Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
Noem has also built a career on supporting policies restricting LGBTQ+ rights, and while governor of South Dakota, she signed the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," which would have granted the state "a license to discriminate against LGBTQ people," HRC reported. She also approved a ban on transgender girls participating in women's sports, and supported gender affirming care restrictions.
Gay D.C. staffer Josh Sorbe, who attended the University of South Dakota, summed up Noem’s hypocrisy perfectly in an Instagram Reel he posted yesterday after the cross-dressing news broke.
"They will do horrible things to queer people in public," he said in the video. "They will ban their books, they will ban their healthcare, they will ban their expression, they will ban their drag shows, and then turn around and queen out and do gay sh*t behind the scenes all the time. That’s where I draw the line. Be whoever the hell you want to be because your business is your business, but the second that your business involves insecurity or hypocrisy and you decide to make that my business — no, no, no."
But here’s the wrench in Paxton’s nefarious threat: His opinion – even when issued with an official seal – doesn’t actually change the law.
“People are taking this opinion as fact, as Ken Paxton altering the law or reinterpreting the law to suit his whims,” Naveen Farrani, strategic Communications Manager for Equality Texas, told LGBTQ Nation. “He does not have the jurisdiction to do that.”
“Pioneer” is a term often thrown around loosely, but these nine out LGBTQ women in sports exemplify the term.
Each of them has done something no publicly out gay, lesbian, bi or trans athlete had done before them.
Some like Billie Jean King are household names, while others are lesser-known but no less important.
We celebrate the women who have led the way out of the closet in sports.
The Supreme Court ruled in Chiles v. Salazar that a Colorado law banning conversion therapy is unconstitutional, striking down the state’s 2019 statute and potentially impacting similar laws across the country. Religious advocates have hailed Tuesday’s decision as a victory for the First Amendment and evangelical Christians, while LGBTQ activists warn it could lead to increased harm for LGBTQ youth.
The conservative majority, joined by two progressive members of the court, sided 8–1 with Kaley Chiles on March 31 in what some critics are calling a landmark ruling for religious zealots, placing the teachings of the Bible above established medical consensus.
More likely, the conservative justices have a unique hostility toward pro-LGBTQ+ protections and concoct bespoke reasons to strike them down—rules that are not applied to laws that these justices favor. We saw this move in 2023’s 303 Creative v. Elenis, which undermined another Colorado law protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination in the marketplace without fully dismantling all civil rights law. And we could see it again in Chiles. This time around, Kagan and Sotomayor may have sought to mitigate the damage rather than take a loss on the chin. But Jackson’s pessimism gives us every reason to fear that her colleagues have crafted a doctrine that lets them impose their own orthodoxy in the name of free expression.
The College Republicans of America (CRA) — an organization for young conservatives that has over 280 chapters on campuses nationwide, as well as had numerous recent scandals involving bigoted statements from its leadership — appointed right-wing broadcaster Kai Schwemmer as its new political director on March 5.
However, Schwemmer has ties to white supremacist Nick Fuentes, and a recent review of Schwemmer’s past videos reportedly revealed his homophobic, antisemitic, and racist comments, including a claim that gay men are trying to give people AIDS by taking over gyms. The CRA has refused to apologize for hiring Schwemmer and said it will not bow down to the “woke mob” that has expressed concern over his views.
Schwemmer said he would accept a world in which slavery was legal if abortion was criminalized, describes himself as “very much an anti-universal suffrage guy” and accepts a supporter’s description of him as “our Mormon Nick Fuentes” – referring to the white nationalist influencer whose platform he streamed on for years.
The comments were made after Schwemmer’s return from a two-year Mormon mission to Argentina; a period he recently claimed had seen him undergo a “process of growth” that led him to abandon previous racist beliefs. Schwemmer had previously expressed extremist and bigoted views.
Keith Ellison, the attorney general for Minnesota, said, “Donald Trump is currently facing an unpopular war that he launched, rising gas prices, massive health insurance price hikes, and a partial government shutdown caused in part by his ICE agents killing two Minnesotans in broad daylight. It is astonishing that any president would try to target, shame, and harass children just trying to be themselves, let alone a president with so many actual problems to address.”
And speaking of Trump and the trans community:
‘Transgender MUTILIZATION’: Donald Trump just making up words in bizarre, unfocused late-night rants - Trump keeps claiming that Democrats want to engage in "mutilization" of kids. He's repeating the false narrative about trans kids and surgery but keeps repeating "mulitization," a word he apparently made up. From what I hear, he means to say "mutlilation" but his people are too chickenshit to correct him.
I have a visual reminder for everyone, particularly the relatively small number but nonetheless extremely annoying and ignorant LGB people in my community.
Remember when these notions were openly expressed about gays:
There has been a small shift:
This not to say that lies about LGB people have gone away. But there have been some "incorporations." They have gone from this:
To this:
Some folks have expressed the stupid belief that this new wave coming against us is the fault of the trans community. The people and groups who spew the vile tropes which I've just featured seek to eliminate equality, as well as the right to self-determination, and safety from all of us. Not just the trans community.
Think of homophobia and transphobia as two heads on the same beast. And this beast has always hit at us from a perceived weak angle. Once it was those of us who wanted to marry. Today it's the trans community. Who knows which part of our community will be the next victim of its undeserved attention.
We should have sense enough as a community to not open our doors and invite the beast in. And we definitely should have sense to know that allowing the beast to feed on a portion of our community won't satisfy it.
(State Rep. Rodney) Creech was accused in 2023 by a minor female relative of climbing into bed with her while erect and wearing only his underwear, according to Bureau of Criminal Investigation documents obtained by the Statehouse News Bureau. Text messages showed the minor complaining that Creech had been rubbing her legs and grabbing her waist, according to NBC4. Creech admitted to investigators he had gotten into bed with the minor in his underwear but denied the sexual nature of the allegations.
Clark County Prosecutor Daniel Driscoll, brought in as a special prosecutor, declined to file charges but wrote that Creech’s “behavior during the time of the investigation was concerning and suspicious,” according to documents reported by the Dayton Daily News. Creech has called the allegations “demonstrably false.”
The allegations were initially brought to the Preble County Sheriff’s Department in July 2023, but no investigation was opened. Both the sheriff and then-Prosecutor Martin Votel — personal friends of Creech — later recused themselves. Five months after Votel was credited by the sheriff with turning away the allegations, Creech donated $4,100 to Votel’s judicial campaign — accounting for roughly 75% of Votel’s total fundraising, according to the Dayton Daily News. Votel, now a Preble County Common Pleas Court judge, denied any impropriety.
Luanne James, director of the Rutherford County Library System in Tennessee, has garnered national support after refusing to move more than 190 LGBTQ+-themed books out of youth sections.
In an 18 March letter she sent to the board, she argued that relocating the titles would amount to “viewpoint discrimination” and violate the First Amendment, writing plainly: “Therefore, I will not comply.”
Like most people, I’m shocked at what I’m paying at the grocery store. I’m worried about how South Carolina might change as people continue moving here. I’m concerned about the teachers who have left my kid’s school for jobs outside of education.
But our lawmakers don’t seem to be doing anything about how expensive everything is or about rapid growth. And they don’t seem to be doing enough about the pressures facing our educators.
Our legislators have only 54 days out of each year to get things done in their regular session. They seem to be spending a lot of time on proposals that harm a small population instead of using that time to help the everyday South Carolinians who sent them there.
Some have never shot a firearm before, but felt safe enough to do it with the help of Fifi and Bella, two trans people of color. (The Buckeye Flame has omitted surnames and changed some first names upon request due to safety concerns.)
Fifi was inspired to host the class after they moved back home to Ohio in 2022. They had been living in Portland, Oregon and was shocked by the amount of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation moving through the Republican-controlled Ohio Statehouse. Range goers cited the legislation as key to their decision to own a gun and to learn how to shoot.
Why do white conservative evangelicals support Donald Trump even though he is the antithesis of everything they claim to oppose? Because he gives them power. With him in office, they are feeling incredibly sure of themselves, as this seen this item below. While people's heads are turned and distracted by Trump's various mad exploits (the Iran War, the attacks on DEI, etc.) and unprecedented attacks on the transgender community, MAGA pastors such William Wolfe are plotting to impose their religious will on the country.
"We should not blink, we should not hesitate to tell people—not because we are so wise, not because we made the rules of the world; we didn't—we humbly submit to how God made the rules of the world, and we say, 'This is how we should order our lives together,'" Wolfe said.
"And frankly, yes, we are going to impose it upon you. If you don't like it, I'm sorry, but this is good and right and just if it lines up with God's standards and I am going to enforce my morality on you inasmuch as our morality is God's morality."
"You should always check yourselves," Wolfe continued. "Do I believe what God believes? Am I defending what God says is good? And if it is, then you should have the courage to say, 'This is how we're going to run our town, this is how we're going to run our county, this is how we're going to run our state, and this is how we should run the United States of America by legislating the morality that we can find in the Bible.'"
Editor's note - I am going to start out today's news briefs with something frivolous because there are so many awful things going on and so much hatred being passed around. Much of it is thanks to the dumbass in the White House who a bunch of other dumbasses decided to put in charge of our country. Specifically, this first item is dedicated to a friend of mine on Facebook (who shall remain nameless) as a way of saying self-care is always important. Sometimes you have to tune it out from time to time to replenish your spirit and preserve your happiness and health. And above all, find something funny to laugh about. It's good for you.
Resident in the city of Gardiner, ME rallied to keep the LGBTQ book 'Prince and Knight' on the library shelves after some people called it 'propaganda' created to 'indoctrinate' children.
Engineer sues LA County for right to work from home when Pride flag is displayed- It's ridiculous, but the Supreme Court has everyone playing the "it's my religious liberty" card so he could win. It's becoming annoying how almost every time we are mentioned in the public square, someone pulls the "religious liberty" card to render us invisible or create some sort of psychological roadblock which they would never do in other situations.
FromOrion Rummler of The 19th by way of The Advocate comes a simple fact that the parents of trans kids are determined to keep their children healthy and safe.
Even if they have to be arrested for it:
(Larissa) Godfrey-Smith was one of over 50 people who joined a protest last month against the Trump administration’s plans to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. They blocked the entrance to the Health and Human Services Department headquarters to demand that the government stop blocking medical care for transgender kids. Godfrey-Smith was among the 25 protesters arrested.
Parents and grandparents of trans youth, plus their therapists and medical providers, are fed up after years of health care bans and hostile rhetoric. Those feelings are driving them to do things they’ve never done before — like plan to get arrested at a protest.
. . . As a licensed professional counselor who specializes in LGBTQ+ mental health, Godfrey-Smith, who uses she and they pronouns, works with trans kids and their families as they navigate the complexities of gender changing over time. They answer nervous parents’ questions. They talk about concerns regarding medical transition. They also work with trans adults who are well into their 30s and 40s and figuring it all out for the first time.
The Trump administration is not helping those patients, she said; bans and rhetoric are just making everything worse. Families are confused about what they can access and what to believe. Financial costs to find knowledgeable providers are rising. And parents are scared about the world their trans children are growing up in.
“I’m so angry and so frustrated. I’m just so exhausted at the misinformation,” they said.
As a mental health provider, they know that families feel abandoned. She wants those families to see people standing up for them.
Trump admin hangs banner of anti-LGBTQ+ influencer Charlie Kirk outside Ed. Dept. - The Trump Administration is joining conservatives in an attempt to cram a false image of Charlie Kirk down the throats of Americans. And it's not working. Kirk was a racist and a demagogue. He lowered the tone of political discourse in this country, and it probably led to his assassination. He is not nor will he ever be a great American figure.
NY attorney general's office orders NYU Langone to resume services for trans kids - The Trump Administration bullied this hospital, NYU Lagone, into discontinuing services for trans youth such as puberty blockers and hormones. But the NY attorney general's office stepped in and pointed out how these same services are still offered to other youth, which makes not offering the same services to trans youth an act of discrimination.
Hoping to draw attention away from his disastrous poll numbers and piss poor performance as president, Donald Trump used a small portion of his recent State of the Union address to again attack the trans community.
But was there a change in plans in terms of how he did it?
According to an early tweet from Reagan Reese, a reporter from the far-right publication The Daily Caller:
SCOOP: President Trump's guests for his State of the Union address will include Sage Blair, a young woman who was separated from her parents at age 14 after school officials attempted to secretly transition her to a male, @DailyCaller has learned.
However, there was a major problem with that claim.
Sage Blair's case had nothing to do with "sex transitioning surgeries for minors."
Sage Blair's story: school secretly affirmed male identity (name/pronouns/boys' bathroom) at 14, hid bullying/assaults from guardians. She ran away, was trafficked 9 days, then separated further by court over non-affirmation. No surgeries/hormones ever mentioned in any reports or…
Several people quickly pointed this mistake out on Twitter.
Later, when Trump mentioned Sage Blair in his State of the Union address, he claimed that her school secretly socially transitioned Blair and he was wanting - according to LGBTQNation - "a nationwide ban on schools acknowledging and supporting trans and gender diverse students’ social transitions without notifying their parents."
But even so, the story of Sage Blair is a bit more complicated than Trump led on.
Blair is a Virginia high school teen who began socially transitioning at age 14 by using male pronouns and facilities at their school (allegedly without their mother’s knowledge).
