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Yay! Honestly did not expect to see a 6-3 ruling, but I'm not going to say no! :D
Also, did not expect my high school graduation ceremony to be taking a picture of myself & my brother with my diploma, but I'm not really one for long speeches or big crowds, so I'm not really complaining.
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My two problems with the current ruling are
1. It doesn't currently apply to business that file for a religious exemption even if they aren't religious institutions.
2. Kavanaugh never once used the word transgender in his dissent. He used homosexuality, but not transgender. That tells me that he probably doesn't see us.
I hope that the Title VII interpretation applies to housing, public access, and healthcare. I'm not convinced that it will though. I think that it's going to hit the courts again really soon.
I hope that the Title VII interpretation applies to housing, public access, and healthcare.
No, it does not. It only applies to employment
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There are definitely pieces that will have to be hashed out, that's for sure. But if the precedent from this decision holds: That sexual orientation and gender identity claims are protected under the same rules banning discrimination by sex, then everything else pretty much has to fall along the same lines. I'm not a lawyer, but the housing, healthcare rules are relying on the same language and I can't see how the same argument wouldn't apply. The public access rules are not. There's apparently no federal law covering preventing discrimination by sex there.
While this is technically a narrow ruling, as the SC generally tries to do, the justification for it is very broad.It's going to be very difficult not to rule the same way on businesses that claim a religious exemption - at least not without allowing such religious exemptions to supersede all such civil rights laws, allowing employers to discriminate against not only LGBTQ people, but also women, minorities and other religions on religious grounds. I don't think that's a can of worms even this court would want to open.
One legal commentator suggested that any Federal law or rule that uses 'sex' as a category will eventually have to be interpreted by this exact standard.
However, it's not at all difficult to rule that businesses that claim a religious exemption don't have to follow this precedent. We have seen the workarounds for the birth-control mandate in the ACA. The Hobby Lobby ruling was particularly unfortunate. And last May, The Supreme Court heard even more arguments about whether religious organizations even have to comply with the workarounds.
One thing to keep in mind: there is a big difference between the Supreme Court making a ruling about what a word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, etc in a piece of legislation means (as we have here) and the Supreme Court making a ruling about whether a particular law is constitutional.
The issue about what religious behavior is protected by the First Amendment is much graver than what a word means.
With a "I do not think it means what you think it means" ruling, Congress can always (but perhaps not easily) rewrite the law to more clearly express their intention.
But if the Court rules that the whole topic is unconstitutional, and that religious organizations and businesses are exempt from the law, there is not much anyone can do except try to amend the Constitution (Hello, Equal Rights Amendment).
It's possible the Court could rule more broadly and decide that relgious freedom to discriminate exists at the Constitutional level, but I find that unlikely at this stage.
At the very least, they'd be likely to rule it first based on the RFRA and then deal with challenges to that once Congress fixed it. Which would all take years.
I agree it's unlikely they'd go right to the First Amendment issue if they can avoid it. I'd forgotten that Hobby Lobby was a RFRA ruling.
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My heart ;u;
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Life is so exhausting at the moment. I keep getting told it’s because I “spend too much time reading politics” but I can’t see anything as important as the political struggles happening right now. How does one think about anything else when the stakes are so high? :(
Life is so exhausting at the moment. I keep getting told it’s because I “spend too much time reading politics” but I can’t see anything as important as the political struggles happening right now. How does one think about anything else when the stakes are so high? :(
a good question.
It seems now is the time to fight.
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Life is so exhausting at the moment. I keep getting told it’s because I “spend too much time reading politics” but I can’t see anything as important as the political struggles happening right now. How does one think about anything else when the stakes are so high? :(
I take a break from politics every day. I don't watch or read the news. I don't go on Facebook. I take an hour break every hour. Honestly, the news doesn't really change much so there's really no need to be involved every second of the day.
I donate my time and money the best I can to the issues that are important to me. There's not really much else I can do other then be the person I want to see in others.
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It's an emotionally overwhelming time. I don't think I've ever felt so much like quitting, and I've been "doing politics" and union organizing since I was 19. Hang with us, grab some hugs, heck ASK for hugs if you need them and there don't seem to be any lying around.
The only way we'll make it through this is together. Don't leave anyone behind, check in with people who seem to go missing, and know that you're not the only one who feels like it's just too much.
It is.
But the only way forward is straight through.
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Ms. Foundation names Black transgender activist as Director of Communications
Speaking specifically about her work going forward, Willis noted that part of her work will be in breaking down narrow, restrictive approaches to gender:
“Our fight is for the women and girls who struggle to be seen as smart and capable leaders, for the men and boys who struggle to express their emotions and be tender, and everyone else [whose] lives straddle all of those struggles and more.”
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It's an emotionally overwhelming time. I don't think I've ever felt so much like quitting, and I've been "doing politics" and union organizing since I was 19. Hang with us, grab some hugs, heck ASK for hugs if you need them and there don't seem to be any lying around.
