A school district in northeast Florida must put back in libraries three dozen books as part of a settlement reached Thursday with students and parents who sued over what they said was an unlawful decision to limit access to dozens of titles containing LGBTQ+ content.
Under the agreement the School Board of Nassau County must restore access to three dozen titles including “And Tango Makes Three,” a children’s picture book based on a true story about two male penguins that raised a chick together at New York’s Central Park Zoo. Authors Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson were plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the district, which is about 35 miles (about 60 kilometers) northeast of Jacksonville along the Georgia border.
The suit was one of several challenges to book bans since state lawmakers last year passed, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law, legislation making it easier to challenge educational materials that opponents consider pornographic and obscene. Last month six major publishers and several well-known authors filed a federal lawsuit in Orlando arguing that some provisions of the law violate the First Amendment rights of publishers, authors and students.
There’s too much US specific legal mumbo jumbo and administration terms in there for me, but seeing that there’s a bit of resistance against this whole “ban books” thing is good.
I don’t live in the US and am not an expert on any of this State vs Fed stuff but it seems to be the case that the government at the State level CAN restrict speech and descriminate against you based on your sexual orientation? Because they’re targeting books/speech that are relavant to people, partly at least, due to them being in the LGBTQIA+ community. And it’s up to YOU to defend your right to access that speech by taking legal action? So a kind of ‘guilty until proven innocent’ adjacent scenario. I’m so confused and maybe I’m missing something but it sure FEELS like the 1st amendment is optional?
I assume they could also therefore remove books based on the race of the characters in the books or because of the subject matter being of particular relavance to people of colour? But I assume that’s happened before and been tested legally and that’s the process that’s happening now with the LGBTQIA+ book bans? Is it simply that the LGBTQIA+ community isn’t yet as robust in their advocacy, lobbying & litigation as they need to be? That they don’t have the equivalent of the NAACP on their side? Should they have to? Isn’t the 1st ammendment and anti-descrimination law pretty clear?
As someone living outside the USA, I have struggled to understand what’s going on there and why it’s allowed to happen when the 1st ammendment exists expressly to stop the government from suppressing speech, the restriction of which can be damaging to vulnerable communites. Take the story of Roy and Silo, about a same sex couple (of penguins for goodness sake?!) raising a child together. This being banned sends a message to children of same sex parents that there is something wrong with their parents / family unit. I find that disturbing enough, but to the child, it could be traumatizing. How would parents explain to their child that their favourite book has been removed from their library purely because the subject of the story is a family just like theirs?!
The first amendment doesn’t stop politicians from acting in bad faith. There’s no consequences for passing bad laws. Politicians often use this tactic to make headlines and make their opponents waste resources. The only thing politicians have to worry about is getting elected again.
We need to have politicians automatically suspended when they sign a bill that is found unconstitutional. The politician should only be able to be re-instated by a majority popular vote, to ensure the people still believe that representative acts in the good faith of the people.
How many times are voters going to turn up to defend these antics. Are you going to show up every other weekend to revote in Desantis? Or let him be removed from office for trampling on the rights of the people and wasting your time and taxpayer money.
The issue is that some laws make complete sense, but you can have an activist judge or the SC declare it unconstitutional. Legislatures are elected and they can’t be expected to know how a law can be interpreted.
Even something as simple as a noise ordinance could be considered a first amendment violation in certain cases.
I live in Illinois, they passed an assault weapons ban last year. Of course the gun people claimed it was unconstitutional because of the 2nd amendment. It’s not but someone tried to make that argument and there’s a non-zero number of judges who would agree with them.
Alright, throw the bill onto the vote to re-instated them. Line 1 to re-instated Line 2: Do you think this bill should have passed.
If it gets a majority vote the legislative branch must write a full synopsis and bill to be voted on in the next congressional election (every other year) that would be an amendment to their state Constitution.
It won the popular vote twice, that represents what the people wanted.
Even then, a state constitution can’t override the federal constitution. You would need an amendment at the federal level for every statute that violates it. There’s still laws on the books that were perfectly legal at the time they were passed, but never got repealed. Although I do think that it should be required to repeal laws that are completely unconstitutional such as sundown laws. Some states will pass preemptive laws that are conditional on a change in opinion from the supreme Court.
Legislatures are elected and they can’t be expected to know how a law can be interpreted.
Isn’t that, like, the fucking job? CEOs can’t be expected to know if a given task will lose money for the company. Doesn’t matter if they were put in that position by a popular vote or a board vote
The people who wrote the constitution could have never imagined how it could be interpreted 250 years later.
