A 23-year-old Las Vegas man who allegedly wanted to attack Jews and patrons of an LGBTQ bar was arrested on suspicion of possessing parts to make a bomb, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada said Friday.
Conor Climo, who was arrested Thursday, was connected to white supremacists though encrypted online conversations, federal prosecutors said.
“Threats of violence motivated by hate and intended to intimidate or coerce our faith-based and LGBTQ communities have no place in this country,” Nicholas A. Trutanich, U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada, said in a statement.
Climo had already caused concern among his neighbors in 2016 when, in a video posted to his now-deleted YouTube channel, he announced plans to patrol his Centennial Hills neighborhood with an AR-15-style rifle, four 30-round clips, and camouflaged packs.
FBI agents with the Las Vegas Joint Terrorism Task Force began looking at Climo in April when, according to the complaint, they learned he was communicating with the white extremist group Atomwaffen Division.
Members of that group have been linked to at least five deaths since 2017, including a Tampa man who killed his two roommates and told police they were members of the group planning a large-scale attack.
Climo, who faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted, was arraigned in federal court on Friday, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney for Nevada.
His arrest stemmed from an investigation conducted by an FBI task force specializing in monitoring the activities and online communications of extremists and domestic terror groups. The investigation was detailed in an 11-page criminal complaint and probable cause statement filed in court federal prosecutors and the FBI.
During encrypted online conversations with undercover FBI operatives, Climo discussed attacking a Las Vegas synagogue and making Molotov cocktails and improvised explosive devices, according to the criminal complaint.
The evangelical blogger made anti-LGBT comments as he destroyed the books, including young adult novel Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan, illustrated LGBT+ history book This Day in June by Gayle Pitman, Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Baldacchino and Families, Families, Families! by Suzanne Lang.
Dorr was found guilty of 5th degree criminal mischief in Sioux County District Court on Tuesday (August 6).
The state of Iowa had sought the maximum penalty, a fine of $625.
Dorr, who represented himself, had told the court: “My motive was to honour the Triune God in whom my faith resides and to protect the children of Orange City from being seduced into a life of sin and misery.”
LGBT+ campaigners condemn ‘reprehensible’ burning of library books
Courtney Reyes of One Iowa told Iowa Public Radio: “Libraries are safe havens where every person has free access to all ideas and expressions without restriction.
“Dorr intended to deprive the children of Orange City that access, to isolate LGBTQ youth from reflections of themselves in stories, to take from all youth the opportunity to empathise with people different than themselves. Such an act is terrible, and we are glad justice was served today.”
Bettis Austen of the ACLU of Iowa said: “Burning public library books is the destruction of ideas, and that’s reprehensible.
“The destruction of books from a public library is a clear attempt to shut down the open sharing and discussion of ideas.
“No one person or even group should decide that they are the gatekeepers of ideas for the rest of the public.”
Dorr has previously expressed the belief that people become gay because of “the harm that adults did to you as children” and urged LGBT+ people to “walk away from your degeneracy… repent and turn back to Christ.”
Explaining his actions, Dorr had said: “I cannot stand by and let the shameful adults at the Orange City Library Board bring the next group of little children into their foul, sexual reality without a firm resistance.”
One of the books burned, David Levithan’s Two Boys Kissing, was ranked as the fifth most-banned book during the American Library Association’s annual Banned Books Week in 2016.
Between August 2 and August 6, Pence was at a conference organised by conservative blogger Erick Erickson, a roundtable with Donald Trump’s religious freedom ambassador Sam Brownback and a “fireside chat” with Mike Farris, CEO of anti-abortion Christian lawyers the Alliance Defending Freedom.
The Human Rights Campaign said that Pence is on an “anti-LGBTQ crusade.”
On August 2, Pence appeared on stage at The Resurgent Gathering conference in Atlanta with Erick Erickson, a conservative evangelical American blogger and radio host who organised the conference.
Erickson, in a blog post on the same day, lashed out at Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg for not “repenting” his sexuality.
Erickson, a former Fox News pundit who hosts a right-wing radio show, took aim at Buttigieg on his blog, The Resurgent.
“Pete Buttigieg is a practising homosexual who wilfully refuses to recognise Holy Scripture identifies that as a sin,” Erickson wrote.
Sam Brownback has repeatedly been homophobic and transphobic
On August 5, Pence met with Sam Brownback, Trump’s new ambassador for religious freedom – who has a history of attacking LGBT+ people, often justifying his actions through religious freedom.
