Betsy DeVos - An Enemy to Public Education and LGBT Americans

Many of Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Fuhrer's cabinet nominees are more than a bit frightening.  Attorney General pick Jeff Session's has a racists history and was viewed as to extreme back when I lived in Alabama.  That, of course was before the Christofascists took over the Alabama Republican Party and merged a longing for segregation with a desire to impose a Christian version of Sharia law on that state.  Vladimir Putin loving Rex Tillerson is another frightening Trump pick. But in some ways perhaps the most disturbing is Betsy DeVos, a long time opponent of both the LGBT community - she has lavishly funded a who's who of anti-LGBT hate groups - and public education itself.  On the later issue, for years she has sought ways to shift public school funds from public schools to private school, many of which are right wing religious affiliated school.  Such schools provide a backdoor approach to re-segregating schools and a vehicle to provide extremist religious indoctrination to students. A length piece in the New York Times looks at this woman whose view of the poor makes Marie Antoinette's mythical statement "let them eat cake" look kind and soft hearted. Here are article highlights:

In announcing his intention to nominate Ms. DeVos, Mr. Trump described her as “a brilliant and passionate education advocate.” Even critics characterized her as a dedicated, if misguided, activist for school reform. But that description understates both the breadth of Ms. DeVos’s political interests and the influence she wields as part of her powerful family. More than anyone else who has joined the incoming Trump administration, she represents the combination of wealth, free-market ideology and political hardball associated with a better-known family of billionaires: Charles and David Koch.

Like the Kochs, the DeVoses are generous supporters of think tanks that evangelize for unrestrained capitalism, like Michigan’s Acton Institute, and that rail against unions and back privatizing public services. . . .

DeVoses’ education activism, which favors alternatives to traditional public schools, appears to derive from the same free-market views that inform their suspicion of government. And perhaps more than other right-wing billionaires, the DeVoses couple their seeding of ideological causes with an aggressive brand of political spending. Half a dozen or more extended family members frequently coordinate contributions to maximize their impact.

In the 2016 cycle alone, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, the family spent roughly $14 million on political contributions to state and national candidates, parties, PACs and super PACs.

All of this would make Ms. DeVos — whose confirmation hearing has been delayed until next week amid mounting pressure that her government ethics review be completed beforehand — very different from past education secretaries.

“She is the most emblematic kind of oligarchic figure you can put in a cabinet position,” said Jeffrey Winters, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies economic elites. “What she and the Kochs have in common is the unbridled use of wealth power to achieve whatever political goals they have.”

Ms. DeVos, 59, grew up in Holland, Mich., the daughter of a conservative auto parts magnate who was an early funder of the Family Research Council [a certified anti-LGBT hate group], a conservative Christian group. When she married Dick DeVos in 1979, it was akin to a merger between two royal houses of western Michigan.

Her husband’s father, Richard Sr., co-founder of the multilevel marketing company Amway, was an active member of the Christian Reformed Church that preached a mix of social conservatism and self-reliance. He once told the church’s official magazine that Chicago’s poor dwelled in slums because that was “the way they choose to live,” according to a Washington Post story from the 1980s.

The flip side of the family’s proselytizing for capitalism, according to Professor Phillips-Fein, has been an effort to dismantle much “that would counterbalance the power of economic elites.”

While Dick and Betsy DeVos appear to practice a more tolerant form of Christianity than their parents — Ms. DeVos has spoken out against anti-gay bigotry — as recently as the early 2000s they funded some groups like Focus on the Family, a large ministry that helps set the political agenda for conservative evangelicals. They have also backed groups that promote conservative values to students and Christian education . . .

The family spent millions of dollars on a ballot proposal in 2000 asking if Michigan should legalize vouchers, in which students can use taxpayer money to attend private schools.

Many critics, like the education historian Diane Ravitch, argue that the point of vouchers is to destroy public education and teachers’ unions. The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State has documented how conservative Christians have long supported vouchers, which could fund religious schools.

[C]ritics see someone with an unmistakable agenda. “The signs are there that she will do something radical,” said Jack Jennings, a former general counsel for the House education committee. “Trump wouldn’t have appointed this woman for this position if he didn’t intend something radical.”

