As Republicans nationwide continue to sound the alarm about how children are supposedly being indoctrinated and “groomed” into adopting LGBTQ identities at school, West Virginia legislators are pushing a new kind of crackdown on books deemed “obscene.” The idea is as simple as it is chilling: make librarians and teachers criminally liable for allowing kids to access such material.
House Bill 4654, introduced by Republican Delegate Brandon Steele, passed in the West Virginia House of Delegates on Friday by a vote of 85-12 and now heads to the state Senate. (The “nays” included all 11 Democrats in the House.) Rather than establishing a new law, HB 4654 would simply strike the first two exemptions to an existing code prohibiting the “preparation, distribution, or exhibition of obscene matter to minors.” These include any “bona fide school” presenting the content as part of a “local or state approved curriculum,” as well as any “public library, or museum, which is displaying or distributing any obscene matter to a minor only when the minor was accompanied by his or her parent.”