Jill has again showed us an important voice that we should hear. I know a lot of people that come here also go to Jill’s blog, but in case anyone missed it, please go to her site and read it. Thanks. Hugs
Please tell me again how teachers are groomers? Please tell me how books and movies with LGBTQIA characters are sexualizing lids? This guy is showing drawings of a penis complete with hairy balls and sperm droplets labeled my kids, to 12 or 13 year old kids and had to break the rules / laws to get his truck as close to them as possible. Think about this, a teacher can not have a rainbow sticker in the classroom or on the door because of these people, yet this upstanding member of the Republican Party who was a GOP leader can not only show kids dick drawings but take their pictures next to it! WTF. It is a game to these people, they don’t believe it in any way harms kids, in fact they support little girls being forced to marry older men and be forced to have babies. It is all about enraging the base and removing the LGBTQIA from the public, from society. Hugs
Ron Hedlund displayed a massive penis sign with the words, “Biden Sucks” written across it at a youth baseball game at RF&P Park in Henrico County, Virginia.
In a video captured at the event, Hedlund, who is listed as a Virginia GOP Central Committee Representative defended his sign after a community member said it was inappropriate because there were children present.
The man also had a “Fuck Biden” inflatable “air dancer” sign in the back of his pick up truck parked near the field. Hedlund celebrated and posted videos of teenage boys taking selfies with his massive penis sign at the park.
Capitol Police detain two men at the Virginia War Memorial’s Veterans Day ceremony in Richmond. On Nov. 11 after 11 a.m. when the ceremony began, officers noticed a man driving over a sidewalk and around barricades on 2nd Street.
The driver then stopped at the base of the amphitheater, which was blocked off due to the ceremony, with a ‘F*** Biden’ sign in the bed of his truck.
Police say the sign was ‘highly visible’ to the crowd at the ceremony. Members of the Capitol Police approached him and asked him to move. The man was identified as Ronald Hedlund, 60, of Glen Allen. Hedlund refused to move.
Hedlund, who also goes by “Ron Benghazi,” has a YouTube channel full of confrontations with the police. And of course, he has a money beg on the Christian site GiveSendGo:
Living in a free society comes with much responsibility and blood, sweat and tears. It also may involve numerous legal battles as corrupt local governments seek to usurp our rights many take for granted. I have been unlawfully arrested at the Virginia Capitol.
That charge was dropped after hiring an attorney for $2500. I have been charged with loitering and that charge was dropped, as well, after representing myself. Currently, I have been served a Protective Order that required hiring an attorney at $1500 and resulted in a 2 year Permanent Protective Order.
I now find myself needing another $2500 to appeal this travesty of justice whereby I will lose all my firearms for a period of two years unless I am able to overturn this legally unsupported Order. This Order is the result of citizens legally exercising our First and Second Amendement rights on public property in spite of objections of the Henrico County Manager.
Virginia GOP Official Displays 16 Foot Penis Sign at Youth Baseball Game to Protest Wokehttps://t.co/ZaOw9rtn9S
Used in a sentence: "Virginia GOP Central Committee Representative, Ron Hedlund, has teenage boys hold a sign of a giant penis at a youth baseball game. Ron is a text book definition of a groomer." pic.twitter.com/xmtatcMznO
Does the penis at the ballfield bother you, or no, it's okay b/c that book exists? It was also at a playground and other places around town. This is a Virginia GOP Rep doing this. pic.twitter.com/hJx6IjTaAf
We saw nothing on the local news either. BlueVirginia labels them the Gross Old Perverts party – but if not for Bitecofer, Kristol, Meidas, it wouldn’t get covered. Crickets from the Gov. https://bluevirginia.us/202…
Of course they are. Another attempt at establishing extra rights to discriminate and be above any laws Christians don’t like. “We don’t have to follow laws because of our god special rights”. But we still deserve to not pay taxes and still get taxpayer money from the state because again we are most special because of our god. Pay us to discriminate against taxpayers. Because hate and bigotry are more important than inclusion. Way to spread Chritistan love and the message of Christ. Hugs
State’s non-discrimination requirements “directly conflict with St. Mary’s, St. Bernadette’s, and the Archdiocese’s religious beliefs,” the lawsuit says.
AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post
In this file photograph Archbishop Samuel Aquila speaks during a press conference to address sexual abuse in the Catholic church on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019.
The Denver Catholic Archdiocese along with two of its parishes is suing the state alleging their First Amendment rights are violated because their desire to exclude LGBTQ parents, staff and kids from Archdiocesan preschools keeps them from participating in Colorado’s new universal preschool program.
The program is intended to provide every child 15 hours per week of state-funded preschool in the year before they are eligible for kindergarten. To be eligible, though, schools must meet the state’s non-discrimination requirements.
The Denver Archdiocese, St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton and St. Bernadette Catholic Parish in Lakewood filed suit against Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, and Dawn Odean, director of Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program, on Wednesday.
The Denver Archdiocese and the Colorado Department of Early Childhood could not immediately be reached for comment.
“The Department is purporting to require all preschool providers to accept any applicant without regard to a student or family’s religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity, and to prohibit schools from “discriminat[ing] against any person” on the same bases,” the lawsuit said. “These requirements directly conflict with St. Mary’s, St. Bernadette’s, and the Archdiocese’s religious beliefs and their religious obligations as entities that carry out the Catholic Church’s mission of Catholic education in northern Colorado.”
The Denver Archdiocese said in the suit they do not believe adhering to their religious beliefs against accepting LGBTQ people qualifies as discrimination. The Denver Post published written guidance last year issued by the Denver Archdiocese to its Catholic schools on the handling of LGBTQ issues, including telling administrators not to enroll or re-enroll transgender or gender non-conforming students and explaining that gay parents should be treated differently than heterosexual couples.
The lawsuit said St. Mary’s and St. Bernadette’s each require their preschool staff sign annual Archdiocese-approved employment contracts affirming that staff abide by traditional Catholic teachings on life, sexuality and marriage. They require parents who send their kids to their preschools “to understand and accept the community’s worldview and convictions regarding Catholic moral issues like life, marriage, and human sexuality,” the lawsuit said.
The Denver Archdiocese argues in the lawsuit that the state has “cornered the market” for preschool services by providing universal funding and any preschool providers who don’t participate will be “severely disadvantaged” and forced to charge “significantly” higher fees, disadvantaging low-income families whose children attend Archdiocesan schools.
“Colorado did not have to create a universal preschool funding program, but in doing so it cannot implement that program in a way that excludes certain religious groups and providers based on their sincerely held religious beliefs,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said enrolling children with gay parents into an Archdiocesan school “is likely to lead to intractable conflicts” because a “Catholic school cannot treat a same-sex couple as a family equivalent to the natural family without compromising its mission and Catholic identity.”
The lawsuit is seeking a jury trial and for the state to reverse its decision and allow the Denver Archdiocese to participate in the universal preschool program while giving them the ability to exclude LGBTQ students, staff and parents from their schools.
Blacks don’t deserve a group just to help them the right believes. Notice a white support group wouldn’t have to change their name. But it is part of the push to keep and enshrine a dwindling white majority rule in the US. Seriously this has to be stopped, it is again a resurgence of the confederate south. As one student said. “Trying to erase things that we’ve been through that we had to deal with to get to where we are now is just trying to water down the things that we’ve done,” Wiggins said. “I think our history is very important.” Hugs
Patrick Sternad
WFSU Public Media
Exterior of Computer Technology and Workplace Development buildings at Tallahassee Community College. ———————————————————————————— The Black Male Achievers at Tallahassee Community College might have to change its name or risk losing state and federal funding under a new Florida law.
A student organization that serves African-American men who attend Tallahassee Community College might have to change its name or risk losing funding under a new Florida law.
Tyler Soto, a student at TCC, is a member of Black Male Achievers. He says they’re working out possible new names, such as “Male Achievers” or “Scholar Male Achievers.”
