Jamaica should repeal its ban on gay sex immediately, a top human rights tribunal determined in a ruling dubbed “a highly significant step forward” by activists.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which monitors human rights conditions in the western hemisphere, found that the Jamaican government is responsible for violating the rights of two queer people, Gareth Henry and Simone Edwards.
The solution, the commission concluded, is a simple one: Repeal Jamaica’s colonial-era anti-LGBT+ laws immediately.
The ruling is not binding but will give hope to queer citizens of the Caribbean island nation and others like it where the homophobic views of colonialist Britain remain deeply entrenched.
“It is a highly significant step forward that must now accelerate the repeal of these stigmatising and discriminatory laws,” said Téa Braun, the director of the Human Dignity Trust who represented Henry and Edwards, according to The Guardian.
The decision was handed down in September 2019 but could not be publicly reported on until now.
The commission said Jamaican leaders should also enact anti-discrimination laws and better train law enforcement.
Gay man who fled Jamaica: ‘I finally feel I am right’
Jamaica, once described as “the most homophobic place on Earth” by Timemagazine, has long been gripped by laws banning “buggery” and “indecency”, adopted from the British constitution before independence.
Anal sex is prohibited and punishable by life imprisonment for any individual, any sexual encounter between men is illegal, and there are no protections for LGBT+ people against discrimination.
Both Henry and Edwards were driven off the island as a result of the homophobic violence they faced, the commission heard. They argued that the anti-LGBT+ laws violated their rights and legitimated the violence they faced.
Henry sought asylum in Canada after a police officer pummelled him in front of a crowd of some 200 people. Edwards was granted asylum in Europe after being gunned down outside her home by a homophobic gang in 2008 which placed her family at risk.
The ruling has brought a sense of “hope” for Henry and Edwards, that they might someday return to the island they once called home.
“All my life people have told me that who I am and who I love is wrong,” Henry said. “Now, for the first time ever, I finally feel I am right.”
Edwards explained: “It gives me hope that one day these outdated laws will be done away with and I’ll be able to return to my homeland without fear of attack.”
Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., reintroduced the Equality Act in the House of Representatives on Thursday, with a vote on the sweeping LGBTQ rights bill expected next week.
The move brings the bill one step closer to potentially establishing the first federal discrimination protections for LGBTQ people. Specifically, it would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces, public funding and jury service.
The Equality Act passed the Democrat-controlled House in May 2019, but it stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. Now that Democrats have taken control of the Senate, advocates are hopeful that the bill will pass.
“In 2021, every American should be treated with respect and dignity,” Cicilline, who has introduced the bill every year since 2015, said in a statement. “Yet, in most states, LGBTQ people can be discriminated against because of who they are, or who they love. It is past time for that to change.”
Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin also announced that they would reintroduce the bill in the Senate next week when the Senate floor reopens for bill introductions.
“All of us go to work and school, go home and go shopping, and none of us should have to keep our families hidden or pretend to be someone we’re not to do those things,” Merkley, who wrote the Equality Act, said in a statement. “But in 29 states, Americans can still be evicted, be thrown out of a restaurant, or be denied a loan because of who they are or whom they love.”
Before Cicilline reintroduced the bill, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., announced in a letter to colleagues Tuesday that the House would vote on the Equality Act next week. In May 2019, it passed by a 236-173 vote, with eight Republicans voting for it. However, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., never took it up in the Senate.
In October of last year, Biden told Mark Segal, publisher of Philadelphia Gay News and a longtime LGBTQ rights activist, that passing the bill is “essential to ensuring that no future president can ever again roll back civil rights and protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.”
He added that he would also direct his Cabinet to enforce the Equality Act across federal agencies. “Too many states do not have laws that explicitly protect LGBTQ+ individuals from discrimination,” Biden said in the interview. “It’s wrong to deny people access to services or housing because of who they are or who they love.”
