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From parents screaming at School Board meetings about Critical Race Theory to those coming unglued over COVID mask mandates to those angered over discussions of LGBTQ equality — or even acknowledgment of such folks’ existence — there is one thing that links these together.
It’s the same thing that animated parents in past years (and still does on occasion) who oppose sex education or the teaching of evolution.
I mean, beyond right-wing politics and a shallow understanding of how the world works.
Namely, they believe their children are their property to control, teach, and raise as they see fit, sort of like the way they might choose to water a house plant or housebreak a dog.
And how dare anyone else tries to influence their children, to teach or expose them to different ways of thinking or being, lest these parents act as though you had sought to kidnap little Connor or Hannah from the mall parking lot.
I know that might sound a bit extreme, but it’s not hard to prove.
I even had a parent tell me as much once, in a rare moment of honesty.
Right-wing parents think it’s their right to “protect” their kids from ideas and influences they oppose
I remember it like yesterday, even though it was twenty-six years ago.
I had just finished giving a lecture at Kansas City Community College in which I examined the intersection of racism and heterosexism and some of the connections between organized racist movements and the homophobic religious right.
That’s when it happened.
A woman in the audience jumped to her feet during the Q&A, insisting that she had every right to teach her children that homosexuality was immoral and that gays and lesbians were going to Hell.
How dare I, she bellowed, challenge her right as a parent to raise her children as…
