Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
“I vetoed a nearly identical bill to this one last year,” said Gov. Ayotte, according to The New Hampshire Bulletin. “I made it clear this issue needed to be addressed in a thoughtful, narrow way that protects the privacy, safety, and rights of all Granite Staters. Unfortunately, there is minimal difference between Senate Bill 268 and the bill I vetoed last year, which [Republican] Governor [Chris] Sununu vetoed the year prior.”
When Gov.(Kelly) Ayotte vetoed a similar bill last year, she said, “I believe there are important and legitimate privacy and safety concerns raised by biological males using places such as female locker rooms and being placed in female correctional facilities. At the same time, I see that [this bill] is overly broad and impractical to enforce, potentially creating an exclusionary environment for some of our citizens.”
Republicans Want Nothing to Do With Conservative Efforts to Ban Gay Marriage- This isn't surprising seeing how popular gay marriage (same-sex marriage) is. And besides its popularity, we now have a generation raised with the reality that same-sex couples can legally marry and no one can offer any reason to them why this should suddenly become illegal. Same-sex marriage has become normalized in the fabric of the American experience. BUT that doesn't mean we should slack off or rest easy. Hard fought rights taken for granted are always rights eventually lost.
Hat tip to Joe Jervis for supplying the above link. Here is the link to his post for those who want a shorter breakdown of the above article.
A judicial strategy focused on the supposed harm to children caused by marriage equality.
A public relations campaign to change public opinion, which is currently solidly in favor of marriage equality.
A campaign to turn churches into “a child-centered fighting force.”
As you can read, the strategy relies on the same tactics and lies which lost them the fight in the first place. The way to fight this is to continue to marry, continue to be happy, and above all continue to amplify our families and the stories of our families and marriages.
In a recent tweet, prominent conservative pastor Franklin Graham accused Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny of having a 'sexualized agenda.' He also praised Kid Rock who has in the past sang about sex with underage girls. Responders to his tweet were very vocal about his hypocrisy.
Sunday is the Superbowl and MAGA conservatives are upset that Puerto Rican superstar and recent Grammy recipient for 'Album of the Year' Bad Bunny is headlining the halftime show. So, to counter it, far-right group Turning Point USA (associated with the late Charlie Kirk) is putting on its own halftime show.
This show will feature has been rock star Kid Rock.
Since the announcement that Bad Bunny would be the Super Bowl’s headlining act, conservatives have criticized the choice by pointing to his previous comments on President Donald Trump. At last Sunday’s Grammy Awards, Bad Bunny also spoke out against ICE’s immigration enforcement in the U.S.
In response to the conservative outcry, Turning Point has organized an alternative show for those not interested in the Spanish-speaking artist.
TPUSA’s show will also include Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett.
In a video posted by Benny Johnson, Kid Rock hinted at what he’ll be bringing to the table Sunday night:
But I think one thing important that I would like to get out there and say to everyone is that I think I speak for us all at Turning Point, the other artists that are performing, when I say that in no way, shape or form, don’t let the left twist this around. Like, in no way are we approaching this with any hate in our hearts. We’re simply gonna go play some great songs, like I’ve said, for our base, people who love football, love America, love good music, love Jesus. It’s pretty much that simple.
It’s unknown just how many people will tune in to Turning Point’s show, but prominent conservatives have vowed to boycott the NFL’s. Samaritan’s Purse CEO Franklin Graham claimed on X/Twitter that he’d be watching the former — complaining that the NFL show has been “pushing moral boundaries.”
Graham's tweet is below:
Like most Americans, I’ve enjoyed watching the Super Bowl. But the halftime shows began pushing moral boundaries and have become more and more sexualized. This year, they’re having Bad Bunny perform. The @NFL leadership is pushing this sexualized agenda. Thank you, @TPUSA and…
Here is where the story gets deliciously interesting.
All of this Superbowl attention has created a renewed interest in Kid Rock's past songs, particularly one song named Daddy Cool in which he talked about sex with underage girls:
His song "Cool, Daddy Cool" with rapper Joe Calleja, or Joe C., includes lyrics in which Kid Rock sang, "I like 'em underage," referring to women.
"Young ladies, young ladies, I like 'em underage, see. Some say that's statutory," Kid Rock sings in the song.
"But I say it's mandatory," Joe C. sings in response.
Graham's hypocrisy about Bad Bunny and Kid Rock did not escape notice. Responders to his tweet proceeded to call him out and figuratively drag him all over Twitter. As for myself, I found the entire thing amusing that after all of these years of falsely accusing LGBTQ people of sexualizing kids, Franklin Graham has the gall to publicly praise someone who actually sang about sexualizing kids.
