I Didn't Say It

Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader, warning that much more than abortion rights are at risk if Hair Furor gets a second term:

“And the extreme MAGA Republicans have set in motion the erosion of reproductive freedom. We’re gonna fight for it with everything that we’ve got at our disposal. [But] if Roe v. Wade can fall, anything can fall. Social Security can fall. Medicare can fall. Voting rights can fall. And God help us all, but democracy itself can fall. If Roe v. Wade can fall, then anything can fall.”

Including marriage equality and LGBTQ+ rights. So, if you don’t care about women, or the elderly, or the ill, or voting, or LGBTQ+ Americans, then vote for the traitor and then just wait until the GOP comes for rights YOU hold dear.

But, if you believe imn freedoms and equality for all, and if you believe the money you’ve paid into Social Security for your whole life sis yours, and if you believe in healthcare and free and fair elections, the CAST A GODDAMNED BLUE VOTE.

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John Pavlovitz, a  former youth pastor and author, known for his social and political writings from a liberal Christian perspective, on the GOP gun hypocrisy:

“I’m glad so many Republicans are outrages by someone shooting a dog. Now, if they only could find the same visceral response to someone shooting school children, mall shoppers, worshippers, parade attendees, and workers.”

It kinda looks like the GOP cares more about dogs than dead children?

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Jesse Watters, Fox News’ Tucker Fucker Carlson 2.0, saying Hair Furor would thrive in prison if Justice Juan Merchan locked him up for contempt:

“[Hair Furor] is going to come out with a prison body. That’s what happens when you go to prison; you work out, that’s all there is to do.”

Except when you’re a lazy gelatinous slob like Hair Furor who uses a golf cart to whisk him twenty yards. It sounds more like Jesse wants to meet Hair Furor in the showers and grab for the soap.

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Paul Ryan, former GOP House Speaker, saying he won’t vote for Hair Furor in November:

“Character is too important for me. [The presidency] is a job that requires the kind of character [Hair Furor] doesn’t have. Democracy is being tested in two very specific ways. One within, with our polarization eating each other alive, [and] the second one is from [the outside], from authoritarian regimes who are basically saying they got the mojo, they can make the decisions faster, they can beat democracy.”

First off, Paul Ryan and character is an oxymoron; he sold his soul to Hair Furor in 2016 gleefully. I will give him props for speaking out, but don’t say character is important when you carried water for a traitorous racist rapist.

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Kristi Noem, on her seemingly endless world tour to make people hate her:

“What most people don’t realize is that in South Dakota they’ve used that story to attack me and my political campaigns for years. I wanted people to know the truth. This dog was vicious, it was dangerous, it was killing livestock for the joy of it and attacking people. I had a choice between keeping my family safe, I had little kids at the time, a very public business of inviting people out to come out and enjoy our hunting lodge and our business and I don’t pass my responsibilities off to anybody else. So that story’s in the book because I want people to know I’m honest and that when I have difficult jobs that I take responsibility of myself.”

Funny, then, that in her book she says she “hated” Cricket because the dog was too hyper and distracting the hunting dogs. Not a world about being aggressive.

The only aggressive rabid bitch in this story is Kristi “DogKiller” Noem.

PS That’s Kristi with her old face and her new one.

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Geoff Duncan, former GOP Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, on his choice for president in November:

“Unlike [Hair Furor], I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.”

One by one many in the GOP are coming out against a traitorous racist rapist con man. I like it.

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Today In Christian Love: If I Have Gay Children: Four Promises from a Christian Pastor/Parent

So ... let's start the week off with something thoughtful, and thought provoking, whether you;re Christian, or not, gay, or not, a parent, or not ....

If I Have Gay Children: 

Four Promises from a Christian Pastor/Parent

by John Pavlovitz at Stuff That Needs to Be Said

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll have gay children.

I’m not sure if other parents think about this, but I do; quite often.

Maybe it’s because I have many gay people in my family and circle of friends. It’s in my genes and in my tribe.

Maybe it’s because, as a pastor of students, I’ve seen and heard the horror stories of gay Christian kids, from both inside and outside of the closet, trying to be part of the Church.

Maybe it’s because, as a Christian, I interact with so many people who find homosexuality to be the most repulsive thing imaginable, and who make that abundantly clear at every conceivable opportunity.

For whatever reason, it’s something that I ponder frequently. As a pastor and a parent, I wanted to make some promises to you, and to my two kids right now…

1) If I have gay children, you’ll all know it.

My children won’t be our family’s best kept secret.

