Boycott Target movement just entered the silly season

I don't care what public front they may put up, I am guessing creators of the Boycott Target movement, the anti-lgbt group the American Family Association, aren't exactly happy right now.

From The Huffington Post:

The ongoing right-wing backlash over Target’s pledge to allow transgender patrons and staff members to use the restrooms which correspond with their gender identity isn’t dying down anytime soon. Faith2Action, a group which calls itself a “pro-active launching pad for the pro-family movement,” now hopes to go a step further by organizing a “Don’t Target Our Daughters Day” protest just four days before the retail giant’s shareholders meeting on June 8. Organizers want to designate Saturday, June 4 to be a “moment to stand together” and warn shoppers about Target’s policy allowing “predators and sex offenders” into women’s restrooms and fitting rooms by protesting outside stores.

You'll notice that Faith2Action says nothing about "our sons" being "targeted." That of course is deliberate because the group is a throwback to the days when anti-lgbt groups used shocking, albeit false, videos to demonize the lgbt community. Videos like the following which announces this event:

Now I know you are asking who would make such an insane video like this.

'When the 'moral right' attacked a transgender kindergartner' & other Mon midday news briefs

Special look - The main thing fueling this hysteria over transgender men, women, and children is how the right is presenting the issue. I took two articles from late April to demonstrate what I mean. They both involve a five-year-old transgender child. One is from the Federalist, a publication affiliated with the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation has been working steadily to push back against all forms of lgbt equality. The other article is from the progressive Think Progress detailing the entire situation, including how The Heritage Foundation is exploiting the situation:

The Federalist - Minnesota Parents Sue To Get Trans Classes In Kindergarten

Think Progress -  It Takes A Village To Bully A Transgender Kindergartner

In other news:

School Policy Says It Can Kick Out Students With Gay Parents - This school is a private Christian school so I, at least right, have no problem with it. But the question is does the school want to keep this policy AND have the right to accept tax money?

Gay Choir ‘Humiliated’ During National Anthem At San Diego Padres Game - This situation is justifiably getting a lot of folks upset and we still don't know why or how this awful thing happened.

A taste of Trump’s anti-LGBT judicial choices - I don't care who the Democratic nominee is. If it's not my personal choice, I am still voting for him/her. LGBTs, including myself, worked too damn hard for our progress (including marriage equality) to take a step back. Equality is not a damn chess game. 

Sandy Rios: Openly Gay Army Secretary Can't Lead Men Into Battle - Apparently Rios doesn't know any black gay men. We have been known to whip serious ass. JUST KIDDING, folks! Rios' silly stereotype of gay men is refuted by historical figures such as Alexander the Great and figures now such as Eric Alva.

Religious right defends security guard arrested for assaulting transgender woman

The situation last week involving a security guard being arrested for assaulting a transgender woman who was merely attempting to use the restroom  brought much needed attention to the prejudices and discrimination transgender men and women face.

And leave it to the false news source One News Now (owned and run by the anti-lgbt hate group the American Family Association) to accentuate this point.

How the incident was reported by a legitimate news source, NBC Washington, Channel 4:

D.C. Police have charged a security guard at a Giant grocery store with simple assault after sources say she had a confrontation with a transgender woman who was trying to use the women's restroom.

The guard, who has not been identified, is a special police officer at a Giant store near Third and H streets in northeast D.C.Police confirmed they had arrested her there earlier today for a confrontation in the store, though they did not reveal details of the arrest. News4 spoke with Ebony Belcher, the transgender woman who said she was assaulted by the officer. Belcher, 32, said the woman came into the restroom and told her to get out. She said the officer put her hand on her shoulder and arm, grabbed her and tried to march her out of the store.

This is how  One News Now reported the incident with a few nauseating changes  including mis-gendering the woman and then falsely labeling her as a transgender man. The article in this publication was copied almost word for word from another right-wing publication, LifeSiteNews:

Law enforcement officers in the nation’s capital arrested a female security guard and threatened her with “hate crime” charges for removing a [biological] man — who claims to be a woman — from a women’s restroom.

The woman security guard — whose name was not released — reportedly asked a “transgender” man on Monday at around noon to leave a restroom located inside a Giant store that was designated for women only.

After refusing to comply with the security guard, the 32-year-old male, who identifies himself as “Ebony” Belcher, made a scene, which ended in the guard escorting the man from the Washington, D.C. retail store.

Belcher recounted that the female security guard insisted that his behavior of frequenting the women’s facilities was not allowed by the law in the nation’s capital — at least, yet.

. . .Tony Pixley — an eyewitness of the incident — claimed that the dispute between the female security guard and the transgender man evolved into a physical altercation inside the store

Then the article adds this bit, which is in accordance to the transgender women = predators talking point the religious right have been pushing:

Many eyewitnesses did not see things the way LGBT activists and the local police department interpreted the event.

One customer who was shopping at Giant at the time of the incident bluntly expressed that the security guard was simply doing her job and protecting the privacy and safety of women and girls using the store’s restroom — as any normal person in her position would do.

