The State Department on Monday announced the president of Chechnya can no longer travel to the U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement noted the State Department is “publicly designating” Ramzan Kadyrov under Section 7031(c) of the FY 2020 Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act. Pompeo in his statement notes “Kadyrov’s involvement in gross violations of human rights in the Chechen Republic.”
“The department has extensive credible information that Kadyrov is responsible for numerous gross violations of human rights dating back more than a decade, including torture and extrajudicial killings,” says Pompeo.
An anti-LGBTQ crackdown in the semi-autonomous Russian republic in the North Caucasus began in late 2016.
The U.S. in 2017 sanctioned Kadyrov under the Magnitsky Act, a law that freezes the assets of Russian citizens who commit human rights abuses and prevents them from obtaining U.S. visas. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in a 2018 report noted authorities in the Russian republic have carried out extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses against LGBTQ Chechens.
Pompeo in his statement references the OSCE report.
“In 2018, the United States and fifteen other nations took the extraordinary step of invoking the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism to create a fact-finding mission into horrific reports of abuses against LGBTI persons, human rights defenders, members of the independent media, and other citizens who ran afoul of Mr. Kadyrov,” he said. “The Moscow Mechanism rapporteur found that ‘harassment and persecution, arbitrary or unlawful arrests or detentions, torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial executions’ had taken place and that ‘a climate of impunity’ surrounded these events.”
Kadyrov — a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — has dismissed reports that document the anti-LGBTQ crackdown in Chechnya.
The travel ban that Pompeo announced also apply to Kadyrov’s wife and his two daughters.
An early, easy win on LGBTQ rights in a Joe Biden administration could be delayed because the campaign doesn’t have a staffer dedicated to LGBTQ policy, some prominent LGBTQ Biden supporters told the Washington Blade they’re beginning to fear.
Biden has signaled he’ll make the Equality Act, comprehensive legislation that would ban anti-LGBTQ discrimination under the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, his No. 1 legislative priority and ensure Congress passes the measure within the first 100 days of his administration.
But a handful of Biden supporters deeply familiar with his campaign — who spoke to the Blade on condition of anonymity for greater candor — say they’re beginning to worry achieving that goal within the 100-day timeframe is in peril without an LGBTQ policy staffer in place at this time.
Such a Biden campaign or transition staffer, especially one with a background in LGBTQ issues, would be able to hit the ground running on the Equality Act even before the start of the new administration in 2021, making deals in the House and the Senate to advance the legislation and deciding what compromises, if any, would be acceptable and necessary to ensure the measure becomes law, LGBTQ supporters say.
With no LGBTQ policy staffer in place in the Biden campaign or transition team, these supporters say it’s unclear whether Biden will be able to meet his promise to sign the Equality Act into law within 100 days, raising fears the delay will continue indefinably beyond that goal.
Neither Barack Obama in 2008, nor Hillary Clinton in 2016, had a campaign staffer dedicated to LGBTQ policy, so the creation of an LGBTQ policy staffer in the Biden campaign would be unprecedented for a Democratic presidential nominee. (Defenders of creating the LGBTQ policy position point out, however, that Obama faced early criticism for not being able to accomplish anything transformative on LGBTQ rights within his first 100 days in office.)
“It’s also 2020,” one prominent Biden supporter said. “We’ve come a long way since Obama first ran for office and even since 2015, 2016 when Hillary ran for office.”
Although Biden has hired numerous campaign staffers who are LGBTQ, supporters who want a dedicated LGBTQ policy staffer say they’re not enough. The Biden campaign has hired Reggie Greer as LGBTQ+ vote director, but his background has been in appointments as a former staffer with the LGBTQ Victory Institute and his focus is constituency outreach.
Gautam Raghavan, who as an Obama administration staffer during efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ferried information back and forth between the White House and the Pentagon, was tapped as an official for the Biden transition team, but not on LGBTQ policy. Karine Jean-Pierre is a lesbian and a former Obama administration staffer on the Biden campaign, but doesn’t have a background in LGBTQ policy.
Another out gay Biden campaign staffer is Jamal Brown, who has a background in LGBTQ policy as a former staffer with the New England-based GLBTQ Advocates & Defenders, but is working to engage with audiences across the board as national press secretary for the Biden campaign.
Brown, in response to the Blade’s request to comment for this article, nonetheless indicated the Biden team is confident in the campaign structure as it currently stands.
“Our campaign is equipped with talented leaders and experts in LGBTQ+ affairs who are working tirelessly to advance Joe Biden’s commitment towards equality and acceptance for LGBTQ+ people,” Brown said. “Our dedicated experts in LGBTQ+ policy crafted the widely-praised and comprehensive platform for securing LGBTQ+ equality, and our Vote Director is mobilizing LGBTQ+ voters in key battleground states. When Joe Biden is elected president, our team will be ready to implement his vision for LGBTQ+ equality, including enactment of the Equality Act.”
