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Are LGBT Civil Rights The Same As African-American Civil Rights?

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In the fight for full LGBT equality, let’s remember that inherently, our rights are the same as everyone else’s. The battle will be won only when we join together.

Are gay rights, or LGBT civil rights, the same as African-American civil rights? Are our movements the same?

This is a pretty touchy question — and a flawed one at that — but one I’ve answered several times, often because of the name of this site, The New Civil Rights Movement — which those who were active in the LGBT movement immediately following the passage of Prop 8 fully remember being our motto. But it’s more than that. Because there’s no difference — rights are rights, not because of the color of our skin nor because of whom we love. Rights are rights because we are all human. And human rights are what we’re fighting for.

To those who accuse the LGBT civil rights movement of co-opting the African American Civil Rights Movement, I say you are wrong. And you know who else uses that flawed argument? Traditional marriage advocates, like NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, and their latest ludicrous endeavor, the Marriage Anti-​Defamation Alliance (MarriageADA), a support network for people who feel they are living in fear because of gay marriage.

And do you know who else makes that flawed and false claim? Ultra-homophobe Sally Kern, the Oklahoma lawmaker who recently said, called gays “dangerous,” “sinful,” and “an enemy who wants to destroy us,” and accused the LGBT community of hijacking freedom and equality “to destroy the future of America.”

Buying into flawed arguments put forth by professional anti-gay haters is not the smart route to take.

I fully expect some readers to refute this claim, but before you do, read on.

I just finished being interviewed by Michelle Sinhbandith, better known to her listeners at Swirl Radio as Michelle Meow, about this very topic. (By the way, I’ll post a link to the interview when it’s up. I’m a big fan of Michelle — I hope you’ll listen to it.)

Gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights.” That’s not my statement, that’s direct from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who time and time again has come out in support of civil rights for the LGBT community around the world. (Sadly, Secretary Clinton has yet to come out in support of marriage equality. We’re waiting…)

Still, let’s look further.

Julian Bond, the iconic former head of the NAACP, America’s largest and oldest African-American civil rights organization, during the 2009 New Jersey battle for marriage equality, delivered an eloquent and impassioned speech in support of gay rights being human rights. “Gay rights are civil rights,” Bond said, and then quoted Coretta Scott King, the late wife of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mrs. King supported full civil rights for all, including the LGBT community.

READ: Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Gay Strategist, Deserves Better

Mrs. King, back in 1996 — 15 years ago! — spoke in full support of LGBT equality. She also said, “I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.”

Perhaps one of the most confident and accurate comments in support of LGBT equality comes from New Jersey state Senator Nia Gill. In 2009, during the same marriage battle that Julian Bond fought, Senator Gill, who is also African-American, stood in support of marriage equality in her home state of New Jersey.

“It is a civil rights issue — not because African-​Americans own the copyright to civil rights, it is a civil rights issue in the analysis of the equal protection of the fourteenth amendment in the constitution. And maybe some in my community want to hold on to it, because it’s ours. Because our blood has been shed for the right to vote, and we jealously guard that as a re-​affirmation of being American. And so we hold it, because no one can do civil rights and have civil rights better than we do. That’s emotional, but it is certainly not an analysis of the constitutional imperatives that face us. It’s a civil rights issue.

“Each side has an emotional story to tell. So I am not involved in that. But I am involved in how does this strip people of the equality under the law. And as an African-​American and as a woman who would jealously guard all the civil rights struggles, this is a civil rights struggle on the magnitude and importance for the people who have died for the right to vote, for the people who have died to allow women the right to vote. And if I took a different stand, which would be a more traditional stand, that the community that identifies with me wants me to take, then I will have breached the tradition and the trust of the elders and the ancestors. And so I vote for the equality of marriage because I believe in the constitution.”

(Note: You can hear both Julian Bond’s speech and Nia Gill’s speech on this page, just below the “You might also like” boxes.)

The LGBT community is lucky to have the support of so many icons of the African-American Civil Rights Movement supporting our movement and our struggle.

Where are LGBT supporters of the African-American Civil Rights Movement — which is far from complete?

In out interview today, Michelle talked about Troy Davis, and his execution.

We have a problem in this country. America ranks number one in the world for putting people in jail. That’s right — we have more people in jail per capita than any other country around the world. And guess what — blacks in America are incarcerated six time more than whites. Why is that?

(Take a look at state by state statistics.)

How about this: Blacks make up just 12.6% of the U.S. population, yet  35% of all people executed in this country are black. Why is that?

The only LGBT organization I could find that made any reference to Troy Davis (and I am very happy to be called out if I’ve missed any!) was the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR). That’s not only unfortunate, it’s a scathing indictment of the avenues we as a community have barricaded from our fight.

READ: Death Penalty: We Are All Troy Davis. And We Are All His Executioners.

Because it is a fight, and it is a shared fight, and we have so much in common, and so much more work to do.

I don’t pretend I’ve done enough. I’m not an expert on the African-American Civil Rights Movement, nor do I think of myself as an expert on our LGBT civil rights movement.

But I could do a better job reaching out to other communities. Most of us, I think, can.

A wise man told me a few years ago that people only fight for their own self-interests. That may be true (and, I think, more true of conservatives than liberals,) but isn’t it in our own self-interest to fight for the interests of other minorities? We cannot possibly achieve full equality on our own. Let’s get better at working together.

 

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OPINION

‘Have to Get Back to Law and Order’: Trump Declares at NYPD Officer’s Wake

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Donald Trump attended the wake of the slain New York City police officer who was shot and killed while conducting a traffic stop this week. The four-times indicted ex-president demanded America “get back to law and order,” barely days after a New York judge imposed a gag order in the case where the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony counts for “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election,” according to the New York District Attorney.

