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Jeb Bush blames Obama for Republican vitriol against LGBT rights

‘The Republican Party responded by trying to out-polarize the president’

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Jeb Bush, gay news, Washington Blade
Jeb Bush, gay news, Washington Blade

Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) blames Obama for the Republican Party’s ant-LGBT vitriol. (Washington Blade file photo by Lee Whitman)

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush may have had an abysmal showing in the Republican presidential primary, but that isn’t stopping him from blaming President Obama for GOP vitriol against LGBT rights.

In an op-ed published Friday in the Washington Post, Bush explains his lack of support for Donald Trump, who’s set to accept the Republican presidential nomination this week in Cleveland, sayingĀ heĀ isn’t the future the Republican Party.

But Bush blamesĀ Obama’s policy decisions and efforts to act as his own when Congress won’t as the reason why Trump rose to prominence.

“Eight years of the divisive tactics of President Obama and his allies have undermined Americans’ faith in politics and government to accomplish anything constructive,” Bush writes. “The president has wielded his power — while often exceeding his authority — to punish his opponents, legislate from the White House and turn agency rulemaking into a weapon for liberal dogma.”

Among Obama’s executive actions are signing an executive order barring federal contractors from engaging in anti-LGBT workplace discrimination. The ObamaĀ administration undertaken has numerous actions on behalf of LGBT rights that a President Trump could undo under his administration.

It’s these executive actions Bush says are to blame for the Republican Party attempting to “out-polarize the president”Ā with vitriol against LGBT people as well as other minority groups.

“In turn, a few in the Republican Party responded by trying to out-polarize the president, making us seem anti-immigrant, anti-women, anti-science, anti-gay, anti-worker and anti-common-sense,” Bush writes.

The same week Bush published his op-ed, the Republican Party drafted a national platform that critics have called the most anti-LGBT ever. Among other things, it seeks to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in favor of same-sex marriage, supports barringĀ transgender people fromĀ bathroom use consistent with their gender identity and endorses widely discredited “ex-gay” conversion therapy.

For his part, Bush saidĀ during his failed presidential campaign support for traditional marriage — code for opposition to gay nuptials — should be “a core American value” to protect children born in poverty.

ā€œIt’s talking about being formed by one’s faith, it’s at the core of the Catholic faith and to imagine how we are going to succeed in our country unless we have committed family life, committed child-centered family system is hard to imagine,ā€ Bush continued. ā€œSo, irrespective of the Supreme Court ruling because they are going to decide whatever they decide, I don’t know what they are going to do, we need to be stalwart supporters of traditional marriage.ā€

h/t Instinct Magazine

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World

Pope Francis: Gender ideology is ‘one of the most dangerous colonizations’ in the world

Argentina newspaper published interview with pontiff on March 10

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Pope Francis (Photo by palinchak via Bigstock)

Pope Francis earlier this month said gender ideology is “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations” in the world today.

“Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations,” Francis told La Nación, an Argentine newspaper, in an interview that was published on March 10. “Why is it dangerous? Because it blurs differences and the value of men and women.”

ā€œAll humanity is the tension of differences,” added the pontiff. “It is to grow through the tension of differences. The question of gender is diluting the differences and making the world the same, all dull, all alike, and that is contrary to the human vocation.ā€

The Vatican’s tone towards LGBTQ and intersex issues has softened since since Francis assumed the papacy in 2013.

Francis publicly backs civil unions for same-sex couples, and has described laws that criminalize homosexuality are “unjust.” Church teachings on homosexuality and gender identity have nevertheless not changed since Francis became pope.

Francis toldĀ La NaciónĀ that he talks about gender ideology “because some people are a bit naive and believe that it is the way to progress.” The Catholic News Agency furtherĀ notesĀ Francis also said these people “do not distinguish what is respect for sexual diversity or diverse sexual preferences from what is already an anthropology of gender, which is extremely dangerous because it eliminates differences, and that erases humanity, the richness of humanity, both personal, cultural, and social, the diversities and the tensions between differences.”

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Maryland

Md. House of Delegates approves transgender rights bill

State Medicaid program would be required to cover gender-affirming treatment

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Md. state Sen. Mary Washington (D-Baltimore City) speaks at a press conference for the Trans Health Equity Act in Annapolis, Md., on Feb. 14, 2023. (Washington Blade photo by Linus Berggren)

The Maryland House of Delegates on Saturday approved a bill that would require the state’s Medicaid program to cover gender-affirming treatment for transgender people.

House Bill 283, or the Trans Health Equity Act, passed by a 93-37 vote margin. The measure now goes before the Maryland Senate.

“Proud that the MD House of Delegates passed the Trans Health Equity Act with such a strong majority,” tweeted state Del. Anne Kaiser (D-Montgomery County), who introduced HB 283.

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Politics

Chasten Buttigieg speaks out against Pence’s homophobic remarks

Pence doubled down Thursday on homophobic remarks about the Transportation Secretary

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Chasten Buttigieg on The View (Screen shot/YouTube)

Chasten Buttigieg, husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, said former Vice President Mike Pence has not apologized for homophobic and misogynistic remarks about the couple that he made at a dinner in D.C. last weekend.

ā€œI spoke up because we all have an obligation to hold people accountable for when they say something wrong, especially when it’s misogynistic, especially when it’s homophobic,” Chasten Buttigieg said during an appearance Thursday on ABC’s The View.

Last Saturday, Pence had joked that following the birth of the Buttigieg twins in 2021, the transportation secretary took “maternity leave” and then the country suffered “postpartum depression” over issues with airlines and air travel.

The former vice president delivered the remarks — which were first reported by the Washington Blade — during the annual Gridiron Club dinner, which he headlined along with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D).

Per tradition, speakers at the dinner are expected to poke fun at political figures, including guests in attendance, but Pence’s comments quickly drew outrage for their homophobia and misogyny.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre addressed the matter in a comment shared with the Blade on Monday, ā€œThe former vice president’s homophobic joke about Secretary Buttigieg was offensive and inappropriate, all the more so because he treated women suffering from postpartum depression as a punchline.”

The Buttigiegs have been public about the “terrifying” ordeal they suffered following the premature births of their twins. The newborns developed serious Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infections (RSV) — which required one to be hospitalized, put on a ventilator, and transferred to a children’s hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich., for treatment.

“An honest question for you, @Mike_Pence, after your attempted joke this weekend,” Chasten Buttigieg tweeted on Monday, “If your grandchild was born prematurely and placed on a ventilator at two months old – their tiny fingers wrapped around yours as the monitors beep in the background – where would you be?”

The transportation secretary, asked on Monday whether they are owed an apology from Pence, said, “I’ll let others speak to that.”

During Thursday’s interview, Chasten Buttigieg called out the hypocrisy of Pence’s putative identity as a “family values Republican,” telling the talk show’s hosts, “I don’t think he’s practicing what he preaches here.”

“But also,” he added, “it’s a bigger conversation about the work that women do in families — taking a swipe at all women and all families and expecting that women would stay home and raise children is a misogynistic view.”

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