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Marianne Williamson: ‘I honor gay love because it’s love’

2020 hopeful and author implies Mike Pence Is gay

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Marianne Williamson says love can defeat President Trump. (Photo by Marcn via Facebook)

One underdog Democratic presidential candidate with firsthand experience of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s wants to wield love — including gay love — as her weapon of choice to take on President Trump in 2020.

Marianne Williamson, an author whose vision for a “Politics of Love” is the subject of her latest book and drew attention at the first Democratic debate, said in an interview Thursday with the Washington Blade her vision applies to LGBT people.

“I don’t think that there’s gender to love, I don’t think there’s sexuality to love,” Williamson said. “I think that sexuality and gender are the containers and the ways we express our love, but I think love is love. I honor gay love because it’s love. I honor love.”

Williamson, 67, said her work during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s is “well-documented.” At the time, she founded the Los Angeles and Manhattan Centers for Living, which sought to provide free non-medical care to people with HIV, and Project Angel Food, which delivers food to homebound people with AIDS.

“I’ve worked with thousands of people during that time, during the AIDS crisis, spiritual support groups, food, etcetera.,” Williamson said. “So actually, my activism on behalf of that community has been ongoing and began during the AIDS crisis, so my connection to that community has been strong and has been going on for a very long time.”

In the aftermath of racist tweets from President Trump and presiding over a rally in which supporters chanted “send her back” in reference to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Williamson likened the current administration to Nazi Germany before World War II.

Asked what aspect of the Trump administration’s anti-LGBT record bothers her the most, Williamson identified the transgender military ban, saying Trump “in many ways, leads the pack” in cultural attitudes against transgender people.

When the Blade asked Williamson why she thinks Vice President Mike Pence seems so uncomfortable with the idea of gay rights, she laughed and referenced rumors that Pence is himself gay without explicitly saying so.

“Well, there are all kinds of theories about that, aren’t there?” Williamson said. “Everyone can have their own — can have their own. I have no idea, but I have a sense that other people do.”

Remembering Los Angeles as being hard hit by AIDS in the 1980s because it affected many people in the entertainment industry and LGBT people, Williamson became emotional and unable to speak when she reflected on the ravages of the disease.

“Those of us who did experience it, it imprints them,” Williamson said. “You’re imprinted with something. I can’t even talk about it now and not —“

David Kessler, a gay longtime friend of Williamson, said the candidate is “brilliant and articulate and she has always been someone who thinks a little out of the box,” marveling at her work during the height of the AIDS epidemic.

The two met, Kessler said, as a result of an AIDS support group she held in his living room every Monday night when he was in another section of town doing a support group.

Recalling the days when medical practitioners would decline to treat people with AIDS, Kessler said Williamson would visit gay men as they were dying in hospitals and came up with the idea for the Los Angeles Center for Living.

“Even back then, I said, ‘Well, do you have a business plan?” Kessler said. “And she goes, ‘No. I don’t have a business plan. I’m just trying to make this happen. And I’m like, ‘Well, you’re going to need a business plan for an organization.’ And she goes, ‘I’m going to just make this happen.’ And she started calling people, and started saying we have to this place for people to come, and the next thing I know, she started this amazing LA Center for Living.”

Kessler said Williamson started Project Angel Food when she realized gay men with AIDS had stopped coming to the center because they were too sick to leave their homes.

“They were getting sicker and they couldn’t come in for lunch,” Kessler said. “And she said, ‘Well, we have to bring them lunch,’ and that turned into Project Angel Food, which still exists today, and just the other day served its 12 millionth meal.”

Williamson has taken flak for once calling vaccine mandates “Orwellian” and “draconian” — a statement for which she has since issued an apology — and bristled when asked whether she would support a hypothetical HIV vaccine.

“I think my quote unquote, concern over vaccines has been vastly misrepresented,” Williamson said. “I am pro-vaccine. I am also pro-independent scientific research. And I am aware of how often in our country today because of the influence of Big Pharma, independent research through such sources as the Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health so forth, is diminished. I also am never happy with the suppression of independent consultation In the United States.”

