GOP to Retain It's Anti-Gay, Anti-Woman, and Anti-Immigrant Party Platform

In yet another clear sign that the Republican Party remains the party of exclusion dominated by "Christian" extremists and white supremacists, the RNC has voted to retain the 2016 party platform in its entirety with no changes that might expand the the GOP's mythical and non-existent "big tent."  The "social issues" portion of the platform was largely written by Tony Perkins of Family Research Counsel, a certified hate group that is vitriolically anti-gay and seeks a total end to abortion in all cases.  On racial issues, Perkins has documented ties to white supremacy groups and retention of the 2016 platform - combined with Trump's objections to NASCAR ban of the confederate flag and changing the names of military bases bearing the names of Confederate generals - signals that the GOP will play the race card again in 2020.  Much of the opposition to any streamlining and toning down of the party platform has come from Christofascists to whom Trump continues to pander.  A piece Politico looks at the situation and a platform that hopefully harms down ballot candidates who may try to pretend they are moderates.  Here are highlights:

A vote by the Republican National Committee to leave the party’s 2016 party platform unchanged ahead of the November election has infuriated grassroots activists — including moderates who wanted to streamline its message and social conservatives who sought added language on emerging hot-button topics.

The decision by the party’s executive panel Wednesday means the GOP will maintain positions in the 4-year-old policy blueprint — including opposition to same-sex marriage and a nod to gay conversion therapy — and decline to stake out new positions on topics such as police reform, gender identity and third-trimester abortions. Party officials and senior Trump campaign aides had previously discussed ways to pare down the 58-page document to a single note card or abbreviated list of principles, but the effort broke down after several conservative groups registered complaints with the White House.

“America has changed incredibly since 2016 and not updating our platform to reflect that is an unforced error. The RNC should reconsider this terrible decision,” said Terry Schilling, executive director of the American Principles Project and a proponent of updating the platform to oppose efforts to defund law enforcement or permit transgender minors to undergo gender reassignment treatments.

“We can’t go into 2020 with the same platform we had in 2016, and by limiting the ability to make changes you run the risk of having a stale platform. It will be tone deaf,” Schilling added.

At the other end of the GOP spectrum, Jerri Ann Henry, former executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, said the decision effectively upholds “one of the worst platforms in terms of LGBT issues.” Henry, who has spent years fighting for marriage equality within the Republican Party, was supportive of a condensed platform that “harkens back to the party’s big principles and not the minute detail of every microscopic policy.”

But when plans to shrink the bloated platform fell through, the only suitable alternative in her view was to proceed with platform deliberations, which typically occur in the week or two prior to the party’s nominating convention.

The widespread disappointment in the decision to leave the platform unchanged illuminates one of President Donald Trump’s major hurdles as he campaigns for reelection. The same traditional conservative groups that objected to condensing the platform in a way that would have eliminated controversial planks on abortion, parental rights and LGBT issues are now annoyed they can’t change the platform to strengthen its language on some of those same issues and others.

At the same time, positions contained in the 2016 platform on abortion, education, marriage, LGBT rights and family structure could further alienate suburban voters and women. Those demographics abandoned the GOP in droves during the 2018 midterms and the Trump campaign has invested significant resources to try to win them back.

Grassroots conservatives [think Christofascists] view the platform as a mechanism for accountability and worried that eliminating its explicit language on social issues would open the door for Republican candidates to be deliberately vague on key issues. Among their concerns was that mentions of abortion — which comes up 35 times in the 2016 version — would be reduced.

“The full platform is still essential for guiding policy, holding legislators accountable, and for distinguishing policy differences between Republicans and Democrats,” the Eagle Forum had written in its Monday letter to Trump and McDaniels. “We respectfully request that all efforts to streamline the overall platform, which has been forged over more than a century of committed grassroots activism, be resisted.”

With the Platform Committee scrapped, the only official business that is likely to take place next month in Charlotte, N.C. — the original location of the 2020 GOP convention — is the selection of Trump as the party’s nominee. [Trump's] The president’s acceptance speech is expected to take place at a separate facility in Jacksonville, Fla., though the Trump campaign and RNC were still finalizing those details this week.

Utah Becomes 19th State to Ban Gay "Conversion Therapy"

Utah with its heavy Mormon population once again shows that a red state can embrace modern medical and mental health knowledge and act to protect LGBT youth from what is nothing short of psychological abuse and even physical torture and abuse on far too many occasions. What am I talking about?  "Conversion therapy" a discredited and fraudulent "therapy" prized by Christofascists and other religious fundamentalist often for political purposes to oppose LGBT non-discrimination protections.  Utah has a high LGBT youth homeless problem and a high youth suicide rate that are often tied to anti-gay animus in the Mormon church.  Hopefully, this ban will speed acceptance of LGBT individuals despite the Mormon church leadership's continued anti-gay stance.  One can only hope that a similar ban will be enacted in Virginia in 2020 since Republicans prostituting themselves to the vicious extremists at The Family Foundation  will no longer be able to kill pro-LGBT legislation in committees. The Washington Blade looks at this welcome development in Utah:

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert announced Tuesday his state would implement regulations prohibiting mental health experts from engaging in “ex-gay” conversion therapy on LGBTQ youth, making Utah the 19th state to prohibit the widely discredited practice.

The announcement from a Herbert, a Republican, comes after a tumultuous debate over conversion therapy in the heavily Mormon state, where family rejection of LGBTQ youth is known to contribute to Utah’s homeless population.

