Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

Supreme Court to Take Up Cases on LGBT Workplace Rights

Currently there are no express federal non-discrimination protections for LGBT employees in the workplace.  Similarly, over two dozen states - including Virginia - have no state law employment non-discrimination protections for LGBT citizens.  Given this void, some federal agencies and two of the U,S. Circuit Courts of Appeal have held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in banning sex discrimination, also bans sexual orientation discrimination.  Yet another court held that the Act did not afford such expansive protections.  Now, the U.S. Supreme Court -stacked with Trump appointed anti-gay justices - will take up the question.  It is an issue that I am passionate about given my own experience more than a decade ago of being forced from a Virginia Beach law firm for being gay. That event, combined with an anti-gay divorce court judge forced me into bankruptcy. After being force to maintaining my own firm for eight years due to the homophobia in the local legal community, for the last five years I have been with gay accepting firms and have largely recovered financially.  I know first hand what religious based bigotry and hatred can do to harm lives.  A piece in  Politico looks at the appeals:

The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a set of high-profile cases involving gay rights and the rights of transgender people in the workplace.

The justices announced Monday that they will consider whether existing federal law banning employment-related sex discrimination also prohibits discriminating against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation or because they are transgender.

The Supreme Court said it will hear a pair of cases in which federal appeals courts split over whether LBGTQ employees are protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The justices also accepted a case involving a transgender funeral home employee, saying they will consider whether being transgender is protected in itself or whether it falls within existing law against “sex stereotyping.”

The cases are expected to be argued in the fall.

A piece in The Advocate gives more details on the posture of the three cases to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court and the impact the ultimate decision will have on millions of LGBT Americans:

The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a set of high-profile cases involving gay rights and the rights of transgender people in the workplace.

The justices announced Monday that they will consider whether existing federal law banning employment-related sex discrimination also prohibits discriminating against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation or because they are transgender.

The Supreme Court said it will hear a pair of cases in which federal appeals courts split over whether LBGTQ employees are protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The justices also accepted a case involving a transgender funeral home employee, saying they will consider whether being transgender is protected in itself or whether it falls within existing law against “sex stereotyping.”

The cases are expected to be argued in the fall.

One involves Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor who was fired from his job in 2010 after telling a client he was gay. His employer, New York-based Altitude Express, contended he was fired for touching the client inappropriately. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, while not ruling on the merits of the case, did rule last year that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in banning sex discrimination, also bans sexual orientation discrimination. Altitude Express appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that the scope of the law should be decided by legislators, not the courts.

In the other sexual orientation case, Gerald Bostick, a social worker employed by Clayton County, Ga., said he was fired for being gay. County officials said his firing was for other reasons. In his case, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals said Title VII did not apply because it did not explicitly address sexual orientation. The Supreme Court often agrees to hear cases where there is disagreement between circuits, known as a "circuit split."

In the gender identity case, funeral director Aimee Stephens was fired from a Michigan funeral home company in 2013 after she began presenting as a woman at work. The company, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, said she violated its dress code by wearing women’s clothing; her boss, Thomas Rost, also said she violated his religious beliefs about gender being God-given and immutable. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that companies cannot arbitrarily fire trans people and that discrimination based on gender identity is inseparable from discrimination based on sex. The funeral home operator, represented by the anti-LGBTQ Alliance Defending Freedom, appealed to the Supreme Court, objecting to that expansive interpretation of sex discrimination law.

In hearing these cases, the high court, which now has a conservative majority, could have a huge effect on LGBTQ rights. Civil rights groups said the matter underscores the need for the Equality Act, recently introduced in Congress, which would amend existing law to explicitly ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, in employment and other facets of life.

Greg Nevins, senior counsel and workplace fairness program strategist for Lambda Legal, noted, “Title VII obviously requires equal treatment of men and women, so it was wrong to treat Donald Zarda (or Gerald Bostock) differently because of his attraction to men, when a Donna Zarda or Geraldine Bostock would not have endured discrimination for liking men. And when Aimee Stephens’ employer fired her after learning that she was undertaking a gender transition, her employer discriminated against her because of sex. These arguments couldn’t be more straightforward, and we are hopeful that the court will confirm that they are correct.”

