'Homophobic conspiracy theorist caught up in Mueller investigation' & other Wed midday news briefs

Jerome Corsi, who falsely claimed that Obama is gay and promiscuous, has been caught up in Mueller's investigation of Trump.

Robert Mueller’s latest target is a nutty anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theorist - Ain't it amazing how folks making their money partly by denigrating the LGBTQ community is caught up in the Trump/Russia investigation. Thanks to LGBTQnation, we can remember just how homophobic Jerome Corsi is. Particularly when a conspiracy of his is that Obama is actually gay and was "popular" around Chicago bathhouses. Then there was the time when Corsi, while attacking marriage equality at a tea party rally, said that sex is not supposed to be fun. None of THOSE jokes, please . . . (oh who am I kidding?)

Some Libraries Are Facing Backlash Against LGBT Programs — And Holding Their Ground - Damn right! The backlash is only a sign that you are doing something right. It's what you when in the backlash that determines loss or victory.

Administration Officials ‘Deputized’ by Dominionists at Election-Themed Prayer Event - Oh no you don't!!

‘Boy Erased’ Author Garrard Conley: ‘I’m Saying The Stuff No One Wants To Say’ - And it NEEDS to be said. 'Ex-gay' therapy is a huge fraud. 

No, No, No: European Court Rules Russia Can’t Ban LGBTQ Events - Well alright!

Anti-LGBTQ news report accidentally gives positive view of 'Drag Queen Story Hour'

The video above is a shocker, but not for the reasons you think.

First, a little background. Drag Queen Story Hour is an innocent event held in libraries across the nation in which fully dressed drag queens read stories to children. One would think that such an event would be ripe for exploitation by the religious right/anti-LGBTQ industry.

But it isn't. Believe it or not, anti-LGBTQ organizations, fake news sites, and personalities have been steadily attacking the event in order to galvanize their supporters with yet another conspiracy theory about the so-called promotion of homosexuality to children. And it's been a failure.  The main reason behind this is the simple fact that Drag Queen Story Hour is a popular event with the children and their parents. In fact, the parents have to give approval for their children to attend. A lot of parents do such and attend the events themselves with their children.

'LGBTQ equality could face bumpier road at the Supreme Court' & other Tue midday news briefs

Supreme Court poised to drastically reverse LGBTQ equality - There are six cases in front of SCOTUS. The court has yet to hear any of them but even one loss could devastate the LGBTQ community. Could be. Maybe or maybe not. I was reluctant to post this because some in our community have a tendency of shrieking and pulling their hair out at the slightest bit of opposition or setback while others wag the finger at those of us who feel that we need to be poised to fight. "Don't tone-police," they say. Screw that. This negative future of the LGBTQ community at SCOTUS is a spooky possibility and we need to be ready for it with our fists up and our determination unwavering. SCOTUS is simply one avenue, win or lose. Above all, remember one things - the LGBTQ community always know how to ultimately win the hard way. 

A trans asylum seeker was beaten & died of severe dehydration in ICE custody - The nonsense Trump is inflicting on migrants is claiming lives, including those in the LGBTQ community.

LGBTQ Advocates File Wrongful Death Suit On Behalf of ICE Detainee Roxsana Hernandez - And something IS being done about it. 

Trump just did 2 major things to set back trans rights nationwide - And Trump is also causing problems for the transgender community in America. 

Today, I am a proud son of Harvey Milk and his message of hope for the LGBTQ community - 40 years ago, we lost an LGBTQ hero to an assassin's bullet. But not his heart nor his spirit.

I am overjoyed with the anger & controversy about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade kiss

A simple kiss during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is worth a million.

By now, we have all heard about the same-sex kiss during the recent Macy's  Thanksgiving Day Parade. Unfortunately, I missed it. Equally as unfortunate, I did not miss the negative reaction some people had because of the kiss.

Or maybe it wasn't as unfortunate as I am implying.

 I hope I don't come across as gloating, but I get a wonderful charge when people get all up in arms about such things as us gay folks daring to kiss in public.  There is nothing wrong with us kissing or holding hands in public. And the discussions about it always reveal to some how homophobic they actually are.

