I post this to again affirm that not all Christian denominations / churches are bigoted racist jerks using their holy book to bash others they don’t like. There are many good supportive Christians in the world as there are members of other faiths along with people of no faith. We should call out the bigots who use their religion to control others rather than as a guide for how they live their lives. But remember we must not blame all religious people / people of faith for the actions of those who are abusive of others. I am a live and let live person. I don’t want to control the lives of other people. I can barely handle being an adult in my own life, I don’t need the job of telling everyone else how to live. The caveat I will add to the live and let live way of life, it assumes others do not want to cause harm to others. Society has a responsibility to protect and care for each other and protect those who need such from those who do not respect the personhood of others. Hugs
Beth Bloom (L) and Pat Uleskey (R), among the couples getting married Saturday in downtown Rochester.
Love and resilience were on full display this past weekend at the inaugural Big Gay Wedding Day, held at Rochester’s First Universalist Church.
Organized by local Unitarian Universalist congregations, including First Unitarian Church of Rochester, First Universalist Church of Rochester and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canandaigua, the free event offered LGBTQ+ couples the opportunity to marry in a safe and affirming environment.
The event came at a time of growing concern over potential shifts in federal policies that some worry could threaten marriage equality and other LGBTQ+ protections under the incoming administration. Advocacy groups have voiced fears that hard-won rights for queer and trans individuals may be at risk.
Stephanie Ballard-Foster
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WXXI News
Caliana (L) and Angelas Rolon Torres (R) who were among the couples getting married Saturday in downtown Rochester.
Rev. Lane-Mairead Campbell, Minister of the First Universalist Church of Rochester and one of the event’s organizers, said the importance of providing certainty and support for LGBTQ+ couples in the face of these challenges cannot be overstated.
“We’re seeing anti-transgender legislation being upheld and passed like across our country, and so this is a way that we could provide some certainty for our community and be able to provide some space to be able to get married legally, safely, quickly, inexpensively,” said Campbell.
Local vendors were on hand to donate flowers, cakes and professional photography services to create a celebratory atmosphere. After the ceremonies, couples and their supporters gathered for a reception.
Rev. Shari Halliday-Quan, Lead Minister at the First Unitarian Church and an event organizer, said her own experience demonstrates why events like this are important. In 2012, same-sex marriage was illegal in New York, so she and her now-wife planned to marry in Massachusetts, where their Unitarian Universalist congregation welcomed same-sex weddings. By the time they wed, New York had legalized same-sex marriage, allowing them to marry at home.
Stephanie Ballard-Foster
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WXXI News
A wedding cake at an event in downtown Rochester on Saturday, titled, ‘Big Gay Wedding.’ Local vendors donated flowers, cakes, and professional photography for the event which was organized by LGBTQ+ advocates.
Even though more than a decade has passed, Halliday-Quan said the need to create safe and affirming spaces for queer couples remains pressing.
“It matters deeply,” she said. “I think today, that right now, we’re helping couples secure rights that they’re worried will be taken away. We all hope that that won’t be the case. But what I want folks to know, and what I think today really celebrates and uplifts, is that queer and trans people have a place in our community, that you are loved and worthy.”
Among the couples married during the event were Caliana and Angeles Rolon Torres, who first discovered the opportunity while scrolling through Instagram. The couple, grateful for the chance to marry without financial barriers, said the event was especially meaningful after facing financial struggles.
“It means the world in that regard,” said Caliana. “The fact that we can do something like this, and there’s any organization doing something like this that enables people to get married, not only for free, but also before people are worried about it and things like that, is incredible. Like, outside of the marriage itself, the fact that this is happening is an amazing concept.”
Since the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York in 2011, more than 25,000 same-sex couples in the state have tied the knot. Nationally, there are an estimated 711,000 married same-sex couples in the United States.
We live in a world where right-wing nationalism is on the rise and many governments, including the incoming Trump administration, are promising mass deportations. Trump in particular has discussed building camps as part of mass deportations. This question used to feel more hypothetical than it does today.
