The right needs to keep the rage going against the people they have made the enemy and to do that they now need to make up even more wild accusations. They have to feed the rage machine to keep them in power and attention. So they made up a lie, doctored a video to back it up, and students got targeted by a right wing hater thug who feels entitled to force his views on others by violence. Hugs
Libs of TikTok posted a video to make it seem like drag queens were getting naked in front of kids. But that’s not what happened at all.
An LGBTQ+ student group in South Dakota received a bomb threat after they hosted a drag show on campus.
“I didn’t find out from [the University Police Department],” Lindsay Tull told The Daily Beast. She’s a member of the Gender and Sexualities Alliance (GSA) at South Dakota State University (SDSU) that was threatened with a bomb. “I found out from the Discord that we have for our board members.”
“I was freaking out because I didn’t know how serious it was and if we were in danger. I was afraid for my friends and if something was going to happen to them.”
The show occurred on November 16 and was advertised as “kid-friendly,” drawing the ire of right-wing activists. The performers said that they made sure that the show was appropriate for all ages – they even bleeped out words from the pop songs they lip synced to – but that didn’t stop anti-LGBTQ+ activist Chaya Raichik from doctoring a video to make the event seem like performers were naked in front of children.
Raichik – who goes by “Libs of TikTok” online – posted video from last year’s event to Twitter on November 18. She used video of a drag queen last year dressed in a nude illusion – layers of clothing designed to look like a naked person – even though last year’s show wasn’t advertised as family-friendly. The drag queen she used in her video didn’t even perform at this year’s show.
“What they did was they spliced together some content from this year with last year’s drag show, which was not advertised in any way as family-friendly,” said another GSA member. “They tried to pass it off as it being part of the same show.”
Then she claimed that the video was from this year’s show to anger her anti-LGBTQ+ followers. Raichik is known for calling out targets on social media so that her followers can send death and bomb threats or call them slurs.
A week later, the school said on its website that it received an email that said, “An explosive device or devices were placed on the campus of South Dakota State University.”
“The email also threatened harm to potential survivors of the detonation,” the site said. “At the time of this warning, no devices have been located. The department will continue investigating the threat and pursing [sic] all leads.”
Faculty advisors for the GSA were told by university officials that their group was the target of the threat, but GSA members say that it took university police two weeks to say something to LGBTQ+ students about the threat.
The GSA had already been facing harassment since they announced the drag show in November. Several conservative Christian organizations – including the Concerned Women of America (CWA) and the Family Heritage Alliance (FHA) – drew attention to the drag event. The CWA called it an “outright assault on our children.”
“Children’s innocence is under attack like never before in our country,” the FHA’s website said. “They are constantly being bombarded with sexually explicit material and radical gender ideology, even through so-called ‘family-friendly’ events like an upcoming drag show in South Dakota.”
The controversy attracted the attention of conservative elected officials. State Rep. Scott Odenbach (R) called it “unbelievable and unacceptable.” State Rep. Chris Karr (R) wrote to SDSU asking them “not to allow children to attend this event.” State Rep. John Hansen (D) said, “Use of taxpayer funds or resources for this event is not appropriate.”
The drag show was not funded by the university.
This led to death threats against the performers in the show, and security was increased. One performer said that everyone just “wanted out” by the end of the show.
The GSA said that around 300 people attended the drag event, more than had ever attended in the past.
This isn’t the first time the right has used this tactic – manipulating images of drag shows to make them seem inappropriate for children. Earlier this year, another rightwing blogger posted a blurred picture of a drag queen’s groin to make it seem like she had exposed herself to children. The drag performer later sued.
Again Christians trying hard to force their religious views on everyone else. They claim that just telling people those options exist is against the religious freedom of the doctors. Just like simply existing gays and trans people sexualize kids in schools. Just like providing a cake, flowers, photos, or a website of a same sex marriage somehow not only means you are a part of the wedding but it also means you support same sex marriage. But doing those things for divorced people getting married doesn’t mean you support divorce or doing those things for a wedding of a murderer doesn’t mean you support murder. But you know, it is about forcing selected morality on everyone. Hugs
A doctor and a Christian medical group have filed a lawsuit against New Mexico over an assisted suicide law passed last year they say violates their sincerely-held religious objections to the controversial practice.
Dr. Mark Lacy and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations filed a lawsuit against New Mexico on Wednesday in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico. At issue was the Elizabeth Whitefield End-of-Life Options Act, a law passed last year that legalized assisted suicide for terminally ill residents.
