Tag Archives: editorial

New York Times Editorial Board Slams North Carolina’s Anti-LGBT Law: Expect Major Consequences For Hate

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New York Times Editorial Board

From the editorial board of the New York Times:

By promoting the ludicrous idea that transgender women are inherently dangerous, the law endangers citizens who are already disproportionately vulnerable to violence and stigmatization. Transgender men go largely unmentioned in bathroom bill debates, but that could change. James Parker Sheffield, a transgender man with a beard, exposed the foolishness of the law in a tweet to the governor. “It’s now the law for me to share a restroom with your wife,” he wrote, attaching a photo of himself.

North Carolina could face serious economic repercussions from the law. It can expect a backlash from leading employers, a potential cut in federal education funding and lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the law. American Airlines, which has a hub in Charlotte, and PayPal, which recently announced it would create 400 jobs in the state, are among several companies that have already criticized the law.

Mr. McCrory, who is running for re-election, may have assumed the bill would help him in a tight race against Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat who called the measure shameful. “Not only does this hurt North Carolina families, but it hurts our economy as well,” Mr. Cooper said in a video message. Voters should reject the candidate who made the state a pioneer in bigotry.

While I’m happy to see that a major companies like Bank America and PayPal have begun to speak out backlash has begun, but it won’t mean anything unless the companies in question actually do remove their headquarters and business from the state, 

Please reach out to the following companies;  Bank of America IBM, American Airlines, PayPal, and Apple and tell them we appreciate the talk.  But its nothing without the walk.

Gay History - August 24, 1970: the New York Times Runs Front Page Story On "Homosexuals in Revolt"

NY Times Editorial Board Takes President Obama Task Over ENDA – JUST DO IT!

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The New York Times

The New York Times Editorial Board has come out strongly urging that President Obama sign an  executive order that would ban discrimination of LGBT employees by companies under federal contract and telling him that its time that he stand up and help push ENDA  (The Employment Non-Discrimination Act) through Congress

Some conservative opponents of the act, known as ENDA, contend it would threaten religious freedom because its exemption for employers affiliated with religious organizations is too narrow. Actually, the proposed religious exemption is far too broad and needs to be scaled back. The American Civil Liberties Union and some gay rights groups rightly point out that as it is now drafted, the exemption — extending well beyond just houses of worship to hospitals and universities, for example, and encompassing medical personnel, billing clerks and others in jobs that are not directly involved in any religious function — amounts to a license to engage in the discrimination that ENDA is meant to remedy.       

It is one thing for religious groups to further their religious mission by favoring people of their own faith in hiring, as Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act permits. It is quite another to allow the firing of a lesbian physician or transgender nurse when a hospital that is not affiliated with a religious group happens to merge with an institution that is. Under Title VII’s religious exemption, houses of worship and religion-affiliated entities are subject to the law’s prohibition against discrimination based on race, sex and national origin. ENDA’s religious exemption should treat sexual orientation and gender identity in a similar fashion. To do otherwise would leave too many jobs outside of ENDA’s protections.       

Congress has a duty to stop dawdling and approve a strong bill. In the meantime, President Obama, a supporter of ENDA, can take a significant step toward ending discrimination in the workplace by issuing an executive order barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity by federal contractors. He has the power to protect millions of American workers, and it is about time he used it.

The NY Times points out that protections for people of religion are indeed included in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  One of the main arguments of many right-wing extremist groups and the GOP itself is that ENDA would five LGBT individuals “special rights” and protections while they have been enjoying them for the past 50 years.

ENDA has been introduced in every Congress since 1994.  Similar legislation has been introduced without passage since 1974 unsuccessfully.

Vatican Newspaper Equates Gay Marriage to Communism

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In a front-page editorial in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s “semi-official” newspaper, 64 year old “historian” Lucetta Scaraffia compared the idea of gay marriage to that of an “egalitarian  utopia that did so much damage during the 20th century…deceiving humanity as  socialism did in the past.” and compares same sex marriage supporters and advocates to 20th-century communists who wooed millions with their promise of perfect social and economical equality.

Scarsffia goes on to say that to equate a traditional marriage between a man and a woman with a union between homosexuals amounts to a “negation of truth,” which would undermine “one of the basic structures of human society, family,” she wrote.

Scaraffia, is a former feminist activist who later became a fervent Catholic, and has since often written in the Vatican newspaper against the issue of gay marriage and claims that “The Vatican has often intervened against discrimination for gay people,” she  said “But many people don’t want to see it, they just want to pin it down as  homophobic.”

Perhaps she’s talking about the “Reichskonkordat,” the political treaty between the Vatican and Adolf  Hitler during World War 2 that stated that the vatican would turn a blind eye and not get involved as long as the Nazi’s left them alone and in the meantime Millions of Jews, Poles, Gypsys’ and Homosexual were put to death

Scaraffia it turns out is not a very good historian.