Tag Archives: Alabama

GOP Senator Tommy Tuberville: White Nationalists ARE NOT Racist.

GOP Senator Tommy Tuberville: White Nationalists ARE NOT Racist. (Yes. They Are.)

Featured, Gay News Domestic & U.S. Politics, , , , , ,

Have you ever met a racist who didn’t vehemently deny their own racism?

On the first episode of her new CNN primetime show “The Source,” Kaitlan Collins tried really hard to give Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville a chance to walk back statements he made recently that sure sounded like he was defending the racist ideology known as white nationalism.

Instead, while he repeatedly said he rejects racism, he also repeatedly (and incorrectly) insisted that white nationalism is not racist, that saying otherwise is merely “some people’s opinion,” and that “most white people” in the military actually are white nationalists.

Verbatin:

Tuberville: My opinion of a white nationalist.. it’s an American. If that white nationalist is a racist, I’m totally against them.

Collins: White nationalist is racist .

Tuberville: That’s your opinion.

No Herr Tuberville. That’s everyone’s opinion.

ALABAMA: New Bill Would Extend Alabama’s “Don’t Say Gay” Law to 8th Grade

ALABAMA: New Bill Would Extend Alabama’s “Don’t Say Gay” Law to 8th Grade

Gay News From Around The Globe, , , , , , ,

Last year several anti-LGBT bills passed and were signed into law in Alabama. One, HB334, included an amendment that prevented the teaching or discussion of gender or sexual orientations in kindergarten through fifth grade. Now the GOP controlled Alabama Housel filed on April 20 would extend and prohibit the discussion of gender identity or sexual orientation in public K-12 schools and require schools to notify parents if their child identifies as LGBT up until the 8th Grade.

HB354, sponsored by Republican Mark Butler, will extend that prohibition to the eighth grade, while adding more provisions for parents to be notified of their children’s sexual orientation in school and require local boards of education to adopt policies to notify parents if there is a change in their child’s physical, mental, or emotional status. Also, the parent would have to be notified of any medical services or well-being questionnaires beforehand and could opt their child out of those services.

The new bill was not scheduled to be discussed in a committee during this legislative session and also

Gay History – February 19, 1999: The Horrific Murder of Billy Jack Gaither And How It Changed A Small Alabama Town Forever

Featured, Gay History, Of Interest, , , , ,

On February 19, 1999, Billy Jack Gaither went to The Tavern, a Sylacauga, Alabama nightclub, where he had been friends with the owner, Marion Hammond, for twenty years. Gaither was a regular there, if he wasn’t at the Tool Box in Birmingham forty miles away. Hammond remembered that he was nonchalant about his sexuality. ” If they walked over to Billy Jack and they say, ‘Are you gay?’ he’d say, ‘Yes, and I love it.’ You couldn’t hurt his feelings on it, so we wasn’t worried about it.”

Another regular, Steve Mullins, 25, also started to hang out at the Tavern. His presence wasn’t so benign. He sometimes showed up wearing racist t-shirts and harassing African-American customers. He was known locally as a wannabe tough-acting skinhead. “He tried to walk around like a bully, but he wasn’t,” Hammond said. “He was mostly talk.” His buddy, a construction worker named Charles Butler, Jr., was quieter.

Gaither had a reputation for getting along with pretty much everyone, so nobody’s eyebrows were raised when Gaither left The Tavern that night with Mullins and Butler. The three drove to a remote area where Mullins and Butler beat Gaither, stuffed him into the trunk, and went for supplies: kerosene, matches, an axe handle and old tires form Mullins’s home. They then drove to the banks of Peckerwood Creek in neighboring Coosa County. They poured kerosene on the tires and set them ablaze. Then they pulled Gaither out of the trunk of his car. He tried to stand up and they beat him with the ax handle, cut his throat, and threw him onto the pile of burning tires. They moved Gaither’s car to another dirt road and set it on fire. It was found the next day.

Continue reading Gay History – February 19, 1999: The Horrific Murder of Billy Jack Gaither And How It Changed A Small Alabama Town Forever →

16 States Currently Pushing "Don't Say Gay" Laws

16 States Currently Pushing “Don’t Say Gay” Laws

Featured, Gay News Domestic & U.S. Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Conservative lawmakers in 16 mostly red states across America are considering new legislation that would bar teachers from “introducing concepts of sexual orientation or gender identity to young students”, imitating a new Florida law that opponents have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” Law.

Falling back on the Ron DeSantis’ and Anita Bryant’s “Save The Children Campaign” playbook of “gay panic” the following states all have anti-LGBT legislation in the works.: Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Arizona, Iowa, New Jersey, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, South Carolina, Illinois, Rhode Island, Ohio, and South Dakota.

