Category: Bigotry

A ‘new breed’ of charter schools is spreading Christian nationalism — at taxpayers’ expense

https://www.alternet.org/christian-nationalism-2661573247/

A ‘new breed’ of charter schools is spreading Christian nationalism — at taxpayers’ expense

A 'new breed' of charter schools is spreading Christian nationalism — at taxpayers’ expense

Texas Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, speaks as students, educators and policy makers rally for school choice at the Texas Capitol on Friday advocating a voucher plan where parents could choose to remove children from low-performing public schools into better charter schools. (Photo by Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images)

Writen by Jeff Bryant and Independent Media Institute June 19, 2023

Charges that public schools are subjecting children to leftwing indoctrination are proving to be mostly over-hyped or not at all based in fact. Yet, there’s evidence, according to a new report, that a fast-growing sector of the charter school industry is engaged in indoctrination, only, in this case, the schools are instructing children in white, conservative ideology.

The report, “A Sharp Turn Right: A New Breed of Charter Schools Delivers the Conservative Agenda” by the Network for Public Education (NPE), finds that charter schools that market to families a “classical” or “traditional” approach to schooling are essentially catering to parents and politicians that follow “right-wing ideology.”

Using keyword searches, news stories from local and national media, and examinations of charter school websites and other resources, the authors claim to have “identified a representative sample”—273 currently open charter schools—that resemble their definition of what constitutes a right-wing educational agenda.

The report authors offer this number with the caveat that “we are confident there are schools and even chains we missed.”

Two principal criteria the authors used to determine the political leanings of the schools were whether they offered what’s commonly called a “classical” curriculum or a “back-to-basics” curriculum and/or whether the schools’ websites made politically conservative or religious references or were “designed to attract white conservative families.”

Other evidence the authors looked for to determine a school’s political orientation was whether the charters’ owners or founders had publicly stated overtly conservative political beliefs or had substantial connections to right-wing individuals or advocacy groups.

Some charters blatantly signaled their education agendas by, for example, having a cross on their buildings or exhibiting religious symbols or hyper-patriotic messages in school common areas.

The report also accuses this sector of the charter school industry of enrolling mostly white and middle-class and wealthy families and discouraging attendance of low-income and non-white families.

“Unlike the entire charter school sector, the overall student body of these charter schools is disproportionately white,” the report states, citing evidence from the 2021-2022 school year that “more than 52 percent of the students who attended these charter schools were white, compared with 29 percent of all charter school students. Nationally, nearly one in four charter students is Black. In right-wing charters, Black students comprise only seven percent of enrollment.”

Students who were eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunch, a typical measurement of poverty, were also under-represented in these schools, making up only 17 percent of students enrolled in these charters “compared with 48 percent of all charter school students and 43 percent of the students in democratically-governed public schools.”

Moreover, these schools are a growing presence in the nation’s education system since the election of Donald Trump as president. “Since the inauguration of Donald Trump, the number of classical and right-wing charter schools has grown by 90 percent with 66 more schools in the pipeline,” the report assesses. “Forty-seven percent of the schools we identified opened since [his] inauguration.”

The report challenges the notion that charter schools are a bipartisan or even progressive issue, as they are often framed, and calls into question whether public school tax dollars should continue to pour into the charter industry.

“Charter schools took a sharp turn right and now serve a purpose never imagined by their early proponents,” the report concludes. “[T]hese new laboratories of right-wing thought are flourishing with the silent accord of charter school supporters on both the left and right ends of the political spectrum.”

A Threat to ‘Upend American Education’

The report comes at a critical time as the nation’s first religion-based charter school has been allowed to open in Oklahoma.

Up until now, “[charter] schools [were] deemed public by state law, and must be secular just like any other public school,” according to Chalkbeat reporter Matt Barnum. Allowing a religious charter to open—in this case, an online charter school affiliated with the Catholic Church—“is a direct challenge to existing charter laws, which critics say discriminate against churches and other religious entities,” Barnum states.

“The prospect of religious charter schools threatens to upend American education, far beyond Oklahoma,” Barnum continues, contributing to “the successful conservative campaign to allow more public funding to go to religious education.”

Also hanging in the balance, Barnum writes, is a current U.S. Supreme Court case—Charter Day School, Inc. v. Peltier—that would potentially rule whether charter schools are public or private actors. Should the court rule that charter schools are private entities, the ideologically conservative charters that NPE examines in its report would not only flourish; they would become even more blatant in their instruction of right-wing ideology and more restrictive in denying non-Christian, non-conservative, and LGBTQ+ students to enroll in their schools.

