der Trumpenführer -all in one week.  Try as Trump and his bigotry filled supporters might to shirk any responsibility, only the delusional do not to see any correlation between violent rhetoric from the White House and the actions of those who feel their actions have been legitimized.   A piece in Forbes by a clinical psychologist lays out why Trump cannot disclaim responsibility.  Here are excerpts:  

Make no mistake, President Trump is responsible for the MAGABomber. Not directly like he told him to do it. But still fully responsible. I write that knowing that doing so increases the chances that the next Trumpian stirred-up by [Trump’s] the president’s unprecedented incendiary rhetoric who happens upon my writing might try to hurt me. And I know that because that’s just how the psychology of hate works.

Trump has, intentionally or not, hit a trifecta of hate that foments terrorism, in this case domestic terrorism. At rallies and speeches his incendiary eloquence identifies opponents as enemies then motivates hatred and sanctions violence against them. Facts no longer matter. Nor do values shared with those he sees as horrible, terrible people. What matters is that it’s us versus them. And we can’t let them win. Never apologize, never back down.

The trifecta is important, central in fact. . . . when right wing apologists start defending President Trump, as they will, by pointing to sharply critical things people like Maxine Waters or Bernie Sanders may have said they will be missing the point. And if they’ve read this piece they will be willfully trying to deceive. The psychology of hate shows you need Trump’s trifecta to be responsible. So let’s look closer. 

For a leader to be responsible for the terrorism he incites they first have to identify opponents and critics as an enemy, an other. They are not just reasonable adversaries, a loyal opposition. They are a hostile enemy. And President Trump amply checks this box. Whether it’s the fact-based press, oppressed people of color, “globalists” (usually an anti-semitic code word), Hilary or Democrats in general, Trump brands critics and opponents as an enemy other, not “one of us.” 

Second is taking these outsiders and making them objects of hatred, people against whom rage should be directed. It’s not enough to scorn, ridicule or shame them. They deserve your rage. And first as a candidate and now as president, Trump has shown a remarkable talent for making people feel good about hating others. . . . . If you need evidence look no further than things like the naked fury directed towards the press at his rallies or the gleeful foot-stomping chants to imprison a political opponent. 

Third is where most enlightened leaders stop:  sanctioning violence. After creating a sense of belonging to a special group by emotionally positioning himself as an object of identification—be like me if you also want to be a rich pussy-grabber who only wins and never loses—Trump then takes the next step to license violence. In one infamous example he fully supported a rageful supporter sucker-punching a protester. An early version as president was his tepid response to Heather Heyer’s murder by a supporter in Charlottesville in 2017. Just a few days ago was a rally where he endorsed a congressman who had attacked a reporter saying “Any guy who can do a body slam … he’s my guy.”

Like in the myth of Pandora who released evil out in the world, the fires of hate are hard to extinguish. . . . . By leading with this trifecta of hate, President Trump is responsible for the pipe bombs sent by a supporter. Yes, early reports clearly show the MAGABomber was vulnerable to these messages of hate. But if someone throws a lit match into a vat of gasoline, they should not be surprised at the resulting fire. And they should be held responsible

Hate Crimes Up Around America But Down in Virginia

Since the election of Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, to the White House, hate crimes nationwide have increased as Trump has continued to signal that racism and bigotry are acceptable behavior.  Curiously, in Virginia, for 2016, hate crimes are actually down notwithstanding the fact that they increased across the rest of the nation as a whole.  As to why such is the case, there seem to be no obvious answer although I suspect that some might point to the messaging from the governor's mansion that Virginia is accepting and open to all.  On November 7, 2017, Virginians strongly rejected the Gillespie/Adams/Vogel ticket's call to racism and bigotry.   A piece in the Daily Press looks at the phenomenon.  Here are excerpts:

While hate crimes are up about five percent nationally, the number of hate crimes in Virginia decreased about 12 percent.  That’s according to the FBI’s 2016 hate crime statistics released this week. The data comes from the Uniform Crime Reporting Program — a system by which law enforcement collects crime data. About 15,200 agencies participated in the Hate Crime Statistics Program last year.

