National
Prop 8 attorney helping Romney campaign with debate prep
Olson’s assistance criticized as ‘completely counter’ to his marriage equality goals
A lead attorney in the federal lawsuit against California’s Proposition 8 is facing criticism from a gay Democratic group for assisting the Romney campaign with debate preparation despite the ticket’s support for policies that would undo his work against the same-sex marriage ban.
Ted Olson, who’s been litigating against Prop 8 on behalf of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, is set to play the role of Vice President Joseph Biden in debate practice against Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan. Buzzfeed and Politico reported the news Saturday morning, which was confirmed to the Washington Blade by Brendan Buck, a Ryan spokesperson working on the Romney campaign.
āJoe Biden has been in elected office for more than 40 years,” Buck said. “There are few people in politics with more experience debating the issues than Joe Biden, so we are taking this process seriously. Mr. Olson is one of the most skilled, intelligent, and successful litigators in America– just the kind of opponent needed to prepare the congressman for Mr. Biden.ā
Buck said Olson will receive no compensation from the Romney campaign for his role impersonating Biden as part of debate preparation.
But Olson’s involvement with the Romney campaign came to the consternation of one LGBT group aligned with the Democratic Party.
Jerame Davis, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, said Olson’s assistance to the Romney campaign demonstrates the former solicitor general is “subject to the same cognitive dissonance” as other conservative who vote against their own interests in favor of ideological purity.
“After he has spent as much time, money, and reputation on overturning Prop 8 as he has, it’s shocking to learn that Ted Olson would lift a finger to help the Romney-Ryan ticket during debate prep,” Davis said. “The Romney-Ryan ticket stands completely counter to the goals of AFER and Ted Olson’s stated belief that Prop 8 should be overturned. I have always been concerned that the architect of Bush v. Gore was one of the lead attorney’s in the fight to overturn Prop 8, but I honestly never expected Olson to so blatantly contradict his own argument by supporting a ticket that would stand squarely in opposition to what he calls one of the most important cases of his career.”
Olson, who served as U.S. solicitor general under former President George W. Bush, isn’t a stranger to advocating on behalf of Republican presidential candidates. Olson was the lead attorney representing the Bush candidacy in Bush v. Gore, the lawsuit that helped Bush win his first term in the White House. David Boies, who’s partnering with Olson in the Prop 8 lawsuit, represented then-Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore in the lawsuit.
Since his time with the Bush administration, Olson has come out in favor of marriage equality — calling his work against Prop 8 the “highlight of my life” — and has spoken before LGBT groups about his support for same-sex marriage. As a result of the litigation that Olson has spearheaded, a U.S. district court in California and the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled against California’s marriage ban. On September 20, Olson is set to be a keynote speaker at the National Log Cabin Republicans “Spirit of Lincoln” dinner in D.C.
Olson’s assistance with the Romney campaign is noteworthy because both Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Ryan support policies that would contravene the attorney’s work against Proposition 8. The two candidates backs a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage throughout the country. In 2008, Romney donated $10,000 through a political action committee to the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage as part of efforts to pass the Prop 8 at the ballot.
An AFER spokesperson deferred to the Romney campaign for questions about why Olson was helping the Republican ticket even though the candidates back policies that directly conflict with the work of the organization. The Human Rights Campaign, which is now headed by AFER board member Chad Griffin, didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment even though HRC has endorsed President Obama in the presidential election.
Other LGBT and progressive groups had mixed reactions.
Rick Jacobs, chair of the progressive grassroots group the Courage Campaign, said he hopes Olson spends part of his time working with the Romney campaign to bring them to the other side on the issue of marriage equality.
“You would be hard pressed to find a Republican that has done more to advance the cause of marriage equality than Ted Olson,” Jacobs said. “You would be also hard pressed to find Republicans who would do more to rollback hard fought advances in LGBT rights than Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. I have known Ted for more than 25 years and I know his commitment to equality is real and unshakable. I hope he spends some of the hours he will spend with Congressman Ryan educating him that this is the civil rights issue of our time and that he and his running mate stand squarely on the wrong side of history.”
Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, responded to the news by saying he appreciates Olson’s work against Prop 8, but prefers Olson when takes on roles that are more favorable to marriage equality.
“It’s been striking, and effective, that someone as conservative as Ted Olson so strongly and eloquently supports the freedom to marry,” Wolfson said. “That said, I like it better when Ted plays Evan Wolfson.”
Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of the gay conservative group GOProud, defended Olson by saying many conservatives support the Romney campaign and a Federal Marriage Amendment doesn’t have a shot passing even though Romney and Ryan support it.
“Ted Olson — like most conservatives — is focused on defeating Barack Obama and rebuilding our economy,” LaSalvia said. “The Federal Marriage Amendment didn’t have a chance of passing eight years ago, and it doesn’t have a prayer of passing now.”
Same-sex marriage could return to California soon depending on the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court later this month. If the Supreme Court declines to take up the appeal of the lawsuit, the Ninth Circuit decision overturning Prop 8 would stand, allowing gay couples to wed in California.