Lacy and the Christian organization are being represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, which has argued religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court.
The ADF claims that the New Mexico law “forces” Christian physicians to “facilitate” assisted suicide merely by telling patients that the option is available and legal. Physician-assisted suicide is currently legal in eleven states.
Fuck them!! I just returned from 6 weeks in Canada where my 93 yr old mother was dying of pancreatic cancer. There was no treatment for her. She’d been in the hospital 5 weeks before she started experiencing pain and was put on morphine. 3 days after that she anounced she wanted medical assistance in death (MAID) in Canada. I was there when the doctor came to make sure she understood what would happen. She did completely and did not hesitate to sign the consent form. And I was there when the doctor came several days later to perform the procedure. She was surrounded by family, we drank shots of peach shnapps with her, had a few laughs at memories, and she was content to be having it over. I left the room when the doctor arrived but my dad said it was very peaceful and quick. Keeping her alive would have been absolute torture for her, and for who know how long. Her ashes were taken to the local priest who was happy to bless them. Fuck these people and their religious objections. If you object then don’t do it, but don’t deny others the right.
These Religious Fascists just never stop trying to control others. One day it would be nice to hear a story about them selflessly helping people. The only thing that seems to motivate them is controlling others and hate.
The conservative mindset has always been “This is America! Nobody can tell me what to do! Freedom! However, I can tell everybody else what to do and I am above reproach.”
I saw it everywhere growing up in the South (Tennessee). They think they’re living their godly life, so nobody can critique them…but they’ll be more than happy to look down on you and condemn you for not following their own “rules”
Survivors of the Club Q nightclub shooting in Colorado Springs testified about LGBT violence before the House Oversight Committee. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks.
“It’s been less than a month since an armed attacker shot up an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, killing five people and wounding 17.
Two of the survivors of that mass shooting, as well as a co-owner of Club Q, testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday about that night and the rise of hate aimed at their community.
Sitting behind an imposing oak desk, facing members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, 25-year-old Michael Anderson recalled working behind the bar at Club Q when he heard the sound of gunfire.
“I can still hear the rapid firing of bullets today,” he said. “It’s a sound I may never forget. It’s a sound I hope no one here or anywhere else in this country has to hear.”
Louie Gohmert speakers on the floor of the House (screenshot via YouTube)
On Monday, Congressman Louie Gohmert, one of the most conservative members of the Republican Party, gave a general speech on the floor of the House and recited a sermon written for him by Pastor Tommy Nelson.
Gohmert explained that Nelson, a friend who runs Denton Bible Church in Texas, sometimes joked about how he would one day give a sermon “when I get to speak to Congress.” Since Tommy Nelson wouldn’t actually get that opportunity, Gohmert decided to serve as the middleman by asking Nelson what he’d want to say to Congress and delivering a nearly-25-minute Christian address on his behalf.
A lot of the speech was what we’ve come to expect from Gohmert: Full-throated Christian Nationalism, bigotry, and a belief that converting everyone to Christianity would solve all of society’s problems. Gohmert explained that, “Without God and His word to guide man, his fallen nature is unleashed, and unlike nature, man has become more and more immoral, violent, ignorant, and cruel.”
That sort of sermon has no business on the floor of the House. But that’s not even the biggest problem with it. Gohmert neglected to mention that his buddy Tommy Nelson and Denton Bible Church have been in the news quite a bit this year for reasons that shouldn’t be ignored.
Gohmert didn’t mention that Rob Shiflet, a former youth pastor at Denton Bible Church, had been repeatedly accused of sexual abuse and was sentenced to 33 months in prison in 2021 for sexually assaulting two girls on church trips.
Gohmert didn’t mention that his buddy Tommy Nelson commissioned a third-party investigation into that matter, which found that Shiflet had actually abused 14 girls, including 11 at Denton Bible. The report also found that church leaders knew about the allegations but never took them seriously. (In one instance, they asked him to write an apology letter to a child… which he didn’t do.)
Gohmert didn’t mention that Tommy Nelson’s church refused to give Shiflet a job as high school pastor in 2001 “because of his pattern of being alone with girls”… yet never made that public or shared that information with other churches.
Gohmert didn’t mention that Shiflet later got a job as a youth pastor in Arkansas, thanks in part to a recommendation made by Tommy Nelson. Shiflet’s abuse of children continued after that.
