Pray with the anti-LGBTQ religious right? You must be out of your mind.

 

I got this form email from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council: 

 If you are following the record number of executive orders that the Biden administration has issued during their first week in office, then you know how important it is that we pray and stand. The measures range from canceling the Keystone pipeline and shutting down oil production to imposing trangenderism upon our military and America's schools. 

 Tonight we will pray for our nation -- specifically, for the men and women who serve in our nation's military and their families who will be impacted by the executive orders aimed at using the military to advance a radical social agenda. We will also pray for our nation's media, that any deceit designed to misguide the American people will be exposed and new sources of information that will speak the truth will be elevated in this critical time. Please join me  . . . along with Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin and former pastor and congressman Mark Walker, at  . . .  s we seek to hear and obey the voice of God and walk in His ways. He is our only hope!

 

God forbid Perkins prays for honesty, understanding, and little bit more kindness in the world. His prayers fall strictly in the political realm.

This is the same Tony Perkins who lied last night about how Biden canceling the Keystone Pipeline is costing ten of thousands of jobs while trying to pass off a junk science report he had a hand in creating as legitimate work from the Department of Defense.

The same Tony Perkins who signed a letter not that long ago spreading the lie that Biden's electoral win was fraud. 

The same Tony Perkins who called LGBTQ people pawns of the devil and leads an organization whose mission is to make our lives miserable at every turn.

When he says God is our only hope, just who is he talking about?

Chyle please. I wouldn't bother to  squint my eyes around Perkins and his ilk or even stoop to pray around them. Not even a little bit.

'Advocates brace for anti-LGBTQ backlash at state level after Biden victory' & other Wed midday news briefs

Advocates brace for anti-LGBTQ backlash at state level after Biden victory - Let's do this thing. Equality ain't supposed to be easy.

 
Montana House rejects transgender bill, advances abortion bills - One partial victory (women's health is an important issue)

Transgender birth certificate bill defeated, then given new life in the SD Statehouse - Well that sucks.

The Resistance hasn’t won yet. The war isn’t over. - So true.

Family Research Council's Tony Perkins lies about Trump's trans troops ban while attempting to smear Biden

FRC's Tony Perkins tells so many lies, he probably doesn't remember the definition of truth.

Yes, I know that to LGBTQ Americans, the fact that Family Research Council head Tony Perkins has has a habit of telling lies is rather passe. He and his group have told so many lies about us that if they ever accidentally told the truth, that would be the story.

But anti-LGBTQ industry lies about us are like lumps in oatmeal. Every time one pops up, you have to beat it down.

And this latest lie about President Biden is a doozy. Perkins is attempting - like the rest of the right, no doubt - to create a belief that some Americans are now having rethinking their votes for Biden. The fact that Perkins is attempting to pass along this talking point is simply more proof his hypocrisy. It wasn't that long ago that he and his group were a part of an effort to claim that Biden's win was the result of election fraud. So how can there be voter remorse if there was election fraud?

But it gets better. The entire theme of Perkins's piece is that Biden's honeymoon as president is supposedly over because he is costing Americans their jobs and prioritizing things like transgender rights:

Just three days in, the hashtag #BidenRemorse started popping up on social media. By then, the new president had stopped work on the border wall, shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline, and issued an oil and gas moratorium for drilling on federal land -- firing tens of thousands of workers in the process 

Yeah that's a lie. In a 2015 post, Media Matters (a group which catalogs conservative distortions) said the following:

 . . . an exhaustive study by the State Department concluded that the Keystone XL project will result in just 50 jobs, including “35 permanent employees and 15 temporary contractors.” Further, the report stated that spending on the project would support only 3,900 temporary construction jobs if construction lasted one year and just 1,950 temporary construction jobs if construction lasted two years. The report also states that a majority of potential other jobs supported by the project would come from “indirect and induced spending,” yet a recent Washington Post article detailed how the “indirect” job estimates themselves don't hold up, as some have already been created in anticipation of the pipeline, and most would last for less than a year . . .

