North Cook News

School activist Marsha McClary noted the opposition to Barrington 220 School District’s expansion of sexual education and inclusion of “obscene” books in school libraries.

“We had a board meeting on Tuesday night that was lively and we had a full room of people primarily advocating for two things,” McClary told North Cook News. “One was that the district opt out of the SB 818 comprehensive sexual education standard. And then the second topic was that we have a growing list of books that have obscene and or pornographic content in them that are in the district library, school district libraries.

“And we got we got over 1,300 signatures on a petition in less than three days last weekend. And now it's still going and it's over 1,500. And we are trying to message that the issue with the books is the obscene content. And unfortunately, somewhere along the way in some other parts of the community for I'm going to call them, the fringe minority is saying that we are being discriminatory towards certain populations. Meaning LGBTQJ - just because I want to say three of the five books mentioned in the petition are about alternative lifestyles. I don't know if that's just a coincidence. I don't know why that is. It just happens to be the case.

“It doesn't really matter. It's obscene content. It's something that should be X-rated if you're a movie. So that's kind of our position on it. And we just don't have a rating system for books. So it creates a little bit of a problem for the district, right?”

One of the activists, McClary, joined the change.org petition urging the school board to address pressing issues.

"Lawn Boy," "Gender Queer," "This Book is Gay," "Fighting Words" and "All Boys Aren't Blue" are the books in question that the parents mentioned. The group also asked that IL SB818 Comprehensive Sexual Education not be adopted.

"Gender Queer" was removed from libraries earlier this year by the Harlem School District 122 Board of Education. The novel has gotten a lot of media attention because of its vivid depiction of sex scenes. Parents throughout the country have criticized author Maia Kobabe's photos for being too sexual and inappropriate for children.

"It’s porn," Lynette Hofman said, according to WIFR. "We're talking incest, molestation and pedophilia."

Mother Nelda Munoz of Barrington 220 School Board raised the issue of such books' inclusion on summer reading lists during a prior meeting.

“Sixth-grade reading teacher sends out a summer reading material, including 'Gender Queer,' right?” Munoz said. “Hopefully everybody can see this. 11, 12 years old. Hopefully, you like this. Yeah? You guys over there because you guys make the decisions over there. OK, 11-year-old. Alright?! Now, from this book — brother talking to sister. 'So you never tasted yourself?' Sister shows brother vagina slime. There’s words, ‘blowjob' and ‘gay ship.’ This is exactly what I would expect a pedophile to behave when approaching a child. To normalize sexual behavior, to abuse them. And this is how I see you. Stop sexualizing our kids. Stop abusing them.”