Indeed, the charter school chain at the center of this supreme court case, the Roger Bacon Academy, is examined extensively in the NPE report.

The report calls attention to the daily oath students at the schools are required to chant, in which they pledge to, among other things, “[guard] against the stains of falsehood from the fascination with experts … and from over-reliance on rational argument.”

The report also notes that the schools run by the company “emphasize a ‘traditional curriculum, traditional manners, and traditional respect’—‘more like schools were 50 years ago compared to now,’ according to one of its board members.”

While these calls for “traditional” education can seem non-controversial, NPE warns they are a type of “dog whistle” to convey a right-wing political agenda and a marketing strategy to “attract conservative families with Christian nationalist identities anxious to place their children in schools that reflect early- and mid-20th century values, pedagogy, and curriculum.”

Dog Whistles That Signal Right-Wing Ideology

Among the dog whistles the report cites are uses of the word “classical” in the schools’ branding and marketing and promises on their websites and other marketing materials to “[emphasize] Eurocentric texts and the study of Latin and Greek.” The report says these are signals for attracting conservative families and discouraging families who’d want their children instructed in a broader range of viewpoints and perspectives.

In classical schools that have overtly Christian personae, “the curriculum focuses not only on the Western canon—Homer to C.S. Lewis—but also on scripture,” the report states.

Other dog whistles the report describes include the use of “red, white, and blue decor, patriotic insignia, white students and teachers featured almost exclusively on [the schools’] websites, and the generous use of the word ‘virtue,’” in their marketing.

These are meant to “signal to families which students would be a ‘good fit’ for the school,” the report states.

According to NPE, “more than 80 percent of the new classical charter schools have websites designed to attract Christian nationalist families.”

Another type of charter school the report designates as overtly conservative offers a “‘back to basics’ curriculum without necessarily identifying the curriculum as classical.”

These charters use a similar marketing strategy of “[including] right-wing clues on their website[s] to attract families with Christian nationalist beliefs. Such clues include red, white, and blue school colors, patriotic logos, pictures of the founding fathers, using terms such as virtue, patriotism, and even outright references to religion.”

Sometimes the dog whistles the report describes come from the founders or leaders of the schools. One example came from the founder of the Tulsa Classical Academy who said his school is “a school that’s about justice, not ‘social justice.’ Virtue, not ‘virtue-signaling.’ Objective truth, not ‘your truth’ and ‘my truth.’”

As a result of these marketing tactics, the NPE report finds, “[These charter schools] are whiter and infused with Christian nationalist leanings and aligned with right-wing leaders who make no secret of their plans to turn back progress.”

Schools With Strong Ties to Conservative and Christian Ideology

The NPE report also cites numerous anecdotes showing the strong ties that many of these charters have to conservative, Christian ideology and right-wing advocacy groups.

One example the report points to is Great Hearts Academies, a company operating an extensive network of 34 classical charter schools in Texas and Arizona. In 2018, the report notes, Great Hearts enforced a policy requiring students to use bathrooms “corresponding to the gender listed on their birth certificates.” The company eventually reversed the policy after students formed groups to protest the policy, according to NPE.

Also, Great Hearts launched a network of “micro-schools,” as alternatives to public schools during the pandemic, according to NPE, some of which are “located in churches.” And the company announced in 2023 that it was opening a network of Christian private schools.

Another charter school chain the report identifies as being a conveyor of right-wing ideology is the extensive network of schools operated by Hillsdale College and its Barney Charter School Initiative.

The report references a 2022 series of articles by Kathryn Joyce in Salon, that reported that Hillsdale College, a small private college based in Michigan, “has inconspicuously been building a network of ‘classical education’ charter schools, which use public tax dollars to teach that systemic racism was effectively vanquished in the 1960s, that America was founded on ‘Judeo-Christian’ principles and that progressivism is fundamentally anti-American.”

Hillsdale’s Barney Charter School Initiative, according to the NPE report, was started with funding from the Barney Family Foundation and the fortune of Stephen Barney and his wife Lynne, who control the foundation.

The report states, “An examination of the foundation’s 990s reveals that in addition to its health and child-centered charities, it also generously funds right-wing think tanks, foundations, and even organizations that exist to create right-wing model legislation. Beneficiaries include Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, Hoover Institution, the Heartland Institute, State Policy Network, [EdChoice], and the Heritage Foundation.”