“We’re going to have to change the name of our organization or they’re going to defund it because it has ‘Black’ in front of it.”
A new law prohibits student-led organizations that “advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion” and other social and political causes from receiving state or federal funding. While those organizations aren’t banned outright, they may only receive funding from student-activity fees under the new law.
That has him and his classmates concerned as they get ready to return to campus this month, Soto said.
Soto, who’s also a member of TCC’s Student Government Association, says changes like these only encourage him to get more involved in the political process.
“It has made me want to step up and be the change.”
Soto’s classmate Denzel Wiggins is also a member of SGA and the Black Male Achievers.
“I don’t think we should have to change our name because obviously it’s for the Black community, so I’m not a fan.”
Wiggins says he’s also not happy about the Stop Woke Act, which restricts the way race is taught in college and university classrooms. That law is the driver behind the state’s controversial new African American history standards in K-12 schools.
“Trying to erase things that we’ve been through that we had to deal with to get to where we are now is just trying to water down the things that we’ve done,” Wiggins said. “I think our history is very important.”
Clarification: WFSU News reached out to TCC by phone and email before the story published on Friday.
TCC says that it had no conversations with members of the Black Male Achievers about having to change the organization’s name.
A spokesperson emailed WFSU News the following statement on Wednesday:
“BMA provides academic support and student services to help underrepresented populations, like minority males, persist and graduate. As with all TCC clubs, orgs and programs, membership into BMA is open to any and all currently-registered students.”
This part of the plan to wipe out the LGBTQIA from society, from public view. Because if you can not see us, we won’t exist. But they can put crosses and churches on every street. It seems strange to me that in Texas which is a state that is already minority majority with whites staying in political power by the dirty tricks of voter suppression and gerrymandering. Suppressing the brown people’s votes as much as possible. So here are a bunch of white cis men trying to remain the most powerful group by outlawing and banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at public higher education institutions. Hugs
Jamie Gonzales, a former program coordinator at the University of Houston’s LGBTQ Resource Center, hasn’t slept well ever since she heard that the center will be disbanded in accordance with Senate Bill 17, a law banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at public higher education institutions.
Although she knew the closure was coming after the bill passed in April in the Texas Senate, she still found herself emotionally ill-prepared to grapple with the reality: an end of an era for a place that served as a beacon of acceptance, safety and support for thousands of queer “Coogs,” as UH students often call themselves.
“There were a lot of special moments held in that space,” said Gonzales while crying during a phone interview this week. Before Thursday, the effect of the law at UH was unclear to many students, alumni and faculty. But all that changed last week when students noticed a flyer taped to the door of the center that read, “In Accordance with Texas Senate Bill 17, the LGBTQ Resource Center has been disbanded.”
The law’s author, Sen. Brandon Creighton [photo], is also behind his state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill for public schools. Creighton first appeared on JMG in 2019 for his bill seeking to overturn LGBTQ protections enacted by Texas cities. In March 2023, he appeared here for his bill that would deny the prospect of tenure to newly-hired university professors. Creighton has spearheaded the Texas campaign to protect Confederate monuments.
many years ago I was a student at Northern IL university and during this time I was confused and questioning my sexuality. I found out there was a small office for Gay and Lesbian folk so I went and had an interesting and worthwhile discussion with a wonderful lesbian who shared her story with me. i still remained in the closet for a few more years but I have never forgotten what she told me, in her own way she helped me come out some years later. I still wonder what if I had not gone to that office that day,.
It’s an amazing feeling when you first realize you aren’t the only one in the world. I’m not gay, just an ally but I went through a somewhat similar experience when I first found out I wasn’t the only atheist in the world. I didn’t even know there was a word for it. We need connections to survive and thrive.
In the mid 80’s, I was at a homophobic, major university in Indiana. The chancellor declared in a speech, there were no “homosexuals” there.
By accident, I found a gay, then gay/lesbian group across the street from the student union, but actually iff campus in the Wesley Foundation. It was jointly sponsored by the Methodist / Episcopalian outreach programs. No religion was pushed. We met in the church basement.
