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Republican Presidential Candidates Align With Anti-Gay Religious Leaders

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Why does much of America still think it is acceptable – and even expected – for Republican presidential candidates to align themselves with the most virulent of anti-gay religious right leaders?

For more than two decades, conservative Christian voters have been regarded as a crucial voting bloc necessary to win the Republican presidential nomination. 

GOP candidates Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal, clearly in a seductive dance with conservative bases, have linked the approval of same-sex marriage by the Supreme Court to attacks on the religious liberties of conservative Christians. Their efforts to amass the conservative votes in early caucus conventions has produced some visible alignments of note between candidates and religious leaders.

As exhibited in the November 6-7 Des Moines Freedom 2015 rally sponsored and hosted by anti-gay and anti-trans extremist Colorado pastor Kevin Swanson, it appears some presidential candidates are willing to tolerate extreme hostility toward LGBT people for valuable conservative backing. All three Republican candidates spoke at Freedom 2015 after Swanson’s tirade without denouncing him. 

Another such display of endorsing hostility in exchange for votes will take place Saturday, when Ted Cruz travels to the campus of Bob Jones University, widely known for on campus anti-gay rhetoric throughout past decades that is still happening there despite recent administration apologies.

At the gathering, positioned as a “rally for religious freedom,” Cruz will be joined by Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, along with the usual cadre of bakers, florists, twins, and religious leaders.

Cruz, who has failed to denounced or distanced himself from the hateful rants of Swanson, will be joined by yet another anti-gay religious leader, Michael Brown.

Though Brown has publicly denounced the words of Swanson, stating it is “not Christian in any shape, size, or form to provoke hatred towards gay or lesbians, or worse still, to suggest that they should be mistreated,” one would be wrong to view Brown as the kind and compassionate voice he suggests himself to be.

Often lacking self-awareness of impact of their teachings, it seems a hierarchy of “God-approved” anti-gay religious leaders exists. Most of us would readily recognize Swanson as an extremist. But what about the pastor-types and organization heads whose teachings and policies foster mistreatment and hatred toward gays?

Brown, who has written three non-academic and ideologically-based books focused on gays and transpeople, their need to change, and their destructive influence on marriage, family and the culture, believes his version of damaging rhetoric is a more loving variety ordained by God.

I have engaged with Brown, his writings and books, his public action of leading 200 Christians into Charlotte Gay Pride with the intention of redirecting attendees to reparative therapy, and followed his public comments about LGBT people for almost five years. Though not as extreme as Swanson, Brown is guilty of dangerous teachings that have driven LGBT people, LGBT Christians, and their families and allies from finding spiritual haven in many Christian faith communities. and acceptance within their own families.

Typical of anti-gay conservative religious and organizational leaders and the presidential candidates who hold hands with them, Brown’s own cultural ideology, disguised as theology, thoroughly ignores the historical and cultural progression between what was written thousands of years ago to and in a specific culture and what we recognize today as same-sex couples in loving and committed relationships.

Increasingly, progressive Christians, myself included, are refusing to allow conservative interpreters of the Bible who neglect to address the cultural shifts in the status of women, the progression of understanding and input from experts in human sexuality, and the merger of conservative politics and religion since the late 1970s, each having significantly influenced the ability to take an honest look at biblical translations to inform our faith at its intersection with sexual orientation and gender identity. (I have written a book detailing this, Walking the Bridgeless Canyon)

In attempts to woo conservative Christian voters, we are witnessing public displays of alliances between candidates and religious leaders like Brown, and Eric Teetsel, a strong anti-gay leader amongst the Southern Baptists whom Marco Rubio has selected as his faith advisor.

Staunchly anti-gay Family Research Council representatives will also anoint their choice; as of now, that choice appears to be Cruz.

We’ve seen this demonizing and dehumanizing the LGBT community tactic used before in the 1980, 1992, and 2004 elections to get conservative voters registered and to the polls. 

As long as the candidates. or those who support them, continue to ignore the fact that every professional medical and mental health organization in the U.S. asserts that homosexuality is a normal variation of human sexuality, they are complicit in creating destructive environments for LGBT people and their families. 

There is no hierarchy of who hates less or with a “God-ordained” hatred when it comes to religious leaders who, in ignorance, formulate opinions and doctrine detrimental to LGBT people and their families. They are all guilty.

Presidential candidates who align with such ideologues are themselves anti-LGBT and should be plainly labeled as such as they exchange hostility of LGBT people for conservative votes.

 

 

Photo is from Ted Cruz Facebook page

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News

Hegseth: Trump Told Me ‘I’m Behind You All the Way’ But Reports Suggest Otherwise

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December 4, 2024

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Fox News co-host Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s embattled nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense, was back on Capitol Hill Wednesday to try to convince senators to support his confirmation, vowing to not withdraw despite numerous media reports alleging sexual misconduct, alcohol abuse, financial mismanagement, a possible Christian nationalism affinity — and a possible replacement.

Hegseth, walking through the halls of Congress Wednesday morning, was asked by CBS News congressional correspondent Nikole Killion (video below) if he has had any conversations with Trump about his rumored replacement, Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

“I spoke to the president-elect this morning,” Hegseth replied. “He said, ‘keep going, keep fighting. I’m behind you all the way.'”