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Keeping Trump in Office will Destroy the Republican Party

As Democrats in the House of Representatives debate what action to take in the wake of the release of the Mueller report, some are arguing that impeachment would be a foolish move and could harm Democrat prospects in 2020, especially f the party fails to nominate a viable candidate and the cultist in the Sanders camp keep their vow to vote for Trump if Bernie Sanders is not the nominee (a move, in my view, that shows they are irrational at best).  Instead, continued investigations of Trump under the guise of Congressional oversight, a constitutional duty, and allowing Trump to further alienate more and more of the populace could be the Democrats' best bet at destroying the Republican Party - or more aptly, allowing Trump and his knuckle dragging base to destroy it. For decades the GOP has had no long term plan and Trump is accelerating the GOP's self-inflicted suicide.  Here are highlights from an op-ed in the New York Times that makes this argument:

In the fall of 1998, Erskine Bowles, the White House chief of staff, traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with the speaker of the House. Mr. Bowles enjoyed a better relationship with Speaker Newt Gingrich than anyone in the Clinton White House, partly based on a shared Southern heritage and commitment to fiscal conservatism. At the end of the meeting, Mr. Bowles put a very direct question to Mr. Gingrich: Why were the Republicans intent on impeaching Bill Clinton? The speaker replied, “Because we can.”

Just as Speaker Gingrich did in 1998, Speaker Nancy Pelosi could direct the impeachment of President Trump because she can. Unlike in 1998, she stands on firmer ground: The Clinton case involved an egregious personal mistake and purported steps to cover it up; the Trump case involves an effort to thwart an investigation into a foreign attack on our democratic system.

Inevitably the news media and the political chattering class, of which I count myself as a card-carrying member, have focused on the party politics of impeachment. With the benefit of hindsight, impeaching President Clinton was a disaster for the Republicans. Mr. Clinton’s job approval was at a record 73 percent the month he was impeached, Democrats defied the odds and picked up seats in the midterm elections and Mr. Gingrich returned to the private sector.

Impeaching Bill Clinton was wholly a political decision; the substance mattered little in 1998. Two decades later, Democrats face almost the exact opposite dynamics.

For Democrats, leaving Donald Trump in office is not only good politics — it is the best chance for fundamental realignment of American politics in more than a generation. Mr. Trump is three years into destroying what we know as the Republican Party. Another two years just might finish it off. Trumpism has become Republicanism, and that spells electoral doom for the party.

Mr. Trump has abandoned most of the core principles that have defined Republicans for the past century. . . . What’s left of the party [GOP] is a rigid adherence to tax cuts, a social agenda that repels most younger Americans and rampant xenophobia and race-based politics that regularly interfere with the basic functioning of the federal government.

Republicans today are the party of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson — a coalition that, in the face of every demographic trend in America, will mean the long-term realignment of the federal government behind the Democrats.

[K]eeping President Trump in office is the best way to cement Trumpism’s hold on the Republican Party.

Republicans themselves know it, and that simple fact is a huge problem for them: By and large they don’t like him, and they know he’s a long-term problem for the party — but in the short term they know they can’t get re-elected without his voters. For Democrats, it’s the dream scenario — as long as he completes his term.

President Trump should be impeached because he is unfit for the presidency. . . . But if Newt Gingrich taught us anything, impeaching the president is likely to be bad politics.

Nothing will unite an increasingly fraying Republican Party more than trying to remove the president anywhere but at the ballot box. Democrats risk the kind of overreach that doomed the Republicans 20 years ago. And in any case Democrats are not likely to succeed in getting votes in the Senate to convict the president. And in politics, a loss is a loss — there are no moral victories.

I fully understand the historical imperative of holding the president accountable for his behavior. I also share the sentiment of so many Americans who want to punish him for what he’s done to the country. But I believe there is something bigger at stake.

Allowing Mr. Trump to lead the Republican Party, filled with sycophants and weak-willed leaders, into the next election is the greater prize. Democrats have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to realign American politics along progressive lines, very much like Ronald Reagan did for Republicans in the 1980s.

Trumpism equals Republicanism as long as Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket. And a real shift to progressivism in America will be delivered by a devastating rebuke of the president and his party, a rebuke that will return control of the Senate and state houses across the nation. Politics is always a gamble — and this is the best bet we’ve had in a long time.

The argument makes good sense. Pray that the Democrats come up with a credible 2020 presidential nominee - someone other than Warren and Sanders - and Biden.

What Next for the Democrats?

