Thank you for covering this issue. My son came out to me last year at 12 years old. He confided in me that he is bisexual and wants to dress in girls’ clothing. I love and support my son no matter what, but I was immediately distressed over what he might go through if he chose to live his life as a woman. And I’m not misgendering him–he told me that I can continue to use his name and call him a boy. He's currently living as a boy because he's afraid of how he would be treated at school if he were to start wearing girls’ clothing. My son is very mature at 13 and he doesn't relate to many of his classmates because they are very immature in his eyes. He gets straight A’s in school, is in the Gifted Program, and is the first middle schooler in his district to be awarded an internship working with the IT Department at his school. He was even offered a summer job through his internship where he would actually make money. He's doing amazing and is a great kid. I just can't stop worrying about what would happen should he choose to live as a girl. Last year, he told his best friend about his status, and that child shamed him with the Bible. They almost got into a physical fight. They've since made up and become friends again, but I will never trust this other boy again. It's a scary world for trans people right now–especially trans women.
Absolutely! I’ve tried to teach him about the utter hypocrisy and ridiculousness of that book. It's just a shame that it has so many people fooled in this country. Thanks for commenting!
I wish I could tell you that the fear goes away, but it is always there to one extent or another. The choice is whether to let it dominate your life. I can tell you that when he's ready, and with your support that will be sooner, he'll find that a great burden has been lifted from pretending to be someone he's not all the time. One he may not have even realized he's carrying until it's gone.
It's sad that his best friend reacted as he did, I can only hope for both their sakes the other boy really has grown from the narrow-minded upbringing of his initial reaction.
Thank you for your comment. You're right-I cannot let the fear dominate my life. It’s just that I already lost my fiance (my sons’ father) to suicide and I think I would die if I ever lost one of my kids. I wish that Republicans would stop smearing trans people as the boogeyman coming out to “groom” other children. Its so disgusting that they perpetuate this bigotry on the backs of trans people to scare their followers and win more votes. It's dehumanizing and I don't want it to affect my son’s self-worth.
I wish I could say his journey will be smooth sailing all day every day, but I'm afraid we, as a society, still have a lot of work to do to rid ourselves of these age-old bigotries.
What I *can* say with certainty is that having his mother so resolutely in his corner will mean the world to him. Simply by doing the most natural thing (loving and supporting your child), you're already setting him up for a successful journey toward understanding & loving himself. In a world where so much of the harm faced by LGBTQ youth is directly attributable to bigot parents rejecting their children and pushing them into dangerous and unstable conditions, I think it's important to celebrate parents like you, whose children will benefit immeasurably simply because their parent promised to love them always...and meant it.
Thank you. I cried when I read your comment. I really needed to hear those words. My son and I are very close. My fiance and his father committed suicide when he was four, so we held on to each other to get through that nightmare. I may never understand what he's experiencing, but he will always have a safe place with me. I just hope that trans people will soon be viewed as people instead of a culture war icon. But you are so right-many in the LGBT community face more strife from their own parents then they do from the outside world. I will always be his biggest cheerleader. Thanks again for your comment!❤️
Few people are more dangerous than self-righteous fools on a moral crusade. Moral, as defined by them. It's all about feeling smug and superior, the human costs be damned. I'm no fan of preachers, Baptist or otherwise, but I fail to see how he was hurting anyone. He was evidently a well-liked man in his community in his role as mayor. I know nothing about the group who exposed him, but I can't help but suspect they are incapable of shame, and see their religion as the solution to every problem.
The hard part to understand if you're not a person whose spiritual or into any kind of religion is that they are not truly spiritual religious people. These men are zealots and they all have a purpose and a lot of it is not good for Americans. They use the religion and the Bible to justify their hate and control.
I’m not religious in the slightest but it’s not hard to see the hypocrisy that many religious nuts cloak themselves under the guise of being a good Christian.
Their religion is a cudgel they use to hit people over the head. They can talk about their loving Jesus and the glorious afterlife from now on, but there is nothing they want as much as power and control in this world. Power few groups would be more ill-equipped to exercise.
I prefer to think of it as a gun held to one's head versus a cudgel. "If you don't follow us you will burn in hell forever" isn't much of a sales pitch, though.
