Want to live in a theocracy? This is the situation in the US, we have a set of Christian Nationalist aided by traditionalist conservatives that think 1950s was the golden days in society in the US. This is not just an attempt to roll back the advances in society the last 70 years, changes that are normal if you look at history, this is an attempt to lock all of society to a point in the past with it never changing. We are at a very dangerous point in history. Look how this people project their actions on others claiming the LGBTQ+ and their supporters are violent thugs, are brown shirts and SS troopers, are intolerant of others views, all the things these Christian nationalists do to the LGBTQ+ community. You don’t see the LGBTQ+ removing Christian books or the bible from libraries defunding them for having books with Christian characters, attacking churches or places where bible studies are happening. The Christians are not the victims here. Hugs
OT. I am really trying to post and to make sense of the information. I had a setback with my pharmacy for the new medication my pain doctor prescribed due to the Florida government’s laws so I had to call them, and it will be three days from when prescribed to when I may be able to get it. There were other problems. The pain doctor removed one medication to add another stronger one, but that caused a problem with the pharmacy which is under threat from the Florida government on any pain medication. I hurt so bad right now in back, arms, legs, fingers that I can hardly reason and make this post. The doctor offered me several different changes of medications including OxyContin and its versions, Vicodin, and the one that scares me the most Fentanyl. They agree I need more pain relief than I am getting. They scheduled an appointment next month for an injection into my T6 /T7 vertebrae but there is also a problem with my T8 vertebrae. Another issue is under Medicare I can only get 4 injections a year in any one area. Plus another issue is the amount of steroids I can take with my poor bones VS the number of injections I need to relieve the pain. Also remember the state of Florida legislators think they know more than the trained professions so they restrict the help I can get. The important thing is my doctors now all agree I am beyond functioning, and they need to go to a higher level to help me. Also a side note: I got a jury summons. I showed it to my pain doctor. She said no way you can do that; they would be calling an ambulance if you tried. She wrote a letter to the clerk of court and had her office fax it to them. I also sent an email to the clerk of court with the same. I got a reply very shortly saying I was permanently removed from jury duty. Understand I have done jury duty before, and I take it seriously and back then wanted to do it. I even might say I enjoyed doing it. But there is no way I can do so now when I cannot sit to read news or even handle my blog that I love. Hugs
He tried to de-fund Sesame Street for letting a gay actor appear on the show. Now he’s taking on the drag queens running America.
A staunchly anti-LGBTQ+ Arkansas Republican is warning his constituents about the dangers of drag queens “running this place” and said that Christians have to “take authority” over the government in the U.S.
“We must take authority,” Arkansas state Sen. Jason Rapert (R) said on his Save the Nation with Jason Rapert broadcast. “God told us to go out there and be fruitful, multiply, fill the Earth, subdue it, and have dominion over everything.”
“Friends, the reason the country is struggling,” he continued, “is because the Christians in America have failed to take authority and now is the time to choose, now is the time to stand.”
“Look, do you think that America is gonna be free with a bunch of drag queens running this place? No!” he said, not mentioning any drag queen by name who is in a position of political power in the federal government. There is only one known former drag queen in Congress, Rep. George Santos (R-NY), and he haspromoted staunchly anti-LGBTQ+ political positions.
“If you’re tired of that stuff, it’s time to make a change,” Rapert continued.
“This is a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people. It was created for you to be in charge,” he said, likely referring to his conservative constituents and no one else.
Former Arkansas state senator and founder of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers Jason Rapert declares that Christians “must take authority” over government: “Do you think that America is gonna be free with a bunch of drag queens running this place?” pic.twitter.com/cUp6pyr4XF
Former Arkansas state senator and founder of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers Jason Rapert declares that Christians "must take authority" over government: "Do you think that America is gonna be free with a bunch of drag queens running this place?" pic.twitter.com/cUp6pyr4XF
Rapert has a history of anti-LGBTQ+ statements and actions. In 2020, he suggested cutting off funding for PBS because out actor Billy Porter was going to appear on an episode of Sesame Street.
“I can pass a bill to cutoff all funding for the rebroadcast of PBS programming through AETN [Arkansas’s PBS affiliate] and also stop all funding for AETN altogether if necessary,” he wrote on Facebook at the time.
In a separate Facebook post, Rapert claimed to have signed a petition to stop Porter from appearing on Sesame Street, a petition started by Canadian rightwing website Lifesite News that claims to have over 38,000 signatures.
