Franklin Graham Attacks Pete Buttigieg, Calls Melania Trump "Classiest First Lady"

Blogger friend Joe Jervis calls out Franklin Graham's hypocrisy for attacking Pete Buttigieg while calling Melania Trump "the classiest First Lady our country has ever had."  Even hysterically anti-gay (and closeted) Rick Santorum condemned Graham's hypocrisy for supporting Trump notwithstanding Trump's embodiment of everything a true Christian should eschew.  First, this from Joe's blog:

Earlier this week evangelist Franklin Graham declared that Pete Buttigieg will face eternal damnation if he doesn’t repent from his “flaunting homosexuality.”

Last year Graham shrugged off Donald Trump’s multiple adulterous affairs, telling the Associated Press, “This thing with Stormy Daniels and so forth is nobody’s business.”

And now today Graham is wishing happy birthday to Melania Trump, “the classiest first lady our country has ever had.”

You can be very sure that if Michelle Obama had ever appeared nude in lesbian porn shoots, Graham would have been standing outside the White House day and night with a flaming pitchfork.

As for Santorum's surprising condemnation of Graham, LGBTQ Nation reports as follows:

Out presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has found an unlikely defender after evangelical leader Franklin Graham called on the candidate to “repent” of his homosexuality.

Rick Santorum, one of the most conservative religious politicians and a former Republican presidential candidate, found himself actually pointing out the hypocrisy of the religious right during an interview with CNN’s New Day.

After host John Berman asked Santorum about the dustup, Santorum first defended Graham’s right to say what he did.

After Berman pointed out the hypocrisy of Graham “calling on Pete Buttigieg to repent for being gay, yet [being] one of the most ardent supporters of the thrice-married President Trump,” Santorum shocked the host by agreeing. Graham has been on the biggest supporters of the decidedly un-Christian president.

“I would say that you have every right to call him out on that. Because if he’s gonna say that about Pete Buttigieg, then he needs to when Donald Trump’s accusations come up about marital infidelity and other things that is equally as sinful,” Santorum said. “He should be equal and vociferous in calling out a similar sin.” 

The British version of GQ has some of Melania's "classy" photos here.  Personally, give me Jackie Kennedy - a truly class act with no borderline porn in her past.

LGBT Equality Bill Sends Christofascists into Hysteria

The usual liars and charlatans from the "Christian Right" are beside themselves over the Democrat backed LGBT Equality Act that would bar discrimination against LGBT individuals in employment, housing and public accommodation on a national basis. And true to form, they are trotting out the same tired lies that have been their stock in trade for decades, including the lie that gays can change their sexual orientation through fraudulent ministries operated by, you guessed, the Christofascists.  Spouting this latter lie is Peter Sprigg of Family Research Council ("FRC") - a certified hate group - who has ZERO credentials when it comes to medical and mental health issues despite his title of "senior fellow" at FRC.  Indeed, until he became a hate merchant at FRC, Sprigg's longest career stint was as a "professional actor and unit leader in Covenant Players, an international Christian drama ministry."  Sadly Sprigg epitomizes the norm of FRC - and Christofascist organization in general - experts, meaning they have no legitimate credentials.   

In a piece in the Christian Post - which discredits itself by carrying article by fraudulent experts - Sprigg cites old, discredited studies claiming conversion therapy has some minimal level of success and ignores more recent studies, and, of course, the findings of all legitimate medical and mental health associations.  Based on this bad science, Sprigg rants about the Equality Act and maintains:

In light of this evidence, the public would be wise to question whether the efforts of the LGBT movement to ride on the coat-tails of “civil rights” can any longer be justified. 

It should be noted that in 2008 when the Obama administration moved to allow LGBT Americans to apply for visas for foreign partners, Sprigg declared that it would be better to “export homosexuals from the United States.”

Joining Sprigg in his conniption fit is Mike Huckabee, who has a long history of anti-gay lies, and whose daughter lies daily for the Trump regime.  In another piece in the Christian Post Huckabee rants as follows:

Redefining gender and sexual identity is the “greatest threat” to the moral fiber of America, said former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and the fault lies with the Church.

“The biggest threat to biblical principles today is the failure to apply a biblical standard of maleness and femaleness,” Huckabee told The Christian Post during a sit-down interview last week in Anaheim, California. “We are creating this illusion that there is no gender, there is no identity, and I'm blaming the Christian Church.”

“The gender dysphoria we're seeing today is largely due to the fact that the Church has failed to present very clearly the words of Jesus and Genesis 5:2: ‘Male and female He created them.’” 

Huckabee also goes on to equate allowing children to learn about the existence of LGBT individuals much less LGBT inclusive sex education with allowing one's child to play in a busy street. 

What is frightening is that both Sprigg and Huckabee have the ear of those in the Trump/Pence regime who are waging war against the LGBT community.  On the positive side, 40% of Millennials have left organized Christianity in large part due to the Christofascists' non-stop screeds against gays. Hopefully, the exodus will accelerate and individuals like Sprigg and Huckabee will become increasingly irrelevant outside of stagnant backwaters.  Meanwhile, more states are barring conversion therapy.

Times Dispatch Runs Mealy Mouth Response to Publishing Hate Speech

Image from GayRVA.

