Tag Archives: religious right

Pride Month May Be Over, but our pride and the battles it represents go on

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I had seen them earlier while watching the parade, but hadn’t been able to get over to them to ask if I could take their picture. Then found them later at the festival enjoying the shade.

Last weekend we watched part of the Parade before slipping into the Pride Festival. I took a lot of pictures, but most of them aren’t that interesting in retrospect. I was usually trying to get a picture or a cool costume or a neat t-shirt, et cetera. Because I’m vertically challenged and we were trying to keep me in the shade, while I could see the parade, I was doing a lot of looking between people’s heads, which makes it difficult to get good pictures.

After the Dykes on Bikes we had the color guard, which was a whole lotta flags. This picture demonstrates why most of my parade pics aren’t really worth posting. (click to embiggen)
Because we walked to the Parade route from the Locus Awards Hotel, where ever we wind up watching the Parade will be close to the end of the route. We’ve previously found spots that were far enough from the end that we only had to see and hear the God Hates Fags people for a short time, as they usually walk down the length of the route before the official start of the parade, with a police escort. I’ve written before about why I think this is wrong, so won’t go into it here.

This year, we were much closer to the end, and it turns out that when the haters get to that point, they leave the route and assemble near the places where police have set up to maintain roadblocks and such. And they keep spouting their hate over megaphones for a long, long time. And have all their hateful signs.

Here’s where I repeat that I believe in free speech and the right of people to protest. But I believe in treating each other with respect, believe that science and demonstrable fact trump groundless claims and disprovable convictions (no matter how sincere). I also despise hypocrisy and misattribution. So, while I think they have a right to counter-protest the parade, I also believe that shouting hate and disinformation into a megaphone in a public space is barbaric and unproductive behavior.

The sign reads, “I didn't say that! Love, Jesus”
The sign reads, “I didn’t say that! Love, Jesus”
And it is misinformation. They had multiple megaphones but took turns (I’m presuming because of battery issues and to give vocal cords a rest?). two of the guys kept claiming that Jesus said that all “you homos and lesbos and trannies and other faggots” were going to burn in the lake of fire. “You will spend eternity in Hell, you workers of iniquity!” And that is fundamentally a lie. It’s multiple lies. First, Jesus never once said a single word about homosexuality. Comb through the gospels as much as you like, and you will find not a single mention. Second, the only time he talked about people going to eternal punishment, he was talking about people who claimed to be Christian but didn’t follow his teaching (Matthew 25:42-46). And the phrase “workers of iniquity” is from a passage where Jesus was talking about people who preach falsely in his name (Matthew 7:21-23). Fortunately, someone showed up dressed as Jesus with a counter-sign. I have to really zoom in to one of the pictures I took trying to catch him.

The Satanic Church showed up with pro-gay signs, to surround the main group of anti-gay folks and block their signs. That seemed to drive most of them off, leaving one guy with a sign and megaphone. I will say that he tried to talk more calmly and didn’t just hurl slurs at people. But at one point the last anti-gay protestor was surrounded by the Satanic Church people and a bunch of folks wearing the trans flag as a cape, and they had parasols they were holding up so no one could see his sign. Even he eventually gave up and walked away.

I have dozens of shots like this of people in their cool t-shirts, hats, and costumes
I have dozens of shots like this of people in their cool t-shirts, hats, and costumes (click to embiggen).
The festival was fun. I like seeing all the different kinds of us that are there. Between us, we each found a t-shirt at one of the booths we wanted to buy, but they didn’t have the one Michael wanted in his size. Michael found two variants of Pride flags that I didn’t have, so we grabbed those. It was wonderful seeing a bunch of women wearing “Free Mom Hugs” t-shirts. Then at one point I was sitting somewhere resting (and taking pictures) while he went looking for some lemonade. He came back and asked me if I knew there was a queer gamers/comics fan mini con in the pavilion. There, inside an air conditioned space were two publishers that specialize in queer comics and related books, plus gaming companies, some artists, and a bunch of arcade style games. One of the publishers, Northwest Press, is a company I frequently buy stuff from at Geek Girl Con, so I was on the mailing list, and only after we went in did I remember that I had seen an email from them with a subject line about looking for them at Pride.

It was a good day. I got to see and applaud some cool Parade entries. I got to smile and say “Happy Pride” to a huge number of complete strangers. And contrary to what the guys with the megaphones were shouting at us, the main reason we’re at Pride isn’t to revel in our supposed sins, it is to celebrate the fact that we’re alive and thriving despite the efforts of the haters. To paraphrase the meme I shared earlier: it isn’t about who we have sex with, it’s about the fact that we have survived the taunting and gaslighting and yelling and bashing and shaming. We’re celebrating the fact that we’re tough enough to walk out in public with our true selves fully on display. And that’s why the most of the crowd kept laughing at the haters and the nonsense they spewed on their portable sound systems. We’ve spent years surviving far worse than what they can dish out in a single afternoon, and we’re realized that we are strong enough to stand on our own feet, while all they have is hot air.

And here’s something to think about the next time you see those haters. A blogger who goes by Riot Grrl Dyke was once a child of those haters who was taken to Pride by her parents to try to confront the sinners. RiotGrrlDyke has this to say about Pride:

I’ll never forget my first pride.

I can’t remember my actual age, but it was in the range of 10 to 13 I think. my parents had dragged me to a Pride festival, and walked across the street from the main event, across where the lines were drawn, to where a sea of people in red shirts that read “god has a better way” tried to drown out the celebration with speakers blasting christian music, and shouting and loud praying.

the leaders pulled all us kids to the side and gave us the spiel. they told us how the rainbow had been stolen from us, and that these people were tricked by the devil and just needed prayer, but that if we didn’t save them, they were going to hell.

I rolled my eyes because I already didn’t believe in god, and although I barely knew what being gay was, I knew my parents were usually on the Wrong side of things, and I shouldn’t be siding with them.

“We aren’t allowed over there if we’re wearing the red shirts,” the leaders told us, “so we’re sending people over in secret without them so you can pass out tracts and pray for people. they won’t talk to us, but they’ll talk to the kids. does anyone want to volunteer?”

the people in red shirts disgusted me. the people on the other side of the line were cheering and having fun. I raised my hand.

we were supposed to go in groups with young adults, to make sure we were doing what we were supposed to be. I wandered off the minute I could and stood nervously at the edge of a crowd, watching on as people went by, happy and unbothered by the protests across the street. I felt a little pride myself in tricking the protestors into giving up a witness spot to me, when I was going to smile on and think profanities at god instead.

there was an older woman standing outside the crowd too. she asked if I was here with anyone, a girlfriend maybe? I said no, my parents were across the street. she nodded, and said she was here with her kid. a daughter, that she came to support, but couldn’t keep up with in the crowd.

I almost cried. I told her how amazing that was, because I couldn’t imagine my mother showing support like that to me over anything, much less something as serious as Being Gay. I imagined if I was gay, and at a pride event just like now, but this time because I Belong.

