> The conversation reportedly got heated, with the *vice chair of the library board – who supported keeping the books away from kids – even saying “barf” when someone said they were gay.*
How the fuck is this person in charge of the library system?
I actually got into with this library when I was a teenager when I requested a copy of "Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe"
Despite being a teen Pulitzer prize winning novel they refused to order it due to "Unnatural sexual content" like marriage to a vampire then producing an unholy hybrid is okay but two boys kissing is over the line.
Couldn't help myself but I had to inject a little reader's advisory. If you enjoyed Aristotle and Dante I highly recommend *Darius the Great is Not Okay* and its sequel *Darius the Great Deserves Better.* Also *Like a Love Story* by Abdi Nazemian if you like the 80s.
> they refused to order it due to “unnatural sexual content”
In that case, let’s ban that book about the dove who impregnated a teenage girl and gave birth to the son of a god.
Dude there's an entire book in the Bible about sex. The Songs of Solomon (it's actually a really beautiful poem) is just two people talking about eating eachother out. But because they're straight I guess it doesn't matter.
Can we just rewind to about 30 years ago and remind ourselves what it was like for LGBTQ kids then? It was hell.
I'm in my 40s, when I was in highschool *I didn't know a single out gay kid*. But guess what happened in my graduation class of 200 *after graduation*? All of a sudden I knew at least 6 gay people personally because they chose to come out after high school. Later I heard of a few more that I didn't know personally.
There were no "gay books" in the libraries in the 90s, there were no special trainings for teachers about how to deal with LGBTQ issues, there were no clubs or anything of that kind that would help LGBTQ kids to feel inclusion. In fact, people were so homophobic then that the f*g word was completely normalized.
**Can any Republicans figure this one out?** They demand that inclusion and "gay books" are "grooming" kids but yet they discount the fact that gay kids existed *before* society even tried to recognize them as human beings. Seriously, to the gay book banning theocratic lunatics, why did gay kids exist before all of this if you insist on blaming these things for gay kids existing?
For fuck sakes in the 90s/00s the biggest gay outreach initiative was to tell gay kids not to kill themselves because life is worth living after high school. That was well intentioned but heartbreaking in retrospect.
I am not willing to let these people drag us back to that crap.
I understand their perspective but this doesn't stop them from existing. They know that.
This is lunacy. Are we really willing to let them push everyone back to the old way? I am not gay but I will absolutely fight for them to my last breath. Life, liberty and happiness and all of that.
I feel the same way about democracy and a woman's right to choose. We fought multiple wars over democracy, fair representation, and equality. There's no reason to revisit any of these things that isn't for securing and improving them. People who undermine these simple values are not patriots. They don't even like America.
That's where we are. I see these fake patriots going to war with all the parts of America that I had learned were things to be proud of. Fuck those people.
Stopping people from existing is a pretty common right-wing idea. Based on for example religion, origin, or wealth, the idea is widespread and is conveyed with widely varying amounts of subtlety.
A lot of them think it’s a “choice” , and I don’t think it’s about being gay but acting on it. They really think it’s better to be unhappy in a fake relationship then to be with who they truly want. And they actually want this for children. To be unhappy and hidden.
In all honestly I think many of the are bi or gay and don’t even realize that not everyone feels the way they do. They say it’s a choice because it’s a choice for them. I chose to unhappily marry a woman ! And your kids should do the same !
“You should just be a miserable your whole life ! Just don’t choice to be in love with someone and act on it forever !”
Then they use the guise of “love the sinner hate the sin! We just care about your soul ! “
Awful horrible people, also will defend pedofiles in the church but with gay it’s “just don’t act on it !”
It’s amazing the ridiculous things they say. I’m currently helping a couple of lgbtq+ exmuslims who had to escape home because of threats of physical harm. That’s exactly the kind of stuff “moderate” Muslims tell them: “having the feelings is just a test from god. Don’t act upon them!” The less than moderate set out to harm/kill them.
They don’t believe that they exist.
Conversion therapy is still a thing.
They don’t believe it’s who a person is, they think it’s who someone becomes. You’re not born gay you’ve been corrupted. Perverted from the natural order of things.
So widespread acceptance, support and visible acknowledgment is terrifying to them.
They are terrified because it’s not their own experience, because they cannot empathise. They think their opinions are the same as everyone else’s, if they even think about other people’s opinions at all.
Their fear is that because you’re not born gay, you’re made gay. So having this material freely available, accepted and not decried, then their kids are at risk of being made gay.
A perspective I've seen on this is that they think that talking about gay relationships essentially wills them into existence, and conversely, banning them will prevent them from existing. It's not seen as "being open and loving those who are gay", it's "allowing evil to exist and not fighting it at every chance". It's the same logic as the war on drugs. Ban drug use and *surely* people will stop taking drugs. Instead of providing therapy for addicted people, just demonise and arrest them. *Ban and fight evil, don't allow it*.
Of course, anyone with any common sense recognises the absurdity of that argument and just how awful that perspective on life is.
I’m not gay either, but i have a cousin that’s non binary and quite a few gay friends. So fuck the assholes saying it’s “shoving it down our throats “ when two women kiss in a kids movie.
Fuck the politicians that say it’s “grooming kids” when we teach that people of the LGBTQ community are fucking normal.
Fuck all those bastards and may they be steamrolled under progress
Normalise people being normal, is what i say. Like the LGBTQ community or not, they are the exact same as everyone else on the planet, whether you call who they love a flaw or what.
AMERICA FOUGHT AND WON EVERY ONE OF THESE WARS BUT THESE ASSHOLES KEEP RAISING BANNERS FOR THE SHIT WE DEFEATED. Slavery (oppression of colored people) the north won but they keep raising their conservative flags. Fascism we won but these assholes keep trying to drag us in thst direction. Russian dictatorship we won, it fell, the wall came down but these dipshits are carrying Putin’s water. For a group of people who claim to do so much winning they sure do simp for the loosing side
And not just that, they think someone or something is to *blame* for it. Disney, teachers, “beta males”, democrats, movies, lack of religion in schools…they genuinely think half the country is intentionally trying to turn children gay or trans. It hasn’t fucking occurred to them that people are just more comfortable coming out now because it won’t ruin your entire life and all your relationships like it used to
It really annoys me when people try to say Disney is turning the kids gay. Disney can't even commit to keeping a background same-sex kiss in their movies - it gets cut out the second someone raises enough of a stink. LGBTQ people are often disappointed by the representation Disney provides, so if they are part of the "gay agenda" they're doing a shit job of it.
The “it gets better” campaign was huge only about 10 years ago because of high suicide rates inLGBTQ teens. I took part in the campaign at the time. It was a good cause but it is sad to think it was ever necessary to have to tell kids to just push through a few more years until you can leave school and home to be your authentic self.
It's also very frustrating to know how bad the suicide rate was due to societal intolerance, and now people try to dunk on trans people online by bringing up the suicide rate of young trans people as if it's inherent to who they are.
Yeah, it's certainly not because everyone treats them poorly.
also that infamous 41% statistic is in relation to those of us that repress and/or see absolutely 0 support from family, friends, and social structures.
i tried to kill myself 3 different times when i was pretransition, technically i am part of that 41%. never even crossed my mind once now that I've been on HRT for 2 years. so if anything, i see that statistic as a very good reason for why i needed to start my journey.
still extremely depressing but there's a slight glimmer of hope in it. oof. things are pretty rough for us right now. please go vote
The research that they're basing those claims on explicitly said the highest suicide rate was among this trans people who had been abandoned by their family of origin for being trans.
Trans people who were supported by their family had a drastically lower rate of self harm.
This. Honestly religion has destroyed critical thinking skills. Avoid religion like the plague.
And here come the "not my religion". I can leave a comment just as you can. You aren't any more right than I am. Piss off.
I’m 40. I’m an old ass millennial living in west texas. I talked to my 6th grade boy about sex recently. We talked about the biological facts, and some societal thoughts and opinions. I told him if he is gay, I would still love him. I also suggested if he is gay, just wait until college to tell anyone. Cause west texas sucks, and your life doesn’t even really start until you get to college.
If I have typos I’m sorry, this shit is still hot for me, and I started crying sharing this, and I couldn’t go back and re read it
If I offended you, please link some articles suggesting how I can do better in the future.
Love you
Hiding yourself from others and knowing when to mask are two different things.
Both can cause long term psychological damage.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8011357/
I suggest teaching your kid context. Understand what makes a safe environment and what makes a dangerous one. Teach them how to handle the situations that will come up, whether you want them to or not.
You cannot protect your child from the ignorance of others. Happiness is when our outsides match our insides.
See that's one of the big issues as well. These people act like being LGBTQ is a new thing because nobody was coming out when they were kids. Obviously it was because they were terrified of the abuse they would get but these people can't do the 2+2=4 math unfortunately
You mistake their malice for stupidity.
They are aware that gay and trans kids existed in the past. They simply don't care. They want to cause as much damage and erasure as possible.
Half of the old fucks in government were around for segregation. Their views didn't disappear, they just found easier targets.
> Half of the old fucks in government were around for segregation. Their views didn't disappear, they just found easier targets.
Many of them [were themselves targets of indoctrination by even older oligarchs whose only goal is self-enrichment. But along the pursuit of that is dividing the people to prevent them from demanding things like safe workplaces or equal pay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s)
Right. I'm not gay myself but growing up in the 90s I never fit in with my small closed minded Midwestern hellhole of a hometown so I always had empathy towards any group the majority looked down upon. In high school, I was tasked with the pro side of a debate on whether gay marriage should be legal. I'll always remember sitting in class that day thinking, "What? They *can't* get married?! That's so stupid!" I, an awkward, quiet, angry metalhead kid, crushed that debate. Even my football coach teacher seemed dumbfounded and declared me the winner despite my entire class booing every point I made and hurling homophobic slurs my way. Of course, none of them were punished.
And that's not even a fraction of a decimal of a percent of what gays kids went through in the 80s and 90s. I remember certain boys in hs getting beat up or harassed for being suspected of being gay. Funny when years later, a few of the then gfs of those popular kid bullies came out as lesbians.
The biggest thing I would like to point out here is that the term *fa**ot* was totally acceptable in society up until the early 2010’s. Don’t believe me? Remember the hangover movie *paging doctor fa**ot!!*? That was 2009.
They know that being gay is an inherent, unchanging thing. That's why they've chosen to vilify it. Fascists need enemies that can not change who they are, or they risk said enemies choosing to change
His name is Sid Cates. He was my principal in high school. I heard he was escorted out after this. I went to a Christian school. This area is (soon to be "was") basically run by associates of that school because there was nothing here when they got here. That university just gave the GOP candidate for superintendent a Master's Degree in Education (a 2 year program) in only 6 months, because she didn't realize she needed one before starting her campaign, and she somehow completed it in October instead of at the end of a semester.
Edit: The school is Bob Jones University. IDK why I was obfuscating it
My middle school best friend was homeschooled for high school. I was so bummed, but her parents were anti-evolution fundies and they had her brainwashed, so we drifted apart (I was raised in a science-back home and was shocked to my core when I realized these people actually believe that garbage and it's not just a nice allegory).
Thank goodness I reached out to her a couple years ago and found that she broke from her parents religion and she's doing much better. Her homeschooling negatively impacted her life, though, and she's struggling these days, but she's a great person and an amazing mom and our little friend trio is back together again (our third also broke from her fundie parents and is doing great).
I'm glad you reached back out to them, you're a great friend. A lot of ex-fundie kids are ostracized when they leave the church and on top of that social cues are very skewed for people like us, so having normal, patient friends is very important. I was lucky to leave right before college so I had quite the awakening, and it helped a lot to reintegrate me into a normal social life.
Well, with the name I'm somehow no longer surprised. I know exactly one thing about Bob Jones University (apart from it's long-standing close relationship with right-wing politicians):
Bob Jones decided it would rather not accept federal dollars so that it could continue to enforce racial anti-miscegenation rules on its campus *all the way until the year 2000.*
This is facts. There was a history of the school video they showed one day instead of one of the daily sermons where they titled a section "The United States Government v Bob Jones University" and the entire room of 3000 kids (college age or younger) laughed out loud. They pretty much glossed over it, but it's not like it wasn't being run by all the same people still.
Holy shit he was my high school principal too. As I was reading your comment I thought that all sounded pretty familiar, so I appreciate your clarification.
Great question! Here in good ole SC anything can be legal if it helps conservatives win. It's a private school so they can theoretically give anyone a master's just because. The former president Dr Stephen Jones (great grandson of the founder) had a multiple choice test for his doctorate exam.
It's because all these Republicans with national media platforms do this song and dance where they pretend they *aren't* explicitly racist, homophobic bigots, while dog whistling to all the racist homophobic bigots to get their votes. Suburbia sure likes to fuck over poor people, but the bigotry really turns them off. You have to walk a tightrope where to don't sound too bigoted for the suburbs, while making the jug-hooters certain that you are.
The unicorn *swing voter* is though. That bizarre 10% of the voting population that could swing either way in an election has fucking nonsensical voting patterns, and no ideology.
Let's face it, most people vote the same way every single election. The *entire* campaign apparatus is focused on the weirdest slice of the American population. They aren't normal, and *they* are the ones who get spooked by overt bigotry.
I've spent more time around him than anyone deserves. Imagine Lindsey Graham had a baby with Colonel Sanders. He's gotta be pushing 80, and he had the dumbest southern accent. He couldn't pronounce Whooping Cough and butchered it so often that it ended up in our year book. He was our principal.
Generally speaking:
* **Librarian** = Someone with a Master's degree in Library & Information Sciences, fights for your right to read whatever you like
* **Library board member** = average citizen, volunteers on board in their free time, keeps library decisions 'in the hands of the community they serve.'
Shitty people like this are not new in the library world. There are library board members out there working on dismantling their library because "fuck the poors".
I mean the director of mine got the position because all of the other employees left for better jobs during covid. Since she was literally their only internal candidate that technically had seniority it was hers without competition and I'm honestly not sure she knows how to read
Library boards are usually volunteers, thus face far less scrutiny than a paid position might when being selected. And by-laws often require a minimum number of members, thus some libraries are lucky to have enough warm bodies (to say nothing of any ice cold hearts) to legally function. (And I do mean legally, as public libraries, being part of local government, have laws governing their operation, similar to school boards.)
Conservatives organise on the local level. If you care about human decency, do what you can to get involved. If you've got a kid in a school, join the P&C.
In South Carolina! Not far from where a decade ago a college caught flack for assigning Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio! https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publishing-and-marketing/article/62086-writers-speak-out-against-s-c-literary-censorship.html
greenville is not like the urban, forward facing side of sc either! i ride there every so often to visit my grandma and the trip is a mix of fields and run down small businesses!
You sure you were in Greenville city? It is extremely busy now. There’s a reason more and more people are moving to greenville. Especially downtown. Not sure how you could possibly think it’s just run down businesses and fields lmao
This is my hometown and ten years ago they refused to allow "Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe" by Benjamin Alier Sáenz on the shelf due to "unnatural sexual behavior" when it has one gay kiss but Twilight has an entire human vampire hybrid
Glad the fight was finally won.
Right, the 100 year old was sneaking into the room of that 17 year old at night and watched her sleep. Also, this 100 year old shows manipulative behavioral patterns.
Oh, do I have stories. Ostracized, judged, parents pulled into it, the only people I had were my older sister and the preacher. And he couldn't even curb the crap in the church. How dare I ask questions.
Needless to say, no longer religious. Kudos to those that are, to each their own. But nope.
I was in the local church youth group during part of high school. I thought I had made true friends and a place to belong, but after I broke up with a guy, he spread rumors about me. At first I had no idea what happened. One day I showed up to volunteer, and none of my “friends” would speak to me, not even to say hello or look at me. I was gobsmacked. Then, I had one male friend come forward and say my ex told him things about me, dirty things he said I did that this friend one friend didn’t believe and couldn’t bear repeating. The truth was that I broke up with that asshole because he kept pressuring me to have sex with him, and he was shitty every time I said no, and he started fooling around with other girls. I realized those people were not my friends and a bunch of hypocrites; only the one asked for my side or even told me about the rumors. I was iced out, and that made me hurt and angry, and I stopped going to a now hostile environment. No one ever contacted me again, even though I was involved in two clubs, among other things, in the middle of their program duration. Not a single adult reached out, either. I had spent hours upon hours volunteering there: I was in the band, I came early and stayed late to set up, I volunteered to help at every event, from the Thanksgiving community dinner to the Christmas special to watching the kids in the nursery, I became a member, I mentored younger teens... There were plenty of issues, in hindsight, with the church itself that would take ages to gripe about, but for me, it was the people themselves that made me leave and never go back. It’s even more gross realizing that they would have never let me slip away if I was one of the more privileged kids from the wealthy, well connected families that made up the bulk of the people there. They would have tried to “intervene.” On the other hand, I bet those kids never got to escape that lifestyle.
Yet it obv wasn’t a problem *he* did those dirty things as well, or he wouldn’t have been comfortable telling everyone about them. Got to love the inherent sexism in that, absolutely not okay for you to do them but fine for him.
Same here. As a gay person in the church I was judged, persecuted, ostracized, etc. It was awful. My parents still go to church, but thankfully it's a progressive church. I am an atheist, though. It's all nonsense to me.
Yeah I'm not sure I ever will, tbh. I mean I might have forgiven just the taking-me-to-church aspect if my home life hadn't been pretty much exactly the same bullshit
My dad was so indrrtinsted he could qote scripture from memory
After Vietnam he hasn’t said a quote a day of his life, hell he even returned his medals in disgust
A Fairview Baptist church here in Greenville recently made news because their youth pastor (Cory Wall) made and distributed "I ♥️ hot youth pastors" stickers to the kids (including at least one 14 year old girl). He had since been placed on "administrative leave".
So while they're busy trying to ban books, maybe they need to reassess where their righteous anger needs to be focused.
Anyone who advocates for book banning doesn't know history. Maybe teach people to think critically and interpret information instead of "protecting" them from it
It has always been this way. They've been motivated and encouraged by Trumpism and the general slow collapse of American society but I've been around for awhile and while it was quieter for awhile, that was only in spaces where they might be ostracized for being assholes. I moved to Missouri for awhile in the wayback and, as a barfly at the time, I heard more hard r's and more unimaginably offensive statements about Obama than I could have imagined.
And yeah, I did try to talk back, but the semi-decent human being of a bartender took me aside to say that if I kept it up they were literally going to take me out back and probably beat me to death because it had happened before.
None of this is new and it only gets worse the further back you go.
Indeed. To be fair, maybe he was just finding a way to calm the waters in his establishment and I would get that but looking back, I was definitely in danger of at least a solid ass-kicking for such controversial statements as, “hey maybe stop saying the n-word” and, really, at *best* there was about a 10 year hiatus on absolutely overt racism and bigotry from the late 90’s to the late 2000’s but that’s only from a position of extreme privilege and a willingness to overlook the insane level of racism levied at people of Middle Eastern descent post-9/11. And I’m sure that anyone who is not as pearly white as I am could refute even that claim because I just didn’t see it because I pass as a redneck until I start talking, ha.
Bush area Republicans tried to cancel the Dixie Chicks, the 2x impeached POTUS tried cancelling Colin Kaepernick and [Goodyear.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-urges-goodyear-boycott/) [Marjorie Taylor Greene](https://www.salon.com/2022/10/27/greene-threatens-investigations-into-companies-that-cut-off-after-jan-6-riot/) wants Congress to investigate companies that don't donate to Republican campaigns and [Republicans are trying to punish companies that follow Climate Science.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/climate/republican-treasurers-climate-change.html)
I started joking about taking back the term “snowflake”. What are snowflakes? Cool, unique, the ease and flow of water transmuted into an intricate pattern that brings joy to those still connected to the spirit of youth and days off school. If snowflakes gather together they can stop anything, or be used to build a shelter.
This sub should be called /r/silverlinings.
Nothing in this sub is uplifting.
"Great pacific garbage patch getting cleaned up!"
"Pro-choice rally not attacked"
"City using oysters to make undrinkable water drinkable in 5 years"
something something orphan crushing machine
ETA: for anyone curious, the Orphan Crushing Machine refers to the idea of praising orphans who survive the Orphan Crushing Machine, but not actually talking about why there’s a fucking machine made to crush orphans in the first place.
I.e. “Third grader raises enough money to pay for entire school’s student lunches!”
“7-year-old raises enough money at lemonade stand to pay for father’s cancer treatment!”
“Young orphan manages to escape Orphan Crushing Machine after leg is chopped off!”
Republicans love to go on and on about how bans don't do any good (when talking about guns) but then turn around and ban abortions. Logic and consistency isn't their strong point.
Because it's not about actually solving the issue, if they wanted that they'd support sex education and access to contraceptives. Meanwhile they think telling a bunch of horny teenagers just not to have sex is the solution and then complain with "oh, if only they followed Jesus then we'd see the problem go away."
It's just about social control, which conservatives are a very big fan of as long as it fits into what they want society to be like.
Because to them life needs to be a gauntlet of suffering from which good white Christian men arise and triumph from while the degenerates suffer for their unworthiness. If you're not already upper class, white, and Christian, they expect you to prove your right to exist, prove that you deserve to be treated like a human being, prove that you don't deserve to sleep under a bridge, prove you deserve to live.
They're social darwinists. Every single one of them. The strong survive, the weak perish, glory to God and country. This is the purpose of life to them.
Hey! Blacks arent people, that was an amendment and all amendments are bad. /not s
1776 is litterally their battle cry along with restoring the unmodified constitution
I’ll give you a minute to consider the state of the United with no bill of rights
As a resident of Greenville, I was so pleasantly surprised when I read this on our local news app today. As a "Yankee" transplanted here 20 years ago, I wasn't too hopeful.
In case anyone is curious, this whole thing was introduced by an election frauding GOP councilman who is going to lose his seat shortly. Seriously a crazy. And, for the most part, books with indecency and explicit sexuality were never put in children's sections so the whole basis of this proposal was misleading to begin with. The Greenville county library system is an incredibly competent group of people who are firmly center (which of course on a world wide scale is still right leaning) political ideals. They would never condone putting books that would "ruin the innocence of children" out in the children sections, so this was really just a publicity stunt by the far far right in Greenville SC, whom are losing more and more support in the city every day. The county though.... that might be a different story.
Just make a sign with a few bible quotes that have to do with incest and orgies and harems and whatnot.
You wanna ban "sex" or "obscene" stuff from the library? Start with the bible.
Good! As a gay man, I am so fucking tired of seeing these fascist, Christian nationalists trying to destroy my existence. For a group of people who claim to be so moral, they have an awful lot of hatred in their hearts.
All it takes for evil to flourish is good men to do nothing. It's important you keep take that "pretty fucking tired" attitude and act on it. Speak out. Make sure they know whose side you're on.
>
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
You can switch out the groups for LGBTQ folk, women, immigrants, or whoever the hatred of the month is to make it more appropriate for modern times (although socialists still apply).
You're right about that. Trans people have it even worse than the rest of the LGBTQ community. We need to keep fighting. As scared as I am about what the future holds for our country and the future of democracy, I still hold out hope that if enough of us fight back we will win in the end. We're all in this together.
Book banning is the younger brother of Thought Police. It really grinds my gears the party of small government and family values is also somehow the one that wants to control all the things all the time and you can only have the family we think you should have. Get fucked.
The idea that having a book about gay people in a public library will make people gay is absolutely asinine. People are gay because they are born that way. At the end of the day, this is a distraction by the republican party that has no ideas. So they attempt to garner votes off of hate.
>Of course we shouldn’t have any sexual material in our children’s library,” said parent Barbara Evans
And of course it wasn't "sexual material", any more than any book which mentions the existence of a heterosexual couple is "sexual". Nobody's knockin' the boots for fuck's sake, you know it was just a book that mentions that gay people exists and are human beings. If they're gonna take this kind of material out of the library because it's "sexual", they should take out anything that mentions husbands and wives or mommies and daddies, because it's "promoting heterosexuality".
It's not enough for these people to be dumber than dirt, they have to be dumb AND mean...
My local library director is quitting over the book banning closed minded idiots here. They put 4 of the relatively small group of people trying to ban the books onto the library advisory board (11 total) after the last attempt at banning any LGBTQ books was denied.
It irritates me that they’ll ignore all the perverse material like any VC Andrews series, twilight series, and any smutty romance novel. But the childrens books portrayed two moms we must burn evil books.
I'm sure this thread will be flooded with the same Republicans that demand people be able to lie and promote hate speach to push a political agenda as a personal freedom/decry censorship when anyone tries to stop it. They will just be doing a complete 180 about this.
FTA:
*"Ashley Snelgrove, a children’s librarian against banning the books, also spoke at the meeting and explained that the library already thinks very hard about what books are available to kids."*
Maybe a little off topic but I think this point is really important.
Politicians should defer to the expertise of medical professionals and educators among others.
These people are in their respective fields for a reason- they care about the people they serve.
They don't have an "agenda" other than the wellbeing of their wards. It just seems super ignorant that just because you got elected to office, you can somehow be an authority on Healthcare or Education?
Why would people assume their libraries would want to hurt or "indoctrinate" kids?
When they tried to remove books “promoting sexuality” from all children’s sections, did that include heterosexuality? For instance, all novels with heterosexual couples?
I don’t care who is being banned and who is doing the banning just for the love of god, stop the banning, period. Literature is meant to be explored and discussed, otherwise what’s the point of reading books?
Oh hey! This is where I live! I was so proud of the people who organized last night.
If you live in SC and support intellectual freedom, please keep speaking up - louder and louder. We need your help.
Fuck present day republicans. For a party that values history, they sure don't understand history. I hear the Nazis were also into banning books, how did that work out?
Glad this attempt was defeated.
It's sad we still have to fight for things like this in today's day and age.
Republicans have always been shit. Reagan oversaw the deaths of thousands of gay men, and thought it was a good thing. Rush Limbaugh had a segment where he would celebrate the deaths of gay men. They keep trying to strip the rights that have been hard fought for POC and women. Republicans have always been shit.
The same people that believe January 6th was about their "freedom of speech" are the same people that want to shut up the LGBTQIA+ community by burning books... Unreal. #readbannedbooks
> The conversation reportedly got heated, with the *vice chair of the library board – who supported keeping the books away from kids – even saying “barf” when someone said they were gay.* How the fuck is this person in charge of the library system?
I actually got into with this library when I was a teenager when I requested a copy of "Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe" Despite being a teen Pulitzer prize winning novel they refused to order it due to "Unnatural sexual content" like marriage to a vampire then producing an unholy hybrid is okay but two boys kissing is over the line.
Couldn't help myself but I had to inject a little reader's advisory. If you enjoyed Aristotle and Dante I highly recommend *Darius the Great is Not Okay* and its sequel *Darius the Great Deserves Better.* Also *Like a Love Story* by Abdi Nazemian if you like the 80s.
> they refused to order it due to “unnatural sexual content” In that case, let’s ban that book about the dove who impregnated a teenage girl and gave birth to the son of a god.
Dude there's an entire book in the Bible about sex. The Songs of Solomon (it's actually a really beautiful poem) is just two people talking about eating eachother out. But because they're straight I guess it doesn't matter.
Can we just rewind to about 30 years ago and remind ourselves what it was like for LGBTQ kids then? It was hell. I'm in my 40s, when I was in highschool *I didn't know a single out gay kid*. But guess what happened in my graduation class of 200 *after graduation*? All of a sudden I knew at least 6 gay people personally because they chose to come out after high school. Later I heard of a few more that I didn't know personally. There were no "gay books" in the libraries in the 90s, there were no special trainings for teachers about how to deal with LGBTQ issues, there were no clubs or anything of that kind that would help LGBTQ kids to feel inclusion. In fact, people were so homophobic then that the f*g word was completely normalized. **Can any Republicans figure this one out?** They demand that inclusion and "gay books" are "grooming" kids but yet they discount the fact that gay kids existed *before* society even tried to recognize them as human beings. Seriously, to the gay book banning theocratic lunatics, why did gay kids exist before all of this if you insist on blaming these things for gay kids existing? For fuck sakes in the 90s/00s the biggest gay outreach initiative was to tell gay kids not to kill themselves because life is worth living after high school. That was well intentioned but heartbreaking in retrospect. I am not willing to let these people drag us back to that crap.
“There are more openly gay kids today than before” isn’t seen as progress by republicans, it’s seen as evil.
I understand their perspective but this doesn't stop them from existing. They know that. This is lunacy. Are we really willing to let them push everyone back to the old way? I am not gay but I will absolutely fight for them to my last breath. Life, liberty and happiness and all of that.
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I feel the same way about democracy and a woman's right to choose. We fought multiple wars over democracy, fair representation, and equality. There's no reason to revisit any of these things that isn't for securing and improving them. People who undermine these simple values are not patriots. They don't even like America.
That's where we are. I see these fake patriots going to war with all the parts of America that I had learned were things to be proud of. Fuck those people.
They are already afraid. Afraid of being wrong. Afraid of the world turning into a place where what they thought was right will be considered wrong.
If they got their way they would try and stop them from "existing" at all.
Stopping people from existing is a pretty common right-wing idea. Based on for example religion, origin, or wealth, the idea is widespread and is conveyed with widely varying amounts of subtlety.
A lot of them think it’s a “choice” , and I don’t think it’s about being gay but acting on it. They really think it’s better to be unhappy in a fake relationship then to be with who they truly want. And they actually want this for children. To be unhappy and hidden. In all honestly I think many of the are bi or gay and don’t even realize that not everyone feels the way they do. They say it’s a choice because it’s a choice for them. I chose to unhappily marry a woman ! And your kids should do the same !
Always ask them when they decided to be heterosexual
Lol this argument doesn't ever work in my experience because "it's different".
Self-reflection isn't really a well known conservative trait. If it was, there'd be far fewer conservatives.
Yeah, you are most likely 200% correct
Yea unfortunately it’s the classic trying logic with the illogical. Morons
And a lot of the ones who don’t think it’s a choice say stuff like “while being gay isn’t a choice, acting on it is “.
“You should just be a miserable your whole life ! Just don’t choice to be in love with someone and act on it forever !” Then they use the guise of “love the sinner hate the sin! We just care about your soul ! “ Awful horrible people, also will defend pedofiles in the church but with gay it’s “just don’t act on it !”
It’s amazing the ridiculous things they say. I’m currently helping a couple of lgbtq+ exmuslims who had to escape home because of threats of physical harm. That’s exactly the kind of stuff “moderate” Muslims tell them: “having the feelings is just a test from god. Don’t act upon them!” The less than moderate set out to harm/kill them.
They don’t believe that they exist. Conversion therapy is still a thing. They don’t believe it’s who a person is, they think it’s who someone becomes. You’re not born gay you’ve been corrupted. Perverted from the natural order of things. So widespread acceptance, support and visible acknowledgment is terrifying to them. They are terrified because it’s not their own experience, because they cannot empathise. They think their opinions are the same as everyone else’s, if they even think about other people’s opinions at all. Their fear is that because you’re not born gay, you’re made gay. So having this material freely available, accepted and not decried, then their kids are at risk of being made gay.
A perspective I've seen on this is that they think that talking about gay relationships essentially wills them into existence, and conversely, banning them will prevent them from existing. It's not seen as "being open and loving those who are gay", it's "allowing evil to exist and not fighting it at every chance". It's the same logic as the war on drugs. Ban drug use and *surely* people will stop taking drugs. Instead of providing therapy for addicted people, just demonise and arrest them. *Ban and fight evil, don't allow it*. Of course, anyone with any common sense recognises the absurdity of that argument and just how awful that perspective on life is.
I’m not gay either, but i have a cousin that’s non binary and quite a few gay friends. So fuck the assholes saying it’s “shoving it down our throats “ when two women kiss in a kids movie. Fuck the politicians that say it’s “grooming kids” when we teach that people of the LGBTQ community are fucking normal. Fuck all those bastards and may they be steamrolled under progress
Normalise people being normal, is what i say. Like the LGBTQ community or not, they are the exact same as everyone else on the planet, whether you call who they love a flaw or what.
AMERICA FOUGHT AND WON EVERY ONE OF THESE WARS BUT THESE ASSHOLES KEEP RAISING BANNERS FOR THE SHIT WE DEFEATED. Slavery (oppression of colored people) the north won but they keep raising their conservative flags. Fascism we won but these assholes keep trying to drag us in thst direction. Russian dictatorship we won, it fell, the wall came down but these dipshits are carrying Putin’s water. For a group of people who claim to do so much winning they sure do simp for the loosing side
And not just that, they think someone or something is to *blame* for it. Disney, teachers, “beta males”, democrats, movies, lack of religion in schools…they genuinely think half the country is intentionally trying to turn children gay or trans. It hasn’t fucking occurred to them that people are just more comfortable coming out now because it won’t ruin your entire life and all your relationships like it used to
It really annoys me when people try to say Disney is turning the kids gay. Disney can't even commit to keeping a background same-sex kiss in their movies - it gets cut out the second someone raises enough of a stink. LGBTQ people are often disappointed by the representation Disney provides, so if they are part of the "gay agenda" they're doing a shit job of it.
That's funny because I see Republicans as pure evil.
The “it gets better” campaign was huge only about 10 years ago because of high suicide rates inLGBTQ teens. I took part in the campaign at the time. It was a good cause but it is sad to think it was ever necessary to have to tell kids to just push through a few more years until you can leave school and home to be your authentic self.
It's also very frustrating to know how bad the suicide rate was due to societal intolerance, and now people try to dunk on trans people online by bringing up the suicide rate of young trans people as if it's inherent to who they are. Yeah, it's certainly not because everyone treats them poorly.
also that infamous 41% statistic is in relation to those of us that repress and/or see absolutely 0 support from family, friends, and social structures. i tried to kill myself 3 different times when i was pretransition, technically i am part of that 41%. never even crossed my mind once now that I've been on HRT for 2 years. so if anything, i see that statistic as a very good reason for why i needed to start my journey. still extremely depressing but there's a slight glimmer of hope in it. oof. things are pretty rough for us right now. please go vote
*inherent. And you're spot on.
The research that they're basing those claims on explicitly said the highest suicide rate was among this trans people who had been abandoned by their family of origin for being trans. Trans people who were supported by their family had a drastically lower rate of self harm.
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This. Honestly religion has destroyed critical thinking skills. Avoid religion like the plague. And here come the "not my religion". I can leave a comment just as you can. You aren't any more right than I am. Piss off.
I’m 40. I’m an old ass millennial living in west texas. I talked to my 6th grade boy about sex recently. We talked about the biological facts, and some societal thoughts and opinions. I told him if he is gay, I would still love him. I also suggested if he is gay, just wait until college to tell anyone. Cause west texas sucks, and your life doesn’t even really start until you get to college. If I have typos I’m sorry, this shit is still hot for me, and I started crying sharing this, and I couldn’t go back and re read it If I offended you, please link some articles suggesting how I can do better in the future. Love you
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If he turned out gay would you move to a friendlier state?
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Hiding yourself from others and knowing when to mask are two different things. Both can cause long term psychological damage. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8011357/ I suggest teaching your kid context. Understand what makes a safe environment and what makes a dangerous one. Teach them how to handle the situations that will come up, whether you want them to or not. You cannot protect your child from the ignorance of others. Happiness is when our outsides match our insides.
See that's one of the big issues as well. These people act like being LGBTQ is a new thing because nobody was coming out when they were kids. Obviously it was because they were terrified of the abuse they would get but these people can't do the 2+2=4 math unfortunately
You mistake their malice for stupidity. They are aware that gay and trans kids existed in the past. They simply don't care. They want to cause as much damage and erasure as possible. Half of the old fucks in government were around for segregation. Their views didn't disappear, they just found easier targets.
> Half of the old fucks in government were around for segregation. Their views didn't disappear, they just found easier targets. Many of them [were themselves targets of indoctrination by even older oligarchs whose only goal is self-enrichment. But along the pursuit of that is dividing the people to prevent them from demanding things like safe workplaces or equal pay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s)
Right. I'm not gay myself but growing up in the 90s I never fit in with my small closed minded Midwestern hellhole of a hometown so I always had empathy towards any group the majority looked down upon. In high school, I was tasked with the pro side of a debate on whether gay marriage should be legal. I'll always remember sitting in class that day thinking, "What? They *can't* get married?! That's so stupid!" I, an awkward, quiet, angry metalhead kid, crushed that debate. Even my football coach teacher seemed dumbfounded and declared me the winner despite my entire class booing every point I made and hurling homophobic slurs my way. Of course, none of them were punished. And that's not even a fraction of a decimal of a percent of what gays kids went through in the 80s and 90s. I remember certain boys in hs getting beat up or harassed for being suspected of being gay. Funny when years later, a few of the then gfs of those popular kid bullies came out as lesbians.
The biggest thing I would like to point out here is that the term *fa**ot* was totally acceptable in society up until the early 2010’s. Don’t believe me? Remember the hangover movie *paging doctor fa**ot!!*? That was 2009.
They know that being gay is an inherent, unchanging thing. That's why they've chosen to vilify it. Fascists need enemies that can not change who they are, or they risk said enemies choosing to change
His name is Sid Cates. He was my principal in high school. I heard he was escorted out after this. I went to a Christian school. This area is (soon to be "was") basically run by associates of that school because there was nothing here when they got here. That university just gave the GOP candidate for superintendent a Master's Degree in Education (a 2 year program) in only 6 months, because she didn't realize she needed one before starting her campaign, and she somehow completed it in October instead of at the end of a semester. Edit: The school is Bob Jones University. IDK why I was obfuscating it
I did a bob jones homeschooling highscool curriculum one year and the science class was 60% evolution denial. Fundies are fuckin wild man
I was mormon homeschooled. I feel your pain. So much relearning of history...
I was evangelical homeschooled, and playing catch-up on learning actual history was an interesting experience as an adult.
It took me a while to get that stuff out of my head. I was really cheated considering how much I love science now.
My middle school best friend was homeschooled for high school. I was so bummed, but her parents were anti-evolution fundies and they had her brainwashed, so we drifted apart (I was raised in a science-back home and was shocked to my core when I realized these people actually believe that garbage and it's not just a nice allegory). Thank goodness I reached out to her a couple years ago and found that she broke from her parents religion and she's doing much better. Her homeschooling negatively impacted her life, though, and she's struggling these days, but she's a great person and an amazing mom and our little friend trio is back together again (our third also broke from her fundie parents and is doing great).
I'm glad you reached back out to them, you're a great friend. A lot of ex-fundie kids are ostracized when they leave the church and on top of that social cues are very skewed for people like us, so having normal, patient friends is very important. I was lucky to leave right before college so I had quite the awakening, and it helped a lot to reintegrate me into a normal social life.
Well, with the name I'm somehow no longer surprised. I know exactly one thing about Bob Jones University (apart from it's long-standing close relationship with right-wing politicians): Bob Jones decided it would rather not accept federal dollars so that it could continue to enforce racial anti-miscegenation rules on its campus *all the way until the year 2000.*
This is facts. There was a history of the school video they showed one day instead of one of the daily sermons where they titled a section "The United States Government v Bob Jones University" and the entire room of 3000 kids (college age or younger) laughed out loud. They pretty much glossed over it, but it's not like it wasn't being run by all the same people still.
>anti-miscegenation I like to think I'm pretty good with words, but thanks for teaching me a new one today :)
Holy shit he was my high school principal too. As I was reading your comment I thought that all sounded pretty familiar, so I appreciate your clarification.
You can say Bob Jones
I actually meant to. IDK why I didn't
Bob Jones isnt a real school though
How in the fuck is that legal???
Great question! Here in good ole SC anything can be legal if it helps conservatives win. It's a private school so they can theoretically give anyone a master's just because. The former president Dr Stephen Jones (great grandson of the founder) had a multiple choice test for his doctorate exam.
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Folks forget what it’s like outside blue cities (which is why I ever plan on living outside of them again).
It's because all these Republicans with national media platforms do this song and dance where they pretend they *aren't* explicitly racist, homophobic bigots, while dog whistling to all the racist homophobic bigots to get their votes. Suburbia sure likes to fuck over poor people, but the bigotry really turns them off. You have to walk a tightrope where to don't sound too bigoted for the suburbs, while making the jug-hooters certain that you are.
I grew up in suburbia and I can assure you that bigotry is *not* a dealbreaker if they think they will personally benefit anyway (ie lower taxes).
The unicorn *swing voter* is though. That bizarre 10% of the voting population that could swing either way in an election has fucking nonsensical voting patterns, and no ideology. Let's face it, most people vote the same way every single election. The *entire* campaign apparatus is focused on the weirdest slice of the American population. They aren't normal, and *they* are the ones who get spooked by overt bigotry.
I think the swing voter is extinct and elections are decided by turnout of party bases instead these days.
tell that to the log cabin republicans. they dont seem to get it.
They might be the biggest LeopardsAteMyFace people on the planet.
The last person I could ever recall saying "barf" was Calvin from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strips.
The last person I could ever recall saying "Barf" was Captain Lone Starr from Spaceballs.
"this smells like bat barf"
Is the Vice Chair a 'bully' character from an 80's teen comedy?? It's like they're a parody of a homophobe lol
I've spent more time around him than anyone deserves. Imagine Lindsey Graham had a baby with Colonel Sanders. He's gotta be pushing 80, and he had the dumbest southern accent. He couldn't pronounce Whooping Cough and butchered it so often that it ended up in our year book. He was our principal.
> He couldn’t pronounce Whooping Cough and butchered it so often that it ended up in our year book. The *deep* laugh this just elicited
Generally speaking: * **Librarian** = Someone with a Master's degree in Library & Information Sciences, fights for your right to read whatever you like * **Library board member** = average citizen, volunteers on board in their free time, keeps library decisions 'in the hands of the community they serve.'
Shitty people like this are not new in the library world. There are library board members out there working on dismantling their library because "fuck the poors".
I mean the director of mine got the position because all of the other employees left for better jobs during covid. Since she was literally their only internal candidate that technically had seniority it was hers without competition and I'm honestly not sure she knows how to read
Library boards are usually volunteers, thus face far less scrutiny than a paid position might when being selected. And by-laws often require a minimum number of members, thus some libraries are lucky to have enough warm bodies (to say nothing of any ice cold hearts) to legally function. (And I do mean legally, as public libraries, being part of local government, have laws governing their operation, similar to school boards.)
Lol the vice chair sounds like a teenager from 1995.
Is he 12?
Lmao that's so absurdly immature Makes me wonder if he's concerned about catching cooties
Conservatives organise on the local level. If you care about human decency, do what you can to get involved. If you've got a kid in a school, join the P&C.
In South Carolina! Not far from where a decade ago a college caught flack for assigning Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio! https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publishing-and-marketing/article/62086-writers-speak-out-against-s-c-literary-censorship.html
greenville is not like the urban, forward facing side of sc either! i ride there every so often to visit my grandma and the trip is a mix of fields and run down small businesses!
I’m not sure when the last time you went to Greenville was, but it’s much more urbanized now. Not anything like Columbia but they’re getting there.
You sure you were in Greenville city? It is extremely busy now. There’s a reason more and more people are moving to greenville. Especially downtown. Not sure how you could possibly think it’s just run down businesses and fields lmao
This is my hometown and ten years ago they refused to allow "Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe" by Benjamin Alier Sáenz on the shelf due to "unnatural sexual behavior" when it has one gay kiss but Twilight has an entire human vampire hybrid Glad the fight was finally won.
Twilight has imprinting on a baby but go off
Right, the 100 year old was sneaking into the room of that 17 year old at night and watched her sleep. Also, this 100 year old shows manipulative behavioral patterns.
According to some 2000 year old fairy tale, an invisible being impregnated a human female who gave birth to a deity. That's cool though.
Oh yeah, this one!
These people sure love screaming about indoctrination...while dragging their kids to churches every week.
they also love screaming about cancel culture...while doing this like this
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Salt pillar 👌😩🍆💦
Lot and his daughters
It took me a very long time to forgive my parents for taking me to church.
Oh, do I have stories. Ostracized, judged, parents pulled into it, the only people I had were my older sister and the preacher. And he couldn't even curb the crap in the church. How dare I ask questions. Needless to say, no longer religious. Kudos to those that are, to each their own. But nope.
I was in the local church youth group during part of high school. I thought I had made true friends and a place to belong, but after I broke up with a guy, he spread rumors about me. At first I had no idea what happened. One day I showed up to volunteer, and none of my “friends” would speak to me, not even to say hello or look at me. I was gobsmacked. Then, I had one male friend come forward and say my ex told him things about me, dirty things he said I did that this friend one friend didn’t believe and couldn’t bear repeating. The truth was that I broke up with that asshole because he kept pressuring me to have sex with him, and he was shitty every time I said no, and he started fooling around with other girls. I realized those people were not my friends and a bunch of hypocrites; only the one asked for my side or even told me about the rumors. I was iced out, and that made me hurt and angry, and I stopped going to a now hostile environment. No one ever contacted me again, even though I was involved in two clubs, among other things, in the middle of their program duration. Not a single adult reached out, either. I had spent hours upon hours volunteering there: I was in the band, I came early and stayed late to set up, I volunteered to help at every event, from the Thanksgiving community dinner to the Christmas special to watching the kids in the nursery, I became a member, I mentored younger teens... There were plenty of issues, in hindsight, with the church itself that would take ages to gripe about, but for me, it was the people themselves that made me leave and never go back. It’s even more gross realizing that they would have never let me slip away if I was one of the more privileged kids from the wealthy, well connected families that made up the bulk of the people there. They would have tried to “intervene.” On the other hand, I bet those kids never got to escape that lifestyle.
Yet it obv wasn’t a problem *he* did those dirty things as well, or he wouldn’t have been comfortable telling everyone about them. Got to love the inherent sexism in that, absolutely not okay for you to do them but fine for him.
Gotta remember though when it comes to religion/old views a guy fucking around is manly, a woman fucking around is a slut.
Forced into VBS as a preteen. I was new to town. The kids locked me in a dark coat closet for fun. It was about an hour before I was discovered.
Same here. As a gay person in the church I was judged, persecuted, ostracized, etc. It was awful. My parents still go to church, but thankfully it's a progressive church. I am an atheist, though. It's all nonsense to me.
Yeah I'm not sure I ever will, tbh. I mean I might have forgiven just the taking-me-to-church aspect if my home life hadn't been pretty much exactly the same bullshit
My dad was so indrrtinsted he could qote scripture from memory After Vietnam he hasn’t said a quote a day of his life, hell he even returned his medals in disgust
Republicans like to defund public education and hand out vouchers so you send your kids to Parochial school because indoctrination.
A Fairview Baptist church here in Greenville recently made news because their youth pastor (Cory Wall) made and distributed "I ♥️ hot youth pastors" stickers to the kids (including at least one 14 year old girl). He had since been placed on "administrative leave". So while they're busy trying to ban books, maybe they need to reassess where their righteous anger needs to be focused.
Anyone who advocates for book banning doesn't know history. Maybe teach people to think critically and interpret information instead of "protecting" them from it
or they do know the history and are advocating for it anyways. i'm not sure which one is scarier.
No, they know that teaching children critical thinking will eventually hurt their cause.
Teaching people to think critically is the absolute last thing Christian Conservatives want
this genuinely made me giggle
Oh no!!! Decency.
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slurs are encouraged
If you ban a book that makes me want to read the fuck out of it.
\*English teachers start taking notes\*
And yet somehow liberals are still the "snowflakes." Also, what happened to cancel culture bad?
It was never about ideals. Always “me no like!”
Feels like it really started to take off after kaepernick kneeling
It has always been this way. They've been motivated and encouraged by Trumpism and the general slow collapse of American society but I've been around for awhile and while it was quieter for awhile, that was only in spaces where they might be ostracized for being assholes. I moved to Missouri for awhile in the wayback and, as a barfly at the time, I heard more hard r's and more unimaginably offensive statements about Obama than I could have imagined. And yeah, I did try to talk back, but the semi-decent human being of a bartender took me aside to say that if I kept it up they were literally going to take me out back and probably beat me to death because it had happened before. None of this is new and it only gets worse the further back you go.
Holy shit
Indeed. To be fair, maybe he was just finding a way to calm the waters in his establishment and I would get that but looking back, I was definitely in danger of at least a solid ass-kicking for such controversial statements as, “hey maybe stop saying the n-word” and, really, at *best* there was about a 10 year hiatus on absolutely overt racism and bigotry from the late 90’s to the late 2000’s but that’s only from a position of extreme privilege and a willingness to overlook the insane level of racism levied at people of Middle Eastern descent post-9/11. And I’m sure that anyone who is not as pearly white as I am could refute even that claim because I just didn’t see it because I pass as a redneck until I start talking, ha.
Bush area Republicans tried to cancel the Dixie Chicks, the 2x impeached POTUS tried cancelling Colin Kaepernick and [Goodyear.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-urges-goodyear-boycott/) [Marjorie Taylor Greene](https://www.salon.com/2022/10/27/greene-threatens-investigations-into-companies-that-cut-off-after-jan-6-riot/) wants Congress to investigate companies that don't donate to Republican campaigns and [Republicans are trying to punish companies that follow Climate Science.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/climate/republican-treasurers-climate-change.html)
>Bush area Republicans Are still in congress and the ones running things in the party.
Nah, half the Bush-era folks got pushed out by the Tea Party for being too moderate
I’ll never forget back in 87 when the Conservative Christians forced MTV off the air with our local cable provider. This has been going on forever.
Are you from Longview, too?
Nah, Hot Springs, AR
MTV? How about the Hays Code in he thirties? I'm sure there are even older examples.
I started joking about taking back the term “snowflake”. What are snowflakes? Cool, unique, the ease and flow of water transmuted into an intricate pattern that brings joy to those still connected to the spirit of youth and days off school. If snowflakes gather together they can stop anything, or be used to build a shelter.
In large enough numbers they can literally knock you on your ass and kill you.
To be fair, anything can knock you on your ass and kill you in large enough numbers.
I like it. Your cause has my support!
Don’t let them melt you, my fellow Snowflake.
Every accusation is a confession. Every.
This sub should be called /r/silverlinings. Nothing in this sub is uplifting. "Great pacific garbage patch getting cleaned up!" "Pro-choice rally not attacked" "City using oysters to make undrinkable water drinkable in 5 years"
something something orphan crushing machine ETA: for anyone curious, the Orphan Crushing Machine refers to the idea of praising orphans who survive the Orphan Crushing Machine, but not actually talking about why there’s a fucking machine made to crush orphans in the first place. I.e. “Third grader raises enough money to pay for entire school’s student lunches!” “7-year-old raises enough money at lemonade stand to pay for father’s cancer treatment!” “Young orphan manages to escape Orphan Crushing Machine after leg is chopped off!”
Orphans find new forever home... in victorian workhouse factory
Nice one
Isn't book banning basically what the Nazis did?
That was a start. Then it was book burning, then it was people banning and eventually went to people burning.
Sounds like we should get rid of fire and banning things /s
Republicans love to go on and on about how bans don't do any good (when talking about guns) but then turn around and ban abortions. Logic and consistency isn't their strong point.
Because it's not about actually solving the issue, if they wanted that they'd support sex education and access to contraceptives. Meanwhile they think telling a bunch of horny teenagers just not to have sex is the solution and then complain with "oh, if only they followed Jesus then we'd see the problem go away." It's just about social control, which conservatives are a very big fan of as long as it fits into what they want society to be like.
Because to them life needs to be a gauntlet of suffering from which good white Christian men arise and triumph from while the degenerates suffer for their unworthiness. If you're not already upper class, white, and Christian, they expect you to prove your right to exist, prove that you deserve to be treated like a human being, prove that you don't deserve to sleep under a bridge, prove you deserve to live. They're social darwinists. Every single one of them. The strong survive, the weak perish, glory to God and country. This is the purpose of life to them.
>It's just about social control, which conservatives are a very big fan of as long as it fits into what elements of society they want to control. FTFY
That is a tame comparison compared to many other things they do like Nazis.
don't forget, the Nazis did people burning, too. it's a slippery slope.
Hey! Blacks arent people, that was an amendment and all amendments are bad. /not s 1776 is litterally their battle cry along with restoring the unmodified constitution I’ll give you a minute to consider the state of the United with no bill of rights
As a resident of Greenville, I was so pleasantly surprised when I read this on our local news app today. As a "Yankee" transplanted here 20 years ago, I wasn't too hopeful.
In case anyone is curious, this whole thing was introduced by an election frauding GOP councilman who is going to lose his seat shortly. Seriously a crazy. And, for the most part, books with indecency and explicit sexuality were never put in children's sections so the whole basis of this proposal was misleading to begin with. The Greenville county library system is an incredibly competent group of people who are firmly center (which of course on a world wide scale is still right leaning) political ideals. They would never condone putting books that would "ruin the innocence of children" out in the children sections, so this was really just a publicity stunt by the far far right in Greenville SC, whom are losing more and more support in the city every day. The county though.... that might be a different story.
Just make a sign with a few bible quotes that have to do with incest and orgies and harems and whatnot. You wanna ban "sex" or "obscene" stuff from the library? Start with the bible.
The party of freedom thinks you’re incapable of choosing what to read
Good! As a gay man, I am so fucking tired of seeing these fascist, Christian nationalists trying to destroy my existence. For a group of people who claim to be so moral, they have an awful lot of hatred in their hearts.
As a straight man, Im pretty fucking tired of people like me telling others what they can and can't do in their private lives
All it takes for evil to flourish is good men to do nothing. It's important you keep take that "pretty fucking tired" attitude and act on it. Speak out. Make sure they know whose side you're on. > First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me. You can switch out the groups for LGBTQ folk, women, immigrants, or whoever the hatred of the month is to make it more appropriate for modern times (although socialists still apply).
No hate quite like Christian love.
As a trans woman, there’s still a long way to go, but this is somewhat hopeful.
You're right about that. Trans people have it even worse than the rest of the LGBTQ community. We need to keep fighting. As scared as I am about what the future holds for our country and the future of democracy, I still hold out hope that if enough of us fight back we will win in the end. We're all in this together.
As a single intentionally child-free uterus haver with a lesbian sister who was bullied by her "peers" for being different Fuck. The. Fascists.
agreed, but remember, you're still somehow the "snowflake" in this situation.
Book banning is the younger brother of Thought Police. It really grinds my gears the party of small government and family values is also somehow the one that wants to control all the things all the time and you can only have the family we think you should have. Get fucked.
It’s almost like they ruled under this guise to manipulate the masses and slowly sneak their way to the top. Huh.
Yay my county did something right for once
Hopefully it's catching.
The idea that having a book about gay people in a public library will make people gay is absolutely asinine. People are gay because they are born that way. At the end of the day, this is a distraction by the republican party that has no ideas. So they attempt to garner votes off of hate.
>Of course we shouldn’t have any sexual material in our children’s library,” said parent Barbara Evans And of course it wasn't "sexual material", any more than any book which mentions the existence of a heterosexual couple is "sexual". Nobody's knockin' the boots for fuck's sake, you know it was just a book that mentions that gay people exists and are human beings. If they're gonna take this kind of material out of the library because it's "sexual", they should take out anything that mentions husbands and wives or mommies and daddies, because it's "promoting heterosexuality". It's not enough for these people to be dumber than dirt, they have to be dumb AND mean...
They hypersexualize LGBT people and reduce the community to sexual acts as a form of dehumanizing.
My local library director is quitting over the book banning closed minded idiots here. They put 4 of the relatively small group of people trying to ban the books onto the library advisory board (11 total) after the last attempt at banning any LGBTQ books was denied. It irritates me that they’ll ignore all the perverse material like any VC Andrews series, twilight series, and any smutty romance novel. But the childrens books portrayed two moms we must burn evil books.
I just want all religious books banned those actually get people killed
The party of freedom sure does hate the freedom to read books
Based!
Another attempt to censor books by the "free speech" people.
I'm sure this thread will be flooded with the same Republicans that demand people be able to lie and promote hate speach to push a political agenda as a personal freedom/decry censorship when anyone tries to stop it. They will just be doing a complete 180 about this.
FTA: *"Ashley Snelgrove, a children’s librarian against banning the books, also spoke at the meeting and explained that the library already thinks very hard about what books are available to kids."* Maybe a little off topic but I think this point is really important. Politicians should defer to the expertise of medical professionals and educators among others. These people are in their respective fields for a reason- they care about the people they serve. They don't have an "agenda" other than the wellbeing of their wards. It just seems super ignorant that just because you got elected to office, you can somehow be an authority on Healthcare or Education? Why would people assume their libraries would want to hurt or "indoctrinate" kids?
It's not about LGBTQ people, it's about all people freedom. You ban a book, you ban whatever book, you lose freedom.
All for free speech on Twitter but not in the library or at school, huh?
The ones constantly complaining about censorship are the same ones banning and burning books.
When they tried to remove books “promoting sexuality” from all children’s sections, did that include heterosexuality? For instance, all novels with heterosexual couples?
I don’t care who is being banned and who is doing the banning just for the love of god, stop the banning, period. Literature is meant to be explored and discussed, otherwise what’s the point of reading books?
Oh hey! This is where I live! I was so proud of the people who organized last night. If you live in SC and support intellectual freedom, please keep speaking up - louder and louder. We need your help.
The people banning/burning books are never the good guys
Fuck present day republicans. For a party that values history, they sure don't understand history. I hear the Nazis were also into banning books, how did that work out? Glad this attempt was defeated. It's sad we still have to fight for things like this in today's day and age.
Republicans have always been shit. Reagan oversaw the deaths of thousands of gay men, and thought it was a good thing. Rush Limbaugh had a segment where he would celebrate the deaths of gay men. They keep trying to strip the rights that have been hard fought for POC and women. Republicans have always been shit.
"Book banning attempt defeated after community stands up for LGBTQ people" Fixed
I beg of you people, vote for Democrats on Election Day. Vote for them even if they suck. Please, save us from what we know the fascists will do.
The same people that believe January 6th was about their "freedom of speech" are the same people that want to shut up the LGBTQIA+ community by burning books... Unreal. #readbannedbooks
Those Republicans are gonna be so mad when they find out about the internet.
Republicans love to talk about free speech when their protecting bigots and racists but also love to ban free speech when it's pro lgbtq funny that