After almost every right-wing media outlet and politician tried to discredit and throw cold water on the story of the 10-year-old Ohio rape victim, a man has been arrested and charged after confessing to raping the girl multiple times. The girl had to travel to Indiana to receive an abortion as Ohio’s heartbeat trigger law takes effect at 6 weeks of pregnancy. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
“A 27-year-old man has been charged in the sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl who reportedly traveled from Ohio to Indiana for an abortion in a case that drew international attention — and scrutiny — in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Gershon Fuentes, who was arrested Tuesday, confessed to raping the child, according to documents filed in Franklin County, Ohio, Municipal Court.
He was charged with the rape of a minor and faces a life sentence and deportation, the documents state. Bond was set at $2 million, and an initial hearing is scheduled for next week.
An attorney who represented Fuentes at Wednesday’s hearing did not immediately reply to a request for comment Wednesday evening.”
As conservative media, and politicians alike, spent hours and hours trying to discredit the story of a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim who had to travel to Indiana to receive an abortion, they have now turned the story into an investigation into the doctor who performed the abortion. Indiana’s Republican AG Todd Rokita told Jesse Watters that his office will investigate Dr. Caitlin Bernard, a gynecologist, and reproductive health activist. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
“After Republicans and conservative media spent days suggesting the viral story of a 10-year-old rape victim who was forced to travel across state lines for an abortion was fake before an arrest was made Wednesday, the Republican attorney general of Indiana now wants to investigate—the doctor who did the procedure.
Indiana AG Todd Rokita said Wednesday his office is now investigating whether Dr. Caitlin Bernard, who told the Indianapolis Star earlier this month about the case without identifying the patient, reported the assault of the 10-year-old girl to Indiana authorities.
Rokita made this very official announcement—where he didn’t officially accuse Bernard of anything—on Fox News, of course.
“We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure if she failed to report,” Rokita told Jesse Watters, who’d had Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on two nights prior to suggest that the story was fake.”
A Florida man pulled a gun on a black landscaper who was working on a neighbor’s property and allegedly blocked the man’s driveway with his truck, even though he had already moved his truck and apologized. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
“A Florida man could be facing charges of aggrevated assault with a firearm after pulling an assault rifle on a Black man who partially blocked his driveway with a trailer ramp in the town of Clearwater.
David Berry, 44, walked down his driveway with rifle in hand screaming at Jeremy Lee, 46, for blocking his driveway. Mr Lee’s daugther, Carrie, began filming the incident – which appeared to further enrage Mr Berry.
“This is my property!” Mr Berry can be heard yelling at Mr Lee at the beginning of the video. “You’re not allowed to block my driveway! Don’t be a prick!””
And the hate continues and the attacks on trans people will increase. There is no reason for this other than othering and demonizing these people. I wish the public would see what the Republicans are doing and look how historically they have done it over and over through history. It has been done about gays, Catholics, Muslims, ethnic Irish people, blacks, the Mexicans, and anyone not straight white males that fit the majority has been treated to this hate and attempt to stir up hate against groups all for political advantage because they know their base followers are racist bigots and will endorse / vote for politicians that hate the same people they do. I am tired of the rising hate, it is time consuming and emotionally draining to see normal good people and children attacked because they are born different from the hateful majority. But as long as I can I will stand up for those that are not able to stand up to defend themselves. Hugs
Critics say the legislation could make it even more difficult for transgender people to access health care that’s recommended by major medical organizations.
Kevin McCarthy attends a House Republican Conference news confernce on Capitol Hill, in Washington, on Jan. 20, 2022.Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images file
By Reuters
U.S. Republicans in Congress are lining up behind legislation that critics say would roll back protections for transgender people, setting a playbook for action on a divisive social issue should they take control of Congress this fall.
Republicans in the House of Representatives have introduced a bill that would block federal funding to colleges where transgender women are allowed to participate in sports with cisgender women. A separate bill would allow transgender people to sue medical personnel who helped them transition as minors.
