Today, as the nation is too consumed with the coronavirus pandemic to mark Equal Pay Day, Lilly Ledbetter, for whom the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed as Barack Obama’s first order of business as President upon taking office 2009, endorsed Joe Biden for President of the United States:
“This is the first time in more than 12 years that I am at home on Equal Pay Day. I’m usually in some part of the country with a huge crowd of women and men who are dedicated to closing the pay gap. Instead I am staying home, watching along with so many other people as the current president shows Americans just how little he cares about working families.
“As Equal Pay Day reminds us, women are paid far less than men. This pandemic is only increasing the inequalities facing women in this country. As the majority of the health care workforce, women are on the frontlines of this crisis, at times putting their own health at risk or separating from their families, while taking care of our country’s sick and vulnerable. And, as this crisis forces women to work from home, work fewer hours, lose their jobs, many at the same time are taking care of their families or trying to teach their kids at home. Yet they still face paycheck discrimination, just like I did so many years ago.
“I know Joe Biden. He understands what it’s like to be a single parent. And, he will fight for equal pay and working women, just as he always has. That’s why I am proud to endorse him to be our next president.”
Ledbetter won a historic gender pay discrimination case against her employer, Goodyear Tire and Rubbery Company, after she was paid less than her male counterparts simply because she was a woman. When the Supreme Court overturned the case, she took her fight to Congress and lobbied for a legislative fix. She is the namesake of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first piece of legislation signed into law during the Obama-Biden Administration.
Equal Pay Day symbolizes how far into 2020 the average woman has to work to make what the average white man made in 2019.For every dollar a man makes, the average woman makes 82 cents. For a woman who works full time, year round, that’s a gap of more than $10,000 annually and over $400,000 over a forty-year career. The pay gap is even wider for women of color.
The pay gap has significant impacts on American families and our economy overall. If women earned as much as men, the poverty rate for working single women and the children who live with them would be cut in half.
Biden for President has previously announced more than 2,500 endorsements from national, state, and local leaders, including current and former U.S. senators and representatives, governors, state elected officials, community leaders, and national security professionals.
Category Archives: Civil Rights
Women’s Marches Are Opening Salvo to 2020 Election
By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com
The Women’s Marches that took place across the country – some 250 of them including Washington DC and New York City – are the opening salvo to the 2020 Election. Make no mistake, this was about voting, realizing that all the issues that they care about hinge on the coming election and not on changing the minds of lawmakers who currently control the levers of power: reproductive freedom and a woman’s right to self-determination; access to the ballot and access to health care; climate action and environmental justice; gun safety and domestic violence; gender equity, sexism and misogyny; discrimination and sexual harassment; immigration reform and human rights. They are all on the ballot this November.
And the Supreme Court and all the courts now dominated by radical right-wing judges that seek to roll back women’s rights, civil rights, voting rights, health-care-is-a-human-right. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg, hold on,” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer declared as the march set off down Columbus Avenue, passed the Trump International Hotel, where the most animated expressions of outrage against Trump and his administration were manifest.
A singular, unifying message emerged: Dump Trump and his henchmen and his enablers.
And a theme for the New York City march organized by Women’s March Alliance (womensmarchalliance.org): Rise & Roar.
(See also: Women’s March 2020: Turnout is Crucial to Rev Up Momentum for 2020 Election)
Here are highlights from the 2020 Women’s March on New York City:
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© 2020 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com, email [email protected]. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures. ‘Like’ us on facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin
Women’s March 2020: Turnout is Crucial to Rev Up Momentum for 2020 Election
By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com
Though it is unlikely that women will re-create the 750,000 who marched on Washington with millions more around the world who turned out in 2017 in the largest single day of protest in history, vastly outnumbering those who came out the day before on the National Mall to watch Trump swear to uphold the Constitution and protect the nation against enemies foreign and domestic, it is crucial that people turn out for the women’s marches in Washington, DC (Meet at Freedom Plaza, 1455 Pennsylvania Ave. at 10 am, womensmarch.com), New York City (at Central Park West & 72nd Street, 11 am, womensmarchalliance.org) and many other cities in 2020, taking place on Saturday, January 18.
The disappointing reality after that first spectacular Women’s March is how little it accomplished. Lawmakers could care less, based on the policies they enacted, including moving so close to repealing Obamacare except for Senator McCain’s last-second vote, and tax policy that discriminated against women’s health, and shifted $1 trillion in resources from infrastructure and services for everyday Americans to the richest 1% and corporations. They could care less for the hundreds of thousands who pleaded for sensible gun laws, or for climate action and environmental protection.
There isn’t even the same buzz as in the 2018 march in Washington and around the country (200,000 attended in New York City, alone) , so much more significant because the protest was less about “converting” lawmakers than mobilizing voter registration, inspiring women to run for elected office, and driving turnout in the November mid-terms. And they did in historic numbers, putting Democrats back in control of the House which put the brakes to the extent possible on the worst impulses of Trump and the Republicans. “I can do whatever I want as president,” Trump declared at a Turning Point event with young Republicans. (After the House Republican majority’s first success in repealing Obamacare in 2017, Trump said, ‘I’m president. Can you believe it?”)
In 2019, tens of thousands marched in New York City, calling for action on a Woman’s Agenda that encompasses everything from pay parity, paid parental leave, affordable child care and pre-K to immigration reform, gun violence prevention, climate action, criminal justice reform – in other words, the gamut of social, political, environmental and economic justice. And yes, reproductive freedom.
During 2019, which opened with Trump declaring a “national emergency” to justify shutting down the federal government in order to extort billions to build his wall, migrants continued to be separated and die in custody, thousands were sent to horrific and dangerous conditions in Mexico; gun violence reached new heights; climate disasters have exploded around the globe; and reproductive freedom has been further constricted.
600,000 women lost birth control coverage last year because of the Trump Administration’s attacks on your healthcare; funding for women’s health clinics has been eliminated and artificial barriers to their operation have forced many to close. The Hyde Amendment which bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortions, serves as a de facto ban for a quarter of low-income women.
Even more is at stake in 2020, when Trump and Trumpism is on the ballot. Over this first term, he has been increasingly emboldened and unbridled, to the point where he believes he can unleash a war while schmoozing on the golf course.
So far, the organizers of this Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington, took out a permit for 10,000.
The women’s movement, inexplicably and yet probably not, has gotten wound up, bogged down and even subverted with other issues – racism, anti-Semitism. Leaders are bending over backwards to show how progressive, how inclusive they are, and moving away from the key issues that women are fighting for.
Women’s issues wind up being about all these other issues because all of them affect women’s ability to have equal opportunity, earn what they deserve in order to provide for their families: war and peace, climate change, living wage, public education, health care, affordable pharmaceuticals, clean air and water, voting rights, gun safety, DACA and immigration reform.
But at the heart of all of them is women’s reproductive rights, under threat as never before by a radical right-wingers in Congress and on the courts determined to disregard law and precedent and overturn Roe v Wade (along with Obamacare) with a Supreme Court that has been shifted radically right because of the illegitimate appointments secured by Trump and Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (along with hundreds of judges throughout the federal court system that are long-lasting bombs to womens rights and civil rights.
The Roe v Wade decision in 1973 ruled that the Constitution protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction – in other words, it was built upon some extrapolation of privacy and property rights, rather than equal protection.
Overturning Roe v Wade would mean that women, unlike men, are not entitled to the same right to self-determination, to make their own judgments and choices for their health, their body, their family or their lives. And like all those other cases that Ginsburg argued as the leading gender rights lawyer for the ACLU before becoming Supreme Court Justice, it would re-establish the systemic barriers to women (not men) to fulfill all their aspirations and abilities. It is as Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democratic candidate for president, said, when women are forced out of the career track, they never get back to where they were if they return at all. This I s the result of unaffordable, inaccessible quality child care and the lack of universal pre-K.
