Top Stories

/ /

Martin Luther King Jr’s dream undoubtedly included LGBT+ people, say those who knew and loved him

On Martin Luther King Jr Day, we revisit the legendary civil rights leader’s relationship with LGBT+ rights.

Dr King’s legacy is towering and complex. He devoted his life to – and was ultimately murdered for – advancing the rights of Black Americans, rallying against the “three major evils” – racism, poverty and war. But when looking back at his life and work, it is of course natural to wonder about the things that largely went unsaid.  For many, queer Black folk in particular, his stance on LGBT+ rights is a topic of much conversation.

During his lifetime, Martin Luther King Jr was not a vocal advocate for gay rights (he was assassinated a year before Stonewall, in 1968), nor did he speak out against them. One of the rare (if not only) examples of him discussing sexuality publicly comes from an advice column written in 1958, in which an anonymous boy who felt “about boys the way I ought to feel about girls” asked Dr King what he could do, or where he could “go for help”.

“Your problem is not at all an uncommon one,” Dr King replied. “However, it does require careful attention. The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired.

Martin Luther King Jr
Martin Luther King Jr speaking before crowd of 25,000 on March 25, 1965. (Stephen F. Somerstein/Getty)

“Your reasons for adopting this habit have now been consciously suppressed or unconsciously repressed. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with this problem by getting back to some of the experiences and circumstances that lead to the habit.

“In order to do this I would suggest that you see a good psychiatrist who can assist you in bringing to the forefront of conscience all of those experiences and circumstances that lead to the habit. You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognise the problem and have a desire to solve it.”

Were such words written in 2020, they would rightly be condemned. Do they indicate that Dr King saw homosexuality as something that could, in this boy’s case at the very least, be fixed? It seems so. Attitudes like this were hugely prevalent at the time, with the LGBT+ community under constant attack from the government and by society.

However, they were usually combined with an aggression and a hate that was entirely absent in Dr King’s response. It’s possible that he both believed this boy’s sexuality could be changed, and truly believed in equality for all, with no exception.

The opinions of those who knew and loved him, however, suggest he was no homophobe.

Bayard Rustin on Martin Luther King Jr: ‘He would not have had the prejudicial view’

Bayard Rustin, the legendary organiser of the 1963 March on Washington, became one of Dr King’s most trusted advisors while he was organising the Montgomery bus boycott and was influential in his adoption of non-violence tactics. He was also a gay man.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (r), Bayard Rustin (left), and Rev. Bernard Lee, (c) after a 1964 meeting with New York Mayor Wagner to discuss civil rights
1964: Martin Luther King Jr (r), Bayard Rustin (l), and Bernard Lee (c). (Getty)

In 1987, almost 20 years after Dr King’s assassination, Rustin approached the subject of his attitudes towards gay people in an essay.

“It is difficult for me to know what Dr King felt about gayness except to say that I’m sure he would have been sympathetic and would not have had the prejudicial view,” he wrote.

“Otherwise he would not have hired me. He never felt it necessary to discuss that with me.”

Rustin said this his own gayness “was not problem for Dr King but a problem for the movement”, explaining that eventually some of the reverend’s inner circle eventually “came to the decision that my sex life was a burden” and “advised him that he should ask me to leave”.

“I told Dr King that if advisors closest to him felt I was a burden, then rather than put him in a position that he had to say leave, I would go,” he continued.

“He was just so harassed that I felt it was my obligation to relieve him of as much of that as I could.” After the split, Rustin said, King “continued to call on me, over and over”.

Dr King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, certainly believed his central mission was inclusive of LGBT+ rights, even if he remained quiet.

1964: Coretta Scott King and her husband Dr Martin Luther King 09 December in Oslo where he received the Nobel Peace Prize.
1964: Coretta Scott King and her husband Martin Luther King 09 December in Oslo where he received the Nobel Peace Prize. (Getty)

Coretta Scott King was a tireless gay rights campaigner

In 1998, addressing a Lamda Legal anniversary luncheon, Mrs King said: “I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people, and I should stick to the issue of racial justice.