“I have learned much through this process,” Herbert said. “The stories of youth who have endured these so-called therapies are heart rendering, and I’m grateful that we have found a way that will ban conversion therapy forever in our state. I’m grateful to the many stakeholders who came to the table in good faith, with never-ending patience.”

After legislation seeking to prohibit conversion therapy failed in the state legislature, Herbert in June announced the Utah Division of Occupational & Professional Licensing would seek to establish rules to regulate conversion therapy. At the time, the results of that undertaking weren’t known.

“Utah is once again leading the way in protecting LGBTQ youth and their families,” Minter said. “We salute Governor Herbert for taking action on this important issue and for this historic accomplishment.”

Therapy aimed at changing an individual’s sexual orientation or transgender status is considered ineffectual at best and harmful at worst. Major medical and psychological institutions — including the American Psychological Association, the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics — widely reject the practice.

The regulation is expected to have the same language as H.B. 399, legislation introduced by Rep. Craig Hall that failed in the state legislature, and will apply to all licensed therapists in Utah. (However, that won’t apply to practitioners of conversion therapy who aren’t therapists, such as clergy, and for LGBTQ adults seeking to participate in the practice with a licensed therapists.)

Trump’s Ominous Attempt to Redefine Human Rights

An idea Trump/Pence's new Commission would
seemingly like to bring back - gays
in concentration camps.

The Trump/Pence regime has established a "Commission on Unalienable Rights" that will use "natural law" to determine what rights matter.  Those appointed to the commission are a who's who of far right Christian extremists with documented histories of anti-LGBT animus and opposition to women's rights. By the composition of the Commission membership, it is clear from the start that some rights - and only some people - will matter.  The use of the term "natural law" - a favorite of the Christofascists - is a dead give away that the agenda of the Commission will be anti-gay and anti-modernity.  A column in the New York Times looks at this dangerous Commission and the farcical pretense that true protection of human rights of all people will be on the Commission's radar screen.  The move is a clear effort on Trump's part to shore up support among evangelicals who have shown themselves only too happy to look the other way from the near concentration camps Trump/Pence is operating on the southern border to deal with what lily white evangelicals view as the "brown menace."  Here are column excerpts:

For the Trump administration to establish a “Commission on Unalienable Rights” to examine the meaning of human rights, as it did this month, is a little like Saudi Arabia forming a commission on multiparty democracy or North Korea a commission on how to end famine. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so ominous.

Announcing the composition of the new body, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration “takes seriously the founders’ ideas of individual liberty and constitutional government.” He did so in the same week as President Trump demonstrated, once again, his contempt for the Constitution by tweeting that he’d leave office “in six years, or maybe 10 or 14 (just kidding).” Ha-ha.

In the same Twitter rant Trump called himself “a true Stable Genius.” Now the Genius in Chief, through his secretary of state, has determined that the time is ripe to sift through human rights claims and, in Pompeo’s words, determine “which rights are entitled to gain respect.”

Autocrats around the world, from Russia’s Vladimir Putin to China’s Xi Jinping, have long cast human rights groups as Trojan horses for a liberal democratic agenda. It’s an attempt to deflect attention from their gross human rights abuses. Now it appears that Trump’s United States is preparing to join the club of human rights skeptics. A more complete disavowal of what America has stood for since Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 is hard to imagine.

This, remember, is the administration that has consistently relegated human rights in its valueless foreign policy; saw in the Saudi murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi no cause to reprimand Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman; embraced North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un; kowtowed to every autocrat outside Iran and Venezuela; and separated migrant children from their families to hold them in appalling camps.

The administration has excised reproductive rights from the annual State Department Country Reports on Human Rights. It watered down a recent United Nations Security Council resolution on victims of rape in armed conflict. It has withdrawn from the United Nations Human Rights Council. The United Nations Human Rights Committee and Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination are both without a United States member.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel, Mr. Secretary [Pompeo]. A lot of bipartisan and international consensus, consolidated over the postwar decades, in the aftermath of the Holocaust and other horrors, exists as to what human rights are and what America’s role in defending them should be.

Modern human rights are grounded on the dignity inherent in every human being. They are not God-given rights, or Trump-given rights, and they apply to people of all faiths and to those who have none. They include freedom of speech, the press, assembly and religion, and the “right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law,” as the Universal Declaration puts it. They involve combating discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, disability, gender or sexual orientation.

The intention of Pompeo, an evangelical Christian whose beliefs infuse his policy, appears to be to turn back the clock.

In May, The Federal Register said the commission would provide “fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.” These “natural rights” at the time, of course, included chattel slavery and the dehumanization of black people, as well as the disenfranchisement of women.

Today, the Trump administration’s war on reproductive rights and L.G.B.T. rights is pretty clear. On gay and transgender issues, it is hostile; its attempt to dehumanize the trans community is evident.

For Pompeo, religious rights are plainly human rights; as to the rest, it’s unclear. As head of the commission, he has appointed Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard professor known as a zealous opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage. Other political opinions are represented, but the body is predominantly conservative and religious.

No plausible reason for this strange initiative has been given. Trump, having shown willful neglect toward human rights, now wants to redefine them. The exercise can only reflect his contempt for the rule of law, a free press, an independent judiciary, gays, minorities, women’s reproductive rights, the safety of migrant children, truth and decency — as well as his boundless affection for human rights violators. It is, in other words, a disaster in the making.

Be very, very afraid.

