This Gay Week 20: Global LGBTQ Backlash, War, and Democratic Decline

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2026/04/24

Karel Bouley is a trailblazing LGBTQ broadcaster, entertainer, and activist. As half of the first openly gay duo in U.S. drive-time radio, he made history while shaping California law on LGBTQ wrongful death cases. Karel rose to prominence as the #1 talk show host on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles and KGO AM 810 in San Francisco, later expanding to Free Speech TV and the Karel Cast podcast. His work spans journalism (HuffPost, The Advocate, Billboard), television (CNN, MSNBC), and the music industry. A voting member of NARAS, GALECA, and SAG-AFTRA, Karel now lives and creates in Las Vegas.

Karel Bouley and Scott Douglas Jacobsen examine anti-LGBTQ backlash across the United States and Europe, from Idaho bathroom restrictions to Leo Varadkar’s warning of a continental “chill wind.” They discuss Belarus, Finland, Pride in London’s leadership scandal, and the wider weakening of democratic culture. Against that backdrop, Jacobsen’s reporting from wartime Ukraine sharpens the contrast between manufactured culture wars and genuine existential threat, giving the conversation urgency, range, and unusual moral clarity. 

Karel Bouley: No time to fear, Karel is near, because Showtime is here. So on with the show, let’s give it a go. Karel is the one you need to know. Now it’s Showtime!

It is time for This Gay Week with Scott Jacobsen and me. We are going to talk about stories from around the world, some funny, some alarming, all very, very gay, so do not go anywhere. We are going to discuss stories from around the globe that are of interest to the world in the realm of gay news. Can I start? I have to start with this. I did not send you the story, but I have to start with this, because I am sure even in Ukraine, by the way, we heard horrible things overnight about bombing in Ukraine. Are you and all of your friends there safe?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I am safe. Most of my friends are safe, and we have had a lot of air-raid alarms lately. I have been walking around the city all day and getting nothing but air-raid alarms.

Bouley: So I want to start with this story, because I cannot reiterate enough how I do not care, but I find it ironic. We talked about it on my show. So our former Department of Homeland Security head, who is anti-drag, anti-trans, anti-gay, she is everything but anti-mame, and we found out this week that social media claims and alleged leaked images were circulating about her husband in drag and cross-dressing.

So, regarding Kristi Noem, social media posts claimed that her husband appeared in drag, wearing balloons, actual balloons, for his boobs, and one of the balloon ends was up here, and the other one was over here, so he had cockeyed boobies. And what? I am not going to kink-shame him if that is what he does for sexual pleasure; good for him.

But the irony that they all immediately started talking about, please send us thoughts and prayers, and all this other stuff, Scott. Kristi Noem wrote in her book that she shot a dog when she was younger. She also led DHS until March 24, 2026. And in Minnesota, we found out that many of the people arrested by ICE were not criminals, even though officials publicly emphasized that they were. But the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of needing thoughts and prayers was her husband allegedly being in bad drag.

So he does not need to be bothered; he needs a stylist. He could use some fashion sense. But it is an ironically sweet story, because here we have someone so anti-gay, so anti-trans, so anti-drag, and social media claims showed her husband on camera with giant boobs and red panties. You cannot make this up. Tell me they heard about this in Ukraine. I am hoping they heard about it worldwide.

Jacobsen: We were hearing explosions. Yes, real bombs. But that is common. Well, that is really common. We have prominent stories that are even more ironic. I remember there was that one case of an individual who was a leading figure in the conversion therapy movement, and he himself ended up turning out to be gay. This happens all the time.

Bouley: So let us start with a domestic story. Scott Jacobsen, from The Good Men Project and many other publications, is a respected journalist worldwide. If you actually read his stuff, you’ll see it’s everywhere, and he’s interviewed some incredible people. And me. I am the outlier. But let us start with a domestic story. You heard what happened in Idaho, correct?

Jacobsen: Correct.

