Warning:

The video and blog post contains references to: homophobia, transphobia, politics, and religion. It also contains links to articles, messages, and videos containing offensive language, especially to those who are Christian or in the LGBTQ+ community.

“Tranofin is gonna expose you soon?”

Switched to Linux, “Budgie Going Wayland Only?” 40:57

Let me introduce you to Tom Murosky, a Linux content creator with multiple channels, the most popular being Switched to Linux. He’s been on YouTube for years, uncontested in his misinformation about open source, hate of queer individuals, and misrepresenting Christians—until today.

Murosky only cares about injecting his political views into all of his content and has attempted (unsuccessfully) various ways to take down my content, including through Proton, YouTube flagging, and attempting to leverage his influence to rally creators by his side. His community is blatantly transphobic, homophobic, and adheres to extremist right-wing content and Christian nationalism. There is no negotiating with this man.

Shout out to Niccolò Venerandi, who helped give much of this video direction and organization and to TechHut for describing his experience.

A special thanks to my Christian friends who have helped a great deal in the theological aspects, the resources, as well as physical Bibles and commentaries. Check out Preston Sprinkle’s Theology in the Raw for information about how churches respond to queer communities. He has the Murosky Stamp of Approval™ after all!

Who is Tom Murosky?

I’m going to be taking a deep dive into a content creator you might have seen floating around–and a Linux one at that. You probably heard about him, his name is Thomas Murosky, better known as his channels across the internet:

  • Switched to Linux
  • Our Walk In Christ
  • Tux Traveler
  • Writing Done Right
  • Home Cooking Hacks
  • Western Mountain Web Design

Okay, that’s lot of channels…

I’ve spent a long time diving into Murosky because I was very curious. Now, I wish I didn’t. I can confidently say that Switched to Linux is one of the worst content creators I have ever watched for a long time and I won’t sit by anymore and let him destroy people’s impressions of the Linux community.

Make no mistake. Murosky is a threat to how the Linux community is perceived. He spreads misinformation and paranoia about technologies people use on a regular basis and clearly lacks basic journalistic and reading skills. He tries to shepherd people into his political agenda at every turn and has no respect for minorities, especially if you are in the queer community.

Now these are serious accusations, but don’t worry, he documents all of this publicly across his YouTube, Odysee, and Rumble channels. Given he is a content creator and people will accuse me of attempting to start drama, I will not be monetizing this video. Instead, all proceeds of this video will be donated (more below).

I released an early draft of this video because I believe the initial response is when someone shows their true colors. As expected, Murosky is currently unrepentant, but his community’s response to me has been revealing about the kind of people Murosky attracts.

Even though I announced it in the document, it’s telling how much effort Murosky and his cronies took to read the document.

Guess they aren’t making enough ad revenue doing tech videos now they have to lower themselves to being tabloid trash.

CCJ1998, Switched to Linux, “Budgie Going Wayland Only (Live)” 46:30

Guess I better take my kids out to dinner with my YouTube blood money!

Since someone accused me of benefiting from this, I will instead point out that because I have subscribers who watch his channel. In fact, the same shills tattled about my content to Father Murosky’s Matrix, which contains some of the most vile things I have seen in a long time on a public chat. Because of Murosky’s cronies and his reach, I will be hurt in terms of engagement given how loyal they are to him. Everything I say is for the betterment of the community–I have nothing to gain from this.

I’m going to be focusing primarily on Murosky’s primary channel, Switched to Linux. At first, it gives a great sense of authority and great SEO, type in “how to switch to Linux” and you’ll find his channel. You would be fooled watching his channel trailer that he’s there to help people practically learn how to use Linux. It’s not that he doesn’t do that, because to give him credit, he will occasionally cut out the nonsense and get right to the point.

Ignorance is a Bubble

In terms of structure, Tom releases a video every day, alternating across his channels, but Switched to Linux will get most of the uploads. Since he provides a fresh supply of daily uploads every day, I will mostly be focusing on content he has made in the last year, that way he’s not misrepresented and you get an accurate showcase of what his videos are like.

But the daily upload schedule may contribute to the one of the worst things about his videos: inaccuracies and the need for him to produce constant content.

Losing the Primaries

The first thing I want to make clear about Tom’s videos is if you watch enough of them, you can tell from the sources that he pulls from are secondary sources. This isn’t always the case, but he pulls from many, let’s say less than reputable, news websites. You know, the run of the mill website that hires broke college dropouts to vomit out content.

For example, in this clip of him reading the news, he references a Tech Radar article, which just parrots information from a report by Trellix. In the same livestream, he uses 9to5Linux, AlternativeTo, OMG Ubuntu as primary sources even though they rip off copy content from other Linux contributor blogs and the like.

Some might call this is a nitpick, but with research, it’s important to locate the original content or media. Unlike most other forms of journalism, tech journalism is widely available and you can often cross compare the original content against the people who just summarize it. It shows you went the extra mile to read an “unbiased” take without any middle men.

In the case of the Tech Radar article, Tech Radar links the original Trellix report. Now Murosky could have easily showed this, but he didn’t, probably because he isn’t reading the article enough. It shows a blatant degree of unprofessionalism in research. He doesn’t take the effort to show the primary source, even if it’s linked directly in the article. You get the sense as he read the article before turning the camera on, yet couldn’t be bothered to locate the primary source.

