Nine bigots who will be getting coal for Christmas
PinkNews counts down nine of the most offensive, hateful or ridiculous people we’ve covered this year.
Ramzan Kadyrov
The Chechen leader has to take the top spot on any list of anti-LGBT bigots this year
Human rights monitors warned earlier this year that authorities in Chechnya, an autonomous region within Russia, had orchestrated a violent ‘purge’ of the gay community.
But the defiant Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov, insisted that homosexuals are “not people” and should be eradicated to “purify” the blood of the region.
Kadyrov directly called for gays to be purged when he was challenged about the homophobic purge in an interview with HBO.
The 40-year-old tyrant said: “Why did he come here? What’s the point of these questions? This is nonsense. We don’t have those kinds of people here.
“We don’t have any gays. If there are any, take them to Canada.
“Praise be to God. Take them far from us so we don’t have them at home. To purify our blood, if there are any here, take them.
“They are devils. They are for sale. They are not people…. they will have to answer to the Almighty for this.”
On another occasion, he said of gay people: “We have never had them among the Chechens.
“Chechen society does not have this phenomenon called non-traditional sexual orientation. For thousands of years the people have lived by other rules, prescribed by God.”
His claim that gay people never existed was echoed by his spokesperson, who added: “You can’t detain and harass someone who doesn’t exist in the republic”.
Jeff Sessions
(Getty)
We restricted ourselves to one pick from the Trump administration – and really, it was a difficult choice to make.
While honourable mentions go to the Donald himself for banning trans soldiers via Twitter and VP Pence for Making Bigotry Great Again.
But this honour has to go to Attorney General Jess Sessions – the man who has single-handedly taken the positive legacy of the Obama administration on LGBT rights and driven it into the ground.
Since his appointment in January, Sessions has embarked on an insidious campaign to undermine protections for LGBT people across the federal government, in a series of decisions reversing Obama administration guidance.
Under his leadership, the Justice Department has rolled back civil rights protections for transgender people, and has also made an uninvited intervention into a discrimination case this year to argue against discrimination protections for gay employees.
He also issued a directive protecting “the right to perform or abstain from performing certain physical acts in accordance with one’s beliefs”, granting an unlimited license to discriminate against LGBT people based on religion.
The Justice Department also made an uninvited intervention into a court case about anti-gay discrimination – to argue it’s legal to fire people because of their sexuality.
The case surrounded skydiving instructor Donald Zarda, who was allegedly fired by his employer Altitude Express for being gay.
The Justice Department argued that the 1964 Civil Rights Act – which outlaws discrimination based on a number of characteristics – does not provide any protections for gay people.
The administration directed: “This Court should reaffirm its precedent holding that Title VII does not prohibit discrimination because of sexual orientation.”
In an October interview with the Christian Broadcast Network, Sessions unsurprisingly confirmed that he believes Christians have the “right” to discriminate against gay people.
Franklin Graham
(Photo by Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)
In January, Christian evangelist Franklin Graham was controversially invited to preach to millions by Donald Trump at his Presidential inauguration.
He then spent the rest of the year demonstrating why no sensible politician would go near him with a barge pole.
In March, the head of Christian charity Samaritan’s Purse claimed that Oscar-winning film Moonlight – which he didn’t bother to watch – is an attempt to convince young people to make “homosexual lifestyle choices”.
He said: “Many who had never heard of the film Moonlight, which received best picture, have heard of it now. From the reviews I have read, Moonlight portrays a young gay African American coming of age and it stereotypes him as violent, a drug dealer, and a convict.
“Hollywood is notorious for glorifying sin. This is just another example of the LGBT’s agenda to make lifestyle choices that God defines as sin seem more and more culturally acceptable. I warn families and the church–don’t allow your young people to be sucked into Hollywood’s dark plan.
“We love all people, but we have to be honest about sin’s consequences. Sin is sin—it doesn’t matter if it gets an Oscar or not.”
In May he picked a fight with Beauty and the Beast star Emma Watson, claiming she was defying God’s definition of gender by accepting a Best Actor award from MTV after it abolished gendered categories.
Hitting out at Watson, Graham wrote: “Genders are a part of God’s design. He created us male and female. No matter how much MTV or others want to change or redefine it, they’re never going to change the fact that God made us male and female.”
