'No medically valid reason' - AMA strongly opposes ban on transgender troops' & other Thur midday news briefs

‘No medically valid reason’ to exclude transgender troops, AMA chides Mattis - Religious right groups and folks on the right are quick to bring up medical reasons to support the banning of transgender troops. BUT when a legitimate medical group - such as the American Medical Association -  weighs in opposing the ban, these folks are quick to omit and ignore. It's not accidental. It's Standard Operating Procedure with folks and groups who work to smear the entire LGBTQ community.

Doctors’ group slams trans military ban for rejecting ‘wide body of peer-reviewed research’ - More details about this latest development, including the fact that other legitimate medical associations are standing with transgender troops.

The Next Census Will Ask About Same-Sex Couples - I'm all for this.

A Republican dramatically came out to pass a conversion therapy ban in Maryland - This was brave of her to tell her story while voting for the ban. Her parents tried to change her from bisexual. And the story is even sadder. Her father, also a legislator, voted against the ban and denied her story.

Religious Right Activists Are Working ‘Behind The Scenes’ To Get The White House To Protect Ex-Gay Kidnapper Lisa Miller - This awful situation mostly fueled by the religious right hasn't been forgotten. The Liberty Counsel has yet to meet justice for its part in it. But we are patient. Getting Trump involved will insure that all hell will break loose. And we will be ready with the pitchforks.

A little advice before you exploit MLK's assassination, Family Research Council

Only the Family Research Council would have the audacity to depart briefly from its daily bout of Trump butt-kissing to mourn the 50th anniversary of MLK's assassination and exploit the occasion for its own purposes:

The world was a different place after that horrible day in Memphis, when Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. stepped out on his hotel balcony and took what would be his last breaths. Just 39 when an assassin's bullet killed him, Dr. King had already accomplished a lifetime of transformative work. How much more he could have done, we'll never now. What we do know is that he changed the arc of history -- forever. 

Taken at the height of his influence, Rev. King would never live to see his dream of racial harmony realized. Even now, 50 years later, Americans feel the familiar strain that threatens some of Dr. King's greatest accomplishments. In the five decades since his death, our country made progress, but the gulf between black and white still remains one of the most intense divide in America. And while the times may have changed, the solutions have not. There is one path to true racial reconciliation: the church. 

"The church," he wrote in Strength to Love, "must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state." What motivated Rev. King and powered his movement was Scripture -- an understanding that "darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that." Civil rights could not have been achieved if that light, powered by the religious freedom to shine it, had been extinguished. It's what enables the church to speak out today on behalf of marriage, the unborn, the downtrodden, and the persecuted. It's what powers the truth that everyone, regardless of race, gender, or social-economic status, has value. 

When Dr. King almost single-handedly turned the tide against racial segregation in this country, he did it from the pulpits of America's churches. Imagine where we would be now, as a nation, if pastors like the Reverend King didn't have the freedom to make their voices heard on the cultural issues of the day. He understood then, as we do know, that religious liberty was the key to every other freedom on earth. Without it, he could never have advocated for the cultural change that took root in the hearts of people across this great land. If we want to preserve his memory, we have to start by defending the church's right to speak into the racial gap -- and to stand, as unbiased representatives of Christ.

Little advice, Family Research Council? First, let's not be so quick to patronize. Turning the tide of racial segregation was a group effort and Dr. King himself would probably say that he didn't come anywhere close to almost single-handedly doing it alone. There were a multitude of folks involved from prominent African-American leaders to vibrant, brave marchers, to especially the black maids and other domestic workers who gave their nickels and dimes and other assorted monies to fund the movement. And let's not forget Bayard Rustin, the black gay man who coordinated the 1963 March on Washington. You should especially take him to heart before you begin your usual tangents about "radical homosexual agendas."

Secondly, instead of pretending to mourn King while exploiting his assassination to push for your bastardized version of "religious liberty," how about you unattach your lips from Donald Trump's rear. Stop providing a cover for his racially insensitive actions and comments. Stop using the "we all need to pray" card as an excuse to weasel out of being a true moral voice. Stop cheerleading  Trump's attempts to divide America by lies and resentment. And stop cheering his attempts to disenfranchise the poor and wreck health care.

On the risk of sounding presumptuous, I tend to think that if Dr. King were still alive, he wouldn't necessarily be a fan of yours.  So stop pretending that you are a fan of his.

'Fox network personality Tucker Carlson claims the transgender community doesn't exist' & other Wed midday news briefs

These days, Tucker Carlson has a constant "did I must mistake something messier for silent flatulence" look.

Tucker Carlson: There is no trans community - I don't know with that boy. He used to be somewhat of a decent journalist.

Anchorage, Alaska’s anti-transgender ballot initiative is defeated - Boom!

Laura Ingraham Once Sent A Student Reporter To Secretly Tape LGBTQ Group - If it were me she had done that to . . . 

