HRC Calls McCrory's Support of HB 2 Compromise 'Kiss of Death'

As the bill heads to the governer’s desk, the former governor shows his support for it.

www.advocate.com/politics/2017/3/30/hrc-calls-mccrorys-support-hb-2-compromise-kiss-death

HB2 Repeal Clears North Carolina Senate, Heads to House

A compromise bill to repeal HB2 blasted by LGBTQ and civil rights groups has been passed by the North Carolina Senate ahead of a looming deadline from the NCAA and is headed to the House which is expected to take it up this afternoon. It could reach the governor by this evening.

Its provisions include an extension for the state to continue discriminating against LGBTQ people until 2020.

The News Observer reports:

Opposition and support for the bill did not fall along party lines in the 32-16 vote. Several Triangle Democrats banded together to oppose it; they included Sen. Jay Chaudhuri of Raleigh, Sen. Mike Woodard of Durham, Sen. Floyd McKissick of Durham, , and Sen. Valerie Foushee of Hillsborough, as well Sen. Jeff Jackson of Charlotte and Sen. Don Davis of Greenville.

Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue of Raleigh and Senate leader Phil Berger, a Republican, asked the Senate to approve the compromise.

The bill now goes to the full House, where it there is expected to be a narrower margin of support. If it passes the House, it will go to the governor for his signature.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement overnight that he supported the compromise. Whether the repeal and attached provisions will be sufficient to put the state back in contention to host NCAA sports championships remains to be seen.

LGBTQ and civil rights groups blasted the bill, labeling it a “license to discriminate”.

Wrote HRC:

HRC and Equality North Carolina urged North Carolina lawmakers to reject a backroom “deal” that would both continue the harms of the discriminatory HB2 law and push the possibility of full repeal further out of reach. The most recent proposal would specifically prohibit cities from passing protections ensuring that transgender people are able to access facilities in accordance with their gender identity, and it would further prohibit municipalities from passing other LGBTQ non-discrimination protections through 2020.

This means that North Carolina would continue to be the only state in the nation to have shamefully funneled anti-transgender animus into a law regulating restroom access. The proposal would also prevent cities in North Carolina from establishing non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people for at least three years, undermining efforts by cities like Charlotte to attract top talent, major businesses, and other economic opportunities.

For more than a year, Senate President Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore have blocked an up-or-down vote on clean repeal of HB2, despite the overwhelming outcry from voters, businesses, and others seeking to do business in the state.

“The rumored HB2 ‘deal’ does nothing more than double-down on discrimination and would ensure North Carolina remains the worst state in the nation for LGBTQ people,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “The consequences of this hateful law will only continue without full repeal of HB2. Sellouts cave under pressure. Leaders fight for what’s right.”

“This proposal is a train wreck that would double down on anti-LGBTQ discrimination. North Carolinians want a clean repeal of HB2, and we urge our allies not to sell us out,” said Chris Sgro, Equality NC Executive Director. “Those who stand for equality and with LGBTQ people are standing strong against these antics. We’ve got less than 24 hours before the NCAA deadline. There is no time to waste – our leaders must fight for what’s right, and that is full repeal.”

The backroom proposal is being pushed as lawmakers face a deadline tomorrow to repeal HB2 or risk losing out on bids for NCAA championship games through 2022 — a decision that will further compound the economic harm HB2 continues to inflict on the state. Just this week, the Associated Press published exclusive analysis showing the deeply discriminatory HB2 will cost the state more than $3.76 BILLION in lost business over a dozen years — and even that likely underestimates the damage.

The post HB2 Repeal Clears North Carolina Senate, Heads to House appeared first on Towleroad.

HB2 Repeal Clears North Carolina Senate, Heads to House

SHAMEFUL: NC Lawmakers and Governor Cooper Sell Out LGBTQ Community With Discriminatory HB2 “Repeal”

Today, HRC, Equality North Carolina, and the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), strongly condemned North Carolina’s shameful new legislation that lawmakers and Governor Cooper touted as a “repeal” of their discriminatory HB2 law.

The so-called “deal” was disgracefully rammed through the legislature today following secret backroom negotiations on Wednesday. News of the fake repeal was met with a huge national outcry from major civil rights organizations including the HRC, Equality North Carolina, the National Center for Transgender Equality, Lambda Legal, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Voto Latino, The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; corporations including IBM, Salesforce, Dow and Levi’s; and celebrities like Ellen Page, Jane Fonda, Janet Mock, Tegan and Sara, Montel Williams, Rob Reiner, Jason Collins, Martina Navratilova and Raymond Braun have all called out this rotten deal.

“After more than a year of inaction, today North Carolina lawmakers doubled-down on discrimination,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “This new law does not repeal HB2. Instead, it institutes a statewide prohibition on equality by banning non-discrimination protections across North Carolina and fuels the flames of anti-transgender hate. Each and every lawmaker who supported this bill has betrayed the LGBTQ community. HRC will explore every legal action to combat this dangerous legislation, and we urge all businesses, sports leagues and entertainers who have fought against HB2 to continue standing strong with the LGBTQ community attacked by this hateful law.”