The idea about an LGBTQ policy staffer is a contentious one: Not all LGBTQ Biden supporters believe one is necessary. In fact, other LGBTQ leaders pushed back on the idea the position is needed.
Reasons cited against the hire were that it’s soon to have an LGBTQ policy staffer in place, having such a team member would be unprecedented and the Human Rights Campaign and the “Out for Biden” steering committee are already advising the Biden campaign on LGBTQ policy.
The Equality Act has already been written, these responders point out, and the legislation with no compromises easily passed in the U.S. House last year with a bipartisan vote under the leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — even though it remains bottled up under Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality and member of the “Out for Biden” steering committee, said Biden is clearly on the record in support of the Equality Act and she “just can’t imagine” the need for an LGBTQ policy staffer.
“There’s enough folks who know this bill inside and out and who have prioritized this bill working with the campaign, who will be working with the transition, who will be working the administration,” Keisling said. “I don’t think — this doesn’t feel like an issue to me.”
When the Blade pointed out the concern was about having the apparatus in place to help ensure the Equality Act becomes law, Keisling replied, “The apparatus that matters right now is getting him elected.”
“We don’t need somebody sitting in Philadelphia or — I guess we’re sitting in our homes now — but we don’t need somebody in the campaign headquarters whose job is try to calculate that,” Keisling said. “All of us together, including the speaker of the House and a new majority leader in the Senate and Sen. [Jeff] Merkley and David Cicilline, everybody would be on that, and we don’t need somebody coordinating it this year. We have an ironclad commitment from the VP himself and that’s what we need for now.”
Although it wasn’t explicitly stated, opponents of the idea strongly implied public discussion would shift focus away from the more fundamental and necessary task of ensuring Biden is elected in the fall, which would ensure a president who supports the Equality Act is in the White House.
For their part, Biden supporters seeking the LGBTQ policy staffer acknowledge Biden and Trump couldn’t be further apart, and Biden is the undisputed champion of equality. Biden has said he’d make the Equality Act a legislative priority, but Trump has signaled he outright opposes the legislation based on unspecified “poison pills” in the bill.
In response to the objections, one prominent Biden supporter who backs having an LGBTQ policy staffer said Symone Sanders, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Jean-Pierre and Cristobal Alex currently oversee portions of policy for the Black and Brown communities for the Biden campaign, and Jean-Pierre also oversees women’s rights issues, so having an LGBTQ policy staffer along those lines would be only fair.
“I think it’s disingenuous to say that it’s just in campaign mode, and that it’s too early, because other communities would react very differently if they were told that,” the Biden supporter said.
Further, the Biden supporter pointed out the candidate has promised to the LGBTQ community “the most comprehensive federal piece of legislation for the LGBT community that’s ever been put forth and signed by a president,” which is no small task. An LGBTQ policy staffer in place now, the Biden supporter said, may be needed to get it over the finish line.
The Biden supporter also pointed out the campaign reported having $242 million in cash on hand, so the campaign has the luxury of being able to make the hire, and Biden enjoys a double-digit lead in the polls, so supporters have the luxury about being able to discuss the idea in public.
Many of the Equality Act’s goals have been accomplished with the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling this year in Bostock v. Clayton County, which determined anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, thus illegal in the workplace under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The ruling has applications to other federal laws that ban sex discrimination, including provisions in the Civil Rights Act against discrimination in housing, education, jury service and credit.
But LGBTQ supporters of Biden say the appetite for passing the Equality Act remains as strong as ever. The legislation would round out the protections in Bostock to areas where no federal law exists against sex discrimination, such as federally funded programs, such as adoption services and the prison system, and public accommodations.
Further, the Equality Act would expand the definition of public accommodations under federal civil rights law to include retail stores, banks, transportation services and health care services. The legislation would also establish that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — a 1994 law aimed at protecting religious liberty — can’t be used to enable anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
JoDee Winterhof, senior vice president for policy and political affairs at the Human Rights Campaign, said the priority now should be electing Biden and strong majorities in Congress that support the Equality Act, which will set up the administration for an early win on the bill.
“Over the next 106 days, our focus must remain on making sure we elect Joe Biden and a pro-equality majority in the U.S. House and Senate,” Winterhof said. “As president, Joe Biden has made a commitment to pass the Equality Act, and by every measure is well-positioned to achieve that goal should he be elected. Electing a pro-equality majority in the U.S. Senate will be a key to success. HRC has and will continue to work with the Biden team to ensure that when he is elected, the White House can hit the ground running to make a stronger, safer, more equal future for LGBTQ people.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week released a transgender woman from Honduras who had been in their custody for more than two years.
