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22 LGBT Advances That (Probably) Will Disappear Under A President Romney

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Under a President Mitt Romney, there are at least 22 advances in LGBT civil rights delivered by President Barack Obama that most likely will disappear. While Nancy Pelosi and, to a far lesser extent, Harry Reid, have worked to support civil rights and protections for the gay community, Barack Obama has — sometimes with great fanfare, oftentimes in the shadows — delivered important advances.

Back in 2010, at Change.org, I wrote a somewhat controversial (at the time) article, “Obama’s Gay Rights Come With An Expiration Date,” which stated:

President Obama should know better than to incrementalize gay rights, and tie them to his presidency. And yet, that’s exactly what he’s doing.

…

President Obama has slowly and quietly doled out rights to the LGBTQ community. These are rights we should have by the very nature of our existence, rights that every other American has upon birth, but the president has doled them out cautiously, meekly, without pomp or circumstance, and, worse, he has tied them to his presidency.

This tactic is problematic for two reasons.

First, by expanding our civil rights by issuing executive orders and memoranda, President Obama’s gay civil rights come with an expiration date. Yes, that’s right. The rights he has decreed, without working through Congress, are tied to his presidency. Any of his successors can, simply with the stroke of a pen, wipe out all our hard-earned rights, just because he or she wants to. Do you honestly think the next Republican president won’t do that?

Today, the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson posts a long list of 21 LGBT advances a President Romney could — with the stroke of a pen or incrementally — make disappear into a more progressive history.

Asking, “Would President Romney undo pro-LGBT advances?,” Johnson notes:

Many of the pro-LGBT advances that have happened under the Obama administration occurred through changes made by the executive branch rather than through legislation. Changes that were made without the consent of Congress could be reversed under an administration that wanted to cozy up to the religious right.

The Washington Blade has identified five regulatory changes and 16 sub-regulatory changes enacted by the Obama administration that could be reversed if Romney were elected to the White House. These changes include giving greater recognition to same-sex couples, protecting federal LGBT workers against discrimination and ensuring the federal government recognizes the correct gender of transgender people.

The one Johnson doesn’t include in his list of “five regulatory changes and 16 sub-regulatory changes” is the most-obvious: Obama’s support of same-sex marriage equality.

Here’s the list from the Blade:

Regulations

The Administrative Procedures Act provides safeguards against politically motivated policy switches. Thus repealing the policies below would involve a multi-year process.

  • The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) adopted a regulation ending the ban on HIV-positive visitors and immigrants.
  • President Obama issued Presidential Memorandum in April 2010 directing HHS to issue regulations requiring all hospitals receiving Medicaid and Medicare to prohibit discrimination in visitation against LGBT people. HHS issued a final regulation that went into effect in early 2011.
  • HUD issued final regulations in January 2012 prohibiting discrimination in federal public housing programs and federally insured mortgage loans.  HUD also requires its grantees to comply with LGBT-inclusive state and local housing discrimination protections.
  • The Office of Personnel Management published final regulations in the Federal Register expanding the eligibility for long-term care coverage to same-sex partners and sick leave to care for a same-sex partner.
  •  The federal Prison Rape Elimination Commission proposed national standards to reduce sexual abuse in correctional facilities, including standards regarding LGBT and intersex inmates. They were later instituted as a rule finalized by the Justice Department last month.

Sub-Regulatory Guidance/Policy Announcements

These are policy advances instituted by — and subject to the will of — the administration.

