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."
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Parkland shooting survivor and March for Our Lives co-founder Delaney Tarr worries people will keep dying at the hands of gun violence until "everyone has a story." "It's that mentality of, 'It's not important to vote on because it hasn't happened to us yet.' But, increasingly, every community in this country is affected by gun violence," she told Cheddar Big News on Thursday. "If we don't start voting on it now like it is one of the most important issues ー because it is ー then people are just going to keep dying."
Americans seem to agree on at least one thing: no one likes a traffic jam — and congestion is at its all-time worst. Transportation was a prominent subject of this year's midterm elections. Election Day hosted over 300 transportation and infrastructure initiatives on the ballot, and on both the state and local levels, a number of newly-elected officials are now faced with the task of shaping that legislation and policy.
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 500 points higher on Wednesday, following a Midterm election that returned the U.S. House to Democratic Party control. But Samantha Azzarello, global market strategist for JPMorgan ETFS, told Cheddar not to expect an overheated market in the next Congress. "We're not going to have another pop and another overheating of growth in 2019 and 2020," she said.
President Trump announced on Twitter on Wednesday that Jeff Sessions will be resigning and Matthew G. Whitaker, chief of staff to Sessions will be the new Acting AG. President Trump declined to comment on Sessions only an hour before in his post-election presser.
Voters in San Francisco gave overwhelming support on Tuesday to a measure that would tax big tech for the sake of the homeless. And not everyone in the Silicon Valley stronghold is happy.
