Senator Rob Standridge (R-OK) introduced what is basically a fascist book-burning bill into the State Senate. It lets even just one parent complain in writing about a book that (to generalize a bit) has sex in it, and if a school library doesn't remove the book, due to that single complaint, within 30 days, the individual can receive a minimum of $10,000 a day – for each day the book is not removed. Also, any school employee who doesn’t remove the book within that time period “shall be dismissed or not reemployed.” No, really. And in case you think this is from The Onion, or I'm pushing up April Fools Day early this year -- When Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote, "You're doing fine, Oklahoma," I don't think they meant that fine to be $10,000 a day. The bill bans all books "that make as their primary subject the study of sex, sexual preferences, sexual activity, sexual perversion, sex-based classifications, sexual identity, or gender identity or books that are of a sexual nature that a reasonable parent or legal guardian would want to know of or approve of prior to their child being exposed to it." Fascist book-burning aside (which admittedly is a ton to put aside), I can imagine parents going through their school library catalogue and putting together a long list of books that would qualify -- and passing the list to as many other parents as they can – in hopes of each parent individually making so much money they could retire. I'm not saying they'd cash out in all those cases, or even most of them, but I absolutely can see a mass of parents seeing this as a Money from Heaven treasure hunt. And timing their letters to arrive on the weekend or during school holidays to give them the best chance of sitting untouched as long as possible, pilling up those $10,000 per day penalties. (It’s not certain if each complaining parent would be eligible for the $10,000 per day Book Bounty, or if multiple parents complain about a book they’d have to split the trove. But even if it’s the latter, that still wouldn’t affect as many parents as possible combing through the entirety of a school’s library books in hopes of cashing in.) To be clear, if any school thinks a request is unreasonable (like, oh, most of them) and refuse to pull a book, the penalty won’t have to be paid until the matter is adjudicated in court in the parents’ favor. Which means the parents would have to go to the trouble of suing. And while I suspect most won’t, for the risk of losing, they’ll also know that there’s a bit of a safety net for them built into Standridge’s bill, because they can will be able to recover “reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs.” On the sane, non-fascist other side of the coin, State Representative Jacob Rosentcrants, not shockingly a Democrat, told the McAlester News-Capital warned that the bill could ban any book that merely contained the word "sex." And added that “They say on the other side that they’re trying to stop indoctrination. “This looks to me like it is indoctrination. When you’re trying to say what somebody should or shouldn’t do or somebody should or shouldn’t read, isn’t that the epitome of that?” Ordinally, I’d say that I don’t see this bill passing the Oklahoma Senate, or getting out of the legislature, or being signed by the governor. But with today’s fascist Republican Party fine with caging children, passing voter suppression laws, ignoring science and helping spread a deadly pandemic, and crying that the election was stolen despite a total lack of admissible evidence, I don’t put almost anything past them. But pushing the fascist book-burning even more to side, which gets to be quite a burden, there’s also an “unintended consequences” aspect to all this, of course. Public schools are funded by the town they’re in. So, any penalty paid would come out of their budget. And if school doesn’t have enough to cover the costs, it will either have to drastically cut back schooling, or get more money from the community, or close the school. It would be a cheap shot and unfair to say that having to fire teachers, losing school hours, and closing schools would risk making Oklahoma students more ignorant than they already are. But if enough Oklahoma state representatives pass this bill, and the governor signed it, it doesn’t speak well for the adults who voted them in. You can read more about it here.
2 Comments
Douglass Abramson
12/28/2021 08:09:23 pm
I hope they pass this law, because I'm sure that people smarter than me have seen the ironic potential for the law of unintended consequences and are preparing to challenge every book that the upholds "normal" two gender, heterosexuality (preferably between two WASPS); that the Republican snowflakes behind this are so terrified are on shaky foundations and have to be "protected" from all of the "perverts" out there. I look forward to the the heads of the sock puppets on FOX and Friends exploding when they can't comprehend why anyone would challenge a book with "normal" behavior. Not that their 2w brains comprehend mutch.
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Robert Elisberg
12/28/2021 10:41:56 pm
I don't know if the law is written in a way that would allow for what you suggestion. I *think* it specifies what can be challenged. But I can't swear to that -- and even if so, there might be ways to "interpret" the law anyway you want and make a challenge.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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