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Watch: ADF Attorney Tells Christian Conference Matthew Shepard’s Murder Wasn’t A Hate Crime

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An attorney for the viciously anti-gay Alliance Defending Freedom yesterday claimed to a roomful of Christians that Matthew Shepard’s murder was not a hate crime.

Yesterday was the first day of the Southern Baptists Convention’s conference, “The Gospel, Homosexuality, and the Future of Marriage,” hosted by the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. During the meeting, attended by about 1200 people, speakers spent much of the day decrying same-sex marriage and the LGBT community.

One speaker, Alliance Defending Freedom‘s Senior Legal Counsel, Erik Stanley, told the audience that Matthew Shepard‘s hate crime murder was actually not a hate crime – despite the fact that the trial facts are clear. It absolutely was a hate crime. Instead, Stanley claimed that “narrative” has now been “debunked.”

“The end game of the homosexual legal agenda is unfettered sexual liberty and the silencing of all dissent,” Stanley proclaimed yesterday. He also pointed to a book he said was published in 1987, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s, which he described as “a playbook for how to advance the homosexual agenda.”

Media Matters’ Carlos Maza, who is reporting from the conference this week, posted a report and video of Stanley’s remarks this morning.

After lamenting the fact that television shows like Modern Family had “normalized homosexual behavior,” Stanley went on to claim that the “narrative” of Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder had been “debunked.”

Denying the story of Matthew Shepard’s murder is a populartactic for conservatives who want to deny that gay people face harassment, discrimination, and violence. It’s also a talking point that’s been thoroughly debunked by expertsfamiliar with Shepard’s murder.

ADF has been at the center of nearly every major media story about the supposed threat LGBT equality poses to religious liberty over the past several months. The group frequently represents business owners and individuals suing for the right to discriminate against LGBT customers, making it Fox News’ go-to source for anti-LGBT legal commentary.

Shepard was savagely attacked and died this month in 1998. Signed into law in 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was named in his memory.

Stanley was a virulent activist against the Matthew Shepard bill months before it passed, and called it “a threat to religious liberty.”

 

Image via ADF

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BREAKING NEWS

Trump Indictment Is a Massive 34 Counts: CNN

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March 30, 2023

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When he appears in New York next week, Donald Trump will face a 34-count indictment.

CNN’s John Miller on-air Thursday evening announced, “I am told by my sources that this is 34 counts of falsification of business records, which is probably a lot of charges involving each document, each thing that was submitted, as a separate count.”

Attorney Tristan Snell, who assisted in the successful prosecution of the Trump University case for the New York Attorney General’s Office, responded via Twitter:

“This is WAY more than expected. If this is correct, it could mean that the indictment covers FAR more than the Stormy Daniels hush money — like Karen McDougal hush money or other hush money/catch-and-kill cases.”

READ MORE: Manhattan District Attorney’s Office Says It Is Coordinating With Trump to ‘Surrender’

“My hunch for a while,” Snell adds, “given [David] Pecker’s involvement and the drawn-out timetable of the indictment, plus the TWENTY interviews of Michael Cohen with the DA, showed that something far larger than Stormy might be in the works.”

“May still be wrong, of course. But 34 counts is a LOT!”

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News

Manhattan District Attorney’s Office Says It Is Coordinating With Trump to ‘Surrender’

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March 30, 2023

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Donald Trump’s attorneys were notified Thursday afternoon a Manhattan grand jury had voted to indict him on felony charges related to his alleged hush money payoff of a porn star he reported slept with.

The ex-president’ attorney recently said if indicted Trump would travel to New York to turn himself in.

The Office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has just issued a strongly-worded statement saying it is “coordinating” with Trump’s attorneys for his “surrender.”

“This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal. Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected,” the statement reads.

READ MORE: ‘You Can’t Stand on Fifth Avenue and Just Shoot Somebody’: Donald Trump Indicted – Legal Experts Respond

The Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery posted the statement to Twitter.

NBC News explains the process, noting he is expected to be arraigned next week.

“After the indictment, Trump will be arrested and taken into custody. He will likely have a mug shot and fingerprints taken,” NBC reports. “Trump will then appear in court to be arraigned, where he will hear charges and enter a plea. Two sources familiar with the situation told NBC News that the former president is likely to be arraigned next week. Trump will either be jailed or released while pre-trial hearings take place.”

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'INDICTED FOR HIS BEHAVIOR'

‘You Can’t Stand on Fifth Avenue and Just Shoot Somebody’: Donald Trump Indicted – Legal Experts Respond

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11 hours ago

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March 30, 2023

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Just past 5:00 PM ET The New York Times broke the news that Donald Trump, the ex-president, had been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on felony charges.

It is a historic moment.

Legal experts are weighing in to help guide Americans through an event that has never before happened in this country.

Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman says the fact that this is the first time in U.S. history a president is facing criminal charges is itself a problem.

“I think it would have not been a novel event,” Ackerman said on MSNBC, “if we had done this 49 years ago with Richard Nixon, and he had not been pardoned, this will not be a big event [that] it is today.”

READ MORE: New Poll Sends Trump Damning Message About 2024 if He’s Criminally Indicted

“Everybody should be held accountable,” Ackerman added, citing former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s earlier remarks. Cohen testified repeatedly before the Manhattan grand jury that indicted Trump late Thursday afternoon after a three-hour session.

Ackerman lamented that despite over 30 people being indicted during Watergate, “Richard Nixon was pardoned, he wasn’t held accountable.”

“I think this is very important,” Ackerman continued, “establishing a principle, a line in the sand, that even if you’re the President of the United States, and you commit a crime, you can’t stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and just shoot somebody.”

Ackerman was referring to Trump’s infamous comments during the 2016 election, when he bragged he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”

Attorney and civil rights activist Maya Wiley, also on MSNBC, said, “It’s important and sobering that we had somebody who had the highest office of this country who has now ben indicted for his behavior, his acts, in order to win that office, but also faces what are more shoes that will drop, I believe.”

“It is a sobering moment for this country, that we are witnessing this happened to somebody who was entrusted with such power who has now had a jury of his peers, because that is what a grand jury also is, say we believe he had to face the music.”

READ MORE: Here’s How Five Republicans in Congress Are Responding to the Mass Shooting of 3 Children and 3 Adults in Nashville (Video)

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, now a professor of law, called this a “moment where we would do well to seriously assess who we are as Americans and who we are not as Americans, because we re all so familiar with Donald Trump’s tactics.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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