Drag queens will get $200,000 settlement and apology from lawmaker who falsely accused them of obscene behavior with children

From Raw Story

 A state Republican lawmaker in New Hampshire must cut checks for a combined $200,000 to two drag queens to settle accusations that he defamed them for falsely calling one a sex offender and claiming the other danced with children in a sexual manner. 

State Rep. David Love must pay $100,000 each to Robert Champion, who uses the stage name Monique Toosoon, and Michael McMahon, who uses the stage name Clara Divine. Love must also apologize under the terms of the deal, which was agreed to Thursday. (Editor's note - Thursday of last week)

 Love, who represents the Rockingham 13 district. made the comments in 2022 as he introduced legislation to require public libraries to conduct background checks on every staffer and volunteer, according to The Boston Globe. His reasoning: concerns over library events that included drag queens. The lawmaker told a state house committee that one drag queen was a "convicted sex offender" and another was seen "rubbing butts" with children.

 Love said in a statement to media outlets under the deal that he failed to vet inaccurate information that he'd received.

 This the second time a drag queen has received recompensed after being falsely accused of obscene acts in front of children. In May of this year, drag performer Eric Posey was awarded a $1.1 million judgement against a far-right blogger who falsely accused him of exposing himself to children during a performance.

These lawsuits should be happening more often. However, unlike conservatives, the LGBTQ community doesn't have access to folks with a lot of money and the enormous ego to match to fund them.

Related posts:

Far right activists don't know the difference between a circus act and a drag show

Undercover investigators say no lewd acts were performed at drag show targeted by DeSantis

Taken out-of-context video fuels ugly lie about drag queens 'grooming' children

Drag performer sues far-right blogger alleging defamation over edited video 

BUSTED! Far right caught spreading false story that a drag queen exposed self to children 

Candace Owens can't even tell a good lie. Far right personality busted using fake photo of 'drag queen' 

Babylon Bee editor Seth Dillon caught spreading false story about a child tipping a half naked drag queen 

Silly conservative 'activist' doesn't know the difference between drag queens, drag kings, and strippers

'JD, JD . . . (Married Lady)' - Randy Rainbow has a lot to say about J.D. Vance' (and it's viciously funny)

I haven't posted anything from Randy Rainbow in a while and with this election coming up, his talent is needed. I love the way he skewers Republican VP nominee JD Vance, but in a especially shady way.

Harris campaign gives LGBTQ voters hope, DeSantis's culture war suffers another loss, and other Wed/Thur news briefs

 Editor's note - As you can probably tell, I've been light on posting. Please bear with me as I get through these rough times. 

'Fighting spirit': LGBTQ voters see hope in Harris campaign amid attacks from right - Damn skippy. 

Ron DeSantis' political star is tarnished after key Florida primary night losses - While folks are busy going through another election cycle, Ron DeSantis continues to suffer a backlash on his "war on woke." 

Moms For Liberty’s School Board Candidates Lose Bigly In Florida - And more details.

Florida quietly removes LGBTQ+ travel info from state website - But don't get too happy. Florida is still a hot mess. 

People with HIV cannot be categorically barred from joining the military, judge rules - Good. 

Black gay & queer men sound off on what they hope to see at this week’s DNC in Chicago - Nice to see some attention paid to our voices. 

Trump-stacked appeals court overturns trans worker’s court victory - It will be heard again. And she will win again.

Video package: Phil Donahue gave the LGBTQ community respect and much needed visibility

We lost a good ally on Sunday:

"Groundbreaking TV talk show journalist Phil Donahue died Sunday night at home surrounded by his wife of 44 years Marlo Thomas, his sister, his children, grandchildren and his beloved golden retriever Charlie," his family said in a statement. "Donahue was 88 years old and passed away peacefully following a long illness." 

 At his peak, his nationally syndicated "The Phil Donahue Show" — later renamed "Donahue" — was a ratings hit and a precursor to similar shows with hosts Montel Williams and Jerry Springer. Oprah Winfrey described Donahue as a trailblazer who invented smart talk in the afternoon and brought startling new ideas into the living rooms and laundry rooms of American women. 

 “His show debuted nationally, and the whole country came to know his personal brand of issue-driven straight talk,” Winfrey said in 2002. “If there had been no Phil Donahue show, there would be no 'Oprah Winfrey' show. He was the first to acknowledge that women are interested in more than mascara tips and cake recipes — that we’re intelligent, we’re concerned about the world around us, and we want the best possible lives for ourselves.”

