Domestic terrorism against the public by religious gang brownshirt thug enforcers of the conservative wing. Please notice this is entirely religious driven, using Christian fundamentalist talking point. They are desperate to turn the secular US in to a religious Christian theocracy with their own moral police and Taliban enforcers. They are demanding the right of superior privilege for their religion yet deny any rights to others or other faiths. Notice also thewy changed their name to protecting the children to get more people to agree with their bigotry. Notice the leader of the religous group was asking for the pride leader to take down a old picture on his facebook page that said everyone should get laid once. Just that idea that people should be able to have enjoyable sex at least once was offencive to them. Hugs
Alex Keen wanted to show support for his local LGBTQ+ community. Now he’s afraid to even enter his home.
By Daniel Villarreal Friday, June 9, 2023
The downtown area of Connersville, IndianaPhoto: YouTube screenshot
Alex Keen, a 38-year-old gay man who grew up in the conservative rural Indiana town of Connersville (population 13,310), wanted to show support for his local LGBTQ+ community. So, last December, he founded a group called “Whitewater Pride” and later organized three events for this Pride Month.
Soon after announcing the events, two residents — Melissa Rose and her husband Andrew Rose — set up a now-defunct Facebook group called “Whitewater Groomer Removers,” which insinuated that Keen is a child sex abuser. Its members harassed his events’ sponsors. Keen has been followed in public by the group’s supporters and has gone into hiding. He now plans on moving out of the state, worried that someone will target him for violence.
After an angry crowd accused the district of “moral depravity” with its “Luciferian” policy, a vote for a school tax levy failed.
“I spent most of my life in the closet. I didn’t come out until I was 36. And so living in this community, surrounded by right-wing Christian conservatives, it’s hard to be gay, it’s hard to come out of the closet,” Keen told LGBTQ Nation. “I just wanted there to be some kind of organization, some kind of support for the LGBT community… Having that support system around us is very important.”
Keen’s group, which mostly consists of him and three board members, purchased a table at the May 15 Celebration in the Ville community fair. For Pride Month, his group planned two all-ages games nights at the local Fayette County Public Library, a drag night at a local bar named Ozzie’s on June 15, and an all-ages pool party at the Roberts Park Family Aquatic Center on June 30.
But on April 29, Ozzie’s bar canceled the event after people complained, Keen said. LGBTQ Nation contacted the bar for comment. The adults-only event didn’t have any drag queens booked. Instead, it offered a $50 award to the attendee wearing the best drag.
Around the same time, Keen became aware of a Facebook group named “Whitewater Groomer Removers.” One of its members linked to Keen’s personal Facebook page, and another wrote, “Sick… Let’s make him famous for trying to groom children.”
Andrew Rose posted an image of Pantera’s album Vulgar Display of Power that showed a man being punched in the face.
Rose wrote, “The vibe of this song is the vibe I’m going for with this group…. I refuse to allow these freaks impost their will in my community…. I plan to protest every event put on by the suspected child grooming operation known as ‘whitewater pride’ (as well as any other group promoting the same degeneracy) & I’m going to need A LOT of good people behind me. I crated this group to organize & discuss such matters.”
Melissa Rose posted an image of a late March edition of the local newspaper, the Connersville News Examiner, specifically an article mentioning Whitewater Pride’s efforts. She told her group’s members to call the paper and complain, stating, “We don’t want this group sexualizing and grooming our children in Fayette County.”
LGBTQ Nation contacted the Roses for comment.
One of their group’s members reposted an image from Whitewater Pride’s Facebook group announcing its three Pride Month events. Commenters wrote, “Pride is a sin in the eyes of God! And everything associated with it,” “Our kids are targeted by the left,” “Yes they are! Bas**rds are everywhere,” “Shame on all of them.”
When Keen looked through the group’s members, he recognized about a third of its members, including a person who regularly cut his lawn. He knew some of these people from around town. A week after discovering the group, he stopped staying at his home. Ever since, he has stayed at a friend’s place about 10 minutes away.
“It’s got to the point it’s affecting me physically,” he said. “I usually wake up and throw up in the morning, not really eating anything.”
By May 5, “Whitewater Groomer Removers” changed its name to “Protecting Our Children.” Its banner image showed a white man rolling up his sleeves.
As the May 15 Celebration in the Ville community fair approached, Melissa Rose sent messages to Sassy Peacock Events, the fair’s organizer, discouraging them from allowing Whitewater Pride to host a table at the event. She claimed that the group wants to allow pornography in schools, let “men be able to use girls’ locker rooms and restrooms,” and legalize the “mutilation of children under the age of 18” (even though gender-affirming genital surgeries aren’t conducted on minors).
At this point, Whitewater Pride’s Facebook page only contained posts about respecting people’s pronouns, Indiana’s anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, suicide and bullying statistics for queer youth, a bio of Stonewall veteran Marsha P. Johnson, announcements of upcoming game nights, a call for volunteers, and posts recognizing International Women’s Day and the International Transgender Day of Visibility.
“They are most certainly trying to set up a stronghold of far left sexually inappropriate ideologies for children,” Melissa Rose wrote to Sassy Peacock Events. “These are all of the issues that they are fighting for, on the side of evil, and that is ver much going to be devisive in a Conservative, Christian family oriented community. They should not even be trying to do all of this political activism while also trying to embed themselves in our community, under the guise of ‘helping kids to feel accepted.’… [They are] doing all of this work to indoctrinate confused kids.”
She demanded that Sassy Peacock Events allow her group to have a booth as well and suggested that she might stage a possible protest.
Though that protest never materialized, Sassy Peacock Events contacted the mayor’s office and local police anyway. In a public May 2 Facebook post, the organizer wrote, “There will be an extensive multi-departmental security presence Friday evening for set-up, through the night and all day Saturday till the end of the event. The whole downtown area has security cameras, there will be multiple drones capturing footage for us throughout the event as well.”
“We expect everyone to behave in a professional, respectful manner,” the organizer added. “Sassy Peacock Events has no tolerance for hate speech, disruptive displays, harassment, or protests.”
In early May, Whitewater Proud announced that it had received a grant from the Fayette Community Foundation, a local organization that funds local non-profit efforts, as well as small donations from a few other local businesses. The Roses’ followers called the foundation and those businesses to complain, Keen said.
