Радугофобия

[tijd]

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) - федеральное агентство, которое борется с трудовой дискриминацией, подавая судебные иски от числа дискриминируемых. После его создания в 1964, первым делом стала практика дискриминации в отношении стюардесс, которых авиакомпании окружали запретами, включая запрет выходить замуж.

“Imagine if you had to worry about being fired from your job as soon as you got married, turned 32, had a child, or gained weight. Imagine being told that if a male was working on your shift, he would always be in charge. This discriminatory treatment was the reality for women flight attendants in the 1960's when Mary Pat Laffey courageously came forward to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to challenge sex discrimination in the seminal case of Laffey v. Northwest Airlines.
Nearly, fifty years ago, when the EEOC opened its doors, the Commission's very first decision held that a policy terminating female flight attendants once they married was sex discrimination.“
https://www.eeoc.gov/message-chair

EEOC сыграла ключевую роль в подготовке ключевого решения Верховного суда Bostock v. Clayton County, которое отнесло дискриминацию на основе сексуальной ориентации или гендерной идентификации к запрещённой законом.



Особая заслуга в этом принадлежит Чай Фелдблюм, юристу высокого класса и открытой лесбиянке, назначенной Обамой в EEOC. Фелдблюм в своё время была главным автором закона ADA о защите прав инвалидов.

Feldblum’s curriculum vitae is impressive, intimidating even. A graduate of Harvard Law, she clerked for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. In 1988, she went to work as legislative counsel for the ACLU’s AIDS project, where she had a key role in drafting the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. In 1991, she became a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where she founded the Federal Legislation and Administrative Clinic (which reps organizational clients focused on social justice) and Workplace Flexibility 2010 (a policy shop working to promote-duh-workplace flexibility).
On a more personal note, Feldblum is the child of a Holocaust survivor. (Her father was one of only two people to escape the massacre of his home village in Lithuania; he survived the war by hiding out in the forests of Poland.) Descended from a long line of Orthodox rabbis, she toyed with the idea of becoming a Talmudic scholar before switching to law. At her 2009 Senate confirmation hearing, Feldblum quipped that it was from her father, Rabbi Meir Simcha Feldblum, that she inherited a love of legal text: “He studied the Talmud; I study the U.S. Code.” She said he also instilled in her “a driving commitment to justice.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/chai-feldblum/558593/

“To me there’s an absolute connection between my Jewish upbringing, my connection to Jewish values, and my commitment to equality for all people.
In terms of Jewish values, you need to care for yourself - because if you’re not for yourself, who will be for you; And if you’re only for yourself, who are you, right?
But it starts with caring for yourself, caring for your family, caring for your immediate community - which is often your Jewish community - and then caring for the world overall.
So once I decided I wasn’t going to have a career that was focused specifically on something Jewish - my first plan had been to get a Ph.D in Talmud, like my father, and be the first female Talmudic scholar - I definitely wanted to do something that would advance social justice.
I moved to Washington, D.C. in 1989. The AIDS epidemic hit in the beginning of the 1980’s and as a lesbian, I was part of that affected community. My work on AIDS led me to a commitment to disability rights at large.
It’s like every time that I personally saw an injustice that needed to be fixed, it mattered to me to fix it. And one of the things about fixing social injustices is that it is never just an individual effort. To make real social change, one must work with broad coalitions. I feel so grateful that I’ve been able to be part of those type of coalitions my whole professional career.”
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/keshet/sitting-down-with-chai-feldblum/



В 2018 переназначение Фелдблюм было заблокировано консервативным сенатором Майком Ли из Юты, и она была вынуждена покинуть комиссию.

