LGBT issues thread (was Supreme Court to hear same-sex marriage cases)

[GreenGoo]

I think Fireball hit the nail on the head. The question of fairness due to physiology is a logical one, but it gets buried by those who want to view it through the lens of prejudice and downplay it as ridiculous, instead of trying to address it as a serious question.

In fairness to the original question Moliere posted and ignoring the emotional examples and the questionable appeals to authority, simply agreeing that when someone claims they are a certain gender they have the right to compete as that gender can result in complications that are potentially (or increasingly) dangerous up to and including life threatening. These questions need to be addressed.

Outside of competition, it is my opinion that it costs society nothing to simply accept and support assertions of gender identity, and provides many benefits in lots of different ways to both the person in question and society in general. That doesn't hold true for competition, particularly highly physical competition.

While I don't agree that there is a clearly defined hard line separating genders in gender based competition, neither do I think it should be whichever gender a person identifies as is the gender they are allowed to compete as. Just because we want equality and want societal justice for all doesn't mean we ignore realities and pretend what we want to be true is true and condemn others who won't join the group delusion.

Max posted the IOC rules which I think are a good starting place, because presumably they are giving this reasoned and thorough thought backed by science. This is their bread and butter after all, and they've been at this a long time with much international scrutiny and pressure. I don't actually know that's true (reasoned opinion backed by science) nor do I want to put myself in a position to second guess the IOC. I withhold judgement on whether they are the final arbiter on what *should* be the guidelines, as any single organization can be monolithic and potentially narrative or politically driven. They certainly have every right to make their own rules, I'm just not willing to evaluate them based on my limited understanding of the entirety of complications that surround transgender/gender competition.

Like I said, the IOC is probably a good place to start. Whether it ends there or not, I'll take a wait and see attitude.

[GreenGoo]

That's a little different than a free for all of women and men doing their business at the same time.

Agreed. Plenty of places for decades have had a single washroom that is only accessible by one person, whichever gender they happen to be. That's hardly the same thing as multi-person genderless bathrooms.

[GungHo]

That's a little different than a free for all of women and men doing their business at the same time.

Agreed. Plenty of places for decades have had a single washroom that is only accessible by one person, whichever gender they happen to be. That's hardly the same thing as multi-person genderless bathrooms.

Yall need to stop being reasonable and think about the children.

[Daehawk]

Single person bathrooms were my lifeline in the 90s with all the shopping we did then. One year I got sick on the way to the mall and the store we entered the mall through had a single use restroom for both anyone and handicapped. Between one end and the other Im glad I was alone for it all. Then I left and headed to where my wife was only to make it half way and have to run back to the bathroom. I did that 3 times. I had to go back a couple more times after meeting her.

For some reason after that trip I had what we called panic attacks. Not full blown like you see acted out on tv. I just got sick at my stomach for the next 4 or 5 mall trips. That bathroom was very helpful to me. I still haven't forgotten that to this day. It finally stopped happening I guess because it saw I was not giving up the mall That was late 1994 or early 1995.

The last few years going to the movies I dreaded it because I always had to go once or twice during movies and they only have the 4 stall and some trough type restroom. Hated it. But in 2016 and 2017 somehow I could wait out the entire movie and either go before we left ...if I could....or hold it home. One trip I couldn't go with it so crowded so had to wait until home . Luckily home is just up the road.

Man I miss my wife so much thinking of these memories.

[Isgrimnur]

WaPo

In a contentious meeting years in the making, the United States’s third-largest faith community voted to emphasize its opposition to same-sex marriage and gay clergy — a decision which was cheered by conservatives in the global church, especially in Africa, but was deeply disappointing to many Americans who were eager for change.

Many American ministers in the United Methodist Church already perform same-sex marriages and approve of the ordination of LGBT people as clergy, although the Protestant church’s rules officially forbid these marriages and ordinations. Many Methodists hoped that the church would amend those rules this week. Instead, a group of more than 800 clergy and lay leaders from around the world voted to affirm the church’s traditional view of sexuality — and to punish disobedient clergy more harshly than before.
...
But presented with several options during a four-day special session on the future of the church in St. Louis, the delegates picked the “traditional plan,” with 53 percent voting in favor. Other options would have allowed local churches to choose their stance on sexuality for themselves, or would have split the church into separate denominations.

