Trump's Putin Fixation Is an LGBT Problem

Anti-gay violence has doubled in Russia since 2013 - all with government approval.
American Christofascists want it to happen in America.

I find "friends" who whine that political differences should not divide friends.  They, of course, are white, Christian heterosexuals who are not facing threats to their civil rights and perhaps even physical safety as a result of the Trump/Pence regime that they supported.   Seemingly, they expect me and others in the LGBT community to simply ignore the fact that they support those who openly seek to harm us.  I'm sorry, but seeking to defend one's rights against insidious foes that "friends" support is not just a matter of "political differences."  Were the shoe on the other foot, I suspect they would be livid and anything but cordial with those supporting their enemies. Thus, I view the "political differences" meme to be the height of hypocrisy.  As a piece in The Advocate notes, Trump/Pence pose a true threat to LGBT Americans, especially with Trump mimicking Putin's alliance with the regressive Russian Orthodox Church by the manner in which is is boosting the Christofascist agenda.  Here are article highlights:

As Donald Trump moves the United States closer to authoritarianism, we must be concerned. Human rights, including LGBTQ rights, do not flourish under authoritarian regimes.

Any doubt as to Trump’s subservience to Russian President Vladimir Putin was erased at this month's Helsinki summit and its subsequent press conference, where it was clear that Trump is in Putin’s pocket. Trump spent over two hours alone with the former KGB agent, with only translators in the room. With no record made of that meeting, we have no idea of what concessions Trump made — and no insight is forthcoming from the White House or the secretary of State. . . . . If Trump is taking direction from Putin, it's clear the American LGBTQ community is at risk of losing basic human rights.

It was Putin who allowed the leaders of Chechnya, an ultraconservative region of the Russian Federation, to kidnap, beat, imprison, and murder gay men. On June 11, 2013, the Russian federal law "for the Purpose of Protecting Children From Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values" was passed. It is also known as the “gay propaganda law,” and by placing a ban on promoting LGBTQ rights and culture in Russia, it has encouraged violence against the Russian LGBTQ community — which has doubled. The White House has moved in a similar direction — attempting to boot trans people from the military, dismantling the AIDS commission, advocating in court for antigay businesses, working to scrub us from the Census, and refusing to acknowledge Pride. 

While Putin claims he seeks to protect children, Trump cites religious freedom in order to endanger our human rights.

Trump’s self-serving sycophant of a vice president, Mike Pence, is an antigay religious zealot who resurrected a failing political career in Indiana by signing on with Trump; he gave his boss high praise after the shameful Helsinki summit, while John Brennan, the former CIA director, called Trump’s performance “nothing short of treasonous.” 

The indictment of Maria Butina as an unregistered Russian agent sheds light on Russia's infiltration of the Republican Party. She, along with her handler, Russian operative Alexander Torshin, allegedly used the National Rife Association and the religious right to gain access to top-level Republicans to advance Russian interests. Butina attended two National Prayer Breakfasts to hobnob with Republicans' friends. Guns, religion, and an attractive young female Russian helped Republicans and Russians find common ground. Religious right leadership also seems fond of Putin. Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, traveled to Moscow four times and testified in 2013 before the Duma in support of antigay laws. In December 2015, evangelist Franklin Graham had a private audience with Putin.

As Trump and the Republicans embrace Putin and authoritarianism, we can expect that lessons will be learned from Putin as to how to render the LGBTQ community invisible and suppress our human rights in the name of protecting something else — in Russia, it’s children, and in the U.S., it’s religious liberty.

Trump’s base is just fine treating us as scapegoats or punching bags. We live in dangerous times.

Trump Justice Department Grants Christofascists License to Discriminate

Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation here in Virginia, and other leading hate merchants must be near orgasmic in the wake of Jeff Sessions' release of "guidance" regarding “Protections for Religious Liberty.”  The guidance will mean that far right Christians who cite alleged religious belief will be able to discriminate at will against others and that employers, including federal agencies must accommodate their bigotry.  While the LGBT community is not directly referenced, given the ongoing efforts of Christofascists to put themselves above non-discrimination laws and public accommodation laws, we will certainly be impacted.  But the scope of this license to discriminate is so broad that many others will be impacted as well: unmarried cohabitating couples, those using contraception, non-Christians, the religiously unaffiliated - the list goes on and on and one has to wonder when the Bible will be cited to justify racial discrimination.  

What must be remembered is that Trump - and Mike Pence, a right wing Christian lunatic himself - made it clear that he would do the Christofascists' bidding, yet many who claim to be friends of LGBT individuals voted for Trump anyways.  I feel as if I am surrounded by enemies.  "Friends" have smiled at me only to stab me and my community in the back.  A piece at Think Progress looks at the horrors Trump/Pence/Sessions are ushering in.  Here are excerpts:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued extensive guidance Friday morning regarding “Protections for Religious Liberty” throughout the federal government. The document scrupulously avoids mentioning the LGBTQ community by name but it is undeniably the latest in a string of actions targeting LGBTQ rights.