Terrible Tech Takes

This lack of primary sources leads to another symptom in his presentation and content: outright misinformation and misrepresenting the current state of tech.

Wayland Woes

For example, Murosky believes Wayland is not ready, which is a (bad) opinion he’s entitled to have, but the evidence he uses is the legendary outdated “Wayland breaks everything” GitHub gist.

In this article, he [probonopd] writes “Think twice before abandoning Xorg. Wayland breaks everything!” And this is true, because as I mentioned, there’s one particular major industry that does have a lot of problems and that is video content creation.

Switched to Linux, “Wayland Woes” 9:58

I wouldn’t defend Wayland as perfect right now, but even he highlights are things you can do on Wayland. I’m a content creator, I’m using Wayland just fine! I’m not the only one: Brodie Robertson and Nick from the Linux Experiment both use Wayland. Murosky has no excuse when some content creators way bigger than me use Wayland. If you’re going to pick sources, make sure you pick valid, up to date, resources to back up your claims.

You see, I am recording this on SimpleScreenRecorder, which does not work on a Wayland at all.

Switched to Linux, “Wayland Woes” 10:16

With SimpleScreenRecorder, you could try out a different program that offers the same feature set. What about Kooha? That works great on Wayland! Then why complain if screen-sharing on Wayland doesn’t work? Just find an alternative if the original application will never be updated.

…but [on Tails] there was no competent screen recorder. Wayland. That’s why—Wayland. OBS project: Wayland is unsupported this time back in 2020, broken.

Switched to Linux, “Wayland Woes” 17:11

Now we must be living on different planets, because I have tried OBS on GNOME, KDE, and Sway with Wayland in 2023 and 2024. I can record video just fine. Are you using a hack package from a distro? Maybe you should consider using the Flatpak Tom! It’s the official package!

As icing on this crap cake is he cites a Quora post as the smoking gun evidence that Wayland isn’t ready. He didn’t link it in the description, but I found it. Why do I, the viewer, need to cite his sources and fact check misinformation that comes out of Murosky’s mouth?

ONLYOFFICE Isn’t “““Ready”””

Before someone accuses me of being a Wayland shill, don’t think I’m cherry picking videos. It’s not just lack of citations or factual claims, it’s completely misunderstanding what projects intend to do. A while ago, he made a video about ONLYOFFICE and complained that ONLYOFFICE doesn’t support his precious OpenDocument files.

I’m not evaluating the spreadsheets, I’m not evaluating the presentation features, there’s a lot of things it’s doing right, but as far as interpreting the OpenDocument format, we can’t separate, separate page margins, we can’t separate page styles and templates that I know of. We can’t even open a .ODT document properly formatted, which by the way we can’t open in a variety of other office suites and preserve the custom settings, we can’t seem to do that here, it doesn’t interpret the ODT file format well.

Switched to Linux, “Is OnlyOffice Ready for Prime Time” 15:29

The way Murosky presents this sounds grim and makes ONLYOFFICE look bad, that is, until you consider ONLYOFFICE never guarantees compatibility with OpenDocument files like his book’s .odt. It was designed to retain compatibility with Microsoft’s format first because of its use on the cloud. When you use Google Docs or LibreOffice, the compatibility of Microsoft’s documents isn’t totally 100%. It’s a program with totally different goals opposed to something like Collabora or LibreOffice.

That may have changed, I’ve not used Microsoft Office in a long, long time at this point.

Switched to Linux, “Is OnlyOffice Ready for Prime Time” 15:24

But Murosky is so out of touch that he released this video with poor research and never apologizes for mischaracterizing it. In fact, you’ll notice he converted his .odt file into a .docx as if that would help prove his point. We all know OpenDocument files are messed up, even when you save them in Microsoft’s format. It’s almost like he has no idea what he’s talking about!

He Gave A Normie Friend Arch (EndeavourOS)

In a video earlier this year, he set up a media server for someone who wasn’t particularly technically savvy. But guess what: he set them up with EndeavourOS.

I had a friend that we converted one of their computers to Linux and they use it for a media server and such and for a while, they were doing the GUI updates through EndeavourOS, which weren’t actually doing anything, but they didn’t know it wasn’t doing anything… Endeavour needed to do a manual override on one of the updates and your average person doesn’t know how to do that.

Switched to Linux, “Is 2024 the YEAR of the Linux Desktop?” 7:24

Anyone who has even a cursory understanding of Arch Linux knows you do not give people who don’t know what they are doing an Arch Linux machine of any kind. Not Endeavour, not Arco, ArchLabs, and especially not Garuda and Manjaro. Yeah, Tom totally understands the plight of normal people, guys. Better learn that Arch Linux Wiki or you’re going to be at his mercy! What’s worse is media servers work great on Ubuntu. Maybe that would have been a better place to start…

Ignorance and If I Could…

This leads into the first sin of Tom. If he isn’t taking time to learn any of the programs he uses properly, how can he be trusted when he says he did any research into something?

  • He misses basic facts about software he reviews.
  • He doesn’t take the time to learn minor things about how things like documentation and software versioning works.
  • He doesn’t report any issues and assumes developers will watch his crappy videos.
  • If he’s wrong, he won’t edit, reupload, or delete videos. He won’t correct himself in the comments either.

