THE DEMOCRATIC CONSPIRACY! | Armageddon Update | Christopher Titus

What Does Trump Have On Republicans?? | Titus Podcast

The movement to shrink Oregon and expand Idaho

These people want the minority to rule over the majority.  That is not democracy.  They want their way and if the others don’t agree, they will just change the situation to get their way regardless of what the majority want.  Just like in Florida with schools and libraries.  One woman in the story claims that their representatives don’t represent them, but as the man says the representatives told him they do hear those voters but they just get outvoted.  That is democracy.  Are they wrong to work for what they want, no!  But again, just as the LGBTQIA supporters were late getting involved to stop the right from removing all the LGBTQIA representation / information from schools and libraries, the people trying to keep Oregon the same size as it is now were late standing up to the ones demanding their own way and changing the borders to get it.  I have a feeling that these people wanting to change the borders would be at home in a maga rally or in Florida, agreeing with DeathSantis on all issues.   Hugs.

In a state dominated by progressive politics, some residents in rural Oregon east of the Cascade Mountains want to move the border so that their counties become part of Idaho, a more conservative state that more closely aligns with their values. Correspondent Lee Cowan returns to Oregon for an update on his story (originally broadcast Oct. 16, 2022), in which he talks with advocates of the Greater Idaho movement about why they believe the time is right for this “radical” idea.

US ‘university’ spreads climate lies and receives millions from rightwing donors

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/06/prageru-climate-change-denier-republican-donors

Thanks to Ali for the link.  This continuing assault on education by the right is an attack on democracy itself.  The right doesn’t want a thinking public, they want obedient followers and soldiers who will do as told by the rulers.  Notice the funding for these right wing sites comes from the ultrarich right that wants either a theocracy or a fascist dictatorship.   With them in charge, of course.  If you go to the link you will see several more stories of the right ring billionaires pushing the hard right idology.   Hugs


PragerU is not accredited but has become a key tool in pushing false claims to youngsters – and raked in $200m from 2018 to 2022

An illustration with a red background, with the cut-out of a black-and-white photo of an older white man in the middle. He has white hair and glasses, wears a suit, and appears to be talking. He is surrounded by cartoon images of young-ish people looking at him uncertainly.

Dennis Prager, the conservative talkshow host and founder of the Prager University Foundation, which is not an accredited education organization. Characters in PragerU’s videos downplay the horrors of slavery and make false claims about the climate crisis. Composite: Guardian Photo Composite/Getty Images/PragerU


A rightwing media outlet promoting climate-crisis denialism and other “anti-woke” staples to young students and adults via social media has become a fundraising Goliath, raking in close to $200m from 2018 to 2022 with big checks from top conservative donors, tax records reveal.

Founded in 2009 by the conservative talkshow host Dennis Prager, the eponymous Prager University Foundation is not an accredited education organization. But via online media its PragerU Kids division has become a key tool in spreading false claims to young people with short videos aimed at undercutting widely accepted science that climate crisis disasters are accelerating due, largely, to fossil-fuel usage.

PragerU’s influence in pushing false narratives about climate change and other far-right shibboleths such as airbrushing the brutal reality of American slavery gained ground when the Florida board of education in July gave the green light to using its videos and other materials in classrooms, a move that PragerU is trying to capitalize on in Texas and other states. On Tuesday, Oklahoma’s school system also approved the use of PragerU’s materials.

But some of PragerU’s expansion plans ran into trouble in August, when it was condemned by Texas education officials for announcing prematurely that Texas schools had approved the usage of its advocacy materials, generating new scrutiny and criticism of PragerU’s operations.

Prager’s website trumpets its mission and its niche in the conservative ecosystem.

“PragerU is the world’s leading conservative non-profit, focused on changing minds through the creative use of digital media.”

That sweeping mission has been fueled by big conservative money and slick marketing, and has led to PragerU’s rising influence on the right.

Among PragerU’s leading financiers are the oil and gas fracking billionaire brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, who have ponied up at least $8m over the past decade, according to Texas financial records.

