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Karen Pence’s Anti-LGBTQ School Got $725K in COVID Bailout Funds

New Civil Rights Movement | December 7, 2020

Topics: Accountable.US, anti-LGBTQ discrimination, coronavirus, COVID-19, Immanuel Christian School, Karen Pence, Paycheck Protection Program, Title IX, Title VII

The school is out front with its anti-LGBTQ politics, yet that didn’t stop Trump’s administration from offering them nearly three-quarters of a million dollars through the Paycheck Protection Program.

The Immanuel Christian private school in Springfield, Virginia bans LGBTQ teachers and students because “homosexual acts and lifestyles are clearly perversions and reprehensible in the sight of God,” at least, according to its employment application.

Unfortunately, the school got $725,000 in bail-out funds from the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a financial stimulus program designed to help keep businesses afloat during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Karen Pence, the wife of Vice President Mike Pence teaches at the school.

“It is shameful that an institution that discriminates against LGBT Americans received nearly $1 million in taxpayer funds,” Kyle Herrig, president of government watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement to The Washington Blade. “This money was meant to help mom and pop small businesses meet payroll and keep the lights on — instead the wealthy and well-connected cashed in.”

Current federal law doesn’t prohibit anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the distribution of PPP funds, the publication adds, even with federal laws like Title VII and Title IX  requiring equal opportunities regardless of gender in schools.

Written by Daniel Villareal, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via NCRM.

McEnany: Trump Trying to Ban Citizenship of Same-Sex Couples’ Kids Has ‘Nothing to Do’ With Sexual Orientation

New Civil Rights Movement | September 7, 2020

Topics: anti-LGBTQ discrimination, double standards, Kayleigh McEnany, LGBTQ adoption, surrogacy, Trump administration

Despite the fact that the Trump administration has only tried to block citizenship for children of same-sex parents, Trump’s press secretary claims the policy has nothing to do with anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany says the Trump administration’s attempts to ban U.S. citizenship from same-sex couples’ children born overseas via surrogacy has “nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the parents.” The Trump State Dept. has only worked to block citizenship of these children when American same-sex couples are the parents.

“A federal judge in Georgia last week was the latest to rule against the administration … denying gay couples citizenship for their children born overseas by a surrogate,” The Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson told McEnany.

“So that pertains to surrogacy and had nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the parents,” McEnany, reading from prepared remarks, replied.

“And this administration and president will proudly stand on a record of achievements, like India, leading a global initiative to end the criminalization of homosexuality throughout the world, launching a plan to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030, and easing a ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men.”

“A federal judge has ruled the interpretation of that law is not correct and that there’s statutory and constitutional concerns,” Johnson countered, before the press secretary, who has a history of anti-LGBTQ comments, interjected.

The “global initiative to end the criminalization of homosexuality” has accomplished nothing because it does not exist; “launching a plan” is not implementing a plan or seeing success, neither of which the administration has done. And “easing a ban on blood donations” was done only because of the coronavirus pandemic. And it did not end the ban.

Watch:

Kayleigh McEnany again tried to paint the Trump admin as pro-LGBTQ+ when challenged on a recent anti-LGBTQ+ policy pic.twitter.com/pPZ3ArMnZ5

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) August 31, 2020

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

An Anti-LGBTQ Billionaire Has Been Bankrolling a Popular Right Wing Pro-Trump Anti-LGBTQ Site

New Civil Rights Movement | August 10, 2020

Topics: anti-LGBTQ discrimination, anti-LGBTQ media, Ben Domenech, Dick Uihlein, Donald Trump, Meghan McCain, Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist

It’s long been a subject of speculation — who is paying for that Trump-loving, LGBTQ-hating right wing website, The Federalist? Turns out it’s a major Republican donor, who also hates LGBTQ people. Surprise!

The Federalist is a right wing, anti-LGBTQ website whose leaders can be seen on Fox News and the Sunday talk shows. People for years have been wondering who funds it. Up until now no one knew.

The site’s co-founder, Ben Domenech, resigned from The Washington Post after just three days, over previous plagiarism allegations. He happens to be married to The View’s Meghan McCain, and was a frequent guest on CBS’s Face the Nation. Earlier, his work was removed from Huffington Post, The Washington Examiner, and The San Francisco Examiner after he was reportedly paid tens of thousands of dollars to write about the government of Malaysia.