“But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr said: ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr’s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.”

Mrs King was a tireless LGBT+ rights campaigner, coming out in support of the groundbreaking Gay and Civil Rights Act that would have banned anti-gay discrimination in many public arenas in 1983.

Until her death in 2016 she continued to fight for LGBT+ equality: calling on then-president Bill Clinton to stop the gay military ban in 1993 and condemning George W Bush in 2004 for his anti-marriage equality stance.

Declaring marriage equality a civil rights issue at the time, she said: “With this faith and this commitment we will create the beloved community of Martin Luther King Jr’s dream, where all people can live together in a spirit of trust and understanding, harmony, love and peace.”

On the other hand, there are those who have positioned Dr King’s legacy as against LGBT+ rights. Most notable, his own daughter, Bernice King, said in 2004 her father “did not take a bullet for same-sex unions” while campaigning against marriage equality (though it appears she has since changed her own position, having welcomed the 2015 Supreme Court ruling on the matter).

Those who believe Dr King would have supported the community have dismissed Bernice King’s words, noting that she would have been approaching five-years-old when her father died and therefore, couldn’t possibly know his view on the matter.

Ultimately, it’s impossible to know what Dr King’s true position was. The fights for queer liberation and Black liberation have overlapped and diverged and various points in history – and continue to do so to this day. Neither community (not its intersection) is a monolith, and no person is all good or all bad.

It’s impossible to say exactly how Martin Luther King Jr felt about LGBT+ people and their rights simply because he isn’t around to tell us. On the evidence and testimonies available, it seems his thinking was flawed, but not malign, and he may well have considered himself empathetic to the community. Ultimately, the biggest crime is that he isn’t around to tell us today.

/ /

Australian man convicted in decades-old gay hate murder of American

An Australian man has pleaded guilty to murdering an American mathematician who fell from a Sydney cliff in 1988 in a gay hate crime that was dismissed by police at the time as suicide.

Scott White was charged in 2020 with murdering 27-year-old Los Angeles-born Scott Johnson, whose naked body was found at the base of North Head cliff on Dec. 8, 1988.

White yelled repeatedly in court during a pre-trial hearing in Sydney on Monday that he was guilty, having previously denied the crime.

Scott Johnson's body was found at the base of a cliff in Sydney in 1988.
Scott Johnson’s body was found at the base of a cliff in Sydney in 1988.NSW Police

A New South Wales state Supreme Court judge on Thursday accepted the guilty plea, dismissing the objections of White’s lawyers. White is to be sentenced on May 2.

He faces a possible sentence of life in prison.

Police had initially concluded that Johnson, who was a doctoral student at Australian National University and lived in Canberra, had taken his own life. This was despite the discovery that his wallet was missing from his clothes, which were neatly folded near the cliff top.

A coronial inquest — a court-like proceeding held after unusual deaths — ruled in 1989 that the openly gay man had taken his own life, while a second coroner in 2012 could not explain how he died.

Johnson’s family sought a third inquest, and State Coroner Michael Barnes ruled in 2017 that Johnson “fell from the cliff top as a result of actual or threatened violence by unidentified persons who attacked him because they perceived him to be homosexual.”

Recommended

OUT POLITICS AND POLICYCritics call to end three-month celibacy requirement for gay, bisexual men amid blood shortage

OUT POP CULTURE‘Yellowjackets’ star Jasmin Savoy Brown to play first queer ‘Scream’ character

Barnes found that gangs of men roamed various Sydney locations in search of gay men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some people were also robbed.

A new police investigation offered a 1 million Australian dollar ($731,000) reward for information in 2018 and Johnson’s older brother, Boston IT entrepreneur Steve Johnson, matched that reward offer in 2020.

“I think he deserves what he has coming to him,” Steve Johnson told reporters outside the court after White pleaded guilty.

“It’s a very sad, tragic thing that he did,” Johnson said.

White was arrested at his Sydney home two months after the reward was doubled. Police said at the time that the reward helped in their breakthrough and an unnamed informant would be eligible for the reward once White was convicted.

