The US House of Representatives has voted to pass the Equality Act, a landmark civil rights bill prohibiting discrimination against LGBT+ people in all 50 states.
The House voted 224-206 on Thursday (25 February) to pass the sweeping legislation, which substantially expands the existing 1964 Civil Rights Act to include specific protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.ADVERTISING
Its passage represents an enormous step forward for LGBT+ rights in America as it finally addresses the “patchwork” state coverage that leaves countless queer people vulnerable to discrimination.
Representative Ritchie Torres, the first LGBT+ Black and Afro Latino member of congress, said he felt “the weight of history” on his shoulders as he voted to claim what discrimination denies: equal protection under law.
“My younger self could’ve never imagined standing on the floor of the house as a member of congress voting for legislation that, if enacted, will make me equal in the eyes of the law,” he said.
“We are here to uphold the abiding truth of the American experiment – that we are all created equal, and that none of us should be evicted, fired or denied accommodations and services simply because of who we are and whom we love.
“We are equal by nature, and we ought to be equal by law.”
The Equality Act builds on the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Bostock v Clayton County, which included LGBT+ people under sex-based employment protections.
The difference is that the Equality Act cements this by explicitly enshrining sexual orientation and gender identity protections in law, rather than looping them under the umbrella of “sex”.
It also goes far beyond employment: it would cover housing, public accommodations, public education, federal funding, credit, and the jury system, among other areas.
“The Equality Act is vital to ensuring the promise of a level playing field for all Americans,” said Jason Wu, executive director of GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders.
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“[It] is a critical step toward ensuring that LGBTQ people – and all people – can protect their families and contribute to their communities and workplaces. It also ensures the fairness and dignity all Americans need and deserve.”
This has unfortunately brought it into conflict with religious conservatives, who fear it could spell an end to businesses refusing to serve LGBT+ customers on the basis of “religious freedom”.
“Just as [a business] would not be able to turn away somebody for any other prohibited reason in the law, they would not be able to do that for LGBT+ people either. And we think that’s a really important principle to maintain,” said Ian Thompson, a senior legislative representative at the ACLU.
Because of this the legislation has long lingered in congress, with Republicans standing in the way of the measure and its predecessor bills for more than two decades.
The most recent hurdle came in 2019 when it was stalled by the senate after the Trump administration labelled it a “poison pill” that would “undermine parental and conscience rights”.
But Joe Biden championed the Equality Act throughout his presidential campaign, saying it was “essential” to reducing economic barriers and ensuring consistent protection for the LGBT+ community.
The legislation remains highly controversial and its fate in the senate is still unclear, as Democrats and Republicans are evenly divided.
Even if all 50 Democratic and Democratic-caucusing Independents in the Senate voted in favour of the Equality Act, it would still need the backing of at least 10 Republicans to clear the upper chamber’s traditional 60-vote threshold for final passage.
Gay, lesbian, and bisexual members of society would effectively become an ‘extinct species’ under this bill. That’s because it would enshrine the gender identity agenda that is counter to gay rights.
For decades, we gays preached to the world that we were ‘born this way,’ and that being gay, lesbian, or bisexual ‘is not a choice.’
We did not challenge nature or the science of our biology, nor millennia of human history’s distinctions and separations of the two sexes.
Now, that’s turned on its head. For the gender-identity and trans-obsessed crowd, how you were born can now be ‘changed,’ and everything regarding sex and gender is simply a ‘choice.’
If being gay means being a man who has same-sex attraction to another man, the Equality Act would make this definition completely defunct. What is now a ‘man’? Whoever claims to be.
After a gay man in Houston, Texas was found murdered, police investigators have tracked down and charged the alleged perpetrator Benjamin Davis with capital murder. The victim, the police have said, was targeted for robbery through gay hook up app Grindr.
The victim, identified as Victor Najera Betanzos had arranged to meet with Davis at his apartment with the intent of having sex. But once inside his apartment, the victim was first knocked unconscious, before Davis used a scarf to strangle him.
In his statement to detectives, Davis said he then poured bleach over Betanzos body in an attempt to destroy evidence, before driving off in the victim’s vehicle and also stealing an iPhone and iPad.
Davis, 29, has a history of violence. He served two years in prison for choking a family member in 2018. Police said he opened an account on an app called Grindr to find people to rob.
“He learned from other individuals, people we don’t know, that it’s pretty easy to get into people’s homes on this app and rob them,” said Assistant Harris County District Attorney Chandler Raine.
Prosecutors said social media apps are making it easier for criminals to target victims and urged caution. “Really look at people before you allow them to come into your home,” Raine said. Davis is charged with capital murder. He’s being held on a $500,000 bond.
Gallup’s latest update on lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender identification finds 5.6% of U.S. adults identifying as LGBT. The current estimate is up from 4.5% in Gallup’s previous update based on 2017 data.
Line graph. Gallup trend in self-identification as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. In 2020, 5.6% of U.S. adults identified as LGBT. That is up from 4.5% in 2017, the last year it was asked, and 4.1% in 2016. Between 2012 and 2015, 3.5% to 3.9% of U.S. adults identified as LGBT.
Currently, 86.7% of Americans say they are heterosexual or straight, and 7.6% do not answer the question about their sexual orientation. Gallup’s 2012-2017 data had roughly 5% “no opinion” responses.