Domenech’s senior editor, Mollie Hemingway, was an anti-Trump conservative who used to call then-candidate Donald Trump “a demagogue with no real solutions for anything at all,” and labeled Trump’s whining “ineffectual and impotent.”

Today, she’s among his biggest fans.

In response to its very non-transparent backing, The Federalist has even found a way to make money off the question. For $24.95 you, too, can join in the “fun.”

#IFundTheFederalist T-Shirts are BACK! Get yours here: https://t.co/Yn1pK4oqMU pic.twitter.com/m8eKF8ALuP

— The Federalist (@FDRLST) August 4, 2020

The site is devoted to “owning the libs” and attacking Trump’s critics while advancing the President’s agenda.

But, it would seem, not just the President’s agenda.

Back in 2014 Media Matters called it “an outlet for often-rabid anti-LGBT talking points.”

And now we know, thanks to The New York Times, that one of The Federalist’s “major backers is Dick Uihlein, the Midwestern packing supply magnate and Trump donor who has a history of giving to combative, hard-right candidates, like Roy S. Moore of Alabama.”

Blue Virginia calls Uihlein “Roy Moore’s #1 donor and anti-LGBTQ bankroller.”

Moore, of course, is the twice-former, twice-booted Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who became the twice-failed GOP U.S. Senate candidate. Uihlein supported him even after multiple credible accusations of rape and harassment came out against him.

And The Federalist even published an op-ed basically defending Moore, the Times notes.

“The Federalist ran an opinion piece that defended men who dated young women as a practice with a long history that was ‘not without some merit if one wants to raise a large family.’”

Dick Uihlein and his wife have donated millions to GOP and conservative candidates and their super PACs, including “roughly $26 million” during the 2018 election cycle – and that was just the first half of the year, according to The Times.

“Uihlein dumped as much as $17 million” in 2018 into a GOP candidate, Leah Vukmir, who tried to unseat Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, INTO’s Nico Lang reported.  The candidate was a “right-wing extremist” who had “a staunch record of opposing queer and trans rights.”

Not only did she have “‘close ties’ to the Family Research Council,” she “favored Russia’s anti-gay ‘propaganda’ law, and backed Uganda’s ‘Kill the Gays’ bill.”

The Federalist appears to echo Uihlein’s anti-LGBTQ agenda, running headlines like “Supreme Court Ridiculously Demands Everyone Pretend Sex Differences Don’t Exist,” “Why Pete Buttigieg Is The Most Destructive Candidate For Christianity,” “Donald Trump Has Done Far More For Gay People Than The Stonewall Democrats,” “4 Times LGBT Media Turned Coronavirus Coverage Into Attacks On Christians,” “Transgenderism’s War On Women Betrays Left’s Claims To Champion Our Rights,” “The Queer Movement Wants To Convert Christians, Not Coexist,” and on, and on, and on.

How much The Federalist receives from Uihlein is not publicly known.

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

The Work Is Never Done

Mitchel Bamberger | July 1, 2020

Topics: anti-LGBTQ discrimination, Aurora Higgs, black lives matter, Civil Rights Act, Equality Virginia, LGBTQ civil rights, Title VII, US Supreme Court, Vee Lamneck, Virginia Values Act

Equality Virginia’s Vee Lamneck talks to GayRVA about Title VII, The Virginia Values Act, and the connections between LGBTQ and BLM.

On June 15th, the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed three historic cases and came to one monumental decision: that Title VII of The Civil Rights Act of 1964 protected LGBTQ people from discrimination in the workplace based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Prior to the Title VII decision, it was completely lawful in quite a few states of the union for an employee of a private corporation to be fired or passed up for employment for being LGBTQ.

The Supreme Court made a statement about one of the cases, saying, “Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.” – Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, June 15, 2020.

In many ways, this case was a matter of analyzing the Civil Rights Act through a modern lens and recontextualizing the age-old issue of sex discrimination to address the issues of LGBTQ people. When The Civil Rights Act was originally passed, the legislators responsible for its proposal and approval were almost certainly thinking of women, and not of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans people. However, when Title VII was reviewed in today’s context, the justices found that the same laws that protected women from discrimination in ‘60’s should also protect LGBTQ people today.

