Let’s understand what this really is about. White straight cis people (men) being in charge without having to allow non-white people in to those upper level positions. White straight cis have good easy management jobs, brown and black people do labor. The LGBTQIA simply go back to being in the closet not seen or heard, women stay home. It is white supremacy Nazi bullshit. It is an attempt to roll back the gains of those not white, not straight, not cis since the 1960s. That is what this is. It is pushed nationally by Stephen Miller, a well known white supremacist thug even though he weirdly is Jewish, who thinks that he passes as white in the eyes of the whites. He once complained in college for being required to put his own trash in the trash can rather than leave it where he was done or throw it on the ground. That was the job for the … janitors he said. We do know what he really meant. He and DeathSantis, the people of this mind set, love to punch down. They are also terrified of any changes to their privilege, and that is what they really want, white straight cis privilege over everyone else. It won’t last this last grasp to return to the past, Florida schools are already struggling to keep students and attract decent staff. Enrollment is down. People paying for an education want a real education they can use in the real world, not a fake maga paradise. See if you can count the lies, misinformation, and desperate attempt to deny the truth of what is happening in the quote below. Hugs. Scottie
“The University of Florida is – and will always be – unwavering in our commitment to universal human dignity. As we educate students by thoughtfully engaging a wide range of ideas and views, we will continue to foster a community of trust and respect for every member of the Gator Nation. The University of Florida is an elite institution because of our incredible faculty who are committed to teaching, discovering, and serving,” the memo stated.
Published: Mar. 1, 2024 at 1:52 PM EST|Updated: Mar. 1, 2024 at 6:07 PM EST
The University of Florida is firing all employees in positions related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) according to a memo sent on Friday. It follows the passage of a state law in 2023 targeting college funds spent on DEI.
UF officials say they have closed the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, eliminated DEI positions and administrative appointments, and halted DEI-focused contracts with outside vendors. Officials say 13 positions were eliminated and 15 administrative appointments were ended for faculty.
The decision was made to comply with the Florida Board of Governor’s regulation 9.016 on prohibited expenditures. Approximately $5 million previously allocated to DEI initiatives will be reallocated into a faculty recruitment fund.
Eliminated employees will receive 12 weeks of standard pay and are encouraged to apply before April 19 to other positions in the university.
Ahead of the fall semester, Florida’s public universities are working to figure out what they need to do to comply with state law
UF’s Chief Diversity Officer’s website describes the office’s mission as charting the “inclusive excellence strategy for the University of Florida.” The site notes “Inclusion is one of UF’s six core values.”
The listed staff of the department are Marsha Mcgriff, senior advisor to the president, Farrah Harvey, assistant director of diversity analytics, and Wilma Rogers, executive assistant
State Rep. Yvonne Hayes Hinson, a Democrat from Gainesville, shared her opposition to the move hours after the memo’s release.
“I am stunned but not surprised at the elimination of DEI staff at the University of Florida, my Alma Mater,” stated Hinson. “The culture wars engaged in the Republican-dominated Florida House of Representatives will continue until Floridians have had enough and develop the will and determination to flip the majority in the Florida House.”
On X, formerly known as Twitter, Christopher Rufo, a conservative education activist and New College of Florida Board of Trustees member, announced the news of the firings and posted, “The conservative counter-revolution has begun.”
The UF memo ended with the following statement:
“The University of Florida is – and will always be – unwavering in our commitment to universal human dignity. As we educate students by thoughtfully engaging a wide range of ideas and views, we will continue to foster a community of trust and respect for every member of the Gator Nation. The University of Florida is an elite institution because of our incredible faculty who are committed to teaching, discovering, and serving,” the memo stated.
CORRECTION: A prior version of the article incorrectly stated that 15 administrative positions for faculty were ended. Administrative “appointments” were ended. The appointments are roles/duties that faculty members accept in addition to their regular duties as a faculty member.
If DeSantis and many other Republicans are opposed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, what they’re really saying is that they’re in favor of White Homogeneity, Inequity, and Exclusion.
If I were a black football player, Florida would be the last state I’d go to to play. Oh, who am I kidding, I’m white and in my 60s, and I wouldn’t go to Florida for anything.
That’s part of the problem. Minority students must learn that they are not wanted, and refuse to accept athletic “scholarships” to Florida schools.
Not to tout my alma-mater’s record on anything, but one item to its credit was that MSU was one of the first major universities to recruit African American football players, back in the 60s. It was an early DEI initiative that helped integrate college sports.
