Gov. Sanders Appoints Former Senator Jason Rapert to State Library Board

In this file photo from 2021, Sen. Rapert (left) speaks with Sen. Alan Clark and Family Council President Jerry Cox (right) at the Arkansas Capitol Building.

On Monday Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed former state senator Jason Rapert to a six-year term on the State Library Board.

According to its website, the State Library administers state and federal funds appropriated for libraries and library development, including State Aid To Public Libraries funds and federal Library Services and Technology Act funds.

During his time in the Arkansas House of Representatives and Arkansas Senate, Jason Rapert sponsored several good pieces of legislation — including Act 1213 of 2015 authorizing a privately funded monument of the Ten Commandments on the Arkansas State Capitol Grounds and Act 180 of 2019 that now prohibits abortion in Arkansas except to save the life of the mother.

Jason Rapert is a staunch conservative and a proponent of the biblical worldview. He will be a much-needed addition to the library board in light of recent concerns some people have voiced about inappropriate material in local libraries.

Targeting Young Adults with Explicit Books

A 2012 headline in U.S. News and World Report asked, “Is It Time to Rate Young Adult Books for Mature Content?” According to the article, there was an increase in profanity in children’s books and sexual content in young adult novels. In fact, a survey that year revealed that 55% of the readers of young adult novels were adults, not teens. 

A decade later, no one seems to be asking questions about graphic content in books for young people anymore. Rather, that content is being defended and promotedEspecially in fiction aimed at young adults, there is explicit content, including aggressive LGBTQ content, and themes of rape, abuse, BDSM, even incest.  

There seems to be a commitment, in both literature and law, to relentlessly sexualize children in aggressive and even predatory ways. In a saner world, we would call this what it really is: abuse. In our world, sane adults must do everything we can to protect children.

Copyright 2023 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

Guest Column: The Great Book Ban Panic of 2023

Three months ago, an 11-year-old sixth grader from Maine read a passage from a book to his local school board. It described a sexual encounter between two teenage boys. When he found the book in the library of his public school, the librarian asked if he’d like to see other books that were like it, or if he’d like to check out the book’s graphic novel edition. The boy’s father, who also spoke at the school board meeting, was not nearly as calm as his son. Like many parents around the country, he demanded that school officials remove all books with explicit content from his son’s public school library. 

This story is, according to many loud voices right now, part of a “dangerous trend.” Recently, the American Library Association announced an “emergency,” that a record-breaking 1,269 requests had been made in 2022 to remove books from libraries. “Each attempt to ban a book …,” said the Director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, “represents a direct attack on every person’s constitutionally protected right to freely choose what books to read.”  

Others share this sense of panic. A few days ago, lawmakers in Illinois voted to revoke public funding from libraries that agree to remove books from their shelves due to the author’s “background or views.” 

A closer look at the statistics, however, tells a very different story. As columnist and editor Micah Mattix recently pointed out, 1,269 book removal requests among some 117,000 public libraries are not that many. If only about 1% of American libraries received some kind of removal request last year, not all of which were granted, the real headline is not so much a crisis of book banning, but how little people are reading these days. 

Moreover, about 60% of the requests to remove books were made to libraries at public schools. Asking a public school to make pornography unavailable to fourth graders is not exactly “a direct attack” on every American’s constitutional right to read. A better illustration of that kind of censorship would be what transgender activists have done to the Harry Potter series, calling for bans and public burnings, not because of anything in the books, but because of J.K. Rowling’s views about the existence of women.  

Viewpoint discrimination is not what is behind the removal requests that are worrying the American Library Association. Each of the ALA’s top 10 “most-challenged books of 2022” was challenged for containing sexually explicit material. Their outrage is quite selective.  

No public school library across America is scrambling to include published manifestos of serial killers or rantings of a white supremacy cult leader on their shelves. Nor should they. The right to free expression must always be tempered by a concern for the innocence, health, and well-being of children. That meant, until yesterday at least, that their access to graphic sexual content should be limited by the grownups in the room. 

A better question, if the number of book ban requests has skyrocketed, is why so many sexually explicit books are being published right now, and why so many are aimed at children. Why, for every toddler book published about dinosaurs, dragons, or pajamas, are there five more about alternative families and “the hips on the drag queen” going “swish, swish, swish” (and yes, that is a real title)? 

Parents, don’t be intimidated by these breathless headlines warning of impending doom. Stay vigilant and vocal about protecting the hearts and minds of your children.  

Pastors, please support parents in their efforts to fulfill their God-given calling to their children. They will need it. 

Any long-term solution will involve more than ridding school libraries of bad books. What C.S. Lewis said, that “good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy must be answered,” applies to children’s books, too. He did, after all, produce one of the best children’s series of all time. 

Bad children’s books lie to them, rob them of their innocence, and exploit them into becoming spokespeople for adult causes. Good books tell children the truth about the world and who they are, respecting their age, imagination, and innocence. The difference makes all the difference. 

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org

Copyright 2023 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.