Forsyth County Georgia Board of Education - Jere Krischel - 3/15/2022

Last month, we heard a lot regarding age-inappropriate sexual materials in our school libraries. We had a bunch of very concerned mothers asking for greater consideration of their parental prerogatives, and we also had some very concerned children worried about author diversity.

The claim that the sexually explicit books were actually being targeted because their authors were minorities, just isn't believable. There are all sorts of minority authors with conservative viewpoints that would be warmly welcomed by concerned parents. Dave Rubin, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Dinesh D'Souza, Candace Owens, and Ben Shapiro are all well respected minority voices, and their books are not at all sexually explicit. These gay, black, female, immigrant, and jewish voices represent a wide swath of superficial diversity metrics, but also represent strong, conservative values. If there is a concern with a lack of diverse authors, let's join together in identifying books from minority authors that are not sexually explicit, and represent conservative values.

As for access to sexually explicit materials, let's acknowledge the fears of both sides. If you put parents in control of what is age-appropriate, you could see some parents abuse that control. Some parents might groom children into underage sexual activity by normalizing underage sexuality. Some parents may repress their children's exploration of sexuality and sexual identity. Some parents may even go so far as to hormonally and surgically abuse their children before their age of consent, leading to permanent body changes, sterility, and other negative health outcomes, for children who would otherwise live happy homosexual or gender non-conforming lives.

If you put schools in control of deciding what is age appropriate, you could also see some schools abuse that control. Some schools may groom children into underage sexual activity by normalizing underage sexuality. Some schools may destroy an age of innocence, by forcing unwanted explorations of sexuality and sexual identity on children unready for those burdens. Some schools may even go so far as to promote the hormonal and surgical abuse of children before their age of consent, leading to permanent body changes, sterility, and other negative health outcomes, for children who would otherwise live happy homosexual or gender non-conforming lives.

Both options can lead to very bad outcomes, and by recognizing that, we can at least have some common ground between both sides. Despite the risks either way, the only rational path forward is putting parents in control.

My father had a trick to keep me and my brother from fighting - he'd give us a candy bar, and have one of us split it in half, and have the other one choose which half to take. This worked no matter who split it, and no matter who chose which half.

With an education system currently dominated by left-wing activists, people on the left might think it a great idea to take away parental control. But once that precedent is set, and the pendulum swings back the other direction, leftist parents are going to be very unhappy with conservative education systems imposing controls on their children.

Ultimately, this can be solved fairly with technological parental controls, giving parents notification, and opt-in mechanisms for specific library books for specific ages. This isn’t a perfect solution, but it is one that works no matter whose ideology is dominant in the school system, protecting everyone from potential abuse.

Until such a system is in place, I respectfully ask the Board to work on expediting and prioritizing the removal of sexually explicit materials from our school libraries.

Thank you very much for your time, and again, I'd love to have lunch with anyone who disagrees with me.