The Texas Taliban Lowers the Boom

“Please identify any other books or content in your District, specifying the campus location and funds spent on acquisition, that address or contain the following topics: human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), sexually explicit images, graphic presentations of sexual behavior that is in violation of the law, or contain material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

Krause played the moral-majority card harder and more aggressively than any politician in recent memory. Not surprisingly, though a few districts complied with his request, most told him to stuff it. The Texas State Teachers’ Association called it “disturbing and political overreach into the classroom.” The Texas Library Association said it “opposes efforts that restrict the freedom to read through banning, removing, or other forms of restricting access to books or other materials”.

And that, we assumed, was that. Just another provincial lawmaker trying to play the morality card to appeal to an angry base. But we were wrong.

Here comes the governor

Then, this week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, as craven a political weasel who’s ever darkened the state, piped up, writing the Texas Association of School Boards. “A growing number of parents of Texas students are becoming increasingly alarmed about some of the books and other content found in public school libraries that are extremely inappropriate in the public education system. The most flagrant examples include clearly pornographic images and substance…parents have the right to shield their children from obscene content…your organization’s members have an obligation to determine the extent to which such materials exist.”

Abbott cares about as much about “obscene” materials in public-school libraries as he does about the families of thousands of Texans who died last winter when the state’s power grid failed during a freeze. It’s all just grist for his pandering power mill. And it’s very trendy right now for Republican government officials to cry “obscenity,” as witnessed by the absurd battles in Virginia over whether or not it’s appropriate to teach Toni Morrison to 17-year-old AP English students.

More practically, the Texas Association of School Boards responded to Abbott’s letter, saying they have no jurisdiction over what individual districts choose to stock in their libraries. As for this publication, how we feel is pretty apparent. Government officials shouldn’t be trying to intimidate school districts, school boards, principals, teachers, or librarians. If they have concerns about content, then they can debate that specific content in classrooms or in public forums. If we allow purely political creatures like Matt Krause and Greg Abbott to determine what is or isn’t “obscene”, then we, as Americans, are no better than the unfree societies whose values we purport to oppose.

You may not like books about transgendered teens or institutional racism or whatever your current political buzzwords are. But state censorship, whether it comes from the right or the left, has no place in our democracy. The National Coalition Against Censorship says it as well as we ever could:

References to sex do not pornography make if, when read in full context, a book has literary or artistic merit. "Pornography" is designed to cause sexual arousal. If the books on the Texas hit-list are having that effect on its politicians, we should all be deeply concerned. https://t.co/6x4rMoW1Nd

— National Coalition Against Censorship (@ncacensorship) November 3, 2021

The State of Texas had better watch its step. People on Facebook are very concerned.