F*CK HB 2

north-carolina-beer-company-protests-anti-lgbt-billx750

North Carolina’s beer industry has a message for the governor: Hate has no place in their state.

In response to House Bill 2, the controversial law that forces trans people to use the public restroom that does not correspond with their gender identity, the state’s Wedge Brewing Company has begun printing “#F*CK HB2” on its beverages. The can of the company’s popular Iron Rail IPA, features the hashtag printed on the bottom of the can. It’s designed to look like a serial number.

[…]

“We’ve seen businesses, municipalities, and even rock legends from around the country punish North Carolina for passing this law,” Myers said in a statement. “We’ve seen business expansions and job opportunities pull out of the state. We see that our communities are being harmed by this action.” He further added: “We didn’t feel like HB2 represented us as businesses or as residents of North Carolina.”

In April, over 40 local companies announced that they would be releasing a limited-edition brew to raise money for local LGBT non-profits, including Equality North Carolina and Queer Oriented Radical Days of Summer (QORDS), a summer camp specifically for LGBT youth. The beer, called “Don’t Be Mean to People, A Golden Rule Saison,” will be available locally in May.

Full Story Here.

In related news, McCrory has found a whole new career in whining. What now? Well, the new federal education guidelines. Pat doesn’t like them.

[Read more…]

Bryant: We Are So Persecuted!

Phil Bryant (Facebook)

Phil Bryant (Facebook)

Oh, the whining. It never ends. Are these fossils ever going to realize it’s time for them to fade away, quietly? One of the most unattractive things about Christians is the constant need to feel persecuted, to somehow make a case that yes, oh yes, we are too persecuted! The very presence of anyone they don’t like, persecution! “Oh, it makes us think about things, thinking is bad.”

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant complained Christians are still being bullied in his state because not everyone agrees with their interpretation of a law that permits discrimination against LGBT people.

Bryant insisted the law was intended to prevent discrimination against Christians by allowing them to deny service, housing, medical treatment and some government documents to LGBT people or even unmarried couples — so long as they claim a religious objection.

[…]

“I mean, they cherry-pick these issues,” Bryant said during an appearance on a religious-right radio program. “If they had any integrity at all, they would say, ‘We understand Mississippi is actually trying to make sure that Christians and people of other faiths are not discriminated against.’ It is a nondiscriminatory law. It prevents discrimination against simply that segment of the population that has a deeply held religious view about marriage.”

The Republican governor whined that “dear friend Pat McCrory,” the governor of North Carolina, is also facing a political and corporate backlash after signing a similar anti-LGBT law.

[…]

Bryant complained that Christians were facing discrimination from anyone who disagreed with their interpretation of the law as one that protected the rights of religious people to practice their faith.

“We’re criticized, we’re threatened, we’re bullied, we’re told by corporations that we’re doing the wrong thing?” Bryant said.

[…]

Despite court challenges, directives from the U.S. Department of Justice and boycotts against their states, Bryant said he was certain he and his counterpart in North Carolina had significant support nationwide.

“I think the rest of the nation is beginning to wake up and say, ‘What world do they think we’re living in? This is not Hollywood, this is not more liberal areas, this is America, where common sense still prevails,’” Bryant said.

Aaaaand we’re back to that common sense bullshit. Interesting, that going by Bryant, Hollywood and more liberal areas aren’t part of America.

Full Story Here.

NC: Cops Say No

Police in several major North Carolina cities told NPR they will not penalize nor arrest a trans person for using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. Photo: Shutterstock.

Police in several major North Carolina cities told NPR they will not penalize nor arrest a trans person for using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.
Photo: Shutterstock.

While legal battles rage on over North Carolina’s anti-LGBT law known as House Bill 2, law enforcement officers in the state won’t be arresting any restroom deviants any time soon.

Damien Graham, a spokesman for the Raleigh Police Department, told NPR on Tuesday that his department will not enforce the sweeping law, which requires transgender people to use public bathrooms that do not match their gender identity, because “the bill doesn’t speak to enforcement nor penalty.”

