#i might be the only hater they have - but i am an outlier for how strong my feelings are

[kryptonbabe]

I hate the Power Pack kids - they're just your typical white privileged kids who are easily disgusted by rats, the sewers and cigarettes

🚭

[numberonenarinderhater]

Why i made this stupid blog

First, I have NOTHING against what people do in a fandom. I do NOT care if you ship narilamb or whatever the fuck you do with your blorbos. I do not ship it and I don't engage with that content but I'm not here to mock creators' hard work or demand they make me understand why they make it.

I don't like Narinder because of things I felt the game and the canonical material didn't do (or didn't do very well).

Make no fucking mistake tho. I am a hater. I am here to be a hater on the hater website. HOWEVER!! I'm not gonna reblog anyone's posts to bitch about why i don't like it or talk smack about any specific person. I have no intention of targeting anyone in specific or harassing creators. I might complain about what I see as generally held ideas in fandom but none of it is meant to be personal or even a criticism of anything's quality.

For context:

I didn't hate him at first but I was super disappointed that he wasn't, y'know, a wolf. But what the fuck do I know.

I have only briefly played the game on single-player mode. For the most part, my partner and I play a co-op file together (on the Nintendo switch).

I understand that the game started as a very humble project and that there might still be added content in the future. Any criticisms I have of the story so far are just that, criticism of the story so far.

I like the other bishops!! I think they're awesome and they have great characters, flaws and all. I think Narinder is the outlier in terms of writing quality.

Some of my dislike is petty and doesn't stem from anything. Some of it I can support with an actual argument. Again I'm a hater.

Most of my complaints come down to the way he's portrayed in-game. I don't consider headcanons/fanon/fan content to be evidence of his canon personality. (Listen!! I like fanfic and I support artists' license to reinterpret things, but that's not rly what I'm here to bitch and moan about)

I understand that characters have flaws. I'm not an idiot, I promise. But I'm also not required to find characters endearing.

I am willing to hear people out!! But don't hold your breath. I am, after all, a hater.

Why I think he sucks:

The way he attacks his siblings didn't feel like a "crime of passion", so to speak. It feels deliberate, cruel, and calculated- more in line with the image of a cold-blooded sadist than someone who has been deeply hurt and betrayed and is lashing out. He finds amusement in what he's done to them and the game never indicates that he has any regrets about it. (Or, at least, I can't find any textual evidence suggesting that ever did)

When he becomes a follower with higher loyalty, the little things he says to Lamb don't come off as cute to me, they come off as creepy. The devs seemed to have removed special follower missions from Narinder and replaced them with generic dialogue instead. For... whatever reason, some of the things Narinder says include things along the lines of "I love you" or "How's your day going?" It doesn't come off as cute to me and it only succeeds in making him seem creepy and bland. I would really really like special follower quests to be put back so that he doesn't wander around confessing his feelings for me several times a week like a sad old creep with memory problems.

AFTER YOU DO FINISH RESTORING THE BISHOP'S SEVERED BODY PARTS (THAT HE TORE OFF HIMSELF) HE STILL OFFERS VERY LITTLE. This is what sent me over the fucking edge. The other bishops give you rich, emotionally textured dialogue that really makes you understand why they all did what they did and act how they do. It's great writing!! Narinder's own monologue consists of: a reminder of how he was hurt (AGAIN), deflecting blame/explaining why he won't explain himself (THE ONLY THING I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HEAR), a vague sentiment about how times goes on (sure man), concluded by: 'here's this relic'. The relic is admittedly pretty cool but its a total failure to characterize him when the game had a chance.

Speaking of failing to characterize him!!! I have no idea what motivates him. What does he want?? Why did he start resurrecting people?? Was he aware that he was threatening his siblings' authority?? Did he care about that?? He never offers his own side of the story and I, for one, refuse to fill in the gaps for him.

He could be really cool????!!!! But he's so boring???!! Again I think this could be slightly improved by putting his follower quests back and making him a more interactive character. As it is now he's a dull follower who does very little.

He is a lot cooler if you do choose to kill him instead of sparing him and making him a follower. At least then he seems to have a complete narrative arc. I don't consider his character on the other story path to be nearly as complete considering he seems to be floating in an uncomfortable space between redemption (something that would require that he apologize even once) and antagonism (something that requires that he be an active presence in his own story which he isn't once he is indoctrinated).

I'm not gonna cinemasins ding Narinder for all the dramatic things that the narrative asks him to do even if it makes him look really bad or stupid. (i.e: why did wait this long to make the last sacrificed lamb into his vessel when he could've started right away, why didn't he just resurrect those lambs considering he can resurrect the player character? why didn't he just amass a huge army of vessels to lead his cult all at once if he needs believers that bad?) At the end of the day, I can overlook it.... BUT the absence of these answers is really felt the more you think about it. As far as the writing on the wall is he is selfish at heart and if he isn't stupid then I guess I have to assume that he's way weaker than he says. laaaammee!!

Small gripe but the game developers seem to really really want the player to spare Narinder and it annoys me. If players do kill Narinder then they get a second chance to spare him from the mystic seller, something that no one else gets afaik. It makes the decision feel much cheaper and less dramatic, as if it didn't really matter the first time and he could have been revived on a whim.

Also speaking of that, the devs really seem to push the idea that Narinder has some kind of feelings for Lamb. It's funny at first but then it just annoys me because it makes me feel like I'm forced to deal with something I didn't ask for. Like I said before, the combination of him thinking mushy thoughts about Lamb and giving generic follower lines like "I love you leader" make him come off as kinda pathetic if you don't choose to pursue him as a spouse. Like man... I'm just not into you like that.

I'm sorry but he really did need to be a wolf. Am I the only one thinking this?? C'mon.

That's probably not the extent of it but this is what comes to mind. Sorry for the long ass post but no one else seems to share my opinion. That's a big reason why I made this blog, just to see if anyone else agrees or if there's something I have just SEVERELY misunderstood. If you wanna dog on me or explain then feel free to send an ask.

Praise the Lamb. Glory to the Goat. Fuck that fallen bastard.

[ravivalleti]

‘Naturalization’ - A Mother’s Day 2017 Tribute

Limited Exclusive Preview from the upcoming debut book:

Rocket Scientist: The Posthuman Memoir of a Futurist Artist

by Ravi Valleti

Before the Oath Ceremony began, eagerly we called out, “Amma? Amma?! Amma!” Several faces, various shades of Citizens-elect, turned toward us. Apparently “Amma” means mother not only in our language, Telugu, but also in some other ones! From the mezzanine balcony, we smiled back towards their hopeful, nervous, curious eyes. Perched were we, above an entire floor of patient new citizens of these United States of America, in a time of dramatically new political energy, quizzical not merely to the rest of the world but to many of us Stateside.

Relief. Pride. Sadness. Deep sorrow. Confusion and anger mixed with twinges of what the abyss might feel like. This wasn’t the jubilatory celebration we had hoped for Amma’s Certificate of Naturalization as a newly admitted Citizen of our United States of America.

45. Not 44.

I’ve lived a story of your Amma – your mother. I wish to better understand the concept of Nation-States. Of that United States of America. And of you. Please ancestor, tell me in your own words. January 26th, 2017, an Oath Ceremony at the Heritage Center in Campbell in what was called…Silicon Valley? I’ve lived your memories for so long, but wasn’t prepared to speak directly to you. The Singularity technicians didn’t think this was possible. In college, though, my Intro Epistemology professor theorized that being in a state of coma might somehow allow for an interaction like ours. She was dismissed by the scientific community as an outlier. Was she right? Or, is this just a glitch?

