(l to r) Rome Pride, Sabastion Mikel and son Jaxen, and Justin Deal. Photos by Ivan Felipe and Lee Jones.
There’s Atlanta, and then there’s Georgia.
My photographer and I, firmly in the former category, were clear about this as we loaded his camera equipment onto my backseat before pulling out of his driveway on an unusually cool October morning en route to Rome, Georgia.
We were two Black gay men leaving behind the safety and inclusiveness — both actual and perceived — that we sometimes take for granted living in Georgia’s most populated city. And unlike many other cities in Georgia, Rome’s national reputation had already been shaped in our consciousness before we entered the city’s downtown area.
Before the 2020 election of Marjorie Taylor Greene to the U.S. House of Representatives, the city of Rome, a small, picturesque southern town an hour north of Atlanta, flew under the national political radar.
Rome, Georgia, October 10, 2022. Photo by Lee Jones Photography for Queerty.
Today, it’s nearly impossible for the 14th Congressional District, home to over 700,000, predominately white (73%) Georgia citizens, and ranking as the 28th most Republican district nationally, to avoid the national spotlight.
Largely because of Greene, Rome reaches beyond its seven hills and three rivers onto the national stage. With every tweet, election denial lie, and QAnon conspiracy theory amplified, Greene simultaneously energizes her supporters and humiliates a minority of the district’s residents in favor of her political agenda.
In February 2021, Greene drew applause from supporters for her opposition to The Equality Act — a long-stalled bill first that would extend civil rights protections to the queer community. But it was Rep. Marie Newman’s (D-IL) decision to erect a trans flag in support of her trans daughter outside her congressional office that provoked Greene to erect an opposing sign declaring “THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS: MALE & FEMALE,” thereby erasing non-binary and trans people while inspiring supporters to echo her anti-trans rhetoric on Twitter.
A sign hangs on the wall outside the office of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) as a Transgender Pride flag hangs outside the office of Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) (R) in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill, on February 25, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images.
While Greene and other Republican leaders deploy fear tactics to rile up their base, her actions continue to have real-life consequences for her constituents in Rome, especially for the parents of trans children who believe Greene’s anti-trans rhetoric creates an environment in Rome where their children are less safe.
Rome resident Lynn Green is president of Rome, Georgia’s PFLAG chapter and mother of 15-year-old trans son Ashby. After living a quiet, mostly apolitical life for nearly two decades, she founded a local PFLAG chapter after her son came out as trans three years ago and discovered that she was not the only mother of a trans or gay child in Rome.
“A lot of straight cisgendered families don’t talk about it, so it’s not well known,” she says. “But I guarantee that the family sitting next to you in church or the guy at the restaurant at the next table either has a queer immediate family member, cousin, or friend. But we don’t talk about it. And so, nobody knows here.”
Green tells Queerty that living in the district can be scary. More than 73% of residents voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, and families like hers are constantly on the receiving end of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s rhetorical blows.
Our society is sick. Mothers are mutilating and murdering their babies through transgenderism and abortion. Meanwhile, society sits back and allows men to destroy women’s sports.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) April 8, 2022
Twitter says this tweet violated rules about hateful conduct.
I can’t imagine anything more hateful than promoting “gender reassignment” surgeries for children. https://t.co/65LHtYXbGw
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) July 18, 2022
Only one day each year, we honor military members who died serving our country for ALL of us to be free.
An entire #PrideMonth and millions in spending through corporations & our government on LGBTQ sexual identity needs to end.
The movements goals were achieved, were they not?
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) June 1, 2022
And with the Republican stronghold on the district and Marjorie Taylor Greene campaign signs on almost every block, it’s a constant reminder that queer people in Rome are not only in the minority but the fodder for political attacks that only threaten to get worse in a Republican Congressional majority. In addition, residents across the state face the continued advancement of anti-LGBTQ legislation, including Georgia House Bill 1084, which created an athletic committee with the power to ban transgender youth from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity. Governor Brian Kemp signed the bill into law this April and remains ahead in the polls in his reelection campaign again LGBTQ stalwart Stacy Abrams.
The fight for trans equality
Sabastion Mikel, 29, is a trans father and birth parent of two boys, Jaxen, 6, and Colin, 3.
A Locust Grove, Georgia native, Mikel is approaching his second year as a Rome resident. He began transitioning at 18 after a tumultuous coming out that led him to escape during his senior year to a now-closed safe house for trans people in Arizona. While he prefers small-town life, Mikel says living in the conservative area as a trans person comes at a price.
Sabastion Mikel with son Jaxen, October 10, 2022. Photo by Lee Jones Photography for Queerty.
