A school board candidate in Iowa, USA, has courted controversy with his demands regarding the inclusion of LGBTQ teen books in the school library.
The school had already removed three LGBTQ teen books– ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue,’ ‘Lawn Boy’ and ‘Gender Queer’– from its library due to demands, but now a potential school board member wants records of the names of all teens who checked the books out.
Screenshot from the school board meeting
School board candidate Vin Thaker demanded to know the name of every teen who borrowed the pro-LGBTQ books.
Thaker is asking for restrictions on what the students can read after another community member (not a parent from the school) compared the LGBTQ books to “books that promote pedophilia’, in a school board meeting. This comparison is not only deeply offensive to the gay community, it shows the level of absurd ignorance surrounding LGBTQ issues.
As well as the restrictions on school library books, Thaker demanded a record of students who borrowed the books, for the school to notify their parents, and then make “the person who ordered these titles” defend the choice.
According to Axios Des Moines, the district ordered 7,800 titles in an age-appropriate bundle for the new high school this year from Follet.
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