You know this is what the fundamentalist religious right wants to do this here. This is one of the reasons the maga right loves Russia and Putin, he hates who they hate. He wants a straight cisgender stereotypical white society the same as they do. Hugs
Russia’s Interior Ministry has plans for a sweeping electronic database of LGBTQ+ people in the country, Meduza, an independent Russian news outlet, revealed this week.
Citing anonymous sources at the Interior Ministry, the outlet reported that the Orwellian plan has been in discussion since last year after Russia’s Supreme Court outlawed the so-called “international LGBT movement” as an “extremist organization” at the urging of President Vladimir Putin.
Raids and arrests at LGBTQ+ clubs have become commonplace across the country.
The database will be a “large-scale” system to track members of the LGBTQ+ community at large, according to sources.
The plans were corroborated by Dmitry Chukreyev, an official with the Civic Chamber of Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth largest city. He said police have been keeping informal lists of LGBTQ+ individuals since the Supreme Court ruling was announced.
In 2024, police conducted at least 42 raids on LGBTQ+-friendly venues across Russia, according to an investigation by independent news outlet Current Time and human rights organization Sphere. Beatings, forced confinement, and sadistic humiliations based on sexual and gender identities are regular features of the sweeps.
Russian officials and state-aligned media regularly describe Russia’s LGBTQ+ community as a network of “paramilitary groups” calling for an “open gender war,” who engage in “dehumanization” and “devil worship,” the outlet reports. Officials and media credit security forces’ actions with “suppressing” anti-state activity.
The raids, in addition to intimidating the queer community at large and forcing the closure of several venues, have provided security officials with information that would supply an electronic LGBTQ+ registry.
An employee at a Siberian queer establishment told Meduza, “Security forces copied the entire database from the computer where we keep track of reservations,” obtaining information about hundreds of clients. Fingerprints and mouth swabs were collected from visitors during a raid the Eden club in Chelyabinsk, and employees and patrons at the Orenburg club Pose were forced to state their registered residential address on camera.
At a house party raided by security forces in Leningrad Oblast, guests were forced to surrender their passports and unlock their phones; if someone refused, the others were subjected to collective punishment and forced to squat.
According to human rights activists, such raids are also aimed at exposing LGBTQ+ government officials. The organizer of one queer-friendly event in the Urals region revealed police who raided the venue hoped to “catch deputies [officeholders] and other significant individuals” at the event.
While security forces continue to collect data in ever-more sadistic operations, progress on a full-scale LGBTQ+ registry has been hampered by Putin’s other current obsession: the expansion of Greater Russia through his war on Ukraine. Forces assigned to that conflict are draining the ranks of police who would otherwise be hunting down members of the “international LGBT movement.”
But the raids continue to produce results.
One sweep at a restaurant and club in Gorno-Altaysk last year yielded data on 80 patrons and staff alone, an employee said.
“We know all of you now,” security forces repeated as the raid dragged on.
The reason they are doing this is clear. They want to make sure that no one can afford to fight their deportation order in the courts. Think of it is you were required to pay that money daily how long could you afford to do so? Hugs
Trump turns to rarely used 1996 law to fine and potentially seize migrant assets
Administration calls on migrants to “self deport and leave the country now”
Memo obtained by Reuters says implementing fines would require system overhaul
WASHINGTON, April 8 – The Trump administration plans to fine migrants under deportation orders up to $998 a day if they fail to leave the United States and to seize their property if they do not pay, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.
The fines stem from a 1996 law, opens new tab that was enforced for the first time in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term in office. The Trump administration plans to apply the penalties retroactively for up to five years, which could result in fines of more than $1 million, a senior Trump official said, requesting anonymity to discuss non-public plans.
The Trump administration is also considering seizing the property of immigrants who do not pay the fines, according to government emails reviewed by Reuters.
In response to questions from Reuters, U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that immigrants in the U.S. illegally should use a mobile app formerly known as CBP One – rebranded as CBP Home under Trump – to “self deport and leave the country now.”
“If they don’t, they will face the consequences,” McLaughlin said. “This includes a fine of $998 per day for every day that the illegal alien overstayed their final deportation order.”
Emails reviewed by Reuters show the White House has pressed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to handle the issue of penalties, property seizures for migrants who don’t pay, and the sale of their assets.
The Department of Justice’s civil asset forfeiture division could be another option for the seizures, one email said.