The same month, he urged Churches to follow the lead of the Mormon Church in pulling funding from the Boy Scouts of America because it accepts gay people.
Graham said: “I think the Mormon Church—and all churches—should pull out of the Boy Scouts organization completely.
“Two years ago the Boy Scouts of America voted to allow gay leaders and then this year began to allow members based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex, opening the door to transgender members.
“They need to get their younger boys out. I would not want my child or grandchild to be influenced by the lifestyle of a gay Scout Leader that goes against God’s design for creation.”
The sinister comments are hardly new ground for Graham. In a 2015 interview with a Russian newspaper, Graham praised Vladimir Putin’s support for anti-gay laws – and claimed that homosexuals “take people’s children”.
Parroting disturbing rhetoric often used by anti-LGBT vigilantes in Russia, he said: “Homosexuals cannot have children, they can take other people’s children.”
He added: “I very much appreciate that President Putin is protecting Russian young people against homosexual propaganda. If only to give them the opportunity to grow up and make a decision for themselves.”
Roy Moore
Roy Moore
Republican politician Moore may have won the votes of 48% of Alabamans, but he has disgraced himself in the eyes of the world.
The failed US Senate candidate was ultimately sunk by allegations that he made advances towards underage girls.
But his personal predatory behaviour contrasts with his pious anti-LGBT extremism.
The candidate openly admitted that he thinks “homosexual conduct should be illegal”.
Moore has also compared gay sex to bestiality, saying: “Just because it’s done behind closed doors, it can still be prohibited by state law
“Do you know that bestiality, the relationship between man and beast is prohibited in every state? It’s the same thing.”
He also appeared multiple times on a radio show hosted by pastor Kevin Swanson, who is known for preaching that gay people must be stoned to death.
The candidate’s literature referred to him as “Judge Roy Moore”, a title he has no claim to as a disgraced former judge who was sacked over an illegal anti-gay marriage crusade.
As Alabama’s Chief Justice Moore had abused his authority in a bid to block gay weddings in the state, issuing orders declaring the US Supreme Court ruling on equal marriage “doesn’t apply” in Alabama, and ordered probate judges to enforce a gay marriage ban.
He was ejected from his role after an ethics investigation found he had abused his power.
But none of his public disgraces have stopped Moore, who has still refused to concede the Senate race – and blames LGBT people for his loss.
In a defiant video he ranted that “abortion, sodomy, and materialism have taken the place of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
He continued to lash out at the “murder of unborn children and re-definition of marriage” before taking.
Moore continued: “We’ve even begun to recognise the right of a man to claim to be a woman and visa versa. We’ve allowed judges and justices to overrule our constitution and we’ve become slaves to their tyranny. Immorality sweeps over our land.
“Even our political process has been affected with baseless and false allegations which have become more relevant than the true issues.
“This election was painted by over $50 million from outside groups who want to retain power in their own corrupt ideology.”
Kevin Swanson
Kevin Swanson
US pastor Kevin Swanson makes the list after claiming that Hurricane Harvey – which displaced thousands and led to dozens of deaths – was gay people’s fault.
As the hurricane hit he said: “Just last week the state of Texas failed to pass a bill that would have prevented cross-dressing men from using women’s restrooms in the state of Texas.
“They wanted to encourage the abomination of men attempting to dress like women in the state of Texas. They were gung-ho to support this abominable activity in the state of Texas.
“We’re not saying that God sent the Hurricane just because of this, but we are looking for stuff to repent of for the state of Texas and city of Houston. We hope they’re paying attention.”
He also called for LGBT-inclusive schools to be burned to the ground.
He was ranting about the new health and physical education standards for schools in Washington state, which suggests pupils should learn about HIV prevention, sexual orientation and gender identity as part of sex education lessons.
Speaking on his radio show, Swanson equated homosexuality to rape, before agreeing with a suggestion that the school should be burnt down.
He said: “I’m going to suggest that there is a connection between sexualised schools, sexualised Governors and sexualised state agencies.
“Sexualised public schools that violate God’s law with high levels of flagrancy, and Governors that violate God’s law with highest levels of flagrancy.
