The Federalist, USA
Trans Activists Want To Destroy This Trump Appointee For Not Being A Radical
Roger Severino has a lengthy track record defending civil rights in the Obama administration. But his work on religious liberty bothers trans activists.
By
Mollie HemingwayApril 27, 2017
Twelve Democratic senators are trying to thwart a highly regarded civil rights attorney in his position at the Health and Human Services Department because of his work on religious liberty issues. Roger Severino served as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division for seven years during the Obama administration. He also worked for a brief time on religious civil liberties at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society.
Yet in a threatening
letter
to HHS Secretary Thomas Price, the senators claim to be “deeply
troubled” by his hiring, alleging, without any evidence, “a long history
of making bigoted statements toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender people and attacking women’s access to health care services
and reproductive rights.” The letter does not substantiate the charge in
any way.
The letter suggests Severino would not respect and serve all people, including immigrants, people with disabilities, or people of varying religious backgrounds and beliefs. To disparage him, the senators ignored Severino’s lengthy civil rights record, which includes cases dealing with just those things:
•
US v. WrenThis first HIV discrimination case brought by the United States under the Fair Housing Act was lauded by gay rights groups. The United States won a suit alleging that the owner and property manager of a building in Chicago violated the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent to a woman because she was HIV-positive.
•
US v. St. Bernard ParishSt. Bernard Parish agreed to a settlement in excess of $2.5 million to resolve lawsuits alleging “it engaged in a multi-year campaign to limit or deny rental housing opportunities to African-Americans in the parish in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.” Severino’s division alleged that the parish’s actions both were intended to and had the effect of disproportionately harming African-Americans seeking rental housing in the parish.
•
US v. StonebridgeSeverino’s division settled a lawsuit in Texas regarding discrimination against persons of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent.
•
US v. JoyceA case involving familial status discrimination, specifically families with children, in housing in Pennsylvania.
•
US v. GumbaytayThis complicated case dealt with the subjection of poor, black, single female tenants to unwanted verbal and physical sexual advances, denial of housing benefits based on sex, and adverse action against female tenants who refused sexual advances.
•
Oakwood Mall caseSeverino contacted mall authorities after a Muslim group referred the case of a security guard kicking a Muslim housewife out of the mall for wearing a hijab. The case was resolved without officially having to file a suit when the mall took action against the employee for his behavior.
•
US v. Lucky JoyThe Justice Department resolved its lawsuit against Lucky Joy restaurant in Flushing, New York over its refusal to serve
Falun Gong practitioners.
The restaurant ownership admitted that, in violation of Title II of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, the restaurant’s staff had ejected patrons
who wore Falun Gong T-shirts.
•
US v. SayvilleThis case dealt with hundreds of violations of the Fair Housing Act’s requirement that apartments in the complex be designed and constructed to be accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities. Violations include lack of wheelchair access, excessively steep slopes on accessible routes, kitchen sinks and ranges that were inaccessible, outlets and thermostats that were too high or too low, and door thresholds that were too high.
•
US v. RosewoodIn this case, an apartment complex limited individuals with service animals, subjected them to pet fees, required such animals to be licensed and certified, and in some cases banned service dogs altogether.
Severino’s lengthy civil rights work since he graduated from Harvard Law School — both within the government and in religious civil liberty positions — is to be commended, not derided by activists. Yet the senators in their letter critique his work on behalf of religious liberty, a constitutionally protected natural right.
The letter also mentions “offensive statements.” One supposedly troubling comment he made was that “The radical left is using government power to coerce everyone, including children, into pledging allegiance to a radical new gender ideology over and above their right to privacy, safety, and religious freedom.” Perhaps trying to kick a civil rights attorney who cares about religious freedom, safety, and privacy out of his office because he doesn’t pledge allegiance to the denial of science inherent in radical gender ideology is not a good way to rebut the charge.
If this is the standard for bigotry, anyone who doesn’t believe laws should be rewritten or reinterpreted to match the desires of the most radical of trans lobbyists is a bigot. If concern over poorly developed gender ideology’s effect on the privacy, safety, and religious rights of others is bigotry, then any human who recognizes the reality of sexual distinctions is a bigot.
Matthew Franck
noted
at the time of Severino’s hiring that there is a need for political
appointees to reverse some of the problems caused by an agency that
pushed discrimination against others in recent years. “During the Obama
administration, HHS became an aggressive discriminator against
employers, insurers, and health care providers who only wanted to be
left alone to act on their moral principles in favor of innocent human
life, and on their religiously informed consciences against cooperation
with evil,” he said.
Some radical groups have a history of denigrating religious values and even religious liberty — the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights — with bigotry and hate. Sometimes this conflation has sparked violence through venomous labeling, such as the case of a man who attempted to commit mass murder at a religious values organization. He was spurred on by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s irresponsible designation of that organization as a hate group. The same type of irresponsible rhetoric is at play in this letter from these senators, and the radical lobbyists egging them on.
Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway
https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/27/trans-activists-want-to-destroy-this-trump-appointee-for-not-being-a-radical/