Maybe it was just a journalist with a story he knew would "sell" to the community, so he didn't give a thought to a negative effect it might have on anyone.
I think you're being much too generous. If this were a gossip rag, I might agree. But this is a conservative "news" site. They wanted to ruin this person's life, the suicide was just icing on the cake.
"We're not responsible, we didn't pull the trigger. We just put the gun in his hand and told him he'd be better off dead. See, totally not our fault."
Then why no attempt at an apology? Not even a notpology. Not even a sorry he's dead. Did you actually read their article about his death? I did and what I saw was an organization not in the least sorry the man is dead.
And yes, suggesting he (Monger) didn't realize the consequences of his actions is being very generous.
Edit: Not once is the word tragically used or any variation thereof.
I don't think it's at all accurate to say this person was pretending to be a trans woman online. I am trans, and I had seen her posts on Reddit. The Reddit trans community has many members that knew her and talked to her online. She had a name: Brittani Blaire Summerlin. I see no reason to believe she was faking. She was a closeted trans woman who didn't feel safe to come out. It turns out her fears were well founded.
The number of trans people who die each year is always underestimated because cis people don't recognise trans people's identities. They misgender us and deadname us in death—that's one reason it's called a deadname. One reason we have Trans Day of Remembrance on 20 November each year is to remember trans people as they wanted to be known, so at least someone will remember us correctly even if our families and the printed obituaries don't. I didn't know Brittani personally, but plenty of other trans people are sure that in a world without transphobia she would have been known to everyone as Brittani. I'll definitely be thinking of her on November 20.
They do, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's vile to threaten someone for defying gender norms regardless of whether they're trans or cross-dressing, so it doesn't substantially affect the main point of this article.
I'm just saying that from what I know, it seems this was a closeted trans woman rather than a drag artist. And because so many trans people get misgendered in death, that feels especially raw.
I also suspect this was a closeted trans woman trying to get to the point of giving him/her/zirself permission to be the person he/she/ze really was. But I'm torn on the pronoun to use and though not entirely comfortable have been using he/him as that was the last Pastor Copeland had gone by. Any pronoun feels potentially disrespectful as I don't know Copeland was a trans woman and not a transvestite.
That's essentially how I feel. It sounds like Copeland may well have been in the closet, but without knowing for certain it's best not to ascribe a pronoun he didn't use IRL.
That's a reasonable position, and it's why I haven't framed my comments to call out Hemant for anything. But I'll say this: the people who knew Brittini online use she/her pronouns. And not just in the trans community: the plus size fashion community did too.
I feel great sorrow for this man and his family. His life should be celebrated, and the horrific tragedy that ended it should be laid at the feet of those self-righteous pricks who shamed him for simply existing.
I feel a great rage towards those same self-righteous pricks. They knew what they were doing, and at least a few of them desired this outcome. If hell were real, they would deserve it.
Congratulations, 1819 News. You just drove an innocent man to take his own life. Proud of yourselves, are you? The only real shame here is that there is no hell for you and your kind to be sent to.
I'm convinced they are very proud of themselves, and that's why we haven't seen either the site or the author of the article offer an apology and acknowledge their role in this person's death.
Heaven and hell are not places. Heaven and hell are how the version of you that lives in other people’s memory—the only part of “you” that survives beyond your death—is spoken of.
'Revealing the secret life of a public figure when that person shows no signs of hypocrisy and isn’t hurting anybody serves no purpose."
Wrong.
It allows good Qhristians to feel righteous, and that's a jesus high.
It allows good KKKhristians to be hateful while proclaiming god's love. That is also a high that you won't get from a shot o' moonshine.
It allows homo-hating homos, some of the very worst people on earth, another way to say "I'm better than you."
It allows homo-hating homos, some of the very worst people on earth, another way to say "don't look here, look THERE.
It allows homo-hating homos-- did I mention that they are some of the very worst people on earth?-- another way to say, "See? THOSE PEOPLE I subverting the very essence of gods ordained nature, and anyway, don't look here,THERE!"
