News
Susan Collins lambasted by LGBT groups for Kavanaugh support
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) declared her Brett Kavanaugh support in a Senate floor speech. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement “we are deeply disappointed in Sen. Collins today” after her speech on the Senate floor affirming support for Kavanaugh.
“In one of the most consequential vote of her lifetime — and of her constituents’ lifetimes — she has opted to back a dangerous, unqualified nominee who repeatedly lied under oath and has multiple credible allegations of sexual assault,” Griffin said. “The harmful consequences of Sen. Collins’ decision to support Brett Kavanaugh will last decades.”
With Collins’ support, Kavanaugh has the necessary votes for confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), another undecided senator, declared he’d vote for Kavanaugh shortly after Collins’ speech.
Griffin urged voters to demonstrate their anger with Collins by taking to the polls in the congressional mid-term elections and voting out senators who support Kavanaugh.
“In the wake of this news, there is only one course of action,” Griffin said. “The millions of Americans who have fought a valiant struggle against this despicable nominee must make their voices heard in November and beyond by electing lawmakers who will stand up for our rights rather than sell us out.”
In years past, the Human Rights Campaign has endorsed Collins when she was up for re-election and faced Democratic challengers because of her support for LGBT rights initiatives, including “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It’s hard to see how that support will continue in the Kavanaugh vote.
Collins declared in a floor speech she “will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh” hours after she was among the 51 senators to vote for cloture to allow the Senate to move forward with the nomination.
In response to Christine Blasey Ford’s Senate testimony asserting a 17-year-old Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982 when she was a teenager, Collins said the accusation isn’t enough to preclude the nominee from sitting on the Supreme Court.
“Fairness would dictate that the claims at least should meet the threshold of ‘more likely than not’ as our standard,” Collins said. “The facts presented do not mean the Professor Ford was not sexually assaulted that night or at some other time, but they do lead me to conclude that the allegations fail to meet the ‘more likely than not’ standard. Therefore, I do not believe that these charges can fairly prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the court.”
Amid concerns Kavanaugh would vote to reverse the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court for marriage equality, Collins said Kavanaugh indicated he wouldn’t overturn the decision in his confirmation hearing. (LGBT legal experts have said his responses were wholly unsatisfying.)
“Others I’ve met with have expressed concerns that Justice Kennedy’s retirement threatens the right of same-sex couples to marry,” Collins said. “Yet Judge Kavanaugh described the Obergefell decision, which legalized same-gender marriages, as an important landmark precedent. He also cited Justice Kennedy’s recent Masterpiece Cakeshop opinion for the court’s majority, stating that, ‘The days of treating gay and lesbian Americans or and gay and lesbian couples as second-class citizens who are inferior in dignity and worth are over in the Supreme Court.'”
Marriage equality is but one LGBT rights issue. Other LGBT-related cases that may come to Supreme Court with Kavanaugh on the bench including litigation challenging President Trump’s transgender military ban, whether federal civil laws against sex discrimination applies to LGBT people and whether “religious freedom” affords a right for individuals and businesses to discriminate against LGBT people.
Sharon McGowan, legal director for Lambda Legal, also criticized Collins, saying the senator’s rationale for supporting Kavanaugh ranges “from naïve to disingenuous” and “can only be described as magical thinking.”
“Furthermore, her discrediting of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s (and others’) allegations against Brett Kavanaugh speaks far more loudly than the empty words she offered in support of sexual assault survivors, and her reliance on an incomplete and politically manipulated investigation to justify her decision was shameful,” McGowan said. “By relying on fantasy instead of fact, and by putting party ahead of people, Sen. Collins is apparently willing to ignore the overwhelming majority of Mainers who have urged her to oppose this nomination in order to avoid the ire of Republican Party bosses and the White House.”
Maryland
Steny Hoyer, the longest-serving House Democrat, to retire from Congress
Md. congressman served for years in party leadership
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and LISA MASCARO | Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the longest-serving Democrat in Congress and once a rival to become House speaker, will announce Thursday he is set to retire at the end of his term.
Hoyer, who served for years in party leadership and helped steer Democrats through some of their most significant legislative victories, is set to deliver a House floor speech about his decision, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.
“Tune in,” Hoyer said on social media. He confirmed his retirement plans in an interview with the Washington Post.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Colombia
Colombians protest against Trump after he threatened country’s president
Tens of thousands protested the US president in Bogotá
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Tens of thousands of people on Wednesday gathered in the Colombian capital to protest against President Donald Trump after he threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
The protesters who gathered in Plaza Bolívar in Bogotá held signs that read, among other things, “Yankees go home” and “Petro is not alone.” Petro is among those who spoke.
The Bogotá protest took place four days after American forces seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.
The Venezuelan National Assembly on Sunday swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president. Maduro and Flores on Monday pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York.
Trump on Sunday suggested the U.S. will target Petro, a former Bogotá mayor and senator who was once a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement that disbanded in the 1990s. Claudia López, a former senator who would become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she wins Colombia’s presidential election that will take place later this year, is among those who criticized Trump’s comments.
The Bogotá protest is among hundreds against Trump that took place across Colombia on Wednesday.
Petro on Wednesday night said he and Trump spoke on the phone. Trump in a Truth Social post confirmed he and his Colombian counterpart had spoken.
“It was a great honor to speak with the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had,” wrote Trump. “I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future. Arrangements are being made between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign minister of Colombia. The meeting will take place in the White House in Washington, D.C.”
District of Columbia
Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash
Artists who cancel shows threatened; calls for funding boycott grow
Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center to add President Trump’s name to the D.C. arts institution continue to spark backlash.
A new petition from Qommittee , a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes, calls on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding to the center until “artistic independence is restored, and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.”
“While Trump won’t back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution – they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told.”
The petition can be found here.
Meanwhile, a decision by several prominent musicians and jazz performers to cancel their shows at the recently renamed Trump-Kennedy Center in D.C. planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve has drawn the ire of the Center’s president, Richard Grenell.
Grenell, a gay supporter of President Donald Trump who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term as president, was named Kennedy Center president last year by its board of directors that had been appointed by Trump.
Last month the board voted to change the official name of the center from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. The revised name has been installed on the outside wall of the center’s building but is not official because any name change would require congressional action.
According to a report by the New York Times, Grenell informed jazz musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled a 2025 Christmas Eve concert that he has hosted at the Kennedy Center for nearly 20 years in response to the name change, that Grenell planned to arrange for the center to file a lawsuit against him for the cancellation.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit arts institution,” the Times quoted Grenell as saying in a letter to Redd.
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” the Times quoted Grenell’s letter as saying.
A spokesperson for the Trump-Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Washington Blade asking if the center still planned to file that lawsuit and whether it planned to file suits against some of the other musicians who recently cancelled their performances following the name change.
In a follow-up story published on Dec. 29, the New York Times reported that a prominent jazz ensemble and a New York dance company had canceled performances scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.
The Times reported the jazz ensemble called The Cookers did not give a reason for the cancellation in a statement it released, but its drummer, Billy Hart, told the Times the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the decision to cancel the performance.
Grenell released a statement on Dec. 29 calling these and other performers who cancelled their shows “far left political activists” who he said had been booked by the Kennedy Center’s previous leadership.
“Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” the Times quoted him as saying in his statement.
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Colombians protest against Trump after he threatened country’s president
Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash
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