What the fuck!!! This culture war against the LGBTQIA and the attempt to drive the country hard back to the 1950s has got to stop. We have had these fights, these arguments, and society has progressed into acceptance. They found one exposed nipple? Have any of you been to a redneck bar in the deep south? I went to a bar in Georgia when I was 19 and in the US Army. Man what I saw there made what I saw working in a gay bar in the 1990s look like a church picnic. One booth was reserved for giving blow jobs by the local bar sluts. I had to be very worried because they loved to get them some young army boys fresh from boot camp in training schools. They about do you on the bar stool. But that is OK to the haters because it is cis straight sex in the open, not an exposed nipple in a gay bar. Wait, I am confused, I thought only female boobs were sexy and to be hidden. Men boobs are fine to see everywhere. There are different kinds of bars for different likes. I bet you some of the high-end places are offering sex also, but those are upper society, so the police won’t bother them. The republican Christian Taliban won’t be happy until everyone is as repressed and unhappy as they are. Hugs. Scottie
Marching into a gay bar to issue citations feels a bit vintage in 2024. Nevertheless, over the weekend, the Joint Enforcement Team (JET), which is a coalition of Seattle Police, Fire, the state Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB), and others, entered two gay bars, The Cuff Complex and The Seattle Eagle, and started looking around.
And what did they find? A bartender’s exposed nipple and a few people wearing jockstraps, offenses that law enforcement can cite you for in Washington if you’re also selling alcohol.
At 12:30 on Saturday morning, a 10-member JET crew filed into Cuff, according to owner Joey Burgess. They came in with flashlights, scaring some patrons who left in a hurry. Inside, they saw the offending nipple, a violation of state law the JET may penalize in some way.
A group of Capitol Hill gay bars and clubs are teaming up with neighborhood queer community leaders Dan Savage and Terry Miller in calling for the state’s liquor control board and Seattle Police officials to explain what they say was a weekend crackdown reminiscent of historical harassment of Seattle’s LGBTQ friendly venues.
Ownership at the bars including The Cuff, Queer/Bar, Massive, and The Eagle along with Savage and Miller say that citations issued over weekend over clothing and decency violations at a handful of clubs recorded by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board and so-called Joint Enforcement Team inspectors were targeted.
The group is asking for the community to demand the liquor control board explain its actions.
A coalition of law enforcement officials raided two Seattle gay bars and found nipples and jockstraps in close proximity to booze. Bar owners at Cuff and the Eagle say they may face citations.
I used to have a lot of respect for the police. In the past 12-15 years, that has really eroded away. When I see the times they have shot people because they felt threatened by somebody sitting in a car or reading that the person was shot 56 times, I question them. It’s become worse when they show up dressed like tactical assault troops for simple things. They are getting away with murder. I am not sure how much that I trust them anymore.
And if Trump assumes his dictatorship, cops will have his blessing to be non-compliant with laws and free of any accountability. That’s exactly what he said.
For me, watching the old man get shoved down nonchalantly in Buffalo was the tipping point. First time I used a porcine term to describe them, just after an expletive.
I’ve distrusted cops ever since I shared a house for a while with, among others, a police cadet. The stories I heard about what cops allow other cops to get away with!
And this was just run-of-the-mill police dishonesty and corruption. At the time, I wasn’t aware of how aggressively violent many of them are, as well.
Dude, you and I have a very similar take on this shit and I applaud you for the spot on comment. Being SWM I sometimes have to edit what I say but can always count on you to “send it”.
Even if there is a god/gods (I’m agnostic), I doubt that He/She/It/They would care about people seeing each other’s nipples and various body parts. He/She/It/They made them that way, after all, even if through evolution.
Being that this was open knowledge for many years. I mean, it’s the cuff and the Eagle and all they found was an open nipple and jock strap. Lol I too am wondering who’s behind this. At the liquor board. You know damn well that there’s some religious nut or right-wing POS behind it.
This follows closely upon the attempt to shut down one of the city’s two traditionally gay nude beaches (by building a children’s playground next door). Thankfully, that was nipped in the bud by an overwhelmingly oppositional public protest. Hopefully this will be too.
Brattleboro, Vermont built West River Park next to the traditionally nude (optional) beach on West River for that exact reason. No nudity within 500 feet of a park.
Remember when some liquor control guy took a snap shot of the Eagle balcony and caught some penises in the picture? They said they were going to close it until Dan Savage went around town taking pictures of himself in City Hall, etc with his dick out (public nudity is NOT illegal in Seattle) asking if they were going to close them down too and they backed off.
