Lauren Boebert tells churchgoers to ‘rise up’ at far-right Christian conference

https://www.rawstory.com/lauren-boebert-woodland-park/

Can these maga cult members be anymore clear on what they want in the US?   They do not want democracy of the people for the people, they want to rule.   Right now they see that way to rule is through Christian theocracy.   They think they are using the religious people and the religious people think they are using the republican politicians.  Either way the losers are the public, the people, because under either republican rule or the church rule the people have limited rights and no democracy to decide their future or how they live their lives.   She is Ok with authoritarians regardless of if it is the church leader’s enforcement of religious doctrine or if it is a single party rule like China.   But the ones who lose are the US people.    Hugs

Lauren Boebert tells churchgoers to ‘rise up’ at far-right Christian conference
Lauren Boebert / Gage Skidmore
 
 
 

In a raucous speech at a Christian conference in Woodland Park on Friday, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert called for conservative churchgoers to put “God back at the center of our country” and defeat “the enemy” that she said is destroying it from within.

 

“God is on our side. The blood has been applied,” Boebert told the crowd at Charis Bible College in an hour-long speech that quoted heavily from scripture. “We are going straight into victory. You are all more than conquerors through God, through Christ who strengthens you every step of the way.”

Boebert and other speakers addressed a three-day conference held by the Truth and Liberty Coalition, a nonprofit started by Charis founder and far-right preacher Andrew Wommack, which aims to erase boundaries between religion and politics. “We see a Church unengaged in the public square because we have been conditioned to believe there is a disconnect between the secular and sacred,” the group’s website says. “There is not.”

In an earlier political conference held at Charis in April, Wommack urged attendees to “take over Woodland Park” and “take back Colorado” from what he called a “demon-possessed” government, The Gazette reported. His views have frequently been characterized as belonging to the dominionist movement, which seeks to place government under control of the Christian church and its interpretation of biblical law.

Though his organization rejects the label, affirming that it supports “preserving America’s constitutional republic of government,” Wommack frequently emphasizes the need for Christians to reclaim the “Seven Mountains” of influence, a key tenet of dominionist theology.

“We are the kings. We are the ones who rule,” Wommack said in a speech to the conference Thursday. “And when we don’t vote, then we allow those with different values — we increase their power. It’s Christians that have allowed this nation to go the way that it is.”

Endorsing baseless conspiracy theories alleging widespread election fraud, Wommack added, “If we got enough Christians to stand up and vote, we’d overwhelm all of their algorithms, and we’d beat their cheating.”

Over three days, speakers at the Truth and Liberty conference celebrated the Supreme Court’s rollback of abortion rights and called for Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case establishing a right to same-sex marriage, to be overturned next. They denounced a long list of evils that included “wokeness,” cancel culture and Black Lives Matter, peppering their speeches with transphobic abuse and conspiracy theories about a “one world government.” One speaker referenced the Georgia Guidestones, an obscure public monument that far-right extremists alleged was satanic in origin and was destroyed in a bombing in July.

Boebert told the crowd that the country had been founded by men “fluent in the word of God,” calling for a “revival” that restores conservative Christian values in government.

“We need God back at the center of our country,” she said. “It’s time for us to position ourselves, and rise up, and take our place in Christ, and influence this nation as we were called to do.”

‘The last of the last days’

A first-term congresswoman from Silt, Boebert unseated veteran Rep. Scott Tipton in the 3rd Congressional District’s 2020 Republican primary and has gone on to become one of the most prominent voices on the GOP’s far-right wing. She helped lead attempts by former President Donald Trump’s supporters to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and tweeted “Today is 1776” on the morning of the Jan. 6 assault by pro-Trump rioters on the U.S. Capitol.

On Friday, she reserved some of her harshest words for the public health measures that restricted church attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic, which she called an “attack on our faith,” and she veered into apocalyptic rhetoric about “the end” drawing near.

“We know that we are in the last of the last days,” Boebert said. “It’s not a time to get upset about it. It’s a time to know that you were called to be a part of these last days. You get to have a role in ushering in the second coming of Jesus.”

Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado Springs also addressed the conference via a short prerecorded video focusing on the U.S. relationship with Israel, both of which, he said, have a “miraculous origin based on a belief in scripture.”

Nonprofit status

Boebert was preceded on stage by far-right political commentator Eric Metaxas, a prominent election denier who is among the defendants named in a defamation lawsuit filed last year by a former employee of Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems.

