I spoke with many concerned parents to understand why there is a desire to ban books on the grounds of pornography. What I found was a problem of terms.
The legal term of pornography was defined in 1973 in the case Miller vs California. This resulted in the “Miller Test” being used to determine if material is pornographic.
The test is simple. Does this work, taken as a whole, lack serious literacy, artistic, political or scientific value?
This is not the standard that concerned parents are using. The most common concerned parent’s definition I’ve read is “material that presents graphic acts of a sexual nature”.
While those two definitions might sound similar, there is considerable difference.
The second definition would define movies like “American Pie”, “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “The Shape of Water” as pornography.
Therefore, unless changed by congress or courts, books like “This Book is Gay” are not legally considered pornography.
That covers the legal aspect, so now let’s ask the moral question. Should these books be available to young adults?
I use the term young adult and not children, as the word children can be misleading. These books are only at high schools. There is a huge difference between a 16 year old and an 8 year old.
The answer to the morality question is simple. Parental rights. We all have the right to parent as we wish, with OUR kids. My parental rights do not extend to your child, just as yours do not extend to mine.
It might sound like I’m not concerned about these books, and that’s because I’m not. Every book in every public library in the entire world does not hold a candle to the wealth of information about sex online, much of which can be misleading or even dangerous. Information any teenager with a phone can find easily.
In 2022 there were over 10,000 terabytes of pornography available online. If printed out into book format, this would take a whopping 20 billion pages.
Focusing on these library books is like staring at the candle while ignoring the blazing bonfire behind us. I care about the bonfire, and am working hard to keep my children from getting burnt. Honestly, so should every parent.
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