It would essentially make women a subject of the state, forced to give up professional aspirations to care for a child, or spend inordinate amounts of money and resources on child care, put women into poverty because all of these social services are also being tied to work while doing nothing to make childcare affordable, taking away food stamps and school lunch. It’s not one thing, it’s many different elements.
As Justice Ginsburg said, “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”
And the Supreme Court decision would not necessarily mean that the state you live in would determine if you might have access to abortion, which would set up a different category of unequal protection – their ruling could make abortion illegal nationwide by establishing “personhood” rights of a fetus, in which case the fetus would have more rights than its mother.
Women are marching for affordable child care, quality public education, affordable and accessible health care without higher cost for women or for pre-existing conditions (which before Obamacare rendered women of child-bearing age), or lifetime caps on coverage at a time when middle class families are spending 20% of income ($12,000/year) on health insurance, 35 million can’t afford life saving drugs they are prescribed, 30,000 die prematurely because of lack of access to health care, and 500,000 go bankrupt because of medical bills.
Women are marching for environmental justice at a time when the Trump Administration is making it easy for polluters to destroy the air and water producing creating public health issues such as asthma affecting a child’s ability to succeed in school, and worker productivity. It means climate justice at a time when the Trump Administration is actually prosecuting those who would try to reduce carbon emissions (they are trying to prosecute the four auto manufacturers who said they would comply with California’s emissions standards for anti-trust violations), while families are losing their homes, their workplaces and communities have to spend fortune to rebuild after climate disasters.
Women are marching for gun safety so that parents and children don’t have the constant anxiety and school districts and communities don’t have to spend a fortune on security rather than programs that benefit people.
This year’s march may be the most important one, just as the 2020 election is the most important one of our lifetimes (and yes, 2016, as we now know, was the most important election up until this one).
The march is an affirmation, brings like-minded people together, validates our case, and yes, motivates and provides a platform for people to run for office, as in 2018, and win their office.
The march is not about “them” it is about us.
That is why it is so very important to have a strong turnout for this year’s marches, the fourth year in a row, especially in 2020, the centennial of women winning the right to vote, especially in this election year when the nation faces an existential threat from its own government. Women must turn out, and continue the momentum of 2018 into the 2020 election.
Virginia could be the 38th state to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which would make the ERA the 28th amendment to the Constitution, though the opponents argue that the votes by the other 37 states have expired, and we’ll have to go through this entire 60-year process all over again. (Trump’s
The opponents argue there is no reason for an amendment that certifies the equal rights of all people. But based on the policies, laws and lawsuits at the federal and state level, an ERA is more necessary than ever, because as we have seen from the Supreme Court, precedents like Roe v Wade and one-person, one-vote, or equal protection for all are fungible.
This is a crucial year for women to turn out, not allow the momentum of 2018 to be lost, but rev up for the 2020 election.
So whip out those pink pussy hats and march for women’s rights on Saturday, January 18. March as if your ability to determine your own future is at stake.
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© 2020 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com, email [email protected]. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures. ‘Like’ us on facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin
2,500 Long Islanders March Together to Stand Against Anti-Semitism
By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com
I thought it was impressive when a couple of dozen elected officials from state, county and local government came to a Shabbat service at Temple Beth-el of Great Neck to show support for the Jewish community after horrific attacks at a Rabbi’s home in Monsey and a massacre at Jersey City kosher grocery. I was moved by the outpouring of 25,000 mostly Jewish (surprisingly few Orthodox) who marched as a demonstration of Jewish pride and resolution over the Brooklyn Bridge, led by Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, Governor Cuomo and Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul, and faith leaders. But what was truly awesome were the 2500 Long Islanders who marched in a show of solidarity to fight anti-Semitism and hate crimes at the county seat in Mineola, representing just about every aspect, community and culture across the length and breadth of Long Island. Marchers came from across the Island, representing more than 125 religious and community groups.
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran organized the march and rally in solidarity with the Jewish community and against Anti-Semitism in response to horrific attacks in Brookyn, Monsey, and Jersey City, as well as incidents of Anti-Semitic graffiti at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County in Glen Cove. In December, Nassau and Suffolk Counties formed a bi-county coalition that will identify and develop a plan of action to combat and report acts of hate and bias incidents on Long Island. In conjunction with a number of organizations, today’s march marked one of the task force’s inaugural initiatives.
“We organized this march to send a clear message in one voice: Long Islanders of all faiths and backgrounds stand united with our Jewish community and against Anti-Semitism,” said Nassau County Executive Laura Curran.
As Assemblyman Charles Lavine read off the names of participating groups, closing out nearly two hours of speeches (notably very short speeches, that’s how many speakers there were) included on the list: Turkish, Chinese, Indian…
Many of the speakers spoke of bigotry and anti-Semitism as being anathema to American values. But of course, Americans have a Pollyannish notion of this country’s “tolerance,” “acceptance.” The strain of bigotry, hatred and particularly anti-Semitism has always been here, even during World War II. It was muted after the Holocaust, after the US soldiers penetrated the concentration camps and saw, for the first time, that it was not “propaganda” that millions and millions were caged for extermination, that the Final Solution was real. But it was anti-Semitism that kept America from accepting refugees before, during and after the Holocaust, and no coincidence that the Palmer raids of the 1920s targeted Jewish labor leaders and the McCarthy blacklist consisted mainly of Jewish writers and officials.
The “popular” view is that anti-Semitism is back on the rise because working people feel somehow disadvantaged, though the connection eludes me. But here’s what I don’t get: in Nazi Germany, Jews were a convenient scapegoat for the genuine suffering of Germans caught in a Great Depression. That is not the case here in the United States. In fact, we are constantly told that the economy is the strongest in history, unemployment is at a 50-year low.
The rise in anti-Semitism – not just vandalism and nasty remarks but physical violence like the massacres at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg, a synagogue in Poway, California, in Jersey City and the attack at a rabbi’s home in Monsey during a Chanukah celebration, has been quite astonishing. Over 2,000 hate crimes against Jews in 2019. In New York City, according to the New York Police Department, hate crimes against all other groups (Asian, Catholic, Hispanic, Black, Arab, Muslim, LBGTQ) totaled 206; the number directed against Jews, just in the five boroughs? 229.
Speakers referred to the fear that Jews now feel in their own neighborhood, community, college campus. Many Holocaust survivors are being wracked with renewed PTSD, their terrors re-awakened.
Indeed, a study by the American Jewish Committee in October found that 31% of Jews hide the fact they are Jewish; 25 percent avoid certain places, events, situations out of concern for their safety. In America? “We must be proud and not shy away,” said Eric Post, AJC NY Associate Director. “Anti-Semitism is not solely a Jewish problem. It’s an American problem. If not eradicated, it will corrode our fabric.”
There is a difference in today’s anti-Semitism, in that individuals armed with social media or semi-automatic weapons can do horrific damage that before would have required some organization or government sanction. And even if the defense is some sort of mental illness, as in the Monsey case, the question is why the voices compel them to strike out against Jews, what is it in the culture that directs hatred in that way?
But such hate turns out not even to be solely “organic” or a representation of “grassroots” disaffection. Foreign governments, particularly Russia, as well as domestic political factions that are using anti-Semitism, racism and fomenting hate in order to sow division, disrupt and destabilize our society to tilt elections and take power – after all, it worked so well during the 2016 campaign.
Indeed, five of our region’s Congressional representatives – Suozzi, King, Rice, Meeks and Zeldin – are requesting FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel, Homeland Security acting Secretary Chad Wolf and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper conduct an investigation into potential campaigns sponsored by foreign adversaries to cause civil unrest on domestic soil.
“Whether anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, race based or some other form of hate, internal divisions provide an opportunity for our adversaries to exploit and further divide our nation,” the letter states. “We must work together to combat those that exploit ignorance to sow division for their strategic interest.”
