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So, Who Was Really Behind Kim Davis Meeting The Pope?

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Now that the Vatican has distanced itself from Kim Davis, saying it feels a “sense of regret” over the Pope’s meeting with her, who’s to blame for arranging it in the first place? 

This week, after days of obfuscation, the Vatican finally confirmed that Pope Francis did indeed meet with Kim Davis, the Rowan County Clerk who spent six days in jail for refusing to comply with a court order directing her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Today, the Vatican went even further, distancing itself by labeling it a “brief greeting,” and stating the meeting “should not be considered a form of support of her position” by the Pope.

Davis and her current husband, Joe, met with the Pope in secret when they were in Washington, D.C., where Kim received the Cost of Discipleship award from the Family Research Council for denying gay couples their constitutional right to marry. According to Mathew Staver, Kim Davis’s attorney, the invitation to meet with Davis came from the Vatican a week or so before the Pope’s six-day visit to the United States, and not from American Catholic institutions.

Staver’s reliability on this point is questionable. The same day, Tuesday, that he announced Kim Davis met with the Pope, he also falsely claimed that 100,000 Peruvians had come together to pray for Kim Davis. It was later revealed that the picture he posted of the alleged event was actually a photo of a gathering from May 2014.

The New Civil Rights Movement has learned through a source within the Apostolic Nunciature, the Vatican embassy, that Kim Davis’ meeting with the Pope was arranged – contrary to theories espoused in the media – by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The USCCB is led by President Joseph E. Kurtz, the Archbishop of Louisville, in Davis’ home state of Kentucky, and by the Archdiocese of Washington led by Cardinal Donald Wuerl. Both institutions have actively opposed same-sex marriage. In 2009, Cardinal Wuerl signed the Manhattan Declaration, an ecumenical statement calling on Evangelical, Orthodox, and Catholic Christians to defy laws permitting same-sex marriage and other issues they claim challenge their religious freedom.

The USCCB has ties to organizations designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, including the Family Research Council and the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM). FRC President Tony Perkins has said about gay people, “They are intolerant. They are hateful. They are vile. They are spiteful.” Perkins also says gay people are “pawns” of the “enemy.” FRC’s Senior Fellow of Legal Studies, Cathy Ruse, was the USCCB chief spokesperson for human life issues for several years. (Full disclosure: Cathy Ruse is a personal friend.) 

Cathy Ruse’s husband, Austin Ruse, is the president and director of C-FAM, and a blogger at the far right website Breitbart. In his most recent constituent email dated October 1, Ruse calls same-sex marriage, “a definition of marriage cooked up in the pits of hell,” and he supports Russian anti-LGBT laws that have led to an increase in violence against gay people in Russia.

Pope Francis’s messages while in the United States were mainly pastoral in nature, caring for the needs of the downtrodden and the less fortunate. Although he was said to be authoritarian and “kind of a jerk” in his first leadership role as the head of the Jesuits in Argentina, Pope Francis evolved into a humble man concerned about those living in poverty, immigrants, and those struggling to find a place in the world. Meeting with a controversial figure such as Kim Davis was out of character for a man who spent the entirety of his trip to the United States avoiding strong statements about American politics, especially on hot-button social issues like same-sex marriage.

Knowing that conservative American Catholic institutions arranged this meeting, and knowing that now the Vatican feels a “sense of regret” over it, arouses suspicion that the reasons behind it were political.

Kim Davis said she felt her meeting with the Pope “kind of validated everything,” but in today’s official statement by the Vatican’s spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi said the Pope’s meeting with Kim Davis “should not be considered a form of support of her position.” 

Davis’ statement is exactly what the anti-LGBT forces in the American Catholic church and other conservative Christians wanted her, and, more importantly, other Christians to feel. The Vatican today refuted that claim. But by showing apparent solidarity between the Pope and Kim Davis, conservative groups are hoping it will push more people to defy the constitutional rights of LGBT people, while these groups strive in the future for the Supreme Court to overturn its marriage ruling. 

The battle for human rights did not end with the Supreme Court decision that marriage is a fundamental right guaranteed under the Constitution. It is raging between those who demand human rights and those who will stop at nothing less than religious totalitarianism. And the end is nowhere in sight.

 

Image by Jeffrey Bruno/US Papal Visit via Flickr and a CC license

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News

Will Trump Testify at Trial? ‘Absolutely’ Is Now a ‘No Decision’ Yet

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11 hours ago

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May 16, 2024

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The State of New York’s prosecution of Donald Trump is nearing it end, as Judge Juan Merchan announced late Thursday afternoon final arguments could begin on Tuesday. But one question remains: Will the ex-president who is facing 34 felony charges in the election interference, falsification of business records, and hush money cover-up case, testify in his defense?

Just over one month ago Trump was asked that question. He quickly responded, “Yeah I would testify, absolutely.”

Trump appeared resolved.

READ MORE: Ex-Florida GOP Chair’s Efforts to Recruit 3-Way Partners for Anti-LGBTQ Wife Revealed: Report

“I’m testifying. I tell the truth. I mean, all I can do is tell the truth. And the truth is that there is no case,” he said, as NBC News reported.

NBC added last week that Trump “told Newsmax two weeks ago that he would testify ‘if necessary,’ and on Tuesday he said in an interview with Spectrum News 1 Wisconsin that he would ‘probably’ take the stand, adding that he ‘would like to.'”