 

What I remember about Donahue the most is how he stood by the LGBTQ community during a time in which we didn't have as much visibility. He gave us respect and extended to us a powerful platform in which we could stand up for ourselves and educate the public about our lives. I think a wonderful way to honor his memory is to showcase various clips from his show in which he extended the microphone to us and our issues. 

   

'Supreme Court temporarily blocks Biden's attempt to protect trans students' & other Sun/Mon news briefs

Supreme Court blocks temporary enforcement of expanded protections for transgender students​ - Folks, if you don't know what the November election is about, this decision by SCOTUS should remind you.

Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris on LGBTQ+ rights: A side-by-side comparison - And just in case you need another reminder. 

Melania Trump cashed six-figure check to speak to gay Republicans at Mar-a-Lago - You didn't think she spoke because she supports our equality, did you? 

Florida college dumps hundreds of books, many on sexuality, race and feminism - THIS is scary.

American Airlines banned a lesbian for having sex with a dude on a plane — yeah, she's confused too - First of all, I know what you are thinking and here is the answer - SHE DID NOT DO IT. 

This important PSA raises awareness on persistent LGBTQ+ housing discrimination - Very needed PSA.

Conservative writer implies that Tim Walz sexually groomed boys, gets thoroughly humiliated on Twitter

Joel Berry of The Babylon Bee tried to smear Dem VP nominee Tim Walz but instead embarrassed himself.

This is Joel Berry. He's the managing editor of the far-right trash publication The Babylon Bee. He's also the latest conservative trying desperately to smear Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz. Unable to mount a suitable attack on Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, Republicans have turned their guns of slander and smear against Walz. They've run the gambit from attempting to smear Walz as a disgraced military veteran to lying that he put tampons in the boys' restrooms of Minnesota schools.

Berry, however, is using the traditional right-wing smear of implying that Walz sexually groomed boys because he served as a faculty advisor of high school GSA (Gay/Straight Alliance) when he was a Minnesota teacher.

It hasn't gone well for Berry. First the Community Notes on Twitter called him out:

In 1999, history teacher Tim Walz recruited young boys into a gay club at school. America's dad, indeed. pic.twitter.com/idaG3vp957

— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) August 12, 2024

The truth is that exactly what the Community Notes said. Walz was asked to be the faculty advisor. And based upon what former members of the alliance had to say, Walz was positive influence on their lives:

Jacob Reitan, now an LGBTQ activist and lawyer, was a founding member of the GSA at Mankato West High School in Mankato, Minnesota, about 80 miles southwest of Minneapolis. He said Walz and his wife, also a teacher at the school, provided vital support during Reitan’s formative years. “Both Tim and Gwen were incredibly supportive of their gay students, and they modeled values of inclusivity and respect,” 

Reitan, 42, told MSNBC this week. “I was bullied in high school. [Their values] helped not just me, but it also, I think, helped the bully. It showed the bully a better path forward, and I can think of no one better than Tim Walz to show that better path forward for America.” 

 Fellow GSA member Seth Elliot Meyer attended Mankato West from 2000-2004 and had Walz for 11th grade history. Meyer, 38, said he initially expected to hate Walz, because he was a football coach and a hunter. “I was a leftist punk rock, anti-everything kind of kid,” Meyer said. “In the year that I had him, what I learned is that he really cared about everyone and wanted everyone to be seen.” 

 While Community Notes simply corrected Berry's ugly connotation of Walz's involvement in the GSA, others who responded to his Tweet weren't so polite. And Berry deserved every bit of the dragging he received:

This post makes you seem stupid and evil.

— Cody Johnston (@drmistercody) August 12, 2024

Tim Walz ran a Gay-Straight Alliance and was beloved by its members.

You are a weird freak who can't think of young gay people without sexualizing them.

— SDL (@SocDoneLeft) August 13, 2024

they literally recruited HIM, you numpty pic.twitter.com/wMh5lucIVx

— shauna (@goldengateblond) August 13, 2024

Yes, we know Tim worked very hard to ensure gay kids were accepted and had a safe space at school free from bullying and discrimination. Why’s that an issue?

Walz thought it’d be important for the GSA club to be lead by a football coach to show acceptance knows no bounds.

As a…

— The Political HQ (@ThePoliticalHQ) August 13, 2024

What really bothers you is that @GovTimWalz was the ranking member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee from 2017 to 2019: it bothers you that he wanted to make an alliance that included all students because in your weird world there are no LGBTQ+ students … Wow 😮 🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈

— 💙Honey Badger Democrat 💙 (@BadgerLiberal) August 12, 2024

Gay/straight alliances piss bigoted bullies like Joel Berry off. It's not the reason for them, but it's a nice side effect.

