CA School Board Bans Social Studies Textbook Over “Pedophile” Harvey Milk, Who Doesn’t Appear In Book

***Sorry no comment replies today.  I got home from the pain doctor and I got trigger point shots in my back.   I managed to do the dishes but I cannot manage to address comments today.   It is a combination of pain and steroids along with all the other medical drugs I take surging through my system.   Hopefully if I can sleep tonight I will be able to do that first thing tomorrow morning.   But for now I will try to focus and post some of the news I have had in my tabs for the last few days.  Ron ordered a pizza because he has been working in the heat to replace the damaged siding and I am wiped out and struggle to think.  The steroids are making me hungry.  I just lost 10 more pounds I hope I don’t gain them back.     Hugs***

This again like the fundamentalist few parents demanding all mention of LGBTQ+ from yearbooks, libraries, any media in the classrooms, and eventually society.   They admit this, they want only those things mentioned, taught, and acknowledged are their world view from the 1950s, and that includes all education about race, biology, and anything that disrupts their white in charge fundamentalist religious take on the world.   They want the rest erased, it makes them feel icky and they don’t like those ideas pushing into their god thoughts.    But these same people have no problem with highly gendered and sexually suggestive straight year book photos of the prom or the school cheerleader squads.   They have no problem with mentions in yearbooks or books / movies in schools / libraries that show hetero norms, including the gender roles of cis straight males and females.  Their offense is anything not portraying their preferred world view that comes from their biblical views, one man / one woman and only straight no weird sex allowed in all things.   But only after the youth, adults are married and suddenly discover sex / sexual feelings on the magical moment of turning 18 years old.   Sorry but gay and transgender youth / students exist.  They are young people with the same right to see themselves represented in society as the fundies insist their own views / religion does.   These gay  / transgender students deserve to live openly as their straight cis fellow students do.   The problem these fundamentalists face is the students agree that this is proper that their fellow students be accepted and have a safe and happy school experience.  The very thing the fundamentalist to deny the LGBTQ+ students, their right to exist.    This is simply pushing the fundamentalist religious views on everyone.   Plus they are not only pushing their religious world view but they are actively denying the LGBTQ+ students their right to exist, to have school participation, and to see other people like themselves in the school curriculum / media.   Below I will post some quotes from the linked sources, I recommend everyone go read them as they have information that Joe My God doesn’t include.  Hugs  

 

Milk, who was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country, was assassinated while serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

The three board members were elected last year with the backing of the conservative Inland Empire Family PAC.

“I don’t want my 3rd grader studying an LGBTQ issue. I don’t want them going into gender ideology,” said board member Jennifer Wiersma.

The social studies curriculum was vetted by 47 Temecula Valley teachers who taught the material in 18 elementary schools as part of a pilot program this past year. The material, which is also approved by the California Department of Education, will replace outdated textbooks.

“It was piloted, we followed every policy, and procedures. The options were out there for parents. Thirteen-hundred family’s kids learned from this curriculum. We did not receive any complaints,” said Board Member Allison Barclay, who voted to approve the new curriculum.

https://abc7.com/temecula-valley-harvey-milk-school-board-curriculum/13330213/

 

 

An ugly scene played out at the Temecula Valley School Board meeting as they voted 3-2 to reject an elementary school social studies book that contained information about pioneering California gay rights figure Harvey Milk. The board’s president made a baseless accusation that Milk was a pedophile before voting to ban the book. 

“My question is, why even mention a pedophile?” said Board President Dr. Joseph Komrosky. 

 

The battle over books has been an ongoing conflict in Republican-controlled states. California Gov. Gavin Newsom interjected himself into the fray last summer in a series of commercials that aired in Florida. Now, he’s taking that message directly to educators in the state through a letter directed to superintendents and school administrators. The warning — which was also penned by California State Superintendent Tony Thurmond and Attorney General Rob Bonta — urged them to not take part in the removal of instructional materials. 

