How dishonest is this hate group?

The folks at American Family Association, an anti-LGBT hate group, hold themselves out as Christian moralists. However, when it serves their purposes, particularly in service to the disparagement of LGBT people, AFA personnel will lie through their teeth. I touched on this Tuesday. I received yet another email from AFA and some additional information Wednesday morning.

Wednesday's email from AFA is titled: One company to boycott this Christmas. It is signed by Hate Group Leader Tim Wildmon. As you might have guessed the company AFA wants people to boycott is Target Corp. AFA has been at this for a few years now and the boycott hasn't made so much as a dent in Target's revenues. That is less relevant than the deceit.

AFA must need money - It's Target time again - UPDATED

Hate Group Leader Tim Wildmon (American Family Association)

Image: YouTube

Were I to confuse correlation with causation I might claim that American Family Association's silly boycott of Target Corp. has been beneficial to the company. Earnings are up, dividends are up and guidance is up. Target (NYSE:TGT) is expected to report strong third quarter results next week.

AFA, an anti-LGBT hate group, is still digging in. I suppose that it still brings in the sheaves.

The only thing "absurd," Michael Brown, is the idiotic argument

It might seem relatively harmless in its abject stupidity. Yet, what Brown is promoting is bigotry and ignorance.

The judgmental Michael Brown is promoting cruelty

Image via YouTube

Some people think that people of faith are stupid. I am not one of those but Dr. Michael Brown might cause me to change my mind. Late Monday Brown wrote: Man wanting courts to make him 20 years younger highlights absurdity of transgender claim.

The only absurdity is the comparison

Michael Brown is fond of rhetorical questions:

You knew it had to happen sooner or later. After all, if a biological, chromosomal male who identifies as "female" can have his birth certificate changed to female, why can’t a 69-year-old man who feels like he’s 49 have his age legally changed?

"Boy Erased" is scaring the crap out of some people

Larry Tomczak is determined to convince everyone else that conversion therapy is a proven reality.

2015 Image via YouTube

A great deal of LGBT oppression on behalf of religious conservatives is premised on the effectiveness of conversion therapy. In accounting, when debits and credits are out of balance and when that imbalance is corrected with an arbitrary entry, it is called “a force.” Conversion therapy is a theological force. For religious literalists it claims to prove that their god did not create LGBT people.

A new film — Boy Erased — provides a contrary narrative and a true story. The son of a Baptist preacher is given an ultimatum to either submit to a gay conversion program (after being forcibly outed to his parents) or be forever exiled and shunned. The outcome is quite predictable. The young man stays quite gay.

A teen suffers from extreme bullying in Texas

An actual Instagram sample of a teen bullied online and physically in a Texas high school | Image via Dallas Voice

I urge people to read the entire article at The Dallas Voice, written by Micah Moore.

It happened one day after basketball practice, as students were changing in the locker room, the same day Matthew sank the shot from mid-court.

According to Matthew, two students grabbed him and tried to hold him down. He managed to break free. But one of the boys grabbed him from behind and started dry-humping him while another student grabbed his face, telling him, “You looked beautiful today” and calling him “faggot.”

URGENT call for FL recount volunteers, particularly attorneys - ALL COUNTIES!

Image: Public domain

Hundreds of volunteers are needed to participate in the pending Florida recounts. Attorneys are particularly helpful in this process, but anyone willing to be a firm advocate for democracy and fairness in this process can participate.

To participate please complete this brief form.

HateSiteNews

This offensive photo is part of an article on LifeSiteNews objecting to transgender accommodations in Sarasota, Florida schools. It dishonestly depicts a transgender school girl as an adult male who poses a threat to the little girl in the adjoining stall. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center no longer lists hate sites as hate groups. If the SPLC resumed that practice then LifeSiteNews.com would surely be included.

LifeSiteNews is an ultra-orthodox Catholic operation. I get faith. I really do. While I am not a believer I am not wed to the notion that people of faith are either stupid or pernicious. Orthodoxy diminishes critical thinking but that does not connote evil intent independent of actual malevolent conduct.

In Florida, desperately seeking an Occam alternative for the voter tally

Occam's razor stipulates that when there are competing hypotheses to explain something, the simplest is usually the correct choice.

Image: Public domain

I am at a loss to find a simple explanation for Florida's apparent vote tally in 2018.

In Broward County Florida (county seat Fort Lauderdale) there is an election anomaly. As of Thursday morning, 665,688 citizens voted for either Rick Scott or Bill Nelson for Nelson's U.S. Senate seat. Yet 690,153 citizens voted for their choice of governor. In other words, on the same ballot, in succeeding questions, 24,465 more people voted for governor than senator. That makes no sense at all.

