This is again another video on Anna’s hard right turn on trans people, which I guess is only to get her a better gig else where. She keeps going on that she objects to doctors forms or offices calling pregnant trans males birthing persons. But Anna has fervently claimed she doesn’t want kids and won’t have them. So the term doesn’t apply to her at all. She tries to claim the term is the same as the N word, but that is not used in any medical setting or forms at all. She is tilting at windmills here. She says she wants to be called a woman, and yes that is her right. And if she was ever pregnant her doctor would honor that. So why is she against what other people want to be called. Her stance makes no sense when you look at it. She got her plastic surgery nose out of joint and is making that the hill to die on. Again the question is why? But it is getting her a lot of attention and air time play on right wing podcasts / blogs. So you ask why she has gone so far out on this that no one is calling her and making it her claim to fame? Is she the new Riley Gaines, who made an entire media career over complaining she tied with a trans woman for fourth place! Hugs.
Category: LGBTQ+ / Gay / Trans / Gender
Before he became a politician, House Speaker Mike Johnson partnered with an anti-gay conversion therapy group
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/01/politics/mike-johnson-kfile-invs/index.html
Every major medical association affirm that conversion therapy is torture and not medically sound. It doesn’t work and creates lifelong issues and problems. It is abuse. Sexual orientation is something one is born with. No matter who you find sexually attractive, ask your self when you choose that? Who sits down with a bunch of different pictures of men and women and says you know I think I will be sexually attracted to these. It is a body reaction, not a mental one. My dogs that love gravy these people understand that because they use torture methods including some put electrodes on kid’s scrotum to shock them if they get excited over male nudes. WTF, no one chooses and these people did not choose who they are attracted to and get the tingles from. The fact is they demand we all ignore reason and medical science so their holy book written 2,500 years ago when people were ignorant even of germs that caused sickness is correct. Yes they tell us, just ignore everything that makes sense and the medical people are telling us to that the desert nomads of 2,500 years ago are correct. The want an old dusty geopolitical warlord text to relate to our modern life. Why did their god not know about cell phones? Why wait to give life-saving health information to the people. Because their god only knew what the people 2,500 knew. Do they really want to claim that is the highest pinnacle of human knowledge? But what is telling is his organization tells kids / teens they don’t need to accept kids who are different. He is telling kids to not be tolerant or even accepting of LGBTQIA kids in schools. Just like he doesn’t want to accept or tolerate that there are LGBTQIA people in society he has to accept are there. Kill them all, or if you can not do that, just make don’t say gay laws that erase them from society. Hugs. Scottie
5 minute readNewly elected Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) in the House chamber after his election at the US Capitol on October 25, 2023 in Washington, DC.Speaker of the House Mike Johnson closely collaborated with a group in the mid-to-late 2000s that promoted “conversion therapy,” a discredited practice that asserted it could change the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian individuals.
Prior to launching his political career, Johnson, a lawyer, gave legal advice to an organization called Exodus International and partnered with the group to put on an annual anti-gay event aimed at teens, according to a CNN KFile review of more than a dozen of Johnson’s media appearances from that timespan.
Founded in 1976, Exodus International was a leader in the so-called “ex-gay” movement, which aimed to make gay individuals straight through conversion therapy programs using religious and counseling methods. Exodus International connected ministries across the world using these controversial approaches.
The group shut down in 2013, with its founder posting a public apology for the “pain and hurt” his organization caused. Conversion therapy has been widely condemned by most major medical institutions and has been shown to be harmful to struggling LGBTQ people.
At the time, Johnson worked as an attorney for the socially conservative legal advocacy group, Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). He and his group collaborated with Exodus from 2006 to 2010.
For years, Johnson and Exodus worked on an event started by ADF in 2005 known as the “Day of Truth” – a counterprotest to the “Day of Silence,” a day in schools in which students stayed silent to bring awareness to bullying faced by LGBTQ youth.
The Day of Truth sought to counter that silence by distributing information about what Johnson described as the “dangerous” gay lifestyle.
“I mean, our race, the size of our feet, the color of our eyes, these are things we’re born with and we cannot change,” Johnson told one radio host in 2008 promoting the event. “What these adult advocacy groups like the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network are promoting is a type of behavior. Homosexual behavior is something you do, it’s not something that you are.”