“Being an out queer person is kind of scary here. I have concerns about going to the doctor sometimes. I have been turned down in the past for medical care because I am trans,” he says.
In August, Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, a bill that would make providing gender-affirming care to a minor a felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison with a maximum fine of $25,000.
Access to affirming trans healthcare is also a concern for Green and her trans son, who have witnessed trans adults in Rome drive as far as 200 miles to Augusta, Georgia, to receive appropriate medical care.
“One of the good things to come out of the pandemic is we’re able to see a doctor in Decatur [Georgia], virtually,” Green says. “My child won’t go to the doctor here. My child wouldn’t go to immediate care even when he had COVID because all his charts say F for female.”
In Georgia, trans individuals must undergo sex reassignment surgery (SRS) before legally amending the gender marker on their birth certificate. Some jurisdictions, however, permit a gender marker change if the individual is undergoing hormone therapy. Green says her son’s legal name change now appears on his birth and medical records. And at 15, he has also begun hormone therapy, a medical decision Green says was necessary for his mental health.
“I know my child, and they were not okay,” she says. “This is not a decision that me and his dad made on a whim. Through conversations with therapists and the doctor, we learned that we could try very small increments of things. And if it’s working, then we know we’re on the right track. And if it’s not working, then we stop. No harm, no foul. No permanent changes,” she says.
Rome resident Lynn Green, October 10, 2022. Photo by Lee Jones Photography for Queerty.
The American Medical Association (AMA) supports Green’s claims and issued a formal recommendation to the National Governors Association in April 2021, urging member governors to oppose state legislation prohibiting medically necessary gender transition-related care to minors.
AMA chief executive officer Dr. James L. Madara wrote that “mental health counseling, non-medical social transition, gender-affirming hormone therapy, and/or gender-affirming surgeries” were medically accepted standards of care, concluding that “it is imperative that transgender minors be given the opportunity to explore their gender identity under the safe and supportive care of a physician.”
In Rome, Green has become a surrogate mother, and her home a safe place for other trans kids who have experienced rejection or been denied medical care — scenarios that Green struggles to accept.
“Why would you not accept your child? I can’t imagine acting any other way or making any other decisions,” she says. “I wish that more people would be open to at least considering [hormone therapy] and having the conversation. It might not be right for every child, but if it’s right for yours, it’ll save their life.”
Green says her entire family is prepared with passports if the proposed bill prohibiting gender-affirming care ever becomes law.
“Who would’ve ever thought I’d have a conversation with my 15-year-old child about what country would you want to live in if we had to leave?” she says. “I never in my life would have predicted those conversations.”
Pride comes in all shapes and sizes
Like Green, Justin Deal, 36, is a Rome activist out of necessity. Deal identifies as pansexual and is the driving force behind the city’s inaugural Rome Pride. The event drew hundreds of people to Heritage Park in June. A few weeks prior, Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly called for an end to Pride Month while citing the “possible extinction of straight people within 150 years.”
Rome Pride celebration in Heritage Park, June 25, 2022. Photo by Ivan Felipe Photography.
“When I think about her [Greene], she’s the epitome and kind of a microcosm of the problems in this area,” Deal says. “And she’s exacerbated those and made them worse.”
According to Deal, Greene’s rhetoric has trickled down into the community, saying it’s not uncommon for Rome Pride to receive emails with profanity and anti-gay slurs. But the unwanted coverage on Greene’s weekly Facebook live show featuring drag performer Benjamin Gentry’s (aka Courtney Chanel Stratton) scheduled appearance during drag queen story time spurred death threats. Gentry subsequently withdrew from the event out of safety concerns.
Gentry accuses Greene of attempting to dox him.
“You can hear her say during the live stream, ‘Do we know where — does he live in Rome?’ She was trying to find my home address to give it out,” he says.
Rome Pride, June 25, 2022. Photo by Ivan Felipe Photography.
Gentry and Pride organizers secretly relocated drag queen story time and notified registered attendees of the new location.
“All these people who were supposedly going to stop drag queen story time showed up to the gazebo to nothing,” Gentry says through laughter. “We had even more people come to see it because of her free advertising.”
“She was poking the bear,” Deal explains. “And at that point, we were just a small-town Pride. We weren’t looking for that kind of coverage.”
Then like clockwork, Greene published a tweet in June threatening to introduce legislation to make it illegal for children to be exposed to drag performances.