FBI and Virginia’s data shows hate crimes predominantly were driven by racial bias. Virginia lists religion and sexual orientation as the next most common motivators; vice versa for the FBI. Anti-black, anti-white, anti-Jewish and anti-gay (male) were the four most frequent types of hate crimes around the nation.

Experts quickly warn against jumping to conclusions. Virginia law recognizes hate crimes that target someone’s race, religion or national origin. That leaves out sexual orientation, gender and disability.

In other words, if a woman presumed her car was vandalized because of her gender identity, local police would only investigate the vandalism. The case would be turned over to a federal agency to investigate, said Dana Schrad, executive director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police.

“They’re going to investigate that, obviously they can prosecute that, but they can’t call it a hate crime if it’s outside those areas in Virginia law,” Schrad said.

“It’s a social justice issue, so I think folks would have to go to the General Assembly and say we have evidence of these hate crimes but we have to go to feds to prosecute because we don’t have an avenue in the state system,” Schrad said.

The data only reflects incidents in 2016, and only covers crimes — not hate incidents.

The Anti-Defamation League, which keeps its own data, reported a 67 percent uptick in anti-semitic incidents between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, 2017, and the same time period last year. Anti-LGBTQ homicides rose by 17 percent between 2015 and 2016, according to a report released by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. There were 1,036 incidents of hate violence reported, the majority of which targeted people who identified as gay, below the age of 39 or were people of color.

Doron Ezickson, regional director for the ADL, advocated for consistent legislation across the country, and more training for police and prosecutors. And, Vecchietti said, a move away from victim blaming.

“When we talk about greater prevalence rate it's not like the nature of the individual that’s the problem,” Vecchietti said. “It’s the culture that's the problem.”  Hate crimes don’t just target an individual, Ezickson said. They target and seek to silence an entire community.

Donald Trump and the Call to Dehumanize Others

One thing that unites much of Donald Trump's base of support - especially the white supremacists and the evangelical Christians, although in my view, the two groups overlap to a great extent - is their hatred of those who are different.  Gays are target of their hate as are blacks, Muslims, non-Christians of every stripe, Hispanics, those born overseas.  They insist that they are the "real Americans," ignoring the fact that America was stolen from its original occupants through genocide or that some of those they deem "other" have ancestries in America that go back for many decades - or centuries - longer than their own.  Some of my own ancestors go back to New England prior to 1800 while others seem to trace back to Louisiana following the "Great Expulsion" of  French Acadians from Canada by the British during the 1755–1764 time-frame, but since I am gay, in the world of these people I do not rate "real American" status.  During his campaign, Trump called to the racism and simmering hate and has since incited violence against the media - CNN has increased security to protect its employees - and those who oppose his toxic agenda.  A piece in the New York Times looks at one of the victims of such hate, the wife of an Indian man murdered by "real American" in Kansas. With my large number of Hindu clients, the piece resonated with me and made me sad for what Trump and his followers are doing both to the country and to decent, hard working people who are just as human and deserving of life, liberty and happiness as anyone else.  Here are article excerpts (please read the entire piece):

Mr. Kuchibhotla, an Indian-born engineer, was confronted about his immigration status at a bar, then fatally shot. By the time the police arrived, Mr. Kuchibhotla was dying, and his close friend Alok Madasani was wounded. Another patron who tried to stop the attack was also struck by gunfire.

In some ways, what one man shouted in anger and one woman uttered in grief capture one of America’s most troubling intersections.

“Get out of my country!” the gunman would yell, before opening fire on the two Indian men he said he believed were from Iran.

The episode happened at dinnertime in America, in a neighborhood bar, part of a spasm of hatred uncoiling in small towns and big cities across the nation — and in rising numbers.