The choice raises the question of whether churches that hoped for a different outcome will leave the denomination. The United Methodist Church is the largest mainline — meaning nonevangelical — Protestant church in the United States. Most other mainline Protestant churches do perform LGBT marriages, including the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Episcopal Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Each of those denominations lost some churches to more conservative faith groups when they decided to affirm same-sex marriage.
...
The end of the meeting was rushed: The Methodists needed to leave, because a monster truck rally was scheduled next in the stadium.

[hepcat]

I was raised Methodist. It always struck me as odd that they never could figure out why they had a small African American congregation. I would think the giant burning cross they use for a symbol might be a clue...

[Fireball]

The UMC symbol is not a "burning" cross, it's a combination of the symbols for the Holy Spirit and for Jesus. The UMC was formed 51 years ago from three Methodist churches. In the United States, its membership is overwhelmingly progressive. Unfortunately, about a third of the church is located in Africa and other parts of the world where LGBT people are oppressed. Two thirds of the American UMC delegates at the convention this week supported LGBT inclusion, but they were outvoted by the far-right overseas congregations working in concert with the shrinking minority of anti-LGBT American members.

It's time for the progressive UMC congregations to break away from the denomination and form a proper, progressive church.

[Isgrimnur]

Cross and Flame

Adopted shortly after the merger of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, it relates The United Methodist church to God through Christ (cross) and the Holy Spirit (flame). The flame is a reminder of Pentecost when witnesses were unified by the power of the Holy Spirit and saw "tongues, as of fire" (Acts 2:3).The two tongues of a single flame may also be understood to represent the union of two denominations. The two separate flames represent the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church coming together to form the United Methodist Church.

[LawBeefaroni]

The UMC symbol is not a "burning" cross, it's a combination of the symbols for the Holy Spirit and for Jesus.

I took it as a joke. I chuckled. I don't think anyone thinks it's actually a burning cross but it is a quirky symbol.

It's time for the progressive UMC congregations to break away from the denomination and form a proper, progressive church.

Oh goodie, I love schisms!

[Enough]

I think Fireball hit the nail on the head. The question of fairness due to physiology is a logical one, but it gets buried by those who want to view it through the lens of prejudice and downplay it as ridiculous, instead of trying to address it as a serious question.

<hopefully I'm paraphrasing Fireball correctly. If not, please let me know>

As for the restroom subject, personally, I'm not a fan of same sex bathrooms. I'm too old and too indoctrinated by my generation's view on modesty to feel comfortable with it. As long as they maintain a men's room though, I'm perfectly fine with the existence of any other types.

Deadspin has a good article on transgender athletes up today,

For an athlete, who depends on and knows their body in a unique way, transitioning can be pretty fraught. The hormone therapies involved for transgender women slow them down, reduce their muscle mass, and make it more difficult to recover from workouts. Training, coaching, and nutrition can counteract some of these effects to a point, but transgender athletes are suddenly working with entirely new equipment. “It’s a massive change that happens really quickly,” McKinnon said. “It’s definitely a disadvantage.”

The very fact that transgender women have not somehow dominated all of women’s sport already throws water all over the USAPL’s claim that women powerlifters must be “protected” from them. “The line that we must protect sport for women from other women is inherently discriminatory,” McKinnon said.

USA Powerlifting’s response to transgender athletes is head-spinning. The thing about all this talk equating hormone replacement therapy to doping, and the threat to “biological females,” and the “unfair advantages” of “male puberty”, is that it’s based entirely on social perceptions of gender.

“There’s absolutely no scientific evidence at all that supports their position,” said Rachel McKinnon, an an expert on athletes’ rights and a professor of philosophy at the College of Charleston, and a world champion track cyclist to boot.

When we shove the concept of athletic ability—strength, for instance—into the same black-and-white binary that we try to put gender into, we’re wrong. There is no stark line separating what men can do athletically and what women can. Some women, in fact, are bigger, faster, and stronger than some men. A large data set analyzed for a 2018 study looked at the body composition and endocrine profiles of 689 elite cisgender athletes in various sports. When it came to physical attributes there was complete overlap between the men and women analyzed, McKinnon pointed out. For instance, the shortest person in the data set was male, not female. The lightest male weighed the same as the lightest female. There were men athletes and women athletes who had testosterone levels that hit the top of the chart and the bottom. Simply put, the range of any physical characteristic within a sex, (like, for instance, the six feet of difference between the shortest man in the world and the tallest man) is far greater than the average difference in height between the average man and the average woman (five inches). And elite athletes tend to live at the far ends of these spectra anyway.

