The 10 Biggest Homophobes and Transphobes of 2018

Homophobes Dallin H. Oaks, Mary Fallin, and Roger Severino.

As is common as December 31st approaches, many news outlets are looking back for significant events of the past year as well as heroes and villains.  In the last category should be included those who peddle hatred of others, especially LGBT individuals, under the smoke screen of religion or political self-prostitution to haters and hate groups.  A piece in The Advocate looks at some of the worse homophobes and and purveyors of hate towards those who are transgender.  Not surprisingly, the faux "Christian" Alliance Defending Freedom, the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormon Church and Republican politicians and apparatchiks that the prizes as the most hate-filled groups/individuals domestically.  The following are article highlights that look at these hate merchants and religious zealots:

LGBTQ people have made great strides toward equality in the U.S. and around the world, but we still have homophobes and transphobes trying to roll back our progress, and unfortunately some of them are running the country. We of course have had the usual suspects to deal with -- Mike Pence, Tony Perkins, Bryan Fischer, Louie Gohmert, Pat Robertson, and many more -- but here we'll spotlight some of those who particularly made news this year. 

Alliance Defending Freedom  The year's top Phobie Aware goes to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal nonprofit that specializes in causes important to the religious right. . . . . The ADF is still fighting for the right to discriminate. It's asked the Supreme Court to take up cases where ADF is trying to end a Pennsylvania school district's transgender-inclusive restroom policy and advocating for a funeral home's right to fire a trans employee. Oh, and it's got another case involving Masterpiece Cakeshop, for a refusal to make a birthday cake that celebrates a trans woman's gender transition. The ADF contends that the state of Colorado is harassing Philllips by expecting him to obey the antidiscrimination law.

Dallin H. Oaks [Mormon Chrch]  It's not news that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, known informally as the Mormon Church, isn't accepting of LGBTQ people, but one of its top leaders, Dallin H. Oaks, took the homophobia and transphobia to new heights this year. “Our knowledge of God’s revealed plan of salvation requires us to oppose many of the current social and legal pressures to retreat from traditional marriage or to make changes that confuse or alter gender or homogenize the differences between men and women,” . . . . Those pressures, he said, come from none other than Satan, who “seeks to confuse gender, to distort marriage, and to discourage childbearing, especially by parents who will raise children in truth.” . . . . There's an epidemic of suicide among LGBTQ youth in the church's home state of Utah, and much of the blame can be placed on the denomination's hatred.

Right-wing Catholics  It has been a banner year for homophobia in the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis, who once said “Who am I to judge?” about gay priests, said gay people don’t belong in the clergy. Not that the church has ever been truly accepting of gay clergy, but their presence has been an open secret for eons. With the church rocked by sex abuse scandals, Cardinal Gerhard Müller blamed gays for abuse, even though there’s no correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia.

Roger Severino [Trump Appointee] Roger Severino, director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, is overseeing the Trump administration's effort to define transgender people “out of existence,” as The New York Times put it in an October story breaking the news of a memo circulating among federal government agencies to legally define gender as something immutable and fixed at birth, as indicated by a person’s genitalia. He's also spearheading HHS's "conscience protection" efforts, aimed at aiding health care workers with religious objections to serving certain patients, which could well result in denial of care to LGBTQ people. Severino has a long history of working for far-right groups and opposing LGBTQ rights. He has opposed marriage equality, defended “ex-gay” therapy, and objected to allowing transgender people to serve in the military.

Mary Fallin and Jeff Colyer [GOP Governors]  As governors of Oklahoma and Kansas, respectively, Mary Fallin and Jeff Colyer signed bills into law that will allow adoption and foster care agencies that provide state-funded services to reject prospective parents who offend the agencies' religious dogma. They could be interfaith couples, single parents, or, yes, same-sex couples or single LGBTQ people. That's discrimination funded with tax dollars. For Fallin, the action was one more notch in a long record of anti-LGBTQ governing.

Texas Republican Party  Whenever the Texas Republican Party approves a platform, it's sure to be anti-LGBTQ. This year's may be its most hateful yet, though. At its biennial convention in June, the party adopted a platform that again endorses “ex-gay” therapy, as it has since 2014, as well as opposing marriage equality and supporting business owners’ right to discriminate against anyone who offends their religious sensibilities. It makes a new call for the state to repeal its hate-crimes law and opposes all efforts to recognize transgender people’s identity. 

No Wonder There’s An Exodus from Religion

I often believe that if Christianity ends up largely dying in America as has happened in parts of Europe and some other developed nations, one of the leading causes will be the hypocrisy and general unloving behavior of Christ's purported most outspoken adherents.  What is an interesting correlation is that between the increased involvement of the so-called Christian Right - I call them Christofascists - in the Republican Party and the acceleration of the numbers of Americans identifying themselves as "None" - those who have forsworn religious affiliation.  With the Trump/Pence regime, the hypocrisy has gone off the charts as a column in the Washington Post notes.  Meanwhile, the exodus from religion continues.  Here are column excerpts:

Do you wonder why the proportion of Americans declaring themselves unaffiliated with organized religion has skyrocketed in recent decades?

