Fundamentalist Groups Threats to Democracy

American Atheists report that the dangers from the far right and religious extremist groups in the US have not gone away over the summer months and that the fundamentalist rhetoric is being ramped up as privileged white male extremists aim to ban books in schools and replace them with only Biblically fundamentalist texts.  Melina Cohen, the Communications Officer with American Atheists, writes "PEN America has warned that allowing a few districts to prohibit literature statewide is antidemocratic. Nonetheless, more books will likely be added to Utah’s “No Read” list, and when they are, public school libraries are barred from selling or redistributing them. Instead, they must be “disposed of.”  So much for free speech in the right wing's version of America.  "They call it “pornography.” What qualifies is anything and everything, apparently, that offends a Christian nationalist’s sensibilities—namely the experiences of non-white, non-heterosexual, and non-Christian people. On the fifth page of Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership,” Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts calls for distributors to “be imprisoned” and for purveyors, including “educators and public librarians” to be “classed as registered sex offenders.”   Superintendent Walters has called the teachers’ union a “terrorist organization” and told noncompliant teachers and administrators to “go to California.” It’s no wonder then that the state is facing a massive teacher shortage and has had to issue a record number of emergency teacher certifications just to keep schools operational".   American Atheists continues to monitor the situation and promises to fight back against attempts to force children into being indoctrinated into fundamentalist religious groups.