Fears of violence against pro-choice protests intensify amid wave of attacks

Use of teargas and arrests by police and targeting by anti-abortion activists disrupts demonstrations in multiple states

New York police clear people protesting against the supreme court’s Roe v Wade decision from the street. 

Photograph: Caitlin Ochs/Reuters


Erum Salam

Tue 28 Jun 2022

Fears over police violence and attacks by anti-abortion activists have been growing following a wave of incidents at demonstrations against the US supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which upheld the constitutional right to an abortion.


‘A matter of life and death’: maternal mortality rate will rise without Roe, experts warn

Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people have gathered at protests objecting to the ruling. The protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful but some have seen incidents of police violence – including attacks on protesters – and an incident of a car driving dangerously through marchers.

Law enforcement cracked down on protests in multiple states, wielding batons and forcibly removing protesters from public spaces and firing teargas in Arizona.

Over two dozen pro-choice activists were arrested in New York City as protests took place in Washington Square Park, Union Square and in front of the NewsCorp building in midtown, home to Fox News studios.

Pro-choice supporters hold signs at a rally outside the South Carolina statehouse. Photograph: Meg Kinnard/AP

In Arizona, police fired rounds of teargas into protesters from inside the state Capitol building. Police later issued a statement saying they were concerned protesters would gain access to the building.

In Greenville, South Carolina, six protesters were arrested following a clash with police that left some injured. In one video widely circulated on social media, a police officer is seen threatening a woman with a Taser and throwing an elderly man to the ground.

Allen Chaney, a spokesperson for South Carolina’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union told the Guardian: “The ACLU of South Carolina strongly condemns violence against peaceful protesters. It should be the case that you can show up and peacefully protest in this country without fear of violence or wrongful arrest.”

Protesters get ready to march to the governor’s mansion in Des Moines, Iowa. Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP

Meanwhile, a pickup truck ploughed through protesters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, hospitalizing one woman. The Cedar Rapids police department declined to comment on the incident. The state recently passed a law making it legal for drivers to hit protesters with vehicles in certain circumstances. Other states in the US have passed similar laws.

In Los Angeles, California, the Full House actor Jodie Sweetin was surrounded by police officers and pushed to the ground in front of fellow pro-choice protesters.

In a statement following the event, Sweetin said: “Our activism will continue until our voices are heard and action is taken. This will not deter us, we will continue fighting for our rights. We are not free until ALL of us are free.”

Journalists reporting in Los Angeles were also involved in violent incidents at the hands of police. Reporter Tina Desiree Berg was grabbed by a police officer, despite wearing a press badge around her neck. Samuel Braslow, another reporter for the Beverly Hills Courier, was also filmed being pushed by police.

Police hold a pro-choice demonstrator to the ground in Los Angeles, California. Photograph: Vishal P Sing/Reuters

The Los Angeles police department issued a statement to the Guardian: “The LAPD is aware of the video clip of a woman being pushed. The force used will be evaluated against the LAPD’s policy and procedure.

“As the nation continues to wrestle with the latest supreme court decision, the Los Angeles police department will continue to facilitate First Amendment rights, while protecting life and property.”

In response to the arrests, private companies such as Live Nation Entertainment and the clothing retailer Patagonia offered to bail their employees out of jail, if arrested while peacefully protesting.

The company issued a statement that said: “Patagonia supports choice.”

“Caring for employees extends beyond basic health insurance, so we take a more holistic approach to coverage and support overall wellness to which every human has a right.”

Did violence follow Roe decision? Yes — almost all of it against pro-choice protesters

Right claimed to fear pro-choice "rage" after SCOTUS decision — but so far the violence is directed at protesters

By KATHRYN JOYCE
PUBLISHED JUNE 28, 2022 6:00AM (EDT)

NYPD officers arrest several abortion rights activist after they blocked traffic while protesting the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade by the US Supreme Court, in New York, on June 24, 2022.

 (ALEX KENT/AFP via Getty Images)

Before the Supreme Court even announced its decision overturning Roe v. Wade last Friday, right-wing politicians and media had begun warning of a wave of violent demonstrations or riots by pro-choice protesters. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., called on "all patriots" to defend local churches and crisis pregnancy centers, while Fox News hyped warnings about a "night" or "summer of rage" and various far-right activists — from the America First/groyper movement to the Proud Boys to a staffer for Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake — issued threats against leftists they claimed were about to become violent.

But it appears that most of the violence that occurred in response to the Roe decision this past weekend was directed at pro-choice demonstrators, not caused by them.

On Friday night, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a man drove his pickup truck into a group of women protesters, hitting several and driving over the ankle of one woman. Iowa journalist Lyz Lenz, who was covering the protest, noted on Twitter that the attack came at the end of a peaceful event, as demonstrators were crossing the road at a crosswalk while the man had a red light. "The truck drove around other cars in order to hit protesters," Lenz wrote, adding that the driver "was screaming" while a woman in the truck with him begged him to stop.

As Andy Campbell and Alanna Vagianos reported at HuffPost, a number of other protesters ran after the truck, trying to stop it, but the driver continued on, knocking over several people. The woman whose ankle was run over was sent to the hospital. As of Saturday, the man had not been charged with any crime.

RELATED: Amid all the gloating, anti-abortion right dreams of bigger wins — and possible violence

That same night, at a pro-choice protest in Providence, Rhode Island, an off-duty police officer named Jeann Lugo — who, until this weekend, was a Republican candidate for state Senate — punched his Democratic opponent, reproductive rights organizer Jennifer Rourke, in the face.

Providence police arrested Lugo and charged him with assault and disorderly conduct, placing him on administrative leave. On Saturday, Lugo dropped out of the Senate race and announced he would not be seeking any political office before apparently deactivating his Twitter account.

In Atlanta, photographer Matthew Pearson documented a group of more than a dozen Proud Boys coming to counterprotest a pro-choice demonstration, while an Atlanta antifascist group posted photos of the group boarding a Humvee painted with the Proud Boys' logo.

