As The Tennessee Star reported earlier this week, K-12 public schools around the country are hosting reading events featuring drag queens to promote “gender ideology.” Maurice Sendak Community School, a public school located in Brooklyn, New York, hosted a drag queen “reader” and first grade teacher Alexis Hernandez marveled at the event in a testimonial published on Drag Queen Story Hour’s website.
“Drag Queen Story Hour gave my first graders a fun and interactive platform to talk and think about social and emotional issues like acceptance, being yourself, and loving who you are,” Hernandez said. “During our debrief … [students] were preaching the incredible lessons they had learned, like ‘it’s OK to be different,’ and ‘there’s no such thing as “boy” and “girl” things.’”
Drag Queen Story Hour markets itself to children between 3 and 8 years old. The program’s reading list includes books like “Jacob’s New Dress” by Sarah and Ian Hoffman and “Red: A Crayon’s Story” by Michael Hall. While the former book’s plot revolves around a boy convincing his parents to let him wear a dress to school, the latter chronicles the journey of a crayon “mistakenly labeled” red to identify successfully as blue.
Reaction to The Tennessee Star story was immediate and overwhelming, with many readers pointing out that “thankfully this sort of promotion of perversion could never happen in Tennessee.”
But it is happening in Tennessee.
In Clarksville to be exact. This Sunday. At the Clarksville-Montgomery County public library.
Christina Riedel, Assistant Director of the Clarksville-Montgomery County library, said that the Equality Clarksville drag queen reading event is “not an official event of the library, nor is the event endorsed or sponsored by the library. The non-profit group is simply using the meeting space in accordance with the policies and guidelines of the library, and that the meeting room space is available to any other non-profit group under those same guidelines.” Riedel also noted that a diverse array of other non-profits have used the meeting room space in the past, including those focused on culture, religious faith and educational interests. “Groups are not allowed to promote the events with posters on site, nor are they permitted to reach out to patrons of the library during the event to encourage them to participate,” Riedel added.
JC Bowman, Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, says that “while we are struggling with basic literacy in this state this sort of agenda-driven ‘reading’ event does nothing to improve reading skills nor is it age appropriate — whether it is in our public libraries or in our public schools.”
Constance Brown, President of the NEA affiliated Clarksville-Montgomery County Education Association declined to make any comment on the drag queen reading session.
Republican State Representative Jay Dean Reedy (R-Erin), who represents part of Clarksville-Montgomery County said: “I am thankful that we live in a free Country and will stand and defend it every day. However, this is not how our children should be taught to love reading. This is totally agenda driven, not age appropriate, and I am disappointed that our Public Library has become a focal point for such activity.
I am also very thankful that parents are free to keep their children away from this social indoctrination and desensitizing to what Christians understand to be a perverse lifestyle,” Reedy added.
Since the article was published before Sunday, it makes sense that they would put up a picture from another such event. How is that biased?
If the point of this whole “Rainbow Reading” exercise ISN’T to expose young children to homosexuality and “alternative lifestyles”, why show up in drag at all?
You might not like that the people featured in this report are speaking out against these “Reading Rainbow” people, but that doesn’t make them or this article biased.
This is a completely biased article. They used a picture from another state, didn’t talk to Equality Clarksville for the truth of what’s being read. During the reading on Sunday, the only time sex was mentioned was by the protestor OUTSIDE with a big sign talking about homo sex. So tell me again who’s teaching children what?
Notice how the teacher’s union has “no comment?” If you haven’t pulled your kids/grandkids out of public school before this, then I doubt that this will matter much. Sad, but true.
It’s way past time to institute a system of educational vouchers for parents, so that they can redirect the funds currently used to indoctrinate and sexualize their children towards actually educating them instead, according to the social mores and moral values they want their children to adopt.
In a way, this advent is a service to those who advocate for vouchers – the “optics” of having some bearded clown instructing children is priceless. So much better than Arne Duncan and his insidiousness – this places the problem in terms everyone can understand. Where is the current Dept. of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on all this? AWOL? Clueless? Indifferent?
You’re not going to improve educational outcomes by subjecting children to clowns, much less perverted, gender-confused clowns.
The Left would scream like their hair was on fire if the NRA had a reading event at a public library.
If this lifestyle is just another group to be accepted as normal, then I guess a horse can be a duck, a pig could decide to be a chicken, a cow a kangaroo,etc.and we have to redefine the entire animal population. No absolute, no standard, no truth, or no intelligence.
Putting the Judeo in Judeo-xian values.
How about if you don’t like it, don’t go? Anyways i have a legitimate question. The article says tomorrow but the picture says 8/12 which is Sunday. Which is it?
Or better yet, rise above animal IQ and not have it at all. My apologies to those animals that do know more in which I may have offended in reference to this subject.
Hey Rachel I’m guessing you’d be ok with NAMBLA showing up?
Bigotry? To call out depravity? You’re wanting to normalize a sickness, why stop there? Why not allow pedophiles, murderers, etc to mingle with your child? You don’t think this is child abuse? Maybe not the abuse it was once defined as but this type of mental sickness is such that destroys society. Bigotry? Not all all. Normality, but by all means ,expose your child to any disease you want, but keep it in your home.
Sick and insane! We have to stop this garbage!
Seriously?
DCS? They have enough to worry about with parents who actually abuse their children without having to worry about your bigotry.
Yup, Mr. Reedy and the good Christians around here worry way too much about “perverse life styles” Perhaps if they stopped focusing so much on what they think the LBGT community is going to do to them and their children, we might not be on the top of all the bad lists and at the bottom of all the good lists. We need to be more educated and to understand about other life styles. Many people here are in total denial about what is happening under their noses in their own families. Time to get into this century.
These creeps are perverts. You can play pretend with your child’s life, but I do not want mine anywhere nears these dangerous weirdos.
Any parent who allows their child to be part of this madness is sick.
Can be reported to DCS online here:
https://apps.tn.gov/carat/
It’s quite lengthly. I got thru it, you can too, if you care.