LGBTQ Pride in Pikeville

This is exceptionally good news.  This is a huge step forward for liberal values and progress in a deeply conservative part of Kentucky.  All is not lost, fellow progressives, as long as we can make this happen.

From the Herald:

Kyle May always thought he would have to leave Eastern Kentucky to find a place he belonged.

“For years I tried to get out,” said May, who is gay. “I tried to move. I tried to get jobs elsewhere. I tried interviewing relentlessly.”

But the chance to leave never came for the Pikeville native who graduated from Morehead State University in Rowan County, went to graduate school at Alice Lloyd College in Knott County and eventually moved to Paintsville.

May, 29, now works as a clinical director at Mountain Comprehensive Care in Prestonsburg.

May’s urge to leave reflects the feelings of many LGBTQ people who grow up in this rural and mostly-conservative part of the state, said Gina Bryant, who helped organize a gay pride event in Pikeville this weekend — the first of its kind for the city.

The festival, planned for Saturday afternoon in Pikeville City Park, will include music, a drag show, a “free hugs” booth, vendors and speakers. The restaurant Bank 253 will host an after-party.

Bryant and May, who also helped organize the event, hope the celebration signals a more inclusive and progressive future for Pikeville and Eastern Kentucky.

LGBTQ people who grow up here often feel isolated because of the lack of an organized and active community, Bryant said, and that feeling of isolation drives them out of the region, often to Lexington or Louisville.

“Most of us felt like we would have to move out of this area to really feel accepted and to really find a community,” said Bryant, who is bisexual. “So I think this is something, for most of us, that we’ve been wanting our entire lives.”

Petty, Malicious Scumbags

Because it's more important to this maladministration to score anti-LGBTQ points with their freakazoid hordes than to protect human rights.

Think Progress:

The Trump administration began denying visas to same-sex partners of foreign diplomats and United Nations employees Monday, the latest chip at LGBTQ rights in the United States.

The only way same-sex partners will be legally recognized and allowed to stay in the country moving forward is if the couple is married, regardless of what the laws in their home countries allow.

The move is a reversal of a 2009 State Department directive that granted visas to the same-sex domestic partners of foreign workers.

Couples will have only three months to make the decision to marry. After December 31, they will have to show proof of marriage or leave the country within 30 days.  “As of 1 October 2018, same-sex domestic partners… seeking to join newly arrived U.N. officials must provide proof of marriage to eligible for a G-4 visa or to seek a change in such status,” the new guidance states.

At least 10 U.N. employees are impacted by the change, meaning they must marry in the coming months if they want their partners to be able to stay with them.

The policy change purports “to help ensure and promote equal treatment” for all couples. However, because the world does not treat all couples equally, the new directive means the United States will essentially be punishing people based on nationality. Only 12 percent of U.N. member countries — a total of 25 countries — recognize marriage equality for same-sex couples. In at least 70 others, homosexuality is criminalized.

“If that’s how you advance equality between same-sex and opposite sex partners, then we have an enormous problem on our hands,” said David Pressman, who served as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Security Council for special political affairs during the Obama administration. He went on to call it a “creative and cynical way to use the expansion of equality at home to vindictively target same-sex couples abroad.”

"Religious Liberty" Doesn't Save Bigoted Kentucky Judge

It's not like he refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding, but the Judicial Conduct Commission still slapped him down.

From the Herald:

A former judge who refused to handle adoption cases involving gay parents was publicly reprimanded Tuesday by the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission.

The commission found that W. Mitchell Nance, the former family court judge for Barren and Metcalfe counties, violated judicial rules. Bryan Beauman, a Lexington attorney who represents Nance, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Nance’s retirement became effective Saturday night. Nevertheless, the commission said in its order that “a public reprimand is warranted and is the only sanction available.”

SNIP

Nance issued an order in April requiring lawyers to notify him if they had an adoption case involving a gay parent or same-sex couple so he could recuse himself from the case.

