Brief falsely suggests LGBTQ people do not exist, but rather are choosing “actions, behaviors, or inclinations.”
53 members of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives are urging the nation’s highest court to rule against LGBTQ people when it hears three landmark cases October 8. The lawmakers, all Republicans (list below), say the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not – and should not be interpreted to – protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, including their own constituents.
In a grotesque and ignorant reading of a key portion of the 55-year old legislation the Republican lawmakers suggest LGBTQ people do not exist, but rather are choosing “actions, behaviors, or inclinations,” which is false.
“Title VII’s sex discrimination provision prohibits discrimination because of an individual’s sex; it does not prohibit discrimination because of an individual’s actions, behaviors, or inclinations,” the lawmakers say in the amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court.
“What the statute actually prohibits is discrimination ‘because of [an] individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,’” the Republicans insist.
The Advocate notes the brief “demeans the plaintiffs bringing actions forward to the court,” including claiming one of the plaintiffs only claimed he was gay so he could sue for wrongful termination. It also repeatedly misgenders a funeral director who is a woman and transgender, referring to her as “he.”00:0000:44
The brief also wrongly claims a correct interpretation of the Civil Rights Act to include LGBTQ people would “adversely” affect “the protection of women’s rights.”
And in a nod to the Hobby Lobby case, the brief proclaims that the “funeral home is a closely held corporation whose principal is a Christian,” strongly suggesting it is his First Amendment right to fire someone because they are LGBT.
The friend of the court brief was co-authored by Ken Starr, the former head of Baylor University who resigned in disgrace. Starr is also known for having defended Jeffrey Epstein, for being an attorney representing supporters of California’s anti-gay Prop 8, and the infamous special prosecutor whose work led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
It is unknown if taxpayer funds were used to pay for the brief.
Republican Senators who have signed the amicus brief include Marsha Blackburn, Roy Blunt, Mike Braun, John Cornyn, Kevin Cramer, James Inhofe, James Lankford, and Mike Lee.
Republican Representatives include: Robert B. Aderholt (AL-04), Rick W. Allen (GA-12), Brian Babin (TX-36), Jim Banks (IN-03), Andy Biggs (AZ-05), Ted Budd (NC-13), Michael C. Burgess (TX-26), Doug Collins (GA-09), Warren Davidson (OH-08), Jeff Duncan (SC-03), Bill Flores (TX-17), Russ Fulcher (ID-01), Louie Gohmert (TX-01), Paul A. Gosar, (AZ-04), Glenn Grothman (WI-06), Michael Guest (MS-03), Andy Harris (MD-01), Vicky Hartzler (MO-04), Jody Hice (GA-10), George Holding (NC-02), Richard Hudson (NC-08), Jim Jordan (OH-04), Steve King (IA-04), Doug LaMalfa (CA-01), Doug Lamborn (CO-05), Debbie Lesko (AZ-08), Thomas Massie (KY-04), Mark Meadows (NC-11), Alex X. Mooney (WV-02), Ralph Norman (SC-05), Pete Olson (TX-22), Gary Palmer (AL-06), John Ratcliffe (TX-04), David Rouzer (NC-07), Van Taylor (TX-03), Tim Walberg (MI-07), Mark Walker (NC-06), Randy K. Weber (TX-14), Ron Wright (TX-06), and Ted S. Yoho (FL-03).
Republican lawmakers and attorneys general on Monday submitted amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that LGBTQ workers are not protected by federal civil rights law.
In two separate briefs, 48 members of Congress and 15 attorneys general argue that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — which bans employment discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” — does not protect against workplace discrimination due to a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
“[A]t the time Congress enacted Title VII, ‘sex,’ ‘sexual orientation,’ and ‘gender identity’ had different meanings,” the brief by the attorneys general states. “As a result, the word ‘sex’ in Title VII cannot be fairly construed to mean or include ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender identity.’ The Second Circuit and the Sixth Circuit erroneously conflated these terms to redefine and broaden Title VII beyond its congressionally intended scope.”
