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The LGBT March on DC Is Happening: Five Post-Election Reasons This Is Important

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The Women’s March ‘Set the Tone With Their Leadership and It Is Our Intention as a Community to Follow Their Lead and Play Our Part’

Drawing inspiration from last week’s Women’s March on the capital – and in hundreds of cities around the world – activist David Bruinooge has begun planning The National Pride March, an LGBT march of solidarity on Washington, D.C. Coinciding with D.C.’s Pride event the march is scheduled for June 11, 2017.

“I thought the gay community should be doing something like [the Women’s March] to follow up on the momentum,” Bruinooge, an openly gay New York resident told the Washington Blade. He cited that he was inspired by the country’s women who “[took] to the street [to get] their voices heard.” D.C.’s Women’s March in particular, which was echoed in 60 countries and on seven continents, became the largest inauguration-related demonstration in U.S. history and easily exceeded the attendance of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

“They set the tone with their leadership and it is our intention as a community to follow their lead and play our part,” The National Pride March Facebook event page reads, advising that the event is all-inclusive and peaceful. Bruinooge said that he chose June 11 for the event as it coincides with D.C.’s Capital Pride Festival, which reportedly had an estimated 275,000 in attendance in 2016.

Bruinooge contacted Ryan Bos, the executive director of the Capital Pride Alliance, who expects the march and the D.C. Pride events to complement one another, with the intent that the march begin in the morning and end at the site of the Pride festival. “[Capital Pride Alliance] obviously [has] the infrastructure and the mass support to help this become a reality,” Bruinooge said.

The LGBT community is no stranger to marching on the nation’s capital. The National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, the first major LGBT march on D.C., took place on October 14, 1979, partly in response to the assassination of openly gay politician Harvey Milk. The last, the National Equality March in 2009, took place on October 11 of that year and coincided with National Coming Out Day.

The Trump Administration is already no stranger to protests and demonstrations, and many members of the LGBT community joined the Women’s March, in D.C. and across the world. So why now, and why should the LGBT community take the lead on visible opposition to the current administration?

Setting aside Mike Pence, arguably the most anti-LGBT politician in modern U.S. history, and even the twelve bills that have been filed across nine states targeting transgender people, one need only look to this small sampling of post-election examples to find the answer:

1. Potential Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Donald Trump nominated Jeff Sessions for the role of Attorney General. Sessions, whose past racially-charged comments kept him from being confirmed to the federal bench, has voted for a Constitutional ban on marriage equality, against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, spoke in opposition to SCOTUS’ ruling on marriage equality, voted against repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and even voted against the Violence Against Women Act and against expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation, gender and disability. If confirmed, Sessions would lead the U.S. Department of Justice, which is tasked with the fair and impartial administration of justice.

2. Potential Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.

Donald Trump nominated Tom Price for the role of Secretary of Health and Human Services. Price falsely said that “promoting the homosexual agenda” has a “tremendous medical health impact and economic impact.” He also voted against repealing the ban on LGB people serving openly in the military, against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, and called SCOTUS’ ruling on marriage equality “not only a sad day for marriage, but a further judicial destruction of our entire system of checks and balances.” If confirmed, Price would be responsible for overseeing nearly 80,000 employees, and be responsible for policy across the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

3. LGBT Youth are experiencing a spike in bullying and harassment.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has released the results of its post-election survey of 50,000 people, ages 13-18, which is believed to be the largest survey conducted of its kind. The survey found that 70% of respondents have witnessed bullying, hate messages or harassment since the election. Over the last 30 days, 50% of transgender youth reported feeling worthless most of the time, with 36% having personally been bullied or harassed and 56% percent having changed their self-expression or future plans due to the election. Almost 50% of LGBT youth said that they’d taken steps to hide their sexual orientation or delay their coming out.

Donald Trump nominated Betsy DeVos for the role of Secretary of Education, who donated $200,000 to Michigan’s ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage, and whose family donated more than $800,000 in funding to Focus on the Family, an anti-LGBT organization which supports conversion therapy to change a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

4. Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Gore.

Donald Trump selected John Gore for the key role in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Gore defended the University of North Carolina in its legal challenge to the state’s anti-LGBT law HB2. “HB2 places transgender North Carolinians in harm’s way and bans cities from passing non-discrimination protections, which has cost the state more than $600 million,” HRC’s Legal Director Sarah Warbelow released in a statement. “President Trump appears to be assembling an anti-LGBTQ team to lead the very agency charged with ensuring every American is protected from discrimination.”

