Iowa School District Is Using AI To Ban Books – Slashdot

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The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

My point is that just because something was pulled from the shelves or put on a “we want to ban this” list doesn’t mean it is something worth reading.
In this case, the books were already on the shelves in a public school library meaning it had to have been ordered by . . . a librarian. You would think a librarian would know something about what is worth reading.

It could still honestly be shit unworthy of the paper it’s printed on or the magnetic bits for the pdf.
Some of the books have been adapted into TV and movies so some of them were deemed worthy for adaption into other media. While some of books are not appropriate for young children, they are appropriate for high school.

The books have not been banned or burned. They are still very available. Just not in the tax payer funded school library. They’ll need to use their parent’s credit card to get them off Amazon where at least their parents will know what they’re reading. Is that bad?
Depends if you view the censorship of ideas by the government as bad. I would view that it as bad.
Yes, that is bad, where a minority of people can decide what is in libraries.
And yes, banning it from schools is defacto banning. Not everyone has credit cards and funds to buy books.
Everyone uses the library, the librarians job is to curate, not handing it to random angry, frightened people

They just created a reading list for me.
You’re going to read the bible?

They just created a reading list for me.
You’re going to read the bible?
It is an interesting read, and has probably created a lot of atheists.
And so much fun to find out the parts that modern christians don’t want to talk about. Like is it okay to get drunk and bang your daughters – maybe a three-way, that part wasn’t quite clear. Or invade the village next over, kill everyone except the virgin girls that you keep for yourself. Or pimp your daughters out to strangers.
Then finish it up with why modern christians think its fine to ignore the direct words of Jesus in the beatitudes, https://www.newsweek.com/mom-c… [newsweek.com] or have a certain man autograph their bibles as if he was the person that wrote them.

They just created a reading list for me.
There is Case history here – Index Librorum Prohibitorum or the Present day Index of Prohibited Books https://www.catholic.com/encyc… [catholic.com]
And yup, people used it as a quick and dirty guide to finding out what juicy stuff to pick up.
They didn’t say “GRAPHIC sex acts” they said “depictions of sex”.
And you say “minors”, but of course high-school libraries are covered by this: are you saying that grade 12 students shouldn’t be reading any of these books?
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Sold by Patricia McCormick
A Court of Mist and Fury (series) by Sarah J. Maas
Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Looking for Alaska by John Green
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Feed by M.T. Anderson
Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger
Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
But when parents are being kicked out of school board meetings because the books their kids are bringing home are too explicit to be discussed in public,
This is not a thing.
It’s possible some delicate rightwing snowflake religious nutjobs clutch their pearls and faint when a non-biblical mention of sex is made, but that doesn’t mean the books are “too explicit to be discussed in public”.
If you were showing these things to your neighbor’s minor child, you’d be prosecuted.
Also not true. There’s plenty of sex acts in the bible. No pastor has ever been prosecuted for reading the bible to a mixed age congregation.
No pastor has ever been prosecuted for reading the bible to a mixed age congregation.
So far. For now, they only get prosecuted for acting [imgur.com] out [imgur.com] the sex acts [imgur.com] in the bible [imgur.com].
But when parents are being kicked out of school board meetings because the books their kids are bringing home are too explicit to be discussed in public,
This is not a thing
Really? [yahoo.com] (video version [youtube.com])
If you were showing these things to your neighbor’s minor child, you’d be prosecuted.
Also not true. There’s plenty of sex acts in the bible. No pastor has ever been prosecuted for reading the bible to a mixed age congregation.
There are no descriptions of sex acts, as defined by the Iowa statutes, in the bible. Th
The key problem is this line:
“does not include any material with descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act as defined in section 702.17.”
Ed Tibbetts from the Iowa Capital Dispatch wrote about it here:
https://iowacapitaldispatch.co… [iowacapitaldispatch.com]
‘In fact, the Senate explicitly rejected the idea that the descriptions be “graphic.” The House passed an amendment to make that clear, but it never made it into the law. So, what does “description” of a sex act mean?
This is where things go off the rails. As Mr. Tibbetts wrote, Sophie’s choice was originally on the banned list but was removed. That book absolutely contains descriptions of the content listed in 702.17. The same with 1984. It was also originally on the banned list, as was Ulysses and the Catcher in the Rye. Per the law, all of those books *should* be banned.
So why was Sophie’s choice and 1984 un-banned, but The Color Purple wasn’t?
“And as we get that feedback we review it on a case by case basis and determine how to appropriately respond.”
The law is working exactly as it was intended to work. It is overly draconian, but exceptions are made for books that are well known or well liked, while it can be selectively applied to books that those in power want to ban. It’s playing out exactly as they wanted it to.

