#AM_Equality Tipsheet: November 9, 2017

BREAKING — HRC RELEASES ANNUAL CORPORATE EQUALITY INDEX WITH RECORD 609 COMPANIES EARNING PERFECT SCORES: A record number of the nation’s major companies and law firms are advancing vital policies and practices to protect LGBTQ workers around the world, according to the HRC Foundation’s 2018 Corporate Equality Index (CEI). “At a time when the rights of LGBTQ people are under attack by the Trump-Pence Administration and state legislatures across the country, hundreds of top American companies are driving progress toward equality in the workplace,” said HRC President Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin). “The top-scoring companies on this year’s CEI are not only establishing policies that affirm and include employees here in the United States, they are applying these policies to their operations around the globe and impacting millions of people beyond our shores. In addition, many of these companies have also become vocal advocates for equality in the public square, including the dozens that have signed on to amicus briefs in vital Supreme Court cases and the 106 corporate supporters of the Equality Act. We are proud to have developed so many strong partnerships with corporate allies who see LGBTQ equality as a crucial issue for our country and for their businesses.” More from HRC.

• 609 companies earned a perfect scores of 100 points, up from 517 in the 2017 report;
• Gender identity is now part of non-discrimination policies at 83 percent of Fortune 500 companies, up from just 3 percent in 2002, the CEI’s first year;
• 459 major employers have adopted supportive inclusion guidelines for transgender workers who are transitioning.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: When the CEI launched in 2002, only 13 companies received a perfect score, fully-inclusive non-discrimination policies were a rarity, and trans-inclusive health care plans were simply not an option for workers at our nation’s largest companies. Today’s report highlights the dramatic equality gains made in the past 15 years, as corporate leaders are increasingly stepping up to play a leading role in creating fully LGBTQ-inclusive workplaces, and also opposing anti-equality legislation — from statehouses to the U.S. Capitol. Eighty-three percent of Fortune 500 companies have non-discrimination protections that include gender identity, and 79 percent of companies participating in this year’s CEI offer at least one health care plan that has trans-inclusive coverage. HRC’s work through the CEI, often through one-on-one consultation with individual companies, has helped employers move toward full inclusion for their LGBTQ employees.

YOU WON’T WIN BY ATTACKING US — MEET THE TRANS AMERICANS WHO WON ON ELECTION DAY: Across the nation on Tuesday, voters stood against the Trump-Pence agenda of fear, division, and hatred. In decisive and historic fashion, Americans from coast to coast elected close allies of equality and openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) leaders — including seven out transgender people. The message was resounding — you will not win by attacking any one of us. The winners included Virginia state delegate candidate Danica Roem, who became the state’s first out trans public official, and out trans candidates from Georgia and Pennsylvania to Virginia and Minnesota. “For trans youth across the country, Danica Roem’s election isn’t just a headline or even history,” HRC National Press Secretary Sarah McBride (@SarahEMcBride) told The New York Times’ Maggie Astor (@MaggieAstor). “It’s hope. Hope for a better tomorrow.” Meet the newly-elected public servants at HRC.

• Some of our favorite election headlines: The New York Times, “Danica Roem Wins Virginia Race, Breaking a Barrier for Transgender People;” Chicago Tribune, “Minneapolis elects 2 black transgender City Council members;” Palm Springs Desert Sun, “An all LGBT council in Palm Springs takes charge;” Rewire, “In Virginia Race, A Glimmer of Hope for More Trans Politicians;” BuzzFeed, “This Transgender Candidate Just Beat An Anti-LGBT Republican, Putting Her On The Cusp Of History”

HRC ENDORSES OHIO SENATOR SHERROD BROWN FOR RE-ELECTION: “Since entering public office more than two decades ago, Senator Brown has stood shoulder to shoulder with our community, relentlessly championing justice, fairness and equal rights for every American,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Senator Brown has proven himself to be an effective legislator and one of our staunchest allies in the United States Senate. HRC is proud to endorse Senator Brown in his bid for re-election and we look forward to continuing to work with him to pass the Equality Act and achieve full federal equality.” Sherrod Brown is a longstanding advocate for LGBTQ equality, scoring 100 percent on HRC’s Congressional Scorecard for the last six years running. He voted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2010 and for passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009. He is a co-sponsor of the Equality Act, crucial federal legislation that would finally guarantee explicit, permanent protections for LGBTQ people under our nation’s existing civil rights laws. More from HRC.

