Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) signaled late Tuesday he would oppose the Equality Act, legislation to expand the prohibition on anti-LGBTQ discrimination under federal law, throwing a massive wrench into plans of the bill’s supporters to guide it into law.
“Sen. Romney believes that strong religious liberty protections are essential to any legislation on this issue, and since those provisions are absent from this particular bill, he is not able to support it,” said Arielle Mueller, a Romney spokesperson, via email to the Washington Blade in response to an inquiry on the Equality Act.
Romney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a follow-up email on whether Romney would be open to negotiations on religious liberty language that could lead him to support the legislation.
The Utah senator’s declared opposition to the Equality Act, which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to expand the prohibition on discrimination against LGBTQ people, comes shortly after news emerged House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) would hold a vote on the legislation in the U.S. House next week.
Although the Equality Act, sponsored by Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) in the House and Sen. Jeff Merkeley (D-Ore.) in the Senate, would likely have no trouble passing in the Democratic-controlled House, the Senate is a different story. With the makeup of that chamber a 50-50 party split, support from 10 Republicans would be needed to reach the 60 votes to end a filibuster on the legislation.
LGBTQ rights supporters were counting on Romney to contribute Republican support to get the Equality Act across the finish line. With his vote off the table, it’s hard to see how the legislation’s proponents would be able to find the 10 votes in the Republican caucus to end a filibuster.
President Biden had campaigned on signing the legislation in his first 100 days in office. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last week Biden “stands by” his promise, but noted Congress has to take some additional steps.
Romney’s opposition to the Equality Act is consistent with remarks he made earlier this month in which he associated himself with Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) attack on transgender kids in sports during Education Secretary-designate’s Miguel Cardona’s confirmation. To the condemnation of LGBTQ rights supporters, Paul said transgender participation in sports amounts to allowing boys in girls events and was a “bizarre” idea.
Romney echoed those comments during the same confirmation hearing, saying he would “associate” himself with Paul.
“That’s not something I say very frequently, but he made a very, very good point,” Romney said. ““I’ve got pictures of my eight granddaughters, amongst some grandsons, behind me. They shouldn’t be competing with people who are physiologically in an entirely different category.”
The Equality Act doesn’t explicitly address school sports, but it would affirm discrimination against transgender kids is prohibited in education and federal programs and suggest barring transgender kids from school sports is prohibited. Major sports associations, including the Olympics and the NCAA, have established internal rules based on sex characteristics, such as hormone levels, to govern allowing transgender athletes to compete based in those leagues on their gender identity.
If 10 Republicans aren’t present in the Senate to vote to end a filibuster on the Equality Act, one alternative would be for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to junk the legislative proceeding altogether. However, that would require a majority vote and support from the entire Democratic caucus, and Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), the only out bisexual in Congress, have said they won’t vote to scrap the filibuster.
The Blade couldn’t reach Sinema or Manchin’s office by press time Tuesday to comment on the Equality Act and whether the senators would reconsider their positions on the filibuster if the legislation is unable to advance in the Senate.
Romney’s opposition to the Equality Act stands in contrast to his statement in 1994 to Log Cabin Republicans, when he challenged the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) for his seat representing Massachusetts in the Senate. At the time, Romney said he would not only back the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, legislation to ban anti-gay discrimination in employment, but “if possible broaden [it] to include housing and credit.” Romney ended up losing in his challenge to Kennedy, much like he lost the 2012 presidential election against then-President Obama.
Pennsylvania lawmaker Brian Sims made headlines back in 2012 when he became the first openly gay man elected to the Pennsylvania state legislature. Now he’s looking to make history again by announcing his run for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania.
“I have a lot of hope when I look at the people across the country that decided over these last number of years that they’d had enough. That they looked at a lack of leadership and thought that they could do better and oftentimes they’re right,” said Sims in his announcement video.
Even though it’s been more than five years since the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have the right to marry “on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples,” dozens of states still have constitutional amendments on the books that ban gay marriage.
Virginia is one of those states, and its first openly LGBTQ legislator is leading the charge to ax the outdated law.
Democratic state Sen. Adam Ebbin is sponsoring SJ 270, which would replace language in the state Constitution defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman with an affirmative statement that the right to marry is fundamental “regardless of the sex or gender of the parties to the marriage.”
