Category: Cultural Survey

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If ‘Banned’ Books Are Harmless, Joe Biden Should Read Them to Kids

Excellent commentary on this subject by David Harsanyi.

Begins like this…

Editor’s note: The following material contains explicit references and may be offensive to some.

Joe Biden recently hosted a Pride Month event for families with LGBTQ kids on the White House South Lawn. Ahead of the event, he announced that he’ll appoint a “banned book” czar whose job it will be to try to compel local communities to stock their libraries with race-obsessed pseudohistories and books depicting oral sex, rape, violence, and gender dysphoria.

Now, if that sounds like an unfair description, there’s an easy way for the president to debunk his critics: He can read selected outtakes from some of these “innocuous” books to prepubescent kids like those who showed up to the event.

Even better, he can do it on TV. After all, “book banning erodes our democracy,” says White House Domestic Policy Adviser Neera Tanden, and “removes vital resources for student learning, and can contribute to the stigma and isolation that many communities face.”

Perhaps the White House could set up a themed reading circle on the South Lawn where the president can recite selections from “Lawn Boy,” which describes 10-year-old boys performing oral sex on each other. It is, after all, on PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans. (PEN America is an advocacy group that promotes freedom of speech for writers.)

The School Library Journal praises “Lawn Boy” as an exploration of “race, sexual identity, and the crushing weight of American capitalism.”

Read the rest.

Companion Post

Gender Queer & School Choice

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Parents, Stand Up For Your Children

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Fatherlessness: Root Cause of Christianity’s Collapse in America

It turns out, according to a recent nationwide study of faith and relationships, that fatherlessness is a root cause of Christianity’s collapse over the past 40 years in America.

One data point stood out above the rest. “It turns out that 80 percent of everybody in the pews on Sunday morning grew up in a home with continuously married biological parents, and that trend held across all age groups, from the oldest Gen Zs to the youngest boomers,” DeGance said. 80 percent!

Fatherlessness, it turns out, doesn’t just lead to poor outcomes on social indexes, DeGance’s research revealed. It has profound spiritual consequences too. When marriage collapses, church attendance collapses. And the social institution designed to nurture and love children collapses along with it.

“There’s been a revolution in family structure of the last 60 years,” DeGance said. “So what’s changed as pastors look at what’s going on with the diminishing numbers in the pews? What they’re not frequently understanding is that what’s driving the loss of people from the pews is the collapse of the family itself. That’s the leading indicator.”

As marriage collapsed, rates of fatherlessness rose precipitously, which further eroded the foundational relationship that drives church attendance. DeGance’s research echoed other research in the field about father-child connections, specifically regarding religious practices.

“Oxford University Press published a 40-year longitudinal study that followed 350 families with over 3,000 adults over the time frame,” DeGance said. “What they disproportionately found was that an adult’s description of his or her relationship being warm and close with her dad was the biggest predictor of whether or not that adult practiced faith as an adult.”

Source: Newsweek.com

In the Western world, more than just Church attendance is collapsing.

The Holy Family, second half 15th century (Paduan)
courtesy of the National Gallery of Art

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We Need Mothers and Fathers In The House

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Ontario Elementary Principal to Parent: Human Rights Code Doesn’t Require Parental Consent

Grade 5-8 Workshop on Gender and Queer Identity

Eye opening report by a parent of a student attending an Elementary Public School in Ontario province.

Display at the door of Grade 2 (age 7) daughter’s classroom.
[click image to enlarge]

I’m a parent at an Elementary-aged Public School in York Region District in Ontario. 

Sometime at the end of February, without parents’ knowledge, the school invited Canadian Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity to give a workshop on gender diversity and queer identity to students from Grade 5 to 8. The title and content of this workshop and by what organization were all vague. Some parents heard something from their children but no one had a clue what happened. 

Until March 1st. 

At the school parents council meeting, while the school showed previous activities at the school, I noticed this workshop for Grade 5 to 8 and asked what it was about and if parents’ consent were obtained. The Principal stated that this topic falls under the Human Rights code, thus parents acknowledgement or consent are not required. Two other council members stated that they wanted to be educated on the same topic so parents can help promote gender equity. The school thought it would be a great idea to bring in speakers to give a gender diversity session to parents. On April 21, the school sent out the following invitation to all parents at the school: 

Read about the whole episode here. She took photos of the training session and presentation slides are provided.

Don’t think this is just a Canadian issue!

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