The Barney Foundation’s political leanings are reflected in the Hillsdale College’s curriculum, according to NPE. Hillsdale charters often teach the college’s 1776 curriculum, which, the report states, “disparages the New Deal and affirmative action while downplaying the effects of slavery. Climate change is not mentioned in the science curriculum; sixth-grade studies include a single reference to global warming.”

“Another feature of Hillsdale schools is the relative homogeneity of their student body: whiter and wealthier than public schools and other charter schools,” according to NPE. “During the 2021 school year, 66 percent of all Hillsdale-affiliated charter school students were white, and only 12 percent were eligible to receive a subsidized lunch, making Hillsdale charter families not only less diverse and more affluent than the public and charter sectors but even whiter and wealthier than the right-wing charter sector as a whole.”

What the Charter School Coalition Got Wrong

Although the NPE report asserts that the rise of right-wing charter schools “serve[s] a purpose never imagined by their early proponents,” it doesn’t fully explain how conservatives were able to hijack that purported original intent to serve their political means instead.

NPE credits the origins of the charter school idea to education professor Ray Budde, who, in the 1970s, had a “vision [that] states would give schools the authority to create innovative, experimental programs at existing schools.” But there is another origin story that more fully explains how charters became so vulnerable to right-wing co-option.

In her 2017 article for Democracy, journalist Rachel Cohen traced the origin of the charter school idea to, not Budde, but Ted Kolderie.

Cohen describes Kolderie as “quintessentially neoliberal” and a self-described “policy entrepreneur” who was “in the middle of discussions over school reform” in “the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s.”

Under his direction, the Minnesota-based Citizens League, was “a powerful, centrist Twin Cities policy group,” according to Cohen, that advocated for “different ways to provide government services, including education.”

“One of Kolderie’s central ideas,” Cohen wrote, “was to ‘end the exclusive franchise’ of school districts providing public education. In several reports, he described the decline of public education as the direct consequence of public districts’ monopolistic power over schooling. His proposal: independent schools, accountable to parents through free market choice, and to the government through a set of contractual obligations. He specified that many different types of entities—universities, corporations, public school districts, nonprofits—should be able to manage these new schools, state law permitting.”

Among the proposals Kolderie and his organization pushed for was “cooperatively managed schools,” which Cohen described as being “strikingly similar to modern-day charters.”

Cohen described Kolderie not as a political operative but as a prominent leader of “technocratic centrists” who “focused on deregulation, disruption, and the hope of injecting free market dogmas into the public sector.”

Their vision, as Cohen described it, is that getting education right is not so much an ideological issue as it is about better systems engineering.

This vision, according to Cohen, was adopted by prominent policy leaders and politicians of both parties in the 1990s and brought about the powerful coalition of business leaders and moderate Democrats and Republicans that created and spread the charter school movement.

But what the charter school coalition got wrong is that education is not just about getting the system “right.” It’s also about values.

Sure, students need to learn how to read and do math. But students also need to learn how to interact with one another; how to care, not just for themselves, but for their fellow human beings; and how to contribute positively to their families and communities.

And if we want to live in a democratic society, that means teaching students about the values of an inclusive democracy that includes people of diverse cultures and beliefs.

But by creating an approach to education that was determined to be apart from, even opposed to, democratic values that are often imposed by public governance of schools, charter school proponents created empty vessels of education institutions that are void of the principles that are shared in a society that upholds a common good.

And we know what happens when there’s a void. As NPE’s report shows, the void is rapidly being filled by the same politically extremist faction that elected Trump and now threatens to impose an authoritative vision for the country.

“The only question that remains,” the report concludes, “is whether moderate, progressive, and liberal-minded voters and politicians recognize where the runaway charter movement is headed.”

This article was produced by Our Schools. Jeff Bryant is a writing fellow and chief correspondent for Our Schools. He is a communications consultant, freelance writer, advocacy journalist, and director of the Education Opportunity Network, a strategy and messaging center for progressive education policy. His award-winning commentary and reporting routinely appear in prominent online news outlets, and he speaks frequently at national events about public education policy. Follow him on Twitter @jeffbcdm.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Transphobia in New Zealand | Full Episode

At the beginning of the video, the host gives a funny simple understanding of how sex and gender are not binary nor simple.   It is a fun video about a serious topic.   But I guess you have to click to watch it.   Hugs

Dealing with LGTBQ Grandkids

Texas judge who doesn’t want to perform gay marriage ceremonies hopes web designer’s Supreme Court case helps her fight

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/12/texas-judge-gay-weddings-supreme-court/

 

 

McLennan County Justice of the Peace Dianne Hensley filed a lawsuit after a state agency warned her about refusing to marry gay couples. She hopes a recent U.S. Supreme Court case about religious freedom helps her cause.

