Leonard Steven Grasz – Photo: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, via YouTube.
The U.S. Senate has confirmed a Trump judicial nominee with a history of anti-LGBTQ animus who received a unanimous “Not Qualified” rating by the American Bar Association.
Senators voted along party lines, 50-48, with two abstaining, thereby confirming Leonard Steven Grasz, the former director of the board of the anti-gay Nebraska Family Alliance, as a justice on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Despite concerns raised by Democrats and LGBTQ advocates about his apparent lack of qualifications, his past anti-LGBTQ advocacy, a personal bias rooted in religious beliefs, and his inability to impartially judge cases on their merits, Grasz’s nomination was approved with seeming little resistance.
Grasz’s defenders have claimed that the ABA rating was motivated by partisan hatred, despite the fact that other objectionable Trump nominees — whatever their shortcomings — were rated “Qualified” or higher by the ABA.
Critics also pointed to his work at the Nebraska Family Alliance opposing the recognition of same-sex marriage, attempting to deny same-sex couples benefits, opposing efforts to ban anti-LGBTQ discrimination, and advocacy for religious exemptions for business owners opposed to homosexuality as evidence of what they felt was his inability to impartially deal with cases involving LGBTQ plaintiffs or defendants.
“We are deeply disappointed that Senate Republicans have voted to confirm a nominee who is clearly unfit to serve as a federal judge,” David Stacy, the government affairs director at the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. “Grasz’s confirmation is in line with the Trump-Pence administration’s alarming trend of advancing under-qualified nominees with terrible anti-equality records. This radical ideological transformation of our justice system will lead to long-term, harmful consequences that will live well beyond the Trump-Pence administration.”
Vanita Gupta, the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights — who previously served as the head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division — excoriated Republicans for “rubber stamping” Grasz’s nomination and allowing “an extreme and highly troubling” nominee to be confirmed.
The Leadership Conference previously sent a letter to senators urging them not to confirm Grasz, arguing that he is not qualified to be a judge.
“Mr. Grasz is only the fourth nominee since 1989 to receive a unanimous Not Qualified rating from the American Bar Association,” Gupta said in a statement. “This rating was based on the nominee’s local reputation for bias, lack of open-mindedness, and offensive demeanor. A person with those qualities should not serve a lifetime appointment on the federal bench.”
My first protest, as my mother tells it, was as a toddler. In our Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego, circa 1970, she was moved to join a small group in opposition to some new construction. As she was moved, so was I, on four stroller wheels. My birth may have coincided with the weekend of the Stonewall Riots, but I didn't learn about that till much later.
And, of course, I have no memory of this inaugural outing with Mom to fight the power. Today, my mother looks at current events, disgusted by the White House, and wonders aloud whether protests such as the Oct. 18 No Kings Day actions across the country and beyond do much. At her age, she's certainly entitled to be winding down. Not that she was ever big on protests to begin with -- my first was her last, possibly her only.
Justine Lindsay, the NFL's first out transgender cheerleader, recently revealed that she was fired this year, a decision she alleges was motivated by transphobia and Donald Trump's election as president.
"I was cut because I'm trans," Lindsay said in an Instagram Live with Gaye Magazine. "I don't wanna hear nobody saying, 'She didn't wanna come back.' Why the hell would I not wanna come back to an organization that I've been a part of for three years? That makes no sense to me. So I was cut. I was devastated. It stung. I was hurt."
Lindsay, who made history as the NFL's first transgender cheerleader when she tried out and made the Carolina Panthers's TopCats squad in 2022, told the magazine that her teammates "know the truth" about the decision to cut her from the squad.
Dutch authorities say Veronica Clifford-Carlos failed to prove she faces a "legitimate risk of persecution" or threat of physical harm in the United States.
A Dutch court has upheld a ruling rejecting a U.S. transgender woman's bid for asylum, finding she does not face a substantial enough threat of persecution in her home country.
Veronica Clifford-Carlos, a 28-year-old visual artist from California, said she once believed she’d build a life in the United States, but felt compelled to flee after receiving death threats over her gender identity.
Clifford-Carlos left the United States -- leaving behind friends and her dog -- and flew to the Netherlands with her father. Upon arrival, she applied for asylum, telling authorities about the abuse she endured in the United States, particularly after President Donald Trump’s re-election last fall.
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