I tried to group these articles in some sort of order. But you can see the goals of the right just from the titles. The eradication of transpeople at any age from society. The removal of any gay rights with the goal of eradicating gay people from society. The enforcement of stereotypical gender roles and the returning to the days when women were dependent on men, and few had authority or independence on their own. They want tyranny and dictatorship of one party rule with no restraint on their activities even to the point of attempting the overthrow of the US constitution / government and the celebration of those that committed the illegal acts in the coup attempt. Republicans want to rule not govern, they want to have the people afraid to disagree with them or dare to speak against their rule. Just like the countries of China, North Korea, and their beloved Russia. Please notice the attempt is to return the US to the regressive oppressive times before the New Deal that empowered the public. They want 1910 to 1920. We had better join together to stop them or we won’t be able to. DerSantis is shopping the campaign slogan “Make America Florida”. Is that not enough of a threat to the country? Has the trump years not shown how quickly the right can move if given power to destroy all norms and rights to enforce their minority rule. McConnell even said that while republicans will lose elections the democrats couldn’t stop a republican stacked court system from enforcing republican goals for decades. He was correct. Mitch McConnell said, “My goal is to do everything we can for as long as we can to transform the federal judiciary, because everything else we do is transitory.” Hugs
Read the comments on this to see how things used to be for families and kids before labor laws and government assistance were created.Kids younger than five working a full day in the farm fields. Is this the grand vision of the future the country needs or wants? Think of every movie of the future that has a great working society and they are progressive but the ones with dystopian unfair or dangerous future and it is regressive oppressive hellish places were greed is king with businesses in charge killing any regulation that prevents profit. Hugs
Again these bills are a way Christians can force their moral views on everyone, a way they get to rule on how every person gets to live their lives. It gives these rabid fundamentalists Christian republican groups the right to tell everyone else what they can do, regulating what everyone can watch / read in order to conform to a strict religious view of morality written 2,500 years ago. It ignores all medical, scientific, and social advances done in the years since their holy books were written and mistranslated. Society has advanced as human understandings have, yet these oppressive regressive people want to ignore all that. Would they also like to go back to the medical understandings in the 1600s, 1700s, or even what was known medically in 1900. That was 28 years before penicillin was discovered. 21 years before insulin was discovered. Tell me if their holy book written knew everything about morals why did it support slavery? Do we return to that also to please Christian fascists? This is an attempt to enshrine a religious morality over everyone regardless of if you belong to that or any religion. Again it is not about these people being able to live and act as they wish, it is about forcing everyone else to live by their church rules / doctrines. Hugs
Bills are part of religious right’s post-Roe strategy, with most prevalent ones relating to age verification of sex-related websites
A wave of proposed legislation pushed by Republicans across the US at the state level is aimed at outlawing aspects of sexuality that could have a huge impact on Americans’ private lives and businesses.
Opponents to the laws before legislatures in various states say the planned new legislation could spawn prosecution of breast-pump companies in Texas for nipples on advertising, or a bookstore might be banned from selling romance novels in West Virginia, or South Carolina could imprison standup comics if a risqué joke is heard by a young person.
The bills are part of a post-Roe nationwide strategy by the religious wing of the Republican party, now that federal abortion rights have fallen. They range from banning all businesses that sell sex-related goods to anti-drag queen bills. Tyler Dees, an Arkansas state senator who wrote an anti-porn bill said: “I would love to outlaw it all,” referring to porn.
The most prevalent bills relate to age verification of sex-related websites. Seventeen states drafted porn age-verification bills, many inspired by Louisiana’s law that went into effect in January. Louisiana’s law requires websites featuring 33.33% or more pornographic content to check government-issued ID to verify users are 18 and older. Websites that don’t comply face civil penalties. Parents can sue the site if kids access it.
In Texas, a new bill requiring age verification on websites with pornographic content defines images of the female breast “below the top of the areola” as porn, potentially hitting at business advertisements. In West Virginia, a bill outlawing all sexually oriented businesses is on the docket, with a definition that includes art studios with nude models and wrestling arenas. In South Carolina a bill would criminalize using “profane language” related to “sexual or excretory organs or activities” in front of minors during performances. The punishment? Up to a decade in prison.
