Of course the wannabe king of Florida thinks he doesn’t have to follow the laws or the courts. Republicans just feel they are above laws or court rulings they don’t like or want to obey. Most of the time the Republicans get away with it, look at tRump. Hugs
This was at a church for dogs that love gravy. But no dissent will be tolerated from the maga thug rule. The Christian Taliban has spoken, and head priest DeathSantis says no men wearing dresses except priests. Please note that these thugs did manage to get the event canceled as the church and the promoters were scared, worried about violence to the people coming to see it, the performers, and the kids. The harm was not the show, but what these thugs would do to the people at the show. Complete lawlessness. And all these police that can smash down black peoples doors, arrest little old ladies for a $77 dollar trash bill wouldn’t provide safe access and coverage for the event. So what do these thugs shut down next? A Muslim event? A political event from the party they don’t support? So far they have shut down school board meets and got their way on changing how things are done in schools. No masks, no LGBTQI+ acceptance programs, so what next limiting girls to only certain grades? Or shutting down Buddhist temples? Hey that is the way we do government now, attack anyone who disagrees, lash out and demean others. The republican party has shown the way with trump, Christ Christy, DeathSantis, and the entire Marge Greene congressional crew. In one of the clips a Proud Boy protester demands to know what bible are they reading at (from). Also for people claiming the moral high road they love to shout the word fuck over their bullhorns on public streets. I don’t get upset over swearing but I bet the parents driving / walking by with their children were not too happy about it. Think of this Nazi shit marching down your sidewalk in front of your home and going to attack … well you name the establishment that Nazi’s love to attack and destroy Hugs
An Ohio school says an internal dispute over security prompted a last-minute cancellation of a weekend children’s storytelling event featuring performers in drag amid a planned protest by a far-right group.
The Red Oak Community School’s “Holi-Drag Storytime” event was to have been held Saturday morning at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, where the school is based. The Ohio Chapter of the Proud Boys last month announced plans to attend and protest the event.
About 50 to 70 members of the Proud Boys and other groups had gathered on the sidewalk on roads leading to the church, shouting, chanting and holding signs.
Previously, the Columbus and Central Ohio LGBTQ+ Leadership Roundtable, a group that consists of Stonewall Columbus, Kaleidoscope Youth Center, HRC Columbus, Equitas Health and LoveBoldly, requested that the community not show up to counterprotest the Proud Boys at the Holi-Drag event.
“This situation is potentially volatile and dangerous, and the safety of the children, families, performers and our community are of paramount importance,” the Leadership Roundtable said in a statement. “Our actions must be in service to their protection.”
See the final video below for today’s message from the event’s organizers. Give the tweets below a minute to fully load.
Patriot Front has just arrived outside the cancelled drag storytime event in Columbus, Ohio pic.twitter.com/0Ew4Yn6NoX
Several armed individuals show up at the protest across from the church. They did not say any specific group affiliation, Columbus Police came over to speak with them briefly and request safe firearm handling pic.twitter.com/BEZqCutn0F
A planned Holi-Drag Storytime event has been cancelled in Ohio after the Columbus Proud Boys announced plans to protest this Saturday morning. Fencing blocking off the parking lot and cancellation notices have been put up outside the venue at First Unitarian Universalist Church pic.twitter.com/0a4uXYlyQe
Interactions between a few counter-protesters and the Proud Boys outside the church. Organizers of the drag storytime had requested people not counter-protest the Proud Boys, and only a handful of people showed up outside the church to do so throughout the morning pic.twitter.com/gNkUdFW7EL
If you go to the linked article you will see that the lawyer for DeathSantis told the judge
Asked what “woke” means more generally, Newman said “it would be the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”
Newman added that DeSantis doesn’t believe there are systemic injustices in the U.S.
Of course he doesn’t. He thinks things are great, especially for people like him which is white powerful Christian straight cis male. No problems right. The fact that he is making that very injustice for blacks, the LGBTQI+, and other minorities. This is the man who wants to be president, and yet he claims that the government must ban and attack the idea that there are systemic injustices? I guess that must be what they mean by American exceptionalism? The right want to indoctrinate the young people of today with the idea that the US is perfect as it is, has never made mistakes, and must never be changed by what other countries do. Stop looking at the benefits and better life of the public in other advanced countries, remember the US, where profit is king, is #1 and the best. Hugs
What does “woke” mean? During the three-day trial this week challenging Gov. Ron DeSantis’ suspension of Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren, attorneys for Warren were able to put that question to aides for DeSantis.
Taryn Fenske, DeSantis’ Communications Director said “woke” was a “slang term for activism, progressive activism” and a general belief in systemic injustices in the country. Ryan Newman, DeSantis’ General Counsel, echoed the part about systemic injustices, specifically regarding the criminal justice system.
Asked what “woke” means more generally, Newman said “it would be the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”
Read the full article. In speeches, DeSantis often refers to Florida as “the place where woke goes to die.”
In Andrew Warren suspension trial, @GovRonDeSantis officials answer: What does ‘woke’ mean?
In speeches, DeSantis often refers to Florida as “the place where woke goes to die.”
No, it’s where old bigots like my parents and my aunts and uncles and their friends go to die. A “woke” like me will never die there since I have no intention of ever setting foot there again.
A Texas man has been federally charged after allegedly harassing and making death threats against a Boston doctor who treats members of the transgender community, including trans youth.
Matthew Jordan Lindner, 38, of Comfort, Texas, was arrested Friday and charged with one count of transmitting interstate threats, according to the U.S. District Attorney’s Office. Lindner appeared in the Western District of Texas Friday afternoon and will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.
Prosecutors say that in August, inaccurate information about procedures at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) for the transgender community was spreading online. According to the charging documents, on Aug. 31, Lindner called the Boston-based National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center and left a threatening voicemail targeting one of the center’s affiliated doctors.
According to its website, the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center provides “educational programs, resources and consultation to health care organizations with the goal of optimizing quality, cost-effective health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and all sexual and gender minority (LGBTQIA+) people.” The education center is part of Fenway Health and the Fenway Institute, which are among the world’s largest health centers focused on LGBTQIA+ communities.
Investigators say the targeted doctor cares for gender-nonconforming children and transgender patients.
In Linder’s expletive-packed voicemail, officials say he allegedly threatened, “You’re all gonna burn. There’s a group of people on their way to handle [the doctor]. You signed your own warrant, [doctor].”
Prosecutors also say Linder accused the doctor of “castrating our children” and said, “You’ve woken up enough people. And upset enough of us. And you signed your own ticket.”
If convicted, Lindner faces a sentence of up to five years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.
“Death threats instill fear and terror in their targeted audiences,” U.S. Attorney Rachael S. Rollins said in a news release. “The conduct alleged here is not protected free speech. The words used here do not amount to someone simply expressing their discontent or engaging in a heated debate. Mr. Lindner’s alleged conduct — a death threat — is based on falsehoods and amounts to an act of workplace violence. The victim, a doctor caring for gender nonconforming and transgendered patients, should be able to engage in this meaningful and necessary work without fear of physical harm or death.”
In August, Rollins announced the creation of the “End Hate Now” hotline (1-83-END-H8-NOW or 1-833-634-8669) for reporting hate-based incidents or potential criminal activity. Callers can report incidents of hate, hate crimes, or individuals believed to be supporting acts of hate-based violent extremism. Callers can remain anonymous.
A second Indiana judge on Friday blocked the state from enforcing its law banning most abortions after Jewish, Muslim and other non-Christian women challenged it in a lawsuit.
Marion County Superior Court Judge Heather Welch issued a preliminary injunction against the Republican-backed law, which prohibits abortions with limited exceptions for rape, incest, lethal fetal abnormalities or a serious health risk to the mother. The plaintiffs have argued that the measure infringes on religious freedom protected by another state law.
The law had already been on hold, as another judge in September blocked Indiana from enforcing it while Planned Parenthood and other healthcare providers challenge it in court.
Indiana became the first state to pass a new law banning abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized the procedure nationwide. Other Republican-led states quickly began enforcing older bans.
Welch issued her injunction after a group called Hoosier Jews for Choice and five individual women challenged the abortion law under Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU said the plaintiffs represented religions including Judaism and Islam as well as “independent spiritual belief systems.”
“The Court finds that S.E.A. 1 substantially burdens the religious exercise of the Plaintiffs,” Welch wrote, using the formal name of the law, in granting the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction while the challenge to its legality proceeds.
“Although some religions believe that human life begins at conception, this is not an opinion shared by all religions or all religious people,” the ACLU said in a statement.
Seriously is anyone surprised at this news. This is what the don’t say gay and the anti-trans rhetoric are all about. The guy who wrote and pushed the don’t say gay bill said the reason he wrote it was he couldn’t stand that gay kids were coming out in school and accepted by the other students. He wanted them targeted and bullied to stop other kids from coming out. He said that! It is the goal. Oh and yes he claims he is a deeply religious Christian. It is the Russia model of removing the LGBTQI+ from society / the public. These red states have now removed any anti-bullying programs or campaigns based on it would violate parents’ rights according to these laws to teach their children that being gay of trans is an abomination to their god and so they need to be beaten / removed to make god happy. Think of it, kids who get told that gays are molesting kids they are going to beat up and pick on gay kids and right now teachers cannot stop it in places in Florida. This is the end result the maga religious right thugs love, the right to force others to live as they demand, do what they demand, they are the US Christian Taliban. Hugs
There has been a marked increase in parents demanding limits to LGBTQ+ students’ rights that may have spilled over to bullying in schools.
Nearly half of the public high school principals who participated in a new nationally representative survey say they faced efforts from parents or the broader community to “challenge or limit LGBTQ+ students’ rights” during the 2021–2022 school year. The new study’s results suggest that adult efforts to limit LGBTQ+ students’ rights has led to increased bullying of LGBTQ+ students in schools.
During the summer of 2022, the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA and the Civic Engagement Research Group at UC Riverside surveyed 682 public high school principals and found that culture war issues have their jobs increasingly difficult.
As NPR reports, policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ students’ rights were among the topics that 69 percent of those surveyed said led to “substantial political conflict” with parents or members of their communities.
Researchers found that principals in narrowly divided purple districts were almost twice as likely as those in more conservative or liberal areas to say they faced multiple efforts to limit LGBTQ students’ rights.
A similar 2018 survey found that 15 percent of principals indicated multiple attacks on LGBTQ students. That percentage rose to 24 percent across all schools in the 2022 survey, with the number more than tripling in purple districts.
The 2022 survey also indicated that adult efforts to limit LGBTQ students’ rights paralleled an increase in students harassing LGBTQ classmates.
“It’s quite disheartening to work so hard and care for all our students when so many people are being hateful and threatening,” said one California principal, who reported an incident in which a parent screamed an anti-gay slur at a school counselor over the phone.
Other issues that caused significant conflict, according to 69 percent of the principals surveyed, include teaching issues around race and racism, social-emotional learning, and student access to books in school libraries. They also reported that rampant misinformation is making it harder to teach many subjects, particularly current events and media literacy.
Despite their grim findings, John Rogers, a professor of education at UCLA who helped lead the survey, and collaborator Joseph Kahne, a professor of education at UC Riverside, said that many principals believe that a majority of parents do not support the conflicts raging in public schools.
Rogers told NPR that principals believe that most parents stay silent, however, “because they’re too busy or overwhelmed or are afraid that if they become engaged, they’re going to face danger.”
“If the vast majority of folks are quiet, then folks who have very strong opinions or who are willing to engage in very contentious politics will have an outsized influence,” Kahne said. “If all parents and community members speak up, and if they have reasoned and focused conversations, that dialogue will be good for schools.”
The schools use to be the place to combat prejudice, bigotry, and hate. But now the teachers are told they cannot support the attacked kids, they cannot affirm anything positive about gay or trans kids. Meanwhile this is what the right wing parents are hearing all day on right wing media and the kids are being told. Wonder why a right wing kid would think trans kids are trying to attack them in the bathrooms? Wonder why right wing kids think all gays are child molesters?
A giant WTF! Seriously what the religious right thinks is going on in schools is so Qanon over the top it is hard to take them seriously, except they are managing to use their fantasies to wipe the LGBTQI+ out of the schools and society. Kids / students need sexual education that not only covers the body parts, but also healthy ways to take care of those parts, ways to avoid pregnancy and STDs which includes proper use of condoms, and also the social aspects of sexuality such as how to date, porn is unrealistic, consent, and more. Yes that includes what happens when aroused to the sexual areas. It also includes teaching the concept of no shaming for those who have different kinks. That doesn’t mean giving full on demonstrations. What the hell do these school board members think is happening, the kids getting a porn hub four day pass? Dogs that love gravy these religious right are so repressed it is scary. Any kid with a phone and an interest in these kinks already understand how it works, they just need to know how to be safe, what is dangerous, and to understand boundaries. The teachers seem to think it is just a way to outrage the public to erase any mention or acceptance of gays, trans, and the rest of the LGBTQI+. Hugs
School board meetings have become the theater of the absurd.
A Virginia school board has been at the center of the nationwide controversy over including LGBTQ students in the curriculum. Now, the debate – and the school board’s response – has become theater of the absurd.
After Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) rode the frenzy to ban books, fire teachers, and muzzle students all the way to the top and muscled through new laws, the board has come up with a policy that covers “sexually explicit content.”
While religious right activists and politicians have made outrageous claims about students identifying as cats and using litter boxes, the school board took it a step further – in the dog direction. They expressly forbade educators from teaching students how to eat poop.
The new policy also forbids teaching about sadomasochism, bestiality, or pee play. Because while educators are worried about ensuring educational access for LGBTQ students, that’s what the religious right thinks they are being taught in schools.
Loudoun’s policy defines sexually explicit content as “descriptions, pictures, photographs, drawings, films or other visual representations” of “sexual bestiality, a lewd exhibition of nudity … sexual excitement, sexual conduct or sadomasochistic abuse … coprophilia, urophilia, or fetishism.”
So no learning about latex or leather either.
Loudoun will publish “a current list of instructional materials with sexually explicit content intended to be used in classroom instruction, by grade and subject on the LCPS public website.”
One would think that would be an incredibly short list, but the policy “is a guise of using parental notification to erase LGBTQ students,” middle school teacher Andrea Weiskopf told the Washington Post. “This is allowing individual parents to individualize a curriculum for their own worldview.”
Death threats against teachers and school board members over fears of pro-trans policies and “critical race theory” in schools compelled U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to ask the FBI and U.S. attorney’s offices to meet with federal and local law enforcement to “discuss strategies for addressing…the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.”
In response, Youngkin, then running for Virginia governor, claimed that “the FBI is trying to silence parents” and centered his campaign around parents who wish to shut down progressive policies in public schools.
Members of the board received death threats from conservatives before the recent election.
“It is too bad that your Mama is an ugly communist whore,” read one letter addressed to the child of school board member Brenda Sheridan. “If she doesn’t quit or resign before the end of the year, we will kill her, but first, we will kill you!”
The letter came after rightwing media reported a story where they claimed that a girl was sexually assaulted by a boy in a Loudoun County school restroom. They claimed that it was a result of the district’s policy on transgender students, even though the policy hadn’t even been passed at the time of the sexual assault and the assailant was a cisgender boy.
The politicians love the money that the LGBTQI+ represents but don’t want to be seen as treating us equally. I hate the idea that far too many people don’t understand what it is like to have your civil rights be voted on. Should we treat gay people as we treat everyone else, vote now bullshit. How about we change that to should we treat red haired people as we treat everyone else? It makes as much sense. Also the hate religious groups that raise most of their money from stoking fear and anger about marriage equality are seeing their source of income disappear, just like it did when they got their way with abortion and are fighting to the last second to fund raise off stopping the respect for marriage bill. I am not posting their rants at this point because every one of them is a money beg. But understand as the stigma decreases more people will feel free to live their lives openly as they really are. I decided to live openly when it was dangerous and costly to do so, I don’t want our country to go back to that, but Florida is. The kids growing up in Florida have suddenly been transported to the bigotry of the 1970s / 1980s and the republicans want to drive them all the way back to 1950. Hugs
Story at a glance
There were 1.2 million same-sex households in 2021, up from about 500,000 in 2008
The states with the highest number of same-sex households are Washington, D.C., Hawaii, Delaware, Oregon, California, Florida and New York
Congress is poised to pass legislation extending federal protection of the right to same-sex marriage
The number of same-sex households in the U.S. surpassed 1 million for the first time, according to new census data.
There were about 1.2 million same-sex households in 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau reported. About 710,000 of those households were married, while 500,000 were unmarried.
The percent of same-sex households included in the American household population as a whole increased to nearly 1 percent across the country.
Over the years, the number of same-sex households in the U.S. has steadily increased, with about 540,000 reported in 2008. And in 2019, the last year the Census reported data, there were about 980,000 same-sex households in the country.
The results are taken from the annual American Community Survey, a leading resource for detailed population and household estimates from the Census Bureau.
States with the highest number of same-sex households include Washington, D.C., Hawaii, Delaware, Oregon, California, Florida and New York, all of which include more than 1 percent of same-sex households in the total household population.
Washington, D.C., reported about 2.5 percent of its population as living in a same-sex household, while California has the most same-sex households at 163,964.
There were about 631,900 female same-sex households and 577,600 male same-sex households, while the average age for both was 46 years old.
A majority in the survey identified as white, while 12 percent identified as two or more races and 8 percent as Black.
The news comes as Congress is poised to protect the right to same-sex marriage for the first time.
The Senate passed a bipartisan bill this week codifying protections afforded in the 2015 Supreme Court ruling Obergefell v. Hodges, which some feared was in danger after the court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade this summer.
The Respect for Marriage Act now heads to the House, which the lower chamber is expected to pass next week to send the legislation to President Biden’s desk.
What the dogs that love gravy is going on in Florida. This Sheriff is saying kids are not being beaten enough and don’t fear adults hitting them enough these days. Last week I posted of the 80 year old elected to the school board that wanted more spankings / corporal punishment used on disabled kids. Is this the return to spare the rod spoil the child Christian way of teaching? Notice the school board went hard right in the last election. But notice the district has not written the policy yet and this new strict discipline was announced by law enforcement from a jail, not from the school system. Why does it take an emergency meeting to draft new policy? Does the school to prison pipeline need more slaves? Is the school about to be overrun with liberal students demanding their rights? Hugs
With Brevard Sheriff Wayne Ivey at his side, school board Chairman Matt Susin announced plans for a new school disciplinary policy outside the Brevard County Jail Monday. (Brevard County Sheriff’s Office)
Days after the Brevard County School Board ousted the superintendent, plans are underway for a new school disciplinary policy in Brevard Public Schools.
Flanked by Sheriff Wayne Ivey and State Attorney Phil Archer, School Board Chairman Matt Susin went on camera Monday in front of the Brevard County Jail in Sharpes to announce plans to impose the “most prolific school discipline policy this district has ever had,” Local 10 News partner WKMG in Orlando reports.
“It’s a new day,” Ivey repeatedly said throughout the announcement.
Susin did not say what this policy would include. He said he was calling an emergency meeting for next week to draft the policy with input from Archer’s office, Ivey, and the teachers and school staff unions.
Members of the media were not invited to ask questions about what the district plans to do.
The current student code of conduct was approved by the Brevard County School Board, including Susin himself, in February 2022.
Ivey said the new disciplinary policy was necessary because teachers and administration were handcuffed by the current student code of conduct from dealing with students.
“They know nothing is going to happen to them,” Ivey said. “They know they’re not going to be given after-school detention, they’re not going to be suspended, they’re not going to be expelled, or like in the old days, they’re not going to have the cheeks of their a– torn off for not doing right in class.”
Ivey said the school discipline situation is so bad that the district is losing teachers.
A representative from the union for school bus drivers and other school employees said staff members were being hurt by students.
“The instructional assistants that are in the classrooms are choked, they’re bitten, they’re scratched. It’s an everyday occurrence,” said Delores Varney with IUPAD Local 1010. “And they’re so discouraged because nothing is ever done with the students, or at least it appears there is nothing being done. If it is, it’s taking way too long to remove these bad students from the classrooms.”
According to the most recently released student discipline data from the Florida Department of Education, Brevard Public Schools reported few student expulsions in the 2020-2021 school year — fewer than 10. However, there were 2,518 in-school suspensions, 4,457 out-of-school suspensions, 435 students placed in an alternative educational setting and 139 students who were physically restrained.
News 6 in Orlando has asked why members of the media were not invited to the announcement Monday. We are also asking the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office why it spearheaded the announcement rather than the school board, and held it at the jail.
This is the latest major change since voters approved new school board members in August and November. Within weeks, the school board entered separation negotiations with Superintendent Mark Mullins, who had been an employee with Brevard Public Schools for nearly 30 years, saying the district needed new leadership.
Brevard Sheriff Wayne Ivey held press conference with new right-wing school board chair to call for more severe discipline of students, saying they need to fear “like in the old days” that they’re going to “have the cheeks of their ass torn off for not doing right in class.” pic.twitter.com/ld3ToG34mT
The Florida sheriff also says this new severe discipline policy will somehow make Brevard schools safer from active shooters, intruders and “clowns“ who disrupt classrooms. He also blames the shooting in Parkland on not having severe enough punishment protocols. #flapolpic.twitter.com/dJUAE1nCpS
No media questions were allowed at the press conference held outside a Florida jail. The school board chair says he'll call "an emergency meeting" next week to draft the new discipline policy with input from the sheriff, teachers and school staff unions. https://t.co/jQhAbrGRnj
I’m sure that beating kids is not the reason that school shootings are less common in Canada or Australia or other places where mass shootings are rare.
This is a case where ad hoc conclusions are manufactured to fit a political agenda, not based on science.
They truly believe prayer and beatings are needed to reduce gun violence because it has increased from the last 50 years or so, when guns were less available and then they blame the rise of libruhl politics, especially gay rights and feminism for the rise of incels andof unstable families.
The Recount’s Steve Morris compiled the reactions from multiple CNN correspondents and anchors covering the impending rail workers strike. The coverage focused almost entirely on how expensive it might be for consumers and businesses if the rail workers end up striking, how disruptive it’ll be for the economy, and how it could upend Christmas shopping just a month before the holidays.
Special session debating on banning abortion, in Indianapolis© Thomson Reuters
FILE PHOTO: Special session to debate banning abortion in Indianapolis© Thomson Reuters
Photo: Shutterstock
Photo: Shutterstock
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