The U.S. Supreme Court's decision Monday that employers cannot discriminate in hiring due to a candidate's sexual or gender preference was a surprising revelation for many Americans, including Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD.
"It was groundbreaking. It was historic today," she told Cheddar.
Still, Ellis said this is just a small part of the rights challenges members of the LGBTQ community face.
"We're debating whether or not I can be fired from my job at the Supreme Court simply because I'm gay. It shouldn't even be a discussion," she said.
The historic decision came just days after the Trump administration rolled back healthcare protections for transgender people under the Affordable Care Act -- a move which Ellis said is in line with the president's broader dismissal of LGBTQ people throughout his term.
"This administration has attacked the LGBTQ community 150 times with both policy rollbacks and rhetoric since he's come into power," she said.
As demonstrators across the nation call for social justice and equality this June, Ellis said that it is important for Pride month supporters to remember where it started.
"Pride is a protest, and we need to be on the streets," she stated. "We have to go back to our roots this one. This Pride especially."
She noted that 14 members of the trans community have been violently killed so far this year.
In 2020, a year unlike any other with a pandemic canceling Pride celebrations and calls for social justice amplified throughout the nation, Ellis tasked people to come together now to force real change.
"Our community is our power. Our identity is our power," she said. "We need to be fighting for Black Lives Matter, for our trans community. We have to be standing up for each other right now, and we need to be locking arms as marginalized communities."
Lenore Hawkins, chief macro strategist for Tamatica Research, told Cheddar that the combination of the COVID-19 outbreak and the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia is an unprecedented set of circumstances for investors.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 1,500 points, or 6%, following similar drops in Europe after a fight among major crude-producing countries jolted investors already on edge about the widening fallout from the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Bond yields fell to more record lows as investors continue to demand safety and unload stocks. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note sank as low as 0.66% as investors worried that economic damage from the spreading virus outbreak will be worse than previously thought.
Cheddar will be following the biggest political headlines as voters head to the polls in critical Super Tuesday primaries.
Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University said taking steps like sanitizing the subway system "may play a small role in mitigating the transmission of this virus, but it signals to people that we ought to be functioning as we can and doing the things we can do."
Stocks are falling sharply again in midday trading on Wall Street, and bond yields are sinking to more record lows on worries about the economic damage coming from the spreading coronavirus outbreak.
President Donald Trump on Friday signed an $8.3 billion measure to help tackle the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than a dozen people in the U.S. and infected more than 200.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, March 6, 2020.
U.S. Representative Pete Aguilar of California voted yes on an $8.3 billion coronavirus emergency package bill, a much higher figure than the $2.5 billion requested by the White House.
