Lawmakers, advocates plan to file bill to ban some books in NC schools
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Advocates in North Carolina want the legislature to ban certain books from schools and to set penalties for school districts that don’t comply, and they plan to introduce a bill that would do that.
“There have been procedural holdups by activist schoolboard members who are so worried about taking points from obscene book advocates that they continue to allow this sexually graphic material,” Tami Fitzgerald, with the NC Values Coalition, said.
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Some lawmakers and leaders of the NC Values Coalition say material in some of the books is sexually explicit and can land in the hands of kids even in elementary schools.
“If you look at this material, and I, or any other adult, were to hand this to a child outside of school property, it would violate obscenity laws,” one speaker at the event said.
Advocates and lawmakers took to downtown Raleigh on Wednesday announcing the planned bill that would formally ban certain books.
“We should adopt a statewide criteria for book selection to ensure books are educationally and age appropriate, and to require schools to comply with North Carolina’s obscenity laws,” Fitzgerald said.
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Some of the books they want to see gone are books focused on queer or transgender identities. Speakers say parents should be the ones to decide if their kids read about those topics and others.
“Our schools should be safe not only physically, but morally, intellectually, and spiritually, and they currently are not,” a speaker at the event said.
Advocates did not say when exactly they plan to file that bill but they did say they expect some movement on it soon.
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