Groveland Councilwoman Judi Fike – Photo: City of Groveland, Florida.
Judi Fike, a Republican councilwoman in Groveland, Florida, has been reinstated to her seat after fellow council members suspended her over offensive social media posts targeting Black and LGBTQ communities. Fike, who was appointed in October 2024 to represent the city’s District 4, has filed a lawsuit challenging the suspension.
Fike’s attorney, Lake County Commissioner Anthony Sabatini — a two-time congressional candidate with a history of pushing anti-LGBTQ legislation — told the Orlando Sentinel that Fike was reinstated following a preliminary hearing on July 16.
Sabatini argued that the city lacked the legal authority to suspend a sitting council member, claiming that Fike was removed solely because of her social media posts. He is also seeking to nullify any council votes taken during her absence.
“We won, so she’s back on the council,” Sabatini said after the hearing.
He added that they plan to pursue further legal action over alleged violations of Florida’s public meetings laws, seeking to overturn eight ordinances passed during Fike’s suspension and recover attorney’s fees.
Fike came under fire for a series of social media posts dating back to 2015, detailed in a report by the Clermont Sun, a local newspaper.
Several of the posts, allegedly written on Fike’s now-deleted “Widow Fike” X account or her Facebook page, contained racially insensitive content.
One post allegedly showed Ronald Reagan babysitting Barack Obama, who was portrayed as a monkey. In another, Fike wrote, “#thug the new n word.” In 2019, she posted, “Thug life = thug treatment = no pity from me,” and in 2022, shared a meme that read, “What’s the magic word to get what you want? Racist!”
The posts sparked backlash in Groveland, a city with a painful history of racial injustice. In 1949, four Black teenagers known as “The Groveland Four” were falsely accused of rape — leading to the extrajudicial killings of two and the wrongful imprisonment of the others. They were posthumously pardoned in 2019, according to the Sentinel.
Fike was also criticized for anti-LGBTQ posts, including a 2015 comment that read, “Can we divert our attention back to real news? The #LGBT freak show has had its run.”
On June 12, 2016, just hours after the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Fike wrote on Facebook, “Duh…why would the shooter target a gay club? My answer…Easier than marching them up steps to push off the roof…some sarcasm, some truth.”
After the Clermont Sun story broke, Fike responded with an op-ed published in the paper, in which she offered an apology “to anyone who was hurt” by the posts, but also maintained that they were resurrected as part of a “political attack” ahead of the August 19 Republican primary, in which Fike is running against two other candidates.
After the Clermont Sun story broke, Fike responded with an op-ed apologizing “to anyone who was hurt” by the posts. She claimed they were resurfaced as part of a “political attack” ahead of the August 19 Republican primary, where she’s running against two other candidates.
“I take full responsibility for my past words. I regret them deeply, and I sincerely apologize to anyone who was hurt by them,” she wrote. “These tweets didn’t suddenly resurface, someone chose to dig them up and distribute them anonymously in an election season, to distract from the real issues. I will not let that tactic work.”
At a special city council meeting called to address the controversy, Fike attempted to defend some of her posts. Regarding the Pulse comment, she claimed she was referencing a 2016 presidential candidate — presumably Hillary Clinton — aligning with radical Islamists in the Middle East who were “pushing gay individuals off of buildings.”
Fike denied authorship of some posts detailed in the Clermont Sun article, calling them “manipulated.”
“They are not my words,” she said. “Some are, there are some copies, but what [Councilwoman] Barbara [Gaines] just showed were absolutely not products of mine.”
Fike’s fellow council members ultimately voted to suspend her pending an investigation. Two days later, she filed her lawsuit.
With her seat restored, Fike remains on the council while her lawsuit moves forward. She continues to campaign for a full term in the upcoming August 19 Republican primary, where the controversy over her past posts is likely to remain a central issue.
New York PBS affiliate WNET has removed three educational episodes addressing transgender identity and drag expression from its archives, following threats from congressional conservatives and the Trump administration to defund public broadcasting.
One targeted program was a 2021 episode of the educational series Let’s Learn, titled “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.” The episode featured drag queen and children’s author Lil Miss Hot Mess reading from her book of the same name—a playful take on the classic nursery rhyme “The Wheels on the Bus.”
A fundamentalist church in Indianapolis is defending a June 29 sermon in which a lay preacher urged congregants to pray for LGBTQ people to die and suggested they kill themselves.
The remarks, delivered by Stephen Falco during a “Men’s Preaching Night” at Sure Foundation Baptist Church, included multiple homophobic slurs, biblical references, and rants against Pride Month, LGBTQ rights, and what he called “disgusting” and “evil” behavior, according to TheIndianapolis Star.
"Why do I hate sodomites, why do I hate f****ts? Because they attack children," Falco ranted in the sermon, video of which was posted to Sure Foundation Baptist Church's YouTube channel. "They're coming after your children, they are attacking them in schools today, and not only schools, in public places, and they're proud about it!
Jackson Vogel has been sentenced to life without parole for strangling his cellmate -- 19-year-old Micah Laureano, a Black gay man -- inside Green Bay Correctional Institution in what prosecutors described as a racially and homophobically motivated killing.
The Wisconsin inmate was found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide by a jury last month.
Before sentencing, Vogel -- who was already serving a 20-year term for attempting to kill his mother in 2016, when he was just 16 -- told Brown County Circuit Judge Donald Zuidmulder he was "sorry" for his actions, although he did not appear to show any signs of regret.
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