Faced with this reality, it’s worth asking: who would stand by you if this kind of authoritarianism took hold in your life?
You can break allyship down into several key areas of life:
Who in your personal life is an ally? (Your friends, acquaintances, and extended family.)
Who in your professional life is an ally? (People you work with, people in partner organizations, and your industry.)
Who in civic life is an ally? (Your representatives, government workers, individual members of law enforcement, healthcare workers, and so on.)
Which service providers are allies? (The people you depend on for goods and services — including stores, delivery services, and internet services.)
And in turn, can be broken down further:
Who will actively help you evade an authoritarian regime?
Who will refuse to collaborate with a regime’s demands?
These two things are different. There’s also a third option — non-collaboration but non-refusal — which I would argue does not constitute allyship at all. This might look like passively complying with authoritarian demands when legally compelled, without taking steps to resist or protect the vulnerable. While this might not seem overtly harmful, it leaves those at risk exposed. As Naomi Shulman points out, the most dangerous complicity often comes from those who quietly comply. Nice people made the best Nazis.
For the remainder of this post, I will focus on the roles of internet service vendors and protocol authors in shaping allyship and resisting authoritarianism.
For these groups, refusing to collaborate means that you’re not capitulating to active demands by an authoritarian regime, but you might not be actively considering how to help people who are vulnerable. The people who are actively helping, on the other hand, are actively considering how to prevent someone from being tracked, identified, and rounded up by a regime, and are putting preventative measures in place. (These might include implementing encryption at rest, minimizing data collection, and ensuring anonymity in user interactions.)
If we consider an employer, refusing to collaborate means that you won’t actively hand over someone’s details on request. Actively helping might mean aiding someone in hiding or escaping to another jurisdiction.
These questions of allyship apply not just to individuals and organizations, but also to the systems we design and the technologies we champion. Those of us who are involved in movements to liberate social software from centralized corporations need to consider our roles. Is decentralization enough? Should we be allies? What kind of allies?
This responsibility extends beyond individual actions to the frameworks we build and the partnerships we form within open ecosystems. While building an open protocol that makes all content public and allows indefinite tracking of user activity without consent may not amount to collusion, it is also far from allyship. Partnering with companies that collaborate with an authoritarian regime, for example by removing support for specific vulnerable communities and enabling the spread of hate speech, may also not constitute allyship. Even if it furthers your immediate stated technical and business goals to have that partner on board, it may undermine your stated social goals. Short-term compromises for technical or business gains may seem pragmatic but risk undermining the ethics that underpin open and decentralized systems.
Obviously, the point of an open protocol is that anyone can use it. But we should avoid enabling entities that collude with authoritarian regimes to become significant contributors to or influencers of open protocols and platforms. While open protocols can be used by anyone, we must distinguish between passive use and active collaboration. Enabling authoritarian-aligned entities to shape the direction or governance of these protocols undermines their potential for liberation.
In light of Mark Zuckerberg’s clear acquiescence to the incoming Trump administration (for example by rolling back DEI, allowing hate speech, and making a series of bizarre statements designed to placate Trump himself), I now believe Threads should not be allowed to be an active collaborator to open protocols unless it can attest that it will not collude, and that it will protect vulnerable groups using its platforms from harm. I also think Bluesky’s AT Protocol decision to make content and user blocks completely open and discoverable should be revisited. I also believe there should be an ethical bill of rights for users on open social media protocols that authors should sign, which includes the right to privacy, freedom from surveillance, safeguards against hate speech, and strong protections for vulnerable communities.
As builders, users, and advocates of open systems, we must demand transparency, accountability, and ethical commitments from all contributors to open protocols. Without these safeguards, we risk creating tools that enable oppression rather than resisting it. Allyship demands more than neutrality — it demands action.