I’m introducing a bill to make it illegal for children to be exposed to Drag Queen performances.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) June 15, 2022
The uphill battle to unseat Marjorie Taylor Greene
Marcus Flowers, an army veteran and former official for the Department of Defense, is Greene’s Democratic opponent in the 14th Congressional District seat race.
His surprise appearance donning his signature Black cowboy hat in the Rome Pride Parade and his willingness to listen to their concerns amid Greene’s chaos has endeared him to the local queer community.
Marcus Flowers, running against U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), is seen outside of an America First Rally on May 27, 2021, in Dalton, Georgia. Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images.
“As a member of Congress, you represent all of the constituents of your district, no matter race, creed, religion, or sexual preference,” Flowers tells Queerty. “And that’s what members of Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene are forgetting.”
It was was a pleasure marching alongside my fellow Georgians in today’s Pride parade in Rome!🏳️🌈 pic.twitter.com/sRpDsoPezF
Wendy Davis, who lost the Democratic primary election to Flowers but served two terms as Rome’s city commissioner, says that while Greene’s conspiracy theories have gotten most of the attention, she’s actually remained focused on the bread-and-butter of the GOP base.
“How we get here wasn’t because everybody around here went QAnon cuckoo,” Davis told The Guardian. “We got here because she loved Trump, she loved guns, she hated socialism, she hated abortion and that won that primary and it’s a Republican district.”
Will slow and steady win the race?
Justin Deal, October 10, 2022. Photo by Lee Jones Photography for Queerty.
For Deal, Greene’s actions are the fuel that ignites their activism in Rome and keeps Deal from fleeing to a more progressive city. Deal tells Queerty that many residents react positively to the growing visibility of the LGBTQ community in the conservative town. And despite the lack of gay bars or businesses, unexpected allies are creating space.
“There’s never really been an establishment. We have a few spots that’ll do an LGBTQ night. We now have drag shows at least once a month at Peaches,” Deal says, referencing the nightclub venue in Rome that has provided space for local drag queens to perform.
Peaches, Rome, Georgia, October 10, 2022. Photo by Lee Jones Photography for Queerty.
Surprisingly, many local businesses jumped at the opportunity to sponsor Rome Pride.
“We were blown away,” Green says. “Come to find out, they all have a connection, a child, a brother, or a sister that’s part of the community. And so it was important for them to support. But you wouldn’t know that by walking down the street.”
Because of Deal and Green’s organizing, the city of Rome has officially recognized June as LGBTQ Pride Month, a process that only requires approval from the city clerk’s office after citizen request, according to Kristi Kent, communications director for the City of Rome.
Rome Pride, June 25, 2022. Photo by Ivan Felipe Photography.
The proclamation request received little pushback.
That’s not to say the district will become more accepting any time soon. Flowers faces an uphill battle unseating Greene in November, given Greene’s commanding lead in the polls.
But for Gentry, who references one of Greene’s most widely derided conspiracy theories with the wit of his drag persona, the choice is clear.
“The b*tch believes in space lasers,” he says of Greene’s rant about the cause of California’s 2018 wildfires. “How can you vote for someone that thinks Jewish space lasers are turning people gay and liberal?”
Despite her antics and the inhospitality of some residents, the LGBTQ community in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District isn’t going anywhere.
Law enforcement officials Texas are saying a new law that allows people to carry handguns without a permit has led to more spontaneous shootings. John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur and Jessica Burbank discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
These are just some of the ways critics are describing Texas’ new law allowing people to carry handguns in public without a permit—a Republican achievement that many local officials say has already led to a spike in spontaneous shootings in highly populated parts of the state.
“It seems like now there’s been a tipping point where just everybody is armed.”
In one high-profile case earlier this year, Tony Earls “pulled out his handgun and opened fire, hoping to strike a man who had just robbed him and his wife at an A.T.M. in Houston,” The New York Times reported Wednesday.
“Instead, he struck Arlene Alvarez, a 9-year-old girl seated in a passing pickup, killing her.” A grand jury declined to indict Earls, agreeing with his lawyer that “everything about that situation, we believe and contend, was justified under Texas law.” *
At the end of the article you will read what is behind this. A woman demands that the LGBTQ+ materials with stories about or include LGBTQ+ characters be removed and banned from everywhere because “I will not raise kids in a county that has sexual-oriented books on the counter,” she asserted. She told the group they need “to understand that God’s judgment is for Christians and non-Christians, and a fear of the Lord, if it’s not upon you, it will be upon you in hell.” This is not her church and she is not saying her kids shouldn’t be able to read the books, she is demanding that your kids not be able to read them either. Did you notice she goes on to say that judgement is coming for Christians and non-Christians implying that you non-Christians had better live by my church doctrines and rules. Republican elected office holders like DeathSantis have opened the flood gates and let the hyper religious think they now hove more rights than anyone else in the country, in fact they have the right to force you / your family to follow their rules. How long until these people insist you go to their church even if you are not of their religion? In some Islamic countries there is a tax on anyone not Muslim simply to be allowed to exist. First they came for the trans kids, then they came for the entire LGBTQ+, now they are moving the goal to enforcing their “morality from 2,500 years ago” on everyone. Hugs
“I’ve never been sexually assaulted at a drag show, but I have been in church. Twice!” she said, adding that the church “told me it was my fault.”