‘A clear, consistent nationwide statement’
The Equality Act was first introduced by Rep. Bella Abzug, D-N.Y., in 1974, but the bill was eventually killed.
Cicilline introduced the current version in 2015, just after the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage constitutional nationwide. Unlike previous versions of the act, the current version includes protections from discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.
LGBTQ people across the U.S. currently have some level of protection from discrimination through state and local laws and Biden’s expansion of workplace discrimination protections through the Supreme Court’s Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, ruling last year. However, advocates say the Equality Act is needed to fill in the gaps and ensure that all Americans, regardless of where they reside, are protected.
“While President Biden’s Executive Order implementing the Supreme Court’s Bostock ruling was a crucial step in addressing discrimination against LGBTQ people, it’s still vital that Congress pass the Equality Act to codify the Bostock decision to ensure protection in key areas of life including where existing civil rights laws do not have protections on the basis of sex,” Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights group, said in a statement.
Kevin Jennings, CEO of the LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal, said the legislation will give clarity to employers and landlords, among others, about discrimination.
“In some instances, individuals lose rights and protections the moment they cross the border into a neighboring state, underscoring that the current patchwork of protections for LGBTQ people is inadequate,” Jennings said in a statement. “In addition, as evidenced by the thousands of phone calls to our Help Desk we receive each year, many employers, landlords and lenders still haven’t gotten the message that discrimination is just wrong, which is why we need the absolute clarity of the Equality Act, and we need it now.”
Mara Keisling, executive director at the National Center for Transgender Equality, said the bill is especially important for transgender people who face a disproportionate amount of violence.
“No act of Congress can end bias overnight or stop all attacks against transgender people,” Keisling said in a statement. “But the Equality Act is a clear, consistent and nationwide statement that says our country believes that all people – including those who are transgender – should be treated fairly and with respect. For transgender people, every trip to the store, every dinner out, every job interview or attempt to rent an apartment carries the risk of disrespect, discrimination and potentially violence. The Equality Act will help allow transgender people to live their lives openly and without fear.”
The Log Cabin Republicans thanked Donald Trump for “standing up for family” in a bizarre Presidents’ Day video littered with falsehoods.
The gay Republican group, which claims to represent “LGBT conservative and allies” but rarely challenges rampant homophobia within the GOP, put out an odd love letter to Donald Trump to mark Presidents’ Day.
Trump is praised for “standing up for our American ideals of family, freedom and liberty” by one participant, while others resort to gaslighting as they peddle a number of abject falsehoods.
The video claims that “one of the best things that he did was launch a global campaign to decriminalise homosexuality”, though there is no evidence to suggest any such campaign ever actually existed beyond a press release, while Trump left the position of international LGBT+ envoy sitting empty for his entire term.
The group suggests that Trump was the “the first pro-gay president when entering office”, a bizarre claim given he made no pledges on LGBT+ rights at all in 2016 or 2020 aside from his pledge to sign a proposed law to permit anti-LGBT+ discrimination on the grounds of religion.
Trump is also described as the “first Republican President in American history to enter office as a supporter of marriage equality”. In reality, ahead of the 2016 election Trump said he would “strongly consider” appointing Supreme Court justices to overturn equal marriage, before committing to picking justices from a list vetted by anti-LGBT+ groups.
Indeed, several of these points were made succinctly in 2016 by none other than the Log Cabin Republicans, when the group pointedly declined to endorse Trump’s presidential bid, citing his anti-LGBT+ policies.
Internet not impressed with the Log Cabin Republicans.
Suffice to say, the clip has not gone down well outside of the increasingly-small circle of gay Trump firebrands.
A Twitter user quipped: “Just when you think LCR can’t be any more ridiculous, they never let you down.”
Another pointed out: “Less than two hours after Trump and his virulently anti-LGBTQ activist vice president Mike Pence were sworn into office, all mentions of LGBTQ issues were removed from the official White House webpage.”
