Registered child sex offender participates in library's drag queen program

Remember that saying used to promote literacy in schools, “Reading is fundamental”? Well, I like that slogan but there are limits. Reading is not fundamental if the reading is being done to young children in a public library by a registered child sex offender. Good heavens are there no boundaries on human behavior that protect the most vulnerable of us from the predators in the world worth keeping anymore?

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I’m sure you’ve heard of a trend amongst public libraries that have taken off lately – that of drag queen story hours. While most rational people (I put myself in that category) react in a way that begs the question, “What could possibly go wrong?”, our intellectual betters demand the agenda of sexual fluidity be pushed off even on the youngest and most innocent in society. The intersection of politics and culture was established long ago. A whole generation now coming of age has been scarred forever by leftists demanding that absolutely anything goes and is to be considered normal behavior.

So, I’m particularly wound up about this story because it’s happened in my city. Houston, I’ll remind you, while in the mostly red state of Texas is a Democrat-run liberal city. A registered sex offender who served time for sexually preying on children participated in the Houston Public Library’s program known as Drag Queen Storytime. Alberto Garza, a.k.a. Tatiana Mala Nina has been reading to children as a participant. We only know this because of the efforts of a group leading resistance to the program. Ah, yes. A resistance group I can get behind. Sorry, I guess I’m just not woke enough to think men dressing up as women in full make-up is a good thing for young people. If adults consent to being exposed to this crap, ok, fine. But, leave the kids out of it.

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The report came from a Houston news station.

A group called Mass Resistance, which has been trying to put an end to the program, contacted KHOU about the child sex offender.

Mass Resistance claims it had been asking the City of Houston for months to disclose information about the drag queens, and when requests went unanswered, they did their own digging and made the shocking link.

Now for a particularly disturbing part about the whole story. The library didn’t do a background check on Garza. What kind of system is in place to choose the readers in this program? There’s isn’t a school in town, public or private, that would allow a volunteer to work with the children without a criminal background check. That’s the reality of today’s world. Garza was convicted in 2008 of assaulting an eight-year-old boy. Garza is now 32 years old. A former prosecutor produced the record of Garza’s conviction.

Houston Public Library issued an apology when the story broke.

We were made aware today that one participant for Drag Queen storytime who read at the September 29, 2018, Drag Queen Storytime has a criminal background that should have prevented him from participating in the program.

We assure you that this participant will not be involved in any future HPL programs.

In our review of our process and of this participant, we discovered that we failed to complete a background check as required by our own guidelines. We deeply regret this oversight and the concern this may cause our customers. We realize this is a serious matter.

Every program sponsored by HPL is supervised by HPL staff, and all children are accompanied by a parent and/or guardian. No participant is ever alone with children, and we have not received any complaints about any inappropriate behavior by participants at storytimes.

We are taking the appropriate action to ensure that the status of every participant in every program throughout our system is verified. We will continue to review our process to ensure that this cannot happen again.

Once again, we apologize for our failure to adhere to our own process in this matter and to the hundreds of parents and caregivers who have enjoyed this program with their children.

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Swell. Adults are present during storytime. This doesn’t excuse the fact that a convicted child sex offender was allowed to participate because there was no criminal background check issued. At least the library didn’t put up the strawman that protesters aren’t supporting the LGBTQ community, because I’ve seen that argument. How obtuse. This is about protecting the innocence of children and yes, it can be a safety issue if the situation goes sideways and the convicted felon is alone with a child. Leave the sexual social engineering out of the lives of the youngest of our children. If this has happened in your nation’s fourth largest city, you can rest assured it is happening elsewhere. A criminal background check is the least that adults should be demanding. Convicted sexual offenders aren’t allowed to pass out Halloween candy to children and they certainly shouldn’t be so close to children as to read to them, even in a public library with adults present.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 20, 2024
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