Kids' Access to Explicit Library Books Restricted After Ark. Parent Complains
by Jim Brown
June 1, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Christian mom in Fayetteville, Arkansas, has succeeded in getting the city's school board to remove three books endorsing offensive sexual practices and pornography from the district's elementary and middle school libraries.
On Thursday the Fayetteville School Board decided to relegate the three controversial books to the district's Parent Resource Center libraries. This move means The Teenage Guy's Survival Guide, It's Perfectly Normal, and It's So Amazing are now accessible to children only if their parents give them written permission to check out the books.
Laurie Taylor, a mother of two, had protested the books since January, arguing that they did not belong in schools because of their "vile" nature. The Arkansas mom became mortified after reviewing one of the books, which she says "had very, very explicit sexual pictures, descriptions of sexual activity," and also contained "advocacies of homosexuality," and "had an advocacy of abortion."
Taylor says the literature she examined and found objectionable promoted a licentious attitude towards sex of all kinds. She describes the messages she encountered in the material as "Have sex with whoever, whenever, whatever," and "Don't feel guilty about having sex; if you feel like you're old enough, then you are."
The concerned parent says her next course of action will be to ask for an overall audit of each of the Fayetteville school libraries to make sure they are purged of all indecent materials. She contends that an "overall agenda" is being carried out in many schools, and its objective is "to sexualize our children, to desensitize them to homosexuality, and to perpetuate the myth that it's normal."
Hence, the name of one of the books, Taylor notes, referring to It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris. "I mean, that's just ludicrous," the Fayetteville mother remarks. She says the book "specifically states that everything is normal," and promotes the idea that "it doesn't matter who you fall in love with or who you have feelings for or what kind of sexual activity you want to participate in."
Psychologist Dr. Warren Throckmorton reviewed It's Perfectly Normal and the other two books at Taylor's request. He says some of the materials may actually be illegal, considering that they urge children to use pornography.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
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