News Briefs, Altar-Cations, and Rant June 11, 2023
It’s June – which means it’s Pride Month – and that just triggers the worse in some people.
Take for instance Rick Hughes down at Rick’s Repair Shop in Tallahassee, Florida. Over Memorial Day weekend, they had this sign outside of their business…
“Veterans get a day fags and child molesters get a month why,”
Tallahassee City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow
also criticized the business, writing, “I’m not sure the sad, miserable place a person must be in to take the time to put this up, but I do know the majority of folks in Tallahassee reject this hatred and respect the freedom to be who you are, love who you want and support LGBTQ rights every month of the year.”
By the way, Rick Hughes, May is Military Appreciation Month. Month. Not just a day.
The Bozeman Montana Pride Stroll was interrupted by a group of protesters
wearing masks and sunglasses to protect their identities while chanting and carrying signs promoting white supremacy and condemning the LGBTQ+ community.
Joseph Wood was walking near the group when one protester handed him a flyer. He continued walking near them and another protester tried blocking his path. They ultimately got into a verbal altercation that escalated into the man
hitting Wood in the face with a shield, then another man pepper sprayed him.
The attacked man was treated by an ambulance crew and it doesn’t appear that any arrests were made.
And on a brighter, more colorful note, Skittles is celebrating Pride Month by dropping its signature rainbow design and using its packaging to celebrate the work of artists within the LGBTQ+ community.
Skittles partnered with five prominent artists who designed the special packaging in honor of Pride Month. The company said each artist’s package tells “a visual story of Pride.”
Each package will also feature a scannable QR code which will direct to a dedicated Pride page on Skittles’ website where people can read more about each artist.
For each package of the specially designed Skittles Pride Pack sold, Skittles’ parent company Mars will donate $1 (up to $100,000 total) to GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
This is the fourth year Skittles has celebrated Pride Month with specially designed packages.
Taste the rainbow, indeed.
And that’s this week’s News Briefs.
Altar-cations is our weekly report in response to those who say it’s the drag queens grooming
and molesting children. Who is really putting children in danger?
In Italy, Mirko Campoli,
a 46-year layman and former national leader of the youth wing of a group called Catholic Action, was arrested last month on charges of molesting at least four minors aged between 10 and 14 at the time of the alleged offenses.
According to media reports, suspicions against Campoli surfaced as early as 2020, when he was fired from the Tivoli school where he had been working as a religion teacher.
Chris Hundl,
the longtime campus pastor of a Christian college ministry at Baylor University has been arrested and charged with sexual abuse of two boys.
The crimes allegedly involved convicted sex offender Daniel Savala, who’s at the center of a widening sex scandal involving Chi Alpha Campus Ministries.
Hundl and his wife – yes, I said his wife - have resigned as campus pastors and the church where he was lead pastor has taken down their website.
Steven Brian Arey
was convicted in April on 20 counts of lewd acts with a child under the age of 14, according to the Tulare California County District Attorney’s Office. He was sentenced to 300 years in prison.
Arey was a former youth pastor who was working for the California Department of Corrections in Santa Clarita at the time of his arrest in 2019. He was one of two men arrested for molestation with ties to the same church.
That’s this week’s Altarcations.
And now Amber's rant for Pride 2023!