Watchdog files complaint after Trump nominee cast vote from address court ruled was not his place of residence
Robert F Kennedy Jr has been accused of committing voter fraud in November’s presidential election by casting his ballot from a New York address that a court had previously ruled was not his place of residence.
The complaint, filed by Accountable.US, a left-leaning watchdog group, could complicate Kennedy’s confirmation as Donald Trump’s nominee to be health and human services secretary, when he is expected to be subject to rigorous questioning at a Senate hearing.
In a filing with the New York state board of elections, the watchdog calls for an investigation into Kennedy for “registering for and voting” from a state address at which he does not live.
“New York statute … provides that any person who ‘[k]nowingly gives a false residence within the election district when registering as an elector’ is guilty of a felony,” the complaint states.
It goes on to say that Kennedy voted by mail-in ballot from an address in Katonah, about 45 miles from New York City, which was at the centre of a state court ruling about his eligibility to appear on the New York ballot as a presidential candidate.
That referred to a ruling last August by a New York judge upholding a legal challenge from another watchdog group asserting that Kennedy had falsely listed the address as his residential home in order to gain ballot access. (snip-MORE)
And the chuckle on public record:
Trump's attorneys referred to him as "President Rump" in his appeal to SCOTUS.
One change Meta made this week was to eliminate restrictions on some attacks on immigrants, women, and transgender people. Specifically, its hateful conduct policy now allows “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’”
Meta has long supplemented its public community standards with nonpublic guidelines that it shares with employees and contractors charged with enforcing its policies. The guidelines give moderators examples of what is and is not allowed.
Today, Platformer is sharing some of those guidelines.
In an answer to the question “Do insults about mental illness and abnormality violate when targeting people on the basis of gender or sexual orientation?” Meta now answers “no.” It gave the following examples of posts that do not violate its policies:
Non-violating: “Boys are weird.” Non-violating: “Trans people aren’t real. They’re mentally ill.” Non-violating: “Gays are not normal.” Non-violating: “Women are crazy.” Non-violating: “Trans people are freaks.”
And in a follow-up questions about whether denying that a protected class violates the hateful content policy, Meta also answers no. It gave these as examples of posts that are now allowed on Facebook and Instagram: (snip-MORE. This is from the guy who left Substack a while back. I don’t want to steal from him. It’s free to read.)
Personally, I don’t think it’s surrender on the part of Meta, nor any of the other media moguls. It’s all of one piece-they’re all in it together with the new 47th president. I’ve read this from others, too, both last night and this morning. We the people are not part of the club. Anyway, here is this.
Donald Trump’s surprising victory in the 2016 US presidential election sparked a backlash against tech platforms in general and against Meta in particular. The company then known as Facebook was battered by revelations that its network dramatically amplified the reach of false stories about Trump and his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and was used as part of a successful effort by Russia to sow division in US politics and tilt the election in favor of Trump.
Chastened by the criticism, Meta set out to shore up its defenses. It hired 40,000 content moderators around the world, invested heavily in building new technology to analyze content for potential harms and flag it for review, and became the world’s leading funder of third-party fact-checking organizations. It spent $280 million to create an independent Oversight Board to adjudicate the most difficult questions about online speech. It disrupted dozens of networks of state-sponsored trolls who sought to use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to spread propaganda and attack dissenters.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg had expected that these moves would generate goodwill for the company, particularly among the Democrats who would retake power after Trump lost in 2020. Instead, he found that disdain for the company remained strongly bipartisan. Republicans scorned him for policies that disproportionately punished the right, who post more misinformation and hate speech than the left does. Democrats blamed him for the country’s increasingly polarized politics and decaying democracy. And all sides pilloried him for the harms that his apps cause in children — an issue that 42 state attorneys general are now suing him over.