Yet Another Extremist Trump Judicial Nominee

Eighty six years ago Adolph Hitler began his transformation of Germany into something horrible using three means: (i) a constant propaganda campaign of lies that played on Germans' prejudices, (ii) attacks on the free press that sought to expose him for what he was, and (iii) stacking the courts with loyal Nazi judges. Every day Germans and the world ultimately paid a terrible price for the failure of Germans to oppose Hitler when they still had the opportunity to do so.  Fast forward to 2019 America and we see the Trump/Pence regime using the Hitler playbook with too many Americans to complacent to get out and vote - studies show that it was non-voters who elected Trump - or foolishly believing that since they are not among the regime's targets, there is little risk from their doing nothing. History tells us that nothing could be further from the case.  The Trump/Pence regime is busy appointing extremist to the federal courts for lifetime appointments which will harm the rights of many Americans for generations. One of Trump's latest nominees is so extreme that even the spineless Susan Collins will oppose his nomination, even as the rest of Senate Republicans act like Germans who aided Hitler and ultimately destroyed German's democracy.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Christofascist extremist who Trump has nominated for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.  Here are excerpts:

Sen. Susan Collins said Friday she will oppose one of President Trump’s federal judicial nominees over his record opposing LGBTQ rights.

In a statement, the Republican from Maine, who faces reelection next year, voiced concerns regarding Matthew Kacsmaryk’s “alarming bias against LGBTQ Americans and disregard for Supreme Court precedents.”

“Mr. Kacsmaryk has dismissed proponents of reproductive choice as ‘sexual revolutionaries,’ and disdainfully criticized the legal foundations of Roe v. Wade,” the landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion, Collins said. “Such extreme statements reflect poorly on Mr. Kacsmaryk’s temperament and suggest an inability to respect precedent and to apply the law fairly and impartially.”

Kacsmaryk, who serves as deputy general counsel to First Liberty Institute [a Christofascist organization] , which defends religious freedom issues, was first nominated for the lifetime appointment by Trump in 2017, and had to be renominated this year when the Senate failed to confirm him before the end of the last congressional session.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Kacsmaryk’s nomination in January on a party-line vote, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has scheduled a procedural vote on the nomination next week.

LGBT and women’s rights groups are vehemently opposed to his nomination, describing him as an “anti-LGBT activist” and pointing to instances in which he defended discrimination against LGBT people, wrote disparagingly about other gay rights such as marriage and called being transgender “a mental disorder.”

“His record reveals that he will be incapable of treating LGBT litigants fairly — no matter what body of law is at issue in the cases over which he may preside — because he does not acknowledge LGBT people as having a right to exist,” wrote a coalition of 75 organizations in a letter Wednesday to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein (Calif.).

In a statement, the Republican from Maine, who faces reelection next year, voiced concerns regarding Matthew Kacsmaryk’s “alarming bias against LGBTQ Americans and disregard for Supreme Court precedents.”

In a 2015 op-ed for the National Catholic Register, he wrote that sexual revolutionaries were demolishing the four pillars of marriage law: permanence, exclusivity, procreation, and finally “sexual difference and complementarity.”

The “Catechism holds that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,’ ‘contrary to the natural law,’ and ‘do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity,’ ” he wrote. “This view of human sexuality as male and female stands in stark contrast to the opposing definitions of marriage, sexuality and so-called gender identity promulgated by most LGBT scholars and activists.”

He also signed on to a letter that called being transgender a “delusion.”

To me, that is not someone that can be impartial to millions of people in this country who are LGBTQ. That type of demonstrated bias is not ‘he was representing someone’ or ‘he was taken out of context.’ This is his worldview. This is his bias. He has not shied away from it,” said Kristine Lucius, executive vice president for policy and governmental affairs at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which has organized a campaign against Kacsmaryk’s nomination.

Collins, who is a top target for Democrats in 2020, supports same-sex marriage and reproductive rights. But she was criticized by LGBT and women’s rights groups when she became one of the deciding votes that secured Kavanaugh’s place on the Supreme Court.

At the time, Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin encouraged his members to vote out lawmakers who supported Kavanaugh, whose nomination was embroiled by sexual misconduct allegations.

Throughout Trump’s tenure, Republicans have made federal court appointments a top priority. As of Friday, the Senate had confirmed 119 federal judges nominated by Trump.

A number of these nominees have been deemed "unqualified" by the American Bar Association yet Republicans in the Senate have confirmed them as a means to pander to Christofascists and white supremacists who support Trump.  Be very afraid.

Trump Mulls Appointment of Zealot Ken Cuccinelli to Home Land Security

Cuccinelli - a full time extremist..

Other than Christofascists and white supremacists - the two are fairly interchangeable - the majority of Virginians remember former Virginia Attorney General and failed gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinnelli as an ultra-far right extremist who (i) bordered on near hysteria in his opposition to LGBT rights and (ii) his animus towards U.S. born children of undocumented immigrants.  On the first issue, my view is that Cuccinelli, like Rick Santorum, is a closeted gay who is deeply psychologically damaged from his Catholic upbringing - both Cuccinelli and Santorum fathered seven children in their quest to "pray away the gay" only to discover it did not turn them straight - who cannot tolerate gays who have accepted the fact that homosexuality is not a mental illness and not a sin.  

On the issue of immigrants, Cuccinelli has long been in bed figuratively speaking with The Family Foundation, Virginia's leading hate groups that traces its antecedents to white supremacists who backed "Massive Resistance" to school desegregation. Cuccinelli is a perfect fit for the Trump/Pence regime's war on both gays and immigrants (and effort to pander to Christian extremists), but should be viewed as a frightening figure by sane and rational Americans.  

