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Tag: homophobia

  • U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers builds team of religious bigots, election deniers – Detroit Metro Times

    U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers has assembled a campaign team of extremist pastors and activists who have long opposed LGBTQ+ rights and promoted false claims about election fraud, a Metro Times review shows. 

    Rogers, a former FBI agent and Republican congressman who narrowly lost the 2024 Senate race to Democrat Elissa Slotkin, launched his 2026 Senate bid in April. As part of his campaign, he created a “Faith Coalition Leadership Team” whose members include hard-right conservatives with well-documented histories of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and attempts to overturn or undermine past election results. The team includes members who openly opposed gay marriage and LGBTQ+ rights, encouraged the practice of conversion therapy on minors, and shared extreme anti-gay rhetoric that included calling LGBTQ+ rights “demonic, satanic, and wicked.”

    The makeup of the council aligns with Rogers’s own record of voting against LGBTQ+ protections during his time in Congress. During his 14 years in the U.S. House, he consistently opposed expanding federal protections for LGBTQ+ people, including voting against efforts to add sexual orientation or gender identity to federal civil rights statutes. More recently, he has criticized Title IX protections for transgender students and has spoken out against transgender athletes participating in school sports.

    One of the most prominent members of the coalition is former Michigan Civil Rights Commissioner Linda Lee Tarver, who repeatedly fought efforts to extend basic protections to LGBTQ+ residents while serving on the commission. In 2017, when Equality Michigan asked the commission to interpret the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act as covering sexual orientation and gender identity, Tarver pushed for an outright rejection, saying, “We’re not here to expand law; it is not within our purview.”

    Tarver’s public statements went even further. On Facebook in February 2021, when President Joe Biden wanted to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes, she wrote that “God designed the husband to be a MAN and the wife to be a WOMAN” and called federal LGBTQ+ protections a “godless, demonic, satanic and wicked agenda of the devil.”

    Another coalition member, Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, has preached that LGBTQ+ civil rights undermine Christian teachings. In June, he insisted that extending civil rights to LGBTQ+ residents will “superimpose your sexuality on our culture,” urging congregants to pray against what he described as an “abomination.”

    Pastor Brian Ford, another coalition member, leads a church that labelled homosexuality as a “sexual perversion” and opposed gay marriage on the grounds that it was unacceptable “in the eyes of god.” The Living Word Church considers homosexuality “unbiblical” and a “sexual perversion.”

    Rogers’s advisory council also includes religious figures and others who tried to overturn or delegitimize past election results.

    Tarver was a vocal supporter of efforts to overturn the 2020 election, petitioning the Michigan Supreme Court to seize ballots, ballot boxes, and poll books in Detroit and to block certification of Biden’s victory. The court rejected her claims. She later joined a failed national Republican-backed lawsuit that sought to stop Michigan’s electors from certifying Biden’s win.

    Another coalition member, attorney Alexandria Taylor, is an election conspiracy theorist who was sanctioned by a Wayne County judge for filing a baseless 2022 lawsuit claiming widespread wrongdoing in Detroit’s election. The judge found the case “devoid of arguable legal merit” and “rife with speculation.”

    Taylor’s lawsuit cited the debunked conspiracy film 2000 Mules as evidence of ballot fraud, despite the movie offering no proof of wrongdoing in Michigan.

    Sewell, a key surrogate for Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, has also peddled discredited conspiracy theories, claiming during the state House Election Integrity Committee that “systemic voter fraud” occurred during the 2024 Detroit election. He also told the committee that “we don’t have fair elections; we’re like China.”

    Meerman, who was also appointed to the coalition, was involved in efforts to undermine the 2020 election and was named an “election denier” by States United Action, a nonpartisan group “with a mission to protect elections.”

    State House Rep. Luke Meerman, R-Coopersville, opposed state legislation in June 2023 that banned Michigan health officials from performing conversion therapy, a harmful and widely discredited practice that purports to be able to change minors’ sexual orientation or gender identity. Later that year, Meerman opposed a bill to extend civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ residents. 

    Coalition member John Damoose, a Republican state senator from Harbor Springs, also opposed both bills. 

    When Rogers announced his coalition last month, he said the members will “lead grassroots outreach to faith communities, building important relationships, sharing Mike’s America First vision, and mobilizing people of faith across Michigan.”

    “This campaign is built on faith, family, and freedom, and I will fight as your next U.S. Senator to defend those values every single day,” Rogers said in a statement at the time. “We look forward to working with this all-star team of faith leaders to protect and defend the religious freedoms that make our state and country the ‘shining city on a hill.’”

    In a statement to Metro Times, Rogers’s campaign downplayed the extreme positions of the coalition members, suggesting Rogers couldn’t possibly know the views of all of them.

    “Mike has had thousands of volunteers for his campaigns. There’s no way for him to know every view of every volunteer—no candidate does,” the campaign said. “These volunteers get involved not because they agree 100% of the time but because they know Mike is the only candidate who can get Michigan working again and deliver for working families.” 

    Responding to Metro Times‘s story, the Michigan Democratic Party denounced Rogers for surrounding himself with divisive figures at a time when residents are already divided.

    “Mike Rogers is surrounding himself with election deniers and extremists who want to ban marriage equality and force conversion therapy on minors—all while championing policies that make life more expensive and rip away health care,” Michigan Democratic Party spokesperson Joey Hannum said. “Instead of focusing on how to make Michigan more welcoming and affordable for everyone, Rogers is running a hateful, out-of-touch campaign that pits neighbors against each other and makes everybody worse off.”


    Steve Neavling

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  • LGBTQ+ community calls out Radio Korea over host’s homophobic comments; station acknowledges but skirts accountability

    You may not be too familiar with LA County Assessor Jeffrey Prang. You’ve probably never heard of the office of the LA County Assessor, or you might only have a vague notion of what it does.

    But with a career in city politics spanning nearly thirty years, he’s among the longest-serving openly gay elected officials in the United States, and for his work serving the people of Los Angeles and championing the rights of the city’s LGBTQ people, the Stonewall Democratic Club is honoring him at their 50th Anniversary Celebration and Awards Night Nov 15 at Beaches Tropicana in West Hollywood.

    Prang moved to Los Angeles from his native Michigan after college in 1991, specifically seeking an opportunity to serve in politics as an openly gay man. In 1997, he was elected to the West Hollywood City Council, where he served for 18 years, including four stints as mayor.

    “I was active in politics, but in Michigan at the time I left, you couldn’t really be out and involved in politics… My life was so compartmentalized. I had my straight friends, my gay friends, my political friends, and I couldn’t really mix and match those things,” he says.

    “One of the things that was really impactful was as you drove down Santa Monica Boulevard and saw those rainbow flags placed there by the government in the median island. That really said, this is a place where you can be yourself. You don’t have to be afraid.” 

    One thing that’s changed over Prang’s time in office is West Hollywood’s uniqueness as a place of safety for the queer community. 

