‘Imagine Your Child Reading This Book in First Grade’

“Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning mocked a children’s anti-bullying book that was included in the first grade curriculum of North Carolina’sÂ Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools system. Jacob’s New Dress was written to teach young children about acceptance and “valuing uniqueness and difference,” schools superintendent Ann Clark said.Â

Conservatives had a different take.

“The purpose of our elementary schools is to teach writing, reading and arithmetic not to encourage boys to wear dresses,” North Carolina Values, an anti-LGBT activist group said in a statement. The right wing group adds the book is part of a policy that “seeks to indoctrinate students in the school district by normalizing transgender behavior.”

â€œI read the book online,â€ Tami Fitzgerald, NC Values’ executive director told The New York Times.Â â€œItâ€™s clearly geared to young children. The book is meant as a tool of indoctrination to normalize transgender behavior. I think a lot of parents would object to that.â€

The book, according to the Times, “opens with Jacob in the dress-up corner of a classroom where students can put on costumes and imagine themselves in different roles.”

Jacob puts on a sparkly pink dress and a crown and declares, â€œIâ€™ll be the princess.â€ A classmate complains that Jacob likes to wear girl clothes, but Jacobâ€™s parents and his teacher are nonjudgmental and supportive. Jacob and his mother make a dress that he proudly wears to school. His father says, â€œWell, itâ€™s not what I would wear, but you look great.â€

Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” in a 30-second condescending and judgmentalÂ segment Tuesday morning said: “Imagine your child reading this book in first grade.”

The Fox & Friends segment suggested everyone is against the inclusion of the book in the schools’ curriculum, which is untrue.

“Outraged state lawmaker, parentsÂ â€“ they all complained,” the Fox story says, one-sidedly, “saying the book pushes a transgender agenda.”

Parents outraged after NC school district includes book featuring a boy wearing a dress in elementary curriculum pic.twitter.com/OLCa44XuwN â€” FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 28, 2017

Of course, that’s false. Also, what is a transgender agenda?

The book’s authors, Sarah and Ian Hoffman, toldÂ theÂ Charlotte Observer,Â â€œThe idea that a book can turn someone gay or transgender is bizarre to us. Reading a book canâ€™t turn you gay.â€Â

â€œIf a white kid reads a book about Martin Luther King Jr., will they become black? This book is about a little boy who wears a dress, something outside of traditional gender roles, much like the idea of a girl wearing pants was 100 years ago. Itâ€™s about following your heart.â€

Fox & Friends also mocked the book the school district chose to replace “Jacobâ€™s New Dress.”

“Red: A Crayon’s Story,” which is about a “blue crayon mistakenly labeled as ‘red.'”

“Red has a bright red label, but he is, in fact, blue,” the Amazon book notes read.

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