From censoring LGBTQ books to staging a kidnapping, Tammi Hamby’s crusade shows how Christian Nationalist power harms the very communities it claims to protect
For all the noise that homophobes make about "keeping their kids safe from LGBTQs," NatCs demonstrate yet again that it is THEY, not LGBTQs, who present the greatest threat not only to other people's children but to their own as well.
On the previous post, I mentioned a French play called "la cage aux folles" written in the 70's. Two of the main characters are a gay couple who lovingly raised the biological son of one of them. Son who turned out straight.
Yes, I have multiple friends who are LGBQ parents, and none of their adopted children have become Gay. I always tell Christians that God makes people Gay and he doesn't make mistakes.
I have dim memories of seeing two films of this play, one a French version and the other one an American with Robin Williams. Could this be right or is my memory deceiving me?
Not a day goes by when you don't see another preacher, pastor, or Christian youth worker in the news for the possession of child porn or some other child sexual assault charges. NOT A SINGLE DAY.
And yet you do not EVER see queer folks getting arrested for the same thing. Proving once again that it's ALWAYS projection with these people.
I grew up, in a neighbourhood with lots of different people. My friends was lesbian, gay, intersex, wrong sex, straight male and straight female, and possibly more. How I ended up as a straight female, having the same male partner for 42 years must be a miracle. But of course, one of my kids are gay. Must be because of my childhood friends.
Criminal master-minds with a religious cherry on top. Few people disgust me more than those who think their religion entitles them to a say in other people's personal choices.
That’s not even the whole story! Look into Tammi and Jeff’s old medical practice. Take a look at the reviews and allegations of prescribing sedatives to children who don’t need them, remarkably bad bedside manner (sometimes yelling at patients!), and numerous flagrant HIPAA violations.
Excellent write up! I attended many of the library meetings where Tammi attempted to restrict childrens books. Can’t say that I’m surprised she was capable of this. We are all happy to see her leave the library system.
Edit: I can’t find the reviews about bad prescriptions anymore, I will provide a source when/if I find one.
Or the good old patriarcat playing, like with the Australian little girl who died because her parents denied her insulin. The father got a lighter sentence than the mother when both were equally culpable.
“The increased prevalence of transgender ideology in culture and education has narrowed the treatment options for children with gender dysphoria.”
The increased prevalence of mentions of transgender people in culture and education is a direct result of the attacks on transgender people by white Christian nationalists trying to gain power and control over our society. Transgender people want to blend in, but they also need awareness to gain acceptance, but they certainly do not want the attention that has been heaped upon them because some assholes in the state legislature of a Bible Belt state (was it South Carolina?) decided they shouldn’t be able to pee in public restrooms. In a concerted effort by the Christian nationalists to chip away at any progress the LGBTQ community made to be able to live comfortably in our society, the RWNJs have decided to do what they always do, become violent and vindictive. And now we have cruel little ignorant people forcing their way into library boards and school boards to hurt children. It’s you making transgender issue so ubiquitous in our political conversations. It’s your cruelty forcing this attention to be so common and required. This is a sick form of the Streisand effect designed to hurt folks who only want to live their lives, and anyone else who doesn’t conform to your strict, narrow and impossible standards surrounding gender and sex. They aren’t harming you or your children, leave them alone and you won’t have to hear so much about them.
No, I think it's fair to say that progressive communities have intentionally tried to increase awareness regardless of whether christian fundies oppose it or not. This is not merely a response, it's leaning forward to get liberal ideas of trans rights and tolerance into the mainstream.
However that's irrelevant for 90% of the library case because libraries are intentionally managed to cater to a wide range of clientele - i.e. the whole community, and all the varied people in it. If something is important for a local community member, they try to get it. And if that's not me or you or Ms. Hamby, our response should simply be to not check that book out. "wokeness is liberal" is simply not a valid reason to prevent a library from getting woke books, any more than someone having an opposition to conservativism would be a valid reason for a library not to get a Trump book. Different community members want both? Then the library gets both.
Now if the Hamby's want to argue that the display was giving exceptional treatment to one side of the culture war, well okay maybe that's something to look into. The library shouldn't be doing that. But right wing agitators have a tendency to lie by omission or just plain lie, so in the case of the display I would not rule out that she's misrepresenting what the library actually did. The display could've been something as simple as a "new acquisitions we got this month" or even a "pride month" display, and thus the library wasn't treating these books any differently than they would books on other subjects.
That letter to the library board should have been laughed off as it was poorly written, only a half step better than the Oklahoma University essay we read about earlier this week. Why would a library take advice from someone with such poor grammar and writing skills? Why do people with such a poor grasp on the English language get so vociferous about what books the library should have? Hamby needed to spend more time in the library but she chose to tear it down instead.
Oh. My. God. The kidnapping. I’m just speechless. That poor woman.
