Thank you! I don’t know if any of my viewers helped with getting a dying boy’s wish, but if you did thank you. It is a shame there seems to be no more they can do for the boy and he is in palliative care, but at least 100,000 people understand what being human is and made his one wish come true. Hugs
My dogs that love gravy these people are driven. They are loving the authority DeathSantis and the republicans have given them. It is not enough for them to keep their children from reading these books, they don’t want any kid to read them at any age. The guy has a 15 year old son and he comments he wants the boy to attend public school and not be destroyed by these books. I can assure him if the boy has a phone or other boys as friends he has heard and learned far more than a book with an LGBTQ+ character. I love how he is against any book that mentions boys holding hands or dating calling that promoting sex when he wants them to push abstinence but he is OK with books that have boy / girl dating, holding hands and so on. He is only against it when it is same gender / same sex. Plus he made them get rid of a book that told the story of a boy who wanted to dress up as a mermaid and go to a mermaid parade. He admitted there was no sex at all in the book but felt the message of the book was too dangerous for students. The message he claims is that you can be anything you want to be, and that is a dangerous thing to tell kids. Read through his objects and you see he is a bigot and a racist. He wants a nice “Leave It To Beaver” fantasy world for kids and schools. Again he is trying to force all the schools to revert to a 1950s mind set. I love that he claims he has nothing against gay people saying he can tolerate them unless they are the sexually aggressive type of homosexual. Really unlike himself who seems a sexually aggressive type of straight pushing a culture of straightness on everyone. . I know how important it is to find gay characters in a book or to be able to read up on subjects dealing with being LGBTQI+ as a kid. Think about what it would be like if you thought you were the only straight kid growing up, that all the books, movies, magazines, couples … the entire world around you were made up of gay and lesbian people. But you could go to the library and find books about being straight, how it was OK and normal for some people. Imagine reading about other straight people that were not the monsters that some people claimed they were. I was a gay kid and I needed those books. I was an abused kid who needed some comprehensive sex education classes also. The guy wanted one book removed because it was about a girl having romantic feelings for other girls and she holds hands with a girl and shares a kiss. That was it, but he made it seem like a sex manual for creating better lesbians. According to Friedman, the book promotes “promiscuity” and “pre-marital sex” when “we are supposed to be promoting abstinence.” He believes the library should carry books that “support sturdy nuclear families.” A story about a girl holding hands with another girl. But he wouldn’t have a problem with it had it been a boy the girl held hands with. He admits he doesn’t even read most of the books he tries to have removed. He wanted a book removed that told of a black persons struggle with racists and racism, and this guy wanted it removed because he claimed it supported BLM movement. Friedman says the book should be removed because it promotes “the Black Lives Matter movement” and “a sense of white guilt in its musings about ‘micro-aggressions’ as elsewhere defined in Critical Race Theory.” Anyway I will try to post the article, please read it, and understand the attack on our society, the entire LGBTQI+ community, and our education system. This guy is saying that just reading about and seeing gays, lesbians, or trans people is harmful and destroys kids. If anyone gets in his way, Friedman vowed to “run over them like a dead body.” Hugs
Bruce Friedman speaks at a June 30 meeting of the Clay County School Board
This year, at least 102 books have been removed from the shelves of school libraries in Clay County, Florida. Many of these books were pulled at the request of one man: Bruce Friedman. A conservative activist and longtime resident of New York, Friedman moved to Clay County this May.
And Friedman says he is just getting started. During a November 28 meeting of the Florida Department of Education Library Media Working Group, Friedman said he had compiled “a list of over 3,600 titles that I believe have concerning content,” including “porn, critical race theory, social-emotional learning, [and] fluid gender.” He said this list proves that “libraries have more than a little poison in them.” Friedman demanded that the Department of Education “clean up this mess.” If not, Friedman threatened to “perform 3,600 challenges and overwhelm your awful, awful procedures and policies.”
One of the books pulled from the shelves of school libraries this year in Clay County is The Girl From The Sea, an award-winning graphic novel. The book is about a 15-year-old girl who develops romantic feelings for another girl. The two girls hold hands and, at one point, share a kiss. There is no sex, no swearing, and no nudity.
