A bill repealing the obscenity exemptions for public libraries and educational institutions advanced through an Iowa House subcommittee on Monday. House File 274 was supported by Republican State Representatives Sam Fett and Helena Hayes but Democrat State Rep. argued in support of obscene materials being available in public libraries.
Matson asked if anybody in the room knew anyone who had been irreparably harmed by a book, claiming that she’d go out on a limb and say that nobody knows anyone in that situation.
Parents who want to “hover” over their children in a public library are welcome to do so, Matson said, but libraries are a place of voluntary inquiry.
She then compared concerned citizens who don’t want obscene materials made available to children in public libraries to Nazi book banners.
“This is a new level of low to attack and demonize libraries and librarians,” she said. “I might just go back to school to become a librarian myself.”
Fett noted that obscenity is a category of speech not protected by the First Amendment because of its harm to minors. Iowa has a “robust” obscenity law that defines what obscene materials are, Fett added.
“And so the fact that we have adults in the room fighting to keep obscene materials around children because of educational value is a gross misunderstanding of what obscene material is,” she said.
Michelle Warren spoke in support of the bill as she expressed a number of concerns with “what’s going on” and available in libraries. She said the American Library Association has evolved into an agency that resembles a “cultural Marxist agenda.” Library staff and board members support distributing sexually explicit materials under the guise of a Library Bill of Rights, Warren said.
“They are used as deflections against community requests for relocation of sexually explicit books,” Warren said. “They are also a means to subvert parental authority by not allowing parents access to their child’s library account. The children and young adult sections of the library should serve as spaces for learning and growth, not repositories for sexualized content that confuses and distresses young minds.”
Iowa’s current obscenity exemptions punish the innocent and protect the guilty, Warren said.
A high school student testified that repealing the obscenity exemptions may mean children cannot receive comprehensive sex education, which would lead to more teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Chris Campbell, an Ames resident, supported the bill and questioned the logic of the obscenity exemptions for public libraries.
“Something that is unacceptable in other places somehow becomes acceptable if it happens in a library or school,” Campbel said. “Perhaps at the time it was added to the Iowa Code, it worked because reasonable people were in charge of our Iowa libraries and schools. Today however Iowa libraries and schools are increasingly run by people who are unreasonable and don’t share most Iowans’ values on what’s appropriate for children.”
Campbell said Iowans can differentiate between a biology textbook and a book like “Flamer.” In the book, middle school boys are in a circle and putting their own bodily fluid into an empty pop bottle. If anyone refuses to do it, they have to drink the bodily fluids from the bottle.
“I don’t think that’s something a reasonable person would want in the kids or teen section of the library,” Campbell said. “If that’s the kind of thing you like to read, it’s a free country, you’re free to buy it, it’s not that expensive. Why can’t I be free from paying for it?”
Evelyn Nikkel of the PELLA PAC spoke in support of the bill. Nikkel said Iowa libraries continue the “grooming barrage” against young people with the obscenity exemptions. She also condemned the ALA, calling it a “Marxist, godless group hellbent on flooding minors with sexually explicit graphic novels, violent R-rated streaming videos, adult audio books and LGBTQ+ deviant sexual behaviors.”
Keenan Crow, who represents One Iowa, said that nothing in a public library would meet the legal definition of obscenity. At that point, Nikkel dumped about a dozen books on the table that would seem to contradict such a claim.
“I would challenge anyone in this room to come up with a single book in their local library or school that meets the Miller Test,” Crow said. “Not that you disagree with it. Not that you find objectionable. But it meets the constitutional test.”
Crow said if anyone could find one source that meets the constitutional test, he’d retract his testimony.
Kathy Bogaards, a Pella resident, spoke in support of the bill. She said it is impossible for a parent to review or know about every book their child has been assigned or been given access to.
According to Bogaards, the local library offers more than 430 sexually explicit or pervasively vulgar materials available to children.
“What right do librarians or educators have to make sexually explicit or pervasively vulgar material available for children,” she asked.
Bogaards asked why the very same books some people want to be accessible by children in libraries are unable to be broadcast on the TV by local stations.
“These books are offensive to adults but yet we allow children to be subject to them,” she said. “It’s appalling and it makes no sense.”
A public librarian named Nicole Wentz spoke in opposition to the bill, saying that those who do not believe the library has a right to put books with obscenity out have the right not to visit the library.
Wentz said supporters of the bill who are concerned about obscene materials being available to kids in libraries aren’t interested in protecting children, they’re trying to “push prejudice.”