Tony Perkins never misses an opportunity to demonstrate his bigotry

Image: YouTube/Fox News

Thursday, Hate Group Leader Tony Perkins (Family Research Council) reminds us of his willful ignorance regarding transgender people. Perkins writes: Mind-boggling: Prof refuses to call male student ‘ma’am,’ may get fired. The male student is a transgender woman. What is mind-boggling is Perkins' dependence on ancient texts. His reliance causes Perkins to insist that gender is synonymous with sex. It transforms faith and religion into noxious superstition.

Wednesday I wrote about Nicholas K. Meriwether, a philosophy professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio. Meriwether was criticized by his employer for not having the common courtesy to address a student, a transgender woman, with appropriate pronouns. Indeed, Meriwether went out of his way to express his religious disapproval.

Litigation: What is so damned difficult about correctly gendering people?

Why must conservative Christians exploit every available opportunity to express their disapproval of LGBT people?

Personally, I find it awkward to refer to an individual as “they.” It is not a judgment about the individual; it is just, as I said, awkward. However, it is not my place to determine how someone is addressed. I was brought up to understand that we address people as they choose to be addressed.

People who refer to the “Democrat Party” are schmucks. They do it to harmlessly annoy Democrats. Yet people who misgender transgender folks are on a different plane. They are intentionally harming other people; vulnerable transgender people who are already the objects of derision.

Just in passing: Kim Davis

Kim Davis presumed to be anointed by God to be a county clerk in rural Kentucky.

Image via Liberty Counsel

Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who thought that she had the right to decide who had God's approval to obtain a marriage license, lost her reelection bid last night. Democrat Elwood Caudill Jr. defeated Davis by a margin of 54% to 46%. Perhaps she can now get a job cleaning rooms at a local Motel 6. More likely she will go on the hate circuit where she can defame LGBT people for a profit.

MassResistance loses a big one in Massachusetts

Nearly 70% of Massachusetts voters elected to retain existing protections for transgender people.

This campaign didn't quite work for MassResistance as they expected. Voters overwhelmingly approved Question 3, retaining protections for transgender folks.

MassResistance, the Massachusetts hate group, was at the helm of Keep MA Safe, the campaign to strip transgender citizens of protections. Along with a number of religious groups made the customary appeals claiming that the safety of women and children was imperiled by bathroom accommodations.

Brian S. Brown discusses his penile implant

I support marriage. Hell, Dan Savage supports marriage and so do the folks at the Human Rights Campaign.

Image: NOM

Not really. He hasn't discussed his equipment but today's money-beg is no less shameful:

Today is the day we've been waiting for – election day – which will have a major impact on the future direction of the country. The stakes are high. NOM has been focused on four key US Senate races which will determine whether the Republicans maintain, or even increase, their majority or if the obstructionist Chuck Schumer and the Democrats will take over. As President Trump said yesterday, that would unleash a wrecking ball to our national priorities.

Stupid or wed to the notion that everyone else is an idiot?

Peter LaBarbera - "Voila! Irrefutable logic."

Image: YouTube

Hate group leader (and all-around douchebag) Peter LaBarbera actually paid for a press release at Christian Newswire believing that he can influence voter turnout. The title of this bit of genius reads: Nancy Pelosi Promises Radical LGBTQ 'Equality Act' if Democrats Win House, While GOP Candidates Self-Censor on Homosexual Agenda. Pete likes long titles.

Nancy Pelosi

The most dangerous legislation ever to come out of the revolutionary "gay" activist movement – the federal "Equality Act," which proposes adding "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" as protected classes in the Civil Rights code – hangs in the balance as Americans go to the polls today.

Another Ex-Gay Event is a Flop

Are these supposedly “ex-gays” trying to convince others or, … themselves?

Freedom March Los Angeles, November 4, 2018. According to Charisma, “Participant M.J .Nixon, founder of Uprooted Heart Inc., says the group released the sound of freedom that will forever impact the city.”

Image source: Charisma

Sunday was the so-called Freedom March in Los Angeles. This is a come-to-Jesus-pray-away-the-gay staple and it looks like fives of people showed up. Apparently they generated about the same level of interest that they had last May:

Fr. D. Paul Sullins: Gay men are pedophiles and pederasts

Rev. D. Paul Sullins, Ruth Institute

Image via YouTube

On Friday, D. Paul Sullins and Ruth Institute announced a new study based on a review of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, data codified from the 1100-page Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report released in August 2018, and data from a 2002 survey of Catholic priests by the Los Angeles Times. According to the press release:

The Ruth Institute study shows:

• a disturbing recent increase in the number of sexual incidents reported since 2010.
• a strong correlation between the percentage of self-described homosexuals in the Catholic priesthood and the incidence of sexual abuse of minors by the clergy.

