For the first time ever, Sinn Féin is projected to become the biggest party at Stormont, meaning the DUP could lose the first minister post.
If those projections come to pass, it would be a history-making moment in Northern Ireland. If Sinn Féin emerges as the country’s biggest party, it will be the first time in a century that a nationalist party has had majority support.
In simple terms, that means Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill will take the first minister post for the first time. Notably, it would also mean that Northern Ireland would have its first ever pro-LGBTQ+ first minister.
The DUP’s decline probably doesn’t have much to do with the party’s staunch opposition to LGBTQ+ rights – it’s likely more to do with the Northern Irish protocol and Brexit – but the result could still have a positive impact on queer people.
The DUP has blocked progress on LGBTQ+ rights in Northern Ireland
Ever since it was founded by Ian Paisley in 1971, the DUP has been fiercely opposed to any advancement in LGBTQ+ rights. That started with Paisley’s “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign in the 1970s, which argued that homosexuality should continue to be criminalized because the Bible said it was a sin.
In the decades since, the DUP has done little to win support from the LGBTQ+ community. Numerous MLAs and MPs have come under fire for making barbed comments about queer people – Ian Paisley Jr said in 2005 that he was “repulsed” by homosexuality, while Sammy Wilson said people with AIDS were sick because of their “lifestyle choices”.
In Stormont, the DUP has done everything in its power to stop LGBTQ+ people from winning equality. The party repeatedly blocked same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland using a mechanism agreed upon under the Good Friday Agreement known as the “petition of concern”. Same-sex marriage eventually came to Northern Ireland when power sharing collapsed, paving the way for Westminster to vote in its favor instead – but that victory still didn’t lead to the DUP abandoning its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.
There was a small glimmer of hope that the DUP could be open to change in 2021 when Paula Bradley, the DUP’s deputy leader, apologized for past remarks made by her party colleagues about LGBTQ+ people.
DUP deputy leader Paula Bradley apologised for comments made by her party colleagues about the LGBT+ community. (PAUL FAITH/AFP via Getty)
Speaking at a PinkNews reception, Bradley admitted that some of the comments made by DUP representatives had been “absolutely atrocious” and that they had “fed into the hatred” endured by LGBTQ+ people.
The apology was warmly welcomed by LGBTQ+ campaigners, but the community has little reason to believe that the DUP has any intention of seriously reckoning with its past and changing the course of its future. Many of the party’s representatives continue to speak out against advancements in LGBTQ+ rights, with conversion therapy becoming a sticking point for some MLAs and MPs.
Sinn Féin has adapted – and its leaders are strong supporters of LGBTQ+ rights
While the DUP continues to linger in the past, Sinn Féin has been quick to adapt when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights. The party, which has been in operation for more than a century, has gradually moved towards strong support for the LGBTQ+ community.
In 2012, Sinn Féin formally supported same-sex marriage and, in 2015, it was the only party in Northern Ireland to support for trans people in its party manifesto.
In 2021, Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald told the PinkNews Belfast Summer Reception that trans people deserve proper healthcare all across the island of Ireland. She also used her platform to criticise the UK’s Gender Recognition Act (GRA), saying it “others people in a way that is cruel”.
That’s not to say Sinn Féin is totally in the clear when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights – in 2020, there was some controversy in the Republic of Ireland when it emerged that elected representative Brian Stanley had tweeted “insensitive” remarks about Leo Varadkar, who is gay.
One Sinn Féin member, Iósaf Ó Muirí, told the Belfast Telegraph at the time that he had left the party because it had “failed to take robust action on racism, homophobia and bigotry”.
Still, the prospect of a Sinn Féin first minister is a much better one for LGBTQ+ people. Sinn Féin is much more likely to support the community and to aid and assist in championing advancements in LGBTQ+ rights.
That’s important because there is still a great deal of work to be done in Northern Ireland to make life better for LGBTQ+ people. Trans healthcare is in a state of disarray in the region, and conversion therapy is still being practiced legally – although the Stormont government has promised to outlaw the practice and legislation is currently being drafted.
