QUEER QUOTE: North Carolina Enacts Bill To Replace #HB2 With Even Worse Law!

Hmmm! Lots of people had hoped that with the election of a Democratic Governor, Richard Cooper, North Carolina's anti-LGBT public policy would change. The previous Republican governor, Pat McRory, had championed HB2, invidious legislation which overturned local LGBT anti-discrimination ordinances, prevented the enactment of new ones at the local level, and purported to legislate that everyone in the state must use the bathroom that matches their birth gender in state-owned buildings.

The backlash to HB2 was intense, with the NCAA refusing to hold sporting events in the states, leading to extreme economic fallout for the state which is estimated in the billions of dollars. The gubernatorial election was considered a referendum on HB2, and Cooper, who was the Attorney General of the State who refused to defend it in court when North Carolina was sued by the federal government.

Today comes news that Gov. Cooper has signed into law a bill which purports to repeal HB2 but which also enacts public policy which freezes North Carolina's anti-LGBT public policy in place until 2020!

The response from several prominent LGBT advocacy groups in to the enactment of a "fake repeal" of HB2 is today's Queer Quote:

“After more than a year of inaction, today North Carolina lawmakers doubled-down on discrimination,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “This new law does not repeal HB2. Instead, it institutes a statewide prohibition on equality by banning non-discrimination protections across North Carolina and fuels the flames of anti-transgender hate. Each and every lawmaker who supported this bill has betrayed the LGBTQ community. HRC will explore every legal action to combat this dangerous legislation, and we urge all businesses, sports leagues and entertainers who have fought against HB2 to continue standing strong with the LGBTQ community attacked by this hateful law.” 

"HB2 was hastily passed without any input from the LGBTQ community just one year ago," said Chris Sgro Equality NC Executive Director. "Today, we returned to the legislature with a deal made between Governor Cooper, Phil Berger and Tim Moore that once again left out the ones most impacted by the discriminatory law - LGBTQ North Carolinians. Lawmakers and Governor Cooper have failed to resolve the problems with HB2 by doubling down on discrimination. Once again, the North Carolina General Assembly has enshrined discrimination into North Carolina law." 

“This bill and those like it are based on the vicious lie that trans people represent some type of danger to others,” said NCTE Executive Director Mara Keisling. “When, in fact, there are thousands of school children who have been terrorized by HB 2, and thousands of parents constantly worried about the safety of their children. The best thing North Carolina can do is to simply repeal HB 2 outright, not this outrageously veiled attack on anti-discrimination."

The statement goes on to reference the 1996 Supreme Court case Romer v. Evans and its ruling striking down a Colorado anti-gay constitutional amendment due to the animus (i.e homophobia) reflected by the legislation.

We shall continue to be following this situation closely.

Good Riddance! LGBT-Hating NC-Gov Concedes Defeat

Nearly four weeks after the election, North Carolina Governor Pat McRory has (finally!) conceded defeat in the last unresolved gubernatorial election of 2016. The Republican trailed Democrat North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper by just over 10,000 votes (out of nearly 4.5 million cast), which is just enough to forestall an automatic recount. McRory had claimed massive voter fraud and had initiated a recount in heavily Democratic Durham County but when few votes turned up he gave up on Monday. Republicans found the result in the Governor's race hard to swallow because Donald Trump won the state's 15 electoral votes by nearly 4 percentage points and U.S. Senator Richard Burr also won re-election. But McRory earned widespread notoriety and opprobrium for championing a controversial bill called HB-2 which overturned an LGBT civil rights ordinance in Charlotte, NC and explicitly permitted discrimination against LGBT individuals in the state.

Gee, maybe the difference between the electoral fortunes of Trump, Burr and McRory in North Carolina was a repudiation of explicit hostility to civil rights?

Hate Don't P(l)ay: North Carolina Loses 2017 NBA All-Star Game Over Anti-LGBT #HB2 Law

Well, well! The backlash over North Carolina's discriminatory HB2 continues to build, as today the National Basketball Association announcing a decision to move the 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte, North Carolina because that hateful law is still in effect in the Tarheel State.

