“As we celebrate LGBT Pride Month and recognize the outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great Nation, let us also stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or, even execute individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation.” President Trump tweeted this at the beginning of June. He’s the first Republican President to honor this annual observation. He repeated his announcement from February: “My Administration has launched a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality and invite all nations to join us in this effort!”
Leaders on the Religious Right, e.g., Franklin Graham, John Stonestreet and others, complained that Trump’s support for LGBT folks “inevitably [means] that religious freedom is going to be compromised.” But, since these leaders view LGBT folks as their “enemies”, why won’t they follow Jesus’ teaching: “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But, I say to you: Love your enemies, do good to them.” Jesus told followers to carry a pagan Centurion’s load even beyond is the pagan’s order. Jesus didn’t say that his followers had to agree with those they viewed as their enemies. He said to treat enemies, as they, his followers themselves, want to be treated. Paul said that such love is the fulfillment of the law.
The Gallup Poll finds that, for U.S. President, 80% of Americans say they’d vote for a person who’s an evangelical Christian and 78% say they’d vote for a person who’s gay or lesbian. Percentages of support for other classifications of Presidential candidates for whom Americans say they’d vote: A person who’s Black (96%), Catholic (95%), Hispanic (95%, Female (94%), Jewish (93%), someone under the age of 40 (71%), Muslim (66%), someone over age of 70 (63%), Atheist (60%), Socialist (47%).
During EC’s four decades, America’s support for gays and lesbians has changed: on job rights, from 56% to 93%, on legality of same-sex relationship, from 43% to 83%, and on adoption of children, from 14% to 75%. The statistics are from Gallup.
“On May 17th, 2019, in Taiwan, Love Won!” That’s what Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen tweeted when free China’s parliament became the first governmental body in all of Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. It gives same-sex couples many of the same tax, insurance and child-custody benefits that heterosexual married couples have.
One week later, on May 24th, Kenya’s High Court unanimously upheld Kenya’s laws that criminalize all same-sex sexuality.
Ethiopians call on the government to prevent a visit to Ethiopia by a tour group of gay tourists. They especially disapprove of the inclusion of religious sites on the tour. Ethiopia’s laws prohibit homosexuality. The tour operator says he’s gotten death threats.
Boy Wives and Female Husbands: Studies in African Homosexualities is a new book by anthropologists. Theydocument 21 cultural varieties of same-sex customs in the history of Africa. Some women, to become diviners, engaged in same-sex acts. In some parts of Africa, homosexual acts were seen as a phase boys passed through to become men. Men in the Congo “routinely married” younger men who functioned as temporary wives, for which the young men’s parents were paid. A warrior woman of the Mbundu, dressed as a man, had a harem of young men dressed as women. These examples do not correspond to today’s experience of same-sex orientation or egalitarian gay marriage.
The Sultan of Brunei reinforced Islam’s sharia law death sentences for homosexual acts. But his move was quickly reversed after overwhelmingly negative international reaction threatened Brunei’s lucrative oil business.
Deroy Murdock, prominent black political commentator, addresses the legal threats aimed against bakers who decline to bake same-sex wedding or transgender-transition celebration cakes. He references the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist within the United States.” He goes on to explain that, “If government forces a baker to spend three or four hours artistically baking and decorating a cake that he does not want to create, this is involuntary servitude. Obviously, this is not picking cotton beneath the 90-degree Alabama sunshine. Still, this negates human liberty. Ultimately, those who resist the state face arrest and incarceration.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom reports that Colorado is ending all litigation in state and federal courts in the transgender transition cake case against Christian baker Jack Phillips. The ADF says that it was just more of the same anti-Christian “harassment”, even after Phillips had already won the wedding cake case in the U.S. Supreme Court, primarily due to this same anti-Christian animus in the lower courts.
Washington State’s Supreme Court has ruled against a Christian florist in a same-sex wedding case. It claims prosecutors did not act with “religious animus”. The florist gladly does flowers for same-sex customers. But, she believes that, to do flowers for a same-sex wedding violates her conscience. The Alliance Defending Freedom defends her and is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, which already has ruled on religious liberty protections in such cases. The florist faces financial ruin if the state’s ruling stands.
The U. S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a transgender rights case about high school restrooms and locker rooms. Boyertown, Pennsylvania students sued the school district for permitting students to use such facilities by their chosen gender. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Independence Law Center appealed a 3rd Circuit Court’s decision that the general population students’ rights to privacy comes second to the transgender students’ rights to use facilities of their choice. But, according to the ADF, “No student’s recognized right to bodily privacy should be made contingent on what other students believe about their own gender. We hope the court will take up a similar case in the future to bring much needed clarity to how the lower courts should handle violations of well-established student privacy rights.”