One of the foremost advocacy groups for LGBTQ rights in Virginia is Equality Virginia, an organization that is dedicated to creating a truly inclusive commonwealth for all Virginians, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. Equality Virginia Executive Director Vee Lamneck, who uses they/them pronouns, spoke to us about what this landmark Supreme Court decision means for LGBTQ Richmonders, Virginians, and Americans.

“LGBTQ people have been advocating for their rights for decades,” Lamneck said. “There are many states in the country that have non-discrimination protections in place at the state level, and I am very proud that Virginia is soon to be one of them.”

Lamneck is referring to The Virginia Values Act, which was passed by the General Assembly this spring and takes effect on July 1st. This bill will protect LGBTQ Virginians from discrimination in all public spaces and places of business, not just as employees but as customers and citizens as well.

“This means that LGBTQ people will be able to go about their daily lives without fear of discrimination in housing, in public spaces like restaurants and hotels, and also in employment,” Lamneck continued.

Image via Equality Virginia/Facebook

Lamneck explained that the Virginia Values Act goes farther than the recent Supreme Court decision, protecting LGBTQ people beyond the workplace. “The Virginia Values Act speaks to public accommodations protections, so that you cannot be discriminated against or denied service when you walk into a restaurant or shop or hotel on the basis of your orientation or identity,” they said. “Title VII does not speak to that, which is why there’s a lot more work to do on the federal level.”

While Lamneck is very pleased about the protections Virginians are ensured within the Commonwealth, they still consider it very important to focus on federal protections. “Once Virginians leave the Commonwealth and go to other states, depending on which state you’re in, those protections may not be in place,” they said.

The recent Supreme Court decision is important to ensure that LGBTQ people are protected against discrimination throughout the country, but it’s not the only action taking place at the federal level where LGBTQ rights are concerned. Lamneck pointed out that the Equality Act, a bill that would amend the Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes throughout, passed the US House Of Representatives in 2019, and is currently under consideration by the US Senate.

“The passage of the Equality Act will ensure comprehensive protections for LGBTQ Americans,” Lamneck explained. And while there’s still hope within the LGBTQ community that it will be passed at some point, the recent Supreme Court decision does offer some much-needed relief. “This decision is so important,” they said, “especially for those individuals and their families living in states without these protections.”

Aurora Higgs, a 29 year old black transgender woman who is an LGBTQ scholar, activist, and public speaker, has worked with Lamneck and Equality Virginia on campaigns for LGBTQ equality in Virginia. Higgs is very happy to see the Virginia Values Act go into effect later this week, mentioning that previous laws intended to provide protections for LGBTQ Virginians, none of which passed, had all included disappointing limitations. “This law is so much more comprehensive and covers all of the people in the rural areas that are always going to be the most at risk,” Higgs said.

Despite living in a state that now has protections for LGBTQ people against employment discrimination, Higgs was still glad to hear about the Title VII Supreme Court decision. “It will ensure that the same protections that I enjoy in a state that already has those laws in place can be experienced anywhere in this country,” Higgs said. “Traveling for queer and trans people is incredibly daunting, because you never know what the climate of a community is until you’re in it.”

Higgs shared how she in particular has faced real concerns about discrimination in employment over the course of her life — concerns that she hopes will be diminished by the passage of the Virginia Values Act and the recent Supreme Court decision. “It’s really difficult to enforce discrimination policies in a job interview when there are so many factors that they could use as pretext to not hire you,” she said. “I worry about showing up for job interviews and being seen as a professional when I’m trans and black.”

Under the Supreme Court’s new Title VII decision, Higgs said, working conditions will improve for LGBTQ Americans in a variety of ways. “Employers will have to have a fire lit under them to ensure that insurance policies are adequate for trans people and that the workplace culture is adequate,” Higgs said. “As happy as I am I see it, [it’s] not so much a victory as getting one more hurdle out of the way to liberation, which is the final goal.”

Both Higgs and Lamneck drew parallels between LGBTQ rights and the Black Lives Matter movement that has recently swept across the nation. Lamneck explained how the human rights effort of the BLM Movement and the nationwide protests have affected the work of Equality Virginia, and how the fight for LGBTQ rights and Racial Equality are connected. They also illuminated how the discrimination and inequality that LGBTQ people are subjected to is compounded by their race. Race is the hidden, implied context of every conversation, every law and every decision. A black LGBTQ person’s struggle for equality is compounded by their blackness — which makes things harder still. “Even with the Title VII decision, black LGBTQ people are still experiencing disproportionate discrimination in their lives.” Lamneck said. “Our laws need to address systemic racism and inequality.”

