Below I post the book riot report. Several things I want to point out and I hope you read both articles. Here are some quotes from the article showing this is not going to stop and it is not thier goal to get these LGBTQ+ books out of schools. They want them out of society all together. They don’t want adults reading them either. They are going after any book that has LGBTQ+ content or charaters. Hugs
No longer is this about the rights of students to access books. It’s now about the rights of private businesses to sell books. Anderson suggests this is a new avenue for parents to fight.
“We are in a major fight. Suits like this can be filed all over Virginia. There are dozens of books. Hundreds of schools,” he said.
Though this lawsuit includes only two books, Manning, same school board member who triggered the removal of Gender Queer, has her sights on Saga by Brian Vaughan next. She has been at the forefront of book challenges in Virginia Beach since the school year began, challenging The Bluest Eyefor being “too racy,” despite never reading the book.
I am pleased to announce a major legal victory. Today, the Virginia Beach Circuit Court has found probable cause that the books Gender Queer and a Court of Mist and Fury are obscene to unrestricted viewing by minors.
My client, Tommy Altman, has now directed my office to seek a restraining order against Barnes and Noble and Virginia Beach Schools to enjoin them from selling or loaning these books to minors without parent consent.
We are in a major fight. Suits like this can be filed all over Virginia. There are dozens of books. Hundreds of schools.
Neither book fits the definition of obscene and neither book is pornography. Barnes & Noble has yet to respond to the legal actions taken.
As a private business, they are not only allowed to sell what they wish to sell, but they are under no obligation by anyone to move materials out of their facilities. Further, no private business like the bookseller would simply “supply” books to the school district.
Right-wing groups are pushing a narrative that suggests public schools are at the epicenter of indoctrination, forcing gender and sexuality onto young people starting in kindergarten. Lawsuits like this further fuel misinformation campaigns by these groups.
So who are they going to take on next, Amazon? They sell that book and I know more kids who spend time online than do in a library or brick and mortar bookstore. Good fucking luck there, champ.
News Flash: Your kids are going to have uncomfortable questions about sex, and other growing up matters. All maneuvers like this do is guarantee that they won’t feel safe coming to their parents for the answers.
Last week, Virginia Beach (VA) schools voted to remove Gender Queer from shelves. It came after school board member Victoria Manning complained about it and several other books within the schools. After the initial review of the book and several others, Manning appealed the decision made to keep the book and after reconsideration, the book was pulled.
Now a Virginia lawyer is stepping in to take the decision further: he’s filing a suit against the school and against the Barnes & Noble store in Virginia Beach.
Virginia Beach attorney and State Delegate Tim Anderson, posted on Facebook that he and his client Tommy Altman–a right-wing republican running for Congress in the district housing Virginia Beach–saw the Virginia Beach Circuit Court find “probable cause that the books Gender Queer and A Court of Mist and Fury are obscene to unrestricted viewing by minors.”
Altman has now directed Anderson to pursue litigation against Barnes & Noble for making the material available to minors.
“My client, Tommy Altman, has now directed my office to seek a restraining order against Barnes and Noble and Virginia Beach Schools to enjoin them from selling or loaning these books to minors without parent consent,” reads Anderson’s post.
No longer is this about the rights of students to access books. It’s now about the rights of private businesses to sell books. Anderson suggests this is a new avenue for parents to fight.
“We are in a major fight. Suits like this can be filed all over Virginia. There are dozens of books. Hundreds of schools,” he said.
Alongside his message, Anderson posted screen shots from both books and the pursuant restraining orders.
Responses to Anderson’s announcement from followers encouraged such action and suggest this won’t be the end. Several mentioned fighting such fights against “obscene” materials for months, and that children should not be exposed to such obscene books. Still more comments applaud this brave move and see it as a way forward in book banning outside Virginia.
Neither book fits the definition of obscene and neither book is pornography.
Barnes & Noble has yet to respond to the legal actions taken. As a private business, they are not only allowed to sell what they wish to sell, but they are under no obligation by anyone to move materials out of their facilities. Further, no private business like the bookseller would simply “supply” books to the school district.
Right-wing groups are pushing a narrative that suggests public schools are at the epicenter of indoctrination, forcing gender and sexuality onto young people starting in kindergarten. Lawsuits like this further fuel misinformation campaigns by these groups.
Virginia has been a hotbed of book challenges in the last year, thanks in part to the rhetoric and campaigning against books and “critical race theory” by governor Glenn Youngkin. The governor, as well as Altman, are Trump supporters, and Anderson’s announcement is more than tacit approval of Altman’s run for Congress. Anderson has made books a big part of his social media strategy and has riled up his base through it.
