It Is All About The Children.

How many time have we heard that? But that is not true because the anti-trans legislation that the Republicans are passing does a lot more harm to trans children.

Anti-transgender legislation makes me feel like an outsider in my home state

If lawmakers want college graduates to stay in Indiana, they should create policies that positively reflect the increasingly gender-diverse population.

Ball State Daily

By Meghan Holt

May 3, 2024

When I was a kid, I went to FAME camp at Camp Potawatomi back when they still hosted it there. 

FAME, which stands for Foundation for Art & Music in Education, taught me about all things art, and each year we put on a themed performance at the end of our week-long overnight stay for the parents who had poured their wallets into this education. During my fourth-grade year, our theme was about celebrating Indiana.

We had to learn Ballard McDonald and James Hanley’s song “Back Home Again in Indiana” for this performance. I still know all the words.

In high school, my marching band belted the same song as we advanced to the football field to put on our pre-game performance. I always tried to sing the loudest. 

There was a real sense of pride I felt to sing about my state — to imagine the twinkling candle flames through those mythical sycamore trees and to look out across the countless fields around me and understand what McDonald and Hanley meant when they wrote about the smell of new-mown hay.

I still have a deep love for Indiana. It’s not quite where I was born (that honor goes to Aurora, Illinois), but it’s where I was raised. I’m a Hoosier at heart. At least I like to think I am.

But I’m not so sure anymore.

What I haven’t told you yet is that I’m a gay, transgender person. As I’ve become more comfortable in my own identity, I’ve become less comfortable in my home state.

So, I’m leaving.

The Republicans always are taking about family values, but it is only their family values they scorn other families’ values.

As long as anti-LGBTQ+ laws are active, Indiana is not a state where I can comfortably be queer.

Face it! The conservatives want to force us back into the closet.

It is my hope that one day I’ll be able to comfortably return and see the moonlight gleaming on the Wabash River. Until then, I urge Indiana lawmakers to do better by and for their LGBTQ+ constituents.

That do not want to make Indiana a place for all, they want to make it a place for White Christian and not for anyone else.

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The Republicans Takith Away And The Democrats Givith (The Continuing Sage)

This time it is about the names of schools in Virginia, the Democrats changed the name the name of the school from a Civil War slave holding Confederates.

Virginia school board to vote on restoring Confederate names

A Virginia school board could vote to return two schools back to their original Confederate names in a debate that has bitterly divided a town.

BBC News

By Sam Cabral

May 9, 2024

In 2020, the Shenandoah County School Board changed the names of Stonewall Jackson High and Ashby-Lee Elementary in Quicksburg.

But community members have been pushing for a reversal, arguing the name change is unpopular.

Thursday's vote may mark the first such U-turn anywhere in the US.

A large crowd, including residents on both sides of the issue, is expected to flock to the school board's public meeting at 19:00 EST (23:00 GMT).

Following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd and a summer of racial justice unrest, Virginia and other states took down Confederate statues from public spaces.

In a letter to school board chairs across the state, then-Democratic Governor Ralph Northam implored: "It is time to change school names and mascots that memorialize Confederate leaders or sympathizers."

The Shenandoah County School Board took action three days later, moving to rename Stonewall Jackson High - now called Mountain View High - and Ashby-Lee Elementary - now known as Honey Run Elementary.

As you can guess that didn’t sit very well with the Republicans and the white nationalist in the town and they brought legal action against the name change. The Northern Virginia Daily in a commentary,

Mountain View High, originally named Stonewall Jackson High, was first named in 1959. It was built and funded illegally and intended to be for “White’s Only” during the height of the Jim Crow racial caste system in the American South and Virginia’s Massive Resistance efforts. The money set aside for integrating schools was instead used to continue segregation, in violation of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Ashby-Lee was built in 1975, using the since retired magisterial district names at that time.

Did you notice “White’s Only” part?

This decision was challenged in Shenandoah County Circuit Court in August of 2020, and the case was heard throughout the fall of 2020 and into 2021. The plaintiffs lost the case and appealed, and their arguments were again rejected with a final resolution of dismissal in November of 2021 by the Virginia Supreme Court, Case #CL20000984-00. The letter of the law was followed, despite claims to the contrary and the effort in 2022 to revert the names also failed, by a 3-3 vote.

But now they have a Republican Board.

On May 9, 2024, once again the school board of the SCPS is going to hold another vote on renaming our Southern campus schools, and we wholeheartedly urge them to reject the false narratives being offered. We implore all members to vote NO on the name changes, thereby reaffirming SCPS and Shenandoah County as a place that is welcoming to all students, families and businesses that choose to call this wonderful place home. Retain Mountain View and Honey Run — names we can ALL be proud of.

But the conservatives don’t want that! They want to bring back the Jim Crow era.