This trend is especially pronounced among adults under 30, roughly 40 percent of whom claim no connection to a religious congregation or tradition and have joined the ranks of those the pollsters call the “nones.”

To understand how so many now prefer nothing to something when it comes to religion, ponder the news over the past few days.

The same newspapers and broadcasts that were reporting on how President Trump finally admitted that he had indirectly paid a porn star to keep quiet about an alleged affair also offered accounts of what we’ll call Jesuitgate, the controversy over who should be the chaplain of the House of Representatives.

 

Ryan had said he asked the cleric to quit because he had provided inadequate “pastoral services,” but denied that Conroy was ousted because of a mild prayer for justice he delivered during the debate over the GOP tax cut.

That phrase “pastoral services” must inspire a chuckle from your typical millennial agnostic. . . . Conroy also quoted Ryan’s chief of staff, Jonathan Burks, as telling him “something like ‘maybe it’s time we had a chaplain that wasn’t a Catholic.’ ” Ryan’s office vehemently denied this (the Catholic vote is substantial), but the speaker announced he didn’t want to have a “protracted fight” and that Conroy could stay.

But think about it: The House Republican leadership was more inclined to push out a chaplain than to impose accountability on a president who is a proven liar and trashes the rule of law for his own selfish purposes day after day.

This degree of partisan irresponsibility only aggravates the already powerful skepticism among the young about what it means to be religious. In their landmark 2010 book, “American Grace,” the scholars Robert Putnam and David Campbell found that the rise of the nones was driven by the increasing association of organized religion with conservative politics and a lean toward the right in the culture wars.

Revealingly, Putnam and Campbell found that millennials with tolerant and open views on homosexuality were more than twice as likely to be religious nones as their statistically similar peers with conservative or traditionalist views on homosexuality. Many young people came to regard religion, in Putnam and Campbell’s words, as “judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical and too political.”

If you want a particularly exquisite hypocritical moment, consider that on Thursday, the very day when Trump had to admit his lies on the Stormy Daniels payoff, the president held a White House commemoration of the National Day of Prayer. 

Conroy was getting at this in the most uncontroversial way possible when he spoke in his now-contested prayer of how “our great nation” has created “opportunities that have allowed some to achieve great success, while others continue to struggle.” If a chaplain could be rebuked for voicing that simple and undeniable truth, what’s the point of the “religious liberty” that Trump and his GOP allies celebrate?

And when will those who advertise themselves as religion’s friends realize they can do far more damage to faith than all the atheists and agnostics put together?

Yes, the image above was just too good to pass up.

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.

Where Are the "Good Trump Supporters" in Denouncing Bigotry?

Some apologists for Donald Trump voters - including some "friends" of mine who betrayed their LGBT friends and neighbors - have argued that many, if not a majority of Trump supporters do not believe in racism, homophobia and all the other forms of bigotry that candidate Trump elevated.  Likewise, some argue that the decent Trump supporters will block some of the most foul initiatives that candidate Trump claimed to champion. Unfortunately, as Trump is unveiling his racist and homophobic billionaires cabinet, little or nothing is being heard from these supposed "good" Trump supporters in opposition to all the misogyny and hatred on display.  Sadly, few in the media appear to be focusing on this deafening silence as many fall over themselves trying to pretend that we are seeing normal times or a normal administration transition.  A piece in The Daily Beast calls out this "good Trump supporters."  Here are excerpts:

Dear Good White Donald Trump Supporters:

I get it. Finally you are: “Free at last! Free at Last! Thank God almighty [you] are free at last!” Apparently it’s been a rough eight years for you being oppressed by that black president. But the days of keeping the “white man” down are over—at least that’s the vibe the rest of us seem to be getting from you.
 Not only did 58 percent of whites vote for Trump, but a record breaking 67 percent of whites without a college degree cast their ballot for the man in the red “Make America Great again” hat.

That is why I’m writing this letter to you—the white Trump supporter. Actually, I’m really trying to reach the white Trump supporter who truly isn’t bigoted or racist. 

But while not all Trump supporters are bigots, all bigots are Trump supporters. (or at least all who voted) It’s not like a person said: “I really hate those damn Muslims and Latinos, but I’m more concerned about green energy so I’m voting for Jill Stein.” Nah, the white supremacists were all in for Trump this year.

And therein lies the problem for the Trump supporter who is a good person, whom I’ll call the moderate Trumper. You are being defined by the extremists in your community. I’m talking about the followers of radical Trumpism or Trumpists, if you will.