Both briefs also argue that the power to ban discrimination against LGBTQ people rests solely with Congress.
The issue of whether “sex” discrimination in Title VII is inclusive of anti-LGBTQ discrimination has caused a split in lower courts over the past several years, with some backing gay and trans workers and others the employers who have fired them.
The briefs submitted by the lawmakers and the attorneys general Monday concern three cases that the Supreme Court will hear in October. Two of the cases involve discrimination based on sexual orientation: a suit from Gerald Bostock, a gay man fired from his job as a child welfare services worker by Clayton County, Georgia, and a suit on behalf of the late Donald Zarda, a gay man fired from his job as a skydiving instructor by New York company Altitude Express. The third case involves Aimee Stephens, a transgender woman who was fired from a Detroit funeral home after she informed her employer that she was beginning her gender transition.
The Department of Justice submitted two briefs in the cases earlier this month: One argued that Title VII does not prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, while the other arguedthat it doesn’t prohibit employment discrimination based on gender identity.
In a brief submitted earlier this year by 153 congressional Democrats, the lawmakers argued if “a man is discriminated against in the workplace because he dates men, but his female co-workers who also date men are not discriminated against for the same conduct, sex is clearly both a ‘but for’ cause and a motivating factor in that discrimination.”
The argument by the attorneys general against such an interpretation relies on Judge Diane Sykes’ dissent in a ruling issued by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that expanded Title VII to cover discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation: “An employer ‘who hires only heterosexual employees’ is simply ‘insisting that his employees match the dominant sexual orientation regardless of their sex,’” the brief states.
That same brief argues that a court ruling against the 1960s interpretation of “sex” discrimination would deprive “the States of the opportunity to weigh in on that question through the political process,” and noted that Congress has repeatedly failed to pass a bill adding these categories to the bill.
The executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans is the latest official to resign from the conservative LGBTQ group after it recently endorsed President Donald Trump for re-election.
Less than a year after after she became the first woman to lead the group, Jerri Ann Henry, a lesbian activist who fought for the legalization of same-sex marriage within the Republican Party, told NBC News that she would not be issuing a statement regarding her resignation.
But former Log Cabin members say her departure further exemplifies factions within the group. Jennifer Horn, a former board member, and Robert Turner, the former president of the group’s Washington, D.C., chapter, also denounced the Trump endorsement and left the group last week.
GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today released the following background document to the media on former Illinois Republican congressman Joe Walsh, who announced Sunday morning that he would challenge President Trump in the upcoming Republican presidential primary. While President Trump has issued more than 124 attacks on the LGBTQ community since 2017, the former congressman has an anti-LGBTQ record that would likely continue to roll back acceptance for LGBTQ Americans across the nation.
Former Congressman Joe Walsh was a vocal supporter of Trump during the 2016 presidential election, but Walsh has become a critic of the President despite having used similar rhetoric against marginalized communities, including against LGBTQ Americans, in public life. Below is a sampling of Walsh’s anti-LGBTQ record.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Joe Walsh’s Long Anti-LGBTQ Record
— In Congress, voted to prevent government funds from being used in ways that ran counter to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
— Campaigned against marriage equality: “Finally, I’m a strong supporter of traditional marriage and believe that a marriage can only exist between one man and one woman.”
— Wrote: “I don’t believe in the whole concept of “hate crimes.”
— Applauded the poor ratings performance of some LGBTQ-inclusive TV shows, writing “Good. Hollywood can’t shove it down our throats.”
— Tweeted: “I told Thomas Jefferson that the government was forcing a grandmother to arrange flowers for a gay wedding. He said, “Grab your Musket!!!”
— Referred to LGBTQ activists as “constitutional terrorists.”
— Tweeted: “At Transgender Summer Camp, kids as young as 4yrs are told they’re ‘normal.’ 4yrs old. That’s just wrong.”
— Claimed Christian vendors should be able to turn away LGBTQ people, calling a ruling in favor of an anti-gay photographer “a proper court ruling.”