“Battles over sex education in schools have been a constant front in the culture wars that have raged between liberals and conservatives for decades” aid Aaron Ridings, chief of staff and deputy executive director for public policy and research at GLSEN. ““There’s a chilling effect from all of these bills on people who are LGBT”

Alabama Senate Approves “Don’t Say Gay” Law 

Alabama Senate Approves “Don’t Say Gay” Law 

Featured, Gay News Domestic & U.S. Politics, Religious Morons and Anti-Gay Idiots, , , ,

Via The Birmingham Herald

The Alabama Senate passed its own version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law Thursday after a surprise amendment to a transgender bathroom bill. At the start of debate Thursday, an amendment was offered that would stop K-5 elementary teachers from “instruction” on sexuality and gender. The bill passed the Senate 26-3. Since it was amended, it needs to go back to the House for final approval. In addition to instructional limits, the bill requires students to use school bathrooms and locker rooms that match the sex on their birth certificate.

The GOP in Red states are following the templates that have be devised by renegade Florida and Texas. This will not stop until we make them stop.

HAPPY EASTER! - WATCH: Easter Is Gay! (Video)

“Christian” Televangelist Gets 1008 Years In Prison For Molesting Boys

Featured, Gay News Domestic & U.S. Politics, , , ,

Via The Montgomery News:

Alabama evangelist Paul Acton Bowen has been sentenced to 1,008 years in prison – the maximum on all counts – for his guilty pleas to sexually abusing a half dozen teenagers. In addition, he was ordered to pay $840,000 in fines for all counts, also the maximum.

Bowen served for 12 years in a local church, led a citywide student Bible study in Gadsden and was also the host of xlroads TV, a worldwide broadcast viewed weekly by millions of teens and adults in every city in America and more than 170 countries around the world.

After his arrest last year Bowen was suppose to abide by the “Billy Graham Rule” and never be alone with a female other than his wife or with a male under 16 years old. Garmon acknowledges that the second half of that rule “was not always honored.” Dan Savage has photo evidence about that.

If kids got raped by clowns as often as they get raped by preachers it would be illegal to take your kids to the circus.” – Dan Savage

Heavy.com published an extensive report on Bowen’s criminal charges.

Bowen pictured below in what was once a joke picture.

Not anymore.

Thumbnail
Joshua Home Child Abuse

Christian Conversion Therapy Camp Owners Charged W/ Trafficking, Abuse and Forced Labor Of Underage Boys

Featured, Of Interest, Trump's America, , , , , ,

NBC – KX0N News affiliate reports:

More than a year after boys were removed from a nonprofit in Burnet County, the couple who ran it are facing trafficking charges. A grand jury indicted Gary Wiggins, 49, and his wife Meghann Wiggins, 34, on Trafficking of Persons charges.

They are both accused of “knowingly” trafficking four underage boys and “through force, fraud or coercion” making them “engage in forced labor or services.” The two ran Joshua Home, which officials described as a place that “purports to be a residential home for troubled boys.”

According to the indictment, the trafficking allegedly occurred between May 17, 2018 and July 25, 2018. Eight boys between the ages of 10 and 17 were removed after a multi-agency investigation into allegations of abuse, neglect, labor violations, fraud, licensing violations and human trafficking.

The couple had previously run the Blessed Hope Boys Academy in Robertsdale, Ala., in 2016 which was closed after a 20/20 investigation in which boys who’d been sent there spoke out against the abuse that included forced exercise, solitary confinement, withholding food, and various conversion therapy torture tactics.

One boy Lucas Greenfield who was sent there for being gay told 20/20 Lucas Greenfield whose mother sent him to Blessed Hope because he is gay, told 20/20 that Gary Wiggins regularly beat they boys. “He took off his belt and started swinging,” and told them: “I’m going to get the demon out of you and make you straight.”

The Wiggins’ remain in custody at the Burnet County Jail. They are both being held on $100,000 bond.

Pastor at Alabama Anti-LGBT Baptist Church Arrested for Molesting Multiple Underage Boy

Pastor at Alabama Anti-LGBT Baptist Church Arrested for Molesting Multiple Underage Boys

Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, Of Interest, , , , ,

An anti-gay pastor has been charged with sexually assaulting multiple young boys at his Alabama congregation.
 
Pastor John Martin, of the Lighthouse Baptist Church of Florence, Alabama confessed to his congregation that he disgraced his family by having sex with two young boys. Members of his congregation then reported his crimes to authorities.
 
Martin was arrested on Friday, July 5 on four charges of first-degree sexual abuse.
 
One victim stated that the abuse began when he was 12 years old. According to the victim, one incident occurred at a birthday party for Martin’s son. The victim told police that Martin climbed into the tent of the boy when everyone else had fallen asleep.
 
According to the court records, Martin assaulted numerous boys from his church. Martin performed sex acts on the boys and forced the boys to perform sex acts on him.
 
Besides his church duties Martin also worked as a bus driver for a local school. One victim told police that Martin showed him nude photos while he was on the bus. The victim said that on multiple occasions Martin texted him to ask him “if he touched himself” that day.