Among the 20 “key principles” in Sessions’ memo are several assurances that the government will not penalize religious organizations for their religious beliefs, including their hiring practices or other aspects of their religious practice. Principle 2 states, “The free exercise of religion includes the right to act or not to act in accordance with one’s religious beliefs,” and that reference to not acting is the exact argument that has been used in countless cases where businesses and organizations have refused to serve LGBTQ people because of their religious beliefs.

Other points reinforce this. For example, Principle 6 states, “Government may not exclude religious individuals or entities based on their religion,” and Principle 20 states, “Generally, the federal government may not condition federal grants or contracts on the religious organization altering its religious character, beliefs, or activities.” The language in these principles strongly resembles language used to protect child-care and adoption agencies from losing governmental grants if they refuse to serve same-sex couples.

The guidance also protects businesses that would discriminate against same-sex couples through its interpretation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Principle 11 ensures that RFRA extends to businesses as well as individuals, consistent with the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling. Principles 13-15 then outline how RFRA could be used to justify discrimination:

• 13. A governmental action substantially burdens an exercise of religion under RFRA if it bans an aspect of an adherent’s religious observance or practice, compels an act inconsistent with that observance or practice, or substantially pressures the adherent to modify such observance or practice.

• 14. Under RFRA, any government action that would substantially burden religious freedom is held to an exceptionally demanding standard.

• 15. RFRA applies even where a religious adherent seeks an exemption from a requirement to confer benefits on third parties.

Principle 15 is a direct reference to the controversy regarding the state-level RFRA that Indiana passed — and then watered down after a massive backlash — in 2015. Previous RFRA laws referred only to protections citizens enjoy when the government was directly burdening their religious practice, but Indiana’s law [which Mike Pence signed into law surrounded by hate group leaders] was designed to offer “religious freedom” as a justification in cases between two citizens, thus protecting those who would discriminate because of their religious beliefs. Stipulating that RFRA applies to disputes related to conferring benefits to others is nothing short of the same license to discriminate from Indiana’s legislation.

The lengthy appendix of references reinforces this intention. In language borrowed almost directly from arguments the Department of Justice joined defending the bakery that refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple, Sessions explains, “A law that seeks to compel a private person’s speech or expression contrary to his or her religious beliefs implicates both the freedoms of speech and free exercise.”

In the context of the other principles in the document, this suggests there could be no repercussions, for example, for religiously affiliated universities that accept federal grants but refuse to accept LGBTQ students.

In addition to Session’s primary memo, he also sent a second memo outlining implementation of the first across the federal government. This means that all agencies will effectively have to run a “religious freedom” test on all of their actions, further cementing how it will negatively impact grants and litigation, among other things.

Sessions’ guidance is a follow-up to an executive order President Trump issued in May regarding “religious freedom.” That order, which was narrower than expected, focused on allowing religious organizations and leaders to engage in political speech without penalty and weakened the Obamacare contraception order. It also included, however, the vague instruction that, “In order to guide all agencies in complying with relevant Federal law, the Attorney General shall, as appropriate, issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in Federal law.” The DOJ’s new guidance is only the latest in a litany of actions the Trump administration — and particularly Sessions’ DOJ — has taken to undermine LGBTQ equality, including:

• Reversing a policy recognizing that transgender people are protected from employment discrimination.

• Arguing in court that firing an employee for being gay was justified.

• Arguing in court that a business refusing service to a same-sex couple was justified.

• Rescinding guidance protecting transgender students and replacing it with guidance that allows schools to discriminate against them.

• Instituting a ban on transgender people serving in the military.

• Working to roll back Obamacare’s rules protecting transgender people from discrimination in health care.

• Proposing massive cuts to HIV funding.

• Trying to cut questions that would identify LGBTQ people in various data collection efforts.

• Dropping out of the lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s anti-transgender law, HB2.

If "friends" who voted for Trump think this will not alter how I feel about them are delusional.  In future social events in our home, there will definitely be some who will no longer be welcome.  Likewise, I am not going to go to events hosted by those who voted for this ugliness.  As for the pleas of ignorance on the part of some that "they did not know," that will be no excuse for my rejection of them.  Their f*cking laziness  in not educating themselves on who/what they were voting for simply will not wash with me.  Yes, I am livid and I will not forgive and forget, especially if these individuals do not immediately contact their senators and members of Congress and demand that legislation be passed to reverse this hideous agenda.

