This Town Voted To Defund its Public Library After it Included LGBTQ+ Books
By: Maia Kobabe (vice)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
One of the fastest growing townships in western Michigan has decided that it would rather not have a local library if it means stocking children's books about LGBTQ+ people.
In a ballot measure that came to a vote this week, residents of Jamestown Township voted to defund the Patmos Library by a 25-point margin, after a local conservative group led a campaign against the inclusion of LGBTQ+ books and accused library staff of "trying to groom our children" by simply putting them on bookshelves.
The Board of Trustees anticipates that the Patmos Library, which serves an estimated population of 10,000, will run out of money sometime next year.
Many are attributing the ballot measure's failure to a local Christian nationalist group called the Jamestown Conservatives. The group purports to be promoting awareness of "the pushed agenda of explicit sexual content that is being infiltrated into our local libraries aiming toward our children."
"We stand to keep our children safe, and protect their purity, as well as to keep the nuclear family intact as God designed," the group's description on Facebook reads.
The group also formed in part to rally behind a parent who found the young adult graphic novel Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe in the adult section of the library. Kobabe's memoir explores eir nonbinary and asexual identities, and was the most challenged book in 2021 according to the American Library Associaiton (ALA). Larry Walton, who chairs the Patmos Library's board of trustees, says the book was pulled from library shelves in November 2021 and remains behind the counter of the library's circulation desk. Walton says the trustees follow the Michigan Library Association's code of conduct.
"In the document it states that trustees need to put their own personal bias aside and be representative of the whole community, not just the loudest speaking group, but of everyone and we are doing that," Walton told Motherboard. "LGBTQ books are protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, and the library board is trying to be fair and neutral. We don't favor one group or the other—we represent all aspects of diversity and unfortunately, can't bend to the loudest yelling and be neutral and keep everybody happy."
But Patmos Library's neutral outlook seems more to benefit Jamestown Conservatives. Bridge Michigan quoted Jamestown Conservatives organizer Amanda Ensing accusing library officials of "trying to groom our children to believe that it's OK to have these sinful desires," saying that "it's not a political issue. It's a Biblical issue."
Despite residents' accusations, the Patmos Library's programming has been decidedly bland. The library's Facebook page shows that over the last few months it has been promoting radical events such as a "Family Movie Night" featuring screenings of the movies like Finding Dory and Jaws, "Teen Summer Laser Tag," a teen board game night, a puppet show about fish, a Father's Day arts and crafts event, a family concert, and a blood donation drive in partnership with a local medical facility.
Jamestown Township isn't the first library to have its operations disrupted in this way. Libraries across the country have recently become a culture war battleground, facing an unprecedented number of book challenges and bans from conservative and far-right extremist groups opposed to the inclusion of LGBTQ+ authors, staff, and events. Last month, a public library in Iowa was forced to close temporarily after all full-time employees quit. The exodus came after months of complaints from conservative residents, who criticized the display of LGBTQ+ books and complained of gender non-conforming library workers "cross-dressing."
Amber McLain says she resigned from her position as director of the Patmos Library this spring after she was harassed in-person and online by members of Johnston Conservatives.
"With the current climate, I knew the millage was a crapshoot," McLain told Motherboard, referring to a measure that would have funded the library by increasing property taxes. "I had hope, but unfortunately, things went the other way."
If passed, the millage would have increased property taxes for the average home with a market value of $250,000 by about $24. McLain says she finds it unfortunate that a small but loud group managed to influence enough voters to reject the millage renewal by a 25-point margin, noting that many people still see libraries as places that only carry books.
"There seems to be a misunderstanding of how much things come out to, in the end, a fundamental lack of understanding about tax millages in general," she added. "Add on top of that, there is the current movement of attacks on libraries, and the library had already been made a target of those attacks."
Mill levies through property taxes are becoming more favorable among libraries because they help libraries work independent of local government influence and not have to worry about municipal budget cuts or reallocations for other civil services such as fire departments, law enforcement, or emergency climate disaster relief. Public libraries also have been shown to increase property values in towns and cities. According to the ALA, homes within a quarter mile of a library are worth almost $10,000 more on average than homes located further away.
"That was the goal, that's always been the goal between the library board and the township that we would be independent," said Walton. "We would be able to operate on funding that we receive and would not require additional funding from our township and not have to worry about additional money."
John Chrastka, executive director of EveryLibrary Institute, says that the political influence locals have had over the Patmos Library is a leading political indicator for other library-related ballot measure outcomes in 2022.
"It has me concerned that this religiously-powered anti-access anti-person campaign has succeeded in a small town in America already," Chrastka told Motherboard. "The idea that there is a breakdown in the respect that we used to have in America for the separation of church and state and a rise of a political perspective that wants to essentially break government, defund education, approach issues around the rights of individual humans as if it was a criminalization campaign… this is a troubling moment and a signal for the rest of America to wake up."
Walton says the trustees will meet next week to determine what the last amount of tax dollars coming in would be, and look at the expenditures to determine how long the Patmos Library can afford to stay open.
"Obviously without a millage being that it was voted down, we will not have that revenue coming in and there will be a definitive point in time that the library will be potentially closed down due to this," Walton said.
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I say let the idiots be without books. Let them become the dumbest people on the planet.
a little too late on the dumbest people on the planet for those bigots...
My parents and I were instrumental in establishing our small town library.
Don't know if there are any lgbt books or videos and don't care one way or another.
I'll have to ask the head librarian whether there have been restrictions placed.
There are no X-rated videos or books but there are plenty of R-rated materials.
I read some libraries do restrict some books, I guess meaning they are not on shelves and you have to ask for it.
Never really considered before what a head librarian must have to deal with.
Sadly it's already happened. The only book most of these poorly educated deplorable religious conservatives pretend to read is the bible, and few actually "read" it, that would take far too much time, effort and reading comprehension. Most just rely on the cliff notes provided by their rightwing preachers that use out of context scriptures to promote right wing conservative ideology and politicians.
So basically it boils down to a bunch of rightwing religious conservatives who don't trust schools, don't trust any news sources outside their conservative alternate reality, only trust an archaic book written over 3000 years ago by bronze age herders that claims the universe was created in six days, snakes and donkeys can talk, the sun can stand still, virgins can get pregnant and the dead can rise from their graves.
And on top of that most of them are convinced there is a coming apocalypse where their God will come and wipe out the non-believers of which there are about 5.8 billion. Seeing that two thirds of the planet aren't Christians, most of these religious conservatives fight tooth and nail to stop any universal gun registry and universal background checks while desperately defending what they see as their right to stockpile an arsenal of military style weapons, ammunition and large capacity clips.
Therein lies the problem with just letting them be the dumbest people on the planet. They're armed, out of touch with reality, with a preference for 'alternate facts', gullible enough to believe wild conspiracy theories about their political opponents eating babies and running child sex rings in pizza parlor basements and now they're attempting to completely defund even the library because it has books that don't align with their religious conservative ideology.
I'm sure that library also has many books that do align with their ideology, but that's not enough for these rightwing conservative Christians, equality is not acceptable. They want to exterminate the voices that counter their religious conservative narrative about what 'truth' is, what is moral, what is 'normal', and I don't believe they have any reservations about using their arsenals to project their truth onto the rest of us if they feel backed into a corner.
How do you know that, what is your data source?
There wasn’t a copy write but the depending on the book, the Bible was written between 1400 BC and 100 AD. The Bronze Age was around 3300 BC to 1200 BC.
Can you quantify “most”?
Hyperbole much?
.
Having been one of them for three decades and then listening to them firsthand from my relatives in Ohio and Arkansas who are deep into the rightwing religious conservative community is my source.
?
Like I said, "over 3000 years ago" (2022 - 3000 = 978 bc and 1200 bc is 'more than' 978 bc if you're having trouble with the math or don't understand how approximations work) and as you point out the bronze age was until 1200 bc and the bible had started being written 200 years earlier.
Most: pronoun - the greatest amount or quantity. A majority.
Nope.
These asshole don't really have faith in their own God do they...
I guess God created everything except gay people...
Dumbasses.
they're bound and determined to correct what they perceive to be all the mistakes their perfect creator has made.
How is it the LGBTQ+ community's fault if kids won't listen to their parents? Are the parents' and church failing the kids by not forcing them to conform?
2 of my ultra conservative and ultra religious cousins each have gay children. I enjoy watching their political high wire act whenever we all get together.
I am really tired of the duplicity coming from MAGA conservatives. I've had it up to my eyeballs with MAGA conservatives and their pasted on 'smiles.'
OMG, too much democracy! We can't let people vote on these issues; it's just wrong.
Hey, if idiots don't want a library and would rather be in the dark about most things...
The 'idiots' don't want LGBT+ children's books in the public library. But these 'idiots' were only allowed a choice between 'all or nothing'. So, to avoid the one thing people didn't want it was necessary to get rid of everything.
The real idiots are those who think they can force people to accept what they don't want by threatening the things people do want. The real idiots made getting rid of the library altogether a viable option. And the real LGBT+ idiots have made everyone suffer for their idiocy. If the LGBT+ idiots can't force their crap onto the community then the community can't have anything. The community accepted that bargain. It's really the LGBT+ idiots that took away the community library.
That's certainly a strategy to win hearts and minds. OMG, too much democracy. We can't let people vote on these issues because people might just accept giving up everything to avoid what they don't want.
What do you not understand about freedom?
Are these kids forced to read any books with a gay theme?
Cannot parents watch their children and what books they read?
Instead it is a total ban. And then you have the nerve to blame gay people.
Get fucking real.
“OMG, too much democracy.”
As in allowing the free flow of ideas in the public square?
WTF are people afraid of?
I understand that voting is exercising one's freedom. What do you not understand about the voters have spoken? Why are voters now idiots because they exercised their freedom?
Parents aren't being allowed as much control over what their children are exposed to as that comment implies.
Who wanted LGBT+ children books placed in the library?
People who tell us that some ideas cannot be spoken, even in private, are whining about 'free flow of ideas in the public square'? That's being woke with eyes wide shut.
The demands for public censorship ain't about free flow of ideas in the public square.
They are idiots believing stupid conspiracies that people are trying to 'groom' their children. Something you seem to believe too.
Who cares who wanted them there. I could go to my library and request a book. Doesn't mean you have to read it or let your kids run around unsupervised and reading it.
No one is forcing them to read it. If you don't like those books, you don't have to read them or check them out. Why deprive someone else who might want to actually read the thing?
Yeah, no. Democracy is not what's needed. The 50%+1 of the community doesn't get to vote on what I read. That's my choice. That's freedom.
Voting about someone else's right to do something that doesn't affect you is not freedom. It's tyranny.
The people of Jamestown Township have voted
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And I don't care about your asinine posts, so I guess it all works out...
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Who is being prevented from reading these books?
The books just won't be available at the public library. Especially now that there isn't a public library.
So you insult then complain when it is done back....
Typical.
By that logic, there should be no libraries at all. It would be stupid, but you could still say no one is preventing anyone from reading.
More thoughtful people in our society (beginning with Benjamin Franklin - if you've been exposed to books, you might have heard of him) know that we all benefit from public libraries.
But only a petulant fucking child thinks the library should be filled only with books that they personally approve of.
That's certainly one way to look at it. It would be the wrong way to look at but, hey, it's a free country.
Not in Jamestown Township, it’s not.
Who's stopping them?
People interested in diversity, parents of gay kids, kids with gay parents, ect.
What I find ironic is that the Bible is full of sex, incest, rape, infidelity, adultery and so much more yet the RW whiners [or wieners] are all about drawing the line at LGBT content.
Hypocrites.
Yup. You'd think the Bible would be a best seller among woke intellectuals. The Bible could replace whole shelves of books in the children's section.
Probably the lgbtq+ portion of the population
They should hide themselves away according to some people.
It seems to some republicans live and let live is an antiquated philosophy.
Who says it isn't? I actually own 6 bibles.
Right, 'It's a Biblical issue.' and children all need to understand that sex, incest, rape, infidelity and adultery are examples of the moral high ground set by groups like the Jamestown Conservatives
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No, it's not a Biblical issue. It's not about sex, either.
People don't want the phony hoopla, hype, and fuzzy winkle politics. The library is closed. There's nothing left to argue about. People are arguing about what books are supposed be on the shelves of a closed library?
If the dunderheads want to argue then go somewhere else. If the choice is 'all or nothing' then nothing becomes viable choice. The voters decided the library wasn't worth arguing about. There isn't a library so there's nothing to argue about.
Yep, a township of 10,000 voted to not raise a millage by 50%.
Not exactly a stop the presses moment.
Well, everyone can point to all sorts of reasons.
It's not a mystery. If the kids are fighting over the toys then take away the toys. In the end, the township adopted an equitable solution. Everyone gets an equal share of nuthin'. So, now people are trying to get a bigger piece of nuthin'?
The same, simple parental logic applies to 'all or nothing' demands imposed on libraries, schools, and governments. It's always easier to equally share nuthin' than it is to share all.
Lot's daughters are effectively praised for getting their father drunk and sleeping with him to get pregnant to continue the patriarchal lineage, David is punished for his infidelity by God performing a late term abortion of his firstborn child, Sarah gives her foreign national slave girl Hagar to Abraham to sleep with to continue his patriarchal lineage, the laws given to Israelite's condone enslaving foreigners in perpetuity, but to rwnj's it's the books about lgtbq acceptance that should be banned at the library.
Woke: adjective - alert to injustice and discrimination in society, especially racism
By being alert to injustice one would likely recognize how much injustice is praised, encouraged and even rewarded in the bible. And no liberals or progressives are trying to get the bible or other Christian theology books banned in public libraries because that would be unjust. It's only rightwing conservative Christians who are trying to control what books a public library can offer which already have thousands of books from Christian authors.
The hypocritical rwnj's demand their right to cancel other's cultures but scream to high heaven when anyone suggests allowing any other contrarian voices to be heard.
Millages get voted down every year with nary a word. This one just happens to check one of the lefts “woke boxes” du jour.
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Sounds like a good story for a children's book.
Well, woke intellectuals are certainly alert to injustice and discrimination. They do seem to practice what they preach.
When does a culture attempting to protect and defend itself become a right to cancel that culture? Maybe it has more to do with whose ox is being gored.
What gives woke intellectuals the goddammed right tell another culture they're wrong? What gives woke intellectuals the goddammed right to disparage a cultural tradition based on the Bible? Because they're woke?
You know, maybe the woke intellectuals pick all the 'bad things' out of the Bible just so their woke attitude appears no worse. Woke intellectuals claim the Bible promotes bad things and that comparison justifies woke intellectuals promoting bad things. If the Bible can do it; woke intellectuals can do it better.
By whom?
continue human linage, didn't they they think that they were the last living humans?
late term abortion of his firstborn child
Wasn't the kid like one week old?
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. No wait, wrong book.
Irony.
WTF are you talking about? You are the one acting all outraged at your Christian culture wanting to Keep itself from being Cancelled and in the same breath you cancel the cultures of others. Your statements are not making sense.
The Christian Right since the SCotUS decision has been full steam ahead about de Facto establishing their own brand of religion and religious mores as law because they see themselves as empowered by the court. I do not think that this drive to theologically recreate America is going to turn out as they want. The last 60 years has been spent moving in a different direction, and the social inertia is not with them. If the Republicans keep acting in this deeply rectionary manner, they will quickly become a party on the fringe because most Americans just want to get along while enjoying a comfortable life.
People are like strings, if they are convinced, the people will follow along nicely. When pushed, string bunches up, snarls and tangles. This snarling and tangling behavior is what we see today from both sides pushing in on the string.
Blah, blah, blah. The point is that woke intellectuals reciting examples of depravity, promiscuity, and deviant behavior found in the Bible has become de rigueur. It seems that ability to recite these Biblical examples have become a measure of woke cred.
But are woke intellectuals attempting to condemn - or - excuse depravity, promiscuity, and deviant behavior in society? What, exactly, are woke intellectuals promoting? Do we want to become a society where depravity, promiscuity, and deviant behavior is acceptable? Is that what we want to teach our children?
Has our society become more ethical and moral over the last 60 years? In what direction has society shifted over the last 60 years?
Your own comment isn't about promoting a more ethical and moral society. Your comment is a condemnation of those who want such a thing. You are claiming that the Christian Right's religious mores are wrong. And you can recite a litany of Biblical examples of depravity, promiscuity, and deviant behavior to claim hypocrisy by the Christian Right. But what, exactly, are you promoting as an alternative to those religious mores?
Complaints about voters closing a library aren't coming from the Christian Right. The complaints are coming from those who claim woke cred. Why? Closing the library is an equitable solution. There isn't anything to complain about or argue about. There isn't a forum for argument and conflict. A closed library can't censor, ban, or indoctrinate. A closed library cannot discriminate. Isn't that what woke intellectuals claim they want? Or do woke intellectuals really want something else?
No, they knew other cities and peoples existed, only Sodom and Gomorrah were supposedly destroyed. Their mother was supposedly turned to a pillar of salt for yearning for the comfortable life they just left in the city, the daughters who drunk rape their father apparently succeed at continuing on their fathers lineage, if they had just married others and left their father sonless he would have no heirs in their society that viewed women as second class citizens who could not inherit.
Yes, which I was comparing it to a very, very late term abortion.
Moby Dick had far less slaughter than the bible even though they were constantly killing innocent whales, and not a single mention of incest.
Maybe I was remembering the Jewish tradition:
I'll say, a post-birth abortion.
No, but Melville mocks woman in the novel, and of course none are aboard the Pequod.
“The demands for public censorship ain't about free flow of ideas in the public square.”
Exactly.
That statement, that affirmation, should shake everyone to the core.
Some folks are always victim blaming. That seems to be all they have. Plus denial.
Well Nerm, I have news for you: Guess what? Libraries do not make people. . . homosexual. Sexuality does that! Furthermore, homosexuality was around long before the first library I would venture.
Bullshit. I have no problem with others moral standards unless they are trying to force feed them to me. It is you claiming that all of your moral standards are the correct and only way to think and be that I am arguing against.
As long as your application of the same morals and standards goes only as far as yourself, I haven't a problem with that. Go off and be as normal or strange as you want. Just don't try pushing your morals onto anybody else. You can talk. You can convince by logic and reason, by story and allegory, but don't come to me and say, "This is the way to behave because I have decided this is the only way to behave."
You, I or anyone else does not and cannot know with certainty that they have the ultimate way of being. All of your crap about being woke is just that: crap. It is all shit only fit to come out of the rear-end of bovine.
Oh, and I haven't quoted or referenced one Bible verse. I feel that the Bible is irrelevant to this discussion. Go cling to some other work of allegorical fiction for your mores. Well, I am not sure if this is in the Bible or not, but you might try the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So, if you don't want to live by my mores and standards, stop trying to make me live by yours. If you want to be left to live as you see fit, leave others alone to do the same.
They wish for their mores to be cataloged along with the rest of societies mores. Given at least a mention of their existence instead of trying to deny their existence totally, or demonizing them so they appear to be some type of thing, subhuman and evil.
So, go protest in front of the closed library.
In Michigan? Really? Now, why would I pay to go do that?
“…So, go protest in front of the closed library.”
A frightening sentence.
Tell the local 3rd grader why no more story time and try to explain it in terms they might understand. Good luck…as it is inexplicable to a normal adult.
Let's review the seeded article shall we:
So the opponents to funding the library unless they ban specific books says it IS a biblical issue.
Again, from the seed:
Unless you can refute that they were misrepresented in the seed, you are wrong about what 'people' want.
Oh, and BTFW, the library isn't closed, YET.
I guess the rest of that paragraph didn't bolster your agenda:
BTW, here's the link to that block quote in holding with the CoC:
Lot's daughters - Wikipedia
Well, the Jamestown Conservatives must represent a voting majority then.
OMG, too much democracy! We can't let voters vote on these issues, it's just wrong. Guess it's become necessary to run to the courts so that the autocrats can protect democracy and overturn the election results.
What's to refute? Are you attempting to condemn - or - excuse depravity, promiscuity, and deviant behavior in society?
As I pointed out, the voters were being presented an 'all or nothing' choice. That's the way woke intellectuals do things; threaten to take away everything if they don't get what they want. The voters accepted that bargain -- close the library. The voters accepted the proposition that giving up the library altogether was a better choice than placing books they didn't want into the children's section of the library.
That's how elections work. That's how democracy works.
Sounds to me like these folks don't want the free flow of ideas in the public square. I guess they don't like the First Amendment
“That's how elections work.”
Oh, we’re all too aware how elections have consequences.
There are some institutions, however, that should be free from the whims of a fickle electorate; public education, public libraries, public recreation, access to health care, and even the military, etc., etc.
Unless of course you want to put all those things that make us exceptional in the hands of the vocal minority of the moment.
What did you find that is deviant, I'd be interested in having you point it out. . . please.
And let me be 'woke' a tad bit more: Do observe how every area of life in this country is being politicized-top to bottom-by MAGA conservatives who are expressing DECISIONS on nearly every aspect of liberal intersection in this country.
The quantity of their membership is irrelevant to either of our comments.
You opined about what 'people don't want' and I quoted what the people involved actually stated based on the seed.
That your opinion doesn't jibe with the statements by those involved.
Neither. As I have said here before, I own multiple versions of the bible, that doesn't mean that I either condemn or excuse its teachings.
That 'all or nothing' choice was to pay $24 more a YEAR in property taxes or face the possibility of closing their public library.
Again, your posting YOUR opinion, unsupported by ANYTHING in the article. The seed states:
Other than bible stories, do you have a list of books that were in the children's section that promoted 'depravity, promiscuity, and deviant behavior in society'?
I guess defunding the library would be a lot less embarrassing than being televised burning the books and goose-stepping around the bonfire by the republican voting neo-nazis that infest that region...
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Says the conspiracy theorist.
Well, that was stupid, but hey....
whatever you believe.
So you believing in the conspiracy theory is stupid? I have to agree.
Did the library have a copy of Mein Kampf? Apparently not since the library wasn't burned. The 'all or nothing' crowd wouldn't have allowed the library to stand.
they don't keep it in on the shelf anymore, since the trumpsters without library cards kept stealing it.
I never had a desire to read it.
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Now that there's no library these Christians' gender confused kids will have to resort to the internet. Try googling "gay confused teens needing hard lessons" to find out where this lands.
Seriously, these parents can't control what their kids read? What happened to parental responsibility?
It only takes a phone or a laptop to access pretty much anything these days.
Still love going to the library. There's nothing like the feel of a book in my hands.
If all this stuff is available on the internet then why does it need to be in the library too?
Homosexuals are just as narrow minded and obnoxious as Christian Conservatives.
Why don't we put tobacco vending machines in the children's section? Why don't we let Big Tobacco put its marketing material in the children's section of the library?
Woke intellectuals are marketing homosexuality the same way Big Tobacco markets tobacco to kids. Big Tobacco grooms and indoctrinates kids the same way woke intellectuals do.
I don't know where you live but I haven't seen a tobacco vending machine since I went to Spain about 10 years ago. Libraries are wonderful places, filled with ideas and information on just about everything. Kids are smart. They know when you're lying to them. They know homosexuals exist and when you're trying to pretend they don't exist. When you hide things from them it just makes it more intriguing to them.
These people are making a big mistake because when their libraries are gone it's going to be really hard and expensive to get them back.
You mean they've been banned to protect the children?
Homosexuals are made possible because of 'availability' similar to tobacco?
There are 'outs' pervasive for heterosexuality in our society, and I am pretty sure you're good with that! But homosexuals are not allowed to venture into a public forum and interact with children, because have a problem with it.
Nerm, do you think there is a need for homosexual role models in our society?
Well gee, since there are entire websites dedicated to the bible, whether it's a best seller is irrelevant.
"One of the fastest growing townships in western Michigan has decided that it would rather not have a local library if it means stocking children's books about LGBTQ+ people."
Most average normal kids probably aren't interested in these kind of books anyway
Then there should be no problem aye?
Only for those that promote deviancy to children.
And who is promoting that? Surely you can name them...
evangelical and catholic clergy?
How about Scout Masters? (BSA anyone? btw I'm an Eagle Scout)
there'll probably be a long waiting list of trumpsters for all the single copy titles. it might be a good idea to laminate all the pages ...
The absolutely worst thing imaginable.
Indefensible. The first sign of the apocalypse.
So another banning, how ignorant can people get.
A few months ago a school district in Cheesehead country banned/refused to have a book that won awards about a Japanese family that was uprooted in Berkeley CA and sent to an internment camp.
One of the people that had it removed said it was removed because it didn't have an American perspective...She was reminded that well over half the people interned were AMERICAN CITIZENS...
Stupid is as stupid says.
"americans" means whites only to those bigots...
The people who freak out over this stuff are terrible parents. They must be. They are completely helpless in the face of alleged indoctrination by schools and libraries. There is apparently nothing they can do. They have no control over what books their kids read or check out of the library. They have no ability to discuss sensitive issues with kids because they are apparently incapable of simply talking to them.
Or the things they believe are such obvious bullshit that they know even a child wouldn't buy in.
That's why they need to block all access to things that make them uncomfortable. It's hard to imagine a more cowardly or incompetent approach to parenting.
I’m sure they feel the same about you on this matter so what’s the point?
In case you haven't noticed, this is a forum for opinions....
Maybe you didn’t notice but I just gave one.
The difference is I'm not trying to limit their options.
Actually, you didn't give an opinion, you asked a question. Thanks for playing.
Wrong again ..... amazing!
And of course, you can’t see you are doing exactly the same thing.
Tsk, tsk ....
Really? [note the question mark]
This:
So, what is the point of you denying that is a question Sparty?
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OK, that makes no sense.
Sure it does
I know I already commented, but I think the following cannot be said enough. All these people - and this likely includes some NT members - who go around accusing everyone they don’t like of “grooming” children can go fuck yourselves. People who do this are an embarrassment to the human race and should be ashamed of themselves for the way they attack people’s reputations and careers. All because someone else’s life - which doesn’t affect you - makes you uncomfortable. You make the McCarthyites of the late 40s and early 50s look like fucking saints.
That must be a record for you 2 fucks in one comment and then there was the other one up thread.
Good for you. Let 'em have it
Yeah I try not to overuse it or use it at people, but sometimes it’s the best choice. This way you know that when I use it, I really meant it.
Right? So versatile, and, if used appropriately, delivers a real sense of emotion.
Yeah, instant whammy for me, if I throw it out while having a dispute with my wife. It's usually followed by another, uttered in frustration at the fact that the first utterance just closed the argument in my wife's favor. Fuck! My dogs, on the other hand, know that when the Big F is dropped, I mean business, and no matter who or at what I'm throwing it at...they don't want any part of what's going on. So long as my dogs don't figure out what my wife knows, I'll be good.
If my wife drops it? Run for the hills, because its scorched earth time.
I see a direct correlation between this article and the one posted by sandy about the Cracker Barrel adding a meatless option to their build your own breakfast menu.
The stupidity is the same, it is just a little bit more apparent.
This is silly, kids can find whatever they want on the internet
Out of curiosity I wanted to see if D.H.Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover was available online. It is not provided by Guttenberg (1000s of novels free to read) although his other novels are, but it is available on another site however it is necessary to subscribe to that site to be able to read the whole novel. Not every kid is in a postion to subscribe which means putting up a credit card.
They may not find whatever they want but they could easily find something far worse. It would be really hard to find a better indoctrination tool than the internet.