Hillary Clinton Wins Puerto Rico Primary
Last Week Tonight Looks At Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis
HBO’s Last Week Tonight takes a look at Puerto Rico’s burgeoning debt crisis.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, author/star of Broadway’s HAMILTON, joins host John Oliver to call for relief for the U.S. territory.
Via TIME:
The U.S. territory is in a massive financial crisis, facing nearly $70 billion in debt, with a poverty rate of nearly 45%. “Puerto Rico is like the last Tower Records: everything’s overpriced, everyone’s being laid off, and there is still a really weird number of Ricky Martin CDs,” said Oliver.
In a somber speech, the governor of Puerto Rico stated that the debt situation was not just an election ploy, saying: “This is not politics, this is math.” That means the situation must really be serious, because, as Oliver noted, “‘This is math’ is one of the most dread-inducing sentences in the English language.”
Marco Rubio Wins Big In Puerto Rico’s Republican Primary
CNN projects @marcorubio will win the GOP Puerto Rico primary https://t.co/DkPyle0Wrv #CNNElection https://t.co/tkIAaLIS9D— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 6, 2016
As I understand it, Puerto Rico’s rules allow anyone getting over 50% of the vote takes all 23 delegates.
This marks the second win for Rubio in this presidential primary season.
Filed Under – “Life Isn’t Fair – Or Is it?”
I say “Life isn’t fair” because 45 year old telenovelas star Julián Gil clearly suffers from superior genes. But we don’t suffer 🙂
While we all can’t look like him, we can appreciate him. So, it’s a “win” in the end.
Hit up Queerty for more from the 45-year-old Argentine-born Puerto Rican who’s clearly hot on and off the screen.
Happy Saturday!
News Round-Up: August 12, 2015
Some news stories you may have missed:
• Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne covers OUT and discusses his role as transgender pioneer Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl.
• Former Texas governor and GOP presidential hopeful has had to stop paying his campaign staff due to lack of funds.
• Former President Jimmy Carter revealed today that he has cancer.
• Folks are petitioning Proctor & Gamble to run their cute, award-winning gay couple Tide detergent commercial in the US.
• New poll shows Trump lost a bit of ground in Iowa after last week’s debate; Jeb Bush dropped from 3rd to 7th; Marco Rubio jumps from 8th to 3rd in the early election state.
• The governor of Puerto Rico has issued executive orders banning discrimination against transgenders regarding emergency room treatment and drivers licenses.
• The homophobe who attacked two West Point graduates in New York City (and got his ass kicked) has been arrested and charged with assault as a hate crime and attempted assault as a hate crime. That’ll learn him.
• Openly gay Cuban-American poet Richard Blanco (the first openly gay poet to speak at a presidential inauguration) has been invited to read a new work at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Havana.
Marriage Equality Arrives In Puerto Rico
Marriage equality arrives in Puerto Rico today, becoming the second U.S. territory (following Guam) to allow same-sex marriage.
The next U.S. territories to see marriage equality (there are five) will be the Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Dragging in last, the Attorney General of American Samoa has said the U.S. territory is “reviewing the opinion and its potential applicability to American Samoa.”
1st Circuit Court Of Appeals Rules Puerto Rico’s Ban On Same-Sex Marriage Unconstitutional
When a marriage equality case went before the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year regarding Puerto Rico’s ban on same-sex marriage, the court put the case on hold, deciding to wait for the (then) impending SCOTUS ruling.
Today, the 1st Circuit ruled (not surprisingly) that Puerto Rico’s same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional.
From Lambda Legal:
Today’s decision provides further recognition of the dignity and equality of LGBT people in Puerto Rico. We applaud the First Circuit for recognizing that Puerto Rico’s marriage ban is unconstitutional, and reversing the lower court ruling. We also commend the Puerto Rico government for joining in the call to end the marriage ban.
Certainly, after the historic ruling from the Supreme Court, this ruling from the First Circuit was not unexpected. There remains no legal or moral justification for forcing same-sex couples in Puerto Rico to wait any longer to have their love and commitment recognized by the state.
