Wayne Besen

• February 5, 2020 • The Wayne Besen Show • 60

  You Can’t be Pro-Life and Anti-LGBT

   

  Right wing Evangelicals and Catholics like to say they are pro-life. They even had a big March for Life earlier this month on the National Mall, where President Donald Trump thanked participants for “making America the pro-family, pro-life nation.”

  But Trump and his supporters are phony hypocrites because they are outspokenly anti-gay. The fact is you cannot claim to be pro-life unless you are also pro-LGBT.

  Let me repeat that: You cannot, under any circumstances, claim to be pro-life if you are also anti-LGBT.

  Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for all U.S. teens. But, LGBT teens are five times more likely to make an attempt on their life than their straight peers.

  Furthermore, Dr. Caitlin Ryan’s published a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics that showed: “LGBT teens who were highly rejected by their families were 8 times more likely to have attempted suicide, 6 times as vulnerable to severe depression, and 3 times more likely to use drugs.”

  So, it’s clear that negative actions and attitudes against LGBT teenagers can have serious, life altering consequences.

  Upworthy reports that legalizing gay marriage has caused a dramatic drop in LGBT suicide rates. While the studies supporting this, don’t show direct causation, they do suggest a strong correlation.

  One study by Julia Raifman, a researcher at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, showed that in the 32 states that enacted same-sex marriage laws during the study, suicide attempts dropped 7 percent among all students and 14 percent among gay kids after the laws were passed. There was no change in suicide attempts in states without those laws.

  A 2019 study in Denmark and Sweden found similar results among married gay couples. Gay marriage was made legal in 2009 in Sweden and 2012 in Denmark. The study found that couples in same-sex unions saw a 46% decline in suicide, compared to 28% of those in heterosexual unions.

  The researches said: “Although suicide rates in the general populations of Denmark and Sweden have been decreasing in recent decades, the rate for those living in same-sex marriage declined at a steeper pace, which has not been noted previously.

  One would think that fundamentalist Christians would look at these statistics and say we need to change our ways. What we are doing is harmful, destructive and not pro-life. Instead, they are doing the opposite.

  For example, the Republican Florida legislature just dropped eight anti-gay bills. Two of the bills supported “ex-gay” conversion therapy. The American Psychiatric Association says that conversion therapy can lead to “anxiety, depression, and self-destructive behavior”, including suicide. But these good Christians, just don’t seem to care about life – if the person is LGBT. If they are gay or trans, they are expendable. They are collateral damage in the culture wars.

  LGBTQ Nation reports that Republican lawmakers in Iowa filed a bill that would remove transgender people from the state’s civil rights protections. This monstrous bill could make Iowa the first state to rescind protections for transgender people.

  Republican South Dakota Rep. Fred Deutsch just compared parents and doctors who helped transgender kids to Nazis. His disgusting bill Deutsch would ban a list of surgeries from being performed for the purpose of gender confirmation on someone under the age of 16. Republicans in at least ten states are working to ban any gender confirmation-related medical care for transgender youth.

  This, despite a recent study that found puberty blockers were effective in stopping suicidal thoughts in 2/3 of people who wanted them as teenagers and got them.

  Clearly, these religious zealots might be in favor of protecting the unborn. But having a fetus fetish, is not the same as respecting all human life. So, if you’re only about the unborn, and don’t care about actual, living breathing people, just because you don’t like them, please rename your movement pro-fetus, but you ain’t pro-life.

  WayneBesenShow.com
  YouTube/TruthWinsOut

  Read More »
• February 5, 2020 • The Wayne Besen Show • 59

  Podcast: The Adam Schiff Show Outshines the Republican Shit Show

  Read More »
• February 5, 2020 • The Wayne Besen Show • 51

  Right wing zealots declare war on LGBT people with new hate bills

  Read More »
• December 31, 2019 • The Wayne Besen Show • 154

  Gay Rights Debacle in Zambia Shows Trump Regime Celebrates Corruption

  By Wayne Besen

  In the African nation of Zambia, a gay couple was sentenced to 15 years in prison for consensual sex. The U.S. Ambassador, Daniel Foote, condemned the barbaric sentence as “horrifying”.

