Amber Ruffin Calls Banning LGBTQ Books ‘Scary and Sad’
variety.comAntonio Ferme editor More than 1,600 books were banned during the 2021-22 school year — and 41% of them featured LGBTQ content.
At PFLAG’s 50th anniversary gala on Friday night, host Amber Ruffin encouraged the audience to belt out thunderous boos while she read off statistics about school book bans.
An actor playing a drunk teacher with an exaggerated Southern accent stumbled into the middle of Ruffin’s monologue. Waiving a pile of banned books in her arms, she declared her mission to eliminate LGBTQ content from her school library. “I’m a public school teacher in Florida and I won’t stop until I’ve had every single book banned that has LGBTQ content in it,” the actor proclaimed before sifting through her pile of books with “inappropriate” content. “‘Frog and Toad.’ Two male frogs who hang out all the time and they’re just friends?
I don’t think so!” Earlier in the night, Ruffin told Variety on the red carpet that these book bans are one of the most “scary and sad” ongoing political issues in America today. “The book bans are making me sick to my stomach,” Ruffin said at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel. “It encompasses so many marginalized groups.
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