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      George Santos denies reports that he competed as drag queen in Brazil

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      George Santos denies reports that he competed as drag queen in BrazilNew York Republican under pressure over fabrications about his career, past and alleged criminal behaviour George Santos on Thursday tweeted an angry denial that he competed as a drag queen in Brazilian beauty pageants 15 years ago, claims made by acquaintances that have highlighted the contrast between the Republican congressman’s past actions and now staunchly conservative views.Republicans defend George Santos as report details alleged sick dog fraudRead moreThe New Yorker, who says he is gay, dismissed the story as an “obsession” by the media, which he insisted, without irony, “continues to make outrageous claims about my life”.Santos is facing calls from Democrats and his fellow New York Republicans to step down over fabrications about his career and history and amid reports of investigations at local, state and federal level in the US and in Brazil over the use of a stolen checkbook.In another contradiction exposed on Wednesday by a New York Times analysis of immigration records, Santos’s insistence that his mother was in the World Trade Center during the 9/11 terrorist attacks was found to be false.Santos has admitted “embellishing” his résumé but otherwise denied wrongdoing and said he will not resign.The claim that Santos was a drag performer came from a 58-year-old Brazilian who uses the drag name Eula Rochard, Reuters reported.Rochard said she befriended Santos when he was cross-dressing in 2005 at the first Pride parade in Niterói, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Three years later, Santos competed in a drag beauty pageant in Rio, she added.Another person from Niterói who knew Santos, but asked not to be named, said he participated in drag queen beauty pageants under the name Kitara Ravache, and aspired to be Miss Gay Rio de Janeiro.Santos is now a hardline conservative on numerous social issues, especially those targeting non-binary communities. Republicans have taken aim at drag shows and performers in several states, claiming they are harmful to children.In Texas, one proposal would brand venues that host such shows as “sexually oriented” businesses.Santos, the first out gay Republican to win a House seat in Congress as a non-incumbent, has supported Florida’s “don’t say gay” law, which marginalizes the LGBTQ+ community and prohibits discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms.Responding in October to criticism of his support for the Florida bill, Santos told USA Today: “I am openly gay, have never had an issue with my sexual identity in the past decade, and I can tell you and assure you, I will always be an advocate for LGBTQ+ folks.”Republican leaders have so far stood by Santos. He supported the new speaker, Kevin McCarthy, through 15 rounds of voting for that position, and was rewarded with seats on two House committees in a slim Republican majority.But despite McCarthy’s support, increasing numbers of senior party officials have pleaded with Republican leadership to cut him loose. They include several of Santos’s fellow New York congressmen.The Daily Beast reported on Thursday that a “shadow” race was under way in Democratic and Republican circles to replace Santos in New York’s third district, in the expectation that he will eventually be forced out. Republicans, the Beast said, are looking for “a candidate with an immaculate, bulletproof résumé who can patch up the Long Island GOP’s scarred reputation”.Democrats are seeking somebody who can turn the district blue again after Santos’s surprise win in November.As for Santos’s alleged drag show exploits, Rochard said the congressman was a “poor” drag queen in 2005, with a simple black dress, but in 2008 “he came back to Niterói with a lot of money” and a flamboyant pink dress to show for it.Santos competed in a drag beauty pageant that year but lost, Rochard said, adding: “He’s changed a lot but he was always a liar. He was always such a dreamer.”Santos’s tweet on Thursday was his second denial in two days concerning a claim about his past. On Wednesday, he was embroiled in allegations he took money from an online fundraiser intended to help save the life of a sick dog owned by a military veteran.“The media continues to make outrageous claims about my life while I am working to deliver results,” Santos said. “I will not be distracted or fazed by this.”On Thursday, Santos called “reports that I would let a dog die … shocking and insane”.But the veteran told CNN Santos should “go to hell”.Richard Osthoff added that if he spoke to Santos now, he would ask: “Do you have a heart? Do you have a soul?’“He’d probably lie about that.”TopicsGeorge SantosHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS politicsDragBrazilAmericasnewsReuse this content More

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      The battle to keep LGBTQ+books in Louisiana libraries

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      The battle to keep LGBTQ+books in Louisiana libraries Conservatives in the state are pushing for library systems to remove books with LGBTQ+ themes and charactersMel Manuel never expected to be an activist – they even shy away from the term.“No, no way,” they said with a laugh. “No, I’ve just been a teacher my whole life.”‘We’ve moved backwards’: US librarians face unprecedented attacks amid rightwing book bansRead moreBut earlier this month, Manuel found themselves at a St Tammany library board of control meeting, packed in a small room of the local library in Covington, Louisiana, a town of just over 10,000 people directly across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. They were there to speak out against efforts to remove certain books from the library’s collection.Public library systems in Louisiana are seeing books and materials, many with LGBTQ+ themes and characters, challenged by conservative groups in the state, who are calling for them to be taken off the shelves. St Tammany parish, which includes Covington, is the latest parish – the term Louisiana uses for county – to see a showdown between pro and anti-censorship groups.Borrowing rhetoric already seen in other parts of the US, the pro-censorship groups say the books are inappropriate for children, labeling them as pornographic and pedophilic, and charging them with “grooming”, a term that refers to the process of earning the trust of a minor in order to lure them into sexual exploitation. Far-right groups are increasingly using the term as a homophobic slur against queer people.Attacks on books in public libraries come at a time when the U.S. is in a “heightened threat environment” and LGBTQ+ people are “targets of potential violence” according to a 30 November homeland security department bulletin. And young LGBTQ+ readers in St Tammany parish say they feel hurt when they see people in their community targeting books with characters like them.The anti-censorship groups that believe the books should stay on the stacks say they tell stories of marginalized and underrepresented people and their availability is important for a diverse and equitable society.“We have the highest murder and maternal death rates in the nation and the highest incarceration rates on earth,” Manuel told the library board during the meeting’s public comments, alluding to three of Louisiana’s most pressing endemic issues. “Louisiana has some serious problems, all of which directly harm our children.“We’re ignoring the very real issues our kids are facing and spreading hate in the name of protecting those very same children.”Manuel is trans and a lifelong resident of Covington. They teach high school Spanish and said it’s always been tough to meet new people like them in town. So, in January 2022, Manuel and a friend started a group called “Queer Northshore” to organize events and meet ups for LGBTQ+ people and allies in the area.The group ended up on the frontlines of the battle over local libraries after complaints from conservative groups about an LGBTQ+ Pride month display in one of the branches in July.Opposite them are conservative groups – mainly the St Tammany Library Accountability Project – which claims to be seeking the removal of books and materials they consider to be pornographic or pedophilic in order to “protect children from sexual exploitation”, according to written responses.In addition to other ordinary library business, the 13 December meeting, which drew Manuel and Accountability Project members, considered appeals for two children’s books about which the library had received complaints, or “statements of concern”.One was I Am Jazz, a picture book written by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings, relating Jennings’ experience growing up as a trans child.