VICE (2013) s04e06 Episode Script

1 This week on "VICE": We see firsthand the results of Saudi Arabia's ongoing air campaign in Yemen.
(woman yelling in foreign language) (indistinct shouting) Everything has been hit and burnt, every single shop.
And then, the ongoing battle for LGBT rights in America.
Can you understand how a gay couple coming in here would feel discriminated against? Americans have the right to live according to their faith.
This is our time to take America back.
(theme music playing) (gunshot) Crowd (chanting): Hands up! Don't shoot! Hands up! In season two, we profiled the Houthi rebel group that now controls huge parts of Yemen.
Today, Saudi Arabia, which is one of America's most important allies in the region, is trying to eradicate these rebel strongholds.
But a report from the United Nations that recently came to light accuses them of targeting civilians in a "widespread and systematic manner.
" So we went back to Yemen to see how Saudi Arabia's ongoing bombardment is affecting the country.
Ben Anderson: So we're just on the roof of a building in the old town.
Just going to see what it's like to be in Sana'a for one night of Saudi air strikes.
It's been going on for six months.
Thirty thousand, roughly, casualties so far, of those, 5,000 deaths.
(distant explosions) There's almost always something in the air.
But you just can't tell what.
It's got anti-aircraft gunfire going up here.
(explosions and gunfire) Two air strikes so far.
Here comes another one.
(explosion echoes) And you can just imagine having a family here, and having, you know, kids who have to sit through this every night knowing that someone or something is gonna get hit.
And the strikes we've seen tonight are close to one of the most densely populated parts of Sana'a.
The next day we went to see houses in the old city that had been hit.
So we've come to see the site of a recent strike and as soon as we turned up, there's a fighter jet above us somewhere, which has made everyone very scared and nervous.
Most people have actually just left.
(distant gunfire) We met a man, Mujahid al-Aini, whose brother Hafdullah, was killed with his entire family when his home was struck.
(speaking in foreign language) Describe what you saw when you came here.
Anderson: The conflict has forced over 2.
5 million people to flee their homes.
Some people have said that after six months of this bombing parts of Yemen look like Syria did after years.
We spoke to Ali Gael Mesar, who showed us what was left of his house.
Do you know how many people were killed in this area altogether? (speaking in foreign language) This is where you used to sleep? This is your bed? Sleep.
Yeah.
How do you feel about the planes flying every night? Anderson: Anyone unlucky enough to live in the areas now under Houthi control can become a target.
The next day, we heard about air strikes against a wedding party on the Red Sea coast.
We just turned up to a village where there was an air strike yesterday, or three air strikes, we think.
And there's a quite low-flying jet above us.
We've been here five or six days, we've been used to jets above us every day and night.
But this is actually pretty fucking terrifying.
And they're scared as well, obviously, because of what they experienced yesterday.
(man speaking in foreign language) Oh, yeah, and there's a piece of skull with a lot of hair still on it, burnt.
The women came here after the men were here? (man speaking in foreign language) Anderson: So the blast was direct where people were? Another jet coming in.
Another one? This man wants to take us to a house just here, and he says a large piece of shrapnel came and killed a woman inside.
Anderson: He's saying his mother was killed by a piece of flying shrapnel.
A big piece of shrapnel came, hit the wall here.
And as he's telling that story, there's another jet overhead.
Anderson: For some, the bombs reduced their family members to random pieces of flesh and bone.
Anderson: To be fair, when the Houthis have been trying to capture new ground, they too have shelled civilian areas indiscriminately, and used land mines when they retreated.
They also use child soldiers.
But so far, the vast majority of casualties have been caused by the Saudi-led bombing campaign.
As we continued north, the destruction got worse.
It looked like anything that could make life easier for civilians had been targeted.
We've seen one blown up bridge already and the second bridge we've come across has also been blown.
We're told that every bridge has been taken out by an air strike.
So we're just outside Saada now and every single gas station has been hit.
And that doesn't only mean that people can't get around and goods can't get back and forth.
But because there's no electricity, it also means that people can't power their homes because they rely on generators for electricity.
As a result of this, and an ongoing blockade, there are massive shortages of food, water, and fuel.
Parts of Yemen are now on the brink of famine.
This is an IDP camp, internally displaced persons, refugees from inside the country, basically, who have fled from the north.
(speaking in foreign language) Anderson: We visited one of the few functioning hospitals, run by Doctors without Borders, who were barely able to cope with the influx of starving and wounded civilians.
She actually came with multiple shrapnel wounds, in the chest, abdomen, and both legs and face, and gangrene of the distal part of her right leg.
