#as if literally every single texan is a republican

[steveharrington]

i am surprised you are proud to be from texas but i am glad you like it there

yes i am proud to be from texas and i’m going to get defensive for a second (sorry if you didn’t intend for this to come off negatively but this is the second ask i’ve gotten that seems to imply being from texas is like Scornful) texas as a state is not defined by the harmful legislation that we live under or the bigots who happen to live here. this is the only state i’ve ever lived in, therefore it’s the state where i’ve met and lived in a community with diverse groups of people, where i’ve met other lgbt people, where i went to a gay bar for the first time, where i went to a protest for the first time, etc etc etc. i’ve seen the ways people in my community respond to the oppressive legislation we live under, i’ve seen the ways we help each other when our senator fucks off to cancun during a natural disaster or when our cities flood and our most vulnerable citizens are ignored by the government…..is all of that meaningless because we live in the south? because we live under a republican majority? i’m so tiredddd of northerners implying that everyone who lives in a southern state should be grouped in with our bigoted neighbors bc ykw there are bigots in your states too! and we suffer the direct consequences of living in a red state every day! but the true genuine spirit of texas is to be welcoming and friendly and loving to everyone, and i’ve seen that firsthand from at least one person in every town i’ve been to here, no matter how tiny or rural. idk like am i supposed to overlook all the firsthand experiences i’ve had with humanity and compassion and love here just because our government is trying to take it from us? that doesn’t make sense to me.

[qqueenofhades]

Another optimistic result from last night. Michigan's state legislature went blue for the first time since the Reagan administration. Dems were a superminority four years ago and now we run the entire state government, thanks in no small part to the independent redistricting commission that was created via a statewide ballot proposal in 2018.

We also passed a measure to protect abortion rights and broaden/strengthen voting rights. Basically, last night I had stress dreams all night about the end of democracy and I woke up to some good news. Things still aren't great and I'm anxious about races across the country, but I'm hopeful for the first time in a long time.

Michigan, Colorado, and Pennsylvania all had particularly good nights. Michigan Democrats won the governor and secretary of state races against cuckoo crazypants Q-challengers, protected abortion access, flipped the legislature, and expanded voting rights and access. In Colorado, all the Democratic incumbents won in a walk and might get an extra House seat from newly created CO-8. The biggest news there is that MAGA Barbie Lauren Boebert is still behind by about ~3500 votes in CO-3 with almost all the votes in. This is a R+9 district and shouldn't even be close. In Pennsylvania, Fetterman picked up a Senate seat for the Democrats despite all the doom and gloom and the intense GOP focus on Dr. Quack, Democrat Josh Shapiro easily beat MAGA lunatic Doug Mastriano for governor, and the state legislature is agonisingly close to flipping Democrat or at least almost even control.

Other morning-after thoughts from about four and a half hours of sleep:

As I said last night, the Democrats and Florida are Charlie Brown and the football. This isn't entirely their fault, as DeSantis has made it into his personal fiefdom and redrew the already-red maps to be EVEN MORE RED, threatened voters with his own goon squad, and otherwise turned it into Fascist Disneyland, literally. He cruised to re-election (ugh), but we still don't know how that plays outside his carefully curated media bubble where he only does interviews with right wing hacks like Fox and never answers tough questions. Lil Marco Rubio likewise beat Val Demings. Double ugh. So yeah, Florida Democrats are MIA. At least we got the first Gen Z member of Congress, 25 year old Democrat Maxwell Frost.

Whatever its untapped demographics, and unfair restrictions from obviously nonsensical voting laws, on the institutional level, Texas is not a blue state either. It just isn't. Beto ran a good campaign, but yet again, it wasn't close and Texas is just... Texas.

Hey anyone else think we should just let Florida and Texas secede?

However, my heartfelt sympathies to sane Floridans and Texans who worked hard but still had to see the same old crazy win.

Ohio and North Carolina also had Republicans win their Senate races. Tim Ryan and Cherie Beasley ran strong campaigns but it wasn't enough to overcome the increasing reddish tilt of those states (especially Ohio, which is also starting to look lost for the foreseeable future). However, they were both replacing retiring Republicans, so no change as far as the balance of power. Still despicable that that carpetbagging hack JD Vance is in the Senate, though.

Jury is still out in Arizona, where both Democratic governor and Senate candidates have narrow leads (governor more narrow), but if Katie Hobbs and Mark Kelly can pull this out, every single MAGA election denier candidate for governor/SOS will have lost.

That is GOOD NEWS for democracy.

Swingy Nevada is still looking dicey, though. As expected, its Democratic governor and Senate incumbent are behind after Election Day vote counting. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is in a slightly better position than Governor Steve Sisolak. If big blue Clark County (Vegas) delivers its usual tranches of Democratic mail vote, they could both still probably win (CCM somewhat more likely since her deficit is smaller), but Nevada kept us anxiously waiting for days on end and seems fully set to do it again.

If Senate control comes down to yet another Georgia runoff between Raphael Warnock and Herschel "Me Good At Concussions And Abortions" Walker, I am going to scream.

Warnock is ahead but probably not enough to avoid a runoff under Georgia's ludicrous Jim Crow Senate rules where a candidate has to reach 50% to win outright.

Stacey Abrams also lost again to Brian Kemp. Ugh.

New York Democrats won the governor, AG, and Senate races, in not too much surprise but some of the late polling was close. They've had some struggles in suburban and rural NY, though managed to keep Pat Ryan's seat from the recent special election.

Way too many white people are still voting for Republicans, with the noted exception of 18-29 year olds, the only white age demographic to vote Democratic (by almost 2 to 1).

Looking at the data, 18-29 year olds from all demographics voting Blue are quite probably the only reason there wasn't a red wave. Good job, guys. I give you a lot of stick on here, but well done.

God, when will all those old white Republicans finally croak. They vote like clockwork every time and it's always bad.

Abortion access won everywhere it was on the ballot, including in deep red Kentucky (not overturning the current ban, alas, but rejecting a state constitutional amendment to ban it). Abortion rights are popular! Who knew.

This is an absolutely stunningly good result for an incumbent president's first midterm in any year, let alone with 8.5% inflation, economic pain, crazy fascists, and all the rest. Obama lost 63 House seats in 2010. So far, there hasn't really been a major change, and we still don't know who will control the House, after a lot of doomsters were insisting it would be Republican by 9pm ET on election night.

Democratic incumbents also won several tough re-election races in seats they would probably have lost in a red wave year.

Sarah Palin appears likely to lose in Alaska for the second time in three months. HA.

Trump was by no means the kingmaker. Almost all of his handpicked candidates have lost, with the exception of Vance in Ohio. Jury still out on Laxalt in Nevada (come THROUGH for CCM, Vegas, PLEASE).

Midterms are now not quite over, but at least moving to the rear view mirror. So when is Trump gonna get fucking indicted. That is the major next step on the Save Democracy checklist.

I likewise didn't think it would happen right after the midterms, regardless of who won; early 2023 remains my best guess. But also, like. Soon, please??

Anyway. If we lose the House (still not for sure) but keep the Senate, we can at least continue to confirm judges and other such important things. Having a tiny Republican majority (bleck) in the House would at least make it more difficult for them to do anything outrageously stupid, or at least have it succeed, as they would be sure to waste everyone's time with pointless stunts anyway.

Meh.

Still, though. By any metric, a big failure for Republicans, considering what their expectations were and how goddamn hard the media tried to help them at every turn, and a good showing for democracy as Democratic control was retained in key swing states and election deniers did not win any of their targets.

Stay tuned for more Election PutinDestielNevadaNovember5th...uh...8th redux!!!

UGH, NOT AGAIN.

[incarnateirony]

How do you know it wasn't Jensen whom Misha was talking about? Just because Jensen decided to create CM with his wife doesn't mean he's that different from Jared. You could argue that he also is trying to play both sides like Jared. Don't call me an anti, I just am trying to learn about the issue.

It literally can't be. The message is specifically about not wanting to scare off conservative consumers. Whether you believe Jensen's heart is in it or not, he's openly waving the landing pad signals for LGBTQ marketing from investors for Chaos Machine, that's GONNA scare off your conservative demographic, which is why CM is even going so far as not just like BLM but "indigenouslivesmatter". I mean valid, but not exactly a front media message generally.

Those posts are going to scare away conservative consumers. And it's very clear, he does not give a fuuuuuuuck.

Logically speaking, it literally can't be about Jensen. Whether you wanna stumble around and be bitter and still assume the worst of Jensen's intent at whatever perceived opening, it was specifically about scaring off conservative consumers, which Jensen's upcoming decisions are going to do in spades. And it's very clear he doesn't care.

It can't be about Jensen. It can be about that dude with a studio named Sticked To Your Guns producing a reboot of Walker inspired by wanting to humanize the struggles of ICE agents and cops, who's riding around in a yeehaw and who's literal bribery of texans with free gas to watch his show didn't really pay off any more than all the Fox News ads for it did.

