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“I ask you to allow me to love my husband the way you are allowed to love.”

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Quoting my grandfather is something those around me have come to expect. I grew up admiring the shadow he threw and having no problem walking in it, aspiring to cast one of equal standing. He is not a liberal person by nature and does not quite perhaps understand why I am gay, but his words cross all chasms of opinion. “To thine own self be true, doesn’t mean you walk only thinking of yourself, it means you walk thinking of others and how to best learn from them so that you are true.” I find myself thinking about that on a daily basis. Here is a man who grew up “knowing” that being gay was immoral, wrong, deviant, and yet he is able to also understand that it does not take away from who he is. It empowers him to be a wiser man, having learned from another.

Some people KNOW that being Jewish is wrong. Some KNOW that being black is wrong. Some KNOW that praying to Allah is wrong. Yes these people know these things. Are they wrong? This is where many today forget the important lesson I was blessed to have been shown at an early age, even though I am only now fully understanding its depth. It’s easy to say you are beautiful when you have no mirror. Each ignorant or maligned thought that we send out into the world is being sent back towards us. There was a time that “white” people were enslaved, yet was the lesson learned? There was a time that Allah was known and accepted far more than Jesus, was there a lesson learned? There was a time that the Israelites were segregated into a lot of land and oppressed, was there a lesson learned?

We are all no doubt thinking the same thing, those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. Maybe we aren’t all thinking the same thing. Perhaps some of you are thinking that I am an anti-Semite, or racist or an all-out bigot because of the times and questions I raised. I want any of you who for even a moment thought any of those things of me to keep that feeling. Keep that anger, that fight, that indignation and that need to protect yourself. That is what every gay person feels each day that goes by that we are not equal in this country.

Did you know that Charlene Strong was kept from seeing the person she had spent years with, built a home and family with, loved with as they laid passing away in a hospital room because she was not viewed as next of kin? Did you know that a young man was brutally gunned down right here in Washington, D.C. for being gay? Did you know that there are children, and I mean children not teens, running away from homes because they are being beaten, even threatened with death, because they are gay?

Look at your wife or husband and imagine their life slipping away, and now imagine being told you can’t walk the ten feet to hold them and reaffirm your love?

Watch your children for a moment. Now imagine them with bruises and broken bones that you inflicted. Then imagine them on the street, scraping garbage pails for food while you eat a full meal. Can you?

Look at your best friend and imagine taking a gun and pulling that trigger simply because their hair was brown.

Take that disgusting and vile hurt, sadness and anger and ally it with that feeling from before when you wanted to stand up and remind the world that you were not to be marginalized. That is the foundation on which we are calling for a change. As I write this I am watching the love of my life work. It’s not interesting or amusing, but I love every second of it. Why? I never know when the hatred and ignorance may keep us apart. I never thought I would ever feel this way or have these thoughts. Growing up in Canada I was fortunate in some ways. It’s a small country that for the most part is young and change is easy. I grew up in a world that protected and recognized me and said yes please marry the one you love! I don’t make this comparison out of a self-righteous motivation. I make it with a sad heart that I may never be able to say I do love you forever before the world. Or even worse, that I may not be able to say goodbye to the man who I have devoted my life to.

I learned last week that a good friend of mine from childhood lost his partner two days earlier. He was viciously stalked and ripped (yes I mean ripped) apart by a gang of, dare I use the term, people who felt that his being gay was wrong. My friend could not see his partner, nor collect the body of his beloved due to the ignorance of the government in the country within which this attack took place. His partner apparently cried out for hours, calling his name as he lay feeling his life slip away. He died not hearing that he was loved, and my friend lives on knowing this fact.

Please read this not with a mind to toss it aside as we do so many sad things that pass in front of us. Look at your family and picture any one of them feeling even a tenth of what real people are feeling each and every day. This is not a plea for people to change their minds about gay being ok. This is not a plea whatsoever in fact, this is a statement being sent to everyone out there who has ever loved someone to remind themselves that this life is fragile. We need to live and not just let live but encourage it! The only way to achieve that is to be sure that every person, every human, is afforded the ability to work, love and live freely and equally.

