Frank Underwood and Donald Trump: Which is more chilling, the fiction or the currrent reality?:

I have been watching House of Cards on Netflix.  It is hard to tell whether or not it is a welcome relief from the disaster of the Trump Administration.  The parallels are there, but the differences are also stark.  The fictional President Frank Underwood is contemptuous of virtually everyone else in the world (and of what most of us view as the norms of democracy) and only cares about himself and perhaps a couple of other people.  On the other hand, unlike President Trump, the Underwood character is is totally self-aware and is very, very smart.  

Those who have seen any of House of Cards know that occasionally, Frank Underwood speaks directly to the camera, breaking down the proverbial third wall of drama.  Here is the text of his chilling direct statement to the Netflix audience in the middle of his swearing in as President of the United States.  The text may not do full justice to Kevin Spacey's chilling performance, but here it is:

And now here I am.  President of these United States.  You made this bed, America.  You voted for ME. 

Are you confused? Are you afraid? Because what you thought you wanted is now here. And there you are, starring back, slack-jawed, bewildered, wondering if what this is what you actually asked for. 

This Democracy, your Democracy, elected ME.  And if you think it was hard getting here, you’re beginning to understand what I am willing to do to stay.  

I look across at this crowd gathered today, and I know that that these are not my supporters.  I’m looking at the people who are waiting, with a smile on their face for their turn.  And the most vicious among them are the ones who are smiling and clapping the hardest.  Power IS a lot like real estate.  Remember?

Silver Linings, Dark Clouds, and Hypocrisy: DOJ Pride at the Department of Justice

DOJ Pride DOJ Pride is an organization of LGBT U.S. Department of Justice employees.  It has existed since the Clinton Administration.

I was heartened to read an Associated Press report this morning that yesterday DOJ Pride held its annual Pride event in the Main Justice Building, honoring Transgender Rights hero Gavin Grimm and the DOJ attorneys who worked on the litigation against North Carolina's H.B. 2 until the Trump Administration pulled the plug on the case.

This seemed to be progress of a sort with respect to Republican Administrations, inasmuch as in the Bush II Administration, Attorney General John Ashcroft barred all DOJ Pride activities at the Department, and this exclusion continued until the last year of the Bush II Administration.

Current Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not comment at all about the upcoming event until, according to the AP report, a DOJ intern asked about it.  Then, and only then, did Sessions say that, "We will protect and defend and celebrate that, and protect the rights of all transgender persons," noting that he had directed the Civil Rights Division to review some cases in which transgender people were killed.  "We are not going to allow persons in this country to be discriminated against or attacked in any way because of their sexual orientation." (Sessions does not appear to understand the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity.)

The hypocrisy of the current Attorney General's statement is palpable -- it is nice that he is against murder, but opposes all laws protecting LGBT people against discrimination.  (Similar, I suppose, to those 20th Century Southern politicians who decried lynching, but opposed all moves toward racial equality.)  But even that hypocrisy has its value, since it is a public recognition of the humanity of LGBT people -- something virtually absent from recent Republican/Trump/Family Research Council discourse.  That seems reminiscent of the Reagan Administration 1984 Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Ceremony at DOJ.  I had just started working at DOJ, and initially was horrified that the speaker at the MLK Ceremony was Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds, whose mission seemed to be to halt civil rights enforcement.  On reflection, I realized that this represented progress, because the culture had so changed that even people like Reynolds felt the political need to pay lip service to civil rights.

But upon closer reading of the AP report, I learned that the Sessions Department of Justice excluded the press from yesterday's DOJ Pride event.  And then I learned from another report that this exclusion was unprecedented.

So Sessions does not even meet the Brad Reynolds standard of decency.  Sessions allows DOJ Pride to meet, but then hopes that his homophobic/transphobic base will not notice.

Prince George's County Executive Candidate C. Anthony Muse's history of opposition to laws protecting LGBT people

Longtime Maryland State Senator C. Anthony Muse announced yesterday that he is running for the Democratic Party nomination to succeed Rushern Baker as Prince George's County Executive.

LGBT people, their families, their friends, and all people who support equal rights and treatment of LGBT people should be concerned.  From 2007 until 2014, Senator Muse opposed, and was in a position often to block, legislation barring discrimination against the LGBT community.  In 2007, as a member of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, he voted against protections for transgender people, and his vote prevented the full Senate from voting on an anti-discrimination bill, even though he had previously indicated support.  See here.

