Anti-LGBT Hate Groups Surge as Trump (and Pence) Embrace Their Leaders

Trump with anti-gay zealot (and white supremacist) Tony Perkins.

The Trump/Pence regime has waged a relentless war on the LGBT community over the last 3 years, reversing pro-LGBT policies of the Obama administration, appointing virulently anti-LGBT extremists to the federal courts  (the Republican majority in the Senate rubber stamped these individuals, a number deemed unqualified by the American Bar Association), and openly embracing the leaders of anti-LGBT hate groups. Yet, unbelievably, a minority of gays - many white, educated and with social standing that they seemingly believe will protect them in a manner reminiscent of many 1930's European Jews who ended up in the Nazi death camps - continue to support the Trump regime and Republicans in general.  I find the behavior dumbfounding, especially given the rise of LGBT hate groups thanks to Trump and Pence's embrace of the toxic leaders.  A piece in RVA Magazine looks at this frightening phenomenon.  Here are highlights:

Anti-LGBTQ hate groups are rapidly growing across America, a result, the Southern Poverty Law Center says, of President Donald Trump’s leadership, including his embrace of those groups. The White House in response has issued a thin statement denying any responsibility or blame – while not even offering to make any changes or to help with the growing danger.

While overall, active hate groups of all types fell slightly in 2019 from 1020 to 940, there was a “sharp expansion,” a nearly 43 percent increase, in anti-LGBTQ hate groups, the SPLC reports, warning that the “Trump administration has demonstrated a clear willingness to embrace their leaders and their policy agenda.”

Far right wing Christian evangelicals, including anti-LGBTQ hate groups like the Family Research Council, have become emboldened, enjoying what they have said is “open door” access to the Oval Office.

“Anti-LGBTQ groups have become intertwined with the Trump administration, and — after years of civil rights progress and growing acceptance among the broader American public — anti-LGBTQ sentiment within the Republican Party is rising,” the Southern Poverty Law Center adds.

The White House issued a thin statement in response, refusing to accept any responsibility or blame. . . . the entire statement hinges on the President appointing openly-gay Trump diehard loyalist Richard Grenell as his Ambassador to Germany, then installing him – despite his absolute lack of qualifications – as his acting Director of National Security. It was Grenell who launched the campaign to decriminalize homosexuality – which exists in name only.

The SPLC also issued another dark warning: this hate and extremism “will far outlast this administration,” and not disappear when President Trump leaves office.

“As the country continues to experience white nationalist terror, extremist ideas long believed outside of the realm of legitimate politics are penetrating deeply into the mainstream, spawning public policies that target immigrants, LGBTQ people and Muslims. The Trump administration has installed members of hate groups into government — particularly those with anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim or anti-LGBTQ animus — and put in place highly punitive policies that seemed unthinkable just a few short years ago. These political moves will far outlast this administration, as Trump and his allies in the U.S. Senate have pushed through hundreds of new federal judges, many of whom are hostile to civil rights concerns and will serve for decades.”

While gays are the favored targets of these groups, their ultimate goal is their form of toxic Christianity becoming a de facto established religion in America with those who fail to embrace their toxic dogma condemned to second class citizenship.

Pence, Buttigieg and the Debate Over Fraudulent "Conversion Therapy"

Throughout the life of this blog I have consistently and vigorously condemned so-called gay "conversion therapy" and those who support it and work to continue the myth that gays can "change" if they want to. I myself was never subjected to a formal conversion therapy regime which involves psychological - and sometimes physical - abuse. I did however, fall for Catholicism's lie that one can "pray away the gay" and I know the self-hatred and suicidal thoughts (and actions) that failure to change can bring about. I've also known many who were subjected to these fraudulent therapies - usually against their will - who suffered greatly and still bear psychological scars to this day and none of them successfully "changed" their sexual orientation.  The practice needs to be banned nationwide.  Now, the candidacy of Pete Buttigieg has brought conversion therapy and the vicious (but financially and politically lucrative) anti-gay agenda of evangelicals  to the forefront, embodied in the person of Mike Pence (and his wife) who make little effort to hide their animus towards LGBT Americans.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Pence's anti-gay actions over the years and his failure to ever condemn conversion therapy and its advocates who are among his strongest political allies.  Here are article highlights:

It’s a Hoosier rumble!  Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg has been calling out Vice President Pence for what he views as animus against gay rights. Buttigieg came out as gay when Pence was still governor of Indiana, after the two had tangled over Pence’s signing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The law was signed in March 2015, and Buttigieg came out in June of that year.

Some advocates of the RFRA expressly said that it would allow businesses to refuse to support same-sex marriages, something Pence denied at the time, saying it only provided a mechanism for plaintiffs to challenge government actions or activities that threaten their beliefs.

[I]n response to the outcry over the law, Indiana lawmakers amended it to clarify that it did not authorize discrimination against gays. Then Pence came under attack from conservatives for caving.