Raleigh Police had attorneys review the language of HB 2, but since there “wasn’t any specific language that spoke to enforcement or even penalty,” the department wasn’t sure how its officers could enforce the law, Graham told NPR.

[…]

If the police receive a complaint about someone in the “wrong” bathroom, the department will respond, says Graham, but officers will not penalize or arrest anyone for using the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity.

[…]

Christina Hallingse, the public information officer for the police department in Asheville, told NPR that it would be nearly impossible to enforce HB 2. Doing so would drain the department’s resources, because it would require officers to stand guard outside public restrooms asking people to present their birth certificates before entering these gender-segregated spaces.

“It would take them off the streets, off patrol and having to put them at bathrooms,” explained Hallingse of the logistics of enforcing HB 2.

Full Story at The Advocate.

While it’s very nice to see police paying attention to reality, and doing the right thing for a change, McCrory continues on in stubborn asshole mode. Apparently he thinks he has a chance in the upcoming election, and is selling these bumper stickers for a donation:

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“It’s just common sense” has been McCrory’s increasingly plaintive defense of HB 2 and the indefensible. I’m expecting he’ll be utterly trounced by Roy Cooper in the November election, and I’ll be happy to see it.

America the Beer

Budweiser-America-800x430

Anheuser Busch’s decision on Tuesday to rename its signature Budweiser brand “America” did not taste great to critics on Twitter.

As The Atlantic reported, the Dutch-owned company announced that it would rebrand the beer through the November elections, which the company’s branding firm defended by saying, “We thought nothing was more iconic than Budweiser and nothing was more iconic than America.”

There has been a Twitter outbreak over the news, and it’s not a positive one.

Bud

There’s more at Raw Story and Twitter.

Bigger in Texas: Transphobia

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick at left; Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at right

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick at left; Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at right

Two of the state’s top elected officials — the lieutenant governor and the attorney general — both went on transphobic, fear-mongering tirades as North Carolina ramped up its defense of a controversial anti-trans law.

Moments after North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory announced Monday that he was suing the federal government over its determination that his state’s sweeping anti-LGBT law violates federal civil rights law, Texas’s top lawman rushed to his fellow Republican’s defense.

Local LGBT publication Dallas Voice posted the full statement from Attorney General Paxton, who is currently facing a federal securities fraud lawsuit, on top of similar charges filed against him  last year in state court. Paxton previously earned the ire of marriage equality supporters (and a formal ethics complaint) last year when he falsely informed Texas county clerks that they did not have to abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling bringing the freedom to marry to all 50 states.

Paxton said:

“The people of the United States, through their representatives in Congress, enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ensure, in part, that men and women are treated equally. Congress has not changed this law to mean that individuals may choose whether they want to be male or female for the purpose of public accommodations. One’s sex is a biological fact, not a state of mind, and this threat to North Carolina is the latest in a long series of efforts by an unaccountable federal executive branch. My office stands with Governor McCrory and the people of North Carolina regarding this unconstitutional form of federal overreach.”

[…]

The same day, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — himself no stranger to transphobic fear mongering — took aim at a school superintendent who had approved a modestly trans-inclusive policy regarding bathroom and locker room access for students in the district.

Patrick suggested Monday that Kent Scribner, Fort Worth school district superintendent, should be removed from his position following the April 19 adoption of a district-wide policy that allows trans students to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

Full Story Here.

Trump Presidency: Forget Canada, Go to Russia!

Russia

Several celebrities and liberal politicians have threatened to move to Canada if Donald Trump becomes president, but Vladimir Putin would like American political refugees to consider moving to Russia instead.

Putin is offering 2.5 acres and citizenship to any Americans fleeing a Donald Trump presidency who would be willing to live in Russia’s remote Far East for at least his first term.

Like the United States 19th century western land rush, the Russian Homestead Act was designed to lure hardy settlers and political asylum seekers to help settle the largely undeveloped region.

Inquisitr has the full story.

McCrory: We’ll Sue the Feds

nc-mccrory-sues-fedsx750

Facing a federal government about to crack down, Gov. Pat McCrory is suing to stop them, arguing there’s no such thing as federal protections for transgender people.

