Meme Dump

A Tale of Two Tennessee's

It hasn’t been so long that I’ve forgotten how “gay marriage” was the weapon of fear used by the GOP to get themselves elected; they spread the fear that, by allowing homosexuals to marry, traditional marriages would be ruined or destroyed … though no one ever said how this might happen. They even attempted to spin the lie that if you allowed a same-sex couple to marry, then you’d have to allow men marrying children, dogs, their cars because, well, fear.

But look around, it’s been six years since marriage equality came to be and I haven’t seen one heterosexual marriage dissolve because I married Carlos, and I haven’t been asked to the wedding or man and machine, woman and animal, or even children. It was all fear and lies, spread by the GOP.

So, because they can’t use that any longer what will they do? Attack the trans community; the new “them”. It started with the bathroom bills of a few years ago when the GOP told us that men will dress as women so they can go into a woman’s restroom and sexually harass or even rape women, even though there has not been a single case of this happened.

Sidenote: men have been raping women since time began and never needed to slip on a dress and use the ladies’ room to do it.

And now, in Tennessee, because, well, Tennessee, a veritable hot bed of ignorant backwards thinking politicians, both chambers of the state Legislature have passed a bill that would require businesses to post notices that say they allow transgender people to use the building’s restrooms.

The bathroom bill is back, y’all, only now they want to punish a business that accepts everyone; you know, this way the bigots can go somewhere else to shop or eat or browse. And if signed, this bill—which would require signs at the entrances to the building and the door of every restroom that isn’t single stalled—would make Tennessee the first state in the country to adopt legislation seeking to single out trans-affirming businesses for allowing trans people to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

How proud Tennesseans must be.

The bill’s sponsor, state Representative and Republican, because, of course, Tim Rudd seriously believes his bill isn’t aimed at transgender people since it doesn’t ban them from using the restroom altogether, though it might make businesses refuse restrooms to trans people. Instead, he says it’s aimed at “the protection of women and children against sexual predators that could be taking advantage of policies, executive orders or legislation that may allow the opposite sex to enter a restroom, shower or locker that allows more than one person in the facility at a time.”

Oh, we’re back to rapists putting on dresses. How backwards of Tennessee.

This is the same state that tried to pass a Don’t Say Gay Bill …

… the same state where another Republican, Jason Zachary, introduced a bill to allow cisgender students to sue the school if they’re not given a “reasonable accommodation” if they don’t want to share facilities with trans people …

… the same state where another bill that passed the legislature bans books that mention LGBTQ+ people from public schools …

… … the same state where another bill seeks to make the Bible the official state book …

… the same state where another bill, currently on the governor’s desk, and he has until May 3 to act on the bill or allow it to become law, requires schools to notify parents if sexual orientation or gender identity are going to be mentioned in class 30 days in advance, and gives parents the ability to opt their children out so that they don’t have to hear that LGBTQ people exist.

Tennessee, where the state motto is “Agriculture and Commerce” but should be “Fear and Ignorance”.

LGBTQ Nation

But then, this also happened in Tennessee … Dalton Stevens, a senior at Franklin High School, wanted to make a statement for his senior year prom, so he decided on bold formal attire. His boyfriend, Jacob Geittman, says:

“He did his big ‘prom-posal’ and asked me to prom, and he decided he was going to wear a dress, and I’m like, ‘Okay! You’re going to look good in it!'”

Dalton chose a floor-length red dress:

“I very much view clothes as genderless. I was very confident. I knew that I felt beautiful, and I felt great.”

But prom night, while Stevens and Geittman were at the Harpeth Hotel in downtown Franklin taking pictures, a man later identified as homophobic moron Sam Johnson, CEO of a local telemedicine company, VisuWell, decided that, as a grown-assed man, it was his job to ridicule Dalton Stevens for his attire. Dalton tells it like this:

“Slander terms thrown towards me of like ‘You look bad,’ ‘You’ve got hair on your chest, you shouldn’t be wearing a dress,’ ‘You’re not a man,’ blah, blah, blah. The fact that he thought he had the audacity to come tell me what I was supposed to wear and what I was supposed to do because of his standards.”

Or his insecurities.

Or his jealousy that he couldn’t take a boyfriend to the prom?

When the video of Johnson stalking and verbally assaulting Dalton Stevens went viral, Johnson’s employer, VisuWell, fired him, and released a statement:

“We share the concerns that so many have expressed on this matter and look forward to announcing concrete steps we are taking in support of the LGBTQ community in particular over the coming weeks.”

Here’s the deal: what does it hurt? Who does it hurt? It’s clothing, and it made Dalton Stevens feel good, until Sam Johnson, whose masculinity was threatened, came along.

And now he’s out of a job, and Dalton went to the prom and had a fabulous time.

