Tennessee hearing on book bans goes completely sideways

[babylonsister]

Tennessee hearing on book bans goes completely sideways
Walter Einenkel
Daily Kos Staff
Thursday March 03, 2022 · 3:21 PM EST


The book banning brigades, astro-turfed by big GOP donors and organized by activist groups with folksy names that are headed by Koch-funded right-wing think tanks, have stretched out across the country attacking schools and libraries. The hope is to whitewash literature in the hopes of immunizing generations of young conservatives from questioning the problems that conservative parents and elected officials refuse to try and solve. There’s also the general political ideology of implementing a conservative Christian theocracy into power in our country.

In Tennessee, a group of concerned folks including former Saturday Night Live cast member Victoria Jackson spoke at a hearing in support of HB 1944, a bill that would ban “obscene material” that “is harmful to minors” from “public school premises.” The bill’s architects are trying to attack school libraries. The fact that there are already so-called “obscenity” laws that regulate public libraries from offering up pornographic magazines and such seems not to matter to these folks, because what they really want is to redefine the word “obscenity” to mean anything they would rather pretend didn’t exist, or wish their powerless God could actually eradicate—like the LGBTQ+ community and Black folks.

As Sharon Edwards, president of the Tennessee Library Association, attempted to explain to the subcommittee during the hearing, "If the intent behind HB 1944 is to keep obscenity out of the hands of minors, then our current Tennessee code and the sound professional judgment of our school libraries and school boards are already doing this.” The testimony supporting the bill is bananas cocoa puffs ridiculous and the fact that the lawmakers listening to this tripe voted 7-3 in favor of advancing the bill out of a House subcommittee is a sad statement about that subcommittee.

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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/3/2083651/-Tennessee-hearing-on-book-bans-goes-completely-sideways?detail=emailLL

[SWBTATTReg]

1. And then before we know it, there's going to be 10 conflicting bills on the same thing, confusing as

heck, and thus leaving who and what to charge criminal-wise, or ban, etc. totally up in the air, open to any interpretation, or in other words, a big mess and one that will be find unenforceable, unconstitutional, etc.