

From the transcript of the court hearing:
THE COURT: The plaintiffs accuse you of invidious discrimination in violation of the 14th Amendment. How do you answer?
STATE’S LAWYER: That’s the point, Your Honor.
mkbear68 4 hours ago
Well, this was expected and they knew it, but it plays to the base and gets donations, but it puts real people at risk.


The female version of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers
Moms for Liberty is an American conservative organization that advocates against school curriculums that mention LGBT rights, race, critical race theory, and discrimination, while multiple chapters have also campaigned to ban from school libraries books that address gender and sexuality issues. The group began by protesting COVID-19 protections in schools, including mask and vaccine mandates.
Moms for Liberty has been criticized for harassment, for deepening divisions among parents, for making students’ education more difficult, and for having close ties to the Republican Party rather than being a genuine grassroots effort.
The group was labeled an “anti-government extremist” organization in 2023 by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Formation January 1, 2021
Founders Tina Descovich, Tiffany Justice, Bridget Ziegler
Headquarters Melbourne, Florida, U.S.
Area served United States
Membership 70,000
It was very obviously discrimination, and it’s obvious from the arguments they put before the court that this has nothing to do with any form of concern for anything other than brazen politics and just flat out hatred of a minority group.
SkokieDaddy – wiener dog dad Melissia8 hours ago
So he earned his hate bona fides AND now that the law is struck down, he gets bonus victim points.
Bingo. This is performative art for their target voting bloc (evangelicals) who vote solid Red in every election like clockwork. Dems don’t have the equivalent. There’s literally nothing on the Left that’s anything like the consistency of the Right when it comes to voter outreach.
Good. I hope that all these hateful and cruel laws are struck down. The slave states want to make laws that health care workers don’t have to give LGBT people medical assistance at ALL if they have “deeply held” religious beliefs against us. It’s time we are considered to be human beings, not just another theocratic political football. If you prick us, do we not bleed?
Historically, (like 2 years ago, not 20), law in the US doesn’t let you single out a group, especially a disfavored group, and pass laws against them. Nice to see some vestiges of that core idea are still here.
And note that THOMAS is the #1 cheerleader for getting rid of ‘equal protection’.



I see the handiwork of the likes of Scott Lively and his ilk, spreading the gospel of hate and their twisted comprehension of history to African, Caribbean, and Latin American countries.
Chucktech Brooklyn Albert18 hours ago
It’s all part of the relentless march of Christian hegemony. Brought to you by the filthy pestilence that is American Christianity
Authoritarian advocates, whatever their form, need some “other” to be dehumanized and oppressed. When everybody more or less has the same race and culture in a country, they then cast about for some other way of differentiating for the purposes of fomenting hate. Sometimes it’s by religion, sometimes by ethnicity, but if those are relatively homogeneous, they’ll go for LGBTQ status or political identity.
For example, in America in the 1950s, they did both of those latter, along with racist bigotry: People perceived to be not-straight and those who were accused of being socialist or communist. All three were targeted for systematic oppression.
It stuns me that these leaders are so focused on sexuality and making gay people pay for their sexuality with severe punishments and even death. Why is this even on their minds? Is being gay causing some sort of great turmoil in their countries? Are they trying to undermine their governments? Are they just living their lives like everyone else? So much angst over gay people. He contradicts his own statements in just one paragraph. “Gay Africans don’t exist.” – “kick LGBT people out of Kenya completely,” Well, which is it? Who gets kicked out if they don’t exist in the first place? Screwy like the radical Christians that foment this hatred.
Serene Pumpkin Gianni17 hours ago
Some of them genuinely seem to think that the existence of LGBTQ people threatens the continued existence of the human race, because not enough people are breeding.
Kenya has 53 million people in an area the size of Texas. Underpopulation is not a serious issue there.
He does know Vader eventually kills Obi-wan right?
Are you implying that DeSantis is directly coordinating with a campaign PAC? Why would a Republican do something so illegal?
Wow, did he pick the wrong character.

Sarah carrot festival2 hours ago
He’s as evil as Grand Moff Tarkin, but without the charisma.

This will certainly help Florida schools in recruiting top intellect — both in students and teachers. /s
Dwight Williamson DaddyRay21 hours ago
Why does everyone always assume his hare brained schemes for publicity are gonna work . He lost a lawsuit yesterday .
Rambie Dwight Williamson21 hours ago
Right, this is more about keeping his name in the news cycle and pandering to the MAGA’t base.

You may recall Eric Metaxas for the time he sucker-punched a passing kid on a bicycle on his way into the White House for a Trump event and then lied about it even after video surfaced. It’s what Jesus would want.
Punching a kid – It’s what Jesus would want
Really amazing how millions of African kids got hold of poppers.


“The magnitude of the value of the Bible as a literary work outweighs any violence or profanity which may be contained in the book,”
So, will they do the same for ALL books??? or just the ones, they deem fit???
“Public spaces are public spaces,” U.S. District Court Judge David Nuffer wrote. “Public spaces are not private spaces. Public spaces are not majority spaces. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution ensures that all citizens, popular or not, majority or minority, conventional or unconventional, have access to public spaces for public expression.”


