News Round-Up: April 26, 2019

Some news items you might have missed:

• Anti-gay President Jair Bolsonaro told reporters this week regarding his country's travel economy: “If you want to come here and have sex with a woman, go for your life. But we can’t let this place become known as a gay tourism paradise. Brazil can’t be a country of the gay world, of gay tourism. We have families.”

• In the first poll published after former Vice President Joe Biden officially announced his run for the White House, Biden leads Donald Trump by six points.

• In related Biden news, his campaign announced Friday that he raised $6.3 million on his first day as an announced candidate, placing him atop the crowded Democratic primary in terms of first-day fundraising totals and shutting down doubts about his ability to raise enough money to compete.

• Mat Staver, founder of the virulently anti-LGBTQ Liberty Counsel, says passage of The Equality Act would lead to pedophilia.

• The Washington Post reports: "A majority of Americans say they oppose calls for Congress to launch impeachment proceedings against President Trump in the wake of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election." I agree. Impeachment proceedings would only make Trump a martyr heading into the 2020 election.

• Geraldo Rivera, on this morning's Fox & Friends, referred to openly gay Mayor Pete Buttigieg as "flamboyant."

"If you wanted to go with the young buckaroo with flamboyant ideas and an aggressive point of view, maybe you go with Mayor Pete who has demonstrated success in South Bend.”

Geraldo Rivera: "If you wanted to go with the young buckaroo with the flamboyant ideas and an aggressive point of view, maybe you go with Mayor Pete" pic.twitter.com/xwsguWrhAw

— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) April 26, 2019

Mat Staver: Conservative Haters Are "Literally" A Few Months Away From Overturning Gay Marriage

Mat Staver of the anti-LGBTQ law group Liberty Counsel

Mat Staver, founder of the virulently anti-LGBTQ legal outfit Liberty Counsel, told radio host Jim Schneider of VCY America this week that "we are a few months away” from overturning Supreme Court rulings like the Obergefell decision which made marriage equality the law of the land.

From Right Wing Watch:

“The nice thing about what President Trump has done, different from other Republican presidents, is that he is appointing, he’s nominating, so far, judges who are what I would call constitutionalists, originalists, dedicated to the original understanding and interpretation of the Constitution and the statutes,” he said. “On the other hand, Republican presidents in the past, they’ve been hit or miss. President Trump so far has been hitting this on the nail.”

Staver added that social conservatives are “one midterm election away from eventually overturning the Roe v. Wade decision” because “there will be at least one, maybe two more” Supreme Court vacancies during Trump’s first term in office.

But in order for that to happen, he said, Republicans must maintain control of the Senate or Trump will be forced to nominate “somebody who’s palatable to the judicial activist crowd in the Senate.”

If Trump is able to replace any liberal or moderate justice “with someone like Gorsuch,” he said, “that means the abortion decision, the same-sex marriage decision, all of those things that went the wrong way will ultimately be in the balance to be reversed. So literally we are a few months away.”

Listen to Staver boast about overturning our marriage rights below.

CBS News: Liberty Counsel Is Behind Anti-LGBT Hate Laws In At Least 20 States

LGBT activists have known the names Mat Staver and Liberty Counsel for years. Staver and his cronies have spent years working to subvert the rights of LGBTs in the areas of marriage and public accommodation.

But now, CBS News has not only put Staver and company in the spotlight, but revealed in no uncertain terms the true nature of their mission: to control the "fire" of LGBT rights.

Demonstrators against the so-called bathroom bills were out in force in South Carolina -- their chants echoing those in other states where they say legislatures have have enacted laws enabling bigotry.

But while they protested, the conservative group, that's helped author many of those measures protecting religion over sexual orientation, was working at its Orlando area office on new ways to uphold what it says is really at stake.

"It is only about being free to pursue your faith," said Mathew Staver. "We have no interest in discriminating against anyone."

Staver is the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which has affiliated attorneys in all 50 states -- drafting bills, advising lawmakers and defending clients in what they believe to be the great cultural clash of our time.

CBS News first met Staver when he defended a Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis who said it was against her religion to hand out marriage licenses to homosexuals. Lately, Liberty Counsel has been helping to draft legislation for conservative lawmakers in at least 20 states.

Their bills began cropping up in state legislatures soon after the Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage last year.

An objective observer could conclude that they want to push back against that ruling.

"Well I certainly want to push back against that ruling," Staver said. "It was a wrong ruling. It has no basis in the constitution."

Where are they going with this?

"The Supreme Court in the 5-4 opinion on marriage in 2015 lit the house on fire," Staver said. "All we're trying to do is control the fire at this point in time."