When USA Powerlifting claims that transgender women are going to have an unfair advantage over “biological females,” they are making two very inaccurate assumptions, said McKinnon. “They are saying trans women are the same physiologically as cisgender men, which is not missing a few steps, that’s missing a whole staircase,” she said. Furthermore, “society assumes that all men are stronger than all women, which is absolutely false.”

What actually makes a man or a woman achieve what they can achieve athletically is still pretty much scientifically unquantifiable. The Caster Semenya case and even the IOC’s recommendations lean heavily on testosterone levels, but this is flawed. All the current research on testosterone shows that unlike what you have probably been told your whole life, it’s not just a “male” hormone—everyone has some naturally-occurring testosterone—and levels of naturally occurring testosterone have no correlation with athletic ability. Even the data the IAAF is leaning on to require Semenya alter her hormonal makeup is being vigorously contested in the scientific community as inconclusive at best and faulty at worst.

While more studies are expected on transgender athletes in the near future, at least one small study has shown that transgender women long-distance runners, after going through hormone replacement therapy end up running at about the same level for their gender —that is, they finish about the same spot in the field—after transition as they had before.

Considering trans women athletes as women only if they are weak and small and not competitive just furthers the societal narrative that women are only weak and small and not competitive. It is unclear at this point how USA Powerlifting’s board meeting will play out on Thursday and whether they will continue to try to implement a clearly discriminatory practice in the name of “protecting” women’s sport. But if some women are instead being “protected” against, then what is the point of competition at all?

[Isgrimnur]

NBC News

Alabama Public Television chose not to air PBS' recent "Arthur" episode that featured a same-sex marriage.

During the animated series' 22nd season premiere, titled “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone," Arthur's third-grade teacher, Mr. Ratburn, marries Patrick, a chocolatier, at a wedding attended by his students Arthur, Francine, Buster and Muffy. It aired May 13.

Mike McKenzie, director of programming at APT, told NBC News on Monday that PBS sent a message to stations in mid-April alerting them "to possible viewer concerns about the content of the program." After he and others at APT viewed the episode, they decided not to broadcast it and showed a rerun instead.
...
"The vast majority of parents will not have heard about the content, whether they agree with it or not," he said. "Because of this, we felt it would be a violation of trust to broadcast the episode."
...
In 2005, APT pulled an episode of "Postcards From Buster," a spinoff of "Arthur," in which the character Buster met a girl who had two mothers.

[coopasonic]

Alabama really misses the 19th century.

[Enough]

Ugh, anyone who argued that Trump would end up being more supportive of LGBTQ rights than expected should go suck a rock.



https://twitter.com/cmclymer/status/1131997664596439041

[hepcat]

Thanks, Caitlyn Jenner.

[Defiant]

Police officers' actions were 'wrong': NYPD apologizes for Stonewall riots, 50 years later

[Isgrimnur]

WaPo

A high court in Botswana struck down two colonial-era laws Tuesday morning, effectively legalizing gay sex and making this southern African country the first on the continent to erase that colonial legacy through its courts.

Reading the unanimous ruling of a panel of judges in front of a packed courtroom, Justice Michael Leburu said that sexual orientation “is not a fashion statement” and that the laws as they stood violated citizens’ rights to privacy and freedom from discrimination. While seldom enforced in Botswana, the laws carried the possibility of up to a seven-year jail sentence.

“It is not the business of the law to regulate the private behavior of two consenting adults,” Leburu said.
...
Gay sex is criminalized in more than half of African countries, many of which inherited penal codes from colonial powers such as Britain. The subject is widely seen as taboo, and discrimination and harassment are rife.

Last month, a Kenyan high court heard a similar case but dismissed it. Other countries such as Mozambique and Seychelles have simply erased mention of gay sex from their penal codes during the rewriting process that has accompanied constitutional reform. Botswana’s powerful neighbor, South Africa, is the only African country to have rights based on sexual orientation explicitly written into its constitution.

Courts in other former British colonies outside Africa have made decisions similar to that of Botswana. Leburu cited India’s ruling in 2018 as one precedent on which his own decision was built.

[Isgrimnur]

Remember that Oregon bakery that recently got fined $135,000 by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries because they refused to bake a cake for a SSM?

CNN

The Supreme Court on Monday wiped away a ruling that went against a bakery in Oregon that refused to make a cake to celebrate the wedding for a same-sex couple.

The justices sent back the case pitting religious liberty concerns against LGBTQ rights to the lower courts for further consideration in light of last term's ruling in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex couple.

