*** Trigger Warning *** The following article describes the beating of a small dog to prove his authority / superiority over the dog. He also says that a child will challenge you and needs to feel pain to be brought under control. He feels he is a super Christian who feels entitled to tell others how to live. This is not written back in a time when child abuse and hitting kids was not recognized as the horrible thing it is, this was written in 2015. This man shouldn’t ever be let near a dog or child and has no right to tell others how to live. If he will do this to a dog what would he do to a LGBTQI+ who he believes is an abomination who his god hates. He gives a detailed way to use a sensitive muscle to cause so much pain a child will collapse on the ground, and he is proud of that. *** Again Trigger Warning for violence / cruelty *** Hugs
I want to thank Ali for the link. It is important we understand this religious group that Dobson started and leads, that has spun off many other hate groups. Also I won’t be highlighting the passages as I can’t. I left in his books so if a person wants to cite them as child abuse or let the sellers know what they are pushing. Hugs
James Dobson on How to Get to Heaven – Beat Your Dog, Whip Your Kid
James Dobson then.
It was bedtime and James Dobson wanted his dog—a dachshund named Sigmund Freud—to get into his overnight enclosure in the family room.
Siggie didn’t want to go. He growled and bared his teeth at his master.
Dobson went for his belt.
“I had seen this defiant mood before,” Dobson explained in the first chapter of his 1978 book, The Strong-Willed Child.
“There was only one way to deal with it. The only way to make Siggie obey is to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else works. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me ‘reason’ with Mr. Freud.”
Dobson, an evangelical Christian and a licensed psychologist, gave Mr. Freud a firm swat across the rear end.
The dog tried to bite the belt.
“I hit him again and he tried to bite me . . . That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling and swinging the belt.”
Finally Siggie backed himself into a corner and snarled at the belt-wielding child psychologist. It was to be the little dog’s last stand. “I eventually got him to bed,” Dobson writes, “but only because I outweighed him 200 to 12!”
The next night when Dobson ordered the family pet into his nighttime enclosure, Mr. Freud went “in perfect submission.”
Two-hundred-pound man with belt wins. Twelve-pound dog loses.
Here’s Why You Must Beat Your Dog . . .
And that is as it should be, according to Dobson’s lights. For just as a dog will challenge authority, so too will a small child–“only more so.” Whenever a child resists authority, some physical pain–a swat or lash with a switch or a belt—is in order.
The entire human race, you see, is afflicted with a tendency toward willful behavior, Dobson says. Adam and Eve had it. You and I have it. Our children have it.
Which puts our children’s very souls at risk. The child who fails to submit to his parents “leadership” will surely fail to yield to God’s formidable will as an adult, Dobson reasons.
In “The Strong-Willed Child,” Dobson recommends you inflict pain on your kid so he can get to heaven
Make no mistake, he tells his readers, God possesses “majestic authority.” God is in charge of the universe, and as such, God, the supreme Lord, requires obedience from his children. Those who do not submit to him will learn to their eternal horror that “the wages of sin is death.”
. . . And Your Kid
And that is why parents have to spank their children, or hit them with a switch or belt. For the sake of their eternal salvation, children must be brought under parental and, later, divine authority. To that end, Dobson insists, “most of them need to be spanked now and then.”
I’ve owned two copies of The Strong-Willed Child over the years. One, a copy of the 1985 trade paperback edition, sits on my desk right now. I ordered it online the other day to make sure I remembered the dog beating incident correctly. I had.
The first copy of The Strong-Willed Child found its way into our house back in the 1980s when our children were small. As a new parent, I was eager to learn everything I could from the experts, and Dobson’s book was a big seller at the time. As I read Chapter One, however, I was stunned by the spectacle of a man—a psychologist—beating his dog into submission.
Submission to God–And You
I was just as appalled, then and now, at this popular writer’s understanding of the nature of God. The man’s overarching goal in rearing his children—and helping you to rear yours—is to make sure that as adults they submit to God. Using a switch or a belt on a child is part and parcel of Dobson’s theology.
Of course, there was no way I was going to spank, whip, or use a belt to terrify my little son or daughter into submission to an all-powerful (and purportedly loving) God who sends the disobedient off to hell.
So I stopped reading and put Dobson’s book on a shelf. I eyed it uneasily for some time, then got rid of it. It probably wound up in the garbage, which is where my second copy of The Strong-Willed Child will probably go.
Dobson began writing his childrearing books back in the 1970s. Around that same time he also founded the socially and politically powerful–and very conservative–Christian media ministry Focus on the Family.
Dobson Thirty Years Later
You’d think that, in the three-plus decades since, Dobson would have toned down his opinions on corporal punishment. He hasn’t.
At a meeting of the Religion Newswriters Association in Decatur, Georgia, last fall an unrepentant Dobson’s PR people screened a video of a child-rearing talk Dobson gave in the early days of Focus on the Family.
The video shows Dobson cheerfully describing what to do when your toddler disobeys. You hook the defiant behavior with consequences, he says. And you do that by making use of a conveniently located muscle, the trapezius.
“You squeeze that little muscle,” he tells his live audience, and “he goes down to the ground.”
The audience laughs.
I’m not kidding. The audience laughs. Hear the audio of James Dobson for yourself on the Religion Newswriters Association website.
The Dobson “Legacy”
The clip from the decades-old video was being shown at the conference as a promotion for Dobson’s latest book–Your Legacy: The Greatest Gift, which is all about passing on the Dobson values to the next generation, and the generation after that. And the one after that.
To be fair to Dobson, I want to point out that there’s a lot of wisdom in The Strong-Willed Child. Everything a parent does should be done with love, he urges. That feels right to me.
And so does this advice: “Ultimately, the key to competent parenthood is in being able to get behind the eyes of your child, seeing what he sees and feeling what he feels. When he is lonely, he needs your company. When he is defiant, he needs your help in controlling his impulses. When he is afraid, he needs the security of your embrace . . . ”
“Get behind the eyes of your child.” What a beautiful, helpful image for young parents to keep in mind.
Dobson is a smart man and an engaging storyteller. Too bad he thinks that heaven is so tough to get into that it requires him to wield a belt on his dog—and his kids.
Normally I pass along the publication information of the books I write about. But I can’t recommend books by James Dobson. They are not good for your children, nor you for that matter.
Tucker Carlson claims to be frustrated with the media and liberals for pointing he is culpable for violence that what happened in Colorado Springs because his past calls for Fox News viewers to arm themselves against Drag Queen Story Hours.
There will be two articles in this one post. This terrorism, it is minority rule by violence. This is to drive fear and intimidation for a political goal. What the right cannot win at the ballot box because it is unpopular with the majority that has accepted the LGBTQ+ as members of society, the right will try to enforce via violent threats that incite the killing of people. The rest of society must stand up to this attempt to promote their religious morality anti-tolerance of others of this Taliban wannabes. Dogs that love gravy, if we give into these people on this we will be forever giving in to them. Hugs
A local chapter of the far-right Proud Boys plans to disrupt a Dec. 3 drag story event in Columbus, Ohio, just two weeks after the killings at a LGBTQ night club in Colorado Springs.
The Columbus Proud Boys announced their plans to disrupt the kids story time event held at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus on Telegram last Tuesday.
Advance Democracy, Inc., a non-partisan, non-profit research organization, first flagged the post. The emphasis of a “wild” protest is likely a reference to Jan. 6. Trump had called on his supporters to attend a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, promising that it would “be wild!”
Earlier this year the leader of an Ohio Proud Boys faction was arrested for punching a black woman in the face after screaming the N-word. In August, a man linked to the Proud Boys was killed following his attack on Cincinnati’s FBI office. The photo above is from last month when Proud Boys menaced a drag event in North Carolina.
They’re a terrorist threat, not simply a protest, and should be viewed by law enforcement as such. No one should be intimidated—much less killed—for going about their lives.
Watched the local CBS affiliate evening news last night. They interviewed the straight owner of the new drag complex in Cleveland about safe spaces and the safety of drag brunches.
Proud Boys at Raleigh rally, November 2020 (Credit: Wikicommons)
A local chapter of the far-right Proud Boys plans to disrupt a Dec. 3 drag story event in Columbus, Ohio, just two weeks after the killings at a LGBTQ night club in Colorado Springs.
The Columbus Proud Boys announced their plans to disrupt the kids story time event held at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus on Telegram last Tuesday. Advance Democracy, Inc., a non-partisan, non-profit research organization, first flagged the post. The post read:
The Columbus Proud Boys would like to announce that we will be attending the Holi-drag Storytime being held at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus on December 3rd! We look forward to meeting all of the attendees and welcome Americans from all over to join us. It’s gonna be wild! Stand by for details…
The emphasis of a “wild” protest is likely a reference to Jan. 6. Former President Donald Trump had called on his supporters to attend a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, promising that it would “be wild!” Many of attendees of that rally, including members of the Proud Boys, later marched on the U.S. Capitol, attacking police officers and storming the building.
While the Proud Boys is probably best known for its role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol—for which several members face seditious conspiracy charges—the far-right, neo-fascist group is also known for its members’ presence at the 2017 white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one counterprotester was murdered. Since the failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Proud Boys members have focused their efforts locally, disrupting school board meetings over mask mandates and LGBTQ-inclusive policies, and harassing attendees of drag story events, fearmongering that trans people are “grooming” children.
Already this year, the Proud Boys have disrupted drag events in Texas, Nevada, North Carolina, and California. In Idaho, the right-wing extremist group Patriot Front took it a step further; 31 people associated with the organization were arrested after they were found in a trailer full of weapons next to a Pride event.
The post by the Columbus Proud Boys announcing its plans to disrupt the Columbus event has been viewed more than 1,600 times. Just 45 minutes after posting, the post was further promoted by the Official Cape Fear Proud Boys, a North Carolina-based chapter that coordinated multiple efforts to disrupt drag events in the past six months. It was also shared by an Ohio Proud Boys channel and “the Infamous Legend Valley Proud Boys” channel, which shared an image the following day promising “Ohio Proud Boys Season Beatings.” On Monday, the Legend Valley Proud Boys shared a meme calling for violence against perceived perpetrators of pedophilia.
A meme posted on the Legend Valley Proud Boys channel. The image depicts a character in the “Walking Dead” who randomly choses a victim and kills him with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed-wire.
The Dec. 3 event is sponsored by Red Oak Community Schools, a school dedicated to fostering “students’ sense of their place and power in the natural world and in their communities.” A Facebook page promoting the event describes “Holi-drag Storytime” as “a new family-friendly, LGBTQ+ holiday tradition” in which local drag queens “will read stories for children of ALL ages and perform a few holiday numbers!”
Of course, the Proud Boys have alleged that the event amounts to “grooming”—the rhetoric at the heart of recent political attacks on LGBTQ people. A video posted the Columbus Proud Boys channel last Thursday called on members to “stand against grooming” and provided the address of the church. “All I want for Christmas is an end to child grooming. Help Saint Nicolas scold the Naughty groomers,” text in the video reads, calling on members to arrive before 10 a.m. Another image shows a picture of Santa Claus giving the middle fingers. “Its rally time boys!” a final message reads.
Right Wing Watch reached out to Red Oak Community Schools and the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus. We will update this story should either respond. The church’s website describes it as a place to “come together to grow in religious depth, valuing freedom, reason, tolerance, love.” Shortly after the Proud Boys’ announcement, Red Oak Community Schools said they meet hate with love and invited donations, posting on Facebook, “For every nasty comment, dislike, negative email, phone call, etc. we receive about our upcoming FABULOUS fundraiser, we’re collecting donation pledges for a local LGBTQ+ organization.”
The Proud Boys’ announced plan to disrupt the event came just days before a lone gunman targeted patrons of a gay night club in Colorado, killing five people and injuring 25 others. LGBTQ leaders have noted that this attack follows years of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and an increasing number of Republican politicians characterizing trans people as “groomers.” Religious-right groups have drafted anti-trans legislation, encouraged lawmakers to sponsor such legislation, and laid the groundwork for their passage through disinformation and pressure campaigns, a Right Wing Watch investigation found last year.
On the Sunday morning following the attack on Club Q, Democratic Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone said such rhetoric was to blame. “When politicians and pundits keep perpetuating tropes, insults, and misinformation about the trans and LGBTQ+ community, this is a result,” she wrote.
In his spiel Tucker spews lies and states they are true even when he says others tell you they are lies. He never mentions that these people are inciting terror and hate, instead he talks about their opinions as if it is something they are quietly keeping to themselves. He is deliberately misinforming and mischaracterizing the situation just as a KKK person burning a cross on a black family’s lawn might claim to just be spreading Christianity, not trying to strike raciest fear into the black community. See if you can spot the misdirection and slight of mouth he uses to compare apples to oranges as if they are the same thing. Hugs
So these horrifying murders in Colorado over the weekend quickly became a pretext for yet more censorship of your speech. You are responsible for this, they told you, because you said the wrong things. You are guilty of stochastic terrorism, inspiring violence by your beliefs.
Anderson Lee Aldrich committed mass murder because you complained about the sexualizing of children. Every time you object to drag time story hour for fifth graders or point out that genital mutilation is being committed on minors — which it is — every time you say that, you are putting people’s lives at risk.
Now that seems implausible and yet many are making this claim. Many have made it over the past 24 hours. Watch for example Brandy Zadrozny of NBC.
When you point out the truth, indisputably, and the truth is that some adults in this country, apparently a growing number, have a deeply unhealthy fixation on the sexuality of children — when you say that out loud, you get people killed.
That is what Brandy Zadrozny is saying. And by saying that, Brandy Zadrozny and the many people like her are effectively defending that same deeply unhealthy fixation on the sexuality of children.
By the way, it’s absolutely real. You’re not imagining that. It’s happening. The evidence is everywhere. And it comes to light on the internet. And Brandy Zadrozny and people like her hate that you are seeing that.
Notice that Zadrozny is not claiming that Libs of TikTok is making this up. She never even suggests that. She is threatening them, you should know, and she’s doing that because they’re pointing it out. Noticing it’s happening is their crime. And once again, it is happening.
Damn, Damn, Damn it. This is beyond cruel, this is pure gloating that she and her hateful ilk are causing people to hurt and harm, kill gay and trans people to push their ignorant views of denying the right of others to exist. She did this after a person killed and injured people in a gay establishment where drag shows happened. This is not religious liberty, this is demanding a segment of the population stop existing and that it is OK to kill them. She knows she will suffer no consequence for her actions, her incitement of violence and killing. Musk loves her hate and bigotry as he is full of it himself. The republicans won’t do anything to stop her as she is activating their base something they like. This is why I push back on her and people that say things like her. Anytime you let the misinformation, lies, and hateful rhetoric pass unchallenged you are giving ammo to the domestic terrorists and those that target the minorities for harm based on that misinformation, lies, and hate mongering. Take the teeth out of people like elected republicans, Matt Walsh, and Libs of TikTok by not letting their garbage stand uncorrected. Hugs
Colorado Shooting vigil (Getty Images)
Anti-LGBTQ+ social media account Libs of TikTok attacked a Colorado kids drag organization just hours after the Colorado Springs shooting, in which five were people killed.
Following the devastating shooting on Saturday (19 November) Libs of TikTok, run by Chaya Raichik, attacked non-profit organisation, Dragutante.
Dragutante is a Colorado-based group created to provide a safe stage for aspiring drag performers aged eight to 18.
Posting on Twitter the account wrote: “This organization in Colorado teaches kids how to become drag queens and helps kids ‘safely experience the art of drag on stage.”
It then tagged Colorado state representatives Leslie Herod and Brianna Titone to claim they have “promoted and encouraged this child drag organization and performance”.
Owner of the account, Chaya Raichik, who has branded herself a “stochastic terrorist” in her Twitter bio, has since been slammed for the role she has played in stirring up hatred against the LGBTQ+ community in the months leading up to Colorado Springs shooting.