And he is unfazed by corporate threats to pull out of states in protest against his work.

"They're not gonna follow through," Staver said.

So it's a bluff?

"It's a bluff. They're not leaving," he said.

Kim Davis' Law Firm, Anti-Gay Liberty Counsel, Called Out By Associated Press

Mat Staver, of the virulently anti-gay Liberty Counsel

Finally, a mainstream media source - the Associated Press, no less - has exposed the Liberty Counsel for the anti-gay, hate mongering organization that it is.

Kim Davis’ lawyer stood onstage in a Washington D.C. hotel and pointed to a photo on the screen. It showed 100,000 people packed into a Peruvian soccer stadium, Mat Staver told the crowd, all there to pray for the Kentucky clerk battling against gay marriage.

The crowd erupted.

It wasn’t true. Staver’s firm, the Liberty Counsel, which revealed Davis’ secret meeting with Pope Francis, has been accused by advocacy groups of peddling misrepresentations in the past. Yet it has become the main source of details about the controversial pope meeting.

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Liberty Counsel as an anti-gay hate groups for spreading false information. “A group that regularly portrays gay people as perverse, diseased pedophiles putting Western civilization at risk are way, way over the line,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the center.

The Liberty Counsel has connected homosexuality to higher rates of promiscuity and incest, Potok said, despite scientific evidence to the contrary.

The firm opposes laws banning hate crimes and supports discredited conversion therapies that purport to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals.

Staver once declared that the Boy Scouts would become a “playground for pedophiles” once it allowed gay troop leaders.

Staver said the meeting with the pope validates his arguments about Davis’ rights to conscientious objection. He rejects even the suggestion he might wake up one day and discover himself on the wrong side of history.

Last week, he showed the crowd at the Values Voter Summit the photo of the imaginary Peruvian prayer rally and declared its significance in the battle against Christian oppression. “That, my friends, is happening around the world,” he said. “When one person stands it has an impact and Kim Davis will continue to stand for her lord and savior Jesus Christ.”

Read the full expose here.


Quite enjoyable reading, I must say.

(h/t JMG)

Mat Staver: A Host Of THE VIEW Called For Kim Davis To Be Murdered

Anti-gay Liberty Counsel's Mat Staver, who has been representing Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis, asserted in a recent appearance on the "Faith and Freedom" radio show that a host of the ABC show THE VIEW called for someone "to go kill her."

"I would encourage you to pray for Kim Davis, pray for her family, pray for those that work with her, pray for Liberty Counsel," Staver said. "Kim has received just horrible death threats, even from 'The View,' amazingly. They called her a monster on national television, one of them said that someone ought to go kill her. This is on a major network. That was on 'The View' on ABC. I mean, that was astounding, that kind of language was happening on a major TV network."

While the "monster" label was used on THE VIEW, no one can seem to find any instance of anyone on THE VIEW calling for Davis' murder.

Lawsuit anyone?

Liberty Counsel's Mat Staver: Forcing Kim Davis To Do Her Job Is Like Asking Her To License Child Rape

Right Wing Watch has the details:

Mat Staver, the Liberty Counsel attorney who is representing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis during her ongoing refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses, appeared on the "WallBuilders Live" radio program today, where he said that requiring Davis to issue such marriage licenses is like requiring her to provide licenses to "sodomize children."

"A clerk provides licenses to do something," Staver explained. "A license to operate a motor vehicle on the road, a license to build a particular facility or a license to do this or a license to do that or a license to operate a business. So that person is licensing someone to do something and in this case, they're licensing what? They're licensing something that is directly contrary to the core of their religious convictions, to engage in sinful activity among same-sex relations and sanction something that is contrary to the Scriptures and that is marriage of two people of the same sex."

"To force someone like that to give a license for something that will legalize, that will put a stamp of approval on something that is absolute rebellion against God, sinful, then that is a direct collision of unprecedented magnitude," he continued, saying that requiring Davis to do her job is like requiring her "to grant a license to engage in pornography, to grant a license to sodomize children or something of that nature."

Chris Hayes Slaps Down Liberty Counsel's Mat Staver

I always find it interesting when someone not only refuses to answer a direct question in a TV interview, but also can only keep repeating the same, single talking point.

Liberty Counsel director Mat Staver, who is representing Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis, is like a dog with a bone here repeating and repeating his own issue while completely ignoring the questions being asked by MSNBC host Chris Hayes.

Best line is when Hayes ask Staver point blank how his fundraising is going in light of the press his firm is getting by being in the thick of things with Davis.

