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Trump Post Photo With Virulently Anti-Gay Pastor

Trump with anti-gay extremist Robert Jeffress

For any gays who might be falling for Donald Trump's bullshit line that he'd "keep the LGBT community safer," they'd be well advised to take a look at the company Trump is keeping and pay attention this week as Trump meets with the pantheon of anti-LGBT religious leaders and professional Christians this coming week.  Personally, I am a loss as to how someone who has stated that he wants to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell can be considered a friend or ally. The Advocate shares my views and has a piece on Trump's cavorting with anti-gay nutcase Robert Jeffress among others.  Here are some article excerpts:

If Donald Trump is a friend to “the gays,” he has a downright clueless way of showing it. 

The Republican presidential candidate, who has been making the case these days that he’s better for LGBT people than Hillary Clinton, retweeted a thumbs-up photo of him on Friday with his good pal, antigay pastor Robert Jeffress. The pastor said he was “honored to pray for my friend” at a Dallas rally together. In the past, he's also said 70 percent of gays have AIDS, that there's a direct link between homosexuality and pedophilia, and a lot more.

[The[ following [is an] accounting of some of the absolute worst moments from Jeffress’ repertoire. It bears repeating now:

- In 1998, Jeffress checked out all the books from a Wichita Falls library that were inclusive of gay parents and promised never to return them. His protest led to many more copies of Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy's Roommate being donated to the library, and a waiting list formed just to check them out.

- Jeffress gave a two-part sermon in July 2007 called "Homosexuality Is a Perversion." In it, he complained that "homosexuality is being crammed down our throats" by activists who are using "brainwashing techniques." To help his congregation stay vigilant, he listed the supposed techniques in their Sunday program. 

- Jeffress got a lot of attention in 2008 for a “Why Gay Is Not OK” sermon during which he called homosexuality "a twisting of God's plan" and said there is no such thing as Christian LGBT people, who he said are "worshipping a God of their own imagination." 

- In August 2011, Jeffress gave a sermon titled "What to Say to Those Who Are Gay" and in it he misrepresented a Dutch study and told his followers that "the idea of long-term homosexual relationships is a myth."

- Jeffress introduced presidential candidate Rick Perry during the Values Voters Summit in October 2011 and during an interview said gays should be kept out of the military because "70 percent of the gay population" has AIDS, adding "it's a fact that it's a gay disease." 

- Also in July [2012], Jeffress compared being gay to bestiality while a guest on The Janet Mefferd Show. "The retort to that is 'oh! Are you pulling a Rick Santorum and saying that homosexuality is like bestiality, uh, incest, or pedophilia'? And I say 'Yes.'" he told the radio host, according to audio from RightWingWatch. "It is just as immoral as those practices. 

- In December, Jeffress warned his congregants that if the United States doesn't stop same-sex marriage and "turn away and say no to what God has called an abomination" then the country is doomed. 

With friends like Trump and his buddy Jeffress, do we really need an enemy?

ABC Rightly Dumps Tony Perkins From Sunday News Show

I and many others have been arguing for years that no reputable news channel should ever offer a platform to hate group leader Tony Perkins who has documented white supremacist ties and who heads an organization certified as an anti-gay hate group.  Indeed, recently a petition was launched making this argument.  Now, finally, someone at ABC News finally got the message as Perkins was unceremoniously dropped from a panel on The Week that was to discuss the Orlando massacre.   For years Perkins has been preaching anti-gay animus and outright lies yet time and again he'd be given a platform.. Seriously, would someone who advocated lynching blacks or murdering Jews have been given a platform?  Think Progress looks at what will hopefully become a trend among news organizations and cause Perkins and his like to be banned from networks that want to be considered responsible and interested in objective fact.  Here are highlights:

This week, a prominent news agency considered offering a platform to the leader of an anti-LGBT hate group to discuss the Orlando shooting, then quietly dropped him from the show without ever mentioning that it was a bad idea in the first place.

On Friday morning, ABC News released a preview of its guest line-up for This Week, its Sunday morning political talk show. Among those listed to join the “Powerhouse Roundtable” was Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC).