— Tweeted: “I will now carry my gun anywhere, even in a “gun free zone” bakery. If a bakery can’t say no to your gay wedding it can’t say no to my gun.”
— Said openly gay figure skater Adam Rippon refusing to meeting with anti-LGBTQ Vice President Pence was an example of “the intolerant Left at it again.”
— Claimed “Islam hates #LGBT. Muslims hate gays. If you are gay, Islam wants you dead.”
— Insisted: “Liberals don’t care about gay people. They only care about gay votes.”
— Tweeted: “Go ahead & identify as a woman. Godspeed. But you can’t pee next to my 17 yr old daughter. Ok?”
The Kentucky county clerk who in 2015 gained widespread attention for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples may be sued for damages by two of those couples, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.
In a 3-0 decision, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said Kim Davis can be sued in her individual capacity, though sovereign immunity shielded her from being sued in her former role as Rowan County Clerk.
Surrounded by sheriff’s deputies, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, with her son Nathan Davis standing by her side, speaks to the media at the Rowan County Judicial Center in Morehead, Ky., on Sept. 14, 2015.Timothy D. Easley / AP file
Davis claimed that Obergefell v Hodges, the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, did not apply to her because she stopped issuing licenses to everyone regardless of sexual orientation, and the plaintiffs could have obtained licenses elsewhere.
But the appeals court called the Supreme Court decision “as sweeping as it was unequivocal,” and said the respective couples – David Ermold and David Moore, and Will Smith and James Yates – could try to show that Davis acted unreasonably.
“In short, plaintiffs pleaded a violation of their right to marry: a right the Supreme Court clearly established in Obergefell,” Circuit Judge Richard Griffin wrote. “The district court therefore correctly denied qualified immunity to Davis.”
The decision upheld rulings by U.S. District Judge David Bunning in Covington, Kentucky and returned the lawsuits to him. Both couples are now married.
Davis lost her reelection bid as Rowan County clerk last year. She is now retired, according to Mat Staver, the founder of Liberty Counsel, which represented her.
“At the end of the day, she will ultimately prevail. She had no hostility to anyone, given that she stopped issuing all marriage licenses,” Staver said in an interview.
“The broader issue is what accommodation a court should provide someone based on their religious beliefs,” he added. “It’s a matter of time before such a case goes squarely before the Supreme Court.”
Michael Gartland, a lawyer for Ermold and Moore, said his clients may ask the full 6th Circuit to review the sovereign immunity issue. “No matter what happens, we’re going to trial against Ms. Davis in her individual capacity,” he said.
Kash Stilz, a lawyer for Smith and Yates, said his clients were pleased their lawsuit can continue.
The appeals court also upheld a separate attorney fee award to other couples who were denied marriage licenses by Davis.
More than a year after boys were removed from a nonprofit in Burnet County, the couple who ran it are facing trafficking charges. A grand jury indicted Gary Wiggins, 49, and his wife Meghann Wiggins, 34, on Trafficking of Persons charges.
They are both accused of “knowingly” trafficking four underage boys and “through force, fraud or coercion” making them “engage in forced labor or services.” The two ran Joshua Home, which officials described as a place that “purports to be a residential home for troubled boys.”
According to the indictment, the trafficking allegedly occurred between May 17, 2018 and July 25, 2018. Eight boys between the ages of 10 and 17 were removed after a multi-agency investigation into allegations of abuse, neglect, labor violations, fraud, licensing violations and human trafficking.
There is something reminiscent of black gay author James Baldwin in Alphonso David’s intense bearing, though the new president of the Human Rights Campaign is considerably more down-to-earth and welcoming than the defiant intellect who scorched racist America in “The Fire Next Time.”
For David, it is the fire this time that is fueling his drive for full equality and his fight against the dark amoral forces demolishing democracy through the rapacious black hole that is President Donald Trump.
David may be uniquely qualified to meet the LGBTQ leadership challenge of this historic moment.