I knew automatically that my mother, without a doubt, would still be in the same place, across the street.

I got hungry after a bit, and tried to find a good food truck. I had a little money and I was unused to being on my own like this, but I didn’t want to go back to the Other Side. I knew now without a shadow of a doubt, this was the Good side and that was the Bad side.

as I was eating the gyro I got, there was a stream of red shirted protestors trickling through; I had reached the end of the boundaries, and the protestors were allowed in here. I backed up a little, spotting my dad among them. I didn’t want him to tell me to go back.

there was a line of women closing ranks around the Pride attendees, separating them from the protesters as they walked through. they spread their arms out and told every person the protesters spoke to that they were not obligated to respond, they could walk away and not engage.

my dad spotted me back, and made a beeline over. he couldn’t cross over because a butch lesbian stood between us. I didn’t know what those words meant, but I never forgot the buttons she was wearing.

he tried to tell me that it was time to go. “you’re not obligated to speak to him,” the butch said, cutting him off and edging further between us. I smiled at her, a little in wonderment. no one had ever told me that I didn’t have to speak to my parents, or do anything other than blindly obey them. I watched my dad get held behind a line by a woman half his height, with no intention on letting him get to me, and I smiled and walked away.

I didn’t have a clue who I was then, and I wouldn’t for a good few years to come. but I never forgot the supportive mother, who symbolized to me everything a mother should be, that mine, for all her religious self righteousness, would never hold a candle to. I never forgot that she was the person I wanted to be, and my mother was the person I did not want to be.

I never forgot the butch who stood between me and my dad, and for the first time ever, put the idea in my head that I was ALLOWED to make my own choices in my beliefs, and made me feel protected in a way I hadn’t known I needed.

the image of her standing between me and my dad, being a physical barrier to protect me against any potential threat, that inspired the image of who I admired and wanted to become. it inspired the version of me who could stand up to my dad – to the point that I could hold my ground and educate him enough that over a decade later, he walked side by side with me at a pride festival, with no intent of witnessing to or condemning anybody.

pride month may be over, but the impact this month and these events can have is so damn important. I became who I am because of two people I met at a pride festival. I’ll never forget.
—RiotGrrlDyke

Weekend Update 6/29/2019:

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“Anyone who thinks villain monologues are unrealistic has never seen a famous dude double down on twitter.”
(click to embiggen)
Even though I had two Friday Five postss yesterday, I am once again finding myself following up on either stories the broke since then, or ones that I’ve linked to before that have had new developments. Or at least I have more information that I did when I last posted. I suppose I’m being overly pedantic.

Onward! So yesterday I posted about These 9 Pride-celebrating companies donated millions to anti-gay Congress members – Despite giving millions to anti-gay politicians, the HRC gave these companies a perfect 100 score. A lot of corporations out there want to take in queer people’s money, because even if (as many claim) we only make up 4.6% of the population, first, 4.6% of 330 million Americans is still 15 million people. But not only that, we have a lot of supportive straight relatives and friends and other allies who might also be included to patronize a particular brand if that company appeared to be supportive of queer people. The report I linked yesterday and this one show a bunch of really large companies who have done such a good job pretending they support us (while donating millions of dollars to politicians actively harming us) that the Human Rights Campaign has given them a perfect pro-queer rating.

To be fair, when contacted by the reporter who first broke this story, HRC admitted that their criteria up to now had been whether a company had non-discriminatory hiring practices, extended benefits to queer employees, and so forth. They have since said that clearly they need to revise their criteria and start taking into account corporate support for anti-queer politicians. I look forward to the new ratings next year.

Also, it isn’t just those nine companies that are trying to have it both ways: Two in five brands with Pride campaigns not donating to LGBT+ causes in 2019. And Marketing with Pride vs. Rainbow Washing: Marketing Lessons from Pride Month 2019.

Okay, on to the next topic.

So, I knew something was up with disgraced former U.S. Congressperson, Aaron Shock earlier this week because suddenly a bunch of people were clicking on a post I did about his financial crimes and the very poor job he was doing hiding his queerness while being an extremely anti-gay politician. Well, this one shouldn’t surprise us: EXCLUSIVE: Former Republican congressman known for his anti-gay policies and using taxpayer dollars to decorate his office like Downton Abbey is filmed slipping cash into a go-go dancer’s tiny briefs while partying at a gay bar in Mexico City. Gee, it seems like only a couple of months ago someone got video of the former Congressman making out with another man with his hands inside the man’s pants! He posted shirtless with a bunch of shirtless hunks at the music festival in question, and then the guys he had been partying with were informed what at rat-bastard anti-gay politician he was, and all felt the need to issue apologies on their Instagram accounts for not recognizing him.

I guess maybe he was hoping he would be less recognizable in Mexico?

Before anyone tries to lecture me for outing him or (the new accusation I saw recently) “weaponizing his sexuality,” let me make a couple things perfectly clear. When someone who has caused measurable harm to the community (voting for laws that denied us right, stripped us of existing rights, and so on), while secretly being a queer themselves, it is a moral imperative to expose the hypocrisy. Second, the only weaponizing that is going on is by him and his anti-gay allies. Because his is not just a white man, but a wealthy white man with extensive political and financial connections, he is able to avoid most of the forces of oppression that he has helped to create. And part of the protection that he gets from the anti-gay forces of discrimination is precisely because he so vehemently advocated against queer rights.

When we expose these hypocrites we are de-weaponizing their rhetoric, you see.

That’s enough about that jerk. Let’s move on to another.

Jerry Falwell, Jr. Lashes Out at Christian Critic of Refugee Children Conditions. So, what happened? Well, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, a man named Russell Moore, expressed some sympathy for the refugee children our Republican government has chosen to put in concentration camps. He didn’t actually condemn the camps or the government, he just said that children ought to be treated with dignity and respect. Jerry Falwell, Jr, couldn’t have that. He launched into a bizarre attack about Moore having never be the head of a corporation that had to meet a payroll… and somehow this means he can’t comment on what the Bible says about how he and is co-religionists treat others?

I don’t quite see the connection. Also, it is deeply ironic the Fallwell, Jr., who became the wealthy real estate tycoon thanks to questionable investments from his father’s ministry plus obscene salaries as various offices of the far-right Christian college his father founded, would fault someone else from never starting an enterprise “from scratch.” Again, how that is relevant to expressing sympathy for grossly mistreated children, I can’t fathom.

Speaking of those mistreated children in concentration camps: Malnourished toddler relieved to hear he’s not technically in a concentration camp. First, I don’t buy the convoluted argument that they aren’t concentration camps. Second, stop worrying about what to call them and let’s stop treating children barbarically!

Let’s move on.

