Anti-LGBTQ 'black leaders' take a step back from homophobia to defend Trump's racism

 Bill Owens (top) and Alveda King (bottom) are both two anti-LGBTQ so-called black leaders trying to grab the spotlight by defending Trump's racist attacks on Baltimore and Congressman Elijah Cummings.

So now Trump has started a new controversy with his racist comments against the city of Baltimore in an attempt to smear Congressman Elijah Cummings.  He has been just about universally condemned, except for by a few - Republicans who either support or need him to fulfill their goals. And other folks who see it as an opportunity for spotlight. This latter category includes so-called black leaders who can always be counted on to publicly defend defend the racist excesses or the extreme agenda of the GOP. Recently, Trump met with a few of them in an attempt to blunt the firestorm he caused. What's interesting is that the LGBTQ community should recognize a few of these folks, and not in a good way.

From Mediate:

CNN’s Don Lemon confronted Reverend Bill Owens on meeting with President Donald Trump following his widely condemned attack on Baltimore and its Congressman, Elijah Cummings. Owens, the president of the coalition of African-American pastors, on Monday attended a meeting between Trump and a group of inner-city pastors 

Lemon kicked off the interview by asking if any of the faith leaders raised concerns about the president’s attacks on “leaders of color.” 

“I think something was said in passing,” Owens replied, though he tried to avoid addressing Trump’s remarks. 

Lemon pressed, asking his question again. When Owens again dodged. 

“So the president tweeted today he was looking forward to his meeting with wonderful inner-city pastors. Any concern for you that the president used this meeting with black leaders to insulate himself from the criticism?” Lemon asked. 

“I don’t think so. I don’t think that at all because I have been to the White House four times in five months,” Owens said. “There was nothing about insulating from anything. He wanted to hear from us, what our concerns were and what he could do to help us.”

Lemon noted that Owens has “said some controversial things before” including in 2012 when he compared President Barack Obama’s support for same sex marriage to condoning child molestation (comments Owens walked back).

Unfortunately, the Mediaite article omitted a few things. Owens is the head of a group called the Coalition of African-American Pastors. It sounds legitimate, but it actually serves as a way for Owens to provide a black voice to conservatives for a price, particularly when it comes to anti-LGBTQ issues:

 The National Organization for Marriage used CAAP in a failed attempt to sabotage President Obama's African-American support during the 2012 election.

Owens has admitted to being paid by organizations like NOM ($20,000), the Family Research Council, and the American Family Association to be a shill.

And to make matters worse, there have been serious questions - which Owens has never answered - as to whether or not he actually marched or participated at all in the Civil Rights Movement.

'Hate group leader falsely claims Equality Act will legalize pedophilia' & other Tue midday news briefs.

Mat Staver

Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver continues smear of LGBTQ people by lying that the Equality Act will legalize pedophilia - The lie never dies when there is someone there to push it. 

Russia rips children from their dads under ‘gay propaganda’ law - This is awful and you know some folks want mess like this to happen here in America. 

Secretary DeVos Is Failing to Protect the Civil Rights of LGBTQ Students - Unfortunately, no one should be surprised. 

Author of bestselling Christian book apologizes to LGBTQ community - Good for him.

Hate group makes fool of itself with latest attack on Drag Queen Story Hour

No matter how they try, anti-LGBTQ groups and personalities can't seem to get a moral panic started over the popular event Drag Queen Story Hour. But that doesn't mean they don't try. Almost on a daily basis via various conservative sites, I read articles with lurid inferences about what drag queens are doing to children during this event. Usually these lurid inferences translate to innocent situations exaggerated by homophobic need to exploit the "LGBTQs recruit children" lie

A perfect example is the hate group Mass Resistance's rendition of a recent Drag Queen Story Hour in Dallas. It was a perfectly harmless event, so the group had to be creative with details:

The “Drag Queen” disruptions in public libraries across the country are becoming more frightening and weird. But parents and citizens are fighting back! A bizarre pair of “Drag Queens” led a disturbing “Drag Queen Story Hour” event at the Grauwyler Park Public Library in Dallas, TX on July 13. A few of our people were inside documenting it, but a much larger group, organized by our new Dallas chapter of MassResistance, held a rousing protest outside.

Don't be fooled by the prose or the pictures on the webpage. Mass Resistance has a reputation going overboard on self-aggrandizement.

'Facebook groups taking the fight for LGBTQ equality and safety to a new level' & other Mon midday news briefs

Black Lesbians Taking a Stand, Mama Dragons Fighting Homophobia & More LGBTQ Facebook Groups - Perfect way to adapt in our fight for equality.

Dallas police offer free self-defense class after attacks targeting LGBTQ community - We need this everywhere.

CBP clarifies HIV family separation occurs on ‘case-by-case basis’ - STILL a bad policy. 

Four Teens Charged With Hate Crime After Homophobic Bus Attack In London - Wonderful. It was a horrific attack.

Top 10 Groundbreaking Moments for LGBTQ characters on television . . . thus far

A big caveat -  this list was compiled in 2017. A lot of things have happened since then, such as the wonderful television show, Pose.  Still, this is somewhat a good historical compilation of where we have been. Number one should be easy to guess.

Family Research Council ignore facts to give Trump another 'mulligan' after Mueller hearing

If there is any question that the Family Research Council (and its president Tony Perkins) sold what little soul and integrity they have to boost Donald Trump, its Washington Report about Wednesday's testimony of Special Counsel Robert Mueller should remove all doubt.