The NBA released a statement:

"The NBA has decided to relocate the 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte with the hope of rescheduling for 2019.
"Since March, when North Carolina enacted HB2 and the issue of legal protections for the LGBT community in Charlotte became prominent, the NBA and the Charlotte Hornets have been working diligently to foster constructive dialogue and try to effect positive change. We have been guided in these discussions by the long-standing core values of our league. These include not only diversity, inclusion, fairness and respect for others but also the willingness to listen and consider opposing points of view.
"Our week-long schedule of All-Star events and activities is intended to be a global celebration of basketball, our league, and the values for which we stand, and to bring together all members of the NBA community -- current and former players, league and team officials, business partners, and fans. While we recognize that the NBA cannot choose the law in every city, state, and country in which we do business, we do not believe we can successfully host our All-Star festivities in Charlotte in the climate created by HB2.
"We are particularly mindful of the impact of this decision on our fans in North Carolina, who are among the most passionate in our league. It is also important to stress that the City of Charlotte and the Hornets organization have sought to provide an inclusive environment and that the Hornets will continue to ensure that all patrons -- including members of the LGBT community -- feel welcome while attending games and events in their arena.
"We look forward to re-starting plans for our All-Star festivities in Charlotte for 2019 provided there is an appropriate resolution to this matter.
"The NBA will make an announcement on the new location of the 2017 NBA All-Star Game in the coming weeks."

Let's hear it for the good guys!

Hopefully the NBA moves the game (and its estimated $100 million in economic impact!) to a city and state with LGBT protection.s New Orleans, which appears to be the top contender, is in Louisiana which has no statewide ordinance banning LGBT discrimination.

Meanwhile North Carolina has two years to get its %*%#@ together and Repeal HB2!

QUEER QUOTE: AG Loretta Lynch Announces DOJ Lawsuit Against NC Over Anti-LGBT #HB2

Today's Queer Quote is this excerpt of prepared remarks from an extraordinary press conference Attorney General Loretta Lynch made as she announced the U.S. Department of Justice was suing North Carolina over its discriminatory law, HB2.

Good afternoon and thank you all for being here.  Today, I’m joined by [Vanita] Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.  We are here to announce a significant law enforcement action regarding North Carolina’s Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, also known as House Bill 2.  

The North Carolina General Assembly passed House Bill 2 in special session on March 23 of this year.  The bill sought to strike down an anti-discrimination provision in a recently-passed Charlotte, North Carolina, ordinance, as well as to require transgender people in public agencies to use the bathrooms consistent with their sex as noted at birth, rather than the bathrooms that fit their gender identity.  The bill was signed into law that same day.  In so doing, the legislature and the governor placed North Carolina in direct opposition to federal laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex and gender identity.  More to the point, they created state-sponsored discrimination against transgender individuals, who simply seek to engage in the most private of functions in a place of safety and security – a right taken for granted by most of us.  

Last week, our Civil Rights Division notified state officials that House Bill 2 violates federal civil rights laws.  We asked that they certify by the end of the day today that they would not comply with or implement House Bill 2’s restriction on restroom access.  An extension was requested by North Carolina and was under active consideration.  But instead of replying to our offer or providing a certification, this morning, the state of North Carolina and its governor chose to respond by suing the Department of Justice.  As a result of their decisions, we are now moving forward. 

Today, we are filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state of North Carolina, Governor Pat McCrory, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety and the University of North Carolina.  We are seeking a court order declaring House Bill 2’s restroom restriction impermissibly discriminatory, as well as a statewide bar on its enforcement.  While the lawsuit currently seeks declaratory relief, I want to note that we retain the option of curtailing federal funding to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety and the University of North Carolina as this case proceeds.

This action is about a great deal more than just bathrooms.  This is about the dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens and the laws that we, as a people and as a country, have enacted to protect them – indeed, to protect all of us.  And it’s about the founding ideals that have led this country – haltingly but inexorably – in the direction of fairness, inclusion and equality for all Americans.

This is not the first time that we have seen discriminatory responses to historic moments of progress for our nation.  We saw it in the Jim Crow laws that followed the Emancipation Proclamation.  We saw it in fierce and widespread resistance to Brown v. Board of Education.  And we saw it in the proliferation of state bans on same-sex unions intended to stifle any hope that gay and lesbian Americans might one day be afforded the right to marry.  That right, of course, is now recognized as a guarantee embedded in our Constitution, and in the wake of that historic triumph, we have seen bill after bill in state after state taking aim at the LGBT community.  Some of these responses reflect a recognizably human fear of the unknown, and a discomfort with the uncertainty of change.  But this is not a time to act out of fear.  This is a time to summon our national virtues of inclusivity, diversity, compassion and open-mindedness.  What we must not do – what we must never do – is turn on our neighbors, our family members, our fellow Americans, for something they cannot control, and deny what makes them human.  This is why none of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something they are not, or invents a problem that doesn’t exist as a pretext for discrimination and harassment.

Let me speak now to the people of the great state, the beautiful state, my state of North Carolina.  You’ve been told that this law protects vulnerable populations from harm – but that just is not the case.  Instead, what this law does is inflict further indignity on a population that has already suffered far more than its fair share.  This law provides no benefit to society – all it does is harm innocent Americans. 

