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Rick Riordan wins the Stonewall Award (!!!)

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Rick Riordan wins the Stonewall Award (!!!)

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I chose this not only because I love reading, but because this author accurately represents different sexualities, genders, ethnicities and religions, and they're all heroes in some way.

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I was honored to attend the Stonewall Award ceremony today at the American Library Association meeting in Chicago. Magnus Chase 2: The Hammer of Thor, won the children's book award for "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience" because of the character of Alex Fierro. I had such a great time meeting young folks, librarians and other award-winning and honor-winning authors!

If you would like to read my acceptance speech, it is below:

Thank you for inviting me here today. As I told the Stonewall Award Committee, this is an honor both humbling and unexpected.

So, what is an old cis straight white male doing up here? Where did I get the nerve to write Alex Fierro, a transgender, gender fluid child of Loki in The Hammer of Thor, and why should I get cookies for that?

These are all fair and valid questions, which I have been asking myself a lot.

I think, to support young LGBTQ readers, the most important thing publishing can do is to publish and promote more stories by LGBTQ authors, authentic experiences by authentic voices. We have to keep pushing for this. The Stonewall committee's work is a critical part of that effort. I can only accept the Stonewall Award in the sense that I accept a call to action - firstly, to do more myself to read and promote books by LGBTQ authors.

But also, it's a call to do better in my own writing. As one of my genderqueer readers told me recently, "Hey, thanks for Alex. You didn't do a terrible job!" I thought: Yes! Not doing a terrible job was my goal!

As important as it is to offer authentic voices and empower authors and role models from within LGBTQ community, it's is also important that LGBTQ kids see themselves reflected and valued in the larger world of mass media, including my books. I know this because my non-heteronormative readers tell me so. They actively lobby to see characters like themselves in my books. They like the universe I've created. They want to be part of it. They deserve that opportunity. It's important that I, as a mainstream author, say, "I see you. You matter. Your life experience may not be like mine, but it is no less valid and no less real. I will do whatever I can to understand and accurately include you in my stories, in my world. I will not erase you."

People all over the political spectrum often ask me, "Why can't you just stay silent on these issues? Just don't include LGBTQ material and everybody will be happy." This assumes that silence is the natural neutral position. But silence is not neutral. It's an active choice. Silence is great when you are listening. Silence is not so great when you are using it to ignore or exclude.

But that's all macro, 'big picture' stuff. Yes, I think the principles are important. Yes, in the abstract, I feel an obligation to write the world as I see it: beautiful because of its variations. Where I can't draw on personal experience, I listen, I read a lot - in particular I want to credit Beyond Magenta and Gender Outlaws for helping me understand more about the perspective of my character Alex Fierro - and I trust that much of the human experience is universal. You can't go too far wrong if you use empathy as your lens. But the reason I wrote Alex Fierro, or Nico di Angelo, or any of my characters, is much more personal.

I was a teacher for many years, in public and private school, California and Texas. During those years, I taught all kinds of kids. I want them all to know that I see them. They matter. I write characters to honor my students, and to make up for what I wished I could have done for them in the classroom.

I think about my former student Adrian (a pseudonym), back in the 90s in San Francisco. Adrian used the pronouns he and him, so I will call him that, but I suspect Adrian might have had more freedom and more options as to how he self-identified in school were he growing up today. His peers, his teachers, his family all understood that Adrian was female, despite his birth designation. Since kindergarten, he had self-selected to be among the girls - socially, athletically, academically. He was one of our girls. And although he got support and acceptance at the school, I don't know that I helped him as much as I could, or that I tried to understand his needs and his journey. At that time in my life, I didn't have the experience, the vocabulary, or frankly the emotional capacity to have that conversation. When we broke into social skills groups, for instance, boys apart from girls, he came into my group with the boys, I think because he felt it was required, but I feel like I missed the opportunity to sit with him and ask him what he wanted. And to assure him it was okay, whichever choice he made. I learned more from Adrian than I taught him. Twenty years later, Alex Fierro is for Adrian.