The text could even affect bachelorette parties, if they involved sex toys or other paraphernalia. The new changes could even impact cheerleading and criminalize sexual conduct between consenting 17-year-olds (17 is the age of consent in Texas).
Movie screenings and art history classes could similarly come under fire. And of course, the law will affect its original target: drag performers, Pride parades, and transgender people just trying to live their lives.
Lawsuits against similar bans are planned or already underway in other states. In Florida, the Orlando outpost of Hamburger Mary’s sued the DeSantis administration last month.
No more Saturday cartoons…



https://www.propublica.org/article/samuel-alito-luxury-fishing-trip-paul-singer-scotus-supreme-court
Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court





Stitt rejected calls for Walters’ resignation and attempted to reappoint him again earlier this year, but the state Senate refused to allow him to hold the elected superintendent and appointed secretary of education posts at the same time.
Well, Oklahoma does have the second lowest high school SAT scores in the whole country*, so maybe tots and pears will help.
* West Virginia is the only state that did worse
ConnieHinesDorothyProvine Joe in NM3 days ago
All those states compete to see who can lead the fastest race to the bottom. Apparently, Louisiana has the lowest life expectancy in the country (Hawaii has the highest).
So he doesn’t like the 1961 decision…toots, the SC ruled on this a bunch of times. And don’t throw that ‘found fathers’ shit around, they did NOT. Under gawd my ass. ;(
Thomas Jefferson penned the wall metaphor in a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802. He celebrated the First Amendment for “building a wall of separation between Church & State.” The Supreme Court has endorsed this view many times. First in 1878. And then again “in 1947, 1948, 1961 (three times), 1962, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1977, 1982, and again and again in countless concurrences, dissents, and lower court opinions,” according to a recent law review article. The wall metaphor nicely sums up the relationship.
“For it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Buford Joe in NM2 days ago edited
I thought Article 11 of the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli did a handy job of summarizing what The Founding Fathers™ thought of Christianity in America, since it passed in the US Senate unanimously while being signed by many of the actual founders –
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims); and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan (Mohammedan) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
rednekokie Joe in NM3 days ago
Not to forget the Treaty of Tripoli – the first treaty entered into by the United States – and having constitutional power — which states that the United States has no national religion.
“Groomer.” Noun. Definition (per DeSantis):
1. A person who does something you disapprove of or who says something you disagree with.
2. A person who believes in providing factual, age-appropriate information to children on topics pertaining to sexuality, sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity.

Remember the meme, “Everything I don’t like are Nazis.” Now it’s “Everything I don’t like are groomers.”
What an insult to victims of real sexual abuse.
weshlovrcm3 days ago edited
There’s something wrong with people who are consumed with “grooming” and “groomers.” Normal people don’t obsess over this vile subject.
dagobarbz, fine Italian shoes weshlovrcm2 days ago
What amazes me is, while they’re howling about grooming, they manage to completely ignore the ones actively doing it and getting busted for it weekly, the churches.
https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/06-23-2023/house-gop-confederate-name-fight/
The GOP friction stems from a push by Rep Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) who publicly revived the discussion by trying to prevent funding in an energy and water development bill from being used to rename Army Corps civil works projects that are named after the Confederacy or an individual who served in the Confederate military.
“One of the things that is irritating a few of us: a certain member from Georgia is wanting to re-bring up the Confederate base names,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told POLITICO.
Bacon said he told the Georgia Republican that he would “would fight him” on trying to prevent funding from going toward renaming. (Clyde’s amendment doesn’t mention military bases.)
Bacon led that effort in the House to create the process for renaming the military assets.
He noted on Friday that he recounted to Clyde about how African-Americans have thanked him for his work on renaming the Confederate assets. In a separate statement, Bacon added that the issue was settled in 2020 and that he didn’t think it was “wise to re-litigate” it.
“Confederate generals fought for a cause that we know was wrong and violated their oaths to Constitution. Most of the 10 that bases were named for were also terrible generals. … Finally, some were affiliated with racist actions after the war. Most of these bases were named around WW1 and done to placate the Jim Crow elected leaders at the time,” he added in the statement.
GOP: “Democrats were the party of The Confederacy.”
Also GOP: “Don’t you dare take away honors to The Confederacy!”
Doug105 Pollos Hermanos ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈa day ago

Being a Fan of the Confederacy means……. (Take your pick)
#1

#2

#3

another_steve Hank: NO MORE WoW!!!a day ago
I don’t know the “official thinking” of American historians on point, but I believe much of what we’re seeing today with respect to the Republican Party is 160 years of simmering resentment by the South regarding its loss in the 1860s Civil War now coming to the surface.
Trump “tapped” into it. “Build the wall” was metaphor for “keep the coloreds out.” His embrace of rabid racists, including neo-Nazis, is a “message received” by the Republican base.
They miss the old plantation days, the good old days. When the coloreds and the women knew their place and there was no “deviance” like drag queens and trans people.
JimmyCinChitown Hank: NO MORE WoW!!!a day ago edited
In Germany, Nazi paraphernalia like swastika flags, et all, as well as neo-Nazi political parties are officially banned by law. (Germany doesn’t have a First Amendment).This is the reason that German Nazis fly Confederate flags. You are known by the company you keep.
Remember when we were expected to believe that Trump was so rich that he would use his own funds to campaign, didn’t need to raise money, therefore he was incorruptible? Good times.
JackFknTwist RealityBass2 days ago edited
What a liar.
He said he would use his own money. Just like everything else about him, – a lie, a scam, a con, a fraud …..from getting someone to sit his exams to his 2016 campaign to his subversion of a democratic election.
His whole life has been devoted to scamming. He has never earned an honest buck. It’s all been about the underhand deal, the stiffing people and companies what they are owed.
Now there is no way around not paying his lawyers.
they won’t act for him without being paid up-front. But Giuliani can fuck off, he’s gonna be hung out to flap in the wind.