These extremists have reportedly committed hundreds and hundreds of hate incidents since Election Day in Trump’s name. As the Southern Poverty Law Center noted in a report released on Tuesday, there were 867 hate incidents in the 10 days after the election directed at blacks, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, and women. (You know, the very groups Trump demonized this campaign.)
 [A]s the SPLC noted, out of the 867 documented hate incidents, only 23 were anti-Trump. You might think it’s higher because Trump surrogates appearing on cable news have claimed that it’s just as bad for Trump supporters. But that statement—like much of what Trump said during the campaign—is a lie.

Failing to denounce those hate crimes committed by the extremists in your community will cause you to be defined by them. Believe me, I know that firsthand, being Muslim. Imagine if Muslim Americans had committed more than 800 hate incidents in 10 days? Muslim Americans, including myself, would be in the media vocally denouncing them just as we try to do after any terror attack carried out by a Muslim.

Bottom line is if we don’t start seeing moderate Trump supporters denounce the extremists—fair or not—the followers of radical Trumpism will soon define all of you.

It’s your call. I’m simply just trying to help the millions of Trumpers who are good Americans and despise hate as much as the rest of us.

Expect the silence of these folks to remain deafening.  They are little better than the "Good Germans" who silently allowed Hitler and the Nazis to thrive and the "good Christians" who refuse to confront their hate-filled coreligionists who are killing the Christian brand.  Being a truly decent and moral person requires a spine and a willingness to openly confront and condemn hate and bigotry.  Sadly, most "good Trump supporters" lack both. They will continue to be enablers to the bigots and hate merchants. 

Pastor Who Said Pulse Victims "Got What They Deserved" Arrested For Child Molestation

I swear that it has come to the point that when you hear a ranting homophobe, the only question seems to be one of how long until they are (i) caught in a gay sex scandal, (ii) arrested for molesting children, or (iii) in far less instances, having an adulterous affair.  The instances of liberals/progressives landing in such situations appears far, far less common.  Yep, it is almost always the "godly folk" who end up proving that they are complete hypocrites if not child molesters.  A case in point is "Bishop" Ken Adkins of St. Simons Island, Georgia who stated that the Pulse nightclub victims "got what they deserved" who has been arrested on charges of child molestation and aggravated child molestation with a child under age 14.  You can read the arrest warrant here.  Jacksonville Fox 30 has details.  Here are highlights:

Ken Adkins, 56, of St. Simons Island turned himself into police at about 9 a.m., according to officials with Georgia Bureau of Investigation. 

Adkins is currently in the Glynn County Jail. The investigation is ongoing. “I know nothing more about the allegations than what has been reported in the news, but it sickens me. If he is found to have done what he stands accused of, he deserves the fullest punishment the law allows," said Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry. 

Adkins has one church with locations in Brunswick, Jacksonville and Atlanta, according to his website. 

His wife, Charlotte "Stormy" Adkins, defended her husband in a statement Friday, calling the arrest "A rush to judgment by law enforcement." She added that the charges "Are false and that he will ultimately be cleared of any wrongdoing."

Charlotte Adkins said her husband "has asked to be placed on unpaid leave" from the Greater Dimensions Christian Fellowship, and that she had assumed position of acting pastor.  

Adkins recently came under fire when he tweeted "homosexuals got what they deserved" after the deadly mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub. His Twitter account has been set to private. 

Adkins' controversial campaign against the expansion of Jacksonville's Human Rights Ordinance to protect the LGBT community was waged mostly on social media. Jacksonville City Councilman Tommy Hazouri, who led efforts to expand the HRO, said he nearly sued Adkins when the pastor created pornographic images using Hazouri's image and posted them online.

Trump's New Campaign Leaders Are Rabidly Anti-LGBT

Homophobes Kellyane Conway and Stephen Bannon

While The Donald continues to pretend to be gay friendly and some gay Republicans continue to keep their heads firmly up their asses and support the man, his picks for the new leaders of his campaign tell the true story.  Both Stephen Bannon of Breitbart News and GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway have a history of being rabidly anti-gay.  As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words and Trump's picks speak volumes.   The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the history of anti-LGBT actions of Bannon and Conway.  Here are story highlights:

Donald Trump wrote on Facebook late Tuesday that he'll "fight to ensure that every American is treated equally" and "reject bigotry and hatred and oppression in all its forms." 

Hours later, it was revealed that Trump is shaking up his campaign, naming Breitbart News head Stephen Bannon as executive director, and GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway as manager.   As it turns out, those appointments aren't exactly consistent with Trump's Facebook post. 

As recently as May, Bannon railed against transgender rights during an interview with the American Family Association's Sandy Rios. According to Right Wing Watch, Bannon accused retailer Target of “trying to exclude people who are decent, hard-working people who don’t want their four-year-old daughter to have to go into a bathroom with a guy with a beard in a dress.”

