LGBTQ advocates sound the alarm about 'Trumpcare' bill

It goes without saying that the GOP bill designed to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something awful has caused a lot of anger from many Americans. I was wondering when the LGBTQ leadership would start raising hell over it. Apparently, now is the time.

From The Washington Blade:

LGBT rights supporters held a conference call with reporters on Tuesday to raise awareness about the bill, which seeks to phase out the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare to pay for a tax cut mostly for the wealthiest Americans. Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said the legislation would have a “devastating impact” on LGBT people because they’re disproportionately affected by health disparities. “Both the House and Senate versions of the bill gut core provisions of the ACA, cut off tens of millions of Americans life-saving health care coverage while increasing out-of-pocket costs,” Griffin said.

. . .Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said during the conference she’s “deeply concerned” about the bill’s impact on transgender people “and their very lives.” “We are outraged that congressional leaders and the president would disrupt and endanger so many lives just apparently to say that they passed a bill and to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the people who need it the least,” Keisling said. Keisling also took Trumpcare to task for a proposal to bar Medicaid repayments for health services at Planned Parenthood, which she said is often the only option for transgender people seeking care.

Another reason why the LGBTQ community should be concerned about the bill deals with its potential to - as the South Florida Gay News puts it - "devastate people with HIV."

In a recent joint letter to senators, 133 HIV organizations stressed that the bill that passed the House without a single Democratic vote on May 4 “would return America to a time when health care coverage was out of reach for too many people with HIV.” The letter lavishes scorn on the bill (which the Senate will apparently jettison in favor of starting from scratch) for its billions of dollars of cuts to traditional Medicaid programs; phasing out of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA, or Obamacare) expanded Medicaid programs; erosion of key protections against health-plan-related discrimination that benefit people with HIV; and problematic changes to the formula for determining subsidies for the premiums of private health plans obtained on the open, or “nongroup,” market.

 . . .The May 24 release of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report estimating the AHCA’s impact sent a bruising message that, compared with projections based on the current health care law, 14 million fewer Americans would have health insurance in 2018, a figure that would swell to 19 million by 2020 and 23 million by 2026. (These projections do not factor in the president’s proposed budget cuts that affect health care.) In 2026, the estimated number of uninsured people younger than 65 (and therefore largely ineligible for Medicare) would be 51 million, compared with a projected 28 million if Obamacare were left intact. 

This loss of health insurance would disproportionately affect older people with lower incomes, in particular those between 50 and 64 years of age with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), or $24,120 for individuals. Given demographic trends, such a bias against late-middle-aged people with chronic health conditions would likely have a considerable impact on the aging U.S. HIV population, which tends to be lower income. While just one third of those living with the virus were 50 or older in 2010, that proportion is expected to rise to one half by 2020. Currently, only a sliver of U.S. residents with HIV are 65 or older and therefore have access to Medicare (neither the president’s budget nor the AHCA target that program). Even by 2030, only a fifth of the HIV population is expected to be in their senior years.

The bill was worked on in secret by the GOP leadership and didn't even have any hearings. It was to be voted on this week. However, after a huge groundswell of negative reactions from all sides, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McMconnell is having problems finding the votes to pass it. It will be voted on after the July 4 holiday.

I would suggest that those in our community who like to educate via public demonstrations and the like get on their J-O-B between now and then.

Photo taken from May 4, 2017 Unicornbooty article  3 Ways ‘Trumpcare’ Will Hurt HIV-Positive and LGBTQ Americans

'Anti-LGBTQ right gets partial victory from Guidestar' & other Tue midday news briefs

Charity website cites threats in removing hate group labels - After controversy, charity web page Guidestar will back away from its labeling some organizations as hate groups. While the right is spinning it as a complete capitulation, it's not exactly that. The web page will make the information available to those who request it, which is still a good thing. For the purpose of my blog, I don't necessarily call it a loss. It's just a forward step in creating an ACCURATE nationwide conversation on the decades-long smearing of LGBTQ people by pseudo-morality groups under the veneer of "personally held religious beliefs." We will have that nationwide conversation sooner or later.

Supreme Court actions show just how fragile LGBTQ equality still is - Yes it does. And it reason number one million and one why the LGBTQ community cannot ignore religious right groups and their supporters. Every victory we get is just the entryway to a new battle.

Neil Gorsuch Is The Anti-LGBTQ Nightmare His Gay Friends Hoped He Wasn’t - Meet reason number one for news brief two. I can only hope this changes, but Michelangelo Signorile is pretty good about these things.

 Visibility Is at the Heart of LGBTQ Politics. But Is It Always the Best Strategy? - That's a good question in light of the fact that some in our community think that visibility only entails showing one's proverbial ass and suddenly everything will move in our direction.

How The Christian Right Turned the Good News into Fake News - I love this post.

You call it 'religious liberty,' I call it another game of 'beating down the gays'

Editor's note - In my headline and throughout this post, the word 'gay' is mean to represent the entire LGBTQ community. 