The TransLatin@ Coalition in a tweet said ICE released Kelly González Aguilar from the Aurora Contract Detention Center, a privately-run facility in suburban Denver, on July 14. The tweet — which had pictures of González after her release — said she had been in ICE custody for 1,051 days.
González had previously been detained at the privately-run Cibola County Correctional Center in New Mexico where ICE in 2017 opened a unit specifically for trans women in their custody.
The TransLatin@ Coalition in an April press release notes González asked for asylum in the U.S.
“Because of her gender identity, Kelly has experienced relentless violence and abuse since she was a child in Honduras,” reads the press release.
The TransLatin@ Coalition, which is among the advocacy groups that urged ICE to release González, notes she remained in custody, despite her eligibility for parole.
The advocacy group in April released a video in which González and other trans ICE detainees at the Aurora Contract Detention Center spoke about their concerns over the coronavirus inside the facility. The TransLatin@ Coalition is among the organizations that have called for ICE to release people with HIV and other detainees who are more vulnerable to the pandemic.
“It was time that ICE made the right decision,” TransLatin@ Coalition President Bamby Salcedo told the Washington Blade on Thursday in a text message. “The release of Kelly was made possible because of the pressure of the people.”
Salcedo said upwards of 80,000 people signed the TransLatin@ Coalition’s petition that demanded ICE release González. Salcedo noted to the Blade that members of Congress also backed calls for González’s release.
The Santa Fe Dreamers Project, a New Mexico-based immigrant advocacy group, also welcomed González’s release.
“Kelly’s release demonstrates that ICE has the capacity to release all immigrants from detention, particularly in the context of COVID-19,” said the Santa Fe Dreamers Project in a tweet that thanked the TransLatin@ Coalition and the National Immigration Justice Center for their efforts on González’s behalf.
“ICE did not have a valid reason to keep Kelly for that long,” Salcedo told the Blade. “They let her free a couple of days ago, but they could have done this much earlier.”
“This is just another sign about the injustices that ICE and the immigration detention system continues to portray against all of us,” added Salcedo.
The Blade has requested an interview with González.
New guidance from Defense Secretary Mark Esper on flag displays at military installations is being hailed for prohibiting the display of Confederate flags — but the memo also bans the display of LGBTQ Pride flags, the Washington Blade has learned.
A Pentagon spokesperson affirmed Friday a read of the guidance — which excludes the display of flags other than the U.S. flag, state flags and others listed — to prohibit LGBTQ Pride flags is “correct.”
“The memorandum does not authorize public display of unlisted flags in the Department of Defense,” Pentagon spokesperson Lisa Lawrence said in a statement.
The guidance issued Friday by the Defense Department appears to get around Trump’s hostility toward removing symbols of the Confederacy — which he has called part of U.S. “heritage” despite its connections to slavery, racism and secession — by restricting the kinds of flags on military installations.
Permitted are the American flag; the flags of the U.S. states, territories and the District of Columbia; military flags and those of allies. However, by not enumerating them, the memo effectively bans Confederate flags and LGBTQ Pride flags.
“The flags we fly must accord with the military imperatives of good order and discipline, treating all our people with dignity and respect, and rejecting divisive symbols,” Esper writes in the memo.
The new memo could complicate annual celebrations of LGBTQ Pride month at the Pentagon. Each year since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was lifted in 2011, the Pentagon has hosted an annual event in June for Pride month recognizing the contributions of LGBTQ service members and civilian employees of the Defense Department. (The annual event was cancelled this year, however due to the coronavirus crisis.)
Rudy Coots, president of DOD Pride, the LGBTQ affinity group for service members and employees, objected to the policy on the basis that it would change Pride displays and events at the Pentagon.
“We were shocked to learn DOD’s new policy on the public display of flags bans the Rainbow Pride Flag from DOD workplaces,” Coots said. “Banning the Rainbow Pride Flag will have the opposite effect of the policy’s intended purpose of improving morale, cohesion and readiness. For LGBT soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and civilians protecting our nation each and every day, and their allies, the flag is a joyous symbol of hope, acceptance and accomplishment that should continue to be displayed proudly.”
While the display of Confederate flags has been under new scrutiny in the racial awakening after the death of George Floyd and a source of ire for progressives, the display of LGBTQ Pride flags and Pride colors at military installations has rankled anti-LGBTQ conservatives. Mike Huckabee condemned the display of LGBTQ Pride images at the Pentagon in his short-lived 2016 presidential campaign.
The memo states the flag guidance applies to “work places, common access areas, and public areas.” Included in these categories are school houses, office buildings, naval vessels, break room and common areas in barracks, although individual rooms are not listed as places where the ban is in effect.
Per the new guidance, the ban applies to “public displays or depictions of flags by service members and civilian employees in all Department of Defense work places, common access areas, and public areas.”
