We Won’t Be Able to Pee Anywhere, Oh No!

Sandy Rios.

Sandy Rios.

Whip out those hankies and you’ll be able to catch crocodile tears!

Christian activists’ boycott of Target hasn’t exactly been a rousing success so far, as the company this week announced that it’s spending $20 million to expand its available restroom options while at the same time remaining inclusive toward transgender people.

Right Wing Watch notices that Christian activist Sandy Rios is so scared that the boycott of Target will be a flop that she fears she’ll never be able to use a public restroom again.

“If we do not keep the pressure on Target, this will quickly — we know how major corporations are, they are scared to death of anything that isn’t politically correct — this will spread like wildfire, we will not be able to go to the bathroom anywhere,” she told Breitbart’s Alex Marlow. “What’s at stake is all the other companies around this country that will just cave, they just will.”

Oh my, it would be nice if you could figure out that this is the way the rest of us already feel. We’ve been living fear of a public lav because of people like you, Ms. Rios. If you really want to settle this, just self ban yourselves from public lavs. Unfortunately, since Breitbart’s nastiest, slimiest, sleaziest, most unethical asshole, Stephen Bannon, has hired onto the Trump campaign, Breitbart is busy whipping this all up again, into a massive frenzy of bigotry and hate.

Full story here.

Flood of Sewer Fetuses Will Spread HIV!

Carol Everett (Photo: The Heidi Group).

Carol Everett (Photo: The Heidi Group).

In the not enough facepalm in the universe category, Texas legislature has designated 1.65 million dollars to a non-medical based, anti-abortion group, on the basis of aborted fetuses flooding the sewers, and somehow or another, causing the general water supply to be contaminated with STDs or HIV, because that’s just oh so realistic. Honestly, this is so goddamned embarrassing.

Carol Everett is the founder and CEO of The Heidi Group, an anti-abortion organization that gives women health “advice,” but is not a medical provider and can’t perform any health care services.

Earlier this month, Everett testified at a hearing at the Austin, Texas statehouse on a proposed requirement that women either bury or cremate the remains of an aborted fetus. According to The Austin Chronicle, Everett testified about her concerns of an impending public health disaster if fetuses were flushed down toilets. She argued that the general public could be afflicted with STDs or even HIV due to fetuses flooding the sewer systems.

“What if one day something horrible escaped into the sewer system?” she said, as the audience snickered.

Everett’s claims are scientifically impossible.

Just days later, the Texas legislature awarded The Heidi Group $1.65 million in taxpayer money for the organization’s “health care services.” Their organization doesn’t provide health care services.

While the group’s website advertises “Helping Texas Women,” further examination reveals their claims to have “programs” lists merely a phone number, the page that offers to help women with pregnancy/infant loss says “Page Coming Soon” and if a woman needs a pregnancy test they have a list of links to crisis pregnancy centers, that counsel women against abortion.

“The Heidi Group exists to ensure that all Texas women have access to quality health care by coordinating services in a statewide network of full-service medical providers,” the website says. It doesn’t explain how this is different from a Google search.

The grant comes out of funding that previously went to Planned Parenthood before Texas politicians kicked them out of the program in 2012.

In an interview with the Texas Observer, Everett admitted that she’ll be forking over a lot of the money to crisis pregnancy centers, which an investigation showed lie to women about the realities of their reproductive health. She assures the Observer that the taxpayer funds will not go to administrative costs at The Heidi Group or the organization’s rent, but it will go to nurses and doctors in rural Texas that urge women against abortions.

“My goal is to reach that little girl in a small county with no hope of having anybody explain her birth control options or have her blood pressure checked,” she said.

The local CVS pharmacy and Walmart often have machines where people can have their blood pressure taken for free. Crisis pregnancy centers in Texas have been caught counseling women to use abstinence only as a birth control method and refusing to dispense contraception.

Full Story Here.

Girls Do Not Need A Prince.

 

Twitter/@KNKNOKU Image caption Kim Jayeon could not have expected that a tweet would have cost her her job.