In an interview with Popular Information, Friedman described The Girl From The Sea as a book for “slightly post-pubescent little lesbians.” Friedman says he objects to the book being available in Clay County libraries because students are “not in school to learn how to be better lesbians.” The book exposes students to “a land of girls making out with great illustrations.” According to Friedman, students should not be “focused on kissing, or petting or anything else in that general territory.”
The Girl From The Sea has been removed from Clay County school libraries because of a new policy, implemented in July, that requires books to be pulled as soon as a challenge has been properly filed. The books remain unavailable to students while the challenge is being considered by a District Curriculum Council.
Friedman has exploited this policy by flooding the district with challenges. Friedman told Popular Information that, since June 30, he has “investigated between 5 and 10 thousand” books available in Clay County school libraries on “a very cursory level.”
Popular Information has obtained dozens of Friedman’s challenge forms through public information requests. Friedman, and a few others he recruited to assist him, filled out these forms identically. The reason for the request is to “PROTECT CHILDREN,” the objectionable material is “INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT,” and the impact of a student using the material is “DAMAGED SOULS.” The answer to most other questions is “N/A.”
Friedman is the president and founder of the Florida chapter of No Left Turn in Education, a right-wing educational group. He continues to play a similar role for the group in New York. No Left Turn in Education was founded in 2020 by Elana Yaron Fishbein. “Public schools are starting to resemble re-education camps and our cities have turned into the killing fields,” the group wrote on Facebook. “It’s beginning to feel like Pol Pot’s Cambodia.” Fishbein says there are evil forces focused on “getting to our kids, brainwashing them, indoctrinating them, and making them [a] brownshirt.” Friedman said he learned about Fishbein when she appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show.
Friedman gained some notoriety himself when he attempted to read aloud a rape scene from the book Lucky by Alice Sebold during a June 30 Clay County school board meeting. His mic was cut off. Friedman told Fox News he wants “his 15-year-old son to be in the public school system and come home unharmed.”
Friedman acknowledged that he filed challenges over the summer without reading the challenged books. Initially, Clay County accepted many of these challenges. But Friedman said he has already filed more than 350 challenges. Eventually, Clay County began to reject Freidman’s challenges as incomplete because they do not include any real explanation of the objection.
But Friedman is undeterred and, in the hopes of getting more challenges accepted, said he has changed his approach. According to Friedman, he has read “25 books in the last 10 days.” Friedman identified books to challenge by “scouring the internet” for lists of books that have been challenged elsewhere, including “a very conservative community” in Texas that “met with their superintendent” about “a couple of hundred books that concern them.”
Friedman acknowledged he is not aware of any children who were exposed to objectionable content at a school library and had it negatively impact their lives. But he claims that is irrelevant. “I don’t have to know them,” Friedman said. “It’s all of them. Any poor kid who had the misfortune of coming across this material.”
Stephana Ferrell, the co-founder of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, blasted Clay County’s policy of removing books from the library before any review. Ferrell told Popular Information that the procedure allowed a “singular viewpoint” to “control over what can and cannot be accessed or learned in the library.”
Legal confusion
According to Friedman, his challenges to books like The Girl from the Sea, are justified because it violates Florida law for the book to be available in school libraries. The relevant law is HB 1467, which was signed into law by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) last March.
The revised Clay County Procedures Manual for Library Media Services lays out the legal standard for library books under HB 1467:
● Free of pornography and material prohibited under s. 847.012
● Suited to student needs and their ability to comprehend the material presented
● Appropriate for the grade level and age group for which the materials are used or made available
Friedman said he did not believe The Girl From The Sea is pornographic. But, according to Friedman, it should be removed from the school library because it is “in very poor taste” and “sets a terrible example for our children, straight or gay.” According to Friedman, the book promotes “promiscuity” and “pre-marital sex” when “we are supposed to be promoting abstinence.”
Several of the books challenged by Friedman and others include LGBTQ themes but no sexual content. The Prince And The Dressmaker, for example, is about “a prince who likes to wear dresses.” The Prince falls in love with a young woman. The book features one kiss.
