A Nebraska Democrat state senator created a mock amendment that would prohibit adults from taking children to Bible camps in response to legislation that would protect children from drag shows, the Washington Stand reported.
The fake amendment would ban anyone under 19 from attending what state Sen. Megan Hunt (D) calls a “religious indoctrination camp.” The amendment defines a “religious indoctrination camp as a “camp, vacation Bible study, retreat, lock-in, or convention held by a church, youth group, or religious organization for the purpose of indoctrinating children with a specific set of religious beliefs.”
Hunt’s amendment, which was filed on January 23, strikes out all of the language prohibiting children from attending drag shows and replaces it with similar language about these supposed “religious indoctrination camps.”
Drag queen Scalene Onixxx (R) gestures seated beside Athena Kills while reading during Drag Queen Story Hour at Cellar Door Books in Riverside, California, on June 22, 2019. (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
“The amendment would prohibit anyone under 19 (Nebraska’s age of majority) from attending such a camp and declared anyone 19 or older who ‘knowingly brings’ someone under 19 to a religious indoctrination camp to ‘be guilty of a Class I misdemeanor,’” according to the report. “The amendment would also prohibit anyone under 21 from a ‘religious indoctrination camp’ with alcohol, ‘regardless if such alcoholic liquor is being served as part of a religious ceremony.'”
The legislation points to an alleged “well-documented history of indoctrination and sexual abuse perpetrated by religious leaders and clergy people upon children” and claims that “abusers within churches and other religious institutions often use events like church or youth-group-sponsored camps and retreats to earn children’s trust and gain unsupervised access to such children in order to commit such abuse.”
The amendment also proposes a $10,000 fine per offense on “any business, establishment, or nonprofit organization that hosts a religious indoctrination camp” and allows people who are underage to attend.
Hunt tweeted on Jan. 28 that she created the amendment “to make a point about the underlying bill, LB371, which bans all-ages drag shows.”
“It won’t pass, I would withdraw it if it had the votes to pass,” Hunt continued. “It’s a device to make a point. We need not clench nor worry.”
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