Hardcore Porn in Public Libraries, Fayetteville, AK: "Laurie's Noble Crusade"

Arkansas Democrat Gazette ^ | August 4, 2005 | Mike Masterson

[plan2succeed.org]

Laurie Taylor didn’t set out to become a controversial public figure.

Yet, before she could say "hardcore porn made available to my young daughter," her concerns over sexually inappropriate books in Fayetteville’s school libraries had made her an easy target. And now, this pixie-like and articulate Christian mother says she has been labeled by authentic extremists as everything from a "homophobe to a bigot, a vile pig and even a Nazi." The truth that few seem to understand is that she is, plain and simple, a reasonable, devoted mother who wants only to maintain informed and effective parental influence over her two children, ages 11 and 12. And despite suffering sustained public attacks, she’s never advocated banning even one of the books she finds so appalling for children. Heck, she hasn’t even asked that kids be prevented from reading them. Most excerpts I’ve seen from these publications amount to pornographic titillation the likes of which Hustler magazine might proudly publish.

Before I go any further and before you explode from indignant self-righteousness, read a few excerpts for yourself at wpaag. org. Decide if you’d want your children being provided this material without your knowledge at public school. Ask yourself whether a teacher would be dismissed for reading this same material aloud in class to seventh-graders. Ask whether your own child would be suspended for reading it aloud in a cafeteria. Inform yourself.

I admire Laurie, a former U.S. Navy diver. Her cause is selfless and noble. She has had the gall to insist that parents of all elementary, middle and high school-age children actually be informed when their children check out one of the more than 70 books that concern her. These would be books that speak in grossly inappropriate terms about promiscuous romps of all imaginable shapes and forms, including incest with both parents.

This outspoken taxpayer is asking for two simple things. First, she wants these books, many by the same repetitive-message authors, placed in a restricted section of the library. Then she wants the school to notify parents and get their consent when their children seek access to one of these books either in person or by an Internet request. That’s it. Period. So just what, in this age of Internet filters and parental-consent for X-rated video games and rental movies, is so "censoring" about that? What about that makes her a Nazi or a "Christian extremist"?

This issue is not remotely about one’s religious or political beliefs or one’s stance on constitutional rights. It is only about a parent’s right to rear children in the way he or she believes is best without the state providing hidden, potentially corrupting influences.

What we really are talking about here is sheer common sense, providing information and one woman’s refusal to bend or allow corruption of the moral values that she and her husband Mark have established in their home. That’s un-American?

Nonetheless, Laurie finds herself standing at ground zero in the ongoing dispute with the Fayetteville School Board over how these exploitative books should be handled.

She has been vilified as some kind of anti-First Amendment subhuman bent on burning any anti-Christian books with which she disagrees. This is utter nonsense, a diversion from the real issue at hand. Meet her yourself. Invite her to your civic club. You will see.

After reading excerpts of this" literature, "which advocates open sex of various forms with no regard for potentially disastrous health and social consequences, I found myself wondering who initially selected these books as appropriate for children. Since no school library can offer every book published, the entire process of stocking one becomes a matter of priorities. Someone had to decide which books would and wouldn’t be included in the school library, right? Wasn’t that process a form of censorship?

I’d venture to say that 99.999 percent of parents and grandparents and citizens wouldn’t want their 11-year-olds being exposed to the shock-slop I was reading earlier this week. Just because I might write a less than mediocre book that exploits the F word for gross shock value every other sentence and describes every possible sexual activity in detail doesn’t mean it has to be available to kids on library shelves in the Fayetteville public school system, does it?

Do you think I could or would publish columns that spew expletives and celebrate promiscuity and deviant sexual behavior just to shock you? No, I wouldn’t, and the paper wouldn’t allow it. So does that mean I am censored from freely expressing myself? No, it means I’m expected to exercise proper judgment and responsibility in the way I express my views, especially where impressionable children are concerned. I will never condone book banning. Neither will Gulf war-era vet Laurie Taylor. Yes, I am well aware of the" slippery slope" arguments that are raised when humans try to restrict free expression. But there also have to be logical boundaries in our society. And I’m one who dearly values common sense as well as decency and taste when it comes to drawing reasonable lines for our children’s sake.

[plan2succeed.org]

What do you folks think of this? And to see the graphics or read the hardcore porn in public school books yourself, go to www.wpaag.org. By the way, Parent's Aganst Bad Books In Schools (www.pabbis.com) says this kind of thing occurs courtesy of the American Library Association.

[Army Air Corps]

Well, part of Marxism the sexualisation of children as early as possible. It is part of the drive to "destroy bourgeois concepts of morality and family".

[plan2succeed.org]

Would you please document sources for your assertion?

[Army Air Corps]

Marx himself stated in many of his writings that the proletarian revolution must include the destruction of all "bourgeois morality." In both the Economic and Philosophic Manuscript of 1844 and the Communist Manifesto he made attacks on what is considered traditional moral values. Engels and others went further.

[Horatio Gates]

... Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. - John 3:19-21

Keep it up Laurie Taylor

[Army Air Corps]

St. John kept it simple. I always enjoyed the way that he cut to the heart of an issue.

[Horatio Gates]

St. John kept it simple. I always enjoyed the way that he cut to the heart of an issue.

I think you're right, now that you mention it. In all honesty I've just started over the last month or so, taking a good look at the Gospels. It's been helpful

[TheCrusader]

"So just what, in this age of Internet filters and parental-consent for X-rated video games and rental movies, is so "censoring" about that? What about that makes her a Nazi or a "Christian extremist"?

The vile things she's been called by the vile people who want easy access to vile material for children is very easy to understand.

What's not so easy to understand is how the vile people have gotten so far along with their agenda in America. Prayers up to this wonderful lady and mother who has the courage to face up to the vile people of the world.