  • The Department of Health and Human Services revised its funding guidance around abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education programs, requiring that recipient programs are inclusive of and non-stigmatizing toward LGBT youth.
  • HHS, in partnership with the Department of Education and Department of Justice, launched stopbullyingnow.com.
  • The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency recently released new 2011 Performance Based National Detention Standards.  These new standards provide guidance that aims to improve treatment of LGBT and HIV-positive people in detention facilities.
  • In summer 2011, ICE published a memo and clarifying guidance providing that an individual’s family relationships, including a same-sex relationship, would be considered as a factor in labeling certain deportations as low-priority deportations.
  • The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol announced a proposed regulatory change expanding the meaning of “members of a family residing in one household” for the purposes of the customs declaration form, which must be completed prior to re-entry to the United States.
  • The DOJ issued an opinion clarifying that the criminal provisions of the Violence Against Women Act related to stalking and abuse apply equally to same-sex partners.
  • The State Department revised the standards for changing a gender marker on a passport, making the process less burdensome for transgender people.
  • In September 2011, the Social Security Administration confirmed that it ended the practice of allowing gender to be matched in its Social Security Number Verification System (SSNVS). This resulted in the immediate cessation of SSA sending notifications that alert employers when the gender marker on an employee’s W-2 does not match Social Security records.
  • The State Department extended numerous benefits to the partners of Foreign Service officers, including diplomatic passports and access to emergency evacuation.
  • The State Department reversed a Bush administration policy that refused to use a same-sex marriage license as evidence of a name change for passports.
  • The Department of Education issued guidance clarifying when student bullying may violate federal law, distributed a memo outlining key components of strong state anti-bullying laws and policies and made clear to public schools that gay-straight alliances have a right to form and meet.
  • The Department of Education published guidance and, in coordination with the Department of Justice, has pursued Title IX complaints filed by LGBT students experiencing harassment based on sex or sex stereotyping.
  • OPM added gender identity to the equal employment opportunity policy governing all federal jobs.
  • The Department of Labor issued guidance clarifying that an employee can take time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act to care for a same-sex partner’s child.
  • The IRS clarified that domestic partners (and their children) can be designated beneficiaries for VEBA funding/payment purposes.
  • The Census Bureau overturned the Bush administration’s interpretation of the Defense of Marriage Act and agreed to release data on married same-sex couples along with other demographic information from the 2010 Census.

SOURCE: HRC

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OPINION

‘Partisan Insurrectionist’: Calls Mount for Alito’s Ouster After ‘Stop the Steal’ Scandal

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2 hours ago

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May 17, 2024

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A symbol of Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement, which culminated in his January 6, 2021 rally and the insurrection that followed, was flown over the home of Justice Samuel Alito just days before Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, and as the U.S. Supreme Court was reviewing a 2020 election case. Now, calls are mounting for Justice Alito’s ouster.

The “Stop the Steal” movement, created in 2016 by far-right activist Roger Stone, was put into action by Trump acolytes during the 2020 election cycle. It is based on the “Big Lie,” promoted by Donald Trump and the majority of his followers, the false claim that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 presidential election, that it was “stolen.”

A symbol of “Stop the Steal” is an upside down American flag, which is technically used only “as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.” Trump’s MAGA followers co-opted the symbol, and it was widely seen during the violence of the January 6 insurrection.

It was also, as The New York Times reported in its bombshell story Thursday night, flown at “the residence of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in Alexandria, Va., according to photographs and interviews with neighbors.”

READ MORE: Will Trump Testify at Trial? ‘Absolutely’ Is Now a ‘No Decision’ Yet

A critical element of The Times’ report is the timing of Alito’s “Stop the Steal” flag.

“While the flag was up, the court was still contending with whether to hear a 2020 election case, with Justice Alito on the losing end of that decision,” the Times reported.

“In coming weeks,” The Times noted, “the justices will rule on two climactic cases involving the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, including whether Mr. Trump has immunity for his actions. Their decisions will shape how accountable he can be held for trying to overturn the last presidential election and his chances for re-election in the upcoming one.”

Justice Alito is taking no responsibility for the flag at his house.

“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito told The Times. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

The New York Times’ Michael Barbaro, who did not write the Alito article, commented: “Crucially, Alito doesn’t deny the flag was flying upside down, doesn’t deny its meaning, doesn’t express any disapproval for it and doesn’t disavow it.”

