Alabama Mayor Kills Self After Right-Wing Blog Outs His Cross-Dressing
Alabama Mayor Kills Self After Right-Wing Blog Outs His Cross-Dressing
Bubba Copeland shot himself in front of police on Friday, days after he begged 1819 News not to expose his private life.
Also a pastor, "shot himself in front of police during a welfare check." It also appears that his wife was aware and involved with the hobby (not with the suicide), presumably in a supporting way.
I may disagree very strongly with this guy's politics, but fuck the assholes who make this shameful.
@Poutinetown quotes from the article:
... even though it does not appear [Copeland] had taken any public positions against LGBTQ issues that could be construed as hypocritical.
These are the assholes who make it shameful.
Leopard face eating moment
The blog reported that Copeland, a Republican, confirmed that the accounts were run by him, saying they were a “hobby” he used for “getting rid of stress.” 1819 News reported that Copeland asked them to not out him, but they did so anyway, even though it does not appear he had taken any public positions against LGBTQ issues that could be construed as hypocritical.
'Ol Bubba knew the wolves would turn on him.
But anyway, what is with this. Is it that this secretive cross-dressing thing seems correlated with repressed sexual desires or what?
JCS covered that one Canadian colonel serial killer who would cross-dress, sneaking into women's homes.
Then I just watched this 48 Hours case about a dad who killed his son after they found pictures of him cross-dressing and literally eating his own shit.
Wtf?
Yeah I want a world where nobody is persecuted for this, even pieces of shit.
You’d think some empathy would be in order. However, judging from the comments made on the bird website, many people are actually proud of this happening.
This is tragic but I feel like shaking the people trying to shame or guilt the ones who outed and ridiculed the Mayor.
“Are you happy now?”
Yes, of course they are. The cruelty is the point.
He's conservative and even had a meeting with Trump. That's the worst of it I think, he was ok with persecuting trans people till he was outed.
Reading other articles it seems like no, he was generally very positive and encouraging to others online. The impression I get (from 10 minutes of reading, not saying this conclusively) is that he was not overtly hostile whatsoever to trans people.
There are enormous social pressures in small conservative towns, and the man was 63. I can imagine life leading someone otherwise pro-trans into being a republican preacher in that environment. An awful tragedy
This. People are complicated, even when it is inconvenient.
The GOP has created a really shitty life for a lot of people.
It's a feature, not a bug.
He was a Baptist minister too...
I don't think many of them preach acceptance of LGBT
Some do. It's just correlation because low church denominations like Baptists suit rural areas more than being at the behest of a large denom.
He was a Republican so yes he voted repeatedly to hurt LGBTQ people AS LONG AS IT WASNT HIM
If you read the article, it said, about halfway through, that he never spoke up on LGBTQ issues despite being a Republican.
It says he hasn't posted or supported anything publicly so he wasn't a hypocrite, he belonged to the wrong party though, I do feel bad for his family because he doesn't seem to be a right wing asshole
Could have just said he's a conservative.
This comment section is hilarious. Some people are praising his suicide simply because he was a part of the republican party, while others are saying that "no one deserves being bullied for being trans" yet what everyone seems to miss is this guy was a grade A pervert who was posting pictures of real children in his transition fetish memes that he posted online. He also stalked a local business woman and wrote erotica about taking over her life and becoming her through hormones and surgery then murdering her and replacing her. A real woman btw.
So much cognitive dissonance in this thread and I'm here for it.
Read up what he did here https://1819news.com/news/item/to-say-i-was-a-stalker-would-be-a-bit-of-an-understatement-curvy-transgender-smiths-station-mayor-copeland-wrote-fiction-about-murdering-real-life-local-businesswoman-assuming-her-identity
You posted the same article multiple times in this thread. I don't know that magazine but Wikipedia says about the source
1819 News is an American far-right[1] news website that focuses on the state of Alabama.
Aren't there more trustworthy articles than a far right news site?
Yeah, it's a right wing propaganda rag. I wouldn't trust them reporting the weather without somehow blaming liberals and lgbtq.
The OP buried the lede intentionally or unintentionally. Dude was a grade A creeper and a psycho.
[CITATION NEEDED]
You clearly did not look hard enough in this thread. Plenty of people say he got what he deserved for being a republican.
He was definitely terrible and I’m not trying to defend him, but What’s your horse in this race?
I have no horse in this race. Just discussing a piece of news on a discussion forum.
