The MAGA wing of the GOP is preoccupied with the effects of nefarious educational practices such as reading as gateways to perversion and sedition. Take drag queen reading events, for example. The MAGA right rales against these events as “grooming.” Clearly, these idiots do not understand that grooming involves much more than listening to some guy dressed as a woman reading a story written for children. It involves authority, intent, logistics, sequestration, and opportunity – these are things that one is most likely to encounter in church-related activities such as Sunday school and summer camp – not sitting in a library or bookstore surrounded by other kids and their parents. If drag queen story time represents grooming for a life in drag, then what is having a clown at a child’s birthday party? Is it grooming kids for the clown life? Of course not, it is grooming children to become MAGATs – the biggest clowns of all.
Christian Nationalist, Ron of the Saints in Florida, wants all mention of slavery and LGBTQ+ gender identity eliminated from educational curricula at all levels. It requires censoring what teachers can say, whether it is factual or not, and eliminating all written material from the classroom and library that is incongruent with Ron’s own belief system. What the hell is that about? Is it that Florida’s Ron of the Saints is God’s Chosen One? No, it’s about indoctrinating Florida’s children in Christian Nationalism.
The thing about MAGATs, White Supremacists, and Christian Nationalists is that they wrap themselves up in religion and the flag and victimhood believing that they can then righteously accuse everyone else of the very sins that they commit in the name of their faux patriotism, faux religiosity, and imagined victimhood. They are the true groomers and indoctrinators.
Agreed. As a friend said when there was a kerfluffle over the possibility of teachers being gay (and their encouraging that lifestyle), “I had teachers who were assholes, but I didn’t become one.”