The latest results are based on more than 15,000 interviews conducted throughout 2020 with Americans aged 18 and older. Gallup had previously reported annual updates from its 2012-2017 daily tracking survey data, but did not routinely measure LGBT identification in 2018 or 2019.
The identity question asked in 2020 offers a greater level of detail than the question asked in previous years. Now, respondents indicate their precise sexual orientation, rather than simply answering “yes” or “no” to whether they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
Different approaches to measuring LGBT status can produce varying estimates of its incidence in the U.S. population. Results from Gallup’s new question do appear comparable to those from its prior question. The 1.1-percentage-point increase in the 2020 estimate (using the new question) compared with the 2017 estimate (using the old question) is about what would have been predicted from the recent trends. The LGBT percentage rose an average of 0.3 points per year in 2016 and 2017. Assuming that trend continued the past three years, the total increase would have been about one percentage point.
Majority of LGBT Americans Identify as Bisexual
More than half of LGBT adults (54.6%) identify as bisexual. About a quarter (24.5%) say they are gay, with 11.7% identifying as lesbian and 11.3% as transgender. An additional 3.3% volunteer another non-heterosexual preference or term to describe their sexual orientation, such as queer or same-gender-loving. Respondents can give multiple responses when describing their sexual identification; thus, the totals exceed 100%.
Rebasing these percentages to represent their share of the U.S. adult population finds 3.1% of Americans identifying as bisexual, 1.4% as gay, 0.7% as lesbian and 0.6% as transgender.Americans’ Self-Identified Sexual OrientationWhich of the following do you consider yourself to be? You can select as many as apply: Straight or heterosexual; Lesbian; Gay; Bisexual; Transgender.
Among LGBT U.S. adults
Among all U.S. adults
%
%
Lesbian
11.7
0.7
Gay
24.5
1.4
Bisexual
54.6
3.1
Transgender
11.3
0.6
Other (e.g., queer, same-gender-loving)
3.3
0.2
Percentages total more than 100% because respondents may choose more than one category.
GALLUP, 2020
LGBT Identification Not Uncommon Among Younger Generations
One of the main reasons LGBT identification has been increasing over time is that younger generations are far more likely to consider themselves to be something other than heterosexual. This includes about one in six adult members of Generation Z (those aged 18 to 23 in 2020).
LGBT identification is lower in each older generation, including 2% or less of Americans born before 1965 (aged 56 and older in 2020).Americans’ Self-Identification as LGBT, by Generation
LGBT
Straight/Heterosexual
No opinion
%
%
%
Generation Z (born 1997-2002)
15.9
78.9
5.2
Millennials (born 1981-1996)
9.1
82.7
8.1
Generation X (born 1965-1980)
3.8
88.6
7.6
Baby boomers (born 1946-1964)
2.0
91.1
6.9
Traditionalists (born before 1946)
1.3
89.9
8.9
GALLUP, 2020
The vast majority of Generation Z adults who identify as LGBT — 72% — say they are bisexual. Thus, 11.5% of all Gen Z adults in the U.S. say they are bisexual, with about 2% each identifying as gay, lesbian or transgender.
About half of millennials (those aged 24 to 39 in 2020) who identify as LGBT say they are bisexual. In older age groups, expressed bisexual preference is not significantly more common than expressed gay or lesbian preference.Americans’ Self-Identified Sexual Orientation, by Generation
Bisexual
Gay
Lesbian
Transgender
Other
%
%
%
%
%
Generation Z (born 1997-2002)
11.5
2.1
1.4
1.8
0.4
Millennials (born 1981-1996)
5.1
2.0
0.8
1.2
0.4
Generation X (born 1965-1980)
1.8
1.2
0.7
0.2
0.1
Baby boomers (born 1946-1964)
0.3
1.2
0.4
0.2
0.0
Traditionalists (born before 1946)
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.3
0.1
Figures represent the percentage of all adult members of each generation who have that sexual orientation
GALLUP, 2020
In addition to the pronounced generational differences, significant gender differences are seen in sexual identity, as well as differences by people’s political ideology:
Women are more likely than men to identify as LGBT (6.4% vs. 4.9%, respectively).
Women are more likely to identify as bisexual — 4.3% do, with 1.3% identifying as lesbian and 1.3% as something else. Among men, 2.5% identify as gay, 1.8% as bisexual and 0.6% as something else.
13.0% of political liberals, 4.4% of moderates and 2.3% of conservatives say they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
Differences are somewhat less pronounced by party identification than by ideology, with 8.8% of Democrats, 6.5% of independents and 1.7% of Republicans identifying as LGBT.
There are no meaningful educational differences — 5.6% of college graduates and 5.7% of college nongraduates are LGBT.
Bottom Line
At a time when Americans are increasingly supportive of equal rights for gay, lesbian and transgender people, a growing percentage of Americans identify themselves as LGBT. With younger generations far more likely than older generations to consider themselves LGBT, that growth should continue.
The pronounced generational differences raise questions about whether higher LGBT identification in younger than older Americans reflects a true shift in sexual orientation, or if it merely reflects a greater willingness of younger people to identify as LGBT. To the extent it reflects older Americans not wanting to acknowledge an LGBT orientation, the Gallup estimates may underestimate the actual population prevalence of it.
One of the biggest recent advances in LGBT rights was the legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide. Gallup’s new estimates on same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships in the U.S. can be found here.
For Roger, the enormity of what he had lost during his nearly two decades of off-and-on methamphetamine use — and what more he had to lose — hit home hard when a man he was dating asked him that question.
