FRC Staffer Craig James Sues Fox Sports For Anti-Christian Religious Discrimination

Former New England Patriots running back, failed US Senate candidate, and current Family Research Council staffer Craig James has filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against Fox Sports, alleging that the network fired him as a commentator over his Christian stance on same-sex marriage. Yahoo News reports:

In 2013, Fox Sports Southwest fired James two days after it hired him upon learning of a statement he made in 2012 while running for the U.S. Senate. During a debate that involved Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and Ted Cruz, James said that being gay is a choice and that “right now in this country, our moral fiber is sliding down a slope that is going to be hard to stop if we don’t stand up with leaders who don’t go ride in gay parades. I can assure you I will never ride in a gay parade.” Fox Sports Southwest Senior Vice President of Communications Lou D’Ermilio took issue with the comments. “We just asked ourselves how Craig’s statements would play in our human resources department. He couldn’t say those things here.” The suit, which was filed Monday morning, claimed James was fired “because of his religious beliefs about marriage and his expression of those beliefs.”

James' suit claims that he "shows love and kindness to all those around him" including his LGBT friends and family members. That claim might come as a surprise to his LGBT friends and family members who happened to be listening as he guest-hosted on Tony Perkins' radio show in December, when he told a caller that he wasn't really sure whether gay people should be executed.

Duggar Family Issues Money Beg

Via Radar Online:

How low will they go? Thanks to their former lucrative TLC contracts, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are reportedly millionaires. However, now that the network has canceled the family’s reality show, 19 Kids And Counting, following disgraced son Josh’s sex abuse scandal, the shameless parents and their ultra-Christian brood are begging fans for financial support, RadarOnline can reveal. On the conservative clan’s official YouTube page, Duggar Studios, the family asks for supporters to contribute funds so the kids can create “fresh quality content” on their video site. “Every contribution is helpful, big or small,” they claim. However, the videos, featuring the children playing basketball and going to the dentist, don’t seem to require much of a budget. Also, clips are only uploaded to the account once every few months. The former reality stars have a history of money grubbing.

More from OK Magazine: "According to a report, the Duggars lost their $45,000-per-episode paychecks along with endorsement deals, sponsorships, speaking engagements and royalties, which could amount to a '$25 million or more a year' loss in total."

Rick Perry Confirms For Duggar Fest 2015

That makes six of the GOP presidential candidates: Perry, Walker, Huckabee, Santorum, Cruz, and Carson. So far. Who will say no?

Michelle Duggar Roller Skates To YMCA

Raw Story reports:

The Duggar family is clearly not sulking around their aircraft carrier of a house and hanging their heads in despair after being dumped from TLC last week. E! Online reported Thursday that the reality-TV family posted a grainy cell phone video to their Facebook page this week of family matriarch Michelle Duggar roller skating to the Village People’s 1978 hit single, “YMCA.” “Check this out,” wrote daughter Jinger. “Our mom is so much fun! We had a blast skating together yesterday. Check it out. Her skills are mad! She out-skated the whole place…backwards!”

The Duggar family’s TLC program, 19 Kids and Counting was canceled by the network after admissions by eldest son Josh Duggar that he inappropriately touched and fondled his sisters and another girl when he was a teenager. Michelle Duggar was instrumental in helping the effort against a nondiscrimination law in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She recorded a robocall that went out to thousands of households in which she urged voters to strike down a city ordinance outlawing discrimination against LGBT people in housing, health care and other critical services.

Headline Of The Day

"The Duggars want to return to TV because they truly believe it was part of God's plan for them to spread the word about their faith." - Via People Magazine.

Josh Duggar Has Fourth Child

There's another Duggar in the world.

Anna and Josh Duggar have welcomed their fourth child, a baby girl named Meredith Grace Duggar. Josh Duggar broke the news of the birth with a photo posted on Instagram, saying: "Announcing the arrival of Meredith Grace Duggar -- 7lbs 14 ozs, 20-1/2in -- Anna and Meredith are resting & doing well!" The "19 Kids & Counting" stars are already parents to Mackynzie, 5, Michael, 4, and Marcus, 2. It's been an emotional year for the Duggars. Their show was pulled from the TLC schedule after Josh Duggar responded to allegations of molestation that happened years ago starting when he was 14 years old. He's 27 now.

