Derrick Van Orden is a Republican candidate for Congress from southern Wisconsin. He’s also a failed actor and the author of a book on “The Lost Art of Manhood,” in which he writes in vivid detail about the enlarged scrotum of another man. Oh, and he’s a whiny homophobe who has childish temper tantrums in small town public libraries.
A librarian at the Prairie du Chien Memorial Library in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, says she felt completely shaken after Van Orden stormed into her library on June 17 and threw a dramatic fit on an exhibit of LGBTQ-affirming books she featured for Pride Month.
Teen library page Kerrigan Trautsch told La Crosse Tribune that Van Orden had “aggressively” questioned the display before viewing all but one of the books earlier this summer.
“It was chaos,” said Trautsch, who was 17 at the time, explaining that Van Orden, who is now running for the second time to represent Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, had a real meltdown in the middle of the children’s section. of the library, calling the display “disgusting” and “incorrect.”
Now here’s where things get really wacky.
Trautsch says GOP hope has become particularly angry with the picture book A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, which is a parody of former Second Lady Karen Pence’s picture book on the rabbit. companionship of her husband.
The picture book, which was an instant bestseller when it was first released in 2018, critiques Pence’s anti-LGBTQ views by detailing the homosexual romance between Marlon Bundo and another bunny.
“His voice was loud, he was aggressive, his finger was constantly stuck in (the book),” Kerrigan said, describing the situation as “very uncomfortable, threatening.”
Oh, but it gets even more wacky.
Because after that, Van Orden filed an official “statement of concern” with the library, in which he called the book “historically inaccurate” and “propaganda” and accused the author of “distorting them. young people by making them believe that Republicans are not inclusive “.
Then he “demanded” to speak to whoever installed the screen so that he could “teach them a lesson.”
“I was the one who put up these posters,” says Trautsch, who is LGBTQ, although she was afraid to tell him because “he was screaming at this point and he wasn’t stopping. to push the pounds aggressively. “
Then Van Orden checked all the books and stormed out of the building.
“I was terrified that he was outside, that there was a bunch of people outside waiting for me, waiting for someone else. We were terrified.
When asked to comment, Van Orden’s office released a statement saying he “unequivocally supports[s] equal rights for all Americans. He just doesn’t support same-sex stories about cartoon bunnies, which he says “degrade the relationships we have as citizens.”
Although Trautsch was 17 when the Van Orden Library collapsed, she has since turned 18 and she says, “I want him to know: I can vote now.”
But this is not the first time he has made headlines for inappropriate behavior.
Last year, during his first failed congressional campaign, Van Orden was criticized for a chapter he wrote in his 2015 book “Book of Man: A Navy Seal’s Guide to the Lost Art of Manhood”.
In it, he wrote extensively about an incident that occurred while serving in the military when he exposed the enlarged scrotum of a male lieutenant to two young female officers, whom he described as “cute girls.” As a joke.
The male lieutenant had made contact with poison oak, causing his balls to catch fire. Van Orden was sitting with him in the naval hospital when two low-level female officers passed by.
“Here is this lieutenant sitting behind a small curtain, eagle stretched out, bullet bag huge as a cantaloupe, and his puffy eyes almost closed,” Van Orden wrote. “It was then that I spotted two [officers], who were young girls in their early twenties. “Excuse me,” I said to the two pretty girls as I approached them. ” Can I ask you something ? “
It was then that he threw the other man’s testicles, presumably without his consent, to the two women, who “gasped in horror.”
“I’m sure they never wanted to deal with a man again,” Van Orden wrote, adding that the biggest lesson he learned from the experience was to avoid poison oak.
Graham Gremore is editor and editor at Queerty. Follow him on Twitter @grahamgremore.