Some bills define porn so broadly that anatomy textbooks or sex education websites would meet them.
“I don’t think such laws for the internet are constitutional,” said Eugene Volokh, a professor of Law at UCLA.
Laurie Schlegel, a Republican state senator who drafted the Louisiana law, is a sex-addiction therapist educated at Baptist seminary, who opposed transgender students from being on sports teams that align with their gender. Schlegel’s anti-LGBTQ+ views fit with the broader goal of the laws, according to Carolyn Bronstein, a professor of media studies at DePaul University.
“These laws are really not about controlling minors’ access to violent pornography … In the conservative world view, pornography is information about LGBTQ identity, abortion, gay marriage,” said Bronstein.
Eight states have justified their actions by saying that porn is “creating a public health crisis”. Louisiana’s bill claims that pornography “may lead to low self-esteem, body image disorders, an increase in problematic sexual activity at younger ages … impact brain development … shape deviant sexual arousal, and lead to difficulty in forming or maintaining positive, intimate relationships, as well as promoting problematic or harmful sexual behaviors and addiction.”
Historian Whitney Strub, an associate professor of history at Rutgers University, doesn’t think these ideas are well-founded. “Framing pornography as a public health crisis is not driven by serious engagement with the social scientific literature,” he said. “They’ve even got fake peer-reviewed journals that give the imprimatur of scholarship … It’s been a very smart rebranding of evangelical Christian conservatism.”
Why are all these bills being proposed now? Strub thinks it’s partly because of the overturning of Roe v Wade. “Abortion gave a certain coherence to conservative politics in the United States. And it certainly still does … but they’re in the position of Ahab if he slayed the white whale … I mean, there’s no more Moby-Dick.”
There is hypocrisy on display also.
In many of the states where the anti-porn bills are being put forth, minors can legally have sex and get married. “In Louisiana, you can have sex when you’re 17 with a person in their 30s, but you can’t watch porn,” said Jason Kelley, associate director of digital strategy for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
In Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana, the age of consent is 16. With parental permission, Mississippi allows 15-year-olds to marry, Louisiana 16-year-olds, Arkansas 17-year-olds, and West Virginia kids of any age.
Dees, who wrote Arkansas’s age verification bill, a copycat of Louisiana’s, said porn causes depression and anxiety, divorce and “permissive sexual attitudes” and infidelity. “When I think about the children … I want to protect their innocence,” Dees said.
Strub said this is an old trope: “The political figure of the innocent and imperiled child just has a never-ending purchase on American politics … [it] essentially shuts down debate because it immediately creates a binary in which anybody who disagrees with you is [a] perverted groomer.”
Dees is also the co-author of anti-drag queen legislation in Arkansas, that classifies drag performances as the same category as pornography. “It’s not really a meaningful distinction to [conservatives]. They’re both sexual degeneracy in its different guises,” Strub said.
Dees claimed that his porn verification law “doesn’t have anything to do with any political messaging. It has to do with exposure to material that is harmful, period … There’s a clear enemy in the smut-peddling garbage that’s online.”
But measures already exist to prevent children accessing porn. “There’s a really easy way to keep kids from accessing adult content. And that’s a device-level filter” on mobile phones that block adult websites that are registered as Restricted to Adults, said Mike Stabile of the Free Speech Coalition, which advocates for the rights of sex workers.
These laws, according to Stabile, aren’t going to stop kids from looking at porn. “Even if they were to block all sites, you’re still going to have adult content on Twitter and Reddit … kids will get VPNs,” he said.
Stabile thinks we’ll see up to two dozen age-verification bills introduced by the end of the year.
Dees hopes he is right and has eyes beyond the state level eventually. “My prayer is that enough states continue to push for this measure, and that we send a loud enough message where federal law can be put into place,” he said.
I have been reporting on this for years now as the article says “…describes the current political landscape as a “war against LGBTQ people in America and their very right and ability to openly exist.” These laws have nothing to do with protecting children as they claim but instead are attempts to force regressive religious morality on the entire country by a minority who don’t feel comfortable with “those people” and want them removed from public view / discussion. With every push to return the country to the society of 100 years ago which rolls back every advancement in civil rights that have been achieved, these people are emboldened to push harder to oppress more people into living the way that maga Christian minority insists they have a right to force everyone else to live as. It is not enough for them to live as they wish, they insist you live the way they do also, that you believe as they do, that you follow the moral dictates written 2,500 years ago for a culture long gone. But it is not enough for these people and never will be until they are in charge of and get to rule over every aspect of your life. Allies of the LGBTQ+ we need to you stand up and add your voice to protect the rights of minorities, women, and the LGBTQ+. Hugs
Today’s heart rate readings have seen an improvement. The lowest it has been is 95 the highest sustained was 136 with the average so far of 126 bpm. So I am getting better. Still no call from the heart doctor’s office so Monday I will call them. This has been going on for too long and too dangerous, not to mention causing me to struggle to function. Hugs
Trans-rights activists protest outside the House chamber at the Oklahoma State Capitol on Feb. 6, 2023. (SUE OGROCKI/AP)
From bills in legislatures to restrictions in schools and health care, growing rhetoric throughout the US is part of a “full-out attack” against LGBTQ+ people, advocates say.
The volume and speed of anti-LGBTQ+ bills advancing through state legislatures has already defined 2023 as a historically challenging and frightening year, advocates say.
In a new report, the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), which tracks LGBTQ+ policy, describes the current political landscape as a “war against LGBTQ people in America and their very right and ability to openly exist.” It is a culmination of efforts: gender-affirming care bans for trans youth becoming law in states where such bills were previously blocked, growing efforts to restrict how students learn about LGBTQ+ subjects in schools, an increase in dehumanizing rhetoric that could lead to harassment or violence.
“I’ve been working in the movement for 15 years,” said Naomi Goldberg, deputy director and LGBTQ program director at MAP. “To me, this is a different moment. … It is hard to see this as anything but a full-out attack and full-out war on LGBTQ+ people when you look at all of the areas of life, at all of the parts of our communities that are being attacked.”
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the country’s largest LGBTQ+ organization, sounded similar alarm bells earlier in the week. The organization has so far tracked 340 introduced anti-LGBTQ+ bills, including the most anti-transgender bills ever filed that the group has seen.
Those bills include ones that would prohibit students from playing school sports that match their gender identity and bills that would restrict gender-affirming medical care for minors. Over 90 bills targeting medical care for trans youth have been filed so far, according to the HRC’s count. South Dakota and Utah have already signed such bills into law, while states like Tennessee and Mississippi are quickly moving similar bans through their legislatures. Other proposed bills direct school employees to effectively misgender students, mandating that students are referred to with pronouns that match their sex assigned at birth unless a parent intervenes.
“This situation is terrifying. It’s scary and it’s harmful. We know last year was bad. … we anticipate this year being historically bad,” Kelley Robinson, the president of HRC, said on a Tuesday press call with reporters.
Within the past three years, “firsts” in anti-LGBTQ+ bills have piled up, MAP’s analysis finds: the first legislative ban on trans youth playing sports that match their gender identity in Idaho, the first legislative ban on gender-affirming medical care for trans youth in Arkansas, the first state ban on the use of X as a gender marker on identity documents in Oklahoma, and the first “Don’t Say Gay” law passed in 20 years in Florida.
Efforts outside statehouses are another part of what make the current moment unique, per the report — including child abuse investigations ordered by the state of Texas against families seeking gender-affirming care and Florida’s board of medicine moving to restrict such care for trans youth.
Some LGBTQ+ advocates are concerned about the potential for new anti-trans bills to restrict whether families can seek gender-affirming care in other states if their own state bans the care. In Oklahoma, one bill prohibits doctors from making a referral to “any physician or health care professional for gender transition procedures” for patients under 18. The consequences of such a referral would be meted out by the state, which would have jurisdiction over its own doctors. However, since any referrals would have to be for out-of-state care, it still has the potential to limit interstate travel for gender-affirming care, said Logan Casey, senior policy researcher and adviser for MAP, over email.
More bathroom bills, which aim to restrict how trans people are able to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity, are filed this year than in previous years, per the Human Rights Campaign’s count — and fewer bills targeting how trans students can participate in sports are being introduced.
Even when the legislation doesn’t become law, it still causes harm, Olivia Hunt, policy director at the National Center for Transgender Equality, stressed during the call. Hunt pointed to a recent poll that found 86 percent of surveyed trans and nonbinary youth said that debates around state laws restricting LGBTQ+ rights for young people negatively impacted their mental health.
“Trans youth are making their way through an already difficult world, where they’re trying to understand who they are … and on that journey, they’re vulnerable, and they deserve the love, respect and support of their communities. Instead, they’re portrayed as someone to be feared, controlled or erased,” Hunt said.
The Biden administration has vocally supported LGBTQ+ rights, directing federal agencies to roll back Trump-era policies that advocates denounced as discriminatory and prioritizing data collection on LGBTQ+ experiences. Goldberg said she wants to see enforcement of federal protections from the Biden administration. Those include the Department of Health and Human Services’ proposed rule to restore protections for gender identity and sexual orientation under the Affordable Care Act, and Title IX protections proposed by the administration that would apply to trans students. Following Biden’s State of the Union address, HRC called on the administration to finalize both of those rules.
“I think it would be great to have more leadership,” Goldberg said.
Has the us population been taken hostage and subjugated by the police yet? The police and their unions have threated any elected official that dares indicate any oversite of police brutality or even make police officers liable for their actions just like any other person. The police in large cities are gangs, infiltrated by white supremacists, and right-wing political operatives that enforce a repressive conservative fascist ideology against the public who want to move to a more accepting progressive society. Hugs.
New York City has agreed to pay more than $20,000 each to hundreds of individuals who were trapped by police and attacked with batons and pepper spray during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx.
According to documents filed in federal court on Tuesday evening, the city and the NYPD reached a proposed settlement to compensate anyone who was corralled by police during the infamous June 4 crackdown, which took place at the height of the protests against the police killing of George Floyd.
The settlement, which still must be approved by a judge, is believed to be the largest-ever per-person payout for a class action lawsuit arising from a mass arrest, according to Alison Frick, an attorney for the named plaintiffs who brought the class action lawsuit.
“It’s highly unusual,” said Martin Stolar, a civil rights attorney who is not involved in the case. “It shows me that the city is making an admission that there was substantial wrongdoing on the part of the department, and rather than going to trial where they risk judgment of a higher amount, they agreed to a settlement.”
Roughly 300 protesters were marching along 136th Street and Brook Avenue when they were blocked on both sides by walls of heavily-armored NYPD officers, a tactic known as kettling. Officers proceeded to attack the group with batons and pepper spray, before arresting an estimated 278 people. Among those trapped were medics, legal observers and journalists, including those reporting for Gothamist and WNYC who may be eligible for compensation.
A subsequent report from Human Rights Watch found cops acted “unprovoked and without warning, whaling their batons, beating people from car tops, shoving them down to the ground, and firing pepper spray in their faces.” The group accused the NYPD of “serious violations of international human rights law.” They described the police response, which was overseen by high-ranking department officials and primarily carried out by the NYPD’s controversial Strategic Response Group, as a “serious violation of international human rights law.”
Under the terms of the settlement, anyone who was present for the kettling will be eligible to receive $21,500. An additional $2,500 will be awarded to each person who was arrested. The city is expected to pay an estimated $6 million to participants in the Mott Haven protest, in addition to attorney’s fees arising from the case.
Frick said the settlement is expected to be finalized by a judge in October, with victims likely receiving compensation before the end of the year.
“It was a pre-planned and premeditated assault,” Frick told Gothamist. “This is a historic settlement and we feel very confident the court will approve it.”
Emily Janakiram, a protester arrested in Mott Haven, described her reaction to the settlement as “shock and awe.” She recalled spending hours in a jail cell, surrounded by other protesters who were bloodied and bruised, wondering why they had been arrested for a peaceful demonstration..