Christianity once again demonstrates it's outstanding moral virtues.
Could make the same comment about Islam and suicide bombers. As it's easy to do with the two largest religions in the world to paint them with the same brush.
Yes and? You just told me that if I am complaining about one serial killer I could also complain about another
Not the case here. This person was posting photos of local minors to pornographic websites and writing sex fantasy fiction about local residents (including one where he stalks and murders a local businesswoman, seduces her husband, and steals her life).
I agree with what you’re going for here. It just doesn’t apply here. There’s a whole rabbit hole to go down before coming to any conclusions about this one.
What a waste. Regardless of his political affiliations, it's sad that someone got bullied so hard that they decided to take their own life. It's what we fight for in the LGBTQ community and beyond- so nobody feels that their life is over if discovered. Nor should it be a big deal, regardless. It's what we've been fighting for since the Lavender Scare, and we'll keep fighting for a general sense of normalcy for everyday Americans, regardless of political orientation.
I just imagine him being so conflicted about what he wanted for himself and what he thought reality would allow that killing himself made more sense then living ostracized. He must of truly believed the goodness of people is limited to what the majority find socially acceptable.
I recommend reading what this guy actually did, it's pretty sick. https://1819news.com/news/item/to-say-i-was-a-stalker-would-be-a-bit-of-an-understatement-curvy-transgender-smiths-station-mayor-copeland-wrote-fiction-about-murdering-real-life-local-businesswoman-assuming-her-identity
I would say it's pretty normal to be disgraced after doing some of the shit he did and getting exposed for it.
I think it's a good reminder that one of Hitler's closest "friends" and instrumental in the rise to power of the nazi party, was executed in the night of the Long knives. Ernst Rohm was publicly known to be gay. Due to this close relationship with Hitler, they determined it would weaken Hitler's image.
Copeland certainly won't be the last GOP casualty due to their bigoted policies.
Well, the fact that he was gay is perhaps a sidenote to the internal power struggle in the nazi Party, and the struggle between the SA and the SS. Hitler stayed in power by playing the people beneath him against each other, and Himmler was particularly ruthless in this regard to the very end of WW2.
Did not help Röhm that he was gay tho'
this wouldn't be the first comment thread to speculate about the gayness of Nazis and Hitler, but i'm here for it
I can't speak to Copeland's character, but regardless, I think you misunderstood what OP was saying. There was zero attack on Copeland. They were drawing a parallel between Hitler's peeps being homophobic to the point that they executed a close ally for being gay so as not to ruin Hitler's image, and the Republican party outing this man for cross dressing, which led to his suicide.
Hours before Copeland’s death, Hemant Mehta, who runs the popular religion blog Friendly Atheist, noted that Copeland did not appear to have bigoted views toward transgender people or people who simply enjoy cross-dressing.
“There’s a story making the rounds about an Alabama preacher/mayor who secretly dresses in drag and adopts the persona of a trans woman on social media,” Mehta tweeted. “The problem? It’s not clear he’s a hypocrite. If he’s not a bigot, why is he being outed?”
Mehta tweeted. “The problem? It’s not clear he’s a hypocrite. If he’s not a bigot, why is he being outed?”
Maybe we shouldn't be outing anyone. One's personal sexuality isn't anybody else's business. Even if one is a bigot.
I think there is a good argument to be made for outing someone closeted who is using their power to oppress LGBT+ people, but there is also a trend of labeling any homophobic politician as being in the closet when a lot of them are just plain old bigots.
nah, if you're an elected political official with power over other peoples lives, and you're a bigot, it's open fuckin season, and i'd recommend outting every single last goddamned one of them
Mmmmmmmm... No, you know what? fuck that. You don't get to be a bigot and then expect privacy in your own life. Response to even if one is a bigot
Imagine outing someone as straight. Essentially it's a weird attempt to enforce a degree of group think
“The problem? It’s not clear he’s a hypocrite. If he’s not a bigot, why is he being outed?”
Because every issue has exactly two sides nowadays. And this guy uses twitter, so he should have noticed that by now.
That quote is ignoring the fact that it was his fellow conservatives who went after him to destroy his life. It is his fellow conservatives -- the ones he chose to stand among and support -- that enjoy this outcome.
You cannot be surprised when bullies bully. And the people who hang out with bullies because it benefits them to do so? They are also bullies.
