Category: LGBTQ+ / Gay / Trans / Gender
Today’s WTF News: What Happened to Bill Maher? MTG Needs to Go & Chuck Todd is!
Disgusting Pastor EXPOSED As Sexual Abuser In Front Of His Entire Congregation
“Carissa Beard was helping her daughter pack up her dorm room on Sunday night when she got the text from her husband, the lead pastor of First Baptist Church of Thurmont in Maryland. The nearly 300-page report on sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention had dropped online. “It is every bit as bad as I expected it to be,” she said. When Philip Meade, pastor at Graefenburg Baptist Church in Kentucky, read the details, he began reworking his plans for the church’s worship service next Sunday. He will now devote a portion of the service to “a lament for the mishandling of sexual abuse claims and for the survivors who have suffered so much,” he said. Michael Howard, the head pastor of Seaford Baptist Church on the coast of Virginia, paused a family vacation to spend hours reading the report on Sunday afternoon. “It makes you ill,” Mr. Howard said. “I know as the word gets out, the people in our church will be asking: What is our response?”“
Pastor who resigned over adultery accused of taking virginity from teen on office floor
https://www.christianpost.com/news/wisconsin-pastor-resigns-claiming-adultery.html
John Lowe II stepped down as pastor of New Life Christian Church and World Outreach in Warsaw, Indiana, on Sunday, May 22, 2022. | Screenshot/Instagram /ihavenewlife
A Warsaw, Indiana, pastor who drew a standing ovation from his congregation after telling them he was stepping down because he committed adultery with one person at least two decades ago drew their wrath minutes later after a woman tearfully alleged she was only 16 when the pastor took her virginity on his office floor while she sported a purity ring.
Pastor John Lowe II told his congregation at New Life Christian Church and World Outreach on Sunday that he needed to make the confession because it was the “biblical” thing to do, according to a Facebook Live broadcast shared by Maisey Cook.
“I committed adultery. It was nearly 20 years ago. It continued far too long. It involved one person, and there has been no other nor any other situations of unbecoming conduct for the last 20 years. I will not use the Bible to defend, deflect, protect my past sin. I have no defense. I committed adultery,” Lowe said without sharing any specifics.
“I say it plainly. I didn’t have an issue. I didn’t have an affair. I didn’t make a misjudgment. I sinned. I need to say that, and you deserve to hear it,” he continued.
Lowe, who has been in full-time ministry for more than 37 years, confessed that he had no good reason for waiting for as long as he did to tell the congregation. He painted himself as a hypocrite who applied discipline to others for sexual failure while hiding his own.
He asked the church for their forgiveness and announced that he would step aside and face discipline from the church.
“In accordance with our church bylaws, I’m stepping aside, stepping down from ministry responsibilities,” he said to applause as he departed from the pulpit.
Soon after he stepped down from the pulpit, a woman and her husband went to the pulpit to address the congregation. The woman said that what Lowe did was not just adultery but a crime because she was only 16 when he took her virginity in his office 27 years ago.
While the age of consent in Indiana is 16, a person who is at least the age of 18 in a position of supervision or trust that engages in any sexual activity with a child over the age of 16 but under the age of 18 commits child seduction, according to state law. It comes with a maximum penalty of 1.5 years in prison; and up to a $10,000 fine. Prosecution for this crime must begin before the victim reaches 31.
“For 27 years, I lived in a prison. It was not 20 years. I lived in a prison of lies and shame, lied to protect the Lowe family,” the woman said. “For years, I thought I was a horrible person having suicidal thoughts, not realizing what had been truly done to me.”
The woman said she was triggered to confront her abuser after her older brother asked her two weeks ago about the time he saw her in bed with their pastor.
“I was a victim, and I would still be in a prison if my brother … had not approached me just two weeks ago with what he had seen as a teenager that bothered him all these years — his pastor in bed with his younger sister, a t-shirt and underwear on,” she detailed.
“People knew but were too afraid to come forward. And they have now. The lies and the manipulation they have to stop,” she added. “I was just 16 when you took my virginity on your office floor. Do you remember that? I know you do, and I have plenty of other stories that I can bring to your remembrance. You did things to my teenage body that should have never been done.”
“I tried to tell someone. But all that was done was cover-up,” she added. “No one ever came to me. No one ever got me counseling.”
The woman also alleged that other young girls were abused by other leaders in the church, and they were “sent away.”
The woman’s husband told the congregation that Lowe started grooming his wife at 15 or 16 and continued having sex with her for nine years.