“I’m glad to see there’s some kind of accountability being handed out,” she said. “But it’s bothersome that it’s being paid for by the taxpayer and it’s not coming out of the NYPD’s budget, which is what we were trying to draw attention to at the time.”
In an unattributed statement on Wednesday, the NYPD said the protest came during a “challenging moment for the department,” as officers attempted to balance demonstrators’ first amendment rights with what the agency referred to as “wide-scale rioting” and destruction.
The settlement does not include an admission of wrongdoing by the NYPD, whose leadership under former Mayor Bill de Blasio vigorously defended police actions on the night of the protest. On the day after the protest, former NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said the police response was “executed nearly flawlessly,” describing the protest leaders – including well-known Bronx community organizers – as “outside agitators.”
On Wednesday, though, the agency said it had “re-envisioned” its policies and training procedures around large-scale demonstrations after receiving recommendations from several outside agencies.
De Blasio and Shea did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Samantha Max contributed reporting.
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
What is woke, and the woke ideology. It is the new term for what the right use to call PC or politically correct. What is that? It is being nice, being tolerant of those that are different from them, being civil in discussions and in public. One definition from dictionary.com is;
adjective : having or marked by an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those involving the treatment of ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.
What is wrong with that? Being aware that there are people being treated unfairly. Unless you are a racist bigot who wants to be rude, hurtful / harmful, and demeaning to others in public without suffering the consequences of those actions. It is a small group of people demanding the country allow them to target people they hate and dislike. They want the society of the 1950s where white people were the controlling authority in society always assumed to be in charge and above people of color. They want a society that allowed men to demean and boss women around because men were unquestioningly in charge and women have no authority. They want a time when there was little or no public recognition of any LGBTQ+ people and those in that community were openly targeted for harm / abuse. That is what these maga want. This is the goal of the anti-gay, anti-trans, and anti-social progress.
I was once called a snowflake on Ark’s blog because I championed fixing social injustice. I did not know what the term meant, and I said I was happy to be a snowflake as I thought it meant an individual. Guess what I wear the title of social justice warrior proudly. Helping those that are being unfairly attacked or targeted for abuse just for being a person of color or a member of the LGBTQ+ community is something to be proud of. As I once mentioned safe spaces started in cities to let kids who were being abused at home or on their way to or from school by bullies / drug dealers / gang members know where they could go for help, where they could go to be safe. I remember the advertisements on TV showing kids running from danger seeing the sign on fire stations or other businesses and dashing inside in relief. I thought conservatives wanted to protect kids, but they mocked and derided safe spaces as a horrible thing. Hugs
Critics of “woke” policies are usually pretty skeptical about snowflakes calling for safe spaces—but Marjorie Taylor Greene is suddenly all for the idea. The Georgia lawmaker even went so far as to claim that MAGA Republicans “deserve” one of their own. “We’re fed up with Democrat policies, we’re fed up with the woke ideology being shoved down our throat, and we’re tired of our children being brainwashed into these same ideas,” Greene told Sean Hannity on Fox News on Tuesday. “We want our own safe space and we deserve it,” Greene added while discussing her recent advocacy for a “national divorce” between red and blue states. Commenting on Greene’s remarks, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) tweeted: “Republicans ridiculed ‘safe spaces’ and called people ‘snowflakes’, this coming from one of their leaders is literally hilarious.”
Hannity defends Marjorie Taylor Greene's "national divorce" proposal, saying it is merely "a plan to decentralize the federal government"
Marjorie Taylor Greene claims a man yelled "F you!" at her in a restaurant
"We want our own safe space, and we deserve it" — Marjorie Taylor Greene
The woman who has openly committed adultery, switched religious lifestyle from mainstream Christianity to a fringe sect and tried to overthrow the government is complaining about another ideology being crammed down her throat. Irony RIP.
It’s never about the surface argument with conservatives. It’s always about them maintaining authority, all for fun, fame, and profit. It’s never really about anything else.
What MTG wants for her personal safe space– a large portion of the United States free of large women, small men, hijabs, lesbians, Blacks, drag queens, liberals, Mexicans, Jews, Catholics, and everybody who doesn’t think exactly like her.
