With the nation poised to give Donald Trump the old heave-ho from the White House–one way or another–the Trump administration has issued a new, 11th-hour declaration stripping LGBTQ people of non-discrimination protections.
Reporter Dan Avery (formerly of Queerty) writes for NBC News that the Department of Health and Human Services issued a new rule on Tuesday that will allow for social service providers to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The rule will have far-reaching consequences, affecting anything from adoption services to housing services to elder care.
Related: Trump’s new lifetime judicial nominee reeeeally hates queers
“Even as Trump administration officials abandon ship, HHS has announced yet another dangerous rule that invites discrimination against the very people federal grant programs are meant to help,” said Sasha Buchert, senior attorney for the LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The 77-page release issued by HHS does away with Obama-instituted rules, claiming that prohibiting discrimination based on sex, gender identity or sexual orientation violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The new rules go into effect on February 11, and will likely first disrupt child welfare organizations. The issue is significant, as the case of Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, now before the Supreme Court, deals with the issue of whether private institutions can discriminate against LGBTQ people and still receive public funds.
With Joe Biden ready to step into the Oval Office later this month, the likelihood of a stay or reversal of the rule is high; Biden has made support of queer rights a cornerstone of his platform. Nevertheless, the move further cements Donald Trump’s place as the most anti-LGBTQ president in United States history. Trump campaigned on a platform to reinstate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and ban marriage equality in 2020. While in office, he attempted to strip transgender people of the right to healthcare and ban them from serving in the military. He also took steps to hurt LGBTQ rights on an international scale, banned the Pride flag from flying at US Embassies, and appointed a number of ardent anti-gay judges to the bench, including to the Supreme Court.
Discover more
Mister P
Once again he is appealing only to the base. He doesn’t care about anyone other than himself and the base is all he has left.
WSnyder
Waiting for the Trolls to arrive and lie to us about how Trump has been ‘the Best President’ for the LGBTQ Community…Ever.
NOT.
Watching as the House is about 2 hours away from voting for Trump’s Second Impeachment. Enjoying that my belief of the past 4 years that he will be called ‘The Worst President in the History of the United States’ becomes not just a self-belief but a Historical FACT.
As his Presidency implodes, now I’m watching as his Empire does too, going down like the Titanic. The GOP is all but done with him, they recognize he’s now a major liability. He’s losing business as Banks and entities his business has contracts with are fleeing…in droves. Very shortly no one will want his name on a building they’re in or considering to be in. His Golf clubs will lose memberships as he becomes persona no gratia. And the ONLY people who will still love him can’t afford his sh*t anyway, so he’s gonna learn that ‘Core’ group of people he’s been baiting for years are too poor to make-up for his business losses.
Gonna be eating a lot of Popcorn watching the Trumptanic go down.
Cam
It won’t matter, Trump has been attacking LGBTQs his entire time in office and we STILL get that same troll with the multiple screenames coming in here going “Tell me one thing Trump has done that’s an attack on the community.”
Roy Ajax
I only have one screenname Cam.
And I could run down what’s incorrect with many of those statements about Trump being anti-gay but it’s easy enough to google. As far as gay issues being a “cornerstone” of Biden’s campaign… that is laughable. That man was against marriage equality, and for don’t ask/don’t tell, but then he flip-flops in 2012… Dick Cheney spoke out in favor of gay marriage as far back as 2000.
Den
I know better than to expect much in the way of critical intellectual skills from a regressive, but it bears saying that there is a huge difference between coming to a new understanding about things and “flip-flopping” (a term indicative of nothing more than the right’s need to reduce everything to the most childish of terms).
Yes, your would be dictator HAS made a few symbolic gestures, including appointing a woefully unqualified man as an ambassador to Germany where he proved unable to do the job; then appointing him as acting director of national intelligence, for which he also had no qualifications. But at the same time he has been throwing meat to his evangelical base by eroding civil rights protections for lgbt people as quickly as he can. This is one more step in that direction, and in keeping with promises he made to the religious far right.
Based on court appointments he made to aid them in the struggle, “Christian” activists already have a well constructed agenda of court cases to both overturn the legality of same sex marriage and (their greatest desire, but one thankfully not likely) recriminalize homosexuality.
It is bizarre how you support a man who wanted to do this, and yet excoriate a more ethical and religious man who simply came to an understanding about the importance of lgbt rights with the stupid (and stupid is as stupid does) label “flip-flopper”.
I simply cannot understand the self-hatred of the right wing gay person as anything but a serious separation from reality.