“HB2 was hastily passed without any input from the LGBTQ community just one year ago,” said Chris Sgro Equality NC Executive Director. “Today, we returned to the legislature with a deal made between Governor Cooper, Phil Berger and Tim Moore that once again left out the ones most impacted by the discriminatory law – LGBTQ North Carolinians. Lawmakers and Governor Cooper have failed to resolve the problems with HB2 by doubling down on discrimination. Once again, the North Carolina General Assembly has enshrined discrimination into North Carolina law.”

“This bill and those like it are based on the vicious lie that trans people represent some type of danger to others,” said NCTE Executive Director Mara Keisling. “When, in fact, there are thousands of school children who have been terrorized by HB 2, and thousands of parents constantly worried about the safety of their children. The best thing North Carolina can do is to simply repeal HB 2 outright, not this outrageously veiled attack on anti-discrimination.”

The legislation passed today would effectively ban LGBTQ non-discrimination protections statewide through 2020 and permanently bar cities from passing laws that ensure transgender people can access facilities in accordance with their identity. Tellingly, last night former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, who signed the discriminatory HB2 into law and lost his seat because of it last fall, endorsed the proposal, as has the designated anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council.

The new legislation’s attempt to further prohibit municipalities from passing other employment provisions, including LGBTQ non-discrimination protections, as well as the provision restricting protections for transgender people in restrooms and other facilities is motivated by the same animus that resulted in a Colorado law being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in Romer v. Evans (1996). That decision barred states from forbidding the adoption of non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people under the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause.

For more than a year, Senate President Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore have blocked an up-or-down vote on clean repeal of HB2, despite the overwhelming outcry from voters, businesses, and others seeking to do business in the state.

This backroom proposal was pushed in desperation as lawmakers faced today’s deadline to repeal HB2 or risk losing out on bids for NCAA championship games through 2022 — a decision that will further compound the economic harm HB2 continues to inflict on the state. Just this week, the Associated Press published an exclusive analysis showing the deeply discriminatory HB2 will cost the state more than $3.76 BILLION in lost business over a dozen years — and even that likely underestimates the damage.

www.hrc.org/blog/north-carolina-lawmakers-and-governor-cooper-sell-out-lgbtq-community-hb2?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

10 Times The Resistance Won Out Over Trump and His Minions

The Resistance has notched victories on immigration, health care, and more.

www.advocate.com/politics/2017/3/30/10-times-resistance-won-out-over-trump-and-his-minions

The Implications of Donald Trump’s Heterosexual Census

This week, the Trump Administration announced that it will not include a question on the 2020 census that would have allowed individuals to self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

The justification? The information would be duplicative and irrelevant, from the perspective of the federal government. Those explanations are laughable: the census has been notoriously incapable of capturing LGBT demographics and census data is integral to the allocation of federal resources. Something else is going on.

The census move was one of two knocks against the LGBT community this week from a hostile president. An executive order signed by Mr. Trump this week overturned an Obama-era rule that required federal contractors to report their anti-discrimination policies.

So it could come as no surprise that many in the gay community are seeing anti-gay animus in the census action, as well. They’re not wrong. Erasing our community from the census has real consequences.

Without information about the real size and scope of the LGBT community, we cannot know which social services, from education to food stamps, from health care to housing, are not getting to at-risk LGBT populations. Nor can we know the extent to which LGBT persons are victims of discrimination or disadvantaged when it comes to the provision of health care or left out of federal or state contracts.

Perhaps more importantly, erasing an entire community from the Constitutionally-required counting of who we are as American has a psychological effect. It suggests to us that we do not belong, that we are not worthy of being counted, and that the Administration thinks so little of us they it doesn’t even want to know we exist. To be erased from the census is to be erased from society, thrown back into the closet, and reduced to third-class citizenship.

These are significant reasons to be angry.

But in the avalanche of atrocities spewing out of the Trump White House since January, this one isn’t as clear cut as it seems.

First, let’s be clear about what Trump did: this announcement means that the 2020 and the 2010 census will be exactly alike (at least, with respect to this question). The difference is that President Obama had proposed adding the sexual orientation/gender identity question in order to better capture the size, scope, and nature of the country’s LGBT community. Trump’s decision to cut the proposed change maintains the status quo. That doesn’t make this attempt to erase us any better, but it does offer some perspective.

Second, the question raises privacy concerns, particularly under a Trump Administration. The sexuality question can seem intrusive, awkward, and creepy to some. Nor is it entirely clear that we want Trump, Steve Bannon, and their right-wing allies to have a list of LGBT persons at their disposal. Plus, Trump’s hostility to the gay community might have caused people to underreport, skewing the results, had the question been included anyway.

These concerns are real, but they do not overcome the basic fact that Trump had the opportunity to treat gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people like everyone else: to at least be counted, with our heads held high. He specifically chose not to do that.