One respondent said: “To me, Log Cabin Republicans are like Women for Trump. They take pleasure in remaining second-class citizens as long as they think they’re slightly elevated above other groups who are being treated like second-class citizens.”
Today, Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer Kahan (D-Orinda), in partnership with Equality California, introduced AB 493 that will include death certificates among the official documents with nonbinary options for gender identity.
The bill will expand on Senator Toni Atkins’s 2017 legislation, SB 179, which authorized nonbinary identification on birth certificates, court documents, and driver’s licenses. California is leading the nation in inclusive recognition of gender identities, and this bill continues and strengthens that work.
“Adding nonbinary as a gender option ensures nonbinary individuals’ right to equal treatment under the law, and is a needed step towards true inclusivity throughout our legal codes” said Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan. “Historically, US law has not recognized the many ways people experience gender. This causes serious pain and marginalization for nonbinary communities, with their existence denied on documents that identify them.”
It is essential to codify inclusive language to establish uniformity and parity across California’s legal system. Incorrectly assigning deceased nonbinary individuals a gender is disrespectful to their memories. Official erasure hurts grieving loved ones, as well as the larger nonbinary community.
“Affirming someone’s gender identity is just as important in death as it is in life,” said Equality California Executive Director Rick Chavez Zbur. “We owe it to our nonbinary community members — and their loved ones — to correctly recognize the gender identity of all Californians on their death certificates. Equality California applauds Assemblymember Bauer-Kahan for continuing the work started by Pro Tem Toni Atkins in 2017 to right this wrong.”
Nonbinary youth who reported their pronouns were not respected by those in their lives were twice as likely to attempt suicide as those whose correct pronouns were used. With suicide rates among nonbinary youth quadruple those of their peers, affirming language on death certificates is all the more essential.
This bill takes the precedent set by Senator Atkins in SB 179, as well as the current practices of using nonbinary-inclusive language and codifying it to bring code in line with California’s values, and ensures long-term protection of the nonbinary community’s civil rights.
AB 493 secures in code that nonbinary individuals are identified as such on their death certificates.
Coauthors of the bill include Assemblymembers Evan Low (D–San Jose), Alex Lee (D-Santa Clara), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Corona), Chris Ward (D-San Diego), David Chiu (San Francisco), Cristina Garcia (D- Bell Gardens), Mark Stone (D-Santa Cruz), Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), and Senators Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) Susan Talamantes-Eggman (D-Castro Valley) and John Laird (D-Santa Cruz).
###
Equality California is the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization. We bring the voices of LGBTQ+ people and allies to institutions of power in California and across the United States, striving to create a world that is healthy, just, and fully equal for all LGBTQ+ people. We advance civil rights and social justice by inspiring, advocating and mobilizing through an inclusive movement that works tirelessly on behalf of those we serve. www.eqca.org
Rush Limbaugh, a talk radio pioneer who saturated America’s airwaves with cruel bigotries, lies and conspiracy theories for over three decades, amassing a loyal audience of millions and transforming the Republican Party in the process, has died, his wife revealed at the beginning of his show on Wednesday. He was 70 years old.
Limbaugh announced in February 2020 that he had been diagnosed with advanced stage 4 lung cancer.
Former President Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the 2020 State of the Union, calling Limbaugh “the greatest fighter and winner you will ever meet.”
Perhaps no moment better encapsulated Limbaugh’s legacy, nor demonstrated the immense influence he came to wield in Washington.
The medal was a just reward: Trump’s ascension to the presidency couldn’t have happened without Limbaugh’s brand of right-wing media.
The modern Republican party often functioned with Limbaugh as a fulcrum. President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, once called Limbaugh “the voice and intellectual force of the Republican Party.” Limbaugh would at times massage the failures of the party and its leaders, dismissing obvious policy or political failures as simply part of liberal conspiracies.