Other top conservative donors to PragerU, which styles itself as alternative to the “dominant leftwing ideology in culture, media and education”, include the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the National Christian Charitable Foundation and the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation.

Tax records also reveal that PragerU has flourished financially in recent years as the Prager University Foundation raised $196m from 2018 through 2022. That growth is underscored by revenues rising from $17.9m in 2018 to $65.1m in 2022.

Prager’s chief executive, Marissa Streit, whose biography on LinkedIn says she once served in Israeli military intelligence, boasts on its website: “PragerU is redefining how people think about media and education. We produce edutainment – an intersection of education and entertainment. Our content is essential to shaping culture and preserving American ideals.”

Streit’s vision of “edutainment” seems to be reflected in PragerU cartoons and videos, including one about Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America, in which Columbus tries to downplay the horrors of slavery.

“Slavery is as old as time, and has taken place in every corner of the world, even amongst the people I just left. Being taken as a slave is better than being killed,” the cartoon Columbus said. “I don’t see the problem.”

Other PragerU videos about the climate crisis make various false claims: they depict solar and wind power as environmentally dangerous, liken environmental activists to Nazis and claim recent record-breaking heat is just part of the natural weather cycle.

But the edutainment being peddled by PragerU has drawn widespread criticism from academic experts and watchdog groups, who fault its videos and teaching materials for children on the climate crisis, slavery and other issues as erroneous, and unworthy of state approval for classroom usage.

Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick DeVos Jr, in Washington in 2017.
Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick DeVos Jr, in Washington in 2017. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
——————————————————-
“Prager University is not a university,” said Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor of the history of science and the co-author of Merchants of Doubt. “By their own self-description, they are an advocacy group promoting conservative viewpoints on various political, economic and sociological topics.

“It is completely inappropriate for any state to grant them any influence, much less authority. over educational matters.

“For an American state government to authorize misleading, false and overtly biased materials for use in classrooms really crosses the Rubicon. It’s a new and alarming low.”

Other academics express related concerns.

“PragerU may be able to take advantage of overworked teachers in the classroom who are under time crunches to prepare climate-change lessons for their students, and therefore might turn to these inaccurate videos,” said Max Boykoff, an environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado.

Boykoff added that boosting public funding of education could help “keep such unsafe and menacing weapons out of the classroom”.

PragerU did not respond to a Guardian request to talk to Streit or Prager.

Critics notwithstanding, Prager, speaking at a Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia this summer, was blunt about PragerU’s goals, boasting that “we bring doctrines to children”, adding: “What is the bad of our indoctrination?”

Similarly, in a PragerU promotional video, Prager said: “We are in the mind-changing business, and few groups can say that.”

PragerU annual reports tout its success in spreading conservative doctrines to young people and adults. According to its most recent annual report, PragerU “edutainment” videos scored more than 1.2bn views in 2022 and over 7bn since its launch in 2009.

Until recently, PragerU content and its fight against what it labels the “woke agenda” depended mainly on Facebook and YouTube, but that is poised to expand with PragerU’s access to Florida classrooms, and other states potentially opening their classrooms too.

To keep growing its audience and operations, PragerU’s website showcases several ambitious fundraising programs. In September, PragerU is hosting a “founders’ retreat” in Nashville that seems geared to wooing more checks from major donors who give at least $100,000 a year.

The event is slated to be “an exclusive three-day experience with our innermost circle of supporters”, and will feature Dennis Prager, the conservative Daily Wire’s editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro, and other Daily Wire “personalities”. The event is “open to Donor Club members at the founders level (total annual giving of $100k or more)”.

Like PragerU, the Daily Wire has benefited mightily from billionaire and evangelical preacher Farris Wilks, who gave it $4.7m in 2015 to launch its operations. Wilks remains a co-owner.

PragerU’s fundraising and marketing success in spreading its climate crisis denialism and other misinformation is alarming watchdog groups.