Gohmert did say, however, that Tommy Nelson was full of “profound truth” that comes from a higher power.
Which means a sitting Republican member of Congress praised a Christian pastor for being a paragon of moral excellence… while completely ignoring the fact that the same pastor allowed a sexual predator at his church to abuse children.
If there’s any silver lining here, it’s that Gohmert will no longer be in Congress come January. He announced his retirement last year in order to run for Attorney General of Texas, only to get crushed in the GOP primary.
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday asked his state’s Supreme Court to green-light an investigation of “any and all wrongdoing in Florida with respect to Covid-19 vaccines,” his latest move to cast doubt on the vaccines’ effectiveness and amplify fears about side effects.
In the petition filed with the Florida Supreme Court, the Republican governor requests the empaneling of a grand jury to investigate a broad group of entities associated with the development, distribution and promotion of the vaccines, including pharmaceutical manufacturers and their executive officers, as well as medical associations.
DeSantis also said Tuesday he was launching a public health integrity committee – a panel that would counter the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which DeSantis said “is not serving a useful function; it’s really serving to advance narratives rather than do evidence-based medicine.”
The panel would assess guidance and actions from federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, US Food and Drug Administration and the CDC.”*
The Biden White House and congressional Democrats are willing to heavily compromise on making the Child Tax Credit permanent, but Republicans are refusing to come to the table. Ana Kasparian discusses on The Young Turks.
“Democrats haven’t gotten any traction so far in their efforts to expand a cash subsidy for parents, a move that would dramatically reduce child poverty.
Adding child tax credit benefits to a year-end spending bill would require significant GOP support, and Republicans seem unenthusiastic.
“The country frankly doesn’t have the time or the money for the partisan, expensive provisions such as child tax credit,” said Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House committee that oversees taxes.”
This is the traditionalist, the maybe not really deeply religious but just seeped into it, trying hard to promote / give into the people pushing Christianity over reason. “Dang it has always been the way for the local church to have ways into the school, why do these others have to interfere with our god given right to preach / push / tell the children in the public schools all about the good lord their god so they will come to our church and tithe … oh save their souls”. Read that back in your idea of a southern Christian voice and I tell you I have heard it in Florida. Normally around Christmas when the signs saying put Christ back into Christmas, when I explain how all of the traditions came from other pagan beliefs and older established religions.
Plus as Nan told me the name Satan is triggering to Christians because in their misunderstood understanding of their holy book Satan was the bad guy. But if you read the book especially the book of Job, you see Satan asking God for permission to do everything that was done. In most of the bible Satan / lucifer worked for god as one of his top people. Of course if you are serious about the history of bible there is history shows the Christian god is one of many gods and the angels under his command (that he created told in the later parts of the bible) were other gods with powers. Maybe the fight in heaven was not between a god and his created but between one power among many that managed to prevail over the rest. Think US politics or think of it talking of how a warlord would demand a scribe in that distant past would demand that his preferred god / religion be described. But that doesn’t matter last I looked the US is not a theocracy and public schools are by definition not sacred but secular so all of the public feels comfortable and equal. I did not color this one because the format Mehta used has things I want noticed and when I changed the colors / format that was lost. Hugs
The Chesapeake School Board postponed approval of an After School Satan Club after Christians complained about it
Aproposed After School Satan Club at B M Williams Primary (part of Virginia’s Chesapeake Public Schools) has had its first meeting delayed through January after the school board cited safety concerns.
As I’ve written about before, ASS Clubs do not promote Satan, Satanic beliefs, Satanism, or anything else like it. The Satanic Temple, which sponsors these groups, doesn’t even believe in a literal Satan. After School Satanclubs aren’t about indoctrination. Rather, the Satanists “focus on free inquiry and rationalism, the scientific basis for which we know what we know about the world around us.” It’s like a science club with a devilish twist.
After an evangelical “Good News Club” launched at the same school earlier this year, The Satanic Temple, with the help of a parent whose child attended the school, began the paperwork to begin their own group. They received a green light from administrators since they did everything by the book; the district sent out a letter making it clear that they legally could not discriminate against the club. Once they opened their doors to religious clubs, they couldn’t say no to one just because they don’t like what’s being taught. They also issued a disclaimer: “ASSC is not a School District-approved club, and no District employee is acting as a club sponsor.”
All of that was true. There were bound to be complaints, but the District had the law on its side.