In print, radio and on television, Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, frequently disparaged homosexuality, according to KFile’s review. He advocated for the criminalization of gay sex and went so far as to partially blame it for the fall of the Roman Empire.
“Some credit to the fall of Rome to not only the deprivation of the society and the loss of morals, but also to the rampant homosexual behavior that was condoned by the society,” Johnson told a radio host in 2008.
Johnson’s office did not respond to a CNN request for comment asking about his work with Exodus.
A close collaboration
Exodus International joined ADF’s Day of Truth event in 2006 and the groups worked together on promotional material for the event, including a standalone website which pointed users to Exodus’ conversion ministries. Documents on that website cited the since-repudiated academic work in support of conversion therapy. Exodus Youth, the group’s youth wing, promoted the event within its blogs.
Videos put out by Exodus and ADF on their standalone Day of Truth website featured two Exodus staffers speaking about how teens didn’t need to “accept” or “embrace” their homosexuality. The videos featured testimonials of a “former-homosexual” and “former lesbian.”
Documents on the website were not archived online but were saved by anti-conversion therapy groups such as Truth Wins Out in 2007 and 2008. The website featured a FAQ on homosexuality provided by Exodus and sold t-shirts saying, “the Truth cannot be silenced.”
One video featured Johnson, who was later quoted in a press release on Exodus International’s website ahead of the event, saying, “An open, honest discussion allows truth to rise to the surface.”
Johnson promoted the event heavily in the media – through radio interviews, comments in newspapers, and an editorial. In interviews, he repeatedly cited the case of a teen who went to school after the Day of Silence wearing a shirt that read, “Be ashamed. Our school has embraced what God has condemned” and “Homosexuality is shameful.” The teen was suspended and ADF represented him in legal action over the incident. The case was dismissed because the teen graduated, and the court found he no longer had standing to challenge the dress code.
“Day of Truth was really established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda in public schools,” Johnson told a radio host in 2008.
Those who worked to counter ADF and Exodus at the time, said the event was dangerous to confused youth.
“This directly harmed LGBTQ youth,” Wayne Besen, the executive director of Truth Wins Out and an expert on the ex-gay industry, told CNN. “This is someone whose core was promoting anti-gay and ex-gay viewpoints. He wouldn’t pander to anti-gay advocates, he was the anti-gay and ex-gay advocate.”
Randy Scobey, a former executive vice president at Exodus, who worked on the Day of Truth in the organization’s collaboration with ADF, called the event one of his biggest regrets.
“It was bullying those who were trying to not be bullied,” said Scobey, who now lives openly as a gay man. “That was one of the public ways that the Alliance Defense Fund worked with us.”
Ties between Exodus and ADF extended beyond the event.
ADF, which has since changed its name to the Alliance Defending Freedom, touted Exodus International in promotional brochures in 2004, crediting it as an organization that “played an instrumental role in helping thousands of individuals come out of homosexual behavior.”
Scobey recalled Johnson as quiet, but firm in his beliefs that homosexuality was wrong. He said Johnson and ADF provided crucial legal advice to Exodus and its “member ministries.”
“We worked with them behind the scenes a lot,” Scobey told CNN, saying the group offered them legal guidance over their ex-gay counseling. “They were very important to us as far as helping us to feel more secure legally and politically.”
Exodus International stopped sponsoring the Day of Truth event in 2010, saying it became adversarial and counterproductive.
As I previously reported, Johnson and Alliance Defending Freedom helped create the so-called Day Of Truth as an on-campus Christian counter protest to GLSEN’s annual anti-bullying Day Of Silence.
Per CNN’s new reporting, Mike Johnson collaborated with Exodus for years on the Day Of Truth.
When Exodus finally collapsed in 2013, founder Alan Chambers issued a lengthy apology and admitted on CNN that ex-gay torture had never turned any of his thousands of victims heterosexual. Not a single one. Video below.
Exodus was a steaming pile of self hating homos hitting on each other. If Johnson was working with them, he was likely fucking around with one or more of them. There is tea that needs to be spilled.
A Netflix documentary call Pray Away dropped earlier this year. Tip of the iceberg stuff. There is another (now out) gay man that spent his professional life working for the LDS church and living a lie. He is now speaking his truth. Johnson has got gay face to the level that breaks my gaydar machine to a smoking ruin. I grew up among people just like him.
Exodus is an example of that fine xstian love bullshit. This presumably straight guy and his ilk should be forced into homosexual conversion, although, I suspect that they are, in reality, self-hating (for whatever reason) Gays who tried to convince themselves and the desperate Gays and/or their families who attended conversion camps that it could be done. If by some chance you have not seen “Boy Erased” I highly recommend it. It’s a very well done feature film on this very subject. IMHO it’s a 5 star winner. “Fair Haven” is another good one. There are a number of films on the subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
In the Netflix documentary, Pray Away, your assertions are confirmed. There wouldn’t need to be any homosexual conversion because most of them were gayer than geese the entire time. Imagine that. Several of the leaders admit to the lie. Boy Erased was heartbreaking, and Fair Haven really drove home the isolation and self hatred that many of us have been forced to carry.
I hope his “adopted” African American son steps forward with clarification on their relationship. I have a strong suspicion Johnson does not want that to happen.
I think he’s 40/in his 40s now? The article I read said he went into Johnson’s “custody” when he was 14 and Johnson was something like 27. Or maybe younger. It was before he was married. Strong “Nestor” vibes there.
That’s not to say that a young, single man can’t adopt a teenager he wants to help, just that it’s unusual enough that there should maybe be some extra scrutiny of the situation.
Republicans were actually really smart about how they slipped this guy in under the radar. People actually believed that the chair would remain vacant because the GOP couldn’t get their shit together… but in fact, they were just holding out for a true Nazi to install.
There’s a couple of TikTok videos going around in which Louisiana locals claim that Johnson was once a well-known patron at the Baton Rouge gay bar Central Station. I’ve found no reputable reporting on this, but nothing would be surprising when it comes to closeted Republicans.
Here’s one of those TikTok clips: https://www.tiktok.com/@mam…
Methinks He Doth Protest Too Much is entirely a thing.
maybe that is why he has a covenant marriage, so he can’t get out of it.
The Apache Drive-In over in Tyler, Texas is closer. It’s long been a hookup spot for the sexually frustrated from East Texas and northwest Louisiana.
As someone pointed out he adopted a 14yo boy when he was 25 or 26 and then married a conversion therapist 2 years later.
Hmmm. Wonder how long it took him to seek out the therapy?
You seem to think he sought therapy, instead of the obvious, got a beard
A Return to Morality
Wonderful comic on the religious rights new golden child’s take over of the house. Be afraid, be very afraid but more importantly fight back and stop this return to the 18th century. Hugs
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson Hates Nearly All of Us
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2023/10/speaker-of-house-mike-johnson-hates.html
I want to thank Ten Bears for the link to this web site. I am going to do the non-WordPress version of follow on it. Here is the link from Ten bears’ page with the links. https://homelessonthehighdesert.com/2023/10/29/last-week-in-god-33/ Hugs. Scottie
Liquor laws in Louisiana are a clusterfuck. Because of a state supreme court decision decades ago, they are subject to the whims of a community vote whenever someone can get it on the ballot. So a town can allow alcohol sales in, say, restaurants for a while and then, whenever some opportunistic Christian dickflea gets enough people itching, they can vote to overturn the law and go back to being a dry town or county. Or, you know, parish, as they call counties in the state because Catholicism.
The decent-sized, if generally shitty, town of Minden in the generally shitty Webster Parish was dry in 2003. Minden is 30 miles from Shreveport, which is a decent-sized, if generally shitty, city. The economy of Minden was not doing great 20 years ago, so a group of business owners, with the support of the Chamber of Commerce, wanted to have another vote on allowing alcohol sales in restaurants, hoping that it would attract some chains to town or at least provide a new tax revenue stream. Minden had been dry since a vote in 1974, but after a contentious city council meeting in August 2003, it was decided that the restaurant alcohol sales law would be decided in a special election just a couple of months later.
The people against allowing alcohol sales were straight out of a 1980s movie about tight-ass evangelicals refusing to allow anyone to have fun. Their warnings were like the lyrics of The Music Man song “Ya Got Trouble.” According to one local columnist, “They expanded from simply claiming this was a back-door was to bring about bars and package sales to more extreme connections. They alleged this was an ‘end-around’ to bring sexually oriented businesses, such as strip clubs to Minden. They also pointed out it could be an attempt to bring legalized gambling into Minden.” Churches went into overdrive, with prayer services just to try to get their invisible sky wizard to intervene. They even had round-the-clock prayers just before the election date.
The anti-fun forces, led by five plaintiffs, tried to sue to stop the election, but they filed their lawsuit too late for it to be heard. Their lawyer was a Shreveport attorney who was making a name for himself as a supporter of nutzoid right-wing Christiand causes. And since you read the title of this piece, you already know that it was Mike Johnson, who is now Speaker of the House and second in line to the presidency. That’s right. Two decades ago, he was trying to stop alcohol sales in a town.
The voting occurred that November and over half the registered voters went out to the polls. That’s how much this meant in an off-year election. And, Lord have mercy, they voted 57-43% in favor of alcohol sales in restaurants in Minden. Johnson’s clients considered another lawsuit to question the elections results, but they decided against it, and Minden restaurants and now bars and, yes, casinos can serve alcohol. The nearest strip joint is still about 15 miles away, in the next parish over.
For years, Mike Johnson represented the shittiest fucking people in trying to halt others from having rights or enjoying life in a way that harmed no one. As a dick lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom (motto: “‘Freedom’ should probably be in quotation marks in our name”), Johnson was on the fucked up side of issue after issue in our bullshit culture war. He fought the city of New Orleans to stop it from offering domestic partnership benefits in the pre-Obergefell days. The law had been in place since 1999, and they sued in 2003 in a case they lost in 2005. He opposed the Obama abortion pill mandate, he sued in favor of various school prayer cases, and more. When it comes to abortion and LGBTQ rights, Johnson is the hardest of the hardcore opposing both. And when he was a state representative, in the panicked days before the Obergefell same-sex marriage decision in 2015, Johnson sponsored legislation that would allow businesses to refuse to serve same-sex couples and, going back to his earlier case, would allow a business to deny benefits to same-sex couples because of “religious” reasons.
And perhaps it’s here that we need to pause for a moment and say that Mike Johnson loves God. His version of God, I mean, since, you know, God is made up. But he fuckin’ loves God as intensely and loudly as a newly-out Omaha lesbian loves pussy. He leans Christian dominionist, which is as weird and insidious as it sounds. He says that the United States is a “biblical republic,” whatever the fuck that means. He told Sean Hannity, “Someone asked me today in the media, they said people are curious, what does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun? I said, Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview, that’s what I believe.” I wonder if that includes all the rules in Leviticus, but I don’t want to ask about beard-shaving regimen.
In his speech before being sworn in as Speaker of the House, he said, “I want to tell all my colleagues here what I told the Republicans in that room last night. I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a manner like this. I believe that scripture, the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you, all of us, and I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment in this time.”
I know they don’t give a shit what heathens like me think, but that shit sounds creepy as fuck. You’re telling me that your imaginary invisible sky wizard contorted all time and space and made everything in the universe move in such a way that you could become the leader of one house of the American Congress. That’s fucking insane because, see, first, you believe in an invisible sky wizard, and, even worse, you have no problem telling me what your invisible sky wizard is doing and saying, and, even worser, you demand that I follow what your invisible sky wizard says. You can say that there are lots of people who believe in your invisible sky wizard, but that doesn’t make it less creepy. In fact, it makes it way creepier.
While Johnson talks a lot about “consensus” and shit, he sure has spent his career, including trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, approaching every issue with the clear-eyed resolution of someone who just loves to make shit worse for everyone except those who also hate nearly all of us. It won’t be some god who ruins the nation. It’ll be a very weird man.
(Quick note about Minden, Louisiana: It sucks as a town. But, man, there are awesome soul food joints there.)
Paul Krugman: There Are No GOP Moderates in the House of Representatives
Mike Johnson Conducted Seminars Promoting the US as a “Christian Nation”
This is a very dangerous time to have someone like him in such a possition of authority. He really doesn’t want democracy. He is not OK with everyone doing their own thing, living their own lives, worshiping in their own way, being who they are. Nope, he doesn’t favor that at all. He insists on the right, demands it, to force everyone to worship as he does, live as he church doctrines say, have only the kids of sex he wants you to have, raise your children the way he demands, structure your home in a “Christian way” which means wives summit and be submissive to your husbands like good little half humans. Get the point! He wants to force his god down your throat. These same people once claimed gays wanted to force our lifestyle on everyone, but that is what he is demanding to do to the entire country! Think how now the Christians want special rights to discriminate and to be exempt from laws they don’t like because they are Christians. Think how they have screamed about being forced to live in a secular society, but they want the right to force everyone to live a religious lifestyle. Think how they would react if other religions demanded the same special rights or the right to force everyone to live as a devote Muslim? Very scary, these people are. Hugs. Scottie
“The government has replaced the Creator,” Mike Johnson said in a 2019 seminar appearance. “Government is becoming God.” He is pictured here addressing the House chamber after winning the speakership this month.Tom Williams/Zuma
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Rep. Mike Johnson, the newly elected Republican House speaker, used to conduct a seminar in churches premised on the idea that the United States is a “Christian nation.” This ministry, as he has referred to it, is yet more evidence that Johnson is committed to a hardcore Christian fundamentalism that shapes his views of politics and government.
The seminar, titled “Answers for Our Times: Government, Culture, and Christianity,” was organized by Onward Christian Education Services, Inc., a company owned by his wife, Kelly Johnson, a Christian counselor and anti-abortion activist who calls herself a “leader in the pro-family movement.” The website for her counseling service—which was taken down shortly after Johnson became speaker—described the seminar, which featured both her and Johnson, as exploring several questions, such as, “What is happening in America and how do we fix it?” The list includes this query: “Can our heritage as a Christian nation be preserved?” There were different versions of the seminar running from two-hour-long lectures to retreats lasting two days.
Mike and Kelly Johnson, each a fundamentalist Christian and culture war battler who advocates adhering to what they call a “Biblical worldview,” launched this initiative in 2019. After one such presentation on February 24, 2019, at the First Baptist Church in Bossier City, Louisiana, where they are members—an event that also featured Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council—a local television news show reported that the seminar’s goal was to “keep God in Government.” Johnson posted the article on his congressional website.
According to a Louisiana Baptist newsletter, the Johnsons intended to first pitch their seminars to Baptist churches in the Pelican State before expanding to other states. The publication reported that the couple’s goal was “to equip churches to take a stand against the cultural attacks now being directed at people of faith, the traditional family and basic freedoms embedded in the U.S. Constitution.” It noted that Johnson said he was compelled to create this new ministry while serving in the US House because he was concerned “that too many believers today feel ill-informed to provide substantive answers to fake arguments.” It quoted Johnson: “Our nation is entering one of the most challenging seasons in its history and there is an urgent need for God’s people to be armed and ready with the Truth.” He was referring to what fundamentalists call “Biblical truth.”
A promotion blurb for the seminar described it this way: “As polls show that Christianity is in rapid decline in America, and the culture is growing more secularized and more coarsened, many believers feel ill-informed and ill-prepared to do anything to reverse these trends. Scripture is clear that we have an obligation to provide substantive answers… But HOW?”
At a “Answers for Our Times” seminar held at the First Baptist Church of Haughton, Louisiana, in April 2019, Kelly Johnson proclaimed that “Biblical Christianity” is the only “valid worldview.” Nothing else, she said, “makes sense.” She contended that guidance to the problems of today can be found in the “simple answers in the Bible.” Mike Johnson referred to the Bible as the “owner’s manual” for “how things are supposed to operate” and called for “Biblically-sanctioned government.” Johnson complained that there is now “total chaos on the street… God’s not at the top anymore.” He added, “The problem is most people” want “the government to take care of us now, we want the government to provide us everything… It will not work because it defies the created order of the Creator… The government has replaced the Creator. Government is becoming God.”