LGBTQ+ activist Erin Reed used Twitter to accuse Raichik of allegedly “gloating” about “instigating LGBTQ+ violence in the wake of the Colorado Springs mass shooting”.
Reed wrote: “She lists herself as a ‘stochastic terrorist’ in her bio” and pointed out that, when confronted about the role she plays in anti-LGBTQ+ attacks, she responds “sarcastically”.
Raichik responded: “I put stochastic terrorist (the term they’ve been using for months to describe me) in my bio to trigger the Left. Mission finally accomplished!”
I put stochastic terrorist (the term they’ve been using for months to describe me) in my bio to trigger the Left. Mission finally accomplished! ✅ https://t.co/61TyQ27qeZ
Reed added: “In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, as many have reported, she targeted LGBTQ+ family friendly drag events (which Club Q was going to have today for TDOR [Transgender Day of Remembrance]).”
“We have entered a new phase in anti-LGBTQ violence.
“They’re openly gloating and mocking because they know they now have a permanent platform for this in Twitter.”
Another Twitter user wrote: “This is 9 hours apart. Chaya Raichik (@LibsofTikTok) is bragging about inciting the attack.
“She knows she’ll get away with it.”
This is 9 hours apart. Chaya Raichik (@LibsofTikTok) is bragging about inciting the attack. She knows she’ll get away with it. The last time she posted about Colorado was weeks ago. This is not a coincidence but open gloating that she’ll never face accountability for her actions. pic.twitter.com/okio0zoBQE
This speaks for itself. There is a direct correlation between the republican / right wing media targeting on the trans, gays, and all LGBTQI+ and the violence / domestic terrorism attacks on LGBTQI+ establishments and drag queen events. As Democrat AOC said, you can connect the dots right back to the republicans and their don’t say gay bills and their constant attacking trans kids. Lauren Boebert cluelessly tweeted out prayers for the family of those killed at the Q nightclub but never mentioned the dead or injured nor her own vicious attacks on gays / trans people for political advantage. She inspires acts like these. Hugs
Daniel Aston
The mother of trans victim Daniel Aston, killed in the Colorado Springs shooting, has spoken out after the attack on Saturday (19 November), calling on lawmakers to “have a voice” for the LGBTQ+ community.
Aston’s mother Sabrina spoke to Colorado Public Radio (CPR) shortly after the deadly shooting, claiming that he was the “happiest he had ever been” while working at Club Q.
“He was thriving and having fun and having friends. It’s just unbelievable. He had so much more life to give to us and to all to his friends and to himself,” she said.
‘The trans community are the biggest targets’
Sabrina added her son “knew he was trans when he was four”, and started transitioning shortly after graduating from college.
“I always worried about it… He’s a trans man and the trans community are really the biggest targets I can think about it right now.”
Sabrina said she and her family wanted to speak out about what happened in order to bring more “exposure and acceptance” about the trans community, with LGBTQ+ Americans targeted with several laws affecting healthcare, education, and more in the past year.
“We need to get our legislators and our people high up to have a voice for us… Those are our children, we do not care how you dress or what you identify as. It doesn’t harm anybody,” she said.
People have gathered near Club Q, an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to honour and remember the five people killed and at least 25 people wounded in a mass shooting. (Getty)
President Biden has condemned the “senseless attack” in an official statement, calling for an end to “violence against LGBTQI+ people” after the horrific shooting.
“Gun violence continues to have a devastating and particular impact on LGBTQI+ communities across our nation and threats of violence are increasing,” he wrote.
“We saw it six years ago in Orlando, when our nation suffered the deadliest attack affecting the LGBTQI+ community in American history. We continue to see it in the epidemic of violence and murder against transgender women – especially transgender women of colour. And tragically, we saw it last night in this devastating attack by a gunman wielding a long rifle at an LGBTQI+ nightclub in Colorado Springs.
“Places that are supposed to be safe spaces of acceptance and celebration should never be turned into places of terror and violence. Yet it happens far too often.”
The president added: “Today, yet another community in America has been torn apart by gun violence. More families left with an empty chair at the table and a hole in their lives that cannot be filled.”