Born in Silver Spring, Md., in 1970, he was one year old when his family moved to Monrovia, the capital of Liberia founded in 1822 by freed Black American slaves. David’s great uncle was the country’s president and his father was elected the city’s mayor in 1977 while his mother worked in the Liberian Department of Finance.
In 1980, David’s world was violently overturned as a military coup assassinated his uncle, imprisoned his father and kept the family under house arrest for 18 months. When his father was released a few years later, he applied for political asylum in the U.S., which was granted because Alphonso had been born in Maryland.
“My interest in the law is fairly self-evident,” David told The New Amsterdam News in 2014, “in part because of the war and understanding democracy and understanding how things work.”
After graduating from Temple University Law School, David clerked for Clifford Scott Green, the African-American District Court judge who found that there was, indeed, racial discrimination in the Philadelphia Police Department. David then joined a Philadelphia law firm before moving to Los Angeles for work as a litigation associate at Blank Rome LLP to help pay off “substantial” student debt. He also got heavily involved in pro bono work, such as helping victims of domestic violence.
David was in LA when the Supreme Court issued its watershed ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, decriminalizing homosexuality. That was an inflection point, motivating him to give up private practice to join Lambda Legal in 2004.
In 2007, David took a job as Special Counselor at the New York State Division of Human Rights, which led to Special Deputy Attorney General for Civil Rights under Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and eventually, in 2015, his historic appointment as the first black man and first openly gay man to serve as Chief Counsel to Gov. Cuomo. He was dubbed the third most powerful person in New York state government.
So why HRC?
“We are living in very complex, perilous times,” David tells the Los Angeles Blade in a brief interview at a Hollywood coffee shop. “I have worked in government for 12 years, but I thought, at this moment in time, it was more important for me to serve in this capacity as the head of the Human Rights Campaign to push for change on the national level, to educate people about the challenges that marginalized communities face, and affect change.”
David started Aug. 9 and is now on a 10-city/state swing to introduce himself to HRC activists and equality allies. But he quickly acts when action is required. Moments after the interview concluded, David was on Twitter producing a thread that excoriated Trump for his inane statement that he has the support of the LGBTQ community, citing the recent reelection endorsement by Log Cabin Republicans.
“Every credible LGBTQ organization is mobilizing to defeat Trump, Pence & their anti-LGBTQ extremist allies in 2020,” David tweeted. “Those who claim this administration is pro-LGBTQ are out of touch with facts and reality.”
David promises new plan rollouts soon but spoke to a few top priorities.
“First, we have to elect pro-equality candidates on every single level. We’re not only focused on the presidency, we’re focused on Congress. We’re focused on state elections, both Senate and House,” he says, and local elections if HRC should weigh in.
“We want to make sure that we are creating environments for people to be realized in the way that they should be realized, that their identities are being respected by government and by the law,” David says. “The electoral work is very, very important.”
Second, HRC is focused on making sure that “legislative priorities are being advanced at every single level,” with special attention on the Equality Act “that would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination, ranging from employment to credit.” Third is programmatic work that deserves more awareness and possible expansion such as the All Children, All Families program helping LGBTQ kids in the foster care system.
Another program deserving elevation focuses on historically Black colleges. “When we say ‘LGBTQ,’ I want to make sure that people are not looking at a white male face—that they see the spectrum of our community reflected and they understand that the Human Rights Campaign is representing all interests, not just some,” David says.
David is keenly aware that LA is mindful about intersectionality but understands that there are different LGBTQ communities living in silos. “Gay,” for instance, equates with rich, white, straight men in West Hollywood. A similar impression of HRC has followed suit.
“That’s part of the challenge,” says David, to change the old perception of HRC as catering only to one segment of the community. “I think we can make that change. With my appointment as the [first Black] president of Human Rights Campaign, I hope that people will see that the organization is really focused on all members of the community.”
Alphonso David pauses before having a James Baldwin moment. “I’m not going to put my reputation at risk to run an organization that will not put its money where its mouth is,” he says, believably. “So I’m going to make sure that people understand that when we are pushing the electoral work or the legislative work or litigation—you pick the category—we are representing the interests of the community, and our interests are very different, as a matter of fact. The lesbian community may have very different concerns than the transgender community and we need to make sure that all of those concerns are being represented equally.”
