"None of These Books Are Obscene": Judge Strikes Down Much of FL's Book Ban Bill

https://bookriot.com/penguin-random-house-florida-lawsuit/

by healsdata • 11 months ago

321 369 11 months ago

epistasis22• 11 months ago

It's shocking how little opposition laws like get this from people who call themselves "free speech absolutists." Here we have straightforward censorship, by the government, yet it all flies under the radar.

The people who fight for free speech in these cases, devoting time and money to it, and have real meaningful effect, self-describe in more ordinary ways.

mlinhares2• 11 months ago

That's because they're not "free speech absolutists", they're fascists that want to force their own idea of what valid speech is on everyone else.

gosub1004• 11 months ago

Same thing the far left does on college campuses. They just do it under the guise of victimhood with terms like "assault" being used to describe someone speaking an unpopular opinion. If the school book wars said the kids were "assaulted" by this "hate speech" would that make it okay? Is that what they are missing is someone feigning victimhood?

prox2• 11 months ago

If true they fit the exact definition of doublespeak.

steveBK1233• 11 months ago

Yes, the same people that need the 2A right to guns to protect themselves from government tyranny also are totally fine with other forms of government tyranny.

NickC25• 11 months ago

As long as the tyrants are on "their" "side" , 2A gun nuts love government tyranny, and the right to commit tyranny.

antonymoose2• 11 months ago

By your logic, the government should be forced to purchase firearms and make them freely available to the citizens.

The government deciding standards for content it purchase is neither tyranny nor fascism. You are free to purchase as much controversial or sexually explicit material as you see fit.

UmGuys6• 11 months ago

They are the tyranny. They're literally attacking Americans with the military now. GOP has fully descended into whatever Tr*mp wants and he seems to want to destroy America.

poplarsol2• 11 months ago

All of these books are freely available if you would like to spend your own money on them, as opposed to public funds.

epistasis22• 11 months ago

What does that point have to do anything?

They are also available in schools, because the judge here enforced the US constitution.

The article is about Florida politicians trying to censor books in public schools, literal government censorship.

lesuorac• 11 months ago

Public funds are our money. They are literally our tax dollars.

Also, "removing" books means the money was already spent. So it's just about whether we should waste money or not by tossing items in good condition.

n4r92• 11 months ago

freely ... spend your own money

Come on, now.

perihelions• 11 months ago

The amount of public money lost litigating the losing side of this lawsuit surely dwarfs the costs of the books involved? I say again, losing side, because this failed law was very clearly unconstitutional all along—the proponents went out of their way to transfer this taxpayer money to law firms, for a stunt.

root_axis• 11 months ago

"Free speech absolutist" is a self-described label for partisan censors. Honest people understand that there's no such thing as absolute free speech.

xnx• 11 months ago

Almost without exception, people who loudly proclaim to be one thing: free speech absolutist, anti-tax, heterosexual, small government, "tough on crime" are exactly the opposite.

gosub1004• 11 months ago

Universities saying they're "diverse" until some students started promoting terrorist and acting anti-Semitic.

zeroonetwothree11• 11 months ago

Well, maybe in practice. You could consider it an example of the law of unintended consequences.

Although I would apply it equally to the other political side as well. “Diversity” = everyone has to think like me, “inclusion” = exclude certain groups and so on

2OEH8eoCRo0• 11 months ago

What flew under the radar? It was challenged in court and struck down. The system seems to work no? How else should it work?

steveBK1233• 11 months ago

Would be preferable to not see administrations repeatedly try obviously blatantly unconstitutional moves. Don't need to be a constitutional law expert to see the problem here.

Is driving 100mph down the highway OK as long as you slow down right before the known speed trap? The system worked?

epistasis22• 11 months ago

I am contrasting the difference between 1) those who paid attention and took action, the normal type of free speech defenders, and 2) self-described "absolutists" who have no problem with this sort of vaguely defined restriction on speech.

omnimus3• 11 months ago

I don't think courts should be where laws are decided. The main reason is that every obvious case like this undermines their power in future. Soon you will have people who start to question if courts don't have too much power. When you finally get to some important politically dividing case, all these secondary rulings in the past would be used against the courts.

UmGuys6• 11 months ago

The judicial system is a wreck and obviously works for rich people only. This sort of obstruction of every day life by people seeking to destroy democracy should be filtered out of the system otherwise they can get their way or keep filing lawsuits. How? It starts with education which is why they're attacking it.

Especially with the new Tr*mpian ethos of rules for thee, not for me.

whimsicalism4• 11 months ago

i don’t support this law at all, but i think it is pretty obvious that there is a difference between free speech and governmental discretion in what is taught in school. free speech doesn’t require that schools stock the “Bell Curve” or Mein Kampf for instance

Sprocklem2• 11 months ago

This is a strange framing. These laws are neither about what is taught in schools nor what books schools are required to stock, but rather restrictions on what books schools may chose to make available to the children. The government is not limiting the free speech of the authors, but these laws are the government limiting access to the authors' free speech, which is at least related to free speech, even if you don't buy that it is an restriction of free speech per se.

I do, however, think it is also worth noting that there is value in critically discussing the ideologies espoused by "The Bell Curve" and "Mein Kampf", since both ideologies persist and continue to have influence on American politics today.

laurent_du• 11 months ago

Using taxpayers money to corrupt minors is not "free speech".

fknorangesite2• 11 months ago

Where is the "corruption" here? Be specific.

komali217• 11 months ago

Aaaagh! I feel your frustration but I myself am frustrated at this dance Americans still play at that there are constitutionalists there, or people interested in "maintaining the institutions" or "free speech." There are only two kinds of politicians in America: neoliberals who are looking for opportunities to commodify the State or people in it, and fascists (or baby fascists) interested in achieving Christian nationalist or white nationalist goals by any means necessary.