Asked whether the term “depictions of flags” applies to images of LGBTQ Pride flags on posters or the use of LGBTQ Pride colors, Lawrence repeated, “The memorandum does not authorize public display of unlisted flags in the Department of Defense.”
Jennifer Dane, interim executive director for the Modern Military Association of America, told the Washington Blade the Pentagon is twisting an opportunity to ban the Confederate flag to achieve an anti-LGBTQ goal.
“It’s absolutely outrageous that Defense Secretary Mark Esper would ban the Pride flag — the very symbol of inclusion and diversity,” Dane said. “In what universe is it OK to turn an opportunity to ban a racist symbol like the Confederate flag into an opportunity to ban the symbol of diversity? This decision sends an alarming message to LGBTQ service members, their families and future recruits.”
Dane said the Pentagon “must immediately reconsider and take swift and appropriate action to ensure the Pride flag and LGBTQ Pride Month observances are not threatened.”
“If Secretary Esper refuses to reconsider, we call on members of Congress to take action,” Dane concluded.
Will Goodwin, a gay Army veteran and government affairs director for the anti-Trump group VoteVets, also condemned conflating the Confederate flag with the Pride flag.
“It is patently offensive that Mark Esper has, along with the Confederate flag, declared the Pride flag to be ‘divisive,’” Goodwin said. “The Pride flag celebrates the hard-fought rights of LGBTQ Americans, including many troops. To equate it with a symbol that represented a denial of human rights is disgusting and a slap in the face of those members of the community who serve, or seek to serve, in uniform.”
Mary Trump, whose tell-all book reveals new unflattering secrets about her uncle as he pursues re-election, is a lesbian and kept her sexual orientation a secret from her family in the late 1990s, according to multiple media accounts of the book.
Ahead a plan to marry her girlfriend on a Maui beach in 1999, Mary Trump a week before the ceremony found herself at the hospital with the rest of her family as her grandfather lay dying, InStyle Magazine reports.
Mary Trump decided to tell no one of her wedding plans, remembering that years earlier, her grandmother, Donald Trump ’s mother Mary Anne MacLeon Trump, had used a homophobic slur when referring to gay singer Elton John.
In a conversation about Princess Diana’s funeral, her grandmother allegedly said, “It’s a disgrace they’re letting that little faggot Elton John sing at the service,” according to an except from the LGBTQ blog Towleroad.
“I’d realized it was better that she didn’t know I was living with and engaged to a woman,” Mary Trump reportedly writes.
Mary Trump, who had rebuffed her family in the 2016 election and supported Hillary Clinton, has alleged many secrets in the book about Trump. Among them is an allegation Trump paid someone else to take the SAT in his place for his college application.
In an interview on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” Mary Trump said “yes” when asked if she heard her now president uncle express anti-Semitic slurs and the N-word, although she doesn’t divulge any further details about the alleged comments.
“Of course, I did,” Mary Trump said. “I don’t think that should surprise anybody given how virulently racist he is today.”
The White House has pushed back against Mary Trump’s book and claims that President Trump has uttered racist or anti-Semitic slurs.
“This is a book of falsehoods, plain and simple,” Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Matthews said. “The President doesn’t use those words.”
Mary Trump, however, in an interview with the Washington Post on Thursday, drew a contrast between her family views on LGBTQ people and other minorities, which she said was one of “a knee-jerk anti-Semitism, a knee-jerk racism.”
“Growing up, it was sort of normal to hear them use the N-word or use anti-Semitic expressions,” she reportedly said.
Mary Trump added, “Homophobia was never an issue because nobody ever talked about gay people, well, until my grandmother called Elton John” a slur.
Mary Trump promotes the unflattering book about Trump as White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany proclaimed this week her boss has a “great” record on LGBTQ issues.
LGBTQ advocates, however, were quick to point out that record includes anti-LGBTQ policies, such as a transgender military ban, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court against the landmark decision in favor of LGBTQ inclusion under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and allowing taxpayer-funded adoption agencies to refuse child placement into LGBTQ homes for religious reasons.
Actor Billy Porter is among those who participated in the first-ever global Black Pride event that took place on July 10.
Global Black Gay Men Connect organized the 12-hour virtual event — the First Global Black Gay Pride is a Riot — with the support of upwards of a dozen LGBTQ advocacy groups. They include OutRight Action International, Mobilizing Our Brothers Initiative (MOBI) in New York City, GLAAD, the Caribbean Equality Forum, the Eastern Caribbean Alliance, BlackOutUK, the Love Tank, Living Free UK, Pan Africa ILGA and the House of Rainbow.
Grindr provided technical support for the event. Canadian Minister of Diversity and Inclusion Bardish Chagger also participated.
