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| What in the world were SCOTUS Justices Alito and Kavanaugh doing meeting with anti-LGBTQ activist Brian Brown? Presently, SCOTUS is mulling over three cases having to do with anti-LGBTQ discrimination. |
On Oct. 29, Brian S. Brown, president of the conservative advocacy group National Organization for Marriage (NOMA), tweeted a photo of himself with justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito and boasting about a “great day” at the US Supreme Court. The tweet raised alarm bells for court critics.
NOMA regularly files amicus briefs with the court, as it already has this term in some of the most controversial cases before the justices. Brown’s organization, as a “friend of the court,” submitted a filing opposing a finding that Title VII, an anti-employment-discrimination statute, protects gay and transgender people.
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| Rep. Vicky Hartzler (seen here accepting an award from the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins in 2018) helped an 'ex-gay' group lobby Congress by securing space for their forum. |
A group of people from across the country who formerly identified as gay and transgender have descended upon Washington this week to share their stories and lobby against two proposed LGBTQ-rights bills. The group is made up of 15 members of Church United and Changed, two California-based organizations that seek to provide community for, and protect the rights of, “formers” — individuals who formerly identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The bills the group is lobbying against are H.R. 5, better known as the Equality Act, and H.R. 3570, or the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act. Both have been supported by the country’s major LGBTQ advocacy organizations, though neither is expected to become law anytime soon.
Because Changed held the forum in a taxpayer-funded congressional space, the event required a member of Congress to sponsor the discussion. And although the group both refused to disclose who that representative was and also denied that they knew their identity, a Capitol official familiar with scheduling told HuffPost that Hartzler was the member who signed off on the event.
A staffer for Hartzler initially denied she was the sponsor. “This was a Family Research Council event,” said Danny Jativa, Hartzler’s communications director.
Family Research Council does appear to have been involved in the event, as handouts supplied included FRC literature, including an “issue analysis” titled “Are Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) Effective? Are They Harmful? What the Evidence Shows.”
After HuffPost pressed Hartzler’s office again over email, however, noting that a member of Congress would have had to sign off on the event, Jativa admitted that Hartzler had secured the meeting space for the group.
“The only involvement Rep. Hartzler’s office had with the event was putting in an order to request a meeting space. Our office, nor the member, participated in the event. We did not recruit nor advertise the event in any way, shape, or form,” Jativa said.
Faith leaders told President Donald Trump at a private meeting at the White House this week that they saw the Democrats’ impeachment efforts in Congress as an attack on their conservative agenda, several attendees told McClatchy.
Trump’s meeting on Tuesday with at least 25 faith leaders from around the country was not on his public schedule, however it was acknowledged by a brief White House statement later that day. Johnnie Moore, a member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom who attended the meeting, said faith-based leaders vented about the impact of impeachment efforts on their legislative priorities and that the sentiment was, “they’re trying to impeach us.”
“Agree or disagree with the evangelical community, we represent a third of the country in some form. In a democracy, our voice matters, and our voice deserves representation in the public square,” Moore said.
. . . Robert Jeffress, senior pastor at First Baptist Dallas and a participant in the meeting, has been promoting a Public Religion Research Institute poll that found 94 percent of Republicans and 99 percent of evangelical Republicans oppose impeachment. “Many evangelicals like myself believe that this is more than just a political skirmish,” he told McClatchy.
“They really believe that to impeach President Trump would be to impeach their own closely held values. And that’s why they take impeachment so personally,” Jeffress said about the faith leaders.
This is a sad day for America. Our politics in this country has hit a new low. @SpeakerPelosi and her followers in Congress have weaponized the impeachment process. This is just another attempt to tarnish and embarrass @POTUS @realDonaldTrump before the next election. 1/2— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) October 31, 2019
" i moved on her like a bitch, knew she was married "— Paul Becker (@horsevtnek) October 31, 2019
DONALD J TRUMP
Franklin, if you don't understand that Trump abused his position, it's probably because you abuse your position daily pretending to be a minister. The best thing for the BGEA and the Purse is for you to resign as well when Trump's impeached. You've abused your power too long— Cheerwhine (@cheerwhine1) October 31, 2019
We had a great day @WhiteHouse with faith leaders. We talked & prayed with President @realDonaldTrump in the Roosevelt Room. I’m thankful that we are given the opportunity to discuss important policy issues and always the President ask us to lay hands on him and pray. pic.twitter.com/Jua6jouqgp— Jentezen Franklin (@Jentezen) October 29, 2019
