Connect with us

homepage news

DNC chair hopeful wants to lead party to victory in heartland

South Bend’s gay mayor assails Trump, Pence

Published

on

Pete Buttigieg, gay news, Washington Blade

Pete Buttigieg could be the first openly gay DNC chair. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The mayor of a small city in Indiana has emergedĀ from the pack of candidates seekingĀ to become Democratic National Committee chair with a promise to make the party viable in America’s heartland, following the party’s 2016 election losses.

Pete Buttigieg, the 35-year-old, two-term gay mayor of South Bend, Ind., said in a sit-down interview with the Washington Blade that his experience as a local official from the Midwest is what’s needed to lead Democrats to victory.

“For a party that really needs to reconnect across our 50-plus states and territories, I think Iā€™m in a better position than most to deliver on that based on my experience, based on my bread and butter, which is local government and political organizing,” Buttigieg said.

Along with New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley, Buttigieg is one of two candidates in the mix who could become the first openly gay DNC chair. Buttigieg, however, downplayed that potential distinction.

“I want to be, of course, a chair for everybody,” Buttigieg said. “I think that weā€™re a party that has stood up for fairness, has stood up for freedom and I think the LGBT community has seen a lot of the most urgent issues around that in the last few years.”

Representing Millennials in the race for DNC chair, Buttigieg was once a dark horse candidate, but has quickly risen to prominence and wonĀ a significant boost after a recent endorsement from former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

Among his credentials are an education at Harvard University, studying at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and service in the Afghanistan in the Navy Reserve. Buttigieg came out as gay in 2015 in an essay published in the South Bend Tribune days before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for marriage equality nationwide.

Buttigieg was serving as mayor during outrage and intense media coverage after then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence ā€” now vice president of the United States ā€” signed into law a “religious freedom” bill thatĀ enabled anti-LGBT discrimination.

“The thing about Mike Pence is, heā€™s a super-nice guy, who just genuinely believes this stuff,” Buttigieg said. “He operates from a different reality than the rest of us operate from. Heā€™s written that cigarettes donā€™t kill, he thinks climate change is made up. He must assume that people get up in the morning one day and decide to be gay.”

Although the White House has said President Trump is “respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights,” Buttigieg said LGBT people need only look at the president’s immigration policies to know that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“No one who specializes in harming vulnerable groups can be regarded as a friend to the LGBT community even if weā€™re not the group heā€™s harming at the moment,” Buttigieg said. “And I would also say I do not believe that he cares about the LGBT community because I do not believe that he cares about anything at all.”

Chris Hillmann, chair of the New Jersey LGBT Democratic Caucus, is among Buttigieg’s supporters and said being a Democratic mayor from a “red” state makes him “a great choice to lead our party.”

“He is someone from outside Washington with a different set of ideas and connections to real people and knows what they need to hear from Democratic candidates,” Hillmann said. “His being a gay soldier who speaks seven languages and won re-election with 80 percent of the vote just makes his all around package even more impressive. As we get closer to the vote in Atlanta I think more people will see that we don’t need a rerun of the Hillary versus Bernie campaign. We need a fresh start from the next generation of political leaders and it’s time for the DNC to embrace the future.”

The crowed field to become the next DNC chair includes Buckley, former Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The election for chair will take place at the DNCā€™s winter meeting in Atlanta, scheduled for Feb. 23-26.

The Washington Blade’s full interview with Pete Buttigieg follows:

Washington Blade: Letā€™s talk about the DNC race. What do you think you have to offer the DNC that other candidates arenā€™t offering?

Pete Buttigieg: I think Iā€™m in the best position to deliver the changes that everybody wants to see. Everybodyā€™s talking about a fresh start. Why not put in a fresh, new leader? Weā€™re all talking about competing in “red” and “purple” states. Iā€™ve been winning elections in Indiana. Weā€™re all talking about empowering a new generation. Iā€™m a Millennial candidate. Weā€™re all talking about the solutions that are not going to come from Washington. Iā€™m a local official who doesnā€™t get up in the morning and go to an office in Washington.

For a party that really needs to reconnect across our 50-plus states and territories, I think Iā€™m in a better position than most to deliver on that based on my experience, based on my bread and butter, which is local government and political organizing.

Blade: You were justĀ endorsed by Martin Oā€™Malley. To what extent do you think that has boosted your standing in your bid to become DNC chair?