Even the word "libertarian" doesn't mean "anarchist" in America as it does everywhere else, to refer to the most far-left you take take political ideology. Instead it refers to a deeply right-wing ideology obsessed with corporatocracy.

terminalshort11• 11 months ago

There is no philosophical difference between libertarianism and anarchism, only a difference in how they predict people will behave in the absence of centralized authority.

graemep4• 11 months ago

liberal commodification and Christian nationalism are both contradictions in terms.

In the UK and I understand libertarianism to mean an extreme free market position, usually in the belief that markets will fix problems unregulated. I think the UK definition is less extreme than the US one but on similar lines.

epistasis22• 11 months ago

There are plenty of constitutionalists, and reducing the entire polity to either neoliberal or fascists ignores the reality of the country. Further, by trying to ignore the existence of the large number of us who do want to defend the constitution, you hasten it's demise by emboldening those who are seeking to destroy it.

I don't agree with calling anarchy the most far-left ideology, just as I don't agree with calling Marxism the most far-left ideology, because this isn't a one-dimensional axis. The meaning of words is continuously shifting in language, especially with something as slippery as political ideologies, which themselves are continually changing. We must make the words the tools of our communication, instead of our communication the tool of the words.

terminalshort11• 11 months ago

I completely disagree with this law, but I don't understand how this is a free speech issue. AFAIK the law isn't restricting anyone's right to freedom of speech because under this law anyone in FL is free to own, publish, buy, sell, read, or stock any book in any privately owned library.

It seems to me that the government is allowed to decide what books to buy and stock in its own libraries. I don't understand how freedom of speech obligates the government to make a book available for free. It seems to me like compelled speech to require the government to stock certain books. As this pertains to schools, I don't understand how the government doesn't have the same right to control the curriculum as it does in any other case. e.g. it is not a violation of a teacher's right to free speech to order them not to teach flat earth theory in public schools because that teacher is an employee and not on their own time. Same as my employer can restrict my speech while on the job without violating my rights.

epistasis22• 11 months ago

Your first and second paragraphs are in opposition to each other. The government is setting strict rules about what sort of books are allowed with this law. It's not a mere selection of the many books, but a strict ban of certain types of books based on their content. When the government establishes laws like this, they must be in accordance with our constitution above all, and that sort of strict criteria on banning certain types of books disagrees with the first amendment and the legal tradition around it.

Similarly, you are also wrong about this compelling the government to stock certain books, that's not on the table at all.

nozzlegear4• 11 months ago

It seems to me that the government is allowed to decide what books to buy and stock in its own libraries. I don't understand how freedom of speech obligates the government to make a book available for free.

The concern here is that letting the government decide which books are kosher for its school libraries and which books aren't kosher is that taken to its extreme, the government could ban all books that aren't the King James Bible without explicitly adopting a pro-King James Bible policy. And if that's the only kind of book they stock in the library, then children who want to check out books are going to be reading literature with a certain kind of slant to it.

Replace the King James Bible with whatever you personally wouldn't want kids to be reading, e.g. the Quran or the Kama Sutra.

SoftTalker3• 11 months ago

Yes. Obviously there are books that are inappropriate in elementary school libraries. Different criteria may apply to high-school libraries. But the point is these are curated collections no matter what. Nobody is prevented from reading what they want to read outside of that.

My high school library didn't offer much popular paperback fiction, but I could have found that at the county public library, or at any bookstore or most general retail stores.

School libraries have limited space, funds, and are constantly making decisions about what is age-appropriate and of educational value.

benmmurphy• 11 months ago

if the government is running a library it shouldn't be able to engage in view point discrimination. for example it shouldn't be able to remove all books by Democratic presidents while keeping books by Republican presidents or vice versa. the weird thing is the state via an accidental conspiracy between librarians has arguably been engaging in view point discrimination. even though this has not been legislated, or commanded by the executive and is probably in contradiction with what the current executive wants it should not be allowed either.

didibus2• 11 months ago

I think the issue is your framing of libraries as "the government's own libraries".

Those libraries are to the people and paid by the people.

Similarly, the school curriculum is not to be controlled by the government, public schools are also to the people and paid by the people.

In both cases, the criteria for school curriculum and the books to stock are pedagogy. What will best prepare and educate students so they can innovate, thrive and improve our society later in life.

Attempts at seizing control of the school curriculum or the material made available to students for their pedagogy (like books they can research) by the government in a way that appears to be for some political or value setting agenda and not the criteria of offering the best pedagogy for students feels like propaganda and information control for political gain.

const_cast5• 11 months ago

School is public sector, restricting free speech in the public sector is a free speech problem.

Private libraries banning books is perfectly fine and theyre allowed to do that. Public libraries aren't private.

slibhb2• 11 months ago

It is notably weird to react to this article by criticizing "free speech absolutists". Who are the people you're criticizing? Be specific. Free speech absolutists are mostly principled people who want to defend civil liberties while getting flak from the right and left.

An example of this is FIRE -- which was massively criticized by progressives for suing colleges over anti-conservative speech codes, DEI statements, etc. But FIRE has behavred in a princicpled manner and has sued conservatives and the Trump administration over civil liberties violations.

kstrauser2• 11 months ago

Free speech absolutists are mostly principled people who want to defend civil liberties

I genuinely laughed out loud here. As a Mastodon operator, when I see another new instance describe itself as “free speech absolutists”, it means they’re about to fill up with 2 things: Nazis (as in, literally swastikas and “Jews are oppressing me!” memes) and drawings of Japanese 8 year olds in lingerie.

Every. Single. Time.

QuadmasterXLII• 11 months ago

Scott alexander and Zvi were the saddest cases- had a lot of respect for them a while back.