“I will not let this man talk about my wife like that. It happened for nine years. When she was 15, 16, the sexual grooming started. And it lasted until she met me, and we started dating. This is the truth, and that’s all we’re going to say,” he said.
The husband presented a necklace his wife was given as a ministry gift by the pastor. He also gave back his wife’s purity ring to the church.
“We’re working through love and forgiveness, but people have to be held accountable,” he said. “They can’t just bamboozle people and say, ‘Well, I just committed adultery.’ It was far beyond adultery. So here’s your covenant purity ring back. I don’t want it in my home. We’re done.”
The husband concluded by dropping the microphone on the pulpit to the stunned congregation.
After the couple finished, the tide of support for the pastor quickly turned to anger.
Voices began erupting from the audience, saying, “If you did it, you need to admit it.”
An older woman is seen embracing the weeping victim.
Lowe took the microphone and confirmed that he began having sex with the victim when she was a teenager.
“You should have went to prison,” a voice shouted back at him.
“It was wrong. … I can’t make it right,” Lowe said. “All I can do is ask your forgiveness. … I’m doing what the biblical process is. I am stepping down, stepping aside. … I deeply hurt them, I deeply hurt you. I ask you to forgive me.”
As of Monday afternoon, the church’s website still lists Lowe as pastor. Other members of the Lowe family are also listed in leadership positions.
One Million Moms Vs “Drag Normalizing” Discovery+
Why does this woman hate so? Really what is missing from her life that she directs so much anger and hate at LGBTQ+, really her anger is directed at the gay kids. Did a gay boy steal her boyfriend in her teen years? She is way over the top. Or is this her only way to claim a bit of notice and fame? Is she riding on the coattails of those she claims to hate. People like her have been making the life of young gay kids miserable and she has no concern about that. Yet she claims to be doing in because she is Christian. Hell of a way to show you love someone, to attack everything they are and all the safe places they can find. Also doesn’t she understand in this case the parents of these children approve and support their choices. Drag is simply dress up, it is not trans gender or gay. It is Halloween or being in a play on stage. It is simply fun for most kids and for most adults. Please remember in the quotes below she lies because she doesn’t accept the real medical science or reality other than her god and the book written 2-4 thousand years ago. Hey did not males back then have long hair and wear dresses? Look at the pictures. I guess the people in the bible were in drag. She says tolerance is one thing, acceptance but acceptance or affirmation is another. So she is wanting kids to hate themselves, hate their classmates and ostracize them, and to make those kids miserable enough over something they were born as to kill themselves. Again great mothering and great being loving. Hugs
Via email from hate group leader Monica Cole:
Discovery+ is releasing Generation Drag. Produced by Tyra Banks, the show documents five young drag queens as they participate in a drag show, “Dragutante,” designed for LGBTQ kids ages 8-18.
In celebration of Pride Month, Discovery+ plans to release the six-episode docuseries on June 1.
The Warner Bros.-owned streaming platform, Discovery+, is wrong to produce this type of program. Many would consider it child abuse to encourage these children to dress in drag, question their gender, and sexually exploit themselves.
The parents shown on camera who celebrate their child’s decision to become transgender should be ashamed. 1MM knows that God makes no mistakes. These children were designed in His image before they left their mother’s womb.
While normalizing the drag queen lifestyle, Generation Drag attempts to make the lifestyle appear glamorous by using young cast members to lure a young audience.
The reality show depicts transgenderism as the way a person is born but then glorifies this lifestyle as a decision. Tolerance is one thing, but acceptance or affirmation is another.
Obviously, Discovery+ is attempting to desensitize America’s youth by airing programs starring young people.
This docuseries covers the real life of young people and will attract both young and old viewers. Children and teens are being desensitized, but parents can do something about this hidden agenda.
Take Action: Please sign our petition urging Discovery+ to drop plans to air the docuseries Generation Drag immediately.
Let Discovery+ know that you and your family will not be watching Generation Drag or anything else on the streaming platform in protest of this new show.
I would have never known about this show if it weren’t for the 1MM PR firm to tell me about it.
Thanks Monica.
Alex Polkovsky 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 Dave B • 13 hours ago
It’s her shtick. Complain about X, company sells more X.
Gregory In Seattle Alex Polkovsky 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 • 10 hours ago
I am convinced that she takes commissions. “Hey we need to sell more X, how much money should we give you to get a really great rant against it?”
Play acting is drag. The entire entertainment industry is drag you dumb bitch!