Mike Johnson ran through a quick version of US history, in which he insisted, “We began as a Christian nation.” He pointed out that Christopher Columbus said that he journeyed to the Americas “to bring the gospel to unknown coast lands and people.” Johnson added, “We would call him an evangelical today.” Fired up, he offered a litany of statements from the nation’s founders, government officials, and Supreme Court officials who cited God or religion as essential to the United States. “Is this a Christian nation?” he asked. “Yes, we live in a post-Christian culture. I think that’s beyond dispute. You can’t even argue with a straight face that this did not begin as a Christian nation.”
At this seminar, Mike Johnson groused that few of his colleagues in government abide by or even recognize God’s principles—that is, his view of God’s principles—and he expressed great cynicism about his fellow politicians:
A shocking number of elected officials in this country and state do not have a fully formed philosophy of government. They don’t know what their world view is. They’re just moving around waiting for whatever the loudest voice or the most powerful lobbyist tells them how to vote. God help us. That’s why we’re in the situation we’re in… They poll it. It’s not necessarily what his constituents want. I try to do every day what my constituents want. But sometimes what your constituents want does not line up with the principles God gave us for government. And you have to have conviction enough to stand [up] to your own people in a town hall and say, “I know you feel that way, but this is what you’re missing.” And I’m telling you, there’s a tiny percentage of elected officials who are willing to do that.
Mike Johnson sees himself as part of small band of righteous officials who take on the hard task of governing strictly according to the tenets of Christian fundamentalism. He and Kelly are true believers. He has long associated with Christian nationalism; crusaded against gay rights and same-sex marriage; decried no-fault divorce; and pushed for a total ban on abortion. Her Christian counseling practice has compared homosexuality to bestiality and incest. They share a dark view of the modern world. In a sermon he preached in 2016, Johnson declared, “We’re living in a completely amoral society.” And during a podcast last year with Jordan Peterson, the Canadian conservative provocateur, he said that “sinister” elites were responsible for orchestrating climate change as an issue to achieve global “control.”
In a time of political upheaval, cultural clashes, and war, it’s clear that Mike Johnson believes he has the solution. It’s not government of the people, but government shaped by his fundamentalist worldview. As his wife and partner-in-preaching says, nothing else makes sense. They possess the truth, and now, as he has become second in the line of presidential succession, he has the opportunity to meld power to this truth and serve the goal of making America a Christian nation.
Is My Child Too Young To Learn About Being Gay? | Tim Ramsey | TEDxOxford
This is 4 years old and I guess the person speaking is from England. But this is a great talk. It covers so much of what I want to say. It explains why the don’t say gay laws that in so many red states are so dangerous and harmful. Please take 13 minutes and 41 seconds to learn about this issue, learn why it is so important to gay kids to see themselves in the surrounding society, and that yes there are gay kids, even young kids that know they are different, know they are gay, and are scared / worried about it that need support with love. I love the question he asks, when was your child too young to learn about being straight? Because from birth all around them kids see straight couples and symbols of being straight in society. The same with gender, the haters say they don’t want the children to be taught gender in schools as they claim it sexualizes them. But society is structured around gender. We learn it from birth with nursery colors, types of toys, and the clothing we are put in. Hugs. Scottie
Tim Ramsey, the founder of award-winning non-profit Just Like Us, grew up believing that being gay was the worst thing he could be. Having come out, Tim launched Just Like Us to change the lives of other LGBT+ school students by empowering young people to challenge prejudice and champion LGBT+ equality at school and work. As the founder of School Diversity Week, the national celebration of LGBT+ equality in education, Tim has involved over 650,000 school students and teachers work to ensure every young person can be themselves and their best at school.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx Can a child be too young to learn about being LGBT? The answer: no child is ever too young. In this humorous and moving talk, Tim Ramsey, Founder of award-winning LGBT non-profit Just Like Us, argues that only when every parent explores about LGBT identities with their child from birth will we address the wellbeing crisis facing LGBT young people. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
Extremists Shout Slurs, Shut Down CA Drag Story Hour
The jerk below is a well known right wing agitator who used to make stuff up about BLM protestors to try to promote anger at them and black people. I watched the video in which he claims people of color stopped the performance yet in the video all the people are white. Hugs
Protesters blockade San Fernando Library, shut down drag queen story event
Look at the pictures, and tell me what is sexual happening? What is threatening to kids in these pictures? A small group of angry violent haters were allowed by the 10 police officers there to deny other people the right to use a public facility and see the performance they had come to see. The police allowed them to block entrances, to scream profanities in front of children they claimed to be trying to protect, and seemed to feel entitled to force others to do only what the hateful protesters want. This is not democracy. Think of how the police handle BLM protestors, and yet made no move to arrest these protestors. Below is a quote from the article. Hugs
“Protesters claimed they want to keep children safe while pounding on walls, shouting obscenities and slurs toward my staff and library staff, and using strollers to blockade moving vehicles. The hypocrisy is astounding,” Horvath said.