(Tipped by JMG reader Keith)

The Duggar Family Has The Sadz

Charleston Mass Murderer Researched The Same White Supremacists Group Once Addressed By FRC President Tony Perkins

As I have mentioned here many times over the years, in 2001 then Louisiana state Rep. Tony Perkins addressed (photo above) the Council Of Conservative Citizens, an SPLC certified racist hate group with active chapters in more than a dozen states including South Carolina. Perkins' speech to the CCC (formerly the White Citizens Council) came only five years after he was fined by the Federal Elections Commission for lying about an $82K payment to Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. Per its website, the CCC opposes "race mixing" and considers black people "a retrograde species of humanity."

Today we learn that another fan of the CCC is Charleston mass murderer Dylann Roof. The Inquisitr quotes from Roof's just-discovered manifesto:

"But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words 'black on White crime' into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?”

The Inquisitr notes that the CCC's website has crashed today due to it now being linked to the Charleston massacre. The SPLC maintains a lengthy file on the CCC, here's an excerpt:

The danger of "race-mixing" has been a consistent theme for the group since the days of the White Citizens Councils. "God is the author of racism," said one story on the CCC's website in 2001. "God is the One who divided mankind into different types. ... Mixing the races is rebelliousness against God." After the NAACP declared its boycott of South Carolina in 1999 because the state continued to fly the Confederate battle flag over its Capitol dome, the CCC distributed a mock advertisement proclaiming, "South Carolina Now Has Whiter Beaches!" The Citizens Informer item urged whites to vacation in South Carolina and "enjoy a civil liberty that has been denied to them for many years at hotels, restaurants and beaches: the freedom to associate with just one's own people." Along with theological arguments, the Citizens Informer has published countless stories detailing "scientific" evidence for white people's inherent superiority.

According to the SPLC, the CCC calls LGBT Americans "perverted sodomites." The SPLC also notes that the membership rolls of the Council Of Conservative Citizens "overlap greatly" with those of the League Of The South, the racist group which recently distributed signs at an Alabama anti-gay marriage rally addressed by Roy Moore, whose return to the Alabama Supreme Court was bankrolled by the League's former president.

Tony Perkins and other hate group leaders regularly scream with outrage when the LGBT movement is compared to the black civil rights movement. Yet time after time after time after time we find that both movements share common enemies. The next time Perkins appears on cable news, we need to pressure every outlet to mention what HE has in common with confessed mass murderer Dylann Roof.

FRC Launches Publicity For VVS 2015

Kelvin Cochran was fired for proselytizing at the workplace and the Benham brothers lost their show after Right Wing Watch publicized a host of vile anti-gay statements, including their claim that gay people are controlled by Satan. And of course, the Kleins were fined for violating public accommodation laws in Oregon, which added sexual orientation to those protections seven years before the legalization of same-sex marriage. But the FRC martyr train will not be stopped.

Headline Of The Day

Via Talking Points Memo:

Voters who cast their ballots for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in the last election have a higher opinion of the scandal-plagued Duggar family than of President Barack Obama, according to a poll provided Tuesday to TPM. A survey conducted by the Democratic-leaning firm Public Policy Polling found that 67 percent of respondents who voted for Romney in 2012 said they had a higher opinion of the family made famous by TLC's "19 Kids and Counting." Just 12 percent of Romney voters said they had a higher opinion of the President than the Duggars. By contrast, 87 percent of respondents who voted for Obama in 2012 said they had a higher opinion of the President than the Duggars.

(Tipped by JMG reader Arthur)

NEVADA: Legal Brothel Bans Josh Duggar

The owner of Nevada's famed Bunny Ranch is rather notorious for trying to inject himself into national stories by banning those making the headlines from his brothel. So here he is again. Via press release:

The world famous Moonlite Bunny Ranch, famed legal brothel that has been featured on HBO's smash hit series "Cathouse", has taken the extraordinary step of banning TLC's "19 And Counting" star Josh Duggar from entering any of their properties, citing concerns for the safety of the 500 legal prostitutes that are employed there. Duggar has recently become embattled in a firestorm of controversy over his admission that he sexually molested five girls, including two of his younger sisters, when he was 15. One of the sisters was 5 at the time that the assault occurred.