BY REBECCA SCHNEID 

Gay marriage supporters hold a pride flag in front of the Supreme Court before a hearing about gay marriage in Washington, D.C., on April 28, 2015.
Gay marriage supporters hold a pride flag in front of the U.S. Supreme Court before a hearing about gay marriage in Washington, D.C., in 2015. Credit: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Since Waco judge Dianne Hensley received a public warning from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct for refusing to perform same-sex marriages in 2019, she’s waged a public battle against the state agency.

She’s long claimed the governmental body violated state law by punishing her for actions taken in accordance with her religious faith. Now, she has submitted a brief arguing that the recent Supreme Court ruling in favor of a business owner who refused services to same-sex couples will help her case.

After Hensley was warned by the judicial conduct commission, she filed a lawsuit claiming the investigation and warning “substantially burdened the free exercise of her religion, with no compelling justification.” She seeks damages of $10,000. She has been represented by the First Liberty Institute, a high-profile religious liberty legal group based in Plano. The legal group also has strong ties to suspended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Her lawsuit alleges that the commission violated her rights under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Her lawsuit was dismissed by a lower appeals tribunal, but last month, the Texas Supreme Court said it will hear arguments on whether to revive the state judge’s lawsuit.

 

This new brief, submitted last week by Hensley’s legal team, argues that though the Supreme Court used the First Amendment and not state law in the 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis case, the decision is also applicable in her lawsuit. The First Amendment case decided last month said a Colorado web designer cannot be forced by the state to compromise her beliefs and serve same-sex couples.

“303 Creative was interpreting the First Amendment’s Speech Clause rather than the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Its holding is nonetheless instructive because it rejects the idea of a ‘compelling interest’ in forcing wedding vendors to participate in same-sex and opposite-sex marriage ceremonies on equal terms,” the brief states.

Justin Butterfield, an attorney for Hensley at First Liberty Institute, has maintained throughout the lawsuit that religious liberty is Hensley’s right as a citizen.

“303 Creative affirmed that religious liberty is not a second-class right in America,” Butterfield wrote in an email to The Texas Tribune. “We look forward to vindicating Judge Hensley’s rights in the Texas Supreme Court.”

Hensley was not available for comment on Wednesday.

According to the Texas judicial commission’s 2019 warning, Hensley referred gay couples who wanted her to preside over their marriage ceremony to other people who would officiate. The state’s judicial code requires judges to conduct “extra-judicial activities” in ways that don’t cast doubt on their impartiality on the bench. The commission issued a public warning, saying she cast doubt “on her capacity to act impartially to persons appearing before her as a judge due to the person’s sexual orientation.”

According to Dale Carpenter, chair of constitutional law at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law, the U.S. Supreme Court case has little to do with Hensley’s case, since one is dealing with private businesses, and Hensley is a government official acting in an official capacity. Carpenter has written extensively on the Colorado case and agreed with the 6-3 Supreme Court decision. He says the two cases are similar in that they include services to a same-sex couple, but “that’s where the similarities end.”

“The service in [Henley’s] case is the service of a government official, so if 303 Creative had involved that government denying services to a same-sex couple, then that’d be a very different case,” Carpenter maintained. “I don’t think 303 helps the judge’s case at all.”

 

He believes this is the first of a “slew” of cases that will be coming through the state and country that will attempt to expand the reach of the Colorado case and when LGBTQ+ people can be denied certain services on First Amendment grounds.

“This is going to have to be worked through the judicial system, including trial courts and appellate courts, over a period of probably several years at this point because 303 Creative is going to lead us to see many, many more of these cases,” Carpenter said.

Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston, says it’s also important to understand that if the Texas Supreme Court were to rule in Hensley’s favor, they “would have to expressly extend the holding of 303 Creative” to her case. This means that Hensley’s case goes beyond the current bounds of what the SCOTUS decision says.

Johnathan Gooch, a spokesperson for Equality Texas and a University of Texas at Austin School of Law graduate reiterated Carpenter’s points on the differences between the two cases, and pointed to Hensley’s position as a purveyor of the law.

 

“The law of the land is marriage equality. It’s as simple as that,” Gooch said. “If judges and justices of the peace were empowered to only enforce the laws that they agreed with, we would quickly descend into anarchy.”