“Prager U plays a significant role spreading well-packaged propaganda about numerous issues, including attacks on efforts to mitigate climate change, through promoting the disinformation peddled by notorious climate-change deniers, and more,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of the progressive watchdog group True North Research. “ It has always targeted younger adults, but in recent years it has added a massive program targeting children with its slick and deceptive videos.”

Other environmental advocates raised broader concerns.

“The danger of the Prager climate misinformation is how quickly it can spread in this era where a lot of people, including children, are being trained not to trust media sources or scientists,” said Kert Davies, who leads investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity. “That it would be in schools as curriculum is even scarier.

“The Prager YouTube library on climate change features a who’s who of career climate deniers and discredited contrarians. These folks will never admit they are wrong, and never change their minds no matter the weight of scientific evidence.”

Davies added: “Prager climate disinformation is dangerously out of step with reality. It is being disseminated just as the global consensus on the climate crisis grows stronger, as extreme weather events seemingly try to outdo each other.”

More broadly, Oreskes sees the spread of PragerU advocacy materials into Florida classrooms and possibly other states as harmful to educational values.

She said: “Every student has a basic right to an education that, as much as possible, is truthful, and, as much as humanly possible, objective. This is the opposite.”

 

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I was hoping you would consider taking the step of supporting the Guardian’s journalism. 

From Elon Musk to Rupert Murdoch, a small number of billionaire owners have a powerful hold on so much of the information that reaches the public about what’s happening in the world. The Guardian is different. We have no billionaire owner or shareholders to consider. Our journalism is produced to serve the public interest – not profit motives.

And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media – the tendency, born of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the name of neutrality. While fairness guides everything we do, we know there is a right and a wrong position in the fight against racism and for reproductive justice. When we report on issues like the climate crisis, we’re not afraid to name who is responsible. And as a global news organization, we’re able to provide a fresh, outsider perspective on US politics – one so often missing from the insular American media bubble. 

Around the world, readers can access the Guardian’s paywall-free journalism because of our unique reader-supported model. That’s because of people like you. Our readers keep us independent, beholden to no outside influence and accessible to everyone – whether they can afford to pay for news, or not.

If you can, please consider supporting us just once from $1, or better yet, support us every month with a little more – and you can cancel any time. Thank you.

Fire Ants – Most succesful creature that has ever lived | Full Episode

Horrifying.   I was once working in the yard before I understood what fire ants were when we first moved to Florida.  They swarmed my legs before they started to sting as a group.  That is what they do, the first ant doesn’t sting, they wait until they have a bunch of them when dealing with large prey.    By dogs that love gravy, that is painful.  Ron’s mother had to be hospitalized because of a fire ant attach.  They are nothing to take lightly.  They can kill a fully grown cow because they swarm the prey / threat.  Hugs

Witness one of natures ancient wonders – Fire Ants! It has been adapting, evolving for 150 million years 14 000 species they are nearly everywhere thriving. This is the story of solenopsis Invicta for 80 years it has been on a ceaseless march across the United States racking up six billion dollars every year in crop damage equipment repair and Pest Control conquering 340 million acres in 13 states and it’s still on the Move globally now scientists are cracking their ancient secrets to success and survival we knew that we could speculate all day but to fully understand the ants we decided to bring them into the lab and obtain visual data.

Divided on the field

Miami-Dade School Board Rejects LGBTQ Declaration, Proud Boys And Moms For Liberty Menace Attendees – JMG

Notice the threats and intimidation.  Also notice the overwhelming presence of the fundamentalist religious right.  This again is making sure that there is no positive representation of the LGBTQIA in schools or the public square.  Why should kids be taught tolerance and acceptance of the very people these bigots hate?  Why should LGBTQIA kids see positive role models and representations of themselves, see acceptance of themselves from the adults in charge of their daily lives?  And why should the tolerant and accepting of the LGBTQIA parents be allowed a say because a minority of violent loud haters demand kids be taught to hate, target, and bully LGBTQIA kids.  Why should those same LGBTQIA kids be allowed to feel good about themselves rather than deeply ashamed of who they are as the anti-LGBTQIA haters demand?    I am sick of this minority take over.  Lucky for my sanity there has started to be a large amount of push back in Florida and around the country, with teachers, Libraries, and towns fighting back and refusing to bow down to the threats unless they remove all LGBTQIA representation from public and society.   Hugs


Miami’s ABC affiliate reports:

Following a prolonged debate, the Miami-Dade County Public School Board has voted against officially recognizing October as LGBTQ History Month within the district. The contentious decision, passed by a 5-3 vote, comes in the wake of the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law that was signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last year.

