Summary

Rightwing groups across the US are driving a wave of legislation to restrict books in school and public libraries, targeting content deemed “sexually explicit” or “obscene,” often affecting LGBTQ+ and race-related titles.

Texas leads with 31 bills and 538 book bans in the 2023–24 school year.

Proposed laws, like Texas Senate Bill 13, shift book selection power from librarians to parent-led advisory boards.

Critics, including librarians and legal scholars, warn these efforts amount to censorship, risk violating First Amendment rights, and reduce access in underserved communities.

  • Puzzlehead@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    6 days ago

    Right wings lie bout wanting freedom of speech. They just want to sprout racist stuff and other phobic stuff. They treat LGBT like it’s a fetish.

  • andrewta@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    7 days ago

    I’m over 50 and they tried to ban Diary of Anne Frank when I was a kid. Sometimes they even succeeded.

    Fucking idiots. Name one reason why kids shouldn’t read that book. They never could. Not a real reason anyway.

    Over and over they try to ban books. The only thing that really changes is that they add books to the list.

    • MiyamotoKnows@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      7 days ago

      They don’t like Diary of Anne Frank over guilt by association. They realize there are too many similarities between the way they “think” and nazism. Never fun to have a moment of reflection and realize you’re a horrible human being so they lash out at it, incapable of deeper introspection or betterment.

      • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        6 days ago

        I was groomed by nazis, then was a conservative for a short while. The latter group tries to claim the historical nazis did their evil deeds for the sake of evil, with no moral justifications, because their little fabricated crime statistics would look bad. The former group exploits this spread of naive theories about evil.

  • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    6 days ago

    Surely the free speech absolutists will be staunchly opposed. Why, if they weren’t, one could think it was never about free speech and always just about hate…

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      The “free speech absolutists” just wanted to call black people the N-word, they don’t actually care about the rest.

      • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        6 days ago

        The “free speech absolutists” just wanted to call black people the N-word,

        They are able to say it already (and they still do amongst themselves).

        What they wanted is to be able to say it in public without consequences.

    • PointyReality@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      7 days ago

      No no, they love free speech when it allows them to use hate speech against others. They only hate free speech when others opinions disagrees with their own. That is the difference between left and right, left understand that free speech means we have to protect against hate speech, the right rails against censorship regarding hate speech as a vehicle against “oppression” so they can be the ones that can attack those that disagree with them with hate speech.

      • ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        7 days ago

        “Free speech” is I get to call you the F-slur. “Obscenity” is you discussing any aspect of your life that differs from mine.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      7 days ago

      The Constitution according to Republicans:

      We The People…words words GET TO HAVE AS MANY GUNS AS WE WANT words words…The End.

  • pzzzt@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    7 days ago

    Please support your local library. Even if you just get a card and keep it active, it helps with stats that they use to get more funding.

    • Allonzee@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      edit-2
      7 days ago

      I’ve yet to discover a conservative “Christian” that possesses even a passing familiarity with their own self proclaimed testaments.

      Like seriously, you claim to take your belief seriously, it’s 1 fucking book! It’s not a page turner I grant them, but it’s ONE book.

    • pzzzt@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      7 days ago

      Unfortunately there’s a website that tells them specific books and passages to challenge.

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    6 days ago

    “Bu-but the right wingers promised me that I could say the hard-R N-word yet again, and if people were to call me ‘racist’ for it they’d be jailed for defamation, and they’d also jail feminist video game critics for censoring games!”

  • TronBronson@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    6 days ago

    Why do they care so much about libraries. it’s not like they or their kids read. How do you get illiterate people excited to ban books. It’s a god damn conspiracy!

    • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      5 days ago

      Libraries are stores of knowledge. Can’t have that. Educated people aren’t as easy to manipulate.

  • jaybone@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    7 days ago

    More of this shit again. Don’t they get bored with this same old schtick?

  • Freshparsnip@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 days ago

    By “obscene” they mean a guy flirts with a guy. Meanwhile a full on sex scene isn’t “obscene” so long as it’s heterosexual