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The WallBuilders Show is a daily journey to examine today's issues from a Biblical, Historical and Constitutional perspective. Featured guests include elected officials, experts, activists, authors, and commentators.
The WallBuilders Show
Defending Children Against Age-Inappropriate Content in Schools- with Rep. Richard McGrew
The quiet battle for your child's mind is happening on elementary school bookshelves, and you might be shocked at what's hiding there. Representative Richard McGrew of Arkansas joins us to share his journey from concerned citizen to legislative champion after discovering LGBT-themed books targeting fourth graders in a rural school library.
McGrew takes us behind the scenes of his successful effort to pass Act 917, groundbreaking legislation that prohibits non-age-appropriate sexual material in Arkansas K-5 school libraries. His story reveals the surprising reality that even small country schools are not immune to the push for sexual content targeting young children. "If you'd have told me beforehand these books were there, I'd have said no way," McGrew confesses, highlighting why parents everywhere should investigate what's available to their children.
We explore the grassroots strategy that made this legislation possible - from helping parents navigate bureaucratic processes to rallying church communities and building coalitions. McGrew's practical approach demonstrates how strategic compromise can achieve crucial protections while withstanding constitutional challenges. His experience provides a blueprint for concerned citizens nationwide who want to effect meaningful change in their own communities.
The conversation broadens to address the critical need for civil discourse in our divided times. How can we speak truth boldly while maintaining respect for those with whom we disagree? Drawing inspiration from leaders who model this approach, we discuss practical ways to rebuild relationships with family members holding different views and engage effectively in the public square.
Ready to protect children in your community? Join the growing movement of parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens taking action in school boards and state legislatures across America. The power to safeguard our children's innocence begins with awareness and culminates in courageous civic engagement.
Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of Faith and Culture, it's The WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Of course, no hotter topic right now than the assassination of Charlie Kirk and what it means for the culture, what it means in terms of just the freedom to speak, to have civil discourse, how to deal with the environment that's been created where people somehow believe that speech can be violence itself if it offends or if it's termed or labeled as hate speech and therefore then violence to stop that speech is okay. That's the environment that's been created so the question is what do we do about it and of course here at Wall Builders we're all about speech and all about civil discourse and the ability to proclaim the gospel, to speak truth, to have civil discourse even with our fellow Christians, about the gospel and the application and discipleship and the ability to have civil discourse about how that discipleship affects how we not only treat our family and our people in our church but our community and our state and our nation and therefore how we do politics because politics is nothing more than how you treat your neighbor, that's what it is. And, and so, you know, our approach here at Wobblers has always been to have open debate to... To be willing to discuss things with anyone. It's why we do, you know, the Student Summer Institute, for instance, where you have these young people come in and they're able to ask all kinds of questions and you talk about pretty much everything. It's it's why do Patriot Academy, because it's all about teaching people to be ready to answer, you first Peter 315 and then of course, to do that boldly, to speak in all boldness, Acts 429. And of course uniquely training in the legislative process is what we've done at Patriot Academy for years but within that process it's all about debate and discussion and learning to ask questions and even having I think one of the great legacies of Charlie Kirk is gonna be showing people how to to do that being polite but he was you know he had to be sometimes curt and and and yes sometimes it it was painful to people to have their logic lack of logic pointed out to them but he just a wonderful joyful happy warrior attitude, smiling all the time, no matter what they said about him. You know, that is something that we've taught at Patriot Academy for years and years and year. In fact, we often use that quote from Ronald Reagan to be happy warriors out to take back a country and a world to freedom. So anyway, that's definitely the hottest topic of the day and we'll hit on that a little bit today, but then we also have a special guest. We want to talk about some of the legislative things that are happening. I'm out there that that are in fact living out our faith and and being salt and light and making sure that we're not creating a corrosive environment that were not allowing. These books in our schools and our libraries that are causing children to hate their nation to hate each other and to hate themselves to to cause them to to to literally reject god and and reject even their own sexuality and. And all of these things, and so that is on topic for sure with what's happening right now. And of course, we know that so much of the violence that has happened lately has been not only out of the transgender, the psychotropic drugs, the hormones, and all that. Just the insanity that that creates, but also out of this sense of the world owes me something, and that somehow violence is taking things, you know, making things right, and that mindset has unfortunately been instilled in a lot of people based on a lot the tone and rhetoric that's out And I want to be careful even how I say that because Again, you have the freedom to say things, you don't have the freedom to literally encourage violence, incite violence, and a lot of people have gotten very close to that. And a lot of people have actually crossed that line. I mean, we're getting all kinds of death threats at Patriot Academy right now and crazy stuff about burning down our Academy and putting up a wall and trapping everybody inside and setting it ablaze and just crazy stuff out there. And my prayer is that one of the legacies of Charlie Kirk is that we restore civil discourse, that we get back to speaking in a civil way, peacefully, and winning hearts and minds in that way. And so part of that process is to not allow the poison of this Marxism that divides the country and that creates this hatred of oneself and the people around them and their own nation. And we'll talk to representative Richard McGrew when we come back from the break specifically about that and the legislation that he has passed in Arkansas to get some of that poison. Now they don't get all of it out of the library. Sometimes they just get it into an adult section, but at least it's not poisoning the minds of those kids are easily accessible to those kids to be able to, to get a hold of it. So quick break. We'll be right back. I'm Rick Green. You're listening to the Wobbler show.