Metaxas repeatedly likened conservatives in the present-day United States to the victims of Nazi Germany, saying that “precisely what happened in Germany” is “happening here now, because of the silence of many, if not most, Christian leaders.” Echoing the conference’s theme, he called the notion that churches shouldn’t be political “a lie from the pit of hell.”

Under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, churches are automatically considered 501(c)(3) organizations, a designation that bars them from political activity. The Truth and Liberty Coalition is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which allows it to engage in some political advocacy, as long as such activity isn’t its “primary purpose,” and it doesn’t directly contribute to or coordinate with candidates for office. Conference organizers clarified that Boebert, who is running for reelection in November, appeared at the conference “in her official capacity.”

Metaxas, however, urged Christian churches to follow through on political activism regardless of the consequences.

“If I say this candidate is the one you should elect because he will help these things, and I mention the name Donald Trump … the idea that Christians shouldn’t be allowed to say that is insanity,” he said.

“We have participated in our own silence,” Metaxas continued. “Somehow we’ve said, well, I don’t want to lose my 501(c)(3) status — folks, better that we would never have 501(c)(3) status than that it would muzzle us from speaking the truth of God.”

HORIFFIC Story About Red State Abortion and Drug Laws Teaming Up

Pregnant women with minor drug offenses are being kept in jail to prevent them from getting abortions.

His Reputation For Stiffing Lawyers Leaves T**** Struggling To Find Good Defenders

More Supreme Court Justice MALARKY

This is a virtual YouTuber I enjoy a lot and have followed from his early days of debunking religion to his branching out into other topics.   A virtual YouTuber is one who uses an avatar and a background rather than just themselves on camera.   This YouTuber is a cis straight male so don’t get thrown off by his female cat avatar.   The start of this he always does three or so drawing people send him of his character over the years and I think it is silly and stupid but the majority of his followers seem to love it.   I will start the video after that.   Well it seems I can not do that, so please skip to time stamp 3:33 for the part of the video I want to share.  *** it seems to have worked, the video starts at the correct place.  ***    This is a breakdown of Justice Alito’s speech in Rome and it is scary how he sees religion and its place in the US society.    He wants religion to have a priority place and be above all other concerns in the political and daily life of the people.   Follow along paragraph by paragraph as Alito says how everything else in society including personal rights and freedoms must bow to religion and its dictates.   Alito is a full on Taliban theocrat.    Hugs

Trans students in Oklahoma are suing the state over its transphobic “bathroom bill”

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/09/trans-students-oklahoma-suing-state-transphobic-bathroom-bill/

For those that think it is a good thing to keep trans students from using the bathroom of their gender identity, please read how it makes these trans kids feel and how it singles them out for even more harassment.    As for the excuse used that this is about safety there has NEVER been a verified case of a trans person assaulting anyone in a bathroom, but there are cases where trans people have been violently attacked trying to use a bathroom.    Also cis women have been attacked and accused of being trans because they did not look womanishly enough for the haters.   For those that say they would feel funny knowing a trans person is in the same bathroom with them I would ask WTF?   Do you knock on stall doors to inquire if anyone inside them is trans?   Do you stare at people at the sinks washing their hands wondering what their genitalia is?  II have used bathrooms complete with individual shower stalls that were open to everyone no matter what sex, genitalia, or gender.  Their was no problems.   Anyway the SCOTUS has already found for one trans student on the bathroom issue, finding it was illegal to not let a trans person use the bathroom of the gender.    However there are now more religious fanatics on the court.   But these bathroom laws are solutions looking for a problem, they really are more political statements than needed laws.    Hugs 

 
andy-bridge-oklahaoma-transgender-bathroom-bill
Andy Bridge Photo: Andy Bridge
 

Three students in Oklahoma are suing state and school officials over the latest “bathroom bill” denying transgender kids the same rights as their fellow cisgender classmates.

Andy Bridge, a 16 year-old, and two other students (who filed the lawsuit anonymously) are being represented by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the ACLU of Oklahoma.

In May, the Oklahoma state senate passed Senate Bill (SB) 615 in a 38 – 7 vote. The bill was quickly signed into law by Gov. Kevin Stitt (R). The law forces all pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade public schools and public charter schools in the state to restrict transgender students’ use of school restrooms and locker rooms to those consistent with the gender they were assigned at birth.