Roger, who was 47 at the time, had already suffered a major ischemic stroke thanks to meth, the powerfully addictive stimulant that had long since taken over his life.
So when Roger, who is from Dallas and asked that his last name not be published for fear that meth’s stigma could hurt his career, heard that a study was looking for people like him to test a treatment for meth use disorder, he jumped at the chance.
“I woke up one day and I had no cravings,” Roger, now 50, recalled of the life-altering change he experienced only weeks into the clinical trial.
Just as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA, has issued a report detailing the U.S.’s soaring rate of overdose deaths tied to meth, a national research team has reached a milestone by developing what its recent double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial has established is the first safe and efficacious medication-based treatment for addiction to the often ruinous stimulant.
While the treatment’s success rate, 14 percent, is modest and important questions remain about its potential for real-world use, the study’s publication in The New England Journal of Medicine last month has nevertheless raised hope in the addiction field that more research might build on its findings. In particular, investigators hope the benefits of the treatment’s two-drug combination of daily bupropion (the antidepressant Wellbutrin) and injections every three weeks of naltrexone (which is used to treat both alcohol and opioid use disorder) could be magnified if it is paired with evidence-based psychosocial support, like cognitive behavioral therapy.
The study’s lead author, Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, a psychiatrist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, described meth addiction as “a very severe illness that affects the person’s health, employment, quality of life, their marriage, self-worth — and it is fatal.”
“For those people who benefit from this treatment, it is very likely to have a positive impact for their lives, as well as societally,” Trivedi said.
Methadone and buprenorphine have long been used to treat opioid use disorder — albeit woefully underused. But when it comes to treating people whose neural reward circuits have been hijacked by meth, there is no comparable approved prescription therapy. That gaping hole in addiction medicine has left the country especially unprepared to deal with a blooming crisis of meth use that, as the opioid epidemic hogs focus and funding, has blindsided small towns and rural communities in particular.
‘The next drug epidemic’
The estimated national population of people with meth use disorder increased by more than 45 percent from 2016 to 2018, from 684,000 to over 1 million, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. NIDA researchers estimated in a letter published in JAMA Psychiatry last month that from 2012 to 2018, the national meth-related overdose death rate rose nearly fivefold.
“We have got to find something to help these folks, because meth is becoming the next drug epidemic,” said Dr. Michael Mancino, a psychiatrist and addiction specialist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Once beaten back by major government efforts to clamp down on domestic meth lab production in the mid-2000s, the national meth scourge is surging today, driven by cheap imports funneling in from Mexico, the Drug Enforcement Administration has determined. NIDA’s director, Dr. Nora D. Volkow, said a substantial portion of meth’s growing use appears to be among people who also use drugs like heroin or fentanyl, who may look to stimulant drugs, a category that includes cocaine, to balance out opioids’ depressive effects, or who may take them when they cannot get access to opioids.
“It’s a major problem making the opioid crisis much more lethal than it was before,” Volkow said of the convergence of the drug epidemics.
In 2019, about 16,000 of the more than 70,000 estimated overdose deaths in the U.S. involved meth, and about half of those deaths also included opioids as a factor, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The national drug crisis has only worsened during the coronavirus pandemic. Research published in JAMA in September documented a spike after the first wave of government shutdowns in the use of meth, cocaine, fentanyl and heroin among those diagnosed with or at risk of substance use disorders.
Meth and the gay community
Meth has cast a heavy cloud over the gay community in particular for decades. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that in 2015, past-year meth use prevalence was more than four times higher among gay men compared to straight men — at 4.1 percent versus 0.9 percent. Research has found that the drug is closely linked to sexual risk-taking among men who have sex with men and that it has been a major driver of HIV transmission among this population.
In November, researchers at the City University of New York published findings in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome from an ongoing study of nearly 5,000 sexual and gender minorities who have sex with men and who are considered at risk of HIV infection. The study’s authors found that participants’ odds of contracting the virus during the study were four times higher among those reporting recent meth use and seven times higher among those reporting persistent use of the drug.
Roger, who said he first started taking meth at gay “circuit” parties, said his use of the drug led him to stop going to the doctor and quit taking his HIV treatment a decade ago. His immune health plummeted, and even though he has been back on antiretrovirals since 2014, his T-cell count still has not quite risen back into the fully healthy range.
‘A tremendous signal of hope’
The new meth treatment study was funded by the NIDA, a division of the National Institutes of Health, and conducted in the clinical trials network the institute oversees. The study, which was conducted from 2017 to 2019, enrolled 403 adults who had used meth on at least 18 of the previous 30 days and expressed a wish to cut back or quit.
The study’s authors defined the regimen as effective if at least three-quarters of a participant’s urine screens for meth were negative during the last two weeks of each six-week phase of the trial.
To buttress adherence to the daily pill regimen, the participants were paid $3 every time they logged in to a video app and recorded themselves taking their daily bupropion. The study co-authors said in interviews that the method was likely to have been a driver of the study’s success, considering that previous studies reported lower bupropion adherence, and it could prove challenging to replicate in real-world practice.
Overall, 13.6 percent of the treatment group met the definition of a response, compared with 2.5 percent of the placebo group.
“I had a pipe in the house, I had meth in the house, and after two weeks I was not even looking at it,” Roger recalled of how well the treatment worked for him. “I’d been a daily user for years and years and years.”