I Can't Be "Friends" With A Trump Supporter - Part 2

Two weeks ago I posted about my blogger friend Michelangelo Signorile's open letter at Huffington Post to a long-time, long-distance friend after he learned that she had voted for Donald Trump. Michelangelo's letter well summarized my feelings towards "friends" who had voted for Trump (and in my view, racism, bigotry, homophobia and neo-fascism) when he said that he had realized that he had never really known the woman addressed in his letter.  Like the woman Michelangelo addressed, many of my Trump supporting "friends" can not seek to excuse themselves by citing that they live in the Rust Belt and/or had experienced “economic anxiety” during the Obama years (most are actually quite well off financially).  Now, Michelangelo has a new post that looks at the reactions his open letter has evoked.   Like Michelangelo's experience, many of my "friends" seek to either depict me as "intolerant" or claim that this is only disagreement about "politics" and conveniently ignore the extremists and vitriolic homophobes Trump is placing in positions of power.  The reality is that I will likely never trust or feel comfortable with these "friends" some of whom I continue to see for the sake of neighborhood and social harmony.  Here are highlights from Michelangelo's latest piece:

There was a lot of response on social media and elsewhere, most of it positive, much of it from people in far more difficult situations ― people who opposed Trump and were struggling with relationships they’ve had with parents, siblings, children or closer friends who voted for Trump. Many expressed how the letter articulated thoughts similar to their own, no matter how differently (or similarly) they may navigate this in their own lives.

Then there were the Trump supporters who criticized the piece. They almost universally claimed they couldn’t believe anyone was breaking off a friendship over “politics.” This, to me, was both ludicrous and disingenuous ― if very telling ― particularly since I’d addressed it right there in the open letter.

Many of these Trump supporters ― a lot of them traditional Republicans who went “home,” as political pundits nauseatingly put it ― are defensive about the fact that they voted for the unstable racist, misogynist and self-proclaimed sexual assaulter, and they’re fearful of admitting to themselves and certainly others that they tolerated hate and bigotry. They can’t face that they’re in bed with what appears to be a large swath of other Trump supporters who actually revel in their own racism, pushing white supremacist hate and feeling emboldened by what they view as Trump’s embrace: making Steve Bannon his chief White House strategist. So, they conjure up all kinds of rationalizations or whirl around in a sort of denial.

These are the Trump supporters that went bonkers over my open letter to my friend. . . . On several websites and on social media they portrayed me as the “intolerant” liberal. Of course, I’m proudly intolerant of bigotry -– but that’s not what they meant.

I’ve pointed out how Mike Pence is running the transition and is already getting the anti-LGBTQ agenda set regarding domestic policy, and that Trump’s cabinet picks who will run the government departments are a who’s who of homophobia. 

But even if that weren’t true, why would you give a chance (as this critic put it) to someone who pandered to those who hate you? Trump courted evangelicals and promised to appoint judges to overturn the historic Obergefell ruling on marriage equality (and he has publicly opposed marriage equality since 2000). Even if you believe he wouldn’t do that, why would you give even conditional support to a man who has given hope to the people who detest you and wish you harm?

The rationalizers can’t face the fact that there will be no peace because Trump is a bigot who ran a hate-filled campaign and has shown no remorse for doing so, nor is he making any attempt to heal any wounds.

Debating them about my personal choice regarding a friendship ― or even referring to them here by name ― would only be giving them an opportunity to attempt to legitimize the terrible choice they made in the election. And they surely don’t deserve that.

We Can’t Be ‘Friends’ Any Longer After You Voted For Trump

Through this blog and the 2008 LGBT Blogger Summit in Washington, D.C., and other activism I have met an amazing number of people and activists.  Some I have met in person.  Others I have come to know through co-writing for The Bilerico Project and other venues.  One such person is Michelangelo Signorile who I have spoken with in the past.   In a post at Huffington Post, Michelangelo, describes the feelings I - and I suspect many others - have experienced and/or continue to experience. Like him, I cannot simply forget what "friends" have done to me and to the country and its future. I have "unfriended" people. In other cases where I still have to interact with individuals (not by choice), I treat the situation as it is in fact: totally superficial since that is obviously how the other party must see their relationship with me. True friends don't vote to harm or abrogate the civil rights of their supposed friends.  Here are highlights from Michelangelo's piece: 

Dear X,

Every day that goes by since the election I become more despondent and more infuriated about your having supported Donald Trump.

His continued unstable, childish, dangerous behavior on Twitter and off; his horrifying, extreme picks for the cabinet – individuals who are hostile to civil rightsand seem chosen to dismantle government; his surrounding himself with generals, billionaires and nationalists – all of it is alarming and I’m truly frightened for our country.

The thought of speaking with you, just when maybe the anger has simmered somewhat, becomes more unsettling ― and enrages me further ― as each day’s news breaks. 