If you haven't noticed, they're literally trying to court conservative america with Walker, while still labeling it "progressive" for idiots like my own toilet deposits aren't more progressive than a walker Remake on their own. In fact, it makes conservative America feel good. It has that very relatable, aw, unfortunate your brother is gay but he's still republican so he's one of the Good Ones(TM) messaging in the show. Look, their show has A Gay Cop Friend too.

This is what the messaging meant early on when it was about "The ridge of the coin", two sides to every story, etc etc messaging too before our hairs all caught on fire when he said the ICE thing. It's all still about valorizing and humanizing cops and shit with some boring, repeated family values where literally every single person I have seen comment watching the show hates the daughter. Doesn't matter who they are, just everyone hates her.

Whatever.

To the point, if you look at their entire current career trajectory, you can take a WILD GUESS who doesn't want to piss off the conservatives he just invited in.

[easyfoodnetwork]

Governments Have an Obligation to Close Restaurants After Workers Test Positive for COVID-19

Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Closing your business after an employee gets sick is the right thing to do. But right now, it’s totally voluntary.

On June 16, the state of Texas announced its highest total number of new coronavirus cases to date. It wasn’t particularly surprising news, coming six weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott allowed restaurants to increase their occupancy to 25 percent after a weeks-long shutdown statewide. In recent weeks, restaurants have been allowed to increase their capacity to 75 percent of normal, bars are operating at 50 percent capacity, and more than 96,000 positive COVID-19 cases have been identified in Texas, a number that continues to rise by the thousands on a daily basis.

At the same time, dozens of restaurants across the state are closing their doors as employees — those on the front lines and at the highest risk of getting sick — test positive for the novel coronavirus. These closures — sometimes lasting days, others for weeks — give restaurant owners time to engage in intensive deep-cleaning and potentially revise their health and safety protocols. Some establishments require that exposed employees self-quarantine and are paying for staff to get tested. Over the past week, nearly a dozen Houston restaurants announced temporary closures after employees tested positive. A similar smattering of shutters was seen in Austin and Dallas.

These are only the positive tests and closures we know about. Because at present, the state of Texas, like most other states and cities nationwide, does not legally require a restaurant shut down if an employee has tested positive for COVID-19. Massachusetts has mandated that restaurants must close for at least 24 hours and disinfect the space in accordance with Centers for Disease Control guidelines after a “worker, patron, or vendor” tests positive for COVID-19. But Massachusetts is an outlier: Most states and cities (like Los Angeles and Chicago) offer only “recommendations” and “guidelines” instead of enforceable requirements. In Texas, Abbott’s “Open Texas” plan, which outlines reopening recommendations, is merely a set of guidelines that establishments are “encouraged” to implement, not codified law or enforceable regulations. That leaves closure and testing decisions entirely up to business owners, and that’s a serious problem — for workers and diners.

Restaurants are already expected to meet an extensive set of food safety guidelines, but combatting COVID-19 is not the same as battling foodborne pathogens. We still don’t know enough about how this virus is transmitted, especially in small spaces, or what can conclusively be done to stem its spread, and that makes it difficult for restaurants to implement effective safety measures. It also doesn’t help that many people across the state have refused to participate in social distancing or wear masks in enclosed spaces like restaurants; Abbott’s guidelines do not require restaurant workers to wear masks, either, asking owners to simply “consider having all employees and contractors wear cloth face coverings.”

So it’s no wonder that restaurant employees are getting sick. Right now, restaurants that choose to close after a positive diagnosis among staff are doing it voluntarily, and it’s absolutely the right thing to do. Continuing to expose patrons and workers to a potentially deadly virus is unjustifiable, even if a restaurant is looking at a seriously bleak economic picture. But because there is no government entity keeping an eye on these establishments, the most egregious offenders go unchecked: Without a required level of transparency or legal obligation to protect their employees, these restaurants might be allowing sick workers to prepare food in the kitchen and refusing to allow servers to wear masks. No restaurant wants to be associated with an infectious disease, and without regulation, there’s a pretty massive incentive for restaurants to keep quiet about positive COVID-19 tests among staffers.

In some cases, those staffers have had to publicly advocate on their own behalf. Earlier this year, it took highly publicized union efforts and worker strikes to change the closure policies and safety requirements at many of the country’s major grocery store chains. Like restaurant workers, these employees reported that their employers were slow to inform employees that they may have been exposed to the virus, and slow to close when a fellow worker fell ill. It seems clear that businesses aren’t going to make the decision to protect public health on their own. And in small, independent restaurants, it’s nearly impossible for workers to organize to better their working conditions.

Which is exactly why the decision to close shouldn’t be left up to business owners at all. It’s hard to blame most of these operators for their choice to open, because it often isn’t a choice at all: They’re already in a precarious position considering weeks of shutdown, the costs of adapting to service in the middle of a pandemic, and ever-declining revenues. Right now, their options are either to reopen and keep paying staff while potentially sickening someone, or close the doors entirely and try to outlast the pandemic without bankrupting themselves. But ultimately, when the options are “sickening people with a deadly virus” or “losing money,” the former has to outweigh the latter.

In Texas, though, that’s not how officials see it. Back in March, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick urged grandparents to sacrifice themselves on the altar of the Texas economy. In some cases, the governor has actively stymied large cities like Houston and Dallas in their efforts to slow the virus’s spread, telling local officials that any orders requiring the wearing of face masks or imposing fines on businesses are in conflict with Abbott’s executive orders.

In the interest of public safety, rules like those in place in Massachusetts should be commonplace across the country. If an employee tests positive for COVID-19, restaurants should be required to close for at least 24 hours, perhaps longer. They should be required to tell the public if their employees test positive for coronavirus, or if people have been exposed to COVID-19 in their dining room so that those people could be tested or self-quarantine. These establishments should also be required to pay for testing for their employees, along with medical treatment if those workers are sickened on the job. Those requirements should happen in tandem with better national initiatives, including adequate contact tracing, which has shown real promise in combating the coronavirus in places like South Korea.

Republican leaders like Abbott and Patrick have said over and over that the cure cannot be worse than the virus, in an economic sense. But that will be extremely difficult to bleat once these officials are hooked up to ventilators. If thousands of people each day continue to die of the coronavirus, there won’t be anyone to go to these restaurants once the “new normal” is safe. And if places like Texas, where both its largest cities and rural communities have long lacked adequate access to health care, continue to see increased positive cases and the hospitalization of symptomatic patients every single day, it’s not going to be back to normal for a long while.

Protecting the public health is literally the function of government, and it feels a little bit hypocritical for Abbott and Patrick to pretend that the coronavirus crisis isn’t being exacerbated by their insistence on reopening earlier. Considering that this duo is behind some of the most draconian abortion laws in the country throughout their tenure in the Capitol, all under the guise of protecting public health, it’s patently absurd for them to fail to do their jobs right now.

The virus isn’t going anywhere. Every public activity will be at elevated risk until there is a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, and maybe forever. But as the death toll continues to climb, it’s abundantly clear that these losses of life are a failure of governance. It’s time for state and local leaders to step up, and make the bare minimum decision to close these restaurants temporarily in an effort to save lives. Without that, how many people will be sickened — and how many will die — because Texans couldn’t bear the thought of living without their patio margaritas for a few more weeks?

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/30Uypat https://ift.tt/2YGh9D6

Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Closing your business after an employee gets sick is the right thing to do. But right now, it’s totally voluntary.

On June 16, the state of Texas announced its highest total number of new coronavirus cases to date. It wasn’t particularly surprising news, coming six weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott allowed restaurants to increase their occupancy to 25 percent after a weeks-long shutdown statewide. In recent weeks, restaurants have been allowed to increase their capacity to 75 percent of normal, bars are operating at 50 percent capacity, and more than 96,000 positive COVID-19 cases have been identified in Texas, a number that continues to rise by the thousands on a daily basis.

At the same time, dozens of restaurants across the state are closing their doors as employees — those on the front lines and at the highest risk of getting sick — test positive for the novel coronavirus. These closures — sometimes lasting days, others for weeks — give restaurant owners time to engage in intensive deep-cleaning and potentially revise their health and safety protocols. Some establishments require that exposed employees self-quarantine and are paying for staff to get tested. Over the past week, nearly a dozen Houston restaurants announced temporary closures after employees tested positive. A similar smattering of shutters was seen in Austin and Dallas.

These are only the positive tests and closures we know about. Because at present, the state of Texas, like most other states and cities nationwide, does not legally require a restaurant shut down if an employee has tested positive for COVID-19. Massachusetts has mandated that restaurants must close for at least 24 hours and disinfect the space in accordance with Centers for Disease Control guidelines after a “worker, patron, or vendor” tests positive for COVID-19. But Massachusetts is an outlier: Most states and cities (like Los Angeles and Chicago) offer only “recommendations” and “guidelines” instead of enforceable requirements. In Texas, Abbott’s “Open Texas” plan, which outlines reopening recommendations, is merely a set of guidelines that establishments are “encouraged” to implement, not codified law or enforceable regulations. That leaves closure and testing decisions entirely up to business owners, and that’s a serious problem — for workers and diners.