Remember during the first year of our hellish dystopia when the neo-Nazis were marching with tiki torches? And there was a protest where one young man, who had been saying on line for some days before hand that he was going to drive his car into the counter-protesters and kill as many as he could? So, he pled guilty to 29 separate crimes, including killing one young women, injuring a bunch of others, and attempting to kill more. And at his sentencing he had the temerity to Charlottesville Killer Begs Court For Mercy. ‘Don’t ruin my life because of one little mistake!’ Yeah, right. Thank goodness, the judge wasn’t having it: Man who killed a woman when he rammed his car into Charlottesville counterprotest gets life in prison. Seems about right.

Finally:

I don’t even want to dignify the stupidity that is the straight pride parade in Boston. Literal Nazis are organizing this thing (some of them people connected to the Charlottesville rallies) were being portrayed as trolls, but given some of the past rallies and harassment and worse they have perpetrated, I’m not sure trolling is the right label.

I said plenty about why straight pride isn’t needed and is redundant, but let’s just close with this:

“Gay pride has zero to do with whom I sleep with and everything to do with the fact that I survived you and your friends in school and now I am tough enough to walk down the street in my own skin.”
“Gay pride has zero to do with whom I sleep with and everything to do with the fact that I survived you and your friends in school and now I am tough enough to walk down the street in my own skin.”

When did you know you were queer, or more confessions of an ex-evangelical homo devil

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A weathered rainbow wit the phrase “Baby I was born this way” superimposed.
(click to embiiggen)

So it started with a long-time fandom friend quote-tweeting a request for those of us who are queer to tell him what age we were when we realized we weren’t straight. The simple question kicked off thousands of likes and hundreds of replies. Skimming through the many stories people tell while answering the question is both interesting and occasionally moving.

“for the queer folks out there: out of curiousity, at what age did you realize you weren't straight?” “i definitely knew really, really young that i was different but didn't know the name for it until i was watching jerry springer during a sick day from school while in 1st grade and went 'oh, that's what it's called'” “Was not expecting so many replies to this, it’s really incredible seeing the diversity of experiences in here.”
The very long thread with many replies is here: https://twitter.com/calvinstowell/status/1143168326836916225
I gave a simple reply: “Spring at the end of fifth grade-puberty hit like a freight train. I was just four months shy of my 12th birthday.” That answer is both true, and incomplete. Like many people, I knew that I was different from an extremely early age. As long as I can remember people were calling me various slurs for homosexual. I could never figure out why I was unable to act like a “normal boy,” but most of the people I knew made it very clear that something was wrong with me.

When I was four years old I made the mistake of describing a neighbor friend as my “boyfriend”—not because I had a crush on him, but because I mistakenly thought that a boyfriend was a friend who happens to be a boy, while a girlfriend was a friend who happened to be a girl. My grandmother had a hissy fit, and went on a bit of a tirade about how little boys could have girlfriends, and when we got older we would find a special girlfriend and marry them and have children and spend the rest of our lives with them. And I knew down to the bone that she was wrong, but I didn’t have to conceptual framework to explain it even to myself.

Unlike a lot of people in the replies to the original question, I knew homosexuals existed. Growing up in Southern Baptist churches I had heard many a sermon about the sexual perversions of the homosexuals. So I knew that when all of those people were calling me those names what they meant. I didn’t connect that certainty I had had when grandma was talking about my future with the evil beings described in the sermons. While I knew, in theory, what romance and sex were, I didn’t recognize the feelings I was having. I know now, for instance, that I had crushes on certain fictional male characters and actors from a very early age, but I didn’t know that the reason I so admired Mark Goddard or Robert Conrad was that I had a crush.

And I also was certain I couldn’t be gay because for most of grade school my best friend (at each of the towns we moved to) was usually a girl. Heck, some of the adults in my life referred to those best friends as my girlfriend (of which I knew the correct meaning by then). So, clearly, I liked girls, right? So I couldn’t be any of those things people called me.

And since I had been taught at church and Sunday School that homosexuals were evil and going to hell—that homosexual people were so evil that god destroyed two whole cities of them in the old testament—I desperately wanted not to be a homosexual.

Fifth grade was when everything changed. I had a growth spurt that involved literal growing pains. I was crying at night from the aches, particularly in the knees, often enough that my parents took me to the doctor. The doctor noticed my “high water” pants right away, and noted that I’d grown 4 or 5 inches in height (according to the chart) since my previous visit. During the exam he also commented on hair that was growing on parts of my body, and made some comments about other changes that might happen soon, which mostly just embarrassed me at the time.

A few months after that I woke up in the middle of the night again, though this time no pain was involved. I had a dream about kissing a boy i knew from school, and simultaneously experienced my first orgasm. I spent the rest of the night silently praying, begging god not to let me be a homo.

The next day at school was when I realized that I had a bit of an obsession with how the same boy’s butt looked in the Levi jeans he always wore. And I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I couldn’t stop looking at him.

He wasn’t one of my friends. He wasn’t one of the guys at school that I actively disliked, either. But once I had recognized the effect he was having on me, I started actively trying to avoid him. Which seemed to make the obsession worse. That was a pattern for most of the next 14 years: I would get a crush on some guy, I’d pray that god would take the feelings away and I’d try to avoid contact with them, which would only make it worse and I’d wind up crying and praying even more fervently late into the night.

I want to emphasize that I was never sexually molested as a child. I had had no sexual experiences of any kind with anyone before the night of the dream when I was eleven years old. I later had some experiences with guys my age starting around the age of 14. They were always furtive and scary and left me more convinced I was going to burn in hell for eternity.

After my parents divorced, Mom, my full sister, and I moved 1200 miles away to a town that was large enough that there was more than one high school. And I got involved with an interdenominational teen choir—where I still more than occasionally got called those slurs, but I also made a lot more friends than I had ever had before. And I didn’t have sex with any guys for three years. I even dated some girls. Okay, so two of them came out as lesbian years later, but I was trying!

The feelings, including developing crushes on guys, never stopped during that time. Despite my prayers (and the weekly special prayer meetings Mom, my aunt, and some of the church ladies were having to try to pray my gay away that I didn’t know about at the time). I would also learn later that one of the reasons that I wasn’t given leadership or musical positions I tried for in the choir was because the director was also convinced I was gay. Which just got worse when a couple of guys in the group got caught having sex. I’ve written about the hypocritical response to that previously.

It wasn’t until I was 24 years old that I was able to say, “I think I might be gay” to a close friend. The truth was, I didn’t merely think I might be, I was quite certain. But even then, I internalized enough of the self-loathing and fear that I couldn’t quite admit it, and grasped at the slimmest of straws that it might not be so. It was more than 6 years after that before I would publicly come out.

I never decided to be gay. The only decision I made was to stop hiding who I was. I didn’t always know that I was gay, but for as long as I can remember I have been. I didn’t have the context or role models as a child to know what those feelings meant, and the strong and constant condemnation from family and church gave me plenty of incentive to ignore the implications until they became undeniable.

One of the reasons I talk up the importance of Pride is because we need to be seen. There are children out there who feel the way I did when I was four years old and grandma was emphatically explaining her vision of my future. They need to know they aren’t alone. They need to know that kids like them can grow up and find love. They need to know that kids like them can grow up to be old white-haired fogeys like me and have a job, a home, a spouse, and a host of friends who love and support them.

