National
Obama urged to ban Russians behind LGBT crackdown from U.S.
18 officials’ assets frozen, denied visas under 2012 law
Activists continue to urge the Obama administration to add Russians directly behind their country’s LGBT rights crackdown to the 2012 Magnitsky Act. (Washington Blade photo by Damien Salas)
A growing number of Kremlin critics are urging the Obama administration to use a 2012 law that freezes the assets of Russian citizens and officials directly responsible for human rights violations and bans them from entering the U.S. to punish those behind the country’s ongoing anti-gay crackdown.
Gay journalist Jamie Kirchick and András Simonyi, the former Hungarian Ambassador to the U.S. who is the managing director of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Transatlantic Relations in D.C., on Dec. 4 urged the White House to use the Magnitsky Act named in honor of the eponymous Russian lawyer who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after authorities arrested him following his investigation into a $230 million tax fraud scheme. The two men specifically called for the Obama administration to add Yelena Mizulina, the Russian lawmaker who sponsored a bill that bans gay propaganda to minors that President Vladimir Putin signed into law in June, to the list of 18 Russian nationals and officials against whom the Magnitsky Act is already applied.
Kirchick and Simonyi also urged the White House to add Vitaly Milonov, sponsor of St. Petersburg’s 2012 gay propaganda ban, Alexei Trifonov of the Center for Combating Extremism in Nizhny Novgorod and Maxim Martsinkevich of the “Occupy Pedophilia” vigilante group to the list of those banned from entering the United States under the 2012 law.
The deadline to submit the four additional names to the administration was Dec. 14. The White House is expected to announce shortly whether it would add them to the Magnitsky Act.
“Activists in the West have been right to raise alarm bells about the Russian government’s inhumane policies, yet their response to the problem has thus far been scattershot and ineffective,” wrote Kirchick and Simonyi in their Dec. 4 brief. “For those hoping to put a swift end to this ignominious crusade targeting a vulnerable minority, the Magnitsky Act shows a way forward.”
Kirchick and Simonyi further discussed expanding the Magnitsky Act during a panel on Russia’s LGBT rights record that took place at Johns Hopkins University in Northwest Washington on Dec. 6.
Kirchick, who challenged Russia’s LGBT rights record during an interview on the pro-Kremlin television station RT in August before producers took him off the air, discussed calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in Sochi, Russia, in February. He questioned those who called for a boycott of Stoli and other Russian vodka brands over the summer.
“There have been very well-intentioned, but in my opinion totally ineffective protests,” said Kirchick. “There already exists a law on the books that is very effective that we can use.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who sponsored the Magnitsky Act, backs efforts to expand the list to include Russian officials and individuals directly responsible for the country’s ongoing LGBT rights crackdown.
“The Magnitsky Act can be used against those who violate the human rights of LGBT Russians or anyone else for that matter,” Cardin told the Washington Blade on Tuesday. “The law was written to be inclusive and not limited. We continue to seek ways that it can be broadened further.”
Larry Poltavtsev of Spectrum Human Rights, an organization that promotes global LGBT rights, also supports adding Milonov and others to the Magnitsky Act list. A petition his group launched on Change.org earlier this year in support of the move has more than 12,000 signatures.
“The Magnitsky Law must be applied more liberally to all human rights violators, including LGBT rights violators,” Poltavtsev told the Blade on Tuesday. “It’s the only instrument that we have if we really want to change the situation in Russia.”
Lesbian Russian journalist Masha Gessen noted during Human Rights First’s annual summit in D.C. on Dec. 5 that the Kremlin banned U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children less than a week after Obama signed the Magnitsky Act into law.
“It had a huge psychological and symbolic impact on people in Russia, including LGBT organizations,” she said.
Gessen added Russian LGBT advocacy organizations are “probably not going to speak out in support” of any effort to add additional officials to the Magnitsky Act list. She nevertheless said she supports the proposed travel ban and asset freeze of those behind Russia’s ongoing gay crackdown.
