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DOJ Intervenes to Support Lawsuit Filed by Christian Photographer Refusing to Photograph Same-Sex Weddings

New Civil Rights Movement | March 3, 2020

Topics: ACLU, Alliance Defending Freedom, Bill Barr, Chelsey Nelson, Department of Justice, Louisville, religious freedom, Trump administration

A Kentucky wedding photographer has filed a pre-emptive lawsuit to protect herself from the possibility of a hypothetical gay couple trying to hire her for their wedding. And Trump’s DOJ is backing her, because of course they are.

The U.S. Dept. of Justice under Attorney General Bill Barr has intervened in a pre-emptive lawsuit filed by a Kentucky wedding photographer who claims her interpretation of her Christian religion bars her from taking photos of weddings of same-sex couples.

No same-sex couple has ever tried to hire Chelsey Nelson to photograph their nuptials, but her attorneys, the far right wing Alliance Defending Freedom, filed the lawsuit against Louisville city officials anyway, according to the AP. The ADF appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups.

And now the Justice Dept. in a 23-page “statement of interest” says the “Court should find that Plaintiffs have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits.”

In other words, the DOJ has told the court hearing her case directly that it agrees with the ADF.

The Louisville law bans businesses from discriminating against LGBTQ people. Many legal experts agree that refusing to provide a service to an entire class of people is discrimination, hence the countless laws across the country that protect LGBTQ people and other minorities from being refused services their non-LGBTQ peers regularly pay for and receive without question.

The DOJ, however, in a press release claims the legal statement it filed explains that Nelson “is likely to succeed on her claim that requiring her to photograph weddings against her conscience constitutes government-compelled speech that violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.”

“The First Amendment forbids the government from forcing someone to speak in a manner that violates individual conscience,” said Eric Dreiband, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The U.S. Department of Justice will continue to protect the right of all persons to exercise their constitutional right to speech and expression.”

The ACLU disagrees, and “filed a brief defending the city, arguing that the Nelson’s intent to offer wedding photography only to heterosexual couples violates the city law.”

The renowned  civil rights group calls Nelson’s position “identity-based discrimination.”

The SPLC says the Alliance Defending Freedom “has supported the recriminalization of homosexuality in the U.S. and criminalization abroad; has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad; has linked homosexuality to pedophilia and claims that a ‘homosexual agenda’ will destroy Christianity and society.”

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via NCRM

Gavin Grimm Is The Newest Member of the ACLU’s Board Of Directors

Marilyn Drew Necci | January 8, 2020

Topics: ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union, Gavin Grimm, Gloucester County Public Schools, trans bathroom use, transgender rights

Youthful transgender advocate Gavin Grimm continues to make Virginia proud.

Gavin Grimm is still only 20 years old, but he’s spent nearly a quarter of his young life at the center of the ongoing struggle for transgender rights in America. As we all should know by now, it all started back when he was just another high school student, fighting for his right to use the boys’ bathroom at Gloucester High School, the semi-rural eastern Virginia high school he was attending.

Since then, he’s fought his way through the Federal court system — twice — and due to an endless string of appeals, is still fighting despite multiple previous court victories. Along the way, he’s graduated from high school, moved to California, and become a household name. And now, he’s been appointed to a one-year term on the American Civil Liberties Union’s Board of Directors.

“I am honored to announce that I have been elected to the ACLU Board of Directors for a one year term!!” he wrote in a tweet on January 3.

The ACLU worked closely with Grimm throughout his legal fight, representing him in his many court cases along the way. Now Grimm will spend a year on the group’s Board of Directors, bringing the many things he’s learned along the way about fighting for civil rights to one of the best known defenders of civil rights in this country.

“I am elated, and I will work hard to do this position justice,” Grimm said in his tweeted announcement. “Thank you to the ACLU and to everyone who has supported me through my fight.” Grimm is now in a position to help many others in fights for their own civil rights. He will surely to continue to make Virginia’s LGBTQ community proud.