In several other states, police responded to demonstrations against the SCOTUS ruling with heavy-handed tactics and violence.

In Greenville, South Carolina, multiple videos seemed to show police arresting and dragging pro-choice protesters away, as others in the crowd screamed at them to stop. In one video, a young woman is violently shoved backward into the street, where she falls and appears to hit her head. When an older woman comes over, apparently to help her, she is also put in handcuffs and taken away.

In a statement, the Greenville Police Department said it was conducting an internal review of the incident.

At the Arizona state capitol in Phoenix, police shot tear gas canisters into a crowd of protesters on Friday night, allegedly without warning, after some protesters began banging on the windows of the building, and, a video taken from inside the capitol indicates, one person kicked a glass door several times.

Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, who has called for hanging "traitors" who refused to overturn the election, declared a protest that resulted in no arrests or injuries the "#J24 Arizona Capitol Insurrection."

Republican lawmakers claimed in a statement that "extremist demonstrators" had tried to "make entry by breaking windows and pushing down doors" and described themselves as having faced a "hostage" situation and an "insurrection" meant to overthrow the state's government, although there were no arrests, injuries or broken glass. State Sen. Wendy Rogers — who called for building gallows and hanging "traitors who betrayed our country" during a speech to the white nationalist America First movement this February — declared the protest the "#J24 Arizona Capitol Insurrection," and, along with her GOP colleagues, called for more arrests. At HuffPost, Sebastian Murdock reports that after the protesters dispersed and moved to a park downtown, they were tear-gassed again. According to AZ Central, at a subsequent protest on Saturday, numerous legal observers were handcuffed and detained, one for around two hours.

In Los Angeles, videos show numerous violent confrontations between police and both protesters and the press. In one video, taken by photographer Michael Ade, LAPD officers are seen pushing protesters to the ground and striking at least one with a baton after the group tried to occupy or shut down the 101 freeway. In another video taken by Ade, which subsequently went viral, police shove former "Full House" actor Jodie Sweetin backward off a highway embankment — where, Ade tweeted, Sweetin was trying to lead protesters away from the road — and sent her sprawling to the pavement.

In downtown L.A., video by documentarian Vishal Singh depicts a woman protester shoved backward onto the ground and shot in the stomach with a riot gun projectile. In another video, police appear to beat a man who is being arrested, banging his head against a concrete curb before dragging him away while other protesters yell that the man is having a seizure.

Although the man has since been charged with attempted murder — for allegedly using an aerosol can as a makeshift flamethrower against an officer — Singh said, "It was one of the most brutal arrests I've ever seen, if not the most brutal."

When local journalist Tina Desiree Berg, who was wearing press credentials and took extensive footage of the protests throughout the weekend, tried to get a better angle of the man being arrested, one police officer punched her in the head before another shoved her to the ground, later telling her on video, "We're trying to protect you."

"If he had just walked over and said, 'Can you move over a foot,' I would have complied," said Berg in an interview with Salon. "I don't think this protest would have escalated to any violence if the protesters had just been left alone."

Berg, it turns out, was far from the only journalist hit or manhandled by LAPD officers last weekend, and, as Los Angeles Times journalist Kevin Rector writes, LAPD officers on Saturday repeatedly violated protections for journalists covering protests that were recently expanded by both state law and LAPD policy. Singh himself turned around at one point to find an LAPD officer pointing a riot gun, which fires lead beanbag rounds, at his head from just a few feet away. And a video from Beverly Hills Courier journalist Samuel Braslow shows a national legal observer being shoved to the ground by an officer.

Southern California right-wing extremists "will take any excuse to get in the streets and fight with 'antifa.' But these guys view anybody as 'antifa.'"

Singh also noted that a far-right activist associated with the white supremacist Rise Above Movement, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as "a Southern California-based racist fight club," posted a message on Telegram claiming that an allied "nationalist" had infiltrated the pro-choice protest. On Monday afternoon, the same activist published a video clip, taken from a short distance, of Singh standing at the protest, with the caption, "Hi Vishal."

Already over the last three days, right-wing groups in the area have threatened to counterprotest pro-choice demonstrations, and Singh said he's seen several people from those circles at protests over the weekend, including a man who assaulted him at an anti-vaccination rally last year.

"Typically [that man] shows up at right-wing or Proud Boys protests," said Singh. "But at every one of the protests over the last few days, he was following [protesters] around."

Berg notes that clashes between far-right extremists and counterprotesters have become a regular occurrence in Southern California. "These events are monthly at this point," she said. "This group is incredibly radicalized. They are very homophobic, very misogynistic, incredibly racist. They want white nationalism and the hood is off. So they'll take any excuse to get in the streets and fight with 'antifa.' But people should understand: these guys view everybody as 'antifa.' We've seen them call LAPD officers 'antifa.'"

However ludicrous that might seem, she continued, "They also really believe they are on a mission that is morally correct and that they're the good guys. When you view it through that lens, it's easy to see how things have become so violent in the way that they have. And I think it's going to get worse."

While conservative media and politicians have raised the issue of vandalism or violence against crisis pregnancy centers since the draft SCOTUS opinion was leaked in May, successfully calling for an FBI investigation, a new report released Friday by the National Abortion Federation noted a sharp increase in incidents of vandalism, assault and battery and hoax bomb threats against actual abortion clinics in 2021, including a 200% increase in reports of stalking clinic staff.

Read more on America after the fall of Roe v. Wade:

What the anti-abortion movement wants next — and how we can respond

How to access abortion in a post-Roe world

AOC unleashes anti-Republican Twitter blitz after Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade

KATHRYN JOYCE is an investigative reporter at Salon, and the author of two books: "The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption" and "Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement."