But when Judge Merchan asked Todd Blanche, Trump’s attorney, on Thursday, the answer was very different.

“That’s another decision that we need to think through,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

But Politico’s Erica Orden reported, “Blanche says Trump hasn’t made a final decision about whether to testify.”

Last week, as the question of Trump’s testifying loomed large, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) insisted he would not.

“It’s over. Donald Trump has a right to not testify. Yet he PROMISED he would. Now it’s clear he won’t. The jury can’t consider this. But you can. He is chickenshit and you should conclude he’s guilty as hell.”

On Wednesday, attorney George Conway addressed the topic, saying, “If he doesn’t testify, it’s because he’s scared.”

He also said, “in a million years, I would never tell him to testify. I would tell him not to testify.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False

 

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Ex-Florida GOP Chair’s Efforts to Recruit 3-Way Partners for Anti-LGBTQ Wife Revealed: Report

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13 hours ago

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May 16, 2024

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A stunning police report reveals how Christian Ziegler, the now-ousted Florida Republican Party chair, would head out to bars to scope out and recruit women as possible three-way sex partners for himself and his stridently anti-LGBTQ wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler.

The disgraced Florida power couple’s ménage à trois sex scandal made national headlines after an accusation of rape against Christian Ziegler came from one of their three-way sexual partners, an allegation he denied. After an investigation no charges were filed.

Christian Ziegler lost his high-paying job as the Florida GOP chairman, but his wife Bridget has refused to resign from her elected position on a school board, as well as from her position on the state board that now oversees the Walt Disney World special district. Bridget Ziegler, who is seen as an architect of Governor Ron DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” law, reportedly is best friends with Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis, and was appointed to the special district role by the Florida GOP governor.

The Sarasota Police Dept. report, according to the Florida Trident, “recounts how Christian Ziegler went ‘on the prowl’ in bars for women to bring home to Bridget, a Sarasota County School Board member who has backed a number of anti-LGBTQ measures at both the state and local level, for threesome encounters. While at the bars, Christian would surreptitiously photograph prospective women and text the photos to Bridget for approval, according to the report.”

READ MORE: ‘Mouths of Sauron’: Critics Blast ‘Mobster Tactic’ of Trump Surrogates ‘Violating’ Gag Order

Some of the details are salacious.

“There were numerous text messages between Bridget and Christian where they are on the prowl for a female and Bridget is directing him to numerous different bars in search of a female that they are both interested in,” the report reads, according to The Trident. “During these conversations Christian is secretly taking photographs of women in the bars and sending them to Bridget asking her if she wants this one or that one. Bridget is telling him to pretend to take pictures of his beer, so they don’t see him taking pictures of them. She tells him ‘Don’t come home until your dick is wet.’”

The Zieglers are in court trying to block the release of the text messages and other media, alleging in a lawsuit against the Sarasota Police Dept. and the State Attorney’s Office that “release of those records would cause ‘great humiliation and harm to their individual reputations’ if released and therefore should be destroyed.”

“The suit specifically addresses the contents of Christian Ziegler’s cell phone, his social media accounts, web browsing history, and the video he made of the sexual encounter with the alleged rape victim,” the Trident reports.

Meanwhile, despite her own actions and after months of laying low, Bridget Ziegler is back on her anti-LGBTQ crusade.

“At last week’s school board meeting, Ziegler introduced a highly contentious resolution to ignore protections for LGBTQ students afforded by a new federal Title IX rule,” the Trident also reports. “The resolution, which followed a DeSantis legal challenge to Title IX at the state level, claims the new rule would cause ‘disastrous impacts to girls and women’s safety in restrooms, locker rooms, and sports.’ It passed by a 4-1 vote despite the fact it could lead to a federal investigation, expensive litigation, and the loss to the school district of roughly $50 million in federal funds.”

READ MORE: Trump Appears to Violate Gag Order After Judge Threatened ‘Incarceration’

 

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News

Trump Appears to Violate Gag Order After Judge Threatened ‘Incarceration’

Published

15 hours ago

on

May 16, 2024

By

Despite New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan explicitly warning Donald Trump last week that any future violations of his gag order could result in jail time, the ex-president appears to have done so directly on Thursday.

“A lead person from the DOJ is running the trial,” Trump claimed, obviously referring to prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, as Law & Crime reports.

“So Biden’s office is running this trial. This trial is a scam and it’s a sham and it shouldn’t happen,” Trump told reporters outside the courtroom.

Judge Merchan’s gag order specifically prohibits trump from attacking anyone in District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, except for the D.A. himself.

“Colangelo, a lead prosecutor in the case, was criticized one day earlier by Trump ally Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, largely raising the same complaints that Trump repeated outside of court,” Law & Crime noted.

READ MORE: ‘Ready to Start Another Insurrection’: Gaetz Support for Trump Echoes Proud Boys Order

The gag order explicitly states Trump is “directed to refrain from”:

“Making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding; Making or directing others to make public statements” about attorneys “in the case other than the District Attorney,” “members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or the family members of any counsel or staff member” or “any prospective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding.”

Ten days ago Merchan wrote in his order: “Defendant is hereby put on notice that if appropriate and warranted, future violations of its lawful orders will be punishable by incarceration.”

Watch below or at this link.

 

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