Anti-lgbt congressman tells religious right pastors that America is their 'turf'

Any other time, some you would probably take the following video and write up with comical annoyance. However, in this age of Trump and in light of today's news of the nuclear option being pulled in the Senate voting of Supreme Court justices, comical annoyance (and especially predictions about right-wingers being caught in gay trysts) are distractions from the actual trouble we are seeing.

From People for the American Ways's Right Wing Watch:

Republican Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia spoke yesterday at a “Congressional Pastors Briefing” in Washington, D.C., organized by Religious Right pseudo-historian David Barton, where he told the gathering of conservative Christian pastors that “this is our country.” After celebrating Republican plans to repeal the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, including houses of worship, from explicitly endorsing or opposing candidates for elected office, Hice told the pastors that God has given this country to Christians. “If there is anything I want to leave you [with] today, it is a genuine, heartfelt thank you for just the deep awareness that we are in this thing together,” Hice said. “This is our country, it’s our turf and God has placed us here to be stewards at such a time as this and to stand in the gap.”

 Hice, by the way, doesn't believe that there should be a line of separation between church and state.  He once said that the separation of church and state was a false belief and another time, he blamed Satan for it. And for all of his talk about God, he sees nothing wrong with eliminating The Johnson Amendment; an elimination which has the potential of making churches into conduits of political dark money and more political corruption.

Just in case you are wondering, Hice isn't necessarily fond of lgbts, either. In 2014 when he was a candidate for public office, Buzzfeed called him out for a 2012 book he published, It’s Now or Never: A Call to Reclaim America.

 Buzzfeed said that Hice represented a point of view based upon "pseudoscience" and "outdated views of the lgbt community"  His book ran the gamut from "gays want to recruit children" to "gays want to destroy society," making it practically a storehouse for all of the anti-lgbt propaganda and talking points this blog has repeatedly refuted.

Hice has no business being a dogcatcher, much less a Congressman. But he is in Congress and he is publicly advocating for making America a Christian theocracy; a place in which lgbts will no doubt be denied equality.

Spooky, isn't it?

'Johns Hopkins moving past shadow of transphobic psychiatrist' & other Thur midday news briefs

McHugh

Long shadow cast by psychiatrist on transgender issues finally recedes at Johns Hopkins - An issue which a lot of us aren't familiar with but is still important. It demonstrates how one physician with a personal anti-lgbt bias can cause problems and how the medical community needs to recognize and take action. Paul McHugh has more credibility than infamous junk scientist Paul Cameron. But he is OR WAS just as dangerous to the lives of lgbts. 

Young LGBTI People Are Invisible In Australia's Homelessness Crisis - Reminder that our fight for equality and safety is international.  

Trans Teen Gavin Grimm Slams Trump Policy at Congressional Meeting - "Out of the mouths of babes" indeed. 

 Federal Judge Rules Fair Housing Law Protects Colorado LGBT Couple - Hot damn! Another federal court victory!

  E.W. Jackson: LGBTQ Activists Are ‘Not Satisfied To Go To Hell, They Want To Take The Whole Country With ‘Em’ - Lawd, hammercy!!

Hate group furious that court says civil rights laws protect gays from job discrimination

The Family Research Council is furious at a recent court ruling.

Recently, the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

Existing civil rights laws protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation, a federal appeals court ruled in a historic nationwide first on Tuesday. It is a "common-sense reality," the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held, "that it is actually impossible to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation without discriminating on the basis of sex." Specifically, the court held that the sex discrimination ban in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes a bar on discriminating against gay, lesbian, or bisexual people. 

 The 8-3 ruling represented a reversal of the court's past decisions on the topic, and makes it the first federal appeals court to rule in favor of protection for sexual orientation-based discrimination under existing federal law. "[A] person who alleges that she experienced employment discrimination on the basis of her sexual orientation has put forth a case of sex discrimination for Title VII purposes," Chief Judge Diane Wood wrote for the full court. The Seventh Circuit covers federal lawsuits out of Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The ruling comes on the heels of two other federal appeals court rulings, in which three-judge panels held that prior rulings of the courts made clear that sexual orientation discrimination is not covered under Title VII. Tuesday's ruling, however, was the first time a court had sat en banc — meaning the full court — in hearing such a case. When an appeals court sits en banc, it can review — and reverse — its prior rulings.

