https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/schools-will-now-call-parents-students-want-check-lgbtq-book/

A gang of Christian thugs!  The Christian Taliban.   People demanding their way who refuse to follow the rules, threaten and demean others, believe the country is a theocracy instead of a democracy.    All because they can’t / wont accept the advancements in society of understanding and accepting of differences / diversity.    They are not content to stop their kids from reading and learning acceptance / tolerance but they are demanding no kid can be allowed to read it even if that child’s parents approve.   This is about controlling everyone else and someone else’s child.    This is forcing their church doctrines of what is acceptable on everyone else.   Having to go see a counselor who will call your parents means no kid will check out the book and other kids will wonder what the kid who wanted to read the book did wrong.    This is about saying anything not straight and cis is wrong and must be hidden.   Hugs

Screaming parents at a school board meeting refused to follow speaking rules, including one woman who called the board members “sick individuals.”

 

By Daniel Villarreal Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Parents at the board meeting Photo: WZZM 13 screenshot

 

If students in a western Michigan school district want to read the graphic novel Gender Queer: A Memoir, they’ll have to meet with a school counselor who will then call their parents for permission.

This is the “compromise” that the Spring Lake School Board reached in a 4-3 vote after a contentious Monday night meeting. The meeting ended early and left board members fearing for their safety after screaming parents refused to follow meeting rules, including one woman who called the board members “sick individuals.”

The board met in order to discuss a parent who wanted Gender Queer to be removed from the district’s library shelves. The memoir, written by Maia Kobabe, covers eir experience discovering and accepting eir nonbinary and asexual identities. The book doubles as an instructive guide for those exploring their own identities.

The meeting spiraled out of control as the first speaker tried to violate the three-minute time limit for all speakers. As a board member took her microphone, she called the board “sick individuals.” Gradually, speakers on both sides of the issue became loud and unruly.

One parent said they objected to the book’s “explicit sexual content” rather than its LGBTQ content, possibly referring to several passages in the book that describe Kobabe’s exploration of eir sexuality.

Katie Pigott, a board member who voted to keep the book on library shelves, told parents, “Students need our affirmation and support much more than a segment of parents need another layer of control over other people’s choices.”

As the crowd became angrier, the board called for a break in an attempt to calm participants. But when the board reconvened, parents continued shouting, and the meeting had to be adjourned — the crowd booed as board members rose from their seats and left the room.

“Two of the board members commented to me that they felt a little bit fearful for their own safety,” district superintendent Dennis Furton told The Daily Beast. He also said that the district already had a policy for parents to prevent their kids from checking out specific titles by alerting the district’s libraries.

School Board President Jennifer Nicles, who also voted to keep the book on library shelves, said of the compromise, “I also know this decision can be seen as simply another hurdle for a student in need.” She said she’d work with the district media specialist to ensure that other resources are available to help LGBTQ students in need now that access to Gender Queer has been restricted.

Board member Kathy Breen, who also voted in favor of keeping the book available, said that the Monday night meeting is just part of a national political trend of “parent’s rights” groups who have been emboldened by the upcoming national midterm elections.

“Sure, some people legitimately may not care for [the book],” Breen said, “but I feel like the book was just another tool to create some chaos.”

Republican politicians, conservative school boards, and so-called “parents’ rights” groups have dramatically escalated attempts to ban so-called “controversial” books from school, according to a recent report from the free-speech organization PEN America.

Moms for Liberty, one of the national conservative groups pushing to ban LGBTQ books, has started pressuring public school libraries across the country to “accept book donations from conservative publishing companies that promote white supremacist, homophobic, and transphobic ideologies,” Vice News reported.

In an article for The Washington Post, Gender Queer‘s author said that eir own knowledge of LGBTQ identities was assisted by library books.

“By high school, I had met multiple out gay, lesbian and bisexual people, but I didn’t meet an out trans or nonbinary person until I was in grad school,” Kobabe wrote. “The only place I had access to information and stories about transgender people was in media — mainly, in books.”

https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/satanic-mural-conservatives-lash-out-middle-school-drawn-by-teen/

The Christian bigots should hear what they are saying.   They want a neutral place where all children are accepted and loved.  Really?  Yet what they really mean is where their kids and those that think / act just the good Christian way according to them are accepted and love.  LGBTQ+, any other religions, those that dress differently, atheist kids are not welcome.  These bigots also said that adults that pretend something not real is real is a mental illness and they needed medication.   Boy really can they hear themselves.   Their entire life is built around a pretend not real deity.    The article lays it out very well.   Give it a read.   Even a fellow conservative called them out saying it devolved into a hate fest against gay kids.  But again a small loud minority got what they wanted forcing everyone else to abide by their church doctrines of what is acceptable.   The rest of us who want to be included be damned.   Hugs

“It is hate material,” said one conservative parent of the “Stay Healthy” mural with smiling kids and cute animals

by HEMANT MEHTA

 

OCT 19, 2022

 

Reading Time: 3 MINUTES

 

 

Aharmless mural painted over the summer at the Child and Adolescent Health Center at Grant Middle School in Michigan is under attack by Christian parents who claim it’s “Satanic.”