David is a data man, very familiar with Brad Sears and the Williams Institute. He intends to use some of their work to inform his own. He is also plugged into the “progressive web of organizations” his predecessor Chad Griffin cultivated, whose leaders he knows well.
“How we talk about issues is so important,” David says. “When we say there’s a problem in our community and we use a statistic to highlight that problem and we fail to identify certain communities or classify our language in a way that elevates that issue for a specific community, we’re not presenting a comprehensive picture.”
He wants to make sure that “we’re able to elevate the plight of the LGBTQ community in the various sectors, utilizing our various relationships, making sure that we are communicating in a very smart, strategic way because it’s not enough to say LGBT kids are homeless. We need to really talk about what actually is informing the homelessness. Why are they homeless? What are the resources that are being provided?”
Trump talking about ending AIDS is only a talking point, he notes as an example. The money he’s identified is insufficient and hasn’t been secured. Meanwhile, Trump wants to end the Affordable Care Act that protects pre-existing conditions like HIV/AIDS, among other disastrous rollbacks. “To now suggest that he’s interested in ending AIDS is laughable, and the Log Cabin Republicans are really divorced from reality, so I don’t want to even give them any additional time or attention.”
David intends to navigate the waters of political purity “with due diligence,” he says. “We should be focused on winning in 2020, making sure we have a sound, viable candidate who can beat Donald Trump,” as well as winning candidates down ballot. HRC will not automatically endorse an incumbent.
David also intends on strategizing HRC’s relationship with big corporations. Griffin effectively marshaled Hollywood corporations to threaten boycotts in Georgia and North Carolina when governors threatened to sign anti-trans bathroom bills. But an anti-big corporation sentiment resulted in a second Stonewall 50th anniversary march and presidential candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are successfully bashing corporations as corrupt.
David thinks differently. “HRC’s Corporate Equality Index is a really important tool to change work environments,” policies and practices, he says. “They’re a lot more inclusive than they were before. So we’re going to be trying to get more corporations, more companies enlisted in the CEI because that benefits the bottom line for people that are working in companies across this country. I want to use it as a tool to make sure we improve workspaces.”
Additionally, “I want to enlist corporations directly in our fight for equality. I was privileged enough to write the marriage equality law in New York and I can tell you that we were able to successfully enlist corporate leaders [in their coalition] to change the perspectives of Republican senators in New York,” David says. “We need to do the same thing here. Private companies actually could have a very meaningful and positive role in helping us advance equality.”
But the new HRC leader needs a larger army to demonstrate LGBTQ power. “The Human Rights Campaign exists as an infrastructure to actually affect change and I want people to join us because we need every single person,” David says. “We need boots on the ground to make sure that we can affect change on the local level, at the state level and at the federal level. I need everyone to get involved.”
Perhaps Alphonso David might cite James Baldwin as he recruits new volunteers to the LGBTQ cause. “The point,” Baldwin once said, “is to get your work done, and your work is to change the world.”
A number of leaders and members of the Log Cabin Republicans have left the national gay conservative group following its endorsement of President Donald Trump’s re-election bid in a Washington Post op-ed published last week — and other defectors could follow.
Jennifer Horn announced her resignation from the organization’s board Monday, stating that she made a promise to herself when she entered politics that she would “never say or do anything that I could not explain to my own children.” Endorsing another four years of the current administration fell under this category, she said.
“It’s not just the LGBTQ community this president targets. When we look at immigrants, people — anyone that he thinks he can somehow use to anger his base — he doesn’t care if he has to divide on racial lines, on ethnic lines, on educational lines,” Horn told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Tuesday. “He will divide and damage and destroy this country in any manner he thinks he needs to advance his own political power.”
Horn joined Robert Turner, the former president of the Log Cabin Republicans’ Washington, D.C., chapter, and Jordan Evans, the first openly transgender Republican elected official, in denouncing and exiting the group.
