News
White House embraces NCAA, ACC values in cancelling N.C. games
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest declined Thursday to comment directly on the NCAA and ACC pulling games from North Carolina over its anti-LGBT law, but said reasoning behind the decisions “sound a lot like the values President Obama has been fighting for for the last eight years in the White House.”
Under questioning from the Washington Blade, Earnest said the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Atlantic Coast Conference “are making their own decisions,” but President Obama shares the values they expressed in announcing their decisions to pull games from North Carolina over House Bill 2.
“Certainly, the president agrees with the values that were articulated by the leaders of both the ACC and the NCAA when they talked about their commitment to equality and justice for every American,” Earnest said.
Both collegiate sports organizations this week cancelled championship games in North Carolina over HB2, which bars cities from enacting pro-LGBT non-discrimination ordinances and prohibits transgender people from using the public restrooms in schools and government buildings consistent with their gender identity.
Earnest, who called the law “mean-spirited” when it was enacted in March, said HB2 isn’t just contrary to the values of Americans who oppose discrimination, but also “inconsistent with a smart business strategy.”
“We have seen private sector businesses and athletic organizations announce their intent to take their business elsewhere outside the state of North Carolina,” Earnest said. “So, again, I think the president’s got concerns with the law, but it’s apparent that business leaders and the leaders of athletic organizations have similar concerns, particularly when it comes to the impact that it could have on discriminating against athletes, coaches or even fans.”
Asked whether the athletic organizations’ decisions to pull games from North Carolina reflect a national distaste for the law, Earnest said looking at the loss of business to the state would put an individual on “solid ground” to conclude “opposition to the law is quite widespread, and that a number of people are quite uncomfortable with the discriminatory impact that it has.”
“It’s not just the NCAA and the ACC, which are collegiate athletic organizations,” Earnest said. “The NBA has moved the All-Star Game and any number of private sector companies have made announcements curtailing their footprint inside the state of North Carolina.”
Earnest said he hasn’t discussed the NCAA and ACC decisions to cancel games in North Carolina with Obama, nor would he expect the administration to directly comment on decisions those kind of private entities are making,
“But certainly they have described the kinds of values that are leading them to make those decisions, and those values sound a lot like the values President Obama has been fighting for for the last eight years in the White House,” Earnest said.
Iran
Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
Former ambassador to Germany claimed he has sneaked ‘gays and lesbians out of’ country
Richard Grenell, the presidential envoy for special missions of the United States, said on X on Tuesday that he has helped “sneak gays and lesbians out of Iran” and is seeing a change in attitudes in the country.
The post, which now has more than 25,000 likes since its uploading, claims that attitudes toward gays and lesbians are shifting amid massive economic protests across the country.
“For the first time EVER, someone has said ‘I want to wait just a bit,” the former U.S. ambassador to Germany wrote. “There is real hope coming from the inside. I don’t think you can stop this now.”
Grenell has been a longtime supporter of the president.
“Richard Grenell is a fabulous person, A STAR,” Trump posted on Truth Social days before his official appointment to the ambassador role. “He will be someplace, high up! DJT”
Iran, which is experiencing demonstrations across all 31 provinces of the country — including in Tehran, the capital — started as a result of a financial crisis causing the collapse of its national currency. Time magazine credits this uprising after the U.N. re-imposed sanctions in September over the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
As basic necessities like bread, rice, meat, and medical supplies become increasingly unaffordable to the majority of the more than 90 million people living there, citizens took to the streets to push back against Iran’s theocratic regime.
Grenell, who was made president and executive director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts last year by Trump, believes that people in the majority Shiite Muslim country are also beginning to protest human rights abuses.
Iran is among only a handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Virginia
Mark Levine loses race to succeed Adam Ebbin in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary
State Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker won with 70.6 percent of vote
Gay former Virginia House of Delegates member Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) lost his race to become the Democratic nominee to replace gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) in a Jan. 13 “firehouse” Democratic primary.
Levine finished in second place in the hastily called primary, receiving 807 votes or 17.4 percent. The winner in the four-candidate race, state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who was endorsed by both Ebbin and Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger received 3,281 votes or 70.6 percent.
Ebbin, whose 39th Senate District includes Alexandria and parts of Arlington and Fairfax Counties, announced on Jan. 7 that he was resigning effective Feb. 18, to take a job in the Spanberger administration as senior advisor at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
Results of the Jan. 13 primary, which was called by Democratic Party leaders in Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax, show that candidates Charles Sumpter, a World Wildlife Fund director, finished in third place with 321 voters or 6.9 percent; and Amy Jackson, the former Alexandria vice mayor, finished in fourth place with 238 votes or 5.1 percent.
Bennett-Parker, who LGBTQ community advocates consider a committed LGBTQ ally, will now compete as the Democratic nominee in a Feb. 10 special election in which registered voters in the 39th District of all political parties and independents will select Ebbin’s replacement in the state senate.
The Alexandria publication ALX Now reports that local realtor Julie Robben Linebery has been selected by the Alexandria Republican City Committee to be the GOP candidate to compete in the Jan. 10 special election. According to ALX Now, Lineberry was the only application to run in a now cancelled special party caucus type event initially called to select the GOP nominees.
It couldn’t immediately be determined if an independent or other party candidate planned to run in the special election.
Bennett-Parker is considered the strong favorite to win the Feb. 10 special election in the heavily Democratic 39th District, where Democrat Ebbin has served as senator since 2012.
Congress
Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.
ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is among those who spoke at an “ICE Out for Good” protest that took place outside U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s headquarters in D.C. on Tuesday.
The protest took place six days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis.
Good left behind her wife and three children.
(Video by Michael K. Lavers)
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