#AM_Equality Tip Sheet: May 10, 2016

US ATTY. GEN. LORETTA LYNCH’S HISTORIC REMARKS ON HB2 A TURNING POINT FOR TRANSGENDER EQUALITY: Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s powerful and moving remarks Monday supporting transgender equality represents a major advance in the community’s fight for full inclusion — not only under law, but also in American society. Lynch’s words invoked civil rights struggles of the past and carried special weight given that North Carolina is her home state. “This action is about a great deal more than just bathrooms,” Lynch said during her announcement that the U.S. Department of Justice is suing North Carolina for discrimination embedded in its anti-LGBT law HB2. “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.” Speaking directly to the transgender community Lynch said, “…[W]e 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.” Watch the full speech on C-SPAN.

DOJ LAWSUIT DECLARES HB2 “IMPERMISSIBLY DISCRIMINATORY,” SUES TO PROHIBIT STATE ENFORCEMENT: The DOJ’s lawsuit against NC Governor McCrory, the state’s Department of Public Safety, and the University of North Carolina and its Board of Governors declares the state’s HB2 law “impermissibly discriminatory.” The DOJ is also asking the court to prohibit the state from enforcing HB2, which violates federal civil rights law and the Violence Against Women Act. The DOJ’s action came shortly after McCrory filed a lawsuit seeking to forestall DOJ action. NC has already lost more than a half billion dollars in economic activity because of McCrory’s radical law, and is facing the potential catastrophic loss of federal funding for schools, roads, bridges, and other essential services. More from Reuters.

• HAPPENING TODAY: Will UNC Prez Spellings embrace McCrory’s discriminatory law, or act in best interests of her students?: Less than 24 hours after the U.S. Department of Justice filed its lawsuit challenging HB2, University of North Carolina President Margaret Spellings will meet with her Board of Governors to decide whether to side with discrimination, or work with the DOJ to protect the wellbeing of the respected university system and its thousands of students. North Carolina and its students stand to lose more than $4.5 billion in federal education funds due to the discriminatory HB2. In a statement yesterday, Spellings said that UNC is “caught in the middle.” Faced with the choice of violating our federal civil rights law or being on the right side of history, the next step seems clear.

MCCRORY POINTS FINGER AT ANYONE BUT HIMSELF: McCrory outlined the details of his suit against the DOJ at a press conference on Monday, again attempting to shift blame for the discriminatory fiasco that has been HB2. He said that local leaders in Charlotte should instead be held accountable for passing a non-discrimination ordinance that would have allowed transgender individuals to use bathrooms that corresponded with their gender identity. Claiming that the issue was “not a North Carolina state agenda,” McCrory said that the DOJ asked the state to agree to “unrealistic terms” when it imposed a deadline for him to respond to the law’s federal civil rights violations. The Charlotte Observer’s Editorial Board calls McCrory’s lawsuit “familiar, disturbing defense against discrimination.”

• Meanwhile, McCrory’s problems mount. In an editorial titled “McCrory Fumbles HB2 Response,” The Raleigh News & Observer slams the “dithering” governor for defending the indefensible, and Politifact calls him out again for lying about the discriminatory effects of HB2.
• McCrory tries to spin a negative biz news into a positive. Tweeting a report that NC has been named #3 for business in a magazine’s survey of CEOs, McCrory fails to mention that not only has the state slipped in the rankings since last year, but that the survey was conducted before HB2 was passed. Pants on fire! More from HRC’s blog.
• NC Attorney General Roy Cooper blasted McCrory, saying the blame for HB2’s fallout sits squarely with the governor. Democrat Cooper, who is running for governor and has seen his poll numbers are rise, said, “The governor is pouring gas on the fire that he lit by putting billions of dollars of education funding on the line. …He’s doubling down on what he knows he did wrong. Enough is enough. Set politics aside and undo this discriminatory law now.”

MAJORITY OF AMERICANS ACROSS PARTY LINES OPPOSE ANTI-TRANSGENDER BILLS: A new CNN poll has found that a majority of Americans oppose bills like North Carolina’s HB2. Overall, 57 percent oppose “laws that require transgender individuals to use facilities that correspond to their gender at birth rather than their gender identity.” While the majority of those opposed were Democrats or Independents, even Republicans were split 48 to 48 percent.

ACLU SUES THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI OVER ITS ANTI-LGBT LAW: The ACLU and a same-sex couple hoping to marry in Mississippi have sued the state over its passage of HB1523 — a discriminatory law that allows almost any individual or organization to use religion as an excuse to discriminate against LGBT Mississippians in some of the most important aspect of their lives, including at work, at schools, in their family life, and more. The ACLU argues that the law violates the U.S. Constitution and the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling. Oliver Diaz, a former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice, who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Jackson, says, “We’ve had a long history in Mississippi of bigotry and discrimination, and House Bill 1523 brings that back to life.” More from ABC News.

AMERICANS ON TRUMP NAMING SCOTUS JUSTICES: A majority of Americans just don’t trust presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump to select the next Supreme Court justice — including nearly 30 percent of Republicans who said they’d rather have President Obama or Hillary Clinton make the pick, according to a new poll. To top that off,  65 percent of voters surveyed want Obama SCOTUS nominee Judge Merrick Garland to get a fair hearing immediately. If only the Senate Republicans would #DoYourJob.

TRANSGENDER TURNING POINT: This week, Geraldine Roman, a transgender woman, became the first openly-LGBT person to be elected to the Philippine Congress. This is a historic moment for the transgender community, which still faces widespread discrimination in the country. More from BuzzFeed.

METHODIST MINISTERS COME OUT AS LGBT TO CHALLENGE CHURCH BAN: On Monday, more than 100 Methodist ministers made a powerful statement by coming out as LGBT, challenging their church’s ban on ordaining “practicing homosexuals.” Their statement serves as a reminder that they have been faithfully serving the church, despite its lack of acceptance. More from ThinkProgress.

READING RAINBOW

Teen Vogue tells the stories of mothers with transgender teenagers, and the effect discriminatory laws have on their children… CNN shares the love with a high school girl who got kicked out of her prom for wearing a suit… The Los Angeles Times interviews Randy Berry, the first U.S. Special Envoy for Global LGBTI Rights… The Huffington Post details how McCrory’s obsession over policing bathrooms has been years in the making… and The Associated Press chronicles Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s long history of judicial defiance… 

www.hrc.org/blog/am-equality-tip-sheet-may-10-2016?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Antigay Boxing Champ Manny Pacquiao's Next Title: Filipino Senator (Video)

www.advocate.com/world/2016/5/10/antigay-boxing-champ-manny-pacquiaos-next-title-filipino-senator-video

This Minister Defied His Church to Perform His Son's Wedding

www.advocate.com/religion/2016/5/10/minister-defied-his-church-perform-his-sons-wedding

Is North Carolina Having An Identity Crisis? (Video)

www.advocate.com/politics/2016/5/10/north-carolina-having-identity-crisis-video

Man Has Emotional Reunion With The Gay Brother His Christian Parents Disowned Decades Ago

A man shared his emotional reunion with the gay brother he never knew on Reddit. His story will make you angry and sad, but it’s ultimately one filled with hope.

Our friends at GayStarNews found the story, which starts with a Nintendo 64 (remember those?) and ends with a reunion that’s right out of a Nicholas Sparks flick:

He was in his room playing while a guy, almost his dad’s age, had come over to the house while his 16-year-old brother was babysitting him. There was a big age difference between the two brothers at the time, but John would always do as his older brother, who we’ll call Ryan, said, as Ryan would pull him around in a wagon and babysit him often.

While he was asleep, John woke up to his brother whispering outside the front door. ‘Don’t worry, he’s asleep’, he said. The older guy then said something he couldn’t hear, but John could make out the word ‘visit’.

‘The next morning–the day he disappeared–my parents were at work,’ John said. ‘My brother was acting very strange. I remember he kept checking the clock. In the afternoon, I remember him picking me up and asking me if I wanted to go in the wagon. I was too hooked on Nintendo 64 and said no. He almost begged me and I said no again.

‘Then he told me he had to run to our neighbor’s house for something, I don’t even remember what he said. I said okay. He reminded me to not open the door for anyone, only mom and dad. I shouted at him “OKAY!” because Super Mario was getting on my fucking nerves and he wasn’t helping.

‘He gave me a hug and told me he loved me and left. He never came back.’

Ryan was declared missing, making the news, as a ‘creepy unsolved mystery’.

Eventually, John learned that his parents had taken Ryan’s name off the missing persons list. It turns out they’d disowned him after he came out as gay and told them he was living with a man. John was livid:

‘I went ballistic. My parents weren’t fazed by it. They sincerely hate my brother for who he is–for being gay. They kept him a secret from me all my fu**ing life. My brother missed the birth of his nephew, he missed my wedding, graduations, EVERYTHING. Just because of my parents. They lied to me.’

John got his brother’s contact information and nervously dialed up the number:

‘The first thing I heard on the other end of the line was a guy laughing in the background. There was wind on the phone. The person on the other end was outside and it was windy. ‘Who is this?’

