Under the parental oversight of public libraries bill, which has been proposed by Missouri Republican Ben Baker, panels of parents would be elected to evaluate whether books are appropriate for children. Public hearings would then be held by the boards to ask for suggestions of potentially inappropriate books, with public libraries that allow minors access to such titles to have their funding stripped. Librarians who refuse to comply could be fined and imprisoned for up to one year.
Titles including Sherman Alexie’s award-winning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, a young adult novel about the rape of a teenager, have all come under fire in Missouri over the last decade.
“Every reader and writer in the country should be horrified, absolutely horrified, at this bill. The fact that a librarian could actually be imprisoned for following his or her conscience and refusing to block minors from access to a book, that tells you all you need to know about the suitability of this act within a democratic society.”
Oh, look. Exactly what all of us on the non-censorship side said would happen.
I’m not even going to get into the 27 different reasons this is wrong and extremely alarming. I’m pretty sure y’all know. But I do have a question.
This is a Republican plan, unsurprisingly. And uh... last I checked (i.e. I have a lot of conservative relatives), Republicans CLAIM to be all about personal freedom/responsibility and the government keeping its noses out of private citizens’ business. HOW is this idea in line with that principle AT ALL??
Letting a “panel of parents” decide what books are or are not “age appropriate” for children and censoring them accordingly is INCREDIBLY invasive. And suggests that somehow parents in general are not responsible or discerning enough to determine what is or is not appropriate for their children, such that they are in need of supervision from a GOVERNMENT PANEL to decide what books their kids can or can’t read.
Like, I don’t necessarily agree with parents censoring the reading of their own children, but it is certainly within their purview to do so. And honestly depends a lot on the age and temperament of the individual child. ANOTHER reason that having some GOVERNMENT PANEL decide these things is simply ridiculous.
Not to mention, DOESN’T THE STATE GOVERNMENT OF MISSOURI HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO WITH ITS TIME???
