Today MAGA decided to block a veterans suicide hotline by flooding it with calls demanding Jan 6 convicts be released and any that are vets should have their benefits reinstated (insurrectionists that tried to overthrow the government lost their government benefits).
Over 20 vets commit suicide daily. Dozens or more are saved by the VA suicide hotline daily. MAGA was more than happy to see those veterans die for this ill conceived defense of treason.
Not just anti American and anti military, also inhumanely and cowardly targeting suicidal veterans who have nothing to do with imprisoning insurrectionist terrorists.

More death, destruction, and debauchery daily….only from MAGA, the party of human trafficking, treason, and snowflake babies that can’t accept a loss. ROEVEMBER is going to be hard for you.

Thanks to the few honest Republicans who said clearly if they get power abortion will be banned nationwide without exceptions, and contraception, and gay marriage, and interracial marriage, and whatever else they decide they don’t like other people having the right to do….so marijuana will be a felony and blue laws returning. Also thanks to Greene for admitting her ilk want to become a theocracy.

Another in the never ending stream of Republican vote frauds.

https://videosift.com/video/Republican-Election-Official-Arrested-For-Vote-Fraud-Again

Funny how many 100% pro life no-exception Republicans have erased their abortion position from their websites and campaigns and now claim to be totally pro choice despite decades of anti abortion legislation and positions. ROEVEMBER is going to be a hoot. Thanks Graham for publicly tipping your hand before the election and putting forth a national federal abortion ban bill so no one could honestly say Republicans don’t plan to ban abortion nationally, can’t sit on the “states rights” lie they’ve used for decades to fight against and erode a federal right….not that anyone was fooled for a second, but now the lie that they won’t outlaw abortion nationally, and won’t ban contraception nationally, and won’t outlaw gay marriage nationally, and won’t outlaw interracial marriage nationally are all dead by their own hands.

BTW- Kemp was caught on tape saying if the legislature is willing (if there’s enough Republicans elected) he’s on board with banning chemical contraception and will try. He’s not the only Republican governor saying it. I wonder….who’s going to pay for these hundreds of thousands of unwanted children? Do red states have a surplus to spend opening state orphanages? You people like to bemoan single parent households and parentless children, saying it’s creating criminals, and then you legislate away rights and self autonomy to create hundreds of thousands more unwanted children every single year. Just asinine.

Teacher here. It's made-up-nonsense. I don't give a shit what gender or sexual orientation a kid is and im CERTAINLY not going to try to convince anyone to change anything about themselves.

That said, I'm going to acknowledge that gay/trans people exist in authorship and literature as it arises. You can't read someone like Whitman (Leaves of Grass, arguably America's greatest poet) and not come across references to sexuality either implicit or explicit. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45472/i-sing-the-body-electric

It becomes relevant in passages like this:

5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

----------------------------------
Maybe a conversation like:

"'Love flesh swelling' like he's in love with some woman and they...he...?"

"Probably not, he didn't have any serious female relationships as far as I am aware."

"But the title is 'The female form'"

"Well, it's possible, but it's not likely the case that he was talking about himself being in love with a woman. This poem is in the text but he wrote many other pieces about he-himself falling into and out of love with various men and we have letters documenting those relationships with his male significant others. Although, I'm not sure what to call them because gay marriage would have been illegal at the time. He's likely writing the poem in a way where he appreciates the female form and sees men who are drawn to it like the way I appreciate watching bees act obsessively driven to the middle of flowers. I like watching Bees in action, but that doesn't mean I'm going all pollen crazy, still I appreciate it for what it is."
-------------------

This is an example of how discussion of sexuality would come up in my classroom as I imagine it. Note how I'm not trying to convince the kid I'm talking to to turn gay like it's a big game of rainbow-red-rover or something. Nevertheless, knowing the author's sexual preference in this instance informs our understanding of the piece.


My own personal theory?
The people railing against things like this are the same shitheads that can't be bothered to read ANYTHING and instead giggle and guffaw at "hurhurhurhur he hadd'a boner" where I get to live an early stage of Idocracy.

Also, I agree that the "funky stuff" shouldn't be just avoided altogether. For goodness sake, just let teachers have the difficult conversation that everyone is avoiding. Reminds me of when Peggy Hill was struggling to say "Penis" when she was assigned sex ed.

Sweet Zombie Jesus….Tennessee Republicans are trying to erase age limits for marriage so they can marry and legally have sex with preteen children in the name of outrage over legal gay marriage.
The alternative marriage bill, hb 233. No age limits. “Trust us” they say. “It’s ok to not put limits on it, no one will abuse it.”

So many prominent Republicans are going down this SEX WITH CHILDREN route in the last 5 years, Roy Moore, Matt Gates, Jim Jorden, Trump, I could go on… now entire Republican state legislatures are trying to make child “marriage” legal….wtf happened to you guys? Are tax cuts for the rich really worth literally everything else, including your children?

You stupid stupid dishonest stupid man. He renounced them for decades before the photo with Biden ('08?), starting in the 40's when he left the KKK after a few years in. Trump is currently being supported by the active KKK membership and leaders as well as multiple racist hate groups. He has not renounced them or said he doesn't want their votes, instead he claims he doesn't know who David Duke is despite having discussed him at length in prior interviews and calls them good people, his tough guys. Democrats have renounced the KKK and racists publicly for decades. Derp.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kkk-trump-david-duke-tucker-carlson-election-2020-a9609491.html

https://www.factcheck.org/2016/03/trumps-david-duke-amnesia/

If Biden is the racist, why do open racists all support Trump?

🤦‍♂️

Robert Byrd served as U.S. Representative for the state of West Virginia from 1953 to 1959, and as a U.S. Senator from 1959, until his death in 2010 ( here ).

Byrd was not a Grand Wizard or leader of the Klan. He was, however, a former organizer and member of the KKK. A Washington Post article reviewing Byrd’s memoir explains these years in more detail. Byrd later renounced his membership to the organization, although his early record in Congress on race and civil rights was mixed. For example, Byrd partook in a lengthy filibuster effort against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but supported the 1968 civil rights act . A Democrat but conservative in values, Byrd decades later also criticized President Bill Clinton’s decision to push for the legalization of gay marriage.

In a 2006 CNN interview, Byrd expressed regret for the filibuster and called his time in the Klan the greatest mistake of his life.
In 2005, Byrd commented on his past membership of the Klan in his memoir and in an interview with the Washington Post said, "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened."

During the 2008 presidential race, Byrd endorsed Barack Obama.

At the time of his death, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a leading civil rights organization formed in 1909 for the advancement of racial equality and elimination of racial discrimination, issued a statement mourning his passing. The NAACP’s President and CEO remarked: "Senator Byrd reflects the transformative power of this nation. Senator Byrd went from being an active member of the KKK to a being a stalwart supporter of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and many other pieces of seminal legislation that advanced the civil rights and liberties of our country”. ( bit.ly/33hn5V3 ) Then-President Obama eulogized Byrd.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-biden-clan/false-claim-joe-biden-pictured-with-grand-wizard-of-ku-klux-klan-idUSKBN2103C3

McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, also spoke at Byrd’s memorial service — and other Republicans issued statements remembering Byrd. Texas Sen. John Cornyn said that Byrd was “a tireless public servant” and that the “Senate has lost a great champion, he will be missed greatly.”

Now go scourge yourself until I tell you to stop, you liar and fool. Trump made you look stupid again with another misrepresentation you regurgitated.

Gay marriage is legal but still wrong.

But they're just speaking....criticizing it (Islam).
If they said 1/10 about Judaism or Christianity what they say about Islam, the right would be frothing at the mouth over these anti religion hatemongers. Duh.

Family Research Council...
....the vehemently anti gay, anti choice, anti anything not super Christian group that says gay marriage is the same as bestiality and should be treated the same? Duh.

I like gay people, but they can never be decent parents and shouldn't be allowed to raise children....but no, I don't hate gays.
Bullshit. If I say that about fat and frumpy brunette women, I'm a hater.

Pretty much boils down to these groups all believe 'Our targeted groups should not enjoy the same rights as the rest of us...but that doesn't make us hate groups. '
Yes, yes it does. That's what hate groups are.

More shameful right wing crybaby time over being called out for being hatemongers. "I know you are but what am I." is not an adult or rational argument, but it's all they've got.
Sad. Bigly sad.

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Heh, I'm just getting old is all. I am rooting for them, and good on them for turning the tables and shaming the adults. When I joined the Sift many years ago I would've absolutely have been optimistic about their chances of effecting change. But in the past decade, I have learned from first-hand experience how the world works, and seen too much happen in the world to give them more than a snowball's chance in hell.

I mean, shame only works on people that feel shame and the United States government has proven time and again in the past decade that it, like the current President, is absolutely shameless. The only way to make politicians understand is to actually threaten their re-election, but with lobbyist money skewing politics how do individual voters even do that? I just don't see enough of a grassroots campaign forming that actually gives the NRA and gun industry a run for their money.

Of course, I would be more than happy to be proven wrong. I didn't think I'd see the day gay marriage was legalized in the U.S. either and figured it wouldn't happen until I was a senior citizen if at all. Hopefully my pessimism is just grumpy old man talk.

I don't think brussel sprouts are food, but I won't be campaigning to stop other people eating them if they want to.

They must think gay marriage devalues the currency, that their marriage will somehow be less sacred because other people have a different idea what it means. As if straight people haven't been fucking it up enough already.

Also, does anybody else find it strange that gay marriage seems to be entirely about men most of the time. Why is that?

ps. Can straight people get a civil partnership now please.

I believe he is right in speaking on state's rights but I think his example is not well thought out. He compares many of his and others views on rights and says that it's their turn to act like the rednecks in the 60s who wanted to maintain segregation. Well if he looks back at what happened he won't be too happy. The US government stepped in and said Nope ain't gonna happen and used the courts, military, and other resources to force the beginning of the end of segregation. So to carry his analogy to it's logical conclusion then the US government would step in and say Nope to their sanctuary cities, gay marriage,women's choice, and all of the other concepts he listed.

Like I said I believe in state's rights and agree with him in concept on what he was saying. Just think he used a very poor analogy to make his point.

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Given the polls put support for gay marriage in Aus between 65 and 85%, the only way the no vote will win is through voter apathy.

Conservatives are motivated and will fill out their postal votes. Staunch equal rights activist will of course vote yes. The middle ground in Australia is mostly apathetic and that's where you might find this whole thing falls on it's tits unfortunately.

Annnnnd the plebiscite is not binding... So if the gov still doesn't want to go ahead with it, they don't actually need to (although I suspect they will cop a short term shellacking in the polls because of it).

Sad thing is, the current PM is on record repeatedly as being in favour of same sex marriage, but he is only in power because of right wing power brokers in his party and if he came out openly in support (ironic, I know...) he would likely be spilled out of office.

Fuck politics.

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