We’ve all seen the video clips of the ongoing debate across the country regarding what kinds of reading material should be accessible to America’s children and youth. We’d like to think that Greenville County would be immune to having to battle this but the fight is here. Yesterday both sides stood their ground at the month meeting of the Greenville County Library Board.
I had the opportunity to be there to hear some of the speakers but I was standing at the threshold to the room so it was hard for me to judge the size of the crowd. I’m guessing there was somewhere between 100-150 people in there and it seemed pretty balance to me but one of the women I spoke with thought the balance may have been slightly infavor of the LGBTQ+ crowd. However, that said, there had been a meeting just a couple of weeks ago and there were perhaps 3 people on the side of conservatism and tradition values and 30+ on the LGBTQ+ side.
The group fighting against the proliferation of LGBTQ+ materials in our public libraries is asking the library board to remove the sexually explicit books from the children’s and youth section and put them in the adult section is my understanding. We don’t want to see our children exposed to this material. In a normal world, which of couse we do not live in, but if we did, this kind of material would be grounds for some kind of charges…it’s sexual exploitation and is corrupting America’s children and youth. We’ve heard about this going on in our public schools across the U.S. buried in DEI and BLM materials. Of course it’s also in the public libraries. Many of us don’t want it here in Greenville County. I would submit that the vast majority trying to protect our children from this assault on their innocence are Christians. We all have heard the following Bible verse read from the pulpit many times over from Mark 9:42…Jesus tells his Disciples….“whoever causes one of these little ones who believe [in me] to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” To most of us it’s just common sense that you would not expose and encourage sexual activity or exploration in children and youth. At a minimum these discussions should occur with the full knowledge and consent of the child’s parents and not something they might randomly discover in a public library.
What I don’t get is it would seem to me to be pro-LGBTQ+ one must believe in sexualizing children and youth as early in life as possible. Is this what they believe? It exposes children and youth to something they are not ready for and it may become very confusing for them. But of course the LGBTQ+ community and the medical establishment that support their efforts count on children being confused. And of course, they are the “experts”…the doctors, counselors and librarians…they are all certified and educated and have way more knowledge than the average parent…right? They may have more education than the average parent but this does not mean they know what’s best for the child. It’s the parent’s role to make these decisions.
Conservatives in South Carolina have been lulled asleep and it’s time to wake up. Because so much of the state is conservative and votes strongly in favor of traditional values, we figure that our elected Republican officials will have our backs. But you would be wrong. The Left is organized and the act as one big pressure group. That’s not the way conservatives operate but we must get more active and show up. Just have the body count at meetings and events will go a long ways. We don’t have to be nasty but we should be vocal and let our voices be heard making sure our elected representatives know where we stand.
It’s one thing for consenting adults to choose what they do, but it’s another when you start messing with the kids as they have been doing for some time given the explosion in gender dysphoria across the country. Many of us have had the attitude of “live and let live” but again, that’s when it’s consenting adults. It’s a different deal when our children are involved. Oh and for those saying we want to ban books…that’s not true. We just think some of this explicitly sexual material should not be readily accessible to our children is all. Can’t we all agree on that?
BTW, the next meeting for the Greenville County Library Board of Trustees is scheduled for noon on April 24th at the same place – Hughes Library downtown Greenville.
Will Greenville County and the Upstate remain a bastion of conservative values? It’s hard to say. My experience tells me that the people here tend to be more conservative than the elected officials and certainly more conservative than those who drive the front facing economic development groups. It seems that Greenville / Upstate business and economic development leaders and have embraced ESG, Black Lives Matter, DEI and LGBTQ+ initiatives. These initiatives must be promoted until the population embraces the movement…especially in conservative Greenville…right?
Recently I attended the annual meeting for the Upstate SC Alliance at the Greenville Convention Center. There had to be between 500-750 people in attendance. The Upstate SC Alliance does a great job of promoting the Upstate and tries to recruit companies to establish themselves here. That’s great. But I was caught off guard a bit when one of the leaders said from the stage that the Alliance supports Black Lives Matter. They then went on to play a promotional video that also had some BLM messaging in it. I understand that if they are trying to recruit companies from around the world that they have to demonstrate that Greenville, SC and the Upstate are not home to Southern hicks…but I don’t see that that is necessary. Greenville has a phenomenally diverse employer and employee base already without having to try to overly promote how “progressive” the New South has become. The fact is, Greenville and the Upstate is not progressive nor do I think most of the people want to be progressive. And yet, our elected officials, company execs and economic development leaders and groups continue to promote this. Now of course there is the big push for LGBTQ+ initiatives. Really? Must the Upstate demonstrate it’s commitment to LGBTQ+ in order to have a company move to South Carolina? Is this the way our leaders think? Is this how the executives and growth and development teams at the target companies think? Is this just how BIG business thinks? Does the company that runs a $50 million manufacturing business require that the Upstate have progressive initiatives when it comes to these matters?
I had a chuckle a bit when I read that economic development groups state how important ESG is to proper growth and development. As a bystander out here looking from the outside in, it would seem to me that the tide is turning against ESG and yet we are making a bigger commitment to it. I suspect the ESG thing is driven from the very top of the economy and if you want the money, you have to commit to ESG. It will take time to expose the fraud and grift that is ESG investing.
If you want to keep the Upstate the delightful southern conservative place that it has been without the full embrace of big city, big corporation, big government progressive policies, then you’re going to have to get involved and speak up. It’s unlikely we’ll see these kinds of policies and initiatives come from our county councils. It will come from the City of Greenville, the economic development organizations the big companies themselves and the public schools. Here’s the Post and Courier story about the progress being made on LGBTQ matters.