Tag: anti-LGBTQ

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Another Day, Another Homophobic Baker Refuses To Bake A Wedding Cake

A baker in Tennessee told a lesbian couple she wouldn't make a wedding cake for their wedding because of her deeply held religious beliefs
(image via Depositphotos)

Another day, another baker refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

This time, the baker is Susie Dennison of Susie’s Sweets bakery in Burns, Tennessee.

Brandi Ray shared in a Facebook post that she met with Dennison to arrange for a wedding cake for her upcoming nuptials.

Apparently the chat was very pleasant, but Ray received a note from Dennison via Facebook afterwards saying she would not be able to make the cake because ‘Jesus.’

Dennison’s message read:

“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! I want you to know in saying that, I do love you in The Lord! Had I known before you left, I would have said something then!”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Ray responded. “Have a good night.”

Dennison claims in her note that she didn’t know it was to be a same-sex wedding, but Ray posted a photo of the invoice Dennison hand-wrote which clearly shows both brides’ names.

She also shared on her Facebook post that she mentioned her fiancée’s name, Michele Schmidt, “like 10,000 times” when she and Dennison met at the consultation.

According to the bakery’s website, Dennison says she “can bake any type of sweet treat you need for any occasion.”

Well, clearly not “any” occasion. Nowhere on the website does Dennison say she doesn’t make wedding cakes for same-sex couples.

We’ve seen cases like this before, most notably in Colorado where anti-LGBTQ baker Jack Phillips, of Masterpiece Cakeshop, refused to bake a cake for a gay couple for their wedding celebration.

Phillips took his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court where he won a narrow victory when the high court ruled the Colorado civil rights commission had appeared to view his case with anti-religious bias.

Unlike Colorado, the state of Tennessee has no legal protections for LGBTQ citizens, so Dennison’s behavior here is totally legal.

🙁

Ray hasn’t indicated if she plans any kind of legal action.

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Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Has Extreme Anti-LGBTQ History

Judge Brian Hagedorn of Wisconsin

When an individual sits on the bench as a judge – in any court – the responsibility is to be fair and unbiased in applying the law. The public needs to know judges don’t bring their own personal judgements into the courtroom.

Which is why many in Wisconsin are concerned about the candidacy of State Appeals Court Judge Brian Hagedorn for the state Supreme Court.

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, in 2016, Hagedorn helped found the Augustine Academy in Merton, Wisconsin.

The private religious school bans students, teachers, and parents from being in gay relationships.

The school’s statement of faith declares that “Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union that establishes the only normative pattern of sexual relations for men and women, such that marriage ultimately serves as a type of the union between Christ and his church.”

The school’s Code of Personal Conduct (listed in the school teacher application) specifically dictates no “immoral sexual activity” which is defined as “any form of touching or nudity for the purpose of evoking sexual arousal apart from the context of marriage between one man and one woman.”

Violations of the code of conduct could result in teaches being fired. And students face possible expulsion from the school should they or their parents be discovered violating the rules.

It isn’t unusual for a private, faith-based school to have such policies.

However, Hagedorn’s close relationship to the school, which he still oversees, gives pause as to how neutral he would be as a judge on the state’s highest court.

In that the nonpartisan court hears cases that involve LGBTQ discrimination based on “deeply held religious beliefs,” it’s difficult to see Hagedorn putting his personal beliefs aside in such cases.

Analiese Eicher, executive director One Wisconsin Now, expressed her concerns that Hagedorn “remains intimately associated with an organization that actively discriminates against the LGBTQ community.”

Stephan Thompson, a member of the schools board of directors, defended Hagedorn saying he “treats everyone fairly under the law.”

“He is running for the Supreme Court to protect religious freedoms for all Wisconsinites, regardless of faith,” added Thompson. “Yet the latest smear is just another example of attacks on his own faith.”

But the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has previously reported on blog posts made by Hagedorn while in law school where he once wrote gay rights could lead to legalized bestiality.

In 2005, he wrote, “The idea that homosexual behavior is different than bestiality as a constitutional matter is unjustifiable.”

Hagedorn has stated he sets aside his personal beliefs as a member of the state Appeals Court, and would continue to do so if elected to the Supreme Court.

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Jussie Smollett Speaks Out At First Public Appearance: “I Fought The F*ck Back”

Almost a week after Empire star Jussie Smollett was assaulted in Chicago by two men who used homophobic, racist slurs during the attack, the actor & singer showed up for his already scheduled concert at The Troubadour in Los Angeles last night.
Jussie Smollett (image via screen capture)

Almost a week after Empire star Jussie Smollett was assaulted in Chicago by two men who used homophobic, racist slurs during the attack, the actor & singer showed up for his already scheduled concert at The Troubadour in Los Angeles last night.