I think about Jane (pseudonym), another one of my students who was a straight cis-female with two fantastic moms. Again, for LGBTQ families, San Francisco was a pretty good place to live in the 90s, but as we know, prejudice has no geographical border. You cannot build a wall high enough to keep it out. I know Jane got flack about her family. I did what I could to support her, but I don't think I did enough. I remember the day Jane's drama class was happening in my classroom. The teacher was new - our first African American male teacher, which we were all really excited about - and this was only his third week. I was sitting at my desk, grading papers, while the teacher did a free association exercise. One of his examples was 'fruit - gay.' I think he did it because he thought it would be funny to middle schoolers. After the class, I asked to see the teacher one on one. I asked him to be aware of what he was saying and how that might be hurtful. I know. Me, a white guy, lecturing this Black teacher about hurtful words. He got defensive and quit, because he said he could not promise to not use that language again. At the time, I felt like I needed to do something, to stand up especially for Jane and her family. But did I make things better handling it as I did? I think I missed an opportunity to open a dialogue about how different people experience hurtful labels. Emmie and Josephine and their daughter Georgina, the family I introduce in The Dark Prophecy, are for Jane.

I think about Amy, and Mark, and Nicholas . . . All former students who have come out as gay since I taught them in middle school. All have gone on to have successful careers and happy families. When I taught them, I knew they were different. Their struggles were greater, their perspectives more divergent than some of my other students. I tried to provide a safe space for them, to model respect, but in retrospect I don't think I supported them as well as I could have, or reached out as much as they might have needed. I was too busy preparing lessons on Shakespeare or adjectives, and not focusing enough on my students' emotional health. Adjectives were a lot easier for me to reconcile than feelings. Would they have felt comfortable coming out earlier than college or high school if they had found more support in middle school? Would they have wanted to? I don't know. But I don't think they felt it was a safe option, which leaves me thinking that I did not do enough for them at that critical middle school time. I do not want any kid to feel alone, invisible, misunderstood. Nico di Angelo is for Amy, and Mark and Nicholas.

I am trying to do more. Percy Jackson started as a way to empower kids, in particular my son, who had learning differences. As my platform grew, I felt obliged to use it to empower all kids who are struggling through middle school for whatever reason. I don't always do enough. I don't always get it right. Good intentions are wonderful things, but at the end of a manuscript, the text has to stand on its own. What I meant ceases to matter. Kids just see what I wrote. But I have to keep trying. My kids are counting on me.

So thank you, above all, to my former students who taught me. Alex Fierro is for you.

To you, I pledge myself to do better - to apologize when I screw up, to learn from my mistakes, to be there for LGBTQ youth and make sure they know that in my books, they are included. They matter. I am going to stop talking now, but I promise you I won't stop listening.

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I was honored to attend the Stonewall Award ceremony today at the American Library Association meeting in Chicago. Magnus Chase 2: The Hammer of Thor, won the children's book award for "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience" because of the character of Alex Fierro.

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They're literally eliminating something that benefits sick people. Disabled people, seniors, children, etc. 

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They're literally eliminating something that benefits sick people. Disabled people, seniors, children, etc. 

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(They're all from the same website, I know, but they had the best articles) Thoughts on this?

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But Friday came and went without any agreement or public show of progress - and with no vote in sight. Instead, Mr. McConnell was dealing with a new dose of uncertainty about whether Republicans should continue on their current course or scrap their bill for a repeal-only measure that would probably have at least as much difficulty garnering enough votes to pass.

The health care debate almost certainly will continue deep into July, when Congress will face other pressing issues, including raising the government's statutory borrowing limit.

"We need repeal; we need replace," Mr. Sasse said on Fox News. "Trying to do them together hasn't seemed to work."

Republican leaders in Congress had embraced the repeal-now-replace-later mantra after Mr. Trump's election, envisioning legislation that would end the Affordable Care Act in a few years as they worked on a replacement. But that plan was blown up quickly in January when Mr. Trump publicly demanded that a replacement be adopted simultaneously. Since then, Mr. McConnell and Speaker Paul D. Ryan have choreographed a complicated legislative dance that would fulfill Mr. Trump's repeal-and-replace wishes.

Now, those wishes could be changing.

In his letter to the president, Mr. Sasse said that if a deal on a revised health care bill had not been struck by the time the Senate returned from its recess on July 10, Mr. Trump should call on Congress to "immediately repeal as much of Obamacare as is possible" under the rules that must be followed to avoid a filibuster, with a one-year delay on the repeal bill's implementation.

Then, he said, lawmakers should get to work on replacing the health law and should cancel their planned August recess.

"On the current path, it looks like Republicans will either fail to pass any meaningful bill at all, or will instead pass a bill that attempts to prop up much of the crumbling Obamacare structures," Mr. Sasse wrote. "We can and must do better than either of these - both because the American people deserve better, and because we promised better."

Soon after Mr. Sasse's appearance on Fox News, Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, "If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!"

Asked about the tweet, a White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said, "The president hasn't changed his thinking at all."

"We're still fully committed to pushing through with the Senate at this point," she said. "But we're looking at every possible option of repealing and replacing Obamacare."

