POLITICS
Proud Boys, Enthusiastic Bigots, Fired Up By Trump
President refuses to condemn roughneck alt-right fringe group during fi rst debate
BY MATT TRACY
The fi rst presidential debate
between President
Donald Trump and former
Vice President Joe
Biden descended into chaos from
the beginning when the incumbent
president, fl ailing and trailing
in the polls, employed a scorched
earth approach and sought to disrupt
the event at every step of the
way.
In the midst of Trump’s interruptions,
false statements, and
insults, very little substance
emerged from the debate — and
there was no discussion of LGBTQ
issues. Rather, the president cast
doubt on the election process and
made headlines when he did not
denounce white supremacists, further
cementing his enduring racist
reputation dating back decades.
In response to a question about
whether he would denounce white
supremacists, Trump asked who
exactly he should condemn. Biden
then pointed to the Proud Boys —
the alt-right group that has also
been known for wide-ranging bigotry
➤ AMY CONEY BARRETT, from p.5
exemption from neutral laws of
general application even if they incidentally
impact somebody’s free
exercise of religion.
If that precedent were overridden
the door would be open to all
manner of claims of religious optouts
from nondiscrimination laws
protecting the LGBTQ community.
Concern about how Barrett
would react to the Catholic Social
Services appeal assuming she
were on the court by November
4, as Senate Republicans hope, is
based in part on her stated views
on the doctrine of stare decisis
—the tradition by which the high
court stands by its earlier precedents
in the absence of “special
justifi cation” or “strong grounds.”
In the past, including in Jacksonville,
Barrett has suggested that
stare decisis need not constrain
the court, that it is more “a matter
During the September 29 presidential debate, President Donald Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand
back and stand by.”
spanning from homophobia
and transphobia to misogyny, racism,
and xenophobia.
Instead of seizing an easy opportunity
to denounce that group,
Trump instead gave them a call to
action and sought to shift responsibility
away from them.
of policy,” rather than a “mandate.”
In 2017, Lambda noted that
Barrett declined to say whether
Obergefell qualifi ed as a precedent
that could not be overturned.
The precedent that creates the
biggest concern among Barrett
critics, however, is Roe v. Wade, the
1973 decision that found a constitutional
right to abortion.
In her Jacksonville lecture, she
suggested that “the core” of that
ruling was unlikely to be overturned
in the future, but said the
Supreme Court would likely be
amenable to greater restrictions on
abortion access.
But in a 2003 law journal article,
Barrett clearly suggested that
Roe was “an erroneous decision,”
that might be ripe for reconsideration
by the Supreme Court. Days
after her nomination, a 2006 ad
opposing “abortion on demand”
she signed as a Notre Dame professor
REUTERS/ BRIAN SNYDER
“Proud Boys — stand back and
stand by,” Trump said. “But I’ll tell
you what. I’ll tell you what. Somebody’s
got to do something about
Antifa and the left because this is
not a right wing problem.”
Immediately following that moment,
numerous reports surfaced
surfaced.
The one thing her supporters
and her opponents agree on is that
she would be an anti-Roe vote.
CNN’s Manu Raju tweeted that
Missouri Republican Senator Josh
Hawley, who has predicated his
support for a high court nominee
on their view that Roe was “wrongly
decided,” told him, “As to the
question on Roe — yes, I think she
meets that standard.”
Meanwhile, in a joint statement
opposing Barrett’s nomination,
People for the American Way, Alliance
for Justice, the Leadership
Conference on Civil and Human
Rights, and the National Women’s
Law Center, emphasized “the importance
of opposing any nominee
who will gut and overturn Roe. v.
Wade.”
Those groups along with HRC
and Lambda Legal also pointed
to the dangers Barrett’s nomination
to the high court posed to the
of Proud Boys members gleefully
responding to Trump’s words with
vows to indeed stand by, as he requested.
That moment in the debate was
especially notable because of the
president’s refusal to condemn a
group that has such a disturbing
record of bigotry. Founded by Vice
co-founder Gavin McInnes in 2016,
the Proud Boys have touted farright
viewpoints at demonstrations
across the nation, encouraged violence,
and was eventually labeled
by the Southern Poverty Law Center
as a hate group.
The Anti-Defamation League
has also blasted the Proud Boys
as a group with “extreme, provocative
tactics — coupled with overt
or implicit racism, Islamophobia,
anti-Semitism and misogyny and
the fact that the group is so decentralized,
inconsistent, and spread
out — suggest the group should be
a signifi cant cause for concern.”
The group has drawn the ire
of New Yorkers on multiple occasions,
including in the winter of
➤ PROUD BOYS, continued on p.17
survival of the Affordable Care Act
(ACA). The Obama administration’s
signature healthcare achievement
once again goes before the high
court in November.
In a 2017 law journal article, Barrett
quoted Scalia’s critique of the
two cases in which the high court
upheld the ACA, saying it should
be re-dubbed SCOTUSCare. Chief
Justice John Roberts’ 2012 opinion
that found the law’s individual
mandate constitutional as an appropriate
use of Congress’ taxing
authority, she argued, pushed its
text “beyond its plausible meaning
to save the statute.”
Concluding its critique of Barrett’s
nomination, HRC wrote, “Her
hostility towards many of society’s
most marginalized, victimized,
and vulnerable groups raises serious
concerns about her ability to
be impartial and fairly consider the
rights of all who come before the
Court, including LGBTQ people.”
October 8 - October 22, 2 16 020 | GayCityNews.com
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