Restaurants are already expected to meet an extensive set of food safety guidelines, but combatting COVID-19 is not the same as battling foodborne pathogens. We still don’t know enough about how this virus is transmitted, especially in small spaces, or what can conclusively be done to stem its spread, and that makes it difficult for restaurants to implement effective safety measures. It also doesn’t help that many people across the state have refused to participate in social distancing or wear masks in enclosed spaces like restaurants; Abbott’s guidelines do not require restaurant workers to wear masks, either, asking owners to simply “consider having all employees and contractors wear cloth face coverings.”

So it’s no wonder that restaurant employees are getting sick. Right now, restaurants that choose to close after a positive diagnosis among staff are doing it voluntarily, and it’s absolutely the right thing to do. Continuing to expose patrons and workers to a potentially deadly virus is unjustifiable, even if a restaurant is looking at a seriously bleak economic picture. But because there is no government entity keeping an eye on these establishments, the most egregious offenders go unchecked: Without a required level of transparency or legal obligation to protect their employees, these restaurants might be allowing sick workers to prepare food in the kitchen and refusing to allow servers to wear masks. No restaurant wants to be associated with an infectious disease, and without regulation, there’s a pretty massive incentive for restaurants to keep quiet about positive COVID-19 tests among staffers.

In some cases, those staffers have had to publicly advocate on their own behalf. Earlier this year, it took highly publicized union efforts and worker strikes to change the closure policies and safety requirements at many of the country’s major grocery store chains. Like restaurant workers, these employees reported that their employers were slow to inform employees that they may have been exposed to the virus, and slow to close when a fellow worker fell ill. It seems clear that businesses aren’t going to make the decision to protect public health on their own. And in small, independent restaurants, it’s nearly impossible for workers to organize to better their working conditions.

Which is exactly why the decision to close shouldn’t be left up to business owners at all. It’s hard to blame most of these operators for their choice to open, because it often isn’t a choice at all: They’re already in a precarious position considering weeks of shutdown, the costs of adapting to service in the middle of a pandemic, and ever-declining revenues. Right now, their options are either to reopen and keep paying staff while potentially sickening someone, or close the doors entirely and try to outlast the pandemic without bankrupting themselves. But ultimately, when the options are “sickening people with a deadly virus” or “losing money,” the former has to outweigh the latter.

In Texas, though, that’s not how officials see it. Back in March, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick urged grandparents to sacrifice themselves on the altar of the Texas economy. In some cases, the governor has actively stymied large cities like Houston and Dallas in their efforts to slow the virus’s spread, telling local officials that any orders requiring the wearing of face masks or imposing fines on businesses are in conflict with Abbott’s executive orders.

In the interest of public safety, rules like those in place in Massachusetts should be commonplace across the country. If an employee tests positive for COVID-19, restaurants should be required to close for at least 24 hours, perhaps longer. They should be required to tell the public if their employees test positive for coronavirus, or if people have been exposed to COVID-19 in their dining room so that those people could be tested or self-quarantine. These establishments should also be required to pay for testing for their employees, along with medical treatment if those workers are sickened on the job. Those requirements should happen in tandem with better national initiatives, including adequate contact tracing, which has shown real promise in combating the coronavirus in places like South Korea.

Republican leaders like Abbott and Patrick have said over and over that the cure cannot be worse than the virus, in an economic sense. But that will be extremely difficult to bleat once these officials are hooked up to ventilators. If thousands of people each day continue to die of the coronavirus, there won’t be anyone to go to these restaurants once the “new normal” is safe. And if places like Texas, where both its largest cities and rural communities have long lacked adequate access to health care, continue to see increased positive cases and the hospitalization of symptomatic patients every single day, it’s not going to be back to normal for a long while.

Protecting the public health is literally the function of government, and it feels a little bit hypocritical for Abbott and Patrick to pretend that the coronavirus crisis isn’t being exacerbated by their insistence on reopening earlier. Considering that this duo is behind some of the most draconian abortion laws in the country throughout their tenure in the Capitol, all under the guise of protecting public health, it’s patently absurd for them to fail to do their jobs right now.

The virus isn’t going anywhere. Every public activity will be at elevated risk until there is a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, and maybe forever. But as the death toll continues to climb, it’s abundantly clear that these losses of life are a failure of governance. It’s time for state and local leaders to step up, and make the bare minimum decision to close these restaurants temporarily in an effort to save lives. Without that, how many people will be sickened — and how many will die — because Texans couldn’t bear the thought of living without their patio margaritas for a few more weeks?

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/30Uypat via Blogger https://ift.tt/2YbfZAy

[morganbelarus]

The Fight for LGBT Equality in 2018 Will Be Fierce

Jay Michaelson: So, here we are at the end of a strange year for LGBTQ Americans. On the one hand, mainstream acceptance of gay people continues to spread; gays are now officially boring. On the other hand, trans people are being singled out for government persecution on the one hand and continued street violence on the other.

Meanwhile, as all three of us have written, the Trump-Pence administration is inflicting the "death of a thousand blows" against LGBTQ civil rights, severely limiting employment rights, marital rights, access to healthcare, access to safe facilities in schools, and so onwhile literally erasing LGBTQ people from government forms, proclamations, and observances.

For that reason, it's even harder than usual to look toward 2018 with any sense of certainty. What are we most hoping for in the year to come? And what do we fear?

Samantha Allen: I have written the word bathroom hundreds of times over the past two years of covering the various state-level attempts to restrict transgender peoples restroom use. I wish I never had to type it again; I didnt sign up to be a reporter to write about the human excretory system every week.

But in 2018, I am hoping to talk about bathrooms a lot less frequentlyand I have reason to believe that will be the case.

One of the most important victories for transgender people this year came in the form of something we avoided: a bathroom bill in Texas that would have effectively made birth certificates into tickets of entry for restrooms in public schools and government buildings. But that was scuttled at the last second by the business community, local law enforcement, and a sympathetic speaker of the House who said he [didnt] want the suicide of a single Texan on [his] hands.

Im confident that well see somebut fewerred-state legislatures really push for bathroom bills. Theyre political losers and money drainersand everyone in elected office knows that by now

I was in the state this summer when this thing almost got passed and I witnessed firsthand the gloriously outsized Texas rage against a bill that could have cost them billions (Tim wrote about the Texas bathroom battle at the time for the Daily Beast).

Between that and North Carolina being forced to repeal the most controversial aspects of HB 2 under pressure from the NCAA, Im confident that well see somebut fewerred-state legislatures really push for bathroom bills. Theyre political losers and money drainersand everyone in elected office knows that by now.

Tim Teeman: Id like to share your optimism, but Roy Moore supplies a harsh correctivefor me anyway. In the celebrations that followed his defeat at the hands of Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race, some difficult questions were left hanging.

Moore was a candidate whose rampant homophobiahis actual desire to see discrimination enacted against millions of LGBT Americans, his desire to see prejudice and discrimination enshrined in lawwent mostly unchallenged and unquestioned. Only on the last day of the race did Jake Tapper of CNN ask his spokesman whether Moore believed homosexuality should be illegal (the answer: Probably).

This was a shameful and telling omission by the media. The depressing footnote to Moores loss is that extreme homophobia itself is not a disqualification for a political candidate in 2017. Active homophobia was seen as a valid mandate to hold by the modern Republican Party.

Moore was only too happy to hold it close even in defeat, as he showed by posting (on Facebook) Carson Jones, Doug Jones gay sons, post-election interview with The Advocate. It was a sly attempt to stir up anti-gay poison. Politicians like Moore are thankfully fewer and fewer in number, but homophobia and transphobia are still a major currency in this White Houseand that Trump and other of Moores high-profile Republican supporters dont see it as a disqualifying characteristic tells us something very sad and alarming indeed.

Since ordinary gays are now not so novel, Hollywood's search for novelty is causing them to explore stories of people of color, rural folks, genderqueer folks, and other people who aren't Will or Grace

Jay Michaelson: I am putting most of my hopes outside the machinery of the state. Hollywood told some beautiful queer stories in 2017; I hope this expands and continues in 2018. A decade ago, when I was a professional activist, we had it drilled into us that the number one factor in someone "evolving" on any particular LGBTQ issue was knowing someone who was L, G, B, T, or Q. And if they didn't have firsthand knowledge, media figures counted too.

So, while the Republican party caters to its Christian Right base, I hope that continued media visibility makes them pay for doing so. There's a nice irony too: since ordinary gays are now not so novel, Hollywood's search for novelty is causing them to explore stories of people of color, rural folks, genderqueer folks, and other people who aren't Will or Grace. That might not be for the best motive, but the consequences could be profound.

