Tag: anti-gay

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Anderson Cooper Puts Larry Tomczak On “The Ridiculist”

Last night, Anderson Cooper added anti-gay Larry Tomczak to the Ridiculist for his recent attacks on the “gay agenda” and “gay lifestyle.”

Here’s just a bit of Anderson’s on-air commentary:

“I’ve never actually been to the secret meeting where the gays plot their agenda, though I imagine the catering is quite amazing.

“But thanks to someone named Larry Tomczak, my eyes have been opened.

“I don’t know what a gay lifestyle is, like I don’t know what a straight lifestyle is. Seems like all the gay people I know, just like all the straight people I know, live all different kinds of lives. I know gay police officers and doctors, gay marines and ministers, even a couple of gay TV news anchors believe it or not.

“And all the ones I know just want to live their lives with the same kinds of rights and responsibilities as everyone else.”

Anderson’s use of subtle humor is to be applauded. See if you catch all of his “gay lifestyle” references throughout.

Bravo, Anderson!

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Tony Perkins Compares Gay Activists To Charlie Hebdo Terrorists

During an appearance on “Washington Watch” yesterday, hate group leader Tony Perkins compared Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s decision to terminate the city’s fire chief for violating city employment practices by distributed to his employees a self-published book containing condemnations of homosexuality to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris:

“Look, what happened there in Paris was designed to intimidate and silence. What happened here in Georgia, it wasn’t terrorists, it was a mayor; it wasn’t a gun he fired, but it was the chief he fired. And the intent was the same: it was to silence and to intimidate people of faith.”

(via Right Wing Watch)

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Dallas Billboard Promotes “Ex-Gay” Therapy, Billboard Company Promises To Remove Ad

A Dallas billboard recently went up promoting the use of “ex-gay” or “reparative” therapy.

As many know today, these techniques are used to try and “convert” gays and lesbians from homosexual to straight. Organizations like the American Psychological Association consider the practices harmful and damaging.

From ThinkProgress:

ThinkProgress spoke with Terry Kafka, president of Impact Outdoor Advertising, the small Dallas billboard company that is hosting the ad. Kafka explained that they had been convinced the ad was for couples therapy, having never heard the term “reparative therapy” before.

He described the true content of the ad as “repulsive to me personally,” promising that the ad would be coming down by next week at the latest. “If we had known, we wouldn’t have put it up in the first place.”

The practitioner who placed the ad, David Pickup,  says his techniques are not meant to “suppress” homosexuality but “resolving issues that cause homosexuality.” He tells ThinkProgress that he believes no one is born gay but instead come about due to childhood “gender identity inferiority” and “unmet male emotional needs.”

The Texas Republican Party endorsed ex-gay therapy in its platform last year.

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Denver Pastor Brings Funeral To Halt Upon Learning Deceased Was Lesbian

Vanessa Collier

Fifteen minutes into the funeral for Vanessa Collier, Pastor Ray Chavez stopped the memorial after realizing the deceased mother of two had been lesbian. Chavez refused to continue the service until images of Collier with her wife were removed from display.

From ThinkProgress:

According to the Denver Post, Chavez said he would only continue the service if images of Collier and her wife, positioned around the casket, were removed. The family, outraged, refused, and “picked up programs, flowers and eventually the dead woman’s casket itself” before relocating at a mortuary across the street. The scores of attendees, many of them reportedly lesbians themselves, followed suit, abandoning the church.

“It was humiliating,” Victoria Quintana, Collier’s friend, told the Denver Post. “It was devastating.”

Hurt and frustrated, dozens of friends and supporters of Collier reconvened in front of New Hope Ministries on Tuesday to protest the pastor’s decision. Holding images of the deceased, who police say is thought to have committed suicide, the demonstrators shouted chants of “Give us an apology!” and “Shame on Pastor Ray!”

According to the group’s Facebook page, the protestors also noted that Chavez, who reportedly referred to Collier’s sexuality as an “alternative lifestyle,” has yet to refund the family the cost of the funeral.

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Texas GOP Lawmakers Seek To Nullify LGBT Non-Discrimination Ordinances

Last month I reported on the city of Plano, Texas, passing important non-discrimination LGBT protections.

Now, it appears four Texas GOP lawmakers plan to introduce a bill that would effectively cancel those protections not only in Plano but the entire state of Texas.

The Texas Observer reports:

Texas Pastor Council Executive Director David Welch, whose group is leading efforts to repeal equal rights ordinances in Plano and Houston, told the Observer the legislation would prohibit political subdivisions of the state from adding classes to nondiscrimination ordinances that aren’t protected under Texas or federal law—neither of which covers LGBT people.