‘It was his voice. I knew that voice. It was my fucking brother. My brother! Who had been gone for my entire life! I covered my mouth with my shaking hands and just sat there. He kept asking me who it was. The guy in the background was trying to talk over him. He hung up on me. I called him back right away. He answered again.

‘Me being a creepy ass, the first thing I said after decades of not seeing him and thinking he was dead, I blurted: ‘I got your number.’

‘He asked me who I was and what I wanted. I said, ‘It’s me.’ There was a really long pause. I thought the call had dropped. Then I heard him tell someone to turn the radio down and roll the window up. The sound of wind stopped… and then he asked me my name. I told him and he said that I was lying. I told him I got his number from the missing children’s network and detectives. I heard him gasp. He asked me what color shoelaces he wore to a picnic when we were kids, and I remember my mom getting mad at his orange laces with blue shoes. It was the last time we were together as a family.

‘I could tell he was crying. The first thing he asked me was: ‘Where are you?’ and I told him I lived a few hours away from home. Without hesitating, he told me, ‘I’m coming.’

‘He went straight to the airport without any luggage, bought a plane ticket, and flew straight to me.’

Incredibly, the story has a happy ending for him and his estranged brother:

‘He’s married. His husband is a doctor—a pediatric oncologist. They live in the Pacific Northwest. They have two children—girls, 12 and 8. He works as a legal consultant and has his own firm. He has an amazing life. He told me that he thought I hated him and wanted nothing to do with him. We sat at the bar for hours. Literal hours. I think we sat for about six hours before I begged him to come home and meet my wife.’

There’s a lot more where that came from, and we highly encourage you to read the entire story.

It’s sad that homophobia nearly destroyed this family, but we’re happy the two brothers were able to reconnect.

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Judge Caught Trading Sex With Young Male Criminals For Lighter Sentences

Justice, like every other lofty human endeavor, is directly as flawed as those who wield it. Today that lesson comes in the form of an Arkansas judge who has been running a side-business trading sex with vulnerable young male criminals for lenient sentencing.

Joseph Boeckmann served as a district judge in Cross County, Arkansas for six years, publicly presenting himself to be the very embodiment of the moral high ground, deciding the fates of those who passed through his courtroom.

But now it’s Boeckmann who stands accused of a crime — reducing the sentences of young men, at least one of whom was under 18, who helped him with “personal work” underneath his judge’s robe.

The Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission shined a light on the dirty scheme: Boeckmann told young males to contact him at his home to complete “community sentences” like trash pickup, but once they arrived they’d be given a much different task to service their community.

Related: Antigay Republican Lawmaker Caught Cruising Grindr For A Winter Cuddle Bud

In exchange for sexual favors, he’d reduce their court fines or throw them out altogether.

Boeckmann was also quite the avid amateur photographer, and would require many of the men to pose for nude pictures, hundreds of which were recovered off his hard drive.

Oh, and he had props, too.

The Commission said, “They all depict young men, many naked who are in various poses inside the judge’s home and outside in his yard,” adding, “There are numerous photos of naked young men bending over after an apparent paddling.”

In one case, Boeckmann reduced a traffic fine and asked the defendant to bring three bags of cans to his house. The judge offered a drink to the defendant, referred to as W.M., then “Boeckmann informed W.M. that he needed W.M. to pull 2 cans from the bags and bend over as if he were picking up the cans.”

Related: Oregon Judge One-Ups Kim Davis: I’ll See Your ‘No Gays Allowed’ And Raise You A Hitler!

The judge then coached him “on how to pose and spread his legs farther apart.”

Boeckmann is also accused of seeking out “young Caucasian males” to litigate for the sole purpose of targeting them for sex.

“Beoeckmann has engaged in a consistent pattern of seeking out young Caucasian male litigants… for the purpose of forming personal, sexual relations with the litigants, thus creating a self-imposed conflict of interest for himself.”

If it’s any consolation, the judge has stepped down from his position and will never again seek employment as a local, county or state employee.

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DOMA Lawyer Roberta Kaplan Files Lawsuit Against Mississippi Over ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill – READ

Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer who successfully challenged DOMA in United States v. Windsor, has waded into the mire over Mississippi’s anti-LGBT religious freedom bill, HB 1523.

Kaplan is part of a legal team representing two same-sex couples who are challenging a provison of HB 1523 that allows state officials to recuse themselves from officiating or recognizing same-sex marriages if doing so would violate their “sincerely held religious beliefs.”

