Conservatism News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

Arizona GOP wants to send teachers to jail

Arizona Teachers Could go to Prison for Recommending ‘Sexually Explicit’ Books Under GOP Proposal

Republican lawmakers want to put Arizona teachers behind bars if they so much as recommend a book to students that is considered too “sexually explicit.”

On Thursday, Senate Republicans advanced a measure punishing teachers who “refer students to or use sexually explicit” materials with a class 5 felony, which carries with it a prison sentence as long as two years.

The only exception included in the bill is if the school has first obtained written parental consent, and the material has serious educational value for minors or possesses serious “literary, artistic, political or scientific value."

Critics warned that Senate Bill 1323 threatens to jeopardize the free speech of teachers and criminalize honest mistakes.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/arizona-teac ... 00755.html

[firestar464]

Funny how when valid criticism is raised, proponents of such bills go "MUH JESUS AND GOD"

"Separation of church and state" at its finest

[weatheriscool]

Now Arkansas wants to throw librarians in jail
Arkansas House Approves Bill to Hold Libraries Accountable for ‘Obscene’ Material

The Arkansas House approved a proposed law on Wednesday that would open the door to criminal liability for the distribution of “obscene” content by school and public libraries, despite bipartisan opposition.

Seven Republicans joined the 18 House Democrats in voting against Senate Bill 81, including Rep. DeAnn Vaught (R-Horatio), who called the bill “government overreach.”

“I think we might have lost our way down here somewhat,” Vaught said in a lengthy speech on the House floor. “Republicans are supposed to be about local control, and yet here we are again, taking local control away from our counties and cities because of a few bad actors.”

Senate Bill 81 would add the loaning of library materials to the statute governing the possession and distribution of obscene material. Arkansas’ definition of obscenity is “that to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeal to prurient interest,” with prurient meaning overtly sexual.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/arkansas-hou ... 00750.html

[lechwall]

Looking forward to seeing the religious right start referring to AI as literal demons

[firestar464]

I wonder how Elon is gonna deal with that. He will have to choose between "right" and "AI development"

[weatheriscool]

Florida NAACP calls for travel advisory amid political tensions

The NAACP Florida Chapter wants its national board to issue a travel advisory to anyone planning to visit the state in light of recent proposals targeting diversity and racial issues.

At the organization’s state conference on Saturday in Orlando, members proposed asking the national board to issue a travel advisory — especially for people of color.

When the vote came back unanimously, Hillsborough County NAACP President Yvette Lewis said she felt relief.

“We are an organization that protects people’s civil rights, and this is a first step to doing that,” Lewis said. “People are seeing what’s happening in Florida. They’re paying attention, and I hope that help is coming.”

https://www.tampabay.com/news/hillsboro ... ity-bills/

[weatheriscool]

I wonder how the right is going to react to anti-aging and age reversal. There's no way in hell that it won't be attacked and banned in many states in this nation...

If you can't change gender then you sure as f*ck can't stop the aging process!!!

[weatheriscool]

Utah Gov. signs laws requiring parental consent for minors to use social media
Source: NBC News

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed two pieces of sweeping social media regulation into law Thursday that require social media companies to get parental consent for minors using their services, making Utah the first state to impose such measures in the U.S.

Versions of the regulations are being considered in four other states and in several federal proposals in Congress.

The new Utah laws — H.B. 311 and S.B. 152 — require that social media companies verify the age of any Utah resident who makes a social media profile and get parental consent for any minor who wishes to make a profile. It also forces social media companies to allow parents to access posts and messages from their child’s account.

The laws also prohibit social media companies from displaying ads to minors, showing minor accounts in search results, collecting information about minors, targeting or suggesting content to minors, or knowingly integrating addictive technologies into social media apps used by minors. They also impose a curfew on the use of social media for minors, locking them out of their social media accounts between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. based on the location of a user’s device, unless adjusted with the consent of a parent.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-AA190giZ


The party of small government

[weatheriscool]

Non-Existent Vaccine Microchips Could Soon Be Banned in Missouri

Missouri state legislators are trying to regulate the fabricated scene inside this stock photo.

A subset of Missouri legislators care deeply about freedom. For instance: The God-given right to NOT accept a life-saving vaccination and still attend public school or go to work in a hospital. Also, the freedom to not be forcibly injected with a (non-existent) microchip device or a DNA-altering substance.

Lawmakers in the state’s House have advanced a bill (HB700) that would seriously weaken covid-19 vaccine mandates and restrict Missouri’s ability to respond to future pandemics. As a bonus, the would-be law also feeds into some truly bonkers conspiracy theories.

Language in the measure would ban public schools along with state and local governments from requiring any mRNA vaccination—including the covid-19 shot. The proposed legislation would also require all private employers to allow for broad exceptions to vaccine mandates. Effectively, anyone who wrote a letter to their employer asking to be exempted from vaccination would have to be allowed to skip it, per the bill. This would include healthcare workers, those who work in assisted living communities around the particularly vulnerable—literally, anyone and everyone.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/non-existent ... 00161.html

[weatheriscool]

Civil rights lecture at Florida college canceled due to student's 'discomfort'
https://www.wesh.com/article/civil-righ ... a/43403119

COCOA, Fla. —

On March 9, at the Cocoa campus of Eastern Florida State College, the students in a U.S. Government class ended up having a free period. That’s because one of the students said that they were uncomfortable in the day’s lesson on civil rights.

A dual student at the college and Cocoa High School, 15-year-old Jacob Dailey was in the class. He walked in that day just as the professor was telling students that he’d have to cancel class.

“The topic was civil rights, no specific bit of it, just in general. As far as I’m aware,” Dailey said. “So the teacher basically had to cancel this class of about 20 students in total because of the student’s discomfort.”

He told WESH 2 that he was disappointed that he had to miss the class for a topic that was on the class schedule and required for his degree.

“I think that there could have been a better method of handling it, but the teacher’s concerns were valid I’d say,” Dailey said.

Jacob Dailey’s father Matt Dailey is a teacher at Cocoa High School. He said that he has heard good things about the teacher Josh Humphries. But he said, “If I have a student who is uncomfortable, I usually have backup assignments. ‘Hey, go to the library.’”

[firestar464]

Usually, I would jump to criticizing the teacher, but since he seems well-liked and reasonable, I will give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he resolves this ASAP.

[weatheriscool]

Holy Bible or Holy Smut? A Utah Parent Challenges the Book

A Utah parent wants the Bible banned from school libraries, claiming it violates a new state law that bans “pornographic or indecent” materials in schools.

The parent, who remains anonymous, filed a petition to the Davis School District on Dec. 11, arguing that the Bible contains “incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape and even infanticide” and has “no serious values for minors” under the law.

The law, enacted in May 2022, prohibits materials that include “explicit sexual arousal, stimulation, masturbation, intercourse, sodomy or fondling” and other erotic descriptions or depictions.

The law also requires school districts to establish committees to review any materials that are challenged by parents or guardians and to remove them if they are found to be pornographic or indecent.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/holy- ... r-AA191f73

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

From drag shows to pronouns: Florida GOP takes aim at LGBTQ issues

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The GOP-controlled Florida Legislature last year approved a contentious law on gender identity and sexual orientation in school — but this year it aims to go further.

Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature is now moving ahead with a second round of proposals that are alarming LGBTQ advocates who say they are being demonized to help GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis' likely presidential campaign. The bills include prohibiting pronouns in schools, banning children from drag shows and outlawing gender-affirming care for transgender minors and expanding the state’s Parental Rights in Education law, known throughout the country as “Don’t Say Gay.”

The moves come after the DeSantis administration enacted similar policies or actions over the last year. During the fall, two state medical boards approved rules that forbid trans minors from receiving gender-affirming care such as hormone therapies or, in rare cases, surgery. And last December, the state’s liquor and business licensing agencies investigated two separate holiday-themed drag performances out of concerns that young children attended the events or the performances were “lewd.”

“It is maddening and it is sad to see the continuous attack of people who are quote unquote, other,” state Rep. Michele Rayner-Goolsby, a Democrat from St. Petersburg and the state’s first Black female queer legislator, said in an interview. “And that is what we're seeing in this legislature, in this body, through the different types of legislation that is passed by the majority.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/drag-shows-p ... 00601.html

[caltrek]

Just another example of how today's "conservatives" are not really interested in "conserving" much of anything.

[weatheriscool]

Todays conservatives are little more then the taliban for christanity.

[weatheriscool]

A new book-ban fiasco in Florida reveals the monster DeSantis created
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... p-primary/

No paywall
https://archive.is/YJFxl

By now, it should be blindingly obvious that many red-state book crackdowns are designed to encourage the impulse toward censorship. By enabling lone actors to get dozens of titles removed from school library shelves while meeting deliberately vague criteria for objecting to them, these measures invite overzealous parents to hunt for books to purge.

A bill advancing in the Florida state legislature suggests this could create problems for Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is using book crackdowns to bolster his GOP presidential hopes. As it gets easier for single objectors to get books removed, the bans could get more absurd — and stick to DeSantis himself.

The proposal in question, which appears to have the governor’s general support, would require the instant removal of certain books targeted for objections, even before any sort of evaluative process unfolds. Advocates for free expression say this represents something new.

“If Florida passes this bill, it may be the first state in the country to institute in every public school a rule requiring the immediate removal of materials following an objection,” Jeffrey Sachs, a political scientist who closely tracks these proposals, told me. “For activists on the right, this is a new strategy that will greatly speed the process of censoring materials."

[weatheriscool]

Missouri House votes to strip state funding from public libraries
https://www.ky3.com/2023/03/29/missouri ... libraries/

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - House lawmakers also on Tuesday voted to strip all state funding from public libraries.

Republican House Budget Chairman Cody Smith last week cut the roughly $4.5 million in public library funding from the budget, citing a lawsuit by two library groups to overturn a new Missouri law that bans sexually explicit material in school libraries.

The ACLU, the Missouri Association of School Librarians, and the Missouri Library Association in February asked the Circuit Court in Kansas City to find the law unconstitutional or clarify how and when it applies.

Smith has said the state shouldn’t subsidize the lawsuit by giving public libraries money.

The law, passed last year, does not apply to written descriptions of sex or sexual acts; only photos, drawings, videos and other visual depictions are prohibited.

Librarians and other school officials face up to a year in jail or a $2,000 fine for violating the policy, which makes it a crime to provide minors with sexually explicit visual material. Exceptions are provided for works of art, science classes and other educational courses.

“Who do we want to be in here?” Merideth asked colleagues on the House floor. “The ones banning books and defunding public libraries when they dare to question whether that was constitutional?”

Republican Rep. Dirk Deaton, of Noel, defended the law and the decision to strip public library funding in response to the lawsuit.

“It’s been said this is a book ban. This is not that,” Deaton said. “It is protecting innocent children.”

[weatheriscool]

One Year After "Don't Say Gay," Florida Parents Say They're Enraged and Afraid

In early February, a massive carpool descended on Tallahassee, Florida’s capital. Dozens of middle and high schoolers had missed Geometry and English class for the occasion; parents had taken hard earned days off work to chaperone their children. However, this was no school sanctioned event. It was the final deliberation meeting of the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine, which would determine whether the state would move forward with a ban on gender-affirming care for trans and nonbinary youth.

Although the Boards had been discussing a potential ban for months, this was the first and only chance the public would have to voice their concerns about the rule. For the young people who had traveled to Tallahassee that day, the decision would have an immeasurable impact on their lives. School would have to wait.

For three hours in a poorly-lit auditorium in the state Department of Transportation office, trans and nonbinary young people described the feelings of liberation, wholeness, and freedom they had experienced after receiving the kinds of medically necessary, gender-affirming care that was now up for debate. They described missing months of school due to dysphoria, and the friendships and self-love that blossomed when they received treatment.

“Having my needs met in this way for the first time ever was the most beautiful experience I could have asked for,” said one teenager.

https://www.them.us/story/dont-say-gay- ... year-later

[weatheriscool]

IA: School groups say staff would have to review thousands of books if governor's bill passes

Lobbyists for schools and teachers’ groups told lawmakers the provision in Gov. Kim Reynolds’ “parental rights” bill requiring removal of all books with depictions of sex acts from school libraries would be difficult for Iowa schools to accomplish.

“I’m not quite sure how we’re going to find all of those books without having to read all of them,” Emily Piper with the Iowa Association of School Boards told lawmakers Wednesday. “Consider a library and a high school in an urban area that has 4,000-plus books. It’s … going to consume a lot of staff time to go through every single one of those books to make sure that they do not violate that.”

Lobbyists and members of the public weighed in on Senate File 496, the governor’s omnibus education proposal, in a House subcommittee meeting Wednesday.

The bill was amended by the Senate to include many proposals brought forward by Republicans this session. It includes a ban on instruction and materials related to gender identity and sexual orientation in K-6 classrooms. It requires school staff to inform parents if a child is believed to be transgender, and requires parental consent for students to participate in surveys or health assessments discussing issues like mental health, gender identity or illegal practices. It passed the Senate along party lines.

Multiple speakers asked lawmakers to keep the current system for book review in place at Iowa schools. Parents currently can flag books to go through their district’s “reconsideration” process, looking at if the material should be restricted by age, parental consent, or be removed from the school library. Sam Helmick, president of the Iowa Library Association, said the bill removes local control from school districts by taking away their ability to decide for themselves what is appropriate.

https://www.newsfromthestates.com/artic ... ill-passes