Florida GOP Bill Would “Legally De-Trans” Individuals

Aside from the normal hate and bigotry towards the LGBTQIA that religious republicans normally show, this guy adds a new wrinkle.  And it goes back to the point I made that some people can not accept change.   While not really old at 59 he shows he can not adjust to modern times.  He says, “From time immemorial, we have known that your sex was dictated by your biology,” Black said. “All I am doing is putting into Florida Statute, what we have always known, and only recently, a few people have become confused about.”  He seems to reject any advancements since time immemorial.  You do know that at one time humans thought thunder and lightning were caused by gods, we also thought the world was flat, we were sure that sickness and disease were caused by spirits and demons, religious leaders at one point were so certain that the earth was the center of everything with the sun orbiting the earth that they burned anyone to death who said otherwise … so much more we always knew, took as concrete never changing fact, and we were totally wrong about.  Just as he is about gender, sex, trans issues, and anything his religious teaching say about the LGBTQIA people.  He rejects modern science and medical best practices but instead demands that proven harmful conversion therapy be mandated by law.   “”It would also require coverage of so-called conversion therapy by requiring health insurance policies to cover mental health services “to treat a person’s perception that his or her sex is inconsistent with the person’s sex at birth” by affirming their birth sex”. Hugs.  Scottie


January 12, 2024

Jacksonville’s ABC affiliate reports:

A Northeast Florida lawmaker wants to legally define the words “man” and “woman” based on biological sex at birth. Jacksonville Rep. Dean Black filed the proposed What Is A Woman Act this week, which would also impose new requirements related to transgender individuals on state agencies and insurance companies.

House Bill 1233 requires state agencies to revoke any identification cards, like driver’s licenses, that don’t match up with a person’s sex on their birth certificate.

“From time immemorial, we have known that your sex was dictated by your biology,” Black said. “All I am doing is putting into Florida Statute, what we have always known, and only recently, a few people have become confused about.”

NBC News reports:

Black’s bill would also require any health insurance policy in the state that covers transition-related “prescriptions or procedures’’ to also cover “treatment to detransition” from such procedures.

It would also require coverage of so-called conversion therapy by requiring health insurance policies to cover mental health services “to treat a person’s perception that his or her sex is inconsistent with the person’s sex at birth” by affirming their birth sex.

The bill would also require any school district or state agency “that collects vital statistics for the purpose of complying with anti-discrimination laws or for the purpose of gathering accurate public health, crime, economic, or other data” to identify the birth sex of people in the data set, potentially restricting data collection on trans people.

Dean Black last appeared here for a bill that would allow DeSantis to remove any elected official who votes to remove Confederate monuments.

In October 2023, Black called for banning elected officials from participating in Pride events after Jacksonville’s newly-elected mayor led her city’s parade.

 

This freakish GQP obsession with other people’s crotches is fuckin creepy.

G.enital
O.bsessed
P.erverts

My favorite is all the dudes who scream about trans women using women’s bathrooms. Uh………dudes? We don’t see each others’ genitals in the bathroom anyway. Because we use stalls. With locks. I have no way of knowing if the woman in the stall next to me is trans. Why would I care?

They want Laith to use the women’s washroom?

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No. They don’t want him to exist at all

 

Notice how their obsession is overwhelmingly with trans women. Trans men, not so much. This is evident in his proposed legislation being titled the “What is a Woman” act.

Once again, misogyny is the root of all hatred of sexual minorities.

But having a “guy” piss near you puts you at risk of pregnancy!

/s

They also seem to think that it’s a big party in there, when all we’re doing is peeing, pooping, and menstruating. Most of us don’t even talk to anyone in there.

 

Take out all urinals. Put in stalls. Make every bathroom unisex. That way, men will have to wait in line just like women do now.
(I went to a football game where they had port-a-potties while they were building the bathrooms. Port-a-potties, of course, are unisex. But there was one that was for women only, and of course I waited in that line for it. The other ones were disgusting.

Which makes me wonder why they would want transmen using a woman’s rest room, a lot of them are more stereotypically masculine than many cis men.

They seemingly have better facial hair than I do, that’s for sure. So jealous of trans men.

They’re only telling everyone that they look at other people’s dicks in the men’s washroom. What’s wrong with them doing that? Oh, right…

They don’t realize that they’re saying men can’t control themselves around women and are constantly suppressing the urge to rape someone. Hell, Mike Huckabee said something like this a few years ago.

THIS!!!

WTF does it matter to me what’s inside a stranger’s pants unless I want to get into them?

Well they have no plans to fix any of the real problems in the country. So they invent ones to enrage their base.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someday that red states require a mandatory genital’s check to make certain that you are male or female per their standards on gender and ID. Sigh.

They HAVE tried that with CHILDRENS’ sports.

 

The Ohio legislature just did that with children’s sports.

Uh, this bill would do exactly that.

This freakish GQP obsession with ruining other people’s lives is fuckin’ criminal.

Speaker Johnson knows when his teen son is ovulating. 🤡

And dontcha love when people utterly ignorant of history start a sentence with, “From time immemorial, we have known . . . .”

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“Filed the What Is A Woman bill…”

Oh FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCKHEAD.
Signed, a cis woman tired of being used as your cudgel against trans people.

Next on his agenda, a “Do Women have Souls?” bill.

We already have the “Women are Expendable” laws in many Red States that goes into effect every time conception occurs. So that’s a possibility.

Not only is he an asshole, but he’s simply fucking wrong. Factually incorrect, whether he knows or accepts it. Humans can be born with XX, XY, XO, XXY, (Klinefelter’s Syndrome) or XYY chromosomes. Take your “there are only two genders” bullshit and fuck off for all eternity.

also, XXX, androgen-insensitivity, and physical development anomalies.

It’s almost like these politicians aren’t even doctors…. Who knew… 🤔🤷

But they all pretend to be preachers and there is a lot of crossover between religion and the practice of medicine.

