Anita Chabria: How 'Save the children' became an excuse for anti-LGBTQ+ hate
Leave our kids alone. Defend families. Save the children.
Parents shouted slogans like these in Glendale, North Hollywood, Temecula and even on the steps of the state Capitol in recent days, fervid in a hate that many in California thought was a thing of the past.
But as Sister Roma, she of the much-maligned Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, told me when we sat down for a few minutes Monday, it's not really the parents who are fomenting the hate — and everything old is new again anyway. Leg warmers, for example, are back.
"They are clinging with white-knuckle fear to the last bit of power they have," Roma said of the far-right agitators, just as ultra-conservatives did the last time California tried to clear its schools of anything hinting at gender diversity.
More than 75 laws outlawing a range of gender-related issues — from talking about sexuality, the landmark 2015 case that legalized same sex-marriage nationwide.
