Laura Lopez #fundie #homophobia #forced-birth

Laura Lopez #fundie #homophobia #forced-birth palmbeachpost.com

Eighty books in high school library stacks are corrupting students with tales of abortion, homosexuality and atheism. That's according to a West Palm Beach mother who has appealed to the school board to remove the books from the shelves of Dreyfoos and Royal Palm Beach high schools.

Laura Lopez has been fighting since September to ban these books that she says "promote sin and lies."

[...]

Lopez admits she hasn't read a single one of the objectionable books cover-to-cover.

In her appeal, she quotes scripture and blames the Columbine school shootings, drugs, bullies, teenage pregnancy and other ills on what she considers the removal of God from schools.

She targets literary genres ranging from reference books to short stories. Among the books she wants removed are "Medical Ethics: Moral and Legal Conflicts in Health Care," "Warriors of God: Richard the Lionhearted and Saladin in the Third Crusade," "Coping When a Parent is Gay" and "The Cider House Rules," a John Irving novel about a rural doctor who runs an orphanage and performs illegal abortions.

Lopez said the book challenges stemmed from a basic interest in the types of books in her sons' school libraries.

So, she went to the computerized card catalogue and typed in the keywords "homosexuality," "abortion" and "atheism." She was shocked by the dozens of titles that popped up.

"My kids are going to school to learn, not to become a homosexual or an abortion doctor or an atheist," she said.

[...]

In her objection to "Am I Blue?: Coming out from the Silence," a collection of 18 short stories about gay and lesbian issues, Lopez wrote: "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, and not Eve and Sue."

[...]

Even within her own home, reaction is split.

"My oldest son doesn't believe in God," she said. "I guess he kind of thinks I'm stupid."

52 comments

old comment by SophieEleven

Okay fundies, I am going to say this for the last goddamn motherfucking time: YOU CANNOT 'MAKE' SOMEONE GAY. Get this through the solid rock you call your head. Reading about gay people will have no effect on a straight teenager, except perhaps helping the teen learn about gay people! Same with books on abortions- reading about them is not going to make you get one or magically become a doctor who performs them (in fact, for some people it may just have the opposite effect, but fundies are too stupid to consider that). As for reading about atheism- if a teen is seeking out books about it, then chances are they are already thinking about whether there's a god or not, so your brainwashing attempts are too late!

Laura Lopez, you brainless git- if you don't want your kids reading those books then fine, censor what they have access to. You could probably even make special arrangement with their schools to make sure they cannot take certain books from the library. But you have no- absolutely NO- right to decide what books are available to other kids in the school. Nor do you have the right to force your religious ideals on anybody else but your own poor children.

GET. OVER. IT.

old comment by Calilasseia

@"NonProphet"

(Does anyone else find it a bit creepy that she went to her son's school and immediately searched their library database for anything that could be offensive?)

Creepy, but not in the least bit surprising.

As for her son, he's probably woken up to the fact, that living with a harpy who subjects her kids to 24/7 ranting about God and how anyone who doesn't conform precisely to her fundamentalist world view is a tool of Satan, is damaging to his mind and is looking for the quickest possible escape route. What a joyless, utterly psychotic household that must be - yet another example of the Church Of Christ The Holy Concentration Camp in action. But then fundies automatically think that anything that brings an atom of beauty or joy into anyone's lives is evil and should be crushed at the earliest opportunity. What makes it even more typically fundamentalist is the manner in which she abrogates to herself the right to dictate to other people and their children what they shall or shall not be allowed to read, as though she is some divinely appointed arbiter of taste and morals (but then most fundies think they are).

I'm waiting for the YAAFM cartoon on this woman.

old comment by Sophie

What makes it even more typically fundamentalist is the manner in which she abrogates to herself the right to dictate to other people and their children what they shall or shall not be allowed to read,

Oh, and you just know that they're the same morons who will in turn scream "ZOMG discrimination!!111 U r not letting me raise my children how I see fit!!!!" if any laws are passed regarding homeschooling, or dicipline of children.

Lopez admits she hasn't read a single one of the objectionable books cover-to-cover.

That says it all, to me. She desn't really care what they're about, she just wants to feel morally superior. It's absoloutely pathetic.

I wonder if this dimwit has even read the Bible cover to cover. My guess would be that she hasn't.

old comment by xplicit_UK

@thisisyou3: Trust me, becoming a professional homosexual isn't all it's cracked up to be. Lots of hard manual labour in dark, barely accessible places. But if you're looking for an internship... I've got a couple of openings. :-P

That being said, poor Laura, we can only assume that she learned to be heterosexual from books in her school library, as this seems to be the proper way to do these things.

Finally, I'd also be interested to read a book that would make a teenager go "Oh wow! Abortion is like... so cool. I totally wanna become a gay, atheist, abortion doctor now. All my friends are gonna be so jealous!!" You sure got interesting and powerful books in your libraries over there.

old comment by flipper

Funny how poorly these fundies must raise their children. They are such poor parents and they have such low view of their abilities to instill their own beliefs and values in their own kids that they must remove the rights of other parents to raise their own children the way they wish to use the schools and libraries to "force feed" their bigotry to their own kids. The oldest son appears to be one with all the common sense in the family(except, maybe the husband, who had the good sense to stay out of the whole thing). Raise your own kids lady, and I'll raise mine. If you don't like what's in the library, DON'T READ IT! Tell YOUR KIDS not to read it. And if I don't object to my kids reading something from that library, then you have no damn say-so in that matter what-so-ever!

old comment by Dian Francesca

The most important thing that the books Laura feels she has the right to censor, are trying to teach, are tolerance and awareness. Ignorance is no longer acceptable. Perhaps poor Laura will soon get the wake-up call that she's not all that, and a bag of chips, because the planet really doesn't rotate on HER little finger. How does SHE know that "God" DIDN'T make Eve and Sue, or even a boy named Sue? And, as long as your heaping these books onto the Farenheit 451 pile, why not toss in the bible? Have you any idea how many words and stories that grace the pages of that tome have poisoned humans through the ages?

Your responsibility, Laura is to try to make the world you've inherited a better place, and to pass that on to your children and anyone who will stop and listen to you.

Instead of begging the carousel man to "stop the world, you want to get off," tell him you want to get on!