The nomination of lesbian attorney Chai Feldblum for a third term on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission died in the Senate last week when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to allow a vote to break a hold placed on the nomination by a single senator.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) in early December invoked a longstanding Senate rule that gives a single senator the ability to hold up and potentially kill a presidential nomination when he filed an official objection to Feldblum’s nomination on grounds that he disagrees with her record of support for LGBT rights.
Among other things, Lee cited what he said were Feldblum’s past statements and actions showing she has a bias against “religious freedom” principles as applied to employment law. Feldblum and her supporters have said Lee misinterpreted Feldblum’s positions on such issues, saying she has a deep respect for faith related matters as the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi.
Lee’s objection came after President Donald Trump earlier in 2018 nominated Feldblum for a third term on the EEOC at the request of Senate Democrats as part of a longstanding bipartisan tradition of appointing EEOC members from both political parties. At the time he nominated Feldblum, a Democrat, Trump also nominated two others for the EEOC that were recommended by Senate Republicans.
https://www.washingtonblade.com/2019/01/04/lesbian-eeoc-appointment-dies-in-senate/

Против ее назначения боролся Family Research Council Тони Перкинса - организация, которую SPLC относит к “hate groups”, но которая играет все более центральную роль в религиозном обеспечении трампизма.

“Feldblum has publically advocated that sex discrimination in current law should be redefined to include sexual orientation and gender identity. She also believes that religious liberty exemptions should be extremely narrow.
Therefore, President Trump should withdraw her nomination; barring that, members of the Senate should not confirm her.”
https://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF17L44.pdf

This. #FoleySquare #NYC #RIPRBG pic.twitter.com/nOnLJ63545
- Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) September 19, 2020

Майк Ли был изначально в списке кандидатов для назначения Трампом в верховные судьи https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumps-supreme-court-list/

Незадолго до смерти RBG (Рут Бейдер Гинзбург) к списку добавились новые кандидатуры, в том числе другие молодые сенаторы - Тед Круз, Том Коттон и Джош Хоули https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/additions-president-donald-j-trumps-supreme-court-list/

Sharon McGowan, Legal Director and Chief Strategy Officer at Lambda Legal released the following statement:
“Today, the Trump Administration released a new list of dangerous, ultra-conservative ideologues as potential nominees for the highest court in the land. This list is teeming with individuals who have alarming anti-LGBTQ and anti-civil rights records, which should be disqualifying for any judicial nominee, let alone a nominee for the Supreme Court. Notably, the President’s “litmus test” for SCOTUS nominees seems to have demanded zealous opposition to abortion and common sense gun control measures, as well as an unrelenting commitment to destroying the Affordable Care Act and a deep hostility to LGBTQ equality. All of these positions are far outside of the mainstream, and threaten not only the legal rights but also the health and safety of LGBTQ people, everyone living with HIV, and other groups who rely on fair and impartial courts to vindicate their rights.
This troubling list includes some of the most anti-LGBTQ activists sitting on the bench today, including Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Kyle Duncan and James Ho, as well as Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Lawrence Van Dyke, who was deemed “not qualified” by the American Bar Association due to specific concerns about his ability to treat LGBTQ litigants fairly. Other nominees include elected officials, judges and attorneys whose careers have been marked by a hostility to civil rights, particularly those of the LGBTQ community. In sum, the number of nominees on this list whose records are replete with anti-LGBTQ bias is both staggering and terrifying.
President Trump’s unveiling of a list of extremists and ideologues as potential Supreme Court nominees should worry all who believe in the importance of a fair-minded judiciary. The impact that another anti-LGBTQ nominee could have on the Supreme Court would be catastrophic..."
https://www.lambdalegal.org/blog/20200909_trump-scotus-shortlist

Для сенаторов-республиканцев поспешное проталкивание нового консервативного судьи в Верховный суд и тем самым изменение ориентации суда на поколение вперёд может служить оправданием для их бесстыдной поддержки Трампа.

You need to read Machiavelli and learn about power. https://t.co/e4ZH9k8nmL
- Barbara Ledeen⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@BarbaraLedeen) September 20, 2020

В октябре 2009 Обама выступал на ужине Human Rights Campaign и обещал поддержку борьбы за равноправие сексуальных меньшинств.

