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The Daily Signal
Virginia Mom
Takes Fight Against Sexually Explicit Books to State Lawmakers
Kelsey Harkness
February 01, 2016
After discovering what she considers over-the-top, sexually explicit
material in her children’s high school reading assignments, a Northern
Virginia mother is lobbying for greater transparency inside the
classroom.
“This happened four years ago, when I first became aware of the books
that were being taught in schools,” Laura Murphy, a mother of four in
Fairfax, Va., told The Daily Signal. “As I read it, I was disturbed by
some of the content.”
The content, Murphy said, was brought to her attention by her son, who
at the time was a sophomore. “He said he couldn’t read it anymore.”
Then, her older son—who at the time was a senior—showed Murphy his
reading material.
“My jaw hit the ground,” Murphy said.
Since learning of her children’s reading materials, Murphy has been
advocating for public school teachers to better inform parents of
reading materials that contain sexually explicit content. She’s also
advocating for the right to “opt out” of such content.
After “delays” with the Virginia Board of Education, Murphy took her
fight to the legislative level, where she helped advance legislation
that would require public schools to notify parents of sexually
explicit material in the classroom; allow parents to review that
content; and, upon request, grant them the ability to opt out.
On Monday morning, the bill passed the Education Committee 22-0, with
the full support of both Democrats and Republicans.
“If you can opt out in the health classroom, and if you can opt out in
the biology classroom, shouldn’t you be also allowed to opt out in the
English classroom?” Murphy asked. “We’re talking about consistency.”
Some of the books assigned to her children, Murphy said, referenced
sensitive topics such as “bestiality,” “sex,” and “rape.” Two books in
particular—written by Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni
Morrison—caught Murphy’s attention: “Beloved” and “The Bluest Eye.”
One passage taken from “The Bluest Eye” reads:
He must enter her surreptitiously, lifting the hem of her nightgown
only to her navel. He must rest his weight on his elbows when they make
love, to avoid hurting her breasts…When she senses some spasm about to
grip him, she will make rapid movements with her hips, press her
fingernails into his back, suck in her breath, and pretend she is
having an orgasm. She might wonder again, for the six hundredth time,
what it would be like to have that feeling while her husband’s penis is
inside her.
Another, taken from “Beloved,” reads:
All in their twenties, minus women, fucking cows, dreaming of rape,
thrashing on pallets, rubbing their thighs and waiting for the new girl.
Murphy said the content was so explicit that four years ago, when she
tried to email “verbatim quotations” to the Virginia Board of
Education, the government’s firewall blocked her email from being
delivered because they were obscene and potentially harmful to children.
“You can’t make it up,” Murphy said.
Then, when another parent copied and pasted passages onto the comment
section of the Virginia Town Hall website, Murphy said the Virginia
Department of Planning and Budget, which oversees the comments, made
the decision to remove the text due to its explicit nature.
“They removed it because it was obscene and could be harmful to
children,” she said. “How ironic.”
But some education experts believe that government intervention is
unnecessary.
“Of course parents have the right, and even the obligation, to
participate in their children’s education,” said James LaRue, Director
of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom
in Chicago, Ill. “But do we need a new law to accomplish that? Can’t
parents take a look at the curriculum on back-to-school night? Can’t
they talk to the teachers? Can’t they ask their sons or daughters what
they’re talking about in class, and what they think about it? It could
be the start of a wonderful conversation.”
Murphy acknowledged that many teachers in Fairfax County, including
some of her sons’ teachers, already inform students and parents of
“sensitive” material.
“Some have even gone so far as to provide warnings on their syllabus,”
she said.
However, “there are some teachers who refuse to identify books
containing sexually explicit material because they believe that parents
should let the teachers teach and that notifying parents of books with
sexually explicit content will ultimately lead to censorship.”
For that reason, Murphy said, the legislative step was necessary.
If the bill makes it through the full Virginia legislature and schools
are required to inform parents of sexually explicit content, critics
raised concerns over the practicality of the measure.
“’Sexually explicit’ means what, and who decides?” LaRue said, adding:
The public cases that follow such legislation tend to center on books
generally acknowledged to be genuine works of literature—Beloved, by
Toni Morrison, for instance, and other works by major and acclaimed
authors. And just incidentally, many of the most frequently challenged
books tend to be by and about people of color. What are we protecting
our children from, exactly?
Murphy acknowledged the concern but said she “has faith” that teachers
can take on the burden.
“I know books aren’t rated, but if the Motion Picture Association and
the gaming industry—if they can all identify profanity, or sexual
explicitness, or drug use—I have a lot of faith in our teachers here in
the Commonwealth, that they can do the same.”
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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