LGBTQ news and entertainment
Sportscaster Thom Brennaman (screen capture)
Thom Brennamann likely ends his Reds career tonight LIVE on the air pic.twitter.com/EDzSICgVmx
— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) August 19, 2020
Thom’s apology pic.twitter.com/uyzrQ27sxj
— Joe Kinsey (@JoeKinseyexp) August 20, 2020
Cash Baker (images via Instagram) Ok, who’s going to tell him?
Cash Baker fans outraged calling his latest videos homophobic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic etc. In rants, Cash says he does not support LGBTQ+ community and other religions because of the Bible—rants and reactions in thread. Cash has 16.4M TikTok followers. What are your thoughts? pic.twitter.com/psAe20TN98
— Def Noodles (@defnoodles) August 8, 2020
Cash Baker’s rant about Islam that has fans outraged. Cash says “Unfortunately I cannot support other religions because the Bible says that”. pic.twitter.com/yNmvn14rQB
— Def Noodles (@defnoodles) August 8, 2020
@cashbakerJesus loves you❤️♬ UNDERWATER WONDERSCAPES (MASTER) – Frederic Bernard
@cashbakerReply to @jamescharles I love you guys❤️❤️♬ original sound – cashbaker
@cashbaker
Christian Council (images via Facebook)
Bennett Stone, 24, was identified as the man who started the fight. As the incident escalated, Council and Martinez say the trio was yelling homophobic slurs. Martinez tried to intercede but the unidentified man restrained him while Stone continued the beating. Martinez told police Council lost consciousness for “a minute or two” as he stopped responding to the blows and his body went limp. Martinez was eventually able to call 911. The police charged Dickerson and Stone with misdemeanor assault and battery which could result in up to 90 days in jail and a fine of $1,000. Council was treated for a concussion as well as cuts and bruises at a local emergency room. In the weeks since the attack, Council says he’s experienced post-traumatic stress disorder while in public. According to The Oklahoman, the initial police report didn’t mention any of the homophobic slurs used during the assault even though Council and Martinez relayed that to the officers. In characterizing certain crimes, Oklahoma City police can indicate whether an incident was domestic violence, a drive-by shooting, or a hate crime. The officers didn’t check the hate crime box. The report was later amended to include the use of anti-gay remarks after the police reviewed body camera footage showing Council mentioning the slurs. In Stone’s version of the events, he claims he saw Council “punch” Dickerson and he was merely defending Dickerson. A spokesman for the Oklahoma City police, Master Sgt. Gary Knight told The Oklahoman the incident is currently under review before referring it to the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s office. “There is no hard evidence that suggests the attack was because of his sexual orientation,” Knight told The Oklahoman. “Right now it appears the conflict was because of a truck not moving out of the way of his vehicle. These people did not know each other. There’s no indication they jumped out of their vehicle because of his sexual orientation.” 
(image via Facebook)
Me and my high school buddy Addester Williams at Voodoo in Las Vegas
A doctor in New York City has filed a lawsuit alleging he was repeatedly the target of homophobic comments during his first-year residency at The Brooklyn Hospital Center. The New York Post reports Dr. Chad Jensen, a surgical resident, says among the vulgar jokes made at his expense was a supervisor referring to him as a member of the ATM or ‘a** to mouth crew.’ In his lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Jensen alleges the surgical residency program director, Dr. Armand Asarian, and Dr. Sandeep Sirsi, the associate director, “regularly made hateful, anti-gay comments about their gay patients and unscientific judgments that these patients’ own ‘lifestyle’ caused their illnesses.” The 32-year-old physician, who left the residency program before his year was up, told the Post he was surprised to experience ‘that kind of discrimination’ in New York City. Jensen moved to New York City from California in June 2017 to take the one-year residency. It was during that time he came out as gay. “It just reinforced all of those fears, essentially putting me back into those 29 years that I was living in fear, feeling like I couldn’t be myself,” Jensen told the Post. According to the lawsuit, the Brooklyn Hospital Center did determine after Jensen’s departure that he “had been harassed because of his sexual orientation.” Asarian was reportedly removed as director of the surgical residency program and Sirsi was forced to resign. Jensen is now a resident in the Bronx at NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln. He tells the Post he brought the lawsuit because he felt “like he had no voice.” “It made me think of all the other people in this country that are also gay and feel like they have nowhere to go and it leads them down dark paths,” Jensen explained to the Post. “So me coming forward, I wanted to let people know that they’re not alone.” The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and asks for the hospital to institute anti-bias training. (source: NY Post – stock photo via Depositphotos)
L-R Khaled and Mahmoud Khayat (images via Twitter)
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| Florida state Rep. Mike Hill (R) with Donald Trump (L) |
A Florida lawmaker is being called unfit for office after a recording revealed him joking about executing gay Floridians.
