Out Kentucky Mayor Jim Gray Announces Bid for Congress
The nation’s first openly gay man to win a major party’s nomination for U.S. Senate has his sights set on the House of Representatives.
www.advocate.com/politics/2017/12/05/out-kentucky-mayor-jim-gray-announces-bid-congress
50 “Then and Now” photos of openly gay celebs — can you recognize them?
They grow up so fast.
Russia Olympics, Mike Pence, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jerusalem, Gill Foundation, John Oliver, Travel Ban: HOT LINKS
OLYMPICS. Russian banned from 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea over doping: “The country’s government officials are forbidden to attend, its flag will not be displayed at the opening ceremony and its anthem will not sound. Any athletes from Russia who receive special dispensation to compete will do so as individuals wearing a neutral uniform, and the official record books will forever show that Russia won zero medals.”
ISRAEL. Trump plans to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital: “Mr. Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital — and to set in motion an embassy move — is his riskiest foray yet into the thicket of Middle East diplomacy. Arab and European leaders warn that it could derail any peace initiative and even ignite fresh violence in the region.”
WAG THE DOG. John Oliver went after Dustin Hoffman over his sexual harassment allegations at a panel in NYC.
DEUTSCHE BANK. Robert Mueller subpoena’s Trump financial records: “Trump isn’t the only member of his administration with deep ties to Deutsche Bank. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross also has a complex and troubling relationship to the bank. And Jared Kushner’s real estate company had finalized a $285 million loan with Deutsche Bank right before the election, which he subsequently failed to disclose.” More from Reuters.
TWITTER. Here are the most retweeted tweets of 2017.
LONDON. Arrests made in homophobic strangling attack in which man was forced to apologize for being gay.
TRAVEL BAN. SCOTUS allows Trump’s heinous policy to take effect: “The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Trump administration is allowed to stop certain groups of people from six majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States — including relatives of US citizens, and people with job offers from US businesses — until the Court gets a chance to hear the lawsuits against the Trump administration over the ban.”
THE LORD HAD A PLAN. Pence was ready to step in to take Trump’s place as candidate, with Condoleeza Rice as his running mate. ‘Amid the chaos, Trump convened a meeting of his top advisers in his Manhattan penthouse. He went around the room and asked each person for his damage assessment. Priebus bluntly told Trump he could either drop out immediately or lose in a historic landslide. According to someone who was present, Priebus added that Pence and Rice were “ready to step in.”’
GILL FOUNDATION. Bradlee Clark is the new President and CEO.
Get to know Brad! t.co/Zl4l0Ihs25 pic.twitter.com/GogufptMfV
— Gill Foundation (@GillFoundation) December 5, 2017
SPRINGSTEEN COVER OF THE DAY. Jimmy Fallon’s “Robert Mueller’s Coming to Town”.
NATURE VIDEO OF THE DAY. Crab runs the gauntlet.
ASMR OF THE DAY. Jake Gyllenhaal whispers, pops bubble wrap, snaps pics with an old-school film photography camera, and tries his hand at woodworking.
TEARJERKER OF THE DAY. The BBC’s new Christmas ad.
TOO HOT FOR TUESDAY. Trevor Bell.
The post Russia Olympics, Mike Pence, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jerusalem, Gill Foundation, John Oliver, Travel Ban: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad.
Iain Duncan Smith Thinks ‘This Irish Stuff’ Is Overblown In Warning To EU To ‘Back Off’
Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith has claimed the dispute over the Irish border that has halted Brexit talks has been cooked-up for political gain as he signalled the UK could walk away from talks with the EU.
The ex-Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith told the BBC that “this Irish stuff was not at this state some months ago” as he suggested Brussels needed to “back off” or the UK will “get on with other arrangements which are not going to be beneficial to you” – effectively a ‘hard’ Brexit with no fresh UK-EU trade deal.
The former Cabinet minister was speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg as the Brexit ‘divorce’ deal continued to falter.
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which is propping up the Tories in Westminster, has refused to back a proposal for regulatory ‘alignment’ between southern Ireland, which is to remain in the EU, and Northern Ireland, which is to leave the bloc with the rest of the UK.