It is becoming increasingly clear that Attorney General William Barr basically lied about much of what is contained in the Mueller report and as more details emerge, Trump is clearly a lawless and dangerous force in the White House.   That said, rushing to impeach him - like the usually suspects, including Elizabeth Warren are already doing - could prove counterproductive and politically damaging.  Before any such effort is made  (if made at all), House Democrats need to carefully undertake further investigations and make the case for (i) Trump's unfitness for office, and (ii) why impeachment rather than merely voting Trump out of office in 2020 is the responsible move.  The goal would be to convince non-politically voters, including soccer moms more worried about PTA events and children sporting events that the destruction of America's democracy, why impeachment would not be a raw political exercise and put pressure on Republicans to belatedly stand to protect the constitutional order.  A column in The Atlantic makes the case for this reasoned and judicious approach.  Here are highlights:

What next? The substance of the Mueller report is only now beginning to penetrate through the fog of lies and distortions coming from the Attorney General William Barr, backed by his loyal lieutenant Rod Rosenstein. Even the redacted version makes visible the despicable behavior that emanated from the Trump campaign and the Trump White House, not to mention Trump himself, and the shocking penetration of Russia into our elections—with no visible response then or now from Republicans in power. But most Americans will not read or even get the gist of the Mueller report, or know much of what is in it, as they lead their own lives largely unfocused on politics and government.

So what should Democrats do? There is ample evidence of behavior on the part of the president that fits any reasonable definition of high crimes and misdemeanors—and most likely there will be a lot more, when the Southern District of New York and other jurisdictions of the Justice Department finish their work—at least if Barr does not stymie them. There is a constitutional responsibility for the House to follow up.

But a formal impeachment inquiry in the House Judiciary Committee would be politically perilous—and while politics cannot override duty, Democrats cannot risk the kind of 2020 backlash that would come if a large share of the voting public came to see the House as Javert-like, abandoning its focus on health care, jobs and the other issues that dominate most Americans’ lives in a monomaniacal quest to get Trump. A quick move to impeachment would be used by Trump and his acolytes, from the Senate to Fox and talk radio, to incite and outrage the GOP base.

That said, a failure to act, to do anything meaningful to bring this president and his gang of corrupt miscreants to heel, would rightfully enrage most liberal voters. Remember that the rage Republican primary voters felt at their party establishment in 2016, over broken promises to bring Obama to his knees, led to the nomination of Trump. A parallel rage among Democrats could lead to a deeply divided party and a disastrous presidential nomination.

There is, I believe, a reasonable path forward that, besides being politically palatable, has the added advantage of being the right thing to do. It starts with a coordinated and in-depth examination of the Mueller report by the House.

What we need is for the Judiciary, Intelligence, and Homeland Security Committees to conduct a series of deep dives into the areas of communication and coordination between Trump and his campaign with Russians and their surrogates, like Wikileaks; the multiple categories and areas of obstruction of justice that Mueller outlined; the threats to our intelligence operations and our justice system from Trump and his operatives; and the moves by Russia to interfere in and influence our elections used by Trump and unchecked by Republicans. Other committees, such as Ways and Means and Banking, need to be ready to do the same thing as more information emerges from the SDNY and the New York Attorney General, among others, about Trump’s financial dealings, including with the Russians, and about Russian money-laundering.

Democrats need to stage and coordinate hearings across committees and subcommittees, to make sure they do not overload Americans’ ability to pay attention. Most important, they need to structure the public hearings in a dramatically different way than usual. Each committee needs to use experienced counsel—a good examples might be former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara—and limit if not abandon opening statements, except from the chairs. No five-minute rounds of questions going down the line of every committee member, . . .

Give the counsel an hour to set the frame and ask in-depth questions. Either follow that with another round for the counsel or have a small group of committee members take 15 or 30 minutes to ask questions in a sustained way with coordinated themes. This system might cause hard feelings among members who will not get their five minutes in the sun—and would reduce the public role for chairs—but it is better-suited to accomplish the larger goal. And that larger goal is to build a compelling record, through vivid testimony, of what Trump and his people, including his children, did and did not do, said and did not say truthfully, that are the core of Mueller’s report.

That kind of forum should be supplemented by another. Committees should do a series of roundtables, discussions with leading experts with deep experience in the Justice Department, including the FBI, in the White House, in the intelligence world, and elsewhere, to discuss in depth whether the behaviors they have seen in the Trump administration are typical or unusual, acceptable or unacceptable.

