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
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 consult “Book Looks,” a right-wing websiterelied on by Moms for Liberty and other groups to justify the banning of books from school libraries. It was created by “Moms 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, thebooks removedfrom Escambia County school libraries as a result of this process includeeight 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 a “leftist activist hoax” and 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 bookshad 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, hasremoved at least 678 booksfrom 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
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. Inan interviewwith Popular Information, Baggett said she objected to And Tango MakesThree 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
More recently, Baggett wasinvolved in a schemethat 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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?
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.
Cancel culture strikes again.
Alabama Archives hosted a speaker on LGBTQ history. Republican lawmakers are pushing through legislation to fire the board.https://t.co/5stvXMxS0n
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 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.
Gay Pride Marchers in Birmingham, Alabama The Birmingham News The Birmingham News
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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
This is pure Christian bigotry. They don’t want to be forbidden to harass LGBTQIA homeless kids, tell them they are broken and wrong so they need Christian fixings. It is all about being able to forbid trans kids to transition even socially, and to send gay and trans kids to conversion therapy. Ask yourself why it is so important to them to disrespect LGBTQIA kids? And the fact is, this rule does not keep religious people out of the foster system. What it does is prevent LGBTQIA children from being placed in homes where they would face abuse due to their being gay or trans. But it prevents Christian bigots from being able to harass and harm gay and trans kids. Again that is what the republicans are fighting for, the right to force gay and trans kids to live as straight cis kids while trying to force them to join Jesus. Hugs. Scottie
A bill filed in the House and Senate in November by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a former GOP presidential candidate, would prevent government agencies from penalizing child welfare service providers that are unwilling to “take action contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs,” including affirming a child’s gender identity or sexual orientation. The duo introduced identical legislation in 2019 and 2021.
Nonreligious service providers, meanwhile, have largely argued that the draft rule is needed to protect LGBTQ young people already vulnerable to abuse.
A new rule requiring child welfare agencies to place LGBTQ children in “environments free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse” based on the child’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression is drawing opposition from Republicans.
The proposed rule, issued in September by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), also would require caregivers to undergo cultural competency training to ensure LGBTQ youths are placed in homes where their identities are affirmed.
In a statement, Health Department SecretaryXavier Becerra said the proposal puts “children’s well-being first.”
Studies have shown that LGBTQ young people are overrepresented in the child welfare system. Lesbian, gay and bisexual children are more than twice as likely to experience foster care placement compared with their heterosexual peers, a 2019 study found, and roughly 30 percent of foster youth identify as LGBTQ, according to the Children’s Bureau, the federal agency responsible for overseeing the child welfare system in the U.S.
About 5 percent of foster youth identify as transgender.
But the rule has met some opposition in the GOP.
A bill introduced last month by Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who is currently running for an open Senate seat, would prevent foster and adoptive families from being required to affirm a transgender child’s gender identity. The measure, called the Sensible Adoption For Every Home Act, has four Republican co-sponsors.
Banks in astatement to Fox Newssaid the bill was drafted in response to the HHS proposal, which he said discriminates against prospective caretakers that are “opposed to irreversible sex change procedures on kids.”
LGBTQ rights advocates have denounced the Indiana congressman’s bill and his justification for introducing it, which they say reflects misconceptions about gender-affirming health care for youth and misrepresents what the Health Department’s draft rule aims to achieve.
“No part of this says anything about changing the sex of a child,” said Allen Morris, policy director at the National LGBTQ Task Force. “It’s talking about making sure that [LGBTQ youths] are not in an abusive home or somewhere that’s going to mistreat them.”
Other Republicans have argued that the proposed rule would discriminate against faith-based providers.
A bill filed in the House and Senate in November by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a former GOP presidential candidate, would prevent government agencies from penalizing child welfare service providers that are unwilling to “take action contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs,” including affirming a child’s gender identity or sexual orientation. The duo introduced identical legislation in 2019 and 2021.
Sen.Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), one of the bill’s 17 Republican co-sponsors in the Senate,wrote in a December editorialthat the measure would effectively overrule the Biden administration’s “new woke standards.” Rubio’s Lifting Local Communities Act, introduced last January, would similarly bolster the ability of religious organizations that receive federal funding to operate in accordance with their religious beliefs.
In aDec. 8 letterto Becerra, however, 19 Democratic senators voiced their support for the Health Department’s proposed rule, writing that its stipulations are needed “to protect children in the foster care system more than ever.”
“As members of Congress we are committed to ensuring all children, including LGBTQIA+ children, thrive in safe and stable environments,” the senators, led by Sen.Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), wrote in the letter.
Compared with their cisgender and heterosexual peers, LGBTQ children and adolescents in the child welfare system are more likely to report poor treatment related to their sexual orientation or gender identity. In a 2014 study of LGBTQ foster youths in Los Angeles,nearly 38 percentreported poor treatment connected to their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
Twenty-eight states and Washington, D.C., have explicit laws or policies in place to protect LGBTQ youths in foster care from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and another six have laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation only, according to theMovement Advancement Project, a nonprofit organization that tracks LGBTQ laws.
In 13 states, state-licensed child welfare agencies may legally refuse to place and provide services to children and families — including LGBTQ people and same-sex couples — if doing so conflicts with their religious beliefs.
Republicans at the state level have also sought to push back on the rule.
In a November letter to the Children’s Bureau, more than a dozen Republican state attorneys general said the Health Department’s proposal discriminates against Christian caretakers and provides solutions to a problem that does not exist.
The letter, led by Alabama Attorney GeneralSteve Marshall (R), references a 2021 Supreme Court ruling that sided with a Philadelphia Catholic social services agency that had refused to accept same-sex couples as foster parents.
“This proposed rule seeks to accomplish indirectly what the Supreme Court found unconstitutional just two years ago: remove faith-based providers from the foster care system if they will not conform their religious beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity,” the attorneys general wrote in the Nov. 27 letter.
A Health Department spokesperson declined to comment on the letter but said members of the public are encouraged to express their views on the draft rule. A 30-day public comment period ended Nov. 27.
Responses to the proposed rule from Christian organizations have been mixed, although most submitted to the Health Department center around concerns that the rule, if implemented, would discriminate against faith-based providers and hinder the recruitment and retention of foster families, many of whom are religious.
“Among the most concerning — and most likely — negative impacts of the proposed regulations would be a significant chilling effect on the involvement of people of religious faith in the foster system,” one group wrote in a Nov. 20 letter to Becerra. “This rule would push many of them away.”
Nonreligious service providers, meanwhile, have largely argued that the draft rule is needed to protect LGBTQ young people already vulnerable to abuse.
“With all of the pain, rejection, broken promises and separation that many youth in foster care experience, a targeted and specific plan for LGBTQI+ youth’s health and wellbeing through safe and appropriate placements can ensure youth are acknowledged and affirmed when they express their needs,” wrote a coordinator for a Cleveland-based nonprofit that works with foster youth.
“Then, when this plan is followed through, youth will actually experience their needs being met, their voices mattering and a caring network of individuals,” they wrote. “This is vital for all youth, but especially youth who identify LGBTQI+ because we know that so often this is not the case.”
But some nonreligious and Democratic organizations have been critical of the proposal, which they say does not go far enough because it still allows for individuals who do not support LGBTQ identities to become foster parents.
Multiple groups in comments submitted to the Health Department referenced a 2021 survey of young people who concealed their LGBTQ identities prior to placement over fears of “how their social worker may react” and “concerns about losing their placement.”
“The flexibility allowed within the rule presumes that those who are LGBTQI+ and not yet out would be served well when placed with any family — including those who opt out of being ‘safe and appropriate,’” the executive director of one children’s rights organization wrote. “However, not requiring that every provider be a safe and appropriate placement for LGBTQI+ children will mean that LGBTQI+ youth are placed in inadequate placements.”
Banks and other Republicans are also seeking to reinstate a ban on transgender military members. Earlier this year Banks founded the House Anti-Woke Caucus.
Many LGBT youth end up in foster case because their “parents” etc. reject them. The notion they should be set up for more abuse or worse cuz religious freedom is straight up bullshit.
. . . raised in the families of their birth. The GOP aren’t fans of supporting foster children. They complained about automatically extending benefits to high school graduation, and a six month transition. They didn’t like opening up public colleges to them.
And pro parental rights. Parents have an absolute and inviolate right to do what they deem best for their children… but only insofar as that furthers the white supremacist Talibangelical agenda.
They’re so pro-life that in cases of unviable pregnancies they want mothers to die in childbirth. I dunno ’bout you guys, but if I had a wife, a sister, or a niece, I’d want the doctors to do everything they could to save her life.
They’re so pro-life that in cases of unadopted kids who are no longer babies, they call them “unadoptable” (read: unlovable).
They’re so pro-life that they rip immigrant families apart and but babies, children, and adults in cages in squalid conditions. And then don’t even both to keep track of who is who and where they’ve been placed.
“Other Republicans have argued that the proposed rule would discriminate against faith-based providers.”
This is why I hate the combination of Citizens United, Hobby Lobby, and Catholic Charities v. Philadelphia. Faith-based organizations are not persons, have no right to freedom of religion, and have no standing in child placement. The only basis for child placement decisions in PA state law, and the only basis for child placement decisions in practice should be the welfare of the child. Not the parents, not the state, and not the fucking private provider.
Again it is forcing people to stop doing a legal activity because you personally don’t like it. Is this liberty for all? Is this freedom that the right likes to brag about? It is rule by gang thugs. It is gangland stuff. But again the right makes threats because they don’t care if they hurt people and the left backs down and doesn’t hold the event that the haters shut down because the left care if people get hurt. These people are terrorists. They must be resisted. Today it is drag queens, then the rest of the LGBTQIA, then anything not in their fundamentalist world they will shut down. The US Christian moral police Taliban. Plus these people constantly claim to be the majority or that they represent the country, when the fact is they are a small minority very vocal violent Hugs. Scottie
Piaf Kitchen + Wine + Bar had promoted a “drag show” Dec. 31 as part of a circus act at a premium-priced party that also will include a fire thrower, a magician, a palm reader, dinner, music and a DJ.
The restaurant posted Friday on social media, the lineup was changed, “For the safety of our Performers, and Staff, and for a pleasurable experience for our Guests … to ensure a more universally enjoyable and safe experience for everyone.”
Piaf had been the target of hundreds of online complaints after ads for the $75-$150 event including “drag entertainers” were circulated Thursday on social media. One post came from Julie McCarty, leader of the Grapevine-based True Texas Project tea party group.
Read the full article. As you can see below, McCarty’s group has endorsed a raft of far-right, anti-LGBTQ, Christian nationalist extremists.
Grapevine restaurant cancels drag act from New Year’s Eve bash after social-media rage https://t.co/Wh6jycaeEJ
I’m honored to receive an endorsement from @TrueTXProject, a hard-hitting, no-nonsense organization of true, Conservative champions. Together, we will make Texas great again. pic.twitter.com/QSMdDpU49c
This is one of the endorsements I care the MOST about! @TrueTXProject
I may not have been born on Texas soil … but I’m in love with its values and what it stands for!! I’m proud that the Feuerstein family will be Texans for generations to come. pic.twitter.com/cTw94vmQmy
The 87th speaker at the GCISD school board meeting is Julie McCarty, the CEO of True Texas Project. She says thousands of people like who her "aren't fringe" support policies like the anti-trans one. True Texas Project has been designated an extremist group by @splcenter.
