93 Year Old Billy Graham Looks Fabulous In His Anti-Gay Marriage Ads
Billy Graham, the 93-year old evangelical Christian televangelist pioneer who first came to prominence during the Harry S. Truman administration more than six decades ago, today ran full-page anti-gay marriage ads in 14 newspapers supporting North Carolina’s Amendment One. “At 93, I never thought we would have to debate the definition of marriage,” Graham, who lives in North Carolina, says in the ad. “The Bible is clear — God’s definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. I want to urge my fellow North Carolinians to vote for the marriage amendment on Tuesday, May 8.”
A constitutional ballot initiative, Amendment One would change North Carolina’s constitution by permanently banning same-sex marriage, removing orders of protection from domestic violence victims, and even remove children from their parents’ insurance policies.
“Graham’s statement was issued by the Charlotte-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which is led by Graham’s son, the Rev. Franklin Graham,” Time noted today, adding:
William Martin, who wrote the authorized Graham biography “A Prophet With Honor,” couldn’t recall another effort by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association like the one the ministry plans in support of Amendment One.
The elderly evangelist preached often on the need for sexual purity, but rarely spoke about same-sex marriage, Martin said. “I am somewhat surprised that he would take that strong a stand,” said Martin, professor emeritus of religion and public policy at Rice University. “In the past, I have heard him say with respect to homosexuality, there are greater sins. Franklin has been more outspoken about it, but it sounds as if this is Mr. Graham expressing his own will.”
Graham’s son Franklin made headlines earlier this year when he questioned President Barack Obama’s faith and declined to state that President Obama is a Christian, saying, “I can’t say categorically,†if Obama is a Christian. He later recanted his position after pundits pointed out his hypocrisy.
Billy Graham has ruled his ministry with an eye on the media from day one. President Truman reportedly said, “I just don’t go for people like that. All he’s interested in is getting his name in the paper.”
And Graham has also had a tenuous relationship with equality, jumping back and forth from supporting segregation to opposing it, then back again.
Via Wikipedia:
Like many white public figures, Graham had shown little concern for segregation until the civil rights movement began to take off in the early 1950s, and many of his early crusades were segregated. In response to the civil rights movement, Graham was inconsistent, refusing to speak to some segregated auditoriums, while speaking to others. In 1953 he dramatically tore down the ropes that organizers had erected to separate the audience; he recounted in his memoirs that he told two ushers to leave the barriers down “or you can go on and have the revival without me.”. But, Graham would later retreat on the issue in Dallas, Texas and Asheville, North Carolina. Graham remained mercurial in this early period, ranging from telling audiences that the Bible said nothing on the matter of segregation, to warning a white audience, “we have been proud and thought we were better than any other race, any other people. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to stumble into hell because of our pride.” While Graham would integrate all his revivals after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, Graham’s mercurial treatment of segregation in this early phase of his career complicated his legacy in years to come, as seen in the differing assessments of historians.
From the mid-1950s on, Graham would grow increasingly opposed to segregation and racism, all while keeping his eye on public opinion, and the shifting winds of American culture. For instance, Graham invited Martin Luther King, Jr. to join him in the pulpit at his 16-week revival in New York City in 1957, where 2.3 million gathered to see King at Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium, and Times Square. Yet, Graham feared angering American whites, and so he backed off from this position, never appearing with King publicly again, despite posting King’s bail to him out of jail during the 1960s civil rights movement. This balancing act clearly shows Graham’s ambivalent relationship to the civil rights movement.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
