A ‘Christian’ printing company in Alabama, US, has refused to print an issue of a college magazine because it contains content about LGBT+ people.
Interstate Printing representatives cite their “First Amendment Right” to refuse to print images of drag queens, queer folk, disabled students and people of various religious beliefs on the grounds of religion.
University of South Alabama magazine Due South was denied printing by the Mobile company because their latest issue, which discusses diversity, does not align with their values.
Sydney McDonald, managing editor of the student-ran publication, first broke the story on Due South on Thursday.
Defiant editors have not let themselves be detracted, however, and have sought printing from a different company instead.
Ahead of their Fall 2019 issue, Due South editors were busy approving copy and editing images. With the finished version completed, it was sent to the printers on Wednesday.
“They emailed me back and said they would be exercising their right to decline printing this issue because it does not adhere to their Christian values and they hope to print with us in the future,” said editor-in-chief Sara Boone to AL.com.
The 21-year-old added: “It’s very ironic for me because this particular issue of Due South is a special topics issue on diversity and inclusion.
“And it’s the very first special topics issue that we have ever produced.
“For them to decline printing it because it’s so diverse and the content is incredibly ironic.”
Printing company goes cold over magazine expressing ‘freedom of lifestyles’.
Rupturing the magazine’s seven year-long relationship with the printing company, Boone explained that the company had quoted $5,000 for 3,500 copies of the magazine.
“As the magazine expresses freedom of lifestyles, we must express our freedom by declining to print on the principle that we are a Christian company that does not adhere to the content,” Tracy Smith of Interstate Printing wrote in the email.
“We value the 40-plus years relationship we have with the University of South Alabama, and look forward to continuing our work with USA on other print and mail service projects.”
Interstate Printing’s front-page has a Bible verse on it. It reads: “We are a Christian company that will serve the Lord God Almighty in any way we can.”
The company aims to achieve this by printing bridal magazines or flyers for a local high-school football game, sponsored by Reece’s Pieces.
This isn’t the first time a religion printers has rejected printing material containing LGBT+ content.
In Illinois earlier this year, a print shop denied printing a queer charity’s brochure claiming it “promoted” the gay lifestyle.
A former Kentucky school principal has been indicted on child pornography charges, a decade after he first made headlines for banning books with LGBTQ storylines.
Phillip Todd Wilson, the former principal of the Clark County Area Technology Center in Winchester, Kentucky, was charged with 17 child pornography and distribution charges in August, according to Kentucky state police.
A spokesperson for the Kentucky Department of Education told NBC News that Wilson was no longer employed at the school.
Phillip Todd Wilson.Clark County Detention Center
Wilson, 54, was the principal of the Montgomery County High School, another institution in Kentucky, 10 years ago when he banded together with other administrators to remove several young-adult novels that had been listed as optional reading in English classes. Wilson fought to ban books with “homosexual content,” as well as those that mentioned drugs, sex, child abuse and suicide, because he deemed these topics “inappropriate” for students, according to a 2009 article from The Lexington Herald-Leader.
More than half of the top 11 most frequently challenged and banned books of 2018 include LGBTQ content, according to a report by the American Library Association.
The four books that were reportedly challenged by Wilson and his associates and eventually pulled from the curriculum were “Twisted” by Laurie Halse Anderson, “Deadline” by Chris Crutcher, “Lessons from a Dead Girl” by Jo Knowles and “Unwind” by Neal Shusterman.
Though Knowles’ book is about a girl who endures sexual and emotional abuse from a female friend, Knowles said her book was banned for “homosexual content.”
“I was a very new author at the time all this happened and the press coverage was overwhelming,” Knowles, author of “Lessons from a Dead Girl,” wrote in a recent post on Facebook. “I was horrified by the accusations he and the superintendent made. And heartbroken for the brave teacher, Risha Allen Mullins, who stood up for our books and faced so much unfair criticism.”
In response to news of Wilson’s indictment, Knowles added, “As I said to some friends last night when I got the news, ‘You can’t make this sh– up.’”