"My number one priority has got to be the safety of my girls," said Dennis Hof, owner of the world famous Bunny Ranch and six other Nevada brothels. "We employ 500 girls at any one time, and we've had tens of thousands of them come and go over the years. With the Duggars having 19 kids, it is just simple math that the odds are much greater than usual that one of their daughters might come work for us at some point. There's no way I would ever put them or any other girl in harm's way, should that brother of theirs come prowling around here. He's persona non grata, starting now."

"Those poor girls (the Duggar sisters) were propped up on television by their Bible thumping parents to make excuses for their brother, saying that their mother and father had protected them after they became aware of the molestations by putting locks on the girls' doors. We don't have locks on our girls' doors, because we've never needed them. Apparently the Bunny Ranch brothel is a safer place for young girls than the Duggar household."

You may recall that at the height of the Duck Dynasty controversy, Hof banned Phil Robertson from patronizing the Bunny Ranch. Today's press release notes that Hof's autobiography was released earlier this year to "critical acclaim." Judge for yourself. (Tipped by JMG reader Mike)

Hate Groups Publish Full-Page Message To SCOTUS In The Washington Post: We Won't Honor Your Ruling On Marriage

A coalition of hate groups and Christian pastors calling themselves Defend Marriage has published a full-page message to SCOTUS in the Washington Post. Among the signers at the bottom of the ad are Mat Staver, Elaine Donnelly, the Benham brothers, Alveda King, Jim Garlow, John Hagee, E.W. Jackson, Don Wildmon, Dave Welch, Robert Jeffress, and Penny Nance. From the text:

We affirm that any judicial opinion which purports to redefine marriage will constitute an unjust law, as Martin Luther King Jr. described such laws in his letter from the Birmingham Jail. We are Christians who love America and who respect the legitimate rule of law. However, we will not honor any decision by the Supreme Court which will force us to violate a clear biblical understanding of marriage as solely the union of one man and one woman. We affirm that Marriage, as existing solely between one man and one woman, precedes civil government. Though affirmed, fulfilled, and elevated by faith, the truth that marriage can exist only between one man and one woman is not based solely on religion but on the Natural Law, written on the human heart.

Bolding is theirs. (Tipped by JMG reader Jim)

State Workers Call 911 After Duggar Family Objects To New Investigation

In Touch did promise us new revelations:

The Duggar family is under investigation again by the Arkansas Department of Human Services and police were called when the family refused to cooperate, In Touch magazine is reporting exclusively in its new issue that hits newsstands today. A representative from the Washington County DHS called 911 on May 27 at around 11 a.m. asking for police assistance when DHS was not allowed to see the minor they were concerned about. In Touch, which broke the story of Josh Duggar’s sexual molestation scandal, has the full transcript of the emergency call in the new issue. The new investigation comes as the family tries to save its TLC reality show, 19 Kids and Counting, which the network pulled off the air, while determining its fate. Jim Bob, Michelle and two of their daughters sat for interviews with Fox News, attempting to minimize the damage, but much of what they said was widely condemned as misinformation and not full disclosure.

In Touch notes that the latest investigation could have been triggered by a complaint to a state hotline, including an anonymous one. (Tipped by JMG reader Sharon)

LIVE VIDEO: FRC Explains Plans For Battle After SCOTUS Rules For Gay Marriage

UPDATE: The live-stream has concluded but you can still watch the full nonsense below.

Franklin Graham Won't Do Business With Bank That "Promotes Sin" - Moves All Accounts To Bank Sponsoring Gay Pride

Brian Tashman writes at Right Wing Watch:

Graham spoke with Craig James of the Family Research Council, which is cheering on Graham’s announcement, on yesterday’s edition of “Washington Watch,” where he explained that he will be switching to BB&T, another North Carolina-based bank. Graham may not have done much research, as BB&T has received an 80 percent score in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and this year is the sponsor of the Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade, along with the chief sponsor of Miami Beach Gay Pride’s “Legacy Couples” program, which celebrates same-sex couples in “committed relationships of 10 years or longer.” A bank spokesman said the company hopes to “support the individuals and organizations that broaden our perspectives and strengthen the diverse fabric of our communities. That’s why BB&T is proud to be a part of this day of pride and celebration of the 2015 Legacy Couples.” In fact, BB&T hosted a same-sex couple’s wedding reception earlier this year “in a makeshift chapel at event sponsor BB&T Bank South Beach branch.”

