Tag: politics

Meet Judd Deere. He’s Donald Trump’s deputy press secretary. His job is to regularly promote the Trump administration’s anti-LGBTQ policies. Oh, and did we mention he’s gay? “I’m completely open about who I am,” Deere tells Buzzfeed News. “These individuals that I work with in this building don’t treat me any differently because I’m gay.” However, Deere notes, “I don’t walk into the White House every day and say, ‘I’m Judd Deere; I’m gay.’” Deere, who is originally from Arkansas, believes the fact...

To borrow a term from Ronald Reagan, he has “The Big Mo” (as in momentum). Presidential hopeful Mayor Pete Buttigieg sent gasps through the political world as he announced his donation haul for the second quarter of 2019: a whopping $24.8 million. $24.8 million! The openly-gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana and Afgan war veteran caused a sensation when he announced his run for the Democratic Presidential Nomination earlier this year. In a matter of just a few months, Buttigieg has attracted wide...

This week not one but two different Republican officials–Val DiGiorgio, chairman of the Pennsylvania’s Republican Party, and California State Rep. Duncan Hunter–found themselves at the center of embarrassing sext scandals. But they’re hardly the first right wingers to be caught behaving in a way unbecoming of someone who claims to be a proponent of “family values.” It seems to be a rather popular trend among the members of the political party that, in 2016, officially declared pornography a threat...

Well, this is embarrassing. It turns out former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory lost out on a position with the Department of Energy because Donald Trump found him too problematic. Newly leaked documents detail problems in McCrory’s record which blocked him from gaining higher-level positions within the government. Chief among them: the former Governor’s signing of a bill that stripped cities of their LGBTQ protection ordinances, and that forced transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their assigned birth sex. McCrory...

As you’ve likely heard by now, disgraced antigay former Republican Congressman Aaron Schock was caught on camera stuffing dollar bills into a stripper’s briefs at a Mexico City gay bar last weekend. While serving in as a U.S. Representative for Illinois’ 18th congressional district, Schock voted against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. He also voted against adding sexual orientation, gender identity,...

Dan Hall is a chaplain and a Republican state senator from Minnesota who was first elected to office in 2010. While the rest of the city was out celebrating Twin Cities Pride in Minneapolis last weekend, he was spotted across town at the state Capitol Building attending an antigay “Freedom March.” The event billed itself on Facebook as an afternoon of “celebrating freedom from homosexual/transgender lifestyles by the grace and power of Jesus.” Hall’s appearance there came mere weeks after he worked...

Carlton Smith hopes to make history this November by being elected to the Mississippi State Senate. If he does, he would become the first out LGBTQ person ever seated to the state legislature, as well as the first Black representative in his district’s history. “Knowing what it’s like to be marginalized from an early age has made me a stronger and a bolder person,” 55-year-old Smith, who grew up in the small town of Holly Springs, Mississippi (pop. 7,621), tells...

Another day, another Republican caught behaving badly. Or at least behaving in a way unbecoming of someone who claims to be a proponent of “family values.” Val DiGiorgio, the chairman of the Pennsylvania’s Republican Party, abruptly resigned yesterday just hours after sexually explicit text messages between him and a woman other than his wife surfaced online. 51-year-old DiGiorgio, a Trump ally and frequent critic of out gay Pennsylvania lawmaker and LGBTQ activist Rep. Brian Sims, engaged in a months-long string of...

Federal prosecutors allege that Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-California) illegally used campaign funds to pay for not one, not two, but five–yes, five!–extramarital affairs with female lobbyists and congressional aides who were under his employ. Hunter, who vehemently opposes same-sex marriage, tried to delay the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and touts his commitment to “preserving family values” on his website, has been busted spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on women other than his wife. “Hunter spent thousands...

Muhammad Haziq Abdul Aziz (image via Facebook)Haziq Aziz is a Malaysian cabinet member who serves as the Senior Private Secretary to the Deputy Minister of Primary Industries and Commodities. Or rather, he was until earlier this month. About two weeks ago, Aziz was ousted from his government position after a sexually explicit video of him with another man leaked online. The video quickly made the rounds on social media and, in response, Aziz was forced to make a videotaped “confession,” admitting...

A local politician from Minnesota who has been exposed as bigot says he’s allowed to be as homophobic as he wants because his religion says so, and anyone who feels otherwise is attacking his faith. Kassim Busuri is a City Council member from St. Paul, Minnesota. Last Wednesday, the council approved a resolution recognizing June as LGBTQ Pride Month. The resolution was sponsored by every council member except Busuri. Busuri later said the reason he didn’t sponsor it was because he...

Don Lemon, 53 News anchor The host of CNN Tonight and self-proclaimed “Twitter king,” Lemon is fearless, whether the topic is Donald Trump, gun violence, racism, or homophobia. He came out publicly in 2011 in a New York Times interview about his memoir, Transparent, which details his youth in Louisiana and the years he spent working his way into the echelons of national broadcast news. Even before that, he revealed on-air that he’d been molested as a child. In typical...

Roy Moore, the accused child molester and anti-LGBTQ nut who in 2017 lost Republicans a U.S. Senate seat in red state Alabama, has announced that he’ll be running for the same seat in 2020. Republicans are dead set against his candidacy, and between all the in-fighting and the fact that Moore is an awful bigot, we don’t know if we’re delighted or terrified. Let’s examine our feelings. You may recall that Moore used to be an Alabama Supreme Court Justice,...

A new study has revealed a refreshing belief in light of the Trump Administration’s attacks on transgender people: a whopping 71% of the country approves of transgender people serving in the military. The news comes on the heels of renewed comments by Trump defending his ban on transgender people serving in the armed forces after that B.S. policy he announced on Twitter last summer that went into effect this past April. The survey, conducted by popular pollster Gallup, found that 88%...