The letter also cites a recent FBI study that found the rate of hate crimes increased by 17 percent from 2016 to 2017 but the rate of anti-Semitic crimes increased by 37 percent in 2017 and attacks motivated by racial or ethnical prejudice doubled. The timing since Trump’s ascendancy is not coincidence; Trump has curried the support of racists and bigots and basically green-lighted their activities. No longer is racism and bigotry kept under wraps or in shadow; with Trump it is out in the open.
But to the extent America is a melting pot, that melting pot is the New York metropolitan region – the city and suburbs, especially Long Island. Which is why the dramatic escalation in anti-Semitic hate crimes our area is all the more shocking and terrifying.
Rabbi Meir Feldman, who gave the sermon at Temple Beth-el on that Friday night, had only 72 hours before been at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
“Our question tonight is not why there is anti-Semitism. It is simpler: what is this crazy evil thing, this abnormal force of anti-Semitism?” He shows a cartoon that is displayed at the memorial, an image of a parasite, an insect meant to be walked on but sits on top of the world, in its right eye, a symbol of money, in its left eye a hammer and sickle, the symbols of Capitalist and the communist seemingly contradictory. That is anti-Semitism – hated by both ends, a convenient scapegoat for anybody’s discontent and any politician’s demagoguery.
“Anti-Semitism is an impossible series of contradictions,” he says. “What’s our response? How do we confront and fight this scourge of contradictions?” He says with honesty, unity, solidarity and hope.
“We must call out Anti-Semitism wherever, whenever, reveal it for what it is: insane contradictions. Identify the ideological source – right, left, White Nationalist, Black Nationalist.”
But this is the most significant difference between Germany in the 1930s (where Jews had been living for 1000 years) and now: the vast majority of elected officials are standing up and calling out anti-Semitism, initiating new laws and calling for police enforcement, as they did on Friday night at Temple Beth-el, in the March Against Hate in New York last week, and in this weekend’s extraordinary march and rally on the steps of the Theodore Roosevelt County Building.
And it isn’t just speeches and marches, but actions. Senator Charles Schumer is advocating $360 million more in spending to secure houses of worship and federal assistance to localities to prosecute hate crimes; 298 Representatives have signed on to sponsor the Never Again Education Act to authorize the Secretary of Education to award grants to eligible entities to carry out educational programs about the Holocaust. (It was introduced in the House in January 2019.)
Congressman Tom Suozzi attributed the rise in anti-Semitism to social media which makes it easy to spread and magnify hate, some of it promulgated by foreign adversaries trying to stir up civil unrest. It works because “there is too much ignorance. How many deny the Holocaust or don’t know about it? That is a recipe for disaster.” The US soldiers, he said, who were just two or three months away from liberating the concentration camps were still debating if the Holocaust was real or propaganda. “We must educate.”
The state and county are stepping up prosecution of hate crimes, as well. Governor Cuomo is proposing a domestic terrorism law that encompasses hate crimes, and is seeking resources and security funding for law enforcement and faith based institutions.
State Senator Anna Kaplan has introduced four bills aimed at combating the rising tide of anti-Semitism and hate in New York State, through education, awareness, and a stronger hate crimes statute to ensure prosecutors have the tools necessary to hold accountable those committing anti-Semitic and hate motivated crimes.
“As a Jewish refugee who came to this country fleeing anti-Semitic violence in my homeland, my heart aches over the out-of-control spree of anti-Semitic violence taking place here in New York. I’ve been proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with New Yorkers of all faiths and backgrounds as we have marched in the streets and loudly proclaimed that we will not allow anti-Semitism and hatred to take hold in New York, and today, I’m proud to announce that I am taking concrete steps to address this crisis from every direction.”
Kaplan, the first Persian-American elected State Senator: “We speak with one voice. We are never going to accept anti-Semitism in our community or anywhere. Anti-Semitism has been a plague on society for thousands of years. We have to be the generation that stands up and takes decisive action.”
Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas said, “We see thousands of you shoulder to shoulder, different colors, creeds, faiths, standing with neighbors, community to say ‘Enough.’ Hate is offensive to a nation born of tolerance, and it is criminal. We will work hard to arrest, prosecute, hold offenders accountable. “ She has created a hate crimes bureau. ‘We hope one day soon we won’t need it. We say no to anti-Semitism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, bigotry.”
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, who organized the massive display, said, “Hate has no place on our beautiful island. We have got your back,” and introduced five Holocaust survivors.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone: “this is the one nation on earth where every form of humanity is a citizen… January 27 is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. That date is a reminder, we must stand up, any time we see bias or hate in words or actions.”
Senator Schumer, relating how his great grandmother, along with 30 other relatives aged 3 months to 85 years old, were machine gunned by Nazis in Ukraine, said, “Unfortunately people there didn’t speak up.”
New York State Attorney General Letitia James said, “As an African American, I know hate, know discrimination. An attack against one of us is an attack against all of us… During the civil rights movement, it was Jews who referred to blacks by their last name, not their first; who let Blacks enter the front door, not the back door, Jewish people who died for my people. Not just black blood but Jewish blood [was shed for civil rights]. Hate won’t be tolerated on Long Island or anywhere in the State.”
New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said it is hard to believe how the numbers of anti-Semitic incidents, of hate, violence are going up in the New York metro area. “You being here show that we will not accept this as the new normal. What we take from today, in our homes, workplaces, houses of worship, neighborhoods, that’s where we must fight hate.” Everyone, he said, should see the “Auschwitz: Not Long Ago, Not Far Away” exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (extended until August 30, 2020). “Eli Wiesel warned of the great peril of indifference in the face of hate.”
Dr. Isma Chaudhry, president of the Islamic Center of Long Island, which turned out in force for the march, said, ‘What I see today is a strong Long Island. As a Muslim, our moral obligation to stand by humanity suffering in pain, prosecution of hatred, discrimination. We stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters in solidarity… Nassau is making history by this strong statement of solidarity of diverse communities.”
Kevin Thomas, the first Indian-American elected State Senator, holding his 13-month old daughter: “My community stands with the Jewish community” adding, we need to teach our children when they are young.
Assemblyman Tony D’Urso’s family is a model of the courage that it takes. When he was just a boy, Nazis took over his village in Italy. His father protected the only two Jewish families who lived in the village, hiding them in the mountains when others would have happily given them up for a little money or food.
Probably most touching was Linda Beigel Schulman, whose son Scott was a teacher-coach when he was murdered in the massacre at Parkland school in 2018. She noted that the target of his killer was a history class teaching about the Holocaust.
“We held a celebration of his life at the temple where Scott was bar mitzvahed. The rabbi asked if I wanted any security. I said ‘Why?’ Six days later, a gunman massacred Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue, simply because they were Jewish.”
Schulman’s father was a Holocaust survivor and when she taught in Germany 1977-9, “I feared telling people I was a Jew. But living in Louisiana, a woman asked me, ‘where do you hide your horns.’ Her husband attended NYU; his roommate moved out when he discovered he was Jewish.
“I know why I am here today, why we all must be here, to have our voices heard. Over 2,000 anti-Semitic incidents in 2019 – gestures, name-calling, painting swastikas, toppling headstones, physical attacks and murder, merely because a person is Jewish or believed to be. Anti-Semitism is like a virus infecting, sometimes killing its host. The body tries to fight it off, but it lies dormant, and rears up again. If we allow anti-Semtiism to take hold in the United States, it will destroy the fiber that holds us together. E Plubus Unum – out of many, one. Without that motto is tribalism and ‘me first’.
“We need to become the best society we can. We the people are the antidote. It doesn’t matter if Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or no religion, Asian American, Hispanic, Italian, African American, whether citizen or immigrant, if you came by airplane, ship or on foot. We are the antidote to wipe out anti-Semitism once and for all. Our voices must be heard. Silence only brings acceptance and gives anti-Semitism the fuel it needs to spread.”
Assemblyman Charles Lavine, who served as the emcee for the event, said, “For generations, tragedy after tragedy, Jews have been saying “Am Yisrael Chai” – the people of Israel live. It is time for us all Americans to stand together, united to say, Am America Chai. These are the stakes.”
