As you read this story I want you to keep in mind several points. He lied about why he was running for the board and what he wanted to focus on. He tried to sound normal by saying he wanted to focus on generic sounds good school policy stuff. His priorities were to ensure proper education that helps everyone succeed, improve safety and mental health for students and teachers, and address budgetary concerns. As soon as he got elected the rabid Christian pushing his god and his hate for other came rushing out. I thought good Christians did not lie.
Also notice that he wants to beat kids (spank, paddle, strap, you know corporal punishment. Seems he got it as a kid and liked it) even without their parents’ permission. He or anyone else ever used corporate punishment on my kids (hit my kids) they better start gathering up guns fast, because I am coming to see them, and I will be angry!
He thinks disabled kids get away with too much and have it too good. He really means mentally / emotionally disabled kids get away with too much and have it too easy, so keep them home or even though he doesn’t say it we are back to the hit them hard and often, tie them to the desk shit. I suspect he hates the accommodations for kids with physical disabilities who need accommodations like ramps and other changes.
He also thinks gay kids get away with too much and because there is not a policy of blocking out time that the straight kids get to beat up the gay kids, he wants Christian stickers with saved zone on them for places where the Christian kids can gather and force religion on everyone else. He seems to think that is what a rainbow safe place sticker does, provide classrooms where the gay can be forced on all the kids, and maybe that trans stuff being pushed also. Time to get the Christian symbols up in the schools because the gays have special rights not to be assaulted, can’t have that. God first with mandatory prayer. (Maybe he doesn’t think kids will be praying just before they get hit with a heavy paddle for being kids not robots) He intends to go through all the history books because he claims they have revisionist history in them like that this was not a Christian nation and slavery was a bad thing. Going to make sure the kids are taught the truth, god himself set up the US as a Christian nation for Christians only, slavery was not that bad and good for those people, and that kids are taught good republican civics so they can go out and vote republican like god and the founding fathers intended. See he is going to fix that woke liberal indoctrination. Notice he wants / demands respect for authority. Sounds like he is saying you will do as your told and like it, think only republican thoughts, do only straight heterosexual stuff.
The last point I want to make is this asshole wants to block any public health measures including / especially vaccines. He was in the Air Force and that vaccine shit is against freedom. Seems his mind is going on him because in the military you have to take a lot of vaccines and you don’t get a choice, because it is so you can be deployed to places that have really bad shit to make you sick. So he wants to allow every anti-vaccine person to be allowed to send their sick kids to school to make everyone else sick, and that is called freedom in his mind.
Get the point on what is happening here in Florida. Three of these people that believe as he does got elected, this guy pushed out a person who was a teacher for 30 years. They were all backed by the same big money Christian group / network for the express purpose to drive the country regressively back to the 1950s and worse. Total hard right wing Christian propaganda in the schools with zero tolerance for LGBTQ+ or disabled students. We need a lot of people to get upset with what is happening here as the intent is to spread it from Florida and Texas, pushing it all over the country. DeathSantis is going to try to use this type of stuff to become president which means every other republican with ambition is going to go ever more hard core on these issues. Oh and the Qanon darling Gen. Flynn who was working behind the scenes for Russia as trumps National security advisor addressed the candidate’s supporters. Dogs that love gravy, our kids in schools are in a world of hurt and so are we. Hugs
Newly elected Collier County school board member Jerry Rutherford wants to bring corporal punishment back to district classrooms, he said the morning after Tuesday’s election.
He added that disabled students’ behavior in particular is “out of control.”
Additionally, he said he’d like to see fewer “rights” for LGBTQ students — or the same extended to religious students who want to practice religion in school.
Jory Westberry, who lost her school board seat to Rutherford, said his views on corporal punishment, LGBTQ students and religion in schools would “put something so pervasively wrong in schools.”
Florida allows corporal punishment in public schools as long as the district allows it.
“First of all,” she said, “if (Florida) allows corporal punishment, Collier County does not.”
“Second, students with handicaps are entitled to a free public education without retribution because of their behavior. That’s why we have behavior specialists who work with students, parents and teachers to enable them to have a more effective, productive experience in school,” Westberry said.
Westberry was one of several who spoke out against Rutherford’s priorities.
Rutherford won the District 1 seat away from longtime teacher, administrator and school board member Westberry in the 2022 election with a strong 65.4% of the vote to Westberry’s 34.6%.
After speaking on myriad issues at school board meetings countless times for more than 35 years, Rutherford told the Naples Daily News in July he decided he didn’t want to be on the outside looking in anymore, so he joined the school board race.
This was his first time running for any elected position, he said.
Rutherford was endorsed by the Collier County Republican Executive Committee, which endorsed all three challengers to the school board. All of them won their races.
As a devout Christian, he’s fought to distribute Bibles in schools and to institute prayer at school board meetings. He has also protested Naples’s LGBTQ Pride festival, specifically speaking out against drag shows.
A veteran of the Air Force, Rutherford has worked in sales and construction and owned a painting business in the Naples area for more than 20 years. He also served as a substitute teacher in the district for three years.
Florida Citizens Alliance, a conservative education nonprofit headquartered on Marco Island, congratulated Rutherford, as well as the two other challengers Wednesday via email.
“This win of all three seats is a tremendous victory for the 48,000 kids in Collier schools, their parents, and grandparents, as it now gives a clear conservative majority over a previous left-leaning school board,” Florida Citizens Alliance marketing manager Moise Stael Dantes wrote. “The delivery of quality academics while maintaining the principle of liberty can now become real.”
The ‘board of education’
Rutherford’s stated positions changed dramatically before and after his election.
In July, he told the Naples Daily News his priorities were to ensure proper education that helps everyone succeed, improve safety and mental health for students and teachers, and address budgetary concerns.
But Wednesday morning, reached by phone, Rutherford said he has a five-point agenda he’d like to implement, including “mental and physical discipline,” or physical punishment of children in Collier’s public schools.
“I only went to the principal’s office one time when I was in school and that was when they used the ‘board of education,’ if you get what I’m saying,” Rutherford said.
Rutherford added that disabled students are not in control and get away with too much. He read an article by a California teacher that said he left teaching because his disabled students were swearing and otherwise misbehaving, and he couldn’t hold them accountable.
According to a 2021 analysis by the Education Commission of the States, which tracks education policies, Florida is one of at least 18 states that allows corporal punishment in public schools as long as the district allows it. According to the National Association of State Boards of Education, Florida does not require parental permission, only written parental notification after the fact.
Currently, Collier County prohibits corporal punishment. According to school board policy 5630, “the use of corporal punishment, defined in Florida statute as the use of physical force or physical contact for disciplinary purposes, is prohibited.”
Furthermore, Florida Statute 1003.573 states that disabled students can only be physically restrained if there is an imminent risk of serious injury or death to the student or others and only once all positive behavioral strategies have been exhausted.
Jackie Stephens, CEO of the Children’s Advocacy Center in Collier County, said she is “alarmed” to hear a school board member wants to bring back corporal punishment to the classroom.
“It can be detrimental to the children,” Stephens said. “There’s no studies that really indicate that spanking is beneficial. It can actually lead to worse behavior and aggression.”
Stephens said many countries have outlawed the spanking of children, even by their own parents. In the United States, many organizations have registered as a “No Hit Zone,” which means they do not condone hitting of any kind.
“There’s a lot of places that are becoming no hit zones, like the Children’s Advocacy Center and hospitals. I think at school would be a good place not to hit children.”
Rutherford’s agenda also focuses on “respect,” he said. “There needs to be respect for ourselves, for others, and for authority.”
In that vein, he said he believed people are being indoctrinated into supporting LGBTQ rights, and “when it comes to indoctrination, I will not put up with that,” he said.
Rutherford added that some legislators had passed bills he believes extends the rights of LGBTQ people beyond normal rights.
“I’m all for equal rights, but I’m not for special rights,” he said.
For example, he said, an LGBTQ student group in Collier County gave teachers a sticker to put on their doors with a rainbow that says “safe zone.” One teacher, he said, refused to put it up.
He did not elaborate further on what rights LGBTQ people have that others do not.
According to The Safe Zone Project, which gives trainings that allow people to learn about LGBTQ identities as well as examine prejudices and biases, the words “safe zone” typically communicate that the person is an ally of the LGBTQ community, has gone through a Safe Zone training, or is trying to communicate support.
“I don’t have a problem with that, but it should extend to sectarians,” Rutherford said.
“If you’re going to have a secular symbol, you have to give a religious one,” he said. “What if we gave teachers a sticker with a cross that said ‘saved zone?’ We have religious rights, and we have personal rights.”
GLSEN, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting LGBTQ students through policy writing and advocacy, said elected leaders and elected school leaders have a responsibility to protect all young people, including LGBTQ youth.
“Queer students in Florida, especially those of color and those who are trans and nonbinary, are being cruelly targeted by extremists,” said GLSEN executive director Melanie Willingham-Jaggers. “They are facing a hostile climate amid curriculum censorship laws and have been repeatedly subject to political attacks. Florida’s students deserve so much better from the adult politicians who are supposed to support them. This kind of anti-LGBTQ+ fear mongering and misinformation from any school leader is unacceptable.”
“We are absolutely saddened by his agenda,” said Naples Pride president Cori Craciun. “LGBT kids’ rights have been taken away by the Parental Rights Bill, and the Florida Medical Board, which banned (gender-affirming) care for transgender minors. … The ‘safe zones’ are there to protect these children. They are often the only place these children know there is a supportive adult they can reach out to.”
Religion in public schools
Federal law on Bibles in public schools is derived from 1963 Supreme Court case Abingdon v. Schempp, which draws a distinction between devotional reading and the objective study of religion.
In short, while religious texts like the Bible are allowed in public schools for the purpose of studying, what is not allowed is devotion or reading from the Bible as religious practice.
Rutherford added he wants to see “textbooks that are free from bias, censorship and rewritten history,” as well as “morals and ethics in school.”
He said he planned to review all new textbooks and would flag anything he saw as dubious or biased. He did not specify what he considered to qualify as biased or rewritten history.
Rutherford was also eager to see a civics class reinstated in the curriculum, where students would study the Constitution and the Bill of Rights per Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recent policy.
But Rutherford said he felt the government has gone too far in other ways, such as by forcing students and teachers to wear a mask in 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and by requiring military personnel to get vaccinated against the virus that has killed more than 1 million people across the U.S.
As a former airman, he expressed frustration by that.
“They’re saying no (to the vaccine), and they’re getting thrown out for that,” he said.
He noted that while Collier Public Schools required masking early in the pandemic, Mason Classical Academy, a local charter school, did not, which he believes better exemplified respect for students’ rights. Collier should follow Mason’s example, he said.
Education reporter Nikki Ross contributed to this article. Kate Cimini is an investigative journalist covering Florida. Share your story at (239) 207-9369 or kcimini@gannett.com.
A video showing Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker referring to America as “the greatest country in the United States” has gone viral following an election rally on Thursday. Walker, who is running in Georgia’s Senate runoff election on December 6, spoke at an event, along with Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz, as the state prepares for another round of campaigning. Walker, who has been endorsed by Trump, spoke to supporters on Thursday in Canton, Georgia.
I find it truly appalling that people can look at Walker and say “I want that man to represent me in the Senate!” Ya got some real low standards there Georgia!
Marriage really is a social contract between people and accepted by society as conveying certain benefits and rules. This is why same sex marriage is so important. This article shows another way that the laws give a benefit to straight people that is denied to gay people when there is no same sex marriage right. Now I am glad that Ukraine is ready and wants same sex marriage rights and will do that after the war. But you know that the anti gay factions will fight it hard. Right now the way around this issue is to let the people in the military (or even the general public) designate / assign several people that can claim their bodies regardless of relationship. It is a shame that a fake marriage has to be created to simply make sure that your body gets a proper burial. The anti-same sex marriage people like to claim that same sex marriage degrades the idea of marriage, but forcing people into a fake marriage simply to have the same rights that straight people do also degrades the ideals of marriage. Ron and I made our commitment to each other on Oct 12th 1990. We were sure we were the ones we wanted to spend our entire lives with. And we have with our love growing stronger every day. But we were always denied the legal benefits of marriage that even people getting married for a short time got. In 2014 I was no longer able to work and because my health insurance was through our employer, I no longer had medical coverage. I couldn’t be covered under Ron’s insurance because the company we both had worked for only allowed married people to be covered under a worker’s medical insurance. In January 2015 when same sex marriage became legal in Florida we were the first same sex couple in our county to get married. That allowed me to be on Ron’s insurance. The marriage did not change our love nor our time together, but it opened up over 1,100 legal benefits to us. That is why the right to marriage matters. Hugs
A Ukraine soldier ( Getty Images)
A woman in Ukraine has said she plans to marry her gay soldier friend so someone can “claim him if he dies” while fighting in the war.
In the latest horrifying news from the war in Ukraine, Kyiv resident Leda Kosmachevskaya told the i newspaper that since same-sex marriage is illegal in the country, her friend would not have anybody to “retrieve his body or bury him” if he were to die at war.
The friend, who remained anonymous, has a partner, but due to the law, the army does not recognize his boyfriend as next of kin.
“His great fear was that nobody would be able to retrieve his body or bury him,” Kosmachevskaya, 33, told the i.
“He could be buried as an unknown person, or considered missing.”
Kosmachevskaya explained she had known the friend since childhood, but that the call asking her to marry him came completely out of the blue.
She spoke to her own partner, and accepted after hearing her soldier friend had been told he would be deployed to a dangerous area on the front line.
Two men sitting on a bunk bed in an LGBTQ+ shelter in Ukraine. (Provided)
Kosmachevskaya explained that the pair discussed his wishes, including organ donation and burial details, but hopefully, he will return safely from the war and they will get a divorce.
“I would be happy not to get into this arrangement,” she told the newspaper. “But this is the only way to help my friend.”
In July, a petition calling for the legalization of marriage equality in Ukraine gained more than 28,000 signatures, passing the 25,000 threshold required for it to be considered by the president.
In August, Zelensky formally responded, noting that the constitution could not be changed during war time or in a state of emergency.
According to Reuters, in an official decree, he said: “I asked prime minister [Denys] Shmyhal to address the issue raised in the electronic petition and to inform me of relevant decisions.”
LGBTQ+ rights activists have asked for civil partnerships to be considered in the meantime, as in cases such as Kosmachevskaya’s, the bodies of LGBTQ+ soldiers cannot be collected by partners unless they are married.
She added to the i: “I hope this situation will help to resolve this issue [of same-sex marriage].
“I know there are many other people who are afraid to talk about this and keep silent because of negative comments.”
In a 2019 survey, 69 per cent of Ukrainians asked said “no” to the question: “Should society accept homosexuality?”
Ron came to me in desperate shape in 2017 — he was politically dead, losing in a landslide to a very good Agriculture Commissioner, Adam Putnam, who was loaded up with cash and great poll numbers.
Ron had low approval, bad polls, and no money, but he said that if I would Endorse him, he could win. I didn’t know Adam so I said, ‘Let’s give it a shot, Ron.’ When I Endorsed him, it was as though, to use a bad term, a nuclear weapon went off.
Years later, they were the exact words that Adam Putnam used in describing Ron’s Endorsement. He said, ‘I went from having it made, with no competition, to immediately getting absolutely clobbered after your Endorsement.’
I then got Ron by the ‘Star’ of the Democrat Party, Andrew Gillum (who was later revealed to be a ‘Crack Head’), by having two massive Rallies with tens of thousands of people at each one. I also fixed his campaign, which had completely fallen apart.
I was all in for Ron, and he beat Gillum, but after the Race, when votes were being stolen by the corrupt Election process in Broward County, and Ron was going down ten thousand votes a day, along with now-Senator Rick Scott, I sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys, and the ballot theft immediately ended, just prior to them running out of the votes necessary to win. I stopped his Election from being stolen.
And now, Ron DeSanctimonious is playing games! The Fake News asks him if he’s going to run if President Trump runs, and he says, “I’m only focused on the Governor’s race, I’m not looking into the future.” Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer.
Am I losing my mind? Is this not a gigantic deal? He's either casually admitting to using federal agents to interfere in a state election or lying about it for some equally inexplicable reason, right? Am I reading this wrong or is this a five-alarmer for the DOJ?
You're not nuts at all, but I think the odds are pretty strongly that it's a lie. OR he tried to do this and was stopped from doing it. But definitely DEMANDS some immediate further inquiry.
Like, how does the DOJ not follow up on this? Even if it's the likely scenario — him just making stuff up — where was the grain of truth here? Did he TRY this and somebody told him they did it and just shooed him back to the TV? Where is he getting this from?
He’s not leaving his MAGA base and his MAGA base aren’t leaving him, but they may end up burning down the GOP on the way out….and taking their votes with them. Meaning, fracturing the conservative vote and giving the Democrats a big gift.
He’s terrified DeSantis will replace him as the GOP darling, and he has every reason to be. Expect him to downgrade him as often as possible. Trump knows now he’s on his way out.
To be very clear if this article doesn’t make it clear to you, the right is not interested in “protecting” children, they don’t really think that talking about LGBTQ+ sexualizes children, they don’t mind sexualizing children, but they are demanding to indoctrinate the kids, all kids, into believing that only heterosexual orientation / sexuality exists and teaching hating the gays / trans. That is what this entire “don’t say gay” thing is about! About spreading hate and making kids think that only heterosexual ways exist, that only opposite sex marriage is real, only way to date is boy / girl, that all families must be mommy / daddy. it is total indoctrination to make the 1950s come alive again. Plus they want to stoke hatred against the gay and trans people including kids at school. They want the bullying and they want the gay / trans kids picked on and made to be scared and in fear for being who they are. But as this guy who is big in the anti-LGBTQ+ movement says, it is great to take kids to Hooters to see what he calls the great view, in other words to see big breasts / titties. He wants to have boys reading sex magazines showing nude women. He seems to think that people have a choice about their sexual attraction / orientation and wants to make sure all the kids choose straight which he thinks is the correct choice. WTF! Do you see how this entire protect the kids / don’t sexualize kids and let them be children, is a cover for what they really want, they hate gays and want them punished and erased from society. That is the point over don’t let teachers talk about or defend kids from same sex families and forbidding pride stickers / flags and removing all LGBTQ+ materials from libraries. It is about the idea that if kids don’t see or hear that being gay is normal and same sex families are normal then the kids will be straight or pretend to be so they can fit in and have families. Plus for some reason this guy thinks all straight people are republicans and all gay people are democrats. Hugs
“If more members of Gen Z had been brought to Hooters as children, I can GUARANTEE we would have had a red wave last night.”
MAGA author Nick Adams – who was complaining about drag queens and teachers discussing LGBTQ people earlier this year as part of the larger groomer panic – is now advocating parents take minor children to Hooters.
“If more members of Gen Z had been brought to Hooters as children, I can GUARANTEE we would have had a red wave last night,” Adams – né Nicholas Adamopoulos – tweeted earlier this week about the restaurant chain known for its young female waitresses who don’t wear much clothing.
If more members of Gen Z had been brought to Hooters as children, I can GUARANTEE we would have had a red wave last night.
Adams is the Australian author of several volumes of far-right pulp including The Most DANGEROUS President in History (about President Joe Biden), Trump and Churchill: Defenders of Western Civilization, and Retaking America: Crushing Political Correctness. He claims to be Donald Trump’s favorite author.
He calls himself an “alpha male” in his Twitter handle and his account is often mistaken for a parody of the far right, but his fans know that he’s on their side.
Yesterday’s was only one of many of his tweets advocating taking minors to Hooters.
“I am sick and tired of beta males and feminists trying to guilt alpha males out of eating at Hooters,” he wrote earlier this week. “There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with eating at Hooters on a weekly basis, EVEN with the family and kids.”
I am sick and tired of beta males and feminists trying to guilt alpha males out of eating at Hooters.
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with eating at Hooters on a weekly basis, EVEN with the family and kids.
“99% of the people who pass judgment about Hooters and parents who take their children to Hooters have never actually been to a Hooters,” he wrote yesterday.
“People who demonize parents who take their kids to Hooters are pathetic,” he also tweeted yesterday. “I feel sorry for their children.”
People who demonize parents who take their kids to Hooters are pathetic.
Adams really loves Hooters and it appears to be more of a lifestyle choice for him than a restaurant with chicken wings. In a video this week, he called it a “family restaurant”
“Hooters is fantastic,” he shouted at his camera, wearing an untucked short-sleeve shirt while standing in front of a framed picture of himself. “The view is good, the food is good, the drinks are good.”
“Alpha males have a history replete with visits to Hooters,” he claimed. Hooters opened in 1983. “If you haven’t been to Hooters, it makes it all that bit more difficult for you to claim alpha male status.”
While Adams advocates taking children to the sexually-charged environment at Hooters, he doesn’t think that teachers should be mentioning LGBTQ people to students in school, lest kids learn that there are different kinds of families. In April – at the height of groomer panic where conservatives were complaining about books like And Tango Makes Three (about a penguin with two penguin-dads) being available in schools – Adams decried kindergarten teachers who he claimed wanted to “discuss sexuality” in school and called them child molesters.
“Any adult that needs to discuss sexuality with a kindergartner is a predator, not a teacher,” he wrote.
Any adult that needs to discuss sexuality with a kindergartner is a predator, not a teacher.
— Nick Adams (Alpha Male) (@NickAdamsinUSA) April 15, 2022
In July, he said that only a “bad parent” would allow their kids to see a drag queen.
If you are okay with your young child being exposed to sex toys and drag queens, you're a bad parent.
— Nick Adams (Alpha Male) (@NickAdamsinUSA) July 23, 2022
That same month, he appeared to advocate giving pornography to underage boys, even though federal law prohibits the distribution of pornography to minors.
— Nick Adams (Alpha Male) (@NickAdamsinUSA) July 14, 2022
Trans YouTuber Natalie Wynn pithily summed up Adams’ latest tweets: “Heterosexuals openly admit they have to groom children to perpetuate their lifestyle.”
Heterosexuals openly admit they have to groom children to perpetuate their lifestyle pic.twitter.com/2diIPde4Qg