Last week, there was a slight snag after the parent who agreed to sponsor the club backed out, but June Everett, the Campaign Director for ASSC, told me they had another parent agree to do it, and they were resubmitting paperwork. It was merely a formality. Everett added that 13 kids had already signed up to attend the first meeting, scheduled for today (December 15).
Not all parents were happy with the decision to allow the club though. News outlets quoted a string of ignorant Christian parents who believe they’re above the law and a Satanic group has no right to meet the same way Christian groups can.
“I think there’s a lot of controversy with that, just because you don’t really want that kind of stuff pushed on your child,” said parent Tyler Hambleton. “I have a 3-month-old daughter and I can tell you now that when she grows up, she will not be in any Satan club.”
“I could not believe that our schools would allow something like this,” said Elaine Garrett, another Chesapeake resident. “Satan. I just don’t think that’s the word kids need to hear.”
I guess Elaine Garrett is going to stop attending church, then. And what “stuff” is Tyler Hambleton afraid of? Is it the “crafts” or the “compassion”? It’s amazing how many conservative Christians with no understanding of the situation have no problem sharing their misguided opinions with the media. Just baring their entire ass for the world to see.
On Monday, during a regularly scheduled board meeting, the existence of the club became a major topic of discussion. A lot of that came from more ignorant Christian parents—one resident said using Satan as a symbol was basically “hate speech”—but there were plenty of sensible people, too.
“My religion does not need your approval to exist. My beliefs are not subject to your approval,” said Rose Bastet, a Satanic Temple volunteer.
Bastet voiced the teachings she values in her religion.
“Empathy, reason, compassion for your fellow human beings. Satan is a rebel against tyranny and the ultimate questioner of authority,” she said.
At the end of the day, the school board didn’t reject the After School Satan Club (which could provoke a lawsuit), but said it would conduct a “safety assessment.”
Chesapeake Public Schools (CPS) Superintendent Dr. Jared Cotton indicated that further review and a safety assessment are needed before making a decision on whether to approve the ASSC’s resubmitted application.
What exactly are they worried about? The Satanists are coming in peace and they’re bringing art supplies. The Christians who claim this is evil, and may choose to take measures into their own hands, are far more of a threat to this community than the Satanists trying to teach compassion without Christ.
One answer to that question came up during the public comments at the school board meeting. Last month, in Chesapeake, a man working at a Walmart store shot and killed six people. In a note that was found on his phone, he said “I promise things just fell in place like I was led by the Satan.” While he referenced God multiple times, and his religious delusions may have played a role in his actions, some speakers at the board meeting suggested he was Satanic in the same way as the people behind the ASSC.
That’s obviously a lie. The shooter apparently believed in a literal Satan, as many Christians do. The Satanic Temple does not. There’s literally no connection between what the shooter referenced and what the ASSC plans to teach students.
But because Christian ignorance has run amok in this community, the board referenced the shooting before saying they wanted to evaluate safety concerns, both for the people running the group (since at least one openly feared retaliation) and Chesapeake community members (who wrongly think the After School Satan Club is promoting evil).
Lucien Greaves, The Satanic Temple’s spokesperson, told me the board’s response was self-inflicted, suggesting, “We’re not denying you equal access to a public forum. We are protecting you from what we’ll do to you if you if you use the public forum by preventing you from using it.”
If that’s an exaggeration, it’s not by much. The board hasn’t taken that step of preventing the Satanists from using the facilities, even telling the public the group appeared to meet all the legal criteria and that they had no right to reject the application. But it’s not hard to believe they could create an “out” for themselves by saying the Satanic group cannot meet because there are safety concerns, not because of the beliefs themselves. The board could also say the ASSC group needs to hire security officers at their own expense, possibly pricing them out of the rental.
If they take any of those drastic steps, though, it would be a victory for Christian extremists who treat neutrality as oppression.
As it stands, though, after a safety assessment is completed, the After School Satan Club should get the go-ahead in Chesapeake. If and when they do, the club’s first meeting would be scheduled for January 26.
Incidentally, at the 3:44:15 mark of the meeting, after some members of the school board suggested the Satanists were in the wrong, Everett questioned the so-called security concerns. Another ally said the threat wasn’t coming from Satanists; it was coming from “Christian Nationalists.” (She had a point.) But because they didn’t have the floor to speak, a board member asked for them to be removed from the building.
Photo: Shutterstock
112
Scottie's Playtime 