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‘Homosexuality Is A Behavior’: Christian Conservatives Target Michigan With ‘Grassroots’ Billboard

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A nationwide coalition of anti-gay hate groups camouflaged by a local Christian conservative group has once again posted a billboard claiming homosexuality is a “behavior” – and a choice.

This is not the first time you’ve seen this billboard, but for most of the 93,000 Michigan residents who live in or drive through the town of Wyoming, it is, and it’s causing quite a stir.

The digital billboard, which earlier this month made its debut in the Detroit area, claims, “Homosexuality is a behavior, not a civil right.” 

These billboards are part of a money-making campaign by a coalition of anti-gay organizations and anti-gay hate groups, partnering to spread lies while trying to profit from their message of hate.

The billboards are sponsored by a coalition that call themselves Restrain the Judges, and that work in partnership with local anti-gay groups. This time, a group called the Michigan Oak Initiative, which is also Transformation Michigan on Facebook, is the front for Restrain the Judges, paying, according to local NBC affiliate WOOD-TV, $2500 for the billboard. 

Restrain the Judges uses a man named Mark Gurley, identified in the above news story, as its local concerned citizen spokesperson for the Oak Initiative. Gurley was also interviewed earlier this month, but identified as a spokesperson for one of the anti-gay groups that comprise Restrain the Judges. NCRM reached out to Gurley today by telephone but did not receive a response to our message.

“You can choose to engage in sexuality as a married person, you can choose to commit adultery, you can choose to abstain from sexuality before marriage,” Gurley told WOOD-TV. “So any time you’re engaged in any activity that is involved in a sexual arena, you have a choice. And a choice is different than the civil rights that black people fought dearly for in our nation because they couldn’t change their skin color.”

Gurley also falsely fear-mongers in his interview, spreading his message of hate.

“Ultimately, that’s the issue here, is that if same-sex marriage is recognized by our government, that will criminalize Christianity because any Christian that speaks what’s in the Bible can be framed for hate speech,” Gurley said.

Of course, as Gurley should know, in America there are no laws against hate speech, thanks to the U.S. Constitution, so the lie that “if same-sex marriage is recognized by our government, that will criminalize Christianity,” is just that – a lie.

Restrain the Judges’ website says the coalition includes the American Family Association, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, and Scott Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries – all of which appear on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s anti-gay hate groups list. Other organizations include the Liberty Alliance and Faith 2 Action. Also included in the coalition is Matt Barber’s BarbWire website, which repeatedly has published authors who have called for the death of gay people.

Restrain the Judges offers visitors the opportunity to email a faux “restraining order” to lawmakers in Congress and justices at the Supreme Court. For the low, low price of just $49.95, you can give these anti-gay groups all your personal contact information, and your credit card number, so they can do the same thing you can do for free elsewhere.

In other words, these groups have found yet another way to make money off the anti-gay hate of others, something that for decades the radical Christian right has perfected.

 

Image: Screenshot via WOOD-TV

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Arkansas Senator Files Bill to Abolish State Library, Give Education Department Control

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The right-wing war on knowledge continues as an Arkansas state senator filed a bill Thursday to abolish the State Library as well as the library board.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro), along with State Rep. Wayne Long (R-Bradford), filed Senate Bill 536 on Thursday. The bill would not just remove all references to the State Library from existing laws, but also put the state’s other libraries under the control of the Arkansas Department of Education.

A previous version of the bill, SB184, would have also shuttered the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, which oversees the state’s PBS stations, according to the Arkansas Advocate.

READ MORE: Clean Up Alabama Wants State to Dump ‘Marxist’ American Library Association

The Arkansas State Library is not just a regular library. In addition to providing information to state agencies and lawmakers, it also distributes funding to the other libraries around the state. Under SB536, the Department of Education would take on all its responsibilities. The State Library is officially a part of the Department of Education already, but it operates as an independent organization.

While the proposal may sound like a shuffling-around of duties, the main thrust of the bill is to allow more direct control over the Arkansas library system by controlling the purse strings. The bill would keep libraries from distributing “age-inappropriate materials” to those under 17 years old and sex education materials from those under 12. Libraries would also have to set up a system where those in the community could request that certain items be banned for minors, according to KARK-TV. Those that don’t meet these restrictions will have state funding pulled.

Earlier legislation filed by Sullivan and passed into law includes Act 242, which ended the requirement for library directors to have a master’s degree in library science, the Advocate reported.  Sullivan, however, was unsuccessful with a proposed amendment to another bill that would strip funding from libraries affiliated with the American Library Association—meaning most, if not all of them. That amendment was rejected this week over concerns the language in it was too broad, according to the Advocate.

The ALA has been a target of right-wing politicians and activists upset with its free speech stance and fights against censorship. Sullivan in particular has objected to a provision in the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights protecting library access for all ages, the Advocate reported. He also called for the state’s chapter of the ALA to be defunded—despite the fact that it receives no state funding.

Image via Shutterstock

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Released JFK Files Reveal How CIA Participated in Assassination Attempts of World Leaders

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JFK Files Picture of President Kennedy in the limousine in Dallas, Texas, on Main Street, minutes before the assassination. Also in the presidential limousine are Jackie Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally, and his wife, Nellie.

