Month: August 2022
Now Christians are targeting women who wear pants
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/now-christians-targeting-women-wear-pants/
These people will not stop until the US looks like the Handmaids tale, or the Amish community, the Puritans from the 1600s. The won’t stop until they get control over women as chattel slaves like their bible claims they should be, owners of the women. The don’t want females to have rights, to have agency, and to have worth other than as property to men. To me they are disgusting and more like Incels who think women exist only for men’s pleasure. How horrible but this is where they are driving the country. They want a world where cis white straight Christian males have the only rights with automatic authority / privilege, women exist as property of men, blacks are workers and unpaid labor, and the LGBTQ+ are not heard of being too scared of the punishments of being known. That is the world of the Islamic Taliban that the white Christians want to make here in the US. Hugs
Photo: ShutterstockThe religious right has celebrated the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but their obsession with controlling women’s bodies knows no satisfaction.
Now a far-right preacher known for his vile rants about the LGBTQ community is calling for men to burn their wives’ pants because, he says, it’s just a form of crossdressing.
Brother Duncan Urbanek spread the love of God by using anti-gay slurs and encouraging men to destroy their spouses’ possessions. Urbanek is a member of the Stedfast Baptist Church, one of the most vicious anti-LGBTQ hate groups in the nation. Church leaders have called for the execution of gay men and publicly celebrated tragedies that killed members of the LGBTQ community.
“People want to get so riled up… Yeah! F*gs are an abomination. God hates ’em,” he begins. “Well, didn’t it just say if you’re a crossdresser, you’re an abomination too?”
“Now obviously it’s not as bad as being a fa***t,” he continued, “But God is still very upset with your sin.”
“No what should we do about that, knowing this as Christians? If you’re a woman and you own any pants, throw them away. Light them on fire. If you’re a man and your wife has pants, throw them away. And if she yells at you, so be it. Throw them away. That’s a good fight to be in.”
“If I was caught wearing a dress and that was online,” he said as his strange rant continued, “I would do everything in my power to get rid of that picture. Like, man, I gotta find the owner of it and persuade him. I gotta pay him off. Like, man, please delete that picture.”
“You know, there is no picture of me wearing a dress,” he added quickly with a nervous chuckle, “because I’m never going to put one on. I don’t own any and I don’t want to wear any. And women should have that same standard.”
There is no Biblical injunction that’s specifically about women and pants. At the time the Bible was written, trousers weren’t part of the Jewish wardrobe and men wore tunics and robes.
6 LGBTQ candidates won their Florida primaries. They all oppose the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law
State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith & his husband Jerick Mediavilla NegronPhoto: Campaign websiteSix out, Democratic LGBTQ candidates running for the Florida state legislature all won their primaries this Tuesday. All of them oppose the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.
At least 20 states have introduced “Don’t Say Gay” laws this year. The candidates worry that, if left unopposed, Republicans will spread harm queer youth and families nationwide with their newfound brand of queerphobia.
Adam Gentle and state Reps. Carlos Guillermo Smith and Michele Rayner are all running for the State House. Eunic Ortiz and Janelle Perez are running for the State Senate. State Sen. Shevrin Jones won his re-election campaign this week. Because he has no Republican competitor, he will retain his Senate seat.
Jones became the first openly LGBTQ Black person elected to the Florida legislature when he was elected in 2020.
On the campaign trail, he shared how publicly coming out as gay at age 30 caused members to leave the south Florida church where his father preaches. Friends stopped talking to Jones, families began making jokes about him behind his back, and even his own father expressed disappointment in his sexuality, he said.
So when he spoke out against the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law — which forbids discussing LGBTQ issues in kindergarten through third-grade classes — Jones noted that it takes courage for young people to be themselves. He also said that LGBTQ issues aren’t being taught in the aforementioned grades, and that state Republicans only passed the law to rally their voting base.
“It’s discriminatory on the surface,” Jones said in an interview. “The problem is coming when young people are being treated in a manner that they now have to question who they are, knowing that they already come from households who do not support them… I think that’s the dangerous part, because LGBTQ+ youth are four times more likely to commit suicide.”
