Fox News reported that Senate Bill 1142 would allow parents to request any book with sexually explicit material to be removed from shelves if “a reasonable parent or legal guardian" would want to approve it before their child reads it.
Under the legislation, only one parent needs to object to a book for it to be removed. If the request is not honored within 30 days, the bill would require the employee who refused to remove the book to be fired and barred from employment by the school for at least two years.
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The legislative proposal comes amid a nationwide controversy over school library books, as parents across the country have objected to the presence of sexually explicit books on the shelves of public schools.
In an interview with the McAlester News-Capital, Oklahoma state Sen. Rob Standridge said he expected the issue would end up in court because “schools won’t comply and the parents will have to seek injunctive relief.” The state lawmaker told the Oklahoma news outlet that if parents wish for their children to be exposed to sexually explicit books, “they can take (their children) to their local library.”
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"I think parents and grandparents, guardians should have a say on whether their kids are exposed to those books," Standridge said in an interview with McAlester News-Capital. "If they want them, they can take (their children) to their local library."
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Among the most controversial books are the graphic novel Genderqueer by Maia Kobabe and Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison, both depicting sexual conduct between gay characters. In Fairfax, Virginia, a mother objected to the presence of the books in her son’s public high school during a September school board meeting and was cut off from speaking as she was reading from the books for violating the board’s rules on obscenity.
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The books were removed from the shelves and reviewed by a committee, which subsequently restored them and expressed its commitment to “provide diverse reading materials that reflect our student population.”
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"Most likely these things will end up in court," Standridge predicted. "My guess is the schools won’t comply and the parents will have to seek injunctive relief. That will be up to the trier of fact. They may well disagree with the parent and say reasonable parents would want their children to be exposed to transgender, queer, and other sexually related books. I would doubt that."
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