Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
According to the Associated Press, there is a move to put more LGBTQ diversity in children's programming. The proponents of this say it is all about showing that families exists in all forms, including those led by same-sex partners
Zeke Stokes, chief programs officer for the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, said the struggle for inclusion has become easier as a number of LGBTQ writers and producers have made their way into positions of influence, though they’re still a fraction overall.
“What we’ve said to them all along is that we will lock arms with you and we will make sure that you hear from the families who are being impacted by this in a positive way,”
Stokes said of GLAAD’s work behind the scenes to support greater representation. “Not only have they heard from LGBTQ families but they’ve heard from other families who are like, yeah, my kid has a friend who’s LGBTQ or my friend goes over to his friend’s house and their parents are LGBTQ. This is not just something that impacts LGBTQ families. It’s really something that gets experienced by everyone in society.”
It's not a bad idea because there are a lot of same-sex families in American society. There is nothing wrong with children growing up in these families seeing their realities reflected in the shows they watch. But you know what happens when folks want to show fairness to same-sex families.
Tony Perkins (bottom) and his group, the Family Research Council, are trying to clean up Donald Trump's (top) racist comments about Baltimore by distorting the entire controversy.
Donald Trump recently said some awful things about the city of Baltimore as part of an attack on Congressman Elijah Cummings. Cummings, a long-time critic of Trump, is the chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee which has apparently opened 23 investigations into the Trump Administration. Last week, the committee authorized subpoenas for records of senior White House officials' use of personal email and text services for business purposes.
This is what led Trump to say the following via tweets last week:
"Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA," Mr. Trump said in the first of several tweets.
"As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place," Mr. Trump continued. He threatened to investigate the federal funds sent to Cummings' district, and said that "no human being would want to live there."
The firestorm was enormous as Trump faced a hugeblow back of criticism, with many pointing out how the tone of these attacks fit a racist narrative he applies to the black community.
Mario Lopez: It's 'dangerous' for parents to support transgender kids - And he is catching hell for it as he should. Why is it when it comes to trans issues, the media rarely talks to trans people or medical professionals who have experience dealing with the issue? They either talk to idiots or self-anointed "experts" from anti-LGBTQ groups who do nothing but repeat false talking points.
Bill Owens (top) and Alveda King (bottom) are both two anti-LGBTQ so-called black leaders trying to grab the spotlight by defending Trump's racist attacks on Baltimore and Congressman Elijah Cummings.
So now Trump has started a new controversy with his racist comments against the city of Baltimore in an attempt to smear Congressman Elijah Cummings. He has been just about universally condemned, except for by a few - Republicans who either support or need him to fulfill their goals. And other folks who see it as an opportunity for spotlight. This latter category includes so-called black leaders who can always be counted on to publicly defend defend the racist excesses or the extreme agenda of the GOP. Recently, Trump met with a few of them in an attempt to blunt the firestorm he caused. What's interesting is that the LGBTQ community should recognize a few of these folks, and not in a good way.
CNN’s Don Lemon confronted Reverend Bill Owens on meeting with President Donald Trump following his widely condemned attack on Baltimore and its Congressman, Elijah Cummings. Owens, the president of the coalition of African-American pastors, on Monday attended a meeting between Trump and a group of inner-city pastors
Lemon kicked off the interview by asking if any of the faith leaders raised concerns about the president’s attacks on “leaders of color.”
“I think something was said in passing,” Owens replied, though he tried to avoid addressing Trump’s remarks.
Lemon pressed, asking his question again. When Owens again dodged.
“So the president tweeted today he was looking forward to his meeting with wonderful inner-city pastors. Any concern for you that the president used this meeting with black leaders to insulate himself from the criticism?” Lemon asked.
“I don’t think so. I don’t think that at all because I have been to the White House four times in five months,” Owens said. “There was nothing about insulating from anything. He wanted to hear from us, what our concerns were and what he could do to help us.”
Lemon noted that Owens has “said some controversial things before” including in 2012 when he compared President Barack Obama’s support for same sex marriage to condoning child molestation (comments Owens walked back).