If he isn’t going to play the open source game, it’s no wonder nobody listens to him. The worst part is all of this that disgusts me the most is this is mindset comes from living in a bubble and out of ignorance.

I’m not a computer hobbyist that wants to see what I can get working in my spare time. I actually don’t have much spare time. I’m a person that wants to use open source software, open source operating systems to get my real work done. That’s kind of what my limits are.

Switched to Linux, “Open Chat - Remember Your Backups, Check Your Accounts…” 14:25

This mentality angers me because I am a normal person with a normal job, yet I have the time to learn all these complex open source things. There are a ton of other channels of people doing the same thing and they don’t have to resort to outright raging and complaining when something doesn’t go their way.

What’s more, he has time to livestream, edit, and perform “research,” and you’re telling me you don’t have time? If you commit the time to learning enough, do it right. Don’t make videos complaining about software if you didn’t take the time to learn about it and provide a fair evaluation.

The Weekly “““News””” Roundup

So right now it looks as though YouTube is trying to take my channel out simply because I, maybe I am conservative or whatever reason, even though I generally keep politics to a minimum, I think we’re done with that. I think we’re done keeping politics to a minimum. I think I’m going to jump up there. I’m going to say how it is. If you’re a stupid, libtarded, moronic fool who thinks that slaughtering infants in the womb is an appropriate thing, I’m going to tell you you’re stupid and you’re a murderer from this whole society of insanity. This is insane. So if they want to try and take me down for, because of conservative thought, when I am really trying not to be conservative at all.

Switched to Linux, “Into the Gulag Again” 8:36

Normally, I’d end the video there. Some technical mistakes here and there, not many people watch his videos, what’s the big deal? Let’s get to the highlighted product of the Murosky mentality: the Weekly News Roundup.

Every Friday, Murosky sits down to read his secondary source news articles in a talk show format. Now that we’ve established the articles he picks are mostly weak sauce, he will complain about news totally divorced from Linux or even news not related to technology at all. He has prioritized his news show above everything else. It used to be so bad that he used to dedicate 3 videos of his daily uploads to solely “news” content. Don’t worry guys, it’s now a livestream over an hour every week!

Now you come to a channel “Switched to Linux” and he just gave you a bait and switch! Forget learning about the values, importance, or current events about Linux or open-source software. After you’ve fallen for the good SEO of his channel, what happens next is he starts dumping all of his awful views on politics and the news. In fact, even during all of his live streams, his Patreon streams, and prerecorded videos, he will slip up and devolve into complaining about politics. Murosky’s channel was always pushing politics since the early years. He used to spill his unrelated philosophy hot takes to people too in outdoor walks, way before the Luke Smith did.

“Stop making things political!” He says, making everything political.

The 2020 Pandemic did a lot of things, but what it did was make Murosky’s behavior worse. It became very obvious that Tom is an anti-vaxxer and since the pandemic has been very vocal against wearing masks and receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.

Irregardless of how you feel about the subject matter, I think it should be pretty clear that Murosky has no respect for his audience when it comes to separation of concern. It’s clear he understands that people who expect a certain type of content go to a specific channel for it (why else does he have 6 YouTube channels?!). But this is something else entirely and often when he reads these stories, his behavior becomes overwhelmed by his emotions and more erratic.

The CDC Strikes Back

I am not a medical professional. If you require life saving treatment or vaccinations, please consult your doctor, not me, nor Murosky.

One of his most prolific incidents was when YouTube gave Murosky a strike. Now to be fair, he has gotten strikes for other videos like say a certain home media software (Kodi) or ways Linux Mint lets people watch TV (Hypnotix), those were totally dumb and YouTube was making stupid YouTube decisions. What I’m about to cover is what I believe one of the biggest blunders of his channel.

In this famous video now banned from YouTube, he reviews a chart of deaths reported to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Effect Reporting System (VAERS). He got a strike because pointed out that the rise in deaths of VAERS in 2021-2022 meant you shouldn’t get vaccinated.

And of course to defend his terrible beliefs after taking his Linux-using viewers for a ride, he claims he’s a former biochem teacher.

I am more qualified to talk about the science than I am about the Linux by the way. If you guys jumped on who don’t know this channel, I have a doctorate in Integrated Biological Sciences.

Switched to Linux, “Vaccine Passports are Coming to the USA” 9:44

I tried looking into his history to find out why he left Bucknell University and University of Wyoming, which got me curious because he’s very slippery about it on his boomer websites if you try looking into it:

I bring this up because as someone who was never a biochem teacher for a college, I can say with confidence Tom’s reaction proves his ignorance and why he only sees what he wants to believe.

The very page on the CDC website, which Murosky claims YouTube gave him a strike over despite it being a CDC website shows he doesn’t know how to read a chart. If you just skim the page, you see the rise in deaths in 2021, which Tom links to the COVID-19 vaccines. Unless you read the small print that is, which is included in the video showing the deaths in the chart were not necessarily caused by the vaccine, it’s just what’s reported.

There’s a classic saying in science “correlation does not imply causation” and coming to the conclusion Murosky did is just that. You can have all the fancy biology or chemistry degrees in the world, I don’t care if he has them or not. Murosky has the worst data comprehension skills and is blinded by his political bias. I didn’t need a biochem degree to read small print under a graph Tom! What a great model for how people perceive Linux users!

Then he segues into a sponsor. Totally sponsor friendly content! Just get vaccinated, this shouldn’t even be up for debate or part of discussion with a Linux channel. Don’t involve yourself into explicit political content when your main content is expected to be anything but.

About the VAERS Index

The Hate Machine

Let’s dive into the most problematic part of Tom’s channels—the continued demonization and disrespect of queer communities or individuals. While he has not been open about this is on YouTube, he is much more vocal about this on his other platforms: Odysee, Rumble and Bitchute and his Matrix.

Believe it or not, some of that hatred has slipped through the cracks to YouTube. The first was the split of elementary OS (that also may or may not be reaction content to a similar Bryan Lunduke article). One thing Murosky constantly brings up is the fact that Danielle Foré, the current owner, is a trans woman who “reached her final form as a gay trans atheist commie.” It’s rich when he has to spend the rest of the video to lay out reasons why he doesn’t care. If you don’t care, you wouldn’t have bothered to tell anybody.

At first, it’s puzzling why Murosky continues to bring this up, for example, he does again at the beginning of another video about elementary. Then it becomes clear why Murosky mentions this all the time: he’s only interested in the politics. Nowhere in this post is Danielle’s status as a trans woman brought up anywhere in the posts, yet continues to bring up her original coming out Tweet. He totally doesn’t care that Danielle is trans guys, he just has to spend the entire rest of the video justifying it with outright hypocrisy, complaining about the Atlantic, and reading the Tweet’s replies to get to ad revenue mark.

So regardless of the person’s political ideology or who they like to go to bed with, it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t and it shouldn’t matter to you either.

Switched to Linux, “Elementary OS Is In Trouble” 9:24

The ensuing Matrix chat also baited Murosky to deadname Foré. Checkmate.

Official response from Danielle

It becomes more clear when we get into the worst video I have ever seen from a Linux content creator. Murosky made a video about people complaining about openSUSE’s subreddit, where if you hover over the home screen during Pride Month 2023, it changed the SUSE gecko to the colors mirroring a rainbow flag.

Normal people would see this and move on with their lives, but not Murosky. Uncharacteristically, he uploads a secret video to Odysee, Bitchute, and Rumble telling his audience to boycott openSUSE. I say a “secret video,” because this video was never cross-posted anywhere else or mentioned on any social network. Not on X (Formerly Twitter), Mastodon, not even his Gab, a social network for literal hate groups.

Did you know it’s impossible to find things on new Twitter, Murosky enlisted his followers to dig up the Tweet just to prove me wrong. That’s it, my career is ruined guys!

The video entails Murosky playing read aloud with a Bryan Lunduke post, which Lunduke himself is reading from a page on the SUSE mailing list. There are a chain of people furious that someone dared to color a gecko in rainbow colors and the openSUSE devs are playing damage control. One of the SUSE board members, Atilla Pinter, suggests that the people complaining could make some cute Christmas or Kwanza-themed gecko artwork. If they don’t want to contribute and are just there to complain, the developers tell them that they will be “cut off like the rotten flesh they are.” The dissenters start getting angry before the SUSE developers, rightly, tell these hateful whack-jobs using burner accounts to take a hike since they are only interested in stirring up trouble rather than contributing.

Of course, Murosky loses his mind:

If you are using openSUSE, you should delete it now and go tell them you’re you are a hateful, abusive, excluding, intolerant community and I am going to leave you… [openSUSE is] pushing politics—that’s not inclusive. That’s exclusive because you’re telling me that if somebody does not like those particular politics they are excluded.

Switched to Linux, “OpenSUSE Hates Half the World” 16:01

And he repeatedly says he doesn’t care, but I don’t buy that. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t be making a video of this at all. The fact is Murosky intentionally omitted this video from his YouTube and his alt social media platforms is telling. He knew how moderation boards would respond to the kind of content in this video. He knows that this behavior is perceived as exclusive and hateful. Because it is.

This behavior should not be tolerated by anybody is any community. Free and open source software is all about users and communities having the freedom to do what they want with their software. But along come people like Murosky and his community. They’re crass, insensitive people who tell them their existence and way of life is invalid. They complain that free and open source software is getting too “political” by all the “woke SJWs.”

I got some news that shouldn’t surprise anyone—free software was always political. Something will always be political to someone. Any time someone says “keep politics out” is a code word for “I don’t like what you believe and you don’t deserve the ability to express your identity.” The irony with these statements is somebody whining about someone’s “politics” is completely contradictory to the goal of free and open source software. It’s someone’s right to operate their project however they want and complaining like this is like suggesting their freedoms should be taken away. If you discriminate against someone for something that deserves to be protected, like their race, orientation, religion, status, or age, you will only get discrimination in return. There’s this thing you might have heard about a child, it’s called respect, so give it out to everyone.

The Matrix

Part of the reason I released my script early was I knew Murosky would respond with his emotions and nitpicks rather than address any of my core arguments. What I didn’t anticipate is a large number of people who spoke out in that post are Murosky supporters, whose names can be cross referenced with the Matrix and in his videos’ comments. Since YouTube doesn’t have a good way to follow/monitor community posts, lots of his supporters jumped on my throat either in that post and on his Matrix’s general discussion.

Since the original release of the video, Murosky has locked the Matrix to registered Matrix users only and his supporters have rushed to delete comments. Links remain for archival purposes.

Unrelated footage of Solbu in a DistroTube Supporter Stream

Most telling of all, very few of these messages address the core arguments of my post. In fact, on Sunday, Feb 4th, 2024, Murosky published a photo containing the notes for the video. In those notes, he still fails to address a single criticism I had of him. I “forced a response,” but I’ll return to that later.

For the Bible Tells Me So

Among complaints in the Matrix, one of the complaints they had was my critique of the Bible. If you’d like the play that game Tom and gang, I’d be more than happy to. Some might question why I would even bother discussing the Christian reaction to theology at all.

I don’t believe it’s enough to call someone a bigot and move on. You may dismiss me as a member of left propaganda machine, but I don’t dismiss people’s views. I believe there’s a ton of nuance and whether you agree with it or not, I will be objective about this as possible. Murosky won’t, so I will. It goes both ways, we need to learn from each other.

As a whole, our society is much more nicer to minorities than it has ever been, but there’s still a long way to go. Queer people have liberties other people have taken away from them because of their beliefs. However, an important part about inclusiveness in discourse is making sure the majority isn’t uncomfortable in the wrong ways, because their voices matter too. Minority voices are important, but it’s also critical to protect majority groups from hatred too.

A point that I will defend Lunduke and Murosky on (shocking I know) is their criticism of a comment from Pinter. I don’t want to send hate his way, but this is lesson all developers in what not to say:

However, last I checked for example Christianity wasn’t facing much oppression in the world, and didn’t require much (if any) support.

Atilla Pinter, May 23, 2023

This comment is a pain point with both Murosky and Lunduke for good reason.

The Christian non-profit Open Doors documents the most dangerous countries to be a Christian today.

Incendiary comments like these will just make conflict between these people and maintainers worse. Murosky intentionally disrespects queer people because of his alleged “Christian” responsibilities and that’s what I believe is the root of the concern and problems. After pouring over theology books, getting a basic understanding of what was covered the Bible passages, I’ve come to the conclusion Murosky’s views of Christianity doesn’t reflect the Bible and are actively harmful to Christian representation.

The reason I’m going to the trouble is Murosky has 6 other YouTube channels, one of which is his “Christian” channel, Our Walk in Christ. In fact, just like his Linux channel, he chooses titles to instill negativity and almost feels like fear-mongering. He spends more time ranting about current events than he does actually reading the Bible or facilitating Christian discourse on camera.

The pastor might glean some information, and upon finding he’s a homosexual, a good pastor’s not going to say, “Get out of here, you f**!” He’s not going to do that. That would be wrong!

Our Walk in Christ, “Blessing to Same Sex Couples？ ｜ Daily Walk 343” 5:20

How do real Christians respond to LGBT+ people/issues then?

I get so tired of people throwing around the word “biblical” or the phrase “The Bible says…” when what they really mean is “I believe this and I believe that, and I’m going to rubber stamp my assumptions with the word biblical to show that my beliefs are correct. And if you disagree, you’re a heretic.”

I was sitting next to a Christian on an airplane and the topic of homosexuality came up. “The Bible is very clear,” he said. “Homosexuality is a sin.”

“Which passages?” I inquired.

“Huh?”

“Which passages are very clear?” I repeated.

“Well…you know…the Bible is clear!!”

I didn’t know why he kept raising his voice, as if a louder “it’s CLEAR!” would somehow cause verses to pop out of his mouth. After I kept pressing, he admitted that he couldn’t name one. He knew his view was correct; indeed, it was biblical—“the Bible is veryclear”—yet he didn’t know where, or why, or how, or how often the Bible mentions, let alone prohibits, same-sex relations.

I never want to be that guy on the plane. I never want my assumptions to be codified with an empty and lazy use of the word “biblical.”

But even if we do know what the Bible says and where it says it, we still need to do the hard work of interpreting the Bible in its own ancient context and applying it to a culture 2,000 years removed from that context.

The debate is not about what the Bible says. The debate is about what it means.

Every gay person I know has read Leviticus 18, Romans 1, and the other homosexuality passages. They’ve been beaten over the head with these texts so many times that they could never forget their words. This is why it’s belittling and naïve when people simply quote these passages as if no one’s ever heard them before. w

We’ve got to go beyond mere quotation and move to interpretation.

Preston Sprinkle “5 Bad Reasons for Believing that Homosexuality Is a Sin”

Now before I continue, please understand I’m grossly oversimplifying a lot of this and there’s a ton of nuance to the discussion, both from queer Christians and heterosexual/non-affirming Christians (Christians who do not endorse queer practices). I decided to ask some of my Christian friends for resources about how Christians respond to the queer community (because if I don’t narrow it, we will be here forever). Most of what I say is from the book Living in a Gray World, A Christian Teen’s Guide to Understanding Homosexuality by Preston Sprinkle, but I think he provides an interesting perspective.

As a note, I was not sponsored, contacted by Sprinkle, nor paid money for this book. Instead, I’ll state I borrowed it from a “library” and Sprinkle’s book contains passages from the book of Genesis.

So, yeah, far before that guy’s ever heard of Preston Sprinkle, I’ve known who Preston Sprinkle is.

