NYC: Dan Savage Keynotes “Sexual Diversity And The Catholic Church”
Guest author Kelby Harrison explains part two of a four part event, More than a Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church. Dan Savage will be the keynote speaker at this event Saturday, October 1.Â
Â
As a response to the suffering of LGBTQ people under homophobia, Pro-Queer Life: Youth Suicide Crisis, Catholic Education, and the Souls of LGBTQ People, organized at Union theological Seminary (as part II of the More than a Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church conference series) will call upon the Catholic Church, as a significant provider of education and producer of culture, to seek the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. The Church should be a source of liberation and a contributor to the flourishing of LGBTQ people within and outside of Catholicism. One important way in which the Church ought to, and in some settings does, contribute positively to queer life is by actively working towards the best practices of LGBTQ student empowerment and sexual diversity inclusion in school settings. This one-day conference will focus on high school and collegiate education curricula, administrative practices, student groups, and the fostering of a pro-queer life student/educational culture.
In the United States, the Catholic Church is the number one provider of private education. The cultural and personal influence that it maintains over its students —intellectually, spiritually, and morally — is profound. The recent wave of teenage and young adult suicides by those who are, or who are perceived to be, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer is only new in its large-scale media coverage. The bullying and mistreatment of students based on perceived sexual orientation or gender expression, and the negative messaging all students receive about sexual diversity have been too long with us. All young people deserve empowering educations to know their full value as human beings.
Educational institutions must take responsibility for protecting against the culture and attitudes that contribute to LGBTQ suicide. The “Pro-Queer Life†conference will focus attention on where Catholic educational institutions are getting it right, where they need to be better, and where their complicity in the wounding of young LGBTQ persons is unacceptable.
Â
More Than A Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church is a four part series of conferences produced by Fordham University, Union Theological Seminary, Yale University and Fairfield University
Â
WHERE:Â Day Program at Union Theological Seminary 3041 Broadway, New York, NY
Keynote Address by Dan Savage:
The Riverside Church, South Hall, 490 Riverside Drive at 120th Street
WHEN: Â Saturday, October 1:
Day Program:Â 10:00 am to 8:00 pm**
Lunch Keynote by Robert Goss: 12:45 pm
Resistance is not Futile:Â Queer Ruption of Catholic TheologyÂ
Keynote Address by Dan Savage, It Gets Better Campaign : 6:00 to 8:00 pm
WHO:Â Speakers at event will include:
Dan Savage, sex advice columnist and founder of the “It Gets Better†Campaign
Robert Goss, theologian and author of Jesus ACTED UP: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto
Patrick Cheng, Assistant Professor, Historic and Systematic Theology, Episcopal Divinity School
Fred Roden, Associate Professor of English, University of Connecticut
Winnie Varghese, Episcopal priest and former Chaplain, Columbia University
WHY: “At Union Theological Seminary, theologian James Cone counsels seminarians to believe that theology can be both life-giving and death-dealing. The messages that our churches send to youth are of vital importance. The theme of the “Pro-Queer Life†conference is to discuss how the theological messaging of the Catholic Church, as it is communicated to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and ‘Queer’ youth receive the theological messages that come from the Catholic hierarchy, the parish level, and the older Catholics in their lives – parents, role-models, and teachers, to ask what we can do to make sure the messaging they receive is life-giving not death-dealing.â€
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
