Summary

Rightwing groups across the US are driving a wave of legislation to restrict books in school and public libraries, targeting content deemed “sexually explicit” or “obscene,” often affecting LGBTQ+ and race-related titles.

Texas leads with 31 bills and 538 book bans in the 2023–24 school year.

Proposed laws, like Texas Senate Bill 13, shift book selection power from librarians to parent-led advisory boards.

Critics, including librarians and legal scholars, warn these efforts amount to censorship, risk violating First Amendment rights, and reduce access in underserved communities.

    • blaue_Fledermaus
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      -217 days ago

      I’m not supporting banning books, just pointing that the Bible itself considers the events of that story bad.

        • blaue_Fledermaus
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          017 days ago

          Within the story itself it doesn’t show judgement, just “it happened”, but later on the descendents of Lot’s daughters are considered cursed peoples.

          If there’s criticism to be made to the story is that it may have been written this way to justify the Israelites being racist against their cousins.

          • @blakenong@lemmings.world
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            016 days ago

            I think more likely it was that fucking your dad got retarded kids who were cursed, so don’t fuck your daddy.

            Leave it to the religious morons to interpret this as a way to kill someone. Trash.

            • blaue_Fledermaus
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              016 days ago

              A single generation of incest is usually not enough to cause bad effects, and anyway it’s an at least 3000 years old story, that’s what people “knew” at the time.

              And this behavior is not exclusive to “religious” people, the nominally atheist USSR did very similar.

              • @blakenong@lemmings.world
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                016 days ago

                wtf are you on about? USSR? What on earth do they have anything to do with this?

                Either way, this 3000 year old book needs to be put to pasture.

                • blaue_Fledermaus
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                  016 days ago

                  Just an example of not needing to be religious to create stupid justifications to kill people.

                  • @blakenong@lemmings.world
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                    016 days ago

                    And what was the USSR’s stupid reason to kill people that relates to people using a book of fiction stories as a way to justify killing whomever they want?

                    So which books on that list do you think should be banned from libraries? The gay ones? The trans ones? Harry Potter?

      • @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        316 days ago

        It doesn’t matter to book-banners whether or not the thing they don’t like is portrayed as positive or negative. Just the fact that it’s there is enough for them.