#gay civil unions were only legal in a few us states at the time of the sims 2!

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

if there’s something I appreciate every sims game for its very much that they’re all extremely queer positive for the time they came out. some of the old ones seem a bit dated now, over a decade later, but they were genuinely ahead of the curve at the time. they had gay marriage well before it was fully legalised in america. hell they effectively had gay marriage in the sims 2 civil unions in that game are treated near identically to marriages just with some clunky terminology changes. and civil unions themselves were not fully legalised for gay couples in america at that time! the only place where gay marriage was actually legal was fucking massachusetts! it was not perfect but in 2004 it was Also ahead of the vast majority of the us!!! where the game was made!!!

[liberaljane]

Women's Not So Distant History

This #WomensHistoryMonth, let's not forget how many of our rights were only won in recent decades, and weren’t acquired by asking nicely and waiting. We need to fight for our rights. Here's are a few examples:

📍 Before 1974's Fair Credit Opportunity Act made it illegal for financial institutions to discriminate against applicants' gender, banks could refuse women a credit card. Women won the right to open a bank account in the 1960s, but many banks still refused without a husband’s signature. This allowed men to continue to have control over women’s bank accounts. Unmarried women were often refused service by financial institutions entirely.

📍 Before 1977, sexual harassment was not considered a legal offense. That changed when a woman brought her boss to court after she refused his sexual advances and was fired. The court stated that her termination violated the 1974 Civil Rights Act, which made employment discrimination illegal.⚖️

📍 In 1969, California became the first state to pass legislation to allow no-fault divorce. Before then, divorce could only be obtained if a woman could prove that her husband had committed serious faults such as adultery. 💍By 1977, nine states had adopted no-fault divorce laws, and by late 1983, every state had but two. The last, New York, adopted a law in 2010.

📍In 1967, Kathrine Switzer, entered the Boston Marathon under the name "K.V. Switzer." At the time, the Amateur Athletics Union didn't allow women. Once discovered, staff tried to remove Switzer from the race, but she finished. AAU did not formally accept women until fall 1971.

📍 In 1972, Lillian Garland, a receptionist at a California bank, went on unpaid leave to have a baby and when she returned, her position was filled. Her lawsuit led to 1978's Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which found that discriminating against pregnant people is unlawful

📍 It wasn’t until 2016 that gay marriage was legal in all 50 states. Previously, laws varied by state, and while many states allowed for civil unions for same-sex couples, it created a separate but equal standard. In 2008, California was the first state to achieve marriage equality, only to reverse that right following a ballot initiative later that year. 

📍In 2018, Utah and Idaho were the last two states that lacked clear legislation protecting chest or breast feeding parents from obscenity laws. At the time, an Idaho congressman complained women would, "whip it out and do it anywhere,"

📍 In 1973, the Supreme Court affirmed the right to safe legal abortion in Roe v. Wade. At the time of the decision, nearly all states outlawed abortion with few exceptions. In 1965, illegal abortions made up one-sixth of all pregnancy- and childbirth-related deaths. Unfortunately after years of abortion restrictions and bans, the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022. Since then, 14 states have fully banned care, and another 7 severely restrict it – leaving most of the south and midwest without access. 

📍 Before 1973, women were not able to serve on a jury in all 50 states. However, this varied by state: Utah was the first state to allow women to serve jury duty in 1898. Though, by 1927, only 19 states allowed women to serve jury duty. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 gave women the right to serve on federal juries, though it wasn't until 1973 that all 50 states passed similar legislation

📍 Before 1988, women were unable to get a business loan on their own. The Women's Business Ownership Act of 1988 allowed women to get loans without a male co-signer and removed other barriers to women in business. The number of women-owned businesses increased by 31 times in the last four decades. 

Free download

📍 Before 1965, married women had no right to birth control. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that banning the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy.

📍 Before 1967, interracial couples didn’t have the right to marry. In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court found that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. In 2000, Alabama was the last State to remove its anti-miscegenation laws from the books.

📍 Before 1972, unmarried women didn’t have the right to birth control. While married couples gained the right in 1967, it wasn’t until Eisenstadt v. Baird seven years later, that the Supreme Court affirmed the right to contraception for unmarried people.

📍 In 1974, the last “Ugly Laws” were repealed in Chicago. “Ugly Laws” allowed the police to arrest and jail people with visible disabilities for being seen in public. People charged with ugly laws were either charged a fine or held in jail. ‘Ugly Laws’ were a part of the late 19th century Victorian Era poor laws. 

📍 In 1976, Hawaii was the last state to lift requirements that a woman take her husband’s last name.  If a woman didn’t take her husband’s last name, employers could refuse to issue her payroll and she could be barred from voting. 

📍 It wasn’t until 1993 that marital assault became a crime in all 50 states. Historically, intercourse within marriage was regarded as a “right” of spouses. Before 1974, in all fifty U.S. states, men had legal immunity for assaults their wives. Oklahoma and North Carolina were the last to change the law in 1993.

📍  In 1990, the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) – most comprehensive disability rights legislation in U.S. history – was passed. The ADA protected disabled people from employment discrimination. Previously, an employer could refuse to hire someone just because of their disability.

📍 Before 1993, women weren’t allowed to wear pants on the Senate floor. That changed when Sen. Moseley Braun (D-IL), & Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) wore trousers - shocking the male-dominated Senate. Their fashion statement ultimately led to the dress code being clarified to allow women to wear pants. 

📍 Emergency contraception (Plan B) wasn't approved by the FDA until 1998. While many can get emergency contraception at their local drugstore, back then it required a prescription. In 2013, the FDA removed age limits & allowed retailers to stock it directly on the shelf (although many don’t).

📍  In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the Supreme Court ruled that anti-cohabitation laws were unconstitutional. Sometimes referred to as the ‘'Living in Sin' statute, anti-cohabitation laws criminalize living with a partner if the couple is unmarried. Today, Mississippi still has laws on its books against cohabitation. 

[uboat53]

How Quickly Things Have Changed

As someone who’s on the older end of the internet generations, I wanted to take a moment to discuss history and really marvel at how much we’ve improved in my adult life.

My first election, the first one I was old enough to vote in, was 2004.  It was actually a fairly miserable election for those of us on the liberal side, John Kerry lost by a depressingly close margin, both in the popular vote and in the electoral college.  One thing that has really stuck with me ever since, though, was one particular issue that really dominated the election.

You see, the Bush campaign didn’t just run on their own merits, they were also incredibly strategic.  To this end they spent a lot of money and invested a lot of time to get anti-gay-marriage measures on the ballots in key states.  In all, 11 states had Constitutional amendments banning gay marriage on their Presidential election ballots.  This had the effect of boosting support for Bush.

You see, Bush was against gay marriage and his supporters had the energy.  Liberals, at that point in time, hadn’t really coalesced around gay marriage as a cause just yet, there was a lot of talk of civil unions and other, similar arrangements being acceptable or even just getting government out of the marriage business entirely.  Conservatives, by contrast, knew what they didn’t want and were willing to turn out in large numbers to make sure it didn’t happen, and they would also mark their ballots for Bush while they were there.

The amendments passed in all 11 states and, over the next few election cycles, more would join them, including the liberal bastion of California with Prop 8 in 2008.

Today, though, you may be entirely unaware of that history because not only is gay marriage legal in every state in the country, there isn’t a serious movement to make it illegal.

We’re now only a little more than 6 years removed from the Supreme Court decision that made this possible, but it’s amazing to me how much things have changed.  Conservative groups are now energized about trans and abortion issues, but have almost completely stopped talking about the rights of gay and lesbian people to love and marry who they want.  The wind has gone out of their sails and the energy around the issue has disappeared.

Now, I don’t say this to tell you that we’re finished, we’re not done yet by a long shot.  Not only are trans rights and the rights of a women to control their own reproductive health under increasing attack, conservative groups have shifted their focus from issues like gay marriage to issues like gay adoption and are continuing to make it difficult for gay individuals to live their lives free of bigoted interference in a thousand different ways.

No, I tell you this history because I know that a lot of you are younger than me and have come into a fight where it seems like we’re losing as much as we’re winning.  I tell you this history to give you hope, because the battles are long and hard and it can sometimes be difficult to tell if we’re making any progress.

And hope is important, stare too long into the abyss and the abyss also stares into you.  Take heart that we’re a long way from where we started.  We can do this.  Now take a deep breath, get back into the trenches, and redouble your efforts.  We’re going to win, justice is on our side, we just need to grind it out.

[gisellelx]

Potentially more Ordinary Time? Yessssss! If you don't mind sharing, what might future chapters for that look like?

reference post

That's a really good question! Ordinary Time has sort of gotten away from me and what I originally set out to have it be. It was spawned by me re-reading this paragraph from "For a Season," written in 2011:

I screen And the Band Played On in my seminar. My students are twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, born in the middle of the eighties. AZT has been around as long as they can remember. Gays have always been out. The problem is whether or not they'll be allowed to marry, now.

At the time when I wrote that, anything even remotely resembling marriage equality seemed so unlikely in the US. States were going back and forth; you'd see a really progressive state adopt marriage equality and then backpedal to "civil unions" and then a swing state consider it and back off and conservative states were literally setting up business rules that said "you only count as a married couple for the purposes of our business if you would be able to be legally married in our state" (i.e. you had better be in a straight marriage, no matter where you live) and it all seemed very hopeless. Then two years after I wrote that came the Windsor verdict and then two years after that Obergefell. Then 45 got elected and there was this mass panic in December of January 2016-2017 where I feel like every same-gender couple I knew hurried up and got married. It was the most bittersweet two months of celebrating over and over and knowing the main reason all these weddings were happening was because everyone feared their civil rights were going to be legislated away.

So when I re-read that paragraph 8 years after I wrote it, I thought, "Whoo boy has a lot happened since Carlisle had that thought!" and knew I had to write about it. I originally set out to capture those three things through Carlisle and Edward's eyes: that tension between hope and elation and despair and fear. I view it, therefore, even though it is a really fun universe, as fundamentally a fic that is not as much about Carlisle/Edward and their weird "Happily as Ever it Can Be" AU as it is about American politics, principally those which involve the US Supreme Court. I spend as much time writing and editing the historical notes as I do any other part of any given chapter--I want those notes to ring a particular tone, as well.

When the Bostock decision came down in summer 2020 amidst the pandemic and the worldwide Black Lives Matter demonstrations, I knew I needed to come back to that world. (Fun fact: I drafted and posted that chapter within that one day so that it would drop in real time, as though Carlisle and Edward were really there, reflecting on their day). Then a bunch of people asked in reviews if I would write the 2020 election since I had written the 2016 one, and so from that came chapter 5.

I have been toying and even have a few hundred words down about the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, but that story is really Rene's in this fic and so I have to think about it carefully. Carlisle and Edward have lived through much more and so to stay in-character, they realistically wouldn't be as shocked. So that one is still pretty likely to happen (although I feel weird about being over a year out from the original event there but who knows).

A case I'm eyeing that was argued this spring and will be decided in the summer session is Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Dobbs, if decided for the state, which I really hate to say seems somewhat likely, will enable many more restrictive laws around abortion to be passed around the country, effectively rolling back protections that three generations of (some) American women have enjoyed. There's a really interesting (read: tension-filled, plot heavy) conversation to be had around that one between Renesmee, who in OT Chapter 5 is doing a residency in neonatology, Edward, who wanted to abort Bella's pregnancy, and Carlisle who is pretty damn religious but also sees abortion as a medical procedure first and foremost and is a little titchy about situations where the life of the mother is involved, for some obvious reasons. (Funnily enough, @jessicanjpa tagged me in this post the other day and I went, "Yeah, I was kind of already thinking about writing a conversation just like that, in fact, but it's gonna be AU...")

So those are two I'm thinking concretely about. I'm open to ideas, though. This story has gotten a little away from my fingertips in a good way; I consider it the one that is written the absolute most for me—I used to live in D.C. and I'm a bit of a SCOTUS wonk, and I mostly write these chapters so that I can have fun spending time with Carlisle and Edward in this version of their world + mine.

[merrique-bathory]

Pride Month — LGBTQ+ History: Argentina

Among some populations of pre-Columbian America same gender attraction and different expressions of gender were common and occurred without sanction, which horrified Spanish colonizers and called that a sin. Mapuche culture valued men and women equally. Assuming identities or having transsexual or intersex characteristics did not mean the loss of any privilege, power or status.The Mapuche did not have notions of gender and sex, at least not with the relevance of the conquerors. There was the concept of weye, which referred to people who were not considered neither men nor women, and moved in a complex way between different states that combined performative, sexual, age and time of day characteristics. There is also the role of machi, a position that meets the conditions of doctor, priest, counselor and protector of the people, which is why it is common to find transgender women performing as machis. The Guaraní culture also had a certain degree of acceptance towards people who had sexual relations with people of the same sex. Sexual relations between men among the Guaicurúes of the Gran Chaco were normal and the word "cudinho" exists to refer to a type of men who dressed like women, married men, urinated bending over and had menstrual symptoms. The Inca culture influenced the Argentine northwest and valued sexuality between men and the use of clothing corresponding to another gender as sacred and religious. Sex between women was common and valued, especially in the upper class. In the Yungas areas, there were several matriarchal societies, which also considered sexual relations between people of the same sex and the use of clothing corresponding to another gender to be sacred. All that was repressed with the arrival of the Europeans conquerors and in particular due to religion reasons. Gender non conforming people were persecuted and killed. Sex between people of the same gender was cataloged as evidence of how "savage" indigenous people were.