An op-ed in the Pensacola News Journal shares an audio clip of Florida Rep. Mike Hill in a recent meeting with a group called Women for Responsible Legislation.
In the recording, a citizen comments, “In 1 Corinthians, it says that a man who has an affair with another man will be put to death.”
Hill can be heard responding, “It says that in the Old Testament, too.”
Another attendee inquires, “Can you introduce legislation?”
Laughter is heard in the background as Hill joins in the chuckles before saying, “I wonder how that would go over?”
It probably won’t surprise you to know that Hill’s Twitter account describes the 60-year-old as “Pro Life! Pro Guns! Pro Jesus!”
Andy Marlette, who penned the op-ed, writes that with that comment, “Hill proved why he is both an unfit legislator and an unfit Christian.”
Remember folks, this is the same state that lived through 49 people shot to death and 53 more injured at a gay bar, Pulse Nightclub, in June 2016.
Hill went on to share in the same meeting that he believes being gay is “a behavior, and it’s a choice” and that LGBTQ people don’t need legal protections.
In a longer audio clip obtained by The New Civil Rights Movement, Hill can be heard saying, “You can say, ‘But I was born that way.’ OK, well, fine, but nobody’s forcing you to engage in that relationship, even if you were born that way.”
In his essay, Marlette wonders why Hill, who clearly considers himself a Christian, didn’t just say, “No sir, stop right there, that’s wrong, that’s not what Jesus would do.”
But, he didn’t.
The op-ed calls for the Florida House to weigh in as well as Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson.
“It’s not enough to groan, roll our eyes and privately lament Mike Hill,” writes Marlette. “When public officials espouse cruel and immoral ideas, we are morally obligated to shout them down in the public square.”
As news of the recording has gone public, State Rep. Carlos Gulliermo Smith, who is the first openly gay Latino legislator in the state, has called on Hill to either apologize or resign.
I’m shocked & disgusted to discover a colleague who I’ve worked closely with would joke about punishing me by death for being gay. As a survivor of anti-gay hate violence, I know the consequences of homophobia are real. @MikeHillfl should apologize to LGBTQ Floridians or RESIGN. https://t.co/BqMoxLc6Vo— Rep. Carlos G Smith (@CarlosGSmith) May 31, 2019
Bigotry like this is the reason LGBTQ Floridians need protection from discrimination in state law. Homophobic and transphobic individuals can also happen to be employers, landlords, and business owners who may engage in legal discrimination. It still happens in 2019 people!!!!— Rep. Carlos G Smith (@CarlosGSmith) May 31, 2019
To add insult to injury, I joined forces with @MikeHillfl last year to protect greyhound racing dogs. Apparently, he thinks DOGS deserve protection, but not LGBTQ people. Those are his priorities. How insulting…. https://t.co/zw0ISCwWCB— Rep. Carlos G Smith (@CarlosGSmith) May 31, 2019
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| Celebrity baker Jay Qualls (image via Facebook) |
Last week, I reported on yet another baker who has refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple.
After meeting with Susie Dennison of Susie’s Sweets bakery in Burns Tennessee, Brandi Ray shared on her social media that Dennison sent her a Facebook message saying she wouldn’t make the cake in question because ‘Jesus.’
“I really enjoyed our time together and I truly wish you the best but after realizing that your union will be of the same sex, I cannot with my spiritual conviction and beliefs, do your cake,” wrote Dennison. She added, “I want you to know in saying that, I do love you in The Lord.”
Ray responded writing, “I’m sorry you feel that way. Have a good night.”
After the story went viral, celebrity baker Jay Qualls of Nashville stepped up and has offered to bake a free wedding cake for Ray and her fiancé, Michele Schmidt.
With over 30 years in the baking industry, Qualls has worked with Martha Stewart, appeared on TLC’s The Next Great Baker and Cake Boss, as well as Food Network’s Cuthroat Kitchen.
