Lincolnwood Public Library declines to remove books with LGBTQ content from children’s collection

https://abc7chicago.com/lincolnwood-library-childrens-books-il-news/12504956/

Yes the left is starting to fight back instead of giving in to the attempt by the religious right to erase those they don’t like or agree with from society.   Also people are seeing through the fake claim that they are just trying to protect children from being sexualized.  They don’t want to just mold their children, they want the right to mold your child in their image.  They are demanding the right to take away your parental rights to raise your child, even as they are demanding more and more rights for themselves to dictate what children are taught.   Be clear this is about removing any reference to the LGBTQ+ from first schools and then all of society.   They are already moved on to banning drag, which in their written laws means wearing the clothing normally associated with a gender not assigned at birth in public.  Why?  It doesn’t sexualize kids if a man wears a nice skirt, but it does challenge the strict gender norms these fundamentalist are trying to return all the country to.  These fundamentalist religious groups got a huge head start on their attempt to outlaw even the mention of what they don’t agree with, they pushed a false narrative on the public that many have bought into because they were not hearing the other side.  Now we who are on the side of progress and advancement need to make sure people get the full story and real goals of these people.  We have our work cut out for us, but to save the present and build the future we have to fight back.  For the sake of the gay, lesbian, trans, and all the other non-cis and non-binary kids we must fight and win the right for them to see positive role models and see themselves represented in books and movies.  We must grant these LGBTQ+ children the safety and security that we should give all children.   Hugs

https://abc7chicago.com/lincolnwood-library-childrens-books-il-news/12504956/

https://abc7chicago.com/video/embed/12505241

A standing room-only crowd gathered at the Lincolnwood Village Hall Monday for a heated debate about a book with LGBTQ+ content on the public library’s children’s collection.

The monthly library board meeting was moved from the library to the village hall to accommodate a large turnout after last month’s meeting got heated and ended early with police being called.

Once again, library board members and the public came face to face.

“The library has decided that they, not you the parent, knows what is best for your child,” said Bryan Johnson, Lincolnwood resident.

“Gay people and drag queens have a right to exist and be themselves and have books written about them,” said Jen Mierisch, Lincolnwood resident.

At the board meeting, some attendees voice objections to certain titles with LGBTQ+ themes that are part of the library’s children’s collection. At least one formal challenge was filed against a book called “The Hips On The Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.”

The nursery rhyme book features characters in drag, and was read aloud during a library-sponsored story time over the summer.

“I’m not here to ask for a ban on any books,” said resident Rahila Siddiqui. “I’m here to fight for my right to choose when my elementary school children should be exposed to complicated topics like drag queens.”

“If parents prefer their children not read a book, that’s their decision. But that does not give them the right to impose their short-sighted beliefs on anyone else’s children,” said Susan Ginsburg, Lincolnwood resident.

After reviewing the book, library officials declined to remove it from the children’s department. The library director told ABC7 such action would constitute censorship, adding, “Our goal is to respect everyone in our community and what they want to read.”

“When you’re at Macy’s and you don’t like a purple shirt, you can’t demand that they take it away. Just don’t buy it,” said Judy Abelson, Lincolnwood resident.

Library officials said they also declined a patron’s request to remove another book that some consider anti-transgender. That patron has now dropped that formal challenge on censorship grounds.

Illinois Gov Signs Bill Outlawing Book Bans By Libraries

Yes yes yes, we need more laws like this.   Here are some great quotes from the https://abc7chicago.com/illinois-book-ban-bill-public-library-libraries-near-me/13373993/ article.  Hugs

“Book bans are about censorship, marginalizing people, marginalizing ideas and facts. Regimes ban books, not democracies,” Pritzker said.

“Parents and only parents have the right and responsibility to restrict their children and only their children’s access to library resources,” said Secretary Giannoulias.

“Those pushing book banning say they are doing it to protect people. Well that’s just not true. Book banning is most frequently used to silence the voices of the LGBTQ+ community as well as people of color,” said State rep. Anne Stava Murray (D-Downers Grove).

Chicago’s ABC affiliate reports:

Governor JB Pritzker signed historic legislation Monday that would ban libraries from banning books. The law is the first of its kind in the nation, and would cut off funding to any libraries that remove books currently on the shelf.

