Less than a week before the convention takes over Quicken Loans Arena, the Cleveland City Council Wednesday unanimously approved an update to the city’s antidiscrimination ordinance that will guarantee transgender people can access facilities that correspond with their gender identity.
The revision — which has been hotly debated for three years — specifically bans discrimination based on gender identity or expression, along with numerous other characteristics, in employment and public accommodations (including restrooms). The change approved Wednesday replaces old language that only referred to “protected classes,” without enumerating what those classes were.
I can’t imagine the repubs are all too happy about this, but it’s a great win. Even so, I think I’d be damn careful about using a public facility at the RNC. The Advocate has the full story.
In less pleasant RNC news, Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, and apparently still mighty pissed about being outed, is going to speak. As if people needed yet another reason to hate PayPal.
Gay PayPal cofounder and Facebook board member Peter Thiel is one of the nation’s 300 wealthiest people. He’s also an ardent Donald Trump supporter, so much so that he’s speaking at next week’s Republican National Convention.
Though the convention’s platform is described as the most anti-LGBT in Republican history — with calls for a reversal of marriage equality, restricted bathroom access for trans people, and legalized “conversion” therapy and religious-based discrimination — Thiel was happy to take part in the convention. Thiel will be one of only three openly gay speakers at the event and the first in 16 years, according to The Huffington Post.
[…]
Thiel will be joined at the convention by a calvalcade of anti-LGBT speakers, including Jerry Falwell Jr., Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, and Florida attorney general Pam Bondi. Click here for the full list of speakers. Former presidential nominee Mitt Romney and former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have declined to speak at the event.
Full story at The Advocate.
Why the fuck would a person support those who would gleefully and literally throw him under the bus? I never understand why people vote for those who will do them the most harm, but Thiel is openly promoting those people and policies.
Squee for the pee!
As for the rest, well…
This is also a question I have.
Well, in Thiel’s case, why should he care if everyone else gets tromped on? Dude has serious money, he’s one of the 1%. I’ve never seen any of them give a shit about anyone else.
True.
Why would a transgender person go to the RNC, and how could they get admittance from the likes of Reince Priebus anyway?
I was about to suggest that this might at least do some good for a hypothetical trans_ convention center employee, but then realized that the Repubs would obviously demand segregated accommodations for themselves and the peons as a matter of reflex.
Pierce @ 5:
Caitlyn Jenner. Log Cabin Republicans.
I thought that was a typo. Peter Thief would be a much more apt name, considering how many people have been ripped off by paypal.
So, you can’t bring your gun into the convention, and you might have to share a bathroom with a transgender person.
Why would a Republican go the the RNC?
Is he going to speak before his fellow Repubs execute him for being gay or afterwards?
I’ve been trying to figure out LGBT Republicans -- I don’t have actual statistics, but it seems like most of the ones I’ve been aware of thru news are white gay men, either wealthy or working for influential R politicians (or both), generally wearing nice conservative suits. The best thing I can figure, is they are only concerned about $ and they are under the illusion that wealth (and/or the surface appearance of ‘respectability’) will somehow save them from any unpleasantness of prejudice and anti-LGBT laws. It’s an illusion -- it won’t -- but I think they are self absorbed and foolish enough to believe it.
Patricia @ 10:
Yeah, I agree. I think there’s a desperate desire to fit in, to been seen as ‘normal’. It’s bloody sad, seeing people work against their own interest.