“Access to books — including books that reflect the diverse experiences and perspectives of Californians, and especially those that may challenge us to grapple with uncomfortable truths — is a profound freedom we all must protect and cultivate,” the letter read in part. 

The letter has garnered the support of some parents including Los Angeles Unified School District mom Jenna Schwartz, who helped create a group called Parents Supporting Teachers. 

” I think that our governor and the AG are looking at what’s happening in these red states and we can see the future,” said Schwartz. “We know what happens when you dilute education for children. They become uneducated adults. We can’t let that happen here.”

The letter cites more than 1400 book bans across the country as one of the reasons the state issued this warning to any district contemplating limiting issues that can be taught in schools. Newsom was also sharply critical of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after he signed into law legislation known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — which restricts instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity for students until eighth grade. 

“Talking about families is not a sexual conversation,” said Schwartz.  “Talking about two moms or two dads — or a diverse family, none of that is sexual.”

The issue of sexual orientation has become a flashpoint at Saticoy Elementary School, where a pride flag was recently burned. The school is also dealing with the fallout of a scheduled assembly where administrators planned to read a book that mentions same-sex couples. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/temecula-school-board-president-calls-harvey-milk-pedophile-before-book-banning-vote/

 

 

Los Angeles’s ABC affiliate reports:

“You’re not qualified! You’re not qualified!’ shouted one audience member at the board. The frustration was over the 3-2 vote opposing the adoption of new social studies curriculum for Temecula Valley Unified School District elementary schools.

The decision could leave 11,397 students without a textbook next year. “We’ve never experienced this before. I’ve never heard of a top performing district or any district say you know what we are going to withhold these materials,” said Edgar Diaz, the president of the Temecula Valley Educator Association.

School board members, Dr. Joseph Komrosky, Jennifer Wiersma and Danny Gonzalez opposed the inclusion of gay rights activist Harvey Milk in the supplemental material used by teachers, even though Milk is not in the 4th grade textbook himself.

Los Angeles’s CBS affiliate reports:

The board’s president made a baseless accusation that Milk was a pedophile before voting to ban the book. “My question is, why even mention a pedophile?” said Board President Dr. Joseph Komrosky. Temecula’s emotionally charged meeting resembles many others from here in Southern California and across the country as communities demand school boards to limit discussions of race and sexual orientation.

Komrosky [screenshot above] has appeared on Fox News to boast about banning “critical race theory” in his school district. His 2022 campaign for the school board was promoted by foul homocon radio host Carl DeMaio, who praised Komrosky for “his goal is to keep radical social theories and leftist propaganda away from our children.”

Watch the clip.

 

When Milk was still living in New York he met a young man named Jack McKinley, who was employed as a stage manager. McKinley was 16-years old when they met and Milk was around 30. The age of consent in New York was 17 at the time. At some point after they met, they started a relationship. According to sources from that time period, McKinley was past the age of consent. McKinley moved to California with Milk and was over 18 when they arrived in California. There is no evidence form any source that Milk and McKinley ever engaged in any sexual behavior while McKinley was underage. Milk did like men who were younger than he was but he was not chasing underage boys around either in New York or San Francisco.

 

This is not about pedophilia

This is about erasing LBGT culture

Komrosky, Gonzalez, and Wiersma where all heavily promoted by the Inland Empire Family PAC to run against incumbents in order “to stop the indoctrination of our children by placing candidates on school boards who will fight for Christian and Conservative values.
Those “values” include nixing teachings of inclusion and tolerance”.
It was a right wing set up job to get rid of incumbents who were not anti everything enough.
https://patch.com/californi…

From that page:

 

Dr. Joseph Komrosky holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Claremont Graduate University and is a tenured college professor teaching logic full-time at Mount San Antonio College. He also teaches critical thinking part-time at the California State University of San Marcos.

 

“… teaches critical thinking …”??? WTF?