President Donald Trump kicked off a sweeping immigration crackdown after taking office in January, testing the bounds of U.S. law to increase arrests and deportations. The planned fines target the roughly 1.4 million migrants who have been ordered removed by an immigration judge.
WHITE HOUSE PRESSURE
Trump invoked the 1996 law during his first term to levy fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars against nine migrants seeking sanctuary in churches. The administration withdrew the penalties, but then proceeded with smaller fines of about $60,000 per person against at least four of the migrants, according to court records.
President Joe Biden stopped issuing the fines and rescinded, opens new tab related policies when he took office in 2021.
Scott Shuchart, a top ICE policy official under Biden, said migrants and their supporters could challenge the fines in court but that the threat alone could have a chilling effect.
“Their point isn’t really to enforce the law, it’s to project fear in communities,” he said.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The proposed asset seizures against the migrants who fail to comply with final deportation orders could impact U.S. citizens or permanent residents in their households.
The immigration advocacy group FWD.us estimates that some 10 million migrants with no legal status or temporary protections are living with U.S. citizens or permanent residents in what are known as “mixed status households.”
The steep fines could hit lower-income immigrants. An analysis of 2019 Census data by the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute found 26% of households with unauthorized immigrants had incomes below the federal poverty line.
Trump has said people with final deportation orders should be a priority for removal although many have families, jobs and established ties in the U.S.
The White House National Security Council and Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy, have been pressing CBP to administer the fines and handle seizures, a CBP official wrote in a March 31 email reviewed by Reuters.
But a CBP memo a day later, also reviewed by Reuters, argued for ICE to take on the task instead. The memo said that CBP’s systems do not currently support this type of immigration fine and that upgrading it could lead to significant costs and implementation delays.
The memo anticipated CBP would need at least 1,000 new paralegal specialists, up from the current staffing of 313.
The start date for the fines remained unclear. DHS did not comment on Miller’s involvement or the technical aspects of implementing the penalties.
Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Mary Milliken and Suzanne Goldenberg
The tRump admin has dehumanized the immigrant population to the point that they feel they can deny them due process. Stop and think about it. Anyone not white citizen or not, legal or not, can be taken and disappeared. What is to stop them from snatching a US citizen they want gone? Think of the police being able to be judge, jury, and if they decide to be the executioner. Pulled over by a cop for driving too fast, he just takes you from your car, arrests you, transports you to jail where you stay for as long as they want, maybe forever. ICE is taking these people and sending them to a prison that no one has ever been released from. Homan said “I’ve talked to the highest level at ICE and they’ve reassured me several times: Everyone that was removed under the Alien Enemies Act was a gang member and a terrorist,” Homan said. But we know that is not true. Several that were removed were not gang members nor terrorist. These ICE and administration people want to just declare someone is something and that is the end of it. But that is what due process is for, to find the truth and protect the innocent. Plus due process and rights extend to anyone on US soil, not just white people or citizens. Hugs
Tom Homan talks with reporters on the West Wing driveway on March 17. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Immigration agents are the “principal” deciders on whether a detainee is linked to a gang and should be deported immediately, border czar Tom Homan told Axios in an exclusive interview.
If agents determine the answer is yes, Homan said, the Trump administration believes that detainee’s rights to due process are limited.
Not so fast, the Supreme Court said late Monday. The court signaled that detainees designated as “enemies” of the U.S. could be deported, but should have some way to challenge their removal.
Driving the news: Homan’s comments to Axios came on a day when the Supreme Court began to sort out how far President Trump can go in his aggressive push to deport immigrants the administration sees as threats to the U.S.
In a separate decision, Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked a lower court’s order that the U.S. return a Maryland man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom the administration admits was mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador.
Garcia, a Salvadoran who had been in the U.S. since 2011 and was here legally, was among those swept up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in raids last month that officials say targeted alleged gang members and criminals.
Many of those arrested were men like Garcia who say they weren’t in gangs or wanted for crimes, civil rights advocates and other critics say. Garcia’s case has become a much-watched test of the White House’s zealous push for deportations.
Zoom in: Homan declined to comment on Garcia’s case. But he told Axios that Trump is simply “using the laws on the books” to quickly deport unauthorized and potentially dangerous immigrants under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.
“People who are enemies of the United States don’t have the same level [of] due process [as in] the normal process,” Homan said.