Friedman cited the “Parental Rights Act,” also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, to justify these objections. “You don’t want little children questioning their budding little bodies.” Friedman said. He says that the inclusion of these books is part of an effort by librarians to encourage children to get “surgery and hormones.” The Parental Rights Act, however, prohibits classroom instruction of elementary students about sexuality and gender. It does not apply to library books.
In the interview, Friedman said he is comfortable with “gay people” and “recognizes that they exist.” Friedman said he lived for years in New York City, and “on very rare occasions, I would meet a sexually aggressive homosexual person and have words with them.” But, for the most part, Friedman said he “got along fabulously with everyone.”
Friedman said he doesn’t have a problem with a book that has “gay characters” but “if the focus of the book is gayness, and it is still nonsexual, then I’d have to take it on a case-by-case basis.” He believes the library should carry books that “support sturdy nuclear families.”
Friedman also challenged Dear Martin, citing the Parental Rights Act. But Dear Martin does not have any LGBTQ content. Dear Martin is about “the story of an Ivy League-bound African American student named Justyce who becomes a victim of racial profiling.” Friedman says the book should be removed because it promotes “the Black Lives Matter movement” and “a sense of white guilt in its musings about ‘micro-aggressions’ as elsewhere defined in Critical Race Theory.”
Friedman may have been referring to the Stop WOKE Act, which prohibits instruction on Critical Race Theory in Florida classrooms. But, like the Parental Rights Act, the Stop WOKE Act applies to classroom instruction, not library books.
Despite this confusion about the legal standard, Friedman and others have already been able to permanently remove dozens of books from Clay County school libraries.
Tightening the screws on school librarians
Julie Miller, the chair of the Clay County Education Association Media Committee, has been the librarian for Ridgeview High School in Clay County for nine years. Miller told Popular Information she did not encounter a single challenge to a library book until November 2021.
Starting this year, groups like No Left Turn in Education began challenging library material en masse. School officials are fearful. Since March, Miller and other Clay County librarians have been prohibited from purchasing any new books or even new copies of books that are already on the shelves. According to Miller, no official explanation has been provided for the purchasing freeze.
Under Clay County’s July 2022 policy, any challenge should be reviewed by a District Curriculum Council, a rotating panel of school officials. But when the challenges from Friedman and others started flooding in, the leadership of Clay County schools handled things differently.
Before the District Curriculum Council considered a challenge, Miller and her colleagues were pressured to determine if the books were eligible to be “weeded” or “deselected.” Weeding and deselection are the standard processes that librarians use to remove books that are not in use, outdated, damaged, or not appropriate for students. The librarians were also reminded that, under Florida law, they could potentially be held personally liable for making “pornographic” material available to minors.
This process resulted in Clay County librarians agreeing to weed or deselect 52 books from school libraries. These included acclaimed titles like Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. Clay County schools have published a list of filed challenges, including those that librarians agreed to weed/deselect.
But it soon became clear that the challenges from Friedman and other activists were just getting started. As the challenges rolled in, Miller said she wanted to change her mind and put several books she previously agreed to remove back into circulation. Typically, a decision to weed a book is not irreversible. A damaged book, for example, could be replaced by a new copy. But she was told by district officials that challenged books that librarians agreed to remove were permanently banned from all libraries in the district.
In response, Miller and some of her colleagues resolved not to weed out or deselect any additional challenged books in Clay County because they believe the system is being abused.
Thus far, five challenges have been reviewed by a District Curriculum Council. These panels voted to keep four of the books in schools. One panel voted to remove Julian Is A Mermaid from all schools. Julian Is A Mermaid is about a little boy who wants to dress up as a mermaid and go and see a Mermaid Parade. The council wrote that the message of the book is that “you can be whatever you want to be.” According to the council, this is a “good message,” but they voted to remove the book because it is “maybe not the best way to do it.”
The council rejected Friedman’s challenge to Dear Martin, voting unanimously to allow the book to remain available in high school libraries. While the book does contain some coarse language, it was “realistic” and appropriate for teenagers.
Friedman has vowed to appeal all rejections to the district superintendent and, if necessary, to the Clay County School Board. He has reason to believe that his appeal may be successful. Friedman says that, during November’s election, we “got rid of two people” who opposed his efforts. He was “extremely supportive of two newly elected board members that I think sufficiently leaned towards protecting children.”
