The Bad and The Good ... Monday May, 2, 2022

These really are the easiest posts to compile because there are dumb people everywhere ... but that’s what makes it so frightening. So this week, I decided to include some Good News as sort of a palette cleanser for the crazies …

BAD

TENNESSEE

GOP Governor Bill Lee has signed a new bill to allow Ivermectin, AKA horse paste, to be available for the treatment of COVID-19 without a prescription in Tennessee. Horse.Paste.

Of note is that in 2019 Governor Lee declared that God would stop school shootings and opioid overdoses if enough people would just pray for it to happen. In 2020 he asked people to pray away the COVID.

How’s that workin’ for you, Governor? Looks like your god doesn’t care about school shootings, opioid deaths, or COVID.

OKLAHOMA

The state Senate approved a GOP bill to outlaw abortion, putting the state on track to be the first in the nation to enact a total abortion ban once the GOP governor signs the measure into law.

Raped and pregnant? Too bad. Victim of incest? Too bad. Not viable for mother or child to survive a pregnancy? Too fucking bad.

GEORGIA

GOP Governor Brian Kemp signed several education bills into law last week: one empowers the state school athletic association to exclude transgender athletes, one allows for the banning books, and one makes it wrong to teach history, well, real, true, history.

The world is going to hell in a  handbasket and Kemp is worried about books and history and transgender athletes.

OKLAHOMA

GOP Governor Kevin Stitt has signed a bill prohibiting the use of nonbinary gender markers on state birth certificates.

The bill followed a flap last year over the Department of Health’s agreement in a civil case allowing a nonbinary option. The birth certificate in that case was issued to an Oklahoma-born Oregon resident who sued after the agency initially refused the request. The GOP and Stitt were incensed and Stitt issued an executive order prohibiting any changes to a person’s gender on birth certificates.

FLORIDA

Jeremy Baldwin teaches social studies at Booker High School in Florida and has flown a rainbow colored Coexist flag in his classroom for four years without any problem, but shortly after the Don’t Say Gay law was signed he was forced to take it down because it’s “political” in nature.

Now, I get the rainbow part cuz, you know, gay is illegal and all, but the idea of asking people to coexist, regardless of their religious beliefs, is too hot a topic?

Oh Flori-duh.

GOOD

GEORGIA

About 200 members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans gathered at Stone Mountain over the weekend for an observation of Confederate Memorial Day, but they were met with roughly 100 counter protesters shouting and jeering, forcing the SCV speakers to struggle to be heard over the din. SCV member Kenneth Buggay said:

“These protesters are against our Christian faith. They are anti-Christ. We have been fighting this war since 1861. We will be victorious.”

You’ve been fighting for 161 years and you are nowhere near victorious, asshat.

KANSAS

The GOP-controlled House failed to override Democrat Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of a transgender sports ban, blocking the measure from becoming a law.

Kelly is the fourth governor this year to veto a transgender sports ban, though two of the others—Utah GOP Governor Spencer Cox and Kentucky Democrat Governor Andy Beshear—had their vetoes overridden by their state’s legislatures; the Indiana legislature has not yet tried to override GOP Governor Eric Holcomb’s veto.

FLORIDA

The Human Rights Campaign is welcoming people to Florida with new billboards:

“Governor Ron DeSantis welcomes you to Florida, the ‘Don’t say gay or trans’ State.”

The “Don’t say gay or trans” part is written over “Sunshine”—Florida’s official nickname.

UTAH

Jillian Orr recently graduated from Brigham Young University— a private university in Utah sponsored by the Mormon Church—but she may be in trouble with the university for her graduation stunt.

Orr, who is bisexual, sewed a rainbow flag into her graduation gown and showed it off at the ceremony, and then shared it to social media where it went viral.

Stand out. Speak out. Live out.

And CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE.

Hey Arkansas? F%k All The Way Off

Arkansas politicians, well, to be fair, Arkansas GQP anti-LGBTQ+, transphobic politicians, are continuing their war on our trans brothers and sisters because … ignorance, hate, fear, stupidity.

Last week the Arkansas Legislature passed House Bill 1749, which would prohibit hormone treatments, puberty blockers and transition-related surgeries for transgender minors, and for a hot minute it looked like the bill would fail when Governor  Asa Hutchinson vetoed it, but then the GQP-controlled legislature overrode the veto.

Now before you congratulate Hutchinson for being an ally, he also said that while he did not like the bill, he didn’t believe anyone under eighteen should be allowed to have gender reassignment surgery, so, yeah, not a friend.

And now it appears the GQP feels emboldened to continue their war on trans Americans, because they also passed a bill that says teachers would not be required to address students by a name or pronoun inconsistent with the student's biological sex.

The House's 62-21 vote—mostly along party lines—sends the measure to the Senate. Two lawmakers voted present, and 14 didn't vote; fourteen sat on their hands. But, in a surprise move, two Republicans, Frances Cavenaugh and Jeff Wardlaw, voted no.

So, there are some in the party who see this bill for what it is: hate.

It all began when GQP Representative Mary Bentley, who sponsored the bill, claimed some teachers had raised concerns to her about students who have changed their name or pronoun several times in a year, or use three different names in as many classrooms, and fear that they'll be sued for not addressing the child by their preferred name or pronoun:

"It's not compelling anyone's speech. It's not prohibiting anyone's speech. It's helping those professors and teachers in our schools that do not want to be sued for not using a certain person's pronoun.”

Really, Mary? I remember being in school, and on the first day being addressed as Robert, and telling my teachers to call me Bob; it’s not hard to call people by their names, and really not so hard to learn a person’s pronouns. And it’s not so hard to remember he/him, she/her, or they/them.

Democratic lawmaker, the aptly named Fred Love says that intentionally not referring to someone by what they want to be called is "one of the most disrespectful things that you can do:

"That's one of the simplest decencies that we can give someone. ... That's not hard. That's not difficult. That's just a bit of decency and a bit of respect and I think that's what we need to do."

But then GQP Representative Mark Lowery told a story about a "male student who wanted to be called by a female name" and was referred to that way by teachers, even though the student’s parents would only address the student by the birth name. That’s tough; but even Lowery admits that this new Hate Bill does “not specifically address the example I'm giving you.”

So, let’s go back to Mary Bentley, who pulled out that old chestnut about students changing their name between classes or asking to be identified as an animal:

"We have a real issue in our state, and I need our districts to take a look at this and do more than this bill does. This bill is just a first step to help protect our teachers but when we have students in school now that don't identify as a boy or a girl but as a cat, as a furry, we have issues."

Hey Mary, you bigoted fool please give one example of a student asking to be identified as an animal. I’ll wait.

That’s what I thought. Oh, and to make one thing clear, this isn’t about teachers being sued for misnaming or misgendering any student anywhere, anytime, ever, because, even in Arkansas, no teacher has ever been sued for that,

This bill is intended to make transgender, non-binary, gender fluid students, less than, because politicians cannot wrap their heads around the idea.

My name’s Bob. My pronouns are he/him, and I identify as male, gay male,

That’s not so hard to remember and doing that for our trans brothers and sisters goes a long way toward making everyone at least feel equal.

Arkansas Online