Rick Green [00:06:39] Welcome back to the WallBuilderw Show. Thanks for staying with us, representative Richard McGrew with us from the great state of Arkansas representative. Thanks for your time, man.
Richard McGrew [00:06:47] Thank you for allowing me to be here.
Rick Green [00:06:49] Well, thanks for taking a strong stand and for getting so involved in your district. And of course we've had a lot of programs over the last few years about how to get the junk out of the schools and, and not only the schools, but the local libraries as well. And, uh for a legislator to not only pass legislation, but also get involved locally and help families. On this is inspiring, so we wanted to get you on and talk about the legislation, talk about the story right there in your community.
Richard McGrew [00:07:13] Yes, sir. Well, the situation was brought to me by a couple in my community that had a girl that was in the fourth grade that experienced these books in the library and brought it to me. I went and met with them, got the books in my hand or some of the books and verified what they were telling me, which was this is the first. Just let me say, the bill that I passed was, uh, was, um, at 9 17, which does not allow any non age appropriate sexual material in libraries, kindergarten through fifth grade in the public school libraries in Arkansas. Good. And so, so when I thought this
Rick Green [00:07:56] session you guys just passed
Richard McGrew [00:07:58] Is that this spring? Yes, sir. It just, you know, if there's a certain timeframe after the session, it just became effective law, I think in August the 1st, gotcha. So.
Rick Green [00:08:09] I forgot to ask you, what part of Arkansas do you represent?
Richard McGrew [00:08:11] I represent Hot Springs. I'm in district 85, which is Hot Springs Village, Jetsaville, Mountain Pine, Pier C. I go bump up to the city limits of Hot Springs
Rick Green [00:08:22] Gotcha. Okay. I was just in, uh, we just stayed in hot Springs village for a week. We had a friend get married up there and, went and stayed up there for, a little while and enjoyed it. We love hot Springs, love our cause I'm originally from Little Rock, Maybeville actually. But, uh anyway, so, um, um just wondering, I wasn't sure which part of the state. So you've got, you're up there with our friend, Tim Brooks and, uh, uh Christian ministries. You see, you probably know all those guys.
Richard McGrew [00:08:45] I do have been to Christian ministries many times. Uh, Eddie Lou, which recently passed away was an amazing lady. Yes. Incredible. Tim, Tim doing a great job up there. So we love them and I like to say I'm district 85, which is absolutely the best district in the state of Arkansas, but I got high, I got part of hot springs and Lake Worcester and it's a beautiful place.
Rick Green [00:09:07] That's great well let's let's let's get away from that topic because if we say too many nice things about Tim Brooks then David Barton will definitely have to counter it since they're best buds but anyway so okay so the legislation just passed but but really what kind of back up a little bit tells the story of how you got on this particular issue with this gal
Richard McGrew [00:09:26] So when this family brought me the issues I seen, and I did not like what was, what was being put in place in front of our young children, as I think many in the community did not. I went to the superintendent and talked with him. He was, handed me a process about which to get the book out of the library, but kept it in there in the meantime and did not, to me express concern in getting it out. So, at that point, I went and talked to the school board, also talked to the community, and I started preparing the couple that was preparing their appeal to get the book out of the library. I helped them and assisted them with that because I knew some of the laws that it was against, but I was unhappy with that process. Now, fortunately, some churches in the community got involved, started circulating petitions and It started getting around and the president of the school board made a motion and took the books and locked them in the, in the office at that time. So we were successful at getting that done pretty quick, but that didn't affect any of the rest of the schools in Arkansas. And I have a very rural district. This was a small country school. If you had told me beforehand that those books were in there, I would have said absolutely not, but they were.