“People keep saying they have no criminal history,” he added. “I’ve been doing law enforcement since 1984. Many gang members don’t have criminal history. It’s more than criminal history.”
Homan said ICE conducts “deep dive” investigations into detainees being considered for removal, looking at their social media posts, criminal records, immigration records and information from confidential informants and surveillance.
“ICE is the principal arbiter” in weighing whether such factors warrant deportation, Homan said. “There’s a Homeland Security task force and a lot of agents involved. … But it starts with ICE.”
The administrationclaims Garcia is a member of MS-13, a transnational gang that U.S. officials have designated as a terrorist organization.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinia in Maryland said Trump’s team made a “grievous error” deporting Garcia, and that evidence indicating he’s a gang member “consisted of nothing more than his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie.”
Between the lines: Homan said agents use several factors in determining membership in a designated terrorist gang such as MS-13 or the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua.
He said those factors include, but aren’t limited to, tattoos or religious emblems: “It can be one factor or up to 20 factors … It’s a case-by-case analysis.”
Agents’ decisions for identifying gang members are made using a rubric with an eight-point threshold for removal, according to a court document.
In the case of Tren de Aragua, a tattoo “denoting membership/loyalty to TDA” would count four points toward a removal action, according to the document. If a person admits being a gang member, that alone would be enough for removal from the U.S.
“I’ve talked to the highest level at ICE and they’ve reassured me several times: Everyone that was removed under the Alien Enemies Act was a gang member and a terrorist,” Homan said.
The other side: “Just the word of an ICE officer should not suffice as the final word that someone is covered by the Alien Enemies Act,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.
Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, said it was “wild” that the administration would seek to ignore due process for accused immigrants.
She noted that when the Alien Enemies Act was used against people of Japanese, German and Italian descent during World War II, there was a hearing process for the accused.
The bills author said the bill was “designed to restrict government’s ability to burden anyone’s religious freedom.” What they really mean is it would allow a religious person the right to hurt others, to be a jerk, to be an asshole to other people. It is a bill to enshrine the right of someone to disregard the rights and equal treatment of those the don’t like. Anytime one of these hate bills come up just replace the LGBTQ+ with the word black, or Jewish, or even white males and see if it still sounds like a good idea. Hugs
latest push in a long-running effort from right-wing policy groups to “vilify people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“They’re trying to elevate so-called ‘religious liberty’ above all other civil rights and claim that someone’s religious belief allows them to dominate the laws, the policies, the practices of the government and the rest of society,” Dickson said.
Arkansas ACLU Executive Director Holly Dickson testifies at the Capitol.
A bill allowing for discrimination against LGBTQ Arkansans in housing, employment, education and other areas passed out of committee Tuesday and will be heard next by the full Arkansas House of Representatives.
Rep. Robin Lundstrum (R-Springdale), the bill’s lead sponsor and a longtime crusader against LGBTQ rights, said it’s “designed to restrict government’s ability to burden anyone’s religious freedom.”
The bill would “prohibit the government from discriminating against certain individuals and organizations because of their beliefs regarding marriage or what it means to be female or male.”
“It helps protect religious organizations, places of worship, religious schools and religious ministries from government discrimination,” Lundstrum said, adding that it would protect a cake maker or wedding venue or anyone “asked to solemnize a marriage that they do not agree with.”
The bill would shield state government employees from being reprimanded in any way for engaging “in expressive conduct based upon or in a manner consistent with a belief about biological sex or marriage,” both at work and off the clock.
The state would not be able to do anything disciplinary to an employee making homophobic or transphobic social media posts, for example.
The full scope and implications of the bill aren’t clear, but Kaymo O’Connell, a transgender student from Little Rock, told lawmakers this bill clears the way for people to discriminate when making employment decisions.
Other critics of the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, say the bill is poorly written, allows and encourages discrimination against LGBTQ Arkansans and violates multiple federal laws and protections.
Holly Dickson, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, said the bill is the latest push in a long-running effort from right-wing policy groups to “vilify people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“They’re trying to elevate so-called ‘religious liberty’ above all other civil rights and claim that someone’s religious belief allows them to dominate the laws, the policies, the practices of the government and the rest of society,” Dickson said.
HB1615 is supported by the First Liberty Institute, a national right-wing extremist group, and the Arkansas Justice Institute, the legal branch of local right-wing extremist group the Arkansas Family Council.