“I think that this is the time for the LGBTQ+ community to see we’re under attack,” he added. “I don’t care what it is. I don’t care if it’s Black people, I don’t care if it’s Indigenous people, I don’t care if it’s the LGBTQ+ community, because we live amongst each other and I feel that when you come for one, you come for all.”
When Michele Rayner first won her election to the state House in 2020, she became the first openly Black queer woman ever elected in Florida at any level.
“I didn’t run for office just to make history,” she said in a video. “I ran because I wanted to make a difference for people.”
“The way that I show up — I’m a Black, gay woman so I think that inspires a lot of folks,” she added in a May 2022 interview.
While she acknowledges that supporters of “Don’t Say Gay” claim it protects children from age-inappropriate discussions of sex, she said, “I don’t want my child not to be able to say that my moms and I went to Disney World or my moms and I went to the beach.”
Meanwhile, Eunic Ortiz, who is running for a state Senate seat, said the ramifications of “Don’t Say Gay” are detrimental to LGBTQ youth.
“We need to be creating solutions for the issues that everyday folks are actually facing,” she said. “Not playing political theater to try to appease a few wealthy donors in the Republican movement that, frankly, are homophobic and hate the LGBTQ community.”
Her district houses St. Petersburg, a city that has received a perfect score for eight years on Human Rights Campaign’s annual Municipal Equality Index for LGBTQ inclusive.
“We have people in the LGBTQ community living in every single county in the state. They are our neighbors and they are our community leaders…. LGBTQ people are the workers that are making our counties and communities run,” she said. “[Floridians] are tired of seeing them take on this cultural war, instead of addressing real issues,” like the environment or rising rents.
Adam Gentle spoke against the law at a political event in early March. At the event, he began his two-minute speech by announcing, “I’m gay.” He then said that schools are often the only safe spaces where LGBTQ youths feel they can safely discuss their queer identities with others.
“Their ability to talk with trusted teachers and administrators is being ripped away from them,” he said.
Rep. Carlos Smith has used his political office to oppose the law. When he debated against the bill in February, he wore a face mask with the word “gay” printed on it in large letters.
In his remarks, he said the bill was “deeply personal” to him as a queer Latino, especially since the law would prevent teachers from discussing important events, like the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting which mostly harmed other queer Latinos.
“A majority of Floridians oppose this proposal that seeks to censor conversations about LGBTQ people in our schools,” he said.
“This bill goes way beyond the text on the page,” he noted. “It sends a terrible message to our youth, that there is something so wrong, so inappropriate, so dangerous about this topic that we have to censor it from classroom discussion…. To all LGBTQ youth — we see you, you’re loved and your lives are worth fighting for!”
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) press secretary Christina Pushaw defended the law by calling its opponents pedophilic “groomers,” Smith responded, “Bigoted attacks like this against LGBTQ people are the worst of the worst…. Literally, it’s the oldest trick in the book against LGBTQ people.”
Smith said that DeSantis only signed the law to advance his political ambitions. He worries about DeSantis’ likelihood of running for president in 2024. “My concern is that he is much smarter and much more calculating than Donald Trump ever was,” he said.
Janelle Perez agrees with Smith. She’s a mother of two, married to a woman, and, if elected, she would be the first LGBTQ parent and the first queer Latina or queer woman ever elected to the Senate.
She worries that the law will subject her own daughter to bullying and prevent her from discussing her own family in school. But even worse, she worries what will happen to when DeSantis runs for president.
“When people in Hollywood, and New York, and in California are looking at the things that Ron DeSantis is doing in Florida, what they need to understand is that Florida is Ron DeSantis’s guinea pig,” she said.
“He is going to run for president in 2024,” she continued. “So if you don’t like what’s happening in Florida, and you don’t want this rhetoric to become the national conversation in 2024, then you need to help us stop it, now. Because it’s going to come after you, and the rest of the country.”
Although DeSantis and other supporters of the law say that it protects parents’ rights to control what their kids are exposed to in schools, Perez said it basically erases queer parents from schools and tells their children to feel ashamed of their families.
“LGBTQ families aren’t going anywhere,” Perez told The Washington Post. “We want to just receive the same rights as every other parent.”