Pence and Brownback were part of an International Religious Freedom roundtable, at which Pence “reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to stand with people of every faith in every country around the world.”
Brownback, who gained Pence’s tie-breaking vote to be confirmed in the Senate, repeatedly promoted homophobic and transphobic policies in his seven years as Governor of Kansas.
Alliance Defending Freedom is anti-LGBT, anti-abortion
On Tuesday (August 6), Pence then went to an event run by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), an evangelical Christian group that lobbies against reproductive rights in the US.
The ADF is currently involved several anti-trans lawsuits, including in Connecticut where it has filed a federal discrimination complaint challenging the state’s policy of letting trans students compete on sports teams according to their gender identity.
Kansas’ child welfare agency has drafted guidelines urging foster parents to allow LGBTQ kids in their care to “express themselves as they see themselves,” riling conservatives a little more than a year after the state granted legal protections to faith-based adoption agencies that do not place children in LGBTQ homes.
The Department for Children and Families issued draft “guidance” for “prudent parenting” in mid-July, six months after Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly took office. It said foster homes should recognize LGBTQ children “by their preferred identity if it differs from their sex assigned at birth.”
Conservatives read the document as a policy directive for reshaping foster families’ lives and an attempt to skirt a 2018 law that Kelly doesn’t like for protecting faith-based adoption agencies. It’s a sharp break in tone with that law, which prevents the state from barring agencies from providing services if they refuse to place children in homes violating their religious beliefs.
The department’s move drives home the difference Kelly’s election last year made on hot-button social issues. Her administration followed eight years of conservative Republican control in a state that still has a GOP-dominated Legislature and a Republican Party with a platform declaring, “We believe God created two genders, male and female.”
“It’s going to continue pushing this envelope,” said Kansas House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins, a conservative Wichita Republican, who worried in a recent newsletter about the department pursuing a “social experiment.”
The department presented the first draft of its guidelines during a quarterly meeting with private agencies that place abused and neglected children in foster and adoptive homes.
State officials said a final version could be ready later this month and won’t be formal policy or regulations, just principles for placement agencies and foster families. As such, they wouldn’t be subject to outside review — though Hawkins and other conservatives are considering legislative hearings.
Department officials said their first draft was a response to questions that private agencies passed along from foster parents who want to support LGBTQ youth. They said they’re picking up on best practices from other states and national groups.
“The fact of wanting children we’re caring for to feel safe and welcome in their foster homes just shouldn’t be a controversial issue to anybody,” Laura Howard, the department’s top administrator, said in a recent interview.
But Kelly’s views on LGBTQ rights already had conservatives on edge. Kansas said in June that it would allow transgender people to change their birth certificates to reflect their gender identities. Under Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, the state had some of the nation’s toughest rules for making such changes.
Kelly also said before taking office that she would try to avoid enforcing last year’s adoption law if she could. Conservatives link that stance and the department’s new guidance, though its officials say there is none.
“It looks like an end-run around the adoption-protection act,” said Chuck Weber, director of the Kansas Catholic Conference.
The department’s guidance says foster children have the right to wear clothing and hairstyles “that suit their gender identity” and that refusing to use their preferred pronouns “can endanger their physical and emotional well-being.”
Within days, the conservative Family Policy Alliance of Kansas criticized the guidance publicly as imposing an “invasive sexual agenda.” The first draft of the guidance included a “Q&A” discussion about transgender foster youth sharing rooms with other children and having sleepovers.
State Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, a conservative Kansas City-area Republican, said the guidelines endanger safety. For example, she said, the first draft tells foster parents that if space in their home is limited, a “biological boy” teenager can share a bedroom with a teenage girl.
Pilcher-Cook said both the foster parents and a child’s birth parents — who still might have parental rights — might object to the guidelines.
“It’s a problem when government takes such a heavy hand to coerce people to live out beliefs that they don’t embrace,” Pilcher-Cook said.
A later draft of the department’s guidance on its official letterhead dropped the Q&A section because, Howard said, “it’s really difficult to sort of script any particular situation.” Both drafts said case workers should ensure all children in a foster home are comfortable with the living arrangements.
The guidelines’ defenders said the state and placement agencies don’t require foster parents to take particular children and that the agencies work through issues before a placement. If issues arise after a placement, the agencies would attempt to work through them with families individually, rather than apply the guidelines as rules, they said.