Did we need any more proof that holding an advanced degree doesn’t make you a decent human being?

 

Someone posted this on JMG the other day:

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LGBT culture, black culture, Asian culture, Native American culture–everything but lily-white, Evangelical Christian culture in the USA. There was never anybody else here, right? /s

 

Hell, if given the chance, these yahoos would probably call for prosecuting any actor or actress who’s starred in an LGBT-themed production! (for the record, that would be most of the famous actors and actresses; name any and I could probably tell you an LGBT-themed production in which they’ve been involved)

Was Harvey Milk a pedophile? No he was not. These assholes have been equating being gay to being a pedophile forever and it has got to stop. They need to be challenged every goddam time and sued into oblivion for defamation and hate speech. They are trying to get us killed, plain and simple. If they’re looking for pedophiles, they need to look no further than the christian church right down the block.

“…pedophiles like Harvey Milk.”

“Harvey Milk wasn’t a pedophile!”

“Well, he was in my opinion.”

“Prove it or shut the fuck up.”

 

Cue “I feel it in my bones”.

We must be vigilant everywhere. Even in safe, blue California, we have these assholes. Vote, because our lives depend on it.

Prop 8 was not that long ago.

 

Demented Republican Interrogates 14-Year-Old Trans Kid

Missouri State Senator Elaine Gannon asks incredibly invasive questions about trans teenager Avery Jackson’s body at a Missouri State Senate Committee hearing: “Are you going to go through the procedure?” Gannon asks the child, Avery Jackson, seemingly referring to gender-affirming surgery, as the audience groans.

Moms For Liberty Harasses Florida High School Into Reprinting Yearbook Without Pages On LGBTQ Students

Personal note **  I hope to be back up to the half speed I have been managing lately in a few days.   I had a really bad end of the week, health wise.   Ron said Thursday evening my right side back muscles were swollen up higher than his fist compared to the left.   I saw the cardiologist, he changed my medication and said I needed an echocardiogram along with a medical heart stress test.   He is worried about the shortness of breath and breathing problems, along with something he thinks is going on with my heart.   But the change in medications will allow me to get my allergy treatments, and the blood tests came back showing really serious allergies.   I will share those another time.   Hugs

Please note the open bigotry and privilege.   Also note these are a very small group of bigoted religious parents.   Let the kids be kids doesn’t apply to the gay or other LGBTQ+ kids.    These people find anything offensive that is not just as they are, feel, or want things.   They want all their kids to celebrate their school years, but not the gay, trans, or the other LGBTQ+ kids to have that privilege.   Notice these kids are teenagers, the woman is complaining that seeing LGBTQ+ other students and information was sexualizing a 14-year-old.   Trust me, by 14 a kid knows their gender, their sexuality, and even how to masturbate.    This strange idea that kids don’t have feelings, desire, or even that touching themselves feels good until the magic moment they turn 18 when suddenly all those things happen and become real.   That is incredibly stupid, that schools even through the senior year can not mention anything dealing with gender or sexual orientation unless it is straight heterosexual 1950s gender stereotypical norms.   Hello every teen has a smart phone, and access to smart TV’s, game consoles that browse the internet, along with computers.   Get freaken real people.   This really is about not letting the LGBTQ+ people be normalized, that is why these groups want to remove the media with gay or trans characters or have LGBTQ+ information.    Yet they do want the anti-gay stuff pushed hard.   These bans make it so there can be no programs stopping bullying, no safe places for kids that are not cis or straight to feel welcome.   It is driving the LGBTQ+ people in the US to the same place the Jewish people were in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.   Hugs

 

The Orlando Sentinel reports:

Seminole County Public Schools is offering to reprint this year’s Lyman High School yearbook and remove two pages for parents upset about LGBTQ+ content, prompting criticism that the district isn’t standing up to bigotry. The pages highlight the school’s LGBTQ+ community and provide definitions of terms such as genderfluid and pansexual. A few parents and students found those pages “inappropriate,” and now the district is offering refunds or reprinted yearbooks with the pages in question removed.

