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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against “Afro-puffs and small twisted braids with or without rubberbands” to their updated dress code (subsequently rescinded, with apologies).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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Activist Minister Slams Regal Movie Theaters for Running War ‘Propaganda’ Before Films

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The Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie, an activist minister with the United Church of Christ, has called on the Regal Entertainment chain of movie theaters to stop running a Department of Defense promotional video before films.

In an open letter posted to social media, Currie says that when he went to see the latest Steven Spielberg film Disclosure Day at a Portland, Oregon theater, he was “forced to watch an advertisement touting the leadership of Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and the so-called Department of War.”

“It was like we were at a movie theater in Russia or North Korea. Democracies do not do this. The audience loudly booed,” Currie wrote.

READ MORE: Trump Promotes Chilling Iran War Op-Ed Warning of What Could Be Coming Next

“We routinely see videos at Regal promoting careers in the military. This was not that,” he continued. “This was an advertisement promoting the political views of Donald Trump. It was not promoting our military. It was not promoting America’s greatest strength: our diversity. This was a MAGA campaign commercial highlighting a fake cabinet agency, the Department of War, which is actually called the Defense Department, and the MAGA America First platform.”

The video run before the film was likely this video first released to YouTube on Saturday. The video description calls it the first advertisement by the DoD since it was re-christened the Department of War. The clip touts President Donald Trump’s “Peace Through Strength” slogan. It features footage of soldiers intercut with images of Trump while audio of a speech by the president plays in the background.

The video was also shown during Sunday evening’s Freedom 250 UFC Fight at the White House.

“Regal’s decision to show this video can only be construed as an endorsement of Donald Trump, his failed war in Iran, and the white Christian nationalism advocated by Secretary Hegseth,” Currie wrote. “Again, I must demand that Regal stop showing this video immediately. Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Currie has been an outspoken progressive activist for years. In 2019, he even received death threats for his work, according to the Oregonian. Florida dentist Richard Glenn Kantwill told Currie, as well as other public figures, he would torture and kill him. Kantwill also called Currie an “immoral degenerate” and a fraud.

In 2025, Kantwill was sentenced to two years in prison for making the threats after pleading guilty in court.

Image by Staff Sgt. Michael L. Casteel via the U.S. Army.

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‘I Feel So Bad for Him’: George Conway Trolls Trump Amid White House Attack

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Longtime Never-Trump critic turned Democratic congressional candidate George Conway is mocking President Donald Trump in a campaign video and a social media post while the White House targets him in a highly critical attack.

“Hi, Donald, it’s me, George Conway,” Conway, a conservative attorney, says in his video. “I cost you 88 f —— million dollars, and I’ve only just gotten started.”

“I know you like putting your name on everything from your plane to the Kennedy Center,” he continues. “But the only thing your name is gonna be left on when I’m done with you is the orange jumpsuit you’re going to have to wear in prison.”

“And you see that building back there?” he says over an image of Congress. “That’s where we’re gonna hold your third and final impeachment trial. The one that’s gonna put you away for good. And I’m gonna enjoy every minute of that.”

“We’ve got a lot of serious problems in this country, including, and especially, the price of gas — which is hitting $6 a gallon in some places, and that’s all because of you, Donald Trump. We can’t fix those problems until we impeach you and convict you. And that’s why I’m running for Congress.”

In a statement to Fox News, the White House blasted Conway.

“Lightweight George Conway is a stupid person’s idea of a smart person,” a spokesperson said. “His severe and debilitating disease known as Trump Derangement syndrome has melted his brain and made him crazy in the head.”

Conway is a co-founder of The Lincoln Project and was considered for a post as Trump’s Solicitor General at the start of his first administration. Conway withdrew his name from consideration.

On social media, Conway further mocked President Trump.

“Here’s our TV ad that poor wittle Donnie (@realDonaldTrump) didn’t wike and had to compwain to Fox ‘News’ about,” Conway wrote. “Sad! I feel so bad for him.”

Conway is running for a reliably blue seat in Manhattan.

“Conway, who previously lived in Bethesda, Md., before launching his congressional campaign, faces an uphill battle in the race for the heavily Democratic seat vacated by longtime Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who is retiring,” Fox News reported.

Earlier this year, Conway warned, “The way things are going in America, it should be clear we don’t have much time.”

“We certainly don’t have three years,” he said in February. “We need to help ourselves by pushing for impeachment and removal as hard as we can and carrying it out as soon as humanly possible.”

 

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A Letter From Florida Has a Blunt Verdict on the MAGA Movement: It’s ‘Dying’

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The Villages in Florida, the largest retirement community in the world, has been home to an extremely active MAGA movement. Roughly seven out of ten county residents voted for Trump in 2024, and its MAGA golf cart parades are legendary.

But Sunday’s parade was sparsely attended, according to a letter to the editor in The Villages News, which declares that the MAGA movement there is “dying.”

Casey Marr writes that they arrived at President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday golf cart parade, found many open parking spaces “and only a few people milling around” 30 minutes before the starting time. At 1:00 p.m., the official start time, “there was certainly no big crowd of cheering people” to welcome the parade of golf carts, which numbered only about 100 and lasted just 20 minutes.

Marr explains that there were two smaller starting places, and says that even if they had a similar number of carts, there would only have been “a pitiful 303.”

“This was advertised as a Guinness World Record challenge,” Marr says. “The record was set on Sept. 4, 2005, here in The Villages with 3,321 golf carts.”

According to Newsweek, Trump’s approval in Florida is 13 points underwater. Nationwide, Trump is 23 points underwater.

“Several states that began his term in positive territory, including Florida, Ohio and Texas, are now net negative,” Newsweek noted. “Deep-red states still form Trump’s strongest base, but many of those margins have narrowed sharply since January 2025.”

The golf cart parade fell short of the record, but Marr notes that The Villages’ “No Kings” rallies have grown “exponentially.” The “latest had two locations with attendance close to 6,000.”

“There is now a ‘Leaving MAGA’ billboard here on U.S. Hwy. 441,” Marr writes. “The ‘Trump 47’ website is down. The MAGA Club almost never holds any events. You almost never see a Trump flag flying anymore.”

Trump, Marr charges, “is using the office to line his pockets. Started a war which spiked gas prices along with everything else. Inflation and unemployment are rising. Aligned himself with murderous war criminals like Putin. He continues to protect pedophilia. This weekend he is desecrating the White House by holding a fighting match like Caligula being entertained by gladiators. The list of horrific things being done, especially in this administration, is endless. And he’s even lost former stalwarts like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson.”

“Yes,” Marr declares, “MAGA is dying in the country and even here. Florida is purple now again and turning bluer daily.”

 

Image via Reuters 

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