Old Stan is at it again. Stan Tzouvelekas is, most unfortunately, my Greenville County Council representative. For the non-local readers, the City of Greenville is pretty reliably purple, if not blue, but Greenville County is heavily Republican, stretching into rural and mostly white communities to the south and up north to the foothills. Greenville County Council is the elected body behind our homophobic and transphobic policies in our Greenville County Library system, and Stan seems to be a driving force behind making sure the Library Board is majority white Protestant evangelical, just like him (as I’ve covered in previous newsletters).
And here’s our Greenville County Council. Party affiliation isn’t listed but you can take a guess. Also, ONE WOMAN?!! Thank you, Liz. I’m sure you put up with some ripe bullshit serving with that crew. Benton, the beard isn’t helping, kind of doomsday prepper vibes, maybe?
The honorable Greenville County Council.
Anyway, apparently Stan doesn’t read the news and isn’t aware that the state has effectively banned ALL abortions, because this week he introduced a resolution to the Council to try to revoke the business license of the Greenville Women’s Clinic, one of only three facilities in the state that have performed abortions (earning us the dubious honor of front page coverage in Abortion, Every Day… make sure you subscribe!). Seems like a political stunt to me, since he’s up for re-election in 2024. Democratic Party chair Amanda McDougald Scott told the Greenville News the proposal is a political move to score some points with anti-abortion groups.
Probably the same groups that are causing all the disruptions by protesting outside the clinic. Tzouvelekas is arguing that the business is a public nuisance, which is bananas, considering it is the anti-abortion protesters that are the nuisance and the cause for all the calls to the police. Maybe Tzouvelekas doesn’t understand that the Greenville Women’s Clinic is a healthcare facility and does things like STI testing, which seems pretty important considering rates of congenital syphilis are alarmingly high, just to name one public health emergency exacerbated by the maternal health care deserts in this country.
It’s no surprise he’s pulling all these stunts, considering the many far-right causes he’s championed, like attempting to outlaw mask wearing in Greenville County. He got into an altercation in September with another council member, Ennis Fant, that required sheriff’s deputies to step in (another example of Republican men being so immature and with such fragile masculinities that they have to resort to physical threats, is it so much to ask for professional politicians?). I’ll just leave Fant’s assessment of Tzouvelekas here, also from the Greenville News:
During the Facebook Live later that evening, Fant said Shaw, Tzouvelekas and Blount didn’t act reasonably as members of council and that their districts are suffering for it.
“Their minds don’t work right,” he said. “They don’t care about working with anybody else, they don’t care about the taxpayers, they don’t care about what’s in the best interest of the citizens of Greenville County, making a positive difference, making the community for the next generation of children, none of that. What you saw tonight is what I have to deal with every single week. They are absolute lunatics.”
Please, please please someone run against this fascist fanatic. He most certainly does not represent the interests of his (my) district. His attacks on public health, the LGBTQ community and women’s lives are outrageous. If he believes what his church believes, then this is what he sees as the roles for men and women:
From the Grace Church website. Barf barf barf.
This guy is an ideological zeolot weaponizing the government for his patriarchal agenda. Y’all, this bro has got to go. Here’s his district. I’d say drop him a line in protest but I’ve been in touch with him and he apparently doesn’t respond to lady democrats. Maybe if I was more “godly.”
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These districts look like they were made with Silly String! I guess they fully embraced the choose-your-voters model of gerrymandering.
It's so maddening! No matter how many of our rights they strip away, these assholes are never happy.