Texas sues Delaware nurse practitioner accused of mailing abortion pills across state lines

Texas is at the forefront of pushing Christian nationalism along with all its prejudices. Misogyny, strict gender stereotypes, and enforced being straight. They require young people to marry in opposet gender marriages and produce as many children as possible. Why? It promotes their faith while filling church pews which funds more money for the church. Hugs

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/27/texas-abortion-pill-prescriber-lawsuit

Suit against Debra Lynch is latest from Texas’s Republican attorney general amid ongoing attacks on abortion pills

Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general, outside the US supreme court in Washington DC on 1 November 2021. Photograph: Rod Lamkey/Newscom via Alamy

As part of its ongoing crusade against abortion pills, Texas sued a nurse practitioner on Tuesday, accusing her of shipping pills into Texas in defiance of the state’s abortion ban.

The nurse practitioner, Debra Lynch, operates a Delaware-based group called Her Safe Harbor, which mails abortion pills to women living in states with abortion bans. Now, Texas wants a court to block Lynch from “performing, inducing or attempting abortions” in Texas, on the grounds that Texas law only permits physicians to facilitate abortions in cases of medical emergencies.

Groups like Her Safe Harbor have proliferated in the four years since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, as Delaware and a handful of other blue states have enacted so-called “shield laws”. These laws typically aim to protect abortion providers from out-of-state prosecutions, lending legal cover to providers who ship pills across state lines.

But such efforts have enraged anti-abortion advocates and sparked a legal war between states that protect abortion rights and states that ban the procedure. Texas has already sued a New York-based doctor, Margaret Carpenter, over allegations that she mailed abortion pills into the state, while Louisiana has indicted both Carpenter and a California-based doctor named Remy Coeytaux. Officials in New York and California, which also have shield laws on the books, have refused to cooperate with those efforts.

The safeguards offered by each state’s shield law vary. Eight states, including New York and California, clearly allow providers to use telemedicine to prescribe abortion pills to patients located in states where the procedure is banned. But legal experts have questioned whether Delaware’s shield law, which was first passed in 2022, always protects providers who offer telemedicine across state lines.

Delaware’s law was expanded in late 2025, in part to clarify that officials may not aid out-of-state investigations into abortion providers – a move that may offer Lynch additional protection. The Texas case may then depend on when, exactly, Lynch mailed abortion pills into the red state, according to Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California, Davis school of law, who studies the legal history of reproduction.

But, Ziegler added: “It doesn’t sound like they know when any of the abortions happened.”

The cases against Carpenter and Coeytaux largely rest on allegations of specific abortions. The Texas case against Lynch, however, focuses on media reports that feature Lynch saying she mails pills to Texans or advises Texans who want abortions.

After Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Her Safe Harbor and other abortion-providing groups in August, Lynch said she had no plans to stop mailing pills. In fact, in the hours after news of the letter broke, the group received more than 150 requests for pills from Texas, Lynch said at the time.

“None of our providers are primarily concerned with our own wellbeing or our own legal status,” Lynch previously told the Guardian. “All the horrors that women are facing because of these ridiculous bans and restrictions outweigh anything that could possibly happen to us as providers, in terms of a fine or a lawsuit or even jail time, if it were to come to that.”

Lynch did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Alliance Defending Freedom’s Cruel History with Conversion Therapy

I often say that a lot of anti-trans anti-gay anti-LGBTQ+ people have their feelings because they don’t feel different from the cis straight majority so can’t understand or accept that such things because they simply don’t feel that way. If they don’t feel it it can’t be real which is the same with how many white people feel about racism. Remember the old question of how do you know you’re gay or trans or lesbian or nonbinary or what ever simply because the people who grew up straight and cis felt normal in society? But if you ask them when they knew or how they knew they were straight and / or cis they are confused. If a boy at 10 comes out as gay the parents freak out, but if that same kid starts showing interest in girls the parents are ecstatic about their boy growing up. Why the difference? Because one fulfills their expectations and the other … well it just is not like them. It simply comes down to tradition and what feels normal for them. Every person who asked me if I tried to change my sexual orientation and there have been so many, to them I ask have you? They act offended. Why would I do that and I reply, then why should I. Then if they persist for some reason that I should do conversion therapy I ask could they convert from their straight / cis desires to being LGBTQ+? Again they are stunned why they would do that and instantly claim not I couldn’t do that. Then again why ask me to do it? Hugs

https://www.unclosetedmedia.com/p/alliance-defending-freedoms-cruel

The Christian legal group is currently trying to convince the Supreme Court to overturn Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy.

Jake Angelo

Jan 13, 2026

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Alliance Defending Freedom’s Cruel History with Conversion Therapy

The Christian legal group is currently trying to convince the Supreme Court to overturn Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy.

Jake Angelo

Jan 13, 2026

Photo by Jose Pablo Garcia. Design by Sam Donndelinger.

This story was originally written for Gay Times Magazine.

On Oct. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, a case that challenges Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy.

Shortly after, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) sent an email to their supporters quoting Paul in Ephesians 6:12: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

The email goes on to say, “You might think that a law like this might be just a ‘Colorado problem.’ Sadly, laws like this exist in 22 other states,” referencing other parts of the U.S. that have instituted conversion therapy bans.

This sort of language about conversion therapy is nothing new for the Christian legal group representing Kaley Chiles. Unlike most legal organizations, ADF is sharply anti-LGBTQ. Since their inception over 30 years ago, the group has fought to maintain anti-sodomy laws, uphold the right to discriminate against gay couples and overturn Roe v. Wade.

