Twitter user Jeff The Leftist highlighted a clip of Sam from May of 2022 where he predicted that public opinion polling would show Republicans changing their stance on same sex marriage. He highlighted a recent Gallup Poll showing a 15 Percent drop in Republicans view of same-sex marriage as moral. https://twitter.com/Jef_The_Leftist/s…
Texas has banned diversity, equity, and inclusion offices at state-funded colleges and universities. The racial equity so many people fought so hard to gain is under attack! We have to ACT and demand MORE from our leaders! https://t.co/18LBTG6L53
#Republicans officially banned diversity offices in state colleges & universities. They are suppressing inclusivity in education & thrusting us towards ignorance & division. #Texas is a diverse state & every #Texan deserves equal opportunities. #txlegehttps://t.co/RuVTGFZBKd
— Senator Roland Gutierrez (@RolandForTexas) June 15, 2023
Next on the chopping block.. mandatory wheelchair ramps.
One of those “things,” DeSantis noted, would be going after diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. “For example, like the Civil Rights Division, our Civil Rights Division in Justice will do all discrimination,” DeSantis promised. Much of the DOJ Civil Rights Division’s recent work includes targeting hate crimes, discrimination in prison and employer abuses of immigrants
Bootsie sees “diversity inclusion” as a threat to his white heterosexual male, Christian dominance. He must have very low self esteem, a fragile sexual identity and feel inferior to race, gender, ethnic and religious identities that don’t mirror his own. Bootsie is an insecure little tyrant and I bet he’s 🤏
With the exception of Sarasota County, all of the counties mentioned above went for Biden in 2020. In Orange, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, Biden won by double digits. Miami-Dade went for Biden by eight points.
In a separate article, Florida Politics notes that DeSantis also vetoed funding for the arts and even playgrounds in blue counties. Yesterday DeSantis vetoed funding for repairs and maintenance of public broadcasting stations.
More than $3M in flooding fixes for South Florida's tri-county area gets drained away in budget vetoes
According to Walsh, a suicide prevention hotline is a “sexually explicit chat room.” His 24-post Twitter thread went viral overnight. Walsh has called the rainbow flag a “symbol of hate” and said that he’d rather be dead that have a trans child. Earlier this year he called for executing doctors who treat trans children.
You have to be a soulless bastard to attack a suicide prevention organization. These ghouls are actively working to ensure LGBTQ people die.
— Alejandra Caraballo 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇵🇷 (@Esqueer_) June 16, 2023
They're also attacking a homeless shelter for LGBTQ youth. I previously worked with some clients from Ali Forney. The kids that go there literally have nothing. They're disowned and made homeless by bigoted families. This is beyond despicable to go after them. pic.twitter.com/n71o8DGTs0
— Alejandra Caraballo 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇵🇷 (@Esqueer_) June 16, 2023
Elagabalus2 days ago They make LGBT children’s lives miserable by indoctrinating their parents to hate them, and then when their parents throw them out of the house these monsters complain that there’s someone there to help them. It doesn’t get more evil than that.
As I said last year… If you’re starting with the premise that Donald Trump is a completely innocent, billionaire, ex-President then you have to ask yourself, where are all the lawyers? pic.twitter.com/rw0uSw51Qe
Mention DeSantis’s wife, Casey, her cancer diagnosis and his military service.
Never before has a presidential effort invested in doors in the way the DeSantis machine is doing. By Labor Day, Never Back Down aims to have about 2,600 trained canvassers in the 18 early nominating states, many with hotel rooms and rental cars, iPads and evolving scripts, not to mention a paycheck from working in a position that is now advertised on job boards as between $20 to $22 an hour.
“We want our army out in the field to be able to provide a concierge type of service,” the group’s chief operating officer Kristin Davison said. “There are people that don’t make it through the school. We are not going to graduate someone who is not up to the standards of what we want at the doors.”
Sounds kinda groom-y. Just don’t try shoving an agenda down my throat.
How government rules for classified papers could help Trump delay his trial
Graymail, ‘Goldilocks rule’ and silent witnesses could help the former president put off case until after 2024 election
The law created a series of pretrial steps that must be taken to decide exactly what classified information will be used in court, and how. Lawyers who have worked such cases view the law as a time-consuming and difficult set of procedures that can be extremely beneficial to any defendant seeking to delay a trial.
OH THIS IS GOOD!!
A Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers lawsuit against a local newspaper just backfired spectacularly, exposing DAMNING 2020 election emails between top state officials and the Trump administration.
OH THIS IS GOOD!! A Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers lawsuit against a local newspaper just backfired spectacularly, exposing DAMNING 2020 election emails between top state officials and the Trump administration.
State Senator Dan Laughlins defamation lawsuit against “The Erie Reader” opened him up to discovery, and ended up revealing a series of emails pertaining to Trump’s pressure campaign on Pennsylvania Republicans to illegally overthrow the election in 2020.
High level communications between far-right gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, and member of Trump legal team Christina Cobb, is part of the information that’s been released. In those emails, Mastriano expressed his concern that Trump’s proposal to overturn the election was “illegal.”
The emails also detail how Trump PERSONALLY called Mastriano and pressured him to overturn the election, and even furnished false documents about Dominion Voting Systems “rigging the election against Biden” in an effort to do so.
“We’re not saying a word on this crap,” Laughlin said in an email after he got word of the plan, worried about his own parties attempt to unlawfully overturn the election. It seems like the emails implicate Trump in yet another crime. Unreal.
Fine appeared on JMG in May 2022 when he tweeted what many interpreted as a threat to assassinate President Biden. Before that, Fine appeared on JMG when he called for felony charges after Florida Democrats staged a sit-in over the racist US House map submitted by DeSantis. And before that, he appeared here when he threatened to defund a Florida Special Olympics event and called a local school board member a “whore” because she’d been invited its fundraiser gala and he was not. Fine was a sponsor of the bill that stripped Disney’s self-governing status. His family owns annual passes to the “woke” theme park giant. He recently arranged for a Florida town to honor a war criminal who was convicted of executing four Iraqi prisoners. He last appeared here in April 2023, when he declared, “Damn right, we ought to erase” LGBTQs.
Fine is also a sponsor of Florida’s bill criminalizing drag shows in view of minors. Of note, his wife runs a self-described “sultry” burlesque show that would violate her husband’s law.
.@RonDeSantis vetoed $2M for @BrevardZoo because one of his political allies, the insufferable @VoteRandyFine, urged him to do so b/c the Zoo wouldn't let Fine campaign there.
While defending his bill in Florida that would ban drag and pride events, @VoteRandyFine said that "if it means erasing a community, because [LGBTQ people] have to target children, then damn right we outta do it."
— Alejandra Caraballo 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇵🇷 (@Esqueer_) April 12, 2023
Vindictive DeSantis vetoes $2M for Brevard Zoo after henchman & rabid racist Randy Fine's rift with the zoo came in the wake of a controversy involving Fine renting zoo event space after zoo hours for a political fundraising event #DeSantisIsAMadFascisthttps://t.co/FLq3a3ciPH
— Lesley Abravanel 🪩 (@lesleyabravanel) June 16, 2023
A zoo, Black History event and university funding: Ron DeSantis under fire after vetoing local funding because lawmakers didn’t endorse him https://t.co/vsNAy4XpJx
While the haters loudly call on companies to remain “neutral” in the “culture wars” (rather than acknowledge the existence and equality of LGBTQ+ individuals, and of many kinds of healthy relationships and families).
Republicans in several states have made it legal to run over people blocking the road. https://t.co/hr1aovIXd1
Jay Silversmith2 days ago We got it, xtians. You’ve been appointed by god to judge everyone. Everyone is going to hell but you. You’ll all fly up into the sky. Now go the fuck away.
One thing that Worf mentioned once, Klingons do not have gods. They did, but they were so troublesome that they killed them. Kahless is just a sort of warrior Buddha, a real person who lived with honor that they try to live up to.
I like that.
Obama preached Personal responsibility all the time.
Black unemployment was cut in HALF under Barack Obama from 16.6 March 2010 to 7.5%
He took a mess the GOP left him and cleaned that shit up.
“I called them out because the Pride movement is not about rights for gay people anymore, that’s been totally determined for a very long time. Every single American has equal rights.
A common statement from the religious side of this issue goes something like this “stop shoving your gay agenda down our throats”. In the same breath, they go on to say, “You don’t see us shoving our religion down your throat”. Well then… Have you ever had a homosexual knock on your door (usually around dinner time) asking if you have found Elton John? Have homosexuals ever passed laws that make the government print “In Homosexuality We Trust” on your money? When was the last time homosexuals passed laws that rewrote the Pledge of Allegiance to say, “One Homosexual Nation”? Have homosexuals erected a monument with Marc Jacobs’ top 10 fashion rules at your local courthouse? Have any homosexual groups spent millions trying to pass laws to outlaw marriage between a woman and a man? Have homosexual activists worked to pass laws limiting birth control, abortion, etc? Did a homosexual ever prevent you from buying liquor or a car on Sunday? Is there a book promoting homosexuality in almost every hotel room in the country? Have homosexuals pushed for laws to make the missionary position illegal? Have homosexuals tried to pass a law allowing them to legally refuse service to Christians? Right, they have never shoved their religious agenda down our collective throats.
For the last two weeks, Starbucks workers have taken to social media to report that the company is no longer allowing Pride decorations in-store. This seems to be the first year the publicly "pro-LGBTQ+" company has taken this kind of stance.
— Starbucks Workers United (@SBWorkersUnited) June 13, 2023
Taking a cue from Target, who bowed to anti-LGBTQ+ pressure and removed pride merchandise, corporate and district management are taking down the pride decorations that have become an annual tradition in stores.
— Starbucks Workers United (@SBWorkersUnited) June 13, 2023
In union stores, where Starbucks claims they are unable to make “unilateral changes” without bargaining, the company took down Pride decorations and flags anyway – ignoring their own anti-union talking point.
— Starbucks Workers United (@SBWorkersUnited) June 13, 2023
The march of the rabid right terrorists continues, threatening corporations and businesses with everything up to and including potential violence unless they capitulate. Sickening.
I am going to Pride this year (I haven’t always) and will encourage everyone to get out in the damn streets. I am hearing sooooo much of this insidious “but not in front of the children” far-right / Russian / Nazi propaganda, wnich was tired nearly 50 years ago when Anita Bryant called her organization SAVE THE CHILDREN”. In my generation the number of self-identified queer people was 2% – for Gen Z, it’s 20% – we need to be counted!
Sarah Bonner, a teacher at Heyworth Middle School in Illinois, held a “book tasting” for her students. During the tasting, she offered students a variety of books to choose from, including “This Book Is Gay” by Juno Dawson. The book is a nonfiction guide to LGBTQ+ identities and experiences.
Some parents of Bonner’s students were upset that she had offered the book, and they filed a police report against her, alleging child endangerment. The police investigated the report, but they ultimately decided not to press charges.
Bonner has defended her decision to offer the book, saying that she wanted to provide her students with a diverse range of reading material. She has also said that she believes that “This Book Is Gay” is an important book for young people to read, as it can help them to understand and celebrate their own identities.
Conservative pundit Matt Walsh reacted to this news story, and said that “…according to this groomer teacher the only way to treat the quote unquote LGBT Community equally is to sexualize and groom children.”
Sam hosts independent journalist Erin Reed to discuss the recent spate of anti-trans bills working their way through state legislatures across the country. Then they’re joined by Joshua Landis, head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, to discuss Syria’s recent re-introduction into the Arab League. First, Sam runs through updates on the Florida grand jury Trump case, Mark Meadows’ testimony against Trump, the continuing environmental emergency in the American northeast, right-wingers leaving behind their gas stove schtick, Tucker’s Twitter show, and US-Ukraine intelligence on the Nord Stream fiasco, also diving into the absurdity of economists sticking with their decades-old unemployment lies. Erin Reed then dives right into assessing the state of the right-wing’s attack on trans people nationwide, exploring how they got the entire GOP on board despite the topic’s electoral failures, and why Florida is a good case study for the fundamentalist dystopia they want to create. Wrapping up, Erin tackles the similarities we see between transphobic healthcare legislation and abortion TRAP laws, discusses the fight between progressive and fundamentalist states over border rights and trans care, and why parental rights might wind up saving trans lives in court.
I posted this last year when it first came out. I want to repost it. The message at the end is so vital and important to what is happening today. If you are not willing to listen to Beau and you should, he relates the tale that 30 years ago he was dating a girl who it turned out her father was a die hard racist bigot. The girl was mortified by this. The point that Beau makes at the end of the story is that just as the people who protested and railed against the mixing of the blacks and whites back then are thought of as weird stupid bigots the people doing this to the LGBTQ+ people today will be thought of in the same way. Of course Beau is more generous than I am, if these bigots manage to make the US the Christian nationalist theocracy they want then no one will be free to look back badly on them, look at Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia among other religious countries that are ruled by church doctrines instead of secular laws acknowledging advancements in understanding of all things since their holy books were written. Hugs
This is what qualifies as the Republican congressperson these days. Someone who proudly uses slurs against minorities for laughs and preens over it. She is like a kid who was unliked until she attacked a kid who also was unliked a bit more than her. She is smug and happy, not realizing her new friends will abandon her as soon as she is not useful for hitting down at others. These people on the right today don’t even pretend to like civility, decency, being nice or kind to others. Everything they demand for themselves, they delight in denying for everyone else. Thugs and childish bullies are now members of congress. Plus she is always pushing her Christian religious views along with her ignorance of biology and hate for sex education in schools. She had to leave school because she was pregnant as a young teen and her teen son also impregnated a young teen, now we find out she is getting a divorce along with all the members of her family being heavy drinkers. Very good Christians? No she is entitled white trash that got a golden ticket by using her body and hateful attacks on minorities. Hugs
She paused and smiled, appearing proud of herself for using a slur in front of such a large group of people.
Lauren Boebert says LGBTQ+ people are “degenerates” in calling for North Face boycott
She is upset about a drag queen’s wholesome Instagram video announcing a Pride event for The North Face.
“Bud Light – or tr***y fluid…” The crowd laughed as she paused, smiling and appearing proud of herself for using a slur in front of a large group of people. “They have lost $27 billion in revenue because you took a stand.”
Her claim that Bud Light lost $27 billion in revenue due to their sponsorship of a 50-second Instagram video by trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney is wrong in multiple ways. First, she is referring to Anheuser-Bucsh’s market value, not revenue earned specifically by Bud Light. Bud Light is owned by Anheuser-Busch, which owns many popular beer brands in the U.S.
Second, the reason for the drop in market value can’t be pinned on the video with Dylan Mulvaney; there are many forces affecting the company’s market value and no reason to ignore all of them except for the Instagram video. Even the timing is off; the market value of Anheuser-Busch started dropping in mid-May, a month and a half after rightwingers started boycotting Bud Light because of the April 1 video.
screenshot/ycharts
People on Twitter mocked her.
Sad that someone who votes on legislation affecting corporations doesn't know the difference between revenue and market capitalization.
Yes @laurenboebert be proud of being a part of ruining a corporation. What could go wrong? Less taxes for the States. Possibly a rise in unemployment. Less revenue for the government which causes our debt to rise. Increase the division in our country. So keep on laughing.
I find unbelievable that in 2023 there are people who still use derogatory terms like that. They aren't making fun of opponent politicians or supporters, they are laughing to an entire community of US citizen fellows who is fighting for equal rights.
Here is a guy pushing hate but too cowardly to be upfront about it. He prefers to be sneaky and do the right wing gaslighting. He calls the pride flags divisive, but who are the ones making them that way? Not the LGBTQ+, the fundamentalist religious right wing conservatives are the ones drumming up the hate and anger. He is doing what the right always does, blame the victim of their hate and abuse. Just like a domestic abuser often blames the victim by saying “look at what you made me do”, he blames the flags that I just posted a group made little boys stomp on! Hugs
“We’ve flown the pride flag for two years, and the world didn’t end,” one local official said.
Orange County, California has banned the Pride flag from being flown outside of any county offices or on county government properties. The banning follows a recent increase in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in the county.
In a meeting last Tuesday, the county’s Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to ban the flag. Republican supervisor Andrew Do requested the ban, Q Voice News reported, citing his desire to stop any “divisive” flags from potentially creating community disruptions at future board meetings.
Florida town defiantly flies Pride Flag after mayor warns against it
The town gave in to the mayor’s request last year, but this year they chose a new path.
Democrat Doug Chaffee voted in support of the ban along with Republican Donald Wagner. The board’s two other Democratic members, Vicente Sarmiento and Katrina Foley, voted against the ban.
Do’s resolution only allows the flying of the Orange County, state, and federal flags, as well as a flag for U.S. military soldiers who are prisoners of war and missing in action (POW-MIA). He said he supports the LGBTQ+ community, pointing to his efforts to help transgender people get vaccinated against COVID-19 and his hiring of a gay man to the county’s top public health leadership role, Voice of OC reported.
Do said his proposal wasn’t motivated by opposition to any specific social issue. However, Wagner disagreed, noting that Do issued his proposal at the beginning of Pride Month.
“It is not a coincidence that this policy is in front of us right now,” Wagner said. “It is not a coincidence that we’re considering it today for the first time in the more than 100 years of this County’s existence. We’re considering it today, in response to the divisive effort to fly one particular flag. So yes, there absolutely is a connection.”
Foley asked Do if his proposal would ban a recent sheriff’s flying of a police appreciation flag, one that doesn’t fall under Do’s list of pre-approved flags. Do responded, “You’re free to ask, and I’m free to ignore you.”
Foley said, “By taking the stance today of banning the Pride flag, which is what this is tantamount to, at all of our county buildings, our county board offices, other than in our internal offices, our parks, our airport, our harbors, our beaches, it sends the wrong message to America and to the world.”
In February, the conservative-led city council of Huntington Beach (13 miles southwest of Orange County) voted 4-3 to ban Pride flags from flying outside of its City Hall. Supporters of the policy said it was necessary to stop future battles over which group’s flags are allowed and which ones aren’t.
Councilmember Dan Kalmick denounced the vote, saying, “It’s of course a ban on the city flying the Pride flag. Call it what it is… We’ve flown the pride flag for two years, and the world didn’t end.” The city previously flew the flag for six weeks during Pride Month.
Huntington Beach resident Gretchen Dawson told the council that the ban “sends a signal that we’re not safe here,” adding, “Safety is the biggest reason why we fly the Pride flag … by taking it away – not flying it – you are communicating to me that we don’t deserve safety.”
Frank Rodriguez, who called himself an executive member of the anti-LGBTQ+ group Gays Against Groomers, said the Pride flag doesn’t represent him. He destroyed one while making his public comment to the council.
Again, it is driven by fundamentalist religious people and their demand to have everyone live by their church / religious doctrines. The right claims that social acceptance and tolerance of people who are different from them, the LGBTQ+, is indoctrination. But teaching kids to stomp on a symbol of another group, teaching kids to yell insults to kids different from them, teaching kids to hate is somehow not indoctrination but good parenting to these bigots. Being kind and respectful of a kid’s feelings and respecting their desire to be addressed by a preferred name or pronouns is abuse, but including your kids in a violent shouting hate shouting when they might be either soon feeling or are feeling that they are different is again good parenting. These people want to close off young minds and deny young people the right to develop into more than clones of their parents. The pro-LGBTQ+ supporters showed up in great numbers and that is what we need in the US also.
One last point. These people scream leave our kids alone, but they are the ones attacking other peoples children. These peopel demand the right to not only teach hate to their children but to also they demand the right to teach that same hate to every other child regardless of those kids parents wishes. They demand parental rights not only for their children but yours as well, removing your parental rights over your own child. Leave our kids alone should be the slogan of the LGBTQ+ parents. These haters are terrorizing the LGBTQ+ kids and their teacher supporters in the schools, yet they claim others are indoctrinating or grooming kids. Hugs
Protests against “gender ideology” in Canada’s capital city Friday brought far-right conservative Christians and Muslims together to attack Ottawa’s local school board for supporting LGBTQ+ students.
The unusual alliance was met by an equal or greater number of counter-protesters defending the rights of LGBTQ+ kids and denouncing “transphobic, fascist ideology.”
A new directive by the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board inspired the demonstration, organized by notorious far-right Canadian provocateur Chris Elston, aka Billboard Chris.
The all-staff notice advised the use of they/them pronouns for students until their preferred pronouns were expressed.
Video from the demonstration shows Muslim women and others encouraging young children to stomp and dance on progress Pride flags strewn on the ground and clapping with joy.
The clip shows an older white man holding a large Canadian flag leaning down to shake one kid’s hand in solidarity.
“Right on, boys!” he declares, beaming.
"LEAVE OUR KIDS ALONE" – Muslims and Christians unite on the streets of Ottawa, trampling the Gender Ideology Flag. This is a turning point. Let kids be kids. pic.twitter.com/ATvXfzMPao
Shouts of “Leave our kids alone!” were heard up and down the street where the protest took place, home to two high schools and a primary school.
“This is going to horrify Justin Trudeau,” posted Keean Bexte, with the far-right media site The Counter Signal. “All of these proponents of childhood mastectomies and penectomies are officially on notice. The minority communities that have propped up your governments have finally had enough.”
It is very rare for transmasculine teens to get mastectomies before the age of 18 and genital surgery is not performed on trans minors.
Police announced they made five arrests at the demonstration, without providing details. Scattered acts of violence were reported.
While a heat wave, fires, and smoke have enveloped the region since the beginning of June, Bexte laid recent high absentee rates at Ottawa schools at the feet of the school board and their nonbinary naming advisory, claiming parents were pulling their kids out in “silent protest” of Pride Month.
Hundreds showed up to counter the right-wing alliance.
The counter-protest “fills my heart,” said Emily Quail, an organizer and mom of a child at one of the nearby schools.
“The only way to correctly counter fascism is by showing up like this on the street and telling them we outnumber them,” she told The Canadian Press.
“We will not let them spread their transphobic, fascist ideology anywhere, here or anywhere else, and that starts with community strength and that’s what I’m really proud to see today.”
The Ottawa area school board condemned Elston for planning the protest in front of schools.
“It really raises doubts about a group that, I think it goes without saying, but it’s a group that is literally targeting children,” said Alex Silas, a school district official.
In 2020, Elston, a Vancouver insurance agent, paid for a billboard declaring, “I ❤️ JK Rowling”, and then wore the message on a sandwich board at protests after it was denounced as “hateful expression” and taken down.
The hate is rising. There was a series of kids books I read as a child called The Dark is Rising, with each book having an individual title. The story is basically a good vs bad story built loosely around the King Arthur Merlin myths. I see that same evil hate that the book showed rising doing so today. But the evil devil that the good beings are fighting is the rising hate and threats of violence by the religious conservative right against the LGBTQ+ in the hope of bring back a dictatorship of a strict society based on their church doctrines.
One note on the story. He says he got punched in the back and the face. The story says that the video shows he got hit by his bullhorn where the cut is. But it is possible someone hit or pushed the bullhorn hard enough to cut the skin and feel like being punched. Hugs
Joel Harden said, “I’ll take a punch for queer and trans youth any day.”
On Friday, a protest and counter-demonstration on a leafy street in Ottawa — normally home to students making their way to and from three schools in the area — was instead the site of hateful rhetoric and violence in the Canadian capital.
A local MP became the face of the melee, when he was “rabbit-punched” at the protest — he said he’d do it all over again to keep trans and queer kids safe.
“I’ll take a punch for queer and trans youth any day,” said Joel Harden, a member of Ontario’s provincial Parliament with the New Democratic Party (NDP).
The demonstration was organized by far-right Canadian provocateur Billboard Chris to protest a local school board advising staff to use they/them pronouns for students who had yet to share their personal pronouns.
Muslim parents joined a mostly White crowd denouncing the advisory notice. Some were seen encouraging their kids to violently stomp on progress Pride flags littering the street.
Harden, elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario five years ago, has been a longtime advocate for LGBTQ+ issues, and attended the counter-protest in solidarity with LGBTQ+ youth and their parents.
The MPP recounted that during the protest, he noticed a woman berating another individual, with her hands in the person’s hair. He says he rushed over to break up the altercation.
“I felt a punch in the back and then a rabbit-punch to the face,” Harden recalled for Yahoo Canada. “It happened in a split-second.”
Photos of Harden reveal a cut below his right eye.
Video on social media shows the megaphone Harden was holding striking his face (where the cut now appears).
The day before the protest, the legislator warned in a speech to members of Parliament of the threat to queer and trans youth as the country celebrates Pride Month.
“As incidents of hate against the 2SLGBTQIA are rising, we have a message for queer and trans youth in #OttawaCentre and everywhere in this province,” Harden posted to Twitter afterward. “We see you, love you, value you, and we will not continue to let you be threatened by hate or bigotry.”
As incidents of hate against the 2SLGBTQIA are rising, we have a message for queer and trans youth in #OttawaCentre and everywhere in this province:
Harden says the far-right is weaponizing social media, calling it a “vitriolic cesspool,” and manipulating parents’ instincts to protect their kids in order to further conservatives’ own anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.
“I am a father. What measures I wouldn’t go to in an effort to protect my own children? But what this movement is doing is convincing individuals that to protect your children, you have to hate trans and queer people,” he says.
Those supporting the rights of LGBTQ+ youth “are not your enemy,” he adds.
“History and present day has taught me that there are some of us who are willing to put the work in to de-program hatred, and I’m down for that,” said Harden. “If people want to come to my office and throw rotten tomatoes at me, come over.”
Fellow lawmakers and constituents alike expressed solidarity with Harden.
“My local MPP @JoelHardenONDP just got punched in the face at a counter rally, during an anti-trans protest,” posted Kathryn LeBlanc. “Queer and trans people are sounding the alarm on rising hate. It’s time to come together, mobilize, and build solidarity on this issue.”
While conservative Muslims joined far-right Canadians in protest, Sikh pol and federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh had Harden’s back.
“I’m proud of you @JoelHardenONDP,” posted Singh. “Queer and Trans people — and kids — are being targeted by angry and hateful extremists. Governments must step up to protect the queer and trans community.”
Rep. Lauren BoebertPhoto: Screenshot
Photo: Shutterstock
Photo: Screenshot Twitter
Ontario MP Joel HardenPhoto: Screenshot Twitter
