2 women marry in Mexico's embassy in Guatemala fueling a debate over same-sex marriage
GUATEMALA CITY — Two Mexican women were married inside the grounds of Mexico's embassy in Guatemala on Friday, sparking anger in a nation that doesn't recognize same-sex marriage and debate over diplomatic sovereignty.
The ceremony held in the embassy gardens was intended to celebrate Pride Month , which is celebrated every June, and the consulate said the marriage marked a step toward inclusion, respect and equality for all.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
St. Cloud council strips deputy mayor of post after Pride Month proclamation controversy
The St. Cloud City Council stripped its deputy mayor of his position this week after he publicly accused the council of blocking efforts to issue a proclamation for Pride Month. Shawn Fletcher, the council's first openly gay member, was removed from his post at the tense Thursday evening meeting by a unanimous vote of the five-member council, with Fletcher also voting to remove himself as 'deputy mayor.' Though the city's mayor is elected by voters, the deputy mayor is selected by other council members. Fletcher did did not explain why he also voted to remove himself from that post. The vote followed sharp criticism of Fletcher by the other council members for statements he gave to news outlets in May after the council decided to temporarily halt all city proclamations. Council members didn't explicitly say Pride Month was the reason behind the pause, but the timing of their action effectively nixed their ability to declare June as Pride Month in St. Cloud. And that upset Fletcher, who said he felt Pride Month was targeted. Council member Kolby Urban, who made the motion to take the deputy mayor title from Fletcher, said Fletcher's statements and press release prompted nationwide, and negative, media coverage and included false information. 'Mr. Fletcher knows full well that these statements were false and grossly mischaracterized his fellow council members and the nearly 70,000 residents of our community,' Urban said. 'I find these comments not only offensive, but also irresponsible and borderline defamatory.' Some of the statements Urban referenced were published in the Orlando Sentinel. Urban proposed the moratorium on proclamations during a May 20 workshop meeting saying some may be 'controversial,' and that the current proclamation policy doesn't allow enough time for review. At the Thursday meeting, Fletcher said he did not understand the need for the pause or why it couldn't wait until July. June is recognized as Pride month in many communities around the country in recognition of the Stonewall Uprising in New York in 1969, a protest considered a turning point for gay rights in the U.S. In Central Florida, June has even deeper meaning for the local community because of the 2016 massacre at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, a haven for the LGBTQ community, in which 49 people were killed. Mayor Chris Robertson also criticized Fletcher. 'You need to apologize to all of us,' he said. 'You ran us all through the mud.' Robertson also said Fletcher had 'betrayed' his fellow council members and called his actions 'sickening.' He asked Fletcher if he thought he was a homophobe, to which Fletcher said no. He then asked if Fletcher thought he targeted the LGBTQ community, to which he also said no. 'I'm sorry, Shawn, I'm pissed,' Robertson said near the end of the meeting. 'I'm not letting it go.' Robertson spent around an hour asking questions about an upcoming Pride Month event, Proud in the Cloud, and the volunteer group behind it, the St. Cloud Pride Alliance. The event is scheduled to be held on city property, and Robertson said the city financially supported it. 'I said, 'Wait a minute, didn't we just bend over backwards to help these folks? And how can we be — they say that we're discriminating against them?'' Robertson said. The mayor was upset an Alliance member posted online Fletcher's comments about the proclamation pause. He was also concerned about 'irregularities' and 'misrepresentation' in the applications for the event and if city tax dollars had been used properly. Fletcher apologized for some of what happened. 'I think some things got really emotional. Council member Urban, I personally apologize to you,' he said. But he also stood by some of his other statements. 'I do believe it's undemocratic, because I do believe it was targeted. I do, I really do,' Fletcher said. The Pride Month proclamation should have been voted on, he added. 'To not have something move forward to where you put your name on it and you actually vote for it. That's undemocratic,' he said.
