West Bend- A town united against sex.

[longskirtlotsakids]

West Bend- a whole White Town full of crazy

After posting about Ginny Maziarka on the Proverbs Family thread, I had to come forth and give this lil burg it's own thread. There has just been so much institutionalized hatred and repression bout teh Sex in this town it really does deserve a little look see.

So first off, we will start with West Bend's hometown claim to fame anti-sex Senator, Glenn Grothman. While Grothman does show some hope on some issues (legalizing raw milk, legislating against predatory lenders) her tips over the batshit crazy cliff when it comes to men's rights and teenagers and their tingly bits.

He has:

* Urged abused women to remember the "good times" and not leave their abusers or press charges;

* Legislated to ban birth control use by under 18s

* Declared that there is a "war on men" in the US and drafted legislation to force child abuse prevention agencies to educate single motherhood as the primary risk factor of child abuse

* drafted legislation to reduce food stamp and Section 8 eligibility to make it harder on poor mothers and therefor they will be more likely to marry (really?)

*signed every piece of pro-lie legislation he can get his grubby lil hands on

*denounced Kwanzaa. -"Almost no black people today care about Kwanzaa -- just white left-wingers who try to shove this down black people's throats in an effort to divide Americans," Grothman said in a press release

*Authored abstinence-only "sex education" for Wisconsin schools.

Is it any surprise he is unmarried, childless, and lives with his mother? No, really. He does. He has been featured on the Colbert report for his craziness.

glenn-grothman-watch.blogspot.com/ for a compendium of his crazy.

Then, Ginny Maziarka and her drive to censor the West Bend Public Library. She's your average whitebread scared of sex fundy, and failed miserably because First Amendment. (She is a a big supporter of using the First Amendment to promote her crap via the internet... it's just not OK when liberals use it)

Not breaking because it's CNN... but check out their float. Really, the first time I saw it I thought they were complaining about dirty restrooms.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/22/wisconsin.book.row/

"A fight over books depicting sex and homosexuality has riled up a small Wisconsin city, cost some library board members their positions and prompted a call for a public book burning..The battle has stirred much of West Bend, a city of roughly 30,000 people about 35 miles north of Milwaukee. Residents have sparred for months on blogs, airwaves and at meetings, including one where a man told the city's library director he should be tarred and feathered.

The row even spread to this year's Fourth of July parade, which included a float featuring a washing machine and a sign that read "keep our library clean."

Outside West Bend, the fight caught the attention of Robert Braun, who, with three other Milwaukee-area men, filed a claim against West Bend calling for one of the library's books to be publicly burned, along with financial damages.

The four plaintiffs -- who describe themselves as "elderly" in their complaint --- claim their "mental and emotional well-being was damaged by [the] book at the library."

Yes, you read that right. In West Bend people wanted to tar and feather the library director, publicly burn a book, and get paid for reading graphic sex scenes.

I saved the best (actually the worst) for last.

West Bend was the hub of a brouhaha revolving around the school board giving the finger to Federal Equality laws and denying recognition of a Gay Straight Alliance co-curricular club. Long story short, the West Bend school board has a few evangelicals that do not agree with teh Gay, so therefor, no one needs a GSA club. Unfortunately for them, the Feds give them money, so they are not legally allowed to discriminate against any clubs based on sexual orientation. That didn't stop them from voting it down the first time, opening them up to a massive lawsuit. One school board member that voted the GSA club down stated at the vote that gays didn't need a "support group, they need a good psychologist." When they realized they couldn't challenge the whole USA Government, they begrudgingly let the students have their club, but not without cries of bullying and persecution.....

"Marquardt said Monday that he still opposed giving the group club status but said he did not believe a legal fight was in the district's interest, pointing to a legal opinion the board received that the district would lose in court.

He said he felt uncomfortable that his conclusion was the result of the lawsuit.

"I think all of us have been bullied and harassed by the GSA," Marquardt said.

Board member Dave Weigand remained opposed to sanctioning the club. He said the legal fight was warranted to stand with parents who oppose the group on religious grounds."

Never mind that religion is not supposed to be enforced in public schools, and just ignore the bullying and persecution and hate crimes that LBTQ people continue to suffer today. No, they were bullied because the school district was forced to see LBTQ and LBTQ alles as, you know, PEOPLE.

Things really got rolling when Dan Savage issued a podcast about the issue. Not breaking because it's The Stranger.

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archiv ... chool-club

So. Book burning. A MRA senator that lives with his mother. The school board denying equality to the point they were almost federally sued. I swear, I'd love to do a documentary about this town.

I'll sum it up with this quote I found in the City Data site. "West Bend is a horrible place to be if you're young and energetic. It's a great place to be if you're old, grumpy, and waiting to die."

[AnywhereButHere]

Brave kids who started the GSA Club at the school. I applaud the strength it takes to stand up to what seems like an entire town's worth of insanity.

As for the rest of it, just, well, I don't even know where to start. There must be something in the water. Drink bottled water people! Don't let yourselves be drugged by the crazy!

[Sola]

The first link, can you remove the dot please for those of us on mobile devices?

[GeoBQn]

State senator Glenn Grothman also forces his staff to work on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and tried to have single parenthood listed as a risk for child abuse.

[Marian the Librarian]

The four plaintiffs -- who describe themselves as "elderly" in their complaint --- claim their "mental and emotional well-being was damaged by [the] book at the library."

I have a simple and elegant solution for them: don't read it.

And as for Ginny Maziarka and her band of merry censors - they'd better start rounding up all those copies of Shakespeare, Chaucer, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Bible...Can't have anything referring to teh secks.

[Trynn]

My first thought upon reading the title was that these people can't possibly be a threat if they're against sex. All we have to do is wait a few generations and they'll all die out. There, problem solved.

[Savoring Samsara]

Oh lord, a ton of the fundies in my extended family live in West Bend. Now I understand why.

[GolightlyGrrl]

State senator Glenn Grothman also forces his staff to work on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and tried to have single parenthood listed as a risk for child abuse.

Being from Wisconsin I'm very familiar with this douchebag. He makes my skin crawl. I'm so glad my state senator is Chris Larson, a liberal Democrat who is also a Unitarian. I believe he attends my church when he's in town.

And I'm also familiar with the loathsome Ginny Maziarka. I've seen her interviewed on our local fundie channel. Yea, she sucks. And she seriously needs to get a life. Oh, here is a link to her blog:

http://wissup.blogspot.com/

[VooDooChild]

:cray-cray: What elitist douche nozzles! Perhaps, they'll threaten to secede like Texas. :lol:

[Effie]

What an awful human being. I went to the Wissup blog and I'm absolutely horrified.

[KitCatCadillac]

I have a friend raised in West Bend who pretty much describes it as the most horrible place on Earth. I'm beginning to see why. Perhaps the Hobby Lobby should have tipped me off.

[dairyfreelife]

None of this shocks me anymore. According to the ALA, there were 464 reported book challenges in 2012 alone, among them: Fifty Shades of Grey (I started to read this and I found in poor quality, but not ban-worthy), And Tango Makes Three and The Glass Castle. The Hunger Games, To Kill A Mockingbird and Brave New World were among the top 10 challenged in 2011 out of 326 reports. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Of Mice and Men, The Catcher in the Rye, The Giver, Goosebumps series, The Witches, Bridge to Terabithia, A Handmaiden's Tale, Flowers for Algernon, Harry Potter series, James and the Giant Peach, Killing Mr. Griffith, Slaughterhouse Five, Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret?, On My Honor, The Face on the Milk Carton, Scary Stories series, The Perks of Being A Wall Flower, Captain Underpants, The Color Purple, Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry, and my personal favorite banned/challenged book, Fahrenheit 451 have all been among the top banned or challenged book lists since 1990 (some later as they came into being, of course).

Locally: There was a principal who banned Winnie the Pooh stuff because he's half-naked. Two parents who wanted to ban an author's books from my former high school. It made national news as well, so I'm not going to say who the author was as I don't want the world to know where I went to school. Not to mention that I went to church with one of the mothers protesting when I used to go to church, so, yeah. It was about the sex stuff and language and it is oh, so, horrible. I read one of the books myself and it wasn't that bad. I heard worse in the hallways in high school. This doesn't include the huge fight that included bus bombings back in the 70s over some stupid textbooks either.