It’s not yet entirely clear just how significant a Sinn Féin victory would be for Northern Ireland’s LGBTQ+ community, but at the very least, it would show queer people that they have a leader who supports their right to equality.
President warns of new attacks by Trump-dominated political party after supreme court ruling draft leak on abortion
Joe Biden delivered remarks on economic growth, jobs, and deficit reduction at the Roosevelt Room on Wednesday. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Joe Biden has warned of new attacks on civil rights as the supreme court prepares to strike down the right to abortion, telling reporters at the White House that LGBTQ+ children could be the next targets of a Trump-dominated Republican party he called “this Maga crowd” and “the most extreme political organization … in recent American history”.
Contraception could come under fire next if Roe v Wade is overturned
Read more
“What happens,” the president asked, if “a state changes the law saying that children who are LGBTQ can’t be in classrooms with other children? Is that legit under the way the decision is written?”
Biden’s remarks, at the end of a brief session on deficit reduction, referred to a leaked draft of a ruling by Justice Samuel Alito. One of six conservatives on the supreme court, Alito was writing on a Mississippi case which aims to overturn both Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which guaranteed the right to abortion, and Casey v Planned Parenthood from 1992, which buttressed it.
The Mississippi case is expected to be resolved in June. The leak of the draft ruling to Politico, which reported that four other conservatives on the nine-justice court supported it, caused a storm of controversy and anger.
In a statement and remarks on Tuesday, Biden condemned Alito’s reasoning and intentions and called for legislation to codify Roe into law.
But the president has faced criticism within his own party for seeming reluctant to contemplate reform such legislation would require, namely abolishing the Senate filibuster, the rule that requires 60 votes for most bills to pass.
A lifelong Catholic who nonetheless supports a woman’s right to choose, Biden has been eclipsed as a strong voice against the attack on abortion rights by high-profile Democratic women including the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, who spoke angrily outside the court on Tuesday, and the vice-president, Kamala Harris.
Harris’s struggles as vice-president have been widely reported but on Tuesday night, speaking to the Emily’s List advocacy group in Washington, she seemed to hit her stride.
The former prosecutor and California senator said: “Those Republican leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women. Well, we say, ‘How dare they?’
“How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body? How dare they? How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future? How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms?’”
She asked: “Which party wants to expand our rights? And which party wants to restrict them? It has never been more clear. Which party wants to lead us forward? And which party wants to push us back? You know, some Republican leaders, they want to take us back to a time before Roe v Wade.”
At the White House on Wednesday, Biden took brief questions. He was asked about sanctions on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine and about “the next step on abortion once this case gets settled”.
“As I said when this hit, as I was getting on the plane to go down to Alabama, this is about a lot more than abortion,” he said. “I hadn’t read the whole opinion at that time.”
The 79-year-old president then gave a lengthy, somewhat rambling answer about “the debate with Robert Bork”. Bork was nominated to the supreme court by Ronald Reagan in 1987. Biden was then chair of the Senate judiciary committee. The nomination failed.
US supreme court justices on abortion – what they’ve said and how they’ve voted
Read more
At the White House, Biden said Bork “believed the only reason you had any inherent rights was because the government gave them to you”, a stance with which Biden said he disagreed.
Biden also said Bork had opposed Griswold v Connecticut, the 1965 case which established the right to contraception – a right many on the left fear may be left open to rightwing attack once Roe, another case concerning privacy, has been overturned.
In her speech the previous night, Harris said: “At its core, Roe recognizes the fundamental right to privacy. Think about that for a minute. When the right to privacy is attacked, anyone in our country may face a future where the government can interfere in their personal decisions. Not just women. Anyone.”
The vice-president also said: “Let us fight for our country and for the principles upon which it was founded, and let us fight with everything we have got.”
A new Alabama law that targets trans youth went into effect on May 8 and is causing concern for LGBTQ+ people, their families, and allies. Signed into law by Governor Kay Ivey on April 8, the “Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act” makes it a felony for doctors to prescribe hormones and puberty blockers for those under age 19, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The law is part of a wider swath of anti-trans youth legislation cropping up across Republican-controlled states, but this bill is uniquely extreme in targeting health care providers with potential felony charges. Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, an Alabama pediatrician who treats gender dysphoria in children, testified during the bill’s federal court hearing: “This will force us into a place of risking a felony conviction for providing evidence-based care.”