The need to know that if they aren’t straight, they are still worthy of love.

Weekend Supplement 6/22/19: the spectrum from unreasonable to wonderful

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This is not a usual Weekend Update. I changed the format of my Friday posts a few years ago for several reasons, one being that to include all of the links I gathered in a week took a much longer time to assemble the post than if I limited myself to a smaller number. This week was the first time since 2017 that I had significantly more than five videos I wanted to include, for instance. Plus a larger number of links than usual. Since I am running an online roleplaying game today, I know I won’t have time to do a typical Weekend Update on Saturday morning, so I’m assembling this post from links that almost, but didn’t quite, make it to the Friday Five.

Unreasonable People

Oregon governor sends police to find missing Republicans, bring them to Capitol. It gets weirder. Militia nutjobs have vowed to protect the senators. The senators are believed to be out of state so the state troopers can’t get them.

New Zealand Jails Nazi For Sharing Terror Attack Video.

Miami Herald: We Saw Naked Photos Of Falwell’s Wife. Seems as if Cohen’s claim that the blackmailer destroyed all the photos is wrong. Also: How cut-rate South Beach hostel launched Jerry Falwell Jr. ‘pool boy’ saga, naked picture hunt, and why it matters: Details emerging about behind-the-scenes maneuvering before Falwell’s 2016 endorsement of Trump.

Sandy Hook Father Wins Lawsuit Against Book Authors.

Alex Jones hit with sanctions by judge in Sandy Hook lawsuit.

MSNBC bashes ‘disorganized’ Trump for failing to ask about casualties until warplanes were launched against Iran. Given that the alleged president’s tweets about aborting the attack were grammatically correct, I’m assuming that Vladimir Putin dictated them after telling him to call off the strike.

Good News

How a Seattle skyscraper became a refuge for falcons – A once-endangered bird of prey thrives in a downtown high-rise.

Jon Hamm on ‘Good Omens’ and the Archangel Gabriel.

Videos

Good Omens [Bohemian Rhapsody]:

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Billy Porter “Love Yourself”:

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Dining at the Ritz:

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I’m Gay – Eugene Lee Yang – Eugene comes out as gay in his original, deeply personal music video, featuring music by ODESZA:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Weekend Update 6/15/19: He didn’t stutter, they just don’t care

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Jesus speaking to a crowd, “Love everyone, no matter what.” Person in the crowd, “But what if they're gay or believe in other gods?” Jesus repliies, “Did I fucking stutter?”
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It’s Saturday morning and time for a news update. Once again, there have been some news stories that broke after I composed this week’s Friday Five which I want to comment on and don’t want to wait until next Friday—when there will have been at least (according to the latest statistics) at least 72 new lies from the alleged president, alone. So, let’s get to it!

A few years ago you may recall in a series of court cases various peddlers of so-called ex-gay therapy were forced to admit that no one was ever cured of being gay, and some of those organizations were shut down under consumer fraud laws? Well, at least one of them didn’t shut down: Judge cracks down on barred Jewish gay conversion group for operating under new name.

Back in 2015 a jury found that the organization then calling itself JONAH had defrauded a number of people while claiming to “cure” their homosexuality. The jury awards the former “patients” everything, including $3.5 million in legal fees. The judge later approved a settlement whereby the couple operating the charlatan ex-gay organization would pay only a fraction of the fees if they agreed to dissolve the organization and never engage in such practices again. The charlatans lied, and have been operating a similar scam since. So, the judge as issued a lifetime ban on them serving as an officer of any non-profit, dissolved their new company, and now they are on the hook for the entire $3.5 million. Good. Maybe this will shut them down.

Yesterday I included links to the hate pastors who are having a “Make American Straight Again” conference in Orlando. They picked the date to be close to the anniversary of the Pulse massacre, where 49 people were murdered in a gay nightclub. I want to pause for a moment here and remind you that the owner of Pulse (who opened the club in honor of her decease gay brother) had always said she wanted the club to be a place where queer people felt welcome, and where they felt they could bring their mothers. A couple of the people shot that night were, indeed, non-gay family members of queer people. Anyway, the hate pastors explicitly dedicated their conference to celebrating that massacre, because their mis-reading of six verses they have cherry-picked in the Bible are more important that the numerous times Jesus said to love each other, I guess. So they were live-streaming yesterday, until Youtube shut them down. The Friendly Atheist monitored it and got some quotes:

“If we can get the queers to go back into the closet, that’d be great. I mean, if we can get the government to actually do what it’s supposed to do and put them to death, that’d be amazing. They’ll kill you and it won’t bother them. They’ll molest your kids and it won’t bother them.

“They’ll go to bed with men, with women, with animals. They’ll do whatever and it won’t bother them. Why? Because their conscience is seared. If the government would put them to death, it would make America safe again. And here’s what we’re saying. When they die, we don’t feel bad about it. When they die, we don’t care!”

Can’t you just feel the unconditional love of god in every word (sarcasm)? Another of these paragons said:

I’d love to be able to just work for [a transgender suicide hotline] for, like, a week and just let them know that, “Hey, it’s okay, go ahead and just kill yourself.” Because these people were sick!

Apparently today since many of the pastors speaking and attending have Youtube channels of their own, and vow to keep switching channels as Youtube shuts them down so their hate can do its job? I really don’t know. Anyway, don’t forget that one of these hate-mongers is a Sheriff’s deputy, who, after he was outed as a hate preacher and warned by his superiors that a cop literally advocating for cops to start executing gays isn’t exactly in keeping with the oath to uphold the law, he went back to his pulpit and doubled-down.

They’ve put him on paid sick leave, and have started the process of pushing him into retirement because they think if they outright fire him he’ll win a lawsuit that they have violated his first amendment rights.

That’s enough about them. Have you ever wondered why more of those kinds of stories don’t get reported more prominently in national media? Well: The lack of dedicated LGBTQ media is a disaster. The article isn’t saying that there aren’t enough queer news sites, it rather talking about both the lack of diversity in major news organizations and the cut backs in such organizations that his eliminated a lot of reporting jobs that used to be assigned full time to particular communities and areas of interest. It’s a good read.

Let’s move away from the bad news and focus on some good things: Support for trans people is growing in spite of Trump’s nonstop assault on civil rights – More than six in ten (62%) Americans surveyed say they’ve become more supportive of transgender rights. Now, we have to temper this with news like that study I linked to yesterday, that shows that a lot of people think there are already federal laws protecting LGBT people from discrimination. That is a problem, because it fuels the situation where a person will say that they support our rights, and then turn around and oppose passage of the Equality Act because they think it isn’t needed. Still, more people being supportive is a good trend.

