Tag Archives: LGBT

The Daily Caller author points to the connection between LGBT activists and their Satanic Imagery

Romans 1:28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Important Takeaways:

  • The Los Angeles Dodgers honored the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of queer and trans “nuns,” at a home game Friday night. The SPI is famous for its sexualization of Christian imagery, including using a cross as a stripper pole and parodying the Holy Eucharist by drinking from a chalice filled with yogurt as a stand-in for human semen.
  • The group, whose motto is “Go and sin some more,” explained in a statement that they mock Catholicism in order to “expose the forces of bigotry, complacency, and guilt that chain the human spirit.” This gospel of self-indulgence is the exact opposite of the one real nuns follow in their lives of chastity, service and self-denial
  • In May, news broke that Target had partnered with queer designer Erik Carnell, whose website included pins and shirts featuring a goat-headed deity with the slogan “Satan Respects Pronouns,”
  • In February, singer Sam Smith, who identifies as nonbinary, dressed as Satan to perform his song “Unholy” at the Grammy Awards. Just under a year earlier, gay rapper Lil Nas X starred in a music video in which he gave Satan a lap dance…
  • So what’s the connection between LGBT Pride and Satanism?
    • God desires you to deny yourself for the sake of unity with a greater, divinely perfect Good; that is, God Himself. Satan wants you to follow your bliss and wouldn’t presume to lecture you about what is and isn’t good for you. Live your own truth and see where it takes you.
    • Satan’s spiritual progeny have mostly dispensed with belief in God, or even in a literal Satan. “If I believed in Satan, I’d have to believe in the Bible — and I consider myself an atheist,” Carnell told the Washington Post. They have retained, however, the idea that all appeals to moral absolutes are thinly veiled lies designed to repress and dominate.
    • In place of the 10 Commandments, the Satanic Temple offers seven “fundamental tenets.” The third enshrines bodily autonomy — hence the Temple’s treatment of abortion as a sacrament — and the fourth states that to “willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.” The only real sin is to inhibit someone else’s self-expression.
    • For the Satanist, the question, “What is sex for?”, is nonsense. It’s not “for” anything. The evolutionary purpose of sexual pleasure may be to incentivize reproduction, but there’s no “ought” attached to that “is.” It’s your body. Do whatever feels good as long as your partner(s) consent. The same thing holds true when it comes to gender. Don’t like your body? You own it. Remake it however you please.
    • There was once a gay rights movement which sought nothing more than to convince society to recognize [their] dignity… that movement no longer exists. The lewdness and nudity on display everywhere from “family friendly” festivals to the White House lawn are not pleas for the recognition of human dignity; they’re power moves.
    • This glorification of individual autonomy and self-determination — especially when they transgress traditional boundaries — is a religious claim. And it’s exactly what Satan offers, whether you believe in him or not.

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U.S. Supreme Court backs Catholic group that shunned gay foster parents

By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court embraced religious rights over LGBT rights on Thursday by ruling in favor of a Catholic Church-affiliated agency that sued after Philadelphia refused to place children for foster care with the organization because it barred same-sex couples from applying to become foster parents.

The 9-0 ruling, written by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, was a victory for Catholic Social Services (CSS), part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and represented the latest instance of the Supreme Court taking an expansive view of religious rights under the U.S. Constitution.

The justices decided that Philadelphia’s refusal to use Catholic Social Services for foster care services unless it agreed to certify same-sex couples as foster parents violated the Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of the free exercise of religion.

Catholic Social Services argued that Philadelphia had penalized it for its religious views and for following church teachings on marriage.

In the ruling, Roberts wrote, “CSS seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else.”

Conservative and religious advocacy rights groups cheered the decision – and the fact that the court’s three liberal members joined the six conservative justices – saying it will have a major impact on future legal disputes involving religious beliefs.

“This is a strong ruling in favor of religious freedom, especially for social services providers,” said Lori Windham, a lawyer for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the agency and three foster parents in the case. “The court recognized that it is not the government’s place to exclude religious agencies because of their religious beliefs.”

“I am grateful that we can finally rest knowing that the agency that has brought my family together can continue to do the same for other families,” said Toni Lynn Simms-Bush, who has served as a foster parent through Catholic Social Services and was one of the plaintiffs.