    “It used to be, you could only be out and gay and politically involved if you were from Silver Lake or from West Hollywood. The thought of being able to do that in Downey or Monterey Park or Pomona was foreign. But now we have LGBTQ centers, gay pride celebrations, and LGBT elected officials in all those jurisdictions, something that we wouldn’t have thought possible 40 years ago,” he says.

    Prang’s jump to county politics is emblematic of that shift. In 2014, amid a scandal that brought down the previous county assessor, Prang threw his name in contention for the job, having worked in the assessor’s office already for the previous two years. He beat out eleven contenders in the election, won reelection in 2018 and 2022, and is seeking a fourth term next year.

    To put those victories in perspective, at the time of his first election, Prang represented more people than any other openly gay elected official in the world. 

    Beyond his office, Prang has lent his experience with ballot box success to helping get more LGBT people elected through his work with the Stonewall Democrats and with a new organization he co-founded last year called the LA County LGBTQ Elected Officials Association (LACLEO).

    LACLEO counts more than fifty members, including officials from all parts of the county, municipal and state legislators, and members of school boards, water boards, and city clerks.  

    “I assembled this group to collectively use our elected strength and influence to help impact policy in Sacramento and in Washington, DC, to take advantage of these elected leaders who have a bigger voice in government than the average person, and to train them and educate them to be better advocates on behalf of the issues that are important for us,” Prang says.

    “I do believe as a senior high-level official I need to play a role and have an important voice in supporting our community,” he says. 

    Ok, but what is the LA County assessor, anyway? 

    “Nobody knows what the assessor is. 99% of people think I’m the guy who collects taxes,” Prang says.

    The assessor makes sure that all properties in the county are properly recorded and fairly assessed so that taxes can be levied correctly. It’s a wonky job, but one that has a big impact on how the city raises money for programs.

    And that wonkiness suits Prang just fine. While the job may seem unglamorous, he gleefully boasts about his work overhauling the office’s technology to improve customer service and efficiency, which he says is proving to be a role model for other county offices.

    “I inherited this 1970s-era mainframe green screen DOS-based legacy system. And believe it or not, that’s the standard technology for most large government agencies. That’s why the DMV sucks. That’s why the tax collection system sucks. But I spent $130 million over almost 10 years to rebuild our system to a digitized cloud-based system,” Prang says.

    “I think the fact that my program was so successful did give some impetus to the board funding the tax collector and the auditor-controller to update their system, which is 40 years behind where they need to be.”

    More tangible impacts for everyday Angelenos include his outreach to promote tax savings programs for homeowners, seniors, and nonprofits, and a new college training program that gives students a pipeline to good jobs in the county.

    As attacks on the queer community intensify from the federal government, Prang says the Stonewall Democrats are an important locus of organization and resistance, and he encourages anyone to get involved.

    “It is still an important and relevant organization that provides opportunities for LGBTQ people to get involved, to have an impact on our government and our civic life. If you just wanna come and volunteer and donate your time, it provides that, if you really want to do more and have a bigger voice and move into areas of leadership, it provides an opportunity for that as well,” he says.

    Kristie Song

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  • Taylor Swift Fans Hit Back At MIND-BOGGLINGLY Bad Faith The Life Of A Showgirl Takes! – Perez Hilton

    It has been A WEEK!

    Just seven days after the midnight release of Taylor Swift‘s twelfth album, The Life of a Showgirl has inexplicably become her most controversial. But are the lyrics really that offensive? Or is it the listeners who got… weird?

    Look, we’re not talking about the intentional spicy lines, like Actually Romantic seemingly igniting a feud with Charli XCX, letting everyone know she might have her more controversial friends’ backs on CANCELLED!, or getting dirtier than she’s ever gotten singing about Travis Kelce‘s Wood. All that we expected. No, these are takes we could never have anticipated because, well… frankly they’re such leaps in logic they defy reason!

    Tradwife Propaganda

    Listeners are interpreting her desire to get married and have children as… conservative tradwife propaganda. Um… WHAT?!?

    Y’all. The patriarchal tradwife thing is not about wanting a husband and kids. It’s actually the opposite! That’s about women being forced into the position of being a full-time wife and baby factory — because they’re seen as the property of men. Taylor saying she wants that stuff for herself is making a choice.

    Related: Taylor ‘Braced’ For ‘Drama’ As She Picks Bridesmaids For Travis Kelce Wedding!

    As this fan succinctly explains:

    “The whole point of feminism is that we want women to do whatever they want to do.”

    @mariaisalright

    genuinely the craziest take I’ve heard, go touch grass. #lifeofashowgirl #motherhood #marriage

    ♬ original sound – mariagabriela

    Taylor isn’t being anti-feminist here. She’s just telling everyone what she wants. Which we should all be fine with. LOVE IS LOVE, remember that? It works the other way, too!

    Also, let’s not forget, even if Tay retired right now she’d remain one of the most successful humans in their chosen field OF ALL TIME. That’s not what a tradwife is. Tradwives are basically teenagers drafted into marriage like chattel. Taylor looks great, but let’s not forget she’s 35 years old! And richer than her husband-to-be by A LOT. This ain’t that.

    Oh, and Tay herself said she’s NOT retiring just because she got married. And in fact she finds that assumption “shockingly offensive” by the way.

    Also from WI$H LI$T? Some “fans” somehow pulled the idea Taylor wants to propagate the white race like she’s Elon Musk. Why? Because she sang about wanting to:

    “Have a couple kids, got the whole block looking like you”

    See, Trav is a white man, so she clearly is saying she only wants everyone on the block to be white. And voila, the song about not being into modern materialistic desires is actually… promoting eugenics.

    Yeah. It’s all too real.

    You can see a lot more about that theory and the Swifties blasting it HERE. (Oh, and also take a listen to Kylie Kelce hilariously explaining why that’s much funnier if you know the Kelces and their frustratingly dominant genes.)

    Also, here’s a response we really love from Saints tight end Juwan Johnson and his wife Chanen…

    @juandchan

    And nothing like me???????? #juandchan

    ♬ original sound – songlyricss87

    So. Cute. Too bad Juwan is clearly a white supremacist, right? Y’all see how ridiculous you sound now??

    Homophobia

    In her track Actually Romantic, Tay takes a new tactic on the diss track. She likens someone’s nonstop, compulsive hatred of her to, well… a romantic obsession. She’s basically saying that Charli XCX — or whoever it’s about, more than one person in all likelihood — talking about her all the time doesn’t feel dangerous, it’s harmless. It’s even flattering, like a crush.

    But there’s a contingent who are just champing at the bit to call out Taylor for being homophobic, so they say it’s gay panic. They figure since she’s a woman and Charli is a woman, she’s basically calling someone gay as an insult…

    Forget the fact Taylor loves the LGBTQ community, was the first pop star to cast a trans actor as a love interest in a music video, and has been vocal politically mostly about this topic.

    She doesn’t speak about politics much, but she did tweet in 2021 that she had her “Fingers crossed and praying that the Senate will see trans and lgbtq rights as basic human rights.” In 2018, she also spoke out against the anti-LGBT legislation of Tennessee congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, saying:

    “I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent. I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love.”