MORE: From a Miami Beach Pride press release:

BB&T Bank, in partnership with Miami Beach Gay Pride, will host a fundraising reception to honor the popular “Legacy Couples” program established during the first Miami Beach Gay Pride in 2009 and held every year since. Legacy Couples are featured guests of the Miami Beach Gay Pride parade and are celebrated for their committed relationships of 10 years or longer. Special guests at the event will be Frank Petrole and Marc Rudick, together for 55 years, and Mary Maguire and Jackie Emmett, together for 53 years. “For more than 140 years, BB&T has supported the goals of our clients, friends and neighbors by sharing financial knowledge and guidance,” said Arthur Costa, BB&T Regional Multicultural Markets Officer. “We also support the individuals and organizations that broaden our perspectives and strengthen the diverse fabric of our communities. That’s why BB&T is proud to be a part of this day of pride and celebration of the 2015 Legacy Couples.”

Tony Perkins Duggar Celebrates Franklin Graham's Call To Boycott Everything Gay

"Wells Fargo may be the first American bank to feature a lesbian ad -- but it may also be the last. The outrage over these in-your-face commercials is finally reaching a boiling point with consumers, who are sick and tired of watching companies pitch agendas over products. American powerhouses like General Mills, Tiffany & Co., Amazon, Starbucks, Tylenol, Target, Nabisco, Alaska Airlines, and even Betty Crocker are tripping over themselves to pander to 2.3% of the buying public with intense LGBT advocacy. Like us, Rev. Franklin Graham has had enough. In response to Wells Fargo's new ad, the son of evangelist Billy Graham is making an enormous withdrawal: his ministry's accounts. On Facebook, Franklin challenged Christians to take a long, hard look at where their money is going. Are your dollars financing the war on your values? If so, maybe it's time to do something about it." - Hate group leader Tony Perkins Duggar, via press release.

REPORT: Lesbian Couple Helped Break The Duggar Family Molestation Scandal

Early this year the Duggar family invited couples to post kissing photos on their Facebook page, which naturally spurred many submissions by gay couples. After the Duggars deleted all of the gay photos, Texas couple Tandra Barnfield and Samantha Muzny went viral with a photo they took right in front of the Duggar home in Arkansas. The pair returned to the Duggar homestead in March to pose for a second photo, this time triumphantly holding their Oklahoma marriage license.

Today the Chicago Tribune reports that it was Tandra Barnfield who first tipped off In Touch about the existence of the police report which detailed Josh Duggar's molestations.

"This all comes from good, basic journalism," said David Perel, editorial director of InTouch and its sister gossip-purveyors, Life & Style and Closer. "It comes from being there. It's knowing where to attack and where to start digging." The Duggar story came together quickly over a three-week period, said Perel, a veteran tabloid editor who joined the publication in late 2013 after guiding both the National Enquirer and Radar Online. He won't name the magazine's sources, but a woman named Tandra Barnfield apparently was a helpful guide.

Barnfield was contacted by an In Touch reporter, Melissa Roberto, earlier this year after Barnfield posted a photo on Instagram of her kissing her wife, Samantha Muzny, in front of the Duggars' home near Springdale, Arkansas. The photo — a protest, Barnfield said, of Michelle Duggar's role in promoting opposition to an anti-discrimination initiative last year — had gone viral.

During their conversation, Barnfield, who lives in the Houston area but has family in Springdale, told Roberto about the police report. "It wasn't like it was a rumor to us," Barnfield said in an interview. "We knew all about it. . . . It wasn't hard to get it. You just had to know where to look." In fact, it was a little more complicated than that. Perel quickly dispatched two reporters to Springdale and hired a local law firm to advise the magazine about Arkansas' open-records law, which enables residents (but not reporters from New Jersey) to obtain public documents. The law firm filed the records request — and was rewarded with a copy of the original police report several days later. "We got it fast," Perel said.