Lundstrum was joined by legal representatives from both groups in committee today.
“Whether or not this bill passes it has already harmed Arkansans because, yet again, we are saying some people are worthy and other people are unwelcome,” Dickson said.
Rep. Nicole Clowney (D-Fayetteville), who voted against the bill, noted that it’s a clear case of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
John Oliver discusses why trans athletes seem to be at the center of U.S. politics right now, the nuances around competition and safety, where the conversation could be headed, and what The Rock would do in a barre class.
Try that in a small town Marisa from The Handbasket ICE disappeared a mother and 3 children. Neighbors of Trump’s Border Czar said hell no.
Principal Jaime Cook describes one of the third graders in her northern New York school as particularly rambunctious. In a phone call with me Saturday evening, she says this particular student loves to sing and loves to dance. But last week this child was handcuffed and taken by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), along with other family members—two of whom are high school-aged kids. While they all remain jailed in Texas, classmates leave cards on the student’s desk and hang a welcome home banner they hope will be seen.
As people across the country assembled Saturday to tell the Trump regime to keep their “Hands off!”, a protest in the tiny town of Sackets Harbor, NY caught my eye. While this one was certainly related to the larger theme of the day, the impetus was much more specific: A worker on a local dairy farm who had no criminal record and was awaiting legal immigration proceedings was disappeared late last month by ICE along with her three children. Agents were executing a search warrant for an unrelated suspected criminal who lived on the same block, and somehow the family was swept up and whisked away to Texas. And around 1,000 people came together this weekend to rally for their safe return and to send a message that this won’t be tolerated there—or anywhere.
“There was the concern in our little small town that if we speak out too loudly, there might be hateful voices from far away,” Cook tells The Handbasket. She wonders: “Are we gonna become the center of something that becomes really ugly?”
But ultimately she and her staff decided anything less than loud and unwavering support was unacceptable. And as a result, the rest of the country has taken notice.
Photos courtesy of Ginger Storey-Welch
The town of 1,300 people has just one school for all children K-12 where they graduate approximately 40 students each year. It’s an affluent and idyllic-looking town on the shores of Lake Ontario in a county that voted 61% for Trump in 2024. And when protesters marched down the streets in solidarity with their stolen neighbors, they made sure to pass by the home of one community member in particular: Tom Homan, Trump’s Border Czar. Homan grew up nearby and still has his primary residence in Sackets Harbor, presumably splitting time in DC to spearhead Trump’s campaign of terrorizing immigrants.
“This isn’t like a situation where a politician has multiple houses,” Cook told me. “Tom Homan lives in Sackets Harbor. I believe that in the hours when this was unfolding, he was receiving a lot of calls on his personal cell phone.”
In anticipation of Saturday’s march, the Mayor of Sackets Harbor declared a state of emergency. Law enforcement officials from the village police department, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, state police, and state park police were all called to the gathering to remind protesters of what they would face if they put a toe out of line.
Cook has spent the past 10 days worried sick about her students in the 3rd, 10th and 11th grades at her school. Saturday morning she posted a statement on Facebook addressing the situation head on:
Homan has been decidedly less concerned about his neighbors, vocally supporting the actions of immigration officials. He claimed in a local TV news interview on Wednesday that the children and their mother were potential witnesses to the alleged crime and that they had to be detained for questions. And he was sure to make one thing clear: “First of all, the family is not in a jail. They’re in a family residential center, it’s an open air campus.”
These types of arrests—known as “collateral detention”—are becoming more common. “What we have been seeing is ICE at random detaining people who are not the people they’re looking for,” Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, told The Intercept. “They go in allegedly looking for someone else and then they’ll take whoever they can find just so they can meet their quota numbers that Donald Trump has put in place.”
As protesters marched by Homan’s waterfront home on Saturday, a sign on a neighbor’s lawn—a photo of which was shared with me by rally attendee Ginger Storey-Welch—read: “WE NO LONGER HAVE A DIFFERENCE IN POLITICAL OPINION. WE HAVE A DIFFERENCE IN MORALITY.”
Photos courtesy of Ginger Storey-Welch
The contrast between Homan and Cook couldn’t be more stark. Cook says she grew up on welfare and food stamps and says that being “disempowered” and “discarded by the system” has always helped her empathize with people in peril. I tell her that her Facebook statement and comments to a reporter at the protest have people online hailing her as a hero. Then I ask her how she feels about that characterization.
