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Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue….

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Seth Marnin is the Assistant Legal Director at the Anti-Defamation League who articulates the whip saw like politics present in America today

I cannot escape feeling a bit of whiplash as a result of the past few weeks’ events. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was overturned and the supporters of Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage, lacked standing to appeal the district court’s order declaring the law unconstitutional and enjoining California officials from enforcing it. The Voting Rights Act was gutted. Affirmative action lives to see another day. Employees’ ability to successfully raise claims of harassment and retaliation were made even more challenging to pursue. Justices aligned themselves in previously unimaginable ways. And that was just the Supreme Court.

The New York State Senate ended its session last week without taking up the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), which would have added protections for transgender and gender non-conforming New Yorkers in the area of employment, housing, public accommodations, and hate crimes. The federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment continues to languish. Senator Wendy Davis (D) of Texas quite literally stood up for reproductive freedom, filibustering a bill that would have virtually banned abortion in the state of Texas.

Last month we read with horror about the senseless murder of a gay man in the West Village. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs revealed in its annual Hate Violence Report that 2012 saw the 4th highest murder rate of LGBTQ and HIV-affected people (LGBTQH) in history.

The Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled in favor of six-year-old Coy Mathis when it found that the school district “discriminatorily denied” Coy “full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages or accommodations in a place of public accommodation due to (her) sex and sexual orientation.” But an Ohio school added a prohibition against “Afro-puffs and small twisted braids with or without rubberbands” to their updated dress code (subsequently rescinded, with apologies).

We recently learned from the Williams Institute that lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans remained more likely to be poor than heterosexual people and that transgender and gender non-conforming people report being denied access to gendered restrooms, and experience verbal harassment and physical assault in these spaces at alarming rates.  Another new study told us what we have long suspected: same-sex couples are discriminated against when trying to rent an apartment or a home.

So where does this leave us? We, together, have opportunities and responsibilities. We must fight fiercely. We may not cease doing the work that got us here. We must continue to build. That means continuing to foster the alliances we have formed and seeking ways to build new bridges. Justice Scalia opens his dissent in U.S. v. Windsor telling us that “this case is about power…” I agree completely with the sentiment, if not the rest of his conclusions. This case is about power. As is voting rights. As is affirmative action. Denying access to restrooms, discriminating against people in employment, housing, or public accommodations is all about power. Who has it and who does not.

Zakhor. Remember. We must remember that we did not get here alone. We must remember the interconnections and that we rise and we fall together. These last few weeks have highlighted for us that our collective rising and falling is not neat, nor is it synchronized. We are reminded that shifts in law and culture are not static. We take steps forward, and are pushed back. There is much work that remains to be done. Simone DeBeauvior once said, “It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for acting.” May we go from strength to strength.

 Image of the scale of justice is courtesy via Wikimedia Commons

sethSeth Marnin, J.D., is the Assistant Legal Director at the Anti-Defamation League and helped prepare the ADL’s amicus briefs on DOMA and Proposition 8.  He is a former employment rights litigator with Outten & Golden LLP .

 

 

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News

Pence Ordered to Comply With Subpoena, Testify Before Special Counsel’s Grand Jury

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March 28, 2023

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Mike Pence, the ex-vice president, must testify before Dept. of Justice special counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection, a federal judge has ruled, rejecting his claims of executive privilege.

The judge is requiring Pence to answer questions about his conversations with Donald Trump leading up to the insurrection, and to answer any questions related to any possible illegal acts Donald Trump may have committed, according to ABC News’ senior investigative reporter Katherine Faulders and CNN’s Abby Phillip.

Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, “outright rejected Trump’s executive privilege challenge, but ruled more narrowly on Pence speech and debate challenge,” Faulders adds.

The judge, apparently citing Pence’s “speech and debate clause” claim, said “that Pence can still decline to answer questions related to his actions on January 6 itself, when he was serving as president of the Senate for the certification of the 2020 presidential election,” CNN reports.

READ MORE: ‘We’re Not Gonna Fix It’: TN Republican Says Congress Can Do Nothing to Stop Gun Violence – Calls for Christian ‘Revival’

NBC News reports Judge Boasberg “did, however, grant Pence a partial victory as to his argument that he was shielded from having to testify about Jan. 6 because of his constitutional role as part of the legislative branch.”

In what some legal experts dismissed as a faulty argument, “Pence’s legal team had argued that the Constitution’s ‘speech and debate’ clause should prevent special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors from eliciting any testimony about communications or activity related to Pence’s role as president of the Senate in presiding over the certification of the election results.”

Overall CNN calls it “another win for special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating the Trump-aligned effort to subvert the 2020 election. Smith subpoenaed Pence for testimony and documents earlier this year.”

Pence can still appeal.

Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.

