Category: Religion / Religious / Theocracy
Children’s hospital faces third bomb threat due to anti-trans conspiracy theories
Hate and anger has replaced common decency and reduced society to gang thug level. These people cannot accept the advancement in society. These people demand to have what they want and they don’t care if they have to break laws or hurt people to get it. This is their new abortion issue. just as they did everything to close abortion clinics (even clinics that did not perform abortion but had the hated name) and killed abortion providing doctors they are now doing that for trans care / treatment. This has to stop. Science has disproved the entire anti- trans conspiracy and all their misinformation has been debunked. First there is no sign kids are being rushed into socially transitioning, there is mental health exams and treatments at every step, 98% remain happy with their transitions and some of those that detransition so because of social pressure such as negative actions / treatment from family and former friends, sexual reassignment surgeries are not happing to kids. We know from studies that positive gender affirming treatment which the major medical associations support saves lives of trans kids and adult. Hugs
Boston Children’s HospitalBoston Children’s Hospital was the target of another bomb threat Wednesday, the third since August. The hospital serves transgender youth and has been the subject of a right-wing harassment campaign this past year.
“This morning, the hospital was again the target of a bomb threat,” the Harvard-affiliated medical center said in a statement. Boston Children’s is “committed to ensuring the hospital is a safe and secure place for all who work here and come here.”
The previous two bomb threats were directed at the hospital’s Gender Multispecialty Service program, the first pediatric and adolescent transgender health program in the country.
Right-wing troll Matt Walsh, Chaya Raichik of LibsofTikTok, and Fox News host Tucker Carlson began whipping up outrage over the summer with false claims the hospital was mutilating children.
After staff and patients were evacuated Wednesday, police determined the latest threat to be a hoax.
In October, Catherine Leavy, 37, was indicted on one count of making a false bomb threat and one count of intentionally conveying false or misleading information that a bomb was on the way to Boston Children’s Hospital, in relation to the threat called in on August 30. A search of Leavy’s residence on September 15 turned up the phone allegedly used to make the call.
In August, Raichik spread the false story to her 1.5 million followers that Boston Children’s was performing hysterectomies “for young girls” as part of their gender-affirming care program. No such surgeries were or are available to trans boys under 18. The disinformation was amplified across right-wing media.
In September, Walsh targeted Vanderbilt University Medical Center with similarly false information, claiming the hospital’s Transgender Health Clinic “now castrate, sterilize, and mutilate minors as well as adults, while apparently taking steps to hide this activity from the public view.”
Walsh criticized the clinic’s Trans Buddy program – which offers peer support to patients – and repeatedly accused the medical staff of “drugging and sterilizing” kids for financial gain.
Soon after, Carlson shared the names and photos of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s board of directors, while ranting against hospitals that provide gender-affirming care. He urged the board, and by extension his viewers, to “do something to stop these crimes.”
White supremacists protest a Chattanooga all-ages drag brunch
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/11/white-supremacists-protest-chattanooga-ages-drag-brunch/
Again gang thugs. Funny white supremacy and Nazis do not bother the republicans and churches but peaceful creative dress up does. But I see that these thugs are not getting the big crowds and backing they used to get, I think the good people are pushing back against this rule by gang violence. Hugs
Anti-LGBTQ protesters in Chattanooga, TN Photo: ScreenshotA drag brunch in Chattanooga, Tennessee drew protest Sunday, in a scene that has become all too common over the past year.
The crowd of about 30 people outside the Seed Theater was reportedly organized by Chattanooga-based right-wing group Tennessee Neighbors for Liberty. But, as the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports, in photos and videos posted to social media, several protesters can be seen carrying flags bearing the logo of white supremacist group Patriot Front.
In one video, a protester appears to throw a Nazi salute and shout “white power.”
Protesters chanted slogans like “strong families, strong nation,” and “reclaim America,” and held signs saying “stop the abuse of children,” “groom dogs not children,” “cross-dressing is an abomination to the Lord,” and “You do not know what love is.”
They were met, however, by a group of counter-protesters, which was reportedly slightly larger, holding Pride flags and chanting “love will win.”
Police were present at the protest, but no incidents were reported, according to a Chattanooga Police Department spokesperson.
Elizabeth and Brenton Haley started the Seed Theater earlier this year to give LGBTQ people like their 15-year-old transgender son a place to feel safe.