Well, Elmer Gantry, Kid Rock -does- sing the new anthem of the Republican Party.
Your hypocrisy isn’t even startling any longer, but it gets more pathetic every day.
Neither of you are Christians. As a born Catholic , I resent you and those like you using the Lord as a cheap political pawn and misrepresenting his teachings. SHAME https://t.co/GIF156cmdm
You’re a man of God? Judgmental much? Perhaps this picture will enlighten you as it pertains to Bad Bunny. I also suggest u read kid rock articles. pic.twitter.com/dv1gE7GLrf
'Greater Than,' an anti-gay marriage campaign, was caught falsely implying that former President Barack Obama supports its efforts. The campaign, run by white conservatives, is also using racist tropes against white gay fathers. (click on the picture to enlarge it)
Campaign to end gay marriage falsely claims Barack Obama’s support -You can simply smell the desperation with these folks. First, they took grabbed a quote Obama made in 2010 and deliberately mischaracterized it to make give the impression that he opposes marriage equality when in fact:
Barack Obama publicly declared his support for same-sex marriage in a May 9, 2012 interview with ABC News, making him the first sitting U.S. president to do so. He also appointed two Supreme Court justices — Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — who both voted in favor of the landmark 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
And then there is this naked appeal to racist tropes involving Black children (as if these liars ever cared about Black children):
Greater Than’s website also features what appears to be an AI-generated image of a Black teenage boy looking sad and troubled, while his oblivious and uncaring white gay dads hold hands in the background.
It’s notable that a campaign seemingly entirely run by white Christian conservatives would misrepresent the only Black president’s words and then fabricate a computer-generated photo-realistic image of a Black boy menaced by gay men in order to gain sympathy from Black community members and people who care about children’s well-being; essentially treating Black people as puppets and props.
Carolina LGBTQ+ community member dies unexpectedly - R.I.P. to a wonderful friend who I've known ever since my college days at Winthrop University. He made a positive impact on our community during his time here.
Extremely anti-trans (and very public about it) SC Congresswoman Nancy Mace is the subject of what many are calling an explosive expose in a New York Magazine profile. And it's not pretty.
The title alone, Nancy Mace Is Not Okay, gives you an indication of where the article is going.
By focusing on her recent questionable behavior (such as causing a huge scene at a Charleston airport last year and then accusing SC Attorney General Alan Wilson of plotting against her) and interviews with former staff members, it paints the picture of an erratic and unbalanced lawmaker.
The publication cites several former staffers, including a former top consultant to her gubernatorial campaign, who described her behavior as erratic and accused her of being abusive. Mace’s office fiercely denied the claims made in the piece and trashed its author in a statement to NYMag.
The picture painted by the former employees detailed some of their concerns with Mace, who was first elected as a representative in 2021. Supporters of the congresswoman argue that Mace instead is a victim of ex-staffers’ axe grinding.
“We were scared of her,” one former staffer told NYMag. “She would make staffers cry. She would threaten to fire them, take their money away, not give them raises, not to give them days off, religious days.”
Another former staffer detailed how early in her career Mace would push for appearances on national and local TV to help her brand. Her staffers thought she had potential, even if her behavior had them questioning her actions.
“Something’s broken. The motherboard’s fried. We’re short-circuiting somewhere,” a staffer told the magazine.
Former staffers said Mace treated them like maids after she arrived in Congress in January 2021, ordering them to clean the multiple properties she was renting out on Airbnb, including her Washington townhouse. Ahead of election night in 2022, Mace instructed her staffers to spiff up her $3.9 million home in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, for a watch party, a former staffer with direct knowledge told New York magazine.
Mace also started dispatching staffers on late-night runs for alcohol to keep parties going at her home. “Look, when I worked for her, our poor scheduler was getting calls at two o’clock in the morning to come bring her bottles of tequila,” one former staffer told New York magazine.
. . . One staffer alleged Mace’s excessive drinking and marijuana use became an issue. They recalled an incident in 2022 when Mace wanted to fire an aide for “doxxing” her because the aide told reporters she was out of the country, even though Mace had already announced her trip to a group of supporters just days before.
“She would definitely do it excessively,” the staffer said of the congresswoman’s drinking and marijuana usage. “And again, not to say that most members don’t or most staff don’t, but it got to the point where it was an issue.”
