1st Gay President Barack Obama Comes Out Against Gay Conversion Therapy, Will Seek State Bans

Mediaite.com:

The White House made it clear today that President Obama is officially coming out against gay conversion therapy and will seek state bans against the practice.

Back in December, a transgender teenager named Leelah Alcorn committed suicide by walking in front of a semi-trailer truck. In a suicide note on Tumblr, Alcorn said her mother had a very negative reaction and sent her to a Christian therapist who specializes in gay “conversion.” She wrote, “The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights.”

A month later, someone set up a petition on the White House website to end conversion therapy because of the serious harm it can do to LGBT youth. Well, tonight Valerie Jarrett responded to the petition and made one thing very clear: “As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this Administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.”

And as The New York Times reported tonight, the president plans to speak out himself and call for an end to gay conversion therapy because of how moved he was by Alcorn’s tragic case.

But instead of calling for a federal ban, the president is reportedly planning to push for state-level bans.

Homosexuality is a perverse behavioral choice and should be treated as such. While dressing like your opposite gender is also a choice, there's evidence to support it also being related to a mental illness.

RELATED: Obama tackles the hard stuff: Gay conversion therapy, transgender bathrooms

Inevitable Michael Slager Crowdfunding Campaign Gets Pulled from GoFundMe

Mediaite.com:

It’s somewhat inevitable these days that, within hours of a newsworthy controversy, someone’s going to make a crowdfunding page to support whomever they believe to be the true victims of the media/progressives/conservatives/the system/etc. Someone set one up for Michael Slager, the South Carolina cop charged with the murder of an unarmed man, and within hours it was shut down — which is one of the few times we’ve ever seen that happen.

GoFundMe, the site that hosted the initial crowdfunding campaign, told ThinkProgress that it had pulled a campaign contributing to Slager’s defense due to its violation of the site’s Terms and Conditions. Their spokeswoman declined to elaborate, but said that they could only “discuss the details of campaigns with the organizers.”

The campaign has been moved to IndieGoGo, and also has a Facebook page, with numerous comments overwhelmingly accusing the page’s organizers of making “a sad attempt at cashing in at a tragedy.” 

IndieGoGo told ThinkProgress that as long as the page’s founders are following their Terms of use, “we don’t judge the content of campaigns as long as they are in compliance”.

GoFundMe is no stranger to controversial crowdfunding: they hosted a fundraiser for Ferguson cop Darren Wilson, as well as the highly controversial fundraiser for Indiana’s Memories Pizza, which became a conservative bellwether after they reportedly said they would not cater gay weddings. (They did, however, once take down a crowdfunding campaign raising money for an abortion, saying it was “inappropriate” for the site.)

Slager has been charged with the murder of Walter Scott after a video emerged of him firing eight times at the fleeing man, who he had pulled over for a traffic stop. His lawyer, who repeated his client’s claims that Scott had scuffled with him and grabbed his taser, publicly dropped his client shortly after the video emerged. 

RELATED:  Man Who Recorded Walter Scott Video Speaks Out: I Was Scared, Almost Erased It

Carly Fiorina: ‘Liberal Environmentalists’ to Blame for CA Water Crisis

Mediaite.com:

Likely 2016 presidential contender Carly Fiorina has been on the attack lately, this time blaming liberal environmentalists for the water crisis in California.

Fiorina called in to Glenn Beck‘s radio show on Monday and bemoaned the “man-made disaster” in California that she was talking about years ago.

She said, “California is a classic case of liberals being willing to sacrifice other people’s lives and livelihoods at the altar of their ideology. It is a tragedy.” And Fiorina very specifically blames “liberal environmentalists” for bringing this crisis about, saying it’s “all about politics” and dismissed the idea that it has anything to do with global warming.

The more this woman talks, the more I like her.

RELATED: Poll: More Americans Trust Fox News than Obama on Climate Change

Facts Matter: Left Sticks to ‘Narratives,’ Evidence Be Damned

NYPost.com:

The verdict’s in on Rolling Stone. According to no less an authority than the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, the magazine’s story last year on a University of Virginia gang rape was a “journalistic failure [that] encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking.”