Good.

Joe My God

Bobservations

The other night, while watching the Golden Globes, I noticed Michelle Pfeiffer was up for an award. I told Carlos a story of back when Pfeiffer was playing Catwoman in one of the Batman films, and had a scene where she used her whip to snatch the heads off four mannequins; and she did it all in one take.

Carlos said:

“She was probably channeling Joan Crawford.”

I said, quizzically:

“What does that mean?”

“From when she played in Mommie Dearest.”

“That wasn’t Pfeiffer! That was Faye Dunaway!”

“Well, they’re almost the same.”

He’s been sleeping in the shed for several days until he bones up on his Pop Culture references, and understands that, as a gay man, you can NEVER forget Dunaway was Joan.

Or else face a wire hanger.

Everybody knows you cannot be a Christian and a Republican at the same time; even a cat.

Just in time for rightwingnut heads to explode, Hasbro has announced that Mr. Potato Head is getting a rebrand in order to allow same-sex or single parent families to play the game.

No more Mr. Potato Head. It’s just Potato Head, so kids will have a blank slate to create same-sex families or single-parent families.

I love it, and I love the idea of GQPers going insane at the thought.

The other day driving home from an errand we were listening to classical music in the car, and Carlos said:

“I don’t know why, but I have never liked the flute.”

And because I have a whacked out sense of humor, I asked:

“Is it because it reminds you of the Tin Man’s dick?”

I kill me.

Apparently John Boehner has been recording an audio version of his memoir, , “On the House: A Washington Memoir” and drinking a little wine while doing so, causing him to ad lib a bit … like the chapter where he goes off-script and says:

“Oh, and Ted Cruz, go f**k yourself.”

I think he speaks for us all, with or without the wine.

And speaking of Rafael Cruz, he is apparently being mocked in the Senate gym locker room over his ill-timed, uninformed, elitist trip to Cancun while his Constituents froze, went thirsty, and actually died.

Somebody—and I ain’t saying it was AOC but she’d have every right—taped memes on the Senate gym lockers welcoming Cruz home and showing him in the short-sleeve polo shirt, jeans and Texas-flag mask that he had at the airport with the caption:

“Bienvenido de Nuevo, Ted!”

Poor Rafael. Now he’ll have to change in the hallway.

I love tattoos; in fact, I have several myself. But I’ve always been extremely cautious about what I got inked and where I got inked on my body. Not so smart, was one Leah Holland from Kentucky who responded to a viral TikTok video asking, 

“What is the dumbest tattoo that you’ve ever gotten?”

And Leah showed off her tattoo that she got March 4, 2020, that read:

“courageously & radically refuse to wear a mask.”

Now, before y’all read her the riot act, let her explain:

“I’d wanted it for a couple of years, it basically means like, be true to yourself and real, and not pretending to be something you’re not.”

Sadly, it was just a few weeks later that things changed and wearing a mask because a necessity; and, for Leah, so did wearing long sleeves.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott Tweeted out this nonsense:

“I just announced Texas is OPEN 100%. EVERYTHING. I also ended the statewide mask mandate.”

And I Tweeted back:

“I guess letting the power go out and have the people freeze didn’t kill enough people for you?”

Seriously, Texas, do better.

Simone Susinna; the name rolls off the tongue. Simone Susinna. He is a former footballer, turned model, turned reality TV start turned … well, turned me on. Those eyes …I could stay there all day.

Except then there are the underwear shots and the day at the beach shots and the tease me shots.

Oh Simone.

I feel her pain.

One of my masks has a strap that goes around your neck so when you don’t need to wear it, you can pull it down and it hangs around your neck. The other day, Carlos and I were running errands and, because I thought we were finished, I removed my mask and left it in the cupholder in the car. Then Carlos had to make a stop at Office Max and it was pouring down rain, so we got out of the car and raced inside. And I wasn’t wearing a mask. I literally went to the front of the store and stood in a corner while Carlos made his purchase, and thought to myself:

People will look at me and think I’m a Republican.

Oh, the horror!

Say Her Name: Courtney “Eshay” Key

Courtney “Eshay” Key, a trans woman, was found murdered on Christmas Day  in Southside Chicago, Illinois.

Her death was initially reported as a car accident … except for the gunshot wounds to her head. I guess the police thought it was like COVID; if you have cancer and get COVID and die, the cause of death is COVID. So, if Courtney “Eshay” Key was driving a car and got shot in the head, the cause of death is car accident.

Fuck the police. For that, and for the fact that, after she was discovered murdered Chicago police classified her as a John Doe, the standard name for an unidentified male victim. Even after being told by family and the media that Key was transgender, officers intentionally referred to her as a male.

How the fuck do you find the murderer of a woman when you say you are looking for the murderer of a man.