Trivedi called the findings “very definitive” and emphasized that the treatment increased success fivefold.
Mancino was more tempered in his assessment, saying, “It’s certainly a start, but the important thing is that we don’t jump to conclusions and say, ‘Oh, here’s the answer.'”
Linda Dwoskin, a professor of pharmaceutical education at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy who is researching a novel compound meant to mitigate meth-taking and -seeking behaviors, called the results a “tremendous signal of hope” to families who have been devastated by loved ones’ use of the drug.
Trivedi hopes that a future study including people who use meth less than daily would yield a greater benefit. For now, Volkow said, the goal is to work with the Food and Drug Administration to design a trial that would seek to replicate the recent study’s results while providing the FDA with the data to consider approving the bupropion-naltrexone regimen for meth use disorder.
Dr. W. Brooks Gentry, chief medical officer of InterveXion Therapeutics in Little Rock, Arkansas, who is researching a monoclonal antibody designed to bind to meth and blunt its effects, praised the study’s finding that the treatment was also associated with an overall reduction in the percentage of positive meth urine samples.
In addition, those who received bupropion and naltrexone reported fewer meth cravings and improvements in their quality of life.
“If you can get any kind of reduction and you can get people’s lives to improve, that’s got to be viewed as success,” Gentry said.
Jessica Hulsey, founder and CEO of Addiction Policy Forum, a nonprofit that advocates for people with substance use disorders and their families, said the study sends a powerful message to researchers and pharmaceutical companies that “this is an area where medication development is possible.”
Trivedi and his colleagues speculated that bupropion, which acts on the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine, may have cushioned the emotional and neurological blow of meth withdrawal. And in theory, naltrexone reduced the euphoric effects of and cravings for meth.
However, Dr. Melissa Zook, a family and addiction physician in London, Kentucky, said the use of naltrexone would be problematic in her practice, because it cannot be combined with buprenorphine. All her patients who report taking meth also use opioids, and they have a strong preference for buprenorphine over naltrexone to treat opioid use disorder, so treating patients for both substance use disorders would present a contraindication.
In addition, the new study could not determine how the bupropion-naltrexone regimen might benefit people over terms longer than just six to 12 weeks.
But three years after the trial, Roger has been on a health kick, having gone vegetarian and gotten a trainer. While he is still taking the bupropion, last summer he stopped the naltrexone his doctor had prescribed to him off label once the study ended.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of color are significantly more likely to experience the adverse health and economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic than white non-LGBTQ people, according to a new study.
The study from the Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law, is based on a national survey of more than 12,000 U.S. adults, conducted between August and December. According to researchers, the impact of the pandemic cannot be understood without considering the intersection of race with sexual orientation and gender identity.
“People in America are experiencing the pandemic differently,” Brad Sears, interim executive director of the Williams Institute and an author of the report, told NBC News. “In many of the results, you can see a combined impact of sexual orientation and race and ethnicity.”
The disproportionate effects, the study notes, can be found “across a number of indicators.”
“LGBT people of color are more likely to have tested positive for COVID-19, to personally know someone who died of COVID-19, and to have experienced several types of economic instability as a result of the pandemic,” the study states. “They are also more likely to follow public health measures, such as getting tested for COVID-19, social distancing, and wearing masks than non-LGBT White people.”
The study comes on the heels of another from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found sexual minorities have higher rates of several underlying health conditions — such as cancer, kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes and asthma — that can increase the risk of severe illness related to Covid-19.
Previous studies from the Williams Institute have also found LGBTQ people to be at risk of serious illness resulting from Covid-19 and to face higher rates of unemployment as a result of the pandemic.
Health consequences
LGBTQ people of color were twice as likely as white respondents — regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity — to report having tested positive for Covid-19 (14.5 percent vs. just over 7 percent), according to the findings, while non-LGBTQ people of color had a positivity rate of 10.6 percent.
“Race is playing a huge role here,” Sears said, adding, “When we think about an intersectional impact, this is about as clear as we can see it in the data.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=NBCNews&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1359289988442017794&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Ffeature%2Fnbc-out%2Fnonwhite-lgbtqs-twice-likely-test-covid-positive-straight-whites-study-n1258246&siteScreenName=NBCNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=889aa01%3A1612811843556&width=550px
In terms of a personal impact, researchers found that people of color — regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity — were over than 50 percent more likely than their white counterparts to personally know someone who died of Covid-19.
Economic impact
The survey’s economic findings further underscore the intersectional impact of the pandemic, with LGBTQ people of color nearly three times more likely than non-LGBTQ whites to report being recently laid off (15 percent vs. 5.4 percent). LGBTQ whites and non-LGBTQ people of color reported similar rates (10.4 percent vs. 11.5 percent).
LGBTQ people of color were also nearly twice as likely than non-LGBTQ whites to report being concerned about their ability to pay their bills (63 percent vs. 33 percent), with rates for LGBTQ whites and non-LGBTQ people of color somewhere in between (42 percent and 55 percent, respectively).https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=NBCNews&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1359171449697804291&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Ffeature%2Fnbc-out%2Fnonwhite-lgbtqs-twice-likely-test-covid-positive-straight-whites-study-n1258246&siteScreenName=NBCNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=889aa01%3A1612811843556&width=550px
Sears speculated that several other factors in addition to race and LGBTQ status could be at play in the economic data, including age, gender and occupation.
