Because It’s Illegal

There are a number of us in my community who are working at improving our school district, trying to get more parent-responsive schoolboard members, trying to get more school choice, trying to get rid of SEL, CRT,and sexualizing materials from our schools. One person in the group pointed us to a video clip from a Michael Knowles show, in which Knowles highlights a dad in upstate New York who addresses his school board in an exemplary way.

 

Michael Knowles highlights a parent addressing a school board,
screenshot from here

The dad sets up a scenario: your 15-year-old daughter’s birthday party. Would you give her this particular book—it was Girl in Translation—and he reads a passage from it. [This book is in my school district's libraries, by the way.] The passage depicts a sex scene in graphic detail. Then he asks, in the same level, unemotional tone, would they give that book to their daughter? Would they read that to her? He notes that their reaction of revulsion shows they would not. And yet the book is in the schools for 10^th-graders, coinciding with that hypothetical 15-year-old daughter.

Then he read them the US Department of Justice’s statement on their website concerning laws on obscenity. He simply points out that having the book available to minors is in violation of the US code, implying to those with ears to hear that, if they don’t clear up this problem, they will be liable and should maybe lawyer up.

Here in Texas we’ve been working through the legislature—without success thus far—to eliminate the “obscenity exemption,” which allows images or descriptions that would otherwise be considered pornographic to be allowed for educational purposes. The intention of the exemption has been to allow diagrams, etc., for health science and sex education. But it has been used as a cover for anything; once a book is in the school, you call it educational, even if it would get you charged elsewhere.

Novels, including graphic novels, are not used for science and sex ed. In our school district, those particular books are disallowed from use for sex ed by the SHAC committee (school health advisory committee).

So this got me thinking: we don’t have to depend on getting rid of that obscenity exemption. The schools are already in violation of US federal laws against providing porn to minors. And they’re against the Texas code as well.

Maybe we could use this law approach to get rid of these books in schools—starting with speaking up at school board meetings. And I would assume that might need to be followed up with lawsuits—criminal prosecutions, or civil suits wherever local prosecutors fail to follow through with criminal prosecutions.

To that end, I’m looking at what could be said at school board meetings. And maybe this can be a template for parents of other school districts to use.

In our district, community members get typically two minutes to speak, so what I have below may need to be divided up for multiple speakers. I’ll be showing materials related specifically to my district. But the books mentioned are widely used across the country. You should be able to go to your school district website and find out what books are available in the libraries. And you should also be able to track down your district’s policies for getting obscene books removed from libraries.

So, consider what is below to be addressing the local school board.

 

The Law

Suppose some nefarious person decided to illustrate a classic piece of literature—let’s say a collection of Keats poetry—with pornographic images. Would the book qualify as literature because of the literary value of the poems? Or would it qualify as pornographic because of those images?

The answer is, literature does not elevate the pornography to the level of literature; the pornography degrades the otherwise inspiring poetry into a work of pornography.

This is a matter of law.

According to the US Department of Justice website, which I’ve included in your handout: 

“transmitting obscenity and child pornography, whether via the Internet or other means, is…illegal under federal law for both adults and juveniles.”

Obscenity is not protected speech under the First Amendment. Violations are criminal offenses. Also, the standard for what is harmful to minors may be different from the standard for adults, and offenders convicted of obscenity crimes involving minors face harsher penalties than if the crimes involved only adults. I suggest you read the statement in your handout.

Department of Justice information page on Obscenity

The Texas Penal Code, also in your handout, explicitly defines obscene as depicting “offensive representations of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated.” Also included are depictions or descriptions of other lewd acts. I’ll let you read the details.

Texas Penal Code 43:21

Note that none of these defined violations is allowed if you just couch it in enough non-sexual material. One example in one book is enough to be in violation of the law.

 

Process for Removing Obscenity from Schools

I understand that Cy-Fair ISD has a process called “Request for Formal Reconsideration of Library Materials,” which was updated in November 2022 and put into use January 2023. 

After identifying yourself and your relationship to the district, and the particular book in question, the first question on the request form is: 

“Have you reviewed the resources in their entirety? (If not, please do so before completing and submitting this form.)”