Another bill would block funding to schools that disobey state laws regarding “materials harmful to minors,” mimicking state laws that have been used to remove books discussing history around race and LGBTQ themes.
The bills have support from key Republicans in the House and Senate. Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has promoted the sports bill at a press conference and in a conservative newspaper. It is backed by 127 of 211 House Republicans.
**Editor note. There is a video here of the exchange between the professor that I can not post. To view it please go to the link of the article. Thanks, hugs. **
In the Senate, five Republicans have sponsored a version of the bill targeting medical providers, including Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio.
Republicans would be in a position to advance those bills next year if they win control of the House or the Senate in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, which analysts say is likely.
“I hope these are legislative initiatives that we can pass when we get the majority back,” said Rep. Jim Banks, who sponsored the medical providers bill and represents a district in Indiana, which banned transgender students from playing on girls’ sports teams at schools this May.
Fears of discrimination
Critics say the legislation proposed by House Republicans would reduce access to care needed by transgender people to transition. Transgender people are significantly more likely to attempt or commit suicide, often due to lack of access to gender-affirming medical care, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group.
Banks called such criticism “outrageous” and said he did not see how his legislation would contribute to an unsafe environment for transgender people.
Violence against LGBTQ people has also increased fourfold between 2020 and 2021 in the United States, according to ACLED, a nonpartisan organization that tracks violence globally. The increase occurred during a three-year uptick in anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
“There has always been fringe voices who oppose LGBTQ equality, but now, unfortunately, that fringe has grown loud and is being given national platforms,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president of GLAAD, a LGBTQ advocacy group.
** Another video **
Sixty-four percent of Americans support protecting trans people from discrimination, according to a June poll from Pew Research Center; 10% oppose protections.
Eighteen Republican-led states have enacted bans on trans girls and women participating in publicly funded women’s sports, while more than a dozen have introduced legislation mimicking Florida’s law limiting classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Advocates are pushing Democrats to do more to enshrine protections into law before the November elections, but they face uncertain prospects in the evenly divided Senate.
“If we lose the House or the Senate I think it’s really unlikely we’ll be able to prevent discrimination” at the federal level, said Fran Hutchins, executive director of Equality Federation.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is trying his best to provide cover for the right-wing’s horrible record in dismantling family and social services by pitching a “pro-family” social spending program. Too bad Rubio’s plan includes a child tax credit program that gives no benefits to parents earning less than $30,000, a parental leave program that forces parents to ‘borrow’ from their Social Security benefits at retirement, docking checks until you die, or docking checks for only five years of retirement. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
“Late last month, Marco Rubio released what he described as a “pro-family framework following the Dobbs decision.” The actual content of the framework is recycled policies Rubio put out many years ago, but they perhaps deserve a second look, especially in light of Rubio’s new framing of them as pro-life benefits.
The Rubio framework has two main welfare benefits in it, the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and a parental leave program, which I will discuss in order below.”
I know she is trying to make this a threatening action but I want to thank her for getting me interested in seeing the movie. Sounds far more interesting than I figured it would be and I personally would love to see a superhero move where to main male characters had a romance or were dating. Star lord and Thor would give a lot of material if they were dating in a movie about Thor courting a woman at the same time. Now that would blow the conservatives minds right off their shoulders. But these right wing people have to be made to understand that other people have needs and desires that form relationships different from the one man / one women with the man having illicit affairs when possible restricted conservative model of how relationships should be formed. I am so tired of her kind thinking only they should be shown or displayed in media and public. Others exist, and they want to see themselves represented in videos and media. Hugs
Via email from hate group leader Monica Cole:
WARNING! Thor: Love and Thunder just released in theaters on July 8, and this new movie from Marvel Studios includes blatant LGBTQ content.
One Million Moms needs your help to make sure as many people as possible are aware that Marvel Studios is pushing the LGBTQ agenda on families in their newest superhero movie. Parents should also know that Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures is distributing Thor: Love and Thunder.
Rated PG-13, Thor: Love and Thunder includes many LGBTQ innuendos and an abundance of euphemisms, but a few scenes are not downplayed at all.