Jessica Tillmann, chapter chair of the Seminole County Moms for Liberty, said she is concerned about the definitions in the yearbook because she thinks they are teaching children about sex outside the state-approved standards that parents can choose to opt their children out of. “They shouldn’t have any sexual definitions in a yearbook,” she said. “This is a yearbook that goes to every student as young as 14.”

Click Orlando reports:

Sharmon Craft [screenshot above] was among the parents who believe the page is inappropriate. “This gender ideology crap has parents in an uproar because it’s disgusting and wrong for an adult to sexualize a minor,” Craft said on Facebook.

“The district superintendent is ordering the school to give full refunds or have the books reprinted without the glossary of perverse sexual attractions and pronouns.” District officials said they have received four complaints from parents so far.

Danielle Pomeranz, the high school’s former yearbook advisor, argued against the decision. “We think that it’s important that our book remains inclusive and represents all of the students at Lyman High School,” Pomeranz said.

 

STFU. If you’re such a snowflake, tear the two pages out yourself. I’m sick of a couple of people dictating to the rest of the schools.

100% correct!! Why do they kowtow to idiots??

manufactured drama to needlessly excite others as they push their astro-turf nonsense.

And yet schools and other places kowtow to these idiots with their reactionary agenda. It makes me sick!

14 year olds know that gay people exist.

14 year olds often already know if they are gay or straight or even fluid, I sure did.

I always knew I wasn’t like the other boys. 14 was when I figured out what that difference was.

I knew long before I was 14

I wasn’t out in public until I was 24, but I was out to myself at 14.

 

14 was my age the first time I was able to look my reflection in the eyes and say, “I am a homosexual” out loud. It was strange to hear myself say it, but it felt so true and freeing.

Same age here, but for me it was as I was cumming while thinking of the guys in the locker room at school

I almost find it funny that these Moms for Liberty morons think that their children are innocent and pure and know nothing about sex. Do they not know the kids have access to the internet and have cell phones? Those women live in a Christian bubble.

Don’t tell them. ‘Christian’ parents have a tendency to install crappy blocking software on their kids’ phones that ostensibly block porn, but actually block anything a crazy religious parent might object to, like age-appropriate information that teens absolutely should have access to.

14 year olds with phones know a lot of things.

Hence the enthusiasm for purging all mention of them everywhere. As homophobe lawyer Matt Staver said recently, if Christian kids get to know gays, they’ll get the outrageous idea they’re not monsters in human form.

Indeed:

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And not to mention no-one is sexualising anyone in this yearbook, just defining some terms.

We have to fight back against their characterisation of anything that even mentions LGBT people’s existence as being “sexual”. ‘Heather has two mommies’ is not sexual, and not inappropriate in the slightest for elementary students.

Also yet more infantilisation of teens: “OMG, kids as young as 14 will read this!” 14 years olds know about sex, and we should give them correct information, not religious scare stories.

Rule 1: White kids are innocent babes until at least age 30.
Rule 2: Black and Latino kids are fully adult hyper-sexual beings by age 10.

…and they don’t blink an eye at the outfits of the cheerleaders or the pictures of prom, both strongly “sexualizing.”

 

 

I was a transgender child.

This is the terrifying person the maga right conservatives want to erase and claim is a threat to society.   This is a really informative video by a young man who describes the steps it took to get what he needed to be the person he really was.   This person’s lived experience put to lie all the myths the anti-trans people claim are happening, like mass pushing kids to be trans, no medical checks, and just rushing kids to sex changes.  It amazes me that in 2023 we still have throwbacks to dark ages in understandings of biology and social development.  Notice this boy knew his gender was wrong most of his early childhood and even at 9 years old he knew he was not a girl but should grow up to be a guy, but it became a serious issue for him at 12 years old.   Puberty time.  This is the same period of time the maga religious right wants to claim kids don’t know anything about gender or sexual attraction.  And even though this boy did not have teachers telling him about pronouns or gender expression, he still realized he was not his assigned sex / gender.  He talks about gender conversion, gender dysphoria, and the misinformation about trans kids / people.     His story is interesting.   It also is very informative and destroys a lot of the trans haters talking points, even to the point of no harm and many benefits of letting kids socially transition.    Well worth watching.    Hugs

Let kids be kids … as long as those kids are straight and cis.

