CDC Mulls Plan To Classify COVID Vaccine “Injuries”

*** Personal Note. By Monday things here should be back to normal. Ron will be in Texas driving his sister home. I will have had the weekend to rest. Ron is on his last full day of doing no exertion not even house work. They went into a major artery in his wrist. He had a wrist board to keep the wrist from flexing for 24 hours, shower lightly but leave the large bandaid on. Change the bandaid after showering for 72 hours. Call 911 if it starts to bleed. On Saturday morning he is off restrictions and flies to Texas. Then he and his sister will drive to Florida. She will stay with us for a few days as her house here is emptied and then she will settle her stuff and go to New Hampshire. She is flying up there. Hugs ****

CDC Mulls Plan To Classify COVID Vaccine “Injuries”

Axios reports:

Trump administration health officials are giving serious consideration to a plan that would make injuries from COVID-19 vaccines a formal diagnosis that can be coded in medical records. Increasing documentation of what’s still a loosely defined condition could help lay the groundwork for future lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers.

The ICD-10 system already covers general vaccine injuries and reactions to some specific vaccines, but it doesn’t have a designation for the COVID shot, whose safety has become a major point of contention within the administration.

The new code could allow providers “to identify, track, and study patients who experience adverse effects specifically related to COVID vaccines,” Mary Stanfill, a CDC health information specialist, said during a public meeting on code proposals last week.

Read the full article. You will recall that the cult has claimed that COVID vaccines cause the human body to become literally magnetic, and that they cause “turbo cancer,” autism, miscarriages, myocarditis, pericarditis, hearing loss, and taste loss. Oh, and the vaccines also supposedly contain graphene nanobots meant to connect people to the internet for the purpose of mind control.

https://x.com/abettel/status/2037116250225020969?s=20

Olympic Athletes Rapinoe and Bird Slam IOC Trans Ban: “I’m Sickened By It”

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/olympic-athletes-rapinoe-and-bird

“It’s just a total acquiescence to the Trump Administration,” Rapinoe said.

s. baum

Apr 07, 2026

Holly Rowe

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

In the latest episode of their podcast A Touch More, all-star athletes Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird denounced the International Olympic Committee’s new rule requiring sex testing for athletes competing in the women’s category.

The anti-trans policy will subject athletes competing in the women’s division—and only women’s, not men’s—to invasive sex testing to determine whether they have an SRY gene. Why this is where the International Olympic Committee chose to draw the gender line is arguably arbitrary.

No major medical organization endorses this litmus test as a reliable marker of athletic skill or “biological sex.” Even the scientist who discovered the SRY gene has slammed this practice in sports, saying “science does not support” this “overly simplistic” approach. Rather, it’s an arbitrary line in the sand used to cram unscientific ideas about gender and sex into manmade, binary boundaries.

Nonetheless, if a woman tests positive for the gene, she could be forced to compete in the “male” category. This has had dire consequences the last few times it was deployed against women’s athletes. From 1992 to 1999, cisgender women were forced into testing and found out, on the world stage, that they had intersex conditions they never knew about. The spectacle led to ostracization, disqualification, and at least one suicide before such testing was abolished.

“What we’re doing is subjecting everybody, all women and all people who are identifying as women, to this really invasive testing that only to me just says like, oh, so we’re just trying to whittle it down to a certain type of woman,” Rapinoe said.

Rapinoe is one of the most high-profile athletes in the country, a soccer player with three Olympic competitions under her belt and a decorated career in the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT). Bird, meanwhile, is among the most successful athletes in history—the retired WNBA legend spent her 20-season professional career as a point guard for the Seattle Storm, and is a record-breaking Olympian in her own right. The athletic power couple has been engaged since 2020. Together, they’ve long been outspoken advocates for the LGBTQ community.

Rapinoe connected the anti-trans vitriol in sports to the right wing’s broader attacks on queer and trans people, calling the push for sex testing “hateful.”

“They sort of like, lost the battle on gay marriage,” Rapinoe said. “So, it’s just like, we’re going to have this whole campaign for all these years to just hate trans people, which is such a small percentage of the population.”

Countless women, cisgender and transgender alike, have faced harassment and persecution because of the anti-trans athlete witch hunt.

“It’s just a total acquiescence to the Trump Administration,” Rapinoe said. “It’s just horrible, and I’m just sickened by it.”

The IOC rule is part of a broader pattern. In the United States, sports bans have served as a Trojan Horse for more sweeping anti-trans policies. The DOJ’s recent lawsuit over “women’s sports,” for example, also demands that transgender students be banned from bathrooms and locker rooms.

“Can we please stop obsessing over trans people and, I don’t know, maybe focus our time, energy, and resources into real problems women’s sports face?” Bird chimed in. She rejected the idea that sex testing, as the IOC claims, “protects women,” instead calling it a “fear-mongering” political ploy meant to generate support from conservative voters.

“That’s all this is,” Bird said. “If you crack this door open, it gets blown open. You’re now policing women’s bodies across the board.”

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

Science And Wonder And Beauty

I remember seeing a headline or a hyperlink somewhere, maybe yesterday or the day before, but I didn’t get to the story. Lucky for me, it’s linked again in an email today, so here it is!

Whale filmed giving birth, with a little help from her friends

Paris (France) (AFP) – Scientists have managed to film a spectacular event rarely witnessed by humans: a sperm whale giving birth while other females worked together to support the mother and her newborn.