It underlines one more time that there is no hate like Christian love. And there is no hate even remotely like the hate of homo Hating homo feels for anyone who dares to live his life freely, openly, in the sunshine, without shame, because the sewer rats can only see their reflections in the sewer.
And never leave out what is often at the bottom of this: power, money, religious dominion, and in the age of Trump, REVENGE.
Another great victory in the culture war. Sure, Alabama may have cost itself a dedicated community leader, who saw a blip of a small town the rest of the world couldn't give two shits about through natural disasters, a pandemic, and- in a bitterly ironic twist- a rash of teen suicides... but they got rid of one of 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 people, and that's what really matters in the end, isn't it?
𝘐𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘪𝘵?
We have a few staunch advocates of free speech absolutism in the commentariat here. Well, take a good look- this is what sitting on that moral high horse costs. You allow evil people to say whatever they want, to publish whatever they want, and this is the cost. Do you feel you've gotten your money's worth, today? How about next time? Because there will be a next time. There is 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 a next time.
Freedom, as the saying goes, isn't free- but the price is always assumed, when someone trots that old saying out, to be something of one's own. That is wrong. Sometimes the price is someone else. Not someone else's 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦, someone else's 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺, but 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦, entire. And they never asked to be the blood price for the freedom you hold so dear. That you value so very much you'd allow evil people to use it, not as a shield to protect all of your other freedoms, but as a weapon to take away all of someone else's.
How is that position looking to you, today?
Because it looks like callous, selfish indifference, to me.
The truth of the matter is that a pen, or a keyboard, or a megaphone, is every bit as lethal as a gun, when wielded irresponsibly. We have only to look at the news of the day for proof of that.
------------------------
There seems to be some difference of opinion on whether Pastor Copeland was a drag queen or a trans woman, but to me the only thing seeing that last piece of the puzzle would change is which pronouns I'd be using. Is there even a meaningful distinction anymore? The people who are out to kill us certainly don't see one. To borrow another old saying, we must all hang together or we shall all hang separately.
And every time a story like this breaks... every time another life is snuffed out by these monsters, a singular question haunts my thoughts:
𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯?
Because if these bastards get their way, we'll each have one.
"Copeland was not the pastor of a conservative Baptist church. First Baptist Church in Phenix City is not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention; it’s connected to the Alabama Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a group that supports church/state separation and offers member churches autonomy when it comes to theological matters.
That’s why you won’t find any signs of anti-LGBTQ bigotry on the church’s Facebook page. No one has produced a sermon showing Copeland denouncing LGBTQ people. Church members may not be proud allies, but they’re hardly the kind of bigots we have to worry about."
From all that was written above it seems that Pastor Copeland was not a bigot.
In all likelihood that is the reason he was outed.
If there was a god and that god did not want/did not like/hated (insert group of people here) then why create them in the first place. This would be much easier and take much less effort.
So, either god does want and does like them, or god does not care about them one way or the other.
This was sad when oraxx reported on it yesterday, and it's sad now. This is what happens when the holier-than-thou caucus decides to dump on a vulnerable person, for no other reason than that they can, along with some needless virtue-signaling on the side. 1819 News deserves to be castigated up, down, and sideways for their utterly insensitive treatment of Pastor Copeland.
This is bullying, taken to a horribly tragic conclusion, and it needs to be recognized as such.
Bullying never ends. Bullies never stop being bullies. They just get more subtle. And despite all the mouthings to the contrary, our culture *likes* bullies. We reward them for being bullies.
Sad but true. I have come to believe our culture likes bullies because so many people get a vicarious thrill out of watching someone *not like them* being publicly tormented. Or better yet, they get to participate in the tormenting.
Religion teaches hatefulness and bullying at its core, then both plays on and amplifies those characteristics. Any political dickhead who figures out how to tap into that ready-made cesspool and provide an outlet for its rage will reap the rewards. Thus, a clearly unhinged sociopath can be elected POTUS.
And the effects are deadly. A teenaged psychopath, with an enabling and equally hateful mom, travels across state lines with an assault rifle, kills fellow human beings for the crime of being black, and is hailed as a folk hero. Vigilante wannabes can sue anybody and everybody they even suspect of aiding pregnant people seeking abortions, despite having no connection whatsoever to the people involved - they just see something they don't like being done by people they don't like and BAM, they are the ones meting out the punishment.
