A gay Black man in Boston, Massachusetts, who was stabbed and left in a coma for four days, is living in fear knowing his attackers are still “out there”.
Anthony Crumbley was walking home from a bar in South Boston at about 10.45 pm on 18 December when he was attacked, according toCBS Boston.
The 25-year-old said: “The two males and a female approached me and two males attacked me and stabbed me in my neck and in my stomach, and pretty much ran and left me there.”
Suffering life-threatening injuries and left the bleed out on the ground, Crumbley was taken to Boston Medical Center where he spent four days in a coma in the hospital’s ICU.
Police have released a CCTV photo of people they would like to speak to in connection with the attack, but reportedly said they have no reason to believe the stabbing was a hate crime.
Crumbley insisted: “I believe it was an attack that had to do with gay hate because, you know, I dress very femme and I’m a very outspoken person.”
Still recovering in hospital, the young gay man said he is living in fear and struggling to make ends meet after being stabbed.
He wrote on a GoFundMe page: “No one has been arrested for doing this to me and I’m scared, truthfully, knowing they are still out there on the streets and could do this to me again at anytime.
“This traumatising situation has left me hopeless, after waking up from being in a coma for four days in the ICU at Boston Medical and I’m STILL here in the ICU now writing this on my birthday, December 26th.”
Crumbley’s mother passed away one year ago, and he is the legal guardian of his 12-year-old sister.
He continued: “Before all this happened I was very energetic and outgoing, always doing what was needed to make ends meet for me and my younger sister. I just don’t know how I’m going to make ends meet now with this gained disability from my attackers.”
He said that after the attack, his left arm is now not functional because of “the severed nerves in my C6 section of my shoulder”.
He continued: “I have to figure out how I’m going to ever finish raising my sister the way she deserves and give her everything I never had… Working won’t be an option for me at the moment until I can fully recover, so even though this hurts me and is so embarrassing to say I’m asking for help from anyone and everyone who knows me personally or who this even touches the slightest.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Boston Police at 617-343-4742.
LGBT+ campaigners have claimed a victory over Donald Trump, after the president sought to ban forms of diversity training among federal contractors and grantees.
Under the controversial executive order signed by Trump in September, organisations in receipt of federal funds are prohibited from training involving so-called “divisive concepts such as critical race theory, white privilege, systemic racism, or implicit or unconscious bias”.
As Trump issued the order, the White House lashed out at a “destructive ideology… grounded in misrepresentations of our country’s history and its role in the world”, as it barred federal contractors from teaching that white people bear collective responsibility for slavery.
Subsequent guidance issued by the Trump White House instructed federal agencies to clamp down on training about intersectionality – the idea that the intersections of race, class, gender and sexual orientation create intersecting layers of privilege and discrimination.
Judge hits pause on Donald Trump’s diversity training ban
While the executive order is already likely destined for the bonfire when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take office next month, a challenge brought by LGBT+ groups has secured a preliminary injunction to prevent the Trump administration from implementing it and cutting funding for federal contractors.
District court judge Beth Labson Freeman ruled on 22 December that a challenge on the grounds of free speech was likely to succeed, noting that “the executive order restricts a federal contractor’s ability to use its own funds, to train its own employees, on matters that potentially have nothing to do with the federal contract”.
The Trump administration had sought to argue it would be in the “public interest” to ban such training, but the judge hit out their claims as a “gross mischaracterisation of the speech [the groups] want to express and an insult to their work of addressing discrimination and injustice towards historically underserved communities”.
The challenge was brought by a coalition of LGBT+ and civil rights groups, including the the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the Santa Cruz Diversity Center, the AIDS Foundation, and LGBT+ elder advocacy group SAGE.
Injunction will allow LGBT+ groups to continue providing diversity training
“This injunction could not come at a more crucial time,” said SAGE CEO Michael Adams. “We have already had trainings cancelled because of the threat of this executive order, trainings that are integral to SAGE’s ability to do its work on behalf of LGBT+ older adults in a meaningful and impactful way that recognises explicitly the impact of systemic racism, sexism, and anti-LGBT+ bias on our communities and the country writ large.”
Dr Ward Carpenter of Los Angeles LGBT Center said in a statement: “President Trump’s executive order struck at the very heart of our country’s core principles, limiting freedom of speech and curtailing efforts to explore root causes of inequality.”