But the centerpiece of Perkins' distortions about Biden is - guess who - us. Or more specifically, the transgender community. Ever since Biden took office, the religious right has accelerated lies and horror stories about transgender men and women. This particular lie has to do with his repeal of Trump's trans troops ban.

Unfortunately for our troops, the new president doesn't seem to care how his social experimentation affects our actual warfighting. Unlike Donald Trump, who insisted the military study the comprehensive effects of such a policy, Joe Biden -- from the so-called "party of science" -- has not asked for any updated information. In fact, he claimed this morning that opening the doors to transgenderism "does not have any meaningful negative impact on the Armed Forces" and "minimal" effect on "readiness and health care costs." 

 That's interesting, since the findings of then-Secretary James Mattis in 2018 were that the Obama administration had to ignore stacks of research to justify the change. After wading through 21 months of actual fallout, the DOD believed that introducing this type of gender chaos into the military presented a "considerable risk" to its "effectiveness and lethality." The memo does a great job dismantling the flawed and outdated RAND study that both Presidents Obama and Biden have used to prop up their decision. After almost two years of seeing the real impact on troops, the DOD argued that RAND had "mischaracterize[d] or overstate[d] the reports on which it rests its conclusions" (p. 39). "In fact," officials write, "the RAND study itself repeatedly emphasized the lack of quality data on these issues and qualified its conclusions accordingly" -- a fact the Biden administration hasn't bothered to mention.

So many lies:

'Black HIV leaders on what they want from Biden in 2021' & other Tue midday news briefs

Black HIV Leaders on What They Want From Biden in 2021 - Good article.

Honduran lawmakers vote to lock in bans on abortion, same-sex marriage - Come on folks. Don't be so hateful.

Biden DOJ nixes last-minute Trump administration memo on LGBTQ rights - Took place two days ago. Still nice to mention. 

Wentworth Miller Is Done With Gay Roles Defined By Struggle - I definitely see his point. Let's see some LGBTQ action heroes.

Do not forget the lies and liars who made Trump's trans military ban a reality

There are times when the LGBTQ community gain a victory, we don't wrap up loose ends. This generally puts us in a situation where we find ourselves in a new battle with the same forces we defeated before. Then we busy ourselves wondering how we can combat their techniques this time while forgetting that they were same techniques used against us in the last fight.

The recent situation regarding Biden's repeal of Trump's ban on transgender troops is a good example of what I'm talking about. Now when Trump announced the ban, he claimed that he consulted with his military leaders. But this turned out to be a lie. They too were caught by surprise. 

In that same month, America learned that the ban did not come about from genuine concern about the military. It actually came from the minds of the anti-LGBTQ industry with assistance from former Vice President Mike Pence.

According to LGBTQnation:

Multiple sources are saying that Mike Pence – along with some anti-LGBTQ activists – wrote the report behind Donald Trump’s new transgender military ban. The White House released a plan on Friday night to purge transgender people from the military, which revoked the previous transgender military ban that was announced last year. 

 Accompanying the new plan was a memo signed by Defense Secretary James Mattis and a report from the Department of Defense. Multiple sources told Slate that Mike Pence “played a leading role in the creation of this report,” along with anti-transgender activists Ryan Anderson and Tony Perkins. 

Anderson works at the right wing Heritage Foundation and recently wrote When Harry Became Sally, a book that claims that being transgender is a mental illness based on the narratives of “ex-transgender” people. Perkins works for the Family Research Council, an SPLC designated hate group. Another source told Think Progress that the report was a product of a “working group” led by Pence that produced a report with different conclusions from Mattis’s committee report. The source said that Pence “overruled” Mattis’s report, but did not explain exactly what that meant.

'President Biden eliminates Trump's transgender military ban' & other Mon midday news briefs

Joe Biden Repeals Donald Trump’s Transgender Military Ban - More proof that voting matters. Instead of a Trump second term in which more attacks on our rights, health, and safety were assured, LGBTQ Americans now have a president with our best interests at heart. And determined to fight for them.