    You can listen to what she’s explicitly saying about the matter… or you can infer that she secretly means whatever makes her look the worst. One of those choices respects her and gives her agency.

    Racism & Misogynoir

    Oof, OK, this is a big one.

    There’s a theory that Taylor is not only racist but specifically obsessed with Black women — as it relates to the men she dates. Travis Kelce’s most recent longterm relationship before her was with a woman named Kayla Nicole — and critics are pairing that with some lyrics and doing a hop, skip, and a jump to… misogynoir, the hatred of Black women.

    (c) MEGA/WENN/Kayla Nicole/Instagram

    The pop delight Opalite is pretty clearly about Tay’s new romance with Trav. She sings about why this is relationship feels so right in comparison with past ones. That means, yes, a bit of a swipe at Kayla. Tay sings:

    “You couldn’t understand it / Why you felt alone / You were in it for real / She was in her phone / And you were just a pose”

    Folks have taken this to be about Kayla not just because she was Trav’s most recent ex but also because of resurfaced video of the NFL star and his then-WAG living this exact scenario.

    That’s nothing wrong with a songwriter singing about their own relationship, and this is all personal stuff. We just know it because Taylor is the most scrutinized woman alive! But again, nothing about race at all.

    However, at the same time, the whole song uses the metaphor of opalite, a bright, glittery man-made gemstone, to represent happiness, while the black mineral onyx is used to represent difficult times. People are interpreting this to say dating Black women was what made Trav upset, now he’s with her and all is white in the world. It is SUCH a stretch.

    Darkness, night, stormy weather, all classic representations of sadness — ones which Tay also uses in the song. And sunshine and light represent safety, rescue, and hope. Why? Well, they pretty much always have throughout human history. Probably something to do with early man getting lost to predators and accidents in the scary dark, and being safer when it was brighter and everyone could see? In any case, it’s like all of culture, thousands of poems, songs, plays, films…

    But when Taylor does it it’s a sign she’s been secretly racist all this time?? Come on, now! Really??

    We’ll let some folks explain who have a little more expertise…

    @brookeg28

    Breaking news: words mean things. #taylorswift #swifttok #tloas #swiftie

    ♬ original sound – Brooke Giles

    But seriously, Taylor has ALWAYS, quite consistently been against racism. She had the courage to blast the President of the United States for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism.” And she’s been reaping his wrath ever since.

    And when white nationalists tried to embrace her as an “Aryan goddess” in 2019, she did what Trump was never willing to do when they embraced him — she very clearly and explicitly denounced them, telling The Guardian:

    “There’s literally nothing worse than white supremacy. It’s repulsive. There should be no place for it.”

    You can listen to what she says when she’s not being poetic, making her feelings on the matter clear! Or… You can listen to a song about finding happiness, in which she sings:

    “You were dancing through the lightning strikes / Sleepless in the onyx night / But now the sky is opalite”

    And assume her secret intention is to take down Black women. Sigh.

    Not Political Enough??

    In addition to those who think the whole album is a MAGA dog whistle, there are others complaining about Taylor not getting political. For real! We’ve seen tons of posts where people are saying Tay isn’t speaking to the political moment.

    And this isn’t just TikTokers either, we’ve seen actual music critics write whole think pieces about this!

    We mean, at least it’s accurate? This album isn’t political. But Tay has never really made political music. It’s mostly been about her relationships, her feelings, what it’s like for a girl going through big life moments… It’s all really personal stuff. Interpretations of politics just aren’t her thing.

    There are plenty of folk and classic rock and punk bands to go to for that sort of thing. Like, if Green Day put out Dookie II right now? And completely ignored the rise of fascism? After American Idiot? We could see their fans being pretty disappointed in them. But this feels like ordering pizza and complaining there isn’t enough standup comedy on it.

    It’s OK to make something fun and cheerful if that’s your gift! And we’ll let this Swiftie give everyone an excellent explanation WHY!

    The WILDEST Takes

    Stuff gets crazier. The worst faith takes are actually saying Tay’s album is somehow celebrating the genocide in Gaza… Or that Taylor comparing a hater to “a toy Chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse” is racist against… can you guess? Asians! Yes, because apparently Chihuahua is a “slur to Asian or half Asian people” — ignoring the context that it’s a well-known dog breed, and she’s explicitly using the term in the context of the dog breed.

    But one of the most insulting? We’ve seen multiple hot takes from critics saying Taylor was about to become transphobic. Not that she’s currently transphobic, not that there’s any evidence of that at all. No, they’re going full Minority Report and saying they just feel in their gut that she’s going to go full JK Rowling any second.

    What’s the most epically far-reaching take YOU’VE seen about The Life of a Showgirl??

    [Image via Taylor Swift/Charli XCX/YouTube/Travis Kelce/Kayla Nicole/Instagram.]

    Perez Hilton

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  • Snoop Dogg Was ‘Caught Off Guard’ Over a Gay Kiss in Lightyear

    Don’t show him But I’m a Cheerleader; he’ll scream.
    Photo: Prince Williams/FilmMagic

    Snoop Dogg is “scared to go to the movies,” and it’s not because of weed-based paranoia — it’s the 2022 animated origin story Lightyear. Specifically, the three-year-old movie’s representation of lesbian moms. “What you see is what you see, and they’re putting it everywhere,” Snoop told It’s Giving, a podcast hosted by “self-love guru” and traditional-values proponent Sarah Fontenot, on August 20. He recalled taking his grandson to see Lightyear in the movie theaters and watching a scene where a character has two moms. “They’re like, ‘She had a baby — with another woman,’” he said. “Well, my grandson, in the middle of the movie, is like, ‘Papa Snoop? How she have a baby with a woman? She’s a woman!’” Snoop claimed the problem is that “y’all throwing me in the middle of shit that I don’t have an answer for.” He added, “These are kids. We have to show that at this age? They’re going to ask questions. I don’t have the answer.” Someone should get Snoop Dogg a copy of And Tango Makes Three.

    On August 30, Snoop clarified what he meant in a comment of a Hollywood Unlocked Instagram video. “I was just caught off guard and had no answer for my grandsons all my gay friends no what’s up they been calling me with love 💗 my bad for not knowing the answers for a 6 yr old 😳teach me how to learn I’m not perfect,” he wrote. Gay friends, please step forward.

    Following Snoop’s comments, there have been calls to cancel his performance at the Australian Football League finals on September 27. One of those calls is from Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who called Snoop a “slur merchant” and requested the AFL book an Australian artist.

    In the scene in question, the character Hawthorne (voiced by Uzo Aduba) kisses her wife, Kiko, for less than a second. The kiss led to the movie being banned in 14 countries. Initially, Disney cut the gay kiss from Lightyear, but in the wake of Disney funding politicians who supported Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Pixar employees wrote a letter accusing the company of censoring “overtly gay affection” in its films. “Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it,” the employees said in the statement. Following the letter, Pixar added the scene back into the film.

