“Please don’t think this is racist but…”

That was the disclaimer that an Asian man sent to Rokashi Edwards, 25, a black programmer living in Toronto, before telling him that he would never consider having sex with a black man. Shocked, Edwards tried to push back on the man’s claim that he wasn’t being racist but he ran up against the same obstacle that many gay men of color face in the world of online dating.

“It’s just a preference,” he was told.

The conversation could go no further.

If you’re a gay man, phrases like “no blacks” and “no Asians” aren’t just words that you’d find on old signs in a civil rights museum, they are an unavoidable and current feature of your online dating experience. On gay dating apps like Grindr and Scruff, some men post blunt and often offensive disclaimers on their profiles such as “no oldies,” “no fems,” and “no fatties.” Among the most ubiquitous are racial disclaimers like “no blacks” and “no Asians,” which are most frequently posted by white men but, as Edwards’ case proves, not always.

Sometimes, men even use foods as metaphors for entire ethnic groups: “No rice” to deter Asian men, “no spice” to keep the Latinos away, and “no curry” to tell Indians they don’t have a shot.

Those who deploy these disclaimers defend themselves from accusations of “racism” by claiming that they merely have “preferences” for certain races over others. Wrote one gay blogger, “Don’t tell me I can’t have a preference! I don’t want to have sex with women. No hard feelings. Does that make me a misogynist?” Others have argued that it is impossible to separate the language of so-called sexual racism from racism in other spheres of life. There is a reason, they insist, that men of color are most often pushed to the sexual wayside. “No whites” is a much less popular slogan.

Debates around “sexual racism,” as researchers have labeled it, are particularly heated within the gay community, although it is certainly a source of controversy in heterosexual circles as well. It is also an argument that could soon be settled by emerging sociological research.

A new Australian study published in Archives of Sexual Behavior entitled “Is Sexual Racism Really Racism?” suggests that the answer to that question is probably “yes.” Sex researchers Denton Callander, Christy Newman, and Martin Holt asked over 2,000 gay and bisexual Australian men how they felt about race and dating through an online survey. These men also completed a region-specific version of the Quick Discrimination Index (QDI), a standard survey instrument that measures attitudes on race and diversity.

After putting these two data sets together, the trend was clear: “Sexual racism… is closely associated with generic racist attitudes, which challenges the idea of racial attraction as solely a matter of personal preference.”

As part of their research, Callander and his colleagues created a new eight-question survey to determine men’s attitudes toward racial preferences on online dating apps like Grindr. Respondents were asked whether or not they agreed with statements like “People who indicate a racial preference in their profile are not trying to offend anyone,” and “As long as people are polite about it, I see no problem in indicating a racial preference on my profile.” Remaining “neutral” was an also an option. The men were assigned scores based on their responses.

There has been a substantial amount of commentary about sexual racism among men who have sex with men but, until now, no one has tried to quantify it. Callander told The Daily Beast that his team’s survey will require further refinement going forward but he called it “a good start.”

Even before the researchers compared the men’s attitudes on race and online dating to their QDI scores, they unearthed some telling data points.

Sixty-four percent of the men said that it is acceptable to state a racial preference on an online dating profile and 46 percent said that these preferences do not bother them. Men who had experienced racial exclusion in the past were, predictably, more likely to report being bothered by it than men who hadn’t but, still, a staggering 70 percent disagreed with the argument that sexual racism is “a form of racism.” A majority of them perceived racial exclusion as “a problem” but were reluctant to attribute it to racism.

“While society is generally pretty comfortable condemning racism, there has been a surprising reluctance among people—gay or otherwise—to challenge racialized sex and dating practices,” Callander told The Daily Beast.

The correlation between the men’s online dating attitudes and their QDI scores was even more disappointing, if not unexpected.

Like the sexual racism survey, the QDI asks respondents to agree, disagree, or remain neutral in response to certain statements. In this case, the QDI included items like “Overall, I think minorities in Australia complain too much about ethnic discrimination,” and “I would feel OK about my best friend having a relationship with someone from a different ethnic group.” Lower QDI scores indicate a lower level of tolerance for multiculturalism and racial diversity.

