Secretary of State's 'natural law commission' has anti-LGBTQ talking head drooling over possibilities

Brian Brown

One would think that after losing the fight over marriage equality in America, anti-LGBTQ talking head Brian Brown would have slithered away. Unfortunately, he is still around and thanks to a new committee formed by Trump's secretary of state, the Freddy Krueger of homophobia hopes to clamp down on the future dreams of the LGBTQ community.

From Right Wing Watch:

Anti-LGBTQ-equality activist Brian Brown declared in a message to supporters on Thursday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s new “Commission on Unalienable Rights” provides Brown’s International Organization for the Family with “an extraordinary opening to push for clear and consistent recognition of the natural family” and “gives us a forum to challenge American foreign policy that has in the past advanced the extreme agenda of the left that has been cloaked in the language of so-called human rights.”

Pompeo’s commission, which was reportedly created without input from the State Department’s existing human rights infrastructure, will bring a “natural law” lens to a reexamination of U.S. human rights policy. As New Ways Ministry’s Bob Shine has noted, “Natural law theory has been used for a long time by Catholic Church leaders and theologians who reject LGBT people’s identities and their relationships.” Natural law theory has various strains, but as applied to sexuality and gender, it essentially argues that people whose sexual expression or gender identity is not “natural,” or who have non-procreative sex, are defying the “natural law” of God.

While Pompeo has tried to downplay the policy impact of the commission, which is dominated by social conservatives, Brown’s enthusiasm makes it clear that Religious Right believes the commission’s work is likely to be used to provide intellectual justification for further reversing U.S. advocacy for the rights of LGBTQ people and women as elements of U.S. foreign policy.

None of that is surprising, given that the commission is reportedly the brainchild of Robert George, a founder of the National Organization for Marriage and other anti-LGBTQ groups, and an intellectual force behind the anti-equality movement. George is not an official member of the commission, but has professional associations with many of the commission’s members, including chair Mary Ann Glendon, an anti-abortion-rights activist who has dismissed U.S. and European advocacy for LGBTQ human rights globally as “neocolonialism.”

'Migrants in ICE's trans unit describe dire conditions' & other Thur midday news briefs

Migrants in ICE's Trans Unit Describe Dire Conditions, Beg for Help - Their stories are getting lost.

The LGBTQ civil rights fight is far from over - PREACH!

Liberty Counsel is using right-wing evangelical media to amplify its fights against conversion therapy protections - It's not gonna work, guys.

Israel’s Education Minister Apologizes For ‘Gay Conversion’ Therapy Remarks - Uh yes, you had better.

Gay scenes in movies and television - Funny or Degrading?

When it comes to the LGBTQ community and how we are portrayed in comedies, I am of two minds. I like blue humor and see nothing wrong with risque comedy. But at the same time, there is a difference between risque comedy and comedy which sends a message that the LGBTQ orientation is something to be gawked at. I've pulled a couple of scenes from various movies and television shows which I invite to you to view and see if you share my opinion regarding whether they are funny or degrading:

FUNNY - Blazing Saddles. This 1974 classic by Mel Brooks could never be made today because it is so apologetically brutal and politically incorrect. From African-Americans to politicians to Methodists to women, no one gets away unscathed. And the scene above is delightfully funny because of how it implies how a lot of gay men were in musicals during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Not only that, but the humor coming from two movie genres - westerns and musicals - literally crashing against one another is wicked without being degrading.




DEGRADING - Martin - This scene with the title character at the DMV is not all  funny. It's basically a big one-note stereotype of the swishy gay man hitting on a straight guy. Very juvenile and droll, but not in a good way.

''Pose,' Billy Porter pick up historic Emmy nominations' & other Wed midday news briefs

Billy Porter

Everyone's Talking About "Pose" And Billy Porter's Historic Emmy Nominations And Here's Why - I love this and I am rooting for the two. Porter, especially.

A man cut off his gay son’s earlobe to mark him as an ‘abomination’ - The real abomination is that someone would do this to anyone, much less a child.

Trump defense pick rebuked for ‘misleading’ testimony on trans military ban - Oh really?

'It's A Career Ender': 2 LGBTQ Former Dell Workers Share Their Stories - The struggle continues.

Religious author says evangelical silence about Trump's racism proves they made 'a deal with the devil'

Franklin Graham (top), Robert Jeffress (middle), and Tony Perkins (bottom) have been called out for enabling and then being silent about Trump's recent racist comments against four members of Congress.

