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Advocacy: A Vision For The GLBT Community In The Heart Of Dixie

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Editor’s note: Guest author James Robinson lives in Huntsville, Alabama. He is Executive Director and founder of GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services, Inc.

As I began a journey of recovery from addiction to crystal methamphetamine, I needed to understand why I had experienced the pain which contributed to my addiction. I began to understand that a large part of my pain stemmed from hiding my sexual orientation. Due to the dominant conservative political and religious traditions in the South I did not feel I would be accepted living publicly as a gay man.

The lies associated with hiding my sexual orientation ate away at my spirit and I found myself very unhappy. Without realizing what I was doing I began looking for ways to feel more accepted. This led to a second hidden life, one consumed with the self-destructive behaviors associated with addiction.

There is a saying, “The closet kills.” I believe many members of our community kill themselves through addiction because of the pain they feel from not being free to be themselves. Segments of the gay community are deeply entrenched in this lifestyle. I was fortunate to survive this period in my life while many do not. Many lives are lost because people do not feel free to be themselves.

The addiction and self-destruction I experienced were very selfish behaviors. I decided to stop focusing on myself and to create opportunities for others that will help them avoid the pain and terrible choices I experienced.

With the support of friends I began a non-profit organization to serve the GLBT community in Alabama. When I began GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services, Inc. there were almost no services available to our community in this region. I am happy to say that because of this agency there are now a number of support groups and other activities.

GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services strives to provide support services and raise awareness about issues specific to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth. This mission is accomplished through the administration of peer support groups, use of social media, and by cultivating a united voice on issues such as bullying, AIDS/HIV infection, drug abuse, suicide, homelessness, and the sexual exploitation of youth.

I have seen hope given and I have witnessed it being taken away. We share a message of love and acceptance with a community that fears rejection, violence, and oppression if their sexual orientation or gender identity is known publicly. We strive to give hope where it has been lost.

GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services has been nominated for two Classy Awards:

New Nonprofit in Huntsville Supports GLBTQ Youth & Works to Prevent Homelessness

Grassroots Organization Established to Serve the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community

GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services is online and on Facebook.

 

James Robinson lives in Huntsville, Alabama. He is Executive Director and founder of GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services, Inc. He is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Following a career as a Special Education teacher he is now an advocate for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community in Alabama and elsewhere.

In March 2011, he was named one of five people transforming five communities by Civic Ventures’ Encore Careers Launch Pad contest.

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‘I’m Not Suicidal’: Kari Lake Pushes Hillary Clinton Murder Conspiracy Theory

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April 22, 2024

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Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake is promoting a conspiracy theory suggesting Hillary Clinton wants to assassinate her. Her remarks came just one day before she lost her attempt to have the Supreme Court review what some have called her conspiracy-theory fueled lawsuit about electronic voting machines.

“Lake, who filed the lawsuit during her failed campaign for governor in 2022, challenged whether the state’s electronic voting machines assured ‘a fair and accurate vote.’ Two lower courts dismissed the suit, finding that Lake and former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem had not been harmed in a way that allowed them to sue,” CNN reported Monday.

Also on Monday Law&Crime reported that when she filed her lawsuit, a Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson “rejected Lake’s cybersecurity claim, telling Law&Crime it was ‘implausible and conspiratorial.'”

Democracy Docket, founded by top Democratic elections attorney Marc Elias, called it “the end of the road for a conspiratorial lawsuit,” and Lake and Fincham, “election deniers.”

READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

Lake, a far-right conspiracy theorist who has yet to concede the 2020 election, which she lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, has a history of pushing exaggerated and baseless claims.

On Sunday, as MeidasTouch Network reported, Lake promoted an old, anti-Clinton conspiracy theory but twisted it to try to make it appear she was in danger from former U.S. Secretary of State and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Lake on Newsmax listened to a clip of Secretary Clinton calling Trump’s fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin a “bromance,” and saying the ex-president is “just gaga over Putin, because Putin does what he would like to do: kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive, you know, journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance.”

Then Lake promoted a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory by responding, “Oh, boy. Oh, that’s really rich coming from a woman like Hillary Clinton, who’s, how many of her friends have just like, mysteriously died or committed suicide?”

“I mean, honestly, that’s rich of her. What President Trump wants is to root out the corruption and deliver our government back to We The People and she looks very nervous. She talked about her friend Mark Elias, Mark Elias has meddled in in his and his cohorts have meddled in the elections.”

