Category: Courts / Laws / legal
A bunch of Joe My God news posts I wanted to share. Hugs
Yet still not a drag queen or trans person. There were other ones posted in the days I got these from but I felt one was enough. You can see the tally that Joe has been keeping. Hugs
The handmaids tale gets closer and closer as the republican run states fight to return the society to a much more regressive time when women were under more control of men. Hugs
The republicans know there is voter fraud because they are the ones doing it. I wonder if this guy will get five years in prison like the poor black woman who was told she could vote and did so but she did not qualify. Texas threw the maximum punishment at her. Hugs
Notice that he never thinks of women pilots. To him all piolets must be male and the ones in dresses or skirts are cross dressing men to his mind. What a bigoted piece of shit. Hugs
Drag queens are the newest boogieman of the right, easy targets to rile up their base that hopes for either the return to the 1950s or the 1850s depending how they feel about women and black people. Hugs
Notice it is only indoctrination and wrong when it is about acceptance / tolerance of diversity and minorities. Push hard right wing ideology is just reality for these republicans. Pushing an outdated 1950s style of society to them is normal but in truth that is the indoctrination they accuse the left of. They are trying hard to regress society and the acceptance of others who are different from them. They cannot live and let live. They must force everyone to fit the mold they demand they live in. The want a society where straight Christian males are assumed to be in charge, women are subservient to white straight men, blacks know their place and stay in it, and the gay and trans people are not seen or acknowledged in society staying firmly hidden in their closets. Hugs
As the article points out once born it is a child, living child and to kill it is already murder. By definition abortion is not being born. The bill is just grandstanding. Plus they don’t seem to learn, restricting abortion is not popular so they are doubling down and this time claiming that abortion is the killing of already born babies. Hugs
We must not admit that discrimination is real and happening even now. Afterall they don’t seem concerned about the discomfort the minority children of color and the LGBTQ+ kids experience every day, but we must never make the white kids uncomfortable. Actually it is not the kids’ comfort they care about, but the white republican parents. Hugs
If you read the comments you will see that several admissions directors commented that the persons scores were not that great and they look at social media along with other factors. They clearly seen something all of the schools disliked. Considering his complaint is non-whites are getting into the school while white males such as himself are waiting for a spot seems that he is a racist misogynist who they don’t want in their student body.
Because letting kids know that even in nature with animals there are gay couples will rot their teeth curve their spines and cause them to suddenly become gay or trans. What stupidity. Gay couples exist and are legal. Land of the free remember. They don’t want to hide straight couples from kids. They don’t think kids seeing straight couples is sexualizing the children or teaching them sex. It is simply bigotry, and they are not really hiding it. They want to erase the gays and trans from society and they are using the kids as the excuse. Hugs
The right wing doesn’t even want to be on their own platform because there is no one for them to fight with, these site ban liberals which takes the fun away from the trolls. Hugs
This was an attack on minority people of color and totally racist. It was a set of laws designed to let the state stop any protest for equality or the killing of unarmed black people by the police. They also passed a law saying that if protestors such as the George Floyd killing protestors got into the street they could legally be run over and arrested even when they had a permit. Yet when the Cubans who normally vote republicans protested in the street the government did not allow them to be run over nor did they arrest them. Strange it seems the law only applies to the left or democrats. Hugs
Notice he doesn’t admit Nixon broke the laws and did things that were illegal. Nope it is the fault of the people who caught him, and they are the bad guys. Hugs
Olentangy Schools official cuts off reading of Dr. Seuss book during NPR podcast
What police states Florida and other republican states have become. Remember these are the same people who were super angry that the Dr. Seuss people decided not to publish racist books that were not selling well anymore. These are the same people angry that the Potato head toy with no gender got rid of the Mr / Mrs in the name of the toy. This is what a dictatorship looks like, the start of state sanctioned ideology forced on kids, this is the real indoctrination. I want to point out the kids were already aware of discrimination and racism. What better place to address it and try to encourage an acceptance of equality and diversity? Third grade is 8 years old and by that age the black kids are well aware of race and racism, why shouldn’t the white kids have it explained to them so they understand it is a bad thing? Hugs
The assistant director of communications for Olentangy Local School District abruptly stopped the reading of the Dr. Seuss book “The Sneetches” to a third-grade classroom during an NPR podcast after students asked about race.
