LGBTQ Issues Divide Placer County School Community

Another school board meeting – this time, in Roseville, California – erupted in pandemonium last week after a far-right activist called members of the LGBTQ community a “cult” of “pedophile groomers” and flashed a white supremacist hand gesture.

The activist was Jeffrey Perrine, a man with ties to the Proud Boys, who lost his bid for the San Juan Unified School Board in November. He was at the Roseville Joint Union High School District board meeting to voice support for the district’s decision to cut ties with an LGBTQ-friendly pastor. The district’s action followed the release of secretly recorded footage taken by the conservative group Project Veritas.

In the heavily edited video, Loomis Pastor Casey Tinnin-Martinez says it’s important to mentor LGBTQ students when they’re young. He discusses helping them congregate without their parents’ knowledge and says he calls Child Protective Services on parents who misgender their trans children.

One day after the video’s release, RJUHSD informed parents that it was severing ties with Tinnin-Martinez’s LGBTQ support group, The Landing Spot. As CalSchoolNews has reported, this is not the first controversy involving the group and RJUHSD.

Hundreds of people attended the March 23 school board meeting that followed that decision. The response was so large that the board postponed its agenda and opened the entire meeting up to public comment. Perrine’s remarks prompted shouting from the audience and the school board was forced to adjourn the meeting early.

The chaos continued, as Perrine then took his objections to Tinnin-Martinez's home. The Sacramento Bee reports that Perrine was arrested that night outside Tinnin-Martinez’s residence on suspicion of disturbing the peace.