Rick Green [00:10:47] I think that's important for our listeners too, Representative, because I think a lot of people think that. They think, oh, well, I hear these stories, but that's the big city or that's those big school districts. That wouldn't be happening in my backyard. And they don't realize that these librarians, these educators, these administrators, they all go to these colleges where they get indoctrinated with this stuff and are told this is gonna free the kid and all this nonsense. And so they bring it back to our schools in our rural towns where we all live.
Richard McGrew [00:11:14] Yes, it does. In fact, the librarian in this situation was very offended by what I did, sent me some emails. But one of the things she said is she believed it had a right to be there because our community was diverse and we needed those diverse materials in the library, which I was, you know, we're talking about our children.
Rick Green [00:11:35] Yeah, basically, they've replaced the word poison with diversity. They've labeled poison diversity. Yeah.
Richard McGrew [00:11:42] Absolutely, and so I will say in running the bill forward, initially I had support from a lot of people. I was actually visiting with the group that we had met at wall builders and one of those was running a bill that was much stronger than mine and we talked about mine and said well let's file mine too in case that one don't make it. That one did not make it and so this was and there was a lot of scrutiny on the bill. Initially, I got phone calls from the Arkansas administration education association, which wanted me to place some stuff in the bill, but they weren't terrible. They wanted me the place the word knowingly, which I was absolutely okay with because these, these, uh, librarians needed to know that they were doing it and had the opportunity to do it, pull it.
Rick Green [00:12:33] In other words, if something got kind of snuck in and a shipment of, you know, 50 books or whatever, and they didn't even know, just like with any other, you know, crime, you'd, you would have to have, you know, a mens rea and actress rea. You might've acted on it, but you've got to have the mental that you knew that you did it. That makes sense. That, that seems like a fair, uh amendment.
Richard McGrew [00:12:51] Yes, but these books are ordered from an approved list nationally. So there might be, you know, many books coming in. I asked some of the librarians, some librarians were in favor of this bill, but they had concerns because this bill upon your third offense of this, it, it removes your license. Uh, so it has some teeth in it. Nice. But, uh, so I said, how could they not know? And they said, well, quite frankly, they could not know. If they're not real diligent with their job, they can do a Google search with the book that they're getting with certain words and, and probably catch most of those books, if not all of those books. Uh, you know, there was in this particular school, there'll be six LBGT award-winning books in, in there and three of them in the elementary library. And, uh, and so, uh the particular book that was brought to me. Showed a little girl falling in love with this little boy. And at the end of the book, the boy was dressed up in a dress, kissing another boy. And so I was teaching ideology. One of the things that come in in the, in the fight to get this bill through. And when I say fight, you know, I wish it was just about right and wrong, but it's not in, in, the public in there at the capital, it's about winning or losing, and you've got to be smart and fat to win your position, uh, because As I approached, uh, the house committee with the bill, uh. I was asked to pull the bill down and make some changes to it, which I did because my focus was on getting the bill passed, even if I had to make it a little weaker than I wanted it initially, because I can get it passed. I can always build on it next session. That's right. And so that's good strategy, brother. That's our side.
Rick Green [00:14:37] Our side doesn't think like that enough, right? It's like you gotta get that the loaf today as Ronald Reagan used to say, and then come back and work for the other half tomorrow
Richard McGrew [00:14:44] Exactly. And I think that's important. So, uh, but there was some changes that I made. There were some questions about the procedural changes. Uh, I ran this bill in a way that I thought it would stand against people that were saying it busted the constitution and that it affected freedom of speech. So it doesn't ban the books from school. It takes them and puts them in a locked compartment. That's one of the things I had to change. I had them in locked area. They wanted that to be, there's a lot of discussion about that one word. So we changed it to a locked compartment. So the books are locked away and can only be checked out with the parent's consent. And which takes them out of the public view of the young children. And quite frankly, I'd be willing to wager that none of those books have been checked out there. And, and in fact, the superintendent has left the new superintendent came in that particular school who's doing a wonderful job. Is tremendously, trying to correct a lot of things. And she communicated to me that there was more books and she got them all out.