With both sets of survey results in hand, the researchers ran two regression analyses to test for any correlation between them. The results are bad news for anyone who still believes that a disclaimer like “no blacks” is “just a preference.”

“Almost every identified factor associated with men’s racist attitudes was also related to their attitudes toward sexual racism,” the researchers reported. Or, phrased in a more optimistic way: “Men with more positive attitudes toward racial diversity and multiculturalism (on the QDI) tended to view sexual racism less positively.”

This correlation strongly suggests that racial discrimination on gay dating apps can be attributed to racist attitudes and not, as so many maintain, to benign aesthetic preferences. Sexual racism, it turns out, is probably just plain old racism disguised in the language of desire.

“While it may feel like our desires are our own, in reality they are influenced heavily by social norms,” explained Callander. “For me, the findings of this study are a reminder that even though society and individuals may actively reject racism, racial prejudices are increasingly subtle and they can find their way into even the most private and personal corners of our lives.”

The study also found that certain independent factors were associated with higher QDI scores and a more critical stance on sexual racism: a college education, past experience with racial exclusion, identifying as gay, and living in a more sexually diverse neighborhood. Other factors like being white and using online dating services more frequently were linked to higher QDI scores and a more favorable attitude toward sexual racism.

In fact, men who used online dating services more frequently were generally more likely to register as racist on the QDI, which might explain why a full 96 percent of the men in the study reported having seen a racially discriminatory profile over the course of their online dating experiences.

For gay men like Eric, 30, who lives in Atlanta, navigating the thorny issues surrounding race in the gay community is a disheartening “day-to-day experience.” (Eric asked that his real name not be used for this article.)

Eric, who is mixed-race, told The Daily Beast that some men who list “no Asians” on their dating profiles have messaged him anyway, explaining that he is “white enough” for them or that he is attractive to them because can “pass” as white. Eric confronts these men by asking them explain in detail why they think he passes, a question that would require them to talk about his physical features in uncomfortable detail.

“I usually end up with a version of ‘I don’t know, you look kind of white,’ or ‘You seem white,’” he said.

Eric’s experience with online dating highlights another troubling possibility raised by the study’s authors, namely, that gay dating services may actually be encouraging men to sort potential partners by race—at least, more brazenly than they would in person. The authors suggest that dating services that allow users to sort others using racial categories like Grindr, Scruff, Growlr, and others may even “encourage the belief that [these categories] are useful, natural or appropriate for defining individuals and sexual (dis)interest.”

“Thus, men who frequently visit such web services may find their beliefs confirmed and reinforced in an environment that appears conducive to sexual racism,” they speculate.

In other words, sexual racism in gay online dating could be a self-perpetuating cycle, with apps encouraging its perceived social appropriateness by virtue of their very design. So how could that cycle be interrupted? Many gay men, the authors note, will be reluctant to perceive sexual racism as “racist” because that term is “a strong label imbued with heavy social condemnation.” Indeed, one of the most common online strategies for shaking off accusations of sexual racism is appealing to the severity of that term.

“Aren’t the majority of people who type ‘no blacks’ in their profiles more likely to just be plain old stupid rather than ‘sexually oppressive’ haters?” one defense reads. “Rude and socially inept, yes. But racist?”

For Steve, 28, a white gay man living in Philadelphia, one solution is understanding that the word “racist” applies to more than just, as he put it, the activities of the Ku Klux Klan.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions and ‘I’m not trying to be racist’ does not mean ‘I am not racist,'” Steve told The Daily Beast. “It just blows my mind that people could write off entire minorities without any exception and not see that as at all problematic.”

For his part, Callander would like to see his team’s findings used in “implementation research” that could identify “strategies for reducing sexual racism and changing the way that people think about race and romance.” After all, if racism and sexual racism are indeed linked, then strategies to reduce the former should affect the latter as well.

“I am not interested in condemning or criticizing people’s desires, but if we recognize prejudice within ourselves, we must be willing to challenge and confront it,” Callander told The Daily Beast.

On July 31, the day that the Center for Medical Progress was sued over the release of a series of undercover videos targeting Planned Parenthood, Jay Sekulow, a prominent Christian conservative lawyer, released an ad attacking President Obama over his support for the group.

