Tag Archives: LGBT rights

HRC To Sue Over Erased Protections For LGBTQ Patients

From the Human Rights Campaign: The Human Rights Campaign announced that it will file a lawsuit challenging the Trump-Pence administration’s decision to roll back critical civil rights protections in the rule implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The new rule will eliminate explicit protections from discrimination based on sex stereotyping and gender identity that have existed under …

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Trump Admin Erases Protections For LGBTQ Patients

Bloomberg Law reports: The Trump administration has finalized a policy that would remove women seeking abortions and LGBT people from the Affordable Care Act’s non-discrimination protections, the HHS announced Friday. The regulation would let health-care workers, hospitals, and insurance companies that receive federal funding refuse to provide or cover services such as abortions or transition-related care. This continues the Trump …

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RNC Endorses 2020 Platform Calling For Legalizing Anti-LGBT Discrimination And Overturning Marriage Equality

Just in from the Democratic National Committee: While the RNC preposterously claims Trump has taken “unprecedented steps to protect the LGBTQ community,” they just re-endorsed an unpopular platform that advocates overturning hard-fought LGBTQ+ rights. The GOP’s 2020 platform “condemns” marriage equality, which has been legal across the United States for five years and is supported by two in three Americans. …

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Trump’s Anti-LGBT Solicitor General To Hit The Exit

Courthouse News reports: After nearly four years of arguing for the Trump administration in high-stakes Supreme Court battles, Solicitor General Noel Francisco plans to leave the Justice Department, according to multiple reports Thursday morning. A former clerk for Justice Anthony Scalia, Francisco previously worked in the George W. Bush White House and at the Justice Department. He also spent time …

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Jacksonville City Council: Liberty Counsel Can Suck It

The Florida Times-Union reports: The Jacksonville City Council on Tuesday restored discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people that were enacted in 2017 but struck down last month by a Florida appeals court. The Florida 1st District of Appeals declared the law unenforceable on May 1 based on a technical issue with the process the council used to …

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DOJ Files SCOTUS Brief Against Adoptions By LGBTs

Chris Johnson reports at the Washington Blade: In the latest example of the Trump administration seeking to enable legal discrimination against LGBTQ people, the Justice Department is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to allow religious-affiliated adoption agencies to refuse child placement into LGBTQ homes. In a 35-page brief, U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco and other Justice Department attorneys maintain …

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Democrats Mark Start Of LGBTQ Pride Month: Amid This Pandemic And National Unrest, We All Need Joe Biden

From the Democratic National Committee: “This year’s LGBTQ Pride Month comes at a dark time for our country, and for many members of the LGBTQ community. The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and far too many Black Americans. The more than 100,000 Americans — disproportionately Blacks and Latinos — who have lost their lives in the fight …

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Same-Sex Marriage Legalized In Costa Rica [VIDEO]

Agence France-Presse reports: Costa Rica legalised same-sex marriage on Tuesday, becoming the first Central American country to do so and sparking an emotional response from rights campaigners as the first weddings were held overnight. Celebrations were cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic, but a special program about LGBT rights was broadcast on public television and online after a court ruling …

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Iraqi Leaders Call For Expelling Diplomats Over Rainbow Flag Flown By Embassies On Day Against Homophobia

UK-based Muslim news outlet 5 Pillars reports: The Iraqi Foreign Ministry has said homosexuality goes against “the noble morals of all divine religions” and that all missions in Iraq had to “adhere to the laws of the country,” after foreign embassies flew the rainbow LGBT flag in honour of the International Day Against Homophobia. The European Union, the World Bank …

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Trump Advisor Has Viciously Anti-LGBT History: Backed Criminalizing Gay Sex, Compared Gays To Pedophiles

CNN reports: A top adviser and lawyer for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has a history of pushing anti-gay positions, including linking the legalization of same-sex marriage to bestiality and pedophilia. Jenna Ellis, an attorney who previously served as the director of public policy at the socially conservative James Dobson Family Institute, has also repeatedly attacked the Supreme Court’s 2003 …

