National LGBT Bar Association want attorneys to repudiate anti-LGBT (hate) legal groups

No doubt this is sure to get the anti-LGBTQ right and their supporters whining about being persecuted, but to hell with them. Full speed ahead.

My only concern is that there is someone out there to push the narrative of what this is truly about.

The National LGBT Bar Association announces a new campaign that asks attorneys across the nation to COMMIT to INCLUSION by repudiating anti-LGBT legal groups like Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Liberty Counsel and pledging never to support them through pro bono services.

“For more than 25 years, groups like Alliance Defending Freedom and Liberty Counsel have overseen an army of litigators and waged a systematic, insidious, and well-funded crusade to strip protections from LGBT people,” said LGBT Bar Association Executive Director D’Arcy Kemnitz. “With the recent Supreme Court decision in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, the announced retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, and more and more court victories for those seeking a license to discriminate, fair-minded attorneys committed to diversity must push back. If we don’t take these threats seriously and act accordingly, we could face long term legal setbacks for LGBT people.”

The COMMIT to INCLUSION campaign includes a fact sheet detailing the history of these anti-LGBT legal groups, their enormous budgets, and a sample list of cases in which they have sought to harm LGBT people. It also includes a one-minute video featuring: National LGBT Bar Executive Director, D’Arcy Kemnitz; Chief Counsel, Freedom for All Americans Education Fund, Jon Davidson; and Cathy Sakimura, Family Law Director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights.  

The COMMIT to INCLUSION pledge reads in part: “We commit to inclusion by ensuring that our personal pro bono and volunteer capacity and personal financial resources will not be used to support the work of ADF and Liberty Counsel.” 

COMMIT to INCLUSION runs from July 24 through September 27.

''Religious freedom' refusals creating discrimination & endangering health' & other Tue midday news briefs

Same-sex couples are being refused service by wedding vendors - Since the Masterpiece ruling, which shouldn't even be allowing this mess, some folks have been going buck wild. And not just with regards to gay weddings: 

CVS fires pharmacist who denied hormone prescription to transgender woman 

Walgreens Pharmacist Refuses To Provide Drug For Ariz. Woman With Unviable Pregnancy 

In other news:

NAACP hosts ‘historic’ LGBT Town Hall - This was last week and I apologize for missing it. This event should have had more coverage. 

Teenager 'heartbroken' after school banned his talent show drag act - Drag is about performance. It was and to an extent still is a way for the LGBT community to take on the personalities of folks or entities they admire for their boldness and project that quality into their own lives. Too many people think it's about making fun or being sexually graphic. It's about skill, discipline, and self-empowerment.

Gay guys from around the globe talk sex and personal safety in Amsterdam - Very very necessary.

Delaware Just Banned Gay Conversion Therapy For LGBTQ Youth - Go Delaware! It's your birthday . . .!

The Federalist pits Democrats against children to justify the stealing of LGBT tax dollars

The LGBT community should not have to pay for the 'courtesy' of being discriminated against.

The right-wing publication The Federalist is attempting to justify using religion as a weapon for discrimination against the LGBT community. In a Monday piece published by the publication entitled  Democrats Prove Willing To Make Orphans Casualties In Their War Against Religion, authors Jon Schweppe and Paul Dupont manufacture a war on children to stifle the concerns of LGBTs as taxpayers and prospective parents.

First, a little background

GOP in Congress and  their allies on the right are pushing something they call The Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act. They claim bill would:

 protect faith-based adoption agencies and foster care providers from state and local governments’ discrimination against their services solely because of their religious mission to place children in loving homes with both a mother and a father. The bill sought to counteract a growing trend of invidious discrimination on the basis of faith.

 That's nice way of saying that the bill would allow adoption agencies and foster care providers which discriminate against gays to still receive tax dollars. The bill also punishes LGBT states.

'Trump supporting lawmaker tricked into using racial slurs, showing bare (bear) ass on tv show in homophobic display' & other Mon midday news briefs

Or if you want get right to the booty shot:

Ga. lawmaker urged to resign after using racial slurs, dropping pants in TV show - Being tricked into using racial slurs and chasing someone with your bare (bear) ass pointed at them in a homophobic display to "fight terrorists." Or in other words, white folks are still having palpitations from having a black man in the Oval Office for eight years. Cute tushy though.