Ward added: “We applaud the court’s decision to halt this mean-spirited and destructive executive order, and we look forward to a new administration that will actually support efforts to address systemic discrimination and promote equality.”
A new pilot study funded by the Food and Drug Administration could be the first step toward lifting restrictions on blood donations by gay and bisexual men.
The program, called Assessing Donor Variability and New Concepts in Eligibility (Advance), has been launched by three of the nation’s largest blood centers — the American Red Cross, Vitalant and OneBlood.
Approximately 2,000 men who have sex with men (MSM) will be recruited at community health centers in San Francisco; Los Angeles; Memphis, Tennessee; Atlanta; Orlando, Florida; Miami; Washington, D.C.; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Participants must be 18 to 30, have had at least one male sex partner in the last three months and be willing to donate blood. The results could ultimately determine whether the FDA changes its blood-donor history questionnaire, asked of all potential donors to assess risk factors for infection by transfusion-transmissible diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis B.
“If the scientific evidence supports the use of the different questions, it could mean men who have sex with men who present to donate would be assessed based upon their own individual risk for HIV infection and not according to when their last sexual contact with another man occurred,” a statement on the Advance website reads.
Restrictions on certain blood donors date to the early 1980s, during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, when the FDA instituted a lifetime ban on any man who had had sex with another man since 1977. That rule, intended to keep HIV out of the blood supply, was replaced in 2015 with a year-long abstinence requirement.
After the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, more than 100 members of Congress — including Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — signed letters urging then-FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf to eliminate the deferral policy.
“We can’t say some people can give blood, other people can’t based on their sexual orientation,” then-Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., who represented Orlando at the time, told reporters, according to The Washington Blade.
Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men are the group most affected by HIV in the U.S., according to the CDC: In 2018, they accounted for 69 percent of the nearly 38,000 new HIV diagnoses across the country.
In April, as coronavirus lockdowns caused donations to plummet, the FDA quickly lowered the eligibility requirement for MSM to just three months.
The pandemic’s impact on available blood was swift and severe: By mid-March, the American Red Cross had canceled some 2,700 blood drives, resulting in 86,000 fewer donations. In April, donations at the New York Blood Center were down from an average of 9,500 a month to fewer than 2,000, according to New York state Sen. Brad Hoylman, who is gay and was initially rejected as a donor despite meeting the new criteria. “A regular month they host about 600 blood drives,” Hoylman told NBC News in May. “Last week, they hosted two.”
The three-month deferral also affects women who have sex with MSM, sex workers, injection drug users and those with recent tattoos or piercings.
In an April letter to the FDA, two New York Democrats, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and committee member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called the change “a good first step” but urged the agency to move toward assessing potential donors by individual risk.
“A policy that fails to do this perpetuates stigma and falls short of ensuring that every person who can safely donate blood in the United States has the opportunity to do so,” they said.
The Red Cross, which had encouraged the FDA to adopt the three-month deferral model, also called it “a scientifically based interim step” toward abolishing restrictions altogether.
“Blood donation eligibility should not be determined by methods that are based upon sexual orientation,” the relief organization said.
Jay Franzone.Reubelt Photography
Jay Franzone, an LGBTQ advocate who remained abstinent for a year to donate blood in January 2017, said the Advance study is long overdue.
“Italy, Spain and other nations modernized their donor policies years ago, before the U.S. even ended its lifetime ban,” he told NBC News.
More than a dozen nations — including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Colombia — have adopted a risk-based questionnaire in place of a blanket policy based on sexual orientation. Earlier this month, the U.K. became the latest.
Franzone said he’s confident the Advance study will bear out what advocates like him have been saying all along: “Individual, risk-based assessment is safer for recipients of lifesaving blood.”
Jason Cianciotto, senior managing director of institutional development and strategy at New York’s Gay Men’s Health Crisis, said it’s exciting to reach this point after more than a decade of advocating for policy change.
He did have concerns about the Advance study, though, saying 2,000 individuals “is not a representative sample,” especially as no health centers in Chicago, New York, Boston or other Northeastern cities are involved.
He speculated that the pilot study, like the three-month deferral, was spurred by the pandemic.
