They are now actually burning books in Tennessee, y'all

Conservative anti-LGBTQ pastor Greg Locke prepares to throw a bunch of books into a bonfire (as seen in the below tweet)

As everyone knows, there is presently a nationwide hysteria with regards to the banning of books. This is because some felt that they would warp the minds of children by  encouraging discussion on racism and other controversial issues amongst kids especially confirm the existence of LGBTQ people.

Probably the most attention-grabbing incident was a school in Tennessee banning a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about The Holocaust entitled Maus. Apparently the state isn't done with the issue as of yet because a controversial pastor who spreads misinformation about COVID decided to take it all a step further.

He held an event in which there was an actual banning of books. According to The Nashville Scene:

Last week, McMinn County made news when the school board voted to ban beloved graphic novel Maus — a Holocaust story told with anthropomorphic mice and cats — due to instances of swear words and nudity. While the vote happened in early January, it went viral following a report from TN Holler. 

Last night, Mt. Juliet pastor and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Greg Locke decided to turn it up a notch by organizing an old-fashioned book burning. The books included millennial staples like Harry Potter and Twilight — hits of the early Aughts that were targeted by Christian book burnings back in the day. In a sermon preceding the bonfire, 

Locke described beefing with "Free Mason devils" and said "I ain't gonna be 'suiciding myself' no time soon." Locke also said people aren't mad that they were burning books, but mad because of the books they were burning — implying that his critics, even other pastors, were devil and witchcraft supporters.

 

Republicans are now literally burning books pic.twitter.com/zAJHl2HY4q

— MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) February 3, 2022

Locke  is a very interesting figure in Baptist circles and isn't necessarily liked. Last year, he was banned from Twitter for spreading wild misinformation about COVID and vaccines. In addition, he believes that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and is also - surprise, surprise - rabidly homophobic even to the point of playing the "gays are pedophiles and they want to have sex with children" card.

He's a nut, but he is also an empowered nut. And that is the problem.

Still, he has his uses. No matter harmless some conservatives and members of the religious right cast their plans, there is always one in the crowd eager to rip off the mask of faked levity and reveal just how sordid they all are. 

And we should always be grateful for the existence of that fool.

Editor's note - Picture and tweet courtesy of Tennessee Holler. Big props for breaking this story.

'Ex-president Alphonso David sues HRC for racial discrimination' & other Thur midday news briefs

Alphonso David

Ex-president Alphonso David sues HRC for racial discrimination​ - Batten down the hatches. Things are about to get ugly at HRC. Still our work as a community goes on. The pursuit of LGBTQ equality did not begin because of HRC and it won't end with HRC no matter what problems the group has. 

7 Times Amy Schneider Made Jeopardy! History - No matter what our trans brothers and sisters are faced with, they always rise to challenge and kick ass. 

USA Swimming capitulates to a right-wing media hate campaign and prematurely ends trans swimmer Lia Thomas’ season - This illustrates the power of the anti-LGBTQ industry. They have a disciplined network and we don't. Unpaid and uncoordinated bloggers with minimum reaches to powerful LGBTQ and mainstream media sources have a hard time competing. Now it's not just the refutation of homophobic and transphobic lies and junk science which is necessary. The machine has become larger and more powerful. 

Comedians get Trumpers to agree to ban the Bible from schools by telling them what’s in it - Like I said before, let's have that conversation.

Video - 'Unladylike2020' - LGBTQ black icon Gladys Bentley made defying the cultural norms work for her

I am posting this video because its subject, Gladys Bentley, is a fascinating icon in both Black and LGBTQ history. At a time in which homosexuality was heavily frowned up, Bentley stood out as a talented artist who refused to hide who she was. She embraced not being seen as 'ladylike' and made it work for her.

Also, this video should start a much needed, albeit highly difficult discussion with regards to our black heroes and how said heroes treated LGBTQ people of color. (as seen with civil rights stalwart Adam Clayton Powell starting at 7:18 of the video ) As we saw last year with the Dave Chappelle situation, some heterosexual black people only 'tolerate' LGBTQ black people after they psychologically split our dual identities. 