How could I continue a friendship with you knowing that you voted for rolling back my rights as a gay man – most of Trump’s cabinet choices are vehemently opposed to LGBT rights – and the rights of millions of women and people of color? 

I can’t fall back on the narrative of you being the downtrodden Rust Belter who is experiencing “economic anxiety” and feeling “left behind.” You ― like, in fact, the majority of Trump supporters ― fit none of that. You’re an educated white woman with college-educated children and you’ve gone from living in one 93 percent white, well-off enclave to another over the past 30 years.

I now realize I never really knew you.

In thinking back there were the hints, which surfaced over dinner, or in a chat on the phone, that perhaps you supported Republicans, or were unsatisfied with President Obama. (Certainly my politics, in my work as a journalist and commentator, are on full display, and some people are more guarded in my presence when it comes to discussing their own views.)

Still, that certainly didn’t mean you’d support Trump. Many Republicans didn’t. You always seemed to care about human rights. You supported me through my own coming out as gay when I was young, and expressed support for marriage equality. You left me a message the day after the shooting massacre at the LGBT nightclub, Pulse, in Orlando last June ― the last time we had an exchange ― sending me your moral support, to which I responded with a thank you.

That’s why this is all the more shocking. You’re too informed, too aware to just have blindly followed Trump. And my only conclusion is that the dark, ugly bigotry of this man was dismissed by you, tolerated by you. That’s unacceptable. You allowed for the legitimacy of white supremacists and a brutal misogyny we have never seen at this level of politics. Any conversation we would have would devolve into my saying things that would surely hurt you far more than simply breaking off or severely diminishing communications. 

[T]his election was and continues to be about so much more than “politics.” This is about values and respect. It’s about bigotry and hate. It’s about of millions of people’s rights being threatened, including my rights as a gay man and yours as a woman. It’s about putting our entire democracy in danger of transforming into an autocracy, and legitimizing and making alliances with our worst adversaries, whose goal is to dominate us.

Others would say they understand the desire to cut off the friendship, but that it’s better to continue dialogue and educate. Perhaps, this thinking goes, you’ll see what’s happening as we move forward and then reach out for an understanding and maybe offer a mea culpa. 

I get that. But we are in a grave situation, with little time to spare. At this current moment, since you don’t see that we’re in a national emergency (to which you contributed), you may only be jarred if your comfortable life is affected – such as by losing one or more friends and being forced to reflect on the magnitude of what you’ve done.

Beyond all that, as I said above, I realize I never really knew you.  When it comes to the things that matter greatly to me, I’ve now learned we have very little in common. Words of support for me and concern for my well-being are superficial when you can’t be counted on when it really matters ― when rights are on the line. The election has brought that into sharp relief.

 I have a number of "friendships" that I doubt will survive much longer.  In ever instance, the "friend" who voted for Trump is financially well off and educated and should have known what they were supporting.  If they claim ignorance, then they have no one to blame by themselves and their trained circus dog-like reliance on Fox News, a/k/a Faux News, for their sole source of information. Shame on them.  Shame on me if I don't hold them accountable.

The Trump/Pence Assault on LGBT Equality Has Already Begun

This weekend has been the beginning of what for LGBT Americans - or at least the 86% who realized the threat Donald Trump and Mike Pence pose to them and voted for Hillary Clinton - will likely be an ongoing travail: socializing with "friends" who voted for Trump/Pence and in the process began what most of us believe will be a huge assault on LGBT rights and equality under the law.   Personally, it has been difficult and while I have been able to go through the motions of feigned normalcy, the reality is that my relationships with many people will never, ever be the same.  I will never trust them as I once did now that they have shown themselves to be a Judas (whether knowingly or not) and the warm of the relations has cooled.  Should my and the fears of others in the LGBT community come true, I can only wonder if the relationships can survive.  Candidly, I suspect not.   Platitudes of "let's hope for the best" and/or "I don't feel that way about gays" simply not make up for the harm done and danger before us.  As a piece in the Huffington Post lats out, the truth is that the Trump/Pence assault on LGBT citizens and their rights under the law have already begun, much to the jubilation of those I call the Christofascists.  Here are article highlights: 

I’m not going to sugar-coat this at all. We are in for a full-blown assault on LGBTQ rights the likes of which many, particularly younger LGBTQ people, have not seen. Progress will most certainly be halted completely, likely rolled back. And it’s already underway.

First, forget any of your thinking that Donald Trump is from New York City, probably has gay friends, sent Elton John a congratulatory note on his civil union in 2005, used the term “LGBTQ” (in pitting gays against Muslims at the Republican National Convention, when he vowed only to protect us from a “hateful foreign ideology”) or any other superficial things you may have read or heard.