“When we’ve lobbied the FDA in the past, their statements showed they didn’t really see an imperative” to change the current policy, Cianciotto told NBC News. “Even though we explained the ban contributed to stigma against people with HIV.”
A 2014 study by UCLA Law’s Williams Institute found that fully repealing restrictions on gay and bisexual donors could add over a half million blood units annually, increasing the available blood supply by 2 to 4 percent.
But when advocates had mentioned gay and bisexual donors could help alleviate blood shortages, Cianciotto said, the FDA has always claimed it didn’t really have any. “Of course, no one could have predicted a nationwide shortage of blood and blood products caused by a pandemic,” he added.
That the program has started under the Trump administration, which has been accused of rolling back LGBTQ rights, increases the likelihood that it was being driven by necessity, he said.
An FDA spokesperson told NBC News that the agency “remains committed to considering alternatives to time-based deferral by generating the scientific evidence that is intended to support an individual risk-assessment-based blood donor questionnaire.”
The spokesperson indicated there is no announced timeline for the study’s completion, although ABC News reported that researchers aim to present their findings by late 2021.
Cianciotto said he hopes the program is completed and implemented before the next election.
“In a Biden administration, we’ll have an advocate like we had in the Obama administration — in fact, one who actually was in the Obama administration,” he said. “But we can’t risk this becoming a campaign issue.”
A Democratic politician has resigned from his leadership role on Providence City Council after he was recorded referring to a Black transgender activist as “it”.
Recordings surfaced last week of councilman Michael Correia, who represents ward 6 of Providence in Rhode Island, mocking trans activist Justice Gaines.
The recording sees Correia and an unnamed staffer mocking and misgendering Gaines over a run for city council, with the councilman saying: “[She’s] still working on developing [her] breasts and everything.”
Asked what Gaines would be called if elected, Correia responds: “An it. It.”
The Democratic lawmaker notably failed to apologise in his initial statement,claiming the secret recordings were a “grave intrusion of privacy” and had been taken out of context. He also suggested it was illegal to record someone without their consent in Rhode Island, which it is not.
Michael Correia ‘regrets’ causing hurt with ‘flippant’ remarks.
However, after a wave of anger in the city and calls from colleagues for him to step aside, Correia has since resigned from his position as the council’s president pro tempore.
Michael Correia, who represents ward 6 of Providence in Rhode Island (Providence City Council)
Correia said in a Facebook post: “As someone who has spent the greater part of my adult life serving my community and city, I regret that my words may have hurt anyone in the LGBTQIA community, my friends, family colleagues and constituents in that community.
“I know that LGBTQIA people struggle, face discrimination and abuse and to think that I may have somehow contributed to that sentiment is unacceptable and for that I truly apologise.
“I would like to personally apologize to Justice Gaines for any hurt that I may have inflicted on her. My words were flippant and inappropriate as a leader and as a person.
“Anyone who knows me knows that I may from time to time try to joke around but I would do anything to help someone who needed it regardless of who they are or their station in life. There is no place for discrimination in our city and again I apologize to Justice for anything I have done to hurt her.”
Correia also called for “sensitivity training” to be offered to city council members and council staff “so that we can collectively understand the importance of a safe and respectful environment”.
Despite resigning from his leadership role, Correia will remain a member of the city council.
Romania’s Constitutional Court this week struck down a law parliament adopted in June 2020 that would have, among other things, banned “activities aimed at spreading gender identity theory or opinion” in educational settings. This is a positive development as the law violated Romania’s international human rights obligations, including those undertaken as a party to the Istanbul Convention on violence against women and the European Convention on Human Rights.
The law defined “gender identity theory” as a belief that “gender is a concept that is different than the biological sex and the two are not always the same.” The fact that gender is distinct from sex is a truism in social science and widely accepted, including by the World Health Organization and the World Medical Association.
A ban on discussing gender in education settings would unjustifiably limit students’ and teachers’ rights to free expression and to information, including about gender. The law also threatened the right to health, particularly for transgender, non-binary, and intersex children, for whom denying access to information about gender could have pernicious physical and mental health consequences. In inflicting a disproportionate discriminatory impact on transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people, the ban also violated the core principle of equality based on sex. Notably, the European Court of Human Rights has on multiple occasions affirmed the obligation to protect transgender people from discrimination.
