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Conservatives Outraged Obama Has Proclaimed June LGBT Pride Month

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The Right Is Furious President Barack Obama Issued a Proclamation Recognizing LGBT Pride Month

On Tuesday afternoon President Barack Obama issued his eighth and final proclamation declaring June LGBT Pride Month. By Tuesday evening some conservatives were outraged, taking to social media and voicing their anger on right wing websites that falsely claimed the President had “ordered” Americans to celebrate LGBT Pride.

A website called Young Conservatives (among others) published an article titled, “Obama Declares June ‘LGBT Pride Month’ and Orders Americans to ‘Celebrate Diversity,'” which of course is false – the President did not and cannot “order” Americans to celebrate anything. Many of the comments, needless to say, are horrendous.

On Twitter, anti-equality conservatives shared their feelings on the President’s proclamation. A few samples:

 

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza via Flickr

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‘25th Amendment Territory’: Critics Warn Trump Impeachment Is ‘Not Enough’

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President Donald Trump’s latest shot across the bow—a letter to the Prime Minister of Norway that critics say carries an implied threat of war over Greenland following his failure to receive the Nobel Peace Prize — has once again prompted calls for invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote in his message to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

“Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway?” Trump asked. “There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”

Norway is separate from Denmark, which governs Greenland, and the government of Norway does not award the Nobel Peace Prize — as many critics have pointed out. Trump reportedly believes that the Norwegian government “totally” controls who is awarded the coveted prize.

READ MORE: Europe Divorcing America Now Seen as ‘Inevitable’: Report

“Even by Trump’s standards, this letter is so dangerous and so delusional that there is no longer any question that the president is mentally ‘unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,’ as laid out in the 25th Amendment to the Constitution,” wrote Janna Brancolini at The Daily Beast. “Removal under the 25th Amendment might not be politically likely, but it’s a constitutional tool that must be seriously discussed. To do otherwise would be to indulge the dangerous alternative reality that Trump and his supporters are so desperate to construct.”

“The president is, simply put, not a well man. He subsists on a diet of fast food and aspirin, stays up until the wee hours of the night doom-scrolling on social media, and spent Christmas day rage-posting on his Truth Social platform,” Brancolini added. “This is why impeachment is not enough.”

Trump’s letter was so extreme that European officials were circulating a meme of the American president’s letter, written in crayon, as Alternet reported.

But in the U.S., critics including elected officials are calling for the 25th Amendment or other acknowledgment of what they say is the president’s incapacitation.

“These are the ramblings of a man who has lost touch with reality,” wrote U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) in response to the Trump letter. “He isn’t ok. He’s degraded significantly in the last year and he’s about to get us into a war with our allies.”

READ MORE: Anti-Gay Bias Surges ‘Sharply’ — Even Among These Least Expected Groups: Report

Invoke the 25th Amendment,” urged U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA).

“I don’t see how you can be a serious person and not find this extremely worrisome,” observed U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI). “He is not stable at all and his reality is warped. He was always a bit like this of course but now he’s 80.”

“This letter, and the fact that the president directed that it be distributed to other European countries, should trigger a bipartisan congressional inquiry into presidential fitness,” commented Professor of Medicine and Surgery Jonathan Reiner, a CNN medical analyst.

Trump‘s new gigantic temper tantrum over Norway is deep into 25th Amendment territory,” remarked the Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson. “Hell, at this point? 25th Admt territory is far in the rearview mirror and we are descending further into madness by the moment.”

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh simply urged, “25th Amendment. Now.”

READ MORE: ‘Unconstitutional Conspiracy’: Judge Blasts Trump Administration Officials

 

Image via Reuters

 

 

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Europe Divorcing America Now Seen as ‘Inevitable’: Report

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After 80 years of peaceful cooperation, President Donald Trump’s tariff threats against countries opposing his efforts to take over Greenland have become the “final straw” for many European governments, which now view a “divorce” from the United States as “inevitable,” according to a Politico report.