“It saddens me greatly to say that today, I am ending my association with Log Cabin Republicans, an organization I’ve been heavily involved with for the last decade — including serving as president of the D.C. chapter for three years,” Turner said in a Facebook post.
Turner went on to add that there were still a number of “great” people involved in the organization, and he named Jerri Ann Henry, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, whose name did not appear on the group’s op-ed endorsement, as an example.
“But for me, there’s no more fight left,” Turner added. “The national board’s endorsement of Trump, and their subsequent and hollow WaPo op-ed, is a step too far. And this leaves me sad.”
Evans expressed concern over the Log Cabin Republicans’ diminished relevancy in the wake of its endorsement.
“We have alienated our peers,” Evans wrote in a recent op-ed for the LGBTQ newsmagazine The Advocate. “As is already being seen, we have become increasingly ostracized since making the announcement … we have irreparably weakened our ability to contribute a conservative voice to the broader queer discourse of tomorrow.”
Casey Pick, who served as the programs director for the Log Cabin Republicans from 2010-2013, started distancing herself from the group after the 2012 presidential election, but was ready to give the organization another chance after Henry was hired last year.
“I was hopeful that despite watching the organization’s slide toward Trump apologism under Gregory T. Angelo (the group’s former president), their hiring a skilled and principled operative like Henry meant the organization would finally be able to again be a conscience this party needs,” Pick wrote in a post. “I publicly celebrated her hiring, and encouraged my peers in the LGBT advocacy community to give LCR another shot, knowing that a vibrant and effective Log Cabin could be a godsend during a Trump/Pence administration.”
Yet, Pick said, Henry’s “hands have been tied” and instead of espousing a progressive mission, the group “increasingly fulfills the stereotypes that used to be hurled at Log Cabin Republicans: overwhelmingly gay men who are indifferent to the experiences of women, transgender Americans, or LGBT people who lack the financial or social resources to protect them from the discrimination that they so often deny even exists.”
As a result, she said, she no longer wants to be aligned with the organization.
The Log Cabin Republicans endorsement of Trump marks a reversal from its 2016 stance, when the former board voted against endorsing him.
Charles Moran, the national spokesman for the Log Cabin Republicans, appeared on MSNBC on Wednesday to discuss reactions to the endorsement and Horn’s resignation from the board.
The Log Cabin Republicans “almost unanimously voted to endorse him,” Moran said. “We’re most likely not going to reconsider the endorsement.”
He echoed the message shared in the op-ed: While the Log Cabin Republicans don’t agree with every action Trump has taken, the group’s leadership believes that overall his presidency has benefited the LGBTQ community.
“The president’s tax cuts have benefited LGBTQ families and helped put food on their tables. His opportunity zones have helped create new LGBTQ-founded small businesses,” board members wrote in their endorsement. “The administration’s aggressive negotiations on trade deals have preserved LGBTQ jobs. His hard line on foreign policy has protected LGBTQ lives.”
The group also cited Trump’s commitment to end HIV/AIDS in 10 years, which was met both with cautious optimism and flat-out skepticism, and his work with Richard Grenell, the openly gay U.S. ambassador to Germany, to encourage other nations to end the criminalization of homosexuality, as examples of his dedication to the LGBTQ community.
Just one day after the Log Cabin Republicans endorsement, the Trump administration last Friday filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that transgender workers are not protected by federal civil rights law and can be fired because of their gender identity. The administration also unveiled earlier in the week a proposed rule that seeks to make it easier for companies to discriminate against LGBTQ employees.
When asked about the proposed rule yesterday, Trump dodged the question.
“I think I’ve done really very well with that community,” Trump said, before touting his recent endorsement from the Log Cabin Republicans. “They like the job I’m doing.”
Angel Colon and Luis Javier Ruiz survived the 2016 mass shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida, where 49 patrons died. Now the two men, who no longer identify as gay, are organizing a “Freedom March” that encourages attendees to embrace Jesus and overcome their homosexuality and transgender identity.