Instead of turning away from our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues, let us instead learn from our history and avoid repeating the mistakes of our past.  Let us reflect on the obvious but often neglected lesson that state-sanctioned discrimination never looks good in hindsight.  It was not so very long ago that states, including North Carolina, had signs above restrooms, water fountains and on public accommodations keeping people out based upon a distinction without a difference.  We have moved beyond those dark days, but not without pain and suffering and an ongoing fight to keep moving forward.  Let us write a different story this time.  Let us not act out of fear and misunderstanding, but out of the values of inclusion, diversity and regard for all that make our country great. 

Let me also speak directly to the transgender community itself.  Some of you have lived freely for decades.  Others of you are still wondering how you can possibly live the lives you were born to lead.  But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama Administration wants you to know that  we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.  Please know that history is on your side.  This country was founded on a promise of equal rights for all, and we have always managed to move closer to that promise, little by little, one day at a time.  It may not be easy – but we’ll get there together. 

I want to thank my colleagues in the Civil Rights Division who have devoted many hours to this case so far, and who will devote many more to seeing it through.  At this time, I’d like to turn things over to Vanita Gupta, whose determined leadership on this and so many other issues has been essential to the Justice Department’s work.

QUEER QUOTE: Democrats Praise 4th U.S. Circuit Ruling In Favor Of Transgender Student

The 4th U.S. Circuit has upheld the Obama Administration's Education Department non-discrimination policy in a dispute with a Virginia school district over the rights of a transgender student to access education according to their preferred gender identity. The ruling is in the case of transgender male student Gavin Grimm in his lawsuit against the Gloucester County School Board, who has enacted a policy that said that every student had to access restrooms and changing facilities based on their "biological sex at birth" and not their gender identity.

Chris Geidner of Buzzfeed reports:

The decision is a big victory for the Obama administration, which weighed in at the appeals court to support Grimm’s challenge, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has been pressing the case for protecting LGBT people under existing civil rights laws since 2012.  

The appeals court had heard the arguments in January, and Tuesday’s ruling is the first such ruling on the Obama administration’s policy — which it also has advanced regarding the sex discrimination ban under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Among the states included in the 4th Circuit is North Carolina, which recently passed a law limiting restroom use in government facilities — including schools and universities — to that which corresponds with a person’s “biological sex.” The ACLU, which is backing Grimm’s suit, also has brought suit against the North Carolina law.

The Democratic National Committee sent the following statement praising the ruling:

“This court victory affirms that there is no commonsense reason to bar transgender students from using the restroom that aligns with their gender identity and that doing so is discriminatory and harmful. This ruling sets precedent in five states, including North Carolina, where Republican legislators and the Republican governor have embraced the exact type of discrimination that the court today has overruled. Republican legislators who continue to push anti-LGBT measures and the Republican presidential candidates who fan the flames of discrimination with ignorant rhetoric have been exposed by this ruling for what they’re truly peddling. Just this week, one of the Republican presidential candidates told victims of discrimination to ‘get over it.’ Well, it’s time for the Republican Party to get over their anti-LGBT bias and join the rest of the country in embracing the full equality of every American.”

 Congrats!

QUEER QUOTE: NC Gov Signs Exec Order To Try To Stem Backlash Against Anti-LGBT Law

Republican Governor Pat McCrory of North Carolina is attempting to mitigate the severe backlash that his state has received since he signed into law HB-2, a bill that explicitly discriminates against GBT citizens. On Tuesday he announced that he was issuing an executive order to prohibit discrimination in state employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. But this does not make up for specific ways that the original bill will damage and harm LGBT citizens in North Carolina.

Today's Queer Quote is from Lambda Legal's response to McCrory's action:

The devastating blow of HB 2 will not be fixed by the band-aid of an executive order. While this is an improvement for the state employees it impacts, HB 2’s reach goes far beyond what the executive order addresses and that’s why we are challenging this extreme and discriminatory measure—in order to ensure that everyone who lives in and visits North Carolina is protected under the law. 

HB 2 is an attack on fairness in employment, education, and local governance that encourages discrimination against thousands of LGBT people who call North Carolina home, and it particularly targets transgender people.

Sorry, Governor. When even your state's Attorney General won't defend your hate measure in court because they think it is flagrantly unconstitutional and you're trying to fix the measure with executive order, don't you think you should just admit you made a mistake and #repealHB2?

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: In Mississippi, New Law Says Religion Trumps Civil Rights

What a shocker! More bad news out of Mississippi regarding civil rights and the equal treatment of all its citizens. Governor Phil Bryant, A Republican, signed House Bill 1523 into law on Tuesday. The bill, which goes into effect in July, is titled "Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act" and purports to provide people with "sincerely held religious beliefs" the right to deny services and public accommodations to certain people. But it is also to support only certain religious beliefs, such as:

The act states that the government cannot penalize an individual, organization, or business for acting according to the following "sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions": that "marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman"; that "sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage"; and that "male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth."

