Pete Buttigieg was accused of “contradicting God’s word” by pastor Rhyan Glezman, the older brother of his husband Chasten.
Glezman spoke out after Buttigieg questioned how Christians could support Donald Trump.
“Well, I’m not going to tell other Christians how to be Christians, he said during a CNN town hall event on Tuesday, February 18.
“But I will say I cannot find any compatibility between the way this president conducts himself and anything that I find in Scripture.”
The Democrat’s brother-in-law said that it was the “the height of intellectual dishonesty for Pete to make claims that there’s no compatibility with being a Christian and voting for Trump”.
“Just everything that Pete is pushing is, it’s anti-God. I’m just gonna be honest with you,” he told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight.
He’s the one that is openly contradicting God’s word over and over.
Glezman has previously spoken out against the Buttigiegs, telling The Washington Post that “while he wants the best” for his brother, he doesn’t “support the gay lifestyle”.
The pastor was interviewed for a profile of Chasten, in which the would-be first gentleman said he had been forced to leave home after coming out because his brothers rejected him.
Glezman rejected this version of events, and accused the Buttigeigs of making up the story for political clout.
“A mayor from a small city and his husband, a child who grew up with nothing and his parents kicked him out … it makes a perfect political story for the campaign,” he told The Washington Examiner.
“To me that’s very sad. If that’s all you have to stand on, you’re not fit to be president of the United States.”
Pete Buttigieg goes into Nevada caucuses after trying week.
Buttigieg’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination will be tested on Saturday, February 22 at the Nevada caucuses.
The former South Bend, Indiana mayor has spent much of the week defending himself after right-wing commentator Rush Limbaugh questioned his suitability for the White House as a gay man.
Buttigieg fired barbs at both Limbaugh and Trump at the CNN town hall event, laughing at “the idea that the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Donald Trump [could be] lecturing anybody on family values”.
“One thing about my marriage is it’s never involved me having to send hush money to a porn star,” he added.
A man has detailed the alleged sexual abuse he suffered 50 years ago at the hands of a now-deceased university doctor who treated “all the gay men”.
Robert E Anderson was formerly a director of the health service at the University of Michigan, and worked at the university from 1968 until 2003. He passed away in 2008.
According to The Detroit News, University of Michigan officials announced on Wednesday, February 19, that since July 2018 they had been investigating multiple reports of “sexual misconduct and unnecessary medical exams” by Anderson’s former patients.
Most of the alleged incidents took place in the 1970s, but at least one former patient said they were abused in the 1990s.
University of Michigan president Mark Schlissel said in a statement: “The allegations that were reported are disturbing and very serious. We promptly began a police investigation and cooperated fully with the prosecutor’s office.”
One of Anderson’s alleged victims, Robert Julian Stone, has spoken out about his experience of being one of the doctor’s patients in 1970.
According to All About Ann Arbor, when Stone was a 20-year-old student at the university he was fearful of visiting his family doctor because he was gay.
He said: “I called a friend of mine, a gay friend in Ann Arbor. I said: ‘Look, I don’t know. Who do I go to? Who do I see?’
“He said go to Dr Anderson. Dr Anderson treats all the gay men in Ann Arbor.”
Stone said that during the appointment Anderson began undressing and placed the student’s hand on his genitals.
He continued: “After this happened, I was horrified. I was absolutely enraged and disgusted. It makes me want to cry.
“Homosexuality was still considered a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association in the 1970s. I felt completely disempowered to report this.”
Stone, who now lives in Palm Springs with his husband, wrote an essay in the summer of 2019 about the alleged sexual abuse and sent it to the university, which triggered the investigation.
According to The Detroit News, Stone said: “When I first wrote to the university, I thought: ‘Well, Dr Anderson was a closeted gay man’, and I had some compassion for a man at that time in that position.
“Now I realise he wasn’t a closeted gay man. He was a sexual predator, and that’s … a criminal thing.”
But Washtenaw County prosecutor Steven Hiller has said that no charges can be filed because so much time had passed, and Anderson was deceased.
The University of Michigan has, however, set up a hotline for other people to come forward. According to All About Ann Arbor, there have been 22 reports to the hotline since Wednesday.
Brigham Young University in Utah has revised its strict code of conduct to strip a rule that banned any behavior that reflected “homosexual feelings,” which LGBTQ students and their allies felt created an unfair double standard not imposed on heterosexual couples.