Laurie Halse Anderson — whose book “Twisted” examines toxic masculinity and includes a character accused of being gay after he turns down sex with a girl who is too intoxicated to consent — also took to Twitter after learning about the charges against Wilson.
“Books that help kids examine the violence, abuse and shame they’ve endured are very threatening to the people who commit those acts of violence, abuse, and shaming,” she wrote.
Of the 7,120 hate crime incidents reported in 2018, more than 1,300 — or nearly 19 percent — stemmed from anti-LGBTQ bias, according to the FBI’s latest Hate Crime Statistics report.
According to the FBI data, of the nearly 1,200 incidents targeting people due to their sexual orientation, the majority targeted gay men (roughly 60 percent), while approximately 12 percent targeted lesbians, 1.5 percent targeted bisexuals, 1.4 percent targeted heterosexuals and the remaining incidents targeted a mixed group of LGBTQ people. Transgender and gender-nonconforming people were the targets in 168 reported incidents, approximately 2.4 percent of all reported hate crime incidents last year.
When compared to 2017, the number of reported incidents targeting the LGBTQ community increased from 1,217 to 1,347, jumping from roughly 17 percent to 19 percent of each year’s total number of reported hate crime incidents.
In particular, reports of anti-trans violence is growing: Between 2017 and 2018, the number of these reported incidents increased 34 percent.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community is estimated by Gallup to comprise 4.5 percent of the U.S. population, yet according to the FBI’s newly released report, they comprise 18.5 percent of hate crime victims.
While the 7,120 overall reported hate crime incidents recorded in 2018 are slightly fewer than in 2017, both years represent historically high levels of reported hate crimes, with only 2008 recording more in the past decade: 7,783. In 2014, hate crimes hit a decade-low rate of 5,479 incidents.
Another noteworthy trend is that reported hate crimes increasingly targeted people (like assault) instead of property (like vandalism), even as the nation enjoys continued decreases in both violent and property crimes.
In 2018, nearly 66 percent of hate crime offenses were directed toward people, while 31 percent were directed toward property. In 2017, 60 percent of hate crimes were directed toward people, while 37 percent were directed toward property.
According to FBI data released in September, this goes against overall nationwide crime trends. In 2018, the national violent crime rate fell 4 percent compared to 2017, while the property crime rate declined 7 percent.
According to this latest report, Jewish and black communities continue to shoulder a disproportionate percentage of federally reported hate crimes: Jewish people comprise an estimated 2 percent of the U.S. population but make up 10 percent of hate crime victims, and the black community is an estimated 13.4 percent of the U.S. population but makes up 26 percent of hate crime victims.
The FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics report tells just part of the story. Of the 16,039 law enforcement agencies across the country that voluntarily participated in the Hate Crime Statistics Program, only 2,026 reported any hate crime incidents at all, according to the FBI. The state of Alabama, for example, did not report a single hate crime in all of 2018.
Rhode Island’s governor kicked off Veteran’s Day weekend by approving legislation that will extend local and state benefits to veterans who were dishonourably discharged for their sexuality.
It’s estimated that more than 100,000 LGBT+ people were ‘dishonourably’ or ‘less than honourably’ discharged from the US military between World War II and the repeal of the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell‘ policy in 2011.
On Friday, November 8, Governor Gina Raimondo ceremoniously signed the crucial legislation allowing these veterans to reclaim the benefits they deserve.
“In the state of Rhode Island, if you’re a veteran who’s served, you oughta be eligible for veterans benefits that the state provides,” she told local stationWLNE-TV.
The bill, which also encompasses gender identity and gender expression, was first signed into law in June. It provides a streamlined petition process to have a discharge from service recorded as honourable, thus restoring the veteran’s benefits.
Local leaders and former members of the military celebrate the end of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ on September 20, 2011 in San Francisco, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty)
“Far too many veterans have been discharged, shamed and left without the benefits they earned because of decades of a dehumanising policy that said they couldn’t serve,” Rhode Island Senator Dawn Euer, one of the bill’s sponsors, said in a statement.
