Tag: republicans

There’s always turnover in Congress. After all, if you had to re-apply for your job every two years, you might decide at some point to call it quits too. But you might also decide to pack it in if you thought you wouldn’t get to keep your job. With the next election more than a year away, Republicans are already heading for the exits in surprising numbers. In the past week alone, three GOP representatives announced that they were not...

A gaggle of House Republicans are lobbying their colleagues to bully Amazon into restocking two ex-gay conversion books it recently yanked from its online shelves. The trouble began earlier this month when the retailer pulled all the titles written by the late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi (a.k.a. the “father of conversion therapy”) after determining they violated the its guidelines. The move came after a Change.org petition gathered over 80,000 signatures calling on the site to stop selling Nicolosi’s books, “A Parent’s Guide...

(stock photo via Depositphotos) A memo currently being circulated among Republican members of Congress asks the lawmakers to “contact Amazon with concerns” regarding “censorship” after the online retail giant announced it had removed books on the subject of so-called ‘conversion therapy.’ Earlier this month, Instinct reported on Amazon’s removal of all books by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, widely credited as the ‘father of conversion therapy.’ The action by Amazon was the result of months of complaints and an online petition that garnered over...

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (image via AL/Sec Of State site) A Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Alabama told supporters over the weekend the problem with the United States today is Americans are too “preoccupied with homosexual activities” and “the wife swap shows.” John Merrill, currently serving as Alabama’s Secretary of State, is one of many Republicans looking to unseat Sen. Doug Jones (D) in the 2020 election cycle. The senate seat was held for 20 years by former Donald...

Over the years, there’ve been some pretty awful characters serving in Congress. But no one was as terrible as William Dannemeyer. Only his fellow Republican counterpart in the Senate, Jesse Helms, came anywhere near as close to him for the sheer viciousness of his anti-LGBTQ hatred. Dannemeyer, who died this week at the age of 89, built his career on demeaning, belittling and attempting to punish LGBTQ Americans. During his 14 years in the House of Representatives, Dannemeyer led an...

Proving that no offense is too great for Republicans to overlook, Mark Foley is apparently thinking about a political comeback. In case you’ve forgotten or were unaware, in the early 2000s, Foley was a high-powered Republican in Congress, having first been elected from his Florida district in 1994. Then he ran into a bit of a problem: the story broke that he liked to hit on underage Congressional pages. Male pages, to be exact. Unfortunately for Foley, he left a huge...

Image via the Public Domain Will Hurd wants his fellow republicans to start acting like the upstanding citizens they claim to be. While at a function organized by the conservative group the Log Cabin Republicans, U.S. House Representative Will Hurd, the only Black Republican House member, pleaded that his fellow party members, “Don’t be an a–hole. Don’t be a racist. Don’t be a misogynist, right? Don’t be a homophobe.” According to the Washington Blade, almost 70 people were at the bipartisan event...

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...

Queer Eye‘s Bobby Berk says that he’d like to see more Stonewall-style riots in Middle America. Speaking to The Daily Beast, Berk warns of “religious freedom,” conservative judges, and “stupid Mitch McConnell” rolling back LGBTQ protections. Berk says that non-violent riots and protests would “keep up the fight.” Bobby Berk didn’t find out about Stonewall until he moved to New York City in 2003. He says, “Growing up in the middle of Missouri, I never heard of them. It wasn’t taught...

Continuing with its litany of anti-LGBTQ policies this month, the Trump Administration and Republican party have further maligned the LGBTQ community by confirming yet another ardently antigay judge to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. Happy Pride! 42-year-old Matthew J. Kacsmaryk has a long and nasty history of opposing LGBTQ equality, including criticizing the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, claiming members of the queer community are not protected by the Civil Rights Act, and characterizing transgender people as suffering...

Craig Northcott, image via screenshotCraig Northcott, a district attorney in Tennessee’s Coffee County, recently said that he wouldn’t enforce the state’s domestic violence laws in cases of abuse between same-sex spouses because he doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage, according to NBC News. In a recently unearthed 2018 video, a constituent asks Northcott how Christians should react to the Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage. His response was shocking. Referring to the makeup of the Supreme Court, Northcott said, “Five people in black dresses...

Jonathan Parker, image via the Ada County Sheriff’s OfficeJonathan Parker, the former Idaho Republican Party chairman, was arrested late last week for masturbating in front of his ex-wife’s apartment while wearing a wig (not that wearing a wig is illegal). During his tenure, he helped keep homophobic Republicans in power, perpetuating the lie that LGBTQ people are immoral. The Idaho Statesman reports Boise police arrested Parker on a first-degree felony stalking charge because his ex-wife has a restraining order on him...

Jussie Smollett was summoned to an emergency court appearance in Chicago earlier today where he was informed that all 16 charges against him had been dropped by State Attorney Kim Foxx. Naturally, Republicans are not happy about it. Smollett was facing a potential sentence of 64 years in prison, and they wanted to see him serve every minute of it. Scott Presler is a proud, gay Trump supporter and professional Twitter troll with nearly 300K followers. Shortly after the news about...

Log Cabin Republican president: 'What a way to start the year!' President Donald Trump sent a letter congratulating a group of gay Republicans for their 40th year anniversary. The Log Cabin Republicans started in 1977 in California as a voice for gay conservatives. So President Trump wanted to mark their 40-year milestone with a signed letter of congratulations. He wrote: ‘We are a Nation founded on the undeniable truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of...