Teachers were using the rainbow flag stickers to signal to kids a safe space / classroom they could go to for protection from bullies or if they had a question about being LGBTQ+ they did not feel they could ask their parents or adults. The right must make sure these safe space signals are gone and the kids who need that space are denied them. Right now the right are coming for the LGBTQ+ and the black minority communities. Then they will come for others they don’t like, the Jewish people will be targeted, the Muslims will be targeted, as will even other sects of Christianity the fundies don’t think are the right way to worship. Notice that most of the people wanted to get rid of the policy. They wanted the rainbow flags to stay. But the board has an agenda to push. Hugs
A Wisconsin school board has voted in favor of a policy that prohibits teachers and staff from displaying gay pride flags and other items that district officials consider political in nature
WALES, Wis. —A Wisconsin school board voted in favor of a policy that prohibits teachers and staff from displaying gay pride flags and other items that district officials consider political in nature.
The Kettle Moraine School Board voted Tuesday to keep a code of conduct in place that the superintendent recently interpreted as forbidding district employees from displaying political or religious messages, including pride flags, and Black Lives Matter and We Back the Badge signs. Staff also may not say in emails what their preferred pronouns are.
Superintendent Stephen Plum recently told the board that the district’s interpretation of a policy that prohibits staffers from using their positions to promote partisan politics, religious views and propaganda for personal, monetary or nonmonetary gain changed following a legal analysis.
Jim Romanowski was the only board member to vote against the ban, saying he changed his mind about the policy after hearing from students and staff.
Most of those who spoke at Tuesday’s packed board meeting opposed the policy. The public comment period was capped at an hour, despite a call from the crowd to extend it.
“If you have a policy that says ‘nothing political,’ does that mean you can’t have a sign up that says, ‘Support our Troops,’ or ‘Believe Women’ or ‘Save the Planet?’ By some people’s definitions, all of those things are political,” said Christine Donahoe, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.
Donahoe said she’s looking closely at the policy and a similar one approved last fall by the school district in nearby Waukesha.
“It really looks like targeted attacks at specific viewpoints, like LGBT communities, or welcome and safe spaces to students of color,” said Donahoe.
More than 13,000 people have signed an online petition opposing the Kettle Moraine policy that was launched by two local high school students, Bethany Provan and Brit Farrar.
“Having a rainbow flag in your room isn’t pushing your beliefs on someone,” Provan told WITI-TV. “It’s just saying, ‘Hey, you’re welcome here, and we support you.’”
I am braced. I have opened up my job search to include jobs outside academia and outside music because I fear it’s not going to be safe to live or work where I currently live for much longer. We’ll see how the November election goes but I don’t have much hope that a Democrat can win in this state.
Pride 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈 aren’t political, they’re pieces of cloth that save lives. The message that LGBTQ kids and teachers hear from this decision is: You don’t matter.
“Heather has two mommies” isn’t sexually explicit material either, but they still get books banned in libraries / school districts by pretending it is and riling up busybodies.
I could post 3 to5 of these stories a day. Most of them I must avoid reading as most of you can understand. But this one caught my eye because of the number of charges and the method. This is the real meaning of grooming; Grooming is a method used by offenders that involves building trust with a child to allow the perp more access and opportunity to abuse them. The republicans and right wing media are hammering that teachers are grooming the children by allowing them to come out in schools, using the correct pronouns / names of trans gender kids, and allowing age appropriate information / discussion of gender and LGBTQ+ content. The real intent of the right is an attempt to destroy both public education along with any tolerance / acceptance of the LGBTQ+ while creating a hostile environment for gay, lesbian, and trans kids. What this guy does works on kids that have been denied sex education and the ability to talk openly with adults about sexual issues. This guy would have failed with this if these kids were not made to feel so ashamed of their bodies that they would do anything to avoid a picture of their junk to be seen by friends or parents. This is what happens when kids are taught to just say no or are not taught how to address when they have desires / needs that have to be addressed. If you read the article the guy would claim to be a girl, boys desperate to see a nude girl would send him pictures of their dicks and balls. Girls do it also. Gay and lesbian kids fall pray to this also. So the perp then tells the kids they will send the nude pictures of their privates to their friends and parents unless the kid shows more and does sexual acts like masturbating or inserting something in themselves. Remember I posted about another youth pastor that would do this and then would arrange to be with the boy and mother when he sent the most explicit videos to the boy’s mother. He loved the mother’s reactions and took great enjoyment in the boy’s embarrassment and future punishments. Hugs
A Burlington County man who served as a youth pastor has been indicted on charges that he sexually exploited underage boys, deceiving them into sending him explicit images, then blackmailing them into performing lewd acts so he could watch and record them remotely, authorities said Friday.
