a happy national coming out day which we are wise we are taping but the news is mostly that the justice department tells americans that they can discriminate all they like if they have a religious or moral reason federal land this is quite a story we have just come from there this is how we did didn't celebrate national coming out day we'll give you all the juicy details meanwhile mississippi's anti l effect this week but some clerks and businesses there say they will not take advantage of it yeah and another sub by positive story in response to a lawsuit from a quote of the utah the utah state board of education says it didn't discriminate against a few students radical gay activist charles shively died at seventy nine dollars in boston the pope has launched yet another attack on transgender people thought he was our friend he does not tell the transgender people tom price is going on firm h h s but the trump administration continues to undermine the affordable care act telling ensures that they don't have to cover birth just what stands out in your book well there are so many things on the list but look i'd like to start with this guidance that comes out from attorney general sessions last friday and that is something we've been expecting for a good good while he goes on for twenty five seconds made a many pages and just to sort of set the stage for this this is you know about religious exemptions but i want people in understand that this is it's not a new issue that people would try to use religion to justify discrimination it's been going on for a long time but for the movement this is you know becoming a bigger push from the other side because it is their plan b in this is what i mean by that the other side has long had an agenda to stop it from getting protections for people they have wanted us not to get civil rights protections and employment for housing or public accommodations they fought us on the freedom to marry they fought to keep exclusions of gay people in trans people from being adopted from foster parents a photo so making sex legal absolutely another very basic issue and as we have made progress on all of those fronts securing not all the rights we need but more and more of them the other side has turned to religious exemptions as a way to license discrimination to authorize discrimination in the name of religion and the reason that i think it is important to think about it this way is  not is that we ensure that we are not confused about what's going on here religious liberty is important in america it's protected by the constitution and it's protected by some federal laws and it should be this is not about religious freedom this is about an attempt to discriminate this is about licensing discrimination and it's easy for people to be confused about what's going on because we need to value religious freedom in this country but this steps over a line very clearly back in february there was a leaked version of an executive order from president trump that would have instructed a whole range of federal agencies to write regulations and do other things that would have authorized discrimination it was a big push back in the press  and that didn't get signed later march april may africa when it was sometime this spring the president does finally sign an executive order there's not a whole lot in it basically says to the attorney general sessions issue guidance right some guidance and that's the guidance that came out on friday so if i may really see where the alliance defending freedom which is the right wing legal group wrote this with the justice department yes there's clearly a lot of discussions between certain everybody people from the a c l u did go in to meet with them at their request we laid out all the reasons that the stuff that they have now written doesn't make any sense is inconsistent with the constitution and with longstanding federal law they clearly ignored everything we said and and simply are at a stage so this is guidance let's talk about the guidance doesn't doesn't mean that the guidance is the federal government's view on what the law is so this is not just the justice department's view but it also it binds federal agencies across the federal government and about what does the religious freedom restoration act mean what does title seven of the civil rights act of one hundred and sixty four mean in various other things but it also guides them in god's name in terms of the positions that the government will take in litigation and it guides them in terms of how they will write and interpret regulations in every government agency that there is and it also guides how federal agencies that contract with businesses  or provide grants to social service agencies for example homeless shelters to provide services how they write those grants and how they interpret those grants so this is just by itself something that can have an effect in many many different parts guidelines and we're going to see more of that so does this mean as of today but i work for a federal agency the social security administration and i object to gay relationships so i don't have to process a claim for benefits for same sex the same time they are saying but of course none of this means that we're going to violate any actual laws this is just our attitude yes look at them that simply because they're saying well we think the law means x and not example of a case or two we are this guidance might well result in a different outcome there's a there's consider the context of religious schools or hospitals there's a series of cases where  religious schools have fired women who got pregnant outside of the marriage but it's clear that they're not firing guys who get women pregnant outside of a marriage and those women have sued and said look this is sex discrimination you're treating the guys who do this very thing one way and the women who do this very thing a different way and the school says you know but look this violates our religious beliefs you're not behaving like a good religious person  n those cases under the under sessions this guy would likely come out differently because the governor if the government's view of what the law is prevails so the government's position would be no they can fire people because they their conduct interpretation of what they think the laws should be but none of it is actually changing any laws it's relying on the chords to interpret their interpretation yes now i would suspect that the hobby lobby end this is going to depend on the courts which of course the justice department the trepan ministration is changing day by day but and you know what makes your work so much huge or and bigger to have to go fight all these things when