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| Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea is one of the four books which initiated a lawsuit in Ohio. |
An Ohio elementary school teacher is suing her school district for disciplining her because she had books in her classroom which contained LGBTQ+ characters. And in an interesting turn, she is using the argument conservatives have used against the LGBTQ+ - religious liberty.
From The Advocate:
Karen Cahall, who has worked at New Richmond Exempted Village School District for over 30 years as an elementary teacher, filed a lawsuit against the district last week after being subjected to "disciplinary proceedings" when a parent complained about four books she kept in her classroom – all age appropriate and not required reading – just because they had LGBTQ+ characters.
The lawsuit claims that Cahall was suspended three days without pay for "simply having in her possession in her classroom four books that had LGBTQ+ characters in the plot line, even though these particular books were intermingled among approximately one hundred other books, were not prominently displayed ... [Cahall] did not teach from those books as part of her instructional program, and did not require students to read those books."
. . . The four books are Ana On The Edge by A.J. Sass, The Fabulous Zed Watson by Basil Sylvester, Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea by Ashley Herring Blake, and Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff. None of the books contain sexual content, but rather characters who "are coming to terms with feeling different and excluded," according to the lawsuit.
The district has “controversial issues” policy that does allow teachers to address issues "likely to arouse both support and opposition in the community" so long as they are related to instruction and do not "tend to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view."
Cahall's suit argues that the policy "is so vague and all-encompassing that it could extend to virtually any topic upon which any two random individuals or groups of individuals might find something to disagree about, and therefore fails to provide people of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to understand what is or is not a 'controversial issue.'"
The suit also contends that Cahall's "sincerely held moral and religious beliefs" were violated. The article pointed out how her claim is "flipping the script" because of how many times conservative Christians have used the "religious liberty" argument to undermine LGBTQ+ equality:
"Cahall maintained these books in her classroom amongst over one hundred other books spanning a wide variety of subject matters in furtherance of her sincerely held moral and religious beliefs that that all children, including children who are LGBTQ+ or the children of parents who are LGBTQ+, deserve to be respected, accepted, and loved for who they are," the suit continues."
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