At a press conference at the state capitol in Raleigh today, McCrory repeated his earlier claims that he and his conservative colleagues in the legislature did not “seek out” this issue, placing the blame squarely on members of the Charlotte City Council, which approved a trans-inclusive public accommodations ordinance in February. The statewide law was drafted explicitly as a response to these protections, which McCrory has consistently called “government overreach.”

[…]

North Carolina’s chief legal counsel, Bob Stephens, confirmed during today’s press conference that the state’s lawsuit, seeking declaratory judgment, “is our response to that deadline” set by the DOJ. “So we’ve met the deadline and now we’ll go forward,” he added.

The lawsuit blasts the United States, in particular the federal Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, “for their radical reinterpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which would prevent plaintiffs from protecting the bodily privacy rights of state employees while accommodating the needs of transgendered state employees.”

Mischaracterizing the law as a “common sense privacy policy,” the complaint admits that House Bill 2 does not grant citizens access to public restrooms based on their gender identity. The suit continues:

“The Department [of Justice] contends that North Carolina’s common sense privacy policy constitutes a pattern or practice of discriminating against transgender employees in the terms and conditions of their employment because it does not give employees an unfettered right to use the bathroom or changing facility of their choice based on gender identity. The Department’s position is a baseless and blatant overreach.”

North Carolina’s complaint contends that there is no legal precedent affirming that transgender individuals are protected by federal employment law, but relies upon cases decided up to 16 years ago, notably failing to mention the numerous pro-trans equality rulings handed down in federal courts under the Obama administration.

At today’s press conference, Stephens told reporters that the DOJ is misunderstanding federal civil rights law, and argued that transgender people are not protected under Title VII. “The class of people that the Justice Department are referring to, are not a protected class,” Stephens told reporters, speaking about transgender employees who are now barred from using public restrooms that match their gender identity.

The Advocate has the full story. This just keeps plumbing brand new depths of stupidity and bigotry. How is it possible that holding on to bigotry is worth so much?

Rape Pregnancies A Silver Lining From God

Ugh. I can’t even suppress the nausea induced by this mess of a person.

via YouTube Republican State Rep. Tila Hubrecht held a press conference Thursday to defend her views on rape pregnancies.

During an intense Tuesday floor debate on the measure, Hubrecht made the case that women should not be allowed to abort pregnancies caused by rape.

“When God gives life he does so because there’s a reason, no matter what,” she said. “Sometimes bad things happen, horrible things, but sometimes God can give us a silver lining through the birth of a child.” Because, yeah, rape sucks, but there’s nothing like nine months of living with your rapist’s baby growing inside you to help you get over it!

Full Story Here.

Obliterating male and female distinctives.

House Speaker Tim Moore (The News & Observer)

House Speaker Tim Moore (The News & Observer)

North Carolina Republican lawmakers vowed to defy a federal order to repeal or stop enforcing a controversial anti-LGBT law.

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday found the law violated the federal Civil Rights Act and Title IX, and officials ordered lawmakers to comply with those laws by next week or risk billions of dollars in federal education funding.

But House Speaker Tim Moore indicated Thursday that he and his fellow Republicans had no intention of meeting the federally mandated deadline, reported The News & Observer.

“We will take no action by Monday,” Moore said. “That deadline will come and go. We don’t ever want to lose any money, but we’re not going to get bullied by the Obama administration to take action prior to Monday’s date. That’s not how this works.”

[…]

One of their fellow Republicans, state Rep. Mark Walker, sniffed that Bruce Springsteen was a “bully” after the rock legend canceled a concert appearance over HB2.

“Bruce is known to be on the radical left,” Walker said. “He’s got every right to be so, but I consider this a bully tactic. It’s like when a kid gets upset and says he’s going to take his ball and go home.”

Aaaaand just what it is you all are doing? Mandating bigotry into law certainly seems like serious bullying to me.

The Christian Action League of North Carolina — one of the primary backers of the controversial law — offered a scenery-chewing statement urging GOP lawmakers to disobey the Obama administration:

“At the hands of his henchmen in the U.S. Department of Justice, King Obama, has delivered his message of intimidation to the state of North Carolina.