Buttigieg: I think endorsements are certainly helpful, whether itā€™s a former DNC chair like Steve Grossman, a successful governor like Martin Oā€™Malley, especially since weā€™re headed to his city [of Baltimore for a forum], an organization like Vote Vets, which endorsed us yesterday. The coming tide of endorsements is helpful.

The most important thing, of course, is the 447 people who vote, and weā€™re working very hard to connect with all of them and to continue remaining inĀ touch with voters ā€” most of whom, weā€™ve found, are not making up their mind until very late in the game, which helps us.

Blade: Do you have any committed support from DNC members?

Buttigieg: Sure. When weā€™re ready to put out a hard count to media, youā€™ll know it. What Iā€™ll say is, yeah, weā€™re pleased with the support that weā€™ve got and at the same time weā€™re talking to a lot of folks who are keeping their powder dry.

Blade: If elected, youā€™d be the first openly gay person toĀ chair the Democratic National Committee. What would be the significance of that?

Buttigieg: I want to be, of course, a chair for everybody. I think that weā€™re a party that has stood up for fairness, has stood up for freedom and I think the LGBT community has seen a lot of the most urgent issues around that in the last few years. And itā€™s a moment where everybody in America ā€” whether itā€™s DREAMers, or LGBT Americans or blue-collar workers in the industrial Midwest ā€” wants to know where they belong in the American future, and I think I have a chance to send a pretty strong message about why everybody can belong in the America that we want to build.

Blade: Thereā€™s been a lot of discussion about why Hillary Clinton lost the election. Why do you think that was the case?

Buttigieg: When the marginā€™s this close, people have offered a thousand reasons and theyā€™re all right. But a couple of patterns that I noticed in our part of the country: One is that we spend a lot of time talking about the politicians themselves, there was a lot of talk about Hillary, ā€œIā€™m with her.ā€ And then increasingly the theme of the campaign became, ā€œWeā€™re against him.ā€ That left a lot of people at home saying, ā€œOK, but whoā€™s talking about me?ā€

Weā€™re talking about the candidates themselves as if they were what mattered most, missing the chance to talk to the voters about how theirĀ lives were going to be impacted by the decisions made in Washington.

I also think there were a lot of areas where we didnā€™t show up the way we could have. Even in rural counties, even in rural counties weā€™re not going to win, you still got to show up because losing by 60-40 versus 80-20 adds up when it comes to statewide counts in the Electoral College, and I think we need to make sure that our message does a better job of balancing the values that make us Democrats with on-the-ground outcomes and how all of this hashes out in peopleā€™s everyday real lives.

Blade: I noticed you didnā€™t mention either the Comey letter or Russian involvement in your response there. Do you think those were not factors?

Buttigieg: I think they were factors, but knowing the majority that Democratic values command among the American people, an election should never be that close to begin with.

Blade: What is your plan for LGBT issues at the DNC?

Buttigieg: I think the LGBT community canā€™t be taken for granted by the DNC, especially given the level of ā€œpinkwashingā€ of the Trump campaign that we saw. And even though the latest worrisome rumors of some kind of executive action so far havenā€™t led to anything, we have to recognize that this is a president who specializes in targeting vulnerable people and communities for abuse, and therefore, no matter who heā€™s abusing at the moment, he cannot be a friend of the LGBT community, and a vice president who has one of the most spectacular anti-LGBT records of any living American politician.

Blade: But is there anything in terms of goals for the structure of the DNC?

Buttigieg: Obviously, we got to make sure the council is strong. We got to make sure that we have good representation among our staff, our vendors, our delegates. I think all of us are going to say basically the same thing about that. Thatā€™s a commitment that we make to the LGBT community and to every community, every community of interest that makes a part of the Democratic coalition.

At the same time, I donā€™t want people in the LGBT community or any other part of the Democratic coalition to feel like weā€™re going to talk to the community one at a time, or that weā€™re trying to buy people off. We want people to be Democrats because they believe in Democratic values and support Democratic candidates because itā€™s the right thing to do, and living our values in terms of the makeup of our delegates and our staff, thatā€™s something we do because itā€™s the right thing to do, not in order to impress people.

Blade: Can you elaborate a little more on how the Democratic Party could win in places like Indiana? Barack Obama won in 2008, but that was an aberration.

Buttigieg: Yeah, but we also have a Democratic U.S. senator. Up until 2010, five of our nine members of Congress were Democrats. Then redistricting happened and a few other things happened.

