I Didn't Say It ...

David Canepa, San Mateo County Supervisor , on plans by Chick-fil-A to open a new location in Redwood City, California:

“Chick-fil-A’s values don’t represent our values. The logo might as well say ‘we hate gay people.” 

But instead they hide their hate behind Jesus.

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Jim Merritt, Republican Indianapolis mayoral candidate, has announced that he won’t participate the city’s Pride event—Indy Pride asked him not to come—but also expressed regret for supporting Indiana’s controversial 2015 religious freedom bill:

“(Walking in the parade) was meant to show that I respect the feelings and rights of the LGBTQ+ community and desire to engage in dialogue with them and to serve them as our mayor. However, one must also respect another’s wishes. This is Indy Pride’s celebration, and I do not wish to dampen it. Therefore, I will not be marching in the Pride parade on Saturday, because I do respect the rights, feelings and wishes of those who organize and participate in this event.”

While campaigning to become mayor of Indianapolis, Merritt defended his anti-LGBTQ voting record, saying “I stand by every vote I’ve had in the last 29 years as a state senator.”

One of those votes was in support of a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and the “religious freedom” law to allow businesses to refuse to serve LGBTQ people.

So, yeah, keep trying hater, but we still see the real you.

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Jon Stewart, the former Daily Show host , taking on Congress over its failure to act on the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund running out of money:

“I can’t help but think what an incredible metaphor this room is for the entire process that getting health care and benefits for 9/11 first responders has come to. Behind me, a filled room of 9/11 first responders. And in front of me, a nearly empty Congress. Sick and dying, they brought themselves down here to speak to no one. Shameful. It’s an embarrassment to the country and it’s a stain on this institution.”

Let it be known that the members who attended the meeting were all Democrats, and that it was Republicans who didn’t show up.

That is also a metaphor for the GOP.

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Franklin Graham, on his Facebook page, cheering the removal of Pride flags at American embassies:

“I want to thank President Donald J. _____ and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for making the decision not to fly the gay flag over our embassies during June in recognition of gay pride month. That is the right decision. The only flag that should fly over our embassies is the flag of the United States of America. The gay pride flag is offensive to Christians and millions of people of other faiths, not only in this country but around the world. The U.S. flag represents our nation—everyone—regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation.”

It’s only offensive to Christians who practice hate, Frankie, and that ain’t very Christ-like.

Oh, and since the State Department began rejecting all embassy requests to fly Pride flags, some U.S. diplomats have been finding ways to defy, or at least get around, the new policy.

In fact, the facades of the U.S. missions in Seoul and Chennai, India, are partially hidden behind large rainbow flags, while the embassy in New Delhi is aglow in rainbow colored lights. The website for the embassy in Santiago, Chile, shows a video of the chief diplomat raising a rainbow flag last month for the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, and the Vienna embassy’s website features a photo of a rainbow flag flying below Old Glory on a mast jutting from the building, a statement by Diplomats for Equality and a story about a professor lecturing on the visibility and growth of LGBT rights.

So, yeah, deal with that.

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Nancy Pelosi, on _____ saying he would accept a foreign government’s help in reelection bid:

“Everybody in the country should be totally appalled by what the president said last night. Should be totally appalled. He has a habit of making appalling statements. This one borders on so totally unethical but he doesn’t even realize it. However, what we want to do is have a methodical approach to the path we’re on and this will be included in that. But not any one issue is going to trigger, oh now we’re going to go do this.”

He did it once; what are we surprised he’d do it again?

Vote the motherfucker out.

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Laura Ingraham, calling the story that _____ made everyone wait last week to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day, fake news:

“By the way, some of you may have heard or read that President _____ supposedly held up the entire D-Day ceremony in order to do this interview with me. That is patently false. Fake news.”

Except in the interview, on tape, speaking to Eva Braun Laura Ingraham herself, _____ bragged about making everyone wait while he talked to her.

She actually said that what happened on her show, in front of the world, did not happen.

Crazy bitch.

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Craig Northcott, district attorney general of Coffee County, Tennessee,  saying same-sex couples aren’t entitled to domestic violence protections because … God:

“Are you going to do what God says, or are you going to do what man says? I disagree with it, what I do with domestic assaults. On the one hand, I don’t prosecute them because I don’t recognize it as marriage. On the other hand, if I don’t prosecute him, then the sinner, the immoral guy, gets less punishment. What do you do? “I said there’s no marriage to protect, so I don’t prosecute as domestic [violence], and that is one of many decisions like that that you face.”

Um, well, you asshatted dumbass, same-sex marriage is legal, even in your backwater section of Tennessee, so it matters not what you ‘believe’ you are supposed to follow the law and it you don’t want to because … God … then get the f**k out of office.

Thump your Bible on your own time.

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Yusef Salaam, one of the so-called Central Park Five—himself, Korey Wise, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, and Raymond Santana—accepting the inaugural Roger Baldwin Courage Award, for the group and for director Ava DuVernay, whose Netflix series When They See Us retold their decades-long legal battle over being accused of a gang rape:

“I am one of the Exonerated Five. After decades of being known as the Central Park Five, we thank Ava for acknowledging our humanity and telling our story with honesty and factual representation. We had to struggle to break the label that the media gave us. We stumbled forward, falling on our face at times. [But] Korey [Wise] said it so well. He said, when Donald _____ took out that full-page ad, and put them in all of New York City’s newspapers, calling for our execution, he placed a bounty on our head. They had published our names, our phone numbers, and our addresses in New York City’s newspapers. Imagine the horror of that. Just step backwards once, to the 1950s—we would become modern-day Emmett Tills. It was almost as if they were trying to find someone from the darkest enclaves of society to come into our homes, drag us from our beds, and hang us from trees in Central Park. [He begins to weep] I’m not ashamed to cry in front of you. These are tears of pain. These are tears of joy. We are the heroes of this story.”

The five men were arrested as teenagers, falsely convicted, sentenced to years in prison, and eventually exonerated for the rape and assault of a white jogger in Central Park in 1989, They endured the name-calling by playboy real estate developer who bought full-page newspaper ads with the headline:

 “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY.”

They endured being called a “wolf pack” and of having Pat Buchanan insist that if only “the eldest of that wolf pack were tried, convicted and hanged in Central Park, by June 1, and the 13- and 14-year-olds were stripped, horsewhipped, and sent to prison, the park might soon be safe again for women.”

And.They.Were.Innocent.

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