Gay Utah Dad: Lesbian Book Ban ‘Literally Segregating Our Families’
A gay Utah father is frustrated that his local school board, which elected to pull a picture book from elementary school library shelves because it included lesbian parents, is “literally segregating” gay and lesbian headed families. Weston Clark, 33, a former teacher in the Davis County school district, who now is a stay-at-home father to a two-year old son whom he raises with his partner of 12 years, has tried to create a dialogue on the book ban with the Davis County School Superintendent, but ultimately was rebuffed.
“A committee of seven teachers, administrators, and parents from Utah’s Davis School District voted 6-1 to segregate In Our Mothers’ House (Philomel, 2009), described in an SLJ review as a “gem of a book” that illustrates how love makes a family, even if it’s not a traditional one,” the School Library Journal reported last week:
“It’s still in the library, it’s just placed behind the counter,” says Chris Williams, a district spokesperson. “If a child hands in a permission slip they can still read it.”
The decision to restrict access to Polacco’s story-about a black girl who describes how her two Caucasian mothers, Marmee and Meema, adopted her, her Asian brother, and her red-headed sister-has raised concerns from the library community and anticensorship organizations, with the Utah Library Association (ULA) holding a meeting Monday afternoon to discuss the situation, says Anna Neatrour, ULA’s executive director.
While news reports have stated that other gay-themed books are being eyed for removal, including Justin Richardson’s and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three (S & S, 2005) and James Howe’s Totally Joe (Atheneum, 2007), Williams says the district hasn’t received any challenges against the titles, nor has it requested that other books be pulled. And Tango Makes Three topped the American Library Association’s Most Frequently Challenged Books in 2010.
Weston Clark, who attended, graduated, and later taught school in Utah’s Davis County School District told The New Civil Rights Movement in an exclusive interview via telephone that by removing the book, In Our Mothers’ House, from the school shelves and housing it behind a counter, “they are literally segregating our families’ stories and that’s sending a strong message to all families.”
What message?
Clark notes that “just like other areas, we have bullying issues.” He pointed to a recent anti-LGBT bullying related teen suicide. Sadly, there are far too many.
Clark says his goal is “to show the school board the LGBT families live in their community too,” and to “protect the kids. My kids, other people’s kids. All kids.”
Clark adds that he wants the school board to realize that “decisions they make affect all the families” in the district,” and says he finds it “hard to believe that the people of Davis County” will support anti-gay bigotry, even in the form of a book ban.
The Salt Lake Tribune yesterday notes that Davis School District spokesman Chris Williams “said the decision was made because state law dictates that curriculum cannot advocate homosexuality and that the book was determined to not be age-appropriate for kindergarten students.”
Concerns about the book surfaced in January, after the mother of a kindergarten student at Windridge Elementary in Kaysville became upset when her child checked out the book and brought it home. The mother and her husband took their concerns to elementary school officials, according to Williams.
Williams said the book was purchased in part because a student who attended Windridge Elementary has two mothers and librarians wanted to foster inclusion.
Two groups have criticized the district’s decision to limit access to the picture book.
The Kids’ Right to Read Project, a joint effort of the New York-based National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, wrote Bowles last week to voice objections about censoring children from the book. The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah also sent a similar letter to Bowles, stating that the decision to limit access to Polacco’s book is likely unconstitutional.
Tonight, the Davis County School Board is scheduled to meet at an event open to the public. Weston Clark has been working with schools superintendent Bryan Bowles to create a dialogue around the issue, and to have LGBT families attend the meeting and be introduced to the board. When word got out, however, Clark says Bowles denied there had been an agreement to let the families be recognized.
As it stands, tonight’s meeting should prove to be interesting. LGBT families and their allies are still expected to attend the school board meeting, as will Clark, who says he doesn’t have an agenda for the meeting, he “just want[s] to see what happens.”
 Image, top: Weston Clark, left, Brandon Mark, right, son Xander, center. Used with permission.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