Nance said his religious convictions prevented him from handling such adoptions, because adoption of a child by a “practicing homosexual” would never be in the child's best interest.

The commission charged that Nance violated a number of rules.

Those included rules that require judges to uphold standards of conduct, comply with the law and act in ways that promote public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. Judges are barred from showing bias or prejudice based on race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation or socioeconomic status.

Nance also put his recusal rule in place without required permission from the state’s chief justice.
Nance’s attorneys said it is his sincere religious belief that “the divinely created order of nature is that each human being has a male parent and a female parent,” and that the only adoption that serves a child’s best interest would be one that would create the chance for the child to have a parent of each gender.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article190523074.html#storylink=cpy

Read more Nance issued an order in April requiring lawyers to notify him if they had an adoption case involving a gay parent or same-sex couple so he could recuse himself from the case.
Nance said his religious convictions prevented him from handling such adoptions, because adoption of a child by a “practicing homosexual” would never be in the child's best interest.
The commission charged that Nance violated a number of rules.
Those included rules that require judges to uphold standards of conduct, comply with the law and act in ways that promote public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. Judges are barred from showing bias or prejudice based on race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation or socioeconomic status.
Nance also put his recusal rule in place without required permission from the state’s chief justice.
Nance’s attorneys said it is his sincere religious belief that “the divinely created order of nature is that each human being has a male parent and a female parent,” and that the only adoption that serves a child’s best interest would be one that would create the chance for the child to have a parent of each gender.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article190523074.html#storylink=cpy

here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article190523074.html#storylink=cpy

It Will Be Anarchy

And anarchy is exactly what the freakazoids want.

 

LGM:

Although the Court could reinvigorate the principle it stated in the Boy Scouts case, the consequence would be anarchy. It would allow anyone to violate any law if obeying it would conventionally be taken to convey a message with which the objector disagrees.

There is a similar absurdity in Phillips’s claim that the state is discriminating on the basis of viewpoint because the antidiscrimination law, as applied, “favors cake artists who support same-sex marriage over those like Phillips who do not.” The law makes no reference at all to viewpoint. It just prohibits discrimination. It is true that the law favors those who oppose the conduct it prohibits over those who would like to engage in it. But that is true of every law. Again, there is no way to articulate the principle behind this claim that is not an invitation to chaos.

But Wonkette really nails it.

Trump Administration Targets Lexington Diversity

Complete, total, unmitigated bullshit. And nothing at all to do with Lexington's mayor being gay and the first openly gay candidate for statewide office and contemplating challenging Candy Barr for the Sixth District congressional seat.

Ya know what, assholes?  Jim Gray has dealt his entire life with bigger bullies than you.  Bring it on.

From the Herald:

The Federal Highway Administration wants Lexington Mayor Jim Gray to remove a rainbow-themed crosswalk in downtown Lexington that was installed to promote diversity, saying it poses a legal liability to the city.

“While we recognize in good faith your crosswalk art was well-intended for your community, we request that you take the necessary steps to remove the non-compliant crosswalk as soon as it is feasible,” wrote Thomas L. Nelson Jr., administrator for the Kentucky division of the Federal Highway Administration in Frankfort, in a two-page letter to Gray.

The crosswalk at the intersection of North Limestone and Short Street was painted in rainbow colors just before the June 25 Pride Festival. The Blue Grass Community Foundation sponsored the project through a grant from its Knight Foundation Donor Advised Charitable Fund.

Lisa Adkins, president and chief executive officer of the foundation, said in June that the rainbow crosswalk was intended to celebrate the city’s rich diversity and improve safety at a busy intersection. 

SNIP
 
“It surprises me that none of these issues exist in other parts of the country where they are doing the same thing,” said Josh Mers, chairman of Lexington Fairness, a nonprofit group that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. “It’s just another effort by this administration to try to push Lexington into a corner.” 

It’s odd that transportation officials in other states haven’t raised similar concerns, said Mers, who is running next year for a state House seat in Fayette County.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article184775743.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article184775743.html#storylink=cpy

Homophobic Judge Forced Off Bench

Good on the state judicial commission for holding the freakazoid to account.

