I Am Making A Dire Prediction

Two articles this morning, the first is about a lawsuit in Virginia and the other article is about Jazz Jennings' book being banned.

There are lawsuits that I see that I wish that I saw another end to but I don’t, sadly I see non-discrimination laws being torn apart and shredded by the simple phrase “It is against my firmly held beliefs” and I see the courts coming down on the side of hate and discrimination for trans athletes.

Lawsuits challenge Virginia's sexual orientation protections
Associated Press
By Matthew Barakat
September 30, 2020


FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — A conservative legal group has filed lawsuits challenging a new Virginia law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The lawsuits filed this week in state and federal court by Alliance Defending Freedom argue that the new law infringes on their clients' religious freedoms.

In one case, a northern Virginia photographer filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Alexandria alleging that the law will compel him to photograph same-sex weddings in violation of his religious beliefs.

A second suit filed in Loudoun County Circuit Court says that the law will compel a nondenominational church to hire people who violate the church's beliefs against same-sex marriage and choosing a gender identity that differs from their biological sex.

Earlier this year, Virginia became the first southern state, other than Delaware, to extend anti-discrimination protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity. The legislation applies to housing, public or private employment, public spaces and credit transactions.

I see this as the first “religious freedom” cases going before justice Amy Coney Barrett and I see a 5 – 4 verdict against us.

That one case will wipe out all of the non-discrimination laws in the nation and probably unless there is a change in the court the dismantling of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There will be two sets of laws.

All you will have to do is just declare that “It is against my firmly held beliefs” and there is no way to prove otherwise. Will the courts have to decide if it is really your firmly held beliefs? Will there be a “religious court? This opens a huge can-of-worms.

Will the courts just rule that “religious freedom” only applies to LGBTQ and abortion issues? Or could someone bulldoze down “Trump’s Wall” and claim that it violates their firmly held religious beliefs? Or refuse to rent to a black person or an unmarried couple?

And if the courts just rules that “religious freedom” only applies to LGBTQ and abortion issues isn’t that in itself discriminatory?

So much depends upon November 3^rd.

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Book banning is still alive and growing here in the U.S. and as you can imagine LGBTQ+ books are the leading books being banned.

Jazz Jennings says it's 'both disappointing and honorable' that her autobiography is on list of 100 most banned books

By Beth GreenfieldSenior Editor

October 1, 2020

This week, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom — which has been documenting attempts to ban books in libraries or schools since 1990 — released its list of the 100 most banned or challenged books of the decade, from 2010 through 2019. And along with the expected classics of controversy, from To Kill a Mockingbird to The Catcher in the Rye, there’s a diverse range of newer works that have riled up certain conservative corners of the country, many dealing with LGBTQ themes and, within that category, those written with children in mind — like Heather Has Two Mommies, the sweet 1989 tale (rebooted in 2016) of a girl with two moms, and And Tango Makes Three, a picture book about two male penguins who create a family.

Another in that category is No. 13 on the list: I Am Jazz, the autobiographical picture book by Jazz Jennings, co-written by Jesica Herthel. Published in 2014 when Jazz was just 14, it was the precursor to the über-popular TLC reality series of the same name — now through its sixth season, in which the transgender teen and now young adult goes through a range of milestones, from dating and dances to bullying and college acceptance and even gender-reassignment surgery, all with her loving and supportive family by her side. And it’s that book that has created a large portion of the controversy that’s surrounded the proud transgender activist ever since she came out on a national television interview at the age of 6.

Her book isn’t the only LGBTQ+ book that were banned…

There were several other LGBTQ-themed books for kids on the list — George, And Tango Makes Three, A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, My Princess Boy. Your follow-up book, meanwhile, Being Jazz: My Life as a Transgender Teen, is not on the list. Why do you think some people are particularly bent on silencing LGBTQ stories for and about children?

It’s all based on fear. Parents are afraid of the change that’s occurring in our society where the LGBTQ+ community keeps growing stronger and stronger. It may go against their personal beliefs, so they feel the need to shut it down before it creates impurity in their children. I think when it comes to children, they are viewed as so pure and unadulterated that parents don’t want them to be “corrupted” by “twisted ideologies” that they don’t stand for. The truth is that we are trying to create acceptance and peace at a younger age so that there is more understanding for youth who are trans or feel different.

But they are in good company; some of the other books that are banned are…

12. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

15. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

26. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

28. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

29. A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

39. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich*

79. 1984 by George Orwell

As you can see some of the books are classics… we can’t have are children think too much, they might become liberals.

*In grad school for my MSW I had to read Nickel and Dimed.  The summary from Amazon…

In this now classic work, Barbara Ehrenreich, our sharpest and most original social critic, goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity

Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job—any job—can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour?

To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you int to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity—a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything—from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal—in quite the same way again.