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LGBT People Must Forge Global Solidarity Against Extremist Anti-Gay US Evangelicals

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 Today marks the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) when momentum to advance marriage equality in the United States is rapidly moving forward, while U.S. evangelicals have shifted their focus to exporting hatred toward LGBTQ people internationally.

Martin Luther King famously noted in his Letter from Birmingham Jail that “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” This is particularly true of LGBTQ people in many places around the world whose fates are tied more closely together through the actions of one particular set of actors: extremist U.S. evangelicals in the business of exporting a virulent anti-gay agenda.

While 2013 has been a year of once unthinkable strides forward in the U.S., with rapidly shifting public opinion and breakthroughs on marriage equality, a look beyond our own borders reveals a different, but related trend in the opposite direction. In the very week that President Obama proclaimed our national journey towards freedom went through “Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall,” the Russian Duma passed a bill – by a vote of 390 — 1 – which would criminalize advocacy by and on behalf of LGBT people. While these events may seem unrelated, a deeper look uncovers a disturbing relationship between the advances in civil rights in the U.S. and the growing efforts to criminalize LGBTQ existence in Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America.

Anti-gay extremists in the U.S. who have long devoted themselves to fear-mongering about the “homosexual agenda” have sought new markets abroad. As Rev. Dr. Kapya Koama, the leading researcher of this phenomenon, put it in the American Prospect, “It is homophobia, not homosexuality, that is being imported to the [African] continent by neocolonialists with an agenda: to spread U.S. culture wars worldwide.”

Exhibit A is Rev. Scott Lively, president of Abiding Truth Ministries. In the U.S., his organization is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, but in Uganda, Lively has been free from such baggage and has marketed himself as an expert on homosexuality. He has worked with prominent clerics and government officials there since 2002 to advance his rights-erasing strategies, and in 2009 headlined an influential conference titled “Seminar on Exposing the Homosexual Agenda.” The notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill (aka the “Kill the Gays” bill) was introduced shortly afterwards, and Lively boasts of the effect of his work in Uganda, saying that it had the effect of a “nuclear bomb.” Lively, who  describes  LGBTQ people as evil, genocidal, brutal and above all as child predators, has as his aim the criminalization of advocacy for LGBTQ rights and works to strip away the most fundamental human rights from them. In Uganda, both state repression and extra-legal violence have been on the rise as a result of the anti-gay strategies Lively has helped orchestrate. What Lively is doing in Uganda is the very definition of persecution. Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG), which has been a primary target of this persecution, is suing Scott Lively for his role in this persecution; the Center of Constitutional Rights (CCR) is representing them.

While the destructive role of U.S. evangelicals in Uganda has gotten some attention, Uganda is just the tip of the iceberg. Lively himself has been active in several Eastern European countries. His “Letter to the Russian People” urged Russians to “criminalize the public advocacy of homosexuality” – the very thing the Russian Parliament has now voted to do. In Latvia, he co-founded a virulently and violently anti-gay organization, Watchmen on the Walls, which is known for its anti-gay demonstrations where gays and lesbians are pelted with bags of excrement.  In Moldova, he played a crucial role in defeating anti-discrimination legislation.

Lively is just one of the players in this cottage industry. Kaoma has published two reports through Public Research Associates on the subject of evangelical extremists’ interference in Africa, noting their involvement in constitutional or legislative efforts to crack down on LGBTQ people in Kenya, Liberia, Namibia, Nigeria, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile, the anti-gay American Center for Law and Justice, a Pat Robertson outfit, has recently expanded its international presence from Africa to South America, where it has set up shop in Brazil. These anti-gay evangelicals’ efforts, as Lively’s work exemplifies, go beyond fighting civil rights advances to eradicating basic, fundamental rights for LGBTQ people.

Those in the U.S. committed to the full civil and human rights of all people, including LGBTQ people, have a particular obligation in this situation. It’s not our fault that these anti-gay fanatics are peddling hate and oppression elsewhere, but as we are tied together in a single garment of destiny, it is very much our responsibility to speak out and do all we can to keep them from doing further harm. LGBTQ people around the world are fighting for their lives and their rights on their own terms on their own turf. Standing in solidarity with them, our most useful contribution to their struggles is to address the American origins of the attacks on their rights and existence.

Image by the official International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia campaign via Facebook

Vincent Warren is the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). 

 

This piece is one in an ongoing series of articles that the Center for Constitutional Rights is contributing to The New Civil Rights Movement about their legal work, which addresses some of the most important civil rights and civil liberties of our time.