One of the few public lesbian figures in the 1900s was Pepita Avellaneda, who was also the first tango singer to dress as a man. Lesbian relationships were widespread among young pupils in educational boarding schools. There are records of trans women existing at the time, as well as other people who diverged from gender and sex expectations but they were persecuted, instigated to commit suicide, lynched and terrorized in different ways.

Although Stonewall had an impact, in 1997 the LGBT march was moved for November. Apart from the cold temperatures of July, the change of date commemorates the founding, on November 1, 1967, of the Nuestro Mundo collective: the first dissident organization in Argentina and in Latin America. In Argentina the group Nuestro Mundo emerged in 1967 and was recognized as the first group of sexual diversity in the country and in Latin America. Nuestro Mundo invited, from its newsletters and fanzines, to homosexual liberation. This group was transformed in the 70s into the Homosexual Liberation Front (FLH), which under its political manifesto "Sex and Revolution", had Néstor Perlongher and Manuel Puig, as two of its main references. The FLH brought together gay and lesbian groups and organizations of various ideological persuasions, whose goal was to incorporate sexualities into the political debate. They edited the Somos magazine for six years, which reached eight publications. The last of them, from the underground, months before the beginning of the last civic-military dictatorship. Graphic publications constituted an important space for militancy, resistance and visibility. During the dictatorship periods in Argentina we did not have social expressions in relation to the LGBT movement because it was persecuted, exiled or disappeared (1976-1983).

With the return to democracy, magazines such as Cuadernos de Existencia Lesbiana proliferated, which sold out its only 50 copies on its first day of sale: on March 8, 1988, when a group of lesbians stormed the Plaza de los Dos Congresos under the slogan "Passionately lesbian", or the magazine Sodoma, edited by Grupo de Acción Gay, which only published two issues between 1984 and 1985. In 2003, Buenos Aires became the first Latin American city to legally recognize civil unions between "two people regardless of their sex or sexual orientation", by enacting Law No. 1004. The law was promoted by LGBT organizations. Article 765 of the Code of Military Justice that established the crime of homosexuality for the military was repealed in 2009. The Law of Marriage between Persons of the Same Sex was sanctioned in 2010 (Law of Equal Marriage), also recognizing the right to adopt children from the LGBT people. In 2012, the Gender Identity Law was enacted, recognizing the right to change gender, from childhood and by the simple self-perception of the person, with recognition of the right to free necessary medical treatment. All these are the result of the fights for human rights by LGBTQIA+ groups.

Sources https://www.cultura.gob.ar/orgullosos-de-la-diversidad-conoce-la-historia-de-la-marcha-del-orgullo-lgbtiq-en-argentina_6807/

https://almargen.org.ar/2019/09/30/historia-del-colectivo-lgbt-en-la-argentina/

Géneros y sexualidades disidentesen la Argentina: de la agencia por los derechos a la legislación positiva byDora Barrancos

https://www.nodal.am/2019/05/diversidad-de-generos-en-los-pueblos-indigenas-de-la-constatacion-historica-a-la-afirmacion-politica/

Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán, Francisco (1863 [1673]). «Cautiverio feliz, y razón individual de las guerras dilatadas en el reino de Chile». Colección de historiadores de Chile y documentos relativos a la historia nacional (Santiago: Imprenta de El Ferrocarril) 3: 107 y 159. Bacigalupo, Ana Mariella (2011). «El hombre mapuche que se convirtió en mujer chamán: Individualidad, transgresión de género y normas culturales en pugna». Scripta Ethnologica (CONICET) XXXIII: 9-40. ISSN 1669-0990. Bacigalupo, Ana Mariella (2004). «Rituales de género para el orden cósmico: luchas chamánicas mapuche por la totalidad». Scripta Ethnologica (CONICET) XXVI (26): 9-38. ISSN 1669-0990. Bazán, Osvaldo (2004). Historia de la homosexualidad en la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Marea Editorial. p. 478. ISBN 987-21109-3-X. Bazán, 2004, pp. 57-58. Fayanas Escuer, Edmundo (6 de marzo de 2017). «La cultura inca y la sexualidad». Nueva Tribuna. España.

[thedramaclubs]

Changing lives (reprise)

Summery: Roman and Remus get the rest of the reviews and it was horrible that it closed their show. They soon meet one of their old friends and Remus’s husband meets them and soon they find something on Twitter to change their lives

Ships: Logicality, Prinxiety, demus/dukeceit

When their singing

Remus-green

Roman-red

Janus-orange

C!thomas-pink

All-purple

“The rest of the reviews are in! New York post, associated press, New York times” exclaimed Joan with ther phone in the air everyone started to get excited and looked on their phones as Roman and Remus are about to listen to how great their musical is........or so they thought.

Everyone’s faces changed to a sad and disappointed look and started leaving

“What? What’s happening?” said Roman as he watch everyone look at him and his brother in sadness.

“This is not a review anyone wants when you have shitty advance sales. This is gonna close us” said Joan

Roman gasp and Remus was shocked “What didn’t they like was it the hip hop?”

“Yeah but not that”

“For gods sake sakes Joan read it.” The twins sat down as Joan read the horrible reviews.

“Ok here’s the highlights, “Remus Allen’s FDR might just be the most insulting misguided, offensive, and laughable performance that this reviewer has ever had the squirming misfortune to endure. Emphasis on the insulting because he try to make him self look like that he was trying to give me intrusive thoughts about FDR.”

“That’s how I normally look what the hell?!?!”

“I mean it’s not so bad” said Roman as he played with his dress

“DO HIM ALREADY!!” “What I’m just saying.”

“Watching Romans Eleanor Roosevelt, corking out a heavy-handed message of activism, is like paying an aging drag queen to shove a syurp-soaked American flag down my throat. And also Eleanor should have been played by a women”

Roman was on the verge of tears “Thats not criticism that’s a personal attack.” His voice cracked and Remus hugged him as he shed a tear

“If your considering buying a ticket to the show do yourself a favor. By a few feet of good heavy rope instead and then go hang yourself”

“Holy fuck, oh god, poopy. Was the show that bad?”

“It’s not the show it’s you two. Your just not likeable.”

“What?” They said simultaneously

“Nobody likes a narcissist.” They sat in silence over what they just heard. “Leave it to me I’ll go and try to change the narrative once again” Joan then left the twins alone in the bullding

“I hate this world” “this just hurts my heart, Where did everybody go?”

They talked over each other as the walk to the bar to find a man in a pink suit. “What can I get ya?” said the man “Yola mezcal blackberry smash” said the twins at the same time. “My condolences Roman. But remember you do have friends” said the man making their drinks.”

“Thank you. Who are you?”

“Thomas Sanders.......we’ve done five shows together.”

“Ugh Thomas went to Juilliard and won’t shut up about.” Whispered Remus as he told Roman “Oh right Thomas. Thomas haha....... why are you dressed like waiter?” I’m in between gigs at the moment. Honestly Roman I feel adrift as i did in my days before Juilliard” Remus proceed to chug a drink that was on the table as Thomas continued to talk about Juilliard and the two were just over it.

“Still I have played hamlet and I’m still known as that guy from the beloved early aughts sitcom “Talk to the hand” I question everything about my existence” As he continues to rant about the past what they didn’t notice as a man in a golden sequiny dress with a black hat and a yellow ribbon tied on it with long golden brown hair walking their way

“Hey guys!”

Roman and Remus turned around to see Janus Allen, Remus’s husband

“Jannie!!!” Remus picked up Janus and spun him around and soon dipped him into a kiss which turn into a make out session. “Ahem I know you two lovebirds haven’t seen each other all day but can it wait we’re still here ya know.” They both looked at Roman and giggle a little from embarrassment “Sorry your show closed on opening night again. Welcome to the world of the unemployed,hit me up next.”

“I thought you were in Chicago?” asked Remus “I totally didn’t quit just now 20 years in the chorus and still wouldn’t let me play Roxie Hart and now their letting Tina Louise play her” “That bitch is still alive” said Remus as he chugs another drink

“We’re wasting our lives.” Said Roman as they are all slightly drunk “Ok I refuse to give up we’re still celebrities we still have power.” “Yeah well The Times casted you out” said Thomas as he poured another drink “Yep they wrote you off as aging narcissist and I’m only allowed to call Remus that.” “I still don’t understand what’s wrong with that.” Said Roman as he drinks even more. “You know what we will become celebrity arsonist.” “Babe it’s call celebrity activist we are not burning down another building like last time.” “Ok everyone think of causes.”

“Poverty”

“World hunger”

“Too big we need something we can handle”

“Let’s see whats trending” said Janus “Trump, trump, trump, ooo how about this boy he’s all over Twitter. His names Patton Heart. He’s from edgewater, Indiana. He’s gay. He wanted to take his boyfriend to the highschool prom and the pta went apeshit and canceled it.”

We are now in Edgewater, Indiana and Patton Heart is watching the head of the pta, Mrs Green being interviewed. “We have very strict rules for prom. Young ladies must wear non-revealing dresses. Young men must wear suits or tuxes. And if a student chooses to bring a date it must be of the opposite sex” “Can’t you just ban this student?” “Well we’ve been advised that there may be some legal repercussions if we prevent this boy from attending so although it breaks my heart we have no choice to cancel prom.” We move to Mr Virgil Hawkins the principal “The first thing I’m going to do is contact the state attourney this is not about school rules this is a civil right case.” “Wait seriously?” Said Patton. “Yes and if word gets out people will get mad and next thing you know some modern day Eleanor Roosevelt is gonna come and hell’s gonna break loose.”

We move back to New York “We got to go down their and raise holy hell” exclaimed Roman “We’ll be the biggest thing to happen to Indiana since........whatever’s happen in Indiana are you with me!?!” Said Remus as he and Roman start stand on top of a table they all cheered “We’ll get Joan to tag along to find us a venue” “I just book us a non-union tour of Godspell and I goes through Indiana we can ride on the bus.” Said Thomas “Can we do this guys” Said Janus “You bet your sweet MILF ass we can jannie”

🎶 We are gonna prove that in this day and age being gay isn’t a crime. This is out moment to change the world one homo 🎶

🎶Homo🎶

🎶Homo 🎶

🎶Homo🎶

🎶At a time🎶

🎶 we’re gonna help that little homo, whether he likes it or not, when your a legendary thespian 🎶

🎶First you help the distressed 🎶

🎶Then you help the distraught🎶

🎶We’re gonna go to where the necks are red and lack of dentistry thrives, Why sing and dance when you can take a stance🎶

🎶And know your truly changing lives. We’re gonna March until that town looks like the end of act one in les mis. You don’t gotta have a Ph.D in psych to know that people kowtow to the folks in the biz🎶

🎶We’re gonna teach’em to be more PC the minute or group arrives🎶

🎶That’s right🎶

🎶Those fist-pumping🎶

🎶Bible-thumping🎶

🎶Spam-eating🎶

🎶Cousin-humping🎶

🎶Cow-tipping🎶

🎶Shoulder-slumping🎶

🎶Tea-bagging🎶

🎶Jesus-jumping🎶

🎶Losers and their inbred wives. They’ll learn compassion🎶

🎶And better fashion🎶

🎶Once we at last start changing lives!!!!🎶

🎶Now let’s go help that dyke🎶

People to tag/ @artissijules

This took a long time to write

[tptruepolitics]

LGBT Thoughts

Netflix has recently decided to push transgender ideologies in their Babysitters Club series – a show directed at adolescent girls. While Netflix – an independent company that should only have to answer to itself and its shareholders – is perfectly within their rights to air such shows, the fact remains that this is a deeply damaging topic to be showcasing to the most vulnerable and malleable among us. I think it’s time we finally address the enormous elephant in the room: the LGBT community. Here I will break down my thoughts on their rights, their roles, and their realities in our society.

For much of history, there have been documented incidences of same-sex encounters. Even the Bible makes reference to same-sex relations numerous times. The word sodomy is actually originated from one such text from Genesis in reference to the city of Sodom. Shakespeare is even rumored to have been gay by some scholars. However, for most of human existence, these individuals were forced to live in secret – outcasts of society, ostracized by their own people. To be perfectly fair, religious extremism has only contributed to the past 2-4 thousand years of ridicule. Before that, it was still frowned upon (at best) by most cultures simply because it went against the laws of nature. Male and female animals and even plant parts reproduce in union with one another. There are no same-sex reproductive organisms to my knowledge (correct me if I’m wrong). There are asexual organisms that reproduce by themselves, but certainly no major animal species that reproduce in any extraordinary way. There is a certain species of bird, I believe, that lives in Hawaii (once again, correct me if I’m wrong) that sometimes chooses a same-sex partner for life in the absence of a proper mate, but this is certainly an exception, not a rule. To add, they do not reproduce together.

But what does all this mean for humans? How should the “laws of nature” or even God’s laws apply to humans in this age of constant progressivism and an increasing detachment from religiosity that we call secularism? Well, thankfully, in our country and many around the world we are allowed the freedoms to live our lives as we see fit as long as they don’t infringe on the rights and liberties of others. So, if someone chooses to live outside the bounds of religious or natural laws, they certainly should be allowed to, as long as they are minding their own business. This concept of allowing homosexuality was highly contested up until the late 20th century, and is still somewhat contested today in 2020. The original founders felt that upholding moral and ethical truths in our school systems were an integral part of maintaining our precious union. As a matter of fact, the often-misrepresented “separation of church and state” clause did not mean that religion could not be learned about in schools, but that the federal government had no right to establish a State religion (capital S). Most of the founders actually encouraged religious teachings and values in schools. The more modern interpretations of the separation of church and state are due to an influx of not only secular ideologies, but also religious beliefs that were not prevalent during the time of our founding. While I am a firm believer that no harm can come from learning about religious values in schools, in this age of progressivism it is reasonable to note that certain contentious religious principles need not be forced upon others. This would be a clear infringement of the separation of church and state.

So, to get specific, let’s talk homosexuality. A common misconception in the eyes of secularists is that the Church (I’ll speak specifically about Catholicism here) preaches that homosexuality is a sin – that simply being gay is a sin against God. Well, this isn’t true. The Church expressly teaches that acting out homosexual fantasies is a sin. Let’s say, you are a man who is attracted to other men, but in your devotion to your religion, you find a woman whom you love, marry her, and live your life without having sex with another man. Is this man sinful, because he finds men attractive? Of course he is not! When you feel like strangling someone, but then you calm down and don’t, are you guilty of murder? No. So, simply being gay is not a sentence to Hell. As a matter of fact, even in the eyes of the Church, acting on your homosexual impulses isn’t a death sentence. There is reconciliation and forgiveness in the eyes of the Lord. If you confess your sin and repent for it, you are seen as forgiven. Not to mention, there are people who sin in every aspect of life: liars, swindlers, thieves, murderers – and I’m not even just talking about big sins. Small sins add up, and if you are not repentant of them, you are not any more likely to get to Heaven. However, I will paraphrase this, but I believe there is a Scripture saying that says you will be judged by your worst qualities. So, if you work hard your whole life to be a good Christian, and your only flaw is that you are a wonton whore, a light will be shown on this most vulnerable area.

You might be thinking to yourself, “but it’s a genetic mutation that causes some people to like members of the same sex. God would not have built natural urges in us if he didn’t want us to act on them.” Well, that’s just ridiculous. We have natural urges and desires that are built into us that we are meant to fight off all the time: anger, greed, and jealousy to name a few. Lust is just one more urge that is built into our nature, and it happens to come in all shapes and sizes. Our animalistic desire is not only to have as much sex as possible, but to have it with as many things as possible. Evidence of this is your dog, if you have one. Dogs will regularly hump humans due to a natural urge they have. Should the dog be doing this? Should humans all of a sudden be accepting of bestiality? Maybe don’t answer that one. Now that I’ve gotten a bit off topic, I’ll try to bring this all back. Yes, acting on your homosexual desires is a sin in many Christian churches. However, your homosexuality does nothing to harm me or my church, and as such, I believe firmly that if you wish you act on those temptations, you should be legally allowed to.

Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual peoples should not be deprived of their right to happiness, which can include uniting themselves in lawful union. That being said, I would like to advocate for an alteration in the name of the union. With the full rights, advantages and privileges of a married male and female couple, I would like to revoke the name “gay marriage” and return to the previously used “civil union” terminology. Marriage is a religious term that has been secularized over decades to include all unions whether inside or outside of a church between a man and a woman. I propose that all unions made outside of the boundaries of a religious ceremony be labeled civil unions, reserving the term marriage to those unions made within the boundaries of a religious ceremony. Civil unions will differ from Marriages in name only as to lay to rest the disagreements of many over this divisive issue. Thus, men and women, women and women, and men and men united solely by a judge will no longer be “married” but “united”. Those churches that allow gay marriages in their communities are by no means precluded from including them or precluded from calling them whatever they wish. However, legally, in the eyes of the state, a same-sex couple “married” in their churches will be viewed as “united” under the law. This is a semantic issue, as opposed to a legal issue. The semantics are clearly important on this issue and have been increasingly becoming more important as time goes on. I may not feel it is right to legally prevent people from enjoying their lives in whatever manners they please, but I do feel it is within my purview to define terms in order to ease tensions.

With regards to the transgender community, I have immense sympathy and respect for your feelings. Feeling like you don’t fit into the gender roles that your biology dictates can be frustrating, confusing and upsetting. I know. During my high school years, I often noted to myself that I had feminine characteristics that I didn’t understand. In some ways, I felt that I didn’t share many of the masculine interests of my friends. However, because I was surrounded by many fine men who were very accepting of my differences, I never felt that I didn’t belong with them. Here is the reality of the situation. Many people are not surrounded by these positive influences, and thereby feel that they need to re-identify themselves in order to fit into their social environments. This is not the case. Acceptance, toleration and understanding are the keys to solving this problem. Our attention with regard to the gender debate should be redirected towards Gender Stereotypes. At one point, I was under the impression that we were heading in the right direction. In a very enlightening high school class, I was challenged to think about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. When I did this, I came up with many gender stereotypes that not only did not describe many of my peers, but also did not describe myself. Instead of concluding that I did not belong to my gender, however, I concluded that the stereotypes were the crux of the inconsistencies. At one point in history, gender roles were necessary for survival – the strong (men) went on the hunt, and the tender (women) cared for the children. They were important distinctions. This is not the case anymore! Over time, as technology and society developed to the point where strict gender roles were no longer necessary, women’s rights and roles in society began to change. This was a good thing and is a testament to how incredible our society has been for the less advantaged. These roles still play a part in our daily lives and still affect who we are, but they do not define us exclusively. Take Apples for example. The stereotype of an Apple is a red, juicy, sweet fruit. However, there are apples that are yellow, juicy and sweet. There are also apples that are green, juicy and tart. Is the yellow apple a mango now? Is the green apple a lime? No, their genetics limit them to the fruitful existence that they are. Nevertheless, biology dictates what type of fruit they are and not their characteristics; their characteristics don’t change the underlying biology.

To solve the issue of gender, some people on the progressive aisle have attempted to remove gender. I instead propose to remove the stereotypes/roles! This of course leads to inconsistencies in the Pride movement as a whole. For example, an exclusively lesbian woman might marry another woman who decides later that she is a man. Is this first woman heterosexual now, or should she be upset and betrayed and break off the marriage? Are you confused yet? This removal of gender is not only confusing to adults, but it’s confusing to children, and for them, it is dangerous. When you pose a child with the option to choose his/her gender identity, they will ask you what the differences are. Your response will undoubtedly be gender stereotypes. You are doing no one any favors by perpetuating these gender roles. The child will treat this as something fun, like a game. However, once you begin to treat it as something serious, the child will begin to treat it seriously. This is what major networks and schools and parents are beginning to do. Once you begin to treat your child as if they are not their biological sex, they will begin to accept that reality, more so to please you than anything else. This could have unimaginable consequences on their sense of self later in life, which could lead to self-esteem issues, learning disabilities, depression or worse. And making life-altering changes to your children i.e. long-term gender therapy, hormone treatments, or surgeries could permanently hurt them mentally and physically.

Conversely, if your little boy tells you one day that he is a girl, tell him, “No, you’re not a girl, you’re a boy. As a boy, you can be whoever you want to be, like whatever you want to like, and all of those characteristics will make you who you are.” If you tell your little boy that, there is an increased likelihood that he will have a more accepting view of others who are different from him, and will have a more positive outlook of himself. You can be a man who loves to sew, wear frilly clothing, and fixes his own car. You can be a woman who lifts weights, works on a construction site, and watches soap operas. They are not mutually exclusive. This also includes those members of our communities that wish to fully engage in their historical gendered roles. Women, who want nothing but to read, write, sew, be homemakers, and do the multitude of other activities that are considered feminine, should not be shamed into thinking that their choices are not valuable, are backwards, or are in anyway damaging to womanhood. Women who have no interest in science should not be shamed into believing that their lives are a waste and that they are giving in to the patriarchal oppression of women. This is not productive. Similarly, this standard applies to men, who should not be shamed into thinking that jobs that only use their hands are not worthy of respect because they do not require a college education. They should not be shamed into the common misconception that men are brutes, only caring about power and control. Men who are not interested in fashion design or cleaning are not uncreative or lazy. All humans have different interests and strengths.

The characteristics we have as human beings are largely taught to us. Generosity is taught, openness is taught. Negative things, as well: greed, sloth – they are learned. Selfishness is a learned characteristic. As a society, we have failed our younger generations. Parents, teachers, the government, and the media have all failed. To teach a child that they are so important that they have the ability to defy nature and choose their gender breeds self-centeredness and pride beyond compare. How selfish of us, how pompous! We are not that important. We are not able to create our own meaning. Our meaning is a gift bestowed upon us by a higher power. Who or what that higher power is, is for each and every man and woman to decide on their own, but a society based on the premise that they determine their own worth is doomed to fail because it is founded on the ideal that the self is the most important entity. This is not to contradict our founding principles concerning the individual. Those principles concern how government should act in relation to its people. The concept of self-importance, to which I’m referring, concerns how individuals view themselves and act in spite of the government.

 So, no, I don’t think that Netflix or schools should be teaching students, especially against the wills of their parents, that being a boy when you’re a girl or vice versa is acceptable. We should not be teaching children that biology can just be ignored. If we allowed this aspect of biology to be ignored, other aspects of biology may be ignored in the future (like age!). Nor do I think that sexual preference should be celebrated in public schools. This goes against the separation of church and state in a different manner, because teaching children that their religious observances of sin are incorrect is a direct interference with the practice of a religion. This would be a world where secularism becomes the state religion and that would be no more acceptable than some form of theism. Have no shame for who you are, but don’t put down other peoples’ views to make yourself feel better. Respect should be taught of all our children before they leave the home for school.

Here is my final message. Acceptance of self, love of one another, and understanding of our differences, should reign supreme.

[renardtrickster]

"Because they're mad at you, because they don't like your politics", but not "because you're one of the cunts responsible for Roe v. Wade getting repealed". There's actually a difference between being personally unpleasant or having a different take on something and attacking women's civil and reproductive rights, but actually being incapable of telling the difference between the two is consistent behavior I guess.

And the answer is yes, I think if I tried to attack civil rights, civil rights activists showing up on my lawn to protest would not only be fully expected and fully deserved, but is probably the least you could expect. And before you ask, if I was rude to someone at the store or if I said "yeah I think unions are good", I don't think Lawn Protests would be justified. And if were to hypothetically be responsible for a push to make abortion legal in all states on a federal level, with an extremely generous window of time, and a bunch of anti-choice people were to come protest on my lawn, I don't think that would be justified either. I say this because in addition to being able to tell apart layers of severity, I am also capable of telling the difference between good things and bad things, will advocate for what is good or okay while condemning what is bad, and can be honest about what my actual positions are.

All in all this is a pretty fucking awful post with incredibly dubious intentions, but I can at least extend a little bit of charitability by pointing out that it was made when Roe v. Wade getting repealed was hypothetical and not our reality, so here's a small prompt. The same people who repealed Roe v. Wade have said in no uncertain terms that they're also looking into repealing Griswold v. Connecticut (married couples can access contraceptives without government restriction), Lawrence v. Texas (anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional), and Obergefell v. Hodges (same-sex marriage is a fundamental right). The outcomes of these would not only make Heterosexual Sex In The Missionary Position For The Sole Purpose Of Reproduction the only legal kind of sex, but would also reverse decades worth of gay rights activism, and these are only the bills they were considering repealing out loud. Combined with the activism of states past (DeSantis' dumbass bill and the resulting epidemic of "gay people are all pedophiles" seeing a return to mainstream talking points) and future (Texas GOP's wishlist which places us significantly close to The Imperium of Man), it's clear that Republicans are going to try to do worse. So my question is, do you have any lines they could cross that would warrant yardside protesting or anything of a similar caliber, or in a few years when the Supreme Court starts questioning whether or not we should curb the Civil Rights Act of 1964 am I going to see posts online about how Jim Crow Laws coming back from the dead is bad, but protesting at people's houses is going too far, calling them monsters makes you sound hysterical and them sound reasonable, and their actions will outright be warranted if you grief their houses in Terraria?

cannot believe twitter libs are whining that protesting outside Kavanaugh's house is iNcOnSiDeRaTe To HiS nEiGhBoRs. if you live nextdoor to Brett fucking Kavanaugh and you're not shitting on his porch or at least throwing eggs at his house every day you're wasting your life.

[mariacallous]

Life may have improved for Montenegro’s LGBT community – but organizers of this weekend’s Pride say there’s still much work to be done.

Organizers of this year’s Montenegrin Pride, scheduled for Saturday, called on the government to promote Montenegro as a secular society and improve the rights of the LGBT community generally.

The tenth Montenegrin Pride will take place under the slogan, “No more but” [“Nema više ali”], while the main event will be a walk in the capital, Podgorica, passing parliament, the government building and the city assembly.

The organizers, the NGO Queer Montenegro, called on fellow citizens to show that Montenegro is secular, civic state that respects human rights.

“We will express our dissatisfaction with a system where human rights are generally not respected …This is the most important Montenegrin Pride for all of us who want Montenegrin society to be inclusive for everyone,” the head of Queer Montenegro, Milos Knezevic, told BIRN.

At the first Montenegro Pride march in 2014, more than 500 protesters, mostly football hooligans, hurled rocks and bottles at the small march staged by only a few dozen gay activists. Twenty police were injured and 60 people detained in the mayhem.

While the government is fully behind the march now, in past years intolerance towards the gay community was widespread on social networks.

Earlier surveys have suggested that as many as 71 per cent of citizens in Montenegro still view homosexuality as an illness and that every second citizen sees it as a danger to society and would wish the state to suppress it.

Church plans counter-rally ‘against debauchery’

For the first time since Pride marches were organized in Montenegro, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the largest faith group in the country, has called for a mass religious counter-rally, for the “preservation of the family”.

On September 5, the top bishop in the country, Metropolitan Joankije, urged believers to gather and pray to uphold the sanctity of marriage and ensure the preservation of the family.

“Certain power structures from the world are preaching and promoting immorality and debauchery in Montenegro. We must gather and condemn that public preaching of immorality and protect the family and children,” Metropolitan Joanikije said.

The Church’s call followed tensions over the controversial EuroPride 2022 event in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, which authorities attempted to ban.

In advance of the EuroPride event, thousands of people gathered in Belgrade on August 15 to demonstrate against it, also claiming they wanted to “protect the family”.

Knezevic said the Church should refrain from trying to degrade the civil and democratic concept of Montenegrin society.

“What worries us a lot is the fact that the state institutions have been tacitly approving the more than evident polarization and clericalization of society, which is being emphasized by the Church. Our community and Pride march does not endanger the so-called traditional values ​​and traditional family,” Knezevic said.

Growing numbers of same-Sex partnerships

According to NGO Civic Education Centre, a survey from June 28 showed around 55 per cent of citizens supported Pride marches, while 35 per cent were opposed.

The survey also showed that 47 per cent of citizens think that LGBT rights are not respected, while 42 per cent said they are respected.

Meanwhile, authorities said that 22 same-sex marriages were registered in Montenegro since the first same-sex partnership was registered in the coastal resort of Budva last July.

These pioneering same-sex unions came a year after Montenegro became the first non-EU Balkan state to legalize same-sex partnerships.

In July 2020, parliament voted to recognize same-sex civil partnerships with the support of a narrow majority of MPs from the then ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, the Social Democrats, the Liberal Party and the opposition Social Democratic Party.

Montenegro failed twice before to adopt laws on same-sex unions – in 2014 and 2019. It succeeded in July 2020, the only non-EU ex-Yugoslav republic to do so, although Serbia has similar legislation in the pipeline. Of the other former Yugoslav republics, EU members Croatia and Slovenia have legalized same-sex unions.

Under the law, same-sex couples can enter into a legal union at their local registry office. The law also allows for the regulation of mutual financial support and division of joint property in event of divorce. It does not allow same-sex couples to adopt or foster children.

But Queer Montenegro’s Knezevic warned that the law was still not harmonized with wider legislation, accusing the government of breaching a July deadline to do so.

“Two years since the law was adopted, its harmonization with wider legislation has not been completed. We’ve proposed specific amendments to the legislative framework that need to be harmonized with this law, but so far there has been no response from the government,” Knezevic said.

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/fiasco-over-popes-cut-civil-union-quote-intensifies-impact-world-news/

Fiasco over pope's cut civil union quote intensifies impact | World News

ROME (AP) — The world premiere of a documentary on Pope Francis was supposed to have been a bright spot for a papacy locked down by a pandemic and besieged by a corruption scandal, recalling Francis’ glory days traveling the world to bless the oppressed.

But the red carpet rollout of “Francesco” has been anything but bright, with evidence that the Vatican censored the pope last year by deleting his endorsement of same-sex civil unions from an interview, only to have the footage resurface in the new film.

Aside from the firestorm the remarks created, the “Francesco” fiasco has highlighted the Vatican’s often self-inflicted communications wounds and Francis’ willingness to push his own agenda, even at the expense of fueling pushback from conservative Catholics.

That pushback was swift and came from predictable corners: Cardinal Raymond Burke, Francis’ frequent nemesis on matters of doctrine, said the pope’s comments were devoid of any “magisterial weight.” But in a statement, Burke expressed concern that such personal opinions coming from the pope “generate great bewilderment and cause confusion and error among Catholic faithful.”

The kerfuffle began Wednesday with the world premiere of “Francesco,” a feature-length film on Francis and the issues he cares most about: climate change, refugees and social inequality. Midway through, Francis delivers the bombshell quote that gays deserve to be part of the family and that he supported civil unions, or a “ley de convivencia civil” as he said in Spanish — to give them legal protections.

Christopher Lamb of Britain’s The Tablet magazine, noted Friday that in some countries, the rights of gays are a life and death matter, and that Francis was merely positioning the church to defend LGBT Catholics from perhaps deadly discrimination.

“The pope is willing to ‘break a few plates’ to ensure he communicates this Gospel-based message of compassion,” he tweeted.

But the contents of the pope’s words were almost lost in the controversy that ensued over their origin.

At first, film director Evgeny Afineevsky claimed Francis made them directly to him. Then one of Francis’ media advisers said they came from a 2019 interview with Mexican broadcaster Televisa, and were old news as a result.

Televisa confirmed the origin of the quotes, but said they never aired. A source in Mexico said the Vatican, which used its own cameras to shoot the interview and provided raw footage to Televisa afterward, had deleted the civil union quote in question. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The Vatican has refused to comment and imposed something of a media blackout on the matter. None of the Vatican’s in-house media has reported on the cut quote, and on Friday the Il Fatto Quotidiano daily quoted an email from a staffer in the Vatican’s communications ministry to other staff saying there wouldn’t be any comment, but that “talks are underway to deal with the current media crisis.”

It wasn’t the first time that the Vatican’s communications office has gone into crisis over apparently manipulated images. In 2018, Francis fired the first head of the office, Monsignor Dario Vigano, after he mischaracterized a private letter from retired Pope Benedict XVI, then had a photo of it digitally manipulated and sent out to the media.

In both cases, journalists, who must play by Vatican rules in accepting handout footage of events covered exclusively by Vatican cameras, were misled into assuming the Holy See would abide by traditional journalistic ethics and provide them with unaltered images.

Coincidentally, it was Vigano who first entertained a pitch for a documentary on Francis by Afineevsky, who was nominated for an Oscar for his 2015 documentary “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom,” which opened the Venice Film Festival that year.

In an Oct. 14 interview with The Associated Press, Afineevsky said he had asked the head of the Venice festival, Alberto Barbera, to help him make inroads with the Vatican, and that Barbera had provided an email of introduction to Vigano in late 2017.

Afineevsky said Vigano, a known movie buff, was already familiar with his work and was open to the idea.

“But he said, ‘Go. Start. Do it. I’m not promising you anything. We will see,’” Afineevsky said.

After Vigano was ousted, his replacement, Paolo Ruffini, kept the line of communications open, as well as the doors to the Vatican television archives.

Afineevsky had free range, and used them to tell the heart-lifting story of Francis’ seven-year papacy, largely through the eyes of the people he impacted. Coming out in the midst of a Vatican corruption scandal dominating Italian headlines for months, the film provided a nostalgic profile of a once globe-trotting papacy that in some ways ended with COVID-19.

About midway through the film, Afineevsky recounts the story of Andrea Rubera, a married gay Catholic who wrote Francis asking for his advice about bringing into the church his three young children with his husband.

It was an anguished question, given the Catholic Church teaches that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” The church also holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman, and that as a result, gay marriage is unacceptable.

In the end, Rubera recounts how Francis urged him to approach his parish transparently and bring the children up in the faith, which he did. After the anecdote ends, the film cuts to Francis’ civil union comments in the Televisa interview.

While it wasn’t clear in the documentary, Francis was merely recounting his position when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires: Then, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio endorsed extending legal civil union protections to gay couples as an alternative to moves to approve same-sex marriage, which he firmly opposed.

As Francis’ biographer Austen Ivereigh recounts in “The Great Reformer,” Bergoglio had ministered to many gay Catholics in Argentina. “He knew their stories of rejection by their families,” Ivereigh wrote, and told gay activists that “he favored gay rights as well as legal recognition for civil unions, which gay couples could also access.”

The hitch for the pope is a 2003 document from the Vatican’s doctrine office, which states the church’s respect for gay people “cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”

That document was issued after Rome criticized Bergoglio for refusing to speak up strongly when Buenos Aires extended civil union protections to gay couples within the capital region in 2002, Ivereigh wrote.

As pope, Francis had never come out publicly in favor of legal protections for civil unions, and no pontiff before him had, either.

In fact the closest Francis had come before — a 2014 interview with Corriere della Sera in which he spoke in general terms about the need to evaluate such legislation — was followed by a clarification the next day by a Vatican media liaison.

The Rev. James Martin, one of the leading priestly advocates for LGBT Catholics, said the controversy over the pope’s comments would in the end be helpful.

“The intrigue over the video’s origin, and the explosive reaction to the pope’s ongoing support for LGBT people, make the pope’s words look more dangerous, and therefore more powerful,” he said.

[sapphicscholar]

A little story in memory of Edith Windsor

This morning, I happened to see several articles making the rounds on Tumblr about how fighting so hard for same-sex marriage had been a mistake. Now, I’ve heard the arguments (you don’t work in queer theory without knowing them inside and out), and politically I’m more than a little sympathetic to the idea that the state shouldn’t get to determine the legitimacy of romantic and sexual unions, nor should special benefits be extended on the basis of one’s ability to enter into a state-sanctioned union. 

That being said, as we watch the postal vote in Australia (and all the homophobic rhetoric it’s stirring up) and reflect on the life and legacy of Edith Windsor, a lesbian trailblazer whose case eventually made it to the U.S. Supreme Court and brought down the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA), I couldn’t help but reflect on what the morning of that Supreme Court decision did for me. 

In the buildup to the decisions that summer of 2013, I remember watching as my friends on Facebook one-by-one, then suddenly en masse, began changing their profile pictures to the HRC’s equality sign, then, after critiques of the HRC’s transphobic policies began to emerge, to a revamped version of the equality sign or to other symbols–rainbows and the like–meant to symbolize support for a decision in favor of same-sex marriage. After all, not only was DOMA under consideration, but so was California’s Prop 8. And as someone who’d spent my whole life in Catholic schools, spent years sleeping with women and hating myself for it, drinking too much and sleeping too little as I pushed away the women I had fallen for, let them finally pull away, too frustrated with dealing with someone so deep in the closet, this broad show of support was inspiring, if slightly unexpected. 

Earlier that year, I’d finally done it–I’d finally come out. Not to everyone, not yet to family, but to myself, then slowly but surely to those closest to me. I’d said the words, let them sink in as true, as something that wasn’t just a dirty secret, but something I could embrace. I threw myself into all the queer theory and LGBTQ+ literature I could find, and let myself learn to claim an absolutely inspiring lineage of writers and thinkers and activists. And suddenly, here were friends and family members coming out in droves in support of my right to marry. No, changing a profile picture isn’t much effort, and no, marriage doesn’t seem like a particularly “radical” act to many, and sure, it was already legal in some states. But in my conservative Catholic hometown? You bet your ass it meant something. The kids posting on Facebook that everyone deserved the same protections under the law–they hadn’t been raised on those ideas; in fact, not that many years earlier, we’d all been in senior year of Catholic high school together being forced to write “False” next to the question of whether “Gay marriage is actually marriage” if we wanted full credit on an exam. But here they were, having learned and changed their minds and stepping up to engage with conservative relatives on Facebook, in classrooms, and at the dinner table–practicing what real allyship looks like. 

Then that week finally came–the week when we knew the decisions would start being handed down. The night before the decision came down (not that we knew it would come that early in the week), my girlfriend and I went on what was, at the time, one of our first few dates, having only gotten together that month. She cooked me dinner at her apartment, and we shared a bottle of wine, and we talked for what felt like hours–about anything and everything. And by the time we looked up, it was already 2 in the morning, so, for the first time, I spent the night at her place, went to bed curled up around her (not that I slept a wink until about 6 in the morning, too nervous about snoring or moving to really relax). But I still had my arms around the woman I was not so slowly, though also not so surely (having missed all those teenage firsts during high school), falling in love with, and I was happy–happier than I had been in a long time.

That next morning, June 26, we woke up–both of us already running late for work. But before I could panic about whether I had time to shower or to find clothes that hadn’t been slept in, I scrolled through the notifications on my phone, finding two AP Breaking News alerts: DOMA and Prop 8 had been struck down. And, god, as much as I had wanted to believe that we’d be strong enough to survive a decision either way (because we had been, for so damn long, and we would be again), had convinced myself that it wasn’t that big of a deal, waking up to the news that my country had recognized my love as legal, even if I never thought it was a right they should have in the first place? It still mattered. Because I could roll over in bed and look down at the absolutely stunning woman next to me and know that if we wanted to get married, we didn’t need to fly across country to do so, wouldn’t have to worry about that right being stripped away almost as soon as it was granted, wouldn’t have to listen as our conservative neighbors and old Catholic school teachers from back home sneered and pointed out that it was “just a civil union” to legitimate their homophobia. And god, for that…for that I will always be grateful to Edith Windsor and the thousands of LGBTQ pioneers (many of whom were, of course, not white or cis or wealthy like Windsor, who was chosen to represent us in large part because she was all of those things) who fought for so many years–long before Stonewall and the HRC and the ACLU–to get us to where we are today and to inspire us to keep fighting the good fight even now.

[ladystylestores]

Hungary transgender law throws community into limbo

Ivett Ordog, 39, is one of those affected by the new law banning legal gender changes. “While I would never go back to living the life of a male — that weird alien I used to see in the mirror — I’m also living in fear because I have no idea what’s next,” she says.

The coronavirus pandemic presents a major threat to countries’ health systems, economies and most vulnerable people.

But advocates for the transgender community say Hungary has chosen this moment to bring in a law that hurts transgender people, one of its most marginalized groups. While Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was ruling by decree, the government brought in a new law banning legal gender changes — although it did not take advantage of its emergency powers to pass the law.

The bill, passed by parliament on May 19 and signed into law a week later, states that “sex at birth” will be recorded in Hungary’s civil registry — and may not be changed later on identification documents such as driving licenses and passports.

Hungarians are only permitted to choose from a registry of specifically “male” or “female” names in accordance with their ascribed sex marker. They aren’t allowed to use a name from the other sex category on their legal documents, and there are no gender-neutral names — so many intersex, transgender and non-binary people will be forced to be legally tied to a name that, they say, does not reflect them.

Iceland, Sweden and Finland had similar rules allowing names only from set lists until they were changed in recent years.

“When I first heard about this new law, I got very angry. Angry because this country, which is very much part of my identity — and I am very proud that I am Hungarian — says to me that it doesn’t want me to be who I am. It is very dehumanizing,” says Daniel Gyarmati, 20. He realized he was transgender four years ago, at around the time the government first suspended legal gender recognition, making him “despair.” Gyarmati wanted to go to university but feared people seeing his old name in the system. When the suspension was lifted for a few months before the April 2018 election, Gyarmati was able to change his name and start university “with a calm heart.” The change will stand despite the new law.

“My claim for name and gender change has not been approved yet, so I am one of the great victims of this law,” says Laura Andrassy, 28. “I am outraged. … I am upset, but I am not surprised, sadly. I will fight for my right because I want to have a family later on, but this law hinders me from that. If I can not do it here, I will do so in another place in this world.” Andrassy says she began to accept who she was after she got to know the trans community while living in France and the US. “In Paris, acceptance was never a question. Even in Utah, one of the most conservative places in the US, there is more acceptance than in Hungary,” she says.

Transgender rights groups say this change will mean trans, non-binary and intersex people are exposed to potential discrimination every time they use a bank, rent property or apply for jobs.

Photographer Akos Stiller, who is based in Budapest, wanted to capture portraits of the people who may lose the chance to determine their own identities under the new law.

“I knew that they must take a very hard road, as well emotionally, physically, to become the gender they wish to be — and this made me believe, these persons are facing really tough challenges.”

After the legislation was proposed, he said, “I started to feel that to share their stories is a necessity.”

“Society sometimes can be judged really by how it deals with its minorities, or deals with the most vulnerable members. I think it’s very important to know these people’s stories.”

Noé Horvath, 30, realized he was transgender when he was 18. “I was afraid of what would be if I told my parents about my identity — would I be kicked out of the family?” When he was 26, he decided “that if I want to live a happy life, I have to do something about this.” He began his transition on March 8, 2017, International Women’s Day. After two months of taking hormones, he says, “nobody could have seen that I was born as a woman, but my papers still showed that I was a woman.” He says he had some embarrassing situations where people didn’t know his bank card belonged to him. Horvath was one of a group of transgender applicants who filed a successful lawsuit through the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to change gender while the process was suspended.

Hungary is a member of the EU, but Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been forging his own path. He has introduced a series of laws tightening regulations on the media, central bank, constitutional court and non-governmental organizations, moves that EU leaders have warned would undermine Hungary’s democracy. In 2012, Hungary’s new constitution defined life as beginning at conception and marriage as being between a man and a woman, and failed to forbid discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. In 2016, the legal route to changing gender was suspended, and was only briefly lifted in the months before the 2018 election.

LGBTQ rights group Háttér Society tells CNN there are concerns the new law could be expanded to people who have already legally changed gender. Board member Tamás Dombos says the association has already had calls from trans people considering leaving the country — or even suicide.

While many countries have legal routes to change gender, how easy it is varies from country to country, and discrimination against trans people is common worldwide. The Trans Murder Monitoring project recorded 2,982 murders of trans and gender-diverse people globally between January 1, 2008, and September 30, 2018.

Ivett Ordog, left, says that as someone who is not visibly transgender, she faces “awkward and sometimes dangerous situations” whenever she shows her ID because she has to come out every time. Ordog had transitioned when she met her partner Atanaz Talos, 30. Talos was still living as a woman but wanted to transition, and has now done so. Ordog considered herself a lesbian at the time and says she had to consider how she felt about that. “I have come to a conclusion that it’s not his gender I am loving, and I can love him as a man.”

Anna Hídvégi, 28, took a long time to accept that she was transgender after she was called names as a child. “Elementary school was terrible for me. I was bullied a lot,” she said. She changed her name when she was 24. “When I first heard about this new law I got very mad for one day, very depressed for the next, but on the third, I thought, let’s do something about it. As an activist I am trying to talk as much about it as possible. They can try to change back my gender, but I will not cooperate with them in any way. I will go to jail if needed.”

The Hungarian government defended the law, telling CNN in an emailed statement that it “does not affect men’s and women’s right to freely experience and exercise their identities as they wish.”

“In no way does the relevant section of the bill that some people criticize prevent any person from exercising their fundamental rights arising from their human dignity or from living according their identity,” the statement continued.

Since coming to power in 2010, Orbán has been chipping away at LGBTQ rights in Hungary.

Hungary recognizes legal unions for same-sex couples, but the ruling Fidesz party, which has become increasingly populist under Orbán, opposes the legalization of same-sex marriage. There have also been proposals in recent years to strip away rights from same-sex couples, warns Dombas, although these were not passed by the parliament.

In 2018, Orbán angered universities by banning gender studies programs and government lawmakers attacked Coca-Cola for running ads that included images of same-sex couples kissing. One government lawmaker called for a ban on the Budapest Pride Parade and the Speaker of the National Assembly called gay men and lesbians second-class citizens, and likened same-sex adoption to pedophilia.

Eszter Berencsi, 29, believes it is ”unethical” that the government brought in this law during the coronavirus crisis “as anybody against it doesn’t have the democratic right to oppose that — you cannot demonstrate against it, you cannot organize in person against it, because of the restrictions.” Berencsi says she knew since kindergarten “that something was not all right with me” but buried the feelings. At around 9 years old, she realized that she didn’t “have to live in this body forever” and found it “comforting” during puberty to know she could change later. In 2016, she began her transition. “I don’t receive anything negative in my everyday life, although they say I am quite ‘passing,’ meaning you wouldn’t say I have not been born as a woman,” she says.

A 2019 poll by Median research group cited by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) found that 70% of Hungarians believed that trans people should have access to legal gender recognition.

Katrin Hugendubel, advocacy director for ILGA-Europe, said in a statement that legal gender recognition was “the bedrock of access to equality and non-discrimination for trans and intersex people,” and without it, they would be “subject to immense stigma, discrimination, harassment, and violence” when performing simple tasks such as visiting the doctor or applying for a cellphone.

Rights groups including Háttér Society are now requesting the law be sent for review to the Constitutional Court, the principal organization protecting the Hungarian democratic state, which decides on the constitutionality of acts of parliament.

“In this case, this would be such a direct conflict with the government, and we are a bit afraid that they might not be brave enough to do that,” said Dombos.

Erik Erdős, 23, is a trans activist who spent years accepting who he was but now cannot legally change gender. “I am afraid to file my papers. I wouldn’t know in how many years they would be evaluated. There is such an uncertainty. I am afraid to get denied. It was a very long journey for me to realize I am transgender. I was around 20, and I had four suicide attempts before that. When I admitted to myself I am transgender, that was a huge relief for me. Finally I have realized what was the ‘problem’ with me all along.” When gender recognition was suspended in Hungary in 2016, he says, “I felt hopeless. I was alone then.”

Adam Csikós, 23, received his documents two years ago but says he has always dreaded that a law would take away his happiness. He says that in middle school, he tried to fit in as a girl but still cut his hair short because that reflected who he was. He felt that how he experienced things internally differed from what people around him expected from him. “I never had illusions that I can live happily ever after in peace. I have expected that after years, because of some law, my past will return. The many bad feelings will return because legally I couldn’t use the name and gender I lived my everyday life with,” he says.

Háttér says it has been approached by thousands of transgender people seeking legal support, and plans to help some to challenge the law in the country’s lower courts. Meanwhile, 23 applicants have taken their case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) with the help of Transvanilla Transgender Association. But the court process could take years, according to Dombos.

Photographer Stiller says Hungary’s new law looks like a plan to create “misery” for people who are often already dealing with self-doubt over their identity.

“This is really an effort for them to realize, actually, that’s how they should be, how they should live their life,” he said. “I think it’s really hard, and it should be respected.”

He hopes his photographs will make people in Hungary and around the world think more about transgender people and be “more sympathetic to their struggles, to their feelings, to how they want to live their life.”

As the world battles huge challenges, including a deadly virus, the simple wish to choose a legal identity now seems increasingly out of reach for Hungary’s transgender people.

Zsanett Séra, 28, began trying to change gender in August 2018 and recently had it certified after several lawsuits and back-and-forth processes through the system. “Even though I have received this change, I am afraid that this new law will withdraw this,” says Séra. “I find it outrageous that I fought for this name change for one-and-a-half years … and with just a stroke of a pen they take it back.” She believes only a small percentage of society sees trans people in a negative light. “This minority is very loud on the internet and very quiet in reality,” she says.

Akos Stiller is a photographer based in Budapest, Hungary. He is represented by Redux Pictures. Follow him on Facebook and Instagram.

Photo editors: Brett Roegiers and Sarah Tilotta

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[doctormead]

Death of a Conservative

I was born in June of 1974.  Two months later, Richard Nixon resigned from the Presidency.  The Cold War was in its final stages and would end before I graduated high school.  But its shadow defined my upbringing.

I was raised in a Evangelical Christian, conservative, Republican home.  And that is what I was raised to be:  a Christian, an Evangelical, a conservative and a Republican.  I was never actually told that you couldn’t be a good Christian and be a Democrat.  In fact, I was explicitly told the opposite…but there was this underlying attitude in everything every adult around me said and did that said otherwise.  I’m pretty sure that the adults in my life didn’t mean to come across this way, but this was the “logic train” that I absorbed over time.  

Here’s where the U.S.S.R.’s cold shadow crept in.  Russia was the boogieman for every churched kid in those days.  We were fed horror stories about religious oppression in the Soviet Union and inspiring sagas about good Christian people who held onto their faith in spite of the danger.  We were given pamphlets and Christian comic books about heroes who smuggled bibles behind the Iron Curtain.  We were told over and over that the Russians wanted to do that to everyone, and that the U.S. was the bulwark that kept them from grinding all of us under the heel of state-established atheism.

And, if that wasn’t bad enough, Russia wanted to impose its economic system on us.  “Socialism” and “Communism” were words to conjure demons by.  We heard tale after tale of how poor the Russian people were because of prices fixed by the state.  How nobody was motivated to do their best because there was no way to really advance.  That the lack of competition kept everything stagnant and miserable.   Then Capitalism was set up as the Aslan to Communism’s Tash.  Capitalism was why things were so much better in America!  Capitalism provides competition and incentive for people to get off their asses and work hard.  This creates better, cheaper products which makes everything better for everyone!

This was the dichotomy I grew up.  Russia/Communism = evil.  America/Capitalism = good.  Enter the liberals in general and the Democrats in particular.  They weren’t “tough” on the Russians.  Worse, they wanted to erode good Christian institutions like prayer in schools which would put us on the “slippery slope” (yes, that logical fallacy got a lot of play in school time lectures and political discussions around me ) toward outlawing Christianity outright.  This made them foolish dupes at best and collaborators at worst.  And, since no good Christian would stand by while the Evil U.S.S.R. and their liberal sympathizers in the U.S. pushed us down the road toward atheistic totalitarianism, you couldn’t REALLY be a good Christian and be a democrat.  Simplistic, I know, but I was a kid and, for an embarrassingly long time, even into my adult years, I held on to that simplicity even if it was only in the back of my mind.  To paraphrase John Fischer, this was something that I wasn’t so much taught as something that I “caught”.

But, as I got older, cracks started to appear in the facade of “Righteous Capitalist America”.  The benefits of the sweeping, upper level tax cuts and the repealing of economy-shackling regulations that were supposed to “trickle down” to everyone never seemed to reach us.  Looking back, we were doing pretty well, but I remember mom and dad seeming to constantly worry about finances.  Costs of living kept going up while wages were stagnating for the middle and lower class.  As corporations merged into virtual (and sometimes literal) monopolies, I learned that Capitalism doesn’t guarantee competition.  It is “good business” to eliminate your competition from the viewpoint of a corporate overlord.  Thus an in-theory “free market” can become just as locked in and stagnant as any State run economy.  This made it easier for hard-working people to fall into financial trouble and cutting of social safety nets in the name of “fiscal responsibility” and “not encouraging freeloaders” made it harder and harder to climb out of that trouble.  And the continual gutting of public education only exacerbated matters.

I slowly grew away from the Republican Party, because, well, they weren’t living up to their hype.  Take the War on Drugs.  You’d think we’d have learned something from Prohibition.  Yeah, they “got tough” on drugs with the “three strikes you’re out” policy and militarizing the police to a fare-the-well.  All they actually did was explode the prison population and didn’t really make a significant dent in drug trafficking and use.  Drug use is the same between white and black people, but black people are disproportionately arrested and convicted which exacerbates the issue of poverty in that demographic as families lose providers and young people get a black mark on their records that will bar them from many opportunities for the rest of their lives.  At the same time, they advocated (and followed through) with cutting assistance programs for inner cities and other impoverished areas, making drug dealing one of the few available means for having an income that is above subsistence level…and the cycle continues.  (And, then in the last year, I learn that the War on Drugs was pretty much started by Nixon to target his political opponents:  i.e. liberals and African Americans.  And this isn’t “fake news”.  One of his aides confessed to this.)  Then there were the incessant wars overseas (granted with strong support from Democrats in many cases) which, in the long run, only seemed to exacerbate the problems they claimed to be solving.  There was also the outright hostility to science.  I admit, I was a climate change denier to begin with, but then the evidence finally piled up to a point where I couldn’t deny it any longer and remain intellectually honest with myself.  Also, the stifling of research into areas that might hurt their platform (for example, preventing the CDC from even starting to research gun violence/fatalities).  The party was gradually adopting a stance that facts should be discounted and ignored when they are inconvenient.  Then, to put the cherry on the top of this toxic sundae, there was the courtship of racism  When hordes of angry, white southerners left the Democratic party over the party changing to support the Civil Rights Movement, the Republican party tried to bring them into their fold to bolster their voter support.  It was subtle.  So very, very subtle at first.  The used “dogwhistles” instead of obviously racist statements and/or policies to let them know they’d be welcome.  And, as they took root in the “Party of Lincoln”, they started throwing their weight around becoming more and more openly racist.  It finally came to a head for me half-way through Obama’s first term, when Republicans flat out refused to even try to work with the President or the people across the aisle.  Their entire policy was “obstruct everything”.  The Republican party no longer represented my ideals…if it ever in fact did.  After that, I no longer considered myself Republican or conservative.  I was an independent with increasingly “leftist” leanings.

I still considered myself an Evangelical Christian but “cracks” were starting to appear there as well.  Evangelical Christianity was the vanguard of conservatism and the Republican Party.  They led the charge against the “moral erosion” of our society.  As I got older I and got to know more people outside of the Evangelical bubble, I became more and more uneasy.  Many of the things that were being railed against by Evangelicals and the Moral Majority were…simply applying the rights of the 1st Amendment to everyone.  Prayer in schools?  Unless you’re going to give a service for every religion represented in that school, it’s not fair to people who aren’t Christian.  And, even if you could do that, it singles out members of minority religions to be picked on (and, if you think minority religions wouldn’t be picked on in school, you haven’t been paying attention).  You can make it “all right” in the rules for people to abstain from the opening prayer, but see what I write before about minorities being picked on.  When I was in undergrad at Bryan College, there was a program where our students would go to the local grade school to teach bible lessons in their classes.  I’m pretty sure they only got away with it for as long as they did because Dayton, TN was pretty insular.  Looking back, I cringe at the idea.  Yeah, kids weren’t “required” to attend the lessons, but the lessons were held in each of the homerooms.  It would be painfully obvious if you left and…minorities being picked on, etcetera etcetera.  Gay marriage?  Folks, homosexuality isn’t forbidden in all religions (and certainly not in any atheist or agnostic creed I know).  If you’re going to have a religious/legal hybrid of an institution in the first place, you have to let it be applied across all faiths or lack thereof across the board to be in sync with the idea of Religious Freedom.  I kept hearing respected voices in the church rail against Islam and the stifling theocracies its followers created…but, from the way they talked about other issues, they seemed to be longing for a Christian version of Sharia law: a theocracy where the outward behavior of one sect of Christianity was enforced by the government.

Then there was Evangelical Christianity’s increasing lack of compassion for the poor in our country.  Oh, Evangelicals had tons of compassion (and open wallets) for poor people as long as they were overseas, but, if you were poor in America, you were out of luck.  The attitude seemed to be that it wasn’t the fault of people overseas if they were poor.  After all, they didn’t have all the advantages of living in America - the land of opportunity.  But poor people in the U.S.?   Well, if they can’t bootstrap themselves up like the American Dream says, it’s their fault.  They’re too lazy or irresponsible or “not right with God”.  I overheard or participated in many discussions about kids growing up expecting to draw a check like momma or single mothers having baby after baby just so they could get a bigger welfare check.  I’m sure that some people abuse the system.  Some people always find a way to abuse systems, but it became increasingly hard to believe that so many did that it negated the good such safety nets do.  I’ve gotten to meet and get to know some people who had come out of a background like that and they were nothing like the “entitled, lazy welfare-queen” of the stories.  At the worst, the poor became scapegoats for the failure of “trickle down” economics.  If those leeches weren’t being supported by the rest of us, we’d have much more money, or so went the logic.  I heard several people advocate for getting rid of the welfare system entirely and “let churches and private charities take over that job”.  The thing was, churches and private charities were around when these programs were set up.  If they were doing such a good job of it, government wouldn’t have had to start them.  Quite frankly, I didn’t see these advocates for private and church based welfare giving anywhere near enough to the local poor to make the governmental programs redundant.  And the racial component of this kept getting more and more pronounced.  The “welfare queens” were increasingly cast as black or Latina.  Stagnant wages were the fault of all those illegal immigrants who would take pennies for hours of work.  The lack of well paying jobs in your area was because they were given to less qualified minorities to meet “racial quotas”.

And, finally, there was the demonization of the “other”.  People who didn’t agree with us weren’t just mistaken.  They became “The Enemy”, and somehow Jesus’ admonition to “love your enemy” didn’t apply to them.  They weren’t to be listened to.  They weren’t even to be tolerated.  They were to be shouted down and attacked.  Grace?  Who has time for grace?!  There’s a war on, so get down to the battlefield and hold the line at all costs!  

Now, I hear you Evangelicals out there objecting to this.  “We’re not all like that!”  you say.  I know, but THIS is the public face of Evangelicalism.  “That’s not fair!” you say.  “The liberal media just focuses on that minority!”  Folks, I know that argument.  I’ve MADE that argument for years to my friends outside the Evangelical bubble.  Over and over again and, after a while, it began to ring increasingly hollow.  I could SEE what was going on inside Evangelical churches.  I could hear what my fellow Evangelical Christians were saying and “liberal slant” couldn’t excuse all of that.  And, quite frankly, this last election year was the nail in the coffin for me because Evangelical Christianity (mainly WHITE Evangelical Christianity) as a whole showed its true colors for all the world to see.  Evangelicals were a major help in putting a mysogynistic, bigoted, entitled bully in the White House.  Numbers vary, but the figures I find most likely are 58% for Evangelicals as a whole and 80% for white Evangelicals.  Let me say that again.  Of the people who identified as Evangelical who turned out for the 2016 Presidential Election, over half of them voted for Trump and a particular subset had over three quarters vote for the Orange Anti-Beatitude.  Even if a large population of the Evangelical community stayed home, that’s a pretty damning percentage and no amount of yelling that liberal media is doing a smear job can overcome it.  And Trump *still* has strong Evangelical support!  I could forgive what happened on election night if it wasn’t for the fact that the majority of white Evangelical Christians still seem to support him in spite of everything he’s done and all the lies he’s been caught out in.  Top Evangelical voices like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Franklin Graham still staunchly support him in spite of the fact that he is the opposite of what they’ve been saying a Christian leader should be for years and years.  And, you know what?  I don’t care why they’re doing so.  Because I’m out.

I am a Christian, and it is because of that that I can no longer consider myself an Evangelical.  There are no doubt pockets in the Evangelical movement that haven’t been corrupted, but, when the rot is THIS far spread, I don’t see how I can do otherwise.  If Jesus and the current Evangelical movement are in conflict, then I must go with Jesus.  A huge chunk of Evangelicalism has sold its birthright of grace for a mess of political pottage.  And, let me give you a word of warning, Evangelicals.  I came to Christ in the age of Billy Graham, a man of grace.  If my introduction to Christianity was Franklin Graham and his ilk, I’d have run far, far away.  There is far too little of Christ in the lives of these Christians.  Think about that.  If I was growing up and seeking truth in this day and age, I strongly suspect that I would reject Christianity due to the hateful behavior of His servants.  Think about all the young people who ARE looking for truth in this day and age…and how you’re driving them away.

[thechasefiles]

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 14/2/2020

Good Morning #realdreamchasers ! Here is your daily news cap for Friday February 14th, 2020. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Government Information Service (BGIS), Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Weekend Nation Newspaper (WN).

EDUCATION MINISTRY WARNED ABOUT IGNORING UNION – The “stench of physical rot and infrastructural decay” at Vauxhall Primary is bad. But it’s not the worst case of environmental issues affecting learning institutions across the island, the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) has warned. In the wake of a rat infestation problem, substandard bathroom facilities and other environmental issues which have captured public attention, the union has condemned the Ministry of Education’s attitude and approach as “untenable and unacceptable”. And, unless “proactive changes” are made in “short order”, the union is threatening to bring a slew of other unhealthy and unsafe existing situations to the public’s attention. “We are most keenly aware that the conditions at Vauxhall recently made known to Barbadians, do not represent the worst conditions we can identify,” the union said Thursday in a statement. But despite the Education Minister, Santia Bradshaw’s visit yesterday at Vauxhall during a planned “silent protest” by teachers, the union accuses the ministry of ignoring several pieces of correspondence outlining numerous cases of unhealthy environment in schools. The BUT warned: “We will be forced to make the unhealthy, unsafe and unsecured school plants known in the absence of the ministry’s repeated failure to engage the union as requested. “These developments are not consistent with “a talking government”, what is deemed “fit for purpose” or the best managerial practices. There must be dialogue and feedback forms a critical part in dialogue. Without dialogue, conditions will not be satisfactorily addressed in a meaningful manner,” the statement charged. Looking back on issues which resulted in the 2006 closure of Louis Lynch Secondary as well as Society Primary and Chalky Mount Primary being condemned, the BUT complained that signs of decay at a number of schools built in the 1990’s like All Saints Primary, Lester Vaughn and Queen’s College continue to be affected by “systemic neglect”. “This continues today, unchecked, given there is little evidence of guidelines in terms of the maintenance or inspection of the physical infrastructure of public schools; whether older or newer; structures be wooden, coral stone or wall; nursery, primary, secondary or tertiary; in town or the country; or housing a large or small roll,” said the union. “Certain schools have endured the brunt of extreme neglect while others have been better maintained where parents possess the wherewithal. Some businesses have also supported these efforts from time to time and they must be commended,” the statement said. But given Government’s mandate to oversee the health and safety of stakeholders at all public schools, the union has been disappointed with recommendations made to the Prime Minister and the Social Partnership, which appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Zeroing in on issues of safety, the union indicated it is still awaiting a promised increase in “psychosocial support staff” in the form of guidance counsellors, which the union agreed to introduce after extended meetings with education stakeholders last May. The statement acknowledged that agitation by the BUT led to a summer maintenance programme by the Ministry of Education which resulted in physical issues at 40 primary schools and 10 secondary schools being addressed. However, that number, and more particularly the quantum and quality of the repairs undertaken, represent a mere drop of water in the ocean of unsecured, unsafe and unhealthy schools,” the statement complained. On Wednesday, the Education Minister revealed that 300 children would be away from school for the remainder of the week while issues at Vauxhall Primary are addressed. (BT)

FORDE INCEST A BIG WORRY – There seems to be an increase in incest. So said Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, Cynthia Forde who, while not having any empirical data, has drawn her conclusion from increased reports about the matter. Speaking to the media after a seminar entitled Communities Make A Difference at the Savannah Hotel Wednesday and hosted in collaboration with the National Assistance Board, Forde said too few young people were educated about protecting themselves. “You can’t have young children, 13 or 14 years old, whose bodies are developing and they know little or nothing about AIDS,” she cautioned. “I believe the statistics in this country on incest, of persons taking advantage of young girls and boys, is climbing. I do not have the statistics, but from the stories you hear, from the little snippets you see in the newspaper where men get charged with having relationships with young girls or underaged girls and women getting charged with having relationships with younger boys, it says to me no sensitisation or little sensitisation is there.” (WN)