5. This:

Donald Trump announced (unsurprisingly) via Twitter that he will name his nominee for the Supreme Court next week. While Trump said he is “fine” with same-sex marriage because it’s “settled law,” moments later he spoke in opposition to “settled law” in Roe v. Wade. He’s previously vowed to nominate a justice “in the mold” of the late, vehemently anti-LGBT Justice Antonin Scalia, and last week met with a judge believed to be one of his top candidates for the position: a man who has likened same-sex sex to “prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia.”

Given that the State Department website has removed John Kerry’s historic apology to former State Department employees who were fired for being perceived as LGBT, and given that at the time of this publication, the Trump Administration has yet to replace any mention of the LGBT community that it removed from the White House website, it’s clear that the LGBT community must stand together in solidarity.

And march.

“We urge all supporters, friends, and family to descend on D.C. for the Pride 2017 weekend (June 8-11th) to make sure our voices are heard,” The National Pride March’s event page reads. “If you cannot attend the March in Washington… we urge you to reach out to your local Pride organizations to assist in creating solidarity through your existing Pride events. Let’s make this truly a ‘National Pride March’ that spreads from coast to coast and shows solidarity through our Pride movement.”

At the date of this publication, the National Pride March event page lists that 17,000 people will be attending, with 70,000 interested in the event. Additional event details can be found at their event page, here.

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OPINION

Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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April 26, 2024

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Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a top potential Trump vice presidential running mate pick, revealed in a forthcoming book she “hated” her 14-month old puppy and shot it to death. Massive online outrage ensued, including accusations of “animal cruelty” and “cold-blooded murder,” but the pro-life former member of Congress is defending her actions and bragging she had the media “gasping.”

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” Noem writes in her soon-to-be released book, according to The Guardian which reports “the dog, a female, had an ‘aggressive personality’ and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.”

“By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.”

“Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, ‘grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another’.”

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

“Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like ‘a trained assassin’.”

Except Cricket wasn’t trained. Online several people with experience training dogs have said Noem did everything wrong.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, calling the young girl pup “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”

“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”

“It was not a pleasant job,” she added, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

The Guardian reports Noem went on that day to slaughter a goat that “smelled ‘disgusting, musky, rancid’ and ‘loved to chase’ Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.”

She dragged both animals separately into a gravel pit and shot them one at a time. The puppy died after one shell, but the goat took two.

On social media Noem expressed no regret, no sadness, no empathy for the animals others say did not need to die, and certainly did not need to die so cruelly.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

But she did use the opportunity to promote her book.

Attorney and legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold says Governor Noem’s actions might have violated state law.

“You slaughtered a 14-month-old puppy because it wasn’t good at the ‘job’ you chose for it?” he asked. “SD § 40-1-2.3. ‘No person owning or responsible for the care of an animal may neglect, abandon, or mistreat the animal.'”

The Democratic National Committee released a statement saying, “Kristi Noem’s extreme record goes beyond bizarre rants about killing her pets – she also previously said a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry out her pregnancy, does not support exceptions for rape or incest, and has threatened to throw pharmacists in jail for providing medication abortions.”

Former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin, now a co-host on “The View” wrote, “There are countless organizations that re-home dogs from owners who are incapable of properly training and caring for them.”

The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson blasted the South Dakota governor.

“Kristi Noem is trash,” he began. “Decades with hunting- and bird-dogs, and the number I’ve killed because they were chicken-sharp or had too much prey drive is ZERO. Puppies need slow exposure to birds, and bird-scent.”

“She killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog,” he added. “Not every dog is for the field, but 99.9% of them are trainable or re-homeable. We have one now who was never going in the field, but I didn’t kill her. She’s sleeping on the couch. You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit. Unsporting and deliberately cruel…but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point.”

Melissa Jo Peltier, a writer and producer of the “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” series, also heaped strong criticism on Noem.

“After 10+ years working with Cesar Millan & other highly specialized trainers, I believe NO dog should be put down just because they can’t or won’t do what we decide WE want them to,” Peltier said in a lengthy statement. “Dogs MUST be who they are. Sadly, that’s often who WE teach them to be. And our species is a hot mess. I would have happily taken Kristi Noem’s puppy & rehomed it. What she did is animal cruelty & cold blooded murder in my book.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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10 hours ago

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April 26, 2024

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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April 26, 2024

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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