...American Library Association (ALA) ties is advancing

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/01/1234226098/in-georgia-a-bill-to-cut-all-ties-with-the-american-library-association-is-advan

As poster Anybody would say, we are definitely speeding towards Gilead. From the text portion of the story:

"The American Library Association had its annual conference in Chicago last year. Several states have moved to disassociate with the ALA amid what some
conservatives say has been politicization of the group. ALA officials deny having a political agenda.

Claire Savage/AP

Those who've been trying to remove certain books from childrens' sections at public libraries are now taking aim at what they see as a source of the problem:
the American Library Association.

A growing number of states and local libraries are cutting ties with the nation's predominant library professional association, saying the ALA has become
too radical. On Thursday, a bill that would go further than any other passed the Georgia state Senate in a 33-to-20 vote and now heads to the House.

Republican state Sen. Larry Walker says he sponsored the legislation after discovering his library had received a $20,000 grant from the American Library
Association to diversify its collection, adding books dealing with LGBTQ and BIPOC themes. Walker says he became determined to stop what he calls that
"radical" organization from being "political indoctrination centers ... promoting aberrant sexual behavior and socialist anti-American rhetoric."

"I feel this is kind of being forced on our children and kind of shoved down our throat," Walker said. "I'm a pretty tolerant individual, but this has
gone too far.""

There is both text and audio for this story and they complement each other.

Most of you here are decades older than I am.

Go back thirty, forty, or fifty years.

Only cranks and extremist groups like Westboro Baptist said things like this.

Now it's out in the open for all the world to hear and see.


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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/02/christian-nationalism-alabama-ivf-ruling-politics


Today, 30% of Americans support tenets of Christian nationalism, according to a study released earlier this week from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). Researchers asked more than 22,000 Americans how much they agreed with statements such as: “The US government should declare America a Christian nation”; “Being Christian is an important part of being truly American”’; and “God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.” Ultimately, about 10% of Americans qualify as “adherents” to Christian nationalism, and another 20% are “sympathizers”.

White evangelicals are particularly likely to support Christian nationalism: 66% hold Christian nationalist views.


The post-Roe skirmish over abortion rights illustrates another key element of a Christian nationalist worldview: the tendency to not only cast issues in binary terms, but to believe that the opposing side is a force of literal evil.

“If you believe that babies are being murdered – which is the rhetoric that you often find in these ‘pro-life’, anti-abortion circles – if you believe that, then that is a very troubling and even diabolical activity,” said Matthew Taylor, Protestant scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies and author of an upcoming book about Christian extremism, The Violent Take It by Force. “There’s no dialogue with the other side … in their mind, you never compromise with demons. You exorcise demons.”


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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2024 02:21PM by anybody.

of Course!

'god' also approved the bombing of Vietnam and Cambodia, supporting various dictatorships (lately Putin), bringing diseases to the indigenous Americans, displacing them and also Japanese folks (even if U.S. citizens) to concentration camps in the U.S.; somehow 'god' also bought into the theory/concept of Weapons of Mass Destruction!

What a Great Guy the 'Christian God' is, 'eh?

"kind of shoved down our throat"

Unfortunate choice of words.

That is the professional organization for librarians. It's rather like trying to ban the American Medical Association for physicians.

We live in trying times.

Two points: The grant for BIPOC books would include plenty of potential books that should not be cause for complaint, i.e. biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks. Surely the library systems could spend $20K (which after all, is a drop in the bucket for a library system) on books which would not upset the public.

And two, if the ALA is not allowed to give accreditation to library science programs at Georgia colleges and universities, those colleges might either drop their programs, or students might choose to go to school elsewhere. Most students seek programs that are accredited.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2024 04:58PM by summer.