By John Riley on June 27, 2022 @JRileyRP
A library in Long Island has reversed course after removing all LGBTQ displays and books from the children’s section amid an ongoing national backlash against LGBTQ visibility.
On June 21, the Smithtown Library Board of Trustees voted 4-2 to take down all Pride-themed displays at the town’s four library branches and ban any books dealing with Pride or LGBTQ issues from the children’s section at those branches.
The decision was prompted by complaints from conservative parents offended by the presence of LGBTQ displays, arguing that they are a form of “indoctrination” that infringes upon parental rights by exposing children to issues or concepts they are not old enough to grasp.
The conservative group Catholic Vote has called on parent to “hide the Pride” by checking out all LGBTQ books so others, especially children, will not be able to read them, reports NBC New York.
A mother in Brunswick, Maryland, recently performed a similar stunt, checking out all the books from an LGBTQ library display in order to preserve children’s “innocence.”
The move prompted outrage from members of the LGBTQ community.
“I was horrified by the display of ignorance at last night’s Board meeting,” Brianna Baker-Stines, the president of the library board, said after the vote last Tuesday. “As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I recognize the importance of access to diverse materials.”
“I feel like I’m living in the Twilight Zone,” Nassau County Legislator Arnold Drucker told NBC New York. “Earlier this year, when Florida was ramming destructive ‘Don’t Say Gay’ laws through its state legislature, I lamented the fact that this coordinated, nationwide assault on the LGBTQ+ community could soon arrive on our doorstep. Well, it’s here.
“What transpired in Smithtown shows us that we cannot pull the wool over our own eyes for a moment longer by saying, ‘it won’t happen here,'” Drucker added.
Following the vote, the board of trustees issued a statement saying LGBTQ books are still part of the library’s collection and can be checked out by anyone wishing to do so, according to the Daily Voice.
“These titles have not been removed from the collection,” the board said in its statement. “The Library continues to display Pride month displays in our Teen and Adult areas.”
The trustees’ vote was criticized by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who announced she was directing the New York State Division of Human Rights to launch an investigation to see whether their actions rose to the level of discrimination.
“Public places are prohibited by law from engaging in discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” Hochul said in a statement. “Everyone — and particularly our state’s young people — deserves to feel welcome at the library.
“For many LGBTQ+ kids, libraries are a place of refuge and information where they can be welcomed and affirmed for who they are,” she continued. “We will not tolerate a ‘Don’t Say Gay’ philosophy taking root in our state.
But the trustees later reversed course, voting during a June 23 emergency meeting to put the Pride displays back up. The displays will remain in place until at least July 15, at which point it will be up to the supervising librarians at each branch to decide whether to take them down or leave them up,” according to News 12 New Jersey.
Still, there remains opposition to allowing LGBTQ-themed books in the children’s section.
“It is still my concern to shield some of these books from the little kids, from the children’s area,” Trustee Marie Gergenti told News 12 New Jersey. “Not the adult sections or the teen section…”
While she’s happy about the Pride displays being restored, Baker-Stines argued that trustees never should have voted on whether to remove the displays in the first place, saying librarians are better trained to determine what is appropriate for public consumption and which books are age-appropriate for particular sections.
“We need to trust the staff we hired and allow them to handle the day-to-day operations of the library,” Baker-Stines said. “The motion we made went against our mission statement and it was a mistake.”
By John Riley on July 27, 2022 @JRileyRP
Researchers from Yale are slamming a report from Florida health care officials that takes a hardline stance against the use of Medicaid dollars to pay for gender-affirming care, claiming the 48-page report is biased, unscientific, flawed, and -- above all -- politically motivated.
The analysis, published earlier this month by a group of seven scientists and a Yale law professor, highlights what it says are major deficiencies in a June 2 report released by Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration.
In their analysis, the researchers found that the AHCA report "ignored accepted scientific studies and consensus acknowledging gender dysphoria and the medical therapies effective in treating it," and cites sources that are neither published nor peer-reviewed, or that have no scientific merit, including an opinion letter to the editor and a student blog.
By John Riley on July 11, 2022 @JRileyRP
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has vetoed legislation seeking to bar transgender athletes from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity.
The bill, which sailed through the Republican-led legislature on largely party-line votes, would have required public K-12 schools and colleges to designate sports as male, female, or coed. For female-designated sports, athletes would only be allowed to participate if they were assigned female at birth.
The bill is silent on male-designated sports, presumably allowing transgender males and cisgender females to participate on boys' teams, such as football, in cases where there is not a team specifically designated for girls. Heretofore, such allowances were considered in compliance with Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in educational settings.
By John Riley on July 25, 2022 @JRileyRP
A Florida school district has rejected sex education textbooks after the county's school board rejected two proposed textbooks for allegedly violating the state's "Parental Rights in Education" bill, dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill by opponents.
The Miami-Dade County Public Schools board voted 5-4 to reject the textbooks, leaving the fourth-largest school system in the country -- which serves about 340,000 students in total -- without an approved sex ed curriculum for middle and high school students before classes for the 2022-2023 kick off on Aug. 17.
School staff estimate that it could take between four and eight months for new books to be vetted and approved, meaning students could be anywhere from halfway to three-quarters of the way through the school year before receiving any instruction on sex education -- despite the state requiring such instruction to occur in older grades, reports the Miami Herald.
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