More Cultural and Moral Decay

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Well, we do agree after all. The purpose is to desensitize kids. 

That way they will all turn gay later in life. If we make sure they don’t encounter anything different they will be safe.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Yes, look what can happen if you have a different opinion.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/irish-teacher-imprisoned-continuing-teach-124942329.html

 

An odd form of civil disobedience. Going with “I don’t have to follow a restraining order” telling me to stay away when my employers clearly do not want me at work or employed. 

“You can’t make me go against my conscience.” In this context his conscience tells him he must go to work even though his employers and the legal system specifically want him not to. Kind of like Rosa Parks except much more entitled, pathetic, and performative.

[Hamba Tuhan]

6 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

The purpose is to desensitize kids. 

You may be interested in the more complex sense of purpose expressed in the following, co-authored by a trans academic at UBC and one of the leaders of the Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) movement: Harper Keenan and Lil Miss Hot Mess, 'Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood', Curriculum Inquiry 50:5 (2020), pp. 440-61.

Quote

We seek to move beyond assumptions that the purpose of a programme like DQSH should be only to expose children to “diverse” stories or easily digestible morsels of LGBT history and culture. Though DQSH publicly positions its impact in “help[ing] children develop empathy, learn about gender diversity and difference, and tap into their own creativity” (Drag Queen Story Hour, n.d.-a), we argue that its contributions can run deeper than morals and role models. In what follows, we keep with a common drag performance trope in redirecting our readers away from what’s said on the surface and towards the subtle nods and zingers that gesture at what is happening between the lines ...

Drag may be especially well-positioned as a form of cultural production that, to paraphrase the writer and filmmaker Toni Cade Bambara, serves to “make revolution irresistible” (as cited in Bonetti, 1982).

And from the Conclusion:

Quote

We have occasionally encountered critiques that DQSH is sanitizing the risqué nature of drag in order to make it “family friendly.” We do not share this pessimistic view. Queer worldmaking, including political organizing, has long been a project driven by desire. It is, in part, enacted through art forms like fashion, theatre, and drag. We believe that DQSH offers an invitation towards deeper public engagement with queer cultural production, particularly for young children and their families. It may be that DQSH is “family friendly,” in the sense that it is accessible and inviting to families with children, but it is less a sanitizing force than it is a preparatory introduction to alternate modes of kinship. Here, DQSH is “family friendly” in the sense of “family” as an old-school queer code to identify and connect with other queers on the street.

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Hamba Tuhan

[The Nehor]

19 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

You may be interested in the more complex sense of purpose expressed in the following, co-authored by a trans academic at UBC and one of the leaders of the Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) movement: Harper Keenan and Lil Miss Hot Mess, 'Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood', Curriculum Inquiry 50:5 (2020), pp. 440-61.

And from the Conclusion:

 

Why did you cut the paragraph between your quotes? Seems to change the context.

Edited September 7, 2022 by The Nehor

[Hamba Tuhan]

49 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Why did you cut the paragraph between your quotes? Seems to change the context.

There are actually 13 paragraphs between the first two quotes. I cut 99 per cent of the article for obvious reasons, including some that forced the first quote box to be truncated once I'd clicked Save (my personal indicator that a quotation is too long!). I don't agree that doing so altered authorial intent in any way.

My expectation is that people will click on the link and read the whole thing. I'm actually strongly sympathetic to a number of aspirations expressed in the article. I also agree that societies are organised to groom children and young people into adults that meet often strict (and always artificial) societal expectations, and I admit that some of the pleasure I have experienced as a Saint has been the inspiration/power/structure provided by the teachings and the community that have enabled me to subvert those expectations in my own life.

I am subaltern by natural inclination, a point brought home to me whilst teaching in an alternative school in America. Many staff were perplexed by our students; I totally got them and the logic behind most of their decision-making. I realised that, with a slightly different upbringing, I would have been an alternative school student. Beyond that, seeing them as literal children of God made me a radical.

And in my own way, I am invested in 'revolution' as a Latter-day Saint at least as much as the authors of this article are. There is some overlap between our respective imagined revolutions ... and many differences.