You can see how the ā€œ50-State Strategyā€ really benefited a state like mine if you look at where we stood in letā€™s say 2008 or 2010. And so, part of it is we’ve got to make sure weā€™re investing in every part of the country. We also got to make sure our message is explained in terms it cases out for real people, so when we talk about something like ACA [repeal], we talk about the stories of the human beings who are going to be affected by it. I think people in my own immediate and extended family would be affected by having the rug pulled out from under us with something ACA [repeal]. We canā€™t just be talking in terms of statistics.

Communities, working-class communities, rural communities actually have the most to lose from bad policy. Weā€™ve got to make sure we talk about policy, not on their own terms and certainly not in terms of the game in Washington, but in terms of whatā€™ll it actually do to and for people in their everyday lives.

Blade: How would you evaluate being gay in a state that has never had statewide LGBT non-discrimination protections and very recently Mike Pence as governor? It certainly must be different than being gay in a place like Washington, D.C.

Buttigieg: Yeah, just a little. When I came out, we didnā€™t really know what impact that was going to have, but it obviously wasn’t a problem for the re-elect. We got 80 percent for the re-elect. There was some ugliness online, that sort of thing. But for the most part, people just wanted to know that I was going to be a good mayor, and people in the community more broadly, they wanted to know theyā€™re going to be OK.

I did have a lot of people ā€” especially younger people, students ā€” who maybe didnā€™t know that their community had a place for them whoā€™ve come forward or come out or come to the LGBT center, and thatā€™s a really compelling thing to see. But I had people who reached out from other parts of my life, people in the military, people I went on missions with and I had no idea they were in the same boat. And of course, living in Mike Penceā€™s Indiana, itā€™s probably that much more important for people to know that everybodyā€™s safe.

But we got a long way to go. We had a guy beaten to death because he was gay in South Bend in 2016. And weā€™re one of the handful of states that doesnā€™t have hate crimes legislation. We got a very long way to go.

On the other hand, the other thing I noticed after I came out, and something that I think was especially important because during the whole religious freedom fight, I was concerned about people who really want to come to the right side of history, but they just canā€™t get themselves there yet, making sure we didnā€™t force them into a corner and push them away, making sure we kind of help them get there.

And so, one thing thatā€™s been amazing to me is people, especially in an older generation who actually in an occasionally awkward way, but a very endearing way, loved the opportunity to show that theyā€™re accepting ā€” women in their 70s who would come meet my partner, and then come to me later and say, ā€œI met your friend. Heā€™s wonderful.ā€

And people in their own way are trying to get on this road to acceptance. I had ā€” the newspaper delivery guy stopped bringing me my paper after I came out for some weird reason, and my neighbor told me with tears in her eyes ā€” she was about my momā€™s age, I imagine theyā€™re pretty conservative, we donā€™t talk politics much ā€” basically told me about how she let him have it. I started getting my paper again.

Blade: Thatā€™s the reason why? You came out and he stopped delivering your paper?

Buttigieg: Apparently. She had a conversation with him. She watches my house very carefully when Iā€™m away, noticed the paper wasnā€™t arriving and she confronted him. So I guess my point my is, itā€™s not false that weā€™re a state that really cares about the idea of welcome, the idea of inclusion, the idea of being nice. Itā€™s been interesting to watch how people to start to watch the relationship between that and acceptance and inclusion for the LGBT community.

Blade: What was the experience like with Gov. Pence from the legislature passing a ā€œreligious freedomā€ law, him signing it, the outrage that followed afterwards and him signing the so-called fix?

Buttigieg: Obviously, I was just experiencing that also just as a mayor in Indiana, right? And in this tricky place of wanting to encourage the efforts to stand up to this kind of thing and on other hand, feeling defensive about your state, too.

So, for example, we had somebody call one of our museums, a great museum donor, saying I still love your museum, but I canā€™t give to anything in Indiana right now. You had a lot of moments like that. I think thatā€™s why you saw bipartisan resistance. The Republican mayor of Indy was just as furious about this as I was in South Bend. And the revolt of the business Republicans was a big part of what turned the tide.

The thing about Mike Pence is, heā€™s a super-nice guy, who just genuinely believes this stuff. He operates from a different reality than the rest of us operate from. Heā€™s written that cigarettes donā€™t kill, he thinks climate change is made up. He must assume that people get up in the morning one day and decide to be gay. And so, as nice as heā€™ll be to you in person, when it comes to policy, like a moth to a flame, he goes in for these divisive and backward-looking policies and I think is having the same influence in the White House right now that he did as governor.