Tim Teeman: Then we have the 'wedding cake' case at SCOTUS, which you have written about Jay. That seems currently going in favor of the baker refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. This isn't just about a wedding cake, of course, but providing a signal that discrimination based on "beliefs" is OK, which can be used against LGBT people in so many contexts.

Samantha Allen: Im afraid the Trump administrations attacks on the LGBT community will continue to be so persistent and so piecemeal that they will continue to get shuffled to the side. This past month, we were stunned when the Washington Post reported that the CDC had been discouraged from using the term transgender in preparing their annual budget, but if people had been paying closer attention to Trumps appointments in the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies, this wouldnt have been a surprise.

We cant afford to pretend anymore like these are stunningly cruel attacks that come out of nowhere: leaders of anti-LGBT groups regularly walk the White House halls, they wield tremendous influence right now, and the administration is quietly giving them what they want.

Im worried that, with so many other scandals dominating the headlines, the systematic erosion of LGBT rights will continue to fly under the radar

Trumps tweets on transgender military service created a media shockwave, but that moment aside, the administrations attacks on LGBT people in 2017 have been considerably less flashy: amicus briefs filed to the Supreme Court, tinkering with executive orders, adjusting the Department of Justices approach to transgender students. All of these perniciously subtle attacks have taken place against a cultural backdrop of continuing bigotry and violence: In the last year, for example, at least 28 trans people have been killed, most of them transgender women of color.

Tim Teeman: I think one of the things the U.S. would do well to figure out (he said vainly) is the separation of Church and State. The Religious Right has such a grip on the levers of power here, in certain states and in certain administrations like President Trumps which is greatly relying on the bedrock of its support. LGBT people, activists and groups are facing a traumatic 2018, as the far right of the Republican support seeks to shore up support around Trump, and trans people especially are especially vulnerable in such an atmosphere.

Jay makes a good point: at a time when the Right seeks a ratcheting up of the LGBT culture war, LGBT people and their straight allies working in the culture at large should work to put a wide diversity of LGBT lives and characters into that culture, whether it be TV, film, literature, art, or whatever. Actual LGBT presence will be vital in 2018.

If this global backlash isn't stopped, queer people will be murdered, arrested, targeted, stigmatized, and forced to leave their countries (and then denied refugee status) in numbers we have never seen before

Samantha Allen: The death of a thousand blows of LGBT rights under Trump is only going to continue in 2018, and Im worried that, with so many other scandals dominating the headlines, the systematic erosion of LGBT rightsa phenomenon thats directly affecting at least 4 percent of the U.S. population and 7 percent of millennialswill continue to fly under the radar.

Thatd be like the Trump administration deciding one day that everyone in the state of Pennsylvania didnt deserve human rightsand it somehow not being front-page news every single day until it got fixed.

Jay Michaelson: My greatest fear for 2018 is on a somewhat macro-scale. The rise of nationalism, nativism, and right-wing populism around the world is terrifying. On one level, it's an understandable backlash against globalization, multiculturalism, and technology: people unable or unwilling to change are clinging to old identities and myths. But it's also profoundly dangerous, and queers are just one population endangered by it. It's not to be taken lightly.

Already we've seen the United States retreat from the whole concept of human rights, giving carte blanche to murderous anti-LGBTQ elements in Russia, Egypt, Chechnya, Indonesia, and elsewhere.

In 2018, the US will practically zero out its aid to vulnerable LGBT populations around the world. At the UN as elsewhere, America is now allied with Putin's Russia, in this case withdrawing protection from LGBT people and instead defending the oppression of us.

But this is just the beginning. If this global backlash isn't stopped, queer people will be murdered, arrested, targeted, stigmatized, and forced to leave their countries (and then denied refugee status) in numbers we have never seen before.

Figure out some way to help those who dont have as much, or who are especially politically and culturally vulnerable, and who could do with support. Give money, volunteer, whateverdo what you can

Tim Teeman: On that basis, LGBT people and their allies with any time, money, commitment and energy might think about involving themselves with activism and campaigning for organizations like The Trevor Project, HRC, Anti-Violence Project, National Center For Transgender Equality, GLSEN, PFLAG, OutRight Action International, and groups in their local area. If they don't want to do something overtly political, then maybe figure out a way to help those who dont have as much, or who are especially vulnerable, and who could do with supportwhether that be financial and pastoral.

If you need inspiration, look to Nathan Mathis who wasn't going to let Roy Moore winor lose at it turned outin Alabama without shaming him over his homophobia; and without remembering, in the most moving way possible, his dead lesbian daughter, Patti Sue.

Listen to, and be inspired by, the stirring stories of those from times when things were not just bleak but political progress and cultural evolution seemed alien and utterly distant. Eric Marcus has distilled, and continues to distill, amazing interviews with the likes of Sylvia Rivera and Frank Kameny, conducted for his landmark book Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight For Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights, into a must-listen podcast.

More From this publisher : HERE ; This post was curated using : TrendingTraffic

=> *********************************************** Learn More Here: The Fight for LGBT Equality in 2018 Will Be Fierce ************************************ =>

The Fight for LGBT Equality in 2018 Will Be Fierce was originally posted by 16 MP Just news

[trendingnewsb]

The Fight for LGBT Equality in 2018 Will Be Fierce

Jay Michaelson: So, here we are at the end of a strange year for LGBTQ Americans. On the one hand, mainstream acceptance of gay people continues to spread; gays are now officially boring. On the other hand, trans people are being singled out for government persecution on the one hand and continued street violence on the other.

Meanwhile, as all three of us have written, the Trump-Pence administration is inflicting the "death of a thousand blows" against LGBTQ civil rights, severely limiting employment rights, marital rights, access to healthcare, access to safe facilities in schools, and so onwhile literally erasing LGBTQ people from government forms, proclamations, and observances.

For that reason, it's even harder than usual to look toward 2018 with any sense of certainty. What are we most hoping for in the year to come? And what do we fear?

Samantha Allen: I have written the word bathroom hundreds of times over the past two years of covering the various state-level attempts to restrict transgender peoples restroom use. I wish I never had to type it again; I didnt sign up to be a reporter to write about the human excretory system every week.

But in 2018, I am hoping to talk about bathrooms a lot less frequentlyand I have reason to believe that will be the case.

One of the most important victories for transgender people this year came in the form of something we avoided: a bathroom bill in Texas that would have effectively made birth certificates into tickets of entry for restrooms in public schools and government buildings. But that was scuttled at the last second by the business community, local law enforcement, and a sympathetic speaker of the House who said he [didnt] want the suicide of a single Texan on [his] hands.

Im confident that well see somebut fewerred-state legislatures really push for bathroom bills. Theyre political losers and money drainersand everyone in elected office knows that by now

I was in the state this summer when this thing almost got passed and I witnessed firsthand the gloriously outsized Texas rage against a bill that could have cost them billions (Tim wrote about the Texas bathroom battle at the time for the Daily Beast).

Between that and North Carolina being forced to repeal the most controversial aspects of HB 2 under pressure from the NCAA, Im confident that well see somebut fewerred-state legislatures really push for bathroom bills. Theyre political losers and money drainersand everyone in elected office knows that by now.

Tim Teeman: Id like to share your optimism, but Roy Moore supplies a harsh correctivefor me anyway. In the celebrations that followed his defeat at the hands of Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race, some difficult questions were left hanging.

Moore was a candidate whose rampant homophobiahis actual desire to see discrimination enacted against millions of LGBT Americans, his desire to see prejudice and discrimination enshrined in lawwent mostly unchallenged and unquestioned. Only on the last day of the race did Jake Tapper of CNN ask his spokesman whether Moore believed homosexuality should be illegal (the answer: Probably).

This was a shameful and telling omission by the media. The depressing footnote to Moores loss is that extreme homophobia itself is not a disqualification for a political candidate in 2017. Active homophobia was seen as a valid mandate to hold by the modern Republican Party.

Moore was only too happy to hold it close even in defeat, as he showed by posting (on Facebook) Carson Jones, Doug Jones gay sons, post-election interview with The Advocate. It was a sly attempt to stir up anti-gay poison. Politicians like Moore are thankfully fewer and fewer in number, but homophobia and transphobia are still a major currency in this White Houseand that Trump and other of Moores high-profile Republican supporters dont see it as a disqualifying characteristic tells us something very sad and alarming indeed.

Since ordinary gays are now not so novel, Hollywood's search for novelty is causing them to explore stories of people of color, rural folks, genderqueer folks, and other people who aren't Will or Grace

Jay Michaelson: I am putting most of my hopes outside the machinery of the state. Hollywood told some beautiful queer stories in 2017; I hope this expands and continues in 2018. A decade ago, when I was a professional activist, we had it drilled into us that the number one factor in someone "evolving" on any particular LGBTQ issue was knowing someone who was L, G, B, T, or Q. And if they didn't have firsthand knowledge, media figures counted too.