Jessee Graham going off at the Maury County Board of Trustees Photo: Screenshot
A woman came to a board of trustees meeting and trounced conservative Christians after a county’s library director was driven from his job for refusing to take down a Pride display.
Maury County, Tennessee Library Director Zachary Fox resigned last week after getting pressured by a group of residents who said that the LGBTQ-themed books were inappropriate, according to WSMV-4. Fox said that his last day working would be tomorrow, October 28, but that he would stay until a replacement could be found.
“Coming to this decision has been incredibly difficult, but it is in the best interest of my family and my own health and well being,” he wrote.
Maury County Commissioner Aaron Miller – who runs the local organization Foundation for Liberty and Freedom – was at the center of the controversy, calling on Fox to resign.
“The library invested your tax dollars into a book display for LGBT History Month,” Miller told the Epoch Times. “This was surprising, considering that June is already Pride Month, a period of celebration for the LGBT community.”
Miller said that the materials were “child-targeted.”
“As a father, my line in the sand was crossed when the library exhibited a bright, colorful display of no less than 28 books for this past Pride Month, all of which were written and marketed specifically for minors, especially young children,” he said.
Last night the Maury County Board of Trustees held a meeting that got heated. And one woman – identified as Jessee Graham – is going viral for her righteously angry speech about the people who drove Fox from his job.
“Our town has never seen so much homophobic crap as we have since Miller came along,” Graham said. “These people have been with us this entire time and we have never had a problem with it. They have never done any of the vile and disgusting things that that man and his weird cronies have leaked out of their mouths.”
“I’ve never been sexually assaulted at a drag show, but I have been in church. Twice!” she continued, adding that the church “told me it was my fault.”
She called out the group’s homophobia, accusing them of wanting to “completely annihilate a group of human beings who just wanna exist.” She said that if any of her four kids are “part of this community, they will be lucky because there is not a whole lot of families that would love their child unconditionally.”
“And the fact that they want to take that away from children, that is child abuse, to immediately tell your child that he is wrong for feeling like he doesn’t belong in conversion therapy.”
🔥🔥 MUST-WATCH: “I’ve never been sexually assaulted at a drag show, but I have been at church. TWICE! The men told me it was MY fault.”
MAURY COUNTY library board – local mom rips homophobe County Commissioner Aaron Miller, whose ignorant hate chased out the library director📚 pic.twitter.com/D6HrzugANN
Earlier this month, a woman who introduced herself as Stephanie went on a diatribe at a meeting discussing LGBTQ books in the library system in Maury County that was caught on video.
“I will not raise kids in a county that has sexual-oriented books on the counter,” she asserted. She told the group they need “to understand that God’s judgment is for Christians and non-Christians, and a fear of the Lord, if it’s not upon you, it will be upon you in hell.”
The woman said she represented “every law-abiding, taxpaying citizen here in Maury County,” then told her would-be constituents, “you are blind” not to see that “when perversion permeates our county, that’s when the devil gets our children.”
“Obviously, revelation prophecies are occurring right before our eyes,” she said.
Michigan’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon wants to ban books about divorce because they might give kids anxiety. Jackson White, Ben Gleib, and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
Read more HERE: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/g… “The types of books Michigan’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon wants to ban appear to keep expanding. In recently released audio, Dixon suggested that books about divorce shouldn’t be available to all students in public schools.
This week, the progressive PAC American Bridge 21st Century unearthed the October 2020 clip from Dixon’s time as an anchor on far-right streaming network Real America’s Voice show America’s Voice Live, in which Dixon claimed that a children’s book about divorce caused her daughter anxiety.”*
A Sumner County parent broke into tears during a school board meeting after learning her child was reading a poem book about a young Black child that explores themes of racial struggles and diversity. The book, “A Place Inside of Me” by award-winning author Zetta Elliott, explores the perspectives of a Black child throughout the year as he deals with the aftermath of a police shooting. MeidasTouch Contributor Coach D reacts.
