A rare win for the good side. Notice the animosity and hate for gay people. This is not about sexualizing kids, stories about gay kids / people don’t make kids sexual anymore than stories of straight kids / people do. Why is it OK in the minds of straight white conservatives that kids read about straight dating, see straight couples, read about straight parents, see straight people kiss, and that doesn’t sexualize or promote sexuality to them. That is what they want the kids to see because it enforces that it is good and “normal” that they should act that way. But you change the word straight with the word gay and their heads explode with the myth that they have to protect the kids from sex? Get real, that just shows how bigoted and hateful they feel towards gay people. It is a faked concern for the children when in truth it is about forcing LGBTQ+ kids to hide and being able to hurt them. Hugs
Impassioned pleas were made from people on both sides of the debate, but LGBTQ equality won the day.
After a heated public debate, the Greenville County Council in South Carolina voted to keep LGBTQ books accessible to children at the public library.
A resolution from city Councilor Joe Dill – who recently lost the Republican primary and will not be maintaining his seat – proposed requiring the 12-location library system in the area to remove books “promoting sexuality” from all children’s sections.
The resolution claimed it was seeking to “protect the innocence of children” and also would have required libraries to submit a report to the County Council detailing “how such books ever found their way into the Children’s Sections…and what measures have been put into place to ensure such oversights do not occur in the future.”
Controversy over LGBTQ books in the county began in September when the Greenville County GOP unanimously passed a resolution in favor of banning them from the children’s section of libraries.
The State reported at the time that the Greenville County GOP chair, Jeff Davis, said it was important to prevent kids from being “indoctrinated” by the books.
“Kids can’t buy a beer until they are 21. Should they be able to access these books before a certain age without parental consent? I think not and that should be reasonable,” he said.
The GOP became especially concerned in June when the library displayed LGBTQ books in honor of Pride Month.
Among the books they reportedly worried about was a book about a girl and her dads called Daddy & Dada; Teo’s Tutu, about a boy who does ballet; Pride Puppy, about a puppy who goes to a Pride Parade; and Sex is a Funny Word, a sex education book designed for kids that also teaches about different types of families.
During the recent county council debate, the council members did not mention any specific books, and impassioned pleas were made from people on both sides during the public comment period.
“I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation. Of course we shouldn’t have any sexual material in our children’s library,” said parent Barbara Evans, as reported by The State.
Susan Ward, the parent of a gay son, emphasized how important it is for her son to be able to see himself in books.
“All of us worry about our children. I worry because my child has been subjected to hate and discrimination,” she said.
The conversation reportedly got heated, with the vice chair of the library board – who supported keeping the books away from kids – even saying “barf” when someone said they were gay.
Ashley Snelgrove, a children’s librarian against banning the books, also spoke at the meeting and explained that the library already thinks very hard about what books are available to kids. Beyond that, Snelgrove said kids under 11 are always supervised at the library.
And in a 3-9 vote, LGBTQ equality won the day and the council voted to keep the books available to kids.
Is there any wonder why the current republican party loves Putin! He is doing what they want to do. Outlaw the LGBTQ+. Florida has already outlawed the LGBTQ+ in Florida schools using the same reasoning as Russia has, protect the children from a made up boogieman. These people live to hate. These laws are designed to stop any positive portrayals of the LGBTQ+ while still allowing the negative hate mongering free reign. Hugs
Russia’s Parliament is set to pass a legislative package that would ban all “gay propaganda,” signaling an even more difficult period ahead for a stigmatized segment of society. The laws would prohibit representation of L.G.B.T.Q. relationships in any media — streaming services, social platforms, books, music, posters, billboards and films — and, activists fear, in any public space as well. That’s a daunting prospect for queer people searching for community, validation or an audience.
Kremlin critics see the proposals as an attempt to create an internal enemy to divert attention from battlefield setbacks and an unpopular draft of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. “It’s the equivalent of saying, ‘Look, we have this special operation. If we lose, your kids will have their gender changed, they’ll take your kids away, it’ll be the stuff of nightmares,’” said Dr. Nikolai Lunchenkov, a physician who focuses on L.G.B.T.Q. health.
