School Employee Claims Holy Spirit Made Her Do It

Canada’s CTV News reports that that last week the board of trustees for Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools ordered a trustee, Monique LaGrange, to apologize and take sensitivity training after posting a picture of children waving Nazi swastika flags on top of a picture of children waving Pride flags, with the caption “Brainwashing is brainwashing,” on social media.

The decision includes that LaGrange “stated the Holy Spirit had told her to post the meme and that this was something she should do.”

James Kitchen, LaGrange’s lawyer, says “The apology definitely won’t happen.  That would violate her conscience.  She can’t do that.  That would be a sin.”

Teacher Fired From School For Reading Book Purchased At School… In School

In June Katie Rinderle, after ten years of teaching, was fired from Due West Elementary School in Cobb County, GA.  She read a picture book, “My Shadow is Purple,” to her 5th grade class (which the students had voted to hear).  

Rinderle bought the book, which portrays a nonbinary child that feels excluded until it is revealed that all their classmates are unique as well, at her school’s Scholastic book fair.  

Due to several hateful 2022 laws passed in Georgia, any LGBTQ+ content can be considered “divisive,” and any parental objection to material as “pornographic” or “harmful” can lead to its removal or restriction.

To summarize, a book about accepting differences was called “divisive” — and the teacher that read the book, purchased at the school’s own book fair, was fired.

Due West Elementary principal Cissi Kale agreed to the firing, saying Rinderle “hasn’t acknowledged that the book was controversial, so I can’t be sure that she wouldn’t read another book of the same nature.”  Assistant superintendent for the district Gretchen Walton agreed, saying they lack “confidence that we can rely on [Rinderle’s] good judgment and that these actions won’t recur.”

A tribunal of three retired county educators issued a non-binding rejection of Rinderle’s firing, but days later the school board voted 4-3 (along party lines) to fire her.  Rinderle is currently appealing the decision.

Scholastic, which says it holds more than 120,000 book fairs annually, has responded to a growing trend of right-wing parents taking advantage of nearly 100 new laws across the country allowing then to, put plainly, bully schools for any instructional content acknowledging the existence of queer students — or promoting racial equality — by separating the books into an optional category for stories with “Diverse,” which some teachers report aren’t arriving with the rest of the books, even after opting-in to receiving them.

Scholastic says the collection, “Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice,” is not the only place  “diverse titles” are found — but also says the separation was made to protect those working in states with hateful new laws.  

Many of these laws also target critical race theory (CRT), a 40-year old graduate-level field not taught in grade schools.  Ironically, the point of CRT is that racism is embedded into our legal system and policies — exactly what these laws are doing.  

Gay Marriage Rejected in India, Challenged in Nepal

On Tuesday India’s supreme court rejected gay marriage in a unanimous 5-0 decision.  Though disappointing, the decision was a bit of a mixed bag, as there were many signs that a great deal of social progress has been made in the world’s most populous country — so long as one identifies as male and one as female, the court also unanimously ruled, trans individuals must be allowed to marry.  The judges all agreed that gay people must be protected from discrimination in access to goods and services, and that an expert committee should be formed, responsible for exploring ways to protect LGBTQ+ rights, including same-sex couples being considered families when provided food assistance, bank accounts, or insurance programs.  

Ultimately, the argument made was that same-sex marriage laws should not be changed by the courts.

In late June, Nepal’s supreme court issued an interim order allowing the (temporary and separate) registration of same-sex marriages.  The country, which borders India to the north, repealed the criminalization of homosexuality in 2007, however the government has not yet responded to the court’s latest ruling, and no national law legalizing same-sex marriage has been passed — though all political parties in Nepal reportedly support the decision.  

The Himalayan Times now reports that two lower courts have now refused to issue marriage licenses despite the order, citing existing law that conflicts with the supreme court’s decision.

FBI: Hate Crimes Increasing Dramatically Against LGBTQ+ Folks

On Monday the FBI released 2022 crime statistics showing a 13.8 percent increase in hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and a 32.9 percent increase in hate crimes based on gender identity, compared to 2021.  

According to the report, 11,634 hate crime incidents were reported across participating agencies in 2022, with 13,711 victims.

Though the FBI claims their data covers 91.7 percent of the population, these numbers are known to be underreported (or not reported at all) by some of the 14,631 participating law enforcement agencies.  

The report showed the three highest bias types in 2022 were Anti-Black, Anti-Jewish, and Anti-Gay (male).

51 percent of 2022 hate crimes were committed by White Americans.

Hate crimes motivated by race were down slightly, though still making up the majority (59.1 percent) of incidents, with 6,567 reported in 2022.  Religious motivation increased the most dramatically, up over 28 percent to 2,042 incidents in 2022.  1,944 sexual orientation motivated and 469 gender identity motivated incidents were reported in 2022, up from 1,711 and 353 in 2021, respectively.