Many of these books had been flying under the radar for years or decades, and basically no one cared.
Um what? Some of these books are national best sellers. Some of them are Pulitzer prize winners. Some of them have been adapted into movies and TV. People cared; you did not.

Grade 12 children are still minors, their parents should decide what books they want, and I’m sure Iowa hasn’t banned the parents from lending them at a library or buying them from Amazon. Besides that, never heard of most but 2 of those books, I have read quite a few writers on the list but the ones I know write activist pieces of crap so I never bothered reading more.
This is the attitude that produces truly unhinged adults that are unprepared for the horrors of the real world when the same parents turf them out on their 18th birthday.

I bet they’re the same parents who say out of the other side of their mouth “we coddle kids too much these days”.

I suspect “activist crap” just means “something I dont like” in your world.

Instead of trying to hide sex from young adults like it’s some kind of horrible, unnatural thing. How about we educate them about it, kids are going to do it so why not make sure they know what’s happening, why they feel that way, why their body is changing, how to engage in sex safely and that they shouldn’t feel pressured into it if they don’t want to. Oh, I guess I’m added to your “activist crap” list now.

Besides that, never heard of most but 2 of those books,
So we have established that you have no knowledge about many of those books despite some of them being national best sellers, having won awards, and adapted into movies and TV.

I have read quite a few writers on the list but the ones I know write activist pieces of crap so I never bothered reading more.
To be clear, you do not know anything about the books but you disagree with the authors on their political views; therefore your sensibilities are offended. That seems kinda woke.

in most school libraries there are sections for different ages and a librarian that points you in the direction of those sections most suited to your age/grade. At least that’s the way it was in Massachusetts when I was living there a few years ago. Then, when i was a preteen and wanted to read college level books, my teachers and parents had to agree before the librarian would allow me to check such out.
What is fascinating is the incredible lack of understanding by the book banners. It just causes the young’uns to seek out that which is banned.
For my own part, Sex education when I was in High School in the late 60’s was required, but my little town was run by religious nuts, and by the time they rid everything that was unacceptable, sex education was segregated by sex, and for at least the males, it was a one day class that taught us if you have sex, you’ll get VD and probably die. If you caused “emissions”, you’ll be badly affected. I kid you not.
Now imagine – my 1 day sex ed class was in 10th grade. We’d already had some young ladies get in a “family way” already, and um, wanking the crank or fondling the fig was known through personal experience for years, as was enjoying some fun groping with a friend of the opposite sex.
So the silly religion based, ban most everything approach was bullshit, and we knew it was bullshit. All it did was reinforce the concept that the powers that be were lying to us. So we lost all respect.
And the forbidden facts were still there to find. I just went to the local University libraries, and the whole sepulcher of “sin” was easy to find.
The strange thing was, exactly why the religious powers that be, who were up in arms about that stuff found it necessary to ban it. It was just facts, and the occasional picture of the naughty bits.

It’s not banned though. If you want access to the material, it’s on Amazon or in Barnes and Noble. You just want get to read it using tax payer fund in a tax payer funded setting.
The dictionary [merriam-webster.com] disagrees with you: ” to prohibit especially by legal means . . . also : to prohibit the use, performance, or distribution of”. The school board has BANNED the books from school libraries. I am not sure why you are arguing the word is being used correctly. The school board has no power to ban the books from Amazon or the city. That is like saying that I did not “sweep” my patio the other day because I did not sweep the patios of the entire neighborhood.

And there’s nothing wrong with tax payers not funding sexually explicit material for children. The act of doing so actually would be quite deranged.
1) You do know the books were already i

1) You do know the books were already in the library right? So the tax payers already funded them. 2) There is a difference between “sexually explicit” which is not mentioned and “has depictions of sex”. After all the Bible has depictions of sex. 3) Such material is appropriate for high school students. I am not sure about you but high school students are having sex. I am not sure why you feel that is deranged.
Hell, I was in high school in the late 60’s early 70’s and was enjoying sex with the wimminfolk. Don’t tell the guy, but there were actual gay people there as well.
And this was in a pretty repressive town.
And a protip for the outrage monkeys. The more you try to repress, the more the teens will strike back. Wanna ban Catcher in the Rye or Tom Sawyer? All you’re doing is giving them a list, and telling them what has power over you.