Mace infamously transformed herself from an LGBTQ ally to one of its loudest and meanspirited opposers in Congress, often publicly slurring trans women during hearings. She blames transgender Americans for supposedly changing her mind, particularly the election of the first trans woman to Congress, Sarah McBride. In doing so, Mace also utilizes ugly and untrue tropes about transgender women in bathrooms and locker rooms to justify her change.
A lot of folks have claimed that she was being opportunistic. Perhaps there is more to the story.
Forty-seven conservative and anti-LGBTQ groups are teaming up in an effort to overturn the 2015 SCOTUS decision which legalized gay marriage. There is one interesting roadblock in their efforts, though. Their goal is to change public opinion by utilizing the same tired lying narrative of "gays are dangerous to kids" which led to their defeat.
Forty-seven right-wing organizations have joined together to try to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell ruling that found same-sex couples have the same rights and responsibilities to marriage as different-sex couples. The coalition’s focus is to change national public opinion on same-sex marriage by declaring that children are “Greater Than” equality.
“We’re all going to speak with one voice, and it is ‘don’t touch the kids,’” the group’s founder, right-wing activist Katy Faust, told American Family Radio, as People for the American Way reported.
“Faust made it clear that the campaign will continue a long and dishonorable legacy of anti-LGBTQ forces smearing gay people and couples as threats to children,” PFAW added. “She called parenting by same-sex couples a ‘destructive state-sanctioned gaslighting experiment on children.'”
According to The Daily Signal, which was launched by The Heritage Foundation, Faust also said that since the Obergefell ruling, children have been “deprived of the unique love and guidance only a mother and father can provide.”
Numerous studies have shown that children raised by same-sex parents fare at least as well as children raised by different-sex parents.
A large 2014 study found that children raised by same-sex couples were happier and healthier than their peers raised by different-sex couples.
In 2023, The Guardian reported on a study that also found that “children of same-sex couples fare just as well, if not better, than those of heterosexual couples.”
“The findings chime with several other studies, including three decades of research from Australia that revealed children raised by same-sex parents do as well emotionally, socially and educationally as their peers in heterosexual families.”
This, however, doesn't seem to deter Faust nor anyone else on the video which you can view above as they spew generalized nonsense about the virtues of heterosexual couples raising kids. They offer no proof that children are damaged by living in married same-sex households or same-sex households in general.
While the video has received the bulk of the attention so far, it’s the campaign’s website that actually deserves a closer look. Because surely there’s evidence that children with gay parents suffer, right?
Nope. There are no studies cited on the website. There’s no proof of any sort offered anywhere.
On a Q&A page that asks “Don’t studies show that children with same-sex parents fare just as well as those raised by their mother and father?” the response is that any study affirming that notion… must be a bad study.
Studies of same-sex-headed households — which are always missing a biological parent, maternal or paternal love, and in which the child has suffered parental loss — largely suffer from poor methodology.
And then there is this one:
There’s another question that asks “Do you believe gay people are bad parents/don’t love their kids?”
Instead of saying “Yes” or “No,” the website just repeats the conservative talking point that same-sex couples can’t provide kids with what they need:
A woman who identifies as a lesbian can be a loving mother, but she cannot be a father. A gay man can be a loving father, but he cannot be a mother. Children need, deserve, and have a right to both.
Faust and company are using an embarrassingly fraudulent game plan and based upon the timidity shown on their webpage, it's obvious that they don't believe it themselves.
Same-sex parenting isn't an experiment nor is it seen as such by the American public. It's a fact. Back in the day before gay marriage, or marriage equality, it may have been categorized as an "experiment," but now is completely different. Many more people personally know gay couples raising children. They don't see anything wrong with it. And they definitely don't buy the idea that a gay couple raising a child is somehow depriving a child of anything.
While we have seen the anti-LGBTQ industry garner tremendous success with transforming their anti-gay tropes to harm the trans community, the idea that they can circle back and reuse these lies against gay couples and families is doubtful. At least for now.
But a little advice from me to you, Katy Faust. If your mantra is "don't touch the kids," then you should follow your advice and leave our families and OUR KIDS alone.
Editor's note - I apologize for not posting as much as I should. The situation in Minnesota is bad enough to make me sad for my country, but a personal tragedy at home knocked me on my ass. I'm slowly getting back up.
Federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is known for making rulings conveniently unfavorable to LGBTQ people. The recent ruling against drag shows is the latest.
