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Lon And Jim: Together 34 Years, Separated By Family And The Law. An Update.

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The New Civil Rights Movement first ran the story of Lon Watts and Jim Heath in April. Jim, Lon’s partner and love of 34 years, was put into a nursing home by his sister, who also sold their home and is refusing to allow Lon to visit or contact Jim.

Last Saturday, July 6, we published an update, “The Story Of Lon And Jim: Torn Apart After 34 Years By The Hidden Evils Of Marriage Inequality.” That story drew tremendous support for Lon and Jim, with New Civil Rights Movement readers responding with an amazing show of support, concern, and solidarity, generously donating almost $12,000 to help Lon pay for court fees and expenses. Today, another update.

A couple in Texas who read Lon and Jim’s story on these pages were driven to take action, and got in touch with Lon. They want to be anonymous for this update, because they, too, live in constant fear that their family could be torn apart by anti-marriage-equality laws. So for this update, I’ll refer to them as ‘P.’ and ‘D.’

P. and D. have one child, and are in the process of adopting a second. They are a stable, responsible couple with a strong and loving relationship. They have not spent a night apart in over 10 years. Lon and Jim’s story resonated profoundly with them, because they know what it’s like to live with the knowledge that their children could be taken away – their lives destroyed – without the protection of a state sanctioned, legal marriage.

As I’ve covered this story, I’ve gotten to know Lon Watts, and I’ve been amazed every day by his strength. Knowing how hard things have been for Lon, I’ve wished that I lived closer to him and could give more concrete help than I can from the relatively enlightened San Francisco Bay Area. So, when Lon contacted me to tell me that P. and D. had visited Jim in the nursing home on Lon’s behalf, I was eager to talk to them to find out how Jim was, and what they’d seen and heard.

P. and D. drove on Monday from their Texas home to Pittsburg, a small Texas town with a population of less than 5000 people. When they pulled up to the Pittsburg Nursing Center, they decided to go in one at a time – a wise idea, since the sudden appearance of a gay couple, asking to visit a man in the middle of a fairly notorious case involving marriage equality, might tip off the staff.

P. asked to see Jim Heath, and was taken to Jim’s room by a nurse. He didn’t know what to expect, but he found Jim lucid, alert, and oriented. P. explained who he was, and why he was there.

Jim immediately asked about Lon, wanting to know where he was, how he was, and when Lon would be coming to get him and take him home. When P. told Jim the name of the Texas town where he lives with his partner and child, Jim remembered the town well, asking after details like this year’s festivals, though it had been decades since he’d spent a significant amount of time there.

skitched-1548Physically, Jim Heath looked well, but his hair was shaggy. His nails were long, and that handsome mustache – the one that had reminded Lon for 34 years of Tom Selleck’s – had been completely shaved off. P. took a couple of quick pictures. One of them shows Jim looking directly into the camera lens, his eyes alert and focused. He looks like he’s asking a question, or listening intently. Behind him, on the bed, is a cheap-looking institutional pillow, without a cover.

According to P., the nursing home took away Jim’s TV and phone. This worries Lon, of course. “Jim LOVES his cooking shows,” Lon tells me. “And what else is there to do in that place? Why did they have to take his TV away, as well as his phone?” Mostly, though, Lon was thrilled to hear about, and see pictures of, his beloved Jim, looking well and asking to see Lon.

However, what P. says happened next was unpleasant. After P. had been in Jim’s room for 15 minutes, one of the nurses came in and told him she had called Carolyn Heath- – Jim’s sister — and told her Jim was being visited. If P. didn’t leave immediately, the police would be called, and P. and D. would be thrown of the property.

According to federal nursing home regulations, patients have the right to see visitors in private, when they want to, for as long as they wish. Patients also have the right to private phone calls as often as they wish. Of course, nursing home patients who have a legal guardian are to some extent at the mercy of that person — in this case, Jim’s sister Carolyn, who won legal guardianship recently despite Lon and Jim having made up Power of Attorney documents drawn up naming each other as guardian.

If a guardian even has the right to deny a patient visits and phone calls, my research tells me that those decisions must be made with Jim’s best interests in mind. I can’t imagine how it is in Jim’s best interest to be denied visitors, to be denied phone calls, and most importantly, to be denied any contact with the one person most familiar and important to him — his life partner and soul mate, Lon Watts.