Earlier in the week I wrote about the Richmond Times Dispatch's publish of an anti-LGBT advertisement place by the Virginia Christian Alliance ("VCA"), a certified hate group.  In response to the overwhelming negative action to the ad, the Times Dispatch issued basically a non-apology and gave a mealy mouthed response about "freedom of speech" although that does not guaranty one the right to have hate speech published.  I strongly suspect that had the ad been a rant against blacks, Jews or other minorities, it would not have been published. Especially if the Times Dispatch had bothered to check out the facts on the Virginia Christian Alliance the way the Southern Poverty Law Centered has done.  Once again, I suspect what was in play was undeserved deference to religion and those who bandy about the "Christian" label even though their behavior and beliefs are the antithesis to Christ's message.  A column in GayRVA looks at the disappointing response of the Times Dispatch and the ugliness of the Virginia Christian Alliance. Here are column excerpts (NOTE what Republicans are in bed with VCA):

[T]he Richmond Times-Dispatch ran an advertisement from the Virginia Christian Alliance in their Tuesday, April 10 edition. The ad was full of anti-LGBTQ hate . . . If you did miss our article about it, it seems you were in the minority; indeed, the RTD saw it themselves and issued a “response” — they didn’t call it an apology, because it wasn’t one.

In the brief response from Times-Dispatch Publisher Tom Silvestri, which you can read in full here, Silvestri said the Virginia Christian Alliance ad “does not represent the views of The Times-Dispatch” and that the decision to run it “was guided by First Amendment freedoms that allow for a divergence of viewpoints and opinion.” He then stated that response from staff and others “has prompted us to begin a review of our content guidelines for future paid advocacy advertising.”

As I wrote on Tuesday, the ad was “written in the kinds of hateful terms that any reputable publication should think twice about printing — even if they did get paid for it.”

Indeed, Times-Dispatch reporter Graham Moomaw seemed to agree with us, tweeting yesterday in response to the issue that “there is no First Amendment right to have your views printed in a privately owned newspaper. The First Amendment is what gives newspapers the right to reject submissions (paid or unpaid) that don’t meet their standards.”

Standards should particularly be brought to bear on any content submitted by Virginia Christian Alliance (VCA), the group who placed the ad. They were listed as a hate group earlier this year by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). At the time of this designation, VCA president Don Blake told the Baltimore Sun that VCA are “as opposite as you can get from a hate group,” and that “we’re pro-Christ and pro-Bible. We aren’t anti-anything.”

The Sun then pointed out that the group’s website linked to articles with headlines like “Fear Of Muslims Is Not A Phobia, But Rational,” and “Islam Is Satanic, Says Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress.” To this list, we’d add our own discoveries: “The Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality,” and “Homosexual Behavior Is Inherently Destructive,” for starters.

Why is a group like this even getting the time of day from the Richmond Times-Dispatch?

Virginia politicians including Congressman Dave Brat and Delegate Nick Freitas (who is currently running for Tim Kaine’s Senate seat) have previously been awarded the VCA’s “Courageous Leadership Award.” Keep that in mind next time you go to the voting booth.

Most politicians are smart enough not to enthusiastically accept awards from groups that boldly touted white supremacist views. By the same token, it would be shocking for a newspaper to accept advertising from white nationalist groups, regardless of how overtly they pointed out that it was just an advertisement. Why should anti-LGBTQ hate be different?

Hateful views toward marginalized groups of any kind should never be tolerated as part of public discourse. This was the message we were sending with our first article. And we will continue to repeat it until the Richmond Times-Dispatch gets it.

 Kudos to GayRVA and shame on the Times Dispatch, Dave Brat and Nick Freitas.

UK Considering a Ban on Fraudulent "Gay Conversion" Therapy

One of the biggest lies - out of so very many - that Christofascists organizations continue to peddle is that on can "pray away the gay" and/or be cured of homosexuality through fraudulent "therapy" typically administered by quacks and charlatans, often hiding from regulation behind the pretense of being "Christian ministries."  Lunatic Michelle Bachmann and her closeted husband run such a program under the guise of being a "Christian counseling" center. The lie serves two purposes: (1) it rakes in lots of money, and (2) it is used to bolster the Christofascist claim that since sexual orientation is a "choice," no legal protections are needed for LGBT individuals.  True, some gays suffering from internalized homophobia and religious brainwashing will pretend - both to themselves and others - that they are "cured," but the list of those who have later admitted the lie is a long one.  The practice needs to be banned and thankfully, the United Kingdom is poised to do just that, a nationwide ban.  Here are highlights from Gay Star News:

A UK Government survey could lead to making the controversial ‘gay cure’ practice illegal, Gay Star News can reveal.

The Home Office will publish the results of a National LGBT survey later this year. It includes an analysis of how much conversion therapy is happening in the country. Previously the Government rejected calls to make the practice illegal, saying it had done enough to stop the practice. But now the Home Office will use the results to explore new measures, to stop the practice.

A government spokesperson calling ‘gay cure’ therapy ‘bogus’ tells GSN: ‘This Government is absolutely clear that being LGBT is not an illness to be cured. The practice of conversion therapy is wrong. . . . . We have already been working with the main registration and accreditation bodies for psychotherapy and counseling practitioners, including the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), to develop a Memorandum of Understanding to put a stop to this bogus treatment."

Paul Twocock, Director of Campaigns, Policy and Research, Stonewall UK says: ‘It is good that the Government is so clear in recognizing that more needs to be done to tackle the bogus, deeply harmful practice of conversion therapy. All forms of “therapy” that attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity are unethical and unacceptable. Lesbian, gay, bi and trans people are not ill.