But he also helped set the agenda. When a Republican politician promoting racist and sexist policies could only use a dog whistle, Limbaugh provided a bull horn — he was, for example, an early progenitor of the racist birther conspiracy theory about Obama that Trump would later use to fuel his political career.
For decades, Limbaugh was associated with the far-right fringes of the Republican Party. In 1995, only days after Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, President Bill Clinton issued a blistering attack at a speech in Minneapolis in which he said the “nation’s airwaves … spread hate, they leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable. … It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior.”
Limbaugh vehemently protested the characterization, assuming that it was about him — which in all likelihood it was. “Make no mistake about it: Liberals intend to use this tragedy for their own political gain,” he said on the radio afterward.
People did take up Clinton’s charge to speak against Limbaugh’s style of “reckless speech and behavior,” but without much success. While remaining a controversial figure and at times suffering advertising boycotts and derision from the mainstream media, less than 25 years, rather than be condemned by another American president, Limbaugh was given a medal.
Decades Of Hate
A full accounting of Limbaugh’s lies and exaggerations; his racism and his misogyny; his homophobia and his Islamophobia; and his sheer cruelty could fill books — and have — but even a cursory overview of his lowlights makes his prejudice clear.
In 2003, he was forced to resign from ESPN after stating that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was only receiving praise because the media was “very desirous that a Black quarterback do well.” In 2004, Limbaugh said the NBA should be renamed the T.B.A. —“the Thug Basketball Association.” He then added: “Stop calling them teams. Call ’em gangs.” He similarly whined that watching the NFL was like watching “a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.”
Once, after arguing with a Black man who called into his show, he told the caller to “take that bone out of your nose and call me back.“ Another time, Limbaugh asked his audience, “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?” while discussing the Black civil rights activist and politician. Limbaugh once ludicrously asserted that “if any race of people should not have guilt about slavery, it’s Caucasians.” He invited a guest on air who sang “Barack, the Magic Negro” to the tune of “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” In 2016, he read an essay on air that had been penned by a well-known white supremacist.
Limbaugh’s radio career was also one long exercise in misogyny, perhaps best summed up by his thesis that “feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.”
In one of his most infamous episodes, he called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” in 2012 after she testified in Congress about the importance of women having access to birth control.
Rush Limbaugh smoking a cigar while taping his radio show.
Nearly every marginalized group or minority bore the brunt of Limbaugh’s bigotry. Once, while speaking about the genocide of America’s indigenous peoples, Limbaugh said, “Holocaust 90 million Indians? Only 4 million left? They all have casinos, what’s to complain about?”
Limbaugh frequently mirrored white nationalist talking points when discussing Latino immigrants, whom he described as lazy and dependent on the government. He called migrants at America’s southern border an “invasion.”
An opponent of marriage equality — which he suggested was “perverted” and “depraved” — Limbaugh argued in 2016 that legalizing gay marriage would lead to bestiality. “What happens if you love your dog?” he said. He once referred to transgender people as being mentally ill.
Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Limbaugh also frequently denigrated those who were HIV positive, saying the best way to stop the spread of the virus was to “not ask another man to bend over and make love at the exit point.” He spoke out against federal funding to fight the virus too, calling it the “only federally protected virus.”
His Father’s Son
Limbaugh’s journey to becoming one of America’s foremost bigots began in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where he was born to a prominent local political family on January 12, 1951. His father, a lawyer and Republican activist, would sternly lecture about politics in the home and rant against communism. Limbaugh later called his father “the smartest man I ever met.”
At age 14, Limbaugh says his parents bought him a Remco Carevelle radio set, which enabled him to broadcast on AM channels within a few hundred square feet of his house. In high school, Limbaugh worked as a DJ at KGMO, a local radio station co-owned by his father.
“Even when I was a little boy, I dreamed of being on the radio,” Limbaugh told biographer Ze’ev Chafetts. “In the mornings getting ready for school I’d hear the guy on the radio, and he just sounded free and happy, like he was having a wonderful time. That’s what I wanted, too.”
