CV News Feed // Answering the recent cries of concerned parents throughout the country, CatholicVote is launching “Hide the Pride,” a parent-led movement to empty local taxpayer-funded libraries of progressive sex- and gender-related content aimed at children.
“It’s June! Do you see rainbow-trans-BLM flags everywhere? Including in your public, taxpayer-funded spaces? We do. And we are meeting the challenge head-on,” CatholicVote stated in an online resource for parents.
A growing number of American moms and dads have sent a powerful message in recent polls: they do not want their children exposed to sexual and “trans” content as part of their education.
CatholicVote’s Hide the Pride parental resource page includes step-by-step instructions and tips for parents who want to send that message to their local library board.
After collecting signatures on a letter to the library board (find the letter template at the bottom of this article or download the template here), members of the public will go to the library, find the “Pride Month” display full of LGBTQ books targeted at kids, and simply check out all those books at the front desk.
CatholicVote recommends participants take a friend or two along so multiple library cards can be used.
Having emptied the children’s “Pride” display, parents can go home and “place the Pride books on a shelf out of reach of children,” CatholicVote suggests. Finally, CatholicVote recommends sending in the letter via email or snail mail.
“As taxpayers in the city of [Your Town] and longtime library patrons, we are writing to protest the ‘Pride Month’ display in the children’s section of the [Your Town] Public Library,” the letter reads in part:
To protect our children and the community, we have checked out the books in the pride display. We plan to keep these books checked out until the library agrees to remove the inappropriate content from the shelves.
Flags, signs, and book displays based on how adults experience sexual attraction and gender identity have no place in an open and public space for children.
We believe that minor children have the right to belong to a community that respects their innocence and allows families to have conversations about sex and sexual attraction privately, and only when parents deem it appropriate.
As parents, we should be able to bring our children to the public library without exposing them to displays of adult pride.
“It’s time for the American public libraries to once again be a respectful space for young children to freely explore great ideas that unite and inspire us all,” the letter concludes, “rather than places where controversial and divisive new ideological movements are given free rein to promote their theories and policy positions about sexuality to children without the consent or notification of parents.”
To make sure Hide the Pride would be a success, several members of the CatholicVote staff went through the whole process themselves before launching the movement nationwide. “It was simple,” one CatholicVote staffer, a Catholic mom of seven. “You probably won’t even have to talk about it with the librarian. Just check out, nobody bats an eye, and … mission accomplished.”
In fact CatholicVote makes a point of reminding Hide the Pride participants that the main event should not be loud and contentious. “Stay calm and collected – this is not a sit-in or march,” says one CV tip:
Most of all, it is not a debate. You don’t have to make your case or get into arguments. If questioned, you might simply say you are local residents with library cards checking out books. That’s your right.
To participate in Hide the Pride, start planning your trip to the library (the earlier in June the better!) by reading CatholicVote’s instructions here.
The template letter to send to your local library board can be found below. To download the template letter, click here.
Letter to send to your library
Date
Library Name
Address
To the Board,
As taxpayers in the city of ______________ and longtime library patrons, we are writing to protest the ‘Pride Month’ display in the children’s section of the __________________ Public Library.
To protect our children and the community, we have checked out the books in the pride display. We plan to keep these books checked out until the library agrees to remove the inappropriate content from the shelves.
Flags, signs, and book displays based on how adults experience sexual attraction and gender identity have no place in an open and public space for children.
We believe that minor children have the right to belong to a community that respects their innocence and allows families to have conversations about sex and sexual attraction privately, and only when parents deem it appropriate.
As parents, we should be able to bring our children to the public library without exposing them to displays of adult pride.
We ask you to immediately take down your “Pride Month” displays, starting with those placed in children’s and young adults’ sections.
It’s time for the American public libraries to once again be a respectful space for young children to freely explore great ideas that unite and inspire us all, rather than places where controversial and divisive new ideological movements are given free rein to promote their theories and policy positions about sexuality to children without the consent or notification of parents.
Respectfully,
Lead Contact:
Name, City
Phone
Add additional signatories here with Name and City
CC:
Library Board Members (if names, emails available)