President Obama has condemned anti-LGBT laws recently passed in two Southern states in an attempt to reassure British tourists, reports USA Today.
“I want everybody here in the United Kingdom to know that the people of North Carolina and Mississippi are wonderful people,” Obama said during a Friday news conference. “They are beautiful states and you are welcome and you should come and enjoy yourselves. And I think you’ll be treated with extraordinary hospitality.”
But at the same time, the president also went on record as opposing recently passed “religious freedom” laws, which could have a negative effect on LGBT people. Obama called the new laws “wrong” and said they “should be overturned.”
Obama’s comments came in response to the British Foreign Office issuing an advisory warning travelers to North Carolina and Mississippi of those new laws. That guidance, issued earlier this week, noted that the United States is an “extremely diverse society,” and, as such, attitudes toward LGBT people vary from place to place. It also suggested that LGBT travelers refer to the Human Rights Campaign and other sources to see if those laws might adversely impact them.
In North Carolina, lawmakers removed protections against discrimination in public accommodations by repealing local pro-LGBT ordinances and required that transgender people be forced to use only the restroom that corresponds to their biological sex. In Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant (R) signed into effect a law that grants individuals and business owners significant leeway to discriminate against LGBT people or others, such as single mothers, of whose lifestyle they disapprove based on “sincerely held” personal beliefs.
Obama also said that the move to pass the laws was motivated not solely by animus, but by political considerations and some lawmakers’ sincerely held convictions.
“Although I respect their different viewpoints, it’s important for us not to send signals that anyone is treated differently,” Obama added.
Cameron defended the Foreign Office’s advice to travelers, noting that the office tries to give advice “dispassionately” and “impartially” about laws that could affect British citizens abroad.
“Our view on any of these kinds of things is that we should use law to end discrimination, rather than embed it or enhance it,” Cameron said. “And that’s something we’re comfortable saying to countries and friends anywhere in the world.”
An unruly airline passenger ranting about anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theories was arrested after flight crew diverted the plane to Chicago out of concern for the safety of others onboard.
The man was aboard a Sun Country flight that left Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport at 7:13 a.m. on October 3. According to passenger Seth Evans, a Minnesota native who now lives in New York, the man acted erratically throughout the flight.
Evans told the Minnesota Star Tribune that the man repeatedly stood up and screamed in between playing rounds of Candy Crush on his phone.
Authorities say the alleged gunman in a mass shooting at a North Carolina waterfront restaurant -- which left three people dead and at least eight injured -- reportedly embraced anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theories.
The shooting took place around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 27, at the American Fish Company in Southport, North Carolina, a popular waterfront bar that once appeared as a filming location for the movie Safe Haven.
Investigators allege that the suspect, 40-year-old Nigel Max Edge, was piloting a white center-console boat through a busy stretch of the Intracoastal Waterway lined with bars and restaurants. From just off the American Fish Company’s deck, he allegedly opened fire on the crowd, according to Fox News.
Lucien Bates, a transgender man, says security guards threatened to arrest him after he used the women’s restroom at a Round1 arcade inside the North Riverside Park Mall in suburban Chicago. Bates, an Indiana resident, was visiting the venue on September 28 with his fiancé and a friend to play Dance Dance Revolution.
Bates, who presents as alt-masculine with facial hair and piercings, had just arrived at the arcade when he needed to use the restroom. He chose the women’s restroom, a decision he often makes in public because he feels safer there and is less likely to be harassed.
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