Magic Words

Wouldn’t love to be able to say some magic words that will let you get out of obeying the law?

All you have to do is say them any you don’t have to obey any law; what are those words? Simply “It is  against my sincerely held religious beliefs.” That’s it… just those words.

You don’t want to serve people of color in your restaurant just say those words.

You don’t want to a Muslim in your restaurant just say those words.

You don’t want to rent an apartment to an unmarried couple just say those words.

You laugh, that will never happen… well the courts have already let it happen. How many bakeries have refused to make wedding cakes for gay and lesbian couples because the bakery said those magic words?

Or how about a teacher who refuses to call a student by their name or use the student’s preferred pronouns because it goes against their “religious beliefs?”

Jacksonville teacher who sparked inclusion training continued posting homophobic memes. Duval Schools says it will investigate.
The Florida Times Union
By Emily Bloch
May 21, 2020

An award-winning Duval Schools teacher with honors from then-governor Rick Scott refused to abide by a transgender teenager’s pronouns, prompting school-wide training and an apology to his boss. But that same week — and for the rest of the school year — he continued posting bigoted memes mocking the LGBTQ community.

Weeks before the start of this school year, Cesar — a sophomore at Sandalwood High School — anxiously emailed all of her new teachers.

The 15-year-old, whose full name we aren’t using to protect her identity, is transgender. She wrote her incoming teachers to let them know her chosen name and pronouns, since the class roster would say something else.

But her math teacher, Thomas Caggiano, wasn’t having it. He refused to honor Cesar’s pronouns, telling her if she didn’t like it, to switch classes — which is exactly what she did.

Outside of school, his distaste for those who identify as transgender and others in the LGBTQ community isn’t a secret, either. To this day, he publicly shares degrading memes on his personal Facebook page.

Now, as the school year wraps up, he’s still teaching. Duval County Public Schools launched an inquiry into Caggiano shortly after the Times-Union shared some of his transphobic, xenophobic and racist public social media posts.

Now remember, this bigot was praised by the former Republican governor.

Religious exemptions are gutting civil rights protections, advocacy groups warn
The Trump administration's expansion of "religious freedom" is coming at the expense of LGBTQ rights, according to a new report.
NBC News
By Julie Moreau
May 19, 2020


The Trump administration's expansion of religious exemptions is undermining civil rights protections and codifying discrimination against marginalized groups — particularly LGBTQ people — according to a report released Monday by three research and advocacy groups.

Using a combination of new rules, legal interventions and newly created divisions, the departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor and State have all taken steps to advance "religious liberty," often at the expense of LGBTQ rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for American Progress and the Movement Advancement Project argue in their report.

"The many proposals to allow religious discrimination are consistent with the trend of the administration to undercut civil rights broadly," Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the ACLU, told NBC News. "The administration is taking the position that religious freedoms give you a right to discriminate."

The White House disagreed. Spokesman Judd Deere accused the organizations of being "a campaign arm of the Democratic Party" that has "refused to credit the President with any action he's taken to protect LGBTQ Americans."

Keep in mind that Trump and McConnell are packing the courts with judges who put the Bible ahead of the Constitution.

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That is not the only that will be decided in the coming weeks.

Supreme Court Hears Three Cases on Rights Of LGBT Employees
Education Week
By Mark Walsh
October 22, 2019

On the first week of its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court held two hours of intense arguments about whether the main federal job-discrimination law protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees, with the justices expressing concerns about how their ruling might play out for restroom and locker room use by transgender individuals in schools or the workplace.

"[The] big issue right now raging the country is bathroom usage—same-sex bathroom usage," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during the Oct. 8 arguments.

It went without saying that that issue is raging most fiercely in public schools, where there have been numerous skirmishes in recent years about transgender students using facilities that align with their gender identities.

In about six weeks we will know the results of that case, whether we are protected under Title VII and Title IX