Uncle Mark’s ugly face returns Bambino🇺🇦🌻 • 13 hours ago
I wonder what the ever-offended slag would have thought of the entertainment industry’s androgynous 80s
Uncle Mark’s ugly face returns Bambino🇺🇦🌻 • 13 hours ago
Well, that’s the grift..isn’t it?
1. Find things to be offended about
2. Inform everyone on your Christian Taliban mailing list at how corporations are “poisoning the kids” with liberal values
3. Ask for money to continue 1 & 2 to maintain the angertainment.
God makes no mistakes. These children were designed in His image before they left their mother’s womb.
So God deliberately designs children to have leukemia, cleft palates, and Down Syndrome. Nice.
Uncle Mark’s ugly face returns EdmondWherever • 13 hours ago
YES…to punish the parents for some yet undetermined sin. Nevermind the unwarranted cruelty to the innocent child; it’s all to punish the parents. 🙄
Many would consider it child abuse to encourage these children to dress in drag, question their gender, and sexually exploit themselves.
You don’t say…?
What, me worry? Buford • 11 hours ago
Indeed. Talk about your exploitation! Amazing how they don’t see it in themselves. If the One Million Mom bitched about this too and not just harp on LGBT issues, she might have some credibility. And not just girls’ pageants, but women’s as well. There is only one audience for them and that is dirty old straight christian men.
What, me worry? CB • 11 hours ago
Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if we could maybe teach about issues like that in public schools? (snark. I really wish we could. I grew up gay in the 50s and 60s and I had no idea what was making me so different from my peers, and I had no one to talk to about it and no books or other information on the subject. As far as I knew, I was the only one like me on the planet.)
She better not watch any of the old Buggs Bunny cartoons. Poor woman will blow the last gasket she has.
Fetus-powered street lamps? Republicans ramp up outrageous anti-abortion lies ahead of Roe’s demise
During a House hearing, the GOP demonized patients and doctors with QAnon-style conspiracy theories
By AMANDA MARCOTTE
PUBLISHED MAY 19, 2022 12:47PM (EDT)
Gas lamps (Getty Images/gyro)
It was only one half-hour into Wednesday’s congressional hearing on abortion access when it became clear that the Republican contributions to the day would be loonier than a QAnon message board.
“In places like Washington D.C.,” fetuses are “burned to power the light’s of the city’s homes and streets,” claimed Catherine Glenn Foster, who had, just minutes before, sworn not to lie under oath. The GOP-summoned witness let loose the wild and utterly false accusation that municipal electrical companies are powered by incinerated fetuses.
“The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators,” she said, apparently repeating a misleading talking point from the same anti-choice activists caught stashing fetuses at home. Everything on the right is psychological projection.
https://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c5015779/user-clip-anti-choicer-claims-fetuses-power-lights
So that’s where Republicans are these days: Arguing that we live in a janky version of the Matrix, except powered by fetuses instead of actual people.
RELATED: Samuel Alito’s leaked anti-abortion decision: Supreme Court doesn’t plan to stop at Roe
Foster is not some random nut that Republicans pulled off a soapbox at a subway station minutes before the hearing started. She is a Georgetown law school graduate who is paid $190,000 a year to be the president of Americans United for Life, one of the largest anti-abortion non-profits in the country. So it’s not surprising that Foster believed she would get away with this absurd nonsense. Hers was merely one of a truly overwhelming number of lies that poured out of Republican lawmakers and witnesses alike throughout the course of Wednesday’s hearing. When lies are coming out like chocolates on a conveyor belt aimed at Lucille Ball, the liars can be assured they’ve overwhelmed the fact-checkers beyond any hope of accountability.
The GOP contributions to the hearing were a blizzard of bullshit, meant to totally white out the efforts by Democrats and reproductive rights activists to remind the public of the great human cost that results from banning abortion.
As their actual political views become harder to defend on the merits, Republicans increasingly embrace conspiracy theories and urban legends to justify the unjustifiable.
Republicans pretended progressives don’t know what a “woman” is. They insisted that the mere existence of abortion shows that birth control efforts are useless. (On the contrary, the abortion rate has gone down as birth control access has improved.) They pretended, over and over, that the issue at hand was only late-term abortions. In reality, the abortion bans being passed start at two weeks after a missed period, if not sooner. And then there was the repulsive contributions of Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who pretended that women wait until they go into labor and then abort the pregnancy right before the baby is born. Having made this lie up, he then berated Alabama-based OB-GYN Dr. Yashica Robinson for the existence of a procedure that, quite literally, only happens in his bizarre fantasies. (Thanks to Charles Pierce at Esquire for the transcript.)
Johnson: Do you support the right of a woman who is just seconds away from birthing a healthy child to have an abortion?