You know the type I'm talking about - those folks who claim that they don't have a problem with the LGBTQ community, but seem to think that we shouldn't kiss in public, hold hands in public, raise children, or do anything to wreck their mindset that we are not normal human beings or that the normal processes of life such as dating, marrying, having a family, etc doesn't apply to us, Apparently in exchange for their "tolerance," we are supposed to stand perfectly still in a corner and simply be a prop to demonstrate how "open minded" they are for supposedly accepting us. . .  with extenuating conditions of course.  These supposed allies learn the needed lesson that we are not commodities nor are we props. And, to paraphrase gay writer Harvey Firestein, we shouldn't have to edit parts of our lives that don't appeal to them. If they are going to be allies, it's either all the way or forget it.

Bursting that bubble of imagined superiority is always fun. Still, there is nothing like the hysterical reactions of those who, while claiming to oppose us because they "love" us, proceed to call us everything but the proverbial "child of God." One can always count on them to drop conspiracy theories of gay subterfuge and invasion. Take "former advertising executive who found Jesus and determined to uncover the Gay Mafia Syndicate" Linda Harvey for example:

Linda Harvey

How many times have you heard activists scoff, denying there’s a “gay agenda”?

 . . .  This agenda is like an airborne infection that’s suddenly everywhere. From “LGBT” affirming church youth groups, to “gay”-affirming anti-bullying school lessons, to rainbow “pride” apparel sold at Target and Walmart during the spring and summer, to the obligatory pro-homosexual article in the daily newspaper, to disturbed transvestites reading to preschoolers in libraries. It seems to be critically important to stick it to our children, all in the name of phony “tolerance” and “acceptance,” embracing sins leading to personal disaster, societal destruction and spiritual death.

 . . .   I am grieved for America and all the lost people, especially the young. I mourn the simple sweetness of mom/dad families and uncomplicated friendships, of holidays that cultivated wholesome childhood unmarred by the shadow of hateful, sexual fascism. Despite the victory that is in Jesus Christ and our ultimate destiny, before that glorious appearing, the night is coming. 

Harvey is on to us. Thank God she doesn't know about our plan to block out the sun unless the birthdays of Cher, Beyonce, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Judy Garland are made national holidays. I would mention the required viewing of RuPaul's Drag Race in our nation's elementary schools, but the committee is still working on that and will have the final plans ready by the next meeting of the Gay Mafia.

On one hand, these conspiracies are hilarious. But on the other, they make me sad because I'm always wishing the LGBTQ community was as organized, disciplined, and ruthless as folks like Harvey make us out to be.

Still, the kiss during Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade was a wonderful thing. A lot of us can remember a time when even a notion of a televised same-sex kiss would have caused serious problems. There would be fines, endless words of condemnations from people equally homophobic as Harvey but with more power to cause havoc for the LGBTQ community. The backlash would have been immense.

 Instead there are the delightful grumblings of a group of folks, Harvey included, who are slowly but surely losing power. Meanwhile the rest of us have gone on with our lives, punctuated by short bursts of glee and happiness at the latest much needed dose of visibility. And the latest much needed reminder that every fear, lie, and horror about the LGBTQ community are simply sad illusions.

Take it in, y'all. It's what winning feels like.

'Anti-LGBTQ industry creating horror stories of gay intolerance, recruitment via omission and lies' & other Monday midday news briefs

Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel doesn't mind lying to create a false image of LGBTQ recruitment.

Fox News marks Transgender Day of Remembrance by airing two anti-trans segments - At the University of California, a student senator is horribly vilified for abstaining from a vote on a resolution of support for LGBTQ students. In Florida, a gym teacher is attacked for, as some right-wing publications put it, "refusing to watch a girl shower in the boys' locker room. These events are horrifying, terrible, and TOTALLY UNTRUE. A little omission here, a basic downright lie there, add a dash of Fox News "journalism" courtesy of  Shannon Bream and Laura Ingraham. An anti-LGBTQ hate group representative (Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel) accompanying both the student and the gym teacher during the interviews. Let all of the anti-LGBTQ and right-wing propaganda sources spread the story under the guise of real journalism. Let simmer. And you have the makings of an old, but effective tactic of anti-LGBTQ industry - the creation of a horror story about the LGBTQ community attacking Christians and "recruiting" children.

Taiwan’s referendums on LGBTQ rights have disappointing results - Booooo! Not a good situation in Taiwan. 

Twitter took a huge step to protect trans people from harassment on the platform - Some people may disagree (the TERFs and their allies have been going into orbit all weekend), but I don't. 

Evangelist Franklin Graham desperately insists Trump is a defender of the faith — despite his ‘sordid life’ - It's not only the fact that Graham will wantonly defend Trump in spite of his many offenses, it is also how Graham constantly rails against the LGBTQ community. Since when is an inept liar who imprisons brown children in cages and tear gasses families is considered morally devout while the LGBTQ community are the evil ones?

