LGBTQ Breaking News Service

The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.

Doug Kimmel of Hancock is a retired psychologist, co-founder of the national SAGE organization, and professor emeritus of The City College of New York.

A few years ago, I helped organize SAGE Maine, an affiliate organization focused on providing services and advocacy for older gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) elders. We began an on-going social support group in Bangor where I have met many friends who could be directly affected by the Equality Act, now pending approval by the U.S. Senate.

As the Senate considers the Equality Act, I reflect on the many stories of Mainers I’ve heard that just go to show how necessary non-discrimination protections are. One decorated Vietnam veteran came to our group at the beginning of her transition, with the assistance of a local physician and the Veterans Administration in Togus and in Boston. Recently, she moved to be near her daughter in Massachusetts. Fortunately, like Maine, Massachusetts protects LGBT individuals from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations; but only 15 states provide the same degree of protections as Maine. Had she moved to any of the other states that don’t provide protections from discrimination, it would have been a very different.

Another member has recently moved to North Carolina to be near her daughter. Although she and her wife are living in an LGBT-friendly development, there is still the possibility that she could be met with discrimination from the broader community, as North Carolina has no anti-discrimination law regarding public accommodations.

These patchwork protections that differ by state leave so many LGBT older people worried that their most basic rights will be denied because there is no federal law to protect them.

READ MORE ABOUT LGBTQ RIGHTS

SAGE Maine held an intergenerational potluck two years ago with students from the LGBT group at Bangor High School and discussed college plans with some of them. This complicated decision is made even more complex if they have to avoid a college in a state that allows discrimination in housing or employment for LGBT students or job-seekers.

In my case, my husband and I are in our 70s and do not know what surprises aging may hold for us. If we chose to move to life-care community in another state, we could be met with: “I’m sorry, but we only rent one-bedroom apartments to singles or heterosexual couples; you will have to rent a two-bedroom apartment.” Worse, if we had to enter an assisted living facility or nursing home in another state, we could be forced to hide our relationship or be denied services. This is not only a possibility for us, but a reality for others.

The Equality Act would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, federally funded programs, credit and jury service. It would eliminate the need to check the individual laws of each state before accepting an employment offer, attending college or choosing a retirement home.

Early in my teaching career, I found a poster to post in my office: “Be not judgmental of someone else until you have walked a mile in their moccasins!” I think this is still a good idea. After all, why does someone’s gender or the gender of the person they love make any more difference to me than the color of their skin or the place where they were born? I am busy living my own life, and they should be allotted the opportunity to do the same without fear of being denied their rights at any moment.

I urge our senators to extend Maine’s dedication to civil rights for all citizens regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, ensuring these protections exist on a federal level. Whether you are an LGBT elder, part of the LGBT community or an ally, now is the time to contact both of our senators to urge their support of non-discrimination protections.

When Brett Nicholson was growing up, he never imagined running for elected office — or owning a gay bar, for that matter. But now, the human resource management professional and owner of the Liberty Bar — who long ago imagined a career playing oboe in a pit orchestra — is doing both. And with his extensive work experience, winning his race for Pontiac City Council, District 2, may be one step toward ending the gridlock plaguing the city’s government and services.

“In the city of Pontiac, we have a very dysfunctional relationship between our council and our mayor,” Nicholson said plainly. “And my career has been spent in human resource management. A lot of it’s been in employee relations: helping people sort out their differences, whether it’s with themselves or with another person.”

At the bare minimum, Nicholson said, elected officials should be expected to attend meetings and behave in a professional manner. This has caused a cascading effect: because of the conflict, many positions have been left unfilled and, consequently, city services are stalled, including things that taxpayers approved.

“Being a small business owner, and being a resident for the last eight years, I’ve had every issue that could potentially reach into needing to contact a city department, and getting the same answer over and over: we’re short-staffed; we’re doing the best we can do — those sorts of things,” Nicholson said.

Long-term challenges

From 2009 to 2013, Pontiac was under the oversight of an emergency financial manager who was authorized to make day-to-day executive and financial decisions for the city. Today, when the reason for a particular issue with the city is stated as stemming from the emergency financial management era, Nicholson’s not buying it.

“I think maybe the hardest thing … maybe just for me personally is the narrative of the emergency financial management,” Nicholson said. “That was eight years ago. We’ve emerged from that at this point. It’s almost like when you’ve been in a workplace and you hear, ‘This is how we do it,’ or, ‘This is the way we’ve always done it.’ If eight years later you don’t have your city services back up and running, as a taxpayer, you have to sit back and wonder what’s happening with your dollars.”

