Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
Before we dip into another week of Trump led mess (because whether we have impeachment hearings or not, with Trump in the White House, it's always a hot mess), I wanted to provide yet another moment of levity.
In America and Canada, where we love our freedom of speech, some folks have used this principle to speak out against what they call the "gay agenda." They do it by repeating bad information or by making complete public asses out of themselves in an attempt to be "hip." Bad for them, but good for us. It always helps when someone makes a colossal fool out of themselves when attacking the LGBTQ community. It helps proves our point about their ignorance. And at the very least, it's downright comforting to watch someone's attempts to denigrate us blow up in their faces.
So, pulled from past posts on this blog and Youtube, I present 'Transphobic White People Can't Rap' & other ways anti-LGBTQ activists made public fools of themselves.
4. We gotta save the kids from men kissing with size 14 shoes kissing each other on the moufs. - In 2015, Birmingham, AL minister Cedric Hatcher was very upset that there were public gay marriage ceremonies on the first day that marriage equality became legal in the state. And he gets so caught up that he really never finishes his point when complaining about it at a city council meeting. It would be insulting, except it's simply so funny to hear him ramble.
3. OOOOOOO! Homosexuals just makes me so mad! - North Carolina pastor Flip Benham is known around that state for his anti-LGBTQ activism. One thing he used to do was to show up at Charlotte City Council meetings and just rail on how homosexuality is causing so many problems. He likes to rail in front of an audience until his face turns red. In this 2016 video, he is blaming the passage of an LGBT rights bill for a police shooting:
VP Mike Pence's office called an NBC reporter requesting that he change an article regarding a proposed Trump Administration rule. This rule would allow faith-based adoption and foster care agencies to receive tax dollars which refusing to work with potential LGBTQ parents.
During an event celebrating National Adoption Month, Vice President Mike Pence praised a proposed Trump administration rule that would allow federal funding to flow to adoption agencies that refuse to place children with LGBTQ families, among others.
"We’ve reversed the rule implemented in the closing days of the last administration that jeopardized the ability of faith-based providers to serve those in need by penalizing them for their deeply held religious beliefs," Pence said at an event Tuesday at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington. "We will stand for the freedom of religion and we will stand with faith-based organizations to support adoption."
Pence said he "couldn't be more proud" of the "decisive action" taken at "President Trump's direction" on this issue.
The article also focused on the negative effect the rule would have on the LGBTQ community and children seeking adoption and foster care.
On Thursday afternoon, the article's author, Tim Fitzsimons, tweeted out the following:
I asked Katie Waldman the following question:
Fitzsimons: "This allows groups that decline to place these children with same-sex parents to receive federal money. Am I incorrect there?"
Waldman: "No."
While Fitzsimons didn't indicate what the vice president's office wanted changed, from his description of the conversation he had with Waldman, Pence's press secretary, it appears to center around what exactly Trump's rule would do. Perhaps Pence's office isn't happy that the article focused in part on how the rule would harm the LGBTQ community and children, instead of attempting to make it sound like a victory for religion and faith, like Pence attempted to do.
And Waldman's claim of reverse discrimination is odd. Is she saying that not allowing faith-based adoption and foster care agencies to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, while having access to LGBTQ tax dollars, is some sort of "reverse discrimination?" The idea is an illogical stretch of the definition of discrimination.
But then again that illogical stretch would be coming from the Trump Administration. And if there's one thing we all should have learned after three years is to not put anything past Trump or anyone who works for him.
Editor's note -Fitzsimons also made another point with regards to Waldman. Take it as you will:
A little fun change of pace for today. The video above was created in 2015 (and I've featured it before) but it is by no means dated. It is very quick look at the history of homosexuality on the silver screen. I think it deserves continued viewing, particularly by our LGBTQ kids. There is so much history they are missing in terms of how we were portrayed on the silver screen. Back in the day, we weren't as prominent or kindly viewed. I think it will be a culture shock to some of them.
And there is something for us older folks to do. See how many characters you recognize and count how many of the movies featured in the clips have you seen. I can tell you that I've seen almost all of them (although not Brokeback Mountain . . shut up.)
Vice President Mike Pence, in a speech intended to honor National Adoption Month, extolled on Tuesday a proposed Trump administration rule that would allow taxpayer-funded adoption agencies to refuse child placement in LGBTQ homes.
Pence made the comments at the Department of Health & Human Services in D.C., which was holding a celebration in promotion of adoption with top Trump administration officials, including Secretary of Health & Human Services Alex Azar.
Telling the audience the Trump administration “understand[s] the role that communities of faith play in adoption,” Pence invoked the proposal, which was unveiled late last month to the consternation of advocates for LGBTQ families.
“We’ve reversed the rule implemented in the closing days of the last administration that jeopardized the ability of faith-based providers to serve those in need by penalizing them for their deeply held religious beliefs,” Pence said. “We will stand for the freedom of religion and we will stand with faith-based organizations to support adoption.”
The Washington Blade also pointed out that Pence said he was "proud" of Trump's rule.
You will notice that Pence said nothing about how this is unfair to the LGBTQ community. It was deliberate on his part. According to Alex Bollinger of LGBTQNation:
Pence’s comments highlight how conservatives frame discrimination in adoption. There are currently 444,000 children in the foster care system in the U.S. and over 123,000 of them are up for adoption. It’s hard for conservatives to just say that they’re against LGBTQ people adopting because that’s not just discriminatory against potential parents, but comes across as cruel to the kids.
This is why Pence and other conservatives focus on the agencies that want to discriminate. In their narrative, the reason these children don’t have homes isn’t a lack of families willing to take them in, but a lack of agencies willing to place them with the abundance of families available for them.
Of course, HHS grants could just be sent to agencies that don’t discriminate. The money could help non-discriminatory agencies expand, open new offices, and hire staff, and federal money would be used more effectively to help kids find homes. If the problem is the number of agencies that can work with families, then that’s a problem that money can solve. But if the issue is the availability of families, then HHS’s rule change is unspeakably cruel.
Pence also didn't address another crucial problem with Trump's rule - the fact that it would allow tax dollars to go to entities which discriminate against LGBTQ taxpayers. As long as this fact isn't brought up, Pence and company can go on with the false narrative of how the theft of LGBTQ tax dollars is actually "religious freedom."
It's not surprising. Pence is a homophobic bigot who thinks that his religious beliefs is justification to debase and stigmatize the LGBTQ community. Remember that when he was governor of Indiana, he refused to answer when asked eight times whether or not he opposed anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
Since Pence has a problem saying whether or not the LGBTQ community should be protected from discrimination, we shouldn't be surprised that he also thinks that our tax dollars actually belong to those who would discriminate against us.
While people are cheering the gay youth, Jordan Steffy, who fought back against his bully, we shouldn't forget that not all situations involving LGBTQ youth end this way.
5 Ways You Can Support Bullied LGBTQ+ Youth Like Jordan Steffy - The story of this LGBTQ youth who practically "cropdusted" his bully has gone viral. But the situation does need to be moved past violence. Not all stories involving our kids ends this way.