I knew that the Family Research Council would get 'gloat-happy' at the news that SCOTUS will be hearing the case involving using 'religious liberty' as an excuse to discriminate. So allow me to post the organization's comments:

If anyone’s under the influence of the media and questioning President Trump’s results after six months, look no further than the U.S. Supreme Court and Justice Neil Gorsuch. This morning, after waiting through a string of Monday court announcements, Americans concerned about the relentless assault on religious freedom finally got the word they’d been waiting for -- justices have agreed to hear the case of Christian baker Jack Phillips. For men and women of faith, who’ve been in the fight of their lives for their First Amendment rights since Obergefell, it’s a hopeful sign that the days of persecution against believers like Jack may be numbered.

Like so many Christian businesses, the war on religious freedom came to the Phillips’s front door when two men visited Masterpiece Cakes in 2012 and asked for a same-sex wedding cake. Jack was kind -- but firm -- in his conviction that he wouldn’t participate in a ceremony that violates his faith. Dave Mullin and Charlie Craig offered a choice gesture and stormed out. Later that day, they turned to social media, launching a campaign to force Phillips into submission. It didn’t work. “We would close down our bakery before we would compromise our beliefs,” Phillips told reporters.

Ironically, business only boomed. People flocked to the Colorado cake shop to show their support. They understood, as we do, that this was never about discriminating against anyone. Like Barronelle Stutzman in Washington State, Jack is happy to serve everyone. “If gays come in and want to order birthday cakes or any cakes for any occasion, graduations, or whatever, I have no prejudice against that whatsoever. It’s just the wedding cake -- not the people, not their lifestyle.” All Christians are asking for is the same tolerance that liberals already enjoy. Instead, the Left seems intent on punishing anyone who thinks like 53 percent of Americans on marriage. And in the process, they’ve done an incredibly effective job answering their own question -- how will my same-sex marriage affect you?

 . . . “If Jack can’t make wedding cakes,” his attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom pointed out, “he can’t continue to support his family. And in order to make wedding cakes, Jack must violate his belief system. That is a reprehensible choice.” Tragically, it’s a choice more Christians are having to make. Finally, the Supreme Court has a chance to rule that the government has no authority to force Americans like Jack Philips to use their artistic talents to celebrate events they morally oppose. With Justice Gorsuch on the bench, we’re more optimistic than ever that the court will uphold our nation’s long tradition of respecting religious liberty. That wouldn’t just be a victory for Masterpiece Cakes but every Christian suffering under the government’s heavy hand.

Even when gloating, the Family Research Council won't stop deceiving.

'Two years ago today, we won the right to marry' & other Mon midday news briefs

Two years ago today:

And yet the fight continues. We won marriage, now we are in a fight to secure it against folks who feel that God gives them the right to disobey or get around the rules of our nation. Not to mention slandering the judges who rule against them. We are dealing with the worse kind of zealots - religious zealots with a huge amount of audacity and the purse strings and resources to match. But they won't win if we fight. We already have truth on our side.

 In other news: 

How Marriage Equality Strengthened Marriage And Changed Religion - You darn right it did! 

Neil Gorsuch reveals his true anti-LGBTQ self - Not surprising. At least for now. 

Here’s An Amazing Way To Explain Drag Culture To Kids - Now I like this. And there is nothing wrong with it, either. 

It’s Pride. It’s Ramadan. And It Still Isn’t Easy To Be An LGBT Muslim - The very epitome of brave as far as I'm concerned.

SCOTUS to decide if religion can be used as an excuse to discriminate

Folks, particularly the lgbtq community, are learning the hard lesson that elections matter and voting matters:

From Buzzfeed:

The Supreme Court on Monday announced it would hear the case of a Christian baker in Colorado who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, teeing up the country's highest stakes legal showdown about whether laws that protect LGBT people from discrimination can violate religious people's constitutional rights. The justices granted certiorari to hear the case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in its next term, which begins in October. Since same-sex couples won the right to marry, in states and later nationwide, conservative activists have doubled down on lawsuits and legislation that promote religious freedom. They argue that providing wedding-related services to same-sex couples amounts to participating in the ceremonies, thereby violating their rights to religious exercise and free speech.

 . . .While it remains legal in many parts of the US to turn away gay couples from businesses, 21 states ban discrimination in public settings on the basis of sexual orientation, including Colorado. If a business bakes wedding cakes for straight couples, the thinking goes, nondiscrimination laws require they must provide the same service to gay couples. In July of 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins attempted to order a wedding cake from Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, but owner Jack Phillips declined, saying that it would violate his religious beliefs.

ThinkProgress adds:

The bakery at the heart of the dispute in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission claims it has a constitutional right to defy Colorado’s anti-discrimination law because its owner, in the words of a lower court that heard this case, believes that “he would displease God by creating cakes for same-sex marriages.” The bakery claims both that its owner’s religious belief gives it a special right to defy the law, and that requiring the bakery to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding amounts to a form of compelled speech prohibited by the First Amendment. Neither of these arguments holds water under longstanding legal doctrines.

ThinkProgess also speculates on the timing of the coincidental timing of this decision by SCOTUS to hear the case:

Yet, while the bakery does not have much law on its side, the timing of the Court’s announcement suggests that its most conservative members are eager to make some very significant changes to the law now that they have a new ally on the bench. Last year, during the period when the Court had only eight members, Justice Samuel Alito penned an angry dissent from the Court’s decision not to hear a case brought by a pharmacy which claimed a religious right to ignore a regulation requiring it to “deliver lawfully prescribed drugs or devices to patients.” In that dissent, Alito called for an expansive reading of religious objectors’ rights to defy the law. Notably, Alito’s dissent was joined by just two other justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas. It takes four votes for the Court to hear a case. After receiving the bakery’s request to hear Masterpiece Cakeshop, the Court held the case over through five consecutive conferences of the justices without announcing whether or not they will hear the case. The most likely explanation for this behavior is that Roberts, Thomas, and Alito were biding their time until Neil Gorsuch would give them the fourth vote.

However, four votes to hear the case doesn't mean a win. ThinkProgress points out that  the decision may fall again on Justice Anthony Kennedy to be the deciding vote. And in cases with regards to the lgbtq community, specifically with marriage equality, Kennedy has ruled in favor of us.

Still, however, the repercussions of this case go way beyond simply the providing of services at same-sex weddings. If SCOTUS rules that secular entities can use religion as an excuse to discriminate, it opens the door to all sorts of negative possibilities, including gender and racial discrimination.

'Pence to pay tribute to anti-lgbtq group' & other Friday midday news briefs

Vice President Mike Pence Celebrates Pride by Speaking to an Anti-LGBT Group - The group in question is Focus on the Family, which has been very careful to evade the verbal and junk science traps which led SPLC to declare other groups like it to be hate groups. But it is still a vile group nonetheless. I'm this close to "looking for" those gay folks who said that the Trump Administration was going to be in our corner.

Lest You Forget, Focus on the Family Does Serious Damage to LGBTQ People - Or how Focus on the Family has been able to evade the label of "hate group" thus far. 

 Too Many Doctors Are Failing LGBTQ Patients. Medical Schools Want to Change That. - And this exacerbates health problems within the community which the religious right always exploit for their "homosexuality is a dangerous lifestyle" false narrative.

 Appeals court re-instates Mississippi's religious freedom law - Just in case you haven't heard. BUT there is a giant caveat. The court reinstated the law because since it's not yet in effect, the plantiffs couldn't show how it would damage them. A minor problem alleviated by putting the law into effect and allowing folks to use it.

Appeals Court Allows Worst Anti-LGBTQ Law Ever To Go Into Effect In Mississippi- More detail on the situation, including the MANY ways the law could derail itself by simply existing.

New documentary puts trans people on both sides of the camera - Wow! This is a really good idea.

Family Research Council upset over being labeled a hate group, but won't address reason why

Poor Family Research Council.

The organization is angry because Guidestar, a website which features information on charities, will now identify it as a hate group. Since Guidestar is using information from the Southern Poverty Law Center to make this determination, FRC has been busy smearing both organizations.

FRC president Tony Perkins claims that his group has gotten together a coalition of conservative groups to complain about what Guidestar is doing:

 . . .41 conservative groups and individuals are demanding that GuideStar remove the hate banners from their listings and return to their claimed position of neutrality that Americans expect. In a letter protesting the move, the signers write: 

 "Your designations are based on determinations made by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a hard-Left activist organization. As such, SPLC's aggressive political agenda pervades the construction of its 'hate group' listings." "The SPLC has no bona fides to make such determinations. It is not a governmental organization using rigorous criteria to create its lists, and it is not a scientifically-oriented organization. The SPLC is merely another 'progressive' political organization... The 'hate group' list is nothing more than a political weapon targeting people it deems to be its political enemies. The list is ad hoc, partisan, and agenda-driven. The SPLC doesn't even pretend to identify groups on the political Left that engage in 'hate.' Mosques or Islamist groups that promote radical speech inciting anti-Semitism and actual violence are not listed by the SPLC even though many have been publicly identified after terrorist attacks."

FRC of course evades the big question - why does SPLC consider it to be a hate group. SPLC said the following in a 2012 article:

The FRC portrays gay people as sick, evil, perverted, incestuous and a danger to the nation. It insists that gay people are “fundamentally incapable” of providing good homes for children – a myth that has been rejected by all relevant scientific authorities. One of its key leaders has actually said that homosexual behavior should be criminalized. Perhaps the FRC’s most dangerous lie is its claim that pedophilia is a “homosexual problem,” to use Perkins’ words. Here’s what the American Psychological Association says: “Despite a common myth, homosexual men are not more likely to sexually abuse children than heterosexual men are.” The APA adds, “There is no scientific support for fears about children of lesbian or gay parents being sexually abused by their parents or their parents’ gay, lesbian or bisexual friends or acquaintances.” Linking the LGBT community to pedophilia is not an expression of a religious belief, as Perkins would have it. It’s simply a lie – and a particularly ugly one at that.

Then there was the time when FRC spokesman Peter Sprigg said he wishes gays could be exported out of America:

And let's not forget our friend Tony Perkins . . . and that time he linked lgbtqs to Satan:



Perkins and company can fake 'righteous indignation' all they want but they can never hide the paper trail of FRC's  deceptions against the lgbtq community.