https://www.theepochtimes.com/...dIBLItDZ5Ibdr5kV8OCB

A lawsuit has been filed against Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) in Florida after two public records requests were denied regarding a list of 42 books that the requestor believes have “very pornographic” content that may be available to children as young as 4 years old.

“The lawsuit was filed reluctantly but we had to say to Broward County that we need this information,” Rick Stevens, one of the founders and co-managing directors of Florida Citizens Alliance (FLCA) and pastor of Diplomat Westland Church in Cape Coral, Florida, told The Epoch Times. “It is public information and, since the first part of June, we have been trying to get them to respond.”

FLCA is the organization that requested the information from the Broward school district.

“We want to know what materials they have in their media centers and libraries,” Stevens said, explaining that the two months of delays and excuses they faced to find simple answers begs one question: “What are they trying to hide?”

“The truth is, the school district is stonewalling,” Alexander Bumbu of Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) explained to The Epoch Times. “That’s why the lawsuit was necessary. We wanted to know if they’re hiding something and we’re very concerned that they are possibly exposing kids to inappropriate stuff.”

“PJI is one of the largest, faith-based, non-profit legal defense firms in the country with offices from coast to coast,” Bumbu explained. “Since our founding in 1997, PJI has been a beacon for parental rights. In that role, PJI represents FLCA, a parental rights organization, which informs parents about potentially pornographic materials in their government schools. FLCA compiled a list of books and hired PJI to file a public records request to learn if Broward County Public Schools possesses any of those books and which schools those books are located in.”

A similar request, with a different list of books, was made to BCPS and other Florida school districts in 2019. At that time, BCPS admitted to having 82 percent of the listed books.

“That is a fact that BCPS would no doubt be embarrassed about now,” Bumbu attested. “Under Florida law, BCPS is responsible for monitoring the materials in its schools. Floridians have a clear right to see those materials. FLCA is doing what any parent would do if they were concerned about what his or her kid is being exposed to in school.”

‘A Jaw-Dropping Experience’
“One of the books on the list that FLCA submitted in 2019 has a drawing of a naked woman bent over forward holding a hand-held mirror to examine her genitalia,” Bumbu explained, calling the first time he saw the image “a jaw-dropping experience.”

“BCPS admitted in 2019 to having this book in some of their schools, including an elementary school,” Bumbu added. “If you can’t be shown these images on your evening news, they should not be shown to your kid in school.”

The image described by Bumbu is in a book titled “It’s Perfectly Normal,” recommended on Amazon for children “10 and up” in grades 5 to 8. Another image in the book depicts a man and a woman engaged in sexual intercourse.

“Sexual intercourse happens when two people—a female and a male or two females or two males—feel very sexy and very attracted to each other and want to be very close to each other in a sexual way,” the book reads as it goes into a graphic description of sexual intercourse.

“It’s Perfectly Normal” wasn’t on the 2021 list of books submitted to BCPS by FLCA, so FLCA doesn’t know if that book is still being made available to 10-year-olds.

“In the end, they still didn’t provide all of the information I asked for,” Bumbu noted, explaining that BCPS is still withholding exactly where in the schools the books they admit to having from the 2021 list are located: media centers, instructional materials, supplemental materials, or reading lists.”

“Our parents send their children to school with the expectation that their children will get a good education and the school will take care of them,” Stevens said. “Well, when the parents send their children to school they have a reasonable expectation that the school is doing the same thing, monitoring the materials and making sure they are the right kind of things for their children to be exposed to. We don’t know what’s going on in Broward County, so we can’t help but wonder what they’re trying to hide from the parents and the residents of Florida. That’s what we want to find out. What are they trying to hide?”

“The foot-dragging Broward County Public Schools put me and Florida Citizens Alliance (FLCA) through an eight-week-long saga and odyssey into the bureaucratic abyss,” Bumbu lamented. “BCPS finally provided me with a list Thursday, three days after I filed the lawsuit, but they didn’t provide all of the information I asked for.”

The list BCPS provided shows which schools the books are located in but it doesn’t specify where in the schools those books are located.

Matter of Great Concern
For those who aren’t concerned with children as young as 4 years old being exposed to books showing or talking about people engaged in sexual acts, Bumbu believes the two months of stonewalling by BCPS should still be a matter of great concern.

“BCPS’s stonewalling undermines Floridians’ rights to access public records,” Bumbu insisted. “That is why it’s imperative that a public example be made of BCS to show that government school districts can and should be held accountable for disregarding Floridians’ rights to access public records.”

Keith Flaugh, managing director of FLCA, said advocates of the inappropriate material are trying to accuse his organization of trying to “ban books.”

“We’re not banning books,” Flaugh told The Epoch Times, explaining they are trying to prohibit the availability of inappropriate materials to minors. “It’s not banning books any more than it’s banning guns or drugs from school property. These are harmful materials and our public schools have no place distributing or allowing them.”

“These books are sexually explicit and age-inappropriate,” Flaugh insisted, “and books like ‘It’s Perfectly Normal’ are very pornographic.”

Books such as “Sex, Puberty and All That Stuff,” on the 2021 list of inappropriate books, teaches minor children aged 11 to 16 all about erections and their alternative names: “stiffy, hard-on, and boner.” “This Book is Gay” (also on the 2021 list) provides minor children aged 14-17 detailed instructions—including explicit drawings—on how to have “boy-on-boy” and “girl-on-girl” sex.

According to Flaugh, these books are in direct violation of Florida obscenity statutes, including statutes 847.001, 847.012, and 1006.31.

While BCPS admitted to having 82 percent of the books deemed inappropriate on their 2019 list, Bumbu said BCPS now claims to have only nine of the books on the “inappropriate content” list for 2021.

“That’s still nine books, “Bumbu said.

The most popular of the nine books is a young adult (YA) novel by Judy Blume called “Forever,” originally published in 1975. According to Amazon, the recommended grade level for this book is “nine and up.”

“Nothing is glossed over: sexually transmitted infections, abortion, contraception and periods,” reads James Dawson’s review of the book for The Guardian in 2015. “What’s startling when reading ‘Forever’ in 2015 is how modern it feels. The cherry on the cake is potentially gay character Artie. Yes: LGBT+ characters in a YA novel from before YA even existed. Amazing.”

According to the list provided by BCPS, 86 schools—including Gulfstream Academy (K-8), Annabelle C. Perry, Beachside Montessori Village, and Coral Springs (PreK-8)—have at least one copy of the book. Without knowing where the books are located in each school, no one can find out if the book is available by choice to any child through the library or whether it is being used as a supplemental resource or recommended by a specific teacher through a reading list.

“Arguably, ‘Forever’’s influence is so powerful it was almost the first and last word on teen sex,” Dawson opined of the book BCPS now may have available to Pre-K children as young as 4 years old. “Virginity was lost so perfectly it was almost as if no author ever need bother again.”

In Florida, the age of consent is 18 years old, and sexual intercourse with someone who is under 18 is considered statutory rape. However, Florida does have a close-in-age exemption—also known as “Romeo and Juliet law”—which protects underage couples who engage in consensual sex from prosecution when both participants are significantly close in age and one or both are below the age of 18.

Nauseating. The insidious nature of allowing crap like these "books" to sneak into our children's in school reading sources is sick. The "woke" morons that allowed this to happen should be keel-hauled.

Another reason to home school your children. Parents have absolutely no clue what is being done to their children by the public education system. Likewise with social media - find a way to monitor what your children are being exposed to.

quote:

“Sexual intercourse happens when two people—a female and a male or two females or two males—feel very sexy and very attracted to each other and want to be very close to each other in a sexual way,” the book reads as it goes into a graphic description of sexual intercourse.

Those privileged educators need to check that shit right NOW!

Sexual intercourse can also occur between:

- A man that is actually a woman being attracted to a man that is either a man, a man that is actually a woman, a woman that is actually a man, a man that is neither a man, a man that is actually a woman, or a woman that is actually a man.

