IN Republicans push anti-trans legislature

Revenge Politics. That's the game the ReTHUGlican party is playing today and every day. They are despicable, horrid human beings. I truly don't know how South Bend ended up with a gay mayor. They must be an island of sanity in a sea of idiocy in the rest of the state.

Indiana lawmakers are trying to make it harder for transgender and non-binary people to correct the gender on their ID cards and driver’s licenses only a few days after Indiana became the sixth state in the nation to provide non-binary people with a gender marker option.

A new amendment, introduced by a Republican state representative, would require people who want their correct gender marker on their ID card to first change their birth certificate — something that is often impossible for people born in a different state.

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Chick-fil-A donated to anti-LGBT group

I confess that it's difficult for me to stay away from Chick-fil-a because I bought into the lie that they had changed their ways back in 2013. I see, now, that Mr Cathy is a liar and will never change his ways. This is totally unacceptable. There are plenty of LGBT individuals, myself included, who you'd never suspect of being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender just to look at them. At my last job, I think I told one of my co-workers once that I am a lesbian and the subject never arose again. He didn't ask, it was just something I said during the course of a conversation on the subject. How, then, do you know if an employee is committing homosexual acts outside of work unless they, themselves tell you?

Chick-fil-A has taken great pains to downplay its anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and giving, seven years into a national boycott by LGBTQ and allied diners. But contrary to the company’s latest claims that it has no political or social agenda, newly released tax filings show that, in 2017, the Chick-fil-A Foundation gave more than $1.8 million to a trio of groups with a record of anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

The donations — $1,653,416 to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, $6,000 to the Paul Anderson Youth Home, and $150,000 to the Salvation Army — actually represent a slight increase from the previous year. The foundation’s funding comes almost entirely from the corporate treasury and shares leadership with the company.

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is a religious organization that seeks to spread an anti-LGBTQ message to college athletes and requires a strict “sexual purity” policy for its employees that bars any “homosexual acts.” Paul Anderson Youth Home, a “Christian residential home for trouble youth,” teaches boys that homosexuality is wrong and that same-sex marriage is “rage against Jesus Christ and His values.”

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Stories of the people who need the Equality Act

Not even a full half of the states of this country protect LGBT people, which is why we need this law.

Congressional Democrats reintroduced a sweeping nondiscrimination bill last week to bolster protections for LGBTQ Americans. If passed into law, the bill would clarify existing protections and fill the gaps in federal nondiscrimination laws.

The bill would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ban discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in housing, employment, education, federal programs, jury service, public accommodations, and credit and lending. It would also update the law to include protections against discrimination in public spaces and services like retail stores, transportation services, banks, and legal services.

According to the Movement Advancement Project, only 21 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws explicitly prohibiting discrimination and gender identity in employment and housing. Twenty states and D.C. explicitly prohibit discrimination in public accommodations. Only 14 states have non-discrimination laws covering credit discrimination.

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Senator Manchin Doesn't Support Equality Act

Although it sounds bad on the surface, what he says is honest. Laws like this need to be laid out step by step so that no one can weasel out of it, like the Republicans. If the law that exists in New York won't stand up well in the face of the conservative SCOTUS then clearly we need something that is stronger at the federal level.

“I strongly support equality for all people and do not tolerate discrimination of any kind. No one should be afraid of losing their job or losing their housing because of their sexual orientation,” Manchin told the press. “I am not convinced that the Equality Act as written provides sufficient guidance to the local officials who will be responsible for implementing it, particularly with respect to students transitioning between genders in public schools.”

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Equality Act Supporters Give to Opposition

This makes me realize that people really don't give a fuck about LGBT people. Those two assholes blocking the progress of this country should die. Sooner rather than later. I will party when they do.

The Equality Act, which would ensure legal protections for members of the LGBTQ community, was reintroduced in Congress on Wednesday. Shortly thereafter, the Human Rights Campaign announced a 167-member corporate coalition in support of the legislation.

But a ThinkProgress review of campaign finance data reveals that, through their corporate PACs, members of that coalition have recently given more than $750,000 combined to the two biggest congressional obstacles to the Equality Act’s passage: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

While 20 states and the District of Columbia have laws specifically banning discrimination in employment and public accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, dozens of others do not. The Equality Act, co-sponsored by nearly every House and Senate Democrat and three Republicans, would expressly prohibit these and other types of anti-LGBTQ discrimination nationally by adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the federal Civil Rights Act. It also would expand and enhance existing protections for gender, race, and religion.

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2020 budget would harm LGBT community

These people make me sick. My own parents attend church and are extremely UN-christian. They are so fucking hypocritical it's unreal. They just go to make themselves feel good.

