These parents are part of HRC Foundation’s Parents for Transgender Equality National Council. The council is a coalition of some of the the nation's leading parent-advocates working for equality and fairness for transgender people, with the intention of connecting, mobilizing and amplifying many of the most powerful voices of love, inclusion and support for transgender equality.
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| Anti-LGBTQ evangelical Todd Starnes is now undermining the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. |
The hashtag #FilmYourHospital trended on Twitter Sunday, encouraging people to travel to nearby hospitals and record video of the exterior to supposedly show that media coverage of chaotic and overcrowded hospitals is untrue.
It appears that right-wing radio host Todd Starnes may have inspired the trend, although Starnes has not used the specific hashtag in any post. Starnes uploaded a video Saturday afternoon that he filmed wandering around outside of the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City. Starnes is heard off-camera telling viewers that he wanted to expose the “war zone” that an emergency room doctor at Brooklyn’s Brookdale Hospital described to CNN last week.
A group of pastors and an outspoken conservative activist filed a petition with the Texas Supreme Court on Monday arguing that Harris County’s stay-at-home order, which closed churches and limited worship services to video or teleconference calls, violates the First Amendment, according to a Houston Chronicle report.
The petition was filed by Steven Hotze, a Republican activist known for his backing of anti-LGBT causes, and pastors Juan Bustamante, George Garcia and David Valdez, according to the Chronicle. The group also argues that Judge Lina Hidalgo’s order violates the Second Amendment by not listing gun shops among “essential” businesses. The March 24 order requires residents to stay home and closed most businesses except those deemed essential, such as grocery stores and hospitals. On Friday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said gun stores are essential business and should be allowed to remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Steven Hotze said that “‘Satanic cults’ were driving the ‘homosexual movement,’” compared LGBTQ people to “Nazis,” and said Houston residents should "drive them out of our city.”
Hotze claimed that a “key point of the homosexual agenda” is “overturning the laws prohibiting pedophilia.”
Hotze prayed that lawmakers who “support, promote and practice sodomy and other perverted, sexually deviant lifestyles” would “receive just retribution from God for their evil actions.”
Hotze said LGBTQ equality gives gay people “a free hand to come and have relations with a minor, molest a child.”
1. At least three separate pastors have died in recent days after testing positive for the new coronavirus, including two who raised concern that the virus was being used as a tool of the devil to manipulate the masses or silence Christians. One thought God would use His infection to spread the Gospel or give him “a little rest.”
2. Several members of an Illinois Pentecostal church are either at the hospital or in home quarantine after at least 43 congregants fell ill following a revival service two Sundays ago, and at least 10 of them have tested positive for the new coronavirus.
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| Trump attacks LGBTQ equality again. |
“Everybody wants to make an impression, some mark upon the world. Then you think you’ve made a mark on the world if you just get through it, and a few people remember your name. Then you’ve left a mark.”
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| Legendary playwright Terrence McNally dies due to coronavirus. See article in group below. |
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| Bryan Fischer is living proof that homophobia makes one stupid. |
Anti-LGBTQ activist Bryan Fischer said that there’s a silver lining to the coronavirus pandemic: kids are staying home from school, where they’re safe from drag queen story hours and the “sexual deviancy, gender confusion” found at public schools.
Fischer has devoted the better part of his life to fighting what he calls “homofascists.” He’s the former Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association (AFA) – an SPLC designated hate group largely because of work he did for them – and he currently hosts a radio show on American Family Radio, a network over over 180 radio stations.
There's hardly a busier, more burdened man in America right now than President Trump. And yet on Friday, when he heard that Vice President Mike Pence was about to jump on an FRC conference call with 700 pastors, he asked if he could join. Hearing his voice was a surprise, even to me -- but hearing his earnest desire to stand with the faith leaders of America in crisis certainly wasn't.
"When I told the president I was going to be speaking to all of you," Mike explained, "[he was] in the midst of an extraordinarily busy day. [But] he looked at me and said, 'I have to find time. I need to find time.'" To the president, he went on, "the prayers of the people on this call mean [everything] to him..." So despite everything facing America, the two most important leaders of this nation stopped everything to pray with the people on the ground, who are ministering to their communities.