Carpenter says the implications of Hensley’s case are hard to predict, since the Texas Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments only on whether to revive the lawsuit, not if the lawsuit has merit. He believes it will be a long time before Hensley’s lawsuit has real effects.

Conversely, Ash Hall, an ACLU of Texas policy and advocacy strategist, believes that the case could be substantial, if the lawsuit is eventually won.

“If Judge Hensley were to actually win this case, it would basically gut a good portion of marriage equality that we got,” Hall said. “Your ability to get married then would be dependent on your ZIP code and kind of what resources were around you.”

 

LGBTQ+ activists aren’t surprised by Hensley’s attempt to use the SCOTUS case in her favor. Some say a continual onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ bills passed in the Texas Legislature have left them numb.

“I have nothing to say anymore,” said Verniss McFarland, founder and executive director of the Mahogany Project, which advocates for LGBTQ+ communities of color. “As a Black trans femme person, we are already on the margins. When something like this happens, it’s just like: ‘Oh, this again.’”

Hall says that the ACLU was not surprised by Hensley trying to use the 303 Creative case. They said once the SCOTUS decision was passed down, they all bolstered themselves, preparing for the lawsuits that they knew were on the way.

“Traditionally, that is what has happened: When the courts have ruled in a way that gives people an option to refuse service or discriminate against other people, you get a whole bunch of court cases pertaining to that to see how far they can take it,” Hall said. “It’s not surprising, just disappointing.”

Weeks of news over hundreds of open tabs. I only have 0ne more open window with 39 open tabs and I will be caught up as of Saturday. Only taken three days so far. Hugs

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Randy50311 days ago

Next time, instead of arguing whether America was founded on ‘christianity”, ask them why it is so important for them to make their (incorrect) point.
Okay, we were founded on Christian principles of slavery, and women as chattel with no vote, natives were stripped of their land and other rights, and only white male property owners could vote. Not to mention child labor was rampant, the majority of the country were small farmers, divorce was nearly impossible and so on.
Hurray! What is you want NOW? You want to reinstitute all of that? No, they will likely say, they just want “Christian principles” reinstitute. Like what? Name them, specifically. They will be likely more in line with Christian nationalism — no LBGT rights, minorities voting is restricted, reduction in social safety net, more deregulation and so on.
So now you can drill down — what does Christianity have to say about laws that control pollution, radioactive waste, plastics in our food, chemicals in the water you drink? They will give you mumbo jumbo about freedom, and all that. “”So why do we have to be a Christian nation” to achieve your goals of less regulation?
What it will likely come down to is morals and values. Again, we can hit hard back — you mean no divorce? Because Jesus had a lot to say about it. Premarital sex? Birth control? IF you want to talk about morals, let’s talk about children going to bed or to school hungry, of which millions do. What about the homeless? Again, we don’t need Christian nationalism to tackle those issues.
It wil come down to nothing at all — just a vague desire to make people go to church more, pray more, and be more aligned with god or something. “So you want to force people to pray?”
I could go on, but you just have to nail them down on specifics. Hawley is just about control — they don’t want drag queens, people having wanton sex, abortion, and all that. Force them to admit that.

Nice to know the GOP understands they don’t represent the USA
Do the Republicans know that they are not supposed to be working for Russia? Seems far too many do work for Russia.

Gregory In Seattle11 days ago

I remember in 2020 when they used the flag of the Russian Federation to decorate the Republican National Convention, which inspired me to make this meme.

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Wintercat11 days ago edited

GQP ads constantly have Russian troops, ships and MiGs because they use creative agencies in Russia, because few US agencies often full of GQP intended victims will do work for them.

Creative houses use the stock images they have on hand. That’s why so much Russian stuff shows up in their ads.

Flora DeMann Stogiebear11 days ago

When children first are taught the letters of the alphabet, the letters are capitalized. Maybe the MAGAs never got farther than that.

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Elagabalus2 days ago
Reminds me of the time Megyn Kelly got so flummoxed that Santa Claus was presented as black because in her worldview, Santa Claus was clearly white. What is it with conservatives and fictional characters?

Houndentenor Elagabalus2 days ago

It’s that thing when someone is so racist they can’t hear how racist they sound.

Chucktech Elagabalus2 days ago

See also: White Jesus

William2 days ago

I found this picture of the real new Snow White online.

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perversatile Rebecca Gardner2 days ago edited

Heads will crack open when they learn about the Black Madonna(s)

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If you read the articles on this it says that trump did not argue that the evidence was not there to show he committed a crime but that it was improperly gained. His lawyers are admitting to the crime basically. Hugs

Tick Tock

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“Library staffers were deluged with harassment and a bomb threat.”

