Time to Weed

Tags

Rant, Women's Rights

Black Friday was black indeed for the Colorado Planned Parenthood office and for the agency of women everywhere. At the end of the 5 hour siege, one police officer and two civilians were dead and two other officers and seven other civilians were wounded. Luckily, none of the staff of the clinic were harmed.

Robert Lewis Dear was motivated by opposition to safe and legal abortion, saying “no more baby parts” to law enforcement officials.

It is the latest in a long line of terrorist attacks on Planned Parenthood facilities, fueled in part by the poisonous rhetoric of ideologically driven extremists.

Their inflammatory allegations have real world consequences. The increase in vandalism and body counts, the harmful legislation (closing, defunding, restricting access) and even the rise in sexually transmitted diseases are just some of the results.

Lizz Winstead posted:

What I will say again is that these hatemongers are allowed to breed when no one weeds the garden of bad ideas.

What are you going to do? Become a gardener? Or stand by and watch the bad ideas fester?

Willie Parker posted:

We who understand the need for abortion availability can no longer sympathetically stand with Planned Parenthood or any other facility that finds itself in the crosshairs of abortion extremism, we must act on behalf of women and reproductive rights. We must make sure that every political engagement we consider is filtered through our concern about impact on reproductive rights. We must, if we have to, vote primarily in the context of this issue alone. We cannot allow major political candidates to accept endorsement from abortion terrorists without penalty. The stark contrast between abortion extremism and democratic political change can only be made when in every way we engage the political system.

We must act and vote in defense of reproductive rights. We can’t sit idly by while politicians seize on lies and smears to shut down health centers, push abortion bans, defund Planned Parenthood, and deny women access to care.

Ten hours after the shooting not a single one of the 14 Republican presidential candidates had stated any condolences, concerns, or thoughts of solidarity with the victims of the Planned Parenthood shooting. We cannot be silent nor allow the silence of others to put more women at risk.

No one should ever fear for their life while seeking health care. No caregivers should have to wear bullet proof vests to work in order to get people the care they need.

And, no-one who is against abortion because of a reverence for life should ever tolerate murder done by those who agree with them.

What a win!

Tags

Elections, Louisiana, Voting

It was a hard election season that saw a sitting, United States Republican Senator try every dirty trick in the book (lying in tv ads and debates, spying on private citizens, pandering to the basest of racist fears) only to lose to his Democratic challenger. Close to $18 million dollars were spent on campaign ads for the governor’s race, much of it from outside PACs

The opposition even tried to use my “pro homosexual blog” as proof that Edwards “plans to pursue policies granting special rights to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders.” There were articles in the Baptist Messenger, the Hayride and Gene Mills, the President of the Louisiana Family Forum, even took out a half page ad in newspapers across the state:

Too bad he didn’t realize that the section he bolded just highlights what a fair and equality minded candidate John Bel Edwards is.

As John Bel Edwards posed on Facebook:

We won because of you. Thank you for voting to put Louisiana first.

You believed in our campaign to bring honor and integrity back to the state of Louisiana.

My campaign slogan has been “put Louisiana first” from the start, and that is exactly what I plan to do for the next four years. To me, that has always meant bringing our people together, regardless of party, to celebrate the things that make our state strong and solve our greatest problems.

I promise you tonight that I will always do what is best for all Louisianians — for our children, our veterans, our senior citizens. I believe Louisiana is worth fighting for. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to lead our state.

Louisiana’s future doesn’t belong to a political party — it belongs to all of us. I will work every day to make you proud of your vote and of your state.

Thanks to everyone to who stepped up or even stepped across the party line to vote in this election. Raise your glass in celebration of Louisiana’s spirit, strength, and future.

We can’t rest on this victory, though. There is a presidential election next year. And, as David Vitter has already said he will not be seeking reelection, we must continue to work here in Louisiana to elect progressive minded candidates.

Laissez le bon candidats gagner!

Vitter Family Values

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Louisiana, Politics, Voting

David Vitter’s new campaign video is all about how he failed his family but found forgiveness. In it, he and his family are sitting around a table as he talks of accepting responsibility and earning redemption. Not only is this video getting quite a bit of air time but at a recent Women’s Roundtable, his wife Wendy presented the video.

Let that sink for a moment – Wendy Vitter is traveling around the state to show a campaign commercial of her husband acknowledging that he cheated on her.

I won’t speculate on the dynamics of their marriage. But seeing naked political ambition eclipsing personal humiliation just boggles the mind.

I don’t really care that David Vitter had affairs, although I’m bothered by the fact he paid for sex. Soliciting is a crime in Louisiana which carries a $500 fine and up to six months in jail. We should definitely expect our elected representatives not to break the laws they swear to uphold.

For me, however, the real issue is that he committed serial adultery while espousing family values and preaching morality to the rest of us.