And, they said, the goal always is to find foster homes that best fit children already traumatized by abuse or neglect.
“What it really boils down to is, we’re not going to be putting these kids in a hostile environment,” said Tom Witt, executive director of the LGBTQ-rights group Equality Kansas.
Barnegat Mayor Alfonso Cirulli launched a campaign Tuesday to fight a New Jersey law that brings an LGBT curriculum into schools and urged residents to join his fight. During the Tuesday morning meeting of the Township Committee, Cirulli, a 60-year-old former assistant principal, said it was his duty to protect residents and called the LGBT political movement “an affront to almighty God.”
During his opening remarks, he urged residents to pressure Gov. Phil Murphy and the state Legislature to reverse a measure signed into law on Jan. 31. The law requires middle and high school curriculums include instruction on the political, economic and social contributions of people with disabilities or who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. The law would apply to the 2020-2021 school year.
Cirulli’s Facebook page is full of the usual anti-Obama, anti-Hillary, anti-LGBT propaganda. He is also part of a New Jersey campaign against recreational pot.
After mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that together killed at least 30 people over the weekend, a lawmaker in Ohio blamed the massacres on “homosexual marriage,” “drag queen advocates” and “snowflakes, who can’t accept a duly-elected President,” among other things.
Ohio State Representative Candice Keller.Ohio House of Representatives
Candice Keller is a Republican state representative from Middletown, a small city 30 miles south of Dayton, where a gunman killed at least nine people and wounded 27 others early Sunday. In a now-deleted Facebook post, she wrote: “After every mass shooting, the liberals start the blame game. Why not place the blame where it belongs?”
The post listed reasons Keller thought the United States is grappling with mass shootings, including “the breakdown of the traditional American family,” “homosexual marriage,” “fatherlessness,” “the ignoring of violent video games,” “professional athletes who hate our flag and the National Anthem,” “the relaxing of laws against criminals,” “recreational marijuana,” “Obama” and Democratic members of Congress, among others.
The post ended by saying: “Did I forget anybody? This list is long. And the fury will continue.”
Screenshots of the post were circulated on social media.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, also a Republican, responded to Keller in a tweet Sunday: “No, m’am. The blame belongs to the evil man who killed those people.”
Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones, who oversees law enforcement across Keller’s district, is among those calling for her to resign. “Candice Keller should resign at once. Shame shame,” Jones tweeted.
Randy Phillips, president of the Greater Dayton LGBT Center, said Keller’s remarks were hurtful.
“After the tragedy that took place in the city of Dayton, this hurts the community as a whole,” Phillips told NBC News Monday. “But if lawmaker Candice Keller blames gay marriage and the rest of the LGBT community for this issue is misdirecting. It’s embarrassing. If anything, she is more of the problem, not us, the LGBT community.”
Butler County sits just southwest of Dayton. Brian Hester, who serves as chair of Butler’s Democratic Party, described Keller’s comments as symptomatic of larger trends.
“As offensive as Keller’s remarks were, they are nothing more than the ‘worst hits’ of things President Trump has said time and time again,” Hester told NBC News. “If Republicans believe such words shouldn’t be spoken by someone in the Statehouse, why have they been tolerated by one in the White House?”
Keller could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. The voicemail box for a number listed in her name was full.
On Sunday Keller told The Dayton Daily News she posted something to her private, personal Facebook page. When a reporter from the newspaper read the entire statement to her, Keller said it sounded like part of her posting and that she was unsure if it had been altered.
The spiritualist self-help guru has made a splash with her left-field interventions during the first rounds of Democratic Presidential TV debates, but her real-life record is stirring controversy.
Williamson gained a following among gay men during the AIDS crisis, co-founding the Los Angeles Center for Living that focused on spiritualism and “non-medical services.”
In a 1992 Los Angeles Times profile about the center, Williamson had claimed: “The AIDS virus is not more powerful than God.”ADVERTISING
In the book, she claimed: “We’re not punished for our sins, but by our sins. Sickness is not a sign of God’s judgment on us, but of our judgment on ourselves… sickness is an illusion and does not actually exist.”
Williamson claimed that “miracles occur when people invoke the power of love in the midst of disease and grief,” adding: “Seeing sickness as our own love that needs to be reclaimed is a more positive approach to healing than is seeing the sickness as something hideous that we must get rid of.”