The Governor of Puerto Rico already signed an executive order on June 26 that marriages will begin 15 days after the Supreme Court ruling, but now that the First Circuit has agreed that the marriage ban is unconstitutional, same-sex couples should be able to marry now. To do otherwise is to put form over substance.
Puerto Rico: Legislators Threaten Lawsuit To Force Governor To Defend Marriage Equality Ban
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| Maria Milagros Charbonier |
Last week, the governor’s office of Puerto Rico announced it would not defend in court the current anti-same-sex marriage law currently on appeal at the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.
Justice Secretary Cesar Miranda said that the government can no longer continue to discriminate against the gay community. “It’s neither fair nor correct to defend the constitutionality of that law,” he said. “Same-sex couples cannot get married and therefore do not have access to those rights. They should be available to all those who love each other, who take care of each other, who work and contribute to this society like everyone else.”
Now, opponents of equal rights for the LGBT community are angry and threatening to sue the governor.
“This is a slap in the face to Puerto Rican society,” said legislator Maria Milagros Charbonier. “The government should not be playing around with issues as delicate as that of family, which is the cornerstone of our island.”
“We believe it is totally contrary to the law, contrary to the constitution of Puerto Rico and contrary to the democratic foundations of our system of government for our governor to have taken a position on same-sex marriage.”
Puerto Rican Government Considers No Longer Defending Same-Sex Marriage Ban
El Nuevo Día reported Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla’s administration is “contemplating” a “change of posture and withdraw its support of the Puerto Rican statute that only recognizes marriage as a union between a man and a woman.”
The Governor’s office filed a brief today with the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals which will soon hear a lawsuit against the Puerto Rican marriage ban. In that filing, lawyers for the commonwealth admitted that the issue of marriage equality must be examined via “heightened scrutiny” and as such could not be defended.
From the brief:
“Although the main Defendant, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, has defended the legal definition of marriage as the union between a man and a woman,” recent legal developments “have led the Commonwealth to recognize that Puerto Rico’s marriage ban must be examined through heightened scrutiny, whether it be under the Equal Protection Clause or the Due Process Clause.”
They continued: “Under said heightened standard, the Commonwealth cannot responsibly advance before this Court any interest sufficiently important or compelling to justify the differentiated treatment afforded so far to Plaintiffs.”
Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a staff attorney for Lambda Legal, issued this statement:
“In declining to further defend the Commonwealth’s discriminatory marriage ban, Puerto Rico’s government finally recognizes that denying marriage to LGBT people is harmful and cannot be justified. The marriage ban’s sole purpose is to perpetuate discrimination, and it is just plain wrong.”
“Same-sex couples, LGBT people, and their families are part of Puerto Rico’s rich social and cultural fabric. Today’s actions fulfill the constitutional promises of justice and fairness for LGBT people in Puerto Rico. Simply put, discrimination is never in Puerto Rico’s best interests.”
Read the brief herehttps://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1690461/pr-1stcir.pdf.
Ricky Martin Tweets Support For Adoption By Same-Sex Couples In Puerto Rico
Por favor @SenadoPR y @TuCamaraPR aprueben #PS437 para que parejas del mismo sexo puedan adoptar. @eduardobhatia @jrperello @agarciapadilla
— Ricky Martin (@ricky_martin) October 28, 2014
Ricky Martin turned his Twitter account towards the legislative bodies of Puerto Rico asking that the laws be changed to allow same-sex couples to adopt in the country.
Martin’s tweet says ‘Please @SenadoPR and @TuCamaraPR approve #PS437 so that same-sex couples can adopt. @eduardobhatia @jrperello @agarciapadilla’
This comes after a ruling last week by a judge in PR that upheld the same-sex marriage ban there. Although, LGBT advocates aren’t very worried by that development as Puerto Rico is under the jurisdiction of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, where every other state has marriage equality.
But since we’re on the subject of Ricky, let’s take another look at his new music video “Adios” 🙂