Category: Schools / Schooling / Education / Libraries
Two-Faced Talking Points
The One Where I Get Slightly Political And Lose Half My Subscribers
A great video breaking down democracy and how elections work around the world and the US. Hugs
Gay penguins are back together just in time for mating season
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/11/gay-penguins-back-together-just-time-mating-season/
I am posting this for the people who claim being gay is not “natural” and against the way god meant the plumbing to work. Homosexual acts and couplings can be found in almost all animal species. There is another gay penguin couple that has raised chicks successfully, I read of one gay bird couple that adopted a chick abandoned by the straight birth parents protecting and raising the chick to adulthood as a family. So either their god lied to these people, or these people are hiding behind their god to push their bigotry. Hugs
Photo: ZSL London ZooA same-sex pair of penguins has reunited for mating season at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium in Australia.
According to penguin keeper Emily Thornton, two of the aquarium’s male Gentoo penguins Klaus and Jones have been building nests together for about three or four years now.
“Initially, they started building their nest in the wrong area as such, but this year, for the first time they’ve actually put it in the nesting platform area, which is really exciting. They are a couple that we’re hoping one day might actually be foster parents,” Thornton explains.
“Although same-sex male pairs are unable to fertilize and lay an egg between themselves, Klaus and Jones can be given a ‘dummy egg’ to protect during the nesting period and practice being dads,” says Thornton.
Same-sex penguin couples have paired off in zoos all over the world. “Penguins conduct homosexual relationships that can last a whole lifetime,” biologist Guenter Strauss explained in 2019 when the Munich Zoo highlighted a male couple of Humboldt penguins during Pride Month.
Other notable examples include Sphen and Magic at Sydney’s Sea Life Aquarium, Ronnie and Reggie at ZSL London Zoo, and Thelma and Louise at Sea Life Aquarium in New Zealand.
Roy and Silo, a homosexual chinstrap penguin couple at New York’s Central Park Zoo, even inspired the children’s book And Tango Makes Three after they successfully hatched an egg given to them by zookeepers.
Same-sex penguin couples frequently foster eggs and chicks, sometimes stealing eggs and whole nests from heterosexual couples. One pair of male Magellanic penguins has even been dubbed the San Francisco Zoo’s star parents. In 2019, Oceanworld Aquarium Dingle in Ireland reported that most of its penguins had paired off into same-sex couples.
Schools all over are being forced to deal with parents angry about furries & litter boxes
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/11/schools-forced-deal-parents-angry-furries-litter-boxes/
Ask yourself why the right is so taken with this issue and why they are pushing it so hard. Furries are a stand in for trans kids and litter boxes are the stand in for trans kids in bathrooms. It is a way to attack trans kids / students without mentioning the word trans. The attacks on trans kids have run out of steam and people are starting to fight back making the bigots lose. So just as they switched from gays to trans, they are switching to code words. That is why some of these bigots say the furries are trying to change their species, licking themselves meaning they are unclean, dirty, gross and are infecting your holy child. They talk about furries taking poops in a classroom full of other students, which is code for a trans kid being in the same class as your kid is like someone shitting in the classroom. It is stinky and unsanitary and gross is what they are saying. Think about it and how stupid what they are saying is. If you don’t know it is code for hating trans you would wonder at the idea that a student drops their pants in front of all the other kids and goes to the bathroom. That would be exposing themselves to the entire class. That is what they claim having a trans kid in a class is like, having their genitals exposed for your kid to look at. Get real and fight back against this bigotry. Hugs
Photo: ShutterstockJoe Rogan just admitted that his claim last month that he knew of a student who forced a school to install a litter box so that she could defecate in it was false. The urban myth is still spreading like wildfire, and more and more schools are being forced to deny that they’re letting kids use litter boxes.
“My friend, his wife is a school teacher, and she works at a school that had to install a litter box in the girls’ room because there’s a girl who’s a furry, who identifies as an animal and her mother badgered the school until they agreed to put a litter box in one of the stalls,” Rogan told former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii on his podcast last month. “So this girl goes into the litter room or to the girl’s room and urinates or whatever — I don’t know if she poops in it, that’s pretty gross.”
He’s not the only prominent conservative making that claim. Even Republican candidates and elected officials – like Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Nebraska state Rep. Bruce Bostleman (R), Republican Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate J.D. Vance – are accusing schools of letting kids use litter boxes.
And schools are being forced to respond to angry – and wildly misinformed – residents.
“It is utter nonsense,” said San Luis Coastal Unified School District superintendent Eric Prater in California.
“It is an unfounded allegation,” said superintendent Curt Dubost of the nearby Paso Robles Joint Unified School District. He told The San Luis Obispo Tribune that there have not been any students asking to use litter boxes in schools.
“We have had complaints about ‘Furrys’ in PRJUSD,” Paso Robles school board member Kenney Enney wrote on Facebook. “They are not a protected class, so therefore if there are ‘Furry’ issues in your child’s school, and staff is not addressing it, please notify your your [sic] School Board Trustee.”
