How to Fight to Win
These parents might be onto something...
Last week, NBC News published a sob story about a teacher in Illinois who lost her job and had charges filed against her for simply offering a book to her students. NBC took pains to make the situation seem as innocent as possible:
“I wanted to give them a smattering of fiction and nonfiction to choose from on a day that we call "Reading Monday,'" Bonner, 42, told TODAY.com. “We just read and celebrate books.”
What was the book in question? Juno Dawson’s “This Book is Gay.”
That book is so explicit that when my co-author Karol Markowicz (we wrote Stolent Youth together, buy it here) went on Fox News to talk about it recently, images of the book had to be blurred out in order to appear on cable television. The content is downright shocking; you have to watch Karol try to explain it on TV to get the full effect:
This is the book a teacher gave to her students. Of course parents found it objectionable. And their objections are valid enough to press charges for child endangerment because they know there would be no consequences if they didn’t take such a drastic step.
Of course, NBC News identified the victim as the teacher. They quoted her reaction to the charges, “The notion that I was putting children in danger because of books — I didn’t feel safe,” Bonner says. “I knew I couldn’t go back.”
NBC goes on with her sob story,
"After listening to her students’ questions and interests, Bonner structured a curriculum that she says included “a diverse library of texts,” including books centering Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ characters and themes.
“I’ve been fortunate up until now to be supported by the communities that I’ve taught with,” Bonner says. “The signs (of a potential issue) started at the beginning of this school year ... and this heightened culture war that’s continuing to build nationwide.”
What parents actually found so objectionable, the actual content of the book she exposed children to, was never disclosed by the outlet. They couldn’t paint Bonner as a victim if they had actually taken the time to explain just how disgusting the book was that she offered. She claimed, and NBC allowed her to go unchallenged, that the objections to the book were rooted in anti-LGBT+ hate instead of just objections to graphic and vile sexual content marketed to minors. This is how the Left gets away with it: they make their sexualized content into LGBT+ fare, and when you object, you’re not just a prude, but a bigot too.
One thing is sure: We are indeed in the middle of a heightened culture war surrounding books, and it’s because teachers like Bonner and media outlets like NBC News have declared it. They have declared war on childhood innocence, and the parents in Bonner’s class rightly identified an interesting new way how we could move forward to protect not just our own children, but others as well.
 | A guest post by
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