And unfortunately, I think that's exactly why you're wrong. The issue isn't partisanship. The issue is bigotry. These people outed him because they hate and want to destroy LGBT people. There's no shades of grey here. There is no moderate position. This story happened even with no one from the opposite partisan position being involved.
I'm pretty sure there's more than two sides to a lot of things in life dude
I hate that he felt the need to kill himself for wearing women's clothing. But I also hate that he aligned himself with the party that's all about hating on men wearing women's clothing.
It was not because he was "wearing woman's clothing" he wrote grotesque fanfiction about them using their real name about him stalking a local business woman and assuming her identity. He also posted pictures of kids to porn sites. He was not just some closted transgender person.
#LeopardsAteMyFace
Equally, the party where lots of men are wearing women's clothing secretly.
Guys, he not only was a Republican, he was a Baptist preacher. He aligned himself with these two LGBTQ hater groups.
Maybe he joined the GOP and the Baptist denomination in an attempt to shield his lifestyle, but he willingly belonged to these two groups which both actively HATE LGBTQ and condemn his very lifestyle.
I have a lot of sympathy for people who feel they must disguise their true selves in order to protect themselves...and I respect that he tried to reach out and offer support to others online.
But I'm hearing some very disturbing 'rumors' that he posted hateful, stalking, character assassination of particular people online. And accusations of child porn.
I'm going to reserve my sympathy for him for now, until the whole truth is known.
I don't know why people on here are grandstanding and white knighting for this douche, when so many people who are hurt by the GOP actually need our sympathy and compassion.
I have zero compassion or emotions for assholes that actively support hate organizations.
I feel like I can do both severely criticize his actions while defending his sexuality. I can also be understanding about his wanting to write erotica or crossdress but not necessarily the way he went about it.
I don't have the patience for hateful bigots but there are aspects of this story that have historically been weaponized against us LGBT+ that need attention.
I'll let you in on a little secret, people are fucking dumb and just want something to be outraged about.
To me, all of this shows just how insidious the right wing conservative mindset is. It's self destructive as well and societally crippling.
Baptists aren't a group and don't necessarily hate LGBTQ people. It's a low-church movement/denomination within Christianity which is not defined at all by sexuality.
Some Baptist churches are even gay-affirming.
Really sad that he didn’t feel it was ok to be himself and chose to end his life.
I don’t think he killed himself because he wasn’t accepting of himself, but because he was being tormented and ridiculed and had his entire life turned upside down for who he was. Big difference.
Queer man surprised when anti-queer party he's joined deems him a target. More non-news at 11.
I was thinking "Maybe he was more moderate or even liberal, but just knew there's no getting elected without an (R) in small town Alabama politics, and so ran as a Republican anyway." The inverse happens in our town - we're so blue, we occasionally get conservatives running as Democrats just to have a shot.
But then he ran for re-election in 2020 and used publicity of him and Trump together to get re-elected, which is farther than any actual moderate would go. So he's either a massive hypocrite to the LGBT community or a massive hypocrite to the Conservative community, but either way, wasn't super bright if he was posting all this publicly to Reddit as an elected figure. Shame he felt the need to shoot himself. Could have just moved to a blue state.
"But... I worship money, too!"
Leopards…leopards.
But, but, but, I didn't think the leopards were going to eat MY FACE!!!
/shockedpikachuemoji
Daniel walks into the lions den, gets attacked by a leopard
There's no evidence that the guy was anti-trans, so your comment is nonsense.
Why would you be a part of the Republican party if you aren't a terrible person?
What are you talking about? It makes perfect sense. He was a republican and was attacked by a right wing journalist in an entirely predictable manner consistent with the modern GOP’s platform of bigotry. This is a textbook example of “The Leopards Ate My Face.”
I hate to be that guy because I feel for anybody that is driven to suicide. I've gone through two suicides in my IMMEDIATE family in my life, so I know how the fuck it affects everyone surrounding the situation permanently.
HOWEVER, when you are using the image of Donald Trump to campaign for reelection before being outed by a blog that was connected to right wing terrorists and Breitbart News then I think you can see where there are some serious fucking issues in the progression of this person's logic and political affiliations. Knowingly participating in groups that continue to justify or carry out systemic oppression is still evil even if you yourself have not publicly taken a position justifying that oppression. Just saying....🖖
He was a Republican. He was at minimum anti-trans adjacent. And yes, there's a lot of social pressure in small towns, and the South in general, to conform. Him being a closeted transvestite incorporates nuance into an often black and white issue. But one can only go along so much without being intentionally complicit, too.