The Alpena School District in Michigan is being forced to make a similar denial after residents took school officials to task at a board meeting about kids allegedly dressing up as animals by wearing ears and tails to school while making animal sounds during class.
“It’s really frustrating,” Alpena Public Schools superintendent David Rabbideau told The Alpena News. “People are lobbing these missiles at us and saying, ‘I know better what’s going on.’”
“It’s crazy that we’re talking about this,” Thunder Bay Junior High School Principal Katie Lee said. Her school is in Alpena Public Schools.
The health department was even forced to send a worker to inspect Alpena High School to look for litter boxes.
“For the record, they didn’t find any,” Rabbideau said. “Because there’s never been any. And there never will be.”
In New Hampshire earlier this week, the private high school Pinkerton Academy issued a statement saying that they don’t have litter boxes either after Republican U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc accused the school.
“They’re putting litter boxes,” Bolduc said. “These are the same people that are concerned about spreading germs. Yet they let children lick themselves and then touch everything. And they’re starting to lick each other.”
This school said in a statement: “It has come to our attention that at a recent event in Claremont Don Bolduc named Pinkerton in false claims suggesting that unhygienic, disturbing practices are taking place in our classrooms and spaces on campus…. We want to assure our community that Mr. Bolduc’s statements are entirely untrue.” The school invited all candidates to visit “so they can inform themselves.”
Last month, the Republican party’s nominee for governor of Colorado claimed that 30 schools were accommodating furries, with students “identifying as cats.”
“Not many people know that we have furries in Colorado schools,” she said on a radio show. She went on to say that it happened in her kids’ school district so she moved to get away from the student-furries.
Two statewide educational organizations condemned her claims as “exhausting” and “incredibly frustrating,” saying they disrupt learning and stress out teachers who are already overworked.
“There are no litter boxes in our buildings and students are not allowed to come to school in costume. There are no furries or students identifying as such during the school day,” one of the accused school districts, Jefferson County Public Schools, said in a statement.
“This vicious rumor – it’s been debunked how many times already?” Bret Miles, the executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, told The Denver Post. “Now it’s out there again, in our governor’s race…. School districts are spending time chasing down storylines that were purely for political gain. They have nothing to do with what kids are experiencing at school, and it’s shock and awe. It’s just incredibly frustrating.”
“No, we don’t provide litter boxes; our children use bathrooms,” a spokesperson for the Durango School District in Colorado said earlier in the month after Rep. Boebert accused that Colorado school district of putting litter boxes out for kids “who identify as cats.”
The rumor has even gone international. The Refrew County Catholic District School Board in Canada issued a statement that said “misinformation is currently circulating in our school communities and online regarding the presence of litter boxes in our schools.”
The statement said that the district has “never had litter boxes in any of our elementary or secondary sites.” The district added that they “do not collect any data regarding animal identity and we do not recognize such identities.”
“I think it was just a matter of time before that misinformation made its way here,” a board spokesperson told the Ottawa Citizen. The spokesperson said that the number of complaints they were getting was “getting a little out of control, so we decided to do a joint statement to reassure school communities that this is not happening.”
The Ottawa Citizen noted that the Eganville Leader published a letter to the editor from someone who claimed that seven students in the district identified as animals. The letter said that one student identifies as a frog and another is a cat who uses a litter box in school and claimed that their information came from “a confirmed report from a high-up school board official.”
‘I’ve Never Been Assaulted At A Drag Show But I Have Been At Church…Twice!’
Republican book banning attempt defeated after community stands up for LGBTQ people
A rare win for the good side. Notice the animosity and hate for gay people. This is not about sexualizing kids, stories about gay kids / people don’t make kids sexual anymore than stories of straight kids / people do. Why is it OK in the minds of straight white conservatives that kids read about straight dating, see straight couples, read about straight parents, see straight people kiss, and that doesn’t sexualize or promote sexuality to them. That is what they want the kids to see because it enforces that it is good and “normal” that they should act that way. But you change the word straight with the word gay and their heads explode with the myth that they have to protect the kids from sex? Get real, that just shows how bigoted and hateful they feel towards gay people. It is a faked concern for the children when in truth it is about forcing LGBTQ+ kids to hide and being able to hurt them. Hugs
Photo: ShutterstockAfter a heated public debate, the Greenville County Council in South Carolina voted to keep LGBTQ books accessible to children at the public library.
A resolution from city Councilor Joe Dill – who recently lost the Republican primary and will not be maintaining his seat – proposed requiring the 12-location library system in the area to remove books “promoting sexuality” from all children’s sections.
The resolution claimed it was seeking to “protect the innocence of children” and also would have required libraries to submit a report to the County Council detailing “how such books ever found their way into the Children’s Sections…and what measures have been put into place to ensure such oversights do not occur in the future.”