Robinson: I think that the question you’re asking does not realistically reflect abortion care —
Johnson: In that scenario, would you support her right to abort that child?
Robinson: I won’t entertain theoretical —
Johnson: It’s not a theoretical, ma’am. You are a medical doctor.
RELATED: The goal of the GOP’s QAnon-influenced “groomer” troll: More political violence
Indeed it is not theoretical — it is entirely fantastical. Johnson’s showboating was the equivalent of berating a doctor over unicorn horn removal surgery. But Johnson, eager to talk about anything but the realities of abortion care, continued to play this game. He went on to insist that Robinson answer for killing a baby “halfway out of the birth canal,” forcing her to pointedly remind him that actual murder is already illegal.
When lies are coming out like chocolates on a conveyor belt aimed at Lucille Ball, the liars can be assured they’ve overwhelmed the fact-checkers beyond any hope of accountability.
Anti-choicers love this hypothetical of a woman who aborts during labor. In reality, it makes about as much sense as banning men from touching their penises out of fear one might one day he might cut his off. But of course, Republicans would rather talk about their lurid fantasy lives than the realities of abortion.
In the aftermath of the leaked draft opinion that indicates that the Supreme Court will be overturning Roe v. Wade in a few short weeks, the grim reality of what banning abortion means is just starting to dawn on the larger public. Poverty, child abuse, derailed lives, women trapped in abusive relationships, people mutilated or killed in attempted self-abortions, people being imprisoned for trying to get abortions, and even just the looming anxiety hovering over every sexual encounter: That’s what the GOP wants to inflict on Americans, and it is not exactly the most popular politics.
Sadly, there’s nothing surprising about this turn towards wild tales about fetus-powered street lamps and women demanding abortions during labor.
As their actual political views become harder to defend on the merits, Republicans increasingly embrace conspiracy theories and urban legends to justify the unjustifiable. Want to ban schoolchildren from reading about Martin Luther King Jr.? Just falsely claim that something called “critical race theory” is being taught to school kids and use that as cover. Want to deny trans kids the right to be treated with dignity in public schools? Roll out some wild story about how kids are now “identifying” as cats and using litter boxes in school. Want to rile up the GOP going into the midterms? Screw making any substantive arguments! Just claim that Democrats are conspiring to “replace” white Christians with people of different races and ethnicities, a conspiracy theory lifted directly from neo-Nazis, with the details barely tweaked before being repeated hundreds of times on Fox News.
Of course, in the latter case, the cost is paid in blood. We’ve seen repeated mass murders as a result of this “great replacement” conspiracy theory, with the latest in Buffalo, New York. This points to another, even darker purpose of the Republican reliance on urban legends instead of evidence: Dehumanizing the targets of their sadistic political views.
Lately, Republicans have accused their political opponents of “grooming” children, which is basically just a way of saying all Democrats are pedophiles. It’s an idea directly borrowed from QAnon, just like “great replacement” is borrowed from white supremacist groups. The purpose of this kind of rhetoric is to paint your opponents — or in many cases, your actual targets— as subhuman and therefore deserving of any abuse you dish out, including violence.
RELATED: Are women people? Why the Supreme Court just signed off on a Texas law that denies women’s humanity
Indeed, it’s arguable that the abortion debate is how conservatives honed the art of spooling out monstrous false accusations in order to dehumanize their opponents. Falsely accusing doctors and abortion patients of “murder” has been standard conservative rhetoric for decades, and the human cost has been staggering: Assassinations of doctors, the bombing of clinics, and mass shootings of patients. Yet Republicans never let up, because despite claiming to be “pro-life,” they can always be counted on to prioritize political point-scoring over actual human life.
So yes, laugh at the weird anti-choice lady raving during a congressional hearing about fetus-powered street lamps. But remember the almost unfathomably deep cynicism that fuels such lies. Republicans are determined to set back women’s rights by decades, punish people for having sex, and prop up racial inequities. They frankly do not care how many lives are ruined — or lost — in the process. And they don’t care how stupid they sound when they roll out urban legends, so long as they finish the sadistic task of making unwanted childbirth mandatory across much, if not all, of the United States.
