The GOP Hates The Gays More Than They Love Children

The GOP battle cry has long ben, ‘The children! The children’ and they trot it out very heavily election. They want to protect the unborn children, well, at least until birth at which time they become irrelevant. Until this year when the GOP took up the QAnon theory that Democrats ‘groom’ children to be gay or to be given to pedophiles or, and this is an actual QAnon theory, to be eaten by high-ranking Democrats, like Obama, or Hollywood celebrities, like Tom Hanks.

And the  GOP turned their wrath on drag queens and the LGBTQ+ community, accusing us of sexualizing children; wingnuts protest Drag Queen Story Hours and some even shoot up LGBTQ+ nightclubs to prove their point. So, you’d think they would rally round a bill that would help victims of child sex abuse, right?

The bill, entitled Respect for Child Survivors Act, was developed with input from child welfare groups to address the mistreatment that child witnesses sometimes face during investigations of their own abuse. It would require the FBI to form multi-disciplinary teams to investigate child sex abuse cases in a way that ensures accountability and transparency without re-traumatizing victims and their families.

Sounds like a good way to protect children and save them from further abuse and while the bipartisan bill—which was introduced by GOP Senators John and Lindsey Graham , along with Democrat Senators Chris Coons and Amy Klobuchar—passed the House with 215 Democratic and 170 Republican votes, the No votes were all from the GOP:

Mo Brooks and Barry Moore—Alabama

Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar—Arizona

Rick Crawford—Arkansas

Tom McClintock—California

Lauren Boebert—Colorado

Byron Donalds and John Rutherford—Florida

Andrew Clyde, Jody Hice, Austin Scott, and Marjorie Taylor Greene—Georgia

James Comer and Thomas Massie—Kentucky

Clay Higgins—Louisiana

Matt Rosendale—Montana

Jeff Van Drew—New Jersey

Dan Bishop and Virginia Foxx—North Carolina

Scott Perry—Pennsylvania

Ralph Norman—South Carolina

Louie Gohmert, Ronny Jackson, Troy Nehls, Chip Roy, and Michael Cloud--Texas

Bob Good—Virginia

Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar and Rick Crawford all oppose he expansion of LGBTQ+ civil rights and many have accused the LGBTQ+ community of sexualizing or “grooming” kids.

And yet they voted against this bill.

In June, Boebert accused queer-inclusive teachers of “grooming” kids with educational flashcards showing a pregnant man on one of the cards.

In November, Greene called gay Californian state Democratic Senator Scott Wiener a “communist groomer” for calling “groomer” an “anti-LGBTQ hate word.”

In October, Gohmert co-sponsored a bill called the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act” which would ban any entity that receives federal money from talking about sexual orientation or gender identity to children under the age of 10.

Crawford has consistently voted against LGBTQ+ civil rights.

It’s important to note these Republicans, who have spent the last year making so much noise about LGBTQ+ people “grooming” children, never speak as loudly against child sex abuse in their Christian churches, nor do they partner with any groups that actually oppose child abuse or child sex trafficking.

And now we know they aren’t even willing to vote for a bill to address child sex abuse that got broad bipartisan support.

That’s the rightwingnut faction of the GOP; they say they want to protect children but only if they can denigrate and humiliate and terrorize and threaten and perhaps even incite murder of LGBTQ+ Americans.

They don’t care about children.

They hate us.

Tuesday Thought #2

On the Other Hand, Cyntoia Brown, Sex-Trafficking Victim, Must Serve 51 Years Before Release

While Jacob Anderson rapes a woman and walks free, Cyntoia Brown, a Tennessee woman who was a victim of sex-trafficking, has been convicted … as a teenager … of shooting the man who pimped her out and must serve 51 years before she is eligible for release.

In case you didn’t get it, Cyntoia Brown is a black woman.

Brown was just 16-years-old in 2004 when she killed real estate agent Johnny Allen. Allen had solicited Brown for sex, taken her to his home and showed her his guns. Later in bed, Brown thought Allen was reaching for his gun to shoot her, so she grabbed a handgun from her purse and shot him first. She then stole the money from Allen’s wallet, took his guns and drove his truck to a Walmart.

At the time, Brown was a runaway, living with her 24-year-old boyfriend, a pimp known as “Kut Throat,” who raped her and forced her into prostitution. But teenager Cyntoia Brown was tried as an adult, convicted of first-degree murder, felony murder and aggravated robbery. She was sentenced to life in prison in 2006.

