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'Made me smile': President Jimmy Carter's thoughts about the Bible and homosexuality resurfaces

"Jesus never said a word about homosexuality."

via Commonwealth Club/Wikimedia Commons

Jimmy Carter at the Commonwealth Club.

Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States (1977 to 1981). Looking back on his achievements both in and out of office, it’s easy to say that he was a man ahead of his time. He was far ahead of the mainstream when it came to advocating for social justice, human rights, and the environment.

Carter famously installed solar panels on the White House in 1979, only to have them removed by Ronald Reagan.

The former peanut farmer and Navy Lieutenant from Plains, Georgia, was also far ahead of his time when supporting gay rights. In 1976, while running for president, he said he would sign the Equality Act, an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. “I will certainly sign it, because I don’t think it’s right to single out homosexuals for special abuse or special harassment,” he said.

He continued to advocate for gay rights as president. In 1977, the first gay delegation visited the White House. He also campaigned against California’s Proposition 6, which would have barred gays and lesbians from teaching in the state’s schools and was the first Democratic president to endorse gay rights in the party’s platform in 1980.


It may seem unusual for Cater, a confessed born-again Christian, to be a staunch advocate for gay rights. But he has publicly said that he believes that being pro-gay is wholly aligned with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Carter’s advocacy found itself in the spotlight once again after a meme featuring his thoughts about Christ and homosexuality from 2012 went viral on Reddit's MadeMeSmile forum on April 8, 2024.

The viral quote was taken from an interview with the Huffington Post in 2012, during which Carter promoted his book, NIV, Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter. At the time, LGBTQ rights were the subject of heated debate in Washington, and President Obama had just “evolved” and began publicly supporting same-sex marriage.

"A lot of people point to the Bible for reasons why gay people should not be in the church or accepted in any way,” the interviewer Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush said. But Carter responded by correctly noting that Jesus Christ never said anything about homosexuality.

"Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things—he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies,” Carter said. "I draw the line, maybe arbitrarily, in requiring by law that churches must marry people. I'm a Baptist, and I believe that each congregation is autonomous and can govern its own affairs.

"So if a local Baptist church wants to accept gay members on an equal basis, which my church does, by the way, then that is fine. If a church decides not to, then government laws shouldn't require them to,” he continued.

jimmy carter, jimmy carter smiling, us presidents, commonwealth club, carter on homosexuality, jimmy carter president Jimmy Carter in the White House.via Tuntematon, Valkoisen talon valokuvaajat/Wikimedia Commons

Three years later, Carter shared the same sentiments in another interview with the Huffington Post, this time shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. “I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else,” Carter said.

Jimmy Carter’s belief in gay rights stems from his faith as a Christian, but it’s also in complete alignment with his values as an American. Carter believed that the United States was a “beacon” for human rights, and in his 1981 presidential farewell address, he reminded the nation that the job was an ongoing struggle.

“The battle for human rights–at home and abroad–is far from over,” Carter said. “If we are to serve as a beacon for human rights, we must continue to perfect here at home the rights and values which we espouse around the world: A decent education for our children, adequate medical care for all Americans, an end to discrimination against minorities and women, a job for all those able to work, and freedom from injustice and religious intolerance.”

Jimmy Carter passed away on December 29, 2024, at the age of 100 years old. He was the longest-lived U.S. president. After his passing, President Joe Biden wrote that Carter, “stands as a model of what it means to live a life of meaning and purpose, a life of principle, of faith and humility. His life was dedicated to others.” He will forever be remembered as a man who fought for human rights both at home and abroad.

This article originally appeared last year and was updated.

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Man figured out how to beat squatters at their own game. Now he helps others do it.

"If they can take a house, I can take a house."

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

When people move in and refuse to move out, what do you do?

Squatters' rights laws are some of the most bizarrely misused legal realities we have, and something no one seems to have a good answer for. Most of us have heard stories of someone moving into a vacant home and just living there, without anyone's permission and without paying rent, and somehow this is a legal question mark until the courts sort it out.

According to The National Desk, squatters' rights are a carryover from British property law and were created to ensure that abandoned property could be used and to protect occupants from being kicked out without proper notice. It should go without saying that squatter law isn't meant to allow someone to just take over someone else's property, but sometimes that's exactly what happens.