Photo via Gavin Grimm/Facebook

Shining Light Against Oppression and Separation

Hadley Chittum | July 23, 2019

Topics: abbie arevalo herrera, ACLU, ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, immigration policy, Lights For Liberty, Virginia Capitol

On July 12, Richmonders joined with protesters across the country, showing their opposition to detention camps and family separations at the US-Mexico border with the nationwide Lights For Liberty vigil.

Hundreds of supporters came out to the Lights for Liberty vigil in front of the state Capitol building in downtown Richmond on Friday, July 12th. The vigil brought people together across the US to protest the federal government’s immigration policies and treatment of migrants at the US-Mexico border. The Richmond vigil was one of over 700 planned that night for different locations across the country.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were rumored to be attending, preventing anyone not wanting to risk arrest from joining in. ACLU legal observers present at the event could not confirm if ICE officers did actually attend. 

The vigil included Richmond activists as speakers, and ended with a Facebook LiveStream account of staying in a detention center on the border by Abbie Arevalo Herrera, a woman who has been fighting her deportation for the past year by living within the First Unitarian Church of Richmond.

Here are some scenes from the evening’s events:

Photos by Hadley Chittum

Prison Reform Advocates Call for Change to Solitary Confinement in Virginia 

George Copeland, Jr. | November 16, 2018

Topics: ACLU, ACLU of Virginia, david smith, DOC, DOJ, IAHR, Prison Reform, Ralph Northam, Solitary Confinement, Virginia politics

David Smith doesn’t cut the figure of a man who’s been to prison, let alone one who spent more than a year in solitary confinement.

Dressed in a button-up white shirt, with tan khakis and a blue blazer, the impression Smith gives is more of a white collar worker. This impression isn’t out of place in the homely lower level of the Bethlehem Lutheran Church, which served as the setting for a forum on Virginia solitary confinement on October 27. For Smith, this misconception is one of many aspects of a long-standing issue that prison-reform advocates want the state to address. 

“When I meet with a Senator or Delegate, and I say ‘Yeah, hey, my name’s David, I spent sixteen-and-a-half months in solitary,’ the jaws drop,” Smith said. “And all of a sudden, it’s no longer that guy from the bad side — it’s ‘This could be my son, this could be my brother right here.’ So that begins to change the conversation.” 

For Virginia, one of the most recent shifts in that conversation came in May with a 67-page report from the ACLU of Virginia. The report detailed the extent of “the negative impacts of solitary confinement as practiced in Virginia, the systemic difficulties prisoners have in escaping it and returning to the general population, and the State’s failure to exclude individuals with serious mental health problems from solitary confinement.” 

The report was preceded by a letter to Governor Ralph Northam calling on him to sign an executive order that would limit the practice in Virginia. This request was joined by more, urging for state action from multiple advocacy and religious groups in the weeks following the report’s publication. These came largely through the Interfaith Action for Human Rights (IAHR), a coalition whose member organizations reside in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, and for which Smith serves as a representative. 

As detailed by Kimberly Jenkins-Snodgrass, Vice-chairperson of the IAHR, the lack of forward movement on this matter from state officials leaves many prisoners subject to a system of incarceration that includes “putting inmates in a cell that’s basically the size of a parking space.” 

“When an individual is put into solitary confinement, they are participating in an illegal court,” Snodgrass said. “You have security guards with a high-school education looking at inmates, giving them time — in some instances, more time than a judge gives them in a courtroom. And this is the issue.” 

On October 27, Smith moderated a panel of speakers that included former inmate, author, and community advocate Tommy Cox; Jenkins-Snodgrass; and Bill Farrar and Mateo Gasparotto of ACLU-VA. Jenkins-Snodgrass was open about effects that “the United States’ best-kept secret” had for her son, Kevin D. Snodgrass Jr., his health, and a loving family. 

“When we say ‘stop solitary confinement,’ we’re not saying open the floodgates and let everybody out of jail,” Snodgrass said. “We’re just saying to treat them like human beings while they’re in there.” 

The details of the years Snodgrass says her son spent in solitary confinement are a far cry from the statements that the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) has given in the past. They also contrast heavily with VADOC’s recent attempts to better the treatment of its prisoners. These include a 21-month initiative started in early 2017 with the Vera Institute of Justice, focused on reducing the use of what officials call “restrictive housing,” among other efforts. 