As of this writing, the law is in effect, meaning that providing gender-affirming medical care for trans youth in Alabama is a felony. According to AL.com, the law is being challenged by a lawsuit filed by parents of four transgender youth who argue the law will “deprive their children of access to established medical care that is safe, effective, and necessary.” Also party to the suit are a child psychologist who works with trans youth, a pediatrician, and a pastor. In the meantime, plaintiffs are asking for a temporary hold on the law.
Trans advocates and experts are sounding the alarm. As Chase Strangio, deputy director for trans justice with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, told Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman during a May 9 appearance on the program, this “[creates] an absolutely terrifying sea change in the reality on the ground for trans people, their families, and their doctors in Alabama — and not just in Alabama, but across the Southeast.”
I have been working in trans legal advocacy for 18 years and today is probably the most upsetting day with a felony ban on health care going into effect in Alabama. Not much noise nationally from our “allies” either.
“The University of Alabama has a gender clinic that is serving trans adolescents and their families, not just in Alabama, but in Georgia and Florida and Tennessee and Mississippi,” Strangio continued. “And in a matter of hours, all of that care is becoming a felony, which means families are uprooting their lives. They’re trying to figure out what, when, and whether they can get life-saving care for their adolescent children.”
In other states, legislators are pushing to adopt “trans refuge” policies that would welcome trans people and their families from hostile states. California senator Scott Wiener, who sponsored a bill in his home state as part of this effort, publicly criticized Alabama’s law. “At midnight, Alabama’s vile law criminalizing trans youth accessing gender-affirming care — threatening parents & doctors with 10 years in prison — went into effect. We’re working in coalition w/19 other states to pass laws granting refuge to impacted families. We have your backs,” Wiener wrote on Twitter.
According to Bay City News, the proposed California bill would stop other states from subpoenaing medical records from California in order to separate trans children from their parents or to penalize families for seeking gender-affirming care, and would bar law enforcement from, as reported by the outlet, “making or intentionally participating in the arrest of an individual with an out-of-state warrant for allowing a child to receive gender-affirming health care.”
Twenty-one LGBTQ lawmakers in 16 states have committed to introducing similar legislation, according to the Victory Institute, an organization that promotes LGBTQ politicians.
Any implication or attempt to blame the heinous shooting in Buffalo on the Congresswoman is a new disgusting low for the Left, their Never Trump allies, and the sycophant stenographers in the media. The shooting was an act of evil and the criminal should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Despite sickening and false reporting, the Congresswoman has never advocated for any racist position or made a racist statement.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the No. 3 House Republican, and other GOP lawmakers came under scrutiny Sunday for previously echoing the racist “great replacement” theory that apparently inspired an 18-year-old who allegedly killed 10 people while targeting Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo.
A series of Facebook ads published in September 2021 by Stefanik’s campaign committee that charged that Democrats were allowing undocumented immigrants into the United States as a ploy to outnumber, and eventually silence, Republican voters.
“Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION,” reads one of the ads, which shows a reflection of migrants in sunglasses Biden is wearing. “Their plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.”
Did you know: @EliseStefanik pushes white replacement theory? The #3 in the house GOP. @Liz_Cheney got removed for demanding truth. @GOPLeader should be asked about this.
Stefanik Blasted for 'Despicable' Facebook Ads Pushing 'Replacement Theory' https://t.co/RcuzJ37BiE
— Adam Kinzinger #fella (@AdamKinzinger) May 14, 2022
In case anyone thought @RepStefanik wasn't intentional about employing this rhetoric, here she is today on the House floor reading from prepared remarks invoking the white nationalist conspiracy theory about an "invasion" pic.twitter.com/aiHss5bO5l
Let’s be clear. #EliseStarvefanik is mad. But she is really mad because she wanted to live in 2worlds. She wanted the benefit of the MAGA/QANON crowd and the respect of the @HarvardIOP cocktail crowd. This last week made her realize she has only the MAGA/Qanon weirdos. 🥴 https://t.co/fR9nTozr4Q
Great Replacement Theory is a vile, racist and false conspiracy theory that the Buffalo murderer relied upon. GOP Rep Elise Stefanik ran ads promoting it.