“Transgenderism is a movement and ideology being promoted worldwide without regard to the long-term damaging effects to youngsters who fall victim to the perverting ideology and their promoters,” St Tammany resident Diane Bruni, who submitted the statement of concern, told the library board at the meeting. “The result of accepting this lie is that young children and teens are encouraged to mutilate their bodies with irreversible castrated hormones and surgery.”Bruni also submitted a statement of concern for another book being considered by the board, titled My Rainbow, an autobiographical picture book cowritten by DeShanna and Trinity Neal about a time when DeShanna made a rainbow wig for her trans daughter, Trinity, to boost her confidence.Self-love and acceptance are exactly what author DeShanna Neal said she intended with her book, along with loving family support. “We need to not only listen with our ears but with our hearts,” Neal told the Guardian. “That is what I hope people would take from My Rainbow. That every voice matters, especially when it’s from someone you love.”Ultimately, the library board found that the books did not contain any vulgar material that would warrant their removal and voted to keep them freely available on the stacks for all patrons to browse. “In these books that I’ve read,” library board member William Allin said during the board’s discussion period, “the common theme is, ‘We love you for who you are.’ That’s where the parents end up. That’s the message.”Attendees seeking the removal of the books were disappointed in the board’s decision but said the battle wasn’t over. Accountability Project attorney David Cougle reacted to the telling by telling the board his group would take its case to the parish council and seek a local law that would prevent the materials from being accessed.“We will not stop fighting this until … the children of this community are protected from a predatory library administration,” Cougle said. He predicted voters would ultimately reject a property tax set to be voted on next year that would affect the library system’s budget, essentially threatening to defund the libraries.Numbers do not back up Cougle’s claims that his group’s primary concern is child safety. To date, the St Tammany parish library system has received 82 statements of concern, but only 10% of them are for books classified as juvenile fiction or picture books. Only 1% of the books are for teens. An overwhelming 89% of the books being challenged are for young adults and adults.More than 50% of trans and non-binary youth in US considered suicide this year, survey saysRead moreEven so, the St Tammany library has adopted safeguards. Library director Kelly LaRocca, who was named the 2022 Library Director of the Year by the state’s library association in July, recently instituted new library cards that would prevent children from checking out adult books without a parent. Moreover, LaRocca said St Tammany libraries do not contain any pedophilic materials. “We do have materials that make mention of its existence,” LaRocca told the Guardian, “but we do not own materials with the expressed purpose of furthering pedophilia.”Adding fuel to the fire, Louisiana’s Republican attorney general, Jeff Landry, recently set up the “protecting minors” tip line where people can report complaints about librarians and teachers that connect children with books they say contain inappropriate content. “Rest assured that we are committed to working with our communities to protect minors from early sexualization, as well as grooming, sex trafficking and abuse,” Landry wrote in a Facebook post about the tip line.In a 19 December opinion in the local Times-Picayune newspaper’s website, Landry asserted without evidence that “graphic sexual content” in library books caused porn addiction in children as well as “violent and criminal sexual desires”.Even with the vast majority of the challenged books unavailable with children’s library cards in St Tammany, the Accountability Project and other conservative groups still don’t want them on public library shelves. One of the books that’s been a focus of attacks is Lawn Boy, a semi-autobiographical adult novel about Mike Muñoz, a 22-year-old biracial, non-binary, low-income character who educates himself by reading books at his local library.Author Jonathan Evison told the Guardian that he’s received death threats and has had people threaten to harm his children after his novel was brought before a Texas school board and charged with containing pedophilia last September, a claim that he denies. He said he believes books with LGBTQ+ characters and stories are needed now more than ever. “There’s a whole swathe of young, intelligent people looking for books that are about them, they’re looking to just belong and find their place in this larger culture,” Evison said. “Like Mike says in the book, ‘Where are the books about me?’”Some of the challenged books don’t contain any LGBTQ+ themes or characters, either. Among the list of titles the Accountability Project believes should not be on public library shelves is Toni Morrison’s first novel The Bluest Eye, which explores the cruelty and pain wrought by racism, and Rupi Kaur’s first poetry collection Milk and Honey.Kaur said she started writing the Milk and Honey poems when she was a young teen as a way to help cope with bullying, mental health issues, sexual assault, depression and anxiety. The collection aims to comfort young readers.How to beat a book ban: students, parents and librarians fight backRead more“It’s meant to help,” Kaur said of such literature, “and it’s so important they’re able to access it no matter where they are.”Bailey Cook, a 12-year-old St Tammany resident who identifies as non-binary and bisexual, told the Guardian that the books targeted by the Accountability Project “make me feel supported”.Cook, who is in Manuel’s daughter’s class in school, said they think the reason books with LGBTQ+-affirming stories are under attack is because some St Tammany parents don’t want their children to be queer.But that shouldn’t be an impediment, Cook said, adding: “Books don’t make people, a person makes a person. You don’t need to get them if you don’t want to. Every book is for somebody, but there is no book for everybody.”TopicsLouisianaLGBTQ+ rightsUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Biden says he’s ‘all in’ on Africa’s future at leadership summit – as it happened

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      Joe Biden has committed to strengthening Africa’s food supplies, tackling the climate emergency and partnering with the continent’s nations to take on the rising global power in the region of China and Russia.In an address at the US Africa Business Leaders forum in Washington DC, the president says “the US is all in on Africa’s future”. He’s outlining a multi-prong approach to strengthen those ties, including the signing of a memorandum of understanding that Biden says will “unlock new opportunities for trade and investment between our countries and bring Africa and the US even closer than ever”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It’s an enormous opportunity for Africa’s future, and the US wants to help make those opportunities real.Included in the package are, he says, up to $370m from the US international development finance fund for new projects, including investing $100m for clean energy for sub-Saharan Africa.Entrepreneurship and innovation are at the top of Biden’s list, he says.And he wants $350bn from Congress for a “digital transformation” for Africa, which includes involving companies such as Microsoft to build networks and infrastructure to bring internet access to five million Africans who are currently not connected:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When Africa succeeds, the United States succeeds and, quite frankly, the whole world succeeds as well,” Biden says.It’s time to close the blog on an eventful day in US politics. Joe Biden says he’s “all in” on Africa’s future after unveiling a package of investments and supports at a summit with the continent’s business leaders in Washington DC.The president says infrastructure and the climate emergency are among his top priorities for Africa, as he seeks to build closer ties and limit Russian and Chinese influence in the region.Here’s what else we’ve been watching:
      Survivors from mass shootings at gay nightclubs in Florida and Colorado gave harrowing testimony at a hearing of the House oversight committee looking into surging violence against the LGBTQ+ community. Democrats say Republicans have “stoked the flames of bigotry” with hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ laws nationwide.
