Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

It's a ludicrous hypothetical because as the wise and sage counsel pointed out, there's virtually no real-world situation where you would know someone's sexual orientation but not their gender.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Let us just say that I am entirely right and you are entirely wrong. We'll meet halfway.

[Dr. Strangelove]

FWIW Bernie Sanders has been told by the Intelligence Agencies that, like Trump, the Russians have been helping his campaign

[Jeff Buchanan]

.....................One would strip away Title VII rights from transgenders. The other would strip away Title VII rights from gays.

First, I don't think DSL is wrong as talent asserts. Choice of words? I did a quick search looking for LGBTQ cases. Good grief. Two decades worth with a summary on one site stating that it's not clear if trans people are protected under the provisions of Title VII ...... but, there seems to be a preference of the various courts to say it is. I guess that's why the Supremes are hearing this.

Second, is it two or three cases? Looks like it started out as three and they all seem to deal with differing claims where sexual identity (Trans, Gay, Lesbian) was the primary cause for a firing. Has one been dismissed?

Regardless, this is a big deal. My step son, who passed away almost a year ago, age 42, from liver failure was gay. I knew little about this world until I met his Mother and married her 21 years ago. I had a great relationship with him and, as you'd suspect he advocated for LGBTQ causes. He also cross-dressed and lived in the trans world briefly as a singer and performer in NYC. He was close friends with RuPaul and appeared on her early TV shows. He had talent.

My step son, like RuPaul, was a Drag Queen - the definition usually associated with comedy that makes fun of gays and lesbians. Unlike RuPaul, who identifies himself as a gay man, my step son, also a gay man, took a ride in the transgender world and considered a sex change at one point in his life but only did the preparatory hormone induction and decided against genital modification. That decision was based on who he thought he was - a man. Transgender people take their identify very seriously and RuPaul found himself in some hot water with that community in the past because he didn't take his identity, other than being very open that he was a gay, male cross-dresser seriously at all. I liked that aspect of him. So, I got all the discussion in that Harvard paper I linked here in real, experiential terms.

As I said, I have no problems with transgender people being protected under Title VII and would applaud a SCOTUS decision that said they are protected. But, if I get talent right, like him, I reject the LGBQT, culture and politics driven agenda that goes beyond that. The realty is that the current cases before the Supremes aren't about bathroom policy or about men becoming female Olympians who can beat the snot out of most women in whatever competition they might engage in. It's about employment security. Security from being fired becasue you identify yourself as LGBTQ. Of course, there's a danger here that a very narrow, EO related SCOTUS decision in these cases will be more widely and inappropriately interpreted is there. I'll be the first to say when that comes up in any discussions I might have that the Supreme's decision, if it goes that way, is about employment security, nothing else.

EDIT ..... in doing the research, I realize there are other cases out there dealing with transgender bathroom issues, for example. I've tried to stick to the narrowly defined EO stuff in the above posts. The one I just made below arguing against Hanni's position does get into the transgender bathroom issues. I'm less inclined to wade into that discussion about bathroom rights and prefer to stick to EO.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Gender dysphoria isn't a gender. It's a mental illness.

Nope. The previously accepted view that when talking about LGBTQ persons we're identifying them as mentally ill was dispelled by current science over the last decade.

While the DSM5 contains the definitive guidelines for the diagnosis of mental disorders, the text contained in the section describing Gender Dysphoria is very careful to explain that it is a condition - not a mental illness - born out of conflict between what gender a persons thinks they are as opposed to their gender assignment at birth.

This may seem like a bit of hair-splitting but I will tell you it is critically important to the LGBTQ community. That it is not a mental illness underpins all of their positions pertaining to the legal rights of LGBTQs. Moreover, official Guides like the DSM5, last updated 7 years ago in 2013, don't keep up with the current thinking. For example, The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has filed an Amicus Brief in the case that involves baring transgender children from using restrooms that conform with their gender identity, i.e., if it's a boy by gender assignment at birth that identifies as a female, they can't use the girl's bathroom and vice-versa.

The point is that this Amicus Brief filed just 4 months ago, reflects the APA's current views on Gender Dysphoria. It may be too liberal for some but it is definitive in the context of this discussion. I recommend reading the summary:

file:///C:/Users/jbuch/Downloads/ami...-No19-1952.pdf

[iam416]

[iam416]

[Hannibal]

[Dr. Strangelove]

Holy cow. Trump wasn't told that the State Dept and HHS were flying 14 infected passengers from the Diamond Princess back to the United States. In fact he had been told the exact opposite. Anyone infected from the cruise ship would remain in Japan to recover.

The CDC wanted the people left in Japan. It seems like State and HHS officials overruled them? The 14 passengers known to be sick were brought back on the same plane as the ~300 healthy individuals, but quarantined off somehow? The total number of sick passengers from the ship has grown from 14 to 28 since they've returned.

***************************************

President Trump grew furious with senior advisers this week over a decision to allow 14 Americans who tested positive for coronavirus to return to the United States from Japan after being assured that infected patients would remain in quarantine overseas, according to administration officials.

Americans who had spent weeks in quarantine aboard the Diamond Princess luxury liner






https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...74f_story.html

[Dr. Strangelove]

Coronavirus cases in South Korea have quadrupled in the past 2 days, connected to a specific church. Now over 75,000 cases in CHina with at least 2300+ deaths.