Here is a list of the elected officials, community and faith leaders who participated in Long Island’s march against Anti-Semitism:
- Nassau County Executive Laura Curran and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone
- Chuck Schumer, Senator
- Letitia James, State Attorney General
- Tom Suozzi, Congressman
- Peter King, Congressman
- Kathleen Rice, Congresswoman
- Tom Di Napoli, State Comptroller
- Todd Kaminsky, State Senator
- Kevin Thomas, State Senator
- Anna Kaplan, State Senator
- Jim Gaughran, State Senator
- John Brooks, State Senator
- Chuck Lavine, Assemblyman
- Judy Griffin, Assemblywoman
- Mike LiPetri, Assemblyman
- Michelle Solages, Assemblywoman
- Madeline Singas, NC Distirct Attorney
- Jack Schnirman, NC Comptroller
- Don Clavin, Town of Hempstead Supervisor
- Anthony D’Esposito, TOH Councilman
- Charles Berman, Town of North Hempstead Tax Reciever
- Wayne Wink, ToNH Clerk
- Peter Zuckerman, ToNH Councilman
- Veronica Lurvey, ToNH Councilwoman
- Viviana Russell, ToNH Councilwoman
- Debra Mule, County Legislator
- William Gaylor, County Legislator
- Thomas Mckevitt, County Legislator
- Delia Deriggi-Whitton, County Legislator
- Ellen Birnbaum, County Legislator
- Richard Nicolello, President Officer of County Legislature
- Tim Tenke, Mayor Glen Cove
- Marsha Silverman, Councilwoman – Glen Cove
- Eve Lipenko-Ferrante, Councilwoman – Glen Cove
- Danielle Fugazy-Scagliola, Councilwoman – Glen Cove
- John Perron, Councilman – Glen Cove
- Rocco Totino, Councilman – Glen Cove
Faith organizations and other groups
- Chabad of Mineola
- Chabad of Hewlett
- Chabad of Oceanside
- Chabad of Port Washington
- Chabad of Manhasset
- Chabad of Merrick
- Chabad of West Hempstead
- Chabad of Oyster Bay-East Norwich
- Chabad of Brookville
- Chabad of Great Neck
- Chabad of Stony Brook
- Chabad of 5 Towns
- The Young Israel of Woodmere
- Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst
- Temple Israel of Lawrence
- Sid Jacobson JCC
- Barry and Florence Friedberg JCC
- The Marion & Aaron Gural JCC
- Suffolk Y JCC
- 5 Towns Jewish Center
- East Meadow Jewish Center and Temple Beth-El
- Congregation Simchat HaLev
- Interfaith Clergy Council of Syosset, Woodbury & Jericho
- Temple Am Echad of Lynbrook
- Islamic Center of Five Towns
- Hillside Islamic Center
- Temple B’nai Torah
- Central Synagouge Beth Emeth
- North Shore Synagouge
- Plainview Jewish Center
- Temple Beth Chai
- Reconstructionist Synagouge of the North Shore
- Shelter Rock Jewish Center
- Cathedral of the Incarnation & the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island
- The Muslim Center of Long Island
- Oceanside Jewish Center
- Temple Or Elohim
- Temple Avodah
- Old Westbury Hebrew Congregations
- Synagouge Kehillas Bais Yehudah Tzvi
- Congregational Church of South Hempstead
- United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
- Christian Light Missionary Baptist Church of Long Beach
- Tiberian Baptist Church of Queens
- New Hope Institutional Baptist Church of Amityville
- Union Baptist Church of Hempstead
- Kingdom Family Ministry of Uniondale
- Zion Cathedral Church of God in Christ of Freeport
- First Baptist Church of Glen Cove
- Antioch Baptist Church of Hempstead
- South Hempstead Baptist Church
- Miracle Christian Center of Hempstead
- Westbury AME Zion Church
- Mount Calvary Baptist Church of Westbury
- Bethany Seventh-Day Adventist Church of Westbury
- First Baptist Cathedral of Westbury
- Ahavat Shalom Synagogue
- Temple Sinai of Roslyn
- Dioceses of Rockville Centre
- Shuvah Yisrael Messianic Synagogue
- Temple Beth Torah or Melville
- Achiezer
- Muslim Community Center of Nassau County
- Anti-Racism Project
- African American Museum of Nassau County
- Moms Demand Action
- Chinese Center of Long Island
- NAACP Westbury Branch
- Selfhelp Community Services
- Western Nassau Sisterhood of Salam Sholem
- Islamic Circle of NA-Sisters Wing
- Muslim Children of North America
- Indian American Muslim Council
- Federation of American Indian Relief
- Muslim Community of Nassau County MCNC
- Zionist Organization of America
- Nassau Now
- Erase Racism
- East Meadow Public Library
- Voices for Truth and Humanity
- LI Chapter of Friends of Israel – Scouts
- Suffolk Jewish Advisory Board
- Interfaith Allicance, Long Island Chapter
- Long Island Board of Rabbis
- Commonpoint Queens
- Merrick-Bellmore Jewish Community Council
- Hadassah Nassau
- Yashar, the Attorney and Judges’ Chapter of Hadassah
- Women’s Diversity Network
- Turkish Cultural Center of LI
- Muslim American Community of Syosset
- Zionist Organization of America
- Jewish Lawyers Associations of Nassau
- Kiwanis International and Long Island Kiwanis Clubs
- Long Island Inclusive Communities Against Hate
- Nostrand Gardens Civic Association
- The Lakeview Estates Civic Association
- New York Board of Rabbis
- Shomrim Society of Nassau
- Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island
- Hewlett House
- Nassau/Suffolk BBYO
- Long Island Cares
- Muslim American Community of Syosset
- NY Metro Region of the Federtion of Jewish Men’s Clubs
- the Long Island Latino Teachers Association
- Long Island Torah Network
- Raising Voices USA
- 9/11 Calling of the Names Ceremony Organizers
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© 2020 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go towww.news-photos-features.com, email [email protected]. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures. ‘Like’ us on facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin
25,000 Turn Out for ‘No Hate, No Fear’ Solidarity March Against Anti-Semitism in NYC; Cuomo, Schumer Announce Actions to Combat Hate Crimes
By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com
It took more than 2 ½ hours before all the marchers standing against Anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry got across the Brooklyn Bridge from Foley Square – an estimated 25,000 marching behind Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill DeBlasio, and a slew of state and local leaders, marching in solidarity with Michael Miller, Executive VP & CEO of Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA Federation of NY, the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Congress, NY Board of Rabbis, and faith leaders across Brooklyn Bridge, with a singular message: “No Fear, No Hate”.
The political leaders did not just come to give speeches and march, but to take action.
Senator Schumer said Congress would quadruple federal funding to $360 million to help places of worship increase security – video cameras, doors, hired guards, and $100 million to coordinate with local police to act more effectively to prosecute hate crimes.
“America has a culture of diversity and tolerance. Anti-Semitism and bigotry is a national crisis…We will not stand for bigotry of any type,” Schumer said. “We will not only speak and march, but act.”
Governor Cuomo also announced $45 million in additional funding to protect New York’s religious-based institutions, including parochial and private schools and cultural centers. He said that there would be increased state police patrols in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods across the state, and has created a new state police tip line for people to report incidents (1-877-NO-HATE-NY). Also, Cuomo said he would introduce legislation to elevate hate crimes to the level of domestic terrorism, and prosecuted as such.
Funding is being made available through Requests for Applications under New York’s Securing Communities Against Hate Crimes Grant Program. Created by Governor Cuomo in 2017, the program provides funding to strengthen security measures and prevent hate crimes against non-profit day care centers, community centers, cultural museums, day camps andnon-public schools,which may be vulnerable because of their ideology, beliefs or mission. Since the program’s inception, more than 500 such projects have been supported by $25 million in state funding. The Governor also announced the creation of a new tip line that New Yorkers should call if they experience bias or discrimination – 1-877-NO-HATE-NY. Additionally, the Governor announced that State Police will continue increased patrols and security in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods across the state.
