“Openmindedness” and “closemindedness” are in the mind of the beholder.
Nothing more to add.
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I can accept as true that on many college campuses conservative voices are often muted. I can also accept as true that in some communities lgbtq+, bipoc, and liberal voices are often muted, including limiting access to books in public schools. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
The distinction is the agency of the people the muting impacts. On college campuses, the students themselves are the ones that are doing the muting. In communities the students are too young, and others are the ones doing the muting - the ones who have the luxury of time and resources to show up at school board meetings.
My understanding of how it is supposed to work is: the voters vote in the school board, who sets strategic goals and hires the people (aka experts) to implement the goals. If the experts don’t do what they are hired to do, they will get fired by the school board. If the school board doesn’t do what they were voted in to do, they will get fired. School board meetings are where, under controlled, civil rules fairly and inclusively applied, the voters let the school board know if their strategic goals are the community’s goals are being implemented successfully.
Problems arise when the people who show up at the school board meetings aren’t representative of the population, and don’t follow the rules. Or want something illegal, oppressive or offensive. I’ve seen some footage of pretty awful behavior at school board meetings - amounting to bullying. If a community through a fair, inclusive process comes to the conclusion that the expert isn’t doing their job and a true majority can come up with a guideline for how the job should be done (eg books that should or shouldn’t be on elementary school library book shelves), so be it. But that isn’t what appears to be happening in the areas we are talking about.
If the community violates someone’s civil rights, there should be mechanisms for redress. That also doesn’t seem to be happening.
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Why are you assuming that there are no other books related to LGBTQ issues in the Walton county school library? Real chapter books that are meant to be read and considered? That seems an utterly unwarranted assumption to make.
Do you really think there aren’t other published books which address this topic was maturity and respect? Does anyone really need to see pictures of masturbation? I really doubt the educational value of that, but agree it probably has prurient value.
In any event, local control is needed to sustain school budgets by voters, so I am pretty certain community standards ( or the lack therof in some places) will be met
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People keep ignoring that the list that Walton County is working from was compiled by a group that is openly hostile to LGBTQ. I think this distinction is extremely relevant. I also think it’s relevant that the organization actually picks a couple of “offensive “ paragraphs out of a novel and e-mails it to supporters, who then read said paragraph at school board meetings, without ever picking up the book in question.
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Since they are ditching books they already have and replacing them with others at least in some cases, they aren’t helping sustain their school budget.
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Fewer adults have children, and fewer children attend public school than previously. School budgets are sustained by an increasing percentage of voters who do not have a child in the system. Voters who believe schools adhere to community standards and are making fiscally responsible decisions are more likely to vote for those budgets than not.
Consensus is a worthwhile goal. Surely there are other books which address the issues in a better way. The Stonewall Reader? And the band played on? A biography of Harvey Milk? I am certain there are others.
You are making assumptions regarding why YOU think these people don’t want these books. Seems like your ideas are rooted more in politics than actual understanding. IMO, no one can ascertain why people don’t want any of these books, because each person might have their own reasons which are not known only to them. Another good reason to have a community based discussion to raise actual opinions rather than play straw man.
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Where I live we don’t vote for the school budget. If we did, schools certainly wouldn’t be able to do what they do - we wouldn’t even make “average.” Many around me aren’t as pro-education as elsewhere, regardless of what’s in the library.
I feel for areas where school budgets are a common vote, because few will vote for anything that doesn’t directly benefit them.
We have pretty frequent school bonds, perhaps due to an ever-increasing need for additional schools. Schools here rely upon a good relationship with the community and get a lot of support from it, even those without public school kids. School sports teams get sponsored, and community festivals are held at schools. The town takes a lot of pride in its schools.
In my town, we have frequent school bonds. These funds are in addition to what CA taxpayers provide by paying their property taxes. The school bonds are used to attract and retain high-quality teachers, para educators, and other personnel, like a librarian, support academic and enrichment programs, keep class sizes small, etc.