Bouley: So the Idaho governor is expected to sign legislation aimed at restricting bathroom access for trans people, with potential criminal penalties. And I am not making that up. It is real. So I have a solution, a suggestion. I thought I would bounce it off you. What would you think if trans people started defecating in front of the bathroom?

Jacobsen: It would remind me of the Satanic Temple protests, where participants wore diapers and staged demonstrations to mock pro-life activists, including pouring milk on themselves.

Bouley: Let me ask you, in Ukraine, is there any bathroom controversy about trans people? Is it even on anyone’s radar?

Jacobsen: No. What they consider existential issues are more immediate.

Bouley: Right. I do not think anywhere else in the world anyone is worried about where trans people go to the bathroom, except here. So I have decided to counsel trans people to relieve themselves in front of the bathroom, because the fines and penalties for doing so are less severe than the potential penalties tied to restricted bathroom use. 

So yes, it is not an issue elsewhere. And here in America, we seem preoccupied with where people are peeing. It is amazing to me.

And I want to know who the bathroom police are going to be, because the law says you cannot use a bathroom that does not match the sex you were assigned at birth. Who is going to enforce that? I know that, Scott, you have been to some very nice places, and when you go to the bathroom, there is a porter or attendant with cologne and hand towels who expects a tip, which I always wondered about because I did it all myself. But are they now going to have to check your body? Are you literally going to have to have a physical check before you go to the bathroom? And if you have already had surgery, how are they going to distinguish between bodies?

Jacobsen: I do not know what you heard, but there has been talk about expanded enforcement approaches in immigration contexts. Whether that extends to anything like what you are describing is unclear.

Bouley: And they are going to be called liquid, liquidized. We jest about this. It is third-world country nonsense. And it is remarkable to me that with everything going on in the United States right now, and compared to Ukraine, this is what the governor of Idaho, a state where education struggles, infrastructure struggles, people face food insecurity, and climate pressures are real, this is what he decides to focus on. But all right. Let us talk about more global issues. You pick. I have read them all, so go ahead.

Jacobsen: I want to start with the broader context. So Leo Varadkar, the former Taoiseach of Ireland. Now, why is he important to conservatives? Is he important?

Bouley: He is. Leo was the first openly gay Taoiseach of Ireland. And now we should explain what the Taoiseach is. I am mispronouncing it, but I am not Irish. So Ireland has a president. It was Michael D. Higgins, and the president is largely symbolic. They have a little legislative power, but not much. They live at Áras an Uachtaráin, where I have been. That is their White House, in the middle of a beautiful park in Dublin. They are more of a figurehead.

The de facto leader of the country is not the president. It is the Taoiseach. Leo was the first openly gay Taoiseach. That is why he is important, particularly in this conversation. But go ahead.

Jacobsen: Well, the big story around that is not a specific narrative, but the overall theme that there has been, quote, a chilling, unquote, of LGBTQ equality, essentially from Eastern Europe to Western Europe. That is going to guide a lot of conversation, not only this week but for some time to come. So that was a general commentary from someone who would be in a position to make synoptic judgments, essentially, in American terms, about the vibe within Eastern and Western Europe.

Bouley: Go ahead and say what he said about Trump and America. He said, “We are off the trolley, we have fallen.”

Jacobsen: It is not funny, but it is such an Irish phrasing.

Bouley: He basically said, That’s it, we have fallen off, we are a mess, is basically what he said.

Jacobsen: And so there is a lot of context in which the United States has lost the plot.

Bouley: Yes, we have lost the plot. Now, this is important for the reasons you state. First of all, he was the first gay Taoiseach. And I am hoping Pete Buttigieg will be the first gay U.S. president, because I would vote for him. He is a top. I can tell because of Chasten. But anyway, Leo has been in a unique position for some time, having already served. He is no longer the Taoiseach. There is a new one.

He already served, so he completed his term and attended the G7 and other world meetings. He was able to have all of these meetings with world leaders and discuss LGBTQ rights because he is gay. And it often came up. He, more than anyone, would be able to gauge the temperature of Europe, where it is going, where it is headed, and how countries are positioned on LGBTQ rights. And he is sounding an alarm.

He is saying it is sliding backwards all over Europe, from east to west, not just here, not just there, and we need to pay attention to this, because if we do not, it is going to get worse and worse and worse. And he does attribute in the article some of this to Trumpism and America losing the plot. It is frightening when you hear a world leader who is openly gay talk about how bad things are getting, because it has to be getting pretty thick and bad if he is issuing this warning.

So I do not know who the warning is for. Gay people know it is getting bad. Okay, we already get it. His warning is for world leaders and for those in government, because he wants people to pay closer attention to what is happening to LGBTQ rights. Gay people already know it. You do not have to tell us it is getting bad, whether we are in the UK, the USA, Canada, or wherever. You do not have to tell us that it is getting bad. His pronouncement, his warning, is more for world leaders, so they can be aware that these things are happening and put them on their radar.

But I do not know that his warning is going to be met with receptive ears, because the bellwether signs have been everywhere that gay rights are sliding backwards. His warning reinforces what we know. I am not sure his warning will get anyone to stop the slide.

Jacobsen: Yes, we have been seeing a lot of this. I am curious about a meta question, because over part of the last 20 years, according to Freedom House, we have seen a decline in democratic governance globally and an increase in autocratic governance. So there are two dimensions there. And they themselves distinguish between a strong democratic society and a weakly democratic society, and so on. I am curious whether that correlates in any robust, empirically validated way with the reduction in LGBTQ+ rights. My guess is.

Bouley: Did you see the story about social media users being less inclined to support democracy? This came out. Yes, particularly younger people who are on social media. They do not necessarily support democracy anymore, nor are they optimistic about it. Now, look, there was still an overwhelming number of people who do. It was 60-plus percent who believed in democracy and all that. But the story was about the alarming, rising number. Almost 40 percent of online users do not value democracy much. They do not see it as a valuable asset. They think its time has come and gone. And it is odd because when they did a follow-up question, well, then are you about autocracy? Are you about an oligarchy? A lot of them did not have an answer to the other form of government that they might, in fact, support. They were not for democracy.

And when one-third or more of young users online say democracy is not that important, it is frightening, because we know it is important. And we also know that democratic societies are how you get equality for gays, lesbians, women, minorities, and marginalized people. You do not get those in autocracies or oligarchies, as the United States will now attest.

So I do believe what you say, that it goes hand in hand, that as fewer people are gung ho about democracy, more people are also less gung ho about equality across the board for marginalized communities. I do not know why this shift is happening. No one can put a finger on it. Why are people all of a sudden souring on equal rights or souring on democracy? But in many ways, they are. And that is a sad fact of modern-day life.

Jacobsen: Was this an American study?

Bouley: Yes, it was.

Jacobsen: Okay, so two things are probably going on there. One, the American educational system is not strong, particularly in poor communities. And two, society has not been serving much younger people very well in the American context, compared to older generations, in terms of social infrastructure and so on. So if they are in a system that declares itself democratic and they feel disenfranchised, and they are relative to other generations, but they do not know much about other systems of government from within the educational system they have been given, then they can say, I do not believe in democracy because it has not been serving them well. But they do not know an alternative. And so they could not define an alternative, which I would call a drift toward autocracy.

Bouley: So the story is from Gallup, and it says social media use is linked to mixed views on democracy. Forty-four percent of heavy social media users, compared with 30 percent of non-users, believe in citizens having power. Support for democracy is 72 percent among non-users and 57 percent among heavy users, which means that 43 percent of heavy social media users are not strongly supportive of democracy. That is damn frightening, actually. That is one. And that goes hand in hand with what we are seeing in terms of equality. Next story. Next!