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court declines to hear case over drag show at Texas university
Students argue First Amendment protects performance
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear a First Amendment case over a public university president’s refusal to allow an LGBTQ student group to host a drag show on campus.
The group’s application was denied without the justices providing their reasoning or issuing dissenting opinions, as is custom for such requests for emergency review.
When plaintiffs sought to organize the drag performance to raise money for suicide prevention in March 2023, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler cancelled the event, citing the Bible and other religious texts.
The students sued, arguing the move constituted prior restraint and viewpoint-based discrimination, in violation of the First Amendment. Wendler had called drag shows āderisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny,” adding that “a harmless drag show” was “not possible.”
The notoriously conservative Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who former President Donald Trump appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, ruled against the plaintiffs in September, writing that āit is not clearly established that all drag shows are inherently expressive.”
Kacsmaryk further argued that the High Court’s precedent-setting opinions protecting stage performances and establishing that “speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend” was inconsistent with constitutional interpretation based on ātext, history and tradition.”
Plaintiffs appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is by far the most conservative of the nation’s 12 appellate circuit courts. They sought emergency review by the Supreme Court because the 5th Circuit refused to fast-track their case, so arguments were scheduled to begin after the date of their drag show.
Federal Government
EXCLUSIVE: USAID LGBTQ coordinator visits Uganda
Jay Gilliam met with activists, community members from Feb. 19-27
U.S. Agency for International Development Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam last month traveled to Uganda.
Gilliam was in the country from Feb. 19-27. He visited Kampala, the Ugandan capital, and the nearby city of Jinja.
Gilliam met with LGBTQ activists who discussed the impact of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, a law with a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality” that President Yoweri Museveni signed last May. Gilliam also sat down with USAID staffers.
Gilliam on Wednesday during an exclusive interview with the Washington Blade did not identify the specific activists and organizations with whom he met “out of protection.”
“I really wanted to meet with community members and understand the impacts on them,” he said.
Consensual same-sex sexual relations in Uganda were already criminalized before Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act. Gilliam told the Blade he spoke with a person who said authorities arrested them at a community meeting for mental health and psychosocial support “under false pretenses of engaging in same-sex relations and caught in a video that purportedly showed him.”
The person, according to Gilliam, said authorities outed them and drove them around the town in which they were arrested in order to humiliate them. Gilliam told the Blade that prisoners and guards beat them, subjected them to so-called anal exams and denied them access to antiretroviral drugs.
“They were told that you are not even a human being. From here on you are no longer living, just dead,” recalled Gilliam.
“I just can’t imagine how difficult it is for someone to be able to live through something like that and being released and having ongoing needs for personal security, having to be relocated and getting support for that and lots of other personal issues and trauma,” added Gilliam.
Gilliam said activists shared stories of landlords and hotel owners evicting LGBTQ people and advocacy groups from their properties. Gilliam told the Blade they “purport that they don’t want to run afoul of” the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
“These evictions really exacerbate the needs from the community in terms of relocation and temporary shelter and just the trauma of being kicked out of your home, being kicked out of your village and having to find a place to stay at a moment’s notice, knowing that you’re also trying to escape harm and harassment from neighbors and community members,” he said.
Gilliam also noted the Anti-Homosexuality Act has impacted community members in different ways.
Reported cases of violence and eviction, for example, are higher among gay men and transgender women. Gilliam noted lesbian, bisexual and queer women and trans men face intimate partner violence, are forced into marriages, endure corrective rape and lose custody of their children when they are outed. He said these community members are also unable to inherit land, cannot control their own finances and face employment discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.Ā Ā
US sanctioned Ugandan officials over Anti-Homosexuality Act
The U.SĀ imposed visa restrictionsĀ on Ugandan officials shortly after Museveni signed the law. The World Bank Group later announcedĀ the suspension of new loansĀ to Uganda.
The Biden-Harris administration last October issued a business advisory that said the Anti-Homosexuality Act āfurther increases restrictions on human rights, to include restrictions on freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly and exacerbates issues regarding the respect for leases and employment contracts.ā The White House has also removed Uganda from a program that allows sub-Saharan African countries to trade duty-free with the U.S. and has issued a business advisory for the country over the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Dec. 4, 2023, announced sanctions against current and former Ugandan officials who committed human rights abuses against LGBTQ people and other groups. Media reports this week indicate the U.S. denied MP Sarah Achieng Opendi a visa that would have allowed her to travel to New York in order to attend the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.
Museveni, for his part, has criticized the U.S. and other Western countries’ response to the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Gilliam noted authorities have arrested and charged Ugandans under the law.Ā
Two men on motorcycles on Jan. 3 stabbed Steven Kabuye, co-executive director of Coloured Voice Truth to LGBTQ Uganda, outside his home while he was going to work. The incident took place months after Museveni attended Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast at which U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) spoke and defended the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
The State Department condemned the attack that Kabuye blamed on politicians and religious leaders who are stoking anti-LGBTQ sentiments in Uganda. Gilliam did not meet with Ugandan government officials while he was in the country.
“We in the U.S. government have already made it clear our stance with government officials on how we feel about the AHA, as well as broader human rights concerns in country,” said Gilliam. “That’s been communicated from the very highest levels.”
