Arkansas is firing public librarians for resisting book bans

... and the fact that the Radical Right has now moved beyond school libraries to public libraries is not even the scary part of the story.

The scary part is the River Valley City Elders (better known in my mind Doddering Old Guys of the Republic of Gilead):

The problem was that Grzymala respected all library patrons, even those of the LGBTQ community so she offered books they too wanted to read. That did not go over well with the new library board chairman, Tammi Hamby, or the frankly scary River Valley City Elders, the organization with the mascot lion and a claim that the group’s “watchmen” spiritually govern the gates of the valley’s cities.

Here they are in all their glory:

Hoo boy ... We are in some deep trouble.

Duval County Moms for Liberty now going after private religious schools

Moms for Lunacy respects no boundaries.

Here is the lesson plan that a vigilante lunatic mom posted on the Duval County Moms for Liberty Facebook page recently:

And here's a portion of the comments:

The thing is, the school in question is the highly-respected college-prep Episcopal School of Jacksonville, which apparently sincerely believes in its stated commitment to "small class size and an environment that is safe, achievement-oriented, supportive, and welcoming to all."

If you are somehow unaware, the Episcopal Church has an obviously Marxist-groomer-Woke-CRT perspective on America that warrior Moms for Lunacy are sworn to stamp out:

In the first century, Jesus of Nazareth inspired a movement. A community of people whose lives were centered on Jesus Christ and committed to living the way of God’s unconditional, unselfish, sacrificial, and redemptive love. As Episcopalians, we believe in a loving, liberating, and life-giving God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We believe in following the teachings of Jesus Christ, whose life, death and resurrection saved the world.

We have a legacy of inclusion, aspiring to tell and exemplify God’s love for every human being. Ordination and the offices of bishop, priest, and deacon are open to all without discrimination. Laypeople and clergy cooperate as leaders at all levels of our church. Leadership is a gift from God and can be expressed by all people in our church, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.

We believe that God loves us all – no exceptions.

More White people determining what Black kids are allowed to know about their history

These pictures are here because they will probably soon be illegal for schoolchildren in Florida, Virginia, North Dakota, Arkansas, and Mississippi to view them in their classes.

And just in case you think you're safe where you are, there are at least 18 states now with legal restrictions on teaching about Black history:

Soon, one suspects, you won't be able to discuss the enslavement of Black Americans as having anything to do with race, because, as Candace Owens's brother tells us, it didn't:

“It’s absolutely absurd because nobody really wants to get the real history of it. America was not founded on racism. Don’t get me wrong, yeah, there was slavery going on but slavery itself was not initially a racist thing. It never was about race initially, so to sit there and take it like America was founded on racism is a complete lie.” — Ty Smith

Or, when people speak about reparations, the radical right wants us to know that there should be reparations for the descendants of ... slave owners:

Yes, Black labor in the South contributed to an enormous amount of wealth for these plantation owners. … And when you say, "Who build something?" Well, who designed it, who was the architect, who financed it? Labor's just a part of it. — Jesse Waters

“When people talk about reparations, do they really want to have that conversation? Like it or not, slavery was legal. Their legal property was taken away from them after the Civil War, so you could make an argument that the people that are owed reparations are not only just Black people but also the people whose ‘property’ was taken away after the end of the Civil War.” — Larry Elder

The radical right wants you to believe that Black people weren't even the majority of people enslaved in early colonial history:

“Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.” — Liam Hogan

In fact, we should either just forget about the enslavement of Black Americans, or acknowledge that they should THANK US for the experience:

“Slavery was abolished a century and a half ago, nobody today has a grandparent who was a slave, and in that sense I think you reach a point where you need to move on.” — Mark Steyn

“Black people in America get special access to essential drugs, receive special federal funding due to race, and are first-in-line for every college and every job. America isn’t in debt to Black people, if anything it’s the other way around.” — Libertarian Party of New Hampshire

And maybe they'll even tie it to current events:

“There was no abortion happening when we had slaves.” — Candace Owens

Be clear here: they REALLY are serious about wiping out the history of American racism.

It didn't exist.

You're a CRT loving Marxist if you think so.

And America's public schools will soon not be allowed to teach it.

States now moving to criminalize the COVID-19 vaccine

If you could make this stuff up, nobody would believe you.

From Forbes:

If two Idaho state lawmakers get their way, it would become a criminal misdemeanor to administer a Covid-19 mRNA vaccine in Idaho.

This might seem to be a curiosity if North Dakota wasn't already breaking that ground:

House Bill 1200, introduced by Rep. Jeff Hoverson, R-Minot, passed in a 78-13 vote. The bill would ban colleges and universities from requiring or promoting COVID-19 shots for students, specifically exclude COVID-19 vaccines from the state's school immunization requirements, and extend the state's COVID-19 "vaccine passport" ban for another two years.

The "vaccine passport" ban prohibits state and local governments and businesses from requiring vaccination documents for access, funds or services. The ban passed in 2021 includes numerous exemptions for entities such as prisons, public health units and health care providers, among others.

Here's the thing: remember when making the individual decision to have or to reject the Covid-19 vaccine was the touchstone for "bodily autonomy" and a rallying cry for libertarians and the radical right?

I sure do.

Funny, now bodily autonomy doesn't apply to women's reproductive rights, the rights of trans people to control their own bodies, or -- apparently -- even your right to receive the Covid-19 vaccine if you think it's appropriate.

It IS important to watch and fight against what Metro Weekly describes as Ron DeSantis's "master class in white nationalism," but we cannot allow that to take all the air out of the room.

They are coming for EVERYTHING you hold dear.

Amazon sells it ... and "straight pride" lovers want you back in the closet

 

Sorta speaks for itself. As do the reviews.

I would never have known about these had not Amazon sent me an email suggesting that on my past record of purchases I might be interested. I am more than willing to share my last five years of purchases with you ... and then we can agree that AI is not yet ready for prime time.

Florida teachers' proud history, regardless of today's radical right destructors

Florida today is ground zero for the radical right's war on education, freedom of speech, and outright censorship, played out at every level from kindergarten to higher education by race-hustling, self-aggrandizing neo-fascists like Ron DeSantis and Christopher Rufo, aided an abetted by the willing dupes of Moms for Lunacy.

The administrative leadership in Florida's school districts has been seemingly cowed by this onslaught of State power, perhaps because the addiction to high salaries and great perks has become more important than the welfare of students to far too many of them. They seem, most days, to be in a race to see who can ban the most books or fire the most teachers (including substitutes) for exercising freedom of speech.

Likewise, the Florida teachers' union seems to be a theater of unearthly silence, which does make one wonder why it is still collecting dues out of its members' paychecks if it is not going to be their voice.

But in the long run, it is Florida teachers who will emerge (with or without their union) to lead the movement to re-infuse the soul of education and resistance to race-hustling fascism in the Sunshine State's schools.

How do I know that? Because they've done it before.

It's more than worth spending the $2.99 for a Kindle copy of Michael Gengler's We Can Do It: A Commmunity Takes on the Challenge of School Desegregation to discover the story of how teachers, attorneys, and community members in Alachua County and Gainesville came together in the 1960s to make integration work in the public schools.

It is not a neat, pretty story because such processes are rarely even neat and pretty. There are stumblings and ugly moments. But the picture that emerges is of teachers having a leadership role in helping their community get it right in implementing the mandates of Brown v Board of Education.

Things could have gone the other way back in 1964, because there were enough radical right race-hustling fascists out there in state government back then to tilt the balance.

It wasn't an easy time for those teachers, as Gengler tells us:

When the Supreme Court ordered Alachua County to fully desegregate student bodies and facilities in February 1970, the schools had to make major changes in curriculum, extracurricular activities, music programs, and so on. The secondary schools also had to respond to episodic but serious outbreaks of on-campus violence.

And he adds,

When problems arose, either from whites or blacks, the administrators, teachers, parents, and students, unprepared, would have to step up and show as much generosity of spirit and courage as was needed to overcome them. On the front lines of these changes were the teachers. Overarching all other lessons to be learned from this story, in my opinion, is the thinness of their resources and the strength of their dedication to public education.

This is a story worth reading, not just to celebrate that generosity of spirit and dedication of an event no forty years removed, but to realize that we can recapture it.

There were devout segregationists in power in this period, as there are radical right race-hustling, gay-baiting neo-fascists creating this crisis today FOR THEIR OWN POLITICAL PROFIT.

It used to be a given in America that you could assume good intentions on the other side of nearly any issue.

This is no longer true.

But it can be.

I am reminded of the words of Science Fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, who later became something of an mascot for right-wing libertarians and conservatives, but who wrote for a national audience in 1948 his essay This I Believe:

I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime.

I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses, in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land. I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.

If we remember to be these people, if we remember to believe in and support Florida teachers they will rise to the challenge -- again! -- to defeat the forces of darkness.

DO NOT F*CK with FLORIDA TEACHERS.

Police killings account for one of every 20 homicides in America -- can we discuss this yet?

From The Guardian:

Law enforcement officers killed at least 1,192 people in 2022, the highest number recorded in a decade, according to Mapping Police Violence, a prominent non-profit database of police killings. More than 1,100 people were killed by the police in both 2020 and 2021. The vast majority of these deaths were police shootings.

There were more than 25,000 total homicides in the US in 2020 and 26,000 in 2021, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). National data for 2022 is not yet available.

Police shooting deaths represented 5% of all gun homicides in 2020 and 2021, and total police killings represented nearly 5% of all homicides, according to the best available public data.

It's actually hilarious (in a truly noire sort of fashion) that GOP inquiries into the weaponization of government will not include the people, you know, using their weapons to kill people.

Far-right overreaction to books in schools predicted a decade ago ...

 ,,, by gifted cartoonist Jillian Tamaki in her SuperMutant Magic Academy ...

This would be funny, except that this is the kind of crap the right wing book-banners actually believe.

What Duval County Public Schools did not tell you about Tuesday's enhanced security precautions

This is what Duval County FL Public Schools is saying in the news media (this particular segment is from News4Jax.com) about enhanced security on the 5th anniversary of a major school shooting:

Five years after the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Duval County Public Schools on Tuesday will exercise enhanced security measures out of an abundance of caution, the district said in a message to families of students.

“Whenever such an anniversary occurs, threats and rumors of threats tend to increase,” the district said in a statement. “While we have not received any specific threats, we will always take steps to ensure the safety and security of our students and staff. Therefore, as a precaution, we will be conducting full screenings of students and their belongings as they enter our high school campuses. At middle schools, we will expand our use of random searches.”

Sounds all concerned and responsible about concern for the safety of the "our students and staff," huh?

Except that the "full screenings of students and their belongings as they enter our high school campuses" is going to be primarily conducted by teachers dragooned into "volunteering" to the do the searches:

Teachers say privately that they have also been "encouraged" to come out to weekend events (sports and clubs) to help with similar forms of security.

Because this is, of course, all "volunteer," the teachers are not being compensated for coming into school at 6:40 am or on the weekends to ... search student belongings for deadly weapons.

What could possibly go wrong?

Apparently, while deciding students don't get to read about Roberto Clemente facing racism (because racism doesn't exist, naturally), DCPS has now decided that they don't need extra security to look for deadly weapons because teachers!?

Thus we know exactly how deep is Florida's commitment both to teaching American History and to the safety of teachers ...

I received this as a screenshot, but I am willing to bet that the "form" you must download to sign probably also releases the district from any liability if, say, somebody with a knife or a gun in their bag decides to use it ...

THIS is how you fight book-banning "concerned parents" ...

 

h/t to Barista.net

A shout-out to the Glen Ridge Public Library Board of Trustees for voting UNANIMOUSLY to keep six YA LGBTQIA+ books available in public libraries.

When it came down to it, the eight residents of five households who had demanded the books be banned did not even have the courage to show up at the meeting.

How do you beat book-banning a-holes (assuming your Governor is not already a book-banning a-hole?)?

This is how:

Glen Ridge Public Library Board of Trustees had received 240 letters from community members and groups about the book ban attempt. More than 40 community members, leaders, librarians, educators, students, parents, elected officials, medical professionals and LGBTQIA+ advocates spoke out before the Board, with an additional 39 community members signed up to speak before the Board closed comments and began deliberations. ...

Glen Ridge resident Phil Johnson organized Glen Ridge United Against Book Bans, a dedicated group of parents, residents, clergy, and educators who fought the ban and brought awareness to the issue with a community response that included a petition signed by more than 2,900 Glen Ridge residents, as well as 300 yard signs displayed around the Borough and a rally that took place before the vote. Many of those who came out against the challenge Wednesday wore one of 300+ t-shirts designed by a local Glen Ridge artist, featuring the town’s signature lamps with a flame in Progress Pride colors, and created as part of Glen Ridge United’s efforts.

Glen Ridge United also announced it has created a fundraiser for the Friends of Glen Ridge Library.

Take note:

1. Show up in LARGE numbers so that the book banners cannot claim they speak for the people

2. If people cannot show up, gather names on petitions

3. Put up yard signs so that people can see the community is against censorship

4. Hold a public rally

5. Somebody step up and take charge

This was a public library, not a school library, so note two important points:

1. The book banners have expanded their targets, and after libraries will come brick-and-mortar and online bookstores, probably with a beginning argument for age requirements to buy certain books. 

2. What worked here WILL also work in a school district, but the book banners are ALREADY well-organized, so this is going to be a lot of work.

In removing Black citizens' right to vote on judges in Jackson, Mississippi GOP continues a steady march toward 1896

In John Carpenter's 1981 film, Escape from New York, he posited a city turned into a maximum security prison in 1997. Utilities were cut off, the bridges were mined, and the US Police Force kept anyone from ever getting out.

He was only off by 26 years and a few states.

Mississippi House Republicans have just sent the shooting script (HB 1020) for their latest magnum opus, There's No Escape from Jackson MS, to the GOP-controlled State Senate.

The bill provides for the creation of the "Capital Complex Improvement District," with new, unelected judges selected by only white officials (the MS Constitution otherwise requires judges to be elected), and expands the Capitol Police force in numbers and authority over the only predominantly white-occupied neighborhoods of America's blackest city.

The GOP answer to 10 -year-old girls forced to give birth is ... child marriage ...

 

Wyoming Republicans are losing their minds over a bill that would RAISE the marriage age to ... sixteen?!

Think I'm kidding?

The Wyoming Republican Party, however, is urging its constituents to oppose it not because the bill is too weak, but because it believed the bill stood to rob their constituents of constitutional rights...

Part of this reticence, it appears, comes from the religious group Wyoming Family Watch, which seems to have issued marching orders to those it helped elect:

Among other points, the letter argued that preventing children under 16 years old from marrying "denies the fundamental purpose of marriage," robbing teen parents from the ability to remain together under one roof for any children they might bear together—even though nothing in state law would prevent those children from co-parenting.

"Since young men and women may be physically capable of begetting and bearing children prior to the age of 16, marriage MUST remain open to them for the sake of those children," the post read. "The sad fact that physical maturity often does not match emotional and intellectual maturity is an indictment of our modern educational system. That is a problem that should be addressed. But we should not use it as an excuse to instantiate bad law."

In related news, Tennessee Republicans barely missed completely eliminating ANY age requirements for marriage.

Suddenly the absolute insistence on forced birth for 10 year olds begins to make a lot more (disturbing) sense.

Arranged and forced child marriages are far less common in the United States than you'd probably like to believe. According to World Population Review:

U.S. Child Marriage Facts

In the U.S., about 200,000 minors have married between 2000 and 2015. Of the 200,000 child marriages: 67% of the children were 17, 29% of the children were 16, 4% of the children were 15, less than 1% of children were 14 or under, and there were 51 cases of 13-year-olds getting married and 6 cases were of 12-year-olds. According to the Pew Research Center, child marriage is more common in the southern United States, including the states of West Virginia, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina. California and Nevada have high incidences of child marriage as well.

Some extreme cases of child marriage in the U.S. are:

• In 2010 in Idaho, a 65-year-old man married a 17-year-old girl
• In Alabama, a 74-year-old man married a 14-year-old girl
• In Tennessee, three 10-year-old girls married men ages 24, 25, and 31, respectively.
• The youngest boy to marry was an 11-year-old who married a 27-year-old woman in Tennessee in 2006

Looking at this, and keeping in mind general GOP support for maintaining (and even expanding) child marriage in America, it becomes evident that they've got a damn troublesome definition of "grooming" if this isn't included in it.

(Child marriage is completely prohibited by law in Delaware, by the way -- one of only four states.)

There is one major private organization out there fighting against the forced and arranged marriages of children in the United States: Unchained at Last.

According to Ron DeSantis, 54% of Americans (including 1/3 of Republicans) are WOKE!!!

 

In December 2022, Ron DeSantis' attorneys, in arguing why a judge should not halt the "Stop WOKE" Act, were required to provide a definition of "woke." Here is what they provided:

“DeSantis' lawyers were forced by the court to define "woke." The lead lawyer described it as "The belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them."

OOPS.

Turns out, that by that definition, Americans across the nation are "woke" by nearly a 2-1 margin.

Here's the money quote from the analysis of the new Yahoo News/YouGov poll on how many Americans believe (or don't) that systemic racism exists here:

Asked if there is “a problem with systemic racism in America,” nearly every demographic group says yes more often than not: Democrats (by a 63-point margin), Black Americans (by a 61-point margin), adults under 30 (by a 28-point margin), independents (by a 26-point margin) and even white Americans (by a 13-point margin). Overall, far more Americans say yes, the U.S. has a problem with systemic racism (54%) than say no, it does not (30%).

The only groups that say no more often than not are on the right: Republicans (by a 15-point margin) and Trump voters (by a 33-point margin).

If you think about it, this gets even worse for the far right.

Why?

It turns out that 33% of Republican and even 26% of Trump voters believe systemic racism is a problem in America today (see breakout results below)"

You get that?

According to Ron DeSantis, 33% of Republicans are "woke."

Duval County FL Moms 4 Liberty: violent images equating public health research with "grooming"?

 

It would be difficult to make things up that are either stranger or more repulsive than what's actually happening in the Jacksonville/Duval County FL area with respect to public education.

I'm not even sure if it's what they are doing that's more dangerous than how the right-wing is re-imagining the English language in a fashion that George Orwell predicted nearly eight decades ago.

A few cases in point: The Center for Disease Control's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which has been collecting data nationally since 2009 with no fanfare and little if any criticism because it presents some of the only coherent national data being collected regarding middle- and high-school students with respect to such issues as smoking, drug use, school safety, bullying, and ... yes ... sexual activity. It is given in two different forms -- one for middle-school students age 11-14 and one for high-school students age 15+.

Here's what's important to know about the YRBSS survey:

• Participation in the survey is optional for school districts in Florida, and there is no penalty in terms of Federal funding, etc., for opting out. Until very recently, 64 of the 69 districts did not participate.
• Parents in the five districts that do participate (which included Duval County Public School until just awhile back) are informed of the survey beforehand and offered the opportunity to opt their kids out.
• On the very first page of the survey, the instructions (see below) tell each student that she or he does not have to complete the survey or any question on the survey that makes them feel uncomfortable.

So let's get this straight: in order for any student to complete this survey, the district, the parents, and the student must ALL agree that they want to do it.

These points are important, because -- surprise, surprise -- once again the public is being lied to by the usual suspects.

Take Lloyd Brown of Eye on Jacksonville (please take him ... please), in his February 8, 2023 op-ed "Government groomers still at work." 

Science Fiction from the 1970's (the far right's kryptonite) ... Episode 1: John Varley's "Picnic on Nearside"

OR, the casualness of transsexuality, and why you aren't even ready for 1974 ...

It's really important to know that the creator of the modern techno-thriller, Tom Clancy, considered John Varley to be "the best writer in America."

Why?

Because it's important to remember that there was a time when a conservative like Clancy (who would nonetheless be called a RINO today) could appreciate the imagination and verve of a writer like Varley, who was certainly about as far away from Clancy on the political spectrum as it was possible to be. 

That time is not today. Reading John Varley would almost certainly cause any elected GOP leader or conservative journalist/clown to have a brain aneurysm and then call Moms for Liberty to ensure nobody under the age of 65 ever got to read his books again.

Fortunately, the Tucker Carlsons and Christopher Rufos of the nation have no chance against Varley.

He started writing SF in 1974, with the publication of the short story "Picnic on Nearside," which I will get to in a minute. I read it first as a high school junior. By 1979 he had performed a trifecta that few others in the field have achieved, winning the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards for the novella "The Persistence of Vision," about a self-sustaining society populated exclusively by people both blind and deaf.

He's won the Hugo three times, the Nebula twice, and the Locus ten times. His "Eight Worlds" stories, his Gaean Trilogy, and his Thunder and Lightning trilogy are undisputed classics, and exist in entirely too many copies for the book banners to ever manage to eradicate them.

But it all started in 1974 with "Picnic on Paradise," which is possibly the most important part.

It was his first published short story, and far from his best work. It's important to keep that in mind, because John Varley started so far ahead of the pack that he never had to look back over his shoulder. The casual barrage of concepts he threw off in that inaugural story was as breathtaking then as it would be considered "woke," "grooming," and "degenerate" today; I think he knows that and is proud of it.

Yet to explain this I must digress again. (I'll get to the story, I promise.)

Does NCC DE Moms for Liberty support rifling through teachers' desks to find material to report them?

A really intriguing follow-up to my earlier post on Duval County Florida Public Schools pulling the biographies of Rosa Parks, Hank Aaron, and Sonia Sotomayor off school library shelves:

A reader responded by sharing this post on the Moms for Liberty Duval County Facebook page (I put in a link but unless you can convince them to let you join it's "private"):

This raises some really important questions:

• Is Moms for Liberty in Duval County (and elsewhere) sending substitute teachers or parent volunteers into the schools with the specific mission of spying on, and reporting teachers?
• Is a substitute teacher supposed to be rifling through the real teacher's papers on their desk to look for "incriminating" evidence? 
• If that substitute was really concerned, wouldn't that person have more correctly brought it to the attention of the building principal rather than seek the right-wing glory of a "gotcha" moment?
• And -- most important for local readers -- is this the kind of tactic that the New Castle County Chapter of Moms for Liberty supports? This page has been in existence for 30 weeks and so far only attracted 83 members with this lovely header:

We should probably also ask NCC M4L if they support categorizing the magazine and organization Learning for Justice (which has been a respected provider of lesson material about people of color since 1992) as a "leftist groomer magazine."

Here, by the way, is the article that substitute teacher was apparently more interested in than managing her assigned classroom:

There is a critically important legal point to be made here: Learning for Justice is a magazine for teachers, a resource to be used in planning, and the article itself was meant to educate teachers nationwide who might be considering such a lesson. Neither the magazine nor the article is published to be shared directly with elementary school students.

Even under the existing authoritarian Florida law, teacher reading material that is not intended to be passed out to students is NOT illegal. It doesn't violate any law or policy in Florida ... unless Governor DeSantis intends to police adult reading material (which, now that he is in a "damn, I can go lower" pissing contest with Donald Trump for the GOP nomination, might be coming soon).

If you'd personally like to ask that questions of the NCC Moms for Liberty leadership, here's how: they put links to their email right on their website (so nobody can get mad at me for pointing that out).

Finally, I do owe one debt of gratitude to Moms for Liberty: I had never seen Learning for Justice before.

It's a great resource for teachers concerned with their students learning in an inclusive environment (at least until the Thought Police arrive). It's free, and I paged through about a dozen top-flight articles.

To reiterate, here's where you find Learning for Justice. Go give them some love.

If hospital employees refuse treatment to queers (or just curse them), the Montana House says, "Okie Dokie, buddy!"

 

The new Hypocrite's Oath for practicing medicine in Montana has moved one step closer to being the law of the State.

From LGBTQ Nation (citing the Montana Free Press):

Montana’s Republican-led state House has approved a so-called “medical conscience bill” that would allow medical providers to refuse services based on “ethical, moral, or religious beliefs or principles,” even in emergencies. The bill now requires a third House vote before proceeding to the state’s Republican-led Senate.

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Amy Regier (R), has specifically said she authored it to allow medical professionals to refuse abortions, medical marijuana, physician-assisted euthanasia, and gender-affirming care for transgender people, all things that Regier called “lifestyle and elective procedures" ...

Regier promises that her bill, known as H.B. 303: Implement Medical Ethics and Diversity Act, would only apply to “narrow circumstances” and wouldn’t lead to large-scale discrimination against LGBTQ+ patients.

However, the bill’s text says that it would allow basically any individual involved in healthcare to refuse services. These individuals include any healthcare employees, doctors, nurses, aides, pharmacy workers, medical and mental health school members, lab techs, board members, insurers, other payers, “or any other person who facilitates or participates in a healthcare service.”

In short, this means that anyone involved in the chain of care could refuse to provide services for anyone or anything they object to. This means that any marginalized person will have to worry that any part of their care could be interrupted at any point by anybody, based on an undefined notion of “conscious.”

The bill says that objecting individuals cannot be disciplined for “engaging in speech or expressive activity protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution” unless a health department or board proves “beyond a reasonable doubt that the medical practitioner’s speech was the direct cause of physical harm to a person.”

Put another way, any medical-related worker could possibly express discriminated viewpoints to patients, and the groups that work with those workers couldn’t reprimand them for it without undergoing a long and arduous process.

I am tempted to focus here on the ability to refuse treatment as the most important part of this legislation. After all, if I work in the hospital pharmacy and conscientiously believe that certain types of people should have suffering inflicted upon them to warn them of God's impending damnation of their souls, I would have the right to refuse to fill a prescription for their pain medications. If I am a devout Catholic surgeon who believes that all forms of birth control are morally wrong, I can work in a public hospital and refuse to do vasectomies or tubal ligations because, you know, sterilization is wrong and my Hypocrite's Oath permits me to deny care.

But I don't honestly think that's the worst part of this legislation.