So, while the Republican party caters to its Christian Right base, I hope that continued media visibility makes them pay for doing so. There's a nice irony too: since ordinary gays are now not so novel, Hollywood's search for novelty is causing them to explore stories of people of color, rural folks, genderqueer folks, and other people who aren't Will or Grace. That might not be for the best motive, but the consequences could be profound.

Tim Teeman: Then we have the 'wedding cake' case at SCOTUS, which you have written about Jay. That seems currently going in favor of the baker refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. This isn't just about a wedding cake, of course, but providing a signal that discrimination based on "beliefs" is OK, which can be used against LGBT people in so many contexts.

Samantha Allen: Im afraid the Trump administrations attacks on the LGBT community will continue to be so persistent and so piecemeal that they will continue to get shuffled to the side. This past month, we were stunned when the Washington Post reported that the CDC had been discouraged from using the term transgender in preparing their annual budget, but if people had been paying closer attention to Trumps appointments in the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies, this wouldnt have been a surprise.

We cant afford to pretend anymore like these are stunningly cruel attacks that come out of nowhere: leaders of anti-LGBT groups regularly walk the White House halls, they wield tremendous influence right now, and the administration is quietly giving them what they want.

Im worried that, with so many other scandals dominating the headlines, the systematic erosion of LGBT rights will continue to fly under the radar

Trumps tweets on transgender military service created a media shockwave, but that moment aside, the administrations attacks on LGBT people in 2017 have been considerably less flashy: amicus briefs filed to the Supreme Court, tinkering with executive orders, adjusting the Department of Justices approach to transgender students. All of these perniciously subtle attacks have taken place against a cultural backdrop of continuing bigotry and violence: In the last year, for example, at least 28 trans people have been killed, most of them transgender women of color.

Tim Teeman: I think one of the things the U.S. would do well to figure out (he said vainly) is the separation of Church and State. The Religious Right has such a grip on the levers of power here, in certain states and in certain administrations like President Trumps which is greatly relying on the bedrock of its support. LGBT people, activists and groups are facing a traumatic 2018, as the far right of the Republican support seeks to shore up support around Trump, and trans people especially are especially vulnerable in such an atmosphere.

Jay makes a good point: at a time when the Right seeks a ratcheting up of the LGBT culture war, LGBT people and their straight allies working in the culture at large should work to put a wide diversity of LGBT lives and characters into that culture, whether it be TV, film, literature, art, or whatever. Actual LGBT presence will be vital in 2018.

If this global backlash isn't stopped, queer people will be murdered, arrested, targeted, stigmatized, and forced to leave their countries (and then denied refugee status) in numbers we have never seen before

Samantha Allen: The death of a thousand blows of LGBT rights under Trump is only going to continue in 2018, and Im worried that, with so many other scandals dominating the headlines, the systematic erosion of LGBT rightsa phenomenon thats directly affecting at least 4 percent of the U.S. population and 7 percent of millennialswill continue to fly under the radar.

Thatd be like the Trump administration deciding one day that everyone in the state of Pennsylvania didnt deserve human rightsand it somehow not being front-page news every single day until it got fixed.

Jay Michaelson: My greatest fear for 2018 is on a somewhat macro-scale. The rise of nationalism, nativism, and right-wing populism around the world is terrifying. On one level, it's an understandable backlash against globalization, multiculturalism, and technology: people unable or unwilling to change are clinging to old identities and myths. But it's also profoundly dangerous, and queers are just one population endangered by it. It's not to be taken lightly.

Already we've seen the United States retreat from the whole concept of human rights, giving carte blanche to murderous anti-LGBTQ elements in Russia, Egypt, Chechnya, Indonesia, and elsewhere.

In 2018, the US will practically zero out its aid to vulnerable LGBT populations around the world. At the UN as elsewhere, America is now allied with Putin's Russia, in this case withdrawing protection from LGBT people and instead defending the oppression of us.

But this is just the beginning. If this global backlash isn't stopped, queer people will be murdered, arrested, targeted, stigmatized, and forced to leave their countries (and then denied refugee status) in numbers we have never seen before.

Figure out some way to help those who dont have as much, or who are especially politically and culturally vulnerable, and who could do with support. Give money, volunteer, whateverdo what you can

Tim Teeman: On that basis, LGBT people and their allies with any time, money, commitment and energy might think about involving themselves with activism and campaigning for organizations like The Trevor Project, HRC, Anti-Violence Project, National Center For Transgender Equality, GLSEN, PFLAG, OutRight Action International, and groups in their local area. If they don't want to do something overtly political, then maybe figure out a way to help those who dont have as much, or who are especially vulnerable, and who could do with supportwhether that be financial and pastoral.

If you need inspiration, look to Nathan Mathis who wasn't going to let Roy Moore winor lose at it turned outin Alabama without shaming him over his homophobia; and without remembering, in the most moving way possible, his dead lesbian daughter, Patti Sue.

Listen to, and be inspired by, the stirring stories of those from times when things were not just bleak but political progress and cultural evolution seemed alien and utterly distant. Eric Marcus has distilled, and continues to distill, amazing interviews with the likes of Sylvia Rivera and Frank Kameny, conducted for his landmark book Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight For Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights, into a must-listen podcast.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-fight-for-lgbt-equality-in-2018-will-be-fierce

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2Eudf8o via Viral News HQ

[bestmovies0]

The Fight for LGBT Equality in 2018 Will Be Fierce

Jay Michaelson : So, here we are at the end of a strange time for LGBTQ Americans. On the one hand, mainstream acceptance of lesbian people continues to spread; homosexuals are now officially boring. On the other hand, trans people are being singled out for government mistreatment on the one hand and continued street violence on the other.

Meanwhile, as all three of us have written, the Trump-Pence administration is imposing the “death of a thousand blows” against LGBTQ civil right, severely restriction employment rights, marital rights, access to healthcare, access to safe facilities in schools, and so on-while literally deleting LGBTQ people from government forms, proclamations, and observances.

For that reason, it &# x27; s even harder than usual to look toward 2018 with any sense of certainty. What are we most hoping for in the year to come? And what do we fear?

Samantha Allen : I have written the word “bathroom” hundreds of periods over the past two years of covering the various state-level attempts to restrict transgender people’s restroom use. I wish I never had to type it again; I didn’t sign up to be a reporter to write about the human excretory system each week.

But in 2018, I am hoping to talk about bathrooms a lot less frequently–and I have reason to believe that will be the case.

One of the most important success for transgender people this year came in the form of something we avoided: a” bathroom bill” in Texas that would have effectively built birth certificates into tickets of entry for restrooms in public schools and government buildings. But that was scampered at the last second by the business community, local law enforcement, and a sympathetic talker of the House who said he “[ didn’t] crave the suicide of a single Texan on[ his] hands .”

” I’m confident that we’ll visualize some–but fewer–red-state legislatures really push for “bathroom” bills. They’re political losers and fund drainers–and everyone in elected office knows that by now “ div > div>

I was in the government the summer months when this thing almost get passed and I witnessed firsthand the gloriously outsized Texas rage against a bill that could have cost them billions( Tim wrote about the Texas bathroom battle at the time for the Daily Beast ).

Between that and North Carolina being was necessary to repeal the more controversial aspects of HB 2 under pressure from the NCAA, I’m confident that we’ll understand some–but fewer–red-state parliaments truly push for “bathroom” bills. They’re political losers and money drainers–and everyone in elected agency known to be by now.

Tim Teeman : I’d like to share your optimism, but Roy Moore supplies a harsh corrective–for me anyway. In the celebrations that followed his defeat at the hands of Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race, some difficult questions were left dangling.

Moore was a candidate whose rampant homophobia-his actual desire to see discrimination enacted against millions of LGBT Americans, his desire to see prejudice and discrimination are set forth in law-went largely unchallenged and unquestioned. Simply on the last day of the race did Jake Tapper of CNN ask his spokesman whether Moore believed homosexuality should be illegal( the answer: “Probably” ).

This was a shameful and telling omission by the media. The depressing footnote to Moore’s loss is that extreme homophobia itself is not a disqualification for a political nominee in 2017. Active homophobia was seen as a valid mandate to comprised by the modern Republican Party.

Moore was only too happy to hold it close even in overcome, as he proven by posting( on Facebook ) Carson Jones, Doug Jones’ lesbian son’s, post-election interview with The Advocate . It was a sly attempt to stir up anti-gay poison. Legislators like Moore are thankfully fewer and fewer in number, but homophobia and transphobia are still a major currency in this White House–and that Trump and other of Moore’s high-profile Republican supporters don’t see it as a disqualifying characteristic tells us something very sad and alarming indeed.

