Daniel Villarreal

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has appeared at least four times on the Reformation Red Pill podcast, a far-right podcast hosted by Joshua Haymes, an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist who was also a former pastor at the church that Hegseth attends, The Guardian reported.  The publication noted that Haymes wants to execute adulterers and people who have abortions, that he seemingly called for the deaths of LGBTQ+ Pride marchers, and also considers liberalism a greater threat to the nation than neo-Nazism. Haymes is aligned with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), a Christian Nationalist denomination that believes the United States should be subject to biblical law, and […]

Ohio State Republicans have introduced numerous anti-LGBTQ+ bills during this legislative session, including one that would out LGBTQ+ students to their parents if they receive any related counseling, a bill requiring transgender politicians to list their deadnames on public records, a law restricting trans students’ ability to use preferred names and pronouns in schools, and a ban on drag (even though federal courts have blocked similar laws for violating free speech rights). State Democrats have also introduced legislation to enshrine LGBTQ+ non-discrimination protections as well as a ban on so-called conversion therapy into law. None of the bills have received hearings so […]

Bigots in the Utah cities of Providence and North Logan celebrated the first day of Pride Month by leaving anti-gay and white supremacist messages in front of homes with pro-LGBTQ+ displays. North Logan homeowner Ryan Thorell, whose family displayed pro-LGBTQ+ signs outside of their home, found several posters stapled to nearby utility poles facing his house — the posters said “White power,” “man plus woman,” and had homophobic slurs, he told KSL-TV. He called the signs “very targeting and inflammatory,” and said that he took down 17 similar signs around his neighborhood, each facing homes that had LGBTQ+ flags and signs outside. “It […]

Anti-LGBTQ+ federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act doesn’t protect LGBTQ+ people from workplace discrimination — it only protects them from discriminatory termination. Kacsmaryk’s ruling contradicts the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, a case that classified anti-LGBTQ+ workplace discrimination as a form of sex-based harassment prohibited by Title VII. In the case, the state of Texas sued the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), claiming that the federal agency’s June 2021 guidance interpreting Title VII as prohibiting anti-LGBTQ+ workplace discrimination violated Texas’s “sovereign right” to establish governmental workplace policies dictating […]

A federal judge has upheld part of Iowa’s “Don’t Say Gay” law prohibiting discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through 6th grade. However, the judge has blocked other parts of the law that sought to block students from voluntarily being exposed to school “promotions” and “programs” that acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ people. Iowa’s 2023 law S.F. 496 prohibits “any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion, or instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation” in grades K-6. In his split-decision issued late last week, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher (an appointee of former President Joe Biden) ruled […]