These people vote and right wing media promotes them. Reality means nothing to these people. But why kill the babies, just milk the blood in regular donations keeps the blood fresh and coming in. These people don’t think through things very well. 🙄 Hugs
Just banned by Newsmax, Lara Logan has some thoughts:
The reason I believe that people reacted that way is it’s all about the children. The question they don’t want us asking is where are all the missing children?
What happens to these children? How can hundreds of thousands of kids go missing in the United States every year and nobody knows where they are?
They just vanish? I don’t think so. Every sex trafficking ring worldwide knows, bring the kids to the United States that this administration is participating in the trafficking of kids.
They’re paying companies, LLCs and non-profits and church groups. They’re paying them to take these kids and disappear them.
The report that you showed have talked about the blood of young children being the secret to anti-aging. And why does nobody ask where does blood come from?
How do you get the blood of young children? And does it matter if the children are younger and younger and younger? So now you’re talk — are you talking about the blood of babies now? Is that what you’re talking about?
Logan may be too fucking crazy even for Newsmax, but not for Mike Lindell’s Frank Speech platform.
After getting banned from Fox for saying Fauci is Mengele, then from Newsmax for saying Satanist elites drink the blood of children, Lara Logan doubles down and says hundreds of thousands of kids in the US are being kidnapped so elites can drink their blood to fight aging. pic.twitter.com/Wh1WHiX0U3
According to our research and experience, out of the half a million children that go missing every year in the United States, nearly all of them are found. That’s 97.8%. So, half a million children go missing, but nearly all of them are also found.
When most people think about missing children, they imagine children being lured into white vans. But if a father or mother takes a child without permission, and they don’t have custody, that’s considered a missing child, and the vast majority of missing kids are due to family abductions. There are more than 3,000 attempted snatchings per year, and more than 90% of those are runaways or parental abductions.
Amateur! I reach into their bodies and pull their hearts out, leaving them alive while I lower them into a fiery hell-like pit. As documented in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
The term blood libel refers to the false allegation that Jews used the blood of non-Jewish, usually Christian children, for ritual purposes. The Nazis made effective use of the blood libel to demonize Jews, with Julius Steicher’s newspaper Der Stürmer making frequent use of ritual murder imagery in its antisemitic propaganda.
Because rainbows make Jesus cry. As I said in the last post on this guy, not everyone lives by his bible. Deliu said his family is Christian-Orthodox and considers homosexuality a sin, saying in the lawsuit it’s “not in accordance with their Bible.” Gay people exist, and they have rights. Gay kids exist and they have rights. This child is in the 7th grade, he is quite aware of gender and sexual orientation, and sorry but not everyone is the same. My rights, gay kids in the 7th grade don’t lose their rights because the bible says they are icky, and his daddy is a bigoted asshole. Hugs
A Wellington father is suing the School District of Palm Beach County after he claimed his son’s teacher put up two LGBTQ pride flags in her classroom. Dr. Francisco Deliu’s 12-year-old son is in seventh grade at Emerald Cove Middle School.
Deliu filed a lawsuit on Oct. 12 against the school district, Palm Beach County School Board, the middle school, principal Dr. Eugina Smith-Freeman and teacher Rachel Raos. Deliu said his family is Christian-Orthodox and considers homosexuality a sin, saying in the lawsuit it’s “not in accordance with their Bible.”
Deliu claimed the teacher’s actions are a violation of Florida’s “Parents’ Bill of Rights” law, which went into effect in 2021. Deliu is asking for a jury trial and wants the court to declare the teacher’s [alleged] decision to discuss gay pride and homosexuality illegal.
Read the full article. Deliu also wants an apology from the school and the teacher to be posted on the district’s website. Wellington, it’s worth noting, is one of Florida’s wealthiest communities. Many of its homes include horse stables and Wellington hosts the annual US Polo Open as well as other equestrian competitions.
He looks to be a lawyer https://www.queerty.com/lit… It surely isn’t his first go-round with making big accusations, either. In 2017, the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal found him guilty of nine different charges including “misconduct”, “unprofessional conduct” and “conduct unbecoming a lawyer”.
The misconduct charges resulted from a series of allegations the barrister made against two high court judges of “discrimination and racism by the Judges towards both counsel and clients, and corruption in carrying out their duties.”
Deliu was fined a quarter of a million dollars and his law license was temporarily suspended.
I love the part of the article where the guy says he’s a “libertarian.” I’m sure he has a great explanation for why libertarianism* means the state must affirmatively take actions to send the message that there is a lower caste of depraved people who must not be spoken about or acknowledged.