Sean Higgins, 31, of Palmyra, has been in custody since he was arrested in October 2020. He is accused of victimizing 13 boys ages 12 to 17 who were living in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Tennessee.
A grand jury this week indicted Higgins on 75 total counts that included charges of endangering the welfare of a child, aggravated sexual assault, criminal sexual contact, cyber harassment, and obscenity to a minor.
Higgins adopted the persona of a teenage girl he named Julie Miller and then used Snapchat and Instagram to start talking with underage boys, the prosecutor said.
After a bond was forged between ‘Julie Miller’ and each of the underage boys, Higgins “would suggest that they trade photos. Higgins would then send pictures” of an unidentified teenage girl, the prosecutor’s office stated.
Higgins would take a screenshot of the teenage boys’ friends who were listed on their phones, “send that screenshot back to the victim and threaten to send the nude photos he had just received to the list of the victim’s friends unless the victim did exactly what Higgins demanded,” the prosecutor’s office stated.
Daily News | Burlington County youth pastor charged with sexual exploitation of juveniles https://t.co/vQWX8UnkIi
I can imagine the terror those poor boys felt when they realized they were deceived and family and friends might find out. That sick pedo needs to do years of prison time.
Many schools in the U.S. have added a new digital tool to monitor students when they go on bathroom breaks. Jayar Jackson, Cenk Uygur, and Ben Gleib discuss on The Young Turks.
“e-HallPass, a digital system that students have to use to request to leave their classroom and which takes note of how long they’ve been away, including to visit the bathroom, has spread into at least a thousand schools around the United States.
The system has some resemblance to the sort of worker monitoring carried out by Amazon, which tracks how long its staff go to the toilet for, and is used to penalize workers for “time off task.” It also highlights how automated tools have led to increased surveillance of students in schools, and employees in places of work.”
Note that because the Texas anti-abortion bounty laws were not struck by the SCOTUS even though they skirt the laws to let the public overturn private civil rights of people doing legal acts that a small minority doesn’t like, they are now doing the same thing to force more religious views on the public. Several states that tried to implement these laws led to schools posting small or stylized posters / signs that explained when the motto was added as the national motto and added other religions. This law will stop that. The law is intended to make sure the donated posters / signs will be from highly religious organizations to push the Christian god. That is the second point I want emphasize. This is about pushing the Christian god on the public including those who have different religions or no religious faith at all. The law doesn’t say in Allah we trust. It doesn’t say in multiple gods we trust. What about the atheist families, doesn’t this interfere with the parental rights pushed so hard by this same small minority to ban books and discussion of LGBTQ+ subjects in schools / libraries. Parents rights seem only to apply to right wing maga Christians, not any other parents. Hugs
The law passed last year says schools must display the national motto in a “conspicuous place” but only if the poster is “donated” or “purchased by private donations.”
Students work at their desks at Blanco Vista Elementary School in San Marcos on Aug. 23, 2021. Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for the Texas Tribune
A new law requiring Texas schools to display donated “In God We Trust” posters is the latest move by Republican lawmakers to bring Christianity into taxpayer-funded institutions.
Under the law, Senate Bill 797, which passed during last year’s legislative session, schools are required to display the posters if they are donated.
The law went into effect last year, but these posters weren’t popping up then as many school officials and parents were more concerned about new COVID-19 strains and whether their local public school would even open for in-person classes.
The “In God We Trust” law was authored by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, the East Texas Republican who crafted Texas’ Senate Bill 8, which restricted abortion to the first six weeks or so of pregnancy starting Sept. 1, 2021. The abortion law artfully skirted legal challenge by relying on the public instead of law enforcement to enforce it.