The university is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which teaches its members that being gay isn’t a sin, but engaging in same-sex intimacy is.
BYU’s revisions to what the college calls its honor code don’t change the faith’s opposition to same-sex relationships or gay marriage. The changes were discovered by media outlets Wednesday.
Students found out Wednesday, too. BYU student Franchesca Lopez, tweeting under the handle @fremlo_, wrote, “It’s confirmed. Gay dating is okay, kissing and hand holding from the mouth of an HCO [Honor Code Office] counselor,” and included a photo of her kissing a friend in front of the campus statue of Brigham Young.
I’m going to the honor code office as soon as I get out of class to make sure, but several people have confirmed that gay students can now date and it is not against the honor code
BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said an email that the updated version of the code aligns with a new handbook of rules unveiled by the faith, widely known as the Mormon church. She didn’t elaborate on the thinking behind the change, saying only that the changes removed “prescriptive language” and “kept the focus on the principles of the Honor Code, which have not changed.”
The faith has tried to carve out a more compassionate stance toward LGBTQ people over the last decade, while adhering to its doctrinal belief that same-sex relationships are a sin.
An entire section in the code that was dedicated to “homosexual behavior” has been removed. The clause that upset people was the part that said “all forms of physical intimacy that that give expression to homosexual feelings” is prohibited.
Students had previously complained about the clause that was eliminated was interpreted to be a ban on gay couples holding hands or kissing. Those behaviors are allowed for heterosexual couples, though premarital sex is banned.
Former BYU student Addison Jenkins had advocated for years for the college to remove the language, which he said codified homophobic ideas. He said he’s glad the section is gone.
“It treats queer students the same as straight students, which is something we have been begging the university for,” said Jenkins, who is gay.
But he said he still has major concerns about how school administrators will implement the change after seeing BYU officials issue a series of tweets late Wednesday afternoon about what the college called some “miscommunication” about what the changes mean.
“The Honor Code Office will handle questions that arise on a case by case basis,” BYU tweeted. “For example, since dating means different things to different people, the Honor Code Office will work with students individually.”
BYU’s Honor Code bans other things that are commonplace at other colleges — including drinking, beards and piercings. Students who attend the university in Provo, Utah, south of Salt Lake City, agree to agreed to adhere to the code. Nearly all students are members of the faith. Punishments for violations range from discipline to suspension and expulsion.
Last year, several hundred students rallied to call on BYU officials to be more compassionate with punishments for honor code violators.
The code was criticized in 2016 by female students who spoke out against the school opening honor-code investigations of students who reported sexual abuses to police. The college changed the policy to ensure that students who report sexual abuse would no longer be investigated for honor code violations.
Gov. Andy Beshear spoke against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and supported a ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth during a historic appearance at a gay-rights rally Wednesday at Kentucky’s Capitol.
Beshear became Kentucky’s first sitting governor to attend a rally staged by the Fairness Campaign in the Capitol Rotunda, a few steps from the governor’s office. The rallies by gay-rights supporters date back to the 1990s, activists said.
The Democratic governor received loud cheers from the crowd. “Diversity and inclusion, they aren’t buzz words,” Beshear said. “They are values. And they are keys to making Kentucky stronger. Kentucky cannot reach its full potential if all of our people don’t feel supported to be themselves.”
A Polish court has dismissed a lawsuit against the organisers of an anti-LGBT+ campaign that linked homosexuality with paedophilia, ruling that it was “informative and educational”.
The campaign was run by ultra-conservative NGO Fundacja Pro, which drove around Poland in vans with loudspeakers and banners bearing the slogan: “Paedophilia is 20 times more common in homosexuals. They want to teach your children. Stop them!”
The group also publicises various claims regarding the alleged prevalence of child abuse among LGBT+ people, based on controversial and contested research by American scholars Mark Regnerus and Paul Cameron.
Last year lawyer Bartłomiej Ciążyński filed a civil suit against Fundacja Pro, arguing that its campaign “insulted, slandered and violated the dignity” of LGBT+ people.
Yesterday the case was dismissed by a district court in Wrocław, western Poland. In his ruling, Judge Adam Maciński said the campaign “should be considered as having an informative and social dimension” as it helped raise awareness of paedophilia.
“It illustrates the issue of paedophilia to the public, as well as differences in the way sex education is implemented among minors…while [also] addressing the problem of extreme sexual education,” he said.