Ronald Reagan was from Hollywood, and he, too, had many gay friends, including legendary actor Rock Hudson. Reagan even came out against an anti-gay state initiative while he was governor of California. But once Reagan made his pact with the religious right in his run for the presidency ― for him it was Jerry Falwell, Sr., for Trump it’s Jerry Falwell Jr.― he had to bow to them if he wanted to get re-elected. 

That was then, and this is now: Earlier in the year, before Mike Pence was chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, using Trump’s analogy of running a business to explain how he’d run the country, told HuffPost’s Howard Fineman that the vice president of the Trump administration would really be the “CEO” or “COO” ― or, the president of the company ― while Trump would be more like the “chairman of the board.”

That person turned out to be Pence, and, before and after the election, there’s been some analysis and commentary suggesting that Mike Pence could be “the most powerful vice president ever.” And now, just days after the election, his power has increased tenfold as he is replacing Chris Christie as chairman of Trump’s transition team, filling all the major positions in the incoming Trump administration.

Mike Pence is perhaps one of the most anti-LGBTQ political crusaders to serve in Congress and as governor of a state. Long before he signed the draconian anti-LGBTQ “religious liberty” law in Indiana last year, he supported “conversion therapy” as a member of Congress, and later, as a columnist and radio host, he gave a speech in which he said that marriage equality would lead to “societal collapse,” and called homosexuality “a choice.” Stopping gays from marrying wasn’t biased, he said, but was rather about compelling “God’s idea.”

And right on cue, already appointed to lead domestic policy on the transition team is Ken Blackwell, formerly the Ohio secretary of state. Blackwell compared homosexuality to arson and kleptomania, which he called “compulsions.” In an interview with me at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in 2004, he explained:

“Well, the fact is, you can choose to restrain that compulsion. And so I think in fact you don’t have to give in to the compulsion to be homosexual. I think that’s been proven in case after case after case...I believe homosexuality is a compulsion that can be contained, repressed or changed…[T]hat is what I’m saying in the clearest of terms.”

Expect each of these individuals and more bigots to have prominent positions in the Trump administration.

As I‘ve written over and over again throughout the election campaign ― as the media had bizarrely and irresponsibly portrayed Trump as “more accepting on gay issues” ― Trump met with religious extremists, and made promises to them. He promised he would put justices on the Supreme Court who would overturn marriage equality (and the list of 20 candidates he has offered, certainly fit the bill), which he’s consistently opposed himself since 2000. He promised that he would sign the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), which would allow for discrimination against LGBT people by government employees and others.

It may or may not be difficult or unrealistic to overturn marriage equality over time, though the anti-LGBTQ National Organization for Marriage has sent Trump a plan. But by passing bills like FADA ― already introduced in the Republican-controlled Senate and House ― and others yet to come, gay marriage can be made into a kind of second-class marriage.

Trump has said he would overturn what he saw as President Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders, and those could include Obama’s orders on LGBTQ rights, such as banning employment discrimination among federal contractors.

Mike Pence, as Dominic Holden at Buzzfeed points out, has already said that he and Trump plan to withdraw federal guidance to the states issued by the Obama administration protecting transgender students . . . .

If Trump treats the presidency the same way he treated the GOP convention in Cleveland, he’ll make gestures ― like giving Thiel a role in his administration or using the term “LGBTQ”― that will feed the media notion that he is somewhat pro-LGBTQ, while giving the nuts and bolts of rolling back or halting LGBTQ rights to others. While Trump was onstage at the convention using the term “LGBTQ” (and had used Thiel’s speaking slot as a bit of window dressing too), the platform committee of the RNC had just hammered out the most anti-LGBT platform in history . . . .  Tony Perkins, head of the anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council, told me at the RNC that he was “very happy” with the platform, which, as a member of the committee, he made sure included the promotion of “conversion therapy.”

[W]hite evangelicals did turn out in huge numbers to vote for him on Tuesday ― comparable to or greater than every other GOP presidential candidate in recent years. He will need them if he wants to get re-elected, and that means he’ll have to give them some big things now. And evangelical leaders told The New York Times this week they expect him to deliver: 

[W]ith Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, an evangelical with a record of legislating against abortion and same-sex marriage, as vice president, Christian leaders say they feel reassured they will have access to the White House and a seat at the table. “I am confident he will do as president what he said he would do as a candidate,” said Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, who helped mobilize Christian voters for Mr. Trump.

If Trump is thus as hands-off on LGBT issues as president as he was at the RNC, letting people like Pence ― again, possibly the most powerful vice president ever ― get his way, along with people like Carson, Blackwell, Gingrich and likely many others, you can bet that the assault on LGBTQ rights is already underway. It’s only a matter of time before we know the full magnitude. 