Though this lawsuit includes only two books, Manning, same school board member who triggered the removal of Gender Queer, has her sights on Saga by Brian Vaughan next. She has been at the forefront of book challenges in Virginia Beach since the school year began, challenging The Bluest Eyefor being “too racy,” despite never reading the book.
A New Jersey Republican introduced legislation that would prohibit teachers from bringing LGBTQ-related instruction into classrooms from kindergarten through sixth grade.
The bill, proposed by State Senator Edward Durr, is even more restrictive than the Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Seventh through 12th grade students only be exposed to LGBTQ topics if consent is given by a parent under Durr’s proposal.
If the bill is passed, parents would be allowed to sue schools that employ educators who violate the law by incorporating topics such sexual orientation or gender identity into the curriculum without a parent’s consent.
“Any student whose parent or guardian does not provide prior written consent shall be excused from that portion of the course where such instruction is provided and no penalties as to credit or graduation shall result therefrom,” reads a portion of the bill introduced by state Sen. Edward Durr.
Durr, a Republican and former commercial truck driver made headlines last year when he defeated former New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney (D) — at that time one of the most powerful elected officials in the state.
If a school district or employee “knowingly violates” the proposed law, the state Office of the Attorney General may seek an injunction.
The bill has zero chance of passing.
Durr, who famously spent less than $100 on his campaign, was exposed after being elected for a history of racist social media posts. He then issued the standard “sorry if anybody was offended” fauxpology.
It was tough growing up gay in small town America in the 70s, there was still next no societal support, much less family, and I’m not going to lie, it left me with a number of scars.
These past 20 years, we’ve come so far! It felt good to see the work that all of us who came before did paying off in increasing acceptance and equality. It felt good to know that we were paving the way, making it easier for young people to come out with less fear or shame.
And now this…..And tens if not hundreds of thousands of gay youth are once again being told in the news media that they under attack, being told that they are somehow something shameful or wrong, that they do not deserve to be treated as their heterosexual classmates are.
Obviously, none of us are happy with the direction this country has been headed of late, and the need to continue to fight for equality is now more important than ever.
What’s breaking my heart right now is I know how hard all this anti-LGBTQ stuff is on our children. A child who has an inkling at 8 or 9 or 10 that they are LGBTQ, who is living in one of these states trying to pass these laws, is growing up learning to hide who they really are out of fear and shame.
The lawmakers who are pushing these discriminatory laws are 100% guilty of child abuse… there will be more broken lives, more kids killing themselves because of these people.
While there has always been something of a backlash against our community for every gain we’ve made, I honestly think the current hate surge has more to do with courting conservative voters than really having a moral objection to the queer community… The people using us as a wedge issue know better and are merely triggering bigoted voters by spotlighting us. More “practical” than revenge, though certainly you are correct that some fall into that category.
This is a great idea! Recently I posted how a 17 year old was so ashamed of his nude body and that he was recorded masturbating that he first paid off the scammers then killed himself when they wanted more with threats to show the pictures / videos to his parents. I said then we need to teach kids what their bodies are, what they are feeling is natural, what to do in some situations (I read in one of the Scandinavian countries they teach teen boys how to discretely hide their erections until they subside) and to not be ashamed to talk about things that they need to ask or tell an adult what is happening to them. It is a fact that young people / kids see porn and nude bodies. They shouldn’t be terrified of seeing a nude person or their developing feelings. It is a fact kids will explore each other. It is a fact that kids have sexual feelings and desires. It is a fact that how an adult reacts or talks about bodies, nudity, and sexual acts can leave a kid scared they are broken and that they are abnormal. Often how an adult reacts to catching a teen in a sexual situation is more traumatic than the actions they were involved in. Remember kids will talk to each other about sex / feelings and if they cannot talk to an adult then the information they get from the other kids their age maybe be badly wrong.
Porn is another area where comprehensive sexual education is needed. Kids of all ages see porn. Younger kids won’t care, but as kids get older toward puberty (around 10 / 11 years old most kids get really interested) and what they see / what their older siblings watch for porn will give them wrong ideas. Adults know or should know that porn is a game, a story acted out for the pleasure of the watcher. It is not real, it is not how real sex happens, and it is often geared to a segment of the audience. I have read studies of what kids think their sex acts should be based on the porn they watched, and it is scary how misinformed they are. Some boys thought girls liked to be abused and called names during sex. There were other misconceptions based on duration of the acts and other things, but the thing that stood out to me was that because boys were seeing men aggressively take women and dominate them, they thought that was the way they had to act. When the girls objected, the boys were confused. So I think that these types of educational opportunities should be explored.