“I call him the defender-in-chief,” said Sekulow, who looks like Saul Goodman with money and a good tailor. Dramatic background music akin to the score of a Hitchcock film played as he attacked Obama for “defending, relentlessly, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in light of all the videos that have been released this week.” The White House’s support for Planned Parenthood, Sekulow argued, was “unthinkable” on its own, but to blame the creators of the sting videos for anything at all, he said, “well, that just doesn't work.”

“The veneer of Planned Parenthood has been peeled back,” Sekulow said, and that meant whether or not Congress halted federal funding to Planned Parenthood, the group would never win the larger battle.

Sekulow had reason to make such an argument.

His charity and law firm, The American Center for Law and Justice, had signed on to represent the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion activist group, along with its founder, David Daleiden, and a board member, Troy Newman, against the National Abortion Federation’s claims that they had violated a nondisclosure agreement by releasing footage of Planned Parenthood executives coldly discussing the harvesting and sale of fetal tissue.  

“This is a critical case involving the First Amendment and the constitutionally-protected rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press,” Sekulow said in a press release announcing his new clients. “We are representing all of the defendants in this federal case and will aggressively defend against this unwarranted attack on the First Amendment.”

For Sekulow, who has made a career out of exploiting the idea that Christians are under attack by secular America, this lawsuit is about more than just some alleged agreement between two parties. It’s about freedom itself. If it also leads to enriching Jay Sekulow and his family and influencing right-wing rhetoric as conservatives fight to defund Planned Parenthood in Congress, all the better for them.

That has certainly been the case in the past.

An examination of tax returns for the American Center for Law and Justice, which Sekulow founded with Pat Robertson in 1990, and for Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, Sekulow’s other charity, which was was founded in San Francisco in 1992, suggest that the two groups funnel millions of dollars into Sekulow’s coffers.

Both charities, oddly, use the name “American Center for Law and Justice” and share a website, ACLJ.org. But the incestuous relationship doesn’t end there.

ACLJ and CASE’s stated objective is to “protect religious and constitutional freedoms” by providing legal services to allegedly persecuted Christians, such as the videographers who secretly taped the Planned Parenthood employees, but the considerable wealth with which they have blessed the Sekulow family seems to be more than just the fortuitous byproduct of carrying out the Lord’s work.

Now, none of what the Sekulow’s charities are doing is illegal: They are rated as a C+ by CharityWatch, a non-profit watchdog group. But charity work has certainly made the Sekulow family a lot of money and, of course, the charity status makes them free and clear of federal taxes.

In 2005, the Legal Times reported that Sekulow had “multiple homes, chauffeur driven cars, and a private jet that he once used to ferry Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.” Six years later, in 2011, another investigation—this time by The Tennessean—revealed that Sekulow and his wife, Pam, owned three homes, in Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, totaling more than $1.6 million.

At some charities, an executive’s lavish lifestyle might raise eyebrows, but at the ACLJ and CASE, the checks and balances are handled not by independent outsiders, but by Sekulow’s family.

ACLJ’s 11-person board of trustees has two Sekulows on it, Jay and his brother Gary, the “VP of finance,” who has received $749,607 from the group in the last three years.

While ACLJ’s 2014 tax returns suggest Jay Sekulow does not receive a salary from the organization, the ACLJ did pay $3,323,414 for “legal” services to the Constitutional Litigation and Advocacy Group, a law firm that just happens to be co-owned by Jay Sekulow.

What makes it all the more unsavory, six members of CASE’s seven-person board are Sekulows, including Gary, the group’s CFO and COO, who receives an additional salary of over $400,000. From 2009 to 2013, as the Obama years saw a spike in alleged Christian persecution, the family did quite well: The six Sekulows on CASE’s board received a total of $2,170,566.

This is all on top of what The Tennessean calculated to be $33 million doled out to the Sekulows by the charities from 1998 to 2011.

In 2012, shortly after the Tennessean investigation appeared, Larry Crain, who was senior counsel at the ACLJ for 15 years, left the organization. Asked if his departure was related to the newspaper’s revelations, which the ACLJ called a “flawed” and “biased... attack,” Crain said, “I really—I’m not at liberty to discuss that. It was a mutual decision. I’m just not at liberty to discuss that.” Sekulow, Crain assured me, is “brilliant” and “I have the highest regard for Mr. Sekulow.”

