Update Central: Crsytal Moore, Frank Schaefer, Kristene Chapa

Earlier this week the people of Latta, South Carolina finally had their say about Mayor Earl Bullard’s firing of openly gay police chief, Crystal Moore, and they spoke loudly and clearly.

Moore was reinstated to her position and Earl Bullard, the mayor who fired her because she was gay — and because she questioned his ethics — was stripped of some of his powers. See my original post HERE.

The voters passed a referendum changing the governing structure of Latta from “mayor-strong” to “council-strong," which gives the town council the ability to rehire Moore, and while the ballots still must be certified by this Friday, the council plans to make the rehiring of Moore its first order of business.

Bullard, who has been mayor since December, started this whole mess back in April when he fired Moore after giving her seven reprimands. Moore maintained that she had done nothing wrong, and that the reprimands were the first she had received in 20 years. 

Shortly afterwards, though, a council member released a recorded phone call in which Bullard went on a homophobic tirade saying he preferred to leave his children with a raging alcoholic than with someone whose "lifestyle is questionable."

And the town, who long felt Moore was the best person, male or female, gay or straight, for the job, fought back, with hundreds of townspeople rallying for her reinstatement. Bullard denied that he fired Moore because of her sexual orientation, and there was no concrete proof — even though there was that damning phone call — that that was his motivation, but many people in Latta felt Moore's firing was personal.

Now she’s back, and the mayor is a little less powerful, all in a tiny town in, of all places, South Carolina.

UPDATE UPDATE ... via Bilerico ... 

In a desperate bid to thwart the will of the town council, Mayor Hubbard scrambled announced this morning that he's hired a new police chief before the council's vote could be certified. Stay tuned.

h/t to BloggerJoe.

via: HuffPost Gay Voices

Late last year, Frank Schaefer, a former Pennsylvania pastor was convicted of breaking church law when he officiated at the 2007 same-sex wedding ceremony of his son and his son’s partner. Schaefer’s son had asked him to perform the wedding — held not in a Methodist church but at a restaurant — and Schaefer did not publicize the wedding. The story came out in April 2013, when a member of the congregation learned of the ceremony and filed a complaint. See my original post HERE.

Now, however, a United Methodist Church appeals panel has overturned a decision to defrock Schaefer and the church has been ordered to restore his pastoral credentials. The panel called the jury’s punishment illegal under church law and said that “revoking his credentials cannot be squared with the well-established principle that our clergy can only be punished for what they have been convicted of doing in the past, not for what they may or may not do in the future.”

“I’ve devoted my life to this church, to serving this church, and to be restored and to be able to call myself a reverend again and to speak with this voice means so much to me.”—Frank Schaefer, who says he will continue to work for LGBT rights “with an even stronger voice from within the United Methodist Church.”

The ruling can be appealed to the Methodist church’s highest court, and the pastor who prosecuted Schaefer, the Reverend Christopher Fisher, said he has not made a decision about an appeal.

Hopefully Fisher has seen that the times are changing, and that the church, even the Methodist Church, needs to change as well. Otherwise, when the change does come, he’ll be seen as the pastor who stood on the wrong side of equality.

via: LGBTQ Nation

One night in 2012, girlfriends Mollie Olgin [right] and Kristene Chapa [left] went to Violet Andrews Park in Portland, Texas so Olgin could show Chapa were she’d been baptized. See my original post HERE.

They encountered someone who allegedly forced them down a steep incline, tied them up, and then shot each girl in the head. It wasn’t until morning that a couple out for a walk found the two girls; Mollie Olgin had died during the night but Kristene Chapa was alive.

The gunshot initially left Chapa unable to sit or stand, with the bullet piercing the part of her brain controlling movements on her left side. Thankfully, today, she has recovered those abilities though she is still undergoing physical rehabilitation.

Better news, though, is that a suspect in the case — David Malcolm Strickland [right] — was arrested last week by US Marshals and Texas Rangers in San Antonio; his wife, Laura Kimberly, was also arrested. Strickland faces charges of capital murder, aggravated assault, and aggravated sexual assault; his wife faces charges of tampering with evidence.