But as with many other stories that don’t fit into the right narrative, the media will continue to draw the wrong lessons.

As an AP article noted, “Despite its flaws, the article heightened scrutiny of campus sexual assaults amid a campaign by President Barack Obama.”

Despite its flaws? You mean despite the fact that as far as anyone can tell, the story was made up out of whole cloth?

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Even once the police investigated the claims of the alleged victim, The New York Times reported: “Some saw a more complex picture, saying that the uproar over the story and the steps that the university had taken since in an effort to change its culture had, in the end, raised awareness and probably done the school, and the nation, some good.”

How has the university benefited from the fact that a fraternity has been falsely accused of a horrific crime? And how has the nation benefited from the false but now widespread belief that violent rape, even gang rape, is raging on US campuses?

Wouldn’t it have done more good for people to know that young women are statistically less likely to be attacked on a campus than off one?

But who cares about the facts as long as awareness has been raised? Take the case of Ellen Pao, who filed suit against her former employer, venture capital group Kleiner Perkins, for gender ­discrimination.

She was seeking millions of dollars in damages to make up for what she claimed was a pattern of women being excluded from important meetings. They weren’t invited on a ski trip with other partners. Women were forced to sit in the back of the room during a meeting.

Two weeks ago, a jury decided her claims were completely without merit. And yet from the media coverage, you’d think Ellen Pao successfully exposed a Silicon Valley rife with discrimination.

Here’s Farjad Manjoo in The New York Times: “The trial has nevertheless accomplished something improbable . . . The case has also come to stand for something bigger than itself. It has blown open a conversation about the status of women in an industry that, for all its talk of transparency and progress, has always been buttoned up about its shortcomings.”

In a Bloomberg article called “Ellen Pao Lost, Women Didn’t,” Katie Benner declared: “The case broke wide open the issue of sexism in a powerful, influential industry.”

Or take the Atlantic, which declared, “Ellen Pao’s claim against top venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins seems to have come up short, but it’s brought heightened attention to gender discrimination in tech.”

Come up short? She lost.

RELATED:  Media find sexism in the Ellen Pao case where the jury couldn't

Social Liberal POTUS Barack Obama Denounces ‘Less-than-Loving’ Christians at Easter Prayer Breakfast

Mediaite.com:

Towards the end of his speech at Tuesday morning’s Easter Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama appeared to veer off script to make some comments that implicitly referenced the fierce debate that has been raging over the last week about “religious freedom” laws in Indiana, Arkansas and elsewhere. 

“On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love,” Obama said. “And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less-than-loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned.” As the crowd began to murmur, the president backed off, saying, “But that’s a topic for another day.”

“I was about to veer off,” he explained. “I’m pulling it back.” 

“Where there is injustice we defend the oppressed,” Obama said, returning to his prepared remarks. “Where there is disagreement, we treat each other with compassion and respect. Where there are differences, we find strength in our common humanity, knowing that we are all children of God.”

The moment drew the attention of Fox News, which played this section of the speech on air. “The divisiveness over some issues coming up, but not Christians under attack around the world,” Martha MacCallum noted, referring to the recent attack on a Kenya university that explicitly targeted Christians.

RELATED: Jindal: Christians need legal protection for their religious expression

Carly Fiorina: Apple CEO Tim Cook ‘Hypocritical’ for Opposing Religious Freedom Law

Mediaite.com:

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who last week said there is a “higher than 90 percent chance” she will run for president, is going after Apple CEO Tim Cook for his vocal opposition to Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, calling him a hypocrite for not also ceasing operations in countries where gay people and women are not treated fairly.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, the likely 2016 Republican presidential contender said Cook is demonstrating “a level of hypocrisy here that really is unfortunate.” Cook wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that the Indiana law and similar ones are “bad for business” and discriminatory.

“When Tim Cook is upset about all the places that he does business because of the way they treat gays and women, he needs to withdraw from 90 percent of the markets that he’s in, including China and Saudi Arabia,” she told The Wall Street Journal. “But I don’t hear him being upset about that.”

