Understand that these people complaining and trying to stop the Krampus celebration want to force Christianity on everyone. Their religion is OK to force on everyone. They are entitled to celebrate their holidays their way and you must let them, but only they are entitled and only their holiday is to be forced on everyone. Your holiday ideas, no way, it makes theirs less unique or less important. No other ideas or customs will be allowed, only their religious celebrations. How did the land of the free become so restrictive and backwards with such an entitled Christian mentality? Hugs
Local residents want the city of Tuscumbia to rescind an event permit given to organizers of the Pagan event
A man wearing a Krampus mask (Image via Xseon / Shutterstock)
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Asecular “Festival of Yule” in Tuscumbia, Alabama is on the verge of being canceled despite a Christian-friendly festival taking place a week later. Local officials have already announced that the public can make statements about their feelings about the Yule festival during a meeting on Monday, which could provide the pressure needed to put a stop to it.
For over a decade, Tuscumbia has hosted a Charles Dickens-themed celebration called “It’s A Dickens Christmas Y’all.” It involves horse-drawn carriages, pictures with Santa, and costumes that take you back to 19th Century England. There’s nothing wrong with any of that. It’s unique, local, and fun for the family. But make no mistake: It centers around a Christian holiday. This year’s event will take place on December 10.
Last year, Kendall Gilchrist, the owner of Hesperia Mystic Shoppe, decided to host a festival in nearby Florence, AL that celebrated something not based on Christianity. The first “Festival of Yule” showcased local businesses and let people take a picture with a 7.5-foot Krampus. It was enough of a hit that Gilchrist wanted to host it again this year.
This time around, though, because Florence had so many events taking place around the holidays, Gilchrist’s husband reached out to city officials in nearby Tuscumbia to see if the event could be hosted there, and there was enthusiastic approval. Gilchrist’s work partner even celebrated getting the permit with a picture alongside city leaders:
The Yule festival is scheduled for December 3. Krampus will return and attendees are encouraged to dress up:
Encouraging the public to get your cosplay on! I want to see Celtic, Vikings, gods, goddesses, Wizards, and any other mystical beings or things! Let’s get weird and have fun every first Saturday of [December]!
Just like the Dickens festival, it’s supposed to be a pleasant way to promote local stores while giving people a chance to dress up and have some fun.
Recently, however, some citizens began complaining on Facebook that this was all very Satanic and they criticized the city council for approving a “pagan festival.” The city reacted by issuing a public statement letting people know that their next meeting—a work session—would take place on Monday, November 21, and anyone who wanted to voice their opinions would have the opportunity to do so. The Alabama city specifically cited “Kendall Gilchrist’s Festival of Yule” as something people would be able to complain about.
There’s some reason to be worried. In private posts sent to me by a reader, Alabama residents are calling the Festival of Yule a “grave concern.” They hope to flood Monday’s meeting with supporters, hoping that the city will revoke the permit issued Gilchrist.
That, of course, would be illegal. Section 5-205 of the Tuscumbia City Code even says, “No permit shall be denied based solely on the applicant or content of protected speech scheduled to occur at a special event.” Simply put, there’s no reason to rescind the permit other than sheer bigotry or ignorance.
Gilchrist isn’t expecting that to happen. After all, city officials have been nothing but professional with her, and a lot of the concern stems from ignorance. People are confusing her festival with some overt promotion of Satanism. They don’t understand who Krampus was in folklore. Most importantly, Gilchrist told me, this festival isn’t meant to counter the Dickens event.
This is not an anti-Christian festival. It’s not exclusively Pagan. It’s for everyone. It’s not anti-anything… It’s an homage to the origins of Christmas.
Gilchrist added that she really just wants to promote small businesses and this is a great way to do it. She only found out about the conflict after some friends reached out to her. But she doesn’t believe city officials will cave no matter how many people show up on Monday demanding her festival be shut down.
Interestingly enough, there’s a picture online of one of the people complaining about her event in which the woman is wearing a witch’s hat in October. Why is that woman complaining about the Yule festival when she had no problem celebrating Halloween? There’s no real difference! Both events involve dressing up for fun and no one should be worried about underlying religious conflicts.
I hope Gilchrist is right that the backlash won’t go anywhere after Monday’s meeting. City officials need to recognize that complaints from Christians aren’t a good enough reason to ignore their own laws.
For anyone in the area, though, it wouldn’t hurt to have supporters of the Yule festival in attendance Monday night. The city council’s work session begins at 5:30p local time.
Damn, Damn, Damn it. This is beyond cruel, this is pure gloating that she and her hateful ilk are causing people to hurt and harm, kill gay and trans people to push their ignorant views of denying the right of others to exist. She did this after a person killed and injured people in a gay establishment where drag shows happened. This is not religious liberty, this is demanding a segment of the population stop existing and that it is OK to kill them. She knows she will suffer no consequence for her actions, her incitement of violence and killing. Musk loves her hate and bigotry as he is full of it himself. The republicans won’t do anything to stop her as she is activating their base something they like. This is why I push back on her and people that say things like her. Anytime you let the misinformation, lies, and hateful rhetoric pass unchallenged you are giving ammo to the domestic terrorists and those that target the minorities for harm based on that misinformation, lies, and hate mongering. Take the teeth out of people like elected republicans, Matt Walsh, and Libs of TikTok by not letting their garbage stand uncorrected. Hugs
Colorado Shooting vigil (Getty Images)
Anti-LGBTQ+ social media account Libs of TikTok attacked a Colorado kids drag organization just hours after the Colorado Springs shooting, in which five were people killed.
Following the devastating shooting on Saturday (19 November) Libs of TikTok, run by Chaya Raichik, attacked non-profit organisation, Dragutante.
Dragutante is a Colorado-based group created to provide a safe stage for aspiring drag performers aged eight to 18.
Posting on Twitter the account wrote: “This organization in Colorado teaches kids how to become drag queens and helps kids ‘safely experience the art of drag on stage.”
It then tagged Colorado state representatives Leslie Herod and Brianna Titone to claim they have “promoted and encouraged this child drag organization and performance”.
Owner of the account, Chaya Raichik, who has branded herself a “stochastic terrorist” in her Twitter bio, has since been slammed for the role she has played in stirring up hatred against the LGBTQ+ community in the months leading up to Colorado Springs shooting.
LGBTQ+ activist Erin Reed used Twitter to accuse Raichik of allegedly “gloating” about “instigating LGBTQ+ violence in the wake of the Colorado Springs mass shooting”.
Reed wrote: “She lists herself as a ‘stochastic terrorist’ in her bio” and pointed out that, when confronted about the role she plays in anti-LGBTQ+ attacks, she responds “sarcastically”.
Raichik responded: “I put stochastic terrorist (the term they’ve been using for months to describe me) in my bio to trigger the Left. Mission finally accomplished!”
I put stochastic terrorist (the term they’ve been using for months to describe me) in my bio to trigger the Left. Mission finally accomplished! ✅ https://t.co/61TyQ27qeZ
Reed added: “In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, as many have reported, she targeted LGBTQ+ family friendly drag events (which Club Q was going to have today for TDOR [Transgender Day of Remembrance]).”
“We have entered a new phase in anti-LGBTQ violence.
“They’re openly gloating and mocking because they know they now have a permanent platform for this in Twitter.”
Another Twitter user wrote: “This is 9 hours apart. Chaya Raichik (@LibsofTikTok) is bragging about inciting the attack.
“She knows she’ll get away with it.”
This is 9 hours apart. Chaya Raichik (@LibsofTikTok) is bragging about inciting the attack. She knows she’ll get away with it. The last time she posted about Colorado was weeks ago. This is not a coincidence but open gloating that she’ll never face accountability for her actions. pic.twitter.com/okio0zoBQE
This speaks for itself. There is a direct correlation between the republican / right wing media targeting on the trans, gays, and all LGBTQI+ and the violence / domestic terrorism attacks on LGBTQI+ establishments and drag queen events. As Democrat AOC said, you can connect the dots right back to the republicans and their don’t say gay bills and their constant attacking trans kids. Lauren Boebert cluelessly tweeted out prayers for the family of those killed at the Q nightclub but never mentioned the dead or injured nor her own vicious attacks on gays / trans people for political advantage. She inspires acts like these. Hugs
Daniel Aston
The mother of trans victim Daniel Aston, killed in the Colorado Springs shooting, has spoken out after the attack on Saturday (19 November), calling on lawmakers to “have a voice” for the LGBTQ+ community.
Aston’s mother Sabrina spoke to Colorado Public Radio (CPR) shortly after the deadly shooting, claiming that he was the “happiest he had ever been” while working at Club Q.
“He was thriving and having fun and having friends. It’s just unbelievable. He had so much more life to give to us and to all to his friends and to himself,” she said.
‘The trans community are the biggest targets’
Sabrina added her son “knew he was trans when he was four”, and started transitioning shortly after graduating from college.
“I always worried about it… He’s a trans man and the trans community are really the biggest targets I can think about it right now.”
Sabrina said she and her family wanted to speak out about what happened in order to bring more “exposure and acceptance” about the trans community, with LGBTQ+ Americans targeted with several laws affecting healthcare, education, and more in the past year.
“We need to get our legislators and our people high up to have a voice for us… Those are our children, we do not care how you dress or what you identify as. It doesn’t harm anybody,” she said.
People have gathered near Club Q, an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to honour and remember the five people killed and at least 25 people wounded in a mass shooting. (Getty)
President Biden has condemned the “senseless attack” in an official statement, calling for an end to “violence against LGBTQI+ people” after the horrific shooting.
“Gun violence continues to have a devastating and particular impact on LGBTQI+ communities across our nation and threats of violence are increasing,” he wrote.
“We saw it six years ago in Orlando, when our nation suffered the deadliest attack affecting the LGBTQI+ community in American history. We continue to see it in the epidemic of violence and murder against transgender women – especially transgender women of colour. And tragically, we saw it last night in this devastating attack by a gunman wielding a long rifle at an LGBTQI+ nightclub in Colorado Springs.
“Places that are supposed to be safe spaces of acceptance and celebration should never be turned into places of terror and violence. Yet it happens far too often.”
The president added: “Today, yet another community in America has been torn apart by gun violence. More families left with an empty chair at the table and a hole in their lives that cannot be filled.”
Just so everyone knows I have a doctors appointment this morning I have to leave for in about 30 minutes. Have to have trigger point injects, set up MRIs on my spine and shoulder, and arrange for shots into my spine after the MRI reports. And now to a person talking about the republicans trying to ban IVF and contraception. Hugs
This kind of hate is created by those including right wing media, right wing Christian hate preachers, and republicans in office that are demonizing the LGBTQ+. By constantly shouting into the ears of their faithful / viewers that gays are molesters, groomers of children, sexually abusing your child, that the trans / gays are recruiting your child, that teachers are indoctrinating your innocent kids into sexual experimentation and orgies … all this and so much more vitriol that the right is spewing just incites this kind of stuff. Is this what you pay your elected officials for? Is this what you want your religion to be known for?
At least five people were killed and 18 injured late Saturday in a shooting at an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in Colorado Springs, the police said early Sunday morning.
Lt. Pamela Castro, a public information officer with the Colorado Springs Police Department, said at a news conference outside the nightclub, Club Q, that the investigation was only beginning and that the number of victims was subject to change. She added that the victims had been taken to multiple area hospitals.
After the police received an initial call about an active shooting at 11:57 p.m., Lieutenant Castro said, officers entered the club and took into custody an individual they believed to be a suspect. The suspect was also injured and was being treated at a hospital, Lieutenant Castro said.
Police officers had entered the club overnight as they responded to reports of the shooting and located “one individual believed to be the suspect inside,” Castro said.
She said the casualty toll “is subject to change as the investigation continues,” adding that ambulances and police had transported “numerous people” to hospitals. The hospitals are helping to notify families of the victims, she added.
Capt. Mike Smaldino, spokesperson for the fire department, said 34 firefighters and 11 ambulances were dispatched to the scene to help quickly move people to hospitals.
The club was reportedly planning to hold a drag brunch today to mark the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
There was a mass shooting at my job tonight. I am alive. Please pray for my community. #coloradosprings#clubq
#Breaking: Colorado Springs Police first got the call around 11:57pm for a an active shooter at Club Q. Again, they confirmed five dead and 18 injured. They are taken to local hospitals. The gunman was injured in this. Not sure if by police or civilian. pic.twitter.com/cpcIhSfWzZ
Not just conservative. It is a hotbed of evangelicals, like Ted Haggard, and is also where the evangelicals work to make sure the Air Force academy there stays rigidly Christian.
Waiting for words of condolence from DeSantis for the victims. Of course, the politicians trying to protect the children from grooming who used gays as scapegoats for their political ambition had absolutely nothing to do with this sad, sad occurrence.
They want us to live in fear. There’s no way to “ethnically cleanse” gay people from anywhere. Now another murderer is about to be purged from society. We still exist. He will get to write hateful manifestos from prison, but society will still have gay people because we will refuse to live in fear.
Gay kids will still be born, and we will be here as long as there are people, we’ll remain. He will not change that fact. We will still love each other, but no one will remember or love him.
The far-right fascist QAnonGOP and Nazi scum are doing all they can to silence and cancel lgbt Americans! Of course the motive will turn out to be homophobia and/or anger at the drag brunch due to radicalization by far-right fascist social media.
The media are partly to blame, but a lot of the media are merely reporting what the goddamned rethugs are doing with their don’t say gay tirades, grooming crap, and transphobia. It is just a game for those bigots. Part of their attempt to encourage homophobia to garner votes.
This is what these bills are designed to do, create fear and keep the gay and trans kids hidden, to stop any positive reinforcement of LGBTQ+ while allowing all the negatives and slurs full volume to attack them. This is designed to reenforce white cis heterosexuality only. Make being gay or trans so hated kids and teacher live in fear of the other kids who target them with the authority of maga parents and the school administration behind them. It is indoctrination of right wing hate. It worked in Russia and other countries it has been done like China or the Islamic countries. It is about erasing the LGBTQ+ from society and returning to a time when hate and hostility towards minorities was accepted as normal. How is combating racism and bigotry controversial or political unless one party has racism and bigotry as their identity? How can it be a bad thing in 2022 to be against racism? This is a serious regression in society, the right wants to unwind the entire civil rights movement. Ask yourself why? Who wins in that situation? Hugs
Anything deemed political, with LGBTQ subject matter in the bullseye, is being torn down, boxed up and otherwise removed from campuses.
Across Florida this new school year, rainbows, safe space stickers and books with LGBTQ themes and history are being replaced in classrooms out of fear.
The Parental Rights in Education Bill – called the Don’t Say Gay bill by its opponents – was signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in March. It’s had a chilling effect on students, teachers and free speech across the state. Anything deemed political, with LGBTQ subject matter in the bullseye, is being torn down, boxed up and otherwise removed from campuses. Black Lives Matter posters are leaving along with rainbow flags.
In Sarasota, where high school senior Zander Moricz organized a headline-making student walkout in March, students and faculty report a grim environment imposed by school administrators enforcing the Don’t Say Gay law.
Gail Foreman, a longtime social studies teacher at Booker High School and a lesbian, says her principal didn’t wait for the law to take effect before conducting an inventory of inappropriate materials last March. “Anything that could even remotely be construed as gay-related came down,” Foreman told Buzzfeed News. “It wasn’t me putting this stuff up,” she said. “It was the kids. It was their classroom, too.”
Among the items removed were student-created posters reading “All Students Deserve Equal Education” and “All Minds Matter”; pride flags; a pride cape gifted by a student; safe space stickers from the Trevor Project; and a Mickey Mouse pen topped with a rainbow head. “Rainbows now symbolize politics,” Foreman said.
Senior Nora Mitchell, who founded Sarasota Students for Justice in 2020, says the Don’t Say Gay law has “allowed the Sarasota County School Board to create new policies that are, for lack of better words, extremely repressive within our school.” That school board now includes three new DeSantis-endorsed members, two of whom celebrated their victory in August with members of the neo-Nazi group, Proud Boys. One flashes a white power sign in a photo published by Vice News.
Mitchell, who came out to friends and teachers just before Don’t Say Gay was signed, says two banners she created were taken down and thrown away. One read, “Black Minds Matter,” and the other said, “We are all welcome here” and was decorated with rainbows. Officials “want school to feel unsafe,” says Mitchell, “and they want schools to be spaces where they can impress their own values of heterosexuality of whiteness. They want to reaffirm those values.”
Sarasota County Schools spokesperson Craig Maniglia denied the event Mitchell describes took place.
Mitchell and 2021 graduate Anthony Frisbee add that it’s not just school administrators tracking down violations. “Students have reported about teachers who are wearing anything rainbow-related,” says Mitchell. “It’s horrible.” In Frisbee’s view, “It’s like the Hitler Youth outing their parents.”
“You feel the sense of danger — like, school does not feel safe. It does not feel as vibrant as it was before,” Mitchell says. “Teachers can’t teach what they want, they can’t call students by their actual name, students are scared to be themselves at school. I mean, how can that possibly be conducive to learning or be a welcoming and fun place?”
Crowder loves to dress in drag and seems to have severe daddy issues. But here in this clip he keeps trying to push that the purpose of drag shows and puberty blockers is to pull kids away from their parents, indoctrinating them against parents rights somehow. But as Sam points out, who is taking the kids to these shows, it is the parents. Who takes the kids to the doctor, pays the doctor, agrees to the treatment of puberty blockers, it is the parents. This is not about stopping parents’ rights, unless you count the right of right wing parents to dictate to other people what the other parents’ kids can do. It is about the right of one religious or hyper conservative group of parents demanding the right to remove the right other parents to raise their children in accepting and tolerant ways. It is about the right wing demanding to indoctrinate kids into hating those not cis gender and straight. Hugs
Steven Crowder discusses the fact that this week is Trans Awareness Week, and expresses concern that the trans community is hoping to indoctrinate young children via drag shows. Crowder speculates that in about 5 years there could be a world where parents’ children will be taken from them by authorities if they don’t allow their children to go to drag shows.
Scottie's Playtime 