The Michigan Supreme Court broke new ground Monday in a dispute over parental rights, saying a woman can seek custody of her partner’s child who was born before their same-sex relationship ended.
Carrie Pueblo has no biological ties to a boy who was born to Rachel Haas in 2008 but had helped raise him. Pueblo insists they would have been married at that time if same-sex marriage had been legal in Michigan, a status that could have given her a formal role in the child’s life even if the marriage had ended.
“While the decision in this case likely affects few, it is, nonetheless, important for what it represents,” Justice Megan Cavanagh said in a 5-2 opinion.
“Justice does not depend on family composition; all who petition for recognition of their parental rights are entitled to equal treatment under the law,” Cavanagh wrote.
Pueblo and Haas had raised the boy together after their relationship ended. But by 2017, Pueblo said Haas demanded that she stop having contact with the child.
Pueblo now can return to a Kalamazoo County court and attempt to show that she and Haas would have been married, if possible, when the boy was born through in vitro fertilization.
If a judge agrees, Pueblo then can be evaluated for “custody and parenting time,” the Supreme Court said.
Haas’ attorney had urged the Supreme Court in April to stay on the sidelines and let the Legislature change the law if lawmakers believe it would be appropriate. Justice Brian Zahra agreed with that position in his dissent.
“I am uncomfortable with retroactively recognizing a marriage-equivalent relationship. … Courts will be required to dive into all public and private aspects of a now-defunct relationship to hypothesize whether the couple would have chosen to marry,” said Zahra, who was joined by Justice David Viviano.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating after a deputy threw a transgender man to the ground, punched him and held him down as the man called for help. During the encounter, which was caught on recently released surveillance video, the man could be heard telling the deputy that he couldn’t breathe and at one point said, “You’re going to kill me.”
Emmett Brock, 24, told NBC News he was driving home from his job as a teacher in February when he passed a deputy who appeared to be having a heated conversation with a woman on the side of the road. Brock said he gave the deputy the middle finger as he drove by, and that a patrol vehicle started following him, but the deputy never turned on the vehicle’s sirens or lights.
He said the vehicle tailgated him through several blocks of a residential neighborhood, so he called 911 to ask if he was being pulled over even though there were no lights or sirens.
“I was told if there were no lights and sirens, then I wasn’t being pulled over and could continue to where I was going,” Brock said.
Brock pulled into a 7-Eleven in Whittier, a Los Angeles suburb, and Deputy Joseph Benza parked behind Brock’s vehicle, according to video from the store’s security cameras that Tom Beck, Brock’s attorney, provided to NBC News.
Brock exited his vehicle and, as he closed his car door, Benza said, “I stopped you,” the video shows. Brock responded, “No, you didn’t,” with the knowledge that he had called 911 to check, he said. But then he said the deputy’s hands were on him, and he immediately panicked and thought, “I’m going to die.”
Benza grabbed him, threw him to the ground and then held Brock for three minutes while repeatedly punching him in the head, the video shows.
“You’re going to kill me,” Brock is heard yelling. “You’re going to f—ing kill me. Help! Help! Help! I’m not resisting!”
Brock said he’s 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 115 pounds, and he estimated Benza is about 6 feet tall and 180 pounds.
“His entire body weight is on top of me, and he flipped me over and threw me on my head,” Brock said, adding that his glasses broke immediately. “I’ve never even been in a fight, I’ve never had a speeding ticket, nothing like that. So I’ve never been punched before, and to have these full-force blows from behind from this deputy that is so much bigger than me, it was just, there’s no way I’m getting out of this alive.”
After the struggle, Benza arrested Brock and put him in the patrol vehicle.
Benza said he pulled Brock over because there was an object hanging from his rearview mirror, and it appeared to obstruct the driver’s forward view in violation of a California code, according to an arrest report Beck provided to NBC News.