The survey’s LGBTQ respondents were younger overall than the non-LGBTQ respondents, and he noted that “younger people were in jobs that were harder hit and have less economic stability.”
“The second thing that is important to keep in mind is that this is the first recession to hit women harder than men,” Sears said. “Women are more likely to identify as lesbian, bisexual and transgender.”
He also added that LGBTQ are overrepresented “in occupations that have been the hardest hit that include retail, food service and health care.”
Following public health guidance
LGBTQ people’s level of concern about the pandemic is higher than non-LGBTQ people, as is their propensity to follow public health guidelines, the report found.
Ninety percent of LGBTQ respondents said they were concerned about the pandemic, and 85 percent said they were worried about getting sick, compared to 82 percent and 75 percent of non-LGBTQ respondents, according to the report.
Approximately 94 percent of LGBTQ respondents said they followed public health guidelines like wearing a mask, compared to 89 percent of non-LGBTQ respondents, and 80 percent of LGBTQ respondents said they practiced social distancing, compared to 75 percent of non-LGBTQ respondents.
“You start seeing, not surprisingly, the groups most impacted are also the groups taking it most seriously and following through with precautions,” Sears said.
There was no significant difference between LGBTQ people and non-LGBTQ people in their intention to get the vaccination.
Government trust and missing data
The survey found a gap between LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people when it comes to trust in institutions, with LGBTQ people reporting less trust in both the federal government (31 percent vs. 38 percent) and pharmaceutical companies (28 percent vs. 41 percent). They did, however, report a higher level of trust in the CDC than their non-LGBTQ counterparts (76 percent vs. 70 percent).
For Sears, deficits in public trust are one more reason why the lack of LGBTQ-specific data collection from the government is a problem.
“It is important for the federal government to add questions to thePulse survey,” he said, referring to the government survey launched in October to understand how Americans have been affected by the pandemic.
“The government responded very quickly in creating that survey to measure the impact that Covid was having on the American population, but they did not include questions on sexual orientation or gender identity,” he said. “We have been working to find data to fill in this gap.”
Sears noted the pandemic is revealing inequalities that have already existed in society along the lines of race, gender and sexuality, and said it would be “extremely helpful” for the Biden administration’s efforts to control the pandemic to have sexual orientation and gender identity data.
“It was no surprise that his epidemic has disproportionately impacted people of color, and it was not a surprise that this pandemic has disproportionately impacted LGBT people,” he said.
He added that an effective vaccine alone will not end the health crisis: “Addressing these entrenched inequalities of race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender is the only way to get through this pandemic and to prevent the next one.”
Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., reintroduced the Equality Act in the House of Representatives on Thursday, with a vote on the sweeping LGBTQ rights bill expected next week.
The move brings the bill one step closer to potentially establishing the first federal discrimination protections for LGBTQ people. Specifically, it would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces, public funding and jury service.
The Equality Act passed the Democrat-controlled House in May 2019, but it stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. Now that Democrats have taken control of the Senate, advocates are hopeful that the bill will pass.
“In 2021, every American should be treated with respect and dignity,” Cicilline, who has introduced the bill every year since 2015, said in a statement. “Yet, in most states, LGBTQ people can be discriminated against because of who they are, or who they love. It is past time for that to change.”
Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin also announced that they would reintroduce the bill in the Senate next week when the Senate floor reopens for bill introductions.
“All of us go to work and school, go home and go shopping, and none of us should have to keep our families hidden or pretend to be someone we’re not to do those things,” Merkley, who wrote the Equality Act, said in a statement. “But in 29 states, Americans can still be evicted, be thrown out of a restaurant, or be denied a loan because of who they are or whom they love.”
Before Cicilline reintroduced the bill, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., announced in a letter to colleagues Tuesday that the House would vote on the Equality Act next week. In May 2019, it passed by a 236-173 vote, with eight Republicans voting for it. However, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., never took it up in the Senate.
In October of last year, Biden told Mark Segal, publisher of Philadelphia Gay News and a longtime LGBTQ rights activist, that passing the bill is “essential to ensuring that no future president can ever again roll back civil rights and protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.”
He added that he would also direct his Cabinet to enforce the Equality Act across federal agencies. “Too many states do not have laws that explicitly protect LGBTQ+ individuals from discrimination,” Biden said in the interview. “It’s wrong to deny people access to services or housing because of who they are or who they love.”
‘A clear, consistent nationwide statement’
The Equality Act was first introduced by Rep. Bella Abzug, D-N.Y., in 1974, but the bill was eventually killed.
Cicilline introduced the current version in 2015, just after the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage constitutional nationwide. Unlike previous versions of the act, the current version includes protections from discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.
LGBTQ people across the U.S. currently have some level of protection from discrimination through state and local laws and Biden’s expansion of workplace discrimination protections through the Supreme Court’s Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, ruling last year. However, advocates say the Equality Act is needed to fill in the gaps and ensure that all Americans, regardless of where they reside, are protected.
“While President Biden’s Executive Order implementing the Supreme Court’s Bostock ruling was a crucial step in addressing discrimination against LGBTQ people, it’s still vital that Congress pass the Equality Act to codify the Bostock decision to ensure protection in key areas of life including where existing civil rights laws do not have protections on the basis of sex,” Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights group, said in a statement.
Kevin Jennings, CEO of the LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal, said the legislation will give clarity to employers and landlords, among others, about discrimination.
