Alabama Mayor Kills Self After Right-Wing Blog Outs His Cross-Dressing

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 572 points – Alabama Mayor Kills Self After Right-Wing Blog Outs His Cross-Dressing
thedailybeast.com

A small-town Alabama pastor and mayor killed himself Friday, days after a local conservative news website published a story that included photos of him wearing women’s clothing and makeup.

F.L. “Bubba” Copeland, who was the mayor of Smiths Station and the pastor at First Baptist Church in Phenix City, shot himself in front of police during a welfare check, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said.

Copeland’s private life was exposed Wednesday by the conservative blog 1819 News, which was once owned by the right-wing Alabama Policy Institute and whose top editor is a former Breitbart News contributor.

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This, in a nutshell, why people become conservative. Because shame and a toxic community keep them from being who they really want to be. Because they need to belong to something so badly that they'll even join a gang of bigots rather than admit they're actually the target of that bigotry.

Conservative blog 1819 must be very proud of themselves.

Edit: I just emailed them asking which Republican they plan on killing next. Will let you all know if I get a reply.

We need a RemindMe bot for things like what you're doing.

Poor guy. This is sad. I hate hearing stories like this

I wouldn’t feel as bad if he was a raging bigot about lgbtq issues, but apparently he didn’t have much to say about that which is pretty impressive for a BAPTIST PREACHER IN ALABAMA.

Yeah, he obviously dealt with a lot of cognitive dissonance between his experience and the culture he was raised in. He wasn’t some hypocrite who was preaching ‘family values’ or some other nonsense, just a tortured soul driven over the edge.

The world just lost another potential ally. He could have helped shape the discourse in his town for the better, but instead he’s being buried. This is a sad day.

poor poor racist republican, joined the republican party to hold down women, and minorities, didn't wanna get into the whole the leopards that eat faces party that i joined might eat my face should they find out i like wearing women's clothing, here, let me just defund another domestic violence shelter, nope, i'll be just fine

Actually, I looked more into his history and you know what I found? They (using neutral pronouns because there's confusion about whether or not they were actually trans or just cross-dressing) seemed to actually be a pretty cool person. They were very supportive of their trans sisters online and generally encouraging to them.

To be honest, that really isn't all that surprising. The smaller the town, the less likely it is for local party politics mirror state or federal politics. Normally this means small town politics tend to swing hard-right and either radical libertarian or authoritarian, but it sounds like in this case they probably wanted to be more supportive and inclusive and was possibly being held back by locals. The reality of it is that they were probably Republican because it was the only way to get elected, not because they agreed with the Republican party. Let's be honest here as well, does it really make sense that someone would be supportive of trans people and then turn around and demonize them?

Sometimes the only way you can make a difference is to walk through the leopards' cage and hope you don't get eaten before you reach the other side.

Finally, I'm not even fully convinced that they did kill themselves. Personally, I'll be waiting to see if any bodycam footage shows up. Small town cops only side with the mayor when they want something done, or when the mayor is actively supporting them, otherwise the mayor is just as much an enemy to them as anyone else.

Edit: it's also possible that they were a Republican before discovering their love for cross-dressing or desire to be trans, and they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Because they were in a conservative area, it's entirely possible they were afraid for their life and or were so heavily indoctrinated by Republicans that they believed that they were the problem, not the party (though the latter doesn't explain why they were supportive of trans folk online); and considering they supposedly committed suicide in front of cops with no witnesses, it's entirely possible they were killed by cops and therefore justified in their fear. It's easy to forget or underestimate just how dangerous it is to be trans in America, especially if you're from a more liberal city.

If you join fascist organisation, you're a fucking asshole and there's absolutely no excuse. Defending these people just makes you an asshole too.

He probably couldn’t run as a Dem, so he ran as GOP because that’s all that would be elected locally. Doesn’t nesc mean he was a Magat.

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The cognitive dissonance from being a transitioning person and a Republican politician at the same time must be agonizing.

Crossdressing isn't transexuality by itself.

I wish more people understood this. Seems like so many are simply incapable of accepting any nuance anymore. Everything is binary. This or That. With me or against me.

You mean I could wear clothing ostensibly for women and I wouldn't need to immediately identify as a woman and become gay? Well fuck. Wasted my whole life on all this man stuff.

Yes. I was born a male but am medically transitioning to be more fem but I identify as non-binary.

True, but the article did indicate that they were posting as a trans woman. Maybe she’s trans, maybe he’s a cis crossdresser, either way what did they expect.

The person in question self described as transgender. It wasn't a guess.

Also religious in the deep south AND a pastor. He must've been seeing Green-Goblin hallucinations but with Kenneth Copeland instead of Willem Dafoe.

Stop it. That’s terrifying.

The only good thing about Kenneth Copeland is the he looks like he’s got two feet and three hands in the grave already.

If you read the original article (the one that prompted his suicide), the guy explicitly said that he didn't feel female. He was just a crossdresser.

The problem with people is that some are idiots. Regardless of what group you’re in you’ve got some really stupid assholes. Or as their fellow republicans will see them: useful idiots

Phew. I was hoping he was a GOP member. Glad this story had a happy ending.

Fuck I just feel sorry for them

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS! If people won't listen to Jesus, maybe they can listen to his modern day apostle Fred Rogers when he said "I like you just the way you are."

maybe they can listen to his modern day apostle Fred Rogers when he said “I like you just the way you are.”