GENDER IDENITY WRONGFUL DISMISSAL - For the first time on record, the Employment Rights Tribunal (ERT) is being asked to address an allegation of unfair termination on the basis of gender identity. The development follows failed attempts by the Labour Department to resolve a dispute between Alexa Hoffmann and her former employer, Court Caribbean Law Practice over Hoffmann’s decision to change her name as a reflection of her gender identity. The legal firm has refused to place its legal position on the matter in the public domain. If successful, Hoffmann hopes the decision will set a precedent for the local Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community. The outspoken activist declined to disclose her given name at birth, which was used in August 2015 when she was hired as a legal assistant. Hoffman explained the issues came to a head when she was attacked in February 2018 and her supervisor, lawyer, Nigel Bennett asked her why she was being referred to as Alexa in the public domain. In response, the trans woman said she explained that although her name had not yet been changed, persons referred to her as Alexa as a courtesy. But it was only in October of the same year when her name was officially changed at the national registry that Hoffman claims she was asked to stay home from work. Weeks later, the trans woman said she emailed her employer to inquire about her status and was informed that she had been placed on leave while the company engaged in consultations on the matter. This eventually resulted in a meeting at the labour department on February 7, 2019 where the two parties were unable to resolve the matter “amicably”. When contacted, Attorney Nigel Bennett refused to comment extensively while the tribunal addresses the matter but admitted the law firm was challenging the basis of Hoffmann’s claims. “We have no issues at all, but as a matter of propriety, the matter is before the ERT and we are simply going to put forward our position to the ERT and let them make a determination. Once they have made a decision in that regard we could make a comment, but it would be highly inappropriate of us to do that before,” Bennett told Barbados TODAY. Asked what legal remedies she would be seeking, Hoffmann doubted the practicality of reinstatement but said she is pursuing damages. Even more important she explained, is the need to set a definitive precedent for “marginalised and downtrodden” persons in the LGBT community. “Outside of the compensation, I am looking to send a message that regardless of an employer’s consternation about the diversity of his staff, as long as that diversity does not have a direct impact on the work they are employed to do…it should not be cause to suspend them,” Hoffman said. “If you have an employee whether they are gay, straight, bisexual, trans, disabled, HIV positive or whatever the situation is…let them do their work in peace, and if I have to go through the Employment Rights Tribunal process to let employers know that I have the right to be left alone to do the work that I have been hired to do, then so be it,” the trans woman added. It is still unclear when the tribunal will hear the matter, and while Hoffman is willing to be patient, she has not ruled out the possibility of approaching the civil courts to adjudicate on the case. The trans activist meanwhile added that she was hoping to empower transgender Barbadians to pursue careers outside the traditional areas of beauty and cosmetology, if that is their desire.    “I keep realising there are a lot of people who go through what I go through as well but many of them feel so beaten and downtrodden that they can’t seem to muster up the fight to get up and stand up for themselves…but I keep thinking that if I don’t make this move, I don’t know who else will make it,” Hoffmann said. “It’s not just about me anymore, because I am thinking about other people who may want to become professionals in whatever field they want. (BT)

EX-NURSE 39 YEAR OLD CASE DRAGS ON - Former Government-paid nurse Coral Wilkinson says she has had enough of her attorney-at-law Sir Richard Cheltenham,QC, claiming he has been tardy in completing her injury settlement case with the State, almost 40 years after her fall on the job. Wilkinson, who fell and injured her back while on duty at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in April 1981, said today she is fed up with how long it has been taking to bring closure to the matter. “I can’t take this any longer,” said Wilkinson. She recalled an occasion in which she said she was being blamed for not getting in touch with Sir Richard. “I said, ‘but you see why I planned that I wasn’t calling back you because every time I call, all I am hearing is that, it doesn’t mean because I am not hearing from you all that nothing isn’t happening. So I said nobody hasn’t called me so I figure nothing is happening,’” Wilkinson stated. Thirty six years old at the time of her spinal injury, the ex-Government health care provider told Barbados TODAY she desperately needs the final payment so she can finish her medical procedures overseas and bring some ease to her deteriorating physical condition where she can no longer bathe herself or touch water with her bare hands. Wilkinson said that last year, her attorney told her he was ready to submit her final claim.  “Every time he keeps telling me the same thing over and over,” she declared. While admitting that Sir Richard was able to obtain an initial pay out in 2017 of some $300,000 to allow her to travel to the United Kingdom for one phase of corrective surgery, Wilkinson contended that that money was not even sufficient to cover all her medical bills and stay in the UK.   She said she had to pull her pocket to avoid embarrassment when she needed transportation to attend therapy or get around generally. She also revealed that in October last year, another offer of just over half million dollars was made to her as a final settlement, which she rejected. “You know how much he offered me that day as a final settlement? Make a guess…$550,000…after 1981 until now and I can’t even help myself. I said ‘no, no, no.’ No way am I going to accept it. That can’t even cover the hospital fees in England,” Wilkinson said with a chuckle. She said that after numerous telephone calls to Sir Richard’s office and hearing “excuse after excuse” she has decided to stop calling. She told Barbados TODAY that Sir Richard has no valid reason for not submitting her final claim to the Government because she had furnished him with all of the documents he requested since 2017. “I went up to [the UK] and when I was ready to come back down, I told the doctors I was going home on August 3. When I went to see the doctors for physiotherapy and so on, all of the doctors’ reports were there waiting for me to be collected. I came back down here on August 3 [2017], and in a week’s time, I had everything photocopied and sent to him [Sir Richard],” Wilkinson stated. She explained that in the same year, her attorney requested an additional medical report, this time from her local specialist which Wilkinson said was provided outlining the condition of her back and her mental state as well. “That wasn’t enough.  In March last year I talked to him. He still had not done anything yet. Nothing he had not done yet,” the former nurse complained, adding that the spinal injury has resulted in such serious neurological problems, she cannot tolerate water on her bare hands “When I go in the bath on mornings and the water comes down and hit my fingers, I would get electric-like current going through my body and I am now bathing in gloves. Can you imagine?” Wilkinson asked with a tremble in her voice. When Barbados TODAY reached out to Sir Richard, he contended that his client’s case was being advanced and more progress was expected in the coming week when his secretary returned from a week-long break.  “Her case is being advanced. She got an interim [payout] up to a few years ago. Went off to London and all the rest,” he said “The last thing that Coral told me, bearing in mind that it is a few years and more since she went to London, that she had seen the surgeon specialist here. So I wrote him and asked him, since we can’t get anything from the surgeon specialist in England, to send me a summary of when he last saw her, because you can’t submit a claim with a report two or more years old,” Sir Richard recalled, adding that he required an updated one. He said it was only after his client called him just before Christmas last year and he told her he was waiting on the report from the specialist here, that there must have been a misunderstanding on his part. “Because although I told you [Wilkinson] I had been to him [the doctor], I did not mean for you to get an update from him. But that only happened a few days before Christmas; so the matter is on my desk and I am working. The secretary is off for a week, so that when she comes back we could start doing some business,” Sir Richard told Barbados TODAY.Responding to his client’s complaint that she had been trying to get an audience with him but gets the run-around when she called, the prominent Queen’s Counsel said Wilkinson was always in his office, and had not asked for any audience with him since before Christmas last year. “So as soon as my secretary comes back, which is next week, I will reach out to Coral and give her a new appointment, so that I could review with her what I have written; so that once she says okay that it is accurate, we can go,” Sir Richard promised. “I could understand that she is also troubled and her situation is deteriorating and she has carried her burden for many, many years…except that some three years ago I did get an appreciable interim for her and she went off to London. This is now time to bring closure to it. But there was a misunderstanding about the doctor here, the surgeon specialist…and she did go to see him. I thought since the report from England is dated, that I should write him.  But she said she didn’t understand or expected me to do that,” he said.Meanwhile, the former QEH nurse said she presently has six discs out of place in her back and screws implanted in her back from a surgery in 1998 intended to stabilize a shaky spine due to constantly falling at home. Wilkinson, who said she has been seeing a psychiatrist for the past 19 years, will also require a battery to be surgically placed in her back to stimulate the nerve to produce feeling, physiotherapy until the day of her death and a care giver considering she is now unable to bath and dress herself. She revealed that once she got her final payout to assist with further surgery in the UK, she would have to return to England for critical follow up treatment every six months.Wilkinson said her physical disability which has forced her to use a walker continues to cause unbearable pain. (BT)

LABANE CASE THROWN OUT – The year-old La Cabane on Batts Rock beach will get its liquor licence renewed. But the renewal came after three residents from nearby neighbourhoods expressed strong objection to the operation of the restaurant in the Bridgetown Traffic Court yesterday.Queen’s Counsel Clyde Turney, who lives at Batts Rock, along with two residents from Prospect, St James, had filed an objection to the renewal of La Cabane’s liquor licence which expired yesterday. The three residents, whose case was put by Queen’s Counsel Leslie Haynes, argued that the noise coming from the bar and restaurant, on Tuesdays to Sundays, was so annoyingly loud that it prevented them from sleeping and from hearing their televisions. They especially complained about drumming which emanated from the restaurant on Sundays and continued until 9 p.m. The restaurant is closed on Mondays. (WN)

GROOM REMANDED – A young Barbadian who does contract work in Canada and goes between that northern country and home, may have to put his planned wedding on hold. Despite his pleas for a second chance and an opportunity to proceed with his wedding arrangements, 24-year-old Winslow Ricardo Bonnett of no fixed place of abode, heard Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant say: ”remanded for sentencing”. Bonnett appeared before Cuffy-Sargeant today charged with entering the apartment of Canadian visitor Ethel Marley and her husband on January 13 with the intention to steal. He is also accused of loitering on the premises of Yellow Bird Hotel on February 3 when it was suspected he was about to commit theft. According to the facts read by the police prosecutor, Marley, who owns the apartment, complained that she and her husband were awakened by a noise coming from the kitchen. The court was told the complainant observed the sliding glass door being opened and saw a man whom she could not identify at the time. However, police investigators were later led to the accused based on finger prints and palm prints taken from the door. This afternoon when the magistrate asked Bonnett if he had anything to say, he replied “I apologize to you, the owner of the apartment. I would like a chance…I would like to proceed with being married.” Bonnett, who pleaded guilty to both charges, will now have to wait until March 12 to know his fate. (BT)

CHOO DOE SERVICE FOR $12 IN POT – One hundred and twenty hours of community service was the sentence today handed down by the District “A” Criminal Court No 2 magistrate on a first-time drug offender. Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant informed Benjamin Richard Choo, a self-employed man of  #26 Walkers Terrace, St George that he had to complete the service for having $12 worth of cannabis in his possession yesterday. Twenty-seven-year-old Choo pleaded guilty to the offence and was granted $1,500 bail with instructions that he had to reappear in court on June 26. (BT)

FORDE TO REAPPEAR IN COURT – Twenty-one-year-old Rico Radarah Reneal Forde of Salters, St George, was remanded to HMP Dodds after appearing at District ‘A’ Criminal Court Number 2 this morning. He was not required to plead to any of the offences and Magistrate Christie Cuffy-Sergeant remanded him to reappear at District B on February 19 and District ‘A’ Criminal Court Number 1 on March 12. Forde is charged with having one .9mm Smith and Wesson pistol and nine rounds of ammunition on February 7 without the relevant permits from the Commissioner of Police. On January 26, he “recklessly or without lawful authority or excuse, discharged a firearm in a public place”, namely the Sol Service Station at Charles Rowe Bridge, St George, placing Jianne Douglas in danger of death or serious bodily harm. On the same day, he is alleged to have caused serious bodily harm to Shaquille Callender with intent to main, disfigure or disable him, or to do some serious bodily harm to him and used a firearm without a valid licence during the same incident at the gas station. The final incident occurred on January 4 where he is alleged to have discharged a firearm at Government Hill, St Michael, placing Rashad Massiah in danger of death and serious bodily harm. (BT)

DRUG ACCUSED ON BAIL – A 40-year-old unemployed man this afternoon denied four drug-related charges brought against him by the police for the alleged offences which occurred yesterday. When Sherman Danny Green of 3rd Avenue, Harts Gap, Christ Church went before District “A” Magistrate Kristie Cuff-Sargeant, he pleaded not guilty to unlawful possession of cannabis, unlawful possession of cocaine; unlawful possession of cocaine with intent to supply and trafficking of the same drug. After the prosecution did not object to bail, the Magistrate released Green on $1,500 bail when she took into consideration that the value of the cocaine was estimated at $1,050 and the cannabis $60. Cuffy-Sargeant also placed conditions on the bail which require the accused to report to the Hastings Police Station every Wednesday before noon with a form of identification. The case was adjourned until May 6, but has been transferred to the District “A” Criminal Court No 2. (BT)

PRIEST VIOLENCE NOT THE WAY – Barbados cannot continue to turn a blind eye to gun violence, especially when it happens in front of children, warned an Anglican cleric yesterday. Reverend Trevor O’Neale issued the caution in his sermon during the funeral service for 37-year-old Marlon Jermaine Holder at St Philip’s Parish Church. Holder, the second man to be gunned down for the year, was shot and killed outside St Alban’s Primary School in St James, where he had just pulled up to drop off his six-year-old son on January 17. He was shot through the car window. The priest said such acts of violence could have lasting effects on children. “The sad thing about it is, it is being done in the presence of our children. Do you know that a child experiencing violence is going to be scarred? That it is going to lead to behavioural problems? It is going to lead to mental challenges sometimes,” he said.   (WN)

FREE CITY WIFI SOMETIME AFTER MARCH – The Smart Bridgetown project, which includes free public WiFi, has been delayed another three months, the Government’s information technology chief has told Barbados TODAY.  The free WiFi, which is the first phase of the project, was originally scheduled to begin by the end of last year. But a delay in obtaining a vendor to offer the service has forced officials to set a new implementation date of the second quarter of this year, said Rodney Taylor, the director of the Data Processing Department in the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology.  He said the tendering process was now closed and officials were in the process of choosing a suitable provider. About a dozen domestic and overseas IT firms submitted bids to provide the service for the community WiFi phase of the project. Taylor told Barbados TODAY: “There were some delays with respect to the public tender.  “The tender has closed and we are in the stages of evaluating the tenders we received. “And we hope that by the end of the financial year, which is March, we are able to sign off on a vendor and start with the implementation of that.” Under phase one, free broadband internet access being extended from the Bridgetown Port to Independence Square. And with officials now considering adding new areas including the planned Fairchild Street market, the free Wi-Fi could stretch from the Jewish Synagogue in Magazine Lane to Golden Square in Jordans Lane.The next phase of Smart Bridgetown is “smart parking”  which will use a smartphone app to locate available spaces in Bridgetown and pay for parking electronically, said Taylor. Smart Bridgetown was allocated about $1 million to get it started. (BT)

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[margaretrosegladney]

Activism and Involvement in Racial Justice and Issues of Civil Rights

Gladney was in 7th grade when President Eisenhower ordered federal troops to enforce the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Gladney recalls a conversation on the playground at lunch where she told her classmates that she didn’t think her parents would object to Black students coming to their schools. That discussion continued in the classroom, and the teacher said to Gladney, "If that's what you think, why don't you go on over to Mayfield," the school for Black students in Homer, LA. Gladney was very embarrassed and remembers thinking that she would have gotten up and walked out if she knew where Mayfield School actually was.  Mayfield School was not far away, being only a few blocks from Gladney’s maternal grandparents, but she had never been to that part of town because growing up White and female in a racially segregated town in the 1950s entailed not being allowed to go to certain parts of town due to racial fear. When Homer public schools were desegregated, Gladney’s parents, aunts and uncle, helped build Claiborne Academy--an all-White academic institution to deter desegregation--and following this, her mother taught there and her younger siblings graduated from there (1972, '74, '76).1

By 1961 Louisiana law required all high school students to take a six-week course on communism. Though Gladney had attended a school sponsored anti-communism crusade in Shreveport, she thought that The Communist Manifesto had some good ideas. Gladney would continue to have a complicated relationship with communism, exemplified through an interaction she had when she attended a Presbyterian Missionary conference in Montreat, NC. Gladney was standing in line for dinner next to African American girl from Arkansas who asked her, “Do you believe in integration?” Gladney wanted to say yes but had been taught that racial integration was part of the communist agenda,  so she answered, “I don't know.”2

Recommended by Northside H.S. principal, Gladney attended seminar at Memphis State U. In “Teachers of English to Culturally Deprived Children,” she met some of the most experienced and highly qualified African American teachers in Memphis city schools. From them, she learned  and also grew in dissatisfaction with the policies of the Memphis City school board. They had only one black member and had failed to promote Black individuals in upper levels of administration. Soon, she became friends with Eloise Forrester, a teacher in Albuquerque, attending the seminar because she could leave her daughter with her mother in Alabama. Eloise was a lifesaver to Gladney when she moved to Albuquerque for graduate work. Gladney then returned to Northside HS, ready to implement new ideas in her classroom. At her first faculty meeting, she sat with two colleagues, Bernice Burton and Frances Gandy, and heard about organizing a meeting of AFT. Attending this meeting, she saw several of the teachers she had met through that summer seminar. She was chosen to be one of the organizers, so that it would not be seen as an all black union. From then on, to the White faculty Gladney was “outside” a person of suspicion. Gladney felt naive, sure, but she didn’t really know what she was getting into. In these efforts, she marched and supported “Black Fridays” by wearing black when students boycotted schools to protest . Ultimately, she testified in court in support of reinstating students who had been expelled for protesting. The students were reinstated and she was informed she would not be rehired. Gladney then challenged this, knowing she could afford to do so because she had no family to support and didn’t have to stay in Memphis, as other activist teachers did. When the school board met, Southwestern college students protested in Gladney’s favor outside while that school board meeting was going on. The Board decided to reinstate her, dock her 2 weeks pay, and send her to one of the oldest black schools in Memphis (Manassas), where the principal was known to be very strict with teachers. That was Glandney’s first law suit. She won, but chose to go to grad school rather than to Manassas High.

Margret Rose Gladney was also extremely implicated in the issues of racial justice because of her connection to her hometown of  Homer, Louisiana. Within her parish, following the legal imposition of integration, White fear and racial prejudice from community leaders and White parents led to the establishment of private academies. These private institutions provided modes for all-white education--avoiding the integration of the American public school system--that were supported by the wealth, time, and talent of several White communities. Meanwhile, as a teacher in Memphis attempting to create harmonious relationships between the Black and White students of the Memphis public school system, Margret Rose Gladney came to hate the presence of racism perpetuated by White folk in the South. In fact, Marget became especially upset because of the involvement her family held in the creation and continuance of the all-White Clairborne Academy: her father and uncles donated the land for Clairborne Academy, her mother taught at Clairborne Academy, and her brothers, sisters, and cousins all attended Clairborne academy. Consequently, her family grew increasingly divided as she vocally detested the existence of all-White private academies and the participation of her family in these institutions. Fueled partially by the hate of racism in the South, Gladney left the South to study at the University of New Mexico in the American Studies program. At UNM, Gladney obtained a PHD in American Studies and went there because she was interested in studying AF-AM lit. A professor had told her there is no such thing as African American lit, all protest lit., but if that’s what you want, look into American Studies. Using her academic platform, Gladney wrote a dissertation about the history of private, all-White academies--using the Clairborne school as a frame of reference for the totality of her dissertation.  Through this dissertation, Gladney denounces the existence of these all-White institutions because of the way they recreate and perpetuate racism and elitism of the American public education system and American society more broadly.3

Furthermore, as part of her academic career, Margret Rose Gladney was able to delineate the southern history of race and queerness through the letters of Lilian Smith. In 1970 Women’s Studies was just beginning. The first WS course taught for credit at UNM was offered through the AMS Dept, spring 1972, Women in Literature. Gladney audited it. The Frist question presented to her was “Are you a feminist?”. Which she responded with “Sure, I believe in women, I’m a feminist.” Her class pushed her to read Lillian Smith, Killers of the Dream(KOD), which is how she was introduced to Lillian Smith. Reading KOD, weeping, Gladney told her roommate, “This woman is writing my life.” Here was a white Southern woman who could have been a younger sister to her maternal grandmother, yet she was explaining and challenging everything she was trying to understand about racism, and sexism, and she had chosen to stay in the South and challenge all its taboos, and she had managed to live and write there. Lilian Smith, despite being a White women, presented herself as one of the most vehement critics of the South, America, and the rampant social and racial injustices she had viewed.4 She showed Gladney it is possible to live in the place you love, with people whom you both love and whose beliefs and values you see as only destructive and dehumanizing. But, Gladney could not write her dissertation on Lillian Smith because her life was too large. Also, she felt she had to confront her own immediate struggle with her family’s commitment to maintaining racism through building segregated private schools to avoid public school desegregation and thereby destroying public school systems. Instead, by exploring Lilian Smith’s queerness through the love letters between Smith and Paula Snelling, Gladney was able to add a deeper dimension to southern activism by exploring the intersection between race and sexuality.5

Notes:

1:Gladney, Margret R.(1974) . I’ll take my Stand: The Southern Segregation Academy Movement. University of New Mexico. 2:Ibid. 3: Ibid. 4: Jackson, Jacquelyn L. (1994). Clearinghouse Column: Letters of early advocate for racial justice. Center News, 6. 5: Sears, James T (1997). Lonely Hunters: An Oral History of Lesbian and Gay Southern Life, 1948-1968. Milton: Routledge.

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/should-these-school-clubs-be-kept-from-parents/

Should these school clubs be kept from parents?

Image copyright Courtesy Lindsay Peace

Image caption Lindsay Peace (R) and her son Ace have been outspoken advocates for the protection of GSAs

Should parents be told if their children are members of gay-straight alliances – student-run peer support groups for LGBT students and allies in their school? In one Canadian province, that question has sparked fierce debate.

Gay-straight alliances – or GSAs – were first established in the US in the 1980s.

The student-run clubs are meant to be a place where LGBT and other students can socialise and offer peer support. Research on GSAs suggests they create a “safe space” for students at a greater risk of mental health issues and discrimination, and can reduce bullying and harassment in schools where they’re established.

Some 30 years after the first one was founded by a history teacher and a student at Concord Academy in Massachusetts in 1988, thousands of GSAs exist in middle and high schools across North America.

Despite their proliferation, these peer support groups have also faced resistance.

One protracted battle over GSAs has been playing out in the Canadian province of Alberta – an issue debated in the provincial legislature, in the courts, and in the media.

The latest flare up began during the recent provincial election in the province.

Image copyright Reuters

Image caption UCP leader Jason Kenney is to become Alberta premier on April 30

At issue was a policy proposed by United Conservative Party (UCP) leader Jason Kenney to undo some legal protections for the school clubs, notably one that bars school officials from telling parents if their child has joined such a group.

Critics of Kenney’s plan say school staff could “out” LGBT students to parents who might not be supportive of, or might even be discriminatory of, their sexuality or gender identity – with potentially damaging consequence.

Kenney – whose UCP swept the election and who will soon be premier – argues his proposal is a compromise between supporting GSAs and respecting parental authority.

In his election night victory speech, he said that “parents know better than politicians what is best for their kids”.

GSA lawsuits in the US

Alberta is not the only place GSAs have caused social friction.

In the United States, where the federal Equal Access Act guarantees that public school students have a right to form GSAs, the American Civil Liberties Union says the groups have prevailed in at least 17 federal lawsuits under the act between 1998 and 2015.

Most of the US lawsuits were over obstacles put in place by school officials opposed to the clubs, like making last minute changes to school rules to prevent a GSA from being established.

Concerns about the activities in GSAs has also cropped up in the US, with one California student battling his school telling the BBC in 2000: “This whole thing has stopped being about my club. It’s become this debate about sex”.

Albertan Dylan Chevalier, executive director of Sexual and Gender Acceptance Edmonton, says GSAs are about “having a place where you can be safe, relax, and take your walls down for half an hour”.

Chevalier was the president of a GSA at his former high school, and he said the club hosted discussions and pizza parties, held bake sales to fund LGBT awareness campaigns and once organised a “drag and dance show”.

Local skirmishes over the clubs have also been seen in the UK and in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, which also protect a student’s right to start a GSA.

University of Calgary’s Darren Lund, who teaches social justice education, says that the issue has always had “the potential to be polarising”.

He says there’s been a rapid cultural shift towards a greater acceptance of LGBT issues in the last 15 years or so – one that makes some people feel “discomfort”.

“And then politicians are quick to jump on that fear and use that fear to play into people’s insecurities about these issues,” he says.

What’s the controversy in Alberta?

In 2014, legislation was first proposed to require all the province’s public schools to establish a GSA on the request of a student.

Image copyright Reuters

Image caption Alberta’s legislature building

The right-leaning provincial government at the time eventually passed a law – Bill 10 – establishing that protection. It received support from all the provincial political parties.

Some cheered the move, but it also led to protests.

Advocates argued the law didn’t do enough to protect LGBT students. Others called it an infringement on freedom of religion and parental rights.

In 2015, the left-leaning NDP swept to power in Alberta and added more protections for GSAs.

It passed Bill 24, which required schools, both public and private, to have a policy in place to allow for it to comply “immediately” with a student’s GSA request.

Further, school officials would not be allowed to disclose a student’s involvement such a club.

“No students will be outed for joining a GSA or a QSA [queer-straight alliance] in the province – it’s against the law,” the provincial education minister said at the time.

Schools were put on notice – if they don’t follow the law they risk having accreditation and funding stripped.

Image copyright NurPhoto/Getty Images

Image caption Albertans walk along an ‘LGBT road crossing’ in Calgary downtown

Lindsay Peace, who has a son who is transgender and who is an advocate for trans youth in the province, has been a vocal supporter of protecting GSAs.

“I think it’s important for kids to know that they belong,” she says “And sometimes it’s the only place [where they do].”

And as for parents who want to know what their children are up to at school: “they should ask them”, she says.

What are gay-straight alliances?

The student-run clubs are meant to be a place where LGBT and other students can socialise and offer peer support

The first gay-straight alliances were established in the US in the 1980s

There are 80 registered clubs in Alberta, and they were first established in the province almost 20 years ago

Thousands of GSAs exist in middle and high schools across North America

In Alberta, the second GSA law was contentious from the get-go.

“This legislation would create a void of care for our children, into which anyone can set up shop, without proper oversight or accountability,” one parents rights group stated in an op-ed.

The Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) filed a court challenge on behalf of a coalition of parents and 26 faith-based independent schools, arguing bills 10 and 24 breach multiple constitutional rights, including by failing to protect a parent’s right to educate based on his or her own conscience and religious beliefs.

It says the law further “undermines parental rights by prohibiting parents from knowing if their child is being exposed to sexual content through a GSA”.

Court documents filed by the legal group warn that “the parents are alarmed and frightened at the climate of secrecy that the School Act has created around ideological sexual clubs and related activities”.

JCCF president John Carpay summed up the tension up way: “The fuss is about making these clubs mandatory in schools where the parents disagree completely with the perspective or the belief system that is being advocated by these clubs”.

“It’s the difference between voluntary versus coercive.”

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Image caption There are thousands of GSAs in schools across North America, including this Florida school

The fight continues

Kenney’s proposed policy – to roll back some GSA protections but to keep Bill 10 in place – looks unlikely to satisfy either side.

Says Chevalier: “He’s playing a game. He’s pandering to the social conservative side of his base and playing a fast one [with everyone else].”

The JCCF is waiting for a court decision on whether an interim injunction it’s seeking on Bill 24 will be granted.

Carpay told the BBC he’s uncertain whether the schools his organisation represents will want to continue with the court challenge and fight the 2015 GSA protections that would remain in place if Kenney’s government does roll back Bill 24.

Meanwhile, campaigners like Peace and Chevalier say they’ll continue to fight for GSA protections in all Alberta schools.

Peace says she thinks it’s students themselves who will end up creating more inclusive schools, regardless of how fierce the GSA fight might get between parents and politicians.

Calgary high school students are now organising a province-wide school walkout next month – a few days after Kenney is to take office – to protest his party’s GSA plans.

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