School Board Member’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Ad Says Gays Die 10-30 Years Early
Missouri school board member Hardy Billington ran a newspaper ad in a local paper supporting a “Don’t Say Gay” bill, that falsely claims that gay people die 10 to 30 years early, and claims homosexuality is more deadly than cigarette smoking.
Blogger Joe Jervis, who first published the story, writes:
Butler County Republican Party co-chair Hardy Billington has published the above lie-filled ad in Poplar Bluff’s Daily American Republic in support of Missouri’s pending “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Billington, a Baptist deacon, is running for reelection to the Poplar Bluff school board.
Jervis points to an interview with Billington who touts his accomplishment as a school board member:
Before I was president of the board, they weren’t doing the Pledge of Allegiance at Senior High for about 16 years. The board members and I passed in our by-laws that every student would have the opportunity to do the Pledge of Allegiance at least once a week as well as have 30 seconds to reflect.
As it turns out, Billington is a very religious man. His Facebook page is loaded with references about God, and even the Rapture. Also, it’s loaded with anti-gay rhetoric, and the insinuation that all gay people have HIV/AIDS because of “the gay lifestyle.”
Billington is a man of research. Faulty, stupid, ignorant research that supports his anti-gay hatred, that is. Including the thoroughly debunked “research” of Paul Cameron.
Take the Facebook note he posted on April 27, and again on April 29. He offers an extensive list of reasons why gay people die young. Of course, he took them from a website, Citizens for Parents’ Rights, which he had to access using the Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine” because it’s not published anymore. But hey, it was once, so why bother with science or recent scientific studies. (Billington probably forces students to use books from the 1950’s too, because hey, they were believed to be accurate once, right?)
(By the way, here’s the guy who started Citizens for Parents’ Rights.)
Here are a few excerpts from Svchool Board member Hardy billing ton’s Facebook note that he thinks support his lie that gay people die 10 to 30 years earlier than average:
Typical homosexual behavior includes regular contact with fecal matter from oneself and from sexual partners, tragically reversing several centuries of learning about cleanliness, and thus several centuries of growing lifespan. Homosexual behavior makes no more sense than playing in the toilet.
All available evidence indicates that the lifespan of practicing homosexual persons is drastically shortened by their behavior. No reliable study indicates otherwise. The lifespan topic is taboo among homosexual advocates because the evidence is so damaging to their case.
As early as 1858, G. Tardieu reported on the age distribution of males imprisoned in France for sodomy. Of the 216 who ages were given, the age range from under 15 to 69, with a median age of under 25. Eliminating all under 18, the median age rises to almost 40.
In 1914, M. Hirschfeld reported on German males convicted of involvement in sodomy. The age distribution ranged from under 15 to over 50, with the median of 24 years. Since “over 50” was the last category, we cannot determine just how many, if any, attain the age of 65. But only 9 % were over 50.
In the late 1930s and 1940s, Kinsey and his investigators spent more than 12 years seeking out and interviewing homosexuals. Because Kinsey and his colleagues were regarded as sexual liberators, homosexuals were eager to volunteer for his study. There is no reason to believe that his sample was not representative of all age groups available. Yet fewer than 1% of his homosexuals, male as well as female, were over the age of 65.
The Mattachine Society, the earliest of the “gay rights” organizations, gathered together a representative group of homosexuals for Evelyn Hooker to study in her highly influential 1950s study. The oldest of the 30 subjects was 50, the next oldest was 44, and the median age was 33.
Pedro Zamora, 22, a well-known AIDS educator and a cast member of “The Real World” on MTV, died of complications from AIDS today at Mercy Hospital in Miami. Partly because he was among few young people speaking out about AIDS, partly because of his heart throb looks and easy manner, Zamora became one of the most sought-after speakers on the disease after he tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in 1989 at the age of 17. He took his prevention message into American living rooms as a young gay man with HIV on “The Real World.” He would tell students that he got the virus through unprotected sex and that he would probably not live to reach 30. Before a television appearance in New York last August, Zamora fell ill with a neurological disorder, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, which causes rapid deterioration. He had been hospitalized since October 14th. Source: Mireya Navarro, “Life of 22 years ends, but not before many heard message on AIDS, The New York Times; November 12, 1994.
In 1998, another study using four contemporary databases suggested that homosexual activity may be associated with a lifespan shortened by 20 to 30 years. Source: Cameron, P., Cameron, K., Playfair, WL., ” Does Homosexual Activity Shorten Life? “, Psychological Reports, 1998, 83, pp. 847-66.
Lastly, Billington offers this “conclusion,” that is the text of his newspaper ad:
Study after study reveals that homosexuality, whether male or female, can take anywhere from 10, 20 to 30 years off of someone’s lifespan. With all the attention on smoking, which the National Cancer Institute says takes from 7 to 10 years off someone’s life, why not the same human outcry on homosexuality? Here’s a behavior that’s killing people 2 to 3 times the rate of smoking, yet nobody seems to care. In fact, we are encouraging and affirming individuals into the “gay” lifestyle. If you truly love someone, you would steer them away from self-destructive behaviors, rather than towards them, shouldn’t you? Homosexuals need our tough love, not blind love, the kind of love that is going to love them no matter what they say and do. We must extend that helping hand and say ” I think your worth saving, let’s work on it together.”
Hardy Billington is spreading anti-gay hate and lies. He is unfit to be on any school board, and, as New Civil Rights Movement author Scott Rose wrote recently regarding another school board member who is creating an environment of anti-gay hate, students, should they feel bullied, have options they should consider taking.
The U.S. Department of Education along with U.S. law prohibits schools from engaging in behavior like Billington is exhibiting.
Word to the wise.
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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
