November, 03 2010, 04:33pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
1050 Connecticut Ave NW,Suite 65500,Washington, DC 20035,Phone: 202-393-5177
Election 2010: Gains and Losses on Key Contests Impacting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People Nationwide
WASHINGTON
Election 2010 results are proving to be a mixed bag for lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. Republicans regained control of
the U.S. House, which will pose challenges for advancing progressive
legislation, including LGBT rights legislation. In state contests,
several gubernatorial candidates who support marriage equality were
victorious, but the GOP made numerous gains in state legislatures across
the country, which could adversely affect LGBT rights legislation. In
Congress, meanwhile, there will be four openly gay and lesbian members.
A new federal landscape
LGBT rights advocates will be working in a new federal landscape come
the next Congress after Republicans regained control of the U.S. House,
and Democrats retained a majority in the Senate. This division will
likely mean greater gridlock and tougher challenges advancing any
legislation.
"We'll cut to the chase: The shift in the balance of power will
very likely slow advancement of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
rights legislation in Congress. Does this mean a blockade on LGBT
rights? Not if we can help it. Fact is, our community has always had to
fight -- and fight hard -- for equality. This is nothing new to us. But
here's another fact: There are Americans, from every part of the
country, from every background, from every political leaning and of
every faith, who support equality for LGBT people -- and those vast
numbers grow bigger every day," said National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Executive Director Rea Carey.
"No matter what the political breakdown is in Washington, the
Task Force will continue to identify and work with all fair-minded
members of Congress who are willing to support and defend equality for
LGBT people. Through our New Beginning Initiative, we will continue to
push for the administration and its agencies to make tangible changes
that benefit lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and our
families -- changes that can be done without Congress. We will continue
working with local partners in communities across the country to secure
equality," she added. "Bottom line: While political winds and players
may shift, the fundamental needs of the people do not. No matter who is
in office, people need jobs, protection from discrimination, a roof over
their heads, a way to feed their families, a fair shake. No one should
settle for less -- we won't." Watch video here.
Local measures see mixed results in Ohio and Texas
Provisional ballots are still being tallied, but preliminary results in Bowling Green, Ohio,
show that Ordinance 7905, which would protect LGBT people from housing
discrimination, is passing 50.15 percent to 49.85 percent with all
precincts reporting. Ordinance 7906, which would ban discrimination
against LGBT people in employment, education and public accommodations,
was losing 50.71 percent to 49.29 percent with all precincts reporting.
It could take several weeks for provisional ballots to be verified and
tabulated.
The Task Force has been working with One Bowling Green,
the locally-driven, grassroots campaign, by committing financial
resources, dispatching on-the-ground organizers to Bowling Green, and
sponsoring trainings. There was also a massive student-led voter turnout
campaign at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). Hundreds of BGSU
students, who study, live and work in Bowling Green, stood up and spoke
out for a fair and welcoming community.
Dan Hawes, who heads up the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's
organizing efforts, said: "We are pleased that the housing protections
measure appears to have passed, and look forward to a probable victory
on Ordinance 7906. One Bowling Green ran a tough campaign in an effort
to create a more fair and more welcoming Bowling Green for everyone,
including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. As the
provisional ballots begin to be counted, we look forward to our
continued work with One Bowling Green to ensure that each and every vote
is counted." More to come on this contest.
In El Paso, Texas, voters approved an initiative to end health
benefits for same-sex and unmarried partners of city employees. The
initiative was supported by conservative religious groups that took aim
at the city's domestic partners ordinance after the City Council passed
it last year.
Pro-marriage equality gubernatorial candidates win
Pro-marriage equality candidates were victorious in several gubernatorial races. In New Hampshire, incumbent Democrat John Lynch defeated Republican challenger John Stephen; in New York, Democrat Andrew Cuomo beat Republican Carl Paladino; in California, Democrat Jerry Brown defeated the GOP's Meg Whitman; in Massachusetts, incumbent Democrat Deval Patrick beat Republican challenger Charlie Baker; in Maryland, Democrat Martin O'Malley won his re-election against Republican Robert Ehrlich; in Rhode Island, Independent Lincoln Chafee won over Republican John Robitaille and Democrat Frank Caprio; in Vermont, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Peter Shumlin defeated Republican nominee Brian Dubie.
"These victories once again show that supporting equality is a
winning issue. Voters in these contests have rejected the politics of
division and have elected candidates who embrace equality and oppose the
scapegoating of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people for
political gain. All across the nation, same-sex couples and our families
are sharing our stories with others in a conversation that is
transforming our country. These electoral victories are a testament to
those personal and powerful discussions, as the tide continues to move
nationwide in favor of marriage equality," says Task Force Executive
Director Rea Carey.
