LGBTQ discrimination case is headed to the US Supreme Court, Candace Parker welcomes her son to the world & we salute Lorraine Hansberry during our Black History Month spotlight – Wednesday, February 23, 2022
A business owner decided not to make a wedding website for a same-sex couple. They were sued and now the US Supreme Court has decided to hear the case. Candace Parker welcomes her son to the world with some beautiful family pics. We salute the Lorraine Hansberry during our Black History Month spotlight.
00:00 – Welcome & Intro
00:31 – Rate & Review Queer News Ad
00:58 – Intro Music
01:39 – A business owner decided not to make a wedding website for a same-sex couple. They were sued and now the US Supreme Court has decided to hear the case
03:08 – Candace Parker welcomes her son to the world with some beautiful family pics
04:39 – We salute Lorraine Hansberry during our Black History month spotlight
Family, this is your favorite queer radio personality Anna DeShawn here with our queer news from today.
A business owner decided not to make a wedding website for a same-sex couple. They were sued and now the US Supreme Court has decided to hear the case. Candace Parker welcomes her son to the world with some beautiful family pics. We salute the Lorraine Hansberry during our Black History Month spotlight.
Well we are starting our podcast today with the US Supreme Court at the top of the list. The highest court in the land has decided to take on a case that will set a precedent for whether it’s okay to discriminate against LGBTQ people if your hate is rooted in religion. God help us all. Lorie Smith, a “Christian” business owner out of Colorado, refused to design a wedding website for a LGBT couple. The couple sued & won. Lorie appealed that decision and now the Supreme Court will hear it when they return to session in October. We all know the court leans right and folks’ religious protections have won before. I will not understand for the life of me how one’s freedom of religion also means they can discriminate based on said religion. Jennifer C Pizer, senior counsel with Lambda Legal, urged the Supreme Court to definitively rule on whether it is OK to discriminate against LGBT+ customers. Pizer said the court has the opportunity to “do what the justices should have done three-and-a-half years ago” in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. The cake shop in 2018 won a narrow Supreme Court victory over its refusal to bake a cake for a same-sex couple. Y’all remember that case, right? The court is even more right leaning now so we will see what happens come October but I’m not optimistic about this one at all and I’ve never wanted to be more wrong.
Now let me tell y’all something. When it’s your season, it’s your season and we are all living in the season of Candace Parker. Let’s recap real quick. She was named the AP female athlete of the year for the second time which has only happened two other times in history. She of course led the Chicago Sky to their first championship after being criticized that she was too old and her career was coming to an end. She became the first female athlete to grace the cover of NBA 2K. She came out publicly and now her & Anna have welcomed their baby boy into the world. Candace posted a wonderful pic of their family on her IG with a caption that read, “We are in absolute love and utter appreciation that Goose chose us. Welcome to the fam son.” Candace is kissing his head while Anna is holding him and Lailaa is holding his hand. Just precious. The queers are out here growing their families and I love to see it.
Speaking of the queers growing thei families. Da Brat & Judy had their wedding ceremony yesterday. Y’all already know I’m rooting for them. I’m so proud of them too because they didn’t post any pics or videos. Sometimes you have to put the phones away and enjoy the moment. Now Judy did post the cutest video of Brat in her room breaking the tradition of seeing the other before the ceremony but it was so cute! Congratulations fam.
Its Black History Month and in every episode this month we’ve been celebrating & honoring those living at the intersections of being Black & Queer. With that our Black History spotlight today is Lorraine Hansberry.
As reported by NBC News, Hansberry was an activist and playwright best known for her groundbreaking play “A Raisin in the Sun,” about a struggling Black family on Chicago’s South Side. After the play’s release, Hansberry became the first Black playwright and youngest American to win a New York Critics’ Circle Award. “A Raisin in the Sun,” named after a line in Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem: A Dream Deferred,” opened at New York City’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre in March 1959, becoming the first play written by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. The iconic work was then made into a 1961 film starring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee.
Prior to “A Raisin in the Sun” fame, Hansberry — who never publicly acknowledged she was a lesbian — joined lesbian rights group Daughters of Bilitis and contributed letters about feminism and homophobia to its magazine, “The Ladder,” according to LGBTQ historian Eric Marcus, host of the “Making Gay History” podcast. Marcus notes that Hansberry didn’t officially come out until nearly a half-century after her death — when in 2014 her estate unsealed diaries and other writings in which she reveals her sexuality. Hansberry died in 1965, at just 34 years old, of pancreatic cancer. I got really caught up in her story and I’m going to totally geek out on her after I finish the podcast.
Y’all know we have to always end with a word. The word for today is coming from one of my all time favorite people Shirley Chisolm. She has a quote that says, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” During her life she brought her folding chair to many tables because power did not want to concede to a Black woman being an equal at their table. Often the same is true today and how it reveals itself is just different. I say this to you, don’t allow that to concern the work you have to do. If you don’t want a seat at their table then build your own. Feel me. Till tomorrow family, peace.
Sources
US Supreme Court to decide whether it’s OK to discriminate against LGBT+ customers
