Lynchburg, Virginia USA – April 14, 2023 – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaking at Liberty University on April 14, 2023.Photo: Shutterstock
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently sent a message to his followers comparing LGBTQ+-inclusive elementary school teachers to Hamas fighters who have gunned down and kidnapped Israeli civilians.
“I have seen the Left’s indoctrination dangerously worsen in the last couple of decades — from student organizations praising Hamas at Ivy Leagues to elementary school teachers pushing radical gender ideology down the throats of first graders,” DeSantis’ message said, according to Florida Politics.
Don’t Say Gay laws and “parents rights” groups are all part of a plan to completely defund public education.
On October 7, Hamas members gunned down Jewish settlers, worshippers, and attendees of an electronic music festival; launched rocket attacks; and took women and children hostage. Their attacks have ignited a long-simmering military conflict with Israel as the neighboring countries battle over control of the region.
DeSantis has claimed that some pro-Palestinian U.S. student groups, like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), are “pro-Hamas” and want a “second Holocaust.” While Hamas is an Islamist militant movement and one of the Palestinian territories’ two major political parties, supporters of Palestine don’t automatically support Hamas or its actions. Nevertheless, DeSantis has ordered his state’s universities to disband SJP groups, threatening to persecute and cut government funding to them otherwise.
DeSantis is equating support for Hamas with elementary school teachers who support LGBTQ+-inclusive student policies (or “radical gender ideology,” as DeSantis calls it), such as allowing trans students to use names, pronouns, and bathrooms matching their gender identities.
Palestine Legal, a group that provides legal support for pro-Palestinian groups, says that DeSantis’ ban on SJP groups is part of his larger effort to restrict freedom of speech on campuses.
“Florida, particularly under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, has been actively undermining education, freedom of speech, and social justice movements, including by banning anti-racist courses and trying to criminalize protests. It is not surprising that this egregious move to silence the student movement for Palestinian rights is being pursued under DeSantis,” it said Wednesday in a statement, according to WJTV. “If it goes unchallenged, no one’s political beliefs will be safe from government suppression.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Transgender Law Center have filed a federal lawsuit against a Tennessee law that requires HIV-positive sex workers to register for life as a “violent sex offender.”
The aforementioned advocacy organizations filed the lawsuit on behalf of the state LGBTQ+ advocacy groups OUTMemphis and four “Jane Doe” plaintiffs who were convicted under the law. The plaintiffs, which include a transgender woman, allege that they have faced discrimination and life struggles because of their violent sex offender status. These struggles have forced the trans woman to continue doing sex work, since finding a job can be difficult for someone on the registry.
Another plaintiff said that they were sent back to jail after violating the registry’s requirements. The plaintiffs allege that the law violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by handing harsher punishments to people with HIV, a chronic disease covered by the ADA’s anti-discrimination statutes. Tennessee is the only state with this law, according to the Edge Media Network.
“This statute solely targets people because of their HIV status and keeps them in cycles of poverty while posing absolutely zero benefit to public health and safety,” said Molly Quinn, executive director of OUTMemphis. “HIV stigma is becoming a thing of the past, and it’s time for state law to catch up.”
The lawsuit lists Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN), Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch, and Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada as defendants.
While sex work is a misdemeanor crime in Tennessee, the HIV criminalization law turns the crime into a felony. An estimated 83 Tennesseeans are currently in the registry because of it. Tennessee legislators passed the law in 1991 near the height of the AIDS epidemic when over 100,000 Americans had died from the illness, and scientists were still trying to find effective medical treatments against it.
In 2021, Illinois, New Jersey, and Virginia repealed their felony HIV criminalization laws. However, in 2022, Pennsylvania signed a law making it a felony to pass on a communicable disease when they “should have known” that they had it — the law included HIV.
As of 2022, 35 states have laws that criminalize HIV exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Many of the laws were passed at a time when little was known about HIV and millions were dying from the virus.
Medical professionals have said that HIV criminalization laws do nothing to stop the spread of the virus and may even encourage people not to get tested for fear that the knowledge could subject them to criminal penalties.
“Many of these state laws criminalize actions that cannot transmit HIV – such as biting or spitting – and apply regardless of actual transmission, or intent,” the CDC wrote. “After more than 40 years of HIV research and significant biomedical advancements to treat and prevent HIV transmission, many state laws are now outdated and do not reflect our current understanding of HIV.”
A 2018 Williams Institute study on HIV criminalization in Georgia found that “Black men and Black women were more likely to be arrested for HIV-related offenses than their white counterparts.” While 26% of HIV-related arrests were of white males, 46% of HIV-related arrests were of Black males. Additionally, 11 % of those arrested were white females, while 16% were Black females.
For those that don’t know, I dropped my TYT membership this summer. I found that Anna’s hard right turn and Cenk’s hate for Biden along with trying to destroy the Democratic Party became too much to take. But on this he is correct. Plus I love how David, who is the rational national, presents the facts in the video. Hugs. Scottie
Cenk Uygur, founder and host of The Young Turks, joined Piers Morgan for a lively and educated discussion on the conflict.
Ron is still struggling with his leg. I told the pharmacy I would get my narcotics tomorrow instead of today, yes it is an issue in this state. More on that another time but I live in a state where right wing Christian part-time legislator bigots think they know more than pain doctors and pharmacist with training in the drugs and experience in the medical field. Their view is people in pain just need Jesus and to dedicate their lives to him rather than pain medications. I have over done today due to Ron still hobbling on his twisted knee.
After he got up from a three hour nap Ron made a beef burrito in spicy red sauce and several baked potatoes along with a thick red sauce gravy for them. Yes, I helped him, but the creation and the spices are all to his credit. Now I offered to help put it way, but he said he wanted to do it. Funny thing, each of us could only eat one burrito and one potato. Ron gave me two and himself two and I asked him to take one back, and after we ate he admitted he wished he had only taken one also. He had to put his second one back in the pan.
It is only 5 Pm but I am so tired I would go to bed now and be happy. But I have not played Halo in a few days. I am trying to decide if going to the work of pulling out the TV on that very heavy bracket and playing an hour or two would be better than just going to bed. Silly question. Halo won that debate without even trying. I will try to play. If I don’t work out, I will go to bed. I was up most of last night. So I really am tired out after all I did today.
Justice Clarence Thomas borrowed more than a quarter of a million dollars from a wealthy friend to buy a 40-foot luxury RV, did not repay it, and had the loan forgiven.
Can’t wait for all the “students should pay their loans” conservatives to condemn him. https://t.co/jFx3rGspCt
Almost all Democratic politicians are defying 80% of their base who support a ceasefire in Gaza, but several lawmakers in particular who purport to be “progressive” have sparked backlash over their inflammatory comments in support of Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza. In particular, Ritchie Torres and John Fetterman responded to criticism from progressives who’ve condemned their bloodthirsty takes. Their responses, predictably, were atrocious. In this video we’ll discuss the so-called “progressives” who continue to support Israel despite irrefutable evidence of war crimes they’ve committed in Gaza.
Oh my dogs that love gravy, this post set me off. But before we get to that, I have been on and off on the computer today. Ron is still hobbling yet went out and put the new night pole light. So I have been doing the inside stuff, but yesterday our new outside solar pole lamp top arrived. Now, we had agreed he would paint the pole before attaching the new light. But today, after sitting in his chair as I was doing dishes, he disappeared for a while. Then informed me that the new lamp post light was on the pole. WTF!!!! I don’t know. But when I asked him about painting the pole, he said that could be done at any time. So I guess we have to see what happens next.
So now I am helping Ron make supper. But in the post below, the dad and the host seem to think that the daughter’s sexual awakening was a choice, which we know it is not, and that somehow it was forced on her. Notice that he says that the LGBTQ+ people want to “infest our children” WTF! Just how is such a belief possible? Hugs. Scottie
The Christian dad said that the “lesbian cult” took his daughter so he rejected her. But now some members of his family won’t talk to him.
Conservative BlazeTV host Steve Deace recently applauded a viewer for refusing to accept his lesbian daughter, saying that LGBTQ+ people want to “infest our children” and it’s important for parents to “maintain their conviction.”
Deace’s reaction came in response to a letter from a viewer named David Biddle, who said he is a fundamentalist Southern Baptist and a “culture warrior.”
He said his daughter “loved the Lord” and was his “world” and “sidekick” until her sophomore year of college, when she “got grabbed by the lesbian cult.”
“We naturally had the emotions of anger and heartbrokenness,” Biddle said, adding that he tried to convince her to change for the next year but that “she kept insisting it was her choice to do this and she just likes this better.”
He continued, “Within a year of her conversion, she was ‘engaged’ [to a girl]” and “she became militant towards us for not embracing her choices.” He explained that she said if they didn’t accept her, she would cut them out of her life.
“She basically demanded we deny our faith,” Biddle said. “That was demonic words coming from her mouth.” He asserted his belief that “affirmation is not love; it is condemnation” and said, “The most unloving thing I could do as a father was to pave her path to eternal damnation.”
He said he hasn’t spoken to his daughter in two years and that some of his extended family won’t speak to him and his wife for what they have done.
Biddle ended by praising Deace’s show for continuing to spread anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. “Keep sounding the alarm of the evil demonic forces that are capturing our kids and all of society,” he said.
Deace’s response was to encourage parents like Biddle to “maintain their conviction.”
“This is not as uncommon of a story as we would wish, unfortunately,” he said, adding that “a lot of our institutions have a lot of conviction to infest our children,” as if LGBTQ+ people are insects or rodents that need to be exterminated.
“If they have come to the point that they can penetrate the bubble of families, even like the one that David articulated here, understand that this thing has metastasized deeply into our culture, and the only way out is through,” Deace said. “I’d urge everybody in our audience to pray for David and families like him, to maintain their conviction, and that the lord would reward that in this life or the next.”
Lynchburg, Virginia USA – April 14, 2023 – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaking at Liberty University on April 14, 2023.Photo: Shutterstock
HIV criminalization lawsPhoto: Shutterstock
Photo: Screenshot
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