      A new poll shows voters have little appetite for a presidential election rematch in 2024 between Biden and Donald Trump. Almost two thirds of registered Democrats and Republicans say they don’t want their 2020 nominees to run again.
      Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger said it was time to drop the general election runoff system that forced Democrat Raphael Warnock to beat Republican challenger Herschel Walker twice within weeks to retain his Senate seat.
      In a statement marking the 10th anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting that killed 20 children and six adults, Biden said the US should have “societal guilt” at taking so long to address the problem of gun crime.
      Thanks for being with us! Please join us again tomorrow.North Dakota has become the latest state to ban the popular social media app TikTok from devices owned by the state government’s executive branch, the Associated Press reports.Governor Doug Burgum signed an executive order Wednesday afternoon, joining Republican colleagues from other states, including South Dakota and Texas, to have previously done so over concerns about the platform’s Chinese ownership and perceived data sharing and national security worries.In addition to prohibiting downloads of TikTok on government-issued equipment or while connected to the state’s network, it bars visiting the TikTok website.“TikTok raises multiple flags in terms of the amount of data it collects and how that data may be shared with and used by the Chinese government,” Burgum said in a statement, according to the AP.In its own statement Wednesday, TikTok said it was “disappointed that so many states are jumping on the bandwagon to enact policies based on unfounded, politically charged falsehoods”.Read more:Texas bans TikTok on government devices amid China data-sharing fearsRead moreA hair-raising moment, literally, took place on the Senate floor at lunchtime when New Jersey senator Cory Booker rose to urge colleagues to progress the Crown Act, the acronym for a bill seeking to “create a respectful and open world for natural hair”.It might sound frivolous, but the bill seeks to enshrine in federal statute a measure already passed in 19 states to prevent racial discrimination on the grounds of hair style or color.“You go to my city right now and you’ll find hairstyles of different types, locks, cornrows with braids, Bantu knots, and of course what I once had, afros,” the famously bald Booker said.“[But] there’s a decades-long problematic practice of discrimination against natural hair in this country.”@Dove and the #CROWNCoalition applaud #Alaska — the 19th state to provide legal protections against hair discrimination.#hairdiscrimination #naturalhair #crownact #hairlove #equity #Alaska pic.twitter.com/ebvh2iC7bE— The CROWN Act (@thecrownact) September 12, 2022
      He cited the case of Andrew Johnson, an 18-year-old student in 2018 whose dreadlocks were cut off on the orders of a judge at a high school wrestling match before he was allowed to compete. The episode was caught on video.“You can see the deep hurt and pain on the face of this young man,” Booker said.“It’s the pain felt by many. Traumatic at times, hurtful experiences that make you question your very belonging in a community. “The beauty of your hair, its natural style, your immutable characteristics, your cultural beliefs, your connection to your heritage. No person in America should have to deal with this pain.”Opposing Booker’s plea to advance the bill, Kentucky Republican Rand Paul said it was not necessary. The bill, he said, might compromise the safety of workers who could have the legal right to refuse to wear a helmet in the workplace because of their hair.“Using hairstyle as a pretext for racial discrimination is already illegal,” Paul claimed.The state that prolonged November’s midterms until 6 December won’t be able to do it again, if a proposal by its top election official gets approved.Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, says it’s time to get rid of the runoff system that requires a revote any time that no candidate in a general election reaches 50% of the votes cast.It’s the reason incumbent Democratic senator Raphael Warnock had to beat Republican challenger Herschel Walker for the second time in a month after coming close to, but not quite reaching, the 50% threshold in November.“Georgia is one of the only states in country with a general election runoff. We’re also one of the only states that always seems to have a runoff,” Raffensperger said, according to Fox5 Atlanta.“I’m calling on the general assembly to visit the topic… and consider reforms.”He said the current system made it difficult for counties, especially those in rural areas with few staff, to handle two elections within weeks of each other, a period that includes Thanksgiving.“No one wants to be dealing with politics in the middle of their family holiday,” he said.Raffensperger was the recipient of an infamous telephone call from Donald Trump asking him to “find” enough votes in Georgia to reverse his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden. A huge part of the Biden administration’s just-announced investment in Africa’s future will be a half-billion dollar investment in infrastructure, specifically the building and maintaining of roads linking ports to interior countries.The money, Joe Biden says, will come from the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an independent government foreign aid agency with a brief to reduce global poverty. The president said that MCC had made new investments of almost $1.2bn in Africa, and expected to commit an additional $2.5bn across the continent over the next four years:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This compact will invest $500m to build and maintain roads, put in place policies that reduce transportation costs, make it easier and faster for ships to ship goods from the port of Cotonou [in Benin] into neighboring landlocked countries.The climate emergency, Biden stressed, will be another top focus, with work already under way, funded by $80m in public and private finance, to replace 12 coal-fired power plants in South Africa with renewable energy sources, and to develop “cutting edge energy solutions” such as clean hydrogen.He cited a $2bn deal to build solar energy projects in Angola, and a $600m high speed communications cable linking south Asia and Europe through Egypt, and $800m to help protect African countries against cyber threats..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}One of the most essential resources for many entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to participate in the global economy is reliable and affordable access to the internet.