Malta became the first country to ban ‘gay cure’ therapy in 2016. And now eleven states in the US have banned the cruel so-called ‘therapy’, including in Washington and Hawaii last week.

Raymond Buys was left starving after torture where he had to eat his own feces. Severely malnourished, dehydrated, with burns and wounds all over his body. He lay in intensive care for four weeks until he died.  He was just 15. Just 10 weeks before, the teen’s parents signed him up in 2011 for the Echo Wild Game Rangers course in South Africa in perfect health with the intention of ‘making him a man.’

Writing for Gay Star News, editor-at-large Joe Morgan says: ‘Many people believe ‘gay cure’ camps are basically full of repressed gay dudes sitting around praying all day. And then going into each others bunks to have sex. But even if you are not murdered in the attempt to make you ‘manly’, the vast majority of the people sent to these camps are vulnerable teens. ‘I shudder to think about the LGBTI teens whose families sent them to find a ‘cure’. Leaving traumatized, and later committing suicide. The number is countless.

Of course, the third reason Christofascists support these awful programs is because it helps them avoid admitting that the Bronze Age beliefs on human sexuality are simply untrue and wrong.  Harming others is preferable to threatening the fantasy world beliefs.

Gay Olympic Athletes Provide Role Models

Growing up gay can be soul killing, not because there is anything inherently wrong with being gay, but rather because of the hate, maligning and denigration one must suffer from portions of society, especially the modern day Pharisees among the "godly folks" - think Mike Pence.  As I have noted before, it took a couple of years of therapy to undo the damage my Catholic upbringing had done to me.  I can only believe that growing up Southern Baptist or evangelical Christian would do even more damage to one's psyche. No child or youth deserves such indoctrination that leads to self-hatred and, in still far too many cases, suicide.  Compounding the problem, especially for LGBT individuals of older generations was the lack of role models to demonstrate that one could succeed and live a happy life.  Nowhere was the case more than in sports.  For so, so long, there were no role models.  Now, Olympians Gus Kenworthy and Adam Rippon (who helped the U.S. figure skating team to win a bronze medal yesterday) are proving to young gays that things do not have to be as some charlatan behind a pulpit tells them it must be.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at this welcomed development.  Here are excerpts:

Gus Kenworthy is free. Eat your heart out, Mike Pence, and anyone else predisposed to sneering at his good, gay life.

It took the freestyle skier 24 years to get to this place — to stop hiding, to love himself unabashedly — and that is more valuable to him than his slopestyle silver medal from the Sochi Olympics. Since Kenworthy came out of the closet in 2015, he hasn’t flaunted his sexuality as much as he has owned it, with an intent to inspire others to shun the shame. He and figure skater Adam Rippon are Team USA’s first openly gay male Winter Olympians. The fact is wonderful, not controversial. If you disagree, that is now your problem, not theirs.

 

“I’m here at the Olympics,” said Kenworthy, 26. “Not many people get to say that. And doing so as a gay man makes me feel amazing.”

The U.S. Olympic Committee hails its 243-athlete squad as both the largest group any nation has sent to a Winter Olympics and the country’s most diverse contingent. Some wonder why the latter deserves such recognition. They must not understand the harsh effects of social exclusion. It’s too easy to marginalize, to judge and to hinder people considered different. So Kenworthy’s pride matters. He’s one of the best in the world at what he does. And he’s gay. Don’t merely tolerate it. Celebrate it.

“It’s 2018, and you see how open-minded many parts of the world are,” Kenworthy said. “But there are also many parts of the world where being gay is punishable by death, punishable by jail time. It’s a new world, and it’s also not, and I think that the only way to change perception is through visibility, through representation, and the more that we have that, the more normalized queer becomes, the easier it is for people to wrap their heads around it, and I think that the more we’ll see positive change.”

At the Opening Ceremonies, Kenworthy posted an Instagram photo with Rippon. They embraced in the image. As part of the caption, Kenworthy wrote: “I feel incredibly honored to be here in Korea competing for the US and I’m so proud to be representing the LGBTQ community alongside this amazing guy! Eat your heart out, Pence. #TeamUSA #TeamUSGay”

Rippon has been outspoken in his criticism of Vice President Pence, who led the official U.S. delegation to the Winter Olympics. His strong and passionate words against Pence’s questionable record on LGBTQ rights became a major story this week when he blasted Pence once again to USA Today. 

It’s more beneficial to consider, with compassion, how liberated Kenworthy feels now. He looks back at his first 24 years and sees fear. He was an Olympic silver medalist and he was ashamed of himself. Once he stopped treating his sexual orientation like a dirty secret, he found peace and a higher level of performance.

His superpower — he can ski really fast with exquisite body control, wondrous grace and stunning athleticism — used to be a crutch. He used to use the spectacular within him just to feel normal. Now he’s free to be extraordinary in every way. . . . . "I think that being in the closet is really hard. It takes a toll on your mind. It takes a toll on you. I think it just makes every aspect of your life more difficult.”

The hardest part? He didn’t know who to aspire to be. He thought there was no prototype. That’s why he’s so open now. He wants to provide vision for other gay athletes or anyone foraging life to find a comfortable place.

“As a kid, I just felt like I didn’t really have anyone to look up to that I felt like I could really relate to, someone that was out and gay and also competing in sports and finding success,” Kenworthy said. “And someone I could kind of emulate and try to follow in their footsteps. And so I hope to just be someone that the younger generation can kind of see themselves in and just really be visible for people that haven’t really been able to be visible in the past.