A brilliant glitch then, dear descendant. I thought I’d died so long ago. Yet, here I am. This might be the only chance we get. So, let’s make this a good story!

We have advanced some since your days. I imagine kids of my time could write the textbooks used in your time. I’ll grant you that, dearest descendent. Believe it or not, I’m not jealous. I’m relieved that your generation is better off, and so grateful that your world is more evolved than ours. That’s how it should be. We have our problems, ancestor. Don’t get me started. I can tell, descendant. Perhaps not my place yet to say that you’re privileged to have problems we in 2017 would have dreamed of having. To your Amma’s Oath Ceremony please, ancestor!

Okay. I’ll take you back to how it was then, in the first 100 hundred days of 45…45, not 44.

My Amma has spent more than half of her life outside her hometown Hyderabad, India, by way of almost three years with me in Canada in the era of Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre. Then to the Ronald Reagan United States in that remote northeastern corner of Orono and Bangor, Maine. That was where my sister Rajani was born. To some locals, we were Black, the other kind of Indian, Middle Eastern, even the term tricky for many Latinxs: Hispanic. The very few other minorities and a handful of white allies helped us feel less isolated. We persisted in Maine by watching reruns of the Original Star Trek on our first color TV and by reading stories of proud Black Americans who made it possible for a brown family like mine to survive in those United States. MLK and Gandhi, together. 5 years later, 30 years before 2017, we Indian-Americans settled on another coast of stolen American Indian land as we began to proudly contribute to the diverse Santa Clara, California in that imbalanced cradle of disruptive technological and social innovation that is Silicon Valley, yet not immune to prejudices nor lacking in haters of its own.

She is my Amma. A mother from India who graciously encouraged both her children, socialized as different genders, to pursue whichever careers they wished, to make lives with loves of any backgrounds, to believe in and challenge science. An immigrant mother granting me, her loving son, permission to tell her story now amidst my own. To create art as resistance. Your model minority, my Amma is not.  Her daughter (my beloved sister Rajani), the love of my life Nima, our friends and I would learn more about Amma over those next few days in late January 2017.

7 days since 45’s Inauguration. Tension in the air could not stifle a sunny day with blue skies in a pause between frequent rainstorms. For this Oath Ceremony was set in that beacon, the diverse Bay Area. Shades and origin stories, tapestries from all over the globe. Relatives and friends, perhaps sponsors and colleagues. Who knows, maybe a guest recently plucked from Match, Tinder, or Grindr. This is the Bay Area. Our hella Yay Area! Rising housing costs, liberal privilege, and all!

Did 45 appear on screen during one of the video presentations? No. Too Soon? Might there be additional requests for allegiances of loyalty to the State? Yes. Awkward, natural-born Americans didn’t have to make such extra pledges, right? No, they didn’t. Leftover videos produced under 44’s compassionate watch? Yes. Thank goodness!

Dr. Martin Luther King speaking at Selma. Dr. King pronouncing that he had a dream at DC’s National Mall. Good choices. RFK. Nice one. Didn’t expect a clip of him. Me neither.

Then warm, thoughtful introductory speeches by officers of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to those who had recently succeeded in passing their Interviews and Tests. People on the verge of being deemed full American citizens when so many were under threat of being ripped away from their families simply over national status documentation, disregarding positive contributions to society. American: a term I use sparingly as people throughout the Americas rightfully are Americans. Yet a term that does require less time to state than Citizens of our United States of America. I suppose U.S. Citizens works too.

I feel your confusion, descendant. Sorry, ancestor, we didn’t get such details in our lectures on the 45 era. I’m trying my best to keep up! As was I, dear descendant!

So were your Amma and her fellow inductees called by name?

It wasn’t quite that simple. Each new American citizen was called by their country of origin. After disavowing allegiance to their former homelands and their respective leaders, varied emotions in the crowd, they made the pledge of allegiance to the United States of America under its Constitution. The wonderful names of approximately 60 sovereign, United Nations-recognized countries would next uplift the acoustics of the Heritage Theater in the heart of Silicon Valley. Names of nations that outside the Heritage Theater were facing constant ridicule and mistrust in the new yet already tumultuous era of 45.

Names of nations vying to compete with the United States on the global stage. China! Names of nations borne of ancient civilizations sharing painfully colonial histories, peoples ripped from their natural courses by greed and fear, while teaching the world how to meditate. India! That’s my Amma! There she is! Names of nations scarred by exploitation and indoctrination into the clutches of internalized racism, internalized sexism, yet managing to remain vibrant and creative. Myanmar! Names of nations yearning to feel secure not only in their intellectual and health spheres, but in their very dignity to simply be who they are. Mexico! Names of nations pronounced hesitantly for lack of understanding their ways. Russia! Names of nations that sparked heartbreaking love from an audience, no, a tapestry of humanity cheering with all their trauma and hope for an existence all on this world deserve. Syria! Names of nations, some of which were assigned to borders shaped by former colonial masters, now fractured by the perils of Climate Change. Somalia! Names of nations we in the audience wished with our vigorous clapping would continue to remain names of nations in the decades to come. Ukraine! Names of nations, old friends of this one undergoing similar paradigm shifts. The United Kingdom!

When the announcer finished, she respectfully asked the newly welcomed citizens of our United States whether she had forgotten to declare any other country of origin. As if from a deleted scene from one of our family’s favorite movies, “Coming to America,” a proud black citizen of America stood from their seat, tall, spine poised while radiating gratitude and love – Zambia! Yes, I felt too! Yes, we in the balcony felt it too! A moment of lightness and profundity the likes of which we could not have dreamed when we entered the Heritage Theater. 45, not 44. In spite of that, a truly serendipitous close to the roll call of countries of origin.

Next, the United States Passport application presentation. Then, the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters presentation. Armed & Intelligence Services recruitment? No. Peace Corps? No. But yes, a Human Trafficking info line presentation. “As new Americans, you are the front lines against human trafficking.“ Say what? Are natural born United States citizens asked to participate in such front lines?

That must have shifted the mood a bit, eh, ancestor? Somewhat, my dear descendant, but the palpably growing anticipation for the handing out of Certificates of Naturalization of the early 45-era United States of America drove us forward. Row by row. Person by person. My Amma patient, smiling. Calm yet increasingly concerned in expression. An immigration officer directed her outside. Rajani, Nima, our friends with balloons atop the balcony eagerly waited to greet my Amma downstairs with hugs. Me however, a feeling returning from 2001 during my own United States Naturalization process creeping back into focus. Ancestor, please tell me!  One thing at a time, Beti. My own Amma calls me that, ancestor. I know, dear descendant.

Down to the lobby of the Heritage Theater, awaited a small handful of other new citizens yet to receive their Certificates of Naturalization of the United States. Okay, my Amma wasn’t the only one in limbo. Pulses of chill and tension moved from the muscle fibers closest to the bones up toward the very limits of my skin. All mind and shoulders. Tense, tense shoulders. Of course, by chance, Amma was called last. Meanwhile, I related to our young guest, an elementary school student of rare brilliance, on her first attendance of a United States Citizenship Oath Ceremony, the truth of our feelings, of our brown feelings. A rare young being, one who could adapt to the realities of society. No need to have hidden her from our nerves. Her amazing sociologist mother, was standing by our side. Many children her age would be trapped inside airports worldwide during the coming weekend, in war zones, in drought-stricken legacies of Climate Change. Many, many more children in dire limbo everyday – simply wanting to be children, to become the humans they deserve to become.

