Release date: July 11, 2022
CCDF-USA Nueces County has recently attracted attention due to a misinterpretation of one of our meeting agenda item titles on a flyer released last week. At CCDF-USA, we hold freedom of speech to be sacred. We do not believe in combing through people’s social media and ‘canceling’ them or ending their careers over jokes or views expressed in the past, as has become fashionable among those calling themselves progressive.
In the past few months, however, we have been flooded by communications from concerned and dismayed parents and caregivers about teachers publicly boasting that they had successfully transitioned the gender and sexual identity of elementary school students, without the consent or knowledge of their parents. Many other alarming and bizarre examples can be found on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. In addition, adults and children are being exposed to seriously disturbing and age-inappropriate content, including books with descriptions of children performing sexual acts with adults in graphic language and illustrations.
This should obviously be of deep concern to all parents and caregivers, regardless of their views on education, particularly because some of this content happens to be illegal. Due to issues with transparency about school curricula and activities- which we are working to redress- the only way parents and the public had become aware of these disturbing incidents was through social media posts. These circumstances prompted our local citizens to reach out and led to the mention of social media on our flyer. This has since been wildly taken out of context to establish a false narrative and deflect from the actual issue at hand, which is the risk posed to our children.
We stand for freedom above all else, and the last thing we would ever advocate for is infringing on freedom of speech and opinion or trying to end careers and target people based on their political views.
But social media is a public forum, and if anyone chooses to publicly display that they are, not simply expressing opinions but taking actions that endanger or harm our impressionable children, parents and citizens should be made aware and respond accordingly.
Let us clarify again that our purpose is emphatically not to hold teachers responsible for any views or opinions expressed on social media or posts sharing elements of their personal lives, but only to be made aware when a serious threat to our children’s well-being or a significant breach of parental freedoms is exposed on social media.