The Times also reports there are ethics and impartiality issues surrounding the use of the Stop the Steal flag.

READ MORE: ‘Ready to Start Another Insurrection’: Gaetz Support for Trump Echoes Proud Boys Order

“Judicial experts said in interviews that the flag was a clear violation of ethics rules, which seek to avoid even the appearance of bias, and could sow doubt about Justice Alito’s impartiality in cases related to the election and the Capitol riot.”

Legal and political experts, not to mention many ordinary Americans, are expressing great concern, with some even calling for Alito’s ouster, and some even using the word “impeachment.”

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), responding to the news, blasted both Justices Alito and Clarence Thomas.

“A judge is supposed to act in a way that enables all parties and lawyers appearing before the Court to believe they will be treated fairly,” Sen. Kaine wrote. “Alito and Thomas have brazenly destroyed this bedrock principle.”

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and a scholar of authoritarians and fascism, also pointed to both for Alito and Thomas, and called for their ouster.

“Clean up the Court,” she urged. “Thomas and Alito must go. They are far-right activists masquerading as impartial justices, that is why so many anti-democratic forces (Federalist, billionaires) have invested in them.”

Political scientist Norman Ornstein, the highly-respected emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a contributing editor for The Atlantic, responded to the Alito scandal.

“Sam Alito is a partisan insurrectionist. He has no business being on the Supreme Court,” he wrote Thursday night.

“It is time for a House member to introduce an impeachment resolution against Sam Alito,” Ornstein added an hour later. “He has openly and blatantly violated every standard we expect for any judge, not to mention the Supreme Court. And time for Dick Durbin to suck it up and hold hearings on this abuse of power,” he said, referring to the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Richard Painter, a professor of law and a former chief White House ethics lawyer, cut to the chase, posting the U.S. Code requiring recusal:

” ‘Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.’
28 USC Section 455″

“Justice Alito should be impeached and removed!!” declared SiriusXM host and attorney Dean Obeidallah. “If a liberal justice flew a flag in support of coup attempt waged by a Democratic President, the House GOP would immediately impeach him! We need Senate Dems to hold hearings!”

Veteran journalist John Harwood, responding to the Alito article, remarked, “bitter fanatic on the court.”

Laurence Tribe, University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, a constitutional law scholar who has argues three dozen times before the Supreme Court, commented: “More telling — and disqualifying — than the sheer antidemocratic sentiment this ‘Stop the Steal’ flag displayed is the hair-splitting sophistry of Justice Alito’s pathetic effort to shift blame from himself to his wife or someone else in his household.”

Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, a conservative until 2020, also blasted Justice Alito. Watch the video of her remarks below or at this link.

RELATED: Justice Alito’s Secret Speech ‘Spiking the Ball’ on Revoking Abortion Seen as Worsening Court’s ‘Credibility Crisis’

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News

Will Trump Testify at Trial? ‘Absolutely’ Is Now a ‘No Decision’ Yet

Published

19 hours ago

on

May 16, 2024

By

The State of New York’s prosecution of Donald Trump is nearing it end, as Judge Juan Merchan announced late Thursday afternoon final arguments could begin on Tuesday. But one question remains: Will the ex-president who is facing 34 felony charges in the election interference, falsification of business records, and hush money cover-up case, testify in his defense?

Just over one month ago Trump was asked that question. He quickly responded, “Yeah I would testify, absolutely.”

Trump appeared resolved.

READ MORE: Ex-Florida GOP Chair’s Efforts to Recruit 3-Way Partners for Anti-LGBTQ Wife Revealed: Report

“I’m testifying. I tell the truth. I mean, all I can do is tell the truth. And the truth is that there is no case,” he said, as NBC News reported.

NBC added last week that Trump “told Newsmax two weeks ago that he would testify ‘if necessary,’ and on Tuesday he said in an interview with Spectrum News 1 Wisconsin that he would ‘probably’ take the stand, adding that he ‘would like to.'”