Kenworthy doesn’t want to be known merely as “the gay skier, the gay Olympian.” But for now, it’s important that he live with the label to change perceptions and counter the hatred of people such as John Moody, the executive vice president and executive editor of Fox News, who wrote an embarrassingly closed-minded piece about the Winter Games last week. It was so bad that Fox spiked it on Friday, but it was too late. We had been exposed to the poison for nearly 48 hours.

The implication is that a more diverse U.S. team is somehow worse. The implication is that Team USA didn’t hold Olympic trials and instead tried to create a rainbow. The implication ignores that Shani Davis (the first African American to win an individual gold medal at a Winter Games) has four Olympic medals, that Kenworthy can earn his second here, or that Ghana-born Maame Biney is the future of U.S. women’s short-track speedskating and Korean American snowboarder Chloe Kim might be a transcendent talent.

Why does diversity matter? Well, for one thing, it can shut up people who think like Moody.

"So I’m so proud that now you can exist as a gay man and be an Olympian, and it can be beneficial rather than negative,” Kenworthy said. “So it’s amazing. And I just think I feel so liberated now that I’ve been out of the closet for a while, and so I’m free in that I just get to be myself, speak freely, act freely, and I think that I am competing confidently.”

Eat your hearts out, bigots.

If people want to cling to the myths and legends of ignorant, uneducated Bronze Age herders, they are free to do so.  However, they have no right to seek to force such beliefs on others or to denigrate and incite hatred against those who embrace how the creator made them.  Kidos to Kenworthy and Rippon - I hope they soar and show Mike Pence to be the ignorant ass that he is in fact. 

"Respectable" Evangelicals Distance Themselves from Trump Supporters

Like it or not, Trump supporting evangelical Christians are becoming the public face of Christianity in America.  The result of this phenomenon is not positive for those who want the faith to survive: one third of Millenials have walked away from religion (for those under 30, the figure is 36%), the number of so-called "Nones" now is the larges religious group, if you will, in the nation.  Meanwhile, all Christian denominations are losing membership overall.  And "liberal" denominations all too often fail and refuse to challenge the ugliness of the message of the Trump supporting evangelical Christians or, if they do, do it in an ineffectual manner. In sum, hatred of others, hypocrisy and dishonesty (think James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, daughter of Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee) are increasing what many Americans associate with Christianity.  As a piece in Religion Dispatches notes, some "respectable" evangelicals are trying to distance themselves from their Trump supporting brethren.  Will the damage control effort work?  Probably not.  Here are article highlights:

The defenders of “respectable” evangelicalism were out in force in 2017. In newspapers, magazines, and National Public Radio programs, they delivered a consistent message. That group of Trump-loving, Roy-Moore-supporting evangelicals? “It’s not us.”

Respectable evangelicals have been defining away their embarrassing spiritual kin for a century, at least.

When working-class evangelicals began speaking in tongues in the 1900s, respectable evangelicals declared the movement a delusion of Satan. It’s not us, they insisted.

When the Scopes Monkey Trial made William Jennings Bryan a laughingstock, respectable evangelicals disclaimed leadership in the fundamentalist movement they helped create. It’s not us.

In the 1940s and 50s, respectable evangelicals perfected the “not us” technique. Abandoning the fundamentalist label (though holding nearly identical beliefs), they created a “neo-evangelical” identity to distance themselves from the red-baiters and conspiratorialists. Ever since, the toxic byproducts of their movement have been shunted outside the evangelical camp. Whether tele-evangelist scandals, or hurricanes-are-God’s-judgment-jeremiads, or homophobic protests at military funerals: it’s not us.

In a recent Vox editorial, historian Thomas Kidd, a never-Trump evangelical, continues the refrain. The statistic that 80% of white evangelicals supported Trump is wrong, he argues, because it’s based on self-identification. They are evangelicals in name only; it’s not us.

Consider the definition at work. To be evangelical, we are told, is to believe in “conversion.” But is conversion a uniquely evangelical idea? It’s not even uniquely Christian; Muslims convert too. Rather, they are appealing to a particular experience of conversion. And how is an evangelical conversion measured? That’s the rub. It’s been the cause of evangelical consternation for two centuries.

But conversion’s unmeasurable quality is what makes it useful for insiders. It allows them to state (or strongly infer) that only unconverted, ‘nominal,’ evangelicals supported Trump. Apparently, a vote for Trump is evidence enough? Meanwhile, evangelical Trump voters declare that by withholding support, never-Trump evangelicals have demonstrated their faithlessness.

“Biblicism” functions similarly. Imagine a political scientist defining Republicans as “those who take the Constitution seriously.” Who would accept this transparently partisan statement? And yet many people today accept that evangelicals are “biblical,” while everyone else…isn’t? This is how former megachurch pastor Rob Bell and popular author Rachel Held Evans ceased to be evangelical: not because they quit the Bible, but because they came up with “wrong,” (thus “unbiblical”) answers about hell and being gay. “Biblicism” is evangelical gerrymandering.

[A] definition must function independent of public relations. If an abusive priest is still Catholic, then J. Dennis Hastert must remain an evangelical despite his sordid past.

Few conservative white evangelicals will question their overheated rhetoric about healthcare and wedding cakes and “religious liberty.” Few liberal white evangelicals will question how their cherished theological categories might contribute to the systemic racism and patriarchy they claim to oppose. Moore supporters will not consider whether there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

Because being evangelical means never having to say you’re sorry.  Being evangelical means “it’s not us.”