Hughes’ “In God We Trust” poster law is also precisely written. Texas public schools or colleges must display the national motto in a “conspicuous place” but only if the poster is “donated” or “purchased by private donations.”
After an appearance for a Northwest Austin Republican Women’s Club event on Tuesday, Hughes touted the new law and praised the groups stepping up to donate the posters.
“The national motto, In God We Trust, asserts our collective trust in a sovereign God,” Hughes wrote on Twitter. “I’m encouraged to see groups like the Northwest [Austin] Republican Women and many individuals coming forward to donate these framed prints to remind future generations of the national motto.”
Patriot Mobile, a Texas-based cellphone company that donates a portion of its customers’ phone bills to conservative, “Christian” causes, on Monday donated several “In God We Trust” signs to all Carroll Independent School District campuses, claiming it is their “mission is to passionately defend our God-given, Constitutional rights and freedoms, and to glorify God always.”
“Patriot Mobile has donated framed posters to many other school districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and we will continue to do so until all the schools in the area receive them,” the company said in a Facebook post. “We are honored to be part of bringing God back into our public schools!”
Carroll ISD includes Southlake, the mostly white, affluent Dallas-Fort Worth suburb. The community’s struggles with a school diversity and inclusion plan — as well as how parents opposed to the plan started a political movement there — were the subject of a seven-part NBC podcast released last year.
The Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition, or SARC, said in a statement that is not happy that the law mandates public schools put up these posters.
“SARC is disturbed by the precedent displaying these posters in every school will set and the chilling effect this blatant intrusion of religion in what should be a secular public institution will have on the student body, especially those who do not practice the dominant Christian faith,” the statement read.
Donations of the “In God We Trust” posters have also been made to the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, in the Houston area. The posters were a donation from The Yellow Rose of Texas Republican Women.
Moms for Liberty, a conservative nonprofit organization, donated posters for Round Rock Independent School District campuses, said Jenny Caputo, a spokesperson for the district. Most campuses have the signs up in a hallway near the front of each campus.
The Keller Independent School District in Tarrant County has received posters from a private citizen for all its facilities, and they are displayed mainly in front offices, said Bryce Nieman, a spokesperson for Keller ISD.
Erik Leist, a Keller resident and a father of a soon-to-be kindergartner, said the motto represents America’s founding and believes the law allows communities to do what they think is best.
“If it’s important to communities, the community will come behind it,” Leist said. “If it’s not something that the community values, it’s not gonna end up in the school.”
Leist also said he sees it as just the nation’s motto, not pushing any one religion.
The Yellow Rose of Texas Republican Women and the Northwest Austin Republican Women’s Club did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Texas Tribune reached out to Hughes as well as Aaron Rocha, Leigh Wambsganss and Scott Coburn with Patriot Mobile to discuss the poster law. None responded immediately to the Tribune’s request for comment.
“In God We Trust” origins
In 1956, Congress passed a joint resolution that made “In God We Trust” the nation’s motto, replacing “e pluribus unum (one from many).” Lawmakers did this partially to differentiate itself during the Cold War from the Soviet Union, which embraced atheism.
The “In God We Trust” national motto can be found on money and government buildings and has proven to be bulletproof when it comes to legal challenges that assert the reference to God could be seen as government-endorsed prayer, impinging on Americans’ First Amendment rights.
In a 1970 case, Aronow v. United States, a federal appeals court ruled “It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency ‘In God We Trust’ has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion.”
From motto to movement
In this century, there’s been a growing movement to place the motto in more visible government spaces.
Since 2015, efforts to place “In God We Trust” on police cars, for example, have spread. There’s even a website, ingodwetrust.com, that specifically states the movement is about protecting citizens’ “First Amendment right to religious liberty, a freedom that is being threatened through a well-organized and well-funded effort to remove all vestige of God from the public domain in America.”
For Patriot Mobile, this is the company’s latest effort in its plan to “put Christian conservative values into action” and it has been targeting Texas’ public schools through its political action committee, Patriot Mobile Action.
During the past spring and leading into the May school board elections, the Patriot Mobile Action PAC raised more than $500,000 for conservative school board candidates across North Texas, including Carroll ISD.