This kind of hate is created by those including right wing media, right wing Christian hate preachers, and republicans in office that are demonizing the LGBTQ+. By constantly shouting into the ears of their faithful / viewers that gays are molesters, groomers of children, sexually abusing your child, that the trans / gays are recruiting your child, that teachers are indoctrinating your innocent kids into sexual experimentation and orgies … all this and so much more vitriol that the right is spewing just incites this kind of stuff. Is this what you pay your elected officials for? Is this what you want your religion to be known for?
At least five people were killed and 18 injured late Saturday in a shooting at an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in Colorado Springs, the police said early Sunday morning.
Lt. Pamela Castro, a public information officer with the Colorado Springs Police Department, said at a news conference outside the nightclub, Club Q, that the investigation was only beginning and that the number of victims was subject to change. She added that the victims had been taken to multiple area hospitals.
After the police received an initial call about an active shooting at 11:57 p.m., Lieutenant Castro said, officers entered the club and took into custody an individual they believed to be a suspect. The suspect was also injured and was being treated at a hospital, Lieutenant Castro said.
Police officers had entered the club overnight as they responded to reports of the shooting and located “one individual believed to be the suspect inside,” Castro said.
She said the casualty toll “is subject to change as the investigation continues,” adding that ambulances and police had transported “numerous people” to hospitals. The hospitals are helping to notify families of the victims, she added.
Capt. Mike Smaldino, spokesperson for the fire department, said 34 firefighters and 11 ambulances were dispatched to the scene to help quickly move people to hospitals.
The club was reportedly planning to hold a drag brunch today to mark the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
There was a mass shooting at my job tonight. I am alive. Please pray for my community. #coloradosprings#clubq
#Breaking: Colorado Springs Police first got the call around 11:57pm for a an active shooter at Club Q. Again, they confirmed five dead and 18 injured. They are taken to local hospitals. The gunman was injured in this. Not sure if by police or civilian. pic.twitter.com/cpcIhSfWzZ
Not just conservative. It is a hotbed of evangelicals, like Ted Haggard, and is also where the evangelicals work to make sure the Air Force academy there stays rigidly Christian.
Waiting for words of condolence from DeSantis for the victims. Of course, the politicians trying to protect the children from grooming who used gays as scapegoats for their political ambition had absolutely nothing to do with this sad, sad occurrence.
They want us to live in fear. There’s no way to “ethnically cleanse” gay people from anywhere. Now another murderer is about to be purged from society. We still exist. He will get to write hateful manifestos from prison, but society will still have gay people because we will refuse to live in fear.
Gay kids will still be born, and we will be here as long as there are people, we’ll remain. He will not change that fact. We will still love each other, but no one will remember or love him.
The far-right fascist QAnonGOP and Nazi scum are doing all they can to silence and cancel lgbt Americans! Of course the motive will turn out to be homophobia and/or anger at the drag brunch due to radicalization by far-right fascist social media.
The media are partly to blame, but a lot of the media are merely reporting what the goddamned rethugs are doing with their don’t say gay tirades, grooming crap, and transphobia. It is just a game for those bigots. Part of their attempt to encourage homophobia to garner votes.
This is what these bills are designed to do, create fear and keep the gay and trans kids hidden, to stop any positive reinforcement of LGBTQ+ while allowing all the negatives and slurs full volume to attack them. This is designed to reenforce white cis heterosexuality only. Make being gay or trans so hated kids and teacher live in fear of the other kids who target them with the authority of maga parents and the school administration behind them. It is indoctrination of right wing hate. It worked in Russia and other countries it has been done like China or the Islamic countries. It is about erasing the LGBTQ+ from society and returning to a time when hate and hostility towards minorities was accepted as normal. How is combating racism and bigotry controversial or political unless one party has racism and bigotry as their identity? How can it be a bad thing in 2022 to be against racism? This is a serious regression in society, the right wants to unwind the entire civil rights movement. Ask yourself why? Who wins in that situation? Hugs
Anything deemed political, with LGBTQ subject matter in the bullseye, is being torn down, boxed up and otherwise removed from campuses.
Across Florida this new school year, rainbows, safe space stickers and books with LGBTQ themes and history are being replaced in classrooms out of fear.
The Parental Rights in Education Bill – called the Don’t Say Gay bill by its opponents – was signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in March. It’s had a chilling effect on students, teachers and free speech across the state. Anything deemed political, with LGBTQ subject matter in the bullseye, is being torn down, boxed up and otherwise removed from campuses. Black Lives Matter posters are leaving along with rainbow flags.
In Sarasota, where high school senior Zander Moricz organized a headline-making student walkout in March, students and faculty report a grim environment imposed by school administrators enforcing the Don’t Say Gay law.
Gail Foreman, a longtime social studies teacher at Booker High School and a lesbian, says her principal didn’t wait for the law to take effect before conducting an inventory of inappropriate materials last March. “Anything that could even remotely be construed as gay-related came down,” Foreman told Buzzfeed News. “It wasn’t me putting this stuff up,” she said. “It was the kids. It was their classroom, too.”
Among the items removed were student-created posters reading “All Students Deserve Equal Education” and “All Minds Matter”; pride flags; a pride cape gifted by a student; safe space stickers from the Trevor Project; and a Mickey Mouse pen topped with a rainbow head. “Rainbows now symbolize politics,” Foreman said.
Senior Nora Mitchell, who founded Sarasota Students for Justice in 2020, says the Don’t Say Gay law has “allowed the Sarasota County School Board to create new policies that are, for lack of better words, extremely repressive within our school.” That school board now includes three new DeSantis-endorsed members, two of whom celebrated their victory in August with members of the neo-Nazi group, Proud Boys. One flashes a white power sign in a photo published by Vice News.
Mitchell, who came out to friends and teachers just before Don’t Say Gay was signed, says two banners she created were taken down and thrown away. One read, “Black Minds Matter,” and the other said, “We are all welcome here” and was decorated with rainbows. Officials “want school to feel unsafe,” says Mitchell, “and they want schools to be spaces where they can impress their own values of heterosexuality of whiteness. They want to reaffirm those values.”
Sarasota County Schools spokesperson Craig Maniglia denied the event Mitchell describes took place.
Mitchell and 2021 graduate Anthony Frisbee add that it’s not just school administrators tracking down violations. “Students have reported about teachers who are wearing anything rainbow-related,” says Mitchell. “It’s horrible.” In Frisbee’s view, “It’s like the Hitler Youth outing their parents.”
“You feel the sense of danger — like, school does not feel safe. It does not feel as vibrant as it was before,” Mitchell says. “Teachers can’t teach what they want, they can’t call students by their actual name, students are scared to be themselves at school. I mean, how can that possibly be conducive to learning or be a welcoming and fun place?”
I wish the US could do something like this. The entire idea behind conversion therapy is that if a person / kid is hurt enough they wont do that behavior anymore. That is the idea behind spankings and corporal punishment. Even the people still pushing this admit it won’t change the desire, just make the thought of it so painful, the feelings about it so adverse that the person is unable to go forward with the desire. Think of that. Say you are attracted to a set gender / sex and you are tortured to the point where every time you try to fulfill that desire the effects / memories of the torture kick in giving you a fresh taste of the torture. It doesn’t matter your sexual orientation or what gender you ID as, if your conditioned to hate it in yourself or hate it in anyway, you have just been programed to hate yourself forever, all of yourself. This is done to teens by religious parents who think their religion gives them the authority to claim such feelings either don’t exist or are from the devil and because of laws in most places the parents in that case have the unquestioned authority to force their teenager to go to these places and undergo the torture. That is why these bans on these conversion therapy places need to happen. Hugs
11th edition of the ‘Antwerp Pride’ parade. Credit: Nicolas Maeterlinck
Belgium is banning conversion practices – a pseudoscientific practice of trying to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity to align with heterosexual and cisgender norms – for members of the LGBTQ community, announced State Secretary for Gender Equality, Equal Opportunity and Diversity Sarah Schlitz.
Although Belgium is regularly regarded as a model of LGBTQ rights due to its extensive legislative arsenal, conversion practices – often referred to as “conversion therapy,” which is considered a misnomer by medical professionals as it does not constitute a legitimate form of therapy – were not yet officially banned in the country.