It looks flagrantly unconstitutional as well as discriminatory to me. It will be interesting to see if the response to Mississippi's bill mirrors the negative response North Carolina and Indiana have received for enacting similiarly bigoted legislation.

WHOA! North Carolina Enacts Statute Explicitly Enabling LGBT Discrimination Statewide

Wow! The North Carolina legislature passed and the Republican Governor signed into law HB 2, a measure which would ostensibly overturn a recently passed Charlotte, NC ordinance which provided public accommodations protections based on gender identity.

However the law enacted not only overturns the Charlotte ordinance but also ordinances that protected LGBT people in 7 other municipalities and allows discrimination in employment and public accommodations based on sexual orientation or gender identity anywhere in the state of NorthnCarolina.

The ACLU of North Carolina made the stakes around this legislation starkly clear:

“The manner in which legislators passed the most extreme anti-LGBT bill in the nation – voting hours after it was unveiled without adequate public debate – flies in the face of fairness and democracy. Legislators have gone out of their way to stigmatize and marginalize transgender North Carolinians by pushing ugly and fundamentally untrue stereotypes that are based on fear and ignorance and not supported by the experiences of more than 200 cities with these protections. Transgender men are men; transgender women are women. They deserve to use the appropriate restroom in peace, just like everyone else."

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Florida Becomes 3rd Most Populous State in the Union, North Carolina Becomes #9

The news this week was that Florida surpassed New York to take the #3 spot in the list of most populous states in the country. However, there was little mention that North Carolina skipped past Michigan to take the #9 spot and #8 Georgia joined the 10 million people club.

Here is the official data from the Census:

The 10 Most Populous States on July 1, 2014

Rank

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

State

California
Texas
Florida
New York
Illinois
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Georgia
North Carolina
Michigan

Population

38,802,500
26,956,958
19,893,297
19,746,227
12,880,580
12,787,209
11,594,163
10,097,343
9,943,964
9,909,877

SATURDAY POLITICS: Duke Mathematicians Show How Heinously NC Republicans Gerrymandered Congressional Districts

This is an interesting study from two Duke mathematicians which demonstrates the truly heinous nature of the partisan gerrymander perpetrated by North Carolina Republicans to gain a majority of the state's Congressional districts despite getting a minority of votes.

During the 2012 elections in North Carolina, Republicans took nine of the state’s 13 U.S. House seats although 51 percent of the two-party vote went to Democratic candidates. 

The gerrymandering that led to these results isn’t unique to North Carolina or any specific party. Both Democrats and Republicans have used it for political advantage over the years. However, new technology makes it possible to draw partisan districts with increasing precision.

[...] 

They used a statistical algorithm to randomly redraw the boundaries of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts. The model produced thousands of versions of the redrawn map. All of them were based only on the legal requirements of redistricting, ensuring the districts represented roughly equal numbers of voters and were as geographically compact as possible, without accounting for race or political affiliation.

[...] 

After re-running the election 100 times, with a randomly drawn nonpartisan map each time, the average simulated election result was 7 or 8 U.S. House seats for the Democrats and 5 or 6 for Republicans. The maximum number of Republican seats that emerged from any of the simulations was eight. The actual outcome of the election -- four Democratic representatives and nine Republicans – did not occur in any of the simulations. 

Feel free to re-read that again. Using ONE HUNDRED simulations of randomly drawn district lines but the same votes cast in the 2012 election NONE of those simulations produced the results of the actual 2012 election results of 9 Republicans and 4 Democrats, while the most likely simulated result was between 7 and 8 Democrats and 6 or 5 Republicans.

This result demonstrates how heinously the Republican legislature gerrymandered North Carolina's congressional districts to thwart the political will of the majority of voters.

Saturday Politics: Voting Rights Becomes Salient Issue As Election Day Approaches

The fight to exercise the right to vote has become more salient as Election Day gets closer and closer. Republicans are generally trying to make voting more difficult while Democrats are trying to make sure that everyone can vote. Legislatures in red states where Republicans have full control have passed multiple measures reducing early voting days, enacting voter identification laws in the name of "reducing voter fraud."

In the past week there have been important court actions from federal judges (including the U.S. Supreme Court) involving voting rights in states like Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina and Ohio.

Prominent Election Law expert Rick Hasen describes these actions in an article for Slate magazine:

As I explained in a recent Slate column, ultimately at issue in the Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Texas cases is how broadly courts are going to intervene to protect voting rights in states where Republican legislatures have made it harder to register and to vote. All the cases raise claims under the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Ultimately, the Supreme Court could well side with the conservative judges in the courts below who have read these protections narrowly and not worried too much about the risk of voter disenfranchisement, rather than siding with the more liberal judges who have blocked restrictive laws for hurting minority voters, poor voters, and others. 