'Deeply hurtful': More states make it harder for LGBTQ people to foster or adopt children

Cristina Silva, USA TODAY

Tue, June 28, 2022 

Fatma Marouf and Bryn Esplin wanted a big family. The married couple, who both work as professors at Texas A&M University, knew they had love and security to give. 

But when they applied to foster a refugee child under a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services program operated by the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Fort Worth, Texas, they were told they couldn’t move forward. The agency wouldn’t work with two mothers.

“They said you have to ‘mirror the Holy Family’ and I was stunned,” said Marouf. “I didn't really know what that meant."

Esplin, who grew up Mormon and always thought, the more children in the home, the merrier, was also shocked.

“It was deeply hurtful,” she said.

The couple is now at the forefront of a series of legal battles playing out across the nation over the civil rights of same-sex couples to parent children. LGBTQ activists said there has been a growing resurgence of state legislation and lawsuits in recent years trying to block these couples from fostering or adopting children, even in some cases going as far as to make it difficult for same-sex parents to have rights to children they conceived through fertility treatments.

LGBTQ activists warn attacks on same-sex parents are part of a larger campaign to discredit LGBTQ couples and challenge gay marriage. Many legal scholars have said the Supreme Court’s ruling last week overturning Roe v. Wade, which had protected abortion rights for nearly 50 years, has provided a path for other rights not explicitly detailed in the U.S. Constitution to be scrutinized, including gay marriage.

At the center of these parenting disputes are two very different viewpoints. The first is that denying same-sex couples equal rights as different-sex couples is discriminatory, homophobic and illegal under the Constitution’s equal protection clause. LGBTQ activists note such policies can make it harder to find homes for children in need – there are more than 400,000 foster children across the United States and experts predict the number of children who will need temporary and permanent homes could balloon over the next decade with abortion rights being restricted in many states.

The other viewpoint is that religious institutions should not be forced to serve people who do not share their beliefs that marriage is only between a man and a woman and that children should ideally have one male and one female parent.

Fatma Marouf (left), Bryn Esplin (right), and their daughter at home in Fort Worth, Texas.

Many same-sex couples said they only found out about the barriers to parenthood after they made the decision to start a family. After the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling declaring gay marriage a constitutional right, these couples said they were flabbergasted to find out they were being ruled out as parents because of who they love.

“I’m a law professor, and I was still completely shocked that it was allowed,” said Marouf of learning in 2017 that she and her wife could not foster a refugee child through Catholic Charities Fort Worth. The couple is at the center of a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services and the Conference of Catholic Bishops over the matter. “It would be like telling me you have to be a Catholic to apply.”

In al, 12 states allow state-licensed child welfare agencies to refuse to work with LGBTQ couples if doing so conflicts with their religious values, including Texas, Virginia and Arizona, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank focusing on LGBTQ research. Arizona passed its policy in April. Only 29 states and Washington, D.C., explicitly prohibit discrimination in adoption based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Plaintiff Jim Obergefell holds a photo of his late husband John Arthur as he speaks to members of the media after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling regarding same-sex marriage June 26, 2015, outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. The high court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry in all 50 states.

The breakdown is similar when it comes to foster care services.

“It has been a challenging few years,” said Naomi G. Goldberg, LGBTQ program director for the Movement Advancement Project.

The Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage sparked a backlash that has only grown, said Goldberg. “We saw states reacting to that and saying, ‘We still don’t want to treat couples fairly.’”

Activists are pushing for the Biden administration to issue a Health and Human Services policy prohibiting discrimination in government-licensed foster and adoption services. Passage of the Equality Act, which would expand civil rights laws to include protections based on sexual orientation and gender identification, would also better guard same-sex couples, said Goldberg.

Research shows being LGBTQ is immaterial to someone’s ability to be a good parent, said Camilla B. Taylor, director of constitutional litigation for Lambda Legal. Government-funded foster and adoption agencies that refuse to work with same-sex families are violating the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, she added. Lambda Legal is representing Marouf and Esplin in their lawsuit against the federal government.

The First Amendment also prohibits the government from favoring any one religion or faith, meaning religious organizations shouldn’t be able to punish prospective parents who don’t share their values, Taylor said.

“There are certainly efforts underway to chip away at marriage equality, if not overrule it altogether,” said Taylor. “We know we are going to have a fight on our hands.”

Supreme Court ruling sparked backlash to LGBTQ rights

The backlash against same-sex couples isn’t new. In the 1980s and 1990s, in part because of the AIDS epidemic and widespread homophobia, a handful of states passed laws or debated passing laws preventing same-sex couples from adopting or serving as foster parents. New Hampshire became the first state to repeal its ban in 1999, according to the ACLU. 

More recently, the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2015 establishing the federal right to gay marriage acknowledged LGBTQ families who had long been raising “hundreds of thousands of children.” And in 2017, the Obama administration enacted rules prohibiting discrimination in adoption and foster care agencies funded by Health and Human Services.

But as more states have contracted foster care services to private agencies and more LGBTQ couples have expressed a desire to adopt, the national debate over who is allowed to care for children has intensified.

In 2019, the Trump administration granted a waiver from federal non-discrimination rules to South Carolina that allowed the state to continue its contract with a religious organization that refused to work with same-sex couples. In that instance, a Christian lesbian couple, Eden Rogers and Brandy Welch, were told by Miracle Hill Ministries, the state’s largest foster care contractor, that they could not be foster parents because they were a same-sex couple. Lambda Legal is also representing the couple in its ongoing legal fight against the Department of Health and Human Services and the state of South Carolina.

In 2020, after the Trump administration vowed to remove all Obama-era protections against discrimination in federally funded adoption and foster care, Tennessee joined the list of states embracing similar measures to allow government-funded foster care and adoption agencies to exclude LGBTQ families.

The Supreme Court dealt somewhat of another setback to same-sex couples when it ruled in 2021 that the city of Philadelphia had to work with a Catholic organization that said religious beliefs meant it would not place children with same-sex couples. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said in the ruling that “gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth,” but concluded there could be an exception for religious reasons in this specific case.