“Republicans in Tallahassee have failed our state and I cannot sit idly by as they make us less safe, restrict our rights and hurt our children,” she added.
Former GOP candidate wants to arm children so that they’ll stop school shootings
What the hell is wrong with these people? Who do they think is doing the school mass shootings? Hugs
Scene from the Mothers Against Greg Abbott adPhoto: Screenshot
Failed Republican candidate and rightwing pundit Deanna Lorraine – who has a history of extreme anti-LGBTQ statements – argued that elementary schoolchildren should be armed so that they can fight school shooters.
“Arm our children!” she told her guest Matt Couch on her Shots Fired! podcast. “Have them learn how to protect themselves. That’s what’s gonna stop shooters. That’s what’s gonna stop threats. Not just going to school wearing a bulletproof vest, OK?”
Lorraine was discussing an ad from the group Mothers Against Greg Abbott, a progressive organization in Texas trying to stop Gov. Greg Abbott (R) from getting reelected. In the ad, a child is shown wearing body armor and a helmet holding up a chalkboard that says “First day of school.”
The ad is making a statement about school shootings and Abbott’s lack of action on the issue.
Lorraine wasn’t having it, accusing the group of trying to “pull on people’s heartstrings” by bringing up mass shootings in elementary schools.
“Sorry, but I wanna teach my son how to handle a gun,” Lorraine said. “I wanna teach my son how to intelligently use guns and operate them because there is gonna be a threat some day and they’re going to be in danger some day. And I want them to be able to protect themselves, not have to just wear bulletproof vests and a hat.”
“No, I want them to be able to defend themselves against real threats and kick some ass out there and maybe intervene when a school shooter comes and shoots their asses.”
“I don’t want them to go to school defenseless.”
Some people on Twitter mocked her suggestion that sending kids to school armed would lead to fewer deaths.
In 2020, Lorraine ran in the California open primary for the state’s 12th Congressional District against Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Lorraine came in fifth place and didn’t qualify for the general election.
In 2020, Lorraine ran in the California open primary for the state’s 12th Congressional District against Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Lorraine came in fifth place and didn’t qualify for the general election.
Hate preacher warns congregation that gays will get you drunk & “into some weird junk”
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/hate-preacher-warns-congregation-gays-will-get-drunk-weird-junk/
People ask me why I post stuff said by these hate preachers. Well I just posted about a school that shut down a student newspaper and ended the journalism courses simply because the paper respected the pronouns and asked for name of a trans person which got them punished, punished for being respectful, and in the last issue reported on the history of the LGBTQ+ people. Simply having a story about the history of a group of people caused them to be canceled and the entire course of study removed! Think about that. The school administrators believe that just the mention of gay, lesbian, or trans people is so inappropriate that it must never be mentioned. Being respectful used to be something people were proud of in young people, now if they are not mean and targeting of LGBTQ+ for abuse they are being too nice and must be punished. It is because the school administrators believe most of what people like these hate preachers are saying, they believe the garbage that red state governors spout about how the LGBTQ+ are pedophiles and forcing kids to be gay or transition. Teachers and other LGBTQ+ are forcing kids to be a different gender and sexual orientation even though we are the ones who use science to show that it is something we are born with and can’t be changed. But these religious hate preachers say it, and the red state maga armed gang thugs enforce it. That is why I post what they say and why I fight back against it. If you cannot see how flawed and wrong what they are saying is, then they are reaching you and those around you. It must be combated and fought against. This guy has been banned from other countries because what he says is not acceptable in a civil society yet he is celebrated in the land of the free. Hugs
Steven Anderson Photo: screenshotA preacher known for his hatred of LGBTQ people warned his congregation that gays and lesbians want to get them drunk and then make them do “some weird junk that you have no desire to get into.”
“These people are going to take you down a dark path,” said Steven Anderson, founder of the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement and pastor at the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. He has been banned from 34 countries because of his hate speech.
“You start hanging around with a bunch of fa***ts and lesbians, you know what they’re gonna do?” he continued. “They’re gonna ply you with alcohol or ply you with drugs and they’re going to abuse you.”