It didn't take long after that before the anti-lgbt hate group Family Research Council issued a hysterical disagreement with the ruling, with the usual hurtling of wild accusations without any shred of proof.:

If Congress won't rewrite the law, liberals will find a court who will! That's been the M.O. of the Left for decades: packing the bench with wannabe legislators who'll impose the agendas they could never pass democratically. It worked on school prayer, abortion, and marriage, as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) bragged last year. Now, the Left is using the same playbook on the gender debate -- knowing full well that it's the only way they can force their vision on an unwilling America. Fortunately, there are some judges who agree with us that if the Left wants to change the definition of discrimination, it's asking the wrong branch of government. Unfortunately, those judges aren't in the majority on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. In a mind-boggling decision yesterday, the judges not only stole Congress's job -- they admitted they were doing it! 

For years, liberals have tried to pass legislation making "sexual orientation" a protected category under the Civil Rights Act -- first with ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act) and then with the "Equality Act." The House and Senate rejected them every time. They recognized, as we do, that sexual orientation wasn't on the minds of legislators 53 years ago when it was trying to weed out prejudice -- and more importantly, it wasn't in the text of the law that passed! No bother, liberals said. We'll just rewrite the policy through our activist courts. 

And Tuesday, the 7th Circuit was more than willing to comply. "For many years," Chief Judge Diane Wood admitted, "the courts of appeals of this country understood the prohibition against sex discrimination to exclude discrimination on the basis of a person's sexual orientation." So by her own admission, there's absolutely no justification for rewriting the law. Still, she goes on, it's the court's responsibility to take a "fresh look" at its position. And in doing so, she writes, "we conclude today that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination."

FRC is attempting to argue that it disagrees with the court making this decision rather than leaving it up to legislators and Congress. The organization probably is angry over this fact. The rule has the potential to circumvent legislative bodies - places where religious right groups like FRC have success in hindering pro-lgbt laws.

And to me, that's what makes this victory even sweeter. It proves what I said yesterday about why anti-lgbt laws generally fail to get sanction by the courts. Courts are all about fairness and logic, not lies, horror stories, junk science or religious entitlement.

If you can't use logic to sway courts, you generally fail.

'Can childcare welfare system handle trans kids?' & other Wed midday news briefs

Can the Child Welfare System Handle Trans Children? - The first part in a series by Windy City Times and it illustrates that we have enough issues to deal with in our community without interjections from the religious right. Some transgender children may be getting removed from their homes by child welfare agencies simply because their parents are supporting their identities.

North Carolina’s Debacle Reveals How Easily LGBTQ People Can Be Abandoned By Everyone - A cautionary tale for the lgbt community. Don't assume that folks are joining your side simply because they believe in fairness. A little cynicism never hurts and it steels your mind for possible negative futures outcomes.

 STUDY: LGBT Youth Are Disproportionately in Jail - Our kids have a problem, folks.

 LGBT Job Discrimination Is Prohibited by Civil Rights Law, Federal Appeals Court Rules - Sweet! And as an added degree of happiness - IN YOUR FACE, RELIGIOUS RIGHT!!!! 

 Bryan Fischer: ‘The Worst Example Of Cultural Appropriation In History Is The LGBT Community Stealing The Rainbow From God’ - What Bryan Fischer is reduced to . . .

Mississippi attorneys discover difficulty of defending anti-lgbt law

Miss. Gov Phil Bryant

From one of my favorite journalists, Mark Joseph Stern of The Slate, comes an article which accentuates how difficult it is to defend an anti-lgbt law. Stern's article, Mississippi’s Anti-LGBTQ Lawyers Are Gaslighting Their Opponents in Court, looks at the difficulties the attorneys are having defending that state's anti-lgbt 'religious liberty' law in front of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals:

Have the lawyers defending Mississippi’s anti-LGBTQ bill actually read their own statute? 

This question loomed large over hearings here on Monday at the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Civil rights attorneys challenging the Mississippi statute, HB 1523, argue that it promotes certain religious beliefs over others and legalizes discrimination against LGBTQ people. That reading would seem to be reasonable, since the bill explicitly states that anti-gay and anti-trans beliefs receive special legal protection, and allows anti-LGBTQ discrimination in employment, housing, medical treatment, public accommodations, adoption, and marriage licensing. But when Roberta Kaplan, a Paul, Weiss attorney arguing against the law, raised this point in court, her opponent, Jonathan Mitchell, contested it. 

