ugh
There's a lot going on, so you might not have heard Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been fucking LGBT people this week with the neck of his Deliverance banjo. This is on top of how the Department of Health and Human Services decided this week not to protect the right of gay marrieds to visit each other in the hospital, for no apparent reason beyond meanness. (Oh, and HHS says employers don't have to cover birth control anymore either! Because why? First of all, because Jesus, and also because the Trump administration has an alarming capacity for fucking LOTS OF DIFFERENT PEOPLE at once.)
In an effort to prove to backwoods dead-ender religious Right types that the Trump regime is willing to throw them red meat occasionally, the Sessions Department of Antebellum Alabammy Justice has spent its week doing the following things to the gays and the BLTs:
Thing One
Remember how the very nice Obama Justice Department issued guidance on transgender folk, saying Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 BY DEFINITION prohibited discrimination based on gender identity, considering how it explicitly bans discrimination based on gender? Courts and a growing body of case law agree with that interpretation! Well, sucks to be you, trans folk, because Sessions has rescinded all that, saying the 1964 law doesn't prohibit discrimination against transgender people " per se ," therefore CONGRATULATIONS, bigoted conservative Christians, Sessions just gave you back your license to hunt trans folk for sport or whatever it is you like to do.
Of course, this doesn't technically have the force of law, as explained by attorney Sharon McGowan of Lambda Legal:
"It's ironic for them to say this is law, and not policy," McGowan told BuzzFeed News. "The memo is devoid of discussion of the way case law has been developing in this area for the last few years. It demonstrates that this memo is not actually a reflection of the law as it is — it's a reflection of what the DOJ wishes the law were."
"The sessions DOJ is trying to roll back the clock and pretend that the progress of the last decade hasn't happened," she added. "The Justice Department is actually getting back in the business of making anti-transgender law in court."
McGowan adds that Sessions's memo here is so poorly written and "weak" that courts will probably LOL at it.
As Quartz points out, this means Sessions's DOJ won't side with trans folk in court now, but the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) still will, so we guess the godly and bigoted attorney general is setting the US government up to fight with itself. The point is he's trying his redneck best to hurt transgender people, and that's what matters.
Buzzfeed reminds us that Sessions has already reversed Obama-era guidance on how to not discriminate against transgender kids, because fuck those kids, that's what Jeff Sessions always says, because he's a drawling piece of shit on the asshole of humanity.
(To be absolutely fair: The Justice Department swears up and down it doesn't want to hurt trans folk and this is just about ZZZZZZZZ the Justice Department's lying is boring us to death ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.)
Thing Two, What Are We, MSNBC Sexy Nerd Daddy Chris Hayes Or Something? Guess So.
Just tell us, Associated Press, for it is Friday and we are weary and low of blood alcohol level:
In an order that undercuts protections for LGBT people, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a sweeping directive to agencies Friday to do as much as possible to accommodate those who claim their religious freedoms are being violated. [...]
Under the new policy, a claim of a violation of religious freedom would be enough to override concerns for the civil rights of LGBT people and anti-discrimination protections for women and others. The guidelines are so sweeping that experts on religious liberty are calling them a legal powder-keg that could prompt wide-ranging lawsuits against the government.
SEE YOU TWAT-BURGLARS IN COURT.
Remember back in May, when Trump gathered a group of the gullible faithful in the Rose Garden to massage their holy G-spots with platitudes about how he was going to fuck the gays in their honor? This is the implementation of that. And while it doesn't EXPLICITLY SAY, "Hey religious people, please feel free to fuck the gays," the religious Right is hearing the message loud and clear, and so is the Human Rights Campaign:
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian law firm, called it “a great day for religious freedom.” The Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT-rights group, called the guidelines an “all-out assault” on civil rights and a “sweeping license to discriminate.”
Reading the guidelines themselves, the dogwhistles are clear. They emphasize that religious freedom is not just for people and religious organizations, but also for businesses -- you know, those things in the public square that aren't supposed to discriminate against people. This just adds a little "UNLESS YOU BELIEVE JESUS HATES FAGGOTS" secret sauce to the ratatouille, along with the message that if your ass gets sued, the Sessions DOJ will be on your side.
Wait, did we just call it a dogwhistle? No, this is a bigot bullhorn:
That's quite a straw man Sessions just murdered with fire! "Constitutional protections for religious liberty are not conditioned upon the willingness of a religious person or organization to remain separate from civil society." As if all the mean gay-genders have been offering the religious folk a binary choice, which is either submit to mandatory gay buttsexing or go live in a hole in the ground, never to be heard from again. This makes clear that, in Trump's America, you can bellyache about your "religious freedom" in education, healthcare (yes, healthcare!), or anywhere else, and if you say Satan will give you wedgies in hell if you are nice to the queers, Sessions has your back.
The Sessions guidance also gives aid and comfort to the new HHS policy we mentioned above, about how the federal government ain't got no right to say whether Hobby Lobby Cakey Bakey Jesus corporations (all conservative Christians are either cake bakers or checkout ladies at Hobby Lobby: SCIENCE FACT) are correct to believe they're going to hell if they provide slut pill insurance for the ladies. DOJ just assumes they are, and if you think Jefferson Butterscotch Sessions is gonna help deliver those Jesus-loving for-profit companies unto the flames, you've got another think comin', city boy.
There Is No Thing Three
We guess there might be, but we think this is enough Jeff Sessions/HHS/Trump regime assfucking for one post, because remember what we said above about our BAC being dangerously low at the moment? Won't be in about an hour!
Happy Friday y'all, and a great big FUCK YOU from the Trump administration! U-S-A! U-S-A!
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[ Buzzfeed / AP / DOJ guidelines ]
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I am officially one upped. Kudos!