Regarding the AIDS vaccine, Williamson said she “knows that it exists.” Just last week, the National Institutes for Health announced the start of trials in the United States and abroad for a potential HIV vaccine.

Kessler defended Williamson as a supporter of medicine, saying “there’s been things said that she’s against medicine, which is completely utterly wrong.”

“I remember Marianne giving men money and taking them to UCLA for the AZT study and giving them money for prescriptions,” Kessler said. “There’s no part of Marianne that was anti-medicine.”

Despite Williamson’s record of working for LGBT people, many LGBT voters have been drawn to other candidates, including gay South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg (whose success to date Williamson called “wonderful.”)

One gay Democratic advocate with familiarity of LGBT donors in Los Angeles, who spoke on condition of anonymity for greater candor, said eyes have been on other candidates who appear better poised to win in the general election.

“I know that there are a number of folks here who look very kindly on all of the work that she did in the community in the past — but most are now focused on more serious candidates who stand a real chance at beating our current threat: Donald Trump,” the advocate said.

The full interview follows: 

Washington Blade: Let me just get right into it. The Washington Blade is the nation’s oldest LGBT newspaper. We’re celebrating our 50th anniversary, in fact, this year. 

And so to start off with, I want to ask you, because you’re running in a field of Democratic candidates with records in support of LGBT rights, what makes you think your candidacy and vision for a “politics of love” is the best choice for the LGBT community?

Marianne Williamson: Well, I actually have a very long record of activism on behalf of the LGBTQ community. Starting in 1983, starting in the 80s, with the AIDS crisis, my activism is well documented, having founded the Los Angeles Centers for Living, and the Manhattans Center for Living, both which gave non-profit, gave free non-medical services to people living with AIDS and other life-challenging illnesses. 

And one of the programs of the Centers for Living was Project Angel Food. This was a “Meals on Wheels” program I founded in the late 80s, to feed homebound people with AIDS. 

Today, the organization still exists and has served over 11 million meals. I did numerous — I’ve worked with thousands of people during that time, during the AIDS crisis, spiritual support groups, food, etc. So actually, my activism on behalf of that community has been ongoing and began during the AIDS crisis. So, my connection to that community has been strong and has been going on for a very long time.

Blade: And I think, as you said, that your work with the Los Angeles and Manhattan Centers for Living, and Project Angel Food is well documented. But what about the future? To what extent will your signature plans — the institution of a Department of Children & Youth, the Department of Peace and reparations — address issues facing LGBT people?

Williamson: I don’t think the Department of Children & Youth or even necessarily the Department of Peace specifically speak to that.

The issue of LGBT rights to me is a basic justice and civil rights issue in the United States. Discrimination against gay people, particularly against trans people today, is unfortunately, it could be argued at an all-time high. It seems in some ways, and in some ways, it is true, great strides have been made.

Also, I’d like to point out that I was — among public figures — I was very, very early in support of marriage equality, long before most democratic politicians were, I was out there publicly talking about how gay people should be able to marry while a lot of other people, even on the left in public positions, we’re saying, oh marriage is — what did they say? — you know, between a man and a woman or whatever. So I have always been very, very vocal about my support. 

In terms of what’s happening today. Well, obviously great strides have been made, marriage equality, etc. When you look at some of the discrimination, and also some of the cultural attitudes, particularly against trans people, it’s very disturbing what is happening today. And of course, unfortunately, this president in many ways, leads the pack. 

So I have, as I have always had, a very acute awareness and sensitivity to the propensity of certain forces, to scapegoat the LGBTQ community, and to — through legislation, as well as the propagation of very unjust cultural attitudes — make life harder for them. I’m very aware of always to the best of my ability, within the purview of the power that’s been given me, stood up not just in word, but in action, and will definitely continue to do that as president of the United States.