As he took to the stage, his first public appearance since the attack, he told the crowd, “I had to be here tonight, y’all. I can’t let the motherf—ers win,” according to Variety.

“I have so many words on my heart,” Smollett told the sold-out crowd. “The most important thing I have to say is thank you so much and that I’m okay. I’m not fully healed yet, but I’m going to. And I’m gonna stand strong with y’all… l will always stand for love. I will never stand for anything other than that. Regardless of what anyone else says, I will only stand for love. And I hope that you all will stand with me. So now… let’s do it.”

Variety notes that the concert was sold-out before the attack in Chicago.

With a setlist that included songs like, “Freedom,” Conqueror,” and “Hurt People,” Smollett reportedly fought back tears as the evening took on a message of defiance and strength.

Near the end of the concert, the singer called out to two artists in attendance – out actor Wilson Cruz (Star Trek: Discovery) and Empire creator Lee Daniels: “I promised myself I was not gonna cry tonight. Someone in the crowd that I want to recognize: Wilson Cruz is someone I identified with growing up. I stand on the backs of so many people — of the Lee Daniels and the Wilson Cruz’s — and I pray to God I make you all proud.”

Before his final encore, he said there were a few points of fact that he wanted to clear up regarding reports of the attack.

“I was bruised but my ribs were not cracked; they were not broken,” he began. “I went to the doctor immediately – I was not hospitalized. Both my doctors in L.A. and Chicago cleared me to perform, but said to take care, obviously. And above all: I fought the f— back.”

And the crowd goes wild!

After the roar subsided, he finished the moment by joking, “I’m the gay Tupac! So now, we can do our encore.”

As he exited the stage, Smollett announced, “We are proud. We are gay.”

Wilson Cruz acknowledged Smollett on his Instagram.

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News Round-Up: January 31, 2019

Instagram hottie José Adones – check his moves out at the end of this post

Some news items you might have missed:

• A candidate for the Wisconsin state Supreme Court wrote just a few years ago that legalizing homosexuality would lead to bestiality. But he has no bias against LGBTs whatsoever…

• New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has signed a law requiring school boards to use instructional materials that accurately portray political, economic, and social contributions of LGBTs and persons with disabilities. #Bravo!

• Donald Trump responded to reports of the horrific attack on Empire star Jussie Smollett telling reporters in the Oval Office today, “That I can tell you is horrible. It doesn’t get worse.”

• Yorke Print Shoppe in Chicago refused to print a fundraising brochure for an LGBTQ charity. The owner, Brad Scull, says he has nothing against “those people” but has an issue with promoting “the lifestyle.”

Note: There is no religious exemption to Illinois’s nondiscrimination law, and sexual orientation is specifically included as a protected class. So, you do the math…

• The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday ruled the city of Fayetteville may not continue enforcing its anti-discrimination ordinance while the city challenged the constitutionality of a 2015 law that prevents cities and counties from enacting their own LGBTQ protections not covered by state law.

• A deaf lesbian couple say Delta Airlines mistreated them when they tried to communicate with a gate agent in Detroit. The women say they wrote down their request to sit next to each other on the plane, but the agent crumpled up their note and threw it away.

• This could technically qualify as a ‘Daily Dance’ post, but I thought I’d leave this right here.

Florida-based dancer/entertainer José Adones (top of page) is giving you all kinds Latin flavor here. And I ain’t mad 🙂

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Armed Protester Barges Into Public Library To Disrupt Drag Queen Storytime

James ‘Doc’ Greene Sr.

A protester armed with a gun barged into a Houston public library this past weekend in an attempt to disrupt Drag Queen Storytime.

James ‘Doc’ Greene Sr., who was previously issued a trespassing warning by the Houston Public Library for similar protests, entered the Freed-Montrose Library on Saturday at 1:45 p.m., just minutes before the monthly story time event.

When Greene refused to leave, library management called the police for help.

A spokesperson for the Houston Police Department told Outsmart Magazine, “A manager asked us for assistance because [Greene] was banned from the library, and would not leave when he was asked.”

“He was previously banned for filming children at the library, and has been known to cause disturbances,” she added. “Several officers had to escort him out.”

Greene, a conservative radio host for Raging Elephants Radio, was disarmed by the police, put in handcuffs, and placed in a police car. At that point, he began to complain of chest pains.

An ambulance was called and Greene was transported to a local hospital. The District Attorney declined to press charges.

At some point after the police arrived, Greene began recording the incident. He posted part of the video to YouTube where you can see he questions why he was being ejected from the library.

“How am I trespassing?” asks Greene in the video. “I want the law, I want to see the law. How many cops does it take to tell me what the law is?”

“You were given a trespass warning,” an officer responds. “They have requested you to not be on the property anymore.”