” Since ordinary gays are now not so novel, Hollywood &# x27; s search for novelty is causing them to explore tales of people of color, rural folks, genderqueer folks, and other people who aren &# x27; t Will or Grace “ div > div > div>

Jay Michaelson : I am putting most of my hopes outside the machinery of the state. Hollywood told some beautiful faggot tales in 2017; I hope this expands and continues in 2018. A decade ago, when I was a professional activist, we had it drilled into us that the number one taken into account in someone “evolving” on any particular LGBTQ issue was knowing someone who was L, G, B, T, or Q. And if they didn &# x27; t have firsthand knowledge, media figures counted too.

So, while the Republican party caters to its Christian Right base, I hope that continued media visibility stimulates them pay for doing so. There &# x27; s a nice irony too: since ordinary lesbians are now not so novel, Hollywood &# x27; s search for novelty is causing them to explore tales of people of color, rural folks, genderqueer folks, and other people who aren &# x27; t Will or Grace. That might not be for the best motive, but the consequences could be profound.

Tim Teeman : Then we have the &# x27; wedding cake &# x27; case at SCOTUS, which you have written about Jay. That seems currently going in favor of the baker refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. This isn &# x27; t just about a wedding cake, of course, but furnishing a signal that discrimination based on “beliefs” is OK, which can be used against LGBT people in so many contexts.

Samantha Allen : I’m afraid the Trump administration’s attempts on the LGBT community will continue to be so persistent and so piecemeal that they will continue to get shuffled to the side. This past month, we were stunned when the Washington Post reported that the CDC had been deterred from employing the term “transgender” in preparing their annual budget, but if people had been paying closer attention to Trump’s appointments in the Department of Health and Human Service and other federal agencies, this wouldn’t have been a surprise.

We can’t afford to pretend anymore like these are stunningly cruel onslaughts that come out of nowhere: leaders of anti-LGBT groups regularly walk the White House dormitories, they wield tremendous influence right now, and the concerned authorities is softly giving them what they want.

” I’m worried that, with so many other scandals dominating the headlines, the systematic eroding of LGBT rights will continue to fly under the radar “ div > div>

Trump’s tweets on transgender military service made a media shockwave, but that moment aside, the administration’s assaults on LGBT people in 2017 have been considerably less flashy: amicus summaries filed to the Supreme Court, tinkering with executive orders, adapting the Department of Justice’s approach to transgender students. All of these perniciously subtle assaults have taken place against a cultural backdrop of continuing bigotry and violence: In the last year, for example, at least 28 trans people have been killed, most of them transgender women of color.

Tim Teeman : I reckon one of the things the U.S. would do well to figure out( he said vainly) is the separation of Church and State. The Religious Right has such a clutch on the levers of power here, in certain states and in certain administrations like President Trump’s which is greatly relying on the bedrock of its support. LGBT people, activists and groups are facing a traumatic 2018, as the extreme right of the Republican support seeks to shore up support around Trump, and trans people specially are particularly susceptible in such an atmosphere.

Jay makes a good point: at a time when the Right seeks a ratcheting up of the LGBT culture war, LGBT people and their straight friends working in the culture at large should work to threw a wide diversity of LGBT lives and characters into that culture, whether it be Tv, movie, literature, art, or whatever. Actual LGBT existence will be vital in 2018.

” If this world backlash isn &# x27; t stopped, gay people will be murdered, arrested, targeted, stigmatized, and forced to leave their countries( and then denied refugee status) in numbers we have never seen before “ div > div>

Samantha Allen: The” death of a thousand blows” of LGBT rights under Trump is simply going to continue in 2018, and I’m worried that, with so many other scandals dominating the headlines, the systematic corrosion of LGBT rights–a phenomenon that’s immediately affecting at the least 4 percent of the U.S. population and 7 percent of millennials–will continue to fly under the radar.

That’d be like the Trump administration deciding one day that everyone in the country of Pennsylvania didn’t deserve human rights–and it somehow not being front-page news every single period until it get fixed.

Jay Michaelson : My greatest anxiety for 2018 is on a somewhat macro-scale. The rise of nationalism, nativism, and right-wing populism around the world is terrifying. On one level, it &# x27; s an understandable backlash against globalization, multiculturalism, and technology: people unable or unwilling to change are clinging to old identities and myths. But it &# x27; s also profoundly dangerous, and queers are just one population endangered by it. It &# x27; s not to be taken lightly.

Already we &# x27; ve appreciated the United States retreat from the whole concept of human rights, devoting carte blanche to murderous anti-LGBTQ factors in Russia, Egypt, Chechnya, Indonesia, and elsewhere.

In 2018, the US will practically zero out its aid to vulnerable LGBT populations around the world. At the UN as elsewhere, America is now allied with Putin &# x27; s Russia, in this case withdrawing protection from LGBT people and instead protecting the oppression of us.

But this is just the beginning. If this world backlash isn &# x27; t stopped, homosexual people will be slaughtered, apprehended, targeted, stigmatized, and forced to leave their countries( and then denied refugee status) in numbers we have never seen before.

” Figure out some behavior to aid those who don’t have as much, or who are especially politically and culturally vulnerable, and which is able do with subsistence. Make money, volunteer, whatever–do what you can “ div > div>

Tim Teeman : On that basis, LGBT people and their allies with any time, fund, commitment and energy might think about involving themselves with activism and campaigning for organizations like The Trevor Project, HRC, Anti-Violence Project, National Center For Transgender Equality, GLSEN, PFLAG, OutRight Action International, and groups in their local region. If they don &# x27; t wishes to do something overtly political, then maybe figure out a style to assist the individuals who don’t have as much, or who are especially vulnerable, and who could do with support-whether that be fiscal and pastoral.

If you need inspiration, look to Nathan Mathis who wasn &# x27; t is letting Roy Moore win-or lose at it turned out-in Alabama without dishonor him over his homophobia; and without remembering, in the most moving lane possible, his dead lesbian daughter, Patti Sue.

Listen to, and be inspired by, the conjuring tales of those from periods when things were not just bleak but political progress and cultural evolution seemed alien and utterly remote. Eric Marcus has distilled, and continues to distill, astonishing interviews with the likes of Sylvia Rivera and Frank Kameny, conducted for his landmark book Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight For Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights, into a must-listen podcast.

Read more: https :// www.thedailybeast.com/ the-fight-for-lgbt-equality-in-2 018 -will-be-fierce

from https://bestmovies.fun/2017/12/30/the-fight-for-lgbt-equality-in-2018-will-be-fierce/

[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

Texas Anti-Trans Bathroom Bill May Force A Special Session

AUSTIN, Texas ― A potential compromise to avoid a full-blown set of bathroom restrictions keeping trans Texans from using the facilities that most closely match their gender fell apart Friday night, as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) once again implied that he’d force legislators to return for a special session if the measure doesn’t pass.  

Patrick has made the issue a priority since the beginning of the regular session, which started in January. But the bill he backed in the state Senate, which would have required trans Texans to use public bathrooms of the sex listed on their birth certificates, failed to gain traction in the state House of Representatives.  

Instead, House Speaker Joe Straus blocked the measure and threw his support behind an amendment to a separate bill last week as his watered-down alternative. The amendment would have required public and charter K-12 schools ― but not government buildings ― to provide single-use bathrooms to those uncomfortable using facilities of their “biological sex.” The amendment wouldn’t have overturned more inclusive local policies, which Patrick wanted.  

Friday night, both Straus and Patrick called press conferences to tell reporters neither one intended to budge. Patrick once again threatened to push legislators into a special session over the issue.

“They’re definitely playing a game of chicken,” Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston, told HuffPost. “Straus has effectively told Patrick, take it or leave it.”

Straus is an establishment Republican who opposes the bill and fears it will drag the state through the same negative publicity and boycotts that North Carolina faced last year when it restricted bathroom use for trans people. He’d spoken publicly against the idea, but backed the amendment last week after Patrick threatened to hold up must-pass legislation if the House didn’t approve some version of the bathroom restrictions.

“He said he has compromised enough, but in fact, he has not compromised at all,” Patrick said, according to the Texas Tribune.

It communicates to transgender people that they don’t belong. Quite literally, this bill is killing my patients. Colt Keo-Meier, a clinical psychologist

The state legislature meets once every two years for five months. But Patrick, a staunch conservative who presides over the Texas Senate, once again raised the possibility of pulling lawmakers back to Austin for the express purpose of considering the bathroom bill.

“We are representing the people of Texas,” Patrick said, according to the Texas Observer. “Women want to be protected in bathrooms, government bathrooms, across this state… Every poll clearly says that.”

During debates at the legislature, supporters of the Republican-backed bill did little to show that the state faces a public safety problem if people use public bathrooms that correspond with their gender identification. Assaulting women or men in a public bathroom or anywhere else is already illegal. Trans bathroom use is not associated with crime. 