Trump’s Campaign Team Belongs To Anti-LGBT, Anti-Immigrant Hate Group

Donald Trump continues to try to dupe gays into supporting him despite the pact that he made with a veritable who's who of American Christofascists and anti-gay hate groups. Likewise, with his trip to Mexico today, he seemingly is seeking to fool those offended by his strident anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic demagoguery.   As part of this Trojan Horse effort, Trump shook up his campaign's leadership and brought in Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Bannon.  Now it turns out that both Conway and Bannon are members of the secretive Council for National Policy ("CNP").  What is frightening about CPC is the many extremists who belong to the organization and the hatred that is their stock in trade.   The Southern Poverty Law Center ("SPLC") - which tracks hate groups across the nation - has a report on CPC and Bannon and Conway's membership.  Here are excerpts:

Longtime Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News operation, were named on Aug. 17 as, respectively, the Trump campaign’s manager and its chief executive officer. The appointment of Bannon was by far the more controversial choice, given his role at a “news” outlet known for bashing immigrants, Muslims, women and others.

The Council for National Policy ("CNP") is an intensely secretive and shadowy group of what The New York Times once described as “the most powerful conservatives in the country.” It is so tight-lipped that it tells people not to admit their membership or even name the group. Revealing when or where the group meets, or what it discusses, is also forbidden. The organization, which can only be joined by invitation and at a cost of thousands of dollars, strives mightily to keep its membership rolls secret.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which publishes Hatewatch, obtained a copy this spring of the CNP’s 2014 membership directory, a closely held document. It shows that Conway was a member of the CNP’s executive committee that year, and that Bannon was a regular member. It is not known if they remain.

They include people like Michael Peroutka, a neo-Confederate who for years was on the board of the white supremacist League of the South; Jerome Corsi, a strident Obama “birther” and the propagandist hit man responsible for the “Swift boating” of John Kerry; Joseph Farah, who runs the wildly conspiracist “news” operation known as WorldNetDaily; Mat Staver, the Liberty Counsel leader who has worked to re-criminalize gay sex; Philip Zodhaites, another anti-gay activist who is charged with helping a self-described former lesbian who kidnapped her daughter from her former partner and fled the country; and a large number of other similar characters.

The CNP is not controversial so much for the conservatives who dominate it . . . . as for the many real extremists who are included. . . . people who regularly defame LGBT people with utter falsehoods, describe Latino immigrants as a dangerous group of rapists and disease-carriers, engage in the kind of wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing for which the John Birch Society is famous, and even suggest that certain people should be stoned to death in line with Old Testament law.”

The revelation of Conway and Bannon’s CNP memberships comes at a time when the Trump campaign has suffered a number of reverses and internal problems. 

Bannon is in some ways even more controversial. His Breitbart news operation has specialized in extreme-right propaganda that  . . . recently published a defense of the “Alternative Right” that included defending well-known white supremacist ideologues Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer.

[T]he SPLC concluded in its May report on the CNP: “At a time of extreme political polarization in our society, in the middle of an ugly presidential contest which has featured an almost unsurpassed record of ethnic, racial and sexual insults and lies, Americans deserve to know who their ostensible leaders are mixing with as we collectively decide our country’s future.”

Anyone who falls for Trump's effort to pretend his has moderated his positions is, in my view, nothing less than a fool and an idiot. 

The "Christian" Enemies of LGBT Americans

Having followed the "Christian Right", the "Christofascists," the "Professional Christians" or whatever you may care to call these hate-filled throcrats for the better part of 20 years now, what continues to be unknown to the vast majority of Americans is just how complex and intertwined and full funded these enemies of freedom and equality are in fact.   And while much of their focus is to denigrate and criminalize LGBT citizens, all these groups are also racist and white supremacist oriented and want the unfettered right to discriminate against others based on their claimed religious beliefs.  Thankfully, a column in the Washington Post looks at who some of these groups are and the sources of their funding.  These folks are not isolated, simple church attendees.  They are vicious and relentless in their quest to impose a Christian theocracy on America.  Here are column highlights:

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans know in their bones there is a “vast right-wing conspiracy” out to deny them their humanity and dignity. A conservative cabal actively working the levers of power to block their rights. Well, now we have the evidence that one actually exists.

Freedom for All Americans (FFAA) is a “bipartisan campaign seeking nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people nationwide” that was created last year in the wake of the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage. FFAA executive director Matt McTighe told me that the immediate backlash against that historic decision, such as Indiana’s so-called religious freedom law, was expected. But he said that it was the emerging coordination of the resistance that pushed his organization to sift through public filings to unearth the ties that bind anti-LGBT efforts around the country.

“We started seeing bills that looked 80 to 90 percent identical in language start to pop up around the country,” McTighe said. “The language was so clearly being coordinated.” In a report to be released on Thursday called “Enemies of Equality,” FFAA shows that 17 bills in 14 states that target transgender Americans “used almost identical language and it’s based off of a model policy ADF started pushing four or five months ago.” All told, there are more than 200 anti-LGBT bills pending in 34 states.

