Monday, August 10, 2020

Repost - Family Research Council anti-LGBTQ pamphlet works better as lining for your birdcage

Editor's note - It is frustrating enough when anti-LGBTQ groups create bad studies about us. But it's worse when they are allowed to do so without hardly any push back. Very few in our community are willing to do the work and promote the truth. Thus, no matter how many times anti-LGBTQ lies and junk science is refuted, the truth-telling doesn't resonate as it should.

Last month, I posted a piece about the Family Research Council's newest junk study, Sex Education in Public Schools: Sexualization of Children and LGBT Indoctrination. However, I am reposting it because the study remains on FRC's webpage and the group has a wider reach than I do. After its reposting, I intend to make my piece a permanent part of my blog's page.


Please share if you can:


Cathy Ruse just published a silly pamphlet.
The Family Research Council is shocked! I repeat, shocked about the following:

The LGBTQ movement demands that homosexual relationships be presented to children as good, healthy, and equal in every way to heterosexuality within man-woman marriage. Many sex-ed developers and providers are all too happy to comply. 
 Parents in Illinois were alarmed when they learned that their preschool children were being instructed: “If you have two mommies, they can be called LESBIANS. 
 In Austin, Texas, schools introduce sexual orientation and gender identity concepts to third graders and have sixth and seventh graders play a sexuality matching game with terms like “bisexual,” “gay,” “lesbian,” and “homophobia.” 
 . . .California law instructs public school teachers to emphasize homosexual relationships: “Teachers should… actively use examples of same-sex couples in class discussions.”

This hysterical junk is only a small portion of FRC's newest pamphlet -Sex Education in Public Schools: Sexualization of Children and LGBT Indoctrination and it's a doozy.


A hot mess.
What you should know about FRC's pamphlets, "research papers,"etc is that none of them contain any legitimate information. In the past, the group used to rely on junk science and legitimate science its employees rigorously cherry-picked to denigrate LGBTQ people.The group generally reduced us to being called a "dangerous lifestyle."

Things have changed tremendously. Thanks to the efforts of bloggers like yours truly and groups like SPLC who took the time to call out those lies, FRC relies less on distorted science and more on anecdotal horror stories from legitimate news sites and biased homophobic right-wing propaganda news sites all sewn together with alarming phraseology. The goal is to create the same connotation as past reliance on bad science did - that LGBTQ people are not normal and are dangerous to America, particularly children.

The passages I cited at the beginning of this post speak to that effect. Same-sex marriage is legal in America. Same-sex couples, as well as single LGBTQ people, are raising children in a large number. They have been doing this for many years and are doing it very well. The existence of LGBTQ children is a simple fact. And as these LGBTQ children are coming out earlier and earlier, more education and information is needed for the sake of their physical and mental well-being.

But to hear FRC talk, these situations are not facts, but aberrations. And the results of a so-called plot to take over America and supposedly "recruit" children.  It's less about equipping people with information and more about exploiting ignorance to create fear. That fear creates more ignorance which creates more fear and so on and so on.

The desired end result is the harming of LGBTQ equality and safety and a forced shoving of our community into a closet of second-class status, depression, and sadness, self-hatred, and, according to the CDC, self-harm via negative behaviors.

And of course FRC and other like-minded organizations will be there to exploit the negative behaviors by falsely claiming that they are characteristics of being an LGBTQ person instead of what they truly are - a characteristics of being oppressed.

Also, there is one more thing you should know about FRC's pamphlets, research papers, etc.  They are usually created by people who have absolutely no expertise in what they write about. In reality, what they claim to know couldn't fit the navel of a smurf.

This particular pamphlet I've been talking about was published by FRC employee Cathy Ruse, who  the Senior Fellow and Director of Human Dignity.   I have no idea what that entails, but if you read Ruse's biography, you will see that her expertise lies in how many conservative groups gave her a paycheck over the years.  And also how she's connected by marriage to another religious right spokesperson, Austin Ruse.

Ruse, head of another conservative group, C-FAM, is an absolutely vile individual who has gone on record supporting Russia's persecution of its LGBTQ citizens.  He and I have sparred on more than one occasion including here in 2013. In 2014, he got into trouble for saying that liberal academics should be taken out and shot.

In spite of this, Cathy listed him as a legitimate source in her pamphlet. According to GLAAD's profile of Mrs. Ruse, vicious homophobia and transphobia seems to be one characteristic she and Austin have in common.

That brings me to the issue of bad sources, which Ruse frequently cited in the pamphlet. 

One person she cited was Dr. Michelle Cretella of the American College of Pediatricians. Of course Ruse omits that  the American College of Pediatricians is an organization recently deemed a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of how it attempts to pass homophobic bad science as legitimate.

Nor does Ruse tell anyone how Cretella herself was called out by the The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM) for several errors contained in a piece she published entitled “I’m a Pediatrician. How Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated My Field and Produced Large-Scale Child Abuse.”  And that in itself is a huge irony, seeing that the Cretella's piece was used by Ruse to attack the transgender community in her pamphlet.

Ruse also cited American College of Pediatricians information independent of Cretella.

Feel free to read the entire pamphlet, but might I suggest that you print a copy. That way, you can make proper usage of it . Line your birdcage. Use it to pick up dirt while you're sweeping.

Or how about using it to fan yourself.  The weather tends to get hot this time of year.

'Transgender community win two victories in the courts' & other Mon midday news briefs

Sunday, August 09, 2020

The Slate publishes a blow by blow account of how Donald Trump killed thousands of Americans

William Saletan of The Slate points out how Donald Trump made the coronavirus pandemic worse for the country.