If a book is 150 pages long, and you’re reading through and find one example of explicit sex—which meets the statute’s definition of pornography—you do not need to read the remaining pages to know that the book contains material that should not be made available to minors.

If someone made a cake with excrement in it, would you require that a person eat the entire cake before they can speak to complain about the foul ingredient? If there is obscenity in it, it does not matter what else is in it; you cannot justify providing it to minors.

This is not merely an assumption. We have had brave parents who have read the materials in full, filled out all your forms for the formal request for reconsideration, and then patiently waited.

The chart included in your handout shows seven books that have been through the process. All of these contain multiple, pervasive examples of obscenity, some in written form, some in graphic illustrations. The examples are unmistakably inappropriate for children. But the response from the review committees, expressed by letter from the school principals, is that each of these examples is “educationally appropriate” and will be retained in the schools where our children can access them. I’m unaware of any obscene books that have been removed via this process.

The chart is a compilation of materials provided by Bethany Scanlon in multiple blog posts
at the Conservative CFISD volunteer blog, where there is a post for each of these seven books,
including multiple photos of examples from each book, as well as the letters of response.

This is not something we can agree to disagree on. It is illegal to provide pornography to minors. You are doing so. You have librarians who choose and acquire these books. You have committees of people justifying them—in private meetings without minutes, in violation of the open meetings act, despite the AG’s directive that you provide names and minutes.

These hidden committees seem to be misunderstanding the law. They disregard the obscenity, because they like the gritty realism, or they don’t think there’s enough to call it pervasive, or they offer some other justification.

These books do not qualify as sex ed; the district’s SHAC committee has ruled against using them for that purpose, so you cannot hide behind an obscenity exemption.

 

Damage to Children

Another question on your Request for Reconsideration form asks how we found the problem book, as if hearing about it from another community member is some sort of campaign you can ignore, and you only have to listen if our own child found it in the school, meaning damage is already done to our child.

Yet another of your questions asks what damage we see could result from the book—as if we have to come up, from scratch, with the arguments that led Congress to outlaw giving porn to children. We already know it does harm.

It is disingenuous for the proponents of providing pornography to children to claim we concerned parents are the book banners—as if we were trying to eliminate Huckleberry Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird from our libraries. We are not talking about First Amendment freedoms. We’re talking about illegal materials that we all know are harmful and cause trauma to children; that is why the laws are written to particularly protect children.

If the Cy-Fair ISD schools that have refused to remove these materials from their libraries are following your own policy requirements, they are providing the complaint, the book, and their response to the superintendent and the school board, which must mean the superintendent and school board can call into question the final decision. That also means this superintendent and school board can be held liable for breaking the law—in addition to the librarians and staff who procured the materials for the purpose of making them available to minors, and the principals who approved their retention.

Your process for reconsideration has provided evidence. Failure to immediately correct these serious errors puts you personally at risk of prosecution.

Local School-Related Irreconcilable Differences

Cy-Fair ISD school board meeting gets underway, April 11, 2022
screenshot from here

There's an action item at the bottom, so if you're in Texas, please don't miss that.

We have some irreconcilable differences in our school district. This month’s school board meeting was last Monday, April 11th. The public comment is where we see much of the conflict. There is one side that wants more power to the parents, more transparency, and less indoctrination and sexualization of our children. There is another side that wants to limit parent choice and to denigrate parent concerns.

Our school district is not unique in facing these differences. But what I want to emphasize is, this is not a problem seen elsewhere but not here in our backyard. It’s here.

School Board Member Concern

A friend passed along a blog post to me recently about some issues in our district. The blog post is anonymous. You can read it here.  Because I don’t know who wrote it, I can’t vouch for them. But I’ve read it and corroborated much of what is in it, and learned more to clarify a few things. 

A member of our school board recently joined a private group on Facebook of people in our community who have influence on what happens in our district. The group is called Cy-Fair Civic Alliance. Their description of the group says:

Cy-Fair Civic Alliance envisions a Cy-Fair ISD [Independent School District] that embraces the future, prioritizes an inclusive and equitable learning environment, and supports a diverse community where every child can thrive. Cy-Fair Civic Alliance works to engage, inform, and unite Cy-Fair ISD staff, parents, students, and taxpayers.

If you’re aware of the term “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (sometimes in different word order), then you can see why this is concerning. DEI is against diversity of thought, against equality of opportunity and instead favors equal outcomes, and excludes whoever they disfavor, which tends to be anyone with white skin, or possibly with Christian beliefs. This is an ideology spreading in businesses and institutions, like schools and governments. It’s often associated with ESG scoring, the social scoring system used in China.

The blog writer wanted to know what was going on in this group, so he/she joined, after answering several “progressive” questions. I wasn’t willing to answer those questions against truth, but I wondered what they were, so I went so far as to request membership, see the questions, and then withdraw the membership request. The questions are:

·        Please share your thoughts on diversity, inclusion, and equity in public education.

·        Why is Public Education important?

·        How do you see yourself contributing to this community? (Attending the board meetings, sending emails, sharing on social media, outreach, etc.)

It’s clear there is a certain viewpoint in the group. So when Cy-Fair ISD Board Member Julie Hinaman joined the group, she presumably answered those questions in a way that indicated she was in alignment with the group’s viewpoint.

welcome message for Julie Hinaman, 
posted on Cy-Fair Civic Alliance,
image found here

Hinaman was welcomed to the group with a post on November 9, 2021. The group was created November 4, 2021, immediately after the election in which three long-time school board members were replaced with what we hope are three members more aligned with parent values. It does appear that it was created in response to that school board changeout.

At the school board meeting last week, Hinaman was referred to as a founding member of Cy-fair Civic Alliance, which she denies. That might be a semantic difference; she joined during its first week of existence, but may not be a person involved in creating, or founding, the group.

One controversial issue that has come up with this group is their influence to reinstate in the Bridgeland High School library certain books that had been removed following parent concerns. The blog post includes screenshots of a book called Flamer, which was brought up by several citizens at the board meeting. It appears to be a graphic novel, and the samples shown in that blog post are particularly vile. They are sexually perverted in nature and involve minors. Clearly this violates the anti-pornography laws in place to protect young people.

So, to review, parents reported the content of these books to the school district (I don’t know to which entity), and some schools then removed the books from their libraries. CyFair Civic Alliance proudly announces in its Facebook group its success in getting the books placed back in the library at Bridgeland High School, where they had been removed. This post, by Tana Lam, is shown in the blog post, and was read during public testimony at the school board meeting.

During the meeting, Hinaman was accused of knowing about the content of the books in question, and knowing about Cy-Fair Civic Alliance’s personal contact with the librarian, making that decision to override parent concerns, and doing nothing about it.

CFISD Board Member Julia Hinaman, at the April 11 board meeting
screenshot from here

Later in the meeting Hinaman defends herself. She says,

I would like to correct a false statement made during public comments using my name…. While there is a board policy and a district process for reviewing library books, I have not been a part of the review process for any library book, because it is not part of my role of governance.

Regarding a Facebook group, I am a follower. I follow several different community groups across our community, just to stay in touch and to see what’s going on in our community. I am not involved in the management of that particular group that was mentioned. I am not a founder. And I’m unaware of the post that was referenced.

There’s a difference between “following” a group and being a member of a private group on Facebook. She had to join, and express her allegiance to the ideas of the group, so that’s a bit disingenuous.

Also, I haven’t seen her membership in any of the community groups I’m in, the kind that want to promote parents’ rights and school choice, for example.

About being unaware of the post that was referenced, that may be true, but it was testified to by multiple community members on both sides of the issue, so by this late point in the meeting she is aware of the post and of the involvement of the group for which she is a member. And by her very resistance to the parents calling her out, she is supporting the pornographic material being put back into the library. She could have expressed that she was unaware of the group’s involvement and then have added that she would not approve of such materials in our libraries, but she doesn’t do that.

On April 8, Cy-Fair ISD announced that Julie Hinaman had been elected to the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), “taking an interim position representing Region 4, Position F.”

During our district platform work, where we took the resolutions from precinct conventions to develop wording to pass along for the state platform, one of the most common education resolutions was a demand to cut ties with various organizations, of which TASB was mentioned specifically. The platform wording we came up with was,

Sever Ties: We insist that local ISDs immediately sever ties with organizations that have opposed parental rights and the voices of parents, particularly concerning CRT-related materials and the sexualization of the child as in the LGBT agenda. These include but are not limited to the HB3 Reading Academies, the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), the Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA), the Texas Association of Community Schools (TACS), the National School Boards Association (NSBA), the American Library Association (ALA), the Texas Library Association (TLA), and the International Baccalaureate Program (IBP), nor will we accept testing from the Next Generation Assessments and Accountability (NGAA).

Reasoning from the resolutions mentioned that TASB, among others, consistently lobbies against bills for parental rights and transparency, works with the National School Boards Association (NSBA) to label parents concerned with Critical Race Theory as domestic terrorists, and has worked to erode parental authority.

The SREC (State Republican Executive Committee) has also called out TASB for these issues.

In other words, being on TASB is not a reason to trust Julie Hinaman to represent parents in our district; it is a reason to distrust her.

Irreconcilable Differences

We can see that those who oppose parent values in our schools coincidentally favor books like those pornography examples we talked about. But they want, not only for those things to be in our schools; they want parents to have no place to go.

One of the public commenters at last week’s meeting called out the new board members, particularly Natalie Blasingame (not by name, but she’s the only new female board member), for having the audacity to suggest that underutilized campuses could be used for things parents want.

Dr. Tara Cummings, speaking at the April 11 school board meeting
screenshot from here

So, this was the testimony of Dr. Tara Cummings:

In response to the report [demographic report at Thursday’s work session], one of our trustees commented that she’s committed to making CFISD the very best choice for all families. I’m glad to hear that, but I’m a bit confused and concerned, considering some of the anti-public ed political candidates that she and our other new trustees have publicly endorsed.

Knowing that charter growth is a threat to our district and public education in general, it’s imperative that our trustees mind their votes accordingly, and that the community continue to pay attention to such.

This same trustee also stated in the future she hopes to see underutilized campuses “used for things families want.” Although I agree that the district must be judicious in making decisions about the facilities, our facilities now and in the future, the primary priority, and a factor that sets us far and above other educational options, especially charter and private schools, is the commitment to opportunity for all. The promise that all students, regardless of their zip code, campus, or circumstances are afforded exceptional and equitable educational opportunities.

Speaking of equitable, how ‘bout them equity audit recommendations? As a parent partner in education, which according to our new trustees makes me the primary stakeholder in education, what I don’t want is something along the lines of magnet-type programs. CFISD doesn’t need lotteries in order to provide a world-class education to every single one of our students. Opportunity for all means just that.

I’ve talked with Dr. Natalie Blasingame about what “used for things families want” might mean. She suggests that, if there were parents of 20 students that wanted, say, a particular track, maybe a Christian track, it would be possible—at no extra cost—to accommodate that choice. We simply use current facilities and willing current staff to fill the need.

While I am very pro-homeschooling, Blasingame wants the opportunity for the school district to try to meet the needs before a parent feels like they have to turn elsewhere.

Dr. Cummings here reveals a couple of divisive points. She claims, as though it’s common knowledge, that charter schools are a threat to public schools. Charter schools are public schools; they are a type of public school, with funding being part of public school funding; i.e., taxpayer funding.

Every student that goes to a charter school goes there because the public school they were assigned to failed to meet their needs—and because they were among the lucky ones to get a slot in a charter school, which the parents hoped would be a better option. The problem is, the waiting list for charter schools is long—too long. And we’re not getting enough new charter schools. Even though there is great demand, charter schools with proven track records, such as those coming out of Hillsdale College, are being refused a charter in Texas.

When Dr. Cummings says CFISD can “provide a world-class education to every single one of our students; opportunity for all means just that,” she doesn’t mean meeting the needs of all those students who have turned elsewhere because their needs aren’t met; she means she wants to keep them stuck in the failing situation along with everyone else that’s stuck there—so she can make sure all of the state’s education funding goes to indoctrinating them the way she wants.

Stacy DeMeier speaks at the school board
meeting on April 11,
screenshot from here

Another of last week’s public commenters, Stacy DeMeier, is what I refer to at times as a public school believer—like it’s a religion. And anyone who doesn’t agree with her is a heretic. She claims that charter schools are a threat. But, again, charter schools are public schools, just not her preferred sect. If the entire school system were changed so that all schools were charter schools, and parents chose the type they wanted for their child, public schooling would simply look different; it would not disappear. Funding might need to be restructured. Charters actually do cost more per child right now, unlike private and homeschools, which accomplish the goal at lower costs. But if there were a free-market deciding the costs, that could change everything for the better. But DeMeier doesn’t want better services at lower costs; she wants every child stuck in the type of classroom she believes in:

It’s pretty clear that if we, as a community, do not stand up to the recent attacks aimed at undermining public education, including book banning, false accusations of CRT in the curriculum, and the constant attacks on our teachers, then we will be left with a school district that is not receiving adequate funding it needs. We need to support pro-public education representatives. And we especially need board members who are not actively trying to take funds away from our district by supporting and publicly endorsing school choice voucher-loving politicians.

What she calls book banning is removing harmful pornographic materials from school libraries intended for minors. We’re not talking about depriving children from reading Huckleberry Finn for its depiction of racial issues, or Harry Potter because it mentions witchcraft; we’re talking about keeping out of school libraries actual pornography aimed at children. This used to be something parents and schools could agree on.

And there aren’t false accusations of CRT in the curriculum; there are actual examples of CRT ideology being taught—which have been presented in multiple previous school board meetings. I don’t know what she means by attacks on teachers, unless she means teachers who are going against the will of the parents and teaching things we’ve insisted not be taught. Such a teacher might feel “attacked,” if a parent calls for them to be accountable. But no, there are no physical or even verbal attacks on teachers, so that’s what you might politely call a mischaracterization—or, more accurately, a lie.

Ayse Endomayo speaks at the
school board meeting April 11,
screenshot from here

As for physical attacks, though, the person who bragged in that Facebook group about getting the book back in the library, Tana Lam—she reportedly attacked one of the parents—one of those testifying at this meeting and who regularly attends and testifies, Ayse Endomayo (sp?). According to Endomayo's testimony, this happened a couple of months ago outside the meeting. There was a police report filed. The school board has been made aware of it. And yet this person has been allowed to go into a school library and get pornography put back in.

So, what is a heretic in DeMeier’s public school religion? Someone who supports choice for parents who want their children’s needs met without indoctrination or sexualization of the child.

We are at an impasse. As parents, grandparents, and concerned community members, we’d better push harder than the public school religion inquisitors. And we’d better do it now. Because the harm to our children is already being done. The next school board election isn’t until 2023. We need better from our board now.

Call to Action

One more thing. The Texas Education Association (TEA) has, at the direction of Governor Abbott, updated their guidelines for selecting and removing school library materials. (Texas Scorecard story here.) The purpose of these statewide standards is to prevent the presence of pornography and other obscene content in Texas public schools, such as those we’re talking about here in CFISD. The new standards require a district librarian to read all materials brought into libraries, something that has not always happened. And the review and selection process will be transparent and will emphasize parental rights.

I got a text today suggesting that several hundred of us ought to contact our school board members to adopt these new library review policies. What the TEA has set forth is a model policy; it is then up to local school districts to adopt policies. That means the parents need to require it. Maybe a reminder that showing porn or other harmful materials to minors is against the law, so in order to protect themselves from prosecution, they’d better set an appropriate policy.

Real Evil

This is an uncomfortable post to write. It will be even more difficult to illustrate. But some things are simply evil, and we need to be clear about that.

I try not to put images in my mind that are too ugly for replay. I didn’t watch Passion of the Christ, because I anticipated that the violence would be too much for me. In that case, I was glad the movie was made, for other people to visualize the suffering of our Lord and Savior; but, for me, seeing it depicted was more than I wanted to watch happen, even knowing it was just a portrayal.

I generally avoid violent movies. I manage the blockbusters, the Avengers and so forth, but it’s stylized and pretend and therefore not too upsetting. But I really prefer something quieter, with more storytelling. It’s a taste thing.

But the thing with violence is, no one is really killed or stabbed in the making of the movie. Real bullets don’t hit the actors. Real knives don’t stab real people. It’s all a simulation. It’s by counting on that safety for all involved that allows us to watch it at all.