“For young LGBTQ people, or even those who aren’t married or don’t want to get married, removing this language is an important step … It tells them that they matter, that they are equal to everyone else in the state.”
FRAN HUTCHINS, EQUALITY FEDERATION
On Feb. 5, SJ 270 cleared the Senate by a margin of 24 to 12. One day earlier, HJ 582, the House version, passed 60 to 33.
In Virginia, though, overturning a constitutional amendment is a two-year process — one that requires two separate General Assembly sessions separated by a general election to pass identical bills before a measure is put on the ballot for a public vote.
Since the landmark Obergefell ruling, at least eight states have tried to remove similarly unenforceable marriage bans, according to the Equality Federation. In November, Nevada became the first to do so, with 62 percent of voters backing the measure.
But 30 states still have such prohibitions written into their constitutions, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Sixteen of them also ban civil unions, and two, including Virginia’s, prohibit any legal recognition of gay relationships.
“For young LGBTQ people, or even those who aren’t married or don’t want to get married, removing this language is an important step,” Equality Federation Executive Director Fran Hutchins said. “It tells them that they matter, that they are equal to everyone else in the state.”
But homophobic laws can have a long shelf life in Virginia. Although the Supreme Court ruled that sodomy bans were unconstitutional in 2003’s Lawrence vs. Texas decision, it took a full decade for Virginia’s to be struck down — and even then it was by a federal appeals court, not by legislators.
The Code of Virginia first restricted marriage to different-sex couples in 1975, the same year clerks in Arizona and Colorado issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In 1997, the General Assembly passed a statute denying recognition of gay marriages performed in other states.
Then, in 2006 — three years after Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriage — lawmakers sponsored the Virginia Marriage Amendment, a ballot initiative reserving the institution for one man and one woman. Also known as the Marshall-Newman Amendment, the measure further barred any recognition of unmarried couples “that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage.” Voters approved the resolution 57 to 43, and it was implemented as Article I, Section 15-A of the Virginia Constitution.
Civil rights advocates argued its broad language could be used to invalidate living wills, powers of attorney and even property agreements between same-sex partners. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, gay conservative Jonathan Rauch branded the amendment a “Jim Crow” law for the 21st century.
“It disenfranchises gay people as individuals,” he wrote. “It makes us nonpersons, subcitizens. By stripping us of our bonds to each other, it strips us even of ownership of ourselves.” In January 2014, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced his office would not defend the amendment in federal court.
“I believe the freedom to marry is a fundamental right,” Herring told reporters at the time, “and I intend to ensure that Virginia is on the right side of history and the right side of the law.”
Less than a month later, U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen for the Eastern District of Virginia found the Virginia Marriage Amendment unconstitutional in Bostic v. Rainey, paving the way for same-sex marriage in Virginia later that year.
Then, in June 2015, the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges guaranteed the freedom to marry on the federal level.
Last March, the Virginia General Assembly repealed two laws banning same-sex marriage. But neither that nor the Obergefell ruling can remove what Ebbin calls “a stain” on the Virginia Constitution.
“All citizens deserve the dignity to know they won’t be targeted and denied their rights, and an affirmative statute does that,” he told NBC News. “It’s not about personal opinion; it’s about the law. You can keep your marriage between a man and a woman, but the law says it’s a right for everyone to enjoy.”
He and state Delegate Mark Sickles, who is also gay, have been introducing bills to update the state Constitution since 2015. Before now, they had always been defeated. This time, they received support from 11 Republicans, including state Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City, who supported the original 2006 marriage ban amendment.
This session, lawmakers are also working to repeal Virginia’s HIV criminalization law and strike down religion-conscious exemptions for foster care and adoption agencies.
Danica Roem, the first transgender member of the Virginia General Assembly, is also introducing legislation to ban the so-called panic defense, which has been used to excuse or mitigate violent crimes against gay and transgender people.
Ebbin said the General Assembly has become increasingly supportive of gay rights since he started as a delegate in 2004. The LGBTQ caucus now has five members, including Roem.
“We’ve moved from being on the defensive to where we as a governing body affirm the rights and equality of all Virginians,” he said. “It was a bipartisan vote, and there wasn’t an active opposition on the floor.”
