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| 'Genderqueer' is not dangerous or obscene. |
Well we should have seen this coming. First they came for classrooms, then school libraries, then public libraries. Now they are coming for bookstores. It's to 'save the children,' they claim. Of course that's a bunch of bull.
According to Fox 8 News in Virginia:
A book retailer may be facing a legal fight in Virginia over selling certain YA books. According to a Facebook post, Attorney and state delegate Tim Anderson and his client Tommy Altman, a congressional candidate in the district around Virginia Beach, said “the Virginia Beach Circuit Court has found probable cause that the books “Gender Queer” and “A Court of Mist and Fury” are obscene to unrestricted viewing by minors.”The post goes on to say that Altman has directed Anderson’s office to “seek a restraining order against Barnes and Noble and Virginia Beach Schools” in order to stop the sale or loaning of these books to minors without parental consent. “We are in a major fight. Suits like this can be filed all over Virginia. There are dozens of books. Hundreds of schools,” the Facebook post reads.Bookriot reports that neither of these books contains pornographic material, nor do they fit the definition of obscene.
The Bookriot articles goes into more detail:
No longer is this about the rights of students to access books. It’s now about the rights of private businesses to sell books. Anderson suggests this is a new avenue for parents to fight.. . . Barnes & Noble has yet to respond to the legal actions taken. As a private business, they are not only allowed to sell what they wish to sell, but they are under no obligation by anyone to move materials out of their facilities. Further, no private business like the bookseller would simply “supply” books to the school district. Right-wing groups are pushing a narrative that suggests public schools are at the epicenter of indoctrination, forcing gender and sexuality onto young people starting in kindergarten. Lawsuits like this further fuel misinformation campaigns by these groups.
Well if these folk are going to play these games, then I suggest that they also sue to have the Bible not available to kids and - if they want to take it that far - removed from not only bookstores but public and school libraries. After all, it contains, murder, rapes, tortures, castrations, animal attacks, knifings, crucifixion, genocide, incest, adultery, abortion, infanticide, genocide. (yeah I DELIBERATELY omitted homosexuality).
These phony moral crusades always leave me frustrated, exhausted, and angry.
