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| The British are giving Franklin Graham exactly what he deserves. |
The Trump-supporting preacher, who is known for praising Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay laws and blaming gay people for a “moral 9/11”, is set to visit the UK at the start of Pride Month in June as part of an evangelist tour.
Venues hosting the tour have faced complaints from LGBT+ activists – with a Liverpool conference venue dropping him on Monday. Following the pressure, two further venues have followed suit Glasgow’s SEC Arena confirmed on Wednesday that his May 30 rally at the venue will not go ahead.
A spokesperson told PinkNews: “The booking for this event was processed in the same way we would for any religious concert of this nature and as a business we remain impartial to the individual beliefs of both our clients and visitors. “However, we are aware of the recent adverse publicity surrounding this tour and have reviewed this with our partners and stakeholders. Following a request from our principal shareholder the matter has been considered and a decision made that we should not host this event.” His planned June 6 rally at Sheffield Arena has also been scrapped, after a decision by Sheffield City Council.
Pastor Troy went on a long, homophobic rant & somehow convinced himself that it’s the reason why he doesn’t have a Grammy. pic.twitter.com/nM2ggnV7Yt— Ronald Isley (@yoyotrav) January 29, 2020
On January 22, a South Dakota legislative committee moved forward HB 1057, a dangerous bill that would make it a misdemeanor for medical professionals to provide trans youth with affirming medical care, such as prescribing lifesaving hormones or puberty blockers. While drafting the measure, the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Fred Deutsch (R), reportedly consulted with an anti-trans group called the Kelsey Coalition that has ascended with the help of right-wing media.
Anti-LGBTQ groups the Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Liberty Counsel also reportedly influenced the measure, which is expected to be voted on by the full South Dakota state House on January 29.
The Kelsey Coalition is a group of medical professionals, parents, and others who reject the identities of trans youth and advocate against affirming care. The Heritage Foundation gave the Kelsey Coalition its first major platform by featuring a member at a panel advocating against affirming the gender identities of trans youth.
According to The Washington Post, Deutsch attended a separate anti-trans event at the Heritage Foundation, at which organizations involved -- including the Kelsey Coalition -- released a co-branded parent resource guide on how to reject transgender children and advance policies to attack the trans community. Deutsch is also reported to have worked with extreme anti-LGBTQ groups Alliance Defending Freedom and Liberty Counsel on the bill.
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| Conservative evangelical leaders embraced Trump because he was giving them power, access, laws and the judges they wanted. Let's not allow America to forget how they went knee deep with full knowledge in his corrupt administration. And let's not allow America to forget how they either ignored or made excuses for his behavior. |
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| Rob Smith |
The American Family Association continues to sound the alarm about Target's policy that allows men in women's restrooms and changing areas.
Target says the policy is meant to be inclusive and benefit transgender customers and employees, but the American Family Association (AFA) has long warned it will result in sexual predators taking advantage of the policy, thereby putting women and children at risk.
In an Action Alert this week, AFA points to an incident at a Target store in Harris County, Texas, where a woman told law enforcement that a man was taking pictures of her in a fitting room while she was changing clothes.
"It's an invasion of privacy," she told news station KTRK. "No one should go through that. It was horrifying." "Because nobody will stop a man from entering these areas, what these sexual predators do is they watch for a woman or girl to go into a fitting room, for example, and they go into the one next to it and then put their phone camera either up above the partition or below it," Ed Vitagliano, AFA executive vice president, told on American Family Radio's "Today's Issues" program. "That is what happened in this case in Harris County, Texas."
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| Anti-LGBTQ activist 'Lorena' of the group MassResistance thinks it was unfair that a councilman tried to kick her out of his office even though she outright accused him of working to legalize pedophilia. |
One MassResistance mother in Chula Vista, Lorena, a calm but strong-willed woman, has been really taking action. She has testified at just about every City Council meeting, often bringing up the fact that the library has cut reading and literacy programs, yet had the money for Drag Queen Story Hour. She has passed out flyers across town.
. . . this past week Stephen Padilla, who had refused to meet with anyone, agreed to meet with Lorena in his City Hall office. She came, and calmly told him the truth about the Drag Queen Story event. His behavior toward her was disgraceful. He ultimately threw her out of his office and tried to have her removed from City Hall.
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| Jay Sekulow |
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| FRC president Tony Perkins follows the evangelical game plan of lying about Tenn's anti-LGBTQ adoption bill. |
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday that he’ll sign into law a measure that would assure continued taxpayer funding of faith-based foster care and adoption agencies even if they exclude LGBT families and others based on religious beliefs. The GOP-controlled Senate gave the bill final passage on the first day of the 2020 legislative session after it was initially approved by the House last April. The bill was sent to the Republican governor amid warnings by critics of possible negative consequences for Tennessee’s reputation.
(Editor's note - Unfortunately the tweet seems to have been deleted. I apologize for that. Please click on the 'Courier Journal' link below to read the conversation between Haase and Bennett.)
A University of Kentucky student gained some notoriety after a video went viral of him discussing the transgender bathroom issue with conservative personality Kaitlin Bennett, aka the Kent State "gun girl."