The goal, according to Friedman, is to use Clay County library to “set a good example for what a clean library looks like” for Florida and the country. If anyone gets in his way, Friedman vowed to “run over them like a dead body.”
1. This man moved from New York to Florida a few months ago
Now he wants to ban 3600 BOOKS from the school libraries
Sorry just got up at 4:30 PM. I slept most of the day. No I am not sure why I am so tired again. Ron is going to get me the B+ complex the endocrinologist said I need that I stopped taking. My next labs with him will check those levels. Just took my blood sugar to have supper, 283. No that is not good. yes it could explain why I was so sleepy. No it was not that high this morning. No I did not eat anything to do that (donuts, cakes, pies, sweets of any kinds are off limits to Scottie) Just had a small supper, but the insulin is surging through me and I want to go back to bed. And I am sweating. When the insulin and blood sugar are surging to battle in my body I sweat, and sweat, and sweat … regardless of the temp in the house. I am so sleepy again. Hugs
On to the story, why are the poor black kids being shoved into the J.R.O.T.C. programs? Really asking why poor kids, and black kids are being shoved without being asked or even allowed to get out of these military programs? Something really is wrong in the US. Hugs
J.R.O.T.C. programs, taught by military veterans at some 3,500 high schools across the country, are supposed to be elective, and the Pentagon has said that requiring students to take them goes against its guidelines. But The New York Times found that thousands of public school students were being funneled into the classes without ever having chosen them, either as an explicit requirement or by being automatically enrolled.
A review of J.R.O.T.C. enrollment data collected from more than 200 public records requests showed that dozens of schools have made the program mandatory or steered more than 75 percent of students in a single grade into the classes. A vast majority of the schools with those high enrollment numbers were attended by a large proportion of nonwhite students and those from low-income households, The Times found.
So according to the right wing, it’s illegal for schools to teach Critical Race Theory (whatever that is), and universities may not use race as a criterion, not even to ensure a ethnically diverse student body.
It is nice to see the people turn out to support the LGBTQI+ youth. I know there are far more people that are accepting of the gay, lesbian, and trans people than there are of the haters. The haters are just louder and willing to use violence. They wanted to mark the books so it would be easy for others to identify the kids who checked them out. A big old scarlet letter. It is the same for putting them in a different section all by themselves, nice big scarlet letter to paste on any kid who checks them out. Look at the gay kid, attack him, hurt him, making her cry. It was one kids who took a book home that had some LGBTQI+ subject material and one set of parents that complained so vigorously that an entire community was made to suffer, to be denied access to not just those books but the entire library. The school stopped sending the kids to the library because of the complaint of one parents. The school punished an entire school and all the kids to deny acceptability of the LGBTQI+ as one parent demanded. Hugs
The Crook County Library Board of Trustees voted Thursday night not to label LGBTQ-friendly children’s books or segregate them into a separate section.
In an unusual sight, people packed into the Crook County Library on Thursday night for a meeting of its board.
The topic at hand had drawn the standing room crowd: namely, whether or not to segregate LGBTQ-friendly children’s books into a separate section.
The Crook County Library Board of Trustees voted Thursday night not to label LGBTQ-friendly children’s books or segregate them into a separate section.
Adrian Vamanu
By the end of the night, the crowd had spoken overwhelmingly in support of keeping the books where they are, and the board voted 4-1 to not place the books in a special section of the library.
Library Director April Witteveen said the debate started in May when a group of local elementary school children visited the library. One student took home one of the library’s LGBTQ books. Soon after, with little to no explanation, the school stopped sending children to the library during school hours. Witteveen said the school does not have a library and students haven’t returned since.
Speaking at Thursday night’s meeting, former library board member and president ZueAnne Neal said she had started falling for the rhetoric around the books, as some community members called them dangerous for children.
Neal, appearing to be on the verge of tears, apologized to the crowd for at one point recommending the books be marked with a sticker or other identifying mark as a way to compromise between the sides.
“That was a sad, sad day,” she said.