I won’t talk around them in conversations with others. I won’t speak in code or vague language. I won’t try to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, and I won’t try to spare the feelings of those who may be older, or easily offended, or uncomfortable. Childhood is difficult enough, and most gay kids spend their entire existence being horribly, excruciatingly uncomfortable. I’m not going to put mine through any more unnecessary discomfort, just to make Thanksgiving dinner a little easier for a third cousin with misplaced anger issues.

If my children come out, we’ll be out as a family.

2) If I have gay children, I’ll pray for them.

I won’t pray for them to be made “normal”. I’ve lived long enough to know that if my children are gay, that is their normal.

I won’t pray that God will heal or change or fix them. I will pray for God to protect them; from the ignorance and hatred and violence that the world will throw at them, simply because of who they are. I’ll pray the He shields them from those who will despise them and wish them harm; who will curse them to Hell and put them through Hell, without ever knowing them at all. I’ll pray that they enjoy life; that they laugh, and dream, and feel, and forgive, and that they love God and humanity.

Above all, I’ll pray to God that my children won’t allow the unGodly treatment they might receive from some of His misguided children, to keep them from pursuing Him.

3) If I have gay children, I’ll love them.

I don’t mean some token, distant, tolerant love that stays at a safe arm’s length. It will be an extravagant, open-hearted, unapologetic lavish, embarrassing-them-in-the-school cafeteria, kind of love.

I won’t love them despite their sexuality, and I won’t love them because of it. I will love them; simply because they’re sweet, and funny, and caring, and smart, and kind, and stubborn, and flawed, and original, and beautiful… and mine.

If my kids are gay, they may doubt a million things about themselves and about this world, but they’ll never doubt for a second whether or not their Daddy is over-the-moon crazy about them.

4) If I have gay children, most likely; I have gay children.

If my kids are going to be gay, well they pretty much already are.

God has already created them and wired them, and placed the seed of who they are within them. Psalm 139 says that He, “stitched them together in their mother’s womb”. The incredibly intricate stuff that makes them uniquely them; once-in-History souls, has already been uploaded into their very cells.

Because of that, there isn’t a coming deadline on their sexuality that their mother and I are working feverishly toward. I don’t believe there’s some magical expiration date approaching, by which time she and I need to somehow do, or say, or pray just the right things to get them to “turn straight”, or forever lose them to the other side.

They are today, simply a younger version of who they will be; and today they’re pretty darn great.

Many of you may be offended by all of this, I fully realize. I know this may be especially true if you are a religious person; one who finds the whole topic disgusting.

As you’ve been reading, you may have been rolling your eyes, or clicking the roof of your mouth, or drafting familiar Scriptures to send me, or praying for me to repent, or preparing to Unfriend me, or writing me off as a sinful, evil, Hell-bound heretic… but with as much gentleness and understanding as I can muster; I really couldn’t care less.

This isn’t about you. This is a whole lot bigger than you.

You’re not the one I waited on breathlessly for nine months.

You’re not the one I wept with joy for when you were born.

You’re not the one I bathed, and fed, and rocked to sleep through a hundred intimate, midnight snuggle sessions.

You’re not the one I taught to ride a bike, and whose scraped knee I kissed, and whose tiny, trembling hand I held, while getting stitches.

You’re not the one whose head I love to smell, and whose face lights-up when I come home at night, and whose laughter is like music to my weary soul.

You’re not the one who gives my days meaning and purpose, and who I adore more than I ever thought I could adore anything.

And you’re not the one who I’ll hopefully be with, when I take my last precious breaths on this planet; gratefully looking back on a lifetime of shared treasures, and resting in the knowledge that I loved you well.

If you’re a parent, I don’t know how you’ll respond if you find out your children are gay, but I pray you consider it.

One day, despite your perceptions of your kids or how you’ve parented, you may need to respond in real-time, to a frightened, frantic, hurting child; one whose sense of peace, and identity, and acceptance; whose very heart, may be placed in your hands in a way you never imagined… and you’ll need to respond.

If that day should ever come for me; if my children should ever come out to me, this is the Dad I hope I’ll be to them.

 * Note: The word “gay” in this post, refers to anyone who identifies themselves as LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Questioning) . Though I certainly realize and respect the distinctions and differences, it was simply the word that would quickly and easily communicate within the context of the piece. It was the clearest and best way to address non-hetereosexual individuals in the post, by using a common tern that would resonate with the average reader. Hopefully my heart for the LGBTQ community is still clear in the writing.