It's what happend to Flash Shelton's mother when she put her house up for rent after her husband passed away. A woman contacted her with interest in the property, only she wanted to do repairs and look after the home instead of paying rent. Before anyone knew it, she had furniture delivered (which she later said was accidental) and set up camp, despite Shelton's mom not agreeing to the arrangement.

But since the woman had expressed her intention and already moved in, the matter was out of police hands, as Shelton found out when he tried to contact the local sheriff.

“They said, ‘I’m sorry but we can’t enter the house, and it looks like they’re living there, so you need to go through the courts',” he shared in a YouTube video.

Shelton rightfully didn't want the expense of a court battle, so he took matters into his own hands—not with violence, but with logic. He had his mom lease the home to him, and then told the squatter that she had to move everything out because he was moving things in.

“If they can take a house, I can take a house," he said.

He was calm and clear about her having to get everything out within the day or he would have people come and take it, and thankfully, she didn't put up a big fight.

That experience made him realize how squatter law can be abused, but that there's a faster system for removing a squatter than to go through the court system. If a squatter can move in and force a homeowner to take them to court to prove they are living there illegally, then he could simply move in alongside the squatter, putting the squatter in the position of having to take the homeowner to court instead.

"The legal process is so slow, and at some point when they're in there, you're going to feel like they have more rights than you do and that's how you're going to be treated. So even though you it's your house and you're paying the mortgage or whatever, at some point squatters feel like they have more rights than you, so they don't have an incentive to leave until a judge tells them to, until they're actually ordered to, and that could take months."

After successfully removing the squatters in his mother's house, Shelton has been tackling similar squatter situations for other homeowners in California, earning him the nickname "The Squatter Hunter."

"All I'm doing is becoming a squatter and flipping this process on them," Shelton told CBS News. "I figured if they could take a house, I could take a house."

According to CBS, he's successfully removed a dozen squatters in the past year. ""I'm not going in and I'm not hurting anyone," he said. "I'm not kicking them out, I'm not throwing them out." He's literally just moving in himself, setting up cameras, and then creating small annoyances until the squatters get fed up enough to move out.

California isn't the only state that has seen issues with squatters. There are squatter stories from all over the U.S. of people moving into a property and refusing to leave without a court order, tying owners up in lengthy, expensive legal battles.

Shelton even has a Change.org petition to try to get squatter laws changed to "make squatting in residential maintained homes criminal." Making squatting illegal "will shift the burden of proof onto the squatter and make the crime punishable with restitution an option for damages," the the petition states.

Watch Shelton share his personal story:

This article originally appeared last year.

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Why the "MAGA Granny" convicted for her role in the Capitol riots rejected Trump's pardon

She's taking a stand that everyone should pay attention to.

Images via Facebook

Pamela Hemphill, formerly known as the "MAGA Granny"

Mere hours into his second term, President Trump signed an executive order granting clemency to roughly 1,500 people charged with offenses related to the Capitol riots and protests on January 6th, 2021. But one woman who went to jail for her role is refusing the pardon, saying none should have been issued at all.

Pamela Hemphill, formerly dubbed "MAGA Granny" on social media, pleaded guilty to parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building in 2022. She received a 60-day sentence, 36 months of probation, and an order to pay $500 restitution. "We were wrong that day," Hemphill told the BBC, adding that "[a]ccepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol police officers, rule of law and, of course, our nation." She continued, "I pleaded guilty because I was guilty, and accepting a pardon also would serve to contribute to their gaslighting and false narrative."

In a recent USA Today feature, Hemphill opened up about her change in perspective since January 6th, which she called “the worst day in our history."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Many current Republicans support Trump but oppose the blanket pardons. The Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest police union, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, issued a joint statement denouncing the move, saying they "firmly believe" that anyone "convicted of killing or assaulting law enforcement officers" should be forced to "serve their full sentences."

"When perpetrators of crimes, especially serious crimes, are not held fully accountable, it sends a dangerous message that the consequences for attacking law enforcement are not severe, potentially emboldening others to commit similar acts of violence," the note continues.