During one of Whitewater Pride’s game nights at the Fayette County Public Library in early May, three older men from a “second amendment club” showed up to try and disrupt the event, the library staff told LGBTQ Nation. The men complained about the hour-long event, even though they’re poorly attended and held in a private room separate from the main library.
“It was all awful and I wish it hadn’t happened,” library staff said of the men’s appearance.
On May 15, Andrew and Melissa Rose confronted Keen at one of his library game nights. In a video of their conversation in the library’s lobby, Andrew Rose said it wasn’t right to “indoctrinate” children. He claimed that Keen’s group and game nights “encourage children.”
“They’re sitting there,” he said. “They’re watching, they’re observing.” At this time, however, no minors had ever attended the game night.
“God doesn’t think it’s right either,” Andrew Rose told Keen. When Keen told him that he was free to have his own religious beliefs, Andrew Rose said, “Well, LGBT is a religion.”
Melissa Rose told Keen that she and her husband are “super nice and calm and wouldn’t harm anyone” and that her online comments had no “context of anger, violence, or hatred behind them.” She claimed that Facebook commenters had called her group’s members’ employers to get them fired and that her son’s girlfriend had also been “targeted.”
“We’ve had people from all over the globe, LGBT, coming and then saying we are literally causing harm and violence and trying to eradicate their community,” she said.
Melissa Rose then expressed disappointment that Keen and his group didn’t publicly defend her group when a nearby Pride organization, Rainbow Richmond, made an April 28 Facebook post referring to the Roses’ group as an “active hate group.” Keen has no affiliation with Rainbow Richmond.
“You could have certainly approached [Rainbow Richmond] and said ‘Look, this really is just escalating the situation, All this is doing is just fueling the fire of hatred and ignorance,’” she told Keen. “We didn’t want to contribute to any sort of disruption in the community or make you guys feel threatened in any way.”
She also admitted that she took down her group’s page when she “realized it was getting so much attention.” She then asked if Keen would make a statement against her group being called a hate group.
“I started hysterically laughing,” said Jama Sullivan, a local straight ally who was present during the discussion. “I was like, ‘First of all, we’re not doing that. Second of all, you are bigots…. I told her, ‘You started a fire and you’re getting burned a little from the flames, and you want us to put it out? Like, no, it doesn’t work that way.’”
Sullivan said she too has been publicly identified and targeted by Roses’ followers because of her support for Whitewater Pride.
“I put cameras all around my property because now we’re worried because you’ve targeted us,” Sullivan said she told the Roses. “It takes one person you’ve triggered, one person to come to my home and shoot at my house. I have a child there. So no, we will not put out a public statement on your behalf. You’re an idiot.”
When another person asked Melissa Rose why their respective groups can’t just co-exist, Rose said, “You can exist. No one’s trying to stop you.”
Melissa Rose then said that she doesn’t think that it’s appropriate for Keen to say he supports children because his personal Facebook page contained a photo, taken years ago at the Coachella Music Festival, of something that said, “Everyone should get laid once.”
“I think you should delete that,” Rose told Keen. He told her that he had already deleted that post.
During the conversation, Sullivan said she pointed out to the Roses that the U.S. Catholic Church has been accused of hundreds of thousands of child sex abuse cases.
“You’re not at our local Catholic school saying, ‘Get these kids out of here. They’re not safe,’” Sullivan told the couple. “You’re the library attacking adults. I mean, there’s not even children here. It’s just adults in a room playing games.”
“In Connersville,” Sullivan said, “we have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the state of Indiana, one of the highest unemployment rates in the state of Indiana. We have one of the highest drug uses in the state of Indiana. Connersville is ranked like 92 out of 100 in the healthiest cities in Indiana. The education system is suffering dramatically. The rate of high school dropouts is astronomical.”
She recently advised a lesbian friend against moving to the town because she’d likely be targeted with hate if she and her same-sex spouse walked into a Walmart store holding hands.
“So what can we do, as a community, to make people feel welcome to get them to stay here?” Sullivan asked rhetorically.
The Roses showed up again at June 5 Pride Month game night with three fellow protesters. Keen said they “got incredibly worked up” when four older teenagers showed up to play games.
“I heard one of them call me a coward when I walked away from them,” Keen said. He said that the protesters followed him to his car after the game night ended. Though he hasn’t personally received any death threats, Keen hasn’t returned to his home since early May. He plans on selling his house and moving out of state because he no longer feels safe.
He contacted several LGBTQ+ and Pride organizations around the state for advice on how to safely hold his events. Volunteers from other local Pride groups have said they’ll help with their security. That may come in handy, since the Roses have reportedly pledged to protest his June 30 pool party.
Despite the intimidation, Keen has added one extra event to his Pride Month plans: a June 28 march through Connersville on the 54th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
“I just want a combined show of strength that the LGBTQ community in the area has come together and is going to stand up to the people who want to bully us back into the closet,” Keen said.
Sullivan praised Keen when he first told her about his plans to start Whitewater Pride because she felt their community really needed it. But when Keen told her of his plans to leave the state, she said, “You can’t Alex, because they win. You’re letting them win.”
“I’m angry. I’m so angry,” she said. Keen told her that he doubted anyone would want to continue leading Whitewater Pride after he leaves because of all the hatred he’s endured.
“I think I’m going to tell him, I’ll [run his group] in the interim and take applications for a new director,” Sullivan said, “because I don’t want this to go away.”
Start the young and work them until they die. Keep the wages as low as possible to keep them desperate enough to take any job in any conditions. All for corporate profits and greed. In this time of hurt for the US public, corporations are recording record profits as their price gouging keeps inflation high. In an attempt to keep the highest profits, the fed tried to blame the inflation on workers wages increasing a small amount, but it has been proven that what is driving inflation is corporate profits. Hugs
This video is from ten years ago. Not that long ago, right. Yet this boy describes some of the same feelings of being the only one that I did. My gods his story was so close to mine except no one came to help me back in 1970s. I suffered, took the abuse, tried to fight the bullies who had the backing of the teachers. All on top of being abused at home. If I only had someone to talk to about it all, any positive role model to turn to. So much a lifetime of harm I could have been avoided / saved from if I had just had someone to go to who was LGBTQ+ friendly. That is why we need the rainbow stickers and flags in classrooms, that is why we need pride rainbow merchandise in stores. Social acceptance, and safety along with being able to be open by the LGBTQ+ kids. This is what the right is desperate to remove and take away. They don’t want acceptance of gays, lesbians, trans, and non-binary people. They want a strict heterosexual 1950s cisgender role’s society. Hell and be damned to those people that don’t fit that mold. Their god and their comfort come first. How many more kids need to suffer this way? If your concern is for children, understand there are LGBTQ+ children in schools. Hugs
This is a very important short video because it shows both what I have been saying about these dressing as drag bans and the goal of the fundamentalist driven right. A trans woman was to give a talk, a presentation, at a library. But due to the new ban on dressing in drag in Montana the library had to cancel the talk because the person was trans.
