Fayetteville Passes An LGBT Anti-Discrimination Ordinance ... Finally

Last year, Fayetteville Arkansas voters overwhelmingly struck down an anti-LGBT discrimination ordinance following a series of lying robo-calls from Michelle Duggar and her clan.

My, how times have changed. This week Fayetteville voters resoundingly ratified the city’s Uniform Civil Rights Protection ordinance in what I’d like to call the Anti-Duggar Vote. The ordinance is scheduled to take effect November 7, though it faces a challenge from Protect Fayetteville, a group that believes in discrimination.

The Uniform Civil Rights Protection ordinance prohibits discrimination in employment, housing and places of public accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and creates a seven-member Civil Rights Commission to review complaints.

The moment the votes were  counted and they knew they’d lost, Protect Fayetteville filed a lawsuit seeking to void the ordinance, saying it was improperly referred to voters at a June 16 City Council meeting. And, they claimed, the ordinance is illegal under Act 137, which prohibits cities and counties from enacting or enforcing legislation “that creates a protected classification or prohibits discrimination on a basis not contained in state law.”

The Arkansas Civil Rights Act of 1993 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin and disability but not based on someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, though sexual orientation and gender identity are referenced in a section of state law that deals with bullying in public schools.

City Attorney Kit Williams begs to differ:

“The protected classifications are certainly there in state law, and, therefore, this is not a new protected classification.”

Let me make this queer: it’s wrong to deny service to, evict someone from a home because, or deny them employment because they are LGBT. It’s that simple: discrimination is wrong so, good on you Fayetteville, for doing the right thing and treating all of your citizens equally.

And, well, Shallow Bob is kinda gloating because this is just another smackdown of those holier-than-thou-hypocrite Duggars.

But, and this is important, there are still many places in Arkansas, and in many states in this country, where you can be fried, denied housing, denied service for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. This victory, while important, is just a small step in the ongoing march ...

NWA Online

My Two Cents: The Duggars ... Again

I knew it would only get worse for the Duggars and I seem to have been correct.

A new police report has been released detailing the sexual molestation of five minor girls by Josh Duggar, and the most damning revelation is that Josh told his father, Jim Bob, not one time, as the Duggars have suggested, but on THREE SEPARATE OCCASIONS that he’d been molesting his sisters — one of whom was just five years old at the time — and a family friend; and that there were at least SEVEN acts of sexual molestation.

What I find just as disgusting as Josh molesting these defenseless girls, is that even after telling his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar waited another 16 months before speaking to anyone about the crimes.

Jim Bob claims in the report that the family talked about what happened with the minors — some of whom were his own children — and since only one had any memory of the molestation ... she said she woke up to find Josh 'taking her blanket away' — so nothing was done about it because, well, if the girls don’t remember their brother sexually assaulting them, then let’s just not talk about it, and do nothing about it.

Even worse is, at that time, the Duggars did not get Josh — or his victims — any form of counseling; in fact, to this day they refuse to say if the counseling that finally did occur came as a result of a court order after the Families In Need of Services and the Arkansas Department of Human Services became involved in the case.

For covering up Josh’s crimes, Jim Bob and Michelle could have been faced six years in prison, but this didn’t happen because, by the time an official police report was taken, in 2006, the statute of limitations had run out. So, let’s be clear: Jim Bob, Michelle, and Josh all broke the law and all got away with it. Great family values, and true Christians, but then they had a TV show to protect and an agenda — anti-LGBT — to carry on.

All this comes on the heels of a new interview with Joseph Hutchens — the police officer, now in prison for possession of child pornography — who says Jim Bob Duggar lied to him saying Josh had molested one girl, one time — as though that makes it better.

Josh Duggar, for his part, and only after the first police report emerged, issued this statement:

“Twelve years ago, as a young teenager, I acted inexcusably for which I am extremely sorry and deeply regret. I hurt others, including my family and close friends. I confessed this to my parents who took several steps to help me address the situation. We spoke with the authorities where I confessed my wrongdoing, and my parents arranged for me and those affected by my actions to receive counseling.”

Notice he never says he molested anyone, but that he just acted ‘inexcusably;’ funny that, since molestation is a criminal offense and not an inexcusable act. Oh, but he's suffered for his crimes, y'all; he was forced to step down from his job at the virulently anti-LGBT Family Research Council, and he had to move back to Arkansas from Washington DC with his wife Anna — expecting their fourth child — and their three children. 