Benza wrote in the arrest report that he activated “my patrol vehicle overhead lights, which include a fixed forward-facing red lamp,” though the overhead lights were not on when Benza pulled into the 7-Eleven parking lot behind Brock, the video shows.
Benza wrote that he got out of his car and told Brock he “stopped (detained) him,”Brock said he didn’t, and “it appeared he was about to walk away from the car and myself.” He added that Brock’s “rejection of my traffic detention and his apparent intent to distance himself from his vehicle further raised safety concerns.”
“I know from my training and experience that those who possess contraband items inside vehicles commonly attempt to disassociate themselves from their vehicles when law enforcement is present,” Benza wrote.
Benza added that he feared Brock was going to punch him and that Brock “continuously tried to bite” him. He said he punched Brock “approximately eight times in rapid succession.”
“My punches had their intended effect,” Benza wrote, adding that Brock subsequently stopped trying to bite him and wrapped his arms around his own head.
Benza did not reply to a request for comment.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in an emailed statement that it “takes all use of force incidents seriously.”
“The Department is investigating the information and allegations brought forward by Mr. Brock and his attorney,” the statement said. “Unfortunately, we cannot comment any further at this time due to the pending litigation in this matter.”
Brock was booked at the Norwalk Sheriff’s Station, which is part of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, where he said he told staff he is transgender.
“And the jailer began to just badger me with questions,” Brock said, including, “So, you’re actually a woman?” and “Do you have a penis? If you don’t have a penis, then you’re definitely a woman.”
“I’m seeing him get angrier and angrier every time I deny that I’m a woman,” Brock said. He feared the jail would increase his bail if he argued, so he decided to just nod his head and say “OK.” He added that the gender markers on all of his identity documents say male.
The male jail employee then brought in a female employee who told Brock she was going to need to “see everything,” Brock recalled. So she brought him to a nearby bathroom and he showed her his genitals and explained what surgeries he has had and the effects of testosterone before being placed in a women’s holding cell.
“I’m not sure what I could have shown her on my body that would have been enough for them,” Brock said. “I just felt so demeaned. I felt humiliated. I felt small. Here are these police officers, these sheriff’s deputies telling you to do something while you’re in their custody, and if you don’t want to make it worse for yourself, and you don’t want your bail to be higher and you don’t want to be stuck there longer, you have to comply with anything they say. You are completely powerless.”
The sheriff’s department did not respond to questions regarding Brock’s allegations.
Brock said he was booked on three felony charges of mayhem, resisting arrest and obstruction, along with a misdemeanor charge of failure to obey a police officer. He said he lost his teaching job three days later due to the pending charges and is still unemployed. He said his girlfriend and his parents have been supporting him, but that he is also accruing debt.
Prosecutors have since decided to pursue two misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest and battery on an officer, according to arrest records.
Brock said he has anxiety every time he drives his car, because he fears someone from the sheriff’s department will know the make and model of his car and pull him over. The arrest also took one of his greatest sources of fulfillment: his job. He worked as a 12th grade English teacher at an alternative school for at-risk youth.
“That was my self-worth. That’s where I got my fulfillment in life, was helping others, teaching these students and being there for them,” he said. “So when I lost that I just, that was my happiness, and it’s been a lot of depression and hopelessness.”
He said people have asked him if he regrets giving the deputy the middle finger as he drove by, but he said he doesn’t.
“I felt like that’s what I could do in that moment to stand up for that woman,” he said, adding that the deputy appeared to be harassing the woman. “I regret that he reacted so poorly and so angrily and then he beat me for that. But I don’t regret expressing my First Amendment right.”
Increased representation and awareness of LGBTQ+ communities in entertainment, politics, and business seems to have increased anti-LGBTQ+ activism, according to a new report from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. As a result, right-wing extremists stepped up their attacks on LGBTQ+ people during Pride Month celebrations nationwide.
Researchers found a spike in anti-LGBTQ+ protests during Pride celebrations, including in historically liberal states like California. One in five demonstrations took place there last month, according to the group.