“I think that’s silly,” she says. “I think anybody who’s been a public school teacher knows that people are doing this stuff all day long. And I think that the only reason that people might think that this is out of the ordinary is because educators are so frequently underestimated and their contribution is not seen for what it is.”
Cook is tackling the situation boldly, despite having only been principal in Sackets Harbor for less than one school year. The California native has lived in the area for 15 years and says the community has welcomed her with open arms—which has made it easier to feel empowered to speak up.
“You just gotta put your money where your mouth is and you gotta live by your conscience,” she says, “and you gotta know that your livelihood cannot overpower your conscience.”
The school has been in touch with ICE since the family’s arrest, and Cook says she feels hopeful about the chances of them being home soon. She says one of her teachers who has been the immigration agency’s main point of contact has been waiting for “the call” letting them know the family is free to go, and believes that call is imminent. But even once they’re freed, ICE will do nothing to transport them back to the home from which they were snatched. Fortunately the town has come together to make sure there are people on the ground in Texas waiting to accompany the family when the time hopefully comes.
“They can rally and protest all they want, but I’m not gonna be bullied. I’m not gonna be intimidated,” Homan told the local news prior to Saturday’s rally. Meanwhile, Sackets Harbor 10th graders leave flowers on their jailed classmate’s desk in hopes of a safe return.
I love how Rev. Ed Trevors looks at other faiths and religions. They are not a threat to him, his religion, nor his god. I personally think if a person’s faith doesn’t harm others and helps them it is grand even if I don’t believe the same way. If you get benefit from your faith, your god, your religion and cause no harm to others … and maybe even helps other then it is a grand thing. Remember even though I am an atheist I was rescued at 17 yrs old by a very devout Christian. He did not turn his back on an abused kid like so many others did. So I don’t, do not, believe that religion poisons everything. It is like everything else in life it is how you use it that makes it good or bad. If you use your faith, your god as a crutch for your own hate, if you claim your deity hates others based on who you hate … then you are not following the Christian Jesus but maybe the one that tempted him. As Belle and Beau say … It is just a thought. Hugs.
Reverend Ed Trevors did a video on this. He liked the guys message but thought the way he did it was wrong. For me it is amazing that in Florida he was not seriously hurt by the police that came to the scene. They read his message and did not use their authority to harm him for it. As you know in Florida the authorities are not respectful or kind to those who are expressing a message of kindness, tolerance, and acceptance of others. Hugs
By Melinda Henneberger Updated March 31, 2025 6:57 PM
“I wasn’t preaching hate or using profanity,” says Jimbo Gillcrist. Then he was thrown to the ground. Melinda Henneberger
A man who walked up to the pulpit at the church he’d grown up in, Holy Spirit Catholic Church in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, a few minutes before last Sunday’s 11 a.m. Mass was soon wrestled to the ground by four parishioners.
Jimbo Gillcrist had just started to recite his own version of the “Our Father,” and to say how we’re all God’s children. He had intended to talk to his fellow Catholics about care for the migrant, but he didn’t get to before being taken down, marched out and handcuffed by OP police.
“I thought the worst that could happen is maybe they’d try to shout me down and ask me to leave,” Gillcrist told me in an interview on Friday. “I in no way thought I’d be tackled in a church.”
When one of those who removed him called the police, they reported, “He has long hair and a beard.”
I know that because I listened to the 38-minute audio of the whole thing that was recorded on Gillcrist’s phone, which his removers took away from him but failed to stop from recording.
So I can also say that the police who responded were a lot more chill than the church folk, one of whom asked the others, “Is anybody armed?” “Mine is in my car,” one responded.
“Mine is, too,” said another. All the better to protect followers of Christ from someone quoting Christ? Some horrible things have happened in churches throughout history, actually, so I could understand safety being a concern.
But the back-and-forth between Gillcrist and those who made him leave suggests they were more focused on propriety.
Holy Spirit’s pastor, Fr. Justin Hamilton, did not respond to a Friday message asking about what happened.
If Gillcrist’s name sounds familiar, he’s the theology teacher fired from Kansas City’s Rockhurst High School last November after telling his students that it would be their moral duty as Catholics to stand up against mass deportations. So here he is, doing that, or trying to.