The law mandates a reduction in funding for school districts that don’t comply and allows parents to sue school districts if they believe their child is in danger of sharing a restroom with a transgender classmate.

Supporters of the new law say it promotes “safety.”

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, says SB 615 violates the U.S. Constitution and Title IX by discriminating based on sex, gender identity, and transgender status. The complaint alleges the plaintiffs — including Bridge, another high school student, and a middle school student — will be “irreparably harmed” by the law. The suit calls on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma to issue a preliminary injunction to block its enforcement.

Bridge said in a statement, “I am a boy, and while living authentically hasn’t always been easy, it’s given me a sense of relief and happiness. Being able to use the boys’ restroom might seem like a small thing to others, but it is a vital step in my transition.”

According to the lawsuit, Bridge — a senior at Noble High School, just south of Oklahoma City — used the boys’ restrooms at his school last year without issue. With the new law on the books, he was told this fall by the school’s principal and vice-principal that he was now required to use a single-occupancy restroom instead.

Bridge was warned that if he violates the new policy, he’ll be subject to disciplinary action.

Of the boy’s restroom, Bridge said, “Being barred from using it leaves me singled out and excluded from the rest of my friends and classmates, but also feeling like I’m being told that I’m not worthy of the same respect and dignity as everyone else.”

“This is not the first such attack on transgender schoolchildren, and sadly it will likely not be the last,” said Bridge’s co-counsel Nicholas Guillory with Lambda Legal. “Anti-transgender state legislators nationwide keep singling out transgender students for harmful, discriminatory treatment, notwithstanding that we and our allies have successfully quashed these efforts wherever they have popped up.”

North Carolina’s passage of a law restricting restroom access in public buildings in 2016 cost the state billions of dollars in lost jobs and revenue. It was ultimately blocked in court.

“What states like Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina have done time after time is find new ways to attack these kids for their political gains among radical voters,” said Human Rights Campaign state counsel Cathryn Oakley when the Oklahoma bill passed.

“Legislation targeting transgender youth in this way is a violation of both federal civil rights law as well as the United States Constitution,” Oakley added.

LGBTQ students in a Florida school district successfully organized earlier this year to oust two anti-LGBTQ “lunatics” from a local school board. The now-former school board members supported book banning and the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

Texas Paul REACTS to Dr. Oz GOING FULL MAGA on Fox News

Candace Owens falsely links Memphis killings to trans people

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/09/candace-owens-falsely-links-memphis-killings-trans-people/

Be afraid, be very afraid of those trans people, be afraid of those gay people, be afraid of teachers, be afraid of black people, be afraid of immigrants … Did I leave any group out?   Oh ya be afraid of the godless atheists.    Fear is what the right wing media sells.  The republicans no longer try to create or develop polices that help the people or that the people want.   So they sell fear to stay in office and keep getting elected.    They have amped up their attacks on gays and trans people so of course the more fringe right wing media hosts have to link the LGBTQ+ to any kind of violence or tragedy.   One thing the stories have missed about Kelly.   He was sentenced to three years.    He served 22 months which is the normal time.    The reason it seems he only served 11 months is that is how long from his court case where he was found guilt until his release.   But he was in jail prior to that, so he was given credit for that time also.   He was in jail for 22 months total, which again is the normal amount of time on a three year sentence.    Hugs

 
Candace Owens falsely links Memphis killings to trans people
Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens Photo: Screenshot
 

Candace Owens is once again attempting to falsely link a tragedy to transgender people. In her Thursday night appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight, the far-right media personality characterized acceptance of trans people as “celebrating mental illness.”

Owens joined the Fox News host ostensibly to discuss criminal justice reform in the wake of a recent deadly shooting spree in Memphis, which left four dead. Authorities arrested teenager Ezekiel Kelly early Thursday in connection with the crimes. Last year, the 19-year-old Kelly had been sentenced to three years in prison, but was released in March after serving 11 months.

“Obviously what we are seeing around us is, under the guise of compassion, we are letting violent criminals back on the streets, and people that are following the law and abiding the law— going out for a jog — are suffering because of it,” Owens said of Kelly’s release.

She also brought up the recent kidnapping and murder of Memphis kindergarten teacher Eliza Fletcher. Police have arrested 38-year-old Cleotha Henderson in connection with the crimes.

Owens blamed the crimes on “mental illness,” a now-standard right-wing talking point when discussing mass shootings and violent crimes.