“When it comes to state prisons, Virginia stands out for operating a corrections system without the use of solitary confinement,” VADOC wrote in a press release posted the same day the ACLU report documenting widespread use of the practice was released. VADOC’s press release noted the praise it’s received from Governor Ralph Northam and the U.S. Department of Justice. “The Virginia Department of Corrections serves as a national model for the limited use of restrictive housing.” 

These statements and measures constitute some of the few pieces of public information available about the experiences of Virginia’s prisoners, something the panel repeatedly emphasized during the discussion. 

“This is a completely unregulated practice,” said Farrar, who serves as ACLU-VA’s communications director. “There’s nothing in the Virginia Code that even says what solitary confinement is, and that allows the Department of Corrections to lie about it.” 

“They say they don’t do it. They do.” 

In the absence of more accessible research or data on the state of Virginia’s prisons and their treatment of offenders, groups like ACLU-VA & IAHR and individuals like Tommy Cox are more than willing to fill in the gaps. 

“The people that came to the cell were nasty. They talk to you any kind of way, you took one shower once a week, and it was living hell,” said Cox, who described the physical degradation he suffered as the result of the conditions in solitary across two incarcerations, totaling almost 40 years. Cox’s time included one confinement which lasted three consecutive years during a stint in a New Mexico prison as a Virginia offender, which made him the very first inmate in the Commonwealth to be shipped out of state. 

Other testimonies and criticisms ranged from the withholding of food by guards to the mental effects solitary confinement has on inmates and the lack of accountability present in the VADOC and other agencies. Even the measures taken by the VADOC to create easier pathways out of “restrictive housing,” namely the Administrative Step-Down Program instituted in 2012, were sharply criticized for resulting in harsher treatments for Hispanic and African-American inmates. 

“Their treatment is completely arbitrary, there’s no sense of cohesion, and there’s no sense of fairness or justice,” said Gasparotto, who has spoken with several inmates at the Wallens Ridge and Red Onion State Prisons. The latter was the focus of a hunger strike by prisoners in 2012 as well as an HBO documentary released in February. It is part of an investigation into prison abuse by Attorney General Claude Walker of the Virgin Islands. 

“Ultimately, their goal is institutional control,” said Gasparotto, who works in ACLU-VA’s Legal and Public Policy departments, of the VADOC. “It’s not about rehabilitation, it’s not about building you back as a human being, it’s about you serving your time, keeping quiet, and getting out the door. And when you step out of line… solitary confinement is used.” 

The solutions the panel recommended to help in solving this problem proved to be the same method that defined much of the discussion — speaking up against solitary confinement, and championing the humanity of those incarcerated. 

Audience members were asked to call their representatives. Lobbying by the ACLU-VA has already led to the introduction of a “reporting bill” into the Virginia House of Delegates ahead of the 2019 General Assembly by Patrick Hope, D-Arlington, that would, according to Farrar, “help us understand who is being held in solitary confinement, why, for what reason, for how long,” and lead to further legislative action. Efforts are underway to introduce similar a similar bill in the Senate, in addition to continued advocacy work focused on the Northam Administration. 

Delegate Hope was one of several people the speakers mentioned as “interested” in tackling the issue of solitary confinement — including legislators in both the Democrat and Republican parties — who “are waiting to see who will move first,” said Snodgrass. 

“Not everybody in the state government is turning a blind eye to this. There are advocates within the system,” Smith said. 

One of those advocates, Peter Wells, who ran as a Libertarian against A. Donald McEachin and Ryan McAdams in Virginia’s 4th District, was present to share his thoughts. Touting the prominence of criminal justice reform as part of his platform, Wells impressed on the audience the potential attention this issue would receive if his campaign made a strong impact in the midterms. 

While McEachin eventually claimed a sizable victory in last Tuesday’s midterms elections, with Wells pulling in around 1% of the overall vote, the then-Senatorial candidate was optimistic he would have the chance to bring the topic into a wider spotlight. 