Aside from anti-Pride protests, ACLED also notes that many of these protests targeted drag shows and gender-affirming care. Most anti-LGBTQ+ events were reported in Texas, New York, and California, with 26 states and the District of Columbia reporting events.
The organization reported that in 2022 far-right extremists committed more than 300 percent more anti-LGBTQ+ acts than the previous year, which “strongly” correlates with subsequent violence against gays and transgender people.
Actors on the right who haven’t always agreed on their particular take on ideology have joined forces against a common enemy: wokeness.
As a result, white supremacists and neo-Nazis have joined forces with violent street thugs like the Proud Boys and Christian nationalist groups to target LGBTQ+ communities.
Nevertheless, this adverse reaction to the rise in acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, as emphasized by corporations like Target during Pride Month, may result in a backlash. Despite most Americans’ support for gay marriage, images of vigilantes deciding who can read library books may not sit well with them.
According to ACLED, about half of June’s anti-LGBTQ+ protests were countered by pro-LGBTQ+ demonstrators. In addition, the group found twice as many LGBTQ-friendly events as anti-LGBTQ+ events.
On the most recent episode of her MSNBC show, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki devoted a segment to exposing the right-wing extremist agenda of the anti-LGBTQ+ organization Moms for Liberty.
Anyone who has been paying attention to the frequent chaos and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric at school board meetings nationwide and efforts to ban books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color, you’re already well aware of what Moms for Liberty stands for.
SPLC said the hate group is “at the forefront” of the “mobilization” of right-wing extremist groups claiming to fight for “parents’ rights.”
But as Psaki noted on the July 16 episode of Inside with Jen Psaki, the organization claims to be non-partisan. That, along with the group’s misleading and innocuous-sounding name, has left many people confused about Moms for Liberty’s agenda — even after they themselves get involved with the group.
“Moms: great, sounds good. Liberty: awesome, who doesn’t like liberty? ‘Moms for Liberty.’ As the mom of two young kids, that even sounds good to me,” Psaki said. “But it’s vague enough, that even some of its own members are pretty unclear as to what the group is really all about, what they’re a part of.”
“Well, I’m here to help,” she continued. “Because as benign as Moms for Liberty may sound, its agenda is unmistakably extreme.”
She went on to catalog the group’s tactics and causes, including leading the movement to ban books, turning school board meetings into screaming matches, and intimidating both local officials and others in their communities.
“Chapters and members across the country have led campaigns targeting community advocates, school board members, and opposing groups,” Psaki explained. “They’ve repeatedly sent intimidating messages, openly threatened officials, and even baselessly leveled charges of child abuse and sympathizing with pedophilia.”
She also noted that one Indiana chapter infamously included an Adolph Hitler quote in a newsletter. The group apologized but later defended the inclusion of the quote.
Psaki also demolished Moms for Liberty’s claim that it is a nonpartisan organization. “Consider this,” she said. “One of the founders, whose name is notably omitted from its website, is a current Republican school board member who is married to the now-chairman of the Florida Republican Party. In 2021, he told the Washington Post, ‘I have been trying for a dozen years to get 20- and 30-year-old females involved with the Republican Party. But now Moms for Liberty has done it for me.’”
“So, below the surface of their friendly-sounding name, and politically vague taglines,” Psaki concluded, “they’re an unapologetically extreme organization that has built a long record of harassment and controversy, in a pretty short period of time.”
The rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people have taken center stage ahead of Spain’s July 23 national election.
Opinion polls predict Alberto Nunez Feijoo’s conservative People’s Party (PP) will win the election after four years of coalition government by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists and the leftist Unidas Podemos.
But Feijoo would likely need the support of the far-right Vox party to form a government. Vox has strongly opposed LGBTQ rights.
Here is what you need to know.
Why are LGBTQ+ advocates worried?
Local elections in May paved the way for PP-Vox coalitions in several Spanish municipalities.