I don't see any way of putting this mess of rancid toothpaste back in the tube. This ingrained hatred and rage seems to have always been just below the surface of American culture, now it's front and center and it ain't going away any time soon.
I went to 1819 news to see if they had covered the story, they had – but no expression of responsibility or anything like that. Just the usual thoughts and prayers and no room for comments.
In our litigious society, I'm not really surprised that they wouldn't even imply responsibility. But the fact they showed no shock, no remorse, and no sorrow tells me they got the result they hoped for.
Thank you for covering this issue. My son came out to me last year at 12 years old. He confided in me that he is bisexual and wants to dress in girls’ clothing. I love and support my son no matter what, but I was immediately distressed over what he might go through if he chose to live his life as a woman. And I’m not misgendering him–he told me that I can continue to use his name and call him a boy. He's currently living as a boy because he's afraid of how he would be treated at school if he were to start wearing girls’ clothing. My son is very mature at 13 and he doesn't relate to many of his classmates because they are very immature in his eyes. He gets straight A’s in school, is in the Gifted Program, and is the first middle schooler in his district to be awarded an internship working with the IT Department at his school. He was even offered a summer job through his internship where he would actually make money. He's doing amazing and is a great kid. I just can't stop worrying about what would happen should he choose to live as a girl. Last year, he told his best friend about his status, and that child shamed him with the Bible. They almost got into a physical fight. They've since made up and become friends again, but I will never trust this other boy again. It's a scary world for trans people right now–especially trans women.
Shamed by the Goatherd's Guide to the Galaxy? An outdated book written and re-written for political purposes whose usefulness in 2023 is obsolete?
Your son needs to know about the provenance of that hateful, obscene and socially destructive book, and the people who follow it.
Absolutely! I’ve tried to teach him about the utter hypocrisy and ridiculousness of that book. It's just a shame that it has so many people fooled in this country. Thanks for commenting!
I wish I could tell you that the fear goes away, but it is always there to one extent or another. The choice is whether to let it dominate your life. I can tell you that when he's ready, and with your support that will be sooner, he'll find that a great burden has been lifted from pretending to be someone he's not all the time. One he may not have even realized he's carrying until it's gone.
It's sad that his best friend reacted as he did, I can only hope for both their sakes the other boy really has grown from the narrow-minded upbringing of his initial reaction.
Thank you for your comment. You're right-I cannot let the fear dominate my life. It’s just that I already lost my fiance (my sons’ father) to suicide and I think I would die if I ever lost one of my kids. I wish that Republicans would stop smearing trans people as the boogeyman coming out to “groom” other children. Its so disgusting that they perpetuate this bigotry on the backs of trans people to scare their followers and win more votes. It's dehumanizing and I don't want it to affect my son’s self-worth.
I wish I could say his journey will be smooth sailing all day every day, but I'm afraid we, as a society, still have a lot of work to do to rid ourselves of these age-old bigotries.
What I *can* say with certainty is that having his mother so resolutely in his corner will mean the world to him. Simply by doing the most natural thing (loving and supporting your child), you're already setting him up for a successful journey toward understanding & loving himself. In a world where so much of the harm faced by LGBTQ youth is directly attributable to bigot parents rejecting their children and pushing them into dangerous and unstable conditions, I think it's important to celebrate parents like you, whose children will benefit immeasurably simply because their parent promised to love them always...and meant it.
Thank you. I cried when I read your comment. I really needed to hear those words. My son and I are very close. My fiance and his father committed suicide when he was four, so we held on to each other to get through that nightmare. I may never understand what he's experiencing, but he will always have a safe place with me. I just hope that trans people will soon be viewed as people instead of a culture war icon. But you are so right-many in the LGBT community face more strife from their own parents then they do from the outside world. I will always be his biggest cheerleader. Thanks again for your comment!❤️
The conclusion shattered my heart.
Few people are more dangerous than self-righteous fools on a moral crusade. Moral, as defined by them. It's all about feeling smug and superior, the human costs be damned. I'm no fan of preachers, Baptist or otherwise, but I fail to see how he was hurting anyone. He was evidently a well-liked man in his community in his role as mayor. I know nothing about the group who exposed him, but I can't help but suspect they are incapable of shame, and see their religion as the solution to every problem.
