Tennessee Preacher-Cop calls for Execution of LGBT People

Being gay in America remains dangerous - a reality lost on gay Republicans, many of whom falsely believe their white skin and social status will protect them from the raging homophobia being fanned by the Republican Party (the 2016 GOP platform opposes same sex marriage) and the Trump/Pence regime in particular.   The unleashing, indeed encouragement, of homophobia by the current White House regime is emboldening "Christian" extremists.  Just days after the 3rd anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre, a group of anti-gay extremist pastors, some exhorting the execution of LGBT individuals, gathered in Orlando, Florida.  Now, media reports have revealed that one Tennessee police officer who doubles as a pastor of an extremist church, likewise wants gays executed.  One can only imagine the fate a gay stooped by this officer might suffer.  Thankfully, the local District Attorney is reviewing all cases involving this hate monger.   Here are excerpts from a CNN article:

Authorities in Tennessee are reviewing all pending cases involving a Knox County Sheriff's Office detective after he gave a sermon at his church that called for the government to execute members of the LGBTQ community.

"They are worthy of death," Grayson Fritts said in a June 2 sermon at All Scripture Baptist Church, a small church in Knoxville that he leads.

The church posted the sermon online and then removed it, according to The Washington Post. The video was picked up by the Tennessee Holler, an independent liberal news outlet, and edited into a six-minute clip.

"God has instilled the power of civil government to send the police in 2019 out to the LGBT freaks and arrest them and have a trial for them, and if they are convicted, then they are to be put to death," he said in the clip.

Fritts said it would be easy to find people to arrest at events such as gay pride parades."We have a bunch of them we're going to get convicted because they have all their pride junk on, and they're professing what they are, that they're a filthy animal," he said.

Speaking to journalists before giving a sermon last Wednesday, Fritts said his anti-LGBTQ beliefs have not interfered with his work as a law enforcement officer.

Charme Allen, the Knox County district attorney general, issued a statement calling Fritts' comments "personally offensive and reprehensible. Allen said she would review all of Fritts' pending cases and an assistant district attorney will review any complaints about closed cases involving Fritts.

"When any potential witness in a criminal proceeding expresses an opinion of hatred and/or bias towards a class of citizens, I am ethically bound to explore that witness' credibility," Allen said. "Accordingly, I am reviewing all pending cases involving Mr. Fritts to scrutinize them for any potential bias. Although my office has never received a complaint regarding Mr. Fritts prior to this incident, I have assigned an assistant district attorney to receive complaints regarding closed cases, and I will act on those complaints as justice dictates." Knox County Sheriff Tom Spangler said . . . . "I want to be very clear that it is my responsibility to ensure equal protection to ALL citizens of Knox County, Tennessee under the law, my oath and the United States Constitution without discrimination or hesitation. Rest assured that I have and will continue to do so," Spangler said in a statement, according to WATE.

The All Scripture Baptist Church website says it is "an independent, fundamental, King James Bible only, soul-winning church. Don't expect anything liberal, watered down, or contemporary here." The website is clear about the church's stance on the gay community:

"We believe that sodomy (homosexuality) is a sin that is against nature. A person will only burn in their lust toward the same gender if they have been given over to a reprobate or rejected mind. God said homosexuality should be punished with the death penalty, as set forth in Leviticus 20:13. No homosexual will be allowed to attend or join All Scripture Baptist Church." Two Knoxville public officials criticized Fritts' comments.

"I am outraged at the statements by Knox County Sheriff's Detective Grayson Fritts," Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero said in a statement posted on the city's website. "Fritts' statements raise concerns locally and nationally about protecting LGBTQ+ rights and equality. Fritts' statements have cast a negative light on our community making it imperative to share my personal position and the position of the City of Knoxville."

Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs also criticized Fritts, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel.

"Mr. Fritts is not my employee so I can only give my personal thoughts on the issue," Jacobs said. "I find his comments to be extremely vile and reprehensible and I strongly condemn threats of or calls for violence."

