Civil Rights

The Los Angeles Times reports: California will ban state-funded travel to Oklahoma because of a new law there that lets private agencies deny placement of adopted children with same-sex couples, state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra announced Friday. Oklahoma is the ninth state to fall under California’s anti-discrimination travel ban, joining Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, South Dakota and …

Just in from the State Department: The United States joins people around the world in celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) Pride Month, and reaffirms its commitment to protecting and defending the human rights of all, including LGBTI persons. In many parts of the world, LGBTI individuals and their supporters continue to face violence, arrest, harassment and intimidation …

Via press release: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s premier civil rights organization yesterday filed a lawsuit along with the National Federation of the Blind and the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates against the U.S. Secretary of Education and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in the U.S. District Court …

Last year Glorious Leader broke with tradition and declined to issue a Pride Month proclamation although he did find time to proclaim Great Outdoors Month, National Caribbean-American Heritage Month, African-American Music Appreciation Month, National Ocean Month, and National Homeownership Month. We expect the same for 2018. Here’s this year’s message from the Democrats: “Pride Month is an opportunity to celebrate …

USA Today reports: Starbucks will attempt a dramatic move toward racial reconciliation Tuesday as it closes 8,000 stores across the nation for an afternoon of anti-bias training. Up to 180,000 employees at Starbucks stores and at its headquarters will receive training from a “tool kit” that will “focus on understanding prejudice and the history of public accommodations in the United …

From the editorial board of the New York Times: The owners of the National Football League have concluded, with President Trump, that true patriotism is not about bravely standing up for democratic principle but about standing up, period. Rather than show a little backbone themselves and support the right of athletes to protest peacefully, the league capitulated to a president …

Gallup reports: The percentage of American adults identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) increased to 4.5% in 2017, up from 4.1% in 2016 and 3.5% in 2012 when Gallup began tracking the measure. The latest estimate is based on over 340,000 interviews conducted as part of Gallup’s daily tracking in 2017. The expansion in the number of Americans …

Reuters reports: Leading rights groups praised the British embassy in Minsk on Tuesday for flying a rainbow flag to support sexual minorities in one of Europe’s most homophobic states, after Belarus condemned the UK for challenging its “traditional values”. Britain came under fire from the eastern European country’s interior ministry on Sunday, which said on its website that the UK …

Via press release from the ACLU: A federal court today denied the Gloucester County School Board’s motion to dismiss a case brought by former student Gavin Grimm, holding that Title IX and the Constitution protect transgender students from being excluded from the common restrooms that align with their gender identity. The court directed the parties to schedule a settlement conference …

Sports Illustrated reports: On Tuesday, NFL owners put three hours aside for a privileged session to speak—amongst themselves and family members—about the most sensitive of topics. One was how the league will handle players kneeling during the national anthem going forward. An idea being floated in the room goes like this: It would be up to the home team on …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a blow to the rights of workers on Monday by allowing companies to require them to sign away their ability to bring class-action claims against management, agreements already in place for about 25 million employees. The justices, in a 5-4 ruling with the court’s conservatives in the majority, endorsed the legality of the …

Chris Johnson reports at the Washington Blade: Any hopes that New York would join other states this year and enact a law explicitly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity were dashed Tuesday when a Republican-controlled Senate committee voted down a transgender rights measure. The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, or GENDA, was defeated in the New York Senate Investigations …

The New York Post reports: They stripped him of his dignity. A former probie firefighter from Queens said his colleagues demanded he “have sex with a stripper” to prove his manhood, according to an explosive new federal discrimination lawsuit against the FDNY.  Michael Troina’s lawsuit, filed Saturday, alleges he “was singled out time and time again on account of his …

Buzzfeed News reports:  The Trump administration on Friday rolled back rules that allowed transgender inmates to use facilities that match their gender identity, including cell blocks and bathrooms, thereby reversing course on an Obama administration effort to protect transgender prisoners from sexual abuse and assault. The Bureau of Prisons now “will use biological sex” to make initial determinations in the …

Via press release from Freedom For All Americans: In a legislative victory two years in the making, the New Hampshire Senate, by a bipartisan vote of 14-10, voted in favor of a bill, HB 1319, that adds transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination protections to the state’s existing civil rights law. The bill now heads to the desk of Republican Governor Chris Sununu, who …

The Guardian reports: A bakery run by evangelical Christians is to launch a fresh attempt to overturn a £500 award made against it for refusing to bake a cake promoting same-sex marriage. Ashers bakery, which has branches in Northern Ireland and is financially supported by the Christian Institute, is taking its claim to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, which is …

The Associated Press reports: In a striking shift from recent years, major legislation curtailing LGBT rights has been completely stymied in state capitols around the country this year amid anxiety by Republican leaders over igniting economic backlash if they are depicted as discriminatory. In the thick of this year’s legislative sessions, LGBT activists were tracking about 120 proposed bills that …

Reuters reports: Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday she regretted Britain’s role in anti-gay legislation across its former colonies, seeking to address criticism of the Commonwealth at its gathering in London. May is looking to reinvigorate the Commonwealth, a 53-country network of mostly former colonies, as Britain seeks new post-Brexit ways to project its influence in the world and …

Trinidad’s Newsday reports: Members of the gay community are calling for calm and tolerance as three young men who were at the forefront of a human rights rally celebrating the historic court ruling on the unconstitutionality of the buggery and serious indecency laws, last Thursday, have been kicked out of their homes. The three men, social worker Luke Sinette confirmed …

Agence France-Press reports: China’s Sina Weibo said it would remove “homosexual” content from the popular microblogging platform, prompting a storm of online protests Saturday under the hashtag “I am gay”. Weibo said in a statement Friday it had begun a “clean-up campaign” to remove “illegal” content, including “manga and videos with pornographic implications, promoting violence or (related to) homosexuality”. It …