they try to do this but but the courts can still save us all the courts could save us in new york you're actually with hobby lobby because hobby lobby was a private business which invoked its religious commission against a funeral home in michigan and there was a woman named amy stevens who come who had worked as a funeral director for fifty six years there presenting as a man comes out to her boss court says oh yeah that's sexist combination but rift from the religious freedom restoration act says that if it violates the religious beliefs of this private companies owner that that owner can fire her   if if this guidance on the religious freedom restoration act is interpreted to mean that religious beliefs get you out of civil rights laws it's a huge exemption large threat here and you're right we have to see in the end what is it the courts say these various laws mean what the difference is what you know right now and you see in this case which is just argued last week before the federal appeals court in cincinnati continues i wouldn't be surprised at all to see the sessions justice department file a brief on the other side of the you know so you could switch sides with its new composition and it could is this going to come down in the end to a fight between the religious liberty clause in the st amendment versus equal protection well look i think that that that is part what's going on here in the other the other piece of it is that this guidance that came out on  friday is all about religious liberty but the same folks who are trying to use these religious liberty arguments to undermine the rights in other civil rights laws are also using free speech arguments and freedom of expression freedom of you know artistic freedom arguments to do the same thing and there's a case called a masterpiece cake shop that's before the u s supreme court and in that case both the religion in the recently and maybe this was in a court decision was that you're not just discriminating against some particular expression you're discriminating against gay people you know i mean this case in this case is about whether there is a constitutional right for people to discriminate based on either their religious beliefs or their there are sort of personal beliefs about what opinions they want to express in the world right well  service not just breaking a cake but any service way to good table whatever could be described as expression and something like that you're putting yourself into i don't want to do it for gay people or i don't want to do it for black people and th so that's my free speech right to say we don't like you here the attorney general and is cohorts in and out of government have explicitly stated they want a theocracy they want biblical law to overrule civil law and that  very well the courts have rejected religious exemption claims in case after case after case about what he related services in other contexts like that what is it going to look like going forward  with the justice department on the other side of these cases will see i think that the argument that the religion or free speech gives you an out from civil rights laws  be so devastating to the civil rights structure that we've built up in this country into the fabric of society that hopeful that a majority of judges in the country are not going to go there i mean that's why it was so encouraging to you know to read about these people in mississippi that the mississippi newspapers when interviewed said you're going to start you know turning away gay people absolutely not money is green we take it and we don't care but these are breakers any people who do weddings all this got us to act most people i think are not going to want to do this but there are going to be some into who will act this way yeah and look i do think that the reality is that most small businesses in this country are not looking to discriminate most small businesses country the polling says don't agree with the idea that they are religious beliefs should get them out of the civil rights law but this stuff is worth finding for because it sets a tone and it sets a set of rules for the say my church condemns you my government now condemns you you know was says it's ok to do this and people take it out on us in terms of violence in the news and it's it's you know bad enough that you get personally rejected to your face a cake shop to lose your job to lose your home to lose your children all of that it just escalates it escalates and medical access to medical care as well and look the one thing i want to the vet makes me want to say is you know i don't think any of us is diminishing the importance or the significance of being turned away even in the context of a wedding cake of course these people could go someplace else to get away and most people can't but you know but that's not the point but also there's a lasting harm here comes from that because just one story from our clients that dave and charlie the guys who are the plaintiffs in essence in the in the realizes when he was off the phone like i didn't identify him as my husband why because he was worried about like ok i don't know who these people are i want to make sure that charlie gets help and not attacked or that somebody shows up so there's a there's a there are consequences to being turned away and it's something that we internalize in carrying with us and it changes our behavior going forward that's the reason that it's not ok to say ok well you know i just  go down the street to some other place absolutely let's get up to date on the transgender in the military cases i'm happy to say the one hundred and fourteen members of congress are calling me trumpet the president trumps blah and asking the department of defense for all the documents about all the advice they gave him  were generals but but you are in court trying to stop this and you you you and others have asked for injunctions against them kicking people out or stopping that there's you know there's something to fight about here because there's a part there's no question that there's a clear policy change happening in march pursuant to the president's orders in there are consequences of that that are happening right now the as you mentioned there i mean are there not three you know those senators in this country from the republican side of white say that's a little extreme and we're not going to let that happen i mean i mean if these kind of people get on the bench for life or are we  think that that was those rules were created after the windsor decision but before the birth of all decisions so there was this there was a sort of a world where you had to make sure that people's marriages got  for the last couple of weeks