“In some instances, individuals lose rights and protections the moment they cross the border into a neighboring state, underscoring that the current patchwork of protections for LGBTQ people is inadequate,” Jennings said in a statement. “In addition, as evidenced by the thousands of phone calls to our Help Desk we receive each year, many employers, landlords and lenders still haven’t gotten the message that discrimination is just wrong, which is why we need the absolute clarity of the Equality Act, and we need it now.”
Mara Keisling, executive director at the National Center for Transgender Equality, said the bill is especially important for transgender people who face a disproportionate amount of violence.
“No act of Congress can end bias overnight or stop all attacks against transgender people,” Keisling said in a statement. “But the Equality Act is a clear, consistent and nationwide statement that says our country believes that all people – including those who are transgender – should be treated fairly and with respect. For transgender people, every trip to the store, every dinner out, every job interview or attempt to rent an apartment carries the risk of disrespect, discrimination and potentially violence. The Equality Act will help allow transgender people to live their lives openly and without fear.”
The Log Cabin Republicans thanked Donald Trump for “standing up for family” in a bizarre Presidents’ Day video littered with falsehoods.
The gay Republican group, which claims to represent “LGBT conservative and allies” but rarely challenges rampant homophobia within the GOP, put out an odd love letter to Donald Trump to mark Presidents’ Day.
Trump is praised for “standing up for our American ideals of family, freedom and liberty” by one participant, while others resort to gaslighting as they peddle a number of abject falsehoods.
The video claims that “one of the best things that he did was launch a global campaign to decriminalise homosexuality”, though there is no evidence to suggest any such campaign ever actually existed beyond a press release, while Trump left the position of international LGBT+ envoy sitting empty for his entire term.
The group suggests that Trump was the “the first pro-gay president when entering office”, a bizarre claim given he made no pledges on LGBT+ rights at all in 2016 or 2020 aside from his pledge to sign a proposed law to permit anti-LGBT+ discrimination on the grounds of religion.
Trump is also described as the “first Republican President in American history to enter office as a supporter of marriage equality”. In reality, ahead of the 2016 election Trump said he would “strongly consider” appointing Supreme Court justices to overturn equal marriage, before committing to picking justices from a list vetted by anti-LGBT+ groups.
Indeed, several of these points were made succinctly in 2016 by none other than the Log Cabin Republicans, when the group pointedly declined to endorse Trump’s presidential bid, citing his anti-LGBT+ policies.
Internet not impressed with the Log Cabin Republicans.
Suffice to say, the clip has not gone down well outside of the increasingly-small circle of gay Trump firebrands.
A Twitter user quipped: “Just when you think LCR can’t be any more ridiculous, they never let you down.”
Another pointed out: “Less than two hours after Trump and his virulently anti-LGBTQ activist vice president Mike Pence were sworn into office, all mentions of LGBTQ issues were removed from the official White House webpage.”
One respondent said: “To me, Log Cabin Republicans are like Women for Trump. They take pleasure in remaining second-class citizens as long as they think they’re slightly elevated above other groups who are being treated like second-class citizens.”
Rush Limbaugh, a talk radio pioneer who saturated America’s airwaves with cruel bigotries, lies and conspiracy theories for over three decades, amassing a loyal audience of millions and transforming the Republican Party in the process, has died, his wife revealed at the beginning of his show on Wednesday. He was 70 years old.
Limbaugh announced in February 2020 that he had been diagnosed with advanced stage 4 lung cancer.
Former President Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the 2020 State of the Union, calling Limbaugh “the greatest fighter and winner you will ever meet.”
Perhaps no moment better encapsulated Limbaugh’s legacy, nor demonstrated the immense influence he came to wield in Washington.
The medal was a just reward: Trump’s ascension to the presidency couldn’t have happened without Limbaugh’s brand of right-wing media.
The modern Republican party often functioned with Limbaugh as a fulcrum. President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, once called Limbaugh “the voice and intellectual force of the Republican Party.” Limbaugh would at times massage the failures of the party and its leaders, dismissing obvious policy or political failures as simply part of liberal conspiracies.
But he also helped set the agenda. When a Republican politician promoting racist and sexist policies could only use a dog whistle, Limbaugh provided a bull horn — he was, for example, an early progenitor of the racist birther conspiracy theory about Obama that Trump would later use to fuel his political career.
For decades, Limbaugh was associated with the far-right fringes of the Republican Party. In 1995, only days after Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, President Bill Clinton issued a blistering attack at a speech in Minneapolis in which he said the “nation’s airwaves … spread hate, they leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable. … It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior.”
Limbaugh vehemently protested the characterization, assuming that it was about him — which in all likelihood it was. “Make no mistake about it: Liberals intend to use this tragedy for their own political gain,” he said on the radio afterward.
People did take up Clinton’s charge to speak against Limbaugh’s style of “reckless speech and behavior,” but without much success. While remaining a controversial figure and at times suffering advertising boycotts and derision from the mainstream media, less than 25 years, rather than be condemned by another American president, Limbaugh was given a medal.
Decades Of Hate
A full accounting of Limbaugh’s lies and exaggerations; his racism and his misogyny; his homophobia and his Islamophobia; and his sheer cruelty could fill books — and have — but even a cursory overview of his lowlights makes his prejudice clear.
In 2003, he was forced to resign from ESPN after stating that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was only receiving praise because the media was “very desirous that a Black quarterback do well.” In 2004, Limbaugh said the NBA should be renamed the T.B.A. —“the Thug Basketball Association.” He then added: “Stop calling them teams. Call ’em gangs.” He similarly whined that watching the NFL was like watching “a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.”