Unfortunately, the Mediaite article omitted a few things. Owens is the head of a group called the Coalition of African-American Pastors. It sounds legitimate, but it actually serves as a way for Owens to provide a black voice to conservatives for a price, particularly when it comes to anti-LGBTQ issues:
No matter how they try, anti-LGBTQ groups and personalities can't seem to get a moral panic started over the popular event Drag Queen Story Hour. But that doesn't mean they don't try. Almost on a daily basis via various conservative sites, I read articles with lurid inferences about what drag queens are doing to children during this event. Usually these lurid inferences translate to innocent situations exaggerated by homophobic need to exploit the "LGBTQs recruit children" lie
The “Drag Queen” disruptions in public libraries across the country are becoming more frightening and weird. But parents and citizens are fighting back! A bizarre pair of “Drag Queens” led a disturbing “Drag Queen Story Hour” event at the Grauwyler Park Public Library in Dallas, TX on July 13. A few of our people were inside documenting it, but a much larger group, organized by our new Dallas chapter of MassResistance, held a rousing protest outside.
Don't be fooled by the prose or the pictures on the webpage. Mass Resistance has a reputation going overboard on self-aggrandizement.
A big caveat - this list was compiled in 2017. A lot of things have happened since then, such as the wonderful television show, Pose. Still, this is somewhat a good historical compilation of where we have been. Number one should be easy to guess.
If there is any question that the Family Research Council (and its president Tony Perkins) sold what little soul and integrity they have to boost Donald Trump, its Washington Report about Wednesday's testimony of Special Counsel Robert Mueller should remove all doubt.
"Finally, Washington sort of agrees on something," the New Yorker half-joked. "Mueller bombed." After 124 days of waiting, "painful" doesn't begin to describe the disjointed spectacle of former special counsel Robert Mueller's House hearing. The epic dud, proclaimed across the news networks as "sad," "embarrassing," and "a disaster" came to an anti-climatic end Wednesday for Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) party. Democrats, who've desperately been trying to find a way to end Donald Trump's presidency prematurely, are back to square one. If they want to send Trump packing, the Washington Post pointed out, they'll have to do it the old-fashioned way -- at the ballot box.
The seven-hour sit-down was supposed to be the must-see event of the year. Instead, the New York Times pronounced, Mueller's appearance was "the blockbuster that wasn't." Confused, evasive, and downright scattered, the man at the center of one of the biggest political witch hunts in history did nothing but prove what a waste of time this entire drama has been. The liberal's political savior was such a liability that by afternoon's end even CNN's Jeffery Toobin was calling it a "win" for President Trump.
Congressman Mike Johnson (R-La.), chair of the Republican Study Committee who had a front row seat for the circus in the hearing, told me on "Washington Watch" that Democrats had every right to be disappointed. "They truly hoped, as I said in my closing statement for the Republican side... that there was really one reason that Mr. Mueller was called to testify today -- and that was to give political cover to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They desperately wanted him to tell them that they had to impeach the president. He did not do that. His report of course did not do that. And that's where we are today -- just exactly where we were yesterday."
When I asked him if he felt like the committees had covered any new ground, he said flatly, "None at all." But then, he pointed out, everyone should have expected that. Mr. Mueller himself made that quite clear when he had his press conference more than a month ago, when he insisted, "I'm going to stick to the four corners of this document."
But as frustrating as the scene must have been for Democrats, Republicans were equally annoyed. After all, Mike pointed out, there were so many questions that went unanswered about the report's bias, its origins, the Steele dossier, the tainted FBI agents. None of those gaping holes in this theory were addressed, Congressman Johnson vented. "He refused to even talk about the origins of this whole charade... now proven to be totally bogus. That was the foundation of this entire ordeal.... and if the root of it is corrupt, then everything that comes from it is as well."
Mueller was asked to get to the bottom of this supposed collusion with Russia, but we've all known for quite some time that, as Mike put it, "There was 'no there there' -- not even any smoke, much less any fire... It was a political hack job, and now it's proven to be so." From an investigative team with 14 Democrats and zero Republicans, none of this should have come as a surprise. There were FBI agents texting how much they hated Donald Trump and vowing to take him out. "[Those are] their own words. So it's hard to look at this by any objective measure and say, 'Oh, well, this was a fair investigation.'"