“It needs to be done,” said Gessen. “It also needs to be done because it’s the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to do to send a message to these Russian officials.”
The White House
Jane Rigby awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom
Sitting among a diverse and venerable group of Americans from every walk of life on the dais in the East Room of the White House on May 3 was lesbian and NASA astrophysicist Jane Rigby, awaiting her turn to be honored by President Joe Biden who would bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, on her.
Rigby, an astronomer who grew up in Delaware, is the chief scientist of the world’s most powerful telescope who alongside her team operating NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, studies every phase in the history of the universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of the solar system.
A member of Penn State’s Class of 2000, Rigby graduated with a bachelor’s degrees in physics and astronomy. She also holds a master’s degree and a PhD in astronomy from at the University of Arizona. Her work as the senior project scientist for NASA’s Webb Telescope includes studies on how galaxies evolve over cosmic time and she has published more than 140 peer-reviewed scientific papers.
Rigby was named to Nature.com’s 2022 list of 10 individuals who shaped science and to the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women in the same year. Rigby had postdoctoral fellowships at Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, Calif., before landing her job at Goddard Space Flight Center. In 2013 Rigby was awarded the Robert H. Goddard Award for Exceptional Achievement for Science.
A founding member of the American Astronomical Society’s Working Group on LGBTQ Equality in January 2012, now called the Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Minorities in Astronomy, Rigby serves as its Board Liaison until her term expires this June.
The lesbian astrophysicist in an interview for SGMA’s website spoke about her experiences including coming out:
“I’ve been out since 2000. My story’s simple — I fell in love with a fellow grad student in the department. It was a close-knit department, so hiding would have been ludicrous. Nor did I want to hide the best thing in my life! So, we were out as grad students. I certainly heard people say awful homophobic things at work there. They weren’t directed at me, and they weren’t said by people with power over me. If I recall, I was much less afraid of homophobic discrimination at work, than I was afraid of the two-body problem, and the lack of support we would receive as a same-sex couple in astronomy. That fear turned out to be justified. I’ve seen numerous different-sex couples get a wide range of support in solving the two-body problem, which was never offered to us,” she told the interviewer.
She reflected on American astronaut and physicist Sally Ride, her childhood role model who had an impact on her career:
“One of my biggest role models when I was young was Dr. Sally Ride. A few years ago, on her deathbed, Dr. Ride chose to write in her obituary that her life partner had been a woman. Dr. Ride was the most influential woman scientist when I was growing up — the person that made me say, “I want to do THAT when I grow up.” It was because of her that I realized that astrophysics was a profession, that physics was a subject girls could study, that NASA needed astrophysicists. So I’m so … amused, I suppose, that Sally Ride was this influence on my life’s path, at a time when I was completely unaware that it was even possible to *be gay* — and at the same time, she was gay, in love, and deeply closeted to keep her job.”
The interviewer noted that “for some women being gay is a cause for concern at the work place. Some say they were unsure about how to turn their sexual orientation into a positive aspect of their work persona.” Then asked Rigby what is your view on this?
“My experience is that absolutely I am a *better* astronomer because I’m queer. For a few reasons. First, I see things different than my colleagues. On mission work, as we weigh a decision, my first thought is always the community impact: ‘If we do things this way, who benefits, and who gets left out in the cold?’ Will this policy create inclusion, or marginalization? I think about science in terms of community-building. What team do we need to tackle a given science problem, with skills that are different from mine? Absolutely I think that way because I’m an outsider, because I’ve been marginalized. And because community-building is central to LGBTQ culture,” she said.
Editor’s note: You can read Rigby’s complete SGMA interview here: (Link)
Married to Dr. Andrea Leistra, Rigby, her wife and their young child reside in Maryland not far from her workplace at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in suburban Washington and when not studying the universe is often found on the neighboring Chesapeake Bay wind boarding, a favored pastime.