Breanne Brodak, left, and Cortney Tucker kiss after getting married in Pontiac, Mich., Friday, June 26, 2015, after The Supreme Court declared that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the United States. Michigan was one of 14 states enforcing a ban on same-sex marriage.

Despite barriers, same-sex families are thriving. There are roughly 543,000 married same-sex couples and another 469,000 same-sex couples who are not married but live together. Of those, roughly 16.2% are raising children, according to the Williams Institute, a think tank focused on LGBTQ law and policy at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Compared with different-sex couples, same-sex couples are seven times more likely to foster or adopt, the Williams Institute found. Many of these families represent people of color. About 34% of African American LGBTQ adults and 39% of Latino LGBTQ adults are raising children, while 21% of white LGBTQ adults are parents.

And it’s likely the need for same-sex adoptions will only grow, with Millennials and Gen Z Americans identifying as LGBTQ at much higher rates than previous generations, said Kerith J. Conron, research director at the Williams Institute.

With so many children in need, federal contractors shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate against LGBTQ couples, said Cathryn Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel at the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ civil rights organization. The group recommends that LGBTQ parents take extra protections, such as adopting the child their partner gave birth to during the relationship, which Oakley called “a deeply discouraging thing” for many same-sex couples.

“That is a really disheartening thing for folks to have to do. Why shouldn't your relationship with your child be treated the same way as the relationship that other parents have with their child,” she said. “It is humiliating and degrading because that is not something that a different-sex couple would be encouraged to do or experience. There would be no confusion or assumptions.”

LGBTQ parents forced to adopt their biological children

Colorado House Majority Leader Daneya Esgar and her wife, Heather Palm, are one of the same-sex couples at the forefront of the fight for equal parental rights. The couple had a daughter through in vitro fertilization, with the genetic material coming from Palm, and Esgar carrying the baby. Then Palm found out that because she hadn’t given birth to the child, she would have to adopt her daughter through a stepparent adoption process, Esgar said.

“It was completely insane to us,” Esgar said. “I can’t believe this is still something that exists that no one talks about. You would never assume things are still so unequal."

Esgar worked with lawmakers in Colorado this spring to pass Marlo’s Law, named after her daughter, which ensures same-sex couples have a more streamlined process to guarantee their parental rights.

Daneya Esgar

Esgar said she is concerned about the recent wave of anti-LGBTQ curricula adopted in conservative states and worries more gay rights could soon disappear. She wants more allies talking to their school boards, writing letters to elected officials, in the streets protesting anti-LGBTQ measures. At the same time, she said she is buoyed by the many Pride flags she sees in different communities.

Esgar said people who question the integrity of her family are coming from a place of fear. When Marlo turns one year old in July, the family will get together for a small party to celebrate.

“Marlo is one of the most loved children I’ve ever seen,” Esgar said. “People just adore her and how can you not? You walk into a room and the girl lights up.”

LGBTQ parents can lose rights in divorce

In Oklahoma, a case has challenged whether same-sex parents can continue to have claims to a child after a divorce.

Kris Williams and her then-wife had a child using a sperm donor. Both had been active in LGBTQ civil rights movements, protesting a 2018 state law that allowed religious organizations to refuse to help same-sex couples foster or adopt.

When their child was born, Williams cut the umbilical cord in the hospital. The couple named the child after her uncle, said Hanna Roberts, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, which is representing Williams in the case.

Then Williams’ wife took steps to end the marriage in 2021. She claimed that because Williams didn’t have biological ties to the child and had not adopted the child, she had no rights. Her wife also claimed in court documents that Williams had physically attacked her. At the same time, the sperm donor was demanding rights to the child. Williams’ name was removed from the birth certificate, Roberts said.

Williams’ case made plain how tenuous LGBTQ parental rights might be, said Roberts. For months, Williams has not been able to see her child. But same-sex couples were meant to enjoy all the benefits of marriage as other couples under the Supreme Court ruling, including not having to adopt the child they had with their spouse, said Roberts.

“It is not a question of whether or not these rights were extended to same-sex couples,” Roberts said. “Is it just a question of whether or not states are going to recognize that these rights have been extended.”

A person spreads wings with the words "Black Trans Lives Matter" written on them during the Brooklyn Liberation's Protect Trans Youth event at the Brooklyn Museum on June 13, 2021, in the Brooklyn borough in New York City. Brooklyn Liberation organized a march and rally as an emergency action response to legislation to restrict trans rights across 34 states.

Critics of same-sex parents point to values

Many critics of same-sex parents point to their religious beliefs against same-sex relationships, while others insist a so-called traditional family is simply best.

Lynn Wardle, a retired law professor at Brigham Young University in Utah who has advocated against same-sex marriage, said children raised by same-sex couples “can turn out just wonderfully." Still, he feels strongly that children are more likely to have a better life if they have both a mother and a father. He said children have historically been raised by different-gender parents and when that doesn’t happen, either because of divorce or a parent dies, children can face greater challenges.

“It’s a moral issue, and people feel strongly that children have a right to be raised by a mom and dad, not by two men or two women,” he said.

Religious organizations that don’t want to work with same-sex couples shouldn’t be forced to do so, said the Rev. Paul Sullins, a research faculty member at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and a senior research associate at the Ruth Institute, a Louisiana-based Catholic organization that opposes gay marriage. Those couples should turn to non-religious organizations, he said.

“If a Jewish deli doesn't want to have non-kosher food, it doesn't burden the general public if there are lots of delis with non-kosher food,” he said.

He said it is in the best interest of children to place them in a home that more closely represents their culture, such as placing Black children with Black parents when possible and straight kids with straight parents. He pointed to data that shows gay male couples are more likely to practice open relationships than other couples and that lesbians have higher divorce rates compared with other couples. 