“They’re going to molest you. They are going to get you into some weird junk that you have no desire to get into.”
“Stay away from them! They are evil, they are freaks, they are predators, they’re not reproducers they are recruiters, they are molesters, they are predators. Stay away from them.”
Anderson earned himself the reputation as one of the most anti-LGBTQ preachers in the country after he praised the Pulse nightclub shooter, calling the victims “a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles” and “disgusting homosexuals who the Bible says were worthy of death.”
In the past, Anderson has encouraged his congregants to kill all gay people, calling it a “cure for AIDS.” He has also advocated for world governments to execute gay people.
His extreme hate speech has gotten him banned from dozens of countries, including all 26 of Europe’s Schengen states, Botswana, Jamaica, Ireland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
Australia banned him in 2020. In response, Anderson claimed that God punished Australia with wildfires because they were “banning and deporting preachers of the Gospel” so they were facing “the judgment of God.”
Let’s talk about Biden’s student debt relief policy….
High school ends its school newspaper after it published LGBTQ articles
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/high-school-ends-school-newspaper-published-lgbtq-articles/
There must be no mention of the LGBTQ+ what so ever, especially in a positive way. This is not about protecting little kids, that should be clear now. The history of the LGBTQ+ people is inappropriate for the public to see. Those people are diseased evil baby rapiers that eat human flesh, they are an abomination god wants killed. What group will be next after they get rid of us? Respecting someone enough to use the name and pronouns they ask is not to be tolerated, we must punish and destroy anyone different from the Christian ideal. This is an open attempt to roll back the public acceptance and tolerance that the LGBTQ+ have earned over the decades, and return the country to before there was equal rights for minorities. We need the entire voting public to understand what these people really want and will do. As I will post in a few minutes, some of these people now want to forbid girls / women from wearing pants claiming that is crossdressing. How much control do they want over every aspect of other people’s lives? All of it. They want to mandate acceptable clothing like the Amish or the Puritans, they want to make the handmaids tale a real thing. This attacks on one group making them a scape goat has been done in recent history, 1930s Germany, we seen where that led to. Hugs
The final issue of the Viking SagaPhoto: ScreenshotA Nebraska high school has thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
School administrators eliminated both the high school newspaper and its journalism program following publication of the school’s year-end issue in May, which featured a story on the history of LGBTQ rights and editorials on LGBTQ topics.
Three days after distribution of Northwest High School’s Viking Saga, staff and students were notified of the paper and program’s elimination. Shortly after, the newspaper’s printing service and advertising contracts with the nearby Grand Island Independent were cancelled.
“The very last issue that came out this year, there was… a little bit of hostility amongst some,” Northwest Public Schools board Vice President Zach Mader said. “There were editorials that were essentially, I guess what I would say, LGBTQ.”
“There have been talks of doing away with our newspaper if we were not going to be able to control content that we saw [as] inappropriate,” Mader told the Independent.
“There [were] some things that were…” he said, referring to the final issue of the Viking Saga. “If [taxpayers] read that [issue], they would have been like, ‘Holy cow. What is going on at our school?’”
Board President San Leiser claimed that “most people were upset they were written,” referring to the articles about LGBTQ rights.
In addition to the controversy surrounding content, according to students, Saga staff was reprimanded in April after using preferred names and pronouns in the paper, and was advised by district officials to use only birth names.
Students defied the order for the final issue. They were censored and at least one trans student’s preferred name was replaced with his deadname before publication in the byline of his story.
“The [name] thing was the first big blow,” the trans student, Marcus Pennell, said. “It was the first time that the school had officially been, like, ‘We don’t really want you here.”
The school hasn’t provided an official explanation for the paper and program’s cancellation. Northwest’s 2021-2022 journalism teacher has remained silent.
Students and free speech advocates say the paper getting cancelled is a violation of First Amendment rights.
Hadar Harris, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, points to the 1969 Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, when the school argued a 13-year-old student could not wear a black armband to protest the Vietnam War.
“In the Tinker case, the Supreme Court said that students and teachers don’t lose their First Amendment and freedom of expression rights at the schoolhouse gates,” said Harris. “We believe that that should apply to student journalists as well.”