Controversy over LGBTQ books in the county began in September when the Greenville County GOP unanimously passed a resolution in favor of banning them from the children’s section of libraries.
The State reported at the time that the Greenville County GOP chair, Jeff Davis, said it was important to prevent kids from being “indoctrinated” by the books.
“Kids can’t buy a beer until they are 21. Should they be able to access these books before a certain age without parental consent? I think not and that should be reasonable,” he said.
The GOP became especially concerned in June when the library displayed LGBTQ books in honor of Pride Month.
Among the books they reportedly worried about was a book about a girl and her dads called Daddy & Dada; Teo’s Tutu, about a boy who does ballet; Pride Puppy, about a puppy who goes to a Pride Parade; and Sex is a Funny Word, a sex education book designed for kids that also teaches about different types of families.
During the recent county council debate, the council members did not mention any specific books, and impassioned pleas were made from people on both sides during the public comment period.
“I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation. Of course we shouldn’t have any sexual material in our children’s library,” said parent Barbara Evans, as reported by The State.
Susan Ward, the parent of a gay son, emphasized how important it is for her son to be able to see himself in books.
“All of us worry about our children. I worry because my child has been subjected to hate and discrimination,” she said.
The conversation reportedly got heated, with the vice chair of the library board – who supported keeping the books away from kids – even saying “barf” when someone said they were gay.
Ashley Snelgrove, a children’s librarian against banning the books, also spoke at the meeting and explained that the library already thinks very hard about what books are available to kids. Beyond that, Snelgrove said kids under 11 are always supervised at the library.
And in a 3-9 vote, LGBTQ equality won the day and the council voted to keep the books available to kids.
Culprit burns Pride flag, gives Nazi salute in Newberg, video shows
It won’t really stop a racist bigoted school board but it will give allied teachers and the LGBTQ+ students some cover and breathing room. Notice they knew they needed more sensitivity training after a teacher came to work in black face. Plus there was this from the students. Earlier this month, the Newberg Graphic discovered that at least one student at Newberg High School was involved in a Snapchat group called “Slave Trade,” where teenagers from across the country share racist, homophobic and violent messages, sometimes specifically targeting Black students.
They knew they had an issue with racism and attacks on gay, lesbian, and trans kids. But they still wanted to take away any training or discussions to promote tolerance, acceptance, and diversity. This is the republican party today. This is the maga cult trying their best to roll back all the civil rights gains. If you go to the link on the superintendent you will see that the board want only cis white Christian symbols and accepted speech. … (T)he conservative board members fired Morelock because he didn’t aggressively implement their ban on controversial symbols, … is from that link. These people can not accept the changes in society and refuse to accept the advancing better understanding of biology and psychology than was known in the 1950s. Hugs
Police are investigating after a masked person approached the home of Newberg School District employee, lit the employee’s Pride flag on fire and performed a Nazi salute on Monday, Oct. 31, 2022. File photo
Just weeks after a Yamhill County judge ruled a controversial ban on the display of Pride flags in Newberg schools was unconstitutional, a masked person approached the home of school district employee, lit the employee’s Pride flag on fire and performed a Nazi salute.
A home security camera captured the flag burning on film, and a 14-second video clip posted to Twitter Monday had 123,000 views by Thursday morning.
The family filed a police report with the Newberg-Dundee Police Department, telling investigators their Pride flag had previously been stolen. Monday’s flames left black soot damage to the brick siding of the home, police said.
No arrests have yet been made, according to Newberg police.
In a statement Tuesday, the Newberg School District referred to the flag-burning as a hate crime.
“We are shocked and saddened to hear that such a horrendous act took place in our community,” the statement said. “The act of invading someone’s private property to burn a flag is abhorrent and alarming.”
The video shows a person walking up a driveway toward a house with their face fully covered, except for their eyes. After lighting the flag on fire, the person is shown facing the security camera and performing a Nazi salute before walking out of sight.
According to the Twitter account that shared the video, the flag-burning occurred at 3:15 a.m. Flames had spread onto leaves around the flag by the time the homeowner went outside, the account said.
The flag-burning arrives a little over a year after a controversial policy banning the display of Pride and Black Lives Matter flags in district schools threw Newberg into the national spotlight.
Newberg’s school board voted in September 2021 to adopt a policy barring educators from displaying symbols considered “political, quasi-political or controversial.” The 4-3 vote followed a pair of racist incidents in district schools and drew fierce criticism from state lawmakers and members of the Newberg teacher’s union. After enacting the policy, board members abruptly fired former superintendent Joe Morelock.
Dundee Elementary School teacher Chelsea Shotts sued the school district and four of its board members in December 2021 after a rainbow flag she kept in her classroom window was the subject of a complaint under the policy.
A Yamhill County judge ruled on Sept. 22 that the policy banning the display of certain symbols in schools was unconstitutional and forbade the district from enforcing it.
— Catalina Gaitán; cgaitan@oregonian.com; @catalinagaitan_
Scottie's Playtime 