We will miss Julian Bond

Saturday night, a wonderful man and a legendary activist passed away.

Civil rights legend Julian Bond went home to his reward at the age of 75 after a lifetime of activism and standing up for justice.

The following video gives a wonderful view into his life:

There were so many things to admire about Julian Bond. However for me, it was the fact that he wasn't just an ally of the lgbt community, he was the epitome of a perfect ally. He never allowed himself to be dragged into the black vs. gay quagmire of nonsense. Rather, he spoke about the commonality of dignity, respect, and the right of self-determination which both communities strive for and are entitled to:

'Senate confirms first openly gay black federal judge' & other Mon midday news briefs

Judge Darrin Gayles makes LGBT, Black history.

Editor's note - It turns out the item I posted on Judge Gayles took place last year. I'm still going to keep it up. Even us bloggers are allowed to make mistakes every now and then.


Florida’s attorney general won’t pay legal fees after losing fight against same-sex marriage - So FL Attorney General Pam Bond thinks the state doesn't have to reimburse the lawyers who represented gay couples in the state's losing case against marriage equality. Humph! She gonna learn today. 

US Senate unanimously confirms first openly gay black federal judge - Another milestone for lgbts of color, which I WILL be referring to during Black History and LGBT History months.

 Detroit Police Plan LGBT Outreach After Another Trans Murder Victim Is Identified - This needs to happen and not just in Detroit and definitely NOT after murders.

Flashback - Chairman of anti-gay KY clerk's counsel allegedly lied to Congress in 2014 - This morning's post. It must nice be able to lie to Congress, get away with it, and STILL have a degree of credibility as a moral, religious organization.
 
 How An Alaska Lawmaker Is Trying To Sneak Anti-LGBT Discrimination Into The Law - Just try us, fool. 

Flashback - Chairman of anti-gay KY clerk's counsel allegedly lied to Congress in 2014

Editor's note - This is a 2014 post but it bears repeating in light of the fact that the Liberty Counsel has taken a leading voice in the false argument of "religious liberty," particularly in the case of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis. The Liberty Counsel claims that it is in defense of "religious liberty" that it is advising Davis to ignore a federal judge's ruling to give out marriage licenses to gay couples. But, just like the post I published Friday, this post proves that the Liberty Counsel's motivations is less about "religious liberty" and more about the petty undermining of the legal practice of same-sex marriage in a malicious attempt to deny gay citizens their rights and deny the entire lgbt community their dignity. The fact that this revelation hardly got any hype last year only goes to prove how the media is derelict in exposing those who push anti-gay propaganda in the name of religion. If an lgbt organization had been in the center of the controversy below, Congress would have probably still be having "investigations:"

June 11, 2014

Mat Staver

It seems that Liberty University's Mat Staver's recent testimony in front of a Congressional committee has become more than he bargained for.  The online publication Raw Story is now asking did he tell the committee a lie:

At a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, the head of a conservative legal group may have misled the committee when he said that he does not support the implementation of Russian-style anti-gay laws in the United States.

On Tuesday, the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice held a hearing on “The State of Religious Liberty in the United States” to study the rise of “religious freedom” laws in some U.S. states, under which people of faith cannot be compelled to perform their jobs or provide goods and services if to do so would conflict with their personal beliefs.

 . . .  Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) asked Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel, “There are certain antigay laws they have in Russia. You, I believe, have advocated for something similar to that, have you not? Do you support the Russian antigay laws?”

Staver replied, ”What I am concerned about is having people of Christian, uh, Judeo-Christian beliefs be forced to participate in a ceremony or an event that celebrates something that is contrary to their religious beliefs.”

“Okay,” said Cohen, “so you’re not in favor of the Russian antigay laws and what I read was wrong?”

“I don’t know what you read,” Staver said. “I haven’t spoken on the Russian laws.”

 However, Right Wing Watch reported in January that Staver and the Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber both voiced their support for anti-LGBT laws like those in Russia, Uganda and Nigeria during an edition of their “Faith and Freedom” radio show.

 That would be this below:

Transcript: 

Staver: President Obama has been going in a direction to really deconstruct this and to create this idea of same-sex marriage, which is really an oxymoron. But, at the same time, the rest of the world seems to be going exactly opposite of the president and some of the states.