“By far, the number one thing that will get student media censored is a story that criticizes the school or that administrators somehow think makes them look bad,” said Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Center.
Librarian resigns after violent threats over LGBTQ books that aren’t even available
The maga right demands to rule by violence and intimidation. They have no use for democracy they demand to rule over everyone. They are a small minority that is armed and backed by the republicans in office like the red state governors. They don’t care that the rest of the world doesn’t agree with them, they don’t care that reality doesn’t agree with them, they only care about what they want, what their feelings are and everyone else can be damned! Note these people were armed that showed up. They are gang thugs, and they don’t worry about being arrested or the police because the police back their lawlessness. The US is being taken over by lawless armed violent gang of Christian thugs demanding that everything be done according to the way they want. This is the US Christian Taliban! Hugs
Photo: ShutterstockKimber Glidden – the library director in Boundary County, Idaho – has resigned after religious and political extremists threatened her over LGBTQ books that her libraries don’t even carry.
A local group called Boundary County Library Board Recall targeted Glidden and four of the library board’s five members for removal. The effort began after Glidden updated the county library policy on censoring contested books, stating that libraries will not place materials on “closed shelves” or label items to protect the public from their content.
The group’s main concern is over a “widely circulated lists of books and other media among far-right-wing groups” that they worry will be accessible to kids, The Idaho Statesman reported. But county library officials have repeatedly said that the library doesn’t carry any of the books that the group and its supporters have voiced concern over.
The recall group is also upset that, in May, Glidden had the county rejoin the American Library Association. Right-wingers oppose the association’s advocacy against censorship.
While the group says it aims “to protect children from explicit materials and grooming,” Glidden says it’s more interested in intimidation and control. Grooming, a term for techniques used by sex abusers to coerce a child into being abused and not reporting it, has become a mainstream Republican term for exposing kids to any LGBTQ content. The term paints LGBTQ people and allies as child molesters.
Glidden said her office has been harassed with numerous time- and resource-consuming Freedom of Information Act requests which, if fulfilled, would make it impossible for her to do her job.
She also said that, during public meetings, she has been warned “with fire-and-brimstone language of her imminent damnation.” Conservatives who have signed up to volunteer at county libraries showed up carrying firearms to frighten others, she added. Idaho law allows people to openly carry guns with a permit.
In her public resignation, posted to Facebook, Glidden wrote, “Nothing in my background could have prepared me for the political atmosphere of extremism, militant Christian fundamentalism, intimidation tactics, and threatening behavior currently being employed in the community.”
She said that, because the group and its supporters oppose the county’s anti-censorship policies and keep complaining about books that aren’t even on the shelves, they’re more interested in establishing intimidation and dominance rather than protecting anyone.
Glidden also says she plans on moving elsewhere if the area’s political climate doesn’t change.
Republican politicians, conservative school boards, and so-called “parents’ rights” groups have dramatically escalated attempts to ban “controversial” books from school, according to a recent report from the free-speech organization PEN America.
The bans have largely come from Republican politicians, conservative school boards and so-called “parents’ rights” groups that have opposed such content as “woke” “indoctrination” that’s “inappropriate” for kids.
Moms for Liberty, one of the national conservative groups pushing to ban LGBTQ books, has started pressuring public school libraries across the country to “accept book donations from conservative publishing companies that promote white supremacist, homophobic, and transphobic ideologies,” Vice News reported.
Yesterday … everything was going grand until yesterday …
Ron and James left Monday night for NC and then after a day + there they were going to NH. I am at home taking care of the inside / outside cats and keeping everything together. Tues and Wednesday were good days, pain under control, did my daily walk, got lots of posts done, got lots of comments done, figured I would finish up on Thursday. But Thursday decided I needed to not be so cocky about things. So I get up at 6 when my alarm went off to take my morning pain pills. I got up and fed / watered both inside and outside cats, made coffee, cleaned the cat box, did all the morning chores. Sat at the computer and started to catch up on blog stuff and news stories.