https://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c5015779/user-clip-anti-choicer-claims-fetuses-power-lights
THE GREAT CELIBACY
Republicans’ Women’s Rights Bill Only Encourages Hatred Against Transgender People
“Congressional Republicans have introduced a resolution creating a “Women’s Bill of Rights” that mentions just one right, but only for cis women: the right to not see trans women in a public restroom. The rest of the Women’s Bill of Rights is about definitions and the government’s powers. “The Democrats are erasing women and the spaces that are uniquely ours,” Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ), who is trying to get the resolution passed in the House. Despite leading Republicans on the Women’s Bill of Rights, she has been endorsed by Arizona Right to Life and the Susan B. Anthony List because of her staunch opposition to reproductive freedom. The House version of the resolution has 11 co-sponsors and the Senate version was introduced by Sens. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MO), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), who just got booed last week for mocking transgender people at a commencement speech and then lied about what she said, getting booed even more. The Republican Women’s Bill of Rights lists six points that it affirms. The first three are definitions. The fourth is about the right of cis women to not see trans women in certain spaces. And the last two are about the government’s actions, not women’s rights. The resolution’s first point says, “for purposes of Federal law, a person’s ‘sex’ means his or her biological sex (either male or female) at birth,” without saying exactly how that should be determined. While several physical aspects of people’s bodies are associated with gender, like chromosomes, genitalia, and hormone levels, they don’t necessarily align and have often been used to tell some women – especially women of color – that they’re not really women.”
Death To Gays Pastor: “All Sodomites Are Reptilians”
And another crazy spreading hate about people who think or are different from him. And he has a flock. He feels that somehow once the gays are gone all pedophilia is gone also, wow he has some rude awaking coming when he finds out most child molestation are from straight men with little girls. Hugs
“The bible says they are to be put to death. That’s what’s being taught. So it’s your fault, Mr. ‘I’m gonna go down to the voting box and vote for every Republican because they’re Christians.’
“So it your fault. Let me ask you, pal. Let me ask you, Mr. Mocker. Mr. ‘I got a big ole Donald Trump flag out in my yard because I’m all about truth and Elon Musk and I’m gonna buy me a Tesla.’
“Let me tell you something, pal, it’s your fault that all these pedophiles are around. It’s not God’s fault, he told nations how to deal with that. He told the nation that he ruled, ‘Put ’em to death. Put all queers to death.’
“And you know what, when they die, that stops the pedophilia. It’s a very simple process, but of course our reptilian government, they don’t subscribe to that.
“Now here’s the thing, I’m not saying that every reptilian is a sodomite, but all sodomites are reptilians. You’re gonna see that as I go through this.” – Idaho Pastor Joe Jones, in a clip posted to YouTube.
Maine Teenagers Take Over Small Town’s Pride Event
The Bangor Daily News reports:
When no adults would revive the community Pride parade in Belfast, a group of motivated Belfast Area High School students stepped up to make sure that the event — which has been on a pandemic hiatus — happens this year. In Belfast, the city’s first-ever Pride parade and festival took place in 2016, and became an annual tradition. But no adult organizers had come forward this year to keep the tradition going.
The 20 club members secured a permit from the city of Belfast, found sponsors, raised money for banners, flags and other expenses and grappled with the procuring of liability insurance. Ultimately, the high school agreed to cover the event under the school’s policy, a move that surprised and pleased the teens, according to Annie Gray, the club’s co-advisor.
Read the full article. Wonderful piece. The clip below is from their first parade in 2016. Belfast has a population of 7000.
I have faith in this generation of kids. They’re alright in my book.
Many of them, anyhow.
But great numbers of them are actually growing up to be mirror images of christianist, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic parents. (As ever, much fruit never falls far from the tree.)
Still, the Bangor kids give us all some hope for a better future in some places, and that’s definitely cause for rejoicing!
ErnestMc Epic Collision • a day ago
Yes, you wouldn’t know it sometimes to read the news, but Americans are getting less and less interested in religion and being religious. And. at the same time, out and visible LGBT people are more and more common.
Sadly, a certain number do. However, studies have shown that number of younger people growing up in Christian households including evangelical households are not down with the obsession about gay people expressed by church leaders.
Many (not all) religious families are indeed anti-LGBT and racist and pass that on to their children, but religion (despite the loudness of it on the right) has become less and less vital in American lives, with more and more people saying they’re not affiliated with any religion. That’s a good sign.
“Ultimately, the high school agreed to cover the event under the school’s policy”
Good, because it sounds like the students learned a lot from their experience.
This is the other half of the current LGBT story that isn’t being told much these days. (The media, including LGBT media, gravitates toward the horror stories and it is important to know one’s enemies.) Young people are growing up with wide exposure to positive LGBT portrayals. Many of them have the support of their peers and their families. They’re not conflicted about sexuality and gender and they’re not about to let Republican extremists control their lives.
Good work, Belfast youths!
Scottie's Playtime 