He was a republican. Even if he himself was not anti-trans he was perfectly fine being in bed with those who were wishing death on trans (and others).
That’s the definition of LeopardsAteMyFace
Doesn't change the fact that he was happily a member of the party more worried about removing trans rights than ending the american tradition of kids being gunned downed in schools
Then why would that be a thing bad enough to kill himself over?!?
It’s part of the cognitive dissonance peppered throughout these comments: championing empathy, showing none.
I hate Republicans for all they do and stand for, but nobody kills themselves just for fun. This guy was mentally ill (aside from being in the GOP) and got pushed over the brink by an asshole.
You don't have to be sad about his death, but suicide is not normal and should never be encouraged like some here basically do.
While I agree that suicide should never ever ever be encouraged. I don’t think it’s necessarily a mental illness. This person was going to or already had lost everything they had ever known and worked for. They would have been a pariah in their town. They very likely would have been disowned by family and friends. It’s a little late in life to be starting all over somewhere new. I don’t think it’s crazy to contemplate unconventional exit strategies in that case.
Source: I am from small rural town Alabama.
I also think that we should remove the negative stigma behind suicide. After all, even bringing it up with a mental health professional can and will get you essentially arrested for 48 to 72 hours which discourages people from seeking help.
Also, can we just acknowledge how fucked up it is that this person felt they had no other way to deal with the situation, all because a group of people cared what clothes he wore in private.
I get that he decided to be part of this group, but even still... No one deserves that.
He could have moved to Oregon and a small town would have embraced him. sigh
Hey! One quick correction - I'm currently a therapy student. You are correct that if a therapist thinks you are in imminent danger of suicide, you can be detained for a period of time for your own safety. But we are taught only to do that if the danger is imminent. If you are just depressed and occasionally have suicidal ideation, but likely will not act on it immediately, a good therapist would not have you detained. That would be counterproductive.
Definitely just be super blunt and honest with your therapist. They are trained to handle things appropriately. You might hear about shitty therapists occasionally, but most of us are really well trained and really want the best for people.
I didn't say suicide always happens, because you are mentally ill. You are twisting my words to suit your argument, maybe unintentionally. There is good reasons why people want to die, e.g. when they suffer from an illness that is only going to cause pain and suffering and want to go on their own terms.
I am not and was never in his head, but I am quite positive he didn't suddenly develop, let's say relatively severe Alzheimer's disease and wanted to die why he still had controll over his life.
And yes, suicide should be allowed in my opinion as well. You should be the one who decides when and how you go. I agree with you insofar.
Though mental health professionals don't admit you against your will, because it is a fun joke to them, but because the vast majority people are mentally ill when they are contemplating suicide. It is not a normal thing to want to die.
I don't know how things are where you live, but in my tiny spot of the world people usually don't get admitted against their will because of suicidal tendencies, but chose to after they talked to a mental health professional. You usually only get admitted against your will here, when e.g. police, firefighters and/or medical services had to talk you down or save you from an attempted suicide attempt. If that is not the case in your small town in rural Alabama, then you should inform yourself as well as possible and try to teach others about a better alternative. Just my two cents on your comment.
Are you trying to make a case that suicide can be a well reasoned and appropriate solution?
Euthanasia might be appropriate in the context of some medical illnesses, but I think there's very few people that would agree that suicide is a reasonable course of action when one encounters challenges like that described here.
I'll just pull you up on some of the phrasing or terms you've used. I'm not trying to be an ass, I'm just concerned at the way you're phrasing things and maybe you don't realise?
He hasn't "lost everything". Sure I'm sure he's lost his current position and standing with some political parties, but he still has whatever wealth he had, and given his experience can probably look forward to a lucrative career in some kind of political support role in another state.
A "pariah" is an outcast. He might have found it hard to make eye contact with some people at the shops but he wouldn't have been banned from entering the city.
He may have been "disowned" but some of his friends, but not all of his friends and family.
It's never too late to move and turn the page on a new chapter. He wouldn't be "starting over" he would be making a change and continuing on.
Additionally, the term "crazy" doesn't help anyone. People who are clinically depressed and suicidal are not "crazy".
Words and phrasing is important and means things, whether you realise it or not your phrasing and framing is very catastrophic or black and white. Life happens in the grey.