According to FFAA’s research, one of the hubs of this coordination is Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a 22-year-old group that “advocates for your right to freely live out your faith.” Another is the National Christian Foundation (NCF), which funds a lot of the groups aggressively working to chip away at the equal rights of LGBT Americans. One of them is Family Research Council (FRC), which is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an “extremist group.”

Another is Liberty Council. Listed as an “extremist group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, . . . But the National Christian Foundation also received funding, notably from the owners of Hobby Lobby. That’s the company at the center of the 2014 Supreme Court case that ruled the sincerely held religious beliefs of corporation owners are protected by the Constitution. And the interconnectedness revealed by FFAA is several layers deep.

For instance, James Dobson is founder of the Family Research Council, the Alliance Defending Freedom and Focus on the Family. Tom Minnery is a board member at ADF and senior vice president of policy at Focus on the Family, which gets money from NCF and the family of Forbes 400 billionaire Richard DeVos, founder of Amway. He and his family have given money to all of the organizations founded by Dobson.

McTighe of FFAA said of his group’s effort to expose the intricate web of anti-LGBT interests. “We expect that this will be even more pronounced in the coming legislative session and that the ADF and the groups that it has sway over will continue to get more engaged and will continue to file more and more anti-LGBT bills that are being coordinated…by…national organization[s] with a clear anti-LGBT agenda.”

Read the entire piece.  What is even more sicken is the fact that many of the leaders of these organizations make an extremely lucrative living peddling hatred and preying on the fears of the ignorant and uninformed, often by disseminating deliberate lies. 

California Judges Barred from Boy Scouts

It has been common for quite some time for state and local judges to resign memberships from discriminatory organizations - e.g., one former law partner almost left a club that barred blacks when he was named to a federal court seat until the club changed its policy - on the theory that a judge cannot be seen as unbiased in court cases if he/she belongs to a club or organization that discriminates against blacks, those who are Jewish and more recently gays.  Now, the California Supreme Court has ruled that California state judges cannot belong to the Boys Scouts due to the organization's continued anti-gay policies.  Here are highlights from the San Francisco Chronicle:

The state Supreme Court has voted to prohibit judges in California from belonging to the Boy Scouts because the 2.7 million-member youth organization bars gays and lesbians from becoming troop leaders.

The court announced Friday that its seven justices had voted unanimously to accept a February 2014 recommendation from its ethics advisory committee to ban Boy Scout membership. As of Wednesday, judges affiliated with the Scouts were in violation of the state Code of Judicial Ethics, which the court oversees, and could face removal from office.

California has been among 23 states with an ethical code that prohibits judges from belonging to organizations that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.
“The people of California have a right to an impartial and unbiased judiciary,” Richard Fybel, a state appeals court justice in Santa Ana and chairman of the high court’s ethics advisory committee, said Friday. “This is important to accomplishing that.”

[T]he California Judges Association, which represents 1,575 of the state’s 2,000 judges, supported the ban.

The new rules would still allow judges to belong to religious organizations whose beliefs or practices were discriminatory. Many Boy Scout troops are affiliated with churches, and Fybel, the committee chairman, said some judges have argued that their troop was a religious organization that should remain exempted.

The Boy Scouts could not be reached for comment Friday evening.

The Boy Scouts also ban atheists and agnostics as members. California’s judicial ethics code forbids membership in organizations that discriminate based on religion, among other categories, but has not applied it to the Scouts in the past because of the exemption for nonprofit youth groups.

Other State Supreme courts should follow suit, but don't expect any such action from Virginia Supreme Court - which in my opinion is the anti-gay - any time soon. 

How the Knights of Columbus Bankrolls Extremism

For the record, I am a former member of the Knights of Columbus ("K of C") and once was a member of its 4th Degree (the highest level).  That all changed when I came out and left the anti-gay Roman Catholic Church.  But what clinched my exiting from the K of C was the organization's refusal to demand that members of the Church hierarchy who aid and abetted predatory priests and who threatened and intimidated victims and their families be disciplined.  Rather, the K of C leadership had its collective nose so far up the ample asses of the hierarchy, its a wonder they did not smother.  All of this is in stark contrast to the goals and motivations that were behind the K of C's founding: to aid widows and families and to provide a social organizations for immigrants facing discrimination. Now, the K of C has gone on to bankroll discrimination and other right wing causes as examined by a piece in Think Progress.  Here are some article highlights:

In 1882, a group of Catholic men gathered together by New Haven, CT pastor Father Michael J. McGivney incorporated an organization to provide for the families of its deceased members. More than 125 years later, the Knights of Columbus boasts of more than 1.8 million members and of “donating more than $167.5 million to charitable needs and projects” in 2012. Among its members: presidential 2016 hopeful Jeb Bush (R), Speaker of the House John Boehner (R), and Justice Samuel Alito.