“We’re fed up with Democratic policies that help average Americans, we’re fed up with enlightened ideology being shoved down our throat, and we’re tired of our children being educated”
You already have a “safe space”. Go to Truth Social, which is explicitly intended to be a space where MAGA bigots like you can hang out with like minded morons. That was built from the ground up to be your safe space.
Oh, I’m sorry. Is Truth Social a toxic shit-stain that nobody really wants to be on?
We’re tired of MAGA being shoved down our throats, tired of Republicans taking away our freedom to make choices about our bodies, freedom to express ourselves, to teach our children what we want to, tired of their racism and bigotry. It’s a two-way street, honey, get a grip.
Ms. Greene, may I introduce you to News Corp.? The universe of lies created by Rupert Murdoch sure seems to fit the bill, Marge. You have your own media empire that amplifies every treasonous brainfart you produce, bitch.
Come back tomorrow with more self-pitying bullshit. We’ll be waiting.
“We’re tired of our children being brainwashed into these same ideas”
Those would be her three adult children, all in their 20s, who might have opinions about her finalized divorce, the divorce she failed to carry through on a dozen years ago, and the tensions within her marriage that led to them.
I have not been well. I have heart rates in the high 140’s. Twice I have gone into serious atrial fibrillation territory. Yes heart attack or heart shut down. The doctors are changing my medications to get my heart rate, my pain, my other issues under control. I get very few hours right now on the computer to read what I think is worth reading and even less to share it. Now I am hearing that because I have not been able to get to comments due to my health and thinking the people who come here would be science based reasonable people who would understand the majority of the medical community agrees with trans affirmative care I could rest while my doctors find ways to help me.
Turns out I was wrong. Decent people would have understood the situation I am under, how some days I struggle to breathe with my heart rate so high, how sitting in my desk chair causes me to feel ever building pain and yet I don’t have the money to buy / build the things I need to keep doing what I did.
Turns out the anti- trans trolls who I already fully debunked moved in in my absence and tried to full spread their lies, their myths. In the process they have sucked in normally reasonable people. All because I was not feeling up to getting to the comments something I have been struggling with for the last year.
I thank those that contacted me with the situation. I do my blog to counter the misinformation and hate put out by the regressive religious right. My side is backed up by science and peer reviewed studies, something the other side cannot claim. They want to hold on to tradition, to the way it always was in their lifetime, not realizing before that it was different also. I am done and angry.
Let me say that again. I am pissed off and angry. For now until I can go back threw all the comments and correct the misinformation and hate I am shutting comment off on things I post, if I manage to find time to post anything at all.
Last night I went to bed about 7 PM, my pulse was racing, my pain high and due to my medications and my supper I was very tired. I had a good blood sugar before supper of only 104, but I knew to cover more than that with my insulin. I had more tabs open and things I wanted to get to on both computers than I can describe. I would love to share that news with everyone, but the regressive haters seem not to want that. OK then if it is a constant fight on FACTS you want to have I guess I have to divert what energy I have to that.
The truth is on the progressive accepting side! The regressive traditional side is wrong. Just as it has always been for all of history! The earth is not flat, the sun doesn’t rotate around the earth! Black people are not less than whites, Jews are not evil as a group. Grow the fuck up all you people who say that it was not that way before. Yes I am angry. I don’t feel well and I must now deal with people that think the Florida administration that claims vaccines are bad and dangerous to your health has the right take on teaching. Dogs that love gravy do you people ever get out of your bubbles and look around the world. The rest of the world is leaving the US behind on how to treat people, education, healthcare including child / mother death during childhood. The last bastion of resistance in a capitalist society is centered in the US while the rest of the developed nations soar above us in how they treat their people. But you in the US just keep worrying about who uses the bathroom and be suspicious if they don’t look how you think they should. Oh crap those undeserving people might get enough government assistance to eat a full meal today. Keep watching so the corporations can steal everything you have with the government supporting them!
So to those that sent me messages of the mess my comment sections have become I thank you. To those assholes who wanted to abuse my faith in humanity I am going to deal with you. And I am angry! Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 