FRC has long been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a prominent anti-LGBT hate-group, and Perkins himself has a notorious reputation for his anti-LGBT vitriol. Though he often tames his rhetoric in mainstream news appearances to sound like his anti-gay views represent all U.S. Christians, he then tells FRC’s audiences things like that homosexuality leads to “eternal damnation” and is “harmful” to individuals “and to society as a whole.”

In the past, FRC spokespeople have even tried to blame other shootings on the advance of LGBT equality.

The group Faithful America quickly launched a petition calling on ABC to drop Perkins from the lineup. Noting that Perkins “has repeatedly accused gay men of molesting children,” the petition also pointed out that no other Christian leader was scheduled to offer a different perspective on behalf of people of faith. This is a recurring problem in media; evangelicals and other conservative Christians are over-represented in media appearances, but progressive faith voices and representatives from the Humanist, atheist, and agnostic communities are severely underrepresented.

Southern Poverty Law Center has a rundown of the vile things Perkins regularly says about the LGBT community here.  Perkins and his hate-filled followers truly need to become social and political lepers who are shunned by decent, moral people and by politicians who want to be considered anything more than demagogues and/or pandering whores. 

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The Self-Centeredness of Christofascists

I often state that the most selfish and self-centered people you will ever meet are the Christofascists who whine incessantly about their piety and godliness even as they hate nearly everyone around them and seek to trample on the rights and sensibilities of others.  It is ALWAYS about them and blocking anything, no matter how trivial, that might suggest that there are views and beliefs other than there on.  In the aftermath of the Orlando massacre of LGBT Americans, the Hillsborough County government building flew a rainbow flag as a sign of respect for the victims and their families.  True to form, that simple gesture resulted in spittle fleck rants and claims that the mere presence of the flag created a "hostile work environment" in the minds of at least one self-absorbed Christofascist.  It truly is difficult to comprehend how disgusting and reprehensible these people are.  Yet some politicians still rush to kiss there asses and prostitute themselves to them.  The Tampa Bay Times has coverage of this outrageous story.  Here are highlights:

TAMPA -- A pride flag waving outside the Hillsborough County center was meant to be a sign of respect and remembrance for the victims of the shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando.

But just a day after it was raised, Commissioner Stacy White said it may be offending Christian employees and questioned whether it should be taken down.

In an email sent to the the county human relations director Peggy Rowe on Thursday, White said he received an anonymous complaint from a county employee that the presence of the flag was “nearly unbearable” for her to pass on her way to work and created a "hostile work environment."

Calling the rainbow flag a “divisive, politically-charged symbol,” White asked Rowe if it could become an HR problem for the county. If it does, then White said he wanted a special meeting of the county commission to consider removing it.

Commissioners voted 5-1 on Wednesday to hang the flag for the rest of June, which is Pride Month, after 49 people were killed at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando on Sunday. The shooter, Omar Mateen, reportedly targeted the bar because it is a well-known LGBT hangout. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

White, a Republican who represents east Hillsborough County, was not present for the meeting. The flag was raised immediately after Wednesday’s meeting.

In addition to raising the pride flag, the commission voted to recognize June as LGBT pride month every year and hold a candlelight vigil each year on June 12 to remember the victims of the Orlando shooting.

While I don't advocate violence, it's hard to think that the Pulse shooter killed the wrong people. White and the cowardly anonymous employee personify the foul nature of the "godly folk" and their political whores in the GOP.  

Anti-Gay Pam Bondi Furious that Anderson Cooper Exposed Her Hypocrisy

One of the positive things to come out of the Orlando tragedy is that a few anti-gay Republicans were exposed for the hypocrites and hate merchants that they are.  Perhaps the most delicious take down was that of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi who has made a career out of opposing LGBT equality.  In the aftermath of the massacre at Pulse, Bondi was eagerly trying to maximize her photo opportunities and professed utterly false concern for the victims and their families and the LGBT community in general.  During an interview with Cooper on his national show, Bondi's anti-LGBT record was exposed and since then she's been having conniption fits that her hypocrisy and animus toward the LGBT community was spotlighted on national TV.   Gaystar News looks at Bondi's continued whining.  Here are highlights:

Florida’s Attorney General is still furious with Anderson Cooper. 