Researchers Discover Genes Linked to Male Homosexuality

While no completely definitive biological cause for homosexuality has been conclusively proven, researchers continue to inch closer to categorically debunking the Christofascist myth that one's sexual orientation is a "choice."  Of course, these scientific strides will mean nothing to those who actively celebrate ignorance and embrace a book written by uneducated, ignorant Bronze Age authors such as Colorado baker Jack Phillips. But for sane individuals who live in a fact based reality, the new discoveries provide further proof that one is (i) justified in looking down on Christofascists as the vicious individuals that they are in fact and (ii) supporting legislation to ban fraudulent "ex-gay" reparative therapy.  The Daily Telegraph looks at the development.  Here are excerpts:

Genes linked to homosexuality have been discovered by scientists in the biggest ever study into the genetic basis for sexual orientation.  For the first time, researchers looked at the complete genome - a person’s entire DNA code - for more than 1,000 gay men and compared it to genetic data from a similar number of heterosexual males.

They discovered that DNA was different for gay and straight men around the genes SLITRK5 and SLITRK6.  SLITRK6 is an important gene for brain development, and is particularly active in a region of the brain which includes the hypothalamus.

The hypothalamus is crucial for producing the hormones which control sex drive, and previous studies have shown parts of it are up to 34 per cent larger in gay men.

The researchers, from North Shore University Health System’s Research Institute, in Illinois, US, also discovered differences in the TSHR gene, which is linked to the thyroid, another area which has previously been associated with sexual orientation.

“Because sexuality is an essential part of human life – for individuals and society – it is important to understand the development and expression of human sexual orientation,” said lead author Dr Alan Sanders.

“The goal of this study was to search for genetic underpinnings of male sexual orientation, and thus ultimately increase our knowledge of biological mechanisms underlying sexual orientation.

“What we have accomplished is a first step for genome wide study on the trait, and we hope that subsequent larger studies will further illuminate its genetic contributions.”

-- Participants in the study were rated for sexual orientation based on their self-reported sexual identity and sexual feelings.

Men were asked to provide DNA by blood or saliva samples that were then genotyped and analysed.  Although previous studies have pointed to a genetic predisposition for homosexuality, it is the first time researchers have studied the entire genome of individuals and so is the most comprehensive assessment of the genetic basis of sexuality ever undertaken.

However British experts said more work was needed before it was possible to identify ‘gay genes’ because the genetic differences could point to other traits shared by the homosexual respondents. 

Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, Group Leader at The Francis Crick Institute,said: “The topic of this paper is important if we are to learn more about the influence of genes on aspects of our behaviour, but this is one that is notoriously difficult to study.

“Even if a gene variant does show some correlation with sexual orientation, this does not mean that the gene is in any way responsible for being gay – it just means it has some association with a trait that is more likely to found in the relatively few people involved as subjects in the study.

The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Ask any LGBT individual and they will assure that no "choice" is involved.  They are who they were born to be.

Gadsden Locals: Moore's Predatory Behavior No Secret

I lived in Alabama for over four years years ago and I have been a member of the Alabama State Bar for over 40 years.  Thus, I continue to feel a connection with and ties to Alabama.  The ongoing soap opera like story line involving Roy Moore, who was twice thrown off the Alabama Supreme Court - which makes a strong case for appointed judicial positions notwithstanding the partisan games that surround Virginia's system - underscores the almost schizophrenic nature of of Alabama which, in my view has worsened significantly since the rise of Christofascists within the Republican Party base ( a similar descent into depravity has overtaken the GOP nationwide and certainly in Virginia).  With yet another accuser coming forward today, we find competing stories on AL.com, one of which looks at 53 right wing churches coming out in support of Moore, while another reports that Moore's predatory behavior during the time frame in question was common knowledge.  First, these highlights on the fact that Moore's behavior was common knowledge among locals:

Roy Moore's penchant for flirting with teen girls was "common knowledge" and "not a big secret" around Gadsden, according to some area residents.

The Senate candidate has denied any wrongdoing in the wake of a report from The Washington Post in which four women accused Moore of inappropriate advances - and in one instance, a sexual encounter - toward them when they were teens and he was in his early 30s.

Moore and other Republican leaders have questioned why it took so long for his accusers, now in their 50s, to come forward publicly.   And yet people who lived in Etowah County during that time have said Moore's flirting with and dating much younger women and girls was no secret.

"These stories have been going around this town for 30 years," said Blake Usry, who grew up in the area and lives in Gadsden. "Nobody could believe they hadn't come out yet."  Usry, a traveling nurse, said he knew several of the girls that Moore tried to flirt with.  "It's not a big secret in this town about Roy Moore," he said. "That's why it's sort of frustrating to watch" the public disbelieve the women who have come forward, he said.

[T]he Gadsden Mall. . . . opened to great fanfare in 1974, anchored by department stores like Pizitz, Belk Hudson and Sears. It had a movie theater, lounge, drug store and restaurants including Morrison's Cafeteria.  It soon became a popular local hangout, especially for teenagers.

Wendy Miller told The Post that she was 14 and working as Santa's helper at the Gadsden Mall in 1977 when Moore first spoke with her and told her she looked pretty. Two years later, when she was 16, he asked her out on dates, although her mother wouldn't let her go.

"He would go and flirt with all the young girls," he said. "It'd seem like every Friday or Saturday night (you'd see him) walking around the mall, like the kids did." Five other current and former Etowah County residents also spoke to AL.com with similar accounts.  "Him liking and dating young girls was never a secret in Gadsden when we were all in high school," said Sheryl Porter. "In our neighborhoods up by Noccalula Falls we heard it all the time. Even people at the courthouse know it was a well-known secret.