The debate over Initiative H-11, which sought to acknowledge October as LGBTQ History Month within Miami-Dade County Public Schools, drew a large crowd of concerned citizens to the board’s weekly meeting. Emotions ran high as over 100 people signed up for the public comment section as they expressed both support and opposition to the proposal.

Miami’s CBS affiliate reports:

A few people spoke about the presence of the Proud Boys at the meeting as an intimidation factor. Some of those who spoke agreed with the Parental Rights in Education law, labeled by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, who said the designation felt like indoctrination.

Myra Jordan, a parent, said, “Leave my kids alone. You understand that? You want freedom? Have freedom at home.” Last year, a majority of the board also voted against against the designation.

I encourage you to watch both video reports below.

 

They caved to scare tactics and fascists. Shame on them.

Pretty much how it happened in Germany. Organization after organization siding with the Nazis either through fear or agreement.

The ones that did it through agreement were monsters.
Those that did it from fear were cowards and monsters.

 

Discrimination, pure and simple.

Former Supreme Court Justice Kennedy wrote that gays are a “class” of people who have endured “pure animus”.

In light of the post earlier about the presidential libraries, I think this is a taste of what fascism in America would look like: If you step out of line, it won’t be uniformed officers banging on your door at midnight, but paramilitary thugs harassing and attacking you and a flood of anonymous death threats that the police won’t bother investigating.

we are already there, it is just being measured in degrees.

If Trump wins, it’ll be everyday life

The failure of law enforcement to apply the law without prejudice is a historical issue.

Prominent members of Moms for Liberty have close ties to the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, QAnon and white Christian nationalists. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio once boasted that Moms for Liberty is “the gestapo with vaginas.”

I’m afraid I’m going there with US friends in February.
They are New Englanders against fascism as much as I am.
I will piss off as many fascists as I can, be as liberal and European as I can and tell as many Republicans to go fuck themselves as I can.

 

They all have guns, no license or permit required to carry now. You can assume that any christofascist you piss off has a gun in their waistband and is likely to turn red, pull it out and gun you and yours down in cold blood.

And then claim Stand Your Ground and get off.

Please be careful. Florida is a special kind of crazy.

Remember, this is the state that had not one, but two incidents of face eating Zombies.

 

Well last time there I was threatened by a gang of marching right wingers, who came on the scene after the Pride Parade.
I had yelled at them to go fuck themselves. that seemed to have annoyed them.
But yes, this time I will be more careful; it is a scary place, I saw that.

Any gay bar, club, cruising place, or beach is now a target

And anti LBGT discrimination in Florida is legal

Your best bet is to keep your head down and not be openly gay down there

And yes, I realize how backwards that sounds

 

Back into the closet we go. Exactly where they want us. I for one will not tolerate it. Granted I don’t reside in Floriduh and will never step foot in that state for the rest of my natural life, but I’ve fought too hard to just let these fanatics win the battle. And it is a battle. Between right and wrong and this is just wrong on so many levels. We cannot cower. That’s exactly what they want. No, we have to persevere. Keep spreading love, not hate and keep working on making this society one where all can live freely.

While your point is taken, it is not the totality of Floridians. We should not simply run away, but instead continue to be visible, and vocal and vigilant.

Hot tip for people who jUsT wAnT tO pRoTeCt cHiLdReN: when you’re on the same side as nazis it might be time to reconsider.

Also, you can’t protect your children from time. They will grow up, and stop listening to you.