Blair’s mother sued the school district, alleging that the mental distress caused by the school’s policies and subsequently bullying from other students compelled her child to run away from home and fall victim to child sex traffickers. Virginia Republicans have since championed “Sage’s Law,” a bill that would require schools to forcibly out trans kids to their potentially unaccepting parents.
As Law Commentary notes, Blair’s lawsuit rests on her claim that ACHS officials had a duty to inform her of Sage’s social transition and that if they had, the traumatic events that followed would not have happened. But as Assigned Media’s Evan Urquhart notes, it’s impossible to know if that would have been the case. Urquhart goes on to note that trans teens who are not accepted by their parents are particularly vulnerable to online predators, and cites a 2013 study indicating that trans young people experience better mental health outcomes when they are accepted and affirmed by their parents.
As the New York Times reports, last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a lower court’s dismissal of Blair’s claim that ACHS officials violated her right to direct the child’s upbringing. A separate claim that the school violated Title IX by acting with “deliberate indifference” to the threats Sage experienced from classmates is currently moving through the courts, according to the Times.
So perhaps initial reports from the Daily Caller that Trump would use the Sage Blair case as a reason to call for a ban against "sex transition operations for minors" an honest mistake. Or maybe something else. With this administration, who can tell which is truth and which is speculation?
But the dishonesty and scapegoating are always clear.
The idea that Nicki Minaj became a follower of Donald Trump based on the strength of his personality is bull. We all know this. She wants something and is willing to sell out Black Americans for it, as this explosive expose in Politico proves:
Nicki Minaj spent the past year transforming herself from a polarizing rap superstar into a high-profile conservative provocateur, lobbing viral attacks at Democratic leaders, boosting MAGA talking points and earning public praise from President Donald Trump and his allies. On social media, Minaj’s pugnacious persona and sharp-edged posts — including repeated broadsides against California Gov. Gavin Newsom — have made her a darling of the Trump administration and the conservative movement, drawing millions of views and steady amplification from far-right influencers.
But quietly, humming in the background of her varied social media blitzes, a sophisticated army of bots was unconditionally praising and amplifying Minaj’s content, according to a new report shared exclusively with POLITICO.
The report, compiled by the disinformation detection company Cyabra, identifies a coordinated network of bots — more than 18,000 of them — that drove algorithms to spread Minaj’s posts on X.
. . . The report found inauthentic accounts repeatedly amplified Minaj’s posts with praise that used “highly similar language,” particularly in response to posts where authentic accounts were criticizing Minaj.
“Supportive comments generated by fake profiles were predominantly brief, repetitive, and low in semantic complexity, consisting largely of praising keywords and positive hashtags rather than original or substantive engagement,” the report found.
Other inauthentic activity surrounding Minaj included “longer, more detailed comments designed to appear organic.”
“Nicki you are brave for living your truth, people might not always agree with what’s being played out, but as an artist and watching your growth as a person is inspiring,” read one comment from a purported Minaj fan, @LAX76283656, that was deemed fake by Cyabra.
“This pattern suggests a deliberate attempt to integrate into genuine conversations, increasing the credibility and visibility of the amplified content,” the report read.
. . . Bot networks have become a familiar feature of modern politics since revelations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, when coordinated inauthentic accounts were used to inflame divisions and manipulate online discourse.
Such campaigns are now routinely detected around wars, elections and geopolitical flashpoints — but far less often around celebrities or the music industry.
That backdrop helps explain why Cyabra’s findings seem so peculiar. Rather than a short-lived spike tied to a single event or appearance, the company found sustained and coordinated amplification of Minaj’s posts across a range of political and cultural topics over time.
Bill to let private groups refuse to recognize same sex marriage passes Tennessee House - These continuous attempts to undermine same-sex marriage are going nowhere in a landscape where it is now normal for gay to marry. No matter how supporters of these attempts try to weaponize them as "religious liberty," they still come across as mean-spirited:
Chris Sanders, executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project, told News 2 that while the bill likely won’t change things for large, private entities, including national bank branches or big healthcare systems, it would likely hurt those in rural areas where those organizations are smaller and often locally-owned.
“Imagine if the Treasury Secretary were driving through the state of Tennessee and had an accident in a small, rural county, and someone refused to recognize his husband as his husband, and they had to make medical decisions or wanted to visit in the healthcare facility,” Sanders said. “That’s the kind of impact that this bill could have on anybody in a dire circumstance.”
Silence of the Lambs actor Ted Levine: Trans villain was 'f*cking wrong' - Even though it was stated several times in the film that he was not actually trans, I can understand why folks still feel negative towards the character. Like someone in the article said, it was some people's first introduction to what could have been perceived as a trans character. And it was NOT a good one.
“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.