Buttigieg’s attacks have revived one of the most persistent complaints about Pence’s attitude toward gays — that he supposedly backed funding for conversion therapy, also known as “reparative therapy” or “sexual orientation change efforts” (SOCE). CNN, for instance, said Pence “signaled support” for such funding in its report on Buttigieg’s speech to the LGBTQ Victory Fund.

An American Psychological Association task force in 2009 extensively analyzed peer-reviewed literature and concluded that such methods were unlikely to be successful and could harm patients; 16 states and the District of Columbia have acted to ban such therapy.

Buttigieg’s staff insists that he’s not trying to raise the issue, saying his remarks on Pence are tied to the dispute over the RFRA. . . . . “I don’t know what he believes about conversion therapy because he has never given a straight one.”  So what has Pence said?

There is little dispute that Pence has long been a skeptic of laws that seek to expand gay rights. He opposed same-sex marriage and supported a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman. He opposed a law that would prohibit discrimination against LGBT people in the workplace. He opposed the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy that prohibited soldiers from openly identifying as gay.

But the claim of supporting conversion therapy does not come from anything Pence ever said. Instead, it stems from an old campaign website that can only be found on the Wayback Machine. Nineteen years ago, when running for Congress, the Pence campaign website offered a “guide to renewing the American Dream.” . . . . In the section titled “Strengthening the American Family,” there are three items regarding gay rights:

Congress should oppose any effort to put gay and lesbian relationships on an equal legal status with heterosexual marriage.

Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexual’s as a "discreet and insular minority" entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities.

Congress should support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act only after completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus. Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.

As far as we can tell, references to Pence supporting conversion therapy began in 2015, after the fracas over RFRA, when they were circulated by the Indiana Democratic Party. News releases claimed Pence supported an “off-the-cuff endorsement for ex-gay conversion therapy,” without explaining that the language came from a campaign website.

We can find no evidence that Pence ever expressed support for conversion therapy. But neither can we find evidence that he has rejected it in his own words, as opposed to a spokesman. He has spoken at the Value Voters Summit, sponsored by the Family Research Council, which still advocates SOCE techniques and argues the APA study actually supports use of such practices. Micah Clark, who serves as executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana and opposes efforts to ban SOCE, stood behind Pence when he signed the RFRA.

Pence could certainly settle this conundrum if he has rejected such therapies in his own words, rather than through a spokesman. Then there would no longer be any question.

Do not hold your breath waiting for Pence to condemn the practice and the harm it does to so many. He remains the political whore of all the hate groups that continue to advocate for the false therapy and who push the GOP to retain, if not ramp up, its anti-LGBT agenda. Meanwhile, the Trump/Pence regime is waging a relentless war on LGBT Americans, especially those who are transgender.

Trifecta of Hate: Chick-Fil-A, National Christian Foundation, and Brazilian President Meets with Hate Groups

Today was a trifecta when it comes to exposing the anti-gay and anti-LGBT hatred that passes as supporting "Christian" hate groups and rallying Christofascists to bolster raw political power based on the hatred of others. The first piece was actually not anything news wise since Chick-Fil-A has been financing anti-gay hate groups for years and those in the know who value themselves or their LGBT friends have avoided Chick-Fil-A for that very reason.  Nonetheless, today's news confirms that Chick-Fil-A's claims that it had changed its bigoted ways was and remains a deliberate lie. Out Magazine has details.  Here are excerpts:

Chick-fil-A is serving up more than just poultry. The Georgia-based fast-food chain, which has claimed in the past that is has no social or political agenda, has donated more than $1.8 million to a trio of groups who have records of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, according to newly released tax filings, ThinkProgress reports.

The company’s 2017 tax filings show that the company gave over $1.6 million to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, $6,000 to the Paul Anderson Youth Home and $150,000 to the Salvation Army, each of which is an increased donation from the previous year.

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is a Christian sports ministry that requires strict “sexual purity” and bars its employees from any “homosexual acts.” Paul Anderson Youth Home is a Georgia-based Christian residential home for troubled youth that, according to Think Progress, teaches those living there that homosexuality is wrong and that same-sex marriage is “rage against Jesus Christ and His values.” Though the Salvation Army claims that it does not discriminate against LGBTQ+ people, it has a history of referring LGBTQ+ people to conversion therapy.

Chick-fil-A does not have a nondiscrimination policy that includes explicit protection for employees based on gender identity or sexual orientation. In 2012, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy said that America is “inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.”

The company has claimed in the past that it would stay out of politics and focus on chicken and that they would cease donations to anti-LGBTQ+ groups.