Neal noted that after she did more research on the books, she found them to be age-appropriate and that placing the books into a separate section could create stigma, as well as potentially cost the library through lost funding and First Amendment lawsuits.
Some speakers pushed back on the notion that marking the books would ostracize people who wanted to check them out, calling such descriptions “misinformation.” Supporters of the move said marking the books would make it more clear for people who wanted to view the material, as well as those who wanted to avoid it.
Crook County is just one of hundreds of libraries across the country that have been targeted for allegedly making available LGBTQ books that contain child pornography. It comes amid a broader national debate over what educational materials should be available to children, especially those discussing racism, homophobia and other forms of discrimination.
Labeling queer people as pedophiles and dangers to children is a strategy used by anti-LGBTQ activists for decades.
One library in Jamestown, Michigan, found itself in a similar situation to Prineville in August, with residents there voting to block a tax levy on two separate occasions, meaning the small library lost 84% of its funding. The presence of LGBTQ books sparked the demand to cut the library’s funding, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Neal, the former library board president, said after looking into the issue, she ultimately came to see segregating books as a form of hate.
“If it roots here, it won’t end here,” she said. “It will just grow.”
The book issue in Crook County isn’t the first time Central Oregon has recently been roiled by misinformation involving LGBTQ people. In October, the Culver School District in nearby Jefferson County found itself in a controversy after pulling young students from a camp over false allegations about non-binary counselors.
Part I left out of this story was when one speaker read a Bible passage that described a man's genitals being like a donkey's, and then asked why that book was available in the library.
Shout out to that guy for doing homework for his testimony.
Just imagine being the poor kid that may have thought it was a good story, or that it applied to them. Then having your parents make such a fuss that your whole class can’t go back to the library. Religious indoctrination at it’s best.
The right-wing is dominating the discourse on trans rights and they’re doing it in the worst way possible. They are going after parents and medical professionals who try to help trans kids. But the facts and statistics are not on their side.
I keep telling people these don’t say gay and anti-trans bills do not have anything to do with “protecting kids from anything”, but are driven by hate and the desire to erase gays, lesbians, and trans people from society. Using the same laws as Russia has. This man admits it, openly. This man is an old white Christian who refuses to understand that people are born gay or gender different. They are not recruited, not bullied into it, not forced, you cannot convert them. Think of it, if that were the case that straight kids could become gay or trans just because they really wanted to be abused or targeted more for bullying, all you straight people ask yourself if you had to choose being straight with attractions to the opposite gender / sex or did it just flow naturally. These people like the guy above what to punish a group of society, a segment of the population for simply being born not straight or not identifying with the gender they were assigned at birth. That is the crime these people want hidden, want other kids protected from, simply being existing as a gay kid or a trans kid. Hugs
The Republicans are saying the quiet part out loud.
Tuesday morning, the Florida Senate passed the controversial SB1834. Formally known as the Parental Rights in Education bill, the proposed legislation is commonly called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The proposal passed with a vote of 22-17 along party lines with two Republicans, Senator Jeffrey Brandes and Senator Jennifer Bradley crossing the aisle.But in the debate, the bill’s sponsor, Senator Dennis Baxley, said the quiet part out loud and revealed his reasoning behind it all: to stop LGBTQ+ children from coming out.
The “Don’t Say Gay” bill as it stands would bar any classroom discussion around gender identity or sexual orientation in grades K-3. It would also restrict conversation around those topics to what is developmentally and age-appropriate for grades 3 – 12. To be clear: schools are already in the business of determining what is developmentally and age-appropriate discussion and almost no topics are enshrined in state-wide statute in this way in Florida. While some have said this proposal is about sex ed or sexual acts, the actual text does not refer to sexual acts. When Brandes offered an amendment to change the legislation so that it would refer to all sexual acts, Republicans shut it down.
In debate, Baxley was questioned about the legislation. He was asked on the floor multiple times to provide examples of ongoing classroom instruction that showed a need for the bill, he could provide none. Instead, he spoke about the increasing number youth coming out as LGBTQ+. He said he discussed the matter with his son, who is a psychologist.
