Republican lawmakers in the US are leaning into outdated definitions of obscenity to outlaw drag and ban books too

For five months this year, homosexuality was prohibited in a Tennessee college town.

In June, the city council of Murfreesboro enacted an ordinance outlawing “indecent exposure, public indecency, lewd behavior, nudity or sexual conduct”. The rule did not explicitly mention homosexuality, but LGBTQ+ people in the town quickly realized that the ordinance references 21-72 of the city code, which categorizes homosexuality as an act of indecent sexual conduct.

The ordinance was essentially a covert ban on LGBTQ+ existence.

Erin Reed, one of the first and only national journalists to cover the ordinance earlier this year, noted that Murfreesboro isn’t “the only community that has these old archaic bits of code that target homosexuality”.

Earlier this month, following a legal challenge from the ACLU of Tennessee, the government of Murfreesboro removed “homosexuality” from the list of acts defined as “public indecency” by the city code. The small victory came after officials repeatedly refused to issue permits for the BoroPride Festival, citing the new ordinance.

  • @HandBreadedTools
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    31 year ago

    Please, just do a simple Google search and educate yourself:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States

    Gay Marriage has had one of the most radical changes in public opinion of any concept in general. The overwhelming majority of people are in favor of it, to the point that it would be law even in places you would not expect.

    I said what I said about your comment because it was smug and objectively untrue. Nothing irritates me more than that combination. Please, understand the way you learned things years ago does not determine the immutability of them.