“The recent rash of anti-Semitic and other hate-fueled attacks in New York and across the nation are understandably causing anxiety, but we will not be intimidated,” Governor Cuomo said.”In New York we stand up to those who try to sow division and fear, and this new funding will provide religious and cultural institutions the support they need to help protect themselves and keep people safe. We will not let the cancer of hate and intolerance weaken us – we will continue to stand up and denounce it every time it rears its ugly head.”
Hate crime statistics indicate a surge of anti-Semitism and hate crimes against the Jewish community, nationally and in New York. Nearly half of all hate crimes in New York over the last several years have been against the Jewish community. Last year, more than half the hate crimes recorded in New York City, 229 (a modern city record, up from 185 in 2018) were recorded against Jews – and these statistics do not include hate crimes directed at Jews outside the five-boroughs, such as the the slashing of five people attending a Chanukah service in a rabbi’s home in Monsey, NY. The October 27, 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and the recent terror attack at a kosher market in Jersey City, New Jersey, in which a local Yeshiva and Catholic school faced gunfire, underscore the need to protect Jewish institutions from violent extremism and anti-Semitism.
The grants, which will be directed by the New York State Division of the Budget, provide up to $50,000 in funding for additional security training, cameras, door-hardening, improved lighting, state-of-the-art technology and other related security upgrades at each eligible facility. Organizations that operate more than one facility have the opportunity to submit up to five applications.
The program provides funding to strengthen security measures and prevent hate crimes against non-profit day care centers, community centers, cultural museums, day camps andnon-public schools,which may be vulnerable because of their ideology, beliefs or mission. Since the program’s inception, in 2017, more than 500 such projects have been supported by $25 million in state funding.
The Hate Crimes Task Force was created last year to mitigate recent incidents of bias-motivated threats, harassment and violence in New York. As part of the Task Force, New York State Police, the Division of Human Rights and the Division of Criminal Justice Services engage local stakeholders and law enforcement agencies, and work to identify and investigate hate-motivated crimes and bias-related trends, community vulnerabilities and discriminatory practices.
The Governor also announced the creation of a new tip line that New Yorkers should call if they experience bias or discrimination – 1-877-NO-HATE-NY. Additionally, the Governor announced that State Police will continue increased patrols and security in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods across the state.
“I’m heartened to see this amazing show of support and solidarity,” the Governor said at a press conference before the march. “Literally over 10,000 people have shown up to show support and love for the Jewish community. And that’s New York at her best. And it’s fitting. Because what has happened in Brooklyn, what has happened in Monsey, New York was an attack on every New Yorker. And every New Yorker has felt the pain. Discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism is repugnant to every value that every New Yorker’s holds dear. And it’s repugnant to every value that this country represents. Racism and anti-Semitism is anti-American and we have to remember that.
“It is ignorant of our history because to know the history of the Jewish community is to love and appreciate the Jewish community because New York would not be New Yorker without the Jewish community. It is intolerant of who we are as a people. It’s intolerant of our diversity and our humanity and it is also illegal. And while we’re here today in the spirit of solidarity and love, government must do more than just offer thoughts and prayers, government must act. This is illegal and it is government’s responsibility to protect the people of the State of New York and the State government will be doing just that. As soon as the Legislature comes back I’m going to propose a new law for the State of New York that calls this hate what it is – it is domestic terrorism. These are terrorists and they should be punished as such. We’re going to increase the State Police force and the Hate Crimes Task Force so we have more State Police in vulnerable communities.
“We are going to work with schools all across the state to make sure our young people are educated on our history and our diversity and the strength of that diversity. We’ll be working with faith leaders, because from every pulpit, every podium to every congregation in this state, we have to be condemning these acts.
“And today the state is going to make an additional $45 million available to non-public schools and religious institutions for security. We also ask every New Yorker to be involved in this crusade today. And if any New Yorker has any information about a possible attack or an attack that has happened, we ask them to be active and to help us thwart these attacks. We have a 1-800 number – 1-877-NO-HATE-NY. If you have any information, we have that tip line open, let’s all stand together and united.
“These acts of hate may not have started in New York – we’ve seen them across the nation – but these acts of hate must stop and end in the State of New York, and that’s New York at her best. Everyone today says the same thing: No hate in our state, period. We won’t tolerate it, we condemn it, we stand united against it and we are going to act against it. Let’s march.”
Here are more photo highlights from the Solidarity March:
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© 2020 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go towww.news-photos-features.com, email [email protected]. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures. ‘Like’ us on facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin
Politicos, Officials, City Workers Join WorldPride NYC 2019 March
By Karen Rubin, News& Photo Features
What a difference 50 years makes – from the Stonewall Uprising when the forces of government were marshaled against the gay and lesbian community, to today, when government officials and even members of New York City’s Police Department, flocked to take part in WorldPride NYC 2019, the largest Pride event in history.
US State Senator Charles Schumer, with his familiar bullhorn, declared,, “I was the first US Senator to march, and I won’t be the last.”
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, revved up the crowd to chant “ERA, ERA” and Congressmembers Jerry Nadler and Nydia Velazquez joined the parade.
New York State officials were there in force, including Governor Andrew Cuomo, who appropriately crowed about the gains a progressive legislature accomplished, NYS’s first black woman Attorney General Leticia James, Comptroller Thom DiNapoli, and a score of state senators and assemblymembers..
Governor Cuomo did not come empty-handed: he used the occasion to sign into law legislation banning the gay and trans panic legal defense (S3293/A2707), fulfilling his pledge to ensure nobody uses this abhorrent legal defense strategy in the State of New York. The Governor signed the measure, a key component of his 2019 Justice Agenda, on WorldPride and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. The Governor also vowed to double down next legislative session on his campaign to legalize gestational surrogacy, which the Assembly failed to take up this year.
“The gay and trans panic defense is essentially a codification of homophobia and transphobia, and it is repugnant to our values of equality and inclusion,” Governor Cuomo said at a press conference on the street before joining the parade. “This defense strategy isn’t just offensive – it also sends a dangerous message that violence toward LGBTQ people is somehow OK. It’s not, and today we’re sending this noxious legal tool to the dustbin of history where it belongs.”
NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio, who is running for the Democratic Nomination for president, marched with the city’s First Lady Chirlane McCray.There were also the NYC Comptroller Scott M. Stringer with his family, Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams, members of the City Council including Speaker Corey Johnson,
There were contingents from just about every city agency, from Sanitation to Transportation, the Department of Social Services, to the Bar Association and teachers.
“In the month of June, we celebrated 50 years of Pride here in New York State and around the world,” stated New York’s Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul. “We marched in parades from Buffalo to Albany, and finished the month with World Pride in New York City this past weekend.
“We celebrated how far the LGBTQ+ community has come since the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, and reflected on the progress we still have to make.
“Throughout this legislative session over the last six months, we made history. GENDA is now the law of the land, ensuring permanent protections for transgender New Yorkers. Young people are now protected from the barbaric practice of conversion therapy. Finally, with the stroke of a pen, we ended the legalized hatred that was once allowed by the gay and trans ‘panic’ defense.
“I am always proud to stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community and continue the fight for equality.”
Here are more highlights:
See more photos:
Record Numbers Turn Out for WorldPride NYC 2019, A Celebration of Pride & Joy
See also:
At WorldPride NYC Parade, NYS Governor Cuomo Signs Law Banning Gay, Trans Panic Legal Defense
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© 2019 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com, email [email protected]. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures. ‘Like’ us on facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin
Record Numbers Turn Out for WorldPride NYC 2019, A Celebration of Pride & Joy
By Karen Rubin, News& Photo Features
They came together in celebration, not anger or fear. The common thread among the 150,000 who marched, coming from around the world and across the country, and the estimated 2.5 million who watched along the WorldPride NYC 2019 parade route: Free to be me.