‘Brother, you need to leave’ After he started his prayer, a priest approached him at the pulpit: “Come with me. Turn the sound off! Brother, you need to leave.”
And then, after the sounds of a very quick takedown came this: “Stay still. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“You already used violence against me in a church.”
“You’re trespassing.” “Trespassing? I’m a baptized Catholic.” “It’s inappropriate.” “To pray?” “There’s an appropriate time.” “It is the appropriate time.”
“No, you have to listen to your authorities, which is your pastor.”
As Gillcrist was taken out, he raised his voice for the first and only time, “Love your neighbor as yourself! And who is my neighbor?”
When police arrived, an officer asked those who had marched him out, “Did he do anything physical?”
“He pushed our priest off the steps” one answered, “but he didn’t fall or anything.”
A second officer arrived and said, “Is he the one who pushed the priest? Put him in handcuffs.”
“But I didn’t,” Gillcrist insisted.
We’ll figure it out, one of the officers said. And they did, while Gillcrist sat in the back of the patrol car in cuffs.
Video shows the moments before Jimbo Gillcrist was taken down at Holy Spirit Catholic Church. ‘So I see you mention Gaza and Ukraine’ Officers asked Gillcrist some questions as telling as his answers, so I’m just going to let the recording play:
“Why are they saying you pushed a priest?”
“They were trying to pull me away from the pulpit. I grabbed the pulpit and just held on. I didn’t push anyone. They had four guys grabbing me and dragging me off there.”
“What made you want to preach today?” “I’m worried about human beings, our brothers and sisters who live within our midst and are being targeted by the government.”
“What do you consider to be targeted by the government? What class of people are you …”
“Undocumented immigrants.”
“So you don’t agree with deportations and things like that?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you say anything like that?”
“I didn’t even get there.”
Looking at a copy of Gillcrist’s prepared remarks, the officer said, “So I see you mention Gaza and Ukraine in here. What’s your message with that?”
“They’re our brothers and sisters. When we stop seeing people that way it’s so easy to start making laws or enacting policies that harm them.”
In the end, another officer said he had talked to the pastor and there wouldn’t be any charges for now, but “if you do return here, you will be charged with trespassing.”
So was this a pointless provocation or an important disruption?
I understand those who say church needs to be a refuge from politics. At the same time, I don’t see how you could take Matthew Chapter 25 seriously — “for I was a stranger and you gave me no welcome” — and register no protest right now.
Where is American Oscar Romero?
Jesus spoke a lot about care for the stranger, who is these days being snatched off the street without any due process and used by smiling Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as a prop — with a shaved head and few clothes, looking shamefully for us not unlike a prisoner in Dachau.
If you’re an actress from Canada, maybe things will eventually be made right, but if not, who knows? The danger everyone ought to see is that if you can be picked up and shipped out without any hearing for supporting Palestinians — and without due process, we really don’t know that it’s any more than that — then you can also be sent away for supporting Israel, or Ukraine.
Or Jesus, or even Donald Trump.
Gillcrist belongs to a different, less conservative parish now. But what he was thinking in going to Holy Spirit, he said, is that those in his original faith home may not hear his point of view very often. If he could move even one person who doesn’t like what’s going on a little closer to speaking out about that, he had to try.
Of course, his effort might also have had the opposite effect. He went, too, because he sees the Catholic Church in the U.S. as silent when it should be strong.
“Where is the American Romero?” he asked, referring to Oscar Romero, the sainted Salvadoran archbishop assassinated in 1980 for standing up against a repressive regime.
Gillcrist had just started speaking when he was stopped, so I don’t know that he had the chance to change that one mind, or that he would have even if he’d been allowed to finish.
I do know, however, that many are wondering how to make this country a place where both people and the rule of law matter again. They’re not sure how to stop our slide into autocracy.
I’m not, either, but we do know we have to try and then try some more. Whether or not Gillcrist went about it the right away, I give him credit for looking for different ways to express his straight-from-Jesus dissent.
Because for those of us revulsed by what’s going on, smiling along like we’re still in the “before times” is no longer possible. This story was originally published March 30, 2025 at 8:05 AM.