Southern universities were among the last bastions of white athletics. How quickly we forget our past.
MSU’s President, John Hannah, also took a global view of the mission of one of America’s first land grant universities, which included helping Africa. He was not afraid to work with black people. https://www.canr.msu.edu/ne…
Christian Nationalists standing behind a “FREEDOM FROM INDOCTRINATION” sign is the funniest thing I’ve seen from them this hour. What a bunch of hypocrites.
Here’s the kicker…if Christians were actually being discriminated against on college campuses, then these “Christians” would be for DEI programs as they would protect them.
This is a post on Jill’s blog. She has one of the most outstanding blog I have ever had the privilege to read in my life. But as grand as this story is and it is grand no questions asked, I wonder if the feelings directed to those different might be able to be used for another group of people, desperately struggling for their own rights. Hugs. Scottie
I want to thank Ali for the link to a news site I had not seen. I found several important news article to read up on. Like this one.
First are we really going to do the hair length think in 2023? I remember the forced near baldness buzz cut I was forced to wear with the adoptive parents fought with the male hell spawn about their hair length, which they were allowed to wear long as the youth style was at the time. Native First People boys were forced to cut their long hair by white administrators at schools or care homes. It is crazy that something like hair length is still an issue. Short hair on boys and men is simply a way to enforce hegemony and the wish of some on the right to return to the 1950s. I really can not see how this is not discrimination? If girls can only have long hair, then it is discrimination against the boys. If it is only long dreadlocks that are singled out, then it is racial. But no matter, why does the length of hair matter to learning, to education? Does short hair mean your brain takes in knowledge better? I find the treatment the boy was put through to be inhumane and cruel. It seemed designed to break the boy and make him bow down to the authorities. But the article makes clear this is racial, this is against dreadlocks, and to enforce a near military hairstyle favored by right wing republican ideology. Hugs. Scottie
Darryl George speaks during a press conference before a hearing regarding George’s punishment for violating school dress code policy because of his hair style on February 22, 2024, in Anahuac, Texas.(KIRK SIDES/HOUSTON CHRONICLE/AP)
After a short trial, a Texas judge ruled that Barbers Hill school officials are not violating a new state law prohibiting hair discrimination.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated throughout.
A Texas judge on Thursday said the Barbers Hill Independent School District can punish a Black student who wears his hair in long locs without violating Texas’ new CROWN Act, which is meant to prevent hairstyle discrimination in schools and workplaces.
The decision came after a months long dispute between the district and Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School who has been sent to in-school suspension since August for wearing his hair in long locs. Legislators last year passed a law called the Texas CROWN Act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of hair texture or protective styles associated with race. Protective styles include locs, braids and twists.
But the Barbers Hill school district successfully argued it can still enforce its policy that prohibits males from wearing hair that extends beyond eyebrows, earlobes or collars even if it’s gathered on top of the student’s head.
Judge Chap B. Cain III issued the ruling after a short trial in which lawyers for opposing sides argued over the legislative intent behind the CROWN Act. Lawyers for Barbers Hill said lawmakers would have included explicit language about hair length had they intended the law to cover it. Allie Booker, representing Darryl George and his mother Darresha George, said protective styles are only possible with long hair.
“You need significant length to perform the style,” Booker said. “You can’t make braids with a crew cut. You can’t lock anything that isn’t long.”
George exited the courtroom in tears, walking alongside his mother and several lawmakers who co-authored the CROWN Act.
“As I was walking down with Ms. George and Darryl, you could sense the anger, you could sense the confusion,” said Candice Matthews, the statewide chair of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats. “Darryl told me, with tears in his eyes: ‘All this because of my hair?’”
Greg Poole, superintendent of the Barbers Hill school district, declined an interview after the decision came down. In a statement sent through the district’s spokesperson, Poole applauded the decision.
“The Texas legal system has validated our position that the district’s dress code does not violate the CROWN Act and that the CROWN Act does not give students unlimited self-expression,” Poole said.
Poole also suggested that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on college admissions will have ramifications on Texas’ new CROWN Act.
“The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that affirmative action is a violation of the 14th Amendment, and we believe the same reasoning will eventually be applied to the CROWN Act,” Poole said.
Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned 40 years of legal precedent and rejected race-conscious admissions in higher education at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The majority found that the universities’ admissions policies, which use race as one of several factors in college admissions, violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause, which mandates that people are treated equally under the law. The majority of justices found that the race-based policies do not pass “strict scrutiny,” meaning the policies are not justified by a compelling state interest.
It’s unclear how the debate about the CROWN Act is analogous to that SCOTUS ruling. Unlike the college admissions case, Barbers Hill officials have not contested the legality of the CROWN Act itself. They have simply rejected a particular interpretation of the law. The Texas Tribune reached out to Poole to clarify his comments, but he did not immediately respond.
Booker said after the Texas ruling Thursday that she intends to appeal the decision. She also said she will file an injunction in a pending federal lawsuit filed by Darresha and Darryl George against the school district as well as state leaders.
During the trial, Booker called upon two witnesses: Darresha George and Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, who co-authored the CROWN Act and chairs the Texas Legislative Black Caucus. Attorneys asked George’s mother few questions, only asking her to identify her son and define his hairstyle.
Reynolds, however, was questioned at length as the two sides argued over the intent behind the law. Reynolds said he co-authored the bill because he was disturbed by Barbers Hill’s treatment of DeAndre Arnold, a Black student who was told he couldn’t attend his graduation ceremony at Barbers Hill High School unless he cut his locs. A judge issued a preliminary injunction in that case, blocking the school district from enforcing its policy in that particular case. Litigation is ongoing in the case.
“I felt compelled to file legislation to protect students who were similarly situated,” Reynolds said from the witness stand.
Attorneys for Barbers Hill repeatedly objected — with mixed success — to Booker’s line of questioning. They interrupted nearly every one of her questions to say they were irrelevant or that the intent behind the law was plain within the law itself.
“It would be an error to consider Rep. Reynolds’ comments as indicative of legislative intent,” Barbers Hill attorney Sara Leon said in her closing argument to the judge. “You do have evidence of legislative intent, which is the language of the statute, which does not mention length.”
Judge Cain ultimately sided with Barbers Hill, saying that the CROWN Act could have been written to say that individuals with braids, locs or twists are exempt from any hair length policy. He encouraged lawmakers to go back to the Legislature and file a new version of the CROWN Act that includes specific language about length.
The judge did not comment on the constitutionality of Barbers Hill’s policy, which Bookers had called into question during her opening and closing arguments. She said that the district’s grooming policy violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution because it is only applied to one gender. And she further argued that because the CROWN Act names a specific “protected class” of individuals with a particular hairstyle associated with race, the burden must be on the school district to prove that their grooming policy is the only way to achieve a “compelling state interest.”
“The district has not proven that the policy is tailored to serve those interests,” Booker said, citing an affidavit from Superintendent Poole that articulated the purpose of the dress code is to “teach grooming and hygiene, instill discipline, maintain a positive and safe learning environment, prevent disruption, avoid safety hazards, and teach respect for authority.”
In light of the ruling, George will remain assigned to in-school suspension, where he is allegedly denied instructional materials and hot food.
Before the trial, George said the experience has been isolating and damaging to his mental health.
“It feels lonely,” George said. “When you’re only stuck in one room for a whole semester it makes you feel some type of way. You see everyone else walking around talking and laughing and you can’t do that.”
Photo: True The Vote leader Catherine Engelbrecht.
The group that Dinesh D’Souza replied upon for his 2000 Mules movie that Trump hyped was ordered by a judge to produce their evidence under oath in a court of law. They had nothing. pic.twitter.com/2PvwyrMDxh
Republican Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman, who faced years of harassment, threats and conspiracy theories for certifying the 2020 election results, won't seek re-election. https://t.co/KimPLqYMuW
In the letter, they describe Hibbs as a “radical christian nationalist who helped fuel the January 6 insurrection and has a long record of spewing hateful vitriol towards non-christians, immigrants, and members of the LBGTQ community.”
BREAKING: DOJ & Special Counsel David Weiss just charged Alexander Smirnov, who is the informant who provided derogatory statements & information against Hunter Biden & Joe Biden. They charged him with "false statements & obstruction crimes." This is pretty big.
JUST IN: Special counsel charges FBI confidential source for allegedly providing false, derogatory info on Pres. Biden and Hunter Biden. https://t.co/EDoiDsz8Ze
Sean Hannity's Fox News show ran with this informant's claims in at least 85 separate segments last year, including 28 monologues. He said they proved Joe Biden engaged in "public corruption on a scale this country has never seen before.” https://t.co/5ziUvNOwt4https://t.co/tzBXuJd1p4
Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday came out in support of a proposal to limit book bans in schools—the direct result of his own stupid policies. In a press conference, DeSantis tried to claim that accusations that he has enabled book bans in the state of Florida are “a fraud” and “a big hoax.”