"Finally, Washington sort of agrees on something," the New Yorker half-joked. "Mueller bombed." After 124 days of waiting, "painful" doesn't begin to describe the disjointed spectacle of former special counsel Robert Mueller's House hearing. The epic dud, proclaimed across the news networks as "sad," "embarrassing," and "a disaster" came to an anti-climatic end Wednesday for Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) party. Democrats, who've desperately been trying to find a way to end Donald Trump's presidency prematurely, are back to square one. If they want to send Trump packing, the Washington Post pointed out, they'll have to do it the old-fashioned way -- at the ballot box. 

The seven-hour sit-down was supposed to be the must-see event of the year. Instead, the New York Times pronounced, Mueller's appearance was "the blockbuster that wasn't." Confused, evasive, and downright scattered, the man at the center of one of the biggest political witch hunts in history did nothing but prove what a waste of time this entire drama has been. The liberal's political savior was such a liability that by afternoon's end even CNN's Jeffery Toobin was calling it a "win" for President Trump. 

Congressman Mike Johnson (R-La.), chair of the Republican Study Committee who had a front row seat for the circus in the hearing, told me on "Washington Watch" that Democrats had every right to be disappointed. "They truly hoped, as I said in my closing statement for the Republican side... that there was really one reason that Mr. Mueller was called to testify today -- and that was to give political cover to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They desperately wanted him to tell them that they had to impeach the president. He did not do that. His report of course did not do that. And that's where we are today -- just exactly where we were yesterday." 

When I asked him if he felt like the committees had covered any new ground, he said flatly, "None at all." But then, he pointed out, everyone should have expected that. Mr. Mueller himself made that quite clear when he had his press conference more than a month ago, when he insisted, "I'm going to stick to the four corners of this document."
But as frustrating as the scene must have been for Democrats, Republicans were equally annoyed. After all, Mike pointed out, there were so many questions that went unanswered about the report's bias, its origins, the Steele dossier, the tainted FBI agents. None of those gaping holes in this theory were addressed, Congressman Johnson vented. "He refused to even talk about the origins of this whole charade... now proven to be totally bogus. That was the foundation of this entire ordeal.... and if the root of it is corrupt, then everything that comes from it is as well." 

Mueller was asked to get to the bottom of this supposed collusion with Russia, but we've all known for quite some time that, as Mike put it, "There was 'no there there' -- not even any smoke, much less any fire... It was a political hack job, and now it's proven to be so." From an investigative team with 14 Democrats and zero Republicans, none of this should have come as a surprise. There were FBI agents texting how much they hated Donald Trump and vowing to take him out. "[Those are] their own words. So it's hard to look at this by any objective measure and say, 'Oh, well, this was a fair investigation.'"

While Mueller was panned for the delivery of his report by some in the media,  very few pundits disputed what he said. Many pundits, while criticizing Mueller's shaky delivery, called attention to the fact that his report was not a win for Trump.  And others called out their colleagues for focusing more on optics than the facts Mueller verified.

Such as (via The Huffington Post):

The Russia probe wasn’t a “witch hunt.” 

Russian election interference was not a “hoax.”

Russia meddled in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign was happy with it.

The Mueller report did not find “no obstruction.”

 Trump’s answers to written questions from Mueller’s team were “generally” untruthful. 

 And most importantly: The Mueller report didn’t give Trump “total exoneration.”

In addition, Mueller also said Trump could be charged after leaving office:



This reality is the reason why pundit Joe Scarborough blasted Trump and Republicans for celebrating:

Scarborough noted how the Republicans were “ecstatic” Wednesday given how the hearings proceeded before listing the items learned and/or confirmed by the hearing: 1) Russia interfered with American democracy, 2) Trump and his campaign “happily welcomed” that interference, 3) Trump and his team members repeatedly lied to federal agents investigating this, 4) President Donald Trump lied under oath about Russians trying to infiltrate, and 5) “American democracy is still, is still under threat from the Russians.” Scarborough ended this opening riff by blasting the GOP members of Congress who, during much of Mueller’s testimony, seemed entirely more focused on undermining Mueller and his team’s investigation into Russian interference, than the Russian interference itself.

Perkins and FRC belongs in that camp. One would think that after everything Perkins and his group says about  "American values," "traditional morality," etc, they would show some alarm that our democracy is in danger of being compromised, Instead, the only thing they seem to be concerned about is protecting Trump. If they aren't making excuses for his behavior or giving him "mulligans," they are echoing his lies.

I guess Perkins and FRC save outrage for more "vital" issues such as preventing transgender children from using school bathrooms without any fear.

'Florida politician running an outlandishly homophobic campaign' & other Thur midday news briefs

Chico Cromartie

‘To hell with gay pride’: Trump-loving Florida politician running viciously homophobic campaign - You KNOW it's a wild story when I was going to take a break from my news briefs, but decided to post anyway just to spotlight this mess.

New UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson refuses to apologize for homophobic comments - You think Trump was bad? Great Britain now has a version all its own. Can he at least comb his hair.

LGBTQ-friendly church in Battle Ground targeted by vandals - Stand firm, brothers and sisters.

With ‘Old Town Road,’ Lil Nas X Sets New Precedent For LGBTQ Musicians - Good for him! Major props!