But none of these cases so far reached (or will reach) the Supreme Court as fully formed final cases. Instead, they have come up on emergency requests to block lower court orders that were put into effect just weeks before the election. The rulings have had election officials scrambling in Ohio, North Carolina, and Wisconsin to comply with new, and sometimes conflicting, court orders.

Meanwhile, in Illinois progressives have an opportunity to go on the offensive in the "War on Voting" this November when voters will decide whether to include a voting rights amendment to their state constitution.

The Illinois Right To Vote amendment reads:

No person shall be denied the right to register to vote or to cast a ballot in an election based on race, color, ethnicity, status as a member of a language minority, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or income.

It may come as a surprise but there is no official right to vote in the United States Constitution. It seems to me that getting such language in as many states as possible is a necessary (but not sufficient!) step to insure that our democracy remains functional.

NC-12: Black Gay Candidate Running For Congress

Marcus Brandon is currently the only openly gay legislator in North Carolina state Legislature. In fact, he is one of the very few Black LGBT people ever elected to state-level position in the United States. The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund just announced that Mr. Brandon has won their endorsement in the special election to fill the 12th Congressional District of North Carolina. Rep. Mel Watt held that seat for 20 years but is expected to resign soon to become the head of Fannie Mae. The NC-12 District is (in)famous because for years it was a subject if legislation under the Voting Rights Act because it was drawn to be a majority-minority district (it now has a slight plurality of white voters). It includes cities like Winston-Salem and Charlotte, as well as Mecklenburg County. It is considered a very safe Democratic seat (PVI D+23).

If Mr. Brandon were to win the Democratic primary and be elected, he would be only the second LGBT person of color elected to Congress, after Mark Takano was elected in California's 41st Congressional District in 2012.

UNC System Passes Ban on Gender-INCLUSIVE Student Housing

North Carolina is quickly gaining a reputation as the most regressive state in the Union, giving Texas a run for its money! Another indication of bad public policy being established in the Tar Heel state is that the University of North Carolina system just passed a ban to prevent gender-inclusive housing being established at any of its 17 campuses. What the heck?

The text of the new policy is:

The constituent institutions shall not assign members of the opposite sex to any institutionally owned and operated dormitory room, dormitory suite, or campus apartment unless the students are siblings, parent and child, or they are legally married. This policy applies to housing assignments beginning with the fall 2013 semester.

The Daily Tar Heel reports:

UNC-Chapel Hill had planned on instituting a gender-neutral housing pilot program in the fall. The program, which would have included 32 spaces in Carmichael Residence Hall, Craige North and Ram Village, was approved by the UNC Board of Trustees in November.

BOG Chairman Peter Hans said he thinks there are other ways to ensure student safety in on-campus housing than gender-neutral accommodations.

“Our board wants every student to be safe and comfortable and included,” Hans said. “The board believes there are more practical ways to achieve that goal than assigning young men and women to the same campus suite.”

So it is clear that the motivation for this is to preserve traditional gender roles and enforce heteronormativity among students. There is an assumption that all the students must be heterosexual, which is just ludicrous, especially if you analyze the sexual orientation data for the college-age cohort. What is also somewhat amusing is the unintended consequences of adopting this policy. Insisting that only members of the same sex are able to be roomed together at UNC-controlled residential spaces will almost certainly increase same-sex sexual activity, even though the intention was most certainly to try and reduce opposite-sex sexual activity through  misguided belief that keeping sexes apart will do so.

Also, it is well-known that single-sex environments are more homophobic and heteronormative, as the imputed homosexuality of the participants leads to more rigorous policing of heterosexual-only behavior and strict controls on gender expression. This will lead to bad outcomes and bullying of gender non-conforming and students questioning or exploring their sexuality who live in these housing spaces.

One immediate consequence of the policy change is to negatively impact what housing choices UNC campuses will have to accommodate their transgender students

Campus Pride has been following this story and called the move "dangerous, reckless and unsafe":

Campus Pride was in attendance at the meeting where UNC students were not allowed on the agenda. Nor did the UNC Board of Governors hear any research related to how the ban negatively impacts campus safety.  Based on Campus Pride national research conducted by Dr. Sue Rankin, “trans-spectrum students are already an at-risk population.”  She also writes, “The Campus Pride 2010 State of Higher Education report was one of the first national studies to examine the climate on college campuses. The study involved more than 5,000 LGBTQ students, staff, and faculty and found that almost a quarter of the LGBTQ respondents and about one third of the trans-identified respondents had experienced harassment or violence on campus because of their sexual or gender identity.”