Marianne Williamson: Think of AIDS as Angels-In-Darth Vader-Suits
She also claimed that AIDS “can be thought of as ‘Angels-In-Darth Vader-Suits,” writing: “Here are some enlightened visualizations: Imagine the AIDS virus as Darth Vader, and then unzip his suit to allow an angel to emerge.
“See the cancer cell or AIDS virus in all its wounded horror, and then see a golden light, or angel, or Jesus, enveloping the cell and transforming it from darkness into light.
“A scream responds best to love. That is when it calms down. That is when it stops.”
Elsewhere in the book Williamson did urge patients to continue seeking medical treatment, adding: “Does that mean that it is a mistake to take medicine? Absolutely not… but the healing doesn’t come from the pill. It comes from our belief.”
However, The Daily Beast writer Jay Michaelson accused her of telling gay men “that they could cure themselves if only they would properly visualise themselves getting well.”
He added: “Williamson and her ilk said that they had the power to heal themselves, science be damned.
“The results were predictable. Some people went off their medication, since taking medicine showed you didn’t really believe that you could cure yourself, and if you lack perfect faith, it’s not going to work. Some even died.”
Michaelson has described Williamson as a “dangerous wacko,” accusing her of promoting “quackery,” junk science and anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories.
The candidate has defended herself on Twitter.
She wrote: “If you ever read an article saying that I told people with AIDS they didn’t have to take their medicine because positive thinking would cure it; or that I ever told people who got sick that negative thinking caused it; please know both those things are complete and utter lies.”
Williamson added: “Let’s state it again. I’m pro medicine. I’m pro science. I’ve never told anyone not to take medicine.”
She added: “The machinery of mischaracterization is in high gear now. Gee, did I upset someone?”
n a ruling on Thursday (August 1), Chief Justice Matthew Durrant said “same-sex couples must be afforded all of the benefits the State has linked to marriage and freely grants to opposite sex-couples.”
The case was brought to the Supreme Court by an unnamed married gay couple in 2017, after a judge refused to approve their surrogacy agreement with a heterosexual couple.
At the time, Utah’s law only permitted surrogacy if the “intended mother is unable to bear a child or is unable to do so without unreasonable risk to her physical or mental health or to the unborn child.”
The judge argued that the law’s use of the words ‘mother’ and ‘her’ plainly referred to a woman, and that because neither of the legally married intended parents were women, he could not permit the surrogacy.
This law was written before gay marriage was legalised in the US in 2015.
But this week the Justices of the Supreme Court ruled unanimously to strike down this portion of the law, which presents a major barrier to parenthood for those in same-sex marriages.
Surrogacy will now be a legal option for LGBT+ couples in Utah (Pexels)
“A valid gestational agreement is undoubtedly a benefit linked to marriage,” Chief Justice Durrant wrote.
“Obtaining a valid gestational agreement is, in many cases, one of the most important benefits afforded to couples who may not be medically capable of having a biological child. Such an agreement works to secure parental rights to an unborn child and bestows rights and benefits on the intended parents.
“The State has explicitly conditioned this benefit on a petitioner’s marital status; no unmarried couple may obtain one. It is therefore unquestionably linked to marriage.”
The gay couple who challenged the law say they hope that the landmark ruling “will help Utah’s law overcome the barrier of discrimination.”
Bisexual individuals may feel discriminated against and have high rates of stress and depression because they believe that their sexual identity is often questioned or denied by others, according to a Rutgers study.- Advertisement –
“Our findings suggest that the unique experiences of discrimination that bisexual individuals deal with on a regular basis may negatively impact their own feelings of acceptance in the world and their mental health,” said Melanie Maimon, lead researcher and a graduate student of social psychology at Rutgers.
The study, which appears in the journal Self and Identity, is among the first to examine and find that concerns about belonging are associated with depressive symptoms for bisexual people.
The researchers found that bisexual individuals experienced identity denial, which made them feel less accepted and open to greater depressive symptoms, according to the study.
Across two samples, 445 bisexual individuals were recruited and participated in an online questionnaire. The participants responded to inquires about their experiences with identity denial, how much they thought others endorsed negative stereotypes about bisexuality, their thoughts on societal beliefs that bisexuality is not a legitimate identity and their concerns about their belonging. Participants were also asked to indicate any depressive symptoms that arose after they realized their sexual orientation.
The study asked questions such as, “When your sexuality comes up in conversation, how frequently have others said or implied that you’re just confused about your sexuality?” and “To what extent do you think that other people believe that people who identify as bisexual are cheaters?”
