Pastor Dillon Awes called for America to implement “the solution for the homosexual,” which is mass death.
Pastor Dillon Awes of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Hurst, Texas had a very specific call for violence against LGBTQ people in sermon from this weekend.
Entitled “Why We Won’t Shut Up,” his sermon was about “the solution for the homosexual,” which he said is murder.
“What does God say is the answer, is the solution, for the homosexual in 2022, here in the New Testament, here in the Book of Romans?” Awes asked. “That they are worthy of death! These people should be put to death!”
“Every single homosexual in our country should be charged with the crime, the abomination of homosexuality, that they have,” he continued. “They should be convicted in a lawful trial. They should be sentenced with death.”
“They should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head! That’s what God teaches. That’s what the Bible says. You don’t like it? You don’t like God’s Word, because that is what God says.”
On Sunday, Christian hate-preacher Dillon Awes said that the government should execute every gay person. All of them.
"They should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head! That's what God teaches. That's what the Bible says." pic.twitter.com/rMzF3BHSNF
Shelley made headlines last year when he said that he was happy that a gay person was killed at a Pride event.
“The Bible says that they’re worthy of death!” he said at the time. “They say, ‘Are you sad when f**s die?’ No. I think it’s great! I hope they all die! I would love it if every f*g would die right now.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center considers Stedfast Baptist Church to be a hate group.
With students in higher education avoiding florida and businesses considering moving / no locating here, and the US military saying they will relocate service members from states that do not honor their rights I wonder if the right / Republicans will care. It is going to hurt the sports teams and economy. Hugs
Florida School Board Requires Teachers to Out Trans Students
The ruling was made in the name of parents’ rights.
A school board in Florida approved a new policy last week that would require teachers to out transgender students, in the name of parents’ rights.
All four members of the Leon County School Board voted to implement a new “LGBTQ Inclusive School Guide” after a four hour meeting, according to reporting in the Tallahassee Democrat. Although the guide professes to respect the privacy rights of LGBTQ+ youth, it also contains provisions requiring schools to inform other children and their parents if they share a physical education class, athletic team, or overnight trip with a trans student.
“Upon notification or determination of a student who is open about their gender identity, parents of the affected students will be notified of reasonable accommodation options available,” the document reads. While clearly intended to refer to students who are openly trans and nonbinary, the euphemistic language could be interpreted to refer to all young people who have a gender identity. (Agender elite rise up, apparently.)
The guide does provide protections for students’ freedom of gender expression and access to gendered facilities, as well as the formation of GSA groups and same-sex couples’ right to attend school dances in clothing that expresses their identity. But students say the new guidelines — which come on the heels of Florida’s infamous new “Don’t Say Gay” law, passed with the stated intent of expanding parental authority over LGBTQ+ education — will have a chilling effect on LGBTQ+ safety in their schools.
“The notification to all the parents can create a very stressful and unwanted situation to trans and LGBTQ students,” explained Kailey Sandell, a Leon High student who spoke at the hearing. “A lot of times kids assume that kids are gay or trans; they will easily be able to hurt them.”
“Our schools have been ground zero for anti-LGBTQ vitriol this year.”
Another district student, Benjamin Burn, said the district should be focusing instead on preventing bullying and making more facilities gender-neutral. “Trans kids want privacy,” he said. “That’s what I want, that’s what everyone wants. And trans kids honestly deserve it.”
A school board passing an anti-LGBTQ+ policy is no surprise, given a new survey that found that less than 1% of school board members nationwide identify as queer or trans.
Thousands of students across the state have protested against “Don’t Say Gay” and efforts to strip rights and protections from their LGBTQ+ peers, with some Tallahassee students marching on the Florida Capitol building itself in March. With this harmful new development, it seems certain that Florida lawmakers haven’t seen the last of their state’s pro-trans student activists.
Please note how the constitution is called a living document. “In her ruling, High Court Judge Marissa Robertson said “the Constitution is often described as a living instrument which gives significant room for the realisation and enjoyment of individuals’ human rights”.” “”The very rights that the document espouses and protects are capable of evolution since concepts, attitudes and the understanding of human rights and dignity evolve over time,” she said.” I wish a judge would see our constitution that way. Hugs
Caribbean countries are known to be conservative when it comes to LGBTQIA+ liberation, however many are taking steps towards equality.(Getty: Sean Drakes)
A Caribbean court has ruled a law in Antigua and Barbuda that criminalises gay sex is unconstitutional.
Key points:
The ruling came after an appeal from a local gay man and a women’s activist group
Other Caribbean nations including Belize and Trinidad & Tobago have decriminalised gay sex in recent years
Similar court challenges are pending in nearby Barbados, St Lucia, and St Kitts and Nevis
The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court found that “the selection of an intimate partner is a private and a personal choice”.
The ruling also said the twin-island nation’s 1995 Sexual Offenses Act “offends the right to liberty, protection of the law, freedom of expression, protection of personal privacy and protection from discrimination on the basis of sex”.
The ruling comes after a gay man who works at Antigua’s Ministry of Health, and a local group called Women Against Rape Inc asked that the law be found unconstitutional.
The rarely used law states in part that two consenting adults found guilty of having anal sex would face 15 years in prison.
If found guilty of serious indecency, they would face five years in prison.
The Ministry of Health worker testified he had been persecuted and assaulted, a common complaint across the largely conservative Caribbean region, where many homosexuals fear for their lives.
The man also said patients have refused treatment from him because of his sexual orientation, according to the ruling.
Meanwhile, the anti-rape group said concern over breaches of confidentiality prevented those in the LGBTQIA+ community from seeking AIDS testing or treatment and that they receive hostile treatment from healthcare providers.
Such laws used to be common in former British colonies across the Caribbean but have been challenged in recent years.
Courts in Belize and Trinidad & Tobago have found such laws unconstitutional, while other cases in the region are pending.
The Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality welcomed the outcome, the legal push for which began in 2020, challenging what it called “invasive and unconstitutional remnants of colonial law”.
The group’s executive director, Kenita Placide, said such laws “legitimise hate speech, discrimination and violence, and tears at the fabric of our society”.
The group said same-sex consensual intimacy is still criminalised in seven Caribbean countries, adding that while sentences are rarely imposed, penalties range from 10 years to life imprisonment.
It said constitutional challenges are pending in Barbados, St Lucia, and St Kitts and Nevis.
In her ruling, High Court Judge Marissa Robertson said “the Constitution is often described as a living instrument which gives significant room for the realisation and enjoyment of individuals’ human rights”.
It was not immediately clear if the Attorney-General for Antigua and Barbuda planned to appeal the decision, and government officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Texas Freedom Caucus, a legislative caucus in the Texas House of Representatives, sent a threatening letter to a law firm with locations in Dallas and Houston that planned to reimburse travel costs for employees wanting an abortion. In the letter, which was addressed to Sidley Austin LLP, the 11 representatives of the caucus wrote that legislation will be introduced to impose civil and criminal sanctions on law firms that pay for abortion or abortion travel.
“We are writing to inform you of the consequences that you and your colleagues will face for these actions,” it said. The Texas Freedom Caucus said Sidley had aided or abetted drug-induced abortions that violate the Texas Heartbeat Act, a law that bans abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy. According to the letter, litigation is already underway to identify employees who may have been involved.
Texas Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Matt Schaefer first appeared on JMG in April 2021 when he introduced a bill allowing permitless open carry.
In February 2022 he appeared here when he declared that charging the parents of trans children with child abuse was “a hill we’re ready to die on.”
From the article at the link you can see they again are using the illegal but not ruled on by SCOTUS way of using bounty hunters / allowing anyone to sue. In the abortion case they made it very profitable by those who sue but costly for those who get sued no matter if they lose or win, they still have to pay the costs. Hugs
The proposed legislation will prohibit any employer in the state from paying for elective abortions or reimbursing abortion-related costs regardless of where the abortion occurs. According to these lawmakers, private citizens will be allowed to sue anyone who pays for an elective abortion performed on a Texas resident.
If passed, the law will grant The State Bar of Texas to disbar any lawyer who has violated any abortion statutes.
The Freedom Caucus, telling people what to do with their bodies, telling private business what to do with their personnel, and telling parents how to raise their children.
Their freedom to tell you what to do is WAY more important than your individual freedom to live the way you want to. All that shit from the reich about the libs and the “nanny state” was, once again for the billionth time, projection
It just seems so clear that their D opponents could find clips from these asshats saying opposite things. “We can’t tell private business what to do…until we do.”
Yep, and the most-obvious fact… that Republicans appear to favor candidates who are more adept at divisively trolling, insulting, and provoking others online than actually passing legislation which makes our/their lives better in tangible ways. That’s why we have assholes like Cruz, Gohmert, Boebert, and MTG in Congress.
Agree, which is the whole point here. The repugnant SCOTUS abortion decision was given a veneer or respectability by claiming that it merely turned the matter over to each state to decide, individually… and then the Republicans enacted laws to make it illegal for people to travel from one state to another to obtain the procedure.
While that clearly violates the intent of what the SCOTUS handed us, no one should be confident that the SCOTUS would defend a person’s right to travel to another state… and THAT is the danger of where we are today.
Not to worry. That would require permanent tracking of all women, total ban on all contraception, state line checkpoints and severe criminal penalties for all sluts. Just exactly like The Handmaids Tale. First, we have to stop women from having bank accounts and jobs. Next, we stop women from doing anything without their husband’s permission. Trans and gay women will be executed unless their ovaries are functioning; they will be sent to breeding farms.
charging the parents of trans children with child abuse was “a hill we’re ready to die on.” How many adult trans people today say they felt abused by parents who supported them? How many adult trans people today say they felt abused by parents who refused to accept them? Bonus question: how many adults from Christian household say they felt abused as children?
Remember… in Texas, it’s considered child abuse to provide a teen with gender-affirming medical care, but not to force a rape-victim teen to carry an unwanted pregnancy all the way to a live birth.
One of those scenarios is plainly more traumatic and life-altering than the other.
We are watching as Florida and red states in general are fast becoming deeply and openly the home of racist bigoted white supremacist Christian nationalist and it is supported by the Republican party in charge. Florida is becoming dangerous not just for minorities but for anyone that doesn’t follow the public demands of these gang members. Let’s be honest, the Proud Boys is a gang of thugs that found official recognition / elevation as a public group by the former president who used them to try to overturn an election. This was one of the gangs that tRump turned to that was willing to use violence to stop the will of the majority of the people. This gang is a small minority supported by a larger minority called the Republican party because the gang is willing to use violence and threats of harm to force the public to live by the Republican dictates of returning the culture to 1850. We have a minority political party so desperate to rule and retain power that they are willing to use force against the majority to do it. Hugs
Newspaper opinion pages are often criticized for having a political bias, but one Florida paper showed the pitfalls of a poorly-executed attempt to tell both sides of the story.
An op-ed published on Sunday by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune defended local school board candidates’ alleged association with the Proud Boys by claiming the group’s members were simply “caring parents” who were being unfairly attacked for their conservative political views.
Oh, and the paper failed to disclose the author is married to a Proud Boy herself. To be clear, the Proud Boys have a documented history of criminal activities and violent altercations that date back several years.
I was going to excerpt the op-ed but in the time since I started this post, it has been deleted from the paper’s website. There’s a full screenshot here.
An obvious journalism fail from the Sarasota Herald Tribune and also just gross. https://t.co/JnikaR2NUk
I'll be honest. I know Melissa a little. We have had pleasant discourse. But when fascism and white supremacy are denied, or worse revered, it's #fullstop. Her public FB profile is full of more than sympathizer posts, like this one. 3/7 pic.twitter.com/aNqarjc6Ti
— Jules Souliere, What the Florida? (@what_the_fla) July 10, 2022
This place is scum. Its the only place in all my world travels I ever got f@g bashed. The police also told me as the victim to let it go when I pressed for them to do something after I hunted down the truck of the guys who jumped me. After I told the police the plate number. After I told them the address the truck stayed parked at I was told to drop it. That place is full of rich old white money and very poor kept in their place black people. Fuck Sarasota. May a hurricane come and destroy the entire waterfront where the money is. All of it
The “Proud Boys – D.C. Street Sweepers” t-shirt tells you all you need to know. If members of BLM had attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6th, the author of the op-ed piece would have been singing a very different tune. She would have called them traitors and demanded they be executed. But since the insurrectionists were her husband and his White Nationalist friends she claims they were “caring parents” who were being unfairly attacked for their conservative political views.
Please notice the section on homeless LGBTQ+ kids. Yes students kicked out of their homes because they are LGBTQ+. Homeless kids for being gay or trans. How do you think they survive, what do they have to do? How the hell can they have an education when they are sleeping in orange groves, cars, and other people’s … Why are these kids kicked out of their homes? Bigotry and hate. What does the push by the Republicans to demonize the LGBTQ+ and the don’t say gay bills do, they increase that bigotry. They give hateful foster families and others the idea that these horrible LGBTQ+ have no worth and must be punished, that they don’t belong in a decent home. You know it has to be horrible for a kid in their home when it is safer to stay in a school that they are bullied in after school hours. How bad does home have to be. Read the article, I wish these Republicans that are pushing this hate would understand that they are saying to these kids is hide / don’t dare be out and seen, you shouldn’t exist. To the students with hateful parents that love these don’t say gay bills and the banning of book with LGBTQ+ content what it says is that it is OK to attack and target those kids, the ones you / your parents want to not be there. Plus you have adults attacking kids as pedophiles because they are gay or forming gay support clubs. How hateful and misinformed but that is what the right had been pushing, just being LGBTQ+ means you want to rape and little kids. Horrible what absolute power in the hands of Republicans can cause. And to the religious groups happy and proud of this effect on kids let me ask when Jesus said to let the kids come to him did he say but only the straight ones? Hugs
For queer students, school is a place that can hurt and heal.
WINTER PARK, Fla. — Nearly a dozen Winter Park High School students settled into a classroom, forming a semi-circle around 17-year-old Will Larkins, who sat cross-legged on a desk.
It was the school’s first Queer Student Union meeting since March, when the group led a school-wide walkout to protest state legislation intended to limit classroom discussion on gender and sexual orientation. Critics have dubbed the measure the “Don’t Say Gay” law. Will, the head of the club, wanted to get a sense of how everyone was feeling.
“For the most part, it was actually really positive,” said Echo Izzo, a 19-year-old senior who was near the front of the group that day.
Though the protest didn’t stop Florida’s governor from signing the bill into law, to the students who led the event, it was still a success. Hundreds of their classmates in this Orlando suburb walked out of school for nearly an hour that day, chanting “We say gay.”
But not all the students showed up in support. On the fringes of the crowd, a teenager danced across a rainbow flag that had been tossed in the dirt.
That act wasn’t surprising, a Queer Student Union member said. What shocked them was just how many students actually joined them in a show of solidarity.
“I totally felt like 50 people would show up,” Will said.
A year ago, Winter Park High’s Queer Student Union didn’t exist. Now, its members have found themselves on the front lines of Florida’s ongoing attempt to restrict what can be talked about at school. The measure the students protested, formally known as the “Parental Rights in Education” law, bans instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through third grade, as well as instruction that is not age- and developmentally appropriate at all grade levels.
Proponents say the law ensures parents are in charge of what their children learn about sensitive topics. Opponents say it will have a chilling effect. Though the measure specifically targets curriculum and discussion in K-3 classrooms, some educators and advocates worry it could also cut LGBTQ kids in higher grades off from support.
“At the high school level, I think it will create anxiety and maybe hesitancy by staff to have some of the open conversations that they may have,” said Dawn Young, who is the advisor for the Queer Student Union and a mentor for students. “I think it will affect the kids feeling that it means something is wrong with them.”
Will at Winter Park High School
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Will poses for a portrait in his bedroom
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For queer students, school is a place that can hurt and heal. It can be a safe space away from challenging home lives, but it can also be a source of pain. LGBTQ+ students reported being bullied on school grounds at nearly twice the rate of their straight peers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Winter Park High, a school of more than 3,400 students, sits in a suburb of Orlando, a city the U.S. Census reports as having among the highest concentration of same-sex households in the country.
The school is also less than 10 miles from PULSE, a gay night club where 49 people were murdered in what was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Members of the Queer Student Union were in elementary and middle school when it happened.
Since the Queer Student Union was formed in November of 2021, its members have tried to bring visibility to LGBTQ issues. They have run voter registration drives, put up posters that say “Being gay is NOT a choice,” and they’ve been meeting with administrators to find ways to prevent bullying in school bathrooms.
Will closed the meeting with ideas for next year.
“What problems in the school can Queer Student Union solve, and what should we do as a club to keep engaging and be useful?” Will asked the group.
The students agreed they wanted to see more history lessons on the gay rights movement and presentations on why jokes about LGBTQ people are hurtful.
It’s unclear if the newly enacted law will affect those plans.
Winter Park High sits in a region that is less welcoming than other parts of the country to gay, lesbian and transgender youth, according to a 2021 survey by the Trevor Project, an advocacy and support organization.
Youth in the South reported higher rates of mental health issues and less access to affirming spaces compared to their peers in other regions of the country, the survey found.
“There’s definitely been an increase in anti-LGBTQ policy and rhetoric, and we’re seeing a lot of this happening in the states in the South,” said Myeshia Price, a senior research scientist with the Trevor Project. “LGBTQ youth have had to grapple with these hostile political climates, and to have their identities being debated and discussed right in front of them is undoubtedly having some negative impact on their mental health.”
A rainbow is seen inside Winter Park High School
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Winter Park High School in Orlando
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For some students, school is the only safe place.
On most days at Winter Park High, Echo can be found waiting in the parking lot hours after the bell rings. That is where they wait to be picked up by a friend’s mom.
Echo started living on the streets of Winter Haven, Florida in 2021 because of a volatile home-life. Echo temporarily moved into a Christian homeless shelter, but when shelter employees found out they are trans, they were kicked out.
For several weeks, they slept at bus stops and in an orange grove near school.
“I was kind of desensitized,” Echo said. “I stopped letting myself hope by that point.”
Echo moved into an LGBTQ-friendly shelter about an hour away, in Winter Park, at the beginning of last school year. They met a friend at Winter Park High and moved in with his family a few months later.
Echo often hangs out in a courtyard at school for several hours, and this week in April was no different.
“I try to involve myself in as much as I can so I’m not just sitting here,” Echo said.
Even though Echo has found their niche at Winter Park High, school has always been complicated.
They have attended 15 different schools from kindergarten through 12th grade. Most of those transitions happened in elementary school after Echo entered the foster care system in second grade.
By third grade, Echo knew they were queer, but they didn’t come out until sixth grade. In 11th grade, Echo realized they are nonbinary.
But their foster family was not supportive, and neither were some students at school.
“It was a lot more safe than home, but it was definitely not safe,” Echo said.
Echo practices piano
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Echo poses for a portrait
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When Echo came out as nonbinary, they felt clearheaded for the first time. They still feel that way at Winter Park, even though it is a new place with problems of its own.
Sometimes, students make comments that alienate Echo. In April, a student in one of Echo’s classes criticized how much LGBTQ+ people have been speaking out about Florida’s new law.
“They said, in their words, ‘No one cares if you’re gay, just stop talking about it,’” Echo said. “We can’t just exist and not talk about it. We can’t just live a peaceful existence, because there’s always going to be people questioning us, making jokes, making threats.”
When Echo first heard that Florida’s new law was on its way to passing, they were distraught.
“It was the idea that something like this could pass and students like them would not be able to have a safe space that they could express themselves, because they couldn’t do that at home,” Young said.
Some students, like Will, are changing the status quo one class at a time.
In March, Will gave a presentation to his history class about the Stonewall riots — a famous 1969 protest in New York City that helped spark the gay rights movement. A video of the lesson went viral on Twitter.
Will is confident about his convictions. He speaks out against banning books at school board meetings, attends legislative hearings, and when strangers online asked why he wore a dress to school in that viral Stonewall video, his response was: “Because I wanted to.”
But being gay in high school has not been easy. When Will started speaking out about the new law, people began messaging him online telling him he is a pedophile and that he should kill himself. He’s talked candidly about struggling with mental health.
“When sixth grade rolled around, I started to realize I liked boys and not girls, and still having not been exposed to other queer people, the self-hatred only festered,” Will said at an Orange County School District board meeting in March.
His mental health worsened last fall, after students bullied him at a Halloween party, yelling at him and calling him slurs.
“I just became so depressed,” Will said.
It wasn’t until after the party he realized most of his LGBTQ+ friends were also dealing with similar issues. It was then that Young, the mentor, encouraged him and a friend to start the Queer Student Union.
Since then, school has become a safer space for Will, even though the students who bullied him are still there.
“I’ve gotten to the point now where the hateful people are such a small minority,” Will said.
He’s outgrown them. The space in his head that was once focused on bullying is now consumed by his plans for the future.
This spring, Will decided to run for student body representative.
In April, Will stood tall in his backyard. The sun would be going down soon, and he had one take to get this last scene right for his campaign video. His dad steadied the cellphone and told Will he was ready.
Will smiled for the camera.
“Even though it’s my first year at Winter Park High School, I’ve already made a splash,” Will said as he raised his arms over his head and dived into the pool.
The election took place a few weeks later. He didn’t win, but he didn’t have long to dwell on it. The same day he found out he lost, he was told he won a Webby Award — alongside two other Florida teens — for championing the “Say Gay” movement online. The awards honor “excellence on the Internet” and are presented in New York City.
“My goal was to make the school better for everyone, and I’m not going to stop trying to do that because I lost an election,” Will said.
National Bible Week falls every year on the week of Thanksgiving. First declared by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, National Bible Week celebrates the reading of the best-selling book of all time and encourages participants to read the scriptures and share their faith and favorite bible verses with fellow followers. In this collection of rants, Lewis analyzes the differences between the Jewish and Christian Bibles, the separation of church and state, and the Ark Encounter “life-size” Noah’s Ark/Creation Museum in Williamstown, KY. Special appearances by Adam, Eve, the snake, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, and the Leviticus litany of who begat whom.
Scottie's Playtime 