He said he would support some exceptions, such as same-sex couples adopting a child who is related to them.

Parents with love to offer children

For many LGBTQ activists, it is not acceptable for the government to fund agencies that shun same-sex couples.

Youth activist Javier Gomez reacts after President Joe Biden handed him a pen he used to sign an executive order at an event to celebrate Pride Month in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, June 15, 2022, in Washington.

Marouf first visited Catholic Charities Fort Worth as part of her work as an immigration attorney. During a tour of the facility, staff showed her where refugee children were living and invited her to apply to become a foster mother.

Marouf and Esplin wanted to grow their family and many of the refugee children in Fort Worth came from the Middle East just like Marouf’s family. When the agency initially described the requirements of becoming a foster parent, they never mentioned that same-sex couples would not be considered.

After they were denied, Marouf reached out to federal officials to inquire whether the agency’s refusal to work with them was legal. She imagined they would say something like, Oh, no, they can’t do that, let’s call them. For months, she said, she didn’t get a reply.

Fatma Marouf (left), Bryn Esplin (right), and their daughter at home in Fort Worth, Texas.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment. A spokesperson for the Conference of Catholic Bishops, which receives millions of dollars in grant funding from the federal government to help find homes for refugee and migrant children, also did not respond to a request for comment. In 2019, a federal district court denied motions by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Conference of Catholic Bishops to dismiss the lawsuit.

While waiting for their lawsuit to move forward, Marouf, now 45, and Esplin, now 38, used fertility treatments to have a biological daughter, who is now nearly 3. Both of their names are on the girl’s birth certificate.

“Our daughter is the light of our lives and so you can’t even begin to articulate and appreciate that love until you have it, even though we always knew we wanted a family,” said Esplin. “I continue to believe that Fatma and I have so much to offer.”

Sometimes the couple is asked whether they would consider moving to a more progressive state where they might not have to fight so hard to be recognized.

Marouf and Esplin said they want to stay and make it better for other same-sex couples in Texas.

“The message it sends to our kid and to society is that we are not adequate parents,” Marouf said. “And to us, that is a battle worth fighting.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: With Roe decision, LGBTQ parents worry their rights will be hit next

Christian fascism is right here, right now: After Roe, can we finally see it?

The Supreme Court is relentlessly fueling the rise of fascism: Roe v. Wade is only the most visible example

By CHRIS HEDGES
PUBLISHED JUNE 28, 2022 5:30AM (EDT

Members of the right-wing group, the Patriot Front, as they prepare to march with anti-abortion activists during the 49th annual March for Life along Constitution Ave. on Friday, Jan. 21, 2022 in Washington, DC.

 (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

This article originally appeared at ScheerPost. 

The Supreme Court is relentlessly funding and empowering Christian fascism. It not only overturned Roe v. Wade, ending a constitutional right to an abortion, but ruled on June 21 that Maine may not exclude religious schools from a state tuition program. It has ruled that a Montana state program to support private schools must include religious schools. It ruled that a 40-foot cross could remain on state property in suburban Maryland. It upheld the Trump administration regulation allowing employers to deny birth control coverage to female employees on religious grounds. It ruled that employment discrimination laws do not apply to teachers at religious schools. It ruled that a Catholic social services agency in Philadelphia could ignore city rules and refuse to screen same-sex couples applying to take in foster children. It neutered the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It watered down laws allowing workers to combat sexual and racial harassment in court. It reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions to permit corporations, private groups and oligarchs to spend unlimited funds on elections, a system of legalized bribery, in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission. It permitted states to opt out of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion. It undercut the ability of public sector unions to raise funds. It forced workers with legal grievances to submit their complaints to privatized arbitration boards. It ruled that states cannot restrict the right to carry concealed weapons in public. It ruled that suspects cannot sue police who neglect to read them their Miranda warnings and use their statements against them in court. Outlawing contraception, same-sex marriage and same-sex consensual relations are probably next. Only 25 percent of those polled say they have confidence in Supreme Court decisions.

I do not use the word fascist lightly. My father was a Presbyterian minister. My mother, a professor, was a seminary graduate. I received my Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School. I am an ordained Presbyterian minister. Most importantly, I spent two years reporting from megachurches, creationist seminars, right-to-life retreats, Christian broadcasting networks and conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with members and leaders of the Christian right for my book "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America," which is banned at most "Christian" schools and universities. Before the book was published, I met at length with Fritz Stern, the author of "The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the German Ideology," and Robert O. Paxton, who wrote "The Anatomy of Fascism," two of the country's most eminent scholars of fascism, to make sure the word fascist was appropriate.
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The book was a warning that an American fascism, wrapped in the flag and clutching the Christian cross, was organizing to extinguish our anemic democracy. This assault is very far advanced. The connecting tissue among the disparate militia groups, QAnon conspiracy theorists, anti-abortion activists, right-wing patriot organizations, Second Amendment advocates, neo-Confederates and Trump supporters that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 is this frightening Christian fascism.

Fascists achieve power by creating parallel institutions — schools, universities, media platforms and paramilitary forces — and seizing the organs of internal security and the judiciary. They deform the law, including electoral law, to serve their ends. They are rarely in the majority. The Nazis never polled above 37 percent in free elections in Germany. Christian fascists constitute less than a third of the U.S. electorate, about the same percentage of those who consider abortion to be murder.

Fascists win power by creating parallel institutions and seizing the internal security organs and the the judiciary. They don't need a majority.

This flagrant manipulation of law was displayed in two of the most recent Supreme Court decisions, where those who support this ideology have a 5-3 majority, with the less extremist Chief Justice John Roberts often adding a sixth vote. In overturning Roe v. Wade, the court, in a 6-3 decision, argued that states have the power to decide whether abortion is legal. The same court conversely came down against "states' rights," in striking down strict restrictions on carrying concealed firearms.

What the ideology demands is law. What the ideology opposes is a crime. Once a legal system is subservient to dogma an open society is impossible.

