Connect with us

22 LGBT Advances That (Probably) Will Disappear Under A President Romney

Published

on

Under a President Mitt Romney, there are at least 22 advances in LGBT civil rights delivered by President Barack Obama that most likely will disappear. While Nancy Pelosi and, to a far lesser extent, Harry Reid, have worked to support civil rights and protections for the gay community, Barack Obama has — sometimes with great fanfare, oftentimes in the shadows — delivered important advances.

Back in 2010, at Change.org, I wrote a somewhat controversial (at the time) article, “Obama’s Gay Rights Come With An Expiration Date,” which stated:

President Obama should know better than to incrementalize gay rights, and tie them to his presidency. And yet, that’s exactly what he’s doing.

…

President Obama has slowly and quietly doled out rights to the LGBTQ community. These are rights we should have by the very nature of our existence, rights that every other American has upon birth, but the president has doled them out cautiously, meekly, without pomp or circumstance, and, worse, he has tied them to his presidency.

This tactic is problematic for two reasons.

First, by expanding our civil rights by issuing executive orders and memoranda, President Obama’s gay civil rights come with an expiration date. Yes, that’s right. The rights he has decreed, without working through Congress, are tied to his presidency. Any of his successors can, simply with the stroke of a pen, wipe out all our hard-earned rights, just because he or she wants to. Do you honestly think the next Republican president won’t do that?

Today, the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson posts a long list of 21 LGBT advances a President Romney could — with the stroke of a pen or incrementally — make disappear into a more progressive history.

Asking, “Would President Romney undo pro-LGBT advances?,” Johnson notes:

Many of the pro-LGBT advances that have happened under the Obama administration occurred through changes made by the executive branch rather than through legislation. Changes that were made without the consent of Congress could be reversed under an administration that wanted to cozy up to the religious right.

The Washington Blade has identified five regulatory changes and 16 sub-regulatory changes enacted by the Obama administration that could be reversed if Romney were elected to the White House. These changes include giving greater recognition to same-sex couples, protecting federal LGBT workers against discrimination and ensuring the federal government recognizes the correct gender of transgender people.

The one Johnson doesn’t include in his list of “five regulatory changes and 16 sub-regulatory changes” is the most-obvious: Obama’s support of same-sex marriage equality.

Here’s the list from the Blade:

Regulations

The Administrative Procedures Act provides safeguards against politically motivated policy switches. Thus repealing the policies below would involve a multi-year process.

  • The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) adopted a regulation ending the ban on HIV-positive visitors and immigrants.
  • President Obama issued Presidential Memorandum in April 2010 directing HHS to issue regulations requiring all hospitals receiving Medicaid and Medicare to prohibit discrimination in visitation against LGBT people. HHS issued a final regulation that went into effect in early 2011.
  • HUD issued final regulations in January 2012 prohibiting discrimination in federal public housing programs and federally insured mortgage loans.  HUD also requires its grantees to comply with LGBT-inclusive state and local housing discrimination protections.
  • The Office of Personnel Management published final regulations in the Federal Register expanding the eligibility for long-term care coverage to same-sex partners and sick leave to care for a same-sex partner.
  •  The federal Prison Rape Elimination Commission proposed national standards to reduce sexual abuse in correctional facilities, including standards regarding LGBT and intersex inmates. They were later instituted as a rule finalized by the Justice Department last month.

Sub-Regulatory Guidance/Policy Announcements

These are policy advances instituted by — and subject to the will of — the administration.

  • The Department of Health and Human Services revised its funding guidance around abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education programs, requiring that recipient programs are inclusive of and non-stigmatizing toward LGBT youth.
  • HHS, in partnership with the Department of Education and Department of Justice, launched stopbullyingnow.com.
  • The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency recently released new 2011 Performance Based National Detention Standards.  These new standards provide guidance that aims to improve treatment of LGBT and HIV-positive people in detention facilities.
  • In summer 2011, ICE published a memo and clarifying guidance providing that an individual’s family relationships, including a same-sex relationship, would be considered as a factor in labeling certain deportations as low-priority deportations.
  • The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol announced a proposed regulatory change expanding the meaning of “members of a family residing in one household” for the purposes of the customs declaration form, which must be completed prior to re-entry to the United States.
  • The DOJ issued an opinion clarifying that the criminal provisions of the Violence Against Women Act related to stalking and abuse apply equally to same-sex partners.
  • The State Department revised the standards for changing a gender marker on a passport, making the process less burdensome for transgender people.
  • In September 2011, the Social Security Administration confirmed that it ended the practice of allowing gender to be matched in its Social Security Number Verification System (SSNVS). This resulted in the immediate cessation of SSA sending notifications that alert employers when the gender marker on an employee’s W-2 does not match Social Security records.
  • The State Department extended numerous benefits to the partners of Foreign Service officers, including diplomatic passports and access to emergency evacuation.
  • The State Department reversed a Bush administration policy that refused to use a same-sex marriage license as evidence of a name change for passports.
  • The Department of Education issued guidance clarifying when student bullying may violate federal law, distributed a memo outlining key components of strong state anti-bullying laws and policies and made clear to public schools that gay-straight alliances have a right to form and meet.
  • The Department of Education published guidance and, in coordination with the Department of Justice, has pursued Title IX complaints filed by LGBT students experiencing harassment based on sex or sex stereotyping.
  • OPM added gender identity to the equal employment opportunity policy governing all federal jobs.
  • The Department of Labor issued guidance clarifying that an employee can take time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act to care for a same-sex partner’s child.
  • The IRS clarified that domestic partners (and their children) can be designated beneficiaries for VEBA funding/payment purposes.
  • The Census Bureau overturned the Bush administration’s interpretation of the Defense of Marriage Act and agreed to release data on married same-sex couples along with other demographic information from the 2010 Census.