Vox made headlines in May by hanging a sign from a Madrid building showing a hand dropping cards with symbols representing feminism, communism, the LGBTQ community and Catalan independence into a rubbish bin.
A new Vox-led authority in the small eastern town of Naquera last month said it would no longer display the rainbow-colored flag on public buildings.
In Valdemorillo, a small town near Madrid, the new PP-Vox council cancelled a performance of a theatre adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel “Orlando,” in which the protagonist changes gender.
What do right-wing parties advocate?
Both Vox and the PP have promised to take action against some pro-LGBTQ measures passed by the left-wing government.
They have both pledged to change a self-determination law that came into force in March, allowing trans people over 16 to change their legal gender simply by informing the official registry, rather than undergoing two years of hormone treatment.
The law also allows children over 14 to change their legal gender with parental approval.
The PP and Vox, as well as some women’s rights groups, argue the legislation puts women in single-sex spaces at risk and have accused the left of forcing children to medically transition.
“Changing your sex is easier than getting a driver’s license,” Feijoo said. Vox party leader Santiago Abascal said “the ‘trans law’ discriminates against women.”
But the parties have not clarified which parts of the law they would revoke. The legislation also banned so-called conversion therapy, which aims to change someone’s sexual orientation and gender identity, and unnecessary surgery on intersex babies, who are born neither exclusively male nor female.
Both the PP and Vox declined to answer requests for comment.
Vox has also proposed allowing parents to take their children out of sex education classes and lessons covering sexual and gender diversity.
What do LGBTQ activists say?
Spain is fourth in the ranking of European countries’ LGBTQ rights by advocacy group ILGA-Europe, but LGBTQ activists said a PP-Vox government would roll back their rights.
Several international surveys rank Spain amongst the most LGBTQ-friendly societies in the world, although hate crimes against the community rose by 68% between 2019 and 2021, Interior Ministry data showed.
A right-wing government could also target LGBTQ rights by failing to implement existing laws, said Uge Sangil, head of LGBTQ umbrella group, FELGTB.
“We could go back 40 years,” Sangil said.
For some, a PP-Vox coalition could also delay long-awaited measures such as including a nonbinary option on identity documents.
“It would not only mean bring a setback in rights — we would also have practically no chances of moving forward,” said Darko Decimavilla, a nonbinary activist.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in Cameroon are all too aware of homophobic rhetoric and violent attacks against them. This has been highlighted once again in the outpouring of vitriol before a scheduled visit by Jean-Marc Berthon, the French ambassador for the Rights of LGBT+ Persons.
Berthon was due to visit Cameroon later last month for an event on gender and sexuality hosted by the French Institute in Yaoundé, the capital. Cameroon’s government officially registered its objection to the visit, and Foreign Minister Lejeune Mbella Mbella said in the media that the visit would contravene Cameroonian law, which forbids consensual same-sex relations.
The visit was then cancelled.
Since the visit was announced, many people have called for mob justice and violence against LGBT persons on social media. Some government and political officials, as well as public figures, referred to LGBT people as “against nature,” “an anomaly,” “vampire citizens,” “destructive of the family,” “destructive of the state,” or as using “satanic and demonic practices.” In addition to this online hatred, people perceived as LGBT live with constant threats of harassment and physical violence every day.
Tamu (not their real name), an LGBT activist living in Yaoundé, told me, “The situation is very tense. People are scared. Everywhere you go you hear: ‘We have to burn them all.’ … There are young [LGBT] people calling me from everywhere. They don’t know what to do.”
The foreign minister claimed that there are no LGBT people in Cameroon, which is patently false. LGBT groups exist in Cameroon and several even manage to work with the government on initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS. But Cameroon has a dismal track record on upholding the rights of LGBT people. Security forces have failed to protect LGBT people from violence and in some instances have been responsible for acts of violence, or complicit in them. The Cameroonian government should unequivocally condemn violence and incitement to violence against LGBT people, investigate such crimes against LGBT persons, and bring those responsible to justice.