Russia’s Parliament is set to pass a legislative package that would ban all "gay propaganda," signaling an even more difficult period ahead for a stigmatized segment of society.
"The purpose is to make LGBTQ people invisible in Russia," one lawyer said. https://t.co/iKeqcGwTh0
Without convenient scapegoats, no authoritarian would ever been able to hoodwink the masses into believing that the real source of their misery isn’t the authoritarian himself. Putin needs the gays as much as Hitler needed the Jews.
“It’s the equivalent of saying, ‘Look, we have this special operation. If we lose, your kids will have their gender changed, they’ll take your kids away, it’ll be the stuff of nightmares,’”
Russian government telling people not to ask questions about the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who just appeared in the Russian adoption system since February?
We have always known Putin is a fascist dictator beloved by Trump. It makes their bromance all the more instructive of the four years of Trump’s treachery. Trump tried the same bromance shit with Kim.
The NIFB sect is one of the fast growing of the Christian religion. It is all about hate, white male power, and limited rights for women. They are flat out openly Christian nationalist who want a theocracy where they get to enforce their views on the entire population. The Taliban is the Muslim model of what they want the US to be under their rule. This is the sect that openly calls for the killing of gay people and this preacher is happy with the extermination of Jews. Hugs
“That instills a little bit of hatred. In fact, you’ll grow to have a perfect hatred for the enemies of God.”
Brother Tanner Furrh of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas explained in a sermon why he uses anti-LGBTQ slurs instead of just saying that gay people are condemned to hell.
“If I stand up and I tell you, ‘You should treat the homosexual with honor and dignity,’” he said, mocking other homophobic churches’ “Love the sinner, hate the sin” stance. “Does that make you want to hate that person in your heart? No.”
“But if I get up here and I say, ‘Every fa***t is a pedophile, they are a child molester, they are an abuser,’ guess what? That instills a little bit of hatred. In fact, you’ll grow to have a perfect hatred for the enemies of God.”
Christian hate-preacher Tanner Furrh says he uses anti-LGBTQ slurs because he wants you to “hate that person in your heart.”
Furrh’s words come as Republicans have spent the past year doing just that, calling LGBTQ people and their allies – especially doctors and teachers – “groomers,” referring to how child sex abusers lure children.
Stedfast is part of the New Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement, a set of churches that focuses heavily on hatred of LGBTQ people. Steven Anderson’s Faithful Word Baptist Church is a part of the movement.
“They’re sick and gross because the Bible says so,” Furrh said in June. “And not just the male fa***ts. Also the women-fa***ts too.”
“All the lesbos, all the dy**s, all these butch dy**s out there, they deserve the death penalty too,” he continued. “It should be punished with death by the government.”
Stedfast is the same church where Jonathan Shelley preaches. Last month, Shelley claimed that gay men’s “intestines will sometimes just fall out because of the actions that they do.”
“Pastor Shelly, you’re gonna have to eat Indian food and ranch dressing every day of your life, or do that one time?” he said, referring to sex with other men. “It’s like, bring on the Indian food.”
“What if you, what if you, Pastor Shelley, what if you had to eat Indian food and ranch and then vomit it up and then eat it again, or do that one time? It’s like, bring on the vomit.”
Shelley also expressed doubt that six million Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust this past month, saying that he would feel “lucky” if that happened, just how he would feel “if someone walks into a homo bar and shoots ’em all, shoots a bunch of homos and kills all of them.”
It won’t really stop a racist bigoted school board but it will give allied teachers and the LGBTQ+ students some cover and breathing room. Notice they knew they needed more sensitivity training after a teacher came to work in black face. Plus there was this from the students. Earlier this month, the Newberg Graphic discovered that at least one student at Newberg High School was involved in a Snapchat group called “Slave Trade,” where teenagers from across the country share racist, homophobic and violent messages, sometimes specifically targeting Black students.