Governor Greg Gianforte signed the extreme, vaguely worded drag ban just last week. The law bans drag performers, which are defined as “a male or female performer who adopts a flamboyant or parodic feminine persona with glamorous or exaggerated costumes and makeup,” from performing where children are present. It is also the first measure to specifically ban drag story hours in public libraries, meaning it does not only restrict performances that might be more openly sexual.
Jawort is not a drag queen, and the lecture was intended for adults, although children could have attended if they wanted. The library’s decision is a sign that the drag bans are having their intended effect: forcing LGBTQ people out of public view. The law is so confusing, and the punishments are so high, that many people and organizations are trying to avoid the risk.
Notice two things, the law doesn’t say the person or act has to be sexual or have exaggerated sexual characteristics and that even reading to kids is considered a performance. People have tried to argue with me that these drag bans are only to stop kids from seeing burlesque type sex shows. You know, events that could sexualize kids, what ever that means. But reading to kids dressed in a costume in a public library with adults present with parental consent is considered sexual under this ban. How? Well it is a guy dressed in what is thought to be the clothing of the female gender. A person dressed in the other genders clothing would defy or break the strict gender stereotypes from the 1950s that these people are desperately trying to regress the country back to.
This is the goal of the fundamentalist Christian nationalist that have taken over the Republican Party and controls the right, to return to the expected gender norms of the past, and to keep the strict gender roles of the past that they love. No men dressing like a woman or acting womanly, and the same in reverse, no woman dressing or acting manly. It basically outlaws trans people.
Read that last paragraph again please. It outlaws trans people. Next will be to remove the rights from gay people such as same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination laws. The goal as I keep repeating is to drive the country back to the society and social standards of the 1950s. Churches were automatically considered good (Christian churches only of course) and had automatic authority in society. White males were always in charge and could act is what ways they wished towards women and minorities. Women were second class to men and needed a man’s approval in most things and kept the home for the comfort of the man while raising the expected brood of children. Women couldn’t get a divorce without exceptional circumstances, and were stuck in marriages that they did not want and maybe being abused in. Blacks knew their place and kept themselves there. But most important to these people the LGBTQ+ had no rights, gays / lesbians / trans people were not seen or heard from, staying hidden while scared of being found out. When found out, the white males could make their life hell and face no negative consequences.
This is the society these people crave and have obsessively worked for decades. A place with no freedoms or civil rights except for white males, more for those who gave a glancing nod to the Christian church. Oppressive to everyone else, with no personal freedoms to live your life freely if you differed from the church doctrines strict norms and dress codes. For those that have said these laws won’t target cross-dressing and were for protecting kids from being sexualized are not true and never were. Great informative video, I strong hope you will all view it. Hugs
https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-race-ban-schools-4c4df1728f5265eee3684268035570c2
*** seriously this is a very important read to understand how the laws red states are enacting to restrict access to history, to black history, to LGBTQ+ protections, and to stop bullying are effecting the students. It is tragic. All for the white Chritian adults to be happy we are destroying the schooling and school years of minority kids. The artical is long and I couldn’t color it like I want to do, but it is super worth the read. Hugs ***
Oh for some reason my spell checker is refusing to work on these open tabs, so sorry about any thing I mispelled. Hugs
This is the republican fundamentalist Christian nationalist racist bigots right wants to happen. Cruelty is the goal, causing hurt and pain to anyone different from themselves. So disheartening. This made me ill to read, it is heart breaking that kids in 2023 have to go through the bigotry and hate that I did as a gay teen in 1970s. Us gay kids felt so alone and unable to find others like us. I now know that many kids at school were gay, but all of us were terrified to reach out to others or being found out. The lifelong damage that caused to me and so many other kids. The open bullying that was not stopped and even encouraged by homophobic conservative teachers. There was no safe space, no rainbow flags, nothing to read giving any insight to why I felt different. No positive role models or good gay characters in media to counter the hate coming from the religious right pushed hard by Anita Bryant with accusations of the most disgusting kinds. We cannot go back to those times; we must stop this regression somehow. Our elders were fighting for us then, putting their lives on the line to do so, we must do so again. As one student says in the article ““Taking away a whole group of people’s right to be who they are, that’s just like, this is a typical day. I think I was more scared that that was a reality than I was sad about the bill itself.”” On the errasing black history one student was forced to go outside the school to learn about the true history. Attending predominantly white schools means Harmony has had to go out of her way to learn about Black culture and history — often outside of school. That has shaped where she wants to go next. She’d like to attend a historically Black college and pledge a Black sorority. Hugs
NOLENSVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The first encounter with racism that Harmony Kennedy can remember came in elementary school. On a playground, a girl picked up a leaf and said she wanted to “clean the dirt” from Harmony’s skin.
In sixth grade, a boy dropped trash on the floor and told her to pick it up, “because you’re a slave.” She was stunned — no one had ever said anything like that to her before.
As protests for racial justice broke out in 2020, white students at her Tennessee high school kneeled in the hallways and chanted, “Black lives matter!” in mocking tones. As she saw the students receive light punishments, she grew increasingly frustrated.
So when Tennessee began passing legislation that could limit the discussion and teaching of Black history, gender identity and race in the classroom, to Harmony, it felt like a gut punch — as if the adults were signaling this kind of ignorant behavior was acceptable. The law was broad, but to her, the potential impact was crushing.
“When I heard they were removing African American history, banning LGBTQ, I almost started crying,” said Harmony, 16. “We’re not doing anything to anybody. Why do they care what we personally prefer, or what we look like?”
As conservative politicians and activists push for limits on discussions of race, gender and sexuality, some students say the measures targeting aspects of their identity have made them less welcome in American schools — the one place all kids are supposed to feel safe.
Some of the new restrictions have been championed by conservative state leaders and legislatures, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who say they are necessary to counter liberal influence in schools. Others have been pushed by local activists or school boards arguing teachers need more oversight to ensure classroom materials are appropriate.