  Unfortunately, American Christian extremists infiltrated Zambia many years ago peddling a hateful version of Pat Robertson so-called Christianity. Like the paternalistic, bigoted Christian colonialists they truly are, these malicious missionary thugs imported their homophobic hang-ups, which demonized and continue to terrorize the local LGBT population, and no doubt other groups who don’t share their backward beliefs.

  Thankfully Ambassador Foote stood up to these zealots and spoke out against the abuse of this gay couple. What he represents is the best of American foreign policy and why, at our finest, we are lighthouse for liberty the world over.

  It seems, however, that there was more to the story. Not only is Zambia morally bankrupt and run by fake Christians, it also may be financially corrupt. This is a country that sucks up $500 million annually in American aid. Ambassador Foote essentially accused the government of misappropriating millions in funds saying, Zambia “wants foreign diplomats to be compliant, with open pocketbooks and closed mouths.”

  According to The New York Times, the ambassador wrote, he had found it very difficult to get an audience with the president and said, “Both the American taxpayers, and Zambian citizens, deserve a privileged, two-way partnership, not a one-way donation that works out to $200 million per meeting with the head of state.”

  Zambia’s president, Edgar Lungu, was predictably apoplectic saying, We want Ambassador Foote, “gone.” Lungu told Sky News: “If that is how you are going to bring your aid, then I’m afraid the West can leave us alone in our poverty. And we’ll continue scrounging and struggling.”

  Hmm, sounds good to me. I’m sure they could use some of that money for education and job training in Detroit or Baltimore. Or, to combat crystal meth addiction in West Virginia or Ohio.

  By the way, President Trump appointed Foote ambassador to Zambia in November 2017. So, you think that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would have his back, both protecting American values and taxpayer money. But instead, Pompeo pulled out the rug and stabbed Foote in the back.

  In a statement, the Department of State said that it was dismayed the ambassador was “no longer tenable.” The department said that President Lungu’s remarks were “the equivalent of a declaration that the ambassador is persona non grata.”

  If this sounds familiar, it is reminiscent of the dismissal of Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who tried to stop corruption in Ukraine, before she was stymied by Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump’s so-called drug deal to extort dirt on Joe Biden.

  Republicans defend Trump by laughably saying he illegally withheld aid to Ukraine only because he was obsessed with stopping corruption. If that’s the case, then why is the Trump Administration dismissing Foote from his post for his role in fighting corruption in Zambia?

  The New York Times writes, a recent report by the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international organization that investigates environmental crime and abuse, described the Zambian president, his daughter and two ministers as central figures in a “cartel” that traffics mukula rosewood trees. It said that the trees were on the verge of commercial extinction.

  Notice the similarities? An Ambassador in Ukraine fired for trying to stop a drug deal. An Ambassador in Zambia fired for taking on a cartel. But Trump tells us he is concerned about stopping corruption.

  The Times reports Ambassador Foote had spoken out about the sleaze in Zambia before. The popular musician Fumba Chama, who repeatedly criticized government corruption in songs said, “Foote’s voice is powerful. He had exposed their hypocrisy and corruption.”

  The episode in Zambia once again shows that the Mike Pompeo has no loyalty and undercuts the best diplomats at State. It highlights the administration’s ongoing love affair with shifty tyrants, political pirates, as well as hostility to human rights.

  Ambassador Foote represents the best of America. Unfortunately, he was working for the worst president and Secretary of State in American history. They are a disgrace to our flag and a stain on our country’s international reputation. Trump has essentially put out a giant, neon flashing sign to corrupt dictators across that globe that reads: America is open for shady business.

  I’d like to see the Democratic presidential hopefuls declare that if they are elected, Ambassador Foote will have his position immediately restored and if Zambia has a problem with it, we can find better use for $500 million of taxpayer’s money than allegedly lines the pockets of the fake Christian President Lungu and his crooked associates.

  Finally, we need to finally stop American right wing Christians from poisoning minds across the globe with Bible-based bigotry. Th ey aren’t pushing spirituality, but instead are inciting people to hate and violence. The toxic presence of organizations like The Family, which runs the National Prayer Breakfast, as well as the World Congress of Families, has even created a shadow foreign policy that puts us all in danger.