But let's be honest: If the Church were organising and aggressively promoting 'Mormon Missionary Story Hour' at public libraries and in primary schools, we would be rightfully mocked if we insisted our only purposes were to encourage reading and help kids encounter a bit of religious diversity.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Hamba Tuhan

[Calm]

3 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Yes, look what can happen if you have a different opinion.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/irish-teacher-imprisoned-continuing-teach-124942329.html

 

It wasn’t his refusal to use gender neutral pronouns that got him jailed though, that got him suspended, as hopefully someone else would have been if they had mocked evangelical religion in the classroom. An employer has the right to require certain behaviors from their representatives. Assuming it is the law in Ireland that a school can limit a teacher’s speech, that would apply to teaching what is usually seen as the liberal side of too extreme sexual content, anti religion commentary, anti government, etc as well as the conservative side of no gender neutral, antigovernment, pro traditional religion, etc.  It being another country, unless you have followed it, I assume you don’t know if restrictive treatment is actually unfairly balanced between the two. 

But what got the guy jailed was violating a court ordered injunction, he was trespassing.   If you are legally ordered to stay away from a school, it honestly starts to look potentially dangerous if you refuse to obey the law.  I think he should have been jailed for that. 
 

“When Burke persisted in showing up to work, the school’s board of management filed a further application, and on Friday, Justice Miriam O’Regan ordered Burke to be arrested and brought into court.”

Edited September 7, 2022 by Calm

[Calm]

42 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

But let's be honest: If the Church were organising and aggressively promoting 'Mormon Missionary Story Hour' at public libraries and in primary schools, we would be rightfully mocked if we insisted our only purposes were to encourage reading and help kids experience a bit of religious diversity.

We had missionaries coming in to read with kids all the time in Canada in my kids’ elementary school before the school district imposed rules requiring background checks and other security stuff that made it impractical with the transferring as often as it was. While I heard that a few parents complained, I heard nothing but praise and wishing they were still doing it from teachers and staff. They thought the young men in suits were sweet and very committed. 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Calm

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

We had missionaries coming in to read with kids all the time in Canada in my kids’ elementary school ...

I'm certain that happens -- though I certainly doubt they were reading from the illustrated version of the Book of Mormon!

As a missionary, I delivered reading material to patients in a rehabilitation hospital and volunteered as a cashier in the canteen of another hospital.

I carefully structured my statement not to include such things.

I'm also willing to admit that we hoped our presence and visibility would do much more than comfort the sick or feed those saving lives or worrying over loved ones.

[CV75]

12 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Are you saying reading a library book is a “drag show for kids”?

12 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Are you saying it isn’t? What is the purpose? We’ll have to disagree.

I would say, in connection with such imaginary play as a storybook reading for children, the persona portrayed in the performance might be a fanciful caricature, such as an elf, a robot, a character from the book, “Mother Goose”, etc. None of these are an overtly and exaggeratedly sexualized persona, such as a drag queen, which only of late has been used to hybridize entertainment and activism with child education, and for some reason a drag queen is evidently preferred over an equally over-sexualized male persona.

[Tacenda]

6 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

You may be interested in the more complex sense of purpose expressed in the following, co-authored by a trans academic at UBC and one of the leaders of the Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) movement: Harper Keenan and Lil Miss Hot Mess, 'Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood', Curriculum Inquiry 50:5 (2020), pp. 440-61.

And from the Conclusion:

 

You can find anything on the internet if you try hard enough.

[Bernard Gui]

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

That way they will all turn gay later in life. If we make sure they don’t encounter anything different they will be safe.

That is not what I said. I have said nothing about it turning people gay. Please don’t put words in my mouth.

It is reasonable to assume exposing kids to drag culture in a colorful, participatory (getting money for joining in), fun, exciting, “family-friendly” way would make kids less likely to be repulsed when exposed to the more explicitly sexual and provocative content later. It normalizes such behavior. That is called conditioning. This is confirmed by people involved in the movement as quoted above by Hamba.  Here is is again.

Quote

As drag has moved further into the mainstream, some have questioned whether this queer art form has lost its edge. In discussing the work of DQSH within our social circles, we have occasionally encountered critiques that DQSH is sanitizing the risqué nature of drag in order to make it “family friendly.” We do not share this pessimistic view. Queer worldmaking, including political organizing, has long been a project driven by desire. It is, in part, enacted through art forms like fashion, theatre, and drag. We believe that DQSH offers an invitation towards deeper public engagement with queer cultural production, particularly for young children and their families. It may be that DQSH is “family friendly,” in the sense that it is accessible and inviting to families with children, but it is less a sanitizing force than it is a preparatory introduction to alternate modes of kinship. Here, DQSH is “family friendly” in the sense of “family” as an old-school queer code to identify and connect with other queers on the street. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03626784.2020.1864621

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Bernard Gui

[Bernard Gui]

10 hours ago, ttribe said:

Good grief. It was a general comment in the context of what John brought up regarding the protestors in the referenced story. My comment wasn't specific to you. Are you just looking for an argument or something?

No, but it seems you are. Why? 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Bernard Gui

[Bernard Gui]

20 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

You may be interested in the more complex sense of purpose expressed in the following, co-authored by a trans academic at UBC and one of the leaders of the Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) movement: Harper Keenan and Lil Miss Hot Mess, 'Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood', Curriculum Inquiry 50:5 (2020), pp. 440-61.

And from the Conclusion:

 

Thanks for the informative article. I never imagined this would be such a divisive topic between the brothers and sisters here on this venerable LDS discussion board.

I’m sure you have seen this, but here is an interesting feminist critique (strange for a “white patriarch” to source, but these are strange times🫣).

Quote

The explicit aim of Drag Queen Story Hour is to associate drag acts with “LGBTQ people” and to portray drag performers as good “queer role models.” For many children, Drag Queen Story Hour is likely to be one of their first exposures to the “LGBTQ” acronym and concept.

This is a serious concern for feminists because drag acts are not representative of the diversity of healthy and meaningful cultures and morals developed by lesbian, bisexual, and gay communities. While drag is rooted in gay men’s nightclub culture, many feminists (including lesbians) and some gay men have critiqued prominent elements of drag culture as misogynistic and homophobic. Drag Queen Story Hours lead children to associate homosexuality or gender non-conformity with over-sexualized, deviant, transgressive, over-the-top behavior. It is a myth that only political conservatives have a moral core and everyone else is a libertine. This is the “queer” stereotype many gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals have worked for decades to dismantle… 

Our concern with Drag Queen Story Hour doesn’t end with the events themselves, because the messages conveyed in those events don’t stay in the children’s reading room. Older kids and teens commonly have access to the internet, where there naturally go to learn more about the drag queens who read books at Drag Queen Story Hours. When they do, they may find sites like ABOUT (a “Texas queer” online magazine), where one drag queen who had previously participated in the Drag Queen Story Hour program talked openly about his history of drug abuse and prostitution, and described his ongoing performance of sexualized violence as a “dominatrix” in a positive light, implying that it is an acceptable way to address past trauma.

This is not about free speech.

We understand and embrace the role that public libraries have to play in hosting discussions about highly contentious issues. Drag Queen Story Hour is patently controversial, but the purpose of the events is not to discuss the pros and cons of presenting drag acts as children’s entertainment. Instead the program has been allowed to go ahead and do that without discussion. This is a serious omission, especially considering that early exposure to misogynist and over-sexualized displays may affect the mental health of children.

https://womensliberationfront.org/news/feminist-objections-to-drag-queen-story-hour

Interesting critique of exposing kids to drag by a gay drag queen. Basically drag is an adult form of entertainment.  A good parent probably would not take a child to a strip show p, to a prostitute, or to hear a raunchy comedian. Drag reinforces negative stereotypes of gay culture. We do not do children or the gay movement any favors by foisting it on children.

Quote

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Bernard Gui

[ttribe]

1 hour ago, Bernard Gui said:

No, but it seems you are. Why? 

My apologies for interrupting your crusade. Carry on.

[california boy]

8 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

But let's be honest: If the Church were organising and aggressively promoting 'Mormon Missionary Story Hour' at public libraries and in primary schools, we would be rightfully mocked if we insisted our only purposes were to encourage reading and help kids encounter a bit of religious diversity.

I don't really think you can't put the Church on some kind of pedestal when it comes to recruiting children to accept its beliefs.  I grew up when the Church promised all the kids in the ward to invite their friends to go swimming at the community pool.  If they brought a friend, their admission and their friends admission to the public pool would be paid for by the missionaries. I was about 9 at the time.   We would meet at the church every Saturday with a mob full of kids.  The missionaries would present a missionary lesson designed to recruit the kids into the Church and then take them all swimming as a reward for sitting through the lesson.

The Church also had a baseball program where they would organize kids into teams, have a recruitment lesson and then allow them to play baseball. They baptized a lot of pre teen kids using both of those methods.  I don't remember a single on staying active after the free swim/baseball games quit.

 

[CV75]

45 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Thanks for the informative article. I never imagined this would be such a divisive topic between the brothers and sisters here on this venerable LDS discussion board.

I’m sure you have seen this, but here is an interesting feminist critique (strange for an “patriarch” to source, but these are strange times🫣).

Interesting critique of exposing kids to drag by a gay drag queen. Basically drag is an adult form of entertainment it. We do not do children or the gay movement any favors by foisting it on children.

What impact might a child-fanciful, overly-sexualized persona have on a child engaged in an otherwise neutral imagination play activity in comparison, say, to an Easter Bunny, Owen Grady or Fairy Godmother persona?

[Bernard Gui]

7 minutes ago, CV75 said:

What impact might a child-fanciful, overly-sexualized persona have on a child engaged in an otherwise neutral imagination play activity in comparison, say, to an Easter Bunny, Owen Grady or Fairy Godmother persona?

Yes. Children do not have sufficient life experience or wisdom to make such comparisons. 

[Bernard Gui]

3 hours ago, CV75 said:

I would say, in connection with such imaginary play as a storybook reading for children, the persona portrayed in the performance might be a fanciful caricature, such as an elf, a robot, a character from the book, “Mother Goose”, etc. None of these are an overtly and exaggeratedly sexualized persona, such as a drag queen, which only of late has been used to hybridize entertainment and activism with child education, and for some reason a drag queen is evidently preferred over an equally over-sexualized male persona.

My daughter Bellíssima is professional child librarian. She hosts reading hours at her county library. She takes great care to insure age/maturity/sensitivity content in her programs and book selection. Her very popular program is exactly as you describe. 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Bernard Gui

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, ttribe said:

My apologies for interrupting your crusade. Carry on.

Crusade? In what way? Why not just engage the points that are presented?

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, california boy said:

I don't really think you can't put the Church on some kind of pedestal when it comes to recruiting children to accept its beliefs.  I grew up when the Church promised all the kids in the ward to invite their friends to go swimming at the community pool.  If they brought a friend, their admission and their friends admission to the public pool would be paid for by the missionaries. I was about 9 at the time.   We would meet at the church every Saturday with a mob full of kids.  The missionaries would present a missionary lesson designed to recruit the kids into the Church and then take them all swimming as a reward for sitting through the lesson.

The Church also had a baseball program where they would organize kids into teams, have a recruitment lesson and then allow them to play baseball. They baptized a lot of pre teen kids using both of those methods.  I don't remember a single on staying active after the free swim/baseball games quit.

 

I object to this tactic as much as I do DQSH.

[CV75]

1 hour ago, Bernard Gui said:

Yes. Children do not have sufficient life experience or wisdom to make such comparisons. 

I grew up in Lower East Side Manhattan in the 1960s where there was lots of public, sexually-themed cultural behavior, images, prostitution, etc. Lots of paraphernalia and porn left on the ground. Maybe the prostitutes or "transvestites" as we used to call them (our father taught us the proper words for all we encountered, including graffiti) were actually drag queens -- they were extremely unordinary in appearance and so I just thought they were crazy --  they would hang out the window and call and wave at us during school fire drills. The girls behaved more sexually provocative, to the point of aggression, toward me than any boy ever was; taught me more than the acetate anatomy overlays in the worn-out (top sheet only!) Encyclopedia Britannica my parents scrimped for. We (parents and 4 kids) eventually moved out of the "City" and "upstate" in time for me to start 4th grade. So I would tend to agree with you. I used to laugh it off as "that's NY for you" but...

Edited September 7, 2022 by CV75

[Amulek]

21 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Don't know, don't care about the Provo police, or I'm not putting them down am I?

The story you shared from FB was 'a tale of two police departments.' In the story, the BYU Police were the bad guys because they were the ones harassing those poor demonstrators - you know, the ones who were illegally trespassing on private property. The Provo City Police however were paragons of virtue apparently because, months later, during an activity which had been officially organized through the city (and taking place on public property), there was no threatening anybody with jail time, fines, or anything else (you know, not like what happened with those meanies over at the BYU PD).

The author then goes on to try and make this ridiculous comparison about the "love and concern [for] the LGBTQ+ community" shown by these two departments.

It's ridiculous, of course, because if BYU didn't have its own department to police its own property, who do you think would have been up there on Y mountain that night threatening the trespassers with fines and/or jail time? It would have been the Provo City Police. And it would have nothing to do with their lack of "love and concern [for] the LGBTQ+ community." It would have merely been an exercise of their duty to protect and serve everyone in the community.

If stories like this are representative of the kind of nonsense that gets bandied about on Facebook, I guess I should be grateful for having never signed up to begin with.

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Amulek

[california boy]

41 minutes ago, Amulek said:

The story you shared from FB was 'a tale of two police departments.' In the story, the BYU Police were the bad guys because they were the ones harassing those poor demonstrators - you know, the ones who were illegally trespassing on private property. The Provo City Police however were paragons of virtue apparently because, months later, during an activity which had been officially organized through the city (and taking place on public property), there was no threatening anybody with jail time, fines, or anything else (you know, not like what happened with those meanies over at the BYU PD).

The author then goes on to try and make this ridiculous comparison about the "love and concern [for] the LGBTQ+ community" shown by these two departments.

It's ridiculous, of course, because if BYU didn't have its own department to police its own property, who do you think would have been up there on Y mountain that night threatening the trespassers with fines and/or jail time? It would have been the Provo City Police. And it would have nothing to do with their lack of "love and concern [for] the LGBTQ+ community." It would have merely been an exercise of their duty to protect and serve everyone in the community.

If stories like this are representative of the kind of nonsense that gets bandied about on Facebook, I guess I should be grateful for having never signed up to begin with.

 

When the land was purchased from the federal government, one of the conditions required public access to that land

Under the bill, BYU would have to pay for an appraisal of the land and the price that results from that evaluation. The school would also have to guarantee public access to the mountain.

 

BYU nor the Provo police had grounds to arrest anyone 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

53 minutes ago, Amulek said:

police its own property, who do you think would have been up there on Y mountain that night threatening the trespassers with fines and/or jail time?

I’m not sure. Given that BYU is required by law to maintain public access, and the so called “trespassers” were just individuals with flashlights, the Provo PD may have just told BYU to go pound sand. 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

11 minutes ago, california boy said:

When the land was purchased from the federal government, one of the conditions required public access to that land

Under the bill, BYU would have to pay for an appraisal of the land and the price that results from that evaluation. The school would also have to guarantee public access to the mountain.

 

BYU nor the Provo police had grounds to arrest anyone 

Here is what was said by those that gave BYU the land:

“

Chaffetz and Hatch each released statements regarding the acquisition.

"BYU owning the land on Y Mountain finally settles who is responsible for maintaining the area surrounding the popular and heavily traveled trail," Chaffetz said. "This is a win for Utahns, Y Mountain visitors and the federal government. Local control of the trail will provide greater access, improve long-term maintenance, and preserve the beauty of Y Mountain for future hikers to enjoy."

"Y Mountain has stood as a proud symbol over Utah Valley for more than one hundred years, welcoming generations of Utahns to Provo," Hatch said. "I am pleased we were able to work successfully with the Forest Service to ensure that visitors and future residents have continued access to the trail and this historic landmark."”