Kent Christmas, preachin’ the hate – Twitter screenshot
Far-right conservative preacher Kent Christmas asked God to “loose a Holy judgment” on the upcoming Barbie movie because it is “full of transsexual and transgender and homosexuality.”
Posted on June 25, a now-viral video shows the Tennessee-based Christmas saying, “I curse in the name of the Lord this new Barbie movie that has been released full of transsexual and transgender and homosexuality in the name of the Lord. May God loose a judge, may God loose a Holy judgment. Hallelujah.”
The movie has yet to be released. There is no indication it will be LGBTQ-focused.
The movie features a slew of stars, including Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Hari Nef, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Emma Mackey, Sharon Rooney, Nicola Coughlan, Dua Lipa, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, John Cena, America Ferrara, Will Ferrell, and Helen Mirren.
Director Greta Gerwig says The Wizard of Oz loosely inspired the film. The use of disco music and pink-adorned set leads fans to herald the piece as a “potential camp masterpiece,” PinkNews reported.
This is not the first time the anti-gay Christmas has made far-fetched claims about the LGBTQ community in his 50-year career.
He also claimed he can “immediately tell that someone is gay just by looking at them because the demonic spirit inside of them ‘changes the physical appearance of people.’”
No person affiliated with the movie has expressed annoyance with Christmas’s words.
What has caught the attention of Warner Bros., however, is the film’s ban in Vietnam.
Vietnamese officials banned the movie over a scene with a map “that shows China’s unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea,” Reuters reported.
“The U-shaped ‘nine-dash line’ is used on Chinese maps to illustrate its claims over vast areas of the South China Sea, including swathes of what Vietnam considers its continental shelf,” Reuters continued.
“The map in Barbie Land is a child-like crayon drawing,” a Warner Bros. Film Group spokesperson told Variety. “The doodles depict Barbie’s make-believe journey from Barbie Land to the ‘real world.’ It was not intended to make any type of statement.”
Barbie is rated PG-13 and will be released on July 21, 2023, the same day as Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
A popular LGBTQ nightclub in Sacramento, California, is prohibiting patrons who wear MAGA-related attire from entering the establishment.
Badlands, in the city's Lavender Heights district, announced the policy on social media. Management claimed they were motivated to impose the ban after a patron wore a MAGA hat while in the bar, leading some patrons to complain that they were made to feel uncomfortable and unsafe.
"At Badlands Sacramento, we are committed to creating a space where the LGBTQ+ community and our allies feel safe, welcomed, and respected," TJ Bruce, the bar's owner, wrote in a social media post. "Recently, a guest entered the bar wearing MAGA attire, which led to some discomfort among patrons.
Several corporate sponsors of San Francisco Pride, including beer giant Anheuser-Busch, have pulled their funding for the celebration's annual festivities.
Over the past four weeks, the companies have informed organizers of San Francisco Pride that they would not be able to support 2025 Pride, claiming a lack of funds as the reason.
None of the companies cited the political climate, but Suzanne Ford, the executive director of San Francisco Pride, said that it was "very abnormal" for several multi-year sponsors to drop their support.
"I just interpreted that companies are making decisions that at this time it’s not good to be sponsoring Pride," Ford told SFGATE magazine, alluding to decisions by several major corporations to abandon diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Yeshiva University announced that it had reached a settlement with an LGBTQ student-run club that the university, for years, had refused to recognize as an official campus organization.
In the surprise move, the Orthodox Jewish educational institution said that it would end litigation related to its refusal to recognize the group, which it initially claimed was due to religious objections.
As part of the settlement, the club -- formerly known as the Yeshiva University Pride Alliance -- would be renamed "Hareni" and would be allowed to operate with the same rights and privileges guaranteed to other student groups.
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