Banned Books vs. The Good Book

Liberal activist Kyle McDaniel might be an ideologue, a thief, and a cad, but give him this: He’s no hypocrite.

McDaniel’s former employer has sued him for embezzling company funds and spending them on personal indulgences including strip clubs. But this melds pretty well his record in politics.

When McDaniel was sworn in for his four-year term on the Fairfax County, Virginia, School Board in December 2023 he declined to swear on a Bible, opting instead for a book that features sex scenes in most chapters, culminating with the depiction of a rape while a second man watches and is described masturbating.

Homegoing was a “banned book,” and so McDaniel was advertising his edginess by preferring it to the Bible. McDaniel claimed that Homegoing was “banned” for its brutal depiction of slavery. Of course, nobody has banned the book, and the book’s removal from school libraries had nothing to do with slavery or race.

Nearby Spotsylvania County’s school board removed the book from its libraries pursuant to state law involving “materials that contain sexually explicit content.” Some parents objected to the rape-and-masturbation material sitting on school library shelves, and the superintendent accommodated them. Any parent who wants such a book for his child can buy it on Amazon or hit up the public library system. Fairfax County students, meanwhile, have full access to this book and plenty more.

McDaniel was the treasurer at Blue Label Aviation, a small business, until he was recently terminated for misusing company funds. Company personnel say they caught him embezzling once, and he paid back some of the money — but then kept embezzling. BLA sued him for using company credit cards and bank accounts for his personal expenses, allegedly including strip clubs.

What? Are you trying to ban strip clubs? Are you some sort of puritan?

In addition to fighting to expose school children to more sexually explicit books, McDaniel is the chairman of the Fairfax County Public Schools’s budget committee.

If FCPS is willing to trust McDaniel with its books, at least we know he’ll be keeping his hands off the Good Book.