Far-right Christian actor Kevin Sorbo is under fire for his new children's book The Test of Lionhood for what many feel is blatant anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
Sorbo has been trafficking in anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment for years, including using what has by now become standard right-wing anti-trans boilerplate in the promotion of The Test of Lionhood.
But when Joe Jervis, writer of the long-running LGBTQ+ blog "Joe My God" called him out for it, Sorbo clapped back with an impassioned defense of his book in which he of course claimed he's being persecuted by "the left."
Citing Jervis' blog post, Sorbo tweeted:
"Yet another example of the left doing whatever it takes to score clicks while bashing Christian conservatives. This guy has no clue what he's talking about, and and only furthers narrative that most journalists are a joke."
"My book, The Test of Lionhood, is about a lion cub who learns what it means to be courageous and BRAVE while on a dangerous adventure to save his sister cub. I guess books that don't include LGBTQ+ characters are automatically 'Anti-LGBTQ.'"
That's actually not at all what Jervis criticized in his post, which is, of course, readily available at the very link Sorbo included in his tweet.
Instead, Jervis criticized the transparent "traditional gender" rhetoric and open transphobia Sorbo used to promo his book in an interview with The Christian Post, titled "Kevin Sorbo Writes New Children’s Book To Expose Dangers of ‘Woke Gender Confusion,'" no less, in which Sorbo said:
“The danger is trying to make [boys and girls] the same. We’re not the same. It’s like these transgenders going in and racing against women in sports now, boxing matches. It’s just crazy to me.”
"These transgenders" is a nice touch. Definitely no anti-LGBTQ+ vitriol there, any more than there would be anti-Christian vitriol shown if we were to refer to Sorbo as, say, "bloviating Jesus freak Kevin Sorbo." They're just words, right? Sorbo surely wouldn't mind.
Sorbo's book and his response to the criticism haven't gone over well with a lot of people on social media, of course.
The stated mission of Sorbo's publisher, Brave Books, is to protect children from "harmful progressive influences," which it does by publishing books by the likes of Chaya Raichik, the activist behind the virulently anti-LGBTQ+ social media platform Libs of TikTok and who has been instrumental in promoting the Republican conspiracy theory that all LGBTQ+ are "groomers" and pedophiles.
Can't imagine why people would ever get the impression that Sorbo is anti-LGBTQ+. That Bible verse about being "known by the company you keep"... how's that go, again?
