'SC judge takes himself off of marriage equality case' and other Friday midday news briefs

EXCLUSIVE: Judge bows out of SC gay marriage suit - Well this is interesting. The judge overseeing the SC marriage equality case has himself removed because as a member of the executive board of the Indian Waters Council of the Boy Scouts of America, he voted for the policy to admit gay Boy Scouts, but not gay Scout leaders. It should give you an indication to just how HOT this case is going to be.  

Illinois Bishop Will Offer Exorcism For Marriage Equality - I won't do it but by all means, feel free to make snide comments about the lack of exorcisms when came to Catholic priests molesting children. 

John Boehner Clearly Doesn’t Understand Why ENDA Is Necessary - Uh, Boehner is bull@#!ing.

California anti-trans coalition has no plan for transgender protection - And this surprises whom? Nobody. 

Houston's Harris County adopts sweeping policy aimed at protecting LGBT inmates - This is a good thing. 

How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right War on Gay America - In light of my morning post regarding anti-gay groups in America trying to seek what they can out of Russia's anti-gay law, this link is highly important regarding their claims and lies. If you have a problem downloading it, email me at charlekenghis@aol.com and I will email you an adobe acrobat copy.

Religious right groups want to 'study' Russian anti-gay laws

Sen. Mark Kirk

The bad news - there is a group of American religious right organizations supportive to Russia's anti-gay laws and looking to replicate that madness in the United States.

The good news - Illinois Senator Mark Kirk canceled their access to a room in the United States Senate where they were going to have a Friday event. Kirk's office later issued a comment - “Sen. Kirk doesn’t affiliate with groups that discriminate.”

The bad news - see item one and get spooked:

Late Thursday, Illinois Senator Mark Kirk’s office abruptly canceled access to a Senate meeting room for a Friday event scheduled by a social conservative organization that is supportive of Russia’s “homosexual propaganda” ban, event organizers told BuzzFeed.

LGBT activists were outraged to learn that the World Congress of Families, which is currently planning a global summit of supporters of the “traditional family” to be held in Moscow in 2014, would be holding an event in a meeting room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The WCF is a project of the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society, based in Rockford, Illinois.

“Shame on you, Senator Kirk, for allowing vocal radical sexual minorities to drown out the voices of the natural family and faith that have made our nation free, prosperous, and stable for more than 200 years,” said Larry Jacobs, managing director of the World Congress of Families in an email to BuzzFeed. “Obviously Senator Kirk doesn’t care about families and children and freedom and has chosen to side with the policies of decline, death and disease promoted by the Sexual Radicals.”

A spokesman for Kirk, Lance Trover, told BuzzFeed on Thursday night, “Sen. Kirk doesn’t affiliate with groups that discriminate.”

WCF convened a planning meeting in Moscow last month that brought together leading American LGBT-rights opponents — including Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage and Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family — with top Russian supporters of the anti-propaganda law and social conservatives from several other countries. The event scheduled to be held Friday in the Dirksen building was billed in a WCF press release as a discussion of “what can our pro-family legislators learn — positively and negatively — by studying our colleagues’ actions abroad.”

  . . .The panelists include Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, Senior Fellow at the Concerned Women for America’s The Beverly LaHaye Institute, and Steven Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute. It was scheduled to be hosted by Howard Center President Allan Carlson. 

Go to Buzzfeed for the rest of this story and see this document via the Human Right Campaign for the anti-gay backgrounds of the panelists.