Don't let the right fool you with their false narratives about fired up parents supposedly being solely on their side. LGBTQ kids have parents too and they don't need any astroturfed groups to manufacture the fire for them. They bring their own, like this mother recently did in front of the Wilson School Board in Tennessee as she defended not only her child, but other LGBTQ students, from bigoted school board policies.
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| South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is having problems. And she deserves those problems. |
It has always been a grift. From The Daily Beast by the way of JoeMyGod:
After Bud Light’s brief partnership with a transgender influencer sparked right-wing outrage, Kid Rock established himself as one of the brand’s strongest critics. But CNN’s recent visit to his signature bar in Nashville— Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk & Rock ‘n’ Roll Steakhouse—told a different story. “Despite the online bravado, and talk of a boycott, Bud Light was available when CNN stopped in recently,” CNN reporter Ryan Young said in a segment that aired Tuesday morning. “It is not clear if the ban had been lifted or if there ever had been one to begin with.” The visit by CNN comes after some patrons had posted on social media about spotting Bud Light at the bar. After Bud Light sent free beer to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, Kid Rock filmed himself shooting up a case of the iconic beer.
This really isn't a new development. Newsweek reported the same thing last week:
Despite his vocal opposition to Bud Light, Kid Rock's Tennessee bar is still selling the beer, according to a Newsweek source. Kid Rock was one of the first to publicly dismiss Bud Light and its parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev, filming a video of himself shooting crates of the drink with an assault rifle after the brand sent transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney a personalized beer can.
This reaction made it surprising to some when it was claimed in June that the Kid Rock's Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N' Roll Steakhouse was still selling Bud Light. another social media user seemed to dismiss this with a viral video, saying it wasn't sold there, but a source has come forward to Newsweek, showing pictures of Bud Light being sold and drunk at Kid Rock's establishment.
And that article made reference to a June tweet proving the same thing:
In other words, this is hardly a new or shocking development. If anything, it underscores just how lazy and overpaid some members of the American media are. Most likely very few will note this stunning degree of hypocrisy because the Bud Light controversy has run its course. It's no longer a hot item for the media to waste time with frivolous debates about the trans community (but talking to very few members of the trans community) while convincing themselves that they doing hard hitting work.
Cut them some slack. They're practically bending over backwards to justify to themselves the embarrassingly large paychecks they receive year after year. The real shame is that this newest revelation would create a fruitful discussion about how people can easily be manipulated into a frenzy over something as irrelevant as a little beer campaign featuring a transgender woman. And also about how it has led to more vilification against trans Americans.
But I doubt anyone is going to talk about that.
The only person who probably gained from all of this this is Kid Rock. He got an obscenely large amount of attention by helping to usher a boycott against a beer which he continued to sell during said boycott. He's probably laughing at all of the trouble he caused.
Then again, knowing Kid Rock, he's probably doing this to us all:
A victory in Wisconsin underscores just how ugly attacks against the trans community are.
From NBC News:
A federal judge has blocked a Wisconsin school district from requiring transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match the sex they were assigned at birth while a lawsuit plays out against the school. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman said Thursday that the Mukwonago Area School District must allow a transgender student to use facilities that align with their gender identity, temporarily blocking a policy approved last month by the school board, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
The order comes in a lawsuit brought anonymously by an 11-year-old transgender student and her mother. The judge ruled that the school’s policy was causing emotional and mental harm to the student, who was described as a boy at birth but has identified as a girl since she was three years old.
It's an 11-year-old child. Why is a policy attempting to force her to use the boys' bathroom necessary? Who is she hurting? From the way some people behave about this sort of thing, one would thing she was doing something other than normal bodily functions. Headlines from far-right publication prove that point by attempting to paint a lurid picture:
Clinton-Appointed Liberal Judge Rules Wisconsin School Must Let Trans-Identifying Biological Male Students Use Girls’ RestroomThe judge’s decision blocks the district from keeping the 11-year-old boy out of the girls’ bathroom. The temporary restraining order states that the boy has been using the girls’ bathroom since he was in third grade and is entering sixth grade. The boy is reportedly currently attending summer school and was told by school district staff that he must use either the boys’ bathroom or a gender-neutral option. The restraining order also says the boy is suffering “emotional and mental harms” due to the bathroom policy.