The House of Representatives just voted 240-187 to condemn Trump's racist attacks on four of its members. Only four Republicans joined the Democrats in that vote.

Meanwhile, conservative evangelicals have been mostly silent throughout the entire thing. Franklin Graham, who seems to be never at a loss for words when tweeting attacks on the LGBTQ community, has been especially evasive.

And don't think that it hasn't been noticed. John Fea, religious author and professor of American history at Messiah College, posted about this on Tuesday:

Trump is simply calling upon an old tradition in American history. Sadly, we have been telling people to “go back to your country” since the birth of the republic. None of this is new. Trump appeals to the darkest parts of our past. This is what demagogues do. Today he refused to rescind his comments because apparently a lot of people like them. 

But America has always had its better angels. We have always had men and women who have tried to consistently apply our country’s ideals to matters of race, immigration, and injustice. Robert Jeffress, Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr. Jack Graham, Tony Perkins, Paula White, Ralph Reed, Gary Bauer, David Barton, Jim Bakker, Lance Wallnau, Steven Strang and the rest of the court evangelicals do not fall into this category. 

Sadly, the court evangelicals have chosen to side with darkness over light. They are sycophants, incapable of speaking truth to power because they have made a deal with the devil (who apparently has come in the guise of a new King Cyrus). They have enabled Donald Trump. The silence speaks volumes.

The entire piece is short but on point and deserves your full attention.

 

Conservative evangelical groups defend Trump's racism, Pence's border facility dodges

White conservative evangelicals continue to debase themselves for Trump.

Eager to defend their golden goose, i.e. the Trump Administration for giving it access and power, several conservative evangelical - religious right groups - are running interference for the administration's excesses with as much vigor as they dehumanize the LGBTQ community.

Last weekend, Pence visited the border facilities in an effort to blunt criticism about their overcrowding, lack of sanitation and overall dehumanizing treatment of immigrants. It didn't work out for him:

Vice President Mike Pence visited an overcrowded, unsanitary migrant detention center on Friday as part of a tour meant to highlight the Trump administration’s handling of an influx of immigrants and asylum seekers crossing the US-Mexico border. At a McAllen, Texas, facility housing nearly 400 Central American men, reporters noted an overwhelming foul odor and extreme heat. Men packed in cages worked to get the reporters’ attention, telling members of the press they did not have access to showers or toothbrushes; some of the detained said they’d been at the center for more than 40 days, and others claimed to be underfed and hungry.

Pence was blasted in the media for the seemingly callous way he acted during the visit, how he dodged questions about his visit, and his attempt to blame the media for allegedly distorting the visit.

William Dannemeyer was a vile bigot whose legacy of hate must never be forgotten

William Dannemeyer

An absolutely vulgar enemy of the LGBTQ community has passed away:

Seven-term Congressman William Dannemeyer, one of the leading homophobes of the 1980s and ’90s, has died at age 86. The California Republican, who once read a description of sexual acts into the Congressional Record, said he’d like to wipe out all HIV-positive people, and spread false claims about how HIV was spread, died Tuesday after suffering from dementia, The Orange County Register reports. In addition to his antigay activism, he promoted conspiracy theories about Bill and Hillary Clinton and claimed that Jews were seeking to eliminate Christians. 

. . . “In the mid-1980s, Dannemeyer endorsed a plan to quarantine people with HIV or AIDS,” the Register’s obituary notes. “He also spoke against allowing nurses with HIV to work with children, saying (incorrectly) that people with the virus emitted a ‘spore’ that caused birth defects.” 

In 1989 he placed a detailed description of sex acts in the Congressional Record; he characterized them as gay sex acts, even though heterosexuals were known to engage in some of them as well. The same year, he sent a letter to President George H.W. Bush expressing concern about the influence of gay people in the administration. Dannemeyer was a fan and ally of President Ronald Reagan, less so of fellow Republican Bush. He also published a book that year, Shadow in the Land: Homosexuality in America, about what he considered the threat posed by gay people. 

In 1990 he voted against a bill authorizing the federal government to collect data on crimes motivated by a victim’s race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. He was one of only 18 House members to oppose it; he said he did so because it put sexual orientation on a par with those other characteristics.

Dannemeyer was before my time, but he is a reason why this blog exists. I could say a lot about him, but I would prefer to leave an item which accentuates his legacy of hatred:

This 1986 comic was created by a man named Dick Hafer and it is a representation of some of the most evil anti-gay lies out there.  Check out the images it contained: