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The latest group to try to block books on queer topics from children, Clean Up Alabama, is trying to reform the state’s library system. One of its goals is for Alabama to “End our association, participation, and use of the far left marxist organization that is the American Library Association,” according to its website.
The group started earlier this year as Clean Up Prattville, according to LGBTQ Nation, focusing specifically on the Autauga-Prattville Public Library. Clean Up Alabama says on its website that “many Alabama libraries have been stocking their shelves with books intended to confuse the children of our communities about sexuality and expose them to material that is inappropriate for them.”
Clean Up Alabama says its mission is to remove “pornographic, obscene, and indecent books” from children’s sections of the libraries. One of its major goals is a withdrawal from the ALA—claiming on its site that the “ALA believes that children should be able to view pornography in the name of freedom of expression.”
While the ALA does fight for readers to be able to access whatever books they want, the books Clean Up Alabama wants banned are not “pornographic.” The Clean Up Prattville site includes a list of books the organization objects to, along with excerpts from the books. For example, Looking for Alaska by John Green is on the list. One of the offending excerpts follows:
…I’m in the middle of a sentence about analogies or something and like a hawk he reaches down and he honks my boob. HONK. A much-too-firm, two- to three-second HONK. And the first thing I thought was Okay, how do I extricate this claw from my boob before it leaves permanent marks?…”
Nick and Charlie by Heartstopper author Alice Oseman—about a young gay couple—is also on the list. The included excerpt has a scene where the titular characters have sex, but this is the most explicit it gets:
I can’t think about anything else when he’s running his hands so gently through my hair, across my back, over my hips. I ask if we should take our clothes of and he’s saying yes before I’ve even finished ay sentence, and then he’s pulling my T-shirt off and laughing when I can’t undo his shirt buttons, he’s undoing my belt, I’m reaching into his bedside drawer for a condom, we’re kissing again, we’re rolling over obviously you can see where this is going.
Though there’s a petition on Clean Up Alabama’s site calling for the ALA withdrawal, the Alabama Political Reporter reports the group wants to change the state’s anti-obscenity law to remove an exemption for libraries. If the group gets its way, librarians could face a year in jail and a fine of up to $10,000 for providing books deemed “harmful” to minors.
Clean Up Alabama has allies among some state Republicans. Representatives Susan Dubose, Rick Rehm and Bill Lamb have supported the group’s efforts to withdraw from the ALA, according to the Political Reporter. Representatives Ernie Yarbrough, Mack Butler and House Majority Leader Scott Stadthagen also have supported the group. Governor Kay Ivey sent the Alabama Public Library Service a letter echoing Clean Up America’s complaints, though the letter does not directly refer to the group, according to the Political Reporter.
On September 5, Clean Up Prattville proposed to the city council that the group take control of the public library via a service contract. The proposal was rejected in a 4-3 vote, according to AL.com. The local library director, Andrew Foster, told AL.com that the group’s campaign started over one book, The Pronoun Book, a book directed at children up to 3 years old explaining what pronouns are.
“There was an incident where a family checked out a book called the ‘Pronoun Book’, took it home before realizing it was an inclusive pronoun book, that it wasn’t just binary, he and she, but instead had some other representations in the book,” he told the outlet.
The post Clean Up Alabama Wants State to Dump ‘Marxist’ American Library Association appeared first on The New Civil Rights Movement.
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