With no resolution yet to ease Ireland’s fears of the return of a ‘hard’ border, it means the Republic can effectively veto the ‘divorce’ package – which needs to be agreed before moving on to trade talks.
In the BBC interview, Duncan Smith, a champion of Brexit, suggested the politicians in the south have “suddenly laid this on”.
He said: “You know this Irish stuff was not at this state some months ago, now it’s suddenly become an issue because the Irish – for political reasons internally, presidential elections, disputes between two elements of the same party – they suddenly laid this on.
“And the EU, instead of saying to them, pull back for a second, let’s deal with this when we get to the trade arrangements, which would be logical sense, has actually backed them in this process.”
Iain Duncan Smith again says the Irish are playing hardball on Brexit “for political reasons internally, presidential elections”. Which pretty much sums up how much he knows about Irish politics.
December 5, 2017
Iain Duncan Smith to BBC: “You know this Irish stuff was not at this state some months ago.” Irish politicians warned repeatedly of border problem (“Irish stuff”) during Brexit referendum – you just weren’t listening.
December 5, 2017
Fears over the Irish border had been raised during the referendum campaign, but were largely drowned out.
Ex-Prime Minster Sir John Major, one of Duncan Smith’s predecessors as Tory leader, had warned repeatedly before the vote that Brexit could mean border control is introduced between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
He also suggested the UK should walk away from the Brexit negotiations if the EU does not change its position.
‘Brussels needs to back off or the UK will move on’ – Iain Duncan Smith suggests to @bbclaurak that the UK should walk away from Brexit talks if the EU doesn’t change its position. pic.twitter.com/awmnS3zsd5 — BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) December 5, 2017
Asked whether he was warning that Brussels should “back off or we’ll walk”, he replied: “Well, I think the statement is even more straightforward.
“You need to change this process and to back off otherwise we get on with other arrangements which are not going to be beneficial to you.
“We would rather have the trade deal but not at any price. Our intention is to be treated as equals not as supplicants and therefore we have given every assurance under the sun to the Irish, everybody knows that we are not going to end up with a hard border in Ireland, we are never going to do it. Ireland has always had a special place in the UK. They know what, we know that.”
Brexit Secretary David Davis today told MPs any special customs deal agreed for Northern Ireland would extended to the rest of the UK – echoing the suggestion of Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson.
That led the DUP’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds to soften his position and admit there may need to be “regulatory alignment” with the EU in some areas – meaning the deal could be back on the table.
The concessions could be enough to allow the EU to vote in favour of sufficient progress in the talks at a summit next week, and allow the negotiations to move on to trade.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/iain-duncan-smith-ireland_uk_5a26f10ee4b069df71fa49c0
Scenes From the Supreme Court in Bakery Discrimination Case
www.advocate.com/politics/2017/12/05/scenes-supreme-court-bakery-discrimination-case
Gay men have always earned much less $$ than straight men. Not anymore.
The gay male earnings penalty has not only vanished; it’s transformed into what an earnings premium.
Masterpiece Cakeshop Arguments: A Divided SCOTUS on What Should Be an Easy Case
Oral arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission recently concluded.
Many commentators are already suggesting that the argument went poorly for pro-equality forces. Justice Kennedy, the moderate-conservative justice who will be the swing vote and has written many pro-equality decisions in the past, asked pointed questions of the lawyers representing the Commission.
It used to be hard to telegraph an opinion from oral argument. These days, on certain issues, the Court is lining up 4 on one side and 4 on the other, with Kennedy in the middle. Kennedy’s questioning was sharpest when the case for equality was being made. If he does end up siding with his conservative colleagues, the consequences will be dire. It will be a return to Jim Crow. Kennedy will have accomplished nothing less than the complete erosion of his distinguished legacy.
I haven’t had the time to read through the transcript of the argument, but live reports from inside the Supreme Court during argument merit some analysis.
The argument played out much like we expected, with discussions, as noted here, about the free exercise of religion and whether a cake is expression protected by the First Amendment. There were, from the left, comparisons to business owners who refused service to black people or interracial couples. There were, from the right, protestations that free expression can never be silenced. Two topics struck me as important: the suggestion that “freedom” trumps “equality” and the idea that the Commission’s pro-equality decision was based on animus toward religious people.