Some would argue that Fritts is an outlier, yet the Republicans in the Tennessee legislature have continued to push extreme anti-gay legislation. If your are LGBT, Tennessee is likely NOT a place to live.  Just as disturbing is the reality that leaders of extreme "Christian" groups have Trump's ear and are pushing him to implement their agenda, including the appointment of anti-gay judges.

Saudi Arabia Seeks Death Penalty for" Coming Out"

Saudi executions

As heinous as North Carolina's new anti-LGBT law is, it pales in comparison to the utterly vile efforts going on in putative American ally, Saudi Arabia, a consistent violator of human rights.  North Carolina Republicans seek to strip LGBT citizens of their civil rights.  In Saudi Arabia, the royal family and their sycophants want to deprive LGBT individuals of their very lies if they admit reality and "come out."  It goes without saying that, in my view, if anyone deserves execution, it is the Saudi royals and the Islamic fundamentalist clerics that they help fund.  The Washington Blade looks at this disturbing situation which is yet further proof that America needs to seriously rethink its support for such a foul regime and the religious extremists that it nurtures.  Here are highlights:

A published report indicates that people who come out online in Saudi Arabia could face the death penalty.

Oraz, a Saudi newspaper, reported on Saturday that prosecutors in the city of Jiddah have proposed the penalty in response to dozens of cases they have prosecuted over the last six months. These include 35 people who received prison sentences for sodomy.

Okaz reported that Jiddah authorities have prosecuted 50 cases in which men allegedly dressed as women. A doctor who lives in the port city on the Red Sea has been released on bail after officials arrested him for allegedly raising an LGBT Pride flag over his home.

A gay Saudi man who lives outside the kingdom told the Washington Blade on Monday during a telephone interview the enhanced penalties that Jiddah prosecutors have proposed would apply to the entire country. The man, who operates a Twitter account that publishes LGBT-specific news and other information from Saudi Arabia, said the proposal has caused fear among LGBT people in the country.

Social media users in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have begun to use the hashtag “You will not terrorize me. I’m gay” on Twitter to express their opposition to the proposed penalty.

Saudi Arabia is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual activity remains punishable by death.

 The source, who asked the Blade not to publish their name because of safety concerns, said reports that Jiddah authorities are seeking the death penalty against those who come out online highlights “the horrific reality of the situation” in the country.

“We can’t do a thing about it, but try to make some noise so activists from other countries would hear about it and talk to their politicians to pressure Saudi to change its policies,” said the source. “The Internet is the only safe haven to LGBT individuals in the Middle East. If this is taken from us, we won’t have anywhere else to go.”

Write you Senator and Congressman and tell them you want America's relationship with Saudi Arabia re-evaluated and American aid to cease.  

Ted Cruz Refuses To Respond To Questions About That “Death To Gays” Event

While Donald Trump campaigns to create a police state, his fellow Republican presidential nominee contestant, Ted Cruz, continues to refuse to seriously address his presence at an event that expressly argued for the execution of gays, not once, but several times.  To date, Cruz has only disputed what video of the event clearly shows what transpired at the gathering of hate group members and religious extremists.  Joe My God has details.  Meanwhile, most of the mainstream media has been silent and given Cruz a pass on attending an event that called for the murder of millions of Americans:

Last night Rachel Maddow again delivered an excellent report on Pastor Kevin “Death To Gays” Swanson and the appearances of three GOP presidential candidates on the same stage from which Swanson called for the genocide of millions of gay Americans. The Cruz campaign sent Maddow a two-word response to her inquiry – “not explicit” – meaning that they claim Swanson didn’t literally call for executions of gays, when of course the video shows that he did. While mainstream outlets have given scant, passing mentions of the “death to gays” event, Rachel Maddow remains the sole network reporter who has stayed on this story.