The hard part to understand if you're not a person whose spiritual or into any kind of religion is that they are not truly spiritual religious people. These men are zealots and they all have a purpose and a lot of it is not good for Americans. They use the religion and the Bible to justify their hate and control.
I’m not religious in the slightest but it’s not hard to see the hypocrisy that many religious nuts cloak themselves under the guise of being a good Christian.
There is no horror that cannot be, and has not been, justified in the name of religion.
Their religion is a cudgel they use to hit people over the head. They can talk about their loving Jesus and the glorious afterlife from now on, but there is nothing they want as much as power and control in this world. Power few groups would be more ill-equipped to exercise.
I prefer to think of it as a gun held to one's head versus a cudgel. "If you don't follow us you will burn in hell forever" isn't much of a sales pitch, though.
"burn in hell forever" means they'll make here hell and forever is just until we die.
Maybe it was just a journalist with a story he knew would "sell" to the community, so he didn't give a thought to a negative effect it might have on anyone.
I think you're being much too generous. If this were a gossip rag, I might agree. But this is a conservative "news" site. They wanted to ruin this person's life, the suicide was just icing on the cake.
"We're not responsible, we didn't pull the trigger. We just put the gun in his hand and told him he'd be better off dead. See, totally not our fault."
I'm not being generous at all, while you're putting words in their mouths.
Then why no attempt at an apology? Not even a notpology. Not even a sorry he's dead. Did you actually read their article about his death? I did and what I saw was an organization not in the least sorry the man is dead.
And yes, suggesting he (Monger) didn't realize the consequences of his actions is being very generous.
Edit: Not once is the word tragically used or any variation thereof.
Yes, I actually read the article. You and I do not see things exactly the same way.
And you don't find inflammatory language and the fact that they couldn't be bothered to call the man's death tragic telling?
Even if the journalist just had a story he knew would sell, his sources are delighting in the harm they have caused. The cruelty is the point.
It should also be noted that 1819 ran three stories on the man. There same author wrote stories on 11/1, 11/2 and 11/3.
And the readers. Don't forget the publication's target audience.
True enough. I just don't know.
Do they ever? Unless they think it might offend a large advertiser.
With conservatives like this, collateral damage isn't a negative, it's a bonus.
Check out #6 on the most list.
𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐏𝐬𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐬? 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐞𝐰𝐞𝐬𝐭?
https://time.com/32647/which-professions-have-the-most-psychopaths-the-fewest/
"F.L. “Bubba” Copeland wasn't a hypocrite. Why did a right-wing media outlet ruin his life?"
Because they have no problem with hypocrisy. In fact, it's one of their core values.
Yes, they are hypocrites and they don't like cross dressers.
I don't think it's at all accurate to say this person was pretending to be a trans woman online. I am trans, and I had seen her posts on Reddit. The Reddit trans community has many members that knew her and talked to her online. She had a name: Brittani Blaire Summerlin. I see no reason to believe she was faking. She was a closeted trans woman who didn't feel safe to come out. It turns out her fears were well founded.
The number of trans people who die each year is always underestimated because cis people don't recognise trans people's identities. They misgender us and deadname us in death—that's one reason it's called a deadname. One reason we have Trans Day of Remembrance on 20 November each year is to remember trans people as they wanted to be known, so at least someone will remember us correctly even if our families and the printed obituaries don't. I didn't know Brittani personally, but plenty of other trans people are sure that in a world without transphobia she would have been known to everyone as Brittani. I'll definitely be thinking of her on November 20.
Don't some people just like to do a little gender bending on the side? David Bowie sometimes wore drag but identified as male.
They do, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's vile to threaten someone for defying gender norms regardless of whether they're trans or cross-dressing, so it doesn't substantially affect the main point of this article.
I'm just saying that from what I know, it seems this was a closeted trans woman rather than a drag artist. And because so many trans people get misgendered in death, that feels especially raw.
