Russian soldiers have shot dead a Ukrainian Conductor Yuriy Kerpatenko in his home after he refused to take part in a concert in occupied Kherson, “intended by the occupiers to demonstrate the so-called ‘improvement of peaceful life’”, the ministry said in a statement on its Facebook page.
Via The Guardian:“The concert on 1 October was intended to feature the Gileya chamber orchestra, of which Kerpatenko was the principal conductor, but he “categorically refused to cooperate with the occupants”, the statement said. Kerpatenko, who was also the principal conductor of Kherson’s Mykola Kulish Music and Drama Theatre, had been posting defiant messages on his Facebook page until May. The Kherson regional prosecutor’s office in Ukraine has launched a formal investigation “on the basis of violations of the laws and customs of war, combined with intentional murder”. Family members outside Kherson lost contact with the conductor in September, it said.”
There’s Russian “culture” for you, ladies and gentlemen.
We send our deepest condolences to his family and friends and salute his courage and integrity while condemning the fascist brutality of the Russian forces.#PetTexthttps://t.co/PTTD3bMSM1
Sen. Nathan Dahm, R-Broken Arrow, has filed two floor bills to mirror Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and to prevent minors from receiving gender dysphoria treatment. House Bill 1074 is modeled after Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. The legislation would prohibit educators or other school personnel from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity for grades kindergarten through fifth.
If it passes the legislative branch then there is no doubt that Oklahoma’s christofascist Governor will sign it into law.
At least 20 states have introduced “Don’t Say Gay” laws this year, which have made waves around the country. But in a handful of states, versions of the legislation have existed for decades. According to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), which tracks LGBTQ+ policy throughout the country, 19 percent of the country lives in a state with an LGBTQ+ curriculum ban. Most are in states with laws that predate Florida’s and Alabama’s. Still, most Americans are largely unaware of the fact that Florida is not the first state to pass such a law, advocates said.
At least 20 states have introduced “Don’t Say Gay” laws this year
But why are our LGBT rights organizations not fighting back? Has the curtain finally been drawn to show exactly how useless they have been and are?
Do not depend on HRC, GLAAD, or The Task Force. Their folly has been exposed.
We are all going to have to fight in this if we don’t want to lose what precious ground we have earned. Are you ready?
It has been reported that Chechen general Magomed Tusayan was killed on Saturday during fighting in the Ukraine. . Tusayan was responsible for leading the anti-gay purge in that country that led to torturing and murdering of hundreds of gay men and other memeber of the LBT community.
Both the Pakistani Times and a defense reporter for The Kyiv Independent, confirmed: “Magomed Tushayev, one of Ramzan Kadyrov’s top warlords, has been killed in action in Hostomel. Ukraine’s elite Alpha Group is reportedly fighting Chechens in the airfield.”
Since 2017, Chechen security operatives and other officials in the Kadyrov regime, including Tushayev sources confirmed, have rounded upcountless numbersof men on suspicion of being gay, held them in unofficial detention facilities for days, humiliated, starved and tortured, and in some cases murdered them in what is dubbed Chechnya’s ‘anti-gay purge,”
One former detainee said that the torturers showed him a graphic video of a suspected terrorist having a plastic pipe inserted into his anus and then barbed wire forced into the pipe and ripped out of his rectum. The torturers videotaped the torture, showed it to a gay man and revealed that they had brought a similar plastic pipe and barb wire to use on him. The man then confessed, revealing his gay associates to avoid a similar fate.
Russian singer Zelimkhan Bakaev an early victim was arrested, tortured, and murdered by Chechen authorities due to suspicion of homosexuality.”
Ahead of next week’s March For Our Lives, Parkland student David Hogg wonders in an ad touting the event, “What if our politicians weren’t the bitch of the NRA?” The ad includes a clip of the White House meeting post-Parkland high school murder of 17 students and staff, in which President Donald Trump told some Republicans they were afraid of the NRA. Of course, that was before some NRA big-wigs had dinner with Trump, after which he backed off.
What should have been a celebration dedicating the raising of the Rainbow Flag at the Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village on October 11 at noon turned into another attack on LGBTQ people by the Trump administration in a week full of such attacks.
The National Park Service’s Barbara Applebaum, who arranged the permit for the event, dropped out as a speaker at the ceremony — her office citing a schedule conflict — and organizers of the event said in a release that the Park Service dropped its sponsorship of the event.
When it saw the pre-publicity on the ceremony, the National Park Service under Secretary Ryan Zinke’s Department of the Interior worked to certify that the flagpole adjacent to Christopher Park was not technically on federal land so that no Rainbow Flag would be flying on US government property.