In 2008, again as a swing vote on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, he indicated opposition to Civil Marriage Equality at the hearing on S. 290, although he left the meeting before testimony from the public.  As a Board member of the Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG, I wrote to Senator Muse, hoping to address the concerns he set forth at the meeting.  This, and other appeals, had insufficient impact; Senator Muse helped block S. 290, and set forth his theologically based reasons in statements given to the Washington Post.

In 2011, Senator Muse again opposed Civil Marriage Equality.  Note this excerpt from a Post report:

"Here's my question: Where does it stop?" asked Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D-Prince George's), who is also senior pastor at the Ark of Safety Christian Church of Upper Marlboro. He questioned whether polygamy or marriage between people of very different ages would one day be acceptable.

The next year, 2012, Civil Marriage Equality was enacted by the Maryland General Assembly, but Senator Muse continued his vociferous opposition. See here.  Indeed, he was a leader in the unsuccessful effort to overturn the Civil Marriage Equality law by referendum, publishing an impassioned op-ed piece in the Post just a couple of weeks before the referendum vote.

A few months later, in March 2013, Senator Muse was a key Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee vote blocking a bill to extend anti-discrimination protections to transgender people.  See here.

Happily, however, the next year, Senator Muse voted in favor of the Fairness for All Marylanders Act, extending civil rights protections to people regardless of gender identity, and it became law in May 2014. See here.

So has Senator Muse had a change of heart on LGBT matters?  With respect to transgender people, it would appear so.  But with respect to gay people, there is no reason to believe that his views have changed. In any event, the burden is on the prospective County Executive to show that he has moved passed the things he said at least as recently as 2012.

2008 Letter to State Senator C. Anthony Muse

February 15, 2008

The Honorable C. Anthony Muse (anthony.muse@senate.state.md.us )

Maryland State Senate

304 James Senate Office Building

11 Bladen Avenue

Annapolis, Maryland 21401

Dear Senator Muse:

I attended yesterday's Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee meeting with my wife Barbara, who spoke about our children in supporting S. 290. Unfortunately, you had to leave the room before she so movingly explained the need for children who happen to be gay to know that they will not be treated as second-class citizens when they grow up. Her testimony is attached.

I listened with great interest to your questions. Perhaps these perspectives will be useful to you.

1. First, the question of whether the movements for equal rights for African Americans and for gay Americans are exactly the same. I agree with you that they are not identical. The reality was and is that African Americans (except for a small number of very light-skinned people) cannot avoid discrimination because they are obviously African American. Gay people can hide, can "pass." That is a very big difference.

            The salient issue before the Committee on S. 290 is whether gay people should have to “pass” to avoid discrimination. Should they have to pretend to be straight -- including marrying people to whom they are not romantically attracted -- in order to be full citizens? We all know the deleterious effects on people who must hide who they truly are -- whether people who "pass" as white, or people who "pass" as straight.

2. The answer to the first question leads to the matter of whether gay people can choose to be straight, or whether their sexual orientation is just the way God made them. This was of particular interest to my wife and me, since we have two gay sons. We learned that the mainstream medical and mental health professional associations have concluded that one’s sexual orientation is not a choice. Here, for example, is what the American Academy of Pediatrics has concluded about why some people are gay:

            A variety of theories about the influences on sexual orientation have been proposed. Sexual orientation probably is not determined by any one factor but by a combination         of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences. In recent decades, biologically          based theories have been favored by experts. The high concordance of       homosexuality among monozygotic twins and the clustering of homosexuality in        family pedigrees support biological models. There is some evidence that prenatal androgen exposure influences development of sexual orientation, but postnatal sex     steroid concentrations do not vary with sexual orientation. The reported association in        males between homosexual orientation and loci on the X chromosome remains to be replicated. Some research has shown neuroanatomic differences between homosexual       and heterosexual persons in sexually dimorphic regions of the brain. Although there             continues to be controversy and uncertainty as to the genesis of the variety of human            sexual orientations, there is no scientific evidence that abnormal parenting, sexual            abuse, or other adverse life events influence sexual orientation. [emphases added.]

