It's always wonderful when attempts to target LGBTQ people backfires. The above video is from The Humanist Report, leftist political news show on YouTube, Facebook & Twitch hosted by Mike Figueredo:
A conservative hotline in Texas was created for concerned citizens to "report" any and all drag shows happening in the state. Once LGBTQ allies learned about it, well, this hotline got a little bit more than it bargained for.
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| Florida Governor Ron DeSantis |
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| George Santos |
None of us knows exactly what will happen next regarding fabulist grifter George Santos. But one thing is clear: As a House representative, he’s severely damaged goods, exposed beyond anyone’s wildest imagination as a less-than-talented Mr. Ripley.That is a great development for LGBTQ Americans as Republicans are set to push a federal “don’t say gay” bill through the House with the help of gay Republicans who psychotically believe they’ll be accepted by MAGA extremists immersed in QAnon conspiracies if they just throw some of their own under the bus.Santos, who supported Ron DeSantis’s odious “don’t say gay” law, would have been front and center in this effort as the first non-incumbent gay Republican elected to the House. He’d surely have been the poster boy of self-hate, giving speeches on the floor and sitting on TV talk shows, pushing smears about gay teachers as “groomers,” and attacking drag queens and transgender people as dangerous to children.But now Santos will be too preoccupied with keeping his seat in Congress, let alone keeping himself out of an American, or perhaps Brazilian, prison. He’ll have to keep his head down as GOP leaders do everything they can to hide this deranged fabricator from the press. Nothing he says will have even a shred of credibility.Only weeks ago the tiny band of gay MAGA in politics was exhilarated over having one of its own in the House. But after the scandal broke the joyous squealing fell more silent than a herd of feral pigs that suddenly keeled over.
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| Instead of handling a child sex trafficking scandal in Florida's foster care system, Ron DeSantis is picking another fight with drag queens and the LGBTQ community. |
Implying that LGBTQ people and our culture are "sexually grooming" kids has gotten Fl Governor Ron DeSantis a lot of press, so naturally he is continuing to push that narrative.
From LGBTQNation:
The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is investigating a performing arts venue for hosting a drag queen event. A right-wing online activist also recorded a video of himself being escorted out of the venue by security during the event after he stood up and yelled about kids being present. Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) is investigating the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale and other venues after receiving “multiple complaints” of a December 26 “A Drag Queen Christmas” event that was allegedly “sexually explicit” and “marketed to children,” The Hill reported. If the venues are found to have violated the DBPR’s licensing standards, they could have their business and liquor licenses revoked, essentially putting them out of business. The investigation could also be referred to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for “potential criminal liability.”. . . In a letter addressed to the Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation, the second-to-last stop on the show’s tour, and sent to Drag Fans, the event’s organizer, the DBPR wrote, “The Department has reason to believe that this drag show is of a sexual nature, involving the exposure or exhibition of sexual organs, similar sexual activity, and/or the sexualization of children’s stories. The Department has become aware that drag shows by Drag Fans have been marketed to and attended by minors, including young children.” In actuality, the show contains one reference to alcohol with neither no nudity nor sexual references.. . .A spokesperson for the Broward Center told The Hill that the drag performance was limited to people 18 years or older, unless accompanied by a parent. However, the Center’s web page advertising the event on December 17 called the event “an all-ages show” that “may contain adult content.” The Broward Center also sent out a “Know Before You Go” message to ticket purchasers making them aware that the show contained adult themes and content.
Ron DeSantis state-run foster care program exposed teenage girls to sex trafficking. In fact, 21% of Florida’s 377 verified child human trafficking victims in 2021 were groomed and recruited from foster care. Why isn’t he investigating that? https://t.co/05WUClrKc6
— Carlos Guillermo Smith (@CarlosGSmith) December 29, 2022
Ron DeSantis refused to fine a single hotel after finding 14,279 violations of anti-human trafficking laws, even though 377 verified sex trafficking victims were Florida children.
— Carlos Guillermo Smith (@CarlosGSmith) December 28, 2022
Instead, @FloridaDBPR is aggressively and publicly threatening businesses for hosting drag shows. pic.twitter.com/mRmkAfL6Mx
An investigation published by the South Florida Sun Sentinel found that 6,669 hotels and other lodging establishments had received 14,279 citations since a 2019 sex trafficking law required them to make changes to protect victims. Under the anti-trafficking law, violators are supposed to receive fines of up to $2,000 a day. However, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation says not a single fine has been issued because the law allows hotels a 90-day period to fix violations, and so far all have done so.
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| Elon Musk |
2022 was an ugly year for LGBTQ Americans
. From bogus legislation targeting trans men, women, and children. to elected officials exploiting us as a stepping stones to higher office, to wannabe internet personalities passing distorted videos about drag queens to further the lie that we want to 'sexuall groom' kids, violence - physical, psychological, and spiritual - increased against LGBTQ people at a level which I have never seen before.
And punctuating it all was the mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado which left five people dead and over 20 others injured.
Earlier this month, Congress held hearings about the violence against LGBTQ people. Testifying was Michael Anderson, James Slaugh and Matthew Haynes, three survivors of the Club Q shooting. And the man in the video above, Brandon Wolf who survived the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Years from now, his testimony will be remembered as one of the greatest speeches of our time.
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| Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok may not know it yet, but she just gave the world her 'number.' |
It only took just one interview with that disgusting Tucker Carlson for Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok to drop her mask and show the world her true ugly face of hate. Of course with so many other things, LGBTQ folks could have saved the world the trouble because we always had girlfriend's number.
From Mediaite:
The face behind the Libs of TikTok account was revealed Tuesday on Fox Nation’s Tucker Carlson Today. Fox News host Tucker Carlson sat down with the formerly anonymous creator Chaya Raichik, who declared the “LGBTQ community” has become a “cult.” The Libs of TikTok account shares videos from TikTok of LGBTQ activists and teachers who are typically fairly extreme in their views and expression of said views. The account has attracted a large following, but also faced backlash and been deemed hateful by critics.
Raichik made stunning comments in her interview with Carlson, accusing “evil” people within the “LGBTQ community” of trying to hurt kids. The creator said:
“There’s something so unique about — the LGBTQ community has become this cult and it’s so captivating and it pulls people in so strongly unlike anything we’ve ever seen and they brainwash people to join and they convince them of all these things and it’s really, really hard to get out of it. It’s really difficult.”
Alejandra Caraballo posted a clip of the interview on Twitter:
Chaya Raichik went on Tucker Carlson and said the "LGBTQ community has become this cult... It's extremely poisonous." She later says "They're just evil people, and they're out to groom kids. They're recruiting."
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) December 27, 2022
This is one of the most bigoted interviews I've ever heard. pic.twitter.com/0tVe9WONOH
Let me be clear about two things.
1. Raichik just demonized an entire group of people. It wasn't just a simple generalization. She is saying that LGBTQ people as a group are dangerous because we supposedly want to harm children. And when groups are deemed as harmful to society, certain actions to undercut this supposed harm are either encouraged or overlooked. Even if said actions are violent. In other words, think of one of those animated RAID bugspray commercial in which first the bugs are deemed destructive and then eradicated in an overly dramatic way.
Also, there is nothing new about what she claims. Anita Bryant made the same claim in the 70s. The discredited researcher Paul Cameron made the same claim in the 80s and 90s (Of course he also claimed that we stuffed gerbils up our rectums. How long will it be for Raichik goes down that road?) Demonization of LGBTQ people is an old practice and is no different than anti-Semitism, anti-Asian racism, or anti-black racism. The only difference in this case is that people are able to hide their bigotry behind terms like 'religious freedom' or videos deliberately and falsely accusing LGBTQ people of sexually grooming children. Strip away that subterfuge and we are talking about the same mindset which claims that Jewish people are funding worldwide chaos, Asian people are responsible for the coronavirus, or that black people are violent sociopaths.
2. Let's break this down for some folks inside of the LGBTQ community.
All of you supposedly "straight-acting," "upstanding" gays pointing the finger at the so-called oddballs in the community who you claim makes it so difficult for us to be "accepted,"
All of you white-bread, privileged gays who count on your high status and money to shield you from the discrimination dealt to us so-called lower echelon gays,
All of you LGB folks pointing fingers at our transgender brothers and sisters, calling them "the problem,"
All of you silly, stuck in the past fools whining about how the new generation of LGBTQ are too extreme,
NONE of you are excluded.
When Raichik attacked the community, she meant you too. Like or not, we all are in the same boat in her eyes. And she is steadily attempting to drill as many holes in the bottom as she can.
Also, allow me to be clear about one last thing.
Miss Thing's interview with Tucker Carlson confirms one fact which we all must be clear on and repeat. None of this is about protecting children. None of this is about stopping the sexual grooming of children. It is all about, as it is always was about, falsely portraying LGBTQ people as oversexed monsters (again). It is all about a slow and steady march to building a narrative which would eventually make it acceptable to wreck our lives. Either by legislation or something else less legal and more destructive. Or may all at the same time.