Fox News
2 hours ago
- Fox News
Mexican Senate president says LA is essentially Mexico: I'd ‘pay for the wall' if it ceded US southwest
Mexico would pay for the U.S. border wall if the border were redrawn to match the 1830s, when much of the American Southwest belonged to Mexico, the country's Senate president quipped this week. Gerardo Fernández Noroña spoke in Spanish in Mexico about the U.S. federal immigration raids in Los Angeles, which have sparked violent riots and protests featuring demonstrators waving Mexican flags on U.S. soil. Critics, including senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller, have branded scenes of people waving the Mexican flag as evidence Los Angeles is "occupied territory." In that regard, Noroña recounted telling President Donald Trump privately in New York in 2017 that Mexico would build and pay for the border wall he wants — under one condition. "We'll do it according to the map of Mexico from 1830," Noroña said, producing a cartogram. "This is what the United States was in 1830, and this was part of Mexico. "I was at Trump Tower when President-elect Donald Trump said ... I said, 'Yes, we'll build the wall. Yes we'll pay for it, but we'll do it according to the map of Mexico from 1830." The cession of that amount of territory would account for at least 48% of the U.S. electoral vote, a standardized measure of population density. The member of the left-wing Morena Party lamented that Mexico was "stripped" of about one-third of its territory via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War. The U.S. won that war but also suffered steep losses, including former Tennessee Rep. Davy Crockett's last stand at the Alamo. The treaty established rights for people who lived in what was Mexican territory that was about to be governed only a few months later in 1849 by President Zachary Taylor, a decorated commander of that war. "We settled there before the nation now known as the United States," Noroña said, claiming the treaty was "not respected." He claimed disaffected residents of Laredo, Texas, established Nuevo Laredo on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande because they did not want to be Americans. "With this geography, how can they talk about liberating Los Angeles — and California — the U.S. government; liberate from whom?" he said. "[For] Mexican men and women, [that has] always been their homeland." The top official then claimed Angelenos do not need to know how to speak English because of the historic prevalence of Spanish there. "This is part of the U.S., yes, and the U.S. government has the right to implement whatever immigration measures it deems appropriate. But they have no right to violate the dignity of migrants ... no right to subject them to suffering, persecution and harassment."
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's Energy Department proposes dismantling parts of Title IX allowing girls on boys' teams
The Trump administration has leaned heavily on Title IX in its effort to purge sports of transgender women and girls, but attorneys and experts on the 1972 civil rights law say its latest move will disproportionately affect girls who are not transgender. The Department of Energy is preparing to roll back a portion of Title IX requiring that some sports be open to 'the underrepresented sex,' a cornerstone of the federal law against sex discrimination in schools that President Trump's administration has said conflicts with his executive order to restrict trans athletes' participation. The department plans to rescind a rule that has for decades allowed girls to try out for boys' sports teams or vice versa when there is no equivalent team at their school, with some exceptions for contact sports. The move would only affect schools and education programs that receive funding from the Energy Department. The department, which traditionally does not regulate or enforce Title IX, plans to rescind a rule that has for decades allowed girls to try out for boys' sports teams or vice versa when there is no equivalent female team at their school, with some exceptions for contact sports. The Women's Sports Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Billie Jean King, a foundational figure in women's fight for parity in sports in the 1960s and 70s, said the Energy Department's proposal threatens to unravel years of progress and limit athletic opportunities for girls. 'To uphold the spirit and promise of Title IX, we urge for it to be withdrawn,' the group said in an emailed statement to The Hill. In justifying its proposal, announced last month, the Energy Department said athletics rules allowing girls to compete on boys' teams 'ignore differences between the sexes which are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,' language from Trump's day one executive order proclaiming the federal government recognizes only two sexes, male and female. Rescinding the regulation, the department said, aligns with another Trump order declaring the U.S. opposes 'male competitive participation in women's sports' as a matter of 'safety, fairness, dignity and truth.' The Education Department, which has historically enforced Title IX, has launched more than two dozen investigations this year into states, school districts and sports associations that allow trans girls to compete against and alongside girls who are not transgender. In announcing that the department would recognize June, which is traditionally Pride Month, as 'Title IX Month,' Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the administration 'will fight on every front to protect women's and girls' sports.' The changes the Department of Energy proposed would do little to further that objective, said James Nussbaum, an attorney focused on education and sports law at Church, Church, Hittle, and Antrim in Indiana. 