Ending workplace discrimination against LGBT people should be the next fight in the LGBT rights movement

Thanks to a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision issued earlier today, same-sex couples across the entire United States of America can now enjoy the same legal right to marry that heterosexual couples have long enjoyed. To put it mildly, this is a huge victory for love and equality in America.

However, in 32 states, some, if not all, LGBT workers, can legally be fired simply because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity:

• In 21 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming), all workers can be fired on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
• In 3 states (Arizona, Missouri, and Montana), state employees cannot be fired on the basis of sexual orientation, but state employees can be fired on the basis of gender identity, and private-sector workers can be fired on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
• In 5 states (Idaho, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio), state employees cannot be fired on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity, but private-sector workers can be fired on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
• In 2 states (New Hampshire and Wisconsin), all workers cannot be fired on the basis of sexual orientation, but all workers can be fired on the basis of gender identity.
• In 1 state (New York), state employees cannot be fired on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity, and private-sector workers cannot be fired on the basis of sexual orientation, but private-sector workers can be fired on the basis of gender identity.

If the source I linked to above has inaccurate and/or outdated information, please leave a comment on this blog post with accurate information for a particular state.

While it is a huge victory for the LGBT movement to secure marriage equality in all 50 states, the fight for full equality for gays, lesbians, bisexual people, and transgender people is far from over. The next big fight in the LGBT rights movement should be to push for laws prohibiting public and private employers from firing people based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

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My thoughts about the 47 Republican Senators who signed the traitorous letter in an attempt to undermine U.S. diplomacy with Iran

I find it highly outrageous that 47 members of the United States Senate, all Republicans, signed a letter in a blatant attempt to undermine attempts at negotiating a deal with Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons, apparently violating the federal Logan Act in signing the letter.

The 47 Senators who signed the Cotton Letter are as follows:

• Richard Shelby of Alabama
• Jeff Sessions of Alabama
• Dan Sullivan of Alaska
• John McCain of Arizona
• John Boozman of Arkansas
• Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the ringleader of the effort to undermine diplomacy with Iran
• Cory Gardner of Colorado
• Marco Rubio of Florida
• Johnny Isakson of Georgia
• David Perdue of Georgia
• Mike Crapo of Idaho
• Jim Risch of Idaho
• Mark Kirk of Illinois
• Chuck Grassley of Iowa
• Joni Ernst of Iowa
• Pat Roberts of Kansas
• Jerry Moran of Kansas
• Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Majority Leader
• Rand Paul of Kentucky
• David Vitter of Louisiana
• Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
• Roger Wicker of Mississippi
• Roy Blunt of Missouri
• Steve Daines of Montana
• Deb Fischer of Nebraska
• Ben Sasse of Nebraska
• Dean Heller of Nevada
• Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire
• Richard Burr of North Carolina
• Thom Tillis of North Carolina
• John Hoeven of North Dakota
• Rob Portman of Ohio
• Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma
• James Lankford of Oklahoma
• Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania
• Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
• Tim Scott of South Carolina
• John Thune of South Dakota
• Mike Rounds of South Dakota
• John Cornyn of Texas
• Ted Cruz of Texas
• Orrin Hatch of Utah, the Senate President Pro Tempore
• Mike Lee of Utah
• Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia
• Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
• Mike Enzi of Wyoming
• John Barrasso of Wyoming

All 47 of those individuals who I named are traitors to this country who are more interested in starting World War III by undermining the sitting President of the United States and allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons that they could use to bomb the United States and our allies than doing anything that would actually be productive, such as fixing crumbling roads and bridges, making it easier for Americans to go to college, helping the private sector create more good-paying jobs, and so on.

Also, regarding the so-called “pro-Israel” lobby’s support for the Cotton Letter, the Cotton Letter puts Israel, as well as other U.S. allies and the U.S. itself, of even greater danger of an attack by Iranian forces, since the Cotton Letter is designed to undermine efforts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons that could be used by Iran in an attack on the United States and its allies.

I’m calling for the U.S. Justice Department to bring up all 47 of the senators who signed the Cotton Letter on federal criminal charges for violating the Logan Act, which legally prohibits U.S. citizens who are not authorized diplomats from negotiating with a foreign government.

House Republican Whip Steve Scalise spoke at white supremacist conference run by organization led by David Duke

When he was a Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, Steve Scalise, who is now the majority whip (#3 Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives), attended and spoke at a 2002 white supremacist conference led by the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO), a deceptively-named white supremacist group led by 1991 Republican candidate for Governor of Louisiana and former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) grand wizard David Duke:

Twelve years before he was elected by his colleagues as House Majority Whip, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) spoke at a conference hosted by white supremacist group European-American Unity and Rights Organization.

Louisiana political blogger Lamar White Jr.dug up a number of posts on Stormfront, one of the original white supremacist websites, that place Scalise at the 2002 gathering. According to one user who attended the conference, Scalise — then a state representative — spoke to the organization at a workshop “to teach the most effective and up-to-date methods of civil rights and heritage related activism.”

According to another Stormfront post, the National/International EURO Workshop on Civil Rights was held from May 17 to 18, 2002, at the Landmark/Best Western Hotel in Metairie, Louisiana. The conference was also listed on an Anti-Defamation League list of extremist events for that year.

This was originally reported by Louisiana political blogger Lamar White, Jr. and has since been picked up by numerous news media outlets, including CNN and The Huffington Post.

Make no mistake about it, EURO is a far-right racist hate group that believes that white people are superior to all other people, and most, if not all, of their members would rather see blacks and other people who they don’t consider to be of their “master race” expelled from their home countries or killed en masse. In fact, Ian Mosley, who wrote articles for EURO’s now-defunct website, wrote this racist screed calling for a return to fascist rule and a Second Holocaust in Germany:

The beautiful Germany of the 1930s with blonde children happily running through every village has been replaced with a multi-racial cesspool. Out of work Africans can be seen shuffling along the same streets, which used to be clean and safe in the days of the National Socialists. One day, people in Germany will grow tired of the politically correct police state that is destroying their lives. They will recover their national pride and start speaking the truth about their past regardless of what the militant lesbians or thought police tell them. Once that happens, Germany may finally be a great nation again -free of foreign control.

The fact that Steve Scalise would even consider showing up at, let alone giving a speech at, a white supremacist gathering organized by a David Duke-led organization proves that he is far too conservative for a leadership position of any kind in this country, let alone the #3 position in the majority party in the U.S. House. What is even scarier is that there is the possibility, even though it’s a slim possibility, that the Tea Party Republicans in the House could decide not to re-elect John Boehner as House Speaker and elect Scalise to be the new House Speaker instead, which would put Scalise second in the line of succession to the presidency. I have zero tolerance for white supremacists and those who attend their gatherings.