“Today, entire states are defined by homosexuality, adultery, rape, and educating the kids in the sexual confusion of the day, as early as kindergarten.
“The system is wrapped up in chaos, and it’s hardly worth talking about morals when the worst possible abominations are accepted in the state of Washington. It’s affecting public schools, and it’s time to get kids out of the public host.”
His co-host Bill Jack said: “We need to burn them down.”
Swanson agreed: “Get the kids out of the whorehouses! You know, if you transported parents from the 1950s into 2017, they would want to burn these schools down.
Jack added: “They would burn them down. They would tear the bricks out of the walls, the would use the bricks to stone the apostates.”
Swanson also questioned why rape is a crime if homosexuality is not.
He said: “Rape is also against God’s law and I guess it must be against the law… I’m not getting why, though.
“Why in the world is a sexual crime against the law in the state of Washington if the other forms of crimes are not against the law in the state of Washington? See, this is confusing to me.”
The DUP
This collective award goes to Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party.
The party came under the microscope this year after agreeing a deal to prop up UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s minority government under a ‘confidence and supply’ deal.
The DUP, founded by ‘Save Ulster from Sodomy’ preacher Ian Paisley, continues to be dominated by homophobic hardliners from the Free Presbyterian Church.
The unionist party has blocked all progress towards equal marriage in Northern Ireland, vowing to continue using peace process powers to override votes in the country’s democratically-elected Assembly.
It has also refused to accede to calls for an equal marriage settlement from republican party Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin has listed equal marriage as a ‘red line’ issue, and will not form a new power-sharing government with the DUP unless it agrees to the reform.
As the DUP will not compromise, the impasse has been a contributing factor in the political crisis that has left Northern Ireland without a functioning government for nearly a year.
DUP leader Arlene Foster previously defended her party’s stance by insisting gay people don’t really want to get married anyway.
She said: “This suggestion that every single person who’s a homosexual wants to change the definition of marriage is actually wrong.
“I know plenty of people in that community who don’t want to see marriage redefined and are quite content to live in partnership… it’s all become a bit of a storm in a teacup.”
She insisted this year: “It remains my position very firmly [that] marriage is between a man and a woman”.
Ms Foster added: “[The] most frustrating thing about this whole debate is the fact that if you stand up for marriage and if you stand up for the definition of marriage as we believe in it, then in some way that makes you homophobic and a hater of gays.
“Nothing could be further from the truth as far as I personally am concerned and it really does hurt me when people call me a homophobe just because I stand up for the definition of marriage which I believe in and I think this debate has become very toxic.”
Of the party’s ten MPs in the House of Commons, nearly all are strongly opposes to equality – while several have made actively homophobic comments.
Ian Paisley Jr MP has spoken of his “hatred” of homosexuality, saying: “I am pretty repulsed by gay and lesbianism. I think it is wrong. I think that those people harm themselves and – without caring about it – harm society.”
And the MP for East Antrim, Sammy Wilson recently claimed the government spends too much money fighting HIV, claiming AIDS is the result of gay “lifestyle choices”.
Alex Jones
We just got a coded message from Illuminati leader Hillary Clinton, and she’s asked us to take a break from turning the frogs gay to make sure that Alex Jones is on this list.
Jones might be a crank ranting about conspiracy theories on the internet, but he’s got a depressingly large following of easily-influenced viewers – and he’s latched on to the anti-LGBT ‘culture war’ for dear life.
In one recent rant he tore into the “LGBTQ23PCL4 agenda”
He said: “They’re now saying sex with machines or sex with cars or sex with appliances—there’s a whole big movement where people are marrying their cars, marrying their toasters, marrying their dogs, their cats, their horses. I’m not kidding.
“They’re catching people in public places – you see it all the time – trying to have sex with a Ferrari or trying to have sex with a ’57 Chevy.
“They actually – I’m not going to get into the details of what they do, but they lube up the tailpipe and everything and then the police come up and there’s a guy hunching your car.”
He added: “This is the breakdown with society, and if you don’t let somebody have sex with your car, you’re a homophobe, you’re a bigot, you’re a horrible person.
Donald Trump has appeared on InfoWars in the past, while his close confidant and advisor Roger Stone makes frequent appearances on Jones’ show.
In a disturbing clip earlier this year, Stone completely ignored a vile homophobic rant from a Jones.