There’s also support among voters: In 2014, 50 percent of Virginians supported same-sex marriage, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. By 2017, the last year the group polled on the question, that had jumped to 60 percent.
In 2020, a national polI by the group found a record 70 percent of Americans supported same-sex marriage, including about half of Republicans.
“They realize gay people can get married and the sky won’t fall,” Ebbin said. “So unless the Legislature goes through some drastic change, I predict that we’ll pass it.”
Still, efforts to repeal the marriage amendment have been met with resistance.
In an email to members, Victoria Cobb, president of the conservative Family Foundation of Virginia, warned that Ebbin and Sickles were trying to redefine marriage “outside of what God has designed for human flourishing.”
“As expected, all of society, including those whose deeply held convictions have not moved with secular society, are uniformly expected to not only abide those with differing views on marriage but embrace them in their speech and celebrate them in their business life,” she wrote, the Tennessee Star reported.
State Sen. Amanda Chase, a Trump loyalist running for governor, told the Virginia Mercury she voted against Ebbin’s measure to take “a stand for traditional values.”
“I personally believe that marriage is between a man and a woman,” said Chase, who has been formally censured for supporting the Capitol rioters and is suing her own party for holding a nominating convention in lieu of a primary. “If other people choose differently, that’s their choice, but I do not believe that this should be a constitutional amendment.”
Delegate Kirk Cox, the other Republican lawmaker running for governor, opposed Sickle’s bill in the House. Though the proposal includes a provision allowing clergy to refuse to perform any wedding, a spokesperson for the lawmaker told the Mercury that “Delegate Cox’s faith informs his views of the nature of marriage.”
“In the competition to demonstrate who is the most extreme and out of touch, Cox and Chase are neck and neck,” Anna Scholl, executive director of Progress Virginia, said in a statement. “This vote against marriage equality is just the latest example.”
On the national level, the Republican Party’s national platform — which hasn’t changed since 2016 — defends “natural marriage, the union of one man and one woman” as the cornerstone of the American family, and affirms that “every child deserves a married mom and dad.”
The GOP headquarters did not respond to a request for comment about Virginia’s proposals.
‘A tale of two states’
Carol Schall, a plaintiff in Virginia’s 2014 gay marriage case, said it is well past time Virginia’s Constitution reflect the will of the people. And there’d be a sort of historic symmetry, too: It was Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law, after all, that spurred Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court decision outlawing bans on interracial marriage.
“Virginia has long been on the wrong side of history when it comes to civil rights,” Schall said. “But we finally got this one right. This amendment doesn’t reflect the reality anymore.”
An associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, Schall has been with her wife, Mary Townley, for 36 years. The two were legally married in San Francisco in 2008, during the brief window when California recognized same-sex marriages before the passage of Proposition 8.
Schall said leaving your rights to a court decision “is kind of naive,” especially considering how the Trump administration appointed more than 50 circuit court judges and three Supreme Court justices in just four years. LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal issued a report last month that found nearly 40 percent of Trump’s confirmed federal appellate judges have a “demonstrated history of anti-LGBTQ+ bias.”
Following the high court’s rejection of an appeal from former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis last year, conservative Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito (neither of whom was a Trump appointee) issued a scathing dissent that said the Obergefell ruling “will continue to have ruinous consequences for religious liberty.”
“If the courts change their minds — which they do — as long as we have that amendment, the state would have to enforce it,” Schall, 60, said. “I don’t want that hanging over my family’s head.”
Schall lived in Virginia in 2006 and was canvassing outside a polling station when voters passed the Virginia Marriage Amendment. She recalled having flyers opposing the measure shoved back in her hands.
“It was terrible,” she said. “It felt very personal — like all of Virginia voted and I lost.”
Since then, she said, there’s been a seismic shift. Virginia has gone from a Republican stronghold to a solidly blue state that went for Joe Biden in November.
“We used to be the state of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, of Ralph Reed. It didn’t feel safe to be out at work, to be out to my neighbors,” she said. “It’s different now. Virginia has done this mindfully, the work of educating our neighbors, and at some point the zeitgeist here shifted.”
Well, maybe not entirely, she added.
“Virginia is really a tale of two states,” she said. “In the east, you have the ‘golden crescent’ that’s pretty progressive. But to the west, we still have Liberty University. We still have people who think I’m living a life of sin.”