“This statute has been mischaracterized so many times,” Mitchell told the court with a weary sigh. He insisted that a public school teacher who promotes anti-gay beliefs in a second-grade classroom could be re-assigned under HB 1523. Judge Catharina Haynes, one of the 5th Circuit’s sharpest judges, looked puzzled. 

“Why?” she asked. After all, the law bars the government from taking any “adverse employment action” against state employees for promoting anti-LGBTQ beliefs. Mitchell responded that the school could create a “neutral policy” barring schoolteachers from espousing political views in school. But that would not solve the problem at all. Even if a school passed such a policy, it would be barred under HB 1523 for punishing a teacher who violated it so long as they did so by endorsing anti-LGBTQ views. The text of the law is absolute: There are no exceptions and no balancing of interests.

Here is a more interesting exchange:

Haynes raised another concern: that HB 1523 allows restaurants to eject same-sex couples. Mitchell responded that serving these couples wouldn’t constitute a “recognition” of their marriage under the law. “What about a rehearsal dinner for a same-sex couple?” Haynes asked. Mitchell scoffed. 

A rehearsal dinner? At a restaurant?” he responded incredulously. Yes, Haynes said, informing Mitchell, perhaps for the first time in his life, that not all couples conduct rehearsal dinners in swanky hotel ballrooms. Mitchell hedged, equivocated, and dodged, informing Haynes that the court had to “defer to the state’s reasonable construction.” 

Before we continue, a brief word about this line of argument. Federal courts are, indeed, required to defer to a state’s interpretation of its statutes. But the state’s attorneys aren’t the ones who do the interpreting. It’s the state’s courts. If a state court rules that HB 1523 doesn’t allow discrimination, the federal courts must rely upon that interpretation. But if a state’s lawyer says so on the fly with absolutely no evidence or legal authority, the federal courts owe him no deference. Haynes pointed this out to Mitchell, reminding him, “Your interpretation of the law is not binding on a judge. A judge isn’t bound by what you told me.” Mitchell responded with the most jarring line of the day, telling Haynes that if a state judge interprets HB 1523 incorrectly, he should be “impeached.” Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod leaned forward with a shocked expression. “If a judge interprets something incorrectly,” she asked with evident alarm, “we should impeach them?” 

Mitchell broke into a laugh, realizing how badly he had erred. “No!” he said. “Not you!” Then he reiterated his main point: HB 1523 is not “a license to discriminate.”

The religious right, while being successful in getting the public to vote the way they want or getting lawmakers to create certain bills,  have failed time and time again to get the courts to ratify their mess with a favorable ruling.

And why is that? Simply because, to paraphrase the words of David Boies, the attorney who successfully argued against Prop 8, the courts are places of logic. You can't sway judges with lies, junk science, or anecdotal horror stories like you can with the public. You can't work with judges like you can with politicians. Judges aren't your friends or allies. You can't make public appearances with them or give them cheesy awards praising their "values."

Judges are supposed to uphold the Constitution and impartially rule for fairness. And in cases such as with sodomy laws, gay adoption, and even marriage equality, the best lies of the religious right fell because they didn't pass the muster of truth.

And in the end, that line, however seemingly thin, may continue to be strong enough to hold the religious right at bay.

'Trump ally has homophobic meltdown at Congressman focusing on Russia connection' & other Tue. midday news briefs

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How Mike Pence mistreats the lgbt community more important conversation than relationship with wife

Last week, it was revealed that Mike Pence won't dine alone with a woman other than his wife. Naturally this led to a lot of speculation in the mainstream press or praise from the religious right about either Pence's supposed extreme ideas about marriage and women or his "piety" and "fidelity."

I simply don't care. Maybe there can be some type of discussion pulled from  Pence's relationship with his wife, However, I think people should be talking about his  mistreatment of the lgbt community throughout his political career -  from supporting a constitutional amendment which would bar us from marrying to opposing a law which would keep us from being discriminated against in the workplace.

There are so many examples of how Pence has attacked or demonized the lgbt community in the past. Probably one of the most memorable incidents happened in 2015 when he, as governor of Indiana, wouldn't say if he opposed discrimination against the lgbt community. A simple "yes" or "no" shouldn't have been difficult.

But it was for Pence:



 I don't care how Pence treats his wife. But I do care that he doesn't treat the lgbt community like we are worthy of equality.  That should be where the concern lies. And what the conversation should be about.