Saturday's ridiculous ruling by federal court ruling that Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for trans kids can temporarily go into effect was an anomaly. According to NBC News, a majority of the recent laws passed to undermine LGBTQ rights have been falling in courts.
A record number of bills aimed at restricting the rights of LGBTQ people have become law in the past three years, but the majority of those that have faced legal challenges haven’t held up in court, according to an NBC News analysis, legal experts and the American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed legal challenges against some of the laws.Of the 20 states that have passed into law restrictions on transition-related care for transgender minors, 11 have faced lawsuits. Five — Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky and Florida — have had their restrictions completely or partially blocked by federal judges who ruled they violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Oklahoma’s has been iced by a legal agreement while litigation continues.Tennessee’s care restriction was temporarily blocked by a federal court last month, but an appeals court lifted the injunction Friday, marking a rare loss in a series of legal victories for advocates fighting against transgender bans. The four other lawsuits over similar restrictions in Georgia, Idaho, Montana and Nebraska are still pending . . .
Twenty-two states have passed laws that bar transgender student athletes from participating on school sports teams that align with their gender identities, and judges last year temporarily blocked three of those in Idaho, West Virginia and Utah pending the outcome of litigation, according to the Movement Advancement Project. A federal judge in Montana also permanently struck down the state’s ban on transgender women playing on collegiate sports teams in September.Laws that explicitly restrict drag shows have been passed in two states, Montana and Tennessee, though an additional four states — Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota and Texas — passed laws that regulate “adult” performances, which LGBTQ advocates say could be used to target drag performers. Last month, federal judges declared Tennessee’s restriction unconstitutional and temporarily blocked Florida’s. Three Montanans sued the state Friday over its drag-restriction law.Paul Smith, who successfully argued the 2003 landmark Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, which found the U.S.’s remaining sodomy laws unconstitutional, said the repeated victories for LGBTQ people and advocates are “a sign that these laws are mostly being thought up based on their appeal to a certain frenzied group of people in the country who were very excited about picking on LGBTQ people right now, not based on their legal merits and sustainability.
The legal experts interviewed by NBC News were split on which of the cases could make it to the Supreme Court, but most of them agreed that drag restrictions would be the least likely to hold up, and that it would be harder to predict how the court would rule on transition-related care restrictions.Craig Konnoth, a University of Virginia law professor who previously served as a deputy solicitor general with the California Department of Justice, said the drag ban cases in particular have “a pretty good chance of continuing to win, even if it goes up to the Supreme Court.”“I think that with respect to health care decisions, after Dobbs, I am hesitant to say anything about the right of individuals to be able to access health care,” he said, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion.
This latest Ron DeSantis ad - brought to Twitter by his wife Casey - exudes desperation because he can't seen to catch up to Trump in the polls. The fact that his wife is taking the lead on this ad is significant. Apparently, he can't get shit together so she's taking the lead position. And it seems Mrs. DeSantis is just as disastrous as her husband. I would describe this ad as the physical version of throwing sh!t at the wall and hoping some of it sticks. In this case, it's just about 'anti-woke' narrative we've been hearing lately. Except for the drag queens. I can't believe it omitted the drag queens.
We will not allow you to exploit the innocence of our children to advance your agenda.
— Casey DeSantis (@CaseyDeSantis) July 6, 2023
When you come after our kids, we fight back.
We are no longer silent.
We are united.
We are Mamas for DeSantis.
...and we will elect @RonDeSantis President of the United States.
Join our… pic.twitter.com/jo6HUATaVa
The ad, which is supposed to be launching some silly endeavor called Mamas for DeSantis, is being justifiably condemned as some QAnon type of trash.
Several journalists and political experts blasted the "bizarre" ad. Kimberly Leonard, politics correspondent for Business Insider said, "This video reveals something I've emphasized for a while: The DeSantises are in lockstep. She is fully engaged and supportive in her husband's political rise, and when it comes to policy they agree."
MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan wrote, "Imagine thinking in 2023 that the threat to our kids is from…masking in a pandemic? The actual threat to our kids, missing from this video, are mass shooters in schools, who are able to exist of course with the support of GOP gun laws."
Former President Barack Obama staffer Tommy Vietor commented, "A couple weeks ago, the DeSantis campaign was pitching stories about how his wife was the secret weapon to help sand off his weird, rough edges. Now she's releasing insane agitprop videos. Bizarre choice!"