Hundreds of people, however, told legislators at a committee hearing in March that the bill would needlessly stigmatize and harm trans Texans. Only 9 percent of trans Americans have successfully altered the markers on their birth certificates, according to a 2015 study by the National Center for Transgender Equality. The study cited bureaucratic hurdles and associated costs as obstacles.

Colt Keo-Meier, a clinical psychologist who specializes in serving transgender clients and has transitioned himself, told Senators in March that his clients routinely suffer from suicidal thoughts and other mental health problems provoked by the harsh way they are treated.

“It communicates to transgender people that they don’t belong,” Keo-Meier said of the measures Patrick supports. “Quite literally, this bill is killing my patients.”

The compromise amendment backed by Straus didn’t satisfy LGBTQ advocates, who likened it to segregation. But in a legislative session dominated by hardline conservatives, Straus hoped it would at least limit the bad press and economic consequences that the original bill threatened to unleash.

“For many of us — and especially for me — this was a compromise,” Straus told reporters Friday, according to the Texas Tribune. “As far as I’m concerned, it was enough. We will go no further. This is the right thing to do in order to protect our economy from billions of dollars in losses and more importantly to protect the safety of some very vulnerable young Texans.” 

If Patrick refuses to back down, the pressure to raise the bill will fall on Gov. Greg Abbott. He alone has the authority to call a special legislative session, and he picks which bills state lawmakers may consider when taking that measure. Abbott has said he supports some measure restricting bathroom use.

But forcing a special session over the issue would put an even greater spotlight on the controversial bill, which worries some business-minded Republicans. Two studies showed the state would lose billions of dollars due to boycotts and lost tourism if the measure passes.

“If it passes during the regular session, it appears like a priority,” said Jones, the political scientist from Rice University. “But if you call a special session to pass the bathroom legislation, you’re essentially saying this is such a priority we’re willing to pay approximately $1 million to hold a special session and make 181 legislators return to Austin to debate it and pass it.”

If Abbott were to call a special session and place bathroom restrictions on the agenda, they’d have a higher likelihood of passing because Straus would have less room to use procedural tools to block the measure.

“The Texas economy is sliding backwards. Healthcare for millions of Texans could be ripped away. Our students pay the price for a broken school finance system. Higher education is out of reach for working families. And Texas workers still need a damn raise,” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement in response to the controversy.

“We are facing a Texas with less opportunity, and Republicans have been debating bathrooms for months,” he added. “Texas Republicans have failed us all.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2rJgfYo

[easyfoodnetwork]

Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images Closing your business after an employee gets sick is the right thing to do. But right now, it’s totally voluntary. On June 16, the state of Texas announced its highest total number of new coronavirus cases to date. It wasn’t particularly surprising news, coming six weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott allowed restaurants to increase their occupancy to 25 percent after a weeks-long shutdown statewide. In recent weeks, restaurants have been allowed to increase their capacity to 75 percent of normal, bars are operating at 50 percent capacity, and more than 96,000 positive COVID-19 cases have been identified in Texas, a number that continues to rise by the thousands on a daily basis. At the same time, dozens of restaurants across the state are closing their doors as employees — those on the front lines and at the highest risk of getting sick — test positive for the novel coronavirus. These closures — sometimes lasting days, others for weeks — give restaurant owners time to engage in intensive deep-cleaning and potentially revise their health and safety protocols. Some establishments require that exposed employees self-quarantine and are paying for staff to get tested. Over the past week, nearly a dozen Houston restaurants announced temporary closures after employees tested positive. A similar smattering of shutters was seen in Austin and Dallas. These are only the positive tests and closures we know about. Because at present, the state of Texas, like most other states and cities nationwide, does not legally require a restaurant shut down if an employee has tested positive for COVID-19. Massachusetts has mandated that restaurants must close for at least 24 hours and disinfect the space in accordance with Centers for Disease Control guidelines after a “worker, patron, or vendor” tests positive for COVID-19. But Massachusetts is an outlier: Most states and cities (like Los Angeles and Chicago) offer only “recommendations” and “guidelines” instead of enforceable requirements. In Texas, Abbott’s “Open Texas” plan, which outlines reopening recommendations, is merely a set of guidelines that establishments are “encouraged” to implement, not codified law or enforceable regulations. That leaves closure and testing decisions entirely up to business owners, and that’s a serious problem — for workers and diners. Restaurants are already expected to meet an extensive set of food safety guidelines, but combatting COVID-19 is not the same as battling foodborne pathogens. We still don’t know enough about how this virus is transmitted, especially in small spaces, or what can conclusively be done to stem its spread, and that makes it difficult for restaurants to implement effective safety measures. It also doesn’t help that many people across the state have refused to participate in social distancing or wear masks in enclosed spaces like restaurants; Abbott’s guidelines do not require restaurant workers to wear masks, either, asking owners to simply “consider having all employees and contractors wear cloth face coverings.” So it’s no wonder that restaurant employees are getting sick. Right now, restaurants that choose to close after a positive diagnosis among staff are doing it voluntarily, and it’s absolutely the right thing to do. Continuing to expose patrons and workers to a potentially deadly virus is unjustifiable, even if a restaurant is looking at a seriously bleak economic picture. But because there is no government entity keeping an eye on these establishments, the most egregious offenders go unchecked: Without a required level of transparency or legal obligation to protect their employees, these restaurants might be allowing sick workers to prepare food in the kitchen and refusing to allow servers to wear masks. No restaurant wants to be associated with an infectious disease, and without regulation, there’s a pretty massive incentive for restaurants to keep quiet about positive COVID-19 tests among staffers. In some cases, those staffers have had to publicly advocate on their own behalf. Earlier this year, it took highly publicized union efforts and worker strikes to change the closure policies and safety requirements at many of the country’s major grocery store chains. Like restaurant workers, these employees reported that their employers were slow to inform employees that they may have been exposed to the virus, and slow to close when a fellow worker fell ill. It seems clear that businesses aren’t going to make the decision to protect public health on their own. And in small, independent restaurants, it’s nearly impossible for workers to organize to better their working conditions. Which is exactly why the decision to close shouldn’t be left up to business owners at all. It’s hard to blame most of these operators for their choice to open, because it often isn’t a choice at all: They’re already in a precarious position considering weeks of shutdown, the costs of adapting to service in the middle of a pandemic, and ever-declining revenues. Right now, their options are either to reopen and keep paying staff while potentially sickening someone, or close the doors entirely and try to outlast the pandemic without bankrupting themselves. But ultimately, when the options are “sickening people with a deadly virus” or “losing money,” the former has to outweigh the latter. In Texas, though, that’s not how officials see it. Back in March, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick urged grandparents to sacrifice themselves on the altar of the Texas economy. In some cases, the governor has actively stymied large cities like Houston and Dallas in their efforts to slow the virus’s spread, telling local officials that any orders requiring the wearing of face masks or imposing fines on businesses are in conflict with Abbott’s executive orders. In the interest of public safety, rules like those in place in Massachusetts should be commonplace across the country. If an employee tests positive for COVID-19, restaurants should be required to close for at least 24 hours, perhaps longer. They should be required to tell the public if their employees test positive for coronavirus, or if people have been exposed to COVID-19 in their dining room so that those people could be tested or self-quarantine. These establishments should also be required to pay for testing for their employees, along with medical treatment if those workers are sickened on the job. Those requirements should happen in tandem with better national initiatives, including adequate contact tracing, which has shown real promise in combating the coronavirus in places like South Korea. Republican leaders like Abbott and Patrick have said over and over that the cure cannot be worse than the virus, in an economic sense. But that will be extremely difficult to bleat once these officials are hooked up to ventilators. If thousands of people each day continue to die of the coronavirus, there won’t be anyone to go to these restaurants once the “new normal” is safe. And if places like Texas, where both its largest cities and rural communities have long lacked adequate access to health care, continue to see increased positive cases and the hospitalization of symptomatic patients every single day, it’s not going to be back to normal for a long while. Protecting the public health is literally the function of government, and it feels a little bit hypocritical for Abbott and Patrick to pretend that the coronavirus crisis isn’t being exacerbated by their insistence on reopening earlier. Considering that this duo is behind some of the most draconian abortion laws in the country throughout their tenure in the Capitol, all under the guise of protecting public health, it’s patently absurd for them to fail to do their jobs right now. The virus isn’t going anywhere. Every public activity will be at elevated risk until there is a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, and maybe forever. But as the death toll continues to climb, it’s abundantly clear that these losses of life are a failure of governance. It’s time for state and local leaders to step up, and make the bare minimum decision to close these restaurants temporarily in an effort to save lives. Without that, how many people will be sickened — and how many will die — because Texans couldn’t bear the thought of living without their patio margaritas for a few more weeks? from Eater - All https://ift.tt/30Uypat

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/06/governments-have-obligation-to-close.html

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The Fight for LGBT Equality in 2018 Will Be Fierce

Jay Michaelson: So, here we are at the end of a strange year for LGBTQ Americans. On the one hand, mainstream acceptance of gay people continues to spread; gays are now officially boring. On the other hand, trans people are being singled out for government persecution on the one hand and continued street violence on the other.