Aurora Higgs. Photo via Facebook

To Higgs, it’s clear that the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement and the LGBTQ rights movement are fundamentally aligned. “The BLM movement seeks to disrupt not just racism but white supremacy,” Higgs said. “White supremacy has historically been misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic. All of those thing are still present to this day, and they compound one another.”

However, both Higgs and Lamneck agree that the effects of discrimination are magnified by those who exist within multiple marginalized groups. “My experience as a white queer person and the discrimination that I may experience is going to look different than the discrimination of the black trans person next to me because she is experiencing racism, homophobia, and sexism all at the same time,” Lamneck explained.

“There is so much joy and hardship that comes with being black and trans and queer,” said Higgs. “But when you have different dimensions of diversity and marginalization, they compound on one another.”

Higgs believes that the LGBTQ civil rights movement working alongside the Black Lives Matter movement is an ideal way to enable both groups to better understand and support one another. “Although the [Black Lives Matter] movement highlights black lives, it’s really shedding a light on oppression, and I think we all relate to oppression,” she said. “The fastest way to empathy is shared experience.”

While Lamneck is feeling positive about the recent progress in LGBTQ civil rights, they recognize that there’s still a lot more to be done. “This moment reminds us that, yes, this is a victory for the LGBT movement, but also that the work is not done”, Lamneck said. “We need to work to address systemic racism, homophobia, and transphobia. The work for LGBTQ equality must be interwoven with the work to dismantle systemic racism.”

In the future, Lamneck hopes to not only carry on with Equality Virginia’s current mission of fighting for LGBTQ civil rights in the Commonwealth, but to expand that work to encompass other marginalized groups. “I think our work here as an organization needs to continue to restructure as an anti-racist organization,” they said.

For Higgs, the main focus of civil rights activism in the coming years needs to be to increase political representation by and for marginalized groups. “We don’t have hardly any representation in the federal government,” she said. “The most sustainable solution I can think of is having more queer and trans people of color in both appointments at the state level and as elected officials nationwide. I don’t think we can really hope for anything until we have representation in politics.”

For now, though, LGBTQ people in Virginia can breathe slightly easier, knowing that the Virginia Values Act and the recent Supreme Court decision give them more protections against discrimination than they’ve ever had before.

Top Photo via Equality Virginia/Facebook

Head of Right Wing Group That Spent Millions on Gorsuch Mocked for Fury Over LGBTQ Rights Opinion

New Civil Rights Movement | June 17, 2020

Topics: anti-LGBTQ discrimination, Carrie Severino, Civil Rights Act, Judicial Crisis Network, LGBTQ rights, Neil Gorsuch, US Supreme Court

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, wrote the majority opinion protecting LGBTQ rights in the workplace, and the head of a right-wing group that fought to have him appointed is very very angry.

The head of a far right wing activist group is furious conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote Monday’s majority Supreme Court opinion that finds discriminating against LGBTQ workers is illegal.

Judicial Crisis Network, a “powerful dark money group pushing [the] court to right,” ran a $10 million campaign in 2017 to force Gorsuch onto the bench. He is President Donald Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee. The group also spent $1 million to block President Barack Obama from putting Merrick Garland on the bench.

In a series of tweets, Carrie Severino blasted Justice Gorsuch and the five others who sided with his opinion. She even claims they are merely trying to appeal to college students by finding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects LGBTQ workers from discrimination.

Gorsuch, a textualist who replaced Justice Antonin Scalia on the bench, decided that as written, the actual words of the Civil Rights Act make clear that discriminating on the basis of sex is illegal.

Severino, who also happens to be married to Roger Severino, a far right wing religious activist who heads the Dept. of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights under Trump, is furious.

Justice Scalia would be disappointed that his successor has bungled textualism so badly today, for the sake of appealing to college campuses and editorial boards.

This was not judging, this was legislating—a brute force attack on our constitutional system. (1/x)

— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) June 15, 2020

Have no doubts about what happened today: This was the hijacking of textualism.