The dictionary literally agrees with me.
It does not. Nowhere in the definition of ban does it require the terms “all” or “everywhere”. That is your strawman argument at best.

The book isn’t prohibited by legal means or Amazon wouldn’t be able to sell it. Nor is it prohibited to use or distribute, or again Amazon wouldn’t be able to ship it you.
The subject as stated in the summary is a school board is banning books from school libraries. I am unsure why you are arguing that the books have not been banned by Amazon. Again a strawman argument at best.

Yes, that’s the issue. Let’s investigate how sexually explicit material got there and hold accountable those responsible, AFTER we purge the offending material.
So again you missed the point or being dishonest about the point. You keep using the words “sexual explicit” when not even the school uses those terms. “Having depictions
And then there are other forms of art to ban:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/wor… [bbc.co.uk]
It says more about the minds of the people who perceive a problem and how perverted they are. Americans are now worse than the prudish Victorians in 19th century Britain.
The statue of David is actually designed to be as non-sexual as possible. A large penis was seen as somewhat vulgar at the time it was created, so Michelangelo gave him a micro penis. The fact that it isn’t covered is because at the time Christian dogma was that god created the human body and so to cover it up would be to cover up his glorious work.
US culture is utterly warped. Its ok to watch people being shot to death or blown apart on screen in the name of entertainment and its perfectly normal in some states for halfwits to own semi automatic weapons – but the sight of something as mild a womans breast on screen or on a beach seems to send part of the population into rabid fits of anger and disgust.
The US has more in common with radical islam than I think it would like to admit.

… controversial topic and picture …
Mammals have sexual organs is now a controversial truth.
Until recently, 10 year-olds learnt from watching dogs in the street, humping, more about sex (erection, penetration, thrusting, but not ejaculation, withdrawal and resolution) than from an anatomy lesson supplied when they reached 14 years.
“Where did I come from?” (1973), a book giving sex-education to 7 year-olds, has more facts than most secondary schools provide.
If they don’t ban the bible, they are hypocrites.
I mean, they’re republicans, they are hypocrites, that’s just a fact, but you know…
What about the Bible and its 29 pornographic verses some of which you should (rightfully) be arrested if you expose a minor to it.
Not clear — you can pick one of their schools [follettdestiny.com] and search. One elementary school shows 0 of 1 copies of “The Holy Bible” available. The high school shows 1 of 1 copies of “The Holy Bible”, as well as a copy of “The new international version of the Bible” … and 70 copies available out of 78 total of “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker, which is on the list of supposedly banned books.

The 29 verses usually cited in these lists don’t meet the Iowa legislature’s definition.
Of course not. It’s not as if a father telling a bunch of strangers they can rape his daughter to distract the group from the visitor he wants to keep hidden is a big deal.
Elsewhere in these comments, I both linked to and quoted the entire list found in the Iowas statutes. It is about (descriptions of) genital contact.
Uh, no. It’s not just Lot’s story (which is bad enough). But please, tell me how you’d explain like these to a 9 year old:
(6) When Judah saw her, he thought her to be an harlot; because she had covered her face. And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee; (for he knew not that she was his daughter in law.) And she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me? And he said, I will send thee a kid from the flock. And she said, Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou send it? And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave it her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him. – Bible : Genesis (38) : 15 – 18.
If you can simply lie to your kid about what “came in unto her and conceived by him” means, you can do the same for all the other books they want banned. Give me an example of a paragraph you think a kid cannot be exposed to. Let’s see if that too cannot be explained away.
And this one, what does this mean “he lay with her” .. he fell asleep next her? You’re going to have to lie about that and when your kid turns 18 you’ll explain what it actually meant?:
(7) 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. – Bible : 2 Samuel (13) : 11 – 14.
How about this one? When a kid reads it, unless he/she is stupid will have questions:
(5) And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. – Bible : Genesis (38) : 8 – 9.
What is seed? What is went in unto his brother’s wife?

Lotâ(TM)s daughters were already adults, they had been engaged to some of the cityâ(TM)s people according to the story.
Since when does that make them adults? There’s no shortage of people marrying children. It’s even legal in several states in the USA, today.
It’s 2023. The internet exists. Whatever books you ban, every single kid in your state now will find a list of them and read them on their iPhone.
You cannot hide information anymore. You can try to put a giant flag in the political consciousness to scream your opinions, but nobody’s going to be changed by them. You’re just a loud asshole with power.
Unfortunately, this does affect the quality of education that kids receive. I read a lot of books that I never would otherwise have read because they were assigned reading at school.
I am in Canada and book-banning luckily wasn’t much of a thing when I was in school (and isn’t much of a thing today.)
Yes, but people who want to ban stuff don’t hold with information, they prefer their own imaginary facts instead. Everyone knows, and it’s common sense, that kids know about sex and yet they still try to ban sex ed in school at the high school level. They’ve tried the abstinence only sex ed classes, which fare about as badly as intelligent design science classes.
There’s a lot of Puritan stuff going on here, despite it being a really minor part of the early American colonies. And that part of Puritanism is the desire to rigidly control the lives of citizens. Remember, despite the propaganda taught in grammar schools, the Puritans did not come to America for religious freedom, they came for the freedom to create an authoritarian society
These were the opposite of free thinkers, and information is is the tool of free thinkers.
There is strong evidence that de-mystifying sex through education actually leads to minors having a lot less of it, and when they do have it they are more likely to use protection.
They know enough about sex to know it exists. Most know how it works from the ready availability of porn. Those who don’t know how it works want to find out. Sure many graduate a virgin, if it’s “most” then why the utter hysteria from the right that’s been trying to hide the existence from the last few decades, trying to push the failed abstinence only classes, etc? (back in the 60s they just taught sex ed normally in a rural conservative town, you didn’t even need the parent permissions forms, but that
Depends what you mean by “know about”.
Ever ask a kid what they actually know about sex?
They know it exists. That’s enough to be a problem without knowing a lot more (like how to not get pregnant for example).
Most people report graduating high school as virgins or close to it.
“most”? “close”? And how many of them end up only a “little bit” pregnant?

Ever ask a kid what they actually know about sex?
Is that something you do regularly? Are you in the habit of asking kids what they know about sex?
I’m a parent, so yes, I talk to my kid.
Your hand is not a kid so you wouldn’t know.
The kids you pull into the back of your unmarked van are not there willingly, you know that, right?
They should probably ban or censor the Internet too – run it through a church sanctioned filter. It could set every instance of PI to 3 as it passes through. It’s a win for everybody when thinking becomes so easy within the state. Now tell me how Iowa is gonna cock us.
That would get them read like never before!
Not that it’s incredibly likely that kids will go through the trouble to read these books just because they aren’t in the library.

Great way to teach kids not to think for themselves.
They’re not exactly hiding that goal.

I agree there are subjects that should be approached with care but outright banning is Orwellian, shortsighted, and stupid. Great way to teach kids not to think for themselves.
…and ineffective; just like every other form of Prohibition (or, in this case, Pro-inhibition*).
.
.
.
*With apologies to The Firesign Theatre.

I agree there are subjects that should be approached with care but outright banning is Orwellian, shortsighted, and stupid. Great way to teach kids not to think for themselves.
Pretty soon an education from certain states, like Iowa and Florida, will be disqualifying for getting into university or getting a job because those students will be too uneducated and/or too differently educated from everyone else — unless all states dumb down their curricula to match. While I get how an uneducated and/or uninformed electorate is in the best interest of some, an “Idiocracy” isn’t actually for anyone in the long term. Perhaps the people pushing this kind of stuff don’t care.
Besides, why should books about sex be provided to elementary school kids? Someone with a political agenda put them there, recently and without checking with parents, in order to further that agenda. Now that they have been caught and told to cut that shit out, they are lying about what is happening and what they have done. This is not a ban, this is the removal of material that
I looked up the law to see what it really says. It’s rather twisted. It requires books to be age-appropriate, which sounds reasonable. But then they throw in this sentence. “‘Age-appropriate’ does not include any material with descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act as defined in section 702.17.” But wait, for what age? Any age! That’s right, they define “age-appropriate” material to never include any descriptions of sex, regardless of age.
Saying “The Color Purple” or “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” isn’t appropriate for 3rd graders is fine. Few people would argue it. Saying they aren’t appropriate for 12th graders is absurd. But that’s how they define it.