Oh and musk of course but I think that's ketamine poisoning, not long-planned betrayal.

zeroonetwothree11• 11 months ago

I’m really happy FIRE still exists now that the ACLU has abandoned all semblance of principles. I can’t imagine them litigating the Skokie case today.

epistasis22• 11 months ago

Free speech absolutists are mostly principled people who want to defend civil liberties

If this were true, where were they on this clear case of government censorship?

Check out this thread, and the single person admitting to be an "absolutist" seems to have no opposition to this law at all, and merely wants to defend limits to speech.

Free speech "absolutists" are the least principled defenders of free speech, but they may have extremely right-wing principles they are trying to defend. Others here have given examples of high-profile "absolutists" but I'm talking about those I encounter online mostly, such as in this thread.

UncleMeat• 11 months ago

FIRE is still spending the bulk of their media outreach complaining about the left. Yes, they aren't totally without principle but it is very clear that they treat threats to speech from the left and right very very differently.

ModernMech6• 11 months ago

Remember the part of the book where "love" is really "war" and "freedom" is really "slavery"? It's like that. "Absolute free speech" is really "only party-approved speech".

SilverElfin6• 11 months ago

This story doesn’t have anything to do with free speech, because it isn’t a book ban. It’s about what public libraries spend money on and put on their shelves. You can still buy these books yourself, so clearly they aren’t banned or censored. Why can’t the state decide what to keep in libraries they fund?

Let’s not pretend the default situation is uncensored. Librarians are mostly politically skewed to the left, as is their organization (ALA). Walk into libraries in most cities and you’ll find books on the main shelves pushing political ideas from one side, associated with movements like DEI, BLM, LGBTQ, etc. But you won’t find the other side on those shelves.

And that’s the issue. Public money is being used by activist librarians, who practice “critical librarianship”, to basically censor the other side. Changes to public libraries are intended to correct that bias.

dogleash2• 11 months ago

My highschool had banned books. That's what got me into the free speech thing in the first place. But sure, make me republican in your mind because whatever.

It's attitudes like yours that discourage me from wanting to show up for the cause anymore.

epistasis22• 11 months ago

You seem to be making a bunch of unwarranted assumptions about what's in my mind, and getting upset about that, but I can't even imagine what your assumptions are. Your only stated assumption, about me thinking you are "Republican," is false, and not at all contained in my comment.

If you are motivated towards free speech action because of banned books don't you think I would suppprt you in that?! That's the entire thrust of my comment, I think people fighting for free speech are great, and based on the information you provided you seem to be doing that!

UmGuys6• 11 months ago

It's marketing. Usually free speech absolutists just want to be able to say bigoted things. Often, they're simply racist.

People are very volatile and polarized because of their social media's marketing. GOP marketing is insane. They're marketed as fiscally responsible, good for the economy, conservative, pro free speech, pro liberty, capitalist, and recently anti-war. And somehow people believe that despite reality. I can't grasp how anyone could ever support someone so awful as Trump. The man is a pathetic spoiled rotten bully in clown face who can barely string together a coherent sentence. Not to mention all the (sex) crime.

xrd• 11 months ago

This is not just a few rogue FL citizens trying to ban books. This is spearheaded by the Florida government itself. The education commissioner is Anastasios Kamoutsas, appointed by DeSantis. Given that a culture war is a great way to market yourself to voters, expect appeals.

guywithahat3• 11 months ago

Maybe, but at the same time there is a serious issue with adult/sexual content in fictional books with no real historical or scientific value. Saying kids have to have access to books about how to perform bj's is a losing argument. If a parent wants their kid to have access to such books they should buy them themselves (although I'd like to think CPS would give them a ring), and we shouldn't conflate what's obscene for an 6 year old to what's obscene for a 30 year old

Vegenoid• 11 months ago

Saying kids have to have access to books about how to perform bj's is a losing argument.

This isn't the argument, which is why it didn't lose. The argument is that the law was too broad and banned books that have long been considered to have great literary value. Did you see the list of books that have been banned as a result of this bill in the article? The bill does not allow consideration of literary value (a.k.a. the rest of the book, and its role in history), it only considers some sexual content in the book in isolation. It also applied to the entire school system, these books were being banned from high school libraries.

const_cast5• 11 months ago

Maybe, but at the same time there is a serious issue with adult/sexual content in fictional books with no real historical or scientific value.

Is there? Because I've heard this and everytime it's been an hallucination.

And also text on a page is not sexual. Its true that literary classics like "Kite Runner" include rape. But that's not a sexual book.

Is there actual, literal smut on school library shelves? Almost certainly not.

Its not a problem of sexual content, but rather a cultural problem of extreme prudism and purity culture, coupled with religious extremism.

63• 11 months ago

It was surprising to me just how many of the banned books have immense literary value. The Color Purple, The Handmaid's Tale, The Kite Runner, etc. aren't random books that may be a little obscene, they're literary classics. In my opinion this is what makes it obvious that these bans were made in bad faith.

bigfishrunning7• 11 months ago

Yes, extremely bad faith. These books are upsetting, and show a very ugly side of humanity, but they're not obscene.

zozbot234• 11 months ago

These books are upsetting, and show a very ugly side of humanity

Funnily enough, that's exactly what "obscene" means in popular parlance. On the other hand, the legal standard for what should be considered obscene is so inherently uncertain and varies so much across time and place that it's just meaningless to say anything that purports to be definitive about that.

btilly5• 11 months ago

There is a lot of evidence that engaging emotionally with literature will shift people's values. In a way that engaging with intellectual ideas does not.

These are not just literary classics, they carry a specific culture forward. People whose values are threatened by that culture need to not engage with them. They do so by finding things to be offended by in the books. In many cases the offence is perfectly genuine. It is caused by cognitive dissonance, and not cynical manipulation.