Blade: I did want to ask you some questions about President Trump. He’s had quite a controversial week to put it politely. On Sunday, he told four congresswomen to go back to their home countries in racist tweets and held the rally last night, and which supporters chanted “send her back” in reference to Rep. Ilhan Omar. What’s your reaction to all that?

Williamson: I’d be glad to send you the link to the CNN interview with Anderson Cooper that I gave right after the rally.

I thought it was one of the most disturbing speeches a president of the United States has ever given. It was beyond disturbing, it was dangerous. These are elected — these are American women. They are elected representatives in Congress, and our political opponents are not our enemies. We do not do that in America.

And all people of goodwill and conscience — in fact, all patriotic Americans, whether on the left or on the right, need to be very alert and aware of the danger that is posed by this kind of dictatorial behavior. This kind of saying this demonization of one’s political opponents is straight out of a fascist playbook.

Blade: In terms of LGBT rights, though, what upsets you the most about how President Trump has handled them?

Williamson: Well, the military ban is particularly egregious, because these are people who have volunteered to give their lives if necessary. The idea that you would actually reject someone who has offered to sacrifice their life on your behalf is such an emotional and psychological assault, in addition to being an assault on their rights as American citizens.

I take the Declaration of Independence very seriously. To me, it is America’s mission statement. And what is wrong in our country is that we have lost our psychological and emotional commitment to that statement. All are created equal. All were given by God the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Governments are instituted to secure those rights. And I note, not thwart those rights, secure those rights. And it is the right of the people to alter that government, if it fails to do so.

It is time for all patriotic Americans to not only understand that, but to also realize that, as my father used to say, if they’re coming from anyone, they could come for you someday. As Martin Luther King said, injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere. So as president, it would not even matter to me whether someone is gay, straight, LGBTQ, black, white, brown, what their ethnicity [is]. They’re American. For that matter, they’re human. 

Because I believe that when the Declaration of Independence says all are created equal it doesn’t even just say Americans. The issue of equality for all is core to everything America stands for, and we should have a president deeply committed to that principle, not willing to compromise it in any way, shape or form.

Blade: One more question about the Trump administration. Why do you think Vice President Mike Pence seems so uncomfortable with the idea of gay rights?

Williamson: [laughs] Well, there are all kinds of theories about that, aren’t there? Everyone can have their own — can have their own. I have no idea, but I have a sense that other people do.

Blade: What is your theory? Why do you think that is?

Williamson: I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s not, it’s not my job to weigh in on the vice president’s motivation. It’s my job to weigh in on his behavior, as vice president of the United States, his words and his behavior, or whatnot. And they are not in my mind in keeping with the dedication to equality that is called for in someone who holds a high office or any political office in the United States.

Blade: I want to go back to your history and how during the AIDS epidemic, you founded the Los Angeles and Manhattan Center for Living and Project Angel Food. Would would be the No. 1 thing you learned from that experience?

Williamson: That people are so good. When that happened, I was living in Los Angeles at the time, and Los Angeles was particularly hard hit by the epidemic. And also the entertainment industry, it was very hard hit by the epidemic because so many people in the arts, so many gay people, so many people who were affected by the illness, were, you know, living in Los Angeles, living in New York, in theater, design, fashion. It was — it was — it was — it was like a war zone in ways that many people today cannot even imagine.

Because for a long time there was nothing. I’m not saying that Western medicine wasn’t doing its best, because it absolutely was. But it took a while before the diagnosis of the virus was anything other than a death sentence.

And so all we had was our love for each other, but love for each other was so prevalent. People were so willing to do anything, and the bravery and people and the love in people — because remember, it wasn’t just people who had the virus. It was also people whose brothers or sisters whose parents, whose children, whose friends — it seemed like almost everybody was affected.

And yet we were there for each other. And I saw what people will do for each other. And I think everybody who lived through that time is marked by that experience. No one who lived through it will ever forget it.

