'MN business hopes to discriminate against gay couples' & other Wed. midday news briefs

Editor's note - When I began this blog a little over 10 years ago, it was a labor of love which I didn't expect to make money from. On that score, it has been very successful. I felt that the lgbt community wasn't getting proper education or guidance when it came to anti-lgbt propaganda. I am proud of how successful my efforts have been in THAT particular regard. 

However, things have changed. 

The proliferation of fake news sites make it very difficult for me to maintain my credibility.  Not impossible, but difficult. And then there are some in the insular world of lgbt news who have gone out of their way to make sure that I know they don't regard me as an equal in spite of my two GLAAD Media Award nominations, over four million readers, and mentions in Newsweek, The Advocate, etc. To make a long story short, I have been contemplating shutting this blog down.

But I won't for two reasons. 1. I'm a stubborn person and when I start something I feel is very important, I don't like to finish it until I feel the job is done. 2. With the Trump administration coming in next year, the lgbt community will need as many folks as possible who can uphold our rights, stand for our equality, and basically battle those who oppose us while utilizing innovation and unrelenting forcefulness. Therefore, instead of quitting, I will work even harder to gain more credibility ,make sure everything I post on this blog is accurate without fault, and continue to call anti-lgbt groups to the carpet for their homophobia, junk science, and outright lies.

 You have stuck with me these 10 years. I hope you will continue to do so.

Minnesota Business Owners Sue For Right To Discriminate Against Gay Couples - Here we go again. And it's about filming same-sex marriages. Unfortunately, while there is a good reason for folks to stand on the side of this business, what they fail to realize and acknowledge is that allowing businesses  to discriminate against marriage equality is a gateway to allow them to discriminate against lgbts period. First it's marriage. What else is next? Apartment complexes? Restaurants? We have not done a good job to explain this. 

 Minnesota’s nondiscrimination protections are the latest target for anti-LGBT law firm - More detail on this situation. 

Trump's religious dealmaking pays dividends - And we had better start quickly as possible based on THIS particular article. Trump is maintaining a very close relationship with the religious right.  

Linda Harvey Calls On HHS Nominee Tom Price To Crack Down On Homosexuality - Harvey is irrelevant. She has no idea what she is talking about (as usual). It is what Price will attempt should he become HHS secretary. Any anti-lgbt move he makes will be met by us. And we won't be smiling with crumpets and tea.

Family Research Council has yet to address article claiming that it uses anti-lgbt junk science

FRC president Tony Perkins

The Family Research Council is an organization which doesn't like to be publicly criticized about its agenda or tactics. The group generally likes to frame any public criticism it receives as an attack on "Christian values" and generally exploits said criticism as such in its emails and fundraising to its supporters

But not a recent public criticism.

Last week, the online magazine Wired called out FRC for using junk science to denigrate the lgbt community. The article was extremely scathing. Part of it reads as follows:

That the FRC has found its way back into a position of influence over the presidency shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. The group has been making political moves since the early 1980s. Since then, it’s grown to become the most successful progeny of an effort among social conservatives to move the basis of their policy recommendations away from Scripture and toward sociology. Not that legitimate sociology is where the FRC has arrived. Rather, the group is to homophobia what the National Policy Institute is to the alt-right—a bland, respectable-sounding, quasi-academic front for a hateful, regressive ideology. It comes packaged in a way that looks like real science but is really just cherrypicked data stitched together to serve its agenda.

“A whole slew of real scientists who have demanded that the Family Research Council stop using their data,” says Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has designated the FRC an extremist group.

 . . .  The papers the FRC produces often purport to be meta-analyses—studies of studies. Rather than compiling an accurate synthesis of mainstream scientific inquiry, however, the group mis-contextualizes data to arrive at a desired conclusion. This technique is how the FRC manages to link homosexuality to, among other things, pedophilia and shortened lifespans, despite strong scientific consensus to the contrary. When the group is not twisting mainstream scientists’ numbers, it’s citing organizations such as the American College of Pediatricians, which sure sounds like the American Academy of Pediatrics but is actually a far-right breakaway group with only 200 members.

The article was significant for two reasons. 1. It avoided the "religious angle" FRC generally uses to cover up its anti-lgbt bias. 2 Since its publication, no one from FRC, including its president, Tony Perkins, has made any comment on it.

And that last point is highly striking.  A high level Washington beltway organization, albeit one thought of as a hate group by a large number of people, not answering the charges that it relies on junk science is a major deal.

Maybe FRC is hoping that whatever controversy the article may bring will pass without generating any significant discussion or look into its doings. If this is the case, it sounds like there does need to be a serious degree of discussion on this issue.

I hope folks are paying attention.

American Family Association fails miserably in its defense of Breitbart

Religious right groups are pandering very hard to defend the Breitbart news site from accurate charges that it panders to the white supremacist alt-right and embraces racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism.

First it was the Family Research Council defending the site and its former editor, Steve Bannon, while omitting the website's history of appealing to white supremacists.

Now, it is the American Family Association not only defending Breitbart but also its boycott of the Kellogg corporation. Recently, Kellogg, citing that Breitbart's appeal to the white supremacist alt-right, pulled its advertising from the site.  Via its fake news publication, One News Now, AFA said the following about the decision:

"... Kellogg's has shown how utterly intolerant they are of anyone's viewpoint other than their own," AFA spokesman Walker Wildmon says by way of explanation.

AFA is known for past boycotts, too, including an ongoing boycott of Target stores due to a liberal corporate policy that caters to transgendered employees and customers.

AFA is also familiar with left-wing scare tactics, since the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center has designated AFA a "hate group."

