(LifeSiteNews) — A planned LGBT “Pride Day” event at a California elementary school has area parents declaring they will keep their children home that day, in a protest against “grooming” in public education.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Saticoy Elementary School in North Hollywood, which encompasses kindergarten through fifth grade, plans to hold a “Gay Pride and Rainbow Day” assembly on June 2. According to Saticoy Elementary Parents, a group protesting the event, “Videos will be shown to the students including one where it says, ‘some kids have 2 mommies, some have 2 daddies.’”
KTLA adds that the event will also feature The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith, a self-described “celebration of the diverse fabric of kith and kin the world over” according to its product description, which teaches that “some children have two mommies or two daddies.”
Parents represented by the group say they intend to keep their children home that day and have a protest scheduled for 8 AM. The group has 731 followers on Instagram; it is unclear how many are parents with K-5 children in the district.
“We said no to COVID-19 vaccines and it’s now over,” the group says. “It was a hard fought battle and we won! Now it is time to say stop grooming our children” and keep them “innocent.”
“We respect everyone, but some things are appropriate for children (of) that age, and some things are not,” George Dzhabroyan, one of the objecting parents, told KTLA. “Hopefully the message gets across and people understand that parents should be the primary contact of what their children should be exposed to and shouldn’t be exposed to.”
Saticoy principal Maria Awakian has so far declined to comment, but the Los Angeles Unified School District told the Times it is committed “creating a safe and inclusive learning environment that embraces the diversity of the communities we serve,” adding, “As part of our engagement with school communities, our schools regularly discuss the diversity of the families that we serve and the importance of inclusion. This remains an active discussion with our school communities and we remain committed to continuing to engage with families about this important topic.”
Amid tensions over the event, a “pride” flag was found burned in a plant pot outside a Saticoy classroom and is being investigated as a possible “hate crime.” It is unknown if the perpetrator opposed LGBT ideology, as is the presumption of most news coverage, or if the incident was a hoax to generate sympathy, as many high-profile hate crimes have turned out to be.
Across the nation, controversy has exploded in recent years over schools promoting LGBT ideology through “pride” events, politicized classroom instruction, and the adoption of books that featuring sexual themes and activity, often in graphic detail and with pornographic imagery depicting specific sex acts. The issue, along with the promotion of ideological messages in taxpayer-funded education, has fueled a parent backlash credited for Republican gains in states like Florida and Virginia, whose current respective governors have taken leading roles in fighting back.