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An Indiana high school teacher was forced to quit because he refused to address trans students by their preferred names. He claimed that being made to do so was a violation of his religious rights. Asshole, where in your scripture does it say anything about transgender people? Nowhere, that’s where. Don’t blame your religion for your bigotry. That’s all on you. Jesus said to love your neighbor and treat them the way you would wish to be treated. You’re just being a dick.

The guy sued. The court sided with the school. Fuck that guy.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/schools-transgender-policy-trumped-teachers-religious-rights-us-court-rules-2023-04-07

Quote

School's transgender policy trumped teacher's religious rights, US court rules

April 7 (Reuters) - An Indiana high school did not break the law by allegedly forcing a music teacher to quit after he refused on religious grounds to use transgender students' preferred names, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday.

The rights of the teacher, John Kluge, to exercise his religious beliefs were outweighed by the potential disruption that his conduct could have on the learning environment at Brownsburg High School in the Indianapolis suburbs, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said.

Kluge said his Christian religious beliefs barred him from complying with a school policy requiring faculty to use students' preferred names and pronouns.

The school initially allowed Kluge to call students by their last names but reneged after receiving complaints from students and faculty, according to court filings. He said he resigned in 2018 after he was told he would be fired.

Kluge sued the school district in 2019, accusing it of violating a federal law that prohibits workplace discrimination based on religion. He was seeking to get his job back and unspecified money damages.

Kluge is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group. Rory Gray, a lawyer with the group, said he was evaluating Kluge's options.

“The 7th Circuit’s ruling shows why the Supreme Court needs to fix the standard for accommodating religious employees," Gray said in a statement.

Lawyers for the school did not respond to a request for comment.

Federal law only requires employers to accommodate workers' religious beliefs if it would not cause them an undue hardship.

Kluge in his lawsuit argued that allowing him to call students by their last names would not create a burden for the school.

The 7th Circuit on Friday disagreed, upholding an Indiana federal judge's ruling that dismissed the case.

"Kluge's last-names-only practice stigmatized the transgender students and caused them demonstrable emotional harm," Circuit Judge Ilana Rovner wrote for the court.

In a dissenting opinion, Circuit Judge Michael Brennan said it was unclear whether the school could have mitigated any disruptions resulting from Kluge's conduct, and that a jury should decide whether his rights were violated.

 

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6 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

An Indiana high school teacher was forced to quit because he refused to address trans students by their preferred names. He claimed that being made to do so was a violation of his religious rights. Asshole, where in your scripture does it say anything about transgender people? Nowhere, that’s where. Don’t blame your religion for your bigotry. That’s all on you. Jesus said to love your neighbor and treat them the way you would wish to be treated. You’re just being a dick.

The guy sued. The court sided with the school. Fuck that guy.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/schools-transgender-policy-trumped-teachers-religious-rights-us-court-rules-2023-04-07

 

That headline is rage-inducing

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I liked how he, in the same sentence, references X-Men mutants living alongside us with "But that's a fact."  

I mean I know lives are on the line, but this shit is just hilariously mind-bottling to me.  You can see by his facial expression and body language, he literally believes we're living in an X-men movie.  And  then his attempt to tie it to Satan is just chef's kiss.  If the chef was a backards swampwater fuckstain of humanity.

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"Slaton, a former youth and family minister from Royse City, has branded himself as a far-right conservative with anti-LGBTQ legislation and a longshot bill that would let voters decide whether Texas should secede from the U.S. In 2021, his first session, Slaton introduced a satirical bill to rename a strip of Interstate 35 in downtown Austin the Steve Adler Public Restroom Highway, mocking Austin's mayor at the time for the city's lax rules against public camping."

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2023/04/10/texas-bryan-slaton-investigation-texas-legislature-house/70100271007/

I wonder what this pillar of the community could be accused of doing?

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That Florida dickhead isn't entirely wrong. The X-Men series is a metaphor for marginalized communities, the most relevant of which is currently lgbtq+ Americans. And the comics are currently gayer than they've ever been (and they've been quite gay over their history)

 But my guy, you aren't supposed to relate with the humans who build Sentinels to hunt us

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These people have a mental disorder. I simply do not understand this rampant fear of drag shows.

Quote
 

North Texas venues hosting drag shows say they won’t back down as threats, protests grow

Story by Michael Williams, The Dallas Morning News  10h ago
 
 
image.png.ec13b814d120cc18e71ea2c6e868f6cd.png

DALLAS — From trivia nights and live music to vinyl listening sessions and Super Bowl watch parties, Jacob Sloan has always been looking for ways to bring new faces into his Lemmon Avenue business, On Rotation Brewery & Kitchen.

Right-wing protesters demonstrate outside an all-ages drag show at Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie on Dec. 17, 2022.
Right-wing protesters demonstrate outside an all-ages drag show at Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie on Dec. 17, 2022.© Elías Valverde II/The Dallas Morning News/TNS

But one recently planned event left Sloan, his business and his employees facing a deluge of threats and harassment.

Last June, On Rotation hosted a drag brunch to commemorate Pride Month. The show was a success, and Sloan decided to make it a monthly event, where guests could drink mimosas and eat fried chicken while watching a drag show.

The event, called Misfits and Mimosas, went on without much controversy for nearly nine months. But days before the brewery’s scheduled March show, Sloan started noticing one-star Yelp reviews for his business. Then phone calls and social media comments began pouring in, accusing Sloan of exposing children to sexual content.

“Do I have to call y’all or come over there??!!” one person tweeted. “I will! On the hour every hour if you don’t stop cooperating with child groomers.”

Sloan found himself the latest victim of a scorched-earth campaign against drag and the venues that host the performances. For months, restaurants and breweries across Dallas-Fort Worth have been in the epicenter of a growing nationwide movement to restrict access to drag shows or ban the public performance of the art altogether. Events in Plano, Roanoke, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Dallas and Fort Worth have been picketed or subject to online harassment campaigns. Drag performers have faced some of the worst harassment and threats.

The vitriol confused Sloan, who doesn’t remember the last time he actually saw a child at a drag show hosted by his brewery. Most people who attended were adults participating in birthday or bachelorette parties, he said.

While promotional materials for the show did not include an age limit, they also didn’t indicate the show was meant for children — unlike other venues that have promoted some drag performances as being family or kid friendly.

Sloan owns a brew pub. The name of the show has the word “mimosa” in it. It’s clear, he said, that children weren’t his target audience. That didn’t stop a pair of anti-LGBTQ+ groups, the Texas Family Project and Defend Our Kids Texas, from encouraging their followers to harass On Rotation.

In one email sent to supporters, Defend Our Kids Texas executive director Sara Gonzales described the event as a “hyper-sexual drag show targeting children.” Gonzales encouraged her supporters to “speak out” and included On Rotation’s phone number, Facebook and Yelp page.

“I think the mischaracterization of this show being like, ‘bring your kids’ was frustrating because we weren’t really doing anything like that,” Sloan said. “There’s people calling us groomers. There’s people saying we’re demons.”

Reached by email, Gonzales declined to answer a series of questions, saying she doesn’t "engage with fake news and hack reporters lying to promote agendas.” She shared the same sentiment in a tweet she posted after being contacted by The Dallas Morning News.

 

‘You have a home’

Since 2020, Texas has seen 35 anti-LGBTQ+ mobilizations, including protests against drag shows, according to data tracked by The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, which warned the number is likely a conservative estimate.

Texas has emerged as an epicenter of anti-LGBTQ+ mobilization. The state has seen more anti-LGBTQ+ protests than any other state besides California, according to the ACLED, and accounts for about 12% of all protests nationwide.

The anti-drag efforts are organized and promoted by an amalgam of groups, including Protect Texas Kids, Defend Our Kids Texas and the Texas Family Project. These groups say their goal is to prevent children from viewing drag shows, but their public messaging and actions are more muddled.

 

The Defend Our Kids Texas website encourages supporters to simply “report drag show(s)” without specifying those that don’t enforce age limits. At least one venue targeted by Protect Texas Kids promoted its drag show as being an adults-only event. Each of the groups has targeted shows, like the one at On Rotation, for not explicitly saying they were for adults, regardless of whether children actually attended.

Texas Family Project President Chris Hopper did not respond to an email sent to his organization or a text sent to a phone number listed under his name seeking comment. Protect Texas Kids founder Kelly Neidert also did not respond to an email and text seeking comment.

The groups’ efforts have gained national momentum. Legislatures in 14 states, including Texas, have introduced bills seeking to restrict or limit drag performances. Last month, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill banning drag in public places where a minor can see the performance; a federal judge temporarily halted the first-of-its-kind law last week, right before it was set to take effect.

Anti-drag bills are making progress in Texas. The Texas Senate last week passed two bills seeking to restrict or criminalize certain drag performances. The bills will head to the Texas House for further debate; Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said he wants to make anti-drag bills a legislative priority.

“Bringing children around sexual content is a targeted assault against their minds and bodies that should never be tolerated in a civilized society,” Neidert said before a state senate committee considering those bills before their passage.

Drag performers, venue owners and patrons alike have said they don’t believe all drag shows are meant for a child’s eyes. But Sloan and other business owners described the groups’ tactics as efforts to stoke misplaced and, at times, inaccurate outrage. Had a person or a group reached out to Sloan in good faith, he said he would have considered preemptively adding an age limit to his show.

“There seemed to be an active effort, I think, to keep people angry and frustrated,” he said. “They want everything to be a fight and then a win. Nothing’s a conversation and that, I think, is part of what really upset us — that there was no way we could avoid, in our best interest, all this harassment.”

The protests draw people with varied beliefs and intents; some legitimately believe they are acting to protect children from sexual content. Others are right-wing streamers or content creators who hope to mine any potential confrontation for clicks and views.

But they also frequently include members of far-right extremist groups including the Proud Boys. In two recent protests witnessed by The News, armed members of neo-Nazi groups showed up to protest the shows.

They also draw pro-LGBTQ+ groups who seek to protect venues and attendees. These counterprotesters, made up from a variety of mutual aid groups, are also frequently armed, and some venue owners are more comfortable with their presence than others.

Standing outside of his Fort Worth bar, Tulips, and looking toward three protesters — one of them wearing sunglasses bearing a Neo-Nazi Schutzstaffel emblem — Jason Suder said the thought of canceling the drag show that prompted the protest at his business late last month never crossed his mind.

“Come and take it. Don’t tread on me. This is Texas. This is my business,” he said before motioning toward a larger group of counterprotesters that had gathered. “These are my people. Come as you are, come who you are. You have a home. No, there was never any conversation about canceling.”

 

‘We just couldn’t be sure’

Sloan is not exactly sure how his drag show captured the attention of Defend Our Kids Texas and the Texas Family Project. The brewery did not promote the show, other than a page on Eventbrite he used to sell tickets. By the time he started receiving calls, the show had been sold out.

Defend Our Kids Texas asked supporters to refrain from making threats during their outreach, but that didn’t stop them. Sloan was frequently called a groomer — a word that has been co-opted by anti-LGBTQ+ advocates to describe any person who might introduce LGBTQ+ concepts to children. (Experts in psychology and child development have said there is no evidence to support the idea that exposure to LGBTQ+ topics means children will join the LGBTQ+ community.)

With the show set to take place in a few days, Sloan looked into hiring private security, but it proved costly and there wasn’t enough time to vet potential guards. Hardening his business against a protest also seemed contrary to the open, carefree and safe environment Sloan always sought to incubate at On Rotation.

“It wasn’t very clear what was planned or what might take place if we were to have the show,” he said. “In a lot of messages, people were not necessarily using the most sane logic, so we were concerned. We just couldn’t be sure what would be at our doorstep that day.”

In an effort to tamp down the calls his restaurant was getting, and head off any potential protest that might take place, Sloan clarified on the website selling tickets to the performance that it would be an 18+ show. In another email to supporters, Gonzales declared victory, but harassment still didn’t stop. In one message, after Sloan told a man who used a homophobic slur that the show would be adults only, the man was not dissuaded.