      So today, I’m announcing a new initiative, the digital transformation with Africa. We’re here with Congress to invest $350bn, to facilitate more than almost a half a billion dollars in financing to make sure people across Africa participate in a digital economy.Biden brought his speech to a close just before the kick-off of the France v Morocco World Cup semi-final.Joe Biden has committed to strengthening Africa’s food supplies, tackling the climate emergency and partnering with the continent’s nations to take on the rising global power in the region of China and Russia.In an address at the US Africa Business Leaders forum in Washington DC, the president says “the US is all in on Africa’s future”. He’s outlining a multi-prong approach to strengthen those ties, including the signing of a memorandum of understanding that Biden says will “unlock new opportunities for trade and investment between our countries and bring Africa and the US even closer than ever”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It’s an enormous opportunity for Africa’s future, and the US wants to help make those opportunities real.Included in the package are, he says, up to $370m from the US international development finance fund for new projects, including investing $100m for clean energy for sub-Saharan Africa.Entrepreneurship and innovation are at the top of Biden’s list, he says.And he wants $350bn from Congress for a “digital transformation” for Africa, which includes involving companies such as Microsoft to build networks and infrastructure to bring internet access to five million Africans who are currently not connected:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When Africa succeeds, the United States succeeds and, quite frankly, the whole world succeeds as well,” Biden says.Joe Biden is speaking now at the US-Africa leadership summit where he’s about to announce partnerships with African nations and a pathway to better ties and business relations.But the president said he was aware of people knowing the France v Morocco World Cup game was starting at the top of the hour, and were thinking: “Make it short Biden. There’s a semi-final game coming up”.We’ll bring you the best of Biden’s comments.Earlier this month, the Guardian’s Joan E Greve travelled to Newtown, Connecticut to speak with Nicole Hockley and Mark Barden of Sandy Hook Promise, the parents of Dylan and Daniel, who were killed 10 years ago today. For the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast, Joan also met teenagers from the Junior Newtown Action Alliance, who now go through terrifying lockdown drills as preparation for another shooting and who want to see more change in gun legislation, and spoke to Senator Chris Murphy, who helped draft the first significant gun control policy in the US in 30 years this year.10 years since Sandy Hook – what’s changed? Politics Weekly America special – podcastRead moreThe Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren is pressing Congress to adopt bipartisan legislation which would force crypto firms to abide by the same regulations as banks and corporations, in an attempt to crack down on money laundering through digital assets. Ed Pilkington reports…Warren is pushing for the new controls on the crypto industry in the wake of the spectacular collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. On Tuesday its founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, was charged with eight criminal counts including conspiracy to commit money laundering.Warren’s bill is being co-sponsored by the Republican senator from Kansas Roger Marshall. The Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act would essentially subject the world of crypto to the same global financial regulations to which more conventional money markets must conform.Under current systems, crypto exchanges are able to skirt around restrictions designed to stop money laundering and impose sanctions. Should the bill be enacted into law it would authorize the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) to reclassify crypto entities as “money service businesses” which would bring them under basic regulations laid out in the Bank Secrecy Act.In a statement to CNN, Warren said “commonsense crypto legislation” would protect US national security. “I’ve been ringing the alarm bell in the Senate on the dangers of these digital asset loopholes,” she said, adding that crypto was “under serious scrutiny across the political spectrum”.Bankman-Fried, 30, was indicted by prosecutors at the southern district of New York and is being held in custody in the Bahamas. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also brought civil charges against him, accusing him of creating a firm that was a “house of cards”Five things we know about the collapse of FTX and Sam Bankman-FriedRead moreSome news out of Oregon that came later yesterday, which we wanted to record: the outgoing Democratic governor Kate Brown has commuted the sentences of all 17 of the state’s death row prisoners to life without parole.“I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people – even if a terrible crime placed them in prison,” Brown said in a statement released by her office.“Since taking office in 2015, I have continued Oregon’s moratorium on executions because the death penalty is both dysfunctional and immoral.“Today I am commuting Oregon’s death row so that we will no longer have anyone serving a sentence of death and facing execution in this state. This is a value that many Oregonians share.”Brown’s order will also see the closure of the state’s execution chamber. Oregon’s most recent execution was in 1997, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.Governor John Kitzhaber first declared a moratorium on executions in 2011, which Brown has kept in place ever since.Full story:Oregon governor commutes sentences of everyone on death row in stateRead moreVoters have little appetite for a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump for the presidency in 2024, a poll released Wednesday lunchtime has found.Roughly six in 10 Republicans, and the same margin in the Democratic party, don’t want their respective 2020 nominees to run again, according to the CNN poll conducted by SSRS.Support from registered Republicans for Trump, especially, has plummeted, a reflection of the former president’s burgeoning legal troubles and, perhaps, the rising star of rightwing Florida governor Ron DeSantis.In January, CNN found, 50% said they hoped Trump would be the nominee and 49% wanted someone else. By July, 44% wanted Trump to be the party’s nominee, and now, only 38% say the same.Trump announced last month his third run at the White House as a Republican.There’s slightly better news for Biden. 40% of registered Democrats want the president to run again in 2024, the poll says, up from only 25% in the summer. But both figures are a drop from the 45% support he received in January.You can read about the poll here.The former Trump campaign chair and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway has repeatedly praised the Republican National Committee on Fox News while failing to disclose that it has paid her firm more than $800,000 since last year, Media Matters reports.Eric Hananoki, an investigative reporter for the liberal media watchdog, writes: “The lack of disclosure about Conway’s financial ties goes against the ethics-challenged network’s purported policy”. He adds: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}A Fox News spokesperson told the Washington Post in 2019 regarding work Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer did with the RNC that ‘Fox News requires contributors to disclose ties related to any topic he or she discusses on the air in which the contributor may have a financial interest.’ The spokesperson added that such a rule would apply when talking about ‘the RNC on air.’ Elsewhere, the Daily Beast adds that “Karl Rove, another Fox News contributor with deep ties to the GOP, was allowed to keep his paid network gig while overseeing Senate Republicans’ fundraising efforts in 2020”.As Hananoki notes, the RNC and its chair, Ronna McDaniel, have faced fierce criticism since the midterm elections, in which Republicans took back the House but by a slim majority and failed to win back the Senate – a disappointing performance widely blamed on former president Donald Trump, who endorsed a string of defeated candidates.Conway, Hananoki writes, “has used her Fox News platform to praise the RNC and play defense for McDaniel”. According to Media Matters, the RNC “has paid KAConsulting $829,969.38 since 2021 for a variety of expenses. The RNC’s most recent payment was on 4 November for ‘political strategy services’. The organisation recently announced that Conway would serve on a Republican Party Advisory Council ‘to inform the Republican Party’s 2024 vision and beyond’.” Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The final witness testimony before a Q and A session at today’s House hearing into anti-LGBTQ violence was a chilling account of inside Orlando’s Pulse nightclub as a gunman murdered 49 mostly gay and transgender patrons in 2016.“There were gunshots, endless gunshots; the hair standing up on the back of my neck; the stench of blood and smoke burning the inside of my nose,” said Brandon Wolf, a survivor who lost his two best friends in the massacre, and who has now become a prominent gun control and LBGTQ+ advocate.“A nervous huddle against a wall; a girl trying desperately so hard not to scream. I could feel her trembling on the tiles underneath us. “There was a sprint to the exit, all atop this bang, bang, bang, from an assault weapon. A man filled with hate an armed with a Sig Sauer MCX charged into Pulse, an LGBTQ safe space, and murdered 49 of those we loved.”On hand and ready to testify on anti-LGBTQ hate alongside the Club Q community.Tune in live: https://t.co/4bLU0X0ZWq pic.twitter.com/eSDKZiiROD— Brandon Wolf (@bjoewolf) December 14, 2022
      Wolf called out the bigotry and hatred of extremists who have fomented violence against the LBGTQ+ community, and spread hateful narratives that have resulted in attacks, threats and clampdowns on everything from drag shows, to donut shops to school libraries.“For years cynical politicians and greedy Grifters have joined forces with right wing extremists to pour gasoline on anti LGBTQ hysteria and terrorize our community,” he said.“My own governor Ron DeSantis has trafficked in that bigotry to feed his insatiable political ambition and propel himself toward the White House. “We have been smeared and defamed. Hundreds of bills have been filed in order to erase us; powerful figures have insisted that the greatest threats this country face are a teacher with they-them pronouns, or someone in a wig reading Red Fish, Blue Fish.” Barack Obama has called the Sandy Hook massacre “the single darkest day of my presidency”.In his own statement marking the 10th anniversary of the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the former president also said he believed “the tide is turning” on gun violence.I consider December 14th, 2012 the single darkest day of my presidency. The news from Sandy Hook Elementary was devastating, a visceral blow, and like so many others, I felt not just sorrow but anger at a world that could allow such things to happen. pic.twitter.com/Y2log7FBaH— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 14, 2022
      His administration was unable to renew a nationwide assault weapons ban, lamenting that inaction on gun safety laws was the “biggest regret” of his time in office.Here’s Obama’s statement today:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The news from Sandy Hook Elementary was devastating, a visceral blow, and like so many others, I felt not just sorrow but anger at a world that could allow such things to happen.Even then we understood that mere words could only do so much to ease the burden of the families who were suffering. But in the years since, each of them has borne that weight with strength and with grace. And they’ve drawn purpose from tragedy – doing everything in their power to make sure other children and families never have to experience what they and their loved ones did.The journey hasn’t always been easy – and in a year when there hasn’t been a single week without a mass shooting somewhere in America, it’s clear our work is far from over. But of late, I’ve sensed that slowly, steadily, the tide is turning; that real change is possible. And I feel that way in no small part because of the families of Sandy Hook Elementary.Ten years ago, we all would have understood if those families had simply asked for privacy and closed themselves off from the world. But instead, they took unimaginable sorrow and channeled it into a righteous cause – setting an example of strength and resolve.They’ve made us proud. And if they were here today, I know the children and educators we lost a decade ago would be proud, too. More

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      Nephew of Republican Vicky Hartzler calls her a 'homophobe' on TikTok – video

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      Republican representative for Missouri Vicky Hartzler tearfully asked colleagues in the House of Representatives to vote against the Respect for Marriage Act, which forces states without marriage equality laws to recognise LGBTQ+ marriages from other states. Hartzler has faced a backlash for calling the bill ‘misguided and dangerous’, including criticism from her nephew on TikTok. Andrew Hartzler called his aunt a ‘homophobe’, saying ‘you’re just going to have to learn how to co-exist with all of us’. Vicky Hartzler has not yet responded to her nephew’s video, which has been ‘liked’ over 200,000 times on TikTok

      Nephew calls Republican who tearfully opposed gay marriage bill a homophobe More

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      Nephew calls Republican who tearfully opposed gay marriage bill a homophobe

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      Nephew calls Republican who tearfully opposed gay marriage bill a homophobeCongresswoman Vicky Hartzler voted against bill protecting same-sex marriage but Andrew Hartzler, who is gay, was unimpressed The backlash to the Republican member of Congress who broke down in tears in her opposition to the same-sex marriage bill has included a familiar face – her nephew, who has called the lawmaker a “homophobe”.On Thursday, Vicky Hartzler, a Republican representative from Missouri, shed tears as she urged colleagues in the US House of Representatives to vote against the Respect for Marriage Act, which forces states without marriage equality laws to recognize LGBTQ+ marriages from other states.House passes landmark legislation protecting same-sex marriageRead moreHartzler’s high-profile objection to the bill, which passed the House following assent from the Senate and is now set for Joe Biden’s signature, prompted her own nephew to speak out against her in a TikTok video that has been seen more than 200,000 times.In the video, Andrew Hartzler said his aunt was crying “because gay people like me can get married”. He added: “So despite coming out to my aunt this past February I guess she’s still just as much as a homophobe.”Vicky Hartzler said the legislation was “misguided and dangerous” as it would threaten religious institutions opposed to marriage equality. The tenor of the bill was “submit to our ideology or be silenced”, the congresswoman claimed in her House speech.Her nephew pointed out that religious schools still receive federal funding even if they discriminate against LGBTQ students. The 23-year-old has said he was reported for “homosexual activity” when attending Oral Roberts University, an evangelical private college in Oklahoma, and is part of a federal class-action lawsuit against the US Department of Education for funding such institutions.The new legislation does not alter conditions for such funding and churches, mosques, synagogues and other houses of worship will not be required to perform LGBTQ marriages if it goes against their beliefs.