Mr. McConnell was hoping that the Senate would pass his bill this week. But he dropped that idea on Tuesday after it became clear that he did not have the votes and would have to revise his bill for it to have any chance of passing. A spokeswoman for Mr. McConnell declined to comment on the president's tweet.

Mr. Trump has weighed in as Senate Republicans are struggling to decide how much of the Affordable Care Act should be eradicated and how much should be retained. In the Senate this week, Republicans veered from their original approach and said they were discussing whether to keep a tax imposed by the Affordable Care Act on the investment income of the most affluent Americans. The revenue could be used to increase insurance subsidies for lower-income people.

Subsidies in the Senate bill were already beginning to look like those in the Affordable Care Act, which are tied to a person's income and local insurance costs. However, the Senate subsidies are less generous than those under the current law.

The repeal bills written by House and Senate Republicans would provide tens of billions of dollars in assistance to health insurance companies to help stabilize insurance markets and hold down premiums. Many of the same Republicans attacked such payments, when made by the Obama administration, as a bailout for the insurance industry.

But as senators tried to come to agreement, Mr. Trump effectively added a distraction. A clean repeal of the Affordable Care Act would face huge political obstacles in the Senate if it was not accompanied by legislation to provide health coverage in some other manner. Republican senators are already faced with pleas from constituents who want the health law to remain in place. If they approve a repeal-only measure, they will face enormous pressure to explain what comes next.

Mr. Trump's remarks on Twitter offered a reminder to congressional Republicans of how inconsistent the president has been as a partner. In May, he cheered passage of a House plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, only to later denounce the House bill as "mean."

Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate health committee, said that with his tweet, Mr. Trump was "sending a signal to Senate Republicans that they can count on him to support their back-room deals to jam their bill through just about as much as House Republicans could count on him before he called their bill 'mean.'"

Mr. McConnell is also facing pressure from restive conservatives inside and outside the Senate who are dissatisfied with his repeal bill. But placating them risks driving away other members of his caucus.

"It's distressing to see so many Republicans who've lied about their commitment to repeal," said Ken Cuccinelli, a former Republican attorney general of Virginia who is now the president of the Senate Conservatives Fund, which supports conservative candidates.

Conservatives are pressing Mr. McConnell to accept a proposal by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, that would allow insurers to sell cheaper, less comprehensive health plans if they also offered at least one plan that met federal insurance standards, including a requirement to provide certain benefits like maternity care and mental health coverage.

Mr. Cruz has said the proposal would increase the number of health insurance options available to consumers, allowing them to choose plans that would cost less because they did not have to comply with federal mandates.

But critics said the proposal was unworkable because less healthy people would gravitate to insurance plans that provide a full set of benefits, and they could face higher premiums, while healthy people would tend to choose lower-cost plans.

Mr. McConnell has said that the health law should be repealed "root and branch." Andy Roth, a vice president of the Club for Growth, a conservative organization, complained on Friday that moderate Republicans in the Senate wanted to keep much of the health law in place.

"'Root and branch,'" Mr. Roth said, "doesn't mean trimming the hedges."

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patient protection and affordable care act (2010)

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Trump Warms to Old Idea: Kill Health Law Now, and Replace It Later

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But Friday came and went without any agreement or public show of progress - and with no vote in sight. Instead, Mr. McConnell was dealing with a new dose of uncertainty about whether Republicans should continue on their current course or scrap their bill for a repeal-only measure that would probably have at least as much difficulty garnering enough votes to pass.

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I think that everyone should be allowed in.

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I think that everyone should be allowed in.

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Refugees come to other countries for safety because their own is in danger, they should be let in. And it's so unfair how people from predominantly-Muslim countries are banned from entering just because of their ethnicity/religion. All people should be treated equally no matter their status.

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Portions of President Trump's travel ban go into effect on Thursday, three days after the Supreme Court temporarily lifted legal blocks on the ban and agreed to review the case this fall.

The court granted an exception for people with "bona fide relationships" in the United States, and advocates and experts expressed uncertainty about how the Trump administration would implement the decision.

People With 'Bona Fide' Relationships in the U.S.

The Supreme Court lifted the suspensions that federal judges had put on Mr. Trump's travel ban order in March, but only partially: People from the affected countries who have "a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States" will still be allowed to enter the country.

The justices said their intention was to not burden American parties who have relationships with foreigners. They offered some examples of who would be allowed, including "close family," students and workers offered employment.

But the court did not precisely explain the meaning of "bona fide relationship." According to a diplomatic cable obtained by The New York Times, the Trump administration has defined "close family" as a "parent (including parent-in-law), spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, sibling, whether whole or half. This includes step relationships."

