“Sexualizing young children is wrong. No amount of so-called ‘reports’ from PEN America will make child pornography acceptable to the majority of parents in America,” Moms for Liberty Co-Founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich said in a statement.

**PRESS RELEASE**

Moms for Liberty Co-Founders: PEN America Report Silent on Rising Rates of Pornography in Public School Books & Ignores Parental Free Speech Rights

MELBOURNE, FLORIDA -  Moms for Liberty Co-Founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich released the following statement today after PEN America’s report on so-called ‘book banning’ blamed the group for restricting free speech and new legislation in over a dozen states to ban pornography in school books. 

Justice and Descovich said, “If PEN America were truly dedicated to protecting free speech, we would have heard them fight to protect the many parents who spoke up during the pandemic and were silenced at their own school board meetings. Now they are releasing so-called ‘reports’ calling books ‘banned’ when they know full-well that schools are allowed to curate instructional materials to be age-appropriate. Public schools also allow internet filters to be on school library computers, so where is their ‘report’ on all the internet browser ‘bans’ in schools? Just like the internet, books are curated to not allow minor children to access pornographic pictures and cartoons while they are in school - which is supposed to be a safe place of learning. 

“If the amount of pornographic books found in schools was not such a serious issue with dangerous consequences for children, we would say PEN America is simply a joke. But, this is not a laughing matter. There are parents fighting across the country because even while a solid one-third of 4th and 8th grade students in America cannot read on grade level, there are more books found each year explaining sexual positions and sexual acts using sexually explicit words and photos. Sexualizing young children is wrong. No amount of so-called ‘reports’ from PEN America will make child pornography acceptable to the majority of parents in America. That is why parents in our organization and even those parents outside of Moms for Liberty continue to fight to protect children from pornography in school. PEN America can defend giving children pornography all they want. We are against it.”

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