At last. The Heritage Center nearly emptied. My Amma then heard that she needed to make an appearance at the Santa Clara County Immigration Office in San Jose the following Tuesday morning between 9am and 11am. 9-11, really, twisted joke of some sort?! I read about 9-11 in History class, ancestor. Good you studied such a critical event, another day that much changed in our world.

Although being told that Amma’s Certificate hadn’t been prepared during a recent push to get a few more applicants through the process – 44, thank you? – being under 45 meant not wanting to rest on our laurels. We brown folks knew how to salve hope with pragmatic patience until such a feat as the Certificate of Naturalization of those United States of America were to be in the wise hands of my Amma. Guess who were the very last ones to leave the Heritage Theater lobby? Ancestor, oh no. Not a prestigious honor after such an illustrious ceremony, but one that we bore. We had our balloons. A vibrant elementary school prodigy in our crew. My sister in town for the weekend all the way from her racial equity work in Baltimore. And two allies, leaders among women. A lovely fountain pool with an approximately 7-foot-tall United States flagpole temporarily stationed in front of the Heritage Theater.

I say, “Okay everybody, let’s take pictures as if we have the Certificate in hand! The same poses and smiles we would have next Tuesday, but we won’t be together like this next Tuesday!” Artists, we all. That day was our day. That flag- red stripes the blood of those not asked permission to shape our nation, blue box of our sadness over their still underappreciated sacrifices, white stripes and stars for those most privileged to lead and continue to extract most from our nation- that flag was our flag for that day. Certificate or no Certificate in Amma’s new United States envelope. Families didn’t get to have days like that often enough. Momentous celebrations. Simply time together.

Hugs. Hugs. Sighs. Sighs. Pose. Pose.

“Psycho Donuts, everyone?” Okay! Ancestor, really? A great Silicon Valley donut chain, real Bay Area – vegan options for Nima and me. Ooh - nice! So, we walked across Winchester Blvd to the other side of Campbell Ave. Oreo Madness donut for me. Fitting- black and white, dark and light. Race in America. Oath Ceremony Day. Giant plastic eyeballs hanging from the ceiling watching us eat donuts and drink coffee. The eve of 45’s Muslim Travel and Refugee Ban. An Executive Order to “protect our nation’s security.” Ancestor, that sounded like a bunch of… Stop! Descendant, let’s not grant 45 the gift of our more…savory vocabulary, shall we? My bad, ancestor. I can’t help it. That Executive Order was so racist, so Islamophobic! Agreed. More brown people, yearning for freedom and that American dream. Many of them not as fortunate as we were to even face the problem we were fortunate to be facing.

4 days of no Green Card in hand for my Amma. Why, ancestor? You see, dearest descendant, in order for my Amma to have been allowed entrance to participate in that day’s Oath Ceremony she was ordered to hand over her United States Permanent Resident Green Card to U.S. Immigration officers. When Amma did this, as everyone else in line with her had to, she had understandably trusted that she would, by ceremony’s end, be holding the more permanent and prized Certificate of Naturalization of those United States of America. Instead -  a piece of Immigration and Naturalization Services letterhead with red ink scribbled on it. Ancestor, why didn’t they return her Green Card to your Amma?! Beti, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Only a week into 45, we just couldn’t assume anything as brown Americans. Even when some friends of ours would say that Amma must be “in the system.” That “at least we weren’t Muslims.” Not nice of others to say such things, ancestor. As allies of Muslim-Americans, ourselves often targets of terrible Islamophobia, we would agree with you, dear descendant. Day by day into the infancy of the 45 administration, uncertainty the likes of which our United States wasn’t accustomed to, perhaps since the days of Japanese-American internment camps in World War II.

Wow, ancestor.

A marathon, not a sprint, Beti. 45, not 44. Hence, the next day and a half my family and I reconnected with our larger universe. Recalibration.

The next day while Amma was back at her work, Rajani and I took a drive together from Sunnyvale to San Jose to visit our Dad. Through our hometown Santa Clara, passing near our old apartments and condo, Little League Baseball fields, by our alma maters- Sutter Elementary, Buchser Middle, and Santa Clara High. Ancestor, your Dad, the Professor, brought you to Canada then to the United States! Descendant, my Dad would be honored by you right now. Thanks for recalling him!

The morning after that, my sister and I reunited with Amma, who needed a fun diversion - as did we. Ancestor, Take me out to the ballgame? Which game was that? America’s pastime, my dear descendant. Baseball. A special event called Oakland A’s FanFest. It was hosted by our favorite team, the Oakland Athletics to boost excitement for the 2017 season. Delicious, complimentary food from well-rated, East Bay food trucks. Talks by players, coaches, and the visionary new team president. Games for children. Green and Gold, the best colors in Major League Baseball. My Amma and her daughter, Rajani looked so relaxed, appreciating our intermission from politics, from identity, sitting alongside the marina at Jack London Square next to our glistening San Francisco Bay. A marathon, not a sprint.

Our intermission was nice, but we were getting excited to pick up lost pieces of our heritage. A short journey to nearby Berkeley for Rajani, Amma, and me to meet Nima for a timely excursion to further commemorate the imminent Certificate of Naturalization of those United States for Amma. A privilege for us to join that afternoon’s Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour. Our hosts, Barnali Ghosh and Anirvan Chatterjee, compassionate purveyors of uncommonly told stories and philosophies, humans whose knowledge of and solidarity with North American West Coast South Asian history would guide us through important parts of Berkeley, including through part of the lovely University of California campus. Streets we had walked many times before, restaurants and shops of so many niches and cultures, eclectic architecture with organically interspersed natural elements, street art, reminders of vast possibility that walking past hopeful undergrad and grad students brings. Breathing in the atmosphere of a city at the heart of California, a state that could be a nation unto itself yet even more now than ever a leader of resistance within our United States of America.

That’s wonderful, Ancestor! You and your family learned so much in that tour. South Asians in California in the late 1800s? The first true free speech movement in the United States? By Indian immigrants in Berkeley advocating for their fellow Indians in British-occupied India? Decades before the free speech breakthroughs of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement? Advocates for LGBTQIA rights who were South Asian, before 1990? Labor, feminist, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian & Pacific Islander solidarity too?

Dear descendant, not often in our American history textbooks. Not your model minorities. Absolutely remarkable. Toward the end of our tour, some people checked their social media to see that while we were connecting with little known pasts and reattaching our lost tapestries of being Desi, of being South Asian, protests were trending on social media at San Francisco International Airport and at many other airports around the United States.  

We ended the grand tour in front of Berkeley High School, a place where students had learned how to stand more compassionately for classmates who had faced threats in the weeks and months after 9/11. Inspired by those stories, we Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour participants coalesced our own stories. We shared our feelings that quickly and necessarily launched from reclaimed pasts to first attempts at grasping a future that seemed to be rewriting as hopes into fears. Executive Order-  hour by hour on this day of the implementation of 45’s Refugee and Muslim Travel Ban. Executive Order. For some, a first and now unavoidable chance to publicly process complex emotions bubbling since before Election Day 2016.