- A woman that is actually a woman being attracted to a man that is either a man, a man that is actually a woman, a woman that is actually a man, a woman that is neither a man, a man that is actually a woman, or a woman that is actually a man.

- A man that is actually a woman being attracted to a woman that is either a man, a man that is actually a woman, a woman that is actually a man, a man that is neither a man, a man that is actually a woman, or a woman that is actually a man.

- A man that is actually a not woman being attracted to a man that is either a man, a man that is actually a woman, a woman that is actually a man, a woman that is neither a man, a man that is actually a woman, or a woman that is actually a man, or someone into garden gnomes.

Etcetera.

See, they left off huge swathes of huge manatees.

When I taught school, my department fell under Media Services (librarians) and every summer the new books would come in from the publishers.

One of my tasks was to help catalogue new books and distribute to the Media Centers.

I had one the publisher try to slip in that I promptly sent to the industrial shredder. It had graphic depictions of positions and why you should choose homosexuality over hetero.

I STAYED in trouble with the administrators. I was reprimanded for insubordination three times before I nuked their shit.

I fear what is happening now. I took my shot, but it failed to sink the Bismark and all I got was filled with shells and sent to the bottom burning.

Time to re-read "Fahrenheit 451."

Whether there's an actual problem here or not, this article is sensationalism at its finest.

>One of the books on the list that FLCA submitted in 2019 has a drawing of a naked woman bent over forward holding a hand-held mirror to examine her genitalia

>The image described by Bumbu is in a book titled “It’s Perfectly Normal”

A book for kids about puberty and how their bodies are changing tries to show them that it's OK to have genitals. Say it ain't so!

Penises and vaginas are filthy and shameful! We need to make sure kids know NEVER to look at or touch their own genitals! We need to make sure kids are disgusted by their own bodies! The ONLY way to do that is to NEVER acknowledge they exist at all!

>Another image in the book depicts a man and a woman engaged in sexual intercourse.

>“Sexual intercourse happens when two people—a female and a male or two females or two males—feel very sexy and very attracted to each other and want to be very close to each other in a sexual way,” the book reads as it goes into a graphic description of sexual intercourse.

Yep. Pretending sex doesn't exist and not telling kids anything about it is the only tried-and-true method for making sure horny early teenagers don't have sex! Even if they do, making sure they have as little information as possible will absolutely guarantee no one gets pregnant or catches STDs.

Ban this gratuitous hardcore pornography now!

>Books such as “Sex, Puberty and All That Stuff,” on the 2021 list of inappropriate books, teaches minor children aged 11 to 16 all about erections and their alternative names: “stiffy, hard-on, and boner.” “This Book is Gay” (also on the 2021 list) provides minor children aged 14-17 detailed instructions—including explicit drawings—on how to have “boy-on-boy” and “girl-on-girl” sex.

If we get rid of these books, middle school and high school kids DEFINITELY won't EVER think about sex or know what a "boner" is!

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

>The most popular of the nine books is a young adult (YA) novel by Judy Blume called “Forever,” originally published in 1975.

> ... the book BCPS now may have available to Pre-K children as young as 4 years old.

Now, I know I was sarcastic in my previous responses in this post, but this is a real problem.

We can't have 4-year-olds sneaking into the school library and reading novels that mention sex! We might as well put PornHub up on the classroom projector during naptime!

^^^^

Can't have the parents responsible for such info, it takes a village, huh?

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
Whether there's an actual problem here or not, this article is sensationalism at its finest.

>One of the books on the list that FLCA submitted in 2019 has a drawing of a naked woman bent over forward holding a hand-held mirror to examine her genitalia

>The image described by Bumbu is in a book titled “It’s Perfectly Normal”

A book for kids about puberty and how their bodies are changing tries to show them that it's OK to have genitals. Say it ain't so!

Penises and vaginas are filthy and shameful! We need to make sure kids know NEVER to look at or touch their own genitals! We need to make sure kids are disgusted by their own bodies! The ONLY way to do that is to NEVER acknowledge they exist at all!