/ /

Kenya bill seeks to ban gays from having children via surrogate

A bill that is currently before Kenyan lawmakers would prohibit gays and lesbians from using surrogate mothers to have children.

The proposed law — dubbed the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill, 2019, passed last November by the National Assembly — seeks to assist individuals, including intersex people or couples unable to bear children due to infertility to procure surrogate mothers.

To lock out gays and lesbians, the MPs amended the bill by replacing “husband and wife” to “couple” under Kenyan law, which refers to a male and a female who are in an association that may be recognized as a marriage.

“Of the many amendments that have been carried, this one is the best. This is so that we be specific that in Kenya, we do not recognize marriages between people of the same gender,” MP David Ole Sankok stated during the debate in the National Assembly.  

Any gay or lesbian found guilty of using a surrogate mother to have a child risks a fine not exceeding Sh5 million ($50,000) or a jail term of not more than five years or both. The bill would also require a qualified medical doctor to certify that an individual is infertile before proceeding to find a surrogate mother.

This requirement is not only a big blow to thousands of gays and lesbians in Kenya but also hundreds of surrogate mothers like Mary and Rebecca in Nairobi who, through the Find Surrogate Mother public website, carry pregnancies for all couples including heterosexuals, gays, lesbians, single women and single men who want to have children.

The proposed law, which is the first of its kind in Kenya, also criminalizes engaging in surrogacy to make money. This means surrogate mothers will no longer carry pregnancies for any individual or couple whose infertility is not proved by a doctor.

Currently, the overall cost of surrogacy in Kenya is estimated at Sh4.5 million ($45,000).

“A person who contravenes the provisions of this section commits an offense and shall, upon conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding Sh5 million ($50,000) or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, or to both,” reads Clause 23 of the bill.

A special directorate under the Health Ministry would oversee surrogacy activities in the country. The bill requires a surrogate mother to be over 21 years old with at least one child.

The new law adds to other punitive laws against LGBTQ rights in the country.

The Kenyan Penal Code under Sections 162 and 165 criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations viewed as “acts of indecency or unnatural offenses.” The Penal Code also forbids gays and lesbians from adopting children.  

The passing of the bill in November occurred barely four months after U.S. Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten broke the news of welcoming their twins to the world. 

Buttigieg via a tweet said, “Chasten and I are beyond thankful for all the kind wishes since first sharing the news that we’re becoming parents. We are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg to our family.”

It remains unclear whether the couple had their babies via surrogate or if they adopted them.

Kenya, just like most African countries, has refused to recognize the rights of the LGBTQ community despite pressure from the group and Western countries.     

For instance, in 2015 President Uhuru Kenyatta during a joint press conference with the then-U.S. President Obama at the State House in Nairobi flatly rejected his visitor’s demand for the protection and promotion of gay and lesbian rights in the country.

Kenyatta insisted that though Kenya “shares a lot with the U.S., gay rights were not among them.” Homosexuality is considered both ungodly and against African culture on the continent.  

In July 2021, a coalition of 27 global companies like Microsoft, Google, Barclays, Standard Chartered, IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Express and Burberry demanded Kenya to fully recognize the rights of gays and lesbians for more billions of Kenyan shillings to be injected into the economy.

The global firms in a report dubbed “The Economic Case for LGBT+ Inclusion in Kenya” warned that the country loses between $65 million and $143 million annually because its discriminative environment was keeping away some tourists. Still, Kenya remained unbowed.   

Several rights groups like the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Coalition and UNAIDS has criticized the continued enactment of laws that discriminate against the LGBTQ community.

The National Assembly’s Health Committee, the sponsor of the surrogacy law, collected views from numerous key stakeholders in the health sector like the Intersex Persons Society of Kenya which has a population of 1,524 in Kenya as per the 2019 Census. However, the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya, (GALCK), was notably sidelined in the committee’s public hearings.

The Kenyan Senate is expected to debate the bill once it reconvenes on Feb. 8. The president would sign it if it passes.