Mr. Cathy, like it would seem most evangelical Christians, sees himself as exempt from the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness. But Chick-Fil-A has company when it comes to being a modern day Pharisee best defined by lying, hypocrisy and hatred towards others.   The lesson is that, if one wants to give to charities, pick one that is non-religiously affiliated (locally, the Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a good option).  Here is part of the expose on the National Christian Foundation:

The nation’s eighth-largest public charity is pouring tens of millions of dollars each year into a number of mostly anti-LGBT hate groups, a Sludge investigation shows. . According to the three most recent available tax filings—which cover 2015-17—it has donated $56.1 million on behalf of its clients to 23 nonprofits identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups.

“I certainly don’t know of any public disclosures of funds to hate groups at levels anywhere near this,” Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Sludge. “It’s pretty astounding and certainly concerning.”

The far-right evangelical National Christian Foundation (NCF), which offers Christian donors “expert guidance and creative giving solutions,” is the fourth-largest donor-advised fund by 2017 revenue in the U.S., having raised over $1.5 billion that year.In 2017, NCF’s donation to anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant hate groups rose to over $19 million.

By far the biggest recipient of NCF donations is Alliance Defending Freedom, a large network of Christian extremist lawyers who have supported criminalizing homosexuality, sterilizing transgender people, and claimed that gay men are pedophiles. The group recently came out against congressional Democrats’ Equality Act, which would ban discrimination against LGBTQ Americans.

Anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council, which has attempted to tie gay men to pedophilia for many years, accepted over $5.3 million from NCF from 2015-17.

Both organizations “spread vicious propaganda and disinformation, othering and maligning members of the LGBTQ community, which is a key reason they are rightly considered hate groups,” said Stroop.

The last piece of this trifecta of hate is the meeting of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and a who's who of Christian hate merchants, including Virginia Beach's never ending embarrassment, Pat Robertson who has a long history of lying about gays, blacks and minorities while enriching himself by preying on the ignorant and gullible.  Here are excerpts from Right Wing Watch:

Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s right-wing president, visited President Trump in the White House on Tuesday and followed up his official business with a Christian Broadcasting Network interview and meeting with conservative religious leaders, including CBN’s Pat and Gordon Robertson. U.S. right-wing leaders had supported Bolsonaro’s campaign and celebrated his election as an answer to prayer.

At a Rose Garden press conference with Trump, Bolsonaro said, “Brazil and the United States stand side-by-side in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect the traditional family lifestyles and respect to God, our creator, against the gender ideology and the politically correct attitudes and against fake news.” 

CBN noted that Bolsonaro “has surrounded himself with well-known Brazilian evangelicals,” including influential pastor Silas Milafaia, who told CBN he believes Bolsonaro is God’s chosen man to lead Brazil. He praised Bolsonaro for opposing abortion and the “privilege” of the LGBT movement. CBN also reported on Bolsonaro’s meeting with evangelical leaders, which included the Robertsons, Ralph Reed, Steve Strang, Penny Nance, Jonathan Falwell and Harry Jackson. “The American delegation prayed for Bolsonaro and promised to stand with his administration as he fights to protect Brazil’s Christian heritage and family values.”

As RWW reported last summer, Bolsonaro’s campaign got a boost from right-wing activists in the U.S., including former White House adviser Steve Bannon and former Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Bolsonaro’s far-right record and rhetoric has demonstrated contempt for women, LGBTQ people, the media, and democratic values. And shortly after his inauguration he began issuing executive orders and taking other actions going after the people he had targeted in his campaign rhetoric: the LGBTQ community; indigenous people

Bolsonaro meeting with American Christofascist leaders.

As noted before, often I feel like I am witnessing a reprise of the 1920's and 1930's when fascist dictators rose to power and American Nazis even held a huge rally in Madison Garden in New York City.  Then as now, most people seem to be oblivious to the growing menace to the civil rights and ultimately, their personal safety. If Trump secures re-election in 2020, I think it will be time to emigrate and ry to take my children and grand children with me.  

Trump and Pence to Address Anti-LGBT Christian Evangelical Group

While a significant number of LGBT Virginians foolishly, in my view, denounce Ralph Northam and Mark Herring, the two strongest allies they have ever had and risk that an anti-gay, anti-black Republican could be governor, Donald Trump and Mike Pence are reminding us who are real enemies are: Republicans and evangelical Christian extremists.  The idiocy of these elements in the LGBT community is mirrored by the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus and black pastors who are being cynically manipulated by The Family Foundation, a hate group with antecedents in the white supremacists behind Massive Resistance, likewise seem blind to what a governor Cox would mean for black Virginians. 

The Democrat quest for lifetime unblemished purity where no infraction will ever be forgiven will be the death of progress on LGBT and minority rights in Virginia. The GOP could not win the 2017 statewide elections, but are now on the verge of having Democrats rescind their victories. The political blindness to the GOP long game is mind numbing.  

