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Same-Sex Marriage: HRC Wants Your Wedding Registry To Be Their Cash Cow?

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HRC, the Human Rights Campaign, is an ardent supporter of marriage equality for same-sex couples. But now, it seems, HRC is supporting marriage equality so both same-sex and opposite-sex weddings can benefit HRC’s coffers. In a new marketing campaign, HRC writes, “Instead of the usual toasters and cake mixers, HRC is partnering with couples across the state of New York and all around the nation to create HRC Wedding Registries where couples can encourage their friends and families to support the work of LGBT equality in honor of a wedding celebration.”

Shameless.

HRC actually wants to use same-sex couples’ wedding registries as their corporate credit card.

HRC knows no shame — and this crosses a very big line.

At The New Civil Rights Movement, we support marriage equality as a concept because it’s the right thing to do, and because we believe in supporting our community. We focus on the morality of equality, not the financial benefits that accompany equality because people marry for love, not tax benefits. Positioning marriages as vehicles to make money is shameless. To have HRC, “the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization,” look at marriage equality as a cash cow, an opportunity to add to their coffers, not a civil rights issue but a money-making opportunity really is offensive.

There are many within our community that like to bash HRC. I, for one, tend to find that counter-productive, but when they cross the line, as they have done here, they need to be told.

HRC’s new site, “Millions for Marriage Equality Wedding Registry” sounds like something their accountants made up. Are the “Millions” people or dollars? The site isn’t even hosted by HRC, but by their marketing partner, Convio.

Convio states, “In 2010 alone, our clients used Convio software and services to raise more than $1.3 billion dollars online, send more than 4 billion emails, power more than 32 million advocacy actions and manage relationships with more than 248 million constituents.”

We have to wonder, is HRC a marketing organization, or a civil rights lobby group?

Had HRC hosted it as a service, perhaps even with the purchase of an HRC membership, and not had their fundraising partner Convio host the site as a temporary money-maker, perhaps it might be easier to embrace the idea. Certainly many couples would like the opportunity to forgo gifts in lieu of a donation made in their name. But this goes to far. It’s not just what HRC has done, but how they did it.

Michael Cole-Schwartz, HRC’s Press Secretary, in an email exchange told me, “Our wedding registry is a voluntary way for couples (both same- and opposite-sex) who are getting married to contribute to the marriage equality fight. Many couples request that in lieu of gifts, people celebrating their wedding by donating to a charity and our program is no different than other organizations including Empire State Pride Agenda that is running a similar program. We have had a wedding registry feature available for years and it has been tremendously successful judging by the reaction we get from couples who were thrilled to be able to contribute in this way.”

He adds, “Secondly, winning these fights takes resources.  HRC spent $1 million on our NY effort including employing 30 field organizers around the state that helped generate more than 150K constituent contacts to Senators.  Resources are going to be required in other places facing these fights and for those that wish to use their wedding as an opportunity to fund future equality efforts, our wedding registry provide an easy opportunity.”

Yes, it takes money to move equality forward, especially when our anti-equality opponents are spending oodles of cash from unnamed donors and from the very deep pockets of the religious right and the Catholic Church. But when you try to use my wedding for your credit card, that takes the sanctity out of marriage and tells me it’s not about marriage, it’s about cash.

HRC needs to drop this campaign and apologize to the LGBT community for treating our weddings and our marriages so callously. A wedding and a marriage are not marketing opportunities. They are solemn, often spiritual occasions that deserve more respect than HRC has shown them.

And you know, right now, I’d rather give my money to Williams-Sonoma than to Solmonese & Co.

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Rubio Sidesteps J6 Pardons by Declaring ‘I Work for Donald J. Trump’

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January 21, 2025

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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused to comment on President Donald Trump’s pardons and commutations of more than 1500 people convicted of crimes surrounding the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, including the insurrection — despite having denounced the attack in strong terms four years ago.

In three separate interviews on Tuesday — on ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News — when presented with his comments about the 2021 attack, Rubio declared that he would not discuss domestic issues because he is now Secretary of State.

CBS News’ Gayle King told Secretary Rubio, “in February 2021, even you issued a statement and you said the images of the attack stirred up anger in you, the nation was embarrassed in the eyes of the world by our own citizens.”

“How do you personally reconcile those feelings with the pardons that he did yesterday?” she asked. “I understand you have work to do in the job is hard for many things, but on this particular issue, I’m curious about what you’re thinking.”

“Yeah, well, what I’m thinking is that I used to be a United States senator until midnight last night, and now I’m going about to be sworn in as the Secretary of State of the United States,” Rubio curtly replied. “And that’s what I’m thinking is I work for Donald J. Trump, the new president of United States, the 47th president who has a clear mandate to reorient our foreign policy to one that once again puts America and our interests at the center. And that’s what I’m gonna focus on. A hundred percent.”

READ MORE: Trump Defends His TikTok Flip Flop: America Has ‘Bigger Problems’ Than Young Kids’ Privacy

In an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Rubio would not budge, even when faced with more of his own comments from 2021.

