Tag Archives: LGBT

Top Mormon officials call for LGBT protections in Utah

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While it’s not entirely without precedent, there was a significant shift nonetheless by senior leaders of the LDS Church today, as they called for the Utah legislature to pass anti-discrimination legislation (a bill was recently proposed again) to protect LGBT residents. Additionally, they called for passage of similar Federal-level protections. Salt Lake Tribune:

Top leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called Tuesday for passage of laws granting statewide protections against housing and employment discrimination for gay and lesbian Utahns — as long as those measures safeguard religious freedom.
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“We call on local, state and the federal government,” Oaks said in a news release, “to serve all of their people by passing legislation that protects vital religious freedoms for individuals, families, churches and other faith groups while also protecting the rights of our LGBT citizens in such areas as housing, employment and public accommodation in hotels, restaurants and transportation — protections which are not available in many parts of the country.”

 
Endorsement of same-sex civil marriage remained off the table, however, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s de facto legalization of it in Utah back in July 2014.

Additionally, the Church did not appear to shift their overall doctrine that being gay is against the faith. They simply aligned themselves with the growing moderate wing of the state’s political sphere, which had called for basic legal protections against discrimination.

It remains to be seen if the more extreme side will yield to the new pronouncement.

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Texas bill would nullify Federal court orders on marriage

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I’m not sure why anyone would think this could work after the U.S. proved state employees could not unilaterally refuse to implement Federal court orders by deploying the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division paratroopers to Arkansas to enforce school desegregation, but one very petulant Texas legislator aims to block state implementation of same-sex marriage if the Federal courts (including the Supreme Court) order licenses to be issued and/or recognized from other states. KVUE Austin:

Dubbed the “Preservation of Sovereignty and Marriage Act,” House Bill 623 says state and local government employees “may not recognize, grant, or enforce a same-sex marriage license.” If they do, “the employee may not continue to receive a salary, pension, or other employee benefit at the expense of the taxpayers of this State.”

The bill’s author, State Rep. Cecil Bell (R-Magnolia), says the Texas Legislature doesn’t work for the federal courts — which have no business striking down laws passed by Texas voters.

“Because we’ve seen activist federal courts, it’s important that we as Texans take steps to make certain that we’re able to protect traditional marriage and traditional values,” Bell told KVUE Friday. “One of the ways that we can do that is through the power of the purse.”

The result could be a potential quandary for government workers: Follow a court order or keep earning salary. Asked whether the bill would put government employees in a position of having to choose between being subjected to a federal lawsuit or losing their pension, Bell suggested employees would continue earning as long as they’re following state laws.

“I don’t see it as losing their pension except during the period of time which they are outside the [state] laws,” said Bell.

 
The full text of the bill also threatens the same consequences to any state employee or official who tries to violate or interfere with this new provision, meaning that all state officials — including the governor and attorney general — might face consequences (from whom is less clear) for giving an order allowing clerks to ignore this section as de facto unconstitutional and proceed with following Federal court orders to issue or recognize same-sex marriages.

I hope this bill doesn’t have a chance of passing, but if it does, it will put a lot of people in a very precarious position, financially or legally. It is also blatantly unconstitutional.

“I don’t see it as a threat at all,” countered Bell, who maintains his target is activist courts — and he has his colleagues’ support. “I think it is the ability of the state legislature to try to make certain that we affirm the sovereign right and sovereign nature of the state.”

 
It’s just another attempt to institute backdoor secession from Federal authority.

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Have Dems finally resolved their internal social issues split?

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“Turning Tables, Democrats Use Cultural Issues as a Cudgel,” blares the New York Times today. Amid all the gloomy news for Democrats across the country in 2014, this may be the single article that has brought the most joy to me, featuring one race after another where the Democrat is running strongly on — not away from — social issues, on the progressive side.

This is a clear sign to me that, although we’re still facing huge challenges on these issues, the tide has finally turned — not just among voters but among Democratic candidates. For example, in just a few years we’ve gone from Democratic senators being terrified to endorse repealing DOMA to them gleefully beating their opponents over the head with that. It’s a similar story for reproductive freedom issues. While the policy tide on the latter is still running hard in the wrong direction in dozens of states, the campaign trail story is encouraging. And best of all, there’s been no sudden uprising by Christian conservative voters in response.

When I flash back to the dark days of November 2009, as the anti-choice Stupak Amendment suddenly appeared on the U.S. House version of the health insurance reform bill and looked like it might be mirrored in the Senate bill, despite a Democratic majority in both chambers, and I recall my angst over whether socially progressive Democrats should be doing more to purge socially conservative Democrats like Bart Stupak from the party so they would stop hurting the Democratic base (women, gays, et al), I feel a lot better today.