The petition said that Sesame Street was trying “to push drag queens on children,” even though Billy Porter isn’t a drag queen. It claimed that Porter’s appearance on the show would “sexualize children” and cited a statistic about the epidemic of suicide among transgender youth, implying that Sesame Street will turn kids transgender and being transgender leads to suicide.
“The LGBT activists who behave as Nazis are trying to ruin anyone who ‘disagrees’ with them – even grandmothers,” he said on Facebook. “Simply believing in the Bible is offensive to these activists. They can’t stand it if you disagree. They demand full compliance with their diminished morality. They clearly behave just like the ‘brown shirts’ and ‘SS’ troops that Nazis used to destroy Jews and anyone who disagreed with the Nazi ideology.”
“I don’t care what THEY believe, but I refuse to let them intimidate those who disagree with them,” he continued. “Our laws should not give special protections to people who behave this way. It is a sad time in American history.”
That same year, he tried to get the Arkansas Senate to ban marriage equality despite the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges protecting same-sex couples’ right to get married in every state. He claimed that a “silent majority” spoke out against equal rights in the 2016 election and “they’re going to speak again.” His bill failed.
“It is not bigoted to say that marriage is between a man and a woman,”he said at the time.
In 2020, he spoke out against his state’s mask mandate, calling measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic “draconian measures” as originating from “liberal hacks” who are “spreading fear.”
“There is no question that Covid19 is serious and can be very deadly for those with underlying conditions and the elderly,” he wrote in a Facebook post about then-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s (R) mask mandate. “But the fact is 99% of our nation has not been afflicted and this pandemic is no worse statistically than other severe outbreaks we have endured without draconian measures isolating the healthy and shutting down our entire economy.”
By July 2020, he had been hospitalized for pneumonia after testing positive for COVID-19. He told his supporters that his family was “sincerely grateful for the many prayers of love and support that have been expressed on our behalf.”
This bill is specifically aimed at gay and trans people, especially gay and trans kids. In the article on Rep talks about traditional values and we all know what that is code for. A view that society was better in 1950 when white Christian men were in assumed to always be in charge, women were subservient to those white Christian men, black people knew and kept to their place, while the LGBTQ+ were hidden from society never being seen or talked about publicly. These republicans want to enshrine in law the right to discriminate against those they think shouldn’t be in society. They want to have it be legal to show your displeasure / hate by denying people public services that are extended to the people they think are good normal people. If you think this is OK for doctors to deny care to LGBTQ+ people because they don’t like them, substitute black for LGBTQ+ and do you still see it as OK. I worked around doctors and I can tell you many are bigots and racists. Especially now that it costs so much to go to college and medical school new doctors tend to be from families of doctors. It is fast becoming a profession that runs in families while those not wealthy students tend to be come either Phyicians Assistants or go into nursing and become Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner. I have sat at the nurses desk and listened to the most bigoted religious doctors (Catholic doctors seem to have a huge moral superiority chip on their shoulders or at least the ones I worked with did.) talk about their patients / the families of patients that horrified me. I have told the story of a highly religious catholic doctor that refused to recognize or honor the legal paperwork giving a same sex partner authority over his lovers care going to the extent to contact the estranged family to instead follow their wishes. When told by the hospital legal department that he was not allowed to do that and to include the same sex partner the doctor came in, signed himself off the case, and left. Our ICU director had to scramble to find a doctor with the needed credentials to take over care as the patient was in an ICU which needs doctors with certain qualifications. The point was his bigotry and hate for gays meant more to him, was more important to him than the health of the patient, the patient’s wishes, or the patient’s long term same sex relationship. Think what would have happened had this law that they are trying to pass would have let that doctor do? How is that tolerable? Hugs
HB 303, which allows medical providers to decline services based on moral or religious beliefs, cleared a key House vote Monday.
State lawmakers in the House of Representatives gave broad approval Monday to a bill that would allow medical providers, health care facilities and insurers to deny services based on “ethical, moral, or religious beliefs or principles,” signaling the bill’s likely advancement to the Senate this week.
House Bill 303, sponsored by Rep. Amy Regier, R-Kalispell, passed the Republican-majority chamber largely along party lines, with 65 votes in favor and 35 against, after roughly 20 minutes of debate.