    Since then, Disney and Pixar have removed gay content from films and TV, in line with the current conservative cultural shift that Snoop should be glad to hear about. Pixar reportedly cut any queer representation out of its 2025 movie Elio and made the main character more stereotypically masculine. Disney also cut a trans story line from the streaming show Win or Lose in 2024. Pixar executive Pete Docter told Bloomberg in 2024 that Pixar’s upcoming movies were going to be “less a pursuit of any director’s catharsis and instead speak to a commonality of experience,” widely interpreted as a move away from diversity. Sorry to Lightyear star Chris Evans; homophobia has not yet died out “like dinosaurs.”

    Jason P. Frank

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  • Why can’t Arizona pass an anti-discrimination bill for LGBTQ+ people?

    Why can’t Arizona pass an anti-discrimination bill for LGBTQ+ people?

    This story was first published by LOOKOUT, an investigative nonprofit news organization covering Arizona’s LGBTQ+ communities. Twenty-two states have comprehensive LGBTQ+ civil rights laws on the books…

    Juliette Rihl

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  • Suns owner Mat Ishbia accused of anti-gay slur in voicemail tirade

    Suns owner Mat Ishbia accused of anti-gay slur in voicemail tirade

    Mat Ishbia, billionaire owner of the Phoenix Suns and the WNBA’s Mercury, is under fire for a leaked voicemail in which he reportedly referred to business rivals as “cocksuckers.” “We fucking took those cocksuckers down, fuck them, and we’re gonna keep fucking sticking it to them forever,” Ishbia said in the voicemail…

    TJ L’Heureux

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  • GOP Candidate Literally Burns Books In Twitter Video

    GOP Candidate Literally Burns Books In Twitter Video


    Valentina Gomez, a Republican running for Missouri secretary of state, posted a video to social media this week in which she blowtorched books, falsely claimed that books with LGBTQ+ themes are indoctrinating and sexualizing children, and promised to preside over widespread efforts to remove books from public libraries if she wins her race.

    “This is what I will do to the grooming books when I become secretary of state,” Gomez says in the video, posted to X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, before releasing a blaze of fire. “These books come from a Missouri public library. When I’m in office, they will burn.”

    “Naked: Not Your Average Sex Encyclopedia” by Myriam Daguzan Bernier and “Queer: The Ultimate LGBTQ Guide for Teens” by Kathy Belge and Marke Bieschke were on the receiving end of Gomez’s flames in the video.

    Missouri’s secretary of state has myriad responsibilities, including serving as chief election official, overseeing the state library system and administering emergency rules, which are state regulations that can be implemented rapidly. Gomez, a real estate investor and financier, says on her campaign website that she will “review” library funding and programs in order to “ensure they genuinely strengthen Missouri’s future.” She also supports banning gender-affirming health care for trans youth and getting rid of electronic voting machines.

    On Thursday, Gomez posted a screenshot on Instagram, which is owned by Meta, showing that the company had removed the video from its platform.

    “Just like President Trump, I am one of the most suppressed voices on Instagram. I call for META CEO Mark Zuckberg to reinstate me, and to create an injury fund for all the victims that Facebook failed to protect against the vile groomers,” Gomez said in a lengthy comment to HuffPost, in which she also claimed without evidence that “Zuckerberg permits and endorses pedophiles on Instagram and Facebook.”

    Gomez continued with a homophobic broadside: “Message is simple. You want to be gay? Fine be gay. Just don’t do it around children. Stop putting books in libraries about sexualization, indoctrination and grooming of children.”

    Gomez’s inflammatory video is emblematic of how invested conservatives have become in the culture wars. Up and down the ballot and across the country, various GOP candidates have made it a cornerstone of their campaigns to target the LGBTQ+ community. This often comes in the form of attacking books with LGBTQ+ themes, claiming that they’re pornographic or secretly indoctrinating children.

    Republicans in many states, including Missouri, have successfully whipped up a moral panic about books and have passed laws that restrict what books are available to children in schools and at public libraries.

    In 2022, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) signed a law that was meant to ban sexually explicit books from school libraries. However, librarians and other critics argued that the measure was vague and didn’t offer a clear definition of “sexually explicit,” and warned that it would lead to the removal of books conservatives simply don’t like. The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri is suing the state over the policy.

    Missouri banned 333 books during the 2022-23 school year, according to PEN America, an anti-censorship nonprofit organization.

    And last April, Missouri House Republicans voted to defund the state’s public libraries, a measure that failed to pass in the state Senate.

    Gomez is not the first Missouri GOP candidate to promise to burn books. In September, Bill Eigel, who is running for governor, posted a video in which he symbolically burned cardboard boxes representing “leftist policies.”

    “But let’s be clear, you bring those woke pornographic books to Missouri schools to try to brainwash our kids, and I’ll burn those too ― on the front lawn of the governor’s mansion,” Eigel said in a post on X.





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  • 4 Accused Of Planning Gay Man’s Death, Sending Photos Of Body To His Family

    4 Accused Of Planning Gay Man’s Death, Sending Photos Of Body To His Family

    Arizona police have arrested four men in connection with the death of a gay man, whose mutilated body was found near a Phoenix park, and of sending his family photos of the body.

    Christopher Ibarra, 21, was the latest to be arrested on Wednesday in the death of 30-year-old Bernardo Pantaleon, KPHO-TV in Phoenix reported. Jose Rodriguez, 20, Leonardo Santiago, 21, and Manuel Carrasco-Calderon, 21, were arrested last Friday.

    Though prosecutors say Santiago was the one who killed Pantaleon, all four men are facing murder charges, the KPHO reported.

    Bernardo Pantaleon, shown here in a Facebook post, was found dead on Nov. 26.

    According to the TV station, citing court documents, police said a hiker found Pantaleon dead on Nov. 26, with multiple gunshot wounds to his head, neck and torso on a trail near a Phoenix park.

    Pantaleon’s family member told KPHO-TV that they think the killing was a targeted hate crime, adding that his body was found naked and showed signs of torture.

    According to court documents cited by several news outlets, Santiago told police that Pantaleon had made an “unwanted advance” that made him feel “uncomfortable.” Prosecutors said Santiago fired several shots into the victim and left, then returned with Carrasco-Calderon, who he said mutilated the body.

    Ibarra, however, allegedly told police that Santiago planned to kill Pantaleon a day before the crime, according to KSAZ-TV, citing court documents.

    “He admitted they discussed the murder, when, where and how it would be done, and videos and photographs were passed around,” the document said.

    Pantaleon’s family members told police they received two photos that showed Pantaleon’s mutilated body and another one of a man holding up his middle finger, according to KSAZ.

    One of the photos was also posted on an Instagram account allegedly belonging to one of the men arrested, according to Mesa, Arizona, news station KPNX-TV, citing court documents.

    According to the KPNX, prosecutors cited messages between Carrasco-Calderon, Santiago and Rodriguez allegedly conspiring to “rob and kill” Pantaleon.

    The suspects also reportedly made comments about Pantaleon’s sexuality in the chat, saying that gay people were not “allowed in the northside,” according to the Mesa station.

    Investigators said that they later learned the four men were involved in a criminal street gang and that a number of its members were allegedly “celebrating” Pantaleon’s death.