July 22 at 12:00 Noon at the Guerneville Library we will have Storytiume with the Sisters. This will be interactive fun for kids of all ages!
August 8 Give Back Tuesday 6:00 – 8:00 pm at the Rainbow Cattle Company for the Russian River Grants Program
August 13 from 2:00 – 7:00pm the Russian River Sisters will be
OUT AT THE FAIR! See you at the Sonoma County Fair!
August 22 Give Back Tuesday 6:00 – 8:00 pm at the Rainbow Cattle Company for the Cold Hands, Warm Hearts Program.
September 5 Give Back Tuesday 6:00 – 8:00 pm at the Rainbow Cattle Company for the NOTA Scholarship Program
Keep your eyes out, you never know when the Russian River Sisters will pop up!
BINGO News
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In June, the Japanese Diet, the national legislature of Japan, passed its first-ever law on sexual orientation and gender identity. It seeks to “promote understanding” and avoid “unfair discrimination.” The law states that “all citizens, irrespective of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, are to be respected as individuals with inherent and inviolable fundamental human rights.” While a good start, the measure falls short of the comprehensive nondiscrimination legislation called for by a number of Japanese rights groups.
The legislation obligates the national government to draw up a basic implementation plan to promote understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, and to protect them from “unfair discrimination.” It also stipulates that government entities, businesses, and schools “need to strive” to take similar action.
A first draft of the bill had to be shelved following opposition from conservative members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which included prejudiced statements and political posturing. But in early 2023, LGBT rights groups united to revive the bill, launching a new Group of Seven (G7) engagement group, Pride7, to establish a dialogue between civic groups and G7 governments about LGBT-related policies. With encouragement from peer G7 nations, the LDP submitted a revised bill to the Diet on May 18, a day before the G7 summit began in Hiroshima. But again, facing opposition from lawmakers, the bill was subject to delays and revisions.
The long journey for equality for Japan’s LGBT community is not over. This new law, while advancing the rights of LGBT people, falls well short of ensuring them equal protection from discrimination.
A transgender male wheelchair user was shot five times with a pellet gun during an anti-LGBTQ+ assault. He’s now sharing his story to highlight both the attack and the poor hospital care he allegedly received afterward. He also hopes to encourage other trans people to speak out about their own experiences.
Around midnight on Saturday, July 15, Andrew Jonathan Blake-Newton of Pontiac, Michigan rode in his power wheelchair to get groceries at a store about two blocks away from his home. During his trip, a person in a small beige 4-door car began shooting him and then drove away while laughing and calling him a “tra**y fa**ot.”
Several bones in his face were fractured in the attack.
The pellets were embedded in his right wrist, right side, right leg, and left leg, with blood leaking out from each small wound. Blake-Newton — who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair full-time — immediately contacted his husband, who called an ambulance.
But Blake-Newton said the care staff at St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital provided inadequate care.
“They got the pellets out, caused me severe pain by taking their sweet time doing X-rays while I sobbed on the metal table trapped on my back,” he stated in a public Facebook video.
He worried that the puncture wounds could become seriously infected but said the hospital staff’s wound dressings all came off in under 15 minutes after they were applied. He also said that hospital workers refused to provide “anti-infection and wound care supplies,” and he had no way to get home since the ambulance had no space to accommodate his wheelchair.
Though he notified the police, he didn’t get a plate number and couldn’t describe the assailant since he has facial blindness, so he’s doubtful that anything will be done.
The Human Rights Campaign, which tracks each year’s anti-trans murders, has said that transphobic assaults have increased over the past few years as conservatives have increasingly accused trans, queer, and allied individuals of “grooming,” “sexualizing,” and “mutilating” children. The true number of anti-trans assaults in the U.S. is difficult to quantify since some police and media reports don’t record trans survivors’ gender identities, and some trans survivors don’t report attacks for fear of police mistreatment.