In a press release from DeSantis’ office, the governor claimed Florida book bans are a “hoax,” arguing the state has simply “empowered parents to object to obscene material in the classroom.”
The Florida governor who urged for parents to challenge titles on school library shelves is now pushing for limits on “bad-faith objections.”https://t.co/ukdQHcMEID
NEW: DeSantis acts SHOCKED that his vague and punitive censorship laws have resulted in exactly the type of chaos and excessive book banning in Florida public schools that we all predicted would happen.
Absolutely unbelievable. Desantis today admits that his book ban statute has caused chaos by allowing right-wing activists with no children in public school to mass report books. He says the law now needs to be changed. https://t.co/Jts8iQkfGU
Evans last appeared here in December when he posted an image of Christmas ornaments showing top Democrats hanging from nooses. He announced his candidacy for the US House in 2023 on the anniversary of the Capitol riot. Stew Peters, an avowed Hitler fan and Holocaust denier, has called for executing Anthony Fauci, Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and multiple prominent Democrats. Despite all that, elected Republicans regularly appear on his show.
An the thing that hurts the worst is the haters / racists are proud of what they are doing, loving the attention, happy with the harm they are inflicting / inciting on others. They seem to feel that anyone different from them just shouldn’t be allowed in society, must be removed. The Russia model of life. Please take notice of the date. It was worthy read and important reporting then. Since then it has gotten much worse. Please help our LGBTQIA community members, especally the kids that in that group of people. They do know who they are, who they are attracked too, even if they have sexual or gender feelings at all. But they all know pain, hurt, fear, longing to belong, and need accpetance along with protection. Hugs. Scottie
The mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, which saw a 22-year-old man charged with hate crimes and murder on Monday, came after years of intensifying anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, acts of violence and intimidation, and discriminatory legislation from far-right individuals and groups, including powerful Republican politicians.
These actors have made LGBTQ Americans into targets: of hateful social media posts that direct harassment, threats, and attacks at schools, hospitals, and individuals; of abuse, intimidation, and violence from hate groups; of laws that limit their care or censor information about gender and sexuality.
ANTI-LGBTQ INFLUENCERS CHANNELING HATE
A cluster of online influencers have ramped up bigoted and conspiracy-laced messaging in the last two years, directing hostile attention at drag shows, businesses, Pride festivals, children’s hospitals, and other places where LGBTQ people come together or receive care.
Many such peddlers of fear and disinformation about LGBTQ people – including the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, his boss Ben Shapiro, and Candace Owens – took to Twitter in the wake of the shooting to attack “the left” and “Democrats” for drawing the obvious link between months of heightened anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and homophobic and transphobic murders. The attack, which killed five people and injured 25, took place on the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, though it’s unknown if the shooter chose the date on purpose.
For her part, Chaya Raichik greeted news of the mass shooting in Colorado with a post on Twitter directing her followers’ attention to a youth-oriented LGBTQ nonprofit in that state and two state representatives who had expressed support for it.
Since early 2021, Raichik has posted a stream of transphobic and homophobic messages on platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Substack, and far-right favorite, Gab, under the pseudonym “Libs of TikTok.” Her typical operating procedure involves spotlighting LGBTQ users of the platform TikTok, especially trans people, and targeting them individually for mockery and abuse.
She helped popularize the anti-LGBTQ slur, “groomer,” which falsely equates non-heterosexual sexualities and non-cisgender gender identities with pedophilia. The “groomer” smear also plays into a conspiracy theory that underpins the propaganda of Raichik and other like-minded influencers: that LGBTQ people and their sympathizers have entered mainstream institutions to prey on children, recruit them to “transgenderism” and divide them from their families.
Joshua Thurman, center, gets comforted by friends at a makeshift memorial near Club Q on November 20, 2022 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Thurman was inside the club when the shooting began. An attacker opened fire in a gay nightclub late Saturday night killing five people and wounding at least 25, officials said. The club said the suspect was subdued by patrons and Colorado Springs police said he was taken into custody and hospitalized for treatment of his injuries. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
Raichik has also branched out into anti-Black racism, with tweets denying that George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, mocking the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, and taking pains to deny the existence of systemic racism. She has directed outrage towards schools offering racially inclusive curriculums.
Originally, Raichik used her platform to single out LGBTQ people and school teachers with inclusive approaches to education, many of whom would subsequently receive harassment and death threats. But her online schtick has evolved to encompass campaigns against school districts, libraries and hospitals.