*We all know that real-world Ron Paul-style libertarianism wants exactly that, but it’s hilarious to watch them try to explain themselves.
Some affluent areas have public schools that rival the best private schools in their area. So I’m not surprised. The high home prices and high property taxes that fund those schools keep out anyone they don’t want there.
It’s also interesting that people had issues with Ye saying bad things about Jewish people but anyone is free to say horrible things about LBGT people and its ok because it’s your opinion yet both our people were in hitlers concentration camps
The law was written so poorly and so broadly that it allows for any parent to sue for anything and to let the courts or jury decide.
Its supposed to chill speech these asshats dont like so in this case they assumed all LGBTQ teachers/school officials would just pull all the “gay stuff” out of the classroom in advance.
Yes, it was more of a scare type law that was so vague that teachers would be afraid to do anything, even putting up a pride flag. I hope this is a test case that turns out well to knock down this law.
Why is saying that ‘straight people exist’ legal, but “gay people exist’ illegal?
It would be funny if some wise-ass elementary school let boys and girls use whichever bathroom they wanted to because “discussing gender identity was forbidden by law and discussing or asking students what gender they are might be illegal.”
That “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida HAS to be unconstitutional. Besides, being “against Jesus” has no bearing on education, unless you’re a Christian religious school. I hope he’ll get told to go away and take his jury trial with him; but it’s Florida, so who knows?
Didn’t they just rule for freedom of speech of teachers in the ‘praying coach’ case? of course, they will contradict themselves in a case like this when they rule -against- freedom of speech.
It seems the religious right is on a push to have as many kids born as possible, even if it kills the woman. I am not sure why? The went after same sex marriage claiming they couldn’t be real because they did not produce offspring / children. Now any childless marriage is not real because no children being born. Is that because less and less people are religious in the US. Are they worried that soon they will lose too much money in the collection plates if they don’t get the US to over populate? Do they need more sacrificial lambs to the altar of their god? And why do these people obsess with the marriages / sex lives of other people so much. Are they jealous? I just don’t get it. Hugs
It’s not just same-sex marriages Republicans want to ban. Now they don’t like asexual marriages either.
In July, the Supreme Court of Sweden ruled in a landmark case that a relationship doesn’t have to involve sex to be considered significant. In a case involving an asexual couple in which one of the two parties is deceased, the court emphasized that a relationship should be characterized by a close community in personal terms that normally occurs between married people and that sex doesn’t have to be involved for that to happen. It was a significant win for asexual people in Sweden.
However, in America, a darker reality exists for asexuals even on this Ace Week, as religious nationalist groups are actively trying to block the Respect for Marriage Act from passing in the Senate. Not only is the religious right seeking to ban gay marriage once again, but they have also signaled a future attack against asexual marriages.
As obtained by Politico, some 83 Christian nationalist groups (led by the Alliance Defending Freedom) released a letter in July imploring Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to block the Respect for Marriage Act, because marriage equality somehow opens the door to further immorality, like platonic marriages.
“H.R. 8404 would require federal recognition of any one state’s definition of marriage without any parameters whatsoever. This would include plural marriages, time-bound marriages, open marriages, marriages involving a minor or relative, platonic marriages…”
It’s impossible to ignore calling out the perfidious groomer libel conservatives keep trying that is recycled garbage from the 1970s. However, we cannot ignore the religious right calling for platonic (asexual) marriages to be banned also!
There is an abundance of evidence to show asexual marriages are under threat, also.
The Ace Couple, an asexual married couple who runs a podcast discussing topics related to asexuality, did a four-episode series on the 83 religious groups who signed onto the letter to McConnell asking to block the Respect for Marriage Act.
Each group essentially states in no uncertain terms that asexuality is unacceptable to their religion and should be banned from having equal marriage rights.
The Witherspoon Institute, a right-wing think tank founded by Robert P. George (who founded the anti-LGBTQ hate group American Principles Project), came out with an op-ed entitled “Why We Should Push Back against Platonic Marriage.” The editorial’s author, Alan J. Hawkins, laments the idea of asexual marriages existing because he feels allowing asexual marriages will lead to a “marriage inferno.”
I think it matters deeply that we continue to define marriage as a sexual union. It matters because the continual pruning of marriage reduces its core purpose to something that does not really set it apart from other committed relationship possibilities. This ongoing thinning of marriage’s meaning leaves less and less of the concrete conjugal elements that can bind marriages together. Also, it seriously erodes the legal justification for the benefits, responsibilities, and protections with which the law endows marriage.
The Witherspoon Institute is not alone in this thinking.