Finally, I leave it to Stephen Colbert-

Stephen Colbert Rips Trump’s Embassy Rainbow Flag Ban, Hails the Spirit of Pride Rebellion:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Weekend Update 6/8/2019: Hate is an ugly look

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Two images, one, a soldier in a Nazi uniform holding up his hands in surrendeder while a gun with a bayonet is pointed at him. The other, a man in a MAGA hat also holding his hands in surrender because of a bayoneted rifle. “We beat 'em before. We'll beat 'em again!”
We will beat them again!

And now we have another round of me commenting on some news that broke after I composed this week’s Friday Five, or new developments in a story I’ve linked to and/or commented on before.

First, let’s talk some more about that so-called Straight Pride parade! So yesterday I linked to the story about how Brad Pitt disavowed the parade and threatened to sue the organizers if they kept using his name and image, right? That didn’t really surprise anyone. I was, frankly, confused as to why the organizers even went there—Pitt’s support of marriage equality long before it became legal was well known, for example. And clearly the only sort of people who even think a Straight Pride parade needs to be a thing are insecure homophobes, right?

We already knew that the leader of the group who applied for the permit was an alt-fight rabble rouser who has organized or been a featured speaker at various neo-Nazi/alt-right rallies over the last few years. And now we know what was up, because the group has responded to Pitt’s threat of legal action: ‘Straight pride’ group removes Brad Pitt as mascot after backlash, replacing him with Milo Yiannopoulos.

Before I go further, I want to give a tip of the hat to Joe Jervis of the Joe.My.God web site for correctly predicting predicting days earlier that Yiannopoulos had to be involved.

So now everything becomes clear. They knew that announcing a straight pride parade and applying for a permit would get them some news coverage. Mentioning a well-known celebrity like Brad Pitt as the parade’s “mascot” without Pitt’s permission served multiple purposes. First, it increased the odds that mainstream news sources would carry the initial story. Second, because they didn’t just name Pitt, but had pictures of him on their web site, it guaranteed a response from Pitt and/or his agent no doubt threatening legal action. Which git them a second day of being in the news. Then, they can announced the change in the mascot the next day, before any official cease and desist letters arrive, and get another day of press coverage. And they announced the change on their web site with some digs at Pitt (that aren’t actionable) that are phrased in exactly the way needed to appeal to any Incels/Men’s Rights Activities who weren’t already cheering them on.

This also explains why they are using the term “mascot” instead of “Grand Marshall” or something (I know there are headlines out there using saying Grand Marshall, but the official web site uses mascot exclusively). Because Milo isn’t just a neo-Nazi apologist who incites hate against muslims, jews, and trans people, he is also infamously gay. Which is a weird person to pick to symbolize and lead a straight pride march, but mascot? Sure, the lapdog gay boy—who loves to spout off the same genocidal racist, anti-semitic, sectarian, misogynist, transphobic nonsense that the rest of the organizers of the event believe—he can be a mascot.

Based on the past histories of all the folks we currently know are involved in this, the real point of the parade (beside publicity, which they hope will translate into donations) is to try to get a situation where protesters show up, one or two of whom might be provoked to take some action that will give the cops an excuse to go after the anti-fascists, as police are wont to do. So the purpose is to generate headlines and video that can be used to try to paint those of us who are opposed to the goals of the alt-right as the bad guys. And, of course, to provide money to Milo, who is deeply in debt.

With Milo’s involvement, the other thing we can expect is if the City of Boston requires parade permit holders to pay for police services, et cetera, those bills will not get paid (that’s how he racked up a couple million dollars of debt in Australia alone!).

One last thing before we change topics. The same group as officially announced a straight pride flag. They have had at least one made and, oh my goodness, is this the ugliest thing ever, or what? I understand that there are actual studies that show a high correlation between lack of cognitive skills and holding very conservative beliefs, but really, that attempt at symbolism is an insult to the intelligence of the people they hope to embrace the flag. Maybe they think they’re being ironic?

Okay, these don’t really need much in the way of commentary: to the surprise of no one with a functioning brain cell: State Dept Bans Embassies From Flying Rainbow Flag. It was only a week ago that the alleged president was tweeting about supporting LGBT people and joining the international fight against the criminalization and state-sponsored killing of LGBT people. And yet, this… I mean, compared to the very long list of anti-gay actions the trump administration as taken against us, this is pretty minor, but still!

Oh, well, let’s end on a better not, shall we? WISCONSIN: Dem Gov Flies Rainbow Flag Over Capitol For First Time, GOP State Rep Rants “This Is Divisive”. I suppose it is divisive: it divides the haters (so-called Christians like the GOP representative in question) from those who actually love their neighbors as themself.

If he talks like a bigot, acts like a bigot, is loved and supported by the other bigots…

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The homophobes certainly think Trump is as anti-gay as they are, so…

Saw this list on tumblr at Join the Political Revolution. The original has links to news stories for each of the events.

It’s Pride Month…

…so let’s get a couple things straight about Donald Trump and LGBTQ rights:

  • The Trump Admin. has made a conscious effort to ignore the very existence of Pride Month up until 2019. (1)
  • As soon as Trump was inaugurated, the “LGBTQ rights” pages and recognitions on government websites were removed. (2)
  • The Trump admin canceled plans to ask questions regarding sexual orientation on the 2020 US census. (3)
  • Trump and Pence attempted to have the Commerce Department remove sexual orientation and gender identity from their equal employment policy. (4)
  • Against expert advice of military leadership, medical authorities, budget analysts, the U.S. House, 70% of Americans, and the armed forces of allied countries, Trump and Pence banned transgender people from the military. (5)
  • The Trump Admin. ordered Betsy DeVos and the Dept. of Ed. to rescind non-discrimination protections for transgender students, against expert advice of medical, legal, and policy professionals. (6)
  • Betsy DeVos and the Dept. of Ed. announced they would reject civil rights complaints from transgender students. (7)
  • Betsy DeVos refused to rule out federal funds for private schools that discriminate. (8)
  • The Trump Admin. announced a proposal that would gut anti-discrimination protections for transgender patients in health care spaces, essentially permitting harm against trans patients. (9)
  • May, 2019 – The Trump Admin. proposed a regulation that would enable medical professionals to deny ALL forms of care to LGBTQ patients solely based on the provider’s personal beliefs. (10)
  • Trump Admin. has established a new office within HHS whose sole purpose would be to defend physicians and other medical professionals who refuse care to LGBTQ patients. (11)
  • Trump Admin. granted a federally-funded foster program to discriminate against families who are LGBTQ or whom do not identify as Christian. (12)
  • Since the fall of 2018, Trump and Pence have been attempting to circulate a federal government-wide regulation that would essentially erase trans people from all existing protections and acknowledgment. (13)
  • Trump Admin ordered the Centers for Disease Control to stop using the word “transgender” in official reports in an effort to erase data dissemination on trans people. (14)
  • Trump Admin. proposed a rule that would eliminate data collection on LGBTQ foster youth and parents, erasing all official knowledge of the needs of LGBTQ children in these spaces. (15)
  • Trump Admin. specifically ordered questions on sexual orientation to be removed from surveys of programs that cater to the elderly and disabled, directly striking at older LGBTQ Americans and persons with disabilities. (16)
  • Ben Carson and the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are removing the words “inclusive” and “free from discrimination” in HUD’s official mission statement while scaling back enforcement of non-discrimination regulations. (17)
  • HUD and Ben Carson are permitting emergency shelters to deny access to transgender persons who are homeless. (18)
  • HUD and Ben Carson trim the number of LGBTQ-related questions in federal surveys. (19)
  • Trump Admin’s Justice Dept. has filed a brief In the U.S. Court Of Appeals that argued federal civil rights laws do not protect LGBTQ people from discrimination. (20)
  • Trump’s Justice Dept. and Jeff Sessions issued guidelines to protect religious objections to public policy. (21)
  • Trump Admin. defended the baker who refused to bake a same-sex couple a wedding cake. (22)
  • Trump Admin is rolling back protections that provide safe accommodations for transgender inmates. (23)
  • By executive order, Trump Admin. rolled back non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ federal contractors. (24)
  • The Trump Admin. ordered the State Department to deny visas to same-sex partners of foreign diplomats. (25)
  • May, 2019 – The Trump Admin. changed rules so the child of a same-sex couple born abroad via surrogate would be considered “born out of wedlock” and would not be granted U.S. citizenship. (26)