Shale Meadows Elementary School third grade teacher Mandy Robek was reading “The Sneetches” to her class as part of NPR’s latest episode of “Planet Money” about the economic lessons in children’s books. During the podcast, which aired Friday, Amanda Beeman, the assistant director of communications for the school district, stopped the reading part way through the book.
NPR reporter Erika Beras spent the day in Robek’s class with Beeman for the podcast. As part of the district stipulations, politics were off limits. Six books were selected ahead of time by Beras and the district — including “The Sneetches.”
“I don’t know if I feel comfortable with the book being one of the ones featured,” Beeman is heard saying on the podcast during the middle of “The Sneetches” reading. “I just feel like this isn’t teaching anything about economics, and this is a little bit more about differences with race and everything like that.”
“The Sneetches,” published in 1961, is a book about two kinds of Sneetches: those with stars on their bellies and those without stars. The Plain-Belly Sneetches are judged negatively by their appearance, so capitalist Sylvester McMonkey McBean makes money selling them stars for their bellies. Meanwhile, the Star-Bellied Sneetches don’t like associating with the Plain-Belly Sneetches, so they start paying to have a machine take their stars off.
The Seuss family has said the book was intended to teach children not to judge or discriminate against others because of their appearance and to treat people equitably.
“It’s almost like what happened back then, how people were treated … Like, disrespected … Like, white people disrespected Black people…,” a third grade student is heard saying on the podcast.
Robek keeps on reading, but it’s shortly after this student’s comment is made on the podcast that Beeman interrupts the reading.
“I just don’t think that this is going to be the discussion that we wanted around economics,” Beeman said on the podcast. “So I’m sorry. We’re going to cut this one off.”
Beras tried to tell Beeman that “The Sneetches” is about preferences, open markets and economic loss, but Beeman replied, “I just don’t think it might be appropriate for the third-grade class and for them to have a discussion around it.”
On the “Planet Money” episode, Beras reached back out to Beeman to ask about what happened. Beeman replied, “When the book began addressing racism, segregation and discriminating behaviors, this was not the conversation we had prepared Mrs. Robek, the students or parents would take place. There may be some very important economics lessons in ‘The Sneetches,’ but I did not feel that those lessons were the themes students were going to grasp at that point in the day or in the book.”
Olentangy Schools responds to The Dispatch
Beeman explained to The Dispatch on Monday that the school district agreed to be part of the “Planet Money” story “to feature the great work that Mrs. Robek does.”
“We do not ban any books,” Beeman said.
“As (‘The Sneetches’) was being read, I made a personal judgment call we shouldn’t do the reading because of some of the other themes and undertones that were unfolding that were not shared that we would be discussing with parents,” Beeman said.
The book touches on racism, segregation, and discriminatory behavior, Beeman said.
“We are really not about suppressing any viewpoints or dialogues,” Beeman said. “There were great economic lessons and the conversation wasn’t going toward (economics).”
Looking back, Beeman said she does wish she had handled the situation differently by talking to Robek separately to figure out a way to continue the Seuss book and have the discussion geared more toward economics.
Beras did not immediately respond to The Dispatch’s questions Monday afternoon.
Some of the other books that Robek’s class read when Beras visited included “Pancakes, Pancakes!” by Eric Carle; “Put Me In The Zoo” by Robert Lopshire; and a poem from “Where The Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein.
Banned Dr. Seuss books, but not ‘The Sneetches’
In 2021, Seuss Enterprises said it would stop publishing six Dr. Seuss books because of racist and insensitive imagery, but “The Sneetches” was not one of those books.
The six books are “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” “If I Ran the Zoo,” “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!,” “Scrambled Eggs Super!” and “The Cat’s Quizzer.”
sex panic
The second-poorest state in the nation just made monitoring people’s porn viewing habits its top priority
What makes these people so afraid of sex? Why do they think teens / young adults were not just as horny in the 1950s as they are in the 2020s? How much better to just explain porn to kids starting at about ten years old. Explain it is not real, explain about consent, and as the kids age explain their feelings, desires, needs, and conception because teens and young people are going to have sex. They really are, and they have forever. The body is driven to it and unless you give them an outlet for that need, they will do it the most risky way as that normally is what young people do. The most risky stuff. Hugs
Louisiana web users who want to view adult content must now provide a valid driver’s license or state ID to prove they’re above 18 years of age, thanks to a new state law that recently went into effect.