Switched to Linux, TTOR “The TTOR Show S4E6: SwitchedToLinux Discusses Trafotin Live!” 1:52:01

The first thing that will become apparent about Sprinkle is he does not believe the beliefs of the LGBT+ community are compatible with Christian belief. In fact, Sprinkle goes as far to say maybe the gap between Christians and the queer community has grown wider because of the hate (intentional or otherwise) from people who have pushed them away from the Church. The dominant view is homosexual attraction is not a sin, but acting on those feelings (porn, marriage, dating, etc) is. The primary reason is according to Sprinkle, is the inability to procreate and alternate relationships are unable to recouncile 2 different sexes. However, queer Christians offer a unique perspective on sexuality that straight relationships don’t have, even when some choose to marry someone of the opposite sex or remain single. Sprinkle has a weekly podcast where he interviews lots of queer Christians and how pastors handle inclusivity. Listening to their discussions is a really great way to hear someone else’s story.

On trans representation in the Church, the practice of transitioning is generally dissuaded, but many churches have adopted different approaches to including transgender people who have already transitioned into their congregations. Some examples is offering family style bathrooms, referring to people by their preferred pronouns and names, or permitting someone who’s trans to serve in a church community. In many ways, the sense I get out of it is the “what’s done is done, we only care about you now” kind of deal. A true Christian would never force someone to detransition, they meet everyone where they are.

You cease being attacted to the same sex… There are many evidences of conversion therapy being effective.

Switched to Linux, TTOR “The TTOR Show S4E6: SwitchedToLinux Discusses Trafotin Live!” 1:50:31

Most people will likely hear Sprinkle’s rejection of homosexual relations and compare it to Murosky’s hateful tirades, but Sprinkle and Murosky couldn’t be more different. This aspect is important because the love the Bible demands out of Christians to everyone, irregardless of walk of life. For people who are Christian, just because people respect someone, it doesn’t mean they approve of their practices.

The way I would explain it is this: I don’t use Windows, but that doesn’t excuse me if I go around belittling Windows users or telling them that they’re losers for allowing Microsoft to slurp up all their data (some people don’t have a choice). The same is true for members and allies of the queer community. I try my best to refer to be people by their preferred pronouns and accepting them, no matter where they are because it’s treating them kindly and it’s the right thing to do. And this mentality is true of Christians; they may not approve of the practice(s), but they will try their best to show the same kind of love and respect. Showing someone love and respect isn’t about approving of their practices, it’s showing someone you’re listening.

What about the Bible?

I can summarize some books and run my mouth, that wouldn’t be enough. Instead, I want to actually read the Bible. What does the Bible say about queer identities? What does it say about how Christians are called to love others?

The answer is not very interesting—there’s nothing. The Bible never addresses modern issues with gender identity or sexual orientation at all. People will point to popular verses in Leviticus, Sodom and Gomorrah, or Romans, but none of these are truly applicable.

There’s also many more factors and unknowns that prevent anybody from knowing and anyone who claims to know (Murosky in this case) is wrong or is trying to deceive people. Scientists believe it is genetic (less likely, but a real possibility), the nature/nurture aspect of growing up, but undeniably deeply important to someone’s sense of self, even within gender norms. Telling someone that they are “confused” or they need conversion therapy is rejecting the sociological aspect of gender identity.

  • Genesis discusses God creating male and female and many people will use this to justify outcasting queer people. However, from a Christian perspective, the Fall (when man and woman first sinned) means that there’s many more factors and questions that need to be asked. By the result of the original sin, gender dysphoria is a result. Genesis never seeks to addresses the question of identity or orientation.
  • Leviticus is not applicable because there are over 600 different laws within Jewish Law, some of which Jewish people do not practice to this day. Things like “clothes of only one type of fabric” or “offering burnt sacrifices” of doves or sheep is not widely practiced. Laws like these were never about what they were telling people to do, but rather consider why they do them.
  • Sodom and Gomorrah’s sin was never specified as homosexuality or anything beyond “wickedness.” People make this argument because as Lot and his family are leaving Sodom, some of the city’s men approach them and threaten to rape him and his daughters. In this case, rape is the sin as these men were far more likely to be “straight” given the culture. Rape was/is means someone who seeks to cause harm dominates someone, no matter their gender or sexuality.
  • Another commonly cited verse is Romans 1, where the Apostle Paul references the sin of men and women of “shameful lusts” with each other. Once again, this passage does not address queer relationships in the contemporary stance. What Paul is referring to is common sexual practices becoming a form of idolatry, which is also applicable to heterosexual relationships.

The most popular Bible, at least in terms of print and sales in the English-speaking world, is the New International Version (NIV). There are many types of Bibles and to my understanding, translation is largely the same. Unfortunately, Murosky also has a narrow viewpoint within his little bubble and believes the only Bible you can read is the ones he chooses of course! What’s his reason?

the use of gender accurate language. [Murosky turns into the Munch painting]

Our Walk In Christ, “The Legacy Standard Bible (John MacArthur)” 7:33

Here we go again…

And I got a really harsh news for you guys. Jesus was a white man. Maybe that’s why [liberals hate] white men, you know? Because He was a Jew. And Jewish people, while they have slightly darker complexion, they are by no means as dark as an African person, as dark as a typical Native American. They are not even as dark necessarily as a typical, you know, Mexican.

Our Walk In Christ, “Christians in the World | Daily Walk 345” 1:12

Since Murosky lacks basic research and reading comprehension skills, we’re going to ignore him and dive into the Bible ourselves with the NIV.