According to Campus Pride, the UNC Board of Governors clearly do not have the safety of all students in mind in passing this policy to ban Gender-Inclusive housing, “Banning gender-inclusive housing on the seventeen UNC system campuses does not serve the safety of any student. It is a dangerous, reckless and unsafe to take such a broad sweeping action,” said Shane Windmeyer, Executive Director of Campus Pride. “Research shows that LGBT students experience heightened rates of harassment and discrimination at our colleges and universities, including in campus housing. Students should not have to feel unsafe or be fearful where they eat, sleep, and live on campus.”

Despite the ban passing, Campus Pride is continuing its work supporting students in the UNC system and creating necessary resources to support the expansion of Gender-Inclusive housing across the country.   This week Campus Pride launched its Trans Policy Clearinghouse which is the most up-to-date resource of its kind with trans campus policy and safety issues.  

Hat/tip to Campus Pride for publicizing this. I suspect it will not be the first such public policy change among public University systems, especially those in red states.

ACLU Announces 3 Marriage Equality Lawsuits (VA, NC, PA)

The American Civil Liberties Union (of which I am a proud card-carrying member!) announced three lawsuits to win marriage equality for same-sex couples in three more states today. The jurisdictions of interest are Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

The lawsuit in Pennsylvania is called Whitewood v. Corbett:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, the American Civil Liberties Union, and volunteer counsel from the law firm of Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller have filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of 21 Pennsylvanians who wish to marry in Pennsylvania or want the Commonwealth to recognize their out-of-state marriages. The lawsuit alleges that Pennsylvania's Defense of Marriage Act and refusal to marry lesbian and gay couples or recognize their out-of-state marriages violates the fundamental right to marry as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The lawsuit in North Carolina is called Fisher-Borne v. Smith and was initially about fighting for second-parent adoption rights but was amended today to include a federal constitutional challenge to North Carolina's Amendment One which was passed by voters 61%-39% in May 2012.

In Virginia, the ACLU is looking for same-sex couple plaintiffs to join a lawsuit to sue the state for the right to marry. Virginia of course has resonance in this context, because of the Loving v Virginia Supreme Court case which declared the right to marry to be fundamental and invalidated 16 states' bans on interracial marriage back in 1967. If you are interested in joining the suit, fill out the ACLU's secure survey for same-sex couples.

The New York Times reports on the ACLU moves thusly:

At the heart of many of the cases is the issue the Supreme Court ducked in one of its two recent rulings, a narrow decision on a California case: If a state prohibits same-sex couples from marrying, does it trample the guarantee of equal protection in the United States Constitution? 

Supporters believe that enlarging the map of states that allow same-sex marriage will ultimately influence the Supreme Court when it next takes up the issue of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, as it is expected to do in the next few years. Activists are pressing legislatures in three more states that appear ready to pass measures legalizing same-sex marriage: New Jersey, Hawaii and Illinois. 

“We think what the map of the country looks like is going to make a big difference to how the issues in the case feel to the Supreme Court,” Mr. Esseks said. “Will we have the 13 states plus D.C., or will we be at 20 or more?”

Mr. Esseks is James Esseks, the director of the ACLU LGBT project. It is a very good question. How many states will have marriage equality by the time the supreme Court hears a case devoted to the question of whether same-sex marriage is a fundamental right (or banning it violates the constitutional rights of LGBT citizens), or 2016. Which do you think will come first? I think 2016 will come first, myself. And I suspect we will be at at least 20 states after the 2016 presidential election.

Godless Wednesday: North Carolina Tries To Establish State Religion

The North Carolina legislature  is considering a bill which basically purports to allow the state to establish a state religion. The text of House Bill 494 is

SECTION 1. The North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.
SECTION 2. The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

As a local news report explains, the bill is in response to an ACLU lawsuit about explicitly Christian prayers being performed at public events:

A resolution filed by Republican lawmakers would allow North Carolina to declare an official religion, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and seeks to nullify any federal ruling against Christian prayer by public bodies statewide.

The resolution grew out of a dispute between the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rowan County Board of Commissioners. In a federal lawsuit filed last month, the ACLU says the board has opened 97 percent of its meetings since 2007 with explicitly Christian prayers.

Overtly Christian prayers at government meetings are not rare in North Carolina. Since the Republican takeover in 2011, the state Senate chaplain has offered an explicitly Christian invocation virtually every day of session, despite the fact that some senators are not Christian.

In a 2011 ruling on a similar lawsuit against the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not ban prayer at government meetings outright, but said prayers favoring one religion over another are unconstitutional.

