Rhode Island dad accuses district of 'sick agenda' to 'use and abuse children' with 'pornography' book

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Rhode Island dad blasts 'sick agenda' as he fights to remove pornographic book

Bob Chiarado, a a Rhode Island father, fights for over a year to remove 'Gender Queer' by Maia Kobabe from a high school library.

A Rhode Island father derided the Westerly School District board for refusing to remove a book with pornographic images from its high school despite him fighting them on the issue for over a year. 

The book, "Gender Queer," has as courted explosive controversy among America’s parents and has been challenged for its depictions of sex acts as well as discussions on masturbation. Fox News Digital reached out to the district for comment but did not receive a response.

"Rather than teaching these kids about math, English, and science…, these kids are being used and abused in order to help these people achieve some kind of sick agenda that they have," Robert Chiaradio told Fox News Digital in an interview. 

"Gender Queer" and other sexually graphic books have come under fire by parents around the United States.  (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

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In addition to filing a complaint with the state's attorney general and speaking out at board meetings, Chiaradio confronted the Westerly School District board with placards of the "pornography" images a year ago. He said district employees intervened and attempted to block the graphic images from view, as reported by Legal Insurrection. 

As a father he gets "very angry" at the idea that adults are providing graphic material to children.  

"Actually I get angry when I think of that. These… so-called leaders of the district are trusted by these kids. The only thing that I can think of here is that these people have other motivations," he said. "And that's the thing that really, really gets me. Because the best way to take down a country or a society… is to destroy a generation of its youth.".

Chairadio formerly had children enrolled in the district's schools and has taken up the mantle to clean out what he believes is inappropriate material from the high school library as many parents in the district are afraid to speak out due to fears of retaliation. 

Fox News Digital spoke to one of those parents — a mom with two children in the district's schools – who spoke out on the condition of anonymity.

Rhode Island father turns up the heat in his local district to remove "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe from the high school library.  (Fox News Digital | Maia Kobabe )

"I do not agree that any of these, in my opinion, crazy, unrealistic gender ideology should be in the schools," she said. "In addition to ["Gender Queer"] being pornographic, inappropriate, it's also sort of funded by the taxpayers. And that, to me, is completely wrong."

"A few years ago, we were all talking about how kids, teenagers shouldn't even have Facebook pages because their minds aren't fully developed. And now we're saying teenagers can decide if they want to claim that they're a boy or a girl; it is just nonsensical," she added. 

Another parent, Seth Logan, agreed to speak on the record, telling Fox News Digital, "I just find it the most ironic part is we're speaking of equality and equity now. Why are my morals not represented? You know, my family?... I'm not particularly religious, but this stuff is against everything that people believe in."

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Chiaradio has tried filing criminal complaints under the state's child pornography and obscenity laws. He has also requested a review of the book in the district, which was denied. The father said the district refused to provide a justification as to its reasoning. 

"To this day, in spite of numerous after requests sent in by me, they have not told me the reason that the book remains on the shelf. They also have not told me who was on this secret committee that they have. And I am still trying to get that information," he said. "You have here you have the hypersexualization, racialization, radicalization of our youth."

The author of "Gender Queer," Maia Kobabe, defended the sexually explicit images during an interview with NPR.

Maia Kobabe is the author of "Gender Queer," one of the most banned books in America. (Maia Kebab | YouTube/Screenshot)

Kobabe was asked, "Some of the criticism is about how explicit the book is. There are some graphic panels where you’re describing some of your sexual encounters. Did you consider doing less graphic versions of those scenes?"

"You know I really didn’t. I drew as much as I felt like I needed to tell the story that I was trying to tell and get the points across that I was trying to make," Kobabe responded. 

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"And I honestly think the book is a lot explicit than it could be," Kobabe added. 

"The topic of gender touches on identity… and it touches on sexuality," Kobabe continued. "And it’s hard to fully explain I think what like how a gender identity can impact every facet of life as an adult without touching at least a little bit on sexuality. And I wanted to at least not to like shy away from that."