Peter Schorsch, publisher of Florida Politics, added, "The more it becomes clear @RonDeSantis will not win in 2024, the more you’ll see them position @CaseyDeSantis for 2026." Deputy Political Editor at Courier Newsroom Keya Vakil, wrote, "This is utterly indistinguishable from QAnon."
No doubt, the only success this ad will probably have is dredging up the Lady MacBeth vibes about Mrs. DeSantis that the campaign thought it killed a few months ago.
Meanwhile, this is 0-2 for DeSantis in the ad department. The first ad, from his 'war room' attacking Trump and the LGBTQ community got called out for its bizarre violent, homoerotic undertones. It also started an ugly, but highly pleasurable to watch, feud amongst gay Republicans
God help us all if this man somehow does become President. He's really NOT good at any of this.To wrap up “Pride Month,” let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it…
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) June 30, 2023
pic.twitter.com/FT7LdW4vls
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| Florida Governor Ron DeSantis |
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| Gays Against Groomers is in the middle of an ugly feud to an anti-LGBTQ ad by DeSantis campaign |
It looks like DeSantis' so-called "war on woke" has claimed a scalp, so to speak. But not one which he hoped for:
For the initiated, David Leatherwood is one of the founders of the group Gays Against Groomers (GAG). This group claims made up of gays and lesbians supposedly fed up with "left-wing" members of the community and supporters of "trans ideology" going after kids.
In reality, according to The Advocate:
GAG is not a grassroots initiative but a right-wing project seeking to gain political and financial advantage by using anti-trans rhetoric, according to the left-leaning media watchdog. GAG was formed last year “to protect the kids” from “sexualization, indoctrination, and medicalization,” Michell claims, and it has gained prestige in right-wing circles along with Chaiya Raichik’s Libs of TikTok, which also attacks the LGBTQ+ community. Both have promoted the use of the anti-LGBTQ+ slur “groomer.”So what got Leatherwood upset?
LGBTQ conservatives, reacting to the video, said DeSantis had shown his true colors as an “anti-LGBT champion,” undermining his arguments that his support for the policies were about protecting children and parents’ rights.“It’s like he’s going mask off,” said Brad Polumbo, a Michigan-based libertarian journalist. “The cat’s out of the bag.” Polumbo said he’d have considered voting for DeSantis at one time. “I’m somebody who has my fair share of policy disagreements with DeSantis, but I was considering voting for him in the primary before he entered the race officially,” he said. “Since then, he’s done thing after thing that really makes me increasingly write off that possibility.”Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who has endorsed Trump for president but vocally supported Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill on the campaign trail last year, said that in light of Friday’s video, he now feels that he was “used” and misled by DeSantis. “I used to think he was a great governor,” Santos, the first non-incumbent gay Republican elected to Congress, said of DeSantis. “Now, I’m starting to think differently.”
Important context as a Gays Against Groomers founder quits over allegations that cofounder Jaimee Michelle is on the DeSantis payroll: more than 23 members of the org have quit recently, including the Director of Operations, Director of Chapters, and NY Chapter leader. https://t.co/7f5KPREAu4 pic.twitter.com/UVYfMkTuxm
— Ari Drennen (@AriDrennen) July 5, 2023
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| Transportation Secretary Pet Buttigieg |
From Mediaite:
Log Cabin Republicans, the largest LGBT Republican organization in the U.S., condemned Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis after his campaign posted an ad attacking former President Donald Trump’s connections to the LGBT community. The bizarre ad, which was posted by the DeSantis War Room to Twitter on Friday, attacked Trump by playing a 2016 clip of him saying, “I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.”
Trump made the comments following the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, which left 49 people dead. The ad also showed clips of Trump with transgender Republican Caitlyn Jenner, before boastfully displaying a string of headlines that referenced DeSantis’ “draconian” and “evil” anti-LGBT policies.
“Today’s message from the DeSantis campaign War Room is divisive and desperate,” the Log Cabin Republicans said in a statement. “Republicans and other commonsense conservatives know Ron Desantis [sic] has alienated swing-state and younger voters.” The organization said that while “conservatives understand that we need to protect our kids, preserve women’s sports, safeguard women’s spaces and strengthen parental rights,” DeSantis’ “extreme rhetoric has just ventured into homophobic territory.”