Books have been pulled from libraries. Some schools have insisted on using the names transgender students had before they transitioned. And teachers wary of breaking new rules have shied from discussions related to race, gender and other politically sensitive topics, even as students say they desperately need to see their lived experiences reflected in the classroom.
Among them are a transgender student at a Pennsylvania school where teachers are directed to use students’ birth names, a bisexual student in Florida who sensed a withdrawal of adult support, and Harmony, a Black student outside Nashville alarmed by efforts to restrict lessons on Black history.
For these and other students of color and LGBTQ+ kids, it can feel like their very existence is being rejected.
‘NEUTRALITY’ POLICY MAKES SCHOOL FEEL LESS SAFE
In late 2020, during the pandemic school closures, Leo Burchell started using different pronouns, trying on new clothes and shorter hair. The changes felt right.
At school outside Philadelphia, Leo started telling teachers about using a different name and they/them pronouns, and the teachers were immediately accepting. A shift to using he/him pronouns followed.
“I changed my name to Leo, and for a while it was tough,” he said. “I told some of my friends. I told the people close to me, but I wasn’t ready to come out to everybody yet … and I had the space to do that in my own time.”
To tell his parents, Leo shared a poem he had written about his transition. He worried it would be hard for them, as parents who had always identified as “girl parents” to three daughters. His mom, dad, older and twin sister were all supportive.
Then, over the last year, the Central Bucks School District’s board barred staff from using students’ chosen names or pronouns without parental permission.
The board passed what it called a “neutrality” policy that bars social and political advocacy in classrooms — a measure opponents have seen as targeting Pride flags and other symbols teachers use to signal support for LGBTQ+ students. Reviews of the appropriateness of books have mostly targeted LGBTQ+ literature.
Each step felt like chipping away at the spaces that made Leo feel safe enough to explore his gender identity.
Across the district, parents and students told the board stories of slurs, hate speech and sometimes violence directed toward transgender children. But other adults pressed forward in their effort to restrict inclusion. During one board meeting when a transgender student was speaking, rather than listening, a group of parents whispered to each other. One adult audibly asked: “Is that a girl?”
One man told the school board transgender people posed a risk of violence in bathrooms. Leo expected another adult in the room to interrupt what felt to him like hate speech. No one did.
So at the next board meeting, Leo spoke up. “Attacking students based on who they are or who they love is wrong,” he said. Leo has spoken regularly at meetings since.
Leo worries about what school will be like for younger transgender students.
“I don’t want my friends to be misgendered and deadnamed every single day just because they don’t want to come out to their parents,” Leo said. “It really just breaks my heart to know that some of my friends, you know, might not want to go to school anymore.”
NEW FLORIDA LAWS ‘TOOK THE AIR OUT OF ME’
Jack Fitzgerald, a high school student in Broward County, Florida, came out to friends by accident at first.
At a book club meeting, he blurted out: “I don’t really like romance books unless they’re gay.” He hadn’t told anyone he was bisexual, but it came out easily in a place where he felt comfortable and safe.
Later, he would come out to his mother while watching television.
“So, I am bi,” he told her.
“And why are you telling me this?” she said. A lifelong conservative, his mother told him she had long known about his sexuality. It was not a problem.
The confidence and relief he felt led Jack to start his school’s gender and sexuality alliance club. Last year, as a junior, he led a school walkout to protest a new law that banned instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for kindergarten to third grade. The law, part of the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation pushed by DeSantis, was dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics and recently expanded to encompass all grades.
Jack was surprised by two things. Most students initially knew little about the bill. And once they learned about it, support for the walkout was overwhelming.
Teachers have been more cautious.
Jack remembers talking to his debate teacher about covering some controversial topics. “You have to realize, … teachers have families,” he told Jack, who took it as a comment on teachers worried about losing their jobs.
In another class, Jack recalls an environmental teacher told the class she could not answer a question during a discussion on climate change or she would be seen as “too woke.”
There also was a school board member, Debra Hixon, who won Jack’s admiration when she spoke last year at a town hall event for teens. Hixon, who became widely known after her husband was killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, expressed support for LGBTQ+ students.
“I think I even told my mom. I was like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to vote for her next time because she seems so impassioned, and she genuinely came across like she cared,’” he said.
When Jack asked her in April how the school district would react to the new laws, Hixon said they were going to comply with the law.
The response shocked Jack. He thought back to how the district had stood up to the DeSantis administration over COVID-19 policies like mask mandates. When it came to protecting LGBTQ+ students, it seemed, there was no appetite for defiance.
“They didn’t even try to act like they were going to try, you know?” he said. “And it was so disappointing. It really took the air out of me.”
Hixon said she felt badly that Jack had the impression she was not defending LGBTQ+ students.
“We have a lot of new laws to navigate, and I am still processing what they mean for our district, so I don’t want to overstep and say something that is incorrect or inappropriate,” she said. “I am more guarded with my responses, but I promise I will continue to defend our students to ensure they feel safe and welcome in our schools.”
AFTER SPEAKING UP, SOME STUDENTS FACE BACKLASH
In Harmony’s freshman-year English class, a boy started playing with his mask and joked, “I can’t breathe, just like George Floyd,” Harmony recalled.
“I was really upset. And I called him out on it. And I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? Someone died,’” she said.
She told her teacher, who said she was sorry it happened but there was not much she could do. Nothing happened to the boy, Harmony said.
To be a Black student in this environment, and to see efforts to minimize the teaching of Black history, Harmony said, is a reminder of why it’s important that a full version of history is taught. A law passed by Tennessee in 2021 banned schools from teaching several concepts on race and racism, leading many teachers to avoid discussions related to race.
“If people are taking this out of schools, it’s making the ignorance go on, because they’re not understanding the pain and agony we have to go through,” she said.
The incident led Harmony to join the Forward Club, which works to promote cultural and racial inclusion t her predominantly white high school. The club’s members come from a diverse array of backgrounds — including the children of some adults who have disparaged the group.
At times, students who speak out against new policies have been targeted for harassment. In Williamson County, Tennessee, where Harmony goes to school, a political action committee accused another high school’s Black student union of promoting segregation. The PAC posted the time and place of the student group’s meeting on social media. Elsewhere, trans and nonbinary students who have spoken up about bullying have faced only more insults on social media.
