Republicans will do absolutely nothing to go after rapists, nor traffickers, nor abusers, nor predators, nor guns, nor violence towards women, nor violence towards children/students because they support white patriarchal controls.
In their world, white men must control all, without any criticism, without any compromise, all while claiming to being a victim.
There has never been a recorded verified case of a trans person attacking or harming anyone in a bathroom or locker room. But there are many cases of trans people being attacked and harmed trying to simply use a bathroom. Even cis women have been assaulted by vigilantes when trying to use the bathroom because they did not look female enough for the self-appointed bathroom police. This is not about protecting kids from sexualization, knowing that gay / trans people / same sex couples exist is not sexualizing kids any more than letting them know that straight people / straight couples exist does. Talking about the issues of gay / trans kids really means the right wing haters don’t want anti-bullying promoted and talked about. That is what that means, a teacher cannot stand up for a bullied kid by talking of acceptance and tolerance without breaking that law. The entire law is meant to revert the country to a more restrictive time when the LGBTQ+ were not seen in society, were villains and bad people, a time when equality for the LGBTQ+ was not an issue so the hateful bigots could attack / harass the minorities as much as they wanted. Tell me how kids knowing teacher A is in a same sex marriage is dangerous or sexualizing kids any more than the kids knowing teacher B is in an opposite marriage. It doesn’t, but to some people one of those is a horrible sin and shouldn’t be allowed, forcing their incorrect regressive views on everyone. If Tommy dates girl A it is fine and not sexualizing kids, but if Tommy dates boy B it is a crime for it to be known or talked about in school because of protecting the kids? From what? Understand what this law is about. It is about doing what was done in Russia, driving the LGBTQ+ out of society and destroying any acceptance / tolerance that have been earned and gained. It is about making the LGBTQ+ illegal and removing all our rights. They want us gone. Starting with the kids makes it seem sort of reasonable, but in truth it is the younger generation that was driving the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ because they were friends with known LGBTQ+ people. Stop that acceptance by making the LGBTQ+ stay hidden and we go back to when no one knew that their friends, doctors, a lot of other people in their lives were members of the LGBTQ+ community. Hugs
In a state that already has a Don’t Say Gay law, the rules just got even tougher.
The Florida Board of Education has approved new rules that will make life harder for LGBTQ people and allies.
One of the rules requires schools to post on their websites and notify parents by mail if they allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
In a statement, Equality Florida’s Senior Political Director Joe Saunders called this policy an “attempt to bully and intimidate school districts that are providing these accommodations.”
“The Board of Education’s facilities separation rule does not and cannot prevent transgender students from accessing facilities aligned with their gender identity — we know Federal law and the constitution protect these rights,” Saunders said.
“Florida school districts have been following federal law for more than a decade, establishing policies we know will continue to work long after this politically-motivated proposed rule…[Gov.] Ron DeSantis’ war on transgender Floridians must end. All students deserve access to school facilities that are inclusive and safe.”
In the wake of the 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that outlawed anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace, President Joe Biden signed two executive orders that said federal agencies should “fully implement” the decision by applying the reasoning that anti-LGBTQ discrimination inherently involves sex discrimination. His order included the Department of Education, meaning it has become a violation of federal law for schools to discriminate against trans students.
But the new policy from the Board doesn’t direct schools not to follow the law. It just makes them have to jump through more hoops to do so and also potentially puts them in the crossfire of angry parents who won’t support inclusive policies.
The second new rule instituted by the Board of Education is in relation to the state’s Don’t Say Gay Law, which prevents teachers from mentioning LGBTQ people in elementary schools.
The rule takes the law a step further by directly punishing teachers who violate it. It says any K-3 teacher who is found to have taught their students about LGBTQ issues can have their licenses suspended or revoked.
According to Equality Florida, the rule contradicts a recent ruling on the Don’t Say Gay law that found violations are the responsibility of the school district and not individual teachers.
“The Board of Education’s move to target individual teachers’ jobs and licenses is another cruel attack from an administration that has spent months punching down at Florida’s LGBTQ youth and families,” Saunders said. “Qualified, effective teachers are fleeing the profession in Florida thanks to the constant politicization of their roles and discrediting of their characters by the DeSantis Administration.”
“Rather than help to clarify the Don’t Say LGBTQ laws scope, the Board of Education has taken this bigoted law to yet another extreme, threatening teachers if they dare to acknowledge LGBTQ families in the classroom. This escalation in deference to the far right agenda of the governor makes our schools less inclusive – and less safe.”
The chairman of the State Board of Education, Tom Grady, defended the rule, stating, “It’s parental notification. It’s not mandating what a particular bathroom looks like or doesn’t look like or who can use it. It’s about parental notification.”
Drag shows are not sexual. Drag shows are cosplay. It is dress up, a lot of the time over top dress up. It has no sexual orientation to it, and just because a person does drag doesn’t mean they are trans. Look at the history of vaudeville and TV shows from the earliest days to the 1990s. Ever see Bosom Buddies, a show about two guys dressing as women to live in a rent controlled building that is female only. It was a sitcom, but there was no outrage about those men in a woman’s space. Why now with trans girls? Because the right wing managed to equate trans girls with sexual predation, with sexual misconduct. The right wing needed a boogieman and used the group they already hate, the LGBTQ+. The same with drag shows. They are not really a part of the LGBTQ+ community because unless it is designed to be burlesque show which is sexy and done with both real women with some times drag. But burlesque is not drag shows. Again the right has taken a normal word that means one thing and created an image around it so every time it is mentioned the base thinks the worst thing possible. That was their goal against CRT and it worked. Now they are doing it with drag shows. We must not let them weaponize the language this way. This is a small gang of religious bigots who are managing to get their own way and hurt the entire LGBTQ+ community and we need everyone to stand up to them. Now every day I read one to three stories of clergy raping / molesting kids. Every day! But I have yet to read one of a molestation happening at a drag queen story hour or a family friendly drag show. Hugs
“We have successfully frozen their brand—’critical race theory’—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category,” Rufo wrote. “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.” Right wing activist Christopher Rufo
Now the story from Joe.My.God
“Just like cancer, stopping it is not a gentle or a painless process. The farther along the cancer is, the more aggressive you have to be in fighting it.
“Culturally, we are approaching, if we haven’t already reached, a terminal state, which means we have to be all the more aggressive, which calls for two things.
“First, obviously involving children in drag events in any capacity should be outright criminalized everywhere. There is no other way.
“You know, this doesn’t stop until police are breaking down the doors at these places and carting the adults away in handcuffs.
“Charge them all as pedophiles. Throw them in prison, and whenever they get out, if they do get out, put them on the sex offender registry for life.” – Daily Wire host Matt Walsh.
Walsh last appeared on JMG when he declared that Disney’s black mermaid is “unscientific.”
The previous month he appeared here when he blamed the Buffalo mass shooting on pandemic lockdowns.
Earlier this year, we heard from him when he declared that lesbians will cease to exist over the next 30 years.
Before that, he appeared here when he called for banning adoption by LGBT people. And before that, he appeared here when he called for dissolving the United States.
Walsh also claims that shooting people “is not against the law.” Walsh has declared that “everybody would be happier” if arranged marriages were mandatory.
There’s no sex involved, asswipe. It’s Dress-Up and Story Time. Kids understand Dress-Up.
Mine too. And well done choreography to that music. They don’t make cartoons like that anymore. Boomerang is a great channel where you can still watch them – including the really old Bugs Bunny and other WB cartoons.”A Corny Concerto” was awesome.
Between this, Twitter’s refusal to suspend Chaya Raichik and Lara Logan’s Blood Libel, we’re at the point where genocidal hate speech is becoming normalized and mainstreamed.
Keep in mind, this douche nozzle also claimed in a tweet that gays have destroyed the institution of marriage more than anyone while admitting he’s been married three times (in this same tweet). 🙄
“Charge them all as pedophiles.” Luckily in America we don’t criminally charge people “as” or for “being” anything. Criminal charges come from doing things. When people leave out exactly someone needs to be charged for doing, you know it’s a smear job.
They are like bears that found some mayonnaise at the dump…..
Despite its nonpartisan claims, One More Mission is funded by a group led by some of the most prominent pro-Trump election deniers in the country.
Will Sommer
Politics Reporter
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
A conservative group led by former Trump national security adviser and election denier Michael Flynn is trying to recruit thousands of police officers to work as poll monitors on Election Day—and reaching out to QAnon conspiracy theorists to aid in its recruitment effort.
Dubbed “One More Mission,” the group bills itself as a nonpartisan effort to recruit military veterans, as well as police officers and other emergency workers, to monitor polls in an effort to “defend our Constitutional right to vote.”
“Our team wanted to find an apolitical solution, a business solution, if you will,” a man in one recruitment video says.
One More Mission’s promotional materials argue that police and veterans are the most trusted figures in the United States and that they should therefore be used to certify to the public that elections are legitimate. In a late September press release announcing its launch, the group claimed to be a politically independent solution to fears of voter fraud.
“This is just an opportunity for those guys to continue the mission in protecting the integrity of our Constitution,” Travis Wilson, a former Green Beret turned supplement company owner who also works with One More Mission, told The Daily Beast.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, a spokeswoman for One More Mission initially said she wasn’t sure who funded the organization. In reality, despite its claims to be nonpartisan, One More Mission is funded by another group led by some of the most prominent pro-Trump election deniers in the country. In a single sentence on its website, One More Mission reveals that it’s funded by the America Project, a group of people convinced the 2020 election was stolen that is led by Flynn, his brother Joseph, and millionaire former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.
The America Project has spent millions of dollars on conservative election efforts, many of them aimed at promoting “election integrity.” Now with One More Mission, the group aims to recruit tens of thousands more poll watchers with military and police experience, according to a video Byrne posted online.
In his interview with The Daily Beast, Wilson spoke vaguely about concerns about the election being stolen but declined to name specific instances of fraud in 2020.
‘That, I’m not going to get into,” Wilson said.
Instead, he cited videos of Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for Arizona governor who has promoted false claims of election theft.
But Byrne has no such compunctions. He wrote a book about his election-fraud theories, filled with details about how he believes nefarious forces he calls “goons” stole the election from Donald Trump. In the final days of the Trump presidency, Byrne attended a White House meeting with Flynn and others in which some participants pushed for Trump to declare martial law or use the military to seize ballots.
Byrne didn’t respond to a request for comment.
One More Mission’s website doesn’t mention Byrne or Flynn, instead highlighting members of the group with law enforcement and military backgrounds. But on the fringes of the QAnon conspiracy theorist media ecosystem, Byrne has been on a campaign of his own to recruit police officers and veterans from a conspiracy theory movement premised on the idea that Trump will someday institute a fascist purge and imprison his enemies.
In a late September appearance on the QAnon show “Patriot Streetfighter,” Byrne made clear his support for One More Mission was premised on the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. Byrne said the group had already received interest from roughly 1,000 people just days after its launch.
“We’re living through a psy-op,” Byrne said, explaining his belief that election fraud is part of a “psychological operation” to destroy the United States.
Later in the promotional appearance for One More Mission, Byrne agreed with his pro-QAnon host’s claim that a sinister “cabal” is smuggling murderers and rapists into the United States.
Whatever One More Mission’s purpose in recruiting its poll watchers, it’s clear that Republicans have had trouble with the credibility of some of their earlier star election-fraud witnesses. Mellissa Carone, a purported witness championed by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, was revealed to have a criminal past and saw her offbeat demeanor mocked on Saturday Night Live. In court filings, former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell cited an election-fraud expert who was later revealed to be overstating his military background.
Amateur election-fraud hunting efforts have already sparked at least one law enforcement investigation. Earlier this week, Arizona’s secretary of state referred a complaint to the Justice Department about a group of people following a person who dropped off a ballot.
One More Mission’s backers insist that the group isn’t promoting violence or the carrying of guns around election sites. In interviews with QAnon figures about the group, Byrne mentions that poll monitors must be peaceful.
“We’re not going to be bouncers or security guards,” Wilson said. “We’re not going to be standing there like thugs.”
Some of the group’s promotional videos, though, are more aggressive. One describes the organization as issuing a “call to arms” and shows what appear to be World War II-era newsreels of soldiers marching and planes dropping bombs.
Vigilante thugs, a gang of far right thugs deciding who they think get to vote or not get to vote based on looks. This is what maga means when they say they want to safeguard the polls and other parts of voting. What they really mean is stopping anyone that is black, foreign, or looks anti-maga from voting. Intimidate as many non-republicans as possible. It is like the voter suppression laws and gerrymandering, republicans cannot win on ideas nor on policy, so they resort to cheating. Because how they win doesn’t matter to them, winning itself is the only important thing. The 2000 Mules is a conspiracy theory of the right, it is a debunked film by GOP political operative Dinesh D’Souza that falsely claims there was significant voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election. Hugs
The Arizona Secretary of State’s office told The Daily Beast it “talked to the voter” involved, and escalated their complaint to the DOJ.
Justin Rohrlich
Reporter
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Allegations of possible voter intimidation in a highly politicized Arizona county have been escalated to state and federal law enforcement authorities for potential prosecution, The Daily Beast has confirmed.
In an email, Sophia Solis, a spokeswoman for Arizona Secretary of State (SOS) Katie Hobbs, said Thursday that Hobbs’ office “has referred to the DOJ and AG a report from a voter that the voter was approached and followed by a group of individuals when the voter was trying to drop off their ballot at an early voting drop box on Monday.”
“The location was at the Juvenile Justice Court drop box location in Maricopa County,” the email added. “The SOS has talked to the voter, informed Maricopa County, and referred the report to the DOJ and AG’s offices for further investigation.”
“There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot dropbox filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the dropbox and accusing us of being a mule,” the complaint stated. “They took a photographs of our license plate and of us and then followed us out the parking lot in one of their cars continuing to film.”
Arizona Secretary of State
Meanwhile, the QAnon-linked founder of an organization recently seen staking out drop boxes in Maricopa is distancing herself from the suspect, claiming she doesn’t “know who he is.”
Early voting for the 2022 midterm elections is underway in Arizona, where ballot drop boxes have been in use since 2020, when they were introduced by 40 U.S. states as a way to help people vote safely for president as the COVID pandemic raged. There have been no reported cases of fraud, vandalism, or anything else that could have affected the outcome of the election that elevated Joe Biden to the Oval Office two years ago, according to an Associated Press survey of state election officials on both sides of the aisle.
However, the right-wing continues to allege widespread election fraud due to drop boxes, a debunked claim first floated publicly by former President Donald Trump and amplified by people like conservative firebrand Dinesh D’Souza, whose discredited documentary 2,000 Mules put forth bogus claims that Democratic operatives had stuffed unmonitored ballot boxes with phony votes.
Since then, conservative extremist groups—as well as Trump-endorsed politicians running for elected office—have called on members and supporters to stake out drop boxes around the country, with Arizona having become a particular hotspot. Officials have raised concerns about the potential for voter intimidation, as box-watchers fan out nationwide.
@TrumperMel via Truth Social
Last Saturday, Clean Elections USA founder Melody Jennings, a minister who has namechecked QAnon during appearances on indicted Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s webcast, said she had volunteers “ready to go” not just in Arizona, but in 17 other states, as well.
“We’ve got people out there, on the ground and doing the work,” Jennings told Bannon, explaining that her “people” were stationed “around the box with iPhones, with, you know, Androids, with your own cameras, which is legal, by the way, we can video and we can take pictures.”
Clean Elections USA began watching drop boxes during the primaries this past summer, which Jennings, who goes by “TrumperMel” online, trumpeted on Truth Social, the floundering social network Trump backed after being banned from Twitter. This served as a sort of “dry run” for the midterms, Jennings said.
Clean Elections USA via Truth Social
Jennings, in social media posts, has asked for “10 people in groups around every drop box! Not 2 people. That’s not a deterrent. Bring lights, food, lawn chairs, play cards, (no music) Video, take pics. Don’t talk to them. Abide by the laws.”
On Monday, Jennings took to Truth Social with an urgent request.
“All Arizona patriots get to either the Mesa box or the Phoenix box …the only 2 that are outdoors… Right now,” she wrote. “There are mules getting there and doing their thing even with my people there.”
The next evening, Jennings posted a blurry photo of what she claimed was a “mule” caught in the act at a drop box in Mesa, which is part of Maricopa County.
“This guy. Drove in backwards to avoid plate detection,” she alleged. Got out showing his back. Pulled ballots out of his shirt. I need people there tonight to help my people. Lots of you!”
@TrumperMel via Truth Social
But Jennings insists that the drop box-watcher referred by Katie Hobbs to law enforcement authorities has nothing to do with her.
“The individual they speak of is not associated with Clean Elections USA in any way,” Jennings told The Daily Beast on Thursday. “Never was a member of Clean Elections USA. I don’t know who he is.”
Other drop box-watching groups in Arizona have reportedly changed their minds about the idea, such as the Lions of Liberty, a self-described “resolute nucleus of concerned, passionate conservative patriots who are determined to correct the course of our country which has been hijacked and undermined by global elites, communists, leftists, deep state bureaucrats, and fake news.”
They had dozens of observers in Yavapai County ready to mobilize last week for their “Operation Drop Box” initiative, but reportedly called things off after receiving a cease and desist letter from the nonprofit Protect Democracy, which alleged voter intimidation.
“We’re moving forward with it, in name and slight practice,” Lions of Liberty leader Luke Cilano told 3TV/CBS 5. “When I’m out and about driving around, I swing by and watch a box from a distance.”
Reports of potential voter intimidation by drop box-watchers in Arizona were first brought up at an Oct. 13 news conference by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. There are cameras monitoring Maricopa’s two drop boxes, according to Richer, who did not identify the offending group by name.
“Any attempt to deter, intimidate a lawful voter is unlawful, should be immediately reported, please to us, but also law enforcement,” Richer said.
Richer, a Republican, has received death threats for not going along with Donald Trump’s “Big Lie.” In August, a Missouri public school employee was indicted on federal charges for telling Richer in a 2021 voicemail, in part, “You need to do your fucking job right because other people from other states are watching your ass. You fucking renege on this deal or give them any more troubles, your ass will never make it to your next little board meeting.”
Imagine how scary it would be for anyone to be boxed in by cars with their little sister / family member with them, unable to leave and threatened by a group of angry people. People this is what the right wants, their enforcer thugs to threaten and terrorize the gays and the family of gay peoples. This is right out of the Russian playbook. My god, not only did the teachers and school let the kid be harassed at school which begs the question of how can a gay / lesbian / trans person get a quality education if they are worried about their safety. Hard to concentrate on the lesson if you are worried about being attacked and hurt. This is why LGBTQ+ kids need to see rainbow flags and to have teachers with rooms they can feel safe in or got to if they are feeling threatened. Seriously one respected person who reads the blog asked why rainbow pride stickers need to be on classroom doors or up in the classrooms. This is why. The point of the republican / right wing media attacks is to drive hate and anger at the LGBTQ+ community. They want this response. Remember the Florida legislator who wrote the don’t say gay bill said he did it because he was angered that gay / trans kids were being accepted by other kids and not targeted for abuse / harm. He wanted to see these LGBTQ+ kids beaten up, abused / hurt. demonized because it turns out he is a highly religious Christian. Son of a bitch! His gods feelings come before the feelings of living kids. Bastard! The longer the Republicans in office and the right-wing media push the evils of the LGBTQ+ kids the more abuse the kids thought to be gay are going to face. Which again is what the republicans / right wing wants. Do you know what would have happened to me if someone had come up to my father and told him I was a faggot? More bruises, broken bones, pain, and rapes. This shit is serious. Religious families will grill the kids and the kids will face going to conversion therapy or being thrown out of their homes. Again these attack were on the decline before trump and DeathSantis. Hugs
“I’m sick of being silent about it, so I finally spoke up.”
A California high school student’s TikTok post exposing the anti-LGBTQ bullying he’s been subjected to has gone viral.
Earlier this month, 18-year-old Landon Jones posted the video, which shows two separate instances of anti-gay bullying caught on camera. One incident, recorded by Jones in August, shows a group of young men surrounding his car in the parking lot of a Starbucks.
“This f**king fa***t,” one of the young men says.
In the video, Jones says the group apparently followed him and his sister to the Starbucks, surrounding his car so that he could not leave, while yelling slurs and threats.
The second incident was captured on Jones’s family’s home surveillance camera, shows a young man approach the front door of his house in the dead of night.
“Does Landon live here,” the teen asks when Jones’s father answers the door.
“Yeah, why?” Jones’s father says.
“Someone said to come up here because he’s a fa***t!” the young man shouts as he runs off.
“I remember being up in my room, hearing it, and I heard what he said. I immediately jumped out of bed and walked outside to see what was happening,” Jones told NBC News. “I had no sleep that night. I was honestly really upset. I was crying.”
“I have been called ‘fa***t’ countless times at school, and it literally doesn’t bother me at all,” Jones says in the TikTok video. “But the fact that they came to my house does.”
Jones said that was a turning point. On October 1, he shared the post on TikTok. The clip has received 1.4 million views and over 12,000 primarily supportive comments.
“I’m sick of being silent about it, so I spoke up finally,” Jones said.
He said that at least two of the young men involved in both incidents attend El Toro High School in Lake Forest, California where Jones is a senior. His parents told NBC News that they are unaware of any action the school has taken in response to the harassment.
But a spokesperson for the school district provided a statement saying that Saddleback Valley Unified School District and El Toro High School “together with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD), immediately launched a comprehensive investigation to uncover the facts of the incidents.”