President Donald Trump’s proposed 2020 budget would seriously harm the LGBTQ community, many of whom rely on the public programs the administration is intent on shrinking. Even the initiative to end HIV is deeply flawed, experts on LGBTQ policy say.

The 2020 budget includes a $8.6 billion cut for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and proposes eliminating the Community Development Block Grant program and capital improvement funds for public housing repairs.

The LGBTQ community disproportionately experience homelessness and rely on public housing assistance.

A 2017 Center for American Progress (CAP) survey found that LGBTQ people and their families relied on public housing assistance at 2.5 times the rate of people who weren’t in the LGBTQ community. Sharita Gruberg, director of policy for the LGBT Research and Communications Project at CAP, said trans people are five times more likely to report receiving some kind of housing assistance. (ThinkProgress is an editorially independent news site housed at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.)

A 2012 Williams Institute report found that 30 percent of clients utilizing housing programs identified as LGBTQ.

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NC candidate blames high crime on LGBT

Can these people be any more ignorant?! Tell me, where is the statistic supporting this idiot woman's claims?

Republican congressional candidate Fern Shubert has a unique theory about the root cause of crime. In a statement on her campaign website during her unsuccessful 2004 bid for North Carolina governor, she explained that she opposed same-sex marriage because “[t]he government’s attack on traditional families is already reflected in rising crime rates. Anyone who cares about the future should seek to structure a society that provides the best environment for raising children, and that is the traditional two parent family.”

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Don't Ask, Don't Tell Part 2

This is so absolutely convoluted. It's like the whole entire administration thus far: no one really knows what they're doing and this Idiot in Chief wants to please everyone. First, there's an absolute ban on anyone who is transgender. Second, it also prohibits discrimination on that basis AND also indicates that the US military is providing an Equal Opportunity atmosphere where no one will be harrassed or discriminated against. Oh, and then there's this:

According to the policy, military secretaries and the U.S. Coast Guard Commandant can issue waivers bypassing the ban, but it provides no explanation as to what warrants such waivers. Hypothetically, then, a secretary could choose to grant waivers to every single trans person who wishes to enlist and effectively not enforce the ban at all. The guidance clarifies that any individual granted such a waiver will then be treated exactly like the group of openly-serving transgender personnel who are grandfathered in, including having their medical needs met.

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SCOTUS reverses AL lesbian adoption

This is an unholy mess brought on by different states having different laws regarding adoption and LGBT rights.  And the ones who pay most dearly are the children.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously reversed an Alabama court's refusal to recognize a same-sex adoption.

The justices upheld a challenge brought by an Alabama woman after her state's highest court refused to recognize the adoption she and her former lesbian partner were granted in Georgia.

The couple never married and have since split up. But the case presented a test of an issue that crops up occasionally in state and federal courts since the Supreme Court struck down state bans on same-sex marriage: Can gays and lesbians be denied adoption rights?

The case was brought by "V.L.," as she is identified in court papers, against her former partner "E.L.," who gave birth to three children between 2002-04 while the couple was together. To win adoption rights for V.L., they established temporary residency in Georgia.

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Religious freedom overrides NE LGBT Bill

Two dozen states - that's half the country - don't feel the need to protect us and our jobs. All because someone else's religion is more important than our right to work and make money to feed and clothe ourselves and our families. Bullshit!! I say you SHOULD be punished for your beliefs if your god is instructing you to hate others.

Nebraska is one of more than two dozen states that have no LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections at the state level. That’s not changing anytime soon, as a bill to create employment protections came to an abrupt end this week.

State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks (D) introduced LB 627 in January this year. The legislation would have updated all relevant state statutes to prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Pansing Brooks, whose son is gay, pleaded with fellow lawmakers Tuesday to consider the bill.

Pansing Brooks nearly secured the 25-vote majority she needed for passage, but could not find the 33 votes she needed to overcome a filibuster-ending cloture motion. Opponents of the bill claimed that it would be used to target religious business owners in the state and punish them for their beliefs.

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H.I.V. Reported Cured in a Second Patient

This is amazing news! I hope we continue to make progress to completely wipe out this devastating disease.

For just the second time since the global epidemic began, a patient appears to have been cured of infection with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

The news comes nearly 12 years to the day after the first patient known to be cured, a feat that researchers have long tried, and failed, to duplicate. The surprise success now confirms that a cure for H.I.V. infection is possible, if difficult, researchers said.

The investigators are to publish their report on Tuesday in the journal Nature and to present some of the details at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle.

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