‘SELECTIVE ASSESSMENT’

The justices decided that foster care certification provided by Catholic Social Services did not fall under the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance because it is a service not “readily available” to the public.

“It involves a customized and selective assessment that bears little resemblance to staying in a hotel, eating at a restaurant or riding a bus,” Roberts wrote.

The Supreme Court declined to take even-broader action in the form of overruling its 1990 precedent that upheld “generally applicable” laws even if they curb religious freedom. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch said the court should have overruled that precedent.

LGBT and other liberal advocacy groups called the ruling troubling but said they were relieved it did not go further.

“Foster care is a government function, and all governments have a compelling interest in ensuring their contract agencies, including faith-based ones, treat all children and families equally. And today’s ruling does mean, at least for now, that different-sex married couples have access to all city agencies, while same-sex couples do not,” M. Currey Cook of the Lambda Legal pro-LGBT rights group said.

Catholic Social Services, which has helped provide foster care services for more than a century, had said it would be compelled to close its foster care operations if it was barred from Philadelphia’s program.

Philadelphia in 2018 suspended foster care referrals to Catholic Social Services after a newspaper report about the organization’s policy against same-sex couples as foster parents, leading the agency to file suit. Catholic Social Services said Philadelphia’s action meant that available foster homes were sitting empty amid a foster care crisis in the city of about 1.5 million people.

The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019 ruled against Catholic Social Services, saying it had not shown that the city had treated it differently because of its religious affiliation. U.S. District Judge Petrese Tucker in 2018 also ruled against the organization.

Eleven of the 50 states currently allow private agencies to refuse to place children with same-sex couples, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a group backing gay rights.

The Supreme Court in recent years has sent mixed messages on the conflict between LGBT and religious rights.

It backed gay rights in a series of landmark rulings including a 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide and a 2020 ruling that a federal law barring workplace discrimination protects gay and transgender employees.

It also bolstered religious rights in several decisions including a 2014 ruling that let owners of businesses raise religious objections against the government.

No same-sex couple ever sought certification as a foster parent from Catholic Social Services. In addition to same-sex couples, it also will not certify unmarried couples as foster parents, but does not object to certifying individual gay people.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

In landmark ruling, U.S. Supreme Court bars discrimination against LGBT workers

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday delivered a watershed victory for LGBT rights and a defeat for President Donald Trump’s administration by ruling that a longstanding federal law barring workplace discrimination protects gay and transgender employees.

The landmark 6-3 ruling represented the biggest moment for LGBT rights in the United States since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. Two conservative justices joined the court’s four liberals in the decision: Neil Gorsuch, a 2017 Trump appointee who wrote the ruling, and Chief Justice John Roberts.

The justices decided that gay and transgender people are protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex as well as race, color, national origin and religion.

Workplace bias against gay and transgender employees had remained legal in much of the country, with 28 U.S. states lacking comprehensive measures against employment discrimination. The ruling – in two gay rights cases from Georgia and New York and a transgender rights case from Michigan – recognizes new worker protections in federal law.

“The Supreme Court’s historic decision affirms what shouldn’t have even been a debate: LGBTQ Americans should be able to work without fear of losing jobs because of who they are,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president of the gay rights group GLAAD.

The legal fight focused on the definition of “sex” in Title VII. The plaintiffs, along with civil rights groups and many large companies, had argued that discriminating against gay and transgender workers was inherently based on their sex and consequently was illegal.

Trump’s administration had backed the employers who were sued for discrimination. The administration and the employers argued that Congress did not intend for Title VII to protect gay and transgender people when it passed the law. Gorsuch conceded that point in his opinion but said what mattered was the text of the law.

“An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex,” Gorsuch wrote. “Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”

Strongly supported by evangelical Christian voters, Trump has taken actions that have undermined gay and transgender rights since taking office in 2017.

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the ruling. Writing in dissent, Alito said the court had basically re-written the law.

“There is only one word for what the court has done today: legislation,” Alito wrote.

‘TREATED FAIRLY’

The court ruled in two consolidated cases about gay people who have said they were fired due to their sexual orientation. One involved a former county child welfare services coordinator from Georgia named Gerald Bostock. The other involved a New York skydiving instructor named Donald Zarda who died after the litigation began, with the matter then pursued by his estate.

