National
Attorneys general urge Supreme Court to strike down Prop 8
Brief comes ahead of expected introduction of Del. marriage bill
Fourteen state attorneys general on Thursday filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of marriage rights for same-sex couples.
āEquality under the law is a founding principle of America, but we will not all be equal until everyone has the freedom to choose whom to love and whom to spend their lives with,ā Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said during a news conference in Wilmington. āIt is unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the freedom to marry.ā
The brief onto which Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, Maine Attorney General Janet Mills, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, New Hampshire Attorney General Michael Delaney, New Mexico Attorney General Gary King, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell and Washington Attorney General Robert Ferguson argues Californiaās voter-approved Proposition 8 denies a variety of legal and social benefits afforded through marriage to same-sex couples and their children. It also highlights nine states and the nationās capital allow gays and lesbians to marry.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris on Wednesday filed a separate brief with the U.S. Supreme court that urges the justices to strike down Prop 8.
āOur experience in Massachusetts has unequivocally shown that ending the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage has only strengthened the institution,ā Coakley said. āWe urge the court to strike Proposition 8 down because it discriminates against gay and lesbian individuals and their families.ā
The briefs come ahead of a likely debate on a bill in the Delaware Legislature that would allow gays and lesbians to marry.
An Illinois state House committee on Tuesday approved a same-sex marriage measure, while Minnesota legislators earlier on Thursday introduced a bill that would allow gays and lesbians to marry. Lawmakers in New Jersey and Rhode Island are expected to consider the issue in the coming days and weeks.
āWe at Equality Delaware could not be any prouder of our attorney general, Beau Biden, for standing up for freedom and marriage equality for all Delaware families,ā Equality Delaware President Lisa Goodman, who spoke at Bidenās news conference, told the Washington Blade.
The state attorneys general filed their brief with the court on the same day Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo and Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings again expressed their support for marriage rights for same-sex couples in their own brief that urged the justices to strike down Prop 8.
Equality Virginia, the Utah Pride Center, the Campaign for Southern Equality and other LGBT advocacy groups on Wednesday filed a brief that urges the justices to uphold lower court rulings that found both Prop 8 and DOMA unconstitutional. Former Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.,) Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, gay California Assembly Speaker John Perez and the U.S. Conference of Mayors are among those who have either filed briefs in support of marriage rights for same-sex couples or signed onto them.
Biden and other state attorneys general are expected to file a brief in the DOMA case on Fiday.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the two cases on March 26-27.
National
GLSEN hosts Respect Awards with Billy Porter, Peppermint
Annual event aims to āinspire a lot of people to get activeā
GLSEN will host its annual Respect Awards April 29 in New York, with guests including Miss Peppermint and Billy Porter.
Respect Awards director Michael Chavez said that the event will be moving.
āIt will inspire a lot of people to get active and take action in their own communities and see how much more work there is to do, especially with all of the harmful things happening,ā he said.
At the event, they will recognize the Student Advocate of the Year, Sophia T. Annually, GLSEN recognizes a student from around the country who is impacting their community.
āSophia is doing incredible work advocating for inclusive sex education that is LGBTQ+ affirming, working with Johns Hopkins University to implement curriculum.ā Chavez said.
Chavez calls the students that attend the Respect Awards the ābiggest celebritiesā of the evening.
āIt is really important for the adults, both the allies and the queer folks, to hear directly from these queer youth about what itās like to be in school today as a queer person,ā he said.
GLSEN is a queer youth advocacy organization that has been working for more than 30 years to protect LGBTQ youth.
āGLSEN is all hands on deck right now, because our kids are under direct attack and have been for years now,ā said actor Wilson Cruz.
Cruz is the chair of GLSENās National Board, which works to fundraise and strategize for the organization.
āI think we are fundamental to the education of LGBTQ students in school,ā he said. āWe advocate for more comprehensive support at the local, national, and federal levels so our students are supported.ā
Chavez is one of the students that was impacted by this work. He led his schoolās GSA organization and worked with GLSEN throughout his youth.
Cruz said Chavez is doing what he hopes todayās GLSEN students do in the future, which is pay the work forward.
āThereās nothing more powerful than people who have experienced the work that GLSEN does and then coming back and allowing us to expand on that work with each generation that comes forward,ā he said.
Florida
Homeless transgender woman murdered in Miami Beach
Andrea Doria Dos Passos attacked while she slept
Gregory Fitzgerald Gibert, 53, who was out on probation, is charged with the second-degree murder of 37-year-old Andrea Doria Dos Passos, a transgender Latina woman who was found deceased in front of the Miami Ballet company facility by a security guard this past week.
According to a Miami Beach Police spokesperson the security guard thought Dos Passos was sleeping in the entranceway around 6:45 a.m. on April 23 and when he went to wake her he discovered the blood and her injuries and alerted 911.
She was deceased from massive trauma to her face and head. According to Miami Beach police when video surveillance footage was reviewed, it showed Dos Passos lying down in the entranceway apparently asleep. WFOR reported: In the early morning hours, a man arrived, looked around, and spotted her. Police said the man was dressed in a black shirt, red shorts, and red shoes.