This ruling, while not available yet in full, will reverberate beyond Romania’s borders. Politicians and idealogues peddling vague notions of a threat posed by “gender identity theory” or “gender ideology,” span other countries in the region, including Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, and elsewhere, such as in Brazil. Courts and legislators should seek to curtail policies based on this dangerous rhetoric, first propagated by the Vatican and now sustained by those who seek to undermine the rights of girls, women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people. Governments around the world should be trying to counter gender stereotypes and gender-based discrimination, instead of passing laws to muzzle discussions of gender in education spaces. This ruling from Romania’s highest court is a step in the right direction.
Bella Pugh, a Black gender non-confirming teen, was shot to death after a Christmas party erupted into a night of violence earlier this month.
The 19-year-old was slain at a residence in Rosedale Avenue in Prichard, Alabama on 13 December.
Reports suggest that after Pugh was shot, party-goers waited 20 minutes before calling emergency services. Some did nothing, others took out their mobile phones and recorded.
Pugh’s mother Tiffany told Fox10 News that it was their rainbow-coloured jumpsuit that led to their murder, saying: “If [they] wasn’t wearing that dress [they] would still be alive.”
At least two other people attending the party were also injured, according to the Prichard City Police Department.
Officers added that a suspect, James Lee James Jr, turned himself in for questioning 16 December, NBC15 News reported.
He was later charged with murder and two counts of second-degree assault – however, authorities said that they are not investigating Pugh’s death as a hate crime. Their family disagree with the decision.
Tiffany believes Pugh “was killed because of what [they] was wearing, not because of who [they] was or what [they] did.”
“I loved [them] with everything in me, that’s why [they] could shine like [they] did. Everything I had I poured into [Bella].”
Pugh’s father Antonio Ruggs reflected: “Love your kids for who they
“Because you know one day they could be here, the next day they can be gone,” he added, according to MyNBC15.
With each year, the number of trans people murdered rises.
Pugh’s death is yet to be officially counted by monitoring group Human Rights Campaign, which has tracked a record number of murders of trans people in 2020.
With days left until the year ends, HRC’s count stands at 41 trans and gender non-conforming people murdered, more than any other on record.
Rising higher and higher each year, 2020 surpassed last year’s total in August.https://lockerdome.com/lad/13296932562903654?pubid=ld-5883-3439&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinknews.co.uk&rid=www.pinknews.co.uk&width=572
Activists say these numbers almost certainly fail to grasp the true scale of the problem. Local officials are not required to report killings to a centralised database, and the police and press often misgender trans and gender non-conforming victims.
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High-profile Ugandan LGBT+ rights lawyer Nicholas Opiyo was “violently arrested” on money laundering charges in what activists have said was “an attack on human rights defenders”.
Opiyo is well-known for representing LGBT+ people in the harshly anti-LGBT+ African country. He was arrested in a restaurant in Kampala on Tuesday (22 December), according to Chapter Four Uganda, a human rights organisation of which he is executive director.
Four other lawyers were also arrested: Anthony Odur, Herbert Dakasi, Simon Peter Esomu and Tenywa Hamid.
The organisation said it was deeply concerned about the “abduction and incommunicado detention” of Opiyo.
He was reportedly arrested by more than a dozen plain-clothed men with guns at Lamaro Restaurant in the suburb of Kamwokya. He was subsequently handcuffed and blindfolded alongside the four other lawyers.
‘Brutal abduction’ of human rights advocate Nicholas Opiyo condemned.
“Chapter Four is further concerned about the safety and well-being of Mr Opiyo, considering that he is being held outside of the protection of the law,” Chapter Four said in a statement released Tuesday.
“We condemn this brutal abduction and we call upon our colleagues and partners to condemn this arbitrary violation of his personal liberty, incommunicado detention, and call for his immediate unconditional release.”
Advocates for Nicholas Opiyo were granted access to see him at 11am on Wednesday (23 December).
“I feel OK health-wise – but my captors have not told me what I am being charged with. I have done nothing wrong, and of that I am absolutely sure,” Opiyo told activists.
They should have summoned him to the police to record a statement. Instead, he was violently arrested and detained incommunicado.
Chapter Four condemned the “high-handed and brutal” arrest, saying the country’s constitution is clear that a person charged with a criminal offence should be informed immediately of the charges levelled against them.