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Talk about ego !!!!

“God doesn’t make mistakes”

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Family Leader is an anti-LGBTQ hate group.

Abortion should be freely available at any stage of pregnancy, on demand, without apology.

Reposting:

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“The very concept of sin comes from the Bible. Christianity offers to solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?”

― Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

How many of our congress is on the payroll of Russia. Hugs
Indeed trans men should sign up for selective service when they turn 18, just like all cis men. But then trans men should be able to use the men’s room, just like all cis men do.

The current law states that all persons either born in the US or (with few exceptions) legally resident when they turn 18, and identified as male at birth are required to register for the Selective Service when they turn 18, no exceptions. If you are an American citizen living abroad, you must still register. If you are a legal resident alien, you must still register. If you are in a prison or mental asylum, you must still register. If you are here under a diplomatic passport (say, a parent works at an embassy or consulate) or have a tourist or student visa, you do not need to register. People who were identified as female at birth are NOT required to register for the Selective Service, and in fact trying to register can get you in legal trouble for filing a “frivolous” legal document (not sure if it has ever been prosecuted, but it is in the regulations.)

If they are going to make transmen register, then they must also make transwomen exempt. They will also need to clarify at what point relative to the age of 18 this will kick in: is it enough to identify as trans, or will they need to have passed some benchmark in transitioning? What if a person comes out as trans after they are 18, but before they turn 25 (the age that your registration remains in effect)? And if transwomen are not exempt, they they should make registration mandatory for ALL 18 year olds regardless of gender identity: there is no longer any restriction from women serving in combat, after all. Maybe if their precious daughters are required to register, and fact the very serious penalties for not registering, we can finally get rid of this whole Selective Service idiocy once and for all.

I guess it was done the same way the former idiot allowed a bunch of Russian spies into the building.

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This is the country and leader the republicans love almost as much as Putin.

Because if you don’t acknowledge LBGTs exist, kids will stop being gay

This year in the U.S. the majority of books most often banned are by LGBT writers and writers of color.

Here’s a good report from the writers’ organization PEN on the state of censorship in the U.S.
https://pen.org/report/bann…

Full fucking racism and full on white supramacy.
How did people get it in their heads that they have a “right” to never be offended? That is not a right and never has been. Freedom of speech, remember? Astonishing how the “fuck your feelings” crowd so quickly turn around to demand safe spaces where their precious feelings are prioritized so much.
Didn’t a black woman in Texas get five years for voting just once?
I think they claimed she was ineligible for some reason. And it was a provisional ballot and was not counted. Further it was a poll worker that told her to fill out a provisional ballot.
Jesus isn’t in the Constitution either. Let’s start there.
Censorship by school boards is chipping away at the reality of LGBTQ history and our very existence. Good for Newsom.
They’ve already grabbed lots of the courts, then they want to control education (‘member how so many righties loves to quote hitler on this…) & inject religion into the schools – while wiping out all dissenting ideas & critical thinking – fast forward 10 years and VOILA – you have a whole generation of little christo-fascists that taxpayers are footing the bill to educate with xtian nationalist dogma. These wack job conservatives (an extreme minority) are proving too damn good at a multi-decade slow play here. People have to wake up.

A couple great short clips Randy sent me

NATO You Didn’t!! | Armageddon Update | Christopher Titus

Why are so many young people lgbtq+?

Very good CC.

CHAPTERS 00:00

Intro 01:38

Are the old people lying? 03:07

Is the world gayer now? 05:16

Is the world scary? 07:18

Is it an internet thing? 10:21

Could it be that we are missing people? 13:35

The world doesn’t seem that gay to me though? 15:51

Outro

St. Marys officials again threaten library because of LGBTQ books

St. Marys officials again threaten library because of LGBTQ books

Again highly religious fundamentalists got into positions of authority and are pushing their religious beliefs on the entire community.  Gerard Kleinsmith says he doesn’t like books about transgender people, he calls it garbage and feels it is his duty to remove all such books because god doesn’t make mistakes!    Think on that, other religious sects say it is OK that god created transgender people, yet their beliefs don’t matter, just his.    He is supported in this stance by the other members of St. Marys’ five-person city commission, a heavily religious group that attends the Society of St. Pius X, or SSPX, an extreme religious sect that broke away from the Catholic church.    Hugs

City commissioners says they don’t want ‘garbage’ on the public library’s shelves

BY: RACHEL MIPRO – JULY 11, 2023 12:12 PM

     

A view of books inside the Pottawatomie Wabaunsee Regional Library in St. Marys

 St. Marys city commissioners have taken offense with a transgender book in the Pottawatomie Wabaunsee Regional Library. (Rachel Mipro/Kansas Reflector)

ST. MARYS — Gerard Kleinsmith says he hates the idea of censorship.