“The campaign did not take the form of aggressive criticism, let alone stigmatising or harassing the plaintiff.”
As Poland’s hate crime laws do not cover sexuality or gender orientation, Maciński ruled that the campaign “is an expression of the defendant’s constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and of belief”.
The ruling was announced as a picket formed outside the courtroom, with angry protesters holding signs reading: “Stop pedophilia: homosexuals often molest children” and “What does the LGBT lobby want to teach children?”
Homophobia rises in Poland
Poland is experiencing an upswing in anti-LGBT+ sentiment, largely driven by the ruling party Law and Justice (PiS). Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczyński recently secured an election victory with a campaign that was centred on hardline homophobic views.
In August Kaczyński hit out at Pride parades, telling voters: “The hard offensive, this travelling theatre that is showing up in different cities to provoke and then cry… we are the ones who are harmed by this, it must be unmasked and discarded.”
He also promised to fully enforce the law to “regulate these matters”, but did not explain what he meant by this.
This rhetoric has resulted in more than 80 municipal or local governments proclaiming themselves to be “free from LGBTI ideology”, a move strongly condemned by the European Parliament.
Local authorities in the LGBT-free zones pledge to refrain from acts that encourage tolerance and must avoid providing financial assistance to NGOs working to promote equal rights.
An LGBT+ Pride group is urging a boycott of the historic Staten Island St Patrick’s Day Parade after it was banned from marching for the 10th year running.
The Staten Island St Patrick’s Day Parade has been running for over 50 years and draws more than 50,000 spectators. Around 150 organisations typically march in the parade, ranging from the New York fire and police departments to local businesses, private men’s clubs and high school football teams.
But the Pride Center of Staten Island has not been allowed to participate in the march since 2011, having reportedly been told that their group “promotes the homosexual lifestyle” and “goes against the tenets of the Catholic Church.”
Last year several politicians responded by boycotting the event; this year the Pride Center is urging local businesses to do the same.
“Any organisation who has applied, rethink marching that day. Any organisation who is thinking of applying, again, please rethink that decision,” the Pride Center’s executive director Carol Bullock told Spectrum News.
The annual march is organised by The Parade Committee of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, who actively blocked the Pride Center’s attempts to apply for a marching permit by moving the sign-ups to an alternative location.
“Do [sic] to the threat of a protest by the gay pride people/politicians/and minsters of other faiths on the holy grounds of Blessed Sacrament Church the parade must move the parade sign ups to 300 Manor Rd,” a sign on the door read.
Yet again the AOH Parade Committee denied the Pride Center of Staten Island’s request to march in the SI St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and this year they also declined @GOALny#StatenIrelandPride
Bullock says that when she went to the alternate location, she was told by parade president Larry Cummings that it is a “non sexual-identification parade,” and that not allowing the group to march under its banner is “not discrimination.”
“We just really didn’t get anywhere. He doesn’t believe that it’s discrimination; we clearly feel that it’s blatant discrimination,” she said.
Pride Center is encouraging supporters to frequent the stores and restaurants along the parade route, but not actually march in it.
LGBT+ people are permitted to march in St Patrick’s Day parades in Ireland and also in New York. In 2018, Ireland’s openly gay Taoiseach Leo Varadkar marched in the New York St Patrick’s Day Parade with his partner Matt.
It was hailed as a landmark moment for an event that had just three years earlier prohibited the participation of the LGBT+ community.
The Staten Island parade is refusing to follow suit despite mounting calls for change from elected officials who represent the borough, including US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Congressmember Max Rose, State Senator Diane Savino, and City Councilmember Deborah Rose.
Staten Island GOP Councilmember Steven Matteo said in a statement to Gay City News: “I strongly support the SI Pride Center and other LGBT organisations openly participating in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. It’s way past time for this to become a reality.”
The march is due to go ahead on March 1. PinkNews has reached out to the parade organisers for comment.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has doubled down on transgender Mormons with a new handbook that spells out the consequences for those who transition.
While it advises church members to treat transgender people with “sensitivity, kindness, compassion, and an abundance of Christlike love”, it also warns transgender people against any form of social transition.
“Gender is an essential characteristic of Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness,” the chapter begins. “The intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation is biological sex at birth.”
It continues: “Church leaders counsel against elective medical or surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex (‘sex reassignment’).
“Leaders advise that taking these actions will be cause for Church membership restrictions.”