>Another image in the book depicts a man and a woman engaged in sexual intercourse.

>“Sexual intercourse happens when two people—a female and a male or two females or two males—feel very sexy and very attracted to each other and want to be very close to each other in a sexual way,” the book reads as it goes into a graphic description of sexual intercourse.

Yep. Pretending sex doesn't exist and not telling kids anything about it is the only tried-and-true method for making sure horny early teenagers don't have sex! Even if they do, making sure they have as little information as possible will absolutely guarantee no one gets pregnant or catches STDs.

Ban this gratuitous hardcore pornography now!

>Books such as “Sex, Puberty and All That Stuff,” on the 2021 list of inappropriate books, teaches minor children aged 11 to 16 all about erections and their alternative names: “stiffy, hard-on, and boner.” “This Book is Gay” (also on the 2021 list) provides minor children aged 14-17 detailed instructions—including explicit drawings—on how to have “boy-on-boy” and “girl-on-girl” sex.

If we get rid of these books, middle school and high school kids DEFINITELY won't EVER think about sex or know what a "boner" is!

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

>The most popular of the nine books is a young adult (YA) novel by Judy Blume called “Forever,” originally published in 1975.

> ... the book BCPS now may have available to Pre-K children as young as 4 years old.

Now, I know I was sarcastic in my previous responses in this post, but this is a real problem.

We can't have 4-year-olds sneaking into the school library and reading novels that mention sex! We might as well put PornHub up on the classroom projector during naptime!

While I don't think everything depicted was terrible, it seems like the age group these were aimed at was a bit young to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
^^^^

Can't have the parents responsible for such info, it takes a village, huh?

Since many parents don't do this...Still, it's a gray area. We don't want the state to be soley responsible for raising our kids, but I've run into many young people that are freaking clueless about these things because of their parents.

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
^^^^

Can't have the parents responsible for such info, it takes a village, huh?

Several problems with that argument.

1. It assumes parents are actually responsible.

2. All the article actually says is that the books are in the schools' inventories of books. That doesn't mean the teachers are using the books as graphical aids while teaching preschoolers how to have sex, or even that the books are presented as a part of a sex ed program for kids in the age range the books are intended for. For the most part, it probably just means there's a copy of the book sitting on a shelf in the school library.

3. Even if you assume that parents are actually responsible and every single parent will teach every single kid in the United States everything they need to know about puberty, sex, etc., that doesn't mean you have to purge every reference to sex and sexuality and genitalia in everything kids have access to until they turn 18.

4. For that matter, you CAN'T purge all reference to sex, sexuality, and genitalia. References to sex, sexuality, and genitalia are EVERYWHERE, in movies, books, TV, magazines, newspapers, the news, on billboards, not to mention the internet. Even if you enacted a censorship campaign that would make North Korea look benign, kids would talk about it amongst themselves based on what they've overheard or imagined.



It is not depraved to have books about puberty in a library serving children who are going through puberty.

It is not depraved to have books about the basic facts of sex in a library serving children of an age that many of them are getting interested in sex and beginning to experiment.

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
While I don't think everything depicted was terrible, it seems like the age group these were aimed at was a bit young to me.

Appropriate age ranges will probably always be a subject of debate.

This first bit reads like an attack, and I guess it is, but it's not an attack directed at you - it's an attack directed at the article and is mostly intended to exclude the often-mentioned preschool BS from my further comments on age ranges.

The article uses some absurd scare tactics like "the book BCPS now may have available to Pre-K children as young as 4 years old," talking about the book "Forever." Paraphrasing, the article says the book is intended for high schoolers, but some Pre-K to 8th grade schools have copies. Somehow I think it's more likely that some of the middle schoolers might read a high school book than that the four year olds are. I haven't read "Forever." If the description of the book is not grossly mischaracterized the way so much else in the article is, I am sure that many people would object to making it available to middle schoolers, but raising it as a threat to preschoolers is just ridiculous (in the literal sense of "deserving of ridicule").

OK. Moving on. As far as the other books and age ranges mentioned, I honestly don't think they are out of line.