"It's just sad how these girls (who accused Moore) are getting hammered and called liars, especially Leigh (Corfman)."

Tony Hathcock is a photographer in Gadsden who told CBS News that he's known Corfman well for five years and believes her. They are both very conservative Republican voters, he said, and both voted for Trump. He said she had nothing to gain from speaking out, but felt safe speaking out now because her children are now adults.

He said that growing up in Gadsden, he'd heard rumors about Moore. Last week, he posted on Facebook a defense of Corfman. He said that even as a middle-schooler in Gadsden he'd heard stories from people he knew about Moore's behavior making them uncomfortable.

Yet despite these local citizens corroborating the accusations of now 5 women, 53 churches in Alabama - all but one located outside of the state's two largest cities - have come out in support of Moore.  As, in my view, expected, most are members of Baptist and evangelical denominations where truth, veracity and objective facts simply do not matter.  Here are excerpts:

Kayla Moore, wife of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, shared a letter on Facebook over the weekend indicating support from more than 50 Alabama pastors. Moore's wife Kayla posted the letter to her Facebook page Sunday after days of controversy surrounding her husband and allegations he had sexual contact with a 14-year-old in 1979 when he was 32-years-old. Three other women said Moore pursued them as teenagers. The letter was posted before a fifth woman, Beverly Young Nelson, came forward with additional charges Monday.
 In their letter, the pastors said Moore was an "immovable rock in the culture wars," and has met attacks with a "rare unconquerable resolve." Moore's campaign did not respond to questions related to the letter or why it was posted with the date and identifying information removed. At least one of the pastors listed as supporting Moore is no longer at the church listed on the letter. Screenshots show the letter posted by Kayla Moore and the original from Roy Moore's website

Read the full piece and review the names of the churches/pastors  who have chosen to support Moore despite what is increasingly damning information and corroborated information.  The moral bankruptcy of these churches is near complete. They represent yet another reason of why decent, moral people may want to disassociate themselves from ther "Christian" label. 

Kevin Spacey's Gift to Anti-Gay Extremists and Hate Merchants

Despicable Kevin Spacey and gay hater extraordinaire, Scott Lively

For the more than two decades that I have monitored self-labeled Christian "family values" organizations - e.g., Family Research Council, American Family Association, Focus on the Family, etc. - one thing has been consistent: deliberate, vicious lies about LGBT individuals.  Seemingly, no lie is too foul or too extreme.  Indeed, one gay activist friend compiled a comparison between Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda and the anti-gay propaganda of these groups and in many instances, the word "gay" had merely substituted for "Jew."  One of the perennial favorites of these anti-gay extremists is to disseminate the myth that all gays are would be child molesters and/or pedophiles.  The fact that most pedophiles are HETEROSEXUAL males, simply doesn't matter to these falsely sanctimonious "godly folks."  Now, with the accusations against Kevin Spacey, who disingenuously chose to "come out" to distract attention from the sexual misconduct story, has given the Christofascists a gift that has left them near orgasmic.  A piece in Queerty looks at Spacey's gift to the liars and hate merchants (NOTE: Scott Lively cited in the piece has a long list of anti-gay lies and false "research"):

We knew it was only a matter of time before conservative wingnuts began using the news of Kevin Spacey’s coming out to fuel the age-old “all gay men are pedophiles” myth. In a new blog post for World Net Daily titled “Will Spacey scandal expose ‘gay’ male obsession with young teens?”, Scott Lively says the Spacey scandal is just the tip of the iceberg of a larger gay pederasty scandal that has been going on since the beginning of time.

Lively writes that gay men have historically been attracted to younger men and boys, all the way back to the days of ancient Sparta. . . . . And now, thanks to Spacey, “the American public has … been allowed a glimpse of the pederast underworld.” . . . . Lively then goes on to offer a laundry list of totally random and unrelated gay men who he believes have links to pederasty, including activists Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Harry Hay, NAMBLA founder David Thorstad, HRC founder Terry Bean, Seattle mayor Sam Adams, even Hitler’s second-in-command Ernst Roehm, among others.

Lively also claims the Stonewall riots had nothing to do with LGBTQ rights but were instead sparked by the arrest of “a 14-year-old boy transvestite prostitute” whose clientele were older gay men."

Lively finishes his op-ed by saying he believes Hollywood liberals will do their best to sweep the Spacey scandal under the rug.  “There is no higher priority on the political left than protecting the ‘gay’ movement from the link to pederasty,” he writes. 

For the record, I have zero sympathy for Spacey and believes the destruction of his career is well deserved.  My only sympathy is for others who worked in the shows and movies that will suffer because of Spacey's utterly disgusting behavior.   That Spacey willing threw the gay community under the bus in his self-centered effort to distract the media storm is inexcusable. 

