Published: May 24, 2023
By: Claire Sullivan, LSU Manship School News Service
BATON ROUGE, La. — As controversy swells in Louisiana over library content, the House Committee on Education voted 8-3 Tuesday to advance a bill that would require public libraries to limit minors’ access to sexually explicit material.
Under the bill, authored by Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, libraries would have to create card systems through which parents would decide whether their child could check out explicit material. Cloud pitched her bill as protecting parental rights.
Libraries would also have to take community standards into consideration when acquiring materials for minors. Critics worry this would target LGBTQ content, which has been a major source of opposition at local library control meetings.
Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican running for governor, was at the hearing to support the bill. As libraries have become political battlegrounds in Louisiana, Landry has pushed to restrict children’s access to material.
Landry released a “Protecting Innocence” report in February that included book excerpts he described as “extremely graphic sexual content.” The books included “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson and “The Bluest Eye” by Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison.
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