NBA star makes big LGBTQ reveal - Way to go, Reggie Bullock!

Conversion ('ex-gay') therapy is a fraud and should be done away with

A bill in California could completely end the practice of conversion therapy, or attempting to convert one's sexual orientation from gay to heterosexual, in the state. Right now, the state outlaws this sort of therapy for minors. But this bill would label the practice of conversion therapy itself as a fraud.

Anti-LGBTQ groups such as the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defending Freedom are fighting the bill by arguing that the bill is against freedom of speech and religious liberty and could lead to increased suicides, etc.

Really? Exposing people to danger via fraudulent therapy has nothing to do with freedom of speech or religious liberty. And it is actually fake methods like "ex-gay" therapy which sow feelings of inadequacies and depression which in turn leads to suicides.

As these two videos demonstrate:

'Anti-LGBTQ groups determined to keep 'ex-gay therapy' from being declared a fraud' & other Tue midday news briefs

These are the national anti-LGBTQ groups fighting California's conversion therapy fraud bill - The fraudulent practice of "ex-gay therapy" is dying a slow death. But anti-LGBTQ groups are determined not to let it die. It's the usual folks who claim they are attempting to "protect Christians."

American Legion decides to allow transgender teen attend Boys State - As an alumni of Boys State, I wholeheartedly support this action. 

Grindr Will Stop Sharing Users’ HIV Status With Outside Companies After Security Flaw - Uh they shouldn't have been doing that in the first place. 

Imagine Dragons, Mike Shinoda to Headline Festival for LGBTQ Charities - This is a good thing.

Christian Colleges Are Tangled In Their Own LGBT Policies - An old article but still a fascinating one.


Photo take from Political Research Associates.

Anti-LGBTQ hate group having a problem staying relevant

Lou Sheldon

From the Southern Poverty Law Center comes a story which should give optimism to the LGBTQ community as we go through the Trump years. It would seem that we are outlasting another hate group whose purpose was to end our struggle for equality:

For those who can't remember back in the day, the Traditional Values Coalition, led by Lou Sheldon, was one of the meanest, most vindictive anti-LGBTQ hate groups in America. Forget subtleties because TVC made its objective clear. According to it, the LGBTQ community were a bunch of diseased, Morlockian monsters who needed to be stamped underfoot:

(Lou)Sheldon, a protégé of Christian Right evangelist Pat Robertson, launched TVC in Anaheim, California, before moving its headquarters to Washington, D.C. His anti-LGBT rhetoric — calling homosexuality a “deathstyle;” claiming child molestation is the real “homosexual agenda;” suggesting AIDS victims should be forced into leper-like colonies — pushed TVC to the forefront of the battle against equal rights in the 1990s. 

In 1993, TVC distributed a video, featuring Sheldon as well as then-Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, called “Gay Rights/Special Rights: Inside the Homosexual Agenda,” as a propaganda tool to galvanize opposition to LGBT rights. The film attempts to contrast the civil rights movement of the ‘60s with the fight for LGBT equality, with one speaker condemning the “high-handed attempt of the gay and lesbian movement to highjack the 1964 Civil Rights Act in trying to give national credence to their immoral lifestyle.” The video also attempts to conflate homosexuality with pedophilia, a common refrain from TVC (the TVC website, when it was online, claimed “[t]he effort to push adult/child sex… is part of the overall homosexual movement”). 

A December 1994 New York Times article titled “Minister Brings Anti-Gay Message to the Spotlight” heralded Sheldon’s influence with the incoming conservative congress elected the month before. The next year, Sheldon was part of a push to support a senate bill to cut federal money for public schools “encouraging or supporting homosexuality.”

Supposedly, in 1995, then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich promised Sheldon that there would be Congressional hearings looking at the so-called promotion of homosexuality in public schools.

That's how powerful TVC was back then. Twenty years later, things have changed tremendously. SPLC's article points out that Sheldon's daughter, Andrea Lafferty, seems to be having problems keeping the group relevant and afloat.

The poor dear (sarcasm intended.) I guess there is no room for unbridled, free-range homophobia in the now passive-aggressive world of the religious right.

'Judge tosses ridiculously homophobic rainbow flag lawsuit' & other Mon midday news briefs

Judge Dismisses Homophobe’s Lawsuit Claiming Rainbow Flags Are Religious Symbols - We have more important fights so I'm glad this anti-LGBTQ mess was thrown out of court. 

FBI National Academy Accepts First Transgender Applicant - In the face of ignorance and stupidity, the transgender community keeps on shining and achieving.

In photos: The private lives of India’s LGBTQ community - I've said it once and I will say it again - our fight is universal. 

Alaskans set to vote on bill that would ban transgender people from using the bathroom - And of course the group pushing this is reading from the script of inaccurate anecdotal horror stories of transgender women using the restroom.

New Amazon ad features gay couple getting ready for their wedding - Sweet!