Gay couple endured five years of creepy harassment from guess who?

 This situation is enough to make one paranoid:

 

 From LGBTQNation:

Lee Michael McLean and Bryan Furze endured years of anonymous anti-gay harassment at their home in Milton, Massachusetts, but a remarkable turn of events has freed them from the abuse . . . 

The men are upstanding members of their community, proud parents, and served in local government. But that’s when things turned ugly, they say. They started receiving dozens of magazine subscriptions with homophobic names on them. The men were confounded and police were unable to help since most magazines don’t require pre-payment. The perpetrator didn’t use a credit card that could be traced. For five years the couple got magazines, newspapers, and solicitations under the offensive fake names. It stopped during the pandemic, but when the neighbor tried to resume the harassment, he made a major mistake.

To find out the rest of the story, watch the video. But to clue you in - the entire situation simply shows how covert homophobia can be and how some of the most dangerous bigots are the ones who won't say stuff to your face.

It all sounds like something from one of those cable crime channels, minus the physical violence. And thank goodness the situation was taken care of before it came to that. I wouldn't be surprised if it would have. If you can spend five years surreptitiously harassing someone, whose to say that you won't take that last deadly step of violence?

'Virginia school district to appeal judge's decision reinstating anti-trans teacher' & other Wed midday news briefs

Virginia school district to appeal judge’s decision reinstating teacher who refused to use trans students’ pronouns - And I hope that the school district wins. 

Hungary's parliament passes anti-LGBTQ law ahead of 2022 election - Hungary is an awful place to be.

31 Unexpected Things That Made People Realize They Are Absolutely, Positively, Undeniably Not Straight - A little comedy never hurts. 

Opinion | Pride offers LGBTQ youth opportunities for community - Amen. 

Charles M. Blow on Bi Visibility and the Debt We Owe as Queer People - One of my favorite columnists. Does he have a Pulitzer yet?

Companies claiming to support Pride Month also support network which labels LGBTQ people as mentally ill and pedophiles

 

Thanks to Media Matters comes a video which should be required viewing, particularly during Pride Month. I love my LGBTQ brothers and sisters, but sometimes we have a tendency of thinking that if we ignore homophobes, they can't harm us. That's like saying if you ignore someone who is breaking into your house, he will go away. That doesn't happen, particularly when there is a revenue stream involved. And in this case, that stream has to do with companies which claim to celebrate Pride.

The right-wing conspiracy theory channel One America News regularly uses extreme anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, combating what it has called “militant LGBTQ recruitment” strategies. OAN’s baseless fearmongering about Drag Queen Story Hour, Demi Lovato’s gender identity, and transgender athletes, however, is being financially supported by cable companies and streaming services that claim to be celebrating LGBTQ people and Pride month. 

 Rather than relying on “advertising as a prime revenue source,” OAN reportedly relies on subscriber fees, also known as carriage fees, as its primary funding source. Verizon and DirecTV (and its parent company, AT&T) pay OAN subscriber fees in exchange for the network being available to their customers, whose subscription costs pay for OAN. While it’s difficult to quantify exactly how much revenue these cable contracts generate, Bloomberg previously reported that OAN “gets paid about 15 cents per subscriber by the companies.”

 OAN also generates revenue through subscriber fees via its streaming app, which charges its subscribers $4.99 per month and is available to download on Roku, Amazon Fire, Google Play, and Apple TV. In exchange for hosting OAN in their channel libraries, these companies reportedly take a percentage of that subscription fee. For example, according to Yahoo Finance and The Motley Fool, Roku takes 20% of subscription fees, and Apple TV takes 30% during the first year and 15% in subsequent years. 

These companies have all celebrated Pride month through statements and social media support, including Verizon, Amazon, Google, Apple, Roku, and DirecTv and its parent company AT&T. However, these companies also enable OAN to maintain a steady income, even though the network is in direct opposition to their corporate commitments to the LGBTQ community. What’s more, OAN’s hateful rhetoric adds fuel to the rising attacks on LGBTQ people, particularly trans people: Anti-trans violence in the U.S. has reached record high levels, hate crimes targeting LGBTQ people are on the rise, and state legislatures have proposed over 100 bills to restrict trans rights so far in 2021 alone.

You can read the full article at Media Matters here.

Seems to me that if these companies are serious about supporting Pride and LGBTQ people, they would correct this hypocrisy. One could easily play the "it's just this network's opinion" card. But subsidizing opinions seen in the video above - that LGBTQ people are mentally ill, sinners, pedophiles, etc  - shouldn't be the thing to do for companies who claim to support us. 

 

'Lesbian couple crowned prom queens after surprise win' & other Tue midday news briefs

Lesbian couple crowned prom queens after surprise win - Good for them! 

Dwyane Wade says daughter Zaya helped him become a better parent: 'It opened my eyes' - So many black fathers are out there supporting their LGBTQ children, but you hardly ever see it.

Nearly 1 in 5 young adults say they're not straight, global survey finds - Which spooks the religious right.

Wichita’s proposed nondiscrimination ordinance is so awful that no one wants it to pass - Well damn.

Michele Rayner-Goolsby Aims to Be Florida's 1st Out Person in Congress - Go on, gurl!

Hate group leader Tony Perkins gives tips for 'surviving' Pride Month. Please make fun of him.

 

Tony Perkins, head of the hate group Family Research Council has gall. That I will give him. According to Right-Wing Watch: 

“You can’t turn on the television, shop for cereal, or scroll through Facebook without being hit over the head with LGBT pride,” griped FRC President Tony Perkins. “Thanks to ‘woke’ corporate America and the most radical administration in history, there’s no escaping the left’s forced sexual revolution.”

