News Round-Up: October 16, 2017

(via Instagram)

Some news items you might have missed:

• Fitness model Rodiney Santiago (above) facing down Monday like a boss.

• Thanks to California's newly signed Gender Recognition Act, folks will soon be able to identify as nonbinary, in addition to male or female, on state-issued identity documents, including driver's licenses and birth certificates.

• Considering he has never been a friend to the LGBT community, eyebrows were raised when U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent an experienced hate crime lawyer to Iowa to aid in prosecuting a man accused of killing a transgender high school student.

• In pop culture news, original Charlie's Angels star Jaclyn Smith says the ladies of the hit 1970s series are thinking about getting together for a reunion. In addition to Jaclyn (Kelly), the surviving "angels" are Cheryl Ladd (Kris), 66; Kate Jackson (Sabrina), 68; Tanya Roberts (Julie), 61; and Shelley Hack (Tiffany), 70.

• Out radio show/columnist Dan Savage has raised over $200K via his ITMFA website. Upon hitting the second $100K, he sent checks to Planned Parenthood ($33,333.33), the ACLU ($33,333.33) and the International Refugee Assistance Project ($33,333.34). The money was raised selling ITMFA (“Impeach The Mother Fucker Already”) buttons, t-shirts, tanks, hats, stickers, coffee cups, and lapel pins at www.ITMFA.org.

• Transgender hip hop artist Epiphany Mattel released her debut single, "Fix Yo Face," which she says has an important message. “It’s about everyone going above and beyond with their appearance to stand out and be noticed at clubs today, but then they bring their scowl, a ‘resting bitch face,’ that makes them unapproachable,” explains Mattel.

“They’re so insecure with themselves, they push that negative energy on the rest of the party and make everyone else uncomfortable. It's a party bitches… lighten the hell up,” she adds.

Watch the music video below:

Dan Savage On Trump Tweets: "Sexist Bullying Asshole Reveals Himself To Be Sexist Bullying Asshole"

Dan Savage

LGBT activist Dan Savage sat down for a chat on Real Time with Bill Maher last night to talk on several subjects including Trump's latest Twitter debacle (“Sexist bullying asshole reveals himself to be sexist bullying asshole”) and the Democrats woeful messaging issues.

For instance, Savage tells Maher that Dems should embrace the label of "the urban party" and not run away from it.

And, he says the Democrats could learn something about language from the LGBT community.

"We talked about gay marriage and people were like, 'yuck' because 'gay' says 'sex.'

So, we all switched and started saying 'marriage equality.' And even people who are uncomfortable with gays doing the gay 'butt thing' could get behind equality.

Democrats should look to one of the biggest social movements in the last 30 years and what we achieved with effective messaging and everyone on the same page."

Watch the segment below.

Dan Savage: "Donald Trump Is The Enemy Of The LGBT Community"

During an appearance on MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes last night, LGBT activist/columnist Dan Savage was asked about GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's claim that he is an ally of the LGBT community:

“We’re not going to fall for it. And you can’t draw a clean line between the LGBT community and the Muslim community because there are LGBT Muslims in the United States and all over the world. Muslims are a part of the LGBT community, not distinct from it.

"LGBT people come from all races, all faiths, all ethnic backgrounds, all classes. And Donald Trump attempting to pit the queer community against the Muslim community is not going to fly. We don’t believe him.

"Donald Trump has pledged to undo marriage equality. Donald Trump is the enemy of the LGBT community just as he is the enemy of the Muslim community. And beating up on what is, in the United States, a vulnerable minority group isn’t the way that you impress other members of other vulnerable minority groups to win their support.”

Savage also weighed in on the possibility that the Orlando shooter might have been gay:

“Self-loathing violent closet case and radicalized religious extremist are not mutually exclusive categories. There are a lot of self-loathing queer people out there. Most of them are self-loathing because of religion, because of the zap religion put on their heads. So he could be both of those things.”