I went for my walk which I did really well doing it, I think. It is not the walk a lot of people would find taxing, but it is for me. It is helping my weight, it is helping my blood work, it is helping my heart rate, but it does increase my pain. So a trade off. I will take it.
Ron had tried to get everything I would need before he left including 4 pounds of hamburger. Not sure if he thought I would be throwing a party. But he forgot cat litter and can cat food. I might have stretched the cat food but as I needed litter I decided to go to the local Publix store about 2 miles down the street. I like the store, I am known there, and the people are very helpful. For example they ask if you need help to take out the groceries you bought, and they will even load it in the car, which I admit I have had to let them do a few times but they wont take a tip for doing it. If you ask where something is they will take you right to it, no just pointing or telling you, they stop what they are doing and find it for you. We also use the pharmacy there.
If you remember the day we were to vote I was doing so badly and so shaky I needed my walker. Ron had wanted to stop at this store and get our flu shot as he wanted it before he went north. But due to my condition even though I was willing he refused saying I was not doing welling enough. I decided since I was there now I would get my flu shot. I went to the pharmacy and the grand people there said Hello Scottie. They used to call me Mr. Miller but as I called them by their first names why shouldn’t they call me by mine. So I let them know it was OK. I asked about the flu shot and they got me started on the paperwork. I asked about the shingles shot Ron got, and yes I qualified for that also. So I got that one also. That is a two part set and I have to go back for the second shot on that one. They asked about Ron, told you we were known there, not sure if it is a good or bad thing, but we both get a lot of medications and he picks up my pain medications for me, so they must know he is my spouse for that anyway.
I got my shots and feeling quite proud of myself started picking up things I needed / wanted. I want to just get some cat litter and cans of fancy feast food for Odie. Ron gets the large size jug of litter, but I got two small ones. But then I saw something I needed some of the outside dishes that work so well for feeding the outside cats. They are shorted sided metal dishes with a rubber base. Then I figured I had better get a different body wash. For some reason all soaps / washes are causing my face to go red with it looking like I am a burn victim and it hurts. I cannot put any cream or anything on it. Got to see a dermatologist soon. Another doctor. For now I rinse the washcloth out as best I can and wash my face with cold water. Not fun but neither is this face burn.
Here are the pictures of my face yesterday, warning scary old man pictures.
Long story short I had nearly $100 dollars of goods in the cart. Got home and brought the groceries in.
A couple of pictures of the cart.
Then realized I had not eaten and I was hungry. When you are dieting you shouldn’t cook or eat when hungry. I made 2 pounds of taco meat for just my self. I ate five of them. Five large tacos. And drank a couple glasses of milk. I don’t normally drink milk due to the sugar content, but I was splurging like a kid.
The taco stuff I made, I am going to be eating this for a while. I don’t use cheese or sour cream like James and Ron do. I like lettuce, meat, and lots of red sauce. Also I add to the mix different seasonings while cooking to give it more flavor.
I was over full, I was having the too much sugar and need to sleep effect, so after cleaning up the left overs I went to bed. I woke up well into the evening. Fed cats, did chores then went back to bed. No comments replied to and none of the 12 open tabs posted. Also it threw my medication schedules off.
I woke up at 4 AM and I was in serious pain. My right shoulder where I got the shots felt swollen. I tried to go back to sleep and it was not happening. I felt sore and crappy and Odie was on the bed wanting his breakfast. Figures. So I got up at five. First thing I did was a glass of water and pain pills. Then morning chores. Now writing this. Two hours later the pain pills are kicking in and I don’t feel too bad, wonder how I will feel after my walk. Oh yes I an going to keep walking even if I have to take my walker. Ron left it out in the family room for me. Also I should be able to reply to the comments today, which I am looking forward too. Hugs to all, Scottie
TIME: Anti-‘Critical Race Theory’ Laws Are Working. Teachers Are Thinking Twice About How Th ey Talk About Race
Anti-‘Critical Race Theory’ Laws Are Working. Teachers Are Thinking Twice About How They Talk About Race
Teachers say there’s a ‘chilling’ effect on how they talk about race
Read in TIME: https://apple.news/A0gYTODKnR9GUqPHc4LJFVg
Shared from Apple News
Scottie's Playtime 