Rick Green [00:15:48] And that's great, man. So, but yeah,.
Richard McGrew [00:15:52] Go ahead.
Rick Green [00:15:52] No, no, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Richard McGrew [00:15:53] The pushback in the committees in the first house committee, every Democrat in the committee voted against it and it barely made it through.
Rick Green [00:16:01] That they are willing I just it shocks me every day at the things the Democrats are willing to defend whether it's criminals and and you know not what not wanting to clean up the streets and or in this case literally defending this indoctrination of kids and the sexual over sexualization and all of it I just It boggles the mind. I hope their brand Is is damaged enough that they'll feel enough pain at the ballot box that they will come back at least to the middle just crazy
Richard McGrew [00:16:30] I hope so, but ultimately got it passed. And when it went to the house floor, we're fortunate in Arkansas. We have a super majority. We have 81 out of a hundred representatives in the house, uh, on the house floor it got 75 votes to pass, which passed easily went to the Senate committee, which, I knew was going to be a real fight. The Senate committee is smaller, only eight members. Not all of them showed up getting close to the end of the session. They were wrapped up in different things. There was one democratic member in there that would fight tooth and nail to keep it out. And so we, we planned well and, and was able to get it past the Senate committee. Then it went to the Senate floor and I thought I've got it. We've got a super majority in the Senate, just like we do in the house. Everything is fine. And it failed the Senate floor. And it was unbelievable to me, but thankful for the, the Senator Matt McKee that was the co-sponsor of my bill on the Senate side was strong enough to sponge the boat and pull it back. And explained one of the problems they had with it. They said, the board don't have the power to do this. You're administratively got this bill wrong, McGrew. And I said, no, read the bill. It's not the school board. It's the, I forget the particular board, but it's, it's a special board within the board of education that does this. And they have that authority. So when it was explained, right. And ran again, then he got 28 votes out of the 35 and passed. So, and I'm, I'm extremely happy because we're talking about our young children, the most vulnerable in our, and, and there's, I believe in agenda to teach them and pull them in a wrong direction.
Rick Green [00:18:06] Yeah. No doubt.
Richard McGrew [00:18:08] And I think it is important. Like I said, I would have never thought it was in this small country school. Yeah. If you'd have told me beforehand, I'd have said, no way.
Rick Green [00:18:16] Yeah, and it's going to take more than just the elected officials, it's going to us, the citizens are going to have to take this up and investigate their local school parents, grandparents. Like you said, I mean, that's really where this will ultimately be cleaned out because you can only do so much in terms of legislation, you can only do much as one person and getting people to follow that model of just taking those simple steps that you took, they can do that. They can do it in their hometown.
Richard McGrew [00:18:45] Actually, and it's so important. The public don't understand how strong they are when they come together. You know, the parents coming together, the school board elections are so important. It can't, you're right, it can't just be a legislature passing law. How do I know in different areas of Arkansas that they're really even paying attention to this, the the community must get involved
Rick Green [00:19:13] Amen. Well, what a great example. And, and of course, a lot of a lot of organizations now getting, getting, you know, this was kind of shocking to us, just like it was to you for that small town, even as a culture. I think the church is still way behind on this because we just, we just got caught flat footed and the left was, you know scratching and clawing in the trenches to do these things and gain the culture and gain the ground. And, but I think that's really changing. I think there's a lot of good organizations now stepping up and great legislators like yourself leading the way. And the more states we get to pass this and and then empower individuals to do something about it in the local community, the more we can take care of this. So thanks for setting the example, man. Thanks for taking the time to come on the program and let our folks know about it.
Richard McGrew [00:19:52] Well, thank you very much. I sure appreciate what y'all do.