Hospitals and medical workers across the country have been subject to harassment and even bomb threats after being targeted in posts from Raichik and others including Matt Walsh. In June, members of the Proud Boys hate group attacked a Drag Queen Story Hour event at a San Lorenzo, California public library after Raichik highlighted it. Alameda County Sheriff’s Office investigators reportedly said that Libs of TikTok had caused the attack.
Later that month, more Proud Boys tried to break into a bar that was scheduled to host a drag event after Raichik alerted her followers to the event.
Also in June, Hatewatch reported that Raichik had posted about a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, days before police thwarted an attempted disruption of the event by white nationalist hate group Patriot Front.
Security experts have described Raichik’s output as “stochastic terrorism,” by which they mean that her hateful rhetoric is calculated to promote violence in some proportion of her followers.
Her posts frequently contain false information. Raichik has presented fake curriculum materials as if they were real and presented covert recordings of uninformed responses from non-medical hospital staff as if they represented treatment policies at the facility.
Her habit of spreading hate and disinformation has seen Raichik briefly suspended from the platforms she is active on, including Twitter. Since Elon Musk acquired the platform, however, Raichik has availed herself of the opportunity to purchase a “blue check,” and has even engaged in ableist banter with the new proprietor.
Raichik tried hard to maintain her anonymity as the author of the hate account, but the Washington Post unmasked her in April, noting that Raichik’s “content is amplified by high-profile media figures, politicians and right-wing influencers.”
Raichik has been a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience, and her content has been promoted by far-right media figures and influencers including Tucker Carlson, Glenn Greenwald, Jesse Watters, Laura Ingraham and Donald Trump Jr.
Her tweets frequently form the basis of content pushed out by right-wing media – from items on Carlson’s Fox News show to dozens of articles in so-called ” pink slime” junk news sites.
More disturbingly, Raichik and other anti-LGBTQ influencers have shaped policy by encouraging divisive campaigning and mustering support for anti-LGBTQ laws.
DESANTIS DANCES TO RAICHIK’S TUNE
In March, Christine Pushaw, press secretary to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, defended the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill with anti-LGBTQ smears accusing people of “grooming” children.
The bill, which DeSantis signed into law later that month, would prevent teachers from discussing gender and sexuality in any way with children in kindergarten through third grade. Critics have pointed out that the rule would prevent children with LGBTQ parents from participating in age-appropriate activities like making family trees. The bill also allows state intervention on any discussion of gender and sexuality in public schools through high school.
Also in March, Pushaw credited Raichik’s account with having “opened her eyes” to conspiracy-minded views on schools’ approaches to gender and sexuality in the classroom.
This was evident in scores of interactions between Pushaw and Raichik on the platform stretching back to June 2021, at the beginning of Raichik’s focus on anti-LGBTQ campaigning.
Florida’s law is just one of many recent pieces of state-level legislation across the U.S. targeting LGBTQ people, and especially trans people. Five other states have passed laws that censor classroom discussion of gender and sexuality, and four more require parents to be notified ahead of such discussions.
Eighteen states, meanwhile, have passed laws banning trans women and girls from competing in K-12 girls and women’s sports. Some of these laws also ban their participation at the college level.
In Arizona and Arkansas, gender-affirming care for trans youth is banned, and in Alabama providing such care is a felony crime. Other states, including Texas, have attempted to pass similar laws. The American Academy of Pediatrics laid out their best practices for gender-affirming care in 2018, highlighting in particular that such care improves mental health outcomes for trans youth, especially in contrast to “conversion” models of intervention. Contrary to persistent disinformation from right-wing reactionaries, such care never includes surgical or chemical castration.
As far back as 2016, many states attempted to pass so-called “bathroom bills” mandating that public restrooms in state-owned buildings could only be used by people according to the sex assigned on their birth certificates. Three states – Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee – still have such laws on their books. Missouri and South Dakota, meanwhile, prohibit schools from adding LGBTQ-specific provisions to schools’ nondiscrimination policies.
ANTI-LGBTQ HATE ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
In 2022, encouraged by political operatives like Christopher Rufo, many Republicans made “anti-woke” messages targeted at LGBTQ people the centerpiece of their midterm campaigns.
Anti-trans political ads did not stop on Election Day. On Monday, Herschel Walker’s campaign released an ad whipping up fear about trans girls and women competing in sports according to their gender identity, which referred to them as “biological males.” Walker has been delivering regular anti-trans stump speeches during his effort to unseat Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia, where the candidates now face a runoff.