Except for the old guy with the walker most of these terrorists are young so don’t assume the hate filled voters will die out soon.

You all better get your vote on in 2024.

They don’t like being told what to do, but they sure love telling other people what to do.

That’s what Christianity is all about.

People on here have seem to forgotten that Anita Bryant successfully petitioned the Miami Dade schools against gay teachers. This is just more of the same. Where are the pie throwing machines?

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Notice the empty book shelf and the poster: Pros and Cons of slavery

These fuckers will still cry about how evil Castro was while they do the same damn thing he did to people he hated.
Fuck them.

Hey, they just want kids to have the freedom to commit suicide at home, where they can be hated at their parents discretion.

One of its former directors, Bridget Ziegler, is married to the chairman of the Florida Republican Party. DeSantis recently appointed Ziegler to a commission overseeing Disney’s Orlando theme parks amid a battle between the Florida governor and Disney over the state’s law banning classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation.

Moms For Liberty is not the grassroots organization they claim to be.

None of the right wing or pro-industry groups are actually grassroots.

 

 

 

Pennsylvania school district requires social studies classes to incorporate right-wing propaganda

https://popular.info/p/pennsylvania-school-district-requires

Seriously more attempts to push fundamentalist Christian ideas, moral values, and hates on every public school kid.  The program was developed by a person with degrees in politics but none in education, in a Christian college that the right wants to make the model for all PUBLIC schools. A person who describes himself as a fox in the hen house.   Florida is doing this.  This is entirely driven to push a false narrative of a Christian nation founded by religious figures who disliked slavery among some of the lies.  It is about putting religion and the greatness of the US as a priority rather than facts.  Remember this is being driven by a minority with the goal of forcing their world view on the majority and to allow that fundamentalist religious minority to rule over the secular majority.  Plus look at the money spent, that is pure corruption, a big money giveaway to a religious person pushing a fundamentalist religious agenda.   Hugs


SEP 7, 2023
 
 

Last Monday, the Pennridge School Board, located outside of Philadelphia, imposed a new social studies curriculum that will require teachers to incorporate lessons from the 1776 Curriculum, a controversial K-12 course of study developed by Hillsdale College, a private Christian institution that promotes right-wing ideologies.

The curriculum was developed in part by Jordan Adams, an educational consultant with no experience developing curricula for public schools. Adams launched his company, Vermilion Education, in March 2023. The Pennridge School Board hired Adams in April, paying $125 per hour for his services. The contract includes no limit on the number of hours, no specific deliverables, and no termination date. 

Adams holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Hillsdale College and a master’s in humanities from another private conservative school, the University of Dallas. He does not hold any degrees in education. After graduating, Adams returned to Hillsdale College as an employee, where he promoted the 1776 Curriculum. On July 1, in a private presentation to Moms for Liberty, a far-right organization that pushes for changes in educational policy, Adams described himself as a “fox..in the henhouse.” He bragged that “the right people are freaking out” about his contract with Pennridge Schools. As of a few months ago, Adams had no other public school clients. 

Although Adams does not have the qualifications to write curriculum, it was revealed during a Pennridge School Board meeting on August 21 that Adams independently wrote aspects of the new social studies curricula. 

Adams’ proposed curriculum faced opposition from several members of the Pennridge School Board and the district’s own academic experts. Jenna Vitale, the K-12 social studies supervisor, cited concerns in a recent school board meeting about the “age-appropriateness of the elementary curriculum [developed by Adams], highlighting… the lack of the appropriate history background for incoming fourth and fifth graders and the elimination of 19th century U.S. history from the secondary social studies curriculum.” Vitale also cited concerns about Adams’ proposal to shift the third-grade curriculum from a focus on Native Americans to “Colonial America.”

The 1776 Curriculum, created in response to the New York Times’ 1619 project, claims that it is an accurate and unbiased curriculum that “seeks to tell the entire grand narrative of the American story.” Hillsdale’s curriculum, however, includes inaccuracies and skewed interpretations of America’s history. 