“It’s more like you want the power to force your religious beliefs on to everyone else, and because you don’t have that power, you feel like you’re being silenced,” Andrew Hartzler said to his aunt on his video. “But you’re not. You’re just going have to learn to coexist with all of us. And I’m sure it’s not that hard.”Andrew Hartzler told Buzzfeed he isn’t close to his aunt, who is considered one of the most anti-gay members of Congress, and that his relationship with his conservative, religious parents has also become strained.“It was weird to me that she was crying. I would say that,” he said. “I don’t think that was a performance. Knowing my aunt, I think those were genuine tears.“I do feel compelled to speak out when I see this just to counter these messages. I don’t want my last name to be associated with hate. I want it to be associated with love.”Vicky Hartzler is just the latest Republican politician to be publicly criticized by close members of their family. In October, Adam Laxalt, a Republican candidate for a closely run Senate seat in Nevada, was faced with 14 members of his family endorsing his opponent, the incumbent Democrat, Catherine Cortez Masto. Laxalt went on to lose.In 2018, six of Republican Paul Gosar’s siblings backed his Democratic opponent in midterm elections for the far-right politician’s House of Representative district in Arizona. Gosar prevailed despite the familial acrimony.TopicsRepublicansLGBTQ+ rightsHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsSame-sex marriage (US)newsReuse this content More

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      House passes landmark legislation protecting same-sex marriage

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      House passes landmark legislation protecting same-sex marriageFinal vote was 258 to 169, with 39 Republican members joining every House Democrat The House gave final passage on Thursday to landmark legislation protecting same-sex marriage, in a bipartisan vote that reflects a remarkable shift in public opinion just over a quarter-century after Congress defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.The final vote was 258 to 169, with 39 Republican members joining every House Democrat in supporting the bill. One Republican, Burgess Owens of Utah, voted present.Virginia restaurant cancels reservation of anti-LGBTQ+ organizationRead moreThe vote was one of the final acts of this lame-duck Congress before the balance of power shifts and Republicans take control of the House in January. The bill, which provides a degree of relief for hundreds of thousands of same-sex married couples in the US, next goes to Joe Biden, who has said he will sign the legislation “promptly and proudly”.“Today, Congress took a critical step to ensure that Americans have the right to marry the person they love,” Biden said. “The House’s bipartisan passage of the Respect for Marriage Act – by a significant margin – will give peace of mind to millions of LGBTQI+ and interracial couples who are now guaranteed the rights and protections to which they and their children are entitled.”The historic legislation, known as the Respect for Marriage Act, requires federal and state governments to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages, prohibiting them from denying the validity of a marriage legally performed in another state on the basis of sex, race or ethnicity.During an emotional bill enrollment ceremony on Thursday, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, wiped tears from her eyes as she thanked the many lawmakers and advocates who made the legislation a reality.“At last we have history in the making,” Pelosi said. “Not only are we on the right side of history, we’re on the right side of the future: expanding freedom in America.”Momentum for the bill began to build after the supreme court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade in June raised fears that the conservative-leaning court might reverse same-sex marriage next. Writing in support of the majority’s decision, the conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas had suggested the court might also consider striking down “demonstrably erroneous” precedents set by rulings like Obergefell v Hodges, the 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide and ended bans in the states that had them.Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay person elected to the Senate, said the newly passed bill would provide reassurance to all LGBTQ+ citizens living in fear of having their marriages invalidated.“Today we are making history, but we’re also making a difference for millions of Americans,” said Baldwin, who played a key role in crafting the bill. “With the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, we can put to rest the worries of millions of loving couples who are concerned that some day an activist supreme court may take their rights and freedoms away.”Despite support from some Republican lawmakers, most still opposed the legislation, calling it unnecessary. During the House debate over the bill, a number of Republicans criticized the proposal as an insult to religious liberty and a Democratic attempt to force liberal policies on more conservative states.However, should Obergefell fall, the new law would not compel all 50 states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples nor does it stop states from moving to ban or limit same-sex marriages. In a concession to win Republican support, the measure also includes an exemption for religious organizations, guaranteeing that they would not be required to provide goods, services or accommodations for a celebration of a same-sex marriage, and that such a refusal would not jeopardize their tax-exempt status or other benefits.Notably, the bill would also repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (Doma), which defined a marriage as the union between a man and a woman and denied federal benefits to same-sex couples. Though the supreme court struck down part of the law, it remained on the books.When Bill Clinton signed Doma into law in 1996, same-sex marriage was considered a divisive cultural issue. At the time, nearly seven in 10 Americans said marriages between same-sex couples should not be recognized by law as valid, according to Gallup. Now, decades later, almost exactly the same number of Americans – a record 71% – say same-sex unions should be legal.The former Democratic congressman Barney Frank, the first House member to voluntarily come out as gay, celebrated Doma’s demise at the bill enrollment ceremony on Thursday, where his arrival was greeted with applause.“I was here for the birth of Doma, so I am very grateful to be able to be here for the funeral,” Frank said.LGBTQ advocates, meanwhile, praised the legislation as a “clear victory for this country’s 568,000 same-sex married couples”. But they argued that there is still more to do to protect marriage equality and LGBTQ+ Americans, who continue to face threats and violence, including a deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs last month.