South Dakota Parents Torch School Board Over ‘Pornographic,’ ‘Marxist’ 12th-Grade English Novels

South Dakota parents and community members slammed their local school board Tuesday over novels they deemed “pornographic,” “Marxist propaganda,” Fox News reported Friday.

Public comments at the Rapid City Area Schools’ (RCAS) board meeting chastised the school district over its proposed 12th-grade English reading curriculum, which has since been struck down after school administrators decided the titles were inappropriate, Fox reported.

Local resident Kate Linden described the pictures in the graphic novel “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel as “clearly pornographic,” Fox reported. She said it depicts “two women performing oral sex” and shows “images of masturbation and drug usage.”

“There is a difference between teaching what sex is and teaching how to engage in it,” she said, according to Fox. “And that’s what’s happening in this book.”

She said she fully supported the removal of any books that describe sex acts or sexual situations and called for an investigation into whoever proposed the books, so they can be held accountable, Fox reported.

“We are having our attorneys looking at the content and with their advice, we will come to a final decision on what we can do with the books. These books are not available for students within our district buildings at this time,” the school board told Fox in a statement.

Florence Thomas, the president of South Dakota Parents Involved in Education, said the books are part of “the Marxist global revolution … the Cultural Revolution,” happening all across the country and the world.

“It is Marxist propaganda,” she said. “It is designed to divide the kids from their parents, divide the kids from their country, divide the kids from their culture and even in many cases, divide them from their very selves.”

She emphasized the danger behind the “Marxist propaganda” and urged attendees to look at the issue with a broad perspective because it isn’t just happening in their district, but “all over.”

“Our education system has been taken over, to a large extent, from the federal level and so we’re getting these books and we need to start saying no at the local level,” she said. “They’re made to be racially divisive. They’re made to divide people against themselves, against their parents, against their churches.”

Another woman said “destroying [the] innocence” of students “is something that’s not recoverable.”

“The parents of children who come to the public schools, put their trust in the public schools not to undo what they try to inculcate into their children,” she added. “I would suggest that there is other literature that would accomplish the same lessons.”

RCAS did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.