— A.R. Moxon (@JuliusGoat) August 12, 2024

And because I love a good Twitter dragging (especially when it's a conservative getting called out for spewing anti-LGBTQ lies,) I added my two cents:

In MY GSA, we recited lines from the 1939 movie 'The Women' and took sides. The Joan Crawford faction and the Norma Shearer faction HATED each other. https://t.co/Nk1fPqjv2W

— Holy Bullies (@holybullies) August 13, 2024

JD Vance's drag photo resurfaces, Log Cabin Republicans blasted on Twitter after falsely claiming Trump did not ban trans people from military

J.D. Vance in drag during his law school days.

Today on my blog is rarity - a two for one.

First, Republican vice president nominee JD Vance has recently become the latest subject in the GOP Hypocrisy Boogie. 

From The Huffington Post:

Republican vice presidential candidate and Ohio Sen. JD Vance is getting dragged for hypocrisy after a photo from his law school days surfaced on social media, appearing to show him in a blonde wig and dress. The photo first came to light via X user Matt Bernstein, who said the pic dates back to Vance’s days at Yale Law School in 2012. 

 A short time later, Yale assistant professor Travis Whitfill said he was the source of the photo that Bernstein had posted, but credited another classmate for taking it. “It’s from a group chat of Vance’s fellow classmates and is from a friend of a friend. I believe it was grabbed from Facebook and was taken at a Halloween party,” Whitfill told The Daily Beast. The photo quickly went viral, with some social media users giving Vance the drag name “Sofa Loren,” a not-exactly-subtle reference to the “couch sex” meme that is based on a fake story about the senator. 

Bear in mind that it's not the fact that Vance wore drag in his law school days that's the issue.  Conservatives have made drag queens their scapegoats in order to feed into fears of LGBTQ people supposedly "recruiting" or "grooming" kids. They smear our culture as "deviant" because they are simply too chickenshit own their bigotry. But with this latest incident, we see that they have no problem with our culture. Their problem lies with our existence in general.

The outcry has been as you would expect. You know how we are when we find a Republican being hypocritical when it comes to attacking LGBTQ people. 

 From Queerty: 

 Many were quick to comment on Vance’s stance regarding LGBTQ+ rights. He has previously called opponents of “Don’t Say Gay” legislation “groomers”. Vance has opposed the US Census adding questions about gender identity and introduced a (failed) bill to ban ‘X’ gender markers on US passports. He also introduced a bill aimed at preventing minors from accessing gender-affirming care. GLAAD maintains a fuller list of Vance’s comments regarding LGBTQ+ rights.

Folks have also been pulling out "receipts" regarding past anti-LGBTQ comments Vance made, including the following:

Meanwhile, Queerty also points out that we've been having fun in the community critiquing Vance's attire and deciding which name he should use:

 . . . the suggestions for potential drag names rolled in. This one, liked over 110k times, appears to be the winner: Sofa Loren. . . Let’s also not forget Linda Loveseat, Ashley Furniture, Rhea Polstered and Anita Cushion.

 If I were a petty person, I would point out that I see where Vance got his love of eyeshadow from. 

But I'm not petty.

Item 2 for today was one which had me a bit angry for a while. Courtesy of the Log Cabin Republicans:

Kamala Harris is fear-mongering for LGBT votes.

❌ Trump did NOT take away protections for LGBT workers or patients.

❌ Trump did NOT ban trans people from the military.

✅ Trump DID create a booming economy and secure the border. But Kamala doesn't want to talk about that. https://t.co/XmNWxw95Si

— Log Cabin Republicans (@LogCabinGOP) August 12, 2024

Never mind the words which spewed from my mouth when I read the tweet, but I will say I'll probably sleep good tonight.

It's bad when people lie in your face, but it's worse when you KNOW that they are lying and they know that you know they are lying, but they will lie anyway hoping to gaslight you into confusion. Personally, I think that is the personification of Donald Trump and his campaign, not to mention his time in office.

Folks were quick to drag the Log Cabin Republicans for this nonsense. And they brought "the receipts"

pic.twitter.com/kStZl9F56F

— JoeMyGod (@JoeMyGod) August 12, 2024

Didn't You guys get kicked out of the @GOP convention in Texas because they said you guys were an abomination?