Twitter/@KNKNOKU
Image caption Kim Jayeon could not have expected that a tweet would have cost her her job.

Gamergate in Korea. Every bit as bad, and I’d say worse.

On the face of it, the slogan “Girls do not need a prince” doesn’t seem that controversial.

In many parts of the world, it would pass as the kind of thing any young woman might wear without prompting a second look.

But when the actress, Kim Jayeon, tweeted a photograph of herself wearing the garment, she generated a storm and lost herself a job.

She was the voice of one of the characters in a South Korean online game called “Closers”. Gaming is very big in South Korea, as much a part of the culture as football.

Fans of “Closers” inundated Nexon, the company which produced the game, with complaints. Many of the complaints, according to female activists, were offensive and anti-women.

Nexon quickly bowed to the protesters and sacked the actress. It told the BBC that she would be paid in full for her work but her voice would not be used on the game.

It issued a statement saying it had “recognised the voices of concern amongst the Closers community”, adding that “we have suddenly decided to seek a replacement in the role”.

The full story is at BBC.com.

Curing LGBT people from their affliction.

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Illinois, like many states, passed legislation called the Youth Mental Health Protection Act, to ban the practice of a “failed and discredited non-therapy that attempts to change the unchangeable,” as Equality Illinois put it.

But now five pastors have come together to sue based on religious freedom. They believe they should be exempt from the bill because of their religion and designation as a church and religious institution. Like many churches and religious businesses over the years, when they see a law they don’t like they claim First Amendment protections. This argument could be made with any law, however. There could be an argument that slavery and servitude not to mention abuse of one’s children and family could be sanctioned by The Bible, and thus laws outlawing it should be allowed in the church as part of a “religious freedom” exemption.

Pink News reports Pastor Steven Stultz of Nu-Church Apostolic Ministries of East Garfield is one of those seeking to use the torturous technique on LGBT people. Claiming, “In 1 Corinthians 6:9, the Apostle Paul writes to those who had overcome many sins including homosexuality, stating, ‘such were some of you’ but you were changed through God’s healing,” he said. “I have personally witnessed many people change their sexual orientation through counseling and know it is possible. The government is interfering into someone’s private decisions. This ban on counseling creates fear in the people most in need of comfort and support.”

The pastors’ attorney insists this is a ban on those who seek spiritual guidance at difficult times where they are questioning their sexual orientation.

“Each person should be free to receive Biblical and spiritual counseling from the pastor of their choice to help them orient their sexuality,” said John W Mauck from Mauck and Baker LLC.

Most recently, a Texas teen was forced into a “pray away the gay” boarding school after she tried to take her girlfriend to the prom. The litigation in her case is ongoing and the court documents have been sealed, but she was ultimately released, after trying to escape.

Pastors, go fuck yourselves, please. You aren’t offering comfort, aid, or help. You’re looking for governmental help in kidnapping, imprisoning, and torturing people. While that’s certainly biblical, it has no place among thinking, compassionate, rational people who are living in the 21st century.

Via Raw story.

That Is Pathetic.

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“That is pathetic.” I haven’t heard such a lovely sentence in quite a long time.

It’s been just over a year since same-sex marriage became legal nationwide in the US, and it turns out the fundraising buckets at homophobic anti-equality campaigns are looking a little empty.

National Organization for Marriage, the main US group opposing same-sex marriage, has launched a desperate plea for cash from its dwindling supporters.

And halfway through the campaign, it looks like it’s not going very well.

‘We’re now three weeks into our drive — the halfway point — and we have only received 256 contributions from our members. We’re only 17% toward our goal of receiving 1,500 membership contributions of at least $35,’ Brian Brown, the president of NOM, said in an email to the group’s supporters.

‘That is pathetic.

‘Unless this situation improves drastically right away, NOM will have little choice but to cut some of the critical programs we have underway and not pursue some of our most important work to protect you and other supporters of marriage from being targeted by LGBT extremists and their allies in government.’

NOM then lists all the horrific homophobic and transphobic things they would like to do if they only had the funds to get rid of that pesky ‘equality’ laws. He blames ‘LGBT extremists’.