A piece in Politico looks at Cuccinelli - often called Kookinelli in Virginia - and his potential elevation to a position where he would be positioned to reinforce abuse of undocumented immigrants.  Here are article excerpts:

Many Trump allies have never forgotten the chaos on the 2016 convention’s first day. So some of them were surprised to learn that [Trump] a president notorious for holding grudges is likely to tap [Ken] Cuccinelli to help oversee the administration’s immigration policy, a core issue of Trump’s presidency.

“Trump doesn’t dwell on stuff like that,” said a Republican close to the White House. “That’s what he has supporters for.” A White House spokesman did not respond to requests for comment about how the president views Cuccinelli’s actions at the convention and his role on the Cruz campaign.

White House officials said Trump was planning to tap Cuccinelli for a senior position at the Department of Homeland Security, though his exact responsibilities and title remain unclear, raising questions about how he’ll fit into the White House’s decision-making process on immigration policy.

Whatever the precise role, tapping Cuccinelli would seem to underscore Trump’s continued impatience with his administration’s progress on implementing hardline immigration policies that led to the recent ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and other senior DHS officials.

Despite his theatrical convention protest before the television cameras, Cuccinelli distanced himself from the “Never Trumpers” at the convention, insisting his call for a vote on the rules was not about bringing down.

But there’s no better way to redeem oneself in Trump’s eyes than through public flattery, and Cuccinelli is a cable news regular who defends [Trump] the president at every turn.

“He’s said positive things about Trump on CNN for two years, so I don’t really think it’s an issue,” former Trump campaign adviser Sam Nunberg said when asked about Cuccinelli’s past.

Cuccinelli’s pending hiring is intended in part to reassure White House and DHS officials concerned that acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan isn't aggressive enough to address an ongoing border migration crisis, according to another person familiar with the situation. . . . What is unclear is what kind of authority Cuccinelli will have," the person said.

Cuccinelli served as Virginia’s attorney general from 2010 to 2014, gaining national attention for suing the Obama administration over the constitutionality of its federal health care overhaul. After losing Virginia’s 2013 gubernatorial race to Democrat Terry McAuliffe, he subsequently became a cable news regular.

As attorney general, Cuccinelli took a series of controversial actions, including advising public colleges that they didn't have to adopt nondiscrimination policies protecting gay people and accusing a climate science of fraud.

As a member of the Virginia legislature previously, Cuccinelli pushed to revoke citizenship rights for children of illegal immigrants who are born in the U.S. and protected employers who fire employees for not speaking English.

The country does not need a racist homophobe like Cuccinelli in any senior position in the federal government much less one where he can push racist policies to harm refugees seeking asylum, some of whom are LGBT.

Pete Buttigieg Continues to Prompt Evangelicals to Show Their True Hate-Filled Nature

The presidential candidacy of Pete Buttigieg - and the fact that he is running in third place currently - has evangelical Christians, or at least the "professional Christians" who make a living disseminating hatred and falsehoods under the guise of religious belief, to go into absolute apoplexy.  Constant shrieks and flying spittle are the norm, especially for a group that has labeled itself as the Gone2Far Movement which has a piece in Christian News Wire - a typically far right Christian "news" outlet.  

As blogger friend Joe Jervis noted - Joe and I have been tracking far right anti-gay "Christian" extremists for over two decades - Gone2Far is a relatively new coalition of long time anti-LGBT extremists Scott Lively, Peter LaBarbera, Brian Camenker, and alleged ex-gay Stephen Black, who Joe, I, and other LGBT activists have tracked for many years as they have peddled anti-gay lies and bogus science.  New to the group is what Jie describes as "a gaggle of hater nobodies you’ve never heard of"  who I suspect are motivated by a desire to get onboard the anti-gay financial gravy train among evangelical circles.   With luck, these hate merchants will finally be seen by the larger public for what they are - extremists who are leeches who prey on the ignorant and gullible while they line their pockets with money made from speaking circuits and books peddled to the sheeple.

On a related note, some say that I am far too hard on evangelicals and that some are decent people.  My problem with such people is that they are cut out of the same cloth as the "good Germans" who did nothing to stop the rise of Hitler or the Holocaust. Good, decent people cannot remain silent in the face of hate, deliberate lies and evil.  Yet the silence of the majority of evangelicals in confronting groups like Gone2Far is deafening.  By their silence, rightly or wrongly, they have tacitly allowed such hate merchants to define them.  If they have a problem with how I describe them, all they need do is speak up and condemn folks like those involved in Gone2Far.  

Meanwhile, here's a sampling of the lunacy and animus being spouted by Gone2Far as set forth in the Christian News Wire piece (note that per these lunatics Buttigieg's candidacy is part of a larger gay conspiracy):  

Mayor Pete Buttigieg is publicly challenging the definition of what a Christian is in the public square.

The culmination of the culture wars has now turned to redefining Christianity. The LGBTQ community has used media, entertainment, and the law to codify their view of sexuality. They have convinced Americans that the homosexual lifestyle is normal and an acceptable practice in the public square. They have, in effect, successfully introduced a neo-morality into the culture. In fact, the LGBTQ community is claiming victory over the traditional values of evangelicals.

Mayor Pete represents the "kill shot" launch by the gay community to now re-define Christianity. This neo-Christianity is made out of their feelings into their image. Pete Buttigieg is the face of their new theology. Buttigieg claims that "God made me this way." An incredible claim in light of the fact the Bible teaches homosexuality is a sin. However, this claim is far more dangerous and sinister than it appears. This claim creates a contradiction and brings into question the coherency of truth claims in the Holy Word of God.

Also, the claim makes the God of scripture a hypocrite. Why would He make people homosexuals and then condemn them as sinners? Buttigieg is challenging underlying assumptions in the infallible word of God. I submit he is redefining Christianity. This attack has been brewing for a long time. The LGBTQ has been seeking ways to diminish the influence of the Bible's unswerving teaching against the gay lifestyle. 