A team from Project CETI, an international effort seeking to understand how whales communicate, were in a boat near a pod of 11 whales off the coast of the Caribbean island of Dominica on July 8, 2023.

A 19-year-old female named Rounder was surrounded by family members and others as she was about to give birth to her second calf.

Over nearly five and a half hours, the scientists documented the group’s behaviour, watching them from the boat, filming them with drones and recording the sounds underneath the waves.

The data they collected, which was published in the journals Scientific Reports and Science on Thursday, represent an exceptional rarity in the history of science.

Out of 93 species of cetaceans — a group that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises — only nine have ever been observed giving birth in the wild.

Rarer still was that whales not related to the mother were helping out.

“This is the first evidence of birth assistance in non-primates,” Project CETI team member Shane Gero told the New Scientist.

“It is fascinating to see the intergenerational support from the grandmother to her labouring daughter, and the support from the other, unrelated females.”

Lifting up the newborn

The birth lasted 34 minutes, from their tails emerging from the water to the calf being born.

During labour, other adult females dove under Rounder’s dorsal fin, often on their backs with the heads facing her genital slit.

Immediately after the birth, the pod’s behaviour “rapidly changed” as every member became active, according to the study in Scientific Reports.

All the adults were “squeezing the newborn’s body between theirs, touching it with their heads”, the researchers wrote.

The whales pointed their noses towards the newborn, “pushing it around, under the water, and onto and across their bodies above the surface”.

The remarkable behaviour dates back more than 36 million years and is believed to be due to the unique history of cetaceans.

After their distant ancestors left the water and adapted to life on land, cetaceans are the only mammals that returned to the ocean.

This dive back into the water required some evolutionary tricks to prevent newborns from drowning.

For example, whale calves are born tail-first, rather than head-first like other mammals.

However, while newborn sperm whales become talented swimmers within a few hours, they still sink right after birth.

So other whales have to lift the calf up “to prevent the newborn from sinking while also facilitating its first breaths”, the researchers suggested.

Primates — including humans — are the only other mammals known to help assist each other out during birth.

Excited vocal sounds

The scientists also recorded the whales making many sounds, including significant changes in “vocal style” during key events, the study said.

This included when a group of pilot whales approached the pod after the birth.

The changes in vocalisation suggest that the group was coordinating to support the birth — or protect the newborn, the researchers said.

Sperm whales have one of the longest pregnancies in the animal kingdom, with a gestation period that lasts up to 16 months.

When calves are born they are already four metres (13 feet) long. They will rely on their mother’s milk for at least two years.

As they grow, the young become the centre of their pod’s social unit, with others helping out with babysitting while the mother searches for food.

After the birth was filmed in 2023, the pod was not spotted again for over a year. Then the newborn was spotted with Accra and Aurora — the other young members of the pod — on July 25 last year.

Surviving its first year is a good sign that the sperm whale will reach adulthood, the Project CETI team said.

I am in the waiting room

Hi everyone. I am in the waiting room and they just took Ron into the OR. So we got up at 3:30 am. We showered and packed our stuff. I forgot the sandwiches but I do have my chips and pretzels. Of all the people waiting I am the only one eating. I did not eat at home because Ron couldn’t eat and I felt it would be mean as he couldn’t eat and it would’ve mean. I am not really hungry but I took my medications and I am diabetic so I need something in my stomach.

The good news is his OR nurse is a friend of ours from our ICU days. She is a really great nurse and it is grand Ron had someone he knew. The bad news is the doctor was not sure if stents were the best course of action. Instead of by pass surgery. He will check to see how bad it is and if stents would work as Ron is a diabetic and stents tend to clog in a few years. So once he gets in there he will measure the pressure. Then he will explain to Ron if stents are appropriate or if a bypass operation would be a better option. Pretty scary. Hugs

Some Shorts & A Story

Science-y, funny, not as or at all funny, plus a big surprise. Enjoy!

A man planted tomato seeds from two McDonald’s burgers. Three months later, whoa.

“I expected this tomato to grow,” James Prigioni said, “but I did not expect this.”

By Annie Reneau

In many ways, fast-food restaurants feel like the opposite of a backyard vegetable garden. But one gardener has tied a McDonald’s hamburger directly to a garden harvest in a way that even surprised him.

James Prigioni makes popular gardening videos on YouTube. In one, he wanted to see if he could grow a whole tomato plant by planting the seeds from a tomato on a McDonald’s burger. He picked up a Deluxe Quarter Pounder with cheese, pulled out a tomato slice, and removed two seeds. After rubbing the seeds on a paper towel to remove the protective coating, which can inhibit sprouting, they were ready to plant.

Trying out different seed-planting methods

But like any good scientist, Prigioni wanted to try a different method for testing McDonald’s tomato seeds. So he pulled a slice of tomato from a second Quarter Pounder and, instead of extracting the seeds, planted the entire slice.

With the help of a heat mat and a grow lamp, both sets of seedlings germinated and sprouted in soil-filled red Solo cups in about a week. After they were fully established, Prigioni separated the plants so they could thrive individually before being planted outside.

He planted one of the plants in the ground outside and another in a 5-gallon bucket. He then showed how he culled the lower leaves as they developed blight and used a tomato cage to support the plants as they produced fruit and grew heavier. He also added extra fertilized soil and mulch to the bucket plant.

The harvest was unexpected

After three months, the plants were producing abundant fruit. The bucket plant didn’t perform as well as the in-ground plant, which Prigioni said was due to insufficient watering during very hot days. The bucket plant also ripened faster, likely due to the stress it had been under. Still, it was an impressive harvest, especially for a plant that started on a McDonald’s burger.

The in-ground McDonald’s plant was even more incredible, with dozens of tomatoes dripping from it.

“I expected this tomato to grow,” Prigioni said, “but I did not expect this.”

The fruit from both plants tasted good and sweet, he said. By the fourth month, the in-ground plant was starting to struggle with its health, but not with its fruit production.

“The plant had so many tomatoes on it that it seemed like it was having a little difficulty ripening that much fruit at one time,” Prigioni said. “I mean, I have had some plants with a lot of tomatoes on them, but never in my life have I seen a single tomato plant with this much fruit on it. I was completely blown away.”

How the McDonald’s tomatoes compared

He said one of his favorite parts of the experiment was seeing what kind of tomatoes would grow from the seeds. He thought it might be a beefsteak variety, but it turned out to be a Roma type. However, he surmised that the McDonald’s tomato was likely a hybrid, based on its ripening characteristics.

Prigioni also shared how the McDonald’s tomato plants compared with his other tomato plants.

“In another area of the garden, I grew Roma tomatoes that I got from Lowe’s, and I planted them at the same time as the McDonald’s tomatoes,” he said. “The harvest from them wasn’t quite as large, but the fruit ripened way more evenly, and I was able to harvest a lot more fresh fruit right off the vine that was ripe.”

A ripe harvest of Roma tomatoes growing in a garden — *There’s nothing like a tomato right off the vine. Photo credit: Canva*

“Overall, I was shocked with the level of production,” he continued. “And this is probably my favorite experiment that I’ve ever done. I mean, to be able to take a cheeseburger, grab a tomato from it, then grow a tomato plant, and then harvest pounds and pounds of tomatoes from it is just such a unique and refreshing experience.”

Perhaps an unexpected result, but a great way to challenge our assumptions and demonstrate the power of nature, even in the context of fast food.

You can follow The Gardening Channel with James Prigioni on YouTube for more gardening education.

The Word

The Bird’s The Word:

Least Flycatcher

Empidonax minimus

Also Known As:

Chebecker
Mosquero Mínimo (Spanish)
Mosquerito Chebec (Spanish)
Papamoscas Chico (Spanish)

About

The Least Flycatcher is a small but fierce bird of North American forests, known for its fearlessness in confronting birds much larger than itself, including formidable foes like Blue Jays and even hawks. They often share habitat and compete with American Redstarts, a fly-catching warbler, which they exclude from the best habitat through repeated chases and attacks. Of course, Least Flycatchers defend their territories from their neighbors as well.

However, despite their intense territoriality, these flycatchers are widely known to form dense clusters of breeding territories, even in areas with plenty of suitable habitat. Interestingly, the males closest to the center of a cluster are the healthiest, and the first to find mates. Conversely, birds that don’t join a cluster usually do not mate at all that season. While other factors may contribute to this pattern, the main influence seems to be that it facilitates birds mating with their neighbors in addition to their social mate.

Least Flycatchers are socially monogamous, pairing with a single bird during the breeding season with whom they defend a territory and raise young. But these birds are also quite promiscuous. More often than not, the nest of a mated pair will have at least one nestling sired by another male. “Spreading the love” in this way benefits both males and females — females end up with more genetic diversity in their nests, while males don’t have all their eggs in one “basket,” in case a nest fails. This breeding system, where territories are clustered together, females seek matings outside of the pair, and paired males compete for each other’s mates, has been described as a “hidden lek.” In some ways, this system is quite similar to the communal display areas, or leks, where birds like Lesser Prairie-Chicken and Greater Sage-Grouse defend small arenas to display for females.

One big difference between a classic lek and the so-called “hidden lek” of Least Flycatchers is that both the male and female in a pair are looking to mate with other birds without their own mate knowing about it. Also, the displays are a bit less dramatic. Rather than elaborate plumages, dances, and bizarre methods of sound production, these drab males instead opt to sing the same monotonous two-note song several thousand times an hour.

Threats

Though fairly common in appropriate habitat, Least Flycatcher populations have been declining since the 1970s. There are now a little over half as many Least Flycatchers as there once were. As such, Partners in Flight lists them as a Common Bird in Steep Decline. More research is needed to better understand the causes of this decline, but factors affecting the structure and health of forests probably play an important role. (snip)

About Conversion Therapy

A Christian ‘Conversion Therapy Dropout’ on the Supreme Court’s Decision

By Tyler Huckabee

On March 31, the Supreme Court sided with a Christian therapist in Colorado and tossed out the state’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. The therapist, Kaley Chiles, challenged the state’s ban on the grounds that it violated her First Amendment rights. The Court agreed with Chiles by an 8-to-1 vote.

Conversion therapy is a practice that generally involves treatment intended to “cure” same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. Every major medical study has determined that conversion therapy does not work and often leads to serious mental health problems for patients who are subjected to it. Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez knows that from personal experience.

Rodriguez is the author of Conversion Therapy Dropout: A Queer Story of Faith and Belonging, which will be released on May 5. The memoir unpacks the eight years Rodriguez spent in conversion therapy, struggling to reconcile the tension between the version of Christianity he had been taught growing up and his sexual identity. For Rodriguez, the path to healing began when he accepted that there was no tension.

Rodriguez told Sojourners the Supreme Court’s decision is deeply personal and painful, and he hopes that his story will both help LGBTQ+ Christians feel a little less alone and help convince non-affirming Christians to rethink their convictions.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Tyler Huckabee, Sojourners: When critics talk about the harm that conversion therapy can cause, particularly for minors, what sort of harm are we talking about?

Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez: Where to begin? There’s documented research to show that anyone who experiences conversion therapy, especially as a minor, is subject to higher rates of depression and anxiety. The suicidal ideation rate nearly doubles for LGBTQ+ youth who have experienced conversion therapy, and then the long-term effect of it tends to show up in the inability to create lasting relationships, substance abuse, all those kinds of things. It’s a very devastating practice in the sense that it attacks body, mind, and spirit. When all three of those parts of yourself have been attacked, disengaging from the harm that that causes takes a lot of time and a lot of real therapy. But a lot of folks who have experienced conversion practices are untrusting of therapeutic spaces.

What arguments did conversion therapy advocates use that convinced the Supreme Court to side with them?

They were able to successfully reduce the idea of what the role of a therapist in a therapeutic setting is: that it’s just a space for conversation, that this is a free speech zone, that this is a space where we should all be allowed to say what we believe. Really, it shifted the definition of what happens in therapists’ office from approved therapeutic practices, to saying, “Well, actually, if a therapist has a different viewpoint, they should be allowed, with their First Amendment right and religious freedom, to be able to interject their own thoughts and go against what has been the conventional therapeutic practices.”

Tell me about your experience with this practice. You call yourself a conversion therapy dropout.

Yeah, I grew up in an evangelical Christian home in Illinois and was insulated in the evangelical Christian culture of the late 1990s and 2000s. Not much was said about homosexuality, but everything around me led me to believe that to be anything but straight was a problem.

So, when I was 19-years-old, I finally admitted for the first time that I was “struggling with same sex attraction,” as I called it back then. I was working at a church in Washington state and was dismissed on the spot for even admitting that it was a struggle that I had. I was told that I was broken and that there was no place for people like me in churches.

I was 19.

No one forced me in [to conversion therapy]. I opted myself in because I thought that was the only option someone like me had to maintain my relationship with God, my family, my community, the church.

I first was involved with the organization under the umbrella of Exodus International. It was an online forum that existed for folks who didn’t have access to a local ministry in their area. I was a part of that for about a year. I did talk therapy with a therapist for eight years, and then when I moved to Chicago and had access to in-person ministries, I started going to in-person support groups. And then all throughout that, I also attended an annual conference put on by Exodus that was their flagship event. It took a lot of different forms over eight years. It was a wild journey.

When somebody like me hears about conversion therapy, we assume a lot of Jigsaw-type Saw torture traps with gay people being violently forced to recant their sexuality. But in reading your book, you describe it as a process that can be deceptively gentle and cloaked in the language of love and acceptance. You even found some community there.

The experiences that people see portrayed in movies or documentaries—just the lore of conversion therapy—those do exist. But when I encountered conversion therapy, it was much more insidious. I was in talk therapy. I thought I was talking to someone who was trying to help me process my past, but all the information that I gave my therapist was weaponized against me and used as proof as to why I was struggling with what I was struggling with.

And so, from that side, you know, I was trained to moderate myself, to police my mannerisms, to change my behaviors, to change my interests, to try to be more like a man, all those kinds of things. And then there was a spiritual component to it: Pray, seek God, do what all good Christians are supposed to do.

And there was a community component to it. I think it was probably the thing that I’m most grateful for that I got out of it, but also the most dangerous. Most of us were on our own little islands and had no one around us who knew what we were going through. And when we’d go to these groups or go to these events, we’d be around hundreds or thousands of people who were facing the same struggle. There was a camaraderie in the community that formed. Most of us didn’t realize it then, but that was the first time we were ever really, truly experiencing queer community and what it was like to be around others who are like us. Even though we were trying to do all we could to not be ourselves, there was still that underlying connection that bonded us all together. As harmful as all of it was, some of the closest friends that I have in my life today are people that I met in conversion therapy. We were in the trenches together.

But there was an underlying sense throughout all of it that I didn’t measure up, that something was wrong with me because I wasn’t experiencing the change that other people experienced. They were really good in those settings at bringing people out to share their testimonies: “Hey, I went from darkness to light, and here’s my wife and kids! God really can work miracles!” There was this whole system of shame, self-hatred, and self-doubt. But on the surface, it was hard to see that at first.

What was your breaking point with this process?

After eight years, I had done everything. I followed the rule book, and I was also working in evangelical Christian megachurches. I was becoming a rising star in that space for helping churches understand digital marketing and communication. The whole time, I never questioned the program. I was always taught to question myself. If there was something that I wasn’t experiencing, it wasn’t because the program was wrong; it was that there was something in me that wasn’t adding up.

So that was just this constant state of depression and anxiety and fear and all those things raging. I started drinking a lot. I was just a shell of a person. I threw myself into my work, and thought maybe if I just work hard enough, God will finally do the work that I wanted God to do in me.

I was at a big Christian conference—Catalyst—and there was a pastor speaking there, talking about how we needed to fight against gay marriage, that we needed real men, no more sissies, that we needed to fight the gay agenda. And I watched this whole stadium of people erupt and stand on their feet and cheer, knowing that they were talking about me. That led me to have a nervous breakdown.

It just came to a point where I thought I would rather end my life than keep going. But thankfully, I chose to end the way I had been living my life and decided to figure out how I could integrate my faith and sexuality, quit conversion therapy, and figure out what it could look like to become a gay Christian.

There were—especially during the late 2010s—not a lot of openly gay Christian blueprints to follow. Today, many parts of the church obviously remain very hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, and that feeling is often understandably reciprocated. What’s it like having a foot in both worlds?

It’s the weird experience that we carry. I understand why queer people leave the church when they come out, because they’ve been told their whole lives by this particular religious community that they’re broken, that God doesn’t love them, that there’s not a place for them. Why would you want to stay there?

Thankfully, right after I dropped out of conversion therapy, I was connected with Q Christian Fellowship—it was called the Gay Christian Network back then—but it’s one of the leading organizations that’s working with queer Christians to help them reconcile their faith and sexuality.

I went to one of those conferences in 2010, and it was such a weird experience, because it felt just like Exodus or any of the other conferences I had gone to, except it was OK for me to have a crush on other attendees and admit it [laughs].

It just exposed me to a whole new way of reading the Bible, understanding what scripture says, and just seeing other folks who were still engaged with their faith. It gave me the hope and courage that I could find affirming spaces where I could be loved and accepted just as I was as a gay man.

So, given all of that, tell me about how it feels to see this ruling come from the Supreme Court, largely on the pretext of religious freedom. I imagine this feels like the war that you experienced within yourself for so long made manifest in the legal system.

It’s disheartening, but it’s not surprising. As long as the church continues to other people and to draw lines around who is accepted, this will, sadly, be a fight we’ll have. I am grateful, though, for the churches that have made room at the table for queer people and that have courageously gone against the conventional wisdom.

But the Christian nationalism that we’re experiencing today is emboldening people to do a lot of horrible things in God’s name. I think people like me are very frustrating to them, because it would be a lot easier for their narrative if I were a person who had been in the church and left it because now I’m gay and hate the church.

But there’s a growing number of us where that’s not the case. We still love God. My relationship with God is stronger today than it ever was when I was in conversion therapy. I’m being fully honest with who I am and who God created me to be.

I hate that my story and my book are very relevant right now, but I’m grateful too. I didn’t have those mentors or those people or that guidebook to follow when I was on this journey early on. I can hopefully help others like myself—that younger version of myself—to know that you know who they are, loved just as they are.

For any queer people reading this—maybe they’re out, maybe they’re not—who are scared or alone, what would your message be?

Take care of yourselves, keep your chosen family close. There are affirming church communities out there. Church Clarity is a great resource that can help you connect with those if you feel like you need that kind of support.

But church can be complicated. Tony Campolo said at that Q Christian conference I went to that the church may be a whore, but she’s your mother. And so remember that what the church did to you is not how God feels about you, and it’s not the truth. Remember that God is love, and God loves you just as you are.

And for folks who have experienced conversion therapy, this is a time for all of us to be emboldened to share our stories. Our lived experience is the thing that can counter all the narratives that are out there now. We can bring a human face and voice to what this decision means, and hopefully, our experience can help the next generation.

I get the sense that there are a lot of Christians who, inside, wish they could be affirming, but don’t feel like they can, maybe because of their jobs, or their community, or just because they feel that the Bible doesn’t allow them to be. That’s a place I know that you yourself were in for quite a while as well. What would you say to them?

Listen to our stories. Talk to queer Christians who have walked this path. Matthew Vines’ book God and the Gay Christian is an excellent starting point just to understand how you can start to look at scripture in a different way and examine all the things that were shoved down all our throats about how we were taught to believe.

Also, look at churches that are affirming and learn from them. See what they’re doing and how they’ve chosen to read scripture and care for and love people.

I didn’t know that affirming denominations existed. I mean, I knew that they did in the ether, but it was a foreign world to me. And I think one of the challenges, particularly for those churches now, is to really become bold in their stance and in how they are speaking about these issues. It is a life-or-death issue, and I think many mainline denominations that have historically been affirming can tend to rest on their laurels. You just start thinking: “Hey, we’ve got this. We’re good. Everyone’s welcome.” But someone like me, who’d never set foot in a church like that, doesn’t even know how to even begin to navigate that space. We see your rainbow flags. We see the “All Are Welcome” signs. But I think that we need some love and coaxing in, just because it feels like we’re crossing an enemy line going into those churches. It felt that way for me at first.

https://sojo.net/sojoshare/MTUyNXwyMzgzOTl8MTc3NTI0MzM0M3w5

Earth Month On Friday

Every litter bit helps, as was sung on TV when I was a child. Here is a thing that might be done these days, or we can share it and that will still help. Earth is our only home (no matter where our legislators tend to spend their time…)

Earth Month Ecochallenge, running from April 1st to April 30th, is a 30-day program focused on environmental and social engagement. During this month, you’re invited to select actions that resonate with your values, committing to them for 30 days to foster and reinforce positive habits. Each action you complete earns points and generates real-world impact. Your efforts, combined with those of your team, contribute to a significant collective difference.

This year’s theme, People and Planet: Resilient Together, focuses on resilience: the capacity to adapt, recover, and grow stronger through change. Resilience lives in people, in communities, and in the natural systems that sustain us. In a world shaped by uncertainty, it helps us stay grounded, connected, and capable of creating positive change. Our new actions and categories will help you explore resilience at many levels – personal, in your community, in the organizations you are part of, and in nature. (snip)

https://earthmonth.ecochallenge.org/challenges

2 Items Regarding Book Bans, & Time Travel For World Improvement

What to Know About the National Book Ban Bill

House Resolution 7661 is a potentially significant piece of book ban legislation. Here’s what you need to know about it.

On March 17, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce advanced H.R. 7661. There is no word regarding when the bill will be voted on, but the vote is expected to occur sometime in the coming weeks. While that bill number may not sound familiar, there’s a good chance you have recently heard it referred to as the National Book Ban Bill.

Though that title is not formally associated with the proposed resolution, it does speak to the concerns many have regarding the bill’s language, intentions, and potential long-term impact. While it can understandably feel overwhelming to keep up with every potentially impactful piece of legislation in the modern United States government, the details of H. R. 7661 (including those not printed, which only exist between the lines) make it worth knowing about for anyone who opposes the growing trend of book bans and public education funding.

What is H. R. 7661, or the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act?

Formally, what is sometimes referred to as the National Book Ban Bill is being presented as H.R. 7661 or the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act.” You can read that act here. It has also been referred to as the “National Don’t Say Gay bill,” a reference to a 2022 statute that triggered significant school policy changes, including legislation that restricted public schools from introducing material in kindergarten through 3rd-grade classrooms that was deemed to be related to matters of sexual orientation and gender identity. The law also included requirements specific to students in higher grades and age ranges.

A sweeping initiative, the Don’t Say Gay bill (formally referred to as the “Parental Rights in Education” bill) established several education restrictions regarding both curricula and school policies that could be enforced via various means (including potential legal action). It required schools to inform parents if their children received any mental health services at school, it allowed parents to have greater access to formerly private documents related to their kids, and it enacted a series of moderation policies that effectively enabled legislators to have greater control over what is (and isn’t) taught to students in those age ranges via funding decisions and similar policies. Said policies included book bans, which are also at the heart of H.R. 7661’s many potential effects.

The Main Provisions of H. R. 7661

The primary purpose of H. R. 7661 is to enable the U.S. government to deny federal funding to schools that use those funds for programs and materials the bill deems to be inappropriate.

The bill is effectively an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The act was designed to provide expanded federal funding to public schools to ensure that their students (more specifically, public school students in lower-income areas) didn’t continue to fall far behind students at schools with access to more resources. It was a milestone piece of legislation that remains one of the cornerstones for federal public school funding in the United States to this day.

While H. R. 7661 would not eliminate that act, it would, in the bill’s own language, “prohibit the use of funds provided under such Act to develop, implement, facilitate, host, or promote any program or activity for, or to provide or promote literature or other materials to, children under the age of 18 that includes sexually oriented material, and for other purposes.”

The broad nature of that language is one of the more controversial aspects of the bill. For instance, it would deny schools the ability to use federal funding for programs, literature, and related texts that include “sexually oriented material” and “material that exposes such children to nude adults, individuals who are stripping, or lewd or lascivious dancing.” H. R. 7661 also includes exemptions for scientific texts, works related to major religions, as well as “classic works of literature” and “classic works of art” (more on those in a bit) that may naturally include references to the content it intends to restrict. Furthermore, the authors of the bill note that “sexually oriented material” includes “any depiction, description, or simulation of sexually explicit conduct (as defined in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of section 2256(2) of title 18, United States Code).” You can read those United States Code subparagraphs here. They largely reference material such as “bestiality” and “sadistic or masochistic abuse” but also include the far more general idea of “sexual intercourse… whether between persons of the same or opposite sex” as sexually explicit content. It is a rather large collection of topics which could potentially fall under that umbrella definition.

However, H. R. 7661 would expand the definition of “sexually oriented material” to include material that “involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism.” Along with suggesting that matters of identity should be considered a sexually obscene topic, the inclusion of that language has significant legal implications. That choice of wording makes it clear that this bill will most directly and immediately affect transgender students, transgender-related materials, and it could be argued, gender non-conformity topics in general, which may include discussions of specifically prohibited subjects in affected schools.

What’s important to remember is that the bill specifies works that will be excluded, but it is more vague regarding what, exactly, could be impacted. It could, for instance, be determined that a variety of LGBTQIA+ books that make passing reference (or even perceived passing references) to such materials could also be effectively banned from federally funded schools. The policies for such determinations and review procedures are not set. It should also be noted that the use of “sexually oriented material” and similar pieces of broad language have often been contested as the basis for similar pieces of legislation (more on those below).

There are undoubtedly concerns regarding the direct targeting of students and materials that would be most obviously impacted by the “gender dysphoria or transgenderism” language. The reason that this is being referred to as a “National Book Ban Bill,” though, is due to both the bill’s relationship with current federal funding policies (and thus its potential reach) and the ways that its language could be used to legally justify a variety of bans or create a precedent for similarly sweeping bills.

What Would Happen If H. R. 7661 Passes?

(snip-More, at link right up there. Go read it, so you know what we each need to know-)

And as a brain cleanser, enjoy

Five Time Travel Stories About Taking Out Hitler

Exploring very different takes on a familiar thought experiment.

By Lorna Wallace

It’s a familiar question in time travel narratives: If you could go back in time and kill Adolf Hitler, would you? Sometimes, of course, there are time travel rules in place that prevent such interference; for instance, in About Time (2013) time travelers can only go back to moments in their own pasts. But there are plenty of other stories where the opportunity does present itself (although not everyone is able to follow through with it, including antihero Deadpool).

While the basic premise—removing Hitler from existence in some way (often as a baby, or before he can be born)—is sometimes only briefly touched on in time travel narratives, there are a number of stories that explore the problems and ramifications of such an action in a bit more depth. Here are five short stories (well, four stories and one comic, which is arguably a short story with art) that do just that.

“I Killed Hitler” by Ralph Milne Farley (1941)

Just a few years into World War II—before America had even joined the fight—Ralph Milne Farley wrote the earliest known story about using time travel to kill Hitler. The unnamed main character is one of the Nazi leader’s distant cousins but he lives half a world away in Massachusetts. He’s deeply unhappy about Hitler’s warmongering—partly because the genocidal leader’s actions are unequivocally wrong, but also partly (and honestly… largely) because being drafted into the war is going to interfere with our narrator’s painting career.

After complaining to a friend about all the Allies who haven’t taken the chance to assassinate Hitler during their face-to-face meetings, our protagonist gets the chance to go back in time and murder the Führer while he’s still a young boy. Although the outcome is now a fairly basic rendition of the theme, this story remains notable for being the first take on the idea.

“I Killed Adolf Hitler” by Jason (2006)

Set in a world where being a killer-for-hire is a legitimate profession, this comic book sees our protagonist, an anthropomorphic dog who is once again unnamed, take on an unusual job: killing Hitler. The time machine that sends him back only has enough energy for one round trip every 50 years, so it’s crucial that he doesn’t mess it up—which, of course, he does. Not only does he fail to kill Hitler, but the Führer uses the time machine’s one ride back to the present and then promptly blends in with modern society.

Our hitman still needs to finish the job, though, and now he’s tasked with tracking down the Nazi leader, in spite of the fact that he’s much older once he’s caught up to his target (because, after being stranded in the past, he had to live through the years to get back to the present). He decides to enlist the help of his (now much younger) ex-girlfriend and the journey they go on together is filled with both dry humor and unexpectedly tender moments. Sure, their goal might be murder, but there’s still room for touching character growth along the way…

“Missives from Possible Futures #1: Alternate History Search Results” by John Scalzi (2007)

Written in the second person, this short story sees you sampling a technology called Multiversity™, which is essentially Google Search for the multiverse. You enter “THE DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER”—one of the most popular searches—and are shown eight sample realities based on the various ways that Hitler has died in alternate histories. This story is short and sweet, with only a few sentences outlining each scenario (although you’re informed that you can get a more detailed breakdown for the low, low price of $59.95!).

The hilarious scenarios become increasingly unhinged (and one does explicitly feature time travel!), but because there are only eight I don’t want to spoil any of them by going into too much detail, here. What I will say is that I would absolutely pay to find out more about the squids in Scenario #8…

This short story served as the basis for the “Alternate Histories” episode in the first season of Love, Death & Robots—so if this concept seems familiar to you, that might be why.

“Wikihistory” by Desmond Warzel (2011)

“Wikihistory” is written entirely as a series of online forum posts from members of the International Association of Time Travelers. The first post in the story comes from FreedomFighter69, a new member of the IATT who is celebrating their first excursion: going to the opening of the 1936 Olympic Games to kill Hitler. SilverFox316 is none too impressed with this move and a few minutes later posts to say that they’ve successfully gone back and stopped FreedomFighter69. Much to the frustration of SilverFox316, new members continue making this same mistake (which could be avoided if they’d simply read Bulletin 1147 as they’ve been repeatedly asked to do!).

The forum format is inventive, the time travel plot is chaotically fun, and the bickering dynamic between the posters feels hilariously true to life.

“It’s OK to Say if You Went Back in Time and Killed Baby Hitler” by Jo Lindsay Walton (2018)

This is another short story written in the second person; this time you’re a member of a small group of anti-fascists intent on using a time travel rig to kill baby Hitler. Umeko volunteers for the gruesome mission and when she returns, she’s confident that she got the job done. But then she learns that history hasn’t changed, which makes no sense because she’s certain that she beheaded baby Hitler.

While the group squabble over this unexpected result, you as the protagonist take the opportunity to slip into the rig and go back to 1890 to figure out what went wrong with the original mission. You get your answer, but unfortunately both time travel and group projects are a very messy business, so combining the two isn’t exactly a recipe for success.

Although using time travel to put an end to Hitler and his rise to power is a fairly well-trodden trope at this point, hopefully this list has proven that there are still plenty of creative ways to tell this kind of story. I’d love to hear if you have any particularly intriguing, thoughtful, and/or original stories that riff on this theme, regardless of format!

(no snip; they’re all here.)

