Tag: Gay Politics

Inside One Chick-Fil-A Store on “Chicken Pride Day”

Trish

For those of you who don’t have a Chick-Fil-A store nearby, here’s the short version.

The president of the franchise, which serves fried chicken patties on a white bun with mayonnaise and pickles, recently spoke out against same-sex marriage. Dan Cathy, whose father, Truett Cathy, founded the chain, said in part, “We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”

As Cathy came out of the homophobic closet, the Muppets pulled their kids meal toys from the stores, which led to right wing support which led to…this video, from Randy Rainbow.

Press is Deforming Characters, One Lt. Gov. at a Time

Trish

Unfortunately, as an elected official character deformation that is totally fabricated can occur like this and there is not much I can do.

Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll (R-Fla.), emailing a supporter and blaming the media for recent allegations that she was having a lesbian affair with her travel aide. We think Carroll meant, “character defamation,” but then, we thought she was straight.

Florida Wants to Know: Is Our Lt. Gov. Gay?

Trish
Carroll
Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll

After a term with Gov. Charlie Crist, you’d think Floridians would be used to rumors of gay goings-on in the governor’s suite. But even normally unflappable Floridians are reeling at the news that Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll (R) might be…How did that one really rude web site put it? Oh yeah, a “carpet muncher.”

Carroll, 52, a former Navy veteran born in Trinidad and married mother of three, including Miami Dolphins player Nolan Carroll, is known as an ultra social conservative, pushing abstinence-only education, among other favorite rightwing initiatives. She’s also had to explain shifting income reporting (her net worth has varied depending on whether she was filling out tax returns or applying for low-income minority business set-asides), how she made speeding tickets in her former legislative district disappear without paying any fines, and how she rented an office whose location would have shown eligibility to bid for additional female-owned business set-asides, except it was already occupied by a private detective.

Report: ‘When she entered the office, she found the Lieutenant Governor and her Travel Aide, Beatriz Ramos, in what can only be described as a compromising position’

Carroll, like her boss, Gov. Rick Scott, also has a reputation for dealing harshly with perceived enemies. Scott, for example, recently tried unsuccessfully to have three judges that he considered liberal prosecuted for improper election filings because they had their paperwork notarized by a state worker, a practice so common no one realized it was verboten.

Carroll took it even further with a former aide, having her arrested for disclosing to the press a conversation recorded in the lieutenant governor’s office. The practice of taping visitors and colleagues was said to be routine under Carroll, but the aide, Carletha Cole, shared the recording with a newspaper. The tape confirmed the chaos and dysfunction alleged in Carroll’s office.

But the arrest and resulting investigation might have consequences Carroll never envisioned, like allegations of an affair with her female travel aide, Beatriz Ramos.

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Anti-Gay Hate Group Leader Who Gives Marching Orders to Romney Objects to New Yorker Article That Reveals His Obsession with Rigid Masculinity

Jon Ponder

Bryan Fischer
Bryan Fischer
The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer has written a profile of Bryan Fischer, a leader in the American Family Association, one of the best-funded and most deceptively named hate groups operating today. Fischer is the guy who recently forced Mitt Romney to excise Richard Grenell, a former long-time George W. Bush operative at the United Nations, from his campaign because Grenell is openly gay.

According to Right-Wing Watch, Fischer is very unhappy with the New Yorker piece at least in part because it exposes his obsession with, um, rigid masculinity. This obsession may have started when he learned that his father had been a conscientious objector during World War II. Fischer’s lifelong shame about his father’s weakness appears to have been compounded when his mother left his father for a bus driver — when Bryan was at the tender age of 20. (Even so, when Fischer, who turned 18 in 1969, had the opportunity to go war himself, he opted not to volunteer and did not serve in Vietnam.)

As a student at Stanford, Fischer joined an evangelical church in Palo Alto. He told a friend that he was attracted to the church because of its “manliness.” “It was the first time I’d been around a real muscular Christianity,” Fischer said to a friend then. “It had a kind of strength and virility to it that would appeal to men.”

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Leading Psychiatrist Recants Study Suggesting Gays Could Be Cured

Jon Ponder

In just 28 years, Dr. Robert Spitzer went from hero to betrayer among advocates of gay civil rights. In 1973, he led efforts to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders. But in 2001, he released a study that suggested that homosexuality could be cured. Now he has recanted the 2001 study and apologized to gays who have been harmed.

The harm has been significant in that hate groups have often cited the 2001 study in their lawsuits to restrict civil rights for gays, including the Proposition 8 case in California. The study was so foundational to the hate groups’ case in support of Prop 8 that some legal scholars believe it may be the final strew that leads to striking down the anti-gay marriage amendment to the California state constitution that was added when the initiative passed.

Now Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out has interviewed Dr. Spitzer about his recanting of the study and concomitant apology. Highlights are here.

Protest against Baptist Preacher’s Call for Concentration Camps for Gays Draws 2,000 in North Carolina

Jon Ponder

Morganton (N.C.) News Herald:

More than 2,000 protestors armed with signs and slogans lined Newton’s Southwest Boulevard on Sunday morning. They were there in reaction to the May 13 sermon by Charles Worley, pastor of Providence Road Baptist Church. In the sermon, originally posted on the church’s website, Worley called for all gays and lesbians to be imprisoned behind an electric fence.

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Church Member Voices Support for Baptist Preacher’s Call for Final Solution for Gays

Jon Ponder

Transcript:

ANDERSON COOPER: Pastor Worley obviously has strong support within the community. There are some 1,200 seats in his church. Gary said there is a service going on right now.