The court also ruled in a case that involved a transgender funeral director named Aimee Stephens fired by a Detroit funeral home after revealing plans to transition from male to female. Stephens died in May. Stephens’ wife Donna is now representing the estate.

“I am grateful for this victory to honor the legacy of Aimee, and to ensure people are treated fairly regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” Donna Stephens said in a statement.

Gorsuch wrote that “there is no way an employer can discriminate against those who check the homosexual or transgender box without discriminating in part because of an applicant’s sex.”

“By discriminating against homosexuals, the employer intentionally penalizes men for being attracted to men and women for being attracted to women. By discriminating against transgender persons, the employer unavoidably discriminates against persons with one sex identified at birth and another today,” Gorsuch wrote.

The Human Rights Campaign gay rights group called the decision “a landmark victory for LGBTQ equality.”

Alphonso David, the group’s president, said, “No one should be denied a job or fired simply because of who they are or whom they love.”

The White House had no immediate comment.

Trump’s Justice Department reversed the government’s position taken under Democratic former President Barack Obama that Title VII covered sexual orientation and gender identity.

Trump’s administration last week issued a rule that would lift anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in healthcare.

His administration also has backed the right of certain businesses to refuse to serve gay people on the basis of religious objections to gay marriage, banned most transgender service members from the military and rescinded protections on bathroom access for transgender students in public schools.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

Mormon church to allow children of LGBT couples to be baptized

FILE PHOTO: The LDS Church's Mormon Temple in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, is seen January 27, 2012. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) – The Mormon church will allow the children of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender parents to be baptized, but will not sanction same-sex marriage, its leadership said on Thursday.

The decision, announced on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ website Thursday morning, reverses a 2015 policy that deemed same-sex couples to be apostates of the faith, which made their children ineligible for baptism.

“We want to reduce the hate and contention so common today,” said the church, which no longer uses the common name Mormon. “We are optimistic that a majority of people — whatever their beliefs and orientations — long for better understanding and less contentious communications.”

The policy took effect on Thursday for the more than 16 million members of the Salt Lake City-based church.

LGBT advocates praised the move as progress in a fight to end discrimination against LGBT people in faith groups.

“This statement by the LDS Church to change course is a move in the right direction that will make a real difference in the lives of LGBTQ Mormons,” The Trevor Project, an international advocacy group for LGBT youth, said in a statement.

The church’s statement emphasized that the new policy does not reflect a change in church doctrine. The church considers same-sex marriage and same-sex acts to be sins, while it does not condemn same-sex attraction alone, according to its website.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Scott Malone and Dan Grebler)

Texas House passes ‘bathroom bill’ targeting public schools

The U.S flag and the Texas State flag fly over the Texas State Capitol in Austin,

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – The Texas House of Representatives gave formal approval on Monday to a bill that would restrict bathroom access for transgender students in public schools, a measure that critics say promotes discrimination against such children.

The state’s Republican-controlled legislature has been at the forefront in advancing measures seen by backers as protecting traditional values and religious liberty but criticized by civil rights groups as eroding protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, people.

The Texas House gave preliminary approval on Sunday night to the bill, which requires public school students to use bathrooms, changing facilities and locker rooms that match their biological sex, not the gender with which they identify.

The measure is narrower in scope than a bathroom bill passed along mostly party lines by the state Senate in March that extended to state universities and public buildings.

The Senate bill is similar to one enacted last year in North Carolina. The North Carolina law prompted economic boycotts and the loss of sporting events, and was later revamped in the face of criticism.

The more limited House measure is seen as a way to avoid an economic backlash in Texas, analysts said.

“It is absolutely about child safety,” Republican state Representative Chris Paddie, who managed the bill, said in House debate on Sunday.

The measure heads back to the Senate for consideration of changes made since it was in that chamber. Republican Governor Greg Abbott has said he supports a bathroom bill.

Critics said the House and Senate versions undermined civil rights and used children as political pawns.

“There is no moral middle ground on discrimination, ” said Kathy Miller, president of the civil liberties advocacy group Texas Freedom Network.