But back to Trump/Pence who will be addressing the "National Prayer Breakfast" sponsored by the secretive fundamentalist, anti-LGBT organization is known as "The Family" or "The Fellowship Foundation"  that will embrace representatives of anti-gay hate groups and evangelical Christian extremists.  The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the up coming gathering of covens of anti-gay hate. Here are excerpts: 

Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence will address attendees at the National Prayer Breakfast once again, early Thursday morning. The annual event attended by many presidents is hosted by a secretive Christian evangelical organization, allegedly with ties to Ugandan politicians who worked to enact the "Kill the Gays" bill. That secretive fundamentalist anti-LGBT organization is known as "The Family" or "The Fellowship Foundation." More than three thousand are expected to attend, including representatives of anti-gay hate groups and evangelical Christian extremists.

In December it was revealed admitted Russian agent Maria Butina used the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast as a networking opportunity to get prominent Russians to meet top members of the Trump administration. Butina has since pleaded guilty to felony charges and is cooperating with federal prosecutors. Her NRA-tied boyfriend was indicted on 11 felony and fraud charges Wednesday.

Bloomberg News reported in December that Butina chose 10 influential Russians to attend the 2017 National Prayer breakfast.

On Wednesday The Washington Post reported Trump will speak at the Breakfast and "is likely to play on white evangelicals' fears."

Virginia Republican Leaders Foolishly Kill LGBTQ Rights Bills

Virginian Republicans again demonstrated that they are totally beholden to the Christofascists at The Family Foundation and other purveyors of anti-gay lies by killing all LGBT non-discrimination bills through rules games in a House of Delegates committee.  If Republicans were smart - a huge if - they should have allowed passage of the bills and have removed the largest reason the vast majority of  Virginians have for almost exclusively supporting Democrats. In addition, such a move might improve the Virginia GOP's position with younger voters, many of whom find the GOP's anti-gay agenda abhorrent and a prime motivator to vote Democrat, especially in the increasing crucial so-called urban crescent stretching from Northern Virginia down through Richmond and then to the cities of the Hampton Roads region.  With Virginia Democrats in a civil war over Ralph Northam, the timing would have been perfect to split off the LGBT vote from the Democrats.  Foolishly, the Virginia GOP opted to remain the political whore of Virginia's leading hate merchants.  A piece in The Advocate looks at this foolish and discriminatory move.  Here are excerpts: 

Legislation to ban anti-LGBTQ discrimination in housing and public employment in Virginia has died for this session.

Republican leaders in the House of Delegates Thursday removed the two nondiscrimination bills from the agenda of the General Laws Committee. “The move prevents the pieces of legislation from getting past committee and squanders any hope that they may become law in this legislative session,” the Washington Blade reports.

The Senate had passed similar measures, one banning discrimination in housing and the other in public employment, January 18, the Human Rights Campaign notes. The chamber had also approved bills like this over each of the past several years, but they have always stalled in the House. Virginia does not include sexual orientation or gender identity in any of its civil rights laws.

“It’s shameful that Speaker [Kirk] Cox, Majority Caucus Chairman Tim Hugo and leaders in the House of Delegates continue to use every political trick in the book to kill these crucial, commonsense nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ Virginians,” HRC national field director Marty Rouse said in a press release. “For several years in a row, bills that would protect LGBTQ Virginians from discrimination in housing and public employment have passed the state Senate, but House leadership continues to obfuscate the political process and obstruct this legislation. Let’s be clear: Cox is using LGBTQ people as political pawns. This fall, voters in Virginia will head to the polls to elect their state representatives. If current leaders cowardly refuse to protect all Virginians, then voters will elect lawmakers who will. We will remember this in November.”

Polling has shown bipartisan support among Virginians for legislation banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, the HRC notes. Business groups had lobbied for the legislation this year, including the Virginia Beach Restaurant Association and the Virginia Beach Resort Advisory Commission.

“Today’s anti-LGBTQ actions by Virginia House leadership are dramatically out of step with voters, lawmakers, and Americans from all walks of life,” said a statement issued by Freedom for All Americans CEO Masen Davis, according to the Blade. “Equality is not a partisan issue, but a human issue — and it’s a shame when legislators who don’t yet realize that fundamental truth have the power to thwart commonsense, bipartisan bills to protect their constituents.”

With thoughts of possibly challenging either my state senator of member of the House of Delegates (who is probably the more vulnerable), the GOP's anti-gay agenda makes it impossible for me to consider doing so as a Republican. 

Extremist Derailed the Equal Rights Amendment Yet Again

Victoria Cobb - A leading face of hate in Virginia.

During this current session of the Virginia General Assembly, Virginia had the opportunity to pass the federal Equal Rights Amendment and put it over the top in terms of the number of states that must ratify a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  True to form, Virginia Republicans in the House of Delegates killed passage.  What most outside observes do not realize is that one woman is largely to blame.  She holds no elected office.  Instead, she is the head of The Family Foundation ("TFF"), Virginia's leading hate group, to whom Virginia Republicans grovel like circus dogs before a cruel trainer or spineless men before a whip cracking dominatrix.  Her name is Victoria Cobb and her stock in trade is lies, untruths and hate.  While Cobb wraps herself in the cloak of being "pro-life," she and her minions oppose state and federal government programs that seek to aid the poor, the sick, the homeless and the less fortunate.  Indeed, once one passes out of their mother's birth canal, they become invisible and irrelevant to Cobb and TFF.

