News
Zero Democrats lend name to GOP compromise on LGBTQ rights
All 21 original co-sponsors are Republicans
Despite signals the Fairness for All Act counterproposal from Republicans on LGBTQ rights and religious freedom would have bipartisan support upon its reintroduction on Friday, the final list of original co-sponsors has no Democrats.
Although the list of 21 co-sponsors is more than double the nine who support the first iteration of the Fairness for All in the previous Congress, they’re entirely made up of Republicans. The absence of any Democrats dashes hopes from supporters the legislation could be a starting point for negotiations across the aisle on the Equality Act in the Senate.
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), the chief sponsor of the bill, nonetheless hailed the Fairness for All Act upon reintroduction as a way to bring the gap on LGBTQ rights and religious freedom.
“It is hard to really love our neighbors when we are fighting with them over whose rights are more important,” Stewart said. “This country can accommodate both civil liberties for LGBT individuals & religious freedom. We have wasted enough time, energy, and money fighting over who deserves which legal protections. It is time to define the federal protections for our LGBT and religious friends and neighbors.”
The Fairness for All Act, like the Equality Act, would amend all aspects of federal civil rights law to expand the prohibition on discrimination against LGBTQ people in employment, housing, public accommodations, federally funded programs, education, credit and jury service. A copy of the bill reviewed.by Blade revealed the Fairness for All Act doesn’t have substantive changes from its previous iteration in terms of LGBTQ issues, but other than clarity for protections based on race, color and national origin.
Stewart, in a statement to the Washington Blade, said he won’t give up on finding Democratic for the legislation.
“I am grateful to my colleagues who joined me today,” Stewart said. “We are still working with our Democratic colleagues and have high hopes that this bill will ultimately be bipartisan.”
Stewart had signaled as of Wednesday via a spokesperson the Fairness for All Act “will have bipartisan support by the end of the week” and would hold off on plans to introduce the legislation until after the U.S. House voted on the Equality Act, the flagship comprehensive bill to expand anti-discrimination principles for LGBTQ people under federal civil rights law.
The House approved the Equality Act on a largely party-line vote Thursday with just a blemish of bipartisan support. Three Republicans voted for the Equality Act, compared to the eight who voted for the legislation in 2019.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the sponsor of the Equality Act in the House, told the Washington Blade on Thursday amid uncertainty of the legislation in the Senate the Fairness for All Act would “very clearly be worse than nothing.”
“For the first time in our history, it would actually put in federal statute provisions that permit discrimination against the LGBTQ community,” Cicilline said, “It would be a tremendous step backward, which is why it’s not supported by any major LGBT organization, all of the major LGBT organizations support the Equality Act. The Stewart bill is a tremendous step backward in our fight for full equality.”
Asked if he has any issues with fellow Democrats co-sponsor the Fairness for All Act, Cicilline held firm.
“I would hope that people are committed to equality for the LGBTQ community would not support this bill because it would put in statute and authorize expressly discrimination against the LGBTQ community,” Cicilline said.
Among the co-sponsors are Republicans who voted for the Equality Act, including Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Tom Reed (R-N.Y.). Other co-sponsors are Republicans who voted for the Equality Act in 2019, but not 2021, including Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.). One Republican who voted twice for the Equality Act, Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), isn’t a co-sponsors of the Fairness for All Act.
Although both the Equality Act and the Fairness for All Act would expand the prohibition on anti-LGBTQ discrimination under federal law, they have key differences. For example, the Equality Act would specify the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act couldn’t be raised as a defense in court against allegations of illegal anti-LGBTQ discrimination, but the Fairness for All Act would not.
Additionally, the Fairness for All Act would provide an exemption under Title II of the Civil Rights Act to allow stores, shopping centers or online retailers to refuse service to LGBTQ people if they have 15 or fewer employees, but the Equality Act provides no such exemption. The Equality Act would clarify transgender people should have access to locker rooms and bathrooms consistent with their gender identity, while the Fairness for All Act implies that but doesn’t spell it out. The Equality Act is silent on whether its ban on sex discrimination would prohibit medical providers from refusing to perform an abortion, the Fairness for All Act specifies it would not.