ROY MOORE BARRED WOMAN FROM SEEING HER CHILD BECAUSE SHE WAS IN A SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIP: CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski (@KFile) and Chris Massie (@ChrisMassie) uncovered a divorce case from the 1990s in which Roy Moore, current senatorial candidate in Alabama’s special election, denied a woman access to visit her children unsupervised because she was with a woman, writing that “minor children will be detrimentally affected by the present lifestyle.” Later in his career, Moore was removed from the Alabama Supreme Court for refusing to implement a ruling that brought marriage equality to the state. Recently, he took his extremism one step further, saying that he and Vladimir Putin may be “more akin… than [he] knows,” specifically citing their shared virulently anti-LGBTQ views. #NoMoore from CNN.

• Unfit to serve Alabamians in the U.S. Senate: HRC has endorsed Doug Jones in the special U.S. Senate race in Alabama, where he faces vehemently anti-LGBTQ Moore. They face off on December 12.

HRC & OTHER HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS RALLY IN SUPPORT OF EGYPTIAN LGBTQ COMMUNITY: Over the last few months, Egyptian authorities have been rounding up and arresting LGBTQ people as part of a wider crackdown on human rights in the country. Last night, HRC, Human Rights First, Amnesty International and Egyptian LGBTQ advocates gathered to show solidarity with the Egyptian LGBTQ community, call on the Egyptian government to stop the crackdown, and urge the international community to condemn these human rights abuses.

TODAY — RALLY TO SUPPORT DREAMERS: Today, HRC is joining United We Dream, immigration advocates and over 1,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to defend the DREAM Act. DACA was created by the Obama administration in 2012, to protect 800,000 young people who came to U.S. as children. Thanks to DACA, Dreamers who meet certain guidelines are able to attend college, obtain driver’s licenses and work permits to support their families. If the Trump administration ends DACA, many communities will be affected, including 75,000 LGBTQ dreamers.

NEW POLL — MOST ARKANSANS SUPPORT LGBTQ EMPLOYMENT PROTECTIONS: Eighty-four percent of respondents said they believe that LGBTQ individuals should have employment protections. Read the full results from the University of Arkansas.

I AM JAZZ READINGS TO SUPPORT TRANS AND NON-BINARY YOUTH: HRC’s Welcoming Schools program and the National Education Association (NEA) are gearing up for the National “I Am Jazz” School and Community Readings on December 7. Advocates who host  readings are sending a powerful message of support to trans and non-binary youth and their families. More from HRC.

NOVEMBER IS NATIONAL ADOPTION MONTH: Check out this list of LGBTQ-inclusive adoption agencies in the U.S. from HRC.

Have news? Send us your news and tips at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to #AM_Equality and follow @HRC for all the latest news. Thanks for reading!

www.hrc.org/blog/am-equality-tipsheet-november-9-20171?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Senate judiciary advances another anti-LGBTQ judicial nomination through committee

www.glaad.org/blog/senate-judiciary-advances-another-anti-lgbtq-judicial-nomination-through-committee

A Spot-On Joel Osteen Impersonator Punked and Trolled the Faithful at an Osteen Prayer Event in L.A. – WATCH

Michael Klimkowski, a Joel Osteen impersonator who has got the televangelist’s crap down pat, recently faked his way into a Joel Osteen prayer event at The Forum in Inglewood, California with his posse.

RELATED: Houston Megachurch Pastor Joel Osteen Prepares To Open Church To Flood Victims After Being Shamed Online

Watch as J.O. is escorted through security at his event, takes selfies with starstruck worshipers and Forum staffers, and gets to the stage before someone is on to him.