Dan Savage Talks LGBT Rights & Presidential Politics With Stephen Colbert

Radio show host/columnist Dan Savage explains to Stephen Colbert that while gay marriage is fully legal in the United States, we still have a long way to go (employment discrimination, transgender discrimination,

Savage also explains why "LGBT" keeps getting longer and longer - "LGBTQIA etc...."

Plus - comparing Trump to Hillary on gay issues, he tells us why we shouldn't hate on politicians who finally come around to the right way of thinking.

“She wasn’t always good on gay marriage, but neither was Barack Obama…When you go to somebody, go to a politician, and you say, ‘Please change your mind,’ when they change their mind, you don’t then spend the rest of their lives going, ‘F*ck you for not changing your mind sooner!’ You say, ‘Welcome to the right side of this issue, we’re glad to have you.'”

Dan Savage Explains Anti-Transgender Laws To Ann Coulter

Last night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, author/radio host Dan Savage spoke truth to the current spate of anti-transgender laws popping up in state legislatures now - much to Ann Coulter's chagrin.

This is how Savage put a point on it:

“They couldn’t demagogue anymore about gays and lesbians because too many of us are out and too many people know us so they took the same old script – oh they’re recruiting children, preying on children, threatening children, creeping in bathrooms. That was what they said about gay men 40 years ago.

"And they’re just taking that now and applying that to trans women and it’s bullsh*t and trans women and men use bathrooms all over the country and have for-ever. And they have no cases to point to where a trans person has exploited a civil rights protection to prey on a child.”

So glad to finally see someone lay that fact out there. Go Dan!

Doritos Goes Rainbow To Support LGBT Youth - Sells Out In One Day

Pepsico owned snack company Frito-Lay announced earlier this week to team up with the It Gets Better Project to raise money for LGBT youth.

Donate $10 to the It Gets Better Project and in return you get your own bag of rainbow colored Doritos (inspired by the LGBT Pride flag) sent to your door.

Ram Krishnan, the chief marketing officer of Frito-Lay, stated that the partnership reflected the brand's commitment toward LGBT equality.

"Time and again, our consumers have shown us, there really is nothing bolder than being true to yourself and living life to the fullest," said Ram Krishman, chief marketing officer for Frito-Lay, in a statement. "With Doritos Rainbows chips, we're bringing an entirely new product experience to our consumers to show our commitment toward equal rights for the LGBT community and celebrate humanity without exception."

All of the funds raised go to It Gets Better Project, and good thing - the campaign sold out of bags of the tasty chips in one day! That's $100,000 going to help LGBT kids.

Of course, there were the usual haters who can't stand anything positive happening to the gays.

Breitbart columnist John Nolte wrote:

Sales will go to It Gets Better, a non-profit group started by the infamous anti-Christian bully and bigot Dan Savage. Savage has demanded Republican presidential contender Ben Carson to “suck his dick.” He’s demanded the same from Republicans Herman Cain and Mike Huckabee. Savage went on a smear campaign against Rick Santorum to destroy Santorum’s reputation in Google searches. The hate Savage has hurled at conservative Christians is practically endless. The rainbow color of the Dorito chips represent the LGBT rainbow flag, a symbol now widely seen as one of anti-Christian hate and bigotry.

There were also hateful things written over at Twitchy and Free Republic.

Isn't that amazing? A company works to raise money to help kids, and they gotta slather their dark, ugly hate on it.

What you gonna do? Haters gonna hate.

Me? I'm reaching for a bag of Doritos :)

Dan Savage Q&As With Kim Davis Twitter Imposter

Earlier this week, folks took note of a Twitter account that purported to be Kim Davis, the beleaguered county clerk in Kentucky who refuses to follow the law and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It seemed to be posts from her husband on her behalf.

The account seemed on the up and up: saying all the crap that Davis' followers say, retweeting folks like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, etc...

And then last night the account posted a handwritten "letter" that was allegedly from Davis, comparing herself to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

Suddenly, through some fierce internet sleuthing, the jig was up, and it was clear the account was an imposter.