The parade, which took eight hours to complete and was estimated to be the largest Pride event in history, was particularly poignant, honoring the 50th anniversary since the Stonewall Uprising, which are considered the trigger to the modern LGBTQ movement.
Jim Foray, among the Grand Marshals at the parade, was there that night. He was living just a block away and recalled the Stonewall as a “sleazy bar where we were grateful and exploited.” The bar, reputedly owned by the Mafia, was regularly raided by the police.
What a difference 50 years has made, noted Julian Sanjivan, NYC Pride March Director. “They had no way of knowing what the next 50 years would bring, no way to know they were starting a global movement, changing hearts and minds everywhere.” And who could have expected an openly gay and married man, a mayor from South Bend, Indiana, Peter Buttigieg, running for President.
Fear and loathing has given way to pride and joy.
Five Grand Marshals lead both the 50th NYC Pride March: the cast of POSE, represented by Dominique Jackson (Elektra), Indya Moore (Angel), and MJ Rodriguez (Blanca); Phyll Opoku-Gyimah; Gay Liberation Front; The Trevor Project and Monica Helms.
Phyll Opoku-Gyimah is the nucleus of the award-winning celebration and protest that is UK Black Pride. Widely known as Lady Phyll – partly due to her decision to reject an MBE in the New Year’s Honours’ list, to protest Britain’s role in formulating anti-LGBTQ+ penal codes across its empire – she is a senior official at the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) trade union as the Head of Equality and Learning. She’s a community builder and organizer; a Kaleidoscope Trust Trustee; an Albert Kennedy Trust patron; Diva Magazine columnist, and public speaker focusing on race, gender, sexuality and class.
Gay Liberation Front was the very first LGBTQ activist organization formed after the Stonewall Rebellion. The courageous members of GLF fought to give political shape and direction to a whole new generation of LGBTQ militancy that spread with unprecedented vigor and impact across the nation and the world.
The Trevor Project is the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people. The organization works to save young lives by providing support through free and confidential programs, including TrevorLifeline, TrevorText, and TrevorChat. They also run TrevorSpace, the world’s largest safe space social networking site for LGBTQ youth, and operate innovative education, research, and advocacy programs.
Monica Helms is a transgender activist, author, and veteran of the United States Navy, having served on two submarines. She is also the creator of the Transgender Pride Flag, in 1999, and subsequently donated the original flag to the Smithsonian Institution in 2014.
It was indeed a demonstration of world pride – there were marchers from Copenhagen, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Portugal, Australia, Holland, and so many other places.
American cities and states were represented as well, from coast to coast and in between – from Palm Beach and Orlando to Palm Springs, San Francisco and Venice (California), Austin to Washington DC, Brooklyn, Boston, even Native American tribes.
Here are highlights from the WorldPride NYC 2019:
A clear sign of the changing times was the outpouring of elected and government officials who joined the march. New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo used the occasion to sign into law legislation banning the gay and trans panic legal defense, a key component of his 2019 Justice Agenda,.
See also:
At WorldPride NYC Parade, NYS Governor Cuomo Signs Law Banning Gay, Trans Panic Legal Defense
See next: Officials Join WorldPride NYC Parade 2019
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© 2019 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go towww.news-photos-features.com, email [email protected]. Blogging atwww.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures. ‘Like’ us onfacebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin
At WorldPride NYC Parade, NYS Governor Cuomo Signs Law Banning Gay, Trans Panic Legal Defense
By Karen Rubin, News& Photo Features
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo did not come empty-handed to the WorldPride NYC 2019 parade, perhaps the largest LGBTQIA+ Pride event in history: Cuomo used the occasion to sign into law legislation banning the gay and trans panic legal defense (S3293/A2707), fulfilling his pledge to ensure nobody uses this abhorrent legal defense strategy in the State of New York. The Governor signed the measure, a key component of his 2019 Justice Agenda, on WorldPride and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. The Governor also vowed to double down next legislative session on his campaign to legalize gestational surrogacy, which the Assembly failed to take up this year.
“The gay and trans panic defense is essentially a codification of homophobia and transphobia, and it is repugnant to our values of equality and inclusion,” Governor Cuomo said at a press conference on the street before joining the parade. “This defense strategy isn’t just offensive – it also sends a dangerous message that violence toward LGBTQ people is somehow OK. It’s not, and today we’re sending this noxious legal tool to the dustbin of history where it belongs.”
At a press conference before joining the parade, Governor Cuomo said, “What a great, great day this is. New York is so proud. New York is so, so, so proud to host WorldPride.
“New Yorkers are just New Yorkers. Look, all New Yorkers should be very proud because New York has always been the home of the LGBTQ equality movement, always. It all started here. It started at Stonewall, it started when we hosted the first Pride Day ever. And we’ve kept that legacy alive. This is the leading State in the United States of America for LGBTQ equality. And we don’t just say it, we do it. We prove it here in New York.
“What was the first state to address AIDS and announce the goal of ending AIDS as an epidemic? New York. What was the first state to end discrimination against transgender people? New York. What was the first big state to pass marriage equality and send a message across the nation? New York. What was the first state to pass GENDA and end discrimination against transgender people? New York. What was the first state to ban conversion therapy? New York.
“And today, we’re going to sign a bill that ends the codification of homophobia. Because we have now as a law in this state, something called the gay and trans panic defense. That a person can argue – they were so emotionally disturbed when they found out a person was gay or trans that that is actually a justification or an excuse for murder. Not in this state. We are going to – not in this state. Not in this state. Not in this state. Not in this state. Not in this state. And we are going to end the gay and transpanic defense and we are going to do it right now. I will sign this now and end this law. It is now over.
“Congratulations, New York. Let’s lead once again.”
The gay and trans panic defenses allow those accused of violent crimes against LGBTQ people to receive a lesser sentence, and in some cases, avoid conviction, by placing the blame on a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The passage of this bill would close a loophole in state law that currently allows individuals to use the gay and trans panic defenses after attacking another person based upon a perception, or discovery of, that victim’s gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
Senator Brad Hoylman said,”By banning the so-called gay and trans panic defense, New York is sending a message to prosecutors, defense attorneys, juries and judges that a victim’s LGBTQ identity shouldn’t be weaponized against them. I’m proud to be a member of a legislature that protects the rights of LGBTQ New Yorkers and thank Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins and Assemblymember O’Donnell for their leadership on this critical issue. As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, I am extremely grateful to Governor Cuomo for signing this critical piece of legislation into law and look forward to continuing to work with him to make New York a more inclusive, equitable home for the LGBTQ community.”
Delores Nettles said, “In 2013, my daughter Islan was killed in Harlem for being who she was. Her attacker used the discriminatory ‘trans panic’ defense. I am so grateful that New York is banning this legislation so that no mother has to go through this again. We must keep fighting so that all trans people can live free from violence and discrimination. Thank you to Governor Cuomo for advocating tirelessly for this bill and for signing it into law today.”
“Banning the “gay and trans panic” defense in New York is an important and long overdue step toward treating the LGBTQ community equitably,” Ethan Rice, Senior Attorney, Fair Courts Project at Lambda Legal. “LGBTQ people in New York should never have to experience violence. When it happens, LGBTQ people certainly should not be faced with blame for this violence. These “defenses” have no place in our justice system. Lambda Legal commends the Governor for signing this bill today and for his ongoing advocacy on behalf of the LGBTQ community.”
Glennda Testone, Executive Director of NYC’s LGBT Community Center said, “New York State government has taken another great step in the right direction, legally halting some enduring elements of homophobia and transphobia ingrained in our society. After establishing marriage equality, passing GENDA and ending conversion therapy in our state, Governor Cuomo showed that he is not done fighting for LGBTQ equality, and neither are we. We thank him for taking the gay and trans panic defense out of New York’s court system and for his commitment to equal rights for all people.”
