Day After Gay Teen’s Suicide, Lawmaker Says Gays Not “Mentally Healthy Adult Human Beings”
A lawmaker in Tennessee, one day after the suicide death of fourteen-year old gay Tennessee teen Phillip Parker, wrote a constituent telling her that a gay person is not a “mentally healthy adult human being.” Rep. John Ragan, a Southern Baptist, pro-life, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-education Republican, responded to a constituent’s letter asking him to oppose a now-infamous Tennessee bill that essentially delivers a license to bully to anyone who claims religious or moral prerogative. Ragan used the phrase “mentally healthy adult human being,” as in, gays and lesbians are not mentally healthy adult human beings, three times in his letter.
Kristin M. Johnson a Political Science/Pre-Law student at Middle Tennessee State University, wrote her Congressman, and called the bullying bill, “simply hateful,” adding it is “a travesty of any part of the Constitution, much less the First Amendment.”
 The threat to gay or lesbian children (yes, they do exist) or even to children rumored to be gay is quite overt. There is no mistaking that the purpose and language of this bill are to justify and defend anti-gay bullying, which has already caused too much pain and driven too many children to take their own lives. Let me clarify: bullying drove those children to suicide, not simply BEing gay. If you support this bill, you will cause pain, and you may very well cause the deaths of more children like Jacob Rogers. Period.
Jacob Rogers was a Tennessee teen who succumbed to suicide in December after years of anti-gay bullying that friends charge went unacknowledged by local school officials.
Rep. John Ragan responded with a long-winded, oh-so-superior diatribe in which he attempts to use “logic” to explain that homosexuality is a choice, “defined by behavior,” using examples of “pedophilia, prostitution, murder, etc.,” and CDC statistics on HIV/AIDS and suicide to “prove” that gay and lesbian children neither need nor deserve protection.
All of these statistics are facts. A resulting critical thought question might be: do homosexual practitioners disproportionately contract AIDS, hepatitis, or syphilis through their own proclivities and behavior or in “reaction†to opinions of that behavior by others or someone supporting a bill?
Examining another statistic, it has been well known for a decade that suicide is attempted much more frequently in the homosexual community than in the heterosexual community (Mathy, Cochran, Olsen, & Mays, 2009). This same source pointed out that, on average, suicide is approximately three times more likely among homosexuals than heterosexuals.
As a fitting critical thought question, it could be asked if other identifiable groups that engage in behavior of which “others may disapprove†commit suicide at similar rates? In other words, do prostitutes, pedophiles, polygamists, murders, etc., commit suicide at the same, or similar, rates to homosexual behavior practitioners? If similar rates were hypothetically so (not proven to be the case), do these behavior practitioners commit suicide at a higher rate because someone may have disapproved of their behavior or for other reasons? Should society avoid disapproving of pedophilia, prostitution, murder, etc., because practitioners of those behaviors may commit suicide at higher rates?
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.†—John Adams
Ragan, despite his chosen ignorance, is far from stupid. Here’s his Wikipedia bio:
John Ragan was born on December 16, 1948 in North Carolina. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy and received a Master’s degree in Aeronautical Sciences from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.He also attended the University of Oklahoma, the University of Southern California, the University of North Carolina and the University of Tennessee as a graduate and professional student.
He served as a commissioned officer for 24 years, where he fought as an Air Force pilot in the Vietnam War and in the Middle East. He also taught as adjunct faculty at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the University of Tennessee. He has been a business consultant with 27 businesses, some of which are on the Fortune 100 list.
Johnson, who says she is gay, examines her Congressman’s response, and writes:
Heed, however, the awesome presumption, and particularly the coldness of the rationale, bent and twisted and applied to things not personally understood by him or his ilk in a way they are understood by me, by my Air-Force-brat wife, by all others like us – by all others not exactly like him. This man wrote paragraph after paragraph clearly telling me what, in his view and in the view of others like the sponsor of the bill, by virtue of my “practiced” honesty, openness, and spiritually-based acceptance of my “feelings,” I am not: a “mentally healthy adult human being” in control of my destructive urges. Very, very simply, I beg to differ.
As do we.
Tennessee has a major problem at this very minute: It has all but officially declared war on its LGBTQ citizens — of all ages — and the results are indeed human casualties. We know of two, recently, in Tennessee, but for every suicide by an LGBTQ youth or teen, we know there are dozens we will never know about, hundreds more attempted, and thousands more considered.
The people and especially lawmakers, religious, and school leaders of Tennessee are killing LGBTQ children, not figuratively, but literally.
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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