MSNBC's Steve Kornacki Takes On County Clerk's Lawyer Anti-Gay Mat Staver

I watch Hardball every day. Right before this segment aired, Kornacki teased Staver's appearance. I tweeted to Hardball that there better be someone to present the LGBT perspective on this continuing story.

Turns out we didn't need anyone other than guest host Steve Kornacki, who appropriately handled anti-gay Liberty Counsel lawyer Mat Staver.

Staver repeatedly stated Davis’ “religious freedom” must be “accommodated.”

Kornacki didn't hold back, citing Davis' clear hypocrisy.

“If she says she has a moral and religious objection to same-sex marriage I think it raises the question, does she have a moral and religious objection to a divorced person getting re-married? Does she have a moral and religious objection to someone who’s engaged in premarital relations getting married? Where does this end?”

Watch below.

Hater Of The Day: Mat Staver Calls White House Rainbow Lights "Cloak Of Shame"

After the White House celebrated the historic same-sex marriage ruling from SCOTUS by lighting the White House in rainbow colors, hate group leader Mat Staver had this to say today on Christian radio:

"It's unprecedented in American history that the president of the United States would be so in-your-face immoral and impose that immorality and sin on the rest of the country. I wept when I saw that and thought about what a horrible example that is to the rest of the world. I just felt shameful to be an American at that point in time, that this is my country and look what my country has come to. The president of the United States has put the cloak of sin over the White House, the cloak of shame over the White House."

Seriously, folks. A rainbow - a symbol of diversity and unity - made this man weep.

Staver was so upset that more Americans now have equal rights he felt "shameful to be an American."

Now, is that screwed up or what?

Listen below via Right Wing Watch.

Haters Buy Full-Page Ad In Washington Post To SCOTUS: We Won't Honor Your Same-Sex Ruling

Click to enlarge the pic

A group of hate groups and "Christian" leaders, under the banner name "Defend Marriage" has purchased and published a full-page message to SCOTUS in the Washington Post.

At the bottom of the ad, you see a list of the usual suspects: Mat Staver, Elaine Donnelly, the Benham brothers, Alveda King, Jim Garlow, John Hagee and E.W. Jackson.

From the ad:

We affirm that any judicial opinion which purports to redefine marriage will constitute an unjust law, as Martin Luther King Jr. described such laws in his letter from the Birmingham Jail.

We are Christians who love America and who respect the legitimate rule of law.

However, we will not honor any decision by the Supreme Court which will force us to violate a clear biblical understanding of marriage as solely the union of one man and one woman.

We affirm that Marriage, as existing solely between one man and one woman, precedes civil government.

Though affirmed, fulfilled, and elevated by faith, the truth that marriage can exist only between one man and one woman is not based solely on religion but on the Natural Law, written on the human heart.

It's worth noting that SCOTUS has already voted in private on the case. All we're waiting for is for the opinions to be written and released.

(h/t JMG)

Mat Staver: Christians Will Have 'No Choice' But To Disobey Supreme Court Ruling On Gay Marriage

The National Organization for Marriage's hate march was held today in Washington, D.C., and as expected it was a sad, embarrassing failure for the virulently anti-gay group.

I'm not inclined to go into much detail about the event as it's pretty much what you would imagine: just a few dozen haters cheering each other on pretending the rights of LGBTs to marry somehow infringes on their lives. Which, of course, they does not.

But I will share just this one clip from the hate speech that went on.

Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver stood before the crowd to say he would have “no choice” but to disobey such a “lawless” decision.

“As much as I’m an attorney and I respect the rule of law, I also respect the higher law. And when an earthly law collides with the higher law, we have no choice to obey the higher law.”

“Marriage is the union of a man and a woman,” he added. “As a policy matter, any other union says that God’s design is flawed. As a policy matter, any other union says that boys don’t need fathers and girls don’t need mothers.”

The "boys need fathers" and "girls need mothers" line is supposed to argue that marriage HAS to be between a man and a woman because "children."

What Staver and the rest of his ilk never address is that if marriage is about children,  why do they only attack same-sex marriage? They never argue that infertile couples shouldn't marry. Or that seniors who marry past child-bearing years shouldn't adopt.

It's only the gays.

The good news is this: Today was most probably the last Hate March NOM will ever hold as the Supreme Court will most probably rule on the issue of same-sex marriage by the end of June.

Watch Staver's angry act below:

(via Right Wing Watch)

New Jersey: Liberty Counsel Loses For Second Time Over "Ex-Gay" Torture Ban

Mat Staver and his Liberty Counsel have failed for a second time in attempting to repeal the ban on so-called "conversion" therapy for minors in New Jersey.