But we will not be erased. No one can erase us. Not only because the Williams Institute at UCLA is doing great work filling in gaps left by our exclusion from the census, but also because our community is too active and too engaged, with long memories of what life used to be like. We will not go back.

The post The Implications of Donald Trump’s Heterosexual Census appeared first on Towleroad.

The Implications of Donald Trump’s Heterosexual Census

Markus Klaer: Die Öffnung der Ehe ist längst überfällig – das muss die Union verstehen
Menschen, die unabhängig vom Geschlecht eine Ehe führen wollen, leben zu tiefst konservative Werte. Die Öffnung der Ehe und diese unabhängig vom Geschlecht zu gestalten, ist für manche meiner Parteifreunde leider bis heute dennoch ein sehr grundsätzliches Problem.

Weiterlesen: Blogs, Homosexualität, Gleichgeschlechtliche Ehe, Cdu, Politik, Homo-Ehe, Germany News

www.huffingtonpost.de/markus-klaer/homo-ehe-deutschland-union_b_15686560.html

Civil Rights Organizations Slam Unconstitutional “Deal” on HB2 Repeal

The NAACP, HRC, Equality North Carolina, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and other equality groups are intensifying their call for North Carolina lawmakers to reject an unconstitutional backroom “deal” on HB2 that would no doubt subject the state to years of costly litigation in a shameful effort to continue to enshrine anti-LGBTQ discrimination into state law.

The so-called “deal’ that North Carolina lawmakers are attempting to ram through today would effectively ban LGBTQ non-discrimination protections statewide through 2020 and permanently bar cities from passing laws that ensure transgender people can access facilities in accordance with their identity. Tellingly, last night former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, who signed the discriminatory HB2 into law and lost his seat because of it last fall, endorsed the proposal, as has the designated anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council.

The new legislation’s attempt to further prohibit municipalities from passing other employment provisions, including LGBTQ non-discrimination protections, as well as the provision restricting protections for transgender people in restrooms and other facilities is motivated by the same animus that resulted in a Colorado law being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in Romer v. Evans (1996). That decision barred states from forbidding the adoption of non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people under the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause.

Joining the NAACP, HRC, Equality North Carolina, the National Center for Transgender Equality in opposing this egregious proposal are major national groups including the ACLU, the American Federation of Teachers, and The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; corporations including Salesforce, Dow and Levi’s; and celebrities like Ellen Page, Tegan and Sara, Montel Williams, Martina Navratilova and Raymond Braun.

For more than a year, Senate President Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore have blocked an up-or-down vote on clean repeal of HB2, despite the overwhelming outcry from voters, businesses, and others seeking to do business in the state.

“HB2 must be repealed in full,” said Dr. William Barber, North Carolina NAACP President. “This bill is anti-worker, anti-access to the courts, and anti-LGBTQ. It is shameful for Tim Moore and Phil Berger to demand a discriminatory compromise on a bill that should have never been passed in the first place. Above all, any moratorium on civil rights is not a compromise, it is a contradiction with the principle of equal protection under the law and our moral values.”

“Any lawmaker who supports this bill cannot call themselves an ally of the LGBTQ community. They will be abandoning the LGBTQ community,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “The so-called “deal” proposed by Senate President Berger, Speaker Moore and Governor Cooper last night is no deal at all — and, in fact, is very likely unconstitutional. It does not repeal HB2. It is simply a new version of HB2 that abandons LGBTQ people, targets the transgender community, and leaves thousands of North Carolinians vulnerable to discrimination at work, at home, and in their communities.”

“The worst thing about this replacement bill, beyond the tepid attempt to repeal HB 2, is that it seeks to enshrine into law a supposed threat presented by trans people,” said Mara Keisling, Executive Director, National Center for Transgender Equality. “Gov. Cooper’s support of this fake repeal is an outrageous betrayal, since he ran on fully repealing HB 2 and protecting transgender North Carolinians.”

“This backroom deal would continue to actively discriminate against the transgender community – by keeping North Carolina the only state in the nation that makes it their business to interfere with where good, hard working trans people use the restroom,” said Chris Sgro, Equality NC Executive Director. “It wouldn’t actually repeal HB2. It kicks HB2 down the road through 2020 – keeping most of the awful law on the books for someone else to deal with. If Governor Cooper and legislators agree to this – they would be prohibiting protections in key areas for LGBT people for four years. That’s not a solution – it’s more of how we got here in the first place”

This backroom proposal was pushed in desperation as lawmakers faced today’s deadline to repeal HB2 or risk losing out on bids for NCAA championship games through 2022 — a decision that will further compound the economic harm HB2 continues to inflict on the state. Just this week, the Associated Press published an exclusive analysis showing the deeply discriminatory HB2 will cost the state more than $3.76 BILLION in lost business over a dozen years — and even that likely underestimates the damage.

www.hrc.org/blog/civil-rights-organizations-slam-unconstitutional-deal-on-hb2-repeal?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

New GLAAD Study Reveals Twenty Percent of Millennials Identify as LGBTQ

www.glaad.org/blog/new-glaad-study-reveals-twenty-percent-millennials-identify-lgbtq