“Today’s vote in the House of Representatives sends a clear message: love is winning,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “We eagerly await the president’s signature on this important legislation – and look forward to continuing to fight for full equality for everyone in our community, without exception.”While there was little question the bill would pass the Democratic-controlled House, proponents say its passage was not inevitable.Earlier this summer, House Democrats held what many expected would amount to a “show” vote demonstrating their commitment to protecting same-sex marriage while drawing a contrast with Republicans, whose midterm message targeted LGBTQ+ Americans.But 47 House Republican lawmakers unexpectedly voted for the measure, a bipartisan tally that suddenly gave advocates hope that the upper chamber could muster enough bipartisan support to overcome the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold. After months of negotiating, the Senate voted 61-36 to approve a version of the measure, sponsored by Baldwin. It drew the support of 12 Republican senators.“On the Senate side, I think we can say we defied political gravity,” Baldwin said on Thursday.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, heralded the legislation as a “very important step forward” in the nation’s “long but inexorable march towards greater equality”. Like many Americans, the issue of marriage equality is personal for Schumer. His daughter and her wife are expecting their first child next year.“Today, thanks to the tireless advocacy of many, many in this room and the dogged work by many of my colleagues, my grandchild will live in a world that will respect and honor their mothers’ marriage,” Schumer said at the enrollment ceremony.For Pelosi, who announced last month that she would step down from House leadership, the bill’s passage was not just a national achievement but also a personal milestone. When Pelosi joined the House in 1987, her first remarks on the floor were about fighting HIV/Aids. Now, after 35 years in office and two stints as speaker, one of the final bills she will send to the president will protect the rights of LGBTQ+ couples.Just before voting for the bill, Pelosi said: “Today, we stand up for the values the vast majority of Americans hold dear – a belief in the dignity, beauty and divinity – divinity, a spark of divinity in every person – an abiding respect for love so powerful that it binds two people together.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesLGBTQ+ rightsUS politicsUS CongressDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      The US supreme court is poised to strike another blow against gay rights | Moira Donegan

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      The US supreme court is poised to strike another blow against gay rightsMoira DoneganThe court is hearing a case that could allow the kind of naked discrimination that the gay rights and civil rights movements fought so hard to end It’s not clear what, exactly, Lorie Smith’s problem is. The Colorado woman aspires to be a web designer; apparently, she’s also upset that gay people can get married. Smith is an evangelical Christian who says that her faith makes her object to same-sex marriage.This wouldn’t be anyone’s problem, except that Smith lives in a state with a robust civil rights law, one that forbids business owners who make their services available to the public from discriminating. But Smith really wants to discriminate: she hopes to be able to turn away gay clients from her as-yet-hypothetical wedding website business; she wants to put a banner at the top of her business homepage proclaiming her unwillingness to design websites for gay weddings. The law would forbid this if she ever went into business, so she’s suing.As of now, none of this has actually come up. At the time Smith filed her lawsuit, demanding an exemption to her state’s law, she didn’t even have a business with which to discriminate. The law has never been enforced against her; she’s never had the opportunity to discriminate that she so craves. It’s not clear, in other words, that she really has standing to sue – she’s never been forced to provide services to gay people, so, in legal parlance, there’s no “injury” to speak of. But Smith is an angry conservative, and she’s found some very well-funded lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a huge rightwing legal organization that has embarked on a nationwide campaign of lawsuits to erode civil rights protections for gay people.The result is 303 Creative v Elenis, a case in which Smith argues that her religious convictions mean that she shouldn’t have to comply with a generally applicable civil rights law, and should be granted license to discriminate by her state. The US supreme court heard oral arguments on Monday, and the 6-3 conservative majority is certain to hand Smith a victory allowing her to deny service to clients based on sexual orientation.A decision from the court is expected next summer. The question, as happens so often with this rabidly conservative court, is not who is going to win. That question was probably answered the moment the court agreed to hear the case, to the point that briefings and oral arguments in hot-button culture and identity cases like 303 Creative have been rendered largely moot.The question, instead, is how far the court will go: how much the justices will unravel the anti-discrimination laws that govern public accommodations – that is, the laws that say that businesses which serve the public cannot deny service to people based on their identity – and how much discrimination, humiliation and bigotry in public life they will unleash upon gay Americans. The question is whether the speech that Smith can deploy in any other form of her life – any belief that she already has every right to broadcast online, or in her church, or in writing, or by holding a sign up in the street – is also an opinion she is entitled to enforce through the conduct of her business.If the 303 Creative case sounds familiar, that’s because it’s more or less a rerun. In 2018, the supreme court heard Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission, another case by a business owner challenging the same state law, this time a baker who didn’t want to make a gay couple’s wedding cake. In that case, the court punted, ruling that lower tribunals had mishandled the case, but not making a decision on the merits about whether an individual businessperson’s opinions trumped civil rights law. But the court looked very different in 2018: that punting opinion was written by Anthony Kennedy, who retired soon thereafter and was replaced by his protege, the beer enthusiast Brett Kavanaugh. Since then the court has lurched even further to the right, and has shown a willingness to indulge even the most far-fetched claims of Christian religious litigants.But it’s worth considering what the court did not do when it agreed to hear 303 Creative: it did not grant certiorari on Smith’s claim that her religious freedom was violated by the anti-discrimination law. This is unusual, for this court: since the Trump justices joined the court, turning it from what was already a quite conservative institution into a maximalist, revanchist one with a culture-war axe to grind, the court has expanded free-exercise-of-religion rights quite rapidly – at least, so long as those free-exercise rights are being exercised by conservative Christians.The court has even specifically used the constitution’s free-exercise clause to imply an entitlement to discriminate against homosexuals: in last summer’s Fulton v Philadelphia, the justices ruled that municipal agencies handling the welfare of children in need were obliged to work with a religiously affiliated adoption