Any Mormon who attempts to transition their gender through “changes in dress, grooming, names, or pronouns intended to reflect a gender identity different from the one assigned at birth” will be subject to a plethora of restrictions “for the duration of this transition.”
These include receiving or exercising the priesthood, receiving or using a temple recommend, and receiving some Church callings.
Building on a statement by a top church leader last year that gender assigned at birth is eternal, the guidance reiterates that the Mormon priesthood, which is reserved for men, will not admit trans men.
Transgender people are assured that they are free to receive Church callings, temple recommends, and temple ordinances, as long as they agree not to pursue any medical, surgical, or social transition to the ‘opposite gender’.
Unsurprisingly, the Church also refuses to budge on its position on same-sex marriage (don’t do it). It states that “God’s law defines marriage as the legal and lawful union between a man and a woman”, and the only people who should be having sexual relations are a married heterosexual couple.
“Any other sexual relations, including those between persons of the same sex, are sinful and undermine the divinely created institution of the family,” the Church claims.
On the plus side, they will no longer consider same-sex marriages “apostasy” (rejection of church teaching) or deny baptism to children whose primary residence is with a same-sex couple.
The incident occurred last weekend off school grounds after he attempted to reprimand a student for spouting a homophobic slur towards him, IOL reported.
What happened to the gay teacher?
“I heard a child calling me a moffie [African slang for an effeminate, gay man], and I went to reprimand him,” the Robertson local said.
“I later went to report the incident to his parents, and was met by his mother who was rude and shouted at me.
“She said her husband would deal with me,” Dyamara said.
“I called the police to report a case of discrimination. Her husband appeared out of nowhere and smacked me with an open palm.
He repeatedly attacked me with a fist, and at that time, I was defenceless.
Dyamara continued: “The husband took out a knife and wanted to stab me. If my friend was not there it would have been a different story.
“Members of the LGBTI+ community are not given the respect they need and deserve.
“The community, even though it is diverse, needs to respect gay people.”
Dyamara alleged that the parent is a former member of the student governing body.
IOL reached out to the body for comment, in which a spokesperson said that, as the incident took place off school premises, it is out of their control.
“The teacher has opened a case against the man,” the spokesperson said.
“For emphasis, the man is no longer a member of the [school governing body], as he resigned. We, as the Masakheke [school governing body], condemn the alleged incident.
“We can offer emotional support to the teacher, because although it happened outside the school premises, it affects the school.
“Once a teacher is emotionally broken, he can be a danger to himself and to the learners.”
School officials also confirmed they were informed of the incident.
“The department cannot confirm what was said between the children, parents and the educator, as it was outside of the school,” a provincial education department spokesperson said.
Moreover local law enforcement described the incident as “common” and that the assault was being investigated.
Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg on the campaign trail likes to talk about his early support for same-sex marriage and push for New York State to legalize gay nuptials in 2011, but one aspect of his record he doesn’t mention is his veto in the years before that time of domestic partner benefits for LGBTQ workers.
In 2004, Bloomberg as former New York City mayor, vetoed a measure approved by the New York City Council known as the Equal Benefits Law, which would have required businesses receiving $100,000 in annual city contracts to provide partner benefits, including health and pension benefits, to its LGBTQ employees.
Although the council voted to override his veto, Bloomberg sued to block the measure in court, citing interference with his authority as mayor, state law for municipalities and federal law for worker benefits. A judge refused to grant Bloomberg a temporary restraining order, but he nonetheless refused to enforce it. In 2006, when the case against the measure made its way to the New York State Court of Appeals, Bloomberg won.
At a time when same-sex couples are free to marry nationwide thanks to the 2015 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, the idea of domestic partner benefits may seem quaint and insufficient, especially when they’d only be required for businesses doing $100,000 a year in contracts from New York City. But in 2004, when Massachusetts was the only state in the union to allow same-sex marriage and public sentiment was largely against gay nuptials, partner benefits were seen as a modest, but achievable, way to afford protections to LGBTQ families.
Carmen Vasquez, a now retired LGBTQ activist who at the time was deputy director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, told the Washington Blade Wednesday that Bloomberg’s veto of domestic partnership was “just dumb on his part.”
“It reflected poorly on his capacity to understand what the LGBT community was about,” Vasquez added.
Vasquez said Bloomberg overall was a “mixed bag,” citing positive moves of gun control, environment and the arts, but also “blind spots” on race, such as the “stop and frisk” policy for which Bloomberg has apologized since announcing his run for president.