For some, the hostility can be exhausting. Milana Kumar, a rising senior in Collierville, Tennessee, who is genderqueer, is comfortable with their identity among friends. But it’s not a conversation they bring up at school, where they said teachers and other students often do not respect chosen pronouns.
“I’ve never tried to navigate that, I think just as a response to save myself from a lot of hurt that would happen,” Milana said.
Recently, Tennessee passed a bill that would protect teachers from discipline or other consequences if they misgender their students. At the time, Milana was at the Capitol testifying on other legislation. She thought about how routine a day it was.
“Taking away a whole group of people’s right to be who they are, that’s just like, this is a typical day. I think I was more scared that that was a reality than I was sad about the bill itself.”
Attending predominantly white schools means Harmony has had to go out of her way to learn about Black culture and history — often outside of school. That has shaped where she wants to go next. She’d like to attend a historically Black college and pledge a Black sorority.
What Harmony wants, ultimately, is to be able to go to school like any other teenager and focus on learning. To go to a football game without hearing racial slurs. To stand up for herself without being seen as an aggressor.
Meantime, it’s something she’ll continue to speak up for.
“My sister is going to be an incoming freshman this year, and I want her to have a safe learning environment where she doesn’t have to really deal with all the ignorance and things,” she said. “I want her to be able to enjoy high school.”
___
The Associated Press’ reporting around issues of race and ethnicity is supported in part by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A shorter version of my last post on this subject, it has less of the information but a quicker read. I know some of my viewers don’t like long articles and I agree with that most times, but occasionally there are times when it is important to read all the information to understand everything being discussed. Hugs
Notice in the second paragraph they misuse and twist words. The job of the lawer sending the letters threatening schools is to now vice president of corporate engagement, responsible for “efforts to combat corporate cancel culture.” but the one doing the canceling is these very people. They want to cancel any support of the LGBTQ+, pride, trans people, or anything not fundmentlist religous views of gender and sex. They want to cancel the advances in civil rights and social acceptance trying to regress the country back to 1950s. Notice that the person they use to testify has been told repeatedly he doesn’t quailfy as an expert. This is entirely a religously driven orginaztion claiming to be a medical group using a simular name to the real child medicat group to cause confusion. Notice the group was started due to bigotry over gay people adopting. The report below exposes how religous views of sex, bigology, gender, and the desire to regress or prevent socail progress enlisted other religous bigots to make fake medical reports, fake medical claims based on their beleifs rather than medical science. In some cases they lied about what real medical studies data showed to make the very opposite claim to harm the LGBTQ+ / trans kids. There is much more in this longish story. This has take two days to color and accent. Sorry for the delay but wordpress has made it a lot harder to use the Classic editor as I use to use to post. Hugs
Documents left public on a Google Drive by anti-LGBTQ+ hate group American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), first reported by WIRED, reveal nearly a decade of coordination between ACPeds and another hate group, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), to shore up anti-trans policy efforts and legal arguments with bespoke research.
Between Sept. 30 and Dec. 1, 2014, ADF sent letters to school boards in Minnesota, Rhode Island, Virginia and Wisconsin warning that they could be open to litigation for policies allowing transgender students to use appropriate facilities such as bathrooms and locker rooms. On Dec. 5, 2014, ADF sent an email with a similar message to school superintendents across the U.S. The letters and emails were signed by Jeremy D. Tedesco, then senior counsel at ADF, now vice president of corporate engagement, responsible for “efforts to combat corporate cancel culture.”
Alan Sears at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Sept. 9, 2016. (Photo by Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire/Alamy Live News)
In a November 2014 blog post decrying a transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance in Houston, Texas, then-ADF president Alan Sears highlighted the letters and ADF’s campaign against LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination protections. Sears also repeated an anti-LGBTQ+ trope claiming that nondiscrimination protections put children at risk and the “safety implications” of LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination laws “are so obvious as to hardly need elaboration.”
The only problem for Sears and Tedesco was a lack of evidence to support their claims; and, to make the claims stick, someone needed to elaborate. A new trove of internal documents from the American College of Pediatricians suggests ADF turned to the group known to traffic in anti-LGBTQ+ “junk science” to “substantiate” many of its anti-LGBTQ+ talking points and provide medical justification for interpreting Title IX to exclude gender-identity protections. Together, the documents offer insight into how the groups manufactured legislative, legal and public relations challenges to medical science and public policy throughout the 2010s that have resulted in a rollback of abortion rights and nearly unprecedented restrictions on bodily autonomy in the U.S.
ACPeds did not respond to a emailed request for comment on Hatewatch’s findings.
Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 is a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. Restricting the interpretation of “sex-based discrimination” to apply only to straight, cisgender students has been one of the anti-LGBTQ+ movement’s longstanding goals. As trans visibility has increased, hate groups have argued, without evidence, that trans people pose a threat to women and girls, and that trans-inclusive nondiscrimination protections under Title IX jeopardize the safety of cisgender girls in particular.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jeremy Tedesco announces the group’s intent to file a lawsuit against the federal government over its agreement on locker room access for a transgender student on May 4, 2016. (Photo by Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune/TNS/Alamy Live News)
Before he sent the letters, Tedesco seemed to recognize the lack of scientific evidence supporting ADF’s arguments against LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination laws, according to documents Hatewatch reviewed. Metadata associated with one document, a copy of an email titled “Transgender Research Requests,” suggests the file originated with “JTEDESCO” at “ADF” on Aug. 11, 2014.
The message is addressed to Dr. Michelle Cretella, ACPeds’ executive director until 2021, and two others. It appears to be a follow-up to a previous call between Tedesco and the email recipients. The email asks for ACPeds to provide ADF with “white papers” on five topics related to LGBTQ+ children and healthcare. White papers are research reports that convey subject matter expertise, but are also used as marketing tools by corporations. The document from ADF to ACPeds even instructs the junk science organization on specifics, citing a 2013 Heritage Foundation article by Ryan Anderson arguing against same-sex marriage as an example of the “type of paper we have in mind.”
ACPeds has a reputation within the anti-LGBTQ+ movement as an organization that attempts to obscure its anti-LGBTQ+ ideology and its connection to the religious right using medical pseudoscience. ACPeds was founded in 2002 after about 60 members broke away from the 60,000+ member medical association the American Academy of Pediatrics over its support for adoption by same-sex couples. ACPeds is now led by Jill Simons and reports more than 600 members, although the group allows members who are not physicians.