At one point, he walked away, picked up a metal pipe from the ground, and then returned. After looking around, he sat on a bench near Dos Passos. After a while, he got up and repeatedly hit her in the head and face while she was sleeping, according to police.
āThe male is then seen standing over her, striking her, and then manipulating her body. The male then walks away and places the pipe inside a nearby trash can (the pipe was found and recovered in the same trash can),ā according to the arrest report.
Police noted that in addition to trauma on her face and head, two wooden sticks were lodged in her nostrils and there was a puncture wound in her chest.
Victor Van Gilst, Dos Passosās stepfather confirmed she was transĀ and experiencing homelessness.Ā
āShe had no chance to defend herself whatsoever. I donāt know if this was a hate crime since she was transgender or if she had some sort of interaction with this person because he might have been homeless as well. The detective could not say if she was attacked because she was transgender,ā said Van Gilst.
āShe has been struggling with mental health issues for a long time, going back to when she was in her early 20s. We did everything we could to help her. My wife is devastated. For her, this is like a nightmare that turned into reality. Andrea moved around a lot and even lived in California for a while. She was sadly homeless. I feel the system let her down. She was a good person,ā he added.
The Miami Police Department arrested Gibert, collected his clothing, noting the red shorts were the same type in the video and had blood on them. Blood was also found on his shoes, according to police. He was taken into custody and charged.
āThe suspect has an extensive criminal record and reportedly was recently released from custody on probation for prior criminal charges. Police apprehended the suspect in the city of Miami and the investigation is currently ongoing. This case is further evidence that individuals need to be held accountable for prior violent crimes for the protection of the public. We offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends of the victim,ā Miami Beach Mayor Steve Meiner said in a statement.
Joe Saunders, senior political director with LGBTQ rights group Equality Florida, told the Miami Herald that āwhenever a transgender person is murdered, especially when it is with such brutality, the question should be asked about whether or not this was a hate-motivated crime.ā
Federal Government
HHS reverses Trump-era anti-LGBTQ rule
Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act now protects LGBTQ people
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights has issued a final rule on Friday under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act advancing protections against discrimination in health care prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics), in covered health programs or activities.
The updated rule does not force medical professionals to provide certain types of health care, but rather ensures nondiscrimination protections so that providers cannot turn away patients based on individual characteristics such as being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, or pregnant.
āThis rule ensures that people nationwide can access health care free from discrimination,ā said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. āStanding with communities in need is critical, particularly given increased attacks on women, trans youth, and health care providers. Health care should be a right not dependent on looks, location, love, language, or the type of care someone needs.ā
The new rule restores and clarifies important regulatory protections for LGBTQ people and other vulnerable populations under Section 1557, also known as the health care nondiscrimination law, that were previously rescinded by the Trump administration.
āHealthcare is a fundamental human right. The rule released today restores critical regulatory nondiscrimination protections for those who need them most and ensures a legally proper reading of the Affordable Care Actās healthcare nondiscrimination law,ā said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, counsel and health care strategist for Lambda Legal.
āThe Biden administration today reversed the harmful, discriminatory, and unlawful effort by the previous administration to eliminate critical regulatory protections for LGBTQ+ people and other vulnerable populations, such as people with limited English proficiency, by carving them out from the rule and limiting the scope of entities to which the rule applied,ā Gonzalez-Pagan added. āThe rule released today has reinstated many of these important protections, as well as clarifying the broad, intended scope of the rule to cover all health programs and activities and health insurers receiving federal funds. While we evaluate the new rule in detail, it is important to highlight that this rule will help members of the LGBTQ+ community ā especially transgender people, non-English speakers, immigrants, people of color, and people living with disabilities ā to access the care they need and deserve, saving lives and making sure healthcare professionals serve patients with essential care no matter who they are.ā
In addition to rescinding critical regulatory protections for LGBTQ people, the Trump administrationās rule also limited the remedies available to people who face health disparities, limited access to health care for people with Limited English Proficiency, and dramatically reduced the number of healthcare entities and health plans subject to the rule.
Lambda Legal, along with a broad coalition of LGBTQ advocacy groups, filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration rule,Ā Whitman-Walker Clinic v. HHS, and secured a preliminary injunction preventing key aspects of the Trump rule from taking effect.
These included the elimination of regulatory protections for LGBTQ people and the unlawful expansion of religious exemptions, which the new rule corrects. The preliminary injunction in Whitman-Walker Clinic v. HHS remains in place. Any next steps in the case will be determined at a later time, after a fulsome review of the new rule.
GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis released the following statement in response to the news:
āThe Biden administrationās updates to rules regarding Section 1557 of the ACA will ensure that no one who is LGBTQI or pregnant can face discrimination in accessing essential health care. This reversal of Trump-era discriminatory rules that sought to single out Americans based on who they are and make it difficult or impossible for them to access necessary medical care will have a direct, positive impact on the day to day lives of millions of people. Todayās move marks the 334th action from the Biden-Harris White House in support of LGBTQ people. Health care is a human right that should be accessible to all Americans equally without unfair and discriminatory restrictions. LGBTQ Americans are grateful for this step forward to combat discrimination in health care so no one is barred from lifesaving treatment.ā
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