“You got a penis — go to the men's bathroom,” Giant shopper Deana Chisholm reasoned when questioned about the incident by the WJLA television station. “If you are born a woman, go to the women's bathroom — period."

Not only does the right substitute truth for spin, but they obviously can't count. Since when one person is "many eyewitnesses?"

  

Family Research Council caught lying about Charlotte Observer column on HB2

FRC distorts a quote to scare its supporters.

Just a simple lesson in lying brought to you by the Family Research Council.

What is claimed by the Family Research Council:

In a stunning column this week, the (Charlotte Observer) argues that “Girls must overcome ‘discomfort’ of seeing ‘male genitalia’ in locker rooms.” 

What The Charlotte Observer actually said:

Yes, the thought of male genitalia in girls’ locker rooms – and vice versa – might be distressing to some. But the battle for equality has always been in part about overcoming discomfort – with blacks sharing facilities, with gays sharing marriage – then realizing that it was not nearly so awful as some people imagined.

There is nothing in The Charlotte Observer editorial about girls seeing male genitalia. And the passage is definitely taken out of context. Read the column for yourself  and decide.

Some might argue that what The Charlotte Observer actually said is equally distressing. I say if that's the case, then why did FRC feel the need to totally alter the passage ?

'SC blocks SECOND 'bathroom bill' & other Fri midday news briefs

Senate blocks Berkeley bathroom ban - Since, as I said before, South Carolina doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar, you will probably miss the fact that our state Senators blocked SECOND anti-transgender bathroom bill. This was not as major as the first one we defeated, but still just as ornery. 

Conservatives Hope Religious Art Trumps LGBT Protections In New Lawsuit - Attaching the argument of "religious liberty" to bathroom usage. I don't think that's going to work . . . 

 LGBT Activists Arrested During North Carolina Bathroom Law Protest - THIS is getting interesting.

Maroon 5 Stands With Queer Community By Canceling NC Shows - VERY interesting.  

These Photographs Offer A Powerful Glimpse Into The Lives Of The LGBT Community In Bangladesh - We should never take the equality we have for granted.

Family Research Council, Wall Street Journal pushing biased science against trans community

Paul McHugh, the religious right's newest model of junk science.

Those who  read this blog know that I have kept a history of the many times anti-lgbt groups have relied on either junk or cherry-picked science to denigrate the lgbt community and refer to us as diseased "others" out to destroy American society.

Sometimes, other conservative entities aid in this bad endeavor. Today, it's the Wall Street Journal aiding the Family Research Council with its defense of "bathroom bills."  The following is part of an email sent by FRC denigrating Obama because his recent directive to allow transgender students to use bathrooms in accordance to their desired gender identity and also because of the Justice Department's lawsuit against North Carolina for passing that awful HB2 law:

Obviously, the president is trying to move the ball as far down the field for his extreme agenda as he can before leaving office. But if he expected resistance, he certainly didn’t plan for it. “Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has raised the possibility that his state may forfeit its $10 billion of annual federal funding for its schools,” the Wall Street Journal pointed out

“We hope Texas follows through and is joined by other states. There is more at stake here than sexual identity, not least the self-identity of the United States. The Obama administration’s preoccupation with sex, whether in sophomore year or the fourth grade, raises questions about whether the federal bureaucracies know at all what they are doing on anything resembling the merits… Two years ago on these pages we published ‘Transgender Surgery Isn’t the Solution’ by Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Paul McHugh. In one of the most widely-read pieces we have published, Dr. McHugh pointed out that the idea of gender as subjective ‘personal truth’ has no basis in science. What studies have been done on gender preference also suggest that the belief that these choices result in positive psychological outcomes isn’t proven -- especially for students in grade school. Suddenly, though, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has solved the mysteries of gender confusion -- for the whole country.”

Paul McHugh is not a name known by many. Recently though, the religious right and other conservatives have been passing his anti-transgender information as accurate. Of course McHugh has credibility because he is affiliated with John Hops University. However, his information is still flawed because he is biased.

'Fox News edited out discussion of anti-trans legislation from Laverne Cox interview' & other Thur. midday news briefs

Fox News doesn't let up on its transphobia even when interviewing Cox.

Laverne Cox Has A Lot To Say About Anti-Trans Legislation But It Was Cut From Megyn Kelly’s Interview - Just like Fox News and Megyn Kelly. They bend over backwards to indulge groups and people slinging anti-transgender lies but GOD forbid they allow someone be able to respond to that crap.

House Passes Bill That Lets Government Contractors Fire People For Being LGBT - Veto that sumbitch!

 An Alabama lawmaker has the creepiest response to transgender bathroom hysteria - Oh lawd! No! No! No! Now this actually endangers people! 

 United Methodist Church Takes ‘Historic Action’ Toward LGBT Equality - Another article which reiterates the point that the religious right is bogarting the argument of lgbt orientation and religion.  

Anti-Trans Hoaxes On Fake News Websites Are Spiking — And Going Viral - Yes they are and I have seen several of them. It's not funny, folks.