On January 1, 2025, I wrote a column predicting the rise of straw villains in Wyoming politics.
True to the Freedom Caucus’s campaign playbook, we’ve seen a flurry of bill drafts, letters to the editor and other political postings talking about how the Freedom Caucus is going to root out pornographers and pedophiles from our schools and libraries.
Their efforts seek to remove certain books from libraries.
In their continued effort to take us back to the 1950s, the woke conservatives (a new term to describe social-issue activists from the conservative side) are trying to claim moral high ground by rooting out depravity where children can access it.
Unfortunately, other than creating a tool upon which they can campaign, their efforts are a waste of time and the state’s money.
They will also victimize innocent people in their charge to maintain power.
Let’s try a little exercise. One of the books which is causing controversy is an award-winning comic book called Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. The book contains sexually-explicit illustrations.
Now, go to your browser and Google “Gender Queer downloads.” What you will find, is anyone with access to the internet can download, from several sites, the complete text of the comic book free of charge.
Removing the book from libraries will have no appreciable effect on its availability.
Every child has access to the internet, whether through the phone in their pocket, a family computer or at their friend’s house. Access to this book is ubiquitous.
Exactly no child who wants to find the book will be deterred.
And publicizing the existence of the book will only increase its exposure.
Why, then, go through all the effort and policy-pushing to ban the book?
The answer is simple. This effort is not about protecting teens. This effort is about keeping power in the hands of the Freedom Caucus, by creating a trumped-up election issue.
Here’s how the scenario will unfold.
The legislature will draft a bill outlawing certain kinds of books in public entities with a purposely inserted poison pill in it.
The bill will contain vague definitions, outrageous civil penalties for violating the Freedom Caucus’s sensibilities; or criminal penalties like burning librarians at the stake.
Responsible legislators who actually read the bills instead of just the bill titles, will stand up on the floor of the legislature and say, this bill is nice in philosophy, but it just does not work.
The responsible legislators will speak and vote against the bill, not because of its philosophy, but because it is a poorly written bill. The bill may or may not pass.
But, next election, be prepared. Disgusting and dishonest political ads will launch.
You will receive mailers saying, “Representative [insert name] supports pornography” or “Representative [insert name] wants to have sex with your kids.”
The mailers will not be true. What Representative [insert name] was really doing was protecting your rights and the rights of others by working to stop a crappy piece of legislation from hitting the books.
Weak-minded religious leaders who would not know a bad piece of legislation from a bad piece of cheese, will give fiery Sunday sermons about rooting out idolators, pedophiles and pornographers. They will send their charges on a religious crusade against the perceived enemies of piety.
Truth be damned.
Good legislators will be defamed because they had the audacity to read the bills and understand what they mean.
The whole purpose of this exercise will be to create a reason to run salacious political ads, not to protect kids.
The sad thing is, if the conservative woke legislators really wanted to do something about the issue, there are lots of things they could do. They could educate and encourage parents to limit phone usage and restrict internet access.
They could ensure restrictions are placed on public computers. They could teach parents how to talk to kids about sensitive issues. They could go after the publishers.
Those efforts will not happen. The whole motive is not to protect kids.
The motive is to make certain legislators look like they are doing something important when they are really doing nothing at all. But those legislators will have the opportunity to write lots of self-aggrandizing letters to the editor.
Get ready for the show.
Tom Lubnau served in the Wyoming Legislature from 2004 - 2015 and is a former Speaker of the House. He can be reached at: YourInputAppreciated@gmail.com