Some commentators suggested that the GOP has employed this strategy to mobilize white Evangelical Christian voters, so that they would turn out in sufficient numbers to neutralize the backlash against the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned 50 years of legal precedent safeguarding access to abortion.
Rufo, a Gig Harbor, Washington based far-right propagandist and a fellow at the hard-right Manhattan Institute, was initially prominently involved with the conservative campaign to demonize critical race theory (CRT), which the right used as a proxy for all forms of inclusive education.
In August, Rufo explained to the New York Times that he had advocated for Republicans to pivot from anti-CRT campaigning to attacking LGBTQ-inclusive curriculums. He told the newspaper,”The reservoir of sentiment on the sexuality issue is deeper and more explosive than the sentiment on the race issues.”
Days before that profile was published, Rufo appeared alongside DeSantis at the signing of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, which bans workplaces and schools from teaching that any person is privileged due to their race or sex and was the culmination of DeSantis’s multi-faceted public fight with the Disney corporation.
Many commentators – including some Republicans – have attributed the GOP’s failure to generate a “red wave” election to the malicious anti-LGBTQ messaging Rufo recommended. Based on the lukewarm outcome, such rhetoric either did not resonate with, or repelled voters around the country.
That rhetoric did pay off for DeSantis, however, who won almost 60% of the gubernatorial vote, led his party to large majorities in both houses in the legislature, and helped elect a slate of hand-picked school board candidates who were also running on platforms that opposed inclusive curriculums.
His successes have seen DeSantis touted as a possible 2024 election candidate, raising the prospect that the use of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and policy as political tactics will continue on the national stage.
ANTI-LGBTQ HATE IN COLORADO
In Colorado, meanwhile, far-right figures – including Republican politicians – also actively spread smears, conspiracy theories, and falsehoods about LGBTQ people in the months leading up to Saturday’s mass shooting.
Not long after she was first elected to the House of Representatives, Lauren Boebert, the far-right Republican congresswoman for Colorado’s 3 rd District, responded to the passage of the federal Equality Act with transphobic remarks claiming trans people would spy on “young girls” in school locker rooms.
Boebert – who has embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory, hurled Islamophobic slurs at a fellow congresswoman, and amplified Donald Trump’s false claims about a stolen 2020 election – narrowly won re-election this month.
Colorado Springs, where the shooting took place, has itself has long been a hub for the Christian Right, which for decades has pumped out anti-LGBTQ propaganda in the name of a narrow and exclusionary definition of family.
In the 1990s, Colorado Springs’s Focus on the Family led the fundamentalist charge in support of Amendment 2, a Colorado ballot measure that banned municipalities from including LGBTQ people in their anti-discrimination policies. Though the initiative passed in 1992, in 1995 the Supreme Court found that it violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The SPLC’s hate map lists four anti-LGBTQ hate groups in the state, with two – the Family Research Institute and the Pray in Jesus Name Project – headquartered in Colorado Springs. The state also plays host to active chapters of other hate groups who have taken violent or disruptive actions against LGBTQ people, like the Proud Boys and Patriot Front.
Since the nadir of Amendment 2, Colorado has evolved to boast one of the most progressive policy slates for LGBTQ rights in the country.
But more liberal laws have not made the state immune from the right-wing moral panic sweeping the country.
Proud Boys attempted to disrupt Denver drag shows as early as 2019. Denver-based drag performers told reporters this year of a new atmosphere of confrontation and hostility at child-friendly performances around the state.
Now five are dead, at least 25 are injured, and an unknown number are traumatized for life by an act of violence primed by conspiracy thinking and hateful propaganda.
Photo by Helen H. Richardson/Media News Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images
For more resources, visit ONEColorado. If you were affected by the attack and need to access mental health resources, community support or you’d like to get in touch with law enforcement as a victim or witness, visit coloradosprings.gov/clubq. Finally, if you would like to donate to help the victims of the tragedy, visit Colorado Healing Fund.
The rabid fundamental Christian right is trying to do in other places what they accomplished in Florida, a government take over so they can force everyone to live by their regressive rules. In a lot of red state areas that they did this, the majority has risen up to try to take back the government from the haters / fundies. But in sleep small towns in blue states, the people are not aware of the danger the anti-LGBTQIA fundamentalist right present. Anytime someone uses the word abomination to describe gay people, you know their stance is being directed by religious church doctrine, not science or reality. LGBTQIA are not abominations, but people who support hate, taking away equality from people, and oppression are. Hugs. Scottie
The quaint town of Littleton, New Hampshire, is seeing more tourists, drawn to a main street of shops and restaurants where rainbow colors and gay pride symbols can be seen alongside American flags. Its population of 6,000 is growing younger and more diverse, supporting LGBTQ-themed art and a local theater’s gay-themed musical.