Limbaugh enrolled at Southeast Missouri State University but dropped out after a year to pursue a career in radio. Throughout the 1970s, he worked at different radio stations in Missouri and Pennsylvania but was often fired after clashing with management. He eventually landed a steady on-air gig in Sacramento, California, before getting hired to host his own show at WABC in New York, which remained his flagship station throughout much of his career. Subscribe to the Politics email.From Washington to the campaign trail, get the latest politics news.
As his fame rose, Limbaugh liked to explain his success by claiming he had “talent on loan from God,” but it was a Reagan-era Federal Communications Commission policy shift that allowed Limbaugh to reach national infamy and create the mold for modern right-wing media stardom. In 1987, the FCC abolished the decades-old Fairness Doctrine which mandated that TV and radio broadcasters present both sides of controversial issues. This meant that stations were no longer required to feature opposing views, and instead radio hosts like Limbaugh could spend hours spouting off right-wing fallacies without challenge.
Decades before online extremists and pro-Trump trolls used memes and ironic detachment to make their far-right beliefs seem less repugnant, Limbaugh’s employed the same strategy. He popularized cartoonish terms such as “Commie-Libs” and “Feminazi,” while also claiming that abortion represented a “modern day Holocaust.” He used mocking voices and affectations as he belittled women’s rights, Black activists and the gay community. His persona as an absurd blowhard gave audiences an excuse to brush off Limbaugh’s mainstreaming of far-right views as part of an act — just Rush being Rush, or El Rushbo, as he was often called.
Becoming A National Star
The end of the Fairness Doctrine allowed for Limbaugh’s brand of unhinged right-wing rhetoric and shock jock persona to become a media phenomenon. By 1990, his nationally syndicated show aired on 300 stations ― a number that more than doubled over the next four years.
Limbaugh’s rise turned him into a ubiquitous cultural figure in the 1990s. Limbaugh’s voice echoed for hours a day on syndicated radio stations around the country; he appeared on magazine covers and in newspaper profiles. His success made him into a curiosity for the mainstream media, but little of the coverage properly grappled with what Limbaugh was doing to radicalize his listeners.
As his radio audience grew, Limbaugh got his own half-hour television show on Fox in 1992 and created a prototype for prime time opinion shows hosted by right wing pundits like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. The show’s executive producer was Limbaugh’s longtime friend Roger Ailes, who would go on to launch Fox News in 1996 and run it for two decades until he was fired for widespread sexual harassment.
Limbaugh’s political influence made him beloved among Republican Party elites. When the GOP won the House for the first time in 40 years in 1994, Republicans called him the “majority maker.” At then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s victory party, they sold “Rush Limbaugh for President!” T-shirts.
But Limbaugh never fully tied his fate to any one politician, always staying focused on his own success above all else. “I don’t define my success by who wins elections, because politicians are going to come and go, and I’m going to be around as long as I choose to be,” Limbaugh told Time Magazine in 2008.
Like any successful right wing media star, Limbaugh had a financial angle behind his vitriol and an appetite to center himself in controversies. He turned his infamy into extreme wealth: In 2008, he signed an an eight-year deal for his show worth around $400 million. He bought a private jet and a fleet of luxury cars to usher him from place to place.
“I wanted to be the reason people listened,” Limbaugh told The New York Times in 1990. “That’s how you pad your pocket.”
While he claimed to represent the views of the average American, Limbaugh lived for years as a caricature of an East Coast elite in his luxury condo overlooking Central Park in New York City. He sold the property in 2010 for $11.5 million, moving primarily to a sprawling mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, where he lived until his death.
Meanwhile, Limbaugh used his platform to condemn policies designed to actually help working class Americans. He fervently opposed the expansion of public health care and said an Obama-era health insurance program for low-income children “ought to die.” He condemned taxes against the ultra-rich, such as himself, and fled New York after the proposal of increased taxes on millionaires.