And as for Anna; after the story broke, she reaffirmed her support for Josh, saying that he had confessed his “past teenage mistakes” two years before he proposed to her. So, he told her that he had molested children and she went ahead and married him and had children with him because, in her mind, pedophilia is just a teenage mistake.

And then Jim Bob and Michelle released their own statement:

“Back 12 years ago our family went through one of the most difficult times of our lives. When Josh was a young teenager, he made some very bad mistakes, and we were shocked. We had tried to teach him right from wrong. That dark and difficult time caused us to seek God like never before.”

Bad mistakes? A difficult time for the family? Young girls, children, were molested and they make it seem as though it was nothing at all. Sexual molestation of a minor is not a ‘very bad mistake,’ it’s a crime.

Of course, this is the same Jim bob Duggar who, in 2002, knowing that his son had molested several girls, including his own daughters, said incest and rape should be punishable by death. Unless, I’m guessing, you’re a Duggar and went away to Construction Camp.

And this is the same Michelle Duggar who, just last year, compared transgender individuals to 'child predators' even though she’d known for twelve years that her own sin was a sexual predator. But then, transgender is bad, and Duggars just make mistakes.

Last night Jim Bob and Michelle were interviewed by Megyn Kelly of Fox News … of course. Kelly said her aim is to get the entire story, but that details of the molestation are off-limits because, well, let’s continue to protect Josh Duggar, pedophile, for his ‘mistakes.’

Here’s some of what the Duggars spun last night …

Kelly, at one point, asked about Michelle Duggar about that robocall she made, and Kelly said she felt that it “suggested transgender people might want to go into the bathrooms of girls, locker rooms of girls, and that they may be child molesters.”

Michelle Duggar responded:

“I think that protecting young girls and not allowing young men and men in general to go into a girls’ locker room is just common sense.”

Well, let’s all get it that Michelle Duggar knows nothing about trans people except the lie the voices in her head tell. But Kelly pressed on, saying Michelle Duggar “injected child molestation into it.”

Well, then Jim Bob got his knickers twisted and said his wife used the word “pedophile” in that anti-LGBT robocall, and then explained what a pedophile is:

“Actually a pedophile is an adult that preys on children. Joshua was actually 14 and just turned 15 when he did what he did. I think the legal definition is 16 and up for an adult preying on a child. He was a child preying on a child.”

Oops, my bad. Josh Duggar is NOT a pedophile, y’all, and the Duggars want you to know that; he’s just a sexual predator and a child molester and a fondler and a fingerer and a pervert … but NOT a pedophile.

But what galls me is that when Megyn Kelly asked if the Duggars could understand the reactions of some people to the news, this is what Michelle said:

“I can understand that. But I know every one of us has done things wrong. This is more about, there’s an agenda. And there’s people that are purposing to try to bring things out and twisting them to hurt and slander.”

We’ve all done things wrong, but how many of us crept into our siblings rooms while they slept and sexually abused them? How many of us hid our child’s crimes and sent him away to Construction Camp instead of getting him help? How many of us broke the law? The Duggars did all of those things, and to continue to play the Poor Us card because now people are just being mean.

Go.Away. And that might happen, fingers crossed. The Duggars show, 19 Kids and Counting has been pulled off the network in the wake of this scandal, though TLC has not announced if they will cancel the program altogether; a spinoff, featuring some of the Duggar girls had been planned though it’s fate is also up in the air.

However, the show has been removed from Hulu, and major advertisers including General Mills, Jimmy Dean, Pure Leaf Iced Tea, Ace Hardware, David's Bridal, ConAgra Foods, Party City and Behr Paint will no longer advertise on the program, while other companies, including CVS, H&R Block, Ricola and Keurig have said they will no longer advertise on the network at all if the show returns to air. 

Look, it’s clear the Duggars aided and abetted a child molester, their own son, and waited just long enough so that no charges could be filed against him, for being a pedophile, and against them, for helping him hide his crimes. And let’s not forget their crimes as parents, when they allowed a known sexual predator back into their homes to sleep down the hall from the girls he sexually abused.

And let’s not let TLC off the hook, because, unless and until they take this show, and any spinoffs, off the air, they are also guilty of acting as though child sexual abuse is not a big deal, if the family involved brings in big ratings and big revenues.

