By the way this is the same study that Tildeb tried to attack in a comment. As you can see, the study debunking the social contagion idea is accepted by both mainstream media and the medical community. I find it interesting that Tildeb claims I have a religious like faith in my acceptance of trans people and the best care practices for trans gender kids which is supported by the majority of medical organizations, yet the idea behind the social contagion idea has been completely debunked and Tildeb still clings to it. Which one of us is unaccepting of the data and reality? He tries so hard to push fearmongering right wing myths about trans people and he manages to confuse some people. It is sad and harmful, and it must be countered as often as possible. Hugs
The study, published in Pediatrics, disputes the theory that more adolescents, particularly those assigned female at birth, are identifying as trans due to social influence.
A giant trans flag held by participants of the Reclaim Pride Coalition’s (RPC) fourth annual Queer Liberation March, on June 26, 2022 in New York.Erik McGregor / LightRocket via Getty Images file
The study also found that the proportion of adolescents who were assigned female at birth and have come out as transgender also has not increased, which contradicts claims that adolescents whose birth sex is female are more susceptible to this so-called external influence.
“The hypothesis that transgender and gender diverse youth assigned female at birth identify as transgender due to social contagion does not hold up to scrutiny and should not be used to argue against the provision of gender-affirming medical care for adolescents,” study senior author Dr. Alex S. Keuroghlian, director of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center at the Fenway Institute and the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Gender Identity Program, said in a statement.
The “social contagion” theory can be traced back to a 2018 paper published in the journal PLOS One. Dr. Lisa Littman, who at the time was a professor of behavioral and social sciences at Brown University, coined the term “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” which she described as adolescents experiencing a conflict between their birth sex and gender identity “suddenly during or after puberty.” These adolescents, she wrote, “would not have met the criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood” and are experiencing dysphoria due to social influence.
Littman also hypothesized that adolescents assigned female at birth are more likely to be affected by social contagion and, as a result, are overrepresented in groups of adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria when compared to those who were assigned male at birth.
After intense debate andcriticism, PLOS One conducted a post-publication reassessment of the article, and issued a correction that included changing the headline to clarify that Littman did not survey transgender or gender-diverse youth themselves, but actually surveyed their parents. The correction also noted that, “Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is not a formal mental health diagnosis at this time.”
To test the social contagion theory, researchers used data from the 2017 and 2019 biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which collected gender identity data across 16 states from ages 12 to 18. In 2017, 2.4%, or 2,161 of the 91,937 adolescents surveyed, identified as trans or gender diverse. In 2019, that percentage dropped slightly to 1.6%, or 1,640 of 105,437 adolescents surveyed.
Researchers concluded that the decrease in the overall percentage of adolescents identifying as trans or gender diverse “is incongruent with the (rapid-onset gender dysphoria hypothesis) that posits social contagion.”
The study also found that the number of transgender adolescents who were assigned male at birth outnumbered those assigned female at birth in both 2017 and 2019, providing additional evidence against a “notion of social contagion with unique susceptibility” among those assigned female at birth.
The social contagion hypothesis, by assuming that youth are coming out, for example, because their friends are, asserts that there’s some social desirability to being trans. Some supporters of the theory, according to the study, also believe that more youth identify as trans or gender diverse because those identities are less stigmatized than cisgender sexual minority identities, or those who identify with their birth sex and are lesbian, bisexual, gay or queer, among other sexual identities.
To evaluate these claims, researchers examined rates of bullying among adolescents who identified as trans and gender diverse, and those who did not.
They found that, consistent with other surveys, trans and gender-diverse youth were significantly more likely to be victims of school bullying (at 38.7% in 2017 and 45.4% in 2019) compared to cisgender lesbian, gay and bisexual youth (at 30.5% in 2017 and 28.7% in 2019) and cisgender, heterosexual youth (at 17.1% in 2017 and 16.6% in 2019).
“The idea that attempts to flee sexual minority stigma drive teenagers to come out as transgender is absurd, especially to those of us who provide treatment to [transgender and gender diverse] youth,” study lead author Dr. Jack Turban, incoming assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, said in a statement. “The damaging effects of these unfounded hypotheses in further stigmatizing transgender and gender diverse youth cannot be understated. We hope that clinicians, policymakers, journalists, and anyone else who contributes to health policy will review these findings.”