Autonomy has within itself the seeds of ever-greater radicalism because coercion can be given an ever-broader definition, beginning with physical coercion but ending with any external or natural consideration shaping one’s “choice.” Truly autonomous choices, on this ever more radical understanding, must be made without the influence of imposed habits, human reason, education, social pressure, legal pressure, cultural expectations, or any other external demand. Autonomous choices spring from within the individual, lest they be traceable to something oppressive or alien to the individual. One wonders, therefore, whether such choices are made in consideration of anything but selfishness.
The religious right views exercising freedom of choice as nothing more than being selfish. They view choosing individual happiness as somehow wicked and evil, and they want to remove the right to choose from us all, forcing us into sex on their terms.
It’s weird to me seeing the religious right come right out and attack sexless marriages.
Growing up in a purity culture right in the heart of the Bible Belt, all I heard as a youth were messages about abstaining from sex, with pastors and Christian leaders imperatively saying, “Don’t have sex! Don’t even think about it!”
Now, the commandment has apparently flipped, with the religious right commanding everyone to have sex.
The religious right states in no uncertain terms that anyone not entering into a sexual, procreative relationship should not be allowed to marry.
This has large ramifications on asexual people—many of whom desire companionship and love— as well as on asexual married couples who depend on the benefits marriage provides. The Respect for Marriage Act would be a vital help to asexual couples who now find themselves in the crosshairs of the culture wars.
And it begins. This is what the Republicans and what Gov. DeathSantis wanted. How is just seeing a rainbow flag being educated “in the ways of homosexuality.” I keep saying the goal is to erase gay people from society. Sorry your religion doesn’t give you the right to kick the people you don’t out of the country, you don’t get to make the people you don’t like hide the fact they are real, you don’t get to use your church doctrine to force people to live straight lives because you don’t want gays to live their lives freely. What other things will it be illegal for a kid to see, that will instruct them in the way of …, how about icons of other religions? For that matter I an atheist, I don’t like all the religious symbols and pictures I see, can I sue people for displaying a cross like wearing one around their neck? They already banned the books that offended them, what next?
The US is built on diversity and different cultures. There is a drive on the right to roll back all advances in society over the last 70 years. To return women to traditional stereotypical roles, to drive minorities back to a subservient roles, To erase the LGBTQ+ and remove representation of them. They want a white Christian ethnostate, and they are pushing hard to get their way. They are a minority that is getting their way, claiming my very existence as an openly gay man in a same sex marriage is wrong and instructing their kid in homosexuality. They want me gone, erased, hidden, it offends their Christianity. Tough shit, their religion offends me. What about that. No one has the right to not be offended.
If this man wants his child isolated from the other people then send his child to a Christian school that follows his religion. Gay kids are real, they go to school, they have the right to live their lives openly as do straight kids. They have as much right to date, to have clubs, to see their symbols as much as Christians have the right to wear their crosses. LGBTQ+ have as much right to be and to live openly as straight kids, as Christian kids, as Muslim kids, as atheist kids and so on. This is not the first time this father has tried to force his religion on others and seems to also be a racist who demands the right to discriminate against others.
People we need everyone to stand up and say enough and fight back against the attempt to remove others from society and existence. We must fight against the attempt to force one religion in the laws and lives of everyone else. These people are the US version of the Taliban. Help us stop them. Vote them out of office. Hugs
Dr. Francisco Catalin Deliu says he has a right to prevent his child from being educated “in the ways of homosexuality.”
A Florida father is suing his 12-year-old son’s school district over the fact that his son was exposed to Pride flags in his computer science classroom.
Dr. Francisco Catalin Deliu of Palm Beach County is arguing that Emerald Cove Middle School, principal Dr. Eugina Smith-Freeman, and his son’s teacher Rachel Raos have been “expressly and/or implicitly advocating for homosexuality as an alternative way of life,” reports CBS 12.
Deliu, a Romanian refugee who fled due to religious and political persecution, is an Orthodox Christian who believes being gay is a sin.
The lawsuit says that in early September, Deliu’s son informed him that Raos had hung two Pride flags in her classroom, searched online “about homosexual lifestyles,” and “proselytized to the students in the class.”
Deliu claims the principal dismissed him when he complained and said she’d have to speak to the Board to determine whether Raos was breaking the law. He also claims that after asking for his son to be removed from Raos’s class and placed in a different computer science class, the school instead moved his son to an art class without telling him.
The suit reportedly does not accuse the school of breaking Florida’s infamous Don’t Say Gay law. It argues that the school violated Deliu’s “substantive human rights” and “natural rights from God.” It accuses the state of “acting contrary to his religious beliefs” and says he has a right to prevent his child from being educated “in the ways of homosexuality.”
