The Daily Signal - In Temporary Win, Mom Gets Dirty Books Removed From School Libraries

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

Northern Virginia continues to be a battleground between school boards and parents over what should be taught in public schools. The latest incident involves a series of books in Fairfax Public School libraries containing graphic depictions of sex between children and adults. Stacy Langton, a mom from Fairfax County, Virginia, made headlines after she read aloud and showed images from those books, “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe and “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison, during a School Board meeting. While the books have been temporarily removed from the Fairfax County Public School libraries, Langton is still concerned that a child will be permanently affected by the obscene pictures. "You're going to accidentally have your child stumble across this and open up. And once you see this, you can't unsee these images," she says. Langton joins "The Daily Signal Podcast” to talk about that School Board meeting, and the larger issue of such books being in public school libraries in the first place. We also cover these stories: Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., won't agree to spend more than $1.5 trillion on congressional Democrats’ social welfare spending bill. A Colorado woman was told she would be unable to receive a lifesaving kidney transplant unless she received a COVID-19 vaccine. The national gas price average is currently $3.22 per gallon. The last time the average was that high was October 2014. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, October 7th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Doug Blair. Northern Virginia continues to be a battleground between school boards and parents over what should be taught in public schools. The latest incident involves a series of books in Fairfax Public School libraries containing graphic depictions of sex between children and adults. Stacey Langton, a mom from Fairfax County, Virginia, made headlines after she read aloud and showed images from these books. during a school board meeting. She joins the Daily Signal podcast to talk about that school board meeting

and the larger issues of these books being in public school libraries in the first place. And don't forget, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, please be sure to just take a minute to leave us a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, and please always encourage others to subscribe. Now, on to today's top news. West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin will not agree to spend more than one $1.5 trillion on Democrats' social spending bill. President Joe Biden and leading Democrats continue to promote their $3.5 trillion bill, but Manchin says he won't go above his top line,

per face the nation. Let me make it very clear. There's been a lot of speculation about what number on reconciliation. My number has been 1.5. I've been very clear, and I think you all have gotten an outline of how I got to 1.5. comments Manchin made Tuesday made some Democrats think he was warming to the idea of a larger spending bill. But the West Virginia Senator is holding firm at his $1.5 trillion limit. Mansion said it is going to take time to come to an agreement on the social spending bill and get it passed. A Colorado woman was told that she would be unable to receive a life-saving kidney transplant unless she took a COVID-19 vaccine. During a Tuesday Facebook live event, Colorado Republican State Representative Tim Geithner revealed that local health organization, UC Health, had changed the woman's status on the donor recipient list to inactive due to the fact that she was unvaccinated, per the New York Times.

In the letter UC Health writes, the transplant team at University of Colorado Hospital has determined that it is necessary to place you inactive on the waiting list. You will be inactivated on the list for noncompliance by not receiving the COVID vaccine. You will have 30 days to begin the vaccination series. If your decision is to refuse the COVID vaccination, you will be removed from the kidney transplant list. The letter then stated that once the patient had completed their vaccination regimen, they would again be able to receive a kidney, pending other conditions. During an interview with local TV station 9 News, the woman said that both she and her donor had declined to get the vaccine for religious reasons.

Prices are rising, and one of the places all Americans are feeling it is at the gas pump. The national gas price average is currently $3.22. The last time the average was that high was October 2014. Of course, prices vary across the country. In California, the average is $4.42 per gallon, but in South Carolina, gas averages $2.2. and 92 cents per gallon. Why are gas prices so high? The short answer is the price of oil has increased significantly.

West Texas intermediate crude futures traded at about $77 and 60 cents per barrel on Wednesday. A year ago, that price was only about $40 per barrel. Companies have also been slow to increase petroleum production after Americans begin traveling again and driving more as the pandemic subsided. Some believed the coalition of oil producing nations, called OPEC, would increase their output this fall. But OPEC agreed Monday to stick to their previous agreed output of 400,000 barrels per day. Hurricane Ida has also taken a toll on gas prices as it took production offline in the Gulf of Mexico. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Fairfax County mom, Stacey Langton, as we discuss school boards and how a series of sexually explicit books

made it into local public school libraries. Conservative women. Conservative feminist. It's true. We do exist. I'm Virginia Allen and every Thursday morning on problematic women, Lauren Evans and I sort through the news to bring you stories and interviews that are of particular interest to conservative leaning or problematic women. That is women whose views and opinions are often excluded or mocked by those on the so-called feminist left. We talk about everything from pop culture to policy and politics. Search for problematic women wherever you get your podcasts. Our guest today is Stacey Lankton, a mom from Fairfax County, Virginia,

who went in front of her school board to criticize the board for allowing books with sexually explicit and pedophilic content contained within. Stacey, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Of course. before we get into the school board meeting, I would like to know a little bit more about what these books were that you objected to at the school board meeting

and why you objected to them. Well, I guess you're asking me, how did I become aware of them in the first place, right? Because that's the thing. I didn't know about it. I don't know many parents who would have any way of finding out these kinds of things because when was the last time you walked into your child's school library, right?

Like, I've never done that before. And so it came about in terms of just the awareness by seeing some of the other parent school board meeting videos that seemed to be going viral. So, you know, it was about three weeks ago. I saw the first video, which was, I believe it was Hudson, Ohio outside of Akron. And that surrounded some sort of sexually explicit high school literature book. And it had very inappropriate assignments that were being given to the kids. And, you know, I guess parents figured it out or whatever.

And the mayor sat down and said to the school board, you all have a choice. This is pornography. I've consulted a judge. You can either resign or will bring charges against you. And when I saw that story, I was like, wow, like, what's going on? Like, that's crazy. Then you kind of, you know, go on with your life and I'm very busy mom. I have six kids and then didn't think much of it.

And then maybe two or three days later, there comes another story. And this second story was the video of this mom who went to her school board in Leander, Texas. and that mom actually did more than what I did because she brought these two particular books and that was how I got titles because she named the books, she showed the books, she put up, you know, the titles or whatever. And they gave her more time, like we only get two minutes in Fairfax. She was given three minutes. So she read a whole lot more out of that book.

And it was cringe-inducing. Like it was really painful to listen to this poor woman. And I thought, well, this is just. bananas. What is going on? This is the second one. And holy cow, the thing she read. And I thought, I'm going to go look those two titles up because now you start to get concerned and think, is this going on in my backyard? And, you know, our kids here in Fairfax County have school issued laptops. So I went to my son and said, can we punch in this author's name in the library interface? And he said, yeah, we punched in. And sure enough, they both come right up.

And I thought, wow. Okay, they're there. That's weird. And I thought, well, I'm not going to take her word for it. I need to go get them and see for myself, right? Because I'm not just going to go off half. Pardon the pun. I didn't mean it that way. But that, it was too late. Like that came out of my mouth and I was like, oh, I shouldn't have said that.

But no, because that's literally what is in the book, right? That is literally the words I had to say. And so when you see it and then you have to, now you're faced with the fact that this is actually worse than you could have ever imagine. It's like a slap in the face. And when I saw the books and I saw the materials in person, it ruined my day. Like it literally ruined my day. And I thought, well, I have to go and speak because I wasn't aware this is going on. And I think I'm, you know, fairly involved mom in my kids' lives. And I thought, if I don't know, there are probably most parents who don't know. And that's why I went and signed up to speak at the board meeting. Now, these books were,

Were they targeted to younger kids or high schoolers? What ages were these books available to in the Fairfax County Public School libraries? Yeah. So you're talking about access and age range in terms of the access. So at my kids' school, it's, you know, it's a high school, so it's ninth through 12. But I looked it up in the system in several other schools that are, you know, near me. And one of them is Robinson, which is Robinson's secondary school is a combined middle school, high school. So at that school, it's available, you know, now you're getting.

down into seventh and eighth graders too, right? So that's even younger. And then as far as the physical location of the books in the library, this is an important thing. They had a big display down the center walkway. There were many titles on that display. And one of the books was there with that group of books. And I could tell just by looking at the dust jackets that, you know, there's probably similar material inside some of those other books, but I wasn't there to like check out every book and sit there and pour through every book. So I haven't done that. But the Kobabe book, which is the one that is a illustrated book. It's a graphic novel, which is like a fancy word for comic book, right? The librarian said to me, hey, it's not here. It should be here on this display, but it's not. She said, let's go over to the comic book section and look for it there. And so we walked over all the way across the library to another section and, oh, lo and behold, there it is on the shelf with the comic book. So that means here's where every little boy's favorite books. are, which is, you know, B.C. comics, Marvel Comics, The Avenger, Black Panther, you know, Batman and Robin, whatever. And oh, next to that is this. And you're going to accidentally have your child stumble across this and open up. And, you know, once you see this, you can't unsee these images. Right. Well, I think that's fascinating because from what it sounds like you're saying, this wasn't something that they were hiding off in a corner. It was very prominently available. This wasn't, again, something that was sort of like, oh, you had to seek it out. It was here, well,

Welcome to the library, there's the book. Yeah. And they were proud of the display, right? Like, that's the thing. This is, they're proud of this, which is shameful. Right. So now that we have a little background on the books, would you be able to briefly recount the school board meeting for our listeners who haven't

seen the video? What happened at that meeting? Well, I read the material aloud, and I showed the images to the board. And when I did that, they, well, first of all, I got interrupted by one of the board members who said, ma'am, there's children in the room. And I, you know, yes, exactly. You know, I didn't say that, but I mean, that was my thought. Like, thank you because you're making my point for me.

And then as I continued and I said where these materials were available, you know, the other schools, another board member interrupted. And she said, ma'am, it's for high school students. And I thought, well, okay, but that's not okay either. but no, actually you're wrong. It's not just high school students because it's at Robinson. And Robinson has middle schoolers. And then they cut my mic and they cut the feed.

So there was no more camera at that point because it is filmed. And they're broadcasting it out into the community like via some cable access channel. And then I think they do a live stream on YouTube. So they cut the feed and they cut my mic. And that was the end of it. So, you know, I wasn't allowed to finish my full two minutes and say everything I wanted to say. And the last part of it was very important. I wanted to say, you know, this is actually illegal.

And here's the code on the books in Virginia, which says this is illegal. And I read the code. And I wanted to say that, you know, if you guys are responsible for this, then you should be charged because it's against the law. I'm so glad you brought that up because this story was so fascinating to me because it wasn't just a school board member. It was the chair of the board. It was Stella Pekarski who claimed that this was an inappropriate thing to read. allowed to children because they were present. So it sounds like this happened twice. What did you think when Ms. Pekarski said that? And then what did you think when the other person told you

to, you know, there are high schools here. And what did you think when they started to, you know, cut your mic? How did that make you feel? Well, it made me angry because I can see the red clock on the wall, which shows you your time, right? And I knew I wasn't out of time. I could see that they're trying to stop me from finishing my time. And it made me angry because I was like, no, like that's not fair. And by the way, this isn't a back and forth. Like these rules that they've set up, it's two ways. The rules are that they're supposed to listen to the presentation, as are the audience members.

Everyone is supposed to be respectful and polite and quiet and quiet and listen to the speaker's presentation. And they were not obeying the rules that they made. It was incredibly rude. it was incredibly disrespectful. They always talk about they want respect and decorum and all of this. And it's just nonsense. And they didn't provide me with that. And seeing the clock and going, oh, wait, I'm not done.

I just thought, no, you know what? I'm going to stand there and I'm going to finish what I'm trying to say. And you people are going to listen to this because it's wrong that you're trying to stop me. And that's kind of why I stood my ground. And I mean, it just, it really incensed me. Now, what did you do after the school board meeting? I went to see them the next day. I went to the superintendent's office.

I tried to see Dr. Scott Brabrand the next day, and he wasn't in. So I haven't heard from them. I haven't heard from anybody. I have no accountability. I have no answers. Nobody's reached out to me to explain, you know, how this happens in the first place. Those are some things I would really like to know. Whose decisions are these?

Who's putting this stuff there? How does this, you know, like, how is the approval? process happen. I know nothing. I would love to know these things. And, you know, I'm just getting nowhere with that right now. The principal of the school didn't see me the next day, but I persisted. I went again on Monday. And she did see me on Monday. And she said, well, you know, we've started this review process. And, you know, we're forming a committee. And you can throw your name in the hat to be a part of the committee because we're going to choose a couple of parents randomly. And I was like, maybe I ought to be on the committee to review it because I'm the only one who has reviewed the materials at this point, but it doesn't work that way. It's random. So, you know,

I probably won't be a part of that process. But by the way, the email said, and we're choosing two students to participate in the committee, but they have to be legal 18 adults due to the nature of the material. And I said to Maureen Keck, the principal, I said, do you even, like, hear yourselves? I said, that's preposterous. I said, you're going to have students who are legal adults to examine pornography to determine if it's okay to show to children? Seems slightly messed up. It's nonsensical. I mean, it's illogical.

It doesn't seem to track. Speaking of other parents maybe that would be joining this board, has there been a response from other parents in Fairfax County to incidents like these? Have you received a lot of support from the other parents in the community? Oh, it's just wall-to-wall positive response. Wall-to-wall. Positive. I mean, it's kind of a funny thing because the response has been so overwhelming.

I mean, everywhere I go, people are thanking me for what I did and calling me brave and saying it was very courageous. And, you know, people go, you're my hero. And I mean, it's nice to hear that. But I didn't do this thinking like, oh, I'm going to go and be a hero. Like that wasn't why I did this. I did this because I thought other parents need to know what the hell is going on. And that was it. And I never thought it was going to blow up and turn into this sort of national conversation.

But maybe that's what needed to happen because this is the thing. It is not a Fairfax County problem. It's not a Loudoun County problem. I am getting materials sent to me by parents all over the country because they all woke up and now they're examining their kids' school materials. They're looking in their kids' backpacks, and they're sending me stuff that would curl your hair. What, I mean, I guess we don't want to get too explicit, but is this something that is on the same level as the books that you found in Fairfax? Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Yep. So it's a national problem, right? This is a national problem. And so it's good that maybe it happened the way it did because it's going to help illuminate that part of what's happening that maybe parents weren't aware of. And, you know, I haven't had time to, what I really want to do is I'm, you know, kind of keeping aside all of these other materials that, you know, kids have in other school districts. And I need to punch those titles and those authors into my son's computer again and go, well, are these books all at Fairfax High School? Because, well, they might be in FCPS also. But it's terrible.

It's absolutely terrible. Switching gears slightly. The Department of Justice recently announced that it's going to begin investigating what it calls, threats against teachers and school boards that refer specifically to these encounters between parents and school administrators. The framing of threats against these boards has kind of come up as controversial. How does the framing of this issue by the Department of Justice make you feel? Well, personally, it's shocking to me when I saw the DOJ's announcement two nights ago, very shocking and alarming. And I,

I certainly am not advocating anybody to do anything violent. And I didn't do anything violent. I walked into a room and I stood at a podium and I exercised my rights to free speech and I read aloud from some school library materials. That is what I did. Now, if you have parents who are doing other things like, you know, I've seen on some of the news, they're showing clips of like people staking out board members' houses and, you know, I don't know what, like protesting.

outside of their house or assaulting them in the parking lot or following them to their car, whatever. That's wrong. People shouldn't do that. That's not what it means to go and address your school board about a problem. But the DOJ shouldn't be mobilizing the FBI against parents who want to have a say in what their kids are taught at schools because there is no other mechanism for us to interface with the school system.

This is it. Like, this is how I go and say, hey, everyone, we have a problem. here? Can we look into this? There's something going on. Can we please get some action on this? That's what the school board meeting is for. So the DOJ shouldn't be sending FBI agents to come and talk to me and parents who exercise their First Amendment rights at a school board meeting. In a response from the sort of other side of the aisle, there was an article in the Washington Blade, which is an LGBT targeted magazine, where Robert Rigby, who is the co-president of the Fairfax Public Schools Pride and LGBT organization who claim that you guys are misinformed about these books and that they don't

actually depict child-adult sexual relationship. So here's his quote. He says, I have read them from cover to cover and this is simply not true. Responses to that criticism? No, I mean, that's just false. You can look at the materials and I turned in a copy of the materials on a handout to the board that night. Okay. So I read aloud and I showed some images and that was all printed up on a piece of paper because you're allowed to submit your presentation to the board members. And then it goes

into the permanent record of the meeting. So you can go and look at the materials. And this, this is not ambiguous, right? Like you're not going to look at these pictures and go, oh, no, maybe. No, no, no, no. It's straight up pornography, triple X 100%. And that's not debatable. So I don't know what Robert Rigby is talking about. And it's the same thing with the written passages from the novel, because, you know, one of them is just a regular novel. When you read this material aloud, or, I mean, on the page, I should say, it's pornographic. Like, this is not in question. And for him to sort of try to say it's not and he's reviewed it, like, I don't know how you could say that.

