TW/CW: The Holy Bible 

Framework: We explore examples from the last 6 decades of organized LGBTQ+ hate. Whether from prudish and matronly conservative activists in the United Kingdom or any of the countless crooked American preachers showcased in this tale, one thing is clear: Organized religion is a grift, a con, a multi-million dollar industry fueled by fear of the unknown. The same tactics are being used by extremists everyday to cling to their comfort zones while getting rich on the willful ignorance of their “flock”. 

Starting with the story of Mary Whitehouse and an unbelievably sexually explicit gay poem that fell victim to the UK’s still-in-force Blasphemy Laws, this episode  will traverse you across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States decades after Mary Whitehouse waged a “war on pornography”. Stateside in the late 80’s and 90’s saw a wave of increasingly powerful and ridiculous televangelists shouting the punishment of hellfire and brimstone for anyone who dare be proud to embrace their same-sex attraction. The echoes of their lessons still haunt those who were there. 

The same hateful mindset is alive and well in the 2020s, emphasized by examples from the podcast’s home base of Lafayette, Louisiana. The barrage of religious extremist attacks on the city of Lafayette, Louisiana’s library system over the last 4 years has pushed citizens to ask when and how change is ever going to come. Radicalized evangelical Christians have weaseled their way into places of power, and, unless we speak up now, and all of us, it will not ever stop. 

Resources: 

YouTube doc series - Banned! The Mary Whitehouse Story: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eMib6Pb6ig&t=1251s 

Mary White House; Denis Lemon; James Kirkup (Whitehouse v. Lemon) 

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/05/how-mary-whitehouse-waged-war-on-pornography 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/16/obituary 

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2008/01/10/the-gay-poem-that-broke-blasphemy-laws/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse_v_Lemon 

http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biol2/lemon01.html 

Text of James Kirkup Poem - The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name (explicit):

http://annoy.com/history/doc.html?DocumentID=100045 

Billy Graham: 

https://qnotescarolinas.com/should-billy-grahams-legacy-be-rescued/ 

Jerry Falwell & Tinky Winky: 

https://slate.com/technology/2017/12/jerry-falwell-and-tinky-winky-the-gay-teletubby.html 

Focus on the Family: 

https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/10-things-you-should-know-about-focus-on-the-family https://truetolerance.org/gender-confusion-schools/ 

http://truetolerance.org/take-action/ 

https://familypolicyalliance.com/issues/ 

National Library of Medicine: 

Internalized Homophobia and Relationship Quality among Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2678796 

Book Recommendation: 

Stranger at the Gate - by Mel White 

https://g.co/kgs/ftXRfq 

DQST: 

https://thecurrentla.com/2019/it-started-with-drag-queen-story-time/ 

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/artistic-expression/despite-efforts-anti-lgbtq-extremists-dr ag-queen-story-time 

Library Arrest: 

https://bookriot.com/lafayette-library-board-controversies/ 

GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/b1295706 

Exclusive merchandise: https//www.etsy.com/shop/FREEMATTY 

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