“I hope that it gives them some closure knowing that this person is taken off the street. It is one day before the two-year anniversary. We've been working very hard to make sure we get him as soon as possible. A series of fortunate events has led us to this point and I'm just very happy that we could help in — at least at this point — in bringing him to justice.”— Portland Police Chief Gary Giles

Nothing will bring back Ollie Olgin, and nothing will erase the memory of what happened that night to Kristene Chapa, but now, at least, the person responsible appears to have been arrested and will stand trial.

via: NBC News

Random Musings

Update on the story I posted earlier this week [HERE] about Earl Bullard, the mayor of Latta, South Carolina who fired the police chief Crystal Moore because she’s a lesbian.

It seems the good people of Latta aren’t having this because this week the town council voted unanimously to block Bullard from replacing Moore during the next two months. That followed a vote from last week to hold a referendum on a new structure for government that would enable the town council to hire Moore back.

A standing room only crowd turned out for a council meeting to show their support for Moore.

In Small Town South Carolina of all places!

One thing I hate, and which feels like steel-tipped fingernails slowly sliding down a chalkboard, is when people say “exspecially’ instead of ‘especially’.

Knock it off.

Lupita Nyong'o is People magazine’s ‘Most Beautiful’ woman, marking just the third time in the 25-year history of the ‘Most Beautiful’ issue that a Black woman has graced the cover. 

And she deserves it!

All I can say is that they got it right, and, well, let’s try to see more women of color on the cover, eh?

After coming out last year during a Golden Globes speech, this past weekend Jodie Foster married her girlfriend Alexandra Hedison.

Congratulations to the happy couple.

And congratulations to husband-in-my-head Matt Bomer who revealed this week that he has been married to his longtime partner Simon Halls since 2011.

Married to someone else or not, he still gets to be husband-in-my-head.

After Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady came out in support for same-sex marriage a gaggle of Republicans sought to oust him from his job because, you know, gays and equality and shiz. Brady resigned last May, citing his wife's battle with cancer and his desire to focus on his family after four years as chairman and two as a Republican National Committee member.

Bad news, followed by good news.

When Illinois Republicans voted this week for all 18 state central committee member posts they ousted six of the seven Republican Neanderthals who wanted Brady removed for his support of LGBT rights.

Maybe the GOP is changing, y’all. Maybe.

More good news? Okay … the Kentucky legislature has adjourned for the year without voting on a bill that would have allowed Senator Crazy Rand Paul to appear twice on the 2016 ballot. 

Paul had asked the state to change the law so that he could retain his Senate seat while running for president because even he knows he’ll never be president and he wants that Senate Seat Safety Net.

Brian Wilkerson, a spokesman for Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo: "In Kentucky, you ought to run for one office at a time. The speaker's thoughts haven't changed on that."

And Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Steve Beshear, is highly unlikely to call the legislature into special session to consider the measure so that means if Crazy Rand Paul's allies in the legislature want to try again, they're going to have to wait until the legislature reconvenes next January.

And by that time, a number of 2016 White House contenders may already be officially in the race making Paul’s chances slimmer than Oprah fitting into a size twelve.

Boo-yah!

Onto another kind of race, RuPaul’s Drag Race:

This week’s Mini-Challenge was to create “Twerks of Art” and the ladies did so by covering their bodies in paint and rolling all over a giant canvas. It was all kinds of creepy and icky and gooey. Let’s move on …

The Main Challenge began with the queens being teamed up with biologically female brides for a wedding makeover but then came the twist; the queens wouldn’t be making over the women as pretty little brides, they’d be making over the husbands into pretty not-so-little brides.

Let’s dish:

Bianca Del Rio was the week’s big winner. First, she won the ‘Twerk of Art’ mini-challenge, though I’m sure she’ll forget to add that to her resume. But her ‘bride’ was by far the best of the bunch, and she totally rocked the Mother of the Bride runway look. She and her drag daughter actually looked alike on the runway and matched in wedding dress and Mother of the Bride couture. Plus, Bianca is an all out riot, and so quick with the comebacks:  "Don't call me mommy in public."

BenDeLaCreme is also coming on strong. And she really played up the Mother of the Bride act, and also created a unique march down the aisle. I am still Team BenDeLa, but I am leaning toward Team Bianca, too.

Courtney Act is pretty; Courtney Act looked better than her bride. Not good for the Mother of the Bride to wear a sexy, nearly see-thru number while her drag daughter basically wore window dressing and a sheet.