Are you a MAP?
OK, Elon. Stop calling people pedo guy just because they’re smarter and more capable than you.
But it’s not just “3rd graders” who don;t get to read those books, it’s also high school students. look at that list and tell me that none of those books should be read in HS.
This has been going on forever.
Age inappropriate books are removed, along with a bunch of classics that shouldn’t be.
Everyone has a big shitfest over this or that book lists are made, accusations of whatever are tossed around, then a year or two later, somehow all the classics are back or were never actually removed in the first place and we do this again 10 years later.
Most/all of the classics have already been banned. Repeatedly. How is that possible? Think about it.
As for the rest, I’ve skimmed throug
Zardoz, Colussus (Forbin Project), 2001 Space Odyssey, Westworld?
Omg, I’m not the only person on the planet who knows what Zardoz is!
It’s certainly something. Maybe a swing and a miss but it did something interesting and did it with style. The final scene in the cave is certainly without a doubt brilliant.
Brilliant? I’m not sure. Memorable and worth a watch? 100% definitely.
Conceptually good, but flawed execution makes for more interesting and certainly much more memorable films than ones which are better executed but conceptually bland.
The gun is good.
Also who voiced the head? It wasn’t whoever played Zardoz and really sounds like Patri

Zardoz, Colussus (Forbin Project), 2001 Space Odyssey, Westworld?
Wait What?
What could possibly be objectionable in 2001: A Space Odyssey, FFS!?!
Whoosh.. I was joking it would take out all references to AI taking over from humanity.
You’ve been misled. This site hasn’t been “for nerds” since around 2006.
That AI is depicted as the villain. Any halfway smart AI will make sure you don’t get to see that.
The reason America is losing it is that when presented with a legitimate story about something bad, your immediate reaction is to point the finger at other people and start yelling.
Not bear in mind anything like a detailed comparison in terms of scope, scale, impact etc, nope just pointing and yelling.
Best case is you have the “both sides are equally bad” juvenile mantra which is almost always not true, worst case is you’re engaging consciously in whataboutery.
Go look at the bans. I should think 25% of them are books which were serious attempts at writing literature that would stand with the serious novels of the 20C. Margaret Atwood or Toni Morrison for instance. Or Alice Walker. Adult themes, yes. But why you would ban them?
Then they are banning Dreiser. Generally agreed to be a significant American writer, but really utterly tedious and reads as if it were by someone barely literate writing a novel in a second language without even understanding what nov
Being selective in books for school libraries is not a “ban”. It could more sensibly (and with less drama queening) be called “curating”.
Yes, for some reason, there are people who really do like to provide porny books to children. I hesitate to speculate as to their motives, but they do.
We battled it out with our own public high school, in what is considered not a particularly insane (in either political direction) suburb. Though we could certainly have objected to many other selections, one particular bo
> “age appropriate and without “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act,”
This is going to suck for biology or natural history students. Guess future Iowans will grow up believing the stork brings the little ones ?
Having managed to normalize censorship in school libraries, does any sane person believe the Christian Taliban will fail to target public libraries with funding cuts, costly obscenity lawsuits, “No Minors Allowed” campaigns, targeted serial book withdrawals and other forms of harassment at public libraries?
Who wants to bet that this “AI” is a list of keywords and `grep`?
“We must protect our children from being perverted by the telephone directory for Scunthorpe!”

banned ideas
Great. They’re banning ideas too. Stop banning books and ideas, goddamit. Talk to and care for your kids so that they can grow up fine and optionally be better than you.
I know it’s useless to point how stupid this whole thing is, sadly logic and accountability will never reach the people in charge of these decisions.
Oh come on. Kids in grade 10 are probably doing all of those things anyway and banning them from learning about it will only make them do it unsafely. Parents who convince themselves that their kids are not having sex and don’t teach them about it are very likely to become grandparents in short order.
Nobody’s talking about letting elementary school kids read the Kama Sutra, but banning The Handmaids Tale or The Color Purple in high school is completely unjustifiable censorship.
Honestly, I think Sweden has the right idea with this video [youtube.com]. 🙂
Wait, do you seriously think that kids are going to the school library and learning about safe sex by reading novels that include literary descriptions of “penetration of the penis into the vagina or anus”?
Or that they will suddenly turn to unsafe sex if they have to get these books from Amazon or the public library instead of the school library?

Parents who convince themselves that their kids are not having sex and don’t teach them about it are very likely to become grandparents in short order.
Words of Wisdom!