“They deserved gratitude and honour, and we should be doing everything we can to ensure that these wrongs are righted and that they get the respect they deserve.”
For years after ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ was repealed, the process for scrapping a dishonourable discharge was a “cumbersome” process that was “shrouded in mystery,” according to Andy Blevins, executive director of the Modern Military Association of America.
He told NBC: “If an individual is discharged under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ with something less than honourable, like most of them were, they would not receive those benefits.
“There was nothing enacted after ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ that would give those benefits back, and that’s why what Rhode Island did is so incredible.”
Two well-known scientific groups have dropped job postings from their websites from Brigham Young University because of the school’s LGBTQ policies, igniting a debate on whether research organizations should take a stance on social issues.
The Washington-based American Geophysical Union and the Colorado-based Geological Society of America took down the ads amid mounting pressure from members, the Salt Lake Tribune reported Monday.
Both groups say the ads require applicants to abide by the school’s honor code, which includes a ban on homosexual behavior. Members of both nonprofits criticized the ads as discriminatory.
The Geological Society of America, which has 27,000 members, told the newspaper it has returned the $800 cost of the job post to BYU.
BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins declined to comment.
The Provo, Utah, university is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and mandates students follow the code that also prohibits premarital sex and the consumption of alcohol among other rules.
The code prohibits “not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings.”
As a private school and religious institution, the school can legally maintain the honor code.
Benjamin Abbott, a professor in BYU’s College of Life Sciences, believes dropping the ads limits diversity in religious ideologies.
“It removes an opportunity for a diverse candidate from outside of the BYU system from finding the job,” Abbott said. “If we want to learn from and potentially influence others, we shouldn’t cut them off.”
Ellen Alexander, a doctoral student in geology at UCLA who identifies as LGBTQ, was one of several people who complained on social media after the American Geophysical Union initially declined to take the ad down.
“That ideology does not deserve an equal seat at the table,” Alexander said. “It’s not a belief. It’s discrimination.”
Other national groups have previously faced controversy for collaborating with BYU. The Society for Political Methodology apologized in April 2018 for holding an annual conference at the school. The group said many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender participants declined to take part. As a result, the group relocated several conference events off-campus.
The winners have been announced in a global competition to design a memorial set to be built on the site of the Pulse nightclub.
The competition was held by the onePULSE Foundation with the purpose of selecting a design team to realize a permanent memorial to honor the victims and survivors of the Pulse shooting, which took place on Sunday June 12, 2016 when a 29-year-old security guard entered the Orlando gay night club with two semi-automatic weapons and opened fire on the crowd. 49 people were killed and 68 wounded. The gunman was shot and killed by police after a three-hour standoff. It was at the time the largest mass shooting in US history, and it remains the nation’s deadliest attack targeting LGBTQ people to date.
The onePULSE Foundation was established, according to its mission statement, “to create a sanctuary of hope following the tragic day in American history… to honor the 49 angels that were taken, the 68 others who were injured and the countless first responders and healthcare professionals who treated them.
“This fund is intended to support a memorial that opens hearts, a museum that opens minds, educational programs that open eyes and endowed scholarships that open doors. All donations will be used for the construction and operation of the National memorial and museum, educational programs and 49 Legacy Scholarships. This is a defining mission and healing initiative that we hope inspires supporters who share our vision and understand the solemn and sacred responsibility to which this community has been entrusted.”
Design concept for the new National Pulse Memorial and Museum (image Coldefy & Associés with RDAI/onePULSE Foundation)
The design was chosen out of 68 submissions from 19 countries. It was selected by a blue-ribbon jury comprised of onePULSE community members, civic decision-makers, global thought leaders and world-renowned architects following a public viewing and comment period in early October. Informed by over 2,300 comments from victim’s families, survivors, first responders and the public, the Jury felt the winning concept best reflected the interests expressed by the community, demonstrated design excellence, inventiveness, creativity and alignment with onePULSE’s core values.
