VA Republican claims he's protesting the 'grooming' of children by having them hold up 16-foot penis sign with Biden's picture

Definition of hypocrisy - Virgina Republican Ron Hedlund protesting the supposed 'grooming' of kids by the LGBTQ (most specifically the transgender community) by posting a sign of a penis with Biden's face near a group of kids. As you can see by the photos and video below, he thought it was very funny to film a video featuring two boys holding the sign. See unedited picture further down the post.

Brought to you by the Department of What Da F@k, made possible by Republican hypocrisy.

Virginia GOP Central Committee Representative Ron Hedlund recently wanted to take a stand against the so-called grooming of children by those of us in the LGBTQ community (particularly the transgender community). But his way of doing this says a lot more about Republican hypocrisy when it comes to the hysteria about 'grooming.'

 From LGBTQ Nation:

Conservative activist and Virginia GOP Central Committee Representative Ron Hedlund of Virginia got attention online over the weekend for his 16-foot penis sign with President Joe Biden’s face, which he displayed in front of a group of children. He had to be told by police to put the sign away.

 On social media, Hedlund – who goes by “The Benghazi Rabbit” – said that the point of the protest was to fight “transgenderism” in schools, a term conservatives use to refer to equal rights for transgender students and anti-bullying initiatives. Hedlund’s sign – which he calls the “Porter Penis” – read “S**T IS F**KED UP AND STUFF/BIDEN SUCKS” and had Biden’s face on a 16-foot penis with semen shooting out that was labeled “My kids.” It was displayed at the RF&P Park in Henrico County, Virginia this past Friday just outside where some children were playing a baseball game. He also had a giant “air dancer” with the words “F**K BIDEN” written on it and another sign that read “STOP GROOMING OUR CHILDREN.”

When challenged by a few people, Hedlund filmed himself making fun of them.  And as you can see by the pictures (and the video below), he actually had two boys posing with his sign while laughing it off as a joke.

If you ask me, the big joke in all of this is Hedlund and it's a bad one. I know he did it for attention and I can hear some of you maneuvering your lips to tell me that I shouldn't be giving him the attention. 

But I disagree. 

This is an awful climate we are in now with calculating social media influencers and Congressional leaders gaining attention and clout by resurrecting the lie that we are "recruiting" and "grooming" kids. These horror stories are breeding ugly repercussions either through anti-LGBTQ legislation or people losing their livelihoods. Or worse yet, violence like the murder of California business owner Laura Ann Carleton on Friday. Carleton was reportedly shot by someone who objected to a Pride flag she displayed outside of her shop.

But folks like Hedlund don't care. My guess is that they are enjoying the attention and the chaos they are causing. It's never been about protecting the children. It's been about the ability to showcase their hatred, bigotry, and embarrassingly poor taste. And as you can see by the pictures and the video, they have no problem with exploiting the children they claim to be protecting.

Editor's note - And here is the video:

'Virginia school districts are rejecting Youngkin's anti-trans policies' & other Mon midday news briefs

Prince William County latest Northern VA school district to reject Youngkin's transgender model policies - These districts are choosing the safety of kids instead of a bad policy.

Nebraskans Ask State Supreme Court to Overturn Abortion, Trans Care Restrictions - We'll see.

University of Houston students brace for LGBTQ Resource Center closure in response to Texas’ DEI ban - They won't be able to silence us no matter what.

Gay volleyball player creates his own path from a rural upbringing to a college career - Well alright! Good for him!

Repost - Anti-LGBTQ bigotry and propaganda never changes. It simply gets sanitized.

Editor's note - Let's ease into Monday with a repost from May. It's a reminder (particularly for those "LGB without the TQ folks) that the rhetoric we see thrown at the transgender community is simply repackaged anti-gay bigotry. It was a lie then and it's a lie now.  Those who are not in our community need to be reminded of this. Those of us in the community who ignore this should really be ashamed of themselves. 

