'Senator Franken tangles with Trump cabinet nominee over support of anti-lgbt groups' & other Wed. midday news briefs

Trump nominee Betsy DeVos

WATCH: Al Franken destroys Education appointee Betsy DeVos over her support for gay conversion therapy - Other than that "bear" comment, this was a serious highlight of yesterday's hearing with Trump's pick for secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Al Franken is a serious boss! 

DeVos rejects anti-LGBT views, but bruised in bumpy hearing  - Another article on the situation.

 Lambda Legal: Price would endanger health of LGBTs, people living with HIV - Speaking of another one of Trump's cabinet nominees . . . 

 Donald Trump Meets with SCOTUS Candidate William Pryor who Supported Criminalizing Gay Sex - Will the "homosexuality is a dangerous, deadly lifestyle" talking point take center stage again? If it does, the situation is going to get ugly because I got enough material saved up to make it ugly. And I won't be holding A THING back.  

Hate group Family Research Council wants Special LGBT Envoy gone from State Department - My post from this morning deserves another look because I didn't post it right the first time.  

Gay teen at risk of deportation because Sweden doesn't believe he's gay - What the $#@!  

Transphobic Slurs And Death Wishes: How Right-Wing Media Responded To The Commutation Of Chelsea Manning’s Prison Sentence - Disgusting. Can't even present their arguments in an intelligent manner.

Hate group Family Research Council wants Special LGBT Envoy gone from State Department

FRC wants Randy Berry purged.

In its Washington Update yesterday, SPLC-designated hate group the Family Research Council made it more than clear that with Trump's incoming administration, it would like to see one state department official purged.

Why? Because he was appointed by Obama as Special LGBT Envoy.

Randy Berry has served less than two years at his job, but to hear the Family Research Council tell the story, he has been causing chaos:

The new administration is sending Obama's diplomats packing -- but some are not going too far. In the case of LGBT Envoy Randy Berry, the move may be a short one. Inside the State Department, rumors are swirling that Secretary John Kerry's pro-gay protégé just took a different job in the department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor division -- giving the radical agenda a permanent home in an agency that some claim has nothing to do with social issues.

"I plan to come to work the day after the inauguration," Berry told the Blade a year ago. "I serve the U.S. government. I serve the American people." Unfortunately for voters anxious to return to real diplomacy, he may be close to making good on that promise. Berry, who spent more than a year and a half on a worldwide "tolerance" tour, has been very clear about his intentions from Day One. Special rights for people who identify as gay or transgender "creates a more durable, healthier nation," he's insisted. He took that message on the road through most of 2015 and 2016, leaning on other countries in an effort to force them to open their doors to extreme policies at the expense -- not just of the host nation's values, but of international religious liberty.