An Ohio high school girl was suspended for posting some Bible verses at school after LGBT flags and flyers were displayed at school. She was punished for what was called her “abuse of others, disrespect and rudeness”.
But two atheists joined the social media commenters who supported her right to share Bible verses. Said one, “This is ridiculous. I’m an atheist who supports gay marriage and this goes beyond what is necessary. Who cares if a girl puts Bible verses around her School? The whole argument for gay marriage is based on freedom. What says she doesn’t have freedom to do this?” Another atheist posted: “As an atheist, I wholeheartedly concur [with the previous atheist]. And as an atheist, I’m far more scared of the LGBT agenda than the Christian agenda. The most Christians do is annoy me by knocking on my door to preach. It’s quite annoying, I admit, but harmless. With the LGBT folks, they want to control every aspect of my life, including what I can say, how I run my business, how I run my life, whom I date, etc. They’re control freaks through and through.” And another person said: “This is why LGBTQWERTY are now known in many schools as, ‘The Gay-stapo’. It fits them perfectly.”
A high school girl in Stockton, California, says, “I like the positive attention” from being in porn. She’s also getting, what is, to her, lots of money doing it. She’s praised in her high school newspaper for doing “something fun, even glamorous, that any pretty girl from any small town, can do if she puts her mind to it.” But Caitlin Flanagan at The Atlantic asks: “When did we lose the ability to interpret the signs of a girl in bad trouble?”
The United Methodist Church voted to do a more diligent job of enforcing rules against ordination of homosexuals and barring ministers from officiating at same-sex weddings. The General Conference rejected rescinding its Book of Discipline’s statement that same-sex marriage is incompatible with Christianity. Speaking against progressive delegates, Africa’s large delegation, in the words of a Liberian Methodist seminary dean, reminded the worldwide meeting: “We Africans are not children in need of Western enlightenment when it comes to the church’s sexual ethics. We stand with the global church, not a culturally liberal church elite in the U.S.”
Ben Witherington says: “I have said repeatedly, no relationship that does not turn a man and a woman into a husband and a wife with the potential to become a father and mother together through the sharing of a one flesh union meets the criteria for being a Christian marriage.” Witherington, a Methodist professor of Bible at Asbury Seminary, thus argues against same-sex marriage. His critics respond that, a rape has the potential to produce a child. They claim that his insistence that, “the major essential purpose of intercourse is so the species can ‘be fruitful and multiply’,” is not the major reason most heterosexuals marry – especially those who are infertile, practice birth control or abort their unborn babies.
Pennsylvania state representative Brian Sims live-streamed 8-minutes of his harassing pro-life folks, including one woman he repeatedly called, “an old white lady” as she quietly prayed outside an abortion facility in Center City Philadelphia. Performing his “gesture politics”, Sims taunted: “Shame, shame, shame” at this “old white lady” as she tried to evade his getting up into her face with his camera.
Sims is a gay Democrat. He’s an attorney and was the only openly gay college football player in NCAA history. He continued his barrage by berating teen-age girls who were also peacefully protesting. He called them “pseudo-Christians” and kept offering $100 to anyone who’d publicly identify who these girls were. Still videoing, he yelled: “Shame on you! There’s nothing Christian or loving about what you’re doing. What you’re doing is disgusting!” His rant ran rampant with PC jargon: “They use white privilege and shame … they’re racist”. Sims is white. He yelled: “Bible bullies with fake morals. You have no business being out here.”
In direct reaction to his self-videoing attack that went viral, CBS reported that over a thousand folks later rallied for Pro-Life on the same spot at South 12th Street and Locust.
In response to the backlash, Sims locked his Twitter account but he continued his self-righteous mocking: “Bring it, Bible Bullies! You are bigots, sexists, and misogynists and I see right through your fake morals and your broken values.”
Veteran Christian journalist Terry Mattingly had noted local prolife demonstrations such as the one in Philadelphia, in his report on the major 2019 March for Life in Washington, DC: “The massive march also serves as a hub for dozens of smaller events, with groups ranging from Episcopalians for Life to Feminists for Life, from Pro-Life Humanists to the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians [founded in 1990].”
“Drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists, idolaters HELL AWAITS YOU REPENT!” Australian fullback Israel Folau posted this on Instagram. He’s been suspended from his duties and faces exclusion from the World Cup squad over his public view. He says he’ll step away from professional rugby if it’s God’s will that he do so. Folau is a former Mormon who’s now a Fundamentalist Christian.
The 13th Annual LGBTQ Community Survey lists many ways for LGBTQ people to self-describe. Responders are asked to pick as many as apply to themselves. Choices are: Female, Male, Transgender, Trans woman, Trans man, Intersex, Questioning, Non-binary, Genderqueer, Gender fluid, Agender, Two spirit, Lesbian, Gay woman, Gay man, Bisexual, Biromantic, Bi+, Pansexual, Panromantic, Demisexual, Demiromantic, Homoromantic, Same gender loving, Asexual, Queer, Questioning, Straight or heterosexual, and, Other.
Over time, various plural identities have been adopted. A survey indicates that current preferences are, 30% LGBTQ, 28% LGBT, 13% LGBTQ+, and 12% Queer.
“I thought being straight would make me happy.” Shulli, a modern Orthodox Jew, says she was desperate to lead a “normal” life, marry a “good Jewish boy”, have a family and be “accepted in my religious community.” Her therapy lasted for more than a year, during which she was asked to retrieve memories from “previous lives.” When asked to recount sin she’d committed in a previous life, she was confused. Desperate to say something, she made up a story about her having killed somebody.
In some sessions she was put through a process of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing while told to imagine having sex with a man. Nothing worked to remove her attraction to other women or to develop a sexual interest in men.
Shulli says, “For years, the therapist’s words haunted me. I found it hard to stop hearing his voice in my mind. But, now, I’ve finally come to a place of acceptance with who I am and I’m much happier because of it.”
Brigham Young University’s valedictorian declared to thousands at his graduation, “I am proud to be a gay son of God.” He had to wait for the long applause to die down in order to continue speaking. The Mormon school had given Matt Easton its prior approval to publicly “come out” in his valedictorian address. He’d been told, “Go for it!”
He thought that this was the right time for him to tell 10,000 people he’s gay. “It was important to share, both for myself and for the LGBTQ+ community at BYU.” He says that, during his college years, he “won many small victories”. He says, one required his battling, in prayer, with who “the Lord has made me to be.”
A 2019 Gordon College graduate’s mortarboard cap sported a tiny rainbow ribbon. This graduate, Shinae Lee, identifies as “Queer”. She says there are pockets of tolerance on this evangelical campus and that the sociology department is one of those. She came out to professors a month before graduation. Gordon’s anachronistic position is that homosexuality is “unbiblical”.
For some years now, this evangelical college has made an effort to be more hospitable to gay and lesbian students, e.g., by publishing and distributing a student booklet written by same-sex attracted and allied students and by having EC’s founder speak on campus. When he did, he noted that, on his way into the hall where he was to speak, he passed a poster about an upcoming “Dance ‘til you drop” event and told his audience that, that would not have been possible in years past.
According to Lee, there are pockets of tolerance on campus and, she said, the sociology department was one of them. She came out to her professors a month before graduation.
But two of her favorite professors, both tenured, were among those laid off very recently, and one of them is suing the school for discrimination in response to her pro-LGBT stand. Another gay graduate bragged, “I did not shake the president’s hand when I got my diploma. I feel good about that!”
What pastors feel most pressured to speak out on are what they feel limited to speak on – and LGBT issues top the list. These are Barna Research findings. Some 11% of all pastors sense that they are “frequently” constrained by concerns of “causing offense”.
The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has thousands of records of potential child abusers and victims. They date back to the 1920s. There’s hesitancy to make names public for legal and privacy reasons. But, some 5,000 of these files have been made public in previous court actions. The files, which have been reviewed by a professor of psychiatry hired by the BSA, include data on 7,819 suspected abusers and 12,254 alleged victims as of January 2019. Those in the files are reported to law enforcement and removed from BSA programs ever after. Critics contend these steps are not enough.
Use of antiretroviral therapy to suppress HIV to undetectable levels prevents transmission of the AIDS virus via sex. This is a finding of a study of almost 1,000 gay male couples, in which one partner has HIV and was taking antiretroviral drugs to suppress it. There were no cases of HIV transmission after 8 years of follow-up. The study, through University College London, was published in The Lancet medical journal.