Darienne Lake got the tough challenge: Goth Wedding. But she pulled it off somewhat, at least with her drag daughter who seemed ready to try out for next season’s Drag Race, But Darienne completely missed the Goth Mother of the Bride mark so points off for that.

Adore Delano, I do not adore. She can’t sew, and she apparently can’t apply make-up, either to herself or anyone else. This was a mess from the get-go and looked more like In Bred Cousin F**Ker Wedding than anything else; bad wigs—even her drag daughter questioned the style level of the hair—and bad gowns and bad makeup.

Joslyn Fox got the uncomfortable groom who was a professional, or semi-professional, basketball player who cared only about what his teammates night think when they saw him in a dress. Honey, why go on a show called ‘Drag Race’ if you worried about being seen in drag. And then, puking on the runway? How Willem of you.

Lip Sync For Your Life: Adore v Joslyn. And it was no contest. I couldn’t have cared less which queen went home but watching Joslyn out-of-sync-lip-sync was painful. Adore really mopped the floor with her and Joslyn took her drag on home.

What did YOU think?

Last season on Once Upon A Time — a show that never saw a hot guy and didn’t want to put him in tight leather pants — we met Sean Maguire, who plays Robin Hood. He was hot, and then he was gone. Luckily, for me anyway, the show brought him and his hot Britishness back.

And luckily Devious Maids s also back because, while the show is at times trite, some of the dialogue is whip-smart-funny and there are at least two new hotties to admire this season.

Dominic Adams plays hot bodyguard with a hot body that needs a guard to keep me off it, while Mark Deklin — last seen as the closeted gay husband on Good Christian Bitches — is back as a hot man with a secret past.

Yum.

I got a kick out of the stories that Hillary Clinton planted the shoe thrower so she would look more presidential, like George W, Bush, because here’s George W. Bush being, well, ex-presidential.

Four of the five living presidents — only Daddy Bush was missing — spoke at the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library as part of a summit honoring the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and this is how George W Bush opened his speech:

“Former presidents compare their libraries the way other men may compare their, well … Just wondering how LBJ would have handled that. He was a funny guy at times.”

Yeah, commemorating the Civil Rights Act is the perfect place for a penis joke.

Fucking frat boy asshat.

Over there to the Italy, the city council of Latina voted in favor of a motion to support the recognition of a same-sex couple’s marriage.

Antonio Garullo and Mario Ottocento [above] were the first Italian gay couple to be married more than 10 years ago in Holland, and in 2004 they asked the Ufficio dello Stato Civile of Latina to register their marriage but their application was turned down.

The couple sued the town, and in 2005 the Tribunale of Latina rejected their complaint. They appealed to the Court of Appeal of Rome and were denied a second time. They appealed that denial to the Supreme Court of Cassation who, in 2012, also rejected their appeal but delivered a landmark opinion for LGBT rights saying Italian laws should treat gay and straight couples equally. 

So, Antonio and Mario asked the town of Latina to record their marriage again, and on April 15, 2014, the Council of the Latina approved in a 14-2 vote a motion in support of the record of their marriage.

The motion is addressed to the Italian Government, which will decide whether or not the commune of Latina can register the marriage but I love that the two men never gave up, and won’t ever give up.

Ralph Reed brought his anti-LGBT hate to ABC's This Week to talk about gay adoption and gay parenting and Russia’s anti-gay adoption laws. [the emphasis in the quotes is mine]

Ralph Reed: “The social science on this is clear. This isn’t about Vladimir Putin, this is about what’s best for children here in the United States. The social science is irrefutable: a child who grows up in a home without the mother and father present, and they both very unique procreative, nurturing, and socializing roles, they’re nine times more likely to end up dropping out of high school; they’re five times more likely to end up in poverty; and they’re three times more likely to end up addicted to drugs and alcohol.”

Cokie Roberts, host of This Week: “But the social science is also irrefutable that a child raised in an orphanage is in much worse shape than a child raised in a home. And the fact that people are willing to take these children and raise them, and raise them in a loving way, is clearly better for these children.”

Ralph Reed: “I think the social science is just simply not in yet on same-sex couples. I think the law has every right to set an ideal. And the ideal is a mother and a father.”