Some studies show it’s nevertheless harmful—particularly to young people—because our subconscious doesn’t actually separate out simulation from real when we view it. And getting used to the simulation can inure you to the real thing. You can start thinking gunplay is normal. That’s a risk you take when you watch it.

Still, it’s not real; no one is being harmed, and we know that.

In the sheltered world I grew up in, I thought the same safe assumption should apply to nudity; if something was shown that implied nudity, I had the expectation that the person really was covered during the filming, and it was a trick of camera angles or something that implied nudity. And then, once I saw a showing of the movie The Bible, and the backsides of Adam and Eve were shown, and I was stunned. How could that be? That was real. Right in front of us children.

It wasn’t, I recognize now with my adult mind, a depiction intended for prurient purposes. Nevertheless, to a little girl who was taught the importance of modesty, it was incomprehensible.

The thing about nudity in media is—it’s real. A real person uncovered their body and allowed a camera to photograph them, usually for money.

Purpose and intent may make some difference. Private photos of childbirth, for example. But that does tell us something about the times when uncovering our body is appropriate: in intimate, personal, private circumstances.

Uncovering our body for the world to see is not empowering; it is degrading. We call it sin in my religion.

So, let that be a prelude to our discussion today.

There’s a French movie, being shown on Netflix (for the time being) that is about the sexualization of 11-year-olds. Just the “poster” advertising it caused such a stir that Netflix had to change it. But reports are, that was one of the least offensive images of the movie. (Here’s one of the reports, passed along from a family therapist, on Facebook.)

I’m purposely not mentioning the title. It’s not something a civilized person should seek out. But we can discuss what we know of it and apply principles.

Legally, if it is declared to be child porn, the laws against producing it don’t apply here in the US; it was made in France. But distribution laws would apply. And that would mean Netflix would be found guilty of distributing child porn. Everyone who watched it would be guilty as a consumer, but probably not prosecuted. However, those who passed along images on social media, or those who downloaded the movie to their computer would be prosecutable.

I listened to the Sunday livestream of the law guys Viva and Barnes. They discussed the law aspects. Neither was willing to watch the film. The images available in stories about it were disturbing enough. Reading descriptions, they are of the opinion that, probably if it were filmed in the US, and certainly in Canada, where Viva (David Frei) is located, it would be child porn and prosecutable as such. Child exploitation laws would also apply. But because it was made in France, and because it was already on Netflix, labeling it now as child porn is probably not going to happen. Barnes speculates that Netflix got clearance before putting it on their service. Still, pressure could very well cause them to take it down within a week, just to avoid a total boycott by a large portion of their customers.

The film skates close to a rather fuzzy line. There is nudity, but, according to descriptions, actual nudity is adult only, not of the children. But near nudity is certainly there. Sexting of a crotch is portrayed. Self-stimulation is portrayed. That qualifies as porn even if it is portrayal only, without the actual act being performed.

Ben Shapiro braved through it, to be able to comment, last Friday, based on what is actually in the film, rather than what is known about it. It was disgusting, as everyone says. However, he notes, as do a few others, that the portrayal isn’t in favor of sexualizing children; it shows it as horrifying and bad.

Does that redeem the film? Not in the least. As I’ve heard passed along from multiple commentaries, it’s like showing how bad animal cruelty is by actually beating animals on film for an hour and a half. Do people see that animal cruelty is bad? Yes, but you harmed actual animals to make the message—which means saying a message is more important to you than actually preventing cruelty to animals.

The Babylon Bee (parody news) illustrated for us in a story earlier today (and provides me a relatively safe illustration for this post):

from this Babylon Bee story

And in this case, actually hypersexualizing young girls is being done—there are, indeed, actual young girls in the film being hypersexualized. Are we supposed to be convinced that saying the message is worth sacrificing real lives?

Meanwhile, in California, the legislature just passed a law decriminalizing sex with children. Not entirely, yet. What they claim to be addressing is the problem you have when high school kids, with a possible upper limit of 19 and a lower limit around 14, date each other. And, of course, it’s not the dating that’s at issue, but the sexual act, but they’re making the assumption that it’s a “wholesome” love relationship between young people within a certain age range. However, they made it a ten-year age difference. That means they’re OK with a 25-year-old and a 15-year-old, or a 23-year-old with a 14-year-old. That’s the very type of relationship that can entrap a young person. The older person has adulthood credit, and seems to offer status—but at a cost of innocence, because adults are allowed to expect sex in a relationship that a child, by law up until now, has not been able to legally consent to.