The law was pushed by Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who is also the state’s librarian, and is a response to the backlash in many local school districts against controversial books, particularly some championed by the LBGTQ community.

“Book bans are about censorship, marginalizing people, marginalizing ideas and facts. Regimes ban books, not democracies,” Pritzker said.

Read the full article.

 

 

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And yes, in blue state Illinois, we have had library meetings interrupted and harassed by the outside groups, just like the rest of the country

Skokie and Lincolnwood both border the north edge of Chicago

https://abc7chicago.com/lin…

“Ex-Gays” Rebrand After Founder Comes Out As Trans

Why cannot these people understand or accept that people are born with the sexual attractions / orientation and gender identity are formed in the womb.   They are inborn, formed with a person as the rest of them is building.  While environment can influence the minor subsets and details of those things, the environmental factors cannot take a straight person and force them to be gay.  If a straight person cannot be changed in to loving same-sex relations, why do they think that gay or lesbian people can be changed to be straight.   It is not an idea backed up by science, it is a myth these people created to justify their hate.  It is no different from the other science denying crap put out by fundamentalist religions / religious people.   To deny these facts about sexuality that have been backed up with science is the same as denying the earth goes around the sun or that the earth is a globe instead of flat.  It is the same as the refusal to accept the medical science on vaccines or the well documented science on transgender peoples treatments with gender-affirming care.   I am so tired and sick of these anti-science anti-progress haters who only want to keep the status quo when they felt in charge and comfortable.   Hugs

 

Via email from activist Wayne Besen:

The Freedom March is a right-wing Christian fundamentalist organization that exists to “help” LGBTQ people “pray away the gay.” They also claim to help people transition out of being trans. So, it was a really bad day for the Freedom March when its founder, Jeffrey McCall, announced online that he was hooking up with multiple men. Freedom March told the world that he was “healed”. They sold the lie that Jesus “cured” him. When Jeffrey McCall said he was straight – we didn’t know he meant straight to bed with men.

It gets worse for the Freedom March. McCall recently announced that she was transgender and came out as Scarlett. This group’s “gay cure” worked so well, that their founder tried to “pray away the gay” and somehow became significantly gayer. Those thoughts and prayers are always so effective. When they promised Jeffrey McCall was transformed by Jesus Christ, I don’t think this is what they meant. Instead of transformation, they got transition.

As you’ll see in the video below, the group is now calling themselves “Rainbow Revival.” In 2021, McCall was featured in the Netflix “ex-gay” documentary “Pray Away” and his appearance in the film resulted in adulatory posts on multiple Christian sites. 

I wanted to post here before some people found out other ways. I have went back to my life as Scarlett. I never intended to hurt or disappoint anyone. I felt like no matter what I chose someone would get hurt. That’s a horrible spot to be in. felt like I tried to fight for so long. I tried to help many in ministry for so long. Please remember I’m just a human being and didn’t ask for any of things that I have went through. I didn’t ask to feel this way. Please show me compassion as a human being just as I have always tried to show everyone else compassion and understanding.

 

 

Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. So you can pray to Him all you want to “change” you, but He won’t. Because you’re fine the way God created you.

I’ve had this argument countless times with bigots on religious websites. Their response is always the same: Jesus didn’t say anything about a lot of things, that doesn’t mean he approved of it. You can’t win for losing with these people.

Christianity is founded on Paul’s teachings, where Jesus is little more than a figurehead. That is why Christianity does not observe the Sabbath, does not keep kosher, and basically ignores Jewish laws. Except, for some inexplicable reason, the prohibition on homosexuality, which the Tanakh imposes only on men, not women.

 

There actually are gay Orthodox Jews who avoid anal sex so as not to transgress that commandment, but they give and receive sexual pleasure in other ways.

(And there are plenty of other gay Jews who couldn’t care less about that ancient prohibition.)

A lot of LGBTQ christians squirm and writhe and do that christian thing of saying “oh, yes, the bible’s words say that, but what it really means is . . .” but, it’s an intrinsically anti-LGBTQ religion.

If they want to start their own religion, with a rewritten holy book, they’re always welcome to do that. They can make up whatever they want in a new religion. They can call themselves Jesusites or something if they want to hang on to some version of Jesus. But christianity is and has always been anti-LGBTQ, that was built in by the people who invented it.

I suppose that if a man is attracted to men but then transitions to a woman, the term “ex-gay” would be accurate. 🧐

 

If she is now a woman, and still sleeping with men, then she is a heterosexual. And she has certainly been transformed.

Be careful with prayer. God doesn’t answer prayer by giving you what you want. God gives you what you need (which can sometimes be a good bitch-slap).

Please show me compassion as a human being just as I have always tried to show everyone else compassion and understanding. -McCall

What did you think you were showing encouraging people to be miserable?

whatever happened to those duck dynasty folks ?? aren’t dynasties supposed to last a few generations, at the very least ?

 

As it turned out, those twerps were originally a bunch of country club types. Once again, rich assholes like to pose as the “common folk”.

 

Duck Dynasty was the class equivalent of blackface.

 

Vitriol From An Asshat In Spokane

Hey everyone – hit like and subscribe to see what we produce next!

I’m an Anglican Priest in the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island and I get to serve in the Parish of St Margaret of Scotland, in the beautiful city of Halifax, NS, that sits on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people.

My pronouns are he/him/his. My theology is primarily Christo-centric – Jesus is at the centre and it is against Him that all values are bounced off. I believe all people are created in the image of God and are children of God and are heirs to the throne of God – no conditions – therefore every single person we meet deserves our love, and respect.

Pinned by Rev Ed Trevors

Rev Ed Trevors2 weeks agoAn article… https://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-sermon-goes-viral-for-violent-anti-trans-message/article_74d97ad8-f907-11ed-8a37-a3dc71ff6f01.html

The bigots have worn me down.

I am watching the Sunday news shows I can get for free.  But I am again very tired and find it hard to concentrate.   I love Star Trek and yet due to being poor rarely get to watch the newer series as they are all subscriptions services.   Sometimes I can get a season of one on Amazon Prime at a good discount, and we buy that.  

Over this week I save the open news tabs I have not gotten to yet.   This morning when I opened my browser I had 36 new stories to read and maybe post.  But I just don’t feel up to it, I am struggling to think and process information, I am very tired.  Soon they will be out of date, if not already.   

But I was able to buy the second season of Picard a while ago with Prime points.   Plus I found on YouTube a free first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.  I think I am going to watch the movies and not try to deal with the news today.   Sorry everyone, I know I am letting everyone down.   I should watch and post the videos of what is happening, the articles on the rabid right rise of Nazism, and the attacks on the LGBTQ+ in society by those people.   Maybe later I will.   Best wishes and lots of hugs.  Scottie

 

Internet Has Field Day After Texas Hate Group Moans That “Cracker Barrel Has Fallen” To The Woke LGBTQs

This is hilarious.   The butt hurt these people have over even the smallest bits of inclusion of others they hate into society causes them such pain and outrage.  Go to the link and read the responses to the butt hurt, they are wonderfully funny.   Hugs

Internet Has Field Day After Texas Hate Group Moans That “Cracker Barrel Has Fallen” To The Woke LGBTQs

Homophobic Father Confronts Gay Son

Barbara Johnson tells the story of a her advice to a Wealthy CEO who threatens to cancel his Son’s Harvard Graduation Party because he discovered his son was is “Gay”.

LA School Board President Delivers Epic Pro-LGBTQ Rant: How Dare You Make Kids Afraid Because YOU Are

Sorry everyone.  Today has been rather bad for me.   I couldn’t sleep last night, but got up early and went to a lab to have my blood drawn.   After I can home and ate my breakfast I just got so tired and over whelmed I spend most of the day in bed.  I got up and mangaged to get this post done because I think it is so important.  But my heart seems to be slaming in the viens of my neck, I am so tired.   I had some instant oatmeal for supper and now I am going to bed even though it is only 6 PM.   I love everyone and hope to do better getting the news out tomorrow morning.   Best wishes, loves, and hugs.    Scottie

 

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Los Angeles school board President Jackie Goldberg pulled out an oversized children’s book titled “The Great Big Book of Families” and turned a public meeting into story time, her own not-so-subtle statement to critics of LGBTQ+ education. “In real life, families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes,” she read, as the text by British author Mary Hoffman explained. Some children live with “mummy and daddy,” or just their mummy or daddy. Goldberg soon got to the line “Some children have two mommies or two daddies.”

“A great book,” she said after reading it from cover to cover. “I recommend it.” Her statement set up the unanimous school board approval of a resolution listing all the ways the nation’s second largest school district intends to raise awareness about the LGBTQ+ community. Goldberg’s reading occurred on the same day that violence erupted outside the Glendale Unified school board meeting — which had its own gay pride resolution on the agenda — and once again, fights broke out among demonstrators.

Attitude reports:

She recounted from the assembly: “At the little discussion at the school after that, as soon as the book was over, one little girl sitting at my knees said ‘I have two mommies.’ A little boy on my other side said: ‘I have five grandmas. You better treat me the same way you treat everybody else. That’s how we live in this country.”

Getting more visibly emotional and angry Goldberg expressed her tiredness, shared by the LGBTQ community, of hearing the screaming on this type of issue. “What do you think that did to them?!” It made them afraid!” she screamed. “How dare you make them afraid because you are!” She continued: “I’m sorry I told you this was personal.”

Her son was once harassed for having two mommies. The fact that Goldberg’s grandchildren aren’t is a sign of progress. “Nobody has to accept me. I’m not looking for your acceptance,” she also said. “But you better treat me the same way you treat everybody else. That’s how we live in this country.

I insist that you watch every second this.

 

Again if you missed watching this short heartfelt clip please do!!!

Longer version

Wow. Thanks for posting this longer version. So powerful but also very emotional. Gave me tears as I listened to her. We really need more of this everywhere. She is awesome and everything she says is so true.

 

 

 

Kids don’t just learn in the classroom. Kids also talk to each other on the playground where no grownup can hear.

I hear some of them know about the internet too.

More simply, they have always tried to argue that acknowledging something aloud is the same as advocating for that thing.

The same hysterical arguments were made regarding sex and drug education… that talking frankly about these things to kids is, in their minds, advocating for kids experimenting with sex and drugs… and that the only way to truly keep kids safe from sex and drugs is refusing to even discuss them outside of a ‘Those things are evil!’ context.

In their (small/hateful) minds, teaching kids that LGBTQ people are ‘acceptable’ is the same as pushing kids to give it a try.

The Right’s entire M.O. is premised on the false notion that if children never hear that gay people exist and that being gay is an immutable human characteristic like left-handedness and a natural variation of the human condition, they won’t end up being gay. They are not open to any argument that suggests they are wrong, which is why we’ve been treading water for the last half century, at least. I don’t see how we get past this impasse if the other side isn’t open to reasoned argument.

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I went to Catholic school until the 6th grade. I’ll never forget my first grade teacher, a nun, swatting a left-handed student for writing with his left hand. She scolded him, telling him that was a mark of the Devil. Somehow that particular dogma just magically went away without any comment from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. Go figure.

 

That kid’s parents should have shown up and beaten that nun’s hand with her own ruler until she didn’t have a hand left to hold it.

 

More importantly, the dogma of anti-Semitism, which dates right back to the Gospels, also disappeared. As did the Church’s defense of slavery and segregation. Holy Mother The Church Inc. evolves whether they care to admit it or not.

I was born left-handed, but trained from the cradle to be right-handed.

 

In school, my grandfather actually had his left hand tied behind his back, so he would use his right hand for everything

 

Our politicians could take a lesson from Jackie Goldberg. That is the kind of pushback we need to stave off the right-wing lunatics. Fuck decorum. Speak the damn truth.

What I take from this is we need to start YELLING THE FUCK BACK AT THESE PEOPLE!!!!

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I HATE when the GQP cultists start a sentence with “we the people.” They’re trying to co-opt the Preamble without understanding what it means.

* Offer not valid in Florida

(love the T-shirt, though)

Early Week in Review.

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I saw this yesterday

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To be fair, the right-wing base is really fucking stupid.

A large fraction believe Noah’s Ark was real and that anthropogenic climate change is not. They believe that Trump won the last election and that Hillary Clinton murders babies for adrenochrome.

They’ll cling onto a false premise like a hungry tick, and no amount of facts, data, or antipsychotic meds will dislodge them.

Exactly. Just try debating with them. I stopped that a long time ago. They are completely resistant to truth and facts.

It’s the same playbook as sex education, ie … if you don’t teach them about sex they won’t have sex. Then they are shocked when they discover that their 16 year old is pregnant.

And then scramble to get her an abortion, but can’t because the politicians they voted for abolished that option.

So, when did the haters “choose” to be heterosexual?
What was this process like for them?
Did they try both gay and straight sex before making up their mind?

I swear the root cause of conservatism is a missing empathy gene. They are incapable of seeing anything from a perspective other than their own.

That is exactly what connected them strongly with Trump.

Keith Olbermann’s ‘Conservatism In Nine Words’ –

“Need help? Screw you!
I’m screwed? HELP ME NOW!”

Of course you know that the ant gay Saticoy Elementary Parents instagram group who protested last week feature make fun of and demonized Goldberg for being who she is. Those Christianism and in this case, Armenians, are lethal. They are the same “Leave Our Children Alone” t- shirt group that caused so much trouble for the Glendale SChool District Board the week following when all the board wanted to do was past a Pride resolution, but if course some how that all about sex and grooming. These people are really sick.

Longer version

Just a reminder:

Vote Democratic, get LGBT advocates.

Vote Republican, get theofascist haters.

Yet how difficult it is chasing the will o’ the wisp of ‘mainstream’ public opinion, when even the more progressive media still shy away from calling out the far right for the malignant genocidal cancer that it is.

The mainstream public gets exercised over the price of eggs (which seem to have come back down recently), and gasoline, and are easily duped and manipulated by a lot of the anti-trans rhetoric.

Even parts of our community are conned by the propaganda into thinking that trans children are a threat to cis children. And the Caitlyn Jenner types who are out there spewing the GQP’s vicious lies do not help. Even the Biden Administration’s proposed order partly throws trans kids under the bus.

Even the better advocates, like Katie Porter, are not equipped with the facts and figures to fight back. Watching her the other week looking brave but only weakly parrying the braying Piers Morgan on cissexist Bill Maher’s Real Time made me wish she had the ammunition to shoot them both down,. convincingly.

Yours — good and thoughtful observations, Joann. Thanks.

Re the “calling out” on commercial TV of (how you put it…) “the far right for the malignant genocidal cancer that it is” — even on, say, MSNBC — you see very little, if any, of that. The commercial sponsors don’t like it. MAGAts buy suppositories, soap, cereal and Medicare supplemental plans, too. Best not to offend them.

Re the general public’s knowledge/understanding of trans people and their issues, it’s almost non-existent.

There’s this thing called “Progressive Blog Myopia.”

We here in the progressive blogosphere know about trans people and their issues. We think, “Well surely everyone understands.”

I guarantee you, Joann, that 90% of the rest of the country knows shit about the subject.

Democrats HELP

Republicans HARM

ot: JMG culture moment

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“On the wings of a dove dog!”

What she had to say is my life in a nutshell. I can’t believe that I’m over 70 and we are now going backwards on my civil rights. I am sick up to here with it, too.

It is about fear. Fear of change. Fear of acceptance. They’re petrified in their traditions. Because of fear.

 

 

 
 

Matt Walsh DEVASTATED over Tennessee Drag Ban being ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL (HUGE VICTORY for LGBTQ+)

I love how when Matt Walsh compares fully dressed drag queens reading to kids as obscene and sexual, lance reminds everyone about a place in public that many people of different sexes go wearing hardly anything, men in speedos and thongs, women in string bikinis all with kids around.   Yet no outcry from the maga conservative religious right.  Why because it is the beach or a pool and there is no association with the LGBTQ+ who are the real targets of the right.   Hugs

Uncertain – gay themed short film

Homophobic bullying is one of the biggest problems for gay teenagers. It makes them suffer, destroys their self esteem and sometimes even drives them to suicide. Such cases happen every day all over the planet. Most of the don’t become a public issue and moreover don’t lead to any consequences.

Thank you to Luis Fernando Midence to allow us to show this short film. Watch more of his films here: https://vimeo.com/guatguy