After floating the idea in an initial draft, the US Census Bureau recently announced that the 2020 census would not include the option for LGBTQ persons to self-identify. This decision has rightly been met with outrage, because it denies lawmakers and their respective constituents access to data that would be used to shape policy and allow LGBTQ people access to opportunities and resources they’ve been denied for decades.
Although some data on same-sex couples has been available since the 1990 census, there still lacks a definitive figure assessing the numbers and geographic distribution of LGBTQ-identifying Americans. This is odd, given that numerous minority groups — ranging from ethnic and racial minorities to Americans with disabilities — are able to self-identify on the form, giving lawmakers visibility into their communities.
The 2010 census did not include an opportunity for participants to identify as LGBTQ, which was unsurprising, given the cultural and political stances on gay rights and marriage at that time. Both major-party candidates opposed same-sex marriage during the 2008 election cycle, and a select few states had legalized such marriages at that point. Since 2010, however, LGBTQ persons have cumulatively — despite opposition from religious and “traditional” lawmakers — made great strides in the quest for equality and visibility on a national level. By 2020, with national marriage equality a reality, and a recent ruling deeming that LGBTQ identity is a protected class under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that sense of liberation should empower more LGBTQpersons than ever before to self-identify on the census and provide the most accurate count of LGBTQ Americans to date.
The city of Philadelphia is pushing new rules to fight discrimination. Eleven bars in the Gayborhood, the city’s LGBT hotbed, will be required to participate in fair business practice training and implicit bias training. The bars will also be required to post fliers made by the city’s Human Relations Commission about the city’s fair practice ordinance.
These efforts come as a response to a report released by the city in January, which found that women, minorities and transgender people have been discriminated against in the Gayborhood for decades. The city’s heavy-handed approach, while well-meaning, adds yet another expense and burden to local businesses. Mandating these implicit bias trainings will take workers away from their actual productive duties and force the bars to pay employees to attend diversity training sessions that have largely been found to be ineffective.
Meanwhile, residents of Philadelphia are doing a better job of preventing discrimination than the city’s government. Individuals and the market have already acted to scale back the level of discrimination in the Gayborhood, before the government ever could.
Continue reading at Watchdog.
Judging by recent headlines, President-elect Trump is poised to rollback LGBT rights. “These Are the LGBT Rights that Trump Could Start Reversing,” BuzzFeed proclaims in its typical clickbait fashion. “Anti-LGBT groups are absolutely giddy about a Trump presidency,” ThinkProgress reports with the logical fallacy of guilt by association. Gays should ignore such scaremongering: A Trump administration will likely be the most welcoming to LGBT people in United States history.
First, on the question of gay marriage, Trump told “60 Minutes” on Sunday that the issue is “settled.” Some pundits have pointed out that one candidate on his Supreme Court shortlist, former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, is fervently anti-gay.
But even in the worst-case scenario that Pryor is picked and confirmed as the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement, his one vote could not turn the tide on gay marriage. It’s unlikely the Supreme Court would accept a challenge case to Obergefell v. Hodges considering how popular gay marriage now is, with 61 percent of Americans approving of the institution.
Continue reading at The Washington Examiner.
It’s been half a year since I moved from Moscow to Kiev. I was a journalist for independent media in Russia, a member of a Moscow local council, and a civil rights activist. All those activities have become taboo — the Kremlin calls us “national traitors” on Russian TV, and many people believe it.
But as Putin’s neo-stalinism continues to infect Russian society, Ukraine is becoming more liberal. And we have Putin’s invasion partly to thank for it.
My grandparents live in Pavlograd, a small mining town in eastern Ukraine. I’ve visited them almost every year since my birth, and things there were always the same. The people spoke Russian, watched Russian TV, and sympathized with our common past. But now there is only an empty pedestal in the center of the town, where a Lenin monument used to stand. In the museum of local history, there is an exhibition devoted the Kyiv Euromaidan revolution, and the local volunteers who have defended eastern Ukraine.
Read the rest on CapX here.
The latest Young Voices podcast features Meg Arnold, Nathan Kelly and Daniel Pryor. Today they will be discussing Meg and Nathan Goodman’s (who wasn’t available for recording) recent article for the PanAm Post, titled ‘How Gun Control Hurts Minorities’.
Topics discussed include the racist origins of gun control legislation, minority groups in favour of gun rights and the various ways in which marginalised groups are negatively affected by gun control laws.
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Are you a current student interested in standing up for gun rights? Students For Liberty is offering $100 activism grants for organizing a gun rights-related event. Click here for more information and to apply.