that we're going to have this lovely little ceremony in the stone hall national monument down in greenwich village in new york city to dedicate the raising of the rainbow flag on a big flag pole there in the national monument the st rainbow flag permanently flying on federal land and we thought oh this we want to story a priest or we went out about it the news week where one of the organize just just outside the actual christopher park which is part of which is the federal land and that's not on federal land so you're not putting a flag up on federal land go right ahead but we don't want the parks department to be a part of it the other flag you can see there is the city parks department here is that the turned over to the it's been turned over now to the city because they don't want any responsibility for it so all was going fine with the park and national park service employees in new york city who were collaborating with us for weeks to arrange the ceremony everybody was very friendly everything was great and then literally the day before the ceremony yesterday as we're taping we get a call from these people saying sorry the national park service is withdrawing sponsorship of this event because we have discovered much to our amazement that this fl not federal land and so we've turned the flag itself over to the city they have agreed to take ownership of this emotive and put up a bigger one yes so we knock our heads together and we say  this petty way we and then once we put out this press release blasting the trump administration not our local park service people because we still like them blasting them for making this change and being unwilling to associate even in this tiny way with our community we get a call from the parks or the local park service people again saying oh we like to show up anyway and talk and explain the misunderstanding and we said misunderstanding you come down there tomorrow we'll talk to you about it we said and we talked to the guy and we said so how did this happen and he says well yes you know we have this all the arranged and  yes the park service why does fly on the flagpole that we now say is not federal land and yes newsweek wrote that little piece and and then the people in washington noticed this from the newsweek piece and they decided no we're not going to let this happen and we said well then we're not to let you speak and we're going to blast the trump administration if this is going to start where this was wrenching and michael patro us who got the permit for this thing is a senate francisco activist who was telling us every is that we should have the rainbow flag up there he made it a big cause of his he got the permit and what he said was when he was speaking there was my god in egypt you know those people raise the rainbow flag at a concert and they got sleazy transparently line about this it's just that they they think we are so disgusting and so filthy that they cannot even let a little flag a little rainbow today they are the ones who are filthy it's it's just you know this is the smallest of our concerns and yet so emblematic of how we are treated and and how they want to continue to deprive us  there but they're ending they're going off the air going off the air so we're working on trying to find another outlet down there and you can always see us by going on line and gave us a t v dot org plus you can sign up for  list there you can get noticed when we finally do get somebody in philadelphia can we now tell you about we absolutely are going to have a new outlet in philadelphia we are just figuring out what the exact details of that will be so  hope we will be on the air continuously d in philadelphia after w y b goes off the air at the end of this month but if not if there's a little interim i promise you we will be back on the air and yes you can watch us on gay usa t v dot org in the meantime all right things we did not talk to james about him i see that there's a there's a hell of a controversy going up at the rochester institute of technology well the woman who works for  student health there has been giving out you know transgender health services and they're saying you can't do that you know you know and she can do it for a long time and they're stopping her so there's a complaint filed and they're facing three civil rights complaints about her dismissal for this governor sam brownback of kansas as you know is has been nominated to work for the state department running their office of international religious freedom because you know doing it screwing us in the states is not enough time because he is the worst possible person to have this job yes so he is being asked it his senate hearing what about rescinding this  executive order there was from the previous governor in kansas sebelius that was a nondiscrimination law for sexual orientation and gender identity that just covered government employees and he said well she bypassed the and they're extreme because that's what the bible sends and is an abomination and they shall be put to death and that is a very bad thing to have written in the bible that god that is the principle on which they're operating in making these decisions and issuing these guidelines and as as i explained to you off camera before we started the parallel i see here with the harvey weinstein situation is everybody is complaining and upset that no one blew the whistle on harvey weinstein for decades even though they're making jokes about him on thirty rock and at the oscar nomination they holding back national coming out day is about not living their lives in fear leslie cagan who spoke at the ceremony today said you've got to come out and you've got to come out every day you've got to do it all over again and we have to keep doing it and that is what we do but if you want to know what they really think and what they're really planning perhaps so you would like to turn tune into what i assume will be on c span at the end of this week the values voters summit annual celebration by these crazies at which our president and vice president will be speaking along with all the haters who would like to x not to mention the majority whip steve schoolies who was saved by a lesbian what he was shot and shot married lesbian sho duck dynasty's phil robertson shouldn't appear on platforms with these people and that is that is you know eighty percent of fundamentalists voted for trump and that is who we is holding on to he's not i'm not giving them everything they want targeting them by the way the family research council is launching a hotline for federal employees and contractors and citizens who believe they've suffered discrimination based on their religion so if you if you are subject to