The idea behind House Bill 494 is that the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows states to do defy federal laws and ignore federal judicial rulings. Typically, such laws are quickly overturned by federal courts. In fact the North Carolina state constitution explicitly says (in Article 1, Section 5) "Every citizen of this State owes paramount allegiance to the Constitution and government of the United States, and no law or ordinance of the State in contravention or subversion thereof can have any binding force."

Gee, I wonder what state religion the Majority Leader of the House (who has signed on to the legislation) would like to enact in the state?

0 Days Until Election: Obama 290, Romney 191

Today is election day and the TPM Electoral Scoreboard indicates that Obama-Biden will win the election with at least 290 electoral votes. The only undecided states at this time are Florida (29), Virginia (13) and North Carolina (15) with the only change from the electoral prediction I posted 2 days ago was that Virginia has slipped from being in the Blue column to the yellow column. The Romney-Ryan team has essentially been stuck at 191 electoral votes for the last week.

Happily, since Virginia's polls close at 7pm on election day it is very possible that the networks may be able to call these states rather early in the evening, and since Romney basically need to win all three of these states and flip a blue state red, the overall presidential election results may be known at that time.

That will not mean there will not be a lot more races to follow even after the presidential election is called. I will be interested in the four marriage initiative results (in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington), whether Tammy Baldwin gets elected to become the first lesbian U.S. Senator and what happens with important California propositions (Prop 30, 34 and 36).

What results are you looking out for in today's elections?

2 Days Until Election: Obama 303, Romney 191

One thing is sure, and that is that election day is nearly here, just two days away. In the TPM Electoral College Scoreboard the Blue team has now surged to a 112 vote lead, with 303 electoral votes to the Red Team's 191 electoral votes. Only Florida (29) and North Carolina (15) still remain Yellow, or "Too Close To Call" in this scenario.

This is a small change from Friday's outlook when Obama-Biden led 285 EV to 191 EV, as Ohio (18) has moved back ever slightly into the blue column. For Romney-Ryan to win the election, they will have to not only win the two yellow states, but flip  blue states worth a total 35 electoral votes from the Obama-Biden side. This is definitely possible, and Ohio would count for half of those votes needed, and when combined with Virginia (13) and New Hampshire (4) that would be sufficient.

It may be a long election night on Tuesday!

6 Weeks Until Election: Obama 328, Romney 191

There are 42 days (6 weeks) until election day. In this week's TPM Election Scoreboard the Obama-Biden campaign leads the Romney-Ryan campaign with 328 electoral votes to 191. Last week, the margin was 274 for the Democratic and 206 for Republican ticket. Of course, it takes 270 electoral votes to be elected president.

The primary explanation for the change  of 54 electoral votes for the Blue Team is the movement of Iowa (6), Wisconsin (10), Florida (29) and Virginia (13) from Undecided (Yellow) to leans Democrat (Light Blue) totaling 58 electoral votes with New Hampshire's 4 electoral votes moving from leans Democratic to Undecided. North Carolina's 15 electoral votes moved from Leans Republican to Undecided, thus reducing the Red team's total by 15 from 206 back down to 191.

The total of only 19 electoral votes being undecided (New Hampshire and North Carolina) is the smallest number in the 6 weeks I have been monitoring the electoral vote projections since early August.

Godless Wednesday: Atheists Cave To Violent Threats

The billboard pictured above has been withdrawn by the sponsors, American Atheists, due to violent threats. The point of the billboard was to raise attention at the sites of the Democratic (Charlotte, NC) and Republican (Tamp, FL) presidential conventions that both of the major party candidates are adherents of religion (Mitt Romney, Mormonism and Barack Obama, Islam Christianity).

The sponsoring organization made a statement last week explaining its decision to remove the billboards from Charlotte and Tampa.

“It is with regret that we tell our members and all of those who treasure free speech and the separation of religion and government that American Atheists and Adams Outdoor Advertising have mutually agreed to remove the billboards immediately,” said Amanda Knief, American Atheists’ Managing Director. 

“No subject, no idea should be above scrutiny—and this includes religion in all forms,” Ms. Knief said. “We are saddened that by choosing to express our rights as atheists through questioning the religious beliefs of the men who want to be our president that our fellow citizens have responded with vitriol, threats, and hate speech against our staff, volunteers, and Adams Outdoor Advertising.”

Teresa MacBain, American Atheists’ Public Relations Director said, "It saddens me to think that our country is not a safe place for all people to publicly question religious belief. How can we grow as a nation when such censorship exists from our own citizens?"

Despite the incorrect use of  the word "censorship," (no Government action was involved in the stifling of the organization's free speech so describing what happened as censorship is not accurate), I understand where the American Atheists are coming from. Religious people generally respond quite negatively when their privileged status in American society is demonstrated and challenged, usually to the detriment of the challenger, not the challenged.