It's a "wild world," the president started. The virus, he said, "came upon us so suddenly. And we were doing better than we've ever done before as a country in terms of the economy -- and then, all of the sudden, we got hit with this. So we had to close it down," he said wistfully. "We're actually paying a big price to close it down. Never happened before." But, President Trump insisted, "I think we're going to come back stronger than ever before."
About 7 in 10 white evangelical Christians approve of the way Trump is handling issues related to the coronavirus outbreak, including 52% who strongly approve of his performance, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll conducted over the weekend. In contrast, only 45% of all American adults surveyed said they strongly or somewhat approve of how Trump is handling the outbreak. Seventy percent of white evangelicals also approve of the way the U.S. government is managing the outbreak. Only 47% of all respondents surveyed said the same. The data suggests that the president’s most loyal religious supporters are standing by their man despite reports of infighting and indecision at the White House as the pandemic unfolded.
When right-wing pastor Perry Stone held a prayer service at his church in Cleveland, Tennessee, earlier this week, he declared that the current COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in America is a “reckoning” brought on by the nation’s rejection of God and its embrace of reproductive rights and marriage equality.
Why is there a reckoning?” he asked. “Because we have by law forced God out of our country and basically told him, ‘In public places, you’re not welcome.’ You’re not welcomed in our schools, so our schools are now shut down. No prayer in public school, no Bible reading in public school. Now they’re telling kids to stay home for who knows how long, so our schools are shut down.”
“Then we have said to God, ‘The infants that you put in our wombs, we don’t respect them, we don’t want them, we will get them out of our bellies through abortion,'” Stone continued. “If you watch the women who are pro-choice, the majority of them have a spirit about them where there is no love.”
“The Bible talks about going after ‘strange flesh,'” Stone added, as he recounted the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. “There is a reckoning because the courts of the land passed a law to take an infant’s life, that it was OK, and for marriage as we have known it to be changed into something we have never known. Both of their laws, biblically in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, are what God calls an abomination. And the Bible teaches us that God is long-suffering, he is not willing that any perish, he wants everyone to come to repentance, but there will be a time when the Lord says, ‘Enough is enough.'” "
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| Tony Perkins (bottom) and his group are exploiting the coronavirus to again attack LGBTQ people. |
"We're going big." Those were the president's words heading into a Senate debate over the latest coronavirus response. In Congress, where the bills are changing faster than the infection map, the White House is racing to strike the right balance between protecting America's economy -- and helping yours. Unfortunately, fiscal matters aren't the only concern as liberals echo what Rahm Emanuel, the former chief of staff for Barack Obama, said, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
Seizing the opportunity is exactly what Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and company tried to do by turning the virus package into a radical grab bag of abortion funding and LGBT messaging. Being in the minority Republicans had their work cut out for them. Thankfully, the White House was with them -- every step of the way. First, House Democrats tried an end-run around the Hyde amendment, the ban on taxpayer-funded abortion. "We got that back," a relieved Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said. But it wasn't too long before liberals turned their fire on something else: the family.
In what would have been the first time in federal law -- ever -- Democrats tried to equate "domestic partnerships" with marriage by adding benefits for anyone in "a committed relationship." Of course, as Congressman Biggs pointed out Friday, "the problem with that is that it's really hard to define a committed relationship... so they've tried to put in, in my opinion, kind of a [vague] definition. But that leaves it wide open -- and then, they [can] expand on that. So two provisions that have nothing to do with the coronavirus are basically thrown into this thing. And that's just par for the course for the for the activist Left."
FRC worked through the weekend reading the evolving language looking for problems just like this. Understanding that in emergency situation, Emanuel's declaration is standard operating procedure for the Left. They're counting on the fact that with such a tight turnaround time, most members won't have the chance to give the language a detailed read. Fortunately, our team is reading the small print and warned the White House that liberals were using this bill to water down marriage. The president's staff took those concerns seriously, telling leaders at the negotiating table that the language had to go. It did. The section was fixed and sent on.