After officiating a same-sex wedding for two friends in 2019, Republican Delegate Denver Riggleman was censured by the state GOP for “abandoning party principles,” according to The Hill. The following summer, he was defeated in a drive-thru party convention by primary challenger Bob Good, a former athletics director at Liberty University.
And thanks to gerrymandering, Schall said, the state is more splintered than ever.
“I live in Chesterfield County near Richmond, but because of the way the Republicans have carved things up, Amanda Chase is my state senator,” she said.
Schall is confident about the new amendment’s chances but admits “the work is never done.”
“We passed it this year, but we have to keep a Democratic majority in the Assembly and a Democratic governor when it comes up for a vote again,” she said.
A former Vermont woman, accused of kidnapping when she fled the country more than a decade ago, is now behind bars. Lisa Miller had fled the United States in a child custody dispute with her former civil union partner, Janet Jenkins.
After more than 10 years, Miller turned herself in to authorities in Nicaragua, and was listed Monday afternoon as an inmate at a federal detention center in Miami.
A federal judge in Florida ordered that she stay in jail until her case can be transferred to a federal court in the western district of New York, where the kidnapping charges were brought.
Jenkins v. Miller is a federal case in Vermont brought by a lesbian woman, Janet Jenkins, against her former civil union partner, Lisa Miller, who “renounced” homosexuality and kidnapped their then 7-year-old daughter, Isabella, in 2009 to avoid shared visitation and custody with Jenkins.
After breaking off their Vermont civil union, Lisa, the child’s biological mother, took their daughter to Virginia in 2004. Lisa converted to fundamentalist Christianity and began withholding Isabella from Janet.
A custody battle ensued in both the Vermont and Virginia courts. The Vermont courts awarded visitation rights to Janet and the Virginia courts upheld the Vermont decision. SPLC-designated hate group Liberty Counsel represented Lisa in the custody litigations.
A longtime JMG readers will recall, I’ve been reporting on this case since the early years of JMG. The links below are in reverse chronological order going back to 2009.
Social-distancing measures and lockdowns have disproportionately increased alcohol use in the LGBTQ community, studies find.
Abigail Mazzarella, 26, often went to gay bars in Baltimore before Covid-19 stay-at-home measures were introduced.
“I don’t live anywhere near my family, so I did depend on that community and friendships to get by and have a type of family here,” she said.
When bars in the state closed, this physical community disappeared as Mazzarella needed its support the most. But the liquor store across her street remained open. Around the same time Covid-19 infection rates were increasing early last March, Mazzarella’s mother unexpectedly died, and exactly one week later she lost her job because of the impact of pandemic restrictions.
“I started drinking pretty much immediately after all that happened, and didn’t really stop for months,” she told NBC News. “I wasn’t drinking socially; I was just doing it by myself in my house and spending a ridiculous amount of money on it for no reason other than just to get drunk, go to sleep and do it again the next day. I wasn’t functioning for a good half of 2020.”
Mazzarella has not had a drink in more than four months, but her experience with alcohol during the pandemic is far from isolated. Several recent studies investigating how both social-distancing and lockdowns affected LGBTQ people found alcohol use sharply increased.
One study discovered around one-third of men who have sex with men (MSM) reported their substance use or binge-drinking had increased during the Covid-19 lockdown, with another survey of LGBTQ university students in the U.S. by the University of Maryland Prevention Research Center revealing 32 percent were drinking more since the outbreak.
Drinking increased among the wider population during the pandemic, too, but at a lower rate compared to the LGBTQ community. Research published in September found that the frequency of alcohol consumption in the general population since the pandemic started grew by 14 percent above pre-pandemic levels. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reported that 13 percent of U.S. adults said they had started or increased substance use, defined as use of “alcohol, legal or illegal drugs, or prescription drugs that are taken in a way not recommended by your doctor,” to cope with pandemic-related stress or emotions, in late June last year.
At-risk groups
Boredom, isolation and loneliness have been experienced by many Americans amid the pandemic. LGBTQ people, however, also face additional challenges, including increased stress from social prejudice and discriminatory laws, as well as family rejection due to their sexuality or gender identity, which can play a role in using damaging substance-based coping mechanisms.