Blow by blow, autocratic power is being solidified by this monstrous Christian fascism which is bankrolled by the most retrograde forces of corporate capitalism. It looks set to take control of the U.S. Congress in the midterm elections. If Trump, or a Trump-like clone, is elected in 2024, what is left of our democracy will likely be extinguished.

These Christian fascists are clear about the society they intend to create.

In their ideal America, our "secular humanist" society based on science and reason will be destroyed. The Ten Commandments will form the basis of the legal system. Creationism or "Intelligent Design" will be taught in public schools, many of which will be overtly "Christian." Those branded as social deviants, including the LGBTQ community, immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims, criminals and those dismissed as "nominal Christians" — meaning Christians who do not embrace this peculiar interpretation of the Bible — will be silenced, imprisoned or killed. The role of the federal government will be reduced to protecting property rights, "homeland" security and waging war. Most government assistance programs and federal departments, including education, will be terminated. Church organizations will be funded and empowered to run social welfare agencies and schools. The poor, condemned for sloth, indolence and sinfulness, will be denied help. The death penalty will be expanded to include "moral crimes," including apostasy, blasphemy, sodomy and witchcraft, as well as abortion, which will be treated as murder. Women, denied contraception, access to abortion and equality under the law, will be subordinate to men. Those who practice other faiths will become, at best, second-class citizens. The wars waged by the American empire will be defined as religious crusades. Victims of police violence and those in prison will have no redress. There will be no separation of church and state. The only legitimate voices in public discourse and the media will be "Christian." America will be sacralized as an agent of God. Those who defy the "Christian" authorities, at home and abroad, will be condemned as agents of Satan.



How did the historians of Weimar Germany and Nazism, the professors of Holocaust studies, the sociologists and the religious scholars manage to miss the rise of our homegrown Christian fascism? Immersed in the writings of Hannah Arendt, Raul Hilberg, Saul Friedländer, Joachim Fest, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Theodor Adorno, they never connected the dots. Why didn't church leaders thunder in denunciation at the grotesque perversion of the Gospel by the Christian fascists as they sacralized the get-rich-with-Jesus schemes of the prosperity gospel, imperialism, militarism, capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy and other forms of bigotry? Why didn't reporters see the flashing red lights that lit up decades ago?

How did the historians, the sociologists and the religious scholars miss the rise of Christian fascism? They told us, "Never again," but refused to use the lessons of the past to explain the present. It was not ignorance. It was cowardice.

Most of those tasked with reporting on and interpreting history, social movements and religious beliefs have failed us. They spoke about the past, vowing "Never again," but refused to use the lessons of the past to explain the present. It was not ignorance. It was cowardice. To confront the Christian fascists, even in universities, meant career-canceling accusations of religious bigotry and intolerance. It meant credible threats of violence from conspiracy theorists who believed they were called by God to murder abortion providers, Muslims and "secular humanists."

It was easier, as many academics did in Weimar Germany, to believe that the fascists did not mean what they said, that there were strains within the movement that could be reasoned with, that opening channels of dialogue and communication could see the fascists domesticated, that in power the fascists would not act on their extremist and violent rhetoric. With few exceptions, German academics did not protest the Nazi assumption of power and the wholesale dismissal of their liberal, socialist and Jewish colleagues.

Although my book was a New York Times bestseller, Harvard told my publisher it was not interested in my appearing at the school. I gave a lecture on the book at Colgate University, where I had earned my undergraduate degree, organized by my mentor Coleman Brown, a professor of ethics. I held a seminar, also organized by Coleman, with the professors of philosophy and religion after the talk. These professors wanted nothing to do with the critique. When we left the room, Coleman muttered, "The problem is they do not believe in heretics."

I was asked in 2006 to speak at the inauguration of the LGBT center at Princeton University when I was the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow in American Studies. To my dismay, the faculty facilitators had invited representatives from the right-wing Christian student group who see any deviation from heterosexuality as a psychological and moral abnormality. Christian fascist pastors in Texas and Idaho, who have driven countless young people struggling with their sexual identity to suicide, have called for the execution of gay people as recently as a few days ago.

"There is no dialogue with those who deny your legitimate right to be," I said, looking pointedly at the LGBTQ students. "At that point it is a fight for survival."

The faculty member organizing the event leapt from her chair.

"This is a university," she said to me curtly. "Your talk is over. You can't say those kinds of things here."

I sat down. But I had made my point.

All those tasked in our society with interpreting the world around us forgot, as philosopher Karl Popper wrote in "The Open Society and Its Enemies," that "unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."

Scholars, intellectuals and journalists bear much of the blame: They stood by as the working class was stripped of rights by the billionaires, fertilizing the ground for American fascism.

These scholars, writers, intellectuals and journalists, like those in Weimar Germany, bear much of the blame. They preferred accommodation over confrontation. They stood by as the working class was stripped of rights and impoverished by the billionaire class, fertilizing the ground for an American fascism. Those who orchestrated the economic, political and social assault are the major donors to the universities. They control trustee boards, grants, academic prizes, think tanks, promotion, publishing and tenure. Academics, looking for an exit, ignored the attacks by the ruling oligarchy. They ascribed to the Christian fascists, bankrolled by huge corporations such as Tyson Foods, Purdue, Walmart and Sam's Warehouse, attributes that did not exist. They tacitly gave the Christian fascists religious legitimacy. These Christian fascists are an updated version of the so-called German Christian Church, or Deutsche Christen, which fused the iconography and symbols of the Christian religion with the Nazi party. The theologian Paul Tillich, the first non-Jewish German professor to be blacklisted from German universities by the Nazis, angrily chastised those who refused to fight "the paganism of the swastika" and retreated into a myopic preoccupation with personal piety.