That doesn't make it less frustrating. But understanding why people have trouble with these works helps build empathy for them. And empathy is necessary to present your points in a way that is persuasive to their views. Yelling in anger at them is easy. Actually changing their minds is far harder. And it does require trying to understand.

tremon5• 11 months ago

[flagged]

nerdjon3• 11 months ago

While I can understand the side that you are coming from. One of the biggest failures I have seen from my friends is demonizing anyone that may have voted for tump and these people, and refusing to have a conversation. Immediately labeling them as racist for example (which I don't think is necessarily untrue for many of them, but when we know there are black people that voted for Trump that argument as a blanket statement gets harder to make).

I strongly believe that for many people just doing this is causing them to dig into their heels and instead of examining themselves they are pushed to being on the defensive trying to say they are not racist, homophobic, sexist, whatever. Which is not getting us anywhere and is just making both sides angrier.

There are the extremes, people that have the power that are pushing things like this. But then there are the manipulated. Those that are being told lies and being encouraged to vote a certain why because they simply are only seeing part of the picture. Maybe they don't have exposure to the world. Whatever.

While I do respect someone's right to protect their own mental health and not want to engage in a conversation with many of these people, these conversations do need to happen. I truly believe that the majority of people are nowhere near as vile as those in power right now are. So we need to understand why they are enabling them.

That being said...

It is a very fine line. Too much empathy can lead to them thinking that this is ok, there does need to be some force in a push back against what is happening right now. Pushing back on the misinformation that is causing many people to hold these views.

So yes we can try to understand where these views are coming from without giving them weight as being valid.

nancyminusone• 11 months ago

I don't think changing their minds is a requirement. They are allowed to not like something, but they shouldn't be able to ban it.

mlinhares2• 11 months ago

Sorry for the vocabulary here but this is bullshit. The people submitting the banned books here have stated multiple times they have never read most/all the books they have asked for banning and are being driven by lists built by political entities like Moms for America.

There is no genuine offense here, they don't even know what the books are about other than someone saying "its LGBT". It is just cynical manipulation and hate.

gosub1004• 11 months ago

I'm frankly surprised that kids read books at all. With video games and smartphones and all this attention-draining junk, I would like to see how many books are actually read per 100 kids per month. I would be surprised if it even runs into the double digits.

whimsicalism4• 11 months ago

it doesn’t matter whether kids read books, all that matters is parents and how they vote.

also stats on book reading are notoriously cooked, look at how many books publishers claim the median American reads.

bryanlarsen3• 11 months ago

Outliers skew averages. I know a couple of kids that read dozens of books per month.

terminalshort11• 11 months ago

Why limit it to kids? My brain and attention span is so rotted from the internet that I find it immensely difficult these days too.

Der_Einzige• 11 months ago

Most good books are subversive towards the goals of education. I couldn't believe when they unironically asked me to read "Pedegogy of the Oppressed" and than tried to give grades on it.

Trying to give grades to kids for Oscar Wilde's work is fully against the spirit of his thinking. Trying to grade kids for a whole lot of modern "classics" also goes against the spirit of their thinking. Joyce was too busy writing horny smut to be a supporter of literary analysis of his work.

But more seriously, most young adult fiction is pretty low quality. I cringe pretty hard when I look back at what that genre had us reading at the time. Percy Jackson and Eoin Colfer are poster children for the millennial brain rot that ended our collective love of YAF. We are a far cry from the high point it hit under the excellent writing of a certain Brian Jacques

makeitdouble• 11 months ago

attention-draining junk

To put it plainly, this attitude is probably the main reason reading books is sometimes labelled as an elitist poser passtime.

Kids will enjoy reading books that are genuinely good, but they need to care about the subject in the first place and they'll come for more on their own term. Focusing on the numbers ("X books per months") or denigrating the other things they also enjoy solely based on the format will just signal no shit is given about the actual content.

nilamo• 11 months ago

No bans are needed at all then. If "nobody" reads, then "bad" books can't hurt anyone.

TimTheTinker3• 11 months ago

these bans were made in bad faith

It's possible that the worst of these bans were done in strategic bad faith in partnership with the plaintiffs: to provide standing and legal cause for the plaintiffs to sue.

There may have been bans made that were reasonable but politically one-sided (perhaps an illustrated kamasutra, just to give an example), and the strategy to re-establish them was a sort of reverse motte-and-bailey -- get things that are far more innocent banned in a bid to sue and reverse all bans.

rideontime2• 11 months ago

A lot of things are "possible." Do you have any evidence to support this version of events?

skrebbel2• 11 months ago

It's standard Trumpian negotiation. Ban lots of books, outrage ensues, courts get involved, some books get unbanned. But not all!

dfxm123• 11 months ago

Also par for the course: lots of wasted taxpayer money.

zeroonetwothree11• 11 months ago

I don’t think Trump was directly involved in this law? We don’t need to invoke his name merely as an epithet.

dfxm123• 11 months ago

[flagged]

AlexandrB• 11 months ago

They've been transparent about their desires to censor media.

100% agree, but what's frustrating is that "the left" are not much better. We get things like the rewriting[1] of Roald Dahl's books based on the feedback from "sensitivity readers".

I don't really know who to vote for to stop stuff like this. No political party seems to be on the side of a principled defence of freedom of speech. Instead it's always about censoring your opponents and their ideas while you're in power.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl_revision_controvers...

thewileyone• 11 months ago

They don't want to have to pay royalties to Margaret Atwood when they implement the handmaids headgear.

tomrod8• 11 months ago

Absolutely.

There has been an organizing current in US politics around the theology and political theory of dominionism -- that a certain set of related religions have a responsibility to take over governmental authority in order to make the law support their particular belief set so that things they view as sinful are not supported, or actively discouraged, by the legal framework.

The people supporting this political wave tend to be extremely triumphalist in their personal religious zeal, unwilling to make compromises, and are iconoclastic and disrespectful to most outside their in-group.

