Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly — who currently does a podcast on SiriusXM radio — became the talk of the internet due to a red baseball cap she wore in a photo taken with a friend of hers in Miami.
According to Mediaite, Kelly tweeted out this message:
“Thank you for a HUGE week on the @MegynKellyShow. In Miami celebrating our friend’s 50th & looking fwd to another great week of shows starting Monday,” she wrote above the image. Kelly’s hat, red with white lettering, had the words “Make Women Female Again.”
Thank you for a HUGE week on the @MegynKellyShow. In Miami celebrating our friend’s 50th & looking fwd to another great week of shows starting Monday. pic.twitter.com/NTpdWrqMIh
Posie Parker is the pseudonym of Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, a notorious anti-trans crusader. An anti-trans rally held by Parker in Melbourne in March was attended by neo-Nazis who raised their arms in Nazi salutes:
The Victorian government said it was open to looking at further action against the display of hate symbols after a group of protesters performed Nazi salutes outside parliament on Saturday. Clashes broke out on Saturday between rival protest groups on the steps of Victoria’s parliament after a group of men performed Nazi salutes. The men had gathered in support of British anti-transgender activist Posie Parker.
Kelly’s tweet has since gone viral, with over 1.3 million views, and while right-wingers were delighted by her cap, many others were not so impressed.
Can you imagine forcing a political statement on your friends birthday.
Can republicans ever just be normal or every time they leave the house to they need to try and “own” someone?
Wait, I’m confused by your hat. Are we taking about people born male that want to add breast, etc. or people born female that want to alter their breasts, face, etc. you are ok with your giant enhancement, and don’t want judgement, but want to judge others? Weird
So, trans can’t change their bodies. Right? Women don’t have a right to choose their reproductive decisions. Right? But it’s cool to jam chemical bags in your chest, chemicals in your face & lips & forehead & blah blah. Right? My body, my choice. Right, GOP ladies?
Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene thought she had the perfect way to troll Anheuser-Busch, makers of Bud Light, for their partnership with Dylan Mulvaney.
Calls to boycott Bud Light started after transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney revealed the beer brand had sent her a unique can of beer with her face on it. The company gifted her the personalized can to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the TikToker’s gender transition.
The can “was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public,” according to Anheuser-Busch, the company that owns Bud Light.
Anheuser-Busch later explained that it “works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics. From time to time we produce unique commemorative cans for fans and for brand influencers, like Dylan Mulvaney.”
No big deal, right? Well, it is if you’re a right-wing nutjob like Greene or others on the extreme right who felt the need to publicly announce they would no longer have anything to do with the beer giant.
Here’s what Greene posted Saturday on Twitter:
“I would have bought the king of beers, but it changed it’s gender to the queen of beers. So it’s made to chill from here on out.”
I would have bought the king of beers, but it changed it’s gender to the queen of beers. So it’s made to chill from here on out. pic.twitter.com/QNC5j8qtKI
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) April 8, 2023
However, if Greene had bothered to do a simple Google search, she would have found this:
Thanks to support from companies such as Molson Coors, Denver PrideFest has become the largest celebration of LGBTQ pride in the Rocky Mountain region. Though its format will be different because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Coors Light Denver Virtual Pride Parade will be a compilation of fun-filled virtual parade “units” submitted by community businesses and organizations that will be livestreamed as a “parade” with live commentary.
“Coors Light has been a sponsor of The Center and Denver PrideFest for decades,” says Rex Fuller, CEO of The Center on Colfax. “The work we have been able to do at The Center over the last four decades would not be possible without this support and we are grateful for it.”
In other words, Greene managed to humiliate herself for the entire internet to enjoy, which it certainly did.
A Texas Republican lawmaker says he will introduce legislation that would allow for the “bounty hunting” of drag performers in the Lone Star State with massive fines that can be collected if any resident wants to sue a person performing where a child might see them.
Houston-area state Rep. Steve Toth filed HB 4378 on Thursday. He seeks to define “a cause of action for drag performances performed in the presence of a minor.”
According to the bill, “An individual who attends a drag performance as a minor may bring an action against a person who knowingly promotes, conducts, or participates as a performer in the drag performance that occurs before an audience that includes the minor….”
A winning plaintiff can expect to be paid actual damages, attorney’s fees, and statutory damages of $5,000.
Such legislation, however, would only serve to place a “target” on transgender people, according to LGBTQ advocates such as transgender rights activist and reporter Erin Reed, who warns, “These bounties can easily be turned against trans performers. It could ban a trans person singing karaoke. It could ban pride.”
These bounties can easily be turned against trans performers.
This bill would likely ban Kim Petras from performing in Texas, for instance.
Toth’s bill is just the latest attack on the LGBTQ community by Republicans in conservative states, according to Bloomberg.
State lawmakers in the US have already introduced more anti-LGBTQ bills this year than in the past five years combined.
At least 385 anti-LGBTQ laws have been introduced at the state level in a majority of US states as of March 3, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. By comparison, lawmakers introduced 162 anti-LGBTQ bills last year, 19 of which were signed into law. Between 2018 and 2022, state legislators introduced at least 361 anti-LGBTQ bills total.
Gillian Branstetter of the ACLU remarked, “These bills represent an effort to purge transgender people from the law and from public life. Even if only ten percent of those bills become law, it represents a massive rollback of freedoms every person deserves.”