And while that might sound funny, Republicans want to pass a similar law nationwide.
The law, House Bill 142 (HB 142), says that any commercial website containing 33.3 percent or more of sexually explicit material must “perform reasonable age verification methods to verify the age of individuals attempting to access the material.” While all popular adult websites haven’t instituted age checks yet, if they don’t, they can be sued for non-compliance.
The bill was introduced by anti-LGBTQ+ state Rep. Laurie Schlegel, a woman who introduced legislation banning transgender kids from playing on school sports teams matching their gender identities.
Schlegel’s HB 142 says, “[Sexual content] is creating a public health crisis and having a corroding influence on minors.” It also blames adult content for “the hypersexualization of teens and prepubescent children… low self-esteem, body image disorders, an increase in problematic sexual activity at younger ages, and increased desire among adolescents to engage in risky sexual behavior.”
The bill also says sexual content may “impact brain development and functioning, contribute to emotional and medical illnesses, shape deviant sexual arousal, and lead to difficulty in forming or maintaining positive, intimate relationships, as well as promoting problematic or harmful sexual behaviors and addiction.”
Louisiana is the second-poorest state in the country, with 17.4% of its population at or below the poverty line. It also has the second-highest rate of childhood poverty, with 26.8% of its children living at or below the poverty line. And this is what state lawmakers there are currently focused on.
Web viewers will have to enter information from their IDs into a third-party verification system that claims not to store the user data.
Schlegel says the bill is meant to protect children rather than penalize adults. However, if web viewers feel scared about entering their personal information into a verification system, they may turn to lesser-known websites that feature illegal content, one researcher worries.
Olivia Snow — a sex worker, professor, and research fellow at UCLA’s Center for Critical Internet Inquiry — told TechCrunch, “[The law is] really just further marginalizing sex workers, which I think is going to be the primary effect. I imagine this means that there will be an increased black market of premium [sexual] content that’s non-consensually disseminated.”
If Schlegel’s bill sounds ridiculous, don’t laugh. It may actually be a sign of things to come.
In November 2022, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a bill that would revise the federal definition of “obscenity” to essentially criminalize any web users who view or share “obscene” images online.
“The definition for obscenity [under Lee’s law is] so broad that it would encompass almost all sexual speech now legal,” adult industry advocacy group Free Speech Coalition (FSC) Director of Public Affairs Mike Stabile told The Mary Sue.
“It would also criminalize fans who share content, or couples who sext or share intimate images on dating apps. People don’t think of themselves as ‘[sexual content] distributors,’ but under this bill, even retweeting adult content or DMing a dick pic is a criminal act. The headlines are about [sexual adult content], but this bill criminalizes sex,” Stabile added.
Republicans CRASH AND BURN with first bill of House majority
The republican boogieman to excite their base
Catholic Hospital Broke Law by Denying Transgender Patient Surgery: Judge
Religious views should not and must not take priority over human rights or medical care. This must be stopped in the US as more states face the fact that all the hospitals are owned by the Catholic church and the church requires them to let people die rather than provide accepted needed medical care that goes against religious dogma. Hugs
Catholic Hospital Broke Law by Denying Transgender Patient Surgery: Judge
A Catholic hospital discriminated against a transgender patient by refusing to provide him a hysterectomy, a federal judge ruled.
Jesse Hammons, a transgender man, sued the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, after he was denied the surgery, a gender-affirming procedure performed on many transgender men, in 2019, alleging that the hospital discriminated against him because of his gender identity.
St. Joseph Medical Center, a religious entity purchased by the University of Maryland Medical Center in 2012, argued that its doctors would not perform the surgery because doing so contradicts their religious beliefs.
The Friday ruling came as the LGBTQ community continues advocating for stronger legal protections against discrimination. Conservatives, on the other hand, have argued that strengthened anti-discrimination protections would violate their freedom of speech.