In Minnesota, the race remains too close to call. Democrat Mark Dayton has a small lead over Republican candidate Tom Emmer.
There were disappointments on the marriage equality front, when three Iowa
Supreme Court justices lost their seats. They were among the seven
justices who unanimously found Iowa's ban on marriage equality to be
unconstitutional. Those justices were targeted by right-wing,
out-of-state forces that sought to punish them for the 2009 marriage
equality decision.
GOP gains in state legislatures
In New Hampshire, Republicans won a veto-proof majority in the
state Legislature, which complicates the political landscape in that
state. Now the Republicans have override power in case re-elected Gov.
John Lynch decides to veto a bill to repeal the state's marriage
equality law. As a result of Tuesday elections, Republicans took control
of both houses of the state legislatures in Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota
and Pennsylvania. In summary, 25 state legislatures are controlled by
Republicans, 16 by Democrats and four are divided. The rest have not
been called yet. The domination of Republicans in the state legislatures
could impact next year's redistricting -- likely meaning a more
Republican Congress.
Election of openly gay and lesbian members of Congress
David Cicilline, the openly gay mayor of
Providence, R.I., won election to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Cicilline garnered 50.6 percent of the vote to Republican candidate John
Loughlin's 44.6 percent. He will join U.S. Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.),
bringing to four the number of openly gay and lesbian members of
Congress. Baldwin won with 62 percent to 31 percent against Republican
challenger Peter Theron. Frank snagged 54 percent of the vote, beating
Republican candidate Sean Bielat. Polis garnered 72 percent of the vote
to beat a challenge by Tea Party-supported candidate Stephen Bailey.
Baldwin, Frank and Polis were all re-elected to the House. Steve Pougnet,
the openly gay mayor of Palm Springs, Calif., lost his bid to unseat
Republican U.S. Rep. Mary Bono Mack. The electoral victories of openly
gay and lesbian candidates reflect that voters, from very different
parts of the country, support LGBT candidates for higher offices.
Reproductive rights, English-only and immigration ballot initiatives
This election, there were a handful of issues up for a vote that
were not directly connected to LGBT issues, but important to the Task
Force. Colorado's Amendment 62, which would have
changed the state Constitution to define a "person" as a human being
"from the moment of biological beginning" was defeated by a margin of 72
percent to 28 percent, similar to an almost identical failed measure in
2008; Arizona's Proposition 107, which would change
the state Constitution to ban affirmative action, passed by a margin of
59.56 percent to 40.44 percent; and Oklahoma's State Question 751,
which would make English the state's official language, mandating all
state business be conducted only in English, passed by a margin of 75.54
percent to 24.46 percent.
The National LGBTQ Task Force advances full freedom, justice and equality for LGBTQ people. We are building a future where everyone can be free to be their entire selves in every aspect of their lives. Today, despite all the progress we've made to end discrimination, millions of LGBTQ people face barriers in every aspect of their lives: in housing, employment, healthcare, retirement, and basic human rights. These barriers must go. That's why the Task Force is training and mobilizing millions of activists across our nation to deliver a world where you can be you. Join us!
LATEST NEWS
Rights Groups Urge Biden to Make Delayed Report on Israel's Use of US Arms Public
The report—due Wednesday under the terms of a White House directive—has been indefinitely postponed, according to congressional aides.
May 07, 2024
Before Tuesday's reporting that the Biden administration will delay a highly anticipated report on whether Israel is using U.S. military aid in compliance with international law, a coalition of advocacy groups circulated a letter urging the White House to share the document with the public once it's published.
In February, President Joe Biden issued National Security Memorandum (NSM)-20, which requires Secretary of State Antony Blinken "to obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments" receiving U.S. arms "that the recipient country will use any such defense articles in accordance with international humanitarian law" and then provide Congress with periodic reports "to enable meaningful oversight."
The first report is due by Wednesday. However, four congressional aides
toldPolitico Tuesday that publication would be postponed indefinitely.
"It is not clear if your administration intends to... make this report available to the public," coalition members Amnesty International USA, Defending Rights & Dissent, Freedom of the Press Foundation, National Press Photographers Association, Radio Television Digital News Association, and Reporters Without Borders said in a letter to Biden drafted ahead of Politico's reporting.
"We strongly urge you to make the report available to the public and the press to the greatest extent possible," the groups added.
Access to the document, the coalition argued, "will allow the press to more fully and accurately report on how elected leaders are making decisions about military aid to foreign countries" and "will help Americans make informed judgments about our leaders' decisions on foreign military aid."
"We strongly urge you to make the report available to the public and the press to the greatest extent possible."