Transgender Youth Bills Reflect Deep Divisions Across U.S. States - Reflect deep divisions my ass. It's simply the new wedge issue for the religious right And this right here is goddamn lie: 

Christiana Holcomb, legal counsel at the conservative nonprofit organization Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the plaintiffs in the Connecticut suit, said she is seeing a growing trend where lawmakers across the country are recognizing that it’s “a real problem” when state athletic associations or school districts allow transgender women to compete in women’s sports. 

 The ADF goes from state to state pushing this madness up, writing anti-LGBTQ bills for state legislators to pass, and then defending the mess in court. There is NO trend. Just them instigating and pushing lies. 

Anti-LGBTQ politician who proudly opposed conversion therapy ban is kicked out of his party - Happened in Canada, but still ding dong, the fool is gone.

They lived a 'double life' for decades. Now, these gay elders are telling their stories. - Sweet! 

Biden Admin Will Have LGBTQ+ Envoy, Allow Pride Flags at Embassies - Welcome back.

Roger Severino, the Trump appointee who targeted LGBTQ health, is out of a job

Since being appointed by Trump as director of the Office of Civil Rights at HHS in 2017, Roger Severino seemed to have made it his mission to strip LGBTQ Americans of basic health rights. With Biden's victory in November, he is out of a job.

Editor's note - Ever since Biden won last November, I've been waiting with much anticipation to announce this news.

As of now, LGBTQ Americans have one less homophobe in government to worry about. Thanks to the Biden Administration, that is.

Roger Severino is gone from Health and Human Services. 

In March 2017, Severino was appointed by former president Donald Trump as director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. His appointment created immediate and intense consternation within the LGBTQ community because he had a long history of employment with groups who worked against our rights and safety, such as the Heritage Foundation and the Becket Fund.

While with those groups, his job was to specifically target our rights. And while employed at HHS, he continued that endeavor:

In 2018, The Advocate claimed that he was attempting to "erase trans people out of existence" by pushing a memo which would say that gender identity doesn't exist and that gender is set at birth and defined by genitalia. 

Severino was also responsible for an attempt to create a rule which would roll back protections for the trans community against discrimination through Obamacare, and  a "conscience rule" which said any healthcare worker could deny services to LGBTQ people based on "moral or religious" reasons. In November 2019, three different federal courts struck down the rule and one court found that HHS exaggerated a justification for the rule. Severino was pointed out in an NPR article to have contributed to that exaggeration. 

While probably not as attention-grabbing as the Trump Administration's other exploits against LGBTQ Americans, Severino's actions had to potential to garner more negative repercussions. The Centers of Disease Control  and other major medical centers have pointed out that a major impediment to good LGBTQ healthcare is a fear of discrimination and stigma. We are scared of being outed, being humiliated, or even of possible violence This makes us less likely to seek out good physicians and the medical care we need. In addition, the stress created by this situation makes us more susceptible to depression, drug abuse, and STDs. 

Anything which undermines our ability to receive decent medical care, even if it is a rule which discriminates against us under the deceptive tone of "anti-religious discrimination," has the potential to have a negative effect our health. And the results would allow the anti-LGBTQ industry to exploit the evergreen trope of "homosexuality is a dangerous lifestyle."

My opinion is that Severino  knew this. And had Trump won a second term, he would have been able to do more damage to us.

But now, Severino is out of a job. He is no longer employed at HHS. Dismissed. Purged. Given "the old heave ho." No matter how you phrase it, that turkey is gone and I am extremely glad about it.  His page on the HHS site is also gone and in place of his name on the HHS leadership webpage is Robinsue Frohboese as 'acting director.'

From what one of my sources tells me, Frohboese previously served as principal deputy director of OCR (Office of Civil Rights). In addition, Frohboese worked for 17 years in the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, first as Senior Trial Attorney and subsequently as Deputy Chief. Lastly, Frohboese has played a key role in many civil rights initiatives and OCR’s implementation of the HIPAA Privacy Rule.  

Isn't it nice to have a qualified person in this position instead of an overpaid lackey for anti-LGBTQ think tank?