Once, after arguing with a Black man who called into his show, he told the caller to “take that bone out of your nose and call me back.“ Another time, Limbaugh asked his audience, “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?” while discussing the Black civil rights activist and politician. Limbaugh once ludicrously asserted that “if any race of people should not have guilt about slavery, it’s Caucasians.” He invited a guest on air who sang “Barack, the Magic Negro” to the tune of “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” In 2016, he read an essay on air that had been penned by a well-known white supremacist.
Limbaugh’s radio career was also one long exercise in misogyny, perhaps best summed up by his thesis that “feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.”
In one of his most infamous episodes, he called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” in 2012 after she testified in Congress about the importance of women having access to birth control.
Nearly every marginalized group or minority bore the brunt of Limbaugh’s bigotry. Once, while speaking about the genocide of America’s indigenous peoples, Limbaugh said, “Holocaust 90 million Indians? Only 4 million left? They all have casinos, what’s to complain about?”
Limbaugh frequently mirrored white nationalist talking points when discussing Latino immigrants, whom he described as lazy and dependent on the government. He called migrants at America’s southern border an “invasion.”
An opponent of marriage equality — which he suggested was “perverted” and “depraved” — Limbaugh argued in 2016 that legalizing gay marriage would lead to bestiality. “What happens if you love your dog?” he said. He once referred to transgender people as being mentally ill.
Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Limbaugh also frequently denigrated those who were HIV positive, saying the best way to stop the spread of the virus was to “not ask another man to bend over and make love at the exit point.” He spoke out against federal funding to fight the virus too, calling it the “only federally protected virus.”
His Father’s Son
Limbaugh’s journey to becoming one of America’s foremost bigots began in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where he was born to a prominent local political family on January 12, 1951. His father, a lawyer and Republican activist, would sternly lecture about politics in the home and rant against communism. Limbaugh later called his father “the smartest man I ever met.”
At age 14, Limbaugh says his parents bought him a Remco Carevelle radio set, which enabled him to broadcast on AM channels within a few hundred square feet of his house. In high school, Limbaugh worked as a DJ at KGMO, a local radio station co-owned by his father.
“Even when I was a little boy, I dreamed of being on the radio,” Limbaugh told biographer Ze’ev Chafetts. “In the mornings getting ready for school I’d hear the guy on the radio, and he just sounded free and happy, like he was having a wonderful time. That’s what I wanted, too.”
Limbaugh enrolled at Southeast Missouri State University but dropped out after a year to pursue a career in radio. Throughout the 1970s, he worked at different radio stations in Missouri and Pennsylvania but was often fired after clashing with management. He eventually landed a steady on-air gig in Sacramento, California, before getting hired to host his own show at WABC in New York, which remained his flagship station throughout much of his career. Subscribe to the Politics email.From Washington to the campaign trail, get the latest politics news.
As his fame rose, Limbaugh liked to explain his success by claiming he had “talent on loan from God,” but it was a Reagan-era Federal Communications Commission policy shift that allowed Limbaugh to reach national infamy and create the mold for modern right-wing media stardom. In 1987, the FCC abolished the decades-old Fairness Doctrine which mandated that TV and radio broadcasters present both sides of controversial issues. This meant that stations were no longer required to feature opposing views, and instead radio hosts like Limbaugh could spend hours spouting off right-wing fallacies without challenge.
Decades before online extremists and pro-Trump trolls used memes and ironic detachment to make their far-right beliefs seem less repugnant, Limbaugh’s employed the same strategy. He popularized cartoonish terms such as “Commie-Libs” and “Feminazi,” while also claiming that abortion represented a “modern day Holocaust.” He used mocking voices and affectations as he belittled women’s rights, Black activists and the gay community. His persona as an absurd blowhard gave audiences an excuse to brush off Limbaugh’s mainstreaming of far-right views as part of an act — just Rush being Rush, or El Rushbo, as he was often called.
Becoming A National Star
The end of the Fairness Doctrine allowed for Limbaugh’s brand of unhinged right-wing rhetoric and shock jock persona to become a media phenomenon. By 1990, his nationally syndicated show aired on 300 stations ― a number that more than doubled over the next four years.
Limbaugh’s rise turned him into a ubiquitous cultural figure in the 1990s. Limbaugh’s voice echoed for hours a day on syndicated radio stations around the country; he appeared on magazine covers and in newspaper profiles. His success made him into a curiosity for the mainstream media, but little of the coverage properly grappled with what Limbaugh was doing to radicalize his listeners.
As his radio audience grew, Limbaugh got his own half-hour television show on Fox in 1992 and created a prototype for prime time opinion shows hosted by right wing pundits like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. The show’s executive producer was Limbaugh’s longtime friend Roger Ailes, who would go on to launch Fox News in 1996 and run it for two decades until he was fired for widespread sexual harassment.
Limbaugh’s political influence made him beloved among Republican Party elites. When the GOP won the House for the first time in 40 years in 1994, Republicans called him the “majority maker.” At then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s victory party, they sold “Rush Limbaugh for President!” T-shirts.
But Limbaugh never fully tied his fate to any one politician, always staying focused on his own success above all else. “I don’t define my success by who wins elections, because politicians are going to come and go, and I’m going to be around as long as I choose to be,” Limbaugh told Time Magazine in 2008.