Pam Bondi tells Fox News the CNN anchor ‘basically mocked me’ during an interview this week about her efforts to help those impacted by the mass shooting inside of gay nightclub in Orlando that left 49 people dead.

Cooper called Bondi out for what he saw as hypocrisy because she fought against making same-sex marriage legal in her state writing that it would ‘induce public harm.’

‘I get it. He’s hurt,’ she said of the openly gay Cooper.  ‘He is a champion of the LGBT community. But you know, that’s a time for us to come together … Emotions are high. I saw later that he had cried when he was reading the names. let’s just focus on unity and love. He basically mocked me for saying that.’

Bondi added that she wanted to talk about some fundraising scams that had been popping up since the killings.

‘He just flipped on me,’ she said. ‘There’s a time and place for everything. If he wants to ask me about doing my job, defending the constitution, but to incite anger and hatred–was not the time nor the place in front of a hospital.’

Cooper defended his line of questioning on Thursday: ‘It’s my job to hold people accountable. And if on Sunday a politician is talking about love and embracing “Our LGBT community,” I don’t think it’s unfair to look at their record and see if they have actually ever spoken that way publicly before. Which I never heard her say.’

Cooper added that ‘there is irony’ to the fact that Bondi is now championing her effort to help the gay community, including attack survivors, with ‘the very right which allows gay spouses to bury their dead and loved ones’ which he points out, is “a right that would not exist if Ms. Bondi had had her way. I think it’s fair to ask her about that.’

In my book, Anderson is to be lauded and I wish more news anchors and reporters would expose hypocrites the way Bondi was taken down.  It was delicious!! 

U.S. Bishops’ Silence on Guns and Gays

In the aftermath of the Orlando massacre, Pope Francis could not bring himself to allow the word "gay" or term "LGBT" to come from his lips. Likewise, Francis ignored the Roman Catholic Church's active efforts to keep anti-LGBT animus alive and well.  At its recent gathering, the U.S. Conference of Bishops did no better and one leading hate merchant even implied that it was the 49 victims "lifestyle choice" that caused their deaths.  Indeed only one bishop acknowledged the Church's complicity in engendering anti-LGBT hate.   A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at this continued moral bankruptcy from a group of nasty old men who claim to be the arbitrators of morality.   Here are excerpts:

The U.S. Catholic bishops met in Huntington Beach, California this week, just days after the Orlando massacre. And despite the fact that the church’s most powerful prelates were all gathered together at a time when the nation is desperate for pastoral leadership to counter the vitriol spewing from Donald Trump and his ilk, this was the official, and only, USCCB statement on the massacre released by conference president Archbishop Joseph Kurtz:

Waking up to the unspeakable violence in Orlando reminds us of how precious human life is. Our prayers are with the victims, their families and all those affected by this terrible act. The merciful love of Christ calls us to solidarity with the suffering and to ever greater resolve in protecting the life and dignity of every person.

It’s an amazingly tepid, generic statement in the face of such tragedy that touches on two areas of special concern to the bishops: guns and gays. While the bishops’ conference officially backs gun control proposals put forward by President Obama and the Democratic Party, it has put almost no energy into pushing for them.

The bishops’ silence on animus toward the LGBT community is more understandable, although no more acceptable, given their own role in fostering it by suggesting that the legalization of same-sex marriage was some kind of cultural Armageddon and that refusing to accommodate gay people is a protected form of religious martyrdom. Only Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Florida, had the guts to admit that the Catholic Church was complicit in fostering a culture of hostility toward the gay community.

By comparison, in his statement on the massacre, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone revealed the dark heart of what so many in the church’s leadership believe to be the truth about LGTB individuals:

…we stand in solidarity with all those affected by this atrocity, regardless of race, religion, or personal lifestyle.

