Conservative-dominated court restores books denounced by officials as ‘pornographic filth’ to school libraries

Conservative-dominated court restores books denounced by officials as ‘pornographic filth’ to school libraries

An appellate court has ruled that Texas cannot ban books from libraries simply because they mention “butt and fart” and other content which some state officials may dislike.

The fifth US circuit court of appeals issued its decision on Thursday in a 76-page majority opinion, which was written by Judge Jacques Wiener Jr and opened with a quote from American poet Walt Whitman: “The dirtiest book in all the world is the expurgated book.”

In its decision, the appellate court declared that “government actors may not remove books from a public library with the intent to deprive patrons of access to ideas with which they disagree”.

  • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldEnglish
    70·
    11 months ago

    And these old farts are complaining about how “soft” today’s youth are? They really need to get their heads out of their butts.

  • vortic@lemmy.world
    38·
    11 months ago

    I think it says something that one of the books they were trying to ban was Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      11 months ago

      If you look at the books that were banned and take out all the humorous ones about butts and farts, you’re left almost exclusively with books about past conservative atrocities and books about current targets of conservative bigotry.

      The people who want to ban these books were too bigoted for the 5th Circuit. They’ll probably try to close the whole library next.

  • Aganim@lemmy.world
    28·
    11 months ago

    Imagine being all worked up about books mentioning raging obscenities like ‘butt’ and ‘fart’, only to get slapped in the face by Judge ‘Wiener’. 😂

  • TooManyFoods@lemmy.world
    18·
    11 months ago

    The desenting opinion called the court the “library police” for refusing to let the state police the library.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
    6·
    11 months ago

    Btw, I absolutely ADORE that the acronym for the system used by libraries to weed out old books is MUSTIE 😆❤️

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
        3·
        11 months ago

        Llano County applies the “MUSTIE” factors in weeding books, as recommended by experts in the field, under which a book is evaluated for whether it is (1) “Misleading and/or factually inaccurate,” (2) “Ugly (worn out beyond mending or rebinding),” (3) “Superseded by a new edition or a better source,” (4) “Trivial (of no discernable literary or scientific merit),” (5) “Irrelevant to the needs and interests of the community,” or (6) “Elsewhere (the material may be easily borrowed from another source).”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    6·
    11 months ago

    Every child between the ages of 2 and 10 would find a book with nothing but the words ‘butt’ and ‘fart’ endlessly amusing.

  • mlg@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    11 months ago

    I swear Captain Underpants already negated this like a decade ago lol

  • Nobody@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    11 months ago

    Butts make funny noises when you pass gas. Babies laugh at it. They have no idea what’s going on at all 95% of the time, but they get that farts are funny.