Bloomberg’s veto of domestic partner benefits, Vasquez said, was “a big blow to the LGBT community” and spurred the decision to move forward with a larger statewide effort to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, which happened in 2011.
For context in 2004, the public perception on domestic partners was far more favorable than the idea of same-sex marriage. At least one other candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination had acted in support of them many years before that time. In 1992, Joseph Biden as U.S. senator voted against an amendment to appropriations legislation that would have overturned domestic partnerships in D.C.
Bloomberg is facing renewed scrutiny on his LGBTQ record in the aftermath of a two recently unearthed in which he made derisive comments about transgender people. In a 2016 video, Bloomberg referred to a trans woman as a “man in a dress,” and, as first reported by Buzzfeed News, Bloomberg in a 2019 video referred to a trans person as “it” and blamed transgender people for Democratic losses in 2016.
A Bloomberg campaign spokesperson responded to the 2004 veto of domestic partner benefits by saying the mayor had concerns the measure conflicted with state and local laws.
“Mike has been an advocate for LGBTQ+ equality throughout his public life,” the spokesperson said. “While Mike has been consistent in his belief that same-sex partners should have equal rights, in this case, he did not think the policy would advance this goal, because it would conflict with federal and state laws.”
Bloomberg had subsequently worked to expand benefits for LGBTQ workers, including partner benefits through a 2005 executive order, the campaign spokesperson said.
“As mayor, Mike worked to expand benefits and health care equality for domestic partners,” the spokesperson said. “In 2005, he secured health care benefits for domestic partners through executive order. He supported marriage equality in 2005 long before many elected officials in either party. As president Mike will pass the Equality Act and will take executive action to ensure equal benefits and protections for LGBTQ+ federal government employees, as well as employees of firms that do business with the federal government.”
Executive Order 72, which Bloomberg signed in 2005, required city vendors to report whether they offered health care coverage on an equal basis to the spouses and domestic partners of those employees, but made no requirement they did so as the city council ordinance did.
At the time of the veto, Matt Foreman, then-executive director of what is now the National LGBTQ Task Force, was so indignant over Bloomberg’s veto he resigned his post on New York City’s Commission of Human Rights — a role to which Bloomberg appointed him.
In a report from Gay City News in 2004, Foreman was quoted as lambasting Bloomberg, going so far as to say the former mayor may not have not ever seen a business contract with New York City.
“The City of New York has used its procurement power for decades to support social equality,” Foreman was quoted as saying. “I’m not sure the mayor has ever read a standard city contract. They contain pages of provisions requiring vendors to comply with the Human Rights Law, advance minorities and women and create a safe working environment.”
In his resignation letter to Bloomberg and Commission Chair Patricia Gatling, Foreman wrote, as reported by Gay City News, “Through its lawsuit, the administration is saying loudly and inexplicably that gay and lesbian families do no merit being part of this tradition [of promoting equity goals through contracting].” Foreman added “principle requires that I resign.”
Foreman, who’s now senior program director for gay and lesbian programs at the San Francisco-based Haas Jr. Foundation, didn’t dispute the 2004 quote in Gay City News when speaking with the Blade and acknowledged he resigned his position on the Human Rights Commission, but said there’s more to the story.
In the fall of 2005, Foreman said he received a phone call from Bloomberg, who explained his position against the council’s measure and urged him to rejoin the commission.
“He went over his objections to the ordinance (which were that it gave an unfair advantage to companies outside the city) and the steps he had taken to get more companies doing business with the city to offer domestic partner benefits,” Foreman told the Blade. “That included requiring all companies to publicly disclose whether they provided DP benefits to their employees and persuading some of the city’s largest health care insurance companies to start offering benefits at affordable rates. He was emphatic with me that he wanted gay couples to get equal benefits and thought the then-current situation was very unjust.”
Foreman told the Blade after listening to Bloomberg, he agreed to be reappointed to the commission and served until April 2008, when he left the Task Force to move to California.
“I don’t think the 2004 veto says anything about Mr. Bloomberg’s views on LGBT equality,” added Foreman, who said he hasn’t endorsed a candidate in the primary. “His actions since then confirm he’s a solid ally.”
At the end of the day, the New York State Court of Appeals — the highest state court in New York State — determined in 2006 Bloomberg was correct in refusing to enforce the measure, despite being unsuccessful in obtaining a restraining order, because the ordinance was “preempted by state and federal statutes.”