They wrote that despite the methodological flaws in Littman’s study, the concept of rapid onset gender dysphoria “has been used in recent legislative debates to argue for and subsequently enact policies that prohibit gender-affirming medical care” for trans and gender diverse adolescents.
An increasing number of states have also tried to ban or restrict trans youths’ access to gender-affirming medical care through legislation. The number of bills seeking to restrict gender-affirming health care for transgender youths has grown from one in 2018 to 36 this year, according to an analysis by NBC News. Governors in three states — Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee — have successfully signed such restrictions into law, though judges have prevented those measures from taking effect in Alabama and Arkansas.
The study lists several limitations, including that the data were collected through a school-based survey and, as a result, youths who don’t attend school were not represented. It also noted that youths were asked, “What is your sex?” and that response options were limited to female and male. It didn’t ask about respondents’ “sex assigned at birth” and didn’t include an additional question about their “gender identity,” which is an established research method for asking about gender identity. But the researchers creditedseveralstudies that found trans and gender-diverse youths are aware of the differences between their sex assigned at birth and gender identity.
In a memo sent to school administrators on Thursday, Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. said the new federal protections under Title IX “are not binding law, do not create any new legal obligations, and should not be treated as governing law.”
“The Department will not stand idly by as federal agencies attempt to impose a sexual ideology on Florida schools that risk the health, safety, and welfare of Florida students,” the memo continues.
“As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of this landmark law, our proposed changes will allow us to continue that progress and ensure all our nation’s students — no matter where they live, who they are, or whom they love — can learn, grow, and thrive in school,” U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in June.
Diaz claims that allowing transgender girls to use the restrooms and locker rooms of their gender and to participate in school sports as their gender would jeopardize “the safety and wellbeing of Florida students” and risk violating Florida law. In 2021, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill to ban transgender girls from playing school sports.
“While Governor DeSantis and Commissioner Diaz are intent on weaponizing state agencies in their war on transgender youth, the fact remains: the U.S. Department of Education has said unequivocally that students are to be protected from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” Equality Florida press secretary Brandon Wolf said in a statement.
“The DeSantis Administration repeatedly puts the political ambitions of the Governor over the wellbeing of Florida’s students and the result is a state that is increasingly more hostile toward and unsafe for young people. LGBTQ students exist. The federal government has recognized that they are protected from discrimination. Even as the Governor attempts to bolster his right-wing bona fides by hurtling our state toward full-tilt authoritarianism, school districts across Florida should remain committed to protecting all students.”
DeSantis has declared an all-out war on Florida’s LGBTQ community. In March, he signed the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law, prohibiting any mention of LGBTQ topics in schools.
Last month, he signaled that he is open to using Florida’s child protective service laws to terminate the parental rights of adults who take their kids to see drag shows, and his administration is trying to get a drag bar’s liquor license revoked for allowing children to attend a drag show.
From Istanbul to Izmir, thousands of Turkish activists took to the streets in protest to commemorate lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Pride month in June. In response, Turkish authorities launched a series of attacks against LGBT rights activists, lawyers, and journalists. Kaos GL, a Turkish LGBT rights group, reported that the government banned 10 LGBT-related events and detained over 530 people in just 37 days.
Many of those detained at Istanbul Pride reported being held and handcuffed, in hot vehicles without food or water for long periods. The majority were detained overnight. Police also prevented lawyers from meeting with clients in a timely fashion, making them wait as long as three hours – a violation of detainee rights.
Only two lawyers were permitted to meet detainees held on the buses and one was met with violence when she confronted the police about her client. She has even filed a criminal complaint following the incident.
”Turkish authorities’ persistent efforts to sequester LGBT rights as a cultural matter—a threat to moral, religious, and family values—obfuscates the bigger picture: the political context and anti-rights agenda undergirding the government’s crackdown on LGBT rights activists and their supporters. Crackdowns on LGBT rights are part and parcel of the Turkish government’s intensifying campaign to silence opposition voices and dismantle democratic safeguards. ”
This latest string of attacks is a tidal wave in what were already very treacherous waters for LGBT people in Turkey. The government’s assault on LGBT rights involves taking measures to undermine freedom of expression, association, and assembly for those endorsing or allegedly endorsing pro-LGBT rights speech and then, seeking to justify these violations under the guise of upholding public morality.
Since 2015, the government has executed an extensive campaign to break-up LGBT rights public events, including Pride marches and, in Ankara, all LGBT events and public LGBT-related discussions from 2017 to 2019.
In numerous instances, the authorities have pursued legal action against activists and organisations for their support of LGBT rights and detained journalists reporting on Pride events. The government has also censored media and fined outlets positively portraying or allegedly positively portraying LGBT people.
These anti-LGBT efforts have largely been undertaken in the name of protecting the public from immorality and “perversion.” Government officials have taken the public stage to cast LGBT people as antithetical to “Turkish social values” and as a threat to families and children.
In March 2021, after the government received widespread domestic and international criticism for withdrawing from the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (known as the Istanbul Convention), officials responded with an anti-LGBT statement and declared that they withdrew from the convention because it is being hijacked by groups to normalise homosexuality.
Homophobic government statements like these have reverberating effects in the public sphere, where LGBT rights groups have documented a dramatic rise in anti-LGBT rhetoric in the news.
Turkish authorities’ persistent efforts to sequester LGBT rights as a cultural matter—a threat to moral, religious, and family values—obfuscates the bigger picture: the political context and anti-rights agenda undergirding the government’s crackdown on LGBT rights activists and their supporters.
Crackdowns on LGBT rights are part and parcel of the Turkish government’s intensifying campaign to silence opposition voices and dismantle democratic safeguards.
Such sweeping actions occur in the context of widespread and systematic government violations of free speech and democratic norms that accelerated after the coup attempt in 2016.
The worst and most pervasive manifestation of the government’s campaign has been the routine targeting of perceived political opponents and critics with baseless charges of spreading terrorist propaganda and membership of terrorist organisations, positioning these individuals not only as outside the nation, but an existential threat to it.
As human rights are sacrificed by invoking vague threats to national security, public order and morality, those marked as “outsiders,” have become expeditious targets and scapegoats. This tactic is neither novel nor original. Governments buckling under genuine concerns about how they mishandle inflation, corruption, or the impacts of climate change have long turned to scapegoating unpopular social groups as a cynical strategy for self-preservation.
Turkey’s dive deeper into the trenches of authoritarianism endangers not only LGBT people but everyone who wants to express dissent and to seek a democratic future for the country in which everyone’s rights are upheld.
This is the future these caring “pro-life” forced birth jerks want to create. Minors whose life doesn’t matter because a note viable clump of cells has priority over her real existing life. My dogs that love gravy, what can we do, what have we let happen. I cry for the children forced to live through this nightmare. A 10 year old whose body was too small and not developed was almost forced to give birth that might have easily killed her, this girl was trying to save herself from a forced birth, those laws made her not a person but an incubator instead. Now these women controller forced birth people will feel entitled to imprison the girl to ruin her life. Hugs
A Nebraska teenager is facing criminal charges alleging she aborted a fetus in violation of state law, after authorities obtained her Facebook messages using a search warrant. Seventeen-year-old Celeste Burgess, who is being tried as an adult along with her mother Jessica Burgess, is awaiting trial in Madison County District Court on charges that they broke a Nebraska law banning abortions after 20 weeks.
This marks one of the first instances of a person’s Facebook activity being used to incriminate her in a state where abortion access is restricted — a scenario that has remained largely hypothetical in the weeks following the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Nebraska currently outlaws abortions beyond 20 weeks. On Monday, Republican lawmakers in the state failed to secure enough votes to decrease that window to 12 weeks.
In early June, the two women were each charged with removing, concealing or abandoning a dead human body, a felony, and a pair of misdemeanors: concealing the death of another person; and false reporting. But the investigation wasn’t over.
A week after the two were charged, the detective served a search warrant on Facebook, to get access to their accounts. He found messages between them suggesting Jessica Burgess had obtained abortion pills for her daughter, and gave her instructions on how to take them.
So this is the world the radical right brought us? Neighbors and friends spying on each other. Cops investigating miscarriages. Facebook handing over our data.
That is horrifying. I hope every woman in Nebraska votes against abortion-deniers in the next election, and every woman in a red state gets off Facebook immediately. Nothing is private any longer.
Interestingly, the Nebraska legislature Rethugs didn’t have enough interest/votes to come back into special session to reduce the deadline from 20 weeks to 12 weeks. After Kansas, they fear.
Every woman (and supportive man) in Nebraska needs to do more than vote. They need to go full Lysistrata by blowing up the legislature’s phone lines, taking to the streets in protest and openly defying horseshit laws like this.
They did. I was one of them. I know some of the senators in the state, including my rep. They got phone calls, emails, and letters, starting after the SCOTUS leak and it ramped up after the Dobbs decision was official. I know of one state senator who changed their mind because of it. I knew about this decision two weeks ago off the record. Kansas might have had something to do with it, but my rep apparently was inundated with people contacting him. Hopefully, this will carry into November.
Dogs that love gravy these people really are clueless on the subject. Don’t they every ask themselves why the kids are not coming out to mom and dad already? The kids live with them. They get a feel for how they would react. Kids are still being kicked out of homes or forced into conversion therapy to force / torture them to act straight. The governor says that parents need to be at the forefront of these decisions. Got news for you there is no choice to be made as to if your gay, lesbian, or trans. It is something you are born with. Yes kids know at a very young age what orientation and gender they are. It cannot be changed. As soon as a kid realizes there are stuff for girls and other stuff for boys they understand gender and which one they are. As soon as a kids realizes that some people are attracted to each other, that there are boyfriends and girlfriends they understand attraction / orientation. The only choice is to help the child accept and be happy with who they really are or scare and intimidate them into a miserable life of hiding who they are. That is what these republican leaders want, what the religious leaders want. They want the LGBTQ+ to go away, to hide, to not be seen or heard. Why does the rainbow flag trigger them so much, it is a sign that the LGBTQ+ are here and we exist. Damn it, the dangers of this are clear and being ignored. Now wonder red states want unqualified untrained teachers that will follow the authoritarian state line. They want the increase in kids committing suicide. Why do they deny proven science? Hugs
“With regards to informing parents with most important decisions about their children, I think everybody knows where I stand, parents matter.
“Parents should be at the forefront of all of these discussions. And I firmly believe that teachers and schools have an obligation to make sure that parents are well informed about what’s happening in their kids’ lives.
“And one of the things we learned last year during the campaign is that parents were tired of being pushed to the background in their child’s education.” – Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
My father would have beaten the crap out of me and possibly kicked me out. As it was, he was pressuring me about being homosexual. I didn’t even know. I just knew that I was different. I left “home” when I was not quite 16. That was in 1967. It saddens me to see things are going right back to those bad old days. All of the progress of the last 50 years, gone in a split second.
When I came out in my early twenties, my mother cried and said, “I was ready for this when you were in high school, but I figured when you didn’t, you weren’t.” And I thought, “Yeah, I know you were ‘ready’ then, which is exactly why I didn’t.” I had to wait until she had no control over my life or I would’ve ended up at some Christian “conversion” camp. I’ll just take the regular pain life throws at people, please and thank you.
If a child is going to a teacher for help about this, that means they don’t trust their parents not to be horrible, even violent. If schools start outing children who had good reason to keep their secret, then a significant number of them are going to kill themselves rather than face their parents’ wrath. This guy is trying to kill our children.
Twenty five effing years after Ellen came out. 24 since Will and Grace and Matthew Shepard, 53 since Stonewall, 19 since Lawrence v Texas, 7 since Obergefell. These cruel shits in sweater vests will never stop, so neither can we.
A Texas church has come under fire for a Christian-themed — and allegedly unauthorized — rendition of the acclaimed Broadway musical “Hamilton” that appeared to conclude with a sermon by a church pastor comparing being gay to being addicted to alcohol or drugs.
The two-hour performance, which was produced and livestreamed Friday by The Door Christian Fellowship Ministries in McAllen and RGV Productions, included several biblical references not originally included in the Tony Award-winning musical.
The church also decided to add and change text throughout the show. For instance, they added a scene where Hamilton is “saved” right before “It’s Quiet Uptown. At the conclusion of the show, a pastor delivers a sermon that includes anti-LGBTQ messaging.
The pastor states, “Maybe you struggle with alcohol, with drugs, with homosexuality, maybe you struggle with other things in life, your finances, whatever, God can help you tonight. He wants to forgive you for your sins.”
More from The Door McAllen church's illegal Christianized "Hamilton."
The line is supposed to be: "What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see. I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me." pic.twitter.com/sTV0fLZjiR
More from The Door McAllen church's Christianized "Hamilton."
The line is *supposed* to be:
I am Hercules Mulligan Up in it, lovin' it, yes I heard ya mother said “Come again?" Lock up ya daughters and horses, of course. It's hard to have intercourse over four sets of corsets. pic.twitter.com/o7uMCoJlMT
The fundamentalist lunatics have the ultimate “get out of jail” card. Their god forgives any abomination, any crime, they commit — as long as they do it in “Jesus’s name.”
Fundamentalist religion (make or model, irrelevant) is the biggest scam in the history of Planet Earth, to date.
Like a pesky legal “Cease and Desist” order is going to stop them from entertaining their congregation, after all this is the new Christofacist Theocracy they’re trying to build.
They “should be dealt with via firing squad,” said the Christian hate-preacher
Matt Powell delivers a hate-filled tirade (screenshot via Odysee
Creationist Matt Powell wants the government to murder drag queens because he falsely believes they perform sexual acts in front of children in libraries. That was only one of the hateful, lie-filled comments he made in a video he purposely uploaded to a non-YouTube site in order to evade punishment.
Powell usually makes himself look bad by spreading scientific misinformation, like saying evolution is racist because it teaches that “we evolved from African Americans” even though, he argues, there are “African Americans that are still alive today.” Or that the fight to save endangered species is somehow proof that evolution is a hoax. Or that it’s a “historical fact” that dinosaurs were killed in the Civil War. Just a bizarre mix of unearned confidence and extreme ignorance all rolled into one.
But let’s not forget Powell is also a hate-preacher.
Recently, however, he uploaded a similar video on the right-wing haven Odysee. In it, Matt Powell takes the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist approach, calling for government-sanctioned executions of drag queens while spreading all kinds of lies about gay people. (This was first picked up by @AtheistJr.)
Here’s the 46-minute sermon boiled down to under two minutes:
After lying about drag queens performing "in a sexual manner" around kids, Christian hate-preacher Matt Powell said they "should all be lined up" and "dealt with via firing squad."
He also prayed for God to "wipe them out" and "eradicate them."
But they’re saying, “We’ll convert your children.” Do you know how they convert children? By molesting them. By abusing them. That’s how they convert children. That’s how people even become homosexuals, is by getting molested by one of these creeps.
…
And let me ask you a question: Why would you celebrate a group of people that leads the world in pedophilia?
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Do you know what Jesus preached about child molesters, people that would go around flaunting their bodies and doing perversion in front of children? That they should be dealt with by the government. Capital punishment. I believe that all of these drag queens… should be lined up, every single one of them that has flaunted their body in a sexual manner in front of children, I believe that they should all be lined up, and by the power of the United States Constitution and the authority of God’s Word, should be dealt with via firing squad.
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The only reason they adopt children is probably to molest them, according to statistics.
…
So why is the church today affirming them? “We affirm it!” What, you’re affirming AIDS? Affirming pedophilia? What kind of nonsense is that?
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If you’re homosexual, you can’t multiply. The only way you can multiply is by molesting children and creating—like zombies creating more child molesters.
…
Dear Lord, I pray that America would wake up to the perversion that is going on, and that parents would not send their kids to Drag Queen Story Hour to be around a bunch of pedophiles. Lord, I pray You’d strike those pedophiles dead. Every single one of these drag queens. Dead, Lord. I pray that You would wipe them out and that You would eradicate them through Your power. And Lord, we know that You will someday if not now.
…
I’m sorry. Our ancestor was not Spongebob Squarepants, okay?
Needless to say, this is a steady stream of lies, often perpetuated by conservative Christians and right-wing commentators who don’t give a damn about honesty. (Drag queens who read stories to kids in libraries are not performing the same act that they might in a more adult-oriented setting.)
Matt Powell is using misinformation about drag queens to justify his anti-LGBTQ bloodlust. Much like with those Christian hate-preachers in the New IFB world, I’m not worried about potential violence committed by the person doing the talking. I’m worried about what their followers might do.
It’s all just vile hate speech in the name of Jesus. This is where Powell’s Christianity led him: To a Creationist ministry where the desire for other people’s death is treated as perfectly normal exegesis. He says this stuff because no one at Kent Hovind’s weird Creationism complex has the guts to challenge him. He says it because he knows other conservative Christians share his bigotry (if not his extreme views on what the consequences ought to be).
Also important: Powell knows exactly what he’s doing when it comes to the best ways of spreading his brand of Christian hate. He uploaded that screed on a mostly unknown website so it wouldn’t punish his YouTube channel’s revenue stream… while directing his followers there through a more innocuous video on YouTube.
None of this will stop unless the people in his life have the heart to talk sense into him. It hasn’t happened yet. I worry it never will.
During her appearance at the right-wing CPAC conference yesterday, conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was asked about the phrase “Christian nationalist.” She insisted, falsely, that “most Americans” were Christian nationalists like her.
Greene: When I said I’m a Christian Nationalist, I have nothing to be ashamed of because that’s what most Americans are pic.twitter.com/aoQ188QTgx
First, let’s step back. She was specifically being asked about a meme claiming her defense of Christian nationalism was identical to what Hitler said in 1928: “We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity. Our movement is Christian.” Hitler really did say that. But Greene never said those exact words despite what the meme claimed.
We need to be the party of nationalism. And I’m a Christian and I say it proudly: We should be Christian nationalists…
…
I also call myself a Christian nationalist. And that’s not a bad word. That’s actually a good thing, right?
In short, the meme is wrong, but Greene has embraced Christian nationalism. And at CPAC yesterday, she doubled down on the idea.
Not surprisingly, she’s wrong on two counts in that single sentence: She has plenty to be ashamed of and “most Americans” are not Christian nationalists. The Pew Research Center says about 63% of Americans identify as Christians (and that number keeps going down every year). But are they all “Christian nationalists” in any sense of the term?
Not even close. If we define Christian nationalism as the idea that America was founded on conservative Christian principles and the government should actively work to keep it that way, we’re talking about a very small subset of Christians as a whole.
Pew found that the kind of Christians who are “staunchly conservative” on all issues as well as “deeply loyal to Donald Trump” represent about 10% of the public. They’re 23% of Republicans… so not a majority within the GOP, either.
Even if we expanded the definition to include slightly less conservative Christians, we wouldn’t even come close to a majority of Americans.
Greene, as usual, is lying.
Honestly, if she’s championing Christian nationalism, that may be the best argument against Christian nationalism. No one should want to live in a country where someone like her represents the height of patriotism.
Her statements came a day after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who already expressed opposition to people of mixed race, claimed “a Christian politician cannot be racist.” Like Greene, Orbán believes identifying as a Christian absolves politicians from accountability for the harm they cause.
There’s been a shift in recent years in which conservatives, who used to take offense at the phrase, now proudly proclaim themselves to be Christian nationalists. The message is loud and clear for those of us who aren’t Christian—as well as progressive Christians who aren’t included under that label. We’re not welcome. We’re not True Patriots. We’re not the people who ought to be making laws for the rest of the country. It’s the sort of stuff that would get non-stop coverage in right-wing propaganda outlets if a Muslim or non-theistic politician ever said about themselves.
As it stands, though, the kind of people using the term as a badge of honor are precisely the kinds of people you shouldn’t want to associate with. It’s a blend of autocrats, conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, bigots, and science-deniers.
Unless other Christians are willing to take back the label, those are the people who will come to represent the religion to large swaths of the American public. Pastors should really ask themselves: Who should come to mind when people think about Christianity? Because right now, it sure as hell isn’t Jesus. He left the building a long time ago. The loudest voices under the Christian nationalist umbrella are also the least humane, least empathetic, least thoughtful people in the country… many of whom have outsized power.
That’s the problem here. We’re not talking about fringe figures who have a small group of followers. We’re talking about national leaders in elected office who, if they had their way, would destroy democracy and replace it with a form of theocracy that only pays lip service to the idea of religious freedom. People of all faiths and no faith should be united in opposition to Christian nationalism.
And yet white evangelicals and conservative Catholics will not distance themselves from people like Greene or Orbán. They overwhelmingly support them. It’s unfair, then, to pretend Christian nationalists are hijacking the faith. They represent a larger segment of a shrinking population.
Christian nationalists are basically white evangelicals at this point. There’s very little difference about their goals and methods. The rhetoric may be different, but the substance is all rot.
Afew stories about conservative Christians coming after public libraries:
Voters in Jamestown Township, Michigan chose to defund the library, depriving it of 84% of its 2023 budget. Unless that decision is reversed, the Patmos Library will be forced to shut down sometime next year. The reason the vote failed? Because conservative Christians in the community didn’t like that some of the books featured same-sex couples.
Library Director Amber McLain resigned this spring, telling Bridge she had been harassed online and accused of indoctrinating children. Interim director Matthew Lawrence resigned later.
When the Patmos staff and elected board of directors declined to remove the books from the library’s collection, some upset residents organized an effort to defeat the library’s millage renewal.
One of the people who organized the attack on the library naturally cited her Christian faith:
Amanda Ensing, one of the organizers of the Jamestown Conservatives group, emerged from the library Tuesday wearing an “I voted” sticker. “They are trying to groom our children to believe that it’s OK to have these sinful desires,” Ensing said of library officials. “It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.”
The Vinton Public Library in Iowa was forced to close for over a week after its interim director, who’s gay, resigned over the Christian community’s homophobia.
Colton Neely had been hired as the children’s librarian in 2020 and did his job well. But between nasty comments said within earshot, and demands to hide or censor books about LGBTQ people, and objections to a summer reading challenge that “encouraged patrons to read books by people of color and LGBTQ authors,” it was clear the people in this town wanted to make the librarians’ lives miserable. Neely only became the director after his predecessor left town to take over a library in a more welcoming community. Before long, he decided he had to go, too:
“You could tell half the crowd was just like, ‘Ugh, you’re disgusting,’” he said of the June 8 meeting. “That was the board meeting where I was just like, ‘I’ve had it.’”
He penned a resignation letter to the library board on June 27, writing that despite his hard-earned qualifications, he felt reduced to just “the gay man of the library.”
“It hurts and I am disappointed,” he wrote.
One of the board members who created this mess was Jennifer Kreutner who, when accused of promoting only conservative perspectives, responded with, “I represent the entire rural community, but most of them are conservative Christians.” As if that made everything better.
In South Carolina, the Greenville County Schools are forming committees to review any books/materials that are challenged at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. They’re currently looking for people to serve on those boards. Don’t have experience with this sort of thing? IT DOESN’T MATTER. At the high school level, for example, the committees will consist of:
Three parents with children enrolled in Greenville County high schools
Three district high school teachers from different subject areas
One high school media specialist
Two non-employees of the school district
One member of the clergy
What the hell is a clergy member doing on this committee? There’s one at the other levels, too. All of those other members have some kind of connection to the district, and I would hope the “non-employees” have qualifications for assessing instructional materials, but why on earth would they save a seat at the table for someone who has religious training?! (And let’s be honest: They’re only referring to Christians, even if they don’t say that directly.)
They could easily have asked for a psychologist or a social worker or someone who represents a minority group in the community. Nope. They’re going with religious leader, as if a priest should have any say in what children learn in public schools.
All of this is happening while right-wing politicians are banning books left and right if they commit the cardinal sin of exposing children to LGBTQ people/characters or teaching them about our nation’s racist history. Just this week at CPAC, Sen. Rick Scott claimed liberals were a “modern day version of book burners,” all while conservatives work to shut down public libraries and access to materials that may educate students about perspectives they’re not used to hearing.
This entire clip is projection. He is railing against ‘book burners’ and ‘cancel culture’ when he comes from a state where the GOP governor is banning books and firing attorneys who don’t fall into line. https://t.co/c1pZ0wizop
What none of these conservatives admit is that a public library is a place where quality books of all kinds should be available to all people. Furthermore, libraries offer so much more than books. They also offer meeting spaces, internet access, video games, audiobooks, reference materials, etc. They’re one of the only places you can go to these days to browse things you don’t already own with no pressure to spend any money. But the bigots will point to anything as a way to imply these places are liberal sanctuaries that must be stopped, whether it’s literature that shows LGBTQ characters in a positive light, Drag Queen Story Hours (which are not sexual), or the celebration of “banned books.”
There’s a dark joke about how it’s a good thing libraries have been around for centuries because there’s no way in hell Republicans would allow them to be created today. But the flip side of that is that conservative Christians are now painting libraries as enemies of children all because they dare to offer people access to information that others may want to keep from them.
If pastors don’t take a lead in shutting this shit down by calling out their own church members’ participation in these mobs, more libraries (and librarians) will suffer, which will have ripple effects throughout their communities. The same principle applies to public schools, which conservatives are also trying to decimate. They’ve always underpaid teachers, but they’re now micromanaging what they’re allowed to say (and not say) to students and funneling taxpayer dollars to private sectarian schools.
The public institutions that have formed the bedrock of our nation are under attack by Christian nationalists and their allies. They want to keep everyone else in the dark like they do in their churches, and conservative politicians and judges are eager to help them achieve their goal.
We shouldn’t be surprised, though. The people least likely to find value in an infinite supply of books are the people who believe only one book matters.
Welcome to DeSantisstan: “She was a waitress. She starts teaching 3rd grade next week & the only thing she had to do to get this teaching certification was to observe certified teachers…she had to ask me what I meant by phonetic spelling.” #Floriduh#RemoveRonpic.twitter.com/QiXb4FjoQ4
— Lesley Abravanel 🪩 (@lesleyabravanel) July 27, 2022
BREAKING: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas resigns from his teaching position at George Washington University’s law school after students stage large protests over his extremist views on abortion and gay marriage. RT TO THANK THE STUDENTS FOR STANDING UP TO JUSTICE THOMAS!
A 12-year-old girl left people applauding after addressing the West Virginia state legislature about its restrictive and dangerous abortion law proposed in the state.
The girl’s speech occurred at a public hearing about the law, House Bill 302 which bans abortion in all but the most extreme exceptions and criminalizes the procedure for doctors.
Each speaker at the hearing was given 45 seconds to speak.
12-year-old Addison Gardner made every single one of hers count.
Speakers at Wednesday’s public hearing in WV were given 45 seconds each. The youngest, 12-year-old Addison Gardner from Buffalo Middle School, gave powerful remarks against HB302.
The bill provides a total ban on abortion in all but cases of rape and incest but not for the life of the pregnant person, and also allows criminal prosecution of doctors who provide the procedure.
Gardner gave an impassioned plea to the legislature for a more reasonable abortion rights law.
She asked lawmakers:
“If a man decides that I’m an object, and does unspeakable, tragic things to me, am I, a child, supposed to carry and birth another child?”
“Am I to put my body through the physical trauma of pregnancy?”
“Am I to suffer the mental implications, a child who had no say in what was being done with my body?”
The bill, which has passed the West Virginia House of Delegates, does provide exceptions for some, but not all, cases of rape and incest. But the requirements are so stiff they will make access impossible for most people.
In order to obtain an abortion in the case of rape and incest, the victim will have to have reported the crime to law enforcement, which is often impossible for victims for myriad reasons, especially for those who are minors.
The pregnant person will also have to have a medical professional confirm the fetus was under 14 weeks and all other rules of the bill were followed—a requirement easily thwarted by anti-abortion doctors who can simply lie and refuse to sign off on the procedure.
Ash Orr, a transgender activist from the state’s Appalachian region who spoke about having been raped at the ages of 9 and 10, pointed out the cruelty of these policies.
They said:
“I want you to explain to me why it would have been OK for me as a child to have carried my rapist’s child.”
“Explain it to me like I’m one of the children that y’all are willing to traumatize.”
Gardner went on to underline the hypocrisy inherent to this approach to abortion access by West Virginia Republicans.
“Some here say they are pro-life. What about my life? Does my life not matter to you?”
On Twitter, people applauded Gardner for speaking out and were outraged by the bill.
I don’t understand why they are doing this. Do they not understand the real life ramifications of their actions?! 10 years ago, Todd Aiken lost his senate race over “legitimate rape” comments. Now they are making it a huge part of their platform.
— Standing against the FAR RIGHT. (@Txsocialwork221) July 28, 2022
It’s so sad that this little girl actually has to think about this and say these words and it won’t matter. How is she going to feel when her efforts are ignored and it’s confirmed that, no, they don’t care about her life. Tragic lesson at such a young age.
Rita Ray, 80, who risked her life pre-Roe by getting an abortion from someone who wasn’t a healthcare provider, watches on as Addison Gardner, 12, contemplates her own future without access to legal abortion in WV. pic.twitter.com/RbDrCma3Ld
Matt Powell delivers a hate-filled tirade (screenshot via Odysee
Scottie's Playtime 