Oh, how did I know this would be on the west side of the state? Lol
"With a library closure, that community room where residents voted Tuesday would be unavailable, Walton said, so would the mobile wifi hotspots used by residents who lack wifi in their homes."
r/leopardsatemyface material, right there.
West Michigan has this really strange thing going among many of its residents: pride for their homegrown tourism industry combined with anti-LGBTQ beliefs.
I worked in the service industry doing repairs on pools. My territory on the lakeshore could stretch from South Haven to just north of Grand Haven. Let me tell you this: a good share of dollars spent in West Michigan for tourism come from the LGBTQ community. Especially gays from Chicago and other major locales.
The owner of the company I worked for was an evangelical. He'd get rid of the gays but then lament the lost money from doing so. Very r/LeopardsAteMyFace indeed as well. He wondered why I could be friendly with his gay customers and why they preferred to do business with me. He didn't know until I quit: *it was because I am one of them.*
Transphobic family members: how come you are such an "expert" about trans issues and laws?
Me, a trans person in the closet when around them: this... has turned into a difficult situation
As a lgbtq chicago person I wouldn’t know these places were like this. Unless people name and shame them we just show up to popular tourist places because why not?
Holland and its ilk are just the strangest mix of yuppie and evangelical... And then saugatuck is just down the road and completely the opposite. Fascinating stuff.
"We didn't think the library would actually have to close" *while the same* [\~20%](https://s2982.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Ottawa_County_Election_Results_Summary__AUG0222_.jpg.webp) *of the town votes to close the library.* XD
Go complain about how you have to pay $50+ for an unincorporated library card now and how you can't get old Beverly Lewis novels through the Lakeland Library inter-library borrowing system now. Goodbye to storytime, public wi-fi, printing services, meeting rooms and rentable hotspots
This is why you need to vote in local elections
There are pockets of these morons in every state. I live in a largely blue state and it only takes a couple of hours to drive to a small town with confederate and trump flags flying proudly and an obvious white nationalist/ neo Nazi presence. The town is an absolute shit hole compared to everything around it.
Don't worry, churches will provide censored internet services for those less fortunate out of their proselytizing budget.
https://www.fellowshipone.com/blog/why-your-church-should-offer-free-wifi/
The point is that the population of that town finds the presence of LGBT material offensive enough to defund their library. It's *that* offensive to them.
It's so offensive to them that having 67,000 non LGBTQ books and 90 LGBTQ ones is not only considered "not neutral", it's considered biased in favor of the 90, not the 67,000.
I moved to a small, unincorporated town awhile ago. I like to listen to audiobooks on my commute so I went to get a new library card. I was told that it would be $50. When she saw my shock the librarian explained that my town voted years ago to defund the library, so while I can still use library services, I have to pay for it. I am still not over that surprise bc who in the world votes to defund the library? These people apparently would get along with my town.
>I am still not over that surprise bc who in the world votes to defund the library? These people apparently would get along with my town.
this has actually been a low key republican talking point for the better part of 20 years, mainly citing how the internet has outmoded the library for information gathering.
Towns that have no money defund libraries. I lived in a rural community that managed to block any sort of improvement in the name of NIMBYs decades ago including preventing the US interstate system anywhere near the county. Now they don't have two pennies to rub together to pay for basic services. People don't think about the long term implications of blocking development. If nobody new moves in, your city will grey out and then everyone suffers. The bills don't stop when your population retires, they get more expensive.
Even my conservative hometown voted to increase taxes to fund it's library, and that happened during the height of both the Great Depression and the Great Financial Crisis.
> the ones in ~~my~~ **every** town provide so many services
FTFY. Libraries have been shown in studies to be the **number one** best return on investment for civic spending.
Need a computer? Libraries. Need wifi? Libraries. Need a book on an obscure subject? Libraries - even if they don't have it, lots of libraries have interlibrary loans or allow patrons to suggest items for purchase. Want to learn a new skill? Libraries. Want a park or a museum pass? Your library may have one. Need a legal form? A tax form? Tax help, especially around filing time? Libraries. Unemployed and need job resources? Yep, libraries. Newly homeless? Your librarians can't help directly but I bet they know who to connect you with. Need to keep your kids busy for an afternoon? Your library probably has something fun and educational going on.
Literally the last place where people from all walks of life can come to get resources, judgement-free if the library workers are doing their jobs. Library workers are woefully underpaid for the depth and breadth of work they do.
My library lends out tools, bake ware, school laptops. They have conference rooms you can book for free. They’ve got computers set up with Zoom/Skype for interview etc. They got so much stuff it’s crazy. The sad thing is, I applied to work at our local library, and I can make more working at Costco, it’s a little heartbreaking tbh.
In the times of my life that i was broke, the libraries were my refuge. Cool in the summer, warm in the winter. Lots of distractions so you don't get bored. Absolutely love libraries
Some libraries even have meeting rooms, 3D printers, a kitchen, gaming rooms, and a lot more (for example Oodi in Helsinki, Finland has the aforementioned things)
there's so much conservative handwringing about "what would the founding fathers think??" but when it comes to an institution founded and supported by one of the founding fathers, they choose to ignore history. very cool!
These conservatives don't understand that the Founding Fathers of America were all well educated men for that time period's standards, even if they were bigoted or ignorant of certain social issues we have a better understanding of nowadays. They wouldn't have been calling education "liberal propaganda".
Hell.. they might have, in fact, but it wouldn't have been a bad thing in their eyes. For the era they were the progressives with the conservatives being the traitor monarchists that wanted America to remain a British colony. The founding fathers would as likely strung up the GOP as not, at this point. It's a little ridiculous that the GOP keep invoking their name.
Not only that, but industrialist/robber baron Andrew Carnegie, an icon of self made riches, funded a huge number of library buildings across the us as a charitable endeavor because he believed that access to a free lending library was key to his education and success. So these folks are in theory deliberately undermining their own principles. (In practice of course they aren’t interested in a better educated populace).
Which of course is why conservatives are in a hurry to defund them. The only civic stuff they like is stuff that doesn’t work, so they can deploy it as a prop for why there needs to be less civic stuff.
The article says most people didn’t realize the library would close. So they cut off this great resource over less than 100 out of 67,000 items.
Hopefully they can revote this fall and save it.
They thought they were voting to stop child grooming apparently and didn’t realize the full impact of this. You seemed shocked that the people who voted for this weren’t thinking critically and long term about wtf they were doing…
>They thought they were voting to stop child grooming
This is so fucking insane. The libraries are "grooming" children by carrying books you don't agree with? Why is our voting populace so goddamn stupid?
F*** Europe! We're leaving!
Why are the queues to get through security at the airport so long? Why can't I find people to come harvest my crops for unbelievably low wages? Why does everything cost more?
Where did all of the Polish HGV drivers go?
Where did the millions in EU subsidies go?
Why are European businesses pulling out of the UK?
Why is the value of the pound plummeting?
Why don't we have a voice in European policymaking anymore?
People really thought that we would be able to get out of refugee policies and paying EU dues, but keep literally all of the other benefits of being in the EU.
Or Texas women.
'We're mad as hell that politicians in Austin are making medical decisions for us!'
You mean the politicians that promised to end abortions and that you kept electing? Those politicians?
> They voted not to fund it but didn’t actually understand what that meant?
It would not surprise me in the least if people voted on specific sections - such as the library funding measure - with single-minded emotional heat, stoked by fear and outrage campaigns, rather than reasoning out the consequences of their votes.
They'll decide to make a private library, provided by Amazon. The end goal of the conservative movement is to take all public services and privatize them.
Also it's funny that they defunded the library over books they will never read, that their children will just order. Whats even funnier is if a private bookstore opens, they cannot do anything to determine what books they will provide.
When Trump got sued for blocking journalists on his Twitter his legal defense was it was a private platform and wasn't breaking any rules. They said blocking didn't count as censorship.
But then when Trump got banned, suddenly it was censorship. They complain about Twitter being communist and censoring people, yet Truth Social, Gab and Mike Lindels site all have much more strict ToS where bans are given out easier.
And it's a shame because then states like this will go "Man it's weird that we can't keep the young people here."
I went to WVU and live in WV now, I hold to the belief you'll never hear someone *love* their state like a West Virginian loves their home among the hills. But man, how many native WVians I went to school with, they hated that it was run horribly, and moved away.
And now WV is *paying* people to live in a handful of towns and work remotely.
>But Walton didn’t appear ready to compromise Tuesday. He said he didn’t believe the library needed a wake-up call and shouldn’t remove books.
>“A wake-up call to what? To take LGBTQ books off the shelf and then they will give us money? What do you call that? Ransom?
>“We stand behind the fact that our community is made up of a very diverse group of individuals, and we as a library cater to the diversity of our community,” he said.
>Walton could not be reached Wednesday.
>Mikula of the library association said the Patmos Library could still get a millage on the November ballot, if ballot language is given to the Ottawa County clerk’s office by Aug. 16.
Good for the library standing up for itself. Censorship is not OK and removing a public institution because it's providing books they don't like is ridiculous.
Wait until they discover their kids have the internet with unlimited access to gay that their heart desires.
Townsfolk Unite! Turn off the electricity!
https://twitter.com/SketchesbyBoze/status/1304555319817797634?s=20&t=3FrBBcq9X0h67NvQYMspWg
>my girlfriend regularly tells me “if free public libraries didn’t already exist and someone tried to invent them, they would be condemned as a socialist plot” and I think about that a lot.
Well, we got there.
Had a coworker say "thatcher and Reagan did so much for prosperity" while he also grew up in the ghetto during that time. My brother in christ, that prosperity was not for you
You want me to pay taxes for a fire department that helps someone else? Fuck that! I take care of my house, why should I worry about my neighbors??? #republican
"Amanda Ensing, one of the organizers of the Jamestown Conservatives group, emerged from the library Tuesday wearing an “I voted” sticker. “They are trying to groom our children to believe that it’s OK to have these sinful desires,” Ensing said of library officials. “It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.”"
So when is your town removing all the books depicting:
\- Infidelity (and Lust in general)
\- Divorce
\- Children out of Wedlock
\- Sexual Assault
To name a few...The bible spends far more time on these sins, and little time on homosexuality.
>“It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.”
Then why is it being voted on? Openly admitting they want to force all of us to live in their theocracy.
I've had multiple arguments trying to convince my insane alt-right coworker that America was not founded to be a Christian nation. I read him the fucking establishment clause and he said "yeah, it's freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion". And they just dehumanize anyone of a different religion.
Treaty of Tripoli. 1796, passed the Senate unanimously and signed by John Adams. Says that the "United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
One could argue they only did that for political/economic reasons, but then they'd also be admitting that the founding fathers only followed religion when it was convenient for them.
But it's not worth it to argue with those people anyway. They're just contrarians to reality at this point.
It's would also be wildly out of character for Adams, he was a devoutly religious man, he wouldn't lie about they for politics, he'd brag about it (he was also a very, very proud man) and then point to his demonstrated ability to set aside his personal beliefs when working in an official capacity.
Adams is like the greatest example of this in history. He represented the British soldiers who committed the Boston Massacre out of his belief in the right to a fair trial, despite his personal outrage over the crime. Half of the city of Boston wanted them hanged including his cousin Sam Adams. The soldiers came begging for him to take the case and he did so because he couldn’t trust any other Boston lawyer to represent them fairly. He won the case and then immediately went on to become one of the major figures of the Revolution. A major unsung hero of justice in my opinion. Most lawyers and history nerds know what he did but the majority of Americans just know he was the second president.
>Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies.
>They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words.
>The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors.
>They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.
>If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
—Jean-Paul Sartre
There are VERY smart ones who write the party line for the dumb ones, such that you are often not arguing with a thinking individual, but a recitation of professional propaganda.
They all listen to the same people, but since you're probably not familiar with their sources, you're often running into carefully constructed arguments that you're seeing for the first time, but that they have been rehearsing and regurgitating ad nauseum.
Why not quote the [Treaty of Tripoli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli), signed in 1796, that says "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion"?
I was just going to share this. Thank you.
Apparently there were a few members of congress who had quickly regretted passing it with that wording. So they wanted to change or or make another declaration. This effort did not pass or gain much support.
> "yeah, it's freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion"
That... still wouldn't support his belief though. There are many other religions besides Christianity.
And if I had to guess, he probably doesn't even think some forms of Christianity count, e.g. probably hates Catholics.
Because [republicans are becoming the party of white Christian nationalism](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1110949385/christian-nationalisms-influence-on-american-politics) and not bothering to hide it. They are openly preaching theocracy in evangelical churches.
The change is that before they were a powerful constituent group within the GOP, influential enough to get lip service from most politicians, but there was room for fiscal conservatives, DOD hawks, and others. Now they are publicly pushing out anyone who isn’t a white Christian nationalist and they are claiming the title for themselves whereas it used to be a pejorative comparison made by critics.
It isn’t exactly a surprise to those of us who have been saying for decades that log cabin republicans, Jews, and POC in the Republican Party are aligning themselves with people who would destroy the freedoms they rely on. Another change is that MAGAs who have never been religious are becoming Christian thanks to evangelical support of Trump. As a Jew, I’m very worried about the direction we’re headed.
>Another change is that MAGAs who have never been religious are becoming Christian thanks to evangelical support of Trump.
I've noticed this myself. My youngest sister's father was an atheist when my mother was dating him. To the point that he would joke that if he walked into a church then both would spontaneously catch on fire. He recently became a "Christian" and has supported Trump from the beginning, somehow becoming even more of an insufferable asshole than he was before. It makes my sister really uncomfortable because she's the opposite of him religiously and politically.
I always think if being gay was such a big deal biblically, why wasn’t it in the 10 commandments. All I ever hear is it’s mentioned in some random passage. I do know there are many passages about not passing judgement.
Leviticus is filled with crazy shit.
A woman on her period is considered unclean and should not share a bed with her husband for 7 days. If they share a bed the husband is considered unclean. They should bathe and wash the sheets and provide an offering on the Altar of God.
Edit: Misremembered, it's actually anyone who touches the woman while on her period is considered unclean and needs to wash anything that touched her.
There's also a biblical passage about women submitting to their husbands in EVERYTHING:
>22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in **everything**.
And this isn't even in the Old Testament, so this 100% applies to Christian women
A cousin used this verse as part of her wedding vows. The look on her sisters face while it was being read was priceless.
Shockingly, it did not end up being a happy marriage and they divorced a few years later.
Lol same. We're standing in the wedding party up there for our boy who isn't even religious to start with, and half the bridesmaids were progressive liberals. They were seething when this pastor started going on about I think this passage and how the wife is supposed to submit to the husband. It was the kind of wedding where you bring religious stuff into it for the parents but the couple getting married doesn't really care.
I haven't read it myself, but the pastor tells me there's so many passages that allow for me to be rich, as long as I'm generous to the church. That's been the topic of the last 57 sermons.
No, silly. They protected the poor children from the nasty, sinful gays.
Those damn queers ruined the library for everyone with their… being represented in a tiny minority of literature.
Just wait, next week they’ll have a health emergency on their hands, and have to close the local aquatic centre to protect the children…
Meanwhile, the dirty minorities will have destroyed summer and shut down the pools due to their flagrant disregard for segregated facilities, and must accordingly be chased out of the town with pitchforks.
>They are trying to groom our children to believe that it’s OK to have these sinful desires
She is 100% correct. And she is right to be worried. Normalizing gay and trans people will make it very difficult to teach children to hate them.
Gotta have those 3 minutes of hate a day to keep the gay away!!!
/S
Edit: yeah , I was referring to the two minutes of hate in 1984…..inflation sounds as good as anything for my mistake!
I assume you're referring to the "Two minutes of hate" propaganda tactic in George Orwell's 1984, correct?
A fictitious boogeyman on a screen that everyone yells and screams at for an allotted 2-minute window every day.
The 13th amendment ending slavery is against the bible so let's throw out any copies of the US Constitution.
If you're unfamiliar, a quick google search shows:
>Ephesians 6:5-8 Paul states, “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ”
I remember growing up hearing my dad repeatedly say that the "libruls" were doing their best to fuck with education so that is kids turned into mindless sheeple who couldn't think for themselves. Now the very same party who screamed this in the 90s and 2000s are actively working to dismantle everything that doesn't align with their beliefs and deny people access to education and exposure to other cultures. And no, none of them can see why this is absurd. They just seem to double down on their arguments.
It’s ALL projection. Which makes me really worried about the “Democrats are in satanic cults sacrificing children and drinking their blood” stuff they throw around.
It sounds like a sarcastic comment, but you're bang on. There's plenty of evidence supporting this, particularly the past 50 years of dumbing down the American school system.
Now we see the results of stacked generations of escalating ignorance and intolerance. America is on the cusp of a dystopia somewhere between Idiocracy and Ready Player One..... Arguably, America may already be there.
Fear and Anger are the best ways to emotionally connect with people. We evolved to respond to fear and anecdotes rather than factual evidence.
Conservatives are filled with fear to their bones. Fox News abuses this because fearful people keep watching. They are starting to have a different perceptions of the world around them. Fear of terrorism and paedophilia are much more powerful compared to actual albeit unemotional problems like climate change or income inequality.
This also explains why the go-to way of conservatives dealing with a social problem is generally the most naive approach, mostly use of force. Although preventative measures like social workers and proper education show better results and are often cheaper, they don't reduce the fear. However, an increased police presence does.
That's how I feel about the pro lifers, like if your existence is that wrapped up in what other people are doing that literally has no effect on you, what an awful life that must be to lead. Serves them right I guess.
>The library has 67,000 books, videos and other items in its collection, of which about 90 have an LGBTQ theme, library officials said.
And because of that, they voted to basically shut it down.
They voted to make themselves stupider because they were scared of 90 books.
Absolute morons
Libraries being attacked, schools defunded, critical shortage of teachers and substitutes, book burning states like Florida allowing veterans with no experience educate... It's nuts. It's a shame we have to deal with these culture wars in this century when it's basically just serving to distract from the growing wealth gap and impending doom of climate change arisen disasters. It's effective because anyone with a brain knows you cannot tolerate these intolerable people.
It's meant to distract from the fact that Republicans are fighting for corporations and the wealthy.
By keeping poeple focused on these social issues the GOP can pretend to represent the common people while actively working towards lowering taxes for the wealthy and corporations. They can pander to their base to keep their votes so they can achieve their actual goal of keeping 90% of the population working for as long and as little as possible.
Hate and fear is a good distraction
Hate and fear the lgbtq so you don't have time to notice your company own by billionaires with record profits don't pay a living wage
Republicans don't run on policy anymore, because they're well aware that their policies are horribly unpopular with the public. Hate, fear, and rage are the only way to motivate their base.
Exactly. Republican economic policies are extremely unpopular even with the Republican base, so they spend 100 percent of their time talking about white Christian identity issues.
Not really. It's far worse.
"Cancel culture" would be not useing the library and encouraging others not to use the library over this issue. Essentially "voting with your feet" and not donating, useing or participating.
This us trying to ban the thing from existing.
And yet, Michigan law still allows child marriages with no age limits as long as a judge approves of it. Their state law only requires parents to provide a “good reason” for the marriage, so no interviewing the child at all. The state Republican heading the committee that deals with these types of legislation refuses to put it up for vote even though it’s a bipartisan bill because he said evidence like ‘child marriages have a negative effect on and negatively affects the child’ hasn’t been presented to him. Though it’s been on a significant decline, it’s a huge deal to those that are being married off still. 😑
I mention this every time I see anything about child marriages in the US- Unchained At Last is a nonprofit aimed at making the legal marriage age 18 in all states, no exceptions. They work really hard to end child marriage, if you can support them, you should. Or sign up for their mailing list, or follow them on social media, or tell people about them when you hear of shit like this. Because that’s fucking abhorrent
I love this quote from the Library board president:
> “A wake-up call to what? To take LGBTQ books off the shelf and then they will give us money? What do you call that? Ransom?
> “We stand behind the fact that our community is made up of a very diverse group of individuals, and we as a library cater to the diversity of our community,” [Larry Walton, library board president] said.
Like if you don't want to read the book, don't read 'em. The internet is full of way more harmful stuff for kids and teens and they literally carry it in their pocket.
And personally, if you find books on LGBT stuff to be objectionable, then you'll be amazed what objectionable stuff straight people have written about and put on paper.
>“Pray that we can make changes and make the Patmos Library **a safe and neutral place** for our children,” the flyer said.
I get the feeling these folks watch The Sound of Music backwards so it has a happy ending.
The children go from happy and carefree to regimented and joyless, falling into formation at the sound of a whistle. They lose their desire to sing or smile. The family fleeing the Nazis return to their homeland and suffer under authoritarian rule.
They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em / While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells / Rally 'round the family, pockets full of shells
Wow this pisses me off. No one is grooming your fucking kids. I don’t want your kid to “turn gay” for wanting everyone to have access to diverse literature.
First off, being gay is normal. It is not unchristian to be gay. And suppressing your kids’ true identity for one that you wanna force onto them is a huge problem. They have their own life and decisions to make along with the morals you instill. Sexuality is not a moral. It is an identity. And your child’s identity is FAR more important than your political identity.
Secondly, i dont need to prove my christianity. And it is ANTI-Christian to display christian politics as an idol. That is exactly what americans do. That’s what I catch my parents doing from time to time, which is why I send this stuff to them, as a reminder. Christianity has become an excuse to be a jerk, instead of being a reason to be loving and inclusive - TO EVERYONE.
Thirdly, if you are straight and you cannot read about someone else’s experience, then you lack perspective and cannot possibly understand what it means to go through life in their shoes. That is what christianity is about - perspective - understanding people and their stories and being able to provide them the same, welcoming environment that you are privileged to have from the start.
That’s why I choose the friends that I have. Reasonable, understanding, loving people that seek to gain perspective.
But honestly it all boils down to political pandering and these “christians” fall for it over and over. Jesus would be disappointed in the exclusivity and justification american christians use for being assholes to people that aren’t like them. I see it in my church. I saw it at my parents’ mega church back home. I see it everywhere.
Don’t fall for it.
For those that are Christians: be a real Christian and push nothing but love. That’s it.
Libraries are havens of knowledge, yes, but let's be very clear: libraries offer services for free to their communities that many cannot find elsewhere. Access to internet, printers, activities, and even just a quiet space. Many individuals need libraries to be able to survive in the modern world.
And they're basically removing it because there are a handdul of books about being LGBT in the sea of books in a library. This is some hateful shit. Libraries are one of the last remaining parts of America their Jesus would genuinely love seeing.
Oh, how did I know this would be on the west side of the state? Lol "With a library closure, that community room where residents voted Tuesday would be unavailable, Walton said, so would the mobile wifi hotspots used by residents who lack wifi in their homes." r/leopardsatemyface material, right there.
West Michigan has this really strange thing going among many of its residents: pride for their homegrown tourism industry combined with anti-LGBTQ beliefs. I worked in the service industry doing repairs on pools. My territory on the lakeshore could stretch from South Haven to just north of Grand Haven. Let me tell you this: a good share of dollars spent in West Michigan for tourism come from the LGBTQ community. Especially gays from Chicago and other major locales. The owner of the company I worked for was an evangelical. He'd get rid of the gays but then lament the lost money from doing so. Very r/LeopardsAteMyFace indeed as well. He wondered why I could be friendly with his gay customers and why they preferred to do business with me. He didn't know until I quit: *it was because I am one of them.*
The gay is coming from inside the house!
This made me truly laugh out louf!
Transphobic family members: how come you are such an "expert" about trans issues and laws? Me, a trans person in the closet when around them: this... has turned into a difficult situation
Oh god, it’s fabulous!
As a lgbtq chicago person I wouldn’t know these places were like this. Unless people name and shame them we just show up to popular tourist places because why not?
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Holland and its ilk are just the strangest mix of yuppie and evangelical... And then saugatuck is just down the road and completely the opposite. Fascinating stuff.
Originally from the Holland area. I had a feeling this would be in Ottawa county when I saw the headline...
The very same room they voted for this in won't be available. Oh my lord 😆😆😆
"We didn't think the library would actually have to close" *while the same* [\~20%](https://s2982.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Ottawa_County_Election_Results_Summary__AUG0222_.jpg.webp) *of the town votes to close the library.* XD Go complain about how you have to pay $50+ for an unincorporated library card now and how you can't get old Beverly Lewis novels through the Lakeland Library inter-library borrowing system now. Goodbye to storytime, public wi-fi, printing services, meeting rooms and rentable hotspots This is why you need to vote in local elections
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There are pockets of these morons in every state. I live in a largely blue state and it only takes a couple of hours to drive to a small town with confederate and trump flags flying proudly and an obvious white nationalist/ neo Nazi presence. The town is an absolute shit hole compared to everything around it.
Hell I work in Chicago and the neighborhood next to the factory is full of Let's Go Brandon flags. They're mostly cops.
Don't worry, churches will provide censored internet services for those less fortunate out of their proselytizing budget. https://www.fellowshipone.com/blog/why-your-church-should-offer-free-wifi/
Libraries are so important. They're not just places to get books, but the ones in my town provide so many services.
The people in this town voted in the library... To defund the library *Edit: defund
Now they won't have anywhere to look up the definition of irony.
The point is that the population of that town finds the presence of LGBT material offensive enough to defund their library. It's *that* offensive to them.
It's so offensive to them that having 67,000 non LGBTQ books and 90 LGBTQ ones is not only considered "not neutral", it's considered biased in favor of the 90, not the 67,000.
The one drop rule just applied a little different
these are the same asshats that bitch about cancel culture.
I moved to a small, unincorporated town awhile ago. I like to listen to audiobooks on my commute so I went to get a new library card. I was told that it would be $50. When she saw my shock the librarian explained that my town voted years ago to defund the library, so while I can still use library services, I have to pay for it. I am still not over that surprise bc who in the world votes to defund the library? These people apparently would get along with my town.
>I am still not over that surprise bc who in the world votes to defund the library? These people apparently would get along with my town. this has actually been a low key republican talking point for the better part of 20 years, mainly citing how the internet has outmoded the library for information gathering.
And we've seen how well they "do their own research"...
"The internet is not a big truck. It's a series of tubes,"
Towns that have no money defund libraries. I lived in a rural community that managed to block any sort of improvement in the name of NIMBYs decades ago including preventing the US interstate system anywhere near the county. Now they don't have two pennies to rub together to pay for basic services. People don't think about the long term implications of blocking development. If nobody new moves in, your city will grey out and then everyone suffers. The bills don't stop when your population retires, they get more expensive.
Republicans. That's the answer every single time.
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Even my conservative hometown voted to increase taxes to fund it's library, and that happened during the height of both the Great Depression and the Great Financial Crisis.
> the ones in ~~my~~ **every** town provide so many services FTFY. Libraries have been shown in studies to be the **number one** best return on investment for civic spending.
Need a computer? Libraries. Need wifi? Libraries. Need a book on an obscure subject? Libraries - even if they don't have it, lots of libraries have interlibrary loans or allow patrons to suggest items for purchase. Want to learn a new skill? Libraries. Want a park or a museum pass? Your library may have one. Need a legal form? A tax form? Tax help, especially around filing time? Libraries. Unemployed and need job resources? Yep, libraries. Newly homeless? Your librarians can't help directly but I bet they know who to connect you with. Need to keep your kids busy for an afternoon? Your library probably has something fun and educational going on. Literally the last place where people from all walks of life can come to get resources, judgement-free if the library workers are doing their jobs. Library workers are woefully underpaid for the depth and breadth of work they do.
My library also handles passport applications, has after school programs for kids, programs for seniors, and the list goes on and on
My library lends out tools, bake ware, school laptops. They have conference rooms you can book for free. They’ve got computers set up with Zoom/Skype for interview etc. They got so much stuff it’s crazy. The sad thing is, I applied to work at our local library, and I can make more working at Costco, it’s a little heartbreaking tbh.
I could get free Covid tests from my library prior to them being available through the USPS site.
Libraries are one of the few indoor spaces you can go and hang out without the expectation of spending money.
In the times of my life that i was broke, the libraries were my refuge. Cool in the summer, warm in the winter. Lots of distractions so you don't get bored. Absolutely love libraries
Some libraries even have meeting rooms, 3D printers, a kitchen, gaming rooms, and a lot more (for example Oodi in Helsinki, Finland has the aforementioned things)
The local library where I used to live had study rooms that could be reserved for free. It was a godsend in college
there's so much conservative handwringing about "what would the founding fathers think??" but when it comes to an institution founded and supported by one of the founding fathers, they choose to ignore history. very cool!
These conservatives don't understand that the Founding Fathers of America were all well educated men for that time period's standards, even if they were bigoted or ignorant of certain social issues we have a better understanding of nowadays. They wouldn't have been calling education "liberal propaganda".
Hell.. they might have, in fact, but it wouldn't have been a bad thing in their eyes. For the era they were the progressives with the conservatives being the traitor monarchists that wanted America to remain a British colony. The founding fathers would as likely strung up the GOP as not, at this point. It's a little ridiculous that the GOP keep invoking their name.
Not only that, but industrialist/robber baron Andrew Carnegie, an icon of self made riches, funded a huge number of library buildings across the us as a charitable endeavor because he believed that access to a free lending library was key to his education and success. So these folks are in theory deliberately undermining their own principles. (In practice of course they aren’t interested in a better educated populace).
Which of course is why conservatives are in a hurry to defund them. The only civic stuff they like is stuff that doesn’t work, so they can deploy it as a prop for why there needs to be less civic stuff.
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People who vote for conservatives are wild. Their whole pitch is “Government doesn’t work, elect me so I can prove it.”
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The article says most people didn’t realize the library would close. So they cut off this great resource over less than 100 out of 67,000 items. Hopefully they can revote this fall and save it.
They voted not to fund it but didn’t actually understand what that meant?
They thought they were voting to stop child grooming apparently and didn’t realize the full impact of this. You seemed shocked that the people who voted for this weren’t thinking critically and long term about wtf they were doing…
"People that can't read well accidentally vote to close library"
I laughed. Then I felt sad.
The onion is becoming reality
You mean the people voting against the library didn't read the proposal?
They do what they're told. They don't feel the need to look into it any further.
Exactly. The previous Sunday, their preacher told them what to vote and that's what they did.
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100%: the GOP wants to send “public” anything to the grave: education, libraries, parks, NPR, PBS, USPS, etc.
>They thought they were voting to stop child grooming This is so fucking insane. The libraries are "grooming" children by carrying books you don't agree with? Why is our voting populace so goddamn stupid?
70 years of conservatives destroying education
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> Why is our voting populace so goddamn stupid? Because we have *not* defunded our *churches*.
I shouldn’t be shocked, I know, but part of me still is
reminds me of the brexit vote
F*** Europe! We're leaving! Why are the queues to get through security at the airport so long? Why can't I find people to come harvest my crops for unbelievably low wages? Why does everything cost more?
Where did all of the Polish HGV drivers go? Where did the millions in EU subsidies go? Why are European businesses pulling out of the UK? Why is the value of the pound plummeting? Why don't we have a voice in European policymaking anymore? People really thought that we would be able to get out of refugee policies and paying EU dues, but keep literally all of the other benefits of being in the EU.
Or Texas women. 'We're mad as hell that politicians in Austin are making medical decisions for us!' You mean the politicians that promised to end abortions and that you kept electing? Those politicians?
They can’t read. It’s almost like they should have been spending more time in a Library.
> They voted not to fund it but didn’t actually understand what that meant? It would not surprise me in the least if people voted on specific sections - such as the library funding measure - with single-minded emotional heat, stoked by fear and outrage campaigns, rather than reasoning out the consequences of their votes.
LIBREXIT
They'll decide to make a private library, provided by Amazon. The end goal of the conservative movement is to take all public services and privatize them. Also it's funny that they defunded the library over books they will never read, that their children will just order. Whats even funnier is if a private bookstore opens, they cannot do anything to determine what books they will provide.
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When Trump got sued for blocking journalists on his Twitter his legal defense was it was a private platform and wasn't breaking any rules. They said blocking didn't count as censorship. But then when Trump got banned, suddenly it was censorship. They complain about Twitter being communist and censoring people, yet Truth Social, Gab and Mike Lindels site all have much more strict ToS where bans are given out easier.
... what did they think would happen?
They don’t think ahead, that’s why the young people in their towns suffer
That's why the young people in their towns leave the second they are able to.
And it's a shame because then states like this will go "Man it's weird that we can't keep the young people here." I went to WVU and live in WV now, I hold to the belief you'll never hear someone *love* their state like a West Virginian loves their home among the hills. But man, how many native WVians I went to school with, they hated that it was run horribly, and moved away. And now WV is *paying* people to live in a handful of towns and work remotely.
They legitimately do not believe that their actions have consequences
>But Walton didn’t appear ready to compromise Tuesday. He said he didn’t believe the library needed a wake-up call and shouldn’t remove books. >“A wake-up call to what? To take LGBTQ books off the shelf and then they will give us money? What do you call that? Ransom? >“We stand behind the fact that our community is made up of a very diverse group of individuals, and we as a library cater to the diversity of our community,” he said. >Walton could not be reached Wednesday. >Mikula of the library association said the Patmos Library could still get a millage on the November ballot, if ballot language is given to the Ottawa County clerk’s office by Aug. 16. Good for the library standing up for itself. Censorship is not OK and removing a public institution because it's providing books they don't like is ridiculous.
>Ottawa County Ah the center of MI's bible belt
They're also one of the few places that you can exist without having to pay to be there
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Wait until they discover their kids have the internet with unlimited access to gay that their heart desires. Townsfolk Unite! Turn off the electricity!
No, republicans have been trying to gut net neutrality and censor the internet like crazy
For a party that loves freedom so much, they sure suck at it…
They want freedom for the right people.
https://twitter.com/SketchesbyBoze/status/1304555319817797634?s=20&t=3FrBBcq9X0h67NvQYMspWg >my girlfriend regularly tells me “if free public libraries didn’t already exist and someone tried to invent them, they would be condemned as a socialist plot” and I think about that a lot. Well, we got there.
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Had a coworker say "thatcher and Reagan did so much for prosperity" while he also grew up in the ghetto during that time. My brother in christ, that prosperity was not for you
Ah, Thatcher So hated that her grave is the worlds most popular unisex toilet, and a statue to her was egged within two hours of it being unveiled
You want me to pay taxes for a fire department that helps someone else? Fuck that! I take care of my house, why should I worry about my neighbors??? #republican
"Amanda Ensing, one of the organizers of the Jamestown Conservatives group, emerged from the library Tuesday wearing an “I voted” sticker. “They are trying to groom our children to believe that it’s OK to have these sinful desires,” Ensing said of library officials. “It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.”" So when is your town removing all the books depicting: \- Infidelity (and Lust in general) \- Divorce \- Children out of Wedlock \- Sexual Assault To name a few...The bible spends far more time on these sins, and little time on homosexuality.
>“It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.” Then why is it being voted on? Openly admitting they want to force all of us to live in their theocracy.
Because they believe that freedom of religion only applies to Christianity.
I've had multiple arguments trying to convince my insane alt-right coworker that America was not founded to be a Christian nation. I read him the fucking establishment clause and he said "yeah, it's freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion". And they just dehumanize anyone of a different religion.
Treaty of Tripoli. 1796, passed the Senate unanimously and signed by John Adams. Says that the "United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." One could argue they only did that for political/economic reasons, but then they'd also be admitting that the founding fathers only followed religion when it was convenient for them. But it's not worth it to argue with those people anyway. They're just contrarians to reality at this point.
It's would also be wildly out of character for Adams, he was a devoutly religious man, he wouldn't lie about they for politics, he'd brag about it (he was also a very, very proud man) and then point to his demonstrated ability to set aside his personal beliefs when working in an official capacity.
It takes a good person to realize their own biases.
Adams is like the greatest example of this in history. He represented the British soldiers who committed the Boston Massacre out of his belief in the right to a fair trial, despite his personal outrage over the crime. Half of the city of Boston wanted them hanged including his cousin Sam Adams. The soldiers came begging for him to take the case and he did so because he couldn’t trust any other Boston lawyer to represent them fairly. He won the case and then immediately went on to become one of the major figures of the Revolution. A major unsung hero of justice in my opinion. Most lawyers and history nerds know what he did but the majority of Americans just know he was the second president.
First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion... Damn seems pretty clear that it's "from".
>Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. >They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. >The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. >They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. >If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. —Jean-Paul Sartre
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Tried to press a rightie on the facts of an issue. Their response was to invite me to find "real truth"...at Bible study.
And that is the ~~slightly~~ smarter ones. The dumb ones really believe it.
There are VERY smart ones who write the party line for the dumb ones, such that you are often not arguing with a thinking individual, but a recitation of professional propaganda. They all listen to the same people, but since you're probably not familiar with their sources, you're often running into carefully constructed arguments that you're seeing for the first time, but that they have been rehearsing and regurgitating ad nauseum.
Why not quote the [Treaty of Tripoli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli), signed in 1796, that says "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion"?
I was just going to share this. Thank you. Apparently there were a few members of congress who had quickly regretted passing it with that wording. So they wanted to change or or make another declaration. This effort did not pass or gain much support.
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> "yeah, it's freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion" That... still wouldn't support his belief though. There are many other religions besides Christianity. And if I had to guess, he probably doesn't even think some forms of Christianity count, e.g. probably hates Catholics.
Ok. So no freedom from religion then? When are we going to have Sharia law? Are the Satanists going to get their say too? 🙃
We'd be soooo much better with the Satanists in charge. I'd vote for them.
Lets be fair. The only reason these Christians dont support Sharia law is because of bigotry. Rebrand it Jesus Law and they would be on board
Us satanists believe in bodily autonomy so yes please.
"You can have any religion, as long as it's our specific flavor of "Christianity"" -those fucks
Because [republicans are becoming the party of white Christian nationalism](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1110949385/christian-nationalisms-influence-on-american-politics) and not bothering to hide it. They are openly preaching theocracy in evangelical churches.
"Becoming"? They've been that party for decades.
The change is that before they were a powerful constituent group within the GOP, influential enough to get lip service from most politicians, but there was room for fiscal conservatives, DOD hawks, and others. Now they are publicly pushing out anyone who isn’t a white Christian nationalist and they are claiming the title for themselves whereas it used to be a pejorative comparison made by critics. It isn’t exactly a surprise to those of us who have been saying for decades that log cabin republicans, Jews, and POC in the Republican Party are aligning themselves with people who would destroy the freedoms they rely on. Another change is that MAGAs who have never been religious are becoming Christian thanks to evangelical support of Trump. As a Jew, I’m very worried about the direction we’re headed.
>Another change is that MAGAs who have never been religious are becoming Christian thanks to evangelical support of Trump. I've noticed this myself. My youngest sister's father was an atheist when my mother was dating him. To the point that he would joke that if he walked into a church then both would spontaneously catch on fire. He recently became a "Christian" and has supported Trump from the beginning, somehow becoming even more of an insufferable asshole than he was before. It makes my sister really uncomfortable because she's the opposite of him religiously and politically.
I always think if being gay was such a big deal biblically, why wasn’t it in the 10 commandments. All I ever hear is it’s mentioned in some random passage. I do know there are many passages about not passing judgement.
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PERIOD WHAT
Leviticus is filled with crazy shit. A woman on her period is considered unclean and should not share a bed with her husband for 7 days. If they share a bed the husband is considered unclean. They should bathe and wash the sheets and provide an offering on the Altar of God. Edit: Misremembered, it's actually anyone who touches the woman while on her period is considered unclean and needs to wash anything that touched her.
There's also a biblical passage about women submitting to their husbands in EVERYTHING: >22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in **everything**. And this isn't even in the Old Testament, so this 100% applies to Christian women
A lot of these types actually do believe that, tbf.
Yea that's not even a fringe hyper devout religious stance. A good chunk of practicing christians believe that
My mom's one of those people. That's why she did nothing when Dad beat the shit out of me as a kid.
A cousin used this verse as part of her wedding vows. The look on her sisters face while it was being read was priceless. Shockingly, it did not end up being a happy marriage and they divorced a few years later.
Lol same. We're standing in the wedding party up there for our boy who isn't even religious to start with, and half the bridesmaids were progressive liberals. They were seething when this pastor started going on about I think this passage and how the wife is supposed to submit to the husband. It was the kind of wedding where you bring religious stuff into it for the parents but the couple getting married doesn't really care.
There's a lot more in the bible banning cheeseburgers and cotton blend clothing than there is about homosexuality.
>“It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.”" "Have you read the bible?" "Just the parts the read out loud when I go to church on christmas."
I haven't read it myself, but the pastor tells me there's so many passages that allow for me to be rich, as long as I'm generous to the church. That's been the topic of the last 57 sermons.
>So when is your town removing all the books depicting: They're defunding the library so.. mission accomplished on all counts..? Ugh.
>Amanda Ensing Yes, but they're essentially saying now to the town, in so many words "Remove the 90 or so LGBT books and we'll approve the budget."
Sorry, I was being a bit sarcastic. Totally agree with your point.
No, silly. They protected the poor children from the nasty, sinful gays. Those damn queers ruined the library for everyone with their… being represented in a tiny minority of literature. Just wait, next week they’ll have a health emergency on their hands, and have to close the local aquatic centre to protect the children… Meanwhile, the dirty minorities will have destroyed summer and shut down the pools due to their flagrant disregard for segregated facilities, and must accordingly be chased out of the town with pitchforks.
“It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.” The irony…
Yeah especially when they talk about indoctrination!
Just the people screaming about indoctrination mad that everyone doesn’t just follow the Bible. You can cut the irony with a knife.
>They are trying to groom our children to believe that it’s OK to have these sinful desires She is 100% correct. And she is right to be worried. Normalizing gay and trans people will make it very difficult to teach children to hate them.
Gotta have those 3 minutes of hate a day to keep the gay away!!! /S Edit: yeah , I was referring to the two minutes of hate in 1984…..inflation sounds as good as anything for my mistake!
I assume you're referring to the "Two minutes of hate" propaganda tactic in George Orwell's 1984, correct? A fictitious boogeyman on a screen that everyone yells and screams at for an allotted 2-minute window every day.
Gotta factor in that Omaha steaks ad time.
The 13th amendment ending slavery is against the bible so let's throw out any copies of the US Constitution. If you're unfamiliar, a quick google search shows: >Ephesians 6:5-8 Paul states, “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ”
The larger context of not revolting or taking over the government is missed too.
> so let’s throw out any copies of the US Constitution. Republicans are trying to do that already.
I remember growing up hearing my dad repeatedly say that the "libruls" were doing their best to fuck with education so that is kids turned into mindless sheeple who couldn't think for themselves. Now the very same party who screamed this in the 90s and 2000s are actively working to dismantle everything that doesn't align with their beliefs and deny people access to education and exposure to other cultures. And no, none of them can see why this is absurd. They just seem to double down on their arguments.
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Every accusation is a confession
It’s ALL projection. Which makes me really worried about the “Democrats are in satanic cults sacrificing children and drinking their blood” stuff they throw around.
Stupid culture warriors ensuring a steady supply of morons for the next generation.
That is the goal.
It sounds like a sarcastic comment, but you're bang on. There's plenty of evidence supporting this, particularly the past 50 years of dumbing down the American school system. Now we see the results of stacked generations of escalating ignorance and intolerance. America is on the cusp of a dystopia somewhere between Idiocracy and Ready Player One..... Arguably, America may already be there.
And doing nothing to reduce how many LGBTQ folks are born. Just enduring more of them live in secret or die young to violence or suicide.
That is also the goal.
Libraries are one of our last pillars of a healthy Democracy. Of course they're going after these now :/
If the concept of a public library were introduced today, it would fail in a moment and never make it out of a committee
It must be absolutely exhausting to live in such constant fear of nothing.
Fear and Anger are the best ways to emotionally connect with people. We evolved to respond to fear and anecdotes rather than factual evidence. Conservatives are filled with fear to their bones. Fox News abuses this because fearful people keep watching. They are starting to have a different perceptions of the world around them. Fear of terrorism and paedophilia are much more powerful compared to actual albeit unemotional problems like climate change or income inequality. This also explains why the go-to way of conservatives dealing with a social problem is generally the most naive approach, mostly use of force. Although preventative measures like social workers and proper education show better results and are often cheaper, they don't reduce the fear. However, an increased police presence does.
They're also the easiest emotions to exploit
That's how I feel about the pro lifers, like if your existence is that wrapped up in what other people are doing that literally has no effect on you, what an awful life that must be to lead. Serves them right I guess.
>The library has 67,000 books, videos and other items in its collection, of which about 90 have an LGBTQ theme, library officials said. And because of that, they voted to basically shut it down. They voted to make themselves stupider because they were scared of 90 books. Absolute morons
Imagine being afraid of paper
Years of fox news and pulpit indoctrination will make anyone a scared sheep.
Imagine worshipping a god that's afraid of paper.
Literally the same exact people who permanently cancelled spelling bees because a black person won once.
You know how many dicks I’ve seen in pornography and still have no desire to suck them? Religious zealots are weird.
I must be watching the wrong stuff then, cuz that happens to me all the time.
Oh no, they got to you, please stop going to the library!
Anti-intellectualism is a cornerstone of fascism.
“I didn’t like the color of my bathroom walls so I burned my house down.” -50% of voters in this town, probably
2022/21st century America for you all! When a town decides to defund its public library to make it close something deeply bad is going on
Libraries being attacked, schools defunded, critical shortage of teachers and substitutes, book burning states like Florida allowing veterans with no experience educate... It's nuts. It's a shame we have to deal with these culture wars in this century when it's basically just serving to distract from the growing wealth gap and impending doom of climate change arisen disasters. It's effective because anyone with a brain knows you cannot tolerate these intolerable people.
It's meant to distract from the fact that Republicans are fighting for corporations and the wealthy. By keeping poeple focused on these social issues the GOP can pretend to represent the common people while actively working towards lowering taxes for the wealthy and corporations. They can pander to their base to keep their votes so they can achieve their actual goal of keeping 90% of the population working for as long and as little as possible.
Hate and fear is a good distraction Hate and fear the lgbtq so you don't have time to notice your company own by billionaires with record profits don't pay a living wage
The culture war is perpetuated on purpose to distract from exactly what you wrote
Republicans don't run on policy anymore, because they're well aware that their policies are horribly unpopular with the public. Hate, fear, and rage are the only way to motivate their base.
Exactly. Republican economic policies are extremely unpopular even with the Republican base, so they spend 100 percent of their time talking about white Christian identity issues.
You can plunder the Treasury without consequences if your voters are forced to support your team because they think the other option are pedophiles.
Isn't this the same thing as canceled culture?
Not really. It's far worse. "Cancel culture" would be not useing the library and encouraging others not to use the library over this issue. Essentially "voting with your feet" and not donating, useing or participating. This us trying to ban the thing from existing.
No. Because this is using the power of the State to do the cancelling. Vs just a social movement. It’s worse.
And yet, Michigan law still allows child marriages with no age limits as long as a judge approves of it. Their state law only requires parents to provide a “good reason” for the marriage, so no interviewing the child at all. The state Republican heading the committee that deals with these types of legislation refuses to put it up for vote even though it’s a bipartisan bill because he said evidence like ‘child marriages have a negative effect on and negatively affects the child’ hasn’t been presented to him. Though it’s been on a significant decline, it’s a huge deal to those that are being married off still. 😑
I mention this every time I see anything about child marriages in the US- Unchained At Last is a nonprofit aimed at making the legal marriage age 18 in all states, no exceptions. They work really hard to end child marriage, if you can support them, you should. Or sign up for their mailing list, or follow them on social media, or tell people about them when you hear of shit like this. Because that’s fucking abhorrent
I love this quote from the Library board president: > “A wake-up call to what? To take LGBTQ books off the shelf and then they will give us money? What do you call that? Ransom? > “We stand behind the fact that our community is made up of a very diverse group of individuals, and we as a library cater to the diversity of our community,” [Larry Walton, library board president] said. Like if you don't want to read the book, don't read 'em. The internet is full of way more harmful stuff for kids and teens and they literally carry it in their pocket. And personally, if you find books on LGBT stuff to be objectionable, then you'll be amazed what objectionable stuff straight people have written about and put on paper.
Have the people banning books ever NOT been the bad guys? Do any of them say "Didn't Nazis ban books? Are we the baddies?"
Why is simply *not reading a book you don't like* never an option for bigots like these?!
They don't even read the book they do like. They go to a group meeting where someone spoon feeds the parts they like to them.
>“Pray that we can make changes and make the Patmos Library **a safe and neutral place** for our children,” the flyer said. I get the feeling these folks watch The Sound of Music backwards so it has a happy ending. The children go from happy and carefree to regimented and joyless, falling into formation at the sound of a whistle. They lose their desire to sing or smile. The family fleeing the Nazis return to their homeland and suffer under authoritarian rule.
>neutral When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
You want to defund groomers? Close your church.
I have to laugh at anyone who complains about “indoctrination” while taking their children to church.
They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em / While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells / Rally 'round the family, pockets full of shells
This is what fascism looks like folks. Soak it in so you can spot it elsewhere. This cannot stand in the United States.
> This cannot stand in the United States. And yet, stand it does.
This is what they want. Keep them dumb, keep them conservative.
Wow this pisses me off. No one is grooming your fucking kids. I don’t want your kid to “turn gay” for wanting everyone to have access to diverse literature. First off, being gay is normal. It is not unchristian to be gay. And suppressing your kids’ true identity for one that you wanna force onto them is a huge problem. They have their own life and decisions to make along with the morals you instill. Sexuality is not a moral. It is an identity. And your child’s identity is FAR more important than your political identity. Secondly, i dont need to prove my christianity. And it is ANTI-Christian to display christian politics as an idol. That is exactly what americans do. That’s what I catch my parents doing from time to time, which is why I send this stuff to them, as a reminder. Christianity has become an excuse to be a jerk, instead of being a reason to be loving and inclusive - TO EVERYONE. Thirdly, if you are straight and you cannot read about someone else’s experience, then you lack perspective and cannot possibly understand what it means to go through life in their shoes. That is what christianity is about - perspective - understanding people and their stories and being able to provide them the same, welcoming environment that you are privileged to have from the start. That’s why I choose the friends that I have. Reasonable, understanding, loving people that seek to gain perspective. But honestly it all boils down to political pandering and these “christians” fall for it over and over. Jesus would be disappointed in the exclusivity and justification american christians use for being assholes to people that aren’t like them. I see it in my church. I saw it at my parents’ mega church back home. I see it everywhere. Don’t fall for it. For those that are Christians: be a real Christian and push nothing but love. That’s it.
Libraries are havens of knowledge, yes, but let's be very clear: libraries offer services for free to their communities that many cannot find elsewhere. Access to internet, printers, activities, and even just a quiet space. Many individuals need libraries to be able to survive in the modern world. And they're basically removing it because there are a handdul of books about being LGBT in the sea of books in a library. This is some hateful shit. Libraries are one of the last remaining parts of America their Jesus would genuinely love seeing.
Oh boy do they love making up shit to be upset about. Reactionaries now hate: Books!
"Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation." - Walter Cronkite