Roy Ajax
Den
Do you remember high school history, because we’re not really a “true” democracy. Our system of federalism came about because the separate colonies had different needs and populations. The federal government would control things like minting money, foreign affairs, declaring war, etc, but the framers of the constitution believed that state governments would be the main government for citizens on a daily basis, and this included things like providing public safety, health, welfare, and the distribution of marriage licenses.
Let’s take the gay marriage issue: Since it is traditionally the state’s responsibility to issue marriage licenses, and the federal government has no authority to do so, when states were forced to implement a law because of a SCOTUS decision, they felt their right to autonomy was violated.
So a state might not even be against gay marriage, but still want the SCOTUS ruling overturned just to return the accountability to implement that law back to the state. If the state government doesn’t allow gay marriage, and the people want it, they take that government to court and petition for it.
What democrats want to do is give the federal government MORE power, which is the opposite of how this country was designed… so really it’s you people who are revolutionizing and wanting to change how the country has been running since it’s inception, where someone more conservative wants to state to retain more power over itself.
Openminded
I hate the term “flip-flop”. IMO, that term translates into no matter what you do, I’m going to condemn you. I’d rather look at what you call Cheney’s “flip-flop” as a situation where the man listened to reasonable arguments and realized he was on the wrong side of the issue. If we aren’t going to allow for “flip-flops”, why do we even pay to have politicians debate issues in our legislative chambers. If we aren’t going to allow them to change their thinking, then we just need them to phone their votes in with no debate.
Cam
@Roy Ajax
Oh, and one more thing Roy…….Care to comment on this specific article? Funny how you keep trying to pretend that Trump’s latest action doesn’t exist.
Josh447
There are two words that can easily sum up Trump’s selected stance on lgbt rights: Mike Pence.
As far as Republicans go in general, they are subject to delusion on certain topics so talking to one is like talking to an over programed zombie. A good example is how they are undermining the severity of the Capitol attack, in wanting to brush it under the carpet, join hands, let the instigator off the hook, and sing kumbaya.
Then there’s the Trump sociopathic hypnosis spell they bought hook line and sinker, that the election was rigged. This is coming from a man who lies as an organic form of food sustenance to get what he wants when he wants it, at virtually any cost.
The list goes on.
Zombies can snap out of it over time but trying to pop them out of their psychosis through rational dialog rarely happens. They drank the Kool-Aid and we have to put up with their dilerium until it has lost its effect, if ever.
After running into that brick wall time and again, I’ve learned a great lesson. Save your breath.
Den
“Do you remember high school history, because we’re not really a “true” democracy. ”
I remember history well. and unlike you understand that we are no longer living in the 18th century (funny, that). Given your argument I suppose you would support those states who fel the federal government was stepping on their toes when it recognized Black people as fully human and worthy of full enfranchisement.
The rights enumerated in the Constitution (which exists outside of your imagination) outweigh the desires of the states where the stated access to equal protection, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are concerned.
As said before, your intellectual capacity leaves a lot to be desired, and likely do your ethics and empathy.
You are welcome to stand idly by as the right erodes civil rights, since that is what you people do so well. But as gay people we will never let those who find us to be “less than” stand in our way. Even when those obstacles are gay people themselves filled as you are with seething self hatred and guilt [you will say I don’t know you, but your posts speak very loudly. you defend anybody who wants to see us back in the closet or dead, and excoriate anyone who argues for the reality of our enfranchisement…quite honestly, it is hateful].
LumpyPillows
Doing this at all is terrible. Doing this now is just vindictive.
Openminded
Yeah it is and I’m afraid we ain’t seen nothing yet.
tjack47
He is a psychopath. That’s all.
G-Man
Can someone please explain this to those idiots called the Log Cabin Republicans that think he is the toast of the town.
Den
Those are people who are refused official recognition at every single Republican event. They are, as a class, repudiated in the national (and many of the state) platforms. They are people whose recognition as fully human and worthy of full enfranchisement is denied by a significant percentage of the registered members of the party they idolize.
Seems pretty obvious that they will never learn.
Some Republicans have come around to a grudging acceptance of homosexuality and are moderately comfortable knowing lgbt people exist. But if the Supreme Court ruled tomorrow that marriage equality had been a mistake and people, governments and corporations were free to once again discriminate based on sexual orientation those same people would accept that easily.
And yet that is the party the Log Cabin members look at and drool with desire to be part of. Sadly, that “big tent” will never be big enough for them.
Cam
Log Cabin stopped existing years ago. Back when Bush was running Log Cabin refused to endorse him because of his anti-LGBTQ campaign themes.