That includes influencing Congress to pass a First Amendment Defense Act, which is similar to the ‘religious freedom’ law in Indiana that caused such outrage, and as well as fighting ‘President Obama’s dangerous gender “identity” agenda”.

‘I really don’t believe — I just can’t imagine the thought — that NOM’s members have quit fighting for the institution of marriage as a union between man and woman,’ Brown said.

‘And yet, only 256 of you have responded with an urgently needed membership contribution during this critical period.’

‘If NOM has to scale back, the fight for marriage and religious liberty is seriously weakened,’ he added.

It looks like NOM is finally dying, and that’s a very good thing. I suspect the reason for that though, is that conservatives are seeing an easier to attain road with all the current religious liberty laws, so it’s not like the fight is over in the least. That said, I couldn’t be happier to see the ugliness that is NOM wither away. It’s about time.

Via Gay Star News.

Trump Confederacy in Kissimmee.

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KISSIMMEE, Fla. — The most controversial moment of a Donald Trump rally here Thursday night may have come before the bombastic candidate took the stage. For a solid 20 minutes, a Confederate flag with the words “Trump 2016” hung from the railing in the Silver Spurs Arena.

It was easily visible even as public figures like Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Pastor Mark Burns gave warm-up speeches before the Republican presidential nominee took the stage. Then minutes before Trump began his speech, organizers asked the supporters who brought the flag into the venue to furl it.

The imagery harkens back to a heated debate throughout the South over the flag’s racist meaning after another mass shooting, in Charleston, S.C., which ended with the flag being removed from the capitol grounds. It also harkens back to a New York Times video that recently went viral that recorded unfiltered remarks by Trump supporters that were unabashedly racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic. Confederate symbolism makes an apperance there as well.

The media doesn’t often focus on the attitude of the Trump crowds. Even in this latest case, as tends to happen at Trump rallies, such symbolism got brushed aside as the crowd got whipped up over other matters.

[…]

Most importantly, Trump was speaking in a suburb of Orlando two months after the Pulse massacre and hours after meeting with pastors and evangelicals during an event critics have called an anti-LGBT gathering. Trump made mention of the Orlando attack, saying more people should have reported shooter Omar Mateen to the FBI: “People knew he was demented.” In fact, Mateen was interviewed multiple times by the FBI based on complaints placed by those who knew him.

Clearly building off the closed-door discussions with leaders at the American Renewal Project conference in Orlando earlier in the day, Trump appealed to social conservatives in the room. “The evangelicals took me to a point that I never even thought we could reach,” he said. “All around the country we did well.”

The Advocate has the full story. Speaking of the intense anti-LGBT gathering in Orlando, again, Marco Rubio just will not shut up about being a keynote speaker, and keeps on attempting to defend his stance, while at the same time, telling people not to be judgmental. Hypocrisy knows no limit where Rubio is concerned:

 

ORLANDO — In a speech laden with scripture, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on Friday compelled church leaders at a conference here to “abandon the spirit of judgment” against LGBT neighbors. The remarks came on the two-month anniversary of a shooting at the Pulse night club located about 10 miles from the religious gathering.

[…]

Rubio was the headline speaker for The American Renewal Project’s two-day event in Orlando, and on Friday devoted much of a 30-minute speech to encouraging preachers to create an accepting environment free of discrimination. “In order to love people, we have to listen to them,” he said. “When it comes to our brothers and our sisters, our fellow Americans, our neighbors in the LGBT community, we should recognize that our nation, while the greatest nation in the history of  mankind, is one with a history that has been marred by the discrimination against and the rejection of gays and lesbians.”

He also emphasized his continued opposition to marriage equality, saying his faith called for the elevation of the “union of one man and one woman.” But he said Christian leaders should understand many gays and lesbians felt “angry and humiliated” that the law until recently did not recognize their own loving relationships. “Many have experienced sometimes severe condemnation and judgment from some Christians,” Rubio said. “They have heard some say that the reason God will bring condemnation on America is because of them. As if somehow God was willing to put up with adultery and gluttony and greed and pride, but now this is the last straw.”

