Kieryn and Eve are joined by Anna Gazmarian to discuss her debut memoir, Devout, which comes out on March 12, 2024. 

Growing up evangelical means growing up with shame much of the time. Add to that depression, anxiety, religious OCD, and bipolar, and you're in for a massive struggle of faith and self-worth.

With Devout, Anna unpacks what worked and didn't work for her in her struggle to keep her faith in tact and get adequate treatment for the way her brain works. We discuss tolerating joy, therapy, ketamine treatments, and purity culture, as well as what supporting someone you love with mental health struggles can entail.

Pre-order Devout! https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Devout/Anna-Gazmarian/9781668004036

S6E2: Devout with Anna Gazmarian

This week in the Book Club, Kieryn and Eve chat with Sarah McCammon about her upcoming book (March 19) the Exvangelicals! We talk about gatekeeping knowledge, rampant anti-intellectualism, and how changing your religious beliefs change your relationships. You can take the church kid out of the church but you can't completely take the church out of the kid.  

Follow Sarah:
https://substack.com/@sarahmccammon
https://www.instagram.com/sarahmccammon_journalist/
Buy the book!
https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/the-exvangelicals/

S6E3: The Exvangelicals with Sarah McCammon

What is the future of the pro-life movement without simplistic messaging focused on Roe v. Wade to galvanize conservatives? The nuances of reproductive health science and privacy laws are up for debate, and the unity that the pro-life movement once relied on is fissuring under the pressure to rally support around the details. Banning IVF in Alabama was a deeply unpopular move by the courts, and this week SCOTUS is hearing oral arguments about a case centered on the 23-year-old status of FDA approval for mifepristone. Leading those arguments? Erin Morrow Hawley, ADF senior counsel and the wife of MO Senator, Josh Hawley.

*Show Notes*
https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/11/16/why-this-teen-birth-control-case-could-kill-access-for-everyone/
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/13/23505459/supreme-court-birth-control-contraception-constitution-matthew-kacsmaryk-deanda-becerra
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/10/texas-abortion-law-jonathan-f-mitchell-profile
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/ivf-morally-right/ 
https://www.lagniappemobile.com/news/ivf-clinic-attorney-argued-embryo-is-a-life/article_4f670e5e-d292-11ee-88e0-6b5e622733c3.html  
https://embryoadoptionusa.com/frequently-asked-questions/#:~:text=Parents%20who%20adopt%20embryos%20are,have%20relinquished%20all%20parental%20rights. 
https://web.archive.org/web/20130901171332/http://demossnews.com/manhattandeclaration/press_kit/manhattan_declaration_signers  

Science:
https://twitter.com/ncrawfordmd/status/1759769551925846303 
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-011-6621-8_18 
https://ivf-worldwide.com/ivf-history.html

S6E4: Doing It For The Babies 2: IVF Bans and Mife

Eve and Kieryn chat with Cait West about her memoir, Rift, and what it's like to leave fundamentalist Christianity only to discover that the patriarchy is alive and well in the secular world and childhood pastors became politically active Christian Nationalists.

**Find Cait and buy the book!!**
https://bookshop.org/p/books/rift-a-memoir-of-breaking-away-from-christian-patriarchy-cait-west/20298441
https://www.caitwest.com/
https://www.instagram.com/caitwestwrites/
https://twitter.com/caitwestwrites
https://caitwest.substack.com/

S6E5: Rift with Cait West

What do censorship, homeschooling, intellectual freedom, and libraries have in common? We get into it today with Eddie Kristan about the fight libraries are seeing with parental-rights extremist groups trying to censor books and the impact that has on children's rights to access information. 

