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Republicans and Their Weird “Grooming” Obsession

Barry Dredze
4 min readApr 5, 2022

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Senate Judiciary Committee member and Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton with reality TV star, GOP donor and convicted child pornography distributor Josh Duggar. (Photo: Josh Duggar, Twitter, Nov. 3, 2014)

To see Christina Pushaw, spokesperson for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, discuss the opposition to the Republicans’ “Don’t Say Gay” Bill, one may feel some surprise to learn that anyone who opposes these kinds of laws supports pedophilia and may even be a pedophile themselves.

The legislation, officially titled Parental Rights in Education and signed into law by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on March 28, requires restrictions against discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in Florida schools and allows parents to sue school districts over alleged violations. Other Republican majority led states, like Texas and Ohio, are currently crafting similar legislation. While opponents have nicknamed the legislation “Don’t Say Gay” bills, conservatives like Pushaw have countered with her own rhetoric, labeling it the “Anti-Grooming Bill.”

“They don’t want to admit, they support a lot of the things that we’re providing protections against,” DeSantis said in the course of his bill-signing performance. The implication being, of course, that if one is not similarly…

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Barry Dredze
Barry Dredze

Written by Barry Dredze

Just another mortal, tweaking my cognitive map on the fly.

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