Some parts of the LGBTQ community have seen particularly sharp rises in drinking over the past 11 months. According to research from John Salerno, who co-wrote the University of Maryland Prevention Research Center study of LGBTQ university students, 46 percent of transgender female students and 35 percent of queer-identifying students reported increased alcohol use since the start of the Covid-19 crisis.
“We found that those that reported an increase in alcohol use were more likely to suffer from greater psychological distress compared to those that did not report an increase in alcohol use,” Salerno, a Ph.D. candidate in behavioral and community health at the University of Maryland, said.
The breaking of social bonds among young LGBTQ adults who are exploring their identity can be especially traumatic. A studypublished in the Emerging Adulthood journal found that after social-distancing guidelines went into effect, LGBTQ people aged 18-29 had “lower levels of hope for the future, higher levels of alcohol use, a lower sense of connection to and pride regarding the LGBTQ community.”
Some LGBTQ students who moved back home as the pandemic spread had to isolate with families who don’t accept their sexuality or gender identity, according to Barrett Scroggs, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at Pennsylvania State University Mont Alto and co-author of the Emerging Adulthood report.
“These emerging adults are folks who might be leaving their college dorm where they’re very comfortable, open and out. Then they return home to a house where they have to go back in the closet or maybe have to be with somebody who is homophobic, biphobic or transphobic,” Scroggs said.
Dianna Sandoval, chief clinical officer of AspenRidge Recovery, a network of rehab centers that offers LGBTQ-specific addiction treatment, explains that LGBTQ people are at a greater risk of being victims of violence and harassment, which can lead to more frequent cycles of distress and depression resulting in addictive behaviors.
“We’re already seeing higher levels of mental health challenges in the LGBT community being compounded with isolation,” Sandoval said. “Because it’s so difficult for folks to connect even to the small communities they’ve built for themselves, due to social distancing, there’s an even greater distance between people in the LGBT community. Some people just don’t feel that same sense of connection over Zoom.”
‘Perfect storm’
Christian Cerna-Parker, CEO of the New York-based nonprofit Gay and Sober, said he has seen the age of people reaching out to his organization dropping since the pandemic hit.
“I’ve seen people as young as 19 come in recently. Normally, people who reach out for help are in their 40s or 50s,” he said.
He added that the number of people seeking help from his organization with their substance misuse and addiction issues has rapidly shot up, too.
“From March until now, we’ve had a 40 percent increase in people wanting our services,” Cerna-Parker said.
He said for many people the combination of job losses, not being to partake in typical everyday activities and social isolation was “a perfect storm for an increase of alcohol and drugs.”
“Before they knew it, some of them found they were predisposed to addiction and things got out of hand,” Cerna-Parker said. “There’s only so much that people can take. If they think: ‘I don’t have a job, I don’t have income, and the government is not sending me unemployment,’ there is lack of hope. That’s a really dangerous place to be because the only thing they need to self-medicate is alcohol.”
Manny Minnie, 36, has experienced first-hand how the isolation and lack of social contact caused by Covid-19 restrictions can contribute to problematic drinking behavior.
“My thing with alcohol is that I drink a lot more when I’m bored,” Minnie, who lives in Los Angeles, said.
He had recently been diagnosed with AIDS and low immunity levels made it essential for him to enter quarantine. Minnie usually drank only on the weekends, but once lockdown was introduced, he said his drinking spiraled out of control.
“I was drinking every day. I’d start with a box of wine, then have a regular sized bottle of vodka and open a 12-pack of beer,” he said. “When I would wake up, I’d have maybe three beers left. It was a 24-hour thing.”
A check-up visit to his doctor was the catalyst for Minnie to stop drinking.
“Before I even thought about quitting drinking, I was drinking a lot. Then my doctor said: ‘I don’t know what you’re doing to your body. Your immunity is getting lower and lower; you have to stop doing whatever you’re doing.’”
Anxiety, stress and physical withdrawal symptoms — mainly shaking and sweating — made the journey to sobriety a challenge, but Minnie said through painting, he found a way to channel his energy into a positive output, rather than turning to alcohol.
Now, Minnie is using his experience with alcoholism to help newcomers to 1,000 Hours Dry LGBTQIA, an Instagram community for queer people who are on a journey to sobriety or are “sober curious.”