Writers at Breitbart.com wrote glowingly about Trump during the presidential campaign, drawing criticism from fellow conservatives about its editorial content. Yet the website drew little attention from the Left until Bannon was named an advisor to Trump in the final months of the campaign. 

It's ironic that AFA calls Kellogg 'intolerant" for its boycott of Breitbart and then in the next sentence admits that the organization itself has engaged in a number of boycott. So to AFA, Kellogg is intolerant for boycotting but the organization itself isn't.

'TX bill could endanger lgbt youth' & other Tue. midday news briefs

TX Lt. Gov Dan Patrick unveils a damaging bill for lgbt youth.

New Texas bill endangers LGBT youth: Behind the legislation that could lead to a surge in anti-gay conversion therapy - Texas again. Deferring to "faith-based communities" communities when it comes to the fostering and adopting of children is a HUGE mistake. And yes, it would be worse than the problem it's supposed to solve. Seems to me that some Texas officials were too concerned with picking on lgbts instead of doing their jobs and here we are.

 Here’s What It’s REALLY Like Having A Transgender Parent - With all of the talk about the transgender community in the news, does it bother you that the media doesn't spotlight enough medical professionals, transgender men and women, or their children instead of phony experts from religious right and conservative think tanks? 

University of Oklahoma football players targeted with anti-gay abuse - Isn't it awful how some people use calling someone gay as an insult? When someone told me once said to me, "at least I don't suck d#$k," I retorted, "well maybe if you applied yourself, you never know what you could achieve." 

 Trans Activist Whose Epic Trump Rant Went Viral Speaks Out - Sister girl when OFF on Trump!

Family Research Council's concern for persecuted Christians contradicts its message about persecuted lgbts

Today, the Family  Research Council sounded the alarm about persecutions of Christians abroad, complete with the image below:

If there's anyone busier than Santa, it's Congress. With just a handful of days left before members jingle their way home for Christmas, most leaders are scrambling to put a bow on the 114^th Session. Hill offices are hoping to crank through a pile of unfinished business before Friday, when the House and Senate hope to adjourn. Before then, the to-do list is a diverse basket of priorities from funding the government to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

One of the bills at the top of our list, which we hope Congress can squeeze onto its schedule, is Rep. Chris Smith's (R-N.J.) "Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act," which would help turn the floodlights on the dark world of faith-based hostility. Under this administration, religious liberty hasn't been pushed to the back seat -- it has no seat at the table of U.S. priorities. In the waning days of 2016, conservatives are racing to fill the diplomatic gap left by this White House and help lay the groundwork for a new administration to combat a crisis that's caused the blood of countless innocents around the world to be spilled. Under Rep. Smith's bill, America would create a "special watch list of countries or violent state actors that have engaged in or tolerated such violations, but do not yet meet the criteria for designation as countries of particular concern for religious freedom."

As Frank Wolf and I explained in a joint column on the subject, the bill would hold offending countries to a higher level of accountability. It would also direct the president to appoint a Special Adviser for Global Religion Engagement and International Religious Freedom, a clear sign to the world that Americans take this issue seriously in U.S. foreign policy. If this president won't talk about religious persecution, Congress must. In the absence of strong leadership, our enemies only gain more power to destroy this fundamental right.

The legislation is good idea because no one should be persecuted in any country because of their religious beliefs.But at the same time, FRC's push for this legislation is extremely hypocritical.

'Anti-transgender NC Gov. Pat McCrory concedes race to Cooper' & other Mon. midday news briefs

"Pat you know it's true. Ooh, ooh, ooh, you are THROUGH."

McCrory concedes gubernatorial race to Cooper - McCrory concedes the election. Grand irony that is the mess of the 2016 elections? The one election that could be seen as an outright referendum on  transgender equality turns out to be a winner for the lgbt community.

 
Of course Mike Pence supported ex-gay therapy - Sorry Mike Pence. You aren't going to bull#@!% your way out of this one.

 Anti-LGBT group files brief in Fairfax County schools lawsuit - The Liberty Counsel strikes from Virginia. This ought to be interesting.

GOP Congressman Says Trump Team Has Given “Assurances” On Religious Freedom Measure - The hurricane is coming. Be ready. 

There Is No "War On Christmas," Unless You Count The Battle For Christian Supremacy - Unfortunately this is true.

American Family Association publication links to race-baiting Breitbart article

Apparently this perspective includes race-baiting articles from Breitbart.

With President-elect Donald Trump naming former Breitbart News head Steve Bannon as his chief White House strategist, well-deserved attention is focused on how Bannon made the publication a hot bed of the white supremacist alt-right. 

However, there is something the media is missing about Breitbart; just how much did it's dog-whistle message affect other so-called conservative publications. Or rather in this case, religious right publications such as the American Family Association's One News Now.

This morning, I noticed a news brief on the Latest from Web links on One News Now:

Race Warriors Decry ‘White Jesus’
 
The link led to a Breitbart article The first two paragraph reads as such:

 In their attempt to politicize everything along racial lines, race warriors are now denouncing traditional Christianity as an invention of white people seeking to dominate and control “people of color” (POC).

Writing for the Blavity website, billed as “the Buzzfeed for black millennials,” race warrior Danni Roseman proclaims her progressive alienation from Christianity after being “bombarded with images of this sandy-brown-haired, blue-eyed, White man”—namely, Jesus Christ.

I doubt that this is merely the first time  One News Now linked to  Breitbart  and it does lead one to wonder just how much does race-baiting play a part in the American Family Association's supposed Christian message. It's not as overt as the publication's usual anti-lgbt message but it's just as ugly.