The veteran baker told The Tennessean the story left him “enraged.”
“This has to stop. It’s discriminatory,” Qualls told the newspaper. “I can’t sit back and allow this, as a gay man who has a very healthy and meaningful life with two adult children who are loved, and a very meaningful relationship.”
The baker shares that his outrage stems in part from having experienced discrimination himself when planning his second wedding.
Qualls was married to a woman for 13 years and has two grown children. He was 33-years-old when he came out, and three years ago was denied wedding services due to homophobia.
He and his fiancé had made plans to hold their ceremony at Montgomery Bell State Park’s Cumberland Presbyterian Church. But when the couple went to pay the facility fee, they were turned away due to the same-sex marriage.
At the time, he didn’t go public with the story because he didn’t want his wedding “turning into a circus.”
But this time, he’s speaking out on behalf of Schmidt and Ray, and told the couple they can have “anything they want.”
Over his 30+ years as a professional baker, Qualls says he’s “sat across from thousands of couples over the years,” and some of them he didn’t share the same beliefs. But he didn’t turn any of them away.
“When you are serving the public, you have to be willing to serve all the public,” Qualls said.
Kim Davis, who became famous for refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple after the U.S. Supreme Court declared marriage equality the law of the land, has lost her bid for reelection.
The four-time married adulteress couldn’t pull out another election. Awwww… oh well.
Ding dong the witch is dead!
TOTALS from the Kim Davis race in Rowan County:
Davis (R): 3566
Caudill (D): 4210@heraldleader @BGPolitics— Will Wright (@HLWright) November 7, 2018
When you see Kim Davis officially lost. pic.twitter.com/Be64pPTxSx— Chris Jackson (@ChrisCJackson) November 7, 2018
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| Amy and Daniel McArthur of Ashers Baking Company |
In 2014, the Northern Ireland Equality Commission brought a lawsuit against Ashers Baking Company on behalf of LGBTQ activist Gareth Lee who had gone to the bakery to order a cake for a private function to be held observing International Day Against Homophobia.
Lee asked that the cake feature Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie and bear the message “support gay marriage.”
The owners of Ashers Bakery, Daniel and Amy McArthur, originally accepted the cake order.
But Amy McArthur later contacted the man who ordered it and said they could not make such a cake “in conscience.”
The McArthurs have maintained that the issue was not the customer but the message.
The BBC reports that back in May, Daniel McArthur told the press while standing in front of the court house, “We didn’t say no because of the customer; we’d served him before, we’d serve him again. It was because of the message. But some people want the law to make us support something with which we disagree.”
After two earlier court cases, the UK Supreme Court has now ruled in the bakers’ favor overturning a £500 damages award imposed on the bakery owners.
The five justices of the high court were unanimous in their ruling seeing the issue as not one of gay discrimination but one of freedom of expression.
Lady Hale wrote the decision.
From The Guardian:
“It is deeply humiliating, and an affront to human dignity, to deny someone a service because of that person’s race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or any of the other protected personal characteristics,” Hale said in the judgment.
“But that is not what happened in this case and it does the project of equal treatment no favours to seek to extend it beyond its proper scope.”
Freedom of expression, as guaranteed by article 10 of the European convention on human rights, includes the right “not to express an opinion which one does not hold”, Hale added. “This court has held that nobody should be forced to have or express a political opinion in which he does not believe,” she said.
The McArthurs expressed relief for the ruling, saying, “We are very grateful to the judges. We did not turn down this order because of the person who made it, but because of the message itself.”
Lee, however, says he feels “confused about what this actually means.”
“We need certainty when you go to a business,” he told The Guardian. “I’m concerned that this has implications for myself and for every single person.”
The original decision to turn down his order had left him feeling like a “second-class citizen”, he said.
Lee’s last option would be to appeal to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg.
It’s worth noting that Northern Ireland is the only place in the UK where same-sex marriage is not legal.
If this sounds familiar, it should.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly ruled in favor of Jack Phillips, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, who refused to sell a cake to a gay couple celebrating their wedding.
In the U.S. case, the high court decided that a Colorado state agency had approached the case with religious bias. In the ruling, SCOTUS asked the Colorado Civil Rights Commission to re-examine the case.