Federal judge upholds drag ban claiming drag is the same as “blackface" - The courts in general have ruled against drag bans. The judge in this case, Matthew Kacsmaryk, however, is known for issuing rulings conveniently biased towards conservatives in cases regarding LGBTQ equality and reproductive freedom
(Kacsmaryk has) become the go-to jurist for plaintiffs looking to turn extremist ideology into binding precedent. He’s the one who tried to revoke FDA approval of mifepristone, a safe and widely used abortion medication. He’s ruled against LGBTQ+ protections in the Affordable Care Act. He even tried to force Planned Parenthood to pay $2 billion to Texas and Louisiana—a ruling so outrageous that even the deeply conservative Fifth Circuit tossed it. Now, he’s taking aim at Title VII itself, effectively inviting employers to harass and discriminate against LGBTQ+ workers by pretending Bostock never happened.
(Editor's note - Bostock is the 2020 SCOTUS ruling which said the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects LGBTQ people from employment discrimination.)
(Editor's note - The irony is that I'm willing to bet that if a ban on "blackface" came in front of Kacsmaryk's court, he would defend "blackface" as a matter of free speech.)
Former SC lawmaker Robert John May III was sentenced to 17.5 years for charges linked to child sex abuse material. Ironically, during his tenure as a lawmaker, May accused trans people and drag queens of harming children.
Former SC lawmaker - and now confessed child sex offender - Robert John (RJ) May III is indicative of the hypocrisy of far-right attacks on the trans community and drag queens when it comes to the sexual abuse of children.
Former South Carolina state lawmaker RJ May was sentenced to 17.5 years in federal prison Wednesday on charges linked to child sexual abuse material.
Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, who oversaw May’s sentencing, said that the abuse in this case was “more severe” than any other she has seen and that May “claimed to be an advocate for children at the State House but was their abuser behind closed doors.”
May, a Republican who represented part of Lexington County in the South Carolina House of Representatives, pleaded guilty to five counts of distributing child sexual abuse material.
During his time in office May was outspoken against gender-affirming care, trans inclusion in sports and drag performances, and was listed as a speaker at Mom’s for Liberty’s Reclaiming Education in America event in 2022. Many of his concerns about LGBTQ+ topics were cited in regards to child safety.
On Wednesday (14 January), May was handed a 17.5 year sentence in federal prison by US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, a term that was slightly less than the 20 years prosecutors requested but much longer than the five years the former lawmaker requested for himself.
Currie said May was given a higher sentence than the average for similar charges because the content he disseminated was the “most severe the court had seen."(Editor's note - bold emphasis added by me)
Following his release from prison, May will have to spend another 20 years under supervised release, with federal parole officers monitoring his actions to be sure he doesn’t reoffend. He was also ordered to pay $58,500 in restitution to eight victims who the authorities identified and will be required to register as a sex offender for life.
According to LGBTQNation in September of last year:
(May) — an anti-LGBTQ+ politician who has accused drag queens and transgender people of harming kids — pleaded guilty . . . to distributing child sex abuse material (CSAM) after first denying it, Newsweek reported — including images of adults sexually abusing seven-year-olds. The anti-LGBTQ+ “parents’ rights” group Moms for Liberty honored the child pornographer as their 2023 Legislator of the Year.
May used the screen name “joebidennnn69” to exchange 265 different files of toddlers and young children involved in sex acts on the Kik social media network during spring 2024. Representing himself in court — despite not having a law degree — May had originally asked the judge to throw out the warrant used to search his home, laptop, and mobile devices, as well as evidence that he had flown to Colombia to film himself having sex with three underage girls.
This is nothing to laugh at or to be happy about. But it's a hell of a lot to be angry about.
And also remembered.
The next time far-right hypocrites (particularly a certain emotionally, psychologically, and morally barren harpy who runs a certain Twitter address) goes after us with accusations of child grooming, let's be sure to remind them just who the actual sexual groomers of children are.
to jumping the gun by labeling Good a domestic terrorist before all of the facts came in,
to refusing to backtrack admit they were wrong (because Trump never apologizes when he's in the wrong, which is pretty much most of the time),
to continuously trying to gaslight Americans with supposed "newly released" footage of the incident which is pretty much nothingburgers amplified by Elon Musk and far-right wannabe social media influencers.
And now they are compounding the error by sending more ICE agents into Minnesota. The one thing we have learned from the Renee Good killing is that American lives, much like truth, are expendable to the Trump Administration.
Right-Wing Influencers Have Flooded Minneapolis - Speaking of far-right wannabe social media influencers, they are the Trump Administration's army. And effective too until they make complete asses of themselves. These were some of the same losers responsible for the anti-drag hysteria a while back.
