Legislature’s ‘book police’ want Wyoming libraries to pay fines

I get angry when I think about legislators determined to subvert Wyoming public libraries’ most crucial role — promoting the freedom to read — under the guise of stopping them from supposedly pushing porn on kids.

The Joint Judiciary Committee met in Torrington last month, with several members focused on the best way to punish the Wyoming public library system for this nonexistent problem. 

Rep. Ann Lucas, R-Cheyenne, brought the panel a bag of books from her local library and her own collection. She put sticky notes on pages to indicate “all the nasty words” that made them inappropriate for children.

Rep. Jayme Lien, R-Casper, said Wyoming should follow Iowa’s model legislation that defines, in graphic detail, what’s considered “sexually explicit,” but I’ll spare you the lengthy list of orifices and sex toys she read from at the meeting.

Then, five days after the meeting, a federal judge temporarily blocked Iowa from prohibiting school libraries and classrooms from buying books that depict sex acts.

One of the problems the judge cited was the law’s statewide prohibitions “on what has traditionally been the prerogative of local officials regarding the contents of school libraries.”

That’s a major misstep the committee must reconsider before it makes the same mistake. Why do legislators want to take a sledgehammer to local control and a system that already allows parents and the public to challenge books they object to?

The committee voted to draft a bill that would effectively keep books with objectionable sexual content in a section clearly labeled “adults only.” Unless it’s behind closed doors, librarians would need to constantly patrol to make certain no toddlers, grade-schoolers or teens wander in.

But it’s not at all clear from the committee’s discussion whether it wants to take books that have been banned in many U.S. libraries because of their sexual content and make them unavailable for teens. This means students curious about classic books that, under the bill, the state deems too sexually explicit for minors — by well-regarded authors like Harper Lee, J.D. Salinger, George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison and many other writers — may not be able to access them in libraries.

Younger children would be confined to their own section, free to read books that parents can be assured don’t have any LGBTQ+ characters, lest their kiddos ask what each of those letters means. 

Those forbidden books — particularly ones with transgender themes, the Legislature’s favorite target — would be unavailable to the people they were written for: teens who may be struggling with their own gender identity. They desperately want information but don’t feel comfortable talking to anyone, especially adults.

One of the books Lucas brought, “Gender Queer,” was repeatedly condemned. It’s a 2019 graphic memoir written and illustrated by Maia Kobabe that takes readers on a journey of self-discovery and understanding of the author’s nonbinary and asexual identity.

Sen. Jared Olsen, R-Cheyenne, co-chair of the joint committee, compared the book to a pornographic Hustler magazine. “I question whether it belongs in a publicly funded library in the state of Wyoming, period,” he said.

Lindsey Travis, president of the Wyoming Library Association, explained that “we have policies in place so parents make the decision about what their kids check out, not the librarians.” 

“There’s not one librarian out there who is forcing anyone to check out any book,” Travis said.

“These books are rampant across Wyoming,” Olsen maintained. “This idea of local control I support, but local control is obviously not working if these books are in our libraries.”

Local control used to be a mantra of the GOP, but now it’s conveniently forgotten when it offends far-right sensibilities. Apparently, they know better than you what’s appropriate for your children.

Lucas sponsored a bill earlier this year to remove an exemption in state obscenity statutes for librarians, teachers and museum workers. It rightfully died in the House Judiciary Committee, but if it ever passes, authorities could charge them for providing obscene material to minors, making them subject to a year in jail and a $6,000 fine.

Several committee members said they oppose any penalties in a new bill.

I’m glad there’s little appetite for putting librarians in jail.

But Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, chairman emeritus of the Freedom Caucus, was still looking for someone to pay for allegedly risking children’s safety. He urged the committee to use an approach the Freedom Caucus deployed with the Second Amendment Protection Act — a bill that Gov. Mark Gordon ultimately vetoed.

The bill would have prohibited any local agency from hiring former U.S. government employees who had ever enforced any type of federal firearms regulation. The agencies could be fined $50,000 for hiring veterans who had that experience.

Lien made monetarily penalizing libraries a part of her successful motion to draft a bill prohibiting sexually explicit material from being available in school or public libraries’ children’s sections. She lifted another idea from the gun bill: allow citizens to sue libraries for failing to enforce the law.

So now we’ll clog the courts with book challenges that are routinely handled by librarians and library boards.

Here’s a novel idea: Instead of “Iowa-ifying” Wyoming by passing an unconstitutional law in a political gambit to convince voters they’re “saving” children, let’s follow a different path.

Six states – California, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey and Washington — have passed laws in the past two years that preserve access to reading materials that deal with racial and sexual themes, including the LGBTQ+ community.

Wyoming should become the first red state to join this effort and show that the freedom to read is a principle we uphold, and we won’t abide by censorship in any form. Wyoming should protect libraries from civil suits, not fine them and invite litigation. And just as importantly, Wyoming should continue to allow parents — and not the government — to decide what’s best for their children.