The only way we'll make it through this is together. Don't leave anyone behind, check in with people who seem to go missing, and know that you're not the only one who feels like it's just too much.
It is.
But the only way forward is straight through.
Thanks, CrystalSeas (both for the advice, but also for your work in all that time).
It also gives me some perspective: I’m in a position of extreme privilege (I’m certainly no activist). It must be hard to actually be there fighting the fights over and over and over...
Sometimes the world just seems full of ugliness. When it gets right down to it though, the people I actually know well (in life or the Paizo forums) are usually quite lovely. I probably need to just focus more locally when things seem grim. I was just in a bleak mood.
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First turn of presidential elections is over. Following numbers are not final yet, and will take a day or two to fully confirm.
The frequency was an astonishing 60%, compared to 49% of the last presidential election.
There were no big surprises - the incumbent president got 41.8%, meaning he will take part in the second turn (he would win immediately if he had more than 50%). The second candidate got more votes than the previous polls suggested, getting approximately 30%. He was known for signing a statement of support for LGBT community when he was the mayor of the Polish capital, though he sadly was rather reserved in condemning recent political assaults on gays. Hopefully he will be more active in that field if he wins the second turn.
Robert Biedroń, the first openly gay presidential candidate got 2.9% of all votes (if I calculated correctly that would be a bit over half a million people). He had much better results in polls earlier this year, but he lost to other candidates with better conveyed programs or better political support bases (mostly the latter, as having a decent political program or even presenting any program in convincing way is rare these days).
A small update. A final count left Robert Biedroń with 2.22% of votes (432 129) - I suspect that early estimates were based on bigger cities, votes from smaller towns and villages were less favorable toward him.
The frequency was 64.51%, the largest since 1995.
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Oh yeah I'm trans
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WOOPWOOP TRANSBOLD!!!!
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Welcome kobold.
Just picked up the Green Lantern 80th Anniversary book.
I'm still a little confused by the changes in Alan's backstory, especially as I am a huge Obsidian supporter and an obvious Jade fan and I was all for Alan getting together with Thorn. But he is the first Green Lantern, and I am not hurt at all to see his sexuality made canon, especially in a story as beautifully told as this one, although I want to see how this affects Obsidian, Jade and Thorn.
Oh yeah I'm trans
Finally!
We've got mail to deliver!
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So something really amazing is happening on Monday. As long as my migraines are under control, I have a date! He already knows all about me. He's also trans so we have that in common except he went the other way. It will be my very first date as myself. He wants us to get dresses up a bit. He's going to pick me up and take me out to a nice dinner. Then we are going for a walk. I'm very excited and very nervous. I told him that one of my wishes was to one day have someone treat me like a lady on a date from beginning to end. I think I'm going to really enjoy myself.
So something really amazing is happening on Monday. As long as my migraines are under control, I have a date! He already knows all about me. He's also trans so we have that in common except he went the other way. It will be my very first date as myself. He wants us to get dresses up a bit. He's going to pick me up and take me out to a nice dinner. Then we are going for a walk. I'm very excited and very nervous. I told him that one of my wishes was to one day have someone treat me like a lady on a date from beginning to end. I think I'm going to really enjoy myself.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
So something really amazing is happening on Monday. As long as my migraines are under control, I have a date! He already knows all about me. He's also trans so we have that in common except he went the other way. It will be my very first date as myself. He wants us to get dresses up a bit. He's going to pick me up and take me out to a nice dinner. Then we are going for a walk. I'm very excited and very nervous. I told him that one of my wishes was to one day have someone treat me like a lady on a date from beginning to end. I think I'm going to really enjoy myself.WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
WOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooOoo!!!
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I think I'm going to really enjoy myself.
We're all here cheering!
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Since Facebook just reminded me of the third anniversary of the legalization of same-sex marriage here in Germany I wanted to share this piece of LGBTQ+ history with all of you! <3
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The date is over. We went to a nice place in Edmond, Washington. It's right on the water by the ferry. They sat us near the fireplace and we could look at Puget Sound from where we sat. He was a perfect gentleman the whole time. He opened doors. He walked between me and the street. He walked behind me when we had to walk single file. Afterwards, we walked along the beach then along a pier for a bit then walked back to his car.
To be safe, since I'm still very scared in public, a friend and he husband were also in the restaurant. They then walked behind us. I made sure that he would be ok with them being there and he said that he thought it was a fantastic idea.
I rate it 5 stars. I will do it again.!
Marvelous, Cindy!!
Congrats.
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Monday is my court date for my legal name change! In 72 hours I will officially have a dead name!
Terrific!
Bleh.
Second turn of presidential election ended with results of 51-something to 48-something. There will be contesting of some results and a lot of complaints, but I don't think that much will change.
The incumbent president won, the one who early in his presidency refused to sign a law (presidential prerogative that allows vetoing legislation and forcing parliament to have a 3/5 majority to override) that smoothed the process of updating gender recorded in the official documents, instituting administrative procedure.
Big Congrats Cindy!
Sorry if a bit late.
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Congratulations, Cindy.