this  kind of if you're subject to discrimination because of this kind of thing you need to call the a c l u or one of your local civil rights groups that's correct and meanwhile as we said to james says the department of justice has put out these religious liberty guidelines and yes they brought in the a c l u for a pro forma meeting but the other people they consulted on this were the mormons the catholics the alliance defending freedom and every other right wing religious group they could get their hands on and yes attorney general sessions put out a memo a last week announcing a new policy that the justice department does not believe the sixty four dollars civil rights act title seven covers gender identity as sex discrimination the department of health and human services even though tom price has gone announced a new rule that would undermine the affordable care act's requirement that all insurance plans cover birth control you know that's need more of that now one case we didn't discuss when james is sending a c l u case in the state of washington yes they tell you is suing a catholic organization called peace help because one of their employees is a woman who has a trans teen son pax and stad and pax is seventeen and wants chest surgery as he transitions and peace health is a catholic organization and says we have a blanket policy no transgender services now pax has been diagnosed by a doctor with severe gender dysphoria and this surgery was prescribed five a doctor but the mother's employer says they will not cover it because they're catholics and the a c l u suing i was going to save it for international lose but it's coming straight from the top of the pope francis this week knowledge these are making it easier for people to change their genders saying that this utopia of a neutral jeopardizes the creation of new life like we're not overcrowded to begin with i mean he's totally you know invincibly ignorant on this issue he has in the past compared to nuclear war so this is pope santa claus you know who posed to be so nice forget about it y and by the way in terms of transit we did talk about the death of tom petty i'm not a gay man but you know wonderful singer he was noted that on his last tour he made a big show of support for the transgender community putting out image of transgender act as alexis or cat up there on the screen as part of the bond so he did that very wholeheartedly thank you yes oral arguments on the masterpiece cake shop case are scheduled in the supreme court for december th will follow that yes the mississippi hateful religious freedom broad broad law that specifically says you can discriminate if you object to  people having sex outside marriage if you object to transgender people if you object to same sex couples getting married you may discriminate against those people specifically that is now the law in mississippi certainly under challenge by many of us seven but the local newspapers went around to clerks in stores and asked them whether they would be taking advantage of this law and the people they found so far said no well a lot of the clerks can't promote homosexuality in the schools and so he quits means you can't discuss homosexuality in this case so equality utah sued over this and actually the legislature backed down and rescinded the legislation but they didn't end it there they actually got a settlement from the department of education there a board of education there in utah that says including the requirement that state schools develop and implement a safety plan for all g b d q students targeted by harassment and that they do deal with these issues so they've turned it around there at least in terms of policy we have a lot of good policies here in new york and obviously they're not acted upon so that's where the proof is the rocky mountain the last i knew all right in an update on the case in newark new jersey where we showed you the local news report last week of fourteen year old haile puranas and her mother who are fierce activists for kylie who is a young trans woman and who had been set upon by students in the hallway of her school and has been bullied for years seven students have now been suspended for attacking her the school is going to have assemblies educating the students and staff on transition news and the cops are investigating to see whether they want to file more serious charges back to the catholic church for a moment this is from chicago where we tell you about all these you know employees of catholic institutions gay and lesbian and transgender employees who keep getting fired all the farda music director there and the u s district court judge upheld before are granted summary judgment to the chicago archdiocese you know  nice if they passed a resolution condemning the trump administration for its treatment of l g b people that arkansas a judge who gave life sentences to men for minor crimes if they gave them nude photographs or sexual favors oh yeah he he said charlie was the st academic historian who told us what whitman was gay my goodness that abraham lincoln was gay that many other famous men in history were gay his writings which of course no mainstream outlet whatever published widely you know he wrote for fag rag which i used to read when i was a kid were finally collected and published by gay sunshine press where you can still read them he said it was an inspiring role model he said what that day a story is had an ounce of his courage and perseverance history and ages from the bible which shocked people even that even in those days it was shocking in california governor brown has signed a bill of rights  doing they will not officiate at any marriages until the united methodist church accept smirch equality oh my god that's so retro for what people were doing that back before we had same sex marriage all those about the persecution of people there well what they're doing now is chechens are trying to find the ones who fled the country in canada in the united states house well not the united states but i mean there are yes they're finding them and trying to beat them up or reaching them via e mail and saying if you don't come back we're going to we're going to arrest your family and beat them it's like a it's like a criminal syndicate the whole country a moment for some good news in kosovo they held their st pride parade we have a lovely picture from kosovo this was in the capital any there i am out there for i am i like that so hundreds of people showed up in kosovo for their st prize so there's an upside to the australian postal ballot on marriage equality which we object to my young voters are getting so stirred up by this that they're likely to turn out the prime minister the