So I continue to say to "friends"  that I will not" get over" the election, that I will not "move on," and that they need to understand that I have very real reasons to never fully trust them again.  Friends do not vote for someone who has pledge to take away the rights of those they claim to care about.

Nancy Reagan Turned Down Rock Hudson’s Plea For Help

Anti-gay bigotry isn't anything new with the Republican Party.  Sadly, it has been the party norm for decades and as a well documented new story at BuzzFeed illustrates, even prominent Republicans are only too willing to throw friends who are gays under the bus rather than offend the sensibilities of the foul Christofascists within the ranks of the party base.  A case in point? Nancy Reagan and Ronald Reagan who refused to take any action to help actor friend Rock Hudson to secure an experimental treatment as he was dying.  With "friends" like the Reagans, one seemingly doesn't need enemies.  Here are some article excerpts (read the entire piece):

On a Sunday evening in July 1985, just hours after arriving in Paris from Los Angeles, Rock Hudson collapsed shortly after checking into the famed Ritz hotel.

The 59-year-old actor was once one of Hollywood’s hottest stars throughout the 1950s and ’60s, seen as the embodiment of “the American man” — tall, dark, and handsome. A constant fixture on the big screen, he starred alongside leading actresses like Elizabeth Taylor in Giant — netting an Oscar nomination for the role — and Doris Day in a series of popular romantic comedies.

By the mid-1980s, though, while still close with many from Hollywood’s golden era like Day and friendly with Ronald Reagan, another actor of the era and now the president of the United States, and his wife, Nancy Reagan, Hudson was no longer the broad-shouldered icon. He was frail, ill — the airline almost refused to let him board the nonstop flight to France.

Hudson was dying from complications related to AIDS.   Although only a handful of people knew it, Hudson was in Paris desperately seeking treatment for AIDS — treatment that even a prominent, wealthy actor could not get in the United States in 1985.

Although more than 5,500 people had died from the disease by the start of 1985, the government had taken few significant steps toward addressing the disease — with the Reagan administration recommending a $10 million cut in AIDS spending down to $86 million in its federal budget proposal released in February 1985.

Over the following days, the pair, along with Hudson’s American publicist, Dale Olson, tried everything in a desperate attempt to get the dying actor moved to the military hospital for treatment.

These 10 days changed the course of history, as the world learned that Hudson was gay — and why he was dying.

“AIDS was on the front page of virtually every Sunday morning paper in the United States,” Randy Shilts wrote of the Sunday that followed Hudson’s collapse and revelations in his epic coverage of the epidemic, And the Band Played On. The revelations changed the course of AIDS coverage — and the broader attention paid to the disease. Hudson’s death a few months later, on Oct. 2, 1985, made him the first high-profile celebrity death from AIDS that was openly acknowledged as such.

One key part of this story, though, has never been told until now — not discussed at the time and lost in piles of paperwork from the Reagan administration. As Hudson lay deathly ill in the hospital, his publicist, Olson, sent a desperate telegram to the Reagan White House pleading for help with the transfer.

“Only one hospital in the world can offer necessary medical treatment to save life of Rock Hudson or at least alleviate his illness,” Olson wrote. Although the commanding officer had denied Hudson admission to the French military hospital initially, Olson wrote that they believed “a request from the White House … would change his mind.”

First Lady Nancy Reagan turned down the request.

The telegram, along with the documents detailing the White House’s response, were initially discovered by a new project focused on “archives activism” that is based out of D.C.

Charles Francis, the president of the newly reconstituted Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., provided the documents to BuzzFeed News after the group — with support from the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery — obtained them from the Reagan Presidential Library. BuzzFeed News confirmed the documents’ authenticity with archivists from the Reagan Presidential Library.

“The view was, ‘Well, we’re so sorry’ — and she was, they were both very sorry for Rock’s condition and felt for him and all the people — but it just wasn’t something that the White House felt that they could do something different for him than they would do for anybody else,” Weinberg said.

“Seems strange that the Reagans used that excuse, since they often did favors for their Hollywood friends during their White House years,” Staley told BuzzFeed News, pointing out a time when President Reagan personally intervened to assist a fundraising effort led by Bob Hope, as detailed in a biography of the entertainer. “I’m sure if it had been Bob Hope in that hospital with some rare, incurable cancer, Air Force One would have been dispatched to help save him. There’s no getting around the fact that they left Rock Hudson out to dry. As soon as he had that frightening homosexual disease, he became as unwanted and ignored as the rest of us.”

I have always viewed Nancy Reagan as a cold bitch.  It seems I war more correct than I knew. 

