How one mom launched a porn panic that helped the GOP take Virginia

[Nevilledog]

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Mother Jones
@MotherJones
In an age when real porn is available to any kid with a smartphone, and teenagers are Snapchatting each other racy pics, it’s hard to believe that a graphic novel could still shock, but it did.

How one mom launched a porn panic that helped the GOP take Virginia
Conservative media amplified the content to feed outrage. Dems didn't notice until it was too late.
motherjones.com
10:42 AM · Nov 19, 2021

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/how-one-mom-launched-a-porn-panic-that-helped-the-gop-take-virginia/

When Stacy Langton showed up at a September meeting of the Fairfax County, Virginia, school board to complain about two books in her children’s high school library, she came prepared. The Catholic mother of six had never spoken at a school board meeting before, but she’d seen other parents on conservative media who’d done it. Not only had she drafted written remarks, but Langton had also brought props—posters with enlarged images from Gender Queer: A Memoir, a graphic nonfiction book by Maia Kobabe. They were “detailed illustrations of a man having sex with a boy. The illustrations include fellatio, sex toys, masturbation, and violent nudity,” she told the board, holding up the posters.

The text was perhaps even more provocative than the images: “’I cannot wait to have your cock in my mouth,’” said Langton, reading from the memoir. “’I’m going to give you the blow job of your life.’” She continued her dramatic reading with a passage from Lawn Boy, an award-winning semi-autobiographical adult novel by Jonathan Evison, whose narrator is reflecting on sexual experiences he had as a child with another child—a scene Langton decried as “pedophilia.”

“’What if I told you I touched another guy’s dick?’” Langton read, her voice trembling as she tried to contain her embarrassment over the language. “’What if I told you I sucked it? I was ten years old, but it’s true. I sucked Doug Goble’s dick, the real-estate guy, and he sucked mine, too.’” At that point, a board member, perhaps missing the irony, interrupted to warn that there were “children in the room.”

“Do not interrupt my time!” Langton shouted. She tried to quote the Virginia law that makes providing obscene materials to children a criminal offense, but the board members cut her mic, prompting the audience members to respond with outrage, chanting, “Shame!” and “Go to jail!” The board declared a break and most of the members fled the dais.

*snip*

[Claire Oh Nette]

1. Censorship...

LawnBoy is not a book that is taught in English classes. It's an adult memoir. It's not int he children's or YA section.

It's a library book. Her children aren't forced to check that book out. The beauty of libraries? Lots and lots of options to choose from.

Never mind all the rapey rape and murder and multiple wives in her bible....

[Bev54]

2. It always comes from the self righteous and it is usually their children that are the worst.