But when Judge Merchan asked Todd Blanche, Trump’s attorney, on Thursday, the answer was very different.

“That’s another decision that we need to think through,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

But Politico’s Erica Orden reported, “Blanche says Trump hasn’t made a final decision about whether to testify.”

Last week, as the question of Trump’s testifying loomed large, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) insisted he would not.

“It’s over. Donald Trump has a right to not testify. Yet he PROMISED he would. Now it’s clear he won’t. The jury can’t consider this. But you can. He is chickenshit and you should conclude he’s guilty as hell.”

On Wednesday, attorney George Conway addressed the topic, saying, “If he doesn’t testify, it’s because he’s scared.”

He also said, “in a million years, I would never tell him to testify. I would tell him not to testify.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False

 

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News

Ex-Florida GOP Chair’s Efforts to Recruit 3-Way Partners for Anti-LGBTQ Wife Revealed: Report

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21 hours ago

on

May 16, 2024

By

A stunning police report reveals how Christian Ziegler, the now-ousted Florida Republican Party chair, would head out to bars to scope out and recruit women as possible three-way sex partners for himself and his stridently anti-LGBTQ wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler.

The disgraced Florida power couple’s ménage à trois sex scandal made national headlines after an accusation of rape against Christian Ziegler came from one of their three-way sexual partners, an allegation he denied. After an investigation no charges were filed.

Christian Ziegler lost his high-paying job as the Florida GOP chairman, but his wife Bridget has refused to resign from her elected position on a school board, as well as from her position on the state board that now oversees the Walt Disney World special district. Bridget Ziegler, who is seen as an architect of Governor Ron DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” law, reportedly is best friends with Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis, and was appointed to the special district role by the Florida GOP governor.

The Sarasota Police Dept. report, according to the Florida Trident, “recounts how Christian Ziegler went ‘on the prowl’ in bars for women to bring home to Bridget, a Sarasota County School Board member who has backed a number of anti-LGBTQ measures at both the state and local level, for threesome encounters. While at the bars, Christian would surreptitiously photograph prospective women and text the photos to Bridget for approval, according to the report.”

READ MORE: ‘Mouths of Sauron’: Critics Blast ‘Mobster Tactic’ of Trump Surrogates ‘Violating’ Gag Order

Some of the details are salacious.

“There were numerous text messages between Bridget and Christian where they are on the prowl for a female and Bridget is directing him to numerous different bars in search of a female that they are both interested in,” the report reads, according to The Trident. “During these conversations Christian is secretly taking photographs of women in the bars and sending them to Bridget asking her if she wants this one or that one. Bridget is telling him to pretend to take pictures of his beer, so they don’t see him taking pictures of them. She tells him ‘Don’t come home until your dick is wet.’”

The Zieglers are in court trying to block the release of the text messages and other media, alleging in a lawsuit against the Sarasota Police Dept. and the State Attorney’s Office that “release of those records would cause ‘great humiliation and harm to their individual reputations’ if released and therefore should be destroyed.”

“The suit specifically addresses the contents of Christian Ziegler’s cell phone, his social media accounts, web browsing history, and the video he made of the sexual encounter with the alleged rape victim,” the Trident reports.

Meanwhile, despite her own actions and after months of laying low, Bridget Ziegler is back on her anti-LGBTQ crusade.

“At last week’s school board meeting, Ziegler introduced a highly contentious resolution to ignore protections for LGBTQ students afforded by a new federal Title IX rule,” the Trident also reports. “The resolution, which followed a DeSantis legal challenge to Title IX at the state level, claims the new rule would cause ‘disastrous impacts to girls and women’s safety in restrooms, locker rooms, and sports.’ It passed by a 4-1 vote despite the fact it could lead to a federal investigation, expensive litigation, and the loss to the school district of roughly $50 million in federal funds.”

READ MORE: Trump Appears to Violate Gag Order After Judge Threatened ‘Incarceration’

 

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