#tami fitzgerald

[justinspoliticalcorner]

North Carolina county dissolves library board for refusing to toss book about a trans kid

“It’s a pretty dramatic response to wanting to have diverse and inclusive books on shelves,” PEN America’s Kasey Meehan said.

Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

A county government in central North Carolina has dissolved its entire public library board after trustees voted to keep a children’s picture book about a transgender character on library shelves, turning a local book challenge into one of the most severe reprisals yet in the national campaign against LGBTQ-inclusive materials. The Randolph County Board of Commissioners voted 3–2 last week to dismiss all members of the county library board, weeks after trustees declined to move or remove Call Me Max, a picture book about a transgender boy who asks his teacher to use his chosen name. The decision followed a public hearing that drew nearly 200 residents and revealed a community split almost evenly between those calling for the board’s removal and those urging commissioners to respect the library’s review process.

Library staff and trustees had reviewed the complaint earlier this fall and, in October, voted to keep the book in the children’s section, concluding it complied with the county’s collection policies, local CBS affiliate WFMY reported. Commissioners nonetheless moved to dissolve the nine-member board outright — a step allowed under North Carolina law but rarely taken. [...] Opponents of the book claimed the dispute was a matter of child protection. Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the conservative North Carolina Values Coalition, which urged supporters to attend the commission meeting, argued that Call Me Max teaches children that their parents may be “wrong” about their gender. The book has been banned by several school districts and was prominently invoked by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 while promoting his so-called “don’t say gay” legislation restricting classroom discussions of gender identity, a law later challenged in court. To critics, the Randolph County episode demonstrates how procedural safeguards are increasingly overridden when LGBTQ+ inclusion is at stake. Kyle Lukoff, the book’s author, who is a trans man, said the case is especially troubling because the library followed its own policies and was still punished.

Randolph County Board of Commissioners in Randolph County NC voted 3-2 to act like drunken sailor bigots by dissolving the county’s library board after the library’s trustees voted to keep children’s picture book Call Me Max on the shelves without restrictions. The book Call Me Max is about a transgender boy who asks his teacher to use his chosen name.

[politicsnc]

Undermining democracy

Yesterday, a right-wing evangelical group reported potential election fraud in a Mecklenburg state house district and demanded the Rachel Hunt, the Democratic victor in the election, not be seated. The accusations have little merit. Instead, they have two goals: create false equivalency between the scandal in NC-09 and further erode faith in our democracy. 

Tami Fitzgerald of the North…

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[voteagainstamendmentone-blog]

What's in a name?

On May 8, North Carolinians took necessary measures to protect themselves from pure evil, with “evil” spelled G-A-Y. And folks, I couldn’t be gayer … I mean happier. The amendment says that marriage between one man and one woman is the only valid union to be recognized by the state. Of course, non-married couples are affected by this legislation, but let’s get to the heart of what this amendment is really about: sticking it to gay people. 

Tami Fitzgerald, Executive Director of the North Carolina Values Coalition, spearheaded the crusade for marriage. After the votes were tallied, Fitzgerald said, “We’re not anti-gay, we’re pro-marriage.” And I approve of Tami’s decision to define marriage on her committee’s website as follows: 

Marriage (noun): the social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife. 

Clearly Tami is using a variation of the dictionary definition marriage, and she was right to omit the other definitions, especially the second one, which says marriage can be “a similar long-term relationship between partners of the same sex.” It’s consistent with her omission of the part of the Bible in which the Lord says, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” This sort of consistency is something we need more of in politics. 

Fitzgerald’s Vote for Marriage NC committee had a few supporters who shared the same values, one of those supporters being Tony Perkins. Vote for Marriage NC retweeted Perkins, who extended his congratulations to the committee after the amendment passed. 

In addition to being the president of the Family Research Council, Perkins is also known for having racist tendencies. Note that I did not call Tim Perkins a racist. Allow me to clarify: Perkins paid $82,500 for an email listserv to a former Ku Klux Klan leader while he was managing Woody Jenkins’ senatorial campaign. Before you ask, “What kind of values are those?” give Perkins the benefit of the doubt; maybe he didn’t know he was dealing with white supremacists. Just like the time he gave a speech to the Council of Conservative Citizens in Louisiana. The CCC is considered to be a white supremacist group for their attitude toward minorities. After mingling with the KKK and the CCC, the only thing as certain as Perkins’ questionable morals is the fact that white supremacists and fundamentalists seem to like things in threes. The exception to that rule would have to be threesomes, since they involve same-sex sex. 

So why would Vote for Marriage NC choose to associate themselves with a man like this by retweeting him? Well, as Tami Fitzgerald pointed out, her committee didn’t have the support of two Presidents and numerous celebrities. Life gave her haters, so she made haterade. 

Perkins and Fitzgerald weren’t the only two who supported Amendment One; schoolchildren also came out in numbers to show their support of the legislation. In another tweet, Vote for Marriage NC shared a picture of young kids waiting in line for free gifts and candy. Since children can’t vote, I assume their ballots were cast symbolically, decided by the type of treats they chose: Fun Dip if they were for the amendment, or double popsicles if they were against. The young voter turnout proved one of two things: Either children love candy, or they don’t like gay people. 

As Fitzgerald said, Amendment One isn’t about hating gay people; it’s about wanting to protect marriage. I’m sure Fitzgerald and the rest of the pro-Amendment One voters would be fine with gay couples having equal rights if they’d just call their unions something else, like “bondage.”

While fighting over a word does seem ridiculous, you have to understand the quandary straight people are in. We feel the GLBT community have taken claim to things the straight community would like to embrace, namely rainbows and unicorns. That makes it especially hard for straight men to admit to their friends the amounts of Robot Unicorn Attack they play.

Source: http://www.technicianonline.com/viewpoint/what-s-in-a-name-1.2741576#.T76F9MX4LB

[quotesnjunk]

Tami Fitzgerald, the stupid bitch from North Carolina who hates gay marriage: Marriage is between one man and one woman... You don't rewrite the nature of God's design based on the demands of a group of adults.

Me: you fucking bitch fuck you what is your problem you have no right to say that i want to throw you in a river fuck you you stupid fucking fuck.

[sexcashandpolitics-blog-blog]

North Carolina's anti-LGBT movement is more incestuous than a European royal family

Writer Andy Birkey of The Minnesota Independent and American Independent News Network published a phenomenal write-up yesterday on the three anti-LGBT groups pivotal in the push for a state constitutional amendment banning marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. 

Birkey writes:

A trio of groups were behind the successful push to place a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, as well as civil unions and domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian couples, on the 2012 primary ballot in North Carolina. Those groups — the Christian Action League, Return America and the North Carolina Family Policy Council — have a history of not only opposing any rights for LGBT people but of also making false and inflammatory statements about the LGBT community.

Later in the article, Birkey briefly touches on NC4Marriage. Though he's right that group is now defunct, he misses out on one important connection between it, the North Carolina Family Policy Council and the new North Carolina Values Coalition. 

NC4Marriage was headed by Tami Fitzgerald. Yes, the same Fitzgerald who was a lobbyist for the North Carolina Family Policy Council and now leads the North Carolina Values Coalition, which will spearhead the movement to get the amendment passed by voters during the May 8, 2012 primary election. 

It was a connection I covered in a recent editorial:

The coalition’s executive director, Tami Fitzgerald, is well-known in Raleigh. She’s worked primarily as a lobbyist for the state’s most radical anti-gay advocacy group, the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Based in Raleigh, the council is a state affiliate of the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, named a hate group in November 2010 by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Prior to founding the coalition, Fitzgerald headed up NC4Marriage, a group founded by the council. The connections between Fitzgerald, her coalition, the council and its D.C. parent organization are telling. Why have North Carolina Republicans aligned themselves with known hate groups?

Additionally, Fitzgerald also worked for the Christian Action League, namely as a "correspondent" reporting on legislative news for the group's website.

The connections between Fitzgerald, the North Carolina Values Coalition, the hate-group certified Family Research Council and its North Carolina affiliate and the Christian Action League (a state affiliate of hate-group certified American Family Association) are important.

Voters need to know the real push behind this amendment and just how far its few hate-group extremist proponents are willing to go in harming North Carolina's LGBT citizens.