It’s time all sides were held accountable — as much as Josh and his criminal parents can be since we actually have a statute of limitations of pedophilia in this country — and we stopped celebrating these kinds of families, and these kinds of television networks.

And it’s time we took our politicians, and religious leaders, who stand by child molesters and those who hide the crimes of child molesters, and fail to stand up for the victims. You cannot, and should not, ask to be the leader of this country while acting as though child sexual molestation is no big deal; you cannot, and should not, talk to me about God, when you stand in a pulpit and say that a few months of a building project is all the rehabilitation a pedophile need.

Daily Mail

LGBTQ Nation
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In Touch

My Two Cents: Pedophiles and Christians, Politicians and Hypocrites

Okay, by now we’ve all heard tale of Josh Duggar, one of the ‘19’ in that TLC reality show about good Christians raising their nineteen … and counting … children, admitting that, while a teenager, he molested several girls, including, four of his own sisters, but let’s get the facts first before we dive in, shall we?

March, 2002: an unnamed minor claims Josh Duggar, then 14, 'had been touching her breasts and genitals while she slept.'

July, 2002: Josh admits to sexually molesting the girl; the family has a meeting to discuss it; nothing is done.

March, 2003: 'several' other minors—apparently even his sisters—come forward claiming Josh touched them while they slept; Duggar family patriarch, Jim Bob, calls another family meeting and then speaks to his church elders about the molestation.

July 2003: Jim Bob Duggar finally reports the molestation to Joseph Hutchens, an Arkansas State Police officer, who gave Josh “a very stern talk” about his actions; nothing more was done. Sidenote: Joseph Hutchens is currently serving a 56-year prison term for child pornography offenses.

July, 2003: the Duggars and their church enter Josh into a treatment program where he spends four months in Little Rock doing construction work; the treatment program is run by the Institute in Basic Life Principles, founded by televangelist Bill Gothard — whose teachings have been promoted by the Duggar family; the Institute in Basic Life Principles houses “court-referred youthful offenders in the organization’s Bible-based rehabilitation program.” Sidenote: in 2014, Bill Gothard resigned from the Institute of Basic Life Principles following allegations of sexual harassment, molestation and failing to report child abuse.

December 7, 2006: an anonymous tip is called into the Arkansas Child Abuse Hot­line; the Springdale Police reach out to the Duggars to schedule interviews but are told the family is in Chicago to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

December 7, 2006: an anonymous source sends an e-mail to Harpo Studios warning Oprah show producers against airing the Duggar interview because of the allegations; producers passed along the e-mail to law enforcement and Winfrey cancelled the interview and sent the family home.

Dec. 12, 2006: Springdale police interview Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, along with Josh and his victims; it is determined that the statute of limitations has expired and no charges are filed.

2007:  rumors of Josh’s pedophilia begin to appear online, though they are, at this point, unsubstantiated; the same year, a reporter for the Northwest Arkansas Times discovers a court document for a case — Josh Duggar vs. the Arkansas Department of Human Services ­ —and contacts Jim Bob and Josh Duggar for a comment, but both men refuse.

May 2015: the tabloid In Touch Weekly publishes an article about the allegations that Josh Duggar molested multiple girls as a teenager; a follow-up piece is published, this time with a police report detailing the allegations — the police report was obtained through a Freedom of Information [FOI] request; an Arkansas newspaper, the Democrat-Gazette, obtained the same report through an FOI request, but when the Washington Post asks for the police report, via an FOI, it is answered with a court order, dated May 21, stating that the police report in question was destroyed.

May 22: TLC announces that the network is pulling all episodes of “19 Kids and Counting” from its schedule. That same day, Springdale Police Department spokesman Scott Lewis confirms that the department has destroyed the police report in question, saying:

“The judge ordered us yesterday to expunge that record … as far as the Springdale Police Department is concerned this report doesn’t exist.”

Okay, that’s a lot, but let’s dive in with my two cents:

I guess, for the Duggars, doing a little construction work is a cure for pedophilia; and to even discuss the kinds of men they chose to rehabilitate their son is exception; one, a man of the cloth with his own history of sexual abuse and harassment, and the other a friend, and police officer, who scolds Josh about molesting girls in between loading child pornography onto his own computer. It seems quite clear that the Duggars were more concerned about their image — Jim Bob Duggar has run for political office on multiple occasions — than getting their son, not to mention his victims, the help they need.

