Mini-Post: Banned In Boston

Banned in Boston meant something... it was kind of like the ultimate endorsement. Back then it was about sex, now they are banning books with LGBTQ+ characters in it. Now down in Texas they just got the blessing of an Appeals Court.

5th Circuit rules Texas library patrons have no First Amendment right to information

The 10-7 ruling overturns a decades-old precedent barring the removal of library books for political reasons. It could also send the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

By Bayliss Wagner

Austin American-Statesman

May 29, 2025

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the first time Friday that public library patrons have no right to receive information under the First Amendment, overturning a decades-old precedent barring the removal of library books "simply because (officials) dislike the ideas within them.”

Coming from the full bench of the New Orleans-based court, the stunning 10-7 decision strikes down a lower court ruling that ordered Llano County to temporarily return 17 books it had removed from public library shelves.

Then in true Republican logic...

In a 60-page majority opinion, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan asserted that “no one is banning (or burning) books” by removing them from libraries because they're available elsewhere.

Yeah but... they might have to drive to another state to borrow a book!

This looks like it is from the Red Scare of the 1950s

Mini-Post: Book Banning!

Not here in Connecticut! There is is bill before the Connecticut to ban book banning!

The Washington Post had this to say about the bill...

Senate Bill 1271 explicitly affirms that school libraries should encourage “the interest, information and enlightenment of all students, represent a wide range of varied and diverging viewpoints” and promote “free expression and free access to ideas by students.” In today’s America, this is radical.  

The bill further outlines that book removal requests may be filed only by school staff members, students, and parents and guardians of students who are enrolled in that district.

And most importantly, a book cannot be removed or censored simply because somebody finds it offensive. In other words, freedom of expression shouldn’t be curtailed by the narrow-mindedness of a few sweaty prigs madly forwarding lists of naughty words to every school board member in the state. 

In contrast to some of the ugliest anti-library laws passed around the country, this Connecticut legislation would also protect school librarians and media specialists who are acting in good faith from being subjected to civil or criminal liability. 

If you live in Connecticut, you can find your representatives here. If you live elsewhere and believe in free expression and local control of school and public libraries, let your state reps know.❖

Of course the Republicans introduced amendment to kill the bill (Here and here.) 

Banned In Boston.

When you heard that you know it must be a good juicy book to read. So now we have books being banned by the conservatives.

Fighting back on book bans
NPR – Code Switch
September 18, 2024

Heads up, folks - there are spoilers for century-old high-school literature which maybe you should read - not to shame you, but, like, all right. OK.

PARKER: Hey, everyone. You're listening to CODE SWITCH from NPR. I'm B.A. Parker. In high school, there were books that stuck with me, that shaped me - "Night" by Elie Wiesel, a teenage boy's account of his experience in a Nazi concentration camp; "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, about a Nigerian warrior defeated by European colonialism; "The Stranger" by Albert Camus, about an emo French guy too cool to feel or whatever. They all took place in different parts of the world and told completely different stories, but I think each of them helped turn on an empathy valve inside of me. These books helped me navigate the world, but it wasn't just the stories, which I found fascinating - it was also the way they were taught. And that got me thinking about the person who assigned all of those books to me - my high school English teacher.

[…]

SCHELINE: So if it's a mere mention of homosexuality, does that mean I cannot have characters that are LGBTQ or alluding to the fact that they're LGBTQ? And, harmful to minors - what does - I mean, we, as a library, would not ever choose to have material that was harmful to minors. A lot of people, when we first announced that it was adults-only, assumed that we were getting rid of all of our children's literature - like, that we were dumping the kids' books. And it was hard to explain to people that eliminating a book from a library is censorship. So is this new, harmful to minors? Are we redefining it? The state legislature is like, no. No, we're not redefining it. But then others are - yes. Yes, we're redefining it. There's no clear answer in the legislation.

PARKER: It's about who can decide. Should it be the legislature, the librarian or the parent? There's no clear answer.

Right now it is the right-wing conservatives who are deciding what you and your children can read!

But push back is starting, the candidates the “Moms for Liberty” sponsored lost, of the 166 candidates that were endorsed by MoL, only 54 were successful and now…

The country’s largest publishers sue Florida over school book bans
Works by hundreds of authors, from Maya Angelou to Judy Blume, have been challenged and removed from school libraries. Now a group is suing to bring them back.
The Washington Post
By Maham Javaid
August 31, 2024

A group of major publishers, authors and parents have sued Florida education officials over a law that allows parents and local residents to limit what books are available in school libraries if they depict or describe “sexual conduct.”

The lawsuit filed by Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins and others alleges that the state law, enacted last year, brought about hundreds of book removals and is violating First Amendment rights to free speech.

According to the lawsuit, some of the books that Florida has required be removed from school libraries under House Bill 1069 include: Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple,” Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughter-House Five.”

The lawsuit challenges a section of the bill that requires school districts to remove a book that “depicts or describes sexual content” or is “pornographic.” One process to remove books from school libraries under the law allows parents to read out loud the controversial passages during a school board meeting, and if the board halts the reading due to explicit content, the school must “discontinue use of the material.”

Florida officials have described this week’s lawsuit as a “stunt.”

I’m surprised that they also didn’t sue for slander and libel for saying that the books were “depicts or describes sexual content” or is “pornographic.”

The Salt Lake Tribune wrote that these bans are also costing the taxpayers money!

Book bans cost Utah taxpayers thousands of dollars. Here’s how much two school districts spent.
Two Utah school districts removed all 13 titles now banned in public schools statewide — and collectively spent more than $29,000 to do so.
By Carmen Nesbitt
September 14, 2024

Banning books in Utah’s public schools comes with a hefty price tag, including the costs of purchasing copies for committees to review.

In the Davis School District alone, that cost topped $27,000 during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, according to records obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.

Over those two years, the district reviewed around 100 titles. While not all were removed, they did ban the 13 books that are now prohibited in every public school across Utah.

That’s because, under a new law, local decisions can now lead to a book being banned from public schools statewide if at least three school districts (or at least two school districts and five charter schools) determine a book amounts to “objective sensitive material” — pornographic or otherwise indecent content, as defined by Utah code.

[…]

The district spent nearly $980 to purchase copies for 11 of the 13 books banned from public schools statewide. The records provided to The Tribune did not include costs for “Forever” by Judy Blume and “A Court of Silver Flames” by Sarah J. Maas.

This from a party that doesn’t want to fund the government and are willing to close down the government to push their lies and ideology!

Vote Blue to stop this invasion of Republicans into school and library boards!

The Rest Of The Story.

As Paul Harvey used to say… And now for the rest of the story!

Last month I wrote about how the Drag event at the Suffield Library was canceled well now the backstory has come out!

Suffield library mired in turmoil*
Anti-LGBTQ agenda alleged in town amid multiple resignations, commission changes
The Hartford Courant
By Alison Cross
February 4, 2024

Four months after a library director’s high-profile departure, the town of Suffield has yet to hire a new director, half of its library commission has been replaced, and the library’s associate director announced that she too will resign.

Kent Memorial Library Associate Director Kate Jarest said Feb. 10 will be her last day in Suffield. The resignation now leaves two major positions open at the town library after former KML Director Julie Styles resigned in October, alleging political pressure and overreach into library operations by the selectmen’s office.

Why this sudden change? The Town Council went from Democrat control to Republican control.

For years, KML library, its commission and the board of selectmen have been embroiled in tensions that, according to some, largely center on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, namely those involving the LGBTQ+ community. Others contend that hostile attitudes and power struggles serve as the main source.

In an interview with the Courant, Moll said he disagrees with perceptions that construe past actions by the town and recent changes to the KMLC commission as attempts to appease a conservative, anti-LGBTQ+ base.

“They’ve been preaching it for two years that it’s this anti-LGBTQIA+ movement and it’s really not,” Moll said. “That’s the narrative they want to create and, you know, it’s just not true.”

But now it is a different ballgame, the Republicans packed the library board.

After the election, one spot on the KMLC’s 12-member body was vacant. Six members – four Democrats, one unaffiliated and one Republican – were at the end of their terms. The Republican, Austin Roberts who served as chair of the commission chose not to pursue reappointment.

In a Dec. 6 decision by the board of selectmen that fell on party lines, the Republican majority voted to deny reappointments to all four Democrats, filling their spots and Roberts’ with five newly appointed Republicans. A separate vote instated Democrat James Irwin into the previously vacant position.

Critics described the overhaul as a scheme by the Board of Selectmen’s Republican majority to shape a library with more conservative and acquiescent leaders. Republican town officials said the decision was necessary to squash a “turf war” mentality.

Yeah, right. The “turf war” was a Republican bid to pack the board with their cronies. The Democrats were for inclusion while the Republicans are for exclusion. So they stuck in provision such as…

During the public comment period at a Dec. 6 board meeting, Eric Harrington, chair of Suffield’s Board of Finance and the husband of Republican Selectwoman Kathleen Harrington, suggested that the town remove criteria that require library director applicants to hold a degree from a college accredited by the American Library Association. In the meeting, Harrington described the ALA as “a special interest group, led by a Marxist.”

The nerve of the ALA to allow books on LGBTQ+ topics!

“The whole idea that now someone else can choose what you or your kids can read. That’s just a scary thing to me,” Roberts said “As parents, we have a job and that’s our job to manage what our children need. It’s not the government’s and that’s what’s happening here. The government, the town government is trying to step in and control what we have access to. And I think that’s a dangerous precedent to set.”

The CT Insider wrote last year that,

Due to what she says was politics interfering with her job duties, and the rights of residents and library patrons, Kent Memorial Library director Julie Styles resigned from her position earlier this month.

In a letter published Oct. 1 on the website of The Suffield Observer, Styles said "while I was hired to be a professional library director, I was not actually allowed to do my job as one."

"I have been instructed to run the library in ways that conflict with my professional ethics, experience, and training. So, it is time for me to move on," Styles said, adding that town officials directed library staff to remove certain books based on certain topics, in her opinion sending a message that some people who the books represent are not important. 

 

She also said in the letter that she was told to "tag all LGBTQIA+ books with warning labels, and to avoid putting up displays addressing current affairs or ones that represent marginalized communities, and to disregard patron privacy."

Which she refused to do on First Amendment grounds.

Yup, the Republicans want to tell you want to read, what to say, and what to think! And they call us groomers.

The only think that make Connecticut a Democrat state are the cities once you get our into the suburbs it is all red… just like the communist flag. Heck, my representative is a MAGA Republican.

*It appears that they changed the title of the article.