While critics have said the law opens the door to anti-LGBT discrimination, Fiorina told the WSJ that there was “nothing objectionable” about Indiana’s law. The criticism was so overwhelming to Indiana lawmakers that Gov. Mike Pence (R) was forced to call for a “clarification” and “fix” to the law.

“I think this is a ginned-up controversy by people who play identity politics that has divided the nation in a way that is really unhelpful,” Fiorina added. Interesting, in that same interview, Fiorina said, “I am running for this job because…” — immediately prompting an interjection of “if” from one of her aides.

Meanwhile, her fellow Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote on Friday that the Indiana law is “distracting, divisive,” bad for the country and for the Republican Party.

RELATED:  The overblown hypocrisy of Tim Cook's business boycott of Indiana

UVA Four Months Later: 'Rolling Stone Didn't Do Its Job'

CNN.com:

That's the feeling at the University of Virginia, four months after Rolling Stone magazine published and then all but retracted a story detailing an alleged gang rape at the campus. 

Now the magazine is preparing to publish an independent review by Columbia University of what went wrong in the making of the story. For UVA, that means yet another round of news coverage. 

Journalism students at UVA have seen up close how a news organization can hurt a community. Professors have thought about incorporating the lessons into classes. 

Perhaps most importantly, student activists are working overtime to correct persistent misperceptions about college sexual assault and support victims. 

"Rolling Stone didn't do its job," said UVA student body president Abraham Axler. "And in some ways our community was responsible for the cleanup of that mistake, and that's what people are angry about." 

The 9,000-word story, titled "A Rape on Campus," focused on the alleged gang rape of a freshman named "Jackie" in 2012. It also asserted that the university failed to meaningfully respond to the crime and connected this to systemic problems across the country. 

When the article came out in late November, "everyone was affected deeply," said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a UVA media studies professor. "The vividness of the story was gut-wrenching." 

But Vaidhyanathan had doubts right away because, he said, the story "demonized" administrators who were sincerely trying to improve UVA's handling of rape cases. 

The writer, Sabrina Rudin Erdely, soon came under scrutiny. 

"It was as if she came into the story with the plot already lined up, and she was just looking for that killer anecdote to fill in the gaps," Vaidhyanathan said. 

By early December, the gang rape story had unraveled. Amid mounting doubts about some of the details in Jackie's story -- seven attackers over a period of hours -- and widespread criticism of Rolling Stone's decision not to contact the alleged rapists, the magazine apologized and said it would investigate further.

The magazine asked Columbia's graduate school of journalism to lead a review. 

In March, the local police said they could find no evidence the rape had occurred, but also said it remains possible something very traumatic happened. Jackie has not spoken publicly. 

RELATED:  Rolling Stone U-Va. story: What happens when you mix tight FOIA laws with bad reporting?

‘Cowardice’: Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly Slam Christian Silence Against Liberal ‘Attacks’

Mediaite.com:

Bill O’Reilly spent the entire first segment of his show tonight going off on “the war on Christianity.” He pivoted from literal attacks on Christians in Kenya and by ISIS to “verbal attacks against Christians” in the United States.

O’Reilly called out Bill Maher‘s “vicious behavior towards Christianity” in particular before focusing on Indiana and the pizza place that was forced to close down over threats after comments about not catering gay weddings.

And what bothered both O’Reilly and guest Ann Coulter is how all this is happening without any religious leaders speaking out or pushing back. Coulter told O’Reilly “it’s Christianity that the left hates most of all” before complaining about Christian silence on these issues:

“The fact that these Christians would rather get praise from The New York Times and Nicholas Kristof by changing bedpans of Ebola patients in Nigeria, rather than stand up to The New York Times and fight against abortion, fight against these bullies… where are the Christians? And where are the Republicans?”

She told O’Reilly the owners of Memories Pizza “have more Christian courage than more Christian leaders and certainly the Republican Party.” O’Reilly, too, was troubled how there are “no clerics in America, zero, who put themselves out to defend the Christian faith.” Coulter called it “cowardice.”

RELATED: Let’s just say it… declining to participate in a gay marriage ceremony isn’t “discrimination”

How Do 'Religious Freedom' Acts Encourage Discrimination?

Townhall.com:

"I could have handled that better." 

I don't know if the captain of the Titanic ever said that. But Mike Pence did on Tuesday. 