When her case received widespread attention, a documentary of her case was filmed; activists and celebrities tried to get her released.

But this week Tennessee’s Supreme Court said that, under the state’s law, defendants like Brown who were convicted of first-degree murder after July 1, 1995, can only be released from prison after serving at least 51 years of their sentences. 

After the Tennessee Supreme Court’s ruling made headlines, Brown’s advocates pointed out how white men and women who commit crimes are handed lighter sentences than people of color.

Like that of Keeva Delaney, who was twenty-three when she was convicted of killing her husband during an argument. Her sentence? One year in jail, and nine years of probation. Oh, but wait, it gets better. Delaney will serve her sentence one month at a time for ten years; yes, every June she must report to the jail and spend a month there, then take the next eleven months off before she goes back in for another thirty days.

And what about millionaire hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein? He was accused of trafficking minor girls and coercing them into sex acts in his mansion for at least six years. He got thirteen months.

A black woman, Cyntoia Brown, who was a sixteen-year-old girl forced into a life of prostitution as a child, killed a man and will spend 51 years in jail.

A White woman, Keeva Delaney, shot and killed her husband because maybe he was a little too friendly with another woman. She was given one year in jail, and the option of serving one month a year for ten years and living free the rest of the time.

A rich white man, Jeffrey Epstein, forced girls into sexual trafficking, and raped dozens of them in his own home. He’ll be jailed for thirteen months.

Ain’t that America.

Huffington Post

Random Musings

So, there was this small kerfuffle a week or so ago, just after that JetBlue pilot went batty and had to be subdued by passengers. 
It seems radio "personality" and The Voice "host" Carson Daly made some  ludicrously tired joke about the incident, and said, with his luck he'd be on a  plane headed for Pride in San Francisco, and the passengers, you know, because they're gay, couldn't tackle the wayward pilot and calm him down. 
Because they're gay.

♪ ♫ We're here, 

We're queer, 

We don't wanna break a nail ♫ ♪

It wasn't an offensive joke, except in the idea that it wasn't at all funny. It was a lame-ass joke you'd expect from someone like a Carson Daly. But people got all upset and GLAAD got involved and Carson apologized and apologized.

And it was over.....until; Alice Hoagland, mother of 9/11 hero, and out gay man,  Mark Bingham waded into it: 

"Yes, my gay son was known in our family for bringing me flowers on my birthday and Mother’s Day. He also was known for careening down the rugby pitch, and, on the morning of September 11, 2001, for charging unarmed down the aisle of a doomed Boeing 757 to face knife-wielding Islamist thugs in a hijacked cockpit....No one among his pick-up team of fellow passengers was asking 'Are you straight? Are you gay?' No one doubted that a guy who weighed 220 and stood 6’4” tall - who could run over a charging opponent on the field, and ran with the bulls in Pamplona earlier that summer - would be an asset to a desperate group trying to overcome a threat onboard an airliner....The world has its share of strong, heroic gay men. Gay men in sports uniforms and military uniforms have been winning America’s games and fighting America’s battles for a long time: quietly, humbly, and in the face of vicious bigotry." "I hope you and I may have an opportunity to talk sometime. I prefer to believe you didn’t mean to offend. Good luck to you."

Okay. Let me get this queer. We aren't allowed to laugh at a lame gay-stereotype joke? Even one uttered by some relatively unknown TV/Radio host? I mean, come on, it was a silly joke, and then we jump his shiz and demand an apology.

Sometimes I think we need to calm down. Daly didn't utter any anti-gay epithet. He made some innocuous lame-ass joke using gay stereotypes. And some gay folks are stereotypes, and some gay folks are Mark Bingham.

That's the glory of being gay, we can be whatever we want: mincing flaming divas, or rugby playing superheroes, or, just a gay guy in a small town in South Carolina.

Build a bridge LGBT.

And I will also wade into the whole Madonna thing.
You know, where the powers that be in St. Petersburg have some silly anti-gay laws and will arrest people who promote The Gay.
Or some nonsense.
Well, Madonna will be appearing in St. Petersburg and has said she'll speak out about how anti-gay they are and stuff, arrest threat be damned.
Nice, no? No. Because this is Madonna, and Madonna, while some folks like her, revere her, worship her, is really a very capable self-promoter.
All this kerfuffle serves only to serve as free publicity for her tour.
And I ain't buying it.

