By L.A. Williams
Christian Action League
February 4, 2022
Efforts to keep inappropriate reading material out of the hands of children are spreading. Moore County education officials have received complaints about the book George, currently available in two area schools, and will take up the matter at a work session this month.
Published in 2015 and leading the American Library Association’s list of Most Challenged Books since 2018, George is a novel by Alex Gino about a fourth-grade boy who believes he should have been a girl. Beyond the gender confusion and shaming of anyone who doesn’t support George’s quest to change his gender, the book also features an older brother who talks about porn and helps George learn to delete the Internet history on his mom’s computer. As early as 2018, George, which has since been republished under the title Melissa, caused a stir in Oregon where a school superintendent pulled three elementary schools out of a Battle of the Books competition featuring the novel, which he said is simply inappropriate for young readers.
“For my administrators, the idea of lying to your parents and a potential conversation about masturbation is probably not something we want our third-, fourth- and fifth-graders to read,” Superintendent Darin Drill told the media at the time.
In Moore County, James Pedersen filed a complaint with the school system about the book in December of 2021. Moore County school board member Philip Holmes agrees that George should be removed from schools. He described portions of the book as “just filth.”
The Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League, is saddened by the book’s subject matter and obvious agenda, but not surprised.
“Do you remember how gay activists told us that if same-sex marriage were made legal, gay ideology wouldn’t be promoted in our public schools? Lies, lies, and more lies,” said Creech. “Their objective is to make this perversion the moral equivalent of traditional marriage between a man and a woman. It’s not, and it never will be. Moreover, such indoctrination and poisoning of the mind are increasingly moving us toward a society much like the apostle Paul described in the first chapter of the book of Romans, where it says: ‘They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.’”
He said this type of literature won’t make us more tolerant, but it will accelerate becoming the type of society described in Romans 1.
“It will do great damage to the family and tear the lives of young people apart with confusion and emotional devastation,” he added.
The Rev. Creech has urged parents to keep a close eye on what materials their children are assigned and have access to in schools, and to remember that the responsibility for teaching them the Biblical view of sexuality rests on their shoulders.
“Children must hear from their parents the beautiful truth of how God created male and female. They need to be prepped for the changes in their bodies that puberty will bring and understand that, despite any temporary feelings to the contrary, God has a plan for them to thrive in the body He provided,” he said. “As a starting point, parents can access resources from organizations such as Focus on the Family, to help them give their children a solid foundation.”
Secondly, Creech urged Christians who are poring over library databases in their attempt to ferret out the bad to also look for and recommend the good.
“Ask library officials if they have novels or nonfiction books that feature characters who chose to address their gender confusion or same-sex attraction with a biblical approach,” Creech said. “And if not, suggest that they add some. For adults, they should consider Gay Girl, Good God, by Jackie Hill Perry. And for kids, the God’s Design for Sex series by Stan Jones, Brenna Jones and Carolyn Nystrom is a good starting point.”