Jacobsen: So we were noting several weeks ago how Kazakhstan has, to some degree, been replicating Russian anti LGBTQ stances, with laws being proposed. Similarly, we see an export to Belarus, which, under Lukashenko, is also a close ally of the Russian Federation, the Kremlin, and Putin. Belarus decriminalized homosexuality in 1994 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it does not recognize same sex marriage and lacks protections for LGBTQ rights. Lukashenko has publicly mocked homosexuality. The country has about 9.5 million people. What else is going on here?

Bouley: By the way, do not mock gays if you are from a country that most people cannot even find on a map. Okay, you are from Belarus. Who the hell names a country Belarus? And you are going to mock the LGBTQ community. I am looking at a world map right now, and I would not even know where to look for Belarus, some little country over here in Europe. But 9 million people, it is the mouse that roared.

But yes, they are not gay friendly there. And it is odd because, I assume, the more eastern, the more likely Belarus is in the former Eastern Bloc.

Belarus is a former member of the Eastern Bloc. I can talk on this subject. Belarus is a former Eastern Bloc country, and historically, it has not been a great place for gays. There were some advances, and then reversals. And so we are at another reversal. Their parliament has passed a bill to further crack down on LGBTQ rights, which is not surprising. The Parliament of Belarus passed a bill on Thursday to introduce punishments for people who promote LGBTQ causes, echoing similar restrictions in neighbouring Russia.

What does promoting LGBTQ causes mean? Passing out flyers for a gay dance? What exactly does that mean? Advertising a gay bar? Is that promoting LGBT? So they always remain vague about what ‘promotion’ means in these legislative intimidation efforts.

Jacobsen: It is legislative intimidation.

Bouley: Yes. I believe the bill makes propaganda of homosexual relations, gender change, refusal to have children, and pedophilia punishable. That is amazing, because they group all of that into anything gay, even though gay does not mean pedophile. That is old. That is antiquated. If that were the case, then Donald Trump and half of his friends would be gay, because, well, the Epstein files and all.

Jacobsen: So you think they would be in jail before that?

Bouley: Well, no, they will never be in jail. The head of the Justice Department, after Pam Bondi left as attorney general, and the guy taking her place, announced that there would be no further interest in revisiting Bondi’s scheduled House deposition on the Epstein files. He said they wanted it out of the news cycle. So that is why he wanted it out of the news cycle.

Jacobsen: Yes, that is a different frame than saying we are looking for full accountability.

Bouley: They are not.

Jacobsen: They made that very clear.

Bouley: Yes, no, he made it clear they do not care about accountability. They have done all they want to do about the Epstein files, period. And that is it. And that is, of course, why he is getting the job.

So there we go. All right. Let us go for something fun, shall we? In London Pride, there have been some problems. UK Pride events have had some issues, and we have discussed them here. One of them did not pay the bills. Another one got taken over by another group because it was about to fold. So they have had a bunch of problems.

Well, now Christopher Joell-Deshields, who was the head of Pride in London, was dismissed after allegations of financial mismanagement, including using volunteer voucher funds on luxury goods such as high-end cologne.

Jacobsen: Now, if you ask me, not cologne, but perfume.

Bouley: That is true. Important footnote. Now, if you ask me as a gay man, that is a damn good use of gay pride funds to buy perfume. I do. It depends on what kind. It has to be something nice.

Jacobsen: What is your favourite perfume? What is your favourite cologne?

Bouley: Oh, now see, I am an 80s kid. So I like the old things, Lagerfeld and Drakkar Noir. And Cher has a fragrance that I love and adore. It is called Uninhibited by Cher. And then I also have one called Sung, S U N G. Very cheap, 30 bucks a bottle. Love it. It smells delicious. Kenneth Cole, I love Kenneth Cole. Polo by Ralph Lauren. So I love the classics from the 80s because they remind me of a certain time and a certain party and all that.