Victor Klemperer, stripped of his position as a professor of Romance languages at the Technical University of Dresden when the Nazis came to power in 1933 because he was Jewish, mused in his diary in 1936 what he would do in post-Nazi Germany if "the fate of the vanquished lay in my hands." He wrote that he would "let all the ordinary folk go and even some of the leaders. … But I would have all the intellectuals strung up, and the professors three feet higher than the rest; they would be left hanging from the lamp posts for as long as was compatible with hygiene."
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Fascists promise moral renewal, a return to a lost golden age. They use campaigns of moral purity to justify state repression. Adolf Hitler, days after he took power in January 1933, imposed a ban on all homosexual organizations. He ordered raids on homosexual clubs and bars, including the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, and the permanent exile of its director, Magnus Hirschfeld. Thousands of volumes from the institute's library were tossed into a bonfire. This "moral cleansing" was cheered on by the German public, including German churches. But the tactics, outside the law, swiftly legitimized what would soon be done to others.

I studied at Harvard with theologian James Luther Adams. Adams was a member of the underground anti-Nazi Confessing Church in Germany led by the Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller. Adams was arrested in 1936 by the Gestapo and expelled from the country. He was one of the very few to see the deadly strains of fascism in the nascent Christian right.

"When you are my age," he told us (he was then 80), "you will all be fighting the Christian fascists."

And here we are.

The billionaire class, while sometimes socially liberal, dispossessed working men and women through deindustrialization, austerity, a legalized tax boycott, looting the U.S. Treasury and deregulation. It triggered the widespread despair and rage that pushed many of the betrayed into the arms of these con artists and demagogues. It is more than willing to accommodate the Christian fascists, even if it means abandoning the liberal veneer of inclusiveness. It has no intention of supporting social equality, which is why it thwarted the candidacy of Bernie Sanders.

In the end, even the liberal class will choose fascism over empowering the left wing and organized labor. The only thing the ruling oligarchy truly cares about is unfettered exploitation and profit. They, like the industrialists in Nazi Germany, will happily make an alliance with the Christian fascists, no matter how bizarre and buffoonish, and embrace the blood sacrifices of the condemned.

Read more on the fusion of right-wing Christianity and fascist politics:

Jesus, endless war and the irresistible rise of American fascism

The fall of Roe v. Wade will only embolden the fascists: How will America respond?

Religion scholar Anthea Butler on "White Christianity" and its role in fueling fascism

CHRIS HEDGES  is the former Middle East bureau chief of the New York Times, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a columnist at ScheerPost. He is the author of several books, including "America: The Farewell Tour," "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America" and "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning." He previously worked overseas for the Dallas Morning News, the Christian Science Monitor and NPR, and hosts the Emmy-nominated RT America show "On Contact."MORE FROM CHRIS HEDGES

Four Minn. cities get state money to study petroleum leak sites

Kirsti Marohn
Brainerd, Minn.
June 28, 2022 

The site of a former service station in Paynesville, where a petroleum leak was discovered in the 1980s and forced the city to close two of its wells. The city received state funding in 2015 for a water treatment system.
Courtesy of City of Paynesville

Four Minnesota cities are receiving state funding to analyze whether leaded gasoline from leaking storage tanks is putting their drinking water at risk.

The Legislature approved $200,000 to investigate petroleum leak sites in Paynesville, Alexandria, Foley and Blaine.

The additional study comes in the wake of a former Minnesota Pollution Control Agency employee filing a whistleblower lawsuit last year against his former employer.

Mark Toso raised questions about the state’s petroleum remediation program where he’d worked as a hydrologist for a decade, and whether it was doing enough to prevent leaded gasoline from contaminating groundwater.

Toso's lawsuit is still pending. Meanwhile, state lawmakers authorized $200,000 for Paynesville to take the lead in hiring a consultant to analyze the extent of leaded gasoline contamination and the threat it poses to each city’s drinking water supply.

Paynesville Mayor Shawn Reinke called the funding “good news for the city.” He said the additional analysis will help answer lingering questions city officials have about the site.

"This is just a study, just an analysis, to see if more soil removal would be beneficial and cost effective,” Reinke said.

The Paynesville contamination, from underground tanks at a former service station, was first discovered in the 1980s. Chemicals from the petroleum leached into the groundwater and forced the city two close two of its wells. The MPCA replaced the wells.

City officials urged the MPCA to excavate the site and remove the contaminated soil, which the agency resisted. In 2015, the Legislature appropriated up to $2.5 million for a treatment system to remove chemicals from the city’s water.

The city recently had its water supply independently tested and found it’s safe to drink, Reinke said.

“We did that just out of an abundance of caution, knowing that there might be some eyebrows raised with the allegations of the lawsuit,” he said.

However, the MPCA doesn’t agree that additional study is needed.

The agency is monitoring the Paynesville site and is confident the plume isn't moving or contaminating the city's drinking water, said Jamie Wallerstedt, the MPCA’s remediation division director.

About 1,500 cubic yards of contaminated soil was removed from the Paynesville site in 1990. Follow-up studies found that it wasn’t feasible or necessary to take more soil out of the ground, Wallerstedt said.

Early warning detection monitoring wells between the petroleum site and Paynesville’s drinking water system would alert the agency if the contamination plume was getting close, Wallerstedt said.

“We monitor that closely,” she said. “The contamination is stable, and it's not moving in the direction of the city's drinking water.”

The same is true for the petroleum leak sites in the other three cities, she said.

Wallerstedt said the MPCA is willing to review the consultant’s information and recommendations and consider whether a change of plan is needed. However, she added, “Cleaning up beyond what's necessary does come with a cost.”

In February, the Office of the Legislative Auditor released an evaluation of the petroleum remediation program that called for better regulation and oversight of consultants hired to work at petroleum release sites.

It also said when considering how to address a release, the agency doesn’t consider how a property might be used in the future.

Wallerstedt said the MPCA is taking steps to address the recommendations in the report, including improving how it tracks and monitors low-risk leaks. She said the quality of contractors does affect the agency’s handling of leak sites.