It was painted by Evelyn Gonzales, a sophomore at the local high school, who won a contest aimed to “brighten up” the health center with a painting that depicted smiling kids and the message “Stay Healthy.” The end result was a mural that included a number of kids, one of whom is wearing a shirt with the pink and white stripes of the transgender flag, another who is decked out in LGBTQ-friendly rainbow clothes, and a third in the colors of the bisexual flag. The point is that everyone is welcome at the school. No one is excluded. Though it’s not like the color scheme would be obvious to viewers unless they were looking for it; on the surface, we’re all just looking at happy smiling kids.

But there are also other symbols that drew predictable outrage from conservative parents who think everything’s part of some wider liberal conspiracy.

There’s a demon face (in the center left) that’s inspired by the video game Genshin Impact.

There’s also a “Hamsa hand” (on the far left) that, in some cultures, is said to provide good luck.

Gonzalez said the goal of her art was simply “to make people feel welcome.”

Again, none of this would be evident to casual viewers. But it unleashed massive outrage at a school board meeting last week:

“I feel like she did a really good job finding excuses to defend the things she put on,” says Katelyn Thompson. “None of us are that stupid.”

…

As for the transgender flag, one parent implied it’s a sickness.

“When adults pretend things that are like real life, it’s a mental illness,” says Danielle Beight. “We need counselors, we need medication that’s going to help bipolar disorder, fix their brains.”

With another saying it is discriminatory against Christian beliefs.

“We and our administration should embrace that and get all of this hate material out of our schools, because it is hate material,” says Nate Thompson.

Some parents who spoke with a local news reporter refused to give their names because they didn’t want to be harassed. The anonymous cowards broke from their prayer circle to explain why the mural was offensive to them… and why LGBTQ kids shouldn’t feel welcome anywhere.

“We just want a neutral place for our kids,” one said. “We don’t want our kids being politicized.”

…

“Our kids should have neutral places where everybody feels loved and accepted and there doesn’t need to be anything on the wall that causes any sort of division,” one said.

Imagine how warped by faith your mind has to be to look at this mural and claim it’s divisive. They say they don’t want their kids being politicized, yet they’re the ones demanding that LGBTQ kids be excluded from everything. They’re the ones demanding trans kids not be allowed to use the proper bathrooms. They’re the ones demanding schools act like LGBTQ people don’t exist and that acknowledging their existence (a la Florida) is synonymous with some sort of propaganda campaign.

Not all parents felt that way. Tracey Hargreaves spoke out in defense of the mural and called out the outrage of the other parents in the district:

“I am a conservative, right-wing, gun-loving American,” Hargreaves declared at the meeting. “And I’ve never seen more bigoted people in my life.”

In an interview with TODAY.com, Hargreaves said, “The meeting turned into a hate fest. Usually there are 10 people at these meetings, 50 showed up. It wasn’t even about the mural … People were talking about how we need to pray the gay away.”

“I had to stand up and say something,” Hargreaves added. “It was out of control. You can’t catch gay, honey. It’s not contagious.”

Hargreaves added that the symbols were being treated as if they were “satanic.” They were not.

But after running Gonzalez out of that board meeting in tears, by injecting their Christian conspiracy theories onto her work of art that was meant to bring joy to people, the bigots got what they wanted.

Administrators announced late last week that the mural would be revised to remove the Hamsa hand and demon image. The kids, however, would stay. Gonzalez agreed to those changes, in part because those images weren’t on her original submission. It was only when she was painting the mural and realized there was more space than she had anticipated that she added those icons to fill up the space.

If that’s what it takes to keep the rest of the mural up, and if Gonzalez is okay with the changes, so be it. But none of this will prevent those same bigoted parents from spreading conspiracy theories about what the artwork actually means. Instead of accepting the intentions of the child who created the mural, they’re led by their Christianity to pretend their bad-faith interpretation of the picture is the only correct take.

At least the school officials are defending the art and the intention behind it—even while making those minor changes. Unlike the conservative parents, they know what it means to support kids.