In recent years, a major element of their fight has been to legalize the discredited practice of conversion therapy.

The Supreme Court appears poised to rule in favor of ADF, which could effectively invalidate conversion therapy bans for minors by licensed professionals across the U.S. This victory would add to the organization’s already-high win streak, which they say is around 80%.

The organization, which accrued a revenue of roughly $110 million in 2023 and reportedly has over 5,000 allied attorneys globally, has become a juggernaut for the conservative Christian right.

“I don’t think anyone is undermining LGBTQ rights as relentlessly as ADF,” Peter Montgomery, research director at the advocacy group People for the American Way, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “They’re shaping the culture for generations to come.”

Although nearly every major medical association has denounced conversion therapy, ADF is arguing that disallowing the practice is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

“This case is part of its crusade to turn religious freedom into a license to harm others,” says Amy Tai, the co-author of an amicus brief in Chiles v. Salazar that is urging the Supreme Court to uphold the Colorado law. “It is part of a larger effort and movement to harm LGBTQ people and strip them of their constitutional rights.”

Founded by Proponents of Conversion Therapy

The cover of “The Homosexual Agenda” (Amazon)

ADF, originally the Alliance Defense Fund, was founded by evangelical anti-gay activists in 1994. Alan Sears, their former CEO and president, co-authored “The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today.” The book calls homosexuality a “disordered sexual behavior” and equates it with pedophilia and states that gay people on college campuses are involved in “the promotion of sexual relations between adults and children.”

D. James Kennedy (Hellouser321)

D. James Kennedy, another founder, has preached about “reparative” therapy for gay folks. In a 1993 fundraising letter for his Christian media organization Coral Ridge Ministries, he asked “Would you want your son, daughter, or grandchild sharing a shower, foxhole, or blood with a homosexual?”

A third founder was the late James Dobson, who advised several presidents and argued that conversion therapy could “cure” people.

Since ADF launched, many powerful political figures with anti-LGBTQ beliefs have worked for them. While working as an ADF spokesperson between 2002 and 2010, House Speaker Mike Johnson described gay folks as “destructive” and argued that support for homosexuality could lead to support for pedophilia.

Kristen Waggoner speaking at a press conference in 2018 (Groversawit)

And their current president, Kristen Waggoner, has delegitimized the harm conversion therapy causes by defining the practice as merely having conversations.

Today, their influence in the U.S. government is stronger than ever, with ties to all three branches. In addition to Speaker Johnson, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has been a paid speaker for ADF at least five times since 2011. And in May, President Donald Trump appointed Waggoner to the newly-formed Religious Liberty Commission.

All of these resources and connections are employed to advance an anti-LGBTQ agenda. “They want to see what they see as the God-defined order for gender and marriage be imposed into law,” Montgomery says. “They are trying to create a legal regime in which people can claim religious beliefs to opt out of laws that apply to everyone else.”

History of Fighting to Criminalize Homosexuality and Legalize Conversion Therapy

Over time, ADF has incorporated these viewpoints into their litigation to try and dismantle legal protections for LGBTQ people.

“Just 20 years ago, they were still arguing in court that states should be able to criminalize gay people,” says Montgomery.

In 2000, for example, ADF funded amicus briefs in Dale v. Boy Scouts of America, a case where an assistant scoutmaster sued the Boy Scouts after the organization revoked his membership for being gay. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of ADF.

In 2003, when support for gay marriage was still low in the U.S., they filed an amicus brief to uphold the criminalization of gay sex in Lawrence v. Texas, arguing that the state has a right to regulate “public health and morality.” The group lost the case and sodomy laws were banned nationwide.

As public opinion changed and gay marriage became legal across America in 2015, ADF shifted to more nuanced arguments. “Now, because they know that most Americans favor LGBTQ equality, they’ve really reframed their arguments [around] religious liberty and free speech,” says Montgomery.

The organization has since set its sights on overturning state bans on conversion therapy. In 2018, ADF Senior Counsel Matt Sharp argued against a California bill that classified conversion therapy as fraud. And in 2019, the group sued New York City for a similar law, which led the city to reverse the ban out of fear the case would reach the Supreme Court.

A few years later, in 2021, ADF fought to overturn a statewide conversion therapy ban in Washington, where they represented Christian therapist Brian Tingley. In this instance, they argued that Washington’s law censored Tingley from speaking about gender dysphoria.

A federal appeals court unanimously upheld Washington’s law, with Circuit Judge Ronald Gould shutting down ADF’s argument, writing that: “Washington, like other states, has concluded that health care providers should not be able to treat a child by such means as telling him that he is ‘the abomination we had heard about in Sunday school.’”

The Latest Fight and Legal Strategy

Kaley Chiles (CBS News)

Learning from their mistakes, ADF tried again with Chiles v. Salazar, claiming the Colorado law discriminates against Chiles’ viewpoint. Chiles is an evangelical therapist who received her counseling training and education from a seminary.

In their arguments to the Supreme Court, ADF says the conversion therapy ban encourages therapists to help minors explore LGBTQ identities and condemns assisting patients to align with their assigned gender.

Though intended to ban conversion therapy for all LGBTQ people, ADF’s case focuses on gender identity, capitalizing on souring U.S. public opinion on trans rights.

“Chiles believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex,” ADF wrote in a petition to the Supreme Court.