Cobb is also well known to LGBT Virginians whose lives she has worked to make a living hell for years through the dissemination of deliberate lies and duping the ignorant and uneducated.  She can also always be found opposing any progressive legislation in Virginia as she strives to roll back time to the 1950's when women were deeply subordinate to men and women resorted to back alley abortions. There's another reason Cobb longs for the 1950's - segregation still reigned supreme in Virginia in the 1950's - and it is no coincidence that TFF's ancestry traces back to those who supported Massive Resistance (for non-Virginians, that's when public schools were closed rather than integrate and private "Christian" academies sprung up in their place).  This is the woman and organization to whom Virginia Republicans prostitute themselves year after year.  If one wants to hold up a face that represents hate in Virginia, Cobb's would definitely be one of them.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the smug, self-satisfied Cobb who is clueless - and could care less - about the reality of the lives of so many women. Here are column highlights:

It’s 2019, a surge of women just won election to Congress and the Virginia legislature, and it looks like the Equal Rights Amendment may be stopped dead in its tracks again.

By a woman. Again.  Meet the new Phyllis Schlafly: Victoria Cobb, who says she achieved all her success before reaching her 40th birthday without help from any amendment, so the rest of American women don’t need it, either.

The ERA, first written 95 years ago, regained new momentum in this #MeToo era after years of dormancy. And Virginia was poised to become the 38th state to ratify it, filling in that three-quarters majority of states required for it to become official. In Richmond, the GOP-led Senate passed the ERA bill earlier this month. And celebrities, lawmakers and activists were touting its revival on Capitol Hill in Washington. But then a tiny subcommittee in Richmond — the House Privileges and Elections subcommittee — voted along party lines to block the amendment from reaching the House floor after heavy lobbying from Cobb, president of the conservative Family Foundation of Virginia.

After that subcommittee quash last Tuesday, Del. Mark D. Sickles (D-Fairfax), one of the two men on that subcommittee to vote yes, tried to introduce it to the full House Privileges and Elections Committee anyhow on Friday. That was defeated by a 12-to-10 vote along party lines.

Cobb’s crusade was helped along by that subcommittee’s chair, the equally stunning and storybook-perfect Del. Margaret B. Ransone (R-Westmoreland).  Ransone also presents herself as the strong, capable “mother, wife, successful businesswoman” on her website who doesn’t need any darn amendment to protect her in the workplace or home or public space.

Except, of course, her powerful place in the world of business is her family’s oyster company, where she has worked most of her adult life. Good thing there’s no sexual harassment or gender discrimination there, right?

Cobb, the president of the Family Foundation of Virginia, is from a lovely suburb of Philadelphia, where she went to a private Christian school, played field hockey, learned to work against the ERA from her doting grandmother, and found her passion for fighting abortion rights when she was in sixth grade.

Her life has not included single motherhood while working the swing shift at a diner, the boss who grabs your butt and will cut your hours if you resist, a pregnancy that could kill you and leave your four children motherless, parents who kicked you out, or a husband who left and skipped child support.

Cobb pegs most of her anti-ERA crusade on abortion, convincing folks that somehow, if women were to finally be included in the constitution, it would mean all kinds of public money would be funding abortion.  Um, no. That’s not the goal of ERA.

We can consult a legendary conservative Supreme Court justice for the truth that women’s equality is not explicitly protected in the constitution or in the 14th Amendment.   “Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t,” the late justice Antonin Scalia said in a 2010 interview with California Lawyer magazine.

These women occupy a very privileged place in American society, and they hold up their very tidy lives as proof that the ERA is unnecessary.

But plenty of women don’t have her advantages, or the advantages that many white, middle-class women in stable families and marriages have.

Religion is a big part of conservative women’s politics and activism. When it comes to the protections that the Equal Rights Amendment would provide, perhaps they’d consider this perspective: There, but for the grace of God, go I.

Yes, the column was far too kind to Cobb.  In my opinion, she makes the Pharisees of the Bible look upstanding and hypocrisy free.

Hate Group Goes Ballistic Over Parents Magazine Gay Dads

The Southern Poverty Law Center monitors hate groups across American.  While the organization's mission began focused and white supremacist groups, it now follows neo-Nazi and other far right groups.  It also monitors anti-gay hate groups that disseminate deliberate lies and untruths about LGBT individuals with the goal of demonizing us and stripping us of civil rights.  One such group is falsely named "One Million Moms" ("OMM") which in actuality is a very small extremist group operating under the umbrella of American Family Association, itself a hate group, that disseminates wildly untrue propaganda against LGBT, including claims that gays were behind Hitler's Third Reich.  Not surprisingly, Parents Magazine's recent decision to place a family with two dads on its cover has sent the toxic women at OMM into absolute conniption fits.  Like most Christofascists, the leaders of OMM seek to impose their Bronze Age beliefs on all of society.  If given an opportunity, they would erase the very existence of LGBT people and our families.  A piece in The Advocate looks at this latest disingenuous round of OMM hysterics.  Here are excerpts:

Right-wing extremists are losing it over the February cover of Parents magazine, which features a same-sex couple — the first such cover in the publication’s 93-year history.

