Posts Tagged ‘discrimination’

Equality Act

Friday, March 15th, 2019

Nancy Pelosi has just introduced the Equality Act to protect LGBT people at the federal level. In more than half the states it is still legal to fire someone for being gay, to refuse a transgender person business at a restaurant, and to discriminate in numerous other ways such as housing, credit, and education.

As a teen in 2005 I testified before Maine’s Judiciary to pass the anti-discrimination law, which successfully added sexual orientation and gender identity to the Maine Human Rights Act. As a victim of hate crimes, hate violence, and anti-LGBT discrimination, I know firsthand the importance of this law and why it is absolutely necessary to end discrimination and exterminate hate in this country.

Please contact your legislators and encourage them to support the Equality Act! Text EQUALITY ACT to 472472.

Nicole Maines

Friday, January 31st, 2014

Maine has once again made history in the movement toward full equality for LGBT people, this time for transgender students. A case I’ve been following for several years now in which a girl named Nicole Maines wanted to be treated the same as any other girl in Maine’s schools. The school district turned it into a legal battle when they refused to allow Nicole to use the girls’ bathroom. The Maine Human Rights Commission became involved because Maine law specifically forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity / expression. In a 5-to-1 ruling, the Maine Supreme Court ruled in favor of the girl who is now 16. According to the Bangor Daily News:

“It is the first time any court in the nation has ruled it is unlawful to force a transgender child to use the school bathroom designated for the sex he or she was born with rather than the one with which the child identifies, according to the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders of Boston, which represented the girl and her family.”


Transgender student Nicole Maines (center) with her father, Wayne Maines (left), and brother Jonas, speaks to reporters outside the Penobscot Judicial Center, Wednesday, June 12, 2013, in Bangor.

The decision is especially meaningful to me because I helped pass the anti-discrimination law in 2005. Specifically I testified before Maine’s Judiciary Committee when I was in high school. I told about my experience of being bullied in high school because I was gay, and why the bill should protect students in addition to employment, public accommodations, housing, and credit.

We were successful and in 2005, sexual orientation (the Maine legal definition of which includes “gender identity and expression”) was added to the Maine Human Rights Act, including protections for students. The court’s ruling is fairly broad and can surely be extended to the other categories within the Maine Human Rights Act so that transgender employees are also protected. Public accommodations such as restaurants and hotels, along with housing units, are also prohibited from discriminating.

I’m proud of Nicole and her family who has stood by her side since 2007, when Nicole was in middle school. Congratulations to Nicole, her family, and all those who helped and encouraged her to be true to herself, particularly the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders of Boston, the Maine Human Rights Commission, Equality Maine, and the Maine Civil Liberties Union, the latter two of which supported me during my struggles in high school. I think this is a sign of things to come, both here in Maine across the U.S. As Maine goes, so goes the nation.

Equality

Thursday, June 27th, 2013

First of all I want to say thank-you to the courageous plaintiffs of the DOMA and Prop 8 cases, as well as their attorneys and everyone who helped us toward today’s victories in our nation’s highest court. We made history, a history that can never be revoked by a popular vote or referendum. This is permanent and it has set the stage for the final steps in this battle for equality. I am proud of our nation today. We are led by the first president to openly embrace and support the LGBT community. Gays and lesbians are serving openly in the military and now are proud members of the Boy Scouts. It is fitting that these Supreme Court rulings came in June, which is, by presidential proclamation, National LGBT Pride Month. For the first time in history, a majority of Americans favor marriage equality, and that majority becomes a vast majority for those in my generation and younger.

The direction in which we are moving is clear and the path ahead is laid out before us – we need only take a few more steps. I expect it won’t be long now until we achieve nationwide marriage equality in every state as same-sex marriage is now free to follow in the footsteps of Loving v. Virginia. There is still a great deal of work to be done in other areas of law, such as the federal Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA), which will make it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation in employment and education, respectively. As David Boies, attorney for the plaintiffs in the Prop 8 case, indicated, the DOMA ruling demonstrates that when the issue of gay marriage returns to the high court, “marriage equality will be the law throughout this land.”

When I was in high school, I was harassed on a daily basis for being gay. I was suspended for a week and threatened with arrest because I wore a gay pride t-shirt to school. No state had yet recognized same-sex marriage and sodomy was still criminalized in some parts of the country. My experiences convinced me that I had to take action and stand up for what was right, and shortly after graduating high school, I helped pass Maine’s anti-discrimination bill that outlaws discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity / expression. So much has changed since then. Today’s ruling not only grants over 1,000 federal benefits to married same-sex couples, but is also symbolic of a cultural shift. I think I speak on behalf of millions of other gay and lesbian Americans when I say that I feel very affirmed and proud of who I am and my community. Nothing will ever be the same again.

While the majority’s opinion praised equality and condemned discrimination against gay and lesbian people, Justice Scalia’s homophobic dissent was quite prophetic and I believe he is correct. We haven’t much longer to wait until full equality is realized for LGBT Americans…

“The Court is eager – hungry – to tell everyone its view of the legal question at the heart of this case…Yet the plaintiff and the Government agree entirely on what should happen in this lawsuit. They agree that the court below got it right; and they agreed in the court below that the court below that one got it right as well…As far as this Court is concerned, no one should be fooled; it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe.”