“Regardless, not interested in any place promoting or allowing drag shows,” the man said.

Concerned for unwitting patrons who might walk into a political demonstration without knowing what they were getting into, Sloan canceled the show. He paid the performers and ate the loss, which he estimated to be thousands of dollars.

“We told our staff it was basically the best of bad options,” he said. “We still felt like we were basically letting the bullies win, and the harassment in their eyes truly succeeded. But the thing we kept going back to was, we care most about making it a safe experience and that people get to connect and that it’s a community space.”

Going forward, he wants to be more prepared. Sloan is in touch with other breweries that host drag shows, hoping to share tips and best practices.

He’s open to the idea of continuing to host drag shows in the future.

———

©2023 The Dallas Morning News. Visit dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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8 minutes ago, mdmost said:

These people have a mental disorder. I simply do not understand this rampant fear of drag shows.

 

Those folks need to get a hobby. Pride month starts in about six weeks and given how the GQP has stirred their followers into a lather, I hope everything stays peaceful and all of the celebrations go forward as planned.

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On 4/13/2023 at 6:31 PM, safe sex said:

Missouri bans most gender-affirming care for adults

I wasn't kidding when I called it trans genocide

This is fucking insane. Authoritarian erasure of a population is here. It's not hypothetical or in the works, it's here. 

If you believe in a free society, it's high time to start speaking out and doing everything you can. No doubt more states including our own backwater state are next. And more targeted groups are being queued up because the guardrails are failing.

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12 minutes ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

No doubt more states including our own backwater state are next.

Absolutely.  This is where it's headed unfortunately and they aren't hiding it.  And all the people staying silent because it doesn't affect them yet, well abortion may not affect many of them, but when they talk about restricting birth control, yeah, this is part of a bigger move for Small Government Republicans to control Everything.

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On 4/11/2023 at 7:40 AM, safe sex said:

That Florida dickhead isn't entirely wrong. The X-Men series is a metaphor for marginalized communities, the most relevant of which is currently lgbtq+ Americans. And the comics are currently gayer than they've ever been (and they've been quite gay over their history)

 But my guy, you aren't supposed to relate with the humans who build Sentinels to hunt us

and we do kinda have super powers which is why haters gonna hate.

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alex jones is not the godfather of conflating pedophilia with being gay, that's lazy commentary. that argument has been around forever and also advanced by the religious who incidentally have been harboring pedophiles well... forever.

Edited by troph
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24 minutes ago, troph said:

alex jones is not the godfather of conflating pedophilia with being gay, that's lazy commentary. that argument has been around forever and also advanced by the religious who incidentally have been harboring pedophiles well... forever.

He's not the original author, but he's the remix that gets the most airtime in our current fucked up media culture 

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Last weekend I was in Austin helping my grandma clean up her house and prepare it for sale, and I came across some of my granddad's airforce stuff from when he was stationed in Thailand riding WSO in an F4. Wouldn't ya know it, in all the pictures from parties and base celebrations there was ALWAYS at least one officer in drag complete with ridiculous torpedo tits

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On 4/18/2023 at 1:31 PM, Captainant said:

Last weekend I was in Austin helping my grandma clean up her house and prepare it for sale, and I came across some of my granddad's airforce stuff from when he was stationed in Thailand riding WSO in an F4. Wouldn't ya know it, in all the pictures from parties and base celebrations there was ALWAYS at least one officer in drag complete with ridiculous torpedo tits

Oh I have photos of a relative who was in the Pacific during WWII, and he and his buddies were having some little shindig celebrating Japan surrendering, and he's wearing a hula skirt, coconut bra and makeup.

Been so tempted to pop out those photos anytime a relative starts bitching about drag, but I love the guy too much to drag him into this shit.

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straight men need to not be so uptight when they wear dresses and get boners. It's natural. no big deal. ask your wife to peg you or just rub it out and go hug a queer person and say drag is awesome, thank you I now see the light.

Edited by troph
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