“Parents is using its magazine as a platform to promote the pro-homosexual lifestyle,” screams an online post from One Million Moms, a Christian right group affiliated with the American Family Association. “Even if families do not personally subscribe to the publication, they should be warned that it could be displayed in waiting rooms of dentist and doctor offices, where children could easily be subjected to the glorification of same-sex parents.”

The cover shows fitness trainer Shaun T and his husband, Scott Blokker, and their 1-year-old sons. A story inside tells of their journey to fatherhood – the boys were conceived with the same egg donor, but one with each father’s sperm, and delivered by the same surrogate. They were born prematurely and spent the first three weeks of their life in intensive care.

One Million Moms doesn’t seem to care about the difficulties faced by the boys or their dads but instead worries about “children being indoctrinated to perceive same-sex couples as normal.” The group also claims that being gay is a “lifestyle … that the medical community identifies as unhealthy,” something that is blatantly untrue.

The organization implores its supporters to sign an online petition expressing their disapproval to Parents. As of Tuesday afternoon, the petition had a little over 10,000 signatures, far less than the million members the group claims. The Million Moms group has a history of objecting to LGBTQ-inclusive media and advertising.

Evangelicals Lobby Against Anti-Lynching Law

Evangelical Christianity has become something truly foul and ugly.  The latest example? Liberty Counsel, a hate group masquerading as a "Christian" charity, is leading the charge in opposition to the “Justice for Victims of Lynching Act” that was introduced by the U. S. Senate's three black Senators.  Why the opposition?  Because the language of the proposed act includes LGBT victims (I would also suggest that given the racism of a majority of evangelicals, in my opinion, they support lynching in general).  A piece in LGBT Nation looks at this hate motivated effort by evangelicals.  Here are excerpts:

Proving once again that white evangelicals are no longer a religious group, but a political entity, one of the religious right’s most active organizations has announced they are lobbying against a proposed federal anti-lynching law.

Why? Because it includes LGBTQ people.

“The old saying is once that camel gets the nose in the tent, you can’t stop them from coming the rest of the way in,” Matt Staver, founder of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Liberty Counsel, told the far right outlet OneNewsNow. “And this would be the first time that you would have in federal law mentioning gender identity and sexual orientation as part of this anti-lynching bill.”

Federal law already includes gender identity and sexual orientation in hate crimes protections.

Staver observes, “but this is a way to slip it in under a so-called anti-lynching bill, and to then to sort of circle the wagon and then go for the juggler at some time in the future.”

The proposed legislation passed the Senate in a rare unanimous vote last month. The “Justice for Victims of Lynching Act” was introduced by the chamber’s three black Senators: California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris, South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott, and New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker.

The bill describes lynching as “the ultimate expression of racism in the United States.”

Staver says his organization is currently lobbying Congress members against the bill before it can pass the House of Representatives.

Liberty Counsel masquerades as a legal charity, but has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It has deep ties to other extremist religious right organizations.

Chick-fil-A Still Hates Gay People

I stopped patronizing Chick-fil-A years ago because of the company's funding of a veritable who's who of anti-gay hate groups.   Despite Chick-fil-A's public relations campaign to the contrary, the company continues to give large amounts of money to these anti-gay organizations. One friend accurately refers to the company as "hateful chicken."  While the company's funding of anti-gay organizations, Rider University's recent refusal to allow a Chick-fil-A on its campus has thankful brought the hate and bigotry funded by the company back into the spot light.  The bottom line is that if you have gay friends and family members or support gay equality under the civil laws, you need to boycott Chick-fil-A like the plague.  Here are excerpts from Patheos on the company's continued funding of anti-gay organizations some of which masquerade as "ministries" that support conversion therapy:

Chick-fil-A, a southern-style chicken sandwich franchise and a self-identified Christian company, doesn’t want to be labeled “anti-gay” anymore.

Earlier this week Rider University in New Jersey denied the fast food restaurant a potential on-campus location because of “the company’s record widely perceived to be in opposition to the LGBTQ community.”

In a statement sent by its attorney, Chick-fil-A responded to the rejection from Rider University:

Rider University’s survey was recently brought to our attention, and while we respect the University’s decision, this news story represents a good opportunity to clarify misperceptions about our brand. Chick-fil-A is a restaurant company focused on food, service and hospitality, and our restaurants and licensed locations on college campuses welcome everyone. We have no policy of discrimination against any group, and we do not have a political or social agenda.