The background theory of this entire case, echoed by Justice Gorsuch, who shouldn’t even be sitting on the Court, and Justice Alito, is that individual business owners should be free to refuse service to people based on their religious beliefs. More specifically, Masterpiece and the Trump Administration argued that a religious person has the freedom to opt out of nondiscrimination or equality laws when compliance would conflict with their presumably deeply held religious beliefs. That has to be the argument. Mr. Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in greater Denver, knew only one thing about his customers before he refused to sell them a wedding cake: that they are gay. It is the exact same argument religious people argued in Hobby Lobby, which allowed religious people who own businesses to opt out of health care law requirements that their health plans provide contraception. It is the exact same argument that Kim Davis offered when she refused to do her job and grant marriage licenses to lawfully married same-sex couples. Freedom trumps equality, they argued.
There are myriad problems with this argument. First, conservatives aren’t asking for freedom. No one is stopping them from speaking or exercising their religion. They are asking to discriminate. Freedom is a pretext. Second, society has made a judgment, embodied in the Constitution, that we can exercise our individual rights up to the point that they impinge on the rights of others. Third, by denying LGBTQ Americans, or anyone for that matter, protection afforded by equality and nondiscrimination laws, our freedom to live our lives is damaged. So why are the freedoms of religious Americans more important than ours?
Justice Kennedy’s suggestion that the Commission’s decision enforcing Colorado’s anti-discrimination law reflected animus toward religious people is particularly distressing. This is offensive. As a matter of law, the animus doctrine has been a tool of equality for marginalized populations. The Supreme Court noted in Romer v. Evans, in a Kennedy opinion, that a discriminatory law passed out of pure animus against gay people cannot even pass rational basis review. To suggest that equality and nondiscrimination laws reflect animus toward religious people who want to use their religious views as tools of oppression is a bastardization of the rule of law. But, to no one’s surprise, conservatives have been making this argument since forever. To them, to people who have been in charge, to those who have acted and behaved however they wanted, equality seems like oppression. And advocates for equality seem like bullies.
The wholesale rejection of equality laws’ application to religious people, the very likely result of a decision siding with the baker in this case, is exactly where conservatives, the Republican Party, and the Federalist Society have been taking us for some time. It’s in Kennedy’s hands now, and I have to believe that he understands the implications.
More to come later….
The post Masterpiece Cakeshop Arguments: A Divided SCOTUS on What Should Be an Easy Case appeared first on Towleroad.
Masterpiece Cakeshop Arguments: A Divided SCOTUS on What Should Be an Easy Case
Outrage At A Boy In A Dress Belies A Deeper Problem; And I Know Because I Was One
We live in a current climate of outrage, where everyone reserves the right to be offended by whatever they choose. Then those that have committed the offence then turn the tables claiming autocracy and the death of freedom of speech. People cry ‘witch’ as much as they cry ‘witch hunt’, like some cyclical never ending version of The Crucible we are all living in.
This week I was lucky enough to see the brand new musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at the Apollo in London’s West End about a school boy who wants to be a drag queen. While it was both excellent, moving and uplifting, it highlighted the attitudes people can have about someone who is different and in turn highlighted for me the state of transgender rights in this country, and that by comparison is a pretty poor show at the moment.
Let’s start from the beginning with a bit of my own story. When I was seven our class at my all boys school were asked who would like to play Mary in the nativity play. While the details are hazy for me, apparently I was most enthusiastic in my bid for the role. On opening night, my parents recalled how ‘convincing’ I was as the mother of Christ, clutching my swollen womb screeching ‘my baby’s coming!’ with gusto. I went on to play Josephine in Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore and won the school acting cup at nine-years-old.
I don’t know what it was that drew me to playing these roles but I was comfortable and happy when playing them. The same couldn’t be said for when I tried dressing up in girls’ clothing outside of a theatre environment. I remember getting the telling off of a lifetime the two times I gamely put on my sister’s or her best pal’s clothes and pranced about with glee. Why would wearing them on stage be so different? At my age, I didn’t understand and felt ashamed of having upset my father.
Cut to today and the debate rages on, but now it has much more sinister undercurrents. Since John Lewis decided to remove all labels dictating whether garments were made ‘for a boy or for a girl’ there has been a gradual shift. When the Church of England recently released a report that a boy should be able to wear a tiara and a girl a dinosaur t-shirt without scorn, it seemed like even more of an uproar.