“It should be a uniform standard statewide, and cities can’t just arbitrarily create new classes that criminalize a whole segment of the majority of the population,” Welch said. “It’s just self-evident that they’re going to try to do it city by city. We’re dealing with a broad public policy that creates criminal punishments. That’s a pretty serious issue, and when it’s based on a special agenda by a small, tiny fragment of the population … that’s a legitimate need and reason for the state Legislature to act.”

The legislation is apparently modeled after a law that passed in Tennessee in 2011.

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Egypt: 26 Men Accused of “Debauchery” in Bath House Raid Found Innocent

A Cairo court acquitted 26 men on Monday who had been accused of “debauchery” in a rare victory for Egypt’s gay community that has of late faced an increasingly oppressive police crackdown.

The defendants had faced between 1-9 years in prison on varying degrees of “debauchery” — the most common Egyptian legal term used in cases against men accused of homosexuality.

Though homosexuality is not technically illegal in Egypt, the police and courts have a history of persecuting the gay community in this socially-conservative country. That Monday’s ruling went they way it did surprised many observers.

“It’s unprecedented,” said longtime human rights activist Scott Long. “This just doesn’t happen.”

The session lasted barely a minute — just enough time for the judge to do a roll-call of the defendants’ names before uttering a single word: “innocent.”

The court immediately erupted into raucous celebration as the men inside the courtroom cage shouted and waved their shackled hands and attending relatives yelled and sobbed in relief.

(from CBS News)

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Democrats File Legislation To Repeal Defense Of Marriage Act

Off to a fast start, Democrats in the House and Senate have re-introduced legislation to repeal the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

From Dallas Voice:

The Respect for Marriage Act was introduced by Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Florida, in the House and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, in the Senate. 77 additional House members and 41 other senators have signed on.

The Supreme Court struck down the portion of DOMA barring federal recognition of same-sex marriage in 2013. Since that ruling, same-sex marriage is legal in 36 states and Washington, D.C. But same-sex marriage is still banned in 14 states, including Texas, and they do not have to recognize marriages performed elsewhere. (The Texas marriage case will be heard before the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans on Friday.) The Respect for Marriage Act would fix that.

“The vast majority of Americans live in states where same-sex couples can marry and public support for marriage equality is growing stronger by the day. We must finish the job begun by the Supreme Court by passing the Respect for Marriage Act. The Supreme Court has ruled that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional, but Congress still must repeal the law in its entirety,” Nadler said in a statement.

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Gay Couple Kicked Out Of Uber Car For Kissing

Corey Watts (L) and Jordan Sloan (R)

An Uber driver in London ejected a gay couple, Corey Watts and Jordan Sloan, for kissing and cuddling during a ride

When they asked why they were being ordered out, the driver apparently said: “I take gays but they don’t normally do this.”

One of the couple, Corey Watts, took to Twitter to share his surprise and outrage:

Jordan also had this to add:

I’ve never had any homophobic stuff happen to me so I was caught off guard. You don’t expect it to happen in one of the world’s biggest cities. I wanted to understand what he was thinking so I asked the driver: “Would you do the same thing if it was a guy or a girl?”

Uber released this statement saying they had addressed the situation:

Uber does not tolerate any form of discrimination either by our partner drivers or towards our partner drivers. We opened an investigation from the moment we learned of this unacceptable incident and have been in contact with the rider to extended our sincere apologies and get further information. The driver concerned has been suspended from the Uber platform.

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NOM’s Brian Brown Sends Greetings From Alternate Universe

Brian Brown, of the anti-gay hate group National Organization for Marriage, posts on his group’s NOM Blog today about the “Top Headlines of 2014” in which he seems to conclude that his anti-marriage equality movement is somehow thriving:

We live in a time when those who wish to redefine marriage and their sycophants in the media miss no opportunity to tell us that the battle is essentially over, that history is on their side and that the views of the citizens have changed. This is a future that these activists hope for, but it is decidedly not the future they will encounter. The reason we know this is because whenever they put their version of the future to the test, it is rejected by the American people.

I am encouraged by the victories and the bright moments of the past twelve months as we head into 2015, because they remind me that the cause of marriage is still very much alive, and we have good reason to hope for even more successes in the new year!

With that reminder then, please accept my wishes for a happy and blessed new year for you and your family, and my thanks for continuing to work with NOM to defend marriage and family in 2015!

I’ll remind readers that the pro-same-sex marriage folks won almost 50 legal battles in 2014 while Brian Brown and his ilk saw perhaps 2 wins in their column.

“Even more successes” indeed…