Last summer, the threats against Zuckerberg turned newly personal. In 2020, Zuckerberg and his wife had donated $419.5 million to fund nonpartisan election infrastructure projects. (Another effort that had seemingly generated no goodwill for him or Meta whatsoever.) All that the money had done was to help people vote safely during the pandemic. But Republicans twisted Zuckerberg’s donation into a scandal; Trump — who lost the election handily but insisted it had been stolen from him — accused Zuckerberg of plotting against him.
“We are watching him closely,” Trump wrote in a coffee-table book published ahead of the 2024 election, “and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”
By the end of 2024, Zuckerberg had given up on finding any middle path through the polarized and opposite criticisms leveled against him by Republicans and Democrats. His rival Elon Musk had spent the past year showing how Republican party support can be bought — cheaply.
In business and in life, Zuckerberg’s motivation has only ever been to win. And a doddering, transactional Trump presented Meta with a rare opportunity for a fresh start.
All they would have to do is whatever Trump wanted them to do.
Ending its fact-checking program, which funds third-party organizations to check the claims in viral Facebook and Instagram posts and downrank them when they are found to contain falsehoods. It will be replaced with a clone of Community Notes, X’s volunteer fact-checking program.
Eliminating restrictions on some forms of speech previously considered harmful, including some criticisms of immigrants, women, and transgender people.
Re-calibrating automated content moderation systems to prioritize only high-severity violations of content policy, such as those involving drugs and terrorism, and reviewing lower-severity violations only when reported by users. (This sounds boring but might be the most important change of all, as we’ll get to)
Re-introducing discussion of current events, which the company calls “civic content,” into Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Moving content moderation teams from California to Texas to fight the perception that Meta’s moderation reflects a liberal Californian bias. (Never mind that the company has always had content moderation teams based in Texas, or that it was Zuckerberg and not the moderators who set the company’s policies.)
Zuckerberg announced these changes in an Instagram Reel; Joel Kaplan, a Republican operative and longtime Meta executive who last week replaced Nick Clegg as the company’s president of public policy, discussed the changes in an appearance on “Fox and Friends.” (See transcripts of both here.)
One way to understand these changes is as a marketing exercise, intended to convey a sense of profound change to an audience of one. In this, Meta appears to have succeeded; Trump today called the company’s changes “excellent” and said that the company has “come a long way.” (“Mr. Trump also said Meta’s change was ‘probably’ a result of the threats he had made against the company and Mr. Zuckerberg,” dryly noted the Times’ Mike Isaac and Theodore Schleifer.)
Whether this will be enough to get Trump to end the current antitrust prosecution against Meta, or otherwise advocate for the company in regulatory affairs, remains to be seen. By the cynical calculus of the company’s communications and policy teams, though, one assumes that Trump’s comments inspired a round of high-fives in the company’s Washington, DC offices.
But these changes are likely to substantially increase the amount of harmful speech on Meta’s platforms, according to 10 current and former employees who spoke to Platformer on Tuesday.
Start with the end of Meta’s fact-checking partnerships, which perhaps generated the most headlines of the company’s changes on Tuesday. While the company has been gradually lowering its investment in fact-checking for a couple years now, Meta’s abandonment of the project will have real effects: on the fact-checking organizations for whom Meta was a primary source of revenue, but also in the Facebook and Instagram feeds of which Meta is an increasingly begrudging steward. (snip-MORE. Go read; he left Substack because of the nazis, and made Platformer to get his writing to people. It’s free to read, and you don’t have to subscribe, either.)
Wow! This has taken a long time. I had hoped to do it every day. But I have been at this since 4 am and it is now 12 pm when I am finishing it. I love sharing the horrible shit the right wing thinks, the things the cult wants to do. If everyone likes these posts so they can choose what to read or ignore let me know. If no one wants them then I am wasting 8 hours of my life. Love and hugs to all. PS. On the other side even with my issues I am feeling a lot more energized. It seems I go one 24 hour period with no sleep and then sleep nearly 12 hours … and repeat. Love all of you, really feel good right now.