“The Administration has taken it upon itself to declare “sex” in Title VII and Title IX includes “sexual orientation” and “gender Identity.” This interpretation goes far beyond the language adopted and intended by Congress. Nevertheless, the Great Pontiff of Political Correctness holds the educational futures of our state’s children hostage, while dangling the money bags of federal funds over their heads, demanding in exchange North Carolina bow to the madness of obliterating male and female distinctives – something foundational to every society in human history.

“The battle over North Carolina’s common sense law, HB 2, has national significance. Must every state, more specifically, 28 other states, with laws similar to our own be forced to sacrifice their fundamental right to privacy and safety when using a restroom, locker room, or shower? That is the question of the hour.

“If this doesn’t make people righteously indignant, then our culture has lost any capacity for real moral outrage. We deserve exactly what we’ll get – confusion and chaos. Either truth is something evidential and verifiable or it’s purely subjective and determined wholly in the eye of the beholder.

“It is imperative the Governor and state lawmakers remain strong and fight the advancement of this misguided agenda. No federal law, approved by the people’s Representatives in Congress requires North Carolina comply with the Obama Administration’s demands.”

-Dr. Mark Creech

Well, male and female ‘distinctives’ are certainly foundational when it comes to misogyny, patriarchy, and every day sexism. They certainly do provide a framework for intolerance and remaining close-minded. All of which are great reasons to obliterate them. (As if it were possible to obliterate them. Christians do love being melodramatic.)

Full Story Here.

UPDATE:

(CNN)- North Carolina will meet a Monday deadline to respond to the U.S. Justice Department about the state’s transgender bathroom law, Gov. Pat McCrory said Thursday.

“We’re reviewing (the Justice Department letter) and we hope to have a response in the very near future.” he said, according to CNN affiliate WNCN.

When asked if the state will respond before Monday’s deadline set by the Justice Department, McCrory answered in the affirmative.

“Definitely,” he said. “We’ll have a response by Monday.”

CNN Story.

Pat Blames PC Culture for HB 2 Hate

Pat McCrory

Pat McCrory

With House Bill 2 under intense scrutiny, the signer of the controversial transphobic bill — North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory — lashed out at his critics and voiced concern he would lose his job. […] On the radio show, McCrory declined to take responsibility for the blowback and instead lamented his new pariah status.

“And now, sadly, in our nation if you have disagreement and you’re on the wrong side of that disagreement, according to the thought police, you’re dispensed of. You’re exiled,” he said. “I’ve even had some people call me, ‘Please don’t, governor, don’t show up to this event because I have people who disagree with you and we don’t want it.'”

[…]

“Society is changing quickly, and anybody who gets in the way is in trouble,” McCrory said on The Big Show. “And I might be in trouble. I might be looking for a side job over here.”

McCrory denied Cooper’s charge that HB 2 has embarrassed North Carolina, which has been hemorrhaging millions thanks to events and entertainers pulling out of the state.

“We haven’t embarrassed North Carolina by talking about something logically,” he said. “It’s logic but it’s not politically correct, apparently.”

The governor also contended that Bruce Springsteen, one of the performers boycotting the Tar Heel State, canceled his Greensboro performance because he couldn’t sell tickets. According to the Greensboro Coliseum, the show had sold 15,000 tickets and was about 100 tickets away from being sold out. McCrory also took umbrage with Fox News and Meet the Press, saying they presented him in a bad light when he was defending HB 2.

Full Story Here.

Transgender News Roundup

Oxford City Council President Steven Waits

Oxford City Council President Steven Waits

Alabama City May Repeal Harsh Anti-Trans Ordinance.

The Oxford, Ala., City Council is considering repealing a controversial ordinance it approved last week, imposing fines and jail terms on transgender people for using public restrooms that match their gender identity.

The council will hold a special meeting at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday “to discuss potentially recalling” the ordinance, reports AL.com, a website for several Alabama newspapers. […] The American Civil Liberties Union’s Alabama affiliate is considering a legal challenge to the Oxford ordinance, and a rally to protest the law is scheduled for Saturday, AL.com reports.

