Idaho Republicans’ War on Books Has an Unbelievable New Target
Idaho Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill to ban books that mention homosexuality, a broad definition that could include two characters of the same gender just holding hands.
The House of Representatives State Affairs Committee passed the bill 11–2 on Monday, along party lines. House Bill 384 now goes to the chamber floor for a vote.
The bill would ban all visual, audio, and written material that depicts “nudity, sexual conduct, or sado-masochistic abuse and that is harmful to minors” from schools and public libraries. These would be classified as “obscene materials.”
Obscenity laws are particularly hard to enforce, because definitions of obscenity still largely come down to individual interpretation. As a result, there will likely be more reports of material that should be banned, made by people who are either more conservative or just nervous about accidentally breaking the law.
Republican Representative Julianne Young, who sits on the committee, claimed that the proposed law would target “acts” of homosexuality, which could apply to characters of the same gender holding hands.
The measure says anything overtly sexual is harmful to minors, and specifically states that sexual conduct includes all acts of homosexuality. Any facility that violates the bill would be required to pay $250 in statutory damages, as well as legal fees and additional damages to the person who reported the offending material.
During Monday’s hearing, multiple library workers warned that this bill would prove devastating to libraries. One worker pointed out that libraries’ budgets are not big enough to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees from all the lawsuits that could result from this bill.
“One thing I’ve learned is, there is something offensive about everything to someone,” she said.
Another library worker pointed out that many libraries employ people who are 16 or 17 years old. Under the bill, those teenagers would no longer be able to work in libraries.
“Homosexuality does not equate to obscenity. It is your choice to sexualize children’s books,” she said.
At one point, Republican Representative Kevin Andrus said he had gotten a lot of emails from people concerned that the bill would require encyclopedias to be moved into the adult section of libraries. The bill’s sponsor, Representative Jaron Crane, said that encyclopedias do not violate the bill because they have “literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”
Unfortunately, Crane’s defense doesn’t hold much water. Republican-led states have increasingly banned books that discuss race, gender, and sexuality. Most recently, a school district in Florida banned five dictionaries, eight encyclopedias, The Guinness Book of World Records, and Ripley’s Believe It or Not because those books mention sexual conduct.
