News brief special - 2018 midterm Blue Wave fueled heavily with a shot from the rainbow: LGBTQ community garners huge victories

The Blue Wave took place last night with a huge shot of the rainbow

Don't let some members of the media push the false narrative. A blue wave took place last night and not only swept Democrats into having control of the House of Representatives, but certain wins conducive to their future successes took place. This is not to say that heartbreaking losses weren't suffered and voter suppression didn't do its work (particularly in Georgia). But the under written story of Tuesday night has to be the mega success of LGBTQ candidates and positions. It used to be that being an LGBTQ was a nonstarter to seeking public office. In this particular midterms, it wasn't. The news briefs below is list of our immense victories from last night. Let's not be too quick to celebrate yet. If I'm seeing this, then I am sure that the anti-LGBT industry is also seeing this. And we all know they don't back down from their homophobia. They tend to double down.

Celebrate LGBTQ Victories in the Midterms!:

A Pro-Equality Majority in the House of Representatives!

Democratic control of the U.S. House brings:

• a pro-LGBTQ-equality majority to one arm of Congress, and the incoming House leadership has promised to make the Equality Act a priority
• the potential for meaningful oversight of the Trump Administration’s anti-LGBTQ agenda
• the potential to advance the Every Child Deserves a Family Act

Record Wins for LGBTQ Candidates, including LGBTQ Parents! 

Just a few examples:

• Sharice Davids becomes first LGBTQ person and Native American to represent Kansas in Congress
• Jared Polis from Colorado becomes the first gay man – and gay dad – to be elected governor in the U.S.
• Chris Pappas becomes New Hampshire’s first openly gay member of Congress
• Angie Craig defeats anti-LGBTQ congressman to become first openly LGBTQ person – and lesbian mom – elected to Congress from Minnesota

… and across the country, many state legislatures added their first, or additional, out LGBTQ representatives to their rosters.

LGBTQ parents can let our kids know that families like ours were heard, respected, and elected last night.

Outspoken Generation Co-Chair Zach Wahls Becomes First Person with Openly LGBTQ Parents Elected to State Government!

Many of you will remember the viral video of Zach defending his moms against an attempt to invalidate same-sex civil unions in back in 2011. Continuing his record of leadership, Zach is now Senator-elect for Iowa’s Senate District 37.

Voters in Massachusetts Overwhelmingly Rejected Repeal of Transgender Protections

In doing so, Massachusetts became the first state in US history to successfully defend transgender rights by popular vote!

Democrats Regain Control of the New York State Senate

… raising the prospect of finally overturning the state’s draconian law prohibiting gestational surrogacy.

 LGBTQ Candidates Record Historic Midterm Wins In Rainbow Wave - More on the victories

 In addition:

Vote Blue on Tue for equality, fairness and to send a message to Trump evangelicals

The LGBTQ community will be voting for equality, fairness, & to send a message to these Trump evangelicals.

Those of us who will be voting blue will be voting for honesty and the integrity of our country. We will be voting to send a message that our leaders need to do better and not cower under the nonsense that Trump spews. We will be voting to say that Trumpism is vile poison.

 And we won't forget the enablers of Trumpism, i.e. the right-wing evangelicals. The so-called Christian and moral leaders (James Dobson, Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council, Franklin Graham, the Alliance Defending Freedom, Robert Jeffress, etc. etc.) who traded the religious integrity they were supposed to uphold for power and White House access. Those leaders who weaponized the Bible and twisted it with  ease to make excuses for Trump or give him "mulligans" for his un-Christian behavior.

The LGBTQ community know these Trump evangelicals much more than we would like to.

In the 50s and 60s, they said we were perverts who ought to be jailed.  

In the 70s, they said we recruit children.

 In the 80s, they said we were diseased freaks who run around catching AIDS. 

 In the 90s, they said we wanted "special rights." 

 In the 2000s, they said we wanted to redefine marriage. 