Media Matters has more on Breitbart News' penchant for anti-LGBT reporting:   

Breitbart.com regularly publishes articles with anti-LGBT slurs “trannies” and “faggot” in headlines. Breitbart contributor Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) -- an organization designated as an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center -- is largely the face of Breitbart’s anti-LGBT coverage.

Meanwhile, Conway is a longtime pollster for the anti-LGBTQ National Organization for Marriage, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

In September 2014, Conway appeared on a panel with former NOM President Maggie Gallagher, where they encouraged Libertarians to take up socially conservative causes, Right Wing Watch reports: 

Conway told the crowd that “values voters and libertarians have a great deal in common” from opposition to “big government” and abortion rights to being “sick of lawyers in black robes making stuff up” to a refusal to “redefine” family to be “whatever feels cool.” She also saw an opening to win over libertarians with the Religious Right’s increasing reliance on persecution rhetoric, or what she called the “assault on religious liberty in so many parts of our culture.”

Always Embarrassing Pat Robertson: Homosexuality Will Destroy America

While Trump and his white supremacist supporters play games trying to hide the overt racism that is one of the pillars of Trumpism, locally, here in Hampton Roads we are faced with Pat Robertson once again suffering from a case of diarrhea of the mouth and in the process making the region appear to the world as a bunch of knuckle dragging, demented lunatics.  Robertson's latest nearly incoherent homophobic harangue was about homosexuality destroying America.  In the process he trots the favorite Christofascist lie that every society that has embraced homosexuality has fallen.  As previously addressed on this blog, a major cause of the fall of the Roman Empire was Christianity, not homosexuality.  Likewise, the fall of Classical Greece and other gay accepting societies had nothing to do with acceptance of homosexuality.  Sadly, Robertson plays on the ignorance of his audience.

Here are highlights from Right Wing Watch on Robertson's latest lunatic pronouncements:

The truth is, from what we understand in history, there hasn’t been one nation in the history of the world that has openly embraced homosexual lifestyle and begun to practice the homosexual lifestyle that has endured. Every one of them has gone down. Every single one of them.

Once rampant homosexuality takes place, then people don’t take care of their children, they aren’t concerned about the next generation, they’re concerned about physical pleasure and the activities surrounding this lifestyle, they aren’t planning for the future and the country goes to pot.

Right now it it’s kind of in the balance, it’s kind of interesting, but the fact that the European Union and the U.S. is trying to impose this lifestyle on a little country like Georgia that wants to stay orthodox is incredible.

I don’t know if we intend to but that’s what’s happening. We’re making the nations drunk with the wine of our fornication and God brings judgment on a country that does that.

I met Robertson years ago and, yes, he was an extremists then, but now I seriously think (in my view, at least) that dementia is setting in and I keep wondering when his children are going to shuffle him off to a mental institution.  

Trump Is Surrounding Himself With Vicous Homophobes

Trump and Cruz who Trump as mentioned as a Supreme Court nominee

Some have tried to claim that Donald Trump will be more friendly towards gays than some of his critics maintain.  As a child, I remember having my parents drum in to me and my siblings that you are known by the company you keep.  If one applies that rule to Mr. Trump, he is keeping company with a bunch of virulent homophobes.   A piece in Huffington Post by Michelangelo Signorile looks at the anti-gay elements with whom Trump is not only consorting but also considering for appointments in his administration.  Perhaps most frightening of all is Trump's purported consideration of Ted Cruz for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.  An appointment that might make the late Antonin Scalia look somewhat reasonable.  The take away is that,if one is LGBT or has LGBT friends and family members, you need to register to vote and go to the polls and vote Democrat.  Here are article highlights:

Ben Carson should have been sidelined from GOP politics forever after his presidential campaign tanked. In addition to his major foreign policy gaffes and his bizzaro tax plan, he’d defined himself as a complete troglodyte on social issues, particularly his horrific comments about homosexuality. He’d compared homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality, and said prison turned men toward homosexuality, proving being gay is a “choice.” He claimed that gay marriage would lead to polygamy and bring something akin to “the fall of the Roman Empire.”

But no, Donald Trump has announced that Ben Carson will play a role on his vice presidential selection committee — and Carson is reported to actually be on the VP running mate shortlist himself. Also reported to be on the shortlist is another enemy of LGBT equality, who’s been advising Trump as part of his inner circle for months now and who endorsed Trump early: Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

The GOP senator is among the most anti-LGBT senators in history, scoring a zero continually from the Human Rights Campaign, voting for everything anti-gay that ever came before the Senate, like a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and against everything remotely pro-gay, from a hate crimes bill to protect gays to the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He’s said it would be “a big concern“ to have a gay Supreme Court nominee and attacked the “activist judiciary” that ruled for marriage equality. He opposed Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court in part based on her support for LGBT equality as dean of Harvard Law School.

