IGF CultureWatch

Washington Blade columnist Mark Lee comments on Facebook that “people are starting to ask on social media if the event will actually happen or if they should cancel their travel plans and reservations.”

As the Blade reports:

The National LGBTQIA+ “Equality March for Unity and Pride” in DC takes place in only 7 weeks – but there’s been little preparation or organizing for the event. No permits yet, no route finalized, no website launched, no details disclosed, and no money raised to cover the major expenses for an event of this type.

Yes, it will happen. Yes, it will be a mess. And yes, it will amount to little and lead to nothing.

But hey, the co-chairs are diverse, complete with a listing of their preferred pronouns including “They, Them, Theirs,” “They/Them She/Hers,” and “She, Her, Hers, Trans Goddess.”

More. When it’s finally announced, expect that platform to embrace the full bag of left-progressive political demands. On the LGBTQIA+ front, expect calls to roll back the extremely limited protections for small businesses under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by passing the Human Rights Campaign-backed Equality Act, and demands that the federal government mandate what are essentially gender-neutral restrooms and changing facilities.

Some activists might even say having ‘genital preferences’ in dating is transphobic, at which point sexual orientation itself may become a thought crime.

Via the Washington Blade, a look at the chances of Republicans moving an LGBT anti-discrimination bill.

Will GOP deliver LGBT workplace protections? https://t.co/EqTn0oaC4B

— Washington Blade (@WashBlade) April 7, 2017

I agree that Donald Trump might sign a reasonable workplace anti-discrimination bill, and I had forgotten that House Speaker Paul Ryan was a co-sponsor of the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which the Democrats failed to move forward when during the first two years of the Obama presidency they controlled the White House and had supermajorities in Congress.

But I don’t think a Log Cabin-backed measure will go anywhere in the current political climate. For one thing, the establishment (i.e., Democratic) LGBT lobbies won’t support a bill that’s limited to employment discrimination and which includes reasonable religious exemptions. Without the support of the Human Rights Campaign, no Democrats will be on board.

The column’s author, Malcolm Lazin, executive director of the Equality Forum and LGBT History Month, says he would back such as measure. But he’s nevertheless dismissive of efforts to balance the competing rights of employment nondiscrimination and religious freedom, as if the latter was nothing but a right-wing ploy—a popular assertion by secular progressive who assign no value to constitutional protections against being forced by the state to violate deeply held religious convictions because, after all, only our rights matter.

The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled that anti-gay workplace bias is unlawful under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, reversing an earlier decision from a three-judge panel. As the Washington Blade reports, in a 8-3 decision the court found “discrimination based on sexual orientation constitutes discrimination based on one’s perception of gender stereotypes, which the U.S. Supreme Court has determined is unlawful under Title VII.”

Bulletin | In first, fed'l appeals court rules anti-gay workplace unlawful under current civil rights law https://t.co/hStxaD6I9d @WashBlade

— Chris Johnson (@chrisjohnson82) April 4, 2017

As I blogged last month, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled 2-1 that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits workplace discrimination based on a variety of factors including sex, doesn’t protect against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Unless the full 11th Circuit Court follows the 7th Circuit’s lead and reverses last month’s panel ruling, it Looks like this will be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Justice Kennedy may again be the swing vote.

As I said before, Title VII has already been stretched so far beyond its original intent, to say it can be stretched no further seems arbitrary.

More. An interesting observation from The Volokh Conspiracy site:

The interesting opinion here is not the majority…. It’s Judge Flaum’s. He makes a novel and extremely clever argument (at least to me) to explain why discrimination against homosexuals is sex discrimination using mixed motive theory.

Title VII prohibits me from firing someone for a mix of good and bad reasons (“mixed motives”). So if I fire you because you’re a woman who is bad at your job, but don’t fire men who are equally bad at their jobs, I have violated the law–even though part of the reason for the firing is that you are bad at your job, a lawful (indeed, laudable) reason to fire someone.

Flaum’s innovative observation is to point out that firing someone for homosexuality means that I am firing them based upon TWO facts, not one: the person is 1. a woman who 2. is attracted to women. (Or 1. a man who 2. is attracted to men.) Voila– whether fact number 2 is a prohibited characteristic or not under the law is irrelevant, because firing someone based on fact number 1 is most definitely illegal, and firing someone for a mix of legal and illegal motives is also illegal.

Flaum’s a conservative’s conservative. When he is going out of his way to explain to conservatives the obvious errors of the “sexual-orientation-isn’t-sex” line of argument, it’s time to pack it in.

Walter Olson writes:

The new compromise is being met with peals of outrage from some of the predictable ultras on both sides. But it looks to me like a more careful attempt to respect the legitimate rights of both sides than we’ve seen in this controversy up to now.

"North Carolina Bids To Close the Door On Its Bathroom Wars" — my explanation and defense of #HB142 https://t.co/RXlzpxAOgS

— Walter Olson (@walterolson) March 30, 2017

One problem with ordinances that require restrooms and locker rooms to be open to all regardless of gender, in an effort to end discrimination against transgender men and women, is that you get situations like this: Large Burly Man’ Lurking in Disney Ladies’ Room Should Make Everyone Stop and Think:

If this had been 5 years ago, you bet your ass every woman in there would’ve been like, “Ummm what are you doing in here?”, but in 2017? The mood has shifted. We had been culturally bullied into silenced. Women were mid-changing their baby’s diapers on the changing tables and I could see them shifting to block his view. But they remained silent. I stayed silent. We all did. Every woman who exited a stall and immediately zeroed right in on him…said nothing. And why? B/c I and I’m sure all the others were scared of that “what if”. What if I say something and he says he “identifies as a woman” and then I come off as the intolerant asshole at the happiest place on earth? So we all stood there, shifting in our uncomfortableness…trading looks. I saw two women leave the line with their children. Still nothing was said. An older lady said to me out loud, “What is he doing in here?” I’m ashamed to admit I silently shrugged and mouthed, “I don’t know.” She immediately walked out, from a bathroom she had every right to use without fear.

Gay fashion guru Carson Kressley, formerly of TV’s “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” was asked by Washington, D.C.’s Metro Weekly about designers who have publicly refused to dress the First Lady Melania Trump in protest against her husband. Kressley’s response:

“Designers are artists and many of them have very strong political views. That’s the beauty of our country. If you don’t want to work with somebody, you don’t have to. I think it’s well within their rights to say no. I don’t think it’s disrespectful. It’s just a personal choice.”

Hmmm. If only LGBT progressives would recognize that same right for photographers, bakers and other creative types.

The New York Post reports that Guy wearing Trump hat sues bar for refusing to serve him. I don’t think the bar did the right thing as a matter of fairness and civility, but I also think suing for service is a bad idea.

The Post further reports that:

A manager said he spoke to the bar owner, and was told, “Anyone who supports Trump or believes what you believe is not welcome here. And you need to leave right now because we won’t serve you!,” according to the suit.

I’d argue this is murkier than cases where business owners are operating out of religious belief and not political pique, but I still think the Trump supporter shouldn’t go running to the state to punish the bar owner.

Yet how many on the left who think the bar did the right thing, or at least had the right to do so, also believe that government should force caterers and wedding planners to provide their services to same-sex weddings?