And what about the girls? The Duggars’ own daughters? At the very expense of their children, and others, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, who have held themselves up on television to be paragons of virtue and devout Christians, hid Josh’s sexual molestation from the authorities and, except for a few months, let him stay at home. Think about those Duggar daughters for a moment, knowing their parents protected their son, a pedophile, a sexual molester, and sent him off to build an addition on someone’s house, before bringing him back home to live in the same house as his victims.

It’s disgusting. And what about therapy for Josh’s victims? All that time spent making sure Josh got ‘help,’ but what about the girls? Was it a couple of months chatting with someone, because that worries me since victims of child molestation often suffer from the abuse far into adulthood. Where was the good Christian love for the victims? And how did those girls, Josh’s sisters, feel, about continuing to live in the same house with someone who crept into their rooms at night and fondled them as they slept?

Well, they’re girls, so I’m guessing they weren’t as important as a son, who faced no serious consequences for his actions. The Duggars simply move on, going on television, running for political office, hiding the fact that a pedophile lives down the hall from his victims.

It isn’t until 2015 that the repercussions of what Josh, and Jim Bob and Michelle, have done are felt. When the story finally breaks, finally the family has to tell the truth: their son is a pedophile.

TLC, which airs their reality show, opts to pull 19 Kids and Counting from its schedule, though the network does not comment at all on the story. However, by week’s end many advertisers are running from the show; General Mill has apparently “blacklisted” the show and may, in fact, blacklist the network altogether. But that’s all? 

Yes, because here in America we have a statute of limitations of child sexual abuse — even though many victims block out the abuse, and the pedophiles, for years, and by that time, well, too late. That’s the hypocrisy of our judicial system; victims being denied closure because the time has run out and the pedophile gets to go along his merry way.

But what about the hypocrisy of these so-called Christians? The Duggars have spent years touting their anti-LGBT beliefs, even going so far as to demonize gay men and women; in fact, Michelle Duggar worked voraciously against a transgender nondiscrimination ordinance in Fayetteville, Arkansas by warning that it would endanger children:

“I doubt that Fayetteville parents would stand for a law that would endanger their daughters or allow them to be traumatized by a man joining them in their private space.”

Michelle Duggar attacked trans people, and gays and lesbians, arguing that the threat to little girls in Fayetteville were transwomen who might molest their children in bathrooms, when she knew her own son had done this to multiple girls for at least a couple of years; and then they hid it, and sent him away with a hammer and some nails. But hey, it’s TV and God, so why should the truth matter, right?

And what about Josh, the child molester? Well, he decided to work for the anti-LGBT Family Research Council [FRC] as head of its lobbying arm, and has spoken out continually against LGBT Americans, calling us unfit to be parents, saying we should never be allowed equality, and calling us pedophiles.

Pot.Kettle …which leads us to Politicians and Religious Leaders; and let’s start with the worst of the worst, Mike Huckabee.

As soon as the story broke, Huckabee, running for president, mind you, took to his Facebook page to instantly throw his support behind the Duggars:

“Janet and I want to affirm our support for the Duggar family. Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, 'inexcusable,' but that doesn’t mean 'unforgivable.' He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities. No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things.”

Oh Mike, there is a purpose; it exposes the hypocrisy of the religious right, and the conservative wacknut politicians, because, just let this sink in, what if Josh Duggar was a gay man, a gay Christian, who’d molested his own sisters? Do you think for a moment Mike Huckabee would “forgive” him? Not a chance because Mike Huckabee has spent years calling The Gays horrific names and spreading lies and falsehoods about us.

But, maybe because he cannot help himself, Huckabee digs himself in deeper:

“Josh Duggar was a teenager, the girls were almost teenagers. In Biblical times they could have married. The only reason the liberals are attacking Josh is because he has been a faithful warrior against the perversion of homosexuality.”

Wait. What? So, because they were all teenagers this is somehow okay? A teenage boy can sneak into his sister’s room at night and sexually abuse her and it’s okay because it’s … what … boys being boys? And, I don’t believe that Huckabee is saying that, had Josh Duggar been molesting his sisters in Biblical times, he was also allowed to marry them?

This is simply the case of a religious, and political, wagon master trying to circle the wagons and protect their own, because, if you remember, when Michael Sam came out as gay, Huckabee declared it as a sign that the culture was in “utter collapse,” and yet when we learn that one of his political supporters, from an entire family of political supporters, is a child molester,. Huckabee comes down in favor of protecting the pedophile from “sensationalism.”