“ADF has tried to draw a connection between laws prohibiting conversion therapy and states attempting to force mental health professionals or doctors to treat transgender youth,” Christopher Stoll, senior staff attorney at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. But if the law passes, conversion therapy would become legal to practice on all LGBTQ people.

Another part of ADF’s success stems from manufacturing legal battles to advance cases that match their goals.

Chiles, for example, had not incurred any legal penalty from the Colorado district attorney. Instead, ADF filed a pre-enforcement lawsuit, claiming that she had censored herself and stopped accepting patients for conversion therapy following the law’s passage.

“All of these cases are, in a sense, made up cases. … They’re brought on behalf of therapists who have not actually been subject to any kind of investigation or penalty by either state or local governments,” says Stoll, who is representing Kansas City, Mo. as ADF and Missouri’s Attorney General challenge the city’s ban on conversion therapy.

This strategy is what makes ADF stand out. Montgomery says that unlike many other legal organizations, ADF also helps file lawsuits and writes the bills that directly challenge precedents and legislation they hope to change.

This was in part how they were effective in overturning Roe v. Wade. ADF drafted the Gestational Age Act, which banned abortion in Mississippi after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That law then became the central point of the Dobbs case, which overturned abortion rights nationwide.

“They’re just engineered to test these legal arguments, when really no dispute has arisen,” says Stoll.

When asked for comment, an Alliance Defending Freedom Media Relations Specialist redirected Uncloseted Media to a website criticizing the Southern Poverty Law Center, saying the group mischaracterizes ADF as a hate group.

How ADF Operates Globally

ADF’s efforts to dismantle conversion therapy and LGBTQ rights span far beyond the U.S. Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADFI) boasts about efforts in 70 countries, where they push anti-LGBTQ legislation as far as possible in each country.

In 2012, ADF’s then-legal counsel Piero Tozzi spoke at a conference in Jamaica, advocating for the prohibition of gay sex, stating that the “retention of the legislation prohibiting sodomy is a bulwark against this agenda.” And in 2013, members of ADF defended a statute in Belize that characterized LGBTQ sex as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.”

“They’re one of the most powerful and influential Christian right religious extremist groups that we have operating in Europe,” Neil Datta, executive director of the European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.

Datta says with offices in six cities with international human rights centers, ADFI contacts political allies throughout the continent, feeding them legal briefs and direct arguments. Then, those partners take that information and rejig it to align with their country’s political discourse.

“They’re hiring Europeans, training them in the American model of social issues litigation from an anti-rights perspective, and then hoping that [they] will be running with this in European courts,” Datta says. “They bring know-how and capacity to the continent.”

Datta says the U.S. is where the organization conducts its litmus tests for anti-LGBTQ laws and legal arguments: “In the U.S., you have 50 little courts that you can try things out in,” he says. “[ADF] has their own range of different areas that they would like to be active in, and they hunt for opportunities where they can make some progress.”

That includes the defense of Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen, who in 2021 was tried for hate speech for condemning a Lutheran church for supporting a Pride event. With ADFI’s assistance, Räsänen was acquitted in 2023.

Making Headway to Ban Conversion Therapy Abroad

While ADFI has yet to succeed in overturning conversion therapy bans in Europe, Datta says some politicians with links to the group have promoted reintegrative therapy, another form of therapy that attempts to help folks suppress same-sex attraction. While the term attempts to distance itself from conversion therapy, it uses similar procedures to the condemned practice.

However, Datta says ADFI is taking steps to shift the discourse by lobbying against the Digital Services Act, a European Union regulation for online hate speech.

In October, ADFI penned a letter to the European Commission asking the organization to review the law. ADF has also posted various blogs on the legislation, one posing a hypothetical about gender identity, stating, “Let’s say you went on Facebook … to post something as common sense as believing that there are only two genders. … If someone were to report that as hate speech, the E.U. could pressure Meta … to remove the post lest it face those stiff financial penalties.”

ADFI has also expanded its horizons to Africa. In May, Bettina Roska, an ADFI legal officer based in Geneva, joined a consortium of anti-LGBTQ advocates in a Pan-African conference on “family values” in Nairobi, Kenya.

“They are trying to do the same thing in Africa, around the African Union, and the African human rights system,” Jamie Vernaelde, senior researcher at Ipas, a non-governmental organization that focuses on reducing the harm of U.S. foreign policy, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.

Back in the U.S., the Supreme Court will rule on Chiles v. Salazar before the end of its current term next year. Their decision will potentially clear the way for conversion therapy to be practiced nationwide and abroad.

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Vernaelde says that if Chiles v. Salazar is successful, ADF is hoping to bring their fight against conversion therapy worldwide in the same way they are expanding their anti-abortion lawsuits. Today, the group is attempting to undo abortion protections in the U.K. with the help of allies in the country’s right-wing Reform party.

“This is a template that they can use in other places that they can spread as widely as they want through their networks,” says Vernaelde.

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At USF Tampa, Christian supremacists mock, spit, and wave bacon at praying Muslim students

At USF Tampa, Christian supremacists mock, spit, and wave bacon at praying Muslim students

USF logo. By Seán Kinane/WMNF News (Aug. 2015).

In Florida, maliciously disturbing a religious gathering is a first-degree misdemeanor, or a third-degree felony with hate crime enhancement.

by Valerie Smith – Creative Loafing; shared as part of the Tampa Bay Journalism Project

(L-R) Richard Penkoski, Christopher Svochak, and Ricardo.Credit: Screengrab via Warriors for Christ / YouTube

A video posted to Instagram by the University of South Florida’s Muslim Student Association (MSA) shows three men interrupting students during their morning prayer, spitting and yelling at them, and waving strips of bacon at them. USF said that their police department is currently gathering evidence and anticipates asking the state attorney to bring criminal charges.

