The Trump White House will not pressure African countries to repeal anti-LGBTQ laws, according to Mick Mulvaney.
Mulvaney, a former Republican congressman and current Director of the Office of Management and Budget as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, made the statement while speaking at the State Department’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington, DC.
Mulvaney said that the Obama administration had gone too far in trying to promote equal rights, such as President Barack Obama saying he would put an emphasis on the importance of LGBTQ rights in a visit to Kenya in 2015. Kenya currently punishes homosexuality with up to 14 years in prison.
“Our US taxpayer dollars [were] used to discourage Christian values in other democratic countries, he said. “It was stunning to me that my government under the previous administration would go to folks in sub-Saharan Africa and say, ‘We know that you have a law against abortion, but if you enforce that law, you’re not going to get any of our money. We know you have a law against gay marriage, but if you enforce that law, we’re not going to give you any money.’
He added: “That’s a different type of religious persecution. (…) That is a different type of religious persecution that I never expected to see. I never expected to see that as an American Christian, that we would be doing that to other folks. I am here to let you know there are many people in our government who care about [these issues.] There are a lot of people in this government who want to see things done differently. They want to do something.”
Mirroring many members of the Trump Administration, Mulvaney has opposed LGBTQ rights multiple times, scoring him zero on the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard.
He was also a co-sponsor on the First Amendment Defense Act, which would have permitted religiously motivated LGBTQ discrimination.
New York City has opened Ace's Place, its first shelter dedicated specifically to serving transgender and gender-nonconforming people experiencing homelessness. Operated in partnership with the Bronx-based LGBTQ nonprofit Destination Tomorrow, the 150-bed facility in Long Island City, Queens, will provide transitional housing and wraparound support services for residents.
Fully funded by the city for now, Ace's Place will receive $65 million to remain operational through 2030. In addition to housing, the shelter will offer on-site psychiatric care, medical referrals, culinary and GED classes, job training, financial literacy and life skills workshops, counseling, and other comprehensive services. Destination Tomorrow will manage day-to-day operations.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has reposted a CNN clip featuring Doug Wilson, leader of the Christian evangelical movement he follows, in which the pastor calls for making gay sex illegal.
“In the late ’70s and early ’80s, sodomy was a felony in all 50 states. That America of that day was not a totalitarian hellhole,” Wilson says in the seven-minute segment, reports the Daily Beast.
Wilson goes on to say he wishes the United States would revive anti-sodomy laws, which criminalized same-sex relations -- and, in some states, even certain non-vaginal sex acts between consenting heterosexual partners.
A federal judge has ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to immediately release Rickardo Anthony Kelly, a gay Jamaican asylum seeker who says he fears being killed if deported. U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres, of the Southern District of New York, ruled that ICE violated Kelly’s due process rights by detaining him on August 4 while he awaited a routine asylum appointment in New York City.
In an eight-page ruling issued on August 15, Torres cited legal precedent in affirming that the Fifth Amendment entitles noncitizens to due process of law, “whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent.” She added that noncitizens are also entitled to challenge the legality of their detention through habeas corpus.
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