Sounds familiar? It should because we've had this dance before. So much so that one would think we could recognize the steps.
Truth be told, Raichik doesn't gives a damn about sexually trafficked children. Strip away her ugly disguise and you have an obviously sad person with possible personality issues. Raichik is under the illusion that she is doing something worthwhile when in reality she is trafficking the same hate which has led to so much destruction against innocent people throughout history.
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| Amy Grant |
Editor's note - Barring anything eventful taking place, this will be my last post before Christmas. See y'all on December 27. Happy holidays!
Well, well, well.
After all of the junk we've heard over the years from conservative evangelicals that there is a conspiracy to keep them from living in accordance to their faith, the truth has been revealed.
It was all bupkiss; a talking point manufactured to disguise their entitled yearnings to discriminate us as simply a genuine desire uphold their faith. Thank you, gospel singer Amy Grant for amplifying this path to revelation, although us LGBTQ people have been trying to tell the rest of y'all for years.
For those not aware, Amy Grant recently announced that she would be holding her niece's same-sex wedding at her farm. She said she is doing this because she wants to be supportive in accordance to her faith.
That sounds like a simple story, right? Think again.
Since her announcement, Grant has been swarmed by conservative evangelicals for supposedly "embracing sin." She has been called a sell-out, a fraud, a coward and worse. Even Franklin Graham took it upon himself to scold her on Twitter and his Facebook page, implying that she doesn't love her cousin enough to "tell her the truth" about the supposed sin of homosexuality.
The need for conservative evangelicals to condemn Grant shouldn't be a complicated argument. I don't see it as an argument of whether or not homosexuality is a sin. It's all about hypocrisy; particularly in light of how the phrase "religious freedom" has been drilled into the collective American consciousness. It's a phrase conservative evangelicals - both groups and personalities - like to use to put in gentler terms how they think that they should be allowed to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans in settings other than religious.
It's not enough for them to be able to castigate us in churches and other religious places. They want to have the right to discriminate against us in secular environments like stores and such. "Christians should not have to put their faith in the backseat no matter where it is, " they tell us. And with all of the power and connections at their disposal - and with the help of the conservative propaganda engine - they've created a narrative detailing stories of Christian business owners supposedly hounded into near bankruptcy by pushy gay people desirous to either make them abandon their faith or financially ruin them. They've even taken that narrative to court, winning several cases including a huge one at the Supreme Court involving a bakery in Colorado.
So one would think that these defenders of folks wanting to worship as they desire would be in Amy Grant's corner, defending her "religious freedom."
Not likely. Instead, they attack her, call her names, and try to shout her down because she's being living her faith in accordance to her standards instead of theirs.
Thus, we are now learning a lesson about the conservative evangelical definition of "religious freedom." To them, it means they should have the "religious freedom" to condemn gays and discriminate against us in the secular market. But folks like Amy Grant shouldn't have that same "religious freedom" to embrace and support LGBTQ people.
To conservative evangelicals like Graham and the rest who condemned Amy Grant, "religious freedom" isn't about freedom. It's about power and control. It is yet another demonstration of how these folks have reduced their faith to a filthy weapon designed to place themselves on a pedestal while crushing the rest of us under their heels.
Related post - Franklin Graham tries to 'cancel' Amy Grant for support of same-sex marriage. Has yet to 'cancel' Donald Trump.
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| Some people who protest Drag Queen Story Hour events are in serious need of adult supervision. |
NYC Council member Erik Bottcher did us all a huge favor.
During a very recent protest against a Drag Queen Story Hour event, he filmed the protesters, leading to the title of this post: Who would you trust with your kids? Drag queens or THESE people. Spoiler alert: you had better pick the drag queens. And quick! These people gravitate between vulgar, pathetic, or too eager to get in the spotlight - particularly the one jumping in front the camera talking about "Trans Against Groomers." Then there is the elderly woman with the mouth so filthy that her language almost burned my ears.
Today I witnessed pure hatred and bigotry outside Drag Queen Story Hour at a public library in Chelsea.
— NYC Council Member Erik Bottcher (@ebottcher) December 17, 2022
Inside, I witnessed a loving and peaceful reading of children’s books to kids.
Warning: this video contains foul language and hate speech. pic.twitter.com/RLMWHDdSnw
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| Franklin Graham |
Popular Christian gospel singer Amy Grant, who was recently honored at the Kennedy Centers Honors, is in the news because she is hosting her niece's same-sex wedding at her farm. Grant said she is doing this because she believes that her faith tells her that God loves everyone for who they are.
