Alabama lawmakers on Thursday advanced legislation that could see librarians prosecuted under the state’s obscenity law for providing “harmful” materials to minors, the latest in a wave of bills in Republican-led states targeting library content and decisions.
The Alabama House of Representatives voted 72-28 for the bill that now moves to the Alabama Senate. The legislation comes amid a soaring number of book challenges — often centered on LGBTQ content — and efforts in a number of states to ban drag queen story readings.
“This is an effort to protect children. It is not a Democrat bill. It’s not a Republican bill. It’s a people bill to try to protect children,” Republican Rep. Arnold Mooney, the bill’s sponsor, said during debate.
The Alabama bill removes the existing exemption for public libraries in the state’s obscenity law. It also expands the definition of prohibited sexual conduct to include any “sexual or gender oriented conduct” at K-12 public schools or public libraries that “exposes minors to persons who are dressed in sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative clothing or costumes, or are stripping, or engaged in lewd or lascivious dancing, presentations, or activities.”
I’m gleaning in on “gender-oriented conduct.” What isn’t gender-oriented conduct, especially if you go back to less-enlightened eras where shit like a woman being a doctor might be considered gender-subversive?
It goes without saying that the Bible is right out given any test for child-appropriateness. Which I agree with, but I’m not willing to throw out everything else just to get rid of it.
So, banning anything about things like being a stay at home parent, secretaries were traditionally at one point, athletics as traditionally women weren’t allowed so can’t talk about that, suffrage, voting rights, etc.