All of this is, in my view, a necessary predicate to the formal impeachment inquiry that could then follow. If done well—even as the House brought up measures to shore up the Affordable Care Act, to protect children from family separation, to improve the lives of working families, to begin to address infrastructure needs and clean energy, along with oversight of failures in disaster relief, border activities, college loan policy, and corruption in many departments—then impeachment would look powerfully more like a logical and necessary step, less like a vindictive, partisan move.

Democrats should not jump the gun on impeachment. But it would be a serious dereliction of duty if they did not move now to set the stage for what should happen when the time and setting are right.

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Trump is a Threat to Religious Freedom

For the record, I am no fan of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who I believe will prove harmful to the Democrat Party.  That said, recent attacks on her by Der  Trumpenführer further underscore the religious based bigotry that permeates Trump's view of Muslims and Islam.  Every religion seemingly has its dangerous extremists who hold animus towards those of other faiths (and sexual orientation), and Christianity is no exception.   Look no farther than the racists evangelicals who continue to support the morally reprehensible Trump. But Trump's attacks on Omar and Islam threaten a core value of the Founding Fathers who knew well the dangers of an established church and sought to protect religious freedom for all religious faiths. A column by former Republican Michael Gerson looks at why Trump's attacks on Islam are so dangerous and ultimately threaten the religious freedom on all Americans.  Here are highlights:

SO ANOTHER norm of public decency falls, like a historical building demolished to make way for one of Donald Trump's tasteless towers.

When the president of the United States goes after an American Muslim — in this case Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who came to the U.S. as a Somali refugee — using images of the 9/11 attacks, it is cruel, frightening and dangerous in new ways.

It is cruel because Trump essentially delivered his political rant while standing on desecrated graves. The images he employed not only included burning buildings but burning human beings, drafted into a sad and sordid political ploy. Is nothing sacred to Trump? When said aloud, the question sounds like an absurdity. Trump has never given the slightest indication of propriety, respect or reverence. His narcissism leaves no room to honor other people or to honor other gods.

Now, the victims of violence are treated as villains in Trump's fictional version of global threats. On the strength of such calumnies, Trump has essentially destroyed America's asylum system.

This has led to a frightening state of affairs. By all the evidence, Trump is an anti-Muslim bigot. At one campaign event in 2015, a member of the audience stated, "We have a problem in this country; it's called Muslims." And he went on to ask, "When can we get rid of them?" Trump responded: "We're going to be looking at that and plenty of other things." Imagine a normal politician on the left or right being asked about the possibility of getting rid of all the Christians, or getting rid of all the Jews. They would likely use such a moment to clarify that they aren't, in fact, insanely prejudiced monsters. Trump used such a moment to affirm the instinct of mass deportation and to promise a range of other anti-Muslim actions.

Could this have been a slip of the tongue? No, it wasn't. Trump has a long history of animus — raw animus — against one of the Abrahamic faiths. He has said, "We're having problems with the Muslims." And: "There is a Muslim problem in the world." And: "Islam hates us."

He has claimed: "You have people coming out of mosques with hatred and death in their eyes." He once called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." He has variously and publicly considered the closing of mosques, warrantless searches, and the creation of a national database to track Muslims. 

[Trump] The president claims to have seen "thousands and thousands" of American Muslims cheering on 9/11 when the towers fell — a lie and a libel. He attacked a Muslim Gold Star mother, claiming that she "wasn't allowed" to speak at the Democratic convention because of her faith — a lie and a libel. He has praised Gen. John Pershing for executing Muslim insurgents in the Philippines with bullets dipped in pig's blood — a historical myth, but a revealing fantasy of anti-Muslim war crimes.

This is not only rank religious bigotry; it is the attitude most likely to alienate some Muslims from American ideals and turn a dangerous few toward radicalism and violence.

None of this requires us to believe that Omar is a wise or thoughtful public figure. She isn't. She traffics in the worst anti-Semitic tropes. But Trump's perception of religious liberty as freedom only for the faiths he prefers is a potential threat to every religious group.

Religious freedom is either rigorously equal, or it becomes an instrument of those in power to favor or disfavor religions of their choice. And those believers who are currently in favor may someday discover what disfavor is like.

A Democrat Recipe for Political Suicide

Democrat circular firing squad.

