Bible Baptist Academy wanted nothing to do with Zoey because her new parents are both women (Screenshot via KPLC)
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ABaptist school in Louisiana kicked out a child who was about to enter kindergarten because she was recently adopted by lesbians.
It’s the latest example of Christian love in action.
The story is even more tragic when you realize what the child has been through. Five-year-old Zoey already lost both of her biological parents, with her father dying in an industrial accident in 2020. Thankfully, her aunt, Jennifer Parker, took her in, and the adoption became official earlier this month. Zoey had already taken pre-K classes at Bible Baptist Academy in DeQuincy, Louisiana, so the plan was to continue there for kindergarten.
But last week, just days before the school year began, and after the family attended open house and Zoey got her uniform, Jennifer and her partner Emily were told their new daughter was being kicked out… because the two of them are lesbians.
BIBLE BABTIST ACADEMY is a disappointment. Calling me and Jennie Parker in for a meeting TWO days before school starts to tell us that they can not educate our child due to the fact that we are a married same sex couple.
Even though this isn’t her first year to attend…
You know what you just taught my daughter? How truly judgmental your church is. How unforgiving and unrelenting you are. I was angry, hurt, embarrassed but I am not anymore. Now, I am thankful. Thankful you will not mold my tiny human’s brain to be anything like you. I will teach my child to love EVERYONE just like you say your God is supposed to.
My child has lost so much. Her mother, her father, her whole life has been wrenched away before her 5th birthday. And now… her education, her friends, and her teachings of the God that she loves and I support. Look at this girl and tell me you would judge her Bc of her parents choices….
Such a disappointment but can I say I’m surprised? This southern world disgusts me.
Emily Parker spoke with news station KPLC about what the school told her, and their response only makes things worse:
“The pastor met us in the meeting room and started talking about gender identification and that they teach the words of the Lord and marriage was between a man and a women,” Emily Parker said. “They didn’t think this was a good fit.”
Bible Baptist Academy said in a statement that the school is “committed to instructing and living in accordance with the teachings of Scripture.”
They say that’s what they strive to teach students who attend.
“This should not be interpreted that we have any hatred or malice toward them. We are just as committed to loving all people as we are to holding to Bible principles that people may not agree with or may not understand.”
I have no clue what “gender identification” has to do with a same-sex couple… but it’s not like Christian bigotry is supposed to make sense. To punish a child who’s been through so much for the imaginary “sins” of her parents is beyond cruel. It’s absolutely hatred and malice, and that doesn’t change just because the school claims it’s all biblically mandated. It’s very predictably Baptist. That’s the religion for you.
The school’s entire statement wasn’t any better, saying “The Bible also teaches us to love everyone with the love of God despite their personal choices. We strive to teach this to the students who attend. We encourage them to show love and compassion to everyone.” That’s seriously their defense for why they kicked out a child who hadn’t done anything wrong, even by their own bottom-of-the-barrel standards. You can’t expect leaders of a Christian school to do the right thing when their entire moral code requires them to go down a path of cruelty.
There’s an argument to be made that none of this should be news at all. A private Christian school has every right to enforce its own rules, no matter how despicable the rest of us might find them. We’re not anti-gay, they argue. We’re anti-sin. So any sinners would not be allowed in the school unless they’ve repented for it. The problem with that argument is that this isn’t really about all sins. Does this school kick out children whose parents smoke, or drink, or take the Lord’s name in vain, or cheat on their taxes, or pay for abortions, or any of the other sins Christians commit all the time? Of course they don’t. They probably don’t know, or don’t care, or don’t bother to look into any of those situations.
You’ll never see a news story about a Christian school kicking out a child because her parents spent a weekend gambling in Vegas. But if that child has loving same-sex parents, it’s a five-alarm fire. It’s the selective bigotry by these Christian schools that’s so infuriating. That’s why the school’s excuses ring so hollow.
The silver lining here is that other Christian schools in the community reached out to the family and Zoey has a new school already lined up. The family will be fine. The school has a well-deserved stain on its reputation.
The obvious question is why anyone, especially a same-sex couple, would want to send a child to a private bigoted religious school in the first place. I posed that exact question to Emily Parker, who told me last night that she knew what kind of school this was, but she felt it was important to send Zoey there so she could have some stability and continuity:
We were completely aware BBA is a Christian Baptist school. [Zoey’s] father died in 2020. She learned that God was taking care of her daddy. That anytime she needed to talk to daddy she could pray. God was her connection to her daddy and we completely supported her.
We were eager for BBA to help teach her about the God she already loved. Being a private school, we knew what BBA was and were willing to pay the monthly fees to ensure her education and faith. They were so accepting the previous year. We had no idea there would be a problem.
I am nothing more than a supportive parent.
That’s a valid point, no matter how much I disagree with the school’s beliefs. Zoey being with her classmates, especially while everything else around her is changing, has its benefits, even if it’s at this school. It also raises an interesting question about why none of this came up last year. The Parkers were Zoey’s legal guardians when she was in pre-K; it was the legal adoption, then, that invoked the Baptist school’s cruelty.
Please note some more information from the artical.
“Her approach in this curriculum further perpetuates ignorance, further perpetuates racism and white supremacy,” he said, adding “These priority areas are dominated by nationalism.”
The Republican governor claimed the new proposed standards are free from “political agendas” and include an increased focus on Native American history. But they received swift criticism from some educators as a thinly-veiled political document. They emphasize the qualities of America’s founders and mimic language Noem has used as she jumped on the conservative cause of weeding certain “divisive” teachings on race from public schools.
Despite the academic framework being one of her favorite targets, her administration has provided scant evidence that teaching associated with critical race theory — an academic framework that centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that those institutions maintain the dominance of white people — exists in South Dakota schools. The state Department of Education spent hundreds of hours combing through its policies, guidance materials and websites, but its report released Monday found “a very small number” of instances where its material didn’t line up with Noem’s order to get rid of anything that contained “divisive concepts” on race.
The governor in a statement cast the report as “proactively removing” critical race theory as she promotes “America’s true and honest history.”
Nick Tilsen, the president of an Indigenous advocacy organization called NDN Collective, said that when the standards start out with goals like that, they are bound to further a narrative that continues to treat minority groups unjustly.
“Her approach in this curriculum further perpetuates ignorance, further perpetuates racism and white supremacy,” he said, adding “These priority areas are dominated by nationalism.”
“They are not inclusive to say the least. The goal was to get away from inclusivity to push an agenda that the governor deems important,” said Sarah White, who directs the South Dakota Education Equity Coalition. “It’s definitely going to further disenfranchise our students when it’s missing that Indigenous lens.”
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Monday released a revised proposal for social studies standards in public schools that lays out a mostly shining vision of American history, after an initial draft of the standards came under heavy criticism last year from conservatives.
The 15-member standards workgroup included Noem’s chief of staff, two Republican lawmakers and the director of the South Dakota Catholic Conference, but just three educators certified by the Department of Education.
The new 128-page document more than doubles the length of the proposed standards the Department of Education released last year. They are also peppered with Christian history and explore the religion’s influence on the nation’s leading figures and on Western civilization.
Seventh graders, for example, are expected to parrot the notions that most of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery and that all Americans are “endowed with rights by the God that created them.”
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has released a revised proposal for social studies standards in public schools. They would present a mostly shining vision of America’s history after an initial https://t.co/2rSHKSDSCl
South Dakota was colonized by hateful white supremacist genocidal Christians who broke treaties and stole land that didn’t belong to them.. I am okay with that history being taught. Not the fake lying sugar coated version this stupid bitch is selling.
Seventh graders, for example, are expected to parrot the notion that most of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery….
But don’t you dare ask how slavery was not abolished until a century later, and after 600,000 people had to die violently. Either The Founders(TM) fucked up in not bothering to address the issue at the time, like they didn’t care about the inalienable rights. Or they fucked up by not making the political institutions of the United States resilient against traitors and human rights abusers.
History is written by the victors, sadly. And soon there will not be a child in America that will know anything about slavery, the wholesale slaughter of Native Americans, and…. homosexuals.
Two guys talking about trans issues and biological sex really means. They address all the science on biology such as sexual orientation, gametes, chromosomes, intersex, and so much more. If you want to learn but not be overwhelmed this is the show to watch. Yes one of the guys has a female avatar. He is not trans, he is entirely a straight cis male who is into poly relationships, but it showcases how just making assumptions can be wrong. Hugs
We need more younger democratic candidates willing to take the fight to the opposition and fight back hard. This was a group of Abbott supporters there to heckle and mock O’Rourke. He did not tolerate them and forcefully put them in their place. Hugs
The Democratic candidate for governor had a scathing response to a heckler.
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate for governor in Texas, didn’t hold back when a heckler laughed as he described the gun used to murder 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde earlier this year.
“It may be funny to you, motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me, OK?” O’Rourke fired back at the laugher, who was standing among a small group of supporters of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
See the full exchange from Wednesday evening in Mineral Wells, about 50 miles west of Fort Worth:
Tonight, in Mineral Wells, Texas
When a @GregAbbott_TX supporter laughs, yes, laughs out loud so everyone could hear, while Beto described the massacre of 19 children and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Beto quite appropriately lets loose with a MF. Yep. It was a pretty good one too. pic.twitter.com/t5LLMIPXeP
“You’re doing nothing. You’re all doing nothing,” O’Rourke told Abbott and other officials gathered on a stage for the event.
O’Rourke was escorted out.
“This is on you,” he said before leaving. “Until you choose to do something different, this will continue to happen. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.”
After Wednesday’s event, O’Rourke tweeted:
The parents in Uvalde are demanding action to address gun violence so no more families have to go through what they are experiencing.
Say what you will about Beto, but there isn't a politician in the state that can get grandmas to applaud "motherfucker." Highly effective crowd work. https://t.co/jY38mAmNkV
Only church certified and state approved books will be allowed. All others will be burned. No access to other information. No access to other ideas. When these groups who are a minority cannot win the people with their ideas, they insist only the information they approve of be allowed. We have seen the attempts for decades to outlaw science books, biology books, geology books, and all information that disagrees with the Christian bible. Same with sexual education, it disagrees with the minority religious view so must not be taught. This is a very dark road we are travelling down; it needs to stop. Hugs
Parents and concerned citizens in Jamestown, Michigan, decided they weren’t going to stand for the indoctrination of their children at the local public library, and they weren’t going to pay for it with their taxpayer money!
The local library featured sexually explicit LGBT books such as “Gender Queer: A Memoir” in a June Pride display, and the library staff refused to remove them from the library even after meetings with the board.
But the local residents didn’t give up—they mounted a campaign to stop funding the library with taxpayer money, and it worked! I congratulate them for standing firm with their convictions and working hard to bring the needed change.
Do we need anymore proof of the complete racist white privilege Florida maga sponsored by DeathSantis is pushing. Read to the end to see the attitude of the white woman who told him that Former President Obama was not age appropriate to be posted on a bulletin board in a majority black school. These people don’t even feel the need to hide it anymore. We have to stop this spread, remember DeathSantis is the favorite for the republicans in 2024. Hugs
An Escambia County public school teacher resigned this week over what he characterized as racist behavior by a school district employee.
The teacher, Michael James, emailed a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis and Escambia County Superintendent Tim Smith in which he wrote that a district employee removed pictures of historic Black American heroes from his classroom walls, citing the images as being “age inappropriate.”
Images that were removed from the bulletin board at O.J. Semmes Elementary School included depictions of Martin Luther King Jr., Harriett Tubman, Colin Powell and George Washington Carver, James said.
“It really floored me,” James told the News Journal. “I’ve been teaching special education for 15 years, and it just really floored me when she did that.”
James chose the board’s theme because the majority of the students and the residents in the neighborhoods that surround O.J. Semmes are Black, and he wanted to motivate his students with inspirational leaders they could easily look up to and see themselves.
James, 61, of Daphne, Alabama, sent his letter to the governor Monday night. He officially resigned from his position as an exceptional student education teacher at O.J. Semmes Elementary School on Tuesday morning.
Superintendent Smith said teachers are permitted to decorate their classrooms with educational materials and he was unaware of any policies that would prohibit a teacher from displaying pictures of inspirational American heroes on their walls.
Smith said a full investigation of the incident, which he called an “anomaly,” has been launched.
Charlie Crist, who is running for the Democratic nomination for governor to challenge DeSantis in November, blamed the governor’s “culture wars” for politicizing Florida’s public schools.
“This is the sad reality of Ron DeSantis’s Florida — a teacher, in a predominantly Black community, comes into their classroom to see posters of historically Black American heroes, including President Obama, taken down for being ‘inappropriate’,” said Crist in a statement by his campaign.
“DeSantis’s culture wars are infiltrating every corner of our state, and it’s Florida’s students who are paying the price.”
Crist, currently a U.S. congressman from St. Petersburg, is running against Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fired for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
Escambia County Public Schools spokesperson Cody Strother provided the News Journal with an official statement on behalf of the school district.
“Our office was made aware of this employee’s resignation and his stated reasons for resigning very early this morning, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022,” the statement read. “Around the same time, we were copied on an email written by this individual and released to the Governor’s Office and various media outlets before we had any opportunity to investigate. We are now in the process of conducting a full investigation. If these allegations are deemed factual, we will certainly take corrective action, as it is our aim that all of our teachers feel valued and supported.”
The district has yet to confirm the identity of the district employee who James alleged removed the pictures from his classroom walls, but in his letter James stated the employee worked as a board certified behavior analyst for the school district.
Above the pictures of the Black leaders, a copy of the Pledge of Allegiance was pasted in the bulletin board’s upper right hand corner, James said.
“Am I to believe Escambia County Schools employs those that dislike African Americans and are against swearing allegiance to these United States of America? Is there a dislike in anything that states ‘One Nation Under God’ in it?” James wrote, in his letter to the governor and superintendent.
James said he could not work for a school, or under the umbrella of a school district, that would hire people who would condone such behavior.
“I hate to say this about everybody in the staff or the leadership there, but something is not right,” he said. “Something needs to be changed or fixed.”
James previously taught at schools in Hawaii, Georgia and Alabama. It was going to be his first year teaching in Florida.
In his letter, he explained he recently purchased approximately $58 of school supplies with his own money at the Teacher Store in Pensacola.
“With these school supplies purchased, I spent several hours making a classroom bulletin board located behind my desk,” he wrote.
On Monday, the behavior analyst and another behavior coach entered his classroom to help him set up the room.
“That is kind of unusual, but that’s OK,” James recalled thinking. “They came in, and we started moving tables around and swapping some out, and I had made the bulletin board a couple of days earlier.”
As an ESE teacher, James was employed to teach students ranging in age from kindergarteners to fifth-graders. The bulletin board was on the wall directly behind his desk at the front of the class.
It contained about five to seven images of Black historical figures, as well as the Pledge of Allegiance. The individual pictures were about the size of a piece of paper, with short written passages on them explaining the achievements of each person.
“I was sitting down in one of the children’s chairs cutting something out, and I turned around and saw her start taking something off the bulletin board,” James recalled.
When he questioned what the behavioral analyst was doing, “She said something along the lines of it wasn’t age appropriate. Something like that,” James said.
James does not remember the woman mentioning race while taking down the photos. But he did note that she had also seized a picture of former President Barack Obama that he had placed near his desk because there wasn’t room on the bulletin board.
“She picked it up and said, ‘You don’t need to put this up either,'” James recalled. “She said — I can’t remember exactly what she said — but she said, ‘the kid are too young‘ or something like that. It floored me. I thought, ‘This is the first Black president.'”
The behavioral analyst’s general demeanor and attitude made James feel like she had authority at the school, he said.
“I don’t know who guided her or why she took that on her own. I’ve never seen that in 15 years — just completely take down my board — without asking or anything,” he said.
In his brand new work environment, James didn’t know what to say or who to go to in the moment.
“I didn’t say anything else. I honestly let it go, but got to thinking about it and got pretty upset,” he said. “I could have just sent it the principal. But things need to get done. A lot of times people can just sweep things under the rug.”
His lack of institutional knowledge at his new job and what he characterized as the “rundown” state of the O. J. Semmes Elementary School building compelled James to go straight to the top with his complaints.
James said the school is in poor shape and he believes that it is treated as a lower priority because many of the students are Black children from low-income families.
“I feel like sometimes they are taken advantage of and no one is speaking for them, and that school — there is no way with the Florida lottery — that it should look like that. I’m wondering what kind of equitable division of money is being done for that school compared to other schools in other wealthier areas of Pensacola or Escambia County,” he said.
Currently, teachers are in demand everywhere, and James is not too worried about finding a new job.
“I’ll be teaching somewhere in a month,” he said. “I have excellent credentials.”
The teacher was told to remove images of notable Black American leaders, like former President Obama, from his classroom because they were deemed "age-inappropriate".
Making it more difficult for smart and committed teachers to do their job well is a tactic, as poorly educated, misinformed people are easier to control with bullshithttps://t.co/J65e4d9ujb
We had a Roundtable with teachers who recently left the classroom. ALL of them expressed that their #1 reason for leaving the classroom is because of the fear/stress of this attempted “new normal” for teachers & education in Florida.
I’m at a loss to understand the mental gymnastics the mind has to go through to think that black American history is age inappropriate, other than it comes from the mind of a racist.
You answered your own question. Start with a conclusion, then walk backwards
10). White people are perfect 9). And the black people thanked god whites people were there to rule over them . . . 1). Blacks are lesser humans at best.
Jesus fucking christ, they are on an absolute RAMPAGE to rewrite history and write black folks right out of it. Fucking Orwell’s spinning corpse should be connected to a turbine to solve global energy shortages.
Keep in mind, if the governor of Florida and his fellow Republicans across the country hadn’t demonized education and black experience to the point where many have criminalized the concept of Critical Race Theory, the racists wouldn’t feel empowered to cancel race in the classroom.
Absolutely no doubt about DeathSantis attacking education in Florida. The bastard took State Education funds to pay for “private” schools. The KKKrist-O-Fascist population jumped at the opportunity for indoctrination, grooming and kiddie diddling Priests.
I am not having a good morning at all. Thank dogs that love gravy for Ron. I had to go have my blood drawn and pee in a cup for my labs the doctor wants for my appointments Monday and Tuesday. My plan was to get up about 6 or 6:30, drink some water and go to the hospital outpatient lab.
My pain levels were so bad by 4:30 I couldn’t stay in bed. So I got up. I had a long time to wait so I had a cup of black coffee, no sweetener. And a big glass of water. I took my morning pills. Had a second coffee and large glass of water. I had to pee but that was OK as I had to wait a couple hours before the lab opened so I would need to pee again anyway.
For a while now I have been getting nauseous some mornings. I have developed a very bad habit years ago of taking all my morning pills all at the same time along with my morning pain pills. Some of them call for taking with food but I have ignored that for years. Now with my dieting I am doing it more often, taking them with no food. That is now upsetting my stomach some mornings.
So one last factor of my bad morning. Next to the hospital is a school. Both younger and even younger kids. In the morning the line of parents trying to get into the school parking lot to drop off kids stretches from the main road in front of the school for blocks blocking the far right lane for at least two stop lights. This is a three lane road. It used to be you could stay in the middle lane and after the entrance to the school move into the far right lane to get to the hospital entrance which is a block further down the same main road. The entrance to hospital is off the side road between the school and the hospital and now they have opened the school parking lot to drop off kids on that road as well. I did not know this. I was in the middle lane which was stop and go and wondered why that was happening and seen the far right lane blocked with traffic all the way to the side road entrance and then further into the school parking lot as cars waited to drop kids, move one car forward, wait to drop, move one car forward. Lucky the side road is two lanes so once on the side road you can get around the line of cars going into the school. The problem is you must be in that far right lane to make that turn onto the side road. Below is a snip of the area I am talking about. The blue line is the far right lane before the school and the turn into the side road, then the hospital. The line of cars to get into the school started further than I could show on the map. I was luck to be able to get over into the far right lane right after the middle large entrance to the school, but again the line of stopped cars waiting to drop off their children went along the blue line which was my route.
From there my morning got a lot worse. It took me nearly 30 minutes to go that short distance as cars would drop kids off, then everyone in line moved up one car, and repeat. Of course these are younger kids so they don’t get themselves gathered up and out of the cars quickly. The entire time I was getting sicker and sicker, waves of nausea washing over me. Every time I moved the car a bit then stopped I was in danger of vomiting. I just hoped I could get to the hospital parking lot in time.
I got to the side road and moved out of the line of cars and moved in to the left lane to turn into the hospital and was in real destress, I was going to vomit. I drove into the parking lot, and as fast as I could I pulled into a space and put the car in park, reached to open the door … and as the door was opening I vomited hard. While I was able to direct most of it downward to the road the door was not widely open and so I got vomit on the door, the floor door sill, my cane that rests there next to the door, my hand, grossly some on my long hair. I had to back the car up to be able to step out. As I got out of the car I managed to move around the door trying to get to the grass next to the sidewalk in front of the car. I did not get there. By the first step I was again vomiting. Lucky no one was walking on the sidewalk or I would have gotten them also. I went to the hatch and got a towel Ron leaves there and using one of the bottles of water rinsed my hand and dried it. I wiped my hair. Wiped my cane. Lucky my shirt was spared and the hospital still uses masks so my face would be covered. Then started to wipe down the door and other spots. The bending down triggered the need to vomit again and I stepped out of the car and soaked the area between my car and the one next to it. Whoever parks in either spot and has to get out on that side of the car is going to hate / curse me.
But never fear my day was not over with being shitty. Just inside the entrance to the hospital is a set of bathrooms. They are single person use so I waited until the men’s was free. That is where the shitty part comes in. A man exited the bathroom and I entered, and the smell hit me. Good thing that fellow was in a hospital because something vital was dying inside him. But I washed up as best I could include my cane and handle, while trying not to breathe. I made sure I was as vomit free as possible and went to the lab check in. When my turn came I went into the blood draw area, sat down where directed and chatted with the lab person as they got ready to take my blood. She prepped my right arm, she stuck the needle in, filled the first of five vials, replaced it with the second one. At this point the blood stopped flowing. She tried to wiggle the needle, moved it around, twisted it a bit, and if you think I was happy you would be incorrect. She slowly removed the needle in hope the blood would again flow. She then tried the other arm. I don’t know if the first try had made her nervous, but the second try hurt going in and was painful the entire time she was filling the vials.
Now here is where I start thanking dogs that love gravy for Ron. On the way home I called him and explained what happened. He met me when I parked the car, he took all the stuff I had with me into the house and as I was getting out of the car returned with a small wash bucket and cloths. I went to take them and he refused saying I should go in and rest while he would take care of it all. He washed the insides of the car and got them all cleaned up, brought in the yucky towel and other stuff I got vomit on, put a new towel in the car. Then after he got done he came in and got me a little food to settle my stomach. And that was my morning. Oh and the blood work coming back in seems good, the A1C is 6.6 down from 7.4 and all the results in so far look better than the results from last time. Have a great day, I am going to go lay down. Hugs
Since the Supreme Court & Congress are toying with changing the definition of marriage, this seems like a good time to revisit the issue. Join me, won’t you?
No dissent will be allowed in the authoritarian kingdom of DeathSantis Florida, ruled by the Feudal lord gang thug republican DeathSantis. We have a chance this midterm to stop him now. We must. Hugs
It appears Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t just endorsing School Board candidates, he’s actively supporting them. Mailers paid for by his political committee have started showing up promoting his preferred choices for local boards.
The paid political advertisements came weeks after DeSantis started issuing rounds of School Board endorsements around the state. Additionally, Facebook digital ads started running this weekend targeted to voters in particular counties supporting endorsed School Board candidates.
The flexing of DeSantis’ muscles seems especially notable considering School Board races across the state are nonpartisan and will appear on the Aug. 23 ballot, with many decided there.
Kids will hate school even more with these kind of people in power over them. That is the goal, of course, make every person hate education. That’s what the fascists like.
They haven’t been for quite some time really. The Creationists have been getting their people elected to school boards for years now, just to push that nonsense. Now the fascists are emulating them, but they’re a bit smarter than those walking rocks.
Scottie's Playtime 