[plan2succeed.org]

Comments like yours and the others above give her, and others, great strength in confronting this issue. Thank you very much.

[plan2succeed.org]

Oh, if anyone wants, I can send your contact information to Laurie Taylor. Use this: info@plan2succeed.org

[Army Air Corps]

Certainly. I am sending an e-mail to that address now.

[plan2succeed.org]

bttt

[catholic]

I believe you. I am a homeschool mom and I quit using the public library years ago when we found a book in the juvenile section about witches and it showed them in all sorts of sexual positions and how to cast spells and things that I am ashamed to say. I put it down after 3 pages and came home and washed my hands. We do have a large number of people out there who do worship satan. We do not like to think so. Our governments and all arenas have been infiltrated with them . We never use the library.There are also a large amount of lesbians there. We call it the withch house.

[bert]

....What we really are talking about here is sheer common sense.....

Actually we are talking about indoctrination. The educator's establishment is first about themselves, then indoctrination, then education.

The teachers must be turned over. Existing teachers out on the street, new ones with education degrees in.

Education degrees are plastic licenses to tap the public till.

[plan2succeed.org]

Catholic, my group is attempting to get public libraries to comply with existing law. We expose all kinds of things about libraries. We expose outrageous statements by library leaders. But I can say that so long as you review each book to be read by the child, remain with your child 100% of the time, even in the bathrooms, go during peak hours -- not late at night around closing time, and stay away from the Internet computers and printers, there is an almost 100% chance that you can appropriately protect your own child in your own way while still enjoying your public library.

And not all libraries are so bad as you say. Look around and find ones that are interested in protecting children instead of protecting the ALA. There are some, and my group congratulates them when we find out about them.

Basically, look at your library's policies. If they follow the ALA Library Bill of Rights, then you better raise your deflector shields really high around your children. If, on the other hand, all computers are filtered, adult and children, and all filters are used in accordance with the law, not automatically disabled in accordance with the ALA's efforts to defy the law, then you can lower your defense shields somewhat.

I see you are unusually protective of your child. That's fine. But if you maintain your unusual protectiveness in a public library that complies with the law or that filters all computers even if they do not have to comply with the law, you and your child should still be able to benefit from the public library experience.

Honestly, even in the very worst libraries, bad things happening to children are relatively rare, but they happen often enough that people had to make a law and the US Supreme Court had to decide a case to protect children in public libraries. Just go to a library like I described and keep your eagle eye open for anything and you should be relatively okay.

Go ahead, go back into a public library with your child and see if I am right. Let us all know here what you found out.

[plan2succeed.org]

Bert, You said " Actually we are talking about indoctrination. " I cannot think of any other reason why people would want children to have unlimited access to hardcore pornography, even where the US Supreme Court says children should be protected from same.

[plan2succeed.org]

This lady who is the subject of this thread has created an organization to address the issues.  Everyone please see Parents Protecting the Minds of Children.

[plan2succeed.org]

From Agape Press comes the following:

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/232005b.asp

AFA Law Center to Help Fayetteville Parents' Fight School Library Porn

By Jim Brown
November 23, 2005

(AgapePress) - A pro-family law firm is getting ready to sue the Fayetteville (Arkansas) School Board over pornographic books in the district's school libraries. A group of local parents is asking that children's access to several sexually explicit books in the city's elementary and middle school libraries be restricted, but the school board claims such a move would constitute censorship.

The concerned parents are being represented by the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy. AFA Law Center Chief Counsel Steve Crampton is preparing a lawsuit against the Fayetteville School Board and Superintendent Bobby New -- a legal action that seeks to get the sexually graphic books placed in a limited access area where parental consent is required.

Superintendent New and the school board recently gave the green light to Fayetteville students who wish to check out the explicit school library books. The books have been under review due to their promotion of homosexuality and depictions of teenage sex; but despite pro-family outcries, the school has not responded to the concerns and state and local officials have done little to intervene.

Arkansas Attorney General Mike Beebe recently stated that the legality of the school district's decision to circulate the sexually explicit materials is a matter best left "for a court or properly instructed jury" to decide. Hence, the concerned Fayetteville parents decided to seek legal help in forcing the school to protect young children from being carelessly exposed to what the plaintiffs regard as pornographic material.

Steve Crampton [pictured at right]

"It seems to me imminently reasonable," Crampton says, "not to mention lawful under our system, where parents really are the overseers and the natural guardians of their children. What the school has done in this case is just buffalo the rights of parents."

Certain Fayetteville School Board members, fearing they may be seen as puritanical, are willing to violate their own consciences and vote in favor of "absurd liberal policies," the AFA Law Center attorney contends. He believes the school officials have chosen to cave in to threats from anti-censorship groups rather than address the concerns of his clients -- local mothers and fathers.

"All they're asking for is that some reasonable controls be placed on access to these explicit materials," Crampton points out. "That's the same sort of thing that we do in bookstores all over the country. Why those rules should go out the window just because you're in a public school where the law requires that our kids attend is beyond me."

It is indefensible, Crampton adds, for the Fayetteville school officials to deny the parents' request to limit children's access to the sexually explicit library books. The lawsuit the AFA Law Center is preparing on behalf of his clients will seek to compel the school board to acknowledge its obligation not only to protect children but to respond to the parents' concerns about the inappropriate materials.

---

Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

© 2005 AgapePress all rights reserved.

[plan2succeed.org]

By the way, Judith Krug, the top ALA person for ensuring p**nography remains available to children in public libraries and children remain available to adults viewing p**nography on Internet computers in public libraries, said in 1997, Citizen magazine, and I'm quoting now, "Parents who care give their children Playboy." For more about Playboy in public libraries, see:

SafeLibraries.org - Are Children Safe in Public Libraries?