Multiple incidents of possible voter intimidation have been reported this week, and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors released a statement saying they will do anything to ensure a fair election.
Sheriff’s deputies were called to an incident Friday night at a ballot box in Mesa and said two individuals wearing tactical gear were armed. On Saturday night, there was a group of four people watching the ballot box in Mesa, and two were armed with concealed handguns.
There was a confrontation that resulted from the group being there. An activist watching the watchers said they were covering their license plates with pieces of cloth, and when she tried to take a picture of the license plates, she was grabbed and chased by one of the group members.
New photos from election officials show the 2 armed individuals outside AZ drop box Fri
“Uninformed vigilantes outside Maricopa County's drop boxes are not increasing election integrity. Instead they are leading to voter intimidation complaints” said @billgatesaz@stephen_richerpic.twitter.com/dvNPwfuxIV
🚨ALERT: Arizona secretary of state's office refers 2 additional reports of voter intimidation to the Department of Justice. This brings the total to 3 reports of intimidation, all in Maricopa County involving vigilante "monitors" at drop boxes.https://t.co/zVSd7BM3k9
— Mark Finchem #JustFollowTheLaw VoteFinchem.com (@RealMarkFinchem) October 21, 2022
Trump’s legacy & Garland’s test: “Days after Maricopa County officials warned people to stop taking photos of voters and election staffers at ballot drop boxes, the Arizona Secretary of State's Office continues to refer complaints to the DoJ” https://t.co/fbOD6SOiux
Nothing screams “election integrity” like armed vigilantes with concealed license plates taking it on themselves to patrol drop boxes and polling places.
Straight up intimidation. Congrats, MAGA; you’ve entered the Cagoulard phase and you’re about to level up to being the American Tonton Macoute. https://t.co/rUPS9htlYS
Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master in the documents case, went after Donald Trump and his legal team this week, effectively letting them know that he has run out of patience with them. What set him off is the fact that the Trump Team is trying to claim privilege for documents that couldn’t even remotely be considered privilege, and the lawyers are unable to even explain WHY they are claiming privilege. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what happened.
Many thanks to Ali for dropping a note about this and the link in a comment. I find many of the people who read the blog have great suggestions of news they found that I missed. This article on silencing the teaching of abortion is similar to the don’t say gay laws in republican controlled states, it is about making something / people disappear from society and keeping it / them hidden with no information about them available to the people effected by / needing the information. Think of it, if you can control the information students at all levels get you can direct the culture in any way you wish. No freedom of expression creates what is happening in China and other authoritarian places where the people have only lock step ideas because it is all propaganda driven by the political class / government. It is a scary time where the republican party / right wing wants to deny advances in society in all categories such as medical, biological, knowledge of the planet, basically the right / republicans want to drive the country back to what they feel was a simpler time when they were in charge and people were not bothered by things different from them. Got news for them, they will have to go back much farther than the 1950s to find that, the idea that the 1950s were the great social golden age where the stereotypes they love were true … is completely wrong. That time was horrible for any minority or those who were not white cis men. Women had little or no rights, blacks / non-whites were without rights and being killed or harmed with impunity, kids were mistreated with no way to complain or stop it, people were dying of health issues we have solved now, and lastly the fact that forced patriotism of kids being made to recite the pledge and forced Christian prayer in schools / public events did not make things better all it did was make clones who felt obligated to go to church and give money while hating it at the same time. I did not live then, but I thank the Dogs That Love Gravy I did not.
Now one last thing, lets talk about what is meant by “woke”. The right is trying to demonize the word. I keep hearing interviewed right wingers saying they have to stop the left pushing woke in schools. While I don’t really know of anyone on the left that uses the term I can tell you what it means. Ready for this. That scary word is another way of saying “to be nice”. Yup that is all it is about or means. It means not using slurs, not trying to hurt other people’s feelings, it is not being deliberately cruel or mean. So when people claim I am being woke, I think them. I want everyone to understand the goal of the right, which is to make the cruelty of the regressive times they claim were better a reality again. I am woke as much as I can be, where ever I can be, when and to as much as I can be … because I love being nice to others. Hugs
Seeking to control what can be taught at public universities—including abortion—is dystopian and grim. It’s what conservatives have always wanted.
As we’ve seen in Idaho and Florida, expect more public university systems in red states to start being tentative, worried, and self-censored when talking about reproductive rights. Cage Rivera/Rewire News Group illustration
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, conservatives scored a victory decades in the making: controlling pregnant people’s bodies. They’re not satisfied with just that, though. The next step is to control any speech they don’t like.
Just as ever-shifting abortion bans leave people unsure as to the laws that govern them, there’s now a distinct lack of clarity as to what can and can’t be said—and what can and can’t be taught—in schools.
Witness the dual speech and behavior controversy that has roiled the University of Idaho. In 2021, the state passed the “No Public Funds for Abortion” law, prohibiting public university employees from “counseling in favor of abortion.” That’s painfully vague, but definitely inhibits speech. For instance, can you talk about ectopic pregnancies in a biology class without implying abortion? Things got even more opaque following the reversal of Roe in June, when Idaho’s near-total abortion ban kicked in. The university provided guidance to employees that they could now face felony charges if they provided birth control to students.
Two weeks later, everything got reversed. Sort of. University President Scott Green complained that the memo issued to employees “quickly took on a life of its own with misinformation.” He then proceeded to, ostensibly, reassure employees, but those reassurances were vague. To his credit, Green made clear that the university can continue to offer birth control, but he didn’t directly address whether people could or could not “counsel in favor” of abortion. All he really said was that current academic freedom policies had not been changed and that the university cannot and does not prosecute people.
Neither of those reassurances gets at the heart of the issue: Can employees talk about abortion without running afoul of state law?
A similar story is unfolding at the state university system in Florida. The University of Florida may be hiring Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) to be its president. Sasse is a big fan of “religious liberty” when it comes to dismantling the line between church and state, so his hiring likely doesn’t bode well for a university already under siege by conservative elected officials. The state recently asserted in a court document that curriculum and in-class instruction are government speech—not individual speech—and therefore it can regulate what public university teachers say.
The document was filed in a lawsuit regarding the constitutionality of the state’s “Stop WOKE Act,” which at root prohibits professors from teaching about the country’s pernicious history of racism. The state even tried to extend these speech restrictions to private companies, but that got tossed out by a federal court.
Seeking to control what people teach at public universities is impossibly dystopian and grim. It’s also the logical endpoint of what conservatives have wanted forever: public money free from the conditions that used to go along with taking public money—that religious institutions shouldn’t be funded with taxpayer dollars and groups that receive public money shouldn’t be able to discriminate.
Dismantling that line between church and state and enshrining bigotry into law has been quite a successful project of religious conservatives. They prevailed in an Iowa case where a student group at a public university, taking public dollars, excluded a gay student from leadership and won in court. They scored their biggest victory this past Supreme Court term in Carson v. Makin: The justices ruled that K-12 private religious schools can get public tuition money. And it’s just this sort of thing that allows a Christian K-12 school in Florida to take $1.6 million in public money while having a policy that they will expel LGBTQ students.
Conservatives have always embraced schools like Bob Jones University and Liberty University that completely control their students’ behavior and speech. The former went up to the Supreme Court in 1983 to fight for the right to receive IRS tax-exempt status while maintaining a policy of only admitting white students. The university lost. Bob Jones University also banned interracial dating until 2000.
Rolling back abortion rights is just the latest weapon in the religious right’s ever-growing arsenal. When you control what people can do, it’s just a short hop to controlling what they can say. When bans prohibit “aiding or abetting” an abortion, such as that in Texas SB 8, it directly leads to controlling speech. For example, can you donate to an abortion fund if you live in Texas? In theory, that should never be restricted. Donating money is free speech and is therefore protected under Citizens United v. FEC and is one of the sacred tenets of modern conservatism.
But modern conservatism has become very comfortable with “free speech for me, but not for thee,” and they’ve captured enough of the federal courts that they’ll continue to get their way. Meanwhile, expect more public university systems in red states to start being tentative, worried, and self-censored when talking about reproductive rights or racial justice. Idaho and Florida may have started this trend, but it certainly won’t end there.
Republicans will do absolutely nothing to go after rapists, nor traffickers, nor abusers, nor predators, nor guns, nor violence towards women, nor violence towards children/students because they support white patriarchal controls.
In their world, white men must control all, without any criticism, without any compromise, all while claiming to being a victim.
In this state they are demanding the female athletes tell them all about their menstruation schedule. Yes they want the girls in school at all ages to tell them when they have their periods, how long it lasts, any issues they have during it, and especially they are required to report any delays in their schedule and when it goes back to normal. I wonder why?
I don’t normally feel the need to add my thoughts to Joe.My.God posts, he does a great job and covers it all. In this case I want to point out several things. Reading each section, you see that the republicans / right wing is clearly equating drag, which is simply dressing up in a costume, with sex. More important they are trying to equate it with active sex with kids. Please tell me how reading to kids in a costume is sexual? What if I dressed up as a Klingon and read to kids, would that be sexual? Because what the right / republicans are trying to do is also equate drag with transexuals. Yes they want you to think trans person when you read drag. That is what they did with CRT, change what people think when they hear it. What they want is when you find out there is a drag queen story hour you think trans women reading to kids, which again is not sexual or wrong but it is the rights way of making it seem dirty and sexual. Think of it reading stories to kids in public with their parents and other adults present is being made to see like a sexual orgy by the right. Why? Because it is a political wedge issue and being used by the republicans to drive their base and the religious right to the poles. It stirs up anti-trans hate, makes people angry at the LGBTQ+ because it creates an image in their minds that again kids are being sexual used. It also validates the religious people who think that all the non-1950 traditions are sinful. Again in a room in public with other adults present including the child’s parents / guardians is a sexual performance involving the kids. To these people simply the idea of a guy dressed in “woman’s” clothing is sexual and a sin that makes their god cry!
Clothing has no damn gender people. Men wore dresses for a long time, men in some cultures wear skirts, and in some native cultures people go nude, and who doesn’t like a damn toga party. This is not about the clothing or the cloth. It is about gender roles and privileges of each gender. Men must have all the rights and be in charge while women must be submissive and give men their bodies and serve them. Men rule and women obey. That is what this is really about. Think of it why is it always trans women that the right gets so upset about? They never mention trans men. Because in their minds any male that would give up their god given right to rule over and take what they want from the other gender is crazy and ill. Plus by a man with all his rights becoming a woman with no rights screws up their idea of what the world must be. Trans men don’t bother then because women don’t matter to them and they figure they will put them in their place soon enough.
The second thing I want you to notice is that in order to vilify drag queens a “Christian” is repeatedly lying about seeing a drag performer showing their genitals. That never happened. The “Christian” altered the video they showed and reported to police to try to frame the drag performer. The police said they viewed other footage and had the altered video checked. The performer did not do what the “Christian” claimed. However after being called out on it, the “Christian” still keeps making the claim everywhere anyone will listen to them. They are going on right wing media claiming the performer did it even though it is proven wrong because the right knows their people won’t check the facts and most simply don’t care. The right prefers their feelings to facts.
This is about being moral police, let’s be honest. This has nothing to do with kids. This is entirely about the idea that some people hate the idea of men dressing like women. Yet as I keep saying that has been something done throughout history especially from the start of the TV era to today where one of the most popular shows is RuPaul’s Drag Race, which I believe is in its fourteenth season. So why is this so important now? Religion, has anyone noticed a surge in the right trying to regain traditional gender roles while forcing more religion down everyone’s throat? This is part of the Christian nationalist push. This is what the right wants, to push their view of right and wrong based on the religious morality of 2,500 years ago that promoted slavery. The right wing in the US is fast becoming the US Christian version of the Taliban. Stop them now before they come for everything else that they object to in our society! Hugs
A bill that would ban drag performances in all public venues will be introduced in the first days of the next session of the Idaho Legislature in January, Idaho Family Policy Center President Blaine Conzatti told the Idaho Capital Sun.
Conzatti and other conservative activists around Idaho and across the country have protested against events in public spaces that feature drag queens, including drag queen story hour events at public libraries.
“No child should ever be exposed to sexual exhibitions like drag shows in public places,”he said. Conzatti also cites a drag performance in Coeur d’Alene in June as another example of public indecency, when a performer was accused of exposing himself during a Pride in the Park event.
A drag performer has sued a blogger who falsely accused him of indecent exposure and posted doctored footage of him online. Eric Posey, a Kootenai County resident whose stage name is Mona Liza Million, performed June 11 at the Pride in the Park celebration in Coeur d’Alene. The next day, blogger Summer Bushnell published an edited video of Posey’s performance on her Facebook page. Posey’s pelvic area is blurred out in the edited video, implying nudity.
Bushnell claimed that Posey exposed himself to the crowd. She called for Posey’s arrest in her Facebook post, urging the public to contact police and the Idaho Attorney General’s Office. The Coeur d’Alene City Prosecutor’s Office reviewed the edited video, as well as other unedited videos and photos. Prosecutors announced in July that the evidence shows Posey did not violate any state or local law.
Idaho GOP chair and state Rep. Dorothy Moon did not address questions about whether the state party supported the proposal, but she told VICE News in an email that the Idaho GOP is “opposed to the sexualization of children, including ‘family-friendly’ or ‘all-ages’ drag shows.”
The events she is referring to include drag queens reading children’s books to kids at public libraries; Conzatti’s comments, moreover, indicated the proposal would apply to drag shows in public spaces even for adults.
Idaho, like much of the country, has also seen an uptick of violence towards LGBTQ+ people in general. In June, Coeur d’Alene police arrested dozens of white supremacists who allegedly planned to disrupt the city’s Pride festival,.
The Idaho Family Policy Center, an affiliate of the hate group Focus On The Family, is also the main driver of an abortion ban in Idaho. Conzetti knows his claim about that drag performer is a lie, but happily parrots the lie to local media in the name of Jesus.
It's not just about kids anymore: A rightwing Idaho think tank reportedly helped draft a bill to prevent even adults from performing or watching drag in public spaces. https://t.co/IW6o7AhY1B
I’d like to say this violates the First Amendment, and it does, but I don’t trust it in the hands of the courts today. This is clearly eliminationist and will lead to far more horrifying efforts to erase LGBT people from society.
I’ve been saying for years that the only difference between these people and the Westboro Baptists is that Westboro at least has the balls to come out and say they want us dead. These people want the same, but they know they have to be diplomatic if they want to get on TV and have the public accept them as expressing just another point of view that one might happen to disagree with – as opposed to being the genocidal fascists they are.
When I was in college, I got funny looks for saying we should be more afraid of people like Tony Perkins than Fred Phelps. But I was right.
Well, polls have shown that if these Christian bastards ever figured out how to identify LGBT people in the womb, they’d be all pro abortion in those instances.
That’s exactly what my father told me! “Your mother and I are opposed to abortion. But had we known that you’d lead a gay lifestyle, we would have aborted you.”
Another thug vigilante, who thinks he is entitled to enforce his version of rules on others based on his feelings. Laws and facts mean nothing to these thugs. He felt he had the right to deny these people a legal service because he did not like them based on their race and his incorrect idea of their immigration status. And he was wrong, the police say the people were here legally. But he thinks all Mexican are here illegally. I wonder where he gets that idea? From Fox and other right wing media that basically claims the country should only be white and have white immigrants. What ever happened to people minding their own business and leaving others alone? Also the asshole was not brave enough to own up to what he did originally trying to blame it on the repair person. Hugs
“I just don’t feel that they deserve cable,” said Shannon Pearson, 48, according to a criminal complaint. “They’re illegal aliens.”
A Wisconsin man was charged with a hate crime after allegedly cutting his neighbors’ internet cable because he thought they were in the country illegally and don’t deserve the service, according to a criminal complaint.
On Sept. 22, a worker came to install internet in the Eau Claire apartment upstairs from Shannon Pearson. Pearson, 48, who admitted to drinking alcohol earlier that day, told officers he “was upset because the upstairs occupants were in the country illegally” and “should not be able to get cable.”
Pearson initially told officers he informed the cable installer that his upstairs neighbors were in the country illegally, and the installer “freaked out” and cut the cable before leaving. Pearson says he then went upstairs to confront his neighbors, who he said don’t speak English, about their status but was pushed down the stairs by one of them.
Through an interpreter, officers interviewed the neighbors —identified as J.L. and M.A. in the complaint — who denied any type of altercation or making contact with Pearson.
The internet installer, who returned to the upstairs apartment during the interview to fix the internet, claimed Pearson “had come outside and was saying racist things” during the installation and that he cut the cable.
According to the complaint, when confronted with the cable installer’s statement, Pearson said, “I just don’t feel that they deserve cable. I’m sorry, I don’t. They’re illegal aliens.”
He admitted to cutting the cable with scissors and reiterated that he believed his neighbors were in the country illegally because they don’t speak English.
J.L. and M.A. are not in the country illegally, according to police.
It was not specifically clear why Pearson had an issue with his neighbors, but according to the complaint, he expressed frustration to police because “Mexicans” moved into the apartment above him on a monthly basis.
Pearson was arrested and charged with felony criminal damage to property and obstructing an officer. The criminal damage charge was upgraded to a felony because it is classified as a hate crime.
He was released from jail on $1,000 bond and under the condition that he doesn’t try to contact his upstairs neighbors.
If convicted, Pearson may be fined a maximum of $10,000 and serve up to two years in prison. He’s due back in court on Nov. 28.
It’s not clear if Pearson has an attorney at this time.
What is wrong with these people that they want complete control over everyone’s lives? They again want to force everyone to live by their church dictates on morality. They are so desperate to return the country to the 1950s and make it Leave It To Beaver time again. What happened to parents’ rights to guide what their children read; do they only have rights when they do what moral police want? Are we a police state like China where we can only read or watch what the government approves? Notice the claim it is to protect the kids, save the children. But it really one group of people imposing their repressive morality on everyone. What do they think is inappropriate, any LGBTQ+ content or characters. Anything not allowed in the 1950 polite society. What is the prurient interest of any minor? What he means is anything not church approved reading material about good little boys and girls who don’t have any interest in that dirty body / sex stuff or dating until they hit that magic age of 18. He says he wants kids to stay kids a little longer, what the hell. What he is saying is he hates that society has progressed and we understand that kids have feelings and desires that they need to know about to understand. He doesn’t want LGBTQ+ kids knowing they are normal and the other kids around them knowing it is normal and okay. He says he wants to give control back to local communities and parents, but he is dictating this action from the state down taking that very control from the parents / local communities. As the library person said, who is going to decide and will it be per kids as all kids are different? Hugs
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft says libraries need to stop giving kids materials “that appeal to the prurient interest of any minor.”
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft Photo: Joshua Hoover/US Dept of Education
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) – who is the state librarian – has proposed a rule that would require libraries to keep youth away from “non-age-appropriate materials” or else lose state funding.
The plan would require libraries to create a policy to determine criteria for what is and is not appropriate for different ages and says that “no funds received shall be used to purchase or acquire materials in any form that appeal to the prurient interest of any minor.”
It also allows individual parents to essentially curate what their child can access, stating that libraries would need to adopt a “policy allowing any minor’s parent or guardian to determine what materials and access will be available to a minor.”
It adds that no library employee can knowingly provide a minor with material that their parent or guardian has not approved.
“When state dollars are involved, we want to bring back local control and parental involvement in determining what children are exposed to,” Ashcroft, who is the son of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, said in a statement. “Foremost, we want to protect our children.”
“Supporting the efforts of libraries across our state has been a priority of mine since day one – we have been able to provide millions of dollars to libraries through grants and other funding. Yes, we want to make sure libraries have the resources and materials they need for their constituents, but we also want our children to be ‘children’ a little longer than a pervasive culture many often dictate.”
Ashcroft’s proposal comes as conservatives across the country fight to ban books deemed “inappropriate” and “pornographic,” descriptions they often give to books containing LGBTQ characters and themes.
In Missouri, the city of St. Louis has already seen 114 book bans take place in schools just this fall, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The bans are the result of a new state law – which the Missouri Library Association strongly condemned – that bans “explicit sexual material,” which it defines as visual images or descriptions of genitalia or sex acts (though there are exceptions for art and science).
Regina Greer Cooper, the executive director of Missouri’s Springfield-Greene County Library, told NPR that Ashcroft’s proposal doesn’t seem necessary considering the policies the library already has in place.
“Several of the things that are in there, our library district is already doing this. We already have policies — we have a collections materials policy. We have librarians who are well trained — we buy things that are age appropriate and designated for certain ages. We place them in the library in the appropriate place for those age groups.”
She added that they also already have a method in place for parents to challenge the appropriateness of a book.
And the proposal is worrisome, she says.
“What worries me is who is going to decide, you know, which materials are in the age-appropriate areas, and are they going to have a different opinion than our trained librarians, and who is the authority with this rule, and what will happen, and how will it be implemented. Will somebody be checking on something?”
Ashcroft’s proposed rule will enter the Missouri Register on November 15th and will then undergo a 30-day comment period.
There has never been a recorded verified case of a trans person attacking or harming anyone in a bathroom or locker room. But there are many cases of trans people being attacked and harmed trying to simply use a bathroom. Even cis women have been assaulted by vigilantes when trying to use the bathroom because they did not look female enough for the self-appointed bathroom police. This is not about protecting kids from sexualization, knowing that gay / trans people / same sex couples exist is not sexualizing kids any more than letting them know that straight people / straight couples exist does. Talking about the issues of gay / trans kids really means the right wing haters don’t want anti-bullying promoted and talked about. That is what that means, a teacher cannot stand up for a bullied kid by talking of acceptance and tolerance without breaking that law. The entire law is meant to revert the country to a more restrictive time when the LGBTQ+ were not seen in society, were villains and bad people, a time when equality for the LGBTQ+ was not an issue so the hateful bigots could attack / harass the minorities as much as they wanted. Tell me how kids knowing teacher A is in a same sex marriage is dangerous or sexualizing kids any more than the kids knowing teacher B is in an opposite marriage. It doesn’t, but to some people one of those is a horrible sin and shouldn’t be allowed, forcing their incorrect regressive views on everyone. If Tommy dates girl A it is fine and not sexualizing kids, but if Tommy dates boy B it is a crime for it to be known or talked about in school because of protecting the kids? From what? Understand what this law is about. It is about doing what was done in Russia, driving the LGBTQ+ out of society and destroying any acceptance / tolerance that have been earned and gained. It is about making the LGBTQ+ illegal and removing all our rights. They want us gone. Starting with the kids makes it seem sort of reasonable, but in truth it is the younger generation that was driving the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ because they were friends with known LGBTQ+ people. Stop that acceptance by making the LGBTQ+ stay hidden and we go back to when no one knew that their friends, doctors, a lot of other people in their lives were members of the LGBTQ+ community. Hugs
In a state that already has a Don’t Say Gay law, the rules just got even tougher.
The Florida Board of Education has approved new rules that will make life harder for LGBTQ people and allies.
One of the rules requires schools to post on their websites and notify parents by mail if they allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
In a statement, Equality Florida’s Senior Political Director Joe Saunders called this policy an “attempt to bully and intimidate school districts that are providing these accommodations.”
“The Board of Education’s facilities separation rule does not and cannot prevent transgender students from accessing facilities aligned with their gender identity — we know Federal law and the constitution protect these rights,” Saunders said.
“Florida school districts have been following federal law for more than a decade, establishing policies we know will continue to work long after this politically-motivated proposed rule…[Gov.] Ron DeSantis’ war on transgender Floridians must end. All students deserve access to school facilities that are inclusive and safe.”
In the wake of the 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that outlawed anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace, President Joe Biden signed two executive orders that said federal agencies should “fully implement” the decision by applying the reasoning that anti-LGBTQ discrimination inherently involves sex discrimination. His order included the Department of Education, meaning it has become a violation of federal law for schools to discriminate against trans students.
But the new policy from the Board doesn’t direct schools not to follow the law. It just makes them have to jump through more hoops to do so and also potentially puts them in the crossfire of angry parents who won’t support inclusive policies.
The second new rule instituted by the Board of Education is in relation to the state’s Don’t Say Gay Law, which prevents teachers from mentioning LGBTQ people in elementary schools.
The rule takes the law a step further by directly punishing teachers who violate it. It says any K-3 teacher who is found to have taught their students about LGBTQ issues can have their licenses suspended or revoked.
According to Equality Florida, the rule contradicts a recent ruling on the Don’t Say Gay law that found violations are the responsibility of the school district and not individual teachers.
“The Board of Education’s move to target individual teachers’ jobs and licenses is another cruel attack from an administration that has spent months punching down at Florida’s LGBTQ youth and families,” Saunders said. “Qualified, effective teachers are fleeing the profession in Florida thanks to the constant politicization of their roles and discrediting of their characters by the DeSantis Administration.”
“Rather than help to clarify the Don’t Say LGBTQ laws scope, the Board of Education has taken this bigoted law to yet another extreme, threatening teachers if they dare to acknowledge LGBTQ families in the classroom. This escalation in deference to the far right agenda of the governor makes our schools less inclusive – and less safe.”
The chairman of the State Board of Education, Tom Grady, defended the rule, stating, “It’s parental notification. It’s not mandating what a particular bathroom looks like or doesn’t look like or who can use it. It’s about parental notification.”
As we’ve seen in Idaho and Florida, expect more public university systems in red states to start being tentative, worried, and self-censored when talking about reproductive rights. Cage Rivera/Rewire News Group illustration
Scottie's Playtime 