Just how hateful a misinformed Christian do you need to be to equate Nazism to LGBTQ+ pride? One aggressively harmed others and ostracized entire groups from society, eventually imprisoning and killing them. LGBTQ+ pride flags, festables, and exisitance don’t harm anyone nor force anyone to live a LGBTQ+ lifestyle or be LGBTQ+. I cannot imagine the bigotry and being that unquestioningly misinformed. It stuns me how these bigots especally those claiming to be Christians following the Jesus Christ of the bible feel free to try to force everyone to live by their church doctrines and feel they have the right to tell others how they must live including who they can love and how they can pratice sex. HugsP
“The offensive aspect of her conduct was not her personal beliefs about homosexuality or what she calls ‘gender ideology,’ but rather her choice to use her social media platform to ostensibly equate support for gender and sexual diversity with Nazism.”
Red Deer Catholic school trustee Monique LaGrange at a meeting on Monday, September 25, 2023. Global News
Alberta’s highest court has struck the decision by a Catholic school division requiring a trustee to publicly apologize for a social media post that compared children waving Pride flags to Nazi Germany.
The social media post, which LaGrange later deleted, featured an image of children holding Pride flags in a classroom underneath an image of children waving swastikas, with the caption “brainwashing is brainwashing.”
The board ruled the post and media interviews LaGrange did in the weeks that followed violated division policies and the province’s education law. It sanctioned LaGrange by demanding an apology, censuring her from parts of her job and requiring she undergo sensitivity training.
LaGrange unsuccessfully challenged the board’s decisions multiple times in court.
A story shared online from the account of Monique LaGrange included an old black and white photo of smiling children leaning out a window waving Nazi flags with the swastikas on them.A more modern photo directly beneath it shows young children in a classroom holding up homemade Pride rainbow flags.The caption reads: “Brainwashing is brainwashing.”. Supplied to Global News
On Wednesday, a panel of three Court of Appeal judges ruled partly in her favour, striking the ruling that she issue an apology.
The court, in a written decision, says the board mandating LaGrange be “deeply sorry” amounts to compelled speech and imposes an impossible disciplinary standard, since she doesn’t believe she was in the wrong.
LaGrange had told the board that the “Holy Spirit” told her to make the social media post. She also told court she would do it again if she had the opportunity, says Wednesday’s court decision.
It notes that another court previously ruled the board couldn’t require an apology from LaGrange be “sincere,” since it amounted to compelled speech. The Appeal Court says it struck the entire apology requirement for the same reason.
It cited a number of past rulings about forced apologies, including one that determined they’re “likely to be regarded primarily as a form of unjust humiliation and not necessarily as a vindication of what is right.”
The court dismissed other aspects of LaGrange’s appeal, including her attempts to have the board’s decisions quashed for being unfair or unreasonable.
It also dismissed an argument by LaGrange’s lawyer that the board didn’t properly take Roman Catholic values into consideration.
The court says whether LaGrange’s post represented those values is irrelevant and subject to “considerable disagreement,” because her actions violated board rules.
“Ms. LaGrange was not sanctioned for her religious beliefs – she was sanctioned for engaging in conduct contrary to the behavioural standards set out in the (board’s) code of conduct,” says the decision.
“The offensive aspect of her conduct was not her personal beliefs about homosexuality or what she calls ‘gender ideology,’ but rather her choice to use her social media platform to ostensibly equate support for gender and sexual diversity with Nazism.”
James Kitchen, LaGrange’s lawyer, said in an email that they’re pleased with the decision striking the apology sanction. ”Especially since this has practical utility for other trustees and councillors encountering compelled apologies from their respective boards and councils,” he said. ”It is good to see that the Court of Appeal at least got that right.”
The school division didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
LaGrange ran for municipal council in Red Deer County last year but was defeated.
Back in 1996, Ron and I moved into a neighborhood being bought up by wealthy people. It was an older neighborhood being taken over by wealthy gays and others of money. Across the main 4 lane street from our neighborhood was a large migrant population of hard working poor brown people.
A group from that sort of wealthy people came to tell us that they did not want to give out candy to “those kids” and that the kids in our neighborohood would be having Halloween candy night a day early and asked we keep our lights off and take down our decorations before the other kids could come the next night.
Ron and I were appalled. We were new to the neighborhood, but we were not willing to do what as asked of us. So we did halloween candy night for both nights. While the first prehalloween night had few kids and they had fancy well bought costumes the next night was the joy.
Yes many more kids came the night of Halloween. They were dressed in hand made costumes. They were very polite and happy. They expressed joy over the treats they were given, unlike the kids from the night before. The kids made of our decorations and had fun. It was a longer night but so much more fun.
Ron and I paid a price for making “those kids” happy. We were excluded from neighborhood events; we no longer were invited to functions we had been invited to before. We were not even spoken to by the people who felt some kids did not deserve a fun night of getting a few candies because of their skin color. We really did not care.
Two years later we moved and bought a different home in just as wealthy an area but one much more accepting of people with different backgrounds and skin colors. Many of our much more wealthy neighbors had those backgrounds and skin colors. They accepted us even as we were in the smallest home and clearly did not have their money. The next halloween the streets were well lighted with decorations and every child was welcomed to the people’s doors. We were happy we moved. We lost a lot of equity in the house we had and moved from so quickly, but gained it in a much better class of neightboros. Hugs
Dan McClellan destroys the pro-Iraeli anti-Palestinian content creators information but also describes how it is a certified genocide as he shows the receipts. Hugs
After they play the clip Sam and Emma discuss how the Israeli military is just killing all Palestinians for no reason, just because they are Palestinians. Emma describes a soldier talking about how they hacked little girls phones to find out when the father was coming home so they could kill the entire family. Rough stuff to hear but it is important that we know what Israel is doing so we can pull all support from the nation until they stop committing atrocities. Hugs
Angie Nixon shows that politicians need to support the LGBTQ+ community instead of running from them. She speaks with a lesbian about her life and her wife. She is supportive and it comes out Nixon’s son is gay / out and she is a very supportive mother. Hugs