Ancestor, did your Amma get up and speak in front of the group?! Why yes, descendant, she did. This woman raised in India not to speak up for fear of male reprisal, forced to wield a more subtle and relatively unseen resistance to patriarchy from her earliest memories in India. In her 20s to the white winters of Maine where she had to keep her head down amidst largely monochromatic local populations. Later to work hard for years in a Valley whose Silicon riches were not for all, in which challenging family, financial, and medical dynamics shaped a necessary stoicism that brought forth for Amma millennia of ancient Indian duty and patience. This woman, this nervously soon-to-be holder of her well-earned Certificate of Naturalization of those United States of America. This mother in front of her adult Indian-American children. This human being who had yearned for greater opportunities in a land to which, at that very moment, many around the world trapped in airports expected to enter with similar hopes of their own. Safety and opportunity. My Amma indeed spoke.

She started by graciously owning her nerves, soon easing into how keenly she sensed that her largely younger audience needed an elder mother’s optimism and faith in our diverse strength – strength to sustain the moral arc of history we shall be the authors of. My Amma had earned every right to publicly air her grievances and root her trauma. Instead, she gifted us that day with her love and faith. The commemoration of my Amma as a beloved #ResistanceAuntie. Proud children we were. We are. And given the largely younger group of undergrads and 20-40 somethings, a needed motherly love to all of that day’s tour participants. Rajani, Nima, me, Amma – group hug afterward. Then, camaraderie with fellow tour goers in a way we hadn’t anticipated. Gratitude.

Shortly after, my sister packed for her flight back to Baltimore, back to another beautiful city of diversity and resistance.

Then, quiet dread. 2 more days of Amma with no Green Card in hand nor her Certificate of Naturalization of those United States. 2 more days of 45 and his administration claiming fake news. 2 more days with growing protests at airports to support fully vetted and wonderful human beings seeking the same amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty that were promised to us. 2 more days of fear from ICE deportation raids of fellow Americans. 2 more days of women fighting for equal pay. 2 more days of Jewish and Muslim Americans alike receiving hateful threats. 2 more days of disabled folks not able to consistently have access to their society at large. 2 more days of LGBTQIA people introducing themselves to those who had only seen a Queer or Transgender person as a television character.

2 more days of Rust Belt voters pining for jobs in dying industries and industries being overtaken by robots, longing for maintenance of their Affordable Care Act aka “Obamacare.” 2 more days of opioid addiction. 2 more days of artists, laborers, doctors and nurses, teachers. 2 more days of global challenges, environmental damage. 2 more days of extinction of species worldwide by human impacts. 2 more days of Executive Orders and Senate Cabinet confirmations.

2 more days of joy, brilliance, suffering, injustice, and invisibility for Black and Inidgenous (Native) Americans - not dissimilar to the many tens of thousands of days that had come before on this land after the first European colonists fled religious persecution and economic disadvantage. All the while, with their fellow European diaspora, led by aristocrats and generals carving North America into those United States of America and that Canada.

2 days in the life of #MarginSci. 2 days pondering the new call to March for Science.

2 days in a series of weeks of too many murders of vibrant Black Trangender American women.

2 days closer to the apparent hate killing in Olathe, Kansas of my fellow Hyderabad-born engineer, the late Srinivas Kuchibhotla. A man like many of us, contributing and dreaming in the United States. “Go back to your country!” would be among final words Srinivas would hear, uttered by his white American-born murderer. Dare I say, by a terrorist?

2 days checked off the 2017 calendar before 45 would fire the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey. Ancestor, wasn’t Mr. Comey investigating 45’s ties to Russia? Yep.

That’s another story. Back to January 31, 2017. Back to the palpable fear we felt in those first 100 hundred days of 45. Our family’s 2 days wait were over. 9-11 in the morning. The Tuesday after Amma’s Oath Ceremony had arrived. At last. Logic would dictate to remain calm, not to make assumptions. However, as citizens of the United States well-versed in the nuances, connoisseurs of the intricacies of immigration, as humans experienced in the rigors of generational trauma, we deeply felt the increased confusion, stress, and fear only 10 days into the 45 era. In periodic flights of panic with hopes of relief, Amma and I made the drive to San Jose. That was home for Amma. Where she had worked for many years, made community, raised children. Her land of birth foreign to her when she visited there. Her heritage with her no matter where she was.

Descendant, I really want you to feel what we did. Real-time. Ready? Yes please, ancestor.

We park. We exit the car. I ask Amma to take a breath. I take one myself as I feel nervous ghosts from my own visits as a young man in 2000 and 2001 to U.S. Immigration offices in Orange and Santa Clara Counties. Back when I was stressed over midterms and finals in Engineering School at UC Irvine. We enter the building.

Intimidation. Intensity. The U.S.A. The Bald Eagle. Probably a good, young man just doing his job at the front desk. But these are 45 times, not 44. “Do you have an appointment?” he tests us. Then, Amma starts to nervously say something, as if to express guilt for having courageously passed her U.S. Citizenship Interview and Test, eager to please because so many had ridiculed her, had looked down on her, had thrown slurs at her. That generational trauma, that fear we brown folks caress so closely. Quickly, as I had done many times since I was a child of this immigrant mother for whom English is a third language, I intervened as the fluent, charming leader of my family, “Sir, thank you. My mom had her wonderful Oath Ceremony last Thursday in Campbell. She was told to come here today between 9 and 11 A.M.” Silent beat. Silent beat. Hearts flutter. Silent beat. Cold sweat inching towards pores. The periphery of eyesight closing in. Hopes. Hopes. “Ok, then. Proceed through security check, then to the officer over there.” This first officer points behind and to his right.

Airport travel had more than prepared my brown Amma and the browner me for security check. Shoes off quickly, etc. Retrieve items from the bins. Go to the side seats to put items back in pockets and purse. Shoes and jackets back on. Oh yeah, my belt. Can’t have my pants slip down, here of all places! No pat-down, ancestor? You’re funny, descendant. Another attendant’s desk. This officer relaxed, benign in expression. “Go to the waiting room over there, place your documents in a box at Window X.”

Final round, ancestor? Anticipation as butterflies, my Amma the Madame but only of her own Butterflies on this precipice of momentous moments in her more than six decades of life on this planet. That feeling of hesitation, not to presume the finish line too far in advance. We arrive at said window and see a currently unattended bin. Amma excitedly places into said bin her critical red-pen marked papers from last Thursday’s Oath Ceremony. Then she moves to a lobby seat. I. Don’t. Move. One. Step. Away. From. Amma’s. Papers. From. That. Crucial. Bin. Amma immediately returns to my side as we await.

The same immigration officer from the Heritage Center. Friendly, steady. She looks over her own red-pen handwriting from last Thursday following that Oath Ceremony. The officer goes to a file to her side. We see the framework for a Certificate of Naturalization of our United States of America. Looks very similar to my own. Yet, lacking a picture of my Amma in the appropriate box in the middle of the left side of the Certificate. Where is the picture of my Amma? Is this like when Immigration had lost the initial fingerprints they themselves had taken of me in my own Naturalization process during the transition from 42 to 43? Here I am again, yet 45, not 44.

