LGBT – Page 57 – Family Council

Central Arkansas Library System Continues Hosting Pro-LGBT Events Geared Toward Youth

Sep 7, 2022Jerry CoxLGBT, LibraryLGBT, Library, Transgender

The calendar for the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) shows multiple pro-LGBT activities scheduled at libraries in the coming weeks. Most of these events are designed for children and youth.

Here are a few of the events scheduled:

Teens 4 InQlusion — a Gender and Sexualities Alliance (GSA) for teens and young adults — is hosting a screen printing workshop for youth ages 12 – 19 at the Main Library in downtown Little Rock.
Teens 4 InQlusion also is slated to hold monthly Gender and Sexualities Alliance meetings for ages 12 – 18 on the first Saturday of every month.
A “pronoun pins” activity is scheduled at the McMath Library in Little Rock on September 12. A similar activity previously took place at the Terry Library in Little Rock.
The Main Library will host an “InQlusive Reading Lounge” for teens ages 12-19 on September 15, featuring pro-LGBT books Boys Run Riot and Lakelore. The library also has an event scheduled where teens will be given copies of Lakelore.
The Main Library will host a pro-transgender “self-portraiture” workshop on September 22.
On September 22 CALS will host an event with Alex Gino, the author of Melissa — formerly published as George — and with Dr. Luann Racher, “an area champion of trans health, from UAMS.”
CALS will screen the transgender documentary Transhood in September.
The Nixon Library in Jacksonville will host Gender and Sexualities Alliance activities during September.
In October the Sanders Library in Sherwood will screen a twelve-minute LGBT documentary and host a discussion time afterward.

In August the Central Arkansas Library System defended its decision to host pro-LGBT programs geared toward youth, noting that the programs are funded in part by the Arkansas LGBTQ+ Advancement Fund at the Arkansas Community Foundation, the Alice L. Walton Foundation, Olivia and Tom Walton through the Walton Family Foundation, and the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.

In March Family Council reported that the Arkansas Community Foundation awarded a grant to the Central Arkansas Library System to set up a Gender and Sexualities Alliance (GSA) for teens and young adults. The money is part of a $1 million fund that the Walton Family Foundation created to support pro-LGBT groups in Arkansas.

The programs at the Central Arkansas Library System may not be overtly “sexual,” but they still promote LGBT ideology to children and teens.

Libraries don’t have to form Gender and Sexualities Alliances or organize pro-LGBT movie screenings to be successful. They can house books and promote reading and education without these types of events.

These activities are an unnecessary distraction for our public libraries.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

Children’s Books at Rogers Public Library Contain Pro-LGBT Material, Sexual Content

Sep 6, 2022Jerry CoxDecency, LibraryLGBT, Library, Obscenity, Pornography

The Rogers Public Library’s catalog includes children’s books that are overtly pro-LGBT and contain sexual content.

Picture books and board books like ‘Twas the Night Before PRIDE, What Are Your Words?, and Bye Bye Binary promote transgender ideology to preschoolers and young children.

The library’s online catalog indicates that these books are available among other children’s picture books at the Rogers Public Library.

The children’s section also hosts the book Sex Is A Funny Word by Cory Silverberg. The library describes Sex Is A Funny Word as, “A comic book for kids that includes children and families of all makeups, orientations, and gender identities, Sex Is a Funny Word is an essential resource about bodies, gender, and sexuality for children ages 8 to 10 as well as their parents and caregivers. Much more than the ‘facts of life’ or ‘the birds and the bees,’ Sex Is a Funny Word opens up conversations between young people and their caregivers in a way that allows adults to convey their values and beliefs while providing information about boundaries, safety, and joy. . . . Sex Is a Funny Word reimagines ‘sex talk’ for the twenty-first century.”

The library catalog also includes titles such as Making A Baby — a book written with help from LGBT leaders that “covers sex, sperm and egg donation, IUI, IVF, surrogacy and adoption” — and When Aidan Became A Brother — a book about a little girl who decides to become a boy.

These books are intended for children as young as five years old.

Sex education material and pro-LGBT picture books don’t belong on the same shelves as Goodnight Moon. Families should be able to take their children to the library without worrying about what their kids might accidentally find in the children’s section.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident.

Parents have found graphic sexual material and pro-LGBT books in children’s sections at public libraries across Arkansas.

So what can families do if they find pro-LGBT children’s books in their libraries?

Communities can take steps to remove objectionable material from their local libraries.

Library boards and librarians have leeway to establish selection criteria and make decisions about the kinds of material available on the library’s shelves.

Library patrons generally can use a Material Reconsideration Form to ask libraries to remove inappropriate material.

And voters can call on their elected officials to enact laws protecting children from objectionable material in public libraries.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

How the Church (and the State) Failed Abigail Martinez

Sep 2, 2022John StonestreetTransgenderLGBT, Transgender

Recently, at The Celebration of America’s Promise to Parents event, hosted by the Alliance Defending Freedom, Abigail Martinez, a grieving mother, shared a story that every single parent, pastor, and lawmaker in America needs to hear. Abigail’s daughter Yaeli began to struggle with depression when she was in the 8th grade. Without communication with her mother, Yaeli was quickly funneled by personnel at her school towards the LGBTQ group, and then to an outside psychologist. Soon, Yaeli was being led by these adults towards a “social transition,” going by the name “Andrew” and increasingly presenting as a boy. All the while, she was urged to keep the details hidden from her family. 

Once she caught wind, Abigail protested both the secrecy and the strategy of this counseling, urging the counselors to instead look into underlying issues of Yaeli’s mental health. Instead, she was told that by refusing to call her daughter by her new name and pronouns, she was the problem. If anything happened to Yaeli, the school said, it would be Abigail’s fault. 

From that moment on, the system boxed her out at every turn. When Yaeli was 16, the school psychologist urged the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services to intervene, arguing that because her mom was “unsupportive” of her social transition, Yaeli would be better off living elsewhere. Yaeli was moved to a group home, where she started taking cross-sex hormones. Abigail was only allowed to see her daughter for one hour each week, supervised, and strictly warned not to bring up anything relating to her daughter’s transition, including their Christian faith. If she did, her visitation rights would be revoked. 

“If we keep [Yaeli] out of your home,” Abigail remembered being told, “she [will] have more chance to survive. She’s not going to try to commit suicide.” 

Instead, all the while, Yaeli’s mental health continued to decline. The testosterone caused her constant pain, for which a doctor prescribed CBD oil. “She was taking the [cross-sex] hormones; she was not happy,” her mother said. “She changed her name, [but] was not happy, she adopted a dog because that was going to make her happy. None of it, everything that they’ve done, didn’t work.” 

At age 19, having moved out of the group home and pursued her new identity for about three years, Yaeli took her own life. As Abigail later told The Daily Signal, “I don’t want any parent to go through this, because this pain never goes away. … You breathe and you can feel the pain.” 

It’s hard to imagine a tragedy like this could happen. It’s hard to believe that a parent could lose custody to the state, simply for holding to a child’s biological sex. What’s not hard to imagine is that Yaeli Martinez will not be the last victim of these bad ideas, indoctrinated by state power.

Local governments like Los Angeles County aggressively promote the doctrine of “gender-affirming care,” even if it means tearing a family apart. On a state level, one California senator has proposed a bill empowering courts to remove children, not just from California residents, but from anyone who travels to the state and whose children claim their parents do not support them in their gender identity or sexual orientation choices. A similar case recently unfolded in Ohio, where a county prosecutor charged a couple with “abuse and neglect” for seeking counseling instead of transition for their daughter. And in Michigan, it is very likely that a ballot initiative will be taken to the voters this November utilizing the language of “reproductive freedom” to usurp parental rights in similar ways.

Through these laws, the state perpetuates grave evil. In the case of Yaeli Martinez, the silence of her church was even more tragic. When at the state-assigned group home, Yaeli repeatedly asked her mother when a pastor or youth leader might come visit. She had felt close to these leaders and was eager to see them. “[They] know I’m here, right?” Abigail remembered her daughter asking. 

As Abigail said, “I asked them. I gave them the address.” But they never visited. Not Abigail. Not Yaeli. No public support from the pulpit. No private support either. Abigail Martinez has walked this path all alone. 

In this, Abigail was the victim of a church culture designed around making people feel good and dodging difficult issues. Shame on them. Yaeli Martinez will not be the last teenager in crisis.

That’s why I’m grateful for churches that, with truth and grace, do show up for parents in need. Nobody wants this culture war over sex and gender, but we didn’t choose this moment. To oppose state-sponsored trans ideology in law and in school is a necessary act of love.  

No child should be harmed by state-sponsored lies. No parent should go through what Abigail Martinez went through. And absolutely no parent should go through what Abigail Martinez went through alone.