Regier portrayed the bill as a “preservation and protection for medical conscience” in the state for practitioners and health care institutions that object to specific “lifestyle and elective procedures” such as physician aid in dying, prescribing marijuana or opioids, abortion procedures and gender-affirming medical care for transgender people.
“To be clear, this bill would not give the right to refuse to serve a person. It would only apply to the narrow circumstances where a nurse or physician cannot conscientiously perform a specific procedure,” Regier said.
A subsection of the bill says it is not meant to conflict with the federal emergency health care access law known as EMTALA as it applies to health care institutions, such as hospitals. But the bill does not provide a holistic exemption for emergency departments and emergency health care providers. When it comes to abortion, for example, the bill would require providers to opt-in to participating in those procedures in writing beforehand.
Similar legislation has had recent success in other states. For instance, a Medical Ethics and Diversity Act was signed into law in South Carolina last spring. The legislation in that state saw support from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative religious advocacy group that is also backing the Montana proposal.
The opposition to South Carolina’s legislation, including from transgender patients and LGBTQ advocacy groups, echoes concerns now surfacing in Montana over HB 303. Medical associations and groups, including the Montana Hospital Association, Montana Primary Care Association, Montana Nurses Association and the Montana Medical Association, testified against the bill during a January committee hearing, saying it would put patients’ care at risk.
During Monday’s debate on the House floor, Democrats reiterated that the bill includes no discrimination protection for patients, and does not guarantee that a patient has a right to access health care even if a specific provider declines to participate in those services.
Rep. Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula, told fellow lawmakers the bill would mean transgender people like herself could be turned away from medical services they need.
“What is actually going to happen is it will be a denial based on diagnosis. Something like, I am diagnosed with gender dysphoria,” Zephyr said. “And the thing is, that is inherently discriminatory because you cannot pass my diagnosis from who I am. To deny me based on my diagnosis of gender dysphoria is to deny me based on my being a trans woman.”
Republican moderates appeared to try and derail the bill by proposing a strategic amendment during Monday’s floor session.
As written, HB 303 does not apply to a “health care institution or health care payer owned or operated by the state or a political subdivision of the state.” Some Republican representatives showed interest in striking that provision from the bill, an amendment that would have triggered a higher threshold for the bill to pass because of a specific provision of the state constitution. That amendment, proposed by Rep. Tom Welch, R-Dillon, failed in a 39-61 vote.
Republicans who spoke in support of the bill on the floor said they hoped the bill would protect freedom of expression for medical providers, even those they disagree with.
“I think in this increasingly lack of traditional values and conscience world, and oftentimes profit-driven world, that protection needs to be provided for providers and health care workers that do have those values and do have that conscience,” said Rep. Jerry Schilling, R-Circle.
Other Democrats who considered the bill as part of the House Judiciary Committee urged lawmakers to consider the unintended consequences of the bill. Rep. Laura Smith, D-Helena, said she’d heard stories from parents of young children faced with challenging medical circumstances who feared that, had HB 303 been in place, their desires for care would have been trumped by the prerogative or ideology of their providers.
“This is just one of many examples that I receive where medical teams have tried to deny parents’ rights to choose procedures for their children,” Smith said. “If the bill passes, it will take away parental rights, and your constituents’ parental rights, to make these life-and-death procedural and medical decisions for our own children.”
The bill ultimately passed with widespread Republican support and one affirmative vote from Rep. Frank Smith, D-Poplar. Four Republican lawmakers joined Democrats in opposition.
If the bill passes a third, non-debatable vote this week, it will then be transmitted to the Senate and assigned to a committee for a second hearing.
Speaking to Montana Free Press Monday afternoon, Regier said she was pleased by the vote margin.
We are constantly being lied to by people online. These people are not your friends. Do not trust someone just because they claim to belong to your political “team”. The lying has become endemic. By design it has caused us to hate, fear, and fragment.