Rick Green [00:19:55] Well, we appreciate you. That's Representative Richard McGrew. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us today. Thanks to Representative McGrew for joining us today and for the good work, of course, in Arkansas and the legislature there has just done a stellar stellar job and Tim and David are traveling today. But they have been there in Arkansas, gone to some of these press conferences with the governor and helped to pass multiple pieces of legislation. So it's we appreciate Representative McGREW. And he mentioned I want to spend our last few minutes just talking about our pro pro family legislators conference because. Representative McGrew mentioned that that's one of the places he learned about some of these things and then was able to share it with a lot of the folks that he is working with and and and other legislators around the country and we've been doing that now for you know well over 15 years I think we're maybe even in our 20 year anniversary this year. It's around 2005 2006 ironically Mike Huckabee was governor of Arkansas and our first dinner speaker at the very first pro family legislators conference and and the whole idea is to get these legislators together to. Have civil discourse to actually talk about ideas, to challenge each other, to share ideas with each other to sharpen each other. It's a great example of everything that Charlie stood for, proclaiming the gospel and doing what David Barton taught us a long time ago. In fact, I came across my university on wheels over the weekend, cleaning out the attic and it was my box of David Bart and cassette tapes. That was how I got educated on so many of these things. And, but one of the things that he taught us is to think biblically and speak secularly. So being able. To win people over and to speak their language and to do these things effectively in some of these environments where if you just take the Bible out and quote Bible verses, you're going to lose them. And so you've got to be able to think biblically, but then speak secularly. And so these legislators at Profamed Legislators Conference, they do that. And yet I think the tide's turning even there. I think it's going to become more and more popular and acceptable to. Quote scripture in those environments to be able to show that this isn't something we just came up with five minutes ago, it's not something we came up with 250 years ago when the nation was born. This is something that has been around for thousands of years, these biblical values that produce a good society that we're pushing for in these legislatures across the country. It's good to show the foundation for that. I think that's part of why they hated Charlie is because he was so good at taking us back to those biblical foundations, taking us back. To that truth and being able to answer, being able to articulate it. You know, folks, I wanna encourage you, do what you can to find people in your life to have that civil discourse. You may be estranged from one of your kids or grandkids right now. You may have somebody in your family that you haven't talked to over the last three or four years as things have been so contentious. I encourage you to reach out to them and just say, hey, can we go to lunch? Can we, or they live across the country, can we have a phone call once a week and just, you know, take an hour and... And visit and share and even talk about the things we disagree about and be able to be curious about why the other one believes that and have the chance to share why we believe what we believe and then just have some good intellectual civil discourse. I'm going to encourage you to do that especially if you have a kid that has gone off to college, been indoctrinated by the left, gone off the rails and you're upset. I get it. I would be too. And you're worried. And so you you may have responded in a way where you're not even y'all aren't even talking now or maybe they've responded in that way. Take this opportunity to reach out to them and say, Hey, this assassination of Charlie Kirk has caused me to realize number one, you don't know how long you have and I love you and I, and I want to be able to, to, to visit I want, I want it to be back in relationship. And number two, that, that we should be able talk to each other about these things and figure out where each other's coming from. Doesn't mean you know, we have to change each other's mind to have fellowship, but we can at least talk. I just want to encourage you to do that. We work with a lot of young people, a lot families where they've got kids that are in that situation and they're heartbroken. And I understand if that's where you are, and we pray for the protocols to come home, what an opportunity to reach out to that protocol and, and at least start rebuilding that relationship with them and having those discussions. And if, if you're a young person out there right now and you're listening, I put out a message to all of our Patriot Academy grads of the last few years over the weekend and said, you know this is, this is the time right now for young leaders to learn to be ready to answer. You need to just get a hold of 1 Peter 3:15 and then you need to get a hold of acts 429 so that you can boldly speak the truth so that in all boldness, you can go out there and that's what we do at Patriot Academy. And so I told a lot of these kids that have been to our programs for one week, whatever you're doing, if you feel the call, if you feel that tug, I'm opening up a few more spots at the Patriot Institute. Now, we've got. All of our scholars are showing up tonight, you know, today, actually, this is their first day at the campus. And so we're willing to accept some students a week late. If you, if you feel a tug on that and you would like us to personally train you to be good at answering, to be effective at speaking out in all boldness, then please go to patriotacademy.com/institute today and get your application in and we still, you know, we're going to, I'm just, I just feel called to do this. I feel like this is. We're part of carrying on Charlie's legacy and creating and training and equipping a thousand Charlie Kirk's. So if you feel called to do that, check out PatriotAcademy.com forward slash institute. It's not gonna cost you. We're gonna give you a scholarship if you're accepted. So check that out today. And again, reach out, reach to those products. Thanks so much for listening today. You've been listening to The Wallbuilders Show.