The letter comes as Israel uses U.S.-supplied arms and ammunition to wage what hundreds of international legal experts and others say is a genocidal war on Gaza. These include 155-millimeter artillery shells and 2,000-pound guided "bunker-buster" bombs, which Israel says are necessary to target Hamas' underground tunnels.
Aided by artificial intelligence-based target selection systems, Israel Defense Forces commanders are ordering strikes they know will cause large numbers of civilian casualties. In a bid to assassinate a single Hamas commander, the IDF dropped at least two 2,000-pound bombs on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, killing more than 120 civilians.
Even the U.S. military—which since 2001 has killed hundreds of thousands of people during the open-ended so-called War on Terror—avoids using 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated areas due to the tremendous damage they cause.
One prominent U.S. military historian called Israel's Gaza onslaught "one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history," comparing it to the Allied firebombing of Dresden during World War II, which also killed tens of thousands of civilians.
The letter also comes as the Biden administration reportedly believes that Israel's nascent ground invasion of Rafah does not cross the president's "red line" warning that any "major operation" in the southern city—where more than 1 million Palestinians forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents—would damage U.S.-Israeli relations.
The International Court of Justice found in January that Israel is "plausibly" perpetrating genocide in Gaza, where Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockades have left more than 123,000 Palestinians—most of them women and children—dead, injured, or missing since October 7, and hundreds of thousands more suffering full-blown famine.
While the Biden administration has accepted the Israeli government's claims that it is not breaking international law when using American weapons, a number of House Democrats have challenged Israel's assurance, citing "mounting credible and deeply troubling reports and allegations" of human rights crimes committed by IDF troops in Gaza, and by soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Officials at the United States Agency for International Development also concluded in a confidential April memo to Blinken that Israel is violating NSM-20 by blocking humanitarian aid from entering the besieged Gaza Strip as children there starve to death.
Furthermore, a leaked State Department memo revealed last month that officials at four of the agency's bureaus concluded that Israel's assurances of legal arms use are "neither credible nor reliable."
In addition to NSM-20, federal legislation including the Arms Control Export Act and Leahy Laws also proscribe U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators—although there are many examples of these statutes being ignored for the benefit of key allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other nations.
"The public has a profound interest in understanding how the U.S. ensures that its military aid doesn't go to human rights abusers," Caitlin Vogus, deputy advocacy director at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement Tuesday.
"If the Biden administration can stand behind its decisions about defense assistance, it should have no reason to withhold the report that members of Congress will see from the press and the public," Vogus added.
While Biden has criticized Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza and is reportedly holding up two shipments of precision-guided bombs to send a message to Israeli leaders, the president continues to affirm his steadfast support for Israel and has recently approved the transfer of more warplanes, 2,000-pound bombs, and other arms to its key Middle Eastern ally. The administration is also pushing Congress to approve the sale of $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets to Israel.
Earlier this year, a group of mostly Democratic members of Congress asked Blinken to explain what they called "highly unusual" moves by the Biden administration to bypass lawmakers in order to fast-track emergency military aid to Israel. Biden—who recently signed off on $14.3 billion in new armed aid to Israel atop the $4 billion it already gets from Washington each year—has also come under fire for approving more than 100 weapons sales to Israel since October.
Human rights defenders slammed Biden's reported decision to postpone publication of the report due on Wednesday.
"It's obvious why Biden is burying the NSM-20 report on Israel: He won't hold Israel accountable," Georgetown University adjunct professor Josh Reubner asserted on social media. "There's no way to conclude that Israel hasn't violated assurances it won't use U.S. weapons to break international law or block aid. Of course it's doing both."
Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer asked: "Hey, Joe Biden, what are you hidin'?"
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Anti-war voices on Tuesday welcomed Politico's reporting that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is delaying "shipments of two types of Boeing-made precision bombs to send a political message to Israel," which on Monday launched a long-awaited invasion of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
"The U.S. has yet to sign off on a pending sale of Boeing's Joint Direct Attack Munitions—both the munitions and kits that convert them to smart weapons—and Small Diameter Bombs," according to Politico, which cited unnamed congressional and industry sources. "While the Biden administration has not formally denied the potential sale, it is essentially taking action through inaction—holding off on approvals and other aspects of the weapons transfer process."
The piece followed Axiosreporting Sunday that Israeli officials said the administration "last week put a hold on a shipment of U.S.-made ammunition" and The Wall Street Journal's Monday revelation that it "has held up delivery of Joint Direct Attack Munitions."
"If President Biden is taking the overdue but necessary step... he cannot leave his intentions open to miscommunication or spin."