“In private, dismayed European officials describe Trump’s rush to annex the sovereign Danish territory as ‘crazy’ and ‘mad,’ asking if he is caught up in his ‘warrior mode’ after his Venezuela adventure — and saying he deserves Europe’s toughest retaliation for what many see as a clear and unprovoked ‘attack’ against allies on the other side of the Atlantic.”

One European diplomat told Politico that Trump’s Greenland threats are being “perceived as one step too far.”

“There is a shift in U.S. policy and in many ways it is permanent,” a senior official with a European government added. “Waiting it out is not a solution. What needs to be done is an orderly and coordinated movement to a new reality.”

Politico reported that the result could be “a radical reshaping of the West that would upend the global balance of power,” which could include transatlantic economic damage and security risks.

READ MORE: Anti-Gay Bias Surges ‘Sharply’ — Even Among These Least Expected Groups: Report

And America’s “ability to project hard power into Africa and the Middle East” could also be damaged, “without access to the network of bases, airstrips and logistical support that Europe currently provides.”

That breakup may have already begun.

“National security advisers from 35 governments are in regular contact, meeting frequently online and in person, as well as interacting via less formal text messaging. They are accustomed to seeking multilateral solutions in a world where Trump is a big part of the problem.”

And national leaders across Europe, including those from the U.K., France, Germany, Finland, Italy, and the European Commission, “regularly text with each other — often in the same group chat.”

Their focus had been on Trump’s actions more than his words, but the American president’s “hell-raising over Greenland has now tipped the balance.”

The military might of this new European coalition would be “vast,” Politico noted, especially if Ukraine is included in the burgeoning new security alliance.

READ MORE: ‘Unconstitutional Conspiracy’: Judge Blasts Trump Administration Officials

 

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Anti-Gay Bias Surges ‘Sharply’ — Even Among These Least Expected Groups: Report

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The success of the TV show “Heated Rivalry,” about two closeted hockey players who fall in love, may be masking the fact that anti-gay bias has “surged particularly sharply” since 2020, say two research psychologists in a New York Times opinion piece.

Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision that found same-sex couples have the same rights and responsibilities to marriage as their different-sex peers, support for gay people began to “sharply reverse,” according to Dr. Tessa E.S. Charlesworth and Dr. Eli J. Finkel.

Perhaps most “surprising” are the groups where anti-gay bias is surging.

Charlesworth and Finkel noted that anti-gay bias trends “were distinctly robust among the youngest American adults — those under 25. This group increased its animus against marginalized groups in general and gay people in particular at a faster rate than older Americans did.”

“Also surprising is that although anti-gay bias has risen faster among conservatives, it has also risen among liberals,” they noted.

READ MORE: Trump on 2026 Midterms: ‘We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election’

A 2024 Gallup poll found that support for same-sex marriage was dropping, especially among Republicans.

When asked if marriage equality should be legal, Republicans’ support fell to 46% from a high of 55% in 2021 and 2022. But support also fell among Democratic and independent voters who were asked the same question.

The percentage of Americans who think homosexuality is morally acceptable had also fallen since 2022’s record high. In that year, 71% thought it was morally OK to be gay, but that fell to 64% in 2023.

Charlesworth and Finkel acknowledge that they are unsure of why support for gay people has reversed.

They speculate that social instability and anti-establishment sentiment could be to blame.

“Gay and lesbian people, newly woven into the fabric of mainstream society, may have been collateral damage in a broader revolt against a system that felt broken, especially among younger generations grappling most intensely with uncertainty about their future,” the researchers wrote.

And they issued a warning.

“At a time when social advances can coexist with backlash, watching queer stories on television can feel comforting. But comfort on the couch is not the same thing as progress.”

READ MORE: ‘Unconstitutional Conspiracy’: Judge Blasts Trump Administration Officials

 

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