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Trans Woman At Center Of SCOTUS Case Dies At 59

NBC News reports: Aimee Stephens, the Detroit-area funeral home worker whose firing led to a Supreme Court case that could decide the employment rights of millions of transgender and gender-nonconforming people, died Tuesday, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which was working on her case. She was 59. Stephens had kidney disease for several years and required lengthy dialysis …

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Brazil Ends Restrictions On Gay Men Donating Blood

The Guardian reports: Brazil’s supreme court has overturned rules that limit gay and bisexual men from donating blood in a decision considered a human rights victory for LGBT+ people in the country. The move came as more nations review restrictions on blood donations imposed during the 1980s HIV/AIDS crisis, with some countries applying blanket bans, some have waiting periods after …

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Human Rights Campaign Endorses Joe Biden [VIDEO]

Via press release from the Human Rights Campaign: Today, HRC announced its endorsement of Joe Biden for President. HRC’s Board of Directors, comprised of 26 community leaders from across the nation, unanimously and enthusiastically voted to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden for President of the United States. The endorsement comes on the 8th Anniversary of Biden’s endorsement of marriage …

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Turkish President Agrees: Homosexuality Brings Disease

NBC News reports: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday threw his weight behind Turkey’s top Muslim cleric, who caused a storm by claiming homosexuality “brings disease and causes this generation to decay.” In his first sermon during the holy month of Ramadan on Friday, Ali Erbas also maintained that hundreds of thousands of people every year are exposed to HIV …

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LIVE VIDEO: GLAAD Presents Star-Studded “Together In Pride” With Babs, Buttigiegs, Rosie, And Many Others

Via press release: Billy Porter, Pete & Chasten Buttigieg, Rosie O’Donnell, Jonathan Van Ness, Brian Michael Smith, Ross Mathews, and Tyler Oakley will join GLAAD’s livestream event, “Together in Pride: You are Not Alone,” tonight at 8pm ET on GLAAD’s YouTube channel and Facebook Live. Billy Eichner and Lilly Singh will co-host the event, which will include special performances from …

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HHS To Scrap Medical Protections For LGBT Patients

Politico reports: The Trump administration is moving to scrap an Obama-era policy that protected LGBTQ patients from discrimination, alarming health experts who warn that the regulatory rollback could harm vulnerable people during a pandemic. The health department is close to finalizing its long-developing rewrite of Obamacare’s Section 1557 provision, which barred health care discrimination based on sex and gender identity. …

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EU High Court Rules Against Ex-Politician Who Said He’d Never Hire Gays As They’re All “Genetically Abnormal”

Courthouse News reports: An Italian lawyer who was sued after talking on the radio about his aversion to hiring gay people failed Thursday to secure relief from the EU’s highest court. “Homosexuals are abnormal, they have physical and genetic anomalies,” lawyer Carlo Taormina had said in a 2013 broadcast of the Italian shock jock radio program “La Zanzara.” Taormina went …

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Virginia Governor Signs LGBT Protections Bill Into Law

The Washington Blade reports: Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Saturday signed a bill that adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s nondiscrimination law. “This legislation sends a strong, clear message — Virginia is a place where all people are welcome to live, work, visit, and raise a family,” said Northam in a statement. “No longer will LGBTQ Virginians …

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LGBTQ Rights Pioneer Phyllis Lyon Dies At Age 95

The SFist reports: One of the founding members of the Daughters of Bilitis and one half of the first same-sex couple to be legally married in San Francisco in 2004, Phyllis Lyon, has passed away. She was 95, and reportedly died of natural causes early Thursday. Lyon and her wife Del Martin were famously the first couple to be granted …

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GOP Idaho Gov Signs Two Anti-Trans Bills Into Law

Courthouse News reports: Idaho Governor Brad Little Monday evening signed into law two bills that place new restrictions on transgender individuals in the state. The first of the two bills the Republican governor signed targets a transgender person’s ability to request a birth certificate change. Under the new law, transgender individuals will no longer be able to change their listed …

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