/ /

Andrea Jenkins makes history as 1st openly transgender city council president

During their meeting Monday, city councilmembers elected their fellow Councilmember Andrea Jenkins to serve as the Minneapolis city council president. She was the first out Black trans woman ever elected to a major city council in 2017.

Jenkins is now the first Out Trans person to hold such an elected position in the nation on a city council, although Lisa Middleton was sworn-in as Palm Springs mayor last month. Middleton became the first out Trans mayor in California and just the third out transgender mayor in U.S. history. The mayor’s office in Palm Springs rotates among councilmembers who serve one-year terms.

The Twin-Cities’ major daily newspaper, The Star Tribune, noted that after the vote Jenkins told the paper: “We have a whole lot of work to do.” She also added; “We represent a diversity of thought, of ideas and solutions to the most pressing issues of our time.”

In 2020, Jenkins became a national figure and leader as protests erupted over the murder of George Floyd , who was killed in her council district. She called his murder “a symbol for a knee on the neck of Black America” and demanded racism be treated as a public health crisis.

Mayor Annise Parker, President & CEO of LGBTQ Victory Institute, released the following statement about Jenkins 

“As major cities face unprecedented challenges wrought by the pandemic and incidents of police brutality, Andrea leads her constituents and our country with the calm but steely determination the moment calls for. The unanimous vote from her colleagues is a recognition of that leadership. Andrea is an elected official who serves all, but relentlessly champions those most marginalized, bringing an unmatched ability to spark empathy across divisions and communities. Minneapolis will be a better city with her as president and her history-making election will inspire more trans people to run and lead.”

/ /

France, Greece to end restrictions for MSM blood donors

,

France and Greece this week announced they will allow gay and bisexual men to donate blood without restrictions.

Têtu, a French LGBTQ magazine, noted men who have sex with men previously had to remain abstinent for four months before they could donate blood in France.

French Health Minister Olivier Véran on Tuesday announced this requirement would no longer be in place as of March 16. Têtu also noted officials will no longer ask potential blood donors about their sexual orientation.

“It’s a whole new relationship with the blood donor that we want,” said Véran.

Greece on Monday also said it would allow MSM to donate blood without restrictions.

Greek Health Minister Thanos Plevris and Deputy Health Minister Mina Gaga issued a decree that will become official once the Government Gazette publishes it.

Greece and France are the latest countries to lift restrictions for MSM who want to donate blood.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration currently allows MSM to donate blood if they have not had sex with another man for three months. 

The American Red Cross this week declared a blood crisis because of the surge in COVID-19 omicron variant cases. The declaration sparked renewed calls for the U.S. to allow MSM to donate blood without restrictions.

/ /

Dion Manley becomes Ohio’s first openly transgender public official

,

Dion Manley made Ohio state history last Thursday when he was sworn into Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools’ board of education, becoming the first openly trans public official in the state. 

“I really think Gahanna deserves a lot of credit,” Manley told the Columbus Dispatch. “They’ve been inclusive and open as a district. I’ve seen that in the years I’ve lived here, and the voters choosing to be a voice for diversity and moving forward is really special.”

In November, Manley was voted onto the school board – located in the Columbus suburb of Gahanna, Ohio – along with Sue Horn and Kara Coates. 

He was a part of a historic election night for LGBTQ candidates. According to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, 83 candidates they endorsed won their respective races during last year’s November elections. As the newly elected officials take office, the U.S. will have over 1000 LGBTQ+ people serving in elected office for the first time. 

“The victory is especially significant given efforts by anti-trans activists across the nation to target trans students at school board meetings and the surge in anti-trans bill introduced in state legislatures,” a Victory Fund press release said of Manley’s win, making him only the fifth trans man to win an election in the country.

Manley didn’t always plan on running for the position but ended up throwing his hat in the race for the teachers of his daughter Lila, a high school senior who has been in the school system since kindergarten. 

“They’ve done so much for my daughter that I will do anything to show my appreciation and give back in what small way I can,” he told the Dispatch.  

According to Manley, being trans did not hold him back in the election. 