Also reported on Trump’s short list, and another man who’s been privately advising Trump and publicly praising him, is Newt Gingrich, the perennial homophobe who called gay marriage a “temporary aberration“ and compared it to paganism. In 2014 he implied the LGBT rights movement was inspiring the left’s “new fascism.”

Others on the shortlist, all of whom have been talking with or advising Trump to varying degrees are; Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin, who said gay marriage violates “religious freedom,” successfully fought hard against LGBT rights measures in her state, dropped benefits for all couples in the Oklahoma National Guard rather than give benefits to same-sex couples and whom Trump said would be a “great” VP pick; Chris Christie, who’s opposed gay marriage for years as a bully to equality in New Jersey; and Florida governor Rick Scott, who fought marriage equality, supports allowing religious-based adoption agencies to turn away gay couples (and is opposed to adoption by gays altogether, though didn’t fight a court ruling) and who signed an anti-gay law as recently as this past March.

Trump also will soon release his picks for Supreme Court justices, saying he would choose them in the “mold” of the late virulently anti-gay Antonin Scalia, and even floated in recent days the idea of putting that homophobe from hell, Ted Cruz, on the high court.

Looking at who he’s surrounding himself with now, and the fact that he’s received huge support from evangelical voters as well their leaders, like Jerry Falwell Jr., it’s even more clear that, like Ronald Reagan, no gay friends from the past will likely get in the way of Trump dutifully bowing to moralists who helped put him in office.

Trump is himself opposed to marriage equality and told religious conservatives during a Christian Broadcasting Network interview to “trust me” to overturn what he called the “shocking” Obergefell ruling from the Supreme Court on marriage equality. While it would be quite difficult to overturn Obergefell, it’s safe to say, looking at who Donald Trump is turning to now, that it’s not likely there will be any progress on LGBT rights — and quite likely there could be great harm to them — under a Trump presidency.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore Again Proves He is Unfit for the Bench

Anti-gay extremist and modern day Pharisee Roy Moore

One of the most basic things that one learns in law school - actually in most high school government classes - is that the United States Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court rulings on federal constitutional issues trump ALL of the state constitutions and the rulings of state supreme courts.  Yet this simple concept is too much for mental midget and religious nutcase Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore who today released an order basically directing all Alabama probate judges (whose offices issue marriage licenses) to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hughes, that struck down ALL state gay marriage bans.  Moore is unfit for the bench - and I mean any court position - and needs to be permanently removed from the Alabama Supreme Court.  He is an embarrassment to the State of Alabama and makes a mockery of the judicial system.  As I have often noted, Alabama was far more sane 30+ years ago when I lived there compared to now when the state government seems controlled by ignorance embracing Christofascists.  Thankfully, some of the state's probate judges are ignoring Moore's invalid order.  The New Civil Rights Movement has details.  Here are highlights:

Wednesday morning Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore issued an order claiming the Supreme Court's ruling last June that found a constitutional right to marriage by same-sex couples applies only to the four states that were a party to the Obergefell lawsuit. It's a legal tactic the federal courts will at some point soon be forced into, but for now, according to Justice Moore, probate judges are not to be issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Of course, if a probate judge actually follow's Moore's order, they may find themselves the defendant in a federal lawsuit.

For now, Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis, who was the subject of a related lawsuit over marriage licenses for same-sex couples, is once again refusing to issue licenses to any couples, as Buzzfeed reports. 

“Well, we have closed,” Russell Davidson, a supervisor of the court’s division that handles marriage licenses, told BuzzFeed News. “At this time, we are not issuing any licenses until further notice.”

But Montgomery County is taking a different course of action. One employee told Buzzfeed they “are issuing licenses until further notice. Our marriage department is open.”

And Montgomery County Probate Judge Steven Reed posted this tweet in response to Justice Moore's decree:

Judge Moore's latest charade is just sad & pathetic. My office will ignore him & this.

DeKalb, Limestone, Marshall, Lauderdale, Morgan, and Franklin Counties are all issuing licenses to all couples. Madison County is accepting applications but not issuing licenses until further notice. 

Meanwhile, the ACLU has some advice for Justice Moore and the probate judges of Alabama: this has already been decided in federal court.

And State Rep. Patricia Todd, who is Alabama's first openly-gay lawmaker, notes the same, that "Probate Judges are under a federal court order to adhere to the SCOTUS decision. If they follow Moore's lead they can and will be held in contempt in federal court." She told the Montgomery Advertiser if Judge Moore "wants to waste the taxpayers' money, go ahead, but we're not going backwards."

Mobile is a very nice city and Don Davis is seriously harming the city's reputation.  I'd also add that as a member of the Alabama State Bar,  I believe it is time for the Bar to call for Moore's removal from the Alabama Supreme Court.