From the journals: Is there a link between gender dysphoria and autism?

First from Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry,  November 2018. The lead investigator is Jack L. Turban at Harvard. Emphasis added:

The topic of gender identity in children and adolescents has gained widespread attention in Western society during the past decade … More recently, growing attention has been paid to a putative relation between gender dysphoria (GD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This concept has become particularly popular in the lay press. Some individuals have gone so far as to suggest that transgender identity is a result of underlying psychopathology, with ASD being one example. These conclusions are not supported by extant research, and practicing child and adolescent psychiatrists should be aware of the literature on this topic and its limitations.

A lesson in literacy from Bryan Fischer

Bryan Fischer explains it all for you

Image via YouTube/AFA

American Family Association windbag, Bryan Fischer, has some interesting ideas about what certain verbiage means.

One of the most pernicious distortions of the plain meaning of the Constitution is the conceit that U.S. citizenship automatically belongs to anyone born in America.

It doesn’t.

Exquisite Prose From David Lane

Image via Vimeo/American Renewal Project

David Lane, Christian Nationalist, Dominionist, Creepy Republican Operative and anti-LGBT bigot writes at his American Renewal Project: AFRICAN-AMERICANS ENGAGE THE MOST WITH THE BIBLE THAN ANY OTHER US ETHNIC GROUP.

I suppose that makes perfect sense to Mr. Lane. Lane can spout scripture rapidly and with ease. Authoring a coherent secular sentence? Not so much.

Who writes this crap for Family Policy Alliance?

“This is just rank bigotry.”

Paul Weber | Image via Family Policy Alliance

Family Policy Alliance is, in reality, an affiliate of Focus on the Family. Most of the board members are employees or associated with Focus on the Family and the organization occupies space adjacent to Focus on the Family. (It might actually be on Focus' campus.)

FPA is a relatively small organization with fewer than 20 employees. Therefore, I will blame its president, Paul Weber for: What’s Next on the Transgender Front? Here’s a Stunning List. No other author is identified. Is someone ashamed of their bigotry? Weber, by the way, is a former employee of Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBT hate group.

Were they Canadians the racist Trump would be silent

CBN: Trump May Send 15,000 Troops to Border, Vowing 'We're Not Going to Let Them Come Into Our Country'

It looks like Donald Trump is going to ride dishonesty into election day. He is suggesting that, without military might, the current caravan will invade the United States. Trump knows that is untrue but he also knows that his base will buy just about any BS from Agent Orange. We have a unique new class of citizens: People who like being lied to.

"As far as the caravan is concerned our military is out," President Trump said early Wednesday at the White House. "We have about 5,008. We'll go up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border. Nobody's coming in. We're not allowing people to come in."

Upgrading to Fedora 29 was boringly uneventful

I suppose that it is a good thing that nothing went wrong. Hats off to the many dedicated open source developers. I have become a Linux evangelist.

I remember a time when every upgrade was an adventure. One had to download the new version, burn it to a DVD and then, essentially, reinstall Linux. Then even the atheists among us had to pray that everything worked as it was supposed to. After all that one had to find the right incantations to get certain packages to yield to our will. That's all behind us.

Ooh, a CONFIDENTIAL money-beg

Concerned Women for America is not designated a hate group by the SPLC but it sure as hell is one. This in spite of the fact that the founder, Beverly LaHaye, has a gay son. Peter LaBarbera and Mat Barber are just two of the very insane people who have worked for CWA.

The text of the email reads:

I just got out of a meeting with our finance team, and if we don't raise $29,000 by midnight tonight, we may have to cut back on our critical Concerned Women Vote program.

Aside from the hate, Tony Perkins is profoundly dishonest

Hate group leader Tony Perkins demonstrates his contempt for transgender people.

Image via YouTube/Fox News

Wednesday, hate group leader Tony Perkins (Family Research Council) writes: Even ‘sex change’ surgeons now expressing doubt about transgenderism. Perkins' purpose is to dishonestly defame and marginalize transgender people because of his greed and a religious objection to their very existence.

According to Perkins:

Dr. Miroslav Djordjevic is not your normal physician. He came to fame more than two decades ago, making a name for himself as one of the world's premiere genital reconstruction surgeons.