Parents who object to sexually explicit books in school libraries have been labeled "book banners," writes Max Eden, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in Newsweek.
But it's not just Christians or the "ultra-MAGA" who want to keep school libraries G rated.
Hundreds of Muslim parents told the Dearborn (MI) school board that they're not OK with books that depict sex acts, describe group masturbation games or or recommend apps such as Grindr to meet strangers for casual sex.
"We don't care whether the pornographic photos and erotica are homosexual, lesbian, or straight," said Abdullah Ahmed. "If there's pornography in any books available to kids and teens, we want that out . . . Does the LGBT community show porn to their kids growing up? I don't think so."
It's not a religious issue, said Albert Abbas. "Many of us here don't care about your sexual preference, nor do we want to argue about gender identity or whether men can get pregnant. . . . When our children are under your watch, it is your duty to protect them from erotica, or overly provocative words, or graphic porn."
Jane Mazza, president of the local teachers' unions, countered that "no parent should be allowed to tell another parent what their child is allowed or not allowed to read."
Of course, parents are free to buy these books or borrow them from the public library.
Many of the six books in question include LGBTQ themes and sexual abuse, reports Ron French in Bridge Michigan.
For example, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson is a "memoir-manifesto" of growing up Black and queer that includes descriptions of rape and consensual sex. Several parents objected to Juno Dawson's This Book is Gay, which describes how to use sex apps.
Others argued that protests to LGBTQ-themed books make "students of different sexual orientations . . . feel marginalized and unsafe," writes French. Some speakers who identified themselves as gay were booed.
Forty-two percent of Dearborn residents are Arab American.
Most Americans don't want elementary or high school students assigned to read books "with LGBTQ topics, profanity, and depictions of violence or sex," the Understanding America Survey found. There's a split on whether these books should be available in high school libraries.
According to a recent Rasmussen poll of likely voters, 69 percent said "books containing explicit sexual depictions of sex acts" should not be in public high school libraries. Those rises to 79 percent for middle schools and 85 percent for elementary schools.
Who are those 15% who want porn in elementary school libraries?
I wonder when the last time that the dads at the podium actually read a novel or a work of non-fiction. It is hard to organize parents to ban books when most of them probably do not have any books in their home.
So for the sake of a very small minority, who don’t want to made uncomfortable, the desires of the overwhelming majority to also not feel uncomfortable are disregarded. I remember when the majority determines, not the minority. Gays fought for years to be equals with the heterosexual majority. Now they argue to be a special class of citizens with the power to veto the free speech of others. I don’t recall reading that proviso in the Constitution.
I read that the ALA (American Library Association) defines banning as 1 person questioning the suitability of a book. Once it gets reported to them, the book is considered banned.
Duh. There are also other topics that parents would be upset about if K-8 school libraries featured books on these themes. One that is foremost in my mind is books or graphic novels that foregounds descriptions of gory violence. I do not think those books shoudl be censored by the government, but I do think they should have to be purchased by adults who know what they are getting into, not presented to children in school.