“It is no secret that issues of great concern to gays and lesbians are ones that raise a great deal of emotion in this country. And it's no secret that progress has been incredibly difficult -- we can see that with the time and dedication it took to pass hate crimes legislation. But these issues also go to the heart of who we are as a people. Are we a nation that can transcend old attitudes and worn divides? Can we embrace our differences and look to the hopes and dreams that we share? Will we uphold the ideals on which this nation was founded: that all of us are equal, that all of us deserve the same opportunity to live our lives freely and pursue our chance at happiness? I believe we can; I believe we will.”
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/realitycheck/the-press-office/remarks-president-human-rights-campaign-dinner

Успехи в этой борьбе стали определяющим достижением его администрации и прежнего состава Верховного суда.

The minute it came out of her mouth, I knew in my gut we would win the Windsor case. RBG’s analogy to a “skim milk” marriage was better by a mile than anything we or any of the other lawyers had used to describe Edie’s marriage under DOMA in the dozens of briefs in the case.
- Robbie Kaplan (@kaplanrobbie) September 19, 2020

В 2013 метафорой про обезжиренное молоко RBG сдвинула результат дела United States v. Windsor.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Mr. Clement, the problem is if we are totally for the States' decision that there is a marriage between two people, for the Federal Government then to come in to say no joint return, no marital deduction, no Social Security benefits; your spouse is very sick but you can't get leave; people -if that set of attributes, one might well ask, what kind of marriage is this? <...>
They're not -- they're not a question of additional benefits. I mean, they touch every aspect of life. Your partner is sick. Social Security. I mean, it's pervasive. It's not as though, well, there's this little Federal sphere and it's only a tax question.
It's -- it's -- as Justice Kennedy said, 1100 statutes, and it affects every area of life. And so he was really diminishing what the State has said is marriage. You're saying, no, State said two kinds of marriage; the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage.
(Laughter.)
https://www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2013/03/27/listen-and-read-yourself-audio-and-transcript-windsor-hearing?pg=4

Точным владением словом, включая юридические метафоры, она была обязана своим учителям, в частности профессору Владимиру Набокову.

Scribes: How did you originally cultivate your skills as a writer?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: I attribute my caring about writing to two teachers I had, not in law school but as an undergraduate at Cornell. One was a teacher of European literature. His name was Vladimir Nabokov. He was a man in love with the sound of words. He taught me the importance of choosing the right word and presenting it in the right word order. He changed the way I read, the way I write. He was an enormous influence. And I had a kind and caring professor, Robert E. Cushman, for constitutional law. I worked for him as a research assistant. In his gentle way, he suggested that my writing was a bit elaborate. I learned to cut out unnecessary adjectives and to make my compositions as spare as I could. To this day, I can hear some of the things Nabokov said. Bleak House was one of the books we read in his course. He read aloud the opening pages at our first lecture on the book - describing the location of the chancery court surrounded by persuasive fog. Those pages paint a picture in words.
https://www.mhpbooks.com/nabokov-on-the-bench/



В 2015, не дожидаясь решения в деле Obergefell v. Hodges, Рут Бейдер Гинзбург торжественно венчала однополую пару.

The groom and groom strolled down the aisle to the mellow strains of “Mr. Sandman.”
her black robe with her signature white lace collar, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg presided over the marriage on Sunday afternoon of Michael Kahn, the longtime artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, and Charles Mitchem, who works at an architecture firm in New York.
The gilded setting was elegant: Anderson House in the Embassy Row neighborhood, the headquarters in Washington of the Society of the Cincinnati, a club for the descendants of the French and American soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War. During the ceremony, the couple slipped black and gold Harry Winston rings onto each other’s fingers.
the most glittering moment for the crowd came during the ceremony. With a sly look and special emphasis on the word “Constitution,” Justice Ginsburg said that she was pronouncing the two men married by the powers vested in her by the Constitution of the United States.
https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/18/presiding-at-same-sex-wedding-ruth-bader-ginsburg-emphasizes-a-key-word/



Таким образом за 10 лет истощилась гомофобная тема, которая в 2009 выглядела центральной для сплочения идеологической оппозиции Обаме. Первую скрипку играл тогда Роберт Джордж, профессор права из Принстона.