Michigan attorney general: Anti-LGBTQ discrimination is totally legal - He's running for governor. Surprise! Surprise! 

 Cuba Set To Legalize Same-Sex Marriage - Works for me!

CVS Apologizes After Pharmacist Harasses Trans Customer - Yes you had better. Pharmacists need to do their job or go into another profession.

Randy Rainbow destroys Trump's leadership skill 'credentials' in wonderful song parody

We are going to look back at this awful time in American history with Trump in the White House and be thankful for the seemingly little things which helped get us through.

Such as Randy Rainbow. Again, he destroys the nonsense which Fox News and the conservative media tries to shove down our throats about how Trump is a wonderful leader. And after last week with the Disaster in Helsinki (I'll think of a catchier name in the future), we all need a bit of laughter mixed with truth.

'Trump Administration erasing LGBTQ people from government websites again' & other Fri midday news briefs

The Trump Administration is messing with us again.

The Trump administration is erasing LGBTQ people from government websites again - I swear, you just can't turn your back on this administration. Makes you want to have a serious "discussion" with the Log Cabin Republicans and other gays who supported this guy. 

Hawaii extends federal Title IX protections to LGBTQ students - Way to go, Hawaii!!!! 

Family Research Council's newest attempt to connect homosexuality with pedophilia proves SPLC's 'hate group' argument - My post from last night.  It's gone viral but I want bigger. Let's make the Family Research Council respond to it by sharing it more. Wouldn't that be lovely? 

Here are 5 of the craziest Christian fundamentalist cults that feel empowered in the Trump era - Lawd, give us ALL strength to deal with this madness.

LGBT advocates outraged over Trump’s deference to Putin - You damn right.

Family Research Council's newest attempt to connect homosexuality with pedophilia proves SPLC's 'hate group' argument

Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council can't stop trying to connect gays to pedophilia

Back in 2010 when the Southern Poverty Law Center named the Family Research Council as a hate group, the organization was quick to play the martyr by claiming that it was being targeted simply for its "Christian beliefs."

And it plays that hand repeatedly. On many occasions (too many to count), SPLC said that FRC deserved the "hate group" designation because of how it demonizes the LGBTQ community with lies, cherry-picked, and junk science. A serious bone of contention, which always seemed to be ignored by FRC and its defenders, is how the so-called Christian group falsely claims that gay men make a high number of pedophiles and there is a connection between pedophilia and homosexuality.

On Thursday, the Family Research Council published a Washington Update item proving SPLC's argument yet again.

First, a little background. According to a right-wing publication LifeSite News, a German medical student,Mirjam Heine, gave an online lecture in May supposedly advocating that pedophilia be seen as an unchangeable sexual orientation.

According to the medical student, pedophilia is just another “unchangeable sexual orientation just like, for example, heterosexuality.” Heine asked her audience to differentiate between sexual attraction to children, which she believes should be accepted and tolerated as involuntary “feelings,” and child sexual abuse, which she underscored was always wrong.

So what does that have to do with LGBTQs, particularly those of us in America? Not a damn thing. I would suspect that a lot of us never even heard of this woman or her lecture except for reading this post.. However, in the hands of the Family Research Council, a lecture by a German student about pedophilia  is very connected with the progress of LGBTQ equality in America simply because the organization can bullshit its way through a bizarre conspiracy theory-laden Washington Update post saying so.

The key words here is bullshit. No matter how intelligent or totally rational the Family Research Council pretends to be,  we are still dealing an organization which once claimed that Planned Parenthood and the transgender community are using the Girl Scouts,  gay youth commit suicide because they know they are "abnormal," and the LGBTQ community are infiltrating Star Wars video games

But folks can read the piece from FRC president Tony Perkins and be the judge (Editor's note -  you can read the full piece by clicking on the link):

To most people, July 19th is just another day. If you asked them what happened on this date 25 years ago, only a handful would probably know that President Bill Clinton made "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" the policy for America's military. Even fewer would know that the summer of 1993 help set into motion a quarter-century war on marriage and the family. 

Looking back on those days, most Americans are probably nostalgic for the days when sexuality wasn't something people broadcasted. Back then, even the most liberal activists just wanted to "get the government out of their bedroom." How far we've fallen. Now, two decades later, they want to take what happens in the bedroom and force Americans to celebrate it -- at work, church, school, even (and especially) in government. Who knew 25 years ago that Christians would long for the days when everyone just went about their lives?