[…]

Rubio’s anti-LGBT record is lengthy. The senator doesn’t support the Equality Act proposed in Congress, for example. It would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the 1967 Civil Rights Act, ensuring protection from discrimination in housing and employment. When he had a chance to vote in 2013, Rubio voted against passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which some moderate Republicans helped pass 64-32 in the Senate, though it would stall in the House. But his discriminatory policy stands don’t stop there. Rubio has in the past said letting LGBT people adopt children is a “social experiment” that he opposes. He also opposed reversing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that required LGBT people to stay closeted while serving in the U.S. military.

The Advocate has the full story.

Another Day, Another Bad Priest.

Monsignor Lawrence McGovern -- Fox 40 screenshot.

Monsignor Lawrence McGovern — Fox 40 screenshot.

Oh look, another priest who doesn’t understand boundaries, consent, and immoral, unethical behaviour. About the only thing new in this case is that Monsignor McGovern decided to sexually harass an adult. I have no doubt that Monsignor, who has been placed on administrative leave will be yet another priest in the Catholic church’s ongoing game of “Where’s the Pedo Priest?” Given that this is case of sexual harassment, rather than assault or rape, the Monsignor will most likely merit the lightest of smacks on the wrist, perhaps 40 Lord’s Prayers and 50 Hail Marys.

The Stockton Catholic Diocese has suspended a monsignor over allegations that he sent pictures of his penis to the church pool maintenance man who complained — only to be fired.

According to FOX40, Monsignor Lawrence McGovern, the pastor of Presentation Parish in Stockton, has been removed from his duties after the landscaper filed a lawsuit against the church for sexual harassment.

According to an attorney for the unidentified father of two, who is also a church parishioner,  McGovern sent his client sexually explicit pictures.

“It’s extremely disturbing that the person’s who is head of this parish would be sending text with photographs of his exposed genitals,” attorney Vince Finaldi said before ading. “Someone’s who’s engaging in that type of conduct has very, very serious credibility issues and issues with judgement.”

According to Finaldi, his client confronted the priest over the pictures and pressed him over his vow of celibacy.

According to the victim, McGovern responded, “Oh, that just means that you’re not married.”

The local diocese issued a statement saying, “Today the Diocese of Stockton learned for the first time of employment related allegations against Monsignor Lawrence McGovern, the Pastor of Presentation Parish in Stockton. In accordance with the Canon Law of the Church, Bishop Stephen Blaire has placed Monsignor McGovern on administrative leave pending a full and complete investigation.”

A full and complete investigation. Right. There really isn’t anything to investigate though, is there? So what they actually mean is that they need to get together to figure out what they are going to try and sell people to make them believe they are actually doing something.

According to Finaldi, McGovern should be dismissed, saying, “That person has no business being in a parish and head of a school where there are numerous young children walking around everyday.”

I’m with Mr. Finaldi. I’m damn tired of priests and cops constantly being given another ride on the merry-go-round, no matter how bad their behaviour, and no matter what heinous acts they commit.

Via Raw Story.

You’ll know they are Christian by their love…

Dr. Paul Hard.

Dr. Paul Hard.

It happened in Alabama, and as the Chief Justice Roy Moore was speaking after being suspended for defying the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling.

He will go on trial in September.

A few hundred feet away from Moore’s speech to crowds with many holding signs like ‘homosexuality destroy families’ and ‘sodomy ruins nations’, there was an alternative press conference organized by the Human Rights Campaign.

Among the people speaking there were people like Dr Paul Hard, who has been involved in a legal fight for his husband who died five years ago to be recognized as his husband.

And when he began to speak about his partner’s death, a man in the crowd laughed.

‘You can’t have a husband,’ he said.

John Archibald, a columnist who was there at the conference, asked: ‘How can any man, no matter his position on Roy Moore or any issue, stand before another and mock his pain?

‘How can one stand under the banner of God and laugh at another man’s death?

‘How — in the name of God — can one deride genuine grief?’

