Texas Shouldn’t Legislate Censorship

At the Texas Capitol in recent months I was among a group of librarians parents and others who testified several of us after waiting more than ten hours to the Texas House Committee on State Affairs in opposition to House Bill As the Texas Freedom to Read Project has summarized HB would Ban anyone under from accessing sexually explicit materials a term so broadly defined that it includes books with any descriptions of sexual conduct regardless of context or intent It would also Prevent libraries from curating or displaying multiple key books in teen and children s sections including sex-education materials young adult novels and even classic literature and art books And it would restrict youth from accessing the general collection even for school assignments or research potentially blocking students from reading The Great Gatsby The Color Purple or Beloved I m a Texas author and I serve as vice president of the Texas Institute of Letters a literary honor society founded in One of our largest part celebrated members was Larry McMurtry author of the classic novel Lonesome Dove one of innumerable books that could be rendered off-limits to a big swath of the reading society if this ridiculous bill becomes law and libraries are forced to segregate their books and spaces or jeopardy fines and other consequences I read Lonesome Dove when I was freshly inspired by the TV miniseries The book opened my eyes to the fact that great literature was being created in and could be written by residents of the Lone Star State While my literary career has gone in a different direction than McMurtry s my best-known work of fiction is a picture book called Shark vs Train thanks to his example I ve never once doubted the compatibility of being a writer and being a Texan In Lonesome Dove retired Texas Rangers Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call lead a cattle drive from the Rio Grande to Montana a scant plot summary that neither conveys the high regard in which a great number of Texans hold this novel nor does justice to the book s considerable literary merit But under pro-censorship HB Lonesome Dove s merit is of no importance All that matters is that in its -plus pages Gus McCrae makes a minimal earthy references to sex Poke and carrot are the euphemisms he uses Filed by state Representative Daniel Alders a Republican from Tyler with dozens of GOP co-authors HB states that A municipal society library may not maintain sexually explicit material defined as anything that describes depicts or portrays sexual conduct anywhere that anyone under age has access to It s an attempt to keep information and ideas about sex and gender out of the heads of as numerous Texans as doable no matter the collateral damage Under anti-free-speech HB those occasional pokes and carrots might have been enough to keep the library of my little Texas hometown from allowing me access to that book Or rather than reshelve that book and anything else that a busybody might declare explicit maybe my library would have denied me access to the entire adult section Or as one Idaho library briefly did last year under a draconian state law maybe it would have barred me from the library itself as a way to avoid a prospective penalty for enabling a young patron s intellectual curiosity If you think this anti-library HB wouldn t have that effect that no one would try to interpret this book ban so strictly restricting book access is its purpose Approving this bill would do a disservice to the families who value their own children s curiosity and schooling including their kids ability to access books needed for assigned reading or for research using nonfiction sources more advanced than those identified in the children s or teen sections of the library It will dissuade such families from moving here It will discourage Texas families from staying If a scarce Texas parents don t want their kids to have free and full access to our libraries let those parents hold their own children s hands never allow them out of their sight and never allow them to think for themselves That s on them But Texas libraries are treasures paid for by our tax dollars Leave our libraries alone and let the rest of us of all age make good use of them The post Texas Shouldn t Legislate Censorship appeared first on The Texas Observer