Full Story Here.

Texas City Council Wholly Rejects Mayor’s ‘Bathroom Bill’

Mayor Jim Pruitt

Mayor Jim Pruitt

Supporters and opponents showed up to watch the Texas city council deliberate on an ordinance proposed by Mayor Jim Pruitt, one that would force trans people to use the bathroom that matches with the sex they were assigned at birth, not their gender identity. “I just think that it’s insanity not to have those protections in place,” Pruitt told Dallas TV station WFAA last week.

Unfortunately for the mayor, he couldn’t find anyone on the town’s city council who agreed with him. The ordinance died in debate, after not a single one of the five council members stood up to support it. […]

But Mayor Pro Tem Dennis Lewis argued that if Pruitt doesn’t agree with the company’s statement, the solution is simple: Don’t go there. Others have the exact same option, he said. “If Target wants to have this policy, I have the choice of not shopping at Target,” Lewis told the Morning News.

The bill was vocally opposed by the local Hilton Hotel, which warned that passing an ordinance targeting trans bathroom use would be bad for the town’s local economy. Rockwall — with a population of just over 37,000 — is located outside of Dallas. “Our business will suffer,” Hilton general manager James Montgomery told KHOU. “This will negatively affect travel and tourism to our area.”

[…]

Montgomery warned that if Rockwall were to pass its own anti-trans legislation, Hilton might be forced to follow suit and leave the town. As KHOU reported, “the hotel employs 175 workers and pays $750,000 in property taxes.”

Full Story Here.

Boston Raises Transgender Pride Flag.

Boston's mayor raised the flag in a show of support for the trans community in Massachusetts.

Boston’s mayor raised the flag in a show of support for the trans community in Massachusetts.

Boston Monday became the first city in Massachusetts to fly the transgender pride flag.

Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh raised the flag along with activists and other elected officials. Lawmakers are currently “pushing a bill aimed at creating anti-discrimination protections for transgender people, allowing them to enter a bathroom based on their gender identity,”in the state, reports MassLive, a website for several Massachusetts newspapers.

“We’ve proven there’s nothing to fear from being inclusive,” Walsh told MassLive. “Quite the opposite. We are safer, we are stronger when everyone enjoys the same protections.”

Both the House and Senate versions of the measure — House Bill 1577 and Senate Bill 735 — have been advanced by the state legislature’s Judiciary Committee. The Senate version of the bill is up for debate May 12, reports MassLive. Massachusetts currently has antidiscrimination protections for trans people in employment, housing, and other areas, but not in public accomodations. Boston has had a trans-inclusive public accommodations law since 2002.

Full Story Here.

The Supreme Court Decided Against N.C.’s Law 20 Years Ago.

John Miller

John Miller

A federal lawsuit aimed at dismantling North Carolina’s sweeping anti-LGBT law is just getting under way, but the nation’s high court already struck down an eerily similar law. That ruling celebrates two decades of precedent this month.

Imagine, for a moment, that a proactive city council votes to extend nondiscrimination protections to LGBT people. The ordinance guarantees equal access to public accommodations and freedom from discrimination in housing, employment, and health and welfare services. You know, the basics.

Then, a fervent backlash arises — led by religious and political conservatives — and all LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances in the state are struck down in the heat of partisan overreaction. Further, local and state governments are prohibited from enacting these particular protections in any capacity. The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal file a federal lawsuit to stop the anti-LGBT law from taking effect.

This sounds a lot like North Carolina, where the state’s Republican leaders are intensely defendingHouse Bill 2, the draconian anti-LGBT law passed in a single day-long special session March 23.

But in reality, it’s the background of a landmark case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court 20 years ago.

Full Story Here.

18.

American Indians experienced some of the worst massacres and grossest injustices in history while Ulysses S. Grant was in office.

American Indians experienced some of the worst massacres and grossest injustices in history while Ulysses S. Grant was in office. Whitehouse.gov

…But changes in how the government treated Indians came at a critical juncture in westward expansion. As Grant worked to reform federal agencies, he also supervised the development of millions of acres of federal public lands and presided over the private acquisition of land by pioneers, spectators and railroad and mining companies.