In no small part, that’s probably because the 2010 midterm voters did most of the heavy lifting on purging many of those rotten Democrats out of office. In the short run, it meant that even more hardline socially conservative Republicans often took their seats, unfortunately. But the broader result was that those hardcore socially conservative Democrats were no longer in an authoritative place inside the party over the past three and a half years to shout down the lefty Democrats as they persuaded the moderates to switch positions or take stronger positions, in line with the rapidly shifting electoral landscape. Extremist Republicans in winnable districts will be easier to replace in the general elections of coming years (with socially progressive Democrats) than anti-gay, anti-choice Democratic incumbents would have been in primaries. Meanwhile, moderate Democrats in competitive districts will be better able to rally the Democratic base on progressive social values, to remain in office.

This internal transformation has allowed the Democratic Party to define itself much more clearly, which helps motivate activism and turnout among ordinary Democrats. As to the socially conservative voters who will vote exclusively or heavily on these issue, they’ve already become confirmed Republicans at this point and are now out of reach to even the most conservative Democratic candidates.

Pro-Gay, Pro-Erdogan: The LGBT reformers inside Turkey’s AKP

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The big political story this week from Turkey is that controversial PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has somehow managed to get himself elected president, after years of finagling, despite being at the center of a major corruption scandal and despite a fairly nasty crackdown on protesters across the country in 2013. The massive engine of Erdogan’s center-right AK Party keeps chugging along and apparently that’s sufficient to keep him, an increasingly unpleasant man with a worsening record, on an easy cruise into an enhanced and strengthened presidency, even after more than eleven years as prime minister.

There are some other interesting stories getting less attention from this year’s politicking in Turkey. One in particular that I read about from Al-Monitor was about the increasingly visible presence of LGBTQIetc supporters in the ruling party — an important development since the party clearly seems to be quite entrenched across most of the country at this point.

The members of the AKP LGBT group have a great affection for Erdogan. They argue that pious people, Kurds and non-Muslims have all acquired greater freedoms under Erdogan, and believe he is the only leader who can make LGBT individuals freer, too. They are fully confident that Erdogan will undertake LGBT reforms when the time comes. Yet, they are strongly critical of the AKP’s current LGBT policies. Their objective is to transform the AKP.

 
Even though Erdogan’s cabinet has sometimes said cruel things about gay people and the party still remains generally unsupportive, Al-Monitor reported that “a gay pride march would have been unthinkable before Erdogan, whereas today homosexuals hold marches to freely express their identities.” Which is to say, even after more than a decade of governance by a socially conservative party with extensive rural support, Turkey is more liberal than before.

And they’re making their presence inside the party known, whether the leadership is ready for it or not:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Aug. 3 rally in Istanbul marked a first for the country: LGBT supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) waved the rainbow flag at the rally in a show of support for Erdogan’s presidential bid.

The group, using the Twitter handle Aklgbti, shared pictures from the rally with the following message: “The homosexuals stand with Tayyip Erdogan. We are at the rallies, we are everywhere — get used to it.” A member of the group tweeted, “I waved the rainbow flag in the front rows. Our prime minister must have seen it.”

It was a truly intriguing scene, which Western analysts of Turkey may find difficult to comprehend.

The rainbow flag was first seen fluttering next to AKP members at the inauguration ceremony of the Ankara-Istanbul high-speed train on July 25, which Erdogan attended.

 
One activist said, of the election rally, “We waved our flag right before Erdogan’s eyes. He saw the flag, but said nothing and only smiled. We take it as a positive sign that he said nothing. Thus, we will now keep up the struggle.”

That might not seem like much, but he’s not exactly known for verbal restraint on the campaign trail.

One could suggest that LGBT supporters of the Islamist-oriented AK Party in Turkey are showing a lot more guts and grit than their generally staid and quiet counterparts inside the Christian-oriented Republican Party in the United States. They’re also laying important groundwork, it seems from the article, for making the loud and proud case that they can be dedicated Muslims and be gay at the same time, which will probably benefit many other gay Muslims the world over in years to come.

President-elect Erdogan and his senior officials might have many troubling authoritarian, anti-European, and racist tendencies, but it seems clear that the AK Party as a whole is still a relatively moderate political entity with broadly socially conservative leanings and a diversity of opinions on how flexible those should be. And for the moment, even when the popular AK Party’s leaders go overboard with absurd viewpoints, Turkey still has enough democratic freedom for the people to call it out.

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Jonah Hill’s apology should be required study for all public figures

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Comic actor Jonah Hill recently used in anti-gay slur in a moment of anger at a paparazzo. He went on The Tonight Show to make a public apology and fully own up to what he did and the impact of his word choice. We’re so used to people in this country giving terrible and insincere apologies that this was almost stunning to watch.