Having fooled the world, the haters, even the New York Times, the imposter responded to gay activist Dan Savage to answer some questions about the endeavor and the point of it all.

Here's just some of the Q&A:

So you’re the person who tricked New York Times reporters, Mother Jones, MSNBC hosts, and a certain sex-advice columnist this weekend, huh? First question: Are you Kim Davis?

I am not Kim Davis! Though having lived as Kim for a week, I was starting to question where Kim ended and I began.

If you’re not Kim Davis, who are you?

I'm someone who sees right-wing Christians as one of our society's biggest threats to progress. What ever happened to "love thy neighbor"? I wish we lived in a world that put its faith in science and technology, but instead we are fighting wars over Jesus and Muhammad. Many of the right-wing Christian believers are no different than ISIS. They wish to hold us back, and just because they aren't cutting people's heads off doesn't mean they are any better.

Would you call what you did trolling? I mean, trolls are mean-spirited and say terrible things. Were you trolling? Or just fooling? Just having fun?

This was absolutely about shining a spotlight on the beliefs of Kim and her supporters. Trolling is 100% mean-spirited. You can't be mean-spirited if you are against something that is already mean-spirited. And what I do has an element of art to it.

How long ago did you launch @KimDavis917 and when did realize the jig was up?

I launched Kim on Tuesday night. I spent the week reading the horrible things her supporters would say, stoking the fires with replies to people on both sides of the issue. The best comments were chains of people debating whether the account was real or not. They always landed with, "Well, it's not funny, it's very sincere, and it sounds authentic, so..."

I knew the jig was up once the letter picked up steam. There are a few easter eggs in the letter that I intentionally put there so that people would know it wasn't true. I told friends late Saturday night that I felt like she peaked with the letter. I wasn't going to top it. Sarah Jessica Parker once said, "I don't think you want to be the last one to leave the party." And that's very true. If Kim went on, she'd be just another parody account.

You got busted because you cited a bible quote—a little something from Luke—but the citation (Luke 16:18) wasn’t a passage about “various trials,” as claimed in the letter, but a passage that condemns adultery and remarriage, which happen to be the actual Kim Davis’s superpowers: "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." That unmasked you as a “troll.” Do you regret including it? Everyone was fooled and would’ve stayed fooled if it weren’t for that one detail—and for those meddling kids @SMLXist and @NobleSasquatch.

I intentionally misquoted that passage. That was the point! I put in the adultery bible passage because it pointed out how these right-wing Christians cherry pick from the bible. I knew people would be immediately outraged over "Rose Parks" having it easy, so I knew it would take a second pass for someone to go in and look up her references to actually have that "wait a minute" moment. Did you catch that "Kim" misquoted Jesus with The Phantom Of The Opera?

Most of your 1,100 followers were self-described “followers of Christ”—actual supporters of Kim Davis, people who actually think Christians are being persecuted, and who believed like Kim should have a right to discriminate against other Americans. A million little Huckabees. So who did you enjoy fooling more: reporters from the NYT and MSNBC and sex-advice columnists? Or all the rightwing haters following you who actually thought you were Kim Davis?

The right-wingers!!!! It's delicious, it really is. I knew halfway through the week I was going to flip the account to supporting gay rights and equality, so I wanted to amass as many sincere followers as possible. But getting support for Kim Davis was very hard. Even a lot of people with Jesus in their bio were telling Kim & Joe that they were wrong. I'm not surprised the NYT bit into it, these are the same people who literally published an entirely false story about Hillary Clinton just a month ago—how have they, and others, not learned their lessons to fact check a story? No reporter ever Tweeted the account asking for verification before they posted about it.

No sex-advice columnist either. Okay, so have you been involved in any other campaigns like this? Is this your first hoax? Are you impersonating anyone else online right now?

It's my first time. Beginner's luck?

If people go to @KimDavis917 now… what will they find?

It's pro Hillary. (You go, girl!) The account's supporters are Huckabee/Cruz loons, so I hope they get a dose of reality in their timelines. Surprisingly a number of the account's followers think it was hacked!

