Every now and then, a new article (or a repost of an old one) makes the rounds on social media discussing how liberals are more likely to unfriend people over politics both online and in the real world. Usually the context of the post is to show how "intolerant" the left is but ...read more
On Sunday's episode of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, America's favorite bespectacled former British citizen dedicated the bulk of his show to tormenting America's least favorite anti-gay religious fanatic, Vice President Mike Pence. During the segment, in which he detailed ...read more
Donald Trump is the cancer that keeps on spreading. He has normalized hate and bigotry to the point that we now have white supremacists sending out robocalls to accuse Trump's opponent of being a "closet homosexual": A white-nationalist supporter of Donald Trump has launched a ...read more
Jonathan Chait has some fun with Rush Limbaugh's truly special theory that the federal government's plan to raise awareness about LGBT issues in rural areas is in fact a thinly disguised effort by President Obama to "attack rural states" by populating farms with lesbians: It’s ...read more
So Sunday night saw the second season premiere of I Am Cait, E!’s most recent foray into both choking the American public to death with toxic television and milking every last bit of revenue out of the Kardashian juggernaut. Given that it’s been nearly a year since the full-court ...read more
Caitlyn Jenner stirred controversy once more this week when she received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs, an honor that some feel should have gone to someone else. While the attention and acceptance that Jenner has received are a net positive for trans people, you can ...read more
A shocking video recently shot by Russian YouTube prank artists ChebuRussiaTV reveals what it really means to be gay in Russia. Two of the pranksters secretly filmed themselves walking hand-in-hand through Moscow, while their cameraman walked ahead filming them secretly. What ...read more
While America might be the land of guns, mass incarceration, right wing paranoia and idiotic foreign policy, it sometimes gets things so right that it deserves its reputation as the freest nation on the planet. In a historic ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today that it ...read more
Undocumented transgender activist Jennicet Gutiérrez interrupted President Obama during the White House pride celebration yesterday, shouting “President Obama, release all LGBTQ immigrants from detention and stop all deportations.” This did not go down well with Obama who shut ...read more
Speaking at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, Tennessee in February of this year, Mike Huckabee made not only the creepiest 'joke' of his political career, but the most overtly insensitive. Discussing the issue of transgenderism, Huckabee told the ...read more
How do we know the last remaining anti-LGBT crusaders have completely lost their shpadoinkle? The most recent debate has literally involved refusing to bake cakes for gay weddings. This is where we are in the slow gurgling death rattle of anti-gay bigotry in the United States. ...read more
Last week, I wrote about a Christians pastor who condemned his friend and fellow pastor for disassociating himself from a church that openly advocated the stoning of homosexuals. The church in question is the Faithful Word Baptist Church, headed up by pastor and LGBT hater ...read more
After the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were ratified, collectively freeing the slaves and granting them full citizenship rights (the men anyway), white supremacists concocted various subversive laws to oppress African-Americans within the new mandates of the Constitution. The ...read more
Win or lose, following every election, Republicans like to point to the electoral map and boast, "Look at all that red!" In other words, there's large geographical section of the United States dominated by red states. What they fail to note, however, is that those states all ...read more
Bonus points for tenacity to Christian conservatives like Mike Huckabee who keep on effing that chicken. In the face of nationwide bipartisan support for marriage equality, the evangelical far-right can't let go of their outdated sense of morality, nor will they abandon their ...read more
President Obama's nomination of Judge Michael Boggs for a lifetime appointment to a federal District Court has been a source of fierce opposition from progressive Democrats, who scored a victory this week by effectively killing the nod in the Senate Judiciary Committee. ...read more
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is mercifully retiring from Congress in January after somehow being elected and reelected four times by the voters in Minnesota's sixth district. She is exiting the House just as she entered it: in a spectacular blaze of ingloriousness. On ...read more
151 years ago today, the Army of the Potomac under the command of Major General George Meade, narrowly thwarted total annihilation at the hands of Robert E. Lee and his First Corp commander, James Longstreet, in the hills outside a small Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg. If ...read more
