News
Trump blows off question on Roy Moore’s views against gays
President says he’ll meet with U.S. Senate candidate next week
President Donald Trump speaks at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden on Oct. 16. (Image public domain)
Trump refused to a say whether he’s comfortable with Moore serving in the U.S. Senate in response to a reporter who inquired about the candidate’s opposition to homosexuality and belief Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to serve in public office.
“I’m going to be meeting with Roy sometime next week and we’re going to talk to him about a lot of different things, but I’ll be meeting with him,” Trump said. “He ran a very strong race. The people of Alabama — who I like very much, and they like me very much — but they like Roy, but we’ll be talking to them, and I can report back to then, OK?”
The reporter also posed the question to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who was present at the news conference, but McConnell never responded to question and Trump proceeded to the next reporter.
Moore has built an virulently anti-LGBT reputation over his career as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court before he became a U.S. Senate candidate. In 2015, Moore urged his state to refuse to recognize the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality nationwide. A 2005 tape was unearthed over the course of his Senate run in which he said homosexuality should be illegal. (Such a law would be unconstitutional as a result of the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas).
At the anti-LGBT Values Voter Summit last week, Moore expressed his view Christian theology should take precedence over all government laws and the country must “go back to the basis of our morality, which is in God, not man.”
In the Republican primary, Trump supported not Moore, who was a favorite of the far-right and Steve Bannon, and instead supported incumbent Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.). Moore ended up beating Strange in the primary by a several points after which Trump tweeted Moore “sounds like a really great guy.”
Trump’s refusal to repudiate Moore falls short of the response White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered last month when she said the two “don’t agree” on LGBT issues.
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, chided Trump for declining to condemn in a tweet containing a video of the exchange.
.@realDonaldTrump had an opportunity to condemn Roy Moore’s vile and extreme views. He refused. #NoMoore https://t.co/QzgG5Qs6Tn
— Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin) October 16, 2017
Moore is facing a run-off on Dec. 12 in Alabama to win the open U.S. Senate seat against Democratic nominee, Doug Jones, whom the Human Rights Campaign has endorsed. A Cygnal poll published on Thursday found Moore enjoys an eight-point lead in the race.
Iran
Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
Former ambassador to Germany claimed he has sneaked ‘gays and lesbians out of’ country
Richard Grenell, the presidential envoy for special missions of the United States, said on X on Tuesday that he has helped “sneak gays and lesbians out of Iran” and is seeing a change in attitudes in the country.
The post, which now has more than 25,000 likes since its uploading, claims that attitudes toward gays and lesbians are shifting amid massive economic protests across the country.
“For the first time EVER, someone has said ‘I want to wait just a bit,” the former U.S. ambassador to Germany wrote. “There is real hope coming from the inside. I don’t think you can stop this now.”
Grenell has been a longtime supporter of the president.
“Richard Grenell is a fabulous person, A STAR,” Trump posted on Truth Social days before his official appointment to the ambassador role. “He will be someplace, high up! DJT”
Iran, which is experiencing demonstrations across all 31 provinces of the country — including in Tehran, the capital — started as a result of a financial crisis causing the collapse of its national currency. Time magazine credits this uprising after the U.N. re-imposed sanctions in September over the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
As basic necessities like bread, rice, meat, and medical supplies become increasingly unaffordable to the majority of the more than 90 million people living there, citizens took to the streets to push back against Iran’s theocratic regime.
Grenell, who was made president and executive director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts last year by Trump, believes that people in the majority Shiite Muslim country are also beginning to protest human rights abuses.
Iran is among only a handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Virginia
Mark Levine loses race to succeed Adam Ebbin in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary
State Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker won with 70.6 percent of vote
Gay former Virginia House of Delegates member Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) lost his race to become the Democratic nominee to replace gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) in a Jan. 13 “firehouse” Democratic primary.
Levine finished in second place in the hastily called primary, receiving 807 votes or 17.4 percent. The winner in the four-candidate race, state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who was endorsed by both Ebbin and Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger received 3,281 votes or 70.6 percent.
Ebbin, whose 39th Senate District includes Alexandria and parts of Arlington and Fairfax Counties, announced on Jan. 7 that he was resigning effective Feb. 18, to take a job in the Spanberger administration as senior advisor at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
Results of the Jan. 13 primary, which was called by Democratic Party leaders in Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax, show that candidates Charles Sumpter, a World Wildlife Fund director, finished in third place with 321 voters or 6.9 percent; and Amy Jackson, the former Alexandria vice mayor, finished in fourth place with 238 votes or 5.1 percent.
Bennett-Parker, who LGBTQ community advocates consider a committed LGBTQ ally, will now compete as the Democratic nominee in a Feb. 10 special election in which registered voters in the 39th District of all political parties and independents will select Ebbin’s replacement in the state senate.
The Alexandria publication ALX Now reports that local realtor Julie Robben Linebery has been selected by the Alexandria Republican City Committee to be the GOP candidate to compete in the Jan. 10 special election. According to ALX Now, Lineberry was the only application to run in a now cancelled special party caucus type event initially called to select the GOP nominees.
It couldn’t immediately be determined if an independent or other party candidate planned to run in the special election.
Bennett-Parker is considered the strong favorite to win the Feb. 10 special election in the heavily Democratic 39th District, where Democrat Ebbin has served as senator since 2012.
Congress
Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.
ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is among those who spoke at an “ICE Out for Good” protest that took place outside U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s headquarters in D.C. on Tuesday.
The protest took place six days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis.
Good left behind her wife and three children.
(Video by Michael K. Lavers)
Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
Rollback of health IT standards will harm LGBTQ patients
Mark Levine loses race to succeed Adam Ebbin in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary
National LGBTQ Task Force brings Creating Change conference back to D.C.
Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.
Hundreds protest ICE killing of Renee Nicole Good in D.C.
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