On Tuesday, a county school board in Virginia suddenly voted to reverse a previous decision that removed sexually explicit books from their school libraries, with a majority voting to return the controversial books despite outcry from parents, the Daily Caller reports.
By a vote of 5 to 2, the board of Spotsylvania County Public Schools (SCPS) voted to overturn its prior decision on November 8th, where all seven board members initially voted unanimously to remove the books in question and conduct an audit of all libraries in the district. One of the books in question, “Call Me By Your Name,” focuses on homosexual activities.
In the meeting on November 8th, numerous parents expressed concern about such books being freely available for underaged children to read. At the most recent meeting on Monday, a small handful of counter-protesters were at the meeting in favor of returning the books, with one of them holding a misspelled sign that said “Don’t Sensor my Sexuality.”
The Monday meeting saw public comment last until midnight, with almost 70 people speaking during that time. An attorney for SCPS claimed, without evidence, that the banning of such books may constitute a violation of the First Amendment. After public comment ended, board member Baron Braswell proposed a motion to rescind the prior ban; the only two members to vote in favor of upholding the bans were Kirk Twigg and Rabih Abuismail.
Public school board meetings have become the epicenter for the latest cultural battle in America, with parents across the country protesting school districts that openly promote books featuring homosexuality and “transgenderism,” as well as the teaching of the far-left concept of Critical Race Theory, which argues that all White people are automatically racist and that America is an inherently racist nation. Virginia, and especially the northeastern counties that border Washington D.C., has become ground zero in this fight; the issue proved to be a winning one for Republicans in the state’s elections earlier this month, with the GOP sweeping all three statewide offices and flipping the House of Delegates after campaigning to overturn such policies in public schools.