And we did for her amputation.
Anderson: And were you there when these missiles struck? (speaking in foreign language) So, they've fled their homes because of the war and then in their IDP camps, there's not enough water and food.
Is there a breaking point very nearby? (speaking with heavy French accent) Anderson: We continued our journey into northwest Yemen, to the Houthi's heartland.
Once we arrived in the main city, Saada, we could see why so many people had fled.
Everything has been hit and burnt, every single shop.
So this is another gas station that was hit.
There are ten of these mini-buses that have been burnt to cinders.
There are five cars and then a truck and another vehicle on the other side of the road that have been just destroyed.
And you can imagine exactly how this must have looked.
You know, an everyday scene, something that all of us do all the time.
The guy here pulls up, the pump would have been just here.
People queuing, and then suddenly, bang.
The reason there was a queue for gas was because of the Saudi blockade.
So they caused there to be a shortage of fuel, which causes the queues and then they killed 21 civilians trying to get fuel for their vehicles, for their homes, for their livings, to get food.
It's it's obscene.
This was the post office.
Completely destroyed.
The roof is pancaked.
Oh, didn't even see this.
Another huge crater here.
These are big bombs.
This is a 12-foot-deep, 25-, 30-foot-wide crater.
It seems like almost every single local government building has been directly hit, if not very badly damaged.
This is a part of a 2,000-pound bomb, which makes perfect sense when you see these craters and the unbelievable damage that's been done to every single one of these buildings.
This is the biggest crater we've seen so far and right next to one of the oldest mosques in the world.
Someone just told us that this has been open for 1,300 years, and this is the first time in its history, it's had to close.
Throughout Saada, many homes have also been destroyed.
Abdullah al-Ibbi is one of the only surviving members of the family who had lived in this house.
Can you think of any reason why your family and this house might have been struck? (speaking in foreign language) How many of your family were killed? What's your life like now, day-to-day? Anderson: In the once thriving but now deserted marketplace, we found one man searching through the rubble of his coffee and spice shop.
(speaking in foreign language) Anderson: And who do you blame for this? Anderson: Schools, World Heritage sites, aid organizations, and four Doctors without Borders medical facilities have been struck.
If that weren't bad enough, the Saudis are also dropping bombs that most of the world has said should be banned.
"Bomb frag, blue 97AB.
" So the yellow cylinder would be underneath and this on top to act as a kind of parachute and then a shell opens, you know, 50, 100 feet above the ground, maybe higher, and then these disperse over a wide area.
And the idea is, they all go off when they land.
The problem is that they often don't.
And you know, these are attractive to kids, which is the problem.
They pick them up and that's why kids get killed years after conflicts have ended.
Everyone is just walking out of the village presenting bits of shrapnel and shells.
He's saying that five of these were dropped.
"Dispense and Bomb, Aircraft CBU87B/B.
" So this is inside this shell.
These are all placed around there, so eight on each level and there must be well, roughly, one, two, three, four, five, six Each shell contains 202 bomblets.
Most countries have signed an international treaty saying they won't use these, and most countries would say that using these on civilian areas is illegal.
And where does Saudi Arabia get most of its arms? They're mostly supplied by the US, who have agreed to sell the Saudis over $90 billion worth of weapons over the last six years, including a contract worth $640 million for cluster bombs alone.
Despite the mounting evidence of war crimes, the support continues to this day.
(speaking foreign language) How many times have you had to hide in here? Every night, for two months? How about that? Sleeping out here for two months straight while cluster bombs are dropped all around you.
Officially, the death toll has risen to over 6,000 people, nearly half of them civilians.
The actual number is almost certainly much higher.
Why do you think this area and your family were targeted? And were there fighters here? Or are you a fighter? Are the jets still flying over now? When the United States Supreme Court struck down bans on same-sex marriage last year, many Americans believed that full equality was imminent.
But for the LGBT community in dozens of states, discrimination is still a fact of everyday life.
(cheering) We're at the Supreme Court.
They just legalized same-sex marriage, and there are hundreds of people out here celebrating.
Tell me about the moments when you heard the decision come down? I'm so happy.
Yeah.
The country just became a better place.
I never thought I could get married.
I can.
Today is a wonderful day to be an American.
Toboni: This Supreme Court ruling brought millions of people across the country together in celebration of a historic civil rights victory.
This morning, the Supreme Court recognized that the Constitution guarantees marriage equality.
In doing so, they have reaffirmed that all Americans should be treated equally, regardless of who they are or who they love.