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments today in a case involving the rights of private businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans on “religious grounds,” and there are fears that conservatives on the high court may allow discrimination if the defendant claims it violates his or her beliefs.
The wedding websites that Colorado-based web designer Lorie Smith would like to create for clients might offer ceremony details, pictures, a story about the couple and a biblical quote celebrating how through marriage they “become one flesh.”
They would not, however, show same-sex nuptials.
Smith, an evangelical Christian who believes marriage is only between a man and a woman, has taken her fight to refuse to make wedding websites for same-sex couples and to advertise that policy to the U.S. Supreme Court in a major case to be argued on Monday. Smith is appealing lower court rulings backing Colorado.
During oral arguments, some of the conservative justices did indeed seem included to allow such blatant discrimination, according to CNN.
Justice Neil Gorsuch noted that a businessperson’s objection would not be based on the status of the same-sex couple, but instead, the message the businessperson did not want to send. The question isn’t the “who” Gorsuch said, but the “what.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett told a lawyer for the designer that her “strongest ground” is that the designer’s work is “custom.”
The newest justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, had a brilliant question for an attorney representing Smith before the court.
“Give me your thoughts on a photography business in a shopping mall during this holiday season that offers a product called Scenes with Santa, and this business wants to express its own view of nostalgia about Christmases past by reproducing classic 1940s and 1950s Santa scenes…because they’re trying to capture the feelings of a certain era, their policy is that only white children can be photographed with Santa in this way, because that’s how they view the scenes with Santa that they’re trying to depict.”
The attorney desperately attempted to differentiate between the two:
“Because in the photograph itself, the objection is not contained in that photograph. But in addition, I think it’s important to remind the court –”
When Jackson countered that the two instances are exactly the same, the attorney replied, “The specific objection that you’re including is not necessarily in that photograph, but even if it were, this court has protected vile, awful, reprehensible, violent speech in the past.”
Justice Jackson asks a hypothetical question on shopping mall photographer: "their policy is that only white children can be photographed with Santa in this way…"
Included in Waggoner response: "This Court has protected vile, awful. reprehensible, violent speech in the past." pic.twitter.com/RccnzRs8Mj
How exactly is it “speech” to refuse to set up a website for someone just because the potential client is LGBTQ? That’s discrimination and it wouldn’t be allowed based on the color of a person’s skin, as Justice Jackson noted. But the current right-wing 6-3 majority on the court may allow it to happen with their approval. Yet another reason we need to expand the court and make sure these six extremist judges don’t take away every right we have.
The always intellectually-challenged Congresswoman from Colorado, Lauren Boebert (R), says that if you’re upset about Florida passing laws that are blatantly discriminatory towards the LGBTQ community, you simply need to get busy and build your own Florida.
Wait…what?! What in the hell does that even mean?
On Saturday, Boebert posted this tweet:
If you don't like Florida's laws protecting kids from doing irreversible damage to their bodies, then build your own Florida.
Shouldn’t any decisions regarding what a kid does regarding their body be left to the child and their parents instead of a legislator in Tallahassee? And hasn’t the Republican Party been saying for centuries that government needs to stay the hell out of regulating private businesses?
When Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill and then endorsed stripping Walt Disney World of their designation as a “special district,” what he was telling the people of his state is that the government knows better than the voters who put them into office. He’s going to protect you from things you didn’t even feel the need to be protected from, because such decisions are personal and private, as they damn well should be.
The move by Florida is merely the culmination of what Republicans have been doing for decades: Imposing their morals and religion on others, even though they weren’t elected for that purpose.
And the action against Disney is also going to have severe economic consequences for Orange County, where the massive theme park is located:
Tax experts and legislators say eliminating the district could have unintended consequences for county taxpayers. Disney’s special tax district status allows the company to levy an additional tax on itself to pay for municipal services, something that other counties cannot do. That tax currently amounts to $105 million per year, said Orange County tax collector Scott Randolph. Reedy Creek also receives additional revenue of nearly $60 million from Disney to pay its bond debt.
Sunsetting Reedy Creek means that local counties will begin paying for those services without that special status in place. Taxpayers will likely be left to foot the bill for potholes and emergency services.
So now Lauren Boebert wants us to build our own Florida? Here’s a better idea: Maybe the right-wing extremists need to build their own country somewhere on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean. Preferably one that’s prone to flooding and multiple hurricane strikes.
The best suggestions, however, came from other Twitter users, who took Boebert to task.
Hi, Florida here. You run a hoochie restaurant in Rifle, CO. Stay in your lane.
Why try to change Florida when people that don’t like it can just move to Cuba where it’s much cheaper than Florida and they have the Russian ties with a real dictator. It’s a win/win. Byyyye.
I wonder what does irreversible damage to kids’ bodies? Hmm. Let me think. Oh yeah. BULLETS do irreversible damage to kids’ bodies. How about we start by protecting them from that?
Why did your husband expose himself to minors at a bowling alley? Was he doing it to “protect kids” in Colorado?
— The Gen Z Perspective Newsletter (@uncvrngthetruth) April 23, 2022
As a true conservative, I believe in smaller government with less government intrusion into the lives of the American people. That's freedom. Free market? @RepBoebert, believes in the iron fist of government controlling the lives of the American people. #BoebertIsACommunist
— Marina Zimmerman political feral cat (@Marina4Colorado) April 23, 2022
If just talking about things does irreversible damage, then what does exposing oneself to young girls do ??? Talking does NOT cause damage, NOT talking DOES !!!