Last Tuesday morning, Nov. 18, several MSA members gathered on top of a parking garage on USF’s Tampa campus for Fajr, Islam’s morning prayer. A livestream by Warriors for Christ—an organization recognized by the SPLC as a hate group—shows Muslim students kneeling in prayer as one of the men, identified in the video only as Ricardo, approaches with a painted cardboard box that reads “KAABA 2.0 JESUS IS LORD.” The Kaaba is a stone building at the center of the holiest site in Islam. While praying, Muslims face the geographical direction of the Kaaba.

The man sets up the box in front of the crowd while two other men, identifiable via their social medias (where they posted the video along with many other similar videos at other locations) as Richard Penkoski of Oklahoma and Christopher Svochak of Illinois, start to “insult” the Muslim prophet, Muhammad, in obscene and sexual ways. One of the men calls them all terrorists. “Go back to Mecca,” he shouts.

At one point, Penkoski brings out a small Wawa container with bacon in it and waves it around while snacking from it.

“We do care about you, so we brought you some bacon,” Penkoski says. “It’s really good. Bacon? Bacon? Anybody?”

Like all pork products, bacon is considered haram, meaning Islam’s rules forbid eating it. All of the students remain kneeling and continue on with their prayer.

“I spit on the grave of Muhammad,” the man identified as Ricardo says before spitting on the ground within a few feet of the students, who are still praying on the ground.

“Take that towel off of your head,” he says, pointing to a woman in the back wearing a religious head covering. At this point, after several minutes of the men shouting at the largely silent students, Ricardo lunges towards a student and points his finger in his face, prompting the student to briefly grab his wrist. Immediately, all three Christian men say this is evidence that Islam is a violent religion.

“This is not how you preach,” one of the students can be heard saying. “Brother, you’re harassing us,” he says to Penkoski.

“You’re not my brother,” Penkoski responds. “This isn’t harassment; this is free speech. But thank you for doing what you did to give us more ammo to prove you’re a bunch of violent psychopaths.”

The video continues like this until the students leave and the Christian content creators do the same. “That was awesome. That was fun,” one of the men can be heard saying as they walk away.

“By the way, don’t ever spit on the ground. It’s actually illegal,” one of the Christians says to the man identified as Ricardo. “What? Spitting on the ground?” “Yes, it’s illegal.” “Well, uh, I didn’t know that.”

Penkoski later posted a screenshot from the MSA group chat, in which one member gives an update on legal proceedings with the state attorney’s office.

“It’s not a hate crime,” Penkoski writes in the caption. “For a ‘hate crime’ to exist, there has to be an actual crime first.”

Florida Statute 871.01, which makes disrupting religious assembly a crime, reads: “Whoever willfully and maliciously interrupts or disturbs any school or any assembly of people met for the worship of God, … commits a misdemeanor of the first degree.” In Florida, a first-degree misdemeanor is punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and one year in prison.

Florida Statute 775.085 contains rules for hate crime enhancement when there is evidenced prejudice against “race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, homeless status, or advanced age of the victim.” This bumps first-degree misdemeanors up to third-degree felonies. Third-degree felonies are punishable by up to $5,000 in fines and five years in prison.

Florida Statute 784.0493 deals with harassment based on religious or ethnic heritage. It makes it illegal (first-degree misdemeanor) to “willfully and maliciously harass or intimidate another person based on the person’s wearing or displaying of any indicia relating to any religious or ethnic heritage.”

The man, identified as Ricardo repeatedly told two women with religious head coverings to “get that towel off your head,” and called one a “wicked woman” and a “Jezebel dog.”

As the men left the parking garage, Svochak spoke to the camera, saying Jesus helped him and Penkoski beat drug addiction.

“What did he save you from?” Penkoski asks Ricardo. “I used to be a heathen,” Ricardo replies.

The state attorney typically decides what initial charges to bring. The 13th Circuit State Attorney’s Office has plans to speak with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay this morning, but as a policy it waits to start a case until police send investigative information along.

A statement issued by USF says that campus police are still trying to identify the men in the video. USF also said that it has reached out to the affected students, and will issue trespass warnings to the men who interrupted the prayer. They anticipate referring the perpetrators to the state attorney for criminal charges.

This wouldn’t be the first time Penkoski found himself in court over a stunt. The Christian content creator takes videos of himself and others “street preaching,” often insulting and demeaning nearby targets. Penkoski uploads the videos to his social media accounts and makes other targeted posts and includes a donation link through a Venmo account under his wife’s name.

In 2022, Penkoski was accused of targeting two leaders of Oklahoma for Equality, who later filed for a protective order against him. They were granted the protective order, but it was overturned on appeal by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision, since Penkoski was targeting organizations rather than individuals.

Penkoski has also been the plaintiff in several legal battles, including an attempt to overturn federal marriage equality for gay couples, a suit against the mayor of Washington D.C. for allowing a “Black Lives Matter” mural, and a lawsuit against a school district that sent his daughter home for wearing a shirt that said “homosexuality is a sin.”

CAIR Florida has called for a hate crime probe for this and another similar incident that took place in Florida.