But while much of the Knights’ charitable efforts in recent years have supported purely altruistic causes such as the Special Olympics and Habitat for Humanity, millions of their charitable dollars have funded a very socially conservative ideological agenda: opposing abortion, LGBT rights, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and pornography, while supporting public funding for religious organizations. 

The Knights also operate a legally-separate but affiliated charitable arm called the Knights of Columbus Charities Inc. That tax-exempt non-profit organization made about 57 percent of its annual grants in 2013 to efforts to “promote matters affective life family, marriage and similar priorities in building a culture of life.” More than $1 million of that went to support “Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” a network of facilities that dissuade women from choosing to terminate their pregnancies, often by sharing misinformation.

Beyond just the “culture of life” initiatives, the Knights of Columbus have also spent a large sum of money on other controversial political issues. 

With at least $250,000 in contributions since 2010, the Knights of Columbus are among the most generous donors to Morality in Media, likely the nation’s loudest voice against adult pornography, and its efforts to curb “the ravages of the pornography pandemic in America.”

And since 2010, the Knights of Columbus have given at least $100,000 in support of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies — the nation’s leading force for a more conservative judiciary . . . 

[T]he Knights of Columbus also sent more than $625,000 to another conservative legal group, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. . . . . In addition to its work against the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate and against LGBT rights, Becket has worked to erode the separation of church and state required by the First Amendment. This has included defending prayer at government functions, religious symbols in public spaces, and public funding for religious schools.

the group’s annual resolutions continue to endorse efforts to make sure governments at all levels embrace a “definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.”

And they followed their words with money. In 2012, the national organization sent $450,000 to the ballot committee pushing to block Maryland’s marriage equality legislation, $300,000 to block marriage equality in Washington, $100,000 to oppose same-sex marriage in Maine, and $250,000 to support a proposed constitutional ban in Minnesota. All four efforts were unsuccessful. The national group and local chapters also contributed more than $1.3 million in 2008 toward the passage of California’s Proposition 8, $100,000 to Arizona’s 2008 constitutional amendment, and $100,000 to Kansas’ 2005 amendment effort.

Although most Catholics in the United States support marriage equality,” it concluded, “the best known U. S. Catholic fraternal organization has used its considerable financial strength and its political connections to mount aggressive campaigns against legislation that would permit lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to be treated equally under the law.”

Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People For the American Way who follows the organization, told ThinkProgress the group is not being transparent about its aims: “Many Catholic parishioners who support the Knights of Columbus might be surprised and dismayed to know that the money they gave at the pancake breakfast is being used to deny equality to their LGBT friends and family,” he observed. “The Knights of Columbus do a lot of good work. Unfortunately, they also contribute millions to culture war battles against LGBT equality and reproductive choice.”

I suspect that today's K of C is not exactly what its founder had in mind back in 1882.

Add the Union Mission to "Charities" to Boycott This Holiday Season

For many the holiday season is a time of year to extend extra kindness and a helping hand to the less fortunate.  Sort of a time to be mindful of putting the parable of the Good Samaritan into action (not that this shouldn't be done year round).  Sadly, it is some of the "godly folk" who are the least inclined to overlook hate and prejudice and as a result, they refuse to help the needy who don't conform to their pernicious hate and fear based religious dogma.  It's if the put their idolatry of   selective Bible passages above living, breathing humans.  One such "charity" that should be avoided is the Union Mission where being gay or transgender disqualifies one from help in the form of housing and other aid.  As noted in connection with the Salvation Army and it's anti-gay policies, there are plenty of worthy charities that one can donate to.  Avoid those that place hate and bigotry over helping their fellow man.  Here are highlights from Think Progress on the Union Mission's bigotry:

The City Union Mission in Kansas City, Missouri boasts that it has provided as many as 165,121 beds in a given year for the homeless, but there is one group who will not have the same access: same-sex families. The shelter announced this week that married same-sex couples will not be allowed to stay together there like other married families do.