Watch:

AV Club adds:

[One of Klimkowski’s crew] tells us that the confrontation recorded at the end of the video was with Osteen’s head of security. Though that guy asserts they’re going to the jail, Henke notes the “real police” just thought it was funny. “Especially because Mike, our ‘Joel,’ never really dropped character and kept getting approached by ‘fans’ even as we were detained.”

The post A Spot-On Joel Osteen Impersonator Punked and Trolled the Faithful at an Osteen Prayer Event in L.A. – WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

A Spot-On Joel Osteen Impersonator Punked and Trolled the Faithful at an Osteen Prayer Event in L.A. – WATCH

Robots In Cities
Robots are coming. What will they mean for urban life? I doubt they’ll be the perfections of the human form we see in the Blade Runner films. They’ll do particular, specified, tasks very efficiently. They are already common in closed environments – in factories and distribution warehouses. Out on the city street they’ll be focused initially on the dirty, dull and dangerous tasks: unblocking drains; monitoring tunnels; cleaning tall buildings.

As well as maintaining the urban infrastructure, robots will build our cities. As the off-site manufacturing of buildings increases, it will be automated. And on-site, robots may replace the construction worker. In Amsterdam, last year, I saw a metal canal-bridge being 3-D printed. In Dubai, last year, they 3-D printed an office with a cement printer in just 17 days – with a saving of about 50 percent on normal labour costs.

Robots will increasingly shape how people and products move in our cities. There has been a lot of publicity about Amazon’s investment in delivery drones in the skies. On the ground, Tesco have also been piloting a delivery robot and Ocado a driverless van.

The big investment is in the self-driving car. The UK Government wants the country to lead in this technology and is funding on-street trials, with various levels of automation, in cities across the country. Step-by-step, year-by-year, such vehicles will penetrate the market and the city until they’ll become the norm within 20 years.

This widespread uptake of autonomous vehicles will re-shape our cities further. With seamless, and instant, on-demand autonomous vehicles, why own a car? Why pay for parking? Why devote so much precious urban real-estate to inanimate metal objects? An MIT study estimated that Singapore could reduce the number or vehicles by two-thirds with full automation.

These developments will reduce pollution and free-up lots of space in cities. Multi-storey car parks may become urban farms; pocket parks may spring up on empty suburban streets; new housing may replace redundant expressways.

Autonomous vehicles will also have profound social and economic impacts. What do they mean for taxi-drivers? White van man? Or the school run? As automation changes, or replaces, existing jobs, society will have to adapt fast.

Of course, artificial intelligence and automation will actually augment many human tasks. Humankind has developed over millennia by developing and using new tools. And the doom-mongers underplay the productivity benefits of augmentation. But the transition will be painful for many. What films like Bladerunner do capture well is the underlying societal angst about the rise of the robot. This angst is already partly underpinning the election of populist politicians across the Western world. And I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a surge of 21st Century Ludditism – the modern version of the 18th Century textile workers, who smashed machines to protect jobs.

As with previous waves of disruptive technologies, new opportunities will, of course, emerge. Just as the desktop publishing revolution that destroyed print-workers’ jobs in the 1980s led to a huge increase in productivity and creativity, there will be upsides. And new policies will emerge: robots might be taxed to pay for pensions; universal basic income – like the one being trialled in Finland – might become the norm. But it doesn’t feel like politicians or citizens are well equipped to navigate these changes at the moment. Our more automated cities may also be more uncomfortable places to live.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/peter-madden-obe/robots-in-cities_b_18504346.html

HRC Endorses Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown for Re-election

Today HRC announced its endorsement of Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown in his bid for re-election.

“Since entering public office more than two decades ago, Senator Brown has stood shoulder to shoulder with our community, relentlessly championing justice, fairness and equal rights for every American,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Senator Brown has proven himself to be an effective legislator and one of our staunchest allies in the United States Senate. HRC is proud to endorse Senator Brown in his bid for re-election and we look forward to continuing to work with him to pass the Equality Act and achieve full federal equality.”