The winning design concept was created by Coldefy & Associés with RDAI, Orlando-based HHCP Architects, Xavier Veilhan, dUCKS scéno, Agence TER, and Prof. Laila Farah. It features looping paths, a reflecting pool, and a garden planted with 49 trees — all created in a color palette of 49 colors. The museum, which will be located at 438 West Kaley Street, will feature interactive sculptures, vertical gardens, and a rooftop promenade.
Barbara Poma, a former co-owner of the club and the CEO of the onePULSE Foundation, created the nonprofit in the wake of the shooting. In a statement, she said the site, which will include a memorial and a museum, will serve as both a gathering place and educational center. She expressed her hope that it would teach “visitors and future generations [about] the profound impact the tragedy had on Orlando, the U.S., and the world.”
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, a member of the jury that selected the winning design, also issued a statement calling this unveiling an important step for the community.
“We will never bring back the 49 innocent victims whose lives were taken on June 12, 2016, or erase the pain that the horrific act brought to so many,” he said, “but the establishment of this memorial is an important part of our community healing process.”
A temporary memorial (also created by onePULSE is currently located on the site. The new permanent memorial, as well as the nearby museum, will begin construction in 2021, with a projected opening in 2022.
The “rainbow wave” of the 2018 elections continued Tuesday, with 99 of 200 known LGBTQ candidates winning their races — including a number of successes in historically conservative states such as Virginia and Kentucky.
The Victory Fund, a group that trains, supports and advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer candidates who are pro-choice, said 80 of its 111 endorsed candidates emerged victorious Tuesday. So far in 2019, the organization found 144 LGBTQ contenders won in 382 races, for an overall victory rate of 38 percent.
LGBTQ men ran in much higher numbers than their women counterparts, though queer women had a higher success rate, 46 percent to 37 percent, according to Victory’s election tracker. Trans women specifically — who won in state races in Virginia, Utah, Massachusetts and Iowa — had a success rate at 56 percent. The vast majority of LGBTQ candidates (83 percent) ran as Democrats, with just 2.4 percent running as Republicans. LGBTQ Democrats had a success of 40 percent, compared to 33 percent for their GOP counterparts.
Among Tuesday’s noteworthy winners were twice-elected transgender state Rep. Danica Roem, gay, black Muslim school board member N.J. Akbar, and the new LGBTQ members of the Indianapolis City Council.
Akbar, who won a seat on the Akron Board of Education in Ohio, became one of the first gay, Muslim, African Americans ever elected to any office in the U.S., according to the Victory Fund.
“As one of the first openly LGBTQ Muslims elected in United States history, N.J. will become a role model for so many LGBTQ students, students of color and Muslim students who too rarely see people like them in positions of power,” Annise Parker, president and CEO of the Victory Fund, said in a statement.
In Virginia, State Delegate Danica Roem, the first openly trans person elected to statewide office, won a second term. In 2017, Roem ran on expanding Medicaid to her constituents and fixing the traffic-clogged Route 28 in Manassas.
“I’m grateful to represent you because of who you are – never despite it,” Roem wrote on Twitter. “I’ll see you Nov. 20 at our next #fixRoute28 public hearing.”
The Indianapolis City Council tripled its number of LGBTQ representatives by re-electing Zach Adamson and newly electing Alison Brown and Keith Potts. Brown is the first out LGBTQ woman elected to that body.
Not all noteworthy races in question have been called. The nationally watched race for Texas’ 28th state legislative district is heading for a runoff with no candidate having secured an outright majority. Democrat and out lesbian Elizabeth Markowitz ran against six Republicans and won roughly 40 percent of the vote. Markowitz will now face Republican Gary Gates in a runoff election that has not yet been scheduled by the governor.
Anti-trans ads: A losing strategy?
In several states that saw transphobic political attack ads flop against LGBTQ-supportive candidates, political watchers are asking whether such ads will be effective heading into 2020’s general election.
The apparent victory of pro-LGBTQ Democrat Andy Beshear in Kentucky in the race for governor, signaled that outside efforts to use transphobic election scare tactics — like one that implied transgender inclusion in sports, would mean that “anyone at any time could change teams for any reason” — are not a clear path to electoral victory.