In 2006, Limbaugh — despite once saying that all drug addicts should be convicted and “sent up the river” — struck a plea deal with prosecutors in Florida after being charged with prescription fraud. Limbaugh, who admitted to being an oxycodone addict, was accused of “doctor shopping,” the act of deliberately deceiving physicians in order to receive multiple prescriptions. Although Limbaugh had previously told his listeners that “too many whites are getting away with drug use” and should all be sent to prison, Limbaugh avoided time behind bars himself, paying a $30,000 fine and agreeing to stay clean.
Rush Limbaugh shortly after being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by First Lady Melania Trump during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in 2020.
The President’s Ear
Limbaugh was still the most popular radio host in America by the time of the 2016 election. Although initially supportive of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) during the Republican primary, he became a staunch supporter of the eventual nominee, Donald Trump. Limbaugh could be counted on to support the president during some of the most disgraceful episodes of Trump’s sole term in the White House.
In 2017 white supremacists, emboldened by Trump’s presidency, gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, for the “Unite The Right” rally, the largest such gathering in a generation. A neo-Nazi rammed his car into counter-protesters at the rally, killing one person. Trump initially refused to condemn the white supremacists, and Limbaugh swiftly came to the president’s defense, blaming anti-racist activists for the violence.
It was part of a pattern for Limbaugh, who repeatedly tried to downplay white supremacists during Trump’s four years in the White House, a period of rising far-right terror across the globe. After an avowed white supremacist massacred 51 Muslims inside two New Zealand mosques in 2019, Limbaugh speculated on air that the shooter “may in fact be a leftist” who shot Muslims “to smear” those on the right.
A day after a mob of Trump supporters — among them white supremacists and militia members — stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, ransacking the seat of American democracy, Limbaugh falsely told his listeners no looting had occurred and that the protesters only “took selfies.”
Limbaugh then endorsed the political violence, saying he disagreed with those “who say that any violence or aggression at all is unacceptable,” before invoking America’s Founding Fathers. “I am glad Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, the actual Tea Party guys, the men at Lexington and Concord didn’t feel that way,” he said.
It’s no surprise that Limbaugh sought to downplay the historic insurrection, which Trump incited. Limbaugh was a close confidant of the president, and he and Trump often went golfing together in Florida. The president sometimes called into Limbaugh’s radio show, and Limbaugh claimed they spoke on the phone weekly.
Their relationship culminated with Trump awarding Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the State of the Union address in February 2020. In his speech, Trump heralded Limbaugh as “a special man” who has inspired millions of Americans through his “decades of tireless devotion to our country.” Limbaugh had announced the day before that he had lung cancer.
The next month, when the coronavirus pandemic began sweeping across the U.S., Limbaugh promoted conspiracy theories about the virus and its death toll. Despite that, Vice President Mike Pence, the head of the White House coronavirus task force, appeared on his show multiple times during this period.
Limbaugh spent his final months on air downplaying the historic pandemic and spreading dangerous medical misinformation, including calling coronavirus “the common cold” and telling listeners “we have to remember that people die every day in America.”
On the day Limbaugh died, the coronavirus had killed more than 488,000Americans.
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.
My name is Ranae and I live in Dublin, Ireland with my wife Audrey. Our daughters Ava and Arya are 4 and 2. Our girls have two mothers, yet I am still seen as a single parent.
Audrey and I were an unlikely couple from the start. She was in her fourth and I was in my first year of acting in a theater school in Dublin. We were paired together at an open day and became friends. We were so different, yet we immediately clicked. I knew Audrey wasn’t straight, but over the course of the next year, I had no idea that I was developing feelings for her. The day before my 21st birthday the realization hit me like a bolt of lightning. The feelings I had for her were so much more than just friendship. The rest, as they say, is history.