“HRC has a long record of making our nation a more just and equal society,” said Senator Brown. “I am proud to call them a partner in our efforts to ensure all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, are treated with dignity and respect. Working together, we will continue to stand with the LGBTQ community in Ohio and throughout America to reaffirm that hate and discrimination have no place in our laws or hearts.”

Sherrod Brown is a longstanding advocate for LGBTQ equality, scoring 100 percent on HRC’s Congressional Scorecard for the last six years running. He voted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2010 and for passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009. Brown has also been a consistent ally for marriage equality, voting against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 and Constitutional bans on same-sex marriage in 2004 and 2006. He is currently a co-sponsor of the Equality Act, crucial federal legislation that would finally guarantee explicit, permanent protections for LGBTQ people under our nation’s existing civil rights laws. In 2018 he will likely once again face off against anti-LGBTQ Republican Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, who lost to Brown in 2012.

HRC recently announced a bold, proactive grassroots expansion with the launch of HRC Rising — a campaign to accelerate progress in states from coast-to-coast, resist the politics of hate, fight anti-LGBTQ legislation, and fuel pro-equality candidates and initiatives. The expansion is the biggest strategic investment in the organization’s 37-year history and will include significant investments in Ohio. HRC has identified more than 1,550,000 Ohioans as likely Equality Voters, meaning they are strong supporters of progressive LGBTQ policies including same-sex marriage, adoption by LGBTQ people, and laws that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

www.hrc.org/blog/hrc-endorses-senator-sherrod-brown-for-re-election-in-ohio?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

GLAAD’s ‘Where We Are on TV’ report highlights why #RepresentationMatters

www.glaad.org/blog/glaads-where-we-are-tv-report-highlights-why-representationmatters

The Truth About HIV and Being ‘Untransmittable’

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared “Undetectable Equals Untransmittable.”

www.advocate.com/current-issue/2017/11/09/truth-about-hiv-and-being-untransmittable

Ridley Scott to Replace Kevin Spacey in Film Out in 6 Weeks; Role Has Been Recast, Scenes to be Reshot

Ridley Scott’s All The Money in the World starring Kevin Spacey, Michelle Williams, and Mark Wahlberg is in the can and due for release in six weeks but Scott and producers from Imperative Entertainment, with the full support of Sony Pictures, has decided to cut Spacey from the film and reshoot all his scenes with Christopher Plummer.

The decision was made as as sexual assault and harassment allegations continue to mount against Spacey.

CNN reports:

The film is based on the 1973 abduction of John Paul Getty III. Spacey played Getty’s billionaire grandfather in the movie, donning extensive prosthetic makeup for the role.

The recast comes just one day after Sony and TriStar decided to pull the film from the AFI Festival’s prestigious closing night spot.

In a statement provided Tuesday that confirmed the film’s exit from AFI due to the allegations regarding Spacey, TriStar Pictures called “All the Money in the World” a “superb film” that was “more than worthy of its place of honor in the AFI Fest.”

“There are over 800 other actors, writers, artists, craftspeople and crew who worked tirelessly and ethically on this film, some for years, including one of cinema’s master directors,” TriStar’s statement added. “It would be a gross injustice to punish all of them for the wrongdoings of one supporting actor in the film.”

The latest allegations against Spacey came yesterday from former Boston TV news anchor Heather Unruh, who said Spacey sexually assaulted her teen son on Nantucket in 2016.

An allegation against Spacey by actor Anthony Rapp snowballed into an avalanche of similar accusations including filmmaker Tony Montana, who said that Spacey groped him in public in 2003, and the actor Roberto Cavazos.

That was followed by an as yet unnamed man who claimed Spacey raped him at 15, and 8 crew members on House of Cards who said they were harassed by Spacey as well as a London bartender who said Spacey flashed him and then tried to shut him up with an expensive watch.

Spacey was also dumped by his agency, CAA, his publicist Polaris, and also by Netflix.

The post Ridley Scott to Replace Kevin Spacey in Film Out in 6 Weeks; Role Has Been Recast, Scenes to be Reshot appeared first on Towleroad.

Ridley Scott to Replace Kevin Spacey in Film Out in 6 Weeks; Role Has Been Recast, Scenes to be Reshot