    Pantaleon’s family members described him in a fundraiser as a caring, loving person who was “the rock for his sibling after the loss of their parents.”

    “Unfortunately, we are mourning him as we have lost him in the most tragic way possible. He will be missed and didn’t deserve to suffer the way,” the family stated in a GoFundMe appeal.

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  • This Florida GOP Throuple Scandal Is INSANE!!! – Perez Hilton

    This Florida GOP Throuple Scandal Is INSANE!!! – Perez Hilton

    [Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]

    Man, we’ve seen some politician sex scandals over the years, but this one is WILD!

    Christian Ziegler is the chairman of the Florida Republican Party. As the GOP chair in a state run by Republicans, he’s a powerful guy in the MAGA movement. And his wife is even more influential with conservatives on a national level. See, Bridget Ziegler is the co-founder of Moms for Liberty. They’re the group that have been trying to ban books at school libraries across the country — you know, pretty much anything to do with African American history or positive depictions of gay folks. Really gross, fascist s**t.

    So according to a wild new report from a local paper called the Florida Trident, these two family values leaders have, for the past three years, been part of… a throuple. Yep, a woman has come forward to the police saying she was in a consensual three-way sexual relationship with the Zieglers. That of course is in no way a crime — we’ll get to the criminal accusations in a moment.

    Related: Ivanka Trump Skipped Thanksgiving With Donald & Watched A Movie Instead?!

    As always with this kind of scandal, we must say, we aren’t about shaming consenting adults for their lifestyles. If a married couple decide they want to spice things up and invite a third into their lives, who are we to judge? But these are people who are FIRMLY and VOCALLY anti-LGBT. Hell, Bridget is credited with being instrumental in creating Governor Ron DeSantis‘ infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill! And the last we checked, a throuple — even a MFF one — ain’t exactly that whole Bible-thumping idea of straightitude. It’s not Adam and Eve and Bianca, you what we mean? That makes the Zieglers a pretty foul sort of hypocrites, if true. They’re trying to make it harder and harder for LGBT kids, meanwhile they secretly get to do whatever they want in the bedroom? Get bent.

    Anti-LGBT MAGA stars Christian and Bridget Ziegler. / (c) Bridget Ziegler/X

    The thing is, we haven’t even gotten to the real scandal…

    The reason this woman has come forward is because she’s accusing the ironically named Christian of rape! In a police report obtained by the Trident, the woman claims that while she and Christian were alone at her home on October 2 — with no Bridget — he committed sexual battery against her.

    Details are scant in the heavily redacted report, which was filed way back on October 4, but it’s explicitly a “sexual assault complaint.” The woman also claims Christian filmed the three-way sexual encounters with her and his wife, and the sources told the outlet that a search warrant was executed on the politician’s phone.

    No charges have been filed yet, and the Zieglers have not commented publicly. However, Christian’s attorney Derek Byrd confirmed the investigation in a statement. He assures his client has been “fully cooperative with the Sarasota Police Department” and will be “completely exonerated.” He goes on to imply the alleged victim is doing this for money or maybe even politics:

    “Unfortunately, public figures are often accused of acts that they did not commit whether it be for political purposes or financial gain. I would caution anyone to rush to judgment until the investigation is concluded. Out of respect for the investigation, this is all Mr. Ziegler or myself can say at this time.”

    We’ll have to see how this plays out, but now that the accusation is public, we’re guessing it’s going to be a lot harder to keep the Zieglers’ real “family values” out of the spotlight.

    If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and would like to learn more about resources, consider checking out https://www.rainn.org/resources. 

    [Image via Christian Ziegler/Bridget Ziegler/Facebook.]

    Perez Hilton

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  • Before he became a politician, House Speaker Mike Johnson partnered with an anti-gay conversion therapy group | CNN Politics

    Before he became a politician, House Speaker Mike Johnson partnered with an anti-gay conversion therapy group | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Speaker of the House Mike Johnson closely collaborated with a group in the mid-to-late 2000s that promoted “conversion therapy,” a discredited practice that asserted it could change the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian individuals.

    Prior to launching his political career, Johnson, a lawyer, gave legal advice to an organization called Exodus International and partnered with the group to put on an annual anti-gay event aimed at teens, according to a CNN KFile review of more than a dozen of Johnson’s media appearances from that timespan.

    Founded in 1976, Exodus International was a leader in the so-called “ex-gay” movement, which aimed to make gay individuals straight through conversion therapy programs using religious and counseling methods. Exodus International connected ministries across the world using these controversial approaches.

    The group shut down in 2013, with its founder posting a public apology for the “pain and hurt” his organization caused. Conversion therapy has been widely condemned by most major medical institutions and has been shown to be harmful to struggling LGBTQ people.

    At the time, Johnson worked as an attorney for the socially conservative legal advocacy group, Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). He and his group collaborated with Exodus from 2006 to 2010.

    For years, Johnson and Exodus worked on an event started by ADF in 2005 known as the “Day of Truth” – a counterprotest to the “Day of Silence,” a day in schools in which students stayed silent to bring awareness to bullying faced by LGBTQ youth.

    The Day of Truth sought to counter that silence by distributing information about what Johnson described as the “dangerous” gay lifestyle.

    “I mean, our race, the size of our feet, the color of our eyes, these are things we’re born with and we cannot change,” Johnson told one radio host in 2008 promoting the event. “What these adult advocacy groups like the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network are promoting is a type of behavior. Homosexual behavior is something you do, it’s not something that you are.”

    In print, radio and on television, Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, frequently disparaged homosexuality, according to KFile’s review. He advocated for the criminalization of gay sex and went so far as to partially blame it for the fall of the Roman Empire.

    “Some credit to the fall of Rome to not only the deprivation of the society and the loss of morals, but also to the rampant homosexual behavior that was condoned by the society,” Johnson told a radio host in 2008.

    Johnson’s office did not respond to a CNN request for comment asking about his work with Exodus.

    Exodus International joined ADF’s Day of Truth event in 2006 and the groups worked together on promotional material for the event, including a standalone website which pointed users to Exodus’ conversion ministries. Documents on that website cited the since-repudiated academic work in support of conversion therapy. Exodus Youth, the group’s youth wing, promoted the event within its blogs.

    Videos put out by Exodus and ADF on their standalone Day of Truth website featured two Exodus staffers speaking about how teens didn’t need to “accept” or “embrace” their homosexuality. The videos featured testimonials of a “former-homosexual” and “former lesbian.”

    Documents on the website were not archived online but were saved by anti-conversion therapy groups such as Truth Wins Out in 2007 and 2008. The website featured a FAQ on homosexuality provided by Exodus and sold t-shirts saying, “the Truth cannot be silenced.”

    One video featured Johnson, who was later quoted in a press release on Exodus International’s website ahead of the event, saying, “An open, honest discussion allows truth to rise to the surface.”

    Johnson promoted the event heavily in the media – through radio interviews, comments in newspapers, and an editorial. In interviews, he repeatedly cited the case of a teen who went to school after the Day of Silence wearing a shirt that read, “Be ashamed. Our school has embraced what God has condemned” and “Homosexuality is shameful.” The teen was suspended and ADF represented him in legal action over the incident. The case was dismissed because the teen graduated, and the court found he no longer had standing to challenge the dress code.

