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NAACP’s Julian Bond Attacks NOM, Tells AC360 Gay Rights Are Civil Rights

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Julian Bond last night told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that gay rights are civil rights and all these rights are “exactly the same” and “universal.” Cooper was discussing with Bond this week’s shocking revelation that NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, published in internal memos its “strategic goal” is to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks, two key Democratic constituencies.”  Calling that “scary,” Bond, the iconic former chairman of the NAACP, and now its Chairman Emeritus, was speaking about civil rights for the LGBT community in relation to civil rights for the African-American community, and said they are the same.

READ: Carrie Prejean And David Tyree Were NOM’s “Glamorous Non-Cognitive Elite”

Dr. Bond, who also was a founder of the illustrious Southern Poverty Law Center, called the revelations of NOM’s strategy, “one of the most cynical things I’ve ever heard of or seen.” Bond added, “Now the idea that these people are just pawns that can be played with, the black people who oppose gay marriage, and the black people who support gay marriage, just can be moved around like pieces on a chessboard, it’s just scary.”

 

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Here’s the transcript, via CNN:

COOPER: I want to read you from some of this internal memo from the National Organization for Marriage. They say, “The strategic goal of the project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks, two key Democratic constituencies.”

They go on to say that they should recruit African-Americans to oppose gay marriage, to serve as spokespeople, and then provoke the gay marriage base into calling those spokespeople bigots, which would then drive a wedge. What do you make of this?

JULIAN BOND, FORMER CHAIRMAN, NAACP: It’s the most — one of the most cynical things I’ve ever heard of or seen spelled out in this way. Now the idea that these people are just pawns that can be played with, the black people who oppose gay marriage, and the black people who support gay marriage, just can be moved around like pieces on a chessboard, it’s just scary.

COOPER: Scary?

BOND: Yes.

COOPER: They released a statement that said, quote, “Gay marriage advocates have attempted to portray same-sex marriage as a civil right. Gay marriage is not a civil right.” You see the push for equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans as a civil rights movement?

BOND: Very much so.

COOPER: As an extension of the civil rights movement. BOND: Of course. It is exactly the same. It’s a right that all Americans have, and no reason why gay and lesbian people ought not to have these rights, too. These are universal rights.

COOPER: But to those who say, look, this has nothing to do with civil rights, and there are many African-Americans who actually get offended by the comparison to the civil rights movement, among African-Americans.

BOND: We ought to be happy that other people, including gays and lesbians, and many other people have imitated the black movement for human rights. They’ve adopted our songs; we ought to be happy. They’ve adopted our slogans; we ought to be happy. They’ve adopted the way in which we went about it, in a nonviolent way, generally speaking. We ought to be proud of that, that we served as examples to others.

And when the others imitate what we did to gain their rights, we ought to be first in line to say, “Can I help you. You helped me. Can I help you?”

COOPER: When this memo went out — it was 2009 — polling showed that, among African-Americans, only 32 percent of African-Americans were in favor of same-sex marriage.

There’s a recent NBC News/”Wall Street Journal” poll that showed 50 percent of African-Americans are now in favor of it. Do you feel like the tide of history is moving in this direction?

BOND: Absolutely. Absolutely. As more and more people think, “Gee, that guy who sits next to me in church, he’s gay, and he seems to be OK. The guy who works next to me on the job, I think he’s gay, and he seems to be OK. So I know all these people who are gay, and they’re all right with me.”

COOPER: Do you think some people who, African-Americans, who do not like the movement for equality being described as a civil rights movement, do you think they feel that that in — somehow takes away from the struggle that African-Americans…

BOND: Yes, I think there’s a — wrongly so. Wrongly so. But I — if they knew that Brian Ruskin (ph), a gay man, was the guy who put together the March on Washington, and it wouldn’t have been the success it was, had it not been for him, I think they’d feel differently about it.

If they knew that throughout the history of the black struggle for civil rights, black and white and Asian and Latino gay people and lesbians participated and sacrificed alongside their black brothers and sisters, I think they’d feel differently about it.

Because this is not — we don’t have a patent on rights in this country. Black people don’t have a patent on fighting for civil rights. This is something all Americans want to do and should do. And we ought to be proud that others have imitated us. COOPER: It’s interesting to me that in the past, you have not had a lot of straight people championing this cause, and yet you have, sometimes at great — you’ve received a lot of criticism for it.

BOND: Yes, I have. But I think, you know, I served in the civil right movements beside black people and white people, and gay people and lesbian people, and I often thought to myself, these people are helping me. Can I help them? Shouldn’t I help them?

And when the gay movement, which is an old movement in this country, became more and more prominent, and it became something that people like myself, straight people, could join in and participate, I was eager to play whatever part I could. Because this is something, I think, important to all of us. I don’t care if you’re gay or straight. This is something you ought to be concerned about.

COOPER: Just on another topic, I’d just like to get your thought on the shooting of Trayvon Martin. What is your impression of what happened and of the debate that’s…

BOND: I can only go by what I read in the papers or see on TV, that what seemed to happen is this police wannabe followed him, against the orders of the police, got out of his car, confronted him in some way. We don’t know what happened then.

But we do know that Martin is dead. He’s shot in the chest. He’s killed. And I can’t imagine what he might have done or could have done that would make that happen, that would prompt that. That would make that excusable.

COOPER: Julian Bond, thanks for being on.

BOND: Thank you.

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‘On Day One’: Trump Vows to End Protections for LGBTQ Students

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May 10, 2024

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Donald Trump says the day he enters the Oval Office for a second term he will end anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students implemented by the Biden administration.