As governor, I think the people around him tried to talk him out of these blunders, and they happened anyway. Now, I think itā€™s the reverse, itā€™s him talking people into things, and Iā€™m very nervous about what that means. I think that for those who know him, the idea of him as sort of mastermind, man-behind-the-curtain kind of thing isnā€™t very plausible because there was a lot of bumbling in the administration as governor.

But when you have a president who actually has no ideology of his own, and who is very susceptible to the influence of whoever spoke to him last. Having somebody with this extreme mentality in that position of power is a threat not just to the LGBT community, but I think to the community of people who are committed to enlightenment.

Blade: Why did you choose to start your political career in a small town in Indiana. Youā€™re aĀ talented guy, military background, Rhodes scholar, but then you decide youā€™re going to be mayor of South Bend, Ind. What made you do that as opposed to move to a larger city and start a career in federal office?

Buttigieg: Well, itā€™s home. I didnā€™t run for mayor because I was looking for an office to run for. I ran for mayor because I wanted my city to do better. Just like before that, I ran for state treasury because I thought the state treasury was doing a terrible job.

I really cared about my home town. When I was away, and I was in consulting for a while, I was traveling all over the world. Iā€™d go to places like Washington and have a beer with somebody I knew from South Bend, and the conversation would turn to whatā€™s going on around home.

I have noticed a lot of lot of very capable people face a decision at some point about going home to a relatively unhip place to make a difference, and as a friend of mine put it, in this country, you got to be from somewhere, and sooner or later if youā€™re going to make yourself useful in that way in public office, sooner or later you got to go home. And I know a lot of great people from the heartland who are doing good things, but they were not able to walk away from the job in New York or Washington or Dubai. And so, theyā€™re not in public service in the way I would love to see them do, but theyā€™re doing other things. And thatā€™s OK for them.

For me, I care about my home. I was at a party, a house party in San Francisco, and I mentioned that I was moving home to Indiana, and the person who was a much younger professional I was talking to asked what sick relative I was moving to take care of. I was like itā€™s home. Itā€™s a wonderful place with great people and Iā€™m part of a community that we take care of each other in a way thatā€™s really special and I have a chance I grew up in to watch the buildings rise and fall because of decisions you make to try to make the place better. If itā€™s the last thing I do in politics, thatā€™s a pretty great thing to have done.

Blade: You may have mentioned this publicly before, but how do you envision your role as mayor and being DNC chair at the same time?

Buttigieg: I canā€™t. Iā€™m going to have to step away, and I love my day job, but it wouldnā€™t be fair to the city and it wouldnā€™t be fair to the party. There might be a shoulder season of a few weeks, but you canā€™t do those two things at once.

Blade: Iā€™m just going to smash my last two questions together. What do you make of the White House last week saying Trump is respectful of LGBT rights and heā€™d preserve President Obamaā€™s executive order against anti-LGBT discrimination and do you think thereā€™s a lesson for LGBT people in the travel ban he signed?

Buttigieg: Iā€™ll circle back to what I said earlier: No one who specializes in harming vulnerable groups can be regarded as a friend to the LGBT community even if weā€™re not the group heā€™s harming at the moment. And I would also say I do not believe that he cares about the LGBT community because I do not believe that he cares about anything at all.

Blade: Thatā€™s pretty succinct.

Buttigieg: Itā€™s just not convincing, right? Nothing he says is convincing.

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

homepage news

Honoring the legacy of New Orleansā€™ 1973 UpStairs Lounge fire

Why the arson attack that killed 32 gay men still resonates 50 years later

Published

on

Fifty years ago this week, 32 gay men were killed in an arson attack on the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans. (Photo by G.E. Arnold/Times-Picayune; reprinted with permission)

On June 23 of last year, I held the microphone as a gay man in the New Orleans City Council Chamber and related a lost piece of queer history to the seven council members. I told this story to disabuse all New Orleanians of the notion that silence and accommodation, in the face of institutional and official failures, are a path to healing.  

The story I related to them began on a typical Sunday night at a second-story bar on the fringe of New Orleansā€™ French Quarter in 1973, where working-class men would gather around a white baby grand piano and belt out the lyrics to a song that was the anthem of their hidden community, ā€œUnited We Standā€ by the Brotherhood of Man. 

ā€œUnited we stand,ā€ the men would sing together, ā€œdivided we fallā€ ā€” the words epitomizing the ethos of their beloved UpStairs Lounge bar, an egalitarian free space that served as a forerunner to todayā€™s queer safe havens. 