    “Day of Truth was really established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda in public schools,” Johnson told a radio host in 2008.

    Those who worked to counter ADF and Exodus at the time, said the event was dangerous to confused youth.

    “This directly harmed LGBTQ youth,” Wayne Besen, the executive director of Truth Wins Out and an expert on the ex-gay industry, told CNN. “This is someone whose core was promoting anti-gay and ex-gay viewpoints. He wouldn’t pander to anti-gay advocates, he was the anti-gay and ex-gay advocate.”

    Randy Scobey, a former executive vice president at Exodus, who worked on the Day of Truth in the organization’s collaboration with ADF, called the event one of his biggest regrets.

    “It was bullying those who were trying to not be bullied,” said Scobey, who now lives openly as a gay man. “That was one of the public ways that the Alliance Defense Fund worked with us.”

    Ties between Exodus and ADF extended beyond the event.

    ADF, which has since changed its name to the Alliance Defending Freedom, touted Exodus International in promotional brochures in 2004, crediting it as an organization that “played an instrumental role in helping thousands of individuals come out of homosexual behavior.”

    Scobey recalled Johnson as quiet, but firm in his beliefs that homosexuality was wrong. He said Johnson and ADF provided crucial legal advice to Exodus and its “member ministries.”

    “We worked with them behind the scenes a lot,” Scobey told CNN, saying the group offered them legal guidance over their ex-gay counseling. “They were very important to us as far as helping us to feel more secure legally and politically.”

    Exodus International stopped sponsoring the Day of Truth event in 2010, saying it became adversarial and counterproductive.

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  • Queering the Map Reveals Poignant Glimpses Of Survival In Gaza

    Queering the Map Reveals Poignant Glimpses Of Survival In Gaza

    As the hellish war between Israel and Hamas unfolds, there are very strong emotions being expressed about who is to blame. But regardless of what your stance is, I hope we can all agree that dehumanizing people is never the answer.

    Unfortunately, some people online are justifying the brutality against Palestinians in Gaza by weaponizing Hamas’ homophobia, using that as a valid reason to wage war on an entire group of people. Homosexuality is a crime in Palestine. In 2022, a gay Palestinian man who went to Israel for asylum was found brutally murdered in the West Bank. Because of Hamas’ cruelty toward gay people, a very uninformed and insensitive opinion is currently floating around: that Israel’s actions against anyone in Hamas-controlled territory are justified. One U.S.-based queer publication went as far as to claim that “if you’re an LGBTQ+ parent, you should worry about Hamas gunning down your kids.”

    Let me be absolutely clear. Homophobia exists in every country at varying degrees. And no entire community deserves the wrath of war because their government outlaws queer expression.

    If you live in a country with a government that has institutionalized homophobia or transphobia — which, let’s face it, is most countries — then you know that this is an inherently tragic justification for mass violence. Governments are seldom an accurate representation of all the people they govern, and bombs don’t selectively choose who they’re going to kill.

    There are innocent queer people trying to survive in Palestine. And their poignant calls for justice have been resounding globally over the past week through Queering the Map — which is likely the one of the only means for expressing themselves in this way.

    Queering the Map is a community-based platform where queer users all over the world map moments they’ve had with other queer people — romantic, platonic and otherwise. Anyone can post to the site, though creator Lucas LaRochelle told The New York Times they and other volunteers review and approve the messages before they are posted to filter out trolls or hateful posts.

    Several accounts coming from Gaza have gone viral in recent days. Though they are unable to be verified, they are completely devastating to read. At the time of this post, the site has been down for about 48 hours and I have reached out to the creator to find out if this is, in any way, related to the posts from Gaza.

    “Idk how long I will live so I just want this to be my memory here before I die,” wrote one user. “My biggest regret is not kissing this one guy. He died two days back.”

    “I’ve always imagined you and me sitting out in the sun, hand in hand, free at last,” wrote another. “We spoke of all the places we would go if we could. Yet you are gone now.”

    As someone whose family comes from countries that are not seen as beacons of LGBTQIA+ progress, I know that there are beautiful queer and trans communities in all of the places that are easily dismissed as monolithically homophobic.

    The queer people in countries that sanction being queer and trans live lives that are often subversive, complex and absolutely worth living. There are also those who don’t function as openly queer people, but hope to be able to some day. LGBTQ+ progress means keeping queer people alive, especially in places where they have even more obstacles to overcome.

    Whenever I read new posts on Queering the Map, it becomes more and more clear that this was a war started by governments, and like all wars, the worst of the suffering is going to be absorbed by everyday people — including queer and trans Palestinians.

    It doesn’t seem like this conflict can have any real winners, and we can’t let our political stance get in the way of seeing the reality of others’ humanity. We can acknowledge the political issues of any country, but whenever we let go of our ability to see people as worthy of life, we are losing on a much deeper level.

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  • In Florida, More Than 300 Books Have Been Removed From School Shelves

    In Florida, More Than 300 Books Have Been Removed From School Shelves

    Last month, the Florida Department of Education revealed that more than 300 books had been removed from public school shelves in the state during the 2022-2023 school year.

    Under the pretense of keeping kids safe and preserving “parental rights,” Florida officials and conservative activists have spread misinformation about teachers and school libraries, claiming that any and all books that deal with gender or sexuality are inappropriate or pornographic.

    Fueled by a surge in conservative culture wars and a package of education laws targeting instruction on gender and sexuality, there have been a deluge of book challenges from parents and residents in Florida.

    The list of books no longer available to Florida students, which according to NBC News was quietly released late last month, is broken down by county, and tallies the number of book challenges as well as the books that were ultimately removed.

    The vast majority of books are concentrated in Clay County, in the northeastern part of the state, where 177 titles were removed. There, infamous right-wing activist Bruce Freidman has led the charge in getting books pulled from the shelves.

    Behind Clay was Martin County, in southeastern Florida, which had 98 books removed.

    Within the list of hundreds of books declared no longer acceptable, there are some familiar targets, such as “This Book Is Gay” by Juno Dawson, a guidebook for young LGBTQ+ people, and “Gender Queer,” a memoir by Maia Kobabe. These have been under fire for years from conservative groups waging a campaign against the LGBTQ+ community and smearing them as child abusers and predators.

    But there were some unexpected bans as well. “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation,” by Ari Folman, was removed from a high school in Indian River County after a parent complained about the book’s sexual content.

    In Wakulla County, the only book removed was “Little Rock Nine” by Marshall Poe. Poe’s novel is about two boys, one Black and one white, who are best friends in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 ― the year the city was forced to desegregate its schools and President Dwight Eisenhower sent in federal troops to do so.

    Though the novel depicts an event of monumental significance in American history, a parent complained to her child’s elementary school because the book has profanity in it.

    These types of parents are actually rare. Polling has shown that parents are largely against banning books. But the challenges keep coming, and Florida shows no signs of slowing down.