For example, the Hillsdale curriculum repeatedly suggests that America’s Founding Fathers had deep reservations about slavery. The ninth grade Pennridge curriculum will require a Hillsdale lesson that encourages students to “[c]onsider also that even among the southern founders who supported slavery or held slaves, several leading founders expressed regret and fear of divine retribution for slavery in America, such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.” The curriculum states that, “Some freed their slaves as well, such as George Washington.” The same wording is also included in the required Hillsdale lesson for fourth graders.

Hillsdale’s description of the Founding Fathers’ views on slavery is highly misleading. In 1781, Jefferson wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia about his belief in the “biological differences between blacks and whites.” Jefferson also had a “purported relationship” with his slave Sally Hemings, and it is believed that he fathered at least some of Hemings’ children. While Madison argued that slaves “were ‘not like merchandize’ and were ‘not consumed,’ and thus could not be held as property,” Madison chose to “not free his slaves in his will,” instead leaving them to his wife, who “sold them off to pay debts.” While Washington did leave instructions to free his slaves after his death, the instructions also stated that the slaves should not be freed until after his wife had also passed. Washington also “order[ed] an enslaved man to be whipped for walking on the lawn” and “aggressively pursued runaway” slaves. This context is not mentioned in the Hillsdale unit.   

A required Hillsdale lesson for Pennridge School District third graders covers the “history of slavery in world history.” The lesson encourages teachers to downplay the prevalence of slavery in America, instead emphasizing slavery in other parts of the world. “Overall, of the nearly 11 million Africans who survived being brought to the Western Hemisphere, around 3 percent, or about 350,000, were brought to the North American continent, with the rest of all Africans taken to other colonies in the Caribbean and South America,” the lesson states.

The 1776 Curriculum has garnered criticism from academic experts. “What [Hillsdale has] done is they’ve simply left stuff out in an attempt to shape a vision of patriotism,” James Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, told NBC News. “What they also are trying to do is replace an approach to teaching that teaches students how to think with an approach that teaches the students what to think.”

During a meeting earlier this month, Pennridge School Board member Jonathan Russell asked why the Hillsdale curriculum was listed as “required” for teachers when the proposed inclusion of Hillsdale lessons was originally pitched as an additional resource. Vitale said that Adams told her other board members “asked him to say that it was required.” 

By a 5-4 vote, the Pennridge School Board voted to impose the new ninth grade curriculum this year. The vote occurred on the first day of school, giving the teachers little to no time to prepare lessons based on the new guidelines.  Vitale stated that she was “very nervous” about teachers not having enough time to prepare lessons based on the new curriculum. (The School Board voted to implement the new first through fifth grade curriculum beginning in the fall of 2024).

Hillsdale’s revisionist history 

The 1776 Curriculum spends considerable time on the meaning behind the statement in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” A lesson now required for Pennridge School District ninth graders instructs teachers to pose the question of whether “women and slaves were included in this understanding of equality.” At the time, women did not have the right to vote, had limited property rights, and married women could not earn their own income. Nevertheless, the Hillsdale lesson argues that “the Founders meant that men and women share equally in human dignity and in possession of natural rights or freedoms that are simply part of being human.”

The lesson claims that, despite the limitation on women’s rights, “[w]hat was unique to America was the right to vote at all and then the relatively rapid rate at which the right to vote was expanded to” women. This statement, however, is misleading. According to Pew Research Center, in 1893, New Zealand granted women the right to vote, and “[a]t least 19 other countries also did so prior to the U.S. passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.” The 1776 Curriculum also creates justifications for not granting women the right to vote, insinuating that it was logical to only give the franchise to men, as they are the ones who “would be called to give their lives up for their country” and “had a high personal stake in what the country did regarding various policies, including going to war.”

For fifth grade, the new curriculum includes a Hillsdale lesson on the Civil War that argues that many Southerners believed the Civil War was about “states’ rights” rather than “preserv[ing] the institution of slavery.” The required Hillsdale lesson states that “[t]he majority of Southerners were not slaveholders and while fighting for their states would preserve slavery, many common Southerners fought for the argument of states’ rights rather than to preserve the institution of slavery.” 