“We got a few more people through the process on this recent batch, including you. Forgive the delay.” My Amma smiles. I want to smile. Generational trauma is a fierce locking mechanism to the heart though. An adhesive appears from a desk drawer of the officer. This valued representative of our United States of America applies the adhesive to the back of Amma’s small picture. Then she affixes Amma’s picture to the middle of the side of her Certificate of Naturalization of those United States. A pen. The officer signs her portion. Now I wink at Amma. Then I smile with deepest gratitude and relief into the eyes of the immigration officer of those United States of America. (And 44, a fist bump to you). She tells Amma, “Sign it, upon returning home, in black ink your portion.” Voila! Amma’s brand-new Certificate of Naturalization of the U.S. of A.

The officer reminds Amma about soon obtaining Amma’s U.S. Passport. A passport of which, by that morning, we knew had become more and more critical for world travelers into our United States of America, if they were so fortunate to have them. Mind you, 45’s folks had started questioning and, in many cases barring at airports, humans with not only Entry Visas (travel, work, student, and spousal) but also humans with U.S. Permanent Resident Green Cards. 45 had also started prying for social media passwords of many more crossing Stateside. It was with extra appreciation and solidarity, that Amma finally placed between her thumbs and her fingertips for the first time that which had almost become a myth in the preceding few days. Her Certificate of Naturalization of her United States of America!

“Amma let’s get outta here.”

Google Maps. Oh, wow, another branch of Psycho Donuts nearby. Yes! The lack of sleep the night before, nerves over obtaining Amma’s long-awaited Certificate, and stress while watching the news about the experiences of good humans wrongfully blocked around the world from entering these same United States. This lack of sleep after such an emotional roller coaster required fair trade, local Northern California blend coffee. And our crossing the finish line demanded more donuts. And yes, Vegan ones for a very proud and very grateful son of an Amma who was now his fellow U.S. Citizen. “I will vote!” she exclaims. Cheers and congratulations on your newly enhanced Resistance powers, Amma. I love you.

A most fitting notification then flashes across my phone as we finish our late victory breakfast. “Amma, check it, the new teaser for the start of shooting for the pilot of Star Trek: Discovery!” Amma smiled in that way that told me she knew that the step she had just taken was an initiative to further help heal our society. On a day in a week of such social and political upheaval, not just as a new American Citizen, but as a human being aiming towards that utopian Final Frontier. That one day our descendants would, in peace, boldly go where no one has gone before.

That’s me, ancestor! Thanks for gifting family! Your memories make much more sense to me now. So we better get you out of your coma and back to deep space flight training, eh dearest descendant? Yes, please! It’s amazing, ancestor, how much weight and pressure your society placed on national citizenship. I’m a citizen of the Earth, passport not needed. Rest and recovery are your passports now, descendant, so that you soon take your rightful place as a Citizen of the Stars. You won’t need me out there. You got this! Amma would be proud of a young woman like you.

Copyright © 2017 Ravi Valleti. All Rights Reserved.

[duaneodavila]

A Grand Futile Gesture

The New York Times has an excellent op-ed about how the internet, Dr. Google, spreads fake medical information that puts lives at risk.*

While misinformation has been the object of great attention in politics, medical misinformation might have an even greater body count. As is true with fake news in general, medical lies tend to spread further than truths on the internet — and they have very real repercussions.

We all knew the internet had the capacity to spread misinformation as well as reliable information. What we didn’t know, way back when, was whether people would be capable of distinguishing between the two. In contrast to the outliers, crazies and liars deliberately trying to scam people, some tried to provide sound information. After all, if the only information available on the internet was fake, then what else could people find?

When the blawgosphere came into being, it was really quite miraculous. A lot of interesting and, mostly, smart people writing about law, a subject that permeates our world. It included academics as well as trench lawyers, and a synergy developed where robust debate on serious subjects were our daily bread. One blawg was Prawfs, which spun off Concurring Opinions. called CoOp for short. Both were here before SJ. A few days ago, CoOp announced that it would close up shop at the end of the month.

At Volokh Conspiracy, which is still alive, but a shadow of its former self, Orin Kerr considers why CoOp is over.

I’m not entirely sure how to best describe what that future has become, although there does seem to be less interest in blogging among law professors these days. Part of that may be the rise of Twitter. And part of it may be that blogging didn’t bring the career payoffs that a lot of law professors thought it would when the “blogosphere” was young, at least relative to the time it took.

Readers, haters and critics inexplicably assumed there was some huge payback for blogging. People assumed fame, fortune and adoration motivated people to blog, and ascribed malevolent intent to the blawgosphere, doing their best to attack blawgers while contributing nothing of their own. There were no payoff for doing this.** It had its moments, like when a blog post was cited in an opinion, or when some great debate broke out in the blawgosphere, but that mostly it was just writing for its own sake.

Why do it? Who needed to fend off the crazies, the haters, the n00bs who were determined to tell you that you’re doing it all wrong and demanded you correct yourself or else? I had my reasons, but wasn’t inclined to re-explain myself every time someone impugned my motives. My theory, developed over time, is that I do the writing and readers, if they so choose, can contribute to cover the cost of keeping SJ on the screen. Some of you have been kind enough to contribute monthly. Some contribute when I remind you that there’s a tip jar on the side bar. Some are “patrons” of SJ. But it barely covers the cost of keeping this place alive. I’m not getting rich off it.

The benefit of the blawgosphere was that it was lawyers writing about law. Real law, Complicated issues. And it existed in contrast to the information on the internet about law that was fake, whether because it was written by marketeers, crazies or advocates who were lying to push their agenda. All of them had far greater incentives to put crap on the internet than lawyers who had nothing to sell and realized there would be no payoff at the end.

And if blawgs were too much to read, now there’s twitter to spew misinformation, which it does in spades. Most disturbing are the lawyers on twitter, with their axes to grind, promoting causes with lies, misinformation and half-truths. Unlike the blawgosphere, however, the medium lends itself to fakes by creating echo chambers of believers.

The other day, I twitted about the value of Ken White’s twitter lawsplainers in contrast to the misinformation others were spreading. Even that was controversial, as every little shit hiding behind a pseudonym gets to challenge it.*** Some lawyers have become very popular on twitter, feeding bad information to their fans, who love it because it validates their ignorance and feelings.

To the extent the internet has become a tool to spread fake information about medicine, about law, it depends on readers willing to do the hard work of preferring sound information over easily digestible tidbits of fake news that confirms their bias. Does it occur to anyone that I don’t have to wake up and write every morning? There’s no payoff, except to put real ideas on the table, and even that serves mostly to deal with antagonism from the offended these days.

What do you want of the internet? The promoters of “fake law” have an incentive. Those of us who try to be real have nothing to gain except the satisfaction of knowing that we tried our best not to make anyone stupider today. As Max Kennerly noted years ago, blogging is a pie eating contest where the winner gets more pie.

CoOp will soon be gone. People will refuse to have their kids vaccinated, and people will talk to the cops because only people with something to hide refuse, and people will believe the women and everything is racism and sexism. How much pie can one take?

*Ironically, in an op-ed about fake medical information, this paragraph pops up.

Silicon Valley needs to own this problem. I am not a free-speech lawyer, but when human health is at stake, perhaps search engines, social media platforms and websites should be held responsible for promoting or hosting fake information.