Now, there is an interesting note: that judge who ordered police to destroy the records of Josh Duggar’s sexual molestation history is Juvenile Judge Stacy Zimmerman, an Arkansas judge appointed to her position by Mike Huckabee when he was Governor of the state. Huckabee even referenced the judge’s order in his Facebook post:

“Those who have enjoyed revealing this long ago sins in order to discredit the Duggar family have actually revealed their own insensitive bloodthirst, for there was no consideration of the fact that the victims wanted this to be left in the past and ultimately a judge had the information on file destroyed—not to protect Josh, but the innocent victims.”

So, a Huckabee flunky destroyed the files — which, again, was her right as the statute of limitations was up — just as Huckabee runs to aid his friend and ally. But, again, the hypocrisy is so apparent, for Mike Huckabee had a very different opinion of what to do about Roman Polanski, also accused to sexual molestation of a minor:

“If something is right, it’s right. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong … It doesn’t matter who does them. When Hollywood hero Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl and then fled the country instead of facing the consequences of his own guilty plea, there should be no defense of him from anyone.”

And yet Mike Huckabee has rushed to defend Josh Duggar who molested not one, but several young girls; but, I’m guessing, being a Christian and supporting Mike Huckabee for President, makes pedophilia okay? And this is the same Mike Huckabee who once said, of child molesters, that they face the consequences for their crimes “no matter who does them.”

Apparently not. And if this doesn’t put an end to Huckabee’s quest for the White House something is seriously wrong here. How can a man rush to aid and defend a pedophile be elected to the highest office in the land?

And, speaking of hypocrites running for office, the wildly anti-gay Ted Cruz — who last week announced that he would “always always always’ fight marriage equality, has decided to fight for the rights of Josh Duggar, saying:

“While there may have been an age difference, Josh Duggar’s transgressions are far less an affront to God than what gays do with each other.”

That man wants to be president; that man who calls me an abomination, who seeks to deny my the right to equal protection under the law, who would like businesses to deny me service because I’m gay, deny me jobs or housing because I’m gay, finds me more reprehensible than Josh Duggar, a pedophile. 

This is the same man who has said that gay men are pedophiles, so I guess he’s also saying that a gay pedophile is disgusting, but a Christian pedophile is just making a mistake.

We also heard from Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association; rather than suggest Josh Duggar seek reparative therapy for his sexual deviancy — as he asks of gay men and women — Fischer actually compared Josh to the biblical kings Solomon and David, and said he believes that “every indication is that his repentance for those deeds was sincere, and there has been no hint of sexual impropriety on his part in the intervening 13 years.”

At least none that we know about; I mean, since we know that many victims of child sexual abuse block out those memories, who can say that there aren’t more little girls out there?

These three men disgust me; for years, Huckabee, Cruz, and Fischer have degraded and maligned LGBT, oftentimes with lies; and they have worked side-by-side with some of the most homophobic and bigoted evangelical TV celebrities, like the Duck Dynasty gang and the Duggars. Each of these men has, at some point, compared LGBT people to child molesters and degenerates and perverts, and unworthy of any kind of equality, but when they face an actual child molester from their own hypocritical Christian, Republican ranks, suddenly we must all be forgiving.

Well, I can’t forgive, and I cannot forget. No matter how many Facebook post Huckabee makes, or how many times Cruz vows to keep me down, or how many times Fischer says The Gays f**k dogs. These men don’t care about right and wrong, unless the wrongdoer is a non-Christian, then it’s all bets off.

So, what do we take away from this?

Josh Duggar admits to repeatedly molesting, assaulting and sexually abusing his younger sisters, and another young girl. The parents, Josh’s wife, and others — Huckabee, Cruz, Fischer … Tony Perkins — all say it was just a “mistake” even while they are out in public calling homosexuality an abomination.

How does this possibly make sense? It doesn’t; not to rational thinking people. I am all about forgiveness, but it doesn’t seem to me that even Josh Duggar deserves forgiveness; he’s never suffered for his crimes; his parents and their friends in high places hid his crimes. He’s never apologized for his crimes, that we know of, until last week when the story came out, and even then he never actually said the words “sexual molestation.”