Perel added that In Touch has more revelations to come.

FRC Celebrates Vote Denying Benefits To Veterans In Non-Marriage Equality States

Via press release from the FRC:

There may be a consensus in the courts for same-sex "marriage," but not Congress. In a quiet -- but significant -- vote, the Senate made it clear that the legislative branch understands exactly where the people stand on marriage -- and it isn't where the Left would have you believe. During yesterday's vote on the National Defense Authorization Act, the upper chamber took an important step to protect states by blocking an amendment that would have extended gay spousal benefits to veteran couples living in states that haven't redefined marriage. This is an enormous victory, since it was the first time Congress signaled to the Supreme Court where it stands on benefits for same-sex couples who are living in states that don't recognize their marriages.

As part of the Defense debate, Senator Jeanne Shaheen [PHOTO] had been trying for months to leapfrog the Court's decision and invent benefits that -- to this point -- are still unconstitutional. Essentially, the measure would have let the government bypass states that don't recognize same-sex couples as "married" and force them to dole out benefits their own laws reject. At least for now, the President's party has been stopped from tearing down the last two federal holdouts that respect state marriage laws: the social security and veterans' administrations. Unlike other departments, these agencies have consistently recognized marriage for couples based on the state where they live -- not the state where they "married."

The statement goes on to denounce the Republicans who did vote for the amendment.

Duggar Sisters Speak Out On Fox: Josh Was Just A Little Too Curious About Girls

Via CNN:

What happened to Josh Duggar's victims was "very mild" compared to what other victims of sexual molestation have experienced, two sisters of the reality TV star told Fox News in an interview that aired Friday night. Jessa Duggar Seewald and Jill Duggar Dillard said their brother began inappropriately touching them before they were teenagers. Dillard said she was 12 and Seewald was "9 or 10," she said. In the interview, which was recorded Wednesday, the sisters spoke in defense of their brother, who is now 27. He's not a rapist or pedophile, Seewald said. "I was one of the victims so I can speak out," she told Fox. "In Josh's case, he was a boy, young boy in puberty, and a little too curious about girls and that got him into some trouble," she said. "And he made some bad choices, but really the extent of it was mild inappropriate touching on fully clothed victims. Most of it while girls were sleeping."

REPORTS: Jim Bob And Michelle Duggar Lied During Fox News Interview

Yesterday afternoon In Touch published a seven-point refutation of claims made by Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar during their Fox News interview. An excerpt:

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar broke their silence about son Josh’s sexual molestation scandal on Wednesday night, but their interview was filled with misinformation and the reality TV couple also withheld crucial facts, according to public documents, obtained by In Touch magazine through the Freedom of Information Act. One of the most glaring omissions by the family concerns their statements about the 2006 Springdale Police Department investigation. The Duggars gave the viewing audience the impression that they fully cooperated, saying, “We trusted them, we trusted the police department.” But the Springdale police report, obtained by In Touch through FOIA, reveals that Jim Bob refused to produce Josh for a police-requested interview and stopped cooperating with the probe. “On Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at approximately 1300 hours D. Hignite received a voice mail from Jim Bob Duggar in reference to the interview with [redacted, Josh]. Det. Hignite received a voice mail from Mr. Duggar stating that [redacted, Josh] had hired an attorney and will not be coming in for interview.”

Hit the link for the rest. More from TMZ:

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are full of it when they say the Springdale, Arkansas Police Chief had an agenda in releasing the "sealed" molestation case ... so says the city's top prosecutor. Springdale City Attorney Ernest Cate tells TMZ, the case file was never sealed. The reason -- the police report wasn't filed until 2006, 4 years after the molestations began. When the police report was filed, Josh Duggar was 18, an adult suspect, and therefore there was no basis for sealing the case. Cate says he got a Freedom of Information request from a media outlet, and since it was a non-sealed case he was required to release it under the Freedom of Information Act. The names of the minor victims in the police report narrative were redacted. Jim Bob and Michelle claimed on Fox News Channel they were the real victims, because the Police Chief somehow had an agenda to get them. But Cate says it's just not true, the city followed the law in releasing the file.