What do you think, Gentle Readers, should the billboards have been removed?

STUDY: Racial Animus Fuels Voter ID Laws

One of the big stories of 2012 as the United States approaches the presidential election on November 6 has been what progressives like to call "the war on voting." It's pretty much an article of faith among most people who are not Republicans that our Democracy is strengthened if more people vote. However, in many states with a Republican majority in the legislature and a Republican governor (like Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida) due to the low-turnout 2010 elections, Republicans have passed "voter identification" (sometimes called "vote protection" laws by Republicans or "voter suppression" laws by Democrats) which appear to have the effect of reducing the number of people who will be allowed to cast a legal vote.

Voter ID Laws Have Disparate Impact On Racial Minorities
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law has analyzed the impact of these voter identification laws on various racial groups, poor people and young people and the results are striking:

The 11 percent of eligible voters who lack the required photo ID must travel to a designated government office to obtain one. Yet many citizens will have trouble making this trip. In the 10 states with restrictive voter ID laws:

• Nearly 500,000 eligible voters do not have access to a vehicle and live more than 10 miles from the nearest state ID-issuing office open more than two days a week. Many of them live in rural areas with dwindling public transportation options.

• More than 10 million eligible voters live more than 10 miles from their nearest state ID-issuing office open more than two days a week.

• 1.2 million eligible black voters and 500,000 eligible Hispanic voters live more than 10 miles from their nearest ID-issuing office open more than two days a week. People of color are more likely to be disenfranchised by these laws since they are less likely to have photo ID than the general population.

• Many ID-issuing offices maintain limited business hours. For example, the office in Sauk City, Wisconsin is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. But only four months in 2012 — February, May, August, and October — have five Wednesdays. In other states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas — many part-time ID-issuing offices are in the rural regions with the highest concentrations of people of color and people in poverty.

More than 1 million eligible voters in these states fall below the federal poverty line and live more than 10 miles from their nearest ID-issuing office open more than two days a week. These voters may be particularly affected by the significant costs of the documentation required to obtain a photo ID. Birth certificates can cost between $8 and $25. Marriage licenses, required for married women whose birth certificates include a maiden name, can cost between $8 and $20. By comparison, the notorious poll tax — outlawed during the civil rights era — cost $10.64 in current dollars.

A poll tax by any other name is still a poll tax (and is therefore just as unconstitutional)!

Joan McCarter at DailyKos points out that the suppressive effect on the voting rights of these constituencies, all of whom tend to vote more prevalently for Democrats than Republicans, is precisely what the people who passed the laws intended.

Voter ID Laws Are Fueled By Racial Animus
One interesting question is what is fueling the drive for voter identification laws now and another academic study has analyzed that question and come to a conclusion (that is unsurprising to some) that it involves racism.

The University of Delaware's Center for Political Communication recently conducted a national survey of American voters to discover what kind of voters support voter identification laws and demonstrated that support for the measures is highly correlated with racial resentment, regardless of party affiliation.

In fact, while most Republicans and conservatives strongly support voter identification laws regardless of their level of racial resentment, it is Democrats and liberals who have more racial resentment that are more likely to support voter identification laws.

The survey reveals strong partisan and ideological divisions on racial resentment [see Figure]. Republicans and conservatives have the highest “racial resentment” scores, and Democrats and liberals have the lowest; Independents and moderates are in the middle. In addition, Democrats and liberals are least supportive of voter ID laws, whereas Republicans and conservatives are most supportive. The link between “racial resentment” and support for such laws persists even after controlling for the effects of partisanship, ideology, and a range of demographic variables.

Read the last sentence again. Regardless of partisanship (Republican or Democrat) or ideology (conservative or liberal) or other demographics, people who support voter identification laws are correlated with people who harbor racial resentment. There's also the matter-of-fact reporting that Republicans and conservatives have the highest levels of racial resentment; it is not just partisanship which animates the Right's energetic efforts to replace the first black Democratic president.

Hopefully, federal courts who are considering challenges to these voter identification laws in places like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania (which "just happen" to be the swing states where the outcome of the 2012 presidential election may be decided) will also consider the unconstitutional disparate racial impact of these laws as well as the evidence that that they are fueled by unconstitutional racial animus.

Our nation's democratic tradition is one of the wonders of the modern world, but it is vulnerable to partisan manipulation, especially in a close election, because all one has to do is produce a disturbance or perturbation which either (more likely) suppresses voter turnout of your opposition or enhances voter turnout of your supporters on Election Day to swing an election in your favor. Once Election Day is over, it's over and the results will stand, even if those results were tainted by partisan trickery. And once a group is able to achieve a result that does not reflect what the majority of voters actually intended (some would argue that this already has happened!) it is basically the end of our nation's democratic tradition.