That damaging information included hush money payments to several women including an adult film actress.

“We have to stop it,” Trump said Thursday, speaking before the cameras about crime as he stood under an umbrella in front of police officers. “We have to stop, we have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too often.”

“Police are the greatest people we have. There’s nothing and there’s nobody like them. And this should never happen,” Trump said as he lamented how repeat offenders “don’t learn because they don’t respect.”

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“We’ve got to toughen it up. We’ve got to strengthen it up. It should never be allowed things like they shouldn’t take place and to take place so often,” said Trump, who is out on bail and currently faces 88 felony charges after three were dropped.

The Trump campaign announced that the ex-president had been invited to attend the wake.

“President Trump is moved by the invitation to join NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller’s family and colleagues as they deal with his senseless and tragic death,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, according to The Daily Beast.

The Associated Press added that “Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, called for shoplifters to be shot immediately and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he’s also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign’s interactions with Russia.”

“He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten.”

Earlier on Thursday NBC News reported on Trump’s mischaracterizations of crime.

“Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and ‘migrant crime,'” the network noted. “Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.”

READ MORE: ‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

“But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels,” NBC added. “FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It’s a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.”

Watch Trump’s remarks below or at this link.

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OPINION

‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

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The backlash from NBC News’ hiring of Ronna McDaniel is not over. New reporting from Puck, CNN, and The Washington Post reveals the considerable efforts from top NBC and MSNBC brass to recruit, hire, and support the former RNC chair who promoted false election claims, was allegedly involved in helping Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and refused to say Joe Biden had been elected fairly.

Staffers at NBC News and MSNBC were outraged at McDaniel’s hiring, but new details about behind-the-scenes efforts reportedly have increased that outrage.

Some critics are either calling for resignations of NBC News and MSNBC  leadership, or questioning how long they can ride out the mess.

“What is Brian Roberts going to do?” CNN‘s Oliver Darcy asks. “The Comcast boss is watching an unceasing five-alarm fire rage at 30 Rock, scarring the reputation of NBC News and threatening to consume multiple parts of the Cesar Conde-run NBC Universal News Group.”

“Conde has lost control of his organization, prompting industry insiders to wonder how he continues to remain in his role as chairman of the NBC News Group. In the words of one veteran media executive I spoke to Wednesday, ‘It’s inconceivable that he should,'” Darcy writes, saying Conde’s actions and those of his top executives have “hosed gasoline” on the scandal.

READ MORE: Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

That scandal involves these revelations from Puck’s Dylan Byers, who reports, “bringing McDaniel to 30 Rock had been part of a nearly two-month-long effort that was spearheaded by Budoff Brown and her boss, NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein, with buy-in from Conde and his deputies at both NBC News and MSNBC.”

“Rashida Jones,” he adds, “the president of MSNBC, was very interested in having McDaniel appear as a contributor on her network, as well.”

But this bombshell has drawn a good deal of attention. Noting how Chuck Todd led off the very public pushback against the hiring of McDaniel, Byers reports, “On Sunday, Budoff Brown reached out to McDaniel’s aide and former chief of staff at the R.N.C., Richard Walters, to see if there were any friends or colleagues who could speak up on her behalf.”

“The two sides also discussed having these folks call attention to what they saw as a double standard—after all, this was the same network that was turning Psaki, a former Biden White House Press Secretary, into a Maddow-adjacent prime time star. Walters later assured Budoff Brown that they’d been able to advance conservative pushback on social media against Todd, specifically, and that this might give NBC News some cover, for which Budoff Brown thanked him.”

CNN, pointing to those details, adds, “staffers inside NBC News are enraged at the fact an executive would have engaged in such behavior.”

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacobs, who now writes about politics and the media, called for the firing of Jones, Blumenstein, and Budoff Brown.

Other critics are expressing concerns on multiple fronts.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“It’s like the hunger games at @NBCNews. Every day new, horrible stories of journalism & corporate malpractice. Every single one of these managers must go,” observed Jennifer Schulze, a media critic who was a Chicago Sun-Times executive producer, WGN news director, and adjunct college professor of journalism.

She also highlights a Washington Post report that ropes NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt into the mess.

“Every @NBCNews exec who thought hiring a reputed liar & phony elector co-[conspirator] needs to resign or be fired,” Schulze says.

“The @NBCNews managers who recruited & signed an election denier should be out the door, too,” she adds. “Not only was it downright offensive to hire Ronna, it was journalism AND corporate malpractice.”

Pointing to his newsletter, former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer writes, “NBC’s ill-fated decision to hire Ronna McDaniel is a story of a media outlet unwilling to accept the ways Trump changed politics, but it’s also one of the best arguments for Dems need to build our media ecosystem ASAP.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

He calls McDaniel’s hiring “evidence” the media has “yet to accept the reality that this is not a normal election between a Republican and a Democrat.” And adds, “An [industry] that prizes objectivity above all else, is incapable of accurately covering an election where one candidate is a normal politician and the other is an insurrectionist. Many in the media would rather stumble into autocracy than take a side.”

Veteran journalist and Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile observes, “We couldn’t have asked for a better situation to shine a bright light on the corruption of the corporate media—and its impulse to legitimize MAGA extremism and lawbreakers for profit—than NBC’s hiring former RNC chair, election denier, and Trump enabler Ronna McDaniel.”

And he warns, “The forces that made the coup-plotting former RNC chair a paid contributor are still shaping news and information about this pivotal election.”

 

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News

Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

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Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

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