The Uganda’s Constitutional Court last Dec. 18 heard arguments in a lawsuit that challenges the Anti-Homosexuality Act. It is unclear when a ruling in the case will take place, but Gilliam said LGBTQ Ugandans with whom he met described the law “as just one moment.”
“Obviously there is lots of work that has been done, that continues to be done to respond to this moment,” he told the Blade. “They know that there’s going to be a lot of work that needs to continue to really address a lot of the root causes and to really back humanity to the community.”
Gilliam further noted it will “take some years to recover from the damage of 2023 and the AHA (Anti-Homosexuality Act) there.” He added activists are “already laying down the groundwork for what that work looks like” in terms of finding MPs, religious leaders, human rights activists and family members who may become allies.
“Those types of allyships are going to be key to building back the community and to continue the resiliency of the movement,” said Gilliam.
Texas
Pornhub blocks Texas accessing site over age verification law
Court battle forced statute to take effect
Aylo (formerly MindGeek) the largest global adult online entertainment conglomerate, owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners, has restricted access to its platforms including its flagship Pornhub in Texas after a court battle forces the state’s age verification law to take effect.
Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton had appealed a U.S. District Court decision that enjoined him from enforcing House Bill 1181. Paxton and others argued that purveyors of obscene materials online needed to institute reasonable age-verification measures to safeguard children from pornography.Ā
A week ago the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially vacated the original injunction, ruling that the age verification requirements are constitutional.Ā
āApplying rational-basis review, the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the governmentās legitimate interest in preventing minorsā access to pornography,ā the three judge panel of the 5th Circuit explained. āTherefore, the age-verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment.ā
While the court vacated the injunction against the age-verification requirement of the statute, it upheld the lower courtās injunction against a separate section of the law that would require pornography websites to display a health warning on their landing page and all advertisements.
The Houston Chronicle reported people who go to the site are now greeted with a long message from the company railing against the legal change as āineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.ā The company calls for age verification by the makers of devices that let people on the internet, instead of individual websites.
Age verification legislation was enacted in several states in 2023 in addition to Texas, including North Carolina, Montana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Utah and Virginia.
The new laws require users to provide digital confirmation via a certified approved third party vendor like London-based digital identity company Yoti. The other possibility would be a state approved digital ID such as the California DMVās Wallet app, which contains a mobile driverās license.
Users accessing Pornhub from within Louisiana are presented with a different webpage that directs them to verify their age with the stateās digital ID system, known as LA Wallet. The law passed in 2022 subjects adult websites to damage lawsuits and state civil penalties as high as $5,000 a day if they fail to verify that users are at least 18 years old by requiring the use of digitized, state-issued driverās licenses or other methods.
The Associated Press reported this past October that an adult entertainment groupās lawsuit against a Louisiana law requiring sexually explicit websites to verify the ages of their viewers was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan in New Orleans.
Potential or existing Pornhub users in North Carolina and Montana are directed to a video that features adult film star Cherie DeVille, who recites a message also written under the video.
āAs you may know, your elected officials in your state are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.ā
āMandating age verification without proper enforcement gives platforms the opportunity to choose whether or not to comply,ā the statement continues. āAs weāve seen in other states, this just drives traffic to sites with far fewer safety measures in place.ā
āUntil a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in [the aforementioned locales]ā the message ends with.
The company previously blocked Utah on May 7, 2023. CNN reported at the time:
Affected users are shown a message expressing opposition toĀ Senate Bill 287, the Utah law signed by Gov. Spencer Cox in March that creates liability for porn sites that make their content available to people below the age of 18.
āAs you may know, your elected officials in Utah are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,ā the message said. āWhile safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.ā
Courthouse News reportedĀ that after Virginiaās bill was passed in June, state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a Democrat, criticized the state for not creating a system for age verification, and instead leaving it up to websites to manage the process, citing security risks.Ā Ā
āWe passed a bill during this session to protect children from online porn. However the executive branch had an obligation to create a system for age verification,āĀ Lucas saidĀ on X, formerly Twitter. āWe will continue our work to keep pornography out of the hands of minors ā¦ but we will also work to ensure that this Governorās error does not put the privacy of Virginians at further risk.ā
Beyond the U.S. in the European Union, Pornhub and two more of the worldās biggest porn websites face new requirements in the European Union that include verifying the ages of users, under the EUās Digital Services Act.
According to a December 20 report from the Associated Press, Pornhub, XVideos and Stripchat have now been classed as āvery large online platformsā subject to more stringent controls under the Digital Services Act because they each have 45 million average monthly users, according to the European Commission, the EUās executive branch.
They are the first porn sites to be targeted by the sweeping Digital Services Act, which imposes tough obligations to keep users safe from illegal content and dodgy products, the Associated Press reported last month.
In addition to the adult entertainment websites, any violations are punishable by fines of up to 6% of global revenue or even a ban on operating in the EU. Some 19 online platforms and search engines have already been identified for stricter scrutiny under the DSA, including TikTok, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Google and more.
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