Executive Director Dan Doty explained to the Kansas City Star, “We are a Christian, faith-based organization that really does adhere to biblical standards. Our view is that it is inappropriate. Our intent is not to shelter same-sex couples together.”

City Union Mission does not receive any government funding, allowing it to run as a private organization that is not impacted by Kansas City’s civil rights ordinance. It is currently hoping for an influx of donations around the holidays because it is facing a $300,000 budget shortfall.

The shelter also has a policy that requires transgender people to dress according to the gender they were assigned at birth instead of the one they identify with.

Homelessness is particularly problematic for LGBT youth — which is what research has largely focused on — but LGBT people of all ages are generally more vulnerable to homelessness due to discrimination in both housing and employment, as well as lack of family support. As many as 30 percent of clients utilizing housing programs across the country identify as LGBT.

Yes, it's their club and they can set the rules.  But that does not mean the rest of us need to be financially supporting such bigoted organizations.  As seems to be so often the case, religious belief is used to justify evil conduct.

The Salvation Army's History of Anti-LGBT Discrimination

As we move into the beginnings of the holiday season, it is again good to be reminded that not all charities are worthy of support by the LGBT community.  One charity to be avoided is the Salvation Army which has a long history of anti-gay bigotry.  In short, there are many much more deserving charities that do not make LGBT discrimination one of their cornerstones. Here are highlights from a post at Huffington Post that merits a revisit as the holiday season nears:

In recent years, the Salvation Army has come under fire for its lengthy history of anti-LGBT political maneuvering and other incidents. The church has publicly articulated its belief that homosexuality is unacceptable, stating:

Scripture opposes homosexual practices by direct comment and also by clearly implied disapproval. The Bible treats such practices as self-evidently abnormal. ... Attempts to establish or promote such relationships as viable alternatives to heterosexually-based family life do not conform to God's will for society.

While such statements were recently removed from the Salvation Army's website, the church has yet to repudiate any of its explicitly anti-gay beliefs. And though these positions may seem to be limited to the group's internal doctrines, they've become a persistent element of the church's overtly political activities -- activities which have negatively impacted the Salvation Army's ability to provide charitable services, and have aimed to limit the rights and benefits of LGBT citizens in multiple nations.

"Without discrimination" -- myth or fact?

The Salvation Army has recently attempted to counter this perception of the church as homophobic, scrubbing explicitly anti-gay statements from its websites and issuing missives purportedly "debunking" the "myth" of its anti-LGBT stances.

Yet these efforts at cleaning up their image still fail to address the most substantial criticisms of the church's policies. The Salvation Army states that numerous clients at its soup kitchens and homeless shelters are members of the LGBT community, and that these individuals are served without discrimination. They further add: "The Salvation Army embraces employees of many different faiths and orientations and abides by all applicable anti-discrimination laws in its hiring."

These statements completely ignore the reality that the Salvation Army continues to maintain anti-gay theological stances, and continues to discriminate against its own employees and their partners. They also neglect to mention that the organization historically "abides" by anti-discrimination laws by way of shutting down services in areas where such laws apply. The Salvation Army has given no indication that it intends to change any of these anti-LGBT policies.

Supporting the Salvation Army this season, whether by tossing your change in their red kettles or donating your used goods to their resale shops, means assisting an aggressively anti-gay church in furthering its goals of discrimination. Would-be donors should consider whether "doing the most good" might mean supporting one of the many other effective and reputable charities that provide for the needy without engaging in anti-gay beliefs, policies, or political activities.

Chick-fil-A’s Foundations Dramatically Reduce Anti-LGBT Giving

It has been many years since I last patronized Chick-fil-A given the company's funding of vicious anti-gay organizations.  And I know many others who likewise make a conscious effort to avoid spending a penny at Chick-fil-A.  Now, even though the move is unexplained, Chick-fil-A seemingly has drastically reduced its anti-gay funding effort.  No doubt the Christofascists who rallied to Chick-fil-A's past bigotry will not be pleased to learn this news.  Think Progress looks at this development.  Here are some highlights:

A year after nearly doubling its anti-LGBT giving, Chick-fil-A’s WinShape Foundation apparently reversed course in 2012, eliminating nearly all its grantmaking. Its separate Chick-fil-A Foundation made about $120,000 in grant donations, including about $25,000 to the anti-LGBT Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Between 2010 and 2011, Chick-fil-A’s corporate foundations increased their grants to anti-LGBT groups like the Marriage & Family Foundation and the National Christian Foundation, from $1.9 million to more than $3.6 million. Neither of these organizations received a penny in 2012, according to the foundations’ 2012 Form 990s, publicly available tax documents filed by non-profit organizations. The foundations’ overall spending was roughly even, meaning more of its efforts were focused on its own programs. But the drop from $3,623,938 to $25,390 in anti-LGBT donations represented a reduction of more than 99.2 percent.