Lighthouse Baptist Church which John Martin works at is part of the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) denomination that holds extremist anti-LGBT beliefs.

From the church’s website:

“We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery, and pornography are sinful perversions of God’s gift of sex. We believe that God disapproves of and forbids any attempt to alter one’s gender by surgery or appearance.”

The church continues,

“We believe that the only legitimate marriage is the joining of one man and one woman.”

The church also believes that men are the leaders of the family. Women are not allowed to serve as pastors. Additionally, the church does not believe in divorce and expects members to remain married until they die. Corporal punishment of children is also approved by the church to keep them in line.

John Martin’s bail has been set at $60,000., he will be required to wear an ankle monitor and cannot have contact with minor children.

Gay History - February 17: Trump, Obama, The Equality Act and Facebook Sucks.

Facebook To Build $750 Million Data Center in the Very Anti-LGBT State of Alabama

BREAKING NEWS, Featured, Gay News Domestic & U.S. Politics, , , ,

Facebook is coming to anti-LGBT state of Alabama.

The $750 million data center coming to Huntsville, approved two weeks ago by the Huntsville City Council under the guise of a masking name, was revealed Thursday.

Gov. Kay Ivey who recently signed a law that allows people to discriminate against gay couples, attended the news conference at the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce, making the announcement as the cover on the backdrop fell to the floor to reveal the familiar Facebook logo.

“Every day, millions of people around the world use Facebook’s products, and this new Alabama data center will soon play a role in keeping the company’s popular platforms running flawlessly,” Ivey said. “Facebook has found a great location in Sweet Home Alabama, and we’ll do our best to help the company grow and prosper here.

If Facebook cared or would have done their homework they would have known that Alabama has a no promo homo law, which states that “[c]ourse materials and instruction that relate to sexual education or sexually transmitted diseases should include […] an emphasis, in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state.” (Ala. Code § 16-40A-2)

HOUSING
The state does not prohibit housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
EMPLOYMENT
The state does not prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
HATE CRIMES
The state does have a law that addresses hate or bias crimes based on sexual orientation only.
PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS
The state does not prohibit discrimination in public accommodations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
SCHOOL ANTI-BULLYING
The state does not have a law that addresses harassment and/or bullying of students based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
EDUCATION
The state does not have a law that addresses discrimination against students based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
TRANSGENDER HEALTHCARE
The state has neither a ban on insurance exclusions for transgender healthcare nor does it provide transgender-inclusive health benefits to state employees.
GENDER MARKER CHANGE ON IDENTIFICATION DOCUMENTS
The state does not have laws or policies that facilitate gender marker change on driver’s licenses or birth certificates.
CONVERSION THERAPY
This state has no restrictions on so-called “conversion therapy.”

And while Huntsville Huntsville has perhaps the oldest history of recognizing LGBT individuals, with the Rocket City Pride event. The cities non-discrimination laws (1 of only 4 cities in the state) are extremely weak and only rate 17 out of a possible 100 on a national equality scale

Said  Matt VanderZanden, director of site selection at Facebook. 

“We are excited to be joining the Huntsville community. As one of the fastest growing tech hubs in the country, we knew it would be a great location for our newest data center. We are committed to having a positive impact at the local level and look forward to a strong partnership with the Huntsville community.”

Fuck you Facebook

 

National Memorial for Peace and Justice Opens In Alabama Dedicated To Victims of White Supremacy

National Memorial for Peace and Justice Opens In Alabama Dedicated To Victims of White Supremacy

Featured, Gay News Domestic & U.S. Politics, Of Interest, , , ,

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened this week on the site of a former slave pen in Montgomery, Alabama, where black people were once imprisoned before being sold at auction..The Museum is dedicated to the victims of American white supremacy. And it demands a reckoning with one of the nation’s least recognized atrocities: the lynching of thousands of black people in a decades-long campaign of racist terror.

Via The New York Times

At the center is a grim cloister, a walkway with 800 weathered steel columns, all hanging from a roof. Etched on each column is the name of an American county and the people who were lynched there, most listed by name, many simply as “unknown.” The columns meet you first at eye level, like the headstones that lynching victims were rarely given. But as you walk, the floor steadily descends; by the end, the columns are all dangling above, leaving you in the position of the callous spectators in old photographs of public lynchings.

The magnitude of the killing is harrowing, all the more so when paired with the circumstances of individual lynchings, some described in brief summaries along the walk: Parks Banks, lynched in Mississippi in 1922 for carrying a photograph of a white woman; Caleb Gadly, hanged in Kentucky in 1894 for “walking behind the wife of his white employer”; Mary Turner, who after denouncing her husband’s lynching by a rampaging white mob, was hung upside down, burned and then sliced open so that her unborn child fell to the ground.

The Tuskegee Institute records the lynching of 3,436 blacks between 1882 and 1950. This is probably a small percentage of these murders, which were seldom reported, and led to the creation of the NAACP in 1909, an organization dedicated to passing federal anti-lynching laws.