But you remember…I’ll be glad to send you my book, my new book, “Politics of Love.” In the introduction, I talk about it. And I talk about it in terms of my experience having been through a collective trauma. That’s what it was. It was a collective trauma. It wasn’t just what you were going through, or what I was going through, it’s what everybody we knew was going through.

And it’s — it’s an experience like no other. And I’m glad for people who have never experienced it. Don’t get me wrong. But those of us who did experience it, it imprints them. You’re imprinted with something. I can’t even talk about it now and not — 

[At this point, Williamson says she has to check in to the airport for a flight and will call back.]

Blade: That disease still exists today. And what I want to ask you about is one thing that the Trump administration has done is start an initiative that the Department of Health & Human Services that has the goal of ending the HIV epidemic by the year 2030. Are you aware of this initiative? And what do you make of it?

Williamson: I’m not aware of the initiative. But is it — the first thing I would do is to ask gay leaders, actually, do they feel that that is a year that is reasonable, or should we try to speed it up.

And I support any initiative and from any administration, whether it’s the Trump administration or any other if, in fact, is gets support. I’m certainly aware that AIDS still exists. It doesn’t exist in the United States like it once did. … And I support anything, any initiative, that would be of support in ending that epidemic.

Blade: You’ve expressed concern in the past about vaccine mandates. Do you think the creation of an HIV vaccine and a mandate to have that vaccine would be a good thing?

Williamson: First of all, I think my quote unquote, concern over vaccines has been vastly misrepresented. I am pro-vaccine. I am also pro-independent scientific research. And I am aware of how often in our country today because of the influence of Big Pharma, independent research through such sources as the Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health so forth, is diminished.

I also am never happy with the suppression of independent consultation in the United States. Regarding the the AIDS vaccine, I know that it exists.

I don’t know enough about it medically to weigh in on that. But I’m certainly happy that such a vaccine exists.

Blade: Okay, let’s go back on the record. And get back to the Democratic primary and the election. One candidate that’s doing very well is South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Are you surprised that a candidate like him, an openly gay candidate like him, can be so successful?

Williamson: I think it’s wonderful. I think it’s wonderful for America that he is successful. I think that the election of President Obama demonstrated an openness on the part of Americans. And so, given the fact that we elected a black president, I’m not shocked at the willingness of the American people to elect a gay president.

I also hope the American people will be willing to elect a woman president, I hope the American people will be willing to elect a Jewish president. I hope that we are living at a time when we are ready to receive each other at a deep level and honor each other at such a deep level as to recognize the genius that lies within us all.

Blade: What is the most significant relationship you have with someone in the LGBT community?

Williamson: Well, my daughter has five gay godfathers. My best friend was — for many years — he died a couple of years ago, three years ago, four years ago, was a gay man. So my relationships with gay individuals have been actually very deep.

Blade: Is there anyone in particular who stands out to you?

Williamson: Well, Richard Cooper was my best friend. He died, unfortunately. There was a gentleman named Bruce Biermann, who I’m sure would be glad to talk to you because he was very much a part of the whole Project Angel Food for years. Also David Kessler, both of them are godfathers to my daughter. They were both very involved. And David is also involved in my campaign, the relationship goes back many years and very — we’ve all been through a lot together.

Blade: What would you say if your child came out to you as gay or transgender?

Williamson: Good for you that you know who you are, and it’s good for you that you know what is right for you. Are there any challenges that you’re facing? I’m your mom. I’m here for you. How can I help?

I’d also say to my daughter: Just be clear, I still want grandchildren.

Blade: That’s understandable, right? So, I mean, You talk a lot about the politics of love. And you said during the last debate, you said you want to beat President Trump in a field of love. Do you think gay love can beat President Trump?

Williamson: I think love is love. I don’t think that the way — gay love, straight love, the important part to me there is love. I think the point is that there is no — I don’t think that there’s gender to love, I don’t think there’s sexuality to love. I think that sexuality and gender are the containers and the ways we express our love, but I think love is love.