Svochak gave this reporter a statement about his religious beliefs over Instagram DM, but would not answer specific questions. Svochak, who is affiliated with the recognized hate group Warriors for Christ, said that he is trying to spread Jesus’ message of love.

Tags

Christians, hate crimes, islam, Muslim Students Association, USF

James Uthmeier recounts successes to Moms for Liberty

James Uthmeier recounts successes to Moms for Liberty

‘Our first priority must always be protecting our kids.’

Attorney General James Uthmeier had a lot to celebrate in his speech at the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors Summit.

Uthmeier focused on how he’s working to ensure that concerned parents can continue their “movement … based on faith, based on family, ensuring that we have the freedom to raise our kids in God’s image.”

“I’m about eight months on the job now as Attorney General, and as I tell my team every day, our No. 1 priority is, and will always be, protecting our kids. There’s a lot of evil out there. There’s a lot of evil, a lot of danger. There will always be crime, no matter how much we fight it. But our first priority must always be protecting our kids,” he said to applause.

Uthmeier went on to describe his Office’s legal actions against Target for its “transgender children’s clothing line” with “bras for little boys, some tuckable underwear.”

“Gross. Absolutely disgusting,” he said. “We’re going to hit them in their wallets.”

He also took aim at Snapchat in his remarks.

“Predators are all over that app, all the apps, but that one in particular. It’s their preferred vehicle to go after kids,” Uthmeier said.

“And they’re crafty, they’re smart, they’re patient. They’ll use fake pictures. They’ll talk in a dialect. They’ll get your kids to, you know, drop their guard. They’ll tap into their insecurities, and they’re willing to spend weeks or months to develop a relationship before they start soliciting information, soliciting photos, soliciting locations. And since we’ve sued them, we’ve made dozens of arrests of child predators that have gone after kids through this app.”

Uthmeier also described how his Office is able to enforce the law, including by serving as a “law firm for parents out there” who might be concerned by what school districts do.

“If you’re identifying one of these wrongs that’s violating your rights and that’s subjecting our kids to danger and evil, then we want to know about it, and we’re going to bring the heat in court to shut it down.”

The AG also quipped about a recent call to people to report their exes for immigration violations, noting one gender predominantly was dropping the dime on the other.

“Y’all ladies are savage, I’ve got to tell you. These calls come in and these ladies, I mean, they’ve got date of birth, nickname, frequented bars. I mean, all the details. So to the handful of men out there, treat your women right or they will absolutely get you.”

Florida Attorney General declares war on “A Drag Queen Christmas” show

Alabama taxpayers are funding Christian textbooks that lie to children

Responding to an argument about gay marriage

Meta AI adviser spreads disinformation about shootings, vaccines and trans people

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/12/meta-ai-adviser-robby-starbuck

Critics condemn Robby Starbuck, appointed in lawsuit settlement, for ‘peddling lies and pushing extremism’

Robby Starbuck speaks in an interview in New York in March. Photograph: Bess Adler/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A prominent anti-DEI campaigner appointed by Meta in August as an adviser on AI bias has spent the weeks since his appointment spreading disinformation about shootings, transgender people, vaccines, crime, and protests.

Robby Starbuck, 36, of Nashville, was appointed in August as an adviser by Meta – owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other tech platforms – in an August lawsuit settlement.

Since his appointment, Starbuck has baselessly claimed that individual shooters in the US were motivated by leftist ideology, described faith-based protest groups as communists, and without evidence tied Democratic lawmakers to murders.

Starbuck’s online posts have not changed in tenor since the “anti-DEI agitator” was brought into the Meta fold, and his Trump administration connections raise broader questions about the extent to which corporate America has capitulated to the Maga movement.

The Guardian repeatedly contacted Meta for comment on Starbuck’s role, and his rhetoric online, but received no response.

The Guardian also contacted Starbuck via an email address associated with his website. In part, he responded: “It seems your piece is an attempted hit job meant to punish Meta for working with me on AI fairness. Nothing I’ve said has been on behalf of Meta – they work with people from every political background.”

He added: “My role is simple: work to make AI fair for everyone, regardless of their views. That’s a goal anyone who believes in fairness should support. What you’re really trying here looks like cancel culture and activism dressed up as journalism, and I won’t cower for holding the same views as the political party that won the popular vote less than a year ago in America.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said: “It is appalling that Robby Starbuck was given a hand in Meta operations in any capacity. He peddles lies and pushes extremism, and it is hard to believe any of this will help make their platforms safer or better.”

Eric Bloem, vice-president of corporate citizenship at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, said: “People should be able to find safe, welcoming communities online. Robby Starbuck pushes a dangerous anti-LGBTQ agenda, spreading disinformation and denying the very existence of transgender people.”

Starbuck’s appointment to Meta via lawsuit

Starbuck, formerly a music video director, has gained attention as an opponent of corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. His pressure campaigns have frequently been directed at companies who are perceived as having conservative customer bases, and have induced major American firms to abandon internal DEI measures, or to end their relationships with pro-LGBTQ organizations like the Human Rights Campaign.

Starbuck won his role in the aftermath of one such campaign.

In the midst of a summer 2024 campaign aimed at motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson, Starbuck threatened Meta with a lawsuit over claims its Meta AI chatbot apparently made about him. In August 2024, Starbuck posted a screenshot purporting to show Meta AI’s summary of a Facebook thread of Harley riders angry that the “company chose to go woke “.