The alien character named Korg mentions having two dads, and he has hand sex with another member of his species.
The bisexual goddess, King Valkyrie, kisses another woman’s hand to show interest. An Asgardian kid insists on going by a gender-neutral name. And the gay romantic tension between Thor and Star-Lord is apparent but played off as a gag.
There have been numerous attempts by the entertainment industry to indoctrinate families with the LGBTQ agenda discretely and now more overtly.
1MM wants parents to be forewarned, so they are not caught off guard by this new Marvel film. Otherwise, Thor: Love and Thunder might surprise most conservative families.
Consequently, 1MM needs your help in getting the word out to as many people as possible. Marvel has decided to be politically correct instead of providing family-friendly programming. But Marvel should stick to entertaining, not pushing an agenda.
Please share this information with your friends and family to make sure they are aware of the gay content in Thor: Love and Thunder and are not blindsided by it. As moms, we all want to know that Marvel is attempting to desensitize our family by normalizing the LGBTQ lifestyle.
TAKE ACTION: Sign our petition to Marvel and Disney stating that your family will not watch Thor: Love and Thunder since its inclusion of an openly gay superhero and its LGBTQ content go against your beliefs and values.
“…this new movie from Marvel Studios includes blatant LGBTQ content.”
They are routinely horrified when a movie even acknowledges that LGBTQ people exist. Monica and the dozens of women who comprise One Million Moms are hateful bigots who find meaning in their lives by denigrating and oppressing others.
In case a million moms don’t know, PG-13 films are not for children. Uh, not for children under 13. And speaking as a former 13 year old, I knew I was gay by that age. I’d also certainly have figured which adults around me were gay two especially if they lived together and had children. LOL
She’s not OK with anything available to anyone, regardless of rating. She’s gone off on pasta sauce and salad dressing commercials airing on broadcast TV as being too explicitly heterosexual.
None of it has anything to do with accomplishing anything. It’s all about harvesting names for grifting. There is no organization named One Million Moms. It has no board, no president, no membership. They don’t raise money.
Monica Cole is just an employee of the American Family Association. They just harvest people’s information for use in grifting.
Gosh. I watched the trailer, and it seemed to me the movie is all about the straight lifestyle. Isn’t it about Thor’s ex-girlfriend and getting back together? I don’t understand why the straight people in Hollywood keep trying to shove their lifestyles down our throats.
I am so glad I took my 6 year old son to see the newest Thor movie where he could see a diverse set of characters who have the freedom to express their sexuality and attractions to people openly and without bias. Hopefully he will learn acceptance of people for who they are and will find more families like his own with 2 fathers that love each other. Thanks 1MM for the heads up on where I should be taking my son to see these expressions of love and attraction!!
And the gay romantic tension between Thor and Star-Lord is apparent but played off as a gag.
I saw the movie and enjoyed it… and this never happened.
Being offended by normal LGBTQ behavior is one thing… but being offended by things that never actually happened is sorta proof that you need professional help.
Sign our petition! Get on our mailing list! Receive multiple daily fundraising emails and texts for the rest of your natural life and please remember us in your will!
This is another attempt to erase the LGBTQ+ from existing in public spaces, it is an attempt to remove protections and warnings to bullies that have protected the LGBTQ+ kids, and follow the further war to undo all the advances in equality and social acceptances that the LGBTQ+ have achieved over the last 50 years. For those I have argued with that claim the law doesn’t say don’t say gay and that all it is doing is protecting straight kids from being improperly groomed and indoctrinated in LGBTQ+ propaganda the left pushes. Sorry this is about harming and punishing the kids that are different and not straight. Why are they doing this for all grades when the law is written for K-3rd grade? Why is the districts doing this at all when there are those claiming that the law doesn’t require this? It is because it gives some bigoted right wing parent the right to sue is the district seems to be protect or advocating acceptance of LGBTQ+ kids. That hurts their god when gay kids are not bullied by their kids. This is getting serious dangerous again for kids that are different. Hugs
Duval County Public Schools removed a video teaching students how to support LGBTQ+ peers in response to Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education Law. | Claire Heddles, Jacksonville Today
Duval County Public Schools has taken down a 12-minute anti-bullying video that taught middle and high school students how to support their gay and transgender peers, the latest in a string of vanishing LGBTQ resources in the district.