“You called it a national embarrassment, saying we now have third world countries that are lecturing us and we have tinpot dictators that are mocking us,” Stephanopoulos told him. “Of course, you’re now America’s top diplomat. You’ll be speaking with your counterparts around the world. What message does that pardon send to them?”

“Well, I don’t anticipate a single one of our partners will ask about it, obviously, and you know this well, from your time in the [Clinton] administration and my job is to focus on the foreign policy of the United States,” Rubio continued. “I have a different job this morning and a different focus. And it’s one that demands 100% of our attention, and so that’s what I’ll be focused on and won’t be opining on domestic matters at this point, because, frankly, my focus needs to be 100% on how I interact with our, you know, counterparts, our adversaries, our potential enemies around the world to keep this country safe to make it prosperous.”

“That’s the clear mandate from the president,” he added. “It’s what he campaigned on.”

“But as a senator,” Stephanopoulos pressed, “you did say that it affected our standing in the world. Don’t believe that anymore?”

“Well,” Rubio, seemingly somewhat irritated, replied, “as a senator, I had an opinion all kinds of domestic matters, but now I’m focused singularly on foreign policy, on how I interact with our allies.”

President Trump’s pardons of the convicted January 6 attackers, including nearly 90 who committed acts of violence, even against law enforcement officers, were also the subject of Rubio’s interview with NBC News’ Craig Melvin on Tuesday.

According to Fox News, Melvin played video of Rubio saying in 2021, “Vladimir Putin loved everything that happened here today because what happened is better than anything he could have ever come up with to make us look like we’re falling apart.”

Melvin then “asked Rubio what message the pardons send to the rest of the world,” Fox reported.

But Rubio declared that he “would not ‘engage in domestic political debates’ with the media and could not in his role as the head of the State Department.”

READ MORE: Cannon Blocks Classified Docs Report as Trump Targets Ex-Officials Over ‘Sensitive’ Info

“I hope you guys all understand that my days – at least in the time at the Department of State – of engaging in domestic politics will be put aside as I focus on the affairs the United States has around the world and the engagements we have to have to make our country a safer, stronger, more prosperous place,” he said, after refusing to respond.

When pressed again, Rubio apparently expressed frustration.

“I think it’s unfortunate, you know, our first engagement as I agree to come on this morning with you. I’m going to be working on foreign policy issues, and you want to revisit these issues that are going on in domestic politics. I’m just – it’s not going to happen,” Rubio said. “If you have questions for me about foreign policy and engaging in the world, I’d be happy to talk to you about those.”

Watch the videos below or at this link.

READ MORE: Skipping Hand on Bible, Trump Declares ‘We Will Not Forget Our God’ at Inauguration

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Trump Defends His TikTok Flip Flop: America Has ‘Bigger Problems’ Than Young Kids’ Privacy

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January 21, 2025

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President Donald Trump has taken varied stances on TikTok, the wildly popular social media app that experts — including members of Congress and the FBI — warn poses risks to U.S. national security and raises significant privacy concerns for American users. Now, Trump is now disregarding those issues and leveraging his presidential authority to intervene in favor of the Chinese-owned platform, which, under federal law, was to be sold to a U.S. company or banned in the United States by January 19.

“Every rich person has called me about TikTok,” Trump declared to reporters Monday evening, highlighting his newfound relationships with tech billionaires, some of whom were noticeably on stage near him during the inauguration.

About a dozen countries, including the U.S., have banned, fined, or restricted the use of TikTok in various ways, including by children or on government devices, according to a Washington Post report.

Calling it a “national emergency,” Trump in 2020, during his first term as president, signed an executive order aiming to ban TikTok, citing a wide range of issues, including “information and communications technology and services supply chain.”

READ MORE: Cannon Blocks Classified Docs Report as Trump Targets Ex-Officials Over ‘Sensitive’ Info

“Specifically, the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China) continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by one mobile application in particular, TikTok,” his executive order read.

“TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories,” the order stated. “This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”

Trump’s order also cited the risk of censorship by the Chinese Communist Party, and said the app “may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.”

Now, Trump is dismissing all those privacy and national security concerns, going so far as to apparently minimize concerns raised about how TikTok reportedly affects children.

In October, NPR reported that “internal TikTok communications have been made public that show a company unconcerned with the harms the app poses for American teenagers. This is despite its own research validating many child safety concerns.”

“As TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users can attest, the platform’s hyper-personalized algorithm can be so engaging it becomes difficult to close the app. TikTok determined the precise amount of viewing it takes for someone to form a habit: 260 videos. After that, according to state investigators, a user ‘is likely to become addicted to the platform.'”

According to NPR, 14 state attorneys general conducted an investigation into TikTok, spanning more than two years.

Investigators in Kentucky wrote that while 260 videos “may seem substantial, TikTok videos can be as short as 8 seconds and are played for viewers in rapid-fire succession, automatically.”

READ MORE: Skipping Hand on Bible, Trump Declares ‘We Will Not Forget Our God’ at Inauguration

“Thus, in under 35 minutes, an average user is likely to become addicted to the platform,” they alleged.