America's Toxic Masculinity Crisis

Being gay, one is often only too aware of the toxicity of "real man" Masculinity in Virginia.  Gays by definition pose a threat to the sensibilities and self-esteem of those whose sense of self-worth depends on their macho self-image and desperate need to be a "real man."  In the wake of the recent Oregon mass shooting, it appears that the killer,  Christopher Harper-Mercer may have been one such psychologically unbalanced American male who held a grudge against women and clung to the trappings of supposed masculinity, including an obsession with guns.  A piece in Salon looks at the shooter and the frightening online world that he seeming lived in.  Here are excerpts:

In the wake of any tragedy, there’s a natural impulse to wonder: How did this happen? Who was to blame for this? In the week since Christopher Harper-Mercer’s execution of nine students at an Oregon community college, the question has become the same: Who is at fault here? 

Wedged among the proliferation of dank memes, choruses of copycat threats, violent Pepe .gifs, and cries of “Beta Uprising,” the 4chan forum /r9k/ might be closest to actually having an answer. According to the users, women were to blame for this rampage: If “the sluts” had just given it up to Mercer, he might never have gone on to murder innocent people. As horrible as 4chan may be, this claim is seemingly backed up by Mercer’s own words. In the days leading up to the attack, he posted complaints on a number of online forums about being chaste against his wishes. In his rambling manifesto left at the scene of the crime, he reportedly wrote: “I am going to die friendless, girlfriendless, and a virgin.”

Mercer’s frustration and rage at being a virgin likely contributed to his lashing out at innocent bystanders. But the real issue wasn’t that Mercer was a virgin and that this whole thing could have been avoided with a pity-fuck. The problem is that Mercer—like the community that it seems he was a part of—felt that he wasn’t a “real” man because of it.

The state of being a man is a compilation of external influences that ultimately define whether someone is a “real” man or not. Guns, sex, and money serve as a sort of holy trinity for traditional masculinity, the tropes by which a supposedly true man is known. When it’s stripped down to its toxic core, “what is a man” ends up being defined by how many chicks he can bang, how much ass he can kick, and how much money and “status” he has. 

Of course, for all the swaggering machismo and bravado of these would-be alphas, their concept of masculinity is so fragile that a trending Twitter hashtag can threaten it. When we define so many aspects of “manhood” as being external to just existing, it means that manhood is something that can be taken away from you at any time.

[P]art of being “a man” in the traditional, hyper-masculine sense means being a virile sex machine. A (male) virgin is, thus, an aberration, a mistake, and a pretender who doesn’t deserve his penis. The incel boards and forums are full of young men complaining about how they’re subhuman, genetic refuse that mistakenly made it off the production line. They live in deep pain and resentment over the fact that they are not men the way they feel like they should be.

The more than men believe in the tropes of traditional masculinity and gender roles, the more they feel the pressure to live up to them, and the more pain they feel when they believe they fall short. But they can’t express that pain. After all, the traditional masculine man isn’t allowed to express pain, weakness, fear, or insecurity. They’re expected to be stoic, a silent pillar of strength. Their only acceptable emotion is anger. 

Violence is somethinganyone can do. When you’re feeling powerless, then you take that power back—preferably from someone else.

In fact, a study published in the medical journal Injury Prevention documents this phenomenon quite clearly: Men who feel the most male discrepancy stress (that is, who feel the worst about not being manly enough) are also the most likely to have committed violent assaults on others, as well as committing assaults with a weapon.
 
Gun manufacturers post advertisements featuring loving images of big, erect rifles with the caption: “Consider your man-card reissued.” The message is clear: You may not measure up, but you can buy a substitute to make up for it, chock full of copper-jacketed death sperm.

Charles Harper-Mercer felt he couldn’t measure up as a man by being a lover, so he decided to show the world just how big his semi-automatic murder penis was.

Mercer was someone who was obsessed with the trappings of masculinity that he felt he couldn’t measure up to and lashed out, as statistics show that so many do.

We need to recognize just how damaging it is to sell the idea of men at their worst—brutish, violent and barely in control of themselves—is the only way to be a “real” man. We’ve stuck ourselves with a toxic idea of masculinity where you continually have to prove you’re a man—being willing to hurt others in order to do so—instead of manhood being something inherent.

The defenders of toxic masculinity love to portray those who don’t conform as being unmanly or beta white-knight manginas—sexual quislings who seek to betray their gender because they can’t measure up. It’s a way of derailing the conversation, to pit people against one another rather than to accept the truth: This form of masculinity has failed us. It doesn’t produce men; it produces anger, rage, and pain. It teaches us that the only way to be a man is to aspire to be the worst in us. We can do better. We can be better.

Obviously, I hold these "real man" types in low regard.  They hold gays in low regard if not contempt, but it's really only because they hold themselves in such low regard and because gays threaten their sense of masculinity.   Behind most "real man" types you will find a homophobe worried about his own lack of masculinity regardless of the outward bravado.