Also honored in the ceremony Friday were a former U.S. vice president, a civil rights worker and martyr, two former Cabinet secretaries — one a former U.S. secretary of state, a speech writer for the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an Olympian and gold medalist, and one of the most powerful woman political leaders and the speaker emeritus of the U.S. House of Representatives, among others, and LGBTQ advocate Judy Shepard.
WATCH
Federal Government
US Census Bureau testing survey on LGBTQ households
Agency proposing questions about sexual orientation and gender identity
The U.S. Census Bureau is seeking public comment on a proposed test of sexual orientation and gender identity questions on the American Community Survey. The test would begin this summer and continue into next year.
The Census Bureau published the request as a Federal Register notice. In its press release the agency noted that the ACS is an ongoing survey that collects detailed housing and socioeconomic data. It allows the Census Bureau to provide timely and relevant housing and socioeconomic statistics, even for low levels of geography.
As part of the process for adding new questions to the ACS, the Census Bureau tests potential questions to evaluate the quality of the data collected.
The Census Bureau proposes testing questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to meet the needs of other federal agencies that have expressed interest in or have identified legal uses for the information, such as enforcing civil rights and equal employment measures.
The test would follow the protocols of the actual ACS — with one person asked to respond to the survey on behalf of the entire household. These particular questions are asked about people 15 years of age or older. Households are invited to respond to the survey online, by paper questionnaire or by phone.
The current Federal Register notice gives the public a final opportunity to provide feedback before the Census Bureau submits its recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget for approval. The public may provide feedback through May 30 online.
The White House
Judy Shepard to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom
Nancy Pelosi is also among this year’s honorees
Beloved LGBTQ advocate Judy Shepard is among the 19 honorees who will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the U.S., the White House announced on Friday.
The mother of Matthew Shepard, who was killed in 1998 in the country’s most notorious anti-gay hate crime, she co-founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation with her husband Dennis to raise awareness about anti-LGBTQ violence.
The organization runs education, outreach, and advocacy programs, many focused on schools.
In a statement shared via the Human Rights Campaign, Shepard said, “This unexpected honor has been very humbling for me, Dennis, and our family. What makes us proud is knowing our President and our nation share our lifelong commitment to making this world a safer, more loving, more respectful, and more peaceful place for everyone.
“I am grateful to everyone whose love and support for our work through the years has sustained me.
“If I had the power to change one thing, I can only dream of the example that Matt’s life and purpose would have shown, had he lived. This honor reminds the world that his life, and every life, is precious.”
Shepard was instrumental in working with then-President Barack Obama for passage of the landmark Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009, which was led in the House by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who will also be honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom during the ceremony on Friday.
Also in 2009, Shepard published a memoir, “The Meaning of Matthew: My Son’s Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed,” and was honored with the Black Tie Dinner Elizabeth Birch Equality Award.
“Judy Shepard has been a champion for equality and President Biden’s choice to honor her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom is a testament to what she’s done to be a force of good in the world,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said in a statement.
“A mother who turned unspeakable grief over the loss of her son into a decades-long fight against anti-LGBTQ+ hatred and violence, Judy continues to make a lasting impact in the lives of the LGBTQ+ community,” she said.
“It is because of her advocacy that the first federal hate crimes legislation became law and that countless life-saving trainings, resources and conversations about equality and acceptance are provided each year by the Matthew Shepard Foundation,” Robinson said. “We are honored that Judy is a member of the HRC family and know that her work to create a more inclusive and just world will only continue.”
Other awardees who will be honored by the White House this year are: Actor Michelle Yeoh, entrepreneur and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Jesuit Catholic priest Gregory Boyle, Assistant House Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), former Labor and Education Secretary and former U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), journalist and former daytime talkshow host Phil Donahue, World War II veteran and civil rights activist Medgar Evers (posthumous), former Vice President Al Gore, civil rights activist and lawyer Clarence B. Jones, former Secretary of State and U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), former U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) (posthumous), Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky, educator and activist Opal Lee, astronaut and former director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center Ellen Ochoa, astronomer Jane Rigby, United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero, and Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe (posthumous).
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