This week, President Donald Trump ordered the release of all the government’s files on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The recently released JFK files are largely unredacted and reveal information about the CIA’s participation in assassination attempts on leaders from around the world.

National Security Archive senior analyst Peter Kornbluh discussed the contents of the JFK files on Friday’s episode of Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman. Kornbluh described some of the now-publicly available information, saying that not only does it reveal information on how the CIA attempted to assassinate Cuba leader Fidel Castro, but how the agency was involved in the May 1961 assassination of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo.

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

“It’s quite detailed. It names the names of all the CIA officers involved, including their code names that they used in their discussions with coup plotters and the assassination team in the Dominican Republic. It names all the names of the coup plotters, as well, that the CIA was working with. The name of the actual covert operation, which was called EMDEED, and the actual assassination plot, which was called EMSLEW,” Kornbluh said.

“And, you know, you get to learn not only how the CIA works with foreigners to assassinate a head of state… but you also learn how the CIA goes about investigating its own wrongdoing of the past, the files that it keeps, how they are reviewed, what they yield,” he added.

The JFK files also revealed that in 1961, nearly half of all political officers working in U.S. embassies were CIA agents posing as diplomats. He said the files showed that out of the 5,600 U.S. diplomats at the time, 3,700 were undercover agents. While it’s not a surprise that the CIA had operatives stationed around the world—and that embassies provide a perfect cover—it was previously unknown to the extent that this was the case.

Kornbluh also says that the files reveal how the CIA used the recently dismantled USAID as cover—though he makes clear that USAID also did good work in addition to helping the CIA.

“It’s easy to look back on the older history of USAID when it was first started as a tool of the Cold War. The Cold War has been over for a long time now. So, closing it down now is simply a crime against humanity, frankly, in my opinion, because so many people will die and suffer and become ill and impoverished by this cruel act of simply closing the doors of the USAID programs,” he said.

Information on the CIA’s covert activities in the early ’60s isn’t the only surprise information the JFK files had. The files also included the full personal information—including Social Security numbers—of former congressional staffers, according to ABC News.

Though Trump said Friday that those who were doxxed were “people long gone,” ABC News reports that at least two—Joseph diGenova, 80, and Christopher Pyle, 86—are still alive.

Over 60,000 pages of documents have been released; while many were public in some form already, many of the redactions have been removed. Those interested in seeing the files for themselves can find them at the National Archives website.

Public Domain Image by Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News via Wikimedia Commons.

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Trump Claims US ‘Doesn’t Need Anything From Canada’, Yet Still Wants It as a State

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President Donald Trump said that the U.S. “doesn’t need anything from Canada” during a press conference on Friday—and yet, he still wants the sovereign country to become the 51st state.

Canada was mentioned during the question and answer period of his Friday morning Oval Office press conference. Answering one question, Trump claimed that the U.S. did not import anything from Canada.

“Remember with Canada, we don’t need their cars, we don’t need their lumber, we don’t need their energy. We don’t need anything from Canada. And yet it costs us $200 billion a year in subsidies to keep Canada afloat,” Trump said. “So when I say they should be a state, I mean that. I really mean that, because we can’t be expected to carry a country that is right next to us on our border. It would be a great state. It would be a cherished state.”

This is inaccurate. Last year, the U.S. imported $412.7 billion of goods from Canada, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. While Canada is the largest purchaser of U.S. goods, U.S. exports were over $63 billion less than the worth of imports from the country: $349.4 billion.  Canada provides the third-largest amount of exports to the U.S., only after China and Mexico.

When it comes to the particular goods, Trump is also wrong. Fuel is the item that Canada exports the most of to the U.S., and lumber is the country’s 7th largest export to America, according to PIIE.

READ MORE: Shark Tank Star Proposes EU-Like Relationship Between U.S. and Canada, Despite Trump Backing Brexit

Likewise, Trump’s claim of subsidies is false. He’s reportedly referring to the trade deficit, which, according to CBS News, is only $35.7 billion. And a lot of that is due to the U.S.’ purchase of unrefined oil, with a Canadian economist telling CBS that minus energy, the deficit shrinks dramatically.

Trump also claimed that Canada doesn’t spend money on its military, instead depending on the U.S. for protection. In fact, though America spends more on its military than any other country, Canada is the 16th-highest spender on military expenses, spending $27.2 billion, or 1.3% of its GDP. Comparatively, the U.S. spends $916 billion, or 3.4% of the GDP.

During the press conference, Fox reporter Peter Doocy asked Trump if he was concerned that should Canada become a state, that it would be “very, very big and very very blue.” Trump dismissed these claims, calling the border “an artificial line that was drawn in the sand—or in the ice.”

“You add that to this country, what a beautiful landmass, the most beautiful landmass anywhere in the world, and it was just cut off for whatever reason,” he continued.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1903116806589649228

The border—the 49th Parallel—was set in 1846 as part of the Oregon Treaty between the U.S. and Britain. The U.S. initially wanted to set the border at 54°40′, the southernmost border of Alaska. Prior to the Oregon Treaty, some Democratic expansionists at the time wanted to declare war on the British Empire if it did not give what is now British Columbia to the United States. One of the primary reasons the expansionists wanted the land is to counteract the recent acquisition of Texas, which would become a Southern, slave-owning state.

Image via Reuters

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