My only problem is "Does Matt Gaetz think?" There is a lot of evidence on one side of that issue, and only a scat amount of antidotal stories on the other.
βGodβs reach does not stop at the schoolhouse gates.β β Gaetz
What he meant to say is βwhite Christian nationalismβs reach does not stop at the schoolhouse gates.β
Nor does it stop at the doctorβs exam room door, or a personβs front door, or anyoneβs mind. We are all going to be facing white Christian nationalist attacks in all aspects of our lives, we already have been seeing the trickles of the flood since Roe at least. We are coming to the dam breaking.
Since it is already completely legal to pray in school, there are only two functions this law would serve- if it had a snowball's chance in Florida of passing:
1: To allow students with batshit beliefs to disrupt science, history, and any other class or lesson they object to with total impunity.
2: To allow conservative students and staff to use their beliefs as a cudgel to bully LGBTQ and other minority students and staff back into the closet or out of a job- again, with total impunity.
Matt Gaetz? Is this the accused pedophile Matt Gaetz? The one who used Venmo to pay for sex with underage girls? That Matt Gaetz? Just want to make sure weβre talking about the same person here.
You know the old paradox about "the marching Chinese"? It says that if the population of China started marching two by two past a counting point, the end would never be reached because they'd reproduce fast enough to make it impossible. I'm starting to think that's the case with our native-grown American christofascists.
Because the person who made up god asserted this made up entity should be enforced.. convenient... But still not as good as Stephen Kings made up characters.
Not even our monumentally corrupt Supreme Court is going to sign off on this idiocy. This is a solution in search of a problem. School prayer doesn't accomplish a damned thing, and never did. It is NEVER the job of the public schools, paid for with everyone's tax dollars, to backstop anyone's religion. This is all just gas lighting on Gaetz's part. He can't be stupid enough to think this will pass, but he can go back to the evangelicals in his district and claim he tried. Few things disgust me more than politicians on a moral crusade.
I wouldn't put it past them. Thomas has had some of his very dirty laundry aired out and hasn't faced an iota of consequences, and it's not like the Democrats are going to be able to to either expand the court or excise the fucking Christian tumors on it.
Plus, with 2024 coming around the corner they're looking for slam dunk "fuck you, libs!" Shit to play to their base. And if the election ends up going to SCOTUS there's a zero percent chance they don't throw all precedent out and install trump in office, so they're even more immune to consequences than normal.
If you are within a ten mile radius of me, you will hear me singing it. Itβs the only song I sing out loud in front of people. Since I canβt sing and that song fits well with that fact.
Exactly. A student can completely disrupt a class, and if the teacher tries to rein them in, they can sue the teacher for it. Or the reverse: a teacher can spend the entire class praying and proselityzing instead of teaching, and if a student or their boss objects, that teacher can sue them, personally, for it.
It's killing two birds with one stone. He gets proselytization into schools AND destroys public education at the same time.
I tend to think not. Praying out loud in that fashion would likely be construed as "disruptive behavior" in a classroom setting, and I suspect that most if not all schools have rules and regulations regarding such.
I could be fulla beans, too, but in this case, I don't think so.
Reread the proposed law: Gaetz makes no exception for prayer that is disruptive. It's protected too. And I absolutely think that's intentional. The 'any person/under any statute/any limitation' construction is there, intentionally, to prevent administrators from creating reasonable exceptions.
That's because fundies know the 'power to create reasonable exceptions' would be used to prevent the proselytization they want to do. It's analogous in some ways to the abortion issue, where "exception for the woman's health" is rejected the same way a "exception for disruptive behavior" is rejected here. Because they (correctly) don't believe a lot of doctors (or teachers) would carry out their far right agenda on their own.Therefore, the right must force them to do so.
He might, if that would ever happen. But it's so unlikely Gaetz and his type will happily bet their reputation and political career on never having to change their tune.