Chris Hartman, executive director of Kentucky’s Fairness Campaign, a LGBTQ advocacy group, said the anti-transgender ads run in Kentucky “looked initially like a desperate ploy” and noted that he and his LGBTQ friends were heavily targeted with these ads on YouTube and Hulu.
“As more information came out, we learned that we were a testing group for what the conservatives thought was going to be their new election tactic, in the way that trans bathrooms used to work for them, in the way that gay rights used to work for them,” Hartman said. “They’re testing the field to see if anti-trans bias is strong enough to propel them to victory in places that have unpopular candidates.”
Don Haider-Markel, a professor of political science at the University of Kansas, said that a 2015 ballot measure in Houston, used “fear-based advertising” around transgender people’s access to public accommodations and bathrooms.
“It’s clear that that was effective,” Haider-Markel said. However, “the ads in Kentucky about high school sports and things like that don’t seem to have the same traction.”
“Tagging that to a candidate instead of an issue on the ballot is something different,” Haider-Markel continued. “For LGBTQ candidates, success doesn’t come from what your sexual orientation or gender identity is, success comes from focusing on the issues that people care about in their local community.”
Danica Roem is “a prime example of that,” Haider-Markel said.
An ad attacking Delegate Danica Roem from The Family Foundation Action on Facebook.via Facebook
Danica Roem, a transgender woman who was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2017, was the highest ranking LGBTQ winner Tuesday. Her re-election makes her the longest serving transgender state legislator in U.S. history, and the first to ever win re-election.
Although she is a history maker and was targeted because of her transgender identity, Roem has become known to her constituents for her laser focus on her district’s Route 28 — a traffic-clogged artery that many of her district’s voters struggle with on a daily basis as they commute into Washington, D.C.
“The success of trans candidates this Election Night – in states red and blue – is a warning to those using cynical campaign tactics to divide communities for their own political gain,” Victory’s Parker said in a statement.
Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, echoed Parker, saying “the biggest topline takeaway” from Tuesday’s results is that “voters care about equality.”
“What we saw in Virginia specifically is that anti-equality candidates have been using an outdated and offensive playbook that is not working anymore,” David said.
The Ames man accused of tearing down a pride banner from Ames United Church of Christ and setting it on fire was found guilty by a jury Wednesday morning.
Adolfo Martinez, 30, was found guilty of a hate crime, third-degree harassment, reckless use of fire and habitual offender, Story County Attorney Jessica Reynolds said. The habitual offender charge associates with previous reckless use of fire crimes.
It was the first time a hate crime has gone before a jury in Story County, Reynolds said. “Hate crimes will not be tolerated in our jurisdiction,” she said. “Offenders will be held accountable.” A date for sentencing was not immediately set, but he faces up to 15 years in prison.
Before announcing their judgement on three critical LGBT+ rights cases, US Supreme Court justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito chose to meet with the leader of a notorious anti-LGBT+ hate group.
Both groups actively campaign against basic LGBT+ rights in the US and beyond. Brown himself has long organised against LGBT+ communities, promoted harmful laws and emboldened other hate groups and extremists.
Worryingly, the two Supreme Court judges seemed to indicate which side they’re likely to be on as they proudly posed for a photo alongside Brown on Tuesday, October 29.
Although the tweet doesn’t state what the meeting was for, it was probably in connection to a major brief NOM has just filed with the US Supreme Court.
According to NOM’s website, the brief is “urging SCOTUS to protect people of faith from governmental discrimination because of their belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman”.
This directly relates to the cases currently being considered by the Supreme Court, which will determine whether LGBT+ people are covered by existing federal laws that protect against discrimination.
It’s not the first time Brian Brown and NOM have tried to pressure the Supreme Court on LGBT+ rights – in 2010, NOM was involved in successful efforts to oust three Iowa Supreme Court judges who had ruled in favour of same-sex marriage in the state.
A day after being pictured with the Supreme Court justices, Brown was in Ghana for a two-day conference hosted by the WCF, where he and other anti-gay extremists sought to influence African political and religious leaders against LGBT+ rights.