He added: ‘Christians cannot let these people define their religion. All they have is volume. As a substitute for moral authority.’

https://vine.co/v/5bihOImElmJ

Lovely, isn’t it, how Christians behave? If they don’t like something, they can be as ugly and immoral as they like, smug in their sense of self-righteousness. They should be busy cultivating a sense of shame. If you aren’t one of those very ugly Christians, where are your voices? Get busy, and drown these assholes out, put them down, tell them in no uncertain terms that they are not Christians, regardless of them sharing the same beliefs.

Via Gay Star News.

Depicting Hysteria.

NSFW.

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Alexandra Levasseur.

The second annual 4%ers exhibition is at the Athen B. Gallery in Oakland. The group show of female artists explores the origins of hysteria and the artistic expressions that have come to represent it. First conceived in San Francisco at the FFDG gallery, the show has since then changed locations to host a new set of artists with what it calls a “slightly wilder premise,” according to the gallery.

[…]

The gallery explains that the term, “hysteria,” was coined by an ancient Greek physician named Hippocrates, who used the word to explain ailments and afflictions thought exclusive to the female body. Hippocrates believed the uterus was the constitutional source of female woes, “often expressed as a restless, wandering womb, creating disorder within the body and distress in the woman experiencing it,” writes the gallery. Hysteria was understood as a nervous disorder and diagnosed on physical indicators: “gestures, motions, gaits, and non verbal utterances.” Without any legitimate grounds in medicine, the expression and mitigation of its symptoms often came in the form of artistic practices, such as painting. Although the diagnosis is no longer considered valid in formal medicine, the artists in the 4%ers show believe the concept of hysteria has impacted “the way women are supposed to act, look, and express themselves, physically, sexually, and artistically.” Now, they seek to reclaim the word through their own artistic expression.

[Read more…]

Ireland: Yes Equality.

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Joe Caslin tackles Ireland’s steadfast refusal to legalize same sex marriage. Caslin’s art is printed out using biodegradable inks, then papered onto a suitably large surface. You can read about Yes Equality here. Caslin has also done a series, Our Nation’s Sons, dealing with mental health, depression, and suicide in Ireland’s men. Joe Caslin’s website is here, and there’s lot a lot to explore!

Homosexual totalitarianism is out of the closet!

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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will meet with a group of around 700 evangelical pastors this week, hoping to win over hardline, anti-gay Religious Right leaders who have thus far been hesitant to embrace his struggling candidacy.

Trump is scheduled to speak on Thursday at a closed-door meeting in Orlando, Florida hosted by the American Renewal Project (ARP), a group of evangelical Christian pastors. The event has been widely criticized as anti-LGBT, with another selected speaker — former Florida senator and former GOP presidential candidate Mark Rubio — fending off accusations of insensitivity for appearing at the event so soon after the tragic murder of nearly 50 people in Orlando at a gay nightclub in June.

Rubio has also defended his doing so, won’t shut up about it, actually. These are people who have no empathy whatsoever, don’t know what compassion means, and are utterly bereft of lowly sympathy.

Accusations of anti-gay sentiment are rooted in inflammatory statements made by the ARP’s founder, David Lane. Lane’s group is sponsored by the American Family Association, which is listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In addition, he has personally called for “war” against the “pagan onslaught imposing homosexual marriage” in the past, and repeated similarly bombastic sentiments to Bloomberg this week.

“Homosexual totalitarianism is out of the closet, the militants are trying herd Christians there,” Lane said.

Indeed, Lane appeared hopeful that Trump would be swayed to his right-wing ideology. He said he appreciated the businessman’s support for repealing the Johnson Amendment — the law that makes it illegal for churches to retain tax-exempt status if they explicitly endorse candidates — but remained focused on pushing him to embrace policies many believe discriminate against LGBT people in the name of religion.

“[Repealing the Johnson Amendment is] a good first step,” Lane told Bloomberg. “But what about the religious liberty of Christian photographers, Christian bakers, Christian retreat centers, and pastors who believe same-sex intercourse and marriage is sin? These Christians were simply living out their deeply held convictions of their Christian faith when they politely refused to provide services for a same-sex wedding. Doesn’t the First Amendment give us all a right to our beliefs?”

