Right-wing parents wanted to show a film suggesting public school teachers teach kids “X-rated sex acts.”
Colorful flyers with a dark underlying message began showing up in Bucks County mailboxes immediately after the midterm election.
“Whose Children Are They?” asks the leaflet while extending an invitation to a Newtown eatery for drinks, dinner and the showing of a film – claiming to be a documentary – that equates the U.S. public education system with Marxism and asks why educators are encouraging racism, sexual promiscuity, perversion and Communism in the classroom. It checks all the boxes of right-wing conspiracies or lies that if you follow Bucks County’s school board wars you hear religiously regurgitated at monthly meetings.
However, the Newtown community wasn’t having it.
“This morning my inbox was full of concerned Newtown residents’ horror over the upcoming showing of this hateful movie. Many of them were Council Rock teachers who took it personally,” Newtown Township Supervisor Elen Snyder said. “They were appalled that it would be shown in a popular Newtown business.”
Snyder began to make inquiries on behalf of her constituents. “I had constant contact with the Peace Center representative Barbara Simmons and the Human Relations Commission representatives from the township and the borough,” she said
Ultimately, the owner of the restaurant canceled the event.