thenewcivilrightsmovement.com - 243 Showbiz News and Updates

Rush Limbaugh, who recently was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, days later turned around and made nasty, homophobic comments about Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and his marriage to his husband Chasten.

Anti-LGBTQ activist Franklin Graham says he’s not homophobic, but he is calling LGBTQ activists “truthophobic” and “free-speech-ophobic.” Graham  is once again blasting activists in the UK who have succeeded in getting venues in eight cities to ban him from spreading his hate speech.

Republicans on an Iowa House panel Monday advanced an anti-LGBTQ bill that is so extreme it would require teachers to notify parents if they plan on even mentioning Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, because he is gay. The bill, sponsored by 13 Republican lawmakers, would force educators to allow parents to opt-out of any instruction that relates to sexual orientation or gender identity.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins has awarded 51 U.S. Senators and 100 members of the House of Representatives the anti-LGBTQ hate group’s True Blue award, and lawmakers – all Republicans – were only too proud to tweet out photos of themselves receiving their awards.

According to an exclusive report from Reuters, internal complaints are emerging from the US Justice Department’s anti-human trafficking grant program. The complaints stem from two nonprofits that were denied funds which instead went to two less established groups “whose applications were not recommended by career DOJ officials.”

Roy Moore, the former Alabama chief justice who lost his 2017 bid for the U.S. Senate, is back on the ballot, and he’s urging Republican primary voters to keep in mind that “I have stood … against the removal of God from society—and the Ten Commandments—and I have stood against same-sex marriage and for traditional marriage.”

President Donald Trump and his allies appear to be doing nearly everything they can – in apparent disregard for the moral or legal perceptions – to win the 2020 presidential election. Trump occasionally has courted the Black community’s vote, albeit in usual Trump fashion – by degrading them – as he did in 2016, asking, “What the hell do you have to lose?”

Franklin Graham‘s planned tour of the UK has run in to a snag: It appears few in the UK want him there. The far right evangelical Christian leader with strong ties to President Donald Trump had announced a UK tour starting in June, but as word spread venues started canceling on him, or pulled out of negotiations. At issue: Graham’s anti-LGBTQ extremism.

The concept of separation of church and state seems to be all but dead in the state of Florida. Anti-LGBTQ religious activists have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, convincing lawmakers that the taxpayers should foot the bill for nearly any school parents want to send their children – including private Christian and other religious schools that promote anti-LGBTQ hate.

Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Tennessee this weekend tp deliver a speech at a predominantly Black Memphis-area church, just one day before the nation celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. But it was not Pence’s remarks that are making headlines. Instead, those of Bishop Jerry Wayne Taylor, who attacked gay people during his sermon – which the White House streamed live – are drawing criticism.

President Donald Trump is promising “big action” that will promote school prayer, at a 2 PM White House event Thursday, “Guidance on Constitutional Prayer in Public Schools.” Thursday is also Religious Freedom Day.

Seven Florida Republican lawmakers have filed four bills attacking the LGBTQ community.

The GOP mass exodus is continuing. U.S. Rep. George Holding (R-NC) is among the latest Republican members of Congress to announce they will retire rather than seek re-election. For the 116th Congress, there are now 25 Republicans who have either quit or announced they will not seek re-election in 2020.

The UK’s Conservative Party Prime Minister Boris Johnson once attacked gay people for serving in their country’s armed forces, called LGBTQ people “tank-topped bum boys,” and even supported a claim from foreign dictator Robert Mugabe that the opposing British Labour Party was composed of “gay gangsters.”

Fast food chain Chick-fil-A announced earlier this month that it would no longer give to the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, two nonprofit organizations that have traditionally opposed LGBT causes such as marriage equality.

A  judge who regularly refuses to perform marriages for same-sex couples is suing a Texas commission that issued a warning to her over her decision to not treat all couples equally. McLennan County Justice of the Peace Dianne Hensley is now suing he State Commission on Judicial Conduct, claiming her religious freedom rights have been violated.

Right wing extremist Ben Shapiro is demanding LGBTQ people leave Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer alone. Shapiro, who runs the far right website The Daily Wire, says the popular children’s Christmas character has enough problems and doesn’t need any more.

Okay, so Lily Tomlin didn’t actually marry marry Kathy Griffin, but she did officiate her wedding to longtime beau Randy Bick.

A Utah father is praising his son’s school after the boy and his classmates were forced to endure a 10-minute anti-gay rant from a substitute teacher claiming “homosexuality is wrong.”

Facebook has started pulling ads with misinformation regarding PrEP and Truvada after more than 50 LGBTQ organizations signed an open letter addressed to Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Radical right-wing pastor Kevin Swanson declared on his radio program yesterday that Time magazine’s decision to name climate change activist Greta Thunberg as 2019’s Person of the Year is a sign of “the unraveling of the Western world.”

Just days after American Jewish organizations criticized President Donald Trump’s anti-Semitic remarks in a speech he delivered before an American Jewish organization President Donald Trump added insult to injury Wednesday. At an early White House Hanukkah celebration the President asked an evangelical Southern Baptist pastor who believes Jewish people are going to hell to deliver remarks.

In Waterloo, Iowa on Sunday a young woman asked Senator Elizabeth Warren a question for which the Democratic candidate didn’t have a plan. It wasn’t about student loans, the economy, education, climate change or health care. But it’s getting a great deal of attention now that videos of their interaction are spreading quickly (see video below).

The co-founder of the National Organization For Marriage (NOM), having failed to stop same-sex couples from legally marrying nationwide, is turning his sights to pornography. Dr. Robert P. George, who is also a noted Princeton University professor, is calling on Attorney General Bill Barr to ramp up prosecution of “obscenity” cases at the Dept. of Justice to reduce availability of the material.

In the 1980s, the late Sen. Barry Goldwater — who was considered an arch-conservative in his day — famously asserted that the Republican Party was making a huge mistake by embracing the Christian Right, which he described as a “terrible damn problem” for the conservative movement.

Lost in all of the attention being paid to the impeachment of Donald Trump has been the packing the courts with conservative justices by the president with the full support of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

The GOP mass exodus continues. U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, will not run for re-election and may not even finish his term in Congress. Meadows is a powerful Republican who is a co-founder and former Chairman of the far right House Freedom Caucus. He is one of President Donald Trump’s top supporters in Congress.