Toboni: But while many cheered the decision, the Christian Right rallied against it, using their right to religious liberty as a kind of loophole to ignore the court.
County officials in Texas, Alabama, and Kentucky refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The law of nature supersedes anything that man puts on paper.
Toboni: Thousands of people convened at back-to-back conservative conferences where Republican presidential candidates promised to back religious liberty.
I don't think caterers, or florists, or business owners should be forced to participate in wedding ceremonies that violate their sincerely held beliefs.
We're going to protect the religious liberty of individuals, churches, adoption agencies, universities, and hospitals, to continue to practice their faith unrestricted by the government.
Toboni: Do you think that hospitals should have the choice whether or not to serve same-sex couples? The government has no constitutional authority to dictate the confines of a person's faith.
First Amendment's explicitly clear on that.
The only force strong enough to turn this country around is we the people, and that's exactly what we're going to do because this is our time to take America back.
(cheering) Toboni: This fiery message reached many more than just the cheering fans at the conference.
The host, Erick Erickson, invited us to join him on his conservative radio show to talk about this movement to his thousands of listeners.
Your News 95.
5, AM 750.
Welcome.
It's Erick Erickson here.
I've got "VICE" here with me.
We wanted to talk a little bit about gay rights, religious freedom, same-sex marriage.
This has all been a hot-button issue for Americans.
Why are more states proposing that they have religious freedom laws in their states? Because we've seen it around the country in a number of situations, businesses targeted, saying, you will provide goods and services to a marriage ceremony that you believe to be religious, and if you don't do it, we're gonna take your business from you or drive you from business.
With the Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage, do you think that that weakened the religious freedom movement? I don't actually think it did.
It suddenly woke people up.
You saw the support for same-sex marriage decline after the decision.
You also saw Christian business protection go up.
So you think it actually, maybe, emboldened the movement? I think it probably did embolden the movement.
Toboni: And the leaders of that movement? Countless business owners who continue to stand their ground in refusing to serve same-sex couples.
I couldn't do his flowers because it would dishonor Christ.
Woman: It's against our belief to cater to their wedding.
We're condoning that if we do that, and that is against our religion.
Toboni: In Colorado, Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips refused to bake a wedding cake for two gay men.
The state ruled that he had violated an anti-discrimination law.
He's now looking to take his case to the Colorado Supreme Court.
How has the community reacted to your case? The community reacted really well.
They've been very supportive of us.
I started getting phone calls pretty much nonstop all day.
I would answer the call, hang up, and it would ring, and hang up, and it would ring, nonstop.
Even with your religious beliefs, can you understand how a gay couple coming in here would feel discriminated against? I would think that if I came in expecting to be treated one way and was treated another, that I would go somewhere else.
Americans have the right to live and work according to their faith.
There's an anti-discrimination law for sexual orientation in the state of Colorado.
Do you think that should exist? Um, the courts need to look at that anti-discrimination law, compare it to the US Constitution, and see which one's more valuable.
I'm gonna go with the Constitution.
Toboni: But it isn't just wedding vendors who are refusing to serve gay clients.
LGBT people are reporting discrimination in employment, housing, and even medical care.
A veteran of those battles is Dana Nessel, a prominent civil rights lawyer who has taken cases as far as the Supreme Court.
The Religious Right have found an angle to use religion as a sword instead of a shield.
And what about the business owners who say, "I'm one shop of ten other shops that a couple could go to"? Once you say it's okay for one person to discriminate against a same-sex couple, you're really leaving the door open for all businesses to have that same opportunity.
People who oppose same-sex marriage seem to believe that their sense of morality should be imposed on the rest of the population.
Toboni: Two of Dana's clients, Krista and Jami Contreras, who were legally married in 2012, have experienced that reality time and time again.
(baby vocalizing) Krista: When Bay was six days old, we took her to the doctor who we had met with previously, liked her, and then when we showed up, another doctor greeted us in the room and told us that she would be our doctor, and we were both like, "Whoa, whoa.
Why? "Like, what's going on? What happened to the doctor that we met with?" And she said, "Well, she prayed on it, "and she decided she can't take Bay on as a patient.
" We wanted to run out, but we couldn't because we already had a six-day-old and we needed this appointment.
She wrote this letter basically trying to justify her actions.
It was like, "I couldn't treat you like I treat my normal patients.
" Jami: She's the one thing that should be the most sacred, and we couldn't even protect our daughter at a doctor's office.
And she's not gay.
You know? We are! Toboni: This isn't a one-off.
Doctors can legally refuse to care for LGBT patients and their children in more than half the states in the country.
