New Jersey mother Angela Reading, was deemed a “threat” by officials with the U.S. military after they learned of her Facebook post expressing concern about an LGBT poster at an elementary school.
New Jersey mom Angela Reading didn’t expect a single Facebook post would deem her a “security threat” in the opinion of U.S. military officials.
But it has, military documents confirm.
“They’ve created this image of me—that I’m some sort of domestic terrorist—because I don’t want sexual posters hanging on the wall in an elementary school,” she told The Epoch Times.
“People legit [legitimately] believed that me posting online that I didn’t like posters meant that I was a terrorist.”
Reading said she eventually resigned her job at the school board because of overwhelming pressure against her because of her Facebook post.
Emails show military officials encouraged school superintendents to demand Reading’s resignation.
The U.S. Army and Air Force, the New Jersey Department of Homeland Security, and local law enforcement agencies classified Reading’s Facebook post about LGBT posters at her school as a “security threat,” emails obtained by Reading under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) and shared with The Epoch Times show.
Eventually, U.S. Army Major Christopher Schilling discussed his concerns about the post possibly causing violence with 16 government actors.
The issue unfolded Nov. 22, 2022, when Reading wrote on Facebook that pro-LGBT banners at Upper Elementary School (UES) in North Hanover, New Jersey, seemed inappropriate.
The post had a disclaimer that Reading wasn’t speaking in her capacity as a school board member.
Children at the school made the posters, which included pride flags representing transgender, pansexual, “genderqueer,” “bisexual,” and other sexual orientations.
The term genderqueer refers to a person who does not identify with conventional gender distinctions. A person who identifies as genderqueer may identify as neither male or female; or both male and female; or a combination.
The term pansexual refers to a person with feelings sexual attraction toward people not limited to any one sex or “gender identity.”
“Why are elementary schools promoting/allowing elementary kids to research topics of sexuality and create posters?” Reading’s Facebook post read, in part. “Also, how can my young children be accepting of people ‘who are sexually attracted to multiple genders’? [sic] They don’t know what sex is!”
She has worked in public education for 10 years and was the Northern Burlington Board of Education’s vice president, she said. She’s never attended a protest and rarely posts on Facebook, she said.
“You’re not going to find political propaganda on my Facebook. You’re not going to find anything extreme. I am milquetoast boring in the public eye,” she said.
