Vermont's Essex-Westford School District, which includes the town of Essex that last year fired a high school lifeguard for merely questioning Critical Race Theory, has done it again.  In the midst of a national furor over a sexually explicit graphic novel, the school has proclaimed it has the duty to expose children to pornographic imagery — to support free speech.

It is axiomatic that free speech rights do not extend fully into schools — they never have.  For example, the First Amendment protects quite a shocking variety of pornographic materials, including bondage and rape videos.  Are those acceptable, protected school teaching materials?  School administrations are supposed to be answerable to the appropriate needs of children.

But ESWD has declared itself the champion of the minuscule percentage of children afflicted with gender dysphoria, which not only is rare, but most often disappears with adulthood.  All children must be sacrificed at Essex-Westford.

The book in question, Gender Queer, created a national controversy not because the subject of the book is a "non-binary" student (a multitude of such titles abound, as all informed parents are now unavoidably aware), but because the book features "pages of explicit illustrations depicting oral sex [sic]."  The school's defiant letter to parents avoids mentioning this fact, instead proclaiming itself the defender of constitutional values:

Essex High School recently learned that a gender-affirming book in our library is being discussed on various websites. There is a long history of certain books being banned in the United States, so this is not a new conversation.

This sentence marks the beginning of a perverse justification for distributing pornography to children.  The rationale employed would serve to groom children sexually for adult sodomy as a child's "right."  The rights-defending hero-school fails to observe that there is not a long history of providing sexually explicit graphic novels to schoolchildren by public schools — this is very much a novel conversation.

Defying a request to remove the book, the school instead weaponized the GBQLT etc. movement as an excuse:

At Essex High School ... we know how critically important it is within our curriculum ... to have a representation of a plethora of lived experiences. Our students have a right to well-balanced library collection, including Gender Queer ... which is one title sitting among numerous titles featuring cisgender, heterosexual relationships which, on a side note, are not being targeted.

Perhaps the side note should explain that there are no heterosexual titles with graphic fellatio scenes.  Does the library offer Debbie Does Dallas to the kids, to provide "a plethora of lived experiences"?  How about graphic novels depicting bondage or sado-masochism, or simply heterosexual equivalents like "Helping Johnny find Sally's G-Spot" or "The Middle-Schooler's Guide to Tantric massage"?  If Gender Queer were (appropriately) titled "How to Jerk Off Your Friends, with Color Pictures," would this vile school library proudly defend the filth?

The Gender Queer title has created a national ruckus not simply because the subject matter is about gay people — the EWSD is publicly gaslighting concerned parents by pooh-poohing their legitimate concerns.  This is a reminder of who works for whom in Vermont — parents are the subjects of bureaucratic rule, and they had better not get out of line, or the FBI will be solicited.

The irony is capped off by the school's arrogant invocation of a national library standard that "materials should not be removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval."  It is obvious that materials are being selected using partisan ideological motivations — the science is far from supportive of the ideological rush to mutilating "gender reassignment" procedures for the young.  But more, the school invoked this baloney standard to eclipse the understandable objections of parents, labeling them partisan.  This is ideology in action, by administrators sworn to put kids and parents first.

Does the ESWD have copies of the Bible available, to "reaffirm [their] commitment to having a representation of a plethora of lived experiences?"  How about Coming Out Straight: Understanding and Healing Homosexuality?  Or maybe a book about the consequences to children of pretending to convert their gender prematurely, such as Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing our Daughters?  Other titles prompting critical awareness in Vermont's youth could include The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths about the Murder of Matthew Shepard, whose gay author explains that Matthew Shepard was not the victim of an anti-gay hate crime, and in fact, his killer was gay.  Or maybe the school will place scholarly works by Thomas Sowell, Douglas Murray, or John McWhorter beside its full complement (plethora!) of tomes by the moron racial agitator Ibram X. Kendi.

The EWSD school library expresses a commitment to presenting diverse views in the name of nonpartisan critical thinking, while flagrantly indoctrinating children in a far-left ideological soup.  This naked-school emperor has gone streaking for parents across the nation to see its shallow, pathetic attempt to justify shameless abuse of the children entrusted to its care.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.