The last bond passed at 70%+. But to the best of knowledge, and I’ve occasionally listened to school board meetings, no one argues about books. Plenty of other things to argue about though. 
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It’s certainly sorely needed, as Americans are highly allergic to reading. According to the latest Gallup poll, a whopping 57% of Americans read 5 or fewer books last year. 72% read less than one book per month (10 or fewer). The average was 12.6.
I remember coming across ripped out pages in some of the books from the school media center as a kid. I guess my school (a somewhat poorly funded and conservative public school in the South) thought it would be easier to remove the offensive pages than ban the book outright.
Art teachers were also prone to do this with editions of National Geographic we used for collages and other projects.
These people are very clear why they are against these books. The books in the OP were selected for very specific reasons, as widely publicized by the involved organizations themselves.
One of these very organizations is right now trying to derail a local school districts drama department’s rendition of Rent.
There is absolutely nothing offensive about Everywhere Babies - it’s is a lovely book - unless you object to potentially same sex couples (note it’s never said these are two moms or two dads - you have to choose to make the assumption that the pictures don’t depict brothers or friends). Any list with Everywhere Babies on it is immediately suspect. There is nothing else you could be objecting to.
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No, no, and no. While out of context snippets sometimes make it difficult to see past the pretext regarding some titles, these groups explicitly tell us their agenda regarding other books where there is absolutely nothing that could even be remotely considered “pornographic” or “obscene.” The mere depiction of normal and happy LGBTQ+ humans is all that makes the book unacceptable. That’s not me making assumptions, it is from their reviews.
Take The Purim Superhero for example, a book targeted on the list in the OP. The Florida Citizen Alliance “report” wants the book banned for “bias” and “indoctrination.” Here is their explanation of why the book should be banned:
This short book introduces a family of two dads, a girl, and a boy. The message that this family may be “different” but by showing who they “really are” they are becoming stronger, is subtly woven throughout the ordinary story of a boy trying to decide what costume to wear for Purim. It serves as a subtle form of indoctrination by normalizing homosexual “marriage” and homosexual families with adopted children. Written at the K-3 reading level, it presents this message to children who are not intellectually or morally developed enough to consider this content critically.
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That is an interesting book, as it is distributed for free to schools by a Jewish nonprofit in NY. I understand that the first year it came out, members of the Orthodox community objected and it was not distributed. The next year, it was.
The post wasn’t about the OP’s organization, it was a broad generalization about the generic “people” who do this mean that. Trying to tie together all people who disagree with a particular book and painting them into a particular group. This also happens in the media. In fact, the argument sounds the same as many channels.
You cannot group large numbers of people and assign them reasons for being in favor of/opposed to something. Taking a single person or quoting someone is fine. Throwing everyone into the same pool isn’t warranted.
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Still seems like anyone who opposes your interpretation is subject to being labeled into a large group and called anti-this or that.
While all these books seem fine to me, I honestly can see why some people might have some problems with some books at some ages. Perfectly good people who don’t want their kids looking at things at an early age. They aren’t necessarily anti-anyone. They might in fact be pro-LQBTQ etc just not for kids at that age.
How can you group entire sets of people you haven’t met? Perhaps you should stick to the group in question that’s cited in the article as those members have made definitive statements. The others, you have no idea where they stand or why.
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Last call for posts on the topic that comply with ToS. At this point, we’re at over 60 flagged posts and the thread is now just the same users restating their PoV, so I’m putting the thread on an automatic timer to close.
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I’m grateful for this thread. I love that so many people are diligent in their desire to ensure that all people are respected, valued and represented. I’m also grateful because it has opened my eyes to see that we need to be more vigilant and involved because an amazingly large number of people out there want to behave as if the lives and viewpoints of minorities and LGBTQ can be marginalized because of fear and a lack of understanding.
A great thread.
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