However, despite the protests from Chick-fil-A’s legal representation, the fact remains that every chicken sandwich you buy from Chick-fil-A helps support anti-gay Christian hate groups.

A recent report from ThinkProgress indicates that Chick-fil-A continues to support anti-gay groups despite claims that it had “ceased donating to organizations that promote discrimination, specifically against LGBT civil rights.”

ThinkProgress reports:

Chick-fil-A Foundation’s most recent IRS filings show it gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to anti-LGBTQ organizations in 2015. Though its website’s FAQ claims the foundation “is focused on helping every child become all they were created to be,” its donations went to groups that do not believe this includes LGBTQ youth.

In particular, “the Chick-fil-A Foundation gave more than $1 million in 2015 (nearly one-sixth of its total grants) to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes,” a religious organization which “imparts a strongly anti-LGBTQ message.”

In addition, the foundation also gave more than $200,000 to the Paul Anderson Youth Home, a Georgia-based “transformative organization” that operates an anti-gay “Christian residential home for troubled youth” and uses propaganda associated with harmful and discredited “ex-gay” therapy.

Also on the list, “the Chick-fil-A Foundation gave at least $130,000 to the Salvation Army. The  Salvation Army is a Christian organization with a long history of anti-LGBTQ housing discrimination, opposition to same-sex marriage equality, and supporting exemptions from non-discrimination ordinances”.

Indeed, Chick-fil-A has a long and well documented history of promoting discrimination against members of the gay and lesbian community. In the past Chick-fil-A donated considerable resources to anti-gay causes, including Christian extremist organizations labeled as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

And in the past Chick-fil-A has supported multiple anti-gay Christian extremist organizations, including the Focus on the Family Institute, the American Family Association, the National Organization for Marriage, the Pennsylvania Family Institute, Exodus International and the Family Research Council. These groups are some of the most vehement and vicious anti-gay groups in the country.

Bottom line: The Christian fast food restaurant whose corporate purpose is to “glorify God,” continues to support anti-gay groups and organizations.

If you need to grab something to eat while out Christmas shopping, consider avoiding Chick-fil-A and avoid funding anti-gay hate. 

Exposing the "Alliance Defending Freedom," an Anti-Gay Hate Group

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The Struggle to Track Rising Extremism

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Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center ("SPLC") and the Anti-defamation League are working overtime trying to track the rising extremism gripping America which is being fanned daily by Donald Trump and many within the GOP who have given license to extremists.  What was once dog whistle messaging has now been replaced by open racism and the open dissemination of hate. And it is not just Neo-Nazis and white supremacists who are marketing hatred.   In Virginia alone, SPLC identifies 37 active hate organizations that range from white Nationalists, anti-immigrant extremists and anti-LGBT extremists (go to the SPLC site and check out your state).  With the advent of the Internet and social media, the venues for spewing and fueling hatred and organizing acts of violence has exploded.  A piece in The New Yorker looks at the growing difficulty is tracking extremism and warning law enforcement of the growing threats.  Here are highlights:

Heidi Beirich has worked for the Southern Poverty Law Center for almost two decades. She oversees the organization’s yearly tally of “hate and hard-line, anti-government” groups. On Saturday, she was at the airport in Montgomery, Alabama—she was flying to New Orleans, where the S.P.L.C. is having its board meeting—when she saw a CNN report about the shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

“My first thought was, Oh God, this could be one of ours,” she told me by phone Saturday afternoon. The S.P.L.C. maintains an enormous database of extremists and extremist groups. When acts of violence and domestic terror take place, the group runs the suspects’ names against its database to see if there’s a match. If there is, they take that information to law enforcement, and share it with reporters and the public.

I asked Beirich for her thoughts on the news coverage of acts of mass violence, and the debate over the merits of broadcasting perpetrators’ beliefs. “I understand the argument: don’t give these people too much ink, or airtime, because you’re just spreading the propaganda,” she said. “But the truth is these people are committing so much violence, and their ideas are actually influencing public policy—the Muslim ban, the immigration stuff thats going on—I don’t think you can ignore it.”

Even for Beirich and her team, who study the nexus of hate and violence professionally, this week—with the pipe bombs mailed to prominent Democrats, and the deliberate shooting of two black people by a white man in Kentucky—was overwhelming.

But it hasn’t been just the past week—it’s been the past few years. Hate crimes increased in both 2015 and 2016, according to the latest F.B.I. data, and the Anti-Defamation League says that anti-Semitic incidents spiked in 2017. . . . The F.B.I.’s data may not even be the full picture, she pointed out, saying, “Not every state has a hate-crime law, many that do don’t cover the L.G.B.T. population, and there’s no training for law enforcement.”