Born in Brooklyn on June 10, 1956, Sekulow began his career as a trial attorney for the IRS, representing the Department of Treasury. By the 1980s he was lost. His Atlanta law firm had failed and left him in debt, according to The Tennessean, and he found himself in need of a miracle. He was blessed with one in the form of a San Francisco-based group called Jews for Jesus.

Jews for Jesus had been handing out religious pamphlets at Los Angeles International airport, much to the dismay of the commissioners running LAX. To Sekulow, this was a threat to freedom of religion and speech. He sued and the case eventually reached the Supreme Court, which in 1987 ruled nine to nothing in favor of Jews for Jesus.

“I almost feel like God raised me back from the dead,” he told the Atlanta Journal Constitution in 1991, according to The Tennessean. “It was a spiritual rebirth.”

In a testimonial on Jews for Jesus's website, Sekulow claims he “committed his life to Jesus” in February 1976, after becoming convinced of his initial “suspicion” that “Jesus might really be the Messiah.”

In the 1990s, Sekulow took on Operation Rescue, a militant anti-abortion group perhaps best known for the attempt by some of its members to hand then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton an aborted fetus. Sekulow has twice represented Operation Rescue before the Supreme Court, in 2003 and 2006.

In total, he has argued before the Supreme Court 12 times.

With every case he has taken on, Sekulow has steadily built a brand as the right’s legal guardian angel. In addition to the ACLJ and CASE he has also built a small media empire, which includes a radio show, Jay Sekulow Live!, which “engages millions of people listening via 850 radio stations, as well as XM and SIRIUS satellite radio” every day, according to his personal website; a weekly TV show, ACLJ This Week, which airs on a series of Christian networks; and a side-gig pontificating on Fox News (particularly on Hannity) and the 700 Club as well as in the pages of the New York Daily News, The Washington Times, USA Today and on Townhall.com. He also “regularly blogs” at Beliefnet.com, which claims to have 5 million unique readers per month. He has a dad band, too, and frequently posts his music videos—like his cover of the Beatles’ “Revolution”—on YouTube. His guitar strap, fittingly, is covered in stars.

It helps that Sekulow, who did not respond to two interview requests from The Daily Beast, looks the part. He is a cable TV booker’s idea of what a legal expert should look like: well-tailored pinstripe suits, crisp white shirts, and jewel-colored power ties. His hair is suspiciously thick and neatly parted on the side. He wears black-rimmed glasses that frame a vaguely wolf-like stare.

He is, in short, utterly believable.

“He’s the smartest guy in the room,” one observer, who is tied into the Christian charity community, said. “He’s not gonna take on a case he can’t win. He knows how to get to the Supreme Court and win.”

The source said he once heard someone ask Sekulow if Christian bakers should be forced to bake cakes for same sex marriages, “and he said they should just bake the cake, cause they’re gonna lose in court.”

That said, according to the source, Sekulow is a “true believer.”

Sekulow has used his high-profile legal cases and excellent media skills to ingratiate himself not just into the green rooms at Fox, but also into the upper echelons of Republican presidential campaigns.

In 2008 and 2012, Sekulow served as an adviser to Mitt Romney. In 2007, wearing a “Mitt” sticker on his lapel, Sekulow told a reporter at CPAC that he got to know Romney personally as they both “defended traditional marriage” in Massachusetts and was supporting his candidacy because, “I know that he’s gonna appoint the right kind of judges and, for me, that’s what matters, is how these judicial nominations come into play and the next president will have probably two or three vacancies at the Supreme Court again, and who’s on that Supreme Court for the rest of my life?”

Four years later, Romney officially announced the elder Sekulow’s support for his second White House attempt on his campaign website, but when Sekulow’s charity work in Africa—that included backing the criminalization of homosexualitity in Zimbabwe—came under scrutiny by the media, a spokesman for Sekulow, Gene Kapp, told Mother Jones that his role on the campaign was “informal” and “unpaid” and the endorsement was made “in his individual capacity as a private citizen.”