Speaking of Charlie Kirk, check out the hypocrisy of one of his followers. This is Lori Mills of California. She considers herself a Christian:
Here is Lori Mills again, but without her mask:
She put me on block after that lovely message, but I tracked her down on her webpage and told her that she makes herself look ridiculous and hypocritical. Probably not necessary of me, but I was feeling rather evil today. I also reported her on Twitter because apparently there is a category you can report someone if they encourage you to harm yourself or commit suicide. I don't know if anything is going to happen, but you never know.
Former New York Times editor Billie Jean Sweeney has alleged that the paper of record’s management pushed writers to espouse anti-trans viewpoints. Sweeney, who is trans, worked for the Times for 11 years. Prior to her retirement in 2024, she served as the day assignment editor at the outlet’s international desk.
During a Trans News Network interview published on January 1, Sweeney claimed that the Times’ current anti-trans push began in 2022, through a new masthead assembled by executive editor Joe Kahn, publisher A.G. Sulzberger, and managing editor Carolyn Ryan. At that time, the paper began publishing a series of stories that “challenged every aspect of being trans,” from gender-inclusive language to medical science. In response, the Times received twoopen letters in February 2023, in which hundreds of signatories condemned its anti-trans coverage — including over 200 Times contributors. Days later, the publication responded by running a defense of Harry Potter author and notorious transphobe J.K. Rowling.
. . . Over the next year, the Times still failed to actively include trans people in its trans coverage. A March 2024 report by GLAAD and the watchdog group Media Matters for America (MMFA) found that the paper had failed to quote a single trans person in two-thirds of its articles on anti-trans legislation over the 12 months following the open letter, despite publishing at least 65 articles focusing on or featuring anti-trans legislation. Of those articles, 66% didn’t feature any quotes from a trans or gender non-conforming person, and 18% quoted anti-trans misinformation from conservative sources without added context.
. . . Sweeney also pointed to the Times’ response to the infamous Cass Review, an April 2024 U.K. report on gender-affirming care for minors which claimed that evidence in support of medical treatment like puberty blockers is “shaky.” The report has faced condemnation from advocates, professional medical groups, and researchers for its “deeply flawed” methodology.
According to Sweeney, her international desk counterpart in London initially assigned a U.K. correspondent to cover the Cass Report’s publication. Although the correspondent’s reporting acknowledged that the Cass Review was a “very contentious, very political” document, within a few hours, Times editors reassigned the story to the science desk — more specifically, to Azeen Ghorayshi, “a key reporter in a lot of other anti-trans coverage.”
Later in the article, Sweeney pointed the finger at Sulzberger, claiming that he was the main person who pushed for the anti-trans slant because he saw it as a political project which the right-wing and the Trump campaign would like.
Historically speaking, this isn't the first time The New York Times served as a roadblock to fair and objective LGBTQ coverage. Abe Rosenthal, who served as executive editor from 1977 to 1986 was described as a "raging homophobe" whose personal bias led to the NYT ignoring the AIDS crisis in its early days.
Abe Rosenthal’s homophobia was felt at the Times in two ways: It ensured that lesbian and gay reporters stayed firmly in the closet, and that the word “gay” was not used in the paper to describe gay people. . . The word crept into news stories and headlines from time to time, but the paper’s official policy ruled the word “gay” out of order, while at the same time the gay liberation movement was exploding all around it. Rosenthal was not limited in his biases to anti-gay prejudice — he also refused to allow the word “Ms.” to be used until 1986 — but his homophobia proved tragic when the AIDS crisis erupted on his watch.
As the AIDS epidemic began to emerge, the silence of the media in general, and of The New York Times in particular, contributed to the magnitude of the unfolding tragedy. Although the death toll mounted in the early 1980s, the Times maintained a disdainful distance. As gay journalist Michelangelo Signorile put it, “Rosenthal, who attacks anti-Semitism in the media, never realized that the way he was treating the AIDS epidemic wasn’t much different from the way that news organizations treated the Holocaust early on.”
Hopefully this year will be the year that we work harder on changing the madness November 2024 brought us. And I think we have a shot if things like the following continues to happen.
Libs of TikTok's Chaya Raichik continued her ongoing war with us recently via a tweet complaining that NBC featured a gay couple kissing during its New Year's Eve special. It's safe to say that CA Gov Gavin Newsom speaks for a large majority for us with his response.
As of now, I am not a Gavin Newsom supporter, but I will say one thing for him.
"He speaks his mind and says what I am thinking." 😂😂