“So you’re in this all the way?” Killion pressed.

READ MORE: ‘Standards Have Evolved’: Senator ‘Leaning Yes’ on Hegseth Despite Misconduct Allegations

“Why would I back down? I’ve always been a fighter. I’m here for the fighters. This is personal and passionate for me,” Hegseth insisted.

“So you’re not withdrawing your name from consideration, just to be clear?” Killion asked.

“I’m meeting all day with senators,” Hegseth, not directly answering her question, replied.

Hewseth’s mother spoke with her son’s colleagues in a Fox News interview Wednesday morning, urging “female Senators” to ignore the media reports and confirm Pete to lead the world’s most lethal military.

But despite the full-frontal blitz by Hegseth and his mother, and his claims that Trump is still behind him, the Trump transition team may not be.

The Wall Street Journal in an overnight exclusive reported Trump is considering Florida governor Ron DeSantis to replace Hegseth as even Republican senators and growing concerned over the “mounting allegations” about Hegseth.

CNN reports Hegseth’s nomination is “in trouble,” and the Trump transition team is apparently angered by Hegseth.

READ MORE: Trump Lining Up Billionaire Defense Investor and Megadonor to Be Number Two at Pentagon

“He has not been forthright with the Transition team staff and the President-elect and Vice President-elect,” a senior Trump transition source said of Hegseeth, CNN reported Tuesday night. “He has hurt a lot of people as a result. He didn’t disclose anything.”

“There are significant concerns more accusations are going to come out from his time at Fox News, about his behavior there, where he had an affair with his now-wife who was his executive producer,” the source also said.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: How Democrats and Republicans Look at Hunter Biden’s Pardon and One for J6ers

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Pete Hegseth’s Mom Urges ‘Female Senators’ to Ignore Media Reports, Confirm Him as SecDef

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December 4, 2024

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Penelope Hegseth, the mother of Donald Trump’s current and embattled nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense, appeared on the cable network where her son Pete works, to urge the U.S. Senate, and especially “female Senators,” to disregard media reports—which include allegations of sexual misconduct, excessive alcohol abuse, financial mismanagement of two veterans’ organizations, and tattoos suggesting a link to Christian nationalism. She insisted her son is a changed man and should be confirmed.

In a sit-down one-on-one interview with Fox News co-host Steve Doocy, who called her “Penny,” Penelope Hegseth on Wednesday said the letter she sent her son, which The New York Times published late last week, does not reflect the man he is today, or the mother she is. But when asked if she would testify on her son’s behalf before the U.S. Senate, she refused to commit.

According to The Times, Penelope Hegseth told her son in a 2018 email, “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself.”

READ MORE: ‘Standards Have Evolved’: Senator ‘Leaning Yes’ on Hegseth Despite Misconduct Allegations

“I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth,” she wrote, according to The Times.

The paper also reported Hegeth in her letter stated that she still loved her son. She reportedly apologized for the letter hours later.

On “Fox & Friends,” Penelope Hegseth began by saying, “let me make two statements first and one is to President Trump. And I want to say thank you for your belief in my son. We all believe in him. We really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago. I’m not that mother.”

“So the other thing I want to say is, I am here to tell the truth, to tell the truth to the American people and tell the truth to the senators on the Hill, especially our female senators. I really hope that you will not listen to the media and that you will listen to Pete.”

The media reports about Pete Hegseth—the weekend “Fox & Friends” co-host President-elect Donald Trump has picked to run the most lethal and well-funded military in all of history—that Penelope Hegseth is asking the U.S. Senate to “not listen to” are numerous, and highly-damaging.

Mother Jones on Monday published “A Running List of the Allegations Against Pete Hegseth.”

It does not yet include the latest NBC News report that says, “Ten current and former Fox employees say Trump’s pick for defense secretary drank in ways that concerned his co-workers.”

But it does characterize the current allegations against Hegseth under the headings: “Mismanagement, a Drinking Problem, and Sexually Inappropriate Behavior,” “Rape Allegation,” and, “His Mother Called Him ‘an Abuser of Women’.”

Penelope Hegseth made clear her goal in appearing on Fox News was as much to help get her son confirmed as it was to “discredit the media and how they operate.”

READ MORE: Trump Lining Up Billionaire Defense Investor and Megadonor to Be Number Two at Pentagon

“I came to take on New York City, to take on the New York Times,” she also said.

She explained that when she was called recently by reporters about the letter she wrote her son Pete in 2018, “I let a few phone calls go, but then they call you and say, they threaten you. That’s the first thing they do. They say, ‘unless you make a statement, we will publish it as is.’ And I think that’s a despicable way to treat anyone.”

When asked what her “message” is to The New York Times, she replied, “I would say I don’t think the way you operate is, it feels almost criminal when reporters call you and threaten you. I don’t think a lot of people know that’s the way they operate. And they are in it for the commission, for the money, and they don’t care who they hurt — families, children. I just I don’t believe that that is the right way to do things.”

