Fairfax County public schools in Virginia are among the best in the country. Many of the nation’s elites move to the district just so they can send their children the public schools there.
But not all is right with Fairfax schools. And one quiet, unassuming mother was brave enough to get up in front of the local school board and point that out.
Stacy Langton was very concerned after watching a video of a Texas school board meeting that highlighted the availability of two books that contain several graphic and obscene illustrations of gay sex. She wondered if the books — Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison and Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe — were available to students in the Fairfax school system.
They were. And she wanted to know why.
It should be made absolutely clear that Langton was being perfectly reasonable during her opportunity to speak before the board. She wasn’t shouting or grandstanding. She was passionate, but who wouldn’t be? Langdon was objecting to the fact that pornography was being made available — at the expense of taxpayers — to the young adults of Fairfax County. For those who might think calling those books porn is an exaggeration, it would be good to be reminded of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of porn: “I know it when I see it.”
Clearly, Mrs. Langton saw child porn and pedophilia in those books. Watch the video below (warning: graphic description of gay sex):
The school board went ballistic and eventually ended up having the meeting room cleared. The entire incident was documented by Asra Q. Nomani of Parents Defending Education.
At that point, the board chair, Stella Pekarsky, huddled with Laura Jane Cohen, another board member, sitting to Pekarsky’s left.
“This was not an oversight at Fairfax High School,” Langton began.
At that point, Cohen interrupted — something that board rules say that members cannot do during citizen participation — “Excuse me, madame chair,” she said to Pekarsky, claiming, “There are children in the audience.”
I looked around. There were none at that point.
Pekarsky tried to interrupt Langton.
The mother, Langton, was not going to be interrupted. “Do not interrupt my time,” she demanded.
Parents and audience members started booing the board.
“You are sick!” one man yelled to the board.
Langton insisted, correctly, that her time be restored.
She continued: “These books are in stock available at the libraries of Robinson, Langley and….,”
Mrs. Langton felt that the shock from describing what was in the books might move the board to act.
“Both of these books include pedophilia, sex between men and boys.” One book included a fourth-grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male.
It was a forlorn hope as the board turned off her mic and tried to move on.
Related: Students Protesting Severe Bullying, Suicides Hit With Mass Retaliation by New York School District
Nomani had nothing but praise for Mrs. Langton, who stood up to the bullying by the school board.
Stacy Langton had exactly the kind of clarity, courage and conviction that every parent must harness as we battle ideologues and activists who sit on their high horses— as the board members did later that night when they returned — misrepresenting parents, lecturing them and essentially thinking they just know so much better than them.
Denied her time, Langton wouldn’t leave the podium. Fairfax County Public Schools security officials approached her at the podium, one of them reaching for her books from behind her, before she took hold of them. She refused to leave, her eyebrows righteously furrowing in moral outrage.
Nomani’s Substack post contains a Tweet that we can’t reproduce here because of the graphically obscene cartoon illustrations of gay sex embedded in the video. But Mrs. Langdon felt that something had to be done to get those books out of the library and keep impressionable young students from being exposed to porn.
If parents — all parents, not just those following the school board’s actions closely — knew about things like this, there would be torches, pitchforks, tar, and feathers. But that’s exactly what the board — and the left in general — is counting on. Our apathy, our desire to be left alone in our own little worlds.
Thankfully, Mrs. Langton is brave enough to want to do something about it.
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