    Earlier this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis ― who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination on a platform to “Make America Florida” ― signed into law HB 1069, a measure that restricts sexual and health education in the classroom and expands book ban policies even further. The law is in effect for this school year.

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  • Ghana’s president softens country’s stance on draconian anti-LGBTQ bill as Kamala Harris visits | CNN

    Ghana’s president softens country’s stance on draconian anti-LGBTQ bill as Kamala Harris visits | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo has said that “substantial elements” of a draconian anti-LGBTQ bill being considered by its parliament “have been modified” after an intervention by his government.

    Akufo-Addo made the disclosure Monday at a joint press conference with US Vice-President Kamala Harris, who’s on a tour of the West African country.

    He pointed out that the proposed legislation, framed in the guise of “family values” – which seeks to introduce some of the harshest anti-LGBTQ laws on the African continent – was not legislation introduced by his government but a private members’ bill. The bill was first introduced in parliament in August 2021.

    “The bill is going through the parliament. The attorney general has found it necessary to speak to the committee (the constitutional and legal committee of parliament) about it regarding the constitutionality … of several of its provisions. The parliament is dealing with it. At the end of the process, I will come in,” the Ghanaian leader said.

    After parliamentary deliberations, a final bill will be sent to the president for assent.

    “My understanding … is that substantial elements of the bill have already been modified as a result of the intervention of the attorney general,” Akufo-Addo said.

    In suggesting that the bill may end up being watered down in the amendment process, Akufo-Addo added that he was convinced the parliament will consider the sensitivity of the bill to human rights issues as well as the feelings of the Ghanaian population “and come out with a responsible response.”

    However, one of the parliamentarians who introduced the bill, Samuel Nartey George, insists that the proposed law remains “rigid and tough.”

    “The bill has not been substantially changed. The bill remains as tough and as rigid as it was,” George told local media in a televised interview.

    He added: “When the bill is laid before the House (of parliament), you will realize that the focus of the bill which has to do with voiding (gay) marriages, preventing them from adopting or fostering children, the clampdown on platforms and media houses that are going to do promotion and advocacy or push those materials still remain enforced.”

    George also implied that restrictions against “expressions, be it lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender are all still there. “So when he (Akufo-Addo) says the bill has been watered down, he doesn’t know what he is talking about.”

    The proposed aw would see LGBTQ Ghanaians face jail time, or be forced into so-called “conversion therapy” – a widely discredited practice debunked by much of the international medical and psychiatric communities.

    Under the bill, advocates of the LGBTQ community would face up to a decade in prison; public displays of same-sex affection or cross-dressing could lead to a fine or jail time, and certain types of medical support would be made illegal.

    The new law would also make the distribution of material deemed pro-LGBTQ by news organizations or websites illegal. It calls on Ghanaians to report those they suspect of being from the LGBTQ community.

    Harris, the US vice-president, said at the press conference she felt very strongly about supporting the freedom and equality of the LGBTQ community.

    “This is an issue that we consider to be a human rights issue, and that will not change,” she said.

    Ghana’s information minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, also told CNN on Tuesday that the outcome of the parliamentary debate on the bill may differ from its original provisions.

    “The bill is now in an enactment process. What will come out in enactment when 275 members get on the floor and start dealing with it clause by clause and voting clause by clause, may end up being different from what was proposed. You propose a bill and parliament … can tweak it and make it harsher or less harsh … it is in the hands of parliament now,” Nkrumah said.

    The minister also insisted however that the Ghanaian government was not under pressure to relax existing legislation on homosexuality.

    “We are not pressured in any way to focus on things that are not essentially within our main priorities. Our priority number one is getting the Ghanaian economy on track and that’s what we’re focused on.”

    “This conversation is not part of our mainstream conversation here in Ghana,” he added.

    Old sodomy laws dating back to 1960 remain on the statute books in Ghana but they are rarely enforced.

    Activist Danny Bediako, who runs the NGO Rightify Ghana, told CNN that living in Ghana would become tougher for the LGBTQ community if the bill passes in parliament.

    “It’s going to make it difficult for the (LGBTQ) community to exist. They are just trying to erase the community through this bill, so it will definitely lead to an increase in attacks,” said Bediako, who added that his organization had documented 27 cases of violent attacks targeted toward the LGBTQ community in the country this year.

    “There have been different types of cases, but the most dominant one is the activities of violent groups and they are widespread. So if this bill is passed, these activities are going to continue and it’s only going to also get worse.”

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  • FDA Moves To Ease Blood Donation Rules For Gay And Bisexual Men

    FDA Moves To Ease Blood Donation Rules For Gay And Bisexual Men

    The Food and Drug Administration has proposed easing blood donation guidelines for gay and bisexual men, doing away with the current three-month abstinence requirement for donations from men who have sex with men. What do you think?

    “But what if a life-saving transfusion from a gay man forces me to examine my prejudices?”

    Brent Hamlin, Grain Inspector

    “I guess they got all the homophobia out of their system with the Monkeypox coverage.”

    Damien Cicchelli, Freelance Agitator

    “I’m glad we’re doing away with the last remaining shred of anti-gay prejudice in our society.”

    Audrey Davila, Insult Cataloguer

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  • Inside Elizabeth Taylor’s Lonely Fight for AIDS Awareness

    Inside Elizabeth Taylor’s Lonely Fight for AIDS Awareness

    “I became so incensed and personally frustrated at the rejection I was receiving by just trying to get people’s attention. I was made so aware of the silence, this huge, loud silence regarding AIDS, how no one wanted to talk about it and no one wanted to become involved. Certainly no one wanted to give money or support, and it so angered me that I finally thought to myself, Bitch, do something yourself. Instead of sitting there getting angry. Do something.”

    In 1987, Taylor launched her first perfume, Passion, and followed it up in 1991 with White Diamonds, another enormous hit. She traveled around the country visiting the department stores that sold her perfume, and she vowed to visit AIDS hospices in every city that she could. But there were two caveats: She did not want any press to interrupt those private visits, and the perfume company and the department store would have to donate money to each of the hospices she visited. She vowed to match their contributions.

    At the Coming Home Hospice in San Francisco’s Castro District, nurses were told in hushed tones that Taylor was on her way. She stopped in each of the hospice’s 15 small rooms, and she spent several minutes talking with each patient. She asked them if she could arrange to have their dogs walked; she asked if she could call their mothers for them or write letters for them.

    Some patients cried when they saw her, said Guy Vandenberg, a health care worker and AIDS activist who was at the Coming Home Hospice when she visited. After she met with patients, he said, Taylor sat with the handful of staffers in their tiny kitchen and asked them how they were taking care of themselves. “How do you support each other?” she wanted to know.

    They averaged three deaths a week in the 15-bed hospice, he said. “Sometimes I would get off my three-to-midnight shift and I would come back the next day, and one or two people might have died during the night,” Vandenberg said, his voice cracking. “The need was so great that the bed would not be empty more than a day at most; sometimes the bed would be filled right away. We didn’t have time to process the volume of death.”