“When I was drinking, it was like my energy source was this broken Bic lighter that would just have a spark,” Minnie said. “When I stopped drinking, the light just grew and grew.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday announced the U.S. will “reengage” with the U.N. Human Rights Council.
The U.S. in 2018 withdrew from the council, which in recent years has emerged as a vocal champion of LGBTQ rights around the world.
Then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley during a press conference that announced the withdrawal noted countries “with unambiguous and abhorrent human rights records” are members of the council. Haley also accused it having a “chronic bias against” Israel.
Russia, Cuba and Venezuela are among the 47 countries that are currently members of the council.
“The Biden administration has recommitted the United States to a foreign policy centered on democracy, human rights and equality,” said Blinken in a statement the State Department released. “Effective use of multilateral tools is an important element of that vision, and in that regard the president has instructed the Department of State to reengage immediately and robustly with the U.N. Human Rights Council.”
“We recognize that the Human Rights Council is a flawed body, in need of reform to its agenda, membership, and focus, including its disproportionate focus on Israel,” he added. “However, our withdrawal in June 2018 did nothing to encourage meaningful change, but instead created a vacuum of U.S. leadership, which countries with authoritarian agendas have used to their advantage.”
The decision to “reengage” with the council comes days after President Biden issued a memorandum that commits the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ rights abroad. Blinken in his statement notes the council’s efforts to expand LGBTQ rights around the world.
“When it works well, the Human Rights Council shines a spotlight on countries with the worst human rights records and can serve as an important forum for those fighting injustice and tyranny,” said Blinken. “The council can help to promote fundamental freedoms around the globe, including freedoms of expression, association and assembly, and religion or belief as well as the fundamental rights of women, girls, LGBTQI+ persons, and other marginalized communities. To address the council’s deficiencies and ensure it lives up to its mandate, the United States must be at the table using the full weight of our diplomatic leadership.”
“In the immediate term, the United States will engage with the council as an observer, and in that capacity will have the opportunity to speak in the council, participate in negotiations, and partner with others to introduce resolutions,” he added. “It is our view that the best way to improve the council is to engage with it and its members in a principled fashion. We strongly believe that when the United States engages constructively with the council, in concert with our allies and friends, positive change is within reach.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday, amid coronavirus and impeachment crises, President Biden “stands by” his campaign pledge to sign the Equality Act to expand the ban on anti-LGBTQ discrimination under the law within 100 days — although she indicated Congress has to take initial steps with the legislation.
“He stands by it,” Psaki said, responding to a question during the White House news briefing from the Washington Blade. “I would say that there’s some actions that need to be taken by Congress, of course.”
Psaki half-jokingly pointed out the Biden administration started days ago, 15 or so, which she implied she leaves plenty of time for Biden to fulfill his campaign promise to the sign the Equality Act within 100 days.
“So we have 85 days to go,” Psaki said.
With Biden making four crises of the economy, coronavirus, climate and racial inequity his top priorities, as well as the forthcoming impeachment trial of former President Trump, fears had persisted in the LGBTQ community Biden wouldn’t be able to fulfill his campaign pledge on the Equality Act. Additionally, 10 Republican votes would be needed for the 60 votes to end a filibuster on the legislation in the Senate.
Psaki, however, said she had no information when asked when Biden would speak out in support of the legislation, which would be key in his role as chief legislator in advancing the Equality Act.
“I think the President has been out speaking out about a range of issues he’s committed to, including many on LGBTQ rights, over the course of the last two weeks of his presidency, and he will continue to be,” Psaki said. “But I don’t have any scheduling updates for you at this point in time.”
A senior Democratic aide told the Blade that Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) are looking at the week of Feb. 22 to introduce the Equality Act with a vote expected as early as March.
The Heritage Foundation announced today that former Vice President Mike Pence will join the organization as a distinguished visiting fellow.
“Over the course of the past four years, our team at Heritage has worked closely with members of the Trump administration on a host of policy accomplishments,” said Heritage President Kay C. James.
“That’s why I am excited Vice President Mike Pence will join forces with Heritage to ensure we continue to advance conservative principles and policy solutions. His allegiance to the Constitution and commitment to advancing a conservative policy agenda make him an outstanding fit for The Heritage Foundation.”