This is a breaking news and developing story.

This article has been updated to add video.

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

‘Taking Guns Away Is Not the Answer’: Scalise Encourages Prayer After Nashville School Mass Shooting

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2 hours ago

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March 28, 2023

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The official line from House Republicans on Monday’s mass shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville is to encourage prayer and making schools “safer,” but “taking guns away is not the answer.”

GOP Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-most powerful Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, on Tuesday encouraged prayer, waiting for more facts, and looking into mental health option, despite his record of voting against them. Six people, including three nine-year olds and three adults, were shot to death after a shooter shot through the doors of Covenant Presbyterian Elementary School.

“The first thing in any kind of tragedy I do is I pray,” Scalise told a reporter Tuesday when asked if there’s anything Congress can do to reduce gun violence and deaths. “I pray for the victims. I pray for their families.”

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) also encouraged prayer over action. “We’re not gonna fix it,” he declared point-blank, while calling for a Christian “revival.”

READ MORE: Tennessee Governor Slammed After ‘Praying’ for Nashville School Community Without Mentioning Mass Shooting

Scalise was shot in 2017 in a rare act of left-wing gun violence by a man angry at then-President Donald Trump. He and House Republicans have repeatedly used that attack to target Democrats and their policies.

“I really get angry when I see people trying to politicize it for their own personal agenda,” Scalise continued, referring to shootings, “especially when we don’t even know the facts. There are facts coming out.”

“It looks like the shooter originally went to another school that had real stronger, much stronger security and ultimately went to this school,” Scalise said, which is false. According to a CNN report, the shooter had previously “scouted” a second location but had a detailed plan and maps of The Covenant School.

“Let’s get the facts,” Scalise insisted, suggesting no action should be taken before any investigations into this shooting are complete.

The Washington Post in a continually-updated report notes, “There were more school shootings in 2022 — 46 — than in any year since at least 1999.”

It adds, “There have been 376 school shootings” since Columbine, in 1999, and, “More than 348,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine.”

But Scalise urged Americans to “work to see if there’s something that we can do to help secure schools.”

READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies

And he insisted reducing the number of guns in America, currently believed to be over 400 million – more than the total population of the country – is “not the answer.”

“We’ve talked about things that we can do, and it just seems like on the other side, all they want to do is take guns away from law abiding citizens, before they even know the facts. The first thing they talk about is taking guns away from law abiding citizens. And that’s not the answer, by the way. So why don’t we number one, keep those families in our prayers and see if there were things that were missed. Along the way, we’ve talked about the need to improve mental health in this country, and that’s been a driver of a lot of these shootings as well.”

But just last September, Scalise, along with all but one House Republican, voted against a bill that would “increase access to mental and behavioral health care.”

He also skipped a vote one week earlier on the Mental Health Justice Act of 2022.

Watch Scalise’s remarks in this clip, below or at this link.

 

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News

‘We’re Not Gonna Fix It’: TN Republican Says Congress Can Do Nothing to Stop Gun Violence – Calls for Christian ‘Revival’

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4 hours ago

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March 28, 2023

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U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) says there’s nothing the 535 elected officials in the House and Senate can do to reduce gun violence and gun deaths.

“We’re not gonna fix it,” Congressman Burchett said on the steps of the Capitol.

“I don’t see any role that we could do other than mess things up, honestly,” he said in response to Monday’s school mass shooting in Nashville, where three nine-year olds and three adults were shot to death by a shooter with two AR-15 style assault rifles and a handgun.

READ MORE: Tennessee Governor Slammed After ‘Praying’ for Nashville School Community Without Mentioning Mass Shooting

Instead of Congress enacting stricter gun laws, background checks, and a ban on assault weapons, Congressman Burchett said, “you’ve got to change people’s hearts,” as he called for a Christian revival.

“As a Christian, we talk about the church. I’ve said this many times, I think we really need a revival in this country.”

Monday’s shooting at the Covenant Presbyterian Elementary School was the 130th mass shooting this year in America, bringing the death toll from all gun violence across all causes to 9989, including 403 children 17 or younger, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Congressman Burchett is a member of the far-right Republican Study Committee, which has strong ties to the National Rifle Association (NRA).

READ MORE: ‘Our Children Deserve Better’: First Lady Jill Biden Speaks Out After Six Die in Nashville School Mass Shooting

On Monday, Burchett released a statement saying, “Kelly and I are praying for everyone at The Covenant School, especially the families of the shooting victims. No one should have to go through that kind of horrific event or lose a loved one like that. I’m so thankful to those brave folks who brought down the shooter and took care of the students and their families.”

Earlier this month Rep. Burchett was one of 26 House Republicans on the Oversight Committee who refused to sign a simple two-sentence statement denouncing white supremacy.

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