As “public” (read: “government”) schools across the country continue their push to indoctrinate children in dangerous ideologies including gender fluidity, transgender and gender-expansive language, and Critical Race Theory (CRT), parents are pushing back. In a school board meeting in Loudoun County, Virginia, Tuesday, that pushing back led to the school board shutting down public comments and having two parents arrested.
On the item of “gender-expansive language,” elementary school physical education teacher Tanner Cross was suspended from his job in late May when he refused to call boys girls and girls boys. The new policy of Loudoun County Schools requires faculty, staff, and students to use the “preferred pronouns” of students who consider themselves to be “transgender.”
As Fox News reported then:
An elementary school physical education teacher in Virginia was placed on leave after an explosive speech in which he told his school board he wouldn’t “affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa,” Fox News has learned.
Cross addressed the school board during its May 25 meeting and explained his reasons for being unable to comply with the new policy. “My name is Tanner Cross and I am speaking out of love for those who are suffering from gender dysphoria,” Cross said. He went on to cite a recent episode of NBC’s 60 Minutes, saying, “60 Minutes this past Sunday interviewed over 30 young people who transitioned but they felt led astray because of lack of pushback or how easy it was to make physical changes to their bodies,” adding, “They are now detransitioning.”
Cross told the board, “It’s not my intention to hurt anyone, but there are certain truths that we must face when ready. We condemn school policies [that] would damage children, defile the holy image of God.” He said, “”I love all of my students but I will never lie to them regardless of the consequences. I’m a teacher but I serve God first and I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it’s against my religion. It’s lying to a child, it’s abuse to a child, and it’s sinning against our God.”
As a result of his refusal to lie to children about not only basic biology, but also their very identities, Cross was placed on administrative leave from his job at Leesburg Elementary School. An email from Principal Shawn Lacey told recipients: “I’m contacting you to let you know that one of our physical education teachers, Tanner Cross, is on leave beginning this morning. In his absence, his duties will be covered by substitute staff already working in our building.” The email went on to say, “I wanted you to know this because it may affect your student’s school routine. Because this involves a personnel matter, I can offer no further information.”
Tuesday’s meeting was an opportunity for parents in the school district to speak out about this issue, as well as CRT — which is being pushed in Loudoun County school classrooms.
As the meeting began, one school-board official announced that disparaging remarks and language would be forbidden during public comment. But according to reports from those present — including members of the Family Foundation — one of the first to speak was an LGBTQ+ activist who said that “hate” was “dripping from the followers of Jesus in this room.” A number of those present — recognizing the remark as a religious insult — yelled, “Hate speech.” The board, rather than rebuking the speaker for “disparaging remarks,” told the crowd to settle down or public comments would come to a stop.
As the Family Foundation — a pro-family and pro-religious organization based in Richmond, Virginia — said in an e-mail to supporters:
As parent after parent — and many courageous students — continued to give compelling testimonies about how they felt their rights had been violated at the altar of a political agenda, audience members had trouble restraining themselves from supportive clapping and cheering. Eventually, after another round of cheering, the school board voted unanimously to end public comments — and that’s when things got interesting: As the school board members walked out, parents and students remained and began spontaneously singing The Star Spangled Banner. Then Jon Tigges, a concerned Loudoun citizen and community leader, invited the 200 or so people still waiting their turn to speak to remain and share their thoughts with the room — with the help of a megaphone and a stepping stool someone in the audience provided. What followed were some of the most moving and inspiring moments of the evening, as parents and students shared from the heart — including a high school student who shared the trauma she endured after being given a sexually explicit assignment dealing with group sex in her theater class.
So, pro-LGBTQ(etc.) speakers were allowed to insult religious people, but pro-morality speakers were considered a disturbance, prompting the board to vote unanimously to end the meeting without hearing from the very parents whose children are being indoctrinated with immoral and unscientific teaching about both biology and the basic principles of human nature.
One could easily be forgiven for thinking it was planned that way.
The Family Foundation e-mail goes on to say:
Unfortunately, after a brief disturbance was created by a couple of individuals (the circumstances weren’t clear at presstime)—which the majority of those in the room were ignoring and continuing to speak— a school board official declared that the meeting had become an “unlawful assembly” and told everyone they had to leave. John Tigges, however, who was facilitating the testimonies, said he would not leave until everyone had finished speaking. The police then arrested him, prompting an emotional reaction from witnesses in the school board parking lot.
While those pro-morality parents clearly engaged in “civil disobedience” by staying after they were told to leave, two points should be made: First, civil disobedience is positively celebrated when it is done by darlings of the Left. They not only get a pass, but also get book deals, invitations to appear on the nightly news, pats on the back, and (in general) held up as heroes. Second, given the anger that any decent parent would feel when their kids are being exposed to the types of moral filth Loudoun County includes in the daily “teaching” schedule, this writer thinks the crowd showed extraordinary restraint. It’s not as if the crowd took a cue from those darlings of the Left, BLM and Antifa, and burned the building to the ground before looting the local department stores.
No, all they did was demand that their voices be heard — even if they only preached to the choir after the school-board members exited. And for that, the police were called to arrest a man whose only crime was refusing to sit down and shut up in the face of immoral tyranny.
Though the argument is more than a little dog-eared and long in the tooth, it needs to be made: Can anyone imagine the result of this if the roles were reversed? If a conservative school board had allowed conservative speakers to insult the LGBTQ … XYZ crowd in the room, shut down the meeting because the Homosexual Lobby refused to be quiet, and had someone arrested for demanding to be heard, the outcome would almost certainly have been lawsuits, riots, and general mayhem.
This is a prime example of why the government system is beyond reform. The answer for every moral, right-thinking parent in Loudoun County — and in every other county, city, town, municipality, village, or community in America — is simple: Stop trying to reform a tyrannical system that is recalcitrant in its tyranny. Instead, dismantle it by starving it of the one thing it cannot do without — students.
If you mean to save your children, pull them out of a system that is designed to destroy them. Bring them home and teach them. Or place them in a private school that holds your values.
You and your kids can do without government schools; they cannot do without you.