You can’t make this stuff up.

**For a while, lawyers were told that blogs were a great way to drum up business, and so firms started blogs, where a post or two a month promoted their practice and ended in a call to action, “retain us today!!!” The reality, that outside of a few obscure areas of practice, it just didn’t work became clear fairly quickly, and they faded into oblivion.

***In response to the monumentally uncontroversial statements that not just criminals call snitches “rats,” but criminal defense lawyers, too, some precious little narcissists felt compelled to argue the point.

A Grand Futile Gesture republished via Simple Justice

[killian-whump]

I think an important thing to remember is (especially in my case, maybe in many others’, too), the opinions aren’t usually personal. I know some people will vagueblog about a specific person’s work (something I don’t do and don’t approve of others doing), but that’s just bullying and being nasty. That’s not what I’m talking about here. I think when most people are discussing their reasons for not being into an entire genre, those complaints aren’t being lodged at anyone in particular and shouldn’t be taken that way.

I’ll be honest: I don’t tend to read AUs in general. I honestly couldn’t tell you who writes a lot of them, or who’s known for preferring which tropes within the genre. Even the things I specifically mentioned, like Killian losing his hand in a car accident - I couldn’t tell you a single person/story off the top of my head that used that. I just know I’ve seen it used multiple times. So someone might see that example and think, “OMG, she’s talking about ME and MY story!” but I’m not.

Incidentally, I could tell you a story that used the “crime boss cut it off in retaliation for him boinking said criminal’s wife” trope, because one of my favorite stories ever does! And yet... I still complained about it.

Because I’m talking generalities. There’s always exceptions; even if I’m not aware of them because I tend to skip the genre as a whole unless it ticks some other box of mine. And when someone says something like, “I dislike how AUs tend to write out Milah and her importance in Killian’s life” you have to ask yourself, “Do I do that? Is that the goal/purpose of my work in general?” If it isn’t, then the complaint doesn’t apply to you or your work - even if you maybe wrote a story or two that happens to fit some of the description. But also have some self-awareness about the genre as a whole and what others are writing in it. Just because you’re not using the genre to eradicate or malign a specific character doesn’t mean others aren’t. Again, if the complaints don’t fit you, they’re not about you.

I think the best example of where I stand on the matter as a whole is that whenever I see someone railing on a genre I like, I actually skim their post to see if there’s any works they namecheck as particularly “heinous”. Odds are, I’m gonna love that shit. Same goes for negative reviews. I literally saw one just yesterday on a femdom book I was curious about where the reviewer said it was awful and that only depraved, horrible people would read it because [insert tropes they clearly hate here]. My response wasn’t offense; I clicked “buy” because those tropes they hate are ones I love 🤷‍♀️ Their negative review was more helpful in making my decision than a million “I love this!” “It’s so good!” reviews.

Because for every person who loves something strongly, there’s usually someone out there who hates it just as strongly. It’s why they say love and hate aren’t opposites; the opposite of either is indifference. I sincerely don’t think you can have one without the other when it comes to love/hate. In order to create works capable of moving people strongly enough to feel one... you have to accept that the work will move people strongly enough to feel the other, as well.

The alternative is creating a work nobody cares much about, one way or the other, and that’s the worst thing.

Anyway, none of my opinions should matter to anyone but me. They shouldn’t change how anyone writes or feels about their works or how their audiences view those works. I mean, in a nutshell, I tend to avoid everything that isn’t whump... Obviously I am the outlier and should not be counted 😂

Writers should write for themselves, first and foremost. But if you’re going to care what others say/think about your work - make it be your audience, not your haters. Your audience is gonna love your work for all the same reasons haters dislike it. C’est la vie ❤️

Just my personal opinion here, but there's a big difference between "I don't like fics that ____ so I don't read them" vs "here is my long, yelling, all caps, cursing rant against said fics." The first is your opinion. The second is a slap in the face against every writer who broke your "rule" in fics that they spent a lot of time and passion creating.

Basically, just be nice and remember that we're talking about playing with fictional characters in our creative sandboxes. You may think there should be rules, but rule breaking is kind of the nature of fanfic.

[liberty-has-died]

HomosexualsAreReprobates-Homosexuality IS offensive. It does not belong on a general public website, especially one where children might utilize for research for school

HomosexualsAreReprobates-TRUMP = POTUS

HomosexualsAreReprobates-Trump removed it and put it where it belongs..... On the CDC webpage

Gabriel Hernandez-They preach equality yet want to be singled out every chance possible. Confused?

Gabriel Hernandez-There will be substance in this country post-Obama J-on-You know, gay people, Mr Trump knows where you live and he is gonna blow up your tyres.

David-These are the groups of individuals that are the most infected with the HIV / AIDS virus , WORLDWIDE . 1. Homosexuals 2. Bisexual Males 3. Male Homosexual Prostitutes 4. Illegal IV Drug Addicts 5. Those that have sex with the above It seems that immoral and self destructive acts are the cause

David-It's ironic that the typical Homosexual is slim / skinny . And that the feminine acting one . Has all body hair removed from the neck down . In some perverted way , thinking this mimics a " female " body . While the other acts " straight " or masculine . If their relationships were so legitimate . Why on earth do they mimic , Heterosexuals ?

David-These are painful medical conditions associated with repeated and forceful , sodomy . They are Hemorrhoids , Anal Fissures and Anorectal Trauma .

David-GOOGLE SEARCH - 7 Scientific Facts about Homosexuality and it's adverse effects on Society - Homosexual Deception - Enteric Diseases of Homosexuals - Homosexuals and Their Diseases 

David-If being a Homosexual , Lesbian , Bisexual or Transsexual was normal . You wouldn't have to proclaim to anyone , that you were one . As well , you wouldn't hide the fact from anyone , that you are one 

David-GOOGLE SEARCH - The Homosexual Lifestyle - The Diseases of Homosexuals - Male Homosexual Practices .

David-" GAY " is a EUPHEMISM - 1. The use of a word or phase that is less expressive or direct , but considered less distasteful , less offensive , etc., than another .As to deceive , fool or otherwise " pull the wool over our eyes " HOMOSEXUALITY is not normal , but abnormal and most importantly , IMMORAL !

David-Lesbians , Homosexuals , Bisexuals and Transsexuals . Are just as immoral as thieves , liars , cheaters and those that commit incest and #$%$

kimberly-I guess this idiotic writer is either too stupid to realize that the previous page was designed specifically for president Obama and his accomplishments; thus "HIS" web page was archived, or he hasn't cleaned the #$%$ out of his pants yet, now that Obama has vacated the premises, and he is scared and in denial. I suspect a little of both.

gloc-Maybe he will open a site for all the so called religious people who want to FORCE their RELIGIOUS AGENDA on everyone to post and shame all those who have been DIVORCED as the morally sick, family destroying,child hurting sinful people since the Bible which they all claim was written by God himself not MAN says they should be stoned to death because it is the same as Adultery. Oh I forgot he is one of those people who did not live by their religious belief of what the bible said. Just how many of those religious bible pounding people have read it or maybe 1 or 2% probably less live by it. They PICK AND CHOOSE are or Born again so they can claim to be Christians, if all were truly religious we would not have hundreds of different religion just one. So can anyone tell me which church or religion will your new leader make the National Church of America and what will he make all the other religions do hide their TRUE life in the closet as to not offend the TRUE CHURCH. America no longer the land of the free and no longer dose every vote count, we know almost 3 million were thrown in the trash, sorry 50% + the almost 3 million. America no longer Great but co-ran with the aid of mother Russia and the appointed Trump. With hope America can survive Trump and the Religious Agenda's that will be forced on all Americans.