Colon, 29, and Ruiz, 36, were among the 53 people injured after what was at the time the deadliest mass shooting in the United States. Colon, a dancer, was shot six times and was unable to walk for two months. Ruiz, an Army veteran, was trampled upon while trying to exit the club and sustained multiple injuries.
Nearly two years ago, the pair founded Fearless Identity Inc., an organization that seeks to “bring hope” and “biblical understanding to those seeking to change,” Ruiz told NBC News.
Colon, who posed on the cover of LGBTQ magazine The Advocate for its 2016 People of the Year issue, said the mission of Fearless Identity has been misunderstood. While neither he nor Ruiz still identify as gay, he said the organization’s goal is not to change people’s sexual orientation and gender identity against their will.
“We’re trying to equip churches, even if they’re not gay-affirming churches, with the resources they need and teach them not to judge the LGBTQ community,” Colon explained. “We’re trying to share our stories through ministry and share the testimonies of people who’ve come out of the homosexual lifestyle.”
A makeshift memorial outside the Pulse nightclub on July 11, 2016, a month after the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.John Raoux / AP file
Despite the men’s insistence otherwise, not everyone views the Freedom March as an opportunity to unite the church and LGBTQ people, with some from Orlando’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community expressing outrage that a city still in mourning would be the site of such an event.
Christopher Cuevas, the executive director of QLatinx, an Orlando-based Latino LGBTQ advocacy group, called the march an “attempt to wash the community in a thicket of hate and bigotry.”
“While we honor the freedom for expressions of faith, and hold the beauty of religiosity in our community, we cannot condone the gross misuse of religious text and faith to exploit LGBTQ+ people or support conversion therapy,” Cuevas wrote in an email. “The expressions of our queer and transgender identities are the embodiment of divinity and grace, because we are living our most radical truth by celebrating and centering our LGBTQ+ identity.”
Both Ruiz and Colon grew up in religious communities and dealt with the church’s suggestion to “pray the gay away.” Ruiz, however, stressed that neither he nor Colon support so-called conversion therapy, a contentious practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity that has been condemned by nearly every major health association.
“We are not all all advocates for conversion therapy or shock therapy,” Ruiz said. “We stand with the gay community, and our main message is about falling in love with Jesus, but if an LGBTQ person wanted to talk to a pastor or counselor, that’s a whole different story.”
Colon and Ruiz said the Pulse massacre inspired them to turn back to religion and denounce their former sexual identities. Now, the two men identify as “children of God” versus straight or gay.
“My life was all over the place, and I never blamed it on being gay. I was a drug addict, an alcoholic,” Colon said. “I missed worshiping God, so when Pulse happened, I took the situation as a big turning point in my life.”
Next month’s event will be the second Freedom March the two men have organized. Their inaugural march was held last May in Washington. While the event “seeks to bring hope of deliverance to the LGBTQ community and point them toward Christ,” per its mission statement, Colon and Ruiz said they believe in accepting people as they are.
“People have the option to change, to choose their own path and their own journey,” Ruiz said. “If there’s a drag queen doing a storytelling hour at a school, we’re not going to say, ‘Kick the drag queen out.’ We’re going to say, ‘Let’s also read the Bible to these kids.’”
“We come in love,” Ruiz added. “I’m so thankful that I get to live and that I’m breathing now.”
Republican candidate for Louisiana governor Ralph Abraham has released a new TV ad that takes aim at abortion rights and the transgender community as he works to draw attention for his campaign.
In the 30-second spot launched Thursday, the three-term congressman looks directly into the camera to establish what he calls “the truth.”
The conservative hits several points in quick succession, declaring that “life begins at conception,” taxes are too high and he supports President Donald Trump.
With a chuckle, he wraps up with a swipe at the LGBTQ community: “And as a doctor, I can assure you there are only two genders.”
Abraham is one of two major GOP contenders challenging Democratic incumbent John Bel Edwards on the Oct. 12 ballot, along with businessman Eddie Rispone.