The GOP Hates Extremism Except When Endorsing It

With the Republicans whining and shrieking about the dangers of religious extremists (of the Muslim type, of course) in the wake of the Paris attacks, they are conveniently blind to the ugly extremism that permeates much of the GOP base.  In the GOP play book, it is perfectly fine for "conservative Christians" to advocate the murder and execution of gays - just like ISIS, by the way - and somehow there is nothing extremist about it.  Indeed, as we saw Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Bobby Jindal all attended a gathering where the execution of gays was repeatedly supported.  Yes, all feign ignorance about the event, even though all received demands that they cancel their appearances because of the extremist position of event organizers (in short, they lied).  Candidly, it is hard for Republicans to credible on the issue of religious extremism when it is now the GOP's stock in trade - along with racism and sexism.  A piece in The Advocate looks at the GOP's hypocrisy.  Here are highlights:

Unless you watch Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show, you probably aren’t aware of the fact that Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Bobby Jindal (the latter dropped out of the race on Tuesday) all recently attended a “religious freedom” rally in Iowa hosted by antigay preacher Kevin Swanson, who has repeatedly called for the execution of homosexuals. Unlike the Duggar-styled martyr-complex performance art of Kim Davis, Swanson’s brand of bigotry is overtly bloodthirsty, with rhetoric echoing hateful pastor Scott Lively, a central figure in the persecution of LGBT Ugandans and part of the impetus for their proposed “kill the gays” legislation.

On her show, Maddow showed extensive clips from Swanson, and characterized the event as “a ‘kill-the-gays’ call to arms,” but the rest of the media has by and large ignored the scandal. Huff Po’s Michelangelo Signorile recently noted that The New York Times, The Washington Post and the majority of mainstream outlets either ignored the comments altogether, or focused their attention on the conferences derision of atheists or the Swanson’s outlandish claim that drowning children is preferable to letting them read Harry Potter, and suggested that the media’s tacit acceptance of this rally “suggest we’ve not come as far on LGBT rights as we all like to tell ourselves.”

I believe journalists have a responsibility to report on a group of political candidates’ casual acceptance of murder. Where exactly is the line between a declaration of your backwards belief and an incitement of violence? If the only weapon we have to limit this kind of speech is the court of public opinion, why are journalists allowing Swanson and his political companies to exist in a vacuum?

In a recent interview with Fox and Friends, Cruz stated that the “enemy is radical Islamic terrorism. As long as we have a Commander-in-Chief unwilling to even utter the words radical Islamic terrorism we will not have a concerted effort to defeat these radicals before they murder more and more innocents,” insinuating that the war was not in fact with ISIS, but with an extremist religion. While Cruz may not consider LGBT people ‘innocents,’ it’s still hard to reconcile his affiliation with Swanson with his condemnation of extremism. If your deeply held religious belief is that gay people should be put to death, then you are, categorically, an extremist.

What, exactly, separates Kevin Swanson from the ISIS leaders calling for the execution of homosexuals? 

It seems particularly ironic that the political candidates who are most vocal about barring Syrian refugees from entering this country out of fear of “radical Islam” are fervent advocates of turning this country into a radical Christian theocracy that subjugates women, gays, transgender people and anyone that falls outside of their definition of morality. 

[P]erhaps all of these men are actually committed to rousing as much homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic sentiment as possible during their time in the political spotlight to ensure a consumer base for their inevitable homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic book deals and lucrative speaking engagements.

[W]e’re going to see more and more opportunist bigots like Huckabee, Cruz, and Jindal taking advantage of it, and laughing all the way to the bank. If the media won’t speak out on our behalf, we have a responsibility to speak out against the media for enabling this kind of bigotry.   

Why Is the Media Ignoring Ted Cruz's Embrace of 'Kill the Gays'?

Ted Cruz attends "Kill the Gays" gathering

Even before I learned of the horrors occurring in Paris yesterday where we have again seen the ugly finger prints of fundamentalist religion, I had planned to write about the American media's silence on the the attendance of several GOP presidential nominee candidates at the falsely named National Religious Liberties Conference where the execution of gays was called for numerous times.   Imagine if Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders attended an event where the murder of Christians (or blacks or Jews) was advocated - the media would be beside itself and the coverage would have been non-stop.   But the advocating of the murder of gays bu the "godly folk" gets almost a free pass as do the GOP contenders who attended.   Yes, the GOP candidates are all claiming that they did not know about the agenda of some of the event hosts - even though in Ted Cruz's case he had been asked about the very issue BEFORE he attended the event - but all that proves is either (i) they support the execution of gays, (ii) they are liars, or (iii) that their campaigns are so poor at vetting events that the candidates are too incompetent to ever occupy the White House.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at this disturbing near silence.  Here are highlights:

Last weekend Senator Ted Cruz, along with fellow GOP presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, spoke at a conference in Des Moines headed up by a man who advocates the execution of gay people -- per his interpretation of the bible -- and who made his call for mass extermination once again, onstage at the event, the National Religious Liberties Conference. Pastor Kevin Swanson has said in the past that Christians should attend gay weddings and hold up signs telling the newly married gay and lesbian couples that they "should be put to death." He was an advocate of Uganda's infamous "Kill the Gays" bill, which he saw as a "model."

At the confab over the weekend, where he introduced Huckabee, Jindal and Cruz to the audience -- and where Ted Cruz's father, Rafael Cruz, an anti-gay Tea Party crusader, was a star speaker -- he reiterated his death penalty call . . .

On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, using extensive clips of video of the speech that had been posted by the indispensable Right Wing Watch, covered the conference in depth, and was rightly horrified that it even took place and that presidential candidates were there.

"This is a political event. This is a Republican presidential candidates' event," Maddow said. "It really was a 'kill-the-gays' call to arms. This was a conference about the necessity of the death penalty as a punishment for homosexuality."

But except for scattered online media coverage and blog posts, that was it. CNN's Jake Tapper asked Cruz if it was appropriate to speak at the conference before the event -- and Cruz dodged the question, claiming to know nothing of the pastor's views, and spinning back to religious people supposedly being under attack -- but there was no coverage I could find on CNN after the conference and focused on this evangelical leader who called for a future genocide after introducing presidential candidates who lauded him. As far as I can tell, no broadcast networks or major American newspaper covered the blood-curdling speech in which several times Swanson said the punishment for homosexuality is the death penalty. 

It's 2015 and much of the media seem to accept, still, that LGBT people can be talked about this way at an event attended by presidential candidates and that it's not news. They view it as par for the course, religious conservatives doing what they do. It's as if they have blinders on. Indeed, if Ted Cruz -- or Huckabee or Jindal -- attended an event at which the host hinted at mass murder of Jews, African-Americans or any other group it would be a massive media story. He'd be forced to answer questions about it, at debates (and it didn't come up at the last debate), in press conferences and in interviews non-stop. 

Swanson may not be Huckabee's, Jindal's or Cruz's own pastor, but they attended a hate conference organized by Swanson, who introduced them onstage, in the middle of a presidential primary race. The fact that it seems to be viewed as just another ho-hum campaign stop suggests we've not come as far on LGBT right as we all like to tell ourselves.

Hate flourishes when not challenged and condemned.  Just look at ISIS.   What is frightening about Swanson and the tacit endorsement of his views by Cruz and the other GOP candidates is that it sets the stage for some Christian fundamentalist to decide to put the call to murder into action thinking, just like the murderers in Paris, that they are doing god's work.  And most of the American media will be complicit in it because the haters were allowed to go unchallenged.  And people wonder why I hold "journalists" in low regard?

"Death Penalty For Gays" Literature At Hate Group Conference Attended by GOP Candidates

As predicted, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal attended the hate group sponsored National Religious Liberties Conference in Iowa where among other extremist propaganda a pamphlet entitled “Is The Death Penalty Just?,” was disseminated.  The pamphlet argues that the death penalty is just, and that homosexuality is among the offenses deserving the death penalty.  The American Taliban is alive and well and increasingly shows itself to be little different from ISIS except for the level of violence it is willing to use. Right Wing Watch looks at the gathering of extremist to whom Huckabee, Cruz and Jindal are only too happy to prostitute themselves.  Sadly, there is little media outcry.  Imagine if the same thing was said about blacks, Jews or Hispanics?  Here are highlights of the hate mongering:

Phillip Kayser is among the several speakers joining Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal at the National Religious Liberties Conference in Iowa this weekend, and as we've reported, he, along with the conference's chief organizer, Kevin Swanson, has called on the government to execute gay people. Kayser's views are so extreme that back in the 2012 election, Ron Paul's campaign tried to cover up his endorsement.