I know that they can only show ‘beefcake’ pictures on the monitors in bars, a bit amazing down in CA where they have full on porn movies going in some of the bars…
Ya, the last time I was in an Eagle there was someone locked in a cage in the center of the room performing oral sex and being urinated on by strangers. A nipple and jockstrap seem almost wholesome in comparison.
Seattle has a reputation for being a liberal haven, but in fact the SPD is virulently bigoted. Remember that they were under a consent decree for 11 years, effectively under federal supervision until they changed a racist culture that had led to the murder of a First Nations man. Parts of that decree are STILL in effect.
Nipples, jockstraps and alcohol? You can see more flesh, alcohol, and lewd conduct on a public beach in any Summer. Yeah, the originators of that raid on gay bars has some ‘splainin’ to do, and an apology to make. Seattle, you’re better than this!
2016, Americans elected a rapist to the White House. 2024 that rapist is running for the Republican nomination. Rapists gonna rape.
If you think that your liberties are protected by case law, – the Supreme Court, let me introduce you to the strict constructionists, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Any Barrett, Kavanaugh. Raids on gay bars, – you ain’t seen nuttin yet
Are we worried yet about marriage equality, about gay health clinics, about PDAs, about flags or drags, about our freedoms of association in or out of gay bars……….. Are we worried yet about camps, about quarantines, about being ostracised ? Are we worried yet about what the Evangelicals want to do to us?
Please notice the date. Two years ago. These were children, 50% being held in pre-trial detention, but already convicted and serving harsh sentences. Even though the boys were 17 at the time of the interview they were younger when picked up, and we have seen younger kids in each video I have shared. Every single thing the Israeli soldiers did to these kids was to induce pain and fear. It is the shit interrogators at Gitmo did to adults, and that was called a war crime then. They are doing this to hurt, be cruel, to break these kids, and terrorize both them and their parents. All because they are Palestinian. This is the government the US has supported unequivocally, and this is why the attacks on Israel happen. In the US some states have made it illegal to protest Israel, to support the BDS movement. What is BDS? Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. The republicans in congress are trying to equate the protesting what Israel is doing with antisemitism. That is stupid. Don’t fall for it. This is a short clip, all the words are in big print on the screen. Please watch, and then spread the word. Help these kids. Hugs. Scottie
Palestinian teenagers Ahmad, and Abdulkareem, both 17, describe their harrowing experiences being interrogated and ill-treated by Israeli forces in the Huwwara Interrogation and Detention Center near the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
It is one thing for a person who commits a crime to be off the ballot, like starting an insurrection against the US. But this is the real weaponizing of the laws to harm political opponents. What are these republicans scared of? They can not fight idea to idea. They can not promote their own ideas because they unpopular, the people don’t want what the republicans are pushing. So republicans resort to dirty tricks. Even the governor said, let her on the ballot. Hugs. Scottie
Vanessa Joy was booted off the ballot because she did not include her deadname on official documents.
The county elections board that disqualified a transgender candidate for Ohio state office because she did not include her deadname on petitions circulated to potential voters is refusing to reverse its decision, even after pressure from the state’s governor and other trans candidates being to run for office without disclosing their deadnames in Ohio.
Despite collecting enough signatures to run as a Democrat for Ohio’s firmly Republican House District 50, real estate photographer Vanessa Joy learned earlier this month that she had been disqualified from the race by the Stark County Board of Elections due to an obscure state law requiring candidates to disclose any name changes that have taken place within the last five years.
People who get married don’t have to disclose their previous names to run for office in Ohio, but apparently trans people do.
Notably, the 1995 law was not mentioned in the Ohio secretary of state’s 2024 candidate guide and has not been included in previous candidate guides in recent years. Nor did the candidacy petition form Joy filled out include any mention of the law or space to list any name changes.
Joy requested a reconsideration of the decision, according to a January 19 statement from the Stark County Board of Elections. The board denied her request, citing an Ohio Supreme Court case that found that the law is “unambiguous,” that the “intent behind the candidate’s use of a different name is not relevant,” and that it could not “add an exception that does not appear in the statutory language.”
“The Stark County Board of Elections is sympathetic to Vanessa Joy’s argument that the campaign election guide put out by the Ohio Secretary of State was not specific enough,” the statement read.
The board added that its “decision must be based on the law and cannot be arbitrarily applied.” However, Joy was one of four transgender candidates running for Ohio office this year. Two others, Bobbie Arnold and Arienne Childrey, had their candidacies for Ohio state House seats challenged under the law. Both have since been cleared to have their names appear on the November ballot. Still, according to the Associated Press, both Arnold and Childrey could technically be removed from office if Joy does not succeed in challenging the law.