“People here that know that I’m transgender… I’m a great dad and that’s what they see and that’s what matters to them,” he told CBS affiliate WBNS. https://www.10tv.com/embeds/video/530-47a3377d-12f4-4222-a5ae-c5c52b2ebd0f/iframe

He added: “The greatest joy of my life has been raising my daughter, so I want to be remembered as a great dad, community member and I happen to be trans.”

In a Facebook post, Manley acknowledged his “amazing” new colleagues and said: “I believe now is the time for people to get involved! We have an important role to play in making all students feel welcome, safe and supported plus safeguard the continued success of our schools.”

/ /

Early access to gender-affirming hormones linked to better mental health, study finds

Access to gender-affirming hormone therapy in adolescence is associated with better mental health outcomes for transgender adults, according to a new study.

The research, published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One, was based on data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Surveyconducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality, which surveyed more than 27,000 trans people across the country. It compared the psychological distress and suicidal thoughts experienced by 12,738 trans adults who had access to gender-affirming hormones during early adolescence, late adolescence or adulthood with 8,860 trans adults who desired hormones but never had access to them. 

Trans people who had access to gender-affirming hormones between the ages of 14 and 17 saw their odds of negative mental health outcomes decrease significantly. Access to gender-affirming hormones during this period was associated with a third of the odds of severe psychological distress in the past month and half the odds or less of suicidal ideation in the past year when compared to trans people who wanted hormones but never accessed them, according to study co-author Dana King, data programmer and analyst for The Fenway Institute at Fenway Health, a Boston-based LGBTQ health care and research organization.

And while those who had access to gender-affirming hormones as adults also had lower odds of past-month severe psychological distress and suicidal ideation, the difference was not as stark, the report found. 

Dr. Alex S. Keuroghlian, the study’s senior author and director of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center at The Fenway Institute and the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Gender Identity Program, said the study’s results show the dangers of state legislation that attempts to ban gender-affirming medical care, including hormones, for trans minors.

“These results argue against waiting until adulthood to offer gender-affirming hormones to transgender adolescents and suggest that doing so may put patients at greater mental health risk,” Keuroghlian said in a news release. “They also add to the growing evidence base suggesting that legislation restricting transgender adolescents’ access to gender-affirming medical care would result in adverse mental health outcomes.”

More than 20 states considered bills last year that would ban gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Only Arkansas passed a law completely banning access to gender-affirming health care, including puberty blockers and hormones, for trans minors, but a judge blocked that law from taking effect in July pending the outcome of litigation. Tennessee enacted a more limited law that bans doctors from providing gender-affirming hormone treatment and surgery to prepubescent minors.

A recent poll by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention group, found that just the public discussion about affected trans and nonbinary youths’ mental health. Eighty-five percent of trans and nonbinary youths, and two-thirds of all LGBTQ youths, said recent debates about anti-trans state laws negatively affected their mental health.

At least seven states introduced anti-trans bills in the first week of the year, including some that limit trans youths’ access to gender-affirming health care.

Supporters of the bills argue that such health care is “experimental” and that trans young people shouldn’t be able to access it until they are adults.

However, in addition to the new study published in PLOS One, a growing body of evidence — also based on the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey — has found that earlier access to gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers, hormones and surgery has positive mental health outcomes, and that delaying access to such care can lead to negative outcomes, including an increased risk of suicidal thoughts.

Research published in JAMA Psychiatry in September 2019 found that exposure to “conversion therapy,” a discredited practice that seeks to change a trans person’s gender identity, is associated with suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. 

Recommended

OUT NEWSWisconsin maintenance worker goes viral on TikTok as the ‘Trans Handy Ma’am’

OUT POLITICS AND POLICYAndrea Jenkins makes history as 1st openly transgender city council president

Another study, published in the journal Pediatrics in January 2020, found that trans people who received puberty blockers during adolescence had a lower risk of suicidal thoughts as adults compared to those who wanted puberty blockers but couldn’t access them. 

And a third study, published last year in JAMA Surgery, found that trans people who had not received the gender-affirming surgery they desired were nearly twice as likely to report severe psychological distress and suicidal thoughts, and also reported higher incidences of binge drinking and tobacco use.

