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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
Right wingers want to dress up their school book and rainbow flag banning, chromosomal restroom and peewee sports policing, and pronoun narc-ing as being about concern for kids and parental rights. These kinds of events put the lie to that. They don’t give a single solitary fuck about the actual people involved. They only care about their moral crusade to shove all LBGTQ people back into the closets and shadows of social animus. This guy’s death was just an unfortunate (if that) casualty of their war to “take the country back.”
"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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
'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.
Right wingers want to dress up their school book and rainbow flag banning, chromosomal restroom and peewee sports policing, and pronoun narc-ing as being about concern for kids and parental rights. These kinds of events put the lie to that. They don’t give a single solitary fuck about the actual people involved. They only care about their moral crusade to shove all LBGTQ people back into the closets and shadows of social animus. This guy’s death was just an unfortunate (if that) casualty of their war to “take the country back.”
"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.
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.
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.
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑔𝑜𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑.
This. Motherfuckers.