Do you know what they call the med student who graduated at the bottom of their class? Doctor. Also, when you do not use a skill you lose it, I’m sure she did enough to pass but then stopped learning once she got her MD. As evidenced by the reviews on her medical practice.
I see: Tammi Hamby slept in a Holiday Inn Express with her doctor husband, which obviously qualifies her to commit conspiracy to have her daughter kidnapped, which resulted in the injury of her daughter!
She's 59. My recommendation: life in prison. She can "witness" to the other inmates and she can see how well that works out for her.
The Library Board should have written back, that they see it as their duty to have an inventory which reflects the whole range of lives, including real-life lives (apologies if this sounds clunky, I hope that it becomes clear in my next sentence) of humans and animals. Additionally, the library should also reflect the creativity of writers who invent non-real-life lives by creating fantasy, sci-fi and alien adventure stories.
Which means that the book about the two male penguins raising a chick has got a place in a library as does Pride & Prejudice (a traditional family raising daughters). Black Beauty (the horse book) has got a place as does 20k leagues under the sea. A non-fiction book on the lives of bees (single mother with lots of offspring) but also the Expeditionary Force series. (I’m not a sci-fi person, so please add a different book or series with the most alien of aliens here.). A book about a young lad being a builder in the time of the Pharaos (either fiction or non-fiction) and the books by Pearl S Buck. And these are only the examples I can think of while sitting in a lay-by off the A1.
Since you mentioned bees. There is a wonderful novel about a beehive. The description at Amazon is “The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut set in an ancient culture where only the queen may breed and deformity means death.”
I've served on juries numerous times, and been a jury foreman several times.
Defense attorneys love me. My demeanor is much like the kindly, old grandfather from the 1930s "Heidi" movies; or like Grandpa Walton from "The Waltons". Defense attorneys tend to assume I'll be a "soft touch".
Here's what happens when I've been on jury trials like the one Tammi Hamby and her accomplices are facing:
I vote "guilty" pretty much at the beginning of jury deliberations. Unless it's an obvious case of malicious prosecution (and that does happen, and I've served on juries where we all agreed that the prosecutors and the DA engaged in malicious prosecution), I don't back down. When it comes to sentencing, I ask for the longest possible sentence; and if multiple charges are involved (aggravated kidnapping, kidnapping, conspiracy to kidnap, possibly a civil rights violation) then I ask that the sentences be served consecutively.
Were I on that jury, Tammi Hamby and her accomplices would never be free, again -- or if they were paroled, they'd be up in their 70s and 80s.
And here's the thing: when I give the jury's verdict, and sentencing recommendations, I look the defendant directly in the eyes, and I stare them down as I read the verdict.
No. That just applies to neighbors. And actually only neighbors who agree with you. You're allowed to lie to your own family members all you want, especially if you do it for "their own good." Free pass on bearing false witness if you have a Bible based excuse for dong it.
Being LGBTQ us NOT a lifestyle, Blondy. Wanna know what IS? Being a Christian. The former is natural because it is inborn. The latter is unnatural and must be taught.
Why does Hemant produce these articles so early in the morning? Has he no pity for an old man who has not yet had his coffee? And not only that, I’m going to have to start at the end of the article..
“There’s Christian hypocrisy, and then there’s whatever the hell the Hambys have been doing.” I know what that “whatever the hell“ is. I’ve been writing about it for months, years. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s corruption. They have been corrupted by power, by the desire for power, by religious megalomania because they are gods BFFF, by contempt and despite, and by stupidity and ignorance. In short, they have become that which they allegedly hate. Or putting it another way— trump evangelicals.
How do I love thee, o Hamby? Let me count the ways.
“ Tammi Hamby, was the ringleader. She’s the one who staged the entire kidnapping and hired those men to do it.” Rather than be a responsible parent to an adult child with disabilities, they decided it would be far more entertaining to emulate something they saw on TV. So she sought out her daughter’s caregiver— that woke socialist ideology that they are so terrified of must have been paying for that— who apparently was the kind of woman who knew the kind of men who would kidnap a young woman with disabilities. And do it for money. Why do I suspect that they are not the sharpest bowling balls in the medicine cabinet?
And even more disturbing? They are talking all about parental responsibility while exercising none, and apparently using the Internet as a babysitter, only to find out that the Internet is full of the Nigerian equivalent of evangelical preachers. Not to mention, trying to protect their daughter from imaginary abuse and predators, while acting just like real predators— pretending to be someone there are not to accomplish their own goals.
Corruption. Corruption. Corruption.
And the two bozos they hired? And the very plot itself? I’ve seen worse on Netflix, but rarely. One of them doesn’t wear a mask, and then puts one on to disguise himself? And he turns into the wrong field for the kidnapping ? He was clearly putting on someone. THEY EVEN HAD A PRACTICE RUN!!!
But the stupid doesn’t end there. The very presence of the books in the library is enough to indoctrinate their entire community about something they can’t even be bothered to understand. If the community is so concerned about it, perhaps they just don’t check out those books? And of course, they have no problem insisting on indoctrinating the community with their religious views.