We have been together for 12 years now, and married for five. Audrey and I always knew we wanted to have kids and talked about this from the moment we started dating. We both have lots of siblings and knew that life wouldn’t be complete for us without having our own kids. I always dreamed about being pregnant and going through the process of growing and birthing a baby. Audrey, on the other hand, didn’t really want to be pregnant as long as she could become a parent. It was almost an unspoken thing that I would be the one to carry our child, should we go down the IVF route.
One night in early 2015, after a few glasses of wine, I had an idea. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could use Audrey’s eggs but I would carry the baby? This way, our children would genetically be Audreys, but I would be the birth mother. At the time it was just a silly idea we had. Little did we know that conversation would change the course of our lives. We decided to Google it and lo and behold, we found out that it wasn’t that crazy of an idea. Reciprocal IVF was actually an incredibly popular fertility treatment option for same-sex couples. At that moment, we knew that Reciprocal IVF was right for us.
When we tried to book a clinic appointment in Dublin, we were disappointed to find out that they wouldn’t treat us in Ireland. Back in 2015, Reciprocal IVF wasn’t licensed yet. In fact it’s only been licensed in the last year. We were given the option to do IUI/IVF with my own eggs, but at that point we had our hearts set on using Audrey’s eggs. Despite the setback, it made us more determined to find a way. We found a clinic in Spain and to be honest it was a bit of a crazy time for us. We didn’t know any other LGBTQ+ parents, let alone any who had undergone treatment abroad. We had no clue what we were doing, and made so many mistakes along the way. A few months later, we conceived our first child with the help of an anonymous sperm donor.
Conceiving our first child in the wake of marriage equality in Ireland was like a dream. Wrapped up in our little bubble of happiness, we went through that pregnancy with a sense of hope for our future. We got married when I was five months along and we celebrated a future that was finally equal. Little did we know what lay ahead of us.
Toward the end of my pregnancy, we learned something that devastated us. LGBTQ+ parents in Ireland were still not equal. I remember feeling so overwhelmed with emotions and going through various stages of shock. My first reaction was ‘but we are married and we voted for marriage equality last year.’
After consulting with a solicitor, we found out more. From the moment our daughter was born I would be a married woman but considered a single mother. I would be forced to register myself as a sole parent and our family would not be recognized under the law, simply because we were a same-sex couple. The simple difference was that I was married to a woman and not a man and because of this, Audrey would be a legal stranger to her own child.
There are some moments that stick with me. Moments that were stolen from us as a young family and ones that we will never get back. The day we registered Ava’s birth, we walked into the registration office and saw all the proud parents with their babies. When they called us into the room, the registrar sat down behind her desk. Without looking up she asked, ‘OK, so which one of you is the mother?’ We said, ‘We both are.’ ‘But which one of you gave birth?’ I said, ‘I did!’ She looked at me and said, ‘OK Ranae, I will be directing all my questions at you, if that’s OK?’ From that point on, she didn’t even look at Audrey. It felt like a kick in the gut. It was just all wrong.
That was the day I promised Audrey I was never going to stop fighting until we fixed this. I joked and said, well at least this will all be sorted out by the time we have another baby. How wrong I was. Fast forward to New Year’s Eve 2018 and I lie bleeding in the recovery suite with a second daughter, listening to fireworks, my heart breaking because I knew we were still in the same position as before. As it stands today, I am considered a single parent to our daughters. Our children, along with countless others in Ireland, are denied the right to a legal connection with both of their parents simply because their parents are a same-sex couple.
Much has changed in the last five years. In 2019, following on from an online petition that I started, we started a campaign called ‘Equality For Children’ along with a group of other LGBTQ+ parents. Since then we have been successful at lobbying the government for change and raising awareness of these issues within Ireland. Legislation was finally passed in 2020 that would allow certain LGBTQ+ families to have both parents legally recognized. Sadly it’s legislation that will only cover certain methods of conception. It’s great to see progress in the right direction, but it’s galling for anyone who falls outside of this and is still being actively discriminated against. Only female couples who have conceived in an Irish clinic with a non anonymous donor and a child born in Ireland are covered.