Note the use of the term "gay lifestyle" is derogatory in itself and pushes the lie that sexual orientation is a choice and can be changed.  Never mind what medical and mental health experts say and never mind that the Old Testament to which these folks point to for their authority - the New Testament is silent on homosexuality - was authored by ignorant Bronze Age herders.  The real problem Buttigieg poses for these extremists is two-fold: (i) he shows that gays are normal, responsible people like so many others in society and not the drug addicts and alcoholics the Christofascists have depicted us as for decades, and (ii) he is putting a spotlight on the archaic and untrue myths the Christofascists have based their lives and exclusionary and divisive dogma on. They simply cannot tolerate anything or anyone that makes it clear to others that they have lived their lives based on lies.  They will lash out and try to destroy anyone who exposes their false beliefs.  Mayor Pete had best fasten his seat belt. Their hysteria and hate-filled attacks will likely only increase.

It’s Dangerous to Forget about Mike Pence

With all the focus on Donald Trump and the FBI's launch of an investigation  of his possible role as an agent of Russia and his efforts to hide communications with Russia, including interpreter notes from one on one meetings with Vladimir Putin, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that a removal of Trump from office could potentially hand the White House to Mike Pence, provided, of course, Pence is not swept up into the effort to collude with Russia.  As noted a number of times before on this blog, Pence is about as extreme as one can get and has an ugly history of embracing discrimination, particularly anti-LGBT discrimination.  Moreover, like Rick Santorum and Ken Cuccinelli (who are a  little too hysterically anti-gay), Pence has all of the hallmarks of an extreme self-loathing closeted gay who believes attacks on the LGBT community are his best camouflage for his hidden "secret." His wife, Karen Pence, a/k/a mother per Pence himself, is not much better given her current work with a school that bans gay employees.  Thus, removing Trump who is demonstratively unfit for office could place someone equally unhinged in but a different way in a position to do great harm.  A piece in The Progressive looks at Trump's ugly history. Here are excerpts:

Since his Inauguration, Trump’s merry-go-round administration has been a consistent source of horror and amusement, most recently illustrated in Michaels Wolff’s expose, Fire and Fury. In the midst of the chaotic palace intrigue, one man seems to remain above the fray: Vice President Michael Richard Pence.

But it’s a bad idea to lose track of Mike Pence, particularly if you care about gay, lesbian, trans, and queer rights. In many ways, the Vice President has made attacking LGBTQ+ rights the cornerstone of his political career. And a look at his past crusades against this community leaves little room for doubt that he will continue that mission. 

As Vice President, he has made six tie breaking votes in Senate, more than Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden combined. He cast the final vote scrapping federal rules to protect consumers from predatory financial organizations, what Senator Elizabeth Warren called a “giant wet kiss to Wall Street.”

It was Pence’s vote that confirmed Trump nominee Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education and kickstarted a debate on Obamacare repeal. Most controversial, perhaps, was Pence’s approval of a bill to allow states to withhold federal funds for Planned Parenthood and other organizations providing reproductive healthcare, a longtime goal of Pence and his rightwing evangelical Christian allies.

Predictably, Pence used religious justification to push his agenda. “The day Obamacare passed was also a day of disappointment for the sanctity of life, but hope is finally shining through,” Pence said. “When this bill passes, it will be one of the defining victories for life.” According to a March 2017 poll, 75 percent of Americans, Republicans as well as Democrats, support the federal government’s continued funding of Planned Parenthood.

From early in his career, Pence has expressed outlier views. . . . . In an op-ed in 2000, Pence denied the correlation between smoking cigarettes and mortality. . . . . In similar fashion, Pence has denied global warming, citing “growing skepticism among scientists” about climate change and saying CO2 from fossil fuels can’t increase temperatures because it “is a naturally occurring phenomenon in nature.” He has also dismissed climate change as “an issue for the left."

But it is toward the gay community that Pence has expressed his most extreme views, so much so that Donald Trump once joked that Pence “wants to hang them all.”

In 2006, as head of the Republican Study Committee, a group of the most-conservative House members, he defended marriage as between a man and a woman and argued that any change to that threatens the stability of society.

In 2010, he opposed the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which barred military service people from openly identifying as gay, claiming the military was no place for “social experimentation.” The website for his 2000 congressional campaign asserted that funding for HIV prevention “should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.”

Pence gained infamy that same year for a pushing a bill to jail same-sex couples who applied for marriage licenses.

The passing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was met with outrage by companies, celebrities, and thousands of Indiana residents. Angie’s List cancelled its $40 million expansion in Indianapolis, a move that would have brought a thousand new jobs to Indiana. New York, Washington, Connecticut, and Vermont all banned state-funded travel to Indiana. . . . Even the Republican mayor of Indianapolis, Greg Ballard, called on the legislature to repeal the bill, saying it “sends the wrong signal.”

Following the backlash, Pence signed a revised amendment to the bill, barring businesses from discriminating based on gender identity or sexual orientation. However, statewide laws concerning discrimination outside the workplace remained unchanged.

Pence’s dogged championing of “religious freedom” at the expense of civil rights for LGTBQ+ people poses equally dangerous threats for groups already very vulnerable to prejudice and violence.

In twenty-eight states, LGBTQ+ people don’t have anti-discrimination laws that protect them in the workplace, housing, and public accommodations.

And Pence remains dedicated to rolling back civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ people. He was behind the implementation of a transgender ban in the military, an effort subsequently blocked by federal judges. He also championed the transgender bathroom ban in public schools, a policy Trump later adopted.