From the Courier:

A Kentucky Family Court judge who refuses to hear adoption cases involving gays and lesbians will resign amid an ethics and misconduct inquiry. 

Judge W. Mitchell Nance submitted a letter of resignation to Gov. Matt Bevin on Wednesday, saying he will retire on Dec. 16, according to documents made public Thursday by the state's Judicial Conduct Commission. 

In April, Nance drew national attention when he said he would no longer hear adoption cases involving "homosexual parties" because he believes allowing a gay person to adopt could never be in the child's best interest.

The Barren and Metcalf county judge further said he would recuse himself from such cases because ethics rules require judges to do so when they have a personal bias or prejudice.

Last month the commission, which investigates complaints of judicial misconduct and wrongdoing, notified Nance that it was charging him with multiple violations of judicial ethics rules, including those banning bias or prejudice based on sexual orientation.

Force Them to Pay

Rude Pundit:

Conservative beliefs are utterly delusional and fly in the face of all facts and all aspects of human behavior. We know that gun control works because it works everywhere gun laws are strict. We know that limiting access to abortion and birth control ends up harming women. We know that use of a private email server isn't a major crime. We know that football players protesting by kneeling during the National Anthem is protected speech. But conservatives have to keep the rubes at bay. The only way to reconcile the abject, fucked-up hypocrisy that conservatives live with is that they know. They just don't fucking care because there has been no cost to not caring since 2008 (and much longer in some congressional districts).

And so nothing will be done when it comes to guns in the wake of Las Vegas (and Orlando and Newtown and...). Until they are forced to pay for their hypocrisy, for the complete and utter fraud they have perpetrated (including the support for Trump), nothing is going to ever happen.

Trump's America Endorses Death Penalty for LGBT, Adulterers, Atheists and Blasphemers

Nope, not kidding or exaggerating at all:

PZ  Myers:

A resolution before the UN to condemn executions for apostasy, blasphemy, adultery, and consensual same-sex relations has passed, but Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates voted against it.

Oh. And one more. The United States voted against it, too, all for allowing countries to continue to execute people for being an atheist or a gay person. The United States. My country.

Your fine christian leaders, ladies and gentlemen.  Hand-in -hand with their fellow hateful freakazoids of islam, hinduism, shinto, confuscianism and buddhism.

The Wages of Homophobia Are $225K

Davis, Huckabee, Bevin and every freakazoid pervert who cheered her on should have to pay.

And everybody who thinks this will slow down Governor "Only Straight Whites Have Rights" Bevin in his race to beat Mississippi back to the seventh century stand on your head.

John Cheves at the Herald:

The couples who sued Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in 2015 for the right to be granted marriage licenses are entitled to nearly $225,000 in legal fees and court costs, and the state of Kentucky — not Davis herself or Rowan County — must pay them, a federal judge ruled Friday.

Although Kentucky county clerks are elected at the county level, the Rowan County Fiscal Court had no influence over Davis’ decision in summer 2015 to protest the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States by refusing to issue marriage licenses to anyone, U.S. District Judge David Bunning wrote in his decision. Therefore, it would be unfair to hold the county government responsible for her actions, Bunning wrote.

By contrast, Bunning wrote, Davis’ authority to issue marriage licenses was awarded to her by the state government.

 Bevin's fanatic support of kimbo may have gotten him elected that fall.  For that alone Davis should spend the rest of her life in prison.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article162885388.html#storylink=cpy

KY So Bigoted, California Bars State Travel Here

Of course the bigotry is disguised as "religious freedom." Next up: Freakazoid beats gay person to death on live video and isn't even arrested, because "religious freedom."

USA Today:

California's attorney general blocked state-funded travel to Kentucky and three other states on Thursday in response to what he considers anti-LGBT rights laws enacted this year.

Chris Hartman, the director of Louisville's Fairness Campaign, said that the bill the California AG is retaliating against, Senate Bill 17, could have indirect repercussions on the LGBT community in one of the nation's more gay-friendly cities. 

"This is a clear example of the unforeseen consequences that even a vaguely anti-LGBT bill can have," Hartman said. "This is a bill that we opposed, and here we have a real-world economic consequence of passing this bill."

The worry is that SB 17, which goes into effect this summer, could lead to scenarios where LGBTQ students are prevented from joining a Christian club led by students who disagree with homosexuality.

Trumpie Bevinism Fires Teacher for Being Bisexual

Confidentiality, my ass.  It's a convenient cover for anti-gay hate.

Valerie Honeycutt Spears at the Herald:

Montgomery County middle school chorus teacher Nicholas Breiner posted on Instagram recently that he is bisexual. Breiner said he did that to lend comfort to some of his LGBT students who had been suicidal.

“I felt that they needed to know there was someone in the room that understood and supported them, regardless of who they were. As terrifying as it was to admit, I had to value someone else’s well-being over my own privacy,” his Instagram post said.

Breiner’s teaching contract was not renewed for the 2017-18 school year. Montgomery County Superintendent Matthew Thompson said there was no connection between Breiner’s coming out and losing his job at McNabb Middle School.

Some people in Mount Sterling, however, thought otherwise, and they protested Saturday outside the county courthouse.

“We all really feel that it comes down to his sexuality, and that’s a load of crap,” parent Megan Johnson said. “He’s a great educator. There were several parents who showed up with their kids. Several past students.”

Thompson, however, said, “There is a great deal of misinformation about this situation.”

Breiner “was not fired or terminated,” he said. “The employment decision relating to his non-renewal was not in part, or in whole, because of his sexual orientation. However, I am unable to answer specific questions about the non-renewal due to confidentiality.”

According to Breiner, Thompson told him to remember "we live in a small town."

In 2014, the population of Montgomery County was 24,474.  That puts it in the top third of Kentucky counties. There are 83 counties in Kentucky with smaller populations.  Statistically, between 247 and 2,447 people who live in Montgomery County are LGBT. 

Montgomery County, your school superintendent is a lying, gay-hating piece of shit.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article157539444.html#storylink=cpy

The Resistance: Lawsuits

Donate to your favorite mouthpieces now:  ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Human Rights Campaign, Southern Poverty Law Center and more

 

Wonkette:

Taking a page from the GOP playbook, Democrats are getting ready to stall, sue, and resist Republican and Trump policies now that the crooks and cranks from the fringes of politics are being pulled in and propped up.

Dem Candidates Protest Farm Bureau Hate

In their bright orange protest shirts, no less!

Jack Brammer at the Herald:

U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, and 6th Congressional District Democratic nominee Nancy Jo Kemper of Lexington joined about 40 protesters outside Thursday’s Kentucky Farm Bureau Country Ham Breakfast at the Kentucky State Fair to urge the Farm Bureau to change “discriminatory” practices.

The protest was peaceful without any arrests. Last year, three protesters were arrested by state police on misdemeanor charges that were later dropped, and the three have a pending U.S. District Court lawsuit against the state police.

Yarmuth, wearing an an orange T-shirt that said, “No Hate in Our State; Kentucky Farm Bureau Big on Discrimination,” said the Farm Bureau had policies against gays, teachers, unions, pro-choice advocates and death penalty opponents.

“Most people in that room don’t know the Farm Bureau’s policies,” Yarmuth said while standing outside the Kentucky Exposition Center, where more than 1,600 people, including a lot of politicians, gathered for the Farm Bureau’s 53rd annual breakfast.

SNIP

Kemper, who is trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, in Central Kentucky’s 6th District, said she always has been for equal rights of all people.

She said she believes there are “gay kids in rural areas,” and the Farm Bureau should be concerned about them.

Chris Hartman, director of the Fairness Campaign, said his organization and the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, the Jefferson County Teachers Association and Louisville Showing Up for Racial Justice joined in the protest.