Around that piano in the 1970s Deep South, gays and lesbians, white and Black queens, Christians and non-Christians, and even early gender minorities could cast aside the racism, sexism, and homophobia of the times to find acceptance and companionship for a moment. 

For regulars, the UpStairs Lounge was a miracle, a small pocket of acceptance in a broader world where their very identities were illegal. 

On the Sunday night of June 24, 1973, their voices were silenced in a murderous act of arson that claimed 32 lives and still stands as the deadliest fire in New Orleans history ā€” and the worst mass killing of gays in 20th century America. 

As 13 fire companies struggled to douse the inferno, police refused to question the chief suspect, even though gay witnesses identified and brought the soot-covered man to officers idly standing by. This suspect, an internally conflicted gay-for-pay sex worker named Rodger Dale Nunez, had been ejected from the UpStairs Lounge screaming the word “burn” minutes before, but New Orleans police rebuffed the testimony of fire survivors on the street and allowed Nunez to disappear.

As the fire raged, police denigrated the deceased to reporters on the street: ā€œSome thieves hung out there, and you know this was a queer bar.ā€ 

For days afterward, the carnage met with official silence. With no local gay political leaders willing to step forward, national Gay Liberation-era figures like Rev. Troy Perry of the Metropolitan Community Church flew in to ā€œhelp our bereaved brothers and sistersā€ ā€” and shatter officialdomā€™s code of silence. 

Perry broke local taboos by holding a press conference as an openly gay man. ā€œItā€™s high time that you people, in New Orleans, Louisiana, got the message and joined the rest of the Union,ā€ Perry said. 

Two days later, on June 26, 1973, as families hesitated to step forward to identify their kin in the morgue, UpStairs Lounge owner Phil Esteve stood in his badly charred bar, the air still foul with death. He rebuffed attempts by Perry to turn the fire into a call for visibility and progress for homosexuals. 

ā€œThis fire had very little to do with the gay movement or with anything gay,ā€ Esteve told a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer. ā€œI do not want my bar or this tragedy to be used to further any of their causes.ā€ 

Conspicuously, no photos of Esteve appeared in coverage of the UpStairs Lounge fire or its aftermath ā€” and the bar owner also remained silent as he witnessed police looting the ashes of his business. 

ā€œPhil said the cash register, juke box, cigarette machine and some wallets had money removed,ā€ recounted Esteveā€™s friend Bob McAnear, a former U.S. Customs officer. ā€œPhil wouldnā€™t report it because, if he did, police would never allow him to operate a bar in New Orleans again.ā€ 

The next day, gay bar owners, incensed at declining gay bar traffic amid an atmosphere of anxiety, confronted Perry at a clandestine meeting. ā€œHow dare you hold your damn news conferences!ā€ one business owner shouted. 

Ignoring calls for gay self-censorship, Perry held a 250-person memorial for the fire victims the following Sunday, July 1, culminating in mourners defiantly marching out the front door of a French Quarter church into waiting news cameras. ā€œReverend Troy Perry awoke several sleeping giants, me being one of them,ā€ recalled Charlene Schneider, a lesbian activist who walked out of that front door with Perry.

(Photo by G.E. Arnold/Times-Picayune; reprinted with permission)

Esteve doubted the UpStairs Lounge storyā€™s capacity to rouse gay political fervor. As the coroner buried four of his former patrons anonymously on the edge of town, Esteve quietly collected at least $25,000 in fire insurance proceeds. Less than a year later, he used the money to open another gay bar called the Post Office, where patrons of the UpStairs Lounge ā€” some with visible burn scars ā€” gathered but were discouraged from singing ā€œUnited We Stand.ā€ 

New Orleans cops neglected to question the chief arson suspect and closed the investigation without answers in late August 1973. Gay elites in the cityā€™s power structure began gaslighting the mourners who marched with Perry into the news cameras, casting suspicion on their memories and re-characterizing their moment of liberation as a stunt. 

When a local gay journalist asked in April 1977, ā€œWhere are the gay activists in New Orleans?,ā€ Esteve responded that there were none, because none were needed. ā€œWe donā€™t feel weā€™re discriminated against,ā€ Esteve said. ā€œNew Orleans gays are different from gays anywhere elseā€¦ Perhaps there is some correlation between the amount of gay activism in other cities and the degree of police harassment.ā€ 

(Photo by H.J. Patterson/Times-Picayune; reprinted with permission)

An attitude of nihilism and disavowal descended upon the memory of the UpStairs Lounge victims, goaded by Esteve and fellow gay entrepreneurs who earned their keep via gay patrons drowning their sorrows each night instead of protesting the injustices that kept them drinking. 

