TAMPA, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — A local Florida television channel had to hold off on its live recording Wednesday when Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis presented a video highlighting some of the sexually explicit books reportedly pulled from the shelves of Florida’s public school libraries.
The decision by local channel WFLA underscores the rationale for DeSantis’ moves to cull inappropriate materials from children’s classrooms and school libraries, an effort his political opponents have decried as a form of authoritarian book-banning.
DeSantis’ office showed the materials during a five-minute video ahead of a press conference titled “Exposing the Book Ban Hoax,” held at the state attorney’s office in Tampa.
The materials presented during the video were described as pornographic by the DeSantis administration, and therefore inherently inappropriate for children.
Texts referenced included “Gender Queer,” “Let’s Talk About It,” and Rupi Kaur’s “Homebody,” “Milk and Honey” and “The Sun and Her Flowers.” The books reportedly explore explicit themes, including LGBT sex, in graphic detail.
According to the DeSantis administration, the materials don’t match up with the conservative state’s values as outlined in its Parental Rights in Education law, often mischaracterized by opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The measure went into effect last July and works to prohibit sexual and gender-ideology content in schools for students in kindergarten through third grade. Any such content for older children must be “age appropriate.”
There are countless reasons to conclude modern sex-education is less about critical thinking and more about indoctrinating and sexualizing children at as young an age as possible.
Consider these 3 questions:
- Why are politicians around the world pushing radical transgender theories on children as young as 5?
- Why is the World Health Organization calling for 4 year-olds to be taught how to masturbate?
- Why are children in schools being shown graphic images of sex and told anything goes so long as consent is established, if not to encourage our sons and daughters to become sexually active?
A sane society would try to shield impressionable children from becoming sexualized, and encourage them not to watch pornography, take puberty blockers or mutilate their genitalia, but our schools increasingly promote these behaviors.
In reality, the media, most politicians, and many education chiefs are obliterating a parent's ability to protect their child's innocence and identity.
We must realize: these elites want children to have THEIR values, not YOURS. SIGN THE PLEDGE!
The results of this explicit, inappropriate sex-saturated culture and education have been startling: there have never been more children claiming to be transgender, gay, lesbian and bisexual, nor have we ever seen such high levels of sexual assaults by minors.
BREAKING: Loudoun County father who was dragged out of woke school board meeting reveals his daughter was 'raped' in the girls' bathroom by a 'skirt-wearing' male student who was arrested for assaulting a SECOND girl months later - but staff did nothinghttps://t.co/awoZcVQx3l
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 12, 2021
This nut could end up being your child’s teacher and you wouldn’t even find out the craziness they’re teaching until your kid tells you about it. If you aren’t disturbed after watching this, you’re a lunatic. School choice is the civil rights issue of our generation. pic.twitter.com/y1V3Rotx9k
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 17, 2021
Countless politicians, media personalities and education chiefs are too busy promoting woke trends to realize that sexualizing minors amounts to grooming, and has devastating consequences in many cases.
Children whose inhibitions are broken down risk addiction to pornography, teenage pregnancy, STDs, gender dysphoria, online shaming, and a whole host of other negative outcomes.
Parents, not the government, must be in control of what their child is taught about sex.
Just listen to the type of materials public schools in the U.S. are promoting:
That's why we are asking you to sign the Parents' Pledge that you will pull your children out of sex-education classes if your school chooses to sexualize your child.
The Parents' Pledge is our best chance of winning back our children's schools before they're entirely lost to radical sex-obsessed teachers' unions who are foisting these curricula on teachers.
Do you really want other adults deciding what your child is exposed to? Of course not.
Please share this brand new grassroots Parents' Pledge with like-minded parents and join a growing movement of mothers and fathers who are wise to the threat of their child being led into sexual activity.
MORE INFORMATION:
Most teachers are disturbed by their unions' push to sexualize children
The corrupting influence of sex-education is causing widespread abuse among school children
READ: White House condemns Florida parental rights in education law as it takes effect
At least one local news outlet on Wednesday appeared to agree that the materials were inappropriate, opting not to show the video on television.
WFLA reporter Mahsa Saeidi acknowledged on Twitter that the channel decided to stop its live feed while the video was presented after journalists were apprised of the sort of content the Florida governor would be revealing.
“When we were told sexually explicit content would be shown – we went down,” Saeidi said. “I am not disputing that. I emailed my newsroom, concerned.”
“I think some of the news had to cut the feed because it’s graphic,” DeSantis said in response to news that WFLA had opted not to air the segment, going on to point out that opposition to his so-called “book bans” has fed into a “false political narrative.”
DeSantis’ opponents, chief among them California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, have attempted to brand the Florida Republican’s efforts to protect children from explicit materials as an “attack” on “freedom.”
“Banning books. Restricting speech. Making it harder to vote. Criminalizing women and doctors,” Newsom said last summer of Florida’s legislative efforts, urging people to move from Florida to California to experience “freedom.” The call came despite the fact that Florida’s population has grown substantially in the last several years under DeSantis’ watch while California’s population is dramatically shrinking.
During the Wednesday press conference, DeSantis emphasized the need to “have truth prevail,” specifically referencing the need to debunk the myths surrounding his crackdown on inappropriate content in schools.
The Florida governor said the narrative accusing him of book-banning is a “nasty hoax” that has been used “in service of trying to pollute and sexualize our children.”
Parents do not want pornographic materials in our schools, and my administration will ensure that parents’ objections to obscene materials in educational buildings are heard and that taxpayers are respected. pic.twitter.com/5M8ktcY0eA
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 9, 2023
“If these materials are not appropriate to show on the news, are they appropriate for children to be reading?” Florida governor’s office spokesman Bryan Griffin said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Today, Governor DeSantis disabused the media’s false narratives surrounding Florida’s educational standards,” he said. “Florida doesn’t ‘ban books’, but pornography is prohibited in schools and [Critical Race Theory] will not be utilized as educational material.”
READ: Florida House votes to ban gender identity discussion with children in third grade or younger
Earlier this year, the Florida Board of Education under DeSantis adopted a rule to mandate annual training for school librarians and teachers with classroom libraries. The training will instruct the school staffers to purge their shelves of sexually explicit and racist content, LifeSiteNews previously reported.