“Using an individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender as a defense for violent behavior is abhorrent and will not stand in the State of New York,” Harlem Pride and The NYC Black and Latino LGBTQ Coalition said. “We applaud Governor Cuomo for his leadership and dedication to protecting the LGBTQ community and closing the legal loophole keeping this archaic practice in place.”
Guillermo Chacon, president of the Latino Commission on AIDS and founder of Hispanic Health Network said,”As we celebrate LGBT Pride and the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall uprising we recognize that outlawing the gay and trans panic defense is long overdue in New York. We appreciate that this legislation will be signed to ensure this can never happen again and that people impacted by homophobia and transphobia are no longer taking the blame for this antiquated loophole. We thank Governor Cuomo for advancing this important issue and I look forward to him signing this law to increase protections for the LGBTQ community.”
Rod Townsend, Community Leader said, “A person’s gender identity or sexual orientation is never a justifiable reason for violent attack, and Governor Cuomo closes the loophole in state law that allowed for it in cases of first degree murder today. We look forward to seeing justice for individuals impacted by these crime and will fight to further limit the use of this appalling “blame the victim” strategy in cases of violence against LGBTQ people everywhere.”
Amanda Babine, Director of Policy & Programs at the New York Transgender Advocacy Group said,”Banning the ‘gay and trans panic’ defense was a huge win for the LGBTQI community, especially for our Transgender, Gender-Non-Conforming, & Non-Binary siblings. This year alone, ten Transgender women of color have been found dead, one right here in New York. The New York Transgender Advocacy Group stands with pride next to Governor Cuomo as he continues to be a champion for the LGBTQI community here in New York State.”
Brooke Malloy, Executive Director, Rockland County Pride Center said, “New Yorkers do not tolerate hate. We are a state of love and inclusion, and hold firm to our belief in equality for every person. The fact that there ever was a legal defense for crimes committed against the LGBTQ community, specifically based on their actual or perceived gender identity or sexual orientation is disgusting. Thank you to Governor Cuomo for his leadership in ending this abhorrent law, and for always speaking up and protecting LGBTQ New Yorkers.”
Kelly Metzgar, Executive Director, Adirondack North Country Gender Alliance said,”New York State prides itself on being an inclusive, progressive state, where every person can feel safe and welcome. With his work to end the gay and trans panic defense, Governor Cuomo continues to ensure that everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, receives equal protection under New York State law. I wish to personally thank Governor Cuomo, on behalf of residents in the Adirondack North Country for his relentless work to defend the rights of all who call this beautiful state our home.”
Christopher Goodwin, Supervisor of The MOCHA Center Rochester said, “We at The MOCHA Center and Trillium Health applaud Governor Cuomo for taking swift, progressive action to protect and uphold the rights of LGBTQ New Yorkers. Thanks to his efforts, a dangerous loophole rooted in hate has been erased from our criminal justice system. The gay and trans panic defense should never have been allowed. LGBTQ New Yorkers are grateful that we can now feel safer knowing that we are one step closer to having our lives equally valued and represented under the law.”
Jeff Rindler, Executive Director, Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center said, “This revision to our legal system has been long overdue. The human rights of LGBTQ New Yorkers are non-negotiable, and now this hateful excuse will no longer be a permissible defense for homophobic and transphobic hate crimes, which are on the rise. For transgender women of color who experience higher rates of violence, this law is the next step in solidifying protections for our community. I applaud and thankGovernor Cuomo and all the advocates and legislators who worked tirelessly to pass this legislation.”
Kelsey Louie, CEO, GMHC said, “The beginning of the Stonewall rebellion was in New York City and it was in reaction to hate-fueled actions. Fifty years have passed since the beginning of our LGBT rights movement and New York has been a model for LGBT equality, setting a national standard that the rest of the country must follow. We thank Governor Cuomo for closing a loophole which permitted the murder of gay and trans New Yorkers due to their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. This ensures that justice will be served for LGBTQ New Yorkers who are the victims of homophobia and transphobia.”
Kristen Prata Browde, Board President, LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York and Co-Chair Board of Directors, National Trans Bar Association said,”This shows the kind of change that good government can and should bring. Banning the trans and gay panic defense is a huge step towards equality for LGBTQ New Yorkers. Governor Cuomo not only recognized the absurdity of giving someone a lesser sentence or even a pass after murdering someone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, he fought hard for the ban. As the Governor signs the bill he is once again showing that New York truly is a beacon to the world and to every LGBTQ person.”
The Governor also released a new video for social media featuring Delores Nettles, the mother of Islan Nettles, a transgender woman who was brutally murdered in Harlem in 2013 and whose assailant used the gay and trans panic legal defense in court. Watch the video here.
Sanders Spotlights His Humble Roots, Early Activism in 2020 Campaign Rally in Brooklyn
By Karen Rubin, News& Photo Features
Bernie Sanders held his first major rally of his 2020 campaign for president on the campus of Brooklyn College, just a few miles from where he grew up in a 3 ½-room rent-controlled apartment, and where he attended his first year of college. As many as 7,000 people crammed in to see him on Saturday, March 2 – like the 2016 campaign, mostly young people. Judging by the enthusiasm, The Burn is back.
While the agenda now has become pretty standard fare for all the Democrats running for President – universal health care, lower drug prices, gun safety, immigration reform, climate action – and while others have emphasized the need to restore civility to political discourse (in contrast to the crass vitriol that constantly spews from Trump), what was decidedly different about Bernie is his willingness to name names, to take on the corporatists and the billionaires: Amazon and Jeff Bezos, Netflix, Disney, General Motors.
In some ways, Bernie, while taking credit for the leftward shift of the Democrats’ platform, needs to stand out – and this is his way. He also seems intent to correct any missteps from the 2016 campaign. This time around he is emphasizing his humble origins whose father migrated from Poland on his own at age 17 with “not 5 cents in his pocket, not speaking English” to escape crushing poverty and anti-Semitism and make a better life. He described a hard-scrabble life, appreciating full well the stress and anxiety of 800,000 government workers furloughed by the record-long Trump shutdown, who live paycheck to paycheck, at the mercy of employers.
The campaign emphasized his early years as an activist, protesting against housing discrimination and horrible public schools for Chicago’s black children – but he was too modest during the 2016 to focus much attention on his early activism on behalf of civil rights. This time around, Nina Turner, who heads Our Revolution, put Bernie on the same pedestal as Martin Luther King, Jr., and journalist/activist Shaun King connected him with Black Lives Matter.
This time, Sanders also made certain to include issues that concern women on a long “to do” list: child care and women’s reproductive rights.
Taking to the podium to introduce her husband, Jane Sanders declared, “I’m honored to be his wife – that might not be politically correct to say, but it’s one of my greatest honors of my life.”
She added, “Today is only the beginning. not a moment, but a movement.”
But as Bernie is forced to differentiate himself from the rest of the dozens of Democrats who are running, most of whom are championing the same agenda, he has to go even further than he did, and that may well turn off centrists, moderates and independents, and fall right into the hands of Trump and his minions who are made to turn against the notion of affordable, accessible health care and pharmaceuticals as some kind of Communist takeover. Imagine, as Trump told CPAC, “taking away private insurance from 180 million people,” banning beef, airplanes, indeed, individual liberty.
And don’t Democrats want as their #1 priority to have a candidate who can beat Trump? Which means not just the hard-left and youth who still only vote at a dismal 39% rate and are easily made too peeved to bother, but centrists, moderates, independents, who might be put off by being branded a Socialist and not the European-style Democratic Socialist (which have universal health care, parental leave, child care) but the Venezuelan kind, especially with such radical talk of a federally guaranteed job and a Green New Deal?
“Every card carrying American who loves their Social Security, public schools, roads, police, and fire services will love their Medicare for All. Labels don’t define us, we come together around issues – Medicare for All; free college,” a campaign worker noted.