Barber: Yeah, and it's encouraging to see what's happening around the world. I think many nations, you think of Russia, you think of some of the African nations around the world, are looking to a liberalized Europe and are looking to the United States under this Obama Administration and they're rejecting this notion that you can take the institution of marriage and radically redefine it by sanctifying what every major world religion and thousands of years of history and uncompromising human biology have long held: that homosexual behavior and conduct is both immoral, unnatural and self-destructive to the individuals engaged in the behavior and that you don't have a marriage built upon this immoral behavior. ...

Staver: Well, it seems as though, if people are having AIDS and most of that, as the CDC comes down and says, it is transmitted by male homosexuality, by and large, what are you going to do? Are you going to say, are you going to elevate that to a preferred status and say, well yeah, men ought to be able to marry men? That's an oxymoron. What Nigeria has done by reaffirming marriage as between one man and one woman is what a number of countries are doing around the world. They're reaffirming marriage as one man and one woman. Russia is one of those countries recently that did that. Latin American countries have reaffirmed marriage as one man and one woman. Then other countries around the world are reaffirming marriage as one man and one woman and rejecting this radicalized homosexual agenda. ...

Barber: This is a very dangerous lifestyle that countries like Russia are, in addition to reestablishing and saying no, marriage is what it's always been, they're saying additionally we are going to stop this homosexual activist propaganda from corrupting children in our nation and we need to see that right here in the United States. 

Feel free to draw your own conclusions. MY conclusion is simple. Liberty Counsel head Mat Staver lied to Congress in June of last year when he said he had not spoken in favor of Russian anti-gay laws.

And it leads me to again advise the lgbt community, our leaders, allies, etc to stop devoting so much attention to Kim Davis that we ignore who is pulling her strings. She is nothing but a puppet, to be used and discarded when she no longer serves the needs of the Liberty Counsel.

This argument of preserving religious liberty is nothing more than a homophobic dodge by the Liberty Counsel and the anti-gay right in general. It's yet another angle in their war on lgbt equality and dignity.

'Glenn Beck wants to stop Texas county schools from banning anti-gay discrimination' & other Fri. midday news briefs

Glenn Beck

 
Glenn Beck wants to stop Texas county schools from banning anti-LGBT discrimination - Glenn Beck is making personal steps to stop Texas schools from protecting lgbts from discrimination and he is inviting his followers to join him. OH GOD!  

Priest tells kids: Gays having anal sex same as ‘cramming a bagel in your ear’ - If folks are concerned about children learning about sex too early, they should stop bothering gay folks and keep people like this priest away from children.  

Kentucky clerk's 'Christian' counsel was named anti-gay hate group - Post from this morning. Highly important. Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who is defying a judge's order to issue licenses to married couples is being represented by an anti-gay hate group. Religious liberty my tuckus!

Colorado appeals court backs gay couple in wedding cake dispute - Just in case you didn't hear, the false argument of "religious liberty" failed again. 

 STUDY: Houston Media Help Misrepresent Equal Rights Ordinance - Because talking about "men in women's restrooms" is a HOT angle no matter how false it is. 

 Dobson's Dire Warning: Gay Marriage Ruling Will Destroy Christianity And America - Yes, Mr. Dobson. Tell us for the one-trillionth time how marriage equality is a plot to recruit churches, put children into jail and destroy . . I mean recruit children, put Christians in jail, and destroy the church. It's not like you haven't said that SO MANY TIMES BEFORE.

Kentucky clerk's 'Christian' counsel was named anti-gay hate group

Tweet sent out by Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber

Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who defied a federal judge's order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and her defenders would have you to believe that her case is one of religious liberty, i.e. someone being forced to act in direct opposite of their religious beliefs.

However that is a lie on two counts. First of all, Davis is an elected official.  She has sworn to do her duties in accordance to the law. And the law says that gay couples can legally marry.

Secondly, when one looks at the organization defending her and advising her to defy the judge's orders, the Liberty Counsel, one can easily determine that this is not a case of religious liberty, but one of homophobia.  The Liberty Counsel claims to be an  "international nonprofit litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family . . ."

However,  the Southern Poverty Law Center  considers the Liberty Counsel to be an active anti-gay hate group because of the organization's history of denigrating the lgbt community via lies and distortions (such as the above tweet by Liberty Counsel employee Matt Barber).

SPLC also said:

The Counsel also has been active in battling same-sex marriage, saying it would destroy the “bedrock of society.” In 2005, the group’s blog said: “People who … support the radical homosexual agenda will not rest until marriage has become completely devalued. Children will suffer most from this debauchery.” A 2007 blog posting said same-sex marriage would “severely impact future generations.”