Trans people often can’t access or must delay accessing gender-affirming care for a variety of reasons. Nearly 1 in 5 trans people are uninsured, according to a 2020 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Even when they are insured, a report last year from the Center for American Progress found that 40 percent of transgender respondents — and 56 percent of trans respondents of color — said their health insurance companies denied coverage for gender-affirming care, which includes treatments like hormones and surgery.

CAP’s survey also found that nearly half of transgender people — and 68 percent of transgender people of color — reported having experienced mistreatment at the hands of a medical provider, including refusal of care and verbal or physical abuse, in the year before the survey, which took place in June 2020. 

Jack Turban, a lead author on the recent PLOS One study and chief fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said the new research highlights that the U.S. “has failed to make gender-affirming medical care accessible.”

“We urgently need to work on training more clinicians and combatting insurance discrimination,” Turban said, adding that “lack of access to gender-affirming medical care could drive the use of nonprescribed gender-affirming hormones through the purchase of hormones online or on the black market without medical monitoring, which may lead to adverse physical health outcomes.”

The study found that a significant portion, 41 percent, of trans people who desired gender-affirming hormones were unable to access them at all. It also found that rates of suicidal ideation in the past year were still high among all trans people — including those who had access to gender-affirming hormones — compared to the general population. 

“Transgender people face a range of other psychosocial stressors that contribute to chronic minority stress, including but not limited to employment discrimination, lack of safe access to public facilities, and physical violence,” the study states. 

It calls for future epidemiological and interventional research to understand and address chronic minority stress among trans people who can access gender-affirming hormones and those who can’t. For trans adolescents, the study says “creating safe and affirming school environments appears to be of particular importance, in addition to providing gender-affirming medical care, as well as psychological, legal and surgical gender affirmation as needed.”

If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text TALK to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.

/ /

American Idol star Clay Aiken running for Congress after hateful Republican’s homophobic rant

,

American Idol star Clay Aiken has launched a second congressional bid after being inspired to fight hate perpetuated by North Carolina’s top lawmakers.

Aiken was the runner-up on the second season of American Idol in 2003. Afterwards, he launched a music and acting career – even appearing as acontestant on Celebrity Apprentice hosted by former president Donald Trump.

In 2014 he turned his attention to politics, winning the Democratic primary in North Carolina’s second congressional district, but he was defeated in the general election by Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers.

Now he’s running for Congress again. But this time, Aiken, who has referred to himself as a “loud and proud Democrat”, is running to represent the newly drawn sixth district. He is hoping to replace representative David Price, who was first elected in 1986 and said he would not seek re-election in October.

Aiken told Variety that he wasn’t initially planning to run for congress again, but he changed his mind after hearing a homophobic speech by North Carolina’s lieutenant governor Mark Robinson.

He described how “several people” asked if he would be interested in running for Price’s seat after the long-time politician announced he would be retiring from the role in 2022.

“I told them, you know, I’m keeping an eye on it, but I’m not really necessarily thinking about running right now,” he recalled.

The openly gay singer said he was “considering” another run in November when the news broke that Robinson, North Carolina‘s second-in-command, had made several anti-LGBT+ statements at a church sermon.

“He gave a speech in which he said: ‘What is the purpose of homosexuality? What purpose do homosexuals serve?’” Aiken said.

He continued: “I watched that sort of with just dumbstruck awe that someone could be so ignorant.

After watching it, I said, you know, ‘I got your purpose, bitch. I will show you’.”

Clay Aiken singers to a crowd in front of a light blue background
Clay Aiken onstage during the opening curtain call for “Ruben & Clay’s First Annual Christmas Show” on 11 December 2018. (Getty/Walter McBride)

Aiken described himself as a “North Carolinian” his entire life, adding his family has “been here since the 1700s”. He said Robinson’s anti-LGBT+ hatred made him “really think about the reputation” the state has “gotten over the past several years”.

“In my entire life, I’ve never known a time when this state has had a reputation that wasn’t progressive and welcoming and friendly,” he added.

