Adult books are available to children of all ages in public libraries
Abortion, alcohol/abuse, alternate gender/sexual ideologies, animal cruelty/neglect (severe), anxiety, assassinations, bestiality, BDSM, body horror, blackmail, cannibalism (themes/threats), controversial commentary, cults and ideological zealots, dark content, deception, derogatory terms, demonic content, depression, divination, drugs/drugging, erotica, explicit sexual activities/nudity, fetishism, gore, inflammatory commentary, incest (themes), mental illness, molestation, murder, necrophilia (themes), patently offensive content, paraphilias, pedophilia, Pervasively Vulgar content, profanity (multiple languages), prurient content, prostitution, rape, Satan worship (themes), self-harm, sex trafficking, smoking, stalking, suicide ideation, theft, torture, violence and Voyeurism. (This is a topic summary in Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon).
That's quite a list.
And yet, thousands of public libraries can't find one single reason to keep a book with all of these adult topics out of the hands of children. There are tens of thousands of sexually explicit books and materials with no limits, restrictions, guidelines, or protections of any sort, available to children all across the United States. The public library and school policy of open access to all materials to all ages has repeatedly exposed children to content that would be considered obscene and illegal in any other setting.
Who came up with that policy?
The American Library Association has manufactured reasons to override parents and give kids of all ages access to adult books in any format, digital and hard copy. All children, all ages, all access, all the time…that’s the policy whether you like it or not.
To do anything else would be Censorship! Book Banning!
Okay, that's not true...
The Supreme Court weighed in with Ginsberg v. New York (1968) and decided that children are NOT entitled to view sexually explicit materials under the Constitution and that "obscenity is variable", which means the content doesn't have to be obscene for adults in order to be obscene for children. Kansas Law (21-6401 and 21-6402) states that adults are prohibited from exposing children to obscene materials, and that obscenity is to be determined at least in part by community standards (not library policies) because minors lack the maturity to process explicit sexual content responsibly (Miller v. California 1973).
Restricting a sexually explicit book based on age in the library or school is not censorship. Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982) decided that books can be removed from school library shelves without risk of censorship claims if the removal is due to vulgarity or unsuitability, and gives school boards broad discretion to do so with Constitutional protection.
One more time for the people in the back...
The Supreme Court ruled that a book does not have to be obscene to an adult in order for it to be considered obscene for children. Schools and libraries cannot be forced to expose children to adult materials in the name of combating "censorship." The standards for children are, and should be different than the standards for adults. That's literally true in every other situation. Children are not adults, and should not be treated like they are.
It is the duty of all adults in any setting to protect all children from exposure to anything that may harm them.
Even if the child is too young to read the words, they can look at the pictures of erect penises and teenaged boys in sexual positions. Kids who are little older, maybe by 3rd or 4th grade, can pick up on concepts like anal or oral sex.
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| Graphic illustrations placed where kids can see. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe |
Accidental and unsupervised exposure to mature content is much more dangerous than a controlled discussion with a parent. Many other librarians and schools refuse to protect children from that exposure.
Thousands of libraries adhere to the American Library Association's policies that fight censorship where censorship does not exist at the expense of childhood innocence.
Decades of research from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Psychological Association (APA), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), the American Professional Society of the Abuse of Children (APSAC), the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), and the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), shows that early sexualization of children is very damaging and can lead to depression, anxiety, anger, confusion, aggressive sexual behaviors, desensitization, low self-esteem, increased mental health crisis and increased risk of exploitation by adults due to normalization of sexual concepts by children too young to understand the consequences.
That's also quite a list.
Ignore all of that, though, the American Library Association says that your child can see or read whatever they want, whenever they want as long as it's at the library or on school property. That's not a law, it's a library policy suggestion from a NGO with no accountability to anyone involved, but that's the lead most schools and libraries are following.
The Library Bill of Rights says that "A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views." Adults, who are not the parents, use this policy to defend and justify giving materials to children in the library or at school that would be illegal if given to them at a gas station. The "Rights" in this Library Bill are granted by no one, and are legally unenforceable.
And yet, librarians defend it as if it's the law of the land
Parents have the right and responsibility to oversee their child's upbringing, education and moral development.
Children do not have the right to read and see whatever they want.
Librarians do not have the right to expose children to potentially harmful materials under any circumstances. This practice is justified by policy, not law.
