New restrictions on what books children can look at in the library could soon become law in Alabama, as lawmakers debate adding libraries to an old law targeting adult video stores.
On top of that, Alabama is also considering the unusual step of policing professional membership, with specific rules against joining the American Library Association.
That’s under a pair of new bills working their way through the Alabama Legislature.
The first bill, HB385, targets library books by stretching the state’s existing obscenity law to cover school and public libraries. It also creates a new definition of sexual conduct and states that it is harmful to distribute to minors any “obscene” material that meets the new definition.
“Under existing law, the use of any premises to distribute obscene material to minors is a public nuisance,” reads the bill.
Filed by Rep. Arnold Mooney, R-Indian Springs, the bill already passed a House committee last week and is slated to go before the full House for a vote. It compares libraries to adult-only bookstores and prohibits nudity or content that “the average person” using “contemporary community standards” would find appeals to the “prurient interest” of minors.
“This bill would prohibit the state or any library from supplying any minor with material containing sexual content unless the minor’s parent or guardian consents,” Mooney said at a committee hearing on Wednesday.
Matthew Layne, head of the Alabama Library Association said the bill is an overreach by the state.
“Librarians are very, very much in support of parental rights in choosing what is appropriate for their children to read. What we are not in support of is one parent choosing what another family’s child may read,” he said. “It’s creating a nanny state.”
The bill prohibits materials including sexual intercourse, bestiality, masturbation, defecation and “lewd exhibition of the genitals.” It also includes language focusing on drag performances around minors, including: “Persons who are dressed in sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative clothing or costumes, or are stripping, or engaged in lewd or lascivious dancing, presentations, or activities.”
In addition to books, the bill lists a range of library materials, including digital materials, audio and visual materials. The bill excludes college and university libraries.
But a second bill, HB425, just filed in the state legislature would extend library restrictions to university libraries and would also prevent libraries in the state from joining the American Library Association.
That bill prohibits libraries from supplying minors with sexual content and “gender ideology,” which the bill defines as the theory that there are more than two genders and that gender is a construct. It authorizes the attorney general and parents to take legal action if a violation occurs.
“This bill would also authorize a parent or guardian to seek an injunction against a library that purchases or accepts a donation of sexual content in violation of this act,” it states.
The bill prohibits libraries taking state funds from affiliating with the American Library Association.
Jessica Hayes, a librarian from Prattville, said it will be very difficult for libraries to prevent minors from accessing books that contain sexual content and it will create great pressure on librarians.
“That will be very, very difficult for libraries in higher education institutions because they do work with freshmen who are 17, who are considered minors, but they’re freshmen who are probably living on their own for the first time,” she said, adding that enforcing such a standard would be especially hard because libraries have publicly available computers.
The second bill, filed by Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, R-Trinity, has yet to be discussed in a public hearing. Yarbough did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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