I also suspect this was a closeted trans woman trying to get to the point of giving him/her/zirself permission to be the person he/she/ze really was. But I'm torn on the pronoun to use and though not entirely comfortable have been using he/him as that was the last Pastor Copeland had gone by. Any pronoun feels potentially disrespectful as I don't know Copeland was a trans woman and not a transvestite.
That's essentially how I feel. It sounds like Copeland may well have been in the closet, but without knowing for certain it's best not to ascribe a pronoun he didn't use IRL.
That's a reasonable position, and it's why I haven't framed my comments to call out Hemant for anything. But I'll say this: the people who knew Brittini online use she/her pronouns. And not just in the trans community: the plus size fashion community did too.
IIRC he also identified as bi.
Thank you for following up. This haunted me
𝑨𝒏𝒚 𝒎𝒂𝒏`𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒅𝒊𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒔 𝒎𝒆, 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝑰 𝒂𝒎 𝒊𝒏𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒘𝒉𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒔; 𝒊𝒕 𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒆.
I feel great sorrow for this man and his family. His life should be celebrated, and the horrific tragedy that ended it should be laid at the feet of those self-righteous pricks who shamed him for simply existing.
I feel a great rage towards those same self-righteous pricks. They knew what they were doing, and at least a few of them desired this outcome. If hell were real, they would deserve it.
Congratulations, 1819 News. You just drove an innocent man to take his own life. Proud of yourselves, are you? The only real shame here is that there is no hell for you and your kind to be sent to.
I'm convinced they are very proud of themselves, and that's why we haven't seen either the site or the author of the article offer an apology and acknowledge their role in this person's death.
They have an article about it, but there's no room for comments. Pity. Just the bare facts, and the usual thoughts and prayers.
They couldn't even call his death tragic. I thought that was Journalism 101 right after the chapter on 'alleged'.
Heaven and hell are not places. Heaven and hell are how the version of you that lives in other people’s memory—the only part of “you” that survives beyond your death—is spoken of.
'Revealing the secret life of a public figure when that person shows no signs of hypocrisy and isn’t hurting anybody serves no purpose."
Wrong.
It allows good Qhristians to feel righteous, and that's a jesus high.
It allows good KKKhristians to be hateful while proclaiming god's love. That is also a high that you won't get from a shot o' moonshine.
It allows homo-hating homos, some of the very worst people on earth, another way to say "I'm better than you."
It allows homo-hating homos, some of the very worst people on earth, another way to say "don't look here, look THERE.
It allows homo-hating homos-- did I mention that they are some of the very worst people on earth?-- another way to say, "See? THOSE PEOPLE I subverting the very essence of gods ordained nature, and anyway, don't look here,THERE!"
It underlines one more time that there is no hate like Christian love. And there is no hate even remotely like the hate of homo Hating homo feels for anyone who dares to live his life freely, openly, in the sunshine, without shame, because the sewer rats can only see their reflections in the sewer.
And never leave out what is often at the bottom of this: power, money, religious dominion, and in the age of Trump, REVENGE.
Another great victory in the culture war. Sure, Alabama may have cost itself a dedicated community leader, who saw a blip of a small town the rest of the world couldn't give two shits about through natural disasters, a pandemic, and- in a bitterly ironic twist- a rash of teen suicides... but they got rid of one of 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 people, and that's what really matters in the end, isn't it?
𝘐𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘪𝘵?
We have a few staunch advocates of free speech absolutism in the commentariat here. Well, take a good look- this is what sitting on that moral high horse costs. You allow evil people to say whatever they want, to publish whatever they want, and this is the cost. Do you feel you've gotten your money's worth, today? How about next time? Because there will be a next time. There is 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 a next time.
Freedom, as the saying goes, isn't free- but the price is always assumed, when someone trots that old saying out, to be something of one's own. That is wrong. Sometimes the price is someone else. Not someone else's 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦, someone else's 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺, but 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦, entire. And they never asked to be the blood price for the freedom you hold so dear. That you value so very much you'd allow evil people to use it, not as a shield to protect all of your other freedoms, but as a weapon to take away all of someone else's.
How is that position looking to you, today?
Because it looks like callous, selfish indifference, to me.
The truth of the matter is that a pen, or a keyboard, or a megaphone, is every bit as lethal as a gun, when wielded irresponsibly. We have only to look at the news of the day for proof of that.