I can’t really put into words how damaging this has been for our family. To be reminded every day that you are ‘less than.’ That you are not equal. For your kids to be punished because their parents aren’t straight. In practical terms it’s an issue for children when one of their parents is unable to give medical consent, unable to travel freely with them, unable to make decisions on their behalf. But it goes beyond that, the emotional and physiological damage it has done to our families is immeasurable.
Following on from lengthy legal proceedings, our family soon hopes to be recognized. If we are, we will be one of the lucky ones. What about all those who fall outside of this? Are their children less deserving of equality? Because they have two dads? Because they were conceived outside of a clinic? Because they have a known donor? Because they weren’t born in Ireland?
This fight will never be over until every child of an LGBTQ+ parent in Ireland has the same rights and protections as any other child in the country.
Ranae von Meding is a writer and a same-sex parent to two young daughters with her wife Audrey. They live in Dublin, Ireland where she has become an outspoken advocate for equal rights for children of LGBTQ+ families. She is the co-founder and CEO of ‘Equality For Children.’ You can find her on Instagram at @ranaevonmeding.
Former Trump official Richard Grenellis reportedly considering a run to become governor of California.
Republicans are currently pushing a recall effort in a bid to remove the state’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, which could trigger a ballot on replacing the official.
The move, which comes amid rising anger from conservatives over coronavirus restrictions in the state, has sparked inevitable jockeying over who should be put forward to replace him.
Richard Grenell hints at California bid with attack on Gavin Newsom.
Politicoreports that Grenell, one of the few openly gay figures associated with the Trump White House, is planning to announce a campaign if the recall effort qualifies for the ballot.
As the effort gathers steam, Grenell has penned an op-ed for Fox Newspressing the odd argument that Newsom has taken wildly unpopular actions to clamp down on coronavirus due to the “selfish ambitions of a career politician”.
Former Trump advisor Richard Grenell (Getty/Chip Somodevilla)
Grenell is said to be courting conservative donors in the state, though he denied suggestions he is already interviewing campaign strategists to lay the groundwork for a run.
It is unclear why the obedient Trump fanatic believes he would appeal to voters in the solidly-Democratic state, where Donald Trump attracted only a third of the vote in the 2020 presidential race.
However, Republican operative Carl DeMaio told Politico that Grenell’s association to Trump would “get the base to show up” in the race, adding that he “would have more name ID than the other names being considered”.
‘Gaslight Grenell’ was in charge of Trump LGBT+ voter outreach.
Richard Grenell held a disastrous role ahead of the 2020 election as the head of LGBT+ voter outreach, earning the moniker “Gaslight Grenell” due to his willingness to obfuscate anti-LGBT+ actions taken under the Trump administration.
One figure who is definitely not running, meanwhile, is Caitlyn Jenner. The ex-Olympian and former I Am Cait star made clear she had no interest in the vacancy, after rumours she was preparing a bid.
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.
Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, in Richmond, Va., on Feb. 5, 2021.Bob Brown / Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP
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.”
Carol Schall, Mary Townley and their daughter Emily Schall-Townley at their home in North Chesterfield, Va., on May 8, 2014.The Washington Post / The Washington Post via Getty Images file
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.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum presents a Facebook Live event on straight and gay couples that resisted through love during the Holocaust on Feb. 12 at 9:30 a.m.
The Nazis persecuted gay men as enemies of the “Reich.” Gad Beck and Manfred Lewin met in a Jewish youth group. They spent many nights together, before events of the Holocaust ripped them apart. Their story is part of the event, which also includes straight couples who found love in Nazi concentration camps.
Museum historians will discuss their stories on Facebook Live to show “how love became an act of resistance for people persecuted by the Nazi regime.” Visit the Holocaust Museum on Facebook for details on how to access the event.