Into the 1980s, the story of the UpStairs Lounge all but vanished from conversation ā€” with the exception of a few sanctuaries for gay political debate such as the local lesbian bar Charleneā€™s, run by the activist Charlene Schneider. 

By 1988, the 15th anniversary of the fire, the UpStairs Lounge narrative comprised little more than a call for better fire codes and indoor sprinklers. UpStairs Lounge survivor Stewart Butler summed it up: ā€œA tragedy that, as far as I know, no good came of.ā€ 

Finally, in 1991, at Stewart Butler and Charlene Schneiderā€™s nudging, the UpStairs Lounge story became aligned with the crusade of liberated gays and lesbians seeking equal rights in Louisiana. The halls of power responded with intermittent progress. The New Orleans City Council, horrified by the story but not yet ready to take its look in the mirror, enacted an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting gays and lesbians in housing, employment, and public accommodations that Dec. 12 ā€” more than 18 years after the fire. 

ā€œI believe the fire was the catalyst for the anger to bring us all to the table,ā€ Schneider told The Times-Picayune, a tacit rebuke to Esteveā€™s strategy of silent accommodation. Even Esteve seemed to change his stance with time, granting a full interview with the first UpStairs Lounge scholar Johnny Townsend sometime around 1989. 

Most of the figures in this historic tale are now deceased. Whatā€™s left is an enduring story that refused to go gently. The story now echoes around the world ā€” a musical about the UpStairs Lounge fire recently played in Tokyo, translating the gay underworld of the 1973 French Quarter for Japanese audiences.

When I finished my presentation to the City Council last June, I looked up to see the seven council members in tears. Unanimously, they approved a resolution acknowledging the historic failures of city leaders in the wake of the UpStairs Lounge fire. 

Council members personally apologized to UpStairs Lounge families and survivors seated in the chamber in a symbolic act that, though it could not bring back those who died, still mattered greatly to those whose pain had been denied, leaving them to grieve alone. At long last, official silence and indifference gave way to heartfelt words of healing. 

The way Americans remember the past is an active, ongoing process. Our collective memory is malleable, but it matters because it speaks volumes about our maturity as a people, how we acknowledge the pastā€™s influence in our lives, and how it shapes the examples we set for our youth. Do we grapple with difficult truths, or do we duck accountability by defaulting to nostalgia and bluster? Or worse, do we simply ignore the past until it fades into a black hole of ignorance and indifference? 

I believe that a factual retelling of the UpStairs Lounge tragedy ā€” and how, 50 years onward, it became known internationally ā€” resonates beyond our current divides. It reminds queer and non-queer Americans that ignoring the past holds back the present, and that silence is no cure for what ails a participatory nation. 

Silence isolates. Silence gaslights and shrouds. It preserves the power structures that scapegoat the disempowered. 

Solidarity, on the other hand, unites. Solidarity illuminates a path forward together. Above all, solidarity transforms the downtrodden into a resounding chorus of citizens ā€” in the spirit of voices who once gathered ā€˜round a white baby grand piano and sang, joyfully and loudly, ā€œUnited We Stand.ā€ 

(Photo by Philip Ames/Times-Picayune; reprinted with permission)

Robert W. Fieseler is a New Orleans-based journalist and the author of ā€œTinderbox: the Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation.ā€

Continue Reading

homepage news

New Supreme Court term includes critical LGBTQ case with ‘terrifying’ consequences

Business owner seeks to decline services for same-sex weddings

Published

on

The U.S. Supreme Court is to set consider the case of 303 Creative, which seeks to refuse design services for same-sex weddings. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The U.S. Supreme Court, after a decision overturning Roe v. Wade that still leaves many reeling, is starting a new term with justices slated to revisit the issue of LGBTQ rights.

In 303 Creative v. Elenis, the court will return to the issue of whether or not providers of custom-made goods can refuse service to LGBTQ customers on First Amendment grounds. In this case, the business owner is Lorie Smith, a website designer in Colorado who wants to opt out of providing her graphic design services for same-sex weddings despite the civil rights law in her state.

Jennifer Pizer, acting chief legal officer of Lambda Legal, said in an interview with the Blade, “it’s not too much to say an immeasurably huge amount is at stake” for LGBTQ people depending on the outcome of the case.