The head of the group and many members left and soon after they elected a new guy who was a Bush staffer.
Since then the group has not just endorsed bigoted Republicans, but has actually attacked pro-LGBTQ Democrats.
I believe all of it’s state offices have closed. All it is now, is a few salaried names, funded by Republicans, who go on TV once in a while to defend Republican bigotry.
Creamsicle
He’s trying to encourage his base to conduct more violence on his behalf. That’s why it’s CRITICAL that the FBI continues to arrest and charge the terrorists who attacked the Capitol building. If they’re allowed to get off scot-free then it will happen again, but this time it will be all over the country at State Houses and City Halls.
We have one more week and the President is out of legal options. He’s already proven that he is not above resorting to partisan violence. Trump is the most dangerous person in American history. More than 100 times as many Americans died in 2020 than died on 9/11. And he’s convinced a significant portion of the Republican base to rebel against representative democracy and the United States government.
Openminded
I’m not at all standing up for Trump here but If he is solely responsible for the death numbers then it is fair to say that virtually every world leader is as sorry as Trump as the death numbers are pretty much even across the world percentage wise. One could argue that Covid is the best thing that happened to the liberals. Indications were pretty good that Trump would be reelected until Covid hit and we all know the rest of that story. No matter how good of a job Biden does, let something like Covid hit again in his 4th year and you will see him be blamed for everything too. Again, I’m not saying Trump deserved to be reelected, I’m just pointing out an honest fact.
Mack
The “rule” is only for a week and President Biden can void it. It was done by Proclamation which is basically good until that President leaves office. President Biden will probably void EVERY PROCLAMATION the dipshit made. But Trump is doing nothing more than showing his true colors and pacifying the right wing religious zealots.
GayVeteranOfcr
Justice Kennedy’s decision in the Obergefell v. Hodges case before the Supreme Court stated that any law that defines a group of persons and then treats that group unequally under the law is unconstitutional.
Trump’s order is unconstitutional by that precedent, as are many laws that treat LBGTQ persons unequally, in both state and federal governments.
It will take an argument in any court case that this precedent, and the 14th Amendment make such laws moot, all of them.
No one made any big thing about this decision and how it affected all discrimination laws.
But it does, and it will become very important.
Kangol2
Interesting that you note this because I believe Scalia claimed that Kennedy’s ruling in Lawrence v. Texas would open the door to an expansion of gay rights and equality. So the same is true of Obergefell and of the Gorsuch ruling last summer. These are good things, not bad ones, but then there are still quite a few people who do not want LGBTQ people to have any rights, or only minimal ones, let alone equal ones. Clearly Don the Con and so many of the far-right judges he’s appointed to the federal judiciary are in that category.
JromeGervais09
He should have died before he was elected.
Openminded
I predicted after he lost reelection that our Gov’t wouldn’t allow him to live much longer. How can we allow him to walk out with all the classified intelligence he is privy to. Not going to be shocked at all if we see reports that he hanged himself, not unlike one of his buddies in prison did. And you will never make me believe that guy hanged himself.
Cam
@Openminded
So the account that keeps defending Republicans, minimizing the attack on the Capitol and yet CLAIMS it isn’t a troll account is now trying to lay out a conspiracy that the Govt. is going to murder Trump.
Sweetie, no matter what screename you’re under you’re obvious. Don’t think you’re fooling anyone by trying to seem milder under this screename.
Openminded
Cam, do you ever get tired of being so mad? You must be a self hating homophobic gay man to stay this angry at everyone. You need to take the time to read my post and understand them and you will see that I am not RoyAjax or whoever it is you think I am pretending to be. I post under the one and only screenname that I have on this site. If you think you will berate me and make me go away, you just don’t know how contrary I can be. I post my honest opinion on this site in the spirit of good debate. That’s how people learn about each other’s opinions, something you don’t give a rat’s @ss about. Please be like Trump and GO AWAY!
James
BIDEN SHOULD BAN THE LOG CABIN CLUB AS A NEO NAZI ORGANIZATION.
throwaway82
To me, if you are LGBTQ and support the mainstream Republican party, you are nothing more than a delusional self hating traitor, desperate for a pat on the head. Their official position on their site is against gay marriage and thus our rights. Full stop.
Tombear
You guys, the orange turd has been flushed down the toilet for the last time. REJOICE!
CityguyUSA
What did you expect from a petty man? He’s striking out like a child who didn’t get a toy he wanted.
Gridiron57
Hopefully one of the many things Biden is going to reverse in his first days in office