FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

A lot of the music I've been enjoying most lately
is stuff I hear at the taco shop.

•   Another long, hard week -- but sumer is icumen in, ‘round these parts anyway, so even as our nation collapses into shit, let us be grateful for that. And if that ain’t enough, here’s an extra helping of Roy Edroso Breaks It Down for them as has yet to spring for a subscription (it’s $7 a month, ya skinflints). Along with the Monday report from the Bans Off Our Bodies rally in Washington, I have unlocked the transcript of the Supreme Court majority’s recent fête at The Rectory, where in-crowd integralists gather, hosted by Wild Bill Bennett and Miz Noonan. Laugh that ye may not weep! 

 •   Hey, conservative social policy is having an effect on the school system! About a schoolteacher in Florida:

Over the years, a half-dozen children came out to her as gay or transgender. Most told her informally, blurting it out by her desk. With every student, her first question was, “Do your parents know?” If the answer was “no,” and if [Nicolette] Solomon ascertained the student’s household was likely to be accepting, she encouraged the student to come out to their parents. In these conversations, if students asked, Solomon admitted she was a lesbian, happily married to another woman.

Solomon herself came out fully in college; in high school, she told only a handful of people closest to her. Sometimes she thought about how much it would have helped to discuss her sexuality with an openly LGBTQ teacher in grade school: “I definitely would have gone to that person, because I would have known they’d be accepting.”

But as Solomon’s students made her feel needed, some of her colleagues were doing the opposite.

Early in the job, one teacher — who figured out Solomon was gay after watching Hayley help Solomon cart supplies into her classroom — told her in the middle of a casual conversation, “I like you as a person, but I don’t support gay marriage.” Stunned, all Solomon could think to say was, “Okay.”

You will not be shocked to learn Solomon has since been menaced out of her job, and gay kids at Key Biscayne K-8 Center are gonna have an even rougher time of it than before. Also, we’ve got a Republican candidate for the Michigan House of Representatives supporting a ban on contraception,  a Virginia legislator suing Barnes & Noble because it sells gay-friendly books to teenagers, etc.

But this occupant of one of America’s loftiest pundit-perches has a solution to draconian rightwing policies: Federalism is “in” so just make sure you’re living in a cool blue state.

If you don’t, and can’t afford to move to one (blue places are more expensive than the gulches and hollers of Red America, and then there’s the added cost in soap and toothpaste), guess you’re fucked. But don’t worry: When these red state laws are nationalized, as Republicans have been promising to do, you will receive the comfort that company affords to misery.