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The 27 Words the NSA Is Scrubbing From Its Websites: Report

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The National Security Agency (NSA), a largely clandestine global intelligence-gathering and counterintelligence organization that “prevents and eradicates threats to U.S. national security systems,” is reportedly undergoing a massive “purge” on its public and private websites and internal network, eliminating any site that contains any of a list of 27 words — despite possibly including mission-related work. The operation is an effort to comply with President Donald Trump’s order to eliminate any so-called “DEI” programs or language.

Trump has called DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion — “illegal,” and in his January 21 executive order alleged that DEI “policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system. Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.”

According to Popular Information, on Monday the NSA, which is under the U.S. Department of Defense, “is planning a ‘Big Delete’ of websites and internal network content that contain any of 27 banned words, including ‘privilege,’ ‘bias,’ and ‘inclusion.’ The ‘Big Delete,’ according to an NSA source and internal correspondence reviewed by Popular Information, is creating unintended consequences.

READ MORE: ‘Stomach Turning’: Trump Defends His J6 Pardons as ‘Great for Humanity’

Popular Information’s Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby report that “the dragnet is taking down ‘mission-related’ work. According to the NSA source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, the process is ‘very chaotic,’ but is plowing ahead anyway.”

A memo announcing the 27 banned words “acknowledges that the list includes many terms that are used by the NSA in contexts that have nothing to do with DEI. For example, the term ‘privilege is used by the NSA in the context of ‘privilege escalation.’ In the intelligence world, privilege escalation refers to ‘techniques that adversaries use to gain higher-level permissions on a system or network.'”

Efforts to comply with Trump’s anti-DEI orders are not limited to the NSA.

“Since Trump took office, thousands of web pages across various federal agencies have been altered or removed entirely. Federal agencies have taken down or edited resources about HIV, contraceptives, LGBTQ+ health, abortion, and climate change. Some web pages have later come back online ‘without clarity on what had been changed or removed.” Popular Information also reported.

“An analysis by the Washington Post of 8,000 federal web pages ‘found 662 examples of deletions and additions’ since Trump took office. The analysis found that words like diversity, equity, and inclusion were removed at least 231 times from the websites of federal agencies, including the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Transportation.”

READ MORE: ‘People Are Really Angry’: Fury Over Musk and DOGE Triggers Spike in Calls to Congress

A quick search of the NSA’s public website for the word “transgender” came up with only one hit, a page titled, “50 Years of Pride: Celebrating NSA’s Committment {sic] to Promoting Respect, Individuality, Diversity, and Equality.” That link led to an error page that stated: “The page you are looking for might have been moved, renamed, or may be temporarily unavailable.”

But a search for pages with the words “Diversity,” “Privilege,” and “Pronouns” resulted in numerous positive hits.

Legum posted the list of 27 banned words to social media. They include, Anti-Racism, Racism, Allyship, Bias, DEI, Diversity, Confirmation Bias, Equity, Feminism, Gender, Gender Identity Inclusion, Inclusive, and All-Inclusive, among others.

READ MORE: ‘Bring Him Back’: JD Vance Wants Musk to Rehire 25 Year Old DOGE ‘Kid’ After Racist Posts

Image via Reuters

 

 

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‘Stomach Turning’: Trump Defends His J6 Pardons as ‘Great for Humanity’

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President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One on Sunday announced that the nearly 1600 people he pardoned after they had been convicted of January 6-related crimes did not assault anyone but had been assaulted by the U.S. government, and his granting those pardons on his first day back in office was “a great thing for humanity.”

Trump was sitting next to a large map of what he announced is now the “Gulf of America,” and had signed an executive order requiring that new designation as the plane flew over what has, for hundreds of years, been called the Gulf of Mexico. Some observers have noted that Trump is also attempting to reshape the narrative of the January 6 insurrection and attack on the U.S. Capitol by claiming that those convicted of crimes were actually victims.

Reminded by a reporter that he had planned to honor first responders at the Super Bowl, President Trump was asked why he would pardon people who had assaulted first responders.

READ MORE: ‘People Are Really Angry’: Fury Over Musk and DOGE Triggers Spike in Calls to Congress

“I pardoned people that were assaulted themselves. They were assaulted by our government,” Trump insisted, despite countless hours of footage of people he pardoned attacking the U.S. Capitol, and some of them attacking law enforcement officers.