SOURCE: HRC

There's a reason 10,000 people subscribe to NCRM. You can get the news before it breaks just by subscribing, plus you can learn something new every day.
Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

‘Sundown’: Trump Shows ‘Shocking’ Noticeable Mental Decline Journalist Says

Published

13 hours ago

on

November 18, 2025

By

Author Jonathan V. Last, editor of the center-right news site The Bulwark, says President Donald Trump is exhibiting what he calls a “shocking” level of “noticeable mental decline,” citing the president’s remarks during his Monday speech to McDonald’s franchise owners and suppliers as his evidence.

Several times he quotes Trump at length, including here:

“But I want to thank, uh, as you know the famous Sundar and Sergey, Sergey Brin. These are two guys that own and run a place called Google. They called me the following day after I did that McDonald’s little um, skit, because it was it wasn’t a commercial. You got it for nothing. It was a skit and they told me that it and I didn’t know them. I just I said, ‘Who are they?’ They own Google. I said, ‘That’s pretty good. That’s not bad.'”

Trump appeared to be referring to his McDonald’s drive-through event last year, which was a photo-op, not a skit or a commercial. It was deemed “condescending” by an MS NOW opinion writer and “blue-collar drag” by “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert.

READ MORE: ‘Stunning Moment’: Trump Defends MBS While Ignoring CIA’s Khashoggi Murder Assessment

“And uh that it received more hits than anything else in the history of Google and that records, it still stands,” Trump said.

Last asks, did the Google CEO and co-founder actually call Trump that day last year?

“Did they tell him that in just twenty-four hours he’d gotten more ‘hits’ than anything else in the history of Google? More than COVID? More than January 6th? More than Taylor Swift? What is a ‘hit’ on Google,” Last asked.

Last quoted Trump again:

“I’ll bet they use real sugar in your Coca-Cola. You know, they didn’t in the United States. I said to the head of Coca-Cola, you got to go to sugar. They do in other countries. And you know what? They went to sugar. Isn’t that nice? I said, ‘You got to go to sugar.’ Just like I said, why is the Gulf of Mexico called the Gulf of Mexico? I said, ‘We’re changing the name.’ And now it’s the Gulf of America. Has nothing to do with McDonald’s, but maybe it does because it’s very nice cycle.”

READ MORE: Trump Blasted After Drawing Line in the Sand in High-Stakes Health Care Clash

Last noted that Coca-Cola “has not reverted to sugar in the flagship product it sells in the United States.”

And he called Trump’s remarks “nonsense.”

He continued into Trump’s comments about the time he served a few customers at a McDonald’s drive-thru, in what was a staged event.

Last quoted Trump telling the McDonald’s event attendees:

“I’ve been on that line many times. Actually, that line was incredible in the commercial. Right. It wasn’t a commercial. It was about, but, they have the line. The people had no idea. So I made the French fries. The guy was really good. He had a great wrist. He was, nyee, ‘Sir,’ he was going like, ‘Sir.'”

“Yeah. It was not that easy but I got it sort of finally. Not the greatest but I pouring it in asking him all sorts of stupid questions but it was very interesting. Amazing, a little thing is not, it’s a little complex, right?”

By the end, Last declared Trump has “a playlist of grievances and stories in his head,” and “what seems to be happening here is that Trump can’t tell his stories apart. He starts talking about flow restrictions on faucets, which brings him to water. But the word ‘water’ triggers another of his obsessions—water supply issues and deliveries to farms in the American West.”

“And,” Last concluded, Trump’s “brain now mushes these two stories together into a single, unintelligible blob.”

The title of Last’s piece is “Sundown.”