 

LGBTQ Group Banned From Iowa Labor Day Parade

It sounds like one very bigoted man used his position to continue the fundamentalist Christian rights goal of wiping the LGBTQIA from the public view and society.  Remove move us, a genocide of a group of people they don’t like.  Deny the LGBTQIA their rights all people should have and that the fundamentalist straight cis Christians insisted they alone should have.  Plus by claiming it was blocked because of the threats of violence from the very groups doing the enforcement work of the very bigotry he and his kind push he was supporting that terrorism against the LGBTQIA.   Plus in his message he says the real reason he wants the pride people excluded.  He doesn’t want sexual indentation or sexual orientation to be promoted.  In other words, just keep that shit to yourself in the privacy of your home, something no one ever has said to straight cis people flaunting their sexual orientation or affections via holding hands or kissing in public.  In fact the religious groups love to publically push straight couples getting married.    Hugs


The Associated Press reports:

A local LGBTQ pride group was excluded from a southwest Iowa town’s Labor Day parade, apparently by the city’s mayor, who cited safety concerns. Shenandoah Pride planned to have a small group walking with a banner and a drag performer riding in a convertible, with candy, popsicles and stickers to hand out in the parade in Essex, Iowa, said Jessa Bears, a founding member of the group.

Essex Mayor Calvin Kinney spearheaded the decision, with no motions or city council vote. Council Member Heather Thornton, who disagreed with the move, said “it was the mayor himself,” and added she was told he had the authority and didn’t need a council vote. Kinney did not immediately respond to an email from the AP regarding the decision. The AP’s phone calls to City Attorney Mahlon Sorensen went unanswered.

Cedar Rapids’ ABC affiliate reports:

The ACLU of Iowa sent the city attorney a letter Saturday urging the city to let the group participate. The letter included a Thursday email from the mayor that cited safety of the public and parade participants in not allowing “parade participants geared toward the promotion of, or opposition to, the politically charged topic of gender and/or sexual identification/orientation.” Thornton said she knew of no threats.

 

“Tax paying citizens denied public services”.

There… fixed it.

Safety concern is the gun carrying fascists intent to cause harm. Deal with that!

Your ex-husband said he bought a gun to kill you, so we decided it’s in your best interest to lock you in prison for your safety.

This is just today’s new pretext to oppress speech of citizens who the government has decided are undesirable.

They want to forestall violence by going after the victims. Do they still question rape victims about “What were you wearing?”

Ah, the old “safety concerns” excuse. They must have been studying some Russian manuals on how to keep LGBT people out of sight.

Women and children should be excluded from the march out of safety concern. They may incite rapists to rape. /s
This is the sign of a spineless politican who has no place in holding any office.

Under those conditions, anyone who participates in the parade is geared toward the opposition of LGBT rights. Because, anyone who supports LGBT inclusion could not participate in such a parade.

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Put Republicans in public office and this is what you get.

the politically charged topic of gender and/or sexual identification/orientation

And who exactly is making our existence “politically charged”?

Unfuck that mayor and every other public official like him.

We can’t have any parades unless it’s straight Christian white people now, because Nazis.

I see, we’re now at the “make them invisible” stage of fascism. The camps are not far off kids, make no mistake about it.

LGBT people existing in public is now “Politically-charged?” Uh, no, we’re *under attack* The ‘opposition’ to us existing in public are the only ones with the problem in the first place, and it doesn’t help when they can force towns to silently comply with the Christofasccist Right.

 

 

Trans information and medical resource material.

Viced Rhino is an atheist YouTuber who mostly does debunking of Christian apologist.  But as a father of three children including one out lesbian teenager, he has covered a lot of the anti-LGBTQIA stuff.  He has compiled a pretty great list of studies and medical information.  He broke it out into categories.  I love it as it is easy to use and all the material to respond to anti-trans haters is in one neatly organized place.   Hugs

https://linktr.ee/rhinostransresearch