 “How did we get to the point where celebrating sex and transgenderism became a 30-day event that rivals Christmas?” he continued. “We have a president who’s flying the rainbow flag above the U.S. flag at our embassies, a Democratic Congress that thinks the military should salute pride on base, and a White House that brags [that] almost 1 percent of its 1,500 appointees are LGBT. You can’t blame people for wondering: When did we become identified by our sexual proclivities? The world is upside down when American pride is something we should apologize, for but sexual perversion is the stuff of parades. Just a few decades ago, these activists said all they wanted was recognition, autonomy, coexistence. Now, a handful of years after Obergefell, it’s not enough to leave them alone with their choices; they demand validation, affirmation, celebration. Pride is the new religion, and everyone must bow a knee to their sexual gods or face the left’s fiery furnace.” 

If you have a strong stomach and a macabre sense of humor, you can see Perkins making this statement in the above video. You'll notice how he hits all of the talking points his side usually pushes when attacking LGBTQ people. Of course he attempts to link the LGBTQ orientation to sexual behavior. That pretty much falls flat in the first few seconds of the video, which merely shows people innocently enjoying Pride. In spite of Perkins's comments about about 'sexual proclivities, the most risque thing seen is probably a t-shirt of Bea Arthur.  It makes one wonder less about the Pride celebration and more about what lurid thoughts have parked themselves so deep into Perkins's mind that he only sees sexual acts when people are merely marching and waving flags. Maybe it was Bea Arthur which got him all hot and bothered.

Also, his nonsense about  'woke politics,' however is new. It's the latest talking point conservatives are using to make folks who support them believe that they are yet again under attack. They have been steadily repeating the word "woke" with a negative connotation in hopes that it will galvanize their voters by the time the 2022 mid-term elections roll around.

Then there is this part:

 Just a few decades ago, these activists said all they wanted was recognition, autonomy, coexistence. Now, a handful of years after Obergefell, it’s not enough to leave them alone with their choices; they demand validation, affirmation, celebration.

There is just one problem with Perkins' claim. His side has been saying that for years. It's a lie they've been pushing since before the internet, since before dancers began wearing jheri curls on Soul Train. It's a centerpiece of their "radical homosexual" narrative and goes like this:

Supposedly at first,  LGBTQ people said that we want 'tolerance' and 'acceptance' but what we are really trying to do is  "drive our lifestyle down people's throats" because we demand approval and sanction.

Please bear in mind that Perkins and company (and their supporters) spin that narrative every time LGBTQ people go out publicly on dates, talk about our families, demand respect for ourselves, or do anything else (no matter how significant or insignificant) which ruins the false notion that we are sad, lonely, oversexed, diseased, bitter people who cannot have decent lives so all we do is have sex, sex, sex (in between the recruiting of children and the attempts to harm Christians. How DO we find the time?)

Now that we've heard from the peanut gallery about Pride Month, here is my advice. Enjoy it. Have fun. Make new friends, Educate yourself. And above all, love yourself.

I also had some advice for Perkins.  But telling him where he can kiss me sounds more like a treat and less like a rebuke. 

'Bi Trump Guy' arrested for scamming thousands from MAGA supporters' & other Mon midday news briefs

Bisexual man who duped Donald Trump gets arrested for scamming thousands from his base - Whoops! Somebody got caught. 

Kamala Harris Becomes First Sitting V.P. to March in Pride Event - Elections matter, folks. 

Ottawa Redblacks suspend player over allegations of involvement in aggravated assault in which homophobic slurs were used - This fool gotta go! 

North Dakota Finds Novel Way to Ban Most Conversion Therapy - Firestorm on the way . . . 

Why isn’t there a remedy for LGBTQ veterans that lost their pride – and benefits? - That's a good question.

Database charts 259 LGBTQ characters which have existed in children's animated programs

 

The online publication The Insider has created an engrossing database which tracks the presence of 259 LGBTQ and gender minority characters in children's animated programs from the 1950s until now.

From early Bugs Bunny to Disney villains like Ursula in “The Little Mermaid,” queer culture and gender transgression have always been present in animation. Historically, that inclusion has been illustrated through subtextual representation, leaving viewers to extract what they will — or won’t — from coded characters and storylines. But in the past decade, small-screen animation has undergone a noticeable shift. Representation in children’s cartoons in particular has increased in frequency, nuance, and overtness.

Establishing a specific criteria, characters and the programs which comprise The Insider's database range from the obvious:

To who the heck is this:

Announcing a list such as this generated a small, but vocal controversy. On Twitter, several people voiced the usual nonsense about children being "indoctrinated," and the equally popular "why are they exposing children to this?" which is always followed by "I don't have a problem with gay people, but why are they pushing this on children." And lastly some form of the inane refrain of "let kids be kids."

But I've discovered the funniest thing about these moral squad crusaders. When you let them expend their energy on their hysterical overtures and then simply ask them what is the wrong with LGBTQ characters in children's animation, you will find that either they can't cite a specific problem or they cling to the silly belief that LGBTQ people simply existing is a risque issue. And God forbid if you bring up the existence of LGBTQ families and their children and how these animated programs are doing nothing more than reflecting a simple and innocent reality.

Strange, isn't it? Almost as if their ignorance and dehumanization of us, our families, and children is intentional. It's almost as if it's not enough for them to have silly and dated ideas of LGBTQ people. They want to force those beliefs on the rest of us even though we know better.