“Bernie believes another world is possible, that in a modern developed world, people don’t die for lack of access to medical care. The issues are not blue or red, they are human rights.”
In actuality, the Republicans have portrayed every liberal as a Socialist with images of work camps and everyone collecting the same wage – including Obama, Hillary Clinton, Edward Kennedy.
Why choose Sanders? “He’s been consistent for 30 years. He’s been there for 30 years and knows where the next steps are.”
I remark to a young fellow as we are crammed into a subway car after Bernie’s rally at Brooklyn College, how it is that with 30 years in Congress, Sanders has very little to show in the way of accomplishing the lofty goals he set out in 2016 and again for his 2020 campaign, and question how he would he be more successful as a president, given the obstructions Obama faced from a Republican minority willing to use ruthless tactics. His reply? Sanders’ success has been to inspire a revolution at the grassroots – look at what has happened in localities and at the state level. He alone among the Democrats who now all champion the same ideals of social, political, economic and environmental justice, has inspired such local activism.
Here are highlights from Sanders’ speech:
“Thank you for being part of the revolution, part of the campaign that will not just win the Democratic nomination and defeat Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history, but with your help, will transform the country and finally create an economy and a government which works for all.
“The underlying principle of government will not be greed, hatred, racism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry, tax breaks for billionaires and efforts to take millions off health care. This campaign will end all that.
“The principles of our government are based on justice: economic, social, racial, environmental justice. Tell the insurance companies we will have Medicare for All, say to Pharmaceutical companies you will no longer charge the highest prices in world for medicines people desperately need. Your greed will end.
“We will raise the minimum wage to at least $15, rebuild infrastructure, and when we do, we will create up to 13 million decent paying jobs.
“We will have quality affordable child care…. we will make public colleges and universities tuition free.
“We say to seniors, you can’t survive on $14,000 Social Security; Republicans want to cut Social Security Benefits: we will raise it.
“We say to Trump and the fossil fuel industry: climate change is not a hoax, but an existential threat to the entire planet. We will transform away from fossil fuel into energy efficiency and sustainable energy, and when we do that, we will create millions of good paying jobs.
“All of us have moral responsibility to make sure the planet we leave our kids, our grandkids, is healthy and habitable.
”We say to the prison-industrial complex (boo), we are going to achieve real criminal justice reform. We will end the international embarrassment of having more people in jail than any other – take the $80 billion a year and invest in jobs and education instead. No more private prisons, no more profiteering form locking people up.
“No more war on drugs or keeping people in jail because too poor to afford cash bail.
“We will have real criminal justice reform –people have records for possessing marijuana but not one Wall Street executive went to jail for destroying the economy in 2008. Instead, they got a $1 trillion bailout (boo).
“Instead of deporting undocumented immigrants, we will pass comprehensive immigration reform and provide a path to citizenship, legal status for 1.8 million DACA-eligible recipients. We will develop a humane border policy for those who seek asylum – no longer snatch babies from the arms of their mothers.
“We say to the 1% and the large profitable corporations in America, under a Sanders Administration, you’re not getting more tax breaks (big cheers). We will end their tax breaks, loopholes, and they will start paying their fair share; we will end the loopholes where Amazon, Netflix, General Motors pay nothing in federal tax, where corporations and billionaires stash money in the Caymans and other tax havens.
“We will end the military industrial complex. We won’t spend $700 billion – more than the top 10 nations combined spend. Instead, we will invest in affordable housing, public education, invest in our crumbling infrastructure. No more major investment in never-ending wars.
“Trump wants to divide us by skin color, where we were born, gender, religion, sexual orientation. What we are about is doing the opposite: bring people together – black, white, Latino, Asian, young, old, men, women, native, immigrant, we are together.
“As return to where I was born, as I launch my campaign for president, you deserve to know where I came from, the values I developed… I grew up a few miles from here on Kings Highway, in a 3 ½ room rent-controlled apartment. My father was a paint salesman who never made much money; my mother raised the two of us. I learned about immigration from my father who came from Poland at age 17 without 5 cents in his pocket and no English, to escape crushing poverty and widespread anti-Semitism. His entire family was wiped out by Hitler. Coming from a lower middle class family, I will never forget how the lack of money always causes stress in family. My mother’s dream was to move out of rent control apartment to a home of her own. She died young and never saw that dream.
“I came from a family that struggled. That influenced my life, my values. I know where I came from and will never forget.
“Unlike Trump who shut down government, left 800,000 employees without money to pay their bills, I know what it is like to live in a family that lives paycheck to paycheck.
“I didn’t have a father who gave me a $200,000 allowance when I was three years old – my allowance was 25 cents a week. But I had something more valuable – a role model of a father with courage to journey across an ocean with no money, to start a better life.
“I didn’t come from a family of privilege, who entertained people on TV by saying ‘You’re fired.’ I came from a family which understood the frightening power of employers. I didn’t attend an elite private school, I was educated in public schoo0ls in Brooklyn.
“I didn’t build a corporate empire based on housing discrimination. I protested against housing discrimination. One of my proudest moments was joining the March on Washington with Martin Luther King.
“The last two years and before, you, I and millions, fought for justice in every part of society. Had some success against billionaires who attack unions, slash wages. We succeeded in raising wages to $15 across country – forced Amazon, Disney to do the same.
“We stood with teachers across country who went out on strike to fight for better schools.
“The forces of militarism kept us engaged in war. We fought back and for first time in 45 years, used the War Powers Act to end the Saudi-fueled war in Yemen.
“We fought to end the war on drugs, to get states to decriminalize marijuana possession and we are beginning to see records being expunged.
“We won some victories but clearly have a long long way to go.
“Because of the work done, we are on the brink of not just winning election but transforming our country.
“When we are in the White House, we will enact a federal jobs guarantee.
“We will attack the problem of urban gentrification and build affordable housing this country desperately needs.
“We will end the decline of rural America – so young people in rural America have decent jobs and can remain in their communities. We will reopen rural hospitals.
“We will end the epidemic of gun violence, pass commonsense gun safety legislation.
“We will address national, racial disparity of wealth, root out institutional racism wherever it exists.
“We will end the cowardly outrage of voter suppression, and make it easier to vote.
“We will protect a woman’s right to control her own body – that is a woman’s right, not federal, state, local government.
“Make no mistake, the struggle is not just about defeating Trump but taking an incredibly powerful institutions that control economy and political life of the nation: Wall Street, insurance companies, drug companies, the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex, the fossil fuel industry and corrupt campaign finance system that enables billionaires to buy elections.
“Brothers and sisters, we have enormous amount of work ahead. The path forward is not easy.
“Wealthy and powerful elites will do all they can to defend their financial interests, and have unlimited money. But we have the people.
“This is what I believe: if we don’t allow Trump to divide us, if we stand together – not blue states, red – but as working people believing in justice and human dignity, love and compassion, the future of this country is extraordinary and nothing we will not be able to accomplish.”
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© 2019 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com, email [email protected]. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures. ‘Like’ us on facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin
Womens March on NYC Led by Womens March Alliance Draws Tens of Thousands
By Karen Rubin, News& Photo Features
Tens of thousands took to the streets of New York City on Saturday, January 19, 2019 for the third annual Women’s March organized by the Women’s March Alliance, calling for action on a Woman’s Agenda that encompasses everything from pay parity, paid parental leave and reproductive freedom, to immigration reform, gun violence prevention, climate action, criminal justice reform – in other words, the gamut of social, political, environmental and economic justice. (See also With Cry of ‘Your Voice Your Power,’ Alliance Mounts 3rd Annual Women’s March on NYC Jan. 19)
The marchers got particularly animated outside of Trump Tower Hotel on Central Park West, chanting “Shame, Shame, Shame,” extending a finger, and waving placards calling for “Indict, Impeach, Imprison.”
The protesters use their bodies as message boards. Here are highlights:
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© 2019 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com, email [email protected]. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures. ‘Like’ us on facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin