; to allow adults to carry concealed weapons without even a permit; to permit university employees to carry guns onto campus; and to give the okay for firearms to be carried in public parks.
Pick pretty much any regressive or ridiculous legislative idea in Tennessee, and it’s a pretty fair bet that Johnson has voted for itNinety-eight years after Mencken shredded Tennessee over the Scopes Monkey Trial, the same censorious and bigoted instincts are on full display again.
I don’t know what exact choice phrases Mencken would have come up with, but they certainly would have carried a sting. The legendary columnist loathed hypocrisy almost as much as he loathed prohibition — he was a determined whiskey drinker — and legislators in Tennessee in the year 2023 are throwing up every bit as much hypocrisy as did Tennessee in 1925 when the good people of Dayton condemned their high school biology teacher for his dalliance with Darwin.
Today, with Judge Parker’s ruling and with progressives in Tennessee mobilizing forcefully to defend free speech, it’s possible the voices of censorship will be pushed back before a single drag show in Tennessee is banned. But the very fact that such abysmal legislation got passed in the first place is a warning sign of just how willing legislators in Tennessee and elsewhere are to shred the First Amendment in pursuit of their bigoted agenda and short-term political posturing.