Doocy asked, “Do you think that’s just the way they try to get the story?”

“Oh, of course,” she replied. “It’s their job, but I can take the opposite view.”

Critics have blasted Penelope Hegseth’s interview, and Pete Hegseth for not withdrawing his nomination to become U.S. Secretary of Defense.

Journalist Gretchen Carlson, the now former longtime Fox News host whose sexual harassment lawsuit helped bring down Fox News chief Roger Ailes, blasted Penelope Hegseth:

“OMG — watching Hegseth’s mom interview on Fox & Friends — twice calling out to GOP female Senators to believe him — saying Pete has changed over 7 years. She is the one who wrote the email annihilating him for his treatment of women & is now saying it’s not true.”

As did others.

“Hegseth can do the ‘never back down’ shtick all he wants but when the nomination reaches the ‘have his mommy say nice things on TV’ phase and she’s not willing to commit to testifying as a character witness, feels like it’s in a pretty bad place,” observed Aaron Fritschner, Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA). He added, “if someone was foolish enough to nominate me for something senate confirmed … [I] am extremely confident that my mommy would not hesitate to testify in my defense.”

CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote, “Penelope Hegseth’s main message was that Pete is a changed man. That’s the narrative his allies have been pushing in private, as well. But a changed-man narrative is premised on ugliness in the man’s past.”

Watch the videos below or at this link.

READ MORE: How Democrats and Republicans Look at Hunter Biden’s Pardon and One for J6ers

 

 

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‘Standards Have Evolved’: Senator ‘Leaning Yes’ on Hegseth Despite Misconduct Allegations

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22 hours ago

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December 3, 2024

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Despite facing allegations of sexual assault, “aggressive drunkenness,” financial mismanagement of veterans’ organizations, and a report his colleagues “smelled alcohol on him before he went on air,” at Fox News “as recently as last month,” U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) stated Tuesday that the standards for confirming presidential cabinet nominees have “evolved.” As a result, he indicated he is inclined to support Pete Hegseth’s nomination as Donald Trump’s next U.S. Secretary of Defense.

Saying that “of course” the multiple allegations against Hegseth are “concerning,” Senator Cramer told CNN’s Manu Raju (video below) on Tuesday, “I look forward to visiting with Pete, and I’m interested in who Pete Hegseth is today, and who he is going forward.”

Raju added that later, Senator Cramer “told me … that he is leaning yes, in supporting Pete Hegseth’s nomination, and I asked him if the standards have now changed in the United States Senate? Remember the last time the Senate voted down a defense secretary nominee or any cabinet nominee was in 1989. That was John Hightower over allegations of womanizing and also excessive drinking, including drunkenness.”

“And Cramer told me, ‘yes, the standards have evolved.’ And he says, ‘grace abounds,’ and he wants to see if Hegseth is in fact is a different person going forward.”

READ MORE: Trump Lining Up Billionaire Defense Investor and Megadonor to Be Number Two at Pentagon

Tuesday evening NBC News reported that “Ten current and former Fox employees say Trump’s pick for defense secretary drank in ways that concerned his co-workers.”

“Two of those people said that on more than a dozen occasions during Hegseth’s time as a co-host of ‘Fox & Friends Weekend,’ which began in 2017, they smelled alcohol on him before he went on air. Those same two people, plus another, said that during his time there he appeared on television after they’d heard him talk about being hungover as he was getting ready or on set.”

“One of the sources said they smelled alcohol on him as recently as last month and heard him complain about being hungover this fall,” NBC News added.

On Sunday, The New Yorker published a bombshell report revealing in part that a “previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events.”

READ MORE: How Democrats and Republicans Look at Hunter Biden’s Pardon and One for J6ers

“The detailed seven-page report—which was compiled by multiple former C.V.A. employees and sent to the organization’s senior management in February, 2015—states that, at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team. The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers, whom they divided into two groups—the ‘party girls’ and the ‘not party girls.’ In addition, the report asserts that, under Hegseth’s leadership, the organization became a hostile workplace that ignored serious accusations of impropriety, including an allegation made by a female employee that another employee on Hegseth’s staff had attempted to sexually assault her at the Louisiana strip club. In a separate letter of complaint, which was sent to the organization in late 2015, a different former employee described Hegseth being at a bar in the early-morning hours of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, drunkenly chanting ‘Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!'”

That New Yorker report also alleges that a “trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues, indicates that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America—in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.”

Mother Jones on Monday published “A Running List of the Allegations Against Pete Hegseth.”

The article, which has not been updated yet to include the latest NBC News allegations, characterizes them under the headings: “Mismanagement, a Drinking Problem, and Sexually Inappropriate Behavior,” “Rape Allegation,” and, “His Mother Called Him ‘an Abuser of Women’.”

CNN’s Manu Raju also talked with U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-MA), who said, “As I’ve repeatedly said to you, I believe that we need an FBI background check to evaluate the allegations. We need to have the normal committee process of questionnaires, and questionnaires about this background and we also need to have a public hearing.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: SCOTUS Ethics Code Debate Split Liberal and Conservative Justices Amid ‘Legitimacy Crisis’

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

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