This from 1985

has turned into this in 2023. 

In reality, it never actually changes. It simply gets repeated after some minor sanitization.

But it's still lies motivated by hate, created to instill fear, and pushed to justify bigotry. 

 And violence.

 1985 graphic taken from Comics With Problems webpage. WARNING - it's not NSFW and will probably get you angry (as it should.)

Federal appeals court say no to Idaho's ban on trans female athletes

From NBC News:

 A federal appeals court on Thursday refused to allow Idaho to enforce a first-in-the-nation ban on transgender women and girls from participating in female sports leagues, saying the measure likely was unconstitutional. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel delivered a victory to LGBTQ rights advocates by upholding an injunction blocking Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, the first of many such laws to be enacted by Republican-led states.

 “This is an important victory for common sense, equality, and the rights of transgender youth under the law,” said Chase Strangio, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which pursued the court challenge. The Idaho measure, which Republican Gov. Brad Little signed into law in March 2020, bars transgender women and girls of all ages from participating in female sports teams at public schools in the state, from primary school through college. Twenty-two other states have adopted similar laws governing sports, most recently in North Carolina, according to the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which had argued in favor of reviving Idaho’s law. 

This victory underscores the fact that in spite of all of the false narrative and bad hype (mostly perpetrated by TERFs and second-rate cis female athletes), the idea that trans females have an advantage in sports is difficult to prove in court. Those pushing the idea generally rely on preconceived notions and basic lies. This was already covered in 2021 by the USA Today in a blockbuster article, Conservatives want to ban transgender athletes from girls sports. Their evidence is shaky. 

The article's main point continues to be a reality:

Across the nation, state lawmakers supporting transgender athlete bans have painted a picture that girls sports teams will be overrun by athletes with insurmountable physical advantages. But a USA TODAY investigation of the lobbying effort shows that narrative has been built on vague examples that have been overstated or are untrue, and lawmakers have accepted them as fact with little effort to verify their accuracy.

'Calls for LGBTQ book ban in Rio Rancho seemingly backfire' & other Thur midday news briefs

Calls for LGBTQ book ban in Rio Rancho seemingly backfire - Whoops!

After my daughter's gender transition, I just wanted her to be happy. To best support her, I had to stop caring what other people thought​ - Amen.

Vivek Ramaswamy: LGBTQ+ People Created 'Tyranny of the Minority' - Sounds like some horsh!t to me. 

Ron DeSantis won’t say how he’d handle his own kid coming out as LGBTQ+ - Coward. He is so transparent. And not in a good way. 

Target acknowledges the Pride backlash hurt sales in June and says it will rethink its approach to 'heritage moments' going forward - Get ready to handle the gloating. Personally I think it's all in the way Target handled the situation. The chain should have never backed down to the bullying. Not even an inch. 

Denver Archdiocese sues Colorado over right to deny preschool to LGBTQ families - If the archdioese receives any tax dollars then it should not have the right to discriminate. 

Jenna Ellis is the latest anti-LGBTQ activist engulfed in Trump indictments

Jenna Ellis

It's interesting - to say the least - to watch Donald Trump's troubles and indictments engulf those who attached themselves to him. Particularly when some of these folks have been very vocal about the so-called sin of homosexuality.

I've already written about the anti-LGBTQ activism of Trump crony John Eastman when he was called an unindicted co-conspirator in Trump's last crop of indictments. Well now he has been officially indicted in this latest round. But he's not the only anti-LGBTQ activist involved now. 

According to People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch:

Former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis was charged with violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and with solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer regarding efforts to convince state legislators to name phony pro-Trump electors in states he lost. 

