We’re all about free speech here in America. Well, kind of. So let me amend that: We like to think we’re all about free speech here in America. As a friend put it, “I’m proud to live in a country where Donald Trump can say the things he says, but I’m ashamed to live in a country that, after hearing those things, elected him president.”
Great news, everybody! Donald Trump is not planning to rescind President Obama’s 2014 executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT people. I repeat, he has said he is not yanking those protections away.
It’s been months since Omar Mateen shot more than 100 people at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, killing 49. Surely enough time has passed that we can stop mourning the dead and start worrying about the real victims of the attack: the first responders who had to wade through all that gross AIDS blood.
This is a watershed moment for religious leaders in the United States. More than 75 Christian leaders have come together to do a remarkable thing: They’ve signed a statement titled Preserve Freedom, Reject Coercion (PFRC), which, according to the statement host Colson Center for Christian Worldview, is “a statement that affirms every American’s freedom to peacefully live their lives according to their beliefs and opposes government coercion or censorship of fellow citizens who have different views.” The signatories “are united by the idea that all laws must respect freedom and promote justice for every citizen, no matter who they are.”
Something truly terrible happened in Minnesota. An elementary-school teacher and his husband were busted for having sex with underage teenagers and filming it. Once they knew they were caught, they fled and killed themselves.