agency, even though that agency discriminated against gay couples in violation of city civil rights law.But in 303 Creative the court is only considering Smith’s wish to discriminate as a free speech issue. This opens a new avenue for challenges to civil rights law, and will provide an opportunity for rightwing lawyers to begin unraveling the laws regarding non-discrimination in public accommodations in the wake of the civil rights movement, like pulling on a loose thread to unravel a sweater.Though Smith wants to discriminate only against gay couples, and other exemptions to civil rights law are likely to focus on allowing open bigotry against LGBTQ+ people to be expressed in commercial life, there is no limiting principle that means that only gay people will be targeted. After all, if a website designer is allowed to decline to make a gay wedding website, what stops her from making the same claim to refuse an interracial wedding, or an interfaith one? Is she allowed to decline to make sites for birth announcements of children born to gay couples, or via IVF?I keep thinking of the sign that Smith wants to put at the top of her future business’s webpage, the one that says she won’t make websites for gay weddings. It’s essentially an advertisement of her belief in gay people’s inferiority, an effort to exclude them not just from her own goodwill, but from commercial life. How different is such a sign, really, from those that advertised whites-only lunch counters, or the signs that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recalled seeing in the windows of shops when she went on family road trips as a child: “No dogs and no Jews”.It has become vogue, in rightwing legal arguments against civil rights law, to speak of the “indignity” imposed on anti-gay business owners who are forced to comply with anti-discrimination law. It’s a shame that the court doesn’t seem poised to consider the indignity of facing discrimination itself.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS supreme courtReligionLaw (US)LGBTQ+ rightscommentReuse this content More

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      US Senate passes bill protecting same-sex marriage

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      US Senate passes bill protecting same-sex marriageHouse must now pass legislation as Democrats hurry to get it Biden to sign into law before Republicans take over the chamber The US Senate has passed the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation to protect same-sex unions that Democrats are hurrying to get to Joe Biden to be signed into law before Republicans take over the House next year.‘No rings, no guests’: supreme court fears spur LGBTQ ‘shotgun’ weddingsRead moreThe House must now pass the bill, a step the majority leader, Steny Hoyer, said could come as soon as Tuesday 6 December. Nearly 50 House Republicans supported the measure earlier this year. In the Senate, support from 12 Republicans was enough to override the filibuster and advance the bill to Tuesday’s majority vote, which ended 61-36.Although the Respect for Marriage Act would not codify Obergefell v Hodges, the 2015 supreme court decision which made same-sex marriage legal nationwide, it would require states to recognise all marriages that were legal when performed, including in other states. Interracial marriages would also be protected, with states required to recognise legal marriage regardless of “sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin”.Same-sex marriage has been thought under threat since June, when the conservative-dominated supreme court struck down the right to abortion. Then, the hardline justice Clarence Thomas wrote that other privacy-based rights, including same-sex marriage, could be reconsidered next.Public support for same-sex marriage is at an all-time high of around 70% but according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, if the supreme court did overturn the right, at least 29 states would be able to enforce bans.Before the vote on Tuesday, the US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, wrote on Twitter: “Strange feeling, to see something as basic and as personal as the durability of your marriage come up for debate on the Senate floor.“But I am hopeful that they will act to protect millions of families, including ours, and appreciate all that has gone into preparing this important legislation to move forward.”After the vote, Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island, said the Respect for Marriage Act would “place the right to marry out of this activist supreme court’s reach. We affirm what the American people already understand: every person deserves the freedom to marry the one they love.”James Esseks, director of the LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, pointed to the need for more work.In a statement, he said: “For the last seven years, LGBTQ+ families across the country have been able to build their lives around their right to marriage equality. The Respect for Marriage Act will go a long way to ensure an increasingly radical supreme court does not threaten this right, but LGBTQ+ rights are already under attack nationwide.“Transgender people especially have had their safety, dignity, and healthcare threatened by lawmakers across the country, including by members of this Congress. While we welcome the historic vote on this measure, members of Congress must also fight like trans lives depend on their efforts because trans lives do.”In his opinion in the abortion case, Thomas did not mention interracial marriage. The justice, who is Black, is married to the conservative activist Ginni Thomas, who is white.The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, is white. His wife, the former transportation secretary Elaine Chao, is Asian American. McConnell has voted against the Respect for Marriage act.On Tuesday, Biden, who as vice-president famously came out in support of same-sex marriage before his boss, Barack Obama, said: “For millions of Americans, this legislation will safeguard the rights and protections to which LGBTQ+ and interracial couples and their children are entitled.“It will also ensure that, for generations to follow, LGBTQ+ youth will grow up knowing that they too can lead full, happy lives and build families of their own.”Biden thanked senators for their “bipartisan achievement” and said he “look[ed] forward to welcoming them at the White House after the House passes this legislation and sends it to my desk, where I will promptly and proudly sign it into law”.On Monday, before a test vote, the Democratic Senate leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, also praised Republicans who backed the measure, saying: “A decade ago, it would have strained all of our imaginations to envision both sides talking about protecting the rights of same-sex married couples.”Republicans argued for amendments they say won the support of religious groups that nonetheless oppose same-sex marriage, among them the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.“They see this as a step forward for religious freedom,” Thom Tillis of South Carolina told the Associated Press.Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, a Democrat and the first openly gay senator, told the AP the way some Republicans came round on the issue reminded her “of the arc of the LBGTQ+ movement to begin with, in the early days when people weren’t out and people knew gay people by myths and stereotypes”.With growing acceptance of LGBTQ+ rights, Baldwin said, “slowly laws have followed. It is history.”Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsSame-sex marriage (US)LGBTQ+ rightsUS politicsUS CongressUS SenateDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More