'I'm scratching my head for the motivation behind [rescinding the rule] because they mention the 'Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports' executive order, but it won't really apply in the vast majority of those cases because [the rule] only allows a person to participate in a sport of the other sex on two conditions,' Nussbaum said. 'One, the school doesn't already offer that sport for their sex, and two, they're the 'underrepresented sex' historically, and that's just not male sports at the vast majority of schools.' While no high schools in the U.S. offer an all-girls tackle football team, for example, more than 4,000 girls played 11-person tackle football on boys' teams for the 2023-2024 school year, according to the National Federation of State High Schools Association. An Energy Department spokesperson did not return a request for comment. Government agencies looking to change federal regulations must typically do so through a lengthy administrative process beginning with advance notice of proposed rulemaking and a public comment period generally lasting 30-60 days. The Energy Department's Title IX proposal, submitted as a 'direct final rule,' (DFR) would skirt traditional regulatory channels, allowing it to take effect automatically on July 15 absent 'significant adverse comments,' the deadline for which to submit is Monday. DFRs are exempt from parts of the standard rulemaking process, with which federal agencies must comply under the Administrative Procedures Act. Agencies may use DFRs when addressing issues that are technical, uncontroversial or unlikely to elicit a significant adverse response. 'None of that applies in this situation,' said Shiwali Patel, senior director of safe and inclusive schools at the National Women's Law Center. 'These are regulations that are long-standing, that have existed for decades.' That the athletics proposal originated in the Department of Energy rather than the Department of Education, whose Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is typically responsible for regulating and enforcing Title IX, is unusual, legal experts said. Other agencies providing federal financial assistance to educational institutions also bear some enforcement responsibility, and under the Trump administration, the Health and Human Services and Justice departments have moved to carry out the law. In April, the departments of Justice and Education launched a joint special investigations task force to streamline the government's handling of Title IX inquiries, citing ballooning caseloads. 'Generally, things have followed kind of a principle of logic — you stick to the things you're experts in, you regulate the things that you are tasked with regulating,' said Maha Ibrahim, program managing attorney for Equal Rights Advocates, a nonprofit gender justice and women's rights organization. In the past, she said, federal agencies such as the Energy Department might propose updating their Title IX regulations to mirror those issued by the Education Department to ensure cross-agency consistency, but they don't usually 'step out of their lane and do the initial regulatory change.' 'This is unusual in an alarming way,' she said. The Department of Energy, with a larger budget and greater resources to conduct investigations, was perhaps the better choice to introduce the proposal over the Education Department, which Trump has sought to close, Ibrahim said. In March, the agency shuttered seven of its 12 civil rights enforcement offices and fired hundreds of workers, K-12 Dive reported. Through its Renew America's Schools Program, the Energy Department has invested $372.5 million in K-12 public school districts nationwide. The department also provides over $3.5 billion annually through grant programs to more than 300 colleges and universities. While the Energy Department's proposal would only directly affect schools that receive its funding, the plan would create inconsistencies among federal agencies with Title IX regulations, confusing schools and potentially hampering students' and educators' ability to file claims, said Patel, of the National Women's Law Center. The organization, which advocates for women's and LGBTQ rights, plans to submit a comment opposing the rule change, she said. More than 1,800 comments have already been submitted, but their content is not publicly available. The Title IX proposal is part of a larger Department of Energy push to quickly eliminate or reduce dozens of regulations that it said in May 'are driving up costs and lowering quality of life for the American people.' 'While it would normally take years for the Department of Energy to remove just a handful of regulations, the Trump Administration assembled a team working around the clock to reduce costs and deliver results for the American people in just over 110 days,' Energy Secretary Chris Wright said last month. The department's deregulatory efforts include terminating or modifying 47 rules that would, once finalized, free up an estimated $11 billion and cut more than 125,000 words from the Code of Federal Regulations, the department said. Rules on the chopping block include diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements for federal grant recipients, which the Energy Department has called 'unscientific.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