 Now they claim we are trying to put Christians out of business and jail them.

And in the two years in which Trump has been in the White House, he has given them the power to make policy and has basically done their bidding to make our lives hell. From attempting to steal LGBTQ tax dollars and award them to entities which would still be allowed to discriminate against us to attempting to ban transgender men and women from serving in the military to attempting to erase the trans identity to attempting to erase all of us from the Census, Trump and his allies have done the LGBTQ community dirty. But on Tuesday, we can begin to collect the dues and pay back the attacks. We've always had power to stop them and tomorrow, we need to begin exercising that power by voting.

'Six LGBTQ candidates to watch on election night' & other Mon midday news briefs

Sen. Tammy Baldwin

Here are the 6 LGBTQ candidates to watch on election night - Get your ass out there and VOTE. I think it could good night. BUT it depends on all of us who care about fairness, equality, and making America fulfill its promises and potential. 

Transphobic Parent Activists Target Journalists With Misinformation About Pediatricians - Simply a damn mess.

  U.S. State Department Urges Gay People in Danger in Tanzania to Take Cover on Social Media Immediately - Siiigh! ‘

Duck Dynasty’ Patriarch’s GOTV Message: Democrats Are Evil and Depraved God-Haters - The who? The what?

To the fool who wants to "save" my soul from homosexuality . . . do not come for me

Every now and then, I get interesting messages from people trying to "save" my soul from the supposed sin of homosexuality. I got this one today:

Homosexuality SHOULD be AVOIDED and not celebrated. Straight people(Christians especially) do not 'celebrate' homosexuality. We serve a God who shuns gay lifestyle as an abomination. We don't stand for gay lifestyle. We stand for Godly lifestyle. We have every right not to take part in applauding homosexuality. Jesus loves you. He died for you to SET YOU FREE from your sins, not so you could PERISH celebrating the wrong things. Gays certainly don't celebrate Christianity and heterosexuality. So why should we celebrate men destroying themselves with AIDS? How is that a GOOD thing? 

My answer:

Dear Person Who Makes A Lot of Assumptions,

If I ever need to find out what God thinks of homosexuality, I will go to the source and ask Him. As it is, I already know the answer. The God I know doesn't shun his LGBTQ children. He made us exactly as we are. To paraphrase a Biblical quote:

  We are the Lord's doing and marvelous we are in His eyes.

I know this personally because it is my faith in God which allowed me to accept myself exactly as I am. Perhaps you should educate yourself before you draw LGBTQs and Christians into two opposite camps. Some of us are Christian, some of us are Jewish, some of us are Muslim, while some of us embrace no religion at all. I don't need some irrelevant nobody to tell me that Jesus loves me. I know that already. As God made me to be gay, Jesus loves me as gay.

What you claim to stand or not stand for is none of my concern. No one is forcing you to celebrate anything you don't want to. But I am telling you that we are as much a part of this world as you and you need to lose that self-righteous tone which led you to invade my blog and start pronouncing judgements on me without the courtesy of getting to know me.  If you don't like it, that is your problem. You have no right to demand that the LGBTQ community live our lives embracing your sad sense of entitlement. You have no right to demand that we edit our lives to suit your ignorance and lurid imagination of what you think we do in the bedroom.

You are a sad, ignorant bigot. Your hiding behind religious beliefs doesn't make you a hero. It doesn't make you noble. It reveals simply how much of a coward you are. 

'Conservative evangelical leaders deliberately silent as Trump scapegoats immigrants' & other Fri midday news briefs

Conservative evangelicals have a new 'savior.'

Trump-Loving Evangelical Leaders Silent as He Bashes Migrants - Prime example of right-wing evangelical hypocrisy. The Family Research Council, Robert Jeffress, James Dobson, Gary Bauer, etc. go to the outer limits falsely accusing the LGBTQ community of "recruiting children" and trying to "destroy Christianity." Here we have a president openly and actively bashing immigrant men, women, children and these so-called protector of morality are conveniently silent. And why? Because they don't want to jeopardize the goodies Trump gives them with regards to access and shaping policies. Don't forget whenever Trump leaves that we got a LOT of conservative evangelical leaders we need to make give an account of their behavior when he was in office. 

