|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
I take great pride in my libertarian roots. For example, when social conservative politicians sought to impose a gay marriage ban in my home state, I made it abundantly clear government had no business defining marriage. That’s up to churches, not the state.
I’ve also been stalwart in my defense of equal protection under the law – ardently opposing discrimination by the government.
Individual liberty is at the very core of the American experiment. Accordingly, where consenting adults (and private dollars) are concerned, you will be hard-pressed to find me sanctimoniously moralizing against anyone.
“People should always be free to make choices about who they want to be – even if those choices are in a state of flux,” I recently wrote. “If you want to identify as a man, woman – or doorknob – that’s your right. I have always sought to acknowledge the ‘fluidity’ certain people feel about their gender – to the extent some people identify with a particular gender at all.”
But there are clear lines in the sand – especially as it relates to fundamental fairness. And especially as it relates to our children.
Unfortunately, America’s manifest “woke” destiny has become less about inclusion and more about … well, exclusion. And indoctrination. In contrast to their stated objectives, these twin pillars of the new progressive orthodoxy are hellbent on eroding freedoms people fought for generations to obtain.
But they are also hellbent on eroding something even more sacred than that: Youth … and innocence.
***
In recent months, my media outlet has been devoting additional bandwidth in my home state of South Carolina to an ongoing battle between left-of-center indoctrinators and conservative elected officials, a handful of whom are fighting to block this steady erosion. Specifically, I have focused on a fight between the S.C. Association of School Librarians (SCASL) and the new, conservative leadership at the S.C. Department of Education (SCDE).
As I noted in a recent piece, “SCASL landed in hot water earlier this year when it decided to assail any attempt by parents to remove wildly inappropriate/ hyper-sexual/ gender confusing materials from school libraries as some sort of discriminatory book-banning campaign.”
Parents are now pushing back – not only against the materials their children are being exposed to but the false narrative that they are somehow “banning books.” One of the leaders of this fight? Carly Carter, chairwoman of the Anderson County chapter of the Moms for Liberty organization. Carter recently launched a statewide petition website entitled ‘Clean Up SC Schools’ which is endeavoring to have “vulgar and sexually explicit material removed from school libraries.”
Another parent leading the pushback is Maggie Marlow, founder of United Parents of South Carolina (UPSC) – a group which aims to equip parents who are willing to take a stand for their children with the information they need to do so.
(My media outlet focused on Carter’s group in this recent report, and on Marlow’s group in this recent report).
Earlier this month, Marlow posted something to her Facebook page that caught my eye. She posted images of several pages from a book entitled All Boys Aren’t Blue by woke author/ activist George M. Johnson.
Take a look (and please be forewarned, these pages contain graphic descriptions of explicit sexual content including underage fellatio and sodomy) …
(Click to View)
(Via: Facebook)
This book isn’t new to our audience. Our special projects director Dylan Nolan filed a report on it last January after it was discovered on library shelves at Irmo High School – a government-run school located just northwest of the state capitol in Columbia, S.C.
The question is … what is it still doing on high school shelves in South Carolina?
The content on these pages runs explicitly counter to S.C. Code of Laws § 16-15-305 et seq, which expressly forbids the dissemination of obscene material to minors. Sadly, “Republican” state lawmakers refuse to enforce the statute – and allow schools to avail themselves of an educational “exemption” to keep this porn in our schools.
As Nolan noted in his report, the Young Adult Library Services Association (a division of the American Library Association) put this book at the top of its Teens’ Top 10 book list in 2021. This is one of the lists which guides schools in their book purchasing decisions.
Clearly, South Carolina libraries have stocked it liberally … and parents are having no luck getting it pulled down.
In Beaufort and Charleston counties, for example, school boards within the last month have voted against removing All Boys Aren’t Blue from the library shelves of schools within the district.
(Click to View)
“Please tell me whether you believe this should be in our public school libraries for our minor children to go and read with out our consent,” she wrote.
Speaking as a father of seven (soon to be eight) children – including several who attend government-run schools here in the Palmetto State – my unequivocal answer to that question is not only “no,” not only “hell no” – but “hell f*cking no.”
Seriously … what are these educrats thinking?
Or … are they just too busy enjoying these titles themselves to think about what they are doing?
This is adult content, period. It should not be accessible to children under any circumstances. And it sure as hell shouldn’t be accessible to children at taxpayer expense – without parental consent.
So … why is it there?
It is there because this isn’t just about porn – it’s about propaganda. It’s about institutional grooming … it’s about amplifying the programmatic woke onslaught being mainlined into our children’s minds via their smart phones, tablets and televisions 24/7/365. It is there because the elites pushing that onslaught it want it to be there – influencing our kids without us knowing about it or being able to stop it. And it’s there because South Carolina’s “Republican” leaders have shown zero backbone in having it removed. They’ve also – for the most part – sat blithely by while parents were demonized for raising objections.
***
RELATED | SCHOOLS CHIEF BLASTS ‘WOKE’ PROPAGANDISTS
***
According to Marlow, she and her fellow parents are trying to get these books “removed from our public school libraries, not banned, just removed so minors don’t have access to lewd and explicit content or sexual material.”
“No banning,” she wrote. “Just removal from our tax(payer)-funded schools.”
Seriously … no one is banning Johnson’s book. You can buy it on Amazon if you want. You can even buy it for your kid if you want. All I’m saying is don’t make other people pay for you to read it. And don’t expose it to other people’s children without their consent.
Want to learn about which books your kids are being exposed to? Thankfully, there are several resources available to parents who are eager to educate themselves on this indoctrination epidemic. One is Rated Books, which provides information on titles in the hopes of “protecting our children from this obscenity in public school libraries.”
“We present the evidence so that parents and schools may choose wisely, and choose to protect our vulnerable youth from the addictive stimulant, pornography as well as all other materials that are harmful to minors,” the website noted.
Again, I’m a libertarian. I’m no killjoy. I’ve been down with some crazy kink, as a matter fact. Even written about some of it. As long as there are no children, no animals and no clown masks involved, I’ll try pretty much anything twice. As I have often noted, I do not believe porn can (or should) be censored in a free society – so long as its production and consumption is confined to consenting adults. Hell, I’ve even called for decriminalizing prostitution in the Palmetto State in years past.
But porn in our K-12 schools? On the taxpayer dime? Without parental consent?
Again … hell f*cking no.
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.
***
WANNA SOUND OFF?
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to proactively address? We have an open microphone policy here at FITSNews! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.
9 comments
fEaRnEwS
It’s all the GQP has to run on. You want free thinkers? Let ’em read whatever the hell they want. If you want narrow-minded bigots, limit what they read and throw out anything that possibly might offend someone, somewhere. Oh wait, that’s what they want. Talk about “grooming” and “indoctrination”–that’s what the GQP is all about. Science=bad, Facts=Bad. Half-baked conspiracy theories? Oh yeah, that they’ll believe. If the GOP gets their way, public schools in America will be history. They don’t seem to get the fact that will turn the US into a third-world country. But as long as the billionaires aren’t taxed and the Christian Nationalists are in control, it’s good to them.
You aren’t a libertarian. Every time you say that you just sound silly.
He thinks it makes him sound smarter to say that given the collective low IQ of the GQP. It doesn’t.
Those advocating to keep these books in schools with minors are nothing short of groomers, enablers or child abusers. Take your pick. Calling it book banning, call it fascism, call it whatever the hell you want but they do not belong in school libraries. PERIOD. School boards and lawmakers refusing to do something about this need to be tarred and feathered.
You are enabling actual groomers and child abusers by advocating false information. Children are more likely to be abused by a family member or close family friend than a teacher. Most child abusers are male too. Wouldn’t be nice for there to be a book available for a student to understand what could be happening to them so they could report it? Your comments shift the focus from where a child is most likely to be abuser to people who are trying to provide content to a community. So if you’re so concerned about what children are reading. Here’s an idea. Parent.
So let me ask you do you honestly believe a book talking about one boy shoving his dick in to ass of another boy is appropriate literature in a school library?. The book is even rated as adult content not rated for minors. Is that really that hard to understand? People have lost their f’ing minds….
To destroy western society and remove all its evil the first thing that must be destroyed is the family unit.
I call it fascism. Book banners should be burned alive.