New Study: Homophobic People Are Actually More Likely To Be Gay

News flash for Rick Santorum, Ken Cuccinelli, Bryan Fischer, Mike Huckabee, most of the Catholic Church hierarchy, et al - a new study has confirmed a prior finding: homophobic individuals are more likely to be gay themselves.  Thus, the saying that "thou doth protest too much" is directly on target.  Hopefully, the findings will be widely disseminated and when a raging homophobe begins an anti-gay tirade, the assumption will be that they are a self-loathing closet case.  Here are highlights from the Huffington Post:

A study has found that people who display homophobic tendencies are more likely to be gay.

Teams at the University of Rochester in New York, the University of California and the University of Essex found that individuals who identify as straight, often showed a strong attraction to the same sex in psychological tests.

Netta Weinstein, a lecturer at the University of Essex and the study's lead author, said that these individuals "may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves". 

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The study analysed four separate experiments conduced in the US and Germany, which provided evidence that homophobia is in fact 'external manifestation of repressed sexual desires'.

Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester in New York, said that: "People who have homophobic attitudes, who are more prejudice or discriminatory against gay people, are themselves more likely to have a discrepancy between their unconscious attractions to same-sex partners than what they are aware of.

"Those people who have such discrepancies, who have really a split between their unconscious attraction and what they consciously say about themselves, are more likely to come from authoritarian homes." 

"If you are a parent who really believes your child should be straight, and when you use whatever means you can to convince them them that they're only good and worthy if they are, that would be very controlling and it creates a lot of conflict in the child."

Professor Ryan concludes that the way that children process and resolve this information is to act out in a discriminatory or hateful way towards gay and lesbian people.

It's hoped that the findings might help to explain the dynamics behind bullying and hate crimes.

Religious Freedom Restoration Acts Are Not About Religious Liberty

Negative reactions to Indiana's disingenuously named Religious Freedom Restoration Act continue, yet similar acts are making their way through legislatures in Georgia and Arkansas - Arkansas' governor has said he will sign the foul act if it gets to his desk - all in the supposed name of "protecting religious freedom."  Such claims are a lie and are nothing less than an attack on the religious freedom of non-Christofascists and a special license to allow the "godly folk" to discriminate and mistreat others.  A piece in Patheos looks at the hypocrisy and lies behind these acts.  Here are highlights:

There has been a firestorm in the media over the past 24 hours as Indiana’s House of Representatives passed a bill that exempts individuals and businesses from having to comply with the discrimination rulings based on their religious convocations. At the same time in Georgia, another RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) has been approved by the House judiciary subcommittee and is rapidly moving towards becoming law. Advocates are promoting both bills as necessary legislation to bolster religious freedom and protect business owners and private citizens from being forced to provide services to anyone that they disagree with on the basis of their faith.

But embedded in this logic are a number of untruths that, when exposed, unravel the entire argument. First, almost every state in the country already has comprehensive and sufficient religious freedom protections. In no state is it viable to suggest that a Christian pastor could face legal action if they refuse to perform a gay wedding. Our first amendment rights alone offer substantial coverage from such actions. However, it is true that in many states, if a business owner refuses to extend their business to a customer on the basis of religious beliefs, they could face legal action for discrimination, as they should.

Since the founding of our country, we have strived to be a nation that upholds the fundamental dignity of every individual. Yet, when a lesbian couple walks in to a bakery to order a cake for their wedding and is turned away because of their sexual orientation, this act of discrimination clearly undermines their equality and dignity as American citizens and human beings. If a business owner believes that Islam is a “false religion”, he could refuse to provide services to any Muslim patron who walks through the door of his business. This too dehumanizes individuals and reinstitutes principles of discrimination and segregation. It is clear that these bills open Pandora’s box, allowing for discrimination to flourish and setting back our country decades in our progression towards equality.

Despite the fearful picture that is being painted by many legislators and religious leaders about the future of our country once marriage equality is passed, this reality remains true: The religious beliefs and convictions of all Americans are fully protected by both national and state law in all 50 states. No individual will ever be forced to promote or renounce a religious belief and no churches will ever be made to offer sacraments to those they deem unfit. 

It is true, however, that public businesses and corporations that serve the general public will be required to offer fair and equal treatment and service to all people- regardless of their race, creed, political party, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, or gender identity. And it is this that new RFRA bills are subversively trying to dismantle.

Can you imagine walking up to a store window and seeing a sign that says, “No LGBTQ People Allowed”. Would you want to support that retailer? What if it said, “No Jews Allowed”? This is essentially what RFRA’s will allow businesses across their state to do, recreating the climate that existed in our country prior to the Civil Rights Movement.

[E]ven though legislators in Indiana and Georgia are claiming to be “bolstering the protection of religious liberty”, they’re really just trying to legalize discrimination against LGBTQ and any other individuals that they disagree with.