As usual, these bigoted hate-mongers manage to completey lose the “all” in all a right to our beliefs. Yes, we certainly do have the privilege to believe whatever we like, no matter how daft, reasonable, or hateful. The key word being all. That means you don’t get to make the rules, Mr. Lane. Your right to believe what you like does not extend to harming people, and yes, discrimination is harm.

Trump could, hypothetically, push on without such endorsements, but there is a tactical value at stake: Evangelical turnout operations are often heavily reliant on leadership — especially faith leaders who attend Pastors and Pews meetings, many of whom played a key role in evangelical get-out-the-vote efforts during the 2012 election cycle.

This means Lane’s wish for a more vocally-anti-LGBT Trump could very come true, if only out political necessity. Nearly three-quarters of white evangelical Christians remain opposed to marriage equality — even though most other major religious groups in America support it. Since the group still makes up a sizable part of the Republican electorate, Trump may be hoping to revive his rapidly decreasing poll numbers by winning back the core of his Republican base.

This might be more than a probability, given Trump’s latest attempt to wrest money from people, the “Trump Gold Card“:

According to Trump, the card will signify to the world that you “are tired of a government that bows down to foreigners, refuses to even say the words ‘Radical Islam,’ and leaves our borders wide open!”

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Trump Woos Radical Christians at Think Progress. The ‘Trumpet your Trumpness’ is at Raw Story.

NO, Gov. Bryant, NO!

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.

Apparently, Governor Bryant doesn’t understand the word no, even though it has been explained to him repeatedly.

A federal judge had some harsh words for Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant when he refused—again—to let the state enforce what many have called the country’s most discriminatory law against LGBTs.

U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves refused Monday to stay his injunction against HB 1523 while Bryant organized his appeal, saying that the “absence does not impair the free exercise of religion.”

[…]

Reeves’s irritation with the case came through loud and clear in his brief, claiming he was “passing the baton” to a higher court and openly doubted if the governor would win on appeal.

Maybe that’s because the Magnolia State tried to compare businesses serving LGBT customers with forcing someone to fight in combat or get an abortion.

“Issuing a marriage license to a gay couple is not like being forced into armed combat or to assist with an abortion,” Reeves wrote.

Honestly, you can hear the exasperation in the writing.

I imagine that’s the same exasperation parents feel when presented with a toddler who refuses to take no for an answer. Grow up, Governor.

Via Out.

Francis Denounces Gender Choice.

pope-francis-x750_copyIn the ‘water is wet’ category, Francis has railed against the concept of people being transgender. Here we go again with the whole “oh, it’s just a lifestyle choice” nonsense.

Pope Francis is getting criticism for speaking out against the idea that gender can be chosen.

“Today, in schools they are teaching this to children — to children! — that everyone can choose their gender,” the pope said in a meeting with Catholic bishops in Poland last week, the Associated Press reports. The Vatican released a transcript of his remarks today.

He quoted his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who retired in 2013 but still lives at the Vatican: “Speaking with Pope Benedict, who is well and has a clear mind, he was telling me: ‘Holiness, this is the epoch of sin against God the Creator, he’s intelligent! God created man and woman, God created the world this way, this way, this way, and we are doing the opposite.’”

Pope Francis has previously denounced the idea of gender mutability, saying that “gender theory … does not recognize the order of creation” and calling for “valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity,” as “it is not a healthy attitude which would seek to cancel out sexual difference.”

[…]

Criticism of the pope came from Kelsey Louie, CEO of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, who said he was “saddened and disturbed” by the remarks. In an emailed statement, Louie continued, “Our children deserve to know that of course they have the right to choose, and GMHC applauds all schools that teach students not to oppress who they are, but instead live the life as the gender they most identify with.” He noted that in light of the mass shooting at the Pulse LGBT nightclub in Orlando, “what we need now is for our world leaders to spread messages of tolerance and acceptance.”

The Advocate has the full story.