  The sketchy and self-serving agenda of these insurgent Christian groups is often at odds with official American interests and values. They are incompatible with our creed and credibility. Moving forward, these moral perverts and purveyors of hate ought to be denied visas when their rhetoric endangers the liberty or lives of local populations, including LGBT people, like the ones targeted and terrorized in Zambia.

  Read More »
• December 20, 2019 • The Wayne Besen Show • 167

  Evangelical Magazine Slams Trump and It Could Spell Doom

   

  By Wayne Besen

  Hallelujah and praise the Lord. An evangelical publication finally found its moral compass and stopped bowing down to the golden calf with the golden toilet seat. Christianity Today, the magazine founded by the late Billy Graham, wrote a scathing editorial titled “Trump should be removed from office.”

  The editorial was devastating. It said that Trump’s actions in Ukraine were “profoundly immoral” and that he is “a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.”

  It deftly brushed off evangelical Trump supporters by saying, “none of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.”

  The magazine’s editorial staff wrote, “to use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence.”

  I’m just scratching the surface. You’ll have to read the entire editorial for yourself to capture how unforgiving and brutal it was. It’s clear that this moment represents the opening of a potential seismic fault in the Cult of Trump. Christianity Today was the first to put down the Kool Aid to tell the truth. Will others follow?

  This does not bode well for Trump. Fifty-one years ago, Lyndon Johnson knew his position on the Vietnam War was toast after CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite delivered a scathing on-air editorial. When the broadcast ended, LBJ famously said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” A few weeks after Cronkite’s remarks, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election.

  We might one day look back and say, when Trump lost Christianity Today, he lost middle-of-the-road evangelicals, his Teflon wore off and the dude he shot at on Fifth Avenue, pulled out a gun and shot back.

  I can understand your skepticism. More than eighty-percent of white evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump and remain his fervent base. And, it’s true that most people in this demographic are so in the tank that they would vote for Trump over Jesus Christ. This was evident during the impeachment hearings when Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) actually compared Trump’s alleged persecution and fate to that of Jesus Christ.

  But you have to remember how vulnerable Trump actually is. He overwhelmingly lost the popular vote by three million. Of the more than 120 million votes cast in the 2016 election, 107,000 votes in three states decided the outcome. Even if a mere five or ten percent of evangelicals find the strength to choose their morality over this monster, it could be enough to destroy Trump’s chances at reelection.

  You have to assume that many evangelicals quietly share the concerns so eloquently expressed by Christianity Today. They were too scared, however, to voice their opinions. It’s difficult to oppose this vicious and vindictive president who attacks his foes. It’s not easy to disagree with the tribe and face losing friends or even banishment from your social circle. But, the courage displayed by this magazine offers fresh cover and may embolden others to speak out and vote against the moral heathen and ethical harlot that stains the Oval Office.

  Most importantly, Christianity today makes a compelling case. The magazine powerfully and persuasively writes, “to the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior.” The editors go onto write, “Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come?”

  This is true. I’m an LGBT activist. My response to evangelicals when they condemn gay marriage is, “ha, ha ha.” You pathetic phonies and hypocrites support a president who is on his third wife, pays off porn stars, has lied more than 15,000 times, brags about sexually assaulting women and tried to strip millions of Americans of their healthcare. Even worse, you got behind Judge Roy Moore for U.S. Senate in Alabama, who allegedly cruised a local mall looking for teenage girls to date. Yet, you frauds have the nerve to comment on our marriages? I would say, “go to Hell,” but it looks like you won’t need my help to get there.

  Consider this: Trump has the most right wing religious administration in history. Trump has elevated Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry, Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos and many others, to what ends? The great paradox is that these religious zealots have produced the most dishonest, craven, mean-spirited, corrupt and least respected administration in our nation’s history. They are a joke and an affront to real Christians like Jimmy Carter, Bishop Gene Robinson or Rev. William Barber. They think they won, but ironically they’ve lost, because they have become the epitome of the world they supposedly disdain.

  Donald Trump responded to the editorial with a tantrum and Tweeted, “I won’t be reading ET again!” Dude, it’s, CT, not ET, that’s the Stephen Spielberg alien. And I guess that gives the President more time to read Two Corinthians.

  Don’t dismiss the importance of this editorial by Christianity Today. If even a few white evangelicals start remembering that they are actually Christians, Trump will get crucified in the 2020 election.

  Read More »