All public figures — celebs and politicians alike — should watch this video to learn how to do a sincere and meaningful apology. He doesn’t try to hide behind anything or distance himself from it or say he’s sorry if it offended people. He knows it did. He knows it was wrong. And he clearly regrets having said it (without just being sorry he got caught or that people got mad)

All people in general should especially take note of his observation that words have meaning even if you don’t mean them that way (i.e. intent doesn’t make everything ok), as well as his acknowledgment that he isn’t automatically owed forgiveness just because he apologized. Too many people assume that just saying “woops, my bad” is enough.

Arsenal For Democracy 84: Interview on Nigerian History

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Topics: Nigeria, Michael Sam & Jason Collins. People: Bill, Nate, Greg, and guest historian Pilar Quezzaire.
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Discussion Points:

– What is the significance and origin of the north-south divide in Nigeria? How did colonialism change the country? Who are the Boko Haram?
– Why “sharia law” is not a unique challenge. What could Nigeria be doing better to combat terrorism and unrest in the regions the Boko Haram dominate? Should the U.S. and Europe treat Boko Haram as part of a global terrorist network or more as a separate, localized problem?
– Arsenal for Nate and Greg Talking Sports: Michael Sam is drafted to the St. Louis Rams & Jason Collins has been playing for the Nets into the NBA playoffs.

Part 1 – Nigeria:
Part 1 – Nigeria – AFD 84
Part 2 – Sports: Sam / Collins
Part 2 – Sports: Sam/Collins – AFD 84

To get one file for the whole episode, we recommend using one of the subscribe links at the bottom of the post.

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Why Brunei? How a tiny, anti-gay monarchy became a U.S. ally.

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brunei-map-ciaSecretary of State John Kerry and the Obama Administration are now (justifiably, I’d say, at this point) taking huge heat for trying to cement a major alliance with the podunk Southeast Asian absolute monarchy of Brunei.

President Obama himself had been scheduled to travel to Brunei last fall during the trip to Indonesia, which the government shutdown canceled. Last year, he called the Sultan “a key leader in the Southeast Asia region and also widely respected around the world.”

Outrage has been stirred up with the long-planned launch in April by the government of a phased rollout for an elaborate new penal code with extreme religious conservatism based in hardline Sharia Law interpretations. In particular, U.S. LGBT activists in California are furious over the draconian anti-gay provisions and have been organizing boycotts against local Brunei state investments.

But the anti-gay problem is just the tip of the horrible, no good, very bad legal iceberg for the monarchy with fewer residents than Boston. At least a fifth of the country’s population is non-Muslim, which is now punishable with death by flogging. Interfaith marriages are now adultery, punishable with death by stoning. Breaking the laws of Brunei while outside the country (i.e. in neighboring Malaysia, also located on the island of Borneo) is also to be punishable under Brunei rules.

So why has the U.S. State Department been trying so enthusiastically to secure a partnership with the Sultanate of Brunei and its ironically named Abode of Peace?

Because it’s got a ton of natural gas and oil relative to its size (35th biggest oil exporter and 26th biggest gas exporter in the world), it’s an original member of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, it’s strategically located on the South China Sea coast, it’s been a counterterrorism partner since 2001 … and I guess they weren’t expecting it to go way off the deep end suddenly like this.

But really, I think the warning signs should have been there. Generous oil-funded social welfare policies aside, Brunei has not been cool people for quite some time now. Their human rights abuses, near total lack of civil rights, and obvious authoritarianism were pretty well known before now. The former British protectorate and past regional sea empire has been ruled by one dynasty with a pretty ironclad fist for six centuries.

Some of the pretend constitution’s provisions have been ignored for so long by the monarchy that the country hadn’t even gained independence (1984) at the time they were suspended formally, in the 1960s. The safe money would have been on further regression, not a dramatic improvement, for all the signs the world has been picking up from Brunei in the past decade.

One of those signs? According to the Boston Globe, it should have been the 2013 global human rights report from… drumroll please… the U.S. State Department:

…the State Department’s 2013 global human rights report criticized Brunei for its restrictions on religious freedom; exploitation of foreign workers; and limitations of the freedom of the press, assembly, and association as “the most prevalent human rights problems.”

It went on to mention the adoption of the new legal code based on religious Sharia law but noted that “the effect of the law will not be clear until it is implemented, which was scheduled to begin in phases starting in April 2014.”

 
Nobody could have predicted…

But it seems that finishing a free trade deal with such a pivotal player was too much to pass up. It’s interesting that nearly 600 years after Brunei rose to power by controlling water trade and coastal ports in the dense commercial shipping zone not far from the Spice Islands, it’s leveraging the exact same strategic economic power to do whatever it wants. I guess it’s true what they say!