Much like other iconoclasts and zealots, they rely on the pluralistic principle of toleration to force the paradox of tolerance to bend their way.

It's shame - pluralism is much more invigorating and no one forces lifestyles they disagree with onto dominionists.

SilverElfin6• 11 months ago

There has been an organizing current in US politics around the theology and political theory of dominionism -- that a certain set of related religions have a responsibility to take over governmental authority in order to make the law support their particular belief set so that things they view as sinful are not supported, or actively discouraged, by the legal framework.

Reading your comment, I feel like the word religion is misleading. You see the same dynamic in how progressive political ideology, despite it not having to do with a god, has been introduced into many layers of government and other institutions. All the things said here can be demonstrated for the religious right but also the non religious left. It’s less about religion in my opinions, and more about how politics is about winning by controlling institutions instead of supporting individual freedoms.

jrs2353• 11 months ago

If they are, or consider themselves, libertarian they are royal libertarians (not georgists) and therefore "might makes right" and "live free" means violence. A belief in "four legs good, two legs better".

burnte• 11 months ago

[flagged]

m463• 11 months ago

Sometimes I kind of wonder if putting important books on the list would be a measured way to overturn broken or unjust laws.

Sort of like adding "Common Sense", "The Grapes of Wrath" or "The Pentagon Papers", etc.

insane_dreamer3• 11 months ago

Those three were banned? wtaf

alkyon• 11 months ago

I don't know if this was bad faith or not, but honestly, you need to be a bigoted retard to ban Slaughterhouse-Five of all the things.

The side effect of this is that some literary classics will enjoy a brief surge in popularity among young people.

TimTheTinker3• 11 months ago

they're literary classics

Reasonable people wouldn't ask to get these book banned. What if people colluding with the publishers got them banned as part of a larger strategy?

I have no evidence to support that hypothesis; it's just very odd for literary classics to have been banned.

shepherdjerred• 11 months ago

Wow, I can't believe The Handmaid’s Tale was on the list. That book is excellent and not offensive at all

AntiEgo• 11 months ago

It's offensive to the people who are trying to build the Republic of Gilead.

jwally5• 11 months ago

Is the Bible still ok???

--------------------

Genesis 16:4 – “And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived…” (Abram and Hagar)

Genesis 29:23 – “…and he went in unto her.” (Jacob and Leah)

Genesis 30:4 – “…and Jacob went in unto her.” (Jacob and Bilhah)

Ruth 4:13 – “…and he went in unto her, and the LORD gave her conception…” (Boaz and Ruth)

Variants & related euphemisms

Genesis 38:16 – “…he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee…” (Judah and Tamar)

2 Samuel 11:4 – “And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her…” (David and Bathsheba)

Leviticus 18:6+ – “uncover nakedness” is repeated as a sexual euphemism.

Genesis 38:9 – “…when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground…” (Onan; explicit ejaculation reference).

bigfishrunning7• 11 months ago

I don't think the bible is in public school libraries -- if it is (as historical literature), it's probably unconstitutional to teach from it or promote it.

jjallen• 11 months ago

The Ten Commandments are required to be posted on every public school wall in Texas. You would have guessed that that is also unconstitutional

epistasis22• 11 months ago

The Bible is commonly in public schools, as are other religious books.

Having a book available does not mean promoting it or establishing it as a religion.

jameshart• 11 months ago

I would be shocked if any library didn’t have bibles in its collection. It’s crucial reference material.

linotype• 11 months ago

it's probably unconstitutional to teach from it or promote it

https://oklahoma.gov/education/newsroom/2025/march/despite-c...

The Constitution only applies if there are people able and willing to enforce it.

bryanlarsen3• 11 months ago

The bible is a crucial piece of literature reference. Pretty much every literary piece written before the middle of the 20th century assumed that their reader was also intimately familiar with the bible.

For example, a writer could call a woman a "Jezebel" without any expository context, assuming that the reader would know what that meant.

Thus the bible should be in every high school and higher education library.

asadotzler2• 11 months ago

You thought wrong. Visit a library sometime to see otherwise. Various Bibles can be found in many public libraries.

jccalhoun• 11 months ago

It was totally in my library when I was in high school in the late 80s but I was in a small school in the midwest.

projektfu• 11 months ago

My public school library had several Bible versions, a couple Quran versions, and probably some Buddhist and Hindu texts of interest, though I didn't look for them. Why shouldn't they have these in the library?

dylan6044• 11 months ago

You mean like the new Texas state law going into effect Sept 1 that says each class room must display the ten commandments and specifies the minimum size of the display would be unconstitutional. Also, unconstitutional by what definition? I'm guessing the current SCOTUS would not agree with your assessment.

zeroonetwothree11• 11 months ago

Surely not, while it would be unconstitutional to present it as the correct religious view it is totally fine to teach it as part of a general literary overview. It’s been far too important to Western literature to omit entirely.

danpelota• 11 months ago

Ezekiel 23:20 - "There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses."

kjkjadksj• 11 months ago

Now that would make a great Bible verse bumper sticker

jwally5• 11 months ago

from the article: >Since its passage in 2023, Florida schools have removed hundreds of books under House Bill 1069 (HB 1069). HB 1069 required that school librarians remove materials from their collections that contain “sexual content,” regardless of the value of the book.

yencabulator5• 11 months ago

Did they remove the Christian bibles too?

krapp• 11 months ago

Lol, of course the Bible is always OK, but you can find much worse.

    And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. –  Genesis 19:33–36.

    And when she had brought them unto him to eat, he took hold of her, and said unto her, Come lie with me, my sister. And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly. And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? and as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee. Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her. –  2 Samuel 13:11–14

    Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.  - Isaiah 13:16.