But please let me know what you feel of these posts. Do they keep you informed? Do they help? As to if I listen yes, I have decided to post the meme post twice a week because the majority of the few responces I got implied they were too many in each post. So the one I have now worked on for several days will be posted tomorrow morning and since only one person said they cared about the day, I will now try to do them on Wednesday and Sunday. However the voting is still open if I get a new majority of people who feel a different day is better for them. Again as always, loves and hugs. Scottie
Trump supporter crashes his car while speeding in the snow, screaming about Trump, and blasting "maga music". He was livestreaming WHILE DRIVING 💀 pic.twitter.com/uOinMINwa2
White male bosses, black / brown low level employees without a chance of promotion. White women secretaries / assistants. In other words, 1950 to 1960.
PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Kat Kerr declares that people who stole the election will “hang on meat hooks in hell right next to Hitler.” Kat Kerr says 150-foot angels will kill her critics. Kat Kerr says a talking scroll in heaven will soon prove the “legality” that Trump is still president. Kat Kerr says she heard God “laughing loudly” at Biden’s fake electoral college count. Kat Kerr says Jesus took her to a football game in heaven where he always wins at every sport. Kat Kerr says Jesus personally gave her the commission to draw a portrait of God and that she touched God’s hair while visiting heaven to create the drawing. Kat Kerr personally dispatches 1000 “special ops angels” to ensure Trump is reelected. Kat Kerr assigns 100 million angels to guard the Republican convention. Kat Kerr claims God destroyed the Bahamas with a hurricane due to all the underground sex trafficking tunnels. Kat Kerr claims she saw angels bombarding Trump protesters to drive out their “demonic infections.” Kat Kerr claims she waved at the blond angels guarding the tomb of Jesus. Kat Kerr claims she met Whitney Houston in heaven. Kat Kerr claims the GOP secretly won the 2018 House midterms by pretending to be Democrats. Kat Kerr claims all the aborted babies in heaven had a dance party after Kavanaugh was sworn in. Kat Kerr claims God has a rainbow colored pet unicorn. Kat Kerr claims she met Jesus in person and he was totally hot. Kat Kerr clams that once you reach heaven, Jesus personally throws you a dance party in his mansion and serves you the delicious desserts he baked himself. Kat Kerry claims God personally told her the results of the next five presidential elections. Kat Kerr “takes authority” over volcanoes, hurricanes, and wildfires in the name of Jesus, failing to stop each event.
Trump’s plan redirects even more wealth to top 5%. It shifts the tax burden onto everyday Americans to fund tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy. It increases inequality. Removing tax on tips is a symbolic gesture to appease MAGAs while they're sold out to the top 5%.… pic.twitter.com/noGH4Mp3fI
When I was in the service in the 1980s it was illegal for gays to serve. But I was mostly openly gay. I had to be careful as did the many “straight” guys who from training on wanted to have sex with me, and worked / asked / begged for us to take an afternoon drive together somewhere remote on the base to those that begged me to take a four day pass with them to travel a little ways away and get a hotel somewhere. The reason if someone asked was we were seeing such … or visiting a theme park … what ever was plausible even though no questions were ever asked. I never thought about that then … no one ever questioned anything.
Not that you need to know this but I was having same sex relations with fellow service members several times a week and at least every month having a four day pass to have sex. Once it took me by surprise when on the way back to the base I got my first blowjob while driving. When I asked gratefully why, the guy told me he wanted me to remember him in case he asked to go on another pass. He did afterward … repeatedly.
Hey people we were all young really fit horny guys. Were they gay? Were they just straight who understood it would be a way to have enjoyable sex? The only thing I will say is that for every act I performed for them both passive and aggressive, they also performed eagerly for me. You make your own judgments.