He has parlayed a 13th-century Catholic philosophy into real political influence. Glenn Beck, the Fox News talker and a big George fan, likes to introduce him as “one of the biggest brains in America,” or, on one broadcast, “Superman of the Earth.” Karl Rove told me he considers George a rising star on the right and a leading voice in persuading President George W. Bush to restrict embryonic stem-cell research. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told me he numbers George among the most-talked-about thinkers in conservative legal circles. And Newt Gingrich called him “an important and growing influence” on the conservative movement, especially on matters like abortion and marriage.
“If there really is a vast right-wing conspiracy,” the conservative Catholic journal Crisis concluded a few years ago, “its leaders probably meet in George’s kitchen.”
FOR 20 YEARS, George has operated largely out of public view at the intersection of academia, religion and politics. In the past 12 months, however, he has stepped into a more prominent role. With the death of the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran minister turned Roman Catholic priest who helped bring evangelicals and Catholics together into a political movement, George has assumed his mantle as the reigning brain of the Christian right. And he is in many ways the public face of the conservative side in the most urgent culture-war battle of the day. The National Organization for Marriage, the advocacy group fighting same-sex marriage in Albany and Trenton, Maine and California, has made him its chairman. Before the 2004 election, he helped a coalition of Christian conservative groups write their proposed amendment to the federal Constitution defining marriage as heterosexual. More than any other scholar, George has staked his reputation on the claim that same-sex marriage violates not only tradition but also human reason.
It’s part of a philosophy that has found support among a group of Catholic bishops who have become some of the most persistent critics of President Obama and the Congressional Democrats. George serves as their intellectual point man. In the past few years, many of the evangelical Protestants who once defined the religious right have turned inward after their disappointment with President George W. Bush. In their place, George’s friends among the Catholic bishops have stepped to the fore, hammering Obama for his pro-choice Catholic cabinet nominees, for being invited to speak at Notre Dame’s commencement, for his stem-cell research policies and most recently for his health care proposals.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/magazine/20george-t.html

На выборах 2016 Джордж поддерживал Теда Круза и писал "Donald Trump is manifestly unfit to be president of the United States."
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/03/donald-trump-catholic-opposition-statement/

Но позже победили другие соображения, включая борьбу за изменение состава Верховного суда.

I don't know anything about Mr. Williams, but this photograph and his comment perfectly illustrate the profound division in our culture. It's "obvious" to some of us that one of the things you do in a crisis is pray. It's "obvious" to others that praying is (worse than) foolish. https://t.co/pBkAJX3Ygo
- Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) March 2, 2020

В 2019 созданная Джорджем организация "American Principles Project", в подготовке к выборам 2020, испытывала вопрос о трансгендерах в качестве ключевого на выборах губернатора Кентукки.

From the 12th floor of a glass office tower in the Washington suburbs, a campaign to sway the governor’s race in Kentucky on Tuesday is being waged with an alarmist claim that has little to do with the race itself: If Democrats have their way, soon boys will be able to compete against girls in school sports.
This scenario, presented in a pair of ads that are appearing on computer screens and smartphones across Kentucky, is the work of a little-known group funded by anonymous donors called the American Principles Project, which in recent years has focused on fighting more familiar clashes in the culture wars over same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
The group is limiting its work to Kentucky for now, but strategists say it has bigger ambitions. It is effectively running a pilot program for the 2020 election that will help it determine how it could use the debate over transgender rights to rally conservative voters in support of President Trump.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/us/politics/kentucky-transgender-school-sports.html

Стратегия провалилась, а выборы выиграл демократ Энди Бэшер.



В 2020 пришло время новых страшилок и новых культурных войн.