I honor gay love because it’s love. I honor love.

Blade: I guess is my final question for you: Love regardless of gender, I mean, how confident are you when the dust clears in November 2020, how confident are you know that it will ultimately defeat President Trump?

Williamson: Let’s look at what is happening in this country. And let’s look at the reaction of people to what is happening in this country. Let’s look at how many Americans are deeply aware that democratic values, humanitarian values, everything that makes a democracy meaningful, and life beautiful, is under assault from the policies of this administration.

I trust the American people to wake up to this moment, to rise to the occasion to resist what needs to be resisted, and pave the way for a better future for us all. I have faith that the American people are going to rise to the occasion here. I believe that it will happen.


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Honoring the legacy of New Orleans’ 1973 UpStairs Lounge fire

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

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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 Orleans’ 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, “United We Stand” by the Brotherhood of Man. 

“United we stand,” the men would sing together, “divided we fall” — the words epitomizing the ethos of their beloved UpStairs Lounge bar, an egalitarian free space that served as a forerunner to today’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 — 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: “Some thieves hung out there, and you know this was a queer bar.” 

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 “help our bereaved brothers and sisters” — and shatter officialdom’s code of silence. 

Perry broke local taboos by holding a press conference as an openly gay man. “It’s high time that you people, in New Orleans, Louisiana, got the message and joined the rest of the Union,” 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. 

“This fire had very little to do with the gay movement or with anything gay,” Esteve told a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer. “I do not want my bar or this tragedy to be used to further any of their causes.” 

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

“Phil said the cash register, juke box, cigarette machine and some wallets had money removed,” recounted Esteve’s friend Bob McAnear, a former U.S. Customs officer. “Phil wouldn’t report it because, if he did, police would never allow him to operate a bar in New Orleans again.” 

The next day, gay bar owners, incensed at declining gay bar traffic amid an atmosphere of anxiety, confronted Perry at a clandestine meeting. “How dare you hold your damn news conferences!” 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. “Reverend Troy Perry awoke several sleeping giants, me being one of them,” 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 story’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 — some with visible burn scars — gathered but were discouraged from singing “United We Stand.” 

New Orleans cops neglected to question the chief arson suspect and closed the investigation without answers in late August 1973. Gay elites in the city’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, “Where are the gay activists in New Orleans?,” Esteve responded that there were none, because none were needed. “We don’t feel we’re discriminated against,” Esteve said. “New Orleans gays are different from gays anywhere else… Perhaps there is some correlation between the amount of gay activism in other cities and the degree of police harassment.” 

(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 — with the exception of a few sanctuaries for gay political debate such as the local lesbian bar Charlene’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: “A tragedy that, as far as I know, no good came of.” 

Finally, in 1991, at Stewart Butler and Charlene Schneider’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 — more than 18 years after the fire. 

“I believe the fire was the catalyst for the anger to bring us all to the table,” Schneider told The Times-Picayune, a tacit rebuke to Esteve’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. What’s left is an enduring story that refused to go gently. The story now echoes around the world — 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 past’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 — and how, 50 years onward, it became known internationally — 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 — in the spirit of voices who once gathered ‘round a white baby grand piano and sang, joyfully and loudly, “United We Stand.” 

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

Robert W. Fieseler is a New Orleans-based journalist and the author of “Tinderbox: the Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation.”

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

Business owner seeks to decline services for same-sex weddings

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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 — 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 — whether or not either party is personally aggrieved and able bring to a lawsuit — 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. Colorado’s own cases agree that the government may not use public-accommodation laws to affect a commercial actor’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 Smith’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.”

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

Progressive activist a veteran of Planned Parenthood Action Fund

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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.

“I’m honored and ready to lead HRC — and our more than three million member-advocates — as we continue working to achieve equality and liberation for all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer people,” Robinson said. “This 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 — and today I am making a promise and commitment to carry this work forward.”

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)
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