Time For Roland Martin’s Peers To Host A Gay Equality Intervention
Roland Martin, the CNN contributor who during the Super Bowl on Sunday advocated violence against gays, after a scantily-clad David Beckham appeared in an H&M ad for Beckham-branded underwear. Martin made several vile comments, including one advocating violence: “If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him!†Since we all know that well-respected peers can have a profound impact on our beliefs, we believe it’s time for the more enlightened of Roland Martin’s peers and co-workers to get together and perform an intervention.
Who exactly are Roland Martin’s peers? Well, of course we know Don Lemon at CNN. Lemon last May came out as a proud gay man. There also is Anderson Cooper at CNN — widely assumed to be gay and rumored to be making that public this month. Of course, there are other highly-respected journalists at CNN who are not gay, but certainly could do their part to speak with Martin and help him understand that his anti-gay bigotry does no one any good — certainly not him, certainly not CNN’s brand, and certainly not themselves.
Folks like Wolf Blitzer and David Gergen and Donna Brazile.
But Roland Martin has other peers and co-workers too. Like the ones who are represented by the same speakers bureau that represents Martin: Keppler Speakers.
Keppler Speakers bureau represents well over 100 famous names, and it’s time they started properly managing their assets.
So, just exactly who are these famous people?
Well, Keppler represents people like Elizabeth Birch, a “Human Rights Pioneer and Workplace Diversity Consultant,” and former Chairman of the board of directors of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and former Executive Director of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
Eric Alva, an Iraq War Veteran and LGBT Rights Activist.
Bob Arnot, a “Leading Medical Expert, Award-Winning Journalist, and International Humanitarian.”
Then there’s Keith Boykin, “New York Times Best-Selling Author and TV’s Leading Commentator on Politics, Race, and Sexual Orientation,” and one who publicly has attempted to counter Roland Martin’s anti-gay comments via Twitter before, including yesterday and today.
Keppler is also home to Morris Dees, the “Legendary Civil Rights Activist,” who is the co-founder and chief counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — the good folks who have branded organizations like the American Family Association as certified anti-gay hate groups.
Who else from Keppler should intervene with Roland Martin?
How about Howard Fineman? Jennifer Granholm? Or Lani Guinier?
Who’s Lani Guinier? Here’s her bio via Wikipedia:
Lani Guinier is an American lawyer, scholar and civil rights activist. The first African-American woman tenured professor at Harvard Law School, Guinier’s work includes professional responsibilities of public lawyers, the relationship between democracy and the law, the role of race and gender in the political process, equity in college admissions, and affirmative action.
I’m betting she’d have a few choice words for Roland Martin.
There’s also Robert F. Kennedy. And civil rights advocate, attorney, and cancer survivor Ted Kennedy Jr. and international human rights activist and author Kerry Kennedy. And fellow CNN journalist Soledad O’Brien.
And if all these folks are a little busy, there are a few more folks the Keppler Speakers bureau represents that I know could do the job: Ellen DeGeneres, Dan Savage and Judy Shepard.
It’s time for Roland Martin’s anti-gay behavior and comments to change. It’s time for an intervention from a jury of his peers.
What can you do?
Contact Keppler Speakers here. Let them know you’re concerned about the comments someone they represent, Roland Martin, has made. If enough people do it, they may talk with him. Heck, maybe they’ll suggest he give a speech discussing his views on homosexuality and the LGBT community.Â
You can also sign GLAAD’s petition here.
And contact CNN here.
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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