BERLIN — Progressive German publication Taz published an opinion piece last week suggesting that state public media fund “educational” porn as part of their mandate to “protect children,” rather than attempt to censor the commercial variety.
The article argues that “so far, an inefficient fight against free porn platforms is being waged.”
“There is no need for bans, just good alternatives,” Taz’s Arabella Wintermayr noted.
The “bans” the article refers to are efforts related an ongoing censorship campaign being waged by obscure local politician Tobias Schmid, director of the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia, and Germany’s self-appointed one-man War on Porn. Schmid has been fighting in the courts to push for “age verification compliance.”
Last month Schmid bragged about an AI tool called KIVI, which automatically scans all online content to determine which images are not compliant with the AV law.
He explained that he coined the name KIVI after “KI” — the German initials for AI — and “VI” from the Latin word “vigilare,” meaning “to survey.”
While some might view such surveillance as an authoritarian fantasy, Schmid called it a “fantastic combination,” German tech news site NetzPolitik.org reported.
Schmid was also the architect of the judicial “network block” against xHamster, one of the country’s most popular tube sites.
The Case for Government-Funded Porn
Taz quoted pornographer and activist Paulita Pappel, who leads the European chapter of the Free Speech Coalition, and who criticized Schmid’s approach.
“They try de facto to silence the discourse about pornography in public and hide behind the protection of minors,” Pappel told Taz. “The idea that these network blocks would make sense is completely absurd. A 12-year-old can bypass them in no time with a VPN.”
The magazine also noted that Pappel’s Lustery studio recently released a scene in partnership with mainstream public broadcasting talk show “ZDF Magazin Royale,” which the company promoted as “the first-ever government-funded porn film.”
According to Lustery, the talk show’s producers reached out to them to “produce an ethical porn film as an alternative to the many tube sites.”
“Since the show is part of a public service broadcaster,” a Lustery rep explained, “they were able to use German TV tax [monies] paid by private individuals, companies and institutions in Germany” to produce the almost 30-minute scene titled “FFMM straight/queer doggy BJ ORAL orgasm squirting ROYALE (gebührenfinanziert).”
“Many people are loudly supporting it because they feel like the tax — annually, €220.32 — that everyone needs to pay is finally being used for something important and useful,” the rep noted. “Others are outraged because they either don’t understand why they’d need to pay for porn or they demonize porn and don’t want their money being used for such things.”
“But the fact is every German paid for it, no matter their attitude towards the genre,” the rep added.
A Proposal With Intriguing Potential
Taz concluded that this approach “would have potential.”
“In addition to normalizing feminist perspectives on sexuality and competing with the market power of free platforms,” they wrote, “the relationship to pornography would also change if it suddenly no longer took place on questionable websites but in the mainstream.”
“Consuming pornography would no longer be associated with something dirty,” Pappel theorized. “As a result, people would be freer from feelings of guilt, and communication about sexuality might be more open. Which may even prevent aggression.”
“There is a public broadcasting mandate to provide a basic supply of information, education, entertainment and advice,” added a legal expert consulted by Taz. “It should expressly reflect diversity that cannot be represented in the mainstream of the private sector.”
The educational mandate, the expert continued, “could be fulfilled, for example, by the films shown illustrating how consensus, communication and genuine desire work. This would set an appropriate framework that implements this basic service.”
Taz concluded by questioning the censorship-first approach, and suggested that the state media authorities should welcome “the approach of [public media] competing with the big free porn platforms … if they are actually concerned with the protection of minors. After all, [public media networks] are already taking age control very seriously.”
I am sorry I have to use CNN. But there is simply no other video report I have found that is this in depth and talks about / shows this level of the situation. So I hope those hearing impaired can hear this, the report is important, everything from the Russian revenge to the woman explaining how her husband died trying to check on the house next door. It shows that Russia is targeting civilians not just with bombs but after that they sent firebombs as revenge. The Russians are planting mines under the carpet in civilian homes so that when the people return, they are blown up walking across their own carpets. How much longer are we the world going to allow this? We have the ability to stop it. Every old man who dies, every woman abused, every kid … it starts to become on us because we could have but did not.
Sorry but looking back I realized that people in the small town we lived in knew I was abused. The librarians that kept the books I was reading behind the desk for me, the one lady that suggested I read the book about a boy who was raped at home and how he tried to deal with it, they knew. But none of them did what might have stopped it. That is why I feel the US and other countries cannot just say they are helping by sending arms. Yes they are keeping the books, but the little boy with bruises still goes home to be beaten, goes hungry, or is raped. Nato and the other countries need to act. Now. Hugs
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