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| Congressman Andy Biggs |
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| 'Activist Mommy' Elizabeth Johnston has built up an enormous social media profile attacking the LGBTQ community, our families, and our marriages. She's just announced that she will be seeking a divorce. |
Johnston regularly rants about “far left, pro-LGBTQ education” on her social media platforms and once spoke at a barely-attended ex-gay march on Washington. She has spouted her anti-LGBTQ views on the radio show of the certified hate group, the Family Research Council, and uses her Facebook wall to oppose everything from drag queen story times at local libraries and giving life-saving hormone blockers to transgender kids to queer actor Billy Porter and trans dancer Riley Knox performing in public.
She opposes public school sexual education as a form of gay “indoctrination” because it supposedly teaches kids how to have anal sex, pushing a deadly, centuries-old stereotype of gay people as pedophiles. Her crusade against anal sex compelled her to burn a physical copy of Teen Vogue magazine after its website published a sexual health article — the article never appeared in a print magazine. She called for a boycott of Vicks VapoRub over their commercial in support of transgender rights, referring to the woman in the ad as “a square-jawed, plain-as-day man.” She also pressured a local library to cancel its LGBTQ prom, telling her social media followers “perversion is taking place in a taxpayer-funded library!”
News headlines point to a world that has gone stark-raving mad. Right is wrong, and wrong is right. Religious liberty is under attack. Gender identity and fluidity is not only accepted but encouraged. Same-sex marriage is embraced by many churches. Deviant sexual practices are taught in schools. Feminists march for freedom—except when it relates to the 60 million babies aborted since Roe v. Wade. “No more!” cries Elizabeth Johnston aka the Activist Mommy, social media sensation with over 70 million video views. Johnston courageously defends the timeless truths of God’s Word and inspires and encourages other Christians to unite in winning this war for our children, our morals, our freedom, and our culture.
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| Trump supporter Angela Stanton-King (seen here with Trump) tried to downplay a homophobic tweet accusing gay men of being violent pedophiles. Nice try, girlfriend. |
Stanton-King added that she’s “not against LGBTQ rights like same-sex marriage,” because she has a 19-year-old son who identifies as gay and a gay aunt who raised her. She believes, however, that there is a need for legislation that ensures “children are not tied to the LGBTQ community.”
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| Evangelicals have replaced attempting to be 'Christ-like' for the power that Donald Trump gives them. Christian writer John Fea says because of this, they have lost all moral authority. |
I recently had a long conversation with a Trump supporter and fellow evangelical. We had a lot of differences, but we also found some common ground. We agreed that evangelical leaders who support Donald Trump have failed to rebuke the president’s immorality. . . .
When Trump engages in these activities, many of his most ardent evangelical followers —Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Paula White, Eric Metaxas, Jerry Falwell Jr., James Dobson, and Ralph Reed, to name a few — look the other way. They are unable to speak truth to power because Donald Trump and his Republican Party hold them captive. I recently challenged the bipartisan readers of my blog, The Way of Improvement Leads Home, to find five examples of a pro-Trump evangelical leader making a strong public condemnation of the president’s tweets, speeches, behavior, or policies. So far, I have not received any responses.
. . . The United States is not a Christian nation. Nor was it founded as such. The Founding Fathers argued over politics and policy just like we do, but they were united in the belief that republics fail without virtue. They believed people must always exercise what they called “political jealousy.” A jealous citizen kept a principled watch on government leaders to guard against vice and corruption. Political jealousy served as a unifying force, a common ideology of resistance to tyranny grounded in a shared morality. By keeping our heads in the sand as Trump proves he is incapable of living according to the most basic standards of decency, evangelicals neglect to do their part in sustaining our republic.
We have failed to be good citizens. We have become complicit in the president’s nativism, racism, xenophobia, narcissism, and fearmongering. Sadly, Trump-supporting evangelicals have now lost much of their moral authority to speak out on matters related to government corruption, pornography, sex and violence in movies and television shows, racial reconciliation, school bullying, and the decline in civil discourse.