By a 3-0 vote, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the ban did not infringe the First Amendment rights of minors and their parents to receive information and exercise religion, or the rights of parents to decide how to raise their children.

The challenge came from a 15-year-old boy known as John Doe, who claimed to suffer from anxiety, panic attacks, self-hatred and suicidal thoughts as he struggled with his sexual identity, and his parents, who said they had sincere religious beliefs that homosexuality was sinful and harmful.

The family plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, said their lawyer, Mathew Staver.

“It is a tragedy when people who are not in the counseling room try to dictate what the client wants to receive and what the counselor is allowed to offer,” Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, said in a phone interview.

Signed by Republican Governor Chris Christie in August 2013, New Jersey’s law bans licensed counselors from trying to convert homosexual minors into heterosexuals.

The law was upheld last Sept. 11 by the same 3rd Circuit panel after counselors claimed it violated their free speech rights.

On April 8, President Barack Obama called for an end to gay conversion therapy for children, citing “overwhelming scientific evidence” that it was “neither medically nor ethically appropriate and can cause substantial harm.”

The American Psychiatric Association in 1973 declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder. Some conservative and religious groups have said sexual orientation can be changed.

This follows three failed attempts by Liberty Counsel to overturn a similar ban in California.

(via Reuters)

Mat Staver Won't Follow Marriage Equality Ruling Just As He Wouldn't Turn Jews Over To Nazis

Mat Staver of the anti-gay Liberty Counsel spoke at an Orlando Tea People function this week where he said if SCOTUS rules in favor of marriage equality he would not "accept that as the rule of law."

Via Right Wing Watch:

"I know from the natural created order that God made male and female, a mom and dad, husbands and wives as the first foundation of family," he said. "And I don't care if it is a 9-0 decision, they can't change that and they won't change that. And if they come out with a decision that is contrary to God's natural created order, I personally will advocate disobedience to it ... and collectively, we cannot accept that as the rule of law."

"You also have to be ready to pay the consequences," Staver continued, "because the civil government wrath is going to be poured out on you. But as a believer, you cannot obey something that is contrary to God's law. And we would easily say, well, what would happen if the government forced you turn over a Jew in Nazi Germany? All of us would say we wouldn't do that, we wouldn't listen to that. Well, we're about ready to walk into the moment"

Wait - what? What does two people being allowed to marry have to do with turning jews over to the Nazis? That analogy just took a turn into the underbush on the way to Poughkeepsie.

I personally don't care what Staver would or would not "accept as rule of law." If SCOTUS gives the nod to same-sex marriage, it WILL be the rule of law in the US.

Period.

Liberty Counsel Files Petition Demanding Alabama Probate Judges Cease Issuing Same-Sex Marriage Licenses

Mat Staver of the anti-gay hate group Liberty Counsel

Mat Staver and the virulently anti-gay Liberty Counsel have filed a petition with the Alabama state Supreme Court demanding that the entire bench of judges instruct all state Probate Judges to cease issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Via press release from Liberty Counsel:

“Many Alabama probate judges are acting lawlessly,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel.

“Alabama probate judges do not have discretion to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Neither the Searcy nor the Strawser Injunction requires Alabama probate judges to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples,” Staver pointed out.

“The only remedy to this lawlessness is mandamus relief, an order from the Alabama Supreme Court to command probate judges to perform their ministerial duty not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples,” Staver concluded.

Actually, the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution specifically states that Federal law trumps State law. Federal Judge Callie Granade has ruled Alabama's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court have been asked and passed on staying the ruling.

Haters would want to stop embarrassing themselves sooner than later.

Liberty Counsel To Anti-Gay Magistrates: Stay On The Job So We Can Sue

Mat Staver of homophobic Liberty Counsel 

I recently reported on six magistrates in the state of North Carolina who resigned their positions rather than marry same-sex couples now that marriage equality has come to the state.

Now, however, Mat Staver of the virulently anti-gay Liberty Counsel is urging homophobic magistrates to stay on the job so they can sue the state:

"Stand your ground. Do not voluntarily resign your post when confronted with this intolerant agenda.” Staver made these comments after several magistrates in North Carolina resigned because they refused to preside over a same-sex marriage.

“I appreciate the conviction of these magistrates, but rather than resign they should remain at their post. Liberty Counsel will represent them, but once they resign there is not much we can do to help,” said Staver.

“Where would the Civil Rights movement be if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., voluntarily went home when he faced opposition? Where would we be today if Rosa Parks had voluntarily moved to the back of the bus? The quest for religious freedom was the reason American was born. We cannot voluntarily give up this unalienable right,” concluded Staver.