    And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms. She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men. Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way, And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion, Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity: And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea. And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them. So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister. Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth. - Ezekiel 23:11-21

    But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. – Numbers 31:18

It's OK because there's no gay stuff. Just good old fashioned heterosexual rape and incest, as God intended.

FrustratedMonky2• 11 months ago

So for LOT. Is it ok if the daughters initiate it? What is the lessen here? Is it trying to make some point about, better to keep the family going if there aren't any other men around?

jwally5• 11 months ago

Deuteronomy 22:28–29.

“If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.”

Rapin' is ok if she doesn't belong to someone else (theft) and you have $50. Also HIS penalty is that HE has to marry HER.

acephal2• 11 months ago

Don't forget the story in Judges where a Hebrew assasin stabs an obese Canaanite king in the gut and he shits himself but his guards outside the room were already used to him shitting himself so ignored the smell.

jwally5• 11 months ago

Judges 19–21. The account of the Levite and his concubine:

A Levite from the hill country of Ephraim goes to retrieve his concubine from her father’s house in Bethlehem.

On their return journey, they stop for the night in Gibeah, a Benjamite town.

The townsmen surround the house, demanding to “know” the man (sexual violence implied, similar to Genesis 19 with Lot).

The host refuses and offers his own virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine instead.

The mob abuses the concubine all night; she collapses at the doorway and dies by morning.

The Levite tells her to get up, sees she’s dead, then cuts her body into twelve pieces and sends them throughout Israel to rally the tribes against Benjamin.

dylan6044• 11 months ago

These are okay, because it's not explicit and in your face. "unto her" is such outdated language that it is rather tame by modern standards. Actual reasoning I've been told by people that support banning of books.

Also, anytime you are to the point of asking if the words from the bible are 'ok', you've already lost the argument with the person you are talking to. The bible is infallible, so of course it is okay. You cannot use it as evidence against their point. Ever. It is a waste of breath on your part.

rsynnott2• 11 months ago

Oh, that's just the tame stuff.

Ezekiel 23:20: "There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses."

(Somehow I find the need to involve two different equines particularly off-putting.)

glitchc• 11 months ago

Kite Runner and the Handmaids Tale talk about child sexual abuse. I'm not condoning the ban, just pointing out that these two are not the same thing.

Worth adding: Making the Bible available to common folk was also hotly contested at the time. The Puritans lost that fight and I suspect they will eventually lose this one too.

rurp• 11 months ago

Don't forget Ezekiel 23:20!

"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses."

The bible doesn't always use archaic language or euphemisms.

DudeOpotomus2• 11 months ago

At no time in human history have the people who banned books been on the good side.

Levitz6• 11 months ago

You might want to look up how denazification efforts worked post ww2.

tgv2• 11 months ago

Banning Mein Kampf was not on the bad side of history. It's rarely black and white.

asadotzler2• 11 months ago

Which books on the list covered in this article are equivalents of Mein Kampf in mid-century Germany? I'll save you the effort. The answer is "none of them." That makes it pretty black and white for me. There's not some massive overlap here that makes it all shades of gray. The two situations and the works of literature are entirely different and the Germany case is an abberation, an exception, and hardly a good basis for drawing global conclusions. It is black and white. Either you're for or against the wholesale banning of books or you're for it. Countering with "but this one time in this one place" is hardly convincing.

fabian2k• 11 months ago

It's not actually banned in Germany. Though I think the only edition you can buy here is annotated, which does seem like a good idea.

Barrin92• 11 months ago

Being German I think it's important to point out that possession of Mein Kampf or reading it was never banned, the idea wasn't to hide some evil esoteric secret knowledge from the German people, to a large extent it was a pragmatic decision because the state did not want Neo-Nazis to benefit financially from the sales of Hitlers legacy, so they just held on to the copyright and didn't print it. There are now since 2016 annotated academic versions of it.

Also you have to have a very cartoonish view of people think we're like the Hulk and turn green the moment you come across a copy of Mein Kampf, denazification was a broad cultural project, not a binary thing about one text.

The primary struggle with that book is actually reading it because it's simply horrid. If you wanted to prevent Germans from turning to nationalism you'd probably have taken Thomas Mann's political writings off the shelves.

guywithahat3• 11 months ago

Although I hate to get political on HN, barely 20 years ago Democrats were the ones banning books in school for being too "culturally insensitive", while republicans were the ones who opposed book banning in schools. One would argue at least banning (often recently written) books with adult content/porn makes sense, saying a classic is "culturally insensitive" and banning it is just another word for political indoctrination

prox2• 11 months ago

Banning should be an extreme measure only applied in some extremely limited form for the shortest duration possible, if ever. For instance when the book is directly being used to institute violence or hate. While porn should be restricted, it should be in the hands of parents, not the state. Same with abortion, a deeply personal matter, not in the hands of the state or whatever some church things, just because they think they are right. Justice should be blind, not carry a bible or creed.

It should appear evident, and a pretty apolitical stance, but here we are.

amanaplanacanal6• 11 months ago

Political parties seem irrelevant here. Let educators rather than politicians decide which books should be in a school library.

Which laws did Democrats pass calling for books to be removed from schools? I admit I'm not always paying attention, but I don't remember any.

archagon2• 11 months ago

Can you be more specific? What books were being banned on the state level for being culturally insensitive?

DudeOpotomus2• 11 months ago

Associating good vs evil with politics and perhaps worse, political party's themselves is a problem.

Why do people associate these disparate things? Because they've been trained to...

Sadly, this tribalism is at the root of most of our civil disagreements these days.

tomrod8• 11 months ago

Although I hate to get political on HN, barely 20 years ago Democrats were the ones banning books in school for being too "culturally insensitive"

And it was rightfully opposed by the majority and by folks who understand the tenability of our rights to the whims of authoritarians, as many, many, many of the actions of the current administration should be.

const_cast5• 11 months ago

I mean you're comparing the color purple and fucking mein Kampf or the literary equivalent of song of the south.

