Even he's laughing at the idiotsPerhaps you read something about Trump being forced to fire his National Security Advisor after just a few weeks on the job, when he was exposed for taking cash from Putin and illicitly conniving with him even before Trump was sworn in. Many people find that rather important. But the bigoted little shit from the KKK that the Senate confirmed as Trump's Attorney General has something else he wants the Department of Justice to prioritize for investigation and remediation: LGBT equality. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III sees equality for gays and lesbians as a criminal problem. Jessica Mason Pieklo, writing for Rewire reported this morning that "within his first 48 hours as attorney general, Jeff Sessions made it clear that targeting LGBTQ rights would be a Department of Justice priority."
It didn’t even take U.S. Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III two full days before using the power of his position to go after the rights of transgender students, sending a clear message about the future under the Trump administration.The message came in the form of a court filing in a Texas case challenging an Obama Department of Education (DOE) guidance that public schools and universities receiving federal dollars should protect the rights of transgender students by allowing them access to facilities that align with their gender identity rather than their biological sex. Schools that refuse to comply with the guidance would be considered in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, and risk losing their federal funding.Shortly after the guidance was announced, several states run by conservative lawmakers filed a lawsuit in federal court in Texas arguing the administration had overreached its authority in issuing it. In August, a federal judge blocked its enforcement nationwide, ruling the Obama administration could not punish schools for not accommodating transgender students while the lawsuit proceeds. The Obama administration appealed that initial ruling. That appeal is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.The new Department of Justice (DOJ) under Sessions changed the course in that case in two significant ways. First, Sessions withdrew a request by the Obama administration to limit the court order blocking enforcement of the guidance to only those public schools in states that sued against the order originally. Sessions and the DOJ then filed a joint request alongside the states challenging the rule, asking the Fifth Circuit to remove oral arguments in the case from its calendar. The request noted that all parties were “currently considering how best to proceed in the appeal.”In other words, Sessions and the DOJ are trying to find the legal avenues to argue the guidance should not be followed, while the administration works on unwinding it altogether... All this doesn’t just suggest the Trump administration is reversing course on the position that existing civil rights laws protect transgender people from discrimination. It also suggests the DOJ will now actively work against transgender rights by siding with conservative states seeking to do the same.
Oh, and by the way, to answer our own question in the title, exit-pollsters estimate that 14% of gay people voted for Trump-- and his infamously homophobic running mate-- in November. Are they all on prescription drugs like the rest of Trump's supporters? (Bonus question: how many Jews voted for the Nazi Party in the 1933 Reichstag elections?)