Several Republican senators also took issue with the pardons, including North Carolina's Thom Tillis, who was surprised by their scope. "I just can’t agree,” he said. “I’m about to file two bills that will increase the penalties up to and including the death penalty for the murder of a police officer and increasing the penalties and creating federal crimes for assaulting a police officer—that should give you everything you need to know about my position.”

In their statement, the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police criticized Trump's predecessor for the same reasons. In one of his final acts in office, President Biden commuted the life sentence of Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents in 1975. (Peltier, 80, will serve the rest of his sentence at home.) Biden, like Trump, also faced pushback from members of his own party—in this case, for using pardons for family and government employees who haven't been charged with crimes.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

"We need to make a critique of some of the more unjust pardons, like the January 6 pardons," said Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, of Virginia. "And I think it’s harder to make that critique, to stand on the high ground and make a critique of the Trump pardons on January 6 when President Biden is pardoning family members.” Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida told CBS News, "I'm not a fan of these pardons. I wish he didn't feel that he needed to do that. ... Now the precedent is set, from now into the future."

Political division is inescapable—seemingly more now than ever. But by taking a stand, Hemphill has set a unique and powerful precedent for people on both sides of the aisle. It takes courage to stand for one's principles, even when doing the opposite would benefit them personally.

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Local newspapers are deleting old crime stories to give ex-convicts a second chance

Preventing one mistake from becoming a person’s permanent Google search result

Photo credit: Canva

Newspapers are deleting old stories about certain crimes so the rehabilitated can more forward.

A growing number of newspapers in the United States are doing their part with the rehabilitation of former criminals and helping them achieve new lives. How? By literally deleting their old ones.

Bringing it to worldwide attention by The Guardian, several American newspapers and their websites have taken down and erased old reported stories of local crimes. This movement was spearheaded in 2018 by Chris Quinn, an editor at Cleveland.com, who founded a “right to be forgotten” edict for his publication.

Multiple requests from readers to pull down old reports about them or simply remove their names from the stories inspired Quinn’s movement. One such example that Quinn experienced was a woman in the health field who at one point stole some drugs from her job. She served her sentence and not only was deemed completely rehabilitated by a judge, but had the records of her crime sealed. In short, no one would be able to find records of her crime today through official channels. Google, however, doesn’t forget.

A tough job interviewHaving a mistake from your past available online makes it more difficult during job interviews.Photo credit: Canva

While she tried to start a new career outside the medical field (she accepted the fact that her actions made it so she couldn’t reclaim her medical license), any potential employer could see her mugshot from Cleveland.com’s news coverage of her past crime upon just Googling her name. This made it difficult to move forward by obtaining a new job for her new life.

She’s just one of millions of people going through this struggle. Per The Sentencing Project, more than 60% of formerly incarcerated people are unemployed within one year of being released, and as many as one in three Americans have a criminal record of some sort. Given that most job applications require a background check, employers can unearth past offenses of job applicants through a simple Google search, which can influence whether or not a person can be hired. This means that a good chunk of Americans are losing out on opportunities due to being judged by a mistake they made deep in the past, some of which are decades-old.

A person in prison with their head in their hands.With their stories still available to the public years later, some rehabilitated offenders still feel imprisoned by their past.Photo credit: Canva

“We heard from many people about the pain this caused for them, especially those who had turned their lives around and were striving to be better people,” said Quinn in a 2022 op-ed updating their readers. “In 2018, we started our Right to be Forgotten project, accepting applications from people to remove their names from dated stories about them. We received 10 to 15 a month on average, and a committee of editors considered them.”

Other publications took notice and in recent years started enacting their own “right to be forgotten” practices, such as The Oregonian and The Boston Globe.

“Our response up until now has been that we do not remove accurate stories, as they are a snapshot of historical fact,” wrote Therese Bottomly, editor at The Oregonian. “But news organizations are coming to realize that such stories linger and affect lives in ways that can be outsized compared to the incident itself.”

Each publication has their own standards as to what stories get taken down and which ones remain online. Certain factors come into play in making that decision such as how long ago the incident was first reported and the severity of the crime committed. Some publications may elect to keep stories as written, but remove any mugshots that identify the persons involved. In any case, the overall focus is universal: Not letting a person’s past define their future.

A road with the words "FRESH START" written on the pavement.A clean slate means a fresh start and a new road for the rehabilitated.Photo credit: Canva

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