Finally, you absolutely can talk to a mental health professional about thoughts of suicide, and they're not going to lock you up. Usually the barrier beyond which someone needs to be detained is when they're an "imminent risk to themselves or others". There's a whole spectrum from "wonders whether suicide is a solution" to "likely to harm themselves today" and in most of that spectrum locking someone up is not the right solution.
I don't know.
It seems to me that when objectively bad people take themselves out of the equation then it's a net positive for everyone.
Yeah, for example convicted pedos have a higher suicide rate than the average - I don't think most people believe that is a statistic we should work on changing.
I do know.
It is not like I shed tears for bad people dying. You don't have to either.
I just don't want suicide to be celebrated. And I want suicide to be understood as (in the vast majority of cases) a very bad thing people commit, because their are mentally ill. Science is also backing up that celebrating or even covering suicide can bring other people to kill themselves too, who are good peoole, simply ill and shouldn't.
Suicide is not normal.
Was he objectively bad though? You're quick to judge him.
So the man who dressed in women's clothing supported the party that hates men who dress in woman's clothing. Hard to have much empathy.
Fascism eats its own
The decade of the well-fed leopards
This guy was posting pictures of kids to porn sites and stalking local women. good riddance tbh. before anyone goes defending him, read the fucking article https://1819news.com/news/item/to-say-i-was-a-stalker-would-be-a-bit-of-an-understatement-curvy-transgender-smiths-station-mayor-copeland-wrote-fiction-about-murdering-real-life-local-businesswoman-assuming-her-identity
That guy killed himself because his political career was over, all his work, all his grift, to the trash. So I doubt it was for bullying entirely.
A pastor would have concocted some bullshit about being possessed by the devil, and sell hard the repentant image.
He added that it would “not cause my life to change.”
Well, that was wrong. /s
Seriously, though… it's almost as though being a member of a hate-group (conservatism) results in terrible outcomes when you're on the outs with said group.
That's horrible, poor dude should just have lived his truth. Damn same he felt that this was the only way forward/out.
The missing part of the story involves him stocking a local woman, and writing erotic fiction about how he was going to murder her and taking over her life.
Also posting of pictures of children to porn sites.
Oh well that kinda changes things a little.
It's a really weird situation. .. Here we have a conservative who is writing the kind crime novel that conservatives tend to write about trans people that utilizes a bunch of fairly stereotypical transphobic narratives that internally within the trans community would elicit disgust and ridicule and then appearing to act it out.
While it's possible they could have been trans themselves this feels a lot more like someone treating the conservative stereotype of trans people as a kink and acting on it. JK Rowling writes this kind of shlock the key difference being she, at least as far as we know, didn't write it as part of some sort of LARP. This person was in a complicated situation, even if they weren't trans they were caught doing things the right would look at as definitive evidence as trans and they likely had trans or trans ally commenters telling them that what they were doing was not okay. So you either have a trans hypocrite willing to set their own community on fire because of their subscription to conservative values and tropes or you have a rather stupid conservative secretly treating a trans psychokiller trope as their personal fetish or trying to use it to add realism to fuel their hobby of writing transphobic fiction and got caught by a community that is both extremely transphobic and equally not empathetic to it just being a kink.
For those who are claiming cognitive dissonance in the audience there are a few things at play.
However you want to feel about this on the spectrum of "fuck this person in particular" to "that poor person, this shouldn't have happened" this all is valid. But it isn't hypocrisy, it's nuance and the right does not fucking understand nuance.
Guess who just had their face eaten by leopards!
These fucks (his church) will use this as ammo for their anti-LGBTQ cause. "See folks, this is what happens when you dance with the devil." despite them and people like them being the actual reason that led to this man killing himself. Shameful. We're not going to advance as a species/society until we let go of religion. It's not important anymore, it's a fake fairytale much like Santa Claus or the Easter bunny, and people need to accept that there isn't some man in the sky judging you.
We're not going to advance as a species/society until we let go of religion.
Pot kettle black.
I don't personally approve of some of the stuff this fellow did, and most of it is just disagreeable or not my cup of tea. But it sure isn't worth the man's life. What a shame he ended up killing himself.
All Republicans are hypocritical bigots, by definition. It's the core of their political party, it's who they signed up to be identified with, it's who they are, or in the case of this poor bigoted fuck, were. I don't want to see any "but this was a nice republican" bullshit. After the Southern Strategy in 1964, all Republicans are trash, every single one.