He positions himself as a great protector of marriage (and as a gatekeeper to exclude lesbians and gays from the institution) by being a chief sponsor on several efforts to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriages. “I don’t believe there’s any issue that’s more important than this one,” he said once the amendment was brought to the floor. He has also compared marriage equality to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Seriously? There is not a single issue more important than amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriages. Not a single one?

Not Louisiana’s unbalanced budget? Not the catastrophic loss of wetlands or the need for coastal restoration? Not the the dismal state of education? Not our crumbling infrastructure? Not the fact that Louisiana ranks last on nearly every quality of life survey until you get to the rates of sexually transmitted diseases and we take the lead?

Even if you are able to set aside for a moment legitimate differences on substantial policy matters, it behooves us all to be concerned that David Vitter has spent his entire career voting against the rights and liberties of the very same women he’s been screwing.

Furthermore, Vitter has proven, time and again, that he is corrupt to the core. I sincerely hope the voters of this state realize that if his marriage vows mean nothing to him, his oath of office will mean even less.

The choice is clear – vote for John Bel Edwards for Louisiana!

Here are the endorsements for governor and others in the November 21st runoff:

• Independent Women’s Organization Endorsements
• Forum for Equality PAC Endorsements

Please Geaux Vote!

 

Vitter in His Own Words

Tags

Louisiana, Politics, Voting

Through his constituent letters and public comments, time and again, David Vitter shows he is a hypocrite who doesn’t support many issues of importance to the people of this state.

Here are a few examples:

In 1998, David Vitter was a state representative, a practicing attorney and adjunct professor. He weighed in on the President Bill Clinton impeachment issue in a point of view letter to the Times-Picayune newspaper. “One would hope that these two factors would coincide — that when an officeholder commits serious offenses, the negative reaction of the citizenry would make it impossible for him to govern effectively.” (This is around the same time he was soliciting prostitutes in Louisiana. See American Zombie for more on that story).

David Vitter got his start in Congress after replacing Rep. Robert Livingston, who resigned after his numerous affairs were disclosed. At the time, Vitter argued that an extramarital affair was grounds for resignation: “I think Livingston’s stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess.”

When David Vitter ran for a seat in the Senate in 2004, he made passage of the Federal Marriage Amendment a centerpiece of his campaign: “We need a U.S. Senator who will stand up for Louisiana values, not Massachusetts’s values. I am the only Senate Candidate to coauthor the Federal Marriage Amendment; the only one fighting for its passage.”

On June 6, 2006 and less than a year after Katrina and Rita made landfall, he says, “I don’t believe there’s any issue that’s more important than this one.” Was he talking about rebuilding Louisiana? NO! He was defending the decision by Republican leaders to bring a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage to the Senate floor.

In 2007 (the same year he confessed to his “serious sin” after his phone number appeared on the list of a Washington escort service), he inserted an earmark into the federal budget to provide $100,000 to the Louisiana Family Forum for the purpose of combating the teaching of evolution and global warming in public schools. “This program helps supplement and support educators and school systems that would like to offer all of the explanations in the study of controversial science topics such as global warming and the life sciences,” he said.

2008 Vitter was one of the ten sponsors of the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, which would have banned same-sex marriage. Vitter co-sponsored State Marriage Defense Act in 2014 which would reverse the gains same-sex couples made after the Defense of Marriage Act was overturned by the Supreme Court in June 2013.

He was also a cosponsor of the First Amendment Defense Act in 2015, which would stop the federal government from denying a tax benefit, contract, or license based on views of the individual or organization that marriage is limited to a union between a man and a woman. Vitter said, “I’m committed to fully protecting religious liberty.” The legislation was introduced June 17, nine days before the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.

Vitter voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009 because he thought it was a sop to plaintiff’s lawyers. “Quite frankly it’s a trial lawyer bonanza,” Vitter said.

In 2010, Senator David Vitter appeared on a right wing radio station and mocked MSNBC host Rachel Maddow:

MALE HOST: That’d be cool. Well you know, with Rachel Maddow they had that picture of her…

FEMALE HOST: Looking like a woman.

MALE HOST: Yeah it was really bizarre.

VITTER: [LAUGHS]: Must have been a long time ago.

ALL THREE: [HEAVY LAUGHTER]

When talking about his continuing the employment of a man convicted of DUI’s and pleading guilty after battering his girlfriend, David Vitter said Brent Furer was actually assigned to “abortion” issues, not “women’s issues.”

In 2013, I received a letter from him after I contacted him about supporting ENDA. The letter said, “While I strictly oppose discrimination in all forms, I do not believe that expanding federal civil rights protections to include lifestyle-based conduct is a prudent course of action.”