Not that these idiots care about science, but SciShow did a great episode on this topic a few years ago.    

 

 

Moms for Liberty wants funds cut to Alabama libraries that let kids check out ‘pornographic material’

https://www.al.com/educationlab/2024/01/moms-for-liberty-wants-funds-cut-to-alabama-libraries-that-let-kids-check-out-pornographic-material.html

I will call note to the plans of these hate groups.  The statement outlines the primary mission for Alabama’s two chapters of Moms for Liberty in 2024: to apply for library board appointments, submit reconsideration forms for books they consider inappropriate, and discuss issues with local government officials who control public libraries, such as county commissions and city councils.  Also note what they call pornographic material.  It is simply any media that has LGBTQIA characters, plots, or even mentions them in a positive way.   It is a way to mask their flat out bigotry and hate.  Please understand had restricts been on when kids can come to the library or that they must be accompanied would have stopped me from one of my safe spaces to go to after school and I wouldn’t have been able to read because I couldn’t have books at home.   Also as I got older the few books I did find on abuse and having gay characters or information about being gay saved my sanity which was teetering on a very thin edge over a cliff.   Hugs.  Scottie


Children's books on library shelves

Children’s section at the North Shelby Public Library in Mt. Laurel

The conservative political group Moms For Liberty sent a letter last week that asked the state legislature and the public library service to withhold funds for libraries that allow children to check out “pornographic” materials. It also wants the Alabama Public Library Service to create software that prevents a minor from checking out books outside of their age range.

 

The statement outlines the primary mission for Alabama’s two chapters of Moms for Liberty in 2024: to apply for library board appointments, submit reconsideration forms for books they consider inappropriate, and discuss issues with local government officials who control public libraries, such as county commissions and city councils.

 
 

“It is time for the Alabama legislature to utilize the power of state funding and directives to APLS to push towards meaningful and long-lasting changes that protect minors and empower parents to have their voice heard,” the release said.

 
 

APLS director Dr. Nancy Pack said it’s possible for local libraries to install software to limit minors from checking out adult books, but she thinks children and teens would still find a way around the system to check out the materials they want.

 
 

“The only way that you are going to keep children from checking out materials that the parent feels are inappropriate for their child is to have parental guidance and for the parents to have a sit down talk with their children saying this is what you may check out,” Pack said.

 
 

Emily Jones, of the Madison County chapter of Moms for Liberty, said the organization doesn’t want to remove books from libraries, “rather that books be placed in a manner that allows parental oversight when sexually explicit material is included.”

 
 

That goes for all books, she said, including non-children’s Bibles.

 
 

 

Bible-Thumping Ohio Lawmaker Suggests Critics of Her Anti-Trans Bill Should Be Drowned

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bible-bashing-ohio-rep-beth-lear-suggests-critics-of-her-anti-trans-bill-should-be-drowned

The floodgates have been opened, and because the right won’t restrain their fundamentalist wing, they are pushing their hardest to enact their most extreme religious dictates.  They not only believe this is a winning issue when it has been shown it is not at voting time, but they feel now is the time to push their god on to the public by law.  Think of what the fundamentalist Christians believe in and worship.  Now ask yourself if they will stop at just getting rid of trans and gay people?  They have already shown they will get rid of the rights of pregnant people and those that can become pregnant, to control their bodies, they have shown they will make women themselves a lower class of person in the US, returning women’s rights to where they were in the 1950s.   Women will be totally subservient to their fathers or their husbands.  Those who are ambivalent on the rights of the LGBTQIA need to understand those are only the first targets because they are the smallest and easiest to pick off.   Then they come for the rest of societies progressive equality advancements.   By the way I just read that in one state they filed a bill to outlaw transitioning and instead mandate care for trans or gay kids including adults be conversion therapy to return kids to the normal natural state of straight and cis.   I will post that tomorrow.  Hugs.   Scottie


State Rep. Beth Lear also compared gender dysphoria to delusions of being an animal, proposing a child might want to “explore being a bird” by jumping off a five-story building.

The Ohio Statehouse

Maddie McGarvey/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The Ohio Republican behind a bill that would ban transgender students from using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity quoted scripture in justifying the legislation on Wednesday, deploying a verse suggesting that her opponents should be drowned in the sea.

State Rep. Beth Lear whipped out the reference to Luke 17:2 while answering questions on House Bill 183 at a morning committee hearing. Facing Lear, State Rep. Joseph Miller, the ranking member of the House Higher Education Committee, asked her how she could “jive” her bill with “the teachings that you proclaim.”

“In Luke 17, Jesus says that if you cause one of these little ones of mine to stumble, it would be better for you to have a millstone hung around your neck and be thrown into the deepest sea,” Lear replied. “So—there are also concerns that Jesus has for children. And in Genesis, he tells us that he created the male and female.”

OH State Rep. Beth Lear (R) uses scripture to justify a discriminatory bathroom bill:

“In Luke 17, Jesus says that if you cause one of these little ones of mine to stumble, it would be better for you to have a millstone hung around your neck and be thrown into the deepest sea.” pic.twitter.com/jkm6ozaBbq

— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) January 10, 2024

Lear has previously invoked the Bible in explaining her reasons for sponsoring the proposal, which she introduced alongside State Rep. Adam Bird (R) and more than a dozen other Ohio Republicans last May. At an October hearing on the matter, according to The Buckeye Flame, Lear recited Genesis 1:27, saying, “In our country, since the Puritans and Pilgrims first arrived and until recently, we believed ‘God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.’”

 

Nor did Wednesday mark the first time the Ohio lawmaker has used violent imagery to justify the measure. At that same October hearing, Lear shared a disturbing anecdote about a young girl who had been gang-raped by an athletic team. An adult in the child’s life, Lear claimed without further elaboration, had then “encouraged” her to transition to male. The Republican refused to answer questions about the alleged incident from Cleveland.com at the time, citing the need to protect the victim’s privacy.

The Wednesday committee hearing served as a means for Lear and Bird to unveil a new version of the bill more closely aligned with the language of another measure targeting transgender minors. That proposal, House Bill 68, prohibits transgender children from receiving gender-affirming medical care and prevents transgender girls from competing on sports teams that align with their identity. On Wednesday, it was pushed through by the Ohio House, which voted 65-28 to override a gubernatorial veto on it.

Later in the hearing, Lear compared gender dysphoria to delusions of being an animal, a debunked scarecrow argument that hardline conservatives began to utilize in school policy debates several years ago. “If I had a child who thought he was a bird, am I going to take him to a doctor who tells him the best thing to do is to let him explore being a bird?” the Ohioan asked. “And oh, by the way, there’s a five-story building next door—why don’t you jump off and see if you can fly?”

Miller, a Democrat, pointed out the bill’s inherently discriminatory nature in the hearing. “This is eerily reminiscent of discussions in the ’50s about how white women feared Black people in the same restaurant, the same bathroom,” he said, according to journalist Erin Reed. “It’s eerily similar to the racist policies that were had in the south.”

House Bill 183 has not yet left committee, and it is unclear when it might be brought to the floor for a vote. House Bill 68, no longer vetoed, now goes to the Ohio Senate, which will vote on it on Jan. 24.


 

“And in Genesis, he tells us that he created the male and female.”

 

Honey, Jesus wasn’t in Genesis. Get your fucking fairytales straight.

 

They do in fact believe that Jesus was always there, with his father God, and that it was Jesus who did the creating. As evidence, they will point to the language “let us make man in our image” — not realizing that it’s probably the “royal we” employed by the translators. Believe me, I’ve heard this crap my entire life, being raised in a fundamentalist family.

 

It’s not a royal we. Judiasm was quite polytheistic before it was forced to become monotheistic. And Judiasm didn’t have anything resembling a trinity. That was invented by Christians.

Some say it started with teh Egyptians.

While there is considerable evidence of polytheism in early Caanan, there are multiple examples of ‘majestic plurals’ in Hebrew that have a plural noun form yet govern singular verbs. ‘Behemoth’ is one such.

Maybe Jesus was talking about hateful POS Bigots causing his children to stumble. We have plenty of actual proof of that. Maybe we should drown her sorry ass instead.

That dead skunk on her head is a sin too. Against anyone with eyes. Clearly she has no gay friend’s.

I find it incredibly ironic (not to mention hypocritical) that Phyllis Schlafly — who made herself famous by traveling to different places across the country during the 70s and 80s telling women they should stay home(!!) — actually ran for Congress unsuccessfully not just once but twice in 1952 and 1970. Also, guess which one of her parents was the primary breadwinner when she was growing up during the Great Depression? Not her dad — her mom.

They just want us dead.

They want to go back to the good old days.

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It doesn’t require a bunch of complicated equipment.

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And in Genesis (!), he tells us that he created the male and female

God made Eve from Adams rib. Eve was the first trans woman.

Connecticut Town Council’s Pride Flag Ban on Certain Buildings Enrages Community

https://themessenger.com/news/connecticut-town-council-pride-flag-ban-on-certain-buildings-enrages-community

Look at the lengths they have to go to justify their bigotry.   Isis is not going to come here and demand a county in Connecticut fly their flag.  There are ways to rule that extreme stuff out while not banning pride flags.  But you have to want to allow the pride flag during pride month.   As one of the commenters said, “I think the real reason is you don’t want that Pride flag up on this town hall”  Again a group of republicans don’t want the modern age, this is 2024 and they reject the social progress we have made.  They are desperate to remain in the oppressive past.   Hugs.  Scottie


Town buildings and flag poles can only display the American flag, Connecticut state flag and military flags

Published 01/10/24 09:21 PM ET|Updated 01/10/24 09:46 PM ET

Monique Merrill

 
A resolution to ban pride flags in a Connecticut town has led to outrage among the community, according to local reports.
 

Enfield, Connecticut, is home to around 42,000 people and its newly-elected Republican majority town council made a choice that is not sitting right with many of those residents.

On Monday, the town council approved a resolution banning town buildings and flag poles from flying any flags except for the American flag, Connecticut state flag and military flags, NBC Connecticut reported.

 

The 6-5 vote effectively banned the Town Hall from displaying Pride flags during Pride Month in June, reversing a 2022 policy that allowed the flags to be displayed.

A passionate exchange between town councilors followed the narrow vote.

 

“I don’t support it. I think it’s ridiculous. We have an opinion, and I think the real reason is you don’t want that Pride flag up on this town hall, which is absolutely disgusting,” Councilor At-Large Gina Cekala said, per the news station.

Rainbow flag against sky during gay pride parade

 
Rainbow flag against sky during gay pride parade.Portra/Getty Images

Those who voted in favor defended the resolution by saying it prevented “other” organizations from trying to have their flags displayed.

“ISIS could come in and want to display one, the IRA…basically anybody. You’d have to be content neutral and let everybody,” Tom Tyler, interim town attorney, said.

A local pastor and president of Enfield Pride, Greg Gray, encouraged residents and businesses to display Pride flags in the wake of the town’s decision.

 

“I am disturbed that the new Republican majority felt this was a decision they needed to make basically on day one of them coming into office,” Gray said.

Brandon Jewell, local advocate and activist for LGBTQ+ people and their families, spoke against the vote.

“The meaning of buildings, that you can’t be inside any town-owned property…so that’s the schools where many of the teachers have safe space stickers on their doors, they have Pride flags hanging,” he said. “I think there should have been more thought into this before it was actually put on the agenda.”

FunFact: Not flying a pride flag will have exactly zero effect on how many LGBTQ+ children will be born to straight parents in Enfield.

It may, however mean that they will suffer more, by not having their existence validated and recognized.

Making children suffer, woohoo! How on brand for republicans.

It’s been in their party platform in clear print for decades. No matter how “nice” they may speak to you, just don’t expect any change. They really want you to suffer long and painfully, and then to die so as to vindicate their deranged theology.

 

I said in a thread the other day:

Men who are secure in their ability to not constantly suck dick are generally unconcerned that gay people exist.

 

Still relevant nearly 20 years later.

https://www.theonion.com/wh…

Yes, ISIS folks are both very active in Connecticut and *huge* fans of Pride. -_-

Also, apparently town attorneys aren’t astute enough to understand the difference between foreign political organizations and local advocacy groups.

Wait, they’re so afraid that ISIS might want to move to their town that they’re going to advertise that they’re exactly the type of town ISIS loves?

The newly-elected Republican majority

 

Well, there’s your problem.

Exactly. This is what happens when you let Republicans take over your municipal government.

They’re more afraid of terrorists’ flags than they are of the terrorists? Is this just another version of “but what will the neighbors think?”

Stuck forever in the 1950s.

Bigotry masquerading as impartiality.

Hey, Connecticut! This is the kind of behavour we associate with places like Alabama and Florida. Keen to join the club?

there are growing pockets of red here in CT. It’s very disturbing. We saw that 2 years ago in my little town and what the Rs wanted to do (book bans, etc.). This Nov, was a blue wave as a response. It’s a battle.

we live in a very red part of CT. My husband worked the polls the past 2 cycles and got more abuse from these country bumpkins (although he did mention how hot they were)

Why yes they are!

We don’t want those citified problems!

(a next door county of Columbus had a commissioner say that in the code of “urban” and a part of town that was the gay ghetto decades ago.)

The gays are a terrorist group. Good to know.

Where did the town of Enfield come up with so many brain-dead people? “Isis” is not going to want the town fathers (and mothers?) to fly their flag. These idiots just don’t like gay people. They think that’s not obvious?

It never ceases to amaze me how dumb the average Republican is. Did that clown really think that if they put up a Pride flag that ISIS is going to come into their town and say, “We want our flag flown too!”
But you’re right, this is just a dumbass excuse to hide the fact that they hate acknowledging gay people exist.

You put theo-fascists in power, they silence and cancel law-abiding, taxpaying lgbt Americans. Solution: Don’t put them in power.

Former CT resident sad to hear that its progressive values are being eroded by a handful of republican reactionaries intent on owning the libs.

I grew up a couple of towns away from there, and while driving through Enfield in the last few years, I’ve seen plenty of tRump and F**k Biden flags. Those are still OK, apparently.

“Content neutral”??? Tyler is lumping in LGBTQ+ orgs with terrorist groups. That’s not “neutral” — it’s bigotry.

so we are being equated with terrorist organizations ISIS and IRA – no false equivalencies there!

Comparing the pride flag to terrorist groups, because the fascists have really convinced themselves that being gay is terrorism.

Notice the chyron on Joe’s lede screen-cap; this was the very first piece of business of the new town council, banning pride flags, as well as the flags of other states and nations, from the town’s public schools.

 

Florida school district removes dictionaries from libraries, citing law championed by DeSantis

https://popular.info/p/florida-school-district-removes-dictionaries

Again the point of making the laws so vague is to instill fear of violating it as no one really knows how much it covers.   That is the point of all these laws from Texas, Florida, and other maga states.  It is so that people have to go to the extremes to avoid lawsuits that the laws makes almost impossible for them to win.  It is all about returning the US to a time when the LGBTQIA was not seen socially nor in media in any positive way.  During that time any media mention of the LGBTQIA had to make them the villain and beware little billy of the homosexual man.  Of course, little Billy was in far more danger from the local Priest who was presumed a holy wonderful man because he preached the good religion, Christianity.  These people pushing these to remove all mention of LGBTQIA from media, books, libraries, rainbows from schools are driven by fundamentalist religion or a desire to return to a time more comfortable for them.  A time that existed only because some people did not have full equality to live openly as who they were in society.  They hate that equality, and they love to engage in oppression of others. 

Then they use the excuse they are preventing indoctrination.  Specifically progressive indoctrination.   But when you have to remove dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses, and Genesis book of records, and any positive mention or anything not cis white republican ideology with forced Christianity what is that?  Right wing republican indoctrination.   It is reeducation camps.  It also is about creating a two tier schools system.  The public system for poor people that prepares them to be low level workers / laborers, and the privet schools for upper incomes wealthy kids who will be the overseers / managers/ owners of the workers.   Hugs.   Scottie


JAN 10, 2024

The Escambia County School District, located in the Florida panhandle, has removed several dictionaries from its library shelves over concerns that making the dictionaries available to students would violate Florida law. The American Heritage Children’s Dictionary, Webster’s Dictionary for Students, and Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary are among more than 2800 books that have been pulled from Escambia County school libraries and placed into storage. The Escambia County School District says these texts may violate HB 1069, a bill signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis (R) in May 2023. 

HB 1069 gives residents the right to demand the removal of any library book that “depicts or describes sexual conduct,” as defined under Florida law, whether or not the book is pornographic. Rather than considering complaints, the Escambia County School Board adopted an emergency rule last June that required the district’s librarians to conduct a review of all library books and remove titles that may violate HB 1069. 

Each school in Escambia County has thousands of titles. As a result, many school libraries were closed at the beginning of the school year pending the completion of the review. 

At the completion of that process, more than 2800 books were removed from libraries. (This includes, in some cases, multiple copies of the same book.) These books are being reviewed again by the school district. But that process is proceeding extremely slowly. According to a list maintained by the Escambia County School District, fewer than 100 texts have gone through the final review process. Many of these books remain unavailable to students absent a parental “opt-in.” 

The dictionaries, according to the school district’s data, remain locked away. Their exclusion demonstrates the preposterously broad language of HB 1069. Dictionaries do contain descriptions of “sexual conduct.” Merriam-Webster, for example, defines sex as a “sexual union involving penetration of the vagina by the penis” or “intercourse (such as anal or oral intercourse) that does not involve penetration of the vagina by the penis.” But the idea that we need to exclude dictionaries from schools to protect children defies all logic. 

District staff responsible for the review at each school were given a checklist to determine whether a book should be withheld from students. The checklist suggests reviewers consultBook Looks,” a right-wing website relied on by Moms for Liberty and other groups to justify the banning of books from school libraries. It was created byMoms For Liberty member Emily Maikisch,” according to public records reviewed by Book Riot.

The Florida Freedom to Read Project (FFRP) obtained a copy of the checklist from the school district, which FFRP provided to Popular Information.

Along with dictionaries, the books removed from Escambia County school libraries as a result of this process include eight different encyclopedias, two thesauruses, and five editions of The Guinness Book of World Records. Biographies of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Nicki Minaj, and Thurgood Marshall are also locked in storage.

Classic texts like Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile are no longer available to Escambia County students. Twenty-three novels by Stephen King have been removed. The dragnet has also swept up books popular with the political right including Atlas Shrugged and two books by conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly. 

The reality in Escambia County serves as a rejoinder to DeSantis, who has described concerns about book removals as aleftist activist hoaxand a “false political narrative.” 

At the same event, Florida Department of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz argued “[r]emoving clear instances of pornography and sexually explicit materials, often within arms reach of our youngest kids, is not book banning.” How would Diaz describe removing the dictionary?

DeSantis justified his statements by claiming that no school district in Florida had removed more than 19 books. At the time, 148 books had been removed in Escambia County as part of the challenge process. Now, in part due to DeSantis signing HB 1069, more than ten times that many books have been taken off the shelves in Escambia County. And Escambia County is not an anomaly. Orange County, Florida, which includes Orlando, has removed at least 678 books from library shelves.  

Authors and parents fight back

 

Penguin Random House, five authors, two parents of Escambia County students, and the non-profit group PEN America sued the Escambia County School Board last May, alleging that the board’s actions violate the First Amendment. The lawsuit relates to decisions by the school board, prior to the passage of HB 1069, to permanently ban several books from Escambia schools. 

The Escambia County School Board banned most of these books at the request of Vicki Baggett, a high school English teacher in the county. Baggett is responsible for hundreds of challenges in Escambia County and neighboring counties. She also appeared at the June 2023 board meeting and spoke in favor of the emergency rule. 

Meet the Florida English teacher trying to ban 150 books from school libraries

Meet the Florida English teacher trying to ban 150 books from school libraries

·
DECEMBER 20, 2022
Read full story

Baggett has challenged books like And Tango Makes Three, the true story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who lived in the Central Park Zoo and raised an adopted chick. In an interview with Popular Information, Baggett said she objected to And Tango Makes Three because it exposes students to “alternate sexual ideologies.” Baggett said she was concerned “a second grader would read this book, and that idea would pop into the second grader’s mind… that these are two people of the same sex that love each other.”

Last year, Popular Information reported that former and current students accused Baggett of being openly homophobic in class. For example, Baggett allegedly told a tenth-grade student that her sister, who had a girlfriend, was “faking being a lesbian for attention” because “nobody’s born that way.” 

Florida English teacher pushing book bans is openly racist and homophobic, students allege

Florida English teacher pushing book bans is openly racist and homophobic, students allege

·
JANUARY 9, 2023
Read full story

More recently, Baggett was involved in a scheme that involved reporting a librarian in a neighboring county to law enforcement for failing to remove a popular young adult novel from the school library. 

Although a material review committee in Escambia County voted 5-0 to reject Baggett’s challenge of And Tango Makes Three, the decision was overruled by the school board, which sided with Baggett. “The fascination is still on those two male penguins,” school board member David Williams said. “So I’ll be voting to remove the book from our libraries.”

The lawsuit alleges that the school board banned and restricted books “based on their disagreement with the ideas expressed in those books.” In so doing, the school board has “prescribed an orthodoxy of opinion that violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”

Today, there is an important hearing in the case. A federal judge will consider Escambia County’s motion to dismiss the complaint. In a brief submitted by the State of Florida in support of Escambia, Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that the school board could ban books for any reason because the purpose of public school libraries is to convey the government’s message,” and that can be accomplished through “the removal of speech that the government disapproves.” This is a novel argument about the purpose of school libraries.

 

Dictionaries?

They’re going after **words** now??

Logical consequence of “don’t say gay” and other stupidities.

Also, the logical (and predicted) outcome of intentionally vague laws intended to scare people into over-compliance.

They have to. Words come together to make sentences, and sentences create paragraphs. Then you’ve got people sharing information and getting ideas, and who knows where that could end up? People might start to think.

it’s got Dic in it’s name. that’s going to turn thousands of unsuspecting children gay.

Woidz Я dane-ger-us!

“Can you show me on the doll where the bad word hurt you?”

All the best words are in the dictionary

there might be pronouns inside

Can’t allow those kids to look up what “fag” means when the older kids call them that. Or, god forbid, “homosexual.”

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Is anyone else getting strong Fahrenheit 451 vibes?

More like 1984 vibes

Of course dictionaries violate the Florida law.

They contain knowledge.

Knew that was coming. It was a public library dictionary that helped me label what I was feeling a long, long, long time ago.

The takeaway from your story is an evil book has groomed you.

That’s why we’re banning books.

/S

As a kid, I looked up “orgasm” to see what that was about. Being told it was “the height of sexual pleasure” didn’t help at all.

Indeed. My 7th grade sex education class didn’t explain how a boy knew he was done. My friends and I speculated and came (!) away mystified.

One year later, laying in bed one morning I discovered that missing element.

I knew that I was gay when I was three or four years old. I didn’t know what gay was, and I didn’t know what it meant. I certainly didn’t know about sex. But I knew that I was different from other boys in a way that involved other boys, and I knew that I had better not talk about it whatever it was.

When I was a child, I was a voracious reader. I went through at least two encyclopedia sets. One day, when I was about 10, I was thumbing through the dictionary looking for new words. I found the word “homosexual”, and knew that that word applied to me. It told me that I was not the only one.

And that is what they want to stop. Kids learning anything different other than the religious or right wing party line.

I hope the entry you read back then for homosexual was less judgmental than the one I read as a kid. Mine said being homosexual was about the worst thing in the world, or words to that effect.

I think it was actually accurate and not simply defamatory. But 60+ years ago and I’m a bit bit vague

I had a similar experience as you. Yet as Johnny says immediately below me, the reading I did secretively in the stacks at our public library did not make me feel confident. In fact, I felt there was something wrong with me. I understood it was who I was, but it was a long time till I could find pride in that.

I was a child of the 60’s, born in 1950. It didn’t take a lot for me to ask questions and make my own decisions about it. It was the age.

JFC I can see right wing children’s television.

Q is for Truth! Z is good because our Russian friends use it when de-nazifying. We like Z.

Businesses and Universities around the country will start rejecting applicants from Florida. Having a diploma that you graduated from the Florida school system will automatically get your resume put into the circular file and it should.

Oh, DeSantis apparently made it easier for students worried about antisemitism to transfer to Florida schools.

Guess they have the room because nobody wants to get their degrees in Florida that can help it.

Welcome to Government of the Absurd where spelling doesn’t count. 🙃

“Where everything is made up and the points don’t matter.” Florida is turning into Whose Line Is It Anyway, but a whole hell of a lot less funny.

Banning dictionaries = banning knowledge

Well they’re also banning science and history books, so why not dictionaries? I’m sure Prager U* can produce some word-books with definitions the fascists will like.

*No idea what the U stands for. Unacceptable? Useless?

Alabama GOP Bill Would Fire Board Of State Archives For Hosting Brief 2023 Lecture On State LGBTQ History

A shorter version for those who won’t read the longer one I posted.   Hugs.  Scottie


January 10, 2024

The Birmingham News reports:

History in Alabama is under attack again. A handful of state lawmakers are on a mission to erase it, to cancel those who would mention it and punish those who would protect it. No less than a revered state institution is on the line — the Alabama Department of Archives and History — and the stories it exists to preserve.

It’s LGBTQ history in lawmakers’ crosshairs. Founded in Birmingham in 2015, the Invisible Histories Project collects stories and material regarding LGBTQ history in the South — the things, it seems, many would like to pretend never happened.

In June, the Alabama Department of Archives and History invited one of the Invisible Histories Project founders, Maigen Sullivan, to speak in Montgomery about the group’s work, as part of a lunchtime lecture series. And that’s where all hell broke loose — this time.

Read the full article. As you can see in the June 2023 video below, state Sen. Chris Elliot [photo above] tried to defund the Archives shortly after the one-hour lecture took place. That bill failed. His new bill would fire the entire board.

 

 

Acknowledging the existence of gays and lesbians is illegal in Alabama.

Up next:

 

the existence of gays and lesbians is illegal in Alabama
 

And acknowledging the crimes against LGBTQI+ people is some sort of lèse-majesté. Yasss, queen! Inflicting butthurtness upon homophobic hets is such a huge crime, so just don’t even dream of doing it or they’ll plot to toss you in jail… or worse. Really! In fact, they really like that “worse” option — and it ain’t pretty.

The very people who complained about “cancel culture”…
Are the very same people actively canceling other people’s culture.

But we need to protect Confederate statues in public places because, otherwise, erasing our history is dangerous…?

You’re not allowed to say what they did, only revere the statues of the treasonists.

FunFact: Men secure in their ability to resist constantly sucking dick are not bothered about the fact that gay people exist.

Seriously, the red states are basically reverting back into slave states, but now the victims are LBGTs instead of blacks

 

Alabama Archives hosted an LGBTQ speaker. Now lawmakers want the board fired.

https://www.al.com/opinion/2024/01/alabama-archives-hosted-an-lgbtq-speaker-now-lawmakers-want-the-board-fired.html

The point is erasing the LGBTQIA from public view.  Like Russia did.  Next is to make being LGBTQIA illegal, again like other countries do.  This is not the end of it.   It is a deliberate push to wipe out all progress of the past 70 to 80 years on equality and equal rights for those not cis straight white males.  It is the first part in a war to return to white Christian cis straight male rule.  Hugs.  Scottie


A bill before the Legislature this year would replace trustees with political appointments.
marchers
Gay Pride Marchers in Birmingham, Alabama The Birmingham News The Birmingham News
 
 

This is an opinion column.

 

History in Alabama is under attack again. A handful of state lawmakers are on a mission to erase it, to cancel those who would mention it and punish those who would protect it.

 

No less than a revered state institution is on the line — the Alabama Department of Archives and History — and the stories it exists to preserve.

 

But this time it’s not stories of Reconstruction or civil rights protests at risk of being lost. At least, not yet. Rather, something more recent.

 
 

It’s LGBTQ history in lawmakers’ crosshairs.

 
 

Founded in Birmingham in 2015, the Invisible Histories Project collects stories and material regarding LGBTQ history in the South — the things, it seems, many would like to pretend never happened.

 
 

In June, the Alabama Department of Archives and History invited one of the Invisible Histories Project founders, Maigen Sullivan, to speak in Montgomery about the group’s work, as part of a lunchtime lecture series.

 
 

And that’s where all hell broke loose — this time.

 
 

You see, the other Invisible Histories founder, Joshua Burford, had spoken as part of the same lunchtime lecture series the year before, and no one seemed bothered then.

 
 

But political winds changed. The Moms for Liberty types brought back the Inquisition and now a thing that had once escaped notice of all but a handful of history nerds became a moral panic of political importance.

 
 

A handful of lawmakers called the Archives and questioned why state money was being spent on such a thing. The Archives director, Steve Murray, explained it wasn’t state money but a grant that funded the lecture series.

 
 

Not that the funding mattered. These lawmakers did not want it to happen, period, regardless of who paid for it.

 
 

“I wanted to express my concern for this event,” state Sen. Chris Elliot, R-Josephine, wrote Murray in a text message I obtained through a public records request. “Ideally, I’d like to see it canceled.”

Screenshot 2024-01-11 140344
 
 

Canceled. There’s that word. The next time you hear someone yapping about cancel culture, look back at Elliot’s text message and remember who is trying to cancel who.

 
 

Murray declined, the event went forward as planned, and angry lawmakers began to plot retribution.

 
 

First Elliott tried to cut $5 million of state funding from the Archives, nearly half its budget. And remember, he already knew tax dollars hadn’t paid for the event.

 
 

This was punishment.

 
 

Elliott filed his first bill in a special session. Legislative leadership instead kept to the point of the special session to redraw congressional districts. Elliot’s bill died when lawmakers gaveled out and went home.

 
 

Now, Elliott has set his sites on those who control the Archives — its board of trustees.

 
 
“Ideally, I’d like to see it canceled.”
Alabama State Sen. Chris Elliott to Alabama HIstory and Archives Director Steve Murray regarding an LGBTQ historian invited to speak.
 
 

In a bill pre-filed for the 2024 session, Elliott would change the Archives governance from a self-nominating board to one controlled by the governor, lieutenant governor, and the Alabama House and Senate leaders.

 
 

All of the 21 current board members would be fired on June 1, 2024. Those board members include folks like Montgomery civil rights attorney Fred Gray, who knows a thing or two about Alabama history (because he made it).

 
 

But Elliott’s real target seems to be Murray.

 
 

“It really chaps me when we end up in a situation where you have unelected bureaucrats saying, ‘We know better. We’ll do what we want to do regardless of what the people think,’” Elliott said in a recent talk radio interview.

 
 

The thing is, I’ve seen Murray speak in at least a dozen public hearings, and I’ve seen him explain things to rooms full of lawmakers that they should have learned in fourth-grade Alabama History. Murray doesn’t fume, yell or condescend. Generally, he’s one of the more patient, soft-spoken people I’ve met in Alabama state government.

 
 

And I’ve never heard Murray speak the way Elliott described. Nor did Murray say any such thing in the text messages Elliott exchanged with him before the event.

 
 
Museum of Alabama
Museum of Alabama

The Alabama Department of Archives and HIstory was the first of its kind in the country and is home to the Museum of Alabama.Kyle Whitmire, al.com

 
 

I called Elliott to ask, who had spoken to him that way?

 
 

Turns out, no one. They just didn’t do what Elliott wanted them to do.

 
 

When I pushed him on it, Elliott argued that he doesn’t like how Archives and History board members are appointed and he said some things that weren’t exactly accurate.

 
 

“They are one of the few, if not only, self-perpetuating boards in the state of Alabama that does not at least answer to elected officials, or by extension to the people of the state of Alabama, and simply reappoints itself over and over and over again,” he said. “And you gotta wonder, is that good governance?”

 
 

There are a few problems with what Elliott said.

 
 

First, there are other boards that self-nominate to fill vacancies, including the University of Alabama Board of Trustees, and there are others controlled by professional associations, such as the State Board of Medical Examiners and the Alabama State Bar.

 
 

Elliott hasn’t filed bills to change how those boards work. I checked.

 
 
Chris Elliott

State Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, wants to fire the Alabama Department of Archives and History Board of Trustees after the department refused to cancel an LGBTQ historian’s speech last year.

 
 

Nor is it true the board lacks political oversight or that it is purely self-perpetuating.

 
 

The board does nominate its members, but those nominations then go before the Alabama Senate, where Elliott serves, for up or down votes — much like Supreme Court nominees go before the United States Senate.

 
 

If Elliott didn’t like any of these prospective board members, he could have voted against them. In fact, he’s had that opportunity 20 times since he became an Alabama state senator in 2018.

 
 

Care to guess how many he approved?

 
 

In the last four years, Elliott voted to approve all the people he now wants to fire.

 
 

Elliott approved three of those nominees this year — just two weeks before he took an interest in the LGBTQ stuff.

 
 

Not only did Elliott vote to approve those people for the board, but so did the cosponsors of his bill.

 
 

I didn’t get to ask Elliott about this during our phone call.

 
 

When I asked him how many Archives and History events he had been to — not counting the open-bar receptions special interest lobbyists host there — the phone call suddenly ended.

 
 

“Have a great day!” he said. “Bye!”

 
 

And the line went dead.

 
 
Chris Elliott texts
Chris Elliott texts

Text messages between state Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, and Alabama Department of Archives and History Director Steve Murray show Elliott knew the Food for Thought speakers series was not funded with state money. AL.com obtained the texts through a public records request.

 
 

Elliott’s record will have to speak for itself.

 
 

But what of his question: Is that good governance?

 
 

A handful of lawmakers out of 140 demanded an event be canceled because they didn’t care for its subject matter.

 
 

The director and the board declined to cancel it.

 
 

Because silencing a speaker who has tried to make Alabama history more accurate and more complete would be in direct conflict with Archives and History’s purpose — to document and share true Alabama stories.

 
 

They made the archives a place to tell Alabamians’ stories — not just the ones Elliott wanted told.

 
 

They did their jobs and now Elliott wants to fire them for it.

 
 

This is Don’t-You-Know-Who-I-Am politics.

 
 

This isn’t someone concerned with free speech.

 
 

This isn’t someone who cares about cancel culture. This is someone angry he doesn’t get to cancel someone else’s culture.

 
 

This is someone who wants to bring back the silence — to erase what little has been recovered and mute those who would speak of it.

 
 

Unless we say, enough.

 
 

Unless we say, this is history that won’t be forgotten.

 
 

Unless we say, not again.

 
 
Screenshot 2024-01-11 140633
 
 
 
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About the Authors
Kyle Whitmire
Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for AL.com, where he writes about political culture in Alabama. Dislikes: corruption, cruelty, incompetence and hypocrisy. Likes: quiet heroes. He is the 2023 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

Tennessee Bill Would Ban Pride Flags In Public Schools

He is trying hard not to say the quiet part out loud.   He really just wants a white Christian straight cis male run society.  He is struggling with the changes in society that the majority of the people accept and wants to force his minority view on everyone by making it the law.  He wants his small minority to rule the majority.  He wants to roll back rights and equality.  It is flat out bigotry, the same bigotry that led to slavery, Jim Crow laws, anti-miscegenation laws, and laws forcing a religion on other people’s children in hopes it will install in them the same hates against the LGBTQIA that they have.  These laws are about stopping children learning tolerance and acceptance of people who are different, of people who are LGBTQIA.   It is a way to let bullying go unchallenged and leaving the targeted LGBTQIA with no support or defenders.  As it has been mentioned repeatedly, no color flag or book or movie ever turned anyone gay or trans.  It is a shame that these people have managed to get into positions of power and think they have the rights to rule others lives, that they have the right to dictate how others must think or live.  I wonder if the Christian flag will be one of the exemptions?   Hugs.  Scottie


January 8, 2024

Nashville’s ABC affiliate reports:

Republican State Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood) has filed a bill to ban all flags in schools that aren’t the official Tennessee or United States flag. Bulso said he drafted the bill after hearing concerns from constituents about pride flags being displayed in schools.

Bulso said the country used to have a “very strong consensus” on what the nation’s values are, and these are the values he believes most parents taught in schools.

“Certainly, you know, 50 years ago we had a consensus on what marriage is; we don’t have that anymore. One-hundred years ago, we had a consensus on sexual morality; I don’t think we have that anymore. So the values that I think most parents want their children exposed to are the ones that were in existence at the time that our country was founded,” he said.

Read the full article.

The epitome of homophobia, transphobia is legislators working on tax payer dollars to pass a law to eliminate rainbow flags 🌈 in public schools when it isn’t a problem to begin with!!!! We are citizens too!

I think most parents want their children exposed to are the ones that were in existence at the time that our country was founded

Like enslaving people?

Like selling people?

Like denying Blacks and women the right to vote?

Ahh, yes. The good times.

Colors.

We are talking about colors.

Think about that. Not rape. Not guns. Not murder. Not abortions. Just colors.

So, this wouldn’t count either…

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And what those colors stand for are equal rights. Apparently we no longer have a consensus for equal rights.

Remember, flags don’t make people gay!
Conservatives is so stoopid!

Betcha he doesn’t want to ban the Confederate Flag.

Or the Gadsden flag. Or the Nazi flag. Or the “Christian” flag.

I lived in that world he yearns for and it was a shit show for everyone but straight white men.

And he’s a straight (or at least able to pass for straight — you can’t always tell, you know) white man.

What does your argument have to do with flying a rainbow flag??? I know you are all about discrimination…but this is a different era from when you grew up grandpa. You were the bully in school who used to beat up gay students, all the time you were secretly closeted. We know you.

Few things in life are “simple.” Easy to understand.

But here’s one of the simple, easy to understand things:

“If, in 2024, it’s Republican, it’s evil.”

Sing it with me:

Democrats HELP

Republicans HARM

Ross, you coined it.

And boy oh boy… did ya hit the jackpot with that one.

The nation used to have a very strong consensus on limiting roles for “decent” women, so fuck that noise.

He’s aware it isn’t the 1700’s, right?

More like the 1600s. No Enlightenment and lots of “witch” killings.

the country used to have a “very strong consensus” on what the nation’s values are,

Values such as EQUALITY for ALL!!!

Certainly, you know, 50 years ago we had a consensus on what marriage is; we don’t have that anymore. One-hundred years ago, we had a consensus on sexual morality; I don’t think we have that anymore.

 

I’m sure he laments that 175 years ago we could keep n*****s as slaves.

50 plus years ago a marriage could only be of the same race

> 50 years ago we had a consensus on what marriage is

Back 50 years ago you had adultery, infidelity, and **SHOCK!** same-sex relationships! You know, “Uncle Henry and his roommate Jack.”

Saint Ronnie and his first wife got divorced 74 years ago.

“So the values that I think most parents want their children exposed to are the ones that were in existence at the time that our country was founded.”
Including slavery, women as their husbands’ property, and Native American genocide.

so, no Christian Flag?

” the official Tennessee or United States flag”

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But I’d bet the “Christian” flag would still be allowed. Probably flown along with the U.S. and Tennessee flags.

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The values when the country was founded? No divorce for anyone without a great deal of trouble, Black people were slaves but counted as 3/5 of a person, and women couldn’t vote.

But I guess he’s not referring to the value of strict separation of church and state.

Dickhead Bulso said he drafted the bill after hearing concerns from constituents about pride flags being displayed in schools.

Also, Dickhead Bulso disregarded the views of constituents who were in favor of pride flags being displayed in schools.

So when a natural rainbow appears above a school, are teachers supposed to shoot at it with their AR-15s or what?

 

Jim Jefferies on LGBTQ Community (High & Dry)

Rude, crude, hilarious.   I am gay.  I am a huge supporter of the LGBTQIA and so is Jim Jefferies.  We can not only laugh at jokes about us that are funny and not hateful and trying to hurt others.  Jefferies shows how to do funny jokes about gay and trans people without being a mean insensitive hateful asshole.  Enjoy.   Hugs.  Scottie

The Majority Report … some clips