“This contrived idea that making custom goods, or offering a custom service, somehow tacitly conveys an endorsement of the person ā€” if that were to be accepted, that would be a profound change in the law,” Pizer said. “And the stakes are very high because there are no practical, obvious, principled ways to limit that kind of an exception, and if the law isn’t clear in this regard, then the people who are at risk of experiencing discrimination have no security, no effective protection by having a non-discrimination laws, because at any moment, as one makes their way through the commercial marketplace, you don’t know whether a particular business person is going to refuse to serve you.”

The upcoming arguments and decision in the 303 Creative case mark a return to LGBTQ rights for the Supreme Court, which had no lawsuit to directly address the issue in its previous term, although many argued the Dobbs decision put LGBTQ rights in peril and threatened access to abortion for LGBTQ people.

And yet, the 303 Creative case is similar to other cases the Supreme Court has previously heard on the providers of services seeking the right to deny services based on First Amendment grounds, such as Masterpiece Cakeshop and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. In both of those cases, however, the court issued narrow rulings on the facts of litigation, declining to issue sweeping rulings either upholding non-discrimination principles or First Amendment exemptions.

Pizer, who signed one of the friend-of-the-court briefs in opposition to 303 Creative, said the case is “similar in the goals” of the Masterpiece Cakeshop litigation on the basis they both seek exemptions to the same non-discrimination law that governs their business, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, or CADA, and seek “to further the social and political argument that they should be free to refuse same-sex couples or LGBTQ people in particular.”

“So there’s the legal goal, and it connects to the social and political goals and in that sense, it’s the same as Masterpiece,” Pizer said. “And so there are multiple problems with it again, as a legal matter, but also as a social matter, because as with the religion argument, it flows from the idea that having something to do with us is endorsing us.”

One difference: the Masterpiece Cakeshop litigation stemmed from an act of refusal of service after owner, Jack Phillips, declined to make a custom-made wedding cake for a same-sex couple for their upcoming wedding. No act of discrimination in the past, however, is present in the 303 Creative case. The owner seeks to put on her website a disclaimer she won’t provide services for same-sex weddings, signaling an intent to discriminate against same-sex couples rather than having done so.

As such, expect issues of standing ā€” whether or not either party is personally aggrieved and able bring to a lawsuit ā€” to be hashed out in arguments as well as whether the litigation is ripe for review as justices consider the case. It’s not hard to see U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, who has sought to lead the court to reach less sweeping decisions (sometimes successfully, and sometimes in the Dobbs case not successfully) to push for a decision along these lines.

Another key difference: The 303 Creative case hinges on the argument of freedom of speech as opposed to the two-fold argument of freedom of speech and freedom of religious exercise in the Masterpiece Cakeshop litigation. Although 303 Creative requested in its petition to the Supreme Court review of both issues of speech and religion, justices elected only to take up the issue of free speech in granting a writ of certiorari (or agreement to take up a case). Justices also declined to accept another question in the petition request of review of the 1990 precedent in Smith v. Employment Division, which concluded states can enforce neutral generally applicable laws on citizens with religious objections without violating the First Amendment.

Representing 303 Creative in the lawsuit is Alliance Defending Freedom, a law firm that has sought to undermine civil rights laws for LGBTQ people with litigation seeking exemptions based on the First Amendment, such as the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.

Kristen Waggoner, president of Alliance Defending Freedom, wrote in a Sept. 12 legal brief signed by her and other attorneys that a decision in favor of 303 Creative boils down to a clear-cut violation of the First Amendment.

“Colorado and the United States still contend that CADA only regulates sales transactions,” the brief says. “But their cases do not apply because they involve non-expressive activities: selling BBQ, firing employees, restricting school attendance, limiting club memberships, and providing room access. Coloradoā€™s own cases agree that the government may not use public-accommodation laws to affect a commercial actorā€™s speech.”

Pizer, however, pushed back strongly on the idea a decision in favor of 303 Creative would be as focused as Alliance Defending Freedom purports it would be, arguing it could open the door to widespread discrimination against LGBTQ people.

“One way to put it is art tends to be in the eye of the beholder,” Pizer said. “Is something of a craft, or is it art? I feel like I’m channeling Lily Tomlin. Remember ‘soup and art’? We have had an understanding that whether something is beautiful or not is not the determining factor about whether something is protected as artistic expression. There’s a legal test that recognizes if this is speech, whose speech is it, whose message is it? Would anyone who was hearing the speech or seeing the message understand it to be the message of the customer or of the merchants or craftsmen or business person?”