The suspect in the Pittsburgh shooting was identified on Saturday as Robert Bowers. He killed at least ten people before being arrested. He wasn’t in the S.P.L.C.’s system. “I’m not that surprised,” she said. “We try to collect everything we can about white supremacists, but this is a huge world.” Beirich’s team found Bowers’s posts on Gab, a social network popular with white nationalists and the alt-right.  “Gab, where this guy was posting, is, like, four hundred thousand people,” Beirich told me. “We don’t have information on four hundred thousand people.”

The manias of mass murderers are always particular. But the massacres in Pittsburgh and Jeffersontown—and the pipe bombs sent to a dozen Democratic leaders this week, allegedly by the Trump supporter Cesar Sayoc—share some obvious common causes. They are the toxic politics of the President, and the racist, nationalist fervor that has been inflamed by his rise, and the success and the militancy of the gun lobby, which for decades has refused to acknowledge the obvious: that one way to have fewer killings is to make it harder for Americans to possess guns. Each of these is a national crisis on its own.

What should be plain now is that each crisis is escalating, as is the frequency of political violence. Trump, asked about the Pittsburgh shooting, said, “If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better.” The moral inadequacy is vast. Murderous acts of hate have occurred, on a national scale, several times this week. It is a tragedy that [Trump] the President is not able to see them for what they are.

The Justice Department’s Troubling Ties to Alliance Defending Freedom

Jeff Sessions announcing his new anti-gay task force.

While the "Alliance Defending Freedom" ("ADF") describes itself as a "Christian" law firm, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups across America, has certified ADF as a hate group.  The principal target of ADF's efforts is the LGBT community whose civil rights it seeks to rescind in order that Christofascist can discriminate at will and be exempt from public accommodation laws.  Given the significant overlap between ADF's evangelical base and white supremacists, the LGBT community is not ADF's lone target.  A prior blog post earlier this week noted how  Attorney General Jeff Sessions - a man with a long history of homophobia and racism - announced at "task force" within the Department of Justice which would enforce exemptions from non-discrimination laws. A piece in Media Matters looks at the insidious relationship between the Trump/Pence DOJ and ADF.  Trump may be breaking promises to much of his base, but he is pandering overtime to the Christofascists thanks in no small part I suspect to Mike Pence, an extreme far right wing religious zealot in his own right.  Here are article highlights:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of a Department of Justice (DOJ) task force to enforce “religious liberty” rules that make it easier to discriminate against the LGBTQ community and others under the guise of “religious freedom." Such discrimination is a major part of the mission of anti-LGBTQ legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), and the announcement was followed by a panel that included a major ADF client and was moderated by an ADF staff alumna. Coupled with ADF's involvement in the announcement, the new task force demonstrates the influence of the group's extreme anti-LGBTQ views on the administration.

On July 30, Sessions launched a new “Religious Liberty Task Force” that would enforce discriminatory religious exemptions guidance that the DOJ released in October 2017. (Sessions had worked with ADF on the guidance before its release.) Religious exemptions policies, such as those the DOJ released, allow people and businesses to be exempt from nondiscrimination laws and policies by citing a burden on their religious beliefs. People have frequently used the exemptions to discriminate against the LGBTQ community and others.

ADF was one of the first to break the news of the July 30 “Religious Liberty Summit” in which the task force was announced, noting that the event would feature a panel including the group’s client Jack Phillips, a Christian baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple and who took his case to the Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commision. ADF’s news release, however, did not mention that the panel’s moderator, DOJ media affairs specialist Kerri Kupec, worked at ADF for four yearsbefore joining DOJ in January. 

The Trump-Pence administration has shown a coziness with extreme anti-LGBTQ groups and with ADF, in particular. Sessions’ DOJ issued an unusual brief on behalf of Phillips before oral arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop, and ADF alumni and allies have been hired by various agencies and nominated for federal judgeships. As Media Matters’ recently released research book details, ADF holds dozens of extreme anti-LGBTQ positions on nearly every every aspect of life, including supporting laws that would punish sodomy by imprisonment, writing in favor of Russia’s so-called “gay propaganda” law, and advocating against efforts to protect LGBTQ youth from the harmful and discredited practice of conversion therapy. The group is in many ways the most influential group working to roll back LGBTQ equality in the country, frequently targeting basic protections for transgender students and pushing religious exemptions policies.

The “Religious Liberty Task Force” is yet another example of a cabinet-level agency devoting significant resources to make it easier to discriminate against LGBTQ people. In January, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new division to enforce laws protecting “health care workers who express religious objections to performing abortions and certain other procedures,” including providing medical services to transgender and other LGBTQ people.

When groups like ADF have a seat at the table with the upper echelons of our federal government, discriminatory policies such as these come as no surprise.

Many secular straights and other minorities likely yawn at this news and figure that it does not affect them.  However, if one has followed the Christofascist agenda for years, gays are only the first on ADF's hit list.  These folks are so extreme that they would like to make contraception illegal once more.  If Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court, they might just have the votes needed to overrule Griswold v. Connecticut.  ADF and its supporters are nothing short of frightening.