2nd Circuit Not Receptive to Trump DOJ Anti-Gay Arguments

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sitting en banc heard arguments in Zarda v. Altitude Express and witnessed representatives of the Trump Department of Justice ("DOJ") argued that existing federal non-discrimination and equal rights laws do not extend to LGBT Americans. The motivation of Trump DOJ was simple: delivering on Trump's promises to Christofascists and "family values" hate groups that were made to ensure a pro-Trump turnout by evangelical Christians (using the term "Christian" very loosely if one believes in the Gospel message).  In opposition was the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") argued that the existing laws do apply to LGBT Americans.  Based on the arguments and the  Court's judges were less than receptive to the pro-discrimination arguments of the Donald Trump/Jeff Sessions minions.  A piece in Slate.com looks at the 2nd Circuit's cool reception to the pro-hate and discrimination advocates.  Here are highlights:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2^nd Circuit had a burning question for Donald Trump’s Department of Justice on Tuesday: What are you doing in our courthouse? By the end of the day, the answer still wasn’t clear. Something else was, though: The DOJ’s new anti-gay legal posture is not going to be received with open arms by the federal judiciary. The Justice Department’s latest wound was fully self-inflicted, as Tuesday’s arguments in Zarda v. Altitude Express should not have involved the DOJ in the first place. The case revolves around a question of statutory interpretation: whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws anti-gay workplace discrimination. Title VII bars employment discrimination “because of sex,” which many federal courts have interpreted to encompass sexual orientation discrimination. The 2^nd Circuit is not yet one of them, and Chief Judge Robert Katzmann signaled recently that he would like to change that. So on Tuesday, all of the judges convened to consider joining the chorus of courts that believe Title VII already prohibits anti-gay discrimination in the workplace. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decided in 2015 that Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination does protect gay employees. Under President Barack Obama, the Justice Department took no position on this question. But in late July, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ DOJ unexpectedly filed an amicus brief in Zarda arguing that Title VII does not protect gay people. The 2^nd Circuit had not solicited its input, making the brief both puzzling and gratuitous. Its purpose only became apparent in September, when the DOJ filed a similarly uninvited brief asserting that bakers have a free speech right not to serve same-sex couples. Both anti-gay briefs were startlingly incoherent, seemingly the product of political pandering rather than legal reasoning. Arguments dragged on for nearly two hours, but EEOC attorney Jeremy D. Horowitz seized the upper hand early by capably explaining the agency’s three theories:

1. The “but-for” theoryThis argues that anti-gay discrimination qualifies as sex discrimination because, but for the gay person’s sex, he would not suffer discrimination. For instance, consider a homophobic employer who fires a male employee because he marries a man. But for that employee’s sex, he wouldn’t have been discriminated against and lost his job.

2. The sex stereotyping theoryIn 1989’s Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, the Supreme Court ruled that sex stereotyping—punishing a worker for her failure to conform to gender norms—is a kind of sex discrimination. At first, courts only applied sex stereotyping to masculine women and feminine men. But as the 7^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals explained in March, gay people are “the ultimate case of failure to conform” to sex stereotypes, since men and women are typically expected to date only individuals of the opposite sex.

3. The associational sex discrimination theoryThis holds that anti-gay bias constitutes sex discrimination much like anti-miscegenation laws constituted race discrimination. When states prohibited a white person from marrying a black person, they were committing discrimination because of race. It follows that when an employer punishes a gay person for associating with a same-sex partner, he has committed discrimination “because of sex.” 

Horowitz made his case well, forcefully elucidating why “sexual orientation cannot be separated from sex.”  That set the stage for Mooppan’s appearance, which, to put it mildly, did not go well at all. Chief Judge Katzmann immediately wanted to know: Why didn’t the DOJ defer to the EEOC on Title VII, as it normally does? Mooppan’s basic reply was that the Justice Department is the nation’s “largest employer”—meaning, in short, that it has an interest in retaining its capacity to fire gay people for being gay. Katzmann . . . . wanted to know what career attorneys at the DOJ’s civil rights division think about the agency’s position. But Mooppan wouldn’t answer: “That’s not appropriate for me to disclose,” he told the judge. Katzmann looked alarmed. Now a majority of the judges looked irritated. As a general rule, attorneys are supposed to answer questions posed by the court, not dodge them as though they’re taking the Fifth. It was a terrible start for Mooppan, and both Pooler and Katzmann looked genuinely perplexed that a DOJ attorney would show such blatant disrespect. Finally, Judge Dennis Jacobs broke the impasse: “I, for one, am prepared to proceed on the assumption that you’re here,” he said. Judge Jacobs asked Mooppan whether he can refute the EEOC’s associational discrimination theory and its parallel to interracial and interfaith marriage. “When you discriminate against interracial marriage,” Mooppan responded, you are promoting “racial superiority.” When you discriminate against interfaith marriage, you are promoting “religious superiority.” That makes the comparison to homosexuality moot. When arguments concluded, it seemed inevitable that the court would agree with the EEOC, reject the DOJ’s wackadoodle theories, and find that Title VII already proscribes anti-gay employment discrimination. After Tuesday’s performance, the Justice Department’s involvement in the case may have actually swung a judge or two away from its position; its flagrantly political intrusion seemed to irk even the Republican appointees. Anti-gay activists may have taken control of the DOJ—but they seem unlikely to persuade the 2^nd Circuit that America’s gay employees don’t deserve civil rights.