Sekulow’s son, Jordan Sekulow, is also in the consultant game. He also worked for George W. Bush’s campaign in 2004 as the national youth director, as vice chair of Romney’s National Faith and Values Steering Committee in 2008, and now advises Jeb Bush, the establishment favorite for the Republican nomination.

“I am excited to begin a conversation with conservatives about Governor Bush’s pro-life, pro-family, tax-cutting record in Florida,” the younger Sekulow said in March, when his role on the campaign was announced, “and the ideas we need to put into action to give every American a chance to rise up.”

In April, before Bush had even announced his candidacy, Sekulow was telling a crowd at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference that Bush would be the candidate to defund Planned Parenthood and to appoint the right kind of judges to the Supreme Court.

The Sekulow family political agenda is clear.

On their charity website, there is a full page of petitions that attempt to tap into right-wing anger about a wide range of liberal outrages. Some of the petitions make sense for a Christian organization (“defend religious freedom on college campuses” and “stop ISIS’s genocide of Christians”). But other ones seem to have no connection to the group’s mission (“protect national security—investigate Secretary of State Clinton’s emails”).

They all boast tens of thousands of signatures, but none is as popular as “stop Planned Parenthood harvesting and selling babies’ organs” which has 271,207. “Planned Parenthood is harvesting body parts from butchered babies,” it reads. “It’s startling and disgusting in scope.”

Republican allies in Congress are using the exposé videos to drum up support for their push to deny federal funding to Planned Parenthood. To sway those unmoved by the contents of the exposé videos, Sekulow is making the argument that by questioning their right to be released, the National Abortion Federation and its pro-choice supporters are silencing Christians, whose freedom of speech has long been under assault by the PC establishment.

It’s sure to be a busy and lucrative fall for the Sekulow family.

Americans believe their political system is broken and doesn’t represent them. That’s certainly what’s behind the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, two unconventional candidates who each has the support of about one-fourth of his party. But Trump and Sanders sit on the tip of a very large iceberg.

Below the surface is a mass of independent voters. “The largest party in the United States is not a political party at all,” said Chuck Todd on Meet the Press last month. Some 45 percent of Americans say they are political independents, compared with 27 percent who identify as Democrats and 20 percent as Republicans.

Independents remain submerged because they don’t have a candidate—even though 62 percent of U.S. voters say they’d like a chance to choose someone who’s neither the Democratic nor Republican nominee. But an independent or third-party candidate can’t get elected without being on the stage for the final fall 2016 presidential debates, and a group of 17 unelected citizens, nearly all of them stalwarts of the major parties, is blocking them.

Standing in the way is something called the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonprofit whose charter and mandate from the Federal Election Commission require it to be “non-partisan”—though it clearly isn’t. The commission is co-chaired by the former head of the Republican Party, Frank Fahrenkopf, and the ex-press secretary to President Clinton, Mike McCurry. The group, firmly bi-partisan, has set rules to keep independents off the stage.

Here’s the way one commission member, former Senator Alan Simpson, sums his up responsibility: “The purpose of the commission, it seems to me, is to try to preserve the two-party system that works very well, and if you like the multiparty system, then go to Sri Lanka and India and Indonesia. I think it’s obvious that independent candidates mess things up.”

By a two-to-one margin, however, U.S. voters support relaxing the rules that effectively bar an independent from that stage, according to a poll and focus groups conducted by Peter D. Hart for the Annenberg Working Group on Presidential Debate Reform. The most contentious rule requires that a candidate poll 15 percent of the electorate in surveys taken shortly before the first debate, or roughly seven weeks before the election.

In a piece on The Daily Beast recently, Eleanor Clift wrote, “Among independent candidates, only Ross Perot in 1992 managed to poll above the 15 percent threshold in the spring and summer to get him into the debates with President George H.W. Bush and then Governor Bill Clinton.”

In fact, it was not until 1999 (seven years after Perot ran) that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) established its 15 percent polling threshold. In 1992, no such threshold existed; the CPD used a more subjective standard. Immediately prior to the initial 1992 debate, Perot was polling at just 8 percent, although he’d reached a higher threshold in the previous June. In fact, no independent candidate who did not compete in a party primary has polled at 15 percent in September in a half-century.