In addition to tackling gridlock in the way city government functions, Nicholson said infrastructure, as it relates to water and sewer in particular, is what he feels most affects residents’ lives that needs to be addressed. He said Pontiac has a newer sewer system but many people are still paying for multiple backups because the Department of Public Works is slow to respond.

“If we want to maintain our property values and prevent foreclosures, our DPW department needs to be more able to respond to these issues and prevent them through preventive maintenance measures,” Nicholson said. “They just don’t have the staff or the equipment to do it today, because we’ve not supported them in doing that.”

Other challenges Nicholson would like to take on include cutting the red tape preventing recreational marijuana dispensaries from opening in Pontiac, ending blight in the city and ensuring that employers in Pontiac hire city residents.

A thriving, diverse gayborhood

But Nicholson’s not complaining; there’s a lot Pontiac has to offer that gives him joy. It’s Pontiac’s diversity that particularly appeals to him, Nicholson said. Whether it’s the numerous communities of color in Pontiac or the neighborhood where he lives that has a surprising number of LGBTQ+ households, Nicholson said Pontiac owes that in part to its geographic centrality.

“Wherever you’re from, if you’re not from Pontiac, Pontiac can be a place that’s very inviting, very central for you,” Nicholson said. “While owning the bar…we saw a lot of our LGBT spaces closed. Flint’s last gay bar closed. So now Liberty Bar is, if you live in Flint, you’ve got two options. You can go to Lansing or you can go to Pontiac.”

Nicholson said the reason many people don’t recognize Pontiac as an LGBTQ-friendly place to live and visit is because, in his words, “it’s not Ferndale.” He proudly followed that by stating there are 11 gay households on his block.

“We have progressive dinners, and things like that,” Nicholson said. “And it’s hard, because people don’t think of Pontiac as an LGBT-friendly area just because … it’s not in your face; it’s not very clear that this is a place where gay people live. So for me, wanting to make sure that any community that exists within a community finds themselves … and finds that comfort that I’ve found, whatever we can do to support that, I think is really important.”

There’s a reason Nicholson has that desire to help others find community — and help his city thrive in the process.

“Being LGBT, being a member of many minority groups, I feel connected with anybody who feels that they are disadvantaged,” Nicholson explained. “And I think that Pontiac has been in a position of having disadvantaged feelings for a very long time, whether it’s socioeconomically, whether it’s the unfair burdens, maybe, that the county [permitted] before Dave Coulter’s leadership.”

Nicholson believes it’s time to stop talking about the years of emergency financial management and past corruption in city government. He said it’s time for Pontiac’s leaders to work together and for the community to continue to stick together.

“I imagine [with] the advocacy and that undying kind of march toward progress that happened within our little city, what we could do,” Nicholson said. “It takes people who really care and people who feel like this is their home or this is in their heart to do it, and I think I’m one of those people, because it’s just sort of what I’ve always done.”

Brett Nicholson’s campaign kick-off, a barbecue and park clean-up at Indian Village Park located at M-59 and Telegraph, will be held Saturday, June 5, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be a fundraiser later in the month at the Liberty Bar to benefit the Meals on Wheels Foundation. Learn more online at voteforbrett.com.

Copyright © 2021 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

(Adds American Medical Association, House Speaker Pelosi comment)

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON, May 10 (Reuters) – Gay and transgender people will be protected against sex discrimination in healthcare, the U.S. health secretary said on Monday, as President Joe Biden’s administration reversed a policy put in place under his predecessor Donald Trump.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said the action restores protections under a provision of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, against sexual discrimination in healthcare. It was the latest in a series of steps the Democratic president has taken to bolster LGBT rights.

“It simply says what everyone already should know: You should not discriminate against people,” Becerra told CNN. “That includes those based on sexual orientation or gender identity and when it comes to healthcare – we want to make sure that’s the case.”

The new policy represents a reversal of a reversal. HHS under Trump in June 2020 issued a rule that lifted some anti-discrimination protections under the Affordable Care Act, a law signed by former President Barack Obama in 2010.

In 2016, Obama’s administration introduced rules that made clear that LGBT people would be protected under the federal healthcare discrimination provision. The Trump-era rule reversed those provisions of the law that extended civil rights protections in healthcare to cover areas including gender identity and abortion.

“So now it’s clear, there’s no ambiguity: You cannot discriminate against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” Becerra added.

HHS said in a statement that its Office for Civil Rights made the decision in light of a June 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling and subsequent court decisions. The Supreme Court last year delivered a watershed victory for LGBT rights and a defeat for Trump’s administration, ruling that a longstanding federal law barring workplace discrimination protects gay and transgender employees.

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“The Supreme Court has made clear that people have a right not to be discriminated against on the basis of sex and receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation,” Becerra said in the statement.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, praised the administration’s step and called Trump’s LGBT action in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic “an act of senseless and staggering cruelty.”