His Precious Religious Liberties

In case you've forgotten just how narrow and exclusive are the rights that repugs claim to defend, here's a reminder from Erik Looms at LGM that with Scalia dead, the new U.S. Supreme Court defender of white, straight, right-wing male freakazoids is Sam Alito:

... his precious religious liberties that apply only to right-wingers seeking to oppress women or gays.

Drowning Out the Haters

We were right across the street from the motherfuckers at Fifth and Main.  With their stupid "homo sex is sin" sign and their self-hating closet case screaming through a bullhorn about "penis in rectum" and the brave ones holding up rainbow flags to block them.

Then the first marchers appeared, and the cheers rose and kept rising and you couldn't hear the hate anymore.

From the Courier:

Drag queens in shimmering dresses waved from high atop floats. Families and their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender loved ones marched side by side west down Main to the parade's end at the Belvedere. The mayor, police chief and other city leaders walked beside them, too.

The Orlando tragedy didn't dominate the 15th annual Kentuckiana Pride Parade, but the many groups carrying signs in memory of the victims were a constant reminder.

Fairness Campaign volunteers walked with the names of those killed June 11 at an Orlando gay nightclub, the dead filling their banner. A church group carried 49 red roses attached to papers with the 49 names.

The parade comes nearly one year after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage last summer. Perhaps it was that recent victory, or the aftermath of the prior weekend that brought out thousands Friday, said Jeremy Walsburger.

"It's wonderful to see so many people out here," he said. His mother joined him for her first pride parade, as did many of his coworkers.

"It was never a moment I thought we'd have together," he said. "I'd also never thought I'd see my mayor being so supportive. It's just not something you imagine growing up in a one stoplight town."

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer asked residents this week to march with him in solidarity with the LGBT community.

Toward the end of the parade route, JJ Love, his hair done up in a curly, rainbow Mohawk, watched the parade with his boyfriend Tim Netherton.

Love and Netherton met at a now defunct coffee shop in downtown Lousiville, just across the street from gay bar Tryangles. Netherton had recently ended his 17-year marriage.

Now, more than a decade later, his ex-wife and many of his children and grandchildren came to pride to show their unending support.

"We want individuals to know that it's OK to just be yourself," Netherton said. "No matter what that means."

 This atheist's favorite sign, carried by someone marching with a church group:

"God (heart) U. She Thinks UR Fabulous."

OK, Lexington: You've got a tough act to follow next Saturday.

People, Not Bodies

Talking Points Memo:

Last Monday, Akyra Murray, who turned 18 in January, graduated third in her class of 42 students at West Catholic Preparatory High School in Philadelphia, where she had also been a 1,000-point scorer on the basketball team. She had recently signed a letter of intent to play basketball at Mercyhurst University in Erie.

"She was very loving, caring, out to help anybody," her mother, Natalie Murray, recalled.

To celebrate her graduation, Akyra, her parents and her 4-year-old sister traveled to Orlando for a family vacation.

On Saturday, Murray told her parents she wanted to party in downtown Orlando. They dropped her off at Pulse at 11:30 Saturday night.

At about 2 a.m., Akyra Murray sent a text message to her mother, saying that she and her cousins wanted to be picked up. She said there had been a shooting.

Moments later, the phone rang.

"She was saying she was shot and she was screaming, saying she was losing a lot of blood," Natalie Murray said.

Murray said her daughter was hiding in a bathroom stall, cowering from the shooter, her arm bleeding for hours with no medical treatment.

Akyra Murray told her mother to call police and send help.

They never spoke again. "It was devastating," Natalie Murray said.

There are 48 more.  Go read them.

Don't Mourn: Organize!

If your city does not have a Fairness Ordinance (I'm looking at YOU, Shelbyville), get to your next city council meeting and DEMAND IT.

Louisville Pride Parade:  THIS FRIDAY, June 17

Lexington Pride Parade:  Saturday, June 25

• June 17-18: Kentuckiana Pride Parade and Festival
  (If you'll be in Louisville, register to march with the ACLU-KY contingent)
• June 25: Lexington Pride Festival, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.
• June 26: Owensboro Pride, noon–6 p.m.