“ The Hambys built their public identities around the notion that they were moral guardians. They pretended to be warriors against the imagined threats of LGBTQ people lurking in picture books. Yet when confronted with an actual parenting challenge, they resorted to violence, deception, and psychological torture. ” well of course! That has been the modus operandi of hyper conservative Christianity for the 54 years that I’ve been out and in the gay rights fight. Pretend to be moral. Hide hate, ignorance, fear, stupidity, despite, and contempt behind something they call sincere religious belief. Employee deception and psychological torture to coerce people that you cannot be bothered to know anything about into doing what you have decided they must..
This reminds me so much of that woman 47 years ago that I used to have to debate occasionally when I fought against the Briggs initiative. She told every lie in the book about gay people. She asked me to write to her because “she cared “. I wrote a long, polite, and respectful letter showing her that everything she said was bullshit. when I next encountered her, I asked her if she had received my letter. She said, the contempt totally obvious: ‘ I don’t have time to read letters from homosexuals.”
What I wrote nearly 5 years ago about the insurrection applies to the Hambys and the gang of bozos:
Not to put too fine a point on it, but nearly half the this nation is ethically crippled, reality challenged, intellectually deranged, educationally debased, empathetically destitute, morally lazy at best and morally bankrupt at worst.
9am Eastern time splits the middle on release time - yep, it's early for the west coast, but east coasters would probably prefer it earlier so they can read it before work duties begin, and meanwhile our European and Australian readers aren't getting their daily Hemant article until the afternoon or evening.
As it should, it should give people and in particular children the idea, that life is wonderful. There is no need for their lives to look like it does on this Tuesday - other people have led very different lives (history) and other people lead very different lives or aspire to lead very different lives.
It is (emotionally) stunting, to want your children only to be taught a small section of human lives, history and creativity!
Religion reverses everything. Kidnapping and traumatizing a child to "teach a lesson" is normal behavior instead of the extreme abuse that it is, and allowing children to know that gay people exist is horrific abuse, instead of the normal behavior that it is. Indoctrination is one hell of a drug. Of course they don't think they did anything wrong. Their own book tells them how to traumatize children for the purpose of "teaching a lesson". It wouldn't surprise me if the Pearl's books are on their shelf.
“Religion reverses everything. Kidnapping and traumatizing a child to "teach a lesson" is normal behavior instead of the extreme abuse that it is”
Well, when you worship a father who actively encouraged others to murder his own son, this is the loving parental corrections you get.
Nevermind the history of wiping out the entire population of the Earth because he regrets making people. The orders to slaughter entire nations out of spite or jealousy or whatever whim he had that day. Or even setting up Adam and Eve for failure at the very beginning of human existence. According to their story. Christian parents are only ever good parents despite their religion, never because of it.
I am just shaking my head. Years ago, I ran the local library and there was a very small group of people making decisions about which new books to buy.
We were guided by the general demand of our readers, so any young adult books with or about horses were good. Some adventure books with derring-do heros were good, eg some Jules Verne or Karl May. Lots of Enid Blyton.
We never bought that book about the two male penguins raising a chick but it would have been absolutely acceptable!
I have previously written that my village was about 2/3 catholic. The library was held in a building belonging to the catholic church (the parish), the opening times were Sundays after the service and early evening one weekday. (It’s a small village).
I am trying to remember whether the minister ever came. He might have come in, to encourage attendance by people, I am not sure. What he - or the members of the catholic parish council - never did, was to check out the stock in an attempt to find ‘inappropriate’ or ‘unsuitable’ material! Never!
This was too upsetting to finish reading. But thank you for covering it, because it's not an anomaly, unfortunately. There are Christian behaviorist-run "teen wilderness camps" that are almost as bad as CECOT. And then there's the Judge Rotenberg Center in "liberal" Massachussetts, not necessarily Christian, but with the same attitude that disabled and emotionally disturbed children and adults should be tortured into submission. One mother managed to get a video onto YouTube of that place tying her son to a metal bedframe and electrocuting him for hours--for failing to take off his hoodie quickly enough. The United Nations has condemned that place numerous times. The electrodes they put on people are far more powerful that Tasers. And many people just like this young woman are trapped there.
The reason I bring this up is that this type of domination and torture are rife within Christian Nationalism, even before James Dobson spread his disgusting and foul vile. They love it. They enable it. They profit from it. This story is just the tip of the iceberg. People want to know why MAGAts love ICE and CECOT? Because they were raised to think it pleases their god.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Absolutely. Even in tiny Yemen the minimum legal age of marriage is 18, and a child illegally sold into marriage has the legal right to divorce. Not so in the US. A child can be trapped in an abusive marriage until age 18. See the group Unchained at Last.
“Parents’ rights” = Christian fathers’ “rights” to abuse their children. Look up the Sentinels of the Republic, John Gresham Machen, and the 1924 Child Labor Amendment. Republicans are re-using the same 100-year-old White Supremacist, antisemitic rhetoric attacking the Dept of Education as “interfering” in Christian families’ rights, the same patriarchal excuses for forcing children to work.
That 1924 Amendment, like the ERA, is still on the books. Both still need 3/4 of the states to ratify them. The Right has been plotting a Convention of the States, to legally change the Constitution. We need to be ready to fight back, and these two amendments are a start.
Just girls? Not boys? While I admire their commitment to secularism, the French have a woeful lack of appreciation for the concept of consent, as was made very apparent in the Dominique Pelicot rape trial.
Now there’s another scandal about a man who drugged women job applicants with diuretics and held interviews with them far from bathrooms just to watch them squirm.
Pretending that teenagers are adults if they get married denies biological reality. Not only are teenagers’ brains not adult yet, but neither are girls’ bodies ready for pregnancy. Under age 19, a girl’s body holds onto calories for her own growth and development, leading to weaker placentas and underweight infants.
It's a fucked up law pretending to end girls marriage (the previous laws fixed girls minimum marriage age at 15*, boys at 18) by making an exception for girls 🤪
The reason for the emancipation is to allow them access to divorce and shelters in case of abuse and forced marriages.
*I will have to check as soon as I get enough sleep but I think the minimal marriage age for girls was 18 when the majority was at 21. Two of my aunt married very young, around 1967/69 between 18 and 20 maternal side (her choice from what my mother told me), around 16 (pregnant) and 1975 paternal side. The age of majority was lowered in 1974 or 75.
I know of a homeschooling church family who had a subscription of catalogs selling Scholastic books until they ended up cancelling them due to seeing some LGBTQ friendly books in there and they don't want their kids to order and look at those books lest they become "gay" according to the mother of the family (or rather, they don't want their kids to see the books lest they discover that gays are normal, ordinary people, too). And that was years ago when I used to go to the same church the homeschooling family went to.
There’s a very logical answer here: Gay people have got straight kids and straight parents have got gay kids. So, it really is not down to how the kids are raised whether they turn out gay or straight.
It would be lovely if it were that simple. You and I both know it isn't, at least not in the US. We have too many people here who are convinced that their version of normal is the only version, and that everything else is aberrant and needs to be removed. Worse, convincing them that their model for the world needs alteration can be a job Sisyphus himself wouldn't take on.
For what I can see, there is no easy solution, and there is no permanent solution either.
Not drag queens.
For all the noise that homophobes make about "keeping their kids safe from LGBTQs," NatCs demonstrate yet again that it is THEY, not LGBTQs, who present the greatest threat not only to other people's children but to their own as well.
Every LGBQT parent I know are far better at the job than these "Christian" do-badders.
On the previous post, I mentioned a French play called "la cage aux folles" written in the 70's. Two of the main characters are a gay couple who lovingly raised the biological son of one of them. Son who turned out straight.
Yes, I have multiple friends who are LGBQ parents, and none of their adopted children have become Gay. I always tell Christians that God makes people Gay and he doesn't make mistakes.
Exactly. I have friends (a gay male couple) who raised a very straight son. Just like I have straight friends whose children are gay.
Imagine that! It is almost like it is not a choice!
One of my male cousins and his male partner was foster parents to a now grown up man. He didn't become gay either. Must be a miracle.
Does God make people stupid?
No, humans thinking they know what God wants does.
I have dim memories of seeing two films of this play, one a French version and the other one an American with Robin Williams. Could this be right or is my memory deceiving me?
You are correct. The Robin Williams American version was called "The Birdcage."
Thankyou.
Let me check the French Wikipedia page. Refresh in a few minutes to see my edited comment.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdcage
Merci.
Je t’en prie.
Not a day goes by when you don't see another preacher, pastor, or Christian youth worker in the news for the possession of child porn or some other child sexual assault charges. NOT A SINGLE DAY.
And yet you do not EVER see queer folks getting arrested for the same thing. Proving once again that it's ALWAYS projection with these people.
Now back to facebook for a whille as I wait for newest first.
I grew up, in a neighbourhood with lots of different people. My friends was lesbian, gay, intersex, wrong sex, straight male and straight female, and possibly more. How I ended up as a straight female, having the same male partner for 42 years must be a miracle. But of course, one of my kids are gay. Must be because of my childhood friends.
Criminal master-minds with a religious cherry on top. Few people disgust me more than those who think their religion entitles them to a say in other people's personal choices.
That’s not even the whole story! Look into Tammi and Jeff’s old medical practice. Take a look at the reviews and allegations of prescribing sedatives to children who don’t need them, remarkably bad bedside manner (sometimes yelling at patients!), and numerous flagrant HIPAA violations.
Excellent write up! I attended many of the library meetings where Tammi attempted to restrict childrens books. Can’t say that I’m surprised she was capable of this. We are all happy to see her leave the library system.
Edit: I can’t find the reviews about bad prescriptions anymore, I will provide a source when/if I find one.
"Parents should be allowed to educate their children as they see fit on ideas and beliefs about sexuality.
While depriving other parents of the same right. Nobody force* anyone to read books they aren't interested in.
PS : I have a question. Why the husband was not arrested as an accomplice ?
* At least not in public libraries.
PS : I have a question. Why the husband was not arrested as an accomplice ?
I thought the very same thing.
guessing there is no evidence yet that the husband helped plan any of this
Or the good old patriarcat playing, like with the Australian little girl who died because her parents denied her insulin. The father got a lighter sentence than the mother when both were equally culpable.
“The increased prevalence of transgender ideology in culture and education has narrowed the treatment options for children with gender dysphoria.”
The increased prevalence of mentions of transgender people in culture and education is a direct result of the attacks on transgender people by white Christian nationalists trying to gain power and control over our society. Transgender people want to blend in, but they also need awareness to gain acceptance, but they certainly do not want the attention that has been heaped upon them because some assholes in the state legislature of a Bible Belt state (was it South Carolina?) decided they shouldn’t be able to pee in public restrooms. In a concerted effort by the Christian nationalists to chip away at any progress the LGBTQ community made to be able to live comfortably in our society, the RWNJs have decided to do what they always do, become violent and vindictive. And now we have cruel little ignorant people forcing their way into library boards and school boards to hurt children. It’s you making transgender issue so ubiquitous in our political conversations. It’s your cruelty forcing this attention to be so common and required. This is a sick form of the Streisand effect designed to hurt folks who only want to live their lives, and anyone else who doesn’t conform to your strict, narrow and impossible standards surrounding gender and sex. They aren’t harming you or your children, leave them alone and you won’t have to hear so much about them.
No, I think it's fair to say that progressive communities have intentionally tried to increase awareness regardless of whether christian fundies oppose it or not. This is not merely a response, it's leaning forward to get liberal ideas of trans rights and tolerance into the mainstream.
However that's irrelevant for 90% of the library case because libraries are intentionally managed to cater to a wide range of clientele - i.e. the whole community, and all the varied people in it. If something is important for a local community member, they try to get it. And if that's not me or you or Ms. Hamby, our response should simply be to not check that book out. "wokeness is liberal" is simply not a valid reason to prevent a library from getting woke books, any more than someone having an opposition to conservativism would be a valid reason for a library not to get a Trump book. Different community members want both? Then the library gets both.
Now if the Hamby's want to argue that the display was giving exceptional treatment to one side of the culture war, well okay maybe that's something to look into. The library shouldn't be doing that. But right wing agitators have a tendency to lie by omission or just plain lie, so in the case of the display I would not rule out that she's misrepresenting what the library actually did. The display could've been something as simple as a "new acquisitions we got this month" or even a "pride month" display, and thus the library wasn't treating these books any differently than they would books on other subjects.
That letter to the library board should have been laughed off as it was poorly written, only a half step better than the Oklahoma University essay we read about earlier this week. Why would a library take advice from someone with such poor grammar and writing skills? Why do people with such a poor grasp on the English language get so vociferous about what books the library should have? Hamby needed to spend more time in the library but she chose to tear it down instead.
Oh. My. God. The kidnapping. I’m just speechless. That poor woman.
I wondered if it was my fatigue addled brain that made me say "what ?" every few seconds. Thanks for giving me the answer.
The mother claims to be a doctor, which another commenter confirms. How did she managed to get her degree ?
Do you know what they call the med student who graduated at the bottom of their class? Doctor. Also, when you do not use a skill you lose it, I’m sure she did enough to pass but then stopped learning once she got her MD. As evidenced by the reviews on her medical practice.
Why didn't Jesus get into medical school?
He was nailed by the boards.
Now you made me laugh so hard, I spit out the wine I was drinking. (Friday night here, 9:30 pm.)
She likely got it the same way Fossie Bear got his driver's license: "I took a correspondence course."
Edit: Changed "Fossy" to "Fossie." They both sound the same to me. 😝
Not to be a crazy pedant, but his name is Fozzie Bear. He’s my favorite Muppet. Yeah, crazy pedant. Sorry.
Thanks. I continue to insist to this day that The Muppet Movie is THE BEST THING Jim Henson ever did ... but that's just me.
♫♪ Life's like a movie / Write your own ending ... ♪♫
According to the daily mail she is a doctor's wife https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15352815/disabled-woman-kidnapped-mother-luke-bryan-father-doctor.html
Also mentioned in that article: the victim is an adult with the mental age of an 11 year old girl.
I see: Tammi Hamby slept in a Holiday Inn Express with her doctor husband, which obviously qualifies her to commit conspiracy to have her daughter kidnapped, which resulted in the injury of her daughter!
She's 59. My recommendation: life in prison. She can "witness" to the other inmates and she can see how well that works out for her.
The Library Board should have written back, that they see it as their duty to have an inventory which reflects the whole range of lives, including real-life lives (apologies if this sounds clunky, I hope that it becomes clear in my next sentence) of humans and animals. Additionally, the library should also reflect the creativity of writers who invent non-real-life lives by creating fantasy, sci-fi and alien adventure stories.
Which means that the book about the two male penguins raising a chick has got a place in a library as does Pride & Prejudice (a traditional family raising daughters). Black Beauty (the horse book) has got a place as does 20k leagues under the sea. A non-fiction book on the lives of bees (single mother with lots of offspring) but also the Expeditionary Force series. (I’m not a sci-fi person, so please add a different book or series with the most alien of aliens here.). A book about a young lad being a builder in the time of the Pharaos (either fiction or non-fiction) and the books by Pearl S Buck. And these are only the examples I can think of while sitting in a lay-by off the A1.
Since you mentioned bees. There is a wonderful novel about a beehive. The description at Amazon is “The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut set in an ancient culture where only the queen may breed and deformity means death.”
The heroine is a lowly worker bee.
“The Bees” by Laline Paull
https://www.amazon.com/Bees-Novel-Laline-Paull/dp/0062331175/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=183606418462&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.bJC_vFRX9Q0GMDpkZbtTC84w7YJ60aB35hjKvB87nclmWiY_bbZ_TtStNAHOV8Yr0fzwBqFGkzeJ8eA0SlJZ-YpMEPlxZoVA1BE8rDFi-n3ZznDOVhgpDInrKDLPTcDH59137ND5a2s1e0BWoSCOW_ZGAyRtnr7QFseWYOR8LaZb8xL1PS-ErYMDoc9mAKZ4EMlzJrm6IQkN20ubwFjEhnZnheJqSlpsc18Qn63rEHs.R_tv9LL171S2wJqh6PVoWLkbydV6IfaolrkpMsP8uiQ&dib_tag=se&hvadid=779553450456&hvdev=c&hvexpln=0&hvlocphy=1018587&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=1483784582368446608--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1483784582368446608&hvtargid=kwd-378611952155&hydadcr=9993_13532514_12076&keywords=the+bees+novel&mcid=c269b57337ec350eb314d31f698e5600&qid=1764955902&sr=8-1
I've served on juries numerous times, and been a jury foreman several times.
Defense attorneys love me. My demeanor is much like the kindly, old grandfather from the 1930s "Heidi" movies; or like Grandpa Walton from "The Waltons". Defense attorneys tend to assume I'll be a "soft touch".
Here's what happens when I've been on jury trials like the one Tammi Hamby and her accomplices are facing:
I vote "guilty" pretty much at the beginning of jury deliberations. Unless it's an obvious case of malicious prosecution (and that does happen, and I've served on juries where we all agreed that the prosecutors and the DA engaged in malicious prosecution), I don't back down. When it comes to sentencing, I ask for the longest possible sentence; and if multiple charges are involved (aggravated kidnapping, kidnapping, conspiracy to kidnap, possibly a civil rights violation) then I ask that the sentences be served consecutively.
Were I on that jury, Tammi Hamby and her accomplices would never be free, again -- or if they were paroled, they'd be up in their 70s and 80s.
And here's the thing: when I give the jury's verdict, and sentencing recommendations, I look the defendant directly in the eyes, and I stare them down as I read the verdict.
Staging a kidnapping. Hmm...
Wouldn't this be a violation of the commandment prohibiting bearing false witness?
No. That just applies to neighbors. And actually only neighbors who agree with you. You're allowed to lie to your own family members all you want, especially if you do it for "their own good." Free pass on bearing false witness if you have a Bible based excuse for dong it.
That dumbass letter Hamby wrote didn’t need to be so long: “progressive woke ideology” was enough. 🙄
Because compassion and empathy are beyond its jesus of hatred persecution and damnation. It is just one more totalitarian dictator.
She needs to look up "ideology" before she uses it as a snarl word. Christianity is an actual ideokogy.
Again with the "lifestyles."
Being LGBTQ us NOT a lifestyle, Blondy. Wanna know what IS? Being a Christian. The former is natural because it is inborn. The latter is unnatural and must be taught.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPf6ITsjsgk
Why does Hemant produce these articles so early in the morning? Has he no pity for an old man who has not yet had his coffee? And not only that, I’m going to have to start at the end of the article..
“There’s Christian hypocrisy, and then there’s whatever the hell the Hambys have been doing.” I know what that “whatever the hell“ is. I’ve been writing about it for months, years. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s corruption. They have been corrupted by power, by the desire for power, by religious megalomania because they are gods BFFF, by contempt and despite, and by stupidity and ignorance. In short, they have become that which they allegedly hate. Or putting it another way— trump evangelicals.
How do I love thee, o Hamby? Let me count the ways.
“ Tammi Hamby, was the ringleader. She’s the one who staged the entire kidnapping and hired those men to do it.” Rather than be a responsible parent to an adult child with disabilities, they decided it would be far more entertaining to emulate something they saw on TV. So she sought out her daughter’s caregiver— that woke socialist ideology that they are so terrified of must have been paying for that— who apparently was the kind of woman who knew the kind of men who would kidnap a young woman with disabilities. And do it for money. Why do I suspect that they are not the sharpest bowling balls in the medicine cabinet?
And even more disturbing? They are talking all about parental responsibility while exercising none, and apparently using the Internet as a babysitter, only to find out that the Internet is full of the Nigerian equivalent of evangelical preachers. Not to mention, trying to protect their daughter from imaginary abuse and predators, while acting just like real predators— pretending to be someone there are not to accomplish their own goals.
Corruption. Corruption. Corruption.
And the two bozos they hired? And the very plot itself? I’ve seen worse on Netflix, but rarely. One of them doesn’t wear a mask, and then puts one on to disguise himself? And he turns into the wrong field for the kidnapping ? He was clearly putting on someone. THEY EVEN HAD A PRACTICE RUN!!!
But the stupid doesn’t end there. The very presence of the books in the library is enough to indoctrinate their entire community about something they can’t even be bothered to understand. If the community is so concerned about it, perhaps they just don’t check out those books? And of course, they have no problem insisting on indoctrinating the community with their religious views.
“ The Hambys built their public identities around the notion that they were moral guardians. They pretended to be warriors against the imagined threats of LGBTQ people lurking in picture books. Yet when confronted with an actual parenting challenge, they resorted to violence, deception, and psychological torture. ” well of course! That has been the modus operandi of hyper conservative Christianity for the 54 years that I’ve been out and in the gay rights fight. Pretend to be moral. Hide hate, ignorance, fear, stupidity, despite, and contempt behind something they call sincere religious belief. Employee deception and psychological torture to coerce people that you cannot be bothered to know anything about into doing what you have decided they must..
This reminds me so much of that woman 47 years ago that I used to have to debate occasionally when I fought against the Briggs initiative. She told every lie in the book about gay people. She asked me to write to her because “she cared “. I wrote a long, polite, and respectful letter showing her that everything she said was bullshit. when I next encountered her, I asked her if she had received my letter. She said, the contempt totally obvious: ‘ I don’t have time to read letters from homosexuals.”
What I wrote nearly 5 years ago about the insurrection applies to the Hambys and the gang of bozos:
Not to put too fine a point on it, but nearly half the this nation is ethically crippled, reality challenged, intellectually deranged, educationally debased, empathetically destitute, morally lazy at best and morally bankrupt at worst.
9am Eastern time splits the middle on release time - yep, it's early for the west coast, but east coasters would probably prefer it earlier so they can read it before work duties begin, and meanwhile our European and Australian readers aren't getting their daily Hemant article until the afternoon or evening.
I know, I was making a small joke. Not everybody lives in California, although it does appear to be the case that they do.
3:03 pm or 15:03 in French.
Reading is dangerous because it inspires ideas.
Exactly!
As it should, it should give people and in particular children the idea, that life is wonderful. There is no need for their lives to look like it does on this Tuesday - other people have led very different lives (history) and other people lead very different lives or aspire to lead very different lives.
It is (emotionally) stunting, to want your children only to be taught a small section of human lives, history and creativity!
𝐴𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑦 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑚𝑒𝑛 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑎𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑒, 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑘𝑖𝑑𝑛𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑗𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑠 𝑑𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑎 𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑛.
Religion reverses everything. Kidnapping and traumatizing a child to "teach a lesson" is normal behavior instead of the extreme abuse that it is, and allowing children to know that gay people exist is horrific abuse, instead of the normal behavior that it is. Indoctrination is one hell of a drug. Of course they don't think they did anything wrong. Their own book tells them how to traumatize children for the purpose of "teaching a lesson". It wouldn't surprise me if the Pearl's books are on their shelf.
Meanwhile, in reality:
“𝐼 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛, 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑠 𝑔𝑖𝑟𝑙 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒’𝑠 𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑒𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑡, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑐𝑢𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓𝑓 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑡.”
Good parenting advice that they would never have thought of or listened to, because again, Indoctrination is one hell of a drug.
“Religion reverses everything. Kidnapping and traumatizing a child to "teach a lesson" is normal behavior instead of the extreme abuse that it is”
Well, when you worship a father who actively encouraged others to murder his own son, this is the loving parental corrections you get.
Nevermind the history of wiping out the entire population of the Earth because he regrets making people. The orders to slaughter entire nations out of spite or jealousy or whatever whim he had that day. Or even setting up Adam and Eve for failure at the very beginning of human existence. According to their story. Christian parents are only ever good parents despite their religion, never because of it.
I am just shaking my head. Years ago, I ran the local library and there was a very small group of people making decisions about which new books to buy.
We were guided by the general demand of our readers, so any young adult books with or about horses were good. Some adventure books with derring-do heros were good, eg some Jules Verne or Karl May. Lots of Enid Blyton.
We never bought that book about the two male penguins raising a chick but it would have been absolutely acceptable!
I have previously written that my village was about 2/3 catholic. The library was held in a building belonging to the catholic church (the parish), the opening times were Sundays after the service and early evening one weekday. (It’s a small village).
I am trying to remember whether the minister ever came. He might have come in, to encourage attendance by people, I am not sure. What he - or the members of the catholic parish council - never did, was to check out the stock in an attempt to find ‘inappropriate’ or ‘unsuitable’ material! Never!
This was too upsetting to finish reading. But thank you for covering it, because it's not an anomaly, unfortunately. There are Christian behaviorist-run "teen wilderness camps" that are almost as bad as CECOT. And then there's the Judge Rotenberg Center in "liberal" Massachussetts, not necessarily Christian, but with the same attitude that disabled and emotionally disturbed children and adults should be tortured into submission. One mother managed to get a video onto YouTube of that place tying her son to a metal bedframe and electrocuting him for hours--for failing to take off his hoodie quickly enough. The United Nations has condemned that place numerous times. The electrodes they put on people are far more powerful that Tasers. And many people just like this young woman are trapped there.
The reason I bring this up is that this type of domination and torture are rife within Christian Nationalism, even before James Dobson spread his disgusting and foul vile. They love it. They enable it. They profit from it. This story is just the tip of the iceberg. People want to know why MAGAts love ICE and CECOT? Because they were raised to think it pleases their god.
Time for a reminder about another American exceptionalism. it's the only UN country that has not ratified the CRC.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Absolutely. Even in tiny Yemen the minimum legal age of marriage is 18, and a child illegally sold into marriage has the legal right to divorce. Not so in the US. A child can be trapped in an abusive marriage until age 18. See the group Unchained at Last.
“Parents’ rights” = Christian fathers’ “rights” to abuse their children. Look up the Sentinels of the Republic, John Gresham Machen, and the 1924 Child Labor Amendment. Republicans are re-using the same 100-year-old White Supremacist, antisemitic rhetoric attacking the Dept of Education as “interfering” in Christian families’ rights, the same patriarchal excuses for forcing children to work.
That 1924 Amendment, like the ERA, is still on the books. Both still need 3/4 of the states to ratify them. The Right has been plotting a Convention of the States, to legally change the Constitution. We need to be ready to fight back, and these two amendments are a start.
In France, girls between 15 and 18 can still be married, but they become legal adult as soon as they sign the papers.
Just girls? Not boys? While I admire their commitment to secularism, the French have a woeful lack of appreciation for the concept of consent, as was made very apparent in the Dominique Pelicot rape trial.
Now there’s another scandal about a man who drugged women job applicants with diuretics and held interviews with them far from bathrooms just to watch them squirm.
Pretending that teenagers are adults if they get married denies biological reality. Not only are teenagers’ brains not adult yet, but neither are girls’ bodies ready for pregnancy. Under age 19, a girl’s body holds onto calories for her own growth and development, leading to weaker placentas and underweight infants.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/26/women-allege-drugging-by-senior-french-civil-servant?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
It's a fucked up law pretending to end girls marriage (the previous laws fixed girls minimum marriage age at 15*, boys at 18) by making an exception for girls 🤪
The reason for the emancipation is to allow them access to divorce and shelters in case of abuse and forced marriages.
*I will have to check as soon as I get enough sleep but I think the minimal marriage age for girls was 18 when the majority was at 21. Two of my aunt married very young, around 1967/69 between 18 and 20 maternal side (her choice from what my mother told me), around 16 (pregnant) and 1975 paternal side. The age of majority was lowered in 1974 or 75.
Refresh my memory?
Children Rights Convention.
The idea that god determines morality means anyone can do anything atrocious, claiming god demands it.
I know of a homeschooling church family who had a subscription of catalogs selling Scholastic books until they ended up cancelling them due to seeing some LGBTQ friendly books in there and they don't want their kids to order and look at those books lest they become "gay" according to the mother of the family (or rather, they don't want their kids to see the books lest they discover that gays are normal, ordinary people, too). And that was years ago when I used to go to the same church the homeschooling family went to.
There’s a very logical answer here: Gay people have got straight kids and straight parents have got gay kids. So, it really is not down to how the kids are raised whether they turn out gay or straight.
Case closed.
It would be lovely if it were that simple. You and I both know it isn't, at least not in the US. We have too many people here who are convinced that their version of normal is the only version, and that everything else is aberrant and needs to be removed. Worse, convincing them that their model for the world needs alteration can be a job Sisyphus himself wouldn't take on.
For what I can see, there is no easy solution, and there is no permanent solution either.
I remember the ginned up Scholastic Panic. Maybe 12-15 years ago?
If you’re going to be an overachiever, maybe pick a field other than dumbfuckery in which to excel.
But that’s the only field that doesn’t require any intelligence