Did the settlement include criteria or guidelines for other books the district is not allowed to ban going forword? Otherwise what’s to stop them from banning any other books they don’t like?
Losing this one should at least give them pause.
Hahahahaha, oh you’re not kidding? Umm. Have you met these dumbasses?
Should… Is doing a lot of heavy lifting. But apparently there are parents and authors that will take their money.
Gonna be hard since they burned them all.
Wouldn’t that mean that the publishers get to sell another round of copies to all of the public libraries, so the public pays for them again via their taxes? Sucks but it may benefit some of the writers/editors/publishers.
If I was the publisher I would be giving a free copy to any school that asked for one.
Imagine seeing a true story about penguins and deciding it’s gay propoganda
gay propoganda
Propogaynda
Propaganda.
So, ‘propagaynda’.
Like Stephen Colbert said, “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”:
Man I wish I could have been there. That sounds incredible.
And also, how has the US got itself into a position where LGBTQ+ needs to be suppressed? Gay or not, why should these homophobic politicians get to decide what the children can be exposed to without involving the parents in the decision.
Because they’re probably closeted themselves, and it makes them feel things.
Seriously tho I had a teacher in high school who straight up said he’d date men if it wasn’t against his religion. Guess who he voted for
And also, how has the US got itself into a position where LGBTQ+ needs to be suppressed?
By folks voting for and supporting Republicans. This is the simple, undeniable answer.
Because we have such a large number of people convinced that love is “obscene” and that love and sex are for procreation only and shouldn’t be talked about except to congratulate people who are making babies. But mostly because the people pushing those ideas are people have never truly loved anyone other than themselves and/or want to rape without consequence.
“Love” is fine, but it can’t be gay without sex being involved, so two dads == obscene. Clearly there’s no sex involved in hetero
sexualrelationships in children’s books, but there must be in those LGBTQ+ books. Why else would they be banned?-Florida lawmakers, probably
Americans have the freedom to read any books they want
Not my book, I won’t let you! Okay, you can read it but don’t tell any of your friends.
Is it a fartography book?
When christians beat you with their bible, beat them back with a children’s book about gay penguins!
The children’s book will probably be more fun to read, and more educational about the actual world we live in.
Lmao, imagine getting your ass kicked by the gays.
Not too hard to imagine. I have many gay friends and some of them are tough af.
Picture a skinny straight guy (me) hanging out at the local gay bar with friends. I’m there all the time and know all the locals and staff too, great crowd and prob my fav place to hang for a drink.
Some guy I’ve never seen before keeps making moves on me, I just keep moving away. Someone explains I’m straight and he says, “Excellent. I enjoy the challenge.” Eventually he thinks it’s “fun” to poke my bum with a pool cue while I try play. I’ve had enough, “Dude, fuck off! No means no!” and I get ready to fight.
Well, in storms a crowd of some of the toughest guys there and the bartender, it gets so heated and they physically drag him out. A few moments later, one of my friends comes back in and asked if I’m okay. I am, it was no big deal. But he says that’s not enough. Goes back out, they drag this guy back in, force him to apologise—he’s sobbing big time—then drag him back out again.
The walkway off the street is painted as a giant pride rainbow, and apparently everyone’s favourite part was slamming him down on there and saying he’s never welcome here.
So, yeah. Don’t fuck with gay people. Not to mention some of the much older fellas have taken huge beatings back in the 70s fighting for their rights and they’re tough as nails.
Holy shit that is top-notch gay brohood there. Respect to these guys giving a rogue asshole a lesson in boundaries.
I’m sure a non-zero number of people responsible for the removal have imagined that and similar scenarios extensively
How much did this one county cost you to find out, Florida? 10 million?
At least it went to lawyers and not something stupid like hungry children.
Let’s normalize Luxury Gay Space Libraries.
I don’t get it? A space for gays? Or Gaaaaaays in spaaaaaace!!! I need to know!!
Why not both?
You can’t send gay men to space, their uteruses will explode. Or something, I ran out of excuses a while ago
Lol. People keep excuses on rotation, like slot machines, with less randomness.
Both it is!! 🌈🚀📚✨
I know you were riffing off of Pigs in Space, but the way you typed it out, and the way it played in my head has me envisioning the David Bowie and Elton John of the pig Muppets in a two man space fighter action adventure comedy series, ala Flash Gordon or Lost in Space
I’m just going to drop this link off right here: https://www.queerliberationlibrary.org/ 🌈
As a cis ally, I’m totally here for it! That’s a great resource, and having those spaces in schools and public libraries are important!
Totally agree. QLL is not a replacement for local queer spaces and resources, just a supplement.