TEAM ELISE has advanced REPLACEMENT THEORY. She is absolutely responsible, in part for the blood shed. There will be more and she will share in that also because she helped light the fuse. Her rhetoric is purposeful. It is Hitlerism. What’s she is saying was at the ideological https://t.co/BwEjrZi1FB
core of National Socialism. The new version is called NATIONAL CONSERVATISM. It’s called the New Right. @JDVance1 is a leading member also. @VanityFair and @jhensonpogue just wrote about it. The @NEDemocracy is the leading American Institution for Democracy. Perversely,
The twisted young Fascist Congresswoman @EliseStefanik is on the Board. She should be removed immediately or the rest of the Board should resign. It is beyond disgusting that she serves there while spreading the hatred she does. She is no victim. Truly, she is Bloody Elise
The White House, House Dems, & usual pedo grifters are so out of touch with the American people that rather than present ANY PLAN or urgency to address the nationwide baby formula crisis, they double down on sending pallets of formula to the southern border. Joe Biden has NO PLAN
Republican lawmakers are echoing the anti-immigrant rhetoric. An MSNBC political panel joined American Voices with Alicia Menendez to discuss the danger of touting lies about immigrants.
Partisans are already using the massacre to leap to broader political conclusions, as they always do. There’s no doubt that a racist subculture exists in America and is spread on social media. Politicians and media figures have an obligation to condemn it and such conspiratorial notions as “white replacement theory.” But mass shooters have had many motivations in recent years, and mental illness seems to be the most significant common denominator, to the extent there is one.
The establishment Right has spent five years looking away as some of right-wing media's most prominent members dove into the white supremacist fever swamps, now it's too late to bolster the guardrails (not that they're really trying).
WSJ ed page: “There’s no doubt that a racist subculture exists in America and is spread on social media. Politicians and media figures have an obligation to condemn it” https://t.co/yRbFEBVCWA
mass shooters have had many motivations in recent years, and mental illness seems to be the most significant common denominator, to the extent there is one.
I’d think the ready availability of guns which are quick and easy enough to use that they will mow down a roomful of people in a few minutes and powerful enough to shred small children into pieces is probably also a factor.
You knew all this white bullshit during the Charlottesville tiki-torch march. You heard all the chants back then about their ‘Replacement’ crap.\now 6 years later you suddenly wake up to the enemies in the heart of society. What are you? Slow learners?
I supervise expectant parents…. They tell me how expensive it is to even have a baby in the United States now…. People can’t afford $10,000 just to have a healthy baby. Nobody can afford that.
Is it really a matter of skin color that these people are worried about? Or is it a decline in some sort of idealized culture?
Because if it’s a matter of religious ideology, they’re missing the fact that immigrants from Central America and Mexico are giving the Catholic population in the US a boost, according to a number of studies.
“Partisans are already using the massacre to leap to broader political conclusions, as they always do.”
This attempt at deflection by the WSJ editorial board should be taken as an indication that those connecting the dots between the massacre and the right’s adoption of white nationalism are absolutely correct.
What was unspoken in the last half of the 20th Century (but those with ears to hear knew was there) is now, horribly making itself known. We really have a horrific group of racists whom Trump emboldened. Fighting them is just as important today as it was after Dred Scott.
Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke makes a passionate defense of the women’s right to choose and women’s health while on ABC’s The View. Francis Maxwell breaks it down. Video by Francis Maxwell.
Ten people were killed and three injured during a mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket Saturday afternoon, according to the city’s police commissioner. The manifesto left by the perpetrator of the hate crime appeared to get his talking points straight from Tucker Carlson, Fox News, and the Republican Party Video by Francis Maxwell.
Scottie's Playtime 