Shocked Mom Wants Pro-Homosexual Children's Books Outed, Ousted

by Jim Brown
March 22, 2004

(AgapePress) - Christian parents in Wilmington, North Carolina, are fighting to get a controversial book banned from their first-grade daughter's school library.

Tonya Hartsell says she was "shocked" and in tears after learning that her daughter Olivia had unknowingly checked out a book promoting homosexual marriage. The library book from Freeman Elementary School is called King and King and features two princes marrying each other and sharing a kiss. (See Earlier Story)

Hartsell said she and her husband had no choice but to explain to seven-year-old Olivia why the lifestyle glorified in the book is inappropriate, referring to scripture in an effort to help the young child understand. "I told her it was a sin," Mrs. Hartsell says, adding, "I didn't know how to tell her, but I started with Adam and Eve. I had to go back to the Bible and say, 'God made Adam and Eve -- not two men.'"

However, when the concerned parents confronted the head of their daughter's school and the librarian who selected King and King for its collection, Mrs. Hartsell says both principal and librarian saw nothing wrong with the book and defended it as a way to promote "diversity." This attitude caused the Hartsells further concern, and they inquired into the necessary steps to challenge the book's appropriateness for the elementary school.

Mrs. Hartsell says although she and her husband would like to keep Olivia where she is, they may transfer her to a nearby Christian academy if the offensive book, along with any more like it, is not removed. "If this continues, and if there's more books out that I don't know of -- I wish I knew -- I would like for the school board to review all the books in all the schools, just to make sure there is not another book. Books like this don't belong in public schools," she says.

The parents plan to return King and King to Freeman Elementary today, along with complaint papers designed to start the process of getting the book reviewed and hopefully removed from the school's library. Mrs. Hartsell says other parents have indicated they share her family's concerns and will file grievances as well.