Christodemocracy

Kate Riga at TPM: 

Following last week’s episode of his show “Who Is America?” which was so damning it forced the resignation of a GOP Georgia lawmaker, host Sacha Baron Cohen found his newest victim in former Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.

Posing as Israeli counterterrorism expert General Erran Morad, Cohen begins his conversation with Moore, recorded back in February, by talking about complicated technology that enables the Israeli military to detect tunnels dug by Hamas to launch stealthy terrorist attacks.

Moore, clearly thinking the interview is legitimate, conveys Alabama’s support of Israel. Cohen jokes drily in response: “In Alabama, people have always been free, whatever their religion or race or sexuality.” Moore, missing the sarcasm replies, saying “it’s our heritage.”

Cohen then says that the technology has been altered to identify sexual predators, especially pedophiles. Multiple agonizing minutes pass as Cohen pulls out a security wand, waving it against himself before turning it on Moore and triggering a loud beeping.

“It must be faulty. It’s malfunctioning,” Cohen says as the machine blares. “Is this your jacket? Did you lend the jacket to somebody else?” he asks in a tone of concern as Moore grimaces.

Despite the many accusations from multiple women this year, Moore said that he has “never had an accusation of such things.” “Certainly, I’m not a pedophile,” he continued. “Maybe Israeli technology has not developed properly.”

He then announced that he was concluding the interview, shook Cohen’s hand, and walked off the set.

Per the Daily Beast, Moore released a preemptive statement before the episode aired Sunday saying that he is embroiled in “several court cases presently to defend my honor and character against vicious false political attacks,” and that if the episode is released, he “may very well be involved in another.”

From the 07.29.2018 edition of Showtime’s Who Is America?:

Chris Johnson at The Washington Blade: 

The U.S. Supreme Court won’t take up legal challenges to a Mississippi “religious freedom” law enabling sweeping discrimination against LGBT people, leaving extremely limited recourse to combat the anti-LGBT statute.

In an orders list on Monday, the Supreme Court announced it had rejected two petitions for certiorari — one filed by legal groups in the lawsuit Barber v. Bryant, the other filed by legal groups in Campaign for Southern Equality v. Bryant — as well as a series of other petitions pending before the Supreme Court.

Both petitions sought Supreme Court review of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in favor of the Mississippi anti-LGBT law, which enables businesses and individuals to discriminate in the name of “religious freedom.” The law was signed in 2016 by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, who has vowed to defend the statute against legal challenges in court.

The orders list provides no explanation for the rejections of these petitions, nor the vote by they were rejected. It takes a vote of at least four justices to grant certiorari, or agree to take up a case.

The law, HB 1523, prohibits the state from taking action against religious organizations that decline employment, housing or services to same-sex couples; families who’ve adopted a foster child and wish to act in opposition to same-sex marriage; and individuals who offer wedding services and decline to facilitate a same-sex wedding.

Additionally, the bill allows individuals working in medical services to decline to afford a transgender person gender reassignment surgery. The bill also allows state government employees who facilitate marriages the option to opt out of issuing licenses to same-sex couples, but the person must issue prior written notice to the state government and a clerk’s office must not delay in the issuing of licenses.

[…]

The Supreme Court rejects the challenge to the Mississippi anti-LGBT as it considers arguments in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, which was filed by a Colorado baker asserting a First Amendment right to refuse to make custom-made wedding cakes for same-sex marriages. The court in that case has yet to render a decision, which is expected in June.

Although some issues in the case are similar because the Mississippi law would enable the baker to refuse to make case for a same-sex weddings, the lawsuit against the Mississippi law is different because the law is broader and challenges the law on the basis of the Establishment Clause and Equal Protection Clauses.

One narrow opportunity remains for LGBT legal groups to challenge the law in the court. At the district court level, Reeves in October allowed up to five written interrogatories to identify which of the 82 clerk’s offices in Mississippi have sought to recuse themselves from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples HB 1523 and the process by which they intend to handle those recusals.

Peter Montgomery at RWW:

Earlier this week, anti-LGBTQ Christian-nation activist and pro-Trump political operative David Lane ranted about CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage in an email to supporters of his American Renewal Project. Lane complained that hosts Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper are “both homosexuals” and that Randi Kaye, broadcasting from Colorado where marijuana use is legal, “passed around a ‘joint’ with young people in Denver.”

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