Perkins Celebrates SCOTUS Ruling On Ex-Gay Torture Because “God Created” All People To Be Heterosexuals

Remember a couple of things as you read this below. First there is nothing wrong with being LGBTQ+ and the feelings associated with those letters. Second most children are desperate to fit in to the majority, to be “normal”. The country was well on the way to reassuring these kids / adults that those feelings were normal and OK. That the child was not damaged not an abomination to god, and did not need to be fixed. Then the right wing religious hate machine managed to pass don’t say gay laws, bathroom bills, and “lets make those who are not straight or cis be attacked outcasts again” laws.

There are two errors not really mentioned here. Minors who are going to these “religious anti-LGBTQ+ be straight cis only” therapest / religious leaders are normally forced there by parents who have been convinced by religious leaders in their church that their child is damaged and needs to be fixed as they are sinning just for feeling as they do and so will be going to hell. (Side note Jesus never said anything like that. I remember being told that I was “acting gay / doing gay things” because I liked sinning. To which I replied, You have it backwards. I was born gay and I like doing / being gay and so I don’t care that it is sinning to you.) The child is often told this to the point where even if they don’t fully hate themselves they are willing to do anything their parents want to “be normal” or get their parents off their backsides about it. And often the child is threatened with being thrown out of the home if they don’t go to conversion therapy. And then the religious therapist reinforces the message that they are damaged, broken, that they cannot be as they are but must be fixed, must be healed of the sin / feelings. Every major medical association has reviewed and studied conversion therapy and they conclude it is harmful, has no basis in science and those kids who go through it are far more likely to try to end their lives so they recommend helping young people to accept themselves and their feelings except for the minor one started by a religious group that has rejected all the studies and findings for the religious belief that god wouldn’t create anyone that way and because we are not that so those people / kids that feel that way must be forced to change to make them and their god happy.

There are facts, and then there are religious beliefs that disregard those facts. The fact is that the data and medical studies show that helping non-straight non-cis children accept that they are normal also shows that gender afirming care is the most beneficial way to help young people who are LGBTQ+ and struggling with the idea of wanting to be “normal” or like the other students are. I did not want to be gay as a kid growing up. I knew my attraction perhaps sooner than most kids due to my childhood situation. But all the time growing up I heard about how bad and horrible people who had the feelings I did were and how doing what I was being forced to do made me the worst possible human. I was attacked at school even though I was not out but some thought I was different and that was enough. When I had to join the church to get to leave my abusive home to get to safety I heard constantly how bad / sinfull / an abomination I and people like me were to god who wanted mankind to wipe me out… wait why does god need mankind to do that, especially white Christian men to do that, can’t he just stop making gay people with out a demon in them?

At my church school a lot of the boys were flirting with same sex attractions as they were horny teen boys separated from girls. Similar to the situation I found in the military where I had a group of “straight” guys asking me to go on passes with them. And it was very fun, but they always claimed not to be able to remember what happened on those trips. But each of those kids and some of those adults I had consensual fun with blamed themselves for failing god and failing to be normal. I had one really cute fun guy who I would go on passes with who couldn’t wait to get into the hotel room to have sex. And it was not just one way either. He received as he gave and what he enjoyed he returned if you catch my trying not to be too explicit. But that was the same with all the guys, they were not hung up on straight norms while in a hotel room with me. But this one guy would always on the way back to base tell me we couldn’t do that again. It was wrong. It was something we shouldn’t do. I did not argue. But 3 weeks or a month later he was begging me to go on a four day pass with him.

My point was this guy was 18 / 19 like me. I had already long accepted who I was and how I felt. He had taken the be normal message to heart. He could have used therapy to accept his feelings and needs. But the one thing he did not need and would have been harmful was conversion therapy. That guy was with me in Germany, after a wonderful weekend he again said we couldn’t do that again, He got married and it lasted a year, then he got divorced. I lost touch with him. But lives were harmed because he just couldn’t face he was gay, couldn’t tell his religious parents he was gay, and would have been placed in conversion therapy if his parents had known as a teen he struggled with same sex attraction and was not straight. Hugs

Perkins Celebrates SCOTUS Ruling On Ex-Gay Torture Because “God Created” All People To Be Heterosexuals

From the Family Research Council’s website:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a major win for the free speech rights of counselors and therapists, ruling in an 8-1 decision that a Colorado law prohibiting licensed counselors from engaging in talk therapy to help a person “reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with [their] bod[ies]” unconstitutionally violated the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

FRC President Tony Perkins called the decision “A Supreme Court win for free speech and biological reality.”

“I’m encouraged to see the muzzle removed from therapists seeking to help willing patients come to terms with, and be at peace with, how God created them,” reflected Perkins in a statement to The Washington Stand.

“The Left is using the levers of government to block families and individuals seeking help. Under Colorado law, a girl could legally seek a therapist’s help to change her gender but could not seek help from that same therapist to align her identity with her biological sex. Where is the fairness or logic in that? I commend the court for striking down this deeply invasive and unjust law.”

Read the full article. In 2013, Exodus International – then the nation’s largest ex-gay group – disbanded. Its longtime president Alan Chambers declared that not one of his group’s thousands of victims had ever become heterosexual.

Conversion therapy is discredited junk science that inflicts harm on LGBTQ youth.The Supreme Court’s decision is disappointing and puts vulnerable kids at risk.

— Governor Gavin Newsom (@governor.ca.gov) 2026-03-31T17:09:16.486Z