Rutgers researchers found that bisexual individuals who experience identity denial are more likely to believe that society endorses negative stereotypes about them, such as the belief that bisexuality is not a real sexual orientation and that bisexuals are actually heterosexual, gay or lesbian.
Past work has found that bisexual individuals tend to have higher rates of mood disorders than do heterosexuals, gay individuals and lesbians. These findings may help explain why this difference in mental health may occur, Maimon said.
“With a better understanding of the relationships between depressive symptoms, identity denial, uncertainty about belonging and beliefs that society has negative views of bisexuality, we can attempt to reduce the negative experiences that seem to be harming bisexuals and their mental health,” said Diana Sanchez, coauthor and professor of psychology at Rutgers–New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences.
The researchers recommended the general public be open-minded when interacting with people who are bisexual, learn more about bisexuality and respect how bisexual individuals choose to identify.
This year was the first time an openly gay candidate participated in a presidential debate, and both NBC’s debate in June and CNN’s debate this week included openly LGBTQ moderators. However, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer issues earned barely a mention during nearly 10 hours of debate over four nights involving 21 Democratic candidates for president.
On Night 1 of this week’s debate in Detroit, CNN anchor Dana Bash asked Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, about the student loan debt still held by him and his husband. Buttigieg dove into an answer about debt-free college. Aside from that, no LGBTQ-related questions or answers came up until Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in his closing statement, reprised a past criticism and called President Donald Trump a “homophobe.”
Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Senator from New York Kirsten Gillibrand speaks during the second round of the second Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season hosted by CNN at the Fox Theatre in Detroit, Michigan on July 31, 2019.Jim Watson / AFP – Getty Images
On Night 2, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York was the first candidate to bring up the LGBTQ community in any significant way. In her opening statement, Gillibrand said her mother, one of only three women in her law school class, had “worked with gay couples for basic rights.”
“As a freshman senator, I was told you couldn’t repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ Even members of my own party told me it wasn’t convenient,” Gillibrand continued. “When are civil rights ever convenient? We stood up to the Pentagon and got it done — not impossible.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee also made brief mention of the LGBTQ community when answering a question about how he would heal racial divides.
“I’ve never been a black teenager pulled over in a white neighborhood. I’ve never been a woman talked over in a meeting. I’ve never been an LGBTQ member subject to a slur,” Inslee said.
The absence of any direct question about the LGBTQ community from CNN moderators Dana Bash, Jake Tapper and Don Lemon did not go unnoticed.
“Questions about LGBTQ people weren’t included during either night of this week’s #DemDebate,” Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, tweeted Wednesday night. “This is unacceptable especially as the Trump administration continues to attack the lives of LGBTQ people.”
In the June debate hosted by NBC News in Miami, LGBTQ issues only came up in a significant way when Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii was asked about her past anti-LGBTQ activities, like working for an organization led by her father that advocated for same-sex marriage bans and “gay conversion therapy.”
In response, Gabbard touted her vote for the Equality Act — a federal bill that would modify existing civil rights legislation to ban discrimination against LGBTQ people — and said that she held views when she was younger “that I no longer hold today.”
But Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey interjected after Gabbard’s response, saying, “This is not enough.”
“We do not talk enough about trans Americans, especially African American trans Americans, and the incredibly high rates of murder right now,” he said.
Over the course of three 2016 presidential debates between then-candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the LGBTQ community came up twice. In their third debate, in response to an opening question about the Supreme Court, Clinton said she felt strongly that the court “needs to stand on the side of the American people.”
“For me, that means that we need a Supreme Court that will stand up on behalf of women’s rights, on behalf of the rights of the LGBT community, that will stand up and say no to Citizens United, a decision that has undermined the election system in our country because of the way it permits dark, unaccountable money to come into our electoral system,” she said.
Later in the debate, while attacking the Clinton Foundation’s Arab donors, Trump said: “You talk about women and women’s rights? So these are people that push gays off business — off buildings. These are people that kill women and treat women horribly. And yet you take their money.”
During the vice presidential debates between Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, the Democratic nominee, and Mike Pence, Pence was never asked about his extensive anti-LGBTQ record as governor of Indiana and a member of Congress, which many advocates saw as a major “missed opportunity.“
On October 10, the Democratic presidential hopefuls will have an opportunity to directly address LGBTQ issues in a candidate forumhosted by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. The event, which will not be a debate but rather a forum in which candidates speak one by one, has yet to officially announce which candidates will participate.