They knew they had an issue with racism and attacks on gay, lesbian, and trans kids. But they still wanted to take away any training or discussions to promote tolerance, acceptance, and diversity. This is the republican party today. This is the maga cult trying their best to roll back all the civil rights gains. If you go to the link on the superintendent you will see that the board want only cis white Christian symbols and accepted speech. … (T)he conservative board members fired Morelock because he didn’t aggressively implement their ban on controversial symbols, … is from that link. These people can not accept the changes in society and refuse to accept the advancing better understanding of biology and psychology than was known in the 1950s. Hugs
Police are investigating after a masked person approached the home of Newberg School District employee, lit the employee’s Pride flag on fire and performed a Nazi salute on Monday, Oct. 31, 2022. File photo
Just weeks after a Yamhill County judge ruled a controversial ban on the display of Pride flags in Newberg schools was unconstitutional, a masked person approached the home of school district employee, lit the employee’s Pride flag on fire and performed a Nazi salute.
A home security camera captured the flag burning on film, and a 14-second video clip posted to Twitter Monday had 123,000 views by Thursday morning.
The family filed a police report with the Newberg-Dundee Police Department, telling investigators their Pride flag had previously been stolen. Monday’s flames left black soot damage to the brick siding of the home, police said.
No arrests have yet been made, according to Newberg police.
In a statement Tuesday, the Newberg School District referred to the flag-burning as a hate crime.
“We are shocked and saddened to hear that such a horrendous act took place in our community,” the statement said. “The act of invading someone’s private property to burn a flag is abhorrent and alarming.”
The video shows a person walking up a driveway toward a house with their face fully covered, except for their eyes. After lighting the flag on fire, the person is shown facing the security camera and performing a Nazi salute before walking out of sight.
According to the Twitter account that shared the video, the flag-burning occurred at 3:15 a.m. Flames had spread onto leaves around the flag by the time the homeowner went outside, the account said.
The flag-burning arrives a little over a year after a controversial policy banning the display of Pride and Black Lives Matter flags in district schools threw Newberg into the national spotlight.
Newberg’s school board voted in September 2021 to adopt a policy barring educators from displaying symbols considered “political, quasi-political or controversial.” The 4-3 vote followed a pair of racist incidents in district schools and drew fierce criticism from state lawmakers and members of the Newberg teacher’s union. After enacting the policy, board members abruptly fired former superintendent Joe Morelock.
Dundee Elementary School teacher Chelsea Shotts sued the school district and four of its board members in December 2021 after a rainbow flag she kept in her classroom window was the subject of a complaint under the policy.
A Yamhill County judge ruled on Sept. 22 that the policy banning the display of certain symbols in schools was unconstitutional and forbade the district from enforcing it.
Vid shows a masked Nazi that walks up to the house and lights a barely visible flag on fire, which bursts into flames, then sieg heils the camera before walking off to the right of the frame. pic.twitter.com/tx7Fh21WrJ
— SchoolBoardBloc Protect Trans Kids (@SchoolBoardBloc) October 31, 2022
This is a direct result of the attacks on drag queens by republicans and the right wing media. These are legal venues, this is the action of thugs, vigilantes enforcing the republican talking points via terror and intimidation. This is a crime. “Nice business you have here be a shame if something happened to it if you do something we don’t like”. These maga gang thugs don’t care about the laws, they think what they want is above laws. They don’t like democracy because the majority doesn’t like their bullshit, so they want to rule as a minority by threats and violence. Hugs
Tulsa Fire investigators are looking for a person of interest after someone smashed a window at a Brookside donut shop and threw a Molotov cocktail inside. This is the second time the business has been vandalized in the past two weeks.
The owners of The Donut Hole near 31st and Peoria said they were out of town when they got the devastating call that their business had been targeted again.
Investigators said the person first puts a letter with anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on the door of a neighboring business, then uses a bat to smash through the glass door. Once it was broken, the person is seen throwing the explosive device inside.
From the store’s Facebook page after the first attack:
We had the privilege of being able to be a part of the vision of The Queens Dirty Dozen; An art installation donut shop run by drag queens.
The event was an enormous success with over 500 guests attending, and an overwhelming reaction of laughing, jokes, fun and good times were had by all.
Unfortunately, there was also a reaction of hate and we were the victim of somebodies malicious acts. But in ones attempt to rain on our parade, the community answered by showing overwhelming support.
From the GoFundMe that was started by Queens Dirty Dozen, goals were surpassed in less than one hour.
Repairs will be made and all extra proceeds will be given to the Tulsa Equality Center to help spread acceptance, tolerance and love.
These malicious acts have resulted in thousands of dollars going towards the cause this entire event was meant to support. Love wins.
It’ll emerge that his dog sitter’s niece’s godmother’s piano teacher’s boyfriend’s grandfather’s neighbor once displayed a Pride flag, so the fascists will of course proclaim that he is a BLM antifa Commie.
I’m very familiar with the area. There are many businesses I’m sure they can check their security cameras as he left the area. Hopefully it will catch him getting into a particular vehicle.
someone smashed a window at a Brookside donut shop and threw a Molotov cocktail inside. This is the second time the business has been vandalized in the past two weeks.
So terrorism is reduced to vandalism when it’s committed by fascists. Got it!
My point here is that our brave, truth-seeking, completely objective and unbiased MSM characterizes serious attacks on our side as “vandalism”, whereas a bunch of people peacefully protesting SCOTUS justices who are dismantling our civil rights are committing “terrorism”.
It’s apparently not a serious crime when progressives are the target — note that the news story states that the business was “vandalized” as opposed to being the target of terrorism.
NPR and other outlets have had pieces on the “creation of the enemy as Antifa and Radical Left” turns out the actual numbers and origins of incidents don’t point to any left wing folk.. not to any degree at all.. wow, Nov. elections are here and important..
The anti Fetterman ads running in Pennsylvania say crime is running rampant across the state. I have not heard of one piece of legislation from our Republican legislature to combat this, but, apparently it’s Fetterman’s fault.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but at the gubernatorial level Oklahoma may be blue this time around. The race is tied and the sheer hatred and assholism of Kevin Stitt has united all kinds of people in opposition, including many Native American tribes. Fingers crossed!
That’s a courageous preacher who tells the truth. Good for him. I just sent his church a donation to thank them for his and the congregation’s courage to speak up for rationality, compassion, and the truth. I encourage others to donate, too.
The hypocrisy of using Leviticus for queer-bashing while eating shrimp and catfish and lobster – true! “We all got to look at ourselves” – true!! “We all need Jesus” – debatable.
I am not really not feel all that well. Nothing bad but my stomach is unsettled and upset. I think I just needed a down day. But then this clip popped up in my feed. It is a story of two boys who are gay teens, they discover each other. At the point of this clip one of the gay boys has been beaten up for being gay and his teachers want to bring in a guest speaker to try to teach tolerance and acceptance of gay kids. The person in charge at the school is against it because some parents will think the school is proselytizing or pushing gay rights / gay sex on the kids. Sound familiar? The boy who got beat up is accepted by his dad who celebrates his 16th birthday by taking him to a gay club / bar where he lets the boy meet other gay people. But the main focus of this clip is on the other boy Louis and the highly negative reaction of his parents to seeing his search history, his chat logs with Nathan his boyfriend, and finding out he is gay. They don’t take it well with the dad hurting the boy and then they try to force him to change claiming both it is a choice he is making and a sickness he has. They take away his phone and computer and keep him grounded not even allowed to go to school until he comes to his sense and decides not to be gay anymore. Louis figures he has to lie to get back his life so tells them he is not gay but the dad finds out he has been using his forbidden phone to contact his boyfriend. It just makes the situation worse. His father demands the entire family shun him. He cannot eat with the family, he cannot be in the rooms with them, he is to stay in his room, and even his little brother is not allowed to talk or be with him.
I am posting this for those that don’t understand how important it is for LGBTQ+ kids to have acceptance at school, to have teachers willing to provide them with safe classrooms where they know the teacher will not let them be attacked or bullied. Especially kids with highly religious or bigoted families. If the kids don’t think it is safe for them to tell their parents how does a teacher telling the parent make it any better or safer for the kid. It is why symbols like the rainbow flag and other gay pride things in the classrooms or on the doors are so very important. This is happening in the US right now, all over the country. Kids are born gay, they know it, and some parents are accepting due to the positive teaching in society. But some parents are horrible bigoted and not only punish their own kids for how they are born but either make them do conversion therapy which has been proven to be harmful and of no benefit or worse kick them out of the home making them homeless forcing them to live on the streets somehow. Sadly that for most homeless gay / trans kids means selling their bodies for food or shelter. The very thing the parents claimed to want to protect them from. I have watched videos and read stories of Christian / Muslim families who claim that their gay child is choosing to let the devil in to them by sinning so they cannot have their young gay teen in their home. The clip is not in English, but the subtitles are very good. Please understand this is what the Don’t Say gay Bills are doing, promoting this bigotry and harm to gay kids. In Florida it has removed safe spaces for gay kids and forces teachers to tell bigoted parents that their child is gay or trans so they can be treated this way. It removes the teaching of tolerance and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. It removes the positive reinforcement about LGBTQ+ people so that the only thing kids hear / know about them is the negatives, that those people are bad and dangerous to the good normal kids so they need to be stopped, hurt, and harmed before they hurt good normal kids. Please watch and leave me a comment on your feelings. Hugs
ABOUT ‘HIDDEN KISSES’: Nathan goes to a high school party and meets Louis. The two find themselves out of sight and kissing, but someone takes a photo of them. When the photo is placed online, a storm overtakes their lives.
Thank you Ali for sending me the link in a comment. Great article. Hugs
John Daniel Davidson
The conservative “news” outlet, The Federalist, published a screed against transgender people that echoes rhetoric that German Nazis used against Jewish people in the 1930s.
The attack came in a piece entitled “We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives,” written by John Daniel Davidson. Davidson is also the political editor for The Federalist.
Davidson’s piece refers to “the transgender question” and says, “On the transgender question, conservatives will have to repudiate utterly the cowardly position of people like David French, in whose malformed worldview Drag Queen Story Hour at a taxpayer-funded library is a ‘blessing of liberty.’”
Davidson makes a call to arms for conservatives to oppose transgender rights: “that parents who take their kids to drag shows should be arrested and charged with child abuse; that doctors who perform so-called “gender-affirming” interventions should be thrown in prison and have their medical licenses revoked; and that teachers who expose their students to sexually explicit material should not just be fired but be criminally prosecuted.”
Nazi Display On The Jewish Question In 1930s Germany
His argument is a mirror image of the Nazi world view that Jews had to be the subject of persecution, to be regarded as non-people, and ultimately to be mass murdered in a Holocaust that killed over 6 million innocent men, women, and children.
The Holocaust Encyclopedia published by the United States Holocaust Museum notes, “Once in power, the Nazi Party began taking measures to solve the ‘Jewish Question’ in Germany. First, they initiated policies and laws that transformed German Jews into second-class citizens. Then, they expelled Jews from Germany or forced them to emigrate. During World War II, Nazi Germany and its collaborators expanded this goal. They aimed to cleanse all of Europe of Jews through their forced “resettlement” in occupied Poland, the French island of Madagascar, or later occupied Soviet territory.”
Over the last few years, the conservative movement has been involved in a heated attack on the rights of transgender people in the United States.
Most recently, congressional Republicans have introduced legislation entitled “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act of 2022” that is designed to smear transgender people and undermine their rights to a peaceful life.
The Federalist was co-founded by Ben Domenech, a conservative activist who was removed from the Washington Post for plagiarism. He is married to Meghan McCain, former co-host of The View, a columnist for the right-wing Daily Mail, and the daughter of the deceased Sen. John McCain.
This man help push a police of separating children from their parents at the Southern border. He belongs to a party that has cut funding for child healthcare, food assistance programs, school meals, and any assistance program that helps kids. Now suddenly the focus on trans kids. They love the culture wars and worrying about the sexual organs / gender expression of other people. Hugs
A deluge of radio spots and mailers targeting transgender children is hitting swing-state voters as part of a broad ad campaign directed by prominent Trump administration alums. Polling rarely registers transgender-related issues as a top priority for voters, with other topics like the economy and public safety taking the lead in this midterm cycle.
But America First Legal, launched by longtime Donald Trump aide Stephen Miller, has plastered airwaves and mailboxes with the issue ahead of the election — all without mentioning candidates currently running for office, as both groups are registered nonprofits.
Ads targeting transgender children have spread in at least 25 states across the political spectrum — from Texas to Illinois to Michigan — in the last month.
Radio ads and mailers — which fly under the radar more than TV spots — targeting transgender kids are flooding swing states, @mar1ssamart1nez and I report: https://t.co/QThf55KgZB
What the fuck. I simply cannot imagine having the time, energy, or other resources to be so vehemently opposed and oppressive toward a demographic that poses absolutely zero threat to oneself. Good grief, dude. Take up knitting or ceramics or something.
I wonder if those who tried to use the movement she helped build and the other haters will continue to use her and her prior comments without mentioning she has recanted what she was preaching. Hugs
She tried to “do everything to make these feelings go away,” but the only thing that worked “was accepting them.”
Like the ex-gay movement that rose to prominence in the early 2000s and then came crashing down as leaders recanted their “conversions,” the detransition movement is showing similar signs of a crack-up.
Ky Schevers is just one of the prominent voices of the detransition movement to reconsider her choice to reject her gender evolution and publicly denounce transition. She began her transition in college but ended it after coming to the belief that gender dysphoria was a false idea caused by misogyny and trauma, a theory she shared widely in interviews and online.
Now Schevers – who is transmasculine and uses she/her pronouns – has regrets about her place in the detrans movement. From 2013 to 2020, she regularly wrote and made videos about her detransition. She was featured in several major publications – even interviewed by anti-trans journalist Katie Herzog – to promote the idea that transgender identity isn’t legitimate and that gender dysphoria was a mix of internalized sexism and trauma response for her.
But now she’s speaking out against the movement she once supported.
“Trans people deserve access to support, and it makes no sense to shut down people’s access to medical transition just because some people end up detransitioning,” she told Slate.
The number of people reporting detransition is small. According to a study this year from UCLA’s Williams Institute, 1.3 million adults in the U.S. identify as transgender, or 0.05 % of the population. Another 300,000 youth, ages 13-17, do so, as well.
Of those who transition, about eight percent report detransitioning, according to a 2015 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, and most – 62 percent – of that eight percent said detransition was temporary. A 50-year survey in Sweden revealed about two percent of the trans population regretted undergoing gender-affirming surgery.
Schevers said the detransition movement she helped spark became overtly transphobic and repressive and left no room for doubt or questioning individuals.
While she came to believe her own gender dysphoria was in check, it came roaring back over time. “My sense of being a woman unraveled, and I was feeling more like a dude or a gender weirdo,” Schevers said. “But I was fighting against these feelings because I’d built a life in the detransition community, and I knew a lot of the other women in the community wouldn’t be happy with it if I came out as trans.”
The detrans movement assigns a variety of reasons to what they consider the false concept of gender dysphoria and provides attendant solutions to the non-existent problem.
Detrans promoters liken the urge to transition to drug or alcohol addiction, encouraging sufferers to avoid triggers and commit to abstinence, concepts adopted from 12-step programs. They characterize dysphoria as internalized misogyny stemming from a lack of self-love. One theory, known as “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” describes being transgender as a social contagion spread among adolescent girls online, like accusations of witchcraft among young women at the Salem witch trials.
Schevers says of her own dysphoria, “I tried to explain it in a radical feminist framework, and find the root causes, and do everything to make these feelings go away, and that didn’t really work. The only thing that did work to make them go away was accepting them. I had to make a move to accept them.”
Photo: Shutterstock
Tanner Furrh Photo: Screenshot
John Daniel Davidson
Photo: Shutterstock