The group claims to be above the influence of “the politically driven pronouncements of the day,” but the circumstances of ACPeds’ founding and its entrenchment within anti-LGBTQ+ policy networks make clear its primary purpose – to restrict LGBTQ+ rights. For example, an earlier document leak in 2023 that exposed emails between South Dakota, Idaho and Florida lawmakers and a network of anti-LGBTQ+ activists showed the influence of the group’s former president Dr. Quentin Van Meter, Cretella and the co-chair of ACPeds’ Committee on Adolescent Sexuality, Dr. Andre Van Mol, on the development and adoption of legislation banning gender-affirming healthcare across the country between 2018 and 2020.
A recent report by Kit O’Connell and Steven Monacelli at the Texas Observer details ACPeds’ admiration for conservative megadonor Monty Bennett’s successful campaign to shut down the Gender Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) program at Children’s Medical Center Dallas in late 2021 because the hospital provides gender-affirming care.
The new documents seem to confirm the national reach of ACPeds and its focus on restricting LGBTQ+ rights. In a Jan. 21, 2020, board conference call, the group discussed so-called “Vulnerable Child Protection Acts” that ban gender-affirming healthcare for young people, noting the laws were “drafted by ADF [Alliance Defending Freedom]/LC [Liberty Counsel] & ACPeds” and “are being introduced around the country.” The minutes indicate that to that point, “ACPeds members have been recruited to testify on behalf of these bills in GA, AL, KY and OH.”
Dr. Michelle Cretella, executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, speaks at the 2018 Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 22, 2018. (Photo by Susan Walsh/AP)
The trove of internal documents also shows the group’s leadership has, for years, disregarded questions about its credibility, and even Cretella’s own qualifications for treating transgender people, in favor of anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy. In an email from Cretella dated Aug. 28, 2017, the former executive director says, “In the past I’ve been told by lawyers on our side that I do not qualify as an expert witness because I am not an academic and do not have experience caring for children with gender identity disorder.” The same year, Cretella authored dozens of letters to elected officials opposing gender-affirming healthcare and LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination policies.
In 2020, then-ACPeds president Quentin Van Meter was “discredited as an expert” on hormone treatment in a Texas court, but regularly appears before state lawmakers advocating against gender-affirming healthcare. ACPeds also regularly issues policy statements, amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs, domestically and internationally, and promotes appearances by its leadership in conservative media, disguising itself as a medical authority while spreading anti-LGBTQ+ “junk science.”
In 2017, Hatewatch reported on ADF’s “stable” of purported “expert” witnesses, including Dr. Paul Hruz and Dr. Allan Josephson, who were called to help defend discrimination against transgender students. Although both hold medical degrees, Hruz and Josephson were at odds with their professional organizations’ official positions on gender-affirming care and, like Cretella, reported never treating patients with gender dysphoria. What the witnesses held in common were anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs and a relationship to ADF, who sponsored a conference where the two met.
The new documents suggest that ADF’s recruitment of dubious “experts” began earlier than previously reported and, to an extent, anticipated the fight to interpret Title IX to include protections for transgender students. The documents also show that ACPeds appears to have recognized the request and eventually responded with a public statement and letter-writing campaign of its own, following ADF’s lead on messaging. Importantly, ACPeds purportedly offered a medical justification for an exclusionary interpretation of Title IX in accordance with ADF’s request.
In the 2014 “Transgender Research Request” message, ADF asks ACPeds for several policy statements that “substantiate” the claim that “psychological harm” especially “befall[s] girls/women” when their “privacy” is “invaded by males,” and “substantiate” the idea that being transgender is a “phase” and that “interpreting this common stage as gender identity confusion warrants treating a child as the opposite sex … and pursuing more drastic measures like … genital change surgery.”
The request is consistent with both ADF’s anti-trans political messaging at the time and its legal needs. In addition to leading a case brought by some conservative ministers campaigning against a trans-inclusive nondiscrimination law in Houston, Texas, ADF was leading the charge against gender-inclusive school nondiscrimination policies, helping challenge one as early as 2013. ADF attorneys would go on to testify and file amicus briefs, and ADF would file its own cases against LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination laws in public school districts throughout 2015-17. ADF would also author model legislation banning trans students from school sports in dozens of states.
Reflecting this context and ADF’s impending letters to school districts warning of potential litigation, the research requests asks if there is “any way to get the papers completed … by mid-November” [2014], but it would be “even better” if they could be done earlier.
The request also foreshadowed the direction of ADF’s legislative and legal strategy when it asked for policy statements to “substantiate” the claim that it is “inappropriate” and “could have harms” to treat gender dysphoria in children with affirmation, and caregivers should instead ignore it as “a phase.” A document from a professional organization that reaches these conclusions, the request suggests, would help ADF “make the point that interpreting Title IX to include protections for ‘gender identity’ [sic] will harm girls.”
Throughout 2015 and 2016, ADF continued to send letters to and testify before local school districts warning “no court” had interpreted Title IX to include gender identity, and that school districts with nondiscrimination policies that included gender identity could open themselves to litigation. The group also took on clients to challenge local school districts’ adoption of trans-inclusive policies and challenged the Obama administration’s guidance for schools that included gender-identity protections under Title IX after it was announced in May 2016.
A review of ACPeds executive committee meeting minutes shows that at the fall 2014 board meeting, held Oct. 3-4 in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Cretella was assigned an “action item” to “cooperate with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) on joint statement concerning transgender use of restrooms in schools.” A statement titled “Sex-Segregated Bathroom and Locker Room Access is Best for Children” eventually appeared on ACPeds’ website in the spring of 2016.
In the short statement, however, ACPeds offered no medical evidence for why transgender people should be barred from using bathrooms that match their gender identity.
At the February 2016 board meeting in Houston, Texas, the minutes note the organization sent letters and a fact sheet about gender dysphoria to state legislatures, school districts and “several grassroots organizations” in Alabama, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Virginia.
In a publicly available version of a letter titled “A Medical Response to DOE & DOJ Guidance for Schools” and dated after the Obama administration issued Title IX guidance, Cretella cites ACPeds founder Dr. Kenneth Zucker and controversial sexologist J. Michael Bailey to argue that neither gender-affirming care nor claiming “gender identity is the equivalent of sex as codified in Title IX” have any “basis in science.” “Human sexuality is binary by design,” the letter claims, while “all medically identifiable deviations from the sexual binary norm … are rightly recognized as disorders of human design.” Gender identity, ACPeds insists, does not “comprise a third sex” and is, therefore, not protected under Title IX.