In the summer of 2012, the company came under fire for its anti-LGBT giving and company president Dan Cathy’s comment that the company was “guilty as charged” of advocating a biblical view of the family. Amid the criticism, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) and others organized a “Chick-fil-A” appreciation day. 

But it appears that the company foundations scaled back anti-LGBT giving by simply scaling back all of its giving to outside non-profits. Their few donations included contributions to WinShape’s home in Brazil for needy children, scholarships for a Christian college in Georgia, and money for Habitat for Humanity and the United Negro College Fund.

This trend will have to continue for a period of time before I again grace the doorway - or drive through window - of a Chick-fil-A.  It would be nice if the trend proved permanent. 

University of Texas Dishes Mark Regnerus As He Testifies Against Gays

This blog has looked at the discredited "study" conducted by Mark Regnerus with funding from far right anti-gay organizations which sought to prove that children raised in same sex headed households fared worse than those raised in heterosexual couple headed homes.  The problem was, however, that Regnerus never actually studied children raised in homes headed by stable same sex couples.  Instead, he looked at individuals with a supposed gay parent where the parents had divorced and where often the child had never lived with the gay parent post divorce.  But, in true Christofascist fashion, Regnerus never let these fraudulent aspects deficiencies get in the way of reaching his preordained conclusion.  Now, Regnerus is being used as an "expert" on the shortcomings of gay parenting in a case pending in federal court in Michigan (today he will be cross examined which ought to be fun to watch).  Apparently, the University of Texas where Regnerus is on the faculty finds the entire situation distasteful and has issued a denunciation of Regnerus and stressed that Regnerus does not represent the views of the University and/or the faculty.  Here are details from The New Civil Rights Movement:

Mark Regnerus, the man whose name seems to have become synonymous with bad research, was allowed to deliver testimony in federal court today in a case that will decide the fate of same-sex marriage in Michigan. Many wondered if Judge Bernard Friedman, who barred one “expert” witness from testifying earlier in the day, would allow Regnerus, whose own work has been discredited, to testify. The case, Deboer v. Snyder, involves two nurses, Jayne and April DeBoer-Rowse, who wish to marry and jointly-adopt their three adopted children.

Friedman did, and Regnerus, according to many tweets and reports of journalists in the courtroom, told the judge that there’s just no conclusive evidence that there’s no difference between same-sex and different-sex parents raising children, and that “the most prudent thing to do is wait and evaluate some of these changes over time before making any radical moves around marriage.”

HRC’s Ellen Kahn issued a statement saying that “Mark Regnerus’ testimony today in this trial is, in many ways, a culmination of exactly what the anti-gay funders of his work intended when they conceived the New Family Structures study. Make no mistake about it – Regnerus is not offering valid, scientific data. In fact, his study is a clear outlier among 30 years worth of social science that suggest children thrive equally well in two parent households, regardless of the genders of their parents. He is simply carrying out the harmful rhetoric of organizations that seek to demonize LGBT people and their families.”

Meanwhile, apparently in response to Regnerus begin accepted as a witness and to the testimony he delivered, Regnerus’ own university issued a statement distancing itself from his work.

The University of Texas at Austin and the College of Liberal Arts issued a statement saying “Dr. Regnerus’ opinions are his own. They do not reflect the views of the university. Like all faculty, he has the right to pursue his areas of research and express his point of view. We encourage the community of scholars and society as a whole to evaluate his claims.”

And if that weren’t sufficient, the Chairman of the University of Texas at Austin’s Sociology Department issued a statement today denouncing Regnerus’ work.

Like all faculty, Dr. Regnerus has the right to pursue his areas of research and express his point of view. However, Dr. Regnerus’ opinions are his own. They do not reflect the views of the Sociology Department of The University of Texas at Austin. Nor do they reflect the views of the American Sociological Association, which takes the position that the conclusions he draws from his study of gay parenting are fundamentally flawed on conceptual and methodological grounds and that findings from Dr. Regnerus’ work have been cited inappropriately in efforts to diminish the civil rights and legitimacy of LBGTQ partners and their families. We encourage society as a whole to evaluate his claims.

The Sociology Department at The University of Texas at Austin aspires to achieve academic excellence in research, teaching, and public service at the highest level in our discipline. We strive to do so in a context that is based on the highest ethical standards of our discipline and in a context that actively promotes and supports diversity among our faculty and student populations.

