A few extremists are trying to dictate what your child is allowed to learn

Recently the founder of local hate group Protect Nebraska Children, Sue Greenwald, sent out an article on her substack in which she called Scholastic Books the “Bud Light of Children’s Publishing”. In her rant, she claims that the books Scholastic now offers are almost all about “social justice or LGBTQ themes”. Obviously this is a lie, but if it wasn’t we certainly wouldn’t be mad about it. For her article, Sue could only find a few books to be mad about. First, Sue takes issue with the book Melissa by Alex Gino because during an author interview the author (who scandalizes Sue by using they/them pronouns) said there is “a community out here ready and waiting to love and cherish you.”, apparently referring to trans youth but that really isn’t clear from what Sue wrote. Sue Greenwald finds this “creepy”. She is also mad because the book references cross dressing, transitioning, and a guy having loving and romantic feelings for another guy. When I was in 8th grade, I was reading Flowers in the Attic, so … whatever, Sue.

The other book Sue is mad about is a book called Drama. She is mad about this book because she thinks it makes kids “believe that their parents are evil and homophobic if they don’t agree with the LGBT agenda being pushed on their kids.”

If the shoe fits, Sue.

And here’s the thing: those aren’t even library books. They’re books parents BUY (or not) for their children. Don’t Sue and her merry band of extremists always fret about how they’re not “banning” books? How is wanting to prevent the sale of books not a ban? And we thought they LOVED capitalism? It seems like they showed their cards there. Because their argument is always “we don’t want to ban books. People can still go and buy them. We just don’t want them in the school or public library.” Well, Sue, this *is* a book sale, and you’re not okay with that either, so it really does seem like we were right all along in saying that you literally want to ban books.

Another notorious “I’m not banning books” book banner Terri Cunningham Swanson is in the midst of weathering her second recall attempt by the citizens of Plattsmouth. Terri Cunningham Swanson, who is also a member of local hate group Protect Nebraska Children, has already bullied one librarian into resigning over her attempts to ban books, which even the students at the school protested, and now the residents of Plattsmouth are working to rightfully get her removed from the schoolboard.

You can find the complete list of books Terri wants banned at this link. Fighting these books is costing around $30K, and none of the people trying to ban them have read anything by those authors.

The process actually seemed a decently objective thing, and only one book was recommended for removal. So, good use of taxpayer dollars, Terri. Also now they’ve published the list so any self-respecting high schooler has checked them all out of the public library by now. But no wonder Terri’s throwing a tantrum. Adults read all the books Terri hates, had discussions about them, and decided they were educational. In a way, she’s done a lot to promote these books. Good on her.

Lastly, we’ve got a mom in Waverly who is also a member of, you guessed it, local hate group Protect Nebraska Children. This mom, whose name we have hidden to protect her kid, is aghast that her 8th grader learned about gender dysphoria. At first the people posting about it said that the 8th grader came to their mom concerned about the subject, but as it turns out …

Just as we suspected, her kid didn’t say shit about this assignment. She was snooping on their chromebook, saw the assignment, and decided to throw a fit about something that her kid didn’t think twice about. So now, although this assignment has already been pulled by the school (don’t even get us started) this mom has planned a protest at the school for … whatever reason, we don’t even know. Instead of protesting because she doesn’t want ANY kids to learn, she could just pull her kid from that class or that lesson. But she, like Sue and Terri, believes that nobody should be allowed to see something with which she personally disagrees.

A few of us at Seeing Red Nebraska are parents to 8th grade students. Our 8th graders absolutely do not care at all about any of this. It isn’t an issue in their lives in any way. They have friends who are different from them in all sorts of ways, they have assignments that require them to consider the perspective of different people, they do the assignments, they hang out with various friends, and that’s it.

These parents are 1000% pretending that their kids are so desperately worked up and worried about watching some video or reading some worksheet. It is THEM, not their kid.

So these anti-LGBTQ parents, who are absolutely a tiny minority in any community, are trying to make sure that YOUR kid can’t learn about the beautiful diverse community around them. They don’t want YOUR kid to know that if they are gay or trans that is totally fine and they are loved and accepted just for who they are. They don’t want YOUR kid to have empathy for someone different from them. For these Moms, only straight white cis people are allowed to exist or have an opinion on anything.