READ MORE: GOP Fractures Reveal Fierce Internal Fight Over Post-Trump Identity

 

Image via Reuters 

 

Continue Reading

News

‘Stunning Moment’: Trump Defends MBS While Ignoring CIA’s Khashoggi Murder Assessment

Published

15 hours ago

on

November 18, 2025

By

Despite his own CIA’s investigation that found that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation that resulted in the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Donald Trump defended MBS and sharply criticized a reporter asking the crown prince about the killing.

“He’s done a phenomenal job,” President Trump told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce when she asked about the murder.

“You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial,” Trump said of Khashoggi, whose gruesome 2018 killing was investigated by the CIA in a report declassified in February 2021, just after President Joe Biden took office.

READ MORE: Trump Blasted After Drawing Line in the Sand in High-Stakes Health Care Clash

“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him,” Trump said.

“Things happen, but he knew nothing about it,” the president insisted, defending the crown prince who is the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, as The Washington Post reported.

“And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”

CNN White House reporter Alayna Treene described Trump as “furious,” and stated that he “tried to shut down questions” from Bruce “about US intelligence (the CIA assessment was done during Trump’s first term) having concluded that MBS likely ordered the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”

CNN Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins called it “a stunning moment in the Oval Office,” and also noted that “the CIA — under Trump, in his first term — found that the crown prince ordered it.”

The declassified CIA report stated, “We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”

READ MORE: GOP Fractures Reveal Fierce Internal Fight Over Post-Trump Identity

“We base this assessment on the Crown Prince’s control of decisionmaking in the Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Muhammad bin Salman’s protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi,” the report continued.

“Since 2017, the Crown Prince has had absolute control of the Kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince’s authorization.”

In 2018, The Washington Post reported, “The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month, contradicting the Saudi government’s claims that he was not involved in the killing, according to people familiar with the matter.”

READ MORE: ‘Fight Back!’: Trump Demands GOP Keep the House ‘at All Costs’

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

News

Trump Blasted After Drawing Line in the Sand in High-Stakes Health Care Clash

Published

18 hours ago

on

November 18, 2025

By

Scuttling bipartisan efforts to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year, President Donald Trump on Tuesday declared he will not support any legislation to do so. The withdrawal of the Obamacare subsidies has sent next year’s premiums soaring for millions of Americans, and millions are expected to lose coverage due to the high cost.

In an all-caps post on his Truth Social website, the president announced that the only health care he would support “is sending the money directly back to the people, with nothing going to the big, fat, rich insurance companies.”

“The people will be allowed to negotiate and buy their own, much better, insurance. Power to the people!” he added.

Insurance companies are not known for negotiating premiums, and individual policies historically are far more expensive than group policies, such as those obtained through an employer or via the Obamacare exchanges.

READ MORE: GOP Fractures Reveal Fierce Internal Fight Over Post-Trump Identity

Noting that “senators are preparing to tee up a vote on the issue,” Bloomberg News reported that Trump’s message is now “complicating his party’s efforts to address health care costs.”

During the federal government  shutdown, Democrats highlighted the issue of skyrocketing premiums and negotiated a deal with Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune for a vote to extend the subsidies.

“With millions of Americans facing a potential hike in their premiums and with concerns about affordability front and center among the electorate, Democrats are seizing on the issue,” Bloomberg noted. “Republicans now face the challenging prospect of either bucking the president and extending subsidies or finding another solution to the issue of health-care costs, an issue that has long vexed lawmakers.”

House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries responded, saying: “Republicans created this healthcare crisis, and they continue to try to rip affordable healthcare away from the American people,” according to Bloomberg News’ Erik Wasson. “They are who they are, and the American people know it, and they’re gonna pay the price.”

Politico reported on Tuesday that a “senior White House official said the Trump administration intends to put forward a health bill and left open the possibility of using the fast-track legislative process of reconciliation for passage of health or tariff legislation.”

READ MORE: ‘Fight Back!’: Trump Demands GOP Keep the House ‘at All Costs’

Critics blasted the president’s refusal to support extending subsidies.

“He’s for them, Not for you,” declared U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).

“Trump’s priority isn’t your health or your costs, it’s his ego,” commented House Ways and Means Committee Democrats. “He’ll watch your health care costs triple just to erase the name Obamacare.”

“Between their trillion dollar cut to Medicaid and their elimination of boosted ACA tax credits, Donald Trump and the GOP will be responsible for millions of Americans losing health coverage and tens of millions more paying much higher costs,” wrote economic policy expert Michael Linden. “Crazy, totally crazy.”

“Senate Democrats who voted to end the shutdown got played. Shocking,” remarked political strategist Andrew Laureti.

“Trump’s made some curious decisions in the past few weeks, but nothing more consequential than deciding that instead of finding some middle ground on Ocare subsidies they’re gonna go in the entire opposite direction and try to jam through their own health care bill,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein noted, responding to the Politico report. “Wild stuff.”

READ MORE: Democrat Warns How Trump Could Engineer a Path to Stay in Power After 2028

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.