From TPM commenter stiggy:

Kentucky Bill Allows Bigotry by "Faith"

No religion gets a get-out-of-obeying-the-law-free card.  Your religious "freedom" ends where my rights begin.

And stop pretending your homophobia is religious.  You want a pass to discriminate against gays? Move to Saudia Arabia, motherfuckers.

As usual, the Kentucky lege is way behind the times: bills just like this have been struck down as unconstitutional, and this one will, too.

But not before two special elections to fill Democratic House seats in March. The gay-bashing ads have already been filmed.

John Cheves at the Herald:

A Senate committee approved two “religious liberty” bills Thursday, one to legally protect businesses that don’t want to serve gay, lesbian or transgender customers because of the owners’ religious objections, and the other to protect religious expression in public schools.

The first measure, Senate Bill 180, would prohibit the government from compelling services or actions from anyone if doing so conflicts with their sincerely held religious beliefs. The bill expands the state’s 2013 Religious Freedom Restoration Act to clarify that businesses could not be punished in such cases for violating local ordinances that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

SNIP

The committee voted 8 to 1 to approve SB 180 and send it to the Senate floor. Sen. Perry Clark, D-Louisville, cast the sole “no” vote, saying the state and federal constitutions already offer adequate protection for religious liberties. Four senators voted “pass,” citing the Hands On Originals case and saying the Senate traditionally doesn’t like to approve legislation that would affect lawsuits pending in the courts.

After the hearing, a gay-rights advocate said Robinson’s bill is “an open attack” on Lexington, Louisville, Covington, Morehead, Frankfort, Danville, Midway and Vicco, which have ordinances that protect the civil rights of their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens.

“It’s a clear attack on the eight cities that passed anti-discrimination fairness ordinances to protect LGBT people,” said Chris Hartman, director of the Louisville-based Fairness Campaign. “They made it crystal clear during the committee hearing that that’s what their aims are. So we’ll be doing everything we can to halt the progress of this legislation.”

 You want your civil and human rights protected against freakazoid demands for Dominionism?  Vote Democratic.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article62413757.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article62413757.html#storylink=cpy

Unless He's Pro-Abortion, Pro-Gay and Atheist, AynRandy Ain't Not Libertarian

C'mon, Joe Gerth: you know better.

Now, says Dave Nalle, the vice chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus, which has endorsed Paul, the candidate is re-emphasizing his libertarian roots in a final dash that Nalle says is crucial for him to stay relevant.

Funny how when repugs say "Liberty" they never mean "Liberty" for black people or female people or gay people or muslim people or poor people or anybody who is not white, straight, male, christian, repug and rich like them.

The Tribble-Toupeed One wants a "small" government that's just big enough to deport all the brown immigrants, shove gays back in the closet, impose christian sharia law, turn women into nothing but birthing vessels and eliminate taxes on the rich but quadruple them on the poor to keep giving trillion-dollar subsidies to fossil-fuel corporations and military contractors.

Just like faux-libertarian Matt Lying Coward Bevin.

Watch Live As the Dark Ages Descend on Kentucky

The public swearing-in is at 2 p.m. Eastern, but Matt Bevin was sworn in as governor at midnight. By now, he's already signed executive orders destroying everything worthwhile in the Commonwealth.

Four hundred thousand working-poor Kentuckians stripped of health insurance.

Thousands of minimum-wage state workers losing their $10.10 per hour pay, dropped down to $8.00 per hour.

The death of the bourbon, horse and tourism industries as oil and gas fracking poison groundwater throughout the Bluegrass.

Crumbling roads and bridges and mass unemployment as conservatard austerity slashes the state budget.

Tens of thousands of non-freakazoids forced into a christianist theocracy.

Heading for the hellscape Sam Brownback created in Kansas; ultimate goal the Galtian paradise of Haiti.

Live on KET.