A survey by the Human Rights Campaign released in January 2017 showed that 36 percent of transgender youth reported being personally bullied or harassed, and 56 percent had changed their self-expression or future plans since the election.  Just recently, on December 28, Kerrice Lewis, a lesbian woman of colour, was shot and burnt alive in the trunk of a car in Washington, D.C.

In pushing “religious freedom” at the explicit expense of this community’s safety and well-being, Mike Pence reveals the depth of his dangerous bias. A country that allows discrimination on the basis of race, sexual orientation, or gender identity is not a country with equal rights.

Exposing The “Real” Mike Pence

In many ways, I believe Mike Pence embodies many of the worse elements of the Christofascist extremists who have a stranglehold on the Republican Party base.  Pence engages in false piety while doing violence to the Gospel message, he claims to be "pro-life" even though his party's policies are  anything but pro-life once a child - especially a poor minority child - is born, and he is fanatically anti-LGBT (I suspect because of his own sexual orientation issues).  On the latter point, the president of the Human Rights Campaign recently stated: “Mike Pence has made a career out of attacking the rights and equal dignity of LGBTQ people, women and other marginalized communities. Now as vice president, he poses one of the greatest threats to equality in the history of our movement. With the world distracted by Donald Trump’s scandal-ridden White House, Mike Pence’s nefarious agenda has been allowed to fly under the radar for too long.  . . ."  HRC and others in the LGBT and progressive community are seeking to expose Pence for what he really is and, hopefully expose the extremism of the GOP agenda in the process.  A piece in Politico looks at the effort.  Here are highlights (please take the time to check out the HRC website):

A leading progressive group is launching a campaign-style effort to [correctly] paint Vice President Mike Pence as an extremist who wields unprecedented power in the White House — an early sign that as the vice president takes a lead role in midterm campaigning, he also risks making himself a target.

The Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBT rights organization, is launching a sustained attack against Pence, with a website, videos and a lengthy report to be released on Thursday. The materials were shown to POLITICO early.

And as President Donald Trump’s legal troubles expand, from the special counsel probe to a federal investigation of his personal attorney, some Democrats are beginning to train their fire on Pence in case the president doesn’t run for reelection in 2020 or gets removed from office. The broadside comes as Pence has taken on an outsize role in the Republicans’ work to prevent a Democratic wave in 2018. In the next week and a half, Pence will be making campaign stops in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Indiana and California. Those trips come after Pence has already crisscrossed the country stumping and fundraising for Republicans. The HRC effort highlights what it describes as Pence’s “extremist ideology”: his opposition while in Congress to Employment Non-Discrimination Act protections for sexual orientation; his opposition to ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which barred openly gay people from serving in the military; his opposition to hate crime protections for transgender individuals; and a statement on his 2000 campaign website that appeared to endorse federal funding for the controversial practice of “conversion therapy.”

The report, which highlights these positions, also hits Pence for his handling of an HIV/AIDS outbreak in Indiana during his governorship and for signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which critics said would legalize discrimination against LGBT people and which nearly derailed his governorship.

Along with the report, HRC produced a series of videos, including one in which Pence decries the use of condoms and another in which he lobbies against hate-crime legislation. . . . . Clips of Pence speaking on the floor of the House — including one in which he says, “Abstinence and marital faithfulness before condom distribution are the cure for what ails the families of Africa” — are spliced in. “We’ve seen Mike Pence fly underneath the radar,” said Chris Sgro, HRC’s communications director. “The unfortunate reality is that Mike Pence has tried to hold himself out there as the moderate, grown-up voice in the room. But we know, and this report exposes, that he’s anything but. He is a dangerous extremist.” [GOP strategist, Rick] Tyler said even if HRC and other groups beat up on Pence as November approaches, he believes voters are more likely to make ballot-box decisions based on their views of Trump.

“When [House Speaker Paul] Ryan announced he wasn’t running for reelection, that was in many ways the end of the Republican Party the way I knew it and the way Ryan knew it,” Tyler said. “The cord is severed, this is now Trump’s party, for better or worse, for good or bad, and 2018 is now a referendum on his party.”

Right Wing Lunacy Reigns at CPAC

Wayne LaPierre, NRA propagandist ,at CPAC

If one wants a front row seat observing what's wrong with America, a good place to start is at CPAC - the Conservative Political Action Conference - which might better stand for Crazy People Acting Crazy.  The confab is featuring a who's who of hate merchants and, of course, gave a prominent speaking platform to Wayne LaPierre of the NRA who wants every school in America turned into a "hardened site" with heavily armed teachers (the NRA is a "presenting sponsor of the event). Anything rather than adopt common sense gun control measures and a ban of assault weapons. LaPierre clearly puts gun manufacturers' profits ahead of America's school children.  As NPR noted, LaPierre ended his speech, to a standing ovation, by reprising comments he made just over five years ago after the mass-shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut : "To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun."

Also featured as a speaker is French Fascist Marion Maréchal-Le Pen who compared Brexit and the French anti-gay hate group La Manif Pour Tous with the election of Trump, citing all three as examples of the global rise of the right.

In attendance too is the falsely named "Constitution Party" which wants to turn America into a theocracy based on that unhinged group's reading of the Bible.  As might be expected, gays are high on the target list of the Constitution Party:

The goal of the Constitution Party is to restore American jurisprudence  . . .  We reject the notion that homosexuals, transgenders or those who are sexually deviant are deserving of legal favor or special protection, and affirm the rights of states and localities to proscribe offensive sexual behavior. We oppose all efforts to impose a new sexual legal order through any courts or legislatures.  Finally, we oppose any legal recognition of homosexual or civil unions. 