He just wants to pull the lease for the city’s public library because he doesn’t like books about transgender people.

As a city commissioner, he feels it is his duty to remove transgender content — “garbage,” as he refers to it. Kleinsmith said during a city commission meeting that removing the library was part of his job as a city official, emphasizing “God doesn’t make mistakes,” and his belief that people can’t change genders.

“My goal is to terminate the lease with the library,” Kleinsmith said. “If they want to have their library, so be it. Go do it. Find another building to do it in, I can’t stop that. My intention is not to stop that, but I will not ever vote for any taxpayer money, facilities, anything to be used anywhere that houses this kind of garbage.”

He is supported in this stance by the other members of St. Marys’ five-person city commission, a heavily religious group that attends the Society of St. Pius X, or SSPX, an extreme religious sect that broke away from the Catholic church. The commissioners have said at previous meetings that their views are influenced by their religious affiliation.

“Some things are wrong,” said commissioner Richard Binsfeld, during a city commission discussion about  transgender books and the transgender community at large. “If you live up to your morals, if you stand by your morals at all, you’d look at it and say, ‘Why do we have it?’”

The public library has been under scrutiny from local officials for months, narrowly surviving an attempt to pull the lease at the end of last year. Library director Judith Cremer said she and her staff were trying to work with the commissioners while remaining in accordance with legal guidelines for public libraries.

She’s still not sure why the commissioners have taken issue with the library in recent months when it had operated in its St. Marys location for decades without problems. Cremer has held her position since 2003, and until last year, this was a position without controversy.

“We’re not part of the city structure and the lease agreement is the only leverage that they have seemed to be able to find,” Cremer said. “They seem to be continuing down that road, which I’m disappointed with because we have still been here doing our job, trying to help people, trying to do summer reading, and I feel like it’s a misunderstanding of who we are. We are trying to do our job and we have followed the rules.”

While commissioners have no governing influence over the library, the Pottawatomie Wabaunsee Regional Library would be forced to shift locations if the lease isn’t renewed, giving up a community spot it has held for decades and depriving St. Marys residents of easily accessible library material.

The library has been housed in St. Marys since the 1980s, operating on an annual lease with the city. The library acts as the headquarters for eight locations, including Alma, Alta Vista, Eskridge, Harveyville, Olsburg, Onaga, St. Marys and Westmoreland, with county residents funding the library through taxes.

An eight-member board of trustees provides oversight of the library’s operations, with Pottawatomie and Wabaunsee County commissioners appointing members to the board to serve four-year terms. The commission doesn’t have influence over board decisions.

The library formed an advisory group in an attempt to address community concerns with library materials, but efforts toward reconciliation have been unsuccessful.

The library’s lease renewal came up for debate last year because the library refused to accept a renewal clause asking for the removal of all LGBTQ and socially divisive books from the shelves. Facing intense public pressure, the commission in December renewed the lease for one year.

Now, city commissioners have renewed their campaign against LGBTQ books, despite federal legal protections for public libraries.

St. Marys City Commissioner Richard Binsfeld says the library's LGBTQ books conflict with his sense of morals
 St. Marys City Commissioner Richard Binsfeld says the library’s LGBTQ books conflict with his sense of morals. (Rachel Mipro/Kansas Reflector)

During the April city commission meeting, Kleinsmith raged against the book “Rethinking Normal: A Memoir in Transition,” a coming of age story about a transgender teenager.

“This author is absolutely wrong. God does not make mistakes,” Kleinsmith said. “God cannot make a mistake. We can make mistakes. Mankind can make a mistake. God cannot make a mistake. … I will do everything I can to fight this kind of garbage.”

“If God makes you as a male, you are a male,” he added. “If God makes you a female, you are a female, no matter what.”

St. Marys Mayor Matthew Childs, who formulated the anti-LGBTQ renewal clause last year, said during the April meeting that the library’s contents would once again influence the commission’s decision to renew the lease.

“We don’t want transgender books in the library. … The elephant in the room is that we don’t want the library to be promoting certain types of material,” Childs said. “If the library is, we come back to the question, do we want to renew it at all?”