The real meaning behind putting “In God We Trust” posters in public schools.
Marjorie Taylor Greene has introduced a bill to criminalize gender affirmation surgery in transgender youth. Jessica Burbank, Cenk Uygur, and Alonzo Bodden discuss on The Young Turks.
“Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia plans to introduce legislation to federally ban gender-affirming care for transgender children.
Greene announced the bill during a Thursday appearance on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight. The Georgia Republican argued that gender-affirming care—which is backed by most in the medical establishment, including by major mainstream organizations like the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)—is “disgusting and appalling” and “child abuse” when minors are involved.
“I find this absolutely appalling, Tucker,” Greene said. “When it comes to gender-affirming care, which is really child abuse, this is actually an assault and it’s child abuse. And this practice should never happen, it’s so disgusting and appalling… gender-affirming care is… genital mutilation.”
A Florida Appeals Court ruled that a child with no parents could not terminate her pregnancy because the Court found she was not ‘mature enough’ to make the decision and so the State of Florida will compel birth.
A Texas school district withdrew Anne Frank’s diary from classrooms after parental complaints forcing Administrators in Fort Worth to withdraw and review over 35 “contentious” books. Meidas Co-Founder Ben Meiselas reacts.
Brandon Wolf, a Pulse Night Club survivor, speaks with MeidasTouch about the letters he exchanged with Florida Senator Marco Rubio where Rubio embraces a discriminatory LGBTQ+ agenda. Wolf discusses how Rubio used the Pulse Night Club shooting pretending to support the victims as a poltical tool while actually engaging in heinous policies using the government to discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community.
All these anti-trans bills that allowed the inspection of kid’s genitals if they are suspected of being trans. What is the justification for mislabeling them? They are better than their peers, they have natural gifts that make them better. This is why the trans women in women sports are stealing the right wins from women is so stupid. What now separating out the ones taller as unfair, separating out the stronger ones as unfair. See how idiotic this has become. All because of bigotry and hate. Hugs
She’s cisgender, but that didn’t stop parents from saying she “doesn’t look feminine enough” and starting a state investigation.
Parents of the girls who got second and third place in a sporting event filed complaints to have the first-place winner investigated for her gender. The first-place girl is cis.
David Spatafore of the Utah High School Activities Association (UHSAA) is in charge of enforcing the state’s new ban on transgender girls participating in school sports as their gender. While he wouldn’t reveal the sport she played or the school she attended in order to protect her privacy, he said that he was forced to investigate her gender after the parents of two losing student-athletes complained.
He said that he also received some other complaints about her, including one that said, “That female athlete doesn’t look feminine enough.”
“The school went back to kindergarten and she’d always been a female,” Spatafore said.
LGBTQ advocates have been warning for years that transgender sports bans could be used by the families of losing student-athletes to attack winners. Some states, like Idaho, require genital examinations in their sports bans. Such requirements would have subjected the student under investigation to an unnecessary and invasive examination.
Utah passed its transgender sports ban earlier this year and this case is one of the first to test the law. Spatafore said that school records are enough to satisfy the law’s requirements “because if all of the questions about eligibility were answered by the school or the feeder system schools, there was no reason to make it a personal situation with a family or that athlete.”
Spatafore said that UHSAA is trying to follow the new ban.
“Quite frankly, this is new ground for us,” he told the Deseret News. “I’m not going to say that we have it down pat, because I have no clue. I don’t think any of us in the office have a clue if we have it down pat. What we want to do is we just want to try to do our job.”
The state legislature passed H.B. 11, the transgender sports ban, earlier this year. In March, Gov. Spencer Cox (R) vetoed the bill, saying that it “will likely bankrupt the Utah High School Athletic Association and result in millions of dollars in legal fees for local school districts.” The legislature overrode his veto.
In June, the families of two transgender girls in the state filed a lawsuit challenging the sports ban, arguing that the bill was “based on unfounded stereotypes, fears, and misconceptions about girls who are transgender. It is not supported by medical or scientific evidence.”
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/2367173c5d626a1dc6a11a5c95681d28/Blanco%20Vista%20Elementary%20JV%2016%20TT.jpg)
Photo: Shutterstock
Scottie's Playtime 