Among other "key issues" for the Constitution Party  - and CPAC attendees generally are the following:

• end federal funding of public education
• no infringement on gun ownership
• end binding precedent of court rulings on non-parties to the litigation
• the privatization of Healthcare and Social Security, with Social Security being phased out
• American withdrawal from the United Nations
• anti-immigrant policies

These people are NOT mainstream and are downright frightening.  Oh, and did I mention that the majority of CPAC attendees are Trump supporters?

Message to Business Groups: Oppose Anti-Gay AG Candidate John Adams

Herring supports equality, Adams opposes it and wants special rights for Christofascists

Four years ago we saw right wing, anti-gay GOP extremist Ken Cuccinelli running for Governor of Virginia.  Thankfully, he went down to defeat and the Commonwealth dogged a very serious bullet. This year we have a slightly more polished but no less extreme candidate running as the Republican candidate for Attorney General.  Like Cuccinelli is largely driven by one thing: his religious extremism and animus towards LGBT citizens.  His ads falsely talk about "taking politics" out of the office of the Attorney General, yet, if elected, his agenda would amount to granting special rights to Christian extremists and persecuting Virginia's LGBT citizens. Adams would become ayatollah in chief for Christofascists organizations like The Family Foundation, Virginia's leading hate group. Compounding Adams' unfitness for office is his affinity for pandering to special interests.  Indeed, much of his legal career has, in my view, been devoted to protecting big banks and ruthless corporations and white collar criminals.  A piece in MetroWeekly looks at an appeal being made to business organizations to reject Adams.  Here are highlights:  

Equality Virginia Advocates, the political action arm of Equality Virginia, is calling on the political action committees of various pro-business groups not to endorse Republican Attorney General candidate John Adams in his bid to unseat AG Mark Herring.

Specifically, EVA wants the Northern Virginia Business PAC, the Hampton Roads Business PAC, and the Northern Virginia Technology Council PAC to weigh and carefully consider whether the anti-LGBTQ statements made by John Adams would send a hostile message to LGBTQ Virginians and their families.

In a letter to the three political action committees, EVA argues that Adams’ on-the-record statements not only opposing marriage equality but LGBTQ rights in general — as well as his urging the Virginia General Assembly to impeach Mark Herring for refusing to defend the commonwealth’s ban on same-sex marriage — are inconsistent with the groups’ purported claims of supporting candidates that will foster a “pro-business” environment.

LGBTQ advocates say, any perceived hostility towards LGBTQ people may make businesses second-guess relocating to or expanding operations in the commonwealth, particularly in light of the backlash that North Carolina received after it passed its controversial HB 2 law, complete with provisions that encouraged discrimination against LGBTQ people.

“Groups supporting Adams for Attorney General will be sending a hostile message to LGBT employees and hurting Virginia’s business-friendly reputation,” EVA writes in the letter to the political action committees. “It is our belief that Adams would use the Attorney General’s office to pursue his own personal anti-equality agenda.”

Given Virginia’s longstanding reputation as a low-tax, business-friendly state (with Democrats and Republicans generally towing the line), the PACs’ decisions on who to endorse are always a politically contentious issue. 

In 2013, the Northern Virginia Business PAC endorsed Herring, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (now running for governor) and Gov. Terry McAuliffe, all Democrats, for office. However, the Northern Virginia Technology Council PAC eagerly endorsed gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, whose LGBTQ record was well-publicized from his stint as both state senator and as Attorney General. Both decisions were roundly criticized by partisans on both sides.

Nonetheless, EVA wants to make its opposition to Adams clear to any business PACs that would think about endorsing him, rather than endorsing Herring, or refusing to issue an endorsement altogether.

Adams has made clear that he will pursue efforts to undermine equal rights as Attorney General. He has continued to vocally oppose marriage equality, even after the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges,” the letter reads. “He has aggressively criticized efforts to protect the rights of transgender individuals, including his apparent support for the widely criticized ban on military service.

“And earlier this year in a speech, he argued for allowing archaic state sodomy laws. These laws, which have been rejected by most Republicans and Democrats for many years, would make it a crime to be gay in Virginia,” EVA writes. “Adams is not just opposed to advancing gay rights, he wants to allow government to actively persecute gay Virginians simply because of who they are. An Attorney General with this type of discriminatory and outdated agenda would send a terrible message about Virginia’s business climate.”

Yes, that's right, Adams wants to bring back the sodomy laws as a means to prosecute Virginians for being gay. 

Republicans to Use Virginia AG Race to Attack LGBT Rights

John Adams with Jill Vogel and Ed Gillespie - be very afraid

This fall's Virginia elections are likely to draw much more national attention than in other years and, frighteningly, rolling back LGBT rights and reversing the legalization of same sex marriage appears to be one of the preferred talking points of the GOP attorney general candidate, John Adams.  Adams may come across as a more polished version of Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli, but he is every bit as much of an extremist as Cuccinelli.  Especially on the issue of LGBT rights. Among the knuckle draggers of Virginia rural areas and so-called Tea Party activists - actually Christian extremists hiding under a different label - the message resonates and it will be critical that progressives and the LGBT community not discount the danger Adams and the rest of the Republican ticket pose to basic civil rights.  Not only is Adams and anti-gay extremist, but he is also a huge fan of voter ID laws aimed at disenfranchising as many minority voters and Democrat leaning voters as possible.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the extreme agenda Adams and his fellow ticket mates will be pushing. Here are excerpts:

John Adams, the prominent Richmond lawyer who wants to be Virginia’s next attorney general, is no fan of the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage across the country.

