A public library in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, has sided with activists to block efforts of local residents asking to remove from shelves sexually graphic books and instructional sex guides aimed at children.
After receiving requests to remove six books from shelves, the director of the Glen Ridge Public Library has refused, according to local parental rights activist Fran Deacon.
“These people are so lost inside their ideological bubble that they can’t see themselves,” Deacon told The Epoch Times.
Now others in favor of keeping the books available to children also have joined the fight, Deacon said. LGBT activists took over a Feb. 8 meeting at Ridgewood Avenue School to discuss the questionable books, she said.
“The library board had its big meeting and was reviewing the appeal that we sent regarding the book materials,” Deacon said. “It turned into a large rally and protest attended by activists in and outside of our town.”
Deacon is part of an eight-person local group called Citizens Defending Education (CDE). She was the only member willing to use her real name. Fearing reprisal, others interviewed asked not to be identified.
If activists fighting to make sex manual-style books accessible to children win, “the children lose,” Deacon said.
The library battle started when a Glen Ridge mom who asked to be identified as Kathryn found the book “You Know, Sex” in the children’s section of the Glen Ridge Public Library.
When she opened it, she discovered it explained puberty and also served as a sex guide, she told The Epoch Times.
“What I saw appalled me. I was flabbergasted. And my jaw was to the ground.”
One page had dozens of pictures of female genitalia, she said.
Solo sex acts are “one way we learn about our bodies and discover where feels good on our bodies and how we like to be touched,” a page in the book states.
A third page talked about how to hide evidence of male excitement, and showed a boy wearing women’s clothing, she said. The illustration clearly showed he wasn’t successful in hiding his arousal.
Sex Guides for Small Children
Another library book, “Let’s Talk About It,” offers advice on performing solo sex acts and tells teens how to send nude images to others.The book’s dedication indicates it was written “to whoever needs it, whatever your age.”
“Before you start sending your naughty masterpieces around the world, take some time to get friendly with photo-editing software or apps,” a sexting tip from the book suggests.
It’s encouraging lawbreaking, CDE members point out. Teens who send nude, sexual images of themselves to another person unlawfully commit trafficking in child pornography under federal and New Jersey law.
The same book also advises children on solo sex acts.
“When you’re ready to play with your body, there are a few things to try,” the book advises. The book pairs graphic images with all these guides.
“Let’s Talk About It” also recommends that young readers watch pornography.
“A great place to research fantasies and kinks safely is the Internet!” the book reads.
Parents in Deacon’s group also have objected to “Gender Queer,” which includes graphic pictures of oral sex and solo sex. And they’ve challenged “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” which includes a scene of homosexual child incest.
“It’s Not the Stork!” is another they believe to be inappropriate for children. Written for children as young as 4, it encourages solo sex acts.
“If you touch or rub your private parts because it tickles or feels good, this is an okay touch,” that book instructs.
“Here and Queer” is labeled as “a queer girl’s guide to life.” It includes instruction in eight types of lesbian sex and the use of sex toys.
“Consider this list to be a menu,” it says of its sex list. “Like at a restaurant, this menu is a list of possible choices—you can order a few different courses, try some of your partner’s dishes, and you can get something different next time.
“This Book is Gay,” pits LGBT identity against sexual ethics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The author says it plans to “tear some old religious stuff to shreds” because those belief systems generally are thought to oppose same-sex relations.
“Not being funny, but these guys kinda started it,” it says of Jews, blaming them for starting opposition to homosexuality.
The book suggests that if readers have the “misfortune to stumble into a literalist, homophobic Christian,” they should tell the Biblical story of Ruth and Naomi, because it is “like an episode of Desperate Housewives on crack.”
Defending Innocence
One reason CDE members object to the books is the art styles, probably used to distract from their explicit content, said a group member who asked to be identified as Gloria.“They’re all done in a cartoon in cartoonish shapes and images for the purpose that, if they weren’t, they would be pure pornography,” Gloria said.
Another group member, Kathryn, said she brought “You Know, Sex” to the librarian and flipped through it. The librarian reacted in shock, she said.
“Would you be comfortable having your children stumble upon these pages?” she asked the librarian.
The librarian, she said, replied, “I would be very uncomfortable.”
The librarian then removed the book from the children’s section, Kathryn said.
“Why do these books have to be on shelves? What merit do they have? They don’t have any merit,” said Gloria. As a taxpayer, she objects to helping make them available in her community’s public library.
For Glen Ridge, a town of fewer than 8,000 residents, the local library serves as a social center, CDE group members told The Epoch Times.
“It’s like the real cultural center of our town,” Deacon said. “It’s sandwiched between the high school and the middle school. And it’s walkable from almost any house in Glen Ridge. Glen Ridge is only three miles long, in total.”
After discovering the six objectionable books, CDE members filed challenges with the library, asking for removal of the books, in the hopes of protecting the community’s children from viewing materials that could be harmful, Deacon said.
“Is that what LGBTQ people need? Graphic sex novels and sex manuals at young ages? Is that how we ‘affirm children?’” Deacon asked.
Two weeks later, the library’s director responded, dismissing calls to remove the books. The library did not respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.
The Fight Gets Personal
In response to the parents’ concerns about the books, another group formed.The Glen Ridge United Against Book Bans group said Deacon and other parents were trying to “ban” books to eliminate LGBT presence in Glen Ridge, Deacon said.
Quickly, the parents found themselves branded as bigots, racists, white supremacists, and homophobes in social media posts and in emails, said Deacon.
Group members received emails telling them to “get the [expletive] out of Glen Ridge!” Deacon said. “We quickly became the recipients of hate mail and veiled threats. And it quickly became very unsafe for us. And we had to get the police involved.”
New Jersey state Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake said publicly that she believed the CDE group’s efforts were “about hatred” and “about discrimination” for LGBT people.
That’s simply not true, said a CDE member who asked to be identified as Elijah. Several members of the parental rights group have LGBT-identifying family members, he said. So they’re not “homophobic” and have no hatred toward LGBT people, he said.
And although some Christians in the group believe any kind of sex outside of a marriage is a sin, they don’t aim to force their worldview on others, he added.
“The big issue was the fact that these books were vulgar,” Elijah said. “They were highly sexually explicit. I mean, to the point where you have pictures of kids [expletive]-ing and having sexual relations with one another.”
Other group members agreed with him.
Getting Political
But the library board refused to reply to the CDE’s objections to the pornographic nature of the books, said Deacon.CDE member Gloria says the town’s power structures are controlled by people with liberal or progressive views, including the local board of education. Conservative values are underrepresented, she said.
The library board unanimously voted to keep every challenged book, CDE members said.
Deacon said the anger over opposition to the books shocked her.
“I honestly never thought that that would happen to us,” she said. “They treated it like we were a mob and that we were coming against the LGBT community in our town.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the Glen Ridge United Against Book Bans, but they did not respond by publication time.