You guys are a joke 😆

Your own party hates you!! pic.twitter.com/SGba8cQ8Tz

— Soul Finder (@SoulFinder500) August 12, 2024

Just a little selection of Trump’s activities while president. He is not an ally of trans & gay people. pic.twitter.com/Tju1NqOtv9

— Matt💡 (@matthewungar) August 12, 2024

Whoops pic.twitter.com/fp7AFQvH8S

— Joshua (@GraalfsJoshua) August 12, 2024

@communityNotes Trump’s Department of Labor issued a regulation designed to allow federal contractors to claim a religious exemption to fire LGBTQ workers because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

— Mike in Houston #HARRISWALZ2024 (@Mike_in_Houston) August 12, 2024

Here’s Trumps views on LGBT: https://t.co/IXMBifNr2B

— Kyle Mong (@KyleMong) August 12, 2024

All I can say about today is that I've working on this blog for almost 18 years and it's comforting that I'm not so jaded that I still retain my sense of shock.

'Anti-LGBTQ MAGA troll suffers humiliating loss in primary' & other Wed/Thurs news briefs

Valentina Gomez

MAGA troll who sparked fury for telling voters not to be ‘weak and gay’ crashes out of primary - Oh Valentina Gomez. Bless that place in your chest where your heart ought to be. 

 And in case you've forgotten who she is: 

Valentina Gomez, a 25-year-old woman who sought the Republican nomination, made headlines this year with her eye-catching campaign videos that included burning LGBT+-friendly books for children and teens, attacking people in the LGBT+ community with vulgar language, promoting AR-15s, abolishing voting machines and more. 

 Critics of Gomez accused her of spreading “hateful” content because much of her content included vulgar language. She called Vice President Kamala Harris a “hoe” and “little b****”, used the word “f****t” to describe transgender people and described Democrats as “full of gay s***”, among other things.

A bigot lost her election and her brother lost his job. I’m not shedding any tears. - It gets more interesting. Gomez lost the primary and may have cost her brother his job.

Ohio's 'medically baseless and genuinely dangerous' gender-affirming care ban upheld by judge - Appeal! 

Medal count! Here are the LGBTQ+ Olympians who won medals in Paris 2024 (so far) - Hopefully the number has increased by the time you're reading this. 

As LGBTQ library material comes under fire, California may ban book bans - I'm all for it. Do it! 

Wisconsin's first LGBTQ historic landmark dedicated in Milwaukee - Great local story.

DeSantis Administration loses another court case to transgender community (and there may be damages awarded this time)

Florida Gov Ron DeSantis lost another court case to trans community.

Just like his sad presidential campaign did, Florida Gov Ron DeSantis's "war on woke" continues to crumble. And he deserves every bit of the public humiliation.

From The Advocate (on Friday of last week):

A federal judge ruled Florida’s transgender health care ban violates state employees’ rights. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in a court order wrote Florida has wronged public workers for decades by only carrying insurance plans that exclude gender affirmation care. He said the refusal to provide appropriate health care violated transgender plaintiff’s rights as defined under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. “The undisputed facts demonstrate that the challenged exclusions apply only to transgender members, as only transgender individuals would seek the gender-affirming treatment that is excluded from coverage,” Walker ruled.

The Advocate also pointed out that this is the second time the DeSantis Administration lost in court with regards to its attempt ban gender-affirming healthcare:

In recent years, Florida has stepped up efforts to limit access to transgender health care for adults and children, but frequently run into skepticism in the courts. Another federal judge in the state in June blocked the state from enforcing its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors and restrictions on the care for trans adults.

But this case dates back to 2020. It was brought by three transgender women, including Jami Claire, a University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine worker, Kathryn Lane, an appellate public defender, and Ahmir Murphy, a Florida Department of Corrections Sergeant. The state denied each plaintiff coverage of gender affirmation surgery.

LGBTQ Nation added:

“We are so grateful that the court is holding the state accountable for its facially discriminatory policy that carves out transgender state employees for unequal treatment,” said Simone Chriss, director of the Transgender Rights Initiative at Southern Legal Counsel, in a statement. 

“As the court made clear, ‘Title VII prohibits all forms of discrimination because of sex, however they manifest themselves,’ and we are thrilled that this antiquated relic of state-sanctioned discrimination has been left in the past where it belongs.”

 This court will be holding a separate trial to determine the amount of damages that will be awarded to plaintiffs. The plaintiffs were represented by the Florida chapter of the ACLU, Southern Legal Counsel, and Legal Services of Greater Miami.

Luther Vandross and George Michael amongst icons announced for upcoming LGBT History Month 2024 observance

Take a brief moment to reflect and acknowledge those whose hard work got the community to this point:

LGBT History Month celebrates the achievements of 31 lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender icons. Each day in October, a new LGBT Icon is featured with a video, bio, bibliography, downloadable images, and other resources.