by Kerry Dougherty
Get ready. Any minute now, local lefties will have their hair on fire. They’ll be screaming about book banning and censorship.
They will be wrong.
Circuit Court Judge Pamela Baskerville’s finding Wednesday that there is probable cause that two books available in Virginia Beach Public Schools are “obscene for unrestricted viewing by minors” hardly amounts to book banning. It means children shouldn’t have access to the novels without parental approval.
Baskerville is a retired judge from Petersburg who was brought in to hear the case after Virginia Beach Circuit Court judges recused themselves.
The books in question, “Gender Queer, A Memoir,” by Maia Kobabe and, “A Court of Mist and Fury,” by Sarah J. Maas are sexually explicit and entirely inappropriate for young kids. Anyone who’s glanced at them can see that.
The fact that a judge agrees is a win.
Just ask Delegate Tim Anderson, R-Virginia Beach, the lawyer who asked the court to declare the two books obscene for minors on behalf of his client, Tommy Altman, a small business owner who’s running in the 2nd District Congressional Republican primary next month.
“This is a big deal,” Anderson told me yesterday. “Smut is being allowed in schools and parents have nothing to say about it.”
“The question is, how did these books get into the schools to begin with?” he asked. Good question.
“Gender Queer” is a graphic novel. It’s been in the news and chances are you’ve seen some of the explicit drawings in this book. Virginia Beach schools this week decided to remove it from library shelves after a panel of school board members declared it “pervasively vulgar.”
“A Court of Mist and Fury,” is a lesser-known tome. It’s described on Amazon as a “young adult fantasy” but a lengthy excerpt, on Tim Anderson’s Facebook page, reveals a shockingly raw description of intercourse between a man and a woman. Hardly new ground until you realize that Anderson says this book is on the shelves at Lynnhaven Middle School.
That means it’s accessible to grades 6-8.
One reviewer on Amazon had this to say about the Maas book: “This book is rated for grade 10 and up but let me tell ya, this is probably the most adult-young-adult novel I’ve ever read. It’s just a few steamy words away from belonging to the adult romance novel section. Quite explicit for high school age, it actually surprised me and took me off guard … long, detailed sex scenes and explicit language.”
Having read a passage, I agree.
“They’re like dirty magazines,” Anderson said of the two books.
The authors and publishers have been notified of the court’s ruling and have 21 days to respond. If the court rules that the books are obscene for “unrestricted viewing by minors,” it will be prohibited for Beach schools or bookstores to sell or loan them to kids. It will also set a legal precedent for the rest of the commonwealth.
“This is not book burning or book banning,” Anderson insists. “This is taking hypersexualized content away from minors.”
Keep going, counselor. Next do “Lawn Boy.”
This column has been republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed & Unedited.
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