Come on man. These aren't the same thing. Not everything is the same as everything else because you can torture the principle to vaguely fit both.

Suppafly• 11 months ago

Although I hate to get political on HN, barely 20 years ago Democrats were the ones banning books in school for being too "culturally insensitive", while republicans were the ones who opposed book banning in schools

Source? I was an adult alive 20 years ago, that wasn't a thing.

zeroonetwothree11• 11 months ago

It seems like every side wants to ban content nowadays. It’s really quite sad. One side wants to ban books with two men kissing and the other books that use the wrong pronouns.

Although if that’s what you meant then I agree.

ModernMech6• 11 months ago

One side wants to ban books with two men kissing and the other books that use the wrong pronouns.

One of these things is happening and the other is not (no one is banning or endeavors to ban anyone from using the wrong pronouns).

tomrod8• 11 months ago

"Wrong" pronouns -- what does this even mean?

I feel like there are a lot of conservatives who are unaware about what sex and gender actually are, and rather than looking for understanding they prefer to mock because they are lazy and chose the easy route rather than understanding other people.

Real rough to have a society when one side just wants to openly mock the other.

const_cast5• 11 months ago

With these "both sides" arguments why is it always "heres thing one, which is definitely happening and has been for decades. And here's thing two, which could hypothetically happen but never has and almost certainly never will"

I mean, it's absurd. It feels like a psyop. Is this a targeted propaganda campaign?

UmGuys6• 11 months ago

Stop trying to both sides. I see crazed MAGAs banning books here and I would bet if we look at numbers the crazies censor at least an order of magnitude more than whatever you're referencing. I can't think of an example of books being banned by non rightwingers, but will look into it now to learn.

UmGuys6• 11 months ago

Apparently, recently this is new and exclusively Republican policy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_banning_in_the_United_Sta...

Republicans are seeking to ban thousands of books nationwide.

gameman144• 11 months ago

I mean, if there really was a book that was too harmful to allow at all and it was successfully banned, we likely wouldn't know about it at this point.

I am extremely against book banning, but the possibility of some time in history where they really needed to disallow access to a book seems at least _possible_.

nerdjon3• 11 months ago

Well... it is nice to get some good news on this front but I can't shake that this is likely short lived given the federal government right now...

There is less and less any reason for them to try to hide their true intentions and can just be more open with their blatant racism, sexism, homophobia, etc etc.

Side note: was quite surprised to see a reference to Cloud Atlas. While not surprised given the entire point of that book, it makes me wonder how much these people are actually reading these books and what that looks like.

antonymoose2• 11 months ago

Well it’s not over yet, this will likely go through many rounds of back and forth appeals since it’s not clear what obligation Florida has to the public in policing content it purchases. It’s not as if they banned you from buying the books, after all.

epistasis22• 11 months ago

Seems like they could rely on the librarian to make decisions, then if there's a problem have the administration deal with it, and escalate as normal...

Rather than big government via vague laws that allow random people to control everything in schools.

duxup• 11 months ago

The other route, rather than ban books is to threaten librarians with prosecution so they do the job for legislators, perhaps just out of fear:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/us/north-dakota-books-obs...

whimsicalism4• 11 months ago

i was a voracious reader as a child (and still largely am) and can’t remember ever touching a school library (most of the books stocked were stupid). wonder if this is different in Florida

briandw• 11 months ago

Very few people that I talk to are truly in favor of free speech as a principle. They are either in favor of free speech in cases like this, where christians are banning books that they like, and not in favor when it’s about political correctness (misgendering, banning words, hate speech etc) or vice versa. Free speech for me and not for thee seems to order of the day.

tstrimple2• 11 months ago

Excellent use of false equivalency. The people banning books are pretty much the same as the people who prefer that you use pronouns they see themselves as! One side actually getting these resolutions in place in writing in law versus people complaining online about being misgendered! It seems like you aren't truly in favor of free speech as a principle after all. You don't seem to want people to have the right to complain about being misgendered or about hateful speech. Why do you want to silence people who espouse these things?

Or do you actually have some delusion that Democrats have banned words and hate speech?

Refreeze5224• 11 months ago

Only fascists ban books.

chrisco2553• 11 months ago

This isn't a book ban, you can still buy these on Amazon, in Barnes & Nobles, borrow from local libraries, etc.

cosmicgadget• 11 months ago

"You can just buy in to freedom of expression!"

Yes, this is not as bad as a making the books illegal.

JohnMakin• 11 months ago

The Bible has tons of sexual content, yet something tells me the same parents appealing to get these books removed take no issue with that one.

rayiner4• 11 months ago

There is a high likelihood this ruling gets overturned. The title and the article use the term “book ban” but gloss over what’s actually happening which is legally significant:

HB 1069 required that school librarians remove materials from their collections that contain “sexual content,” regardless of the value of the book

Florida cannot ban private libraries from stocking books with sexual content. But librarians are government employees buying books and maintaining libraries with government money. The state can direct its employees what kinds of books to make available for the same reason any private entity can do so.

This might be different if libraries were neutral venues for authors to come present about their books. In that case you might have a case about viewpoint discrimination. But the first amendment can’t force the government to buy particular books and make them available to the public.

jmull2• 11 months ago

The state can direct its employees what kinds of books to make available for the same reason any private entity can do so.

Not according to the constitution.

rayiner4• 11 months ago

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/government_speech

fknorangesite2• 11 months ago

remove materials from their collections that contain “sexual content,”

Where "sexual content" includes the mere existence of LGBTQ people at all.

CalChris• 11 months ago

Florida cannot ban private libraries from stocking books with sexual content.