During his eight years in office, Grant approved the Timber Culture Act (granting homesteaders additional acreage if they agreed to plant trees), the General Mining Act (authorizing prospecting and mining for minerals on public lands) and the Desert Lands Act (issuing arid Western lands to individuals who agreed to reclaim and irrigate). He also created the first national park at Yellowstone.

Yet Grant realized that his expansionist goals required the removal of Indians from desirable land. His Indian Peace Policy, designed to reform the Indian Bureau and remove corrupt agents, also called for rigorous agricultural training on reservations and established schools and churches that would transform Indians into Christian citizens.

“From the foundation of the government to the present the management of the original inhabitants of this continent—the Indians—has been a subject of embarrassment and expense,” Grant told Congress in December 1869. Calling the Indians “wards of the nation,” he proposed a new policy to establish “permanent peace” between white settlers and Indian nations.

[…]

Yet Grant’s policies toward Indians fell far short of what he promised. White settlers continued to push Indians off the land, relying on the Army to prevent retaliation. While Indians on reservations experienced poverty and increasing desperation, Grant oversaw the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad and the great slaughter of buffalo on the Plains, which destroyed much of the Indian economy.

The peace policy, ironically, led to some of the worst massacres in history. Grant’s strategy to contain Indians on reservations involved aggressive military pursuits, resulting in the Modoc War in California, the Red River War in Texas, the Nez Perce conflict in Oregon, the Black Hills campaign by Gen. George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Indian chiefs Sitting Bull, Gall, Chief Joseph, Geronimo and Cochise led their people into wars against the United States in efforts to preserve their land and ways of life. In 1870, Oglala Chief Red Cloud visited Grant at the White House, where he condemned Indian policy and described his peoples’ suffering.

Full Article Here.

White power meets business casual

Photo: Andrew Mears/ AFP

Photo: Andrew Mears/ AFP

Thank God for Donald J. Trump,” cried National Policy Institute director Richard Spencer into the microphone.

Spencer, 37, has a boyish, straitlaced look about him. With his well-tailored suit and a nicely kempt undercut, he’d meld perfectly into the swarms of youthful think tank employees trotting down Massachusetts Avenue. But NPI is no ordinary Washington think tank. Founded by an heir to a conservative publishing fortune, it drew white nationalists and sympathizers from around the country—and at least one from Canada—to its innocuously named “Identity Politics” conference a couple of days after Donald Trump dominated the field on Super Tuesday. For $45, I snagged the last ticket designated for millennials.

It is the rise of the bombastic Republican frontrunner that brought this amalgam of aggrieved crusaders together for an evening of cocktails, appetizers, and songs of praise to the candidate who’s inspired them to dip a toe into the stream of establishment politics.

Full Story Here.

There’s another hate group tackling Target for daring to be inclusive, the AFA (American Family Association):

The American Family Association, which is designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has been sending cisgender men into women’s restrooms at the retail chain.

Previously, the AFA had organized a boycott of Target, which allows customers and employees to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity. The policy is a slap back at North Carolina’s anti-LGBT law prohibiting transgender people from using the appropriate facilities for their identity, although the law applies only to government buildings, not private-sector companies.

The group, which contends Target’s policy opens the bathroom floodgates to sexual predators, claims to have enlisted over 1 million people to join its boycott.

Sandy Rios, AFA’s director of governmental affairs, revealed its new anti-LGBT tactic in a Monday radio interview with Breitbart News.

“We’ve already had people testing this, going into Targets and men trying to go into bathrooms. There is absolutely no barrier,” she told host Stephen Bannon, who said “decent, hard-working people who don’t want their 4-year-old daughter to have to go into a bathroom with a guy with a beard in a dress.”

“Absolutely no barrier”. I think that one gets filed under “no shit, Sherlock.” There’s never been anything stopping anyone from going into any public lav. You don’t even need to play dress up, just walk right in. You’d think that might have occurred to the genius watchdogs of uStates morality, but apparently it just slid right by them.

Full Story Here.