Mr Stone, who served as an advisor to the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump, was taking part in a Skype interview with Alex Jones of conspiracy website InfoWars when the incident occurred.
The pair were discussing concerns about Stone’s ties to Russia raised by Rep. Adam Schiff, co-chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence when Jones set off on a rant.
After Stone raised Shiff’s “irresponsible allegations”, Jones seized on the moment to launch into a vile homophobic rant aimed at Schiff, who is in fact married to a woman and has two children.
The conspiracy show host fumed: “I’m not against gay people… but Schiff looks like the archetypal cocksucker with those little deer-in-the-headlight eyes and all his stuff.
“And there’s something about this fairy, hopping around, bossing everybody around, trying to intimidate people like me and you, I want to tell Congressman Schiff and all the rest of them, “Hey listen a**hole, quit saying Roger and I” — and I’ve never used cussing in 22 years but the gloves are off – “listen you son of a b***h, what the f**k’s your problem?
“You get in my face with that I’ll beat your goddamn ass, you son of a b***h. You piece of s**t. You f**king goddamn f**ker. Listen f**khead, you have f**king crossed a line. Get that through your goddamn f**king head. Stop pushing your s**t.
“You’re the people that have f**ked this country over and gangraped the shit out of it.”
Stone completely ignored the shocking homophobic rant, waiting for Jones to finish before saying: “I think Adam Schiff has acted irresponsibly and I think he needs to be confronted with his exact words.”
Last month Jones got very, very worried about liberal brain-eating lesbians.
Piers Morgan
Once a semi-respectable journalist, Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan has somewhat gone of the deep end this year when it comes to transgender and non-binary people.
The mere mention of gender is now enough to set Piers off on a diatribe at the expense of the trans movement.
Interviewing non-binary couple Fox Fisher and Owl on GMB, he told them: “Schools are now running riot with non-binary kids. It’s like a contagion.”
He then continued to question statistics about the number of transgender people who attempt suicide because of bullying, insisting it was probably “like, two or three people”.
On other occasions he has suggested he could identify as an elephant, and has repeatedly interrogated unsuspecting guests about their genitals in interviews.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, confessed that his “number one pet hate at the moment is the absurd ‘gender fluid’ movement, driven by people who don’t wish to be defined as either male or female”.
His surreal fixation has even seeped into showbiz interviews on GMB.
Actress Sonequa Martin-Green was nearly lost for words when Piers began attacking trans people during what was meant to be a chat about her Star Trek series.
Cutting away from prepared questions, he told her: “I’m very confused and unsettled by genderfluidity.”
“People who wake up one day and they’re Sonequa, and the next day they wake up and feel like they’re Michael.”
The actress patiently explained that she was playing a woman called Michael on the series, not a transgender person.
Eric Abetz
It’s safe to say that the best of Australia was not on display during the country’s equal marriage vote this autumn.
Instead, we got Senator Eric Abetz.
One of the most prominent politicians to back the ‘No’ campaign. And he was no stranger to grabbing a headline, no matter how offensive or outrageous the soundbite.
The former leader of the government in the Senate, Abetz claimed that continuing to ban same-sex marriage would encourage gay people to seek a ‘cure’ and turn straight.
He insisted: “The reality is, people who have been in gay relationships have then gone into heterosexual relationships… I believe that can happen, courtesy of the evidence.
Asked by the stunned host if gay people should ‘try’ to be straight, he said: “Look, it is up to the individual as to what they want to be and how they want to express themselves. That is up to them in a free society.”
Abetz said: “It is a matter of regret so many others can’t see through the glibness of ‘love is love’ and “marriage equality’.
“If these glib meaningless phrases are to be given any genuine meaning, then ‘love is love’ in all situations and ‘marriage equality’ should be open to all – as the Greens assert.
“If this is the standard then who is to judge the quality/type/validity of any love – within families, with more than just one other, or indeed why not the Eiffel Tower?”
When Australian lawmakers followed the public in voting for same-sex marriage, Abetz branded them “dead fish”.
He added: “It’s a change I regret for the sake of our children.
“As someone told me the other day, it’s only dead fish that go with the flow; it’s only the live fish that have the capacity to swim against the current.”