One case, known as Doe v. Boyertown Area School District, illustrates how ADF’s request for research and ACPeds’ production of that research are packaged as part of ADF’s legal campaign against LGBTQ+ rights. The Boyertown case began in August 2016, when ‘Joel Doe’ started high school in the Boyertown, Pennsylvania, school district. Because the district previously adopted a “narrow” policy – consistent with recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics – to allow trans students to use restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity, ADF and the Independence Law Center filed suit on behalf of Doe to block the policy.
Among other claims, ADF’s suit argued that Title IX “explicitly emphasizes the binary view of sex, not ‘gender identity,’ [sic] which is nonbinary” to support its assertion that Title IX should not be interpreted to protect trans students. ADF lost the case, although the group appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to review a lower court ruling, leaving the policy in place.
As the case made its way to the Supreme Court, ACPeds leaders including Van Meter and Van Mol filed an amicus brief in support of Doe and ADF’s legal theory. The brief cites other ACPeds leaders including Cretella and Zucker and claims “gender affirming policies generally harm, rather than help, gender dysphoric children.” The brief repeats characterizations from ADF’s 2014 request by equating transgender identity to “a bit of play-acting,” claiming that transgender people are “impersonating” the opposite sex, and insinuating that nondiscrimination policies will result in a rash of transgender kids pursuing “drastic medical courses” like “surgical interventions.”
Van Meter and Van Mol’s 2018 amicus brief was filed by attorney Parker Douglas, who worked with ADF in 2018 on the R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes case, which sought to end employment discrimination protections for transgender people. Other court records show Douglas was later employed directly by ADF. Minutes from the ACPeds April 2019 board meeting confirm the brief, and a separate brief in the case of Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County (Florida), were filed as part of ADF’s and ACPeds’ campaign “against pro-transgender bathroom, locker room, and sports policy.”
Not long after ACPeds issued its public affirmation of “sex-segregated bathrooms,” in August 2016, the group issued a policy statement titled “Gender Dysphoria in Children” and an accompanying blog post claiming that “gender ideology harms children.” Neither the policy statement nor the blog post mention Title IX. However, they use language about binary gender identity and threats of surgical escalation that is similar to ACPeds’ previous school board letter.
Policy statements and amicus briefs are major tools used by ACPeds in their campaign to co-op the language of science to promote anti-LGBTQ+ ideology. On its website, ACPeds currently lists 66 policy statements and nearly three dozen amicus curiae briefs it filed, some with the help of the anti-LGBTQ+ groups Liberty Counsel and ADF, in cases opposing same-sex adoption and marriage, a case brought by ADF that argues professors have a constitutional right to misgender students, and other cases opposing abortion and nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students in public schools.
ACPeds compares its practice of producing policy statements to the American Academy of Pediatrics, saying both groups “employ similar first steps in producing a policy.” Although the American Academy of Pediatrics notes their policy statements are rigorously reviewed, including an evidentiary review and submission to multiple groups of peer reviewers before being weighed by the group’s board,
ACPeds’ process includes only evaluation by a “small committee” known internally as the Scientific Policy Committee. Then, provided three-quarters of the ACPeds “executive committee” supports a statement, it is “passed and published.”
Whereas the group’s policy statements receive at least a nominal committee review, journalists Madison Pauly and Emma Rindlisbacher previously reported that amicus briefs were typically the sole purview of the former executive director, Michelle Cretella. Others have reported that under scientific scrutiny,
ACPeds’ amicus briefs have been called into question for mischaracterizing scientific findings and cherry-picking data to fit conservative, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion narratives.
The documents reviewed by Hatewatch also suggest that ACPeds understood that ADF was willing to subsidize its anti-LGBTQ+ policy advocacy, giving ACPeds a potential financial motive for complying with ADF’s anti-trans research requests. Minutes from the spring 2019 board meeting and executive committee conference calls show Cretella met with a senior attorney at ADF to solicit a $15,000 grant for a “white paper” that “refutes” the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care 7 – a document that provides best practices for treating trans and gender non-conforming patients. The minutes suggest that ACPeds knew the white paper could be used in future ADF litigation and that ADF was “willing to fund” the project.
ADF continues its efforts to challenge inclusive education practices as well as trans-inclusive school sports, gender-affirming healthcare, and abortion rights. ACPeds continues to help. In June 2019, the ACPeds executive board entertained a request for an amicus brief from ADF supporting the claim that “sex is innate and immutable.” The minutes show the request would overlap with a position paper, authored by Cretella and ACPeds’ current president Michael Artigues, titled “Sex is a Biological Trait of Medical Significance.” In 2020, Notre Dame law professor Gerard Bradley filed an amicus brief for ACPeds in an ADF case called Meriwether v. Trustees of Shawnee State University , which discusses the importance of “sex” to medical science.
Both Artigues’ position paper and the brief use language directly from ADF’s request, as recounted in the 2019 conference call, to argue that unlike sex, gender identity is not “innate” and “immutable.” In its brief, ACPeds argues a pseudoscientific case in support of ADF’s client by claiming gender identity is an ideological “flight from reality” that “threaten[s] the integrity of science and medicine.” ADF subsequently won the case.
Similarly, in 2021, ADF filed a lawsuit on behalf of ACPeds against Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, using the same incendiary clams that gender affirmation will lead to “drastic” escalations in medical care that ADF first requested of ACPeds in 2014. Namely, the suit claims the department’s interpretation of nondiscrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act “require gender transition … surgeries and drugs on demand, even for children, no matter a doctor’s medical judgment.” A federal district court in Tennessee dismissed the case in November 2022. ADF filed a notice of appeal in January.
