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UPDATED: After Hobby Lobby, Seven Top LGBT And Civil Rights Orgs Drop Support For ENDA

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Seven of the nation’s top LGBT and civil rights organizations today have announced they are withdrawing support for ENDA after the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling.

After 40 years, the LGBT community in part has decided that not only is ENDA not good enough, it’s potentially dangerous because the legislation contains strong carve outs for religious organizations. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling, ENDA could become a license to discriminate rather than the legal protection it was designed to be.

In a dramatic move today, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force announced it was dropping support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Hours later, a coalition of five LGBT legal and civil rights groups — the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the Transgender Law Center — made a similar announcement. (Pride at Work announced they are dropping support after this article was published — see below.)

The coalition of five groups calls their request “a simple one.”

UPDATE: HRC Charts Lone Course, Reiterates Support For ENDA Despite Religious Exemptions

“Do not give religiously affiliated employers a license to discriminate against LGBT people when they have no such right to discriminate based on race, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information,” the group say in a joint statement just released. “Religiously affiliated organizations are allowed to make hiring decisions based on their religion, but nothing in federal law authorizes discrimination by those organizations based on any other protected characteristic, and the rule should be the same for sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. Religious organizations are free to choose their ministers or faith leaders, and adding protections for sexual orientation and gender identity or expression will not change that.”

They say their “concerns are not hypothetical” and that “the American people oppose efforts to misuse religious liberty as an excuse to discriminate against LGBT people.”

Increasingly, this is what employment discrimination against LGBT people looks like. Take the example of Matthew Barrett.  In July 2013, Matthew was offered a job as food services director at Fontbonne Academy, a college prep high school in Milton, Massachusetts that is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston.  Fontbonne Academy has employees and admits students of various faiths. Yet, two days after Matthew listed his husband as his emergency contact on the standard employment paperwork, and despite twenty years of work in the food services industry, his job offer was rescinded.  Although nothing about the food services job involved religious rituals or teaching, Matthew was told by an administrator that the school was unable to hire him because “the Catholic religion doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage.” The current version of ENDA would authorize this sexual orientation discrimination.

The groups add that until the “discriminatory exemption is removed so that anti-LGBT discrimination is treated the same as race, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information under federal workplace laws,” they think “ENDA should not move forward in Congress.”

That request will likely be granted, as Speaker John Boehner has stated he believes LGBT people — as do the majority of Americans, wrongly — are already protected and can’t be fired for being LGBT. Boehner refuses to bring ENDA to the floor for a vote.

“In addition,” the coalition states, “we will oppose any similar provisions at the state and local level.  We are hopeful that the many members of Congress who support this historic, critically important legislation will agree that singling out LGBT people for an unequal and unfair exemption from basic workplace protection falls unacceptably short of the civil rights standards that have served our nation well against other types of discrimination for fifty years.  We stand ready and eager to work with them to achieve the long-sought goal of explicit, effective federal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people.”

Rea Carey, Executive Director, Task Force Action Fund, adds:

“The campaign to create broad religious exemptions for employment protections repeats a pattern we¹ve seen before in methodically undermining voting rights, women¹s access to reproductive health and affirmative action. It is time for fair minded people to block this momentum, rather than help speed it into law. We need new federal non-discrimination legislation that contains a reasonable religious accommodation. LGBT people should have the same protections as those contained in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Legal equality is legal equality.”

UPDATE I: HRC releases statement in support of ENDA

UPDATE II: Pride at Work joins in withdrawing support from ENDA

Image by Tim Evanson via Flickr

 

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‘Misinformation’: Peter Doocy Smacked Down by White House Press Secretary

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Peter Doocy‘s efforts to promote hurricane misinformation got smacked down Monday when Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blasted the Fox News White House correspondent.

Doocy began his for-the-camera claims by declaring, “President Biden is fond of saying, ‘show me your budget and I will tell you what you value.’ If he’s got money for people in Lebanon right now, without Congress having to come back, what does it say about his values? There’s not enough money right now for people in North Carolina who need it,” Doocy declared.

