A Virginia library has removed a holiday reading display after receiving backlash from patrons for putting a Bible next to the books Gender Queer and Lawn Boy, two books that have created controversy in a local school district over parents’ concerns the books both contain pedophilia and obscene material.
Fox News reports the display by the Dolley Madison Library in Fairfax County, VA, also featured gnomes with stocking-style hats paired with books. The gnomes with Lawn Boy and Gender Queer had bees on their hats. But the gnome paired with the Bible had a rainbow-colored hat, along with other rainbow paraphernalia.
The outlet also reported the display featured quotes from controversial books, such as Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.
“The Dolley Madison Library holiday reading display was intended to highlight the freedom to read and the fact that many library patrons have more time during the holidays to do so,” Fairfax County Public Library Director Jessica Hudson told Fox in a statement Tuesday. “It was not the intention of staff to create a display that could be construed as offensive. The display has been removed.”
As CBN’s Faithwire reported in September, Stacey Langton, a parent of a teen attending Fairfax High School, voiced her concerns at a meeting of the Fairfax school board saying several of those queer books were in the school library. She highlighted the pornographic sections which include graphic descriptions of sex between men and boys.
“I decided to check the titles at my child’s school, Fairfax High School. The books were available and we checked them out. Both of these books include pedophilia, sex between men and boys,” she said.
“Pornography is offensive to all people,” Langton said after she was interrupted by school board members chiding her for reading highly explicit sentences from the two books. “It is offensive to common decency,” she agreed, pointing out the board members were making her point for her.
The Christian Post noted in a story that the majority of high school students are younger than 18, which is the age of consent in Virginia. And the sexual activities graphically described in the books between adults and children are a crime.
Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison, includes long sections of a boy reminiscing about explicit experiences he had at 10 years old, according to Fox. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, includes photos of sexual acts between a boy and a man, the outlet also reported.
As CBN News reported, recently two committees made up of school administrators, librarians, parents, and students reviewed both books. They now claim the books do not contain pedophilia and do not violate regulations against obscene material, according to the FCSD.
The school committee that reviewed Lawn Boy said the book “paints a portrait of the substantial obstacles faced by those who are marginalized by society” and “there is no pedophilia present in the book.”
The other committee claimed Gender Queer: A Memoir depicts “the difficulties nonbinary and asexual individuals may face” and “the book neither depicts nor describes pedophilia.”
The books will return to high school library shelves, pending further appeal, according to FCSD.
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