While Mueller was panned for the delivery of his report by some in the media, very few pundits disputed what he said. Many pundits, while criticizing Mueller's shaky delivery, called attention to the fact that his report was not a win for Trump. And others called out their colleagues for focusing more on optics than the facts Mueller verified.
The Russia probe wasn’t a “witch hunt.” Russian election interference was not a “hoax.”
Russia meddled in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign was happy with it.
The Mueller report did not find “no obstruction.” Trump’s answers to written questions from Mueller’s team were “generally” untruthful.
And most importantly:
The Mueller report didn’t give Trump “total exoneration.”
In addition, Mueller also said Trump could be charged after leaving office:
This reality is the reason why pundit Joe Scarborough blasted Trump and Republicans for celebrating:
Scarborough noted how the Republicans were “ecstatic” Wednesday given how the hearings proceeded before listing the items learned and/or confirmed by the hearing: 1) Russia interfered with American democracy, 2) Trump and his campaign “happily welcomed” that interference, 3) Trump and his team members repeatedly lied to federal agents investigating this, 4) President Donald Trump lied under oath about Russians trying to infiltrate, and 5) “American democracy is still, is still under threat from the Russians.”
Scarborough ended this opening riff by blasting the GOP members of Congress who, during much of Mueller’s testimony, seemed entirely more focused on undermining Mueller and his team’s investigation into Russian interference, than the Russian interference itself.
Perkins and FRC belongs in that camp. One would think that after everything Perkins and his group says about "American values," "traditional morality," etc, they would show some alarm that our democracy is in danger of being compromised, Instead, the only thing they seem to be concerned about is protecting Trump. If they aren't making excuses for his behavior or giving him "mulligans," they are echoing his lies.
I guess Perkins and FRC save outrage for more "vital" issues such as preventing transgender children from using school bathrooms without any fear.
I am of the belief that a closeted LGBTQ politician should be out if he or she publicly makes themselves an enemy of our equality. With that in mind, I give you an interesting story courtesy of LGBTQNation:
Cari Wade Gervin — a longtime political reporter who covers Tennessee news, politics and gossip site The Dog and Pony Show — has accused 59-year-old Tennessee state Rep. Bill Sanderson of “openly soliciting sex” and sending “sexually explicit messages and pictures to men almost 40 years his junior” while voting repeatedly in favor of anti-LGBTQ legislation.
Sanderson resigned today. He says he’s resigning to run his business, White Squirrel Winery, but Gervin claims that his resignation was partly in response to the revealing of his same-sex encounters.
In January 2014, the gossip blog The Dirty published messages Sanderson allegedly sent to an unnamed male Vanderbilt student in which Sanderson writes that he is a “state rep” representing Obion, Lake and Dyer Counties, his actual district.
The article details another alleged near encounter between Sanderson and another young man which was curtailed by his wife coming home. The article also details that Sanderson has been a consistent vote against anything pro-LGBTQ:
In 2011, Sanderson voted against allowing cities to adopt anti-LGBT discrimination ordinances. In 2012, he voted for an abstinence-only sex-ed bill that banned discussion of “gateway sexual activity.” In 2016, he signed a resolution denouncing the U.S. Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling and supported a bill allowing therapists to turn away gay clients (in violation of the American Counseling Association’s code of ethics).
This year, he voted to defend schools that refuse bathroom access to trans students, signed a watered down anti-trans bathroom bill and voted to allow adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples.
With this revelation, Sanderson joins a long list of politicians and leaders (many who were anti-LGBTQ) brought down by accusations that they were secretly gay.
If one of the country's biggest retailers is going to ban books, it had better have a good reason. Amazon didn't. The authors it blacklisted weren't inciting violence or promoting terrorist jihad -- they were offering hope to men and women suffering from sexual bondage. But to LGBT activists, it didn't matter what the books actually said or how many people they helped. All the extremists care about is that these authors might undermine their agenda and therefore must be silenced.