First because as Hemant said, this is political theater, and the bill has no chance of passing.
But second because even if it did, Gaetz can count on lopsided enforcement and lopsided judicial rulings to always favor christians. A muslim kid would be prevented by administrators and their suit would be thrown out. While a christian kid will usually be supported by administrators, and in cases where they aren't, the kid would win their suit.
It's very much like stand your ground rules. On paper, everything's equal. But white supremacists love those laws because they know that the reality of how they are enforced does not, and will not, match the on paper fairness.
Just as a note, it's entirely possible this bill doesn't have any exceptions because Gaetz doesn't actually want it to pass. If/when it doesn't make the cut, he can claim it as both an effort to 'fix' the 'problem' and Ye Olde Christian Persecution at the same time; it wouldn't surprise me if this is what Gaetz is actually after.
Mind, I can't really prove that, but it's hard to unsee, isn't it?
A parochial school would quickly shut down such anarchistic supplicant behavior. Its cult 101 - cult followers must follow the leader's interpretation of correct supplication to them and the leader's vision of the divine. Try that in a small church. Kinda catchy. Someone should write a song about that.
My third grade teacher told us that God was so busy listening to prayers from around the world, that we should pray to the Holy Mother. If Mary thought our prayer was important enough, she would pass it on to God.
My step-son's eighth grade teacher had a statue of Shiva, and claimed to worship "the Destroyer".
I'm so glad he and I grew up in school systems (Michigan and California) that never allowed teacher led prayers.
And we can't forget the old chestnut: as long as there are algebra tests, there will be prayer in school!
I couldn't begin to enumerate all the out-and-out nonsense the nuns told us. I still remember Sr. Felicitas, in sixth grade, explaining that the Romans had known about crucifixion for centuries, but it was such a horrible death that they saved it up for Jesus, who was the only person in history to have been crucified. Looking back, I'm amazed I got through grade school with my mind intact (to the extent that it is).
Only Jesus was crucified? Guess she never heard about the slave revolt led by Spartacus before Jesus was born. 6000 survivors of that slave revolt were crucified from Capua to Rome, though Spartacus' body was never found in the final battle.
That nun needed a history lesson on crucifixion. Macedonians, Persians and Carthaginians all used it before the Romans.
Equally to the point, the bible says quite clearly that two other criminals were crucified with Jesus. But pointing out the holes in what they told us only got us hit, so we learned pretty quickly to keep our mouths shut.
I've probably said this before, but I heard a story where a nun used to leave the class unsupervised, draw a circle on the blackboard and say that if they talked they'd be sucked through straight to hell.
I don't find this unbelievable given that I used to sit in front of a bunch of teaching nuns in a large lecture theatre years ago, some of the stories they told would curl your pubes.
OT: An opossum got into my bedroom last night. It took 6 calls to find someone willing to come remove the animal before this morning. $300 including the after hours fee.
Then I woke up this morning to find the thermostat dark and the house warm. After over an hour and a second call, finally got the AC company to call me back. They'll be here 'sometime' today. Did I mention it's expected to get to 105F today?
The opossum got in because the vent hose for my portable AC unit in the bedroom (I like to sleep in the 60s) came loose. I've been in there the last couple of hours. I don't have a temperature gauge in here, but I'd peg the living room at about the mid 80s right now. Not comfortable, but not miserable.
while I was typing, AC guy called, he's on his way.
"God's reach does not stop at the schoolhouse gates."
Hey, Matty: Your imaginary deity's reach apparently stops outside the doors of his own houses of worship while there's a mass shooting going on inside, the shooters being his own followers.
"God's reach does not stop at the schoolhouse gates."
Right. Tell it to the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh ... and before you get all bent, allow me to remind you that, if he actually existed, Jesus was a Jew.
I need to say something else here. My best friend, a high-end audio salesman, has a customer in Pittsburgh with whom we are both friends. She is a neat woman who loves good music and good sound reproduction ... and she is a member of the Tree of Life Synagogue. When we heard of that incident, both my friend and I were sick to learn it, because our friend could have been one of those who were victimized.