“That’s what we hear more than anything from parents, especially for teachers and young people in those important formative years, they don’t have places their kids can go to,” Elizabeth Haley explained. “Having a safe space their children can come and experience community is really important.”
Sunday’s drag brunch, which was billed as an all-ages event, was the second show at the Seed Theater to draw protests. But Haley said that the backlash has actually led to an increase in support and donations to the theater.
“It’s been really great for our community, as difficult as it is,” she said. “It’s very clear that we have a strong and healthy presence of LGBTQ people and allies here in Chattanooga.”
Haley said that Sunday’s drag brunch sold out all 80 tickets.
Earlier this month, Tennessee Republicans introduced a bill that would ban any “adult cabaret performance” — including “topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest” — on public property within view of anyone who is not an adult.
Anti-abortion activists busted saying they’re going after IVF & contraception rights in a few years
And we knew this was coming didn’t we! Hugs
Photo: ShutterstockLeaked audio from a meeting of anti-abortion activists in Tennessee – which currently has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country – has revealed that the anti-choice movement may start going after IVF and contraception in the next couple of years.
The audio, obtained by ProPublica, is from a webinar for GOP lawmakers held by Tennessee’s subset of the National Right to Life organization, as well as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
During the conversation, state Rep. Susan Lynn (R) – who sponsored Tennessee’s abortion ban – asked what to do about in vitro fertilization (IVF), which many have worried will be the anti-choice movement’s next target.
In response to Lynn, the speakers on the call suggested waiting a little while before attacking IVF.
“Maybe your caucus gets to a point next year, two years from now, three years from now, where you do want to talk about IVF, and how to regulate it in a more ethical way, or deal with some of those contraceptive issues,” said Stephen Billy, vice president for state affairs at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. “But I don’t think that that’s the conversation that you need to have now.”
During the IVF process – which is used by some same-sex couples to have children – it’s common to fertilize more than one egg to maximize the chances of IVF treatments being successful. Once the person receiving IVF is pregnant, any extra fertilized eggs are usually discarded. As such, those who believe life begins at fertilization are likely against IVF, a process that many LGBTQ couples rely on to have children.
As Elizabeth Constance, a doctor at Omaha’s Heartland Center for Reproductive Medicine told The Washington Post in May, “There are concerns about whether there will be repercussions related to embryos that don’t survive in the lab. What about those put in the uterus and don’t implant? That’s all in a gray area.”
Shelbi Day, Chief Policy Officer at the nonprofit organization Family Equality, told LGBTQ Nation in June that “without the protections of Roe v. Wade, it is possible that state lawmakers may feel empowered to create barriers for people to access medical procedures like IVF – which is deeply troubling for LGBTQ+ people and anyone who needs access to IVF to expand their family.”
And as Cathryn Oakley, an attorney with the Human Rights Campaign, told NBC News, “If the law believes that human life begins at conception, that means those embryos in the petri dish are legally people. That would make IVF impossible to really function.”
And while the timeline is unclear, it seems IVF is definitely on the radar of anti-choice activists.
In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, Tennessee has essentially completely outlawed abortion. The law focuses on consequences for doctors who perform abortions and will not prosecute pregnant people who seek them out. Its severe language makes performing an abortion a felony and has no exceptions for rape, incest, or even the life of the pregnant person.
The text states that doctors are allowed to violate the law and perform an abortion to save the parent’s life, but afterward the burden is on them to prove it was medically necessary to do so.
“The law will make the doctor second guess their medical training and expertise when choosing a treatment plan or risk a felony criminal conviction,” said Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi CEO Ashley Coffield when the law took effect. “Now, hospitals and lawyers will be weighing in on life and death scenarios.”
How a Texas woman almost died after being denied an abortion
Herschel Walker HUMILIATES himself unlike ever before in DISASTROUS appearance
Youngkin Under Fire For New History Lessons Standards – JMG
The right cannot help themselves. The bigotry just pours out of them. There was not any need to do this, to change the learning standards except to enshrine bigotry and promote the false idea that there was no one here in the land when the white Europeans showed up. It misleads the students into not knowing or understanding the brutality the white settlers used against the natives to take what the natives had. We were not interested in living together, we stole what we wanted by violence. They can not stand that white people are not the most important people, that white people are not given automatic authority. No diversity, no respecting other cultures or differences. It must be only and all what the white republicansdo and want. Hugs
Richmond’s ABC affiliate reports:
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) is overhauling former Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration’s proposal that would have set history and social science standards in Virginia schools.
Youngkin’s VDOE’s new draft proposal would determine what students learn about American history and Virginia history inside the classroom.
If adopted by the Virginia Board of Education, the new standards will be in effect for seven years starting in the 2024-2025 school year. Professional development would begin in the summer of 2023, according to a fact sheet that was sent to legislators and obtained by 7News.
The Washington Post reports:
The old guidelines call for lessons teaching that “Indigenous People were the first inhabitants of the land that we now call Virginia and the United States” and that “multiple tribes have always and continue to live in Virginia and the United States today.” The new guidelines do not mention Indigenous peoples, instead stating that students should learn to “describe life of Virginia’s earliest settlements.”
The old guidelines suggest students learn about a wide variety of holidays and traditions including Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Thanksgiving, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Juneteenth and the Fourth of July. The new guidelines only mention learning about Presidents’ Day. Finally, the new guidelines delete a suggestion from the previous version that kindergartners be taught “respect for diversity.”
Youngkin is the most dangerous kind of Maga. He is soft spoken and comes off as intelligent. This masks his real hatred and fascist beliefs. He has the ability to do more harm than the Maga idiots who wear there hate on their sleeve.
I l armed about how the savages welcomed the Europeans to make them civilized. I never learned of the Trail of tears until later
This was in the early 1980s
If you don’t get taught history, you’re taught fairy tales
Will they be returning to the “Happy slave narrative”?
Charles in Bloomington Dave B • 37 minutes ago
Oh, so they could preach, conduct a funeral, sing and dance. I’m sure that solved everything.
Per the article – The Governor’s 53-page proposal would require:
Kindergarteners to learn patriotism which includes pledging allegiance to the American flag
Forcing that would be illegal, found so by SCOTUS in the past. I’m guessing he’s hoping for a reversal on that ruling, or just isn’t aware that the pledge, even if mandatory to offer, is still optional for students to recite.
Students would learn critical thinking skills starting in the first grade
Somehow I don’t think he means actual critical thinking skills, but rather to try for “both sides” arguments about stuff like evolution to sneak in ID
Most students aren’t really ready for critical thinking until junior high. If there were educators on the curriculum panel they would have known that.
JackFknTwist Makoto • an hour ago
How pathetic.
The kids will think that flying the flag is ‘jingo-normal’
Just look at Trump in Mar-a-Loco when he announced he’s running for the nomination, I counted at least 20 flags.
Jingoism is not normal.
White Christian Nationalist Education. Perfect for raising a generation of fascists.
How many parents are going to want their kids to be good little authoritarians?
Town defunds its own library again after conservatives said it supports “sinful desires”
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/11/town-defunds-library-conservatives-said-supports-sinful-desires/
They want a Christian country forcing everyone to follow her churches dictates and morality. She is not even interested in thinking for herself, nor what the opinions or how others want to live their lives. She wants the authority over them, she feels entitled to do it. I get so sick of these people. She wants to live by her church rules great, she may go for it. But I don’t belong to her church and should be forced to live by her demands. Nor should the schools, libraries, and kids have to regress to have society fit in with her religion. Plus the usual equating positive LGBTQ+ messages with sexual grooming of kids. Do these people even understand what grooming is? Hugs
Photo: ShutterstockA town in western Michigan voted again to defund its local library after claims that it was “grooming” children by making LGBTQ books available.
Last Tuesday, 56% of Jamestown Township voters voted against a small property tax used to provide 80% of the funding to keep the local Patmos Library open.
“They are trying to groom our children to believe that it’s OK to have these sinful desires,” said Amanda Ensing, one of the people who campaigned against the library. “It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.”
The library has been targeted by local conservatives all year for having LGBTQ books in its collection, including books like Spinning and Kiss Number 8. Both books have teen girl characters who discuss their feelings for other girls. Library officials said that the library has about 90 books with LGBTQ themes in its 67,000-book collection.
The library agreed to keep the most controversial book – asexual and nonbinary author Maia Kobabe’s memoir Gender Queer – behind the main desk so that people would have to ask a librarian to read it, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy the conservatives.
“Pray that we can make changes and make the Patmos Library a safe and neutral place for our children,” said a flyer from one of the local organizations, Jamestown Conservative, this summer.
Two library directors resigned as a result of the hateful messages they received from conservative residents.
The Patmos Library’s funding was on the ballot in the August primary elections, and voters rejected the tax used to pay for the library in that election.
“50% Millage INCREASE to GROOM our kids? Vote NO on Library!” one sign that was directly across the street from the library said, using the regional term “millage” to refer to the property tax.
The story made national headlines. The attention raised over $100,000 for the library in donations, which could cover part of its $245,000 yearly budget. But the library hoped to still get local citizens to pay for their library and put the tax question back on the ballot to ensure the library’s funding over the next decade.
“However, we know very clearly that what this library needs to remain open over the long term is to pass the 10-year levy renewal in November,” the library board wrote in a statement thanking donors for the outpouring of funding. “We cannot run the Patmos Public Library for the next decade without stable taxpayer support.”
“If the levy passes, we will remain a public library and use the donations to add to our capacities. If the levy fails, we will put these donations to work in the best way we can for as long as we can.”
After the township voted against the tax again, the library announced reduced hours due to “staff shortages” on their Facebook page.
Ensing, who called the issue “Biblical,” said that she didn’t even want the library to close. She just wanted the votes to be a “wake-up call” for the library’s directors.
“A wake-up call to what?” library board director Larry Walton asked. “To take LGBTQ books off the shelf and then they will give us money? What do you call that? Ransom? We stand behind the fact that our community is made up of a very diverse group of individuals, and we as a library cater to the diversity of our community.”
He added that the library provides many services to the community, including free wireless access to people who can’t afford internet access otherwise. Even the community room that was used for voting will have to be closed if the library is closed.
The tax in question is about $24 on houses with a market value of over $250,000.
Marriage date removed from gay couple’s tombstone at Christian cemetery
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/11/marriage-date-removed-gay-couples-tombstone-christian-cemetery/
This story has a good ending even though it starts with bigotry. For those that claim they shouldn’t have used a Catholic cemetery the surviving spouse asked if it would be a problem and was told no it was acceptable and fine, it would be no problem. First the cemetery tried to ignore and avoid the spouse after they defaced his memorial stone. But a law suit where they were looking at having to pay a big damage award brought them right around to not only apologizing to offering to replace the stone with the wording the spouse wishes.
The headstone, before it was changed Photo: ScreenshotDarrell Frye of Dayton, Ohio is speaking out after he says a Christian cemetery “purposefully” removed the date of their marriage from his late husband’s headstone, which originally had both of their names and the date they were married.
“Somebody just decided that that doesn’t count,” Frye said about his marriage with Jason Neto, who passed away in 2020.
Frye and Neto met in 2006 and got married in 2016, about a year after marriage equality was legalized in Ohio.
In 2020, tragedy struck when Neto died of a heart attack. Frye purchased a plot in the Catholic Calvary Cemetery because Neto was raised Catholic.
“I chose the St. Kateri preserve because that was very much in the spirit of what Jason was as a person,” he told WHIO. “I knew this was a Catholic cemetery, and I point-blank asked, ‘Is this going to be a problem that we’re a gay couple and buying a plot here?’”
He said that he was told that it wasn’t a problem, so he bought an engraved memorial boulder to honor Neto. He decided to “keep it simple” when deciding what to write on the boulder because of a 30-character limit, and he chose to include the line “Married 23 July 2016.”
The boulder was installed a year later and it said what it was supposed to at first. But then Frye went to visit the plot in mid-October and he didn’t see the boulder.
“I came out here and it was gone, just gone,” he said.
He went to ask Cavalry Cemetery about what happened and he was told that it was taken in for maintenance. But when it was brought back, the text had been altered.
“The line about our marriage was just erased. They dug into rock to erase our relationship.”
Frye tried to talk to the cemetery staff about it, but he couldn’t get ahold of anyone. So he hired a lawyer and now he’s coming forward with his story.
“It’s just part of life as a gay man in America in 2022,” he said.
WHIO tried contacting Cavalry Cemetery by email, phone, and with a visit to their office, and they finally got a statement: “In consideration of the family we will communicate directly with them, and release a statement at the appropriate time.”
Frye said that he met with them in early November.
“I have met with the leadership team at Calvary,” he said on November 3. “They have offered a full and unconditional apology for their mistake and expressed a sincere interest in making amends and in restoring the memorial boulder to its original state or an acceptable equivalent.”
Cavalry then told WHIO that Frye’s statement was “accurate and much appreciated.”
“We will be working with the engraver to restore the memorial immediately,” they said.
Christian conservatives say same-sex marriage bill will lead to “pedophilic marriages”
They are doing the same thing with the don’t say gay bills. Linking being gay or trans with child sex abuse. And it works on the uninformed or those that don’t care about the truth. Teachers are groomers, acceptance by others and tolerance programs are pushing kids in to being gay or forcing them to transition to a different gender. And people buy into it because the truth is harder to accept, that there have always been gay and trans kids they just feel more comfortable being open and themselves now. Hugs
Photo: ShutterstockWith reports that the Senate could be voting on the Respect for Marriage Act as early as this week, anti-LGBTQ activists are pulling out all the stops.
Mat Staver, chair of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Liberty Counsel, is warning his organization’s followers that the bill to codify same-sex and interracial marriage will lead to “pedophilic marriages.”
“Because this bill also forces same-sex marriage on every state, Senate Majority Leader [Chuck] Schumer is bowing to the powerful LGBTQ lobby to pass this bill by THIS WEEK—no matter the consequences, or the pedophilic marriages that will result,” Staver wrote in an email.
“Texas law protecting minor children from pedophilic ‘marriages’ will not matter if Chuck Schumer passes H.R. 8404,” he continued. Texas allows child marriage. “This bill would require every state to honor and obey the marriage laws of any other state—no matter how crazy. California, for instance, has no age limit for marriage.”
The Respect for Marriage Act (or H.R. 8404) would require every state and the federal government to recognize marriages performed in other states. Proponents of the law argue that it’s necessary in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, which shared some of the same legal reasoning as the Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2015. Justice Clarence Thomas also urged the Supreme Court to reconsider Obergefell now that Roe has been overturned, a sign that the Court may be coming for same-sex marriage rights as well.
Staver is referring to the many states that allow minors to marry, usually with parental consent, consent of a judge, or if the minor is pregnant or emancipated. Texas, for example, allows emancipated 16- and 17-year-olds to get married. California allows minors to get married with parental consent and if a judge rules out abuse or coercion.
Democrats in several states have tried to change these laws in recent years, but it’s usually conservative Republicans who block raising the marriage age to 18 for everyone.
Staver – who used to be the dean of the evangelical Liberty University’s law school – implied in his email that 16-year-olds being told to marry 40-year-olds doesn’t count as child marriage – even though 16-year-olds are minors – showing the lenient attitude many Christian conservatives have toward child marriage.
In Idaho in 2019, for example, Democrats tried to pass a law to ban marrying someone under the age of 16, but the bill ultimately failed to pass the state house. One Republican lawmaker said that banning child marriage would endanger the “sanctity of family.”
Conservative activists have been using this fact to point out that other states will be required to recognize child marriages performed out of state, even though many already do now. Meanwhile, the threat of states not recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states is very real; many states were refusing to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states less than a decade ago.
The point, though, is to link LGBTQ people to child sex abuse, one of the most common tactics hate groups use to turn people against LGBTQ equality.
In a tweet, Liberty Counsel Action wrote, “U.S. senators are working to pass HR 8404, which will force all states to recognize and honor horrific, abusive child ‘marriages’ with zero age limits! Radicals are ‘OK’ pushing it because some homosexuals could then wed, including child-brides!”
Despite the organization’s newfound concern with child marriage, it is not listed as one of the issues Liberty Counsel supports on their website. They do not appear to have any active lobbying campaigns to end child marriage at the state level.
Earlier this month, the anti-LGBTQ organization NOM made similar statements about the Respect for Marriage Act. Since the Respect for Marriage Act will not immediately change anything – marriage equality is currently legal in all 50 states – NOM also accused the bill of “forcing every state to accept polygamous marriages, men marrying child brides and every other perverse type of ‘marriage.’”
The bill passed the House last July with all Democrats voting for it, 47 Republicans voting for it, and 157 Republican representatives voting against it. Out Sen. Baldwin initially said she thought 10 Republican senators would vote for it. However, she and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) decided to delay the bill’s introduction until after the midterm elections.
The bill was delayed, in part, to address Republican senators’ concerns and to give them the freedom to vote in favor of it without having to worry about upsetting their base of Republican voters before the November 8 midterm elections.
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