And on these same republicans that claim that the democrats are stealing elections, so they need to enact strict voting laws that disenfranchise a lot of voters while the right itself is desperately breaking election laws to try to entrench their dying minority into permanent rule. It is important to remember by numbers of people the republican party is a shrinking minority, and their ideas are ever more unpopular with the majority of the country. This is their desperate attempt to push time back to when their ideas were popular and the way the country was. Hugs
These are all articles I wanted to talk about. But right now the center of my spine is on fire, I have an appointment with pain management on the 6th and I will get the report of the MRI and ask to move forward with quality of life. I can’t continue this way. Ron is talking about moving one of my Xboxes to the bedroom so I can rest and still play. Best wishes to everyone. Hugs
Please note several things in play to hide the bigotry. Instead of family values or family friendly talk is instead the songs have vulgarity. Like kids don’t hear or know vulgar talk already? Tell me a middle schooler who doesn’t know all the swear words and I will show you a kid that is homeschooled, has no internet / smart phone, and is parented by mute parents. Parents swear, there are swears on TV, and there are swears between kids at school, and it is everywhere on the internet. But the songs were already changed to be more acceptable. What stopped the play was that two of the parents were gay. They couldn’t admit gay people exist, that must be hidden from kids and not acknowledged in society. That is what this is about, removing any mention of gay people. As I recently reported and have learned this is being driven hard by several hard right religious think tanks trying hard to force red states to adopt a total ban on LGBTQ+ representation in schools via books, rainbow stickers, and any media that even hints at LGBTQ+. It is a desperate well funded attempt to return a more religious morality view before advances in society and the understandings that people are born different from what was know or understood in 1950s. They want to remove the advancements in medical knowledge. Think of everything that has changed since 1950 and these well funded groups want to reverse all of that. Hugs
After months of planning, a local school district abruptly canceled its musical, claiming it was “vulgar.”
In a statement, the Cardinal Local Schools superintendent Jack Cunningham said, “The Cardinal Local School District has decided that its spring musical production will not be ‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.’ Its dialogue and song lyrics contain vulgarity and are therefore not suitable for our pre-teen and teenage students in an educational setting.”
Two of the characters in the musical are gay male parents. The district states anyone suggesting discrimination is “mistaken.”
“When we found out it was canceled, everybody was just heartbroken. Honestly, it was terrible. Everyone was just crying,” said Riley Matchinga a senior who was playing a lead role in the musical.
Mandi Matchinga, Riley’s mother and assistant director for the musical, said she was shocked to learn production was halted given it was greenlit early in the school year by the district.
The superintendent stated the musical was not approved by the school board or district administration.
The school board made the decision to cancel the musical. A request for comment was not returned.
A meeting was held earlier this month with the administration where Matchinga said three concerns were brought up by the superintendent, who informed the production of some complaints.
“There were concerns about the language in one of the songs,” said Matchinga. “There was a concern about Jesus appearing in the show and there was a complaint about the fact that two of the parents were gay.”
The district went on to state it wants “student productions to be something that community members of all ages may enjoy without adult supervision.”
Matchinga said $1,700 was spent on the production. She said it’s too late in the school year to gain licensing required to put on another musical because that would involve 10 to 17 weeks of rehearsing.
Her daughter is planning to study musical theater in college and said the purpose of theater is not only to entertain, but to inform.
“Theater is about making you think about things and making you question things and thinking critically,” she said.
Matchinga plans to address the issue at the upcoming school board meeting.
“Now they’re using the word vulgar instead of family-friendly,” said Matchinga. “What is vulgar? What exactly are the issues you have with this show and can we sit and come to some sort of compromise and agreement?”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been featuring anti-vaxxer Dr. Jon Ward at COVID-19 events as he positions himself for a 2024 presidential run. Ward said in a podcast appearance last year that Dr. Anthony “Fauci should face a firing squad” because of his work.
Ward is a Florida dermatologist who, as Politico recently reported, has become “a central figure in DeSantis’ Covid-19 events.” He appeared at a COVID-19 press conference with DeSantis on January 17.
In August 2022, DeSantis appointed Ward to the Northwest Florida State College District Board of Trustees. Ward has linked the death of Lisa Marie Presley to “Pfizer and Moderna” and told parents to lie to schools about their children’s COVID-19 history.
Ward’s views are aligned with DeSantis’ on Covid. The Florida governor has built a national reputation by rejecting Covid-19 mandates such as masking students and vaccinating children. DeSantis’ surgeon general, Joe Ladapo, has also come under fire from the medical community for questioning vaccine safety and warning men against taking the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.
Ward’s emergence as a central figure in DeSantis’ Covid-19 events has given rise to concern among many in Florida’s medical community, some members of which think Ward is, at best, misguided and, at worst, a dangerous font of misinformation. He also does not claim to be an expert on public health, a criticism frequently raised by critics who are concerned the governor is amplifying the views of a dermatologist without training in pandemic response.
Why not a proctologist… “Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light,and then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way.”
State Sen. Jason RapertPhoto: Screenshot
