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Same-Sex Marriage: New York Senator To NYC Mayor – You Lie!

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New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén Díaz, just hours after NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered an excellent speech describing why everyone — including conservatives — should support same-sex marriage, released a racially-charged statement invoking slavery and the Holocaust, while claiming there “is no just comparison between America’s struggle to overcome the evils of slavery and the promotion of the lifestyle of homosexuality.”

READ: Kill The Gays NYC? Gays Should Die Says Pastor At NOM Marriage Rally

The statement (full text below,) misleadingly titled, “Senator Reverend Rubén Díaz and Civil Rights Obstructionists,” claims it is “in response to reports of New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s speech about America’s civil rights movement.” The speech, which beautifully invoked many different elements of America’s civil rights movement, including the fight to end slavery, women’s suffrage, and workers’ rights. Diaz did not seem to take issue with those noble causes, only with Bloomberg’s mention of rights for LGBT New Yorkers.

Calling the fight for marriage equality “the push to legalize homosexual marriage,” Diaz, 68, says, “Black Americans should not sit back and let Mayor Bloomberg compare the long struggle of their ancestors against American slavery to the current fight for a lifestyle choice. The effort to redefine marriage to include a man and a man or a woman and a woman can never be compared to the struggle against slavery.”

Note to the Senator: homosexuality is not a “lifestyle choice,” any more than being African-American is. But being an Evangelical Pentecostal Minister is. And, less you forget, there is a clear separation of church and state in this country, even though you choose to say there is not.

New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén Díaz, who has meshed his secular duties as a New York State lawmaker and elected representative of all the people — not just African-Americans or those over whom his ecclesiastic mores he can dictate — has been working actively and rigorously against gay men, lesbians, and bisexual and transgender peoples for decades. But this latest statement may go further than many others have in thew past, and must be roundly excoriated by everyone, but especially by African-Americans and people of faith, as they are the only ones Senator and Reverend Díaz hears.

New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén Díaz should hear the words of his neighbor, New Jersey Senator Nia Gill, who while speaking on the floor to her fellow Senators in 2009, said marriage equality is a civil rights issue. Gill, an African-American, stated,

“It is a civil rights issue — not because African-​Americans own the copyright to civil rights, it is a civil rights issue in the analysis of the equal protection of the fourteenth amendment in the constitution. And maybe some in my community want to hold on to it, because it’s ours. Because our blood has been shed for the right to vote, and we jealously guard that as a re-​affirmation of being American. And so we hold it, because no one can do civil rights and have civil rights better than we do. That’s emotional, but it is certainly not an analysis of the constitutional imperatives that face us. It’s a civil rights issue.”

Listen: NJ Senator Gill: “I vote for the equality of marriage because I believe in the constitution.”

Or perhaps New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén Díaz should listen to the words of the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, who spoke in 1996 at the Atlanta Gay and Lesbian Pride Festival in Atlanta, and proclaimed, “I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.”

While directing Mayor Bloomberg to “take a look at the uncivil discourse that is taking place by those whose goals he has embraced,” he conveniently forgets the anti-gay marriage hate rally he headlined and promoted, both as a New York State Senator and as a Minister, during which another man of the cloth just moments before Senator Diaz himself spoke, said “gays are worthy of death.”

The “uncivil discourse that is taking place by those whose goals he has embraced,” is a false flag, Senator Diaz. Surely your own granddaughter will tell you that.

 

Here is the full text of New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén Díaz’s statement:

May 26, 2011

For Immediate Release

Senator Reverend Rubén Díaz and Civil Rights Obstructionists

New York State Senator Reverend Rubén Díaz (D-Bronx) released the following statement today in response to reports of New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s speech about America’s civil rights movement.

“It was disturbing today to hear Mayor Michael Bloomberg trivialize the suffering and agony of African Americans during the slave era by comparing it to the push to legalize homosexual marriage.

 

Slavery in America destroyed countless human lives. The slave trade involved kidnapping people from their homes in Africa, placing them in bondage, shackled, whipped and abused on cargo ships until sold here in America. At that point their families and their lives were subject to the whims and cruelties of their masters. Even after Emancipation, former slaves, who were freed faced lynch mobs, segregation and denial of basic opportunities for housing, education and employment. Peaceful efforts to address these injustices were met with police in riot gear, fire hoses and violent dogs.

 

There is no just comparison between America’s struggle to overcome the evils of slavery and the promotion of the lifestyle of homosexuality. It is preposterous for Mayor Bloomberg to degrade and minimize the plight of African-Americans in this civil rights struggle by equating it with the effort to push to legalize homosexual marriage.

 

As all survivors of the “Holocaust” will likely agree, comparing the unique evil of that genocide to other tragedies in the world devalues its lesson to the world. While the dictionary may have its official definition, it means so much more and is not allowed to be tossed about to make a point.

 

Black Americans should not sit back and let Mayor Bloomberg compare the long struggle of their ancestors against American slavery to the current fight for a lifestyle choice. The effort to redefine marriage to include a man and a man or a woman and a woman can never be compared to the struggle against slavery.

 

Before Mayor Bloomberg attempts to borrow from history for comparisons, he should take a look at the uncivil discourse that is taking place by those whose goals he has embraced.

 

Black leaders should not allow Mayor Bloomberg or anyone else trivialize their suffering and their history!”

 

 

(Hat tip to Jeremy Hooper at Good As You, who lists nine examples of Diaz & Co.’s “uncivil discourse.”)

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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April 26, 2024

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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April 26, 2024

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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23 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

 

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