#2946: June Griffin

June Griffin was an insane wingnut fundie – a “preacher and morals activist” – who ran as candidate for District 31 of the Tennessee House of Representatives in 2016 and, previously, for Governor of Tennessee in 2010. Her political career seems to have been motivated by her engagement in a 2009 fight to stop decriminalization of homosexuality in Tennessee through a legal suit that she claimed would “decriminalize sodomy in Tennessee and allow lesbians and homosexuals to teach their deviate lifestyles in our public schools;”  the suit would, if successful (it was), accordingly “move us from our foundation of law, the Bible”, and Griffin warned the judge directly about God making “Sodom and Gomorrah an example to those who should after live ungodly” and complained that “hanging over your head is a chandalier with the ‘Ten Commandments’ written on it and that you want to kill our law with new definitions and alter the source of guilt.” Sodomites, Griffin pointed out, “have a tax scheme of funding of their schools, hospitals, and insurance. They want to soften the rod of God's wrath against sin”; also, if sodomy were to be decriminalized, “the sodomites will then qualify for TennCare!”, fumed Griffin (criminals don’t, apparently).

 

At about the same time, she launched some anti-evolution billboard campaigns; “it is payback time”, said Griffin, apparently referring to the Scopes trial – Griffin herself is a resident of Dayton, where the Scopes trial originally took place, and she is still sore about it. When a statue of Clarence Darrow was erected at the County Courthouse in 2017 opposite a statue of William Jennings Bryan erected in 2005, Griffin was enraged: “This is a hideous monstrosity.And God is not pleased,” said Griffin; she struggles a bit to distinguish herself and God, but that’s par for the course among her peer group.

 

Earlier, in 2006, she was arrested for stealing a Mexican flag from a local business. Noticing the flag in front of the store, Griffin was outraged and deemed it an “act of war” that “insulted my citizenship.” In court, she apparently argued that the act was not theft since it was done openly. So there.

 

Currently – still sore also about court cases like Engel v. Vitale – she appears to travel around handing out framed displays of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Ten Commandments (she calls them ‘The Keys to Americanism’), since to her those documents are on par with regard to American law (they’re really not) and because nobody else is apparently willing to “represent God and the Bible”.

 

Diagnosis: So full of hate and rage that she struggles to pass as functioning in a semi-civilized society. But she is also more or less old enough to have experienced the Scopes trial firsthand. We deem it unlikely that she’ll reappear in any position of power. Still.