Drag queen Pickle reads a story to children during a Drag Queen Story Hour event at the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach on June 17.(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)———————————————————————————Dozens of protesters physically blocked the entrance to the San Fernando Library this week to stop a scheduled drag storytime reading event from taking place.
Videos posted on social media showed a group of about 70 people — some of whom had previously attended similar demonstrations in North Hollywood, Glendale and elsewhere — wearing black-and-white shirts reading, “Leave our kids alone.” They chanted the same slogan through bullhorns while hurling verbal abuse and slurs at the guest reader.
Story hours, during which drag queens read to children at venues such as libraries, schools and bookstores, have drawn fury and condemnation from conservatives and right-wing extremists across the country. Some events have been the subject of anti-LGBTQ+ threats and at times violent confrontations.
Wednesday’s scheduled 30-minute event, which organizers said was intended to promote youth literacy, never took place.
“What was meant to be a celebration of love and inclusion turned into the opposite,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, the event’s host, said in a statement Thursday.
“Protesters claimed they want to keep children safe while pounding on walls, shouting obscenities and slurs toward my staff and library staff, and using strollers to blockade moving vehicles. The hypocrisy is astounding,” Horvath said.
Horvath’s staff said in an email that the supervisor, who was inside the library, did not officially cancel the event. But it did not proceed because demonstrators “blockaded” entrances — denying entry to both library patrons and drag queen Pickle, the guest reader.
Pickle, Los Angeles chapter president of the nonprofit Drag Story Hour, said she parked blocks away from the library “for safety reasons,” anticipating some hostility.
Video footage showed that San Fernando police officers encircled Pickle near the rear entrance. The phalanx moved toward a metal gate but stopped short as some protesters screamed “pervert,” “pedophile” and “disgusting freak” at Pickle.
About six to eight protesters refused to leave the entrance even after police issued a dispersal order, according to Pickle. The San Fernando Police Department did not confirm or deny whether such an order had been given.
The drag performer said she and the police then attempted to move to the front entrance. As they walked, protesters blared car horns, refused to move and positioned nearby tables to block the front entryway, she said.
“At this point, the police weren’t making arrests, they weren’t stopping the mob and they were allowing an unelected group of people to determine who could and who could not access a public building,” Pickle said. “Shame on the San Fernando police.”
Pickle received a text from Horvath’s staff telling her to leave since she was unable to enter the building. After receiving a police escort back to her car, she did so.
“They canceled the event and I can’t believe how they handled the situation,” Pickle said, referring to staff from the library and Horvath’s office. “This goes beyond hurt feelings. This is about civil rights and they shouldn’t have invited me down if they weren’t going to stand up for them.”
————————————————————-
Questions emailed to L.A. County Library personnel, who oversee the San Fernando Library, were not immediately answered Thursday.
Pickle said she has attended about 50 drag story hour events, but this was the first canceled in person.
A story hour she was scheduled to appear at in Glendale last spring was canceled ahead of time, and protesters also disrupted another of her storybook hours in Sherman Oaks in April.
San Fernando Police Lt. Pete Aguirre said 10 officers were deployed to the library.
—————————————————————
Aguirre said no arrests were made and no assaults or property damage were reported.
Aguirre said protesters began arriving at 10:30 a.m., with most staying until the event was terminated at noon. Others didn’t leave for another hour and engaged with a “small contingent of counter protesters.”
“We weren’t able to get to the venue, but we ensured that the performer was not assaulted in any way and that they were able to leave the venue unharmed,” Aguirre said.