GEORGE-I am so happy that "MY PRESIDENT THE HONORABLE DONALD TRUMP"has spoken for the 95% of American people.God Bless and Peace be with you!

kimberly-I thought those on the LGBT community wanted equality? That's exactly what they just got.

novus_ordo-More SICK news underMICHELLE@TRANSGENDERS.GAY/LGBT

novus_ordo-The LGBT page moves under: HOMOSEXUAL.BARACK_OBAMA@PORN.GAY/LGBT

LouieLouie-why should there be a webpage for LGBTQs and none for straights? people are people regardless of how special they think they may be and there must not be any preferential treatments

Gloria-About time.

Gus-That's a good start President Fart, Well done.

linda-Now back to marriage is between a man and a woman.

Bobby G-Good, they are freaks anyway.

foreverlivingfree-t's about time.....thank you...

Kathy-This was done by Obama's administration NOT Trump's. This is protocol for all outgoing presidents. Yahoo news creating drama?? No!! Eye roll.....

Jerry--Awesome! It has no place on a government website

GordonFreeman1960-"LGBT youth who may be facing discrimination and contemplating suicide." That is not a problem that requires Federal action or Presidential attention. There are many other problems we face that are much more important.

lewis-I saw this photo of this disgusting man back during the campaign. He is holding the pride flag upside down

Harrison-The Bible states clearly that men shouldn't lay with men. Oh wait, it also says you should sell all you own and give the proceeds to the poor and you should be stoned to death for working on the Sabbath. Thank God we have a good Christian like VP Pence to tell us which injunctions to ignore and which to obey.

GordonFreeman1960-Yay! Glad to see Trump is doing what needs to be done. Made my day.

Rosco-Did he also turn off the rainbow flood lights on the W H ????

Phillip Mooney-This homophobic administration has already started its drive against the gay community and it's only been two days. He doesn't want to include all of the Americans; he wants to divide us all! Well I don't think he or his party are going to last long if they keep up this hate.

John-YES we Can!!!

gary-They will have to change out the rainbow flag for a blue flag because they singin the blues.

Harold-And now the assault on equal rights begin with the power of the rupubliNUTs in control.

Funkmaster23-Memo to Libt@rds. Obama is gone. He is not the designer of Trump's White House website. Trump feels that jobs, bad trade deals, and paying for illegal alien pos's is more important than men using the wrong restroom!

YAHOO! is libretarded SHIT!!-I was BORN thinking that #$%$ is wrong. Can you comprehend that one, gays?

KEVIN-If we're really all Americans in a "melting pot," there is no need to spoon out the individual components. Most adults respect other adults and we don't need to confer "special" rights on anyone in this great nation. They are given by God and decency, not the iron fist of a hypocritical and self serving "government" bureaucrat...

Carol-I read in another article that Obama took the site down before he left the WH. He also took down the global warming site. It's so difficult, now, to know who or what to believe.

Adolfo-Yes, I hope Trump makes the White House Holy again!!!!!!!

Ken-Why don't some of you people ask for forgiveness? You people suggest that something is shoved down your throats unless its something you agree with. You are always concerned about your rights but everyone else's rights be damned. Why are you looking at a LGBT page anyway? Silly season I guess. Get a life, get of the blogs, and gain some tolerance. After all, the LGBT community has to tolerate YOU.

Harry-that is so good! President Trump way to go.

skiller-Trump haters especially celebrities do not have enough IQ.

Sheryl C-So where is proof of his inclusiveness? Trump claimed to be a man for all americans so far the only ones I see him making happy are male white christians.

None-The freak show is over?

A K-Thank you. These behaviors are chosen and regardless of what is said, evidence shows an outlier of HIV/AIDS, STI's, Rectal/renal cancer, drug/alcohol usage, depressiveness and suicide compared to the general population. These folks who choose these behaviors need understanding and help. Check HRC for their own stats

Sheryl C-Oh course out crawls all the homophobes but that was not the only page to go. So was civil rights. In you have forgotten women of all colors including your white women protested yesterday. Their rights are on the line to. They don't want to back the dark ages where they had no right to decide what to do with their bodies, or who they got to marry, or when they married or what age they married. They don't want their right to vote gone. Let's face it that is what you trump voters want. You don't want to just roll back the clock 40 years you want to roll it back a 100 years. For all your yelling about the muslims most of you sick right wing trump jerks are jealous and want what they have. So people it is time to stand against them unless of course you want to go back to living in the dark ages

Darrell--Why are you surprised? Did you forget the Republican agenda?

Alex-It looks like the threat of the LGBT mudslide is coming to a halt. America will be great again!

Leo-A government page isn't the place for it. The same for religion.

Bubba-Time to redecorate the closet gay boy!

Sheryl C-That was not the only page that was removed so was the civil rights one. Like i keep warning people you can only push people so long before they start pushing back. You are already seeing the pushing back with the protests and the people protesting are NOT just black as much you would like to believe, they are white women, blacks, mexicans, LGBTS, muslims, basically anyone who is not male and white. You trump voters keep forgetting that Trump lost the popular vote. White women who protested yesterday live everywhere guys. Enjoy sleeping on the couch guys.

Jetlag--I couldn't care less who you sleep with, but quit waving that thing in my face!

Richard-Let the REVOLUTION begin.Women, minorities, gays buy shotguns now and get ready for the next CIVIL war. We will never go backwards, live free or DIE.Time to fight

WhitePeopleAreEvil- I wonder what those LGTBQ that voted for this idiot thinks now?

spike-whine whine is all they ever do . It really does get old when the lgbt feel like they should have more rights than I do.

Mike-Time to get back in the closet.

Aaron-The web site is cleared at the beginning of each administration. Why would a story talking about what Obama did be left on a site that now revolves around Trump. The author is just trying to start trouble

cavemanwhoever-Very few voted for Trump...the ones that did are smart enough to vote their pocketbook and security, not their genitalia. The rest? Trump doesn't owe them a blessed thing, just as he owes NO democrat or NeverTrumper a thing.

Jason-Why don't they move to Saudi Arabia.......or any Muslim country where they will be "welcomed".....

Jason-Fringe minority.....don't need them and Trump proved.

Wolverine7-The homosexual sodomy lobby had a good run. Now its game over forever

Hoon H.-"LGBT" The farce of it all...if it were only one letter it wouldn't confirm "choice" and dispel the "born that way" hoax.

lindley-LMAO......all the guys freaking out about LGBT, are here defending their silliness.

Ramses S-.So it was removed. Big deal. It was just there to look good anyway. And it certainly doesn't mean gay people are going anywhere. smh

Hoon H.-So what? Sexuality is not a pressing issue in 2017!

NE Philly-Man Yahoo is working this story every which way it can. Every administration redose the web page.

