“Protect the children” is a rallying cry in right-wing circles at the moment, implying all sorts of boogeymen: liberal educators, books featuring gay penguins, drag queens in libraries, child sex traffickers using Wayfair armoires and pizza restaurant basements. In reality, it’s adults — and disproportionately conservative adults — who are making life much more perilous for children by failing to protect them from guns, from violence at home and in schools, from early marriage, from early and forced motherhood, from backbreaking labor, and from life behind bars.
Samantha Carter
Inverness