Biden's desire to put a black woman on SCOTUS is yanking the evangelical hypocrites out of the closet

Tony Perkins thinks that Biden's decision to put a black woman on SCOTUS is wrong because the American public 'deserves a robust debate' on the nominee no matter who it may be. Too bad he didn't feel that way about Merrick Garland.

President Biden's decision to name a black woman to the Supreme Court is wonderful in so many ways. For one, it's about time a black woman is put on SCOTUS. The closest we got to receiving one is when former president Bill Clinton talked about naming former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan as a justice. Unfortunately her health problems kept that from happening.

Another benefit to Biden's decision is how it allows me to dig into my basket of receipts and call out the conservative and religious right hypocrites who are raising a fuss about it. These folks claim that Biden is sending a negative message of discrimination to those who aren't black women and message of pandering to black women.

Exhibit A of this outcry is from what's becoming my favorite anti-LGBTQ group to call out, the Family Research Council. It's president, Tony Perkins, claims that Biden's desire to name a black woman to SCOTUS is unfair, while pointing to a poll which says the majority of Americans disagree with Biden decision to name a black woman:

To most people, it didn't feel like a grand, equitable gesture. It felt like identity politics run amok. "Typical," Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) fumed, of an administration that's been "race-obsessed, gender-obsessed" from the beginning. And Americans seem to agree. In a brand new ABC poll over the weekend, 76 percent of Americans said they wanted Biden to consider "all possible nominees." Only 23 percent think he should limit the pool to black women. 

 Even the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus couldn't help but admit, "Would I be more comfortable if Biden hadn't been quite so explicit? Yes. Partly because it carries an aura of unfairness to announce that no one will be considered who does not meet an announced racial test," she wrote. Still, she insisted, the criticism over Biden's criteria seems "racially tinged." In other words, the Wall Street Journal's editors point out, "What she's really saying is that conservatives are right in their criticism but only liberals can say so... The Court and the public deserve a robust debate about the nominee, whether black, white, Asian, man, woman, whatever." 

Well that's interesting because it reminds me of another poll in 2016 concerning another potential SCOTUS justice - our present Attorney General, Merrick Garland:

The majority of Americans want the Senate to consider President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, according to a new poll. A CNN/ORC poll released Friday found that some two-thirds of Americans surveyed want the Senate to hold confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland, who Obama nominated to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. 

Most Republicans surveyed disagree with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who, along with other Senate GOP members, has said the Senate will not hold hearings for an Obama nominee. Some 55% of Republicans said the Senate should hold hearings, along with 67% of Democrats. A majority of those polled also said Obama should select the next justice (57%), but those views are divided by party with 85% of Democrats backing the president and only 26% of Republicans.

We all know how this story ended. Garland did not get a hearing and Trump - being elected after Obama  - chose Neil Gorsuch as his SCOTUS pick. The GOP-controlled Senate, led by Sen. McConnell, confirmed him.

But where was Perkins and the Family Research Council when Garland was being denied a hearing?  They were cheering on efforts to deny the hearing. FRC even sent out a press release echoing McConnell's excuse for not holding a hearing and attacking Garland as being too radical:

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement: 

 "Judge Garland is far from being a consensus nominee and would be an incredibly different jurist than Justice Scalia. In fact, he was opposed by almost a quarter of the Senators who voted on his nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court in 1997, and some of Judge Garland’s most recent opinions and dissents raises serious questions about his ability to serve as a constitutionalist. 

 "During this presidential election year, there is not time to provide any nominee the thorough review necessary to adequately consider a person’s appointment to the Supreme Court. In fact, it has been almost a century and a half since a Supreme Court vacancy occurred and was filled in an election year when the White House and Senate were controlled by different parties. 

"This November, Americans will speak to who they want nominating the next Justice for the United States Supreme Court. The American people should have a say, and the Senate should respect Americans' desire to speak to this important issue by declining to schedule hearings and votes on a Supreme Court nominee this year.

It's obvious that Perkins and FRC think of the America public in the same way as the GOP - not mattering until their opinions can be distorted and exploited.

'Joe Rogan also spews anti-trans rhetoric on his podcast' & other Tue midday news briefs

Joe Rogan amplifies transphobic lies but won't invite transgender people on his show.

Joe Rogan Continues to Spew Anti-Trans Rhetoric on His Spotify Podcast​ - People have righteously raised hell with Rogan over his COVID misinformation. BUT they forget how he amplifies transphobic grifters WITHOUT giving trans people the courtesy of being invited on his show. Folks claim that Rogan encourages needed debate in general, but when it comes to transgender people, that notion is a HUGE lie.   

Anti-gay Trump judge is insulting his colleagues & annoying everyone on the federal bench - But then they whine about Biden's possible SCOTUS pick. 

Trump promises to ban transgender women from sports if re-elected - Okay . . .. whatever. 

He started an LGBTQ magazine during the pandemic. Here’s what he learned. - A wonderful and positive article.

Speaking of banning books. let's have a conversation about the Bible . . .

In light of all of the book banning going on around the country, we should call out the irony when it comes to the 'religious persuasion' - conservative evangelicals - of the groups and individuals behind much of this madness.  This is solely because of the book they claim to be their guide for life, i.e. The Bible. 

Far be it from me to seem petty, but for a group of people so concerned with children being warped from what they read, the book they endorse has a lot of violence and sex in it. 

For example:

We all know the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho, but folks seem to forget that after those walls came crashing down, Joshua's army massacred everybody in the city except for a prostitute called Rahab and her family. 

We all know the story of Daniel in the lion's den, but folks seem to omit that after he was delivered, those responsible for his plight - and their families - were then fed to the lions. 

And the story about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah has been drilled into our heads as proof that homosexuality is a supposed sin. But what about the story afterwards of the incest between Lot and his daughters. Or the Levite man in the book of Judges when faced with the situation of nearly being gang raped - see Sodom and Gomorrah - handed over his concubine to be manhandled to death, which she was.

Then there is the story of the general, Sisera, who had a tent peg nailed through his head while he slept.

The king Agag, who was chopped into pieces by the prophet Samuel,

The queen Jezebel who thrown out of a window and then whose corpse was eaten by dogs after a chariot was driven over her (She was NOT a nice person), 

Elisha the prophet who had bears come out of the forest and attack boys who was making fun of him,

The king Eglon who has assassinated by having a knife so deeply driven into his belly that feces came out

Then there was  Athaliah, a queen so wicked that she had her grandchildren massacred so she could gain the throne. (She was the daughter of Jezebel. That was not a nice family)

And let's not forget massacre after massacre after massacre all done in God's name, including the wedding dowry of 200 foreskins (which of course was NOT handed over voluntarily).

I hope you see where I'm going with this. There are people out there wanting to ban books because of profanity, sex,  discussions of racism and anti-Semitism, or the existence of LGBTQ people for fear that these things are harmful to their children. And yet these are the same people taking guidance  - including the raising of same children  - from a book containing more violence and sex than a Quentin Tarantino movie.

The point is not to disrespect the Bible or the religious beliefs of those who have a deep personal faith in the Bible. But to put it plainly, book banning is not about parental control nor protecting children. It's about protecting an inflated and undeserved sense of self-entitlement. Some seem to think that it's not enough to mandate what ideas are appropriate in their own homes. Instead they want the ability to mandate the appropriateness of ideas to other families and their children.  They want to dictate standards which others are forced to follow while claiming that not affording them this privilege is harming them.

There is a name for that - gaslighting.

Books are not dangerous to children nor are class discussions about controversial issues those books may spark.  The danger lies in the hypocrisy of those exploiting their children to sanction their own personal beliefs and prejudices in laws and regulations.  Especially when we see that the faces and voices of LGBTQ and parents of color have been omitted throughout this controversy.

And most likely, deliberately so.

'Conservatives are banning books from schools while whining about 'cancel culture'' & other Mon midday news briefs

Conservatives Are Banning Books From Schools While Whining About 'Cancel Culture' - We definitely noticed. 

LGBTQ advocates regroup on paid parental leave after Biden's safety net bill stalls​ - Obstructionism affects us all. 

A Guest Was Denied Entry At a Restaurant For 'Not Dressing Their Gender' - So ridiculous of the restaurant. 

Schumer Vows to Pass Federal LGBTQ Non-Discrimination Bill - We'll see.