This video touches just briefly on child abuse in that the republicans / clergy / highly religious do in the defense of the LGBTQ+ especially trans people accused of it. The Rev. Trevors is a real supporter of the LGBTQ+ and he doesn’t like it when Christians use his god / bible to harm others. Hugs
The defense secretary, along with the wider Trump administration, has spent its months in office purging the Pentagon, military and federal government of anything it deems diversity related, which has been widely interpreted by the military services and many others to mean anything that recognizes women and people with minority backgrounds.
Hegseth issued a vague order for the Defense Department to remove all “news articles, photos, and videos promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including content related to critical race theory, gender ideology, and identity-based programs.”
Display case at the U.S. Naval Academy which housed removed items that commemorated female Jewish graduates. (Photo courtesy of Military Religious Freedom Foundation)
The U.S. Naval Academy has confirmed that officials there removed items commemorating female Jewish graduates from a historic display ahead of a visit to the school by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, or MRFF, a nonprofit group that advocates for religious freedom, first reported on the move after its members noticed the removal of the items on display at the Commodore Uriah P. Levy Center and Jewish Chapel.
Cmdr. Ashley Hockycko confirmed late Tuesday that the historical items honoring the Jewish graduates had been removed but said that it was done so “mistakenly.” “U.S. Naval Academy leadership is immediately taking steps to review and correct the unauthorized removal,” she added.
The removal appears to be the latest example of military and defense officials removing displays, websites and other materials honoring the achievements of women and minorities within the military, often with the presumption of acting on Hegseth’s orders or reacting to his preferences and beliefs.
The defense secretary, along with the wider Trump administration, has spent its months in office purging the Pentagon, military and federal government of anything it deems diversity related, which has been widely interpreted by the military services and many others to mean anything that recognizes women and people with minority backgrounds.
Hegseth issued a vague order for the Defense Department to remove all “news articles, photos, and videos promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including content related to critical race theory, gender ideology, and identity-based programs.”
Some of that content has been restored after the removals became public. However, Hegseth’s office has not offered a full accounting of what has been removed to date.
MRFF founder and President Mikey Weinstein told Military.com in an interview Wednesday that his organization heard from 31 Naval Academy faculty, Midshipmen and staff, who were “outraged” by the removal of the items.
According to the MRFF, the displays containing items from male Jewish graduates and service members were left untouched.
However, the items were removed for only a short time, and officials told Military.com that they had been restored by Tuesday evening, having been gone less than a day.
The military academy also purged nearly 400 books from its library around the time of Hegseth’s visit as well, an official confirmed to Military.com. The books were banned under the Trump administration push to purge materials related to diversity, and were culled from library shelves before the defense secretary’s visit to the academy, according to The Associated Press.
The move comes about a week after the Capital Gazette, an Annapolis newspaper, reported that leaders at the Naval Academy didn’t think they needed to remove any books since President Donald Trump’s January executive order banning materials on diversity applied to kindergarten through 12th-grade schools that receive federal funding — not colleges.
The Navy would not offer a list of the books removed when asked.
The orders and policies claiming to target “diversity, equity and inclusion” — a term that has taken on a difficult-to-define and amorphous meaning under the Trump administration — are leaving officials in the Pentagon and the military branches frustrated. They feel that many of the policies being released by Hegseth demand urgency but lack specifics and are open to interpretation.
One official who remained anonymous to speak freely without fear of retaliation frustratedly noted to Military.com that this dynamic sets up a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.”
If the military services and their various offices overreact and remove content that becomes a scandal, they are slammed by Hegseth and his staff for “malicious compliance.”
That dynamic played out several weeks ago when the Pentagon was forced to walk back the removal of a website honoring trailblazing baseball player and Army veteran Jackie Robinson.
In a March 21 video, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell admitted that “some important content was inadvertently pulled offline” and attributed that to “the realities of AI tools and other software.” He said content was being both “mistakenly removed” and “maliciously removed.”
Meanwhile, the official went on to note, if the services take directives at their literal meaning, which was seemingly what the Naval Academy did when it decided it didn’t need to purge its library since it was not a K-12 school, that leads to the perception of noncompliance with orders and directives.
The result, according to the official, is a very uneven and ad hoc application of policy that leaves employees and officials paralyzed, frustrated and uncertain, with little more to go on than what they see in public statements like Parnell’s videos or Hegseth’s appearances on television.
“History is not DEI,” Parnell declared in his video.
“What does that mean? What am I supposed to do with that?” the official said.
Arkansas ACLU Executive Director Holly Dickson testifies at the Capitol.
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