 Before the 2020 election, Ellis was a strident campaign advocate for Trump, claiming that “the progressive left” was a “domestically grown enemy that was trying to destroy “ordered society” and “create chaos.” After Trump lost, she energetically promoted his stolen election claims alongside Rudy Giuliani and, for a while, Sidney Powell—and pressed those claims on religious-right media outlets like Eric Metaxas’ radio show. Ellis served as Giuliani’s sidekick during a hearing in Gettysburg organized by state Sen. Doug Mastriano in late November 2020. In late December 2020, she denounced the “failures” of the judicial branch and state legislatures and called for members of Congress to challenge Electoral College votes.

 She was also busy behind the scenes. Like fellow accused racketeer John Eastman, Ellis wrote legal memos offering justifications for Vice President Mike Pence to stop congressional certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. 

 Journalist Jonathan Karl wrote about Ellis’s memo in his book “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.” Here’s the plan her memo laid out: Pence would halt the constitutionally mandated congressional counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 and give the battleground states until Jan. 15 to send a new set of votes. If no set of votes arrived by that time, the state’s Electoral College votes would not be counted. Ellis figured that would throw the election to the House of Representatives, where she believed Trump would be declared the winner. 

 She promoted a similar-sounding plan during a Jan. 4, 2021, interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody. Ellis said Pence should refuse to accept electors from states being challenged by Trump and throw the question of the electors’ legitimacy back to the state legislatures—something for which there is no legal or constitutional authority. With a straight face, Ellis said such an act “wouldn’t be political” and would create a “clean outcome” for the election. Brody endorsed Ellis’s scheme, tweeting, “Good idea!”

Ellis has also been vocal when it comes to smearing and denigrating LGBTQ people. According to The Advocate, last year she posted the following on her Instagram page with the caption "Where is the lie?"

That's not all:

Ellis took to Twitter to attack a lesbian whose success has catapulted her from an obscure radio personality to a household name -- MSNBC host and author Rachel Maddow. "Conservative women look so good that the left (who only have women like Rachel Maddow) assumes we've had surgeries to look this hot ... nah dawg, not a one. That would be your side. On kids," Ellis tweeted. 

The Advocate said she then doubled down her attack on Maddow by tweeting: 

 "The left is *still* big mad that conservative women are hotter than Rachel Maddow If you're so mad about it, try embracing your femininity instead of looking 'gender neutral' or like dudes."

In 2016, she has also claimed that legalizing gay marriage opens the door to pedophilia and bestiality. 

In addition, according to CNN:

Ellis has also repeatedly said the Supreme Court “ignored the immorality of homosexuality” in its decision to strike down laws that criminalized same-sex sexual activity. 

 “So then we get to Lawrence v. Texas, which was a Texas law criminalizing sodomy,” Ellis said at the Constitutional Literacy for Christians conference in February of 2016. “And judicial activism ignored the immorality of homosexuality and created this fabricated right to privacy that was in the penumbra of the Constitution and determined that homosexuality is within that right to privacy in the penumbra of the Constitution. And the Supreme Court with judicial activist motivations overturn that law.”

 In her 2015 book, “The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution,” Ellis said the Lawrence ruling “set the groundwork for open celebration of homosexuality and all kinds of deviant sexual behavior with any coupling or grouping.”

Ellis presently having trouble raising money for her defense because Trump and his allies seems to have turned their backs on her. I'm certainly not celebrating her misfortune, but perhaps none of this would have happened to Ellis if she had followed the Biblical tenets about lying with as much eagerness as she used to stigmatize LGBTQ people.

I'm just saying.

'Georgia panel rejects recommendation to fire teacher for reading book about gender identity' & other Wed midday news briefs

Georgia panel rejects recommendation to fire teacher for reading book about gender identity​ - Score one for the good guys. 

Tennessee Republican with Anti-LGBTQ+ History Sentenced in Campaign Finance Case - Well, well, well. 

 Memorial to LGBTQ Holocaust victims vandalized in Berlin - This is awful! 

These Cheerleaders Are Making History As the NFL's 1st Gay Cheer Captains - Good for them. I am definitely here for it.