“We created the event to provide a space for Black queer people across the globe to connect and celebrate each other,” Micheal Ighodaro, a member of Global Black Gay Men Connect’s board of directors, told the Washington Blade on Tuesday in an email. “Its hard to believe this was the first global Black Pride. we wanted to create this space for dialogue and also getting Black LGBTQI people across the globe to engage each other in art and activism.”
The coronavirus pandemic has forced the cancellation of hundreds of in-person Pride celebrations around the world.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, actress Laverne Cox and singer Adam Lambert are among the hundreds of people who participated in last month’s virtual Global Pride 2020 that sought to amplify the Black Lives Matter movement. Ighodaro told the Blade the Canadian government is the only government that responded to First Global Black Gay Pride is a Riot organizers’ request to participate in the event.
“This says a lot about how we see Black LGBTQI people and Black LGBTQI-led initiatives,” he said.
Ighodaro told the Blade organizers hope next year’s global Black Pride event will be in person.
Dr. Anthony Fauci on Friday said it remains unclear whether people with HIV are more vulnerable to the coronavirus.
“The story is not yet completely out in individuals with HIV,” he said during a panel that took place on the final day of the 2020 International AIDS Conference. “Those with HIV that’s not controlled in the sense of controlled viremia as opposed to those with good control. That knowledge store is still evolving.”
Fauci in his presentation also said there is a “significant issue” in the U.S. “with a disproportionate disparity or serious illness among our minority population” with Black people, Latinos and Native Americans most impacted. Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House’s coronavirus task force, echoed Fauci in her own remarks during the panel.
“This is like HIV and that there are specific vulnerable groups, either by race, ethnicity or their relationship in poverty,” she said.
Both Birx and Fauci said hypertension, diabetes and obesity are among the underlying health issues that make people more vulnerable to coronavirus.
Dr. Sarah Henn, chief medical officer at Whitman-Walker Health in D.C., told the Washington Blade in March that older people with underlying medical conditions and those who have chronic illnesses are most vulnerable to the pandemic. Immigration Equality and other advocacy groups have also said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees with HIV are also at risk.
“When I think of people who are at increased risk or high risk for coronavirus I think of people who are significantly immunosuppressed,” Henn told the Blade. “I think of people who are going through cancer chemotherapy, people who are immunosuppressed with medications with a history of organ transplants, and people with a very low CD4 count and uncontrolled HIV and AIDS.”
Fauci: U.S. in midst of ‘very serious problem’
The International AIDS Conference was to have taken place this week in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., but it happened virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Johns Hopkins University of Medicine’s Coronavirus Resource Center notes there are more than 3.2 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. Their statistics also indicate the pandemic has killed 134,729 people in this country.
The New York Times reported there were 68,241 new coronavirus cases reported in the U.S. on Friday.
Birx noted four states — Arizona, California, Florida and Texas — account for 50 percent of new coronavirus cases in the country. She also said positive test rates in Houston and Phoenix are higher than 20 percent.
“In the United States we have increased number of cases over the … particularly past three weeks,” said Birx. “We have not seen this result in increased mortality but that is expected as the disease continues to spread in some of our large metro areas where co-morbidities exist.”
Fauci also said upwards of 45 percent of people with confirmed coronavirus cases are asymptomatic.
“There is transmission by asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic individuals to unaffected individuals, which clearly complicates greatly attempts at contract tracing and isolation,” he said.
The Trump administration’s response to the pandemic has been widely criticized, but Birx stressed the U.S. has “worked hard to expand testing.” Birx also said efforts to combat the virus in this country remain largely focused on the state and local level.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who is a close Trump ally, is among the governors who continue to face sharp criticism over their response to the pandemic.
“The United States is a state-by-state, county-by-county and that’s the way we’ve made our response, very much looking at a very granular level and then working with the governors and the mayors to have a very specific and tailored response for each of these areas,” said Birx.
Fauci, like Birx, acknowledged the pandemic is far from under control in the U.S.
“My own country, the United States … is in the middle right now, even as we speak, of a very serious problem,” said Fauci.
More than 100 members of Congress on Thursday called upon President Trump to implement last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that says Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans anti-LGBTQ employment discrimination.
“In light of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, we request that your administration direct all relevant agencies to undertake a review of all regulations, executive orders, and agency policies that implicate legal protections for LGBTQ individuals under federal civil rights laws,” reads the letter.
The letter notes the Trump administration “has repeatedly issued dozens of regulatory and agency actions premised almost entirely on the claim that federal bans on sex discrimination do not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity” and points out the White House “argued against the employees in Bostock.” The letter also calls upon the Trump administration to identify “the steps it is taking to implement the Bostock decision and fully enforce our nation’s civil rights laws that prohibit sex discrimination.
“All people should have confidence that their federal government is working to protect — not undermine — their rights,” reads the letter. “We therefore ask that you take immediate steps to ensure that LGBTQ people enjoy the full protections of the nation’s federal civil rights laws.”