The full AAP report may be found at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/113/6/1827)   See also the American Psychological Association’s Answers to Your Questions About Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality, which may be found at http://www.apa.org/topics/orientation.html.

            For your information, attached is a Fact Sheet from the Metro DC Chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) summarizing the conclusions of  mainstream medical and mental health professional associations.

            If gay people do not choose to be gay, why should they be prohibited from having the same rights and responsibilities with regard to their life partners as straight people? Particularly since we want to encourage stable, monogamous relationships, why should gay people be pushed into the shadows? If we want to encourage stable, monogamous relationships, shouldn’t we extend full marriage rights to gay people? (If I had a daughter, I certainly would not want her to marry a gay man – for such a marriage would be false and ultimately painful to both of them.)

3. I understand that some people have religious objections to the government's sanctioning of same sex relationships. People have told me that they, personally, do not care whether gay couples are allowed to marry, but that they must oppose it because their religion (and, by extension, their understanding of what God commands) opposes it. Of course, different religions have different understandings of what God commands. For example, the position of the Roman Catholic Church, contrary to that of other denominations, is that God instructs that divorce and birth control methods (other than the “rhythm” method) are barred. We do not enshrine that in civil law because we understand that theology should not dictate civil law.

            Some religious denominations oppose same sex marriage, while others support it.   The question posed yesterday by Senator Simonaire was whether any religious viewpoints should have a role in how the state government deals with whether marriage rights should include gay couples.  I think that misconstrues the issue. The question, I would suggest, is whether particular theological viewpoints should be determinative. This should not be,  fundamentally, an issue of whose theology ought to prevail in the General Assembly – just as it is not an issue with regard to civil divorce or birth control.

            I think Senator Obama set forth the framework best, in discussing how religious viewpoints should impact on important social issues, given that there are so many different theological viewpoints in our society:

            What our deliberative, pluralistic democracy does demand is that the religiously          motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific        values. It requires that their proposals must be subject to argument and amenable to   reason. If I am opposed to abortion for religious reasons and seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or invoke God's will and expect that argument to carry the day. If I want others to listen to me,          then I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to         people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

The Audacity of Hope, p. 219 (emphasis added).

            The same analysis applies to the question of whether gay couples should have the same legal rights and responsibilities as straight people. So the question before the General Assembly is really how “universal, rather than religion-specific values” inform the issue of whether equal marriage rights should be extended to couples, regardless of sexual orientation. That universal value is the Golden Rule.

            Senator Obama’s formulation leads us to make a distinction between theology and morality. Attached is a presentation I gave at my synagogue at our annual Martin Luther King service in January 2005, entitled Theology, Morality, and Faith: A Legacy of Dr. King. This presentation does not discuss gay rights. It does discuss Dr. King's teachings in terms of how we use our religious convictions in the governmental sphere. At bottom, the lodestar in terms of how we judge what is moral is the Golden Rule. I would point you to one particular passage from the sermon:

            If the Golden Rule is just the starting point, how do we decide, in each instance, what is moral?

            Dr. King addressed this question in a 1961 discussion of the difference between just     and unjust laws in the context of segregation statutes.

            "What is the difference,” he asked, “between a just and an unjust law?” “I would          say,” he answered, “that an unjust law is a code that the majority inflicts on the minority that is not binding on itself.” But this was not the end of his analysis. He      elaborated on the question in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail in 1963: “How          does one determine when a law is just or unjust? . . . . Any law that uplifts human        personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

            The stories told at yesterday’s hearing show how extension of equal marriage rights to gay couples “uplifts human personality,” and that the current ban on same sex marriage “degrades human personality.” I believe that is why Mrs. King was (and Congressman John Lewis is) such a strong supporter of equal marriage rights for gay people. And while theology should not govern this issue, I would ask, "Would a loving God expect any less?"

4. Finally, you asked Attorney General Gansler whether he would be in favor of putting the same sex marriage issue to a referendum, as is being done with the slots issue.

Whatever one thinks of the Governor’s proposal to “punt” on the slots issue by putting it to referendum, slots do not raise issues of fundamental human rights. Just as it would have been an inappropriate in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s for repeal of the anti-miscegenation laws to be put to referenda because a legislatures (or courts) did not want to take their responsibilities for the protection of human rights seriously, the General Assembly should not punt on this issue either.