He's literally defending the indefensible. And the other thing that bothers me about the attacks coming from someone like Robert Rigby, who is associated with the LGBTQ community, is that I have said from the beginning in every interview I've given, this isn't about I'm here to bash gays or bash trans people or whatever. I would have come to that meeting and said every single word I said if the people and the characters depicted in the materials were man and woman. You see what I'm saying? If it had been quote unquote heterosexual pornography,

I would have showed up and said exactly everything I said. This is not about the gender of the people depicted in the pornography. This is not about the sexual orientation of the people depicted in the pornography. It is about the fact that it is pornography. And the pedophilia images in particular just add an extra layer of evil to this. that's, well, it's against the law. As a follow-up question on that topic, do you think that this is a subject that kids should be learning about in schools at all? Is there a way that this topic could have been addressed

appropriately as opposed to the way it was addressed in these books? What is the topic that you think would be addressed appropriately? I suppose human sexuality or finding yourself and finding your, I guess the LGBT community seems to be claiming that this is a book about first. finding who you are as a person or coming of age. Okay, yeah. No, I see. I know what you're saying.

Okay, so here's my answer to that. Like, I would say this. I am not looking to go into Fairfax High School's library and take a flamethrower to their LGBTQ book collection, right? Like, if you want to have a biography about, let's say, Freddie Mercury, right? He's, you know, gay man who is one of the greatest singer-songwriters who ever lived. And that's wonderful, right? And he may have, you know, if somebody wrote a book about him and his journey or whatever, that's great.

But it doesn't have to be pornographic. And, hey, I might even want to read that book. Or let's say, you know, if Bruce slash Caitlin Jenner has written a book about her journey to becoming trans and, you know, whatever, I might want to read that book too. There's nothing wrong with that if you want to have that book. but it doesn't have to be pornographic. So the two books that you mentioned in the school board meeting have been removed from Fairfax County School Libraries according to reporting from the area.

No, no, no, no. Let's be precise, shall we? They are not removed. They are temporarily suspended from circulation, okay? So that means it's undergoing a review process. They're not removed. I don't like people using that word because you know what might happen? These books, they might review them and go, no, like, we're okay with that.

We think it's cool and we're going to put them back. So no, they are not removed. They are temporarily suspended from circulation while they conduct the review. I have no idea how long that process will take and I have no idea what will be the result at the end of it. They may very well put those books right back on the shelf. So no, they are not removed. So then where do we go from here? How does victory against this content come about?

Well, I think you have to get at the answers I still don't have, which is where did this content come from? And those who are responsible need to be the ones who answer for it. There has to be accountability. This should not be happening in our schools. Our children should not be subjected to this type of material. And I pointed out to the Washington Post reporter that this is, similar, I think, in a sense, to sexual harassment law, because if you were a man who works for a corporation and you went into work and you took these images that I took to the school board

and you showed them to a female co-worker, you would get written up for sexual harassment, and you might even lose your job. And the way sex harassment law works, there are laws that say you are creating a hostile workplace, right? So in essence, what's happening to our kids is They are being subjected to this pornography at school. It's a form of sexual harassment. And you're creating a hostile learning environment. And that needs to stop. That just has to stop.

And that's where the accountability has to happen. Well, Stacey, I think you've given us a lot to think about. As we wrap up this interview, what would be your advice to some of the other parents across the nation who are concerned about books like this at their children's schools? Stand up, parents. Stand up. get involved in your kids' lives. Take a look at what's going on in their curriculum. If you're not paying attention, you need to be paying attention.

And if you find the same kind of things that I found, then don't be afraid to stand up. Don't be intimidated by Merrick Garland from the DOJ. Go sign up to your school board and let them know that you think this needs to stop. That was Stacey Langton, a mom from Fairfax County, Virginia, who went in front of her school board to criticize. the board for allowing books with sexually explicit and pedophilic content contained within. Stacey, thank you so much for your time.

Thanks for having me. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Virginia Allen and Kate Trinko, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop.

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