I’ve been told that a woman named Barbara Dixon announced her intent to run for School Board at Monday night’s LCRC meeting, pledging among other things to save our children from the “homosexual agenda.” Barbara is also the only known LCRC member to have openly joined the little “Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force” protest held at the April meeting.
The following video contains some other suggestions Barbara may find helpful to her campaign. Enjoy!
Crossposted at Equality Loudoun.
Later update: There’s a Washington Post article.
Update to the press release below: We are fortunate to have living in our community two people who were present in Laramie at the time of Matthew Shepard’s murder, and who became intimately involved in the unfolding story. Stephen Johnson, a minister whose Unitarian Universalist church provided the only safe space for GLBT people in the Laramie area, was the basis for a character in the play. Penelope Thoms was Matthew’s chaplain at the Fort Collins hospital where he died. Penelope tells of their experience here. They will be present for the Saturday, June 4 performance and discussion.
Crossposted at Equality Loudoun
Sunday, May 22 at 11:00 am
St. James United Church of Christ
10 East Broad Way, Lovettsville
Loudoun Out Loud, the PFLAG support group, has now been meeting since January (See interview with Lori Stevens here, and Living in Loco has more links). Not only does LOL facilitate two monthly support group meetings – one for LGBTQ youth and one for family/allies – they have also provided appropriate resource materials for use in Loudoun County Public Schools, partnered with locovore eatery American Flatbread to raise funds for PFLAG, collected bikes for Bikes for the World as an Earth Day project, hosted a screening of the film Bullied, and probably more I don’t know about yet.
Lori Stevens and some of the youth will be sharing the stories that have brought them together to create this much needed group – and the public is welcome.
Crossposted at Equality Loudoun.
Today’s Washington Post:
Virginians are closely divided over whether gay marriage should be legal, according to a new Washington Post poll, a striking result in a state that overwhelmingly agreed to amend its constitution to ban gay marriage just five years ago.
Forty-seven percent of Virginians say gay couples should be allowed to legally wed, and 43 percent are opposed, according to the poll. Fifty-five percent of Virginians say gay couples should be able to legally adopt children.
The results mirror a dramatic and rapid shift in national public opinion about gay rights in recent years.
Dramatic indeed. Here are the national trendlines, via Nate Silver:
Crossposted at Equality Loudoun
What you will see below is the result of people being told they should see other people as “it.”
A woman is violently assaulted in a Baltimore McDonalds, dragged across the floor, repeatedly kicked in the head until she has a seizure, and is left to convulse in a corner while employees watch and record the assault on their phones. They can be heard laughing and encouraging the assailants in the background. One posted his video on the internet later, to entertain his friends. You can hear one of them near the end, warning the assailants “police on their way. Y’all better get out of here.” The only person who attempts to help the woman is an elderly female customer.
Warning: The video is extremely violent and disturbing. I’m reposting it because it’s important that people understand the consequences of their careless, self-centered actions.
Repeat after me: Our Rs are kinder and gentler than this R
As the incident has developed though, I now have to ask: Is it the assault on religious freedom itself to which these seemingly anti-religious bigotry Republicans object, or is their objection only to what they perceive as a misdirected assault on religious freedom?
One LCRC leader, by way of explaining what was wrong with the protest, informed me that target David Ramadan “isn’t even a practicing Muslim.” This may or may not be true – but that’s hardly the point, is it? Continue reading
If true, this is very sad news for our Republican friends, and even more so for Loudoun County. Several local Republican activists report receiving an email calling for some sort of anti-Muslim demonstration – tonight, at the Government Center in Leesburg – in protest of a campaign event for David Ramadan. Ramadan is a well-known Republican running for the proposed 87th House district. The rhetoric suggests something similar to the protest captured in this video:
Ramadan is being described as a “solid conservative” by an otherwise rather diverse assortment of Loudoun conservative activists. One could only imagine how beyond the pale those behind this “ANTI-SHARIAH TASK FORCE” must be – except that the names Dick Black and his apparent tea party acolyte Joann Chase (also vying for the 87th seat) are mentioned in the email. Continue reading
That was easy.
Go to any website that allows ratings of books, movies, etc., search for “liberal” products and give them all one star, then search for “conservative” products and give them all five stars. You can do this relatively quickly for “hundreds” of products. Isn’t that easy? It doesn’t require the ability to make a cogent argument that convinces other people, to listen to and understand other peoples’ stories, or all the time-consuming reading and thinking that would take. “The vast majority of the books I rate, I’ve never read,” the young man assures his audience.
This was filmed at an actual workshop at some tea party event at which new activists were being trained. I didn’t catch where or when this was, but it appeared to be in a large meeting room in some sort of conference facility. I give that detail because it shows this idea to be mainstream within the tea party universe, not just something some crank said to 12 people in his basement.
The irony is that tea party patriots are fond of quoting Mr. Jefferson’s famous assertion that the cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate; “whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”
Ok, the title may be slightly misleading, because what we’re speaking of is really just an extreme form of self-centered blindness. Which is what sexism is a form of, I suppose.
This gem arrived from the outbox of Chuck Colson (search the name both here and at Equality Loudoun for the full Monty):
A group of mostly female students is suing Yale University for allowing a “sexually hostile environment” to exist on campus.
The women, of course, have a point. After all, when frat boys are allowed to parade around the old campus chanting “No Means Yes,” or to hold up signs that read “We Love Yale Sluts,” I guess you could say that’s a sexually hostile environment.
But may I ask a question? What did you expect?
Sorry about the intrusion, folks.
The following has been added to our comment policy, viewable at the link above:
If you use a pseudonym, pick one and use it. No pretending to be multiple people. This doesn’t impress us. Neither does posing as someone you are not. If you are caught doing this, you will be banned from this site.
As you were.