A person holds a transgender pride flag. On Friday, a federal judge ruled that a Catholic hospital violated anti-discrimination laws by denying a transgender men gender-affirming surgery, citing religious beliefs.CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/GETTY IMAGES; DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES
U.S. District Court Judge Deborah K. Chasanow ruled that the refusal by the hospital—which is part of the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS)—to perform the hysterectomy violated Maryland’s anti-discrimination laws and that UMMS is bound by Maryland law to “operate the medical system without discrimination based upon race, creed, sex, or national origin.”
Chasanow ruled that the hospital, which receives Medicare and Medicaid funding, violated Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits providers who receive public funding from discriminating “on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex,” including gender identity.
In 2019, Hammons was set to receive the surgery as part of his gender-affirming plan, but the hospital canceled it only one week prior, citing religious reasons, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Hammons, in a statement released by the ACLU, which represented him in court, described the ruling as a “great win for myself and all transgender people denied equal treatment because of who they are.”
“All I wanted was for UMMS to treat my health care like anyone else’s, and I’m glad the court recognized how unfair it was to turn me away,” Hammons said. “I’m hopeful UMMS can change this harmful policy and help more transgender people access the care they need.”
In a statement forwarded to Newsweek on Monday, a UMMS spokesperson wrote that the medical system disputes “many of the conclusions that were reached in this decision and may be in a position to comment further after additional analysis of the ruling.”
“Legal disagreements aside, we sincerely wish the very best for Mr. Hammons and we support his efforts to seek the highest quality healthcare,” the statement reads. “We may disagree on certain technical, legal points but compassion for the patients we serve remains foundational to our work.”
These came from liberalsarecool.com and there is a lot more there every day.
Students say Florida school play shut down over Don’t Say Gay
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/01/students-say-florida-school-play-shut-dont-say-gay/
Photo: Screenshot Madeline Scotti InstagramStudents at a high school in Florida are pointing to the state’s Parental Rights in Education law, aka Don’t Say Gay, as the reason for the sudden cancellation of a long-scheduled drama department production.
The canceled play, Indecent by Paula Vogel, depicts the true story of another stage play called God of Vengeance, which was shut down in New York in 1923 on charges on indecency; the Broadway production of the Yiddish play depicted the first-ever onstage kiss between a lesbian couple in American theater.
The production at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville was scheduled last May and cast in December. Indecent was to premiere March 1, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the ill-fated Broadway show.
Senior cast member Madeline Scotti, 17, shared news of the cancellation in an emotional Instagram video on Thursday night.
“Indecent is a story about how detrimental censorship is, about how its damaging effects can ruin a nation and a community. I don’t need to point out the irony,” Scotti said.
An email from Douglas Anderson principal Tina Wilson the same evening informed parents that Anton Chekov’s The Seagull would replace Vogel’s play. “A closer review of the mature content” of Indecent led school officials “to the conclusion that Seagull is better suited for a school production,” Wilson wrote.
In her Instagram video, Scotti claims school administrators all but acknowledged the show was axed due to the Don’t Say Gay law, which prohibits discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K through 3 and restricts them in higher grade levels.
“Tonight during rehearsal our company was notified that the school board is shutting us down not because of, but related to the ideals stated in the Don’t Say Gay bill,” said Scotti. “They are trying to tell us this play is dirty, immoral, obscene, and, of course, indecent. And by that nature, they’re trying to tell me that I myself and my community is dirty, immoral, obscene, and indecent.”
A spokesperson for Duval County Public Schools denied any connection to the controversial new law, enacted in September.
“Indecent contains adult sexual dialog that is inappropriate for student cast members and student audiences,” Tracy Pierce told Teen Vogue. “It’s that simple. The decision has no relevance to any legislation but is rather a function of our responsibilities to ensure students engage in educational activities appropriate for their age.”
Drama productions at Douglas Anderson preceding the Parental Rights in Education law include Rent, depicting multiple LGBTQ+ relationships and the devastation wrought by the AIDS epidemic, and Chicago, a musical featuring singing prostitutes.
Scottie's Playtime 