Naturally some in the conservative evangelical community aren't happy. It's ironic how these folks go on and on about their right to "religious freedom" and "religious freedom" but will refuse to extend the courtesy to others.
Practically elbowing himself to be first in line spewing condemnations is Franklin Graham in a Facebook post and a series of tweets seen below:
It's a delicious irony that Graham's pretentious attack on Grant is coming at the same time in which the House Jan 6th committee recommended that the DOJ prosecute former President Donald Trump for his part in causing the Jan 6th attack on the Capitol. The attack was spurred on in part by Trump's false claim that he was cheated out of victory in the 2020 election.
It was a claim which Franklin supported:
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| Matthew Kacsmaryk, a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump, has been making rulings beneficial to conservatives and the religious right in spite of the fact that the decisions are "riddled with legal errors." |
While many people have pointed to a definite religious conservative bias impugning the Supreme Court, the sad fact is that this bias isn't just there. There is a federal judge whose court religious conservatives seem to steer to a lot. That's because he generally gives them the rulings that they want.
Vox recently published an entire article on this judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, and people need to start paying attention to him and what he is doing seemingly under all of our noses. The article deserves a read and a share.
On Thursday evening, a Trump-appointed judge named Matthew Kacsmaryk effectively ordered the Biden administration to reinstate a harsh, Trump-era border policy known as “Remain in Mexico,” which requires many immigrants seeking asylum in the United States to remain on the Mexican side of the border while their case is being processed. It’s the second time that Kacsmaryk has pulled this stunt — he did the same thing in 2021, and the Supreme Court overturned his decision last June.It’s a significant decision in its own right, and will only prolong uncertainty at America’s southern border. But Kacsmaryk’s order in this case, Texas v. Biden, was merely the capstone of an unusually busy week for this judge. His busy week, and months of earlier actions, show the havoc one rogue federal judge can create, especially in today’s judiciary.The previous Thursday, Kacsmaryk became the first federal judge since the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion to attack the right to contraception. Kacsmaryk’s decision in Deanda v. Becerra targets Title X, a federal program that provides grants to health providers to fund family planning and contraceptive care. He claimed that the program is unlawful because it doesn’t require grant recipients to get parental permission before treating teenage patients. Lest there be any doubt, his opinion is riddled with obvious legal errors. Kacsmaryk didn’t even have jurisdiction to hear the Deanda case in the first place.Meanwhile, in mid-November, Kacsmaryk handed down another decision in Neese v. Becerra, which held that a federal law prohibiting certain forms of discrimination by health providers does not protect against anti-LGBTQ discrimination. His opinion cannot be squared with the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which established that statutes prohibiting “sex” discrimination also ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, because “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”
Often, Kacsmaryk’s opinions suggest not only that he knows he is defying the law, but also that he revels in doing so. His opinion in Neese, for example, opens with a quote from Justice Samuel Alito’s dissenting opinion in Bostock. A dissent, by definition, is not the law. Indeed, it is often the opposite of the law, because dissenting opinions state arguments that a majority of the Court rejected.
It's annoying how the GOP and conservatives are tainting so many debates and conversations by accusing people of being or defending pedophiles and "child groomers." That virus of stigmatization has even spread to the halls of Congress.
Recently, GOP Rep Ron Jackson (TX) accused Democratic Rep Katie Porter (CA) of defending pedophilia:
Porter's comments were said on Wednesday at Capitol Hill hearing, "The Rise of Anti-LGBTQI+ Extremism and Violence in the United States." And here is something which shouldn't be a shocker.
Jackson is lying. His tweet was blistered by several people including journalists, who said that he was deliberately mischaracterizing Porter's words.
Journalists such as Daniel Dale of CNN who provided a transcript of Porter's comments:
Absolutely not what Porter said. The transcript clearly shows she was arguing that LGBTQ people are *falsely* called groomers and pedophiles on social media merely because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. She did not defend pedophilia. https://t.co/35SfSiEQuN pic.twitter.com/MAkRoF4JUo
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) December 15, 2022
This is a vicious lie and you should delete it and resign. https://t.co/9Xldz0QGiW
— Ari Drennen (@AriDrennen) December 15, 2022
(Various other accounts preceded Jackson in doing this distortion of Porter's comments, notably including "Libs of TikTok," whose tweet spread pretty widely.) pic.twitter.com/59ctwHmujU
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) December 15, 2022
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| TX attorney general Ken Paxton |
the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.
Kris Goldsmith, Veteran and Founder of Sparverious, a group dedicated to detecting and disrupting today’s greatest threats against democracy, candidly discusses his experience of being targeted by the Fox News hate machine.