“Totally made up, totally made up,” he told a Tea Party gathering in Virginia Beach last year. “Not in the constitution anywhere.”

But the Republican also told the crowd they had to live with the high court’s ruling unless one of two things happens. Either Virginia secedes from the union, something that did not work out so well 150 years ago. Or the court gets a big makeover.

“I’m an optimist,” he said. “I clerked for Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. You give me four more Clarence Thomases, we’re good. OK? I’m not kidding. We’re good. Because they will fix that court in a minute.”

Adams is running as both blunt conservative and strict adherent to the rule of law. The premise of his campaign is that Herring is neither – that the sitting attorney general has bent the law to advance a liberal agenda . . . Herring, of course, flatly disagrees with that notion. He won election four years ago promising to “take the politics out of the office,” a swipe at the activist tenure of his conservative Republican predecessor, Ken Cuccinelli II.

As attorney general, Herring went on to advance gay rights and abortion access, offer in-state tuition to certain illegal immigrants and to tighten gun control. Herring contends all of his moves were grounded in the law.

Virginia’s race plays out as national forces have politicized the office of state attorney general around the country. Herring and other Democratic attorneys general are branding themselves as the “resistance” to President Donald Trump, much as Republicans cast themselves as a firewall against President Barack Obama’s “overreach.”

Ahead of Virginia’s November election — the nation’s only attorney general’s contest in 2017 —the Republican Attorneys General Association voted early this year to scrap a long-standing “gentlemen’s agreement” with its Democratic counterpart to stay out of contests with an incumbent.

Long regarded as head of the state’s law firm and sometimes as Virginia’s top cop, the attorney general has evolved in recent years into a high-profile, highly politicized figure, said Bob Holsworth, a longtime Richmond political analyst.  “Cuccinelli began the change,” Holsworth said, referring to the attorney general who filed the first suit against “Obamacare,” investigated a university climate scientist and played hardball with the state Board of Health over abortion.

The Herring-Adams contest could grab more of the spotlight than usual. Republicans plan to play up the down-ticket race since Herring is more of a lightening rod than the low-key Northam.  “Mark Herring fires up our base,” House Speaker-designee Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) said with a mock shudder.

And Democrats are zeroing in on Adams’s conservative views as they try to paint the Republican ticket as too far right for a changing Virginia. Gillespie treads lightly on social issues, as does the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, Jill Holtzman Vogel (Fauquier). Adams speaks far more frankly.  . . . Adams volunteers his personal opposition to gay marriage on his web site.

Democrats say Adams takes after someone else: Cuccinelli. They have seized on pro bono, friend-of-the-court briefs Adams wrote supporting the rights of two organizations – the Hobby Lobby retail chain and the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns – to be exempted from an Obamacare birth-control mandate due to religious objections.

“He did it on his own, in his spare time,” Herring said in a June 17 debate with Adams in Virginia Beach. “That’s where his passion is, in taking people’s rights away from them.” . . . Adams said his only interest was in protecting religious freedom [the right's code name for license to discriminate laws].

Do not be fooled by Gillespie's and Vogel's relative silence on far right issues.  While not voicing Adams' views, they will nonetheless pursue them if elected to office.  Virginia's women, minorities, non-Christians and gays should be terrified by all three of these candidates. 

Trump Appoints LGBT Civil Rights Opponent to lead HHS Civil Rights Office

It seems as if not a day goes by when Der Trumpenführer isn't doing something to deliver on his promise to Christofascists to do all in his power to role back LGBT civil rights.  Yes, some times with the Russia treason investigations and the now failed Obamacare repeal effort dominating the news, these efforts get lost from the mainstream media's coverage.  That, however, doesn't mean that dangerous and insidious things are not happening.  A case in point is the appointment of anti-gay extremist Roger Severino to lead the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights.  Talk about putting the fox in charge of the hen house.  Nothing good can come of this appointment.  Meanwhile, "friends" who voted for Trump continue to have their heads up their ass and tell me that I have "nothing to worry about."  Think Progress looks at this disturbing development.  Here are excerpts:

Earlier this week, according to a statement by several progressive groups*, President Donald Trump appointed Roger Severino, a leading anti-LGBT activist, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights. In doing so, Trump potentially gives Severino an opportunity to dismantle civil rights protections he criticized as a staffer at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

In 2016, for example, Severino co-authored a Heritage report criticizing proposed Obama administration rules preventing discrimination against transgender patients within the health care system. Protecting trans people against such discrimination, Severino warned, would “penalize medical professionals and health care organizations that, as a matter of faith, moral conviction, or professional medical judgment, believe that maleness and femaleness are biological realities to be respected and affirmed, not altered or treated as diseases.”

[I]n 2007, Severino published a law review article entitled “Or for Poorer? How Same-Sex Marriage Threatens Religious Liberty,” where he claimed that marriage equality would lead to “both government compulsion of religious institutions to provide financial or other support for same‐sex married couples and government withdrawal of public benefits from those institutions that oppose same‐sex marriage.”

As the head of the HHS civil rights office, Severino will not only be able to push from within the department to dismantle existing protections for LGBT Americans, he could also potentially push for special rights for anti-LGBT employers and health providers — such as regulations explicitly permitting these employers and providers to engage in discrimination if they believe that their faith requires them to do so.   

Severino is cut from the same cloth as Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, who likewise believes that the myth and legend based religious sensibilities of Christian extremists out weigh the very real needs and civil rights of LGBT Americans - and countless women as well.  Again, nothing good will come form this appointment.