Americans are tired of empty, bloated promises from a president focused on lining his own pockets, protecting the Epstein class, and putting American livelihoods last. What we heard tonight from this rudderless, lame-duck president was the same old routine-delusion, division, and distraction.
On Thursday, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed House Bill 1473, a measure that asserts private citizens and organizations in the state are not bound by the Fourteenth Amendment or by the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges when it comes to recognizing the marriages of same-sex couples. The bill also shields people from professional discipline if they refuse to officiate or celebrate weddings or commitment ceremonies that fall outside Tennessee's statutory definition of marriage.
In a ruling that reasserts broad judicial deference to the U.S. military and delivers a major setback to HIV and LGBTQ+ advocates, a federal appeals court on Wednesday reinstated the Pentagon's long-standing ban on people living with HIV enlisting in the armed forces, undoing a lower-court decision that had briefly opened the door to qualified recruits with undetectable viral loads.
San Antonio recently unveiled new rainbow sidewalks in its Pride heritage district to replace the rainbow crosswalks that city workers removed in January, following anti-LGBTQ+ orders from the Trump administration and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R). Local residents had expressed disappointment towards the city's first out lesbian Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones
The first out transgender member of the U.S. Congress took the world stage in Germany last week, warning that attacks on people like her and on LGBTQ+ rights more broadly are being weaponized in the current political climate, as she joined former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on a high-profile panel at the Munich Security Conference.
Europe's parliament has agreed to a resolution declaring that trans women are women. The resolution, adopted last week, made a host of recommendations for the EU to pursue at the 70th annual UN Commission on the Status of Women, which is set to take place next month. Among the recommendations was a proclamation emphasising the "importance of the full recognition of trans women as women, noting that their inclusion is essential for the effectiveness of any gender-equality and anti-violence policies".
As if being a multi-Grammy award winner and Spotify's top-streamed artist since 2022 wasn't enough, Bad Bunny has broken yet another record after his Super Bowl Halftime Show became the most watched in history. The 31-year-old 'King of Latin Trap' put his money where his mouth is over the weekend after celebrating LGBTQ+ rights, Latin American culture, and global unity during his stunning musical performance at the Apple Music Super Bowl Half Time Show on Sunday (8 February). His promise to make the show as queer as possible didn't fall on deaf ears, with CBS News reporting that a whopping 135.4 million people tuned in to see the artist strut his stuff alongside Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, and many more.
Under relentless pressure from US President Donald Trump, and persistently undermined by China and Russia, the rules-based international order is being crushed, threatening to take with it the architecture human rights defenders have come to rely on to advance norms and protect freedoms. To defy this trend, governments that still value human rights, alongside social movements, civil society, and international institutions, need to form a strategic alliance to push back.
There are some things that defy explanation. When the loathsome House Speaker Mike Johnson recently took it upon himself to explain the Bible to Pope Leo XIV, the Bishop of Rome, the spiritual leader of over a billion Catholics, and a person who has truly earned his Jesus stripes, it just confirmed what a sanctimonious idiot Johnson is. This bizarre Bible babble from one of the most unholy people on Earth went beyond being absurd because the very idea that the narcissistic Johnson really thought he knew more about the Bible than the humble Leo is ... well, inexplicable.