Late Thursday, the Trump administration added people who are engaged to be married - who originally were not considered to be close family members - to the list of sufficient connections.

"Close family" does not include "grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-laws and sisters-in-law and any other 'extended' family members."

Everyone Else From Six Countries

The president's order prohibits for 90 days the entry of travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The court's action means that this ban will only apply to those without bona fide relationships in the United States.

Meanwhile, American officials will conduct a review into screening procedures in place to prevent threats. Travelers from countries that do not provide sufficient information for screening by the end of the review may still be barred from entering the United States.

In its opinion, the court said the administration could complete its review over the summer, so it is possible that the case could become moot by the time it is argued in the fall.

The president's order also includes a ban on all refugees to the United States for 120 days. After that, the administration will determine from which countries it will reinstate admissions.

Mr. Trump's order allows case-by-case exceptions for some refugees, and refugees already admitted to the country will be allowed. The court's exception for those with a bona fide relationship also applies to refugees, but according to independent estimates, about 40 percent of refugees who come to the country have no family ties here.

Advocates argue that refugees' ties to a nonprofit organization that helps them resettle qualifies as a bona fide relationship. But on Thursday, a State Department official said that a relationship with a resettlement agency in the United States "is not sufficient" to qualify. The official cited the court's decision, which said that the qualifying ties "have to be formal and documented relationships that were not created for the purposes of evading the executive order."

The president's order cuts the refugee program in half, capping it at 50,000 people for the 2017 fiscal year, down from the 110,000 ceiling put in place under President Barack Obama. But the cap will not apply to refugees who can claim a bona fide relationship.

Students and Workers Without Current Visas

Mr. Trump's order applies to people who do not have current visas, including temporary, non-immigrant visas for students and workers. But these groups already get those visas based on relationships the administration has defined as bona fide, so they will be allowed in.

There were about 13,000 temporary visits by citizens from the six targeted countries in the 2015 fiscal year in those categories.

Tourists and business travelers

Like students and workers, most visitors coming to the United States for recreational and business purposes must obtain non-immigrant visas. Those from the six countries will be allowed only if they already have a qualifying bona fide relationship in the United States.

That includes "close family" or a relationship with a "U.S. entity"; for example, the administration said that a "lecturer invited to address an audience" would qualify.

There were 49,412 visits by citizens from the six targeted countries on the B-1 and B-2 visas in 2015.

New Immigrants

Mr. Trump's order also applies to people from the six countries newly arriving on immigrant visas. But most of these visas are granted based on employment or family status that would qualify them to enter under the court's opinion.

A small percentage of new immigrants are awarded "diversity visas" through a lottery, so it is possible that they would not have bona fide relationships that would allow them to enter.

People issued immigrant visas become legal permanent residents on arrival in the United States and are issued a green card soon after. In 2015, green cards were issued to 31,258 people from these six countries. In general, about half of recent new legal permanent residents have been new arrivals to the country, and the other half have had their status adjusted after living in the United States.

Green Card Holders, Dual Nationals and Diplomats

Mr. Trump's order explicitly says green card holders from the targeted countries will be allowed. From 1999 to 2015, 2.6 percent of new legal permanent residents were from the six affected countries.

The president's order also does not apply to American citizens, or to dual nationals who enter the United States presenting their passport from a country not under the ban.

People on certain types of diplomatic or government visas are also still allowed. Nearly 1,400 admissions from the six countries were made on these visas in 2015:

Diplomats and other officials

International representatives

Visitors to the United Nations

NATO officials

How the Ban Has Evolved

After a panel of federal judges blocked key parts of a January order banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, Mr. Trump issued a narrower revised version in March, which, among other changes, removed Iraq from the list of barred countries and took out language prioritizing refugees in minority religious groups.

Federal judges blocked the new order in mid-March, and it had been on hold until Monday, when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and allowed portions of it to go back into effect.

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The Supreme Court Partially Allowed Trump's Travel Ban. Who Is Still Barred?

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Portions of President Trump's travel ban go into effect on Thursday, three days after the Supreme Court temporarily lifted legal blocks on the ban and agreed to review the case this fall. The court granted an exception for people with "bona fide relationships" in the United States, and advocates and experts expressed uncertainty about how the Trump administration would implement the decision.

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This really bothers me because despite people who are pro-life, they don't acknowledge birth control as health care.

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This really bothers me because despite people who are pro-life, they don't acknowledge birth control as health care.

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Birth Control does many things, mainly preventing unwanted pregnancies, PMS and ovarian cancer.