No single ideology holds a monopoly on wacky beliefs, unless you count ‘crazy’ as an ideology. But when it comes to the subset of wacky beliefs commonly known as anti-government conspiracy theories, it’s no accident that the American right embraces them with much greater ...read more
God, I hope so. The Supreme Court disappointed conservatives this week by refusing to hear the case of a New Mexico wedding photographer who refused to photograph a lesbian couple's commitment ceremony in 2006. The wrinkle in this case is that the defendants attempted to ...read more
(Photo: Dr. Paul Cameron wearing more than two types of cloth, violating Leviticus.) What is it about organizations with "family" in the title? There's the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and now along comes Dr. Paul Cameron of the Family Research ...read more
This is the funniest thing I've seen all day. In reaction to a Texas judge's ruling that the state's same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional, Republican State Sen. Dan Patrick tweeted the following: Whoops. Naturally, Patrick deleted the post and corrected his error. ...read more
This is mandatory viewing: Arizona State Senator Al Melvin not only voted for the anti-gay "Right to Refuse" law in Arizona, he's also running for governor there. But his appearance on CNN last night should totally disqualify him from running for or holding any office ...read more
You're probably familiar with what might be the greatest scene from The West Wing. In a 2000 episode titled "The Midterms," the White House hosts a gathering of talk radio announcers and while President Bartlet addresses the group, he notices a "Dr. Laura" type, Dr. Jenna ...read more
If recent history is any indication, you may want to go ahead and pick up those rocks now and assume a throwing stance. Yesterday, Facebook announced that it was expanding the options its users could choose from when labeling gender status on their profiles. From now on, in ...read more
Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo. By Mike Biggz The NFL’s Super Bowl may seem like an unlikely venue for a debate over gay rights, but comments from players of the opposing teams, the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers, have put a spotlight on the ...read more
One of the more successful things about Mitt Romney's doomed 2012 campaign was his ability to portray himself as an aw-shucks clean-cut good guy; a Mormon who never drinks or smokes or uses profanity, and quite literally uses the word "gosh" in every day language. But just ...read more
The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From Yahoo! News: The Supreme Court on Friday set in motion its constitutional machinery on the issue of same-sex marriage, probably producing a result in June, the most popular month for weddings. Friday thus marked a bold beginning, ...read more
The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From Reuters: Hundreds of well-wishers braved cold and rain to celebrate 140 weddings at Seattle City Hall on Sunday, marking the first day that same-sex couples can marry in Washington state. Washington, Maine and Maryland last month became ...read more
By Bob Cesca: Earlier this month, I wrote an article in which I suggested that liberals stop hectoring people of faith and simply focus on religious groups and leaders who attempt to undermine or replace secular law with biblical dogma. But wow, they really, really make it ...read more
By Chez Paziena: Yesterday evening I popped up a quickie post over at my blog, Deus Ex Malcontent, that generated quite a bit of push-back. (For the record, it's always the minor brain droppings, as Carlin used to say, fired off on a whim, that seem to earn me the most ...read more
By Bob Cesca: I'd like to defensively preface this column by making it abundantly clear that I'm both a supporter and participant in the boycott of Chick-Fil-A due (in part) to CEO Dan Cathy's contributions to paleoconservative anti-gay organizations. It's not surprising, and ...read more
By Bob Cesca: The funniest thing I've heard in the last 24 hours was this: "We’ve arrived at the point where the president of the United States is going to lead a war on traditional marriage." That was of course Rush Limbaugh reacting to the president's remarks in support of ...read more
By Ben Cohen: It is easy to be cynical about politics, particularly in the media age where substance counts for little and image is everything. But yesterday, President Obama did something that rose above the usual games and gave hope to millions of people around the world. ...read more
By Bob Cesca: I don't often make predictions in politics. It's an exercise usually reserved for pundits who have an insecure obsession with being omniscient.-- the first head on the block to accurately guess something that's almost unpredictable. But on the issue of same-sex ...read more
By Bob Cesca: I don't know exactly why the White House decided to not issue an executive order banning discrimination among federal contractors on the basis of sexual orientation. Believe it or not, it's still possible, if you're a government contractor, to fire someone because ...read more
Conservatives once again show gays that they would rather they not be a part of their movement, as Media Research Center and the Heritage Foundation boycott CPAC because the group GOProud will be participating. The tent over there is only for straight (or closeted at least) ...read more