Serial baby-maker Michelle Duggar was asked if she was concerned about overpopulation and her family’s impact on the environment, and so she attempted to explain that there was no such thing as overpopulation since everyone in the whole wide world could fit inside Jacksonville, Florida:

“The idea of overpopulation is not accurate because, really, the entire population of the world, if they were stood shoulder to shoulder, could fit in the city limits of Jacksonville.”

Now, technically, she's accurate, if you take out all the trampling and deaths that would occur if you attempted to shove the entire world into Jacksonville.

But still.....really Michelle?

And then she goes on to add: “We’ve had other countries coming to our doorstep asking us to let people know that they need to have more children, because they are seeing that their death rates are outnumbering their birth rates, and they’re in crisis. They don’t have people of marrying age for their youth now…. So I think we are so deceived when we believe [in overpopulation]. It’s not true, it’s a lie.”

It is true that there are countries with negative population growth, but there are many more countries with overpopulation issues, which of course affects the entire planet negatively, but, if Michelle Duggar wants to have a child every nine-and-a-half months let her.

But let her do so in silence.

Oh, and Michelle Duggar also believes that the earth is only 6,000 years old.

And she's raising children.

Oh, the Today Show is so current and edgy. As current and edgy as a show that's been on TV for nearly a half century can be.
See, the producers invited the Mama Grizzly Bore™, AKA The Serial Winker™, to appear as guest host. 
How edgy, to have the woman who blames her innumerable failings on the "lamestream" media actually appear on the "lamestream": media.
How current. How edgy. How.....what's that?
Oh, MGB™ appeared on Today the same week that former Today host Katie Couric was filling in as guest-host on Good Morning America? 
Couric, who infamously stumped the Half-Term Quitter™ during an interview by asking the tough question, What newspapers do you read?
See, Today wasn't trying to be current or edgy. They were trying to score a ratings point over a former co-host.
Yawn.

The biggest forum for sex trafficking of under-age girls in the United States appears to be a site called Backpage.com. And this pick-a-girl-any-girl website that features girls and women--many under age and forced into prostitution--is, in turn, owned by an opaque private company called Village Voice Media. 
And it was recently revealed that Village Voice Media is owned by several private equity financiers, including, wait for it....it's rich, and by rich I mean......Goldman Sachs, who owns a 16% stake stake.

And, as the story broke, Goldman Sachs began working frantically to unload its shares, and on Friday afternoon it called to say that it had just signed an agreement to sell its stake to management.

You know, after the fact. See, to Goldman Sachs, it's okay to be part-owner of an illegal prostitution ring as long as you cut ties when the story breaks.

The Drag Race.
I am still soooo Team Sharon Needles.
I.Love.Her. Funny. Fierce. A bit scary. 
I'Love.Her.
But man oh man, I gotta give it up for Latrice Royale, who was in the bottom two and forced to Lip Sync For Her Life. 
Again.
And again she brought it. 
Little Kenya pranced on the floor, tore off her shoes and her wig, flailed around like a seizure victim, did the splits, the cartwheels, the pas de deux. And Sashayed Away.
Latrice stood in one spot and bur-rought it.
It doesn't take a big show, it takes talent.
Now, get PhiPhi outta there and let Chad, Sharon and Latrice battle it out.

Jenna Talackova, a 23-year-old transgender beauty pageant contestant, who was disqualified last week from the Miss Universe Canada competition after the organizers discovered that she had undergone surgery to become a woman, may be allowed to re-enter the competition if she can prove she meets the “legal gender recognition requirements.”

Initially, pageant officials said each contestant must be a “naturally born female,” but in a statement released Monday, they now say: “The Miss Universe organization will allow Jenna Talackova to compete in the 2012 Miss Universe Canada pageant provided she meets the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, and the standards established by other international competitions.” Interestingly enough the statement does not specify what such requirements entail, and it came on the heels of the news that Talackova had hired Gloria Allred and may have been planning to sue.

Good luck Jenna, in your suits, both swim and legal.

Funny Tweet:

Welcome to the new United States; the new United Police States.

See, the Supreme Court has ruled that police can mace people, arrest unconstitutionally, and beat protesters to no end with little or no punishment. And now, they can strip search anyone at any time for any reason. Yup. The Supreme Court ruled that police can strip search anyone for any offense no matter how minor before going to jail. 

It's gonna cost a bundle to reprint all those things that say United States and change them to United Police States.


Eye Candy Of The Week:

Rupert Penry-Jones of BBC America's Whitechapel

Jason Isaacs of NBC's Awake