She called Democratic policies, “destructive, deadly and frankly, in some ways, diabolical,”and added, “it’s almost comical that Hillary Clinton is talking about Trump wanting to kill his opponents.”

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

“I just want to say as I’m as I’m speaking about this topic, I want everyone out there to know that my brakes on my car have recently been checked and they work. I’m not suicidal. And Hillary, I don’t mean any harm to you. Please don’t send your henchmen out to me. We understand what you’re about. ”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide

 

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‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

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April 22, 2024

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MSNBC top host Rachel Maddow, inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courthouse on Monday declared Donald Trump appeared “old and tired and mad,” as she delivered observations about the ex-president on trial for 34 counts of falsification of business records alleged in the alleged pursuit of election interference to protect his 2016 presidential run.

Trump “seems considerably older, and he seems annoyed. Resigned, maybe, angry. he seems like a man who’s miserable to be here,” the award-winning journalist told MSNBC viewers Monday afternoon.

“I’m no body language expert,” she conceded, “and this is just my observation. He seemed old and tired and mad.”

The New York Times’ Susanne Craig, from inside the courthouse Monday morning reported: “Trump is struggling to stay awake. His eyes were closed for a short period. He was jolted awake when Todd Blanche, his lawyer, nudged him while sliding a note in front of him.”

The Biden campaign was only too happy to pick up and report Craig’s observation, adding “feeble.”

Former Obama senior advisor David Axelrod, pointing to his piece at The Atlantic, wrote of Trump: “He has charmed & conned, schemed & marauded his way through life. He was bred that way. But the weariness & vulnerability captured in courtroom images betray a growing sense in Trump that he could wind up as the thing his old man most reviled:
A loser.”

Watch Maddow’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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15 hours ago

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April 22, 2024

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Prosecutors for the State of New York in their opening statement drew a direct line between the October 2016  “Access Hollywood” leaked audio and Donald Trump’s alleged “hush money” payoff to two women, including the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, telling the jury it was “election fraud, pure and simple.”

Legal experts are dissecting the prosecution’s opening argument. Professor of law, MSNBC contributor and former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann summed it up, saying New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg “squarely places the NY criminal trial in the election interference/corruption bucket– exactly what the DC and GA indictments allege, just 4 years later.”

“And the NY alleged ‘cover up’ is reminiscent of the two MAL [Mar-a-Lago] alleged obstruction schemes post-presidency, to keep prosecutors from uncovering evidence of that scheme,” Weissmann added.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo late Monday morning in his 45-minute opening argument told jurors, “This case is about criminal conspiracy and a cover up,” according to MSNBC’s Joyce Vance.

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“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election,” Colangelo told jurors, CNN reports. “Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again.”

“This was a planned, coordinated long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures,” Colangelo, a former U.S. Department of Justice Acting Associate Attorney General, told jurors.

“Another story about sexual infidelity, especially with a porn star, on the heels of the Access Hollywood tape would have been devastating to his campaign,” Colangelo added. “’So at Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated the deal to buy Daniels’ story,’ and prevent it from becoming public before the election.”

“It was election fraud, pure and simple.”

Vance, an MSNBC legal analyst, professor of law and former U.S. Attorney, explains: “The scheme the prosecution is outlining is catch & kill to elect Trump-awful but lawful. Trump crossed the line into illegality when he created false business records to conceal his payments to Cohen to cover up the payments to Stormy Daniels.”

READ MORE: Fox News Host Suggests Trump ‘Force’ Court to Throw Him in Jail – by Quoting Him

“It’s always the cover up,” she adds.

Professor of law and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman adds, the prosecution told jurors “a straight election-interference story.”

Colangelo, Litman says, told jurors that Trump’s then personal attorney Micheal Cohen “then discussed the [Stormy] situation with Trump who was adamant he did not want the story to come out. Another story…on the heels of the Access Hollywood tape would have been devastating to his campaign.”

MSNBC legal contributor Katie Phang describes Colangelo’s opening argument, saying he is “working methodically and chronologically through the conspiracy, identifying the main characters and their involvement. He speaks clearly and succintly [sic].”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in his New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of hush money to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which could be deemed election interference.

Watch an MSNBC clip below or at this link.

 

READ MORE: Gaetz: ‘Corrupt’ Republicans Could ‘Take a Bribe’ and Throw House to Dems, Blocking Trump Run

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