A month before the shooting, the Victoria Islamic Center in Texas was torched, destroying the mosque. A month after the shooting, a white supremacist traveled from Baltimore to New York City on a mission to randomly kill a black man. He did just that. The reason:a deep hatred of black men.

Ms. Dumala had wondered how the couple fit into this new narrative, if they should move to a different country, and once even asked her husband, “Are we doing the right thing of staying in the United States of America?”

The realization that her husband was killed because of intolerance, because he was not born in America, is what forced her to emerge from this personal, private hell. If people were to know the aftermath of a hate crime, the crater-sized void and endless questions left behind, if the victims were rendered as three-dimensional, maybe there would be less fear, less hate, she thought.

“My story needs to be spread,” she says plainly. “Srinu’s story needs to be known. We have to do something to reduce the hate crimes. Even if we can save one other person, I think that would give peace to Srinu and give me the satisfaction that his sacrifice did not go in vain.”

The best friends, more like brothers, were at Austins. Typically the two went with another close friend from the office, Manju Nag, but he had been out of town on business. That night, it was just Mr. Kuchibhotla and Mr. Madasani at their regular table on the patio, the one closest to the door, discussing Bollywood movies and drinking a pair of Miller Lites.

The assailant approached the friends. Witnesses recall him wearing a white T-shirt with military-style pins, his head wrapped in a white scarf. He was intent on finding out one thing: Did the men at the table belong in the country?

Adam W. Purinton, a white Navy veteran, turned to the two brown-complexioned men, both living in the United States for years, and demanded to know their immigration status.

Not long after, according to the authorities, Mr. Purinton returned to the bar with a handgun. He stood in the door entrance, pointed his gun toward the two men, and fired.

Mr. Kuchibhotla was hit first. Mr. Madasani, who had been sitting on the other side of the table, hit the ground, forced by a bullet, instinct or both. He crawled on his belly toward the opposite door. He thought the bullets were close by because the floor shook with each gunshot. “All I was thinking about at the time was about my baby, all I was thinking of was my wife’s belly,” said Mr. Madasani, whose wife was pregnant with their first child, a boy due in July. “In flashes, I was thinking, ‘I have to live.’”

Once outside, he realized he had been shot in the left leg. “I saw Srivinas on the floor, not moving. I kept on yelling to everyone, ‘Leave me, go and attend to him.’”

Mr. Grillot, the bar patron who had intervened earlier, chased Mr. Purinton into the parking lot. Mr. Purinton turned and shot him in the chest and hand.

Mr. Purinton, 52, was formally charged with premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of premeditated attempted murder. Last month, he was also indicted on federal hate-crime charges.

The term “hate crime” was being used over and over and by the police, journalists and politicians to describe the death of her husband. All of a sudden, Mr. Kuchibhotla was a hate crime statistic, an example to bolster anti-hate legislation  . . . . . 

This is not the America that I want to live in.  The majority of Americans I suspect do not either.  It is time we take back America from the bigots and haters. 

Wave of Vandalism, Violence Hits LGBT Centers

While "friends" who voted for Der Trumpenführer continue to deny any responsibility for the rising tide of hate and intimidation that his campaign and election have ushered in, the sad reality is that threats against synagogues. Jewish community centers, mosques, and LGBT centers have sky rocketed.  Even in gay-friendly Key West a visiting Trump supporter attacked a gay couple on Duval Street.  Thankfully, he was arrested in his hometown in North Carolina, but many perpetrators are getting away with their acts of hate and violence.   Operating hand in glove with the violence are a slew of GOP sponsored anti-LGBT bills being introduced in legislatures across the nation. NBC News looks at the troubling attacks and threats.  Here are highlights:

When Ruby Corado arrived at her office on Sunday, she found broken glass everywhere, a door ripped off its frame and a shaken staffer.

Corado told NBC News a man had burst into Casa Ruby — the Washington, D.C. drop-in center and advocacy organization for transgender women she founded in 2004 — and demolished a door and physically attacked a trans woman working at the center.