Wait a minute... are you Hillary Clinton?

That's one secret I'll never tell — Sent from my BlackBerry

Some people on Twitter have accused me of being the person behind @KimDavis917. Is that true? Are you me?

The mirror has two faces, Dan.

Make sure you go read Dan's full Q&A with the imposter here.

Click pic to enlarge

Click pic to enlarge

Dan Savage On County Clerk Kim Davis: "This Is About Someone Hypocritically Cashing In"

Columnist and LGBT activist Dan Savage appeared on MSNBC last night to share his thoughts regarding the ongoing - and hypocritical - refusal by Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

This appearance came shortly after US News and World Report published shocking revelations that Davis, who has been divorced three times, actually gave birth to children fathered by her third husband while she was married to her first. It gets very complicated I know.

Via Raw Story:

“I think Kim Davis is waiting to cash in,” Savage told MSNBC. “I predicted from the beginning that she would defy all the court orders, defy the Supreme Court, she would ultimately be held in contempt of court, lose her job, perhaps go to prison for a short amount of time. And then she will have written for her, ghost written books. She will go on the right-wing lecture circuit and she’ll never have to do an honest day’s work ever again in her life.”

“This is about someone hypocritically cashing in, and she is a hypocrite,” he added.

Savage referred to the defiant clerk’s statement complaining that courts were asking her to “violate a central teaching of Scripture and of Jesus Himself regarding marriage” — which the columnist dismissed as ridiculous.

“This is a woman who’s been divorced three times and married four times,” he said, reading from the US News & World Report article that pointed out Davis “gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband, (and) they were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second husband.”

“She’s now onto her fourth husband,” Savage said. “Jesus Christ himself in scripture condemned divorce, called it adultery and forbids it. Jesus Christ himself in scripture says not one word about same-sex marriage.”

I've written here on The Randy Report for sometime that while folks are paying attention to the surface of this story - the issuance of marriage licenses - this is actually about Davis looking for a windfall of money via crowdsourcing campaign by anti-gay haters as we've seen in the past with pizza makers, florists and bakers. Along the way, Liberty Counsel and other haters get a new face of martyrdom in Davis.

Davis and her full office of deputy clerks have been summoned to federal court Thursday morning regarding possible contempt of court charges.

The American Civil Liberties Union, advocating on behalf of a male same-sex couple repeatedly denied a marriage license by Kim Davis' office, is asking that U.S. District Judge Bunning not jail Davis but levy fines significant enough to compel her compliance.

Dan Savage: Josh Duggar's Hypocritical Past Makes Him Legitimate Target For Outing

Josh Duggar

LGBT activist and sex columnist Dan Savage says that newly outed porn addict Josh Duggar is definitely a legitimate target for outing considering the harm he's caused through his anti-gay campaigns.

Outing someone for their private sexual conduct—even if everyone agrees that it's wrong—is a brutal tactic that should be reserved for brutes. Who's a legitimate target for outing? I'll let Barney Frank explain: "There's a right to privacy," Frank said on Real Time. "But the right to privacy should not be a right to hypocrisy. People who want to demonize other people shouldn't then be able to go home and close the door, and do it themselves."

To which I would add: People who accuse others of trying to destroy their marriages, fundamentalists who who quite literally demonize other people, and who then go back to their apartments in Washington, DC, and cheat on their spouses are political hypocrites and legitimate targets for outing. People like this guy...

Savage also joined Chris Hayes last night to discuss the recent Duggar developments.

Official Trailer For Upcoming Dan Savage Sitcom - "The Real O'Neals"

The first official trailer for the new ABC sitcom The Real O'Neals, exec produced by Dan Savage dropped today.

Deadline describes as "A contemporary take on a seemingly perfect Catholic family, whose lives take an unexpected turn when surprising truths are revealed. Instead of ruining their family, the honesty triggers a new, messier chapter where everyone stops pretending to be perfect and actually starts being real."

