On Friday, some angry parents gathered to protest at Saticoy Elementary School in Los Angeles because they were horrified about a Pride-themed assembly and a book-reading of “The Great Big Book of Families,” which teaches that families come in different forms. There are families headed by heterosexual couples, single-parents, same-sex couples and so on. The horror.
You can see for yourself that the book in question is…totally fine, totally innocuous. Basically to the point where it’s absurd that it drew this sort of backlash.
The protest included the usual indicators that the angry parents spend way too much time online.
“Stop grooming our kids,” shouted a group of parents, according to reporting by the Daily News. There were signs saying the same thing, as well as signs reading, “No to sexualizing our kids.” And, of course, at least one nutball yelling homophobic slurs.
The “groomer” panic on the right is just the latest incarnation of extreme homophobia and transphobia that’s been around forever. More directly, it implies that any teaching that there are people who are attracted to the same-sex is part of an attempt to “groom” kids for sexual abuse. Which, to anyone with common sense, is an insane position rooted in paranoia and bigotry. And that’s being charitable about it.
To a segment on the overly-online-right, it sounds true. As Jesse Walker wrote for Reason magazine, efforts to link social acceptance of homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism with pedophilia goes back a long way. But there’s no actual reason to think they are equivalent at all, as most people are capable of recognizing. Still it’s been a line of thinking growing in popularity among segments of the far-right which just wants to smear anything outside of traditional heterosexuality as a plot to molest kids, which, again, is amazingly nutty.
One of the more honest and straightforward explanations came from a parent at the protest.“I don’t like the idea of my little kid coming home and saying it’s fine for a family to have two dads, two men to love each other. We don’t respect that, it’s not in our culture as Christians and Armenians,” said one parent.
Of course, this parent isn’t a spokesperson for all Christians or all Armenians or all Christian Armenians. He doesn’t tolerate homosexuality to the point where he’s willing to protest about it. That puts him out of step with most people in the United States and definitely in California.Parents obviously have every right to teach their values, even flawed values, to their kids. But public schools don’t have any obligation to indulge intolerant or paranoid ideas as expressed by the protesters. Especially not when the book in question is seriously the least objectionable thing I think I’ve ever seen.
Public institutions should always promote inclusion and acceptance, because that is the only approach consistent with the American experiment. This country is one which must always strive to protect the freedom of people to live their lives as they see fit and to promote a culture of tolerance and understanding to enable that freedom.
This country is not a theocracy, nor should it ever resemble one.
Schools should not bend to the will of those who cannot accept and respect others for who they are. Simple as that.
Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com