. . . In the video, Bennett, the media director for libertarian outlet Liberty Hangout, who is best known for posing with an AR-10 on Kent State University's campus for graduation photos, asks (Michael) Hawse what he thinks of putting urinals in women's restrooms "for women who have penises and they just want to stand and pee?" "I think people (are) just making too big of a f—king deal about it," Hawse responded, with the curse word bleeped out by a sound effect. "I don't really care."And as Bennett asked him for more details, Hawse continued to be succinct:
Kaitlin Bennett (aka Kent State gun girl) vs. An absolute KING pic.twitter.com/CVm6CpvOwN— ☠️ Lilith Lovett ☠️ (@LilithLovett) January 11, 2020
The video of Hawse’s comments had been viewed more than 19.6 million times on Twitter as of Monday afternoon. Hawse responded to his new fame via Twitter on Monday. “I don’t make a habit of paying attention to what others are doing in the bathroom.” He later tweeted a Venmo account to raise money for DanceBlue Golden Matrix Fund, which raises money for pediatric cancer research.
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| FRC's Tony Perkins |
. . . what the media and the president's opposition doesn't seem to understand is that evangelicals have never looked at Donald Trump as a role model. They're looking at his record as president. And no one in the modern history of this country has a better one. Whether it's the sanctity of human life or the promotion of religious freedom -- here and around the world -- or the appointment of judges bound to the Constitution, there's absolutely no comparison. What this president has done in the last three years matters. So shouldn't it be relevant to Christians as they vote?
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| Billy Porter makes history again |
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| Bryan Fischer spins a lie no one will back him up on. |
Homosexuals have been allowed to serve openly in the U.S. military since the disastrously misguided repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in late 2010. President Obama was able to ram the repeal through just under the wire because the Democrats temporarily held both houses of Congress, a situation that would change with the election in the fall of 2010. Elections have consequences, and open homosexuality in the military was one of the unfortunate consequences of naïve voters placing regressives in office.
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| Donald Trump's 'Legion of Homophobia.' How many bigots do you recognize? |
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| A gay Trump supporter claims that Trump is working for supposed 'true equality.' |
Unfortunately, LGBT advocacy seems fixated on public validation over quiet integration and insists on a segregated platform in which to display leftist social and legal achievements. President Trump failing to openly acknowledge LGBT politics supposedly signaled the beginning of hostility now that he was in power, despite no evidence to support such an assertion.
Trump has appointed five openly LGBT ambassadors and U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patrick Bumatay. Vice President Mike Pence met with the openly gay Irish prime minister and his partner and publicly praised openly gay Olympic athletes amid controversy over his perceived anti-LGBT views. Trump honored hero police officer and openly gay Crystal Griner with the Medal of Honor after her bravery in saving Rep. Steve Scalise and other Republican members of Congress during an attempted assassination.
. . .If Trump were truly struggling to contain his hatred for gay and trans people, you could imagine he would have acted out in actual hostility toward them by now. LGBT media and advocacy certainly have given him plenty of reason to do so.
One major distinction between President Barack Obama and Trump is that the latter does not seem to need the highly segmented approval of hundreds of grievance groups in order to feel he is doing a good job. For the right, this represents a more equal-opportunity leader who focuses on issues and not virtue signaling. For the left, it seems to indicate deep and intentional disregard for the well-being of groups they believe deserve special acknowledgement.
As a gay person, I prefer the right’s view on this. If what Trump’s administration is doing is “erasing” LGBT people, then being erased must be the same thing as equality and assimilation — and that looks like progress to me.
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| Family Research Council president Tony Perkins |
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| Gary Bauer, who allegedly undermine the fight against AIDS during the 80s, is just one of many conservative evangelical leaders eager for the power Trump gives them. |
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| Lil Nas X had a wonderful year. |
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| No matter what they say, conservative white evangelicals prefer the guy on the left more than the guy on the right. |
10. You spent 8 years criticizing every move of Obama, but the minute Trump was sworn in you started telling everyone that “Christians should respect the president” and that being “divisive” is a sin.
9. You think, “but we’re a nation of laws” somehow trumps biblical teachings on how immigrants are to be treated.
8. Your church is planning a “patriotic worship service” for the 4th of July.
7. You instinctively applaud when Trump threatens to “bomb the shit” out of people, but quickly push back if someone quotes what Jesus taught about violence and enemy love.
6. You think that having a filthy mouth and boasting about sexual immorality is a sign of being unsaved, but when it comes to Trump you all of a sudden have a “Who am I to judge?” attitude.
5. You think it’s God-honoring to refuse to bow to a national statue, but that you should be fired from your job, kicked out of the country, or even charged with treason for refusing to stand for the flag.
4. You want the nation to return to “biblical values”… except for all those socialist sounding biblical things like caring for the poor, welcoming the stranger, giving food to the hungry, etc.
3. Your church spends one month a year celebrating the story of refugee family who fled their violent homeland and secretly crossed the border to safety, only to return home years later where their son became another unarmed person of color killed by the state’s violent security forces because they “felt threatened”…
2. You claimed Barack Obama’s election was the result of evil forces, but the minute Trump was sworn into office you started quoting verses about how “God picks a nation’s kings and queens.”
1. You spent the 90’s saying “character counts” but now say, “We don’t vote for a national pastor.”