“The Real O’Neals” stars Martha Plimpton as Eileen, Jay R. Ferguson as Pat, Noah Galvin as Kenny, Mathew Shively as Jimmy, Bebe Wood as Shannon and Mary Hollis Inboden as Jodi.

Religious and conservative organizations and their leaders, including Tony Perkins and Brent Bozell, of The Media Research Center and Family Research Council respectively, vigorously campaigned against the series.

They lost.

ABC Picks Up New Dan Savage Comedy The Real O'Neals

ABC has announced the decision to pick up new comedy, The Real O’Neals, executive produced by Dan Savage.

From Deadline:

The O’Neals, about a family in the aftermath of a son comes out, had been an internal ABC favorite. Its fate was put into question when religious and conservative organizations started a campaign against the project over the involvement of outspoken gay activist Savage.

The comedy was originally going to be based on his life growing up but that changed during the development of the pilot, with the story evolving in a different direction. The O’Neals marks the return of Raising Hope‘s Martha Plimpton with another comedy starring role.

Dan Savage Ponders Rick Santorum's "Imaginary, Hypothetical Gay Friends"

Last night on ALL IN with Chris Hayes, Dan Savage discussed the 2016 GOP contenders contention that they have "gay friends," and whether or not they would attend their weddings.

Via Raw Story:

“When the anti-gay bigots like Rick Santorum are challenged on their anti-gay bigotry, or [Ted] Cruz or [Mike] Huckabee, they always point to their imaginary hypothetical gay friends who might apparently invite them to a gay wedding,” Savage told MSNBC host Chris Hayes. “In Walker’s case it was his own sister, and that’s what’s so interesting about it.”

Dan Savage Shuts Down Ryan Anderson Over Indiana's "License To Discriminate"

Dan Savage and Michael Steele school Ryan Anderson over the ongoing firestorm surrounding Indiana's "License To Discriminate" SB101.

ABC Greenlights Sitcom Based On The Early Life Of Dan Savage

ABC has green-lit a new sitcom based on the early life of Dan Savage (It Gets Better Project, Savage Love):

The untitled Savage comedy is a single-camera semi-autobiographical entry based on the LGBT activist/boundary-pushing columnist's life. It centers on a picture-perfect family that is turned upside down when the youngest son comes out of the closet. What seems like the end of their idyllic life turns out to be the beginning of a bright new chapter when everyone stops pretending to be perfect and actually starts being real.

Savage is listed as one of the producers on the project.

(via Hollywood Reporter)

Dan Savage On The Death Of Transgender Teen Leelah Alcorn

In the aftermath of Ohio transgender teen Leelah Alcorn's suicide, the LGBT community has rallied in her memory.

And none more fervently than Dan Savage, who calls for criminal charges to be brought against the teen's parents:

If Tyler Clemente's roommate could be prosecuted—and he was—then the parents of #LeelahAlcorn can & should be: http://t.co/VC1W4wCQ7k
— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) December 31, 2014

#LeelahAlcorn's parents threw her in front of that truck. They should be ashamed—but 1st they need to be shamed. Charges should be brought.
— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) December 31, 2014

.@samueloakford What charges? Child abuse. Neglect. Reckless endangerment. Manslaughter. #LeelahAlcorn
— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) December 31, 2014

We know that parental hostility & rejection doubles a queer kid's already quadrupled risk of suicide—rejecting your queer kid is abuse.
— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) December 31, 2014

Speaking to CNN, Leelah's mother Carla Alcorn said, "We told him that we loved him unconditionally. We loved him no matter what. I loved my son. People need to know that I loved him. He was a good kid, a good boy."

Truth Of The Day: Dan Savage

"Look at Marcus Bachmann, Michele Bachmann’s husband. Anybody who has gaydar—anybody who has eyes—looks at him and sees a tormented closet case who has externalized his internal conflict and is abusing other people, doing his reparative-therapy bullshit. It’s so sad and pathetic.