I don’t know who convinced the alleged president to send out message claiming to support queer people, but take a look at the 26 items above (and that isn’t everything). Those are all the actions of a homophobic bigot. Many of them are policy changes to don’t just take away rights, but actively hurt LGBT+ people—especially queer children. This isn’t about a difference of an opinion. These represent an assault of the livelihoods, well-being, and lives of all queer people.

And guess what? If you agree with any of those actions? That means you’re a homophobic bigot, too.

You can’t assault a group of people and then claim that you support them.

Weekend Update 5/25/2019: Is irony officially dead?

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Owners of biblical replica of Noah's ark sue over ... rain damage (and it wasn't even 40 days and 40 nights)
This headline isn’t a parody: Ark Encounter Files $1 Million Lawsuit For ‘Rain Damage’.

Sometimes you just have to laugh: Owners of biblical replica of Noah’s ark sue over … rain damage (and it wasn’t even 40 days and 40 nights). In case you aren’t familiar, the Ark Encounters theme park (and Creationism Museum) in Kentucky was built with an $18,000,000 (that’s 18 million) from the taxpayers. This should have seemed an obvious violation of the U.S. Constitution’s ban on establishing a religion, but no, politicians insisted that it was really about jobs that the theme park was going to create thanks to the millions of visitors who would show up to see the park. Never mind that the park insisted not just that employees be Christian, but they have a very narrow definition of Christian: prospective employees have to declare that they adhere to a litany of anti-gay and ultra conservative doctrines to be hired.

By the way, those supposed millions of tourists have never shown up. They dispute those numbers, yet they also have come back begging the state for more money to make up for the lack of income, so…

Anyway, they had some flood issues that caused damage to one of their roads, and their insurance companies have refused to cover more than a fraction of the cost of the repairs: Not The Onion: Ark Encounter Sues Over Rain Damage.

These are the same kind of people who insist that thoughts and prayers will end gun violence, and also claim their god will always provide and so forth. So, why the heck are they suing their insurance companies.

But then, remember, these same people decided two years ago to start lighting up the Ark with rainbow lights as an anti-gay statement. Again, I’m not kidding! They claim that they have taken the rainbow back from the queer community by lighting up this money pit like it’s a giant Pride Parade float: ‘Look at this gay boat’: Creationist’s use of ‘God’s rainbow’ colors for Ark park lighting gets hilariously mocked.

Irony is when people are (tragically) unaware that their perception of their situation or their actions are at odds with their actual situation. Clearly, irony is very much alive and kicking for the Ark Encounter wingnuts.

Speaking of wingnuts, Ben Shapiro is spouting off racist/facist/nazi nonsense, again. He and the alt-right are always disavowing each other, they because he’s Jewish, and he because somehow he thinks that people can’t see that he is saying all the same things they are. But don’t take my word for it, go read this incredibly good explanation: On the Right & Civilisations. “I know there’s already a thousand takedowns of this whiny crap from Ben Shapiro but good grief it is whiny crap.”

It’s definitely worth the read!

Edited to Add: Since the news about the Ark Encounter park suing its insurers over the refusal to cover all of the flood damage unleashed a million mocking headlines, they have gotten very angry and issued a counter-statment: Ark Encounter Really Hates That People Are Saying They Suffered “Flood” Damage. The statements from the Ark Encounter people declare all of those headlines fake news (they use the exact phrase) and then say that it is not flood damage, it’s rain damage—because that is totally different, and rain doesn’t have the same funny connotations as flood does when talking about Noah’s Ark.

So the places that specifically used the phrase “and it wasn’t even 40 days and 40 nights!” can totally keep the same headlines.

One more thing: I got a ping elseweb in response to this original posting that took issue with me poking fun at the Ark Encounters park because they light up the ark light a rainbow every night, making it look like a gay pride statement clearly visible from the nearest interstate. The commenter didn’t think I understood that the rainbow was a symbol from god. Ahem. As I have written before: the christianists who try to claim the gays stole the rainbow from god are the ones who don’t understand the importance of the rainbow in the story of Noah. I’ll just quote one of the times I wrote about it: “[quoting] from the end of the story of Noah in the old testament to justify his claim that queers have stolen god’s invention. I’m going to quote a bit of that: “13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.” That’s god talking to Noah, and please note what god himself says: the rainbow is a sign of a covenant between god and the entire planet. A moment later he emphasizes that it is a sign of a covenant between him and all living creatures of every kind. Gay people are part of the planet. Gay people are a kind of living creature.”

I will leave for the reader the exercise of determining just what kind of an omniscient being needs to leave himself post-it notes in the sky just to remember that he shouldn’t commit genocide.

Oh, you dirty devil—or The preacher and the pool boy…

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It sounds like the opening line of a joke, but it isn’t…
This story has been a few years in the making, and until the most recent developments, hadn’t really made a ripple in the news landscape. The story of the famous anti-gay, anti-muslim, anti-abortion, anti-birth-control, anti-sex evangelist and a scandal involving a pool boy sound like a joke, rather than a serious news story. So much so that when one of the queer news sites I regularly read linked to the latest developing story, one of the first comments on that post was a bewildered long time reader asking, “This is real? I thought all these comments people have been making her about Falwell and his pool boy was a running gag…”

It all started back in 2012: Jerry Falwell Jr & his wife met a young pool boy on vacation. Then they started ‘helping’ him.. The Falwells were staying at a ritzy hotel in Miami, where 21-year-old Giancarlo Granda was working as a pool attendant. The hunky young man started mysteriously spending a lot of time with the middle-aged couple during their stay. And later he started flying with them on their private jet to various places. He was seen hanging out with the couple on many occasions, without any explanation.

