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The man, Tom MacMaster, lives in Edinburgh and wrote the blog pretending to be a feminist and lesbian Amina Abdallagh Araf al Omari writing about her life in Syria and her views on politics and religion.
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According to the Washington Post, now a 58-year-old US Air Force Veteran named Bill Graber has admitted to being one of the editors of the LezGetReal lesbian blog, writing under the name Paula Brooks.
However the man saying he was Brooks’ father eventually admitted to being Graber. He told the newspaper that he started the site to write about gay issues after seeing two friends who were a lesbian couple being mistreated.
I’m not dumb enough to believe everything on the net – heaven knows there is way too much junk, hate and conspiracy nonsense out there, but I never really questioned whether or not the people were real.
Nothing has ever appeared on this site that wasn’t factually based. Yes, we post opinions, but we don’t post fiction. The issues remain – the disenfranchisement of Americans for race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, poverty – these things are still happening.
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So heartbreaking and emotional to see… It shows how precious and how fragile life is…our thoughts are with those families who will have a heavy burden to bear over the coming days…may they rest in peace
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