Stacey Pritchard is one of the church members, she joins us tonight. Stacey, I know you’re a defender of Pastor Worley and I appreciate you coming on the program.

Do you agree with his statements that he said on the pulpit that gays and lesbians should be put behind electrified fences until they die out?

STACEY PRITCHARD, MEMBER OF PROVIDENCE ROAD BAPTIST CHURCH: I believe that that was taken — I mean yes, he said that, but of course, he would never want that to be done.

Of course, people are going to take it and make it their own way and make it into what they want to. But I agree with what the sermon was and what it was about.

COOPER: But you’re saying he doesn’t want it done, but he said he wanted it done on the — he said it from the pulpit. Why do you interpret that’s not what he wants?

PRITCHARD: OK, let me try to say it a different way, maybe — maybe that’s what he felt like should be done. I mean, it can be said either way, OK, just to make the short of it, yes, I agree with him. If they can’t get the message that that’s wrong, then they can’t reproduce and eventually they would die.

COOPER: So you believe only that gay people are only born of other gay people? You’re saying they can’t reproduce, so therefore they would all die off. Aren’t gay people born — gay people get born to straight parents all the time, no?

PRITCHARD: No, that’s not what I meant. If men and men were in the same fence and women were in the same fence, they can’t reproduce together. That’s what I mean.

COOPER: Right, but that wouldn’t eliminate all gay people. There would be more gay people born outside the fence to straight people, wouldn’t there?

PRITCHARD: Exactly, but we were meaning the ones in there. See, it’s all taken out of context and twisted. The main point is always the same.

COOPER: So what is it about gay people that are worse than adulterers who Leviticus points out and people who have cursed their mothers and fathers who should be put to death and promiscuous girl who can be put into death — what makes gay people worse than those people?

PRITCHARD: From the bible, there’s no difference. But that is what he was talking about.

COOPER: So you believe people who — you believe adulterers should be put to death because that’s in the bible?

PRITCHARD: Like you said, like it was said, you know, not really, whatever happened, but yes, OK, I’m not going to keep answering the same question over and over, yes.

COOPER: So does it seem Christian to you, though, to talk about putting people behind electrified fences and watching them die?

Because I have talked to a number of pastors in the last couple of days, who say, that just doesn’t sound Christian, that doesn’t sound like the message of love that they hear in the bible.

PRITCHARD: People are once again harping, harping, harping, on the electric fence, this and that. It’s about homosexuals, and it’s wrong. That’s what it’s about.

COOPER: But you would understand why some people would feel this is wrong to say, I mean you say people are harping on it. Do you understand why people might be concerned? If some people were talking about putting Jews behind electrified fences, I imagine that would be of concern to you?

PRITCHARD: Well, you know, here we go again, nobody’s going to put them behind an electric fence.

COOPER: Well, actually that has happened, it’s called the holocaust. You said nobody’s going to kill homosexuals, it’s happening right now in Iraq. It’s happening right now in Iran.

PRITCHARD: Yes, and this is 2012.

COOPER: Right, it’s happening right now 2012 in Iraq and Iran.

PRITCHARD: And you know what? This is a pastor that speaks the word of God. Anybody can take it any way they want to, and if they don’t like it, they don’t have to. They can turn around and go on.

COOPER: Stacey Pritchard, I appreciate you being on the program. I know it’s difficult topic so thank you.

PRITCHARD: Sure, yes. Thank you so much.

COOPER: That’s one of the supporters of Pastor Worley in that town in North Carolina.

Source.

Was Crist Blackmailed for Placeholder Senate Seat?

Trish

There’s a lot more to this story that someday may be told, but I’m not ready yet to tell it.

Jim Greer, former head of the Republican Party of Florida, confirming reports that George LeMieux was not Gov. Charlie Crist’s first pick for the U.S. Senate set vacated by Mel Martinez in 2009. According to Greer, whose criminal trial over mismanagement of funds promises to expose skeletons in the closets of Sen. Marco Rubio, Crist, and other top Florida Republicans, LeMieux, “strategized how to get the interview and how to get the appointment, and that strategy included direct pressure on the governor.” Rumors that Crist is gay and has been protected by those around him have long surrounded the former governor, whose first choice for the seat was reportedly his lieutenant governor Jeff Kottkamp.

NAACP Board Endorses Marriage Equality

Trish
Trio
From left, Jacksonville City Council Member Warren Jones, Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown, and some gay rights advocate

Whatever that weird thing is with black churches and gay people is one step closer to being resolved, following an action by the NAACP, which followed an action by Pres. Obama.

Florida is home to the largest city in the country that still offers no protection in housing or hiring based on sexual orientation

The board of the N.A.A.C.P. voted to endorse same-sex marriage on Saturday, putting the weight of the country’s most prominent civil rights group behind a cause that has long divided some quarters of the black community.

The largely symbolic move, made at the group’s meeting in Miami, puts the N.A.A.C.P. in line with President Obama, who endorsed gay marriage a little over a week ago…

Borrowing a term used by gay rights advocates, the resolution stated, “We support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

In a statement, Roslyn M. Brock, chairwoman of the 64-member board, said, “We have and will oppose efforts to codify discrimination into law.”

Well, Chair Brock, you haven’t — if we’re talking about gay people — until now but let’s not get technical. The important thing is that it’s never too late to do the right thing so welcome to the 21st century!

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