You can't redefine the meaning of words themselves and still be doing textualism. This is an ominous sign for anyone concerned about the future of representative democracy. (end)

— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) June 15, 2020

President Trump and his administration oppose rights for LGBTQ workers and actively lobbied to have the Court rule discrimination is legal.

On social media many – including some conservatives – are mocking her.

Dang, too bad the justice you guys bought isn't a far-right extremist 100% of the time. https://t.co/WVHS2K6UNe

— Alex Kotch (@alexkotch) June 15, 2020

The reason why conservative dark money groups like JCN spend millions of dollars on judicial nominations ($10 million+ for Gorsuch alone!) is because they want to guarantee conservative legal outcomes. It didn't work today, and they're pissed. https://t.co/Na3MiKClkK

— Meagan Hatcher-Mays (@importantmeagan) June 15, 2020

Yes, a man with a lifetime appointment and guaranteed salary of more than $250,000/year even after he retires felt the need to cater to college campuses and editorial boards. This makes complete and total sense.

— Dan. B (@forensics409) June 15, 2020

Cry me a river pic.twitter.com/zxfU4vcMFu

— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) June 15, 2020

INCONVENIENT FACT: Justice Scalia was one of the most "activist" judges ever to sit on the Supreme Court.

In District of Columbia v. Heller, Scalia wrote the majority opinion that overturned 200 years of 2nd Amendment law just because it suited his right-wing, pro-NRA views. https://t.co/BYWVVit1yh

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) June 15, 2020

Looks like using "textualism" as a cover for bigotry didn't work this time. Sad for you.

— Scott Tobias (@scott_tobias) June 15, 2020

"Textualism" is just an excuse to discriminate against people they hate. https://t.co/93BRWm8047

— Marc Love (@marcslove) June 15, 2020

Thoughts and prayers for the right-wing activists who thought they had installed only fellow bigots onto the bench. https://t.co/C1d4PIFL6B

— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) June 15, 2020

Carrie Severino, right wing judicial activist and spouse of HHS OCR director who last week issued a discriminatory HHS rule that was invalidated by today's SCOTUS decision, is upset about Gorsuch's textualist argument https://t.co/aEUU9YDDKQ

— Tim Fitzsimons (@tfitzsimons) June 15, 2020

bigots like carrie invent sophisticated and academic excuses to rationalize their bigotry. the same people saying this justified dred scott v. sandford. and those same people justified plessy v. ferguson.

bigots always find a way to frame their intolerance as intellectualism. https://t.co/A6TbSvpFmb

— brent (@brent858) June 15, 2020

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

Anti-Gay ‘Hookers For Jesus’ Group Gets Major DOJ Grant

New Civil Rights Movement | February 14, 2020

Topics: Annie Lobert, anti-LGBTQ discrimination, Department of Justice, Hookers For Jesus, human Trafficking

The Department of Justice gave a grant from their anti-human trafficking program to Hookers For Jesus, which restricts what occupants of their safe houses are allowed to read and labels homosexuality immoral.

According to an exclusive report from Reuters, internal complaints are emerging from the US Justice Department’s anti-human trafficking grant program. The complaints stem from two nonprofits that were denied funds which instead went to two less established groups “whose applications were not recommended by career DOJ officials.”

“The awarding of more than $1 million total to the two groups, Hookers for Jesus in Nevada and the Lincoln Tubman Foundation in South Carolina, has triggered a whistleblower complaint filed by the Justice Department’s employee union to the department’s Inspector General,” Reuters reports.

Hookers for Jesus is run by born-again Christian Annie Lobert who is also a trafficking survivor. The organization runs a safe house which bars occupants from reading “secular magazines” that portray worldly views/advice on living, sex, clothing, makeup tips.” When asked if her organization is all-inclusive, Lobert replied that they are “not going to discriminate toward anyone.”

“But we are Christian. And there is an understanding before they come in here that we are Christian,” she added.

Reuters also reported that the group’s staff training manual describes homosexuality as immoral and describes drug use as “witchcraft.”

A Nevada official who reviewed a state grant in 2018 questioned whether Hookers for Jesus treated sex-trafficking victims like “prisoners.”

Read the full report here.

Written by Sky Palma of Raw Story, via The New Civil Rights Movement. Photo via NCRM

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