Despite the implications in the case for LGBTQ rights, 303 Creative may have supporters among LGBTQ people who consider themselves proponents of free speech.

One joint friend-of-the-court brief before the Supreme Court, written by Dale Carpenter, a law professor at Southern Methodist University who’s written in favor of LGBTQ rights, and Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment legal scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, argues the case is an opportunity to affirm the First Amendment applies to goods and services that are uniquely expressive.

“Distinguishing expressive from non-expressive products in some contexts might be hard, but the Tenth Circuit agreed that Smithā€™s product does not present a hard case,” the brief says. “Yet that court (and Colorado) declined to recognize any exemption for products constituting speech. The Tenth Circuit has effectively recognized a state interest in subjecting the creation of speech itself to antidiscrimination laws.”

Oral arguments in the case aren’t yet set, but may be announced soon. Set to defend the state of Colorado and enforcement of its non-discrimination law in the case is Colorado Solicitor General Eric Reuel Olson. Just this week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would grant the request to the U.S. solicitor general to present arguments before the justices on behalf of the Biden administration.

With a 6-3 conservative majority on the court that has recently scrapped the super-precedent guaranteeing the right to abortion, supporters of LGBTQ rights may think the outcome of the case is all but lost, especially amid widespread fears same-sex marriage would be next on the chopping block. After the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against 303 Creative in the lawsuit, the simple action by the Supreme Court to grant review in the lawsuit suggests they are primed to issue a reversal and rule in favor of the company.

Pizer, acknowledging the call to action issued by LGBTQ groups in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, conceded the current Supreme Court issuing the ruling in this case is “a terrifying prospect,” but cautioned the issue isn’t so much the makeup of the court but whether or not justices will continue down the path of abolishing case law.

“I think the question that we’re facing with respect to all of the cases or at least many of the cases that are in front of the court right now, is whether this court is going to continue on this radical sort of wrecking ball to the edifice of settled law and seemingly a goal of setting up whole new structures of what our basic legal principles are going to be. Are we going to have another term of that?” Pizer said. “And if so, that’s terrifying.”

Continue Reading

homepage news

Kelley Robinson, a Black, queer woman, named president of Human Rights Campaign

Progressive activist a veteran of Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Published

on

Kelley Robinson (Screen capture via HRC YouTube)

Kelley Robinson, a Black, queer woman and veteran of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, is to become the next president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s leading LGBTQ group announced on Tuesday.

Robinson is set to become the ninth president of the Human Rights Campaign after having served as executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund and more than 12 years of experience as a leader in the progressive movement. She’ll be the first Black, queer woman to serve in that role.

ā€œIā€™m honored and ready to lead HRC ā€” and our more than three million member-advocates ā€” as we continue working to achieve equality and liberation for all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer people,ā€ Robinson said. ā€œThis is a pivotal moment in our movement for equality for LGBTQ+ people. We, particularly our trans and BIPOC communities, are quite literally in the fight for our lives and facing unprecedented threats that seek to destroy us.”

Kelley Robinson IS NAMED as The next human rights Campaign president

The next Human Rights Campaign president is named as Democrats are performing well in polls in the mid-term elections after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving an opening for the LGBTQ group to play a key role amid fears LGBTQ rights are next on the chopping block.

“The overturning of Roe v. Wade reminds us we are just one Supreme Court decision away from losing fundamental freedoms including the freedom to marry, voting rights, and privacy,” Robinson said. “We are facing a generational opportunity to rise to these challenges and create real, sustainable change. I believe that working together this change is possible right now. This next chapter of the Human Rights Campaign is about getting to freedom and liberation without any exceptions ā€” and today I am making a promise and commitment to carry this work forward.ā€

The Human Rights Campaign announces its next president after a nearly year-long search process after the board of directors terminated its former president Alphonso David when he was ensnared in the sexual misconduct scandal that led former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign. David has denied wrongdoing and filed a lawsuit against the LGBTQ group alleging racial discrimination.

Kelley Robinson, Planned Parenthood, Cathy Chu, SMYAL, Supporting and Mentoring Youth Advocates and Leaders, Amy Nelson, Whitman-Walker Health, Sheroes of the Movement, Mayor's office of GLBT Affairs, gay news, Washington Blade
Kelley Robinson, seen here with Cathy Chu of SMYAL and Amy Nelson of Whitman-Walker Health, is the next Human Rights Campaign president. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Continue Reading
Advertisement
Advertisement

Sign Up for Weekly E-Blast

Follow Us @washblade

Advertisement

Popular