Mat Staver

The lgbt group GLAAD has tracked the Liberty Counsel and its employees, particularly it's chairman, Mat Staver. According to the group, Staver has made many eyebrow-raising statements about marriage equality and the lgbt community in general, including

claiming that LGBT advocates are doing "the bidding of the devil"

claiming that negotiating with what he calls 'homofascists' (i.e. advocacy groups like GLAAD) is 'almost like negotiating with terrorists

suggesting marriage equality should lead opponents to rise up and fight “another American Revolution.”

claiming that children with gay parents will end up “behind bars for committing violent crimes.” (0:00 - 0:56)

Matt Barber

GLAAD also called Matt Barber (who sent out the above tweet) one of the Liberty Counsel's most visible spokespeople.  Barber has:

said that gay male relationships constitute "one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it ‘love’”

called same-sex marriage: "Fake 'gay marriage' is fake 'consummated' through squalid & feculent abuse of the reproductive & digestive systems"

has called President Barack Obama an "anti-American" "enemy" who is "determined to destroy America"

What's going on here is clear. Ms. Davis is allowing herself to be used by a group who has an absolute hatred for the lgbt community. This group (the Liberty Counsel) is advising her to continue to not follow a judge's order probably in hopes that she be found in contempt and jailed. They will then work  to make Davis into some sort of martyr of "religious freedom."

The sad truth is that Davis is not a martyr. She is a pawn, not just of the Liberty Counsel, but of her own hubris. She seems to be aware of the so-called Biblical verses against homosexuality, but she should really familiarize herself with the one about pride going before a fall.

Because she is heading for one and the Liberty Counsel's not there to cushion her blow. They are there to make the fall as hard as possible. The better for them to get more press, more money, and direct more animus towards the lgbt community.

America, God has divorced you for having a gay affair

According to anti-gay activist Rick Wiles, God is treating America like a man who forgives his wife for many heterosexual affairs, but finds himself unable to forgive her for having a gay affair. I kid you not.

 Transcript:

 "America has dealt treacherously with me as a treacherous wife. And He said, ‘She wants what’s beautiful and good and then she began to commit adultery with other men and I forgave her, and she did it again and I forgave her, and she did it again and I forgave her, and she did it again and I forgave her. But now she’s committing homosexual sex with another woman and I cannot look at her anymore. He said, ‘I can’t even look at her, she’s not my wife anymore. The divorce is final.’ He told me that on the day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, God went to court too and he got a divorce.”

Well I really don't think I can add anything to that except one question - who gets the children?

'Kentucky clerk defies judge, refuses to give marriage license to gay couple' & other Thur midday news briefs

Kim Davis

Kentucky Clerk Defies Federal Judge's Order, Refuses To Issue Marriage License To Gay Couple - An update on yesterday's post. Rowan County clerk of court (Kentucky) Kim Davis is still refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples even after a judge's ruling. She is appealing yesterday's ruling and asking for a stay of the injunction. AND here comes to boom - just hours after a judge ordered her to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, her office turned away a gay couple asking for one. Apparently her counsel at the anti-gay Liberty Counsel is advising her to not comply. Word to the wise for the anti-gay right who may attempt to use Davis as a cause celebre. I've read many comment sections regarding this case and the vast majority of folks are not on Davis's side, simply because this is not a matter of victimization but a stubborn government official who wants to discriminate AND be paid for it. If the anti-gay right attempts to exploit this situation, it has the potential of wrecking their entire argument of "religious liberty." 

Kentucky High School Allegedly Omits Gay Basketball Player From The Yearbook - Kentucky is simply batting a 1,000 today. How dare the school treats a child like this!  

Chelsea Manning may face solitary confinement for having Jenner Vanity Fair issue - This is a big load of crap. So she is in jail, that doesn't mean she gets treated like an animal.

 Staver: Gay Juvenile Offenders Were Probably Sexually Abused, Which Is Why They Need Christian Counseling - Uh no. The Liberty Counsel seems to have all of its hands in icky pies. They won't win this one either. LGBT juvenile offenders do not need some fool coming in tell them that they are sinners.  

On Fox, Rev. Franklin Graham Calls For Boycott Of Target Over Removing Gender Labels From Some Children's Products - Franklin Graham is swiftly becoming a demagogic clone of his father, who was NO demagogue.