LGBT head of Stonewall Cymru in Wales believes that places of worship should be allowed to make their own decisions on weddings for same-sex couples. Andrew White: “We’ve long stood up for religious freedom. We might not always agree. [But] if you can’t get married as a same-sex couple in your local chapel, as sad as that would be if your local chapel didn’t want to approve of your marriage, then you wouldn’t want to force that upon them.”
An 11-year-old “drag kid” will be one of six LGBTQ+ personalities to help launch the “Pride Collection” promotion of Converse shoes. The “drag kid’s” special shoes are rainbow colored and glitter-dipped. Last year, the “drag kid” won fame as he pranced about on a stage in full-drag at a gay bar in New York City. While he stripped off his jacket, wiggling suggestively, men were cheering him on with dollar bills. He’s been a guest on NBC’s Today Show, The Daily Beast, and VH-1’s Ru Paul’s Drag Race, et al.
His mother complains that she and her husband “have been accused of child abuse, exploitation and maltreatment to the point that we have been under a microscope since early December. I never thought I would have to breach my own privacy and confidentiality to provide proof that has been demanded of us out of malice.”
“Drag Kids” is a new VICE documentary celebrating a bunch of such young boys in drag. With names like, “Laddy Gaga” and “Suzan Bee”, they’re paraded around for the entertainment of adults. VICE’s Hilary Beaumont cheers them on as they twirl and posture and yell out to the camera, “Be Yourself!”, “Fight Back!”, etc.
A transgender customer’s profanity-loaded tirade inside an Albuquerque GameStop went viral on social media. A clerk had misread this customer’s gender identity based on what he saw as a tall, husky, footballer-looking man and heard his masculine voice, so he’d politely used the term, “sir”. The customer exploded. The clerk immediately apologized but this did not quiet the escalating accusations that Tiffany Moore hurled at him and at a customer who’d politely tried to quell the tempest. Moore yelled, “Ma’am! Once again, it’s ‘ma’am!” and, still taking offense, screamed, “Mother f***er! Take it outside! You wanna call me ‘sir’ again? I’ll show you a f***ing sir!”
Moore was unaware that the Human Rights Campaign Buyers Guide gives GameStop an approval rating of 100. HRC says that GameStop “engages in appropriate and respectful advertising and marketing or sponsors LGBT community events, organizations, or legislative efforts and engages in no action that would undermine the goal of LGBT equality.”
Moore stormed for the door, kicking over a merchandise display on the way, but abruptly swung around, loudly threatening to cause financial trouble for GameStop, before exiting in a huff.
After becoming something of a social media celebrity, Moore was interviewed by KOB-TV, and, in self-righteous indignation, asserted: “You know what, I look back at it and if I could, I wouldn’t change a single thing. I would do it 100,000 times again. I would kick over that display 100,000 times again. Because my actions were justified! I mean, it was blatant and malicious hate. It was blatant and malicious misgendering!”
A transgender activist was charged with burning down her own house in Jackson, Michigan and killing five pets inside. Co-activists at St. John’s United Church of Christ, home base of the Jackson Pride Center, are reported to have said that Joly was frustrated and angry that the Jackson Pride Parade, five days before the blaze, had not gotten enough attention. Joly, 54, grew up in several foster homes, and was kicked out at 15 by Jehovah’s Witness foster parents who wanted nothing to do with his transitioning.
A Congressional bill would force high schools to force girls’ sports teams to accept boys who identify as girls. All but one Democrat in the House of Representatives (and at least two Republicans) signed on to support this bill. Opponents say the law would put the rival team at a disadvantage and put individual girls at a disadvantage when it comes to individual sports. All objection to the bill is called, “transphobic”.
So far, nobody is pushing for girls who identify as boys to be allowed to compete on boys’ football teams. It’s said that, forcing boys football teams to accept girls who identify as boys, would disadvantage the boys’ team.
AND FINALLY
Mary Gregory, a biological male who identifies as female, broke four women’s powerlifting world records. The transgender athlete set powerlifting world records in women’s squat, bench press, deadlift, and a world total record, and boasted on Instagram: “What a day!”
When the Raw Powerlifting Federation learned that Gregory was not, biologically, a woman, it canceled the wins. Says Gregory: “I felt like they were invalidating my gender and identity.” But lesbian tennis legend Martina Navratilova says it’s unfair to women athletes for biologically male athletes to compete against women. Says the Federation’s president:“Our rules, and the basis of separating genders for competition, are based on physiological classification rather than identification.” An ACLU spokesperson blamed the canceling on “trans-exclusionary radical feminists”.