. . .Charles T. Moran, the national president of the group, also condemned DeSantis in his own post.“You could have gone after radical queers, @RonDeSantis – but instead you went after the ones who win the @GOP votes and get Republicans elected. People like me,” he wrote. “Wrong fight to pick, bud.”
The ad in question is below:
To wrap up “Pride Month,” let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it…
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) June 30, 2023
pic.twitter.com/FT7LdW4vls
The founder of Gays Against Groomers, Jaimee Michell, and her partners are former ultra-MAGA Trump followers who spread anti-transgender propaganda with QAnon conspiracy theories and links to extremist militias, according to a Media Matters for America investigation published last week. In response to accusations that it spreads homophobia and transphobia, GAG claims that, as a “coalition of gay people,” it and its members cannot possibly spread anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda.Furthermore, they claim that any attack on the group is homophobic. However, GAG is not a grassroots initiative but a right-wing project seeking to gain political and financial advantage by using anti-trans rhetoric, according to the left-leaning media watchdog. GAG was formed last year “to protect the kids” from “sexualization, indoctrination, and medicalization,” Michell claims, and it has gained prestige in right-wing circles along with Chaiya Raichik’s Libs of TikTok, which also attacks the LGBTQ+ community. Both have promoted the use of the anti-LGBTQ+ slur “groomer.”. . . Leatherwood began receiving attention for right-wing troll behavior online. Like Michell, he has ties to the “Stop the Steal” movement. On December 14, 2020, he spoke at an event hosted by Roger Stone. Also like Michell, Leatherwood celebrated the January 6 insurrection, praising the violent rioters, according to Media Matters.
Editor's note - Friday's Supreme Court ruling concerning 303 Creative v. Elenis was a travesty simply for the fact that it was not an actual situation and being so, the plaintiff had no standing to pursue a lawsuit. But since we're at this point, the important thing is to get a clear view of where we stand. A lot of folks have been freaking out, so I am relying on Lambda Legal to give a clear view of what happened and where do we go from here. (I highlighted some points which I think folks NEED to know)
The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled in favor of a Colorado website design business – 303 Creative – which claimed the owner’s business involves “expression” and is therefore entitled to an exemption from the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) so that she can discriminate against same-sex couples when designing and selling wedding websites. In its ruling, the Court found this particular business engaged in “speech for pay” by creating customized websites for carefully vetted clients using the owner’s original artwork and language. That uniquely creative expression is protected by the First Amendment from being “compelled” by state law when contrary to messages the artist wishes to express.Lambda Legal Chief Legal Officer Jennifer C. Pizer issued the following statement:“Unlike yesterday’s affirmative action travesty, today’s smug attack on civil rights law will have limited practical impact in the marketplace because few commercial services involve original artwork and pure speech offered as limited commissions. But today’s narrow decision does continue the Court majority’s dangerous siren call to those trying to return the country to the social and legal norms of the Nineteenth Century because it jettisons without even acknowledging what was part of the legal test for decades.“Although misguided, today’s decision depends on its limited, uncommon facts – this business owner takes specific commissions, unlike most commercial enterprises that solicit customers widely, and she creates unique artwork for those selected customers. Importantly, the decision also confirms that all forms of discrimination forbidden by Colorado’s law are subjected to the same constitutional standard, and that such laws serve compelling public purposes.“Still, it is impossible to overlook the fact that this extreme Court majority yet again has set aside decades of sensible precedent that previously required that objective observers of commercial conduct would need to understand that any message conveyed by a commercially available service was that of the business owner rather than that of the customer. Given the uniquely creative service at issue here, the impact is likely to be minimal. But the door has been opened for potential future cases to expand this limited carve-out. We will be vigilant against that possibility.”
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| Ron DeSantis |
I told folks a while back when these awful anti-trans bills were being passed that the courtroom is totally different from legislative chambers. In legislative chambers, the ending is mostly pre-determined. You can basically pass any type of junk. But the courtroom is still a place where you have to defend your sh!t. And it looks like those who pushed for these anti-trans bills are having a real problem in that area.
First, there is Kentucky.