Show Notes:

Institutions on the job: 

Freedom to Read Foundation (IF arm of the ALA): https://www.ftrf.org/ 

Emily Knox - Freedom to Read Foundation - knox@illinois.edu

PEN American has been on the job: https://pen.org/report/book-bans-pressure-to-censor/ 

DPLA - the banned book club: https://www.dplabannedbookclub.com/ 

Queer Liberation Library https://www.queerliberationlibrary.org/ 

Brooklyn Public Library's Books Unbanned: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/books-unbanned 

Chicago Public Library Book Sanctuaries: https://www.chipublib.org/news/book-sanctuaries-committed-to-protecting-banned-and-challenge-books/ 

CPL Book Sanctuary Project: https://www.booksanctuary.org/ 

Past ALA cases:

United States, et al. v. American Library Association, Inc. et al., 539 U.S. 194, 123 S.Ct. 2297, 156 L.Ed.2d 221 (2003)
Tattered Cover, Inc. v. City of Thornton, 44 P.3d 1044 (Colo. Sup. Ct., 2002)
Sund v. City of Wichita Falls, Texas, 121 F. Supp. 2d 530 (N.D. Texas, 2000) the “300 signatories” case. 
Case v. Unified School District No. 233, 908 F. Supp. 864 (D. Kan. 1995) The “Annie on my mind” case.

Active cases to follow: 

Pen America v. Escanaba School District 23-cv-10385 Filed May 17, 2023
Fayetteville Public Library v Crawford County et al. -23-CV-05086 
Book People Inc et al. v. Wong 23-cv-00858 - Filed July 25, 2023 
Leila Green Little, et al. v. Llano County, Llano County Texas Library 

Most concerning bills:

Idaho HB 666
Indiana SB 17
Iowa HB 2176
Oklahoma SB 1142
South Dakota House Bill 1337:
Tennessee House Bill 1944
Tennessee House Bill 800


Follow: 

emilyknox.net
@fobettarh
EddieKristan
Eddie the Giant Librarian

S6E6: We Are All The Public Library with Eddie the Librarian

Kieryn & Eve are joined by the organizers of Read Freely Alabama to discuss the attempt to censor LGBTQ materials in the Augauta-Prattville library and their efforts to protect the library as a community resource for everyone.

S6E7: As Goes The South with Read Freely Alabama

Kieryn and Eve chat with Michelle Dowd about her fascinating memoir, Forager. What it was like growing up in the family of a cult leader and how wild it is to get out into the real world after growing up in the woods. 

Check out Michelle's work and get the book!
https://bookshop.org/p/books/forager-field-notes-on-survival-a-memoir-michelle-dowd/18759728
 https://www.michelledowd.org/
 https://www.instagram.com/michelledowdz/
 https://mdowd.substack.com/
https://mdowd.substack.com/subscribe?utm_campaign=email-subscribe&next=https%3A%2F%2Fmdowd.substack.com%2Fp%2Fcontinue-foraging-for-what-you-need

S6E8: Forager with Michelle Dowd

Kieryn and Eve talk with Carly Butler about her memoir, Apocalypse Child, what identity abuse looks like for homeschooled kids, and how it feels to reparent yourself while parenting children. 

Pre-order the book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/apocalypse-child-carly-butler/20702732?ean=9781773861326

Follow Carly: @carlymbutton everywhere

S6E9: Apocalypse Child with Carly Butler

Errin Haines of The 19th* News joins Kieryn and Eve to talk about the future of journalism, being a progressive Christian while covering the news, and the liberatory nature of Black Christianity in the US.


Notes:

https://19thnews.org/
https://19thnews.org/topics/podcast/
https://x.com/errinhaines
https://www.instagram.com/emarvelous

S6E10: KTC x The Amendment with Errin Haines

Kieryn and Eve explain the updated policy agenda of the Christian right. We talk about the various tools Christian nationalists plan on using to usurp democracy regardless of who wins the presidential election this year. We dive into Project 2025, the little known and even less talked about Convention of States, and the bureaucratic mechanism at the crux of it all. 

Notes:
Read Kieryn's reporting for prism - 
https://prismreports.org/2024/05/20/christian-nationalist-playbook-usurp-democracy/

This episode was originally made as a test episode for a major media company, our producer was Mary Steffenhagen!

S6E11: Usurping Democracy with Bureaucracy

Kitchen Table Cult unpacks all the things Kieryn and Eve learned at the kitchen tables of their childhoods in conservative Christian homeschooling families. Every week we take your questions and drill down on various topics about Quiverfull, the Religious Right, and our childhoods in high-demand groups (otherwise known as cults).

We’re not surprised about the rise of Trump, Christian fascism, or evangelical white women voting for someone like Mike Pence, and we want to take you back through the beginning of it all to explain why.

S6E9: Apocalypse Child with Carly Butler

Kitchen Table Cult

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