Forsyth County Georgia Board of Education - Jere Krischel - 05/16/2023

On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof murdered 9 innocent black christians. Dylann was a radical white supremacist, and after intense media focus on a picture of him with a Confederate flag, a whole host of actions were taken: state flags were changed to remove General Lee's battle flag, retailers stopped selling confederate flags, and even the Dukes of Hazzard was taken off of TV. Small fringe groups like Aryan Nations spoke up in support of Dylann, but they were all bark and no bite.

On March 27, 2023, Audrey Hale murdered 6 innocent christians, three of them only 9 years old. Audrey was a radical LGBTQ activist, and in contrast to the treatment Dylann got in the media, Audrey's radical LGBTQ anti-christian terrorism hasn't resulted in mass removal of pride flags, or the censoring of "Will and Grace" reruns. On the contrary, large groups of Democrats have actively protested in support of her radical LGBTQ violence.

But should we judge groups based on the worst examples of individuals in those groups? Can we have enough grace to admit that the Confederate flag is a symbol of heritage, not hate, for the overwhelming majority of Americans who like Bo and Luke Duke? Can we be open hearted enough to admit that just because two LGBTQ activists raped and trafficked their adopted children, that it doesn't mean that every homosexual is a predator, or that every Democrat supports more sexual content in our school libraries?

All too often, we separate into our respective tribes, and demonize the other. Instead of addressing the strongest arguments of the people we disagree with, we strawman their weakest ones, to make them look as foolish as we can.

So let's find our common ground. The people who are concerned about sexual content in books aren't trying to bully children who are different - they're trying to protect the rights of parents to protect the innocence of their children.
And the people who are fighting against what they see as "book bans" aren't really trying to make sure that graphic underage sex is portrayed to everyone's children as early as possible, they're just worried that some children might feel like they don't fit in just because they're different than normal people.

As a school district, we can, and should, be able to meet both of these needs. We should be able to protect our children from overt and covert sexualization in our schools, and we should be able to protect our children who aren't run-of-the-mill normal from bullying, through fair and effective enforcement of behavior standards. You can have two things.

So please, I humbly ask the Board, let's adopt policies that restrict the sexualization of children in our schools. No adult employee should be asking my daughter what her sexual preference is, either directly, or through some inappropriate "identity" survey. No adult employee should be asking children, going through an already difficult puberty, what their so-called "gender-identity" is, even if they aren't behaving in sex-stereotypical ways. Let girls play with trucks, and let boys play with dolls, without sending them down a road of confusion.

And most of all, let's put into place strong policies against *adding* sexualized content to our libraries, that are just as thorough and strict as the policies we have to use to *remove* sexualized content from our libraries. Any book rated "18 years and up" should be required to go through that process, in public, with full accountability.

And so on that note, thank you very much for your time, and again, I'd love to have lunch with anyone who disagrees with me.