            A fundamental principle of our representative democracy is that our elected leaders deliberate over difficult questions, calmly assessing the issues, and coming to just conclusions. Having done such justice, they are then answerable to the voters. If voters have different views, then it is the job of incumbent legislators to explain their votes. That is the essence of leadership. And that interaction between the electorate and their legislators is far more amenable to reasoned public discourse than the referendum process, in which special interest groups can pour in huge amounts of money and (too often) lie and distort the issues in contexts in which voters are not always paying full attention. We have a representative democracy because important issues should be given full deliberation. Government by plebiscite has always been a dubious proposition, particularly when it comes to basic human rights. We certainly would not have wanted such a governing theme in the 1950s and early 1960s. The genius of the American experiment in representative democracy is that we understand that core individual rights ought not to depend on the transient  popularity or unpopularity of certain groups.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If I may be of any assistance as you work through these issues, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

David S. Fishback

Member, Board of Directors, Metro DC Chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)

cc:        Democratic Members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee

            Senator Madaleno

            Senator Kramer

Grassroots victory on Transgender Rights in Frederick County, MD

Whatever backsliding we see in the Trump Administration on LGBT rights, let's remember the good things that are going on at the grassroots. Congratulations, Frederick County MD.

Frederick County school board approves policy to protect transgender students
By Allen Etzler aetzler@newspost.com

Jun 14, 2017 Updated Jun 15, 2017

A last-minute turnout of opposing residents was not enough to delay a vote on the Frederick County Board of Education’s transgender policy.

The board approved the policy Wednesday evening. In part, the policy allows students to choose which bathroom to use based on the gender with which that student identifies.

It also gives any student who is uncomfortable for any reason using a gender-segregated bathroom the option to use a safe and non-stigmatizing alternative — such as privacy curtains, provisions to use private restrooms or office restrooms, or a separate changing schedule in locker rooms.

The policy also allows transgender students to participate in sports that align with their gender identity. So, a transgender girl could play girls soccer, and a transgender boy could play baseball. The policy also says that students are not required to disclose their gender identity.

Board member April Miller was the lone member to oppose the policy. She said she wanted to delay the vote to make the policy more clear in regards to what information parents had a right to know. She cited a policy that Fairfax County, Virginia, Public Schools is working on as having more comprehensive language.

Board member Joy Schaefer said the policy does not preclude the regulation being worked on by Fairfax County Public Schools.

Before the meeting, transgender student activist James Van Kuilenburg organized a rally of about 50 supporters of the policy outside the Frederick County Public Schools central office building.

Van Kuilenburg, a transgender student at Gov. Thomas Johnson High School, was one of 15 speakers to offer public comment on the policy, though most of the commenters spoke out in opposition.

Dan Cox, a former Republican candidate for Congress, spoke out against the policy, saying the board was putting students at risk.

“You’re exposing every child in this county to potential of sexual abuse,” he said.

Arlin Hatch spoke in opposition to the policy because he said he felt that parents were being shut out of the process, and that the school board was overstepping its boundaries.

“If the school system excludes parents from [the] equation, it would cripple parents’ ability” to intervene and help, said Hatch, whose wife, Veronica, also spoke at the meeting.

Schaefer said it’s the board’s preference for schools to work with parents, and the board hopes they would do so.

County Councilman Tony Chmelik asked the board to delay the vote as well, citing feedback he has received from members of his district.

“What’s the problem with hitting the pause button?” Chmelik asked.

The board expressed that after five policy committee meetings, and three regular full board meetings, it was ready to vote.

“I feel like I’m doing the right thing,” school board member Ken Kerr said in support of the measure.

“We’re not doing [this] because we want to be an activist or because we think it’s fun.”

Student board member Carter Gipson, whose vote does not count, said he had concerns about the policy when it first came up. But throughout the process he has come to support it.

“It’s worth trying,” he said.

Several board members agreed that this process has been a learning experience, and if the policy needs to be amended, it can be.

“Is it perfect? I don’t know,” board President Brad Young said. But the policy can be amended in the future, he added.

Board member Colleen Cusimano was not present at the meeting and, therefore, did not vote.