The White House has neither confirmed nor denied Politico's report, which came as Biden again conflated campus protests against Israel's war on Gaza with antisemitism. Since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the U.S.-backed offensive in October, Biden has faced mounting pressure to cut off arms to the country and use his influence to end the bloodshed.
"Reports that the Biden administration is delaying the sale of at least two types of bombs to the Israeli government, in reaction to its disastrous conduct of the war in Gaza, are highly welcome. That conduct is again on international display in Rafah this week, where the Israeli military has begun an invasion that, as we at Win Without War have previously warned, could lead to further horrific war crimes," the group's executive director, Sara Haghdoosti, said in a statement Tuesday.
"Now that this news has leaked, senior administration officials must publicly confirm this policy shift," she said. "If President Biden is taking the overdue but necessary step to condition weapons sales in line with U.S. law and policy and to force changes in Israeli government strategy, he cannot leave his intentions open to miscommunication or spin from those, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, who are continuing this conflict for their own political benefit. The White House must leave no stone unturned in its effort to stop the Israeli government's offensive on Rafah—the hundreds of thousands displaced there do not have more time."
Over a million Palestinians from across Gaza have crowded into Rafah since October, as Israeli forces have killed at least 34,789 people, wounded another 78,204, and destroyed civilian infrastructure in the strip, which has been under Hamas control for nearly two decades. The International Court of Justice has said Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in the besieged enclave.
While multiple congressional Republicans condemned the Biden administration's supposed move to delay the delivery of the bombs to Israel, critics of the Israeli assault joined Haghdoosti in welcoming the development—which comes on the heels of Congress and the president approving billions more in military aid for Israel.
"Glad to see it. I wish they would've started sending this message thousands of lives ago, as so many urged," Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, said on social media.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the Crisis Group's U.S. program, agreed the move is "good if true" and "an easy step the Biden administration should have taken months ago."
Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk, called it an "overdue but welcome development" that "hopefully... signals a pivot to beginning to impose more overt conditionality on U.S. arms transfers."
Politico separately reported Tuesday that according to congressional sources, "the Biden administration's report on whether Israel has violated U.S. and international humanitarian law during the war in Gaza has been delayed indefinitely."
The Israeli War Cabinet—made up of Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Benny Gantz, former chief of the general staff for the Israel Defense Forces—opted to attack Rafah on Monday despite Hamas agreeing to a cease-fire and hostage release deal. Biden previously said that Israel invading the crowded city was a "red line" and is now facing calls to stand by that position.
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One pro-Palestinian protester was hospitalized on Tuesday after a pro-Israel driver "intentionally drove" into a group of picketers outside the home of one of Columbia University's trustees on New York City's Upper East Side, as demonstrations against Israel's bombardment of Gaza continued.
According to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the protesters "were attacked on the crosswalk" by an "Upper East Side Zionist."
CUAD reported that the man drove up to the demonstrators, who have been calling on Columbia to divest from companies that contract with Israel and for the U.S. government to stop supporting the Israel Defense Forces, and asked for a flyer before grabbing a protester by the arm.
He then "circled the block to drive into our peaceful demonstration," striking one person who was "arrested and handcuffed to the bed while in the hospital," said CUAD.
The New York Police Department
toldUSA Today that an argument broke out between the driver and the protesters and that "as the group of roughly 25 demonstrators walked away, a driver hit one person with his Volvo."
CUAD noted that the alleged attack took place as U.S. politicians including President Joe Biden have condemned the campus protest movement, with at least one lawmaker
applauding abusive behavior by anti-Palestinian counter-protesters and New York City Council member Vickie Paladino (R-19) saying last week that the student movement is being led by "monsters, and it's now our job to slay them."
Paladino's "call for vigilante justice was almost fulfilled today," said CUAD.
USA Today also reported that at a separate protest on the Upper West Side near the apartment building of the co-chair of Columbia's board of trustees, "a woman punched a demonstrator in the face, seemingly at random."
In Los Angeles last week, city police stood by while a mob of pro-Israel counter-protesters
attacked nonviolent students who had set up an encampment in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel has killed at least 34,789 and on Monday invaded Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced.
On Tuesday, in honor of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Annual Days of Remembrance, Biden gave a speech on antisemitism, conflating protests in support of Palestinian rights with the hatred of Jewish people.
CUAD and independent reporter Talia Jane said the driver is a relative of the late Meir Kahane, an American-born Israeli far-right extremist.
The driver's "actions today model a trend in which Zionists weaponize their discomfort over political slogans as an excuse to assault Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Black, brown, and dissident Jewish protesters in violent retaliation for imagined threats," said CUAD. "Just as white supremacists ran over a protester in Charlottesville, Zionists on the streets and in police precincts have declared open season on young people fighting for Palestinian liberation."
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