Call.Her.By.Her.Name.

She deserved that little bit of respect in life and deserves it even more so in death.

Even more disgusting … detectives assigned to the case are now treating it as a homicide but haven’t committed to investigating it as an anti-transgender hate crime. 

Seriously? With so many of our trans brothers and sisters being murdered they’re just calling it another homicide; just like it was just another traffic death until you noticed the bullet holes in her body? And when contacted by the media, the detectives still refused to acknowledge that Key was a woman. How can you find a killer when you can’t even bring yourselves to say a woman, not  a man, was murdered?

I am so over this misgendering of people; a trans woman is woman, so call her by her name; talk about her as a woman; use female pronouns. What the fuck does it hurt?

Courtney “Eshay” Key’s death is the 43rd death of a transgender or gender non-conforming person in 2020; nearly one a week.

And still, they are being misgendered in their death. If you don’t care about them in life, how can you be bothered to care about them when they’ve been murdered.

Say her name: Courtney “Eshay” Key. She deserves that much.

Gay City News

GOP Congressman Uses Your Money To Settle Sexual Harassment Case

With so much focus on the RNC and the GOP and the Fat Bastard working to elect a pedophile to the Senate, we may have missed the story of Texas … because of course … Republican Congressman Blake Farenthold who used taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment claim brought by Lauren Greene, his former spokesman.

Greene sued Farenthold in December 2014 over allegations of gender discrimination, sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment. She claims another Farenthold aide told her the congressman said he had “sexual fantasies” and “wet dreams” about Greene; she also maintains that Farenthold “regularly drank to excess” and told her in February 2014 that he was “estranged from his wife and had not had sex with her in years.”

But when Lauren complained about those kinds of comments, Farenthold fired her, and filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia; she dropped her case when Farenthold offered a cash settlement.

So where did Farenthold get the money to pay off his accuser? Perhaps from a little-known congressional account from the Office of Compliance.

House Administration Committee Chairman Gregg Harper revealed to GOP lawmakers in a closed-door meeting that only one House office in the past five years had used that account to settle a sexual harassment complaint, and that the settlement totaled $84,000.

Farenthold would neither confirm or deny that his office was responsible for that $84,000 payout:

“While I 100% support more transparency with respect to claims against members of Congress, I can neither confirm nor deny that settlement involved my office as the Congressional Accountability Act prohibits me from answering that question.”

Wait, how’s that for doublespeak? He supports transparency but won’t answer a question?

In a joint statement both Greene and Farenthold prepared at the time of the settlement but never released, both parties confirmed they reached a deal in part to save taxpayer dollars.

Except they didn’t because that little-known account is taxpayer monies.

Look at us, we pay their huge salaries and we allow them to work a few days a year, give them free health insurance and now we’re paying settlements in sexual harassment cases?

If only there was something we could ….

VOTE.THEM.OUT!

In an update, Blake Farenthold says he promises to pay back taxpayers for those funds from a special congressional account that he used to pay that harassment settlement. He says he "didn't do anything wrong" but would "do my best" to repay the settlement fee sometime this week, this time taking out a personal loan instead. 

Farenthold, who used $84,000 from that congressional account is allegedly worth $2.4 million.

Just sayin’.

Politico

Montana Sucks

Out there in Missoula, Montana, an ordinance was passed which banned discrimination on citizens based on sexual orientation and gender. And little Missoula stood tall, until this week, when the Republican majority on the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill to overturn Missoula's 2010 ordinance.

Kristin Hansen

The bill, written by Kristin Hanson, a Republican, of course, because they are the party of bigots, for the most part, now moves to the House floor for debate this week.

Debating equality. How's that for a giant step back!

Hanson Bigot Bill would prohibit local governments--like Missoula and Bozeman--from enacting any ordinance or policy that would protect residents from discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender.

See, the GOP that runs the state house in Montana wants to make sure that LGBT people are discriminated against anywhere and everywhere, because, well, that's how the GOP rolls.

Edie McClafferty

This same judicial panel also voted to table a bill written by Democrat Edie McClafferty, that would have broadened the Montana Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination statewide based on gender identity or expression and sexual orientation. 

It's quite simple.

Montana does not like the gays.

Now, I know, you're thinking that it's the GOP in Montana that doesn't like The Gays. But the people of Montana voted for these wingnuts and are sitting idly by, staring at the big sky, while discrimination is tolerated.

If you're gay.

So, if you're gay, or, hell, gay-friendly, and you can do it, get out of Montana. And if you gay, or gay-friendly, stay away from Montana. They are plenty of places in this country, even here in freakin' South Carolina, that welcome gay people, and protect them from discrimination.

Montana does not.
Montana sucks.

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