Behind the Aegis
Behind the Aegis's JournalThe Latest Anti-Gay Oklahoma Bills Are Almost Too Crazy to Believe
Outrageous anti-LGBTQ bills are now a fixture of the American legislative landscape. At the start of each year, extremist legislators come forward with a slew of discriminatory proposals, ranging from cleverly underhanded to openly deranged. Oklahoma’s latest bills fall on the latter side of that spectrum. In addition to some typical “religious liberty” legislation that would let businesses refuse service to gays—par for the course at this point—Oklahoma Republicans have cooked up some fascinatingly cruel bills. Let’s examine them one by one, ranked in terms of sadistic ingenuity.
1. HB 1598: Protecting ex-gay conversion therapy.
2. HB 3044: Preventing depressed and suicidal queer youth from seeing a gay-affirmative therapist.
3. SB 733: Forbidding HIV-positive people from getting married.
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A reminder: Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgender are people too! Marriage equality is wonderful, I should know! However, it was not the last fight for LGBT people.
29 states do NOT prohibit housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
15 states do NOT record hate crimes against GLBT persons.
29 states do NOT protect LGBT in regards to public accommodations.
The lists go on!
GLBT rights are human and civil rights!
The Path to Nazi Genocide
This 38-minute film examines the Nazis’ rise and consolidation of power in Germany. Using rare footage, the film explores their ideology, propaganda, and persecution of Jews and other victims. It also outlines the path by which the Nazis and their collaborators led a state to war and to the murder of millions of people. By providing a concise overview of the Holocaust and those involved, this resource is intended to provoke reflection and discussion about the role of ordinary people, institutions, and nations between 1918 and 1945.
(For those who are hard of hearing or deaf, there is a transcript available below the video.
Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration & Complicity In The Holocaust (Interactive online source)
Millions of ordinary people witnessed the crimes of the Holocaust—in the countryside and city squares, in stores and schools, in homes and workplaces. Across Europe, the Nazis found countless willing helpers who collaborated or were complicit in their crimes. What motives and pressures led so many individuals to abandon their fellow human beings? Why did others make the choice to help?
Some Were Neighbors, Workers, Teenagers, Policemen, Religious Leaders, Teachers, Friends
International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27)
In November 2005, General Assembly Resolution 60/7 was passed without a vote, it was to institute what is known as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Today, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, has several presentations (if one happens to be in the area). Some of the presentations will be broadcasted live (I am uncertain if the weather has affected any of these presentations.)
Between 12 and 13 million persons were murdered in the Holocaust, 6 million Jews, over a million Poles, Russian soldiers, gays, mentally ill people, disabled people, the Rom, and others were beaten, raped, tortured, shot, gassed, and worked to death. They were identified by triangles and numbers.
- Red triangle—political prisoners: social democrats, socialists, trade unionists, Freemasons, communists, and anarchists.
- Green triangle— "professional criminals" (convicts, often working in the camps as kapos).
- Blue triangle—foreign forced laborers, emigrants.
- Purple triangle—primarily Jehovah's Witnesses (over 99%), and members of other small religious groups.[2]
- Pink triangle—primarily homosexual men, as well as sexual offenders including rapists, paedophiles and zoophiles.[3]
- Black triangle—people who were deemed "asocial elements" (asozial) and "work shy" (arbeitsscheu) including Roma. They wore the black triangle with a "Z" notation (for Zigeuner, meaning Gypsy) to the right of the triangle's point.
- Roma males were later assigned a brown triangle. Roma females were still deemed "asocials" as they were stereotyped as petty criminals (prostitutes, kidnappers, and fortune tellers).
- The mentally ill
- Alcoholics and drug addicts
- Vagrants and beggars
- Pacifists and Conscription resisters.
- Prostitutes[5][6]
- Some anarchists
- The mentally ill
- Brown triangle—Roma males.
- Uninverted red triangle — an enemy POW (Sonderhäftling - "Special Detainee"
, German spy or traitor (Aktionshäftling - "Activities Detainee" , or a military deserter or criminal (Wehrmacht Angehöriger - "Service Member" .
People who wore the green and pink triangles were convicted in criminal courts and may have been transferred to the criminal prison systems after the camps were liberated.
Then there were the Jews...
- Two superimposed yellow triangles or a six-pointed star, the "Yellow badge"— a Jew. The word Jude ("Jew" was often inscribed in faux-Hebrew-looking letters inside the center of the badge.
- Red inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—a Jewish political prisoner
- Green inverted triangle upon a yellow one—a Jewish "habitual criminal"
- Purple inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—a Jehovah's Witness of Jewish descent[7]
- Pink inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—a Jewish "sexual offender"
- Black inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—"asocial" and "work shy" Jews
- Voided black inverted triangle superimposed over a yellow triangle—a Jew convicted of miscegenation and labelled as a Rassenschänder ("race defiler" .
- Yellow inverted triangle superimposed over a black triangle—an Aryan (woman) convicted of miscegenation and labelled as a Rassenschänder ("race defiler" .
Double-triangle badges resembled two superimposed triangles forming a Star of David, a Jewish symbol.
Like those who wore pink and green triangles, people in the bottom two categories would have been convicted in criminal courts.
source
Despite the horror, madness and hate, there were those who went above and beyond, and they are known as the "Righteous Among the Nations". They can be known and remembered here, Righteous Among the Nations by country.
Never Again!
Obama to honor four who protected Jews during Holocaust
Source: AP
January 27, 2016, 9:19 am
WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama is slated honor four people, including Americans from Indiana and Tennessee, for risking their lives to protect Jews during the Holocaust.
The United Nations has designated Wednesday as International Holocaust Remembrance Day to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp in southern Poland in 1945.
--snip--
Master Sgt. (Roddie) Edmonds participated in the landing of US forces in Europe and was taken prisoner by the Germans. When the Germans ordered all Jewish prisoners of war to report, Edmonds defied the order by figuring out how to keep the Jewish POWs from being singled out for persecution.
(Lois) Gunden, a French teacher, established a children’s home in southern France that became a safe haven for children, including Jewish children she helped smuggle out of a nearby internment camp. She protected the children when French police showed up at the home.
The (Walery and Maryla) Zbijewskis hid a Jewish child in their Warsaw home until the girl’s mother could take her back.
Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-to-honor-four-who-protected-jews-during-holocaust/
They are the "Righteous Among the Nations".
Comment: Online Holocaust denial is a real threat to the Jewish community
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Though many take this moment to reflect upon the atrocities faced by Jewish people during WWII, the day is marred by the still very active Holocaust denial movement.
More than 60 million people were killed during the Second World War, of which nearly seven million were Jewish.
Yet online there are commenters who deny it ever happened at all.
William Allington, a PhD Candidate in Jewish Civilisation at the University of Sydney, has focused his study on the nature of Holocaust denial, especially its modern online forms.
"Holocaust denial is the denial of the plan to exterminate the Jews, the denial of the machinery, the gas chambers, and the demographic data proving the exetermination of Jews in the final solution," Mr Allington said.
more...
Holocaust survivors greet each other as they arrive to pay tribute to fallen comrades in Auschwitz. (Source: Janek Skarzynski/Getty Images)
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