“This is, by the way, the product of what we are seeing when we celebrate— in our culture — mental illness. That is what is happening. We have somehow gotten to a point in America where we are celebrating mental illness — in many different forms, by the way,” Owens said.

She then made the leap to equating transgender identity with mental illness: “It’s not just by trying to convince us that we should feel compassion towards criminals and yet feel that the real criminals are the patriots, a total inverted of reality. But it’s also the perverse element that is encouraging mental illness, like telling men they can be women, telling women they can be men if they just mutilate their bodies.”

Earlier this year, Owens was one of many far-right figures who spread the false rumor that the gunman in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, was transgender. She has also used her platform to attack Dwayne Wade’s transgender daughter.

Large gaming event set for Florida canceled because of Don’t Say Gay law

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/09/large-gaming-event-set-florida-canceled-dont-say-gay-law/

Yes!  More companies need to do this, pull out of Florida and other hater red states.   Hit them economically and maybe we can reach them with reason.   Right now they’re drunk on power and hate, they are gang thugs, and they won’t stop until they are hammered back down under the rocks they slunk out from under.    Hugs

 
Gamers
Photo: Shutterstock
 

The organizers of a gaming convention who originally planned to hold their event in Florida have canceled, citing both Florida’s lax COVID-19 policies and its hardline anti-LGBTQ stance. The group said that the state is no longer “a safe place for our community.”

“While we would love to return in-person, we’ve determined that to provide a safe and welcoming event to all, it was best that we move away from our originally planned location in Florida,” the website for Games Done Quick (GDQ) says. “Given the state’s continued disregard for COVID-19’s dangers (including anti-mandate vaccination policies) and an increased aggression toward LGBTQ+ individuals, including the law colloquially known as ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ we do not believe it is a safe place for our community at this time.”

GDQ organizes charity events that involve speed runs, or shows of video game skill where players finish games as fast as possible, often using programming bugs creatively and employing novel strategies that game developers didn’t anticipate.

The group’s upcoming winter event — Awesome Games Done Quick — was originally planned to be held in Orlando in January 2023 and was going to be GDQ’s return to in-person events after two years of virtual-only events due to the COVID pandemic. The event will be a fundraiser for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

Several prominent speedrunners who participate in GDQ events are transgender, and transgender people have been especially targeted by Florida Republicans. In the past several years, the state has passed a ban on transgender students participating in school sports, banned transgender people of all ages from using Medicaid insurance to cover gender-affirming care, instructed schools to ignore federal law banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination in education, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) even declared a cisgender woman the winner of a swimming competition because he didn’t like the fact that a transgender woman won.

The state got national notoriety for what has been dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in younger grades and restricts them in older grades. School districts have already interpreted the law to mean that they can’t acknowledge LGBTQ people’s existence while schools ban books that conservatives accuse of “grooming” kids for child sex abuse and advise LGBTQ teachers not to have pictures of their same-sex spouses on their desks.

The law also targeted transgender people in particular, requiring schools to out transgender students to their parents if teachers find out their identities.

GDQ used to hold their winter event in D.C. until it was moved to Orlando in early 2020. Since its inception in 2010, the events have raised $35 million for various charities, including Doctors Without Borders and the Malala Fund, a nonprofit organization for girls’ education.

The January 2023 event will be held online.

Sponsors Ditch Boise Pride After GOP Pressure

A maga trump cult member screamed code words loud enough that it scared companies into to withdrawing their support.    Child drag events are kids dressing up, it is not a sexual thing.    It is not designed to be sexually exciting.   It is designed to be cute, like an early Halloween.    I think of Red Skelton and all the famous performers who wore womans clothing and it was not screamed they were grooming kids.    People who think clothing has a gender need to get over it.   It is a covering that fits over / around the human body and can be as simple as a strip of cloth to as complex as humans can design.   I have always loved this response when this comedian was accused of wearing women’s clothing.  Hugs

The Daily Beast reports:

At least three organizations sponsoring weekend’s Boise Pride Festival have decided to withdraw their application after politicians slammed the festival over the inclusion of a “drag kids show” that features children as young as 11.

Zions Bank, Idaho Power, and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare withdrew their applications as the sponsors of the Boise Pride Festival after Chairwoman of the Idaho Republican Party Dorothy Moon [photo] called out the Democratic Boise Mayor Lauren McLean and urged sponsors to remove their financial support.