From my days years ago as a Republican activist I know one thing for certain: the GOP understands something liberal Democrats are oblivious to, namely, that you have to win elections in order to accomplish goals.  And to win elections, you do not embrace an agenda that will hand you opponents something they can use to bludgeon your candidates with and that has the potential to drive voters into the arms of the competing political party. Lose the moderates and you lose the election. Forget that whites still make up a majority of the electorate, you lose the election. 

The far left in the Democrat Party is clueless about these realities.  Politics involves winning elections so you can implement change. At a time when the Democrats have a perfect opportunity to win back the White House and to take control of the General Assembly here in Virginia, some House Democrats are pushing the issue of "reparations" for African-Americans, a theme which I readily see the GOP using to outrage the very working class whites that Democrats need to win back to win in 2020.  Do things need to be done to assist blacks in achieving the so-called American Dream? Most certainly, but using the term "reparations" is absolute idiocy! Can't you hear Trump and his minions and Fox News talking heads bellowing how Democrats want to take money from some and write checks to others?  Add this to the Democrats' ridiculous "purity" police efforts and the whining of some about the "whiteness" of the current top three presidential nomination contenders in the polls and the Trump and the GOP must be smiling broadly  Democrats are their own worse enemy.  A piece in Politico looks at this issue which may prove radioactive to Democrat election efforts:

Democrats have sidestepped the debate over reparations for African-Americans for decades. But now the issue is bubbling up in the House, and the new majority is wrestling with how to tackle it ahead of the 2020 campaign.

Sparked in part by the support of several presidential contenders, the topic has been discussed multiple times by top House Democrats, including at their retreat in the exurbs of Virginia earlier this month.

But the issue is likely to divide the party — not just by race, but by generation. The Congressional Black Caucus is notably split, with some younger African-American lawmakers clamoring to force the conversation into the open while more senior members worry about alienating moderate voters.

A discussion over reparations isn’t without risk, however, according to Clyburn and some other senior lawmakers and aides. Forcing the issue would likely open Democrats up to attacks from Republicans during the 2020 race.

But avoiding it — especially with Democrats controlling the House with the most diverse caucus in history — could also turn off voters of color who think it’s an important conversation to have, especially with President Donald Trump in the White House and white nationalism on the rise.

“As this administration has seemed to be forcing certain issues, I think that everybody wants to have an honest discussion about everybody who is in this country,” Clyburn said.

That Democrats are seriously entertaining such a response to the bitter legacy of slavery and discrimination against African-Americans underscores how quickly the party has shifted in recent years. While Barack Obama opposed reparations as a presidential candidate, White House hopefuls like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and former HUD Secretary Julián Castro have warmed to it.

While some Democrats worry even the word “reparations” is too controversial because it could conjure the notion of direct payments to descendants of slaves, supporters note that they’re talking about something potentially much broader.

Some Democrats, including Clyburn, said they support doing the study but note the process would take years to complete — if the bill was ever passed by the GOP-controlled Senate and signed by Trump — and that there are more immediate ways to help African-Americans and other underserved communities right now.

With that in mind, Democrats are expected to use the appropriations process in the coming months to steer more federal dollars toward programs that directly benefit minority communities. Some examples include programs that aim to increase the number of doctors and nurses in minority communities, address food deserts in underserved neighborhoods and pump more money into preserving historically black colleges and universities.

“I’m all for repairing the faults that exist in the country rather than waiting on somebody to do a study and then making recommendations,” Clyburn said.

The issue came up at least twice during Democrats’ retreat in Leesburg, Va., at which the party celebrated 100 days in power and discussed the next pieces of their agenda. But right now, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Cheri Bustos said she doesn’t see it becoming a prominent part of the campaign and the issue hasn’t been raised by voters in DCCC polling.

Other lawmakers said the public isn’t paying attention to the debate.

Rep. Joe Cunningham, a Democrat who flipped a heavily Republican Charleston-area district in South Carolina that is 19 percent African-American, said reparations didn’t come up during his campaign last year.

“It’s not something that came up in our election,” Cunningham said. “Certain things come up for presidential elections and come up every cycle — you know this stuff about the Electoral College — but from the day-to-day stuff I think the people are talking about other issues like the cost of their health care.”

Cunningham hit the nail on the head: talk about things that will win support of a majority of voters of all races, like health care and pocket book items.   No doubt some will call me a racist based on this post, but if your team doesn't win the election, NONE of your agenda gets accomplished.  Far left Democrats, especially from liberal states and cities forget this reality time and time again. 

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