Lest We Forget

True to form:

Chick-fil-A Targeted

Brad Polumbo writes:
Chick-fil-A’s only connection to any of this is that its owners — not the company — through their separate foundation donate to the National Christian Foundation, the 8th-largest nonprofit in the U.S. That foundation works with Christian charitable groups. And there’s a weak connection between a tiny percentage of the groups NCF works with and anti-LGBT ministers in Uganda. Yet connecting those groups to ministers does not connect them to this legislation. Even Snopes admits “it’s not clear to what extent National Christian Foundation-funded entities were involved in the creation or promotion of a bill to make homosexuality punishable by death.”
A better way to response to Uganda:

Israeli Pride

Point:


Counterpoint:

Grenell Confirmed


The president’s moves to ban transgender service members from the military, even those who have fully transitioned, may preclude him from being seen as transformative on LGBT issues within the GOP, but the party is still changing. Even former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an ardent social conservative, praised the appointment as ambassador to Germany an openly gay man who supported the fight for marriage equality. Grenell wrote in the Wall Street Journal in May 2012, “I can be proud of President Obama’s personal support for gay marriage and still take exception to his dismal national-security and economic records.”

More. Via The Hill:

The fight over Richard Grenell isn’t the cause of the clearly changing sentiment within the GOP; it’s more of the fulcrum than the spark. There have long been Log Cabin Republicans, now dutifully championing the fact that one of their own will likely be the highest-ranking gay official in U.S. history. Yet now, there seems to be a larger presence of openly gay Republicans than ever before; and consistent with polling data, no one in the party really seems to mind.

Jim Nabors, RIP

Interesting that the Fox News story leads with “husband,” with relationship details below after professional info. The Hollywood Reporter mentions his “longtime partner” up front, but toward the end says that they’d been married.

Gay Progressive Loses Spot for Illinois Lt. Gov After Calling for Boycott of Israel

More from the Sun Times:

But some expressed disappointment in the decision. Clem Balanoff, who helped to run [Bernie] Sanders’ Illinois campaign, released a statement on behalf of Our Revolution Illinois citing his disappointment.

“Ald. Ramirez-Rosa was a delegate for Senator Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential election and is a leading progressive voice in the Chicago City Council,” Balanoff said in a statement. … We believe he was an excellent candidate for Lt. Governor and are saddened that his voice will be missing from Sen. Biss’ campaign.”

But Richard Goldberg, former chief of staff to [Republican] Gov. Bruce Rauner, said it was the right decision, calling the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement “at its core … a political manifestation of anti-Semitism.”

As noted in the Facebook post, defending Palestinian terorisim and singling out the Jewish state as uniquely unworthy of existence is now a core progressive principle for many, wedging ever-deeper into the LGBT activist left.

More. As Mark Joseph Stern wrote last year at Slate, The LGBTQ Left Has an Anti-Semitism Problem.

Death in Chechnya

On Easter Sunday, prayers for the persecuted gays in Chechnay and throughout the world. Via the Huffington Post:

Chechen police are snaring gay men by posing as gays looking for dates on social media sites, then arresting the victims and using the contact lists on their phones to discover more closeted gays. Once in jail, forced into dark cells so small they can’t even lie down, the men are mercilessly beaten in various ways, including having to run through a gauntlet of twenty men wielding bats aimed at the victims from the waist down.

Some who survive are released to their families, a move that is usually a death sentence. Chechnya is a hotbed of Islamic honor killings, usually of young women, but of gay men as well. When gay Chechens who’ve somehow remained alive get out of jail, they are often taken by their male relatives to remote places to be killed and buried. No one even searches for them.

Good to see this tweet from a GOP senator, linking to a Washington Post story:

Of course, there also is still much of this.

More.


And if Chelsea Manning Wasn’t a Transgender Cause Celebre?

NYT: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence.

From a 35-year sentence, commuted to time served (7 years) for one of the largest breaches of diplomatic and military secrecy in American history—including thousands of classified State Department cables—carried out by an army intelligence analyst.

I just hope her sentence wasn’t reduced because she’s transgender and her cause was taken up, very vocally, by transgender and LGBT activists (perish the thought!).


A pertinent comment left at the above tweet: “Dems ok with leaking military secrets but not DNC secrets.”

More. During his December 2011 pretrial hearing, the New York Daily News reported of the defendant then known as Bradley Manning:

…his lawyers argued his status as a gay soldier before the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” played an important role in his actions.

Lawyers for Pfc. Bradley Manning began laying out a defense to show that his struggles in an environment hostile to homosexuality contributed to mental and emotional problems that should have barred him from having access to sensitive material.

The paper also reported that “The Obama administration says the released information has threatened valuable military and diplomatic sources and strained America’s relations with other governments.”

While her supporters celebrate, a press release from the Log Cabin Republicans says:

Log Cabin Republicans has always condemned Manning’s actions, and consistently stood against efforts by the left to elevate Manning as a paragon of the LGBT community.

“Chelsea Manning is no hero, and the commutation of her sentence is appalling,” Log Cabin Republicans President Gregory T. Angelo stated. “Manning was not imprisoned for being transgender — in fact, the government agreed to accommodate and facilitate her transition during her well-deserved sentence; she was imprisoned for traitorous clandestine activity that put military lives at risk. Her actions — and President Obama’s clemency — are nothing to celebrate.”

Furthermore. James Kirchick writes Bradley Manning is No Gay Hero:

For centuries, gay people have served with distinction and honor in the armed forces, and it is the service of these countless veterans whom today’s gays can thank for the freedom to serve openly. Bradley Manning’s actions are fodder to those who have long argued that homosexuality naturally leads to treason; some on the far right have argued that his actions were intended as “revenge” over the military’s then-enforced anti-gay policy. It is unconscionable that gay activists, of all people, would play into these slanders.

Still more. A “potent symbol for transgender Americans.” Chase Strangio, Manning’s ACLU attorney, said that “Her story really does reflect so much of the systemic discrimination that transgender people face,” adding “She’s an incredibly thoughtful and devoted person,” and that “She’s felt a sense of responsibility to the transgender community and wanted to be someone who contributed to the fight for transgender justice.”

To which the Washington Times editorialized: “No one doubts Chelsea Manning’s feelings of ‘responsibility to the transgender community.’ It’s a pity she felt no such responsibility to her country, and to the men and women who were assigned to the battlefield to defend that country with their very lives.”