It was truly life saving, during the era of lethal, rampant AIDS, police stings, discrimination, and other abuses.
The University couldn’t touch them. They were off campus, and inna church.
By driving them out of elected office, a process that will likely take as long as it took *them* to seize power. Which is to say, it needs to be a sustained and unrelenting effort that over the course of many election cycles.
we have to start local (county and city, then state), then work our way up to federal, challenging and changing judges as we go. it is a multipronged effort that all too many don’t want to take time to do. that was how the “moral majority” did it, they started with school boards and city councils, then county level and state level. when they had a strong base in place, then they took federal offices quite easily. once in place there, they appointed judges from within their ranks and owned the country. we will have to fight tooth and nail to get this reversed.
Political mobilization is super important, but I would also gently encourage folks to also give space to what is necessary to protect their own health and wellbeing, and that of their friends and family. Don’t panic, prepare has been my mantra for a while now.
Guess what, knuckledraggers? You have one, maybe two presidential election cycles before the generation you keep fucking over is the majority. They will decide what nursing homes you end up in as well as a host of other issues that will affect your hateful lives.
That’s why they’re trying to destroy democracy – it’s to create minority rule. Remember that whites were always a minority in South Africa, and Apartheid lasted almost 50 years.
The goal for these gang thugs is to make everyone afraid to protest the abuses, to make the treat of violence and harm so great people stop putting up supportive signs or speaking out. And it has worked in a lot of cases, with venues cancelling events. Horrible way the country is going. Hugs
And of course the Proud Boys which are gang thugs carried guns and got to stay while grieving parents holding small signs got removed. The police stood by and let the gang thugs harass women and anti-gun people. Well it has come out that a large number of the police are white supremacist bigot gang thugs themselves. Birds of a feather type thing. The country is fast becoming over run by authoritarian cops and fascist politicians that are backed up by gang thugs. Welcome to the fall of the US democracy. Hugs
Families close to a Nashville fatal school shooting broke down in tears after a Tennessee Republican leader ordered state troopers to remove them and others from a legislative hearing room while they waited to testify in favor of gun control measures. https://t.co/ru3b5UdMS9
BREAKING: Drama in Tennessee House subcommittee as protesters are removed by state troopers. Their violation: quietly holding up signs. pic.twitter.com/uESCjA0Pyj
While our supporters of clergy marched and prayed over our Capitol to end gun violence, the @tnhousegop and their extremist supporters, the proud boys, threaten our democracy with their terrorism. This is what we are fighting against every single day and why we will never quit! pic.twitter.com/jyMU5XaH9E
The p-boys were back again today. I’m pretty sure we can go ahead and call this stalking now. They kept following me to the restroom, weird, huh. The troopers were pretty fed up. Grieving parents can’t have notebook paper signs, but are these guys armed? pic.twitter.com/p40eh53LcT
This is crazy. Another religious right wing judge pushing her views. She dismissed the suit saying there was no harm because a reasonable person wouldn’t think that the law precludes talking about gay people and same sex families. Just what the other trump judge said, but that is a lie. The law is written to allow any religious bigot to burden the school with lawsuits. Here are a couple examples from the article. Hugs
Based on the law, the Florida Board of Education recently instituted a new rule that says any K-3 teacher who is found to have taught their students about LGBTQ issues can have their licenses suspended or revoked. And in September, the Miami-Dade School Board voted against recognizing October as LGBTQ History Month over fears that it would violate the Don’t Say Gay law.
“It is simply a fact of life that many middle school students will face the criticism and harsh judgment of their peers,” wrote the judge.
For the second time, a Trump-appointed judge has upheld the legality of Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law.
Lambda Legal, the Southern Legal Counsel, and the Southern Poverty Law Center joined together with a group of LGBTQ students and their families to advocate for a preliminary injunction on H.B. 1557 – which prohibits K-3 teachers from talking about sexual orientation and gender identity issues with their students. The lawsuit argued that the law restricts free speech and encourages bullying.
But U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger dismissed their request.