That’s right, it’s too bad your “personal lifestyle” got you killed. Just as the Catholic Church still insists on referring to LGBT individuals as “people who experience same-sex attraction,” the church offers its sympathy with a not-to-pointed reminder that ultimately it believes homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism are lifestyle choices that can be rejected, and indeed must be rejected, to be fully accepted by the church.

But conservatives within the church will continue to push the line that it’s an “abortion mentality”—as well as a lack of respect for the special sacredness of heterosexual, procreative sex—that allows all forms of violence to flourish, ultimately making gay people, not guns, responsible for the violence visited upon them.

Frankly, I am proud that I am no longer a Catholic - and that all of my family have likewise walked away from the poison that Catholicism has become.

Will November Be a Nightmare for the GOP?

Some former Republicans like myself are smiling with satisfaction as the Republican Party begins to realize that its embrace of ignorance, bigotry and religious extremism over the last two decades as embodied by Donald Trump and his racist, uneducated supporters, may lead to a electoral disaster. For me, nothing would give me more pleasure than to see the GOP lose the presidential election, lose control of the U.S. Senate, and either lose control of or be greatly weakened in the House of Representatives.   For years the GOP has had no long term plan to face the changing demographics and social views of Americans.  For that, not to mention the misogyny it supports, the GOP deserves to die.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at growing Republican concerns that they may be about to reap what they have sown.  Here are highlights: 

The hole that Donald Trump has dug for himself keeps getting deeper. On nearly every front, his position continues to deteriorate. Unless he reverses course, Republicans are heading toward a wrenching week at their convention in Cleveland next month, and potentially worse in November.

National polls alone provide an incomplete picture of the current state of the presidential race, but the shifts over the past few weeks should make Republicans beyond nervous.
What looked like a tight contest between Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in late May has morphed into a Trump deficit that cannot be wished away.
The RealClearPolitics poll average now gives Clinton a lead of almost six percentage points over Trump, a marked shift from a month ago. Perhaps even more telling is that every poll on the RCP list that was conducted entirely in June showed Clinton leading. That’s a change from May, when several polls showed Trump leading narrowly.
Given the terrible two weeks Trump has gone through, it is no surprise that the trend line also indicates that Clinton’s lead is widening. The last four polls on the list — all completed in the past week — put her lead at 12, nine, five and six points. Four polls completed earlier in June showed her with leads of three, four, eight and three points.Clinton’s favorable rating was just 43 percent — about the same number she is drawing in a ballot test — while her unfavorable rating was 55 percent. Trump’s favorable rating was a crippling 29 percent, with 70 percent of the public saying they have an unfavorable view of him. A majority of adults — 56 percent — said they have a strongly unfavorable view of him, including one-fifth of Republicans.All of this has put Republicans on edge about November. Trump is frustrated that leading Republicans have not all coalesced behind his candidacy, but without some change on his part, he could be an island of his own in November. Fear of a Clinton presidency remains the lone rationale for many Republicans who otherwise recoil from remarks Trump has made lately.Some of Trump’s supporters have grown weary trying to defend him. Others who put Trump on notice after he attacked on racial grounds the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit against Trump University have found little since to convince them that the presumptive nominee will meet the standard they would like to see. In fact, after Trump’s attack on Muslims in the aftermath of last Sunday’s mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, he seems further than ever from meeting that test.The GOP’s Senate majority is at risk. Republicans hope they can insulate vulnerable Senate incumbents from the Trump effect, but that is no easy task. Only a clean break with the presumptive nominee will give those senators the freedom to campaign on their own. Even the most tepid of endorsements would leave them answerable to everything he might say or do over the next four-plus months.
Despite the obvious weaknesses of Clinton as a candidate, her campaign operation is now far better prepared to wage a general-election campaign than is Trump’s.  . . . . At some point, Priebus may be under pressure to cut loose the candidate at the top of the ticket to save others down the ballot, just as happened in the closing days of the 1996 campaign when the RNC jettisoned presidential nominee Robert Dole in a successful effort to preserve the GOP’s House and Senate majorities.[I]t looks increasingly as if it could become a referendum on Donald Trump, and right now, that’s the last thing Republicans want this fall.

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