Your library in Mayberry is planning a “drag queen” event. What’s the best way to protest “LGBTQ” activism and child seduction in your small town?
Get ready, America. Local libraries and city councils are being appropriated by “LGBTQ” activists because you are considered low-hanging fruit.
Yet the response of “our side” may not always be what we can fully support.
A recent incident in northwest Iowa should be getting more coverage in conservative media than it has. Not that we would all agree with the tactics and beliefs of the man in question, Paul Dorr, but we should be concerned about the troubling precedent it may set in legal circles.
It’s noteworthy that national news outlets -- the leftist, consistently pro-“LGBTQ” media – showed up to cover it, a clue that this incident may be magnified to provide a weapon for the sexual anarchy lobby to marginalize valid community objections.
Before we look at the Orange City, Iowa incident, let’s review the broader picture. Leftists are targeting smaller towns because their political climates are easier to manipulate. Here’s what one frank article says about how to implant “LGBTQ” values in smaller towns:
“City councils are simply faster and more nimble than state legislatures. They've got to be. Cities in the likes of Wyoming and Kentucky and Arkansas are the best chance for leading their deep-red states toward overdue changes.”
So in Medina, Ohio, a “non-discrimination” ordinance on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) passed the city council in July. Thankfully, it is now under challenge by a citizen’s group, with petitions filed to place the matter on an upcoming ballot, but because of technicalities, the ballot date is uncertain. Although Ohio has so far resisted aggressive campaigns to pass such a law at the state level, twenty-five Ohio towns now have “SOGI” ordinances, with a 26th, Medina, under challenge.
Ohio has also had its recent share of small town “drag queen” library outrages. Events planned in Delaware County (OH ) and in Newark, Ohio were both cancelled this spring after lawmakers and the public objected. Library officials alleged that threats were made, but no police reports substantiated these claims.
That’s how the Orange City situation started. As part of the city’s “pride” event, a library “drag queen” reading session for children was planned last October. It’s a community that has been historically Christian and conservative, so many people were shocked at the sudden aggression of “LGBTQ” identifiers.
But activist Paul Dorr, who lives in another town but went to high school there, decided to make an issue of the public corruption of kids.
I don’t agree with some of Paul Dorr’s views, but he is not the late Rev. Fred Phelps (whose actions conveyed virtually no Christian principles.) Dorr is articulate and did make some very valid points as he staged a book-burning incident in Orange City, Iowa last October, and then posted a YouTube video of his actions. He was convicted of a misdemeanor and fined under $150.
Yet Newsweek and NPR covered his hearing.
Dorr’s message focused on the failure of the Christian church to confront homosexuality (largely deserved). He then presented copies of four “LGBTQ” books for children he checked out of the local library. One by one, he proceeded to throw them in a trash can fire. They all deserve a trash can, by the way.
The books he chose to burn were the property of the library, however, which prompted subsequent wide publicity and donations of youth-targeted homosexual/gender confusion books. The titles in question are inaccurate propaganda pieces advocating disordered behaviors. Burning other people’s property, however, is a step of civil disobedience that is intentionally provocative.
Nevertheless, deliberate youth corruption needs to be addressed and yes, we Christians should step up to the plate more than we do. Is this a good way to do it?
Elizabeth Johnston, The Activist Mommy, achieved rapid fame after she videotaped and posted her burning of Teen Vogue. But she owned the copy and so no law was broken.
I loved Elizabeth’s actions, but Paul Dorr’s is not clearly commendable. He foolishly cited Nazi book-burning as his inspiration. This is beyond foolish. It doesn’t sound as if he’s a Nazi sympathizer, but it’s not totally clear. I would, of course, be on the other side of that issue as would every conservative Christian I know.
And during his video, Dorr leveled criticism against abstinence sex education teaching, also uncalled for. Does he understand what children face in public schools? Abstinence information, now called “sexual risk avoidance,” has saved the virtue of many young Americans and we should be looking for ways to strengthen and broaden its reach, not level petty attacks against it.
Still, I think we are at a point where Dorr is expressing what many of us feel—outrage and frustration with the manipulative, corrupting tactics of libraries and schools, aided by a complicit media that smirks at innocence and refuses to report facts.
They are quick to cry “censorship” when parents criticize books like Two Boys Kissing, one of the four Dorr burned. But not all material is appropriate for kids, and churches and Christians should be marching into libraries regularly and saying “NO” to popular trash peddled as literature.
Homosexuality is unhealthy, immoral and sinful. Trying to change genders is not only an affront to Almighty God’s marvelous and beautiful creation, it’s impossible. This is what books should be saying to kids: if you have such attractions/confusion, you were not born this way and you can change. And you should change, if you want a far better, more productive life that fits your body and honors the Lord.
This is the truth that pastors should proclaim passionately in the face of a culture saturated with harmful sexual lies. Where are the cooler yet courageous heads in a town like Orange City, Iowa?
Small town America, prepare yourselves.