Love how he contradicts himself within seconds of saying the science is clear, and then saying the science is not in yet.

Asshat can’t even forge a decent anti-gay argument.

So, earlier we talked about Matt Bomer’s marriage some three years ago and I felt sad that he would only and always be just a husband-in-my-head, but then I saw that picture and, well, I’m okay with my fantasies.

Excuse me for a moment …

I'm back. I posted a while back about Mississippi's Don't Serve The Gays Because The Baby Jeebus Said So law, and talked about the group, If You're Buying, We're Selling placing decals into windows of businesses that don't discriminate.

Well, I checked out their website, HERE, and imagine my surprise when I saw my little old blag listed under Press Reports.

How cool is that?

South Carolina Mayor Fires Police Chief Because She's Gay

You know, it’s funny about South Carolina. Some things happen here that make me think the tide will change and the state will come barreling into the 21st century, like last weekend’s Peace Lilies for Guns event, where South Carolinians turned in their weapons for flowers; it was quite a success and made me proud of my tiny state.

Until ... the nastiness and bigotry and homophobia of the South reared its ugly head.

The new mayor of Latta, South Carolina, population 1,410, Earl Bullard, has just fired Police Chief Crystal Moore, a twenty-year of the tiny town’s police department. Moore was terminated after Bullard gave her a list of seven reprimands—the first Moore has ever received in her two decades on the job—ranging from:

• Running background checks without properly signed authorization
• Failure to report to supervisor about problems in other departments
• Using office/position to seek revenge against another for personal affront
• Questioning authority of supervisor
• Questioning authority of mayor to look at job applications for potential employees
• Failure to maintain order, contributing to disorder at council meetings
• Contacting news media to help bring about disorder and disruption to the town of Latta

But most folks in the town don’t believe it was these seven infractions that lead to Moore’s dismissal, they believe she was fired because she is openly gay, and members of the city council have come out, so to speak, and offered support for Moore while condemning Bullard’s decision to fire Moore as an act of retribution.

See, earlier this year, Chief Moore opened an investigation into whether city vehicles were being used improperly by another city official, and then discovered that the mayor had failed to conduct a proper background check on the employee, Parks and Recreations Director Vontray Sellers. It appears that, with the approval of the mayor, Vontray Sellers was allowed to drive a Latta town vehicle even though his license had been suspended in February; two things that would not have been allowed to happen had Mayor Bullard conducted a background check on Sellers.

And that was when Bullard issued his seven reprimands and subsequently fired Moore.

Now, I half expected the townspeople to go along with Bullard; I mean, the Police Chief, the town’s first female police chief, is gay, and, you know, South Carolina and all, but the townspeople weren’t having it.

One city Councilman, Jared Taylor, stepped forward with an audio recording of a phone call between himself and Bullard in which the mayor clearly says he wants Moore off the job because she’s a lesbian:

“I would much rather have someone who drank and drank too much taking care of my child than I had somebody whose lifestyle is questionable around children, because that ain’t the damn way that they’re supposed to be. I don’t agree with some of the lifestyles that I see portrayed and I don’t say anything because that’s the way they want to live. But I’m not going to let my child be around. I’m not going to let two women stand up there and hold hands and let my child be aware of it, and I’m not going to see them do it with two men neither. I’m not going to do it, because that ain’t the way the world works.”

And once the news of that phone call came out, hundreds of citizens of Latta rallied around Police Chief Moore, demanding that the mayor reinstate her immediately. Councilwoman Lutherine Williams led the push for answers, appearing before that crowd of supporters, but at the town council meeting that same night, Bullard refused to discuss the matter at all.

"We have codes, but this Mayor refuses to obey anything in that book he don't [sic] want to ... If an employee does something, you don't wait three or four days or two or three weeks to do something about it."—Lutherine Williams

Williams says Mayor Bullard should have first given Chief Moore a verbal warning, then a written one; and then he should have discussed the issue with the town council before firing Moore. He did none of that.

Moore says that she is overwhelmed at the support, but the sad thing is South Carolina is one of those states where you can be fired for being gay, even if the person who fired you did so because you questioned his ethics.

But maybe, just maybe, the next time Earl Bullard is up for election in Latta the people of the town will give him the boot for being a bigot and a homophobe and a crooked politician.

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