The Arizona Senate's book banning hysteria has gotten ... hysterical

The Arizona Senate has passed a bill that presumably would allow a parent to request that any book containing the words “he” or “she” – or “his” or “hers” – be forever banned from Arizona’s public schools.

No, really.

Senate Bill 1700 is part of the Republican-run Legislature’s ongoing hysteria over the LGBTQ community and our leaders’ weird paranoia that teachers and librarians are secretly plotting to sexualize our children.

Either that, or it’s just a crass bid to pad their reelection bona fides as fully engaged, armed-and-at-the-ready culture warriors.

SB 1700 comes to us courtesy of Sen. Justine Wadsack, R-Tucson, part of a new crop of far-right legislators who have come to the Capitol to cleanse our schools of anything that might offend her.

"I'm very proud of this bill," Wadsack said during Monday’s debate on the bill.

It’s certainly a stunner.

The bill would require the Arizona Department of Education to create and maintain a list of banned books that cannot be used in public schools. Any time any parent complained, ADOE would have to mount a full investigation.

The book then would be banned if it was found to be “to be lewd or sexual in nature, to promote gender fluidity or gender pronouns or to groom children into normalizing pedophilia."

But, as Arizona Mirror’s Jim Small pointed out, the bill doesn’t define “gender pronouns.”

Nor does it say anything about banning books with non-gender specific pronouns such as “they” or “them,” the ones often used by those in the transgender community.

Therefore, I’m assuming the goal of Wadsack and her fellow Republicans must be to ban any book containing gender-specific pronouns like “he” or “she.”

That’s a lot of books.

Of course, that’s not really their goal but that’s what the bill they just passed says.

And it's not the first time Wadsack has overreached to the point of falling flat on her face. Earlier this year, in her rush to regulate drag queens, she actually got the Senate Judiciary Committee to approve a bill that would have criminalized parents who allow their kids to watch movies like Mulan.

Fortunately, she amended the bill after I pointed it out.

Her bill allowing a ban on books that use "gender pronouns" passed on a 16-12 party-line vote and now goes to the House (en route to Gov. Katie Hobbs' well-used veto stamp).

This, after Wadsack waxed on about a book chronicling the experiences of transgender teens – one that she claims contains “very explicit imagery of 6-year-old children giving oral sex.”

“You open the book and you look at the pictures and you can see very clearly when you have 6-year-old children giving oral sex that the book is explicit,” she said.

It's worth noting that Wadsack admits that she’s never actually seen the book with this “very explicit imagery."

But then, she doesn’t apparently need to see it in order to create a sloppy state law that would allow parents to demand banning nearly every book that’s ever been written.

Never mind that Arizona law already prevents schools from using or referring students to any material that is sexually explicit.

Or that the law already allows parents to have their children excused from any assignment they deem inappropriate.

Never mind that the law already requires school boards to hold public hearings before approving textbooks and other materials used in classrooms.

Or that school districts must, by law, post on their websites a list of all books and materials purchased for school libraries for at least 60 days after the purchase.Never mind, even, that this poorly drafted bill could be used to ban most of the books ever written, though I imagine math books would still be safe.

There are culture wars to be waged and there is Wadsack, right on the front lines with her trusty matchbook.

“This bill,” she proclaimed, “gives parents the ability to have a say in what their children read.”

Actually, this gives parents the ability to have a say in what other people’s children read.

Or, possibly bar them from reading anything.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

Support local journalism: Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: The Arizona Legislature's book banning hysteria has gotten out of hand