Serving up a scattershot series of complaints with the hosts from the Philadelphia-based right-wing talk radio show “Kayal and Company” on Friday, Trump compared LGBTQ+ protections to a “cuckoo’s nest.”

“A lot of things don’t make sense, having to do with what they’re doing, from the border to all of the men playing in women’s sports. I mean, the world is like a cuckoo’s nest right now with what they do,” Trump declared.

One of the hosts alleged President Joe Biden has engaged in “manipulation” of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. She claimed parents now have to “pinch some pennies” to be able to afford private Christian schools for their children, to remove them from the enhancements that go into effect this summer.

“Many schools are grappling with what they’re going to do,” she said, “because as of August 1, as you know, because of Biden’s manipulation of Title IX, these kids, the school boards, have no choice, they’re meeting right now they, many of them perplexed, and they don’t know what to do, Mr. President, because they’re so upset over this that at August 1 a biological boy can change in a locker room.”

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Trump replied, “It’s crazy. Crazy.”

“We’re going to end it on day one,” Trump vowed. “We’re going to change it on day one. It’s going to be changed. We’re going to end it. That’s right.”

“The whole thing is crazy. Look, it’s like men playing in women’s sports. It’s like open borders for the world to come in. Send all their prisoners. We’ll take as many as you can give us. Send all their people from mental institutions.”

“We’ll get that changed. Tell your people not to worry about it. It’ll be signed on day one. It will be terminated,” Trump promised, vowing to end the LGBTQ+ protections which include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

On his first day in office, President Biden implemented “the most far-reaching of any federal protections yet” for LGBTQ+ people, according to NPR.

In an explainer on the new expanded rules, Ms. Magazine reports “The 2024 regulations prohibit discrimination not only on the basis of sex, but also on the basis of sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

According to GLAAD, which is tracking “the Biden administration’s executive orders, legislative support, speeches and nominations that affect LGBTQ people and rights,” President Biden has made 337 “moves” in 1206 days.

Listen to a short clip below or at this link.

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Ari Fleischer Offers Donald Trump Advice Attorney Says ‘Effectively’ Violates Gag Order

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3 days ago

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May 10, 2024

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A Fox News panel discussing the Trump New York criminal trial debated whether or not the indicted ex-president could attack the judge’s daughter, with former Bush 43 press secretary Ari Fleischer insisting he should, and claiming doing so would not violate the terms of the gag order.

“President Trump needs to stop calling the judge ‘conflicted.’ He needs to explain why he’s conflicted,” Fleischer said Friday to a panel that included former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “Every day of the trial he goes in there, he says, ‘the judge is conflicted, conflicted bigger than I’ve ever seen anywhere in my life.’ He doesn’t explain how or why. He needs to say that the judge’s daughter works for a Democratic political consulting firm that does anti-Trump business. He needs to explain it. Otherwise, it’s just an assertion with no proof. And the President if he’s going to say it, back it up. Explain.”

“I think that’s a violation of the gag order, is it not?” a Fox panelist replied.

“No, he can criticize the judge,” McEnany responded.

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“Not the judge but the family,” the panelist added.

“But when he says the judge is conflicted, you can still explain how and why, and I think comply with a gag,” Fleischer insisted.

The panelists then agreed Donald Trump has been “measured” in his remarks.

National security attorney Brad Moss weighed in on social media, posting the relevant portion of the gag order and writing that Fleischer “effectively recommends Trump violate the terms of the gag order.”

The gag order in part reads: “Defendant is directed to refrain from” … “Making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the District Attorney, (2) members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or (3) the family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staffs work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is likely to result.”

Despite Trump’s repeated attacks, an ethics panel last year cleared Judge Juan Merchan of any issues surrounding his daughter’s work.

On Monday, Judge Merchan warned Trump he may throw him in jail if he violates the gag order again.

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Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict

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May 10, 2024

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A federal appeals court panel of three judges has upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of Steve Bannon, the far-right provocateur and former Trump chief strategist and senior White House advisor. Legal experts say he can appeal but ultimately he will he headed to prison.

Bannon had refused to comply with a subpoena lawfully-issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

“Bannon was sentenced to four months in jail in 2022 by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols after a jury convicted him of two counts of contempt of Congress,” Politico reports Friday. “But Nichols, a Trump appointee, agreed to postpone the jail term while Bannon appealed the decision, agreeing that the complex mix of laws that govern executive privilege and testimonial immunity for White House aides could be overturned by higher courts.”

The appeals court panel includes judges appointed by President Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, according to CNN’s Zachary Cohen.

In their ruling the judges wrote: “Public accounts indicated that Bannon had predicted on a January 5, 2021 podcast that ‘all hell [wa]s going to break loose’ the next day,” and noted, “In addition to the podcast prediction, Bannon had reportedly participated in discussions in late 2020 and early 2021 about efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.”

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Politico noted the “three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Bannon’s argument, saying the former aide and prominent podcaster had no legal rationale for his blanket refusal to appeal before the Jan. 6 committee — and that long-standing case law.”

Bannon is a peddler of conspiracy theories whose podcast “was crowned the top peddler of false, misleading and unsubstantiated statements among political podcasts,” according to The New York Times, citing a Brookings study.

“Bannon is unlikely to have to report to prison immediately,” NBC News reports.

Legal experts weighed in on the question of prison for Bannon.

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“And now it’s time for Bannon to be given a date to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence,” remarked MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor.

“Bannon is effectively out of appeals,” observed professor of law and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance, former U.S. Attorney. “He can delay a little bit longer, asking for the full court to review the decision en banc & asking SCOTUS to hear his case on cert, but neither one of those things will happen. Bannon is going to prison.”

Professor of law and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter remarked, “it’s slammer time.”

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