Десятый год подряд Принстон, где трудится профессор Джордж, занимает первое место в рейтинге колледжей, как лучший университет в стране.

For the 2021 rankings, Princeton University is once again No. 1 among National Universities, and Williams College remains in the top spot among National Liberal Arts Colleges. For Top Public Schools, the University of California-Los Angeles is No. 1 among National Universities. The United States Naval Academy ranks No. 1 for Top Public Schools among National Liberal Arts Colleges.
This 36th edition of Best Colleges evaluates more than 1,400 colleges and universities on 17 indicators of academic quality. The data used in the 2021 Best Colleges rankings pertains to student and faculty cohorts that predate the pandemic.
https://www.usnews.com/info/blogs/press-room/articles/2020-09-14/us-news-announces-the-2021-best-colleges-rankings

Это сделало его мишенью для нападок. В рамках идеологии анти-антирасизма администрация Трампа в лице министерства образования прислала грозное письмо, угрожая отобрать у Принстона федеральное финансирование из-за того, что его администрация борется с проявлениями расизма.

"The University will respond to the Department of Education’s letter in due course. It is unfortunate that the Department appears to believe that grappling honestly with the nation’s history and the current effects of systemic racism runs afoul of existing law. The University disagrees and looks forward to furthering our educational mission by explaining why our statements and actions are consistent not only with the law, but also with the highest ideals and aspirations of this country."
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/09/17/university-statement-us-department-education-letter-regarding-nondiscrimination



Нашлась работа и для EEOC с новыми назначенцами Трампа. Они судят Kroger, Принстон среди сетей продуктовых магазинов (на втором месте после Wallmart), за увольнение двух сотрудниц, которые отказались надевать фартуки с "радугой". Поскольку отказ был мотивирован религиозными взглядами, это рассматривается как дискриминация на основе религии.

Радуга на фартуках была разноцветной каемкой вокруг сердечек и не имела никакого отношения к символу борьбы за права сексуальных меньшинств. Но в предвыборном ажиотаже для избирателей Трампа сгодится любой пропагандистский корм.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in a lawsuit filed Monday accused Kroger Co. of unlawful employment practices for allegedly refusing to accommodate two former employees in Conway who expressed religious objections to wearing an apron embroidered with a rainbow based on their belief that the symbol represented advocacy for the LGBTQ community.
The two former employees of the grocery chain, Brenda C. Lawson and Trudy K. Rickerd, were disciplined and ultimately terminated because of their objections to the dress code that stemmed from their religious beliefs, according to an EEOC complaint.
The rainbow flag has long been recognized as a symbol of the LGBTQ community and is often flown in June to celebrate Pride Month. However, based on information contained in the complaint, it's unclear whether Kroger intended for the emblem on the apron to symbolize solidarity with the LGBTQ community.
According to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, in April 2019 Kroger instituted changes to its dress code that included a new apron required for employees featuring a rainbow heart logo embroidered on it.
The complaint said Lawson worked in the deli department at a Kroger store in Conway starting in 2011 until she was fired June 1, 2019. Rickerd worked as a cashier and file maintenance clerk at Kroger in Conway from 2006 until her termination May 29, 2019.
The EEOC lawsuit claims the two employees were disciplined and fired in spite of their requests for a religious accommodation.
At the time of their firings, Lawson was 72 and Rickerd was 57, the complaint says.
Both Lawson and Rickerd subscribe to a literal interpretation of the Bible and believe homosexuality is a sin, according to the complaint.
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/sep/15/kroger-sued-by-us-after-2-firings-linked-to-gay/

Two supposedly Christian Alabama women are suing Kroger Corp. for being forced to wear an apron with a heart on it, saying it's gay and homosexuality is a sin. The @USEEOC is championing their suit.

A 5-minute search shows it is a "promise" campaign, not LGBT. Misguided Hate. pic.twitter.com/7OPy6ZYe41
- Michael Aaron (@MAaronSLC) September 16, 2020