A screenshot in reply from a Harley-Davidson dealer appeared to show Meta AI asserting that Starbuck was, among other things, an adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, and had participated in the January 6 attack at the Capitol.

Starbuck responded: “Wow thanks for sending, Meta will hear from my lawyers since I was never at J6 and have been a longtime critic of QAnon.”

That lawsuit was filed last April. Starbuck’s appointment to work with Meta was part of the settlement. Other details of the settlement – including whether or not Starbuck was paid or is receiving ongoing compensation for the role – were not made public.

On 8 August, Meta’s chief of global affairs Joel Kaplan posted on X a joint statement with Starbuck.

In part, the statement read: “Since engaging on these important issues with Robby, Meta has made tremendous strides to improve the accuracy of Meta AI and mitigate ideological and political bias.”

The statement continued: “Building on that work, Meta and Robby Starbuck will work collaboratively in the coming months to continue to find ways to address issues of ideological and political bias and minimize the risk that the model returns hallucinations in response to user queries.”

Bloem said: “There’s nothing unbiased about [Starbuck’s appointment].” He added: “Coupled with its January rollback of protections against hate speech across its platforms, this decision calls into question Meta’s commitment to keeping LGBTQ+ people and others safe online.”

‘Portland is working with the terrorists’

Starbuck has long pushed vaccine disinformation, and he has amplified false claims made by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.

In July, he boosted a debunked claim made by Kennedy in an interview with Tucker Carlson, in which he claimed that hepatitis B vaccinations led to a 1,135% increase in autism risk, adding: “This is absolutely criminal. The people behind this belong in jail and the hep B shot should be pulled immediately from the childhood vaccine schedule.”

As part of his anti-DEI push, Starbuck has also spread overheated claims and falsehoods about transgender and LGBTQ people.

He has also boosted such claims made by members of the Trump administration.

In March, boosting a claim Donald Trump made in an address to Congress that the government had spent “$8m for making mice transgender”, Starbuck wrote: “Democrats are trying to pretend that Trump was wrong about the government funding a study to turn mice transgender. He was NOT wrong. This is the study and it’s vile. Eighty female mice were ‘sacrificed’ after their last injection. Democrats funded this.”

In fact, the mice studies sought to gauge the effect of hormone therapy on maladies such as wound-healing, HIV, and infertility.

Starbuck’s online demeanor has continued largely unchanged since he was appointed, with him backing far-right figures in America and around the world and posting dubious pro-Trump narratives.

Starbuck recently expressed support for authoritarians and he posted a video of Stephen Miller’s speech on the Memphis Safe Task Force, which has seen federal officers and national guard troops making arrests in there.

Starbuck added the caption: “I’ve been advocating for us to make Memphis safe again for YEARS now by carrying out similar initiatives @nayibbukele executed successfully in El Salvador and finally… It’s happening.”

El Salvador president Nayib Bukele, self-styled as the “world’s coolest dictator”, is celebrated by the far right in the US for his unconstitutional crackdown, which has seen up to more than 1.5% of the country’s population imprisoned, almost a quarter of those without trial, according to World Prison Brief.

Starbuck also baselessly asserted that city officials in Portland were working with anti-fascists, and appeared to urge a violent response. Starbuck claimed that injuries to rightwing online personality Katie Daviscourt indicated that “the leftist government in Portland is working with the terrorists”, adding: “It’s time to treat Antifa cells like we would treat Isis cells.”

In a comment on this allegation, Starbuck wrote: “The record is not in dispute. Portland councillors Angelita Morillo and Candace Avalos both publicly defended an antifa activist charged with assaulting a federal officer. Morillo has even posted tips to help antifa evade law enforcement. “

He added: “When elected officials openly side with violent extremists, they are enabling them.”

Morillo told the Guardian: “When influencers like Robby refer to ‘terrorists’, I’m not sure who they’re talking about – the guy in the frog suit? The people doing the Cha-Cha Slide outside the Ice facility in Portland? I can’t take anyone seriously who relies on sensationalized clips, AI content and outright lies to inform their thinking.”

Avalos said: “People are free to say what they like on social media. That doesn’t make their statements true, and it doesn’t mean we have to take them at face value.

“As a federal judge found in her recent ruling against the administration, the idea that there are coordinated attacks from ‘antifa, and other domestic terrorists’, as Trump alleged on Truth Social, is simply ‘untethered to the facts’. Who should we listen to: a sitting federal judge or someone with a Twitter account?”

She added: “When I advise my constituents on how to protect themselves from federal agents acting unlawfully, I am speaking to the vast majority of Portlanders, who rightfully oppose fascism and are certainly not terrorists.”

Starbuck also claimed that a high profile Trump detainee who was once incarcerated in Bukele’s brutal Cecot prison that “Kilmar Abrego Garcia [is] almost certainly an MS-13 member”.

Two federal judges this year rejected the administration’s claims that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS13, and the government was ordered to facilitate his return from El Salvador.

Commenting on his allegation, Starbuck wrote: “This is simple: an immigration court, DHS, and the president of the United States all identified Garcia as an MS-13 member. Denying it is no longer reporting – it’s spin in the pursuit of your own make-believe narrative. So once again, my language was perfectly appropriate.”

(*** Editorial edit from Scottie. This statement above by lying Starbuck is completely false yet he does as most hateful bigots do and repeat forcefully as it if it was a truth everyone knows and given by go. It is the tatic of a scammer, he is lying yet the maga media will report what he says as truth when again it is a lie. This guy is perfect for the tRump party area, if we say it then it must be the truth because we say it. Hugs *** )

‘This is domestic terrorism’

In recent weeks, Starbuck has energetically attempted to connect the alleged perpetrators of high-profile shootings to the Democratic party.