------------------------
There seems to be some difference of opinion on whether Pastor Copeland was a drag queen or a trans woman, but to me the only thing seeing that last piece of the puzzle would change is which pronouns I'd be using. Is there even a meaningful distinction anymore? The people who are out to kill us certainly don't see one. To borrow another old saying, we must all hang together or we shall all hang separately.
And every time a story like this breaks... every time another life is snuffed out by these monsters, a singular question haunts my thoughts:
𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯?
Because if these bastards get their way, we'll each have one.
When kids are driven to suicide by online bullying, there are legal consequences. The people who did this to Bubba should be held accountable as well.
What's saddest to me, Bubba would have found fellowship and acceptance if he'd aligned himself with less toxic people.
"Copeland was not the pastor of a conservative Baptist church. First Baptist Church in Phenix City is not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention; it’s connected to the Alabama Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a group that supports church/state separation and offers member churches autonomy when it comes to theological matters.
That’s why you won’t find any signs of anti-LGBTQ bigotry on the church’s Facebook page. No one has produced a sermon showing Copeland denouncing LGBTQ people. Church members may not be proud allies, but they’re hardly the kind of bigots we have to worry about."
From all that was written above it seems that Pastor Copeland was not a bigot.
In all likelihood that is the reason he was outed.
𝐹𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑚𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑃𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝐶𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎 𝑏𝑖𝑔𝑜𝑡. 𝐼𝑛 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒𝑙𝑖ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛 ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑. [emphasis mine]
Hell of a note, isn't it? Being targeted for treating people the way they themselves would be treated, sorta like their "J" guy said? Beyond sad.
My heart aches for this poor man. I doubt anyone at the website that "outed" him will have any regrets. They are pathetic and evil.
If there was a god and that god did not want/did not like/hated (insert group of people here) then why create them in the first place. This would be much easier and take much less effort.
So, either god does want and does like them, or god does not care about them one way or the other.
Or god does not exist.
This was sad when oraxx reported on it yesterday, and it's sad now. This is what happens when the holier-than-thou caucus decides to dump on a vulnerable person, for no other reason than that they can, along with some needless virtue-signaling on the side. 1819 News deserves to be castigated up, down, and sideways for their utterly insensitive treatment of Pastor Copeland.
This is bullying, taken to a horribly tragic conclusion, and it needs to be recognized as such.
Bullying never ends. Bullies never stop being bullies. They just get more subtle. And despite all the mouthings to the contrary, our culture *likes* bullies. We reward them for being bullies.
Sad but true. I have come to believe our culture likes bullies because so many people get a vicarious thrill out of watching someone *not like them* being publicly tormented. Or better yet, they get to participate in the tormenting.
Religion teaches hatefulness and bullying at its core, then both plays on and amplifies those characteristics. Any political dickhead who figures out how to tap into that ready-made cesspool and provide an outlet for its rage will reap the rewards. Thus, a clearly unhinged sociopath can be elected POTUS.
And the effects are deadly. A teenaged psychopath, with an enabling and equally hateful mom, travels across state lines with an assault rifle, kills fellow human beings for the crime of being black, and is hailed as a folk hero. Vigilante wannabes can sue anybody and everybody they even suspect of aiding pregnant people seeking abortions, despite having no connection whatsoever to the people involved - they just see something they don't like being done by people they don't like and BAM, they are the ones meting out the punishment.
I don't see any way of putting this mess of rancid toothpaste back in the tube. This ingrained hatred and rage seems to have always been just below the surface of American culture, now it's front and center and it ain't going away any time soon.
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑔𝑜𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑.
This. Motherfuckers.
Then they scrambled back under the refrigerator like the cockroaches the are.
I went to 1819 news to see if they had covered the story, they had – but no expression of responsibility or anything like that. Just the usual thoughts and prayers and no room for comments.
In our litigious society, I'm not really surprised that they wouldn't even imply responsibility. But the fact they showed no shock, no remorse, and no sorrow tells me they got the result they hoped for.
No room for comments. Cowards.
And xtian trolls come here accusing US of being an echo chamber.
Projection. Nothing but projection.
They're monsters. Sociopathic monsters.