“I’ve already had one offer to sit down after the election and talk about some issues,” Wells said. “So I’m going to get some logging time with whoever wins just by coming out of this.”

As for Smith, he and other advocates are already looking ahead to next year’s local elections to establish connections with politicians sympathetic to their goals, regardless of party affiliation. 

“Because you need to have that across the board,” Smith said. “It’s not a left issue, it’s not a right issue. This is a human rights issue.” 

Photos by George Copeland

The Power Of The Simplest Of Actions

Henry Haggard | November 6, 2018

Topics: ACLU, Art 180, community organizing, Juvenile Justice Parade, school to prison pipeline, TAGRVA

This weekend, I attended Art 180, Performing Statistics, and RISE for Youth’s joint event, the Juvenile Justice Parade. It was organized by black and brown youth, all of whom have faced personal discrimination and many of whom have been personally sent through the school-to-prison-pipeline.

Chants spanned from “Fund education, not incarceration, invest in us, invest in us,” to as simple as, “Prisons don’t work!” As we marched, we each were holding at least one piece of artwork from formerly incarcerated youth, organized by Art 180, and we took their art to the streets with a moving march, literally and figuratively.

We started at a community center and ended at a park, marching through backstreets and backstreets only. I felt weird about being guided by the police car and chanting these things in the first person, but I had to set my awkwardness aside to focus on the bigger picture– the mobilization and the movement.

At the beginning and end we heard speeches (one by my friend Stephanie), songs, raps, poetry, and freestyle dances, all of which went to support a bigger cause. In the park there was an open mic after all of the scheduled speakers had gone, and I shared my poem, “Do Nothing,” with a feeling of hope.

It was absolutely essential that people would show up at this event, to participate, to engage, to learn. Despite my obvious suburban-whiteness, I was one of those people, and it mattered. Everyone who came made a difference at the event in one way or another.

Based on the title of this post, you may think my point will be that showing up is all you have to do, or that it is the simplest of actions, but neither are correct. To truly make a difference, you not only have to show up, you have to show up again, and again, and again, for whatever cause matters to you.

This seems like a lot, but it really isn’t. The simplest of actions, I will argue, is even simpler than attending an event. What can you do that will help you show up, get involved, and most importantly, spread your voice? Talking, listening, discussing. Its as simple as that. No matter who you are or what you do, you cannot change the world alone. But with a group, you can.

It recently came to my attention that we all, introverts and extroverts alike, need groups to thrive in activism, even if they’re just three other people. So, a whole year ago, I made an after-school club called TCLU (or the ACLU of Tuckahoe Middle School) and went through the bi-weekly craziness for a year (kudos to Ms McNew and Hayes). In the summer, it continued as the Teen Advocacy Group of Richmond, TAGRVA. It was a rocky rollercoaster, and not much of one at that, but eventually, through simply showing up again and again, it stabilized.

We have five people in total, and it doesn’t seem like much, but it is. My point is anyone can go anywhere if they continue to show up for and with other people. “Anyone” in that sentence is the word I had forgotten about for so long, but then we had an idea.

We decided we could expand TAG, so anyone could make their own. All they’d need is people, a time-frame, and a venue. Ours are: friends who live nearby, Wednesday evenings, and my house. It’s that simple, yet that important, to talk to other people with other backgrounds and ideas. If you are a teenager or know one who may be interested in forming a group, you can learn more at www.tagrva.com.

My point here is that even something as simple as frequently brainstorming actions with friends, or attending an event, really matters — your first step is to show up.

‘Legalize Virginia’ to Elevate the Discussion Around Marijuana Reform

Jesse Scaccia | September 10, 2018

Topics: ACLU, Board of Pharmacy, CBD, Marijuana, marijuana dispensaries, medical marijuana, Medicinal, Norfolk, O'Connor Brewing Company, Virginia marijuana laws, Virginia NORML

Update: Legalize Virginia has been rescheduled to next week, starting Sept. 18.

Last week the Board of Pharmacy Ad Hoc Committee met to determine which companies will be the first to be able to open medical cannabis dispensaries in Virginia.