"A lot of the self-destructive behaviors gay people are prone to drifting into are directed inward, and then you have these shitbags like Marcus Bachmann for whom it’s all directed outward.

"Marcus Bachmann is the photo negative of the guy on the last bar stool in the gay bar, drinking and smoking himself to death, except instead of destroying himself, he’s destroying other vulnerable queer people in an effort to destroy the queer inside himself."

- Savage Love columnist Dan Savage speaking to Playboy

Dan Savage talks the portrayal of gays in the media with Larry King

Dan Savage chats on Ora.tv’s PoliticKING with Larry King regarding the progress made in terms of how the LGBT community is portrayed in the media.

KING: It’s hard, you can’t speak for the whole gay community. Do you think they’re portrayed well in the media?

SAVAGE: You know, I used to debate this with my friends in the ‘90s when Will and Grace—a sitcom about a gay man and a straight woman who are friends—was on TV. And my gay friends would complain that it wasn’t a very realistic portrayal of gay people and I would point out that Friends—which was another hit sitcom on television at the same time—was not a really realistic portrayal of straight people.

We shouldn’t look to any one thing, one image on television as definitive or debated as if it’s the only image we’ve ever seen on television. We used to have to have those sorts of debates.

Back in the day, Billy Crystal on Soap was the only gay character on TV, so it was very fraught how he was portrayed. And he was portrayed very badly in the end. He ended up not being gay, as if gay was a choice that he could walk away from.

But now with Michael Sam, with openly gay NBA basketball players, Jim Collins, with Mitch and Cam, with all of the wonderful queens on RuPaul’s Drag Race, and media figures like Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper, there’s this multiplicity of portraits of LGBT people in the media and on television in fictional and in reality.

And I think any individual one case is less important. It’s just part of a mosaic now and I think that’s a wonderful example of progress.

Watch the entire interview tonight, June 5, 2014 at 10 p.m. on Ora.tv.

Dan Savage has advice for anti-gay bakers and florists

"Here's a suggestion for all the hatey, butt-sore, anti-gay bakers in Arizona: start an organization—The Arizona Association of Homophobic Bakers—and publicly identify yourselves as homophobic bakers. Put up a website with a list of bakeries that don't want to do business with LGBT people. Put signs in your windows that clearly state that gay and lesbian customers are not welcome and will be turned away.

"As Anderson Cooper pointed out earlier this week, gays and lesbians are not covered by existing anti-discrimination law in Arizona. So it's perfectly legal right now for bakers—and florists and caterers and photographers—to discriminate against LGBT customers. Discriminating against LGBT people was legal in Arizona before Jan Brewer vetoed the turn-away-the-gays bill, and it remains legal after her veto. So homophobic bakers who identify themselves as haters and bigots run no legal risk. They can't be sued by the individual gay people they discriminate against and the authorities can't fine 'em or shut 'em down.

"Don't want gay customers? Great. Let us know who you are. Put up a list online, hang signs in your windows, and we will take our business elsewhere."

- Dan Savage writing for The Stranger

Dan Savage goes ballistic talking Liz Cheney and Catholic priests on Bill Maher

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Dan Savage on Bill Maher's REAL TIME

Dan Savage talks with Bill Maher about his reactions to this year's monumental Supreme Court rulings on gay marriage, the most laugh-out-loud awful anti-gay arguments, and one of his favorite ways to troll Christian conservatives. He also explained to Maher how gay male couples are most likely to be promiscuous, while lesbian couples are most likely to be monogamous, leading him to conclude that the problem with monogamy is simply "dick."

Don't miss the 2:46 mark where Dan talks about trying to procreate and Grover Norquist sits glaring from the other side of the table. Priceless.

From Mediaite: Savage credited all of the people brave enough to come out to their families as one of the biggest contributing factors to the social progress that's been made in the United States. One significant achievement was that, while years ago, "if one of those douchebags who's always threatening to kill me made good on it," as Savage put it, his family would not get the same kind of benefits straight couples would when one of the partners dies.