Florida governor—and failing 2024 presidential candidate—Ron DeSantis sold his Party’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law as a way to protect children in elementary schools from LGBTQ+ “sexualization.” Then it was expanded through grade 12. Now, a Republican proposed legislation to expand it to the workplace. These efforts to restrict LGBTQ+ rights are never really about the children, and it’s time Americans wake up and realize that.
Please notice what reason they gave for not protecting LGBTQIA kids from abuse, bullying, and not getting equal treatment. It violates their religious freedom to be kind and treat those kids fairly. Yes, read the article. I am so sick of these people trying to force their religion on everyone. Yet they claim to be removing LGBTQIA from society and the public to protect children. But they demand the right to abuse LGBTQIA kids? All this rule does is prevent gay kids from being placed with fundamentalist religious people that feel entitled to force these kids in to conversion therapy, which has been proven to be harmful and dangerous. Hugs. Scottie
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey this week joined with 18 other states to oppose a proposed federal rule that aims to protect LGBTQ youth in foster care and provide them with necessary services.
The attorneys general argue in a letter to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that the proposed rule — which requires states to provide safe and appropriate placements with providers who are appropriately trained about the child’s sexual orientation or gender identity — amounts to religion-based discrimination and violates freedom of speech.
“As a foster parent myself,” Bailey said in a news release Tuesday, “I am deeply invested in protecting children and putting their best interests first. Biden’s proposed rule does exactly the opposite by enacting policies meant to exclude people with deeply held religious beliefs from being foster parents.”
Read the full article. Missouri’s state child care agency already provides pro-LGBTQ guidance to prospective foster parents.
But… who else will they push to suicide? How else will they guarantee to calm their god’s vengeful spirit and avert natural disasters if not through human sacrifice!? /s
He needs to complete that sentence: enacting policies meant to exclude people with deeply held religious beliefs from being foster parentsto LGBT children they’d shame and torture.
I join you in that hate. It is constantly bandied about, but never defined, tested or challenged in court.
Kim Davis waved her “sincerely held” card, yet never had to prove it. She was an adulteress, divorced and changed her religion. Doesn’t sound too sincere to me.
Because religion in general, and Christianity in fucking particular, enjoy undue and unbridled entitlement and privilege and special rights i9n this fucked up country.
Because they are a powerful voting block and are pandered to by one part.
“In God We Trust” is the official motto of the United States as well as the motto of the U.S. state of Florida. It was adopted by the U.S. Congress in 1956, replacing E pluribus unum, which had been the de facto motto since the initial design of the Great Seal of the United States
I wouldn’t mind if they tried to play deeply religious kids with foster parents who would support their religious activities. That seems fair. So why don’t they want the same for lgbt kids. Oh right. Their “right” to be bigots means inflicting their bullshit on everyone, even if it drives them to suicide.
There would be very few children in the foster care system if *heterosexual* parents didn't abuse and abandon their children by the tens of thousands every year. https://t.co/mWvMWaLxs7
Notice it just requires them to be “trained” on LBGTQ+ issues, not even believe or support them. But I guess that’s a bridge too far for these fuckers.
“which requires states to provide safe and appropriate placements with providers who are appropriately trained about the child’s sexual orientation or gender identity”
School vouchers are all the Republican rage right now, particularly in my home state of TN. This is why that’s bad. Tour/book: http://www.traecrowder.com
Republicans have made it clear that they want to put Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and many other social safety net programs on the chopping block. Luckily, they don’t have the numbers to do that right now, but that could theoretically change after the 2024 election. A vote for Republicans is a vote for gutting the programs that are keeping millions of Americans from being completely destitute, as Farron Cousins explains.
Please notice every law suit and every action was to legally let Christians force thier religous views on public school children regardless of other families religious faths, or to demand public funds pay for the Christians to promote their religion / god. Just demand after demand for special privelege, special rights, demands for public money, demands to force their religion and ONLY their religion on others. The entitlement these people feel to force their way of life on others is sickening to me. Gay people don’t demand the right to force others to have same sex relations and have the public pay for it. Trans people don’t demand the government force a certain number of people be forced to transition against their will and use public funds for it. But for years dueing the same sex marriage debate we heard Christians like Mike Johnson yell “The gays want special rights, special privilege just for them” No we wanted equality, they want the right to be above all other religions or views / ways of living. Hugs. Scottie
“The ultimate goal of the enemy is silencing the Gospel,” the Republican said in 2004 after Jewish parents sued a school for pushing Christianity on their kids.
Before coming to Congress, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) spent years taking up lawsuits in defense of Christian speech and activities in public elementary schools and universities.
Johnson, who was a relatively unknown Louisiana congressman before being elected House speaker last month, previously spent eight years as senior attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom, an evangelical legal group focused on dismantling LGBTQ+ rights and outlawing abortion. It was in his role there that Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, took up case after case aimed at chipping away at the separation of church and state.
What’s alarming about this pattern in his background is that it raises questions about whether the House speaker ― the person second in line to the U.S. presidency ― disputes the first freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment in the Constitution: ”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
In 2004, Johnson was the lead attorney for Stockwell Place Elementary when the Bossier Parish public school got sued for pushing Christianity on its students.
A set of Jewish parents sued the school after learning it was holding prayer sessions, teaching Christian songs in class and promoting a teacher-led prayer group called Stallions for Christ that met during recess. The Jewish parents, who had two children at the school, also cited a teacher with a Christian cross on the classroom door, a Nativity scene in the school library and a graduation program featuring Christian songs and a student-led prayer, and religious speeches delivered by two local sheriff’s deputies.
In their lawsuit, which you can read here, the parents claim their children were ridiculed and bullied by other kids for not participating in the religious songs. They raised concerns with the principal, who allegedly responded by defending the school’s Nativity scene and religious songs, and told the parents to “deal with it.” The parents also complained to the school superintendent, who allegedly defended the teacher-led prayer group because “this is the way things are done in the South” and “welcome to the Bible Belt.”
Johnson spoke about the lawsuit at his church, the Airline Drive Church of Christ in Shreveport, before taking on the case. He warned the congregation what was at stake with cases like the Jewish family suing to keep Christian activities out of a public school.
“The ultimate goal of the enemy is silencing the gospel,” said Johnson, according to an April 2004 story in the Shreveport Times about the lawsuit. “This is spiritual warfare.”
Here’s the article in the the Shreveport Times from April 2004:
“The ultimate goal of the enemy is silencing the gospel,” Johnson said in 2004 amid a lawsuit involving a Jewish family suing a public school for engaging students in Christian speech and activities.
SHREVEPORT TIMES
The Louisiana Republican also told church attendees, some of whom were reportedly nodding and wearing “I support Stockwell Place” T-shirts, that “if we don’t (win), they’re going to shut down all private religion expression.”
Johnson’s comments at church came a week after he wrote an opinion piece in the Shreveport Times calling the Jewish family’s lawsuit “the latest example of the radical left’s desperate efforts to silence all public expression of religious faith.”
Here’s Johnson’s article:
Johnson said in 2004 that a Jewish family suing a public school for engaging in Christian speech and activities was “the latest example of the radical left’s desperate efforts to silence all public expression of religious faith.”
SHREVEPORT TIMES
Johnson spokesperson Taylor Haulsee on Tuesday disputed that the House speaker was referring to the Jewish family as “the enemy” in the 2004 lawsuit.
“You are mischaracterizing his remark,” he said in a statement. “Johnson was referring to any coordinated attempt to impede religious expression that is protected under the Constitution, not any single family.”
Haulsee also emphasized that the first bill Johnson brought to the House floor as speaker was a resolution condemning Hamas and standing with Israel.
The lawsuit was settled in August 2005 with a consent order clarifying the types of religious expression allowed in public schools. But most of the case had been dismissed months earlier because the family moved out of state.
“On or about December 28, 2004, the McBride family moved to Missouri to escape the harassment and threats Tyler and Kelsey were enduring at Stockwell Place Elementary,” reads a March 2005 amendment to the lawsuit.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which was not officially a party to the case, said at the time that the Jewish family likely would have won their case had they not moved away.
“The ACLU believes (the complaints) were meritorious and had the plaintiffs remained in the state, they would have been found meritorious,” Joe Cook, then the executive director of the ACLU’s Louisiana affiliate, told the Shreveport Times when the case was settled.
Before coming to Congress, Johnson spent a lot of time defending religious speech and activities in public schools, specifically Christianity.
TOM WILLIAMS VIA GETTY IMAGES
In another case in 2006, Johnson represented parents suing the Katy Independent School District in Texas for allegedly trying to ban religious expression and “acknowledgement of the Christian religion.” The parents argued that the school district violated their First Amendment rights by preventing them from “speaking about their religious beliefs” and “distributing religious items or literature to classmates” on school grounds.
This lawsuit was dismissed in 2010 with prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs can’t refile the same claim again in this court. The school did have to pay Johnson’s attorney fees, though.
The House speaker twice represented teenagers, in 2007 and in 2008, who were denied public school transportation to a “Just for Jesus” religious event.
In 2007, Johnson represented a high school student in a civil rights action lawsuit after her school refused to provide a bus for her club, called the One Way Club, to attend a “Just for Jesus” event. The student claimed that the school provided other clubs with transportation for fields trips and that it wasn’t fair to not provide a bus for the religious event. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed because the student found her own ride to the event.
A year later, Johnson represented a middle school student who sued her school for not providing a bus to the same event. This student, who was part of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, claimed that she was denied school transportation to the “Just for Jesus” event because she and others in her club talked about their religious beliefs.
School officials claimed the real issue was safety concerns, because there was a shooting near the “Just for Jesus” event the year before, and some students had been “injured and fearful.” The school officials suggested the organizers of the event hold it during non-school hours or on the weekend. As a compromise, school officials offered to give students excused absences if they went to the event on their own during the school day.
The judge in the case ruled that the school worked in good faith with the student by offering an excused absence and rejected Johnson’s argument that the student demonstrated “a substantial threat of irreparable injury.” The student voluntarily ended her suit shortly afterward.
“It is repugnant to Sonnier that he … must obtain governmental permission to talk to a student about his Christian faith.”
– Johnson defending a traveling evangelist’s right to preach on a public university campus.
Johnson also led lawsuits in defense of religious speech on the campuses of public universities. In 2008, he lost a case involving a traveling evangelist who sued Southeastern Louisiana University after a school police officer told him he had to move to a free speech zone on campus to deliver his remarks and get his speech pre-approved.
As they stood there, the evangelist, Jeremy Sonnier, began engaging with a student about religion, at which point the officer warned he would be arrested if he didn’t move.
Sonnier’s legal argument, led by Johnson, was that the university’s speech policy was “unduly burdensome” and based on religious grounds.
“It is repugnant to Sonnier that he, as an individual citizen, must obtain governmental permission to talk to a student about his Christian faith,” reads the legal document, presumably written by Johnson.
A passage from a lawsuit led by Johnson in 2008 in defense of a traveling evangelist.
U.S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
A federal judge ultimately dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning Sonnier can’t refile the same claim again in the court.
In another lawsuit in 2003, Johnson represented a student at Texas Tech University who accused the school of violating his First Amendment rights by requiring him to get his speech pre-approved in order to speak on campus in a spot that was not in the “free speech area” gazebo. The student was challenging a school policy that barred students from engaging in speech that might “intimidate” or “humiliate” another person on campus.
The university initially denied a permit to the student to deliver remarks outside of the designated area expressing his religious view that “homosexuality is a sinful, immoral and unhealthy lifestyle,” and passing out literature citing Scripture. But the student was ultimately given permission to do this if he moved across the street.
In 2008, Johnson was the lead attorney for the Tangipahoa Parish school board in Louisiana when it got sued for opening its meetings with prayers and requiring they be delivered by eligible members of the clergy in the parish.
The plaintiff took issue with the school board bringing religion into its meetings at all and with the denial of his wife’s request to give an invocation at a meeting because she was a non-denominational Christian.
“Plaintiff finds equally objectionable the non-secular manner in which the Board meetings are conducted,” reads the plaintiff’s legal filing. “The Board meetings are an integral part of Tangipahoa Parish public school system, requiring the Board to refrain from injecting religion into them. By commencing the meetings with a prayer, the Board is conveying its endorsement of religion.”
The lawsuit was dismissed in 2010 after the parties reached a compromise.
Asked Tuesday if Johnson fundamentally disagrees with the separation of church and state, his office pointed to comments that he made last week on CNBC, when he claimed that Americans “misunderstand” the concept.
“When the Founders set this system up, they wanted a vibrant expression of faith in the public square because they believed that a general moral consensus and virtue was necessary,” Johnson said in the TV interview. “The separation of church and state is a misnomer. People misunderstand it.”
He claimed that Thomas Jefferson meant something entirely different from what we think it means when he coined the phrase.
“What he was explaining is they did not want the government to encroach upon the church, not that they didn’t want principles of faith to have influence on our public life,” Johnson said. “It’s exactly the opposite.”
He never actually said, though, if he disagrees with the separation of church and state.
“An abject danger to our democracy.”
– Rachel Laser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Rachel Laser, the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said she has “grave concerns” about Johnson’s claims.
“Any public official ― let alone the speaker of the House and second in line to be president ― who claims America is a Christian nation and discredits church-state separation is an abject danger to our democracy,” she said.
Laser said Johnson is “repeating the myth that Christian nationalists typically use” to deny that church-state separation is foundational to democracy.
“Church-state separation is baked into the Constitution, from Article VI’s prohibition on religious tests for public office to the First Amendment’s religious freedom protections. Our freedoms, equality and democracy rest on that wall of separation. Without it, America would not be America.”
Some great articles about Christians demanding special rights / privilege to violate rules and laws yet still get access to state money and force all public school clubs / sports organizations to follow their bigotry and let them violate the rules. Plus some good news, bigotry is costing churches members. Hugs. Scottie
Mockery over ‘Two Corinthians’ slip and endorsement battles in 2016 echo in 2024 race as Republican contenders seek first win
A picture of Donald Trump hangs outside a house in West Des Moines, Iowa, in January 2016. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters
Trump called Iowa evangelicals ‘so-called Christians’ and ‘pieces of shit’, book says
Mockery over ‘Two Corinthians’ slip and endorsement battles in 2016 echo in 2024 race as Republican contenders seek first win
In the heat of the Republican primary of 2016, Donald Trump called evangelical supporters of his rival Ted Cruz “so-called Christians” and “real pieces of shit”, a new book says.
The news lands as the 2024 Republican primary heats up, two months out from the Iowa caucus and a day after Trump’s closest rival this time, the hard-right Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, was endorsed by Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in Iowa.
The new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, by Tim Alberta, an influential reporter and staff writer for the Atlantic, will be published on 5 December. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Early in the book, Alberta describes fallout from an event at Liberty University, the evangelical college in Virginia, shortly before the Iowa vote in January 2016.
As candidates jockeyed for support from evangelicals, a powerful bloc in any Republican election, Trump was asked to name his favourite Bible verse.
Attempting to follow the advice of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, the thrice-married, not noticeably church-going New York billionaire and reality TV star introduced it as “Two Corinthians”, rather than “Second Corinthians”, as would have been correct.
“The laughter and ridicule were embarrassing enough for Trump,” Alberta writes. “But the news of Perkins endorsing Ted Cruz, just a few days later, sent him into a spiral. He began to speculate that there was a conspiracy among powerful evangelicals to deny him the GOP nomination.
“When Cruz’s allies began using the ‘Two Corinthians’ line to attack him in the final days before the Iowa caucuses, Trump told one Iowa Republican official, ‘You know, these so-called Christians hanging around with Ted are some real pieces of shit.’”
Alberta adds that “in private over the coming years”, Trump “would use even more colourful language to describe the evangelical community”.
Cruz won Iowa but Trump took the second primary contest, in New Hampshire, and won the nomination with ease. After beating Hillary Clinton and spending four chaotic years in the White House, he was beaten by Joe Biden in 2020.
Pursuing the lie that his defeat was the result of electoral fraud, Trump refused to concede defeat. He has continued to dominate Republican politics, now as the clear frontrunner to be the nominee again.
Trump has maintained that status despite having been impeached twice (the second for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on Congress) and despite facing 91 criminal charges (34 for hush-money payments to a porn star) and civil threats including a case arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.
Evangelicals remain the dominant bloc in Iowa, 55% of respondents to an NBC News/Des Moines Register poll in August identifying as “devoutly religious”. But despite his lengthy rap sheet, Trump’s hold on such voters appears to remain strong.
In October, the Register put him at 43% support overall in Iowa, with DeSantis and the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley 27 points behind. The same poll said 44% of evangelicals planned to make Trump their first choice, with DeSantis at 22% and Haley seven points back.
Evangelicals have also stayed with Trump nationwide. According to exit polls, in the 2020 presidential election he was supported by 76% of white evangelical voters.
DeSantis and Haley must attempt to catch Trump in Iowa. Vander Plaats’ endorsement was thus a sought-after prize, if one Trump did not pursue, declining to attend a Thanksgiving Family Forum Vander Plaats hosted in Des Moines last week.
On Monday, announcing his decision to endorse DeSantis, the president of the Family Leader, which seeks to “inspire the church to engage government for the advance of God’s kingdom and the strengthening of family”, pointed to the conclusion he hoped his followers would reach.
Speaking to Fox News, Vander Plaats said: “I don’t think America is going to elect [Trump] president again. I think America would be well served to have a choice, and I really believe Ron DeSantis should be that guy. And I think Iowa is tailor-made for him to win this.”
Trump’s rivals may yet take encouragement from Register polling, should evangelicals begin to doubt Trump. In the October poll, 76% of Iowa evangelicals said they had a positive view of DeSantis, while 62% said they liked Haley.
Scottie's Playtime 