 |
| Transportation Secretary Pet Buttigieg |
From Mediaite:
Log Cabin Republicans, the largest LGBT Republican organization in the U.S., condemned Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis after his campaign posted an ad attacking former President Donald Trump’s connections to the LGBT community. The bizarre ad, which was posted by the DeSantis War Room to Twitter on Friday, attacked Trump by playing a 2016 clip of him saying, “I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.”
Trump made the comments following the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, which left 49 people dead. The ad also showed clips of Trump with transgender Republican Caitlyn Jenner, before boastfully displaying a string of headlines that referenced DeSantis’ “draconian” and “evil” anti-LGBT policies.
“Today’s message from the DeSantis campaign War Room is divisive and desperate,” the Log Cabin Republicans said in a statement. “Republicans and other commonsense conservatives know Ron Desantis [sic] has alienated swing-state and younger voters.” The organization said that while “conservatives understand that we need to protect our kids, preserve women’s sports, safeguard women’s spaces and strengthen parental rights,” DeSantis’ “extreme rhetoric has just ventured into homophobic territory.”
. . .Charles T. Moran, the national president of the group, also condemned DeSantis in his own post.“You could have gone after radical queers, @RonDeSantis – but instead you went after the ones who win the @GOP votes and get Republicans elected. People like me,” he wrote. “Wrong fight to pick, bud.”
The ad in question is below:
To wrap up “Pride Month,” let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it…
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) June 30, 2023
pic.twitter.com/FT7LdW4vls
The founder of Gays Against Groomers, Jaimee Michell, and her partners are former ultra-MAGA Trump followers who spread anti-transgender propaganda with QAnon conspiracy theories and links to extremist militias, according to a Media Matters for America investigation published last week. In response to accusations that it spreads homophobia and transphobia, GAG claims that, as a “coalition of gay people,” it and its members cannot possibly spread anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda.Furthermore, they claim that any attack on the group is homophobic. However, GAG is not a grassroots initiative but a right-wing project seeking to gain political and financial advantage by using anti-trans rhetoric, according to the left-leaning media watchdog. GAG was formed last year “to protect the kids” from “sexualization, indoctrination, and medicalization,” Michell claims, and it has gained prestige in right-wing circles along with Chaiya Raichik’s Libs of TikTok, which also attacks the LGBTQ+ community. Both have promoted the use of the anti-LGBTQ+ slur “groomer.”. . . Leatherwood began receiving attention for right-wing troll behavior online. Like Michell, he has ties to the “Stop the Steal” movement. On December 14, 2020, he spoke at an event hosted by Roger Stone. Also like Michell, Leatherwood celebrated the January 6 insurrection, praising the violent rioters, according to Media Matters.
Editor's note - Friday's Supreme Court ruling concerning 303 Creative v. Elenis was a travesty simply for the fact that it was not an actual situation and being so, the plaintiff had no standing to pursue a lawsuit. But since we're at this point, the important thing is to get a clear view of where we stand. A lot of folks have been freaking out, so I am relying on Lambda Legal to give a clear view of what happened and where do we go from here. (I highlighted some points which I think folks NEED to know)
The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled in favor of a Colorado website design business – 303 Creative – which claimed the owner’s business involves “expression” and is therefore entitled to an exemption from the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) so that she can discriminate against same-sex couples when designing and selling wedding websites. In its ruling, the Court found this particular business engaged in “speech for pay” by creating customized websites for carefully vetted clients using the owner’s original artwork and language. That uniquely creative expression is protected by the First Amendment from being “compelled” by state law when contrary to messages the artist wishes to express.Lambda Legal Chief Legal Officer Jennifer C. Pizer issued the following statement:“Unlike yesterday’s affirmative action travesty, today’s smug attack on civil rights law will have limited practical impact in the marketplace because few commercial services involve original artwork and pure speech offered as limited commissions. But today’s narrow decision does continue the Court majority’s dangerous siren call to those trying to return the country to the social and legal norms of the Nineteenth Century because it jettisons without even acknowledging what was part of the legal test for decades.“Although misguided, today’s decision depends on its limited, uncommon facts – this business owner takes specific commissions, unlike most commercial enterprises that solicit customers widely, and she creates unique artwork for those selected customers. Importantly, the decision also confirms that all forms of discrimination forbidden by Colorado’s law are subjected to the same constitutional standard, and that such laws serve compelling public purposes.“Still, it is impossible to overlook the fact that this extreme Court majority yet again has set aside decades of sensible precedent that previously required that objective observers of commercial conduct would need to understand that any message conveyed by a commercially available service was that of the business owner rather than that of the customer. Given the uniquely creative service at issue here, the impact is likely to be minimal. But the door has been opened for potential future cases to expand this limited carve-out. We will be vigilant against that possibility.”
 |
| Ron DeSantis |
I told folks a while back when these awful anti-trans bills were being passed that the courtroom is totally different from legislative chambers. In legislative chambers, the ending is mostly pre-determined. You can basically pass any type of junk. But the courtroom is still a place where you have to defend your sh!t. And it looks like those who pushed for these anti-trans bills are having a real problem in that area.
First, there is Kentucky.
From The Associated Press:
A federal judge temporarily blocked Kentucky’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youths on Wednesday, taking the action shortly before the measure was set to take effect. In issuing the preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge David Hale sided with seven transgender minors and their parents, who sued the state officials responsible for enforcing the provisions banning the use of puberty blockers and hormones. “Justice is served today as the most egregious parts of Kentucky’s anti-trans law are struck down by a federal judge,” said Chris Hartman, executive director of the Fairness Campaign, a Kentucky-based LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
. . . In their lawsuit, the Kentucky plaintiffs claim that the prohibition interferes with parental rights to seek established medical treatment for their children. The plaintiffs requested a preliminary injunction to prevent the disputed portion of the law from taking effect on Thursday. In his order, Hale concluded that the plaintiffs showed “a strong likelihood of success on the merits” of their constitutional challenges to the contested portion of the measure. In his order, the judge said that if the disputed sections were allowed to take effect, they would “eliminate treatments that have already significantly benefited six of the seven minor plaintiffs and prevent other transgender children from accessing these beneficial treatments in the future.”
A federal judge has blocked enforcement of a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming healthcare care for trans youth up to age 18 while several families’ legal challenge against the law proceeds in court. United States District Court Judge Eli Richardson in his sixty-nine page ruling granted the request for a preliminary injunction against the law, SB1, in a lawsuit brought by Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville and their 15-year-old daughter, as well as two other anonymous families and Dr. Susan N. Lacy. The law would prohibit medical providers from providing gender-affirming health care to transgender youth and would require trans youth currently receiving gender-affirming care to end that care within nine months of the law’s effective date of July 1, 2023, or by March 31, 2024.Richardson wrote in his conclusion: “The Court realizes that today’s decision will likely stoke the already controversial fire regarding the rights of transgender individuals in American society on the one hand, and the countervailing power of states to control certain activities within their borders and to use that power to protect minors. The Court, however, does not stand alone in its decision.As repeatedly emphasized above, several federal courts across the country have been confronted with laws that mirror SB1 in material respects. To the Court’s knowledge, every court to consider preliminarily enjoining a ban on gender-affirming care for minors has found that such a ban is likely unconstitutional. And at least one federal court has found such a ban to be unconstitutional at final judgment.”
Tennessee’s is the fourth ban on gender-affirming care blocked by a federal court following similar rulings in Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida, and Kentucky. The ACLU and the ACLU of Oklahoma secured a binding non-enforcement agreement with the Attorney General of Oklahoma preventing enforcement of that state’s ban in May 2023. On June 16, 2023, the ACLU and the ACLU of Indiana were granted a preliminary injunction in a legal challenge against Indiana’s ban on gender-affirming care. In June 2023, a federal judge in Arkansas struck down that state’s ban in a permanent injunction, the first court ruling on the merits regarding a ban on gender-affirming care.