Like any successful right wing media star, Limbaugh had a financial angle behind his vitriol and an appetite to center himself in controversies. He turned his infamy into extreme wealth: In 2008, he signed an an eight-year deal for his show worth around $400 million. He bought a private jet and a fleet of luxury cars to usher him from place to place.
“I wanted to be the reason people listened,” Limbaugh told The New York Times in 1990. “That’s how you pad your pocket.”
While he claimed to represent the views of the average American, Limbaugh lived for years as a caricature of an East Coast elite in his luxury condo overlooking Central Park in New York City. He sold the property in 2010 for $11.5 million, moving primarily to a sprawling mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, where he lived until his death.
Meanwhile, Limbaugh used his platform to condemn policies designed to actually help working class Americans. He fervently opposed the expansion of public health care and said an Obama-era health insurance program for low-income children “ought to die.” He condemned taxes against the ultra-rich, such as himself, and fled New York after the proposal of increased taxes on millionaires.
In 2006, Limbaugh — despite once saying that all drug addicts should be convicted and “sent up the river” — struck a plea deal with prosecutors in Florida after being charged with prescription fraud. Limbaugh, who admitted to being an oxycodone addict, was accused of “doctor shopping,” the act of deliberately deceiving physicians in order to receive multiple prescriptions. Although Limbaugh had previously told his listeners that “too many whites are getting away with drug use” and should all be sent to prison, Limbaugh avoided time behind bars himself, paying a $30,000 fine and agreeing to stay clean.
The President’s Ear
Limbaugh was still the most popular radio host in America by the time of the 2016 election. Although initially supportive of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) during the Republican primary, he became a staunch supporter of the eventual nominee, Donald Trump. Limbaugh could be counted on to support the president during some of the most disgraceful episodes of Trump’s sole term in the White House.
In 2017 white supremacists, emboldened by Trump’s presidency, gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, for the “Unite The Right” rally, the largest such gathering in a generation. A neo-Nazi rammed his car into counter-protesters at the rally, killing one person. Trump initially refused to condemn the white supremacists, and Limbaugh swiftly came to the president’s defense, blaming anti-racist activists for the violence.
It was part of a pattern for Limbaugh, who repeatedly tried to downplay white supremacists during Trump’s four years in the White House, a period of rising far-right terror across the globe. After an avowed white supremacist massacred 51 Muslims inside two New Zealand mosques in 2019, Limbaugh speculated on air that the shooter “may in fact be a leftist” who shot Muslims “to smear” those on the right.
A day after a mob of Trump supporters — among them white supremacists and militia members — stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, ransacking the seat of American democracy, Limbaugh falsely told his listeners no looting had occurred and that the protesters only “took selfies.”
Limbaugh then endorsed the political violence, saying he disagreed with those “who say that any violence or aggression at all is unacceptable,” before invoking America’s Founding Fathers. “I am glad Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, the actual Tea Party guys, the men at Lexington and Concord didn’t feel that way,” he said.
It’s no surprise that Limbaugh sought to downplay the historic insurrection, which Trump incited. Limbaugh was a close confidant of the president, and he and Trump often went golfing together in Florida. The president sometimes called into Limbaugh’s radio show, and Limbaugh claimed they spoke on the phone weekly.
Their relationship culminated with Trump awarding Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the State of the Union address in February 2020. In his speech, Trump heralded Limbaugh as “a special man” who has inspired millions of Americans through his “decades of tireless devotion to our country.” Limbaugh had announced the day before that he had lung cancer.
The next month, when the coronavirus pandemic began sweeping across the U.S., Limbaugh promoted conspiracy theories about the virus and its death toll. Despite that, Vice President Mike Pence, the head of the White House coronavirus task force, appeared on his show multiple times during this period.
Limbaugh spent his final months on air downplaying the historic pandemic and spreading dangerous medical misinformation, including calling coronavirus “the common cold” and telling listeners “we have to remember that people die every day in America.”
On the day Limbaugh died, the coronavirus had killed more than 488,000Americans.
Congress is heading full steam ahead with the Equality Act, legislation to expand LGBTQ civil rights protections President Biden campaigned on signing within his first 100 days in office, with introduction of the bill expected imminently and a House floor vote now scheduled for next week, the Washington Blade has learned.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who manages the floor proceedings in the House, affirmed in a “Dear Colleague” letter on Tuesday the Equality Act would be one of two pieces of legislation the chamber will take up next week in the aftermath of consideration of the American Rescue Plan to address coronavirus relief.
“Other legislation coming to the floor next week are two bills that passed through the House last Congress: a wilderness package and the Equality Act, which will end legal discrimination against LGBTQ Americans,” Hoyer writes.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) are set to introduce the Equality Act in their respective chambers of Congress as they have in years past.
Although the Supreme Court decision last year in Bostock v. Clayton County extended vast protections for LGBTQ people under federal law, securing a prohibition against anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace sought for decades by movement leaders as well as all areas of civil rights law where sex discrimination is prohibited, the Equality Act would take things a step further.
In addition to the explicit declaration that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination in employment, education, housing, jury service and credit, the Equality Act would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex and LGBTQ status in public accommodations and federal programs.
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.
The Equality Act was the cornerstone of President Biden’s campaign promises to LGBTQ people. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told the Washington Blade at the start of the month Biden “stands by” his campaign promise to sign the legislation within 100 days, but added Congress has to take the initial steps.