Report: Anti-LGBTQ 'religious exemption' laws worsening the process of foster care, adoption

The Family Research Council, the Alliance Defending Freedom the Heritage Foundation, and other anti-LGBTQ groups (and their supporters) have been heavily promoting the idea of "religious exemptions" laws with regards to adoption and foster care agencies. That would mean that these agencies would be able to discriminate against LGBTQs wanting to participate in foster care and adoption while still being able to receive tax dollars.

The idea is wrong and insulting to the LGBTQ community. Our hard earned tax dollars shouldn't be made available to entities which would discriminate against us. And now, according to a new report, there is another reason to oppose these laws. They actually make it more difficult for children in foster care and wanting to be adopted to find homes

From MSNBC:

Religious exemption laws allowing child placement agencies to deny LGBTQ prospective parents from fostering or adopting are exacerbating the current “child welfare crisis,” according to a new report from the liberal Center for American Progress (CAP), Voice for Adoption and the North American Council on Adoptable Children.

 . . . In 2017, there were about 443,000 children in foster care across the U.S., according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Each year, some 50,000 children are adopted through the U.S. child welfare system, but about 20,000 others “age out” before being placed with an adoptive family, according to HHS.  

In addition to helping place more children in permanent homes, the CAP report claims taxpayers could save hundreds of millions of dollars by removing barriers blocking LGBTQ people from becoming adoptive parents.

 . . . The report warns that turning qualified prospective parents away will add unnecessary stress to “an already stressed system,” and it notes LGBTQ people represent a an “important subgroup of potential parents.”

“Same-sex couples raising children are seven times more likely to be raising a foster child and seven times more likely to be raising an adopted child than their different-sex counterparts,” the report states, citing data from the UCLA’s Williams Institute. “They are also more likely to adopt older children and children with special needs, who are statistically less likely to be adopted.”

The report also looked at  two states which have these "religious exemptions" and found that the number of homes which could foster and adopt children were tremendously reduced:

The CAP report undertakes case studies of Michigan and Texas, two large states that have adopted relatively broad religious exemption laws. (Policy analyst at the Center for American Progress and one of the report’s author  Frank J.) Bewkes described the situation in these states as “pretty bleak,” and the report describes an acute placement crisis in each of them.

“Nationwide, 28 percent of youth had been in foster care for two or more years in fiscal year 2016,” according to the CAP report, which cited HHS data. “In that same period, 38 percent of Texas youth and 52 percent of Michigan youth had been in care for two or more years.”

 

In Texas, which has had a religious exemption law for child placement agencies since 2017, the number of foster and adoptive homes working with licensed child placement agencies has decreased nearly 40 percent from 2012 to 2017, according to data from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

And in Michigan, which has had a religious exemption law for child placement agencies since 2015, the number of licensed foster homes dropped by more than 20 percent from 2012 to 2017, according to data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

The report and article are both good sources of information for the next time FRC and ADF claim that they are pushing for these exemptions because of the children. It's clear that they aren't thinking of the children at all.. 

God forbid anything distracts them from their mission of undermining LGBTQ equality and safety.

'Anti-LGBTQ activist: Ugly women become lesbians because no man would ever love them' & other Wed midday news briefs

Dave Daubenmire: Ugly Women Become Lesbians Because No Man Would Ever Love Them - We fight everyday against the homophobia Daubenmire demonstrates here in different forms. The difference between him and groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Research Council is that Daubenmire doesn't play games to hide his hatred. Nor does he conjure up legislation and false arguments to justify it. At the end of the day, it is all the same. Remember that.

Chuck Grassley: USDA should not have pressured 4-H to rescind LGBT policy - I'm as shocked as you are. I guess after those nasty judges Grassley has been pushing on us, he figures let us have this one.

Family Research Council doesn't like LGBTQ community, but wants LGBTQ tax dollars - Reposting last night's piece. With the new SCOTUS coming in, anti-LGBTQ groups such as FRC will be looking to take advantage with mess like this. 

Queer & Muslim in Trump’s America - We have a serious problem with division in America's LGBTQ community and it stems from people refusing to understand that we are a multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic group. The LGBTQ orientation crosses all lines. Articles like this provides proof of that. 

Gay Christian Pastor Holds First Worship In Hong Kong Pride Parade - Like I said - multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic.