Scene from the Mothers Against Greg Abbott adPhoto: Screenshot
Failed Republican candidate and rightwing pundit Deanna Lorraine – who has a history of extreme anti-LGBTQ statements – argued that elementary schoolchildren should be armed so that they can fight school shooters.
“Arm our children!” she told her guest Matt Couch on her Shots Fired! podcast. “Have them learn how to protect themselves. That’s what’s gonna stop shooters. That’s what’s gonna stop threats. Not just going to school wearing a bulletproof vest, OK?”
Lorraine was discussing an ad from the group Mothers Against Greg Abbott, a progressive organization in Texas trying to stop Gov. Greg Abbott (R) from getting reelected. In the ad, a child is shown wearing body armor and a helmet holding up a chalkboard that says “First day of school.”
The ad is making a statement about school shootings and Abbott’s lack of action on the issue.
Lorraine wasn’t having it, accusing the group of trying to “pull on people’s heartstrings” by bringing up mass shootings in elementary schools.
“Sorry, but I wanna teach my son how to handle a gun,” Lorraine said. “I wanna teach my son how to intelligently use guns and operate them because there is gonna be a threat some day and they’re going to be in danger some day. And I want them to be able to protect themselves, not have to just wear bulletproof vests and a hat.”
“No, I want them to be able to defend themselves against real threats and kick some ass out there and maybe intervene when a school shooter comes and shoots their asses.”
“I don’t want them to go to school defenseless.”
Some people on Twitter mocked her suggestion that sending kids to school armed would lead to fewer deaths.
In 2020, Lorraine ran in the California open primary for the state’s 12th Congressional District against Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Lorraine came in fifth place and didn’t qualify for the general election.
In 2020, Lorraine ran in the California open primary for the state’s 12th Congressional District against Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Lorraine came in fifth place and didn’t qualify for the general election.
People ask me why I post stuff said by these hate preachers. Well I just posted about a school that shut down a student newspaper and ended the journalism courses simply because the paper respected the pronouns and asked for name of a trans person which got them punished, punished for being respectful, and in the last issue reported on the history of the LGBTQ+ people. Simply having a story about the history of a group of people caused them to be canceled and the entire course of study removed! Think about that. The school administrators believe that just the mention of gay, lesbian, or trans people is so inappropriate that it must never be mentioned. Being respectful used to be something people were proud of in young people, now if they are not mean and targeting of LGBTQ+ for abuse they are being too nice and must be punished. It is because the school administrators believe most of what people like these hate preachers are saying, they believe the garbage that red state governors spout about how the LGBTQ+ are pedophiles and forcing kids to be gay or transition. Teachers and other LGBTQ+ are forcing kids to be a different gender and sexual orientation even though we are the ones who use science to show that it is something we are born with and can’t be changed. But these religious hate preachers say it, and the red state maga armed gang thugs enforce it. That is why I post what they say and why I fight back against it. If you cannot see how flawed and wrong what they are saying is, then they are reaching you and those around you. It must be combated and fought against. This guy has been banned from other countries because what he says is not acceptable in a civil society yet he is celebrated in the land of the free. Hugs
In the past, he has encouraged his congregants to kill all gay people, calling it a “cure for AIDS.”
A preacher known for his hatred of LGBTQ people warned his congregation that gays and lesbians want to get them drunk and then make them do “some weird junk that you have no desire to get into.”
“These people are going to take you down a dark path,” said Steven Anderson, founder of the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement and pastor at the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. He has been banned from 34 countries because of his hate speech.
“You start hanging around with a bunch of fa***ts and lesbians, you know what they’re gonna do?” he continued. “They’re gonna ply you with alcohol or ply you with drugs and they’re going to abuse you.”
“They’re going to molest you. They are going to get you into some weird junk that you have no desire to get into.”
“Stay away from them! They are evil, they are freaks, they are predators, they’re not reproducers they are recruiters, they are molesters, they are predators. Stay away from them.”
Christian hate-preacher Steven Anderson, who's banned from stepping foot in 34 countries, is still spreading harmful lies about gays and lesbians. pic.twitter.com/Gim3iPUDRP
Anderson earned himself the reputation as one of the most anti-LGBTQ preachers in the country after he praised the Pulse nightclub shooter, calling the victims “a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles” and “disgusting homosexuals who the Bible says were worthy of death.”
His extreme hate speech has gotten him banned from dozens of countries, including all 26 of Europe’s Schengen states, Botswana, Jamaica, Ireland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
Australia banned him in 2020. In response, Anderson claimed that God punished Australia with wildfires because they were “banning and deporting preachers of the Gospel” so they were facing “the judgment of God.”
There must be no mention of the LGBTQ+ what so ever, especially in a positive way. This is not about protecting little kids, that should be clear now. The history of the LGBTQ+ people is inappropriate for the public to see. Those people are diseased evil baby rapiers that eat human flesh, they are an abomination god wants killed. What group will be next after they get rid of us? Respecting someone enough to use the name and pronouns they ask is not to be tolerated, we must punish and destroy anyone different from the Christian ideal. This is an open attempt to roll back the public acceptance and tolerance that the LGBTQ+ have earned over the decades, and return the country to before there was equal rights for minorities. We need the entire voting public to understand what these people really want and will do. As I will post in a few minutes, some of these people now want to forbid girls / women from wearing pants claiming that is crossdressing. How much control do they want over every aspect of other people’s lives? All of it. They want to mandate acceptable clothing like the Amish or the Puritans, they want to make the handmaids tale a real thing. This attacks on one group making them a scape goat has been done in recent history, 1930s Germany, we seen where that led to. Hugs
“If [taxpayers] read that [issue], they would have been like, ‘Holy cow. What is going on at our school?’”
The final issue of the Viking SagaPhoto: Screenshot
A Nebraska high school has thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
School administrators eliminated both the high school newspaper and its journalism program following publication of the school’s year-end issue in May, which featured a story on the history of LGBTQ rights and editorials on LGBTQ topics.
Three days after distribution of Northwest High School’s Viking Saga, staff and students were notified of the paper and program’s elimination. Shortly after, the newspaper’s printing service and advertising contracts with the nearby Grand Island Independent were cancelled.
“The very last issue that came out this year, there was… a little bit of hostility amongst some,” Northwest Public Schools board Vice President Zach Mader said. “There were editorials that were essentially, I guess what I would say, LGBTQ.”
“There have been talks of doing away with our newspaper if we were not going to be able to control content that we saw [as] inappropriate,” Mader told the Independent.
“There [were] some things that were…” he said, referring to the final issue of the Viking Saga. “If [taxpayers] read that [issue], they would have been like, ‘Holy cow. What is going on at our school?’”
Board President San Leiser claimed that “most people were upset they were written,” referring to the articles about LGBTQ rights.
In addition to the controversy surrounding content, according to students, Saga staff was reprimanded in April after using preferred names and pronouns in the paper, and was advised by district officials to use only birth names.
Students defied the order for the final issue. They were censored and at least one trans student’s preferred name was replaced with his deadname before publication in the byline of his story.
“The [name] thing was the first big blow,” the trans student, Marcus Pennell, said. “It was the first time that the school had officially been, like, ‘We don’t really want you here.”
The school hasn’t provided an official explanation for the paper and program’s cancellation. Northwest’s 2021-2022 journalism teacher has remained silent.
Students and free speech advocates say the paper getting cancelled is a violation of First Amendment rights.
Hadar Harris, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, points to the 1969 Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, when the school argued a 13-year-old student could not wear a black armband to protest the Vietnam War.
“In the Tinker case, the Supreme Court said that students and teachers don’t lose their First Amendment and freedom of expression rights at the schoolhouse gates,” said Harris. “We believe that that should apply to student journalists as well.”
“By far, the number one thing that will get student media censored is a story that criticizes the school or that administrators somehow think makes them look bad,” said Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Center.
The maga right demands to rule by violence and intimidation. They have no use for democracy they demand to rule over everyone. They are a small minority that is armed and backed by the republicans in office like the red state governors. They don’t care that the rest of the world doesn’t agree with them, they don’t care that reality doesn’t agree with them, they only care about what they want, what their feelings are and everyone else can be damned! Note these people were armed that showed up. They are gang thugs, and they don’t worry about being arrested or the police because the police back their lawlessness. The US is being taken over by lawless armed violent gang of Christian thugs demanding that everything be done according to the way they want. This is the US Christian Taliban! Hugs
Library officials repeatedly said that they didn’t carry any of the books. Then armed protesters began showing up at libraries.
Kimber Glidden – the library director in Boundary County, Idaho – has resigned after religious and political extremists threatened her over LGBTQ books that her libraries don’t even carry.
A local group called Boundary County Library Board Recall targeted Glidden and four of the library board’s five members for removal. The effort began after Glidden updated the county library policy on censoring contested books, stating that libraries will not place materials on “closed shelves” or label items to protect the public from their content.
The group’s main concern is over a “widely circulated lists of books and other media among far-right-wing groups” that they worry will be accessible to kids, The Idaho Statesman reported. But county library officials have repeatedly said that the library doesn’t carry any of the books that the group and its supporters have voiced concern over.
The recall group is also upset that, in May, Glidden had the county rejoin the American Library Association. Right-wingers oppose the association’s advocacy against censorship.
While the group says it aims “to protect children from explicit materials and grooming,” Glidden says it’s more interested in intimidation and control. Grooming, a term for techniques used by sex abusers to coerce a child into being abused and not reporting it, has become a mainstream Republican term for exposing kids to any LGBTQ content. The term paints LGBTQ people and allies as child molesters.
Glidden said her office has been harassed with numerous time- and resource-consuming Freedom of Information Act requests which, if fulfilled, would make it impossible for her to do her job.
She also said that, during public meetings, she has been warned “with fire-and-brimstone language of her imminent damnation.” Conservatives who have signed up to volunteer at county libraries showed up carrying firearms to frighten others, she added. Idaho law allows people to openly carry guns with a permit.
In her public resignation, posted to Facebook, Glidden wrote, “Nothing in my background could have prepared me for the political atmosphere of extremism, militant Christian fundamentalism, intimidation tactics, and threatening behavior currently being employed in the community.”
She said that, because the group and its supporters oppose the county’s anti-censorship policies and keep complaining about books that aren’t even on the shelves, they’re more interested in establishing intimidation and dominance rather than protecting anyone.
Glidden also says she plans on moving elsewhere if the area’s political climate doesn’t change.
The bans have largely come from Republican politicians, conservative school boards and so-called “parents’ rights” groups that have opposed such content as “woke” “indoctrination” that’s “inappropriate” for kids.
Moms for Liberty, one of the national conservative groups pushing to ban LGBTQ books, has started pressuring public school libraries across the country to “accept book donations from conservative publishing companies that promote white supremacist, homophobic, and transphobic ideologies,” Vice News reported.
Due to the wording of the law schools that have not been offered one of these “In god we trust” signs must accept them if they are donated. Must take them! The people who wrote the law tried hard to anticipate and rule out any sabotage by people who did not want to push the Christian religion on everyone. But they missed this. So this atheist activist donated a bunch of these “In god we trust” signs in … Arabic! Grand. By the law the schools must post them in a prominent place. Hugs
Note it was one parent who wanted a book that was about stopping racism removed, and when they couldn’t get their way they went after the teacher. Why would that parent not want to combat racism? Could they in fact be a racist? This is the world the right wing has created and promoted in the US now. The racists bigots can now try to force their hate to be offically sanctioned by the state. Hugs
SOUTHLAKE, Texas –A monthslong controversy involving a North Texas fourth grade teacher and a book about racism has come to a close.
Last fall, the Carroll ISD Board of Trustees voted to reprimand the teacher after getting a complaint about the book in the teacher’s classroom library.
Both Carroll ISD and the teacher came to an agreement during a hearing Monday morning. Neither the district nor the teacher’s attorney would say much about the agreement they were able to reach, only saying both sides are pleased with the outcome.
Carroll ISD is closing the chapter on a monthslong issue involving fourth-grade teacher Rickie Farah and a book on racism in her classroom library at Johnson Elementary School in Southlake.
The controversy started last fall when a parent complained.
Originally, Farah was not reprimanded. However, parents appealed the decision, and the board voted to move forward with a reprimand last October.
“There is simply nothing wrong with what the teacher did,” one parent said at the hearing. “The parents couldn’t file a grievance about the book in the teacher’s library, so they made a cock-and-bull story about the teacher’s behavior.”
Monday morning, the board of trustees met at 8 a.m. for a special meeting after Farah made an appeal.
In complaints filed, Farah claims she was never interviewed at any level of the grievance process and that the board violated board policy and school laws in the state of Texas.
Many parents who were able to make the early Monday morning meeting spoke supporting the teacher.
“Just as a board of non-medical professionals should not reprimand a doctor’s medical decisions, a school board — particularly one of individuals who do not value educators — should not be allowed to reprimand a teacher,” said parent Stephanie Williams.
One speaker also called the board’s vote to reprimand an overreach of power. The board seemingly acknowledged the issue in a formal statement during Monday morning’s meeting.
“The board of trustees does not intend to limit the discretion of responsibilities of the superintendent or the campus principal,” said board member Andrew Yeager. “The board encourages the superintendent to take actions he deems appropriate.”
After more than an hour in a hearing which took place behind closed doors, both sides eventually reached an agreement.
“Ms. Farah’s pleased with the outcome and grateful that it has been resolved,” said Steven Poole, the executive director for the United Educators Association. “She loves this community, and her students and looks forward to continued success in the classroom.”
While Farah herself didn’t speak at the open meeting, she did hug her supporters before heading back to the classroom.
This controversy is just one of a few the district has faced so far this year.
The Department of Education Office of Civil Rights also opened an investigation into Carroll ISD last fall after receiving multiple complaints.
I noticed this story on Joe My God and I will add some tweets and comments from there. As always I suggest everyone visit that site for more posts that I don’t publish. It is a grand place for information.
Note the part of the book that the district / teachers object to is the parts that talk about the real history of black people in the US. Topics like lynching, racism, segregation and civil rights. This is a school system that is being sued on how they treat Black and LGBTQ+ students. These things happened in the US and they cannot be ignored to help fragile white peoples feelings. It happened, and it was done by the white people at that time. We must teach it as black history is US history and if we must make sure everyone knows those racist bigoted acts against minorities will not be accepted. I included other story links that clearly show the district and some of the teachers / staff at the school are very bigoted racists. Hugs
SOUTHLAKE, Texas – Carroll ISD in Southlake is reviewing sections of the book Life Is So Good, co-written by George Dawson to see if it is appropriate to teach at George Dawson Middle School.
Dawson, the grandson of a slave who lived most of his life in Dallas, published the biography in 2000 after learning to read at the age of 98.
Life Is So Good looks back on Dawson’s life, discussing what things were like in the 20th Century, including topics like lynching, racism, segregation and civil rights.
Carroll ISD says the book was requested to be used as part of instructional materials for a 7th grade class.
After review by a group of teachers, principals and curriculum coordinators it was determined certain sections of the book were not appropriate for 7th grade students.
The district is still reviewing which sections of the book are appropriate for instruction.
The Carroll ISD School board voted to name the middle school after Dawson in 2002. Former School Board Trustee Jerry Lawrence introduced the idea after his son heard Dawson speak in Southlake.
A YouTube video posted on the George Dawson Middle School website discusses Dawson’s life and shows students reading sections of the book aloud.
Carroll ISD says Life Is So Good in its entiretywas not used for instruction last year.
The NAACP filed a discrimination complaint to the U.S. Department of Education against Carroll ISD in February over the way students of color and LGBTQ students are treated.
Carroll ISD deemed parts of the book were not appropriate for 7th grade students. The book covers topics like lynching, racism, segregation and civil rights. https://t.co/B8G6n1rsB2
In Germany, teaching about the holocaust and other atrocities carried out by the Nazi regime is mandatory in public schools. Meanwhile in America, our schools are banning the writings of our past by the very people who lived it.
You have active shooter drills because of mass shootings at your schools and GOP politicians (including a significant number on your school boards) want to arm teachers. I think your grade 7 students can handle learning about the country’s history of slavery, racism, lynchings and segregation.
and talkin’ bout how blacks are inferior and had it good with slavery.
Is there a tiny, powerless minority they overlooked? Can’t do jews because Florida has a lot of those. I feel like we are missing potential next victims of The Purge.
Scene from the Mothers Against Greg Abbott adPhoto: Screenshot
Scottie's Playtime 