Chalkbeat: Republicans Promote Religion in the Public Schools

Chalkbeat: Republicans Promote Religion in the Public Schools

Covers Everything Well

This Week in the Name of “God” …

Cultist Builds 22-Foot Bronze Statue Of Dear Leader

Cultist Builds 22-Foot Bronze Statue Of Dear Leader

It is a cult. Maga is not a political movement, it is a cult with their holy dear leader “prophet” religious leader tRump himself. They even built golden idols of him for a CPAC convention. I was going to post this story from the linked site, but considering what the site is the link goes to no, I can’t do it. Hugs

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December 9, 2024 Idiocracy, Trump cultists

Breitbart reports:

President-elect Donald Trump is being honored with a larger-than-life two-story tall bronze statue, which is being shaped to capture his iconic defiance in the wake of the assassination attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July.

Breitbart News has obtained exclusive photos of the statue, which is still under construction. Backers behind the project hope to unveil the finished product at Trump’s inauguration.

Crypto investors with the project $PATRIOT commissioned Ohio artist Alan Cottrill to create the bronze statue after Trump was nearly assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. Trump’s pro-crypto policies also helped motivate backers to support the project, Breitbart News has learned.

Read the full article. With its pedestal, the statue is expected to be 22 feet tall. Trump has linked to the Breitbart article on Truth Social. Because of course he has.

https://twitter.com/matjendav4/status/1862579067934892288

https://twitter.com/JacobIsrael71/status/1865414246986649882

Even taller than Reagan’s!

Be disruptive! What queer history tells us about confronting Trump

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/26/be-disruptive-what-queer-history-tells-us-about-confronting-trump

The paragraph below shows that what happened then is happening again now. It was scary for me as a teen back then. Gay people in deep country settings in the backwoods, especially gay teens desperately trying to keep people from finding out. Especially abused gay kids who felt that abuse was written all over them for people to see. I was so happy to see that time gone for most of the school kids by the 2010s. Kids accepted in their class by their peers, the fellow students. That very acceptance terrified the conservative religious, but I have never understood why? Why is terrifying and hurting kids so pleasing to them? But the quote from the article below says it all. Hugs

The late 1970s was a somber, frightening time in queer history. The rise of a Christian right – branding themselves the “moral majority” – in conjunction with an energized Republican party began a culture war against women, people of color and queer people. The combination of religious rhetoric, nationalism and economic conservatism – Reaganomics, in other words – created a groundswell of contemporary far-right politicking that became the template for our contemporary political world.

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The LGBTQ+ community has been here before – and learned that real change happens when activists are front and center

Gay Liberation Front Rally, Gay power demonstration taking place in Times Square. The Demonstration later turned into a riot. Photograph: Richard Corkery/New York Daily News/Getty

The ascendency of Donald Trump to his second presidency is fraught with anxiety and fear for many Americans, particularly gay Americans. Books with queer themes are already being removed from school and public libraries. Trans people are being denied the right to use bathrooms or be on sports teams that align with their gender. Trans medical care is under attack in many states. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs that may help LGBTQ+ people as well as others are being eliminated. Justice Clarence Thomas has broached “revisiting” the supreme court decisions that legalized same-sex marriage.

Many queer activists – panicked, tenacious, resolute – are asking what we can do in the face of these attacks that seek to dismantle basic rights and access that were presumed permanent. The enormity and consequentiality of this battle feels like being swept heedlessly into uncharted waters. We are rummaging through US history to find precedents for why Trump won and how to confront the damage he may cause.

What can America’s queer history tell us about confronting the challenges?

The LGBTQ+ community has been here before.

The late 1970s was a somber, frightening time in queer history. The rise of a Christian right – branding themselves the “moral majority” – in conjunction with an energized Republican party began a culture war against women, people of color and queer people. The combination of religious rhetoric, nationalism and economic conservatism – Reaganomics, in other words – created a groundswell of contemporary far-right politicking that became the template for our contemporary political world.

The immediate effects on queer people was tremendous. The modest gains the gay rights movement – emerging in 1969 – had attained were subject to a vicious backlash. Sound familiar? In 1977, Anita Bryant, a devout Christian, popular vocalist and spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission, in reaction to a Miami-Dade county gay anti-discrimination ordinance, organized Save Our Children, a national campaign claiming that gay and lesbian teachers were “recruiting” children to homosexuality. The next year conservative California state legislator John Briggs introduced Proposition 6, which would ban all gay and lesbian teachers from the state schools. Children are again the centerpiece of anti-gay and anti-trans hysteria. During this time, recently passed anti-discrimination laws that protected LGBTQ+ people’s jobs, housing and insurance came under attack, and many were repealed. In November of that same year openly gay San Francisco board of supervisors member Harvey Milk, along with the liberal mayor, was assassinated by a fellow supervisor and former San Francisco cop.

In 1981, the peak of this backlash, the first cases of HIV/Aids were reported. Not only were gay men becoming ill and dying, but they were stigmatized, ostracized, and discriminated against in employment, housing, insurance and medial care. As the death toll mounted, the Reagan administration refused to even acknowledge the crisis and Congress cut funding for medical research and safe-sex education. Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan announced that homosexuals “have declared war upon nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution”.

Preeminent conservative leader William F Buckley penned a New York Times op-ed demanding that homosexual men with HIV be tattooed on the buttocks as a warning to others. A 1985 Los Angeles Times national poll showed that 50% of Americans were in favor of quarantining people infected with HIV. Gay men were banned for life as blood donors. Congress passed legislation forbidding any one who was HIV positive from entering the country. By 1990 over 100,000 people in the US had died of Aids, a large percentage being gay men.

As dark as the coming Trump years may feel to queer people today, it is important to remember the resistance, organizing and political cunning that sustained the community and made substantial progress on numerous issues. National LGBTQ+ groups such as the Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund were lobbying and taking very necessary legal action on legislative and judicial fronts. The deeper and more effective organizing, however, was taking place at community meetings and on the streets. Their tactics were diverse, but all depended on their being publicly queer and outspoken.

Working behind the scenes is necessary, but real change happens when activists are front and center

National and local campaigns were organized – along with many progressive groups – against Bryant’s Save Our Children efforts. They called for a boycott on orange juice – eventually ending her Florida Citrus Commission contract – and mobilized massive rallies across the country claiming that “a day without human rights is like a day without sunshine”. The Miami-Dade ordinance was repealed but Anita Bryant became a national joke. The No On 6 campaign in California – consisting of seasoned strategists and everyday queer people – used the slogan “Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!” Organizing buses of speakers to small towns across the state, they announced: “We’re homosexuals and want to introduce ourselves to you.” This on-the-ground educational campaign was extraordinarily effective and Proposition 6 was defeated.

We learned that working behind the scenes is necessary, but real change happens when activists are front and center – friendly or confrontational – in people’s faces. After 1981, local groups all over the US sprung into action to support men with HIV. As the epidemic steadily worsened, Act Up – Aids Coalition to Unleash Power – was formed in 1987. Its rallying cry “Silence = Death” demanded that people literally “act up”. Street demonstrations were disruptive, protesters invaded the New York stock exchange to protest against drug company profiteering, 1,500 members “took over” the Food and Drug Administration building demanding more effective drugs. Racially diverse with a mix of sexual and gender identities, Act Up confronted issues such as racism, misogyny, prisons and poverty. They were incredibly effective in bringing attention to a crisis and hastening medical research.

The lessons that queer activists need today to fight Trump’s influence are brilliantly manifest in late 70s and 80s organizing and ready for revising, repurposing and reactivation. Direct action and confrontation works. Queer citizens have to be out and vocal. We can’t afford to worry about being “respectable” or “playing nice”. Educating other Americans about who we really are is vital.

Most of all, the LGBTQ+ community cannot be divided; an attack on one group is an attack on all.

Working in conjunction with allies is necessary. Multiple forms of political attacks require multiple and creative responses. Attacks on trans people, banning books, and fighting for equity are all separate issues, but at their core they are all an attempt to make queer people invisible, push them out of public life.

Trump’s policies are not monolithic. There are effective tactics that can be used against each of them. Our most important tactic is to never retreat, demand respect, and always be as visibly queer as possible.

What gives me hope

Hope is vital to existence. It is what often creates the context for how we can move ahead. At this moment – while I do not feel hopeless – I am more in need of solace, comfort. Curiously, solace originally derives from the Greek hilaros, meaning “cheerful”, but there is little cheer at the moment, so I’ll take comfort. This may be wrapping oneself in a cocoon of listening to Billie Holiday – sad as she is – or Alberta Hunter, my go-to blues singers. Hope is a longing, and maybe necessary, yet I am suspicious of it – it is wonderful, but passive. We cannot simply hope for a better future. After the comfort of Billie Holiday, what we need is action. In the words of the great anarchist Mikhail Bakunin: “I shall continue to be an impossible person so long as those who are now possible remain possible.”

Michael Bronski is an American academic and writer, best known for his 2011 book A Queer History of the United States. He has been involved with LGBT politics since 1969 as an activist and organizer

When We Can’t Tell The Difference Between Truth And Lies…

This is an incredible video on lies and truth, not because he tells us to call out the lies, but look to the real serious needs below the lies. I finally after several hours of fighting got the finial very large big program installed on my main computer. Hugs.

Hatiest Hate Preacher Vs The Priesthood Of All Believers

Rev. Ed understands his position well. It is about serving his people so that they won’t need him when he is gone. It is not about ruling them. In this video he talks about hate preacher Steven Anderson who glories in his hate for some people and take supreme joy in causing harm to other humans. I know I have posted a lot of him and to tell the truth I may post a lot more. I have 20 cued up as I reload the finial programs in the computers. Finally everything is working as I desire it to. By tomorrow morning or even tonight I should be back to full steam. Hugs

Side note, the link to Owen’s channel is at the YouTube site of this video. I will not link it here. Years ago, maybe 6 to 8 years ago … maybe more, the atheist community fractured badly. That was when trans kids became an issue. Some supported kids understanding their gender as they understand who they are attracted to romantically / sexually at a young age. Others were adamant that kids had no way to understand their gender until they were nearly adults. Maybe around 17 or 18. Owen was one of those that was staunchly anti – trans refusing to listen to anyone on what they had to say from their personal experience. He also admitted he did not understand it and had reservations about the entire issue. Granted that was a long time ago and his views could have changed. His backstory is he was raised in the cult of Jehovah Witnesses. His history as I remember it he got a girl pregnant and there were big issues between him and her family. I know several of those I originally refused to watch did come around, it took them time and talking to people. I just don’t know if he did. Is he still anti-trans I don’t know? But on the chance he is, I won’t post his blog link here. Hugs

The “Marxist Leftist” Nonsense Penetrating The Church

Incredible. I never heard a religious leader say that the Christian lifestyle is not for everyone and that if you feel you can not follow Jesus’s command to love and care for others, help those that need help, care for the stranger, then it clearly is not for you. He tells the story that a man came up to his pastor and said that leftist stuff doesn’t work, when the pastor points out those are Jesus’s words the man responds well it may have worked in his day but not today. Wonderful video. Hugs

Try Rereading Sodom and Gomorrah Without Personal Bias

Odessa Texas Legislates Bathroom Use…

I like how he brings it all together and asks what is it for really? He mentions that if it is to protect the kids then you need to outlaw youth pastors from the bathrooms. He mentions how churches have abused far more children than trans people. He asks what kind of community does it foster if everyone is looking at everyone to judge if they are manly enough or feminine enough to fit some people’s gender ideas. He points out how hurtful the laws are and how they serve no purpose. The mayor who passed it said he needed to bring the people back to god. Rev. Trevors asks how this is going to do that. Hugs