Watching the Downfall of a Presidency

Watching the events unfold around Russiagate I am repeatedly reminded of Watergate except the current scandal has a much more sinister nature given that the apparent crime was conspiracy with a hostile foreign government.   Both Richard Nixon and Donald Trump display mental health issues, in my opinion, that rang from deep paranoia to megalomania not to mention a sense that they are smarter than everyone else and above the law. But with Russiagate, we see a similar arrogance and sense of something much more than mere entitlement on display by Donald Trump, Jr., and Jared Kushner.  Frank Rich, in a piece in New York Magazine  looks at the continuing unfolding of events. A piece in Talking Points Memo attributes the behavior of the main players to the ethos of the New York City real estate moguls where the wealthy see themselves as above the law and where shady dealings are far too prevalent.  The latter piece also argues that the Trump family players have no idea of the magnitude of the trouble that they are in as a consequence of this bubble like reality.  Some will ask where does Mike Pence fit into all of this despite his efforts to feign ignorance about everything even though he was in the midst of the Trump campaign?  From years of watching the self-anointed "evangelical Christian" leadership crowd, I believe that Pence's motivation stems from something different: the Christofascist view that the end justifies the means, be it lying or, in this case conspiring with an enemy nation.  The goal for Pence is furthering a quasi-Christian theocracy and special rights for Christofascists and this end justifies any means.  Here are excerpts from Rich's lengthy column:

There will be no single smoking gun that will bring down this White House. It will be death by firing squad — or perhaps a sequence of firing squads — as the whole story inexorably pours out of the administration’s smoldering ruins. This week’s bombshell has the feel of gallows humor. Trump Jr.’s panicked release of the self-incriminating emails is tantamount to picking up a loaded gun and shooting himself in the head. Why did Little Donald not do what the Trumps always do in these situations — let the press (in this case the Times) go ahead and report its incriminating findings, rail against leakers, and then dismiss the latest incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing as “fake news”? Was Little Donald trying to protect his father from even worse revelations? To take down his brother-in-law even as his brother-in-law (a possible source of the emails) tried to take down him? To deliver a message from or to the Kremlin? For all we know, the released email chain may be only a small and relatively minor part of a much larger criminal web that stretches from Donald Trump’s tax returns to his and the Kushner family’s respective real-estate dealings in Russia and beyond. The authorities who matter — the investigators at the special counsel’s office and the FBI — are not telling us what they are up to. They may already know — or may soon know — of evidence far more incriminating than the revelations of the past 72 hours. Even this morning we are learning via McClatchy’s estimable Washington bureau that investigators are looking into possible coordination between the Jared Kushner–run Trump campaign digital operation and Russia’s “sophisticated voter targeting and fake-news attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016.” The good news for those who want to see justice done is that this scandal not only resembles Watergate but also The Godfather — albeit a Godfather where every Corleone is a Fredo and not a single lawyer is as crafty as Tom Hagen, despite the fact that Little Donald’s private attorney has a history of defending clients from mob families. The level of stupidity of the conspirators is staggering: Not the least of the week’s news is that Kushner thought he could get away with omitting this Trump Tower meeting on the government questionnaire he filed to get his security clearance. (The $2.5 million that Charles Kushner donated to Harvard to gain his son admission was not money well spent.) Now it’s every man (and his lawyer) for himself as the president, having hidden from the press and the public ever since he returned home from his Yalta-themed tête-à-tête with Vladimir Putin, escapes to France, of all places. His press secretary is also in hiding, as is his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, who as recently as Sunday dismissed the Donald Jr. story as a “nothingburger” — Trumpspeak for the Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler’s designation of Watergate as a “third-rate burglary.” About the only administration stalwart not remaining silent is the vice-president, whose statement following the release of the Donald Jr. emails let it be known that he was “not aware” of the Trump Tower meeting and that it had taken place before he joined the campaign. Mike Pence has clearly been boning up on Gerald Ford, and may already be brooding about the risks entailed if he should eventually be in the position to pardon the 45th president. Republicans in Congress have been slow to respond to this story, if they’ve commented at all. Is silence an effective strategy?  It’s not a strategy. It’s desperation. Much like their predecessors in the Nixon era, they keep hoping somehow it will all go away so they can get back to business as usual. After all, it was less than a month ago that David Brooks, writing in the Times, reassured them that there was “little evidence” of “any actual collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and the Russians” and that “most voters don’t really care” anyway. Prominent Republicans continued to use this script after the release of the Trump Jr. emails . .  . A furrowed brow is still what passes for bravery among Republican politicians these days.

They can run from reality and reporters, but they can’t hide indefinitely. As I’ve written before, the closer we get to the 2018 midterms, the faster Republicans in the House — and some of those up for reelection in the Senate — will scramble for the lifeboats. But by the time they wake up and see the looming iceberg, it may be too late to save their careers.

Trapping the Senate in Washington is not going to lead to the passage of the latest rewrite of the Senate health-care bill (whatever is in it). What we are likely to get instead is two weeks’ worth of television shots of Republican senators scurrying down the halls or shutting their office doors to escape reporters. Other things not happening this summer: tax reform, an infrastructure initiative, or the raising of the federal debt ceiling. The vacuum will be filled by the steady drip, if not flood, of White House revelations that neither the president nor his Capitol Hill enablers, apologists, and collaborators can stop. If McConnell were really canny, what he’d be doing right now is gaming out how his party will respond to the next looming constitutional crisis: Trump’s inevitable version of the Saturday Night Massacre, in which Robert Mueller is fired, and Rod Rosenstein along with him. For all of us, a little perspective is in order. Little Donald is not the story here any more than G. Gordon Liddy and those third-rate burglars were the story in Watergate. We are likely to reach a point when this week’s firestorm will be remembered mainly as a warm-up for conflagrations yet to come.

For the sake of the nation, I hope all of them fall, including Pence.  Some say but that would leave us with Paul Ryan, a man I see as utterly amoral.  This may be true, but a hopefully chastened Ryan and a severely damaged GOP reeling from Trump's fall may still be the lesser of the evils.