“Plaintiffs have not directed this Court to any fact that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the law prohibits students from discussing their families and vacations at school or even on a school assignment,” Berger reportedly wrote in the decision, “or that it would prohibit a parent from attending a school function in a ‘pride’ t-shirt or generally discussing their family structure in front of other people.”
Lambda Legal staff attorney Kell Olson called Berger’s decision “wrong on the law and disrespectful to LGBTQ+ families and students.”
“H.B. 1557 suppresses wholesale the speech and identities of LGBTQ+ students and their families. It sends a message of shame and stigma that has no place in schools and puts LGBTQ+ students and families at risk,” Olson continued.
“The students and families at the heart of this case have experienced more bullying in the months since the law went into effect than ever before in their lives, but the court dismissed their experiences of bullying as ‘a fact of life.’ The court’s decision defies decades of precedent establishing schools’ constitutional obligations to protect student speech, and to protect students from targeted bullying and harassment based on who they are.”
Berger acknowledged some of the plaintiff’s bullying worries but said that “it is simply a fact of life that many middle school students will face the criticism and harsh judgment of their peers.”
“Indeed, middle school children bully and belittle their classmates for a whole host of reasons,” Berger continued, “all of which are unacceptable, and many of which have nothing to do with a classmate’s gender identity.”
A challenge to the Don’t Say Gay law was dismissed by another Trump-nominated judge, Allen Cothrel Winsor, in early October.
The Don’t Say Gay law, which went into effect on July 1, continues to make its mark on Florida schools.
Based on the law, the Florida Board of Education recently instituted a new rule that says any K-3 teacher who is found to have taught their students about LGBTQ issues can have their licenses suspended or revoked.
And in September, the Miami-Dade School Board voted against recognizing October as LGBTQ History Month over fears that it would violate the Don’t Say Gay law.
It is clear she supports the law. In the article, a man chaperoning kids felt he couldn’t mention his husband or their family as others were doing. That is the point of the law, to make the LGBTQIA disappear from society. Not mentioned, not heard about, don’t exist. Make it a weird fringe thing, instead of a large segment of the population. I don’t know how we get around the legal road blocks that the maga right has installed. Think of it, this judge says students, parents of students, and their legal representatives don’t have standing, yet the religious liberty legal groups can create a fictional business that doesn’t even exist and the court rules yes Christians have a pass to discriminate. What next, Christians suing to not serve black people? What about Jewish people. Yet if someone tried not to serve Christians their heads would explode and that would be illegal. Please note the related story of a trump appointed judge saying that gay kids shouldn’t be protected from bullying. “It is simply a fact of life that many middle school students will face the criticism and harsh judgment of their peers,” wrote the judge. Well that was changing just as acceptance of people of color stopped a lot of the tolerated bullying of black children, so the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ kids with anti-bullying programs was working also. Those programs were stopping the bullying and gay kids felt accepted and included at school. That is what the republicans were desperate to stop. That what these laws are doing. Hugs
U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger ruled that most of the plaintiffs lacked standing and accused them of “legal posturing.”
A Trump-appointed judge has dismissed a challenge to Florida’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law for the second time.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger rejected a lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal, the Southern Legal Counsel, and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of a group of LGBTQ+ students, parents, and a nonprofit group seeking a preliminary injunction against the state’s Parental Rights in Education Act, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
“It is simply a fact of life that many middle school students will face the criticism and harsh judgment of their peers,” wrote the judge.
The legislation, signed into law last year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), bans instruction on topics related to sexual orientation and gender identity in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade and requires discussion of those topics to be “age appropriate” in higher grades.
This is the second time Berger has dismissed this case. Last October, she rejected a previous version of the lawsuit, giving plaintiffs until November 3 to file an updated version. (Another Trump-appointed judge, Allen Cothrel Winsor, dismissed a separate challenge to the law earlier this year.) As Orlando Weekly reported, the revised version of the lawsuit argued that the law violates the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights by chilling speech related to sexual orientation and gender identity, while also raising equal protection and due process arguments.