BuzzFeed reports:  

“[T]here can be no such thing as ‘separate, but (un)equal’ marriage for gay and lesbian couples in Mississippi,” the lawyers write in Tuesday’s filing. “The Supreme Court could not have been clearer about this when it said in Obergefell that states must allow same-sex couples to marry ‘on the same terms and conditions’ as all other couples.”

The effort led by Roberta Kaplan — who represented Edith Windsor in her successful challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act — addresses only one provision of HB 1523, which was signed into law by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant earlier this year: the “recusal” provision.

The move stands in contrast to the more broad challenge the ACLU filed to on Monday, in which the organization is asking a federal judge to stop the entire new law from going into effect at all. […]

“While HB 1523 states that ‘the authorization and licensing of any legally valid marriage [shall] not [be] impeded or delayed as a result of any recusal,’” the motion states, “it leaves the manner of doing so completely up to the person who ‘recused’ him or herself, and provides no enforcement mechanism for making sure that there is no delay or impediment.”

PREVIOUSLY: ACLU Sues Mississippi Over Anti-LGBT Religious Freedom Law, HB 1523

Also challenging the bill is the LGBT rights group Campaign for Southern Equality.

You can read the entire filing below.

Courtesy of Equality Case Files

The post DOMA Lawyer Roberta Kaplan Files Lawsuit Against Mississippi Over ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill – READ appeared first on Towleroad.

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Nyle DiMarco Wows with Silent Performance on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ – WATCH

Nyle DiMarco wowed judges and audience members with a performance on this week’s Dancing with the Stars that conveyed what it’s like to dance without sound.

DiMarco, who is deaf, decided that he wanted a portion of his Paso Doble to be done without sound so that the hearing audience could get “insight” into what he experiences when he dances.

Via People: 

“A lot of people have labeled me as the deaf guy who can dance, but I think they don’t really understood how it works, the fact that I can’t hear anything at all, and we thought this would be great opportunity to bring silence into the middle of the song,” DiMarco told PEOPLE after the performance. “Because I don’t hear anything, and I’ve been dancing well. So it’s nice to give them an insight into my world.”

“They tend to see just the final result, and you don’t know what we go through every week to get it to that point. So I think it was a beautiful moment,” said Murgatroyd.

PREVIOUSLY: Nyle DiMarco’s Chill-Inducing Waltz Earns Him Perfect ’10’ on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ – WATCH

Judge Carrie Ann Inaba was in tears after DiMarco’s performance, saying, “I’ve seen a lot on this show, 22 seasons and I’ve never seen anything like that, that touched me so profoundly. You really are educating us.”

Referring to the silent portion of the dance that involved four other members of the DWTS ‘dance troupe’, judge Bruno Tonioli said, “[It] was like watching five men dancing to the beat of a single heart, connected by the soul.”

Steamy.

Watch, below.

Here’s another video which shows an expanded version of the dance and also Nyle as he preps for the performance.

The post Nyle DiMarco Wows with Silent Performance on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ – WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

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Vandals Welcome Woman and Her Kids to Atlanta Neighborhood With Gay Slur: VIDEO

A woman in an Atlanta suburb has described how a gay slur on her car left her and her children frightened after having just moved into the neighborhood.

Kristi Logue and her children moved into their new house on Friday. On Sunday morning, Logue and her children awoke to the word “FAG” spray painted on her car and garage door.

Logue said:

“Me and my kids were leaving for church for Mother’s Day. My son was the first one out and he said, ‘Mommy, your car…’

“My kids were like, ‘Mommy what’s happening?’ My little girl starts crying and I’m just at a loss to figure who did it and why they would do it and it’s not me.

“I couldn’t believe it. Actually I was at a loss for words. I saw the car first, it was written in white across the hood, both sides of the car and the trunk. I mean and then I go to the garage door and I see it in black.”

According to WSB-TV, neighbors have since helped Logue to clean the profanity off the car. The garage door will have to be repainted.

RELATED: Andrew Shaw of Chicago Blackhawks Uses Disgusting Anti-Gay Slur at Referee, Twice: WATCH

She said that local police have been “awesome” and “assured that they are going to figure this out.”
Watch a news report on the crime, below.

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Here’s The Lawsuit Against A State Anti-LGBT Law You Aren’t Hearing About

“HB 1523 subjects same-sex married couples in Mississippi to a lifetime of potentially humiliating denials of ordinary assistance and places a badge of inferiority upon their marriages each time they celebrate one of the ordinary incidents of family life.”

The post Here’s The Lawsuit Against A State Anti-LGBT Law You Aren’t Hearing About appeared first on ThinkProgress.

thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/05/10/3776908/mississippi-lgbt-lawsuit/