June Toons

Today's Graphical History Tour head down into the Bergetoon vaults in search of cartoons from ten, twenty, thirty, and forty Junes ago. 

2016

June, 2016

I noticed that the Philadelphia Gay News, which usually runs my cartoons in grayscale, chose to print my Barney Frank tribute cartoon in full color in their annual Pride issue currently on newsstands. I did offer a grayscale version of it, which I did not do for the cartoon I drew ten years ago this week in response to the Pulse nightclub massacre.

Rainbows do not translate well into grayscale or black-and-white. For the first 16 years or so when I began drawing for the LGBTQ+ press, I didn't incorporate color except for special projects. At first, whenever I put a rainbow flag in a cartoon, I could only suggest the colors by drawing six shades of cross-hatching. Around 2005, I started employing computer-generated halftones in my work, but it was another seven years before I began regularly colorizing my drawings.

Changing the mood entirely:

2006

for Q Syndicate, June, 2006

Some guys just aren't second date material. And some other guys just don't know how to break it to them.

The non-topical nature of this cartoon suggests to me that although I drew it in June, it may have been sent to Q Syndicate as a reserve for a later date when I might be on vacation or any other reason miss deadline.

So I assume it was published sooner or later, because if it is still languishing in the retired computer back-up files at syndicate offices, I ought to change the Q in the final panel to an N in order to keep it relevant.

1996

June, 1996

Here's a cartoon I drew for the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee student newspaper, the UWM Post, and drove it up to their office only to discover that they had no plans to publish during summer break.

Previously, the Post put out three issues each summer, publishing biweekly instead of its regular semiweekly schedule.

As for the content of the cartoon: Sen. Bob Dole, having secured the Republican presidential nomination with a record of supporting the party priority of criminalizing abortion, now sought to appeal to supporters of abortion rights. Not by softening his position on reproductive rights, but by welcoming the support of pro-choice Americans willing to have that choice taken away from them.

Standing behind Dole in this cartoon are House Majority Leader Dick Armey, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Senators Phil Gramm and Jesse Helms, and theocratic activists Gary Bauer, Pat Robertson, and Ralph Reed.

1986

June, 1986

Speaking of cartoons that never saw print, I have not been able to determine whether or where this cartoon might have been published. It stars my congressman, Les Aspin, after he had voted in favor of President Reagan's military aid package for the right-wing Nicaraguan rebels, the Contras.

Aspin's vote stunned liberals at home and in Washington. Elected on a peacenik platform during the Vietnam War in 1970, his prior experience in the Pentagon garnered him the chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee in 1985.

I populated this cartoon with a number of actual Democratic politicians: I can be certain of Alan Cranston, Daniel Inouye, Majority Leader Jim Wright, House Speaker Tip O'Neil, 1984 vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, and future President Joe Biden (which means that I was wrong about when I first drew him according to this Graphical History Stop). Some that I'm less sure of might be Representatives Barbara Mikulski and Dick Gephardt, Party Chair Paul Kirk, and Senator Robert Byrd.

Jumping back to 2016, I'd like to end up with a cartoon that I'm fairly certain got published somewhere.

for Q Syndicate, June, 2016

Republicans' mythical Big Tent popped up in Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, when he claimed to have great support among the LGBT community while simultaneously wooing the antigay evangelical vote that had become so critical to becoming a GOP nominee. Since then, the evangelicals have bowed before the Baal of Trumpism, ceding their dominance to the oligarchs and broligarchs, Nazis and apartheiders.

By the way, I couldn't find the file of the colorized version of the Friends with Benefits cartoon, so I've recolored the original scan. I probably didn't originally paint Trump's face orange like I do now, since I also hadn't drawn tiny hands or the overlong necktie in this cartoon. The pig snout came a bit later.

Now, I don't know what LGBT supporters Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee at this point, had in mind, aside from Ric Grenell, Scott Bessent, Milos Yiannopoulos, and Caitlyn Jenner. But Trump's campaign message after the Pulse Nightclub massacre was that Hillary Clinton would "bring[] in more people who will threaten your freedoms and beliefs" (his tweet). He also told an audience in Atlanta: 

"The LGBT community, the gay community, the lesbian community — they are so much in favor of what I've been saying over the last three or four days. Ask the gays what they think and what they do, in, not only Saudi Arabia, but many of these countries, and then you tell me — who's your friend, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?"

This ties in, not just to the cartoon at the top of today's post, but also to the Bob Dole cartoon. I doubt that Dole, or any of the guys drawn behind him, seriously thought that he had fans of the pro-choice persuasion. Inviting them to vote Republican was just one of those things politicians used to do even in the days when we were sorting ourselves into irreconcilable adversaries.

But one does get the impression that Donald Trump lives in a fantasy world where facts become true (or crooked) simply because he says so. He hears the LGBT community, the gay community, the lesbian community agreeing with him in his head, so they must be his bigliest friends, that he can tell you.

Ditto the adulating crowds at Madison Square Garden, the praise for his gilded ballroom, any number of big men who have come up to him with tears in their eyes, and those peace negotiations about to bring Iran's surrender any minute now.

Q Toon: Driven to Distraction

I was halfway through inking last week's cartoon when I came up with this idea, which is not how things generally work inside this old noggin. I liked this idea better, so I held onto it and hoped that the Trumpian firehose of outrageous fuckery this week would not include something I couldn't possibly not draw about.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his pet legislature, and Transportation Secretary Sean "Road Rules Real World" Duffy have all been on a tear this year destroying rainbow crosswalks and anything else painted on pavement that doesn't celebrate heterosexual cisgender white Christian males. They assure us that it has nothing whatsoever to do with discriminating against LGBTQ POC DEI FAFABs; oh, my heavens, no.

Rather, it's a matter of roadway safety. How are drivers supposed to keep their eyes on the road when they come across a blinding splash of color or a reminder that Black Lives Matter?

So over the course of several weeks in September, the Florida Department of Transportation came in the middle of the night, again and again, to sandblast painted pavement, tear up colored bricks, and leave municipalities with unsightly messes where public art once graced the roads. The state further threatened to withhold funding from any municipality that dared to repair those defaced rainbow crosswalks.

The rainbow designs may be gone, but Equality Florida sees a pattern, "This isn’t about safety. It’s a cowardly abuse of power and the latest in his campaign to ban books, whitewash history, and attack LGBTQ people."

Anyway, have yourself a happy little holiday, whatever distractions bedazzle you along your travels.

But please, unlike the drivers in today's cartoon, do try to stay on the correct side of the road.

Q Toon: Driven to Destruction

Pete Buttigieg's successor as U.S. Secretary of Transportation is a former reality show celebutante and congresscritter from Wisconsin, Sean Duffy.

It's not the same Transportation Department now.

In a development that could impact all 50 states and the District of Columbia, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on July 1 announced a “nationwide roadway safety initiative” that political observers say could be used to require cities and states to remove LGBTQ supportive rainbow-colored street crosswalks. ... 

A July 1 statement released by the U.S. Department of Transportation says Duffy sent a letter that same day to the governors of all 50 states that followed an earlier letter sent to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser informing them of the department’s “Safe Arterials for Everyone” initiative to be carried out by the Federal Highway Administration. ...

“Secretary Duffy also noted in his letter that intersections and crosswalks need to be kept free from distractions,” the statement continues. “This includes political messages of any nature, artwork, or anything else that distracts from the core mission of driver and pedestrian safety,” the DOT statement says.

Although the DOT statement and Duffy’s letter to the governors do not specifically mention rainbow crosswalks, the [South Florida] Sun Sentinel reports that Duffy stated in a July 1 social media post that “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.”

One could just as easily argue that rainbow crosswalks enhance roadway safety, becoming more visible than the everyday white-only versions. Certainly they are no more distracting to motorists than, say, Christmas decorations or Chamber of Commerce banners displayed from light poles.

But erasing LGBTQ+ and minority presence from the public eye has been a sacred mission to Republican leaders, such as Florida's rabidly homophobic Gov. Ron DeSantis. If Sean Duffy has only insinuated intention to paint over rainbow crosswalks, DeSantis has explicitly demanded their removal.

A number of Florida cities have already complied with a new anti-rainbow crosswalk law; other communities are fighting it. A grass-roots coalition in Orlando hopes to save the rainbow crosswalk created as a memorial to the 49 victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. (The nightclub itself is due to be demolished.) Key West city council planned to discuss a resolution to protect its rainbow crosswalk at Duval and Pretonia this week.

If Key West is successful, someone can compare and contrast its accident rate with Pensacola’s.

Q Toon: Throwing Shade

VisitFlorida.com quietly deleted the LGBTQ+ page from its tourism website last month. Visit Florida®, a public-private organization that receives some state funding, has made no comment about axing the LGBTQ+ Travel section, but it's apparently all in keeping with the state's Don't Say Gay mandate.

The state's vociferously antigay governor claims no credit for Visit Florida's cowardly move, but is pleased nevertheless:

When asked about the change on the Visit Florida website, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said he was made aware of it after the fact, but celebrated its push away from identity politics. He noted, “We’re not going to be segregating people by these different characteristics… that’s just now how we’re operating.” 

DeSantis' explanation doesn't bode well for Black and Hispanic travelers, Travel pages for whom have yet to be scrubbed from VisitFlorida.com. But don't expect an announcement ahead of time when that happens.

Outside of Florida, more LGBTQ-friendly politicians have taken the opportunity to welcome tourists to their states. Colorado Governor Jared Polis, the U.S.A.'s first openly gay elected governor, posted to Facebook:

Hello gay tourists! Since Florida doesn’t want you, come on over to explore what Colorado has to offer!

In Colorado, we really don’t care about who you date we just appreciate you supporting our economy and spending money in our great stores and restaurants. And you’ll have a gay old time!”

EnjoyIllinois wooed the LGBTQ+ buck with:

Lack of love in the Sunshine State?

Come to Illinois

Plan your LGBTQIA adventure. Take notes, Florida.”

Anthony Anthony, a Chief Marketing Officer for Connecticut's Office of Tourism so nice they named him twice, echoed Colorado and Illinois in a press release:

"We want to send a strong message to everyone, particularly to those in Florida — and across the country — who may feel their needs and identities are being sidelined, to know that in Connecticut you will always find acceptance.

"Here, diversity is celebrated, and we remain committed to ensuring everyone who visits or lives here feels valued, respected, and free to be yourself."

It is, however, unlikely that Florida withdrawing the welcome mat from LGBTQ+ visitors will dissuade many queer folk from heading to the Sunshine State. I've never been to Key West, but I understand that there is nothing quite like it in Minnesota. Besides, a boycott would only harm the very LGBTQ+ business owners who have staked their fortunes to attracting fellow travelers with disposable income.

The very business owners who might just want to reconsider their support for the public-private management of Visit Florida®.

Q Toon: Board to Ride

As I mentioned last week, Harley-Davidson Motor Company has disassociated itself from the Human Rights Campaign and scrapped its employee diversity program.

“We are saddened by the negativity on social media over the last few weeks, designed to divide the Harley-Davidson community,” the company wrote in a statement posted on X.

The company added that “we have not operated a DEI function since April 2024, and we do not have a DEI function today. We do not have hiring quotas and we no longer have supplier diversity spend goals.”

But the company said it would review all sponsorships and outside organizations the company affiliates with, and the company will establish a central clearinghouse for approvals of those relationships. It also suggested it would drop some sponsorships, including LGBTQ+ Pride festivals, saying the brand going forward would focus exclusively on growing the sport of motorcycling. Harley-Davidson, based in Milwaukee, had previously been a longtime corporate member of the Wisconsin LBGT Chamber of Commerce.

It almost seems unfair to single out Harley-Davidson, since it was following the lead of Tractor Supply Co. and John Deere. And now the makers of Jack Daniels and Lowe's have joined the rush to knuckle under to the forces of Conformity, Inequity, and Exclusion. The announcement at Lowe's added that the home goods retailer would cease sponsorship of LGBTQ parades and festivals.

The unofficial leader of the corporate pressure campaign is Robby Starbuck, a video streamer and right-wing online activist. Monday, Starbuck posted on X claiming that he helped provoked the changes at Lowe's, saying he received an email from a Lowe's executive in response to a warning he sent the company that he planned to "expose" its "woke" policies.

"We’re now forcing multi-billion dollar organizations to change their policies without even posting just from fear they have of being the next company that we expose," he wrote.

So, just who the fuck is this cybergoon before whom the titans of industry tremble and quake?

A Harley-Davidson dealership in Barre, Vermont, with the caveat that it is not speaking for the company as a whole, has posted an accusation that Mr. Starbuck is just in it for the clicks. From its "Defending Harley" post:

Starbuck's recent video is not about genuine concern or informed critique; it’s about generating traffic to his content. By attacking established and respected companies, he knows he can provoke strong reactions, driving more views to his YouTube channel and increasing his ad revenue. This kind of clickbait strategy is not new, and Starbuck is just the latest figure to exploit it. The more controversy he stirs, the more views he gets, which translates to more money in his pocket and name recognition.

By focusing on hot-button issues and framing his attacks in inflammatory terms, Starbuck manipulates his audience’s emotions to keep them engaged. This tactic not only undermines genuine dialogue but also prioritizes his financial gain over truthful discourse. His baseless accusations against Harley-Davidson are part of a broader pattern of sensationalism aimed at monetizing outrage.

I'm not about to add to Mr. Starbuck's page views, but I wouldn't be surprised if he has also awarded himself responsibility for the state of Florida deleting the LGBTQ+ Destinations pages from its tourism website.

So now I wanna see Dykes on Bikes on the next cover of H-D's The Enthusiast magazine just so I can point to my little cartoon and claim the credit.

Q Toon: Do Not Disturb

Red state colleges are welcoming students back to campus by emptying their libraries of books about feminism, LGBTQ+ experience, African-American and other minority studies, and anything else reeking of social justice. Students returning to New College in Florida last week discovered waste receptacles overflowing onto the ground with such books. 

University of Kentucky President Eli Capilauto also announced this week that UK has disbanded its Diversity office. This after he had criticized anti-DEI lawmakers in February, arguing, "Let’s not extinguish the thirst for knowledge because certain questions aren’t allowed because they are uncomfortable or challenging."

Elsewhere, George Mason University, Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Wyoming are among the other institutions of higher learning that have knuckled under to the demands of politicians who have decreed diversity, equity, and inclusion to be anathema. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are now literally thought crimes in Texas, Iowa, Idaho, Utah, and Kansas.

Those of you who know me know that I do not use the word "literally" figuratively.

Even private enterprise is succumbing to Republican Cancel Culture. Tractor Supply, John Deere, and Harley-Davidson have broken ties with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and announced that they will would strike any "socially motivated content" from their employee training materials. So I guess I won't need my Harley-Davidson tee shirts any more.

Not that little old me would be able to dissuade the farm equipment companies from chasing those lucrative red-state contracts to haul all those academic books and their dangerous ideas to landfills.

The Fours of July

We'll get back to 1924 soon; but first, I'm gonna rummage around in my dusty old cartoons bin to check what I drew in Julys (Julies?) of decades ago.

Since we're waiting on tenterhooks to find out what lickspittle Donald Berzilius Trump will name to replace The Late Great Mike Pence as his Vice President next week, here's the challengers' ticket announced forty years ago.

Unpublished. July, 1984

Walter Mondale's choice of Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate in 1984 was calculated to be a game-changing, historical gambit. No woman had ever been on a major party's top ticket before.

The move was somewhat blunted by the National Organization for Women and the National Women's Political Caucus — and House Speaker Tip O'Neil — having publicly pressured Mondale to name a woman to his ticket. When the announcement was made, the Mondale-Ferraro ticket couldn't escape muttered gripes that he was merely pandering to a Democratic interest group. The same thing, rightly or wrongly, nagged at Joe Biden's choice of Kamala Harris in 2020.

Contrast that to John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin in 2008. Governor Palin had her own minuses to be sure, and certainly there were more qualified Republican women for the vice presidency; but by not promising ahead of time to name a woman, McCain got credit for having made a bold move.

Of course, she turned out to be a goofball. Not that's in any way a detriment to a Republican Party career any more. But still.

At least Geraldine Ferraro wasn't the butt of jokes for the next three months as Brooklyn Barbie.

July, 1994? Sure.

The Post at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee didn't publish in July, 1994, and apparently I didn't draw anything for the Journal-Times, either. But this drawing sits in front of my August cartoons in the 1994 folder, so let's just say for the sake of having anything here that I drew it in July.

This was my one and only venture creating album art. (Is it album art if there isn't an LP?) Rev. Tim Hansen, a Lutheran pastor in Racine who had graduated a year behind me at St. Olaf College — we had an abundance in Racine pulpits that year of pastors who had been at Olaf during my four years there — asked me to create this drawing for the cover of his upcoming CD and cassette based on the title track, "Shoved by the Dove." 

That's a caricature of Pastor Tim, of course, and he had specifically asked that the dove be kicking him in the tuchus.

For those who are interested, "Shoved by the Dove" is available on Spotify.

for Q Syndicate, July, 2004

Hey, remember when Jeb Bush was the biggest threat to come out of Florida since Hurricane Andrew?

He's a kitten compared to the state's current crop of Republicans.

Anyway, this is one of several cartoons of mine poking holes in that "special rights for homosexuals" shibboleth.

The irony, jumping forward another ten years to discussion of the Employment Rights Protection Act, is that it's the bigots and 'phobes who keep insisting on having "special rights."

July 2014 for Q Syndicate

Come 2025, they might be the only ones with any rights in this country.

Q Toon: Florida Man Yells at Rainbow

Let me preface today's commentary by saying that I generally don't check the weather forecast for my cartoon's locale before sitting down at my drawing board. So I just want to make it clear that Governor DeSantis here is not rooting for this week's torrential rains to continue pummeling Florida. This cartoon is not about the weather.

Okay, now that that's out of the way:

🌈

Florida Republicans didn't want to see rainbow-colored lights illuminating their state's bridges in celebration of Pride Month in June. So they passed a law last month decreeing that Florida's bridges be lit up exclusively in red, white, and blue from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

They thus were able to pretend that the purpose of the law was a patriotic celebration — of the colors of the American flag. Or, if y'all'd rather, the Stars 'n' Bars. (Le tricolore? Mais non!) 

The diktat from Tallahassee is part of what Governor Ron DeSantis calls, without a trace of irony, "Freedom Summer." 

I suppose the rednecks up in Niceville are enjoying their freedom to tell the gays down in Key West how to decorate.

We'll see whether Key West gets its freedom back in time for LGBTQ History Month in October. 

🌈

Earlier this week, prolific editorial cartoonist Clay Jones shared a comment left under one of his cartoons at GoComics, from a reader chastising him for using — stealing, even — popular cultural references in his work.

The rest of us editorial cartoonists shared — stole, even — a good chuckle over that one. Most of us reference popular cultural stuff all the time. This isn't the first time I've resorted to a Simpsons meme; and I've also based cartoons on Calvin and Hobbes, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Peanuts, Monty Python, Dr. Seuss, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, All About Eve, Sunset Boulevard, It's a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Oliver Twist, and The Three Musketeers.

On the other side of the pond, editorial cartoonists can get away with aping Serious Art that would go over the heads of many readers stateside; Dave Brown of the Independent signals his readers that he has redrawn someone else's classic by showcasing the cartoon in a fancy gilt-edged frame. The rest of us could do that, too, except that it would be stealing the idea from Mr. Brown.

Down under, David Rowe redrew Manet and David paintings on successive days this week; Financial Times readers may have caught the references without spying the obligatory apologies in the corner of the cartoons. American readers would likely have missed the parodies unless published in the student newspaper of the School of Art Institute of Chicago.

Elsewhere, references to artwork are rife in editorial cartoons in other countries where keeping the cartoon wordless makes it saleable outside of the cartoonist's native language.

My own thought on all of this is that one shouldn't make the same reference over and over. Once one has parodied Edvard Munch's "The Scream" for Topic A (another choice I could have made for this week's cartoon), one should seriously consider not parodying "The Scream" again for a good long time. Unless you want to be known as That Guy Who Keeps Drawing The Scream.

Which, if you can pull it off, isn't ipso facto a bad thing. At least you won't have to worry whether readers will think your cartoons are about the weather when they're not.

Just make sure that someone else isn't already That Guy.

Q Toon: Beware of the Leopard

The state of Florida reached a settlement with a coalition of concerned families, civil rights agencies, and educators who had taken the state to court over Republicans' "Don't Say Gay" law. 

The law remains in place, but the settlement clarifies that students and educators can discuss LGBTQ+ topics, given those conversations are not part of formal curriculum. The clarifications also state that students can write about such topics in their academic work.

Notably, the settlement includes clarification on library books, stating that library books with LGBTQ+ themes may not be banned under the legislation so long as they are not being used for instruction.

Nor does the law apply to extracurricular activities and groups, such as Gay-Straight Alliances, some of which disbanded after the bill became law.

Governor Ron DeSantis nevertheless claims that the settlement is a victory for his side, because at least LGBTQ+-positive curricula still cannot be required in Florida classrooms. And homophobic parents can still opt their kids out of whatever offends their sensitive sensibilities.

To be sure, not everyone on the educators' side of things is happy with the settlement.

Teaching math at her alma mater in Florida, Katie Wood wants to leave Lennard High School better than how she found it. But under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, Wood’s future as an out trans woman at the school hangs in the balance.

“I can’t even call myself Ms. Wood,” the 3rd-year educator said, noting that her gendered title is one of several things she is barred from using solely due to her being a transgender person. “In many ways, I’m being forced to be back in the closet.”

Ms. Wood is not exaggerating. Elsewhere in Florida, a non-binary teacher was fired for titling themself "Mx." rather than Mr., Mrs., or Ms. The high school science teacher, AV Vary, had been using that honorific for 15 years; but when "Don't Say Gay" became law, their school claimed to have no choice but to send them packing.

In a related court case, a three-judge panel has ruled against another of Florida's attempts to enforce right-wing orthodoxy in education. The so-called "Stop WOKE Act" virtually forbade discussion of not only gender issues but also anything having to do with race. (Heaven forfend that Florida students ever hear anything about Rosewood and Ococee.)

The 11th Circuit Court found that the Stop WOKE Act constituted "the greatest First Amendment sin," but the DeSantis administration is considering appealing that ruling.

Because, as all Republican scholars remember from their schooldays, the Constitution begins and ends with the second half of the Second Amendment.

Q Toon: A Death in Oklahoma

Note: This cartoon and commentary have been edited to correct the name of the deceased.

No, I am finally offering my say on the death of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old student in Owasso, Oklahoma who identified as non-binary and died on February 8, a day after being beaten by other students in the girls' bathroom at their school.

Authorities are being somewhat cagey in addressing the cause of Nex's death; they had been released from the hospital after being taken there after the attack. Final autopsy and toxicology reports remain pending as of this writing. The Office for Civil Rights division of the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation this month into the Oklahoma school district following a complaint filed by the Human Rights Campaign.

Nex's family says that Nex had been bullied at school for a over a year. When they reported this assault to the police, the officer asked why they had not reported the bullying to the school, and Nex replied "I didn't really see the point in it."

My cartoon this week leads off with Oklahoma's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, who expressed his empty sympathy for Nex's family, but who, along with the state's other elected leaders, shares responsibility for the conditions that led up to this tragedy.

"Oklahoma lawmakers have put restrictions on gender-affirming care and barred transgender students from using school bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Walters recently hired a rabidly anti-trans out-of-state social media figure to serve on the state’s Library Media Advisory Committee, a grotesque political stunt and a blaring insult to every LGBTQ+ person in the state."

That out-of-state social media figure is Chaya Raichik, a hate-monger in charge of the rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ "Libs of TikTok." Last year, a post by Raichik compelled an Owasso High School teacher whom Nex "greatly admired" to resign.

No wonder Nex saw "no point" in reporting bullying to the remaining staff at the school.

At a legislators' forum with the Tahlequah Area Chamber of Commerce on February 22, State Senator Tom Woods, Republican, said that while "his heart goes out" regarding the teen's death, "We are a conservative state —  supermajority — in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn't want that filth in Oklahoma."

Woods's statement reportedly met with applause.

The Trevor Project conducted a national survey of LGBTQ+ youth in 2022 regarding their mental health, breaking down the results by state. Here are some of the responses from Oklahoma:

The Trevor Project

Oklahoma can and ought to do better by these kids.

But naah. They're "a conservative state." So they won't.

Q Toon: Trois the Night Before Christmas

Last week's cartoon made a reference to "Moms for Liberty," one of those right-wing, anti-LGBTQ+ groups ardently devoted to restricting the liberties of other people.

Now it seems that "Moms for Liberty" co-founder Bridget Ziegler and her husband Christian allegedly had a long-term three-way relationship with another woman, which I'm sure wasn't L, G, B, T, Q, or + in any way, shape or form.

This may be a very obscure news story — aside from the fact that her husband is the chair of the Florida Republican Party — but it's crude, salacious, and utterly without redeeming social value, making it perfect fodder for a cartoon.

To make this cartoon even more obscure, your humble scribbler riffed on a tweet you probably never saw from Mrs. Ziegler. Back in April, Bridget posted a picture of herself wearing a transphobic t-shirt that read "Real Women - Aren't Men -". So here it is.

The national hate group she co-founded is devoted to disrespecting transgender persons, censoring books, banning drag shows, and grooming kids to be spiteful little bullies and scolds like herself. And occasionally endorsing Hitler quotations in their newsletter. It's all in the name of Christian morality, of course.

To nobody's surprise, the current sordid episode sullying the Zieglers' reputation came to light when the Other Woman came forward accusing Christian of showing up without Bridget one day when they were supposed to have one of their ménages à trois and sexually assaulting her.

As for that quoting Hitler business (it was an Indiana chapter who cited “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future,” in its newsletter), Christian now gets to exercise the advice he gave the group:

“Never apologize. Ever,” Christian Ziegler told members of the group during a training session covered by NBC News at Moms For Liberty’s national conference in June. “This is my view. Other people have different views on this. I think apologizing makes you weak.”

So now, facing calls to resign as chair of the Florida GOP,

Zeigler denied the allegations of sexual assault but admitted to police that he had had sex with the woman on the date in question. In a statement released to his fellow Florida Republicans over the weekend, Ziegler wrote that “we have a country to save and I am not going to let false allegations of a crime put that mission on the bench as I wait for this process to wrap up.”

Pull up a chair, folks, and pass the popcorn.

Q Toon: Moatalitarianism

The thinking that went into this week's cartoon involved not just Texas Governor Greg Abbott's razor wire flotilla in the Rio Grande, but also Anne Applebaum's article from The Atlantic about how having complete power of all the branches of government in a state is never enough for today's Republicans.

Her column on Republican totalitarianism discusses the Tennessee legislature's ejection of Justin Jones and Justin Pearson for having the temerity to bring a megaphone to the statehouse — a move made because Republicans routinely shut off Democrats' microphones. Republicans there have divided Nashville among three majority-rural congressional districts, thus depriving the citizens of the state's largest city of any true representation in Congress.

Seeking to prevent passage of a state constitutional amendment by popular vote protecting abortion rights, Ohio Republicans put a measure on the ballot this past Tuesday requiring popular constitutional amendments to pass by a 60% supermajority. The legislature didn't pick that percentage at random: polling shows abortion rights are supported by 58% of the Ohio electorate. If support had polled at 62%, Republicans would have required passage by a 2/3 supermajority.

Republicans had to act fast to get this "Issue 1" onto a special August 8 ballot; the abortion rights amendment comes up for popular vote in November.

Republican supermajority lawmakers couldn't get their 60% voter approval idea onto the state's May primary ballot, so in February they came up with a new plan — an August special election.

There was just one problem: Republicans had voted to eliminate most August special elections in a law they passed in December. [Ohio Secretary of State Frank] LaRose, who testified in support of that law, said it shouldn't be an issue.

And to keep amendment referenda Republicans don't like from getting onto future ballots in the first place, "Issue 1" would have required citizen groups to get voter signatures in each of Ohio's 88 counties, up from 44 required previously.

Happily, Ohio voters rejected Issue 1 — albeit by a majority that would have been insufficient to repeal the 60% threshold if it had already been in effect. 

In Florida, several school districts announced that they would no longer offer Advanced Placement Psychology courses for college-bound high school students, thanks to repressive legislation by Gov. Ron DesAntis and his minions in his state legislature.

These decisions came after the College Board, which administers the Advanced Placement program, announced that the state had “effectively banned” AP Psychology because state legislation, commonly referred to as Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, doesn’t permit instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity, which the College Board considers essential for completing the course.

Florida officials have countered that AP Psychology hasn’t been banned, but rather that the College Board is playing politics by telling school districts they can’t offer the course unless it’s taught in full.

Well, if there's anything Republicans love these days, it's censoring educational materials. Especially if they can keep LGBTQ+ people out of sight, and therefore out of impressionable teenage minds. We'll tell you what you can teach, the totalitarian Republicans say to those meddlesome academics. Just teach our Officially Approved curriculum!

In a similar vein, Arkansas Republicans passed a law under which librarians and booksellers could be criminally charged for providing "harmful materials" to minors. A U.S. District Court Judge has temporarily suspended that law, but it's flabbergasting to realize that they find nothing wrong with providing guns to minors, but are scared spitless at the prospect of a kid finding Heather Has Two Mommies on a bookshelf.

In "red" states around the country, legislatures' attacks on transgender citizens have included requiring state-issued ID's to identify everyone by the gender assigned to them at birth. This is sure to hamper transgender voting every time a poll worker is handed an identification card that doesn't appear to match the person handing it to them.

Which will have the added bonus (as Republicans see it) of slowing down those long voter lines in urban areas where many Democrats live. If they only disenfranchise transgender people, that's a win for them. Bogging down those urban polling places is just gravy.

If they make voting enough of a hassle, they might not even need that 60% threshold business anyway.

Ask Your Governor If It's Right For You

Much of the debate over Florida's new anti-transgender legislation involved their prohibition of transition treatment for youth. Now that those Republican bills have been signed into law, Floridians are discovering that they attack adults' health care, too: 

Lucas, 26, lost his access to treatment when the Orlando clinic that prescribed him hormone replacement therapy stopped providing gender-affirming care altogether. The couple also worries about staying in a state that this year enacted several other bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community. ...

The new law that bans gender-affirming care for minors also mandates that adult patients seeking trans health care sign an informed consent form. It also requires a physician to oversee any health care related to transitioning, and for people to see that doctor in person. Those rules have proven particularly onerous because many people received care from nurse practitioners and used telehealth. The law also made it a crime to violate the new requirements.

Another new law that allows doctors and pharmacists to refuse to treat transgender people further limits their options. ...

At least 19 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. But restrictions on adults haven't been part of the conversation in most places. Missouri’s attorney general tried to impose a rule in that state, but it was pulled back.

Florida is “the proving ground of what they can get away with,” Dunn said. [Lana Dunn, chief operating officer of SPEKTRUM Health Inc.]

The increased burden on transgender adults is not a bug of the new laws, but a feature. 

For the moment, a federal court has issued an injunction against the part of the law prohibiting the prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors; but DeSantis's Florida is sure to appeal the case all the way to the Republican-stacked Supreme Court. Once Alito, Thomas, and the Trumply Trio have overruled Judge Robert Hinkle, carbon copies of the Florida law are sure to be rushed through other red state legislatures like the flu in a kindergarten.

This is only one front in the right-wingers' full-bore assault on the LGBTQ+ community, so I expect more and worse to come as they test "what they can get away with."

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P.S.: Any guesses as to which person around that breakfast table might be transgender?

Q Toon: But We Play Woke on TV

I'm taking a week off from alarmist cartoons about the fascist wing of the Requblican Party.

And drawing instead about the corporations that fund them.

By now, you cannot but notice how interracial and non-intergenderal couples have begun to appear in television and internet commercials, once the exclusive domain of white heterosexuals. (Although I've always had my suspicions about Mr. Whipple.)

Leaving interracial families aside for the nonce, unless the same-sex couples are pressing you to ask your doctor about anti-retroviral medication, you might blink and miss them. Which is why the guys in today's cartoon are stuck in that split second of time.

Many of these same advertisers wanting to appear (for lack of a better word) woke have, however, been helping fill Republican politicians' campaign coffers for decades, even as the party marches farther and farther into antiLGBTQ and racist territory. Repressive and restrictive laws are proliferating in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, and Iowa.

Chuck Magro. John May. Donnie King. Cory Harris. Charles Scharf.

These are the CEOs of five of the most powerful corporations operating in Iowa: Corteva. John Deere. Tyson. Wellmark. Wells Fargo.

Where are they? Should we request a wellness check to make sure they’re OK?

These CEOs lead corporate monopolies making billions every year off the bodies and brains of Iowans, including LGBTQ Iowans, yet they’ve been missing in action as Iowa Republicans propose the largest number of anti-LGBTQ bills ever in a single legislative session.

These bills include everything from attempts to ban books (because kids reading about LGBTQ characters is dangerous, while meatpacking plant child labor isn’t) to an attempt to ban same-sex marriage in the state (forget the issue of constitutionality).

The time has come to realize that corporate monopolies are no friend of the LGBTQ community when the going gets tough.

For these corporations, maintaining favor with the Republicans who run the state is more important than standing up for LGBTQ Iowans, including their own workers. They know if they dare defy Iowa Republicans, their ability to maintain the monopoly power they use to deliver their excessive profits will be threatened. ...

Perhaps one can't blame Corporate America for being intimidated by the example Florida has set after Disney Corporation dared to stand up for its LGBTQ employees and customers. Not every corporation has quite as sweet a deal as Disney had up to this year from the states where they operate; but nearly every major corporation has plied legislatures with campaign donations in order to secure special benefits of one kind or another: Tax Incremental Financing districts, property tax waivers, monopoly protection, taxpayer-funded stadiums, and so on and so forth.

And they don't want those bennies taken away after so much investment in those politicians.

If we in the LGBTQ+ community want to know who our real friends are in the business world, that Des Moines Register editorial suggests we look to the folks who can't afford to pay premium prices for friends in the statehouse:

[I]t’s again small-business owners who possess the courage to speak up. Dozens of small businesses like the print shop Raygun, the bookstore Reading in Public, and the brewery Firetrucker Brewery have all taken stands alongside LGBTQ Iowans and against Iowa Republicans’ proposed legislation.

Wouldn’t Iowa’s LGBTQ community be better off with fewer corporate monopolies and more Rayguns, Reading in Publics, and Firetruckers? The answer is yes.

Ask your doctor if small businesses are right for you.

Q Toon: Gender Gendarmen

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants the medical records of all transgender students at his state's institutions of higher learning.

DeSantis asked to see a breakdown of the medical data of students who received gender-affirming care from public entities. This includes anyone in the general public who sought gender-affirming care at the hospitals located at these public universities. In addition, he wants their ages and the dates they received gender-affirming care. The deadline to submit those records was February 10. ...

When Insider asked why the state has requested the health data of transgender college students from public universities, the state's deputy press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, said: "We are committed to fully understanding the amount of public funding that is going toward such nonacademic pursuits to best assess how to get our colleges and universities refocused on education and truth."

Leaving aside for the moment the question of why DeSantis thinks students getting medical care hampers colleges' and universities' ability to focus on education and truth, how turning over patient records to the governor is not a violation of HIPAA confidentiality rules is beyond me.

Officials at the University of South Florida announced that they would comply with DeSantis administration's demands, but assured students that their privacy rights would be maintained by redacting information that would identify who the transgender students are.

But as one USF student explained, 

“Even if it’s technically legal because it doesn’t have names, it’s still immoral. Because it’s a small community and (the data is) sorted by age and very specific personalized treatment plans, you can dox someone with this. You can find people out and harass them, with the Florida sunshine law.”

Given Mr. DeSantis's record to date, I'm guessing that facilitating the doxing of transgender students is not a bug in his plans, but a feature. 

Klanwatch 1923

It is African-American History Month again. Having spent the last two weeks dwelling on foreign affairs 100 years ago, it's high time to turn to domestic affairs — particularly, the growth of the Ku Klux Klan.

"A Blot on the Escutcheon" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. Jan. 3, 1923

We'll start with a Klan lynching that attracted national media attention — quite possibly because the victims were white.

In August 1922, members of the Ku Klux Klan tortured and killed Filmore Watt Daniels and Thomas Fletcher Richards. (Some accounts omit "s" at the end of both last names; I'm using the names from contemporary newspaper reports.) Daniels was the adult son of a wealthy landowner in Mer Rouge, Louisiana, a town near the Arkansas border; he and his father were vocal opponents of the Klan. Richards, a mechanic, was a good friend of the younger Daniels.

The Danielses, father and son, were returning home with Richard and two others from a ballgame in nearby Bastrop when they were stopped by heavily armed, black-hooded men. The five were blindfolded and abducted to a remote site where they were whipped and beaten for information on the location of another person. Their captors released the elder Daniels and the other two men; but the younger Daniels and Richards were tortured and killed, and their bodies dumped in Lake Lafourche. 

"When Klanhood Was in Flower" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 28, 1922

After their bodies were discovered on December 22, Louisiana Governor John M. Parker sought help from the U.S. Department of Justice in suppressing Klan violence within the state.

"A Blot on the Old Man's Journal" by Dennis McCarthy in New Orleans Times Picayune, ca. Dec. 29, 1922

If the meaning of Times Picayune cartoonist Dennis McCarthy's December 29 cartoon left any doubt what sort of "mob violence" was a blot on Old Man 1922's journal, his front page cartoon on January 9 was explicit.

"Explain This" by Dennis McCarthy in New Orleans Times Picayune, ca. Jan. 9, 1923

Reaction by members of the Klan differ from that depicted by McCarthy, according to the Shreveport Times, of January 7: 

Publication of the membership of the Morehouse klan 34 Knights of the Ku Klux Klan excited only passing interest here. Most of the charter and later membership were already known. The list included many of the many of the best-known and most substantial business and professional men, farmers, and officials of the parish. And the most pungent comment regarding it was, "why didn't they print the whole list, I felt slighted because they didn't have my name."

Prominent in the list was the name of J. Fred Carpenter, who happens to be the sheriff of Morehouse. The sheriff does not appear to be bothered that anyone should know he is a klansman.

"Resign?" he was asked.

"Not yet."

"Going to?"

"I hadn't thought of it." 

"Mer Rouge (Red Sea)" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 7, 1923

Other klansmen unmasked by the probe included a former mayor, the district attorney, the local postmaster, and a town marshal. The testimony of former klansman "Big Jim" Norsworthy exposed several locals as members, but in the end proved to be more flash than fire.

Meanwhile, Captain J.K. Skipworth, "exalted cyclops of the Morehouse klan" held court outside the courthouse to make sure that the media and anyone else in the vicinity could hear his opinion of the goings on inside.

There were klansmen in the grand jury, too. As a result, kidnapping and murder charges against named klansmen were dropped for "insufficient evidence." Even the minor charges against 17 men were dropped while the accused sheltered themselves out of state. 

By the end of 1923, the judge in the case had lost his reelection bid, and Governor Parker had retired.

"His Own Property" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, before Jan. 26, 1923

At the same time that investigative hearings were underway in Louisiana, a White mob burned the predominantly Black city of Rosewood, Florida, to the ground on January 8, 1923. Six Black Americans and two White rioters were killed. and the rest of the city's population fled by train.

"With Loose Rein" by Rollin Kirby in New York World before Feb. 4, 1923

As was usually the case in these pogroms, a White woman claimed that she had been assaulted by a Black man. The assault allegedly occurred on New Year's Day; enraged White mobs, bolstered by a Klan rally in nearby Gainesville, descended on Rosewood on January 4.

White mobs sought out one suspected Black man, then another, then turned their rage against the whole town. First setting fire to churches, they then began setting fire to homes and shooting at the residents as they tried to flee. White merchant John Wright sheltered some people in his home; others hid in the swamps outside of town.

Anonymous (Watson?), for Watson Studio, in Baltimore Afro-American, Feb. 23, 1923

One Black resident, Sylvester Carrier, shot back at the mob, killing two White rioters before being shot and killed himself. The news got even more White Floridians joining the mob. Governor Cary Hardee offered to send in the National Guard, but Sheriff Robert E. Walker claimed to have the situation under control. When the riot finally came to an end on January 7, the entire town had been destroyed. 

It will come as no surprise that although a grand jury was convened in February, 1923, nobody was ever charged with a crime of any kind in the Rosewood massacre. Nor will you be shocked to hear that it wasn't until 76 years later that any of the survivors received any compensation for their losses.

As for the nation's editorial cartoonists, when it came to addressing current events from their drawing boards, white riots and klan terrorism were just one issue out of many.

"The Three (Dis)Graces" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. Jan. 24, 1923

Even though these were only two klan/mob attacks among over 50 of them in 1922, many of the nation's cartoonists never even broached the subject at all in January or February, or at least never got an idea past their editors. On the other hand, every single editorial cartoonist at some point in January put out at least one cartoon satirizing Emile Coue's mantra of "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." (Coue was the Stuart Smalley of his day.)

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When your humble scribe started writing this essay several days ago, Blogger, the host of this site, began posting the following notice at the top of my post list screen:

I can't say whether Blogger's content monitoring bots flagged this week's essay as possible hate speech, or if Blogger management is cowering in fear of southern Republican politicians who have been cracking down on history lessons that make bigots feel bad.

To those of you brave enough to click past whatever content warning Blogger threw up at you, thank you.