I ask you to allow me to love my husband the way you are allowed to love.

Growing up in Northern Ontario as a Jehovah’s Witness, Michael Talon experienced firsthand the struggle for equality. Now living in the U.S. with his partner, they work with advocates for federal equality, including immigration. Working side by side, Michael and his partner Brad, head of Luna Media Group, help to deliver messages for equality to the nation.

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News

‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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18 hours ago

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April 23, 2024

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Republicans in the Tennessee House passed legislation Tuesday afternoon allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in classrooms across the state, thirteen months after a 28-year old shooter slaughtered three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.

The measure is reportedly not popular statewide, with Democrats, teachers, and parents from the school, Covenant Elementary, largely opposed. The Republican Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, at one point literally shut down debate on the bill by shutting off a Democratic lawmaker’s microphone and then smiling.

Ultimately, Republican Rep. Ryan Williams’s legislation passed the GOP majority House as protestors in the gallery shouted their objections: “Blood on your hands.”

READ MORE: Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

The legislation bars parents from being informed if their child’s teacher has a gun in the classroom.

State Troopers were called to “prevent people from getting close to the House chambers,” WSMV’s Marissa Sulek reports.

“You’re going to kill kids,” one woman had yelled at Rep. Williams from the gallery on Monday, The Tennessean reports. “You’re going to be responsible for the death of children. Shame on you.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said on social media, “This is what fascism looks like.”

“In recent weeks,” the paper also reports, “parents of school shooting survivors, students and gun-reform advocates have heavily lobbied against the bill, with one Covenant School mom delivering a letter to the House on Monday with more than 5,300 signatures asking lawmakers to kill the bill.”

The bill, which already passed the state Senate, now heads to Republican Governor Bill Lee’s desk. He is expected to sign it into law.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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OPINION

Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

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20 hours ago

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April 23, 2024

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At the end of another short courtroom day that required barely three hours of Donald Trump’s time, the ex-president spoke to reporters inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building to complain about a wide variety of perceived and alleged wrongs he is suffering, including, not being “allowed to talk.”

The ex-president’s presence was required only from 11 AM until just 2 PM. Judge Juan Merchan is overseeing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of the ex-president in a case that has already drawn a straight line through the “hush money” headlines to correct them to alleged criminal conspiracy and election interference.

Judge Merchan, for nearly two hours Tuesday morning, heard prosecutors’ allegations that Trump has violated his gag order ten times, and heard defense counsel’s claims that he had not.

It did not go well for the Trump legal team, with Judge Merchan toward the end of the hearing, during which no jurors were allowed, telling Trump lead attorney Todd Blanche, “You’re losing all credibility.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

During the day’s hearing, jurors heard prosecutors’ lead witness, the former head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer tabloid, David Pecker, explain how he was working to help the Trump campaign.

“David Pecker testifies that, following his 2015 meeting with Trump and [Michael] Cohen, he met with former National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard,” MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reports. “Pecker outlined the arrangement and described it as ‘highly private and confidential.’ Pecker asked Howard to notify the tabloid’s West Coast and East Coast bureau chiefs that any stories that came in about Trump or the 2016 election must be vetted and brought straight to Pecker — and ‘they’ll have to be brought to Cohen.’ Pecker told Howard the arrangement needed to stay a secret because it was being carried out to help Trump’s campaign.”

Trump did not discuss any evidence against him with reporters, but he did complain about the gag order. And President Joe Biden. And the temperature in the courtroom. And his apparent attempt to stay awake, which has been a problem for him almost every day in court.

“We have a gag order, which to me is totally unconstitutional, I’m not allowed to talk but people are allowed to talk about me,” Trump told reporters, emphasizing the last word in that sentence.

“So they can talk about me, they can say whatever they want, they can lie. But I’m not allowed to say anything, I just have to sit back and look at why a conflicted judge has ordered me to have a gag order.”

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

“I don’t think anybody’s ever seen anything like this,” Trump claimed, falsely implying no criminal defendant has ever had a gag order imposed on them previously. “I’d love to talk to you people, I’d love to say everything that’s on my mind, but I’m restricted because I have a gag order, and I’m not sure that anybody’s ever seen anything like this before.”