P. told me that when he heard the police were going to be called to toss him out, he left. That’s completely understandable. P. and D. can not afford to draw legal attention to themselves — they risked it just by visiting Jim, but the possibility of being exposed further by police presence isn’t something they could allow. They have a gorgeous, happy little son, and another child on the way. Reluctantly, they drove home.

I have learned a lot writing this story. For one thing, I have learned to be even more grateful that I was born and have lived most of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prop 8 aside (three cheers for its recent defeat), I have learned that I’m incredibly lucky to live in a place where being gay is relatively accepted. Being Lon’s friend, and talking to P. and D., has made me even more aware of the privileges I take for granted.

Most of all, I have learned how terrifying it can be to be a gay couple in a state like Texas. Lon has lived through hell, losing the love of his life; his home; having his finances destroyed and his reputation attacked. P. and D., because they can not legally marry each other, live every day knowing that the most precious thing in their lives — their family — is terribly vulnerable. If one person — perhaps even a relative — were motivated enough by greed and/or prejudice, P. and D. could lose their children.

“We have to watch what we say and what we do as, we have to be so careful with having two adopted children in our lives,” P. told me. “I can just see someone turning us in, saying we are bad parents or we don’t take care of our children or whatever else they can dream up.”

There are things I can’t write about right now, for legal reasons, but Lon has repeatedly asked me to thank you all on his and Jim’s behalf. He is blown away by the help and love he’s received. He has new pictures of Jim, and hopeful news about his mental state and health.

It’s easy to focus on the bad in this story; to be overwhelmed by the outrageous injustice of marriage inequality. But, as cruel as some people and laws and institutions can be, it’s amazing to see the countering forces: grace, kindness, empathy, humanity. These have been displayed in humbling abundance by NCRM readers, by supporters of Lon and Jim, and by two men in Texas who risked so much to help them.

Lon has a GoFundMe page, and he is very grateful for any amount people are willing to donate.

In April The New Civil Rights Movement was the first news organization to report on the story of Lon Watts and Jim Heath, after their story appeared on the Gay Marriage USA Facebook page. You can read our original story: “TX Man: After 34 Years My Partner’s Sister Forced Us Apart, Took Our Home Because We Weren’t Married.”

 

skitched-20130706-103052Sarah Laidlaw Beach is an artist and writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a straight ally who works as a graphic designer, and lives with her partner and dog.

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‘Not Legal’: Trump May Dissolve Dept. of Education in Days, Democrat Warns

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The U.S. Department of Education may be “dissolved” in the coming days, U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) reportedly has said, claiming that Elon Musk’s DOGE team currently is “actively dismantling” Department of Education programs.

Congresswoman Stansbury “said Elon Musk’s DOGE team is ‘actively dismantling’ federal Department of Education programs today,” HuffPost White House and congressional reporter Jennifer Bendery wrote Tuesday afternoon.

“They are in the building, on the 6th floor, canceling grants and contracts,” Stansbury said.

“Stansbury says her understanding is the Trump admin ‘has been running drills for the last couple of weeks, planning for this,'” Bendery reports. “She also said she expects that ‘the Department of Education is going to potentially be dissolved in the coming days.’ And yes, this is illegal.”

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“It’s not legal. They know it’s not legal. But they’re doing it anyway,” Stansbury told Bendery. “The only recourse we have right now is to … go the courts.”

The U.S Department of Education was created in 1979 by an act of Congress and would legally require another race of Congress for it to be shut down.

Musk, according to The New York Times, has announced cuts at the Department of Education of more than $900 million.

“Most, if not all, of the contract cuts hit the Institute of Education Sciences’s portfolio, including Education Innovation and Research grants and review projects associated with the What Works Clearinghouse, which produces and curates research on best practices in education, according to three people familiar with the department’s contracting. The people requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal because they were not authorized to discuss the cuts,” the Times noted.

“Less than two weeks after the release of new federal testing data showing reading achievement at historic lows, the cuts were likely to hit research intended to answer questions about some of the biggest problems in American education since the Covid-19 pandemic, such as absenteeism and student behavioral challenges.”

Should Trump go through with attempting to eliminate the Department of Education by means not including Congress, it would be up to the federal courts to stop him. But Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, along with a growing number of their allies, appear to have convinced a number of his MAGA base that judges should not have the ability to block any actions the president takes. Judges, however, can, and do.