A fourth trans candidate, Ari Faber, has not had his candidacy for Ohio’s state Senate challenged. Faber has not legally changed his name and is running with his birth name on the ballot, NBC News reports.
While Joy told the AP that, for now, her campaign is over, she is working with an attorney to get the law changed. “I’m out of the race, but I’m not out of the fight,” she said.
Last week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said that trans candidates should not be disqualified for not listing their deadnames and argued for changes to ensure that future candidates will be aware of the little-known law.
According to the AP, Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose said that his team will include the law in future candidate guides but opposed changing the law itself.
This is the most critical thing in Utah for the elected officials to get to. What are there, 10 or 15 trans people in the state? So rather than fix kids going hungry in the summer when school is out, rather than fix medical care for poor people, rather than tackle homelessness, they are worried about who is peeing in what bathroom. Something that doesn’t matter. When you go into a public restroom it is not for a social gathering! If you are trying to see or determine what is someone else’s pants, you are a pervert and you are wrong. If you buy into the garbage that a trans person in a bathroom is just there to attack a cis female, weird they never seem concerned about trans boys attacking cis boys in bathrooms, but if that is your worry, don’t. It doesn’t happen! Facts are pesky things, the people being assaulted in bathrooms are trans people and cis women accused of being trans people. The ones doing the attacking … yes bigots, vigilante cis people thinking they have a right to police who gets to use the bathroom. This is a created panic issue by right wing religious haters who can not stand that trans people, people who are different, exist. This is all about enforcing homogeneous, forcing people to fit the right mold, to have only the correct people in society / public. About rejecting the modern age to force everyone to return to what was acceptable in the distant past. It is no different than the Amish demanding that everyone act just like them. Hugs. Scottie
The Senate spent days deciding just how anti-trans they wanted the law to be.
Utah’s Republican-dominated Senate approved a revised version of an anti-trans bathroom bill Thursday, following days of flip-flopping over just how anti-trans they wanted it to be. The state House must now sign the revised version before heading to the governor’s desk to become law.
The initial version of H.B. 257, passed by the Utah State House last week, included a provision banning transgender people from entering bathrooms and other “sex-designated privacy spaces” that align with their gender identity in “publicly funded and publicly owned” buildings unless they have updated their birth certificates and can prove that they have undergone gender confirmation surgery. Violations of the law would have been punishable by up to six months in jail.
The dangerous measure fits with the state’s long history of policing private matters.
As journalist Erin Reed noted, that version of the law would have applied to airports, convention centers, park buildings, recreational centers, public administration buildings, colleges, universities, and public schools.
On Wednesday, Utah state Sen. Dan McCay (R) introduced an amended version of the bill in the state Senate. As KUER reported, that version only applied to “government-owned and operated” buildings, like public schools, universities, and government buildings.
McCay’s version retained the original bill’s ban on transgender locker and changing room access as well as the ban on bathroom access in K–12 schools, but did away with restrictions on who can enter sex-designated bathrooms in other government buildings. McCay said the amended bill focused instead on “the actions of those who commit lewd and offensive behavior in a privacy space” and was “no longer related to gender or identity.”
But McCay reversed course on Thursday, introducing a new draft of the bill minutes before the Senate began its final discussion of HB 257, KSL.com reported.
The latest version restores the original’s prohibition on trans people entering bathrooms that align with their gender identity in government-owned buildings, while also narrowly defining “male” and “female” in state code according to biological sex assigned at birth.
While the bill does not include any enforcement mechanism or criminal penalties for violations of the bathroom ban, it does include enhanced criminal penalties for anyone who commits multiple crimes in a restroom as well as additional criminal penalties for anyone who commits crimes in a bathroom that does not align with their biological sex.
“Instead of making this about enforcement, we define what bathrooms are and we define who belongs in what bathroom and how to, I guess, qualify to be in one bathroom or another,” McCay said. “And I think that definition makes it very clear.”
The Senate approved H.B. 257 Thursday by a 21–8 vote, with only two Republicans joining Democrats in voting against it.
As the Senate voted, around 100 people gathered on the Utah Capitol steps to voice their opposition to the bill, urging Gov. Spencer Cox (R) to veto it.
H.B. 257 will return to the House for approval before reaching Cox’s desk. But as KSL.com noted, both critics and supporters expect the bill to face legal challenges.
The Miami Herald Editorial Board has published a haunting op-ed about what the next three years in Florida could be like under Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) now that he has dropped out of the Republican presidential race.
After what many consider an embarrassingly poor campaign performance, DeSantis still has three years left to govern Florida – and he has already made it clear that his insecurities will manifest in his intense desire for revenge and power.