“We do stand by that the decisions made at our sites are sound, and they protect the health of Minnesotans,” she said.

 Lawmakers Menendez, Schiff alarmed that Biden again approves US military aid to Azerbaijan

28.06.2022

US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) reacted sharply to President Biden’s decision to once again waive Section 907 restrictions on U.S. aid to Azerbaijan, greenlighting new U.S. military aid to the Aliyev regime despite its ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Armenian population of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

In a statement, Chairman Menendez noted, “As Azerbaijan continues to further occupy territory from its violent assault on Nagorno-Karabakh, during which more than 6,500 people died and more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians were displaced in 2020, it simply makes no sense to say that U.S. assistance and training has not impacted its military balance with Armenia. I will continue to conduct rigorous oversight of any and all assistance to Azerbaijan and expect the Department of State to operate with complete transparency and provide all necessary details for Congress to assess any assistance provided to Baku.”

In commentary released to the ANCA, Chairman Schiff pledged to work with Congressional allies and the Armenian American community to “remove a president’s power to waive Section 907 and to urge the Biden administration to reinvigorate the peace process.”  Chairman Schiff explained, “Azerbaijan is responsible for provoking a horrific war and humanitarian disaster in Armenia and Artsakh, killing thousands of Armenians over 44 days in September 2020 and forcing thousands more to flee their ancestral homelands. To this day, Azerbaijan continues to illegally detain Armenian soldiers who have been subject to torture, and to threaten thousands of innocent civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh who live in fear of another attack and invasion.”

Chairman Schiff continued, “Under no circumstances should the United States be providing military support to such a regime – it not only runs counter to our nation’s core democratic values, but could empower the Aliyev regime to continue or escalate its provocative actions against Armenians. President Biden should not have waived Section 907.” 

On June 23rd, the Biden Administration reportedly notified Congress of their decision to waive Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act. The measure, adopted in 1992, establishes statutory restrictions on U.S. assistance to the Government of Azerbaijan “until the President determines, and so reports to the Congress, that the Government of Azerbaijan is taking demonstrable steps to cease all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.” Congress included a Section 907 waiver in the FY2002 Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act. U.S. presidents—Republican and Democrat—have waived Section 907 annually ever since.

During his run for office, on October 14th, 2020, then-candidate Biden stated that the United States must “fully implement and not waive requirements under Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act to stop the flow of military equipment to Azerbaijan.” As President, he first reversed his position on the issue on April 23, 2021—on the eve of his historic announcement properly recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

As avian influenza spreads in birds, conspiracy theories about the disease infect the internet


Chicks hatch from their eggs. Credit: Otwarte Klatki/Andrew Skowron. CC BY 2.0.


By Matt Field | May 18, 2022

As H5N1 avian influenza spreads in birds around the United States and elsewhere, causing farmers to cull tens of millions of chickens and other farmed birds, baseless conspiracy theories about the severity of the bird flu and its origins are spreading with it. On TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms, users are questioning whether the virus is a bioweapon, suggesting it’s a ploy by Bill Gates, and claiming a TV interview with a former CDC director offers proof that the disease outbreaks were planned or that the flu news was designed to scare people. None of which is true.

So far, only two humans—one in Colorado and one in the UK—are known to have contracted the H5N1 flu virus that’s circulating now. Both had direct contact with infected birds.

The posts about bird flu are reminiscent of false conspiracy theories that circulated during an earlier time in the COVID-19 pandemic. Social media users are calling the outbreaks among birds a “plandemic,” a term popularized by those who pushed a range of false claims about the coronavirus pandemic. Across, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter, users have repurposed a video clip of former CDC Director Robert Redfield calling COVID-19 a wakeup call for a future avian influenza pandemic that could occur, if a form of bird flu were to mutate and become easily transmissible to and among humans. In March, on the Christian network Trinity Broadcasting Network, Redfield said bird flu could be “the great pandemic” of the future. Redfield was raising the alarm over what such a crisis could entail, but the social media posts appeared to use the clip to bolster outrageous allegations.

A TikTok post falsely claiming that bird flu outbreaks were planned.

“Wow. So the former CDC director who, for the record, was very much involved in and entirely aligned with Dr. Fauci on the response to COVID-19 is telling us in no uncertain terms that yes bird flu will be the next plandemic,” one TikTok user said. On Twitter and Facebook, users posted the video, along with this text: “Former head of the CDC Robert R. Redfield confirming the next scamdemic will be bird flu which will kill ‘10 to 50 percent’ of the population.”

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Other posts implied that Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist who often found himself the target of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, is behind the avian influenza scare in order to boost his investments. “Bird flu … yeah right! It’s Bill gates because organic farms animals are his biggest competitors of fake meat. Bill gates is the biggest threat for humanity…change my mind!” one Twitter user wrote. 

A false claim about bird flu on Twitter.

The AP first reported the spread of bird flu conspiracy theories on Tuesday, noting that some online posters are claiming that avian influenza is a manufactured bioweapon or that it is spread by 5G cellphone towers, false claims that have also been made about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The wire service noted that while the virus is rarely harmful to people, it’s having a devastating impact on poultry operations, where farmers have culled millions of birds in Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota and elsewhere. One man in Colorado was diagnosed with an avian influenza infection in April. He had been working to cull infected birds.

According to the CDC, officials began detecting the H5N1 flu in the United States in January. Since then the virus has been found in wild and farmed birds in 35 states and has affected some 37 million birds. The last time officials detected the virus in the country was in 2016.

With an ongoing pandemic, inflation concerns, baby food shortages, and a war in Ukraine, current events were already providing all but endless fodder for conspiracy theorists to use in online efforts that capitalize on fear. Bird flu appears to be just one of the latest examples.

Matt Field is Editor, Disruptive Technologies at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Before joining the Bulletin, he covered the... Read More