(The Washington Blade is preparing a detailed chart on the differences between the Equality Act and the Fairness for All Act, as well as the situation with current law after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in Bostock v. Clayton County, which found anti-LGBTQ discrimination is an illegal form of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, therefore not only illegal in employment, but under all laws that ban sex discrimination.)
Chile
Far-right Chilean President José Antonio Kast takes office
Former congressman opposes LGBTQ rights
Chilean President José Antonio Kast took office on Wednesday.
Kast — the far-right leader of the Republican Party who was a member of the country’s House of Deputies from 2002-2018 — defeated Jeannette Jara — a member of the Communist Party of Chile who was the former labor and social welfare minister in former President Gabriel Boric’s government — in last year’s presidential election.
The Chilean constitution prevented Boric from running for a second consecutive term.
The Washington Blade has previously reported Kast has expressed his opposition to gender-specific policies, comprehensive sex education, and reforms to Chile’s anti-discrimination laws. Kast has also publicly opposed the country’s marriage equality law that took effect on March 10, 2022, the day before Boric took office.
The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, a Chilean LGBTQ and intersex rights group known by the acronym Movilh, declared a “state of alert” after Kast’s election, “given this leader’s (Kast’s) public and political trajectory, characterized for decades by systematic opposition to laws and policies aimed at equality and nondiscrimination of LGBTIQ+ individuals.”
Argentine President Javier Milei, Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Christopher Landau, and Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado are among those who attended Kast’s inauguration that took place in the Chilean Congress in Valparaíso.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
Florida
Fla. House passes ‘Anti-Diversity’ bill
Measure could open door to overturning local LGBTQ rights protections
The Florida House of Representatives on March 10 voted 77-37 to approve an “Anti-Diversity in Local Government” bill that opponents have called an extreme and sweeping measure that, among other things, could overturn local LGBTQ rights protections.
The House vote came six days after the Florida Senate voted 25-11 to pass the same bill, opening the way to send it to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who supports the bill and has said he would sign it into law.
Equality Florida, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization that opposed the legislation, issued a statement saying the bill “would ban, repeal, and defund any local government programming, policy, or activity that provides ‘preferential treatment or special benefits’ or is designed or implemented with respect to race, color, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
The statement added that the bill would also threaten city and county officials with removal from office “for activities vaguely labeled as DEI,” with only limited exceptions.
“Written in broad and ambiguous language, the bill is the most extreme of its kind in the country, creating confusion and fear for local governments that recognize LGBTQ residents and other communities that contribute to strength and vibrancy of Florida cities,” the group said in a separate statement released on March 10.
The Miami Herald reports that state Sen. Clay Yarborough (R-Jacksonville), the lead sponsor of the bill in the Senate, said he added language to the bill that would allow the city of Orlando to continue to support the Pulse nightclub memorial, a site honoring 49 mostly LGBTQ people killed in the 2016 mass shooting at the LGBTQ nightclub.
But the Equality Florida statement expresses concern that the bill can be used to target LGBTQ programs and protections.
“Debate over the bill made expressly clear that LGBTQ people were a central target of the legislation,” the group’s statement says. “The public record, the bill sponsors’ own statements, and hours of legislative debate revealed the animus driving the effort to pressure local governments into pulling back from recognizing or resourcing programs targeting LGBTQ residents and other historically marginalized communities,” the statement says.
But the statement also notes that following outspoken requests by local officials, sponsors of the bill agreed to several amendments “ensuring local governments can continue to permit Pride festivals, even while navigating new restrictions on supporting or promoting them.”
The statement adds, “Florida’s LGBTQ community knows all too well how to fight back against unjust laws. Just as we did, following the passage of Florida’s notorious ‘Don’t Say Gay or Trans’ law, we will fight every step of the way to limit the impact of this legislation, including in the courts.”
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