Again this was the 1980s. I knew so many Marines who went into the Marines to have the gay worked out of them by becoming a real man. Others were like me, gay with nowhere to go, some were gay like my long term boyfriend who were gay so went where hunky young guys were. Remember what I have said about my time in. I was very skilled at my job as a technician. But as far as being in the Army … well not so much. But the day I was due to leave my warrant officer, my upper staff, two of who had walked in on me fucking my boyfriend on my bed with his legs up in the air and everything in view … left the room, made a big show of about to enter with lots of rattling keys to come in to our room for an unannounced room inspection finding us flushed with our pants hastily pulled on, look around and then the senior guy Sgt Emory winked as he told us … everything looks great guys … go back to what you were doing before we came in. My boyfriend about wilted and died, but I gave a hardy OK will do. And we did. I managed to get the satellite site back up online with modulation while in civilian clothing, which the others had been frantically trying to do before I jumped in. As I said, not to brag I had a talent for more than sex. They begged me to reenlist. I asked them if they could protect me from the new Company Commander who was from infantry and hard right wing who had told me if I did not leave when my contract was ended would see me court marshaled and given an unfit for service discharge. Like the people of this article. They admitted they couldn’t … so I left and became a civilian with the military losing my skills.
That is what tRump and the bigot LGBTQ+ haters want to return to. The military already is way behind on recruitment due to increasingly better economic times, so this will make recruitment worse. Making trans care for minor dependents unavailable and removing travel pay / time for abortion services will also cut down on retention. Removing the 15,000 to 20,000 trans people will also cut down on military people. Removing women from combat? What is the goal, to gut all the US military? To reinstate the draft? Anyway here is the article. Please feel free to ask me anything about this post / my time in the military you feel you need answers to. Hugs
The Pentagon has reached a historic legal settlement with more than 35,000 gay and lesbian military veterans who were dismissed because of their sexual orientation, and in many cases denied an honorable discharge and the array of services they had earned, CBS News has learned.
Under the terms of the agreement, veterans whose discharge papers reference their sexual orientation as a reason for their separation from the military can now avoid a cumbersome legal process and be re-issued paperwork that eliminates any reference to their sexuality. If they were denied an honorable discharge, they will also be eligible for an immediate upgrade review, the agreement says.
“When I was discharged because of my sexual orientation, I felt that my country was telling me that my service was not valuable – that I was ‘less than’ because of who I loved,” said Sherrill Farrell, a U.S. Navy veteran who was a plaintiff in the case. “Today, I am once again proud to have served my country by standing up for veterans like myself, and ensuring our honor is recognized.”
The settlement, which still must receive approval from a federal judge, would resolve the claims from a group of LGBTQ+ veterans who were kicked out of the military years ago because of their sexual orientation. The veterans filed a federal civil rights suit in August 2023 over the Defense Department’s failure to grant them honorable discharges or remove biased language specifying their sexuality from their service records following the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 2011.
The class action lawsuit, which was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claims the Pentagon’s failure to correct this “ongoing discrimination” represents a violation of constitutional rights.
It’s been more than a decade since the military lifted its longstanding ban on openly gay and lesbian troops. But thousands of those discharged under past discriminatory policies like “don’t ask, don’t tell” are still carrying less than honorable discharges today, depriving them of the full spectrum of benefits including VA loan programs, college tuition assistance, health care and some jobs.
A CBS News investigation has documented the Pentagon’s long-running failure to restore honor to the service records of thousands of veterans who were deprived of veterans benefits after their military careers were cut short. A series of reports documented the ways these veterans’ often traumatic separation from the military shaped the course of their lives.
The settlement would establish a streamlined process for LGBTQ+ veterans who were discharged honorably but whose dismissal was attributed to their sexual orientation — enabling them to be re-issued papers that make no reference to it. And for those who were denied an honorable discharge, the Pentagon would commit to a streamlined upgrade review process.
“This proposed settlement delivers long-overdue justice to LGBTQ+ veterans who served our country with honor but were stripped of the dignity and recognition they rightfully earned due to discriminatory discharge policies,” said Elizabeth Kristen, a senior staff attorney with Legal Aid at Work, a group that helped file the suit. “It marks a crucial step in addressing this deep-seated injustice and ensuring these veterans receive the acknowledgment and respect they have long been denied.”