Institutionalized racism, misogyny, homophobia, and white Christian separatism as party platform. No matter how "conservative" Republicans claimed to be, The Southern Strategy was the core value and singular driving force for the past 60 years. MAGA isn't a symptom, it's result.
They're not all hypocritical biggots. Some of them are just plain stupid.
Or brainwashed. This was a boomer who grew up in very rural Alabama. There was almost no chance he wasn't going to grow up to be a Republican. And from what I've read, from all accounts, he was not a bigot and was supportive of trans people.
This is a terrible shame and I hope the people who needlessly outed and ridiculed him feel the guilt on their consciences.
ignorance and stupidity is no excuse to vote for bigotry, it may be the reason, but it's no excuse at all
How do you feel about Kamala Harris?
This is really fucking sad. A man who should have been able to express his true self but couldn't because of the twisted shackles of religion that led to his own death. Fuck religion.
The guy's "true self" was posting pictures of literal children calling them whores and sluts and writing stories about the children being given forced gender changes to be sold into sex slavery.
Yes religion twisted him into what he became. I’m not condoning the guys actions, just sad that he ended up where he did because of religions influence. Who knows how he would've ended up if he didn’t have all that fucked up shit twisting him. May have still turned out to be a piece of shit
Religion and old beliefs are the destroyer of mankind.
We don't need the threat of eternal hell to be good.
Religion teaches that we are inherently evil and need a God to be good.
He should be out, loud and proud. This comes from deep seeded bigotry
GOP exposed.
Pro-life crowd bullying other people into suicide is very funny indeed
Guess he didn't really believe in his religion since suicide is a big no no.
He was Baptist not Catholic. Keep your sects straight.
Nobody’s perfect
In Judaism and Islam, suicide is forbidden. But in recent times Christianity has changed it’s stance on suicide. If it is done under great duress or mental illness, it is not a sin. If it is done to save others, it’s also not a sin.
According to another poster above he was a baptist, according to them suicide is a sin although not an unpardonable one
https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/suicide-from-a-christian-perspective/
This is a tragedy that should never have happened.
I'm in rural Georgia. If you want to hold any political office at all, you have to be Republican. That's just the way it is. There's a Democratic party, and they run candidates in most elections, but they're doing pretty good when they get more votes than the Libertarian candidates do. So if you want to change shit or do any good at all, you run as a Republican, and you vote in Republican primaries. At a local level, there are definitely people that are trying to do good things that are Republicans, even though they agree with most or all points of the Democratic party.
I haven't seen any indication that this person--and I don't know how they privately self-identified--was anti-LGBTQ+, aside from their association with the Republican party.
When you're in a small town in the south, esp. when you're involved in small town politics in the south, this kind of thing is a social death sentence. It would likely mean the loss of both of their jobs, and possibly their family.
They didn't deserve this.
No one deserves this.
The people celebrating their suicide, because they were religious and in local politics as a Republican, should be ashamed of themselves. Trans lives matter, but only as long as they fit in the molds we've made for 'em, huh?
My heart goes out to their family.
We simply don't know, and they aren't here to tell us because they're dead. You are assuming that they were a crossdresser and not transgender, despite the fact that they said otherwise in their online activities.
I'd rather give someone the benefit of the doubt and be wrong.
Guilt is powerful
Imagine taking your own life over this shit because your devotion to right wing identity politics supercedes your self-determination.
I think it's more just embarrassing to most people
Most comments here are horribly bigoted and disgusting honestly
Man I love it when Republicans eat their own.
Conservative paper outs conservative hypocrite and instead of admitting the truth he shoots himself.
Conservatives are all cowards at their core from what I've seen.
Also this pile of bs fta is rich AF:
even though it does not appear he had taken any public positions against LGBTQ issues that could be construed as hypocritical.
He's a Republican. Their entire party attacks LGBTQ people but this guy is supposed to get a pass?
Fuck him. Fuck conservatives who think this is ok for them to do but they can demonize anyone else who wants to dress up.
Some rather tribal thinking there
and evil wins again
Nah, some sides are definitely more evil.
How weird to see where I went to school on the news in this way and yet rather unsurprising given the culture in the area.
Same.
It's a really weird situation. .. Here we have a conservative who is writing the kind crime novel that conservatives tend to write about trans people that utilizes a bunch of fairly stereotypical transphobic narratives that internally within the trans community would elicit disgust and ridicule and then appearing to act it out.
