The Orlando Sentinel published a two-page print spread Thursday listing 673 books that have been removed from classrooms in Orange County in 2023 due to fears they violate the state’s new laws banning “sexual conduct” from public schools.
Teachers with any of the 673 books on their classroom shelves have been instructed by the school district to remove them, the newspaper said, also noting that the Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) staff will review the list of rejected books once again, so it’s possible the books will eventually be returned to the classroom. The district began compiling the list over the summer.
The list stems from two Florida laws signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis ®, who is also running for president. They require media specialists to review books in libraries and classrooms, and to exclude books that include sexually lewd material or pornography. The legislation also aims to give parents greater ability to raise objections to their children’s education.
We need to educate kids about sex. Otherwise bad actors will take advantage of them and/or they grow up unhealthily.
We do it with hetero themes all the time. E.g. in Shrek they get married and donkey/dragon have babies. In Cinderella they get married. They give baby dolls to young girls. A common question for 5 year olds to ask is where babies come from.
WE don’t need to do anything, it’s up to individual parents on how they choose to teach their kids about sex.
Pornography and sex are different, and the removal from schools is a reaction to pornograhy being found in some books offered in school libraries, which I think were appropriate for removal.
The problem came when people doubled down and insisted that pornographic images weren’t being found. That left an opening for right-wing outlets to point out that not only was it there, but that people were outright denying it.
What we have now is an overreach. There are certainly age-appropriate books that have characters who aren’t straight being pulled, which u agree is bad, but those books are still plenty available in libraries, where… gasp children can still learn about sex, however their parents find appropriate.
I think representation is good in school libraries, but not PORNOGRAPHIC representation. This isn’t a hard concept to grasp, and the left dug themselves a big hole for conservatives to fill by literally trying to gaslight what was found.
Everything you listed is fine, and it would be fine if donky and dragon were both men and they adopted babies. It wouldn’t be fine if donky put on a strap on and dragon blew him. One version is kid friendly, the other one isnt.
Pornography - ie images designed to arouse sexual desire - is not the same as the discussion or even depiction of sex in every regard.
You can read something like “It takes some couples up to two years of trying to conceive to get pregnant” without becoming aroused.
Same as you can look at a picture of how the testes connects to the urethra without getting a boner.
However, you can look at a fully clothed person in a sexy outfit (eg pin up girl) and know it is pornography - even if extremely softcore and mild.
It is for the most part a deliberate red herring to discus pornography being displayed in schools because, even if the material is describing accurately the process of sex, even within a narrative, it is likely, if aimed at young adults, more designed to answer common questions and show representation than it is to stoke their lust.
Any attempt to classify pornography is instantly met with Diogenes’ plucked chicken: Behold — a porno!
Children aren’t property, parents don’t get to dictate their interests. If you don’t like a book, you don’t have to read it. If a parent doesn’t like a book in a library, they don’t have to read it. They do not however have the right to restrict what content is available for everyone else.