Most new colognes I do not like. I do like Cher. I like her fragrance. I saw one being promoted by Johnny Depp, but the last person in the world I would want to smell like is Johnny Depp because he always looks like he needs a shower. So I do not see why they have him. Maybe he has to cover up the stench. So it might have to be a very good cologne. But no. What about you? What is your favourite perfume?

My favourite perfumes are Joy by Jean Patou and Chanel No. 5, because my mother used to wear both. So if I smell Joy by Jean Patou or Chanel No. 5, it brings back memories of my mom. Joy is indeed the classic Jean Patou fragrance, not “Jean Coutu,” which is a Canadian pharmacy chain.

Jacobsen: I use a scent, put it in storage, forget its name, use that one until it is done, then go to the next. I have one here I can grab. But how many do you have?

Bouley: Oh, I have 14—a lot.

Jacobsen: Fourteen. Mine, when I was at the horse farm, I would switch among eight or nine.

Bouley: They are all above my mirror in the bathroom in a line. And each day I pick a different one. So today’s scent, by the way, was, oh, it is in the little body of a man. Jean Paul Gaultier. So today I am using Gaultier, and the bottle is a little man in a tank top, a little package, and everything. And to put it on, you have to grab him by the package. The spray, I believe, should have been done by pressing his, what?

Bouley: So yes, the Pride in London boss, Christopher Joell-Deshields, was removed from his position after allegations that he misused volunteer voucher funds on luxury goods, including cologne. I did some research. There have been Pride organizers removed elsewhere over tax and reporting issues, and all that. But as far as this particular allegation goes, the cologne detail is what made this story so absurdly memorable.

Jacobsen: I love this story. I love this story. It is so silly, ridiculous, and flamboyantly non-serious that it is much better than many of the other stories, because many of the other stories we are dealing with are bills and laws being passed that, once in place, can take years to reverse, if they ever get reversed. And then you have however many thousands of people whose lives are made unpleasant.

Bouley: Now, a bigger part of the story for me was, and I am not saying people are not worth it, but his salary, which he had been paid, was £87,500 a year, which is roughly over $110,000 in U.S. dollars at current exchange rates. That seems like a lot for someone who runs a nonprofit with funding issues. And B, how much is the perfume? If you cannot afford it on that salary, why do you buy the perfume?

So the guy, Joell-Deshields, at Pride in London, who was making £87,500 a year for his job, allegedly spent £7,125 in sponsor-donated vouchers on two things, perfume and Apple products, specifically luxury cologne and Apple items, according to the directors. These were supposed to be vouchers for prizes and gifts for volunteers, as well as for various events and fundraisers. In a whistleblowing disclosure, volunteer directors claimed there was a culture of bullying. Following an independent investigation, Pride in London said it had decided to sack Joell-Deshields. He had been chief executive since 2022. He appealed the decision, but an independent panel upheld it. Pride in London, which has more than 800 volunteers and a small paid staff, said its interim chief, Rebecca Paisis, would be implementing a new governance structure to ensure Pride in London operates at the highest standards.

They, of course, will have theirs on July 4 because they do not celebrate Independence Day. It is a touchy subject in London.

The event costs about £1.3 million a year to run and relies on hundreds of volunteers on the day. Corporate sponsors fund it and receive support from the Mayor of London through a multi-year grant arrangement, which currently amounts to £125,000 per year for the main event, rather than £175,000 annually. They say this is very frustrating because it might cause others not to donate, thinking the organization is misappropriating their funds.

A High Court order in 2025 required Joell-Deshields to relinquish control of Pride in London property and systems, including accounts and digital access. He appeared back in court accused of contempt-related noncompliance with that order, which Pride in London’s lawyers argued was an attempt to frustrate the independent investigation. One of the disputes involved a company laptop that had not been returned. He argued that it had effectively replaced his damaged personal device during his work. So, he is saying that because his own computer was damaged in the line of work, they owed him a computer. They are saying no, if your personal computer is damaged while you are at work, that does not make the company laptop yours.