[hepcat]

Idiotic. They just opened up America to everyone refusing service to anyone they don't like as long as they say it's against their religion. Since the bible is a veritable hotbed of subjective tidbits, it won't be hard to find any group in the thing if you're creative enough.

[Pyperkub]

Idiotic. They just opened up America to everyone refusing service to anyone they don't like as long as they say it's against their religion. Since the bible is a veritable hotbed of subjective tidbits, it won't be hard to find any group in the thing if you're creative enough.

Well, not just, they did it months ago for the Colorado case - this is at least consistent with that ruling.

[Holman]

So long as the Republican Party is rife with Evangelical Christians in the South and Mormon church members in the West, its base will be solidly anti-gay.

Don't ignore Catholics in this equation. Catholics aren't as vocal as the other two, but many will vote in line with the church once they are behind the curtain.

I'm not sure that is true. I thought i saw a poll were 60% of American Catholics were for it.

American Catholics are divided by party on major issues. This only seems weird in comparison to American Evangelicals, who are mostly all one party.

Of course Catholic institutions are divided as well. It's not hard to find major Catholic bishops espousing a very conservative line even as priests and nuns (or even whole religious orders) work actively for progressive causes.

I teach at a Jesuit university, and it's the most queer-friendly employer I've ever had.

[LawBeefaroni]

Idiotic. They just opened up America to everyone refusing service to anyone they don't like as long as they say it's against their religion. Since the bible is a veritable hotbed of subjective tidbits, it won't be hard to find any group in the thing if you're creative enough.

Most businesses won't use spurious religious grounds to refuse business. It's bad for...business.


I'm not saying this decision isn't bad. It matters when there is one source (like say only one bakery for a hundred miles) or a unique service. It also matters when an issue is so divisive that it overcomes the the business case to justify prejudicial treatment (in the mind of the business owner). Like in these cases where gay is so scary to some people that they turn into assholes.

But what I don't see is avalanche of discrimination on new, trivial religious grounds. With social media it would mostly be a terrible business decision. I do see some emboldened activists doing legally suicidal things like refusing service to Latinos on some asinine religious claim about borders or something. But that won't end well for them.

Would be interesting to see bank refuse to serve an anti-gay bakery because the owner the bank interprets the Bible differently.

[hepcat]

I try to never underestimate how truly awful modern day Christian extremists can be. I used to want to believe that they had some level of human decency in them, but I've heard of too many incidents of these sub human animals abandoning their own children for coming out, or even demanding they just be outright killed. Giving them even one iota of justification through things like this is wrong. Real Christians should come out in greater numbers to rail against it.

[LawBeefaroni]

Oh, absolutely. I just don't think they'll be denying service to money lenders or strippers or adulterers or whatever.

[hepcat]

You may be right, you may be wrong. The point is that they now think they could if they wanted to, and that the government supports their right to do so.

[Defiant]

The U.S. Supreme Court has designed Oct. 8 as the date when it will hear arguments on whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to cases of anti-LGBT discrimination, setting up a showdown for when LGBT rights in all areas of life will hang in the balance.

link

[Isgrimnur]

The Kim Davis saga continues:

Louisville Courier Journal

Kentucky must pay $224,000 in legal fees related to former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis' refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
...
While Gov. Matt Bevin has personally supported Davis, once calling her "an inspiration ... to the children of America," his lawyers argued in January that Davis should foot the legal bill, not the state.

On Friday, a three-judge panel for the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld the district judge's ruling that the state of Kentucky must pay the $224,000 in attorney fees and costs incurred by the same-sex couples.
...
In a separate opinion that involves the case of two other couples, the judges agreed Friday that Davis has sovereign immunity as a public official but not qualified immunity as an individual.

The Hill

A federal appeals court has ruled that Kim Davis, the former county clerk who rose to prominence after she refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses in 2015, can be sued for damages by two of the couples who were denied licenses.
...
Circuit Judge Richard Griffin wrote in his opinion Friday that “in short, plaintiffs pleaded a violation of their right to marry: a right the Supreme Court clearly established in Obergefell.”

“The district court therefore correctly denied qualified immunity to Davis,” he added.

[gameoverman]

That's an elected position, she lost reelection. So then my logic is that she worked for the people, they are the ones who 'hired' her via voting. The state is the people, so the state should pay. If your employee does something while on the clock for you, and that something brings legal costs, those should be your legal costs. This is an incentive to not hire stupid people.

The governor's position seems to be that yes she worked for us, and yes she was on the clock, but she did her own thing for her own reasons so leave us out of this. Haha, nice try.