U.S. Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and U.S. Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) are among the lawmakers to who signed the letter.
A separate letter that 116 members of Congress signed on Wednesday urges Defense Secretary Mark Esper and U.S. Attorney General William Barr to rescind the ban on openly transgender servicemembers. The letter of which Norton, Raskin and Wexton are among the signatories also notes the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Bostock case.
“This policy is an attack on transgender service members who are risking their lives to serve our country and it should be reversed immediately,” reads the letter.
In a decision that undermines LGBTQ teachers at religious schools, the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed for Catholic schools an expansive ministerial exemption in hiring practices under civil rights law.
In the 7-2 decision issued on Wednesday, U.S. Associate Justice Samuel Alito writes religious institutions have authority under the First Amendment to make employment decisions for teachers who educate in faith matters consistent with their religious beliefs — even if that would be considered unlawful discrimination at secular places of employment, such as anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
“The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools, and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission,” Alito writes. “Judicial review of the way in which religious schools discharge those responsibilities would undermine the independence of religious institutions in a way that the First Amendment does not tolerate.”
Joining Alito in the decision were conservative justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas as well as liberals Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer. Dissenting from the opinion were Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Supreme Court makes the decision in the consolidated cases of Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, Agnes and St. James School v. Darryl Biel, which were brought by Catholic schools seeking an expanded ministerial exemption in the face of lawsuits from teachers suing the schools for employment discrimination.
Alito bases much of his ruling on the Supreme Court’s previous decision in 2012 in the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which determined religious schools have a ministerial exemption, but declined to identify its scope.
Although Alito concedes teachers at schools in the cases at hand weren’t given the title of minister, he concludes their cases “fall within the same rule that dictated our decision in Hosanna-Tabor.”
“We declined to adopt a ‘rigid formula’ in Hosanna-Tabor, and the lower courts have been applying the exception for many years without such a formula,” Alito writes. “Here, as in Hosanna-Tabor, it is sufficient to decide the cases before us. When a school with a religious mission entrusts a teacher with the responsibility of educating and forming students in the faith, judicial intervention into disputes between the school and the teacher threatens the school’s independence in a way that the First Amendment does not allow.”
But in her dissent, Sotomayor writes the majority opinion “skews the facts, ignores the applicable standard of review, and collapses Hosanna-Tabor’s careful analysis into a single consideration: whether a church thinks its employees play an important religious role.”
“That is, the court’s apparent deference here threatens to make nearly anyone whom the schools might hire ‘ministers’ unprotected from discrimination in the hiring process,” Sotomayor continues. “That cannot be right. Although certain religious functions may be important to a church, a person’s performance of some of those functions does not mechanically trigger a categorical exemption from generally applicable anti-discrimination laws.”
Despite ruling for an expansive ministerial exemption under the First Amendment, Alito appears to word his decision carefully so that the immediate application is the cases at hand: Teachers at religious schools who are expected to lead in prayer and teach the faith.
Thomas writes in a concurring opinion the decision didn’t go far enough, arguing the Supreme Court should have given religious schools even more good-faith leeway in the hiring of non-ministerial positions.
“Although the functions recognized as ministerial by the Lutheran school in Hosanna-Taborare similar to those considered ministerial by the Catholic schools here, such overlap will not necessarily exist with other religious organizations, particularly those ‘outside of the “mainstream,”‘” Thomas writes. “To avoid disadvantaging these minority faiths and interfering in “a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission,” courts should defer to a religious organization’s sincere determination that a position is ‘ministerial.’”
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed a petition for review before the Supreme Court after federal appeals courts ruled in favor of the teachers and against the schools. The court accepted and heard arguments in May, when justices appeared to lean toward an expanded religious exemption.
Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, argued the case to the Supreme Court and said in a statement the decision is “a huge win for religious schools of all faith traditions.”
“The last thing government officials should do is decide who is authorized to teach Catholicism to Catholics or Judaism to Jews,” Rassbach said. “We are glad the court has resoundingly reaffirmed that churches and synagogues, not government, control who teaches kids about God.”
On its face, the decision has nothing to do with LGBTQ workers. The schools raised the ministerial exemption claims in response to litigation from teachers alleging wrongful termination for other reasons.
One teacher alleges she was terminated based on age discrimination, the other based on disability after having to request time off to treat cancer. The schools have maintained the termination was the result the teachers not fulfilling their ministerial roles at the schools.
But the decision has implications for workers at religious schools across the board, including LGBTQ teachers. After the Supreme Court just last month determined in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County anti-LGBTQ discrimination is prohibited in the workplace under Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964, the latest ruling expands religious carve-outs under that law to enable discrimination.