“Belgium is a pioneer in the field of LGBTQ rights. Numerous legislative reforms and social efforts bear witness to this, but a ban [on conversion practices] was sadly missing from our legislative arsenal,” Schlitz said in a press release.
While the phenomenon is better known abroad – especially in the United States where at least 700,000 cases of conversion practices are known – Belgium is not spared from it: a recent study by the ‘Centre Permanent pour la Citoyenneté et la Participation’ (CPCP) reveals the stories of LGBTQ people who have been victims of these so-called medical therapies or even forms of exorcisms.
Symbolic, psychological and physical violence
Conversion practices are “deceptive, ineffective and dangerous” practices that aim to change, suppress or eliminate the sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression of LGBTQ people.
“The opportunity to be yourself and the freedom to live the way you want is a fundamental principle of our society that must not be compromised under any circumstances,” Schlitz said. “This prohibition is a powerful act to protect the victims from this symbolic, psychological and sometimes physical violence.”
Methods range from psychotherapy and electroshock therapy to beatings and even “corrective rape.” They can take place in religious, medical or sectarian environments, can be carried out by relatives or pseudo-professionals and have terrible consequences for the people who undergo them.
From now on, carrying out conversion practices will be punishable by imprisonment of one month to two years and/or a fine of €100 to €300.
The court will also take into account whether the offence was committed by a person in a recognised position of trust, authority or influence over the victim and whether the offence was committed against a minor or a person in a vulnerable situation.
Suggesting or inciting conversion practices, directly or indirectly, will also be penalised. The court will be able to prohibit people convicted of conversion practices from carrying out a professional or social activity related to the commission of these offences for a maximum period of five years.
Again gang thugs. Funny white supremacy and Nazis do not bother the republicans and churches but peaceful creative dress up does. But I see that these thugs are not getting the big crowds and backing they used to get, I think the good people are pushing back against this rule by gang violence. Hugs
Some demonstrators reportedly carried Patriot Front flags and shouted “white power.”
Anti-LGBTQ protesters in Chattanooga, TN Photo: Screenshot
A drag brunch in Chattanooga, Tennessee drew protest Sunday, in a scene that has become all too common over the past year.
The crowd of about 30 people outside the Seed Theater was reportedly organized by Chattanooga-based right-wing group Tennessee Neighbors for Liberty. But, as the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports, in photos and videos posted to social media, several protesters can be seen carrying flags bearing the logo of white supremacist group Patriot Front.
In one video, a protester appears to throw a Nazi salute and shout “white power.”
Protesters chanted slogans like “strong families, strong nation,” and “reclaim America,” and held signs saying “stop the abuse of children,” “groom dogs not children,” “cross-dressing is an abomination to the Lord,” and “You do not know what love is.”
They were met, however, by a group of counter-protesters, which was reportedly slightly larger, holding Pride flags and chanting “love will win.”
Police were present at the protest, but no incidents were reported, according to a Chattanooga Police Department spokesperson.
Elizabeth and Brenton Haley started the Seed Theater earlier this year to give LGBTQ people like their 15-year-old transgender son a place to feel safe.
“That’s what we hear more than anything from parents, especially for teachers and young people in those important formative years, they don’t have places their kids can go to,” Elizabeth Haley explained. “Having a safe space their children can come and experience community is really important.”
Sunday’s drag brunch, which was billed as an all-ages event, was the second show at the Seed Theater to draw protests. But Haley said that the backlash has actually led to an increase in support and donations to the theater.
“It’s been really great for our community, as difficult as it is,” she said. “It’s very clear that we have a strong and healthy presence of LGBTQ people and allies here in Chattanooga.”
Haley said that Sunday’s drag brunch sold out all 80 tickets.
Earlier this month, Tennessee Republicans introduced a bill that would ban any “adult cabaret performance” — including “topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest” — on public property within view of anyone who is not an adult.
Proud Boys at Raleigh rally, November 2020 (Credit: Wikicommons)
Scottie's Playtime 