Deliu has also previously accused the school of spreading homosexuality through library books.
And these tussles are far from his first time getting involved with the law.
While living in New Zealand in 2017, Deliu’s law license was suspended for 15 months and he was ordered to pay over $250,000 due to “six charges of misconduct, one charge of unprofessional conduct, and one charge of conduct unbecoming a lawyer,” according to the New Zealand Law Society.
The charges were due to allegations of racism and discrimination he made against two judges, which the court reportedly said were “excessive, disgraceful, and baseless attacks on Judges made in provocative and intemperate language, and for the purposes of protecting the practitioner’s own interests.”
For the accusations against his son’s school, he reportedly is seeking a jury trial.
Lets be honest what the furries thing is about. It is about attacking trans kids without using the word trans. It is adults mocking the idea of identifying with a different gender than your born identified sex. It is stupid and another example of the right making up something that is not happen and not real simply to create outrage to be offended over. Hugs
One parent called out the school board at a meeting: “We have classrooms without teachers, and you’re wasting your time focusing on” furries.
April 14, 2018, European furry walk at Volkspark Friedrichshain in Berlin Photo: Shutterstock
A school board in North Carolina considered a proposal to ban furry costumes in schools after they say they received numerous complaints about students dressing up as animals and using litter boxes in school restrooms.
Jeff James, superintendent of Iredell-Statesville Schools, said that he’s spent hours responding to emails and messages on social media about the rumor. He said that the rumors are false and that there is no evidence that students are bringing litter boxes into school restrooms.
But that didn’t stop school board member Bryan Shomaker from supporting the proposal to ban ears, tails, gloves, collars, or full furry costumes from being worn in schools. The proposal has exceptions for school spirit days and theater.
“We’re trying to address it before it becomes a major problem,” he said at a school board meeting.
But some parents were angry that it was even being discussed.
“We have classrooms without teachers, and you’re wasting your time focusing on a kid at a Scotts Elementary Panthers basketball game who wants to wear a cat ear headband,” said parent Jean Foster.
“We’ve spent a lot of time on masks over the past few years,” a frustrated Foster told Queen City News after the meeting. “We’ve spent a lot of time talking about which books we are wanting to ban. All of that is a distraction from what’s important. This was just something else – something ludicrous.”
“You may not want it to be a distraction, but it was a distraction. A large distraction,” school board member Martin Page said.
Lincoln County Schools in North Carolina was also the subject of furry rumors.
“There is nobody identifying as a cat at North Lincoln High School and we have no litter boxes!!!” an employee wrote in a Facebook group. “Quit spreading this stupidity!”
An early example of the stories about students identifying as house pets and demanding litter boxes was Michigan activist Lisa Hansen. Because Hansen opposed federal regulations allowing trans students to use school restrooms matching their gender identities, she claimed that students who identify as cats were allowed to use litter boxes in one school’s unisex restroom.
A Michigan school superintendent was forced to write an email to parents debunking such a lie. An Oregon public school district superintendent was also forced to send a similar email after one social media user claimed that furries were wearing leashes and being petted by other students at local schools.
During a televised debate, Bostelman claimed that student “furries” were allowed to interact with teachers by meowing and barking. He also said that one student who was denied a litter box later defecated on a classroom floor. Bostelman later admitted that the story wasn’t true.
It has been spread online by anti-LGBTQ activists like Chaya Raichik of LibsofTikTok, when she pushed a lie that a second grade Texas schoolteacher encouraged students to become furries. The Austin school district disavowed the claim as misinformation.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has claimed that a father in Michigan told her that his son got into trouble when he stepped on the tail of a student who identified as a furry.
Reuters published a fact check in July that said there is “no evidence of them disrupting classrooms or schools developing a policy of including them as a formal identity.”
Earlier this month, conservative radio host Joe Rogan told former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) that he knows someone who knows someone who said that “there’s a girl who’s a furry, who identifies as an animal and her mother badgered the school until they agreed to put a litter box in one of the stalls.”
“So this girl goes into the litter room or to the girl’s room and urinates or whatever — I don’t know if she poops in it, that’s pretty gross.”
(l to r) Rome Pride, Sabastion Mikel and son Jaxen, and Justin Deal. Photos by Ivan Felipe and Lee Jones.
Jessee Graham going off at the Maury County Board of Trustees Photo: Screenshot
Photo: Shutterstock
Photo: Shutterstock
April 14, 2018, European furry walk at Volkspark Friedrichshain in Berlin Photo: Shutterstock
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