“The impact of the law has been immediate and severe,” the revised version stated. “Defendant school boards and their agents have already begun implementing significant changes under the law. They have instructed teachers to review hundreds of books that acknowledge LGBTQ+ people and families and have eliminated vital support systems for LGBTQ+ students, including guidance and training that combat bullying and violence.”
In her 37-page ruling, issued last Wednesday, Berger wrote that all but two of the plaintiffs lacked standing. She also rejected the argument that the law forced one parent, David Dinan, to censor himself while chaperoning a school field trip “because he was concerned that mention or discussion of his husband or family could have been considered classroom instruction by a third party.”
“While Dinan felt his speech was chilled when he was acting as a chaperone, plaintiffs still fail to offer any argument as to how a reasonable person would have objectively believed that mentioning his same-sex spouse while acting as a chaperone would constitute instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity,” Berger wrote.
While the law does not explicitly ban the mention of LGBTQ+ people in schools, the Florida Department of Education has not yet released official guidance on how the law should be applied. At the same time, the law allows parents to sue school districts if they feel the law has been violated. Critics of the law say that it caters to particularly litigious parents who will sue school districts over their own interpretations of its provisions, forcing schools to foot the bill for frivolous lawsuits and, thus, chilling any mention of LGBTQ+ people out of an abundance of caution.
Berger also wrote that the plaintiffs “continue to include numerous allegations that appear to be wholly immaterial.”
“Even if such allegations are not immaterial,” she wrote, “the complaint is not the proper place for legal argument or posturing.”
Nearly half of all LGBTQ+ youth feel unsafe in school settings, and over half said they had been bullied due to their queer identities, a new report from the Human Rights Campaign(HRC) found.
But even though over half of queer respondents also showed signs of anxiety and depression, majorities of LGBTQ+ youth have also come out to their families and feel hopeful for the future nonetheless.
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RELATED STORIESAnti-LGBTQ+ legislation is making 66% of queer youth more anxious & suicidal
A recent survey suggested several ways to help LGBTQ+ youth, too.
The HRC’s 2023 LGBTQ+ Youth Report surveyed over 13,000 LGBTQ+ youth between the ages of 13 and 17, from all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Approximately 54% of transgender and gender-expansive youth and 46% of LGBQ+ youth surveyed said that they felt unsafe in at least one school setting. Nearly 60% of all LGBTQ+ youth said that they had been “teased, bullied, or treated badly” at school over their LGBTQ+ identities.
Only one in five LGBTQ+ youth reported school bullying to a school staff member. While 23.3% of these kids said the adult “didn’t help me at all,” 20.0% said the adult “helped me a lot.”
Additionally, 55.1% of survey respondents screened positive for depression, 63.5% screened positive for depression, and 64.7% rated their ability to manage stress as “fair” or “poor.” These rates were on average five points higher for transgender and gender-expansive youth. 48.9% of LGBTQ+ youth had received therapy in the prior year.
The HRC noted that these findings have likely been affected by the spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation nationwide. During the most recent legislative session, 10 have passed transphobic “bathroom bills,” 23 states have passed transphobic “sports bans,” six have passed “forced outing” bills requiring schools to out trans and gender-expansive youth to their parents, and six have passed “Don’t Say LGBTQ+” bills banning queer content from classrooms.
Despite this, 90.3% of LGBTQ+ youth said they were proud to be part of the LGBTQ+ community, and nearly 83% of queer youth said that they had come out to at least one member of their immediate family.
Trans and gender-expansive youth who feel free to express their gender identity around their families and those whose family members use their correct pronouns and names also reported the lowest levels of depression and anxiety among trans and gender-expansive youth.
Additionally, 56.8% of LGBTQ+ youth said they somewhat or strongly agree that “the LGBTQ+ community is accepted more and more every day.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860) is staffed by trans people and will not contact law enforcement. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for youth via chat, text (678-678), or phone (1-866-488-7386). Help is available at all three resources in English and Spanish.
Patrick SternadWFSU Public Media
Photo: Shutterstock
