"This is truly about the kids"

Parents told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the books being flagged have sexually explicit content and while critics have deemed them “book banners,” the parents want control over their child’s education and age-appropriate content in schools.

“I have four kids and their developmental stages are different,” Joe Mobley, a father of four in Loudoun County, Virginia, told the DCNF. “It’s not about getting rid of the books. It’s about controlling access to information when we think it’s best for a child to know about it. We don’t teach kindergarteners about the atrocities of war and genocide and raping and pillaging. But it’s in the curriculum some other time where the parents agree it’s developmentally appropriate.” …

“Most of these books have pedophilia, grooming, rape and bestiality,” Peterson told the DCNF. “They have terms in the books that I’ve had to look up, and I’m 47 and have had two kids. I’m not a sheltered person. It’s over-sexualizing our children, it’s desensitizing them. Truth be told, maybe 25% of the books challenged are actually LBGTQ. Maybe 20% actually had anything at all to do with either a minority author or minority content. It’s not about any of that, but nobody wants to listen to that side of the message.”