Our newest release is here! "I read banned books" and "I read banned books" with a bookworm image are perfect and gets your message across loud and clear.
So what prompted the newest releases?
Evangelical (presumably) republicans have now moved on from banning and censoring books for children in school libraries, but they've now moved on to adults! That's right. Adults.
They have decided it's not enough to censor what books are available in physical libraries for kids, but also what’s available for kids AND adults... as well as what's available electronically.
They want to cut off access to books.
For example, in a rural county northwest of Austin Texas, county officials cut off access to the Overdrive, which is a digital library app that adults in that county had been using for a decade to read books for pleasure.
Adults can be censored with what books they read with just a flip of the switch, without due process, with no evaluation of the claims. Just Boom. Access gone.
This prompted a federal lawsuit against the county.
So, a group of about 10 Christian (presumably Evangelical) Republicans went before a county judge with a list of books in both the children'sRemove and adults' sections in their local library that they deemed “inappropriate, graphic, and pornographic.” That judge ordered the director of the library to, and I quote, “remove all books that depict any type of sexual activity or questionable nudity to be removed from shelves."
Here’s some of the Adult titles they censored:
- "Caste, The Origins of our Discontent" by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson
- "They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group" by Sean Campbell Bartoletti
- "Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen" by LGBTQ activist Jazz Jennings
And here are some of the Children’s titles:
- "In the Night Kitchen" by Maurice Sendak
- "It's Perfectly Normal: Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health" by Robin H. Harris
- Fart and Butt books such as "I need a New Butt!" and
- "Larry the Farting Leprechaun.
There are more, and if I can ever find them, I'll post them above.
The judge also prohibited the library from ordering new books. So when the group of Republicans couldn't figure out how to remove a handful of "inappropriate" books from Overdrive, the group cut off the app, instantly removing the county's residents access to over 17,000 books.
When one of the librarians refused to remove the books (because 1. Censorship and 2. There was nothing wrong with the books), she was fired.
Adults were also prohibited from checking out those books physically in the library. When adults requested the books at the counter, they were denied access to them. This small group of religious Republicans, with the power of the judge backing them, then replaced the entire library board, who were against book banning and censoring, with none other than themselves.
The group then proceeded to hold secret meetings that fellow library staff were not allowed to attend, and the meetings were closed to the public. The group also allegedly prohibited everyone on the board from taking notes so they wouldn't leave a trail
An adult in the group also requested many children’s books be moved to the adult section, calling them “pornographic filth” and urged local pastors to get involved “to protect the children.”
Public libraries are not places where the government can dictate what people can and cannot read. If you’re offended by a book, don't fucking check it out.
If you think that’s going to just be isolated to that one place, think again. It's already happening in Virginia, with a man named Tommy Altman, who's a right-wing Republican running for Congress in the district housing Virginia Beach. He's filed suit against Barnes & Noble to prohibit selling of certain titles "he doesn't agree with" such as:
- Genderqueer
- A Court of Mist and Fury
There is a sustained push to ban books, even for adults, that evangelical republicans don't like. The group who raged about censorship is now censoring everyone else.
Republican accusations are always confessions.
Christofascism is here.