There are many, many more examples out there. Check out On The Issues or even do a simple Google search to find many, many more statements he made which are out of touch with the majority of Louisianians. See for yourself when you watch the next debate between John Bel Edwards and David Vitter from Louisiana Public Broadcasting on Tuesday, November 10 from 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.

It is vital that you vote to ensure that he does not become the next governor of Louisiana. Early voting runs through Saturday, November 14 from 8:30am to 6pm. There is no early voting on Veterans Day, November 11. Election Day is November 21st. More election info can be found here.

Here are endorsements from groups I support:

• Independent Women’s Organization Endorsements
• Forum for Equality PAC Endorsements

But, whatever you decide, please do not vote for David Vitter.

Potty Training Anti-HEROs

Tags

Politics, Transgender, Voting

Back in May 2014, the Houston City Council passed an anti-discrimination measure. Before it could go into effect, opponents succeeded in getting a court order to put the fair treatment of all people to a popular vote.

The measure failed Tuesday by a vote of 61 percent to 39 percent.

The opposition message was a simplistic one: “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms.” They plastered it on signs and repeated it in television and radio ads, turning the debate from one about equal rights to one about protecting women and girls from sexual predators (with no sense of irony that those were the same arguments used by proponents of school segregation).

The Governor of Texas even got on board with it:

Trouble is, that isn’t what the ordinance was about.

The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) was similar to measures that have been approved in more than 200 other cities and 17 states. It would prohibit bias in housing, employment, city contracting and business services for 15 protected classes, including race, age, sexual orientation and gender identity.

This law would not require that people who identify as men be let into women’s restrooms (or, conversely, that women be allowed into men’s). Instead, it would ban discrimination against those whose gender identity does not perfectly match societal expectations or is different from what was assigned to them at birth as well as discrimination based on based on sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, marital status, military status, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, and pregnancy. Sexual orientation protection extends to both real and perceived sexual orientation.

Neither HERO nor any of those other non-discrimination ordinances would lead to assault on women. There is no evidence that allowing transgender people to have safe access to facilities in accordance with their gender identities will increase the incidence of sexual assault.

In reality, 70% of transgender people have faced physical harm, harassment and humiliation when they try to use the restroom. They are frequently unwelcome or uncomfortable in either the restroom of the sex assigned to them at birth or the restroom appropriate to their gender identity.

We can’t let the anti-LGBTQ activists derail efforts for equality with their campaigns of fear and distraction. Of course, it doesn’t help that they were aided and abetted by lazy journalism which gave airtime to the worst of the arguments of the measure’s opponents. As Houston Mayor Annise Parker said:

This was a campaign of fear mongering and deliberate lies. Deliberate lies. This isn’t misinformation, this is a calculated campaign of lies designed to demonize a little-understood minority, and to use that to take down an ordinance that 200 other cities across America, and 17 states have successfully passed, and operated under.

Anti-discrimination laws are commonplace and have been implemented successfully all over the United States. These laws and ordinances provide critical protections for LGBTQ people in employment, housing and public accommodations and to others who face discrimination based on who they are.

Strong majorities of Americans believe that when it comes to employment, housing and public accommodations, everyone should be treated fairly and equally.

Unfortunately, strong majorities are also swayed by fear mongering from those who oppose expanding non-discrimination protections. We can’t ignore their smear tactics and hope their listeners will know better than believe them. The anti-LGBTQ activists know only too well that their misinformation campaigns have a history of success and they are not likely to abandon them unless they are directly confronted by the truth.

The truth is too many people in this country are denied their rights to self-determination, dignity and freedom from violence.

The truth is equal access to public accommodations, housing and employment doesn’t take away anyone else’s rights.

The truth is that non-discrimination measures protect more than gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people.

The truth is that equal bathroom access is vital to a trans person’s ability to live with dignity.

Consider for a moment:

• What if you had to think twice when trying to relieve your most basic bodily function because you or someone you knew had been physically attacked for doing the same?
• What if you entered a bathroom most appropriate for your gender identity and then were escorted out by security?
• What if you had an accident because no one would let you use a toilet in either the men’s or women’s room because they were convinced they were allowed to police your gender presentation?

It is only too common. In the Williams-Institute study, 68% trans people were told they were in the wrong facility, told to leave the facility, questioned about their gender, ridiculed or made fun of, verbally threatened, or stared at and given strange looks. For 9 percent of respondents, actual physical assault occurred, including being forcibly removed from the restroom, hit, kicked, slapped, intimidated or cornered. Additionally, 18% of respondents reported they were denied access to a restroom altogether.

Everyone is allowed to have their personal beliefs, but  our society is a nation of laws. It is a sad fact that legal protections for LGBTQ Americans facing discrimination are lacking and leave them with virtually no legal recourse.

Non-discrimination measures enjoy broad support across the ideological spectrum because they’re fundamentally about codifying our most important values and ensuring others are treated the way we’d like to be treated.

And that includes in the restroom.