Donald Trump’s War On LGBTQ Americans Is Ramping Up

LOADING ERROR LOADING Less than two weeks after he was inaugurated, Donald Trump did something that, at the time, seemed decent: On Jan. 31, 2017, the White House put out a press release promising to safeguard LGBTQ rights. “Women who want to wear pants in the workplace, men who want more childbearing responsibilities.” “People don’t realize that the stakes are extending not just to the trans and LGB communities, but to every person who departs from sex stereotypes.” - Chase Strangio, staff attorney at the ACLU That’s because the DOJ brief also takes aim at a major precedent established in the 1988 case of Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins that defined “sex discrimination” as including gender stereotyping. The brief makes sure to quote Rost’s assertion that allowing Stephens to present as a woman “would be violating God’s commands if were to permit one of male funeral directors to wear the uniform for female funeral directors while at work.” Another friend of the court brief, from the Liberty Counsel, an evangelical nonprofit, explicitly tries to make a religious freedom argument in the case, arguing that prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ people would violate the First Amendment rights of religious groups. “We are concerned about the trend of religious freedom being used as a sword rather than a shield.” - Steve Freeman, vice president of civil rights at the Anti-Defamation League The Liberty Counsel, which has been deemed an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, hailed the move; while almost every civil rights group roundly condemned it. “This is yet another stain on religious freedom,” said Steve Freeman, the vice president of civil rights at the Anti-Defamation League, who was also on the call.