conservative malcolm turnbull out of office now he is as he himself is voting for same sex marriage a lot of people in this party and the coalition parties are not well and the sydney know gave a one million dollars to the no campaign and people of the rank and file of the churches saying a one million dollars i mean we're supposed to be helping the poor and this is what you're spending it on well we've had the same argument with  mormon and catholic churches here which gave millions and millions to anti same sex marriage campaigns here but when i st saw this story i saw diocese of sydney gives a one million dollars to no campaign and i thought catholics are things so then they'd only were investigated and cleared but they're suing the department now for what they say was a homophobic attack it was they totally made everything up against them and instituted these wild charges and they all turned out to be completely false do we get our ruling from taiwan today yet not that i've seen that effect marriage equality of a ruling in nepal from the supreme court there that trans people can change their gender women from forty five countries one hundred and forty eight cities met for three days and we had a picture of the general group of them at the main india have that is oh yeah they're  picture also although march that they went on a lesbian is not a dirty word i remember when the much paul community church met it met of the church and they had you know their their their name was outside but when they put we serve lesbians and gay men they were thrown out of the church they unsurprisingly came up with some conclusions that lesbians need excuse me it's my weekly coughing  it replacing somebody else she's assuming the position as a substitute for a communist party senator and she was the st transgender lawyer in the country and she's a big advocate so she's going to do a lot of good for us there in greece they have removed the requirement for sterilization for changing your gender it's a it's a horrible thing that is still hanging on in a lot of european countries that in order to have any gender change in your documents you have to prove that you've been sterilized they still have too many other hurdles but they have at least gotten rid of sterilization i was very sorry to see the land of my people on my father's side romania that ken davis was over there campaigning against same sex marriage now they have collected enough signatures to force the vote of the legislature to consider a referendum on this the prime minister is against it so the legislature the some resistance in the legislature little have to do it the fine folks at the liberty council all cousin to the alliance defending freedom have taken kim over there to campaign against marriage equality in romania now you give those gays the minutes they take a mile so was soon as they had same sex marriage in germany two men adopted a kid that is the st time legally adopt  e two met in berlin to become the st same sex couple to adopt a child a good adoption was something resisted by all the european countries even after they did same sex relationships and in germany a german catholic bishop barred the blessing of  a same gender couple and the only thing that's interesting about this is that that's somewhat controversial a blessing not a wedding a blessing because they do it for animals and things like that and why and i don't know whatever and so there are people speaking up know we've heard all the terrible news out of puerto rico about people still would no drinking water no food no electricity well one of the things that's a problem in puerto rico is that's where a lot of the pharmaceutical manufacturers have located their factories because they were given a lot of incentives to locate there so there is an over concentration of pharmacy pharmaceutical manufacturers there and they are as decimated as everyone else and so that is interfering with production of medicine and they're trying to fly in generators and get back up to speed but there are going to be some interruptions and availability of medicine to be good out there are going to be a drop to the  three tier and so you can be forced to be on the sex offender registry for a lifetime for twenty years or for ten years i think when you're having like consensual sex in the park and you're convicted last line of defense for antibiotics is spreading they're very worried about this they're working on something new but they don't have anything right now i've been reading up on natural antibiotic which i know is not in need of an antibiotic i entertain that news all right well episode two i've now given up on will and grace well done entirely but the nd episode was horrible horrible about intergenerational dating and it was just awful well you know yeah we have we have a month nuff to keep up with the news apple the company has shared previews for a new set of them oh geez that are coming out later this month we have pictures they will include gender neutral characters spanning age ranges from children to elders and available in all races all skin tones they also adding in a mode g mail ferry that's what insane we have concluded that she was probably being yes hyperbolic yes yeah d got a couple of movies complained so we had a lesbian couple of vassar in the late sixty's and we were in finland movie it's of you know a fiction film a dramatic film that's going to open up on friday at the quad in new york and a week later in l a and san francisco and then around the country and this movie has been very well review of finland it's been playing film festivals it's a bio pic with actors and is getting a lot of notice a couple of performances in new york and if you want details about this i'll put them in our e mail so sign up for our e mail list to get us a t v dot org our old friend tim bill or the gay performance artist is going to be at dixon place that's october th and st go to dixon place dot org for that and there's a new musical that's about called stone louis starring alan cumming which is about an aging aids activist from act up who's very angry about the world and it's a terrific film and we have a picture of a warning there that alan cumming there on the right performed for anthony johnston who's in the middle there who is an actor in the film and co wrote it with vincent gagliano strome yeah and he married jordan geiger this week met a lovely couple had a great celebration i've never seen i haven't seen so much love in a room in a long time big popular event and not to end on a downer but harvey weinstein not only donated to various democratic politicians he also did it down into gay organizations yes and we haven't heard from them about returning those