Republican governor vetoes bill that would have shielded kids from sexually explicit books
Republican North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong vetoed a bill that aimed to protect children from being exposed to sexually explicit books in schools.
Current North Dakota law prohibits public libraries from placing sexually explicit materials in children’s sections and requires them to establish policies to that effect. Senate Bill 2307 would have expanded that law to apply to school districts, requiring them to keep sexually explicit materials out of school libraries.
In a letter last week explaining his decision to veto the bill, Governor Armstrong called it “censorship” and an attempt to “legislate morality.”
“While I recognize the concerns that led to its introduction, SB 2307 represents a misguided attempt to legislate morality through overreach and censorship,” he wrote. “The bill imposes vague and punitive burdens on professionals and opens the door to a host of unintended and damaging consequences for our communities.”
The bill would have allowed parents or other “interested parties” to use local prosecutors to challenge school boards if sexually explicit books were placed in school libraries, a provision that Armstrong felt would have wasted taxpayer resources and placed “local librarians, school districts, and state’s attorneys in an untenable situation.”
“I don’t pretend to know what the next literary masterpiece is going to be,” Armstrong wrote. “But I know that I want it available in a library. And if a parent doesn’t think it is age appropriate for their child, then that is a parenting decision. It does not require a whole of government approach and $1.1 million of taxpayer money.”
Whose rights are being violated?
The proposed legislation would have advanced efforts to keep LGBTQ propaganda targeting children, which often contains sexually explicit and pornographic material, out of schools. Armstrong’s criticism of the proposal as “censorship” echoes similar claims by gender ideologues on the Left, who insist that any attempt to protect children from gender propaganda is “book banning” and violates free speech.
But parents are arguing that subjecting their children to such materials violates their Fourteenth Amendment right to direct their children’s education and religious upbringing. In Mahmoud v. Taylor, a watershed case currently before the US Supreme Court, a coalition of Muslim and Catholic parents are suing the Montgomery County Board of Education for refusing to allow them to opt their children out of LGBTQ propaganda, which includes sexually explicit themes. In “Pride Puppy,” for example, three- and four-year-old children learn about Pride parades and are encouraged to search for images of “underwear,” “leather,” “lip ring,” “[drag] king,” “[drag] queen,” and a sex worker.
Even though the parents are not requesting that the materials be removed from the school library—just that they be mad optional—they are still being accused of “censorship.”