The issue of transgender rights has become a flashpoint in the U.S. culture wars, with Republicans at the state level pursuing measures targeting transgender people. Such bills have been introduced in about 28 states so far this year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center advocacy group.

“With healthcare for transgender youth under attack by state legislatures, this move to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in healthcare is critical,” the American Civil Liberties Union said.

“It’s unfortunate that such an obvious step had to be taken; the AMA welcomes this common-sense understanding of the law,” added American Medical Association President Susan Bailey.

Biden, who took office in January, has sought to overturn other Trump policies limiting the rights of LGBT Americans.

Biden has reversed his Republican predecessor’s ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military, issued an executive order that extends existing federal nondiscrimination protections to LGBT people and issued a presidential memorandum aimed at expanding protection of the rights of LGBT people worldwide.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Susan Heavey and Will Dunham)

Michael Deel is hardly the only human curiosity running to be the next senator from Arkansas. The gay Republican says he will run against everything the party stands for in an attempt to “prevent these radical right extremists from taking over” a party they already dominate.

The competition so far includes a former football player, a bigoted gun range owner who won’t allow Muslims on her property, and a gun-lovin’ pastor who thinks everyone has a right to own a tank. The competition will be stiff.

Related: Concerned father arrested while peacefully testifying against Arkansas trans health care ban

“If elected, I will be the first openly gay Republican senator elected to office,” Deel told the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “Being gay and being a Republican, which is kind of a unicorn in this day and time, I felt like I could make a difference.”

The seat is currently held by Sen. John Boozman (R), a former Arkansas Razorbacks football player. Boozman has a history of voting against LGBTQ civil rights.

“Early on in his career, he co-introduced legislation to prohibit gay marriage,” he said. “He attempted to define it in the Constitution. He proved to be soft on law and order by voting against a bill that would more strongly penalize people who attacked someone based on sexual orientation. He even voted against an anti-discrimination measure that affected members of the military.

“But Sen. Boozman has not just been hostile to the LGBTQ+ community. He voted against ratifying an agreement that would protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities the year before he vocally opposed reauthorizing the ‘Violence Against Women Act.’”

Deel will also face at least two other primary candidates – Jan Morgan, a gun range owner who reportedly does not allow Muslims on her property, and Heath Loftis, a Baptist minister who doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state. Loftis is also a gun extremist and believes everyone has a right to own a tank.

“Tanks? Why not?” Loftis writes on his website. “The right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right to keep an overbearing government in check.”

“I think what’s happened is the Republican Party has lost everything right now,” Deel said. “They’ve lost the presidency. They’ve lost Congress. So they’re fighting a cultural war. ‘Your guns will be taken away. The gays are taking over.’”

“Our democracy is hanging on by a thread right now. It really is. People should be scared right now. If they’ve been paying attention, they should be scared. I’m trying to prevent these radical right extremists from taking over.”

It wasn’t clear if Deel understood that the values he is espousing are the ones in the Democratic party platform while the ones he condemns are part of the Republican party platform. He insists he’s part of the GOP.

“I am a Republican, but on social issues, I lean left,” he said. “I want to protect everyone. I want to help everyone. But I will not go with this rhetoric about the election being stolen. I won’t stand for it.”

(Baltimore, MD)—Maryland Humanities is pleased to announce the selection of The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay for the 2021 One Maryland One Book program. The Book of Delights is a collection of lyrical essays. Gay wrote one essay per day over a year and took the time to find “delights” in his everyday life. The essays range in topic from the beauties in nature to what it is to be a black man in America. Readers can look to Gay’s collection as a guide to finding their own daily “delights.” The book was chosen by a committee of librarians, educators, authors, and bibliophiles in February from more than 160 titles suggested last fall by readers across the state for the theme, “Hope.”  

“Strife on a global scale makes me people hunger for hope, which is what makes The Book of Delights a perfect selection for One Maryland One Book this year,” says Lindsey Baker, Executive Director at Maryland Humanities. “Ross Gay also doesn’t shy away from life’s hardships. It’s is the first book of essays ever chosen for the program, giving Marylanders a wide range of topics to discuss. We look forward to hearing about these conversations.”

Gay says: “I’m so grateful that The Book of Delights was chosen for One Maryland One Book. It feels lucky to get to share this collection of questions and wonderings with you all for so many reasons (one of them that my big brother was an English teacher in Frederick a couple decades ago!). And I’m really looking forward to the conversations we’ll have about the book this fall.”

The Book of Delights is about our shared bonds, and the rewards that come from a life closely observed. These remarkable pieces serve as a powerful and necessary reminder that we can, and should, stake out a space in our lives for delight.