    Even amid all the darkness, there was joy. “A majority of our patients, as they were dying, were quite capable of laughter and gallows humor, and to an outsider that often felt really strange or inappropriate. When the hospice was taken over by a more corporate hospital, we got disciplined for too much laughter, and we were eating with the patients and that was not allowed,” Vandenberg said through tears. “She fit right in, she knew that was good. She joked with them. She hugged and kissed every single one of us, the patients and the staff.”

    After one of her hospice visits, a patient woke up and said, “I had a vision that Elizabeth Taylor came to me in my sleep!”

    “No, she was actually here,” a nurse told him.

    Taylor wanted to look perfect for every visit (“I hope I haven’t overdone it!” she’d joke), so she always arrived with full hair and makeup and the famous 33.19-carat Asscher-cut Krupp diamond on her left ring finger. She wanted the patients to see her the way they had imagined her to be.

    She told her assistant Jorjett Strumme, who would get emotional, that she could not come into hospices with her because she would start to cry if Strumme cried. She had to keep things light and happy, she said, but she’d get back in the car and she would bury her head in her dog’s soft white fur and be unusually quiet for a while.

    Ed Wolf was a counselor in San Francisco General Hospital’s Ward 5B in the 1980s. San Francisco was second only to New York in the number of AIDS cases, and 5B was the world’s first revolutionary inpatient unit for people with AIDS. It was created in 1983 and run by registered nurses who specialized in caring for AIDS patients. In 5B patients were treated with compassion.

    In the beginning nurses and doctors wore so much protective gear that they looked like astronauts. Food trays piled up outside of hospital rooms because no one wanted to touch them. But in 5B things were different. Nurses were not allowed to wear protective medical gear, including gowns and masks. They believed that physical touch was an important way to honor each patient’s humanity. They did seemingly little things, like re-creating the decor of patients’ living rooms in their hospital rooms, allowing their pets to visit them, and, of course, allowing their partners to stay with them. They even used Champagne glasses for water.

    Kate Andersen Brower

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  • Tennessee Mom Goes Viral For Furiously Denouncing Homophobic Hate

    Tennessee Mom Goes Viral For Furiously Denouncing Homophobic Hate

    A Tennessee woman has gone viral for her impassioned speech defending the LGBTQ community at a county board of trustees meeting last week.

    Jessee Graham, a mom of four from Columbia, gave the fiery address to the Maury County Board of Trustees in response to the resignation of the county’s public library director, Zachary Fox, at last Wednesday’s meeting.

    Fox resigned after months of backlash from certain community members over the library’s Pride Month LGBTQ book display. He also upset some people by hosting a family-friendly drag brunch last year at a brewery he runs.

    Fox, who ran the library for three years, was targeted by a right-wing bullying campaign as a result, The Daily Beast reported.

    “I’ve never been sexually assaulted at a drag show, but I have been in church, twice,” Graham told the board. “The men in that church told me it was my fault.”

    She denounced the “vile and disgusting” homophobic rhetoric taking root in the county. “I’m sick of it!” she said.

    “They haven’t done anything to anyone,” Graham continued, referring to the LGBTQ community. “I am so sick of listening to this weird, fake pious crap about Christianity being the reason behind, ‘We have to protect the kids.’”

    “Jesus didn’t go anywhere and condemn people!” she said. “He did not ever walk into any place and spew hatred and lies and completely annihilate a group of human beings who just want to exist.”

    “It is child abuse to immediately tell your child that he is wrong for feeling like he doesn’t belong,” she added.

    Critics of the Pride Month display were reportedly unhappy that the LGBTQ books were in the same vicinity as the part of the library where children’s books were kept, as well as an area where a children’s free lunch program was taking place.

    In social media posts, opponents suggested the display was a threat to children and attacked Fox for supposedly pushing a “Gay Pride Month agenda” to minors.

    The library board accepted Fox’s resignation, though it unanimously supported him staying on as director.

    Throughout Graham’s speech, attendees at the meeting were heard applauding and cheering her on. Various videos of her remarks on social media have each been viewed over a million times.

    The incident is just the latest example of tensions in local communities as conservatives wage culture wars over education on history and identity issues relating to racial minorities and LGBTQ people. Republicans and right-wing activists have worked to ban books and teachings about those groups and the history of their oppression in the United States, and to portray the existence of LGBTQ people and drag performers as somehow explicitly sexual and inherently threatening to children.

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  • Documentary Explores Origins of Homophobia

    Documentary Explores Origins of Homophobia

    “HOMOSAYWHAT” RELEASED ON DVD & STREAMING JUNE 2 – SCREENING EVENTS THROUGHOUT PRIDE MONTH

    Press Release
    –


    updated: Jun 2, 2020


    LOS ANGELES, June 2, 2020 (Newswire.com)
    –
    ​Craig Bettendorf, an LGBTQ+ activist, early signatory on the 1996 National Freedom to Marriage Resolution and author, has parlayed his unique perspective into a TV series, Treading Yesterday, and now a feature-length documentary. HOMOSAYWHAT explores the origins of homophobia that became institutionalized in the 1950s and how that continues to negatively affect all genders and sexualities to this day. The feature-length documentary, which won awards at film festivals including South Texas Underground, Colorado International Activism and Queen City, will be out on DVD and Streaming on June 2, 2020.

    The film will premiere online on Monday, June 8, with an in-depth “live” discussion following with the filmmakers, cast and special guests, followed by similar screenings on consecutive Monday nights during PRIDE month. The June 8 event starts at 5:00 p.m. PT/8:00 p.m. ET and will feature writer/director Craig Bettendorf, producer Kai Morgan, cast members Steven Scholz and Sean Bowe and special guests: Dr. Chris Donaghue (host of LOVELINE, former host of Logo TV’s “Bad Sex”), Dr. Eli Sheff (Author of “The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multiple-partner Relationships and Families”) and Jody Rose Helfland (Author of “Transforming Yourself”.)

    Synopsis:  Homophobia didn’t just happen. Orchestrated campaigns by cultural institutions and public figures have systemically instilled anti-LGBTQ prejudice into American culture by shaping public opinion.

    In the 1960s, propaganda films warned parents of “predatory characters” at local parks under the guise of public service announcements. Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign in the ’70s galvanized a coalition of conservative religious groups that spread the idea that sexual abnormalities would corrupt the nation and its children. The ’80s AIDS pandemic further exacerbated fears about homosexuality and “making fun” became a way to marginalize those who were different, which subsequently generated anger, fear, violence and even murder against targets deemed inferior.

    Although the LGBTQ+ community has witnessed progress since the passing of Marriage Equality and award-winning LGBTQ+ shows and films have been embraced, the psychic damage to gay people is deep, and events like the tragedy that struck the Orlando PULSE night club remind us that hateful propaganda can sometimes lead to deadly outcomes.

    WATCH TRAILER

    Written & Directed by:           Craig Bettendorf 

    Producers:                                Kai Morgan

    Featuring:                                  Jax Buresh, Steven Scholz, Sean Bowe and Rusty Smith 

    Run Time:  76 minutes | Language: English |Rating:  Not Rated

    Source: Cinema Libre Studio

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