Gay teachers could potentially be barred from suing a Catholic school if they’re terminated for entering into a same-sex marriage, or transgender teachers if they’re fired for undergoing a gender transition. The only saving grace may be the analysis in the ruling, which heavily draws on the demonstrated expectation teachers would engage in faith-based leadership for their jobs to fall under the ministerial exemption.
The scope of the ruling doesn’t stop with LGBTQ people. The breadth of the decision based on the First Amendment undercuts any and all laws and policies prohibiting discrimination on any basis, including race, gender, disability, HIV status, national origin. That includes federal laws like Civil Rights of 1964 as well as any state law or city ordinance prohibiting discrimination.
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, wrote in an email to the Blade the immediate impact of the decision is “limited,” but the analysis is “disturbingly broad and appears to open the door to sweeping new exemptions to anti-discrimination laws.”
“Depending on how the court applies this decision in future cases, it may enable religious employers to evade civil rights laws simply by claiming that virtually any employee is somehow fulfilling an important religious function,” Minter said. “Protecting religious liberty is important, but this decision goes too far and leaves far too many employees vulnerable to being fired or abused for reasons that have nothing to do with religious beliefs.”
Such discrimination may well happen, and perhaps even increase for LGBTQ teachers as result of the Supreme Court decision. Although corporations over the years have grown more accepting of LGBTQ people, anti-LGBTQ discrimination at religious institutions continues to be an ongoing issue.
Robyn Blumner, legal director for the pro-secular Center for Inquiry, said in a statement the Supreme Court decision is more expansive than it seems and turns legal jurisprudence for civil rights law on its head.
“This doctrine was intended to prevent the government from being able to dictate to churches who could serve as a preacher,” Blumner said. “Here, it’s being used as a wink-and-nod to religious schools so they can safely ignore anti-discrimination laws and leave their fired employees with no legal recourse. So the Supreme Court has yet again chosen to give religious groups the ultimate privilege: immunity from obeying the same laws as everyone else.”
An estimated 300,000 lay teachers at religious schools will now be subjected to having their non-discrimination removed as a result of the Supreme Court decision, according to an estimation in May from Jeffrey Fisher, an attorney with the Menlo Park, Calif.-based law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP, who represented Catholic school teachers in the case.
Maggie Siddiqi, director of the faith and progressive policy initiative at the Center for American Progress, said in a statement the breadth of discrimination of the Supreme Court ruling would allow is considerable.
“Today’s ruling means religious institutions who wish to fire or refuse to hire school teachers or other staff based on age, race, sexual orientation or other discriminatory factors now have legal cover for doing so,” Siddiqi said. “This decision could strip away the right of millions of workers at religious institutions — from teachers to health care professionals — to sue employers if they experience employment discrimination. These critical legal rights should not be denied to workers.”
The Trump administration had argued before the Supreme Court in favor of the expanded religious exemption for Catholic schools. It remains to be seen how it will implement the decision, or if it will factor into the administration’s yet-to-be-anncouned plan for implementing the pro-LGBTQ ruling from last week.
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to the Blade’s request to comment on the ruling, nor did the White House immediately respond to the Blade’s request to comment on whether President Trump was briefed on the decision.
One agency that is likely affected is the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is charged with enforcing employment civil rights law and even before the U.S. Supreme Court decision for LGBTQ rights had been accepting charges of anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the workforce.
Kimberly Smith-Brown, a spokesperson for the EEOC, said the ruling will inform the agency’s work, but a review is underway on the extent of the decision.
“The Supreme Court decision today provides additional clarity about the ministerial exception,” Smith-Brown said. “We are reviewing the decision to determine how it will impact EEOC’s enforcement of workplace civil rights laws.”
Because the reasoning of the opinion is based on the First Amendment, reversing the decision won’t be easy. Even passage of the Equality Act, legislation to bar anti-LGBTQ discrimination, won’t help because the legislation makes no attempt to alter the ministerial exemption under the Civil Rights Act, and even if it did, the U.S. Constitution trumps statutory law.
Instead, reversing the decision in the Our Lady cases would require judicial reconsideration, which would likely require changing the makeup of the Supreme Court, or passage of a U.S. constitutional amendment, which is an arduous task that requires a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers of Congress, then ratification from three-fourths of the states.
The Blade has placed a request with the Human Rights Campaign and the National Center for Transgender Equality, which had been among the chief advocates of the Equality Act, seeking comment on the way forward after the decision.
Jennifer Pizer, law and policy director at Lambda Legal, didn’t hold back in her assessment of the ruling, saying it has “opened a veritable Pandora’s Box that threatens the continued employment and financial security of thousands of teachers at religiously affiliated schools.”
“While there is no serious dispute that top authorities at churches and religious schools are free to select those who lead worship services or teach the tenets of their faith, it stretches the term ‘minister’ beyond recognition to also include those whose jobs or duties have little to do with propagation of the faith,” Pizer said. “Teachers of secular subjects are not clergy by any reasonable understanding of the word. They should not be deemed clergy simply to shield their employers from liability for wrongful workplace practices.”