 Trump: Nobody’s Done More For Religion Than I Have - White conservative evangelical dominionism is hardly a religion worth bragging about.  

Gay Billionaire Peter Thiel Says He’ll Support Trump in 2020, Calls His Lies ‘Exaggerations of the Truth’ - I don't care how much money Peter Thiel has. He ought to be ashamed of himself for supporting someone who has declared war on the LGBTQ community. 

Christian woman terrifies kids when she crashes children’s story time to yell anti-gay slurs - This right here is a hot mess. Children AND their parents were enjoying a wonderful event when Ms. Anita Bryant Wannabe came busting in talking about "homosexual indoctrination." I'm not one for violence but if I had a child and was at the event, girlfriend would have had her weave snatched.

Can't Be Converted: An Arkansas Woman on Surviving Conversion Therapy - Sad but wonderful story.

'Porno'Pete LaBarbera angry that no one is alarmed about large number of LGBTQs running for public office

LaBarbera

Regardless of how next Tuesday's midterm elections turn out, the fact that it includes a very large number of LGBTQ Americans running has not escaped many people,  particularly long-time anti-LGBTQ activist 'Porno Pete' LaBarbera. According to People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch , the enormous amount of us seeking public office has gotten him rather upset, He was on VCY America’s “Crosstalk” radio program complaining about it with host Jim Schneider. LaBarbera was especially upset that no one in the mainstream seems to negatively care about the development as much as he does. It's called "progress," my weirdo friend. Deal with it.

'They are targeting LGBTQs in Tanzania and American hate group in position to undermine action against it' & other Thur midday news briefs

Will Tony Perkins and FRC undermine efforts to stop international LGBTQ targeting?

Tanzanian City to Begin Anti-LGBTQ Witch Hunt - They are witch hunting LGBTQ people in Tanzania's capital, Dar es Salaam. It's something to keep in mind for two reasons - the LGBTQ struggle for equality and safety is universal. And anti-LGBTQ groups such as the Family Research Council, though not directly taking part in this, are in the position to undermine efforts at the United Nations to speak out against witch hunts like this:

FRC is partnered with anti-LGBTQ hate group World Congress of Families, which worked to pass Russia’s “gay propaganda” law. FRC is a dues-paying partner of the World Congress of Families (WCF), an anti-LGBTQ hate group that worked closely with Russian lawmakers, activists, and officials as the country shaped its “gay propaganda” law. After the ban passed, the group issued a press release supporting the law. The law was closely tied to a “ratcheting up of homophobic rhetoric in state media and an increase in homophobic violence around the country,” according to Human Rights Watch, and has been used to detain LGBTQ rights activists. WCF promotes the idea of a “demographic winter,” which suggests that European populations “are in decline because of homosexuality, abortion, feminism, women in the workplace, and a variety of other things that deviate from the ‘natural family.’” 

More on FRC's United Nations connections - Family Research Council is terrible, and its president Tony Perkins just got appointed to an international commission  

Will Bolsonaro's victory in Brazil usher right-wing ripple effects in Latin America? - And a right-wing president in Brazil  is sending LGBTQ Brazilians on edge. 

Activists Unfurl Giant Transgender Pride Flag at Lincoln Memorial - Because of what's been going on lately with Trump's attempt to erase the transgender community, actions like this are very appropriate. 

Transgender people turned to safety hotlines in droves in response to Trump’s erasure memo - Because it is scaring a lot of people.

 IOWA: Hundreds Of Books Donated To Library After Christian Activist Checks Out And Burns LGBT Titles - We still got lots of support everywhere.