Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Outrage as Karen Smith is sworn in on a stack of frequently banned SEXUALLY EXPLICIT MATERIAL of Naked Teenage Boys books for kids.
As she was sworn in to another term on the Central Bucks school board Monday night, Karen Smith placed her hand not on a Bible, but a stack of frequently banned books.
Smith, who was chosen as the president of the new Democratic-led board Monday, wanted to make a symbolic gesture — setting a new tone after the former GOP-dominated board passed a policy prohibiting “sexualized content” that led to bans of two books and paved the way for challenges of 60 others.
According to the Inquirer, Smith was first elected to the school board in 2015 as a Republican but switched parties in 2021 after fellow conservatives voted against allowing a school counselor to attend training on transgender issues. “I thought, ‘I can’t be a part of these kind of actions,’” she said. “The Republican Party has lost its way.”
Alongside Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Eli Wiesel’s Night, Smith was sworn in Monday night on copies of Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, Flamer by Mike Curato, and Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin. Several of the books appeared on a list of “sexually explicit” titles distributed by the right-wing group WokePA, as well as a list of 61 titles challenged under the previous board’s July 2022 library policy.
“I’m not particularly religious. The Bible doesn’t hold significant meaning for me, and given everything that has occurred in the last couple of years, the banned books, they do mean something to me at this point,” Smith said Tuesday. She wanted to make clear “the commitment I’ve had to fighting for the books, and for our students’ freedom to read.”
On Monday night, Smith was sworn in for her third term and was also chosen as the board’s new president. When she took her oath of office, she placed her hand on a stack of six books that have been challenged or banned in school districts across the country, rather than the Bible. Four of the books centered on LGBTQ+ characters and themes.
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