After several minutes of citing his status as a taxpayer and “member of the press,” at the 4:10 mark, Greene is shown the trespass affidavit but he disregards it.

The police then escort him out of the building where he declares for the camera, “We have a bunch of homosexuals that are molesting children, and they are doing it with your help.”

Organizers of Drag Queen Storytime say protesters are nothing new for the event, which features drag queens reading to children and their parents to encourage imagination and creativity.

On January 3, Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal dismissed a lawsuit by anti-LGBTQ activists who were attempting to stop the events.

Drag Queen Storytime has become so popular it was recently announced that there will be additional readings added to the schedule.

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Anti-LGBTQ Law Costs North Carolina New $60 Million Netflix Series

North Carolina just can’t get its act together regarding anti-LGBTQ laws.

And now, according to StarNewsOnline, the state may have just lost $60 million in revenue thanks to the inaction of state lawmakers to repeal those laws.

Streaming giant, Netflix, was looking to shoot a new series, OBX, in the Tar Heel state but balked thanks to HB 142.

The law, enacted in 2017 was meant to be a ‘fix’ on previous legislation HB 2, which marginalized transgender people by requiring them to use public bathrooms that align with the gender on their birth certificates.

HB 142 partially repealed HB 2, but left in place bans on local communities passing their own anti-discrimination laws through 2020.

Ten episodes of the new project have been ordered by Netflix, and Jonas Pate, who created the show, wanted to shoot in his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina. But the ban on local municipalities enacting their own legislation is a sticking point for Netflix.

“This tiny law is costing this town 70 good, clean, pension-paying jobs and also sending a message to those people who can bring these jobs and more that North Carolina still doesn’t get it,” Pate said.

Pate added that the production is projected to spend in the neighborhood of $60 million in whatever state the series shoots.

Pate, and his brother Josh, have previously created the NBC series Surface, which was shot in Wilmington.

But this past weekend, Pate found himself scouting sections of Charleston, South Carolina, for the new production.

Freshman state Sen. Harper Peterson, a Democrat from Hanover, hopes to see the issue addressed this week as the state Assembly is in session.

“That is a decision the legislature has to make and realize that it is one more opportunity we are losing if we don’t,” Peterson told StarNewsOnline. “We have to get back and be competitive with other states. It just hurts to see a production about North Carolina go to South Carolina.”

OBX is described as a coming-of-age story that follows four teens in the Outer Banks whose lives are changed when a hurricane cuts off all power to the islands.

“When these lifelines for teens like phones and Snapchat are gone, it really reorients the generational divisions,” says Pate.

(h/t StarNewsOnline)

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Brazil’s New President Begins Attack On LGBTQ Rights Hours After Being Sworn Into Office

Jair Bolsonaro (image via Flickr/Agência Brasil Fotografias – CC License)

The LGBTQ community in Brazil began to see its fears realized on New Year’s Day when newly-elected President Jair Bolsonaro immediately issued executive orders targeting the South American country’s gay citizens.

Just hours after his inauguration, Bolsonaro removed all LGBTQ issues from the agenda of the Human Rights Ministry.

Damares Alves, a former evangelical pastor who is now Brazil’s new human rights minister, said in her first public statement, “The state is lay, but this minister is terribly Christian.”

“Girls will be princesses and boys will be princes,” said Alves. “There will be no more ideological indoctrination of children and teenagers in Brazil.”

In removing LGBTQ concerns from the Human Rights Ministry, Bolsonaro did not name another agency to take on the responsibilities.

Bolsonaro has been virulently anti-LGBTQ his entire career having worn the label of “proud homophobe” for years. In the past he’s said parents should beat their children if they suspect they might be gay, and that he’d rather have “a dead son rather than a gay son.”

In fact, his platform of anti-LGBTQ, anti-Black, anti-women, and anti-Indigenous positions won his the presidency with more than 55% of the vote in October.

As I’ve recently reported, numerous same-sex couples made a dash to the alter to get married before Bolsonaro took office, concerned he might attempt to reverse the country’s 2013 same-sex marriage law.

According to NBC News, Bolsonaro signed a document in partnership with the Catholic organization Voto Católico Brasil promising “to defend and promote the true meaning of matrimony: the union between a man and a woman.” LGBTQ activists and advocates saw that as a threat to repeal marriage equality.

Bolsonaro’s impending presidency led to a 66% spike in same-sex weddings in November according to The New York Times.

Considering the assault on LGBTQ rights by the Trump administration, it comes as no surprise that Donald Trump tweeted a message of support to Bolsonaro, who has been called the “Trump of the Tropics.”

President Trump also sent his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to attend Bolsonaro’s inauguration.