Moon called the event an “attack on Idaho’s children.” She also criticized “out-of-state companies” for financing “the sexualization of our children and the perverse idea that children should engage in sexual performances with adult entertainers.”

The Idaho Statesman reports:

Three months after more than two dozen members of the Patriot Front — classified as a white nationalist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center — were arrested for alleged conspiracy to riot at a Coeur d’ Alene Pride celebration, Idaho’s biggest Pride event will take place in Boise. The Boise Pride Festival, first held in 1989, covers three days this weekend at Cecil D. Andrus Park and downtown, and security measures have been addressed by organizers and police.

Boise Police Department spokesperson Haley Williams said police met with event organizers after the Patriot Front arrests. “As with any special event, the Boise Police Department works with event organizers to evaluate the security needs,” Williams said in an email to the Statesman. “Based on that evaluation and other information, the department makes a plan to staff the event accordingly.”

You’ll be shocked to learn that Dorothy Moon is a far-right election-denying Trump cultist.

Moon, a literal John Bircher, recently lost the GOP primary for Idaho secretary of state.

As a state rep, she opposed all COVID mitigation attempts and is perhaps best known locally for a bill calling for killing 90% of Idaho’s grey wolves, presumably at the behest of local chicken farmers.

In 2020, she opposed the adoption of new educational standards because she felt environmental lessons were unfair to local logging and mining industries.

Last year, Moon co-hosted a face mask burning ceremony and appeared in a far-right video claiming that the COVID pandemic is fake.

And on a very related note, Moon claims that a childhood vaccine gave her son autism and says that “no Moon will ever take another vaccine.”

 

 

CarterDK • 11 hours ago • edited

Girls and women can wear pants and no one blinks. A boy or man in a dress prompts outrage. Why? Because our society thinks being a woman is less than and a male disgraces himself wanting to dress like a woman.

Why would any woman support this drag hysteria? It’s blatant misogyny.

weshlovrcm • 12 hours ago • edited

The far-right fascists are learning ways to cancel the lgbt community. We see it all over the country with books, history, drag shows and even saying the word, “gay.” We better come up with a way to fight back or all our rights will be rolled back.

La’Kietha weshlovrcm • 11 hours ago

They are creating a problem only they can fix. I’m not going backwards

Misutaa Roboto • 12 hours ago

I like that the Idaho Democratic Party is calling her out directly for her record of opposition to policies that protect child welfare.

Yves R. Mektin • 12 hours ago

Hey, Dorothy Moon grrrl! I closed my accounts at Wells Fargo, too, about 5 years ago after a well-researched article showed me that they were the financers and #1 beneficiaries of all the companies supporting Trump’s nightmarish white supremacist detention centers that were jailing immigrant children and separating them from their parents.

Glad you agree with me on this one, you ugly treasonous seditionist hag!

Ninja0980 • 12 hours ago

This is why I don’t celebrate when corporations do Pride month stuff.
Because when push comes to shove, they will show more often then not they’re cowards.

Ščŏŧŧ Ċ – 🇺🇦 🕊 • 12 hours ago

Zions Bank, Idaho Power, and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare

The surprise isn’t that they pulled out, the surprise is that they were ever in. Two Idaho state agencies, and a bank that’s majority owned by Mormons?

Skeptical One Ščŏŧŧ Ċ – 🇺🇦 🕊 • 12 hours ago

FYI, Idaho Power is a publicly owned/traded corporation.

On the road • 12 hours ago

The threats are working…. pride being canceled in multiple placea….. fear of violence….

Well I remember the 70s and early 80s when the threat of violence was a daily occurance for walking the street.

Canceling is letting them win.

Sponsors that fold bees to be called out.

Boreal • 12 hours ago • edited

“no Moon will ever take another vaccine.”

Coronaviruses everywhere like this.

Kenneth Copeland: Put Bibles Back In Schools To Stop School Shootings

Kenneth Copeland thinks that there would be fewer school shootings in the United States if there were more bibles in schools. Jessica Burbank and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks.

Read More HERE: https://boingboing.net/2022/09/08/tel…

“Very stable genius Kenneth Copeland, who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, appeared on a television special last night to educate the world on why there are so many school shootings. It’s not because of easy access to deadly assault weapons; it’s because the naughty Devil used a woman to make the Supreme Court remove Bibles from schools.”