Sharon Brett, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, which warned commissioners to drop their censorship attempts during the first lease renewal discussion, said city officials need to remember constitutional protections.

“Each member of the commission should remember that their own discomfort with a certain book does not justify restricting its availability to everyone else in the community,” Brett said. “Not only is this potential censorship authoritarian, it has implications under even a basic reading of our First Amendment. We urge the commission to remember their obligations under the Constitution.”

Cremer said she and the library board had been trying to cooperate with the commission and concerned residents as much as possible.

“We’re providing services to the community,” Cremer said. “We’re taking care of the same people. I don’t see why there should be a problem.”

Following the April commission meeting, she sent a letter to the commissioners asking them to directly address their concerns with library staff, as they had a process in place to review book complaints.

Library staff are also participating in the advisory committee. Cremer said the library was sending regular updates about the library and the advisory committee’s work to the city commission.

But she is still fielding criticism from religious members of the community, including during a contentious June 28 library board meeting attended by Binsfeld and other St. Marys residents. 

“As we move forward, we would like to see that all LGBTQ+ media — whether audio files, movies, books, activities, etc. — be removed from this branch altogether and from any access, including online ordering and inter-library loans, to any minor through this branch,” resident Stephen Murtha wrote in a letter to library board members.

The library should reflect the community’s Christian majority, Murtha wrote.

Cremer said for the most part, these complaints were from a small segment of the population and that she hasn’t had problems or complaints from a majority of library customers.

But she is concerned about the future of the library.

“We have continued, even though that stress and controversy has been significant,” Cremer said. “My staff and I have continued forward just as we always have to provide those services, because it’s not the people that we’re serving, it’s not their fault, but they’re the ones that are going to be losing.”

Republican attorneys general issue warning letter to Target about Pride merchandise

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republican-attorneys-general-issue-letter-to-target-about-pride-merchandise/

Seven U.S. state attorneys general sent a letter to Target on Wednesday warning that clothes and merchandise sold as part of the company’s Pride month campaigns might violate their state’s child protection laws.

Republican attorneys general from Indiana, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and South Carolina signed the letter, writing that they were “concerned by recent events involving the company’s ‘Pride’ campaign.” 

The attorneys said that they believed the campaign was a “comprehensive effort to promote gender and sexual identity among children,” criticizing items like T-shirts that advertised popular drag queens and a T-shirt that said ‘Girls Gays Theys.’ They also highlighted merchandise with “anti Christian designs such as pentagrams, horned skulls and other Satanic products.” 

The letter also criticized Target for donating to GLSEN, an LGBTQ+ organization that works to end bullying in schools based on sexual and gender identity. The company stated in a 2020 guide that school staff should not tell parents about a child’s gender or sexual orientation without consulting the child first, something the attorneys general said undermines “parents’ constitutional and statutory rights.” 

Take Pride, merchandise display, Target Store, Queens, New York
“Take Pride” merchandise display at a Target store in Queens, New York.GETTY IMAGES

The letter did not include any specific demands nor did it outline how they believe the campaign could violate child protection laws, but the attorneys general did suggest that Target might find it “more profitable to sell the type of Pride that enshrines the love of the United States.”

The attorneys general also said they believed Target’s Pride campaign threatened their financial interests, writing that Target leadership has a “fiduciary duty to our States as shareholders in the company” and suggesting that company officials “may be negligent” in promoting the campaign since it has negatively affected Target’s stock prices and led to some backlash among customers. 

Target shares have declined 12% this year, but the company is facing issues far beyond the backlash to its Pride collection, which included onesies, bibs, and T-shirts for babies and children. Like many retailers, the company is struggling with a pullback in consumer spending because of high inflation, which has weighed on its profits.

But Target is also facing scrutiny for its merchandise selection, including its Pride line, with its stores removing some of the items in May after facing threats. At the time, the company didn’t specify which products were being removed, although Target has faced criticism online over swimsuits advertised as “tuck-friendly” with “extra crotch coverage” in its Pride collection.

“Target’s management has no duty to fill stores with objectionable goods, let alone endorse or feature them in attention-grabbing displays at the behest of radical activists,” the attorneys general wrote. “However, Target management does have fiduciary duties to its shareholders to prudently manage the company and act loyally in the company’s best interests.” 

Backlash to the Pride campaign did involve threats of violence to Target stores and workers. Some merchandise was relocated to less popular areas of the store, and other pieces, including the swimsuits criticized by the attorneys general, were removed. 

“Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,” Target said in a statement earlier in June. “Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”

Aimee Picchi contributed reporting