He added that some friends wouldn’t want to visit because they didn’t feel “comfortable in North Carolina”. Aiken said he was “sick” that his beloved state has such a reputation, and he isn’t “willing” to let it continue any longer.

“And that p**ses me the hell off,” he said. “Because this area is not like that, and the fact that people outside of this state have this opinion or this perception of North Carolina based on people like Mark Robinson and Madison Cawthorn.”

A group of North Carolina voters have launched a bid to keep Cawthorn, a Republican congressman, off the ballot in this year’s midterm elections, citing his alleged involvement in the 6 January Capitol riot.

Cawthorn claimed the election was stolen from Trump during the “Save America Rally” before the riot and has been accused of firing up the crowd, The Guardian reported.

A group of voters have said that Cawthorn can’t run for Congress because he fails to comply with an amendment in the Constitution.

The 1868 amendment says no one can serve in Congress if they have “previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”.

The challenge says the events at the Capitol riot “amounted to an insurrection” and Cawthorn’s speech at the rally provided a “reasonable suspicion” that he “aided the insurrection”.

In the video announcing his congressional run, Clay Aiken condemned Cawthorn and Robinson as “white nationalists” and “hateful homophobes”.

He also acknowledged it wasn’t a “North Carolina thing” before showing images of reviled GOP representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) and Lauren Boebert (Colorado).

/ /

As high court signals Roe v. Wade reversal, states eye same-sex marriage protections

Nearly seven years after the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage the law of the land, New Jersey enacted a law Monday to protect this relatively new right throughout the Garden State. 

Prior to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges — which legalized sex-marriage nationwide in 2015 — New Jersey’s state courts had already struck down a same-sex marriage ban in 2013.

But as a majority of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices appeared open to overturning Roe v. Wade last month, new fears that the court could also make an about-face on the Obergefell ruling have prompted some lawmakers to enshrine same-sex marriage into state law.

“We’ve been fighting for marriage equality for decades, and to turn back the clock would be devastating,” New Jersey Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, who co-sponsored the newly passed bill, told NBC News. “I can’t emphasize enough the fact that we need to safeguard it in light of what’s happening on a federal level today.”

Both chambers of the New Jersey Legislature passed the bill last month, and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed it into law Monday. 

“Despite the progress we have made as a country, there is still much work to be done to protect the LGBTQ+ community from intolerance and injustice,” Murphy said in a statement. “New Jersey is stronger and fairer when every member of our LGBTQ+ family is valued and given equal protection under the law.”

Will the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade? New arguments stir emotions

DEC. 5, 202104:50

Last month, the Supreme Court heard 90 minutes of oral arguments concerning a Mississippi law that would ban almost all abortions in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy. A majority of the court’s conservative justices appeared prepared to uphold the law and possibly overturn Roe v. Wade — the 1973 landmark decision holding that women have a constitutional right to have an abortion before fetal viability, usually around 24 weeks.

The prospect of the 1973 ruling being overturned has prompted fears among lawmakers and LGBTQ advocates that the justices might also walk back precedent on a range of other cases, including Obergefell.

Before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, 37 states and U.S. territories had already legalized marriage equality. But of those, only 19 had legalized the nuptials through state legislation, according to an NBC News analysis. Therefore, if the Supreme Court were to overturn Obergefell, same-sex marriage would be prohibited in the majority of the country and vulnerable in states where it was not written into law.

“The Supreme Court right now is showing us that nothing is guaranteed,” West Virginia Del. Cody Thompson said. “A lot of things that we take for granted right now, that we think are enshrined and are safe, ultimately now we’re realizing are not safe and are not necessarily always going to be there for us unless we remain vigilant.”

In response to the court’s oral arguments on reproductive rights, Thompson and fellow West Virginia Del. Danielle Walker — who are the Legislature’s only out LGBTQ lawmakers — said they will introduce a bill this month to codify same-sex marriage into law, similar to the legislation New Jersey enacted this week. West Virginia legalized same-sex marriage through litigation in 2014, but it never enshrined the right through legislation.

