The “banning books” bullies, by whom I mean the groomers ranting about how trying to keep kids away from porn is banning books, might want to lawyer up. A case in New York has brought an unpleasant truth to the head of the line in this debate.
“In August of this year, one of our clients brought to the school board’s attention that books – five specifically – containing obscene, sexually graphic content were widely available to minor students in the school libraries. These five books contain, among other things, graphic accounts of sexual encounters between minors as well as the rape of a minor child by an adult. To say that the content is revolting is an understatement. It is stomach-churning and abhorrent that any material of this nature would purposefully be made accessible to children – especially by the very people who are tasked with protecting children. When the board’s attention was initially drawn to this matter, it responded correctly by voting to restrict the access of minor children to these books by having them removed from the school libraries,” the ACLJ reported.
Your school library may have more than five books of this nature, as may the children’s section of your local public library. It will also have library trustees or school board members who fold under the slightest pressure from the groomers. In the case above, the board backtracked and returned the books to the shelves. Their excuse: “It agreed with a parent contending that the First Amendment gives children the “right” to access “pornographic and sexually graphic content.”
It does not. The Constitution, the First Amendment, does not give children the right to access this material.
“[T]he Supreme Court’s ‘First Amendment jurisprudence has acknowledged limitations on the otherwise absolute interest of the speaker in reaching an unlimited audience where the speech is sexually explicit and the audience may include children.’ The Court has also made clear that ‘in addressing the question whether the First Amendment places any limit on the authority of public schools to remove books from a public school library, all Members of the Court, otherwise sharply divided, acknowledged that the school board has the authority to remove books that are vulgar.’
The court has recognized “the obvious concern on the part of parents, and school authorities acting in loco parentis, to protect children – especially in a captive audience – from exposure to sexually explicit, indecent, or lewd speech,” the ACLJ said.
Before you object, groomers, we have age restrictions on smoking, drinking alcohol, being in bars, attending adult entertainment venues, gambling, and a long list of other limitations based on age, from marriage to driving to getting a license to practice a profession.
Movie theaters are not permitted to sell tickets to kids for certain forms of entertainment.
You even have to be 35 years old to be president.
There are age limits on handling or owning a firearm. We have laws to dissuade adults from having sex with children or encouraging them with sexually explicit material, behavior not protected by the First Amendment.
And you cannot ban something readily available to anyone of majority, nor should you be allowed to expose children to explicit material without legal consequence.
“There is absolutely no educational interest in exposing children to gratuitous and graphic sexual content such as is contained in the books the school board allowed to remain accessible to minors – including descriptions of the rape of a child perpetrated by an adult. Even if – and there is not – some educational interest in exposing children to that material, it is greatly outweighed by the grave harm that such content has upon children, including grooming children to believe that such conduct is normal or okay,” the legal team explained.
Advocates would have you believe that we must expose all children to this material in the event that the few who might suffer from gender dysphoria could benefit. But there is no precedent, be it legal or cultural, for approaching potential mental health distress in this manner.
There is also the matter of the Bruen decision. The history of law and morality in America leans heavily in favor of blocking any access by children to explicit material, from explicit lyrics to pictures that are still or moving.
There is, of course, a separate problem. While we have laws that forbid it, and there is a precedent that the exposure is not protected, you need a government willing to prosecute the law.
I’m not sure what it is like in your state, but in New Hampshire, no one charged with executing or enforcing the law has any interest in protecting children from explicit material.
Parents and taxpayers are going to have to find a way to get it done, which includes replacing local officials who make excuses for grooming in public schools and libraries.