28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:28-31 (NIV)

Love here doesn’t refer to sexual/romantic love, but unconditional, beneficent love required of Christians. This also a quote from Jewish Law.

There’s not much difference in the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) Murosky endorses either.

28 And when one of the scribes came and heard them arguing, he recognized that He had answered them well and asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; 30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:28-31 (LSB)

I don’t think you need to be an expert in English to understand this. That’s right, the most important command in the Bible is to love God and love your neighbor as yourself (there’s a nuance in the original Hebrew that allows Jesus to lump these together). And when He says the greatest, that includes laws like rejecting homosexuality. That’s right.

If you read the Bible, Jesus says you have to respect and love people first and telling someone their very way of being is offensive and invalid doesn’t seem like a way to spread love to me. You don’t have to agree with what everyone says, I certainly don’t. Be kind. But you could say I didn’t read the Bible because I’m just a small time tech creator. A friend of mine pointed me to this passage, another example of the kind of love Jesus is looking for:

12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

John 15:12-13 (NIV)

Jesus says here loving someone isn’t your beliefs. It isn’t your sexuality or gender identity. It’s making sacrifices to be the best friend you possibly can. That means respecting anyone, regardless of their beliefs. That means we respect people by referring to them by their preferred pronouns. That means inviting people into a community that includes them. That means I shouldn’t even have to resort to going down this rabbit hole so it doesn’t look like I’m attacking him for his religious beliefs.

Can I get an amen in the comments?

Resources to Learn More About Christianity:

The Villain Backstory

Murosky doesn’t accurately present technology very well. He lacks basic reading comprehension and research skills. He’s a bigot who doesn’t understand the Bible. But it’s all far worse than that: he’s been through a rough childhood. It might sound like I’m making this up, but there’s actual evidence: Murosky’s self-published books.

Now given everything I said about Murosky, I don’t recommend purchasing his books and I didn’t buy them either. But remember that ONLYOFFICE video? The document Murosky covers is his book Half My Life: How Jesus Conquered My Soul and if slow down the video, you too get a free book preview of the first 70 or so pages, courtesy of Murosky himself.

The basic gist is this (the timeline might be messed up):

  • Tom grew up with his brother, his mom, and his biological dad in the Lake Erie area.
  • Murosky’s biological father was abusive and abused his mother.
  • Murosky’s mother eventually decided to run away with him and his brother and they stay with a family friend and complete their move to Meadville, Pennsylvania.
  • His mother meets a man named Michael who pays for their move to Nevada, and the Murosky family decides to leave again, and they move away to Reno, Nevada.
  • Murosky repeatedly describes his childhood and sixth grade years as lonely with many of his childhood friends moving away or being “teased incessantly to no end.”
  • Murosky converted to his perverted version of Christianity around age 20.
  • Murosky would have entered grad school at Penn State later, given he submitted at least 1 of his doctorate papers in 2007.
  • Murosky signs the anti-social justice pledge.
  • Murosky starts at Bucknell University during this time and leaves in 2009 to start at University of Wyoming.
  • In 2010, Murosky starts Think Life Media and Western Mountain Web Design as a means of self-employment.
  • Around this time, Murosky starts publishing his sci-fi and Christian books under Our Walk In Christ LLC and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.
  • Murosky moves to Pennsylvania again some time between then and starts Switched to Linux in early 2016.
  • Murosky fully moves to a van and leaves Pennsylvania in 2021.

One of the reasons I think Murosky moved to a van is he’s a lonely guy who’s had to bounce from place to place. It’s a life he’s used to, but it’s also an incredibly sad existence. There’s nothing wrong with living in a van; it’s a common past time for retired folk across America and can genuinely bring freedom and happiness. Becoming a legal nomad and RV life is also one of the few ways to achieve maximum privacy in the United States. But becoming a nomad has only increased Murosky’s insensitivity as he interacts with less people. Seeing how unstable Murosky is the moment something political happens, it can’t be healthy. There’s nothing wrong with a nomadic lifestyle, but Murosky’s van life has only made him more insular to the sensitivities of others.

If anything, I think his channel has really good search engine optimization, but he hasn’t evolved past the hurt in life. He doesn’t take the time to learn new things. He can’t even get facts about his own religion right. Anybody with this kind of trauma in their life and the inability to feel settled down deserves some sympathy. That being said, it’s clear from early videos in Switched to Linux that Murosky will not change. His channel format is mostly the same it was 7 years ago, heck, the intro of his videos is exactly the same! His channel has so much potential, but it’s held back because of Murosky’s brokenness as a human being.

Just because Murosky had a traumatic childhood doesn’t excuse the amount of misinformation and disrespect he lets circulate through the internet. He knows his behavior is hateful and it’s time to learn what the real world is like Tom and we’re going to pull you back in. You’re not being suppressed because of views, people are genuinely and naturally put off by your unhealthy behavior.

Murosky’s Online Career Needs to End

I’ve covered a lot of topics today, but what can we do about it? The easiest thing you can do is stop watching his videos and unsubscribe if you are. Report the hate content in his videos that slips through the cracks on YouTube. Start spreading the word and let everyone know that this man is ruining the Linux community, and he needs to be stopped. Look up “how to switch to linux” on YouTube, he’s the first result. We need to turn this around.

The Credits Are Fake

I own that there are names in my list that are not accurate as I have not updated my credits in a while… I just want to pass along that three more vids have the old credits then I am removing all the credits going forward after that.