The Pentagon has issued a series of pledges in the past year to right the wrongs inflicted on gay and lesbian service members in the past year. Both the Pentagon and the Department of Justice declined comment on the proposed settlement when reached Monday.
At the time the civil rights suit was filed, a Pentagon spokesman said the military had made attempts to streamline the upgrade process to a short, two-page application. The department said legal representation was no longer required to apply for a discharge review and that the discharge review boards “continue to strive to finalize 90% of all cases within 10 months as required by statute.”
But the lawsuit, prepared by the Impact Fund, Legal Aid at Work and the law firms King & Spalding LLP and Haynes & Boone LLP, called that a “constitutionally inadequate” response, saying it placed the burden on individual veterans to spend months or years obtaining old personnel records before they could file the applications. Those reviews would then take months or years to be processed, they alleged.
The lawsuit did not seek monetary damages, though the settlement allows the court to approve a $350,000 payment by the Pentagon to cover the plaintiffs’ legal costs.
“This case is not about damages,” Jocelyn Larkin, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said at the time it was filed. “This case is about simply changing that piece of paper because the effect of changing that piece of paper is so incredibly consequential for our clients.”
While the full scope of past discrimination against gay and lesbian service members remains unknown, Larkin believes the lawsuit could at least help some 35,000 veterans already identified by a Defense Department Freedom of Information Act request, first reported by CBS News in June 2023. The true figure could be significantly higher. According to the most recent data available from the Pentagon, just 1,375 veterans have been granted relief in the form of a discharge upgrade or correction to their record.
Mike Johnson of Louisiana was reelected today (Jan. 3) to lead the U.S. House of Representatives. During his acceptance remarks a bit later, he read what he called a prayer from Thomas Jefferson. But Monticello and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation call it a “spurious quotation,” adding it’s unlikely Jefferson actually wrote or delivered it. Johnson has a history of using fake quotes to advance his belief that the U.S. should be a “Christian nation.”
“I offered one that is quite familiar to historians and probably many of us,” he said about the prayer, which he noted the program described as one Jefferson recited every day during his presidency and each day afterward until he died.
“I wanted to share it with you here at the end of my remarks not as a prayer per se right now but as really a reminder of what our third president and the primary author of the Declaration of Independence thought was so important that it should be a daily recitation,” Johnson added.
We have no evidence that this prayer was written or delivered by Thomas Jefferson. It appears in the 1928 United States Book of Common Prayer, and was first suggested for inclusion in a report published in 1919.
Interestingly, although we can find no evidence that this prayer has a presidential source, it was used by a subsequent president in a public speech. Several months after his 1930 Thanksgiving Day Address as Governor of New York, it was pointed out that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech bore a striking resemblance to the very same prayer discussed above.
Ultimately, it seems unlikely that Jefferson would have composed or delivered a public prayer of this sort. He considered religion a private matter, and when asked to recommend a national day of fasting and prayer, replied, “I consider the government of the US. as interdicted by the constitution from intermedling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.”
As usual, fake historian David Barton is behind this.
Right Wing Watch has relentlessly exposed Barton’s countless lies about about the Founding Fathers, perhaps most notably his claim that the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence are taken virtually verbatim from scripture.
