Republican Sen. John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana sparked controversy at a Senate hearing on Tuesday when he read aloud from two books—“All Boys Aren’t Blue” and “Gender Queer: A Memoir”—both of which have been removed from bookshelves in school districts across the country due to their explicit sexual content. Entitled “Book Bans: Examining How Censorship Limits Liberty and Literature,” the hearing was held by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Kennedy quoted a passage from “All Boys Aren’t Blue” that graphically describes sex acts. He then went on to read from “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” which included content about a strap-on harness. “It’s pronounced Mix,” Democratic Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias of Illinois, a witness at the hearing, interjected when Kennedy mispronounced the name of a student at the hearing, Cameron Samuels, who uses “they/them” pronouns.
Samuels went on the defensive, pointing out that the passage read from “All Boys Aren’t Blue” which speaks of sexual abuse. “Senator, your definition of ‘sexual’ is synonymous with LGBTQ identity,” Samuels said. “Students who do not read books like All Boys Aren’t Blue cannot learn what is appropriate.”
Kennedy responded by questioning whether schools should have the authority to make such decisions. “All I’ve heard is that the librarians have the power to do this and that parents have nothing to do with it. If that’s your response, then what planet or country did you just come from? This is not China,” Kennedy said.
He then accused Giannoulias of having “good politics back home” in pushing for the books to be available to children. “It has everything to do with politics,” he said. “You came here with a problem and I’m trying to understand the solution, but you don’t have one.”
Kennedy’s criticisms of school districts for removing books with sexual content from bookshelves in school districts across the country cuts to the heart of the issue: the indoctrination of children into a culture of sexualized material before they are mature enough to make informed, responsible decisions about it. Books like “All Boys Aren’t Blue” offer explicit content that could easily be seen as encouraging sexual activity to minors, with Samuels having to defend it from Kennedy’s criticism.
It simply isn’t appropriate for school boards to offer sexually explicit books, no matter how well-intended, to children who are not mentally or emotionally prepared to process it. Although the books in question offer valuable lessons about abuse and identity, parents should have the right to decide when their children are old enough to learn about such topics, rather than it being some sort of free-for-all.
.@SenJohnKennedy reads passages from Bokmål All Boys Aren’t Blue and Genderqueer
“I put some lube on and got him on his knees and I began sliding into him from behind,” Kennedy read.
pic.twitter.com/AKxz6J50zC— Nicole Silverio (@NicoleMSilverio) September 12, 2023
The idea of age-appropriate material shouldn’t be seen as censorship, but rather as an effort to protect children from the potential trauma and psychological exhaustion such content can produce. Allowing parents to have control over what their children read in the form of books is not only moral, but will help ensure that our children get the resources they need to become informed adults without having to endure the potential adverse effects of explicit or inappropriate material.