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
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According to the majority. You DO support democracy, don’t you? Or would you be more comfortable with a dictatorship that forces everyone to be gay?
I didn’t pass that law, the city of Murfreesboro did. BTW we also have laws against stealing and killing people, should we get rid of those too because they limit people’s freedoms in choosing how they live their lives?
In this post you claim the law is an opposition to a “dictatorship that forces everyone to be gay”. Then you make a false dichotomy that claims that crimes with victims who lose life and property is equal to two dudes with the hots for each other.
You lying fascist shitbag.
No, I asked whether YOU would feel more comfortable under such a dictatorship.
Also I don’t care what two dudes with the hots for each other do in the privacy of their own bedrooms, but when it’s in public and especially in front of children, it is potentially no longer a victimless crime.
Believe it or not, there are other people in the world. It’s unrealistic and downright narcissistic to expect that everyone should accommodate your desires everywhere and at all times.
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Believe it or not, there are other people in the world. It’s unrealistic and downright narcissistic to expect that everyone should accommodate your ideology everywhere and at all times. Statism is bad, mmkay
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Not in Murfreesboro, TN.
That’s because you are fascists who hate freedom, America, individual liberty, and free will. It’s not complicated. You are in fact the ones suffering from deviant behavior. You’re the ultimate Statists: authoritarians who literally want to control the actual corporial bodies of individuals for no reason at all other then to make yourselves feel superior. Sheer, unbridled statism.
If people had the ability to control their own bodies, we wouldn’t need a state. Unfortunately there’s people like you who think it’s okay to do gay stuff with or in front of children, and refuse to be reasoned out of it.
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No, I claimed that YOU think it’s okay to do gay stuff with children, because you told me that passing laws about this sort of stuff is fascism and it’s nobody’s business how people live their lives.
Again: you’re a lying sack of fascist dog shit. Proof is right there in your post.
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No, it’s because the city found it necessary to pass a statue prohibiting it that makes me believe it has probably happened before.
Unlike what you seem to think, passing a law is actually a fairly complex and time consuming process. Not to mention costly, since enforcement isn’t free. City councils don’t just wake up one day and decide to pass some random laws because it’s a Tuesday and they got nothing better to do.
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