WHO now worried that we're approaching a pandemic because individual cases can no longer be tied to just China. Cases in Lebanon and Canada, for instance, have been traced back to Iran.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-21/new-cases-outside-china-spark-concern-on-pandemic-virus-update

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-outbreak-edges-closer-to-pandemic/2020/02/21/03afafc0-5429-11ea-9e47-59804be1dcfb_story.html

[Whitley]

You are confusing sex and gender.

Yes, with few exceptions people are born either male or female. Sex is the physical.

Whereas gender is much more a mental and emotional deal. You can be born into the male sex and still know and identify the woman sex (and the opposite way too).

[Dr. Strangelove]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/21/devin-nunes-lawsuit-trump-dossier-116675

[Ghengis Jon]

A propaganda document comes out of Afghanistan. Already and goo-goobler extraordinaire Mike Pompeo are declaring this document to be a 'peace treaty'.

If there's 7 days of "violence reduction", then the US and Taliban will sign a document that extends the "reduction" and theTaliban agrees to then talk (only) to the Afghan govt once the US leaves. Which is what the Taliban has said for years: We won't even talk to others parties, including the US puppet gov't, about peace so long as there are foreign troops on Afghan soil. So get the fuck out. Now.

If any or all of the previous 'cease fires' are any indication, this one will also likely fail. IMO who cares? Get out. Now. I voted for Obama because he promised to get us out of Afghanistan. Now I have to hope that Donald fucking Trump fulfills that promise? I hope Trump is part of the treaty....as in he'll be turned over to the Taliban, bound and gagged, in exchange for peace. That would be a face saving agreement to both sides.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/02/21/US-Taliban-say-7-day-reduction-in-violence-will-begin-Saturday/5231582290759/?sl=13

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/pact-taliban-reducing-violence-start-saturday-200221094340829.html

[Jeff Buchanan]

You're the lawyer here and I respect most of your takes but I'm not sure I get your position here or, maybe I'm just not understanding your post ......

I was under the impression that when the language in the law is vague, that the courts exist to clarify it. Why has the House been unable to include sexual orientation in T7? Politics not fairness or correctly interpreting the US Constitution's guarantees of equality under the law and acting on that.

The last ten years have revealed the high level of discrimination the LGBTQ community has endured. LGBTQ issues didn't exist when the Civil Rights act was passed in 65. If there was ever a circumstance where societal changes create the need for the courts to step in to interpret existing law, this would be it.

I believe, there's also a special circumstance here and that is the inability of Congress to address the inadequacy of T7 as it applies to LGBTQ people. The fact you raise that Congress has tried 30X to add sexual orientation to T7 but failed says a good deal about the political hot-potato the acceptance of EO and employment security for LGBTQ actually is.

In my view, Congress has failed in their role of insuring equal rights that the constitution guarantees for all...... but that shouldn't surprise us when one puts the LGBTQ issues in the context of the US's history on slavery, women's rights and Jim Crow following the Civil War.

[iam416]

Why has the House been unable to include sexual orientation in T7? Politics not fairness or correctly interpreting the US Constitution's guarantees of equality under the law and acting on that.

We fundamentally, I mean fundamentlly, disagree. This statement is, to my mind, as bad a constitutional take as there is. Legislation and passing laws is ABOUT POLITICS. It's about building a big enough majority to justify passing laws. That's what fucking legislation is. That's what our fucking government is founded on. We know the rules for passing legislation. Pass the House. Pass the Senate. Sign into law or override a veto. We know the process. The rules are proscribed.

It is most definitely NOT about what YOU think is fair. If YOU think it's fair then lobby your congressperson and Senator. You don't get to decide what is law. I don't get to decide what is law. What is "fair" isn't the standard because, for one, it's not in the Constitution and therefore we don't have a clue what the rules are. The Constitution is very clear on who gets to decide what is law.

As an aside, neither of these cases have anything to do with the Equal Protectionn Clause. They are both Title VII cases.

I was under the impression that when the language in the law is vague, that the courts exist to clarify it

First, there's nothing vague about Title VII. Congress knows how to protect against discrimination based on sex -- they say "because of sex") -- and knows how to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation -- they say "because of sexual orientation"). There is absolutely nothing vague in what they said. NOTHING.

Second, Courts do exist to interpret statutes based on the text of the statute and, depending on the justice, the purpose, legislative history and anything else. Scalia, thankfully, won this battle over Brennan and his activist do-gooders, so it's mostly just the text. One statutory construction canon is that if an item is omitted from specified list, and the drafters knew of it, you can't write it back into the law. As for vague statutes, it depends -- there's a void for vagueness doctrine. That is to say, if a statute is so vague the Court just won't interpret it because -- it's not their fucking job to pass laws.

I believe, there's also a special circumstance here and that is the inability of Congress to address the inadequacy of T7 as it applies to LGBTQ people. The fact you raise that Congress has tried 30X to add sexual orientation to T7 but failed says a good deal about the political hot-potato the acceptance of EO and employment security for LGBTQ actually is.

As I said in other posts, when you can't get shit done through the proper channels, beg the judiciary to legislate for you. I hate that argument because it completely shits on our constitutional republic.

In my view, Congress has failed in their role of insuring equal rights that the constitution guarantees for all...... but that shouldn't surprise us when one puts the LGBTQ issues in the context of the US's history on slavery, women's rights and Jim Crow following the Civil War.

I reiterate, this isn't a constitutional question. But, the fact that Congress has failed shows, without question, that we all know who has the this job. We all know it's Congress' job. Maybe you could point me to the Article in the Constitution that says "If Congress fails to legislate properly then the Courts shall do it."