Kirk Cameron came out with a new children’s book, and was shocked to find that when he approached libraries about doing a story time event for kids, they rejected his offer outright. When Cameron reached out to libraries, 55 of them rejected him outright.
Cameron told The Post Millennial that his book, As You Grow, out from Brave Books, "teaches kids biblical wisdom, through the seasons of life and how to grow the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control."
"You think everybody would be thrilled with something like that," he said, "And so I wanted to do a book reading a public library, since lots of people like to do those. I was denied by over 55 Zero libraries, which also host Drag Queen Story Hours."
Drag Queen Story Hours have spread from San Francisco, where the project was founded by LGBTQ activists, across the country and spilled out into the rest of the world. The readings feature men in garish caricatures and costumes of womanhood reading books primarily about LGBTQ activism and lifestyles. The intention of bringing drag into children's programming and lessons, according to the founders, was the intentional "queering" of early childhood education.
After educators fought for years to remove a value system based in moral foundations and national pride, they are now intentionally replacing it with a value system steeped in adult sexual mores, hedonism, and sexual deviance. Cameron is intending to reverse this, or at least provide a values-based alternative to children and families who are not looking to be "queered."
Cameron said that the libraries are essentially intending to swap the Christian God for an all-powerful leader that is of man's creation, not God's.
"It's really just a matter of swapping one God for another," Cameron told The Post Millennial. "So Christianity, and the biblical mosaic moral code that has created the nations that have flourished most on the earth— honoring the mother and father; don't lie; don't steal; love God with all your heart, love thy neighbor as yourself. You replace that God with 'the supreme leader' and you wind up with the North Korea, who is the all powerful, all knowing supreme being from whom all law flows, and if you offend him, you're suffering His wrath. It can pick up the communism, socialism, Marxism, secular humanism. All of these are essentially religious worldviews that are swapping one bag for another."
Of the libraries' refusal to host him, he said that "the grounds for denial from one library in Alameda County, California, was that they just were not interested in biblical wisdom. But at the same time, they were hosting a gender name change clinic for children at the same library the next day!" Other libraries simply told him "our messaging doesn't align."
Cameron, however, refused to back down. In response to their refusal to allow him to host a story time, Cameron sent public letters to these libraries that refused to allow him access, despite their dedication to diversity and inclusion.
"One of the aspects that has always made this country great," he wrote to the Indianapolis Public Library, "is the free expression of ideas essential to an informed citizenry. That is why I was surprised to learn from my publisher that you were not interested in having me join your patrons for a reading of my new book."
"I hope you will revisit that request," he continued, noting that the Indianapolis Public Library informed Brave Books that they have about their "strategic plan for author visits" that "includes a push for 'authors who are diverse.'" That diversity, it turns out, was purely for "authors of color."
Cameron admonished libraries for excluding authors based on religious beliefs and race, and in response, two libraries caved. Cameron will be reading at the Indianapolis Public Library on December 29. He sent a similar letter to the Scarsdale Public Library in New York, and will be reading there on December 30.
The Scarsdale Public Library, however, has contradicted itself, and said that they never denied the request, but that the publisher did not complete the proper paperwork. While the libraries were hosting Drag Queen Story Hours, they said Brave Books could have a room rental. Christian values were not part of library programming, but queer ones were totally fine.
In response, Brave Books founder Trent Talbot told The Post Millennial that "The libraries are lying in order to avoid a potential lawsuit. We messaged these libraries asking to 'schedule a story hour.' Any sane person would take that as scheduling space. If we wanted them to sponsor a story hour, we would have said, 'Would you be willing to sponsor a story hour program?'
"They broke the law by denying us space to do our story hour, so now they are covering their tracks by saying they were refusing to sponsor a story hour. One, that’s a lie. We have the emails and recordings. Two, they still are sponsoring DQSH but refuse to sponsor Kirk’s book. That’s a huge deal," Talbot continued.
Scarsdale made it clear that the reading of As You Grow "is not a library-sponsored program, but rather a meeting room rental, that cannot be rejected based upon political or religious content under the First Amendment."
The result, Cameron said, of the removal of God, and the queering of early childhood, is creating people who "don't know who they are."
"They don't know why they're here. They don't have an ideal to look to, to know how to create a good society, because ultimately, everyone is doing what's right in their own eyes, and selfishness corrupts." Cameron said that the founders of America "understood that in the very beginning. They read the Bible, and they understood that faith and morality were the two indispensable supports of a free Republic."
"You have to govern yourself under a set of rules and principles that are going to not just be good for you, but be good for everybody else as well. And so that's why we get such wonderful quotes from our founders that spoke of these things. And then they gave us freedom of speech and freedom of religion and political freedom to elect our own leaders and freedom to educate our children in the way that they should go. Economic Freedom to start your own business, your own newspaper, so that you can prosper and then we expected to be generous toward your neighbors and those who needed help. They all understood that this was a great blessing and a great responsibility," he continued.
If the goal of Drag Queen Story Hour is to encourage kids to worship themselves, their own sexuality, question their gender and their bodies, the goal of As You Grow is to encourage responsibility, faith, and freedom of spirit.