Besides the video, the district is planning to dramatically reduce a LGBTQ+ support guide, and the School Board will vote Monday on a policy that could require schools to notify parents if students want to use different names or pronouns in unofficial records, like ID cards and yearbooks.
The moves are largely in response to Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education law, which restricts how schools can teach about gender identification and sexual orientation. Supporters say the law give parents control of their children’s education, but critics have labeled it the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
A Duval Schools federal grant coordinator raised questions about removing the anti-bullying video, according to a Jacksonville Today review of internal district emails. “Here is what the students have access to for training,” the grant coordinator wrote to the district’s policy team on April 5, 2022. The email was marked “high importance.”
“I just wanted to make sure you both have a look before taking it down,” she wrote, attaching screenshots from the video detailing how to support LGBTQ+ peers, combat bullying in schools and respond when peers come out.
The video is now inaccessible and, in response to questions from Jacksonville Today, district spokesperson Tracy Pierce said, “The materials you referenced have been removed for legal review to ensure the content complies with recent state legislation.”
The video’s removal follows the district’s controversial takedown of a 37-page LGBTQ+ Support Guide last fall, and draft, consolidated support guidance that cuts out many of the explicit protections for transgender students. LGBTQ advocates say the disappearing resources send a dangerous message to a vulnerable student population.
“I do believe [the school system] is trying to create some kind of balance,” JASMYN CEO Cindy Watson tells Jacksonville Today. “But I don’t want to, in any way, suggest that removing all of this is the right thing because it creates a lot of uncertainty and a lack of safety for students right away.”
A training video by students, for students
The now-removed video, specifically created for students, was developed using funds from a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant. The district consulted with LGBTQ+ students in Duval Schools about how to best communicate the anti-bullying message with their peers, according to Darnell-Cookman School of the Medical Arts science teacher, and campus Gay Straight Alliance faculty sponsor Scott Sowell.
He says he did not receive notification from the district about the plan to remove the video, even though some of his students helped to create it. It’s a training he’s used during monthly GSA meetings.
“The video was co-written by some students, and so it had very student-appropriate and student-specific language that was, you know, teenagers talking to other teenagers,” Sowell says. “It’s one critical resource that is now no longer available to teachers to help support students.”
Stills from the now-removed All In for Safe Schools student training video.
The guidance in the video includes, “Be generally respectful of things you may not understand,” and, “‘That’s so gay’ is NOT OKAY.” According to the teacher script accompanying the video, obtained by Jacksonville Today, the training was part of a program for students to obtain an “All In for Safe Schools” badge, a marker that signals the person completed the Safe Schools training.
The All In program is still in place for Duval Schools employees, according to the district’s website. It’s not clear whether the school district will continue the program for students in the upcoming school year. At the time of publishing, the student badge request form was publicly accessible, but the accompanying training video was not.
According to Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education law, classroom instruction “on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3, or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.”
The removed video was designed for students in grades 6-12, not K-3 graders, according to the script accompanying the training materials. And state guidance issued last month says the provision of the law for older students “takes effect only after the Florida Department of Education develops rules or guidance on age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate instruction.” Those rules have not yet been released, according to state officials.
Sowell says it’s disappointing the district removed the video preemptively, without notification or detailed explanation.
“If the district or individuals in the legal team are being held to a specific law, or piece of legislation or mandate that they have to change and edit this, then hopefully, they’ll be as transparent and communicate those changes to everyone involved so things just don’t just disappear,” Sowell says.