[Isgrimnur]

NBC News

A South Carolina man who founded one of the nation's biggest conversion therapy ministries has something to say: he's gay.

The Post and Courier reports Hope for Wholeness founder McKrae Game came out of the closet this summer, nearly two years after he was fired from the faith-based conversion therapy program. He's now trying to come to terms with the harm he inflicted when he was advocating for religious efforts to change a person's sexuality.

“Conversion therapy is not just a lie, but it’s very harmful,” Game told The Post and Courier. “Because it’s false advertising.”

[Paingod]

NBC News

“Conversion therapy is not just a lie, but it’s very harmful,” Game told The Post and Courier. “Because it’s false advertising.”

Naw, man. He got the therapy right - he just stole the gay from someone else and gave it to himself.

Conversion therapy has always been gross nonsense, and it's good to see at least one person stepping away from it.

[Daehawk]

This article makes me feel sad. Just what will a church not do these days to its fellow human beings? This gives religion a bad name to me. This is not what I was raised on. God is a loving God and a understanding one. But people twist it to their own agenda.

https://www.wrcbtv.com/story/41263287/e ... btq-rights

Ex-gays come to D.C. to lobby against LGBTQ rights

Despite federal hate crimes data and academic research to the contrary, the 'formers' question the existence of anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

A group of people from across the country who formerly identified as gay and transgender have descended upon Washington this week to share their stories and lobby against two proposed LGBTQ-rights bills.

The group is made up of 15 members of Church United and Changed, two California-based organizations that seek to provide community for, and protect the rights of, “formers” — individuals who formerly identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

[Skinypupy]

Chick-fil-A no longer donating to anti-LGBT organizations.

Huckabee tears are delicious.

In Aug 2012, I coordinated a national @ChickfilA Appreciation Day after they were being bullied by militant hate groups. Millions showed up.
Today, @ChickfilA betrayed loyal customers for $$. I regret believing they would stay true to convictions of founder Truett Cathey. Sad.

Cry moar, you vaguely human-shaped hate sack.

[hepcat]

And to top it all off, they’re planning on letting African Americans sit at the counter too! That’s really gonna piss him off!

[Defiant]

I remain skeptical, as I seem to remember them saying something similar before, but sometime later they were still donating for it and still proud of it.


Edit: Here we go, from several years ago:

It has been nearly five years since Chick-fil-A chairman and CEO Dan Cathy’s comment that the company was “guilty as charged” of opposing same-sex marriage brought the company’s long history of anti-LGBTQ activism to the nation’s attention.

It has been nearly five years since Cathy, facing national backlash, vowed to stay out of the debate and focus on chicken. At that time, the company launched a very small charm offensive, issuing a statement that the company will “treat every person with honor, dignity and respect-regardless of their beliefs, race, creed, sexual orientation and gender.” (Chick-fil-A did not back this up with any LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination policy. )

But has anything changed? It sure doesn’t look that way.

https://thinkprogress.org/chick-fil-a-s ... 0f079bf85/

[LawBeefaroni]

"formers"

Yeah, no.






In other news, I had to go to a staff farewell lunch last week. They catered Chick-fil-A. There was some grumbling. One black co-worker said, "I've never eaten there before. They don't like black folks." A few gay staff members picked at it like it was a meal served by Typhoid Gary, the Mad Poisoner and Cannibal Chef.

[em2nought]

Chick-fil-A no longer donating to religious organizations.

The question on inquiring minds: I wonder if this means we get chicken on Sunday now?

[YellowKing]

I eat there occasionally but mainly because i have kids who live off chicken nuggets and I don't have the time or the energy to boycott every company that I don't agree with politically.

[hepcat]

I've never actually eaten at one. There weren't any where I grew up/went to school. And there weren't many in the Chicago area (at least the places I lived in at the time) for a long while. That's changing though, and there's a couple near me. I just haven't felt any burning desire to eat at one. That's changing though as they're opening one a few blocks from the office building I work in. It's connected to a Northshore Healthcare center by a driveway, oddly enough. You literally have to drive by the windows of a health clinic to get to the drive thru.

[Remus West]

I love their nuggets and waffle fries. I can not stand their politics but then there are so few companies that I can not say that about I just don't even sweat it any longer.

[Unagi]

Or even one ?

[Exodor]

They just built two near me. There are so many food options here why would I spend my money on a franchise that has made it clear they don't value my business or values?

I wonder if they're pushing into other more liberal markets and want to put this behind them.