Ann Northrop, co-host of Gay USA, who will preside over the dedication, said, “This is an unbelievably petty, sleazy, transparent bit of cruelty by the Trump administration. Evidently, we are so filthy to them and their right-wing supporters that they can’t even be associated with a few yards of rainbow fabric.”
The war has begun. Will you step away from the computer and be on the front lines?
Mike Pence will speak on behalf of the Trump Administration at the 40th anniversary celebration of the granddaddy of LGBT hate groups, Focus on the Family tonight in a “closed doors” party.
FotF is a far right wing organization that peddles harmful junk science like conversion therapy and lobbies for the erosion of rights for LGBTQ people and families. The Trump Administration’s ceremonial endorsement of Focus on the Family’s agenda during Pride Month is a blatant slap in the face to the LGBT community and just another show of their hostility and opposition to LGBTQ equality.
“Vice President Mike Pence has been a tireless advocate for families throughout his service in government,” said Focus President Jim Daly. “We’re honored to have him join us in marking 40 years of saving marriages in crisis, equipping moms and dads to thrive as parents, speaking to crucial policy issues and creating a culture of life in our nation.”
Focus on the Family threatened that marriage equality will bring the destruction of civilization, and it has referred to the children of same-sex couples as “human guinea pigs.” They continue to promote the junk science behind conversion therapy, advocate for discriminatory policies and engage in other actions that cause real harm to LGBTQ people and families. Mike Pence has repeatedly praised the organization’s founder, James Dobson, and even called him his mentor at a gathering of anti-LGBTQ activists in June.
Over the years, Focus on the Family has made anti-LGBTQ activism a cornerstone of its work. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson has said that the battle against LGBT rights is essentially a “second civil war” to put control of the U.S. government in the right hands, meaning those who reject LGBT rights.
In 2009, Focus employee Juan Ovalle was arrested on two felony accounts of soliciting sex with a child via the internet. Ovalle was arrested when he drove to Lakewood, Colorado to meet a 15 year old girl who he had cybered with online – the “girl” turned out to be an undercover police detective.
And of course according to James Dobson the Sandy Hook massacre was caused by abortion and same-sex marriage. .
Want to make a bet that Mike Pence won’t speak about that?
In an interview with Wingnut World DailyWorld Net Daily (WND), Pat Buchanan, once senior adviser toAmerican PresidentsRichard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, spoke on the controversy over the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration and is urging Christians to fight the “LGBT fanatics” even if it means violence.
“This battle can be won, but it cannot be won if we do not stand our ground and fight against this moral onslaught from the left,” he said. “The hill to stand on and fight on is the God-given natural right and the constitutional principle that people of faith may choose not to associate with those whose actions are abhorrent and whose lifestyle is insulting and offensive to that faith.”
“The LGBT militants are not asking to be left alone, they are demanding that we accept the morality of homosexuality and same-sex marriages, and manifest that acceptance, under pain of law and sanctions, in our daily lives. As the Romans demanded of the Christians, the LGBT fanatics want us to burn incense to their gods. The answer is no. If it comes to civil disobedience, so be it.”
“As Aquinas wrote, we do not have to obey immoral or unjust laws. We should defy them. And support the brave people who do.”
In December of 2013 Buchanan praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for his defense of “traditional values,” citing his opposition to such “evil” developments as marriage equality to position Putin as the global leader of the fight “against the militant secularism of a multicultural and transnational elite.”
Currently the state of Kentucky now has only six cities that extend legal protections to their LGBT citizens: Covington, Louisville, Lexington, Frankfort, Vicco, and most recently, Morehead.
While “Fairness Ordinances” are being debated in other cities around the Commonwealth, the issue has become particularly divisive in Danville, KY with the citizens of city fighting within itself and a certain church The Cornerstone Assembly of God taking an aggressive position against the proposed legislation by including an insert in its Sunday bulletin, listing fifteen extreme and propaganda filled reasons why Danville should not adopt the ordinance. One reason, according to the church, is that there are no fairness ordinances for liars, drunkards, and thieves. and that it would protect the “perverted lifestyle” of homosexual, bisexual and transgendered people.
The insert further contends “it could require business owners to do things against their consciences and have the intimidating effect of requiring business owners to prefer gays over other people to avoid legal action.” and that the ordinance “ is headed towards hate crime speech like they have in Canada,” said Lane. “Up there a pastor said that homosexuality was a sin and he was arrested for a hate crime by preaching in his pulpit.”