However, it seems that in today's GOP, calling for the execution of gay people isn't beyond the pale.

At the conference, where he is giving two speeches on how local officials and others can defy the Supreme Court's marriage equality decision, Kayser distributed the very pamphlet calling for the death penalty for gay people that caused a stir back when he endorsed Paul.

In the pamphlet, “Is The Death Penalty Just?,” Kayser unsurprisingly concludes that the death penalty is in fact just, and lists homosexuality among the offenses deserving of capital punishment. Ironically for a "religious liberties" summit, he also claims that the government should treat "breaking the Sabbath," "blasphemy and cursing God publicly," "publicly sacrificing to other gods" and "apostasy" as death penalty crimes as well.

He writes that government officials are "subject to Biblical statutes and judgments," claiming that "Christians should advocate the full implementation of all God's civil penalties in every age.... Every Old Testament statue continues on the books, and without those statutes, we could not have a consistent ethnical standard." Even "pagan" nations are obliged to follow biblical law, he writes, as "God held gentile kings accountable to these civil laws."

These people are frightening!  What's equally frightening is that they are completely welcome in today's Republican Party - as is Ben Carson.  

Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal Pander to Group Call for Execution of Gays

While Bobby Jindal's and Mike Huckabee's appear moribund, that doesn't mean that they aren't still busy prostituting themselves to the most ugly and extreme elements of the Christofascist base of the Republican Party.  The same holds true for Ted Cruz who continues to strike me as a frightening reincarnation of the late Joe McCarthy.  All three of these political whores are set to appear at a conference hosted by a radio host who has repeatedly called for the execution of gays.  As Salon notes, GOP debate moderators need to call out all three of them and force them to acknowledge that they are in bed with those who want to murder law abiding Americans merely because they do not adhere to a hideous form of Christianity.  Here are story highlights:

Republican candidates may want softball questions for the rest of the debate season, but here’s something that the moderators should be confronting at least some of them about: Three candidates—Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal—are scheduled to speak this weekend at a conference hosted by a radio host named Kevin Swanson who has openly advocated for putting gay people to death.

The conference is called the National Religious Liberties Conference, and it’s based on the premise that Christians are somehow having their religious liberties stripped from them because they can’t impose their views on others.

“Over the past few years, we’ve seen a marked erosion of the religious liberties that were the bedrock of the founding of our country,” Swanson says in a press release promoting the conference.

[A] look over the list of supposedly oppressed Christians that are speaking at the conference shows that the real source of anger is that it’s becoming harder than ever for Christians to oppress others, particularly LGBT people.

For instance, one of the supposedly persecuted Christians is former Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Phillip Monk, who runs around claiming that he was fired from the Air Force for his devout religious beliefs. This is a lie. Monk was supervising a staff sergeant who was supposed to be training recruits and was using his captive audience to proselytize his version of Christianity, particularly pushing his religious beliefs against homosexuality on them. Using your position of authority to push your religion on your underlings is against military rules . . . . In other words, Monk lost his job for refusing to uphold the value of religious liberty. 

Most of the other people labeled “Persecuted Christians” who are speaking at this conference have similar stories: Two anti-gay brothers who believe they are owed a TV show and are somehow persecuted if they don’t get one. A couple who violated anti-discrimination laws by refusing to let a gay couple rent their building to hold a wedding, even though they use their building all the time for straight weddings.  A couple who own a bakery that pulled the “we don’t serve your kind around here” move with a lesbian couple who wanted a wedding cake. An evangelical preacher who feels entitled to have a public high school advertise his church for him. 

Unsurprisingly, Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, is speaking at the conference as well. Rafael Cruz is a completely unhinged radical, so much so that Ted Cruz has sought to distance himself on occasion from his father. But, as Ted Cruz’s participation in this event suggests, he has more in common with his father than not, including the rock solid belief that Christians are somehow being “oppressed” if they can’t impose their views on the unwilling.

Right Wing Watch has more details on the level of hate and mental derangement of the folks that Cruz, Huckabee and Jindal - and by some reports, Ben Carson - seek to prostitute themselves too.  This trio of hate mongers belong in a nut house, not the White House.  When it comes to mindset, these folks are really little different than the extremists of ISIS.