NPR also reported that “TikTok’s own research states that ‘compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety,’ according to the suit.”

“In addition, the documents show that TikTok was aware that ‘compulsive usage also interferes with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.'”

Those concerns did not appear to be on display Monday during Trump’s inauguration.

“TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew was seated next to Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump’s nominee to be the director of national intelligence, at the Capitol as Trump was sworn-in,” The Wall Street Journal reported, noting that “the seating of Chew and Gabbard together comes as TikTok is under scrutiny for national security concerns.”

Later on Monday, reporters asked Trump why he flipped his position on TikTok and now supports it.

“Because I’ve got to use it. And remember, TikTok is largely about kids, young kids.”

“If China’s gonna get information about young kids, I don’t know,” he said appearing to shrug off the implications. “I think to be honest with you, I think we have bigger problems than that.”

“But, you know, when you take a look at telephones that are made in China and all the other things that are made in China, military equipment made in China. TikTok, I think TikTok is not their biggest problem.”

Trump went on to make the case for why he says the federal government should own half of TikTok.

“But there’s big value in TikTok if it gets approved. If it doesn’t get approved, there’s no value. So if we create that value, why aren’t we entitled to like half?”

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake, responding to Trump’s remarks, noted, “Members of the House Energy and Commerce committee saw the intelligence on this and quickly voted 50-0 in favor of the ban.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Expected to Target Citizenship of Children With Undocumented Parents

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Cannon Blocks Classified Docs Report as Trump Targets Ex-Officials Over ‘Sensitive’ Info

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January 21, 2025

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U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has denied the Department of Justice’s request to share Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents with Congress. Her order came just hours after now-President Trump signed an executive order to hold former government officials accountable for “unauthorized disclosure” of “sensitive” information, and “for election interference.”

Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee whose rulings have been highly criticized, refused to allow members of Congress to review Smith’s final report. Trump was investigated for alleged unlawful removal, retention, and refusal to return sensitive, classified, and top secret documents, reportedly including nuclear and defense secrets. The FBI executed a lawful search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence to retrieve some of the documents.

Part of her reasoning, Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports, is that Congress “hasn’t asked for it and it’s not clear they need it, she says.”

“The ruling will make it easier for Trump to bury the report on the special counsel’s criminal probe,” Politico adds.

Late Monday night, one of the reportedly dozens of executive orders President Trump signed also addressed sensitive and classified information.

READ MORE: Skipping Hand on Bible, Trump Declares ‘We Will Not Forget Our God’ at Inauguration

In it, he revoked the security clearances of dozens of former federal government officials, including some who had worked in his first administration, like former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton, whom he criticized.

The list includes the 51 former U.S. intelligence officials who signed a letter reportedly stating that the disclosure of emails purportedly from Hunter Biden’s laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

“Many of the former officials are long retired and no longer hold active clearances — meaning that the move may have limited practical impact on their careers — but the order nevertheless suggests that Trump intends to act on threats he’s made to penalize national security and intelligence professionals whom he deems to be his enemies,” CNN reported.

“They should be prosecuted for what they did,” Trump had said.

“National security is … damaged by the publication of classified information,” the executive order reads. “Former National Security Advisor John R. Bolton published a memoir for monetary gain after he was terminated from his White House position in 2019. The book was rife with sensitive information drawn from his time in government. The memoir’s reckless treatment of sensitive information undermined the ability of future presidents to request and obtain candid advice on matters of national security from their staff. Publication also created a grave risk that classified material was publicly exposed.”

In 2023, Bolton commented on the classified documents criminal case against Trump, at the time 37 felony charges, most of which were under the Espionage Act.

“Trump appeared to have a ‘pattern’ of wanting to collect materials ‘of interest to him,’ including classified documents,” Bolton said, as The Hill reported. He also “knocked Trump’s behavior as ‘very disturbing.'”

Bolton told MSNBC, “there were some [documents] that we did get back. Others, the most famous, to me, it demonstrates why I don’t need to read the indictment or believe its allegations are true, although I’m pretty confident they are — was the famous tweet that he did after getting an overhead picture of a failed Iranian missile launch, which he was shown during an intelligence briefing. [He] didn’t give [it] back, and it was tweeted before the intelligence officials got back to their office.”

Bolton was “referring to a 2019 tweet from the then-president.”

READ MORE: Trump Expected to Target Citizenship of Children With Undocumented Parents

Trump’s order on Monday also stated: “It is the policy of the United States that individuals who hold government-issued security clearances should not use their clearance status to influence U.S. elections.”

Among the intelligence professionals the order revokes security clearance from are well-known cable news commentators, and political and national security experts.

In addition to Bolton, some on the list include: James Clapper, Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, John Brennan, Jeremy Bash, and Nada Bakos.

Margaret Brennan, CBS News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and “Face the Nation” moderator noted that Trump revoking “the security clearances of a long list of former intelligence officials … makes it hard for his own team to seek informed counsel from them.”

Mark Zaid, an attorney who specializes in national security issues, including security clearances, noted, “no President has ever done this before.”

Watch video of Trump below or at this link.

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