>The image described by Bumbu is in a book titled “It’s Perfectly Normal,” recommended on Amazon for children “10 and up” in grades 5 to 8.

I actually have a copy of this book. My wife and I bought it because of positive recommendations and read it before giving it to our daughter, who I think was nine at the time.

It's a fairly clinical, informative book about puberty and the big picture about sex. It answers questions that kids might be too embarrassed to ask or that kids or parents might not realize they need to talk about. It ranges from stuff like "why do my armpits suddenly smell bad and what do I do about it?" or "why am I getting hairier?" or "why is blood coming out of my vagina and is it OK?" to "why do I feel funny when I look at a certain boy/girl?" or "why does it feel good when something rubs on my penis/vagina?"

The subjects of those questions come up for most kids in the 10-12 age range.

There is also a little bit of discussion about sex. As I recall, it's basically from the standpoint of "you might start feeling urges to do this" or "your friends might talk about this or someone might ask you to do this with them." There's a basic discussion of "here's what sex is," that sex is a big deal that you shouldn't just jump right into, that you never have to have sex just because someone else wants to, that some people believe you shouldn't have sex before marriage for religious or moral reasons, and that there are possible consequences like pregnancy and disease.

I'm sure many people would object to presenting that material to 10 year olds. I'd love to have been able to put off that talk for a few more years.

However, on further reflection, we decided it wasn't unreasonable. That 10-12 year age range is when a lot of kids start developing both an interest in sex and the secondary sexual characteristics that makes them sexually attractive to other children.

The worst case scenario isn't that my 10 year old daughter knows that sex is when a penis goes in a vagina and that's where babies come from and she is always allowed to say no. The worst case scenario is that she doesn't know anything about sex and next week or next year or in a couple of years a classmate or a friend's older sibling or a pedophile pressures her into sex and she goes along because she doesn't know any better or feels like she has to and then is traumatized and possibly pregnant or infected with an STD. That sort of thing is HORRIFYINGLY common.

>Books such as “Sex, Puberty and All That Stuff,” on the 2021 list of inappropriate books, teaches minor children aged 11 to 16 all about erections and their alternative names: “stiffy, hard-on, and boner.”

Most boys are having erections by 11 or 12. Not talking about them won't make them go away, and even if parents don't talk about them, other kids will.

>“This Book is Gay” (also on the 2021 list) provides minor children aged 14-17 detailed instructions—including explicit drawings—on how to have “boy-on-boy” and “girl-on-girl” sex.

This one is no doubt extra-controversial because of the folks who think that homosexuality is the grossest thing ever or unnatural or evil or whatever.

If we set aside the gay part, anyone who thinks most 14-year-olds don't know what sex is, think about it regularly, and have strong urges to do it must not remember being a teenager.



I don't know those last two specifically, but that sort of book tends to be on the clinical and "be safe and responsible" and "respect yourself and don't hate yourself or be ashamed" side rather than saying "yay! everybody go fuck any available hole as often as possible like depraved rabbits."



>The most popular of the nine books is a young adult (YA) novel by Judy Blume called “Forever,” originally published in 1975. According to Amazon, the recommended grade level for this book is “nine and up.”

I mentioned above that I can at least understand the perspective that, if this book hasn't been wildly mischaracterized, it might be too mature for middle schoolers (the article lists some schools having it that only go to 8th grade).

However, it's described as being intended for high school age ranges. It seems pretty hard to object to as a high school book. Typical high school students already know about all the stuff the article objects to, and between peers going at it like horny teenagers (because they are), biology class, and the classic literature they read in the English curriculum, there are penises and vaginas and sex everywhere in high school.

Some common high school curriculum books that have been banned at high schools in the US for various forms of "obscenity" (or more generally across the US under various obscenity or decency laws):

The Catcher in the Rye
The Grapes of Wrath
To Kill a Mockingbird
Ulysses
1984
Of Mice and Men
Catch-22
Brave New World
The Sun Also Rises
As I Lay Dying
A Farewell To Arms
Slaughterhouse Five