Straights, It’s Time to Leave Your Homophobic Church

I have long encouraged LGBT individuals to walk away from the homophobic religious traditions in which they were raised.  To remain a member of a church that despises you is nothing short of a form of masochism.  One of the best things I ever did for my own mental health and self-acceptance was to walk away from the Roman Catholic Church.  But it's not just gays who need to leave homophobic churches.  So must their families and, truth be told, those who claim to be friends and allies of the LGBT community.  Being social friends with gays while attending and financially supporting anti-gay churches cannot be reconciled.  It's akin to having a few black friends even as you remain a member of the KKK.  You don't get to have it both ways.  A piece in Slate looks at this need for straights to walk away form homophobic churches.  Here are highlights:

Homophobia in religious communities is unquestionably endemic. Pope Francis recently described gay and lesbian families as “bastardized.” Southern Baptist leaders have suggested that gays are “abominations” controlled by Satan. Countless sermons, prayers, and Sunday school classes have been devoted to the demonization and condemnation of LGBTQ individuals. But for many gay youth, the most crushing aspect is seeing their friends and families unflinchingly accept these lessons in bigotry. If this environment sounds familiar to you, it’s time to leave your church.

Simply attending a homophobic church reinforces the hopelessness and despair many LGBTQ churchgoers experience on a daily basis. In supporting these churches, millions of parishioners across America tacitly endorse a vicious brand of homophobia that puts gay congregants at an increased risk for depressive disorders, substance abuse, and suicide attempts. More often than not, adolescents are most susceptible to these negative messages. In their zeal to condemn homosexuality as sinful, many churches have become toxic theological wastelands for young people.

Published in the Journal of Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior this past June, a survey of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals who had attempted suicide found that only 23 percent of respondents sought out mental health or medical treatment before their suicide attempts. The median age of a first suicide attempt was 17.4 years old. The age at which individuals first recognized their sexual minority identity was 17.9. In other words, suicide attempts tend to happen during periods of questioning and coming out.

Another 14 percent of respondents sought religious or spiritual counsel. Shockingly, these individuals were more likely to attempt suicide than those who sought no treatment or professional care. This disproportionately affects black lesbian, gay, and bisexual parishioners, who were far more likely than white or Latino congregants to seek religious advice about dealing with their sexuality.

Silence in the face of homophobia from the pulpit is as much an affirmation of bigotry as the sermon itself. Support for these churches—even through attendance—sends a clear message to LGBTQ youth: You are not welcome; you are an abomination. While many churches suggest that preaching “the truth” about homosexuality is showing “love,” it is nothing more than an agonizing torture ritual designed to demoralize, demean, and disempower LGBTQ youth. And it must no longer be supported.

Anti-gay churches are no longer the only option. The opportunity is there to send a new message of acceptance and affirmation to LGBTQ youth in the religious community. For the sake of your children, your neighbors, your loved ones, and your friends, it’s time to leave your anti-gay church.

Gays Need to Challenge Moderate Republican Hypocrisy

Personally, I find it difficult at times remaining pleasant to self-styled "moderate Republicans" who proclaim that they are not anti-gay and yet will happily cast their vote on November 6th for candidates of the Republican Party, a political party which seeks to undo years of progress in LGBT civil rights and that would keep LGBT citizens less than full citizens indefinitely.  You know who I am talking about: your neighbors who invite you over for cocktails, dinner or a party, greet you with a smile but then plan on voting for anti-gay candidates like Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and here in Virginia, George Allen.   Some of these "friends" and neighbors likely have Romney signs in their yard at this very moment as well sending a clear message as to what they really value.  Pulitzer and Tony winning playwright Doug Wright summed it all up well and laid bare what really matters to these people:

"I wish my moderate Republican friends would simply be honest. They all say they’re voting for Romney because of his economic policies (tenuous and ill-formed as they are), and that they disagree with him on gay rights. Fine. Then look me in the eye, speak with a level clear voice, and say, 'My taxes and take-home pay mean more than your fundamental civil rights, the sanctity of your marriage, your right to visit an ailing spouse in the hospital, your dignity as a citizen of this country, your healthcare, your right to inherit, the mental welfare and emotional well-being of your youth, and your very personhood.' It’s like voting for George Wallace during the Civil Rights movements, and apologizing for his racism. You’re still complicit. You’re still perpetuating anti-gay legislation and cultural homophobia. You don’t get to walk away clean, because you say you 'disagree' with your candidate on these issues." 

As I've said before, two of the pillars of today's GOP are greed - i.e., lower taxes - and hypocrisy.  Like it or not, these "moderate Republicans" put money in their pockets ahead of basic civil rights for their friends, neighbors and, in some cases, family members.

Note: The image above is of my blogger friend Jeremy Hooper marrying his husband Andrew.