These claims culminated in a video posted to X in which he claimed that “in less than 2 weeks there have been 5 domestic terrorism attacks by leftists”, citing the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the armed attack on an ABC affiliate in Sacramento, California; the attack on a wedding reception in Nashua, New Hampshire; and the attack on an Ice facility in Dallas. Another example he offered were purported chants of “Fuck Charlie Kirk!” by leftists in New York in the wake of Kirk’s death.

In an earlier post, he cited the same events and claimed: “This is domestic terrorism”.

The man accused of the Sacramento ABC attack does have a long history of posting anti-Trump messages on social media, according to prosecutors, and spent two decades as “a lobbyist for healthcare, tribal and labor interests”, according to the New York Times.

Evidence for connections between the other perpetrators and the Democratic party, or even the broader left, is either tenuous or non-existent.

The claim about chanting demonstrators appears to arise from mid-September videos of counterprotesters who, according to videos taken by independent journalists, disrupted a memorial vigil for Charlie Kirk in New York’s Washington Square. The identities, allegiances, and organizational affiliations of the counterprotesters are unspecified, and few media outlets reported on the story except Russian outlet Pravda.

However, Joshua Jahn, who turned his gun on himself after the Dallas Ice attack, was reportedly registered as an independent in Oklahoma, and was described by friends as someone with “a vaguely libertarian bent who despised both major parties and politicians generally, including Trump, but who didn’t engage with politics beyond that”, according to reporting by journalist Ken Klippenstein.

Hunter Nadeau, accused of killing one and wounding two others in an attack on a country club in Nashua, New Hampshire, reportedly yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack. But state attorney general John Formella said Nadeau “made a number of statements during the shooting and appeared to be attempting to cause chaos in the moment as opposed to showing a hate-based motivation”, according to NPR.

Formella added: “We don’t have any evidence to indicate that this was a hate-based act.”

Tyler Robinson, the man accused of Charlie Kirk’s murder, was reportedly registered as a non-partisan voter in Utah, although family members indicated he had moved politically to the left, according to prosecutors.

Nevertheless, investigators reportedly told NBC News that “thus far, there is no evidence connecting the suspect with any leftwing groups”.

All of the reporting clouding the political allegiances of the shooters was on the public record on 25 September, when Starbuck replied to an X user who challenged him that “every single one of the cases I just pointed out are leftists”, blaming “left wing leaders … and their crazy followers”.

Starbuck reiterated his claims about each shooter to the Guardian and linked to four sources he claimed supported him, including a Daily Mail story about Facebook posts by Joshua Jahn’s mother, and a protest footage video published to YouTube by one of the previously cited independent videographers.

He further responded with accusations about the Guardian, writing: “Why is the Guardian fixated on trying to downplay leftwing violence instead of investigating the clear surge of it?”

He added: “I don’t have the luxury of ignoring this reality – my security team and the FBI are actively handling ongoing death threats against me. The dismissiveness from outlets like yours makes you complicit in emboldening this violence.”

Meta adviser

The lawsuit that took Starbuck to Meta was carried out by a firm with Trump administration connections.

Dhillon Law Group (DLG) filed suit in Delaware on behalf of Starbuck. In a press release, the firm said Meta’s chatbot had made “provably false and defamatory statements” about Starbuck.

Between the original posts and the lawsuit, DLG founder Harmeet Dhillon was nominated and confirmed as Donald Trump’s assistant attorney general for civil rights. Trump named her as his pick in December and she was confirmed in April, weeks before Starbuck’s settlement.

According to Office of Government Ethics filings, Dhillon divested her ownership in Dhillon Law Group in the firm in favor of her brother, a non-equity partner in the firm.

In her 27 February ethics agreement, however, Dhillon wrote that she would “retain an interest in a portion of future recovery in 21 contingency fee cases based upon a fixed percentage of compensation”.

The Guardian contacted the justice department to ask whether Starbuck’s case was one of the 21 that Dhillon retained an interest in. Initially, an automated response warned that “during the current lapse in appropriations, this inbox will not be monitored on a regular basis”.

A spokesperson subsequently responded in an email, writing: “AAG Dhillon does not currently have any role in cases involving Mr Starbuck and their relationship is one of friendship and former client.”

The Guardian then asked whether or not she had a role in his case at the time it was settled in April.

The spokesperson said no.

The Guardian previously reported that Dhillon earned a six-figure salary as CEO of a nonprofit, the Center for American Liberty (CAL), according to filings from 2021, 2022 and 2023. During that period, Dhillon Law Group received more than $1.3m as a contractor to the organization over two years. Dhillon, several CAL clients and Dhillon Law attorneys also shared the services of the same Republican-aligned PR operative.

During Dhillon’s leadership, the CAL pursued a myriad of culture-war lawsuits on behalf of rightwing influencers, “de-transitioners” and parents of transgender children, and churches that had been subject to California’s pandemic restrictions.

Beirich, the extremism expert, said: “This is just another example of Meta caving to Trump and his allies, and bogus charges of political bias, and makes a mockery of fair content moderation on Meta’s various platforms.”

Elsewhere in his comments to the Guardian, Starbuck wrote: “You should be honest with Guardian readers about the fact that you’ve been accused of extremely close ties with antifa.”