Yes, they met behind closed doors. And no, the current law is not enough. But that doesn’t change the fact that what is happening right now is a huge, huge step for marijuana in Virginia.

Within the next year, you will be able to bring a form signed by your doctor to a regulated business in the Commonwealth, and there, they will give you an oil derived from a marijuana plant grown on site. It’s just the beginning for those very lucky five business license holders, who you can expect to fiercely try to attract as many patient customers through their doors as possible.

When you picture the folks waiting in line at those dispensaries, I urge you to think of the hundreds of thousands of people in Virginia with genuine illnesses and conditions, who genuinely will find solace and healing from medical marijuana.

Think of my friend Creed Leffler, who has Cerebral Palsy. He calls marijuana the “miracle plant” for the way it helps his muscles relax. “There is no such thing as recreational marijuana,” Leffler said. “It’s all medicinal.”

Creed Leffler

The list of the ailments that can be treated with marijuana is longer than your arm. Check out this chart. Chronic pain, epilepsy, PTSD, ALS, cancer, diabetes — the list goes on and on. The stories are heartbreaking.

Melanie Seifert Davis’s daughter Maddie has been fighting metastatic brain cancer since she was five. “Because of the use of multiple cannabis products, Madison lives a life free of pain, seizures or any limiting deficits, and full of the joys of childhood all children deserve,” said Davis, an ER nurse. “My degree in Biology and my years in the trenches of modern medicine have enabled me to make treatment decisions for my family that rely on evidence-based best practices and emerging research findings, including the multitude of medical benefits that can be derived from marijuana.”

Melanie Seifert Davis’ with her daughter Maddie

I expect marijuana law reform in Virginia to move relatively quickly from here. Expect the businesses granted licenses to be a part of the army of voices banging the drum for even more cannabis law reform in the Commonwealth. The organization I am a part of, Virginia NORML, will be pushing for a decriminalization bill this upcoming General Assembly.

There is hope. There is a plan. And there’s also going to be a party.

Virginia NORML is working with Norfolk’s O’Connor Brewing Company to push the conversation forward with Legalize Virginia Festival, a week-long series of workshops, panels, events, and activities all diving into a different aspect of reform.

Last Monday, the group held “Marijuana Saved My Life: Cannabis as Medicine in Virginia,” a forum on the new medical cannabis law, who it will help, and how to talk to your doctor about it, with Virginia NORML Executive Director Jenn Michelle Pedini leading the panel. Lisa Bohn, a Purple Heart veteran who uses cannabis to help her cope with PTSD, along with Davis and Leffler, will also speak on the panel. On Tuesday, Sept. 18, the festival will hold the “Equity and Expungement: Talking Marijuana and Race in Virginia” panel, which will look at the disparity in arrest rates among white Virginians and Virginians of color, the expungement of records of those with marijuana offenses, and more. Norfolk NAACP President Joe Dillard, Bill Farrar, director of public policy and communications for ACLU of Virginia, and expungement and restoration of rights attorney Wanda Cooper will serve on the panel. Thursday’s discussion will dive into what cities in Virginia can do about cannabis law reform.

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All forums run from 7 to 8 pm at O’Connor Brewing Company and followed by more informal workshops. Tonight, there will be a workshop on growing hops and hemp, on Tuesday will be a workshop on entering the cannabis industry, and on Thursday there will be a workshop on how to be a kick-ass marijuana activist.

Friday, Sept. 21 is the festival atmosphere. O’Connor is releasing a special beer they’re brewing with hemp seeds, called “YES, NORFOLK CAN(yon),” a pale ale modeled after their Norfolk Canyon brew. There will be a ton of pop-ups as part of NOMARAMA’s Munchie Market, a killer list of independent vendors, DJs, a pop-up yoga class, and a retro arcade. The festival runs from 3 pm to midnight.

The fact that O’Connor Brewing Co., a major name in Virginia craft beer, is hosting this series of events is, in-and-of-itself, a testament to the new day for marijuana in Virginia.

This issue is out of the shadows. Soon, we’ll be walking into legal dispensaries in the light of day. And what a beautiful day that will be.

You can check out the entire schedule for Legalize Virginia here.

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