Of course, to most Americans, the intolerance is nothing new. We've all watched Google, Twitter, YouTube, and others crack down on conservative speech for years. But banning books that could give people freedom? That's taking the intolerance to a whole new level. Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), who's been horrified at the fast pace of censorship in this country, refuses to let Amazon get away with it. "Everybody is entitled to information," she told me on Monday's "Washington Watch." "And what Amazon has done is [block] people from having access to information that they're seeking and that they want. And it's just not right." Censorship, she said, should have no place in a country that values free speech.
"We don't want to start having a society where, on controversial issues, people will only have access to one viewpoint.... That's what's made America different than others. [Sexual orientation change efforts may be] an emotional topic, but we need to have more information out there for people so they can make decisions. [U]nwanted sexual attraction is a very difficult thing.... This isn't just a topic that we should throw around the political sphere. We have to remember these are individuals... And if people are struggling with something so personal, and they want more information, they should have access to a book... [to] get some potential help... or see if [it's] something they want to pursue or not. To just to have one group say, 'No, our way is the only way, and we're not going to let any other American hear about another alternative way to think about a condition or a subject' -- that's what we've seen in other countries in the past, and that's a scary place to go."
Apparently FRC and its Congressional allies, particularly Rep. Vicky Hartzler (who has been known to freely funnel any lie FRC tells her), is relying on hysterical connotations about "intolerance" and "censorship" to tell boldfaced lies. When FRC says that those books aren't inciting violence, the group is clearly lying.
Probably the greatest thing to come out of this vile Trump era is gay comedian, singer, and satirist Randy Rainbow. His musings have gotten us all through plenty of Trumpian spewed calamities. And he does it again with a brutal mocking of Trump, his supporters, and Lindsey Graham
I know what you're thinking. "Wow! Can Alvin be any more stereotypical with this post! Picking the Top LGBTQ characters in a musical? It's not the start of this list that's concerning. It's would it ever be finished."
Nevertheless, the folks at Ms. Mojo actually do a good job with this countdown.
One would think that after losing the fight over marriage equality in America, anti-LGBTQ talking head Brian Brown would have slithered away. Unfortunately, he is still around and thanks to a new committee formed by Trump's secretary of state, the Freddy Krueger of homophobia hopes to clamp down on the future dreams of the LGBTQ community.
Anti-LGBTQ-equality activist Brian Brown declared in a message to supporters on Thursday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s new “Commission on Unalienable Rights” provides Brown’s International Organization for the Family with “an extraordinary opening to push for clear and consistent recognition of the natural family” and “gives us a forum to challenge American foreign policy that has in the past advanced the extreme agenda of the left that has been cloaked in the language of so-called human rights.”
Pompeo’s commission, which was reportedly created without input from the State Department’s existing human rights infrastructure, will bring a “natural law” lens to a reexamination of U.S. human rights policy. As New Ways Ministry’s Bob Shine has noted, “Natural law theory has been used for a long time by Catholic Church leaders and theologians who reject LGBT people’s identities and their relationships.” Natural law theory has various strains, but as applied to sexuality and gender, it essentially argues that people whose sexual expression or gender identity is not “natural,” or who have non-procreative sex, are defying the “natural law” of God.
While Pompeo has tried to downplay the policy impact of the commission, which is dominated by social conservatives, Brown’s enthusiasm makes it clear that Religious Right believes the commission’s work is likely to be used to provide intellectual justification for further reversing U.S. advocacy for the rights of LGBTQ people and women as elements of U.S. foreign policy.
None of that is surprising, given that the commission is reportedly the brainchild of Robert George, a founder of the National Organization for Marriage and other anti-LGBTQ groups, and an intellectual force behind the anti-equality movement. George is not an official member of the commission, but has professional associations with many of the commission’s members, including chair Mary Ann Glendon, an anti-abortion-rights activist who has dismissed U.S. and European advocacy for LGBTQ human rights globally as “neocolonialism.”