In apparent defiance of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling against anti-LGBTQ discrimination, the Trump administration has announced plans to change Obama-era regulations to allow homeless shelters to refuse to house transgender people consistent with their gender identity.
Secretary of Housing & Urban Development Ben Carson announced in a statement Wednesday the plan would allow homeless shelters to voluntarily establish policies on the admission of transgender people.
“This important update will empower shelter providers to set policies that align with their missions, like safeguarding victims of domestic violence or human trafficking,” Carson said. “Mission-focused shelter operators play a vital and compassionate role in communities across America. The Federal Government should empower them, not mandate a single approach that overrides local law and concerns. HUD also wants to encourage their participation in HUD programs. That’s exactly what we are doing with this rule change.”
The proposal would purportedly preserve the 2012 Equal Access Rule barring anti-LGBTQ discrimination in federally-funded housing programs, but “require any determination of sex by the shelter provider to be based on a good faith belief, and require the shelter provider to provide transfer recommendations if a person is of the sex not accommodated by the shelter and in some other circumstances.”
“For example, under the proposed rule, if a single-sex facility permissibly provides accommodation for women, and its policy is to serve only biological women, without regard to gender identity, it may decline to accommodate a person who identifies as female but who is a biological male,” the proposed rule says. “Conversely, the same shelter may not, on the basis of sex, decline to accommodate a person who identifies as male but who is a biological female.”
LaLa Zannell, Trans Justice Campaign Manager for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement the proposal is cruel amid high unemployment rates during the coronavirus crisis.
“Housing Secretary Ben Carson: Where should the Black and Brown trans women who have faced discrimination at work and violence in their homes and the streets go after we have been turned away from shelters?” Zannell said. “Shelters funded by taxpayers should be open to all — period. We should all tell the Trump administration that this proposed rule is not only wrong but deadly.”
“In some faith traditions, sex is viewed as an immutable characteristic determined at birth,” the proposal says. “Thus, legally compelled accommodation determined on a basis in conflict with the provider’s beliefs could violate religious freedom precepts.”
Further, the rule draws on privacy issues, a concern cited by opponents of allowing transgender people to use the restroom consistent with their gender identity, as a reason for the change.
“HUD does not believe it is beneficial to institute a national policy that may force homeless women to sleep alongside and interact with men in intimate settings — even though those women may have just been beaten, raped, and sexually assaulted by a man the day before,” Carson said.
The proposal concedes HUD “is not aware of data suggesting that transgender individuals pose an inherent risk to biological women,” but adds “there is anecdotal evidence” non-trans women may fear being housed with transgender women.
Sharita Gruberg, senior director for the LGBTQ Research and Communications Project at Center for American Progress, said in a statement the proposal “is targeting transgender people for discrimination.”
“Giving shelters a license to discriminate against transgender people would be wrong at any time, but to do so in the midst of a pandemic and an economic crisis constitutes an act of wanton cruelty,” Gruberg said.
According to a study from the Center for American Progress and Equal Rights Center before the 2016 regulations went into effect, only 30 percent of shelters tested were willing to appropriately house transgender people, and 1 in 5 outright refused to provide them with shelter.
The proposal appears to conflict with the recent ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in case of Bostock v. Clayton County, which determined anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, thus illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although that ruling pertained to employment, not housing, the logic in the decision should affect the Fair Housing Act, which bans discrimination on the basis of sex in housing, and any regulations emanating from the U.S. government on that statute.
Neither the Justice Department, which has been charged with implementing the Bostock decision, nor the Department of Housing & Urban Development responded to the Washington Blade’s request to comment on how the proposal is consistent with the Supreme Court ruling.
Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said in a statement the proposal “flies in the face of the Bostock Supreme Court ruling, so it will not stand, but it could still put people in danger.”
“Discrimination and criminalization have left countless transgender people, particularly transgender people of color, exposed to violence and abuse, all while family rejection can leave transgender youth with nowhere to turn,” Keisling said. “Secretary Carson is contradicting the very mission of his department by trying to make shelters less safe for those who need them and further endangering the lives of marginalized people. We will fight this rule like trans lives depend on it because trans lives do depend on it.”
The submission of the proposed rule is the last step in the process before publication in the Federal Register. A 60-day comment period for the rule is expected to start in the coming days.
HUD had previously announced it would gut the 2016 rule for homeless shelters with a rule allowing homeless shelters to refuse to house transgender people based on religious beliefs or privacy issues, but no document until now had reached this point in the rule-making stage, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
The White House didn’t respond to the Washington Blade’s request to comment on whether President Trump is OK with the rule and think it’s consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Bostock case.
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