The legislature on Monday also sent to the governor a bill allowing adoption agencies to reject families on religious grounds, an action slammed by critics as discriminatory against LGBT Texans and non-Christians.

LGBT rights groups said they would challenge the adoption bill in court if it became law, arguing discrimination in the name of religion had no place in the state.

The bill’s backers, which include several Christian groups, said it banned no one and had a mechanism for the state government to offer alternative adoption providers if any service is denied for religious beliefs.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)

Battle over bathrooms looms large in North Carolina governors race

A sign protesting a recent North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access adorns the bathroom stalls at the 21C Museum Hotel in Durham, North Carolina

By Colleen Jenkins

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Nov 4 (Reuters) – In a year of police shooting protests, historic hurricane flooding and voting rights clashes in North Carolina, it is the battle over bathrooms that could prove pivotal in the Tar Heel state’s gubernatorial race.

The election will effectively serve as a referendum on a state law that bans transgender people from using government-run restrooms that match their gender identity and limits protections for gays and lesbians. Signed by Republican Governor Pat McCrory in March, the law has been blamed for hundreds of
millions of dollars in economic losses and the relocation of major sporting events from the ninth largest U.S. state.

Opponents of the law say the vote on Tuesday also could have national implications. If McCrory loses to Democratic challenger Roy Cooper, they said, elected officials backing such measures in other states will face greater political risk.

“I believe a strong message already has been sent to lawmakers across the country,” said Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organization.

“I believe and hope on Election Day that an even stronger message will be sent.”

The advocacy group has joined with Equality North Carolina for a broad effort to boost voter turnout and unseat McCrory and other supporters of the law known as House Bill 2. The organizations are targeting about 400,000 pro-equality voters in the state, including an estimated 255,800 LGBT voters, Griffin said.

The Human Rights Campaign said that voting bloc could make a difference in a presidential swing state where Democrat Barack Obama won by about 14,000 votes in 2008 and Republican Mitt Romney led by about 92,000 votes in 2012.

“There’s no question this is going to be a very close race at the top of the ticket, and the LGBTQ voting bloc really has the ability to impact the outcome of this election,” said Chris Sgro, executive director of Equality North Carolina.

RACE A TOSS-UP

Elections experts consider the race between McCrory and Cooper, one of 12 U.S. gubernatorial seats being decided on Tuesday, to be among the country’s most competitive.

Public opinion polls have been tight most of the year, though the RealClearPolitics average of recent surveys shows
Cooper with a slight advantage.

A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll found that, among residents who expect to vote, 38 percent were less likely to support McCrory’s re-election bid as a result of the law and its fallout, compared with 32 percent who were more likely to support him.

The poll was conducted online in English between Oct. 6 and Oct. 19. It included 1,233 likely voters and had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points.

Other polls have shown a majority of residents believe the law is hurting the state.

McCrory, who in 2012 became North Carolina’s first Republican governor in two decades, has blamed the backlash
against the law on national groups trying to redefine gender and “basic norms of privacy.”

Cooper says the law is discriminatory, and he has made McCrory’s support for it a central issue of his campaign.

An ad campaign launched last week by the conservative NC Values Coalition accuses Cooper, the state’s attorney general since 2001, of putting women and children at risk by refusing to defend H.B. 2.

“By not defending it, he’s allowing men into women’s bathrooms,” the group’s executive director, Tami Fitzgerald,
said in a phone interview. “We think that just goes too far.”

“Equality NC and HRC have made North Carolina ground zero for their radical LGBT agenda,” she added. “But I believe that their efforts will fail.”

At early voting sites in North Carolina this week, the issue appeared to be galvanizing people on both sides.

“I admire McCrory for standing behind H.B. 2,” said Republican Parker Umstead, 81, a certified public accountant who cast a ballot in Winston-Salem for the incumbent. “It takes
courage to stand up for your beliefs.”

But Holly Carpenter, a 41-year-old Republican from Cary who works in the medical field, cited the measure as the prime reason why she voted against McCrory, whom she supported in 2012.

“To lose so many economic opportunities over that was just a huge negative for me,” she said.

(Additional reporting by Marti Maguire in Cary, North Carolina,
and Chris Kahn in New York)