There was no real concern from the family, from their church, from their friends — save that anonymous person who found the evidence … a note in a book in the Duggar house — who contacted the authorities back in 2007.

And how do ever trust — not that I ever did — politicians like Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, who act as though sexually molesting a young girl, while she slept, is something that teenagers do, or, at the very least, isn’t as bad as being gay.

Let’s be queer: being gay is no longer a crime, but being a pedophile, and fondling minor girls most certainly is against the law.

Jim Bob and Michelle now say that God “worked this situation for good” though I wonder how Josh’s victims feel about that; I wonder how many years they will suffer as they remember what their brother did to them, and how their parents saved him from any kind of real punishment for his crimes.

I am sickened and disgusted by what Josh Duggar did to those girls, but what makes me even more disgusted is how his parents handled the situation, how they took the law into their own hands, how they never really punished Josh for his criminal behavior. I am disgusted that a law enforcement officer thinks that a “good talking to” will stop a pedophile: I am disgusted that they believe building a house is punishment.

I am horrified that any politician, much less a politician running for office in 20167 would stand up for a pedophile and call child sexual molestation a mistake and ask that we just move on.

I’m disgusted by the lies, the hypocrisy, all in the name of religion and politics.

Deep South Daily

Washington Post

Daily Mail UK
Patheos
Towleroad
Addicting Info
RightwingWatch

Random Musings

So, there was this small kerfuffle a week or so ago, just after that JetBlue pilot went batty and had to be subdued by passengers. 
It seems radio "personality" and The Voice "host" Carson Daly made some  ludicrously tired joke about the incident, and said, with his luck he'd be on a  plane headed for Pride in San Francisco, and the passengers, you know, because they're gay, couldn't tackle the wayward pilot and calm him down. 
Because they're gay.

♪ ♫ We're here, 

We're queer, 

We don't wanna break a nail ♫ ♪

It wasn't an offensive joke, except in the idea that it wasn't at all funny. It was a lame-ass joke you'd expect from someone like a Carson Daly. But people got all upset and GLAAD got involved and Carson apologized and apologized.

And it was over.....until; Alice Hoagland, mother of 9/11 hero, and out gay man,  Mark Bingham waded into it: 

"Yes, my gay son was known in our family for bringing me flowers on my birthday and Mother’s Day. He also was known for careening down the rugby pitch, and, on the morning of September 11, 2001, for charging unarmed down the aisle of a doomed Boeing 757 to face knife-wielding Islamist thugs in a hijacked cockpit....No one among his pick-up team of fellow passengers was asking 'Are you straight? Are you gay?' No one doubted that a guy who weighed 220 and stood 6’4” tall - who could run over a charging opponent on the field, and ran with the bulls in Pamplona earlier that summer - would be an asset to a desperate group trying to overcome a threat onboard an airliner....The world has its share of strong, heroic gay men. Gay men in sports uniforms and military uniforms have been winning America’s games and fighting America’s battles for a long time: quietly, humbly, and in the face of vicious bigotry." "I hope you and I may have an opportunity to talk sometime. I prefer to believe you didn’t mean to offend. Good luck to you."

Okay. Let me get this queer. We aren't allowed to laugh at a lame gay-stereotype joke? Even one uttered by some relatively unknown TV/Radio host? I mean, come on, it was a silly joke, and then we jump his shiz and demand an apology.

Sometimes I think we need to calm down. Daly didn't utter any anti-gay epithet. He made some innocuous lame-ass joke using gay stereotypes. And some gay folks are stereotypes, and some gay folks are Mark Bingham.

That's the glory of being gay, we can be whatever we want: mincing flaming divas, or rugby playing superheroes, or, just a gay guy in a small town in South Carolina.

Build a bridge LGBT.

And I will also wade into the whole Madonna thing.
You know, where the powers that be in St. Petersburg have some silly anti-gay laws and will arrest people who promote The Gay.
Or some nonsense.
Well, Madonna will be appearing in St. Petersburg and has said she'll speak out about how anti-gay they are and stuff, arrest threat be damned.
Nice, no? No. Because this is Madonna, and Madonna, while some folks like her, revere her, worship her, is really a very capable self-promoter.
All this kerfuffle serves only to serve as free publicity for her tour.
And I ain't buying it.

