Anna Cox is a first-year English and global studies major from Paragould

The Arkansas legislature is still trying to control their citizens by wasting their time and money on banning “obscene books.” 

An amendment of bill SB81 passed in the Arkansas Senate with 24 votes for and five against. 

Bill SB81 is on its way to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ desk to be either signed into law or dismissed. The bill was first introduced by Sen. Dan Sullivan. Although it failed, Sullivan was quick to add amendments.

This bill targets obscene material in libraries, both school and county. It claims that parents, students or employees may challenge books, and the library must have a written policy on how to handle and process a challenged book.

The bill stresses that the books in question will “not be withdrawn solely for the viewpoints expressed within the material and… shall not have selected portions taken out of context;” The issue with this seemingly protective statement is the people challenging the books. 

For example, take the incident in which the Craighead County Library was in hot water for having a Pride Month section in their library. The majority of young children have difficulty conceptualizing sex, so a book that explains why they have two fathers is not going to trigger some devious sexual thought, and to assume that is perverted. 

Parents want to put all of the blame and responsibility on everyone but themselves. If you do not want your child to ingest certain media, don’t let them. Children learn what they are taught. 

There is also the argument, used especially against the LGBTQ+ community, that certain ideals and concepts should not be “thrown in peoples faces.” 

However, the same can be said for the other side. On one hand, if you do not want your child to read and learn about sexuality and gender, then do not teach them. On the other hand, if someone wants to express themselves freely or teach their children that sort of ideology, that is their right. 

Focusing back on the bill, the wording in it is completely valid. Children should not be reading or seeing information that is pornographic in any way. In no way am I defending that point; however, teenagers are not children, and there is a line between claiming your child is completely innocent and realizing their maturity level changes as they get older. 

After puberty, humans change, they learn more about sex and experiment with it. Locker room talk becomes the norm, and instead of acting like teens reading something like “Looking for Alaska” is going to somehow traumatize and taint them, understand that they have moved past the stage of complete innocence. “Looking for Alaska” has been challenged in states such as New York, Kentucky, Idaho and Florida. 

In a YouTube video by John Green on his book he said that the “explicit” sex scene in question, “is described in very cold and clinical language. In fact, the entire passage contains only one adjective: nervous”

Green goes on to explain that the scene in question is used to compare another one that involved only kissing to prove a point that “emotionally intimate kissing can be a whole lot more fulfilling than emotionally empty oral sex.” 

Should this not be good for teenagers, people that are so hyped on hormones, for them to read a book and realize that emotional connections are more important than having empty physical ones?

Restricting and taking away viewpoints that may not be your own from children and teens alike is not a good idea. Again, I will state that I do not agree with sexually explicit material being handed out to children who are unable to handle or understand such concepts. I will not pretend, however, that teenagers do not participate as well as look into those ideas. 

Sullivan has only made minor amendments, leaving things that would prosecute librarians and libraries. The core idea of the bill never changed, and it uses veiled protections to hide the real essence of the fact: it is just another bill targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

At the time that this is written, Sanders has not signed into law SB81. Although, I highly doubt that she would sign against it. Librarians will suffer, libraries will suffer and children will suffer as books are pulled off of shelves because they are just too “obscene” for our heteronormative culture.

Categories: Opinion