“We can confirm that the person seen in the surveillance video of the incident that took place at a private home is not a student in SVUSD,” said Wendie Hauschild, the school district’s director of communications and administrative services. “Due to the confidentiality that we are required by law to uphold for our students, as well as other minors, SVUSD is unable to share further information regarding the results of the investigation. SVUSD remains steadfast in its commitment to create inclusive, supportive, and safe environments for all students on our campuses.”
An Orange County sheriff’s spokesperson said that a school resource officer has spoken to “individuals that may or may not have been involved in this incident” or “possibly have knowledge of the incident.” While the young man who approached Jones’s home has not been identified, the officer said that the investigation remains ongoing.
Jones, meanwhile, has transitioned to virtual schooling as a result of bullying at El Toro High School.
The important part of this article is not what Marge Greene says about Alex Jones. It is what her intern says about trashing the Bill of Rights and getting rid of the 1st amendment to create a theocracy. He wants only Christians to be able to hold office, to have guns, and to be able to publish online. Hugs
She defended Alex Jones while her intern called for “meaningful penalties for insulting, irreverent or contemptuous language about Our Lord.”
Milo Yiannopoulos (l)/Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Photo: Screenshots
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is defending Infowars host Alex Jones in the wake of the nearly one billion dollar civil judgment against him for defamatory claims he made on his radio show about the parents of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, arguing that he is facing “political persecution.”
But while she argues that “freedom of speech” should allow Jones to avoid the consequences of defaming those kids’ parents – even as it inspired his followers to harass them and allegedly pee on the child victims’ graves – her most famous intern, Milo Yiannopoulos, is telling his followers on Telegram that the U.S. should ban blasphemy and “institute meaningful penalties for insulting, irreverent or contemptuous language about Our Lord.”
Yesterday a jury in Connecticut awarded $965 million to the parents of some of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting after Jones repeatedly claimed that the shooting was a hoax staged by actors.
One father of a six-year-old boy who was killed in the shooting said that Jones made his life a “living hell,” that his fans harassed him in the street, shot at his home and car, and made threats against him for years.
“As time went on, I truly realized how dangerous it was,” the father said during the civil trial. “My life has been threatened. I fear for my life, I fear for my safety.”
Greene was enraged that the jury would order Jones to pay damages in the defamation case.
“No matter what you think of Alex Jones all he did was speak words,” she tweeted yesterday after the verdict was announced. “He was not the one who pulled the trigger. Were his words wrong and did he apologize? Yes. That’s what freedom of speech is. Freedom to speak words. Political persecution must end.”
“I legitimately thought it might have been staged, and I stand by that, and I don’t apologize for it,” Jones said during the trial.
While Greene was arguing for such an expansive definition of free speech that includes immunity for deliberate defamation, someone from her office was saying that the U.S. should ban free speech when it comes to criticism of religion and God.
“Christian nationalism will succeed only if we are honest about the profound structural failures in the American system, and are prepared to do something about them,” Greene’s intern, Yiannopoulos – who identifies as ex-gay – wrote on the rightwing social media platform Telegram. “This will involve the commission of some pretty gigantic offenses against ‘American conservatism.’ For a start, we must be prepared to say that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are hopelessly broken, because of course they are.”
“You will know America is serious about saving itself, and that it has absorbed the scale of the undertaking, when you see a president adding his signature to revivified blasphemy laws, which will prevent the open promotion of sedition, institute meaningful penalties for insulting, irreverent or contemptuous language about Our Lord, and moreover restore to general society an understanding that words matter, they carry consequences, and they may not be capriciously and arbitrarily redefined by mentally unstable graffiti artists with PhDs,” he wrote.
“The wide disputational berth granted by the First Amendment and the destructive potentialities of the Second are privileges that can only be granted to Christians…. No other belief system produces individuals capable of responsibly wielding such daunting, awesome freedoms.”
“You cannot grant these powers to the citizenry without also requiring that every elected official and federal employee is a churchgoing Christian and that the nation explicitly identifies itself with Jesus Christ and governs in a manner informed by the Church,” he wrote.
“I ruined my knees in my 20s. Not through prayer, as if you had to ask. I think about this every day when I pray now, and I am disgusted by it.”
While Greene has not made such an extreme statement against freedom of speech for non-Christians, she, like Yiannopoulos, has vocally defended Christian nationalism, the idea that the U.S. should be a Christian nation and that the government should give Christianity a privileged position in politics.
“We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists,” Greene said last month.
Photo: Shutterstock
Landon Jones Photo: Screenshot
Milo Yiannopoulos (l)/Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Photo: Screenshots
Scottie's Playtime 