Trump’s success means that being evangelical is now an ideological identity, not a theological one.
The Editorial Board was particularly disturbed by a muscle-flexing post from DeSantis on X in which he responded to Politico headline stating that some Republicans in Florida want taxpayers to cover Donald Trump’s legal bills – referring to a bill that would have allocated taxpayer money to do just that.
“But not the Florida Republican who wields the veto pen…” DeSantis wrote.
The editorial board pointed out that killing the “ludicrous bill” was the right decision, but that DeSantis did it for the wrong reasons: “revenge politics.”
“His response on social media seemed designed to snap back Florida legislators who might be disinclined to listen to a governor who once had an iron grip on lawmakers but is now a lame duck — though he has three more years to serve,” the board wrote, also pointing out that his threat worked. The sponsor of the bill withdrew it after the post on X – “a signal that legislators know they have to work with DeSantis for a long while still,” the board surmised.
DeSantis’s power play also came against Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, who publicly supported the bill and also publicly supported Trump over DeSantis in the presidential race.
“It’s no secret that DeSantis can bear a grudge,” the Board noted. “His penchant for paybacks and vindictiveness is well known in Florida, with Disney as an example.”
The editorial concluded by lamenting that Florida is now stuck with “a wounded, grudge-bearing governor who is out to prove he still can exert power” and remains the home state of “an insurrectionist ex-president intent on revenge for losing the seat four years ago.”
“In other words, it leaves Floridians right in the cross-hairs, for three interminable years,” the board wrote.
“DeSantis ran a campaign that was a disaster from start to finish,” wrote LGBTQ Nation commentator John Gallagher. “His announcement on Twitter was a glitch-filled flop. Staffing changes and stories of infighting dogged the campaign. DeSantis’ strategy of capitalizing on a strong showing in Iowa began to erode almost from day one.”
But Gallagher also pointed out that “the biggest problem [with DeSantis’s campaign] was the candidate himself.”
Biden administration is discussing slowing some weaponry deliveries to Israel to pressure Netanyahu
U.S. officials are considering pausing or slowing some arms shipments to Israel to convince the government to heed U.S. calls to scale back its military assault in Gaza.
Wow, the rush to the past is not slowing down even as Florida reaches the edge of the cliff. Anything that threatens right wing fundamentalist Christian world view must be banned, removed, buried along with the regressive indoctrination taught. What is the republican idea of real history? That slaves benefited by being slaves? Rapes and beatings were free for them, I guess? How did we get here, to this point?
The US was not always a backwards country. We started out with a radical idea, a representative democracy. Let the people have a say in how things are run. Other countries took this idea and made it great for the public. The future US kind of tried to pull it together, had a major set back with entrenched racism, which we are still dealing with today. Then a period of growth for some, oppression for others. Then the Enlightenment of the New Deal where again the people, the public welfare mattered. Yes we struggled as each generation challenged the generation before them to expand and grow, open up society so more people could share in it equally. Then we had a pivotal moment. A black man was voted in to the highest office in our country, the Presidency. The right / those that couldn’t accept equality lost their collective minds. And overnight racism became vogue again, became acceptable to be publicly voiced by some people. Leaders of political groups on the right, and religious leaders also on the right rallied their followers to push the idea that racism is not wrong as was held true for 40+ years and these people pushed back on the gains in equality of the blacks.
Well that worked so well for them that racism was extended back to mean anyone not white. Yes all brown people were deficient and inferior along with basically born bad, especially brown people at the southern border who wanted only to come to the US to work and share the “American dream”. Well that got a mob boss thug wannabe elected president who gave his followers permission to throw all decency away and revert back to the lowest common denominator they could be. Racism was joined by bigotry against anyone different, openly being crude, rude, and thuggish became OK for them. As long as it was towards others, not them. They demanded they and only them be given back the celebrated highest position in society / the country with everyone else being made lessor with many fewer rights. They want a return to a distant past before enlightenment, and with the added boost of recreating a fictitious history that never was, which is that the US was founded as a Christian country. With a racist bigoted moron leading the way, the right surged into office propelled by the idea of taking back the country to something worse for most people but great for a minority. The minority that was to be given a higher station loved it, and with the majority not paying much attention, managed to get into positions of authority over schools.
Now they used that authority to attack all areas with the full force of racism, bigotry, and forced religious indoctrination. Christianity only though, no other religion was acceptable. They removed books or media that had any member of society they disliked, they did the same for any ideas expressed they disagreed with. Freedom became only for them, white cis straight Christians, all others had no freedom. Parent’s rights were twisted to mean only the rights of white cis straight Christian racist bigots, and those rights included forcing every child to be indoctrinated with the right wing racist bigoted Christian teachings regardless of the child’s parents wishes. A complete authoritarian take over was what they tried.