I can't tell you what it means to me to know that she wasn't.
One of my good friends' brother-in-law is a rabbi there. We had some tense moments till we learned he wasn't one of the victims. The more so since the Tree of Life is about five minutes from where I live.
"ππ’π πππ’ππ‘ππ¦βπ πππ’πππ‘πππ ππππππ¦ πππππππ π π‘π’ππππ‘π πππ ππππ’ππ‘π¦ ππππ ππππ¦πππ π€βπππ ππππππ π ππ¦ ππππππ‘πππ πππππππππ‘π πΏπΊπ΅π πππ πππ‘π-πβππ‘π ππππππππππ,β
David Duke, eat your heart out. The right now has Matt "The little supremacist that could" Gaetz. I think I Klan, I think I Klan...
That "I think I Klan" business is utterly horrid ... but boy, is it on point!
Right? He's saying stuff that could literally have been said by southern white Klansmen politicians in the 40s and 50s.
My only problem is "Does Matt Gaetz think?" There is a lot of evidence on one side of that issue, and only a scat amount of antidotal stories on the other.
Oh, stipulated: him, MTG, Boebert, too many others to count.
βGodβs reach does not stop at the schoolhouse gates.β β Gaetz
What he meant to say is βwhite Christian nationalismβs reach does not stop at the schoolhouse gates.β
Nor does it stop at the doctorβs exam room door, or a personβs front door, or anyoneβs mind. We are all going to be facing white Christian nationalist attacks in all aspects of our lives, we already have been seeing the trickles of the flood since Roe at least. We are coming to the dam breaking.
Or we can repair the dam now.
The weirdest thing about that quote is that it's an argument *against* the need for school prayer.
'You're right, Matt. He's already in there and can hear the students just fine."
God's invisible reach never reaches anyone...
Maybe Rep. Gaetz should spend an equal amount of energy seeing that firearms DO stop at the schoolhouse gates. Ditto for the deity he worships.
Won't somebody think of the children?
Not like that though Gaetz.
Question mark after the third word, strike the remainder of the sentence.
Answer: No.
Matt Gaetz. Living proof there is no god.
Or that there is and he has an equally perverse sense of humor.
We already have the platypus. He doesn't need to keep beating the horse.
Since it is already completely legal to pray in school, there are only two functions this law would serve- if it had a snowball's chance in Florida of passing:
1: To allow students with batshit beliefs to disrupt science, history, and any other class or lesson they object to with total impunity.
2: To allow conservative students and staff to use their beliefs as a cudgel to bully LGBTQ and other minority students and staff back into the closet or out of a job- again, with total impunity.
Matt Gaetz? Is this the accused pedophile Matt Gaetz? The one who used Venmo to pay for sex with underage girls? That Matt Gaetz? Just want to make sure weβre talking about the same person here.
When Matt Gaetz says pray he is really saying prey. He wants to allow himself to prey in schools.
I keep being told that I'm shrill and hyperbolic about this nation's match towards fascism...
Then there's Matt and I'm at least comforted that I'm not delusional.
I keep being told I'm too pessimistic and cynical for that same reason.
That came after I squelched myself.
At least youβre called shrill and hyperbolic over something other than your gender.
I would never say youβre being hyperbolic, I see it too.
I nearly lost m a h s h e i t e in 2016 on time. At work. Had to bear down on my emotions but bloody hell, fekkin' Nazis are taking over my country!
You know the old paradox about "the marching Chinese"? It says that if the population of China started marching two by two past a counting point, the end would never be reached because they'd reproduce fast enough to make it impossible. I'm starting to think that's the case with our native-grown American christofascists.
Like a virus.
β
β Like β a virus, or a cancer.
β
Then this will just make your day.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-five-elements-of-fascism
You mean fuel my nightmares?
That's the high octane nightmare fuel right there.
If Christianity is so great, there would be no need to enforce it on nonbelievers. Nonbelievers would embrace it willingly, right?
That it is not gladly adopted points many fingers at all the weaknesses of the Cult of the Cross.
I'm feeling a prayer coming on now...
Praise Jibbers, may His sandwich toppings be plentiful and tasty
And I feel a quote coming on, to wit:
πβππ π ππππππππ ππ ππππ, πΌ πππππππ£π ππ‘ π€πππ π π’πππππ‘ ππ‘π πππ; πππ π€βππ ππ‘ ππππ πππ‘ π π’πππππ‘ ππ‘π πππ, πππ πΊππ ππππ πππ‘ ππππ π‘π π π’πππππ‘ ππ‘, π π π‘βππ‘ ππ‘π ππππππ π πππ πππ πππππππ π‘π ππππ πππ π‘βπ βπππ ππ π‘βπ πππ£ππ πππ€ππ, 'π‘ππ π π πππ, πΌ πππππβπππ, ππ ππ‘π πππππ π πππ πππ.
-- Benjamin Franklin
May the lettuce on your burger never wilt..
He ordains that we βͺβͺhave it our wayβͺβͺ
I guess god and burger king are pretty similar
Burger King and Christianity are both homes for whoppers.
π
Because the person who made up god asserted this made up entity should be enforced.. convenient... But still not as good as Stephen Kings made up characters.
Not even our monumentally corrupt Supreme Court is going to sign off on this idiocy. This is a solution in search of a problem. School prayer doesn't accomplish a damned thing, and never did. It is NEVER the job of the public schools, paid for with everyone's tax dollars, to backstop anyone's religion. This is all just gas lighting on Gaetz's part. He can't be stupid enough to think this will pass, but he can go back to the evangelicals in his district and claim he tried. Few things disgust me more than politicians on a moral crusade.
I wouldn't put it past them. Thomas has had some of his very dirty laundry aired out and hasn't faced an iota of consequences, and it's not like the Democrats are going to be able to to either expand the court or excise the fucking Christian tumors on it.
Plus, with 2024 coming around the corner they're looking for slam dunk "fuck you, libs!" Shit to play to their base. And if the election ends up going to SCOTUS there's a zero percent chance they don't throw all precedent out and install trump in office, so they're even more immune to consequences than normal.
He needs to be impeached and removed from the bench. Unfortunately, Republicans value party loyalty far more than their country.
All the conservative justices do. The only way Republicans can win elections is by using the electoral college to cheat. None of them are legitimate.
Never underestimate what this court will do.
π ππππ : "Matt Gaetz π ππππ‘βπππ π ππππ‘βπππ unconstitutional".
Ah another day that ends in 'y'.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends
So, oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
The shocking thing here is that I don't have that track on my music disc.
It's stored in my head and always available.
If you are within a ten mile radius of me, you will hear me singing it. Itβs the only song I sing out loud in front of people. Since I canβt sing and that song fits well with that fact.
I deliberately try to do it in her raspy voice. :)
I really hope you sing better than me. People tend to run away when I start singing. Some call it torture.
DM makes dogs howling in pain when she sing.
I only sing at rock concerts where no one else can hear me.
I really donβt. My kids tried to cover my mouth whenever I sang to them as babies.
Mine too.
OT, I saw the final season of Disenchantment is coming out in september.
Now I have it on my server. Singing might be heard.
Oh lord.
My gift to anyone within earshot is not singing. I have a voice that would make the tide go out.
Which doesnβt stop me from singing while I cook. Donβt want to hear me sing? Stay out of the kitchen!
I agree, i could use a winning lottery ticket. Come on God, I want to believe...
*Wobble to the nearest window*
Still no civil war or any major catastrophe in my country. Must be all the forced prayers in public schools.
Weebles wobble but they don't fall down.
https://youtu.be/dFzhjnjXc2o
I have my kids' Weebles from 30-some years ago tucked away in the attic slowly disintegrating from the heat.
In Norway most schools (1-6th grade) used to force praying to Jahve/Christ before lunch. That thankfully ended some 30-40 years ago.
So, if someone wants to start praying out loud during a test and disrupts things for everyone else that's ok???
Exactly. A student can completely disrupt a class, and if the teacher tries to rein them in, they can sue the teacher for it. Or the reverse: a teacher can spend the entire class praying and proselityzing instead of teaching, and if a student or their boss objects, that teacher can sue them, personally, for it.
It's killing two birds with one stone. He gets proselytization into schools AND destroys public education at the same time.
I tend to think not. Praying out loud in that fashion would likely be construed as "disruptive behavior" in a classroom setting, and I suspect that most if not all schools have rules and regulations regarding such.
I could be fulla beans, too, but in this case, I don't think so.
Reread the proposed law: Gaetz makes no exception for prayer that is disruptive. It's protected too. And I absolutely think that's intentional. The 'any person/under any statute/any limitation' construction is there, intentionally, to prevent administrators from creating reasonable exceptions.
That's because fundies know the 'power to create reasonable exceptions' would be used to prevent the proselytization they want to do. It's analogous in some ways to the abortion issue, where "exception for the woman's health" is rejected the same way a "exception for disruptive behavior" is rejected here. Because they (correctly) don't believe a lot of doctors (or teachers) would carry out their far right agenda on their own.Therefore, the right must force them to do so.
Okay. Let's see how Gaetz feels when a Muslim kid breaks out his prayer blanket in the middle of a math test, aims himself at Mecca, and starts in.
Gaetz will change his tune so fast, it'll make that kid's head swim!
He might, if that would ever happen. But it's so unlikely Gaetz and his type will happily bet their reputation and political career on never having to change their tune.
First because as Hemant said, this is political theater, and the bill has no chance of passing.
But second because even if it did, Gaetz can count on lopsided enforcement and lopsided judicial rulings to always favor christians. A muslim kid would be prevented by administrators and their suit would be thrown out. While a christian kid will usually be supported by administrators, and in cases where they aren't, the kid would win their suit.
It's very much like stand your ground rules. On paper, everything's equal. But white supremacists love those laws because they know that the reality of how they are enforced does not, and will not, match the on paper fairness.
The Muslim kid disrupting class by praying to Mecca would more likely result in the "school resource officer" shooting him.
But, but it's only prayer if it's Christian!
Checkmate heathens!
Inshallah.
Hail Satan!
Just as a note, it's entirely possible this bill doesn't have any exceptions because Gaetz doesn't actually want it to pass. If/when it doesn't make the cut, he can claim it as both an effort to 'fix' the 'problem' and Ye Olde Christian Persecution at the same time; it wouldn't surprise me if this is what Gaetz is actually after.
Mind, I can't really prove that, but it's hard to unsee, isn't it?
I've noticed the enthusiasm for school prayer drops off in a hurry if someone suggests the prayer be Islamic.
Allahu Akbar!
https://tenor.com/yfxE.gif
A parochial school would quickly shut down such anarchistic supplicant behavior. Its cult 101 - cult followers must follow the leader's interpretation of correct supplication to them and the leader's vision of the divine. Try that in a small church. Kinda catchy. Someone should write a song about that.
Why is this asshat not in prison?
Republican lawmaker
In February, the (In)Justice Department formally decided NOT to press charges against him.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/matt-gaetz-justice-department-no-charges-sex-trafficking-investigation/
Oh FFS.
My third grade teacher told us that God was so busy listening to prayers from around the world, that we should pray to the Holy Mother. If Mary thought our prayer was important enough, she would pass it on to God.
My step-son's eighth grade teacher had a statue of Shiva, and claimed to worship "the Destroyer".
I'm so glad he and I grew up in school systems (Michigan and California) that never allowed teacher led prayers.
And we can't forget the old chestnut: as long as there are algebra tests, there will be prayer in school!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRpAANsoG8I
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destroyer_(novel_series)#Description
I couldn't begin to enumerate all the out-and-out nonsense the nuns told us. I still remember Sr. Felicitas, in sixth grade, explaining that the Romans had known about crucifixion for centuries, but it was such a horrible death that they saved it up for Jesus, who was the only person in history to have been crucified. Looking back, I'm amazed I got through grade school with my mind intact (to the extent that it is).
Only Jesus was crucified? Guess she never heard about the slave revolt led by Spartacus before Jesus was born. 6000 survivors of that slave revolt were crucified from Capua to Rome, though Spartacus' body was never found in the final battle.
That nun needed a history lesson on crucifixion. Macedonians, Persians and Carthaginians all used it before the Romans.
Not in the babble so it's wrong.
Neither are guns but Christians love their weapons more than their god(s).
Let start a list of all non christian inventions they love to use so much.
Beer, wine, silk, compass, fireworks, hours, months' names, stirrups...
Empathy
The Internet. They're all over it.
Modern medicine. When Christians find that prayer doesn't work to heal them it's real, science-based healthcare they seek.
Equally to the point, the bible says quite clearly that two other criminals were crucified with Jesus. But pointing out the holes in what they told us only got us hit, so we learned pretty quickly to keep our mouths shut.
Their attempts at suppression only delayed the inevitable.
I've probably said this before, but I heard a story where a nun used to leave the class unsupervised, draw a circle on the blackboard and say that if they talked they'd be sucked through straight to hell.
I don't find this unbelievable given that I used to sit in front of a bunch of teaching nuns in a large lecture theatre years ago, some of the stories they told would curl your pubes.
"non-used" Autocorrect hell?
I think Mary is too busy too.
OT: An opossum got into my bedroom last night. It took 6 calls to find someone willing to come remove the animal before this morning. $300 including the after hours fee.
Then I woke up this morning to find the thermostat dark and the house warm. After over an hour and a second call, finally got the AC company to call me back. They'll be here 'sometime' today. Did I mention it's expected to get to 105F today?
I would have removed the opossums for free, although my travel expenses would be well over $300.
As for the AC, unless turning it off then back on again works, I would be useless.
Make sure you hydrate and stay in the shade if you can. It's only 11 AM here and already 96; I really don't recommend it to anyone.
The opossum got in because the vent hose for my portable AC unit in the bedroom (I like to sleep in the 60s) came loose. I've been in there the last couple of hours. I don't have a temperature gauge in here, but I'd peg the living room at about the mid 80s right now. Not comfortable, but not miserable.
while I was typing, AC guy called, he's on his way.
Being such a cool guy does you no good, huh?
"God's reach does not stop at the schoolhouse gates."
Hey, Matty: Your imaginary deity's reach apparently stops outside the doors of his own houses of worship while there's a mass shooting going on inside, the shooters being his own followers.
"God's reach does not stop at the schoolhouse gates."
Right. Tell it to the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh ... and before you get all bent, allow me to remind you that, if he actually existed, Jesus was a Jew.
I need to say something else here. My best friend, a high-end audio salesman, has a customer in Pittsburgh with whom we are both friends. She is a neat woman who loves good music and good sound reproduction ... and she is a member of the Tree of Life Synagogue. When we heard of that incident, both my friend and I were sick to learn it, because our friend could have been one of those who were victimized.
I can't tell you what it means to me to know that she wasn't.
One of my good friends' brother-in-law is a rabbi there. We had some tense moments till we learned he wasn't one of the victims. The more so since the Tree of Life is about five minutes from where I live.
I too have a Jewish friend in Pittsburgh. Not a member of Tree of Life (wrong side of some river) but I didnβt know that at the time.