Right. That would be Presbyterian minister, children's show host, gave-out-full-size-candy-bars-at-Halloween Fred Rogers, yes? The one that Fox went out of their way to describe as "an evil, evil man" who was [in effect] responsible for corrupting today's youth? Well, sadly, I think I can explain why they don't listen to Mr. Rogers ...

They do listen to Jesus. Not the Middle-Eastern Jewish Socialist Jesus. They listen to white racist Conservative American Jesus, they listen to Supply Side Jesus, they listen to the Jesus who can fit a rich man through the eye of a needle and who's death gives them the right to sin.

Trickle-down Jesus, with an exceptionally wide stance.

I'm absolutely horrified by so many folks in the comment section blinded by partisan hate.

It’s even worse than that. No one knows the story at all but they all have a fully developed opinion from reading the headline.

Maybe some of the locals whose children he posted to pornographic websites won’t miss him.

Maybe the local businesswoman he obsessed over while he wrote stories about killing her, seducing her husband, and stealing her life won’t miss him.

It is scary how easy it is to get people to rally over things they know nothing about. I’m not holier than thou either. I’ve caught myself reacting before thinking.

Edit: I want to make it clear that I wish this person had got help. I definitely feel empathy for this person, I just don’t think that the cross dressing is the primary issue here. This person was public figure posting deranged and terrible things online using real people from his town as objects of fantasy.

None of that is in the article.

You’re right, it’s in the article referenced, with screenshots and evidence.

It is not.

Here you go, THE ARTICLE REFERENCED AS THE REASON KILLED HIMSELF.

You could have found this all on your own.

https://1819news.com/news/item/to-say-i-was-a-stalker-would-be-a-bit-of-an-understatement-curvy-transgender-smiths-station-mayor-copeland-wrote-fiction-about-murdering-real-life-local-businesswoman-assuming-her-identity

That's the hard right shitrag that drove him to suicide.

That's the hard right shitrag that drove him to suicide. They are not credible.

Republicans love stuff like this. If you're different they think you should die.

One of the sad things is how big he's smiling in the picture. Looks like a jolly guy.

Hate post》skip if you want to save yourself some time

What a bunch of retarded mother fuckers. They have so much fear of being who they are around the people they align themselves with, that they will literally anhero themselves the second anything comes out about them that they and the rest of the party isn't doing themselves; or have built such a strong vindictive campaign against a community against, that they take their own lives out of guilt. Crossdressing? Dead. Outed gay? Dead. Dating someone who's friends with gays, needs baptism by fire. Not Christian?Avoided. Fucking kids? God forgives. Beating kids? God forgives. Killing kids? The jury is out. Hears out the other side? Crucified. Dissagrees with problems within their own party? Needs to die. Supporting the businesses of murdering/abandoning children? Political points. Hate speech and dillusional manipulation of the angry and mentally unstable base that follows them? BIG political boost. Be revealed as the person you really are, after you've sold your soul to a hateful political party you know will crucify you for being the thing they target for sensational political favor? Fucking anhero quick.

Why? What's the point? What is the point, the ultimate goal, of building a pyre of political beliefs that will scorch the entirety of everything around you and the weell-being of the future of those and many more to come? Especially when you know it goes against who you really are deep down, and how it may affect you if/when the tides turn...

I hate this party so much. I understand the reasons why they do the things they do. I understand why they believe in the things they believe. But, I just can't tolerate it anymore. I have empathy for these people in these situations, but I also have an understanding.

If two of your friends were in a relationship, that was symbolically the most dearest thing to your heart, and over time you noticed one of them becoming more cynical/violent/abusive/hateful/radical/corrupt/etc. While the other was hernestly trying to fix and build the relationship they know they were stuck in to male things better; not only for themselves but better for everyone around them... would you stand there, silent, absent of action and rationality?

I hate the fact that our system, our country, is in the volatile condition that it's in. I know you do too.

Vote, protest, listen, communicate, have patience, fight. Those are your options. Just choose wisely and try to follow that order I guess.

All Republicans are hypocritical bigots, by definition. It's the core of their political party, it's who they signed up to be identified with, it's who they are, or in the case of this poor bigoted fuck, were. I don't want to see any "but this was a nice republican" bullshit. After the Southern Strategy in 1964, all Republicans are trash, every single one.

Institutionalized racism, misogyny, homophobia, and white Christian separatism as party platform. No matter how "conservative" Republicans claimed to be, The Southern Strategy was the core value and singular driving force for the past 60 years. MAGA isn't a symptom, it's result.

There's more work to be done :

As a republican, he was part of the problem

It's people saying shit like this that is part of the problem. While the left is generally much more accepting than the right our community needs to be better about accepting people who don't share all our beliefs. Maybe that way when they start to become more progressive and can help bring other people over that have some fledgling left wing values in them.

yeah we're pretty intolerant of intolerance here on the left, but we know you "live in a society"

Luckily intolerance and republicanism are learned traits and can be changed.

This guy killed himself because his his inherent traits were outed. Traits that are usually ones we want acceptance and equality for.

And no one of value was lost

Purportedly, he wasn't a hypocrite. He didn't hold or express anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment. I would consider that a loss since he's probably going to be replaced by one of the bigoted politicians.

He was a member of a group that didn't want him as a member. He slept with leopards and they ate his face. Hypocrisy takes many forms.

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