As stated many times on this blog, no one lies more frequently and more insidiously than the "godly Christian" crowd.  I hope Regnerus gets torn to shreds on cross examination.  Candidly, one has to wonder when the University will act to dump Regnerus from the faculty given his fraudulent research and force him to move to a discredited institution such as Liberty University here in Virginia.  He is an embarrassment to the University of Texas at this point. 

Walt Disney World Dumps Boy Scouts of America Over Anti-Gay Policy

Expect lots of flying spittle and outraged rants fro the usual Christofascist suspects and, of course the One Million Bitches Moms crowd.  Why?  Because Walt Disney World has dropped its funding of Boy Scouts of America ("BSA") chapters due to the BSA's continued anti-gay policies that cause boys to be expelled upon reaching their 18th birthday and that bar gays from being scout leaders.   Disney, like many other major businesses is increasingly against discrimination aimed at minority groups loyal to its brand and is again reminding us that nowadays bigotry caries a monetary price.  It's a message that so far has escaped most in the Virginia GOP.  Here are highlights from Gay Star News:

Walt Disney World Resort has stopped contributing to local Boy Scouts of America chapters in Florida because of the organization's continued ban on gay leaders and employees.

The BSA began to allow openly gay members at the start of the year but the inclusion ends when a scout turns 18.

Disney World, located in Orlando, did not make an announcement regarding its dumping of BSA. Reuters reports that the news came via an email to local members from Scouts' Central Florida Council Board President Robert Utsey.

Utsey wrote: 'We recognize that many Scout Units have received financial  support over the last several years from this grant opportunity and are sad to see it go.

He shared that the National BSA Council has become involved and reached out to the theme park to try and resolve the situation.

'However, according to WDW, their views do not currently align with the BSA and they are choosing to discontinue this level of support,' Utsey wrote. 'We will continue to keep an open line of communication with them, but at this time, are unable to reverse their decision.'

 Kudos to Disney!!

Walt Disney World Resort has stopped contributing to local Boy Scouts of America chapters in Florida because of the organization's continued ban on gay leaders and employees.
The BSA began to allow openly gay members at the start of the year but the inclusion ends when a scout turns 18.
Disney World, located in Orlando, did not make an announcement regarding its dumping of BSA. Reuters reports that the news came via an email to local members from Scouts' Central Florida Council Board President Robert Utsey.
Utsey wrote: 'We recognize that many Scout Units have received financial  support over the last several years from this grant opportunity and are sad to see it go.
He shared that the National BSA Council has become involved and reached out to the theme park to try and resolve the situation.
'However, according to WDW, their views do not currently align with the BSA and they are choosing to discontinue this level of support,' Utsey wrote. 'We will continue to keep an open line of communication with them, but at this time, are unable to reverse their decision.'
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/walt-disney-world-dumps-boy-scouts-america-over-anti-gay-policy280214#sthash.BXpHdIov.dpuf

Lockheed Martin Ends Gifts to Boy Scouts Over Anti-Gay Bigotry

Hate and bigotry do have a price as the Boy Scouts of America continues to learn as Lockheed Martin joins the list of major corporations that will no longer make financial gifts to the Scouts because the Scouts' homophobic policies.  We can expect more howling from the Christofascists who will claim their religious liberty is under attack even though it is not.  They can still engage in their bigotry and corporations like Lockheed Martin can exercise their right to not underwrite hate filled policies. As noted in a previous post, a former seminarian summed up the source of the Scouts' "deeply held religious beliefs" that condemn gays: the Old Testament, a work properly describes as follows: "the Hebrew scriptures were [are] altogether fictitious, plagiarized versions of other ancient mystery religions with a desperate agenda to galvanize and perpetuate an ethnic minority."  The Scouts agenda and that of Christofascist hasn't departed from the original Old Testament agenda of galvanizing and perpetuating a minority that has a desperate need to feel superior over others. The Virginian Pilot reports of Lockheed Martins rejection of this agenda:

Defense and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin is halting its donations to the Boy Scouts of America over the organization's ban on gays serving as adult leaders after a review of the company's philanthropy guidelines, the company said Thursday.

Lockheed Martin spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the company decided it will not support nonprofit organizations that do not align with its corporate policies or commitment to diversity. The company did not disclose how much it has contributed to the Boy Scouts.

Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed follows UPS Inc., Merck & Co. and computer-chip maker Intel in withdrawing support for the Boy Scouts over its no-gays policy in the past two years.

