Tag Archives: civil rights

The Associated Press reports: The Michigan elections bureau has determined that organizers of a ballot drive to prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ people failed to collect enough valid voter signatures. Fair and Equal Michigan gathered nearly 299,000 signatures, short of the roughly 340,000 needed, according to a report released Thursday. “The Bureau of Elections threw out thousands of signatures that are …

Deutsche Welle reports: Riot police in Istanbul fired tear gas and blocked streets during a march in support of LGBT+ rights, detaining 25 people including prominent AFP photographer Bulent Kilic. The march participants comprised several civil society groups that gathered under the motto “the street is ours.” Footage and photos of demonstrators showed some being pushed and dragged by riot …

The New York Times reports: Texas lawmakers on Saturday finished drafting a bill that would impose a raft of new voting restrictions, setting up the likely passage of what would be among the most far-reaching laws in Republicans’ nationwide drive to overhaul elections systems and limit voting. The bill would tighten what are already some of the country’s strictest voting …

The Associated Press reports: A federal grand jury has indicted the four former Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s arrest and death, accusing them of violating the Black man’s constitutional rights as he was restrained face-down on the pavement and gasping for air, according to indictments unsealed Friday. The three-count indictment names Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and …

The Associated Press reports: The city of Scottsdale has voted to approve a non-discrimination ordinance, becoming the eighth city in Arizona to provide protections to members of the LGBTQ community and other groups. The Scottsdale City Council unanimously passed the ordinance on Tuesday protecting residents from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, public places and housing. …

The Hill reports: A majority within all partisan groups, including Republicans, now support same-sex marriage, according to a poll from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released on Tuesday. In 2019, less than half of those who identify as Republican — 47 percent — backed gay marriage, but the survey indicates that number rose to 51 percent last year. Approval …

The Washington Post reports: In some ways, full LGBTQ rights has never seemed more within reach. First came the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage. Then its decision last year banning LGBTQ discrimination in employment. And now, for the first time since those rulings, a Democratic-led Congress and a president who vows to pass sweeping legal protections by April. …

NBC News reports: A large group of demonstrators gathered on Saturday to mark the first anniversary of the death of Breonna Taylor, who was fatally shot in her apartment by police officers executing a no-knock search warrant. “All eyes are on Louisville today,” Bianca Austin, Taylor’s aunt, told the crowd. “And we are here to represent Breonna with dignity and …

Michigan Live reports: Michigan lawmakers have reintroduced legislation to expand Michigan’s civil rights law by including protections against discrimination for LGBT people. Sponsored by Rep. Laurie Pohutsky [photo], House Bill 4297 would add sexual orientation and gender identity or expression to the list of protected classes under the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on several factors when …

New York City’s ABC News affiliate reports: Fifty-six years after the death of Malcolm X, lawyers revealed what they called new evidence of a conspiracy, perpetrated by the NYPD and the FBI to assassinate the Civil Rights activist in Harlem. Ray Wood was an undercover police officer at the time – his family and their attorney now claim Wood wrote …

CNN reports: President Biden is delivering remarks on his racial equity policy and will sign a series of executive actions focused on nondiscrimination policy, prison reform and public housing. Biden has specifically asked the office, which plays a role in crafting the administration’s annual budget proposals, to evaluate opportunities to allocate funding “more equitably to target groups who have been …

Politico reports: The Justice Department has taken its first major step under President Joe Biden to reverse the Trump administration’s resistance to expansion of rights accorded to LGBTQ Americans. Greg Friel, the lawyer just named to oversee the Justice Department’s civil rights division on a temporary basis, issued a directive Friday revoking a 22-page memorandum a Trump appointee released earlier …

Chris Johnson reports at the Washington Blade: The executive order implementing the decision in Bostock v. Clayton County comes nearly six months after the Supreme Court issued the ruling, which found anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, thus illegal in the workplace under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The ruling has wide-ranging implications and …

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration has embarked on an 11th-hour bid to undo some civil rights protections for minority groups, which could have a ripple effect on women, people with disabilities and L.G.B.T. people, according to a draft document, in a change that would mark one of the most significant shifts in civil rights enforcement in generations. …

The Raleigh News & Observer reports: LGBTQ people in North Carolina can no longer be prevented from getting domestic violence protective orders, the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled Thursday. North Carolina had been the only state in the country to withhold emergency protections from people seeking protection from abuse by a same-sex partner. That kind of protection is offered to …

The Associated Press reports: As vice president in 2012, Joe Biden endeared himself to many LGBTQ Americans by endorsing same-sex marriage even before his boss, President Barack Obama. Now, as president-elect, Biden is making sweeping promises to LGBTQ activists, proposing to carry out virtually every major proposal on their wish lists. Among them: Lifting the Trump administration’s near-total ban on …

Reuters reports: In a case pitting LGBT rights against religious rights, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday is set to hear arguments in a dispute over the city of Philadelphia’s refusal to place children for foster care with a Catholic Church-affiliated agency that excludes same-sex couples from serving as foster parents. It will be the first major case to be …

The Daily Beast reports: On the final day of early voting in North Carolina, police in Alamance County pepper-sprayed a group of voters who were marching to the polls, leaving demonstrators injured and vomiting in the streets. At least one journalist was arrested in the chaotic showdown on Saturday in Alamance County, a red county but one that may decide …

From the Public Religion Research Institute: The vast majority of Americans (70%) favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally, compared to 28% of Americans who oppose it. Majorities of Democrats (80%) and independents (76%), as well as half of Republicans (50%), support same-sex marriage. White evangelical Protestants stand out as the only major religious group in which a …

ABC News reports: Former President Obama on Friday called for “peaceful, sustained” demonstrations for racial justice as the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., has ignited a new round of protests and demands for reform across the nation. The tweet came as thousands of people congregated in Washington, D.C., in a march against police brutality and systemic racism …