While it's possible they could have been trans themselves this feels a lot more like someone treating the conservative stereotype of trans people as a kink and acting on it. JK Rowling writes this kind of shlock the key difference being she, at least as far as we know, didn't write it as part of some sort of LARP. This person was in a complicated situation, even if they weren't trans they were caught doing things the right would look at as definitive evidence as trans and they likely had trans or trans ally commenters telling them that what they were doing was not okay. So you either have a trans hypocrite willing to set their own community on fire because of their subscription to conservative values and tropes or you have a rather stupid conservative secretly treating a trans psychokiller trope as their personal fetish or trying to use it to add realism to fuel their hobby of writing transphobic fiction and got caught by a community that is both extremely transphobic and equally not empathetic to it just being a kink.
For those who are claiming cognitive dissonance in the audience there are a few things at play.
However you want to feel about this on the spectrum of "fuck this person in particular" to "that poor person, this shouldn't have happened" this all is valid. But it isn't hypocrisy, it's nuance and the right does not fucking understand nuance.
Hmmm I'm disappointed. If you say he's Bubba from Alabama, that's not the picture I'm expecting
I dunno, not to make light of the guy, but throw on a John Deere cap and a bushy goatee and I can see it.
Take that publication to court. Someone should pay for this loss of life
Why? What law prevents you from exposing information someone themselves made public?
Don't forget the mayor was a republican. Free media is more important than republicans saving face.
He might've been a republican, but no one deserves to be bullied to suicide.
EDIT: After reading the comments I tend to agree with some of the people. The guy was a republican, part of a party spewing constant hate. The journalists just pointed out his hypocrisy (although indirectly and taht wasn't the main point of their article). I just find it rather tragic that a man decides to spew hate unto others just because he can't accept himself to do the things he wants, and when he's confronted with that, under pressure he commits suicide. It's rather.. sad. I'm part of the LGBTQ community and still feel a bit sad about all of this even though the guy probably voted against my people..
"don't worry, he was republican" just doesn't give me warm and fuzzies. It's just sad that this is the world we've made. What do we have to do to break this down?
Problem solved.
Yo what's up with lemmy's being psychos saying they don't care he died since he was a republican
The man was publicly humiliated (by his standards) to the whole world and ya'll encourage it?
Whoever published the blog should be sentenced.
Probably because when he was alive he used his power to hurt others.
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I love what John Oliver said on his segment about I believe Lindsay Graham.
Paraphrasing, he could have helped usher in the change that would have made his lifestyle more acceptable and more inclusive. But he wanted power.
These people choose to be a Republican. They choose to associate with a party that is actively trying to eliminate the very people they are and the sad thing is that they think they are the exception. They think the party will accept them.
And the hard, harsh truth is that they are only accepted so long as it's convenient. I think he knew this and that's why he chose to end his life.
It's sad that he felt he had to do that. But I'm not holding my breath for the GOP to say that they learned a lesson from it.
Being a mayor of a small town and being a US Senator or even House Rep are two very different things. It is very likely that, despite being Republican, he did nothing to further Republicanism with the power that he did have.
Most of the time, mayors really just do small town mayor shit like approving a tree to be cut down or asking the state for a road to be fixed. They're not usually involved with politics in the way Lindsey fucking Graham is.
Yes and (?) was never antisemitic, beyond being member of the nazi party. (???)
If you are part of a party that stands STAUNCHELY against queers, you don't deserve solidarity for being queer.
You can blame that on the US's bipartisan system rather than the multiparty system it is supposed to be.
What other option would he have, the democrats? What if there are things that they did he didn't agree with either? 3rd party is out the window because it would take minimum 2 elections to get their candidate in office.
Would you blame a secret jew for jojning yhe Nazi party if that was a way of keep away from a concentration camp?
Stop white washing this shithead. He was a horrible person who was perfectly fine persecuting others BUT THE FUCKING IMSTANT IT CAME BACK ON HIM HE OFFED HIMSELF.
THIS WAS NOT A GOOD PERSON, CLOSET LGBTQ OR NO.
You got a source for that, besides simply being a member of the GOP in s location where there is no plausible alternative?
*She was a horrible person.
*SHE OFFED HERSELF.
ftfy
How many of those are also hiding their sexuality/gender just because of the same reasons that you mentioned?
Im sorry for the guy that shot himself, but he was part of the problem. It doesn't matter the reason why someone is a church goer, Trump supporter, one less of them is always good.