The fact of the matter is this really seems like Staver looking for work for Liberty Counsel folks. Liberty Counsel hasn't won against gay rights in a long time.

And in a case of civil servants (magistrates) refusing to fulfill their duties based on discrimination, they would lose here, too.

(h/t Good As You)

Anti-gay Mat Staver is Mad He's Been Labeled "Anti-Gay"

Mat Staver, speaking at the Values Voter Summit this weekend, expressed his deep hurt he feels that he has somehow been labeled an "anti-gay extremist."

Just because he campaigns against equal rights for LGBT people. Just for that, he's called a "hater."

It's exactly the hate that he does propagate that resulted in civil rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and People For The American Way writing a joint letter to the Republican National Committee asking the GOP members to not take part in the weekend's hate summit.

Isn't that awful? (Sarcasm intended).

From Right Wing Watch:

Staver's organization, Liberty Counsel, is among those very sponsors and he is not very happy about being labeled an anti-gay extremist, despite this long and documented record of being one. Staver fumed that he is being attacked merely for believing "in God's natural created order of male and and female and marriage as the union of one man and one woman."

"For me believing in something that is that obvious," he complained, "I am considered by some groups to be a hater. But I hate no one. I hate no one, but I believe in God's truth and I will not be silent in the face of intimidation."

In an effort to prove that he is not an extremist, Staver then went on to liken himself to Jesus when he turned over the tables of the money changers in the temple before declaring that marriage equality teaches that children do not need mothers or fathers.

Conservative haters: Same-sex marriage will make straight couples less monogamous

Matt Barber and Mat Staver, on their "Faith and Freedom" radio show, took this bizarre serpentine chat that somehow asserts that legalizing gay marriage will somehow result in straight couples becoming less monogamous.

I didn't realize I had such power!

From Right Wing Watch:

Staver argued that gay male couples are more likely to have open relationships, which they then used to bizarrely assert that letting gays get married would ultimately undermine the practice of monogamy within straight marriages.

"You start doing that in a marriage relationship with a man and a woman," Staver said, "and the woman's just not going to do it."

"We know that women serve to domesticate men," Barber added. "That's not an opinion, that's the social science that shows that women ultimately bring men into their role as father, as provider, and protector for the household and they domesticate men and that lends itself toward monogamy."

It goes without saying that what each committed couple does - gay or straight - in the privacy of their own relationship is their own business. And many heterosexual couples engage in "open relationships" and more, like swinging, anal sex (!), and lots of practices that some very conservative folks might find of the beaten (and very vanilla) path when it comes to sex.

This isn't a gay thing. It's a privacy thing. And a "none of your business" thing.

Mostly, the idea that allowing same-sex couples equal rights to marriage will somehow force a hetero married man to go looking for sex outside his marriage is absurd.

But then, this is Matt Barber and Mat Staver...

Listen to the soundbite below:



(via Right Wing Watch)

Marriage equality foes getting nervous in Florida

Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver, who yesterday testified in the Monroe County marriage lawsuit, is quoted in this press release complaining that the state of Florida isn't doing enough to "defend" marriage and that Liberty Counsel is doing all the heavy lifting:

“Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is giving only window dressing to the Florida Marriage Amendment.

"Bondi sent one of her staff attorneys to argue the case against the constitutional amendment, and her office filed a short, 14-page brief only a week before the court date.

"If Attorney General Pam Bondi does not want to present a vigorous defense, she owes it to the voters of Florida to step down and allow someone else to represent the interests of the State.

"I call on Governor Rick Scott to get off the sidelines and appoint an independent counsel who can adequately represent the people of Florida."

Can somebody please call the waahmbulance?

Here's a news report of the hearing that took place in Florida yesterday...

Mat Staver says a new American Revolution is coming because GAY

Mat Staver, of the anti-gay Liberty Counsel, recently appeared on the "Light of the Southwest" Christian television program on God's Learning Channel where he warned, yet again, that America is headed toward a second American Revolution led by conservative Christians over the issues of gay marriage, abortion, and religious liberty.

"We're seeing the beginning groundswell of a potential new American Revolution," Staver said, asserting that if the government continues to trample on religious liberty, the nation will soon "run into that decision point of persecution and/or revolution."

Comparing Christian resistance to gay rights to the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, Staver said that, just as Martin Luther King preached non-violence, he hopes that the next revolution will follow that same path.  But adds a very ominous, "but you never know what happens":

(from Right Wing Watch)