“Nicholas Opiyo is a fearless defender of human rights. His bold, unapologetic conviction and tireless work towards upholding and defending the constitutionally guaranteed rights for all is what the country needs,” said Angelo Izama, a board member with the organisation.
“We must fight against any efforts to crucify him on the altar of evolving political circumstances because wherever human beings exist – so will inalienable human rights.”
Opiyo appeared in court on Thursday (24 December) where he was remanded custody. His case was adjourned to 28 December.
“Club Kid Killer” Michael Alig — the famously flamboyant party promoter who ended up busted for murder — has been found dead of a suspected drug overdose in his Manhattan apartment, officials said Friday.
The 54-year-old former scene fixture and convict was discovered by a friend just before midnight Christmas Eve in his Washington Heights pad, authorities said.
Detectives recovered several zip-lock plastic bags, possibly containing heroin, from the home, as well as drug paraphernalia, officials said.
Growing up in a military family in Atlanta, Joshua Gravett said he knew he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, Eddie, and older brother, Justin, both sergeants first class in the Army. There was just one problem: He was gay.
Despite the military’s policy at the time of prohibiting gay men and lesbians from serving openly, Gravett, then just 17, enlisted in the Army in 2003 and kept his sexuality a secret for eight years.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Gravett honored at the Mets’ first Pride Night in 2016.Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
“You can’t have any type of relationships whatsoever. I wouldn’t be seen with anybody else that could be considered gay,” Gravett said, noting that just being suspected of being gay could get you kicked out.
President Barack Obama signed a bill setting in motion the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” on Dec. 22, 2010, but it wasn’t until after the policy was officially repealed in 2011 that Gravett finally started to come out to his friends and family. He also recalled the relief he felt just being able to put a photo of his partner on his desk at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and bring a same-sex date to a military formal.
“I could just be myself without risking the loss of my career that I had already put almost a decade into,” Gravett, now 35 and a sergeant first class stationed in Texas, told NBC News. “It was like a huge weight lifted off me.”
Gravett recalled being “happy” the day President Barack Obama signed the repeal bill but said he “still couldn’t be out until it took effect” nine months later.
“It was almost like finding out you are getting promoted, but it isn’t real until it actually happens,” he said.
An estimated 13,000 service members were discharged in the 17 years the policy was in effect, according to data the military provided to The Associated Press.
A decade after the demise of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” much has changed for LGBTQ Americans, but several gay service members and military experts say the policy’s dark shadow still lingers.
A defunct policy’s lingering shadow
When President Bill Clinton signed “don’t ask, don’t tell” into law in 1993, it was a compromise between the White House and Congress to end the existing policy of outright banning gay service members that had dated to World War II. Under the new policy — which passed 77-22, with bipartisan support — gay men, lesbians and bisexuals were in theory permitted to serve in the military, but they would be “separated from the armed forces” if they revealed themselves to be homosexual or bisexual, tried to marry a person of the same sex, or there was evidence they had engaged in same-sex sexual activity.
Gravett said the policy has left a “hurtful” legacy, and he mentioned being a part of several Facebook groups where former service members lament losing their military careers because of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and not being able to serve again.
He also noted that many service members who were ousted under the policy are not aware that they may be able to seek remedies from the military.
“Most people that got out under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ can get their discharges upgraded from general discharge to honorable discharge,” he said, encouraging those who haven’t tried already to do so.
Jennifer Dane, an Air Force veteran, was investigated under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 2010.Courtesy Jennifer Dane
Jennifer Dane, a Texas native who joined the military at 22 and served as an intelligence analyst in the Air Force from 2010 to 2016, said that when it comes to “don’t ask, don’t tell,” there are “still unintended consequences that aren’t even explored to the fullest, even 10 years later.”
Dane, now 33, said she was stationed in Tucson, Arizona, when she was investigated under “don’t ask, don’t tell” after reporting that she has been sexually assaulted by an airman. Over the course of the investigation, Dane said her sexuality came to light, which turned the investigation toward her. The investigation stopped after Obama signed the repeal bill, according to Dane.
Now the executive director of the Modern Military Association of America, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ veterans and their families, Dane said she would like to see some of these past “wrongs” caused by the policy “written right,” like a public apology from the government or even just “making sure that we don’t do policies that are harmful” again.