This is what I am saying. I am seeing someone who is frustrating. He is frustrating for all parties except himself. I saw the investigation put its hands on its hips and stomp its feet, so frustrated. It was.

So here is my favourite story of the day, because I do not have a clue what it means, which is always nice when you can be confounded by something. There is a Finnish MP, a member of parliament, who has been convicted for saying homosexuality is a developmental disorder. She is a Christian. Her name is Päivi Räsänen. She was fined €1,800. She is supported by the conservative U.S. legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom. What have we talked about? The U.S. is exporting its hatred. 

Her case was decided by Finland’s Supreme Court, which in a 3 to 2 ruling found her guilty on one count related to republishing an old pamphlet, while upholding her acquittal on a separate Bible tweet. The court found the “developmental disorder” claim to be inaccurate and harmful. That prompted criticism from some right-wing ministers, who argued the ruling threatened free speech.

Her claim was first published in pamphlets in 2004, later reproduced on Facebook in 2019, and on her website the following year. 

So, in a 3-2 vote, the Supreme Court on Thursday found her guilty of a crime for republishing the pamphlet on Facebook in 2019 and on her website in 2020. She was supported in her case by the U.S.-based conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, which has tried to use her case as an example of censorship in Europe. The group has also ramped up its international litigation and campaigning efforts in recent years, and it drew particular notice in the United States after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade. So, as I told you, this is a direct example of an American organization meddling in Finnish politics to promote an anti-gay agenda. Now they are mad because the Finns were not having it.

It is funny. Dr. Laura and I had a conversation once. She came under attack because she said being gay was a biological error, and she got a lot of criticism for it, probably rightfully so, because we are not an error. When I had a conversation with Dr. Laura about this, I said you would not have gotten in as much trouble if you had said that being gay was a biological anomaly or a biological rarity.

When you say ‘error,’ you mean biology making a mistake. Gay people are not a mistake. But let us be real. Even with current polling, which shows about 9 percent overall and higher among younger adults, that is still statistically a minority. Even if you go with 10 percent, that is a minority. Ninety percent of humans are not gay, 10 percent are gay. So it is a biological anomaly. It is a phenomenon that occurs in nature. It happens in nature all the time, but it is not the norm. The majority pattern is heterosexuality. The minority would be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Even if you go with the younger cohort, it still leaves a clear majority who are not gay or lesbian.

Jacobsen: I will tell you a story. In 2024, there was an attack in Poltava, Ukraine. The figures I recall from mainstream reporting, after time to count the dead and injured, were about 55 killed and more than 300 injured. Poltava is not by Sumy, but on the way east in central Ukraine. Some friends and I, colleagues and journalists, were travelling toward Sumy when one of them literally got a call from their grandmother in Romania asking, “Did you hear about the attack in Poltava?” No. We talked for 15 seconds. It was okay. So we changed our plans, turned around, and got there about two or three hours later. Reuters was there. BBC News teams were there. Al Jazeera was there. We, as independent journalists, were there. Emergency responders, military, police, and civilians were outside. We were not allowed in because they were still clearing rubble and bodies.

So there had been a ceremony of some sort at a military educational institution, and a nearby medical facility was also hit. They were both struck by two Russian ballistic missiles that Ukrainian authorities identified as Iskander-type missiles. Several hundred meters out, windows were shattered, and glass was everywhere. What was striking was how eerie and normal it is when you are there. You realize that three hours earlier, almost 60 people had still been alive at a ceremony, and then many were killed, and many more were injured. The Al Jazeera team must have rushed its production, because they ended up filming my friend Remus and me, with me walking toward the camera in my press vest with a press plate. I had my combat helmet in my arm. So you could say I had an Al Jazeera credit by accident because they posted it on YouTube.