For the church to say this, I was impressed what with their shady history on LGBTQ rights and no doubt trans people up and down the country were as well. Because that’s what this is really about isn’t it, trans people. Dressing up is not the same as being trans. Gender identity is an innate thing and, with the Gender Recognition Act currently being debated and rewritten because trans people are still not equal under the law, the scaremongering has gone into overdrive.
By feigning outrage at how ‘damaging’ and ‘confusing’ it is for the other kids in school to see a boy in a dress (it’s not and kids, unlike their parents, are infinitely accepting, until taught otherwise).
Kids were also ‘confused’ when children in their class had two mummies or two daddies but it’s not confusion, it’s intrigue and when it is explained to them, they accept it straight away. But same sex marriage isn’t the issue in the UK now is it, that battle was won and now the new hot topic is transgender rights and by starting with kids in school, you hit at the heart of what can rile parents up the most and they can say whatever they want as it’s ‘their kids’ they are protecting from all this awful ‘confusion’.
Last weekend I got into a heated debate with a Daily Mail columnist who claimed incredulously that I ‘loathed free speech’ because I criticised his stance on trans rights and deigned to agree with the laws on discrimination in this country. No, I don’t think you should use your own bastardised version of religion as a weapon with which to bash vulnerable people or just people different to you.
His minions came on me like a pack of militant hand wringers, calling me a ‘drone’ and citing bogus Twitter accounts ‘proving’ how I was wrong on trans rights. It was scaremongering, using isolated incidents to say that violent sexual predators were posing as transgender women in order to infiltrate female ‘safe spaces’. If a man wants to attack and rape a woman, he doesn’t need to go to the trouble of pretending to be one. Trans women are some of the most at risk of violence and abuse in our society so who does it benefit to ban them from places like rape crisis centres or even bathrooms?
I then turned to the Sunday Times only to see a full page on ‘The Transgender Investigation’ with three consecutive articles negatively portraying trans people. The first about how apparently half of trans prison inmates are sex offenders, claiming to be trans in order to be closer to and to assault women. The next about a poor therapist fearing she could be struck off for saying to youngsters that being trans could just be teen angst, and then the final piece was about the Women’s Equality Party being ‘captured’ by the trans lobby.
It feels like being anti-trans is one of the last prejudice’s it’s ‘ok’ to have. People don’t understand it, so they fear it. There are so many nuances within being trans that critics latch onto the smallest and basest of its facets. The different stages and the myriad of terminologies put people off to the point where they write it off and because there are relatively few visible trans people in everyday life, they don’t see them or befriend them so they don’t know how difficult it can be.
Years later in my teens I tried on one of my sister’s dresses when everyone was out, stuffed one of her bras and put on a bit of lippy. My heart raced as I had those feelings that it was wrong. When I was younger, was I doing it because I was a little boy who wanted to dress up, or because I was a little boy that liked to be naughty? It felt fun and since then I’ve done two plays in drag and enjoyed them immensely. But for a trans person it isn’t a ‘bit of fun’, it is life and it is a life long struggle.
A friend was working on a TV show recently and the producer happened to be a trans woman. Whilst filming in the street a man came over and said to my mate “What is that? What is it?”, gesturing to the producer. My friend, who as a Muslim woman knows first-hand what discrimination feels like, told him in no uncertain terms to get lost and leave them alone. Concerned that she had heard, my friend spoke to the producer who simply said that she had heard everything and that it happens all the time.
So when we have national newspapers contributing to what is already a hostile environment for a vulnerable group it reminds you how much work there is still to be done. While Jamie in the West End got to be a drag queen and I won my junior acting cup, life is a whole lot different for the trans people who, even when it’s suggested they may use the bathroom of their choice, are then vilified and harangued into feeling more discriminated against that ever.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/outrage-boy-dress-trans-rights_uk_5a218bc0e4b0545e64bf929d
New Leader for LGBT-Funding Powerhouse Gill Foundation
Brad Clark will take the helm as Gill’s new president and CEO at the start of a busy year of elections and court battles.
www.advocate.com/politics/2017/12/05/new-leader-lgbt-funding-powerhouse-gill-foundation