Switched to Linux

I mentioned in the first draft of this post that other content creators are involved. I actually watch videos all the way through, including Patreon title crawls. I always want to see how I can improve my own content. However, with Murosky, it’s different. I was watching the title crawl to see exactly who supports his channel and I can explain some of it.

Many of the people I mentioned in the first draft of the document revealed a possibility I never considered. Murosky has failed to update his supporter credits at all. Perhaps the worst thing of all was TechHut, yes that TechHut, was giving to Murosky at one point, but stopped. Murosky has been featured on TechHut’s videos before and TechHut has signal boosted his videos in the past.

But what are the consequences? Since Murosky never updated his credits, TechHut’s name appeared on Tom’s awful videos and TechHut is not currently paying him! Once again, Murosky has been caught with his pants down in the poor production quality of his videos. But this is worse than that. Murosky’s failure to update the credits means anyone whose name appeared on the credits who wasn’t paying him is now effectively grounds for libel for “supporting” Murosky’s hate content!

The Aftermath

Let’s talk about how Tom handled the paper draft. He rallied his community to “conduct research” on me, attempting to email Brodie Robertson and TechHut is nice touch. It’s almost like he’s trying to leverage those internet points have to take down an opinion—an opinion that shatters the ivory tower of self-righteousness he built.

One of the points Murosky is sure to bring up is that I’m just a bully. I made a “hitpiece” on DistroTube after all, a point he tries to justify to his Matrix people! When you consider how his community responds to criticism and his behavior of this situation, that sounds more like something a bully would do. A bully who can’t take any advice, hates the queer community, and knows his only weapon is arousing emotion, especially to the politically motivated.

You don’t scare me Tom. You can’t blame me for all of your problems.

  • Come back when you actually learn how to conduct research.
  • Get some professional help, take a break from YouTube, and go fix your life.
  • Get a community of people who will hold you accountable for the crap you pull, not one that hates, blindly obeys, and you can whale for money.
  • Apologize to the queer community for making them feel unsafe, spreading hate, and dismissing their voices.
  • Apologize to Christians for misrepresenting them with your Christian nationalist agenda and turning people away from their faith.

But you don’t seem willing to apologize. I’ve read the Matrix group. I’ve listened to your angry bursts of rage. You’ve revealed your true colors and so has your community. You’re just that lonely kid who never grew up, the butt of jokes, and a bully filled with hurt. If you don’t change, that’s who you’ll be forever.

When you’re ready to apologize Tom, I will be the first to welcome you back. I’ll be watching and waiting, whether it’s tomorrow or 5 years from now. I expect everyone else to do the same as long as we can get the stage we all get along together. I’m angry, but I’m also saddened and disappointed that this has been allowed to fester for so long.

New Death Threats & His Mastodon

A Mastodon toot from Danielle Foré about the elementary OS team receiving death threats coinciding with a date of a video released by Tom Murosky reading: “If you’re gonna send me death threats please send them to me personally. Don’t bother elementary community members with this nonsense. It’s unfair to them to have to deal with the collateral”

In this video at 9:52, Murosky falsely asserts that Danielle is the only one working on elementary OS, when all he had to do was go to the GitHub and see all the volunteers. He also falsely claims that there were disagreements between Danielle and Cassidy James Blaede, who left because of his responsibilities with Endless.

Following this video, his followers sent death threats to the elementary team. While I have not seen the names or proof, the timing of the threats and Murosky’s video cannot be a coincidence.

No matter what Murosky will tell you, celebrate the fact he not only got his Mastodon banned, according to moderators, he failed to make a backup of his followers and data. He accused the Fosstodon staff of banning him over a livestream, but this document tells you the real reasons he got banned. Hilariously, he claimed on a livestream that he would think about moving to Disroot’s Pleroma instance, a socialist collective. What amazing research when he doubled down to defend Lunduke for harassing others in the same livestream.

Donations:

Out of respect for the queer community and Christians in my audience, I will try to keep the donation neutral as possible. As a result, all monetization and funds will be sent to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They’re a group of lawyers in the United States who continuously fight corporate/governmental overreach of technology and for your digital rights. They are a cause I believe in and I don’t hesitate to say no matter your station in life, you should support their work, it’s the least we can do.

Donate to the EFF

If you donate personally, you can also earn members cards, stickers, and merch. I will continue to update all of you on my donations this month.

Cut Content: Christian Nationalism

I originally planned a section on Christian nationalism and how it links to Murosky’s politics and religion. I left my notes and some resources below if anyone is interested.

  • Christian nationalism and his consumerist view of Christianity. It’s clear he only reads the Bible and tries to force it to fit his political beliefs.
  • Murosky’s views are very much oppose minorities, such as non-white ethnicities, the queer community, refugees, etc
  • Murosky’s beliefs form a persecution complex
  • The lack of correction/redaction may point to toxic masculinity
  • Loyalty to conservative politics/figures (Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, etc) despite anti-Biblical practices. Other iterations might be the same for liberal Christians who contradict general Orthodox beleifs about the Bible truths (e.g. abortion), but this has yet to be researched.
  • Christian nationalism is about as Biblical and Christian as Christian science
  • Taking Back America For God by Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry
  • The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, a podcast about how Christian nationalism and toxic masculinity destroyed a megachurch in Seattle.