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LGBTQs In Brazil Rush To Marry Fearing New Anti-Gay President

Even though same-sex marriage has been legal in Brazil since 2013, LGBTQ couples are hurrying their wedding plans before right-wing politician Jair Bolsonaro is sworn into office as the country’s new president.

Bolsonaro, often referred to as the “Donald Trump of the Tropics,” has been virulently anti-LGBTQ his entire career and campaigned on a promise to defend “the true meaning of matrimony as a union between man and woman.”

Bolsonaro’s campaign already seems to have begun to influence public opinion and actions.

Comparing 2017 to 2016, anti-LGBTQ murders are up 30% (387 in 2017 vs. 327 in 2016) according to local LGBTQ advocacy group Grupo Gay de Bahia.

And openly lesbian city councillor Marielle Franco of Rio de Janeiro was murdered in March of this year.

All of this and Bolsonaro’s impending presidency has led to a 66% spike in same-sex weddings in November according to The New York Times.

In Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo, 57 same-sex weddings were celebrated during the first ten days of December compared to 113 in all of December 2017.

Aline Foguel set a date for her wedding to her girlfriend Carolina Zannata right after Bolsonaro’s landslide victory. She, like many in the LGBTQ community, worries that the new far-right president’s ascension will give permission to homophobes to openly air their hateful, divisive rhetoric, possibly leading to violence.

“People now have this open homophobic discourse that they were too embarrassed to say before,” Ms. Foguel told the Times. “I’m so afraid of reliving a past that I thought we had already conquered. I’ve had panic attacks.”

The Brazilian Bar Association’s head of sexual diversity, Maria Berenice Dias, urged same-sex couples “who want to get married to hurry up and formalize their union before the end of the year.”

And it’s not just marriage equality Brazilian LGBTQs are concerned about.

Noah Beltramini, a transgender man, not only rushed to marry but also to officially change his name and gender identification after a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year allowed.

“It wasn’t something I was worried about before,” said Beltramini. “But with Bolsonaro I feel completely vulnerable.”

(h/t The New York Times)

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Podcast: Midterm Elections Recap, Tanzania, Rock Hudson & Colton Haynes

In this podcast:

• As the close races are finding a victor days later, I break down the midterm elections on how LGBTQ candidates did, as well as how the “Blue Wave” will affect our community.

• The US State Department denounces the hideous human rights violations against LGBTQ people in Tanzania.

• Hollywood legend Rock Hudson is getting a big screen biopic treatment by out super-producer Greg Berlanti (Love, Simon).

• And Colton Haynes surprised fans with a cover of “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman.

All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report.

If you enjoy catching up on LGBTQ news in a quick podcast, I’d appreciate it if you would share The Randy Report with your friends.

I like to think of this podcast as the 60 Minutes of gay news — only shorter 🙂

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Trump Administration Will No Longer Issue Visas To Same-Sex Partners Of Diplomats

United Nations Plaza (image via Flickr/AC Moraes)

 In reversing a nine-year policy begun by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Trump administration continues to demonstrate hostility to same-sex couples.

Beginning Monday (October 1), the U.S. State Department will require same-sex partners of staff of international organizations based in the U.S. to be married in order to qualify for a proper visa.

The policy change will affect foreign employees of organizations like the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

From the State Department’s website on G-4 visas: “Effective immediately, U.S. Embassies and Consulates will adjudicate visa applications that are based on a same-sex marriage in the same way that we adjudicate applications for opposite gender spouses.”

The State Department issued a statement saying the policy change is meant to “help ensure and promote equal treatment” between straight and gay couples. In order to obtain a G-4 visa, straight couples are required to be married.

The difference for same-sex couples, however, is that in many of their native countries same-sex marriage, or even homosexuality, is illegal.

And, as Fabrice Houdart, a human rights official at the United Nations told NBC News, “The policy seems to presume that same-sex partners should be able to easily visit the United States on a tourist visa where they could get married.

“But for people in many countries, particularly poor and conservative countries like the ones that do not permit same-sex marriage, obtaining a tourist visa to visit the United States is extremely difficult,” he added.

Under the new policy, the partners of United Nations workers, for example, that are not legally married will have 30 days after the new year to either get married or exit the United States.

So, what do these couples do? The choices available to them are abandon their careers here in the U.S. or try to marry and face possible severe penalties back home.

Of the 193 United Nations member states, only a few dozen have recognized same-sex marriage. And then there are countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran which have death penalties for being gay.

Former Ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, called the move “needlessly cruel & bigoted” on Twitter.

And the Human Rights Campaign followed up Powers’ tweet saying the policy change “reflects the hostility of the Trump-Pence administration toward LGBTQ people and our friends and allies.”

“It is hatred, and it is unacceptable,” the HRC added.

(h/t NBC News)