Last week, MSNBC reported that “Elon Musk says Department of Education no longer ‘exists’.”

Democrats on Tuesday hit back.

READ MORE: General Slams Pentagon’s ‘Racist’ Decision to Drop Key Black Engineers Recruitment Event

“The chaos and the corruption at the White House continues unabated,” U.S. Rep. Pete Aguilar said Tuesday (video below). “Elon Musk has illegal access to sensitive personal information of every taxpayer in America. He’s setting his sights on cutting Social Security benefits for American seniors who have earned their benefits over a lifetime of work, just so Tesla can continue to pay zero dollars in federal taxes.”

“And now Donald Trump has directed him to launch a Republican war on students by dismantling the Department of Education,” the California Democratic congressman continued. “President Trump and Elon Musk want to cut public education for our children and our neighborhood schools to finance a five trillion dollar tax giveaway to billionaires and wealthy corporations. By eliminating the Department of Education, Republicans are sending a clear message that they don’t care about our children reaching their full potential.”

“The American people did not vote for their neighborhood schools to be closed or class sizes to be larger. They did not vote to cut special education. The Republican war on students won’t lower the cost of eggs or groceries, but it will raise property taxes as the costs of Trump’s education cuts will be forced onto parents and homeowners,” Aguilar said.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Image via Reuters

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‘Serious Injuries to Public Health’: Judge Scorches Trump Removal of Health Websites

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A federal judge has directed harsh criticism at the Trump administration for removing countless public health web pages and websites, ordering them restored by midnight, and suggesting their deletion may have risked violating federal law.

U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, “ordered federal health agencies Tuesday to restore pages they removed from their websites last month to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order on ‘gender ideology and extremism,’ saying the decision to pull them down could be detrimental to public health,” Politico reported. The order extends to the CDC, HHS, and the FDA.

“In his opinion,” Politico added, “Bates said the agencies’ decisions to take down certain webpages ‘likely’ constitute an ‘order’ that’s reviewable under federal administrative law.”

The Trump administration’s claims that the removal was necessary to review their contents and amounted to mere “maintenance” were not arguments the judge appeared willing to accept. Judge Bates instead denounced the “widespread disruption that defendants’ abrupt removal of these critical healthcare materials has caused.”

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Bates blasted the Trump administration, writing, “it bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants’ actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare. These individuals rely on the care of doctors… If those doctors cannot provide these individuals the care they need (and deserve) within the scheduled and often limited time frame, there is a chance that some individuals will not receive treatment, including for severe, life-threatening conditions. The public thus has a strong interest in avoiding these serious injuries to the public health.”

In his opinion granting Doctors for America a temporary stay, Bates offered several examples of “irreparable harm” the government’s actions have already caused.

Doctors for America “has shown its members are already suffering such harm. To start, [one doctor] serves the students of ‘one of the most underserved high schools in Chicago.'”

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“In this work, she ‘regularly’ relies on CDC’s resources on sexually transmitted diseases (‘STDs’)… The harm she has suffered since CDC removed those pages is neither hypothetical nor far off. The high school ‘recently had an outbreak of Chlamydia,’ and now that she is ‘[w]ithout t[he] crucial CDC resources,’ she is ‘not able to do [her] job to help address this urgent situation.'”

Bates also cited a statement from a leading physicians’ group, and wrote that “the lost materials are more than ‘academic references—they are vital for real-time clinical decision-making in hospitals, clinics and emergency departments across the country.'”

“Without them, health care providers and researchers are left ‘without up-to-date recommendations on managing infectious diseases, public health threats, essential preventive care and chronic conditions.'”

Politico reports Doctors for America had sued “the Office of Personnel Management, the CDC, the FDA and HHS last week, claiming the missing information ‘deprives’ doctors and researchers of ready access to data that’s critical to treating patients and addressing public health emergencies.”

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General Slams Pentagon’s ‘Racist’ Decision to Drop Key Black Engineers Recruitment Event

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In 1976, during America’s bicentennial, President Gerald Ford became the first president to recognize February as Black History Month. Ten years later, after a joint resolution of Congress decreed it, President Ronald Reagan signed a proclamation observing the event. Every president since Reagan has issued proclamations observing Black History Month.

President Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has scrapped recognition of all “identity” events, including Black History Month, Pride Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Women’s History Month, and National Disability Employment Awareness Month — declaring them all “Dead,” via a memo, according to USA Today.

“Our unity and purpose are instrumental to meeting the Department’s warfighting mission,” Hegseth’s memo, titled, “Identity Months Dead at DoD,” reads. “Efforts to divide the force – to put one group ahead of another – erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.”

Standing on a stage last week at a Pentagon town hall (video below), Secretary Hegseth elaborated.

“I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength.’ I think our strength is our unity. Our strength is our shared purpose. Regardless of our background, regardless of how we grew up, regardless of our gender, regardless of our race, in this department, we will treat everyone equally. We will treat everyone with fairness. We will treat everyone with respect, and we will judge you as an individual by your merit and by your commitment to the team and the mission. That’s how it has been. That’s how it will be.”

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Last week, Reuters noted that “Hegseth has criticized diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the military, and, in his latest book, asked whether the top U.S. general has the job because he is Black. Reuters has previously reported about the possibility of mass firing among top brass, something Hegseth repeatedly refused to rule out during his confirmation process.”

Journalist Errol Louis, who has degrees from Harvard, Yale, and Brooklyn Law, last week commented on Hegseth’s remarks: “In 5 years, most recruitable adults will be people of color. The military’s current recruitment crisis is likely to worsen under Hegseth.”

On Monday, Military.com reported that at least four of the five Military service branches — Army, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force — have pulled out of a top recruiting opportunity, “a prestigious Black engineering event,” and by doing so they are “turning down access to a key pool of highly qualified potential applicants amid President Donald Trump’s purge of diversity initiatives in the military.”

“Until this week, Army Recruiting Command had a long-standing public partnership with the Black Engineer of the Year Awards, or BEYA, an annual conference that draws students, academics and professionals in science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM,” Military.com reported. “The event, which takes place in Baltimore, has historically been a key venue for the Pentagon to recruit talent, including awarding Reserve Officers’ Training Corps scholarships and pitching military service to rising engineers. Past BEYA events have included the Army chief of staff and the defense secretary.”

Three years ago, DOD News, part of the U.S. Department of Defense, reported, “The Defense Department is likely the largest employer of engineers in the United States, and the department will need even more to continue to protect the nation, said Barbara McQuiston, who now performs the duties of the deputy undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.”

“The DOD has over 100,000 engineers, and they are incredibly important to us,” McQuiston also said, DOD News added. “You can imagine the range of capabilities and personnel that we have working on the hardest problems — from civil engineers and software engineers to material engineers and chemical engineers — just a whole range of engineers looking at some of the toughest problems for DOD. We couldn’t function without them. They touch everything that we do.”

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It appears some Army recruiters and officers are not pleased with the decision to pull out of the Black Engineer of the Year Awards conference.

“This is one of the most talent-dense events we do,” an unnamed Army recruiter told Military.com. “Our footprint there has always been significant. We need the talent.”

“It’s f—ing racist,” an unnamed active-duty Army general told Military.com. “For the Army now, it’s ‘Blacks need not apply’ and it breaks my heart.”

But the Pentagon’s involvement in some other recruiting events has not been scrapped.

“Last week, the same Army recruiting unit that would have attended BEYA instead participated in a National Rifle Association-sponsored event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white gathering that recruiters acknowledge is less likely to yield high-quality applicants,” Military.com noted.

Military.com spoke with five recruiters who “saw the move as a significant and problematic escalation in the Pentagon’s rejection of diversity initiatives, which have been widely interpreted as programs that recognize women and troops with minority backgrounds, as well as gay and lesbian troops.”

On Monday, Secretary Hegseth announced a “pause” for all medical treatments of transgender service members, and a pause on accepting any new transgender service members into the U.S. Military. During his first term, Trump tried to throw out every transgender service member, but his efforts were stymied in the courts.

Also on Monday, President Trump continued his efforts to entirely reshape the culture of America’s Armed Forces, starting at the very beginning of the pipeline.

“Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years. I have ordered the immediate dismissal of the Board of Visitors for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard,” the Commander-in-Chief announced Monday afternoon. The Boards ensure accountability and civilian oversight at institutions like West Point. “We will have the strongest Military in History, and that begins by appointing new individuals to these Boards. We must make the Military Academies GREAT AGAIN!”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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