“Why is everybody now all about coming out when you are in school?” he said on the floor, according to The Advocate. “There really is a dynamic of concern about how much of this are genuine type of experiences and how many of them are just kids trying on different kinds of things they hear about and different kinds of identities and experimenting.
“That’s what kids do, you know. Maybe they’re in this club or they’re in that club or they’re onto this. And they’re trying on these different identities of life trying to see where they fit in. I said am I crazy or what? All of a sudden we’re having all these issues come up about this topic of their sexuality and gender. I don’t understand why that’s such a big wave right now.”
Baxley had earlier said that this legislation would not impact after-school clubs and organizations, only classroom instruction.
“Some of it is I’m sure cultural shift of what’s accepted and that kind of thing,” he continued. “But I know some of it is just the confusion kids go through, particularly when you go to middle school and high school.”
The republicans know their base is violent fanatics. Yet they and right wing media keep driving a nonsense misinformation to rile up the base to whip them into rage so they will act out violently. It is the goal. They have gone back to the 1950s to 1970s rhetoric of all gays are predators and that gays must molest to recruit new gays even though that is not how it works and never was. At the same time today on this same site was reports of two church leaders who sexually abused children. Where are these right wing protect the children thugs over this. Every day two or three reports of child sexual abuse from religious leaders and none from drag shows or drag queens reading stories. Yet no protests, no violent marches, no gun carrying thugs chanting and screaming leave the kids alone through bullhorns. See that is because this has nothing to do with actually protect kids, it is about hating a vulnerable segment of society and trying to remove them from public society. Hugs
Just in via press release:
Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) released the following statement after receiving a bomb threat targeting his home and office:
“Early this morning, I was informed by the San Francisco Standard and the police that someone had issued a bomb threat against me, listing my specific home address and also threatening to shoot up my Capitol office. The email said ‘we will fucking kill you’ and called me a pedophile and groomer.
“This latest wave of death threats against me relates to my work to end discrimination against LGBTQ people in the criminal justice system and my work to ensure the safety of transgender children and their families. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and MAGA activist Charlie Kirk recently tweeted homophobic lies about me, falsely accusing me of supporting pedophiles and child ‘mutilation.’
“The extreme homophobic and transphobic rhetoric that has escalated on social media and right wing media outlets has real world impacts. It leads to harassment, stalking, threats, and violence against our community. People are dying as a result. Responsible political leaders on the right must call it out and stop tolerating it.
“I will always fight for the LGBTQ community — and for the community as a whole — and will never let these threats stop that work.”
A death threat was made against State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, on Tuesday morning. The Standard received the threat via email and reported it to the police and Wiener. San Francisco police responded to Wiener’s home at roughly 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
Sent by a person using the name Zamina Tataro, the email said that they placed bombs at Wiener’s San Francisco home and threatened to shoot up his Sacramento office “in 20 minutes, I am willing to die.”
The subject line read “Scott Wiener will die today,” and the author called him a pedophile and accused him of grooming children. SFPD searched Wiener’s home but did not locate any explosive devices.
According to the linked outlet, a person using the same name has made other LGBTQ-related bomb threats.
Just In: State Sen. Scott Wiener reveals bomb threat received which calls him a homophobic slur. Weeks ago, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted same slur at him. https://t.co/yeLE9EotEi
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and MAGA activist Charlie Kirk recently tweeted homophobic lies about me, falsely accusing me of supporting pedophiles and child ‘mutilation.’
When are the lawsuits going to start? Its outrageous that Congresspersons can slander, seemingly without consequence.
Given what happened to Paul Pelosi, Wiener is absolutely right to publicize this threat and install precautions…. The people who stir this shit up belong behind bars.
It’s beyond time that the MTG and such are charged with attempted terrorism or some thing. The stochastic types are just waiting to get the green light that those leaders happily put out.
This is really frightening. Democratic leaders need to speak out against these MAGA loons much more forcefully. It’s absolutely abhorrent that homosexuality and pedophilia are being linked once again.
Thank you. They need to speak out for us like they do others that are in their base. Ye makes statements about Jewish people and everyone speaks up. Gay people are facing these proud boy terrorist everyday and being assaulted etc and you dont hear much from leadership about that.
Scottie's Playtime 