The Fox News reporter was promoting part of the right-wing falsehood that alleges Vice President Harris offered just $750 to hurricane victims, part of the larger conspiracy theories put out by far-right wing influencers including Donald Trump.

“That’s not misinformation,” Doocy insisted.

READ MORE: ‘Trafficking in Nazi Race Science’: Trump Blasted After ‘Vile Trifecta’ of Antisemitism

“Wait,” Jean-Pierre patiently urged. “No, that is, your whole, your whole premise of the question is misinformation, sir.”

After a heated back-and-forth, the Press Secretary exploded, “I just mentioned to you that we provided more than $200 million to folks who are impacted in the area, and I just shared with you that people are deciding not to, people are deciding not to, not to.”

Doocy, Jean-Pierre tried to explain, is conflating different federal government programs, all of which are vital to victims of Hurricane Helene, and likely will after Hurricane Milton hits Florida later this week.

“This is nothing new. Peter, this is nothing new. Congress comes together. They provide money, millions of dollars for disaster relief. We’re asking them to do the job that they have been doing for some time under the President Biden, doing for some time,” Jean-Pierre added.

Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to cut the House’s vacation short and order Congress back into session to provide more funding for FEMA and other disaster relief agencies.

“The President’s letter is not misinformation. Would you agree?” he continued.

READ MORE: ‘Trump Did This’: SCOTUS Blocks Biden Emergency Abortion Mandate in Texas

“No,” she replied, “the way you’re asking me the question is misinformation. “There is money that we are allocating to the impacted areas, and there’s money there to help people who truly need it. There are survivors who need the funding, who need the funding, and it’s there.”

“I actually said we have the money available to help survivors of Hurricane Helene and also Hurricane Milton. Now there’s going to be a shortfall, right? Because we don’t know how bad it’s, Hurricane Milton, is going to be, and so we’re going to need additional funding. We’re going to need additional funding,” Jean-Pierre explained.

“Congress needs to come back and do their job and provide extra assistance, extra funding to Disaster Relief Fund,” she added after Doocy pushed back. “That’s what Congress needs to do and we’re going to continue to urge that, you may not want that, but that’s okay. That’s what this President wants and that’s what the Vice President wants.”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: Greene Mocked for Weather Control Claim as NC Lawmaker Pleads for Conspiracy ‘Junk’ to End

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‘Trafficking in Nazi Race Science’: Trump Blasted After ‘Vile Trifecta’ of Antisemitism

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On the one-year anniversary of the Hamas terror attack on Israel, Donald Trump took a deep dive into antisemitic and Nazi rhetoric.

The ex-president—win or lose—near the end of his final White House run told right-wing political commentator and host Hugh Hewitt that immigrants have “bad genes” which make them more likely to commit murder. It is a charge some say is direct out of Nazi eugenics.

“Echoes of Nazi Germany,” declared former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.

Just hours later Trump unleashed a “vile trifecta” of antisemitism, according to Andrew Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs.

“Israel has to do one thing,” Trump had told Hewitt. “They have to get smart about Trump, because they don’t back me. I did more for Israel than anybody. I did more for the Jewish people than anybody. It’s not reciprocal.”

Those words unleashed great anger and pain.

READ MORE: ‘Trump Did This’: SCOTUS Blocks Biden Emergency Abortion Mandate in Texas

“On anniversary of deadliest day for Jews post-Holocaust, Trump hits a vile trifecta,” Miller writes of Trump’s remarks to Hewitt. “1. Antisemitism: Israel and Jews are the same – dual loyalty. 2. Victim blaming: 10-7 is the fault of Jews bc they didn’t back him. 3. Narcissism: Forget victims’ families, it’s all about me.”

Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt had also told Haaretz, Israel’s newspaper of record, that the “atrocities, including the slaughtering and capturing of innocent Israelis and Americans, that took place on October 7th would have never happened if President Trump were still in the White House.”

“For Americans and Israelis alike, it’s imperative that President Trump is re-elected so he can end the bloodshed caused by an emboldened Iranian terrorist regime, which is stronger and richer today from the Harris-Biden Administration’s incompetence and weak policies,” she claimed.

Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America blasted Trump.