Three decades ago, it was The Heritage Foundation’s influence that inspired Pence to help create a think tank in his home state of Indiana. After coming to Washington as a congressman and later as vice president, Pence frequently collaborated with Heritage and will now continue to do so as a distinguished visiting fellow.
During one of the most politically divisive years in recent memory, the number of active hate groups in the U.S. actually declined as far-right extremists migrated further to online networks, reflecting a splintering of white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups that are more difficult to track.
In its annual report, to be released Monday, the Southern Poverty Law Center said it identified 838 active hate groups operating across the U.S. in 2020. That’s a decrease from the 940 documented in 2019 and the record-high of 1,020 in 2018, said the law center, which tracks racism, xenophobia and anti-government militias.
“It is important to understand that the number of hate groups is merely one metric for measuring the level of hate and racism in America, and that the decline in groups should not be interpreted as a reduction in bigoted beliefs and actions motivated by hate,” said the report, first shared exclusively with The Associated Press.
The Montgomery, Alabama-based law center said many hate groups have moved to social media platforms and use of encrypted apps, while others have been banned altogether from mainstream social media networks.
Still, the law center said, online platforms allow individuals to interact with hate and anti-government groups without becoming members, maintain connections with likeminded people, and take part in real-world actions, such as last month’s siege on the U.S. Capitol.
White nationalist organizations, a subset of the hate groups listed in the report, declined last year by more than 100. Those groups had seen huge growth the previous two years after being energized by Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency, the report said.
The number of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ hate groups remained largely stable, while their in-person organizing was hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.
Bottom line, the levels of hate and bigotry in America have not diminished, said SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang.
“What’s important is that we start to reckon with all the reasons why those groups have persisted for so long and been able to get so much influence in the last White House, that they actually feel emboldened,” Huang told the AP.
Last month, as President Joe Biden’s administration began settling in, the Department of Homeland Security issued an early national terrorism bulletin in response to a growing threat from home-grown extremists, including anti-government militias and white supremacists. The extremists are coalescing under a broader, more loosely affiliated movement of people who reject democratic institutions and multiculturalism, Huang said.
The SPLC’s report comes out nearly a month after a mostly white mob of Trump supporters and members of far-right groups violently breached the U.S. Capitol building. At least five deaths have been linked to the assault, including a Capitol police officer. Some in the mob waved Confederate battle flags and wore clothing with neo-Nazi symbolism.
Federal authorities have made more than 160 arrests and sought hundreds more for criminal charges related to the deadly Jan. 6 assault. Authorities have also linked roughly 30 defendants to a group or movement, according to an AP review of court records.
That includes seven defendants linked to QAnon, a once-fringe internet conspiracy movement that recently grew into a powerful force in mainstream conservative politics; six linked to the Proud Boys, a misogynistic, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic group with ties to white supremacism; four linked to the Oath Keepers, a paramilitary organization that recruits current and former military, law enforcement and first-responder personnel; four linked to the Three Percenters, an anti-government militia movement; and two leaders of “Super Happy Fun America,” a group with ties to white nationalists known for organizing a so-called “straight pride” parade in downtown Boston in 2019.
Bipartisan critics of Trump have blamed him for inciting the attack on the Capitol, which some far-right groups have declared a success and are using as a recruitment tool to grow membership, according to the SPLC.
The final year of the Trump presidency, marked by a wide-ranging reckoning over systemic racism, also propelled racist conspiracy theories and white nationalist ideology into the political mainstream, the law center said.
According to an SPLC survey conducted in August, 29 percent of respondents said they personally know someone who believes that white people are the superior race. The poll also found that 51% of Americans thought the looting and vandalism that occurred across the country around Black Lives Matter demonstrations was a bigger problem than excessive force by police.
Protests over the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd last May spurred a push to make the November election a referendum on white supremacy. Nestled in Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud was a reality that turnout among Black and Hispanic voters played a significant role in handing victory to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman and first person of Black and South Asian heritage to hold that office.
During his inaugural address, Biden issued a strong repudiation of white supremacy and domestic terrorism, which is rare for such consequential speeches.
