The Morris GOP AWOL on defense of parental rights.

The NJEA argues that removing any book from a school library is something akin to the book burning that went on in 1930s Germany. Of course, the NJEA and its allies think nothing of canceling an author with whom they disagree – mirroring a practice common in authoritarian regimes of all ideological stripes.
 
There is a great difference between canceling an author along with his or her work and deciding that certain reading material isn’t “age appropriate” for a certain audience. If it is all the same, then it would follow that Penthouse magazine and Hustler would be found on the shelves of school libraries, and their presence supported by the NJEA as a “defense against book burning.”
 
You can’t cancel the author of the Harry Potter series because you disagree with her, but then claim that setting age-appropriate standards at a school library is a bridge too far. But that’s what’s being done at the Roxbury School District in Morris County. This recent Fox News coverage explains the controversy:

“The battle for our children’s future is not being fought in China or in the Middle East. It’s happening inside their minds and inside our classrooms.”

Roxbury has become ground zero in the fight for parental rights in New Jersey. Advocates and parents are even being sued by a board of education employee, a school librarian, for pushing back and demanding that the board remove certain sexually explicit books from the school library. Books that parents believe are inappropriate for their minor children.
 
Remember, unlike those who want to cancel author J.K. Rowling, an adult, for having an opinion – these parents only wish to limit the access their minor children have to this material. Adults are free to do what they like (and that goes for their children, once they are adults).
 
At a meeting of the Board of Education on Monday night, parental rights advocates from around the state showed up to support the parents being sued and to speak out in their defense. But not the Morris County GOP. Not the Republican establishment.
 
Parental rights advocate Josh Aikens was there. Aikens, a candidate for Assembly, was joined by running mate Jason Sarnoski. Aikens delivered an impassioned defense of parental rights – as he has hundreds of times before throughout his effort to recruit and train conservative school board candidates. But where were all those Republicans who claim to be “conservative” and claim to be “pro-parent”.
 
Are the language pimps who run the campaigns of GOP establishment politicians doing to the phrase “pro-parent” what they did to the word “conservative”?
 
A year ago, the GOP legislative caucuses were big on parental rights. After all, parental rights is the issue responsible for Republicans winning in Virginia in 2021 and for Florida going from a purple state to one that is bright red.  
 
But then a GOP State Senator stood up in caucus and claimed a family member was “transitioning”. And that’s how quickly the rot sets in. Never underestimate the power of the personal to undermine policy. To a GOP leadership unsure of its principles, not wishing to offend a colleague is a ready excuse to take the chicken run on a controversial issue.
 
Overnight… the GOP’s digital and social media campaign in support of parental rights dried up. Now, “pro-parent” is just a convenient label, to be applied on campaign mailings, and media advertisements – by the language pimps who run establishment politicians’ campaigns. A label that, if allowed to, will be forgotten the moment the election is over.