Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is already beginning to implement the law.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is already beginning to implement the law.

A city in Tennessee is using a recently passed ordinance essentially prohibiting homosexuality in public to try to ban library books that might violate the new rules.

Murfreesboro passed an ordinance in June banning “indecent behavior,” including “indecent exposure, public indecency, lewd behavior, nudity or sexual conduct.” As journalist Erin Reed first reported, this ordinance specifically mentions Section 21-72 of the city code. The city code states that sexual conduct includes homosexuality.

Anyone who violates the new ordinance is barred from hosting public events or selling goods and services at public events for two years. Anyone who violates the ordinance “in the presence of minors” is barred for five years.

An ACLU-backed challenge to the ordinance has already been launched, but that hasn’t stopped city officials from implementing the measure. Last Monday, the Rutherford County steering committee met to discuss removing all books that might potentially violate the ordinance from the public library. The resolution was met with widespread outcry from city residents.

“When have the people who ban books ever been the good guys?” local activist Keri Lambert demanded during the Monday county meeting.

Murfreesboro city officials have already used the ordinance to ban four books that discuss LGBTQ themes. In August, the county library board pulled the books Flamer, Let’s Talk About It, Queerfully and Wonderfully Made, and This Book Is Gay.

The board also implemented a new library card system that categorizes books into certain age groups. When it takes effect next year, children and teenagers will only be able to check out books that correspond to their age group; they will need permission from a parent or guardian to check out “adult” books.

Library director Rita Shacklett worried in August that the new rules would prevent students from accessing books they need for a class. She explained that many classic high school books, such as To Kill a Mockingbird, are now classified as “adult.”

It’s unclear if the county steering committee plans to pull books such as the A Song of Ice and Fire series, which includes multiple depictions of heterosexual sexual conduct.

Murfreesboro’s new ordinance is part of a much larger wave of attacks on LGBTQ rights in Tennessee and the rest of the country. In the past year, the so-called Volunteer State became the first state to try to ban drag performances. That law was overturned in court.

In March, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow people to refuse to perform a marriage if they disagree with it, essentially gutting marriage equality. The bill was introduced in the Senate but deferred until next year.

link: https://newrepublic.com/post/176915/tennessee-town-ban-public-homosexuality

archive link: https://archive.ph/LFMMK

  • @PepeLivesMatter
    1•11 months ago

    Hard data. Peer reviewed, long term studies would be best. Got any of those? Otherwise we’re just arguing opinions. Clearly you already know what I think would work best: not seducing or enticing them to engage in any premarital sex, gay or or otherwise. Also, again, I do not and have not advocated for using violence or letting them live in fear, although a certain amount of fear is likely unavoidable because like you said there ARE dangerous people out there who seek to corrupt them, although we probably disagree on who exactly those people are.

    • @IHadTwoCows@lemm.ee
      1•11 months ago

      All proof available in all data on the subject says you are dead wrong on every metric. “No premarital sex” is absolutely fucking stupid and is entirely ignorant of reality. Teenagers fuck…deal with it. In my opinion nobody should marry before age 35, if even at all because marriage is a statist construct, not a religious one. I get the very strong feeling from your positions that you want the ability to marry and own 14-year-old girls.

      • @PepeLivesMatter
        1•11 months ago

        Okay, where is the proof? Show me the data. Peer reviewed studies, please.

        Also, for the record, I don’t support marrying 14 year old girls, and you won’t find me arguing for that anywhere. You’re just making stuff up again because you don’t have any actual arguments.

          • @PepeLivesMatter
            1•11 months ago

            You realize none of these answers the question I asked, which was about the long mental health outcomes of people in abstinence-only programs vs. sex positive ones which specifically include homosexuality in it as well, right?

            You’re making an a priori assumption that teen pregnancies lead to worse long term mental health outcomes than homosexuality does. Also, what does abortion have to do with any of it? Is there any data that shows that women who have abortions are happier in the long run than those who don’t?

            The best data that I found from abortion advocates shows that abortion has no impact on mental health, in which case it would be irrelevant to the question we’re trying to answer here.

            Meanwhile, there is data that LGBT people have worse mental health and higher rates of substance abuse than straight people. And yes, I am aware you’re just going to say “that’s because they are being discriminated against by society for being who they are” but once again, that is simply an assumption and remains to be proven.

            As I have said before, society has made huge steps in the past 20 years towards accepting homosexuality, with gay marriage being legal and many states allowing adoption, yet somehow people still feel persecuted because some states won’t allow them access to other people’s kids in order to teach them about homosexuality.

            At some point, you have to ask yourself whether perhaps the Bible is right about homosexuality, and perhaps a permanent feeling of victimhood and oppression is part and parcel of being gay, and a manifestation of God’s punishment for violating the natural law.

            • @IHadTwoCows@lemm.ee
              1•11 months ago

              Wow that is an amazing oack of blatantly made up pop psychology. “Some states won’t allow access to other people’s kids??!! What the goddamn psychotic fuck does that mean?? "In order to teach them about homosexuality”??! You’re a fucking delusional psychopath. NONE of that is happening ANYWHERE. IT IS NOT.

              There is no violation of natural law happening here, and there is no fucking god. He is a FAIRY TALE. If you choose to think that fairy tale is real, then that’s your business but YOURS ALONE. You DO NOT get to control or restrict anyone else’s lives in his name under any circumstance. To do so is to invite your own genicide. AGAIN.

              • @PepeLivesMatter
                1•11 months ago

                NONE of that is happening ANYWHERE. IT IS NOT.

                It’s not happening, and it’s good that it is: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/06/03/schools-gender-identity-transgender-lessons/

                Stop gaslighting me. You know damn well that public schools in many Democrat run states have already included LGTB and gender identity education into their lesson plans, and that progressive teachers in conservative states are trying to do the same, and vociferously protesting any attempts to pass laws forbidding that. It’s not that long ago that Governor DeSantis raised a big stink when he passed a law to make this illegal in Florida.

                This is what I mean by “access to other people’s kids”. People like you are demanding that they be allowed to introduce other people’s children to the concept of same sex relationships. That’s exactly what the law we’re discussing here is forbidding, and that’s the reason you’re so upset, because in your mind, this constitutes fascism for not allowing other to “live their lives as they see fit”.

                I’m sorry, but you gotta draw a line somewhere. If you want to have same sex relationships with other consenting adults in the privacy of your own home, be my guest, but you don’t have a right to drag other people’s children into this. Their brains are still developing. Being weak or effeminate as a boy does not mean someone is gay or born in the wrong body and needs to be taught about sucking dick or taking feminizing hormones to reveal their “true self”. They need protection from bullies and demagogues like you who are trying to recruit them into their sadomasochistic world of sexual exploitation.

                And I’ll be the first to admit that on the whole, conservatives and Christians aren’t doing a particularly great job at this either, but that doesn’t mean that these kids would be better off sodomizing each other because a teacher in school told them that boys having anal sex with other boys is healthy and natural. It’s not. And your constant murderous, vitriolic anger is a good illustration that being gay, unlike the name implies, is not at all a fun and happy lifestyles, but merely a fake front intended to mask a sheer bottomless pit of rage and contempt for everything that’s pure and natural.

                • @IHadTwoCows@lemm.ee
                  1•11 months ago

                  Tell you what, though: I’ll accept ending your fictional “indoctrination” conspiracy if you accept banning any and all religious mentions of any kind in our schools. OUR SCHOOLS. Not your schools.

                  And using DeSamtis as your metric made you lose yet again. A known fascist who hates freedom and America.

                  • @PepeLivesMatter
                    1•11 months ago

                    Aren’t public schools in the US already secular? Somehow I don’t think they’re the ones “indoctrinating” people with any religion except statism, which I was under the impression you hated almost as much as Christianity.

                    If you ask me, we should get rid of government schools entirely and just let the private sector figure out how best to prepare children for life. That would likely be far cheaper and more effective. But of course it will never happen, because it would provoke great anger and pearl clutching among so called “liberals”, who WANT to use the school system to indoctrinate children into their statist child exploitation cult.

                    Also, you once again have shown a major lack of reading comprehension, because I have by no means used DeSantis as a metric, I just used him as an example to show that what you claim isn’t happening in schools WAS actually happening in schools. Because if it hadn’t been happening, the law would have been a) entirely unnecessary and b) not the least bit controversial. Imagine banning wearing your pants backwards in public, something nobody has done since Kriss Kross went out of style over 20 years ago. Apart from a few fringe lunatics concerned about government overreach, nobody would be protesting something like that, because nobody is actually doing it. Yet the outrage over Florida was nationwide.