The Message Romney/Ryan Supporters Are Sending to LGBT Frinds and Neighbors

Click image to enlarge

A while ago I posted this image on Facebook because I was dumb founded how supposed "friends" were voicing support for the anti-gay team of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.  I wondered whether they were simply uninformed as to what the GOP ticket agenda would do to many of us in the LGBT community? Or are they showing what they truly believe about us?  Or are they more concerned about paying less in taxes than they are about their friends, family members and neighbors being afforded the same civil rights that they themselves enjoy?  Whatever the cause, I am going to find it difficult to forget.  You don't claim to care about someone and then vote for politicians who have pledged to keep us inferior citizens without basic non-discrimination protections, inheritance rights and a host of other rights and protections.  I don't need or want "friends" like that.

The Cross in the Closet: How a Conservative Christian's Eyes Were Opened By Pretending to be Gay

You never really know what the lives of others are like until you walk in their shoes.  Or at least that was the premise of Timothy Kurek (pictured above center) who had graduated from Liberty University, in my opinion a Christianist blight on the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Kurek did something unthinkable for most Liberty graduates: for a year he pretended to be gay telling family, friends and others and getting to see society from the eyes of a gay man and getting a taste of the hate and vitriol that were face daily from "godly Christians."   In his book, "The Cross in the Closet," Kurek recounts his experience and had a conversion, if you will, and came to recognize the humanity of LGBT individuals - something lost on most of the Liberty University crowd, including Matt Staver and Matt Barber who pump out anti-gay lies virtually daily and make a strong case why one would not want to be a Christian.  Kurek says that the experience strengthen his faith even though it lost him many "friends" he had known during his days at Liberty University.  Here are excerpts from The Guardian that review Kurek's book and his experience:

Timothy Kurek grew up hating homosexuality. As a conservative Christian deep in America's Bible belt, he had been taught that being gay was an abomination before God. He went to his right-wing church, saw himself as a soldier for Christ and attended Liberty University, the "evangelical West Point".

But when a Christian friend in a karaoke bar told him how her family had kicked her out when she revealed she was a lesbian, Kurek began to question profoundly his beliefs and religious teaching. Amazingly, the 26-year-old decided to "walk in the shoes" of a gay man in America by pretending to be homosexual.

For an entire year Kurek lived "under cover" as a homosexual in his home town of Nashville. He told his family he was gay, as well as his friends and his church. Only two pals and an aunt – used to keep an eye on how his mother coped with the news – knew his secret. One friend, a gay man called Shawn – whom Kurek describes as a "big black burly teddy bear" – pretended to be his boyfriend. Kurek got a job in a gay cafe, hung out in a gay bar and joined a gay softball league, all the while maintaining his inner identity as a straight Christian.

The result was a remarkable book called The Cross in the Closet, which follows on the tradition of other works such as Black Like Me, by a white man in the 1960s deep south passing as a black American, and 2006's Self-Made Man, by Norah Vincent, who details her time spent in disguise living as a man. "In order to walk in their shoes, I had to have the experience of being gay. I had to come out to my friends and family and the world as a gay man," he told the Observer.

Kurek's account of his year being gay is an emotional, honest and at times hilarious account of a journey that begins with him as a strait-laced yet questioning conservative, and ends up with him reaffirming his faith while also embracing the cause of gay equality.

Along the way he sheds many friends, especially from Liberty, who wrote emails to him after he came out asking that he repent of his sins and warning that he faced damnation. He does not regret their loss. "I now have lots of new gay friends," Kurek said.

However, there was a cost to the experiment. In order to gauge his mother's true reaction to the news that her son was gay, Kurek read her private journal. In it he found that she had written: "I'd rather have found out from a doctor that I had terminal cancer than I have a gay son." But Kurek's journey also became her own. Eventually she too was won over and changed her views. "My mom went from being a very conservative Christian to being an ally to the gay community. I am very proud of her," he said.

Kurek also experienced firsthand being called abusive names. Though he himself had once called gay protesters at Liberty "fags", he found himself on the other side of the fence of insults. During a softball practice session in Nashville, a man walking his dogs called Kurek and his team-mates "faggots".

Kurek also said that he felt his experience not only should show conservative Christians that gay people need equal rights and can be devout too, but that it can also reveal another side of evangelicals to the gay community.  "The vast majority of conservative Christians are not hateful bigots at all. It is just a vocal minority that gets noticed and attracts all the attention," he said.

I am sure that there are many decent conservative Christians.  However, as long as they remain timid and fail to loudly reclaim the Christian brand from hate merchants and professional Christians like those at FRC, AFA and other registered hate groups, they are little better than the "good Germans" who allowed Hitler to come to power and then silently allowed the Nazi atrocities to occur.   When you fail to act and stand up to hate and untruths, you become part of the problem.   Sadly, those who most need to learn the message of Kurek's book are those least likely to ever read it.  Indeed, I am certain many will condemn Kurek for his new found advocacy for LGBT equality.