DEMOCRATS vs REPUBLICANS! Let’s Compare & Contrast | Christopher Titus | Armageddon Update

Seriously informative on the bullshit of the republicans.   Hugs

Cedar Key Progress Posts 6 “We Say Gay” Billboards in Florida for Pride Month!

https://www.cedarkeyprogress.com/updates/we-say-gay-billboards-in-florida-for-pride-month

We’re proud to put up 6 “In Florida … We Say Gay!” billboards across Florida to celebrate Pride Month with a message of support and solidarity, funded by over 1,000 Cedar Key Progress donors.

The stakes have never been higher than they are right now for the trans and queer community

Florida Republicans are trying to make it so that our state is unsafe for anyone who isn’t a Christian, straight, white man, and we won’t stand for being known for all of this bigotry and hate. We say gay because the Florida we know welcomes everyone, whether you’re trans or cis, gay or straight, Black, brown or white.

Cedar Key Progress Poll: Floridians Oppose Book Bans, Support DEI

A recent Cedar Key Progress poll of 400 Floridians, conducted May 18-22, 2023 by Civiqs, found that Floridians oppose LGBTQ+ book bans and Ron DeSantis’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Do you support or oppose laws removing books mentioning gay and transgender people and history from public school libraries?
Support 42%

Oppose 48%
Neither support nor oppose 7%
Unsure 3%

Do you support or oppose laws banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs from colleges and universities?
Support 39%

Oppose 50%
Neither support nor oppose 7%
Unsure 4%

Full poll results here.

Billboard Locations

See our billboards throughout June 2023 in 6 locations across Florida!

Titusville, Brevard County
East side, Northbound U.S. 1, north of Golden Knights Blvd

Tallahassee, Leon County
West side, Lake Bradford Road north of Hutchinson St

Yulee, Nassau County
US 17 south of Harts Road

Pensacola, Escambia County
South side of I-10 west of Alt US 90

Summerfield, Marion County
US 27 south of SE 132nd St

Winter Haven, Polk County
Cypress Gardens Blvd south of Old Helena Rd

Help support our billboard programs!

Cue Florida to quickly pass a law against saying “Gay” on any billboard that might be seen by any K-12 minor in Florida.

Nobody said Gay when I was a kid, there were no Drag Queen Story Hours, no Pride events, no representation of any kind, and I still turned out Gay. These clowns have no idea what they’re doing, they’ll end up hurting kids in the long run. For awhile, I thought we’d made some progress in this country, now I realize the hate, fear and ignorance was just festering, waiting until it was lauded by the Republican Party. The billboards are nice, but they aren’t likely to change anyone’s mind.

My hope is that all this poison can be treated like an infection in the body like an abscess. Now that it has come to the surface, it can be lanced and dealt with. But I am at a loss as to what will be the cure.

Just read yesterday that a whole lot of LGBTQ folks are trying to move away from Florida now. Including parents of gay and trans kids who are terrified the state will seize their children from them.

Valid fear.
My friend and his husband left just last month.
As my friend put it, the medical scare his husband had is in the past but if one arises again, they didn’t want to risk being in FL and being denied care.

A friend is leaving next week to teach in the Virgin Islands to get her pan-identified son the hell out. Her husband and other son will follow them.

I wonder what will happen, when school comes back into session, and High School Students, consistently ask questions about being Gay in their classes??? What will the schools do to them???