Photo illustration by SPLC (L-R Alan Sears, Jeremy Tedesco and Michelle Cretella)
This is more information on the LA school board meeting that the enforcement arm of the right, the maga brownshirt gang thugs the right uses to terrorize the LGBTQ+ community along with other minorities. As I wrote in a reply to Roger, the maga brownshirts gangs don’t want any mention of the LGBTQ+ or pride. They don’t mind using violence and harming those that they disagree with, including trying to intimidate the board members by releasing their names with an implied threat. These people won’t be happy until every gay, trans, lesbian, or not straight cis person is removed from public view and society. They want the LGBTQ+ people hiding and scared to be outed. They want the Russia / Uganda laws against the LGBTQ+ community fully active and enforced today in the US, and they started this by claiming it was just to protect the kids same as those countries did. As if just the existence of gays or trans people are a threat to children somehow, many who are gay or trans themselves. Just being alive is a threat in their world view. Sound familiar? I remember some other country who had gangs that tried to remove a segment of the population and force them into hiding by violence and harm. Now a Fox host Jessie Waters is attacking Furries as sexualizing children just like the gays, trans, drag queens, and pride signs with rainbows. Why? Because they are looking and dressing different and having fun doing dress up. That is a fundamentalist religious person’s nightmare. They dread the idea that somewhere someone is having fun and being happy. They cannot tolerate that, the idea that someone is allowed to be different and happy. They think their god doesn’t want happy people who are doing their own thing, their god wants unhappy people who live their lives under strict codes that eliminates any free thought or acting different than the church doctrines. Hugs
The Los Angeles Times reports:
Three people were arrested Tuesday at protests held outside a meeting of the Glendale Unified School District board, where pro-and anti-LGBTQ+ demonstrators faced off over how schools teach gender and sexuality.
Law enforcement declared an unlawful assembly after fighting broke out outside the building, officials said. The situation temporarily disrupted the meeting, which was about an hour into public comments on an agenda item calling for recognition of June as Pride Month — which board members unanimously approved late in the evening.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of protesters had swarmed outside the building, some waving American flags and others waving Pride flags, with many documenting the scene with their smartphones. Those who were protesting the board’s LGBTQ+ policies chanted, “Leave our kids alone” while naming each of the five members of the board.
Los Angeles’s NBC affiliate reports:
Large barricades set up by Glendale Police to control crowds were seen containing hundreds of demonstrators outside of the Glendale Unified School District headquarters.
A dispersal order was issued around 6:15 p.m. as police were heard using a loudspeaker to order the crowds’ removal, declaring an unlawful assembly. A large barricade was placed in the middle of the parking lot, separating the two contentious groups.
While most of the protest remained peaceful, police said a “small group of individuals engaged in behavior deemed unsafe and a risk to public safety.” Officers were also heard saying they would not hesitate to use a chemical agent against the crowds.
Los Angeles’s ABC affiliate reports:
Footage from AIR7 HD captured the chaos as punches were thrown in the parking lot. After the skirmishes, police in riot gear kept pro-LGBTQ+ protesters and conservative groups separated. Three people were arrested for various charges, including allegedly using pepper spray and obstructing officers, according to the Glendale Police Department. Close to 500 people showed up at the protest at GUSD headquarters.
“While most of the protest was peaceful, a small group of individuals engaged in behavior deemed unsafe and a risk to public safety,” police said in a statement. A dispersal order was given just after 6 p.m. and additional police resources were requested “to ensure the safety of the Glendale community would not be compromised.” Board members later unanimously adopted the resolution to declare June as Pride Month.
You can count on it: This is coming soon to wherever you live.
Be prepared to stand against the hatemongers. We must, we absolutely must.
Welcome to Facebook Terrorism.
Check the background of those who chant “Leave our kids alone”. Chances are they are the one who are doing unimaginable things to their children and other people’s children. Also they are probably the ones who won’t leave the women bodies alone.
They probably don’t even have kids and just get off on being an agitator
Paid to show up.
They’re very careful not saying it, but my money is on the bigots using pepper spray and getting arrested…
Maybe. But don’t forget the cops might be on the side of the bigots.
The proper response was for the board to ignore “Meal Team 6” and the “Gravy Seals” agitation and go forward with declaring Pride Month. Ironically, all these Qtards did was reemphasize why Pride month declarations are necessary.
If any of the protesters are non-parents of kids in the school system it’s fair to assume they have travelled from elsewhere with the express purpose of causing trouble. There should be an extra charge brought against them.
There are Professional Trouble makers that make the rounds. The threat that close our local school months ago over a Satan Club here in Pennsylvania, came fro North Carolina.
All of this over pronouns?
Really?
You life is so well organized and so successful that this is what you decide to take a stand on?
Grow up.
Their new tactic seems to be the same as their old tactic. Equating us with child molesters seems to be their go to.
Now we have a new twist though. Apparently a declaration of pride is the same as teaching kids the mechanics of anal sex. This is the argument I’m getting from the idiots on the MSN boards. While I enjoy fucking other guys up the ass, we all know that being gay doesn’t immediately mean that all of us participate in that act. It also doesn’t mean that Pride is inherently sexual, nor is it a seminar of sexual instruction.
Pride has its own unique meaning to all of us, but for me, it means I can be proud of the person I am. I don’t have to feel ashamed of myself, which is the primary message of religion and society when it regards homosexuality. I don’t have to be ashamed of the people I love.
It says more about the other side that they are against pride than it says about me for being for it.
As usual conservatives are disgustingly void of empathy. It seems to be a requirement for membership in that group.
Psst. During the whole Purity Ring thing…they discovered anal sex.
They also discovered oral sex! O…M…G!
And this is what happens when homophobic MIS-information is shoveled out as fact. I doubt there is a teacher anywhere in the world that is making sexual preference or gender identity a part of their 3rd grade lesson plans – but the right wingers will use that to push their theo-facist agenda.
yes, the kids aren’t alright.
“Today we will be learning the times tables and how gays have sex in the butt since there is no vagina involved. I will also be handing out the Pride issue of Highlights where you should look at Goofus and Gallant, because who don’t like a bad boy once in a while?”
If it hasn’t been mentioned, this is the same group of antis who spearheaded last week’s Saticoy Elementary School protest against anything LGBT. Quite near by but different city, different school district, same Christians and Armenians plus the same t-shirts. Way to close to where I live. All over the Glendale School Board issuing a Pride month proclamation same as they have done for past 5 years. Now it’s all about grooming and how mentioning 2 moms or 2 dads is only about sexualizing children.
They are quickly getting bolder. I am a pessimist in how this ends. Fascism is rising faster and harder than any of us would have imagined 5 years ago when it felt like we were achieving positive acceptance and the hate group would have to grudgingly move on. It turns out that those who stoke their base instincts weren’t moving on at all. They weaponize the hate for financial gain in the fringe and social media.
Fascism has arisen at the same rate as Dominionism has taken charge of the GQP:
Scottie's Playtime 