Dane added that some LGBTQ veterans who were discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell” still do not get access to medical care, the GI Bill and military pensions. This does not include the emotional trauma that service members endured under the policy, she added.
Aaron Belkin is the founder of the Palm Center, an independent research institute in San Francisco that focuses on LGBTQ military issues. His organization helped make the case for the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
“We did 10 years of research into that question of whether it’s true that gay lesbians hurt the military, and what our research found was that it’s discrimination that hurts the military, not gays and lesbians,” Belkin said.
Belkin, Dane and Gravett all drew parallels between the former ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military and the current ban on transgender service members from doing so.
“The Trump administration’s transgender ban is ‘don’t ask, don’t tell for transgender troops, and the similarities are striking,” Belkin said. His organization, using 2016 data from the Department of Defense, estimates there are currently 14,700 transgender service memberson active duty or in the reserves.
‘A new era of LGBTQ rights’
One of the thousands of currently serving transgender service members is Iowa native Samuel Payntr. Now 22, Payntr began serving openly as a transgender man in the Navy at 19 when he got to his ship stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. He began hormone treatment the day before the ban on trans troops serving openly took effect on April 11, 2019. He said that while some were accepting of his transition, others weren’t sure how to respond, because it was seen as a “gray area” at the time.
“I had to really be careful about what I said around some people regarding my personal life and my sexual orientation in my transition, because there were quite a few people that had very negative remarks,” said Paytnr, who is able to serve openly as transgender because he joined the military before the transgender ban was reinstated. “I’ve had some kind of bad things happen, but the good kind of always outweigh the bad with the people that did support me.”
Transgender individuals with no history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria are technically still allowed to join the military and serve under the policy, though they must do so as their birth sex. Payntr explained that some hormone treatments make some service members ineligible to serve, adding he knows both trans service members who were terminated after the ban went into effect and those who were not depending on their diagnosis.
“Luckily, depending on the command we were at or the branch we were in, we had the people who were very knowledgeable in our transition defend us and be like, ‘No, this does not affect your service,’ and that’s literally what happened to me and quite a few other people that I know that are in the Navy who are transitioning,” he said.
In his policy platform, President-elect Joe Biden stated that he will “reverse the transgender military ban.” And since the ban was enforced as a presidential directive, Biden would be able to reverse it unilaterally. Payntr expressed optimism that Biden will make good on this promise.
At the 2020 International LGBTQ Leaders Conference this month, Biden honored Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for her work in repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” a decade ago and appeared to hint at a future repeal of the current trans military ban.
“I can’t wait to work together with you again and to continue to fight for full equality and usher in a new era of LGBTQ rights and the entire movement,” said Biden, who takes office on Jan. 20.
The newly engaged couple Kasey Mayfield and Brianna May did not expect to ignite an online backlash when they shared on Facebook a recent email exchange that Mayfield had with an employee at a North Carolina wedding venue.
In the exchange, Mayfield mentions potential wedding dates, the estimated number of guests and the “other bride.” In response, the venue informed her that The Warehouse on Ivy in Winston-Salem does “not host same sex marriage ceremonies.”
Brianna May, left, and Kasey Mayfield shortly after their engagement.Chelsea Clayton
“If you’re wondering how wedding planning is going…thanks so much to The Warehouse on Ivy for letting us know we’re not welcome,” May captioned the photo of the exchange, which had over 1,400 shares on Tuesday.
“I was kind of speechless,” Mayfield said of reading the email. “I just had to like hand the phone over to Bri when I got it.”
“I had hoped that this wouldn’t happen in North Carolina, but I thought there was a chance it may. I didn’t expect it from a venue in Winston,” added Mayfield, 25, who has lived in the area for the past 10 years. May, 29, was born and raised in Winston-Salem.