From The Associated Press:
A federal judge temporarily blocked Kentucky’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youths on Wednesday, taking the action shortly before the measure was set to take effect. In issuing the preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge David Hale sided with seven transgender minors and their parents, who sued the state officials responsible for enforcing the provisions banning the use of puberty blockers and hormones. “Justice is served today as the most egregious parts of Kentucky’s anti-trans law are struck down by a federal judge,” said Chris Hartman, executive director of the Fairness Campaign, a Kentucky-based LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
. . . In their lawsuit, the Kentucky plaintiffs claim that the prohibition interferes with parental rights to seek established medical treatment for their children. The plaintiffs requested a preliminary injunction to prevent the disputed portion of the law from taking effect on Thursday. In his order, Hale concluded that the plaintiffs showed “a strong likelihood of success on the merits” of their constitutional challenges to the contested portion of the measure. In his order, the judge said that if the disputed sections were allowed to take effect, they would “eliminate treatments that have already significantly benefited six of the seven minor plaintiffs and prevent other transgender children from accessing these beneficial treatments in the future.”
A federal judge has blocked enforcement of a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming healthcare care for trans youth up to age 18 while several families’ legal challenge against the law proceeds in court. United States District Court Judge Eli Richardson in his sixty-nine page ruling granted the request for a preliminary injunction against the law, SB1, in a lawsuit brought by Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville and their 15-year-old daughter, as well as two other anonymous families and Dr. Susan N. Lacy. The law would prohibit medical providers from providing gender-affirming health care to transgender youth and would require trans youth currently receiving gender-affirming care to end that care within nine months of the law’s effective date of July 1, 2023, or by March 31, 2024.Richardson wrote in his conclusion: “The Court realizes that today’s decision will likely stoke the already controversial fire regarding the rights of transgender individuals in American society on the one hand, and the countervailing power of states to control certain activities within their borders and to use that power to protect minors. The Court, however, does not stand alone in its decision.As repeatedly emphasized above, several federal courts across the country have been confronted with laws that mirror SB1 in material respects. To the Court’s knowledge, every court to consider preliminarily enjoining a ban on gender-affirming care for minors has found that such a ban is likely unconstitutional. And at least one federal court has found such a ban to be unconstitutional at final judgment.”
Tennessee’s is the fourth ban on gender-affirming care blocked by a federal court following similar rulings in Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida, and Kentucky. The ACLU and the ACLU of Oklahoma secured a binding non-enforcement agreement with the Attorney General of Oklahoma preventing enforcement of that state’s ban in May 2023. On June 16, 2023, the ACLU and the ACLU of Indiana were granted a preliminary injunction in a legal challenge against Indiana’s ban on gender-affirming care. In June 2023, a federal judge in Arkansas struck down that state’s ban in a permanent injunction, the first court ruling on the merits regarding a ban on gender-affirming care.
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| Bigot spread a digitally altered photo of gay CA legislator Scott Wiener to make it seem as if he approves of sexually grooming children. |
I've said it once and I will say it again - once the anti-LGBTQ industry finds a good lie, they will continuously repeat it no matter how many times it has been refuted.
An recent incident involving an openly gay California state legislator Scott Wiener proves this point. Check out the tweet below.
A California State Senator, Destrict 11, Scott Wiener has a bill he has introduced. “Among other allowances, it authorizes courts to “take temporary jurisdiction” of a child if they have “been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care.” pic.twitter.com/Oc0HPheJAU
— Scott Mason (@hypnoksa) June 25, 2023
As more & more states ban books & drag queens, we’re celebrating both at San Francisco Public Library’s #NightOfIdeas. pic.twitter.com/i4pk9Qxdix
— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) March 5, 2023
Erik Mebust, communications director for Wiener, told Reuters via email that the recently shared altered photo originates from a March 4 tweet by Wiener, which shows an identical background and apparel In his original photo posted in March, Wiener is holding a book with a yellow cover titled, “Gender Pioneers." The photo was taken at the San Francisco Public Library’s “Celebration: Night of Ideas” event, held on March 4. Mebust said the circulating photo is “digitally altered” and an attempt to “use the Senator’s strong stances on LGBT youth rights to incite hate against the entire LGBT community.”
Let's waltz into this last week of Pride with smiles and laughter courtesy of Randy Rainbow. With a hilarious parody of the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," Randy Rainbow blisters Donald Trump and his recent indictment.