It was noticed because like all bigots they were not quiet about the damage they were doing once they got the authority to do it. They aggressively rammed their backwards oppression on everyone. History has shown when they tried this same shit in the past, it was quickly stopped so they tried to create laws cementing their ideas in place. But the public which was still a progressive majority woke up, and started fighting back. They took back a lot of the school boards, they took back as many positions as came up for vote. The only ones they couldn’t fix were the ones not yet up for vote, like Governor and state officials. Which brings us to now, today in Florida where educational classes on subjects long thought important for the growth of students is being removed to further the forced indoctrination of right wing political racism, bigotry, and Christianity along with a made up fictional history. Hugs. Scottie
Two quotes from the article.
“Sociology is the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior, which are at the core of civic literacy and are essential to a broad range of careers,” the association said in a statement to the New York Times.
“Failure to prioritize the scientific study of the causes and consequences of human behavior is a failure of Florida’s commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness,” it added.
Students should be focused on learning the ‘truth,’ rather than be ‘radicalized by woke ideologies in the college classrooms,’ said education commissioner
Published 01/26/24 10:05 PM ET|Updated 01/26/24 10:05 PM ET
Ron DeSantis: On a mission to reshape education.Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ so-called “anti-woke” crusade has now removed sociology as a core class from all 12 of the state’s public universities.
The Board of Governors voted to make the change on Wednesday. A core sociology course was also removed earlier this month from all 28 Florida public colleges, meaning that Florida students will no longer be able to chose sociology to fulfill their core class requirements.
What the board refers to as a “factual history course” is replacing Principles of Sociology in the universities in what is widely seen as the start of a general rout of sociology classes.
When discussing sociology late last year, Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. said that “students should be focused on learning the truth about our country instead of being radicalized by woke ideologies in the college classrooms.” He also said the subject had been “hijacked by left-wing activists.”
The Board of Education has promised the history curriculum will include an examination of the “horrors” of slavery, even though the same board pressed lower schools to teach that slaves — who lost their freedom, were beaten, raped and forced to labor for their masters — benefited from slavery because they learned work “skills”
Florida has one of the country’s largest public university systems, with more than 430,000 students.
The latest change is part of a sweeping reorganization of education in Florida from top to bottom. Under DeSantis’ sweeping book censorship, at least one district has banned dictionaries from their schools’ libraries because they contain the word “sex.”
The American Sociological Association called the decision to dump the core sociology class “outrageous,” and one informed by a “gross misunderstanding” of sociology as somehow “radical.”
“Sociology is the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior, which are at the core of civic literacy and are essential to a broad range of careers,” the association said in a statement to the New York Times.
“Failure to prioritize the scientific study of the causes and consequences of human behavior is a failure of Florida’s commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness,” it added.
"The decision to remove sociology from Florida's core curriculum is a tragic blow to students’ intellectual freedom. It will prevent generations of students from being introduced to subject matter that is uniquely suited to address complex challenges."https://t.co/JxhDw5B9Sg
— American Association of University Professors (@AAUP) January 25, 2024
Florida will no longer allow a sociology course to count toward students’ graduation requirements at state universities, replacing it with a class officials say will teach “factual history” in a decision critics say was fueled by political motivations. https://t.co/FyEhQt9CVv
Well, it’s done. Now all state colleges AND universities will be removing #sociology from the gen ed curriculum. Summer intro courses are now on hold anticipating tanking enrollments & grad student instructors are the first to be axed. Thanks #Florida. https://t.co/DmuIxOTXud
The American Sociological Association condemns the State University System of Florida board's decision to cut sociology from core course requirements as "a failure of Florida's commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness." https://t.co/DHRdeGt7CF
FOOLS…my sociology course in school required us to float theories in class, while using statistical databases to prove them. It was like two courses in one, and highly illuminating for dispelling old assumptions.
I refuse to believe in a book that SUPPOSEDLY has all the answers to life that was written by a bunch of people who didn’t know where the sun went at nigh…
I like the chapter in the “factual history” textbook where Jesus and George Washington free all the babies in the basement of Comet Ping Pong, lock up Hillary Clinton and then travel to Kentucky to comfort the citizens of Bowling Green in the wake of Al Sharpton’s horrific massacre.
The helicopter was in the shop so they needed an airstrip. There were some wooden teeth smashed into the air intake valve and the repair parts were still on order at the time of the attack. Everyone knows this is the reason helicopters didn’t get used again until after WW2.
Scottie's Playtime 