Note: The Dallas Morning News report mentioned below is highly misleading. The presentation was strictly about the Constitution and didn’t include a discussion of abortion or trafficking – they were merely examples used to demonstrate how the legislative process works. They were incidental to the discussion at best. For more information see this.
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Conservative actress Janine Turner upset a group of Texas parents this month after she handed out materials that briefly mentioned her pro-life political position to middle school students.
Turner, known for her roles in “Friday Night Lights” and “Northern Exposure,” more recently has been a conservative political commentator and advocate. She founded a group called Constituting America, which promotes constitutional rights and civic awareness, especially to students.
On Sept. 12, she gave a presentation to fifth- and sixth-grade students at Eubanks Intermediate School in Texas. Her talk about the Constitution seemed well-received, but some of the materials that she gave students upset parents, according to the Dallas News.
One piece briefly mentioned how pro-abortion Democrats blocked an aid bill for sex trafficking victims because it did not provide funding for abortion. It was this brief mention of abortion politics that appears to have upset parents.
Their complaints prompted the Carroll school district to issue an apology and a promise to more thoroughly review student hand-outs in the future. District officials said the materials that Turner gave out were too mature for fifth and sixth graders.
“The program itself was great as she talked about love for country and being a good citizen,” school district spokeswoman Julie Thannum told the newspaper. “It wasn’t until later that we started getting calls and seeing social media postings upset about materials the speaker passed out to the children. … These aren’t the topics we’d typically talk about with fifth and sixth graders.”
However, Turner said abortion and sex trafficking were mentioned very briefly in the materials she handed out, and the school district, which reviewed the hand-outs before she came, did not have a problem with them before the complaints.
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Here’s more from the report:
As an example, she said the materials disseminated explain her own petition urging Congress to limit the size of bills so that average Americans can understand them. The documents make references to various large legislation such as the No Child Left Behind Act, Affordable Care Act and the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. She briefly explained how the lack of transparency and complex legalese stalled the trafficking bill when Democrats discovered language that would have limited funding for abortions.
… Turner said she would have accommodated school officials had they raised concerns about the materials she planned to distribute before her visit. Since founding Constituting America in 2010, she’s given more than 100 similar presentations in schools across Texas and the nation with no complaints, she said.
Turner said she is upset that the school district did not inform her of the parents’ concerns. She said she found out about the controversy on social media.
“The things people are saying on the internet are terrible,” she said. “I am the victim of social tyranny and a few parents coming forward when they knew all along. I’m very disappointed that no one in the five days they’ve been dealing with this has reached out to me.”
Turner hosts a talk radio show and contributes to Fox News and other conservative sites. A pro-lifer, she has advocated for unborn babies’ right to life and against funding for abortion groups like Planned Parenthood.
However, Turner told the newspaper that she does not bring her personal politics into her school presentations. She said she focuses on educating students about the U.S. Constitution and their rights.