. . . The political problems in our community run deeper than just our failure to speak with a prophetic voice. Donald Trump will be gone one day. But the political playbook that evangelicals follow will not go away unless we decide to burn it and start over. There is a very good chance that this playbook will lead evangelicals into the arms of another immoral tyrant who promises conservative Supreme Court justices and offers platitudes about religious liberty.
We need a new political playbook. We need to replace our lust for political power with heavy doses of humility. We must forge a new kind of politics defined, at its very core, by human dignity. It is imperative that we teach our children and grandchildren a way of engaging the world that offers it a glimpse of a coming kingdom defined by love, justice, mercy, and compassion. We need to offer hope, not fear.
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| Alveda King's (left) goddaughter Angela Stanton King (right) has copied her homophobia and embarrassing "tomming" for Donald Trump. |
Over the last few months, we've all been re-introduced to the teenaged child of Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union-Wade. Through a series of interviews, Dwyane revealed that the 12-year-old had revealed to the family her true gender identity, and would be referred to as Zaya moving forward. And now, the incredibly insightful pre-teen is storming the red carpets.
"Everyone allow her to re-introduce herself her name is Zaya Wade!" Dwyane wrote to Instagram on Sunday. "Last night was Zaya’s first red carpet and we couldn’t have been prouder of how she handled the questions that were asked of her. She has emerged as one of the young faces and voices for the LGBTQ+ community."
On Saturday, Zaya, Gabrielle, and Dwyane headed to the Better Brothers of Los Angeles Truth Awards. That event, according to Dwyane, was "created to recognize and highlight the accomplishments of the Black LGBTQ+ community and its allies." The family was on hand in order to honor stylist Jason Bolden and interior designer Adair Curtis, husbands and stars of Netflix's Styling Hollywood, who were receiving the event's Business Leadership Award.
. . . "It was important for Zaya to be a part of such a beautiful night and reminding her of all the love and support she has," Gabrielle wrote in an Instagram caption about the evening. "We were moved to tears so many times throughout the night. So much gratitude."
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| Joe Biden releases LGBTQ policy plan |
The Alabama Senate today passed a bill that would make it a crime for doctors to prescribe opposite sex hormones or drugs that block puberty from people under age 19 who identify as transgender. The bill by Sen. Shay Shelnutt, R-Trussville, was approved by a committee last week after a public hearing that included testimony from doctors and people with first-hand experiences who took positions both for and against the bill.
Shelnutt said today most children with gender dysphoria eventually adjust and that giving them medications that could have permanent effects amounts to child abuse. Shelnutt’s bill is called the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act. The Senate passed the bill today by a vote of 22-3. It moves to the House of Representatives. “I just don’t think and others don’t think that kids should be given experimental drugs or surgeries that could have irreversible consequences for the rest of their life,” Shelnutt said. “Kids are not fully developed until later in life. I think we can all agree that kids aren’t capable of making certain decisions until certain ages. And so, we want to just stop these procedures from happening in Alabama.”
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| The right continues to be scared of Drag Queen Story Hour |
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles called for drastic measures to prevent drag queens from being around children, with Walsh explicitly calling for violence against them by saying “real men” should kick a drag queen “out on his ass” and call the police. Walsh also said that the adults in a room in which a drag queen danced in front of a child “should be going to prison,” and Knowles called on “the arm of the state to stop this.”
. . . On the March 2 edition of his podcast The Matt Walsh Show, Walsh claimed a video of a drag queen dancing in front of a child at a drag brunch illustrates “the collapse of Western society.” He called for violence against performers, saying that “real men” would be “grabbing that drag queen by the collar, if he has a collar, and dragging him out of the room, and kicking him out on his ass, out of the room, and then calling the police.” Walsh said that he believes that “all of the adults in that room, in that video, should be going to prison” and that the video should end with police officers storming the event.
. . . Also on March 2, Knowles covered the same video of the drag queen on his podcast, The Michael Knowles Show. He similarly called for state action against drag queens, saying, “We should use the arm of the state to stop this ... radical sexual grooming that’s going on for young people.” He also asked for the country to introduce laws to prevent drag queens from being around children, saying, “We have always had laws against this kind of stuff in America.”
