The First Amendment doesn’t just protect what you say. It also protects your right to hear what others say. It guarantees a right to published information. It protects a whole lot of stuff ce…

A lawsuit, filed by patrons of a county library in Arkansas, has been allowed to move forward by a federal court. The First Amendment lawsuit plausibly alleges the library’s decision to move anything determined to be “LGBTQ” from the children’s section to the adult’s section violates the First Amendment right to equitable access to information. (via Courthouse News Service)

Here’s how this started, according to the decision [PDF] that moves this lawsuit forward:

[I]n late 2022 or early 2023 the Crawford County Library System implemented a policy under which its library branches must remove from their children’s sections all books containing LGBTQ themes, affix a prominent color label to those books, and place them in a newly-created section called the “social section.” Plaintiffs allege this policy was imposed on the Library System by the Crawford County Quorum Court in response to political pressure from constituents who objected, at least partly on religious grounds, to the presence of these books in the children’s section.

    • Throwaway@lemm.ee
      26·
      1 year ago

      Its an odd choice, but I wouldnt get bothered by it.

      Id be more concerned a public library has a porn section.

      Also, if you read the article, youd see they were moved to the social section.

      • letsalllovelain@discuss.tchncs.de
        21·
        1 year ago

        Okay, then how about the fact that the books were removed on religious grounds. Please enlighten me as to your justification for how using religion as a pretext is totally fine, but educating children as to the reality of human social interactions, is heinous?

        Again, you do not care. It’s just whatever fits your narrative.

          • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            1 year ago

            They were just hidden. On religious grounds, by bigots. Which is the only reason you’re defending them.

              • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
                3·
                1 year ago

                I wouldnt consider proudly displaying on a shelf “hiding”

                I wouldn’t consider intentionally misfiling books anything else. Of course, you’re only saying that because they’re hiding books about the minorities you hate. You know it’s hiding and support it because it’s hiding.

                And you keep ignoring anything about government doing this on religious grounds. Since your repeated lies in support of bigots have made it clear that you don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt, I won’t waste any more time with said benefit. You want a fascist theocracy run by bigots like yourself.

                Why’d you change your username?