Clift also noted that the CPD is considering lowering the threshold to 10 percent. That’s true, but it still presents an enormous obstacle. As long as the commission keeps the determination date in September, it would still effectively block independents from the stage. Not knowing that he or she would be a debater until just before the first contest would prevent an independent from gaining the media attention and funding to be a serious contender—a fact the commission knows very well. Which is why it has insisted on the September date.

I am part of an informal group of 50 current and former public officials and leaders in business, academia, and the military called Change the Rule. We’re all campaigning to open the debates as a way to improve American democracy, and wherever I go to speak about our movement, I find enormous support.

Specifically, we want a solution that follows three principles: 1) a competition for the third spot (not an arbitrary polling hurdle) open to all candidates who are not the Democratic and Republican nominees; 2) direct voter engagement (signature drives or online voting, for example) to measure an independent candidate’s strength and legitimacy; and 3) one winner by April 30, 2016, thus allowing enough time to boost name recognition, and put the independent on a par with the other nominees.

We’ve offered several alternatives to the CPD—and, more important, we’ve offered since the beginning of this year to sit down with the entire commission to discuss the way the CPD wants to open the debates. So far, no dice. A “reexamination” of the CPD’s rules “is long overdue,” as Ann Ravel, chair of the Federal Election Commission, recently stated. She cast doubt on the use of polling in an era when surveys have proven so inaccurate.

A few weeks ago, six Change the Rules members made an exciting proposal in a letter to the CPD. The six include four former elected officials: Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE), Gov. Tom Kean (R-NJ), and Reps. Lee Hamilton (D-IN) and Vin Weber (R-MN), plus former CIA Director Michael Hayden and a leading scholar on democracy, Larry Diamond of Stanford.

They proposed a month-long series of debates, interviews, and online voting—with participation by all Americans (not just from New Hampshire or Iowa)—that would culminate in the selection of a single independent candidate to stand on the stage with the Democratic and Republican nominees for debates in September and October 2016.

This is precisely what independents want. And, more important, it is what the country needs to get out of our rut of polarization and poor political performance. To work, however, the proposal needs the CPD onboard—simply to say yes to that third candidate. America is waiting for an answer.

Kylie Jenner’s barely legal tour is in full swing. The 18-year-old high school graduate and cutout bikini enthusiast gave the Internet a guilty boner on Tuesday with the release of her Galore Magazine interview and photoshoot. While the article doesn't exactly dole out revelations (yes, of course Kylie Jenner has an incredible work ethic—we’ve all watched YouTube tutorials on the time-consuming, laborious art of facial contouring), the NSFW photos definitely deliver.

We start off with a semi-wholesome vibe, as lil’ sis Jenner shouts out Kim by stealing her Balmain pants. But the sweet, hand-me-down vibe is soon overpowered by images that are more reminiscent of another kind of home video. In one shot, Jenner holds a little stuffed tiger over her own…crotch. When not posing suggestively with an 18^th birthday cake, Jenner shows off her matching Moschino bra and panties, and pulls down her Moschino shorts to reveal her very own underwear. 

Surprisingly enough, this high fashion peep show wasn’t directed by Jared Fogle—Terry Richardson, fashion’s highest-paid pervert, took the reigns on the racy shoot. Richardson isn’t just the photographer who made aggressively dry humping a piece of construction equipment great again—he’s also been the subject of a barrage of allegations from models and industry insiders who claim that he non-consensually defiles, degrades, and altogether icks out his often underage subjects. Like any man with a stated pornography obsession, Richardson has never had a reputation for loving and respecting women. In 2010, model Rie Rasmussen confronted the photographer, insisting, “He takes girls who are young, manipulates them to take their clothes off and takes pictures of them they will be ashamed of. They are too afraid to say no because their agency booked them on the job and are too young to stand up for themselves.” The next year, former model Jamie Peck went public with her recollection of Richardson asking her if he could make himself tea with her used tampon, before whipping out his penis and demanding a hand job. Her story rocked the fashion world as only used tampon tea can, and the allegations started piling up, along with public distancings from celebs like Lena Dunham and Coco Rocha and publications like Vogue.