In a written statement, Johndroe said Lockheed seeks to support nonprofit groups that value diversity.

"We believe engaging with and funding an organization that openly discriminates is in conflict with our policies," he said. "While we applaud the mission of the Boy Scouts and the good things they do in our communities, their policies that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and religious affiliation conflict with Lockheed Martin policies."

The sooner the American public puts divisive and antiquated - and fiction based - religious beliefs behind it, the better the future  of this country will be.

Where to Shop: A List of Companies "Too Gay Friendly" for Christofascists

As always, the Christofascists are incessantly seeking to force their hate/fear based religious beliefs on all Americans.  This year, for those who have not completed their holiday shopping, "The Faith Driven Consumer 2013 Christmas Guide," produced by a group called the Faith Driven Consumer ("FDC") may provide a good list of where to shop.  Shop at any of the stores condemned as too gay friendly.  There are lots of options because retailers - surprise, surprise - are out to sell goods and products and, therefore, except for certain companies under Christofascist ownership, tend to want to market to all Americans.  Gay Star News looks at the list.  Here are article excerpts:

American Express, Adidas, Microsoft and Target have all been listed as too gay-friendly for Christmas by anti-gay Christians.

They have made a list, they’ve checked it twice, they’ve decided who is naughty and nice.

While some companies like Hallmark and Toys R Us still make it into the ‘faith-friendly’ category despite supporting LGBTI equality, others like Gap, Visa and Sears are deemed beyond the pale.

The Faith Driven Consumer 2013 Christmas Guide is produced by the Faith Driven Consumer group, based in the US.

It particularly targets companies that ‘normalize’ LGBTI people ‘in the economic arena and broader culture’ and back same-sex marriage.

It also attacks companies that support a woman’s right to have an abortion or who have ‘pornographic’ rather than ‘wholesome’ advertising. But firms win points for philanthropy, corporate responsibility and backing Christian values.

While GSN can’t confirm the accuracy of the research, the list could equally be used by LGBTI people and their friends to decide which firms should win their custom this Christmas.

Here’s FDC's list of companies condemned as too gay friendly along with some of their claims about each company:

• American Express: ‘Strong support’ for gay, bi and trans equality
• Apple: ‘Vocally supports same-sex marriage… and caved in to pressure from small groups of homosexual and transgender activists and their allies by removing previously approved, faith-based apps supporting natural and traditional sexuality’
• Barnes & Noble: ‘Strong embrace’ of LGBTI rights
• Best Buy: ‘Strong proponent of the homosexual and transgender political movement’
• Costco: ‘Nearly perfect score from the Human Rights Campaign – indicating strong corporate support for the homosexual and transgender political agenda in the workplace’
• Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic: ‘Strong support’ of LGBTI rights ‘including same-sex marriage’
• The Home Depot: ‘Stubborn and staunch support’ for LGBTI rights and allowed filming ‘for a flash mob same-sex marriage proposal at one of its stores – igniting a social media phenomenon that homosexual activists leveraged to promote same-sex marriage to young children’
• JC Penney: ‘Came out in support of same-sex marriage'
• Levi Strauss and Co: ‘Full embrace’ of LGBTI equality and same-sex marriage
• Macy’s: ‘Actively campaigns for the homosexual and transgender political agenda and has a whole section of its website devoted to gay “pride” and history’
• Microsoft: A ‘leading corporate advocate’ for LGBTI rights whose ‘top executives made six-figure contributions to the effort to redefine marriage in Washington state in 2012’
• Nike: Supports gay and trans equality and donated ‘$280,000 to the current effort in Oregon to redefine’ marriage
• Sears, Kmart, Land’s End: ‘Committed supporter’ of LGBTI issues and same-sex marriage
• Sony: ‘Strongly supports the political and social agenda of the homosexual, bisexual and transgender activist movement’
• Target: ‘Strongly supports abortion rights and the homosexual and transgender political agenda’
• TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Home Goods: ‘Not come out in support of same-sex marriage’ but gets a ‘perfect score’ from the Human Rights Campaign for LGBTI workplace inclusion
• Visa: ‘Embrace of the homosexual… agenda is a concern’

By coincidence, all of our purchases so far have been at stores condemned by the Christofascists! 
  

The Faith Driven Consumer 2013 Christmas Guide is produced by the Faith Driven Consumer group, - See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/apple-abercrombie-and-nike-are-too-gay-christmas-say-christians151213#sthash.DYsgB8QD.dpuf