Nonetheless, Blake-Newton wrote, “No trans person should have to fear leaving their home… My hope is that my story will spread and that one trans voice, one trans experience will encourage other trans voices to join until we finally become loud enough to be heard and that real change will be made.”
The Montana State Library Commission voted Tuesday to leave the American Library Association, the oldest and largest library association in the world, because the ALA’s president described herself as a “Marxist lesbian” in a social media post last year.
Emily Drabinski, who was elected president of the ALA in April 2022 and took office this month, celebrated her election in a social media post that has since been deleted.
“I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary,” Drabinksi wrote in a tweet last year. “I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity! And my mom is SO PROUD I love you mom.”
During a meeting Tuesday, Tom Burnett, a member of the Montana State Library Commission, made a motion to “immediately withdraw” the state library from the ALA and send the association a letter to explain that “our oath of office and resulting duty to the Constitution forbids association with an organization led by a Marxist,” according to the Montana Free Press.
In a statement published on its website Thursday, the ALA — a nonpartisan nonprofit founded in 1876 — outlined its mission, described how its presidents are elected and noted that ALA’s operational decisions are “made by ALA staff leadership working with a full range of committees and advisory groups.”
It also described how the Montana State Library has benefited from ALA membership, including more than $218,000 in program grants over the past two years and a 24% increase in federal funding from 2019 to 2023.
“Despite the decision in Montana this week, ALA remains committed to providing essential support, resources, and opportunities for every library and library worker in every state and territory across the nation to help them better serve their communities,” the group said.
Drabinski did not immediately return a request for comment.
After about an hour of public comment Tuesday, the commission voted 5-1-1 in favor of the motion. Commission Chair Peggy Taylor abstained, and Commissioner Brian Rossmann, the only active librarian on the commission, cast the one opposing vote.
Dana Gonzalez, who spoke in favor of withdrawing from the ALA, said the commission “ought not promote, celebrate or support what scripture condemns” and then quoted Bible scriptures that she said condemned what Drabinski wrote in her tweet, according to the Daily Montanan.
Bozeman parent Cheryl Tusken also spoke in favor of the motion.
“I think this is a really good move to send a really clear signal to our national organizations that we are not in agreement with the direction they are taking these organizations,” Tusken said, according to the Montana Free Press.
Rossmann, who works at the Montana State University Library, said the ALA presidency is “largely a ceremonial role,” the Montana Free Press reported.
Susan Gregory, the director of the Bozeman Public Library, spoke in opposition to the measure. In her 40 years of involvement with the ALA, she said, she has never seen the organization provide a program or presentation about Marxism.
“We don’t leave the United States because we don’t like or agree with whomever the sitting President of the United States is,” Gregory said in a written statement to the commission. “I hope that the Montana State Library Commission will understand the critical importance of remaining in our professional association so that we know what is happening in the world, our country and neighboring states to improve public libraries.”
Last year, the Montana State Library Commission voted down a proposed logo that used rainbow colors because some members said it didn’t clearly convey the library’s work. During debate over the logo, multiple members who ultimately voted against it said it looked too similar to the LGBTQ Pride flag, the Montana Free Press reported. The commission subsequently adopted an alternate logowith an updated color scheme.
The commission’s actions are examples of a larger trend of libraries being pulled into the national debate over what information children can access freely at school or in libraries — particularly when that information includes LGBTQ people or themes.
Conservative advocacy groups and some elected officials have painted LGBTQ books and content in schools as “grooming,” using a decades-old false moral panic about LGBTQ people.
In the last few years, parents and local conservative advocacy groups have started asking for certain books to be removed completely from schools and public libraries. In its annual book censorship report, the ALA found that there was a 75% increase in the number of challenges against books between 2021 and 2022.
Of the 13 books that made the ALA’s “Most Challenged Books” list in 2022, seven — more than half — were challenged for having LGBTQ content.