“One year since the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, & Donald Trump exploits our pain, presenting his support of Israel as completely transactional, conflating American Jews & Israelis. It’s ‘not reciprocal’ b/c Trump continues to issue depraved antisemitic threats,” she said.

Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs wrote, “Israel and the global Jewish community are mourning the anniversary of the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. And Trump’s message is effectively “vote for me or else” — just as he is preemptively blaming Jews for a potential loss. This is so dangerous.”

READ MORE: Greene Mocked for Weather Control Claim as NC Lawmaker Pleads for Conspiracy ‘Junk’ to End

Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy observed, “Of the many times Trump has made something all about himself, this has to be one of the most unhinged and vulgar. You wouldn’t hire someone who said something this weird and gross for a job. You wouldn’t want them around your kids or friends. How can his supporters defend this?”

Attorney Daniel Miller wrote: “On a day when American Jews should be able to mourn the deadliest day for our people since the Holocaust, Trump is threatening Jews who don’t support him and trafficking in Nazi race science. As a Jew, I am alarmed not only for my own people, but for my country and the world.”

Miller also pounded Trump over his earlier remarks to Hugh Hewitt on immigrants.

“The fact Trump is trafficking in Nazi race science should be on the front page of every newspaper in America. Every elected official should issue a statement condemning this. Republicans should be asked why they remain silent. This is NOT OK. He might soon control our military,” Miller wrote. He also said, “Trump has promised to put immigrants into camps and is now trafficking in openly Nazi race science,” which “should terrify every single person with a conscience.”

READ MORE: ‘Judicially Executed Cover Up’: Experts Say Jack Smith Filing ‘Major Indictment’ of SCOTUS

 

This article has been updated to include Professor McFaul’s remarks.

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‘Trump Did This’: SCOTUS Blocks Biden Emergency Abortion Mandate in Texas

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On the first day of its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court in an unsigned opinion upheld a lower court ruling that enforces Texas’ ban on certain emergency abortions. The Biden administration had sought to overturn the ban and enforce its policy requiring hospitals to perform the emergency, potentially life-saving procedures. The Court declined, allowing the Texas law, one of the strictest in the nation, to remain in effect.

The Biden administration had argued “that hospitals have to perform abortions in emergency situations under federal law. The administration pointed to the Supreme Court’s action in a similar case from Idaho earlier this year in which the justices narrowly allowed emergency abortions to resume while a lawsuit continues,” the Associated Press reports. “Doctors have said the [Texas] law remains dangerously vague after a medical board refused to specify exactly which conditions qualify for the exception.”

“Pregnancy terminations have long been part of medical treatment for patients with serious complications, as [a] way to to [sic] prevent sepsis, organ failure and other major problems,” the AP added. “But in Texas and other states with strict abortion bans, doctors and hospitals have said it is not clear whether those terminations could run afoul of abortion bans that carry the possibility of prison time.”

READ MORE: ‘Full Eugenicist’: Trump Says ‘Bad Genes’ Make Immigrants More Likely to Commit Murder

Critics are blasting Donald Trump, who has repeatedly bragged he killed Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that found a constitutional right to abortion. That ruling was overturned in 2022 by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision. Trump put on the Court three conservative justices after vowing to pick justices who would end Roe.

“Trump did this. These are his hand-picked justices,” charged former Fox News and CNBC contributor Julie Roginsky Monday morning after the Court’s ruling in the Texas case.

“Thanks to Trump overturning Roe, the Supreme Court just issued a ruling that woman bleeding out from a miscarriage or stroking out from pre-eclampsia can die on the ER table in Texas,” noted Democratic communications strategist Laura Chapin, adding: “Trump’s Republican Party wants women to die.”

“Trump’s Supreme Court just signed a death warrant for more Texas women,” warned Dem Socratic strategistAdam Parkhomenko.

Leigh McGowan, who runs the popular PoliticsGirl podcast, wrote: “SCOTUS confirms it’s the state’s right to let women die.

Neera Tanden, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council responded to the AP report: “Let’s be clear that this means women’s lives take a back seat in Texas.”

READ MORE: Greene Mocked for Weather Control Claim as NC Lawmaker Pleads for Conspiracy ‘Junk’ to End

 

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