Moms for Liberty Has Created Nightmares for Schools Across the Country

[Nevilledog]

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Laura Jedeed
@LauraJedeed
The GOP midterm strategy: drive voters to the polls with the boogeymen of grooming and CRT

Here's what that looks like in Chattanooga TN, where concerned moms face off in an increasingly bitter battle for the future

My latest for @newrepublic

newrepublic.com
Moms for Liberty Has Created Nightmares for Schools Across the Country
The group of parents has injected conservative politics into classrooms and reshaped the 2022 midterms.
6:54 AM · May 31, 2022

https://newrepublic.com/article/166373/moms-liberty-schools-nightmare-midterms

No paywall
https://archive.ph/aSg87

“You suck. And that’s what I’m going to say when I find you and shove it in your mouth.”

Brandy Howard was reciting for me the opening line of More Than We Can Tell by Brigid Kemmerer, all from memory. “I don’t want my son thinking that that’s acceptable to say or how to treat women,” she told me. “Let’s not make it OK.”

We were sitting at Oaks Coffee House in Chattanooga, Tennessee, approximately four minutes from the front lines of Hamilton County’s culture war. Every month, concerned parents pack the school district’s ruthlessly antiseptic boardroom for the local school board meeting. Those who tend to crowd the right side of the room demand an end to masking and vaccine mandates, the removal of classroom literature they describe as pornographic, and the elimination of curricula they believe is infused with critical race theory. Often, they wear matching navy-blue T-shirts whose backs declare that they “do NOT CO-PARENT with the GOVERNMENT.” The fronts simply bear their group’s name: MOMS FOR LIBERTY.

When I visited the monthly meeting in March, one of the Moms for Liberty members, Loretta Lowe, let loose. “Talking about sex, reading about sex—basically anything related to sex—is not needed in the lives of children,” she asserted. “I’m confident that the new policies will remove the grooming from the schools.”

The left side of the room erupted into half-stifled gasps of disbelief. “Audience, please,” one of the eight board members present chided in a weary voice.

*snip*

[no_hypocrisy]

1. When I was a senior in HS (1979), the HS football coach taught co-ed sex ed.

Nothing was off the table.

Contraception, GLBT, anatomy, orgasms, STD's, abortion, breast examinations, and more. And he gave difficult tests. Stuff like name the five most effective forms of birth control and their failure rate. We knew more about sex than our parents (combined) knew.

We were required to bring in one current events newspaper item about sex for every class. I chose marital rape.

First thing he introduced the class to was "I know about half of you are already 'doing it' and my job is to make sure you don't pick up a venereal disease or get pregnant."

40+ years later, here we are . . . . . .

[callous taoboy]

2. My Texas HS offered zero sex ed. Zilch.

This is late 70's, early 80's. I was also getting zero sex ed at home, and I was more sexually active then than I have been since. There were even teachers at HS who were notorious for having sex with students. It wasn't until I went to college where, as a psych major, I took a phenomenal course, "Human Sexuality." It was amazing. Our prof was hilarious, and he put us all at ease and we were able to discuss anything. We even watched some educational films that showed male and female sexual response and orgasm. All of this should have been offered when I was a HS Freshman.

Sounds like your HS had its shit together.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Not surprising that attendance rate for this class was 100% all the time.

Nobody cut this class.

And BTW, if you failed, you didn't graduate.

[callous taoboy]

4. Better than, "if you failed you were issued a locking codpiece."

[genxlib]

5. Curious as to where that was

Pretty rare even now and probably more so back then.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. Ramsey, NJ.