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The Religious Right Poured Millions Into This Group’s War on Same-Sex Marriage. Now Even Its Website Doesn’t Exist.

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In the years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the same rights and responsibilities to marriage that different-sex couples do, the National Organization For Marriage, known to many simply as “NOM,” was a recognized leader in the fight against equality.

The religious right poured millions of dollars into the tiny organization, despite its ludicrous efforts to battle equality. Some said it was the Catholic Church. Others said it was the Mormon Church. At one point, investigations into NOM’s taxes revealed the vast majority of its funding came from a tiny handful of anonymous donors sinking a few million into the group’s coffers.

Though never officially declared an anti-gay hate group NOM crossed the line into wild, baseless fear-mongering, supporting those who spread falsehoods against marriage equality, same-sex couples and LGBTQ people, and the impact marriage would have on society.

Despite ever-increasing and ever-desperate fundraising emails, their funding was drying up even before the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision. Their leaders found jobs elsewhere, and today it’s unclear if NOM really even exists anymore – and if so, to what degree.

And now, Joe Jervis of Joe.My.God. has just reported that NOM’s website has expired.

Visitors to the once-infamous NOMblog.com are now greeted with a GoDaddy screen declaring: “NOTICE: This domain name expired on 7/25/2019 and is pending renewal or deletion.”

Domain owners are sometimes given a few weeks to renew in case of an accidental lapse, but at some point the owners lose any rights to the domain and someone else can snatch it up, via auction or just trying to register it once it goes dead.

And someone has.

“I’ve put in the required whopping $12 bid to snap up the domain,” Jervis announces, noting he’ll forward any traffic from visitors to NOMblog to his own site.

 

 

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Biden Dept. of Justice Reverses Trump Order – Declares LGBTQ Students Are Now Protected by Law

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April 5, 2021

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In a major reversal of Trump-era legal policies the U.S. Dept. of Justice has issued a memo declaring that LGBTQ students are protected from discrimination under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.

It is a major win for some of the nation’s most vulnerable people, and an interesting twist for the history books.

The memo, dated March 26 but just reported today by The Hill and Law & Crime, was authored by the same attorney who argued part of a major LGBTQ case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and won. That case paved the way for this new memo.

Pamela Karlan (photo) in 2019 argued in the landmark Bostock case, telling the Court in no uncertain terms: “When an employer fires a male employee for dating men but does not fire female employees who date men, he violates Title VII. The employer has…discriminated against the man because he treats that man worse than women who want to do the same thing. And that discrimination is because of sex.”

The Court ruled 6-3 that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is sex discrimination and therefore illegal.

“After considering the text of Title IX, Supreme Court caselaw, and developing jurisprudence in this area, the Division has determined that the best reading of Title IX’s prohibition on discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ is that it includes discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation,” wrote Karlan, who now serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.

Karlan’s memo, along with a broader Biden executive order, reverses a Trump executive order specifically stating that the Bostock ruling was to be narrowly applied only to employment.

Karlan is also the same attorney who testified during Trump’s first impeachment, explaining why his actions constitute bribery.

As Slate’s Joseph Michael Stern notes, “Pam Karlan is one of very few people to win a civil rights case at the Supreme Court then implement that decision as a federal civil rights official. That’s gotta feel good.”

For her, and for millions of LGBTQ students.

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Watch: Dr. Rachel Levine Becomes First Openly-Transgender Nominee to Be Senate Confirmed in Historic Vote

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March 24, 2021

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Dr. Rachel Levine has just been confirmed to be the Assistant Secretary of Health at the Dept. of Health and Human Services in a historic vote, making her the first Senate-confirmed openly-transgender nominee. The vote was 52-48, with all Democrats voting for her, and two Republicans joining the “yea” votes.

“At a time when hateful politicians are weaponizing trans lives for their own perceived political gain, Dr. Levine’s confirmation lends focus to the contributions trans people make to our nation and deflates absurd arguments calling for their exclusion,” Annise Parker, the former Mayor of Houston and now President of the Victory Fund and Victory Fund Institute said.

As The Washington Post notes, Dr. Levine will become the highest-ranking openly transgender official in U.S. history.

“I firmly believe that turning points, such as today’s Senate confirmation vote for Dr. Levine’s appointment, are powerful indications that this nation is truly heading down the pathway to lasting transgender equality,” former Obama administration official Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, who was the first openly transgender official to work in the White House, told the Post.

President Joe Biden nominated Dr. Levine, who serves as the Pennsylvania Secretary of Health and is a Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine.

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US Senate Confirms Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation and First Openly-Gay Cabinet Member

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February 2, 2021

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The United States Senate has just confirmed Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation, by a large margin. Buttigieg, a former Democratic candidate for president who quickly won a strong following, along with the Iowa caucuses, becomes the first openly-gay Senate confirmed Cabinet member in U.S. history.

The bipartisan vote was 86-13, a large margin by any standard, but especially in these hyper-partisan times.

A Millennial, at 39 Buttigieg also becomes the youngest member of the Biden Cabinet.

South Bend’s former “Mayor Pete,” now “Mr. Secretary,” says he is “honored and humbled.”

This is a breaking news and developing story. 

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