Pro-Trump Pastor Jerry Falwell Gave Hot Young Pool Boy $1.8 Million & Flew Him First Class on Personal Vacations While Promoting Anti-Gay “Christian Values” as Liberty University President. Shortly after befriending the pool boy, the Falwells asks some associates to help them find a business they could buy in order to give their new friend “a good income.” They eventually settled on purchasing a “youth hostel” in Miami, providing the $1 million down payment on the mortgage (the property was valued at more than $4 million at the time), plus $800,000 to renovate the place. After the renovations, promotional material for the hostel listed the former pool boy as the owner, though later court papers list the owner as a shell company that is owned by the Falwells, their son, and one other family member.

This youth hostel was actually the first part of this whole sordid affair that came to light in 2017 when a reporter for Politico wrote: My Weekend at the Falwells’ South Beach Flophouse and Falwell, Jr. Opened ‘Gay-Friendly’ Youth Hostel With 21-Year-Old Pool Boy . The hostel offers what is described as dorm-like accommodations for $20 a night. There is a bar on the premises, a liquor store next door, and a sign on the front door that lists things not allowed inside, including both politics and religion. It is also described as veery gay friendly, with posters for cabaret shows at local gay clubs on display in the aforementioned bar, for example. In other words, it is a business making money on things that Falwell, his ministry and his university all regularly and vitriolically condemn. But you’ll notice when you read that story that most of the reporter’s concern is about possible tax-evasion that this purchase of a youth hostel may represent.

Was It Jerry Falwell Jr. In The Outhouse With The Pool Boy? DOES WONKETTE WIN THE GAME OF ‘CLUE’?

The story finally started registering when this happened: Jerry Falwell Jr and pool boy sued over business venture. Two Miami businessmen, a father and son with the names Jesus Fernandez Sr, and Jesus Fernandez, Jr. had consulted back in 2012 or 2013 with the former pool boy about possible business ventures that he could enter into with the backing of the Falwells, and they had at least one meeting with both Jerry Falwell Jr. and Granda the pool boy. They allege that they were promised shares in the business and other payments, which have not been forthcoming. It was in depositions for this trail that the amount of money the Falwells had given to the pool boy (that $1.8 million above) was revealed. Falwell claims it was a loan, but has so far not produced any proof that there is a repayment plan or that any money has been coming back to them.

Still, at these point it is all a little odd, and several people were making guesses about the nature of the relationship between the Falwells and the pool boy (I mean, why did they suddenly take an interest in a much younger pool attendant to the point of flying him around in their private jet, putting him up at their home at least once, and handing him nearly two million dollars?). Those of us who were guessing various sexual shenanigans (are the Falwells into something like a hot-wife or cuckold kink? Do they just like threeways?) weren’t being taken seriously.

Until this bombshell: Exclusive: Trump fixer Cohen says he helped Falwell handle racy photos.

So Michael Cohen (currently serving a 3 year federal prison sentence for tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations over his hush payments made to a porn star Donald Trump had an affair with in order to keep the affair secret) was asked by Jerry Falwell Jr to recover some “racy photos, the kind that should remain private between a husband and wife” that someone was trying to blackmail him with. Cohen flew to Miami, and claims that he met with the person, made some kind of offer, and that the person destroyed all of the photos–except one that Cohen himself kept. This happened just a few months before the 2015 Iowa caucuses, and crucially, just before Jerry Falwell, Jr stunned a lot of people by endorsing Donald Trump. An endorsement which, by the way, has been widely reported to have been engineered by Cohen.

Some people will ask why this whole sordid affair is newsworthy. First of all, Jerry Falwell, Jr. is a public figure who regularly endorses political candidates and causes, encouraging his large following to vote and donate in these political issues. He does with the aid of several large tax-exempt organizations (some of which are legally forbidden from advocating specific political causes, by the way). There are legitimate questions about just how much of his supposedly private for profit business ventures have been financed with tax exempt donations to the non-profit entities. In which case, these businesses are being financed illegally with taxpayer money. Among the favorite targets of Falwell’s tax-payer subsidized condemnations are the civil rights of gay people, the health and reproductive rights of women, the civil rights of muslims, et cetera and ad nauseam.

On top of all of that, it appears that his endorsement of Trump, which came at a crucial moment just before the Iowa caususes, may have been a repayment to Cohen and Trump for helping to make the sex scandal of the “racy pictures” go away.

Falwell hasn’t just railed against what he calls sexual perversion, he has actively worked to roll back laws protecting everyone’s right to decide their own reproductive health, including trying to legally regulate what consenting adults (straight and queer alike) can do in the privacy of their own relationships. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to such issues for the last several decades that someone who publicly reviles other people for their personal sexual activity has some sexual skeletons in their closet, yet here, once again, that appears to be the case.

Now, we don’t know the exact contents of these racy pictures that Cohen paid someone to destroy. We don’t know for a fact whether the pool boy engaged in some kind of kinky sex with Mr & Mrs Falwell beginning in 2012 and continuing through early 2016 when they were still regularly seen in his company (remember, he was living, attending college, and running that business in Florida, which the Falwells live in Virginia, so all the times they were seen together weren’t merely a matter of happening to bump into a neighbor). We don’t know if that is what so endeared him to them that they shelled out $1.8 million to buy him a sketchy business in 2013. We don’t yet know how much money nor where said money came from that Cohen paid out to someone in Miami in 2015 to make the racy pictures go away. Likewise we don’t yet know who it was that was using those photos.

Now, since one of the times that the pool boy stayed at the Falwells’ mansion in Virginia was after Cohen made the racy photos go away, I think it is very clear that the pool boy wasn’t the person trying to blackmail them. It is very possible that the pool boy is in some of those photos—Cohen described the pictures as “very bad,” so they clearly can’t just be pictures of Falwell and his wife having sex all on their lonesome, as is implied by the phrase “of the sort that should remain private between a husband and wife.”

I have no beef with people living a monogamish relationship. I certainly don’t begrudge anyone the right to engage in kinky sex. One of the points I frequently make when talking about the injustice of sodomy laws, restrictions in reproductive rights, and civil rights for queer people is that as long as no one is getting hurt and everyone involved is a consenting adult—what people do to get their rocks off should be their own business, and outside the review of the law.

But I do have a beef with hypocrisy from people who are actively engaged in taking those kinds of rights away from other people. Particularly if they are either making their living from the tax payer (politicians, prosecutors, police, and so on) or making their living from tax exempt activities (which means indirectly funded by tax payers). If it turns out that Falwell’s decision to endorse self-described pussy-grabber Trump in the Republican primaries in part in gratitude for trying to make the scandal of the racy photos go away, well, we enter an entirely different level. Falwell more than meets the legal definition of a public figure, and this affair—whatever the salacious details—involves public money, the outcome of political campaigns, and the subsequent assault on the rights of LGBT people, women, immigrants, people who do not subscribe to Falwell’s brand of evangelical christianism, and others.

