By Mo Charnot, City Desk ABQ
The line to get into the Nov. 20 Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education meeting spilled out of the building and onto the sidewalk.
Behind a table, protestors held signs, ranging from “Stop sexualizing kids! No R rated material! No Porn in Schools!” to “Honk to Protect Children from Groomers” and “Gender affirming care 4 minors is pure evil. — Musk.”
Protests at the school board meeting, led largely by members of the local nondenominational Legacy Church were unrelated to any items on the school board’s meeting agenda, which mainly focused on discussing and considering the approval of the board’s Student Outcomes Focused Governance timeline.
Protestors instead directed their concerns at books with LGBTQ+ content being taught and available at libraries and classrooms in APS.
John Amanchukwu, a pastor and Turning Point Faith contributor from Wake Forest, N.C., led the protests with a brief speech at the meeting’s public forum. A few hours before the meeting began, Legacy Church posted a video on Facebook confirming Amanchukwu answered their request to “stand with them” at the meeting.
“This district has become the P. Diddy of the American education system. It’s disgusting. What you are allowing to happen to children, young boys going to school, wearing thongs and wearing crop tops,” Amanchukwu said during the public forum. “This is unnecessary and unacceptable.”
Amanchukwu then listed what he referred to as “the nine realities of the LGBTQ,” referring to transgenderism as a “mental health disorder” and stating that “homosexual sex removes nearly 20 years off the lifespan of a male,” a belief based on a 1985 study by psychologist Paul Cameron that has since been called unreliable by multiple peer reviewers due to flawed methodology.
Counterprotestors however prepared for the meeting ahead of time as well, and outnumbered the protestors. A few days before the meeting, the Albuquerque Teachers Federation union — and others — circulated posts on Reddit and Facebook encouraging people to speak out against book bans and censorship.
The majority of the few dozen public commenters expressed support for literature with LGBTQ+ content being present in classrooms and school libraries.
Alicia Lopez, a teacher at Albuquerque High School and a union representative, spoke on behalf of Montezuma Elementary School’s Parent-Teacher Association in opposition to book banning.
“This issue is about the fundamental right of our children to access diverse ideas and perspectives,” Lopez said. “Literature plays a vital role in connecting students with people who share similar experiences. When we restrict access to LGBTQ+ and mental health literature, we deny children the chance to see reflections of themselves… we must celebrate our students’ differences, identities and needs, rather than suppress them.”
Outside, counterprotestors held signs that read “Support LGBTQ+ Youth,” “Trans rights are human rights” and “Protect trans students.”
Katrina Garcia Spillman, a Kit Carson Elementary School teacher and a district Safe Zone coordinator, stressed the importance of making the district “a safe place” for LGBTQ+ students.
“Every day I serve LGBTQIA+ families and students who deserve to see themselves in my curriculum,” Garcia Spillman said. “Educators know that one trusted adult can be the difference between life and death for our LGBTQIA+ students — they need to be heard and seen…erasure of an entire group of people only leads to fear and hatred.”
While protestors by large did not express objections to any specific book being taught in APS schools, one Edward Gonzales Elementary School teacher and parent Raquel Padilla told the board she was upset by the children’s book Julián is a Mermaid by Jessica Love — a book about a young boy who makes himself a mermaid costume — being read in her son’s third grade class.
“The fact that this teacher thought that it was okay to read this book out loud blows my mind. It was not appropriate, and it placed a wedge between myself and my son,” Padilla said. “In the following days, my son had a hard time understanding why I was so upset with the school because he didn’t understand the wrongdoing his teacher had done…I was not going to let this school introduce topics that we as a family do not agree with.”
As the meeting drew to a close, counterprotestors surrounded the protestors, shouting chants such as, “We’ve got power, we’ve got pride, we are standing side by side” and “All you bigots, go away, racist, sexist, anti-gay.”
Police escorted Amanchukwu and his team out of the meeting shortly before public forum ended, and ordered all remaining protestors and counterprotesters to disperse and vacate campus immediately at 6:30 p.m., despite the board meeting not yet being over. Those who gathered outside left shortly afterward, and the board meeting continued until around 8:45 p.m.
Board President Danielle Gonzales said toward the end of the meeting, long after the crowd outside left, that while the board does not engage in direct dialogue with public forum members, “we do want speakers to know that they were heard, and the board is committed to working with our community and with the administration on resolutions.”
According to Turning Point Faith’s website, Amanchukwu is currently on a tour of “America’s Wokest School Boards” and later plans to speak at upcoming school board meetings in the Murfreesboro City Schools in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and at Hyde Park Central School District in Hyde Park, N.Y.