So if you hear a ballistic missile, it is very different. On my first day here, I was staying at a friend’s place a few stories up, and I had my noise-cancelling headphones on to sleep and get used to it again. Sometimes what you first notice is a flash of light and then, off in the distance, the impact or the air-defence response. Over time, you also start hearing anti-aircraft guns, and then you realize the Shaheds are coming. I remember being high enough up and far enough from some of the central districts of Kyiv that all you heard was something like a lawnmower in the sky.

Shaheds are not quiet. That is how they terrorize the public as well. If it is flying above your building, you hear the anti-air guns, then you hear the Shaheds explode. Sometimes you hear explosions in close succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So that happens. 

Bouley: The most dangerous place I have ever been is South Central LA. This is why. I can tell the sound of someone firing a gun, and I know gunshots when I hear them. But I never, in my life, want to hear the things you have heard. I never want to know the difference between a ballistic missile and anti-aircraft fire. I never want to be in that area or under that situation, because it is horrifying.

It is humanity’s greatest failure that we use these weapons against each other. 

Jacobsen: The biggest image I can give that is non-poetic and non-romanticized is that it is an anti-symphony. You go to a symphony to enjoy it. This is not that. You have this developmental trajectory with many of them: a bass beat, then higher harmonics, then a peak, then a denouement. Beethoven’s symphonies were famous for this.

Bouley: He is not gay, you all. He said “denouement,” for those of you that…

Jacobsen: That is right. The deaf joke about not hearing you was a Beethoven joke. He was deaf.

Bouley: I know. He composed while deaf, or at least while progressing toward it. He started learning acoustics through vibrations.

Jacobsen: Thank you—very clever person. 

Bouley: They did not have hearing aids, so he was like, “I will lie on the piano.”

Jacobsen: So, what you will see here is that you get the air raid alarm on your phone. Then you hear it in the distance above the metro areas where the main sound carries from. I am quite near one right now. So you will hear it at 3 a.m., 5 a.m., whatever. Then, if there are ballistic missiles, you hear those. If there are anti-aircraft guns, you hear those, or anti-aircraft guns plus Shaheds exploding. Then the anti-aircraft guns fade out, and then the air raid alarms fade out. That is an anti-symphony. It is not something you go to or want to go to. It is not enjoyable, because you feel terror automatically. It is like listening to Trump speak. It sends a shiver down your spine, and you wish it would stop.

Bouley: So back to Finland, by the way. As I was explaining, while you were out checking on your neighbour being hauled away, she called it a developmental disorder. I was telling people that Dr. Laura, a famous conservative in America, once said on the station I was on that being gay was a biological error. What I told Laura was that I would have agreed with her if she had said it was a biological anomaly, because statistically, even with the newer numbers, 9 percent, 10 percent, or whatever, there are more straight people than gay people. So while it is prevalent in nature, it is not the predominant pattern. So to say it is an anomaly would be fine. To say it is an error means that nature made a mistake, and that is not fine. We are not a mistake; we are rare in nature. And if this woman wanted to point out that being gay is biologically different from being heterosexual, I would have no problem with that. But calling it a disorder, and a developmental disorder, no, because science and psychiatry have for decades countered that by saying it is not. It is not a developmental disorder. It is not a psychiatric disorder. So what she was saying wasn’t just hateful; it was scientifically wrong. That is why she got fined.

And unfortunately, we now have a country, the United States, that is sliding backwards into the logic of reparative therapy. You only repair something that is broken or disordered. So once again, in this country, there is a movement to look at being gay as something disordered and fixable, as opposed to it being a natural, normal state of being. So if you want to call it an anomaly, a biological rarity, whatever, that is one thing. I do not mind being rare. Shine bright like a diamond. But if you want to call it a disorder or an error, then we have a problem. And I applaud the Finnish court for its decision. 

Bouley: And €1,800 for someone at that level and in that position is probably not a big deal anyway.

