On Wednesday Rep. Andrew Collins (D — Little Rock) filed H.B. 1028. This bad bill would repeal Arkansas’ laws that protect children from harmful sexual material and prohibit public libraries from sharing obscene material.
Last year the Arkansas Legislature passed Act 372 of 2023 — a good law that prohibits giving or sending a child harmful sexual material that contains nudity or sexual activity.
Act 372 eliminated exemptions for libraries and schools in the state’s obscenity statute, and it clarified how library patrons can work to remove objectionable material from a library’s catalog. Unfortunately, some protections in this good law have been blocked in court .
Act 372 of 2023 was prompted by obscene children’s books that some librarians have placed on the shelves of their local libraries.
For example, the Jonesboro public library has been at the center of multiple controversies over its decision to place books with sexually-explicit images in its children’s section and for failing to adopt a policy that separates sexual material from children’s content.
The library in Jonesboro went so far as to post on Facebook that it isn’t the library’s responsibility to protect kids from obscenity.
Following the controversy in Jonesboro, voters opted to cut the library’s millage in half.
Other public libraries in Arkansas have included graphic children’s books in their catalogs and failed to separate sexual material from children’s material as well.
Some of the people who testified publicly against Act 372 last year indicated that they actually want to be free to share obscene material with children at a library. H.B. 1028 would do that.
H.B. 1028 effectively repeals Act 372 and the good protections for children that it contains. It also exempts public libraries from the state’s obscenity statute, and it requires public libraries to have “a written policy prohibiting the practice of banning books or other materials because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval” in order to receive public funding.
Public libraries are supposed to be for everyone. Families should be able to take their children to the library without worrying what their children might see, and taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize books that show explicit images of minors engaged in sexual acts.
Unfortunately, H.B. 1028 is a bad bill that would repeal important laws that Arkansas passed to protect children, families, and communities.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