Thank you, William Saletan and the Slate magazine for saying the thing about this coronavirus pandemic which needed to be said in the manner that cuts through the bull.

In meticulously thorough article, The Trump Pandemic, Saletan points out how Donald Trump knew the pandemic was coming, refused to get the country prepared for it, and then interfered with the fight against it every step of the way. It's a sad story of negligence which I wish more in the media would have the guts to tell instead of dancing around the subject. 

When you have some time, this article is required reading :

The story the president now tells—that he “built the greatest economy in history,” that China blindsided him by unleashing the virus, and that Trump saved millions of lives by mobilizing America to defeat it—is a lie. Trump collaborated with Xi, concealed the threat, impeded the U.S. government’s response, silenced those who sought to warn the public, and pushed states to take risks that escalated the tragedy. He’s personally responsible for tens of thousands of deaths.  
 This isn’t speculation. All the evidence is in the public record. But the truth, unlike Trump’s false narrative, is scattered in different places. It’s in emails, leaks, interviews, hearings, scientific reports, and the president’s stray remarks. This article puts those fragments together. It documents Trump’s interference or negligence in every stage of the government’s failure: preparation, mobilization, public communication, testing, mitigation, and reopening.

The article contains so many instances of ineptitude and deliberate undermining by Trump that it's almost impossible for me to choose just one excerpt which epitomizes just how badly he bungled this situation.

Thursday, August 06, 2020

Mike Pence upset that Justice John Roberts isn't trying to be a completely biased right-wing judge

VP and hypocrite Mike Pence
What can you do when you and your party devote a considerable amount of time, effort, and money to put people the Supreme Court who will rule the way you want just to have your plans go up in smoke because one of your designated picks refuses to play ball?

If you're VP Mike Pence, you have a biased interview with a religious right hack to complain about it.

From Politico:

Vice President Mike Pence described Chief Justice John Roberts as a “disappointment” to conservative voters, explicitly seeking to cast the Supreme Court as a campaign issue ahead of the November election. 
“Look, we have great respect for the institution of the Supreme Court of the United States,” Pence told the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody on Wednesday. “But Chief Justice John Roberts has been a disappointment to conservatives — whether it be the Obamacare decision, or whether it be a spate of recent decisions all the way through Calvary Chapel.” 
The vice president’s criticism of the chief justice’s jurisprudence comes after Roberts sided with the high court’s Democratic appointees on several occasions in recent months, dealing the Trump administration defeats on issues including LGBT workplace discrimination, immigration and abortion. 

According to USA Today:

 The vice president pointed to Roberts' 2012 vote upholding the Affordable Care Act and "a spate of recent decisions," including the Calvary Chapel case last month, a 5-4 ruling that went against a church seeking exemptions from Nevada's coronavirus restrictions. 

Those other decisions, by way of CNN, included:

.  . . the Supreme Court's decision in June to strike down a controversial Louisiana abortion law that critics said would have closed nearly every clinic in the state. Roberts delivered a fifth vote to the liberals -- the first time the chief justice had voted against an abortion restriction.

. . . Roberts also sided with an opinion that extended anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ workers and upheld the program allowing undocumented immigrants who came into the US as children to remain.

This post is not to crown Roberts a bastion of liberalism on the bench. He has made some rulings which I don't agree with, such as a dismal ruling on the Voting Rights Act.

 The point is it should bother more people that Pence expected a SCOTUS judge to be biased and is loudly expressing his disappointment that said judge isn't biased. Aren't justices supposed to be impartial?   Even before Trump came on the scene, Pence has more than once demonstrated himself to be an overzealous religious hypocrite.

I guess now that Trump is in office, he's trying to go all extra.

'LGBTQ candidates win primaries in several states' & other Thur midday news briefs

Wednesday, August 05, 2020

Fired Trump appointee's claim of anti-Christian persecution blows up in a cloud of humiliating smoke

Former Trump appointee Merritt Corrigan is having a bad week.
How many of you saw the conclusion of this story coming miles away?

Merritt Corrigan is a former Trump appointee who was fired this week from the U.S. Agency for International Development after it was discovered that she tweeted a bunch of inappropriate comments about LGBTQ people, women, refugees. At the time of her dismissal, Corrigan claimed that she was being persecuted because of her Christianity. She also said she would be holding a press conference on Thursday to expose "anti-Christian" bigotry.

As of now, that press conference is not going to happen. According to Raw Story:

Merritt Corrigan, the former deputy White House liaison to United States Agency for International Development who was fired this week for posting inflammatory anti-LGBT tweets, now says she was the victim of a scam by notoriously inept right-wing operative Jacob Wohl. 
 The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer reports that Corrigan is now claiming that Wohl and his associate Jack Burkman seized control of her phone and sent out tweets that attacked USAID for promoting LGBT rights abroad and that leveled baseless allegations of soliciting prostitutes against Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who is the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Affairs Committee.

Sommer's article said:

Corrigan, who is/was apparently dating Wohl, announced that she’d be appearing Thursday in front of Wohl associate Jack Burkman’s Northern Virginia house—a site that has previously hosted farcical attempts to smear Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) with lurid sexual allegations. There, she would further denounce USAID, accuse a Politico reporter who covered her resignation of stalking her, and demand that Engel debate her and Burkman. In a press release announcing the press conference, Burkman and Wohl claimed that Wohl, who is currently facing two felony charges related to security sales in California, had “been working behind the scenes with Corrigan for months.”

Sommer said that on Tuesday afternoon, Corrigan deleted tweets whining about anti-Christian discrimination, while Wohl and Burkman claimed she was talked into backtracking.