Matt Barber - Still a Hate Merchant and Advertisement for Leaving Christianity

Yesterday this blog an others noted that Matt Barber - Assistant Dean at Liberty University's toxic law school - was promoting a columnist who advocated the execution of gays base, naturally, on the "literal word of God" found in Leviticus and a few other phrases in the Bible.  In apparent reaction to the firestorm that resulted (or perhaps the disclosure that the promoted "columnist" had a lengthy criminal record), Barber took down the post advocating for the murder of gays.  Now, Barber seems to think that he is exonerated from all his promotion of anti-gay violence.  This, of course, is anything but the case given Barber's ugly anti-gay history.  Indeed, if Barber is typical of "godly Christians," then decent people should be hastening to flee Christianity entirely.  A piece at Right Wing Watch reminds us of Barber's true role as a constant hate merchant and the ugliness that he promotes daily. Here are some highlights:

[Philip] Stallings’ column has disappeared, and today Barber tweeted at us, “Wow! Thanks for the tip. We obviously weren’t aware of that & find the position appalling. The answer is life in Christ.”

Well. It’s good to have Matt Barber say he finds the idea of executing gay people appalling. We agree.

But if that’s the case he ought to consider vetting the material he promotes a little more carefully. Just over a week ago we noted that BarbWire had run a column praising Pastor Steven Anderson, who has called for the execution of gays, and has said, “You want to know who the biggest hypocrite in the world is? The biggest hypocrite in the world is the person who believes in the death penalty for murderers and not for homosexuals.”

And given how much anti-gay extremism is promoted by Barber and his Religious Right allies, that got us wondering if anything else short of calling for the killing of gay people would cross the line for Barber.

We collected some other statements that Barber apparently doesn’t find appalling, because they’ve all been in columns promoted on his site:

·       * Gays are degenerates.

·       * Transgender people are demonic.

·      *  Gays “have your children as a target”

·       * Pastors who marry same-sex couples are “servants of Satan.”

·        * “The homosexual leaders are the most vile, vicious, and vitriolic people in the world.”

·      *“ISIS is truly the manifestation of the purest form of the homosexual agenda: sodomizing men as both torture and pleasure, and killing those who disagree with them.”

·      * “The fictional ‘rights’ based on homosexual deviance and the genuine, God-given, First Amendment-protected rights of the vast majority of Americans cannot coexist.”

 

Here are some other things we find appalling that Matt Barber seemingly does not:

 

Jeff Allen, a BarbWire editor, compares the gay rights movement to “a malignant cancer” and says, “Each victory for the homosexual activists represents another nail in America’s coffin.”  Allen has supported brutal anti-gay laws in Uganda, Nigeria, and Ethiopia, which include imprisonment not only for sexual conduct but also for joining social clubs or advocating for equality. Allen was upset when criticized for his “innocent mistake” of calling a fake photo of “NAMBLA for Obama” an example of “the undeniable link between homosexuality and pedophilia.” More Allen: “Satanism, sodomy, and slaughter are each part of the Devil’s sinister agenda to destroy America.”

This spring, BarbWire published a column by former Indiana lawmaker Don Boys recounting his attempt to recriminalize homosexuality. In a similar column a few years earlier, Boys had explained that he wanted to make homosexuality a crime punishable by up to twelve years in prison.

Robert Oscar Lopez wrote for BarbWire that almost every situation “involving a same-sex couple with exclusive custody of small children is adult misconduct at best or a crime against humanity at worst.”

BarbWire publishes notorious anti-gay activist Scott Lively, who wrote this summer that the US and its State Department had become “The Great Satan” of the world for opposing anti-gay legislation overseas. Lively has promoted anti-gay policies in Uganda and around the world.

And that’s just a sampling of the anti-gay extremists who have found a home on BarbWire. Not to mention Barber himself, who says he has been “called by God” to “sound the alarm” about the fact that gay sex is always sinful, and “The wages of sin is death.”

Barber is indeed a foul piece of work.  It is individuals like Barber that make me increasingly not to even the moniker of being a Christian.