The culture change doesn’t sit well with town selectboard member Carrie Gendreau, who also serves as a Republican state senator. Last year, she said that “homosexuality is an abomination” and spoke of regulating art on public property, prompting a backlash and now the resignation of the town manager, whose late son was gay.
“My son is not an abomination,” Jim Gleason told the selectboard in January, to a standing ovation, when he announced his last day was Friday. He accused Gendreau of creating a toxic work environment by repeatedly making derogatory comments about gay people. Friday also was Gendreau’s deadline to file for reelection to the board, but she didn’t, so her three-year term ends in March.
A former mill town in the White Mountains, Littleton reversed a long decline in part through art. Tourists come now for antiques, galleries, boutiques and “the world’s longest candy counter.” They also look at the bronze statue of Pollyanna, erected outside the public library to honor the 1913 book by local author Eleanor H. Porter, whose main character came to define relentless optimism.
Pollyanna’s motto “Be Glad!” — which hangs from banners up and down Main Street — has been tested as townspeople found themselves debating over inclusion, tolerance and equality.
The controversy began in August, after three small murals funded by a diversity, equity and inclusion grant appeared on the side of a building that houses a restaurant and clothing store. Covering boarded-up windows, the murals show a white iris against a color wheel, two birch trees bending under a night sky, and a dandelion reaching skyward from an open book.
“What went up was not good,” said Gendreau, urging the selectboard’s audience to research what such symbols really mean. “I don’t want that to be in our town. I don’t want it to be here.”
The board then sought an attorney’s advice on what they could do to regulate artistic expression on town property and Gendreau gave several interviews, telling The Boston Globe that the iris painting carried “demonic hidden messages.”
The artist, Meg Reinhold, said her “We Are Joy” painting was inspired by Iris, the Greek goddess of rainbows. She told The Associated Press in an email that she hoped to “evoke feelings of joy and empowerment,” add beauty to Littleton, and celebrate people living with pride in the LGBTQ+ community.
“If a viewer looks at these works and sees demons and darkness, what does that tell us about how they view the world?” Reinhold said.
Gleason, who answered to the board as town manager, said he tried to resolve matters. When a woman approached him demanding to stop the November production of “La Cage aux Folles” — depicted on screen as “The Birdcage” — he said she was free to protest outside the theater or not buy a ticket.
She responded by invoking his son, saying “He’s in hell with the devil where he belongs,” recalled Gleason, and he said Gendreau tried to justify the the comments. The woman later admitted sending Gleason a photo of him clipped from a newspaper with derogatory language written across his face. A judge granted Gleason a restraining order against her.
As fears of a public art ban spread, selectboard meetings drew large crowds.
Ronnie Sandler, 75, an out lesbian all her adult life, said she spoke up at a selectboard meeting last fall because some of her friends told her they were scared.
“I have never felt any hatred or anything targeted at me in all of those years,” she told the AP. “Back in the late ‘70s, my girlfriend and I used to walk around in Littleton holding hands.”
A group of local business owners led by auto dealership manager Duane Coute submitted a letter signed by more than 1,000 people from Littleton and across the country urging the board to abandon “a path so detrimental to business.”
“Our community is so much stronger because of this situation,” Coute said.
New Hampshire’s Democratic-led congressional delegation stressed “how integral public art and cultural expression are to the economic wellbeing and competitiveness of towns like Littleton and similar communities throughout New Hampshire.” Surrounding towns adopted inclusivity-equality resolutions.
Some people backed Gendreau.
“She speaks for those stakeholders who are afraid to speak out due to personal retribution. She speaks out for those who are afraid for their own personal safety,” Nick De Mayo of nearby Sugar Hill, in Gendreau’s Senate district, wrote in a letter to the editor.
Others called the whole experience disappointing and disgraceful.
“It’s coming from a very small group of people. Unfortunately, that small group of people hold elected office and have some degree of power within the town,” said Kevin Silva, a physician who has lived in Littleton for about 20 years.
The board ultimately announced that they never sought an art ban. Selectboard member Linda MacNeil drew a standing ovation when she said “Whether we agree with the content or not, art is part of the fabric of history and should not be censored.” Roger Emerson, chairperson of the three-member board, did not take a position on the subject.
