After heated days and nights of arguments between Missouri Republicans and Democrats, they finally passed a new state budget of $45.6 billion, which is not so remarkable in the amount spent, but rather for what is missing: Funding for the state's public libraries.
So what happened?
It started with the passing of Missouri‘s SB 775, banning sexually explicit materials in public schools. Administrators, teacher, librarians, or any other school personnel found providing sexually explicit material to school children could face a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
According to the Left, the law should have posed no issues in schools because teacher and librarians giving kids graphically sexual books is just a myth created by right-wing nut jobs.
In real life, school librarians were so miffed that they had to remove 300 sexually explicit titles currently available to children that they partnered with the Missouri Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union to sue the state.
Gillian Wilcox, deputy director for litigation for the ACLU of Missouri said,
"Extreme politicians in Jefferson City are using the government-knows-best model for legislation — in this case telling parents what their children can and can't read at school and, in some cases, at home, while imposing criminal penalties on those who might disagree."
A federal judge just recently ruled that the Llano public library commission in Texas had to return some of the same sexually explicit children's books to its shelves, citing a first amendment violation.
Rather than let a judge decide what the state was going to approve for children's education, the Missouri legislature decided to act preemptively.
They voted to take away library funding.
Cody Smith, (R-Carthage) referred to the libraries' lawsuit and said,
"I don't think we should subsidize that effort, so we're going to take out the funding," Smith said.
I have a feeling this fight is just getting warmed up, and that soon enough we'll see a Supreme Court case regarding whether a state has an interest in stopping the sexual grooming of children within its borders.