Another LGBTQ+ resource removed
The training was not the only LGBTQ+ support resource to disappear last school year. Six months prior to the video’s removal, Superintendent Diana Greene directed her staff to remove a decade-old LGBTQ+ Support Guide from the district’s website, amid rising right-wing backlash against similar support guides across Florida following a lawsuit in Leon County.
In an October 22, 2021, email obtained by Jacksonville Today, Greene told School Board members the guide was never intended to be a public document.
“As the document was not created for external use, it has been removed. Additionally, since the support guide has not undergone a comprehensive review in several years, I have instructed staff to work with the Officer of General Counsel to conduct a comprehensive review of the guidance,” Greene wrote last fall.
Duval parent Josinda York
At least a dozen districts had similar support guides in place last year, but more than half of them have since removed them from their websites, according to an Equality Florida lawsuit. Duval Schools announced a plan last month to cut back most of the former support guide.
“Consolidating training and guidance documents for staff shouldn’t reflect on our commitment to supporting students,” Dr. Greene said in a recent press release. “The proof is in our actions, and we will continue to do all we can to help students thrive.”
But parents of trans students, like Duval mom Josinda York, fear fewer guidelines could hurt kids like hers. York’s son, now in middle school, told her he was a boy when he was 4. Josinda started transitioning him at school in the second grade.
“This would have been a direct issue for him had they not had everything in place already, because that gave the school all the tools they needed to help him with his transition,” York tells Jacksonville Today. “Specifically because the School Board had these guidelines, they had something to go by.”
York says the level of detail about trans students’ federal rights and frequently asked questions in the former support guide, stripped out in the consolidated draft guidance, were an important part of her family’s experience in Duval Schools.
Without the former support guide, York says, “I think the principal still would have supported us, but I don’t know if they would have had the education to properly support us.”
Hundreds of parents have shown up at recent Duval School Board meetings to comment on the support guide, some to push back against the proposed changes and others advocating for throwing out the support guide altogether. According to the district, the proposed changes were not required by Florida’s new laws, but were a choice by district staffers.
“We are taking these steps to streamline our training and internal communication with staff even though it is not required under the law,” a district spokesperson wrote in an email to Jacksonville Today.
Monday’s vote could bring more changes
In addition to the disappearing training materials, Duval School Board members are also set to vote on a policy change — drafted in response to Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education law — requiring schools to send emails to parents if there’s a change in student services, which would include if students want to change their name or pronouns in unofficial school records, like ID cards and yearbooks, according to proposed district guidance. According to the draft policy, schools would send the email to parents, unless there’s a risk of “abuse, abandonment or neglect.”
The new policy would likely affect trans kids and their parents, like Dawn and David Clapp. The two were decked out in LGBTQ+ pride gear at the last School Board meeting, David in a pink and blue shirt that reads, “Trans rights are human rights” and Dawn with a “Love Wins” headband. They’re, by all accounts, affirming parents to their transgender daughter.
Dawn and David Clapp, and their daughter, gathered with LGBTQ+ advocates before a June school board meeting.
Even with supportive parents, their daughter was first comfortable coming out to her friends and a teacher at her Duval charter school. She told her parents she was a girl later on when she felt ready.
“We were supportive of her,” Clapp says. “It was surprising, and it’s been a lot to deal and adjust with, but she’s become this amazing, blossoming human being because she’s felt safe at home and safe at school to be who she wants to be.”
Dawn and David are among a group of parents of transgender kids, and other LGBTQ+ advocates, who oppose sending an automatic email to parents that “outs” kids without their consent, instead of letting kids like the Clapp’s daughter change their name on class rosters, but tell their parents when they want to, as the policy currently permits.
“My children’s friends that don’t have as supportive parents, it scares me for them, that they would have that taken from them,” Dawn Clapp says.
District staffers say the new policy is necessary to comply with Florida’s new law.
It’s not only LGBT students — it is anyone who doesn’t follow the norm — whether sexual or any other difference which is normal between humans. Blacks, browns, Asians, Jews, Muslims, any of several other religious sects, diet habits, dress, you name it — it is an attack against humanity itself.
Scottie's Playtime 