The Babylon Bee had another accidentally true headline:

 

from this Babylon Bee story

California has been leading the nation in sexualizing children. Why? Not for the good of the children. Rather, it’s to accommodate the LGBT agenda. If you looked at what they’re doing in so-called comprehensive sex education and what predators do to groom children, you might not see any difference. Maybe that’s because the culture they’re supporting is grooming children, sexualizing them early, getting them used to things that would otherwise be repugnant to them.

Reread what Rebecca Friedrichs has revealed about sex ed in California (and other US) schools.

And reread what Kelly Litvak tells us, from experience with her daughter, about how the groomers patiently work to entrap.

In a brief moment of good news, last week we watched as the Texas State Board of Education met to discuss new health education standards. We were worried—because there had been heavy lobbying—that the board might weaken and give in to demands to sexualize our young school children. I’m happy to say they held strong, mostly on votes of 9-6. I’m uncertain how that affects local schools, such as in Austin, where they have already adopted those standards, however. Parents need to be ever vigilant.

As Betsy DeVos said, on Glenn Beck on August 28, 

[Parents] are paying property taxes. Grandparents are paying property taxes. Businesses are paying property taxes. And they should be able to say, “We want something different. We want something better for our kids.”

The odds appear to be against us parents and grandparents and taxpayers.

There’s this headline about what’s new at the UN, from September 4, 2020: 

Advocate for legalized teen prostitution takes influential UN post

'The idea of purchasing intimacy and paying for the services can be affirming for many people,' insisted Tlaleng Mofokeng, formerly an abortionist and now a U.N. special rapporteur.

 

Add this one, from August 25, 2020, with a paragraph from the story: 

Sexualized toys created for children: A disturbing trend, not a coincidence

Not mentioned on the packaging is a second button or sensor in the female doll’s genital area that, when pressed, causes the doll to gasp and make sounds like “Whee!” and “Oh!”

 

Hasbro has since pulled the doll from store shelves, but the placement of the button is disturbingly similar to grooming tactics used by child predators to normalize and desensitize kids to inappropriate touching.

 

The results of these cultural trends show up in stories of harm to children, some rescued, some not.

This is from The Blaze, September 1, 2020: 

Registered repeat sex offender allegedly chases down naked teen boy, executes him in the street

'He was pleading for his life'

 

Think about the grooming that victim probably went through before finding himself in the predicament that ended in his death. And we may not ever know what went into the luring of this girl who ended up in a tractor-trailer being shipped out of the country, rescued August 31, 2020: 

Border Patrol agents find missing Texas girl inside tractor-trailer at checkpoint

Sometimes a child is taken in a snatch-and-grab kidnapping, but more often it’s after grooming, frequently through social media like Tik-Tok. It’s shocking how often we see stories like this next one from August 27, 2020, and hard to stomach that the rescues are the rare ones: 

U.S. Marshalls recover 39 missing children in Georgia operation

If there were no market for sexualized children, there would be no slavery of them. That may be what shocks me the most. My life is sheltered enough that I have a difficult time imagining the depravity required for a person to choose to purchase sex, let alone with a child.And yet even I am subjected to images in media that are so sinful that I can hardly comprehend.

We can’t afford to tolerate these things. They do not represent open-mindedness, or tolerance of different viewpoints. They do not represent empowerment, or freedom. They represent, as they always have, depraved debauchery.

And enslavement. Every pornographic image represents a person enslaved in a way that coerces them to uncover their body and allow a camera to photograph them, sometimes doing things that should never be viewed by others, usually for money, possibly for drugs to feed an addiction, possibly just to be allowed to live another day—in a world where life is used up, literally, in about 5 to 7 years.

Porn is not innocent. It is not consented to as a real free person could consent. It is not harmless—not for the viewer, and certainly not for the victim in the portrayal.

If we are in a world where this evil is normalized for children—may God quickly come to our rescue!