If the Community Standards question the appropriateness of allowing a child to access any material, the librarian should err on the side of caution to protect the child. Librarians who expose children to potentially obscene materials are not constitutional champions even though the American Library Association directs them to "fight censorship."
There are NO banned books in this country.
Banning a book means that you can't legally get the book anywhere. If a book is banned, you can't buy it, borrow it, steal it, see it, possess it or read it.
Book banning is not a thing in the United States.
Adults can get any book from a variety of sources any time. An adult can go into any library and get any book they want. Libraries cannot possibly be required to carry every title--if a book is not available in the library it does not mean it has been banned by any legal true definition.
PEN America shows on its website that more than 23,000 "book bans" have been documented since 2021 in public schools across the country. The stats are misleading, however--"If the same book is banned in 10 school districts, that would count as 10 bans, but one unique title. A book ban is the removal or restriction of those materials, either permanently or under review (PEN.org).
It is counted as a "book ban" if a sexually explicit book is moved out of the children's section to the adult section, even though adults are not restricted from access in any way. The American Library Association and PEN America offers tools to librarians and library boards to fight "when the censors come." (PEN is referring to parents who object to adult materials being offered to their children.)
What do you call the repeated and excessive use of words like "book banning" and labeling parents as "the censors" who are coming to violate the Constitution?
Gaslighting. Fear mongering. Manipulation.
What's your problem? Are you a Nazi or something?
Book banning is a phrase associated with Nazi Germany, and the fervent use of the phrase is intentional to evoke a connection between anyone who objects to childhood exposure to sexually explicit materials and that horrible time in world history. The claim of book banning insidiously weaponizes the fear of those events being repeated in order to get parents to give up their rights over their own children to avoid the comparison.
Parents aren't Nazis just because they want to decide what their children see and read. Parents have the right to determine when their child is mature enough for the content, and the responsibility to protect their children as they see fit without interference from libraries and schools.
The fact that the taxpayers buy the books, build the libraries, build the schools, pay the librarians, elect the boards, and fund the NGOs only to have those institutions and organizations band together to strip them of their rights and authority over their own children makes all of this truly insulting.
Restricting children’s access to adult book titles doesn’t take anything away from parents who want their children to read sexually explicit books. A parent can go check out that book anytime they want to and let their children see it.
On the flipside of that, a parent who wants OTHER people’s children to be exposed to sexually explicit books has NO legal right or authority to do that. NONE. Libraries who fight to keep these policies that override parent rights ARE taking something away from parents—their rights to have knowledge of and to choose what their children are exposed to.
Why do seemingly normal adults fight so hard to defend putting sexually graphic books in front of children?
Protests, parades, lawsuits, angry board meetings, hateful social media attacks, threats of violence, cancel culture, lectures and virtue signaling from board members and lawyers...WHY?
Why do libraries CHOOSE to allow children to have access to adult materials when they don’t have to? What is the motivation behind overruling community objections to facilitate giving sexually explicit material to children that would be illegal in any other setting? It's regulatory displacement...materials that would violate regulatory guidelines and definitions outside of the building are protected inside the building based on location.
It's still the same children inside and outside of the building.
NGOs like the American Library Association decide what hoops parents have to jump through to protect their own children while shielding the library from any responsibility to do so. Kansas law regarding definitions of obscenity are ignored because of location in the library.
Library boards of directors choose (but are not required) to adhere to policies from the ALA, purporting that no materials are obscene and that children cannot be prevented (protected) from seeing any materials because it would violate their "Freedom to Read." The American Library Association developed a Freedom to Read policy which has no support from the law. It's a policy, suggested guidance, and means nothing in court. It's not enforceable.
There are no banned books in the USA.
Curation is not censorship.
Adults have the right to Freedom of Speech, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Protecting children from sexually explicit materials does not infringe on any adult's First Amendment Rights in any way.
Children's first amendment rights are limited and do not overrule the rights of their parents to exercise authority over their child's upbringing, moral development, and education.
Adults who are not the parents have no right to give a child sexually explicit materials using subjective decision making.
Policy guidance from private non-governmental organizations cannot override state law.
It requires the cooperation of complicit public institutions to undermine parents rights and sacrifice childhood innocence in the name of "fighting the good fight" against censorship.
Ask your local librarian to defend sexually explicit materials in the children's section without using borrowed ALA policy language.
I'll wait.
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