From the statute, "As used in this subsection, the term “school property” means the grounds or facility of any kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, junior high school, or secondary school, whether public or nonpublic."

etchalon3• 11 months ago

The first amendment cannot force the government to buy specific books, but it can force the government not to not buy specific books.

And sure, that's weird, but it's just how the First Amendment works.

rayiner4• 11 months ago

No that’s not how the first amendment works. You’re thinking of situations where the government offers a platform to the public and can only impose viewpoint-neutral restrictions on access to the public forum. So the government couldn’t operate a government-owned sales platform for books and discriminate based on viewpoint.

The books stocked in government libraries is more like the government speech doctrine: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/government_speech. The government itself is allowed to have a viewpoint.

treetalker• 11 months ago

I, for one, am shocked — shocked! — that the Florida Legislature and the DeSantis administration would violate the Constitution of the United States of America. Clearly some rogue agent in the library deep state must be to blame.

chrisco2553• 11 months ago

They didn't violate the constitution. There was no ban on books, there was an exclusion of specific titles from school libraries (which is nothing new), which are run by the State of Florida. There is no obligation that schools carry any particular book at all. If I write a book, I cannot compel my book to be carried by the state in school libraries.

amanaplanacanal6• 11 months ago

This judge just ruled that they did violate the Constitution. You are arguing a case that was already decided.

rsynnott2• 11 months ago

HB 1069 required that school librarians remove materials from their collections that contain “sexual content,” regardless of the value of the book.

... So, that would be approximately every great work of literature, every important religious text... I mean, what does this leave? This seems _incredibly_ broad; even when censorship of books for obscenity was routine, there was pretty much always a getout for "yeah, but it's Proper Serious Literature".

Like, what books are on the curriculum for English students in Florida? Just the Very Hungry Caterpillar?

It also allowed parents or county residents to raise objections to material, which then would need to be removed within five days of the objection and remain unavailable until the book was formally reviewed.

Again, wtf? Surely this would allow anyone sufficiently motivated to just run a DOS attack.

dinfinity• 11 months ago

Ignore the insanity of banning books for a second. What about the Victorian-era insanity of preventing children from being exposed to the mere concept of sex and labeling it 'obscenity'?

On one hand we want kids to learn about consent, what 'normal sex' is like and all that, but simultaneously there is this idiotic push to prevent them from encountering any of it until they are 18. If we don't want kids to see bad porn, we need to ensure that there is lots of good porn available, and not just some boring sex ed bullshit. I mean actual benign everyday sex that kids can safely watch and learn from because otherwise they will never see it anywhere else (it's not like they regularly watch their parents or other people do it).

You have to be incredibly regressive to think 18 is somehow a good cutoff for this.

lotyrin• 11 months ago

What I've come to realize (despite avoiding such a negative conclusion) is that the dominant culture's experience with sex seems to be mostly limited to that which includes problematic power dynamics (e.g. mainstream porn, captive housewives as an ideal). They do not have a solid concept of consent. Sex is shameful to them because their concept of sex is, literally, shameful and exploitation is at the core of it.

Concrete and overt examples being unable to imagine someone being sexually liberated, a woman, and a feminist all at the same time (they see sex as inherently demeaning to women), or seeing male sexual success on a "nice guy virgin" (unsuccessful through insufficient exploitation) or "man-slut womanizer" (success through excessive exploitation) spectrum. (Even the word "womanizer" bakes this assumption in, to be made a woman, woman-ized, is to be exploited?)

It appears in popular discourse around trans individuals (choosing to present as a woman means you must have a sexual fantasy about being exploited, we can't expose that idea to children). Around homosexuality (so which one of you is the exploitative one). And around polyamory (you must have a cuckold kink because nobody would let someone exploit their partner otherwise).

But this same dynamic also appears in a more subtle form in daily interactions in the culture and shuts down sexual topics or behavior. It's somewhat analogous to the situation of shushing a white toddler that points out the race of a non-white person because it's "rude" - you've made it apparent that you think non-whiteness is something inherently uncomfortable for a non-white person to have pointed out so you try to "spare" them this.

tracker1• 11 months ago

I'm surprised at the books mentioned in the article. While potentially inappropriate for elementary aged children are probably more than okay for teens and high school aged. The restrictions themselves without context, review requirements or any rigorous standards is likely excessive.

That said, there are definitely examples of books that have been put into school libraries that can be considered obscene, that you can't post screenshots of on Facebook or other social media platforms, or quote or otherwise read into a school board or city council meeting. Such as graphically depicting a minor student giving fellatio to a teacher. That are wholly inappropriate in any school setting.

And that isn't to restrict a parent who decides to allow their child access to this kind of material, if deemed mature enough to handle it. Only in that it doesn't belong in a public or school library. They simply aren't meant for children. Aside, I'm even open to an "adult" section of libraries that do offer mature content access/storage for adults, such as Playboy, which has a history of decent journalism.

insane_dreamer3• 11 months ago

I presume FL banned the Bible too, which is full of sexual content (but they probably don't know that since Christians don't actually read the Bible).

noirchen• 11 months ago

Banning books is not something new, but I think Florida has some 'unique' criteria when banning certain books. One example I know is Jackson County, FL. once banned 1984 for being "pro-communist". In most places of the world, 1984 is considered anti-totalitarian, and anti-communist in quite a few countries (not China, where people can buy the book without any hassle). I totally get it, but Jackson County seems to be the only place that sees the book to be procommuist.

rahimnathwani• 11 months ago

This is very interesting.

The folks deciding to order the books and make them available are government employees.

The folks seeking to prevent those employees from doing that are also government employees.

AFAICT none of the parties are seeking to control what books private citizens procure themselves in their personal capacity.

If we accept that governments are going to run schools, some set of government employees is going to decide which books they buy, right?

"None of These Books Are Obscene": Judge Strikes Down Much of FL's Book Ban Bill

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