No one wants to be called a “censor." But consider a twelve-year-old boy who walks into a store and would like to buy a magazine only containing pictures of naked women. By law, the store attendant is not permitted to sell the magazine to the boy because of its explicit content.
In a civilized society, some censorship laws and restrictions are necessary to protect the innocence of our children. Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), seems to disagree when she argues, “This is a dangerous time for readers and the public servants who provide access to reading materials. Readers, particularly students, are losing access to critical information...” Activists like Caldwell-Stone, and others in the ALA – an organization responsible for issuing awards and influencing which books are in our libraries – proudly host a “banned books week”, from September 18-24, 2022. They encourage special displays of these targeted books in libraries across the nation with the theme, "Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us."
Would the ALA contend that all censorship laws prohibiting children from accessing explicit materials are unjust? If they would suggest that the previously mentioned 12-year-old boy should be able to buy the magazine with only naked women inside of it, then at least they are logically consistent – even if depraved. Caldwell-Stone suggests that by denying children access to some of these books, students are missing out on information that is “critical”. Does pornography constitute “critical information” for our children?
Most if not all of the top-ten targeted books on the OIF’s list are pornographic – and not just a little bit. Book censorship for children was not on my radar until I started reading the outrageous material to which young students have access at schools without the consent of their parents. For example, George Johnson, chair of the banned books week, authored the book ranking third on the 2021 list of contested books – All Boys Aren’t Blue. It contains a nine-page, painfully detailed scene in which a 13-year-old boy is aroused while his 17 or 18-year-old male cousin molests him (p. 199-207). Moving up to the second most inappropriate book for children in the libraries is Lawn Boy, by Jonanthan Evison. In this book, in one of its many inappropriate scenes, the protagonist details a sexual encounter from when he was ten years old. Evison writes, “What if I told you I touched another guy’s dick?….What if I told you I sucked it?...I was in fourth grade, it was no big deal. He sucked mine, too.” (p. 91)
Ranked first on the list, Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe is a graphic novel with pictures depicting multiple pornographic scenes. It has comic book style illustrations of oral sex, masturbation, and detailed “sexting” messages between the protagonist and his lover, “I can’t wait to have your cock in mouth – I’m going to give you the blow job of your life…then I want you inside me” (p. 167). Like the other books, Gender Queer is available in middle school libraries across the country. It’s difficult to find the “critical” information to which Caldwell-Stone refers in this book and many of the others on that list.
To be clear, the vast majority of parents who challenge books do not simply do so because the authors and/or protagonists are Black or LGBTQIA+ persons, as ALA implies. In December 2021, Caldwell-Stone said that “she's never seen such a widespread effort to remove books on racial and gender diversity from the shelves the way she's seeing it right now”. In case it needs to be said, we are equally against White, heterosexual pornography as we are Black, homosexual pornography in public school libraries. The bigotry arguments are likely intended to distract from the problem at hand. Given that 12-year-olds are forbidden from buying porn at the local convenience store, isn’t it perfectly reasonable to suggest that they should not have access to it in their public-school libraries?
The next president of ALA, Emily Drabinski, self-described as a “Marxist lesbian” says the banning of those pornographic books is unreasonable. Notably, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union – who has significant influence over our nation’s school boards - endorsed Drabinski. In short, the ALA and teachers unions are working together to make sure our children have access to pornography in their schools.
If we truly want to commemorate a history of banned books, we should all read or re-read George Orwell’s 1984 and reconsider the dangers of expansive government as public schools continue to usurp the rights of parents.
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a mother, author, and member of the Independent Women’s Network.