Writing the majority opinion in the decision in the case of Council of the City of New York v. Bloomberg was New York State Court of Appeals Associate Judge Robert Smith, who determined the measure conflicted with Bloomberg’s authority as mayor under the city charter, state municipal law for contracting rules and the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, which sets rules for health and retirement plans in the private industry.
“We have no doubt that the Equal Benefits Law is a good faith effort to make contractors treat the domestic partners of employees in a way that the Council considers fair,” Smith wrote. “But the competitive bidding statute reflects a judgment by the State Legislature that, to avoid among other things the risk of favoritism, municipalities must give business to the lowest responsible bidder, whether the bidder’s benefit plans meet the municipality’s idea of fairness or not.”
With regard to ERISA, the council had argued the benefits measure didn’t require certain business provide certain benefits, which would have been prohibited under federal law. That didn’t fly with Smith, who said the argument is “inconsistent with United States Court precedent” in the case of Boston Harbor v. Gould, which addressed unfair labor practices.
“The Equal Benefits Law, as its name implies, is designed to induce contractors to treat domestic partners and spouses equally, just as the Wisconsin statute in Gould was designed to induce contractors to avoid unfair labor practices,” Smith wrote. “Thus the market participant exception does not apply here, and the Equal Benefits Law, except to the extent that the benefits it governs are not provided through ERISA plans, is preempted by ERISA.”
The Court of Appeals ruling affirmed the appellate division’s dismissal of proceeding brought by the New York City Council to compel enforcement of the law.
Dissenting from the majority was then-Court of Appeals Associate Judge Albert Rosenblatt, who determined as a matter of separation of powers Bloomberg should have enforced the law after failing to obtain a restraining order because “it is the job of the legislative branch to enact laws and the executive to carry them out.”
Rosenblatt, however, declined to make a conclusion was unlawful or not under the constraints of federal and state law. Although the council maintained the measure would work because it was at minimal cost to contractors, additional evidence was needed.
“Expert testimony would be sought, hearings transcripts would be studied, credibility judgments would be made,” Rosenblatt wrote. “Supreme Court would be able to consider the extent to which factual matters were rationally controverted in reaching a conclusion about whether summary judgment was warranted. It would do so with all facts viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving City Council.”
Art Leonard, a professor of labor and employment law at New York Law School and editor of LGBT Law Notes,” said despite the court’s conclusion “issues of ERISA preemption and state preemption of a city ordinance are complicated, and debatable,” adding Bloomberg had more options.
“I think had Bloomberg enforced the law, he would have been sued by potential city contractors and the case would probably have ended up the same as it did, but in the meantime perhaps some employees of contractors would have enjoyed the benefits for their partners and children,” Leonard said. “I don’t know what was in Bloomberg’s heart — whether the legal argument was a pretext to deny benefits — but I would have said that in light of the difficulties of predicting how a court would resolve the preemption question, it would have been more politic for him to enforce the ordinance and have the city defend it in court if a contractor sued.”
Leonard compared Bloomberg’s veto of the domestic partnership measure to his appeal of a trial judge decision in Manhattan ruling in favor of marriage equality, which he said “inspired considerable ire.” The ruling was later overturned by the New York Appellate Division and the Court of Appeals.
“When he decided he was right about an issue, my recollection is that he was pretty much impervious to contrary argument,” Leonard concluded. “In that sense, of course, he bears a haunting resemblance to Trump along authoritarian lines.”
Christine Quinn, who as a former member of the city council, was chief sponsor of the measure, recalls in her 2013 book, “With Patience & Fortitude,” trying to model the New York City ordinance on a San Francisco measure and her disappointment when the New York Court of Appeals ruled against it.
“The point of that bill — for which I was the lead sponsor — was to get benefits for domestic partners; but even more important, it would demonstrate that we in city government had pushed the envelope as far as we could in recognizing gay families,” Quinn wrote. “We did everything to support the bill, from lobbying members of the City Council and community organizing to organizing businesses.”
Although Quinn conceded Bloomberg was justified in his reasoning, she concludes the court ruling against the measure was a “big defeat.” (The Blade reached out to Quinn for this article, but she declined to comment.)