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But a series of lawsuits filed over the last five years by priests, nuns, charitable organizations, hospitals, advocacy groups and colleges and universities convinced Trump administration officials that a change was needed. The new rule, drafted mainly by political appointees at the White House and the Health and Human Services Department, seeks "to better balance the interests" of women with those of employers and insurers that have conscientious objections to providing or facilitating access to contraceptives.

"The government does not have a compelling interest in applying the mandate to employers that object" or in foisting coverage on individuals who object, the draft rule states.

Career government employees at the Health and Human Services Department and other agencies do not expect to block the new rule but - in an expedited internal review - they are trying to tone down language that questions the value of contraception.

The Obama administration and the National Academy of Sciences cited studies showing that as the use of contraceptives has gone up, the rate of unintended pregnancies has come down. But the Trump administration says "these studies are insufficient to demonstrate a causal link."

Instead, the rule emphasized another issue: "as contraception became available and its use increased, teen sexual activity outside of marriage likewise increased."

In any event, the Trump administration says, the coverage of contraceptives is required not by the Affordable Care Act itself, but by federal guidelines issued under the law, and the law "does not require that the guidelines be 'evidence-based' or 'evidence-informed.' "

The draft rule is still under review by the administration. But as its details became known this week, the administration sped up efforts to clear it for publication before opponents could gain traction. The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi of California, called it a "sickening plan to roll back women's access to contraception."

When President Trump ordered his cabinet to consider rule changes to address "conscience-based objections to the preventive-care mandate" on May 4, he said he was coming to the rescue of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a 178-year-old religious order that had refused to help provide contraceptive coverage.

But the draft rule goes far beyond that.

The Obama administration offered an exemption to houses of worship and a more limited "accommodation" to certain employers who had religious objections to providing or paying for contraceptive coverage. The Trump administration would offer exemptions to employers that object based on either religious beliefs or sincerely held "moral convictions."

Most lawsuits attacking the mandate assert that it violates a 1993 law protecting religious liberty. The Trump administration acknowledges that the law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, "does not provide protection for nonreligious, moral conscientious objections."

But, it said, Congress and the courts have long recognized the importance of respecting moral convictions as well as religious beliefs, in health care and other fields, and as an example it cited the exemption from military service available to certain "conscientious objectors." And it noted that an early version of the First Amendment, proposed by James Madison, protected not only freedom of religion, but also "the full and equal rights of conscience."

In 2014, the Supreme Court struck down the contraceptive coverage mandate "as applied to closely held corporations" like Hobby Lobby, a for-profit chain of craft stores owned by members of a Christian family who object to certain methods of contraception on religious grounds.

The Supreme Court did not decide whether the religious freedom law applied to publicly traded, for-profit corporations. But the Trump administration says such companies should have the same protections.

The draft rule would make the exemption available to for-profit as well as nonprofit entities, regardless of whether they are closely held or publicly traded. The legal concept of a closely held company "is not well-defined or universally-accepted" and is "too imprecise" to be used in the birth control rule, the Trump administration says.

For that reason, the administration says, it will "exempt any entity possessing religious beliefs or moral convictions against the coverage required by the mandate, regardless of its corporate structure or ownership interests."

The draft rule would also create an exemption for health insurance companies that have religious or moral objections to covering birth control. It would change the current accommodation for certain religiously affiliated employers from mandatory to optional. And it would allow insurers and employers to provide a separate insurance policy excluding coverage of contraceptives to individuals who have religious or moral objections.

The Trump administration discounts the possibility of harm to women, saying they can obtain access to contraceptives through a family member's health plan, a plan sold on a public insurance exchange or "multiple other federal programs that provide free or subsidized contraceptives."

The draft rule provides not just a handful of talking points, but a detailed analysis of the relevant law and policy, in anticipation of a legal fight with women's rights advocates.

Under pressure from religious objectors, the Obama administration repeatedly revised its birth control rules, and the Trump administration cites these changes to show that the government has broad discretion to decide who is exempt from the mandate.

Federal law generally requires agencies to issue new rules as proposals, with an opportunity for public comment, but the new rule is labeled an interim final rule, meaning it could take effect immediately on publication in the Federal Register. Objecting employers urgently need relief, the administration said, and "it would be impracticable and contrary to the public interest to engage in full notice-and-comment rule-making."

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Trump Rule Could Deny Birth Control Coverage to Hundreds of Thousands of Women

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But a series of lawsuits filed over the last five years by priests, nuns, charitable organizations, hospitals, advocacy groups and colleges and universities convinced Trump administration officials that a change was needed.