Gleason, 65, expressed amazement during his resignation speech at an outpouring of support for his defense of the arts, and urged his fellow townspeople to keep working “for civil rights and equality for all.”
“Keep up the fight,” he told the audience in a quavering voice. ‘You’ve got a beautiful town.”
Gleason, who was hired in 2021 following a similar job in Florida, told the AP he’s been thinking of his son Patrick, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2016.
“I believe he’d be proud of his dad for standing up, not just for him, but for everybody in the LGBTQIA-plus community, and anyone who has been marginalized or discriminated against in terms of that process,” Gleason said. “This is one of those moments. We don’t always get them in life.”
Gendreau didn’t answer directly when asked for comment on the controversy, but she suggested she wasn’t done trying to change her community. “There’s a lot of undertones that need to get corrected,” she said.
From the linked article, here is what the class would teach. “…class and school wide presentations showcasing the achievements and recognizing the rich and diverse traditions, histories, and innumerable contributions of the Black communities.” So we are catering to the parents that don’t want kids to know that gay / trans people exist, now we are catering to the racist parents that don’t want black history and achievements taught. Well the first one, don’t say gay increases harassment / attacks on gay and trans kids, the second does the same for black kids, it increases the racism they have to deal with. Some more quotes from the article.
But Gallon said he is concerned about the unintended consequences this may have on children whose parents choose not to have them attend. “Something feels very off here, and the fact that the school needs to cover themselves against the state feels even worse,” said Peeling. Florida International University Professor Marvin Dunn, who is an expert in African-American history, said this will create a generation of people who are miseducated when it comes Black history.
“When parents become involved in making that decision, keeping some kids out, some kids in, you have unequal learning,” said Dunn.
Here is the entire goal of the right, DeathSantis, and maga.
“The intent of the DeSantis attack on education is to make schools more cautious, to make teachers more cautious about what they teach, and it’s working,” he said. “It’s not about banning books necessarily, it’s about banning ideas.”
Hugs. Scottie
Miami School Asks Parents To Sign Permission Slips Allowing Children To Learn About Black History Month
February marks Black History Month, an important topic being taught at South Florida schools, but now parents at IPrep Academy are being asked to sign off on whether they want their children to participate in some of the educational events.
“I was shocked,” said concerned parent Jill Peeling, who said she thought she may have misunderstood the document. “I’m concerned. I’m concerned as a citizen.” Miami-Dade School Board Member Steve Gallon said it all has to do with getting parental consent when individuals come on campus.
“This is a policy that’s an extension of a new state board rule,” said Gallon. It’s a policy that was just enacted last year in November, an extension of the Parental Bill Of Rights.
Read the full article. Those of here will know the Parental Bill of Rights by its more accurate name, “Don’t Say Gay.” To which we can add, “Don’t Say Black.” Last year the Miami-Dade School Board banned any recognition of LGBTQ History Month.
I am so glad I am not a parent and live in Florida.
These A-Holes are setting these kids up to fail when they get jobs in the real world because I can tell you my company won’t put up with discrimination.
A good friend sent this to me about a month ago.I think it came from a “reader poll” in his local paper, but I’m not sure. I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but I wasn’t surprised when I saw it. Friend is an MIT math grad who doesn’t traffic in conspiracy theories or create memes, so I give it some credence. He sent it with the comment “what a great country we live in”.
Fuckers. Why not turn this around and make the white supremacists sign OPT OUT slips so they can keep turning their own kids into good little klansmen, rather than trying to do it to everyone’s kids?
These are some of the disadvantages of leaving Black history* to a particular month — it becomes a set of optional activities, rather than facts and concepts to be learned.
*The history of African descendants in America is really the history of America, inextricable from the history of white America.
OK I couldn’t resist, if you watch the video you will understand. I do sometimes state the truth that those on the receiving end will not like being called. I call racist, racist. I call bigots and haters, well, what they are bigots and haters. I do question the mental abilities of those that can not reason well or who support conspiracies over facts. I call people who get their medical information from politicians and preachers rather than doctors and medical professional / medical scientist stupid. Yup, and I don’t care it offends them. Because I will start out trying to help someone, but as the lady said, “When they show you who they are, believe them the first time”. So I do agree with the good Reverend some, maybe half way. But sometimes you have to just lay the cards on the table, no matter what they show. That said, if you have elderly parents or a spouse that is … highly opinionated about something, maybe then you do have to hold your tongue. I would have to care a real lot to stay quiet though. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie's Playtime 