But even when they don't, these families can face a system that erodes a parent's most basic rights.
I'm in Austin, Texas, to meet up with a lesbian couple who just gave birth to a baby boy.
One of the mothers, Robin, is the one who gave birth and she actually used her wife, Leigh's, embryo.
The issue they're having now is legally they can't get Leigh, the biological mother's name on the birth certificate.
As soon as he came, it was just overwhelming happiness.
He cried right away.
It seemed like he cried before they had even gotten him all the way out.
He's I'm speechless over him, literally.
The birth certificate application, all the options that it gives you, there's no option for being married to someone of the same sex.
We filled in that she was married to the child's other mother, and I struck through father and wrote mother.
We submitted that form and the person who's in charge of the birth certificates here at the hospital came in.
They brought in a Verification of Birth Facts, but it didn't have me listed on that verification.
The way the state of Texas is interpreting the law, even though you're the biological mother of William, you're still not his legal mother? I have absolutely no legal rights to William right now.
Could William be on your health-care plan? No.
Could you request medical records? I don't think that a doctor would necessarily release any of his records to me at this point because of HIPAA regulations.
If something were to happen to Robin, would you gain custody of William? I would hope that the state would allow him to stay with me, but I don't know that they would.
Well, it's terrifying, obviously.
(crying) I mean, we We've built this family and to think that that if something were to happen to me on the way home, you know, where would he go? Toboni: Robin and Leigh joined in support of another family that was suing the state in a case that ultimately established same-sex parents' rights in Texas.
But in dozens of other states, local governments are still fighting against gay rights.
Last year, more than 100 anti-LGB bills were introduced in 31 states, and one of the driving forces behind this movement is Alan Sears, the president and CEO of a powerful group called the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Where is the next battle for religious liberty? The battle of the moment is the rights of conscience.
Basically, your right to follow these teachings and these understandings of these laws outside of yourself.
You understand that law is given by God.
Some people say it came from Sinai, and it's non-negotiable.
The bible, written thousands of years ago, right? this was a bible that also condoned slavery and actually advised how to treat and buy and sell slaves, and how slaves should treat their masters and all of that.
We obviously don't take that part of the bible, so why do we take the part of the bible that talks about marriage? We need a world in which people learn to live without hate, and those are the portions of the bible that relate to everything we're talking about.
We need people to learn to accept one another, to love one another, and part of that is not to force people to do things that violate their deepest, innermost core beliefs.
How do you explain to a viewer, who let's say, has been refused service, that the person on the other side of the counter is not a hateful person? What I find are people who are deeply caring, loving people who actually care for the prospective client probably more than the prospective client could imagine.
I think the opposing argument though would be having a well-formed conscience, would be treating others as you would like to be treated.
Wouldn't that be serving all Americans no matter who they are? What person really wants someone who disagrees to be involved in creative services for that person? Actually, I think a lot of people.
That's why they've brought lawsuits.
Well, it's interesting.
Do you really want to do that to other people? See, tolerance is a two-way street.
And the essence of religious freedom is free will.
Toboni: This effort to reverse the marriage ruling, and the fact that it's still legal to evict, fire, and refuse to serve LGBT people in more than half the country, is for Senator Cory Booker, a call back to the civil rights battles of the past.
There were religious arguments used to subjugate women in this country.
There were religious arguments used to subjugate minorities in this country.
When my family was facing discrimination, to tell my parents, hey, that you've come a long way, be satisfied with how far you are.
Well, no, absolutely not.
That's not enough.
We want to have full citizenship rights as blacks.
Do you think that it's fair to compare those two civil rights movements? Well, I think a lot of people are sensitive about those kind of comparisons, but I was taught by my parents that the civil rights movement was not about black justice, it was about American justice.
It took a whole lot of actions by a lot of people to break the housing discrimination that my parents encountered.
At least my parents knew back then that they had a legal appeal.
A gay couple does not have the force of law behind them like my parents did.
Toboni: To remedy that, Senator Booker has co-sponsored legislation that would federally prohibit discrimination against LGBT people.
But even though more and more Americans recognize gay people as equals, opponents of same-sex marriage have dug in and they're fighting to move history in a different direction.
The story of this nation is a story of evolution, of us more and more recognizing the dignity of people, and we can't stop now.
(cheering) What would it take for the ADF to back down in this battle? One of the analogies that I'm often asked about is the civil rights movement.
And I remember one of those lawyers was once asked a question similar to what you asked me.
They said, "When will you quit?" And they said they would quit when they had won.
Is that your answer? That would be my answer.