The Indiana governor has managed to step on an impressive number of parts of his own anatomy recently and in the process gravely injured what was already a long-shot ambition to run for president in 2016.
Earlier this month he signed the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act in a private ceremony. In attendance were prominent opponents of gay marriage. 

In response, great algae plumes of righteous outrage erupted across the Internet. Gay rights groups, the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, in unison, lost their collective marbles and raised unshirted hell. Know-nothings of every stripe cried out that Jim Crow had returned to the land. Shouts of "boycott!" went forth, including perhaps of the NCAA's Final Four, which for Hoosiers is like threatening a boycott of Easter Mass at the Vatican. The Indiana Chamber of Commerce hied to its corporate fainting couch and begged to be rescued. 

Pence, desperate to put out the political fire, raced to a TV studio last Sunday to quench the flames on ABC's "This Week." The only problem is that he arrived at the scene with a rhetorical water pistol hoping to put out a five-alarm blaze. 

"Do you think it should be legal in the state of Indiana to discriminate against gays or lesbians?" George Stephanopoulos asked. 

"George, you're -- you're following the mantra of the last week online [media coverage]," Pence said. "And you're trying to make this issue about something else." 

Well, as they say in formal debate classes, Duh. 

Two days later, Pence held a press conference to ask the state legislature to rewrite the law to placate the mob. 

Pence still had the better part of the legal argument. Indeed, he and supporters of RFRA have nearly the entire legal argument on their side. 

The federal RFRA was passed in 1993, in response to a Supreme Court decision holding that Native Americans weren't exempt from anti-drug laws barring the use of peyote, even for religious ceremonies.

In response, Congress passed a law barring the government from putting a burden on religious practice without a compelling state interest. If someone feels their religious rights have been violated, they can go to court and make their case. That's it. Jim Crow laws forced people to discriminate. RFRA doesn't force anybody to do anything. 

The original RFRA was a good and just law championed by then-Rep. Chuck Schumer and opposed by right-wing bogeyman Jesse Helms. It passed the Senate 97-3 and was signed by President Bill Clinton. 

In 1997, the Supreme Court held that RFRA was too broad and could not be applied to states. So, various state governments passed their own versions. Twenty states have close to the same version as the federal government's, and a dozen more have similar rules in their constitutions. These states include such anti-gay bastions as Connecticut, Massachusetts and Illinois, where, as a state senator, Barack Obama voted in favor of the law. 

The law says nothing about gays and was most famously used to keep the Obama administration from forcing Hobby Lobby and nuns from paying for certain kinds of abortion-inducing birth control. 

"This big gay freak-out is purely notional," according to legal writer Gabriel Malor (who is gay). "No RFRA has ever been used successfully to defend anti-gay discrimination, not in 20 years of RFRAs nationwide." 

Still, the freak-out was predictable. A year earlier in Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer had attempted to sign a similar law before caving to the pressure. Why would the same crowd spare Indiana? 

Yes, Pence hoped to throw a crumb to opponents of gay marriage. But what a miniscule crumb this is.

RELATED: Forget Indiana… let’s move the fight to Arkansas

Glenn Beck: Indiana Gov. Doing ‘Horrible Job’ Defending Religious Freedom Law

Mediaite.com:

Glenn Beck thinks that Indiana Governor Mike Pence is doing a “horrible job” defending the controversial religious freedom law. Pence was grilled yesterday by George Stephanopoulos over whether businesses would be legally allowed to refuse service to gay people.

Pence kept insisting that’s not what it’s about, and Beck called his response “one of the worst answers I’ve ever heard.”

Beck said the argument should be “I’m not for discrimination on gays, but I’m also not for discrimination on religious people.”

“Does my church have to marry gay people? No,” he said. “Do you have to get married in my church? No. Do you have the right to find a church that’ll marry you? Yes.”

While the Godless Left uses outright lies and hyperbole to attack and discredit social conservatives, prominent conservatives do nothing and refuse to fight for religious rights. Any wonder they've won the culture war?

RELATED: Crisis in Indiana: Random small-town pizzeria says it won’t cater gay weddings; Update: Might not re-open?