While the court’s seeming willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade has sparked fears among some state lawmakers, lawyers who argued in favor of gay rights in landmark LGBTQ cases shot down the notion that the high court would overturn the same-sex marriage decision even if given the opportunity to do so.

“I appreciate that you have legislatures who are trying to step in and do what they can to update their laws,” said Mary Bonauto, who argued on behalf of same-sex couples in Obergefell and now serves as the civil rights project director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD. “We all just have to be careful to avoid giving credence to the idea that reversing Obergefell is inevitable. We are not expecting this. It would be outrageous.”

Recommended

OUT POP CULTUREThe most entertaining and binge-worthy queer content arriving in January

OUT NEWS‘Trans Handy Ma’am’ goes viral on TikTok after sharing home improvement tips

Bonauto added that Obergefell was “constitutionally correct” because the court has repeatedly made clear that “marriage is a choice for the individual to make and not the government” and is “part of equality.”

Over the last several decades, the court has struck down laws when states tried to prevent people from marrying on the basis of their race, criminal history and their ability to pay child support payments.

Paul Smith, who argued in favor of gay rights in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state laws criminalizing consensual same-sex activity in 2003, agreed with Bonauto, saying it is “unlikely” that the court would overturn Obergefell because it is “incredibly popular.”

Support for same-sex marriage among Americans reached an all-time high last year, according to a June Gallup Poll, with 70 percent of Americans — including a majority of conservatives — in favor of it. 

“The court would be shooting itself in the foot if it were to do this,” Smith said.

Regardless, in 2020, following the Supreme Court’s rejection of an appeal from Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples, two of the court’s conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, issued a blistering rebuke of the Obergefell ruling and signaled that they would be open to reversing it. 

The justices said Davis “may have been one of the first victims of this Court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last,” adding that the high court “has created a problem that only it can fix.”

Some legal experts pointed to this statement and some of the court’s more recent rulings involving same-sex couples as evidence that marriage equality remains vulnerable.

In 2018, the court issued a narrow ruling in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. And last year, in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the court ruled in favor of a Catholic adoption agency that wanted an exemption from Philadelphia’s nondiscrimination law, which would have required the agency to allow LGBTQ couples to adopt.

“The justices have been asked to chip away at the equality and liberty of same-sex couples in a variety of different contexts, and the Supreme Court has not done an adequate job in recent years of rebuffing those efforts,” said Camilla Taylor, director of constitutional litigation for LGBTQ civil rights organization Lambda Legal. “And so, certainly our opponents feel like they have an open invitation right now.”

/ /

Prominent transgender activist murdered in Honduras

,

A prominent transgender activist in Honduras was killed on Monday.

Reportar sin Miedo, the Washington Blade’s media partner in Honduras, reported Thalía Rodríguez was shot in the head outside her home in Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital.

Rodríguez, 58, led Asociación Cozumel Trans, a Honduran trans rights group.

Reportar sin Miedo reported Rodríguez ran her own business for nearly three decades until debts, poor sales and the pandemic forced her to close it about a year ago. Reportar sin Miedo interviewed Rodríguez for a feature story on trans Hondurans’ experiences in the country that it published last month.

“Thalía for many years had been fighting to ensure the trans community in Honduras would have rights,” JLo Córdova of Muñecas de Arcoíris, a Honduran trans rights group, told Reportar sin Miedo. “She was a warrior because she always fought for our rights. We condemn and repudiate her murder.” Ferrera, the co-founder of Asociación Cozumel Trans who the Blade interviewed in Tegucigalpa in 2017, also condemned Rodríguez’s murder.

Anti-trans violence is commonplace in Honduras, a country in Central America’s Northern Triangle that borders Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Reportar sin Miedo reports Rodríguez is the 400th trans person to be reported killed in Honduras since 2009.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights last year found Honduras responsible for the murder of Vicky Hernández, a trans woman who was killed hours after the 2009 coup that ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya. President-elect Xiomara Castro, who is Zelaya’s wife, is scheduled to take office on Jan. 27.

«‹ 3 4 5 6 ›»