The SPLC made several recommendations for the new administration in its latest report. It called for establishing offices within the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI to monitor, investigate and prosecute cases of domestic terrorism. It also urged improving federal hate crime data collection, training, and prevention; and for enacting federal legislation that shifts funding away from punishment models and toward preventing violent extremism.
People who support or express hatred and bigotry are not always card-carrying members of far-right groups. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be activated into violence, said Christian Picciolini, a former far-right extremist and founder of the Free Radicals Project, a group that helps people disengage from hate organizations.
It also doesn’t mean that they can’t be reached and deradicalized, he said.
“We have to have kind of a dual approach to stop what’s happening now, but also to make sure that we are not creating a problem for us in the future, to understand how the propaganda is spread that is recruiting these people,” Picciolini said.
“Right now, it’s in a very self-service format online,” he added. “We’re facing a really big problem.”
Two lawmakers on Wednesday announced they will reintroduce a bill that would require U.S. to promote LGBTQ rights abroad through its foreign policy.
California Congressman Alan Lowenthal and U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) made the announcement about the International Human Rights Defense Act eight days after Secretary of State Antony Blinken was sworn in at the State Department.
The bill, among other things, would make the position of special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ rights abroad in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor permanent and raise it to an ambassador level position. A press release that Markey and Lowenthal’s offices released on Wednesday also notes the bill would direct the State Department to “devise a global strategy to address discrimination against the LGBTQI community” and to “coordinate with local advocacy groups, governments, multilateral organizations and the private sector, to promote international LGBTQI human rights.”
“The United States must reaffirm its support for the promotion and protection of LGBTQI rights around the world and reengage as a leader on these issues after four years of harmful and discriminatory policies,” said Markey. “This legislation will make it clear that the United States is committed to protecting the human rights of all people, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The COVID-19 crisis has put LGBQTI communities all around the world at greater risk and this moment requires a concerted and global effort to recommit to the protection of human rights everywhere.”
State Department criticizes Indonesia caning, Turkey arrests
Former Secretary of State John Kerry in 2015 announced the creation of the envoy position. It has remained unfilled since 2017.
Blinken during his confirmation hearing pledged to raise the envoy to an ambassador level position. Blinken also said he would “repudiate” the Commission for Unalienable Rights — which sought to stress “natural laws and natural rights” — that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced in 2019.
A State Department spokesperson on Tuesday noted Blinken during his confirmation hearing said he “will appoint an LGBTQI+ envoy,” but stressed there are currently no “details to share regarding the staffing of the special envoy.”
The State Department late last week criticized the public caning of two men in Indonesia’s Aceh province after their neighbors caught them having sex.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price on Wednesday during his daily press briefing expressed concern over the detention of more than 150 people in Istanbul who were protesting the arrest of four students at the city’s Boğaziçi University after they used pictures of a Pride flag to represent the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site that is located at the center of Mecca’s Grand Mosque. Media reports indicate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday in a televised speech accused the country’s LGBTQ rights movement of engaging in “vandalism.”
The protests began in January after Erdoğan appointed Melih Bulu, a member of his ruling Justice and Development Party, as the university’s new rector.
“We are concerned by detentions of students and other demonstrators and strongly condemn the anti-LGBTQI rhetoric surrounding the demonstrations,” said Price. “Freedom of expression, even speech that some may find uncomfortable, is a critical component of a vibrant, functioning democracy that must be protected. Peaceful, prosperous and inclusive societies depend on the free flow of information and ideas.”
“The United States prioritizes the protection of human rights and stands shoulder to shoulder with all those fighting for their fundamental democratic freedoms,” he added.
The Trump administration in 2019 tapped then-U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who is openly gay, to lead an initiative that encouraged countries to decriminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations. ILGA World Executive Director André du Plessis and other LGBTQ activists with whom the Washington Blade has previously spoken questioned the campaign’s effectiveness.
“Over the last four years, LGBTQI people have been at the forefront of vicious attacks, our basic rights questioned in countries around the world and by the highest office in the US. This is precisely why we need the International Human Rights Defense Act,” said OutRight Action International Executive Director Jessica Stern in the press release that Markey and Lowenthal released. “LGBTQI people cannot be left to suffer because of changes in the White House. We need the IHRDA to ensure that the U.S. protects and upholds LGBTQI rights as a consistent, integrated and essential foreign policy priority.”