Damago-From reading the comments it's good in a way. If your religious beliefs don't practice or celebrate homosexuality then the law should not MAKE you do it. Gay people need to eat if they go to a restaurant or need medical attention at a hospital and they're being turned away because they're gay then that's violating HUMAN RIGHTS not gay rights. I have a problem with them using the ACLU to force businesses to make gay wedding cakes or take pictures that they shouldn't have to. If it is THAT serious have other businesses that are open to doing things like that. For one business that does not promote homosexuality, then allow a business that does. How does it look asking a Muslim or Christian faith practicing business to do what everyone else is doing? That's a form of imperialism. But it's America. The United States is good for forcing their ways on others especially since we do it to ourselves. That's why individuality is extinct.

Rich-And the libs will cry over this.

Tommy--Praise God!

jack-The Yahoo News seems to out of touch with the will and thoughts of the people of this Nation, and This story is one more example of that... Yahoo should read the first couple of Hundred comments here, and learn...

Jonathan-Waste of webspace. LGBTQIA stil have equal protection ... Obama only cared about votes... he didnt care when you guys got shot up by a Muslim. He blamed the USA for Muslims AGAIN.... he blamed you for being gay and living freely in America. Don't you understand this?

jack-trump is doing just what he said he would do, and the people who elected him are happy about that, all sixty million Strong..

endersgame-ust the start of a repressive party taking power and will do just like they have when they have taken over southern states, they will make it harder for minorities to vote, they will make it harder for reproductive rights of women and they will do a lot of this by promoting religious rights so that they may discriminate due to the deeply held reliogus beliefs.

Don'T Be Manipulated-FAKE NEWS. PRES. TRUMP SUPPORTS LGBT, AND WE WEREN'T HAPPY ABOUT IT BUT WILLING TO GO ON...THAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE VIOLENT DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS. REPUBLICANS DON'T BLOW THINGS,UP DESTROY BUSINESS,KILL COPS,HURT PEOPLE FOR FUN...BLM IS THE NEW #$%$ GROUP !! WATCH OUT FOR THEM.

gojumpinthelake-DRAIN THE SWAMP....SEND EM SCATTERING...WHATEVER THEY ARE PRAISE GOD JEHOVA

david-Good, that make room for a useful page to be added! Jerry H-GOOD !!!!!

charles d-This is one of the many reasons that Obams and Michelle were so devastated when Hills was defeated. They lost hope, but 64 million found renewed hope.

The Obams Michelle agenda is going into the trash, as it is was obscene, rude, condescending to many normal, heterosexual Americans.

leah-Every time we get a new President the old pages get archived and removed. Per the article trump considers the supreme court ruling on gay marriage to have put an end to the issue. Of he no longer sees it as an issue there is no reason to immediately start up a new page about it. That doesn't mean he has anything against the LGBT community. It just means he has a different focus than our last president

James--The percentage of the population that isn't gay, doesn't run around, waving their arms in the air, screaming that they're heterosexual. Knock it off already. Sticksnstones-New Presidents always take down former Presidents web sites, stop trying to make something out of nothing. Odumbo did the same thing when he took over

matt-Judging by the comments here It is clear that the fight for LGBT equality is far from over. The BIGOTS commenting here and the ones in Washington could take back our rights just as quickly as they were given. So we must still stand tall despite what people like you say or think.

Pooter-It amazes me how many people are pretending to be Christian in this thread. Look to the plank, and forget the judgment you're spouting. Vince-Well done. Now deal with AIPAC / ISRAEL / GOLDMAN SACHS kind, to take your country 'BACK' from them.

Crusader1211-That flag use to be a beautiful symbol of peace and love from God to mankind. Now it represents militant hate mongers who want to push an agenda down everyone's throats whether or not you agree with them. I own Pavilion Resorts-Gay guy's know now " exactly " what to do to protect themselves. The more beds you hop over and play in , the more your chances are that when you hop out of it , you'll be all full of disease. Then when you are diagnosed you know then exactly what all you did wrong and intentionally ignored prior. Now, There you have it !

charles d-Thank God only a pervert President would have it there in the first place!!!

Brain_Salad-Now here's some good common sense. An LGBT page. Why? What do they need protection from? Stupid liberals fail to realize that by fabricating an issue that never before existed they actually created a real problem in which people who never thought about it now are. The potential now exists for a situation inside or outside a Target or McDonald's bathroom - and it has already happened a number of times. It's almost like planting a post-hypnotic suggestion in someone's brain that gets called into action when triggered by the correct stimulus. Also, Trump said the precisely correct thing when he referenced that Supreme Court decision guaranteeing the fundamental right of marriage for gay couples. What more is needed? LGBTs are unnecessarily alarmed to think they're going to get stripped of some rights that were granted to them. Nothing ever reallly was! In fact, this action is actually doing them a favor so they can go about their business of living a normal life like everyone else. Like everyone before did in the past.

Timuel K-They shouldn't need their own special page for their rights because they should have the same rights as everyone else. So this should looked at as a good thing.

laimutis-Good job, there's no place for trash of society

CoinSurfer1-It has not taken long and America is already starting to be great again!

Wise Old Man-2 months ago-OK FOOLS! This is just the beginning of the "NEW WORLD ORDER"! Hail to the chief. The despicable one is feeding the egregious Republicans what they want

Jad-If people would just check the facts before making these statements and getting upset they would see that EVERYTHING from the previous administration was moved to the previous presidents account. Our new administration gets to post whatever they think should be there. He has only been in office for two days and pretty busy. i would imagine he hasn't had much time to post yet.

Paula-Thankfully, that page is gone. Government should focus on issues that are much more important and applicable to all, including the basic rights afforded ALL Americans under our Constitution.....not special privileges for a select few

John-Good!

Hairy Reed-t's about time we stop this "PC" madness..

Steve-To every issue there is an up, and a down side. Take abortion. While the repeal of Roe VS Wade would be a victory for the religious right and a financial relief to the majority of Americans who are forced to pay for something they don't believe in it also would prevent the aborting of millions of leftists.

Beige Almighty-LGBT got the right to marry, now let's focus on getting people jobs

Steve-Could be that the administration is finally going to focus on things that affect the majority of Americans instead of the fringe that has been used to gain political power. I am hoping that the colored lights that were used on the Whitehouse to insult the majority of the American people have been restored to normal. Or is that "racist"?

Rob-Leftist bullshirt! Minutes after Trump took the oath of office the White House website was completely emptied - all of it. For the leftists to proclaim that specific parts were removed is grossly dishonest. All of it was removed = to allow the new President's web team to start building the website. There is absolutely nothing nefarious in that process - it is, in fact, exactly what Obama's web team did 8 years ago.

Mark-the LGBT population has only begun to finally achieve equal rights over the past decade and now the hate really turns on us... I have listened to negativity all my life from right wing straight people .. you are the haters.. and YOUR hate has created whatever ire the LGBT community might have toward you.. though our fight has been a peaceful one.

Walter-Well, reading down the comments, it is obvious some sanctimonious, ostentatiously pious so-called Christians have taken it upon themselves to voice their views. It makes me wonder if they happen to be from Topeka and attend Westboro Baptist Cult.

Jeryco Brick-Thank god. Sick sick people.

Repairman Dave-2 months ago-I am sick of the heterophobes!!!!

Kenobi-They always complain about wanting equal rights, but what they are really wanting is SPECIAL rights.

TUCO-GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD, the 15 Minutes of Fame for the DEFECTS is way past its Expiration Date ! Normal Mainstream Americans are just SICK & TIRED of homosexuals an the Alphabet Soup of Critters they attract !