Teaching tolerance isn’t indoctrination. It’s protection

https://www.advocate.com/voices/mahmoud-v-taylor

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Protesters in support of LGBTQ+ rights and against book bans demonstrate outside of the U.S. Supreme Court Building while the justices heard arguments for the case of Mahmoud v. Taylor in Washington, DC., April 2025

Opinion: In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the justices gave bigotry a permission slip and ruled that parents can “opt out” of LGBTQ-inclusive lessons, further diminishing lessons and practices on inclusivity in civic society, argues Darek M. Ciszek.

Darek M. Ciszek

October 20 2025 6:00 AM EST

The U.S. Supreme Court made a decision earlier this summer that has a significant impact on classrooms nationwide. In their 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the majority completely missed the point as to why LGBTQ-inclusive education matters. By giving parents the option to pull their kids out of lessons that include LGBTQ+ characters or content, the Court prioritized personal religious objections over creating schools where students can learn without feeling invisible.

Justice Alito‘s majority opinion is especially troubling. He treats LGBTQ-inclusive education as if it were some optional “add-on” that schools can easily work around. As a former teacher, I can confidently say that is not how education works, especially when it comes to curriculum and lesson planning. And while Justice Thomas calls LGBTQ-inclusive education “ideological conformity,” he fails to see that most LGBTQ+ adults today grew up in a school system that forced us to conform to a cisgender and straight worldview. Ironically, I’d consider the Court’s narrow view of public education to be ideologically driven.

Let’s be clear about what LGBTQ-inclusive education is and isn’t. When teachers include books like Uncle Bobby’s Wedding in their curriculum, they are not trying to convert anyone’s child or attack anyone’s faith. They are trying to show students that families come in all colors, shapes, and sizes, reflecting our diverse society.

LGBTQ+ people are also part of every community. We have always been a part of human history, and we deserve to be represented in our nation’s schools. The goal is not to change what students believe at home; it is to teach them how to be respectful in a democratic and diverse world. Luckily, in her dissent, Justice Sotomayor got it right when she said that LGBTQ-inclusive education is “designed to foster mutual civility and respect.”

I could not agree more.

But here’s what the Court’s majority really got wrong: they ignored the anti-bullying efforts that motivate many LGBTQ+ inclusive education programs in the first place. According to the latest National School Climate Survey from GLSEN, 68% of American students reported feeling unsafe in school due to their SOGIE (sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression) characteristics.

That is two out of three LGBTQ+ youth.

These aren’t just statistics. These are real children trying to learn while dealing with a school environment that tells them, whether implicitly or explicitly, that their identities or families are somehow wrong or shameful.

When schools include diverse families in their lessons, they are not pushing an agenda. They are teaching kids that being different does not mean bad. They are giving LGBTQ+ students a chance to see themselves reflected in their education and helping other students see and understand those who are different from them.

Research shows inclusive education works. Studies have found that an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum can improve the social and emotional well-being of LGBTQ+ youth. When kids learn about different types of families early on, they are more likely to treat their classmates with kindness instead of cruelty. In other words, when implemented correctly, LGBTQ-inclusive education can be an essential anti-bullying and student well-being strategy.

For instance, as a result of my doctoral research, I have learned that some schools around the world are starting to address LGBTQ+ bullying head-on, and, not surprisingly, it’s through curriculum and instruction. In Scotland, LGBTQ-inclusive education became required in 2021 across both primary and secondary, and most major subject areas. When I interviewed government staff about their experience implementing the new policy, I learned that they even worked with religious groups to inform the effort. Faith communities could agree that inclusion was important for reducing homophobic bullying, even if they had some religious concerns. Scottish students now learn how homophobic language hurts people and develop the social-emotional skills needed for creating safer schools. It’s not ideological instruction; it’s teaching kids critical peer relationship skills.

Similar to the Scottish experience, the U.S. Supreme Court could have left the door open for education authorities to find a balance that respects both religious families and vulnerable LGBTQ+ kids. Real inclusion programs do not ask anyone to abandon their faith. They ask people to treat others with respect and dignity, a lesson I believe everyone should support in class. Kids can learn that some families have two moms without being told their family is wrong. They can remember that using “gay” as an insult hurts people without abandoning their religious beliefs. Getting to know your neighbor does not go against faith.

Unfortunately for the U.S., the impact of the Court’s decision may be severe and widespread, especially in ideologically conservative states. Instead of dealing with complicated opt-out policies, I fear many school districts will probably remove LGBTQ+ inclusive materials entirely. Unfortunately, it can be easier to bow to political pressures than to fight, especially when faced with potential lawsuits or a loss of school funding. This means LGBTQ+ kids lose representation, and all students miss out on critical lessons in diversity and inclusion.

The Court’s decision also has broader implications beyond the LGBTQ+ community. By way of a new precedent, the case approves a heckler’s veto, allowing parents to claim a religious objection to any educational content they may not align with at home. This is because the majority opinion wasn’t apparent on how opting out of inclusive education would work in practice, or what would even qualify as a personal religious objection. We might start seeing opt-out forms for instruction on topics like human evolution, women’s rights, or civil rights history. Thanks to the Court, there is no line in the sand.

When we remove students from lessons about diverse communities, we fail everyone. But the call for truly inclusive education is not going anywhere. Our kids—all of our kids—deserve better.

Darek M. Ciszek is a PhD Candidate in Education at UCLA with a research focus on curriculum, learning, and social development.

Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit Advocate.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.