“The mayor’s office brought a lawsuit claiming that passage of the bill was a violation of the City Council’s powers, because we don’t have power over contracts, which is actually true,” Quinn wrote. “Mayor Bloomberg didn’t disagree with the content of the bill, but he thought the City Council had overstepped its legislative authority. We had tried to be creative about how we wrote the legislation, doing it in a way that threaded the needle, but the court didn’t agree, and we lost. It was a big defeat.”
In subsequent years, Bloomberg as mayor of New York City would become a prominent voice in the fight to legalize same-sex marriage, advocating for it at the time of a failed vote on the Senate floor in 2009 and ultimately success in 2011. In subsequent years, Bloomberg would sign friend-of-the court briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act in 2013 and rule in favor same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015.
At a Washington news conference last month announcing D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s endorsement of his candidacy, Bloomberg said he had an “impeccable” record on LGBTQ rights and told the Blade his early support for same-sex marriage makes him stand from other competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“Well just to address that one community, my recollection is…I went and got the Republican Senate of the State of New York as well as the Democratic House to pass a law permitting gay marriage in New York long before anybody else that I know who’s running for office ever even thought about it or certainly said anything about it,” Bloomberg said.
Foreman, speaking with the Blade, said Bloomberg’s later support for marriage equality is a perfect example of allowing public figures the opportunity to evolve on their views on LGBTQ rights.
“I’m starting my 41st year of essentially full-time work in the LGBT movement, 30 of them paid (yes, I’m unbelievably fortunate),” Foreman said. “What I’ve learned is that no elected official is perfect on our issues, that forward movement should be welcomed, and what counts most is actually getting things done for our people. Therefore, it would have been hypocritical and unproductive for me to have been locked in place when Mayor Bloomberg was doing the right things then. I’ve seen no evidence of backsliding since, just the opposite.”
Lawyers for Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning on Wednesday filed a motion for her release, saying her continued incarceration for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury is unlawful.
The motion, filed in the Alexandria, Virginia-based federal district court for the eastern district of Virginia, says that Manning’s “incarceration is not serving its only permissible purpose”—to coerce her testimony. Rather, the motion argues, the detention is clearly punitive.
Manning has been held in contempt of court and locked away at the Alexandria Detention Center nearly continuously since March 2019. She may be held as long as 18 months unless she agrees to testify to a grand jury about WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, who remains at a London prison as the U.S. government seeks his extradition.Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.
The detention is also economically costly. Manning is being fined $1000 per day, which her supporters have panned as an “outrageous” escalation of the U.S. government’s ongoing harassment of her.
Manning’s attorney Moira Meltzer-Cohen explained how the continued detention is out of legal bounds.
“A witness who refuses to cooperate with a grand jury subpoena may be held in contempt of court, and fined or incarcerated,” she said in a statement. “The only permissible purpose for sanctions under the civil contempt statute is to coerce a witness to comply with the subpoena. If compliance is impossible, either because the grand jury is no longer in existence, or because the witness is incoercible, then confinement has been transformed from a coercive into a punitive sanction, and thus is in violation of the law.”
“Over the last decade Chelsea Manning has shown unwavering resolve in the face of censure, punishment, and even threats of violence,” says the new motion. In “light of her history, it should surprise nobody to find that she has the courage of her convictions.”
“She reiterated her refusal to cooperate with the grand jury process before this court, and has now reiterated that refusal every day for more than 11 months,” the motion adds. “There is no reason to believe she will at this late date experience a change of heart; there is a profusion of evidence that she will not.”
The attorneys included as evidence United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer’s November 2019 letter to the U.S. government expressing his concern about Manning’s incarceration, “particularly given the history of her previous conviction and ill-treatment in detention.”
Melzer said that Manning’s current detention may amount to “an open-ended, progressively severe measure of coercion fulfilling all the constitutive elements of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Manning’s lawyers also included in their motion a report from a clinical expert on Manning’s personality that described her “willingness to endure social disapproval as well as formal punishments” to pursue her values.
“No realistic possibility remains that continued confinement or other sanctions will bring about Ms. Manning’s testimony,” says the motion. “Further confinement cannot attain its stated coercive purpose, and therefore will be not simply futile, but impermissibly punitive.
Manning confirmed her stance against her incarceration in a statement Wednesday.
“No matter how much you punish me, I will remain confident in my decision,” she said. “I have been separated from my loved ones, deprived of sunlight, and could not even attend my mother’s funeral. It is easier to endure these hardships now than to cooperate to win back some comfort, and live the rest of my life knowing that I acted out of self interest and not principle.”