Mary Congdon alerted authorities after her fourth-grade son came home one day confused about his gender identity. It turns out that Pleasant Grove Elementary School in Elk Grove was sponsoring a secret lunchtime club for affirming homosexuality, bisexuality, and cross-sex confusion.
All children in grades 3-6 were incentivized to attend by the promise of "fun games." No parental notification was provided, no permission slips were required, and no announcement about it was included in the weekly activities newsletter.
In a related article, Laurie Higgins of Breakthrough Ideas explains that the club, called UBU—which stands for "you be you"—was held during the lunch hour because after-school clubs require parental permission slips.
She says public school teachers believe they have the right to influence other people's children with their own ideology.
"That hubris has grown incredibly over the past 20 years," Higgins observes. "They know better than parents, and they're the ones that are going to help children, and if that means concealing information, going behind parents' backs, then they have the moral right to do that."
In response to this incident, a conservative legal rights organization sent a demand letter to the school district late last month.
"The National Center for Law and Policy, which is a religious liberty organization, sent a letter to the Elk Grove Unified School District on behalf of the parents who were concerned, demanding that the district permanently suspend all UBU and Rainbow Clubs at its elementary schools," the writer reports.
Principal Deirdre Wood has since confessed that 5-10 other elementary schools in the district were holding similar club meetings.