Trump then started to discuss the “articles” in his hand, what appeared to be dozens of articles he said had “all good headlines,” while implying they claimed “the case is a sham.”

Trump oversimplified the legal arguments attached to his gag order, as discussed with Judge Merchan Tuesday morning. The judge has yet to rule on prosecutors’ request to hold Trump in contempt.

“So I put an article in and then somebody’s name is mentioned somewhere deep in the article and I end up in violation of a gag order,” he told reporters, apparently referring to his posts on Truth Social with persecutes say violated his gag order. “I think it’s a disgrace. It’s totally unconstitutional. I don’t believe it’s ever – not to this extent – ever happened before. I’m not allowed to defend myself and yet other people are allowed to say whatever they want about me. Very, very unfair.”

“Having to do with the schools and the closings – that’s Biden’s fault,” Trump said, strangely, as if the COVID pandemic were still officially in process. “And by the way, this trial is all Biden, this is all Biden just in case anybody has any question. And they’re keeping me, in a courtroom that’s freezing by the way, all day long while he’s out campaigning, that’s probably an advantage because he can’t campaign.”

“Nobody knows what he’s doing. he can’t put two sentences together. But he’s out campaigning. He’s campaigning and I’m here and I’m sitting here sitting up as straight as I can all day long because you know, it’s a very unfair situation,” Trump lamented. “So we’re locked up in a courtroom and this guy’s out there campaigning, if you call it a campaign, every time he opens his mouth he gets himself into trouble.”

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News

Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

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23 hours ago

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April 23, 2024

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Four years ago today then-President Donald Trump, on live national television during what would be known as merely the early days and weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggested an injection of a household “disinfectant” could cure the deadly coronavirus.

The Biden campaign on Tuesday has already posted five times on social media about Trump’s 2020 remarks, including by saying, “Four years ago today, Dr. Birx reacted in horror as Trump told Americans to inject bleach on national television.”

Less than 24 hours after Trump’s remarks calls to the New York City Poison Control Center more than doubled, including people complaining of Lysol and bleach exposure. Across the country, the CDC reported, calls to state and local poison control centers jumped 20 percent.

“It was a watershed moment, soon to become iconic in the annals of presidential briefings. It arguably changed the course of political history,” Politico reported on the one-year anniversary of Trump’s bleach debacle. “It quickly came to symbolize the chaotic essence of his presidency and his handling of the pandemic.”

How did it happen?

“The Covid task force had met earlier that day — as usual, without Trump — to discuss the most recent findings, including the effects of light and humidity on how the virus spreads. Trump was briefed by a small group of aides. But it was clear to some aides that he hadn’t processed all the details before he left to speak to the press,” Politico added.

READ MORE: ‘Cutting Him to Shreds’: ‘Pissed’ Judge Tells Trump’s Attorney ‘You’re Losing All Credibility’

“’A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway,’ said one former senior Trump White House official. ‘I actually argued that President Trump wouldn’t have the time to absorb it and understand it. But I lost, and it went how it did.'”

The manufacturer of Lysol issued a strong statement saying, “under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),” with “under no circumstance” in bold type.

Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks were part of a much larger crisis during the pandemic: misinformation and disinformation. In 2021, a Cornell University study found the President was the “single largest driver” of COVID misinformation.

What did Trump actually say?

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out, in a minute,” Trump said from the podium at the White House press briefing room, as Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx looked on without speaking up. “Is there a way we can do something like that? By injection, inside, or almost a cleaning, ’cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. You’re going to have to use medical doctors, right? But it sounds interesting to me.”

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

Within hours comedian Sarah Cooper, who had a good run mocking Donald Trump, released a video based on his remarks that went viral:

The Biden campaign at least 12 times on the social media platform X has mentioned Trump’s infamous and dangerous remarks about injecting “disinfectant,” although, like many, they have substituted the word “bleach” for “disinfectant.”

Hours after Trump’s remarks, from his personal account, Joe Biden posted this tweet:

Tuesday morning the Biden campaign released this video marking the four-year anniversary of Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks.

See the social media posts and videos above or at this link.

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

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