Jacobsen: No, but it is symbolic. That is what is most important. We talked about this before; at least there was a ruling in Kenya that we talked about, where the men actually went to jail after attacking gay people, because what used to happen was they would be convicted of the crime, but then the charges would effectively go nowhere in terms of punishment. In other words, yes, you beat up these people, but we are not going to put you in jail for it. So you are guilty, but you won’t get jail time. This time, they got jail time. It was not a lot, but at least it was something.

Bouley: The same here. If they were to fine American politicians every time they spewed something hateful against gays, Mexicans, Black people, whatever, some of them would be a lot less inclined to do it. If it rolls off your tongue freely and you realize it is not free, it will cost you; you will think twice about it. I bet, and what, I bet that Alliance Defending Freedom paid her fine.

Jacobsen: I would agree with the inference.

Bouley: Let us see, the Idaho thing scares me, along with the Supreme Court. So we did not talk about this, maybe we did last week, about the Supreme Court’s ruling on conversion therapy. I wanted to explain to people what the ruling did and did not mean, because there is a lot of misinformation out there. I am sure you read that the U.S. Supreme Court said Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy was unconstitutional. They struck down Colorado’s law as applied to speech-based talk therapy and remanded the case to the lower courts under a more speech-protective standard. They did not issue a blanket ruling on every state law everywhere, but the decision is a major precedent with broader implications.

What they did, and this is where people were missing the point of the news story, is that a Christian counsellor, Kaley Chiles, wanted to be able to counsel minor patients toward so-called reparative or conversion therapy verbally. She was not asking to use physical coercion or older abusive methods. She was challenging the restriction on talk therapy itself, arguing that Colorado was restricting what she could say to clients. The Supreme Court agreed that Colorado’s law, as applied to her speech-based counselling, raised a First Amendment problem. Major medical and psychological organizations, meanwhile, continue to regard conversion therapy as harmful.

So she sued and said, ” My freedom of speech with my patients is being infringed because you are telling me what I can and cannot talk about. I am not going to shock them. I am not going to tie them up. I am not going to put IVs in them. I want to talk to them. Although what she is saying has been deemed psychologically harmful by many professional organizations. 

But she wanted the chance to do it. So the Court said that if you are going to be talking, if you are speaking to your patient, then you should be allowed to do that on any topic. So they said, ” Okay, we are striking down the part of the ban that says she cannot speak to her patients about reparative therapy. They did not strike down every conversion therapy ban everywhere, but they did hold that Colorado’s law could not be applied to bar her speech-based counselling in the way Colorado had argued. They said that a psychologist or counsellor could speak to patients about so-called reparative therapy and use verbal techniques, but the ruling was about speech and not about authorizing physical coercion or other abusive practices.

However, opponents are saying, well, verbal conversion therapy is psychological harm, so you are still saying she can harm her patients. The Supreme Court did not accept Colorado’s position on that point in this case. So, yes, it is a tricky case. I wanted to be clear about that, because there were a couple of big stories this week that were misinterpreted.

The other was the headline that the bullet from the alleged Charlie Kirk shooter does not match the gun. That is a misleading headline. If you read the reporting and the court discussion carefully, what they are saying is that the bullet fragments were too damaged to permit a conclusive ballistic match. So they cannot say, yes, this fragment came from that gun, but that is not the same thing as proving it came from some other gun or clearing the suspect. It means the fragment is too damaged for a definitive comparison.

It is like saying the DNA from a badly degraded ancient sample is too damaged to analyze properly. That is what happened. But the lawyer for Charlie Kirk’s alleged shooter has said, well, you cannot match it to the gun. That is technically true in the narrow sense, but it is not the same as saying the gun was ruled out. They say they cannot guarantee the fragment came from any specific gun because the material is too damaged to test conclusively. So the headline was deceptive.

All right, Scott Jacobsen has been with us from Ukraine. I am Karel. All right, stay safe over there and avoid ballistic missiles. It is broadcasting from a completely different point of view, yours.

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