Serial baby-maker Michelle Duggar was asked if she was concerned about overpopulation and her family’s impact on the environment, and so she attempted to explain that there was no such thing as overpopulation since everyone in the whole wide world could fit inside Jacksonville, Florida:

“The idea of overpopulation is not accurate because, really, the entire population of the world, if they were stood shoulder to shoulder, could fit in the city limits of Jacksonville.”

Now, technically, she's accurate, if you take out all the trampling and deaths that would occur if you attempted to shove the entire world into Jacksonville.

But still.....really Michelle?

And then she goes on to add: “We’ve had other countries coming to our doorstep asking us to let people know that they need to have more children, because they are seeing that their death rates are outnumbering their birth rates, and they’re in crisis. They don’t have people of marrying age for their youth now…. So I think we are so deceived when we believe [in overpopulation]. It’s not true, it’s a lie.”

It is true that there are countries with negative population growth, but there are many more countries with overpopulation issues, which of course affects the entire planet negatively, but, if Michelle Duggar wants to have a child every nine-and-a-half months let her.

But let her do so in silence.

Oh, and Michelle Duggar also believes that the earth is only 6,000 years old.

And she's raising children.

Oh, the Today Show is so current and edgy. As current and edgy as a show that's been on TV for nearly a half century can be.
See, the producers invited the Mama Grizzly Bore™, AKA The Serial Winker™, to appear as guest host. 
How edgy, to have the woman who blames her innumerable failings on the "lamestream" media actually appear on the "lamestream": media.
How current. How edgy. How.....what's that?
Oh, MGB™ appeared on Today the same week that former Today host Katie Couric was filling in as guest-host on Good Morning America? 
Couric, who infamously stumped the Half-Term Quitter™ during an interview by asking the tough question, What newspapers do you read?
See, Today wasn't trying to be current or edgy. They were trying to score a ratings point over a former co-host.
Yawn.

The biggest forum for sex trafficking of under-age girls in the United States appears to be a site called Backpage.com. And this pick-a-girl-any-girl website that features girls and women--many under age and forced into prostitution--is, in turn, owned by an opaque private company called Village Voice Media. 
And it was recently revealed that Village Voice Media is owned by several private equity financiers, including, wait for it....it's rich, and by rich I mean......Goldman Sachs, who owns a 16% stake stake.

And, as the story broke, Goldman Sachs began working frantically to unload its shares, and on Friday afternoon it called to say that it had just signed an agreement to sell its stake to management.

You know, after the fact. See, to Goldman Sachs, it's okay to be part-owner of an illegal prostitution ring as long as you cut ties when the story breaks.

The Drag Race.
I am still soooo Team Sharon Needles.
I.Love.Her. Funny. Fierce. A bit scary. 
I'Love.Her.
But man oh man, I gotta give it up for Latrice Royale, who was in the bottom two and forced to Lip Sync For Her Life. 
Again.
And again she brought it. 
Little Kenya pranced on the floor, tore off her shoes and her wig, flailed around like a seizure victim, did the splits, the cartwheels, the pas de deux. And Sashayed Away.
Latrice stood in one spot and bur-rought it.
It doesn't take a big show, it takes talent.
Now, get PhiPhi outta there and let Chad, Sharon and Latrice battle it out.

Jenna Talackova, a 23-year-old transgender beauty pageant contestant, who was disqualified last week from the Miss Universe Canada competition after the organizers discovered that she had undergone surgery to become a woman, may be allowed to re-enter the competition if she can prove she meets the “legal gender recognition requirements.”

Initially, pageant officials said each contestant must be a “naturally born female,” but in a statement released Monday, they now say: “The Miss Universe organization will allow Jenna Talackova to compete in the 2012 Miss Universe Canada pageant provided she meets the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, and the standards established by other international competitions.” Interestingly enough the statement does not specify what such requirements entail, and it came on the heels of the news that Talackova had hired Gloria Allred and may have been planning to sue.

Good luck Jenna, in your suits, both swim and legal.

Funny Tweet:

Welcome to the new United States; the new United Police States.

See, the Supreme Court has ruled that police can mace people, arrest unconstitutionally, and beat protesters to no end with little or no punishment. And now, they can strip search anyone at any time for any reason. Yup. The Supreme Court ruled that police can strip search anyone for any offense no matter how minor before going to jail. 

It's gonna cost a bundle to reprint all those things that say United States and change them to United Police States.


Eye Candy Of The Week:

Rupert Penry-Jones of BBC America's Whitechapel

Jason Isaacs of NBC's Awake