Meanwhile, as all three of us have written, the Trump-Pence administration is inflicting the "death of a thousand blows" against LGBTQ civil rights, severely limiting employment rights, marital rights, access to healthcare, access to safe facilities in schools, and so onwhile literally erasing LGBTQ people from government forms, proclamations, and observances.

For that reason, it's even harder than usual to look toward 2018 with any sense of certainty. What are we most hoping for in the year to come? And what do we fear?

Samantha Allen: I have written the word bathroom hundreds of times over the past two years of covering the various state-level attempts to restrict transgender peoples restroom use. I wish I never had to type it again; I didnt sign up to be a reporter to write about the human excretory system every week.

But in 2018, I am hoping to talk about bathrooms a lot less frequentlyand I have reason to believe that will be the case.

One of the most important victories for transgender people this year came in the form of something we avoided: a bathroom bill in Texas that would have effectively made birth certificates into tickets of entry for restrooms in public schools and government buildings. But that was scuttled at the last second by the business community, local law enforcement, and a sympathetic speaker of the House who said he [didnt] want the suicide of a single Texan on [his] hands.

Im confident that well see somebut fewerred-state legislatures really push for bathroom bills. Theyre political losers and money drainersand everyone in elected office knows that by now

I was in the state this summer when this thing almost got passed and I witnessed firsthand the gloriously outsized Texas rage against a bill that could have cost them billions (Tim wrote about the Texas bathroom battle at the time for the Daily Beast).

Between that and North Carolina being forced to repeal the most controversial aspects of HB 2 under pressure from the NCAA, Im confident that well see somebut fewerred-state legislatures really push for bathroom bills. Theyre political losers and money drainersand everyone in elected office knows that by now.

Tim Teeman: Id like to share your optimism, but Roy Moore supplies a harsh correctivefor me anyway. In the celebrations that followed his defeat at the hands of Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race, some difficult questions were left hanging.

Moore was a candidate whose rampant homophobiahis actual desire to see discrimination enacted against millions of LGBT Americans, his desire to see prejudice and discrimination enshrined in lawwent mostly unchallenged and unquestioned. Only on the last day of the race did Jake Tapper of CNN ask his spokesman whether Moore believed homosexuality should be illegal (the answer: Probably).

This was a shameful and telling omission by the media. The depressing footnote to Moores loss is that extreme homophobia itself is not a disqualification for a political candidate in 2017. Active homophobia was seen as a valid mandate to hold by the modern Republican Party.

Moore was only too happy to hold it close even in defeat, as he showed by posting (on Facebook) Carson Jones, Doug Jones gay sons, post-election interview with The Advocate. It was a sly attempt to stir up anti-gay poison. Politicians like Moore are thankfully fewer and fewer in number, but homophobia and transphobia are still a major currency in this White Houseand that Trump and other of Moores high-profile Republican supporters dont see it as a disqualifying characteristic tells us something very sad and alarming indeed.

Since ordinary gays are now not so novel, Hollywood's search for novelty is causing them to explore stories of people of color, rural folks, genderqueer folks, and other people who aren't Will or Grace

Jay Michaelson: I am putting most of my hopes outside the machinery of the state. Hollywood told some beautiful queer stories in 2017; I hope this expands and continues in 2018. A decade ago, when I was a professional activist, we had it drilled into us that the number one factor in someone "evolving" on any particular LGBTQ issue was knowing someone who was L, G, B, T, or Q. And if they didn't have firsthand knowledge, media figures counted too.

So, while the Republican party caters to its Christian Right base, I hope that continued media visibility makes them pay for doing so. There's a nice irony too: since ordinary gays are now not so novel, Hollywood's search for novelty is causing them to explore stories of people of color, rural folks, genderqueer folks, and other people who aren't Will or Grace. That might not be for the best motive, but the consequences could be profound.

Tim Teeman: Then we have the 'wedding cake' case at SCOTUS, which you have written about Jay. That seems currently going in favor of the baker refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. This isn't just about a wedding cake, of course, but providing a signal that discrimination based on "beliefs" is OK, which can be used against LGBT people in so many contexts.

Samantha Allen: Im afraid the Trump administrations attacks on the LGBT community will continue to be so persistent and so piecemeal that they will continue to get shuffled to the side. This past month, we were stunned when the Washington Post reported that the CDC had been discouraged from using the term transgender in preparing their annual budget, but if people had been paying closer attention to Trumps appointments in the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies, this wouldnt have been a surprise.

We cant afford to pretend anymore like these are stunningly cruel attacks that come out of nowhere: leaders of anti-LGBT groups regularly walk the White House halls, they wield tremendous influence right now, and the administration is quietly giving them what they want.

Im worried that, with so many other scandals dominating the headlines, the systematic erosion of LGBT rights will continue to fly under the radar

Trumps tweets on transgender military service created a media shockwave, but that moment aside, the administrations attacks on LGBT people in 2017 have been considerably less flashy: amicus briefs filed to the Supreme Court, tinkering with executive orders, adjusting the Department of Justices approach to transgender students. All of these perniciously subtle attacks have taken place against a cultural backdrop of continuing bigotry and violence: In the last year, for example, at least 28 trans people have been killed, most of them transgender women of color.

Tim Teeman: I think one of the things the U.S. would do well to figure out (he said vainly) is the separation of Church and State. The Religious Right has such a grip on the levers of power here, in certain states and in certain administrations like President Trumps which is greatly relying on the bedrock of its support. LGBT people, activists and groups are facing a traumatic 2018, as the far right of the Republican support seeks to shore up support around Trump, and trans people especially are especially vulnerable in such an atmosphere.

Jay makes a good point: at a time when the Right seeks a ratcheting up of the LGBT culture war, LGBT people and their straight allies working in the culture at large should work to put a wide diversity of LGBT lives and characters into that culture, whether it be TV, film, literature, art, or whatever. Actual LGBT presence will be vital in 2018.

If this global backlash isn't stopped, queer people will be murdered, arrested, targeted, stigmatized, and forced to leave their countries (and then denied refugee status) in numbers we have never seen before

Samantha Allen: The death of a thousand blows of LGBT rights under Trump is only going to continue in 2018, and Im worried that, with so many other scandals dominating the headlines, the systematic erosion of LGBT rightsa phenomenon thats directly affecting at least 4 percent of the U.S. population and 7 percent of millennialswill continue to fly under the radar.

Thatd be like the Trump administration deciding one day that everyone in the state of Pennsylvania didnt deserve human rightsand it somehow not being front-page news every single day until it got fixed.

Jay Michaelson: My greatest fear for 2018 is on a somewhat macro-scale. The rise of nationalism, nativism, and right-wing populism around the world is terrifying. On one level, it's an understandable backlash against globalization, multiculturalism, and technology: people unable or unwilling to change are clinging to old identities and myths. But it's also profoundly dangerous, and queers are just one population endangered by it. It's not to be taken lightly.

Already we've seen the United States retreat from the whole concept of human rights, giving carte blanche to murderous anti-LGBTQ elements in Russia, Egypt, Chechnya, Indonesia, and elsewhere.

In 2018, the US will practically zero out its aid to vulnerable LGBT populations around the world. At the UN as elsewhere, America is now allied with Putin's Russia, in this case withdrawing protection from LGBT people and instead defending the oppression of us.

But this is just the beginning. If this global backlash isn't stopped, queer people will be murdered, arrested, targeted, stigmatized, and forced to leave their countries (and then denied refugee status) in numbers we have never seen before.

Figure out some way to help those who dont have as much, or who are especially politically and culturally vulnerable, and who could do with support. Give money, volunteer, whateverdo what you can

Tim Teeman: On that basis, LGBT people and their allies with any time, money, commitment and energy might think about involving themselves with activism and campaigning for organizations like The Trevor Project, HRC, Anti-Violence Project, National Center For Transgender Equality, GLSEN, PFLAG, OutRight Action International, and groups in their local area. If they don't want to do something overtly political, then maybe figure out a way to help those who dont have as much, or who are especially vulnerable, and who could do with supportwhether that be financial and pastoral.

If you need inspiration, look to Nathan Mathis who wasn't going to let Roy Moore winor lose at it turned outin Alabama without shaming him over his homophobia; and without remembering, in the most moving way possible, his dead lesbian daughter, Patti Sue.

Listen to, and be inspired by, the stirring stories of those from times when things were not just bleak but political progress and cultural evolution seemed alien and utterly distant. Eric Marcus has distilled, and continues to distill, amazing interviews with the likes of Sylvia Rivera and Frank Kameny, conducted for his landmark book Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight For Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights, into a must-listen podcast.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-fight-for-lgbt-equality-in-2018-will-be-fierce

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2Eudf8o via Viral News HQ