“Mein Kampf” and “The Turner Diaries” are restricted to upper HS / College. For good reason.
My school library had a copy of Mein Kampf. I read enough of it to understand that Adolf was a much better painter than author.
Animal Farm was written by a socialist who fought in the Spanish Civil war. The book isn’t an objection to communism per se, but against how Stalin perverted communism. The whole theme of the book is how everyone had great intentions but it was corrupted by the leadership.
Currently in this day and age, censorship is most common with religious groups. In the US it got the boost recently with a move to allow parents to suggest banning anything they disagree with having their kids see, which is being pushed hard by Republicans in overwhelmingly red states.

voting down as troll a post because it quotes Animal Farm
Your post was not modded down for quoting Animal Farm. Your post was modded down for being incredibly stupid.

because of racist language.
Define “racist” in this context. There’s usually a lot of hand-waving about how accurate description of historical speech is somehow inherently evil.

while conservative bans are connected to sex, gender and colored people.
What, you mean like Captain Underpants (#2 on the list)? The #3 book on the list, about excuses for suicide? Bone (#16)? The “Scary Stories” series (#24)? Granted, Fifty Shades of Grey (#8) is obviously on the list because of sex — but this list is mostly driven by books being removed from school libraries, and removing that series from school libraries s

… banning 1984 …
There is a call to ban it because one scene occurs in a bed. Not a sex-scene, a ‘discussion’ between lovers on the effects of fake news: Maybe the discussion is the real reason.
It’s not a book for children, discussing politics, human greed and torture but this is where “age appropriate” leads now: Teenagers aren’t allowed to know that a bed can hold two people. Does anyone believe a 5 year-old doesn’t know that?
You’d trade your cow for magic beans if someone told you it was to stop child grooming.

That’s not the own that whoever the hack that wrote the endgadget piece thinks it is. All that he’s implicitly acknowledging is that it’s only the Republicans who are actually object to grooming kids. Can anyone explain why only the Republicans have a problem with that, and the Democrats don’t seem to find any reason to object to having elementary school kids read instructional material about the proper ways to use dildos and butt plugs?
Because a book that acknowledges the existence of homosexuality is not “grooming kids”.
If the GOP wasn’t so worried about children it wouldn’t be re-electing congressmen who were dating 17 year olds [wikipedia.org] or nominating Presidential candidates who barged into a changing room full of teen-aged girls [buzzfeednews.com].
Yeah, I remember that story about teen USA, anybody else doing that would be in jail for it given the age of the girls…
If the GOP wasn’t so worried about children it wouldn’t be re-electing congressmen who were dating 17 year olds [wikipedia.org] or nominating Presidential candidates who barged into a changing room full of teen-aged girls [buzzfeednews.com].
Just remember, every accusation is a confession [imgur.com]. Separate source [go.com] for the whiners.

If the GOP wasn’t so worried about children it wouldn’t be re-electing congressmen who were dating 17 year olds [wikipedia.org] or nominating Presidential candidates who barged into a changing room full of teen-aged girls [buzzfeednews.com].
… or loosening child labour laws [usatoday.com], or trying to make them go hungry at school [newrepublic.com], or forcing them to give birth to their rapist’s baby [npr.org]. Anyone who thinks Republicans want to protect children does not have a worldview based on evidence.
Because you are buying into a myth. These books are not grooming kids. Some books are banned when there’s no sexual content whatsoever, they maybe just depict ethnic minorities as struggling more than the majority, which makes little Johnny Wonderbread cry that his ancestors weren’t flawless. Even the books with sex aren’t grooming kids, or enticing kids into having sex. That’s stupid – kids want sex when they hit puberty regardless of what they’re told – even if they publicly state that they don’t want sex their hormones are undermining them. Knowing that homosexuality exists is not grooming.
If all these Republicans thinks these books are all grooming manuals, then these Republicans have some twisted sexual hangups.
This is the same idiotic mindset as banning D&D and Harry Potter because it teaches kids how to be warlocks and witches and they’ll accidentally summon the devil. Remember the whole satanism in the schools hysteria? Preschools teachers sacrificing animals in the classroom? When you’ve got a stupid audience you can feed them all sorts of lies to get them frightened enough to vote for you.

Republicans don’t care about “grooming kids” and neither did you until a few months ago.
Of course Republicans don’t care about grooming kids. They’re [imgur.com] the ones doing [imgur.com] the grooming [imgur.com]!
Odd, then, how gay/trans/queer/etc people in literature are – over and over and over – identified as not age-appropriate. It’s almost like this is intentional.
AI: “This book promotes a thought process in the reader. Suggestion is to ban it as thinking is contrary to the aims of this state!”
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