"He grabbed something and threw it at her. It hit her on the arm. Then [he] walked toward her and said, 'I'm gonna kill you, faggot,'" Corado said. "Everyone was trying to control him. He goes to the door and leaves, then a brick comes flying through the door from the outside."

This is the third time in just two weeks that men have come to Casa Ruby to harass and attack the transgender women that meet there for support and companionship. And D.C. is not the only city to see its local LGBTQ community center hit by violence or vandalism in recent weeks.

In February and March, a spate of hate incidents occurred at LGBTQ community centers and similar venues across the nation, in a trend that has gone underreported.

When Ruby Corado arrived at her office on Sunday, she found broken glass everywhere, a door ripped off its frame and a shaken staffer.

Corado told NBC News a man had burst into Casa Ruby — the Washington, D.C. drop-in center and advocacy organization for transgender women she founded in 2004 — and demolished a door and physically attacked a trans woman working at the center.
 Casa Ruby, located in Washington, D.C., was vandalized and a staff member assaulted two days after Mayor Muriel Bowser reported a 100 percent increase in hate crimes against the transgender community.

On March 6, a drive-by shooting targeted the Tulsa, Oklahoma headquarters of Oklahomans for Equality. The very next day, a man entered the center harassing and threatening staff, reportedly saying "I wish you all would die." The center's executive director, Toby Jenkins, told The Tulsa World it was the most serious incident he'd seen in 12 years.

LGBTQ community centers in Los Angeles and Milwaukee were hit with hate graffiti in February, with workers in L.A. arriving to see "F**k Trannies" spray-painted across the walls. Milwaukee's Diverse & Resilient center was covered in paint reading "Fag."

Churchgoers in New Orleans were startled on Sunday morning when a brick flew through a stained-glass window. Members of the LGBTQ-affirming First Unitarian Church had held a widely publicized town hall on anti-transgender violence less than 48 hours prior to the attack. Rev. Deanna Vandiver told The Times-Picayune the town hall may have "stirred up hate mongering."

The offices of New Jersey's Garden State Equality and Orlando's Equality Florida were both vandalized about a week apart. On February 24, someone smashed the windows at Equality Florida, and two men kicked at the front door of Garden State Equality until it shattered on March 4.

Last Wednesday, police arrested an Indiana man they said threatened to carry out a Pulse-style shooting at a local gay bar.

New York's Anti-Violence Project (AVP) cited a "surge" of hate violence and incidents since the 2016 election, tying together recent threats called into Jewish community centers with the attacks on LGBTQ spaces.

AVP Communications Director Sue Yacka told NBC News she sees a connection between direct attacks on LGBTQ community venues and the more than 100 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation that have been proposed in just the first few weeks of 2017.

"It's a message that we shouldn't be in public, that we should be hidden away, that we should hide our identities," Yacka said. "You use legislation and intimidation and violence to make this happen, to try and make people go away. But we are not going away."

Americans Are Too Timid In Confronting Hate

Despite the efforts of Republicans to spin the 2016 presidential election results as an uprising of working class whites stressed over economic concerns (a lie that a gullible and lazy media has been happy to Promote), the sad truth of the matter is that hatred was a key element utilized by Donald Trump to rally the GOP base and to win over some past Democratic voters who were outraged to see what they viewed as their white Christian privilege being eroded - eroded by blacks, Hispanics, gays and others.  The other key was the usual Republican tactic of playing to religious extremism best embodied in anti-abortion rhetoric and anti-LGBT sound bites.  This latter ploy not only won over 81% of evangelicals but also duped some Hispanics and blacks to vote against their own interest. Now, with an unfit narcissistic madman in the White House and a GOP controlled Congress, in 2017 it will be all the more important to oppose and counter appeals to hatred.  A piece in The Daily Beast authored by a German sets out why confronting hate is so important.  Here are excerpts:

Late in the evening on Christmas day, Stephanie Pazmino slashed a black, transgender man after he offered her a subway seat. “I don’t want to sit next to black people,” Pazmino told the victim. A couple of weeks ago a man walked into a 7-Eleven in the Bronx. He had no intention to purchase anything but wanted to use the store’s microwave. When the Muslim clerk told him that this was against store policy, the man responded that he could do whatever he wanted. He told the clerk to go back to ‘his country’ and threatened to physically harm him.

At the beginning of December a hijab-wearing city transit worker was assaulted by a passenger who confronted her on the 7 train. “You’re a terrorist and you shouldn’t be working for the city,” said the man, according to reports, as he jabbed a finger at her MTA badge. He followed her off the train at Grand Central Terminus, and then pushed her down stairs at the station. (She was taken to hospital with injuries to her knee and ankle.) The attacker was not apprehended, and there were no reports of anyone trying to intervene.

According to the New York Police Department, bias incidents in New York have spiked 400 percent in the two weeks that followed the election of Donald J. Trump, compared to the same period last year.

Earlier this year, I was a witness to one such attack. Riding the 7 Train into Manhattan from Queens, arguably the most diverse place on earth, I heard someone yelling anti-Muslim insults. A man had pushed a young woman in a hijab off her seat, and the woman was crying.

I decided to stand between victim and perpetrator. I was the only person who responded until a man who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent joined me. My heart was racing, as I explained to her, between gasps for air, that there’s a red emergency button she can push if something like this ever happens again. The woman spoke little English and didn’t seem to understand.

I am not sharing this story to congratulate myself but to illustrate what I’ve learned from growing up in Germany.

I’m a small but furious German. When I went to high school in Bavaria in the late 1980s and early ’90s, the horrors of fascism still echoed through the classrooms. Germans have internalized that the reason why Adolf Hitler was able to rise to power was that no one stood up for the Jews.

I have plenty of problems with Germany, but its people’s willingness to speak their minds and stand up for others isn’t one of them. Whatever you do, in Germany the public good trumps your individual desires.

Germans have also worked hard to understand how the unspeakable happened. They have one of those unwieldy compound words for it: Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or “the process of coming to terms with your past.” The concept includes a duty to intervene when another’s dignity or life is in danger.

I vividly recall the teacher-led discussions in high school that dealt with the persecution and deportation of Jews. What would you do if it was your neighbor: look the other way or step up? We read eyewitness accounts of “good Germans” who hid Jews in their attics.

“The Jews had it coming,” my paternal grandmother told me. More than once she said, “The Nuremberg Rallies were the best times of my life.”

Perhaps it is for this reason, more than my schooling, that the recent spike in hate crimes hits close to home.

These aren’t isolated incidents anymore. Yet it is a trend our soon-to-be leader has decided to ignore. So how should we respond? What can we do to avoid becoming bystanders in something unspeakable? If you still think that we should just wait and see, I wonder when will you step in. Will you step in when it is too late?

When you move to the U.S., even from a western country like Germany, there will always be things that remind you that you don’t fully belong. Don’t get me wrong, there are many things I love about America. . . . . And yet for the most part, it is our job as immigrants to this country to assimilate to the American way, rarely the other way around.

I am beyond frustrated that we’re stuck with a president who, just like Adolf Hitler, despises refugees, intellectuals, journalists, women and non-Christians.

[T]he very thing that makes America great—its people’s quiet acceptance of other beliefs, their overwhelming friendliness, their effort to always get along—now threatens to become its downfall. I loathed having to read my friends’ whiny Facebook posts about how they were dreading Thanksgiving because of the elections. “Boohoo, I have to talk about politics to someone who thinks differently than I do!”

Here, this German said it. Will you still like me? I am asking because I believe what stands in the way is Americans’ compulsive need to be liked. At moments like this, though, we need to learn to object and intervene—whether in public protest or simply around the family dinner table. You don’t have to get into a fight to try out my little German lesson, but if you see something, do something.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” wrote the philosopher Edmund Burke. Exactly. So don’t just be good. Be a good German.