Reasons to Be Optimistic for Marriage Equality at SCOTUS

As noted earlier in the week, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court's most vociferous homophobes, whined when the Court refused to extend the stay that had put same sex marriages on hold.  Meanwhile, an editorial in the Mobile Press Register similarly whines and shows that the column's author is an idiot given his lack of understanding of what the issues were before the Court in Windsor (only Sec. 3 of DOMA was under challenge).  Candidly, the Court's action makes perfect sense given its past refusals to take appeals from Court of Appeals rulings that struck down state marriage bans. And, as a column in The Advocate lays out, this week's action may signal how the Court will rule come June.  Here are excerpts:

It's impossible to predict exactly how the Supreme Court will rule on the marriage equality cases currently before it, but it's getting easier and easier to make a confident guess. Just ask Clarence Thomas.

Earlier this week, the court denied a request for a stay in Alabama, and Justice Clarence Thomas's dissent telegraphed a few key signals about the court's momentum toward equality. In addition, several recent court decisions all seem to indicate that the court already has a consensus that state bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.


Here are the key reasons Thomas lays out for why the court is unwilling to delay marriage equality, even though Thomas opposes that conclusion:

1. Weak Case from Antigay States . . . . Thomas indicates the other justices seem confident that Alabama would not be able to show that marriages would cause any harm.

2. Court's Approach Has Evolved . . . . the court has turned down stay requests, allowing marriage to begin immediately in several states. Cases that saw stays denied by the high court include the Florida case, Armstrong v. Brenner; the South Carolina case Wilson v. Condon; and the Kansas case Moser v. Marie.


3. Court Declined to Hear Cases in Which Bans Were Overturned. . . . Although it's only briefly mentioned in the dissent, the Supreme Court's refusal to hear pro-equality rulings is also worthy of note. Late in 2014, several states sent marriage cases to the Supreme Court, with the expectation that the justices would hear the cases. But the justices declined, effectively affirming the pro-equality rulings from lower courts. . . . . In his dissent, Thomas notes that he would have wanted to review the pro-equality rulings, but was unable to muster enough support from his colleagues.
 
4. ...But Accepted Cases in Which Bans Were Upheld.  In fact, the Supreme Court only accepted subsequent marriage equality petitions after a lower court upheld marriage bans, creating what is known as a "circuit split." . . . .  Clearly, that means that something has changed in the several months between the court's granting of the Utah stay and denying a stay in Alabama. It's impossible to say what happened, but it seems that a consensus may have emerged at the court behind the scenes, that a pro-equality ruling is inevitable.

5. Marriage Equality Is Becoming the Status Quo. Usually the Supreme Court defers to status quo, upholding existing laws until they are fully reviewed. Going slow, maintaining consistency, and avoiding rapid changes in the law are high priorities for the court. The fact that the court allowed marriage to begin in Alabama, as well as several other states, could mean that the justices expect marriage equality to be the new status quo. . . . Advocates who want to see the freedom to marry secured nationwide certainly hope Thomas's prediction is correct.

Ultimately Thomas seems as though he's readying to concede defeat.

Batshitery: Georgia GOP Candidate Claims There's A Secret Gay Plot To Sodomize Your Children

Hardly a day goes by when the somewhere in the GOP a striking demonstration is made of just who batshit crazy the party has become. GOP apologists try to depict such insanity as "exceptions" as opposed to the rule, but the frequency of such outbursts make it clear that the GOP has lurched off into crazy land.  The cause of such lunacy?  The rise of the Christofascists in the GOP.  The latest example of GOP batshitery comes from Georgia where Jody Hice, a pastor, talk radio host, and GOP runoff Congressional candidate has stated that the gay community had a secret plan to attract and sodomize children.The proof of this supposed plot?  None.  It's all in Hice's delusional, anti-gay animus filled mind.  Hice also believes that Muslims should have no first amendment rights.  The fact that Hice is a runoff candidate indicates that he is NOT some rogue exception.  Here are details from Talking Points Memo:

Jody Hice, pastor, talk radio host, and one of the Republicans in a runoff to replace Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), argued that the gay community had a secret plan to attract and sodomize children. 

That's according to Hice in his 2012 book "It's Now or Never: A Call To Reclaim America." The claim was highlighted by Mother Jones on Wednesday.

Hice (pictured) also likened people in same-sex relationships to incest or bestiality. 

"People love all kinds of other people and things, but that does not grant permission for marriage," Hice wrote. "It is illegal to marry a child or a sibling. It is illegal to marry a pet, which many people love dearly."

Hice managed to secure a runoff spot in the race for Broun's seat on Tuesday night. In July he'll face Michael Collins in the race.

He argues that Muslims shouldn't have first amendment rights and that people who support abortion rights are worse than Adolf Hitler. And Hice contends that being gay causes depression and shorter life spans.

There's more though. Hice, in his book, also calls local law enforcement in Elmira, New York "the Gestapo" after they arrested anti-gay demonstrators. 

Sadly, Hice is the true face of today's Republican Party.  It is frightening.