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You say rights, I say discrimination

by Glenn Northern, senior domestic associate, Catholics for Choice - 05/05/15 5:18 PM ET

As an African-American Catholic, I think it is frankly offensive that Thomas W. Burnford compares laws that denied fundamental rights to African-Americans in the 1950s and ’60s to today’s Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act (RHNDA) and Human Rights Amendment Act (HRAA), which provide protection from discrimination for people in the District of Columbia (“New District laws unjustly discriminate and violate fundamental liberties,” The Hill’s Congress Blog, April 28). Sadly, his argument is closer to history repeating itself — religion being used to justify discrimination and inequity — than to the goals of the D.C. laws. Both acts passed by the D.C. City Council are about fairness and equity. The RHNDA helps ensure that women aren’t fired or otherwise punished for personal reproductive health decisions, and the HRAA ensures that LGBTQ students have the same opportunities as other students.

{mosads}That Burnford tries to invoke the imagery of a “disfavored minority” is a disingenuous and repugnant reversal of victimization. Whose rights are really being trampled upon when a powerful institution is capable of firing a hardworking woman not for her performance on the job but for personal decisions she makes? How you do your job should determine your level of success in your workplace, not the decisions you make in your private life. Period.

The Catholic hierarchy and others who would use religion as an excuse to treat others differently are wrong. It’s well past time we all avow that discrimination is discrimination, and that it does not make it better if you try to cloak it as religious freedom.

From Glenn Northern, senior domestic associate, Catholics for Choice, Washington, D.C.

Never forget Azerbaijan

May 8 is the 23rd anniversary of the military occupation and destruction of the historic town of Shusha, which was once the centerpiece of a vibrant Azerbaijani classical music scene and home to the first opera in the Middle East. It was renowned for its musicians, composers and singers. Now it is a ghost town, a victim of Armenian destruction, occupation and systematic ethnic cleansing.

Until 1992, Shusha, the most important and best known city in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, was 92 percent Azerbaijani. The occupation of Shusha followed the massacre of 613 Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian troops in the town of Khojaly just three months earlier.

As a member of the U.S. Azeris Network (USAN), on behalf of 400,000 Azerbaijani-Americans and more than 40 million Azerbaijanis worldwide, I urge the U.S. government to use its influence to start taking serious steps to implement United Nations Security Council Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of 1993, the General Assembly Resolution A/RES/48/114 and other GA resolutions. These resolutions call for “immediate complete and unconditional withdrawal of the occupying forces” of all Armenian military forces from Azerbaijan’s territories.

On behalf of Azerbaijani-Americans, I implore lawmakers to do whatever is necessary to move this situation along to its rightful resolution within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan:

1) to enforce the Security Council and GA resolutions;

2) to stop the illegal Armenian military occupation;

3) to remove all Armenian military forces illegally stationed in Azerbaijan;

4) to allow the return of Azerbaijani displaced persons back to their homes;

5) to cease the Armenian blockade of Nakhichevan, the Azerbaijani exclave region;