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Submitted by Thomas Budds –
As Yogi Berra opined once upon a time, “It’s Deja vu, all over again”!
So, it is with Claire Maxwell Rutherford’s Schoolboard Chairperson who voted to make dozens more sexually explicit books available to our minor children.
At last Thursday’s school board meeting, 46 books were on the agenda to be voted on for removal consideration. We were once again disappointed by our librarians, who recommended the removal of only 10 of the 46 books, but provided us an unanticipated peek into their moral sensibilities.
Days before the board meeting, I was made aware that only ten of the 46 books were going to be recommended for removal. I informed the board that 18 of the books on the agenda were removed by Wilson County six months ago.
Following a display of amoral clarity by several purple-shirted speakers, a majority of the elected board members voted “YES” to remove 34 of the 46 books from school libraries. The only consistent “NO” vote for all those removed was Chairwoman Clare Maxwell.
Ms. Maxwell’s essentially 36 “NO” votes would have made these books available to our K-12 minors. These votes come on the heels of 10 similar “NO” votes at a previous session. She has consistently voted to keep obscene books even those recommended for removal by her own librarians, or under encouragement by her fellow board members, or with the knowledge that her “peers” in Wilson County had removed the same books. Has the time arrived that Clare Maxwell’s “NO” votes have become “overt acts”. And, in the aggregate have they become prima-facie evidence sufficient to support her violation of the state obscene book law?
TN State law requires obscene books be removed from school libraries. There are over 100 thousand “schoolbooks” nationwide identified and reviewed as obscene. These book reviews are easily accessed on several databases easily scrutinized against our existing school library databases.
The board and county commissioners should have ordered an audit of all libraries against all existing databases that identify obscene books to determine what exactly exists on all school and public library shelves. Thus far, Board member Frances Rosales submitted 140 books for review from an unknown source. Her list is hardly comprehensive against the tidal wave of obscene books available.Where’s the initiative for a comprehensive book audit?
What seems to be lacking is our school district’s duty to faithfully comply with the law in a timely manner. 140 books were submitted for review completion, incentivized by $60k of unnecessary overtime; other districts closed their libraries to conduct their reviews during regular working hours. Thus far, less than a third of the reviews have been voted on, but the issue is far deeper.
It has become apparent that tasking the Rutherford County School Librarians with the policing of dirty books is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house as demonstrated by their review recommendations, thus far. Who’s policing the librarians, teacher’s classrooms, other school buildings?
TN lawmakers made a good start with the schoolbook obscenity legislation but provided little in the way of equal application of the law statewide. Where are the state snap-inspections, unannounced library audits, and sting operations?
The shouts of Hallelujah for the successful votes taken thus far are very premature. 100 thousand obscene books are in the national system all available to Tennessean libraries; Rutherford is auditing 140 books!
It’s time to wrest our children from the clutches of teachers and others who claim jurisdiction over their navigation through puberty; monitoring books and curriculum is a small but necessary part. Much more, pastoral, citizen, and parental action is needed to accompany our prayers.
We’ve had a few small successes, but it’s way too soon for shouts of Amen! We can’t just “let it be so!”
3 Responses
Yup, lucifer’s dimmercraps and their pubic ejikashun.
What needs to be removed more than anything is Claire Maxwell. How can the people of Rutherford County allow someone who wants to expose their kids to pornography to be around their children? That is insane! A stranger on the street showing kids porn would be thrown in jail! Why isn’t she?
There are as many different definitions of “pornography” as there are people. Some people consider classics like “The Catcher in the Rye” to be pornographic.