(Cornerstone Assembly of God Pastor Tom) Lane contends that a fairness ordinance has potential consequences that are detrimental for the city of Danville. Lane believes this is all part of a bigger, national agenda for gay rights.
“The state rejected this. That’s why they’ve gone city by city. This agenda is being pushed from outside of Danville,” Lane said. “We’re taught to love everybody, but that’s not what this is about. This is a nationwide agenda of the extreme gay rights agenda, trying to pave the way for gay marriage and other things like that.”
Hundreds attended the most recent city commission meeting in Danville.
The meeting ended with a decision to hold future workshops to further explore the (issue).
Following the workshop, residents filled the public meeting room and an overflow room in the basement to have their voices heard during the city’s regular meeting. As each speaker took to the podium and spoke, “amen” and other sounds of affirmation could be heard from the crowd, many of whom also applauded loudly.
Eighteen people, including the self-proclaimed “chaplain to the Kentucky state government” Dr. Lee Watts and Rep. Mike Harmon, spoke before the commission to offer their views on the issue. Of the eighteen, only Centre College Professor Daniel Kirchner spoke in favor of a fairness ordinance.
But not all area churches hold the opinion that a fairness ordinance would be detrimental for Danville.
Rev. Jim Stewart of the Presbyterian Church of Danville disagrees with much of what Lane’s pamphlet has to say.
“This is not necessarily where I would come from or approach it,” said Stewart. “I think it is largely based on fear rather than one of expanding issues of justice to people who are being discriminated against.
“For me the issue is should we be able to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation,” said Stewart. “And I would say no.”
Stewart does not hold Lane’s opinion that sexual orientation is a changeable feature and a choice.
“I would argue that sexual orientation is not a choice,” said Stewart. “It’s simply the way they are and I think that would be an acceptable status of the scientific community.”
But some people say a flyer making its way across Central Kentucky and social media, has gone too far. It describes the ordinance as a sin opposing Christian-Bible values, and passing it would promote and protect the quote, “perverted lifestyle” of homosexual, bisexual and transgendered people.
“The more I read the more angry I got,” says Danville resident Michael Tharp, “because it shouldn’t be a disclaimer that you are gay to have the same rights as anybody else, you should be born with those rights.”
Danville’s Mayor Bernie Hunstad, has publicly voiced his opposition to the proposed ordinance using a paperman fiscal impact argument a fairness ordinance would
In response, Commissioner Paige Stevens, who is slated as a mayoral candidate in the upcoming election, disagreed that cost should be the guiding factor.
“While I think we should be mindful of the cost,” said Stevens. “And we do need to consider it if we move ahead with this. But I don’t want to get sidelined over what something would cost if it is the right thing to do.”
Two militants from the Al-Qaeda linked group Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen have reportedly shot dead a Yemeni man in the southern Lahj province, accusing him of being a homosexual, a police source said on Tuesday according to the AFP .
The attackers from the Ansar al-Sharia group, which is on the US terror list, opened fire at 20-year-old Hashem al-Asmi late Monday in the provincial capital of Huj, the source told AFP, adding that the gunmen fled on their motorbike after killing Asmi.
The attackers who “accused the man of being gay… belong to Ansar al-Shariah,” the source said on condition of anonymity.
Ansar al-Sharia is the local branch of Al-Qaeda in Yemen where the network, although weakened, is still active mainly in the southern and eastern parts of the country.
Al-Qaeda loyalists seized large swathes of Yemen’s south and east in 2011 but Yemeni government troops have recaptured much of the territory with support from US drone strikes, but jihadists still remain keeping bases in the desert and carry out hit-and-run attacks
Ansar al-Sharia militants had tired to impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law) on residents, executing citizens they accused of various crimes. They had also severed the hands of many accused of burglary.
Retiring Democratic House Rep.Barney Frank has had a change of heart and said this morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that he has asked Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to appoint him interim Senator to replace John Kerry for the rest of Kerry’s term.
“A month ago, or a few weeks ago, I said I wasn’t interested,” Frank said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “It was kind of like you’re about to graduate, and they said: ‘You gotta go to summer school.’ But [the fiscal cliff deal] now means that February, March and April are going to be among the most important months in American financial history.” He added, “I’ve told the governor I would now like, frankly, to do that [serve as interim senator].” Frank said he wouldn’t run for Kerry’s seat in a special election, which would likely take place this summer”
Frank has handed Gov.Deval Patrick a rare opportunity to make a difference in Washington at a critical moment Lets hope he takes him up on it.
Besides the shrieks and screams of outrage from the Tea-terrorist and GOP Wingnuttistan will be sweet music to any Democrat or Liberals ears.