Dear Speaker Johnson, Please don't make stuff up. The prayer that you read in the House Chamber today was not written by Thomas Jefferson and your claim that he recited it "every day" is false. Please use credible sources, not your discredited pal David Barton. See…
This is as good a time as any to pitch Telling Jefferson Lies, a podcast about the bad history produced by David Barton and other Christian nationalists. This incident will be a part of season two coming up. https://t.co/hYYE9Qaa1b
— Warren Throckmorton – Telling Jefferson Lies (@wthrockmorton) January 4, 2025
— Warren Throckmorton – Telling Jefferson Lies (@wthrockmorton) January 4, 2025
To be clear, I object to his false attribution of the prayer to Jefferson – part of the endless Christian nationalist campaign to remake Jefferson into a devout Christian when he was actually an enlightenment era freethinker who thought religion should remain private and out of… https://t.co/OHLBEDt57Y
Sheeeeesh. Thomas Jefferson, whose “Jefferson Bible” removed all the supernatural happenings and “miracles,” from the text, made it clear that he did not believe in the divinity of Christ. He titled his work “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” and made a copy for himself, although he never published it. Mike Johnson, David Barton, and other Christians who try to impose Christian piety on Thomas Jefferson are very much mistaken, or simply lying. Jefferson was a Deist, not a Christian.
Remember that Mace doesn’t believe in her rhetoric, she just wants the media attention. She wants the adoration she thinks that having people paying attention to her gives to her. She is a child desperately acting out to get the adults to pay attention to her. She is the child who never accepted she was at fault or mistaken but wants to blame everyone else including those pretend causes in her head alone. She was for trans rights, a big supporter of LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion when she felt it gained her media attention. Then when she saw the attention the Libs of TikTok and other haters on social media get, she waited for the opportunity to create enough spectacle for the spotlight to land on her. She tweeted over 500 times in 2 days on the bird site trying to milk the situation for views and clicks, often forgetting to switch to her burner accounts to praise her own stance. But now the drama has died down and no one is looking so she doesn’t care. She has to find the new outrage to pounce on. Maybe she will again throw a fit, and try to get some of the attention she got the first time, but she knows she has to wait, as it would be overwhelmed by current events. No if she still wants it, she will wait until about a couple of months in then claim she couldn’t use a bathroom because it is full of trans women. Hugs
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Josh Fiallo
Evelyn Hockstein / REUTERS
Nancy Mace’s hopes of banning transgender women from sharing a bathroom with her on Capitol Hill appear dashed for now.
The South Carolina Republican’s controversial bathroom ban was not included in the GOP’s House rules package unveiled this week—a surprise omission less than two months after Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly assured Mace it would be included.
The resolution was all the rage in November, with Mace pulling out different theatrics to drum up support for the ban. That included her using a bullhorn to read Miranda rights to sit-in protesters and using anti-transgender slurs to reference them.
Mace admitted her ban was to target the newly-elected Rep. Sarah McBride, a transgender Democrat from Delaware. Mace’s office did not respond to questions texted by the Daily Beast on Friday.
Johnson announced on Nov. 20 that “all single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings […] are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.” This suggested he backed Mace’s proposal even if he was not as fervent in his public comments, but it is unclear why the ban didn’t make into the latest rules package.
“We welcome all new members with open arms who are duly elected representatives of the people,” Johnson said the day prior. “I believe it’s a command that we treat all persons with dignity and respect.”
Mace doesn’t appear to have any bad blood over the omission. She posted Friday morning that Johnson still had her vote to remain House Speaker.
“A vote for @SpeakerJohnson is a vote for President Trump’s America First agenda,” she wrote. “After the last few days of chaos we’ve seen in these tumultuous times, we need steady leadership and continuity. We need to stick together and get to work. We don’t have any time to waste.”
Rep. Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, is the first openly transgender member of Congress. / Bill Clark/Getty Images
While McBride was the resolution’s target, the ban would have applied to any trans person in the Capitol, including staffers and visitors
McBride, the first openly-trans member of Congress, has not commented on the ban’s omission. Back in November, she did not try to go toe-to-toe with Mace on the matter—instead asserting that she would follow whatever the House rules were.
“I’m not here to fight about bathrooms,” she wrote in a statement. “I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them.”
Beth Bloom (L) and Pat Uleskey (R), among the couples getting married Saturday in downtown Rochester.Stephanie Ballard-Foster/WXXI News
Stephanie Ballard-Foster/WXXI News
Stephanie Ballard-Foster/WXXI News
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