Dearborn, Michigan - Parents in a Michigan suburb are taking legal action against their children's public school for allowing sexually explicit books into the school library, despite repeated calls for their removal.
The Dearborn Public School board was notified of the lawsuit during a Department of Education meeting on Monday night, where parents in the predominantly Muslim community expressed outrage over the board's approval of books that feature "pornographic" content in the K-12 student library.
The lawsuit comes one month after an October meeting was cut short by school administrators when a group of angry parents first confronted the board with their concerns, questioning the school's process for determining if a book is appropriate for the school library.
"These aren't simply books about LGBTQ issues, which is what the left would like to claim," prominent critical race theory opponent Christopher Rufo told "America Reports" on Tuesday. "They are pornographic, very explicit, they go into kind of X-rated sexual detail in many cases, and these are available in public school libraries, targeting kids as young as elementary school."
Rufo has spent the last several months closely documenting the battle among parents who are seeking to have more autonomy over the education of their children. From Virginia to Utah to Michigan, Rufo said the pushback by parents fighting for appropriate reading material in school libraries is more of a "common sense" issue than a political one.
"It’s actually not Democrat-Republican anywhere in the country. Most parents are pretty common sense. They want to have a wide diversity of books, covering a range of topics, they want to show respect for everyone in the classroom, regardless of sexual orientation, but these are sexually explicit and pornographic books, often with very graphic depictions of sexual activity," Rufo said. "This is just not appropriate, and it’s certainly not a book ban to say we don’t want pornography targeting young children in elementary schools."
"The question is for the left," he continued. "Why do they want pornographic books being exposed to children? We should flip the script, ask them the hard questions and see how they defend themselves."
The Dearborn school district implemented a new book policy in October that allows parents to opt their children out of certain books. But most parents took issue with this approach.
Rufo encouraged other parents to continue to speak up "with courage and without fear" to protect the education of America's youth.
"Conservatives need to stand strong with the simple message [that] parents are the ultimate arbiters of the education for their children," Rufo said. "They should be in power over the schools, over the legislative bodies. This is the heart of our democracy, and we have to make sure that parents can determine what is appropriate and inappropriate regarding their children, especially in the youngest grades."
"As the voters, the parents, we get to decide what’s taught to the kids, and there are examples all over the country," he added. "You have to attack this with courage and without fear."
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Parent complaints continue to rush in following a Utah law's ban on allegedly "pornographic" or "indecent" content in K-12 public school libraries, chalking up a total of 280 removal requests since the policy took effect in May.
"The numbers provide a first glimpse at how the controversial law on sensitive materials in schools is playing out," author Courtney Tanner wrote in The Salt Lake Tribune Monday.
The Republican-backed policy, which instructs school systems to remove books containing inappropriate content – written or illustrated – from libraries and classrooms, garnered criticism for alleged censorship and follows suit of a wave of conservative parental concerns over allegedly pornographic or mature-themed books found in public schools across America, but the state's Deputy Superintendent Angela Stallings says the incidents reported across districts in Utah are exclusive to junior high and high schools.
"I read a lot in the press that we’re banning books, or we’re burning books," state Sen. John Johnson, R-Utah, who supported the policy, said, according to The Tribune.
"But I really feel strongly that we have an obligation to protect the innocence of children," he added.
Eighty-four of the titles parents lashed out against were removed from their respective school libraries, while 63 others were placed behind the counter, requiring students to get parental permission to check out the books, according to Stallings, the Tribune reported.
One hundred and twenty-two other books contested by parents remain on shelves after review, with some awaiting review before districts take further action.
"Most of the concerns — 83% — came from parents. Another 17% were from school staff or a member of a district’s school board," Tanner wrote.
According to the outlet, a majority of the books that sparked outrage focused on hot button issues, including LGBTQ+ subjects, race and more.
Among those that were targeted for removal was the controversial graphic novel called "Gender Queer" which parents have previously condemned for containing sexually explicit images and referencing mature themes throughout, "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood and "Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel.
Republican state Rep. Ken Ivory, who sponsored the legislation to remove "pornographic" material from Utah schools, called upon outraged parents to address the issue, including Utah Parents United member Brooke Stephens, who lambasted the content as "very damaging" to students.
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SACRAMENTO, CA — Honest, hard-working small business owners across the country have shuttered their adult bookstores, citing the inability to compete with the vast network of school libraries offering an array of X-rated adult material to an entire generation of kids.
"There's just no keeping up with public school libraries," said Vinnie Plunk, owner of the now-defunct Crazy Vinnie's Adult Books And Thoughtful Gifts. "Our old die-hard creeps are dying off and all the young, vibrant creeps are working for the American Library Association and the American Federation of Teachers now. It's sad."
Plunk shook his head as he boarded up his store, expressing how difficult it was to compete with government institutions that used tax dollars to make smut freely available to all.
Another owner had tried changing his store's name from Salacious Adult Books to Thomas Jefferson Junior High School Library's Adult Books And Family-Friendly Dancing Drag Queen Emporium, but according to bankruptcy filings, the effort proved too little, too late.
At publishing time, school libraries had all introduced students to their new, dimly-lit pornographic-video rooms behind beaded curtains.
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Mussar Haskels:
1] Remember - giving your child an unfiltered phone and unfiltered Internet access is exposing them to the worst types of everything impure and evil.
2] This is the culture around us. We shouldn't be part of it.
