A Republican aide has claimed that LGBTQ+ organisations are training eight-year-old children how to use butt plugs and dildos.

In a recently resurfaced speech, Erin Mazzoni, who reportedly works for the campaign of Franklin, Tennessee Republican mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson, alleged that children are being given sex toys by LGBTQ+ activists.

Mazzoni told a meeting of the Franklin Board of Mayor and Aldermen earlier this that she’d moved to Tennessee from Bucks County, in Pennsylvania, after apparently discovering that an LGBTQ+ organisation was teaching children how to use sex toys, which, she claimed, caused the community to “fall apart”.

Between sobs, she said: “It started out as Pride coming in, and I thought everything would be OK. It ended with a Rainbow Room where eight to 12-year-old kids were given butt plugs and dildos and trained.

  • Tedesche@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    193
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    We have actual victims speaking up to let us know that the Catholic Church and other Christian communities are abusing children. If LGBT groups are allegedly doing the same, where are the victims’ testimonies? Where are the hundreds, if not thousands of victims coming forward with their own stories that can be investigated so we can bring these alleged gay pedophiles to justice?

    • Uranium3006@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      54
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Because organized religion is so powerful they can get away with mass sexual assault of children among other crimes. Conservatives don’t oppose child abuse, they’re afraid the “wrong” people Are doing it

    • vivadanang@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      34
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      IMHO that’s the big picture: Conservatism doesn’t want people focusing on the overwhelmingly factual and documented abuses by the church and GOP.

      This is a list of confirmed GOP sex offenders and their crimes. It’s past 1,100 now.

      I don’t think I need to point out the well documented history of sex offenses in the church, but here’s a quick list of recent travesties:

      https://www.npr.org/2022/06/02/1102621352/how-the-southern-baptist-convention-covered-up-its-widespread-sexual-abuse-scand https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/investigation-reveals-widespread-sexual-abuse-and-cover-ups-by-archdiocese-of-baltimorehttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/02/us/catholic-church-sex-abuse-investigations.html

      So please, FOCUS ON THE GAYS! LITTERBOXES! TRANS TRAINERS! Think about anything but the crimes conservatives and religious pedos please please please.

      Projection writ large, across our entire society.

    • papalonian@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m on your side of the argument, but I don’t think this is a fair take. We know from history that it’s very difficult for victims to come forward in these cases. Your Catholic Church example is a good case of this; the adults we’re hearing from were children when the abuse took place. Look at the Me Too incident. Hundreds if not thousands of victims all coming forward years after the fact because they feared the backlash. I genuinely doubt there are groups like the woman described in existence, but if there were, it’s understandable that we wouldn’t be hearing about it right away.

      • xanu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        49
        ·
        1 year ago

        The Catholic Church has the power and influence to cover those things up and pressure victims into silence. Hollywood has a huge power imbalance as well. Where in the world does the LGBTQ+ community have such power? The only answer these fascists can give is “the Jews”.

        If there was large scale abuse going on in the LGBTQ+ community, it would have been found out for sure; especially considering how many hateful zealots spend their retirement actively hunting the imaginary abuse. (I’m also not saying there’s no abuse because well, humans suck. just that it isn’t large scale, organized, and actively defended like churches and corporate hierarchies)

        • Kimano@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          8
          ·
          1 year ago

          I mean this is assuming that children are rationally considering the amount of power an abuser has over their lives, which is clearly not the case. To a kid, simply being an adult makes them seem powerful.

          • agent_flounder@lemmy.one
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            1 year ago

            The power of the church enables them to influence more than just the kids of course. Also if adults show reverence to priests you bet the kids pick up on that. And also the parents often side with the priest over the kid anyway if the kid actually ever says anything.

            Bottom line: the claims of sexual abuse by “tHe gAyS” are unsubstantiated.

            Studies have shown that abusers are not more likely to be LGBTQ than straight.

            In fact it is statistically the opposite to a significant degree.

            So why the claims then?

            First, modern right wing Christianity is deeply biased to be anti-gay already and so it is no wonder preachers are dead wrong and spreading bullshit myths as well as classing all LGBTQ people as literally “minions ot Satan”

            Second, regressives (right wingers) hate LGBTQ people (because they are different and also because of religion). Spreading damaging myths is an attempt to change culture to be in favor of persecuting and attempting to eradicate LGBTQ people – or whoever else is in the “out group” to be eradicated.

      • Tedesche@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        21
        ·
        1 year ago

        If a lone person with political motives to damage the Catholic Church’s reputation alleged they were abusing children, I’d be demanding the same evidence of victims’ testimonies. No one should be believing allegations of sexual assault without evidence, of which victim testimonies are key. Same with the Me Too movement. I’m a therapist and not at all unsympathetic to how difficult it is for victims of sexual assault to go public with their stories, but from a societal perspective, we should all be skeptical of allegations made without evidence. Is it possible these LGBT groups are abusing kids and we won’t find out until 15-20+ years from now, when those kids decide to come forward with their stories? Sure. But until then, accusations with clear political motivation should be disregarded, and that’s true whether you’re talking about LGBT groups or the LDS Church.

  • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    174
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    “Lady sobs because she imagined things that don’t happen”

    This kind of performative rhetoric, invented to assign wicked or demonic qualities to your scapegoat, is not a new thing. It’s just a retread of the blood libel, the red scare, the lavender panic, reefer madness, and today’s bathroom panics. All of them were lies told to justify violence and the criminalization of things that could be used to persecute their targets.

  • FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    131
    ·
    1 year ago

    So, if the past is any indicator, in the next few months we’re going to learn she’s been molesting kids with butt plugs and dildos.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    88
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is meant solely to hurt people. At best it’s satanic panic level insanity. At worst it’s an attempt to prepare people to commit atrocities.

    • joneskind@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I once met a Mormon dude who tried to put his thumb in my ass for alignment purpose.

      « Not gay if I’m the doctor » he said.

      « You’re not a doctor you bigoted fuck » I replied.

      Got my first appointment for prostatic exam next week. Can’t wait.

    • spider@lemmy.nz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Indeed; these people often have an army of skeletons in their closets.

  • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    62
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    The only story I know about using buttplugs on children was that one instance where the child had to use a buttplug from their parents in order to keep the Devil out of their asshole.

    Christians are much worse than any drag queen.

  • BandDad@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    49
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    It really is amazing how people just believe whatever outlandish story they hear. Had an elderly woman tell our state legislators at a local forum that teachers where I work were literally locking children into closets and teaching them to be gay. Legislators response: “Mumble, Mumble, yeah… we need to do something about these teachers.”

    Lady, if we had the power to “indoctrinate” children, we wouldn’t have any late homework again, let alone tolerance for people different from yourself.

    • GreenSkree@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      There’s a whole segment of the population that lives in a different reality, probably due to right-wing media conditioning.

      Show them something well researched, understood, and explained and they’re likely to dismiss or reject it. Say something completely bonkers about someone or something they don’t like and they’ll gobble it up without a second thought.

  • iByteABit [he/him]@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    47
    ·
    1 year ago

    I love how conspiratorial republicans get when the state is threatened with welfare and humanitarian measures, but when other republicans make insane claims no one asks for a source

    • 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      Or children turned to swiss cheese during school shootings

      NRA training 8yr olds to shoot guns? Cool…

      Completely fabricated dildo training for kids? Outrage…

  • vivadanang@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    43
    ·
    1 year ago

    How do these public lies not lead to consequences? Isn’t lying while testifying in a public setting perjury?

  • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    1 year ago

    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so come on Mazzoni, provide said extraordinary evidence!

    Odds are that at the most she can manage is evidence of 1-2 pedos being caught doing something vaguely adjacent to it and also claiming to be some flavor of LGBTQ, like how the GOP notion of drag queen story time is shaped entirely by that one library event in the UK (which is probably still the entire top page of Google results for “rainbow dildo butt monkey”) and trans people by Jessica Yaniv.

    • Delusional@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Ah so she is just a trump wannabe. She’s probably like, “well the president and fox news lies daily and they make money from it and never get into trouble, guess I’ll do it too.”

    • Daft_ish@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      1 year ago

      Take a break, but when you come back be ready to teach the children about sex swings and ball gags.