Religion

Zack Ford reports at ThinkProgress: This week, a prominent news agency considered offering a platform to the leader of an anti-LGBT hate group to discuss the Orlando shooting, then quietly dropped him from the show without ever mentioning that it was a bad idea in the first place. On Friday morning, ABC News released a preview of its guest line-up …

From a Tennessee NBC affiliate: A local church displayed a message targeting the LGBT community following the largest mass shooting in U.S. history, nearly a week ago. Three days ago Pastor Jesse price of Beech Cliff Pentecostal Holiness Church put a message on the church’s sign that alliances of the LGBT community say condemn the gay community. However, the pastor …

From the Tampa Bay Times: A pride flag waving outside the Hillsborough County center was meant to be a sign of respect and remembrance for the victims of the shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando. But just a day after it was raised, Commissioner Stacy White said it may be offending Christian employees and questioned whether it should be …

Politico reports: Donald Trump has spent the week stating his support for the LGBT community in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, remarking that he is a better ally than Hillary Clinton, whom he has repeatedly attacked for accepting donations from governments hostile to LGBT rights on behalf of the Clinton Foundation. But a photo posted to …

Via Right Wing Watch: Yesterday, Colorado-based pastor Kevin Swanson addressed the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando by arguing that homosexuality and Islam are both inherently violent because God gives gay people and Muslims up to their dishonorable ways and other sins like murder. “Why do homosexuals murder homosexuals?” he asked. Because, according to Romans 1, “God gave them …

From Sacramento’s NBC affiliate: About 100 people protested Wednesday night outside of a Sacramento Baptist church after a pastor praised the Orlando mass shooting during his sermon. It was supposed to be a silent protest, but dozens of people shouted and sang as parishioners, with Bibles in hand, tried to make their way through the crowd. Yellow tape and Sacramento …

As funerals for the dozens of Pulse massacre victims take place across the Orlando area, hundreds of residents are turning out to form human chain links to block Westboro Baptist Church from being seen by mourners. Immediately upon news of the shooting, Westboro issued a press release declaring their intent to go to Orlando. They’ve not yet been spotted, but …

The star of Janet Porter’s anti-LGBT latest film disapproves of the attack on Orlando. Via Right Wing Watch: Shoebat, who last year was featured alongside several congressmen and GOP presidential candidates in an anti-gay “documentary,” stated that he does not support the actions of the man who opened fired on the nightclub — not because he doesn’t think that gay …

Earlier this month nutjob hater Janet Porter’s “nationwide” Target protests resulted in only a humiliating handful of stores actually seeing protesters. So she’s going to try again later this summer, but this time with a “back to school” theme. She writes: “Back to School” season is critical to the bottom line of retailers like Target. Clothing, shoes, supplies,etc get replenished …

JMG reader Chaim Levin sends us the below clip in which Yosef Edery, a Brooklyn member of the Chabad Orthodox Jewish sect, celebrates the Orlando massacre. “People were killed in an act of terror. Fine. If an Arab did it, good for him! God hates sin. They deserved to die. I have no mercy for people that God has no …

From Sacramento’s CBS affiliate: A Sacramento Baptist preacher’s sermon praising attack on an Orlando nightclub that killed 50 people has the local LGBT community outraged. Recordings of the sermon by Pastor Roger Jimenez surfaced under the Verity Baptist Church’s YouTube account. “Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today?” he said in the sermon. “Um no, I think that’s …

Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has tried to turn himself into a national political figure with his vicious responses to the transgender rights issue, wasted no time this morning in delivering an apparent message to the LGBT community.

Pastor Carl Gallups, best known for his declaration that President Obama is the Anti-Christ and for his regular predictions that God is about kill the fuck out of all humanity, wants police departments to threaten Target managers with arrest for abiding with the company’s restroom policy. Via Right Wing Watch: Bragging that he is a “sworn special deputy” in Arizona …

Donald Trump was the headliner today at the Faith & Freedom Coalition convention in Washington DC, where, speaking from a teleprompter, he threw anti-gay red meat to the gathered evangelicals by vowing to “uphold marriage and family as the building blocks of society.” And even at this event, there were protesters. Via Talking Points Memo: Donald Trump’s speech was disrupted …

Via Politico: Even evangelicals should pray for President Barack Obama, Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) said at a gathering of religious conservatives on Friday. “You know, I think we are called to pray. We are called to pray for our country, for our leaders, and yes, even our president,” Perdue said during the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to the Majority …

From the Hollywood Reporter: Mel Gibson and writer Randall Wallace are working on a sequel to The Passion of the Christ that will tell the story of the resurrection of Jesus, Wallace tells The Hollywood Reporter. Wallace, nominated for an Academy Award for scripting Gibson’s 1995 best picture Oscar winner Braveheart, on Thursday (reluctantly) confirmed rumors that he has begun to …

Yesterday a federal court issued a permanent injunction barring Alabama officials from defying the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage. This afternoon Roy Moore’s Foundation For Moral Law issued a typical response. Via press release: Foundation President Kayla Moore noted, “Judge Granade’s jurisdiction extends over only the Southern District of Alabama. She has no authority to bind officials in other parts …

Just in from Brian Brown: I am writing to you today about an urgent problem. I’ve just reviewed the budget for the March and I have to admit I am concerned. We’re $25,000 short of being able to cover the costs for security, staging, sound, promotion and all the other elements that are involved in hosting an event like this. …

Chicago’s WGN-TV reports: A small bomb exploded in the women’s bathroom at a Target store in Evanston on Wednesday, and officials are investigating whether it’s connected to the company’s policy allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice. Commander Joe Dugan says no one was inside the bathroom when the small explosion happened a little after 4 o’clock. …

Anti-LGBT crackpot Linda Harvey has rewritten President Obama’s 2016 LGBT Pride Month proclamation. An excerpt: Despite extraordinary progress, homosexual Americans still face discrimination simply for being who they claim they were born to be. I just went ahead without any authority and signed an executive order in 2014 that prohibits discrimination against federal employees and contractors on the basis of …