TODAY writer Danielle Campoamor took the Sarah Bonner story initially broke by Cities 92.9 national. According to her byline, “Previously, she was a contributing editor at Hearst and freelance writer with bylines in The New York Times, Washington Post, NBC News THINK, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and more.”
NBC and yahoo!life were two other major news outlets that published Campoamor’s story.
Bonner resigned her teaching position in Heyworth after an inappropriate book was found in her classroom and it was determined she had recommended students view an inappropriate video. Bonner taught eighth grade language arts. The Book was “This book is Gay.” The video was “Moneyshot: The Pornhub Story.”
TODAY’s headline ran, “She offered a LGTBQ-themed book to her middle schoolers. Parents file a police report.”
On March 13 Bonner had what she called a “book tasting” in her classroom that included “This Book is Gay.”
According to the TODAY story Bonner said, “By Wednesday, I received notice that parents had gotten a hold of pictures from that book that their child had taken in class. By Friday, I was told that parents had filed a police report against me for child endangerment.”
The TODAY story says. “TODAY.com reached out to the local chief of police, who confirmed the report but declined to comment further.”
But there is some confusion about what type of report.
Cities 92.9 recently wrote, “After speaking with Heyworth Police Chief Michael Geriets, Cities found there was no report filed under ‘Child Endangerment.’ The report is listed as ‘Other non-criminal offense’ and titled, ‘Reported Age-Inappropriate Material Provided by a Teacher.’”
Campoamor also wrote Bonner said, “I didn’t feel safe. I knew I couldn’t go back.” And the TODAY story quoted Bonner as saying, “she decided to resign.”
TODAY also said, “TODAY.com reached out to a school district’s superintendent for comment but did not hear back at the time of publication.”
But Heyworth School District Superintendent Lisa Taylor has previously addressed the matter publicly. According to Taylor the resignation was “involuntary.”
In her story Campoamor described “This Book Is Gay” by Juno Dawson as a “bestselling nonfiction book that’s billed by its publisher as an entertaining and informative “instruction manual” for anyone coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans.”
The Washington Examiner published an opinion on the TODAY/NBC story with a headline that was a bit different than Campoamor’s. The Examiner headline read, “Teacher pushes gay pornography on middle schoolers, NBC provides smokescreen for it.” The opinion was penned by Timothy P. Carney, a senior columnist.
Carney described the book differently than Campoamor writing, “‘This Book Is Gay’ is a pornographic book with detailed descriptions of sex, including perversion, such as eating feces. … It has a chapter titled “The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex” and a guide on how to meet strangers for sex on sex apps. Any decent person agrees that no adult should give this book to a student or especially a middle school student.”
Carney wrote, “If a teacher is trying to put pornography before young teenagers, that adult is doing something very bad — and he or she should be stopped from doing so, and maybe prosecuted. If a major institution tries to fool the public into believing that the pornography the teachers are peddling to children is just fine for their children, then the major institution is complicit in the corruption of minors, at least.”
“Middle School teacher Sarah Bonner is the one peddling pornography to teenagers and NBC News is the institution deceiving the public about it.”
The Daily Caller covered the NBC story and put the onus even more squarely on the media giant. The Daily Caller headline read, “NBC News Dragged For Hiding Sexually Explicit Details In Book Taught To Middle Schoolers.” That story was written by Nicole Silverio, a media reporter.
“NBC News … failed to mention the sexually explicit details in the book, which described sexual positions and defined terms such as ‘gender queer,’ making the teacher appear to be the victim,” Silverio wrote. “The book includes a chapter on how to consume semen during oral sex, how to insert things into the rectum, and several kinks and fetishes such as sex parties, bathhouses, and eating poop, according to photographs.”
“A page had a list of terms that define the eating of poop, ‘rimming,’ lube, an orgy, and some sex toys. It also defined certain hook up apps, such as Grindr.”
“Rather than mention the explicit content of the book, NBC News published a piece about how Bonner—who exposed this content to her students—is attempting to include ‘a diverse library of texts.’ It covered the number of pornographic books banned from schools throughout the U.S., without any mention of the books’ content.”
Members of the gay community have also spoken out about the TODAY/NBC story. Brad Polumbo has written opinions and editorials for major media outlets that range from far left to far right across the political spectrum including Dailey Beast, USA Today, Real Clear Politics, Washington Examiner and National Review. Polumbo put out a YouTube video titled, “NBC News DEFENDS Teacher Who Gave EXPLICIT Gay Books to Kids (Normal Gays React).”
“So initially I am somebody who is very into free speech, very against the idea of ‘banning’ books, so at first I was like oh wow this looks bad,” Polumbo said. “When I looked into it I very quickly realized there was a little more to this story than NBC let on.”
“So the book has sexually explicit diagrams, a how-to guide on ‘boy on boy sex.’ … It has an appendix that explains what a strap-on is, what rimming is. This book is very sexually explicit and we’re talking about it being given to middle schoolers.”
“People are so quick to say ‘this is homophobia’ or ‘these rude parents who don’t want their kids to learn that gay people exist’ or something and it’s like ‘no we are talking about middle schoolers that were given books that are wildly sexually explicit.’ Why are people defending that in our name? I find that kind of offensive.”