Giancarlo Granda, now in his late twenties and attending grad school in Georgetown, has issued a number of terse replies to various reporters over the series of events. When asked whether he knew anything about the photos, his reply was that he wasn’t the person who attempted to blackmail the Falwells. Which wasn’t exactly the question that was asked. He has a few other gripes with the way the story has been reported: Jerry Falwell’s Pool Boy: Stop Calling Me “Pool Boy”. Sorry, Giancarlo, that isn’t likely to happen. You were doing your job in a skimpy swimsuit as a pool attendant at a Miami hotel when the Falwell’s met you and pulled you into their life in whatever capacity. You went on those trips with them on their private, tax-exempt jet. And I don’t know anyone who believes it was because of your business acumen. So I’m not willing to think you’re a completely innocent victim in all of this.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of the Fernandez’s lawsuit. And if Cohen really did save one of the pictures, well, who knows what will happen, next?

Meanwhile, you might enjoy this video: Rachel Maddow: Michael Cohen Said He Fixed ‘Racy Photo’ Problem For Falwell Jr (Rachel also warns you may feel the need to take a shower after hearing some of the details):

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Edited to Add: In August 2019 a second “pool boy” deal was discovered and I wrote about it here: Late Tuesday Tidbit: The evangelical leader and the other pool boy, and then…

On Sept 9, 2019 Politico posted an exhaustive exposé of Falwell Jr’s financial and sexual scandals. I have some things to say about that: The Dark Domain, or a queer ex-evangelical looks at an agent of intolerance and his scandalous heirs (and talked briefly about my one personal encounter with Junior’s scamvangelist father).

Then, August 24, 2020 many details we had inferred were finally confirmed, and I wrote about them here: Oh you cuckolded devil—or, the Evangelical Power Couple and the Pool Boy

Weekend Update 4/28/19: Tragedy, horror, terror, and a call for hope

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Straight, male, (mostly) white, trump-supporting Americans are committing all the domestic terrorism...
Straight, male, (mostly) white, trump-supporting Americans are committing all the domestic terrorism…
It’s time for a news update. There have been, once again, some news stories that broke after my Friday Five which I want to comment on and don’t want to wait until next Friday—when there will have been at least three dozen new scandals from the current regime, alone. Because we now live in a dystopia where so many awful things happen that horrific events from a mere six days ago feel as if they are ancient history. And that sucks.

First, last night my husband and I saw Avengers: Endgame at the nearby theatre where you can get real food and drinks brought out to you. They make an nice Old Fashioned, by the way. Anyway, we had just gotten seated in the crowded theatre before the advertisements started and my phone buzzed—and before you say anything, I always shut it off before the Previews start and I put my watch into theatre mode, so I’m not one of those guys. Anyway, I check it and there is a panicked text message from one of my aunts who is scared that my husband or I are dead. Or something. Why, because she saw this news: 4 dead after construction crane crushes cars in Seattle.

I refrained from pointing out that since the greater metropolitan Seattle area has a population of about 1.5 million, the probability that Michael or I were part of an incident were four people died and three more were injured was about 0.0000046%. And statistically there is a traffic fatality in the region about once every three days. And we don’t actually live in Seattle, any more, and tend to spend our entire weekends up in Shoreline and Edmonds and the other neighboring suburbs. But I understand that it’s a very grisly image: you’re driving along, minding your own business, and several tons of steel fall out of the sky, crushing your car and several around you. As it was, the crane had fallen several hours earlier, when Michael and I were eating a late brunch in a Family Pancake restaurant in Edmonds. And at the time my aunt heard the news and panicked, we were sitting in a theatre in Mountlake Terrace—we weren’t in Seattle at all.

Today in follow-up news I learn there is kind of a connection: one of the four people killed was a student at Seattle Pacific University, where I attended years ago. I am happy to learn that the baby and mother who were among the injured were released from the hospital last night. I hope they have a speedy recovery.

Now, we go from tragic accident to another horrific mass shooting. On the last day of Passover as a synagogue, no less: Woman killed, 3 injured in shooting at California synagogue. Just horrifying the people think walking into a house of worship with an automatic weapons is a reasonable response to anything. And that the only thing that we could possibly do in this situations is the old thoughts-and-prayers BS: ‘The blood spilled today is on your hands’: Trump slammed for ‘thoughts and prayers’ comment after synagogue shooting.

Hate crimes are up since the alleged president was unduly elected. And they are being committed by angry white men who are often literally citing the pussy-grabber-in-chief during the execution of their crimes. This isn’t tragedy, this is part of an active campaign of hate and terror, encouraged by the person currently occupying the White House: Opinion: Why Poway Proves Again That Trump Has To Go. But also aided and abetted by the vast majority of the Republican Party. Yesterday I linked to a story about why Twitter doesn’t mass ban Nazis (Why Won’t Twitter Treat White Supremacy Like ISIS? Because It Would Mean Banning Some Republican Politicians Too), but there’s more to it than policy. The algorithms which work perfectly fine in other parts of the world to identify and ban Nazis and Nazi sympathizers to conform with local laws, sweep up a lot of Republican politicians, including the president. Not because the algorithms are less perceptive than humans, but because those politicians are saying, promoting, and encouraging the genocidal beliefs and policies of the Nazis.

And I will say it again: this isn’t a new phenomenon. The Republican Party has been the home of white nationalism since the sixties.

And those white nationalists are just getting bolder and bolder: Self-Proclaimed Nationalists Interrupt Author, Chant ‘This Land Is Our Land’ at Politics and Prose Bookstore. They’re completely oblivious to the fact that the land all of us U.S. citizens live on was stolen from Native Americans, who were massacred and driven off. It’s stolen land. I’m also irritated at them stealing lyrics from the guy who’s guitar famously sported the slogan, “This machine kills fascists.”

They were there because Jonathan Metzl, a professor of sociology, medicine, and health at Vanderbilt University, as at the store to do a reading and discuss his recent book, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland. The protestors are apparently all former members of Identity Evropa, another white supremacist group many of whose members were recently identified as members of the military and police officers—who began losing their jobs because of some of the illegal activities associate with the group. The new group calls itself AIM (American Identity Movement), and was insisting that they had nothing to do with the old group, but that’s already been shown to be a lie.

In another act of thievery, I have to point at the the initialism AIM is also the name of the American Indian Movement, an group that advocates for Native America civil rights and so forth. So it’s not enough that they try to assert ownership of stolen land, but they’re operating under a stolen name, too.

But we can’t let all this hatred turn us into haters ourselves! Neither can we allow these acts of terror and intimidation to succeed. I agree with Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein: The rabbi injured in the shooting wants Jewish people to ‘fill up the synagogues’.

“We’re not going to be intimidated or deterred. Terror will not win and as Americans, we can’t and won’t cower in the face of this senseless hate… A little bit of light pushes away a lot of darkness. We need a lot of light now.”