Brian S Brown at a WCF conference in Verona, Italy (FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/ Getty)
Speakers at the conference are said to have advocated for the adoption of public policies supporting so-called “conversion therapy” and an understanding of LGBT+ people as “deviant.”
“We urge allies to help us shine a spotlight on the group’s hateful agenda and hold the World Congress of Families accountable by sharing news on social media about the group’s harmful messages and amplifying the positive work of local LGBTQ communities and their allies,” the HRC warned.
The Trump administration is proposing a rule that would allow faith-based foster care and adoption agencies to continue getting taxpayer funding even if they exclude LGBTQ families and others from their services based on religious beliefs.
The announcement generated a sharp backlash from some Democratic lawmakers and LGBT advocacy groups. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the Trump administration was working overtime to “implement cruel and discriminatory policies, and wasting taxpayer dollars in its obsessive pursuit.”
President Donald Trump has made addressing the concerns of evangelical voters a priority of his presidency.
The White House says the rule from the Department of Health and Human Services is needed to remove barriers that prevent some nonprofits from helping vulnerable people in their communities. It would apply to a broad range of organizations that receive federal support, such as those that get federal funding to help the homeless or prevent HIV. But the focus from supporters and detractors Friday was on foster care and adoption services.
Under the proposed rule, HHS would redo an Obama-era rule that included sexual orientation as a protected trait under anti-discrimination protections.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said that restricting the work of faith-based organizations, as the Obama rule threatened to do, was unfair and serves no one, “especially the children in need of those services.”
The Family Research Council, a conservative group with a long history of anti-gay advocacy that believes homosexuality is “harmful” to “society at large,” applauded the move and commended President Donald Trump for “his courage.”
“Thanks to President Trump, charities will be free to care for needy children and operate according to their religious beliefs and the reality that children do best in a home with a married mom and dad,” the organization’s president, Tony Perkins, stated. “Under the proposed HHS rule, faith-based adoption providers will no longer have to choose between abandoning their faith or abandoning homeless children because the government disapproves of their views on marriage.”
But LGBTQ groups say the administration’s plan would reduce the pool of qualified parents wanting to adopt or foster a child. They say that almost 123,000 foster children are awaiting adoption, but the rule would make even fewer families available to them.
“Children should never be denied the opportunity to join a stable, loving family — even if that means the family is LGBTQ,” Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, said in a statement shared with NBC News. “Research has shown LGBTQ families provide the same kind of love, protection, and support as other families, and no child should be denied that kind of environment. The Trump Administration has once again demonstrated how they prefer to prioritize the gross work of anti-LGBTQ activists over the safety and well-being of our children.”
In a call with reporters Friday, representatives from Children’s Rights and the Voice for Adoption, two organizations that advocate on behalf of children in foster care, condemned the proposal.
“This rule is a full force attack by the United States federal government enshrining discrimination into law,” Christina Wilson Remlin, an attorney with Children’s Rights, said. The rule, she added, would be “at the expense” of children in foster care.
Remlin noted that there is a shortage of foster homes across the country and referenced a 2018 report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law that found same-sex couples are significantly more likely than different-sex couples to be raising adopted or foster children — 21 percent compared to 3 percent, respectively.
Rabbi Jason Kimmel-Block, the director of progressive Jewish social justice group Bend the Arc, also spoke out against the proposal, which he called “jaw-dropping.”
“Religion is being used as a sword to harm people rather than a shield to protect people,” Kimmel-Block said of the plan during a call with reporters. He then accused the Trump administration of prioritizing the religious views of some people over the views and rights of others.
Once the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register, which can happen as soon as early next week, there will be a 30-day public comment period. After that period, the administration will review those comments before issuing a final rule.
In the interim, the administration announced that it would not enforce existing nondiscrimination protections that it seeks to roll back in its proposal.
“HHS’ announcement that it will immediately cease enforcement of existing nondiscrimination protections, rather than adhering to the established procedures for changing regulations such as these, once again demonstrates the Trump administration’s utter disregard for the rule of law,” Sharon McGowan, the legal director of the LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal, said in a statement shared with NBC News.