“I pardoned J6 people who were assaulted by our government. That’s who assaulted — and they were treated unfairly, there’s never been a group of people in this country outside of maybe one instance that I can think of, but I won’t get into it, that were treated more horribly than the people of J6,” Trump insisted.

“I didn’t assault, they didn’t assault. They were assaulted, and what I did was a great thing for humanity.”

Just days after Trump handed down the pardons, The New York Times reported that even some of his close allies “opposed granting clemency to those rioters found guilty of violent crimes, especially the more than 600 who were convicted of assaulting or resisting police officers. Of those defendants, nearly 175 used a dangerous or deadly weapon, prosecutors say.”

On January 20, via a presidential proclamation, Trump announced he was commuting the sentences of 14 of some of the worst January 6 offenders, and granting “a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

READ MORE: ‘Bring Him Back’: JD Vance Wants Musk to Rehire 25 Year Old DOGE ‘Kid’ After Racist Posts

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, called the pardons “an attempt to rewrite history and erase an attack on the Constitution and the country.”

Critics are blasting President Trump’s remarks on Sunday, including his claim the people he pardoned had been assaulted by “our government.”

“This administration & the GOP are completely rewriting the events of January 6. The president is doing it here. They pretend all the evidence, footage, confessions, & documents just don’t exist, that we didn’t see it happen. It’s an authoritarian move, & it should terrify us all,” observed T. Kenny Fountain, an associate professor whose bio says he researches extremism, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and disinformation.

Noted political scientist and professor of politics Larry Sabato called Trump’s remarks “Absolutely stomach-turning.”

Journalist Jim Acosta wrote simply, “Disgraceful.”

Award-winning investigative reporter Phil Williams posted video from January 6 and wrote, “These people were all pardoned.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Inherits Biden’s ‘Astonishing’ Jobs Legacy, But Prices Are Now Climbing on His Watch

 

Image via Reuters

 

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‘People Are Really Angry’: Fury Over Musk and DOGE Triggers Spike in Calls to Congress

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Members of Congress say they are being flooded with calls from angry constituents about President Donald Trump’s Director of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, and what he is doing inside the federal government.

“Senators’ phone systems have been overloaded, lawmakers said, with some voters unable to get through to leave a message. The outpouring of complaints and confusion has put pressure on lawmakers to find out more about Musk’s project, heightening tensions between the billionaire tech mogul and the government,” The Washington Post reports.

Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska “said the Senate’s phones were receiving 1,600 calls each minute, compared with the usual 40 calls per minute. Many of the calls she’s been receiving are from people concerned about U.S. DOGE Service employees having broad access to government systems and sensitive information. The callers are asking whether their information is compromised and about why there isn’t more transparency about what is happening, she said.”

READ MORE: ‘Bring Him Back’: JD Vance Wants Musk to Rehire 25 Year Old DOGE ‘Kid’ After Racist Posts

On Monday, the Office of U.S. Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) said, “We’re receiving reports of phones being offline across the Senate. Our office is immediately at work to address the issue and get our phones online again.”

U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) called it, “a deluge on DOGE”

“Truly our office has gotten more phone calls on Elon Musk and what the heck he’s doing mucking around in federal government than I think anything we’ve gotten in years. … People are really angry,” she told The Post.

On social media, Senator Smith added, “Musk is unpopular because Americans can see that he’s running rampant inside the federal government and no one believes he’s doing this to help us — he’s doing it to help himself. That’s what corruption looks like. I’ve been getting more calls into my office in the last week than any time I can remember. People are mad about it and they should be.”

READ MORE: Trump Inherits Biden’s ‘Astonishing’ Jobs Legacy, But Prices Are Now Climbing on His Watch

“We can hardly answer the phones fast enough. It’s a combination of fear, confusion and heartbreak, because of the importance of some of these programs,” U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) told The Post, saying “he’s been hearing from constituents ‘constantly’ on DOGE and Musk.”

The surge of telephone calls appears to have been going on all week.

“Callers are getting busy signals and voicemail inboxes are full at many U.S. Senate offices as people try to reach out and voice their opinions on President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, executive orders and moves to dismantle various federal programs,” the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. “The influx of phone calls — which some in the Senate say are at unprecedented volumes — come as Trump and ally Elon Musk are working to shrink the federal government during the president’s first weeks in office. They are shuttering agencies, temporarily freezing funding and pushing workers to resign, all while staffers with Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency infiltrate departments in a stated effort to root out fraud and abuse.”

READ MORE: Pam Bondi Quietly Disbands DOJ Task Force Targeting Russian Oligarchs

 

Image via Reuters

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