The couple met on the dating app Bumble over two years ago and got engaged last month while listening to their favorite album, “Golden Hour” by Kacey Musgraves. They had only just started planning for their wedding, which they hope to hold in the fall of 2022. Mayfield said she and May first heard of The Warehouse on Ivy through the online wedding resource Wedding Wire.https://www.facebook.com/v2.10/plugins/post.php?app_id=&channel=https%3A%2F%2Fstaticxx.facebook.com%2Fx%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter%2F%3Fversion%3D46%23cb%3Df3dc6d7212d2b2a%26domain%3Dwww.nbcnews.com%26origin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.nbcnews.com%252Ff330e4902461704%26relation%3Dparent.parent&container_width=480&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fbrianna.may.395%2Fposts%2F10220437554034235&locale=en_US&sdk=joey&show_text=true&width=auto
‘Christian values’
The venue did not tell May and Mayfield why it does not host same-sex marriage ceremonies. However, in an email exchange with NBC News, the same email account, which lists the sender’s name as Daniel Stanley, confirmed the couple’s assumptions surrounding the decision.
“We will allow anyone of any color, race, religion or belief to use our venue at any given time,” the email stated. “Although we love and respect everyone in our community, their own decision making and beliefs, we also strongly believe in our Christian values.”
Multiple attempts to confirm that the statement was sent by Stanley, whose LinkedIn account says he’s the venue’s director, were ignored, as were questions surrounding the venue’s ownership.
According to North Carolina incorporation filings, The Warehouse on Ivy is owned by STC Properties of Forsyth County and lists Thomas Collins and Scott Sechler as the company’s managers. Reporting from The Winston-Salem Monthly, which features interviews with the Sechler family about the recently opened venue, confirms Sechler’s ownership.
Multiple attempts to reach Sechler and Collins were unsuccessful, and by Monday the venue had taken down its Facebook and Instagram pages.
‘Free to discriminate’
The issue of where anti-discrimination laws begin and First Amendment and religious liberty rights end remains something of an open question legally — and much of it depends on state law.
In the high-profile 2018 case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled in favor of Christian baker Jack Phillips, who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. But instead of answering the fundamental question of whether it is legal to discriminate based on sexual orientation, the high court simply found that Phillips’ concerns weren’t fairly considered by Colorado officials.
In a similar case, the Washington Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that Arlene Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers, was in violation of that state’s anti-discrimination law for refusing to provide flowers for a gay couple’s wedding ceremony. The shop has appealed, for the second time, to the Supreme Court. Its petition is pending.
With no explicit state protections and no federal legislation banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination in public accommodations, a state like North Carolina leaves little room for legal recourse, according to Paul Smith, a Georgetown Law School professor who argued the landmark 2003 LGBTQ rights case Lawrence v. Texas before the Supreme Court.
“The only shot would seem to be finding a state law that prohibits sex discrimination in the provision of goods and services and then convincing North Carolina to read ‘sex discrimination’ in its law as broadly as the majority did in Bostock [v. Clayton County, Georgia],” Smith said, referring to the landmark ruling this year that found that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 offered workplace discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Rick Su, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, was even less optimistic when it comes to the state.
“North Carolina has no state law on public accommodations not related to disabilities and no anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBT identity,” Su told NBC News. “Given there is no federal law protecting LGBT [people] either, this would mean that the wedding venue is free to discriminate.”
There are, however, two things that could potentially change this in the near future: the Equality Act and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. The former is proposed federal legislation that would add LGBTQ protections to existing federal civil rights law. It passed in the House last year, and President-elect Joe Biden has said he would like to sign it within his first 100 days in office.
The latter is a case before the Supreme Court that will determine whether a government-funded, religiously affiliated child welfare agency can circumvent local nondiscrimination laws and refuse to work with LGBTQ people. If the justices issue a broad ruling in the case, it could have far-reaching implications, according to legal experts.
A silver lining
Mayfield said she and May “aren’t considering legal action at this time,” but she added that they are “urging our friends to email legislators to help try and pass discrimination laws for LGBTQ people.”
In addition to advocating for legislative action, the couple also wants to get the word out to the local LGBTQ community about The Warehouse on Ivy’s policies.
“We have a lot of gay friends in our circle, so I wanted to hopefully save people the time and, kind of, hurt and energy, from getting rejected based on our sexual orientation,” May said of their decision to go public about the ordeal.
In addition to receiving “kind and encouraging words” in response to her now-viral Facebook post, May said she’s also received some helpful wedding tips and offers.
“We’ve gotten so many wonderful recommendations for other vendors and venues, and we’ve had people offering services,” she said.
Summing up the experience — from the venue’s rejection to the viral social media response to the messages of support — Mayfield said it’s all been “definitely overwhelming, but in a good way.”