Kylie Jenner is, inarguably, a ridiculous human being. She believes in chemtrail conspiracies, dates the 25-year-old auteur behind “Rack City,” and has more Cartier love bracelets than a U-Michigan Kappa. But her decision to shoot with such an abhorrent human being is more than just silly—it’s downright off-brand (gasp!). The Kardashians aren’t in the business of landing on the wrong side of history. Caitlyn Jenner’s extremely public transition this summer marked the former Olympic athlete, and her supportive family, as the new faces of trans visibility (for better or worse). Meanwhile, most-famous Kim has revealed her progressive hand on a number of issues, coming out in favor of stricter gun control laws and opining that the Supreme Court’s ruling to legalize gay marriage made her “proud to be an American.”

Given Kim’s politics—and the fact that her husband Kanye West is planning to run for president in 2020—her own history with Richardson is even less explicable. The usually savvy superstar somehow agreed to let the photographer work on her July Rolling Stone shoot. In addition to implying her continued support for the abusive artist, the RS cover also made Kim look like a particularly busty Miami boat show model.

By posing for Richardson, the Kardashian klan will only continue to find themselves in lose-lose situations. Kylie, any smart photographer would love to shoot you seductively peeling off your Moschino only to reveal more Moschino. For that matter, your personal Instagrams are better than this derivative Richardson drivel. Buying your own suggestive prop stuffed animals: $20. Boycotting photography’s most sadistic, perverted, pig: Priceless. 

The Queen today officially became the biggest hardass in British Royal history, overtaking Queen Victoria as the longest reigning British Monarch of all time.

Making a heartfelt speech at a scheduled public appearance today, Her Majesty said of the new record she had set that it was “not one to which I have ever aspired.”

She was speaking after taking a ride in Scotland on a newly opened train line with the Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon.

She said, “Inevitably a long life can pass by many milestones and my own is no exception. I thank all those at home and overseas for your touching messages of great kindness.”

The quiet and dignified address was of a piece with briefings in which the Queen had  insisted there was to be ‘no fuss’ about today’s milestone.

Sources said that the Queen’s happiness at being able to continue her own service to the nation was tempered by the knowledge that her youthful accession to the throne was caused by the unexpectedly early death of her father, George VI.

There was also concern that any celebrations may have been interpreted as disrespectful to Victoria’s memory.

The Queen today wore a bow brooch commissioned by Queen Victoria from the royal jeweller Garrard, and made with 506 diamonds, in silent tribute to her forebear.

The Queen was attending the opening of the new Scottish Borders Railway, which runs from Edinburgh to Tweedbank.

She may have wanted no fuss, but the enthusiasm of the British people could not be constrained, and an uncharacteristically large crowd of about 1,000 people gathered at Tweedbank railway station to greet the Queen.

In a half-hour session of tributes in Parliament, David Cameron said: “While I rarely advocate disobeying Her Majesty, least of all in her own Parliament, I do think it’s right today we should stop and take a moment as a nation to mark this historic milestone and to thank Her Majesty for the extraordinary service she’s given to our country over more than six decades.”

Mr Cameron said it was “truly humbling” to comprehend the scale of the Queen’s public service, noting: “The reign of Queen Elizabeth has been a golden thread running through three post-war generations, and she’s presided over more than two-thirds of our history as a full democracy with everyone being able to vote.”

He added the Queen has answered more than 3.5 million pieces of correspondence and sent more than 100,000 telegrams to centenarians across the Commonwealth and “met more people than any other monarch in history.”

Following David Cameron in the Commons tributes session, Harriet Harman said: “There can be no doubt of the commitment that she has made and the public service she has given, and continues to give.”

“Her life has been a great sweep of British history—the Second World War, the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and she’s presided over the transition from empire to Commonwealth.”

Ms. Harman added, “It’s entirely characteristic of her that she has let it be known that she doesn’t want there to be a fuss about today, but we are making a fuss and deservedly so.”

Prince Andrew told the BBC: “It’s a milestone in UK terms but as far as her consistency and leadership, it’s the run-of-the mill, normal day. A normal day in her reign.

“Yes it’s an extraordinary achievement in some respects but it’s actually about the consistency and the leadership she is showing and has shown throughout her reign which is probably the one thing that marks her up more than anything else.”