AZ GQP Legislators Ignore Critical Issues For Christian Right Culture War Issues

There are only two critical issues confronting the Arizona legislature this session: (1) addressing our water supplies due to an ongoing mega drought and climate change; and (2) addressing the “fiscal cliff” our idiot Republican legislators created for our public school system when they tried to reverse the will of the voters in passing the Invest In Ed initiative, in order to give their wealthy plutocrat campaign donors another unnecessary tax cut. That’s it. Deal with these two critical issues honestly and fairly, and everyone can call this session a success and go home within 100 days.

Instead of dealing with these critical issues, the Sedition Party legislators are fixated on the Big Lie and stealing elections, and engaging in culture war issues that only the white Christian Nationalist GQP crazy base foams at the mouth over. You can’t spell crazy without the “R-AZ.” Let’s look at the latter.

You can bet that Arizona’s unelected “31st Senator,” Cathi Herrod, from the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) is behind these hateful bills. CAP has a long, shameful history of hating on the gays.

The fascist book banners are up first. Republicans advance bill banning descriptions of sex, homosexuality in Arizona schools:

Republicans on Tuesday backed a bill that would ban books like “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” “1984” and “The Great Gatsby” from Arizona schools because they contain frank descriptions of sex and sexuality, and that critics say would effectively make it illegal to teach about homosexuality.

Seriously? When I was in high school back in the early 1970s, each of these books was part of the required reading in high school English classes, when they still cared about developing critical thinking. So was Fahrenheit 451, appropos about a dystopian future American society where books are outlawed and “firemen” burn any books that are found.

The legislation bans schools from teaching or directing students to study any material that is “sexually explicit,” which the bill defines as “masturbation, homosexuality, sexual intercourse or physical contact with a person’s clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks or if such person is female, breast.”

An amendment was added to the bill by Rep. Michelle Udall, R-Mesa, that allowed for classical literature, early American literature and literature needed for college credit to still be allowed — but only with parental consent.

“We didn’t want it to get overly burdensome and exempt literature that is important,” Udall said, adding that they still wanted to give parents the ability to “opt out” of the literature with sexually explicit material.

UPDATE:

You can’t ban books and then scream about cancel culture.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) January 28, 2022

“If you ban a book, the ideas in it will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

— Obi-Wan, today

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) January 28, 2022

Although Udall repeatedly described her amendment as a way for parents to opt their children out of “explicit” schoolwork, it actually requires parents to opt their children into the work — meaning it would be illegal to teach to all students by default.

Oy. This woman has some serious sexual hangups that she is projecting onto students. Back in 2019, she was so concerned by the proliferation of “sexually toxic” material online that she proposed a bill to declare pornography a public health crisis. Now she is back this year with a bill to bar the sale of any computer, smartphone or tablet in Arizona if it doesn’t include a porn filter that would block children from accessing “harmful content,” and would hold them criminally liable if they fail to do so. Damn Michelle, if you have an internet porn addiction don’t assume that everyone else does. Get help for your own addiction.

But wait! This is not just a fascist book banning bill, oh no. “The legislation would also seemingly ban all sex education in Arizona schools.”

Critics of House Bill 2495 said they worry that the inclusion of homosexuality deems that any mention of the LGBT community — whether sexual or not — would be “explicit,” and thus illegal.

“This is about acts of homosexuality, not being a homosexual,” said Rep. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, the bill’s sponsor. [Just a reminder, this is the seditious insurrectionst who is a fake Republican elector who signed his name to a forged election certification under investigate by the DOJ.]

This an attempt to relitigate past legislative fights they lost.

For 18 years, Arizona law prohibited the teaching or discussion of homosexuality in the classroom until a 2019 bipartisan effort repealed the “No Promo Homo” law, which banned HIV/AIDS instruction in schools that “promotes a homosexual lifestyle.”

[T]he bill appears to be a response to fears of comprehensive sex education that gripped Republican activists and lawmakers back in 2019.

In 2019, Rusty Bowers, the Republican speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, pointed to a book titled “It’s Perfectly Normal” when attacking comprehensive sex education. Other elected officials called for the banning of the book, as well.

The book is aimed at teaching children 10 and older about sexual health, emotional health and relationships. It contains sections on puberty, pregnancy and sexual orientation, as well as full-color illustrations of naked people.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Hoffman presented images from the book he said he had to clear with the Arizona Department of Public Safety and legislative attorneys before printing. One image was a cartoon of a man and woman having sex, while others were cartoons of a boy masturbating.

The images Hoffman presented are the same as those used by the SPLC designated anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Watch International and their affiliate, the Protect Arizona Children Coalition, to rally against comprehensive sex education.

Bowers spoke at a forum in 2019 that featured a video showing the same images Hoffman displayed.

The 1994 book has been a frequent target of bans for its depictions of puberty, sex and masturbation. When he criticized it in 2019, Bowers did not present proof that the book was in circulation at any Arizona schools.

The book is so often the subject of attacks that the book’s author sits on the board of the National Coalition Against Censorship.

And the Phoenix New Times reported in 2019 that there was no evidence the book was being used anywhere in the state. 

So another totally fabricated boogeyman for right-wing culture war politics. Always fighting straw men to grift off the rubes.

Hoffman cited a National Institute for Health study claiming that exposure to sexually explicit material is dangerous for children and leads to adverse outcomes.

The Arizona Mirror attempted to find the research Hoffman was referencing but could not. The only longitudinal study on the NIH website mentioning adolescents and pornography stated that there was “no evidence that pornography use contributes to decreased subjective well-being in adolescent men.”

However, the study did conclude that in female adolescents it caused “dysregulated mood and self-evaluation.” The study also noted that many studies on the issue have diverging findings and that more research is needed.

Hoffman also claimed the American Bar Association agrees on the danger that sexually explicit content has on children. However, the Mirror could find only a guest opinion which “should not be construed as representing” the position of the association shared his opinion on the matter and discussed the issues of ease of acces to online pornography and not explicit content in schools.

These idiots do know that same-sex marriage has been constitutionally recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court since 2015? (Yes, I am aware they would like to reverse this.) There are children in school being raised by same-sex parents. Where is the sensitivity to these students? Portraying their parents as something evil or abhorent and not to be presented in literature is just gratuitous cruelty to these children. So much for their concern about “cancel culture.” What they mean is canceling racist and bigoted white Christian Nationalists. They are more than happy to cancel anyone who is not a fundamentalist white Chrisitan Nationalist who desires a theocracy in this country.

Jeanne Casteen, the executive director of the Arizona Secular Coalition and a former teacher, spoke about how the bill could impact works of literature that have been classics for years, such as “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.” Casteen was also concerned about other implications the bill could have.

“We still face a teacher retention crisis the likes of which we have never seen before,” she said, adding that this could see more teachers and other educators deciding to flee. She also wondered if this bill would see the Bible being banned due to its more explicit verses. [Just sayin’. Amazing sex scenes in the Bible.]

Lobbyist Rebecca Beebe said the Arizona Association of School Administrators opposes the bill in part because it includes homosexuality as an “explicit” subject.

“We are not trying to hide things from parents or certainly not trying to show these things to children,” she said of explicit images and parents’ concerns that school administrators are nefariously trying to hide explicit content.

Beebe noted state law already prohibits schools from displaying sexual acts to children.

But one legislator with a history of backing anti-LGBTQ legislation and making transphobic statements denoucned the opposition to the bill to a sinister “homosexual agenda.”

“In today’s committee, the homosexuality agenda is being pushed forward,” Rep. John Fillmore, R-Apache Junction, said. “Members of that community want us to come out and celebrate it.”  [Just a reminder, this is the seditous insurrectionist sponsoring a bill that would allow the Arizona legislature to overturn free and fair elections and reject the will of the voters if the election does not go his way.]

“That agenda is being pushed forward, and the sex shouldn’t be in the schools at all,” he added.

During his explanation of his vote Hernandez shot back at his colleague’s comments.

“The LGBTQ agenda is simple: to be treated just like every other Arizonan,” Hernandez said.

But wait! It gets worse. GQP legislators want to subject gay students to potential physical violence from their parents, and being kicked out on the streets because they are gay. And they want to require teachers to out these students. GOP bill would force teachers to out LGBTQ students to parents:

Arizona Republicans this week lined up behind a measure that would discipline teachers and open them up to lawsuits if they don’t tell parents everything a student tells them — even if the student confides that he or she is gay or transgender.

The legislation, House Bill 2161, would make it illegal for a government employee to withhold information that is “relevant to the physical, emotional or mental health of the parent’s child,” and specifically prevents teachers from withholding information about a student’s “purported gender identity” or a request to transition to a gender other than the “student’s biological sex.”

The bill would allow parents to sue school districts if teachers don’t comply.

Forcing her to snitch on those kids and PUT THEM IN DANGER is about as abhorrent as it gets.

— Jim Small (@JimSmall) January 27, 2022

Rep. Steve Kaiser, R-Phoenix, the bill’s sponsor, argued in the House Education Committee on Jan. 25 that the aim of the legislation is to reign in surveys sent out by schools that have made headlines in a number of states and locally.The bill also aims to allow parents additional access to certain medical records.

---

Kaiser initially said the bill was created via a “stakeholder group” and his “own inherent passion” for the issue. But when Hernandez pressed him on which stakeholders were involved in drafting the bill, Kaiser admitted he didn’t work with education groups or teachers, but with anti-LGBTQ advocacy groups — chief among them the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative Christian lobbying organization that has pushed numerous controversial and bigoted bills since forming in 1995. CAP holds sway with most Republican lawmakers and Gov. Doug Ducey, and is widely considered one of the most powerful lobbying groups at the state Capitol.

The idea of "limited government" has always been a stalking horse for "limiting government to impose our will on those we despise." https://t.co/YNNGTzzjFo

— Jim Small (@JimSmall) January 27, 2022

Another stakeholder that Kaiser consulted is Family Watch International, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group. That group also has its fingerprints on another piece of legislation that would ban any books that have “sexually explicit” content and that critics say would effectively make it illegal to teach about homosexuality. (See above).

I've covered the #azleg since 2004, and I'm not shocked by much.

This is shocking. And horrifying. https://t.co/eSqkvieKKL

— Jim Small (@JimSmall) January 27, 2022

Supporters of the bill said it was necessary to punish teachers in order to bring transparency to schools, who they said have been asking “inappropriate questions.” Some said the $500 fine for school districts in the bill’s language was not large enough, a thought echoed by Rep. John Fillmore, R-Apache Junction, who said that was a “drop in the bucket” for a school district and asked Kaiser if he’d agree to increase the amount.

Jeanne Casteen, the executive director of the Arizona Secular Coalition and a former teacher, worried about how the reporting function of the bill would impact child abuse. Teachers are mandatory reporters, and Casteen said that every time she had to report child abuse, it was being inflicted by a parent. Under Kaiser’s bill, she said, a teacher would also have to notify the parents — the likely abusers — that the child informed them of the abuse.

“I keep hearing about parental rights, but what about the rights of these students?” Casteen said.

One of the speakers for the other side was Nicole Eidson with a parent group called “Moms for Liberty” known for frequenting Chandler Unified School District meetings and complaining about alleged racism education and training. [Critical Race Theory. I will get to this fraud in another post.]

“I’ve been hearing a lot about that kids have rights, but in my household, I gotta say, it is a dictatorship,” Eidson said[.]

This far-right organization is another “Kochtopus” anti-public education front group. Unmasking Moms for Liberty:

Moms for Liberty presents itself as a grassroots effort led by parents, but in reality the organization is well-connected with a variety of Republican politicians and entities.

* * *

Moms for Liberty also enjoys the partnership and support of a number of right-wing and even far-right organizations. The organization has partnered with Parents Defending Education, a group of “corporate school privatizers going hard right to attack school boards, superintendents, principals, and teachers.” PDE President Nicole Neily has been described as a “veteran political operative affiliated with the Koch network.” According to Justice’s Facebook post, Moms for Liberty partnered with PDE in May.

* * *

Moms for Liberty also appears to be affiliated with — or at least a frequent promoter of — the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing Koch-funded think tank with a history of attempting to influence public education.

The